“Operation Epic Fury was the loud one. Operation Economic Fury is the quiet one. . . . While the carriers were on television, Treasury was doing the actual demolition.” —Jesús Enrique Rosas on X
There is audiotape in the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential archive of defense secretary Clark Clifford reporting as much to LBJ. At the time, Nixon was a presidential candidate only, holding no office of public trust, and in no way had any authority to undermine the elected administration's diplomacy. LBJ was ratfucked and he knew it, and he was helpless to do anything about it. Go ahead and use your search engine to see if Nixon was ever prosecuted under the Logan Act.
A decade later, Jimmy Carter's inability to secure release of the hostages taken at the U.S. embassy in Tehran was widely seen as contributing to his loss to Ronald Reagan. There have been allegations, never proven, that just like Nixon, the Reagan campaign made back-channel contact with the new Iranian regime and reached an understanding with them, resulting in the hostages being kept for the famous 444 days and only released on the day of Reagan's inauguration. I read Gary Sick's book about this in the nineties, and though it spun an interesting tale there just wasn't enough evidence to convince. But that was *before* the LBJ tapes were released and proved conclusively that Republican candidates were not above making back-door deals with foreign powers, even enemies, as a way to ratfuck their election opponents.
Once is an occurrence; twice starts to look more like a pattern. Needless to say, even after the Iran-Contra affair exposed his administration's back-door dealings with the Iran regime, no one went after either Reagan or his successor, former arch-spook George H. W. Bush, for Logan Act violations.
I'll be impressed by Kunstler's point when he does at least one of the following:
1) Makes a credible commitment to apply the principle behind the Logan Act in all cases, not just in a partisan fashion.
2) Makes a credible case that an American dignitary meeting with a Canadian dignitary in public (See the picture? Right up top? Front and center?) violates the Logan Act principle in a way that two cases (Nixon for sure, Reagan/Bush suspected) of clandestine interference in foreign affairs did not.
The words 'in public' and 'clandestine' are load-bearing, by the way. Nixon/Reagan did their skulduggery behind the scenes. Obama/Carney are such a deep dark cabal that they provided a press release and a photo. All this really shows is how reflexively MAGA people reject the legitimacy of any and all opposition. This meeting was a nothingburger, just an excuse for the latest round of James Howard Kunster Presents Two Minutes' Hate.
In your examples (Nixon/Reagan/Bush), did the Logan Act "violators" get dragged through the legal system like Michael Flynn? Or was this type of lawfare used only against a Trump supporter by Barrack Obama? Again, I believe this is JHK's point which I'm guessing you're failing to see.
Try to imagine how little I care about Michael Flynn or any other MAGA hobbyhorse. Go on, try. This "lawfare" term you used just now seems to have two meanings, but MAGA are unaware of the difference. They think they're being consistent when they absolutely are not.
Used one way, "lawfare" means something like corrupt misuse of the criminal or civil justice system for political purposes. This is related to the idea of "process as punishment", pursuing someone with fake charges or frivolous lawsuits in order to cost them money, time and effort defending themselves. Win or lose, this both curbs the political activity of the targeted individual and deters others from trying to follow their example. My understanding is this is the kind of lawfare that Michael Flynn is supposedly being subjected to. I might object to that, if I gave a shit.
The other use of "lawfare" means settled law being applied for its intended purpose in good faith. The goal might be to punish criminal behaviour under criminal law, or it might be to expel a bad actor from public office by impeachment. This is the kind of lawfare that Donald Trump has been subjected to.
Trump's criminal conviction for falsifying documents was completely proper, in my opinion. Certainly he was far, far better able to defend himself than 99% of the people who get swallowed by the criminal justice system and shat out the other side. As for the two attempts to impeach him during his first term, here's the thing: impeachment under the US constitution is an intrinsically political process, by design.
- Articles of impeachment are filed in the House - a political, not judicial, body.
- If impeachment proceeds, the trial is held in the Senate - likewise, a political body.
- The textual standard for impeachment is that the President is found guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanours". This amazingly vague and underspecified phrase is the equivalent of the standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that applies in criminal proceedings, or preponderance of evidence that applies civilly. The outcome of the trial will therefore inevitably reflect the politics of the situation, because there is no other standard. This is how the process is designed.
To make a long story short: "lawfare" as you use it is a propaganda term and I won't be bothered with it. Either it's used correctly, in which case people should just talk about the misuse of institutions. Or it's used to make a legitimate exercise of institutions *seem* illegitimate. Either way it's an impediment to understanding.
05/11/26: Oh, yes, the Smithsonian, the utterly impartial and above-all-suspicion source of your Monday morning (nothing good happens on Monday mornings; stop proving this) over-written tour de farce.
Next time, reduce your steps. Just go directly to AOC. She's always good for a "whatboutism" quote (but don't ask her to spell the word).
So that puts it on equal footing with every other media outlet in Clown World. Maybe we can't believe 99.9% of what Iran tells the world, but that's hardly comforting if we can't believe 99.74% of what the Western media spouts.
Meanwhile, while all blathering goes on about "news" around the world, we look a bit more closely to see the globalist agenda of creating digital chains for us is proceeding along nicely. The Long Emergency has not been canceled, and becomes more of a force every day. And more of the rickety complexity of "modern civilization" reveals its lack of resilience, as .gov, .corp and the masses offer up more of things that are already beyond repair.
The Four Horsemen approach, and they're going to be busy.
05/11/26: Exactly my subtle point but it never hurts to spell it out.
This reminded me of the turgid, unreadable and expensive "Celebrity Caricature In America" (1998 hardcover) by the dim-witted and cliche-logged Wendy Wick Reeves, which I had the misfortune to waste money on a while back. Published, of course, by the Smithsonian. Pulped in contempt.
I don’t know exactly what “whataboutism” has to do with what I wrote, much less AOC. Whether my post was ‘overwritten’ or not, it is highly factual as well as pertinent to a major thrust of today’s post by Kunstler.
What I think the issue is, is that I made my case based on the factual record, not personalities. I took the time to spell out my case and trusted in others to take the time to read it. If that’s too much to ask of you, here’s the handy gist: Kunstler’s insinuation that an American dignitary visiting a Canadian dignitary is an illegal act of unsanctioned diplomacy isn’t just stupid and partisan, though it is that. Real acts of actual unsanctioned diplomacy have been committed in the past, gone unpunished, and nobody ever gives this fact a second thought. Conclusion: Kunstler is fatuous and you are a goober.
I appreciate your clear and logical structure of argument; also you use of evidence. If you notice, those who "argue" with you do rely on insult, because they do not have a rational argument or counter-evidence to your claims. Anxiety is rising here, and for good reason. The wheels appear to be coming off this administration. And the pressure on the administration is rising, as oil and gas prices remain elevated.
05/12/26: Goober here has been indicted and convicted. He will do away with himself upon the command of "three." Lessons on how to count will be supplied gratis.
05/11/26: Black KKK legal immunity. Say, would it be possible to gerrymander the Obama "Library" into oblivion? Meanwhile, someone is trying to figure out where to send the 100,000 bottles of "Trump 47 Chutney" [trademark] specially created in England and shipped here coinciding with the King's glorious (favorite Brit word; especially appealing to those with 13-word vocabs) visit to the White House, where the Royal Couple were put up for the night in the new Ballroom site construction tents (jokes about Valley Forge are encouraged).
With respect, and I know you wish to be somewhat facetious, all guests of the President enjoy residence in the stately Blair House. Was there really some Trump chutney!?
05/12/26: 100% comedy/facetious! "Chutney" has remained on my mental comic-shelf ever since I read about how the English in WWII ended up with copious supplies of chutney and nothing to put it on as the U-boats were sinking their overseas food shipments. It's also revered in the Krusty The Klown Clown School as a "crunchy" sound that is always the last physical word in a punchline (ala "KOOOK-a-Maan-ga!").
05/14/26: I'll try some! In the meantime, have some (actually funny!) Brit comedy : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lILVObugHtQ&t=87s (do not confuse with the NYC (USA) SNL, which has been a corpse since @ the year 2000.)
My thoughts exactly, Don't know all the facts but perhaps he should watch hiunself or be quilty of sedition. Even though we are not at war with Canada or the UK, diplomatic processes are questionable. We cannot have the left interferring with the Executives diplomatic processes. Congress, if there is no statute that we can pin them with perhaps we need to enact something.
This is the pattern: The Left makes a mess of everything they touch. Then, when the people’s FINALLY realize it and elect the opposition, the work the Right needs to do to correct all that mess is painful, and slow, so the people, desiring instant gratification, get all upset at the necessary reforms to right the ship (like ICE, Iran, etc.) and go all wobbly and turn on them.
The people hold the power to vote for common sense and reality. However, far too many of them are ignorant of what painful efforts that project entails, get impatient and then get all discouraged.
People need to smarten up and realize turning this ship of state around is a decades long project, with times that will be demanding of them to remain faithful and patient and stay the course.
The Left IS the minority, despite the deafening bullhorn of their owned media arm.
We need to stay in this fight, this literal Revolutionary War to save this country from ruin.
It can be done. BUT only if people vote RED, and are willing to Stay the Course, in the fervent hope of better days ahead.
It is literally possible. But not without the unconditional commitment of We, the People. Get out and Vote Red in November! Fight, Fight, Fight!!
Right. "Trump's Iran War" is what, 6 weeks old? Ergo, it's a "forever war," causing people like Fuckhead Carlson and Facelyft Kelly to scream about how Trump has betrayed tbe country by breaking a campaign promise.
I think Kelly's head has swollen to the size of a gas giant because SiriusXM gave her "The Facelyft Kelly Channel." While she's smart and attractive, it seems to me that Facelyft has spent her lufe manipulating, bullyong, whining, and backstabbing her way to the top by employing the tricks of many "hot chicks," knowing that dumb men led my their genitals and so.e insecure women who see her as the wueen bee will luft her to what she considers her rightful place. It's a good thong Trump didn't hire her, as then he wouls've had two of those in his administration (the other being the insipid and arrogant Pam Bondi).
Do you think that both of them realized that they were losing relevance in Trumpian America. Are they trying to gain relevance by joining the opposition? Who are they actually for? Kamala Harris? Gavin Newsom? Are they out of their minds?
Another question here may be in order. Is there a counter movement coming out of the Leftist GOP RINOs to try to regain control of the GOP? That would be probably the stupidest movement in USA political history.
I can't speak to other states where RINO's are in electoral jeopardy, but if the unhinged accusations and attack ads coming from the Cornyn camp are any indication, they are desperate, at least in Texas.
05/11/26: “I think Kelly's head has swollen to the size of a gas giant ---“ KABOOM! The textbook example of a strong declarative statement in the first sentence. Bonus: Laughter!
The truth is, UncleBob, that most Americans only care about that which affects them the most and right now that is the cost of the gasoline they are putting into their gas tanks. In their minds that is the only "benefit" they are getting from the USA's war on Iran. They don't care about the global impacts of Iran's nefarious behaviors. They only care about their wallets.
Generally a threat is communication of intent to inflict harm or loss on another person, which can be either explicit or implied. It often involves intimidation to coerce or control someone, and can be considered a crime if it puts someone in fear of bodily injury.
Did Iran threaten the USA before Trump bombed them last year? The threats came from Israel to the region and from the USA in the form of ending their civilization. What is happening today is reaction on the part of Iran to explicit and implied threats from the USA and Israel.
Yes, each the Cipher for the two-headed porcine, gorging at the trough. Certainly wasn't what I voted for, but then considering the alternative presented at the time, well, it turned out to be heads they win, tails we lost. Trump just stuck a fork in us all
Iran obliterates Riyadh, Tel Aviv and Haifa with nukes. Israel retaliates. Terrorists who got into the US over the last 30 years light off suitcase nukes and use biological and chemical agents in cities large and small. Russia finally kills Ukraine with tactical nukes. China and the Norks overwhelm South Korea and attack Japan. ICBMs rain hell down on Asia, eastern Europe and North America. We all die. That is the threat you ignore.
That sounds like the plot from a dystopian movie or novel. Awful. Is this scenario possible? I suppose it is. Is it likely? I doubt it. Nukes have been in play since the 1940s and nobody has used them except the USA.
I think our destruction is far more likely going to be related to economic catastrophe. The money systems collapse because of the never ending debt and fraud. People end up broke with no way to earn money. Nobody can buy anything. Starvation ensues. Nations collapse and divide into tribes and clans who then go to war with each other over water and farm land. Lots of people die of starvation, disease and hand to hand battles.
Now, which would I prefer? I'd prefer to have a nuke land a block away from me. At least I wouldn't suffer too much.
Agreed. Which is how we've gotten into this mess: we bought into the Progressives' belief in "experts" controlling everything, with "administrators" running the "experts." This was supposrdly going to bring about more freedom, when it's brought about more control -- exactly as both Roosevelts, Taft, Wilson, Hoover, LBJ, and others wanted. We no longer have a society that can see beyond ten minutes from now, and we leave everything up to the likes of Lindsay Graham and Little Dick Durbin.
The American system is inherently flawed because we rely on a popularity contest to select our "leaders." Any random joe or jane with a little bit of money can jump into the race and win. Once they win, they are treated as if they are endowed with knowledge on all things. They are treated like experts on all things. Case in point? That horse faced gal from New York who's initials are AOC. She was a barista before she joined the US House of Representatives. She has no experience running anything bigger than a bar but she is now treated by the media like she is the foremost knowledge on everything from energy production to disease immunizations when in reality, she doesn't know shit. It's all a charade. What we end up with is a bunch of morons making critical decisions about things they know nothing about. The result is a disaster.
Same can be said about our President. He built hotels and starred in reality TV shows for a living. He wins an election and now he's lobbing bombs at Iran and starving the world of its oil supply. Make sense to you? The system is flawed to its core. There has to be a better way to do things because this system suuuuuuuucks.
See my comments elsewhere about the plan cor the war as a way to reset the global order in America's favor while castrating China's economy and ability to fight a war. As for Sandy Cortez, she needs an orthodontist.
Actually, the "Iran mess" actual kinetic part lasted just over 40 days. The rest has been mop up, wait-and-see if they "see the writing on the wall" - providing there is a wall left standing.
What part of "I will stop the war in Ukraine in 24 hours" do you not understand was a lie? What part of funding and fighting Israel's war means America First? Your TDS is just as loony tunes as the left's TDS.
We're fighting the war Trump felt had to be fought to stop the nuclear annihilation of everyone. He will stop the war if Iran ever gives up its pursuit of nukes, which it won't because the maniacs in charge will stop at nothing to do Lugh's bidding and kill every Jew (and Christian, btw) on Earth in order to bring the Mahdi to Earth.
I note you're spewing Israeli talking points. Do you know it's Israel along with Arab terrorists who are murdering Christians in the Middle East? Israel blames it on Iran, they always create chaos and shift blame like all leftists. If you are so concerned about Christians you would be asking why Israel is destroying Christian Churches and communities in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria while harassing Christian clergy in Jerusalem, I suppose it's because you are not a Christian you are a christian-Zionist, a phony. The true maniacs in the M.E. are the criminal state of Israel.
The $6/gallon regular gas will be more motivation than the war, believe me. And what goes up doesn't often come back down when it comes to gasoline prices.
Still, we here in the US have been fortuitously paying less per gallon than hapless Europeans for rather quite some several years. I suspect that's about to change....
My experience regarding gasoline prices is they fluctuate all the time and respond to market and supply conditions probably quicker than any other commodity.
Hmmm. Maybe. Assumptions can be dangerous. Ask Trump. He’s in the process of losing the house and possibly even the Senate. Then we get the party of “free stuff” in charge. Everything will be “cheap again”.
You are right that it is still the people that ultimately control things. What is not understood is that the people have changed, mostly due to Leftist finagling over seventy years. Education and immigration, period. This country is inhabited with a bevy of lazy gimmes that with cheating are corrupting the voting booths and counters.
Save the USA is step one. The corruption that is already in DC is blocking its passage.
Republicans play a critical purpose in America's sham political system. They are the paid vocal opposition to all things Democrat. It's all part of the political theater so many of us wallow in. You see, we think they are different so we vote for them. Give them power. They then take that power, put it on a stick and shove it up our asses. They then do the same thing the Democrats have been doing. Waging war. Printing money. Growing the government. Blah, blah, blah.
They have power available, but choose not to wield it. The Establishment prefers to remain a minority party. It gives them an excuse for failing to achieve what they were elected to do. It's keeps the reliable globalist duplicitous Uniparty intact to sell out American interests. But enrich their own.
They desperately need to get rid of the thorn in their side... the threat to their NWO plan.. Trump. Nevermind " We The People" will leave the entire duopoly and likely not vote. They hate us as much as the Dhimmis do.
I know most are corrupt, but believe there are many who are coerced as well. Either extorted, their families threatened.. whatever the reason/reasons.. there is no way possible to be as inept as they portray themselves.
You say, "They have power available, but choose not to wield it." I say they are paid not to wield it, it's we the people who are not paid and do not wield our power which is diminishing steadily as the surveillance state Trump is building with Palantir demonstrates. Yes, they are self-centered and only concerned with their wealth accumulation and that means they must be re=elected to continue to grift.
Trump's not a threat to them, he is enabling the NWO or Great Re-set. It is continuing even faster under Trump. He betrayed his campaign promises because he is not in charge.
They do it largely so that they can get donations. Average people donate out of fear and ignorance, while the wealthy and businesses donate to get favors down the road.
Could you accept that maybe the people have changed and that demographics are a severe challenge to the Constitution? That power is shifting to the Left?
Yes, I can and the changes, especially in demographics, is challenging to the constitution no question, but that has been the Uniparty goal to flood the country, overwhelm the systems with promises of free money and chaos ensues. The Republicans are paid to look away and the response from the citizenry has been pretty weak. Can you admit that?
Somme of them, not all of them. The GOP is splitting between those that support their local country club and those that are gunning for Joe Average. The Dems? All insane.
Considering that all those jobs you refer to are in the Far East, so what. The Left just brought in 30 million cheap labor folks with no jobs to offer them. Cheap labor? With minimum wages of 20 to 25 dollars, there is no cheap labor.
Yes, as in pay no attention. Politicians don't care about cheap labor, they care about the money they get for doing nothing. Capitalism is not the problem, humans are. The corruption and deceit is the problem that politicians let capitalists get away with.
AI Assessment: "If the U.S. successfully builds a "Golden Age" through bilateral deals and energy dominance, it proves that the UN's 2030 model is not the only path to prosperity. If it fails or leads to "global chaos", the 2030 Agenda will likely be re-cemented as the only legitimate framework for the next century."
At what point does the nation have a discussion about all the "elephants" in the room?
Who put the stamp of approval on males competing against females in sports? How did supervising officials know that this was acceptable?
Obama was one of the leaders whose mission has been to essentially destroy US. Who put the stamp of approval on that?
"The Left makes a mess of everything they touch. Then, when the people’s FINALLY realize it and elect the opposition, the work the Right needs to do to correct all that mess is painful"
Sorry Suzie, but it wasn't the left that is screwing up our economy right now with ultra high gasoline prices. It's the right. 2 months ago oil was selling for $60 a barrel. Now it is somewhere around $114 a barrel. Gas prices are as high as they were during the 2008 economic fiasco. If Trump doesn't get a resolution to this ASAP, the Republicans are finished in November.
The global oil market was affected by the war. On the otber hand, his goals were to a) deny oil to China, b) prevent Iran from either building its own hydrogen bombs/warheads or buying them from China or North Korea in exchange for oil or Obama's money, and c) to get the world to buy its oil from the United States instead of Middle Eastern countries. We'll see how this works out. But self-righteous chest-thumping by weak-willed people who can afford $4000 vacations on the Grand Strand but claim they can't afford $4.50 gas is horseshit. Maybe don't take the vacation, or don't squander money on 30 clubs or activities for each of your children, or give up weekly Girls' Wine Night for awhile. In other words, Americans are weaker and infinitely more self-indulgent (and, again, self-righteous) than our parents, let alone our great-grandparents.
I don't disagree with your comment, UncleBob9. My only point is that Americans don't care about oil to China nor do they care about North Korea sending nukes to Iran. They don't care about the world buying oil from the USA. Like you said, they are focused on their vacations to Disneyland and the cost of gasoline. Thinking people might understand what you just described but the average self serving American only sees the prices as the pump.
Why should they care? Charity begins at home. Trump was elected to lift up the American people.
See Tucker's video to Trump: So was it worth it, Mr President? Trump said he envisioned oil at 200 or even 300 dollars a barrel. He still thought it was worth it even though that would have ended life as we know it. At best he's a feckless fool, at worst a traitor or a secret convert to Judaism.
So what? Prices don't have to be this high. Let me guess, you are one of the JohnAZ's on this thread who are happy to pay double for the same product you were buying for half the cost 2 months ago? As long as we kick Iran's ASS and bomb them back to the stone age, so we can sleep better at night, that's what matters right?
This all falls under the heading of what I would consider cleaning the lefts mess . The leaders of Iran were allowed to get as close to becoming nuclear tipped Ayatollahs funding terror proxies around the middle east because of the left .
How can you say that? How can you not realize that Biden left office in January 2025 *specifically* so that Trump would shoot himself, and the world economy, in the foot 13 months later? It was all part of Joe Biden's cunning plan!
Excuse me, I said Joe Biden but I should have said: "Joe Biden". Wouldn't want to leave out those all-important quotation marks. Pouring derision is JHK's all-purpose substitute for an actual substantive argument whenever he wants to blame his favourite punching bag for all the world's ills.
Well when you say Biden what you really mean is "The Obama 3.0 Shadow Destruction Tour " just like he once quipped on the public screen ." If he could run things behind the scenes " he wouldn't mind being in charge again . it was a lot of the same usual leftard suspects that were orbiting around the White House during his first two official terms . Of course ,' Joe Biden 'was little more than a " Weekend At Bernies " cardboard cutout president , vacant husk that all the demonic spiritual entities that make up the Obama crew could occupy like some kind of possession . Do you appreciate the poetry of my prose ?
After over a decade of sharing invaluable insight about the grim inevitability of collapse our host seems to have forgotten about the whole idea.
Back in the day he’d have pointed out the certainty of our present circumstance leading to long-term destruction of our economy and our modern-day way of life. Now he pretends that needlessly bringing that unwanted circumstance about is a fine thing.
The reduction of petroleum-based energy and its many essential byproducts available to the world would be dire if it was short term, but the destruction of much of the world’s capacity to restore that flow is catastrophic – whether delusional Wall Street traders have awakened to that fact yet or not.
Then there is the fact that we have not just shot ourselves in the foot, but have done this to the entire industrialized world. How can that not earn us permanent status as a pariah state?
In terms of domestic policy, this nation had so much to gain from President Trump’s sensible ambitions regarding immigration, re-industrialization, and nailing a lid on the mass formation psychosis of the Democratic Party. All of that is now circling the drain in order to do the bidding of a tiny settler state in the Middle East.
And what did we ever stand to gain from this disastrous folly? Not a damned thing.
And yet Kunstler is supposed to be the professional around here. If he had a substantive response to make to your very, very pertinent criticisms, he's more than equipped to make one. He resorts to this vulgar rejoinder instead. He just can't be bothered anymore to even pretend to address facts, arguments or criticism that push back against his increasingly unhinged and deluded polemics.
I also became a reader of his, a loyal paying customer of his output, based on his old métier of urbanism. I carried on reading (and paying), for a while, as he veered into catastrophic doomerism over peak oil and other fringe hobbyhorses. Now he's just a full-bore fascist nutjob, full stop. The only satisfaction left to be had from engaging here is the perverse fascination of witnessing the spiraling madness ('clusterfuck' indeed) and of telling this increasingly shitty failure what a shitty failure he has become.
My first impression of you was that you hastened to post first with a wall of text pointing readers to your own Substack. Quit being such a fussy windbag, riding like a remora on a far more successful wordsmith.
I don't dare to leave MAGA to its own devices. Last year, Trump threatened to turn my country into the 51st state. But that wasn't the first time I heard Americans jawboning about conquering Canada and stripping us for parts. No, I first read stuff like that on this very blog, from Kunstler's own pen in fact.
In other words, this blog lies close to the heart of the very psychosis that has turned our until-recently friendly neighbour into an active threat to my home and my freedom. So I'm not here because I agree with anyone; I'm here to gather intelligence about a clear and present danger. In the meantime, I may or may not post some opinions. If you can't stand being disagreed with, you also can get up and leave.
My Canada has too many Liberal voters who are too blind to see their freedoms and homes are threatened by the very person they voted for. Check out the legislation Carney and his crew are cooking up. Makes Donald Trump’s so-called “threats” tame by comparison.
It doesn't matter. Canada will be majority non-White in another generation just like the United States. We rose together and we shall die together as well.
Let me offer another reason for why folks who disagree with Mr. Kunstler and his viewpoint stay on. I started reading JHK Admin in the early "2 oughts." I found the argument cogent and interesting--though not one that economists would back. It would be interesting to know what JHK Admin would have to say about what he thinks now--especially in the face of the FACT that this oil crisis is human made by US, us as by our public servant , The President, and by US, as in the country and the ideals for which it stands. Which seem to have taken a holiday of late.
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Those of us who disagree with Mr. Kunstler and those who support his views may do so because it is important to keep a finger on the pulse of discourse. Over time, I have found Mr. Kunstler's views more influenced and guided by what others might call conspiracy theories and by a right wing consensus about what Mr. Trump's moves actually mean. The capacity to ignore evidence and outcomes that go directly against his predictions is an important barometer of the views of a significant part of the US electorate that favours MAGA concerns. I read Mr. Kunstler to understand what the moves are that will be used elsewhere to explain some major cock-up or cluster-fuckery that this administration undertakes. I do not read it expecting a balanced and evidentiary based analysis.
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I find Mr Kunstler's writings very useful for that reason.
I strongly recommend to you to follow Promethean Action whereby you will be inclined to tilt your head to a new understanding of global affairs, and perhaps comprehend better the views of Mr Kunstler, … who sees clearly now.
I have no idea on what basis you make your claim about Mr. Kunstler's clarity other than ... well, I guess, because you like Mr. Kunstler's opinions and not mine. OK then.
I can’t afford not to be aware of the shit that goes down in MAGA world. You all are the krill in the waters that the truly shitty people with actual power swim in. If I choose to step in from time to time, that’s free speech, baby. Love me, love my opinions.
Sad. The wordsmith is becoming very touchy, grumpy. Failed predictions, predictions running very late. It must get exhausting defending belief perseverance.
Oh, that you would, like Saint Paul, realize that you are still “seeing through a glass darkly” and that Mr Kunstler is most likely on point. Some are still asleep. They are those who defend the likes of Obama, Biden, and Mark Carney.
Mr Kunstler “…is most likely on point.” On point to what? “Most likely” sounds like a guess.
His opinions are easily understood. It’s his many predictions going back a couple of decades where the track record is dismal.
Many of his critics here are not defenders of Obama, Biden and Carney.
They are critics of promises not kept. Critics of a poorly thought out war of choice and Israeli/Likudnik/Mossad influence over this administration and American foreign policy. To the extent we have a president who ignores his own intelligence agencies and any military mind that doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear.
It’s this that appears to upset Kunstler devotees the most.
You must be new here, Kunstler has been prognosticating one thing or another going back to pre-Y2K. A man with more respect for facts, or his readers, or for himself, would have course-corrected long ago. But Mister Social Critic just kept on truckin’.
You took my comment more seriously than I did. Kunstler’s propensity to spin narratives in the form of predictions and quietly drop once they’re no longer viable has been apparent all along.
It is not Jimmys (or whoever is writing his 'pieces' nowadays) strong point to defend the indefensible. Seriously, who knew that Jimmy would be so front and centre in relation to the depravities of the 'Long Emergency'.
Have you forgotten the very worthwhile goal of eliminating nukes in the hands of madmen? That is and was the very reason for this war. I support Trump 100%. Funny how the hypocritical left complain about the Iran war, but we heard nothing about Ukraine's never ending war, hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded, along with the $150 billion wasted.
1. Iran has no nukes, and we abetted the assassination of their ruler who forbid their development. 2. That was only the transparent pretext for Trump to support Netanyahu's war. Its actual, failed purpose, was to destroy a three thousand year old civilization which hasn't invaded another country in centuries. 3. Similarly, the Ukraine War's purpose was to destroy Russia. It has also failed.
No similarity at all to #3. Biden's deranged attempt to go after Putin for electing Trump, or to cover Biden's ass for his chicanery. Iran has no nukes and we intend to keep it that way. Funny how they have enough enriched uranium to make 10 or more nukes. Iran has been a thorn in the side of the ME for almost 50 years. You can see how peacefull they have been with the strait of Hormuz.
Rewrite? They claimed Russia helped get Trump elected and then said Biden went after Putibn for doing so. The alternative is covering his ass. They tried to impeach Trump for a phone call, yet Biden actually enriched himself via bribes arranged by his drug addicted son.
Hummm, You were going somewhere with this but I think the internal guidance system went a little off-kilter.
She who's turn never materialized and her insane supporters could never come to terms with reality. Seems at that point politics here in the U.S. took on an entirely new and more vicious approach with the motto being; "the ends justify the means" and there are no limits to the means.
The Ukraine War started in the early nineties with the failure of the U.S.S.R. and the looting of the Russian nation by the West. Putin put a stop to that and as a result, he specifically and Russia as a whole have been demonized ever since. Biden was just another bit player on the world stage. Good riddance to that P.O.S.!
Don't forget that there was an agreement in place, the JCPOA, that guaranteed Iran would not develop nuclear weapons, and that it was Trump himself who ripped it up back in 2018.
U.S. foreign policy has never been pretty, but it usually follows its own kind of evil, imperialist rationality. Only under Trump One and Trump Two has it become truly unhinged, veering wildly and unpredictably, offering nothing that any counterparty can possibly count on other than the fact they can't count on the USA for anything.
You believe your Owners for your consumption. Now who exactly spent nearly 40 trillion dollars of the public's money and put you and all of us on the hook for it? Every Empire requires an enemy, for the Global Elite's it's EVERYONE. If you weren't at their meetings you can be assured you were/are on their menu.
Their culture is obviously too different from ours for you to comprehend. They came to the table ready to negotiate. It's our "leaders" and Israel's who violate every agreement and have no intention of honoring any treaty.
You keep spouting the blindly corrupted views of the Left. Of course, you will not appreciate that most of us here find value in the facts presented by Mr Kunstler.
My views are a matter of record here, and I am prepared to stand by them. In the fulness of time it will be clear that Jim has been blowing smoke up your asses, while my assertions prove to be true. Come back in three months and let's compare scores - shall we?
Sounds as if you, Howard, have a need-to-be-guarded wealth of restricted/classified information which the Pentagon should be aware of, or you’ve just consumed an overdose of Liberal media, CBC, unending propaganda.
Actually, you've got it all backwards. The Pentagon has always generated propaganda, from inflated body counts in Vietnam to WMDs in Iraq to our "winning" vs. Iran. A reasonably accurate understanding of what is actually going on is available from many sources - but not here.
I don't know if you're right but at this point they should get a bomb or two. Pakistan says that if nukes are used against Iran, they will deliver one or two to them. You're not going to win this, Ini. Any attempt to do so will end this world system.
It's true that we've been hearing things like "Iran is three weeks away from having nukes" seemingly forever, but I would like to point out that in reality, we do not know for certain what armaments they have.
The Left's support (and to be honest, support from way too much of the Right) of the nasty, corrupt, Nazi-infested, human-trafficking hub called Ukraine makes me sick.
Pakistan has had nukes for decades. So you're wrong. Israel wants to take much of the Middle East as per the Greater Israel Project. Iran won't let them take Shia land. If the Sunnis weren't degenerate Capitalists and Playboys, they would object too - without become Jihadist maniacs.
That ‘tiny settler state in the Middle East’ will actually be the global hero in finally ensuring that a death cult Islamic radical regime doesn’t get a nuclear weapon. Aside from that, the Iranian people love Israel for helping them overthrow their occupiers. And secretly, the Gulf States are thanking them, as well.
70% of brainwashed Gazans, who learn to hate Jews when they’re in elementary school approved of October 7. Amusingly, Israel had left Gaza in 2005. And the people that the Gazans butchered were left wing Israelis who tried to have a peaceful relationship with them. The Lebanese people want Hezbollah out of their country. You actually don’t know what you’re talking about, but presumably are listening to others who also tell you that Jews rule the world. Truly laughable.
Then allow me: Iran is not and never has been the "death cult" that U.S./Israel propaganda portrays it to be. The actual motive behind the decades-long antipathy to Iran has two causes.
For the U.S., it's that Iran under the Shah was a dependable servant of U.S. power, but in the revolution of 1979 Iran escaped imperial control. It therefore has to be punished lest it set an example for others to follow, and if possible be brought back into the imperial fold.
For Israel, Iran is the last man standing in the Middle East in opposing the Greater Israel project: the Israeli ethnostate's ambition to ethnically cleanse its neighbours (they're doing that right this minute in Gaza and in southern Lebanon) and expand into their territory.
Israel is an undeclared nuclear weapons state. They and the USA have spent the last five decades raving and drooling that Iran is going to acquire nuclear weapons Any Minute Now and we (they) have to Do Something before the Smoking Gun Comes in the Form of a Mushroom Cloud. All evidence, meanwhile, indicates that the Iranians have scrupulously stopped short of enriching uranium to weapons grade, while also keeping their options open to develop a nuclear deterrent if and when it becomes the sole alternative to their own destruction. Theocracy or not, they have been supremely rational in this and it's the USA and especially Israel who have the most to gain by using nukes to finally get their way, once all else has failed.
Thanks for doing the heavy lifting here, S.A. Half of the pro-Israel readership here lies knowingly; the other half have no fucking clue. Life is too short to bother with either group.
The minute I hear someone talk about The greater Israel Project’, I discount everything else they have to say. There is no ‘project’ in Israel to take over the Middle East. FFS, they even gave back the Sinai Peninsula that they won in war. Apparently you don’t understand what a death cult is…..even the IRGC admits that you are never rewarded in LIFE, but only martyred in death, and that is their goal. I suggest if you really want to understand what is going on in Iran, you take a look at Tousi TV on youtube.
They gave Sinai back before the Fundamentalists came to power. Shame on you for your lies and trickery. Anyone can see the map of Greater Israel by just googling, Map of Greater Israel - as you well know.
“The minute I hear someone talk about The greater Israel Project’, I discount everything else they have to say.” More fool you, then. I award you no points but wish you the best of luck.
You are aware that FDR and Ibn-Saud signed a treaty in 1943 that commits America to defend SA and provide weaponry in exchange for oil? That treaty still exists. It was the basis for the Kuwait war and most of America’s presence in the Gulf.
Well, if our creation and world-wide distribution of that bio weapon (aka the covid virus/vaccine) and the bombing of the Nordstream pipeline didn't make us a pariah state, I doubt this will either.
The control of the flow of oil in the Persian gulf resides ultimately with Iran. Iran could do well just selling oil to China while restricting or denying the other gulf states to sell their oil to the rest of the world. So, who should we want to control that straight, goat fuckers bent on guillotining the infidels or, the current global hegemon? I agree with most of what you wrote but our options are limited to two choices: apologize to the Iranians and send them pallets of cash or reduce our stockpiles of B61s.
Xi needs to do his part by taking Taiwan right now. The United States is too weak to do anything, but it will help to demoralize the crazies behind Trump.
Maybe Obama was calling on the Globalist authoritarian neofeudalist Carney to ask for refugee status in case he is ever held to account for his shady activities in the US.
Yes, Obama is the original slim-shady. Interesting factoid, the name Obama means "bent over," or "limping," in the Luo language of Kenya. I simply call him the "Userper" from Kenya.
He's an enemy of the Canadian people. JohnAZ is full of shit. Most Canadians love the US. Stop listening to the propaganda from the Laurentian elite and talk to real Canadians in Moosejaw, Fort Erie and Brandon before you open your pie hole.
JohnAZ: Here we were, fresh off two centuries of peace, prosperity, allyship, and mutually beneficial trade with our American neighbour. Then one day out of fucking nowhere, Trump pipes up brightly and shits all over Canada, declares America the victim, and blithely declares us American property. But to hear you talk, "anti-annexation sentiment" is a provocation *we* are doing to *you*. The audacity, it burns.
John Schrauth: Of course you fucking do. That's step one of the game plan: declare us an enemy so that when you strip flesh off our bones, it's because *we* provoked *you*.
DARVO: Deny, accuse, reverse victim and offender. That's what narcissist abusers do in private life. It's now what the USA has become on the world stage. And you have thousands of nukes. I feel sick.
I am fond of your country and take no satisfaction in the following. As you probably understand, the US business model in recent decades has been to stop producing anything and to prosper by financial chicanery and stealing the resources of other countries.
As we are seeing now in the Middle East, the US has lost its capacity to keep playing that game insupportably far from home, but it must continue somewhere, of we go (deservedly) down the shitter.
When Trump was bloviating about Canada and Greenland he was signally a reaffirmation of the Monroe Doctrine without making the other part explicit: that we are now forced to give up on the other hemisphere.
In that case, his proposals for new resource-rich targets makes ruthless good sense.
Unfortunately I pretty much agree with your assessment, Mr. Skillington. Even before Trump dropped all pretense and proudly pledged allegiance to the black flag, every Canadian who witnessed Russia's treatment of Ukraine felt a sense of unease at the back of their minds.
There is no tyrant as unappeasable as geography: the USA isn't going away anytime soon. Neither are we, but the very idea of Canada just might. The thought of that puts irons in my soul.
Canada cracks down on free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and protest (truckers), freezes bank accounts of anyone refusing to toe the "Castreau" socialist authoritarian party line, institutes government assisted (mandated) suicide, bans most firearms, floods the country with unassimilable migrants, cozies up to China and is preparing to destroy the Canadian auto industry by flooding in rolling Chinese spy bot EV's. What's next? Chinese bases? Do you have any idea what the damned World Economic Forum is all about? Carney is one of the honchos there if I understand correctly. The country we once so admired and loved, filled with tough men with good manners has been replaced by a soon to be Caliphate dotted with Chinese PLA and PLAN bases. Are you all really such incredible shitheads that you do not see the error of having empowered a guy as your leader who is also a British and Irish citizen and leader of the premiere one world government movement? You feel sick? WE FEEL SICK!
It's impossible to debunk this much xenophobic clownish paranoia in real time. I'll limit my response to the following.
First: I take your "clownish shitheads" remarks to be referring specifically to Mark Carney. As if I could be unaware that he's a technocrat's technocrat, former head of not one but two central banks, and that he was parachuted into power by the Liberal party's brain trust with no previous history of representing Canadians in Parliament or of any other engagement with our democratic institutions? I'm unaware his actual policies are those of a moderate Conservative from the years before Maple MAGA brain-rot took over the Canadian right? That nothing drives MAGA crazy quite like a moderately right-coded guy in an expensive suit who isn't their particular brand of paranoid lunatic? If you think you know something, anything, about Mark Carney that I don't, you need to take a deep breath and stop to consider how you came to think that.
Second: to me, most of your litany says far less about the topics you glance at than it does about the speaker. Suffice to say, I pity you, but more than that I scorn you. And more again than that, I *see* you: you, and everything you say, are symptoms of a real and looming threat. You and the MAGA right have talked yourselves into a state of mind where there is a real chance you'll try to dismember my country, depose our government, rob us of our self-determination, and break us on the American wheel. If you put your minds, your wealth, and your military to the tasks, there's really nothing we can do to stop you, any more than Iraq or Afghanistan could, or than Ukraine could stop Russia. I fear for my country, and for the future my loved ones might inherit. For all that they might lose. All because you think Canada's future is rightfully up to you and Donald Trump, not up to us.
You've demonstrated no inhibition for delivering long screeds as your responses. I take that as confirmation you are unable to refute my factual assertions regarding the sad state of affairs in Canada and somehow imagine you will not be seen as a BS'ing windbag by employing excessive verbosity.
Others? War of 1812 when America tried invasion and “54/40 or fight” when the USA and Britain split the Northwest.
Bottom line? The USA has 340 million people and a vastly superior economy. Canada has 41 million people and its economy is being destroyed by Trumpomics.
No wonder Alberta, the most wealthy and productive sector of Canada is having thought about getting out of the Ottawa nuthouse.
Within and among all the things we Canadians have taken for granted, a cancer has been growing. Our wealthy and powerful neighbour, at peace with us for centuries, has developed a psychosis.
It hadn't escaped our notice what a fat slob our neighbour has become. And we maintained a discreet silence about the corrupt sources of vast income that kept the more favoured members of the fat slob's family living in tacky opulence.
But it seems like the fat slob's grifts aren't grifting so well anymore. The slob, sprawled in his recliner, absently flipping channels, is starting to look particularly hungry, and particularly sorry for himself. His eyes turn our way, and in that moment of eye contact, what we see reflected back isn't ourselves. What the slob sees with his greedy pig eyes is no longer a respected neighbour. He sees a bucket of chicken wings that he longs to swallow and wipe our grease off his chins.
Of course, no one can eat an entire bucket in one swallow. No, you do it one at a time. Pick your target, look for a fault line, stick a chisel into it, and start hammering. That's the régime change playbook, and we've seen you practice it for over a century. Now it's our turn.
Mind you, it's not that I expect to change your mind by holding up a mirror to your hatefulness and your greed. No, I just want you to understand that you are seen for what you are. You the individual, JohnAZ, and what your country has become under Donald Trump, greedy fat pig that he is.
Delusion, of the xenophobic variety. If anything, Canada is cream-skimming: using the wealth and peace we enjoy to siphon excellence from the four corners of the earth, to our great and continuing benefit.
Speaking for myself, but I suspect for many other Canadians as well, I increasingly fear it's exactly your brand of xenophobia that will fuck this up for us, and a lot else besides.
Glad to see the indigenous Brits realizing they are the first targets in the genocide of the free west, and trying to prevent the globalist holocaust, on English land. In the end I think it will take the repatriation of all Islamists to Islamic lands, and every British traitor swinging from a lamp post. Either that or the British history books will be written in Farsi.
That's the funniest thing I have read this morning. Free west, my big fat ass we are free. Western people wouldn't know "freedom" if it rose up and bit a big chunk out of their asses.
Two words: Property Tax.
Property tax ensures that we westerners will never own our property free and clear of intrusion from our government overlords. If we cannot own property then we are nothing. Period.
We are taxed to the hilt in the USA. Property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, inheritance taxes and so on and so on. How is this freedom? What do we get for all these taxes paid? Free health care? Nope. Our healthcare is the most expensive on the planet. A nose cone on a missile headed for Tehran? Yeah, I'm sure glad I forked over nearly 50% of my income in taxes to help pay Lockheed to make another missile. Let me wear a gold star sticker on my forehead.
You aren't going to get a pro-tax argument from me: I know they are ruinous and unconstitutional. But answer me this: to what place are you moving where citizens are more free?
That's the sorry state of the world in which we live. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that other places are better off than the USA. I'm only saying that we are not as "free" as people tell themselves they are. I am a 6th generation American and this is my home and there is nowhere else I would go to live. I'm only saying that if we cannot own our property free and clear from government intrusion that we are not "free." Sure, I can go to church, own a gun, shop when I want, go on vacation when I want. In that aspect I have some freedom. But, at least 1/3 of the time I work is for the government and I have to pay an annual rent payment to the government for the right to live on my property that I have paid for with money that was already taxed.
I paid sales taxes on my home and land. Why is that not enough.
Property tax never ends. The government owns everything. More people should awaken to this nonsense and put and end to it.
I suppose we're all sort of like the serfs, working our plot of land, while the multinationals bring in skilled and unskilled laborers from around the world, undercutting our wages, and paid for in part by, well, us the taxpayers.
In NY State, we are told it’s a school tax. I’ve never sent a child to public school. In any case, every American child should receive education… but it seems that after a certain age, one should be exempt of onerous taxation.
No property tax. Period. Find another way to get money for schools. Our property should be ours to own free and clear from government intrusion or theft by the government. Do a specific school tax on top of sales taxes. Or, just send people a bill every year for school taxes. Anything would be better than paying the government for the right to live on land and in a home that I bought and paid for with money that was already taxes (income tax) and upon which a sales tax was paid as well.
Taxation in this nation is out of control and governments know it. The problem is the governments refuse to reduce spending because the people constantly demand more from their governments rather than relying upon themselves.
Our government has three options to raise revenue:
1) Taxes which are and have been so much of a burden and waste, that people are finally starting to push back.
2) Get loans from others via selling US Treasuries - 67% now purchased by the Fed - because others are no longer willing to loan us money.
3) Print money - the current form of thinly disguised QE is through the Pentagon 2027 budget request of $2.5 Trillion. For Covid "Relief" it was $5.2 Trillion. Printers go brrrr...
Don't' worry about inflation though, that's from the oil shock. Wink, wink. Think gold.
The Federal Government should fund itself from tariffs and sales taxes (and seriously reduce its size and scope, but that is a different discussion for a different time). I have no problem with sales taxes. Sales taxes gives an individual the opportunity to either pay the tax or wait until they can afford to pay the tax on the product they wish to purchase. Property taxes steal our right to actually own.....well......anything. If we fall on hard times and can't pay the annual rent payment to the county they could put our property up for tax sale and sell it right out from under us.
This insidious evil known as property tax takes from us the right to own anything. That is not freedom.
CP -you jogged my memory of a long-time annoyance of mine, and subterfuge of the governments (all) to mislead the masses - even the relatively smart ones.
Every mention in every article in the media says something to the effect of "The government is paying" this much for such and such, or the "government is subsidizing" such and such.
For the lesser informed, which is actually quite a surprising many, the "government" does not have some big pot of money to pay for and subsidize all the foolishness - it's obviously the taxpayers' money, but repeated use of the phrasing rams the narrative home. It's simple psychological conditioning.
It should be made mandatory that every mention in writing should change "government" to "taxpayers". Some dumbasses don't realize that we pay for everything. Try it next time you read an article and see how the context changes. You know, I'm not suggesting you're a dumbass. :-)
1. Property taxes. Most Americans don't realize they pay property taxes because the banks pay them out of mortgage escrow accounts. All the idiots know is that they pay their mortgage.
2. Income taxes. Ole Ronnie Reagan instituted the "withholdings." Most daft Americans don't even focus on their gross pay anymore, all they see is their net pay. They don't believe they are paying taxes.
I can guarantee that if Americans had to save money and then write a check for all the taxes they owed they would be pissing razorblades in anger.
Withholdings and escrow are as insidious as the silent tax known as "inflation" which sucks the value of our savings without any truth in taxation.
Taxation WITH representation has not served us well.
I am a dumbass, at least according to a few who frequent this blog (see JohnAZ, he no longer respects me because I disagreed with his pro-war position).
Property tax originated to fund schools. It has been debated about ever since. We live in a country that is aging quickly and the obvious question is why older people should pay for schools. The result is becoming vouchers, charter and magnet schools along with home schooling. In the ,
Meantime, property taxes are an onerous continuation of government redistributing wealth to welfare.
Our horrendous tax burden supports crappy public schools, lousy roads, lack of water, globalistic war footing, but most of all welfare, half of which goes to people who have no right to be here.
No worries, the criminal elements in our society will absorb the welfare folks and spread their drugs and booze out to the rest.
The biggest joke is that people actually “care” about the debt. That is a bigger joke than Jimmy Kimmel.
Just an excuse. The country made its own way as a colony of England and resented being “slaves” to the English corporations of the day. The Tea Party was a response to being forced to only buying tea from one English company.
England was actually right to try to tax Americans for the coats of the French and Indian war, but America was not even consulted on how to do that.
Add on the fact that the area that made the biggest noise was in New England, where the beginnings of a manufacturing economy was gaining steam, and they were in direct competition with England’s companies. That is why the Intolerable Acts were directed at Boston.
No Taxation without Representation was one item. Don’t Tread on Me was a statement about the freedom of choice which England was trying to remove.
150 years later, Ghandi used the same arguments in India.
As you say, there were many causal factors for the American Revolution, not all especially honorable. That's why I carefully said, "partly over taxes."
In truth, I wrote the comment just to be able to include the wordplay of "Deep in the heart of Taxes." Sometimes I can't stop myself from punning.
Not true Inisfad. I lived in Australia for 5 years. 1990 - 1995. I left before Australia did its big gun grab and turned to shit. I've also lived in Mexico on and off and in different exchanges and became fluent in Spanish.
Y tu? Donde has vivido que no es parte de los Estados Unidos? Translation And you? Where have you lived that is not part of the United States?
Are the Brits the problem or is the EU? Remember that the British Brexited. It seems to me that the horrendous influx of immigrants were invited by the EU.
A large number of Brits would like to get their Country back, but the Government opposes the idea. Where's that Magna Carta when you need it? Oh, its a dusty document in a museum...pretty much in the same state as our Founding documents. It's sad when words on parchment have no meaning...
The UK government, after Brexit, did everything it could to void it. Take a look at Promethean Action to see exactly the role that the British empire has played, and continues to play, in global politics. Remember Boris Johnson advising Zelensky not to accept the original peace treaty? Or Lloyds of London suddenly no longer insurance vessels in the Person Gulf? Interesting…..
Farrage is a Capitalist totally on board with mass immigration for cheap labor. The Bankers want it for their own reasons and he's not privy to them, but he knows they can destroy him so he stays in his own lane and does what he's told to do.
We may be only months, or even weeks away from President Trump declaring an Insurrection, and instituting Martial Law in numerous leftist states and cities. The Virginia Democrat Party machine (with the national Democrat Party cheering on) is considering basically sacking the entire Virginia Supreme Court and replacing it with Democrat stooges who would give them the Congressional seats that the Democrats covet in the U.S. House of Representative races there. There is de facto proof that the Democrat Party has no respect for the Rule of Law or the Constitution (federal or state) if the the Law or Constitution conflicts with their goal of establishing a de facto Socialist dictatorship in the U.S. The Democrats' end-around play for years now has been to cheat, subvert, and lie to establish Democrat fiefdoms city-by-city and state-by-state until they control enough Representatives, Electoral College votes, and judgeships to get rid of the U.S. Constitution and Rule of Law as functioning guardrails against a their de facto Socialist dictatorship.
Democrats are no longer even hiding their intent to do exactly those things. The insurrection isn't coming--it is here and it has been here since Obama. Sadly, it is clear that the Democrats--a Party that has been thoroughly infiltrated by Fascist/Socialists and Communist/Socialists--has been busily brainwashing tens of millions of Americans--liberals, leftists, and other "woke" morons--to actually support and even to riot, assassinate, assault, destroy, and murder for the cause. President Trump was duly elected in 2024 on his promise to put a stop to the leftist violence, revolt, and Socialist nonsense.
Of course, if President Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act, the very Democrats who are fomenting the insurrection will bleat that Trump is a dictator and anti-freedom. We may soon reach a point that President Trump will have no choice but to invoke the Insurrection Act, anyway, because--if he does not--America will be lost as a Republic. The Democrats will make sure of it--and, if the Democrats succeed in taking power, they will "neutralize" anyone who has opposed or continues to oppose them. Democrats openly talk about "re-education camps" and openly conspire to persecute and jail their political opponents if the Democrats gain power. Don't dismiss it as "just sound bites" or "tough talk"--the Democrats mean it.
"There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide."
Wall of text skipped. "President Trump declaring an Insurrection, and instituting Martial Law" is exactly what he attempted in the Twin Cities and manifestly failed to accomplish. The good people of Minneapolis and St. Paul saw the effort for exactly what it was: a half-assed but fully-despicable effort to impose despotism on free people. They refused to cooperate, and Trump withdrew his ICE goons.
But Trump will certainly try again, given how he's stuffing cash down ICE's craw with both hands. That at any rate is the playbook: use despotic force to provoke a backlash, then declare the backlash to his own actions as justification. Rinse, repeat, spread as far and wide as possible until you're Circus Hitler. Fortunately, the USA is full of people who recognize Trump's (and your) disrespect for their freedoms, and are prepare to respect themselves all the more to make up for it.
The "ICE goons", as leftist criminal thugs like to call them, were simply enforcing duly enacted Federal law and a bunch of treasonous leftist pigs tried to obstruct ICE from doing the job they swore an Oath to do. And, yes, America does have plenty of leftist piles of treasonous shit who will engage in violence because they WANT a Civil War. As far as I'm concerned, the leftist piles of shit have made their own lives worthless--they no longer serve any productive or civilized purpose, if they ever did in the first place.
Wanna know how I know it’s you and your MAGA fellows who are spoiling for violence, bloodshed and civil war, and this is just projection? Because I spend lots of time in leftist spaces. The subject of civil war never, and I mean never, just comes up.
Seriously, spend some time reading Jacobin and count how many times you come across a reference to civil war in the USA. Cross off any cases that mean the original 19th century version, or that are responding to/examining comment originating from the right. You’ll have vanishingly few cases left. (And you’re not gonna read Jacobin, let’s get real.)
Back in the nineties, I read The Turner Diaries just for shiggles. It culminates in the ‘Day of the Rope’, a climactic explosion of hyperviolence that redeems all struggles and sets the world in its proper shape. Three decades later and all that’s changed about fascists is their number and their shamelessness.
Yes, we killed two leftists and fall apart morally speaking. Iran killed 25,000 and didn't even break a sweat. They are a real nation, we are merely a "country". Google the respective etymologies. They have lasted for thousand of years. We don't even have another 100.
>> ... if the Democrats succeed in taking power, they will "neutralize" anyone who has opposed or continues to oppose them. Democrats openly talk about "re-education camps" and openly conspire to persecute and jail their political opponents if the Democrats gain power. <<
I'm for sure no defender of the Democrat party, and agree they have dangerous tendencies, but isn't this a little hysterical?
Can you cite one instance of a Democrat officially talking about "re-education camps"? Or a Democrat "openly" conspiring to persecute and jail their opponents once they're in power?
"Or a Democrat "openly" conspiring to persecute and jail their opponents once they're in power?"
Well, Hillary Clinton, for one. In October 2023, she was quoted saying this about conservative Trump supporters: "“Maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members.” Understand, Hillary Clinton is a top member of the Hillary/Obama/Soros Democrat Socialist cabal; and the Democrat Party is still filled with operatives from that cabal--Susan Rice, Elias, Rummler, et al--all dedicated to dismantling anyone challenging their power.
There are few people I detest as much as Hillary Clinton, but come on. "A formal deprogramming" is ambiguous enough not to qualify as urging Trump supporters be sent to re-education camps. Nor is it equivalent to openly conspiring to persecute and jail Democrats' opponents.
More than a few congresscreatures are economical about observing ethics and laws. We can both hope they get what they deserve. But wild exaggeration is not a step forward.
The IRGC and the DNC are cornered rats. One or both will act on it this Summer. Don't be surprised when they do nor the framing of the narrative when it's spun.
Iran had the audacity to put it's country right smack in the middle of all those US military bases. But now, unlike the bully from the other side of the world, Iran cannot get up and move, and it cannot take it's 12 nautical mile, sovereign, territorial coastline waters with it. Until the Law of the Sea Treaty is scuppered, Iran has every legal right to "sanction" hostile ships from it's territorial water. Remember that antiquated phrase, "The Rule of Law?"
Do you really think that the world powers dependent on the oil passing through the straits will allow the Tehran insane asylum to cut off their oil supply? Already, Europe is realizing that losing the Straits to Iran will cripple them, same with China. Trump-Xi should be interesting. Until a global coalition stops Iran, the USN will.
So whose is it. Iran’s? Qatar’s? UAE’s? Bahrain’s? Saudi Arabia’s?
Turkey has both sides of the Bosporus, but even so Russia and the rest of the world might have something to say if they tried to control it, like Iran.
Everybody seems to forget that the USA is committed to the Arabian States to defend Saudi Arabia since 1943. It is a treaty. FDR and Ibn-Saud signed it long before the Israel nation was born.
The entire straight, within 100 km of the hairpin point in each direction is the territorial waters of Iran in the east half and Oman in the west. Iran has offered to split the user fee with Oman. The entire east coast of the Persian Gulf (why do you think that name?) from it's border with Pakistan in the south to the border of Iraq in the north is Iran's. Qatar, UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia can/may charge a docking/loading, etc. fee, but those ships must pass through Iran/Oman legally sovereign water. It is beyond dispute.
Acknowledged, now go convince the world that will have to pay more for its oil, if Iran allows it to be passed, that Iran has that right. If you are a believer in The Long Emergency, as I am, 20% less oil will not be tolerated by the world. The USA needs to walk away and allow the world to sink in their own oil deficit. Europe first.
Do you really think the world powers dependent on the oil passing through the straits are such chumps they'll blame Iran, and not the United States?
There's a good reason why every president before Trump refused to try to régime-change Iran. They saw the results coming a mile away. Whereas Trump tripped all the way over his own puny dick and created his own problem, which is going to give the entire planet a heart attack. That's an *awesome* way to get the entire planet lined up to protect themselves from your stupidity and menace.
Our oil supply was fine, thanks very much, until the US attacked Iran. Now we're looking at fuel and food shortages as a way into the predator class' long-desired digital rationing system. This is Covid 2.0. They may even overlay it with the panto-virus - they seem to be keeping a lot of agendas in reserve to see which work best.
Sorry, CP, she cannot as she has lost my respect as she has retreated from reality, just like you. You both have turned into just two more name callers.
Fake -Christian? Why don’t you go and read Matthew 24, and then repeat. Jesus is telling His folks about the inevitability of war, of false prophets of phony Messiahs. Like Mohammed.
“Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming ‘I am the Messiah’, and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. National will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All of these are the beginning of birth pains.”
Then move to Revelation where John tells us what Jesus told Him, that all the Kings of the world will finally be destroyed by God and all will be judged by Him. Then a new world will be started.
So go right ahead and get off calling me a war monger. My desire for quick and meaningful warfare is right there for you to read. The Kings, like Iran, or any other egomaniacal state leader, will be destroyed and quickly. Islam, to me, approaches Anti-Christ level.
"Christian" warmongering is so deeply disappointing and dystopian, CK. It's like their Christianity is just an optional add-on that can be laid aside and hidden in a drawer when circumstances (are contrived to) demand. But it's part of prophecy. Wars and rumours of wars, followed by the counterfeit peacemaker(s).
JohnAZ doesn't respect me anymore. Gosh, SheilaB, I just don't know what I am going to do with the rest of my life. My entire life's mission was to make sure that JohnAZ respects me. Dadgum. What shall I do now?
Not only do Christians warmonger, they twist Christ's teachings to infer that Christ was pro-war. It's disgusting to behold.
It truly is. You have to wonder what they see when they read the Gospel. Neither Christ nor his apostles even *defended* themselves, let alone used violence to preserve their lifestyle or whatever the JohnAZs of the world think they're doing.
I'm likewise brokenhearted to find that I'm no longer respected by Arizona's combo of Constantine and Genghis Khan.
Christian? Jesus never promised us a rose garden. Quite the opposite. He submitted to the violence of men, he warned his followers about the “wars” they were going to face during the rise of Christianity, He dispatched them at the Ascension with the directive to convert all nations to Christianity. Do you think that was totally peaceful?
War is the only way that Man has found to resolve disputes, it seems. I think is a gigantic black mark against our species. I do favor quick and deadly war as an alternative to 10:or 20:year fiascos. Trump, due to the insolence of the Iranian leadership, is going to clobber them and prior to the fall elections.
You will get your cheap gas and oil back this fall, thanks to Trump sticking up for you.
Who said he promised us a rose garden? That's not the same as spending decades fighting AGGRESSIVE NOT DEFENSIVE wars against the world.
Please point to the bit where Christ told his followers to convert the nations by warfare, because I've missed it all these years. Have you lost your mind?
"You will get your cheap gas and oil back this fall, thanks to Trump sticking up for you."
What happened to the North Sea oil? What happened to British guts? Europe doesn’t even stick up for itself anymore, just the Muslims. Not even the Scots.
Are you ever going to forget the Covid fiasco, it does absolutely no good bringing it up over and over and over. I would worry more about the state of cowardice in Europe first.
So, more war humping, as CK would say. That seems to be all you have to offer. No, I'm not going to forget the covid operation (absolutely NOT a fiasco - it achieved what it was meant to achieve and continues to achieve it). It was Phase 1 of the strategy that is continuing with Iran (Stage 2) and included Ukraine and Gaza on the way.
The demoralisation of Europe and the UK was planned by the same people that planned the attack on Iran (no, it wasn't the puppet, Trump).
Re North Sea Oil, it's crumbs anyway compared to the likes of Venezuela, and it has to be sold on the world market, so it doesn't benefit the UK as much as you'd think. You're right that it was abandoned for the genocidal Net Zero agenda that was forced on all of Europe. The Showrunners have just admitted, through the IPCC, that their dire climate predictions were nonsense ('implausible' in IPCC-speak), because the Showrunners have discovered that the data centres they're building to surveille us cost an arm and a leg in both energy and water (it'll be our arms and legs that will be sacrificed for them, obviously). So they're backtracking on 'climate goals' but hardly anyone is talking about it because that's the way it rolls.
I love how Carney fully described how his Governor General can "dismiss government" and is CINC of the armed forces. The GG, Louise Arbour, is globalism defined, hence Barry Soetoro's dispatch to Ottawa the other day.
Yes, and? Canada inherited the Westminster system from the UK. The disembodied Crown represents the sovereign power of the state, personified by the King or Queen of England whose representative in Canada is the Governor General. These are legal fictions which are our version of America's separation of powers. They are relics of a past in which government served at the pleasure of the sovereign, who held all power. Today, they have no actual power -- none whatsoever, only symbolic roles, including the fact that the armed forces ultimately answer to civilian authority, not the other way around.
You might say, we have a funny way of doing things. To which my reply would be, who cares what you think? We're doing fine as we are and we're not the country that's visibly having a nervous breakdown.
Just one question, SA. If the world divides between the USA and BRICS+, which side will you be on? No fence sitting BS, you will have to make a choice if the great divide happens.
I will be on the side that respects me personally and my country's sovereignty.
Trump/MAGA's attitude toward Canadians having basic self-respect in the face of intense provocation reminds me of that old Jack Handey line: "A man doesn't automatically get my respect. He has to get down on his knees in the dirt and beg for it." Except you mean it sincerely, and take pleasure from inflicting it for real. A hearty "fuck you" is what you earn every single time.
And China, through the Obama led socialists, is invading western Canada just as it is invading our west coast.
Again I ask, make your choice, instead of a bunch of anti-USA TDS bullshit. Who do you want to be affected by the most, the USA or China? It will come down to that if things keep going the way it is.
This China bullshit of yours is the exact same bullshit that created the problem the USA is having right now in the Persian Gulf. The USA followed the scent of bullshit into Iraq, and everyone watched it fail. The USA followed the scent of bullshit into Iraq, and everyone watched it fail. The USA followed the scent of bullshit into attacking Iran, and the wreckage of American failure is all around us. Trump has blocked the economic aorta of the planet, and thanks to him all of civilization is about to plunge into depression and starvation.
And now you hold this ‘China China China’ cow patty under my nose, demanding I declare whether it smells like ambrosia. Why should I give a shit about your US/China question? You really, really, really have a genuine need to make everything about yourself.
If you’ve been reading Kunstler long enough, you’ll recall he has said every story has an ending. What he called the end of ‘happy motoring’ is actually the end of overwhelming U.S. power and the advantages that brings. That’s been the message from the start, and now that it’s actually happening all you know how to do is gnaw on the same old bone when the entire fucking point is that it’s been picked clean. Everything is changing… except *your* expectations, and all you know how to do is keep playing as if my agenda is yours to set.
Dude. It’s over. The story is over. Find a new story to tell yourself about the world and America’s place in it. For the sake of my fucking sanity, if nothing else.
That’s correct, we are and I am. It’s your media diet that has filled you with the grievance-fueled, ideologically-directed delusion that (a) there’s something wrong with us, and (b) anything at all about Canada is your fucking problem to begin with.
Your worthless opinion is simply another symptom. It’s precisely your attitude that has led to the USA squandering its strength in stupid wars for the last quarter century, as if you could bomb your way to success. Having squandered all that strength, Trump has now delivered the coup de grace and you will simply have to withdraw. Having grown weak, your plan is to declare victory and use what strength you have left to fuck over the countries closest to you. Because that’s all you can afford anymore.
Firstly, I don't own a tv, don't watch or listen to MSM news. But clearly your country w Mr. Carney in charge and as a Commonwealth of a dying oligarchy you are in serious denial and it's not my fucking problem. My attitude and opinion has absolutely nothing to do with the way this country has been run for the last 50yrs,. In case you are unaware I am not a part of this or any other government. I see you subscribe to the leftist propaganda regarding our President, too bad for you. Typical Canadian head in the sand ignorance.
Thanks for the update on the clusterfuck that has become Iran. All I know is I paid $4.94 for a gallon of 88 ethanol free fuel yesterday. That is the most I have ever paid for gasoline. Ever. Two months ago I was paying $2.98. For most people that is the only "benefit" we Americans are receiving from this shit show that has become the USA's engagement in Iran. Diesel is now hovering around $6.00 a gallon and those truck drivers aren't eating that additional cost, they are passing it down to their customers who in turn pass that on down to us, the little schmuck who has to buy food.
Trump is unraveling the "great economy" he has been so bombastic about. If he doesn't get a resolution to this nonsense ASAP I don't care what the SCOTUS did to the gerrymandering antics of the Democrat Party, the American people are going to vote Democrat.
President Trump had nothing to gain politically in the short term by engaging in military action against Iran. He, in my opinion, correctly understood that the crazy theocratic dictators in Iran would pose an existential threat to the U.S. and its allies if it ever acquired nuclear weapons the means to deliver them beyond the Mideast. I'm willing to endure some short-term economic pain to make sure that Iran does not now--or ever--have that capability.
As for the Democrats winning the election--well, whatever economic pain you are bitching about right now won't be temporary under a Democrat regime, it will be permanent and a whole lot worse. Gas will $10/gal., diesel $12/gal., if you can find either at all. You will be forced to buy an EV--and pay full price for it, while your ICE vehicle will be worthless on the resale market. Electricity will be $0.50 or a even $1.00 per KWH, and there will be rolling blackouts. If the Democrat de facto Socialist dictators think that you are using your EV for "non-essential" or the "wrong" purposes, they will just turn it off. You will live where they tell you, and who your neighbors will be. You will be powerless to stop the homeless and druggies from squatting on your property. They will outlaw home education, private schools, or parochial education for your children--they will go the public schools to be indoctrinated by Socialist teachers who work for the Socialist regime, not for you. Your "unrealized" gains in value of any property that you own will be taxed at confiscatory rates and, if you can not pay or refuse to pay the taxes, your property will be confiscated by the regime. The Socialist regime will "control" prices, but everything--including food--will be rationed. America will be transformed from an obese nation to a starving nation. Medical care will be "free", but the government will tell you what doctor you will see and will decide if you "merit" treatment. And you will be told that you live in a "Socialist Paradise."
That is what voting for Democrats will get you. The biggest battle within the Democrat Party is between the Fascist/Socialist wing and the Communist/Socialist wing. Conservative capitalists are not the Fascists in the U.S.--U.S. Fascists are all Democrats.
"The difference between [socialism and fascism] is superficial and purely formal, but it is significant psychologically: it brings the authoritarian nature of a planned economy crudely into the open. The main characteristic of socialism (and of communism) is public ownership of the means of production, and, therefore, the abolition of private property. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal." -Ayn Rand
"It is a matter of record that in the German Election of 1933, the Communist Party was ordered by its leaders to vote for the Nazis - with the explanation that they could later fight the Nazis for power, but first they had to help destroy their common enemy : capitalism and its parliamentary form of government." -Ayn Rand
I would like to get a hold of the all seeing crystal ball you are looking through that is providing you with clairvoyance on how all the world's affairs are going to work themselves out.
Can you tell me where you obtained yours?
You're a neo-con war humper just like Lindsey Graham. "Freedom 4 Conservatives" my ass.
Such people conserve nothing but their portfolios. Poor F4C thinks that they are care about him and his little porfolio. Capitalist are the Carnies. F4Cs are the rubes. Communists are thugs who work for the Capitalists in case the carnies get out of hand or see through the shell games.
That is a blatant LIE. Communists and Fascists are both Socialist. You have been brainwashed to think otherwise--by leftist Socialists, of course. Communists and Fascists are united in their hatred of free market capitalism and a Constitutional Republic. I know that you are likely too brainwashed to accept what Hitler said about it, but there are some people out there, unlike you, who are not brainwashed:
"It is not Germany that will turn Bolshevist, but Bolshevism that will become a sort of National Socialism. Besides, there is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separate us from it… The petit bourgeois Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the Communist always will."
“The End of "Happy Motoring"Peak Oil and Energy Dependency:
“Kunstler argues that the car-based system assumes cheap, endless energy. In The Long Emergency, he predicts that the depletion of fossil fuels will make this way of life unviable.”
Jim's getting on in years now. Shame that he's evidently chosen this hill to die on. His novels aren't half bad. Should have stuck to those, unless all this political BS is just some sort of PR stunt to gain readers.
I've been telling them on here what Farage is till my voice gets hoarse. Nobody listens ... As Francis Bacon famously said, people prefer to believe what they would prefer to be true. Frog-face Farage is going to relish doing his job for the central banks, getting us all on to digital rationing apps, while making healthcare unaffordable for everyone except people like him and only available to those who take all their state-mandated injections.
“whatever official utterances come out of Iran, you must discount by about 99.9-percent.” I’d say the same thing about our officials utterances as well.
We have to remember the Gulf War is an asymmetrical war of attrition. It was always known the US would win militarily. What wasn't known was how this would play out over the first month, year, decade. The war itself has damaged NATO in a way Putin could not. That's not very strategic in a world that seems to be heating up. We have never hit 431.12 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, Jim, but typically May's number will be higher: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ This should be global headlines, not series of "skirmishes" on the other side of the world.
Great points! Another lesson currently being learned is that 20'th century style mass warfare no longer really cuts it here in the 21'st. The world is a much more complicated place now. Even the Russians are learning that the hard way, although they're light years ahead of the US. The MIC funding grift is going to have to reinvent itself if it wants to survive, provided it doesn't kill its host first, of course.
Trump claimed it would cost $1.8 million to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue. The Interior Department then moved to pay a Virginia firm called Atlantic Industrial Coatings $13.1 million for the job — a 628% increase over Trump’s stated figure.
“Comments often ask, when are the people that voted for this administration going to say enough? The answer is probably never, and it’s due to the fact millions never hear anything about these issues. Besides the usual suspects: Fox News, Newsmax, AON news, the Sinclair Group owns 295 local stations across the country, mostly in Rural areas where this is the only news people get. They control almost 50% of the market.
“So the sad truth is that we have a huge swath of the country who hear nothing about these issues. When you control the media and control the courts you control the Nation.”
The truly sad thing is that that small amount of grift is utterly inconsequential in the current scale of things. We're a nation drunk on credit led by the very class who extends it.
“Of course, whatever official utterances come out of Iran, you must discount by about 99.9-percent.”
Really?
How about these official utterances from Trump?
“Go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days.”
“It’s always been a four-week process. We figured it will be four weeks or so. It’s always been about a four-week process, so — as strong as it is, it’s a big country, it’ll take four weeks — or less.”
“No, I might’ve forced their hand. They [Iran] were going to attack. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. So if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER! After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE. ‘MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).’”
“It’s a waste of time. They’ve lost everything. They’ve lost their navy. They’ve lost everything they can lose.”
“We’ve wiped every single force in Iran out, very completely. They have no leadership. It’s all been blown up.”
“Well, it’s both. It’s both. It’s an excursion that will keep us out of a war, and the war is going to be — I mean, for them it’s a war. For us, it’s turned out to be easier than we thought.”
And these are only a few from March. Yeah, let’s talk about official utterances. What the hell, and we haven’t even gotten to Hegseth and his nonsense.
Years ago there was a best selling book converted into a decent movie; Three Faces of Eve. About dissociative identify disorder. Kind of reminds me of Trump.
By many accounts in private he can be polite, likable and civil. Then we get the public bombastic, insulting, crude version. Finally at night and early morning on Truth Social we get the spoiled teen version venting on any and all while stamping his feet.
Makes me wonder if anti-psychotic prescription drugs aren't involved as well. We know for sure they were enabling Biden that way, so why not Trump as well? Supports the idea that these elected idiots are largely actors playing a role.
"Why is not Barak Obama not subject to violation of the Logan Act for this?"
Why is not Barak Obama subject to lots of violations?
Because a) "he black" (actually mulatto, but you can't say that because "that raciss," and b) the Magic (D) after his name.
Yeah, I find it interesting that the "white" part of his genetic makeup completely disappears compared to the "black" part.
It’s only one-drop of white, powerfully feminist though it is.
Yes, a little bit of Black outweighs the White. It's so hard to climb up the evolutionary tree. But to fall back you don't have to do anything at all.
You add a teaspoon of shit to a gallon of ice cream....I guarantee you'll ruin it.
It always does
Because he is a black, Muslim, Marxist who was crookedly inserted into the position of US President as part of the agenda to destroy America.
General Flynn is waiting for the answer to this question about the Logan Act.
You've got an umbrella in your ass !?!? ( Thanks ,Happy Gilmore !!)
Is this a continuation of the comment about Big Mike and Barry Soetoro, or do you just like the feeling of a bumbershoot in your colon?
I find it amusing to see JHK wildly waving around the Logan Act to make a mountain out of a nothingburger like Obama meeting with Carney.
In 1968, the FBI had bugs on the telephones of the South Vietnamese ambassador and of Nixon aide Anna Chennault. This is how they knew that "Chennault was despatched to the South Vietnamese embassy with a clear message: the South Vietnamese government should withdraw from [peace] talks, refuse to deal with Johnson, and if Nixon was elected, they would get a much better deal". https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-vietnam-war-for-political-gainand-johnson-knew-about-it-newly-unclassified-tapes-suggest-3595441/
There is audiotape in the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential archive of defense secretary Clark Clifford reporting as much to LBJ. At the time, Nixon was a presidential candidate only, holding no office of public trust, and in no way had any authority to undermine the elected administration's diplomacy. LBJ was ratfucked and he knew it, and he was helpless to do anything about it. Go ahead and use your search engine to see if Nixon was ever prosecuted under the Logan Act.
A decade later, Jimmy Carter's inability to secure release of the hostages taken at the U.S. embassy in Tehran was widely seen as contributing to his loss to Ronald Reagan. There have been allegations, never proven, that just like Nixon, the Reagan campaign made back-channel contact with the new Iranian regime and reached an understanding with them, resulting in the hostages being kept for the famous 444 days and only released on the day of Reagan's inauguration. I read Gary Sick's book about this in the nineties, and though it spun an interesting tale there just wasn't enough evidence to convince. But that was *before* the LBJ tapes were released and proved conclusively that Republican candidates were not above making back-door deals with foreign powers, even enemies, as a way to ratfuck their election opponents.
Once is an occurrence; twice starts to look more like a pattern. Needless to say, even after the Iran-Contra affair exposed his administration's back-door dealings with the Iran regime, no one went after either Reagan or his successor, former arch-spook George H. W. Bush, for Logan Act violations.
The Logan Act? Don't make me laugh.
"The Logan Act? Don't make me laugh." Tell this to Michael Flynn. That was JHK's point, BTW.
Lots of Dems going to jail in the next year. They don’t deserve to be in charge of anything.
I'll be impressed by Kunstler's point when he does at least one of the following:
1) Makes a credible commitment to apply the principle behind the Logan Act in all cases, not just in a partisan fashion.
2) Makes a credible case that an American dignitary meeting with a Canadian dignitary in public (See the picture? Right up top? Front and center?) violates the Logan Act principle in a way that two cases (Nixon for sure, Reagan/Bush suspected) of clandestine interference in foreign affairs did not.
The words 'in public' and 'clandestine' are load-bearing, by the way. Nixon/Reagan did their skulduggery behind the scenes. Obama/Carney are such a deep dark cabal that they provided a press release and a photo. All this really shows is how reflexively MAGA people reject the legitimacy of any and all opposition. This meeting was a nothingburger, just an excuse for the latest round of James Howard Kunster Presents Two Minutes' Hate.
Well there is a lot to hate there ?Obama as an " American Dginitary " You're so full of shit I don't know where you find room for that umbrella ?
In your examples (Nixon/Reagan/Bush), did the Logan Act "violators" get dragged through the legal system like Michael Flynn? Or was this type of lawfare used only against a Trump supporter by Barrack Obama? Again, I believe this is JHK's point which I'm guessing you're failing to see.
Try to imagine how little I care about Michael Flynn or any other MAGA hobbyhorse. Go on, try. This "lawfare" term you used just now seems to have two meanings, but MAGA are unaware of the difference. They think they're being consistent when they absolutely are not.
Used one way, "lawfare" means something like corrupt misuse of the criminal or civil justice system for political purposes. This is related to the idea of "process as punishment", pursuing someone with fake charges or frivolous lawsuits in order to cost them money, time and effort defending themselves. Win or lose, this both curbs the political activity of the targeted individual and deters others from trying to follow their example. My understanding is this is the kind of lawfare that Michael Flynn is supposedly being subjected to. I might object to that, if I gave a shit.
The other use of "lawfare" means settled law being applied for its intended purpose in good faith. The goal might be to punish criminal behaviour under criminal law, or it might be to expel a bad actor from public office by impeachment. This is the kind of lawfare that Donald Trump has been subjected to.
Trump's criminal conviction for falsifying documents was completely proper, in my opinion. Certainly he was far, far better able to defend himself than 99% of the people who get swallowed by the criminal justice system and shat out the other side. As for the two attempts to impeach him during his first term, here's the thing: impeachment under the US constitution is an intrinsically political process, by design.
- Articles of impeachment are filed in the House - a political, not judicial, body.
- If impeachment proceeds, the trial is held in the Senate - likewise, a political body.
- The textual standard for impeachment is that the President is found guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanours". This amazingly vague and underspecified phrase is the equivalent of the standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that applies in criminal proceedings, or preponderance of evidence that applies civilly. The outcome of the trial will therefore inevitably reflect the politics of the situation, because there is no other standard. This is how the process is designed.
To make a long story short: "lawfare" as you use it is a propaganda term and I won't be bothered with it. Either it's used correctly, in which case people should just talk about the misuse of institutions. Or it's used to make a legitimate exercise of institutions *seem* illegitimate. Either way it's an impediment to understanding.
And then there's the technique that you employ: pettifoggery.
"Try to imagine how little I care about Michael Flynn or any other MAGA hobbyhorse."
Therein lies the essence of your dysfunctional thought process.
Stone Angel, you failed to make a long story short or even cohesive: a petty political diatribe.
My only response: Oh, please…Hakeem-style gobbledegook!
05/11/26: Oh, yes, the Smithsonian, the utterly impartial and above-all-suspicion source of your Monday morning (nothing good happens on Monday mornings; stop proving this) over-written tour de farce.
Next time, reduce your steps. Just go directly to AOC. She's always good for a "whatboutism" quote (but don't ask her to spell the word).
Smithsonian mag is written and edited by inside the beltline AWFLs. It's not a reliable source for anything.
So that puts it on equal footing with every other media outlet in Clown World. Maybe we can't believe 99.9% of what Iran tells the world, but that's hardly comforting if we can't believe 99.74% of what the Western media spouts.
Meanwhile, while all blathering goes on about "news" around the world, we look a bit more closely to see the globalist agenda of creating digital chains for us is proceeding along nicely. The Long Emergency has not been canceled, and becomes more of a force every day. And more of the rickety complexity of "modern civilization" reveals its lack of resilience, as .gov, .corp and the masses offer up more of things that are already beyond repair.
The Four Horsemen approach, and they're going to be busy.
05/11/26: Exactly my subtle point but it never hurts to spell it out.
This reminded me of the turgid, unreadable and expensive "Celebrity Caricature In America" (1998 hardcover) by the dim-witted and cliche-logged Wendy Wick Reeves, which I had the misfortune to waste money on a while back. Published, of course, by the Smithsonian. Pulped in contempt.
I don’t know exactly what “whataboutism” has to do with what I wrote, much less AOC. Whether my post was ‘overwritten’ or not, it is highly factual as well as pertinent to a major thrust of today’s post by Kunstler.
What I think the issue is, is that I made my case based on the factual record, not personalities. I took the time to spell out my case and trusted in others to take the time to read it. If that’s too much to ask of you, here’s the handy gist: Kunstler’s insinuation that an American dignitary visiting a Canadian dignitary is an illegal act of unsanctioned diplomacy isn’t just stupid and partisan, though it is that. Real acts of actual unsanctioned diplomacy have been committed in the past, gone unpunished, and nobody ever gives this fact a second thought. Conclusion: Kunstler is fatuous and you are a goober.
Hi Stone Angel,
I appreciate your clear and logical structure of argument; also you use of evidence. If you notice, those who "argue" with you do rely on insult, because they do not have a rational argument or counter-evidence to your claims. Anxiety is rising here, and for good reason. The wheels appear to be coming off this administration. And the pressure on the administration is rising, as oil and gas prices remain elevated.
05/12/26: Goober here has been indicted and convicted. He will do away with himself upon the command of "three." Lessons on how to count will be supplied gratis.
Hi Don Reed,
You would need to break down the cryptic comment. My apologies, but I have no idea what you are saying. Be well.
You are a laugh
You're nearly a laugh. But you're really a cry.
05/11/26: Black KKK legal immunity. Say, would it be possible to gerrymander the Obama "Library" into oblivion? Meanwhile, someone is trying to figure out where to send the 100,000 bottles of "Trump 47 Chutney" [trademark] specially created in England and shipped here coinciding with the King's glorious (favorite Brit word; especially appealing to those with 13-word vocabs) visit to the White House, where the Royal Couple were put up for the night in the new Ballroom site construction tents (jokes about Valley Forge are encouraged).
With respect, and I know you wish to be somewhat facetious, all guests of the President enjoy residence in the stately Blair House. Was there really some Trump chutney!?
05/12/26: 100% comedy/facetious! "Chutney" has remained on my mental comic-shelf ever since I read about how the English in WWII ended up with copious supplies of chutney and nothing to put it on as the U-boats were sinking their overseas food shipments. It's also revered in the Krusty The Klown Clown School as a "crunchy" sound that is always the last physical word in a punchline (ala "KOOOK-a-Maan-ga!").
In my family it’s indescribable on a grilled cheese sandwich.
05/14/26: I'll try some! In the meantime, have some (actually funny!) Brit comedy : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lILVObugHtQ&t=87s (do not confuse with the NYC (USA) SNL, which has been a corpse since @ the year 2000.)
My thoughts exactly, Don't know all the facts but perhaps he should watch hiunself or be quilty of sedition. Even though we are not at war with Canada or the UK, diplomatic processes are questionable. We cannot have the left interferring with the Executives diplomatic processes. Congress, if there is no statute that we can pin them with perhaps we need to enact something.
This is the pattern: The Left makes a mess of everything they touch. Then, when the people’s FINALLY realize it and elect the opposition, the work the Right needs to do to correct all that mess is painful, and slow, so the people, desiring instant gratification, get all upset at the necessary reforms to right the ship (like ICE, Iran, etc.) and go all wobbly and turn on them.
The people hold the power to vote for common sense and reality. However, far too many of them are ignorant of what painful efforts that project entails, get impatient and then get all discouraged.
People need to smarten up and realize turning this ship of state around is a decades long project, with times that will be demanding of them to remain faithful and patient and stay the course.
The Left IS the minority, despite the deafening bullhorn of their owned media arm.
We need to stay in this fight, this literal Revolutionary War to save this country from ruin.
It can be done. BUT only if people vote RED, and are willing to Stay the Course, in the fervent hope of better days ahead.
It is literally possible. But not without the unconditional commitment of We, the People. Get out and Vote Red in November! Fight, Fight, Fight!!
People have a TikTok attention span, and if a war isn't won in a month its all teeth knashing and wailing.
Right. "Trump's Iran War" is what, 6 weeks old? Ergo, it's a "forever war," causing people like Fuckhead Carlson and Facelyft Kelly to scream about how Trump has betrayed tbe country by breaking a campaign promise.
I absolutely LOVE the nicknames you've given Fuckhead and Facelyft - thank you for the laughs, they are needed right now. Great comment, too.
Thank you. I do what I can. 😀
I think Kelly's head has swollen to the size of a gas giant because SiriusXM gave her "The Facelyft Kelly Channel." While she's smart and attractive, it seems to me that Facelyft has spent her lufe manipulating, bullyong, whining, and backstabbing her way to the top by employing the tricks of many "hot chicks," knowing that dumb men led my their genitals and so.e insecure women who see her as the wueen bee will luft her to what she considers her rightful place. It's a good thong Trump didn't hire her, as then he wouls've had two of those in his administration (the other being the insipid and arrogant Pam Bondi).
Do you think that both of them realized that they were losing relevance in Trumpian America. Are they trying to gain relevance by joining the opposition? Who are they actually for? Kamala Harris? Gavin Newsom? Are they out of their minds?
Another question here may be in order. Is there a counter movement coming out of the Leftist GOP RINOs to try to regain control of the GOP? That would be probably the stupidest movement in USA political history.
I can't speak to other states where RINO's are in electoral jeopardy, but if the unhinged accusations and attack ads coming from the Cornyn camp are any indication, they are desperate, at least in Texas.
05/11/26: “I think Kelly's head has swollen to the size of a gas giant ---“ KABOOM! The textbook example of a strong declarative statement in the first sentence. Bonus: Laughter!
Israel has a huge bevvy of professional models posturing in military fatigues.
05/11/26: F*ckhead around and Facelyft out. And they did, didn't they?
The truth is, UncleBob, that most Americans only care about that which affects them the most and right now that is the cost of the gasoline they are putting into their gas tanks. In their minds that is the only "benefit" they are getting from the USA's war on Iran. They don't care about the global impacts of Iran's nefarious behaviors. They only care about their wallets.
Iran is no threat to us. Trump is, just as Biden was. Both parties are the two arms of the Deep State.
Define threat.
Generally a threat is communication of intent to inflict harm or loss on another person, which can be either explicit or implied. It often involves intimidation to coerce or control someone, and can be considered a crime if it puts someone in fear of bodily injury.
Did Iran threaten the USA before Trump bombed them last year? The threats came from Israel to the region and from the USA in the form of ending their civilization. What is happening today is reaction on the part of Iran to explicit and implied threats from the USA and Israel.
Yes, each the Cipher for the two-headed porcine, gorging at the trough. Certainly wasn't what I voted for, but then considering the alternative presented at the time, well, it turned out to be heads they win, tails we lost. Trump just stuck a fork in us all
Iran obliterates Riyadh, Tel Aviv and Haifa with nukes. Israel retaliates. Terrorists who got into the US over the last 30 years light off suitcase nukes and use biological and chemical agents in cities large and small. Russia finally kills Ukraine with tactical nukes. China and the Norks overwhelm South Korea and attack Japan. ICBMs rain hell down on Asia, eastern Europe and North America. We all die. That is the threat you ignore.
That sounds like the plot from a dystopian movie or novel. Awful. Is this scenario possible? I suppose it is. Is it likely? I doubt it. Nukes have been in play since the 1940s and nobody has used them except the USA.
I think our destruction is far more likely going to be related to economic catastrophe. The money systems collapse because of the never ending debt and fraud. People end up broke with no way to earn money. Nobody can buy anything. Starvation ensues. Nations collapse and divide into tribes and clans who then go to war with each other over water and farm land. Lots of people die of starvation, disease and hand to hand battles.
Now, which would I prefer? I'd prefer to have a nuke land a block away from me. At least I wouldn't suffer too much.
Agreed. Which is how we've gotten into this mess: we bought into the Progressives' belief in "experts" controlling everything, with "administrators" running the "experts." This was supposrdly going to bring about more freedom, when it's brought about more control -- exactly as both Roosevelts, Taft, Wilson, Hoover, LBJ, and others wanted. We no longer have a society that can see beyond ten minutes from now, and we leave everything up to the likes of Lindsay Graham and Little Dick Durbin.
The American system is inherently flawed because we rely on a popularity contest to select our "leaders." Any random joe or jane with a little bit of money can jump into the race and win. Once they win, they are treated as if they are endowed with knowledge on all things. They are treated like experts on all things. Case in point? That horse faced gal from New York who's initials are AOC. She was a barista before she joined the US House of Representatives. She has no experience running anything bigger than a bar but she is now treated by the media like she is the foremost knowledge on everything from energy production to disease immunizations when in reality, she doesn't know shit. It's all a charade. What we end up with is a bunch of morons making critical decisions about things they know nothing about. The result is a disaster.
Same can be said about our President. He built hotels and starred in reality TV shows for a living. He wins an election and now he's lobbing bombs at Iran and starving the world of its oil supply. Make sense to you? The system is flawed to its core. There has to be a better way to do things because this system suuuuuuuucks.
See my comments elsewhere about the plan cor the war as a way to reset the global order in America's favor while castrating China's economy and ability to fight a war. As for Sandy Cortez, she needs an orthodontist.
Actually, the "Iran mess" actual kinetic part lasted just over 40 days. The rest has been mop up, wait-and-see if they "see the writing on the wall" - providing there is a wall left standing.
What part of "I will stop the war in Ukraine in 24 hours" do you not understand was a lie? What part of funding and fighting Israel's war means America First? Your TDS is just as loony tunes as the left's TDS.
We're fighting the war Trump felt had to be fought to stop the nuclear annihilation of everyone. He will stop the war if Iran ever gives up its pursuit of nukes, which it won't because the maniacs in charge will stop at nothing to do Lugh's bidding and kill every Jew (and Christian, btw) on Earth in order to bring the Mahdi to Earth.
I note you're spewing Israeli talking points. Do you know it's Israel along with Arab terrorists who are murdering Christians in the Middle East? Israel blames it on Iran, they always create chaos and shift blame like all leftists. If you are so concerned about Christians you would be asking why Israel is destroying Christian Churches and communities in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria while harassing Christian clergy in Jerusalem, I suppose it's because you are not a Christian you are a christian-Zionist, a phony. The true maniacs in the M.E. are the criminal state of Israel.
Right...because Christians have been the closest allies of Jews & Israel so murdering them would obviously serve their interests...
Tucker, Kelly, & crew are getting $$$ for their recent pro Islam anti Jew diatribes...you're probably doing it for "other" reasons.
05/11/26: I got to "Tik-" and that was it. Didn't read the rest of the sentence. I need Cliff Notes for one-sentence posts. Even-less than o---
The $6/gallon regular gas will be more motivation than the war, believe me. And what goes up doesn't often come back down when it comes to gasoline prices.
Still, we here in the US have been fortuitously paying less per gallon than hapless Europeans for rather quite some several years. I suspect that's about to change....
My experience regarding gasoline prices is they fluctuate all the time and respond to market and supply conditions probably quicker than any other commodity.
I have seen gas as high as seven dollars even with the war it's still cheaper than two years ago. Gas prices go all over.
Put this on a campaign sign. It will work wonders.
It won't matter in a year gas will be cheap again.
Hmmm. Maybe. Assumptions can be dangerous. Ask Trump. He’s in the process of losing the house and possibly even the Senate. Then we get the party of “free stuff” in charge. Everything will be “cheap again”.
“You will own nothing and be Happy!”
WEF
You are right that it is still the people that ultimately control things. What is not understood is that the people have changed, mostly due to Leftist finagling over seventy years. Education and immigration, period. This country is inhabited with a bevy of lazy gimmes that with cheating are corrupting the voting booths and counters.
Save the USA is step one. The corruption that is already in DC is blocking its passage.
I wish it were true that the people ultimately control things. If so, they are the wrong people. Must be recent immigrants controlling things.
Yes, many came from Russia and the Ukraine and were advantaged by their victim status.
Excellent assessment!
Then the Republicans make it even worse. The people have demonstrated they have no power.
Republicans play a critical purpose in America's sham political system. They are the paid vocal opposition to all things Democrat. It's all part of the political theater so many of us wallow in. You see, we think they are different so we vote for them. Give them power. They then take that power, put it on a stick and shove it up our asses. They then do the same thing the Democrats have been doing. Waging war. Printing money. Growing the government. Blah, blah, blah.
Spot on and so true, unfortunately.
They have power available, but choose not to wield it. The Establishment prefers to remain a minority party. It gives them an excuse for failing to achieve what they were elected to do. It's keeps the reliable globalist duplicitous Uniparty intact to sell out American interests. But enrich their own.
They desperately need to get rid of the thorn in their side... the threat to their NWO plan.. Trump. Nevermind " We The People" will leave the entire duopoly and likely not vote. They hate us as much as the Dhimmis do.
I know most are corrupt, but believe there are many who are coerced as well. Either extorted, their families threatened.. whatever the reason/reasons.. there is no way possible to be as inept as they portray themselves.
You say, "They have power available, but choose not to wield it." I say they are paid not to wield it, it's we the people who are not paid and do not wield our power which is diminishing steadily as the surveillance state Trump is building with Palantir demonstrates. Yes, they are self-centered and only concerned with their wealth accumulation and that means they must be re=elected to continue to grift.
Trump's not a threat to them, he is enabling the NWO or Great Re-set. It is continuing even faster under Trump. He betrayed his campaign promises because he is not in charge.
They do it largely so that they can get donations. Average people donate out of fear and ignorance, while the wealthy and businesses donate to get favors down the road.
And they be getting paid handsomely to not wield that power.
Cosmo
Could you accept that maybe the people have changed and that demographics are a severe challenge to the Constitution? That power is shifting to the Left?
Yes, I can and the changes, especially in demographics, is challenging to the constitution no question, but that has been the Uniparty goal to flood the country, overwhelm the systems with promises of free money and chaos ensues. The Republicans are paid to look away and the response from the citizenry has been pretty weak. Can you admit that?
Somme of them, not all of them. The GOP is splitting between those that support their local country club and those that are gunning for Joe Average. The Dems? All insane.
Anyone who won't admit that demographics are our destiny is a liar and/or a fool.
and who would those people be?
They look away? They love it. Cheap labor, the very engine of Capitalism's machine. John Az always leaves that part out.
Considering that all those jobs you refer to are in the Far East, so what. The Left just brought in 30 million cheap labor folks with no jobs to offer them. Cheap labor? With minimum wages of 20 to 25 dollars, there is no cheap labor.
Yes, as in pay no attention. Politicians don't care about cheap labor, they care about the money they get for doing nothing. Capitalism is not the problem, humans are. The corruption and deceit is the problem that politicians let capitalists get away with.
Capitalism is the very manifestation of our lower nature. We lie to get more money and power. Try to see life as a whole, Cosmo.
Read this. The Rifht dominates in nearly every single state in the USA, contrary to the lie the media are trying to sell you:
https://x.com/OcrazioCornPop/status/2053193248974262502?s=20
You speak truth. Thank you.
AI Assessment: "If the U.S. successfully builds a "Golden Age" through bilateral deals and energy dominance, it proves that the UN's 2030 model is not the only path to prosperity. If it fails or leads to "global chaos", the 2030 Agenda will likely be re-cemented as the only legitimate framework for the next century."
At what point does the nation have a discussion about all the "elephants" in the room?
Who put the stamp of approval on males competing against females in sports? How did supervising officials know that this was acceptable?
Obama was one of the leaders whose mission has been to essentially destroy US. Who put the stamp of approval on that?
Capitalism funds Communism. They are one system, heads and tails.
A socialist's most cherished possession is a capitalist umbrella.
A socialist’s most prized possession is his power.
"The Left makes a mess of everything they touch. Then, when the people’s FINALLY realize it and elect the opposition, the work the Right needs to do to correct all that mess is painful"
Sorry Suzie, but it wasn't the left that is screwing up our economy right now with ultra high gasoline prices. It's the right. 2 months ago oil was selling for $60 a barrel. Now it is somewhere around $114 a barrel. Gas prices are as high as they were during the 2008 economic fiasco. If Trump doesn't get a resolution to this ASAP, the Republicans are finished in November.
The global oil market was affected by the war. On the otber hand, his goals were to a) deny oil to China, b) prevent Iran from either building its own hydrogen bombs/warheads or buying them from China or North Korea in exchange for oil or Obama's money, and c) to get the world to buy its oil from the United States instead of Middle Eastern countries. We'll see how this works out. But self-righteous chest-thumping by weak-willed people who can afford $4000 vacations on the Grand Strand but claim they can't afford $4.50 gas is horseshit. Maybe don't take the vacation, or don't squander money on 30 clubs or activities for each of your children, or give up weekly Girls' Wine Night for awhile. In other words, Americans are weaker and infinitely more self-indulgent (and, again, self-righteous) than our parents, let alone our great-grandparents.
I don't disagree with your comment, UncleBob9. My only point is that Americans don't care about oil to China nor do they care about North Korea sending nukes to Iran. They don't care about the world buying oil from the USA. Like you said, they are focused on their vacations to Disneyland and the cost of gasoline. Thinking people might understand what you just described but the average self serving American only sees the prices as the pump.
Why should they care? Charity begins at home. Trump was elected to lift up the American people.
See Tucker's video to Trump: So was it worth it, Mr President? Trump said he envisioned oil at 200 or even 300 dollars a barrel. He still thought it was worth it even though that would have ended life as we know it. At best he's a feckless fool, at worst a traitor or a secret convert to Judaism.
Can you EVER make a comment without the words Israel, or Jew or Zionist in it?
Yes, he does. All the time. Try reading them once in a while.
Nice try.
Highest Biden gas price was $5 per gallon vs $4.50 today.
Highest Biden oil price per barrel was $120 vs $100 today.
Dems pretending not to know is what this propagandist is doing. How tiring.
So what? Prices don't have to be this high. Let me guess, you are one of the JohnAZ's on this thread who are happy to pay double for the same product you were buying for half the cost 2 months ago? As long as we kick Iran's ASS and bomb them back to the stone age, so we can sleep better at night, that's what matters right?
This all falls under the heading of what I would consider cleaning the lefts mess . The leaders of Iran were allowed to get as close to becoming nuclear tipped Ayatollahs funding terror proxies around the middle east because of the left .
How can you say that? How can you not realize that Biden left office in January 2025 *specifically* so that Trump would shoot himself, and the world economy, in the foot 13 months later? It was all part of Joe Biden's cunning plan!
Excuse me, I said Joe Biden but I should have said: "Joe Biden". Wouldn't want to leave out those all-important quotation marks. Pouring derision is JHK's all-purpose substitute for an actual substantive argument whenever he wants to blame his favourite punching bag for all the world's ills.
You're probably stupid enough to think Trump keeps faking assassination attempts by leftist whack jobs, too.
Well when you say Biden what you really mean is "The Obama 3.0 Shadow Destruction Tour " just like he once quipped on the public screen ." If he could run things behind the scenes " he wouldn't mind being in charge again . it was a lot of the same usual leftard suspects that were orbiting around the White House during his first two official terms . Of course ,' Joe Biden 'was little more than a " Weekend At Bernies " cardboard cutout president , vacant husk that all the demonic spiritual entities that make up the Obama crew could occupy like some kind of possession . Do you appreciate the poetry of my prose ?
Joe Biden and cunning never belong in same sentence.
You lost me Stone Angel. I don't have a fucking clue what you are talking about.
Stone Angel doesn't have a fucking clue what he is talking about.
Join the club.
After over a decade of sharing invaluable insight about the grim inevitability of collapse our host seems to have forgotten about the whole idea.
Back in the day he’d have pointed out the certainty of our present circumstance leading to long-term destruction of our economy and our modern-day way of life. Now he pretends that needlessly bringing that unwanted circumstance about is a fine thing.
The reduction of petroleum-based energy and its many essential byproducts available to the world would be dire if it was short term, but the destruction of much of the world’s capacity to restore that flow is catastrophic – whether delusional Wall Street traders have awakened to that fact yet or not.
Then there is the fact that we have not just shot ourselves in the foot, but have done this to the entire industrialized world. How can that not earn us permanent status as a pariah state?
In terms of domestic policy, this nation had so much to gain from President Trump’s sensible ambitions regarding immigration, re-industrialization, and nailing a lid on the mass formation psychosis of the Democratic Party. All of that is now circling the drain in order to do the bidding of a tiny settler state in the Middle East.
And what did we ever stand to gain from this disastrous folly? Not a damned thing.
Oh, fuck you, Howard Skillington, and the barge of bombast you floated in on.
I have never found "fuck you" to be a very cogent argument on any subject.
And yet Kunstler is supposed to be the professional around here. If he had a substantive response to make to your very, very pertinent criticisms, he's more than equipped to make one. He resorts to this vulgar rejoinder instead. He just can't be bothered anymore to even pretend to address facts, arguments or criticism that push back against his increasingly unhinged and deluded polemics.
I also became a reader of his, a loyal paying customer of his output, based on his old métier of urbanism. I carried on reading (and paying), for a while, as he veered into catastrophic doomerism over peak oil and other fringe hobbyhorses. Now he's just a full-bore fascist nutjob, full stop. The only satisfaction left to be had from engaging here is the perverse fascination of witnessing the spiraling madness ('clusterfuck' indeed) and of telling this increasingly shitty failure what a shitty failure he has become.
If you disapprove of Kuntsler's neighborhood, have you considered moving? The rest of us won't mind and won't miss you when you go.
Your response is just as much of a cop-out as Jim's is.
My first impression of you was that you hastened to post first with a wall of text pointing readers to your own Substack. Quit being such a fussy windbag, riding like a remora on a far more successful wordsmith.
I don't dare to leave MAGA to its own devices. Last year, Trump threatened to turn my country into the 51st state. But that wasn't the first time I heard Americans jawboning about conquering Canada and stripping us for parts. No, I first read stuff like that on this very blog, from Kunstler's own pen in fact.
In other words, this blog lies close to the heart of the very psychosis that has turned our until-recently friendly neighbour into an active threat to my home and my freedom. So I'm not here because I agree with anyone; I'm here to gather intelligence about a clear and present danger. In the meantime, I may or may not post some opinions. If you can't stand being disagreed with, you also can get up and leave.
Ah, now it makes sense... a TDS Addled Liberal Carney Voter. The kind that's dragging my Canada into the dumpster with stupid woke policies.
My Canada has too many Liberal voters who are too blind to see their freedoms and homes are threatened by the very person they voted for. Check out the legislation Carney and his crew are cooking up. Makes Donald Trump’s so-called “threats” tame by comparison.
Oh, you're Canadian! That explains your simulation of an elderly woke lesbian.
It doesn't matter. Canada will be majority non-White in another generation just like the United States. We rose together and we shall die together as well.
Some friendly neighbor: more like a parasitical mediocrity. Just go away: you’re not of interest and big f deal … you pay. $8
Hmmm. You speak for the “rest of us”? Your recovery has a ways to go.
Hi Stone Angel,
Let me offer another reason for why folks who disagree with Mr. Kunstler and his viewpoint stay on. I started reading JHK Admin in the early "2 oughts." I found the argument cogent and interesting--though not one that economists would back. It would be interesting to know what JHK Admin would have to say about what he thinks now--especially in the face of the FACT that this oil crisis is human made by US, us as by our public servant , The President, and by US, as in the country and the ideals for which it stands. Which seem to have taken a holiday of late.
.
Those of us who disagree with Mr. Kunstler and those who support his views may do so because it is important to keep a finger on the pulse of discourse. Over time, I have found Mr. Kunstler's views more influenced and guided by what others might call conspiracy theories and by a right wing consensus about what Mr. Trump's moves actually mean. The capacity to ignore evidence and outcomes that go directly against his predictions is an important barometer of the views of a significant part of the US electorate that favours MAGA concerns. I read Mr. Kunstler to understand what the moves are that will be used elsewhere to explain some major cock-up or cluster-fuckery that this administration undertakes. I do not read it expecting a balanced and evidentiary based analysis.
.
I find Mr Kunstler's writings very useful for that reason.
HE
I strongly recommend to you to follow Promethean Action whereby you will be inclined to tilt your head to a new understanding of global affairs, and perhaps comprehend better the views of Mr Kunstler, … who sees clearly now.
Hi MarshaLouise,
I have no idea on what basis you make your claim about Mr. Kunstler's clarity other than ... well, I guess, because you like Mr. Kunstler's opinions and not mine. OK then.
So why are you hanging around reading his writings? If you hate and disapprove why don't you move on to a new read?
I can’t afford not to be aware of the shit that goes down in MAGA world. You all are the krill in the waters that the truly shitty people with actual power swim in. If I choose to step in from time to time, that’s free speech, baby. Love me, love my opinions.
No thanks, Phil.
That comment is unworthy of you.
Yeah, I got sucked in.
Wish you had called it good after your first paragraph, Stone-A!
Sad. The wordsmith is becoming very touchy, grumpy. Failed predictions, predictions running very late. It must get exhausting defending belief perseverance.
Oh, that you would, like Saint Paul, realize that you are still “seeing through a glass darkly” and that Mr Kunstler is most likely on point. Some are still asleep. They are those who defend the likes of Obama, Biden, and Mark Carney.
Mr Kunstler “…is most likely on point.” On point to what? “Most likely” sounds like a guess.
His opinions are easily understood. It’s his many predictions going back a couple of decades where the track record is dismal.
Many of his critics here are not defenders of Obama, Biden and Carney.
They are critics of promises not kept. Critics of a poorly thought out war of choice and Israeli/Likudnik/Mossad influence over this administration and American foreign policy. To the extent we have a president who ignores his own intelligence agencies and any military mind that doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear.
It’s this that appears to upset Kunstler devotees the most.
You must be new here, Kunstler has been prognosticating one thing or another going back to pre-Y2K. A man with more respect for facts, or his readers, or for himself, would have course-corrected long ago. But Mister Social Critic just kept on truckin’.
Uh, what in my comment makes you think I’m new here?
You took my comment more seriously than I did. Kunstler’s propensity to spin narratives in the form of predictions and quietly drop once they’re no longer viable has been apparent all along.
It is not Jimmys (or whoever is writing his 'pieces' nowadays) strong point to defend the indefensible. Seriously, who knew that Jimmy would be so front and centre in relation to the depravities of the 'Long Emergency'.
He’s just pissed off that Kagan has made him out to be a absolute fool or a liar, more likely both.
I think you may have hit a nerve, Howard Skillington...
Is that the only argument you have? Why do you not just refute Howard's points?
Have you forgotten the very worthwhile goal of eliminating nukes in the hands of madmen? That is and was the very reason for this war. I support Trump 100%. Funny how the hypocritical left complain about the Iran war, but we heard nothing about Ukraine's never ending war, hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded, along with the $150 billion wasted.
1. Iran has no nukes, and we abetted the assassination of their ruler who forbid their development. 2. That was only the transparent pretext for Trump to support Netanyahu's war. Its actual, failed purpose, was to destroy a three thousand year old civilization which hasn't invaded another country in centuries. 3. Similarly, the Ukraine War's purpose was to destroy Russia. It has also failed.
No similarity at all to #3. Biden's deranged attempt to go after Putin for electing Trump, or to cover Biden's ass for his chicanery. Iran has no nukes and we intend to keep it that way. Funny how they have enough enriched uranium to make 10 or more nukes. Iran has been a thorn in the side of the ME for almost 50 years. You can see how peacefull they have been with the strait of Hormuz.
Putin electing Trump? Now that is a re-write of reality.
And who was a thorn in the side of Persia/Iran for well over 100 years? Study a little M.E. history about Tobacco and Oil and get back to us...
Rewrite? They claimed Russia helped get Trump elected and then said Biden went after Putibn for doing so. The alternative is covering his ass. They tried to impeach Trump for a phone call, yet Biden actually enriched himself via bribes arranged by his drug addicted son.
Hummm, You were going somewhere with this but I think the internal guidance system went a little off-kilter.
She who's turn never materialized and her insane supporters could never come to terms with reality. Seems at that point politics here in the U.S. took on an entirely new and more vicious approach with the motto being; "the ends justify the means" and there are no limits to the means.
The Ukraine War started in the early nineties with the failure of the U.S.S.R. and the looting of the Russian nation by the West. Putin put a stop to that and as a result, he specifically and Russia as a whole have been demonized ever since. Biden was just another bit player on the world stage. Good riddance to that P.O.S.!
Don't forget that there was an agreement in place, the JCPOA, that guaranteed Iran would not develop nuclear weapons, and that it was Trump himself who ripped it up back in 2018.
U.S. foreign policy has never been pretty, but it usually follows its own kind of evil, imperialist rationality. Only under Trump One and Trump Two has it become truly unhinged, veering wildly and unpredictably, offering nothing that any counterparty can possibly count on other than the fact they can't count on the USA for anything.
"their ruler who forbid their development"
How cute! You actually BELIEVE dictators when they say things for the world's consumption.
You believe your Owners for your consumption. Now who exactly spent nearly 40 trillion dollars of the public's money and put you and all of us on the hook for it? Every Empire requires an enemy, for the Global Elite's it's EVERYONE. If you weren't at their meetings you can be assured you were/are on their menu.
Their culture is obviously too different from ours for you to comprehend. They came to the table ready to negotiate. It's our "leaders" and Israel's who violate every agreement and have no intention of honoring any treaty.
You keep spouting the blindly corrupted views of the Left. Of course, you will not appreciate that most of us here find value in the facts presented by Mr Kunstler.
My views are a matter of record here, and I am prepared to stand by them. In the fulness of time it will be clear that Jim has been blowing smoke up your asses, while my assertions prove to be true. Come back in three months and let's compare scores - shall we?
Sounds as if you, Howard, have a need-to-be-guarded wealth of restricted/classified information which the Pentagon should be aware of, or you’ve just consumed an overdose of Liberal media, CBC, unending propaganda.
Actually, you've got it all backwards. The Pentagon has always generated propaganda, from inflated body counts in Vietnam to WMDs in Iraq to our "winning" vs. Iran. A reasonably accurate understanding of what is actually going on is available from many sources - but not here.
Iran doesn't have nukes and they've been "3 weeks away" from getting nukes for the last 30 years. That is a tired argument.
So, they have had enriched uranium and underground production facilities for 30 years? Hmmm, there might be something to it.
Enriched uranium can be used for things other than nuclear war heads.
60% enriched uranium, which Iran admits they had, is only used for ONE thing.
I don't know if you're right but at this point they should get a bomb or two. Pakistan says that if nukes are used against Iran, they will deliver one or two to them. You're not going to win this, Ini. Any attempt to do so will end this world system.
It's true that we've been hearing things like "Iran is three weeks away from having nukes" seemingly forever, but I would like to point out that in reality, we do not know for certain what armaments they have.
And what gives us the right to know what they really have or don't have? Last I checked Iran was a sovereign nation.
THANK YOU, Mark.
The Left's support (and to be honest, support from way too much of the Right) of the nasty, corrupt, Nazi-infested, human-trafficking hub called Ukraine makes me sick.
Pakistan has had nukes for decades. So you're wrong. Israel wants to take much of the Middle East as per the Greater Israel Project. Iran won't let them take Shia land. If the Sunnis weren't degenerate Capitalists and Playboys, they would object too - without become Jihadist maniacs.
That ‘tiny settler state in the Middle East’ will actually be the global hero in finally ensuring that a death cult Islamic radical regime doesn’t get a nuclear weapon. Aside from that, the Iranian people love Israel for helping them overthrow their occupiers. And secretly, the Gulf States are thanking them, as well.
"he Iranian people love Israel for helping them overthrow their occupiers. And secretly, the Gulf States are thanking them, as well."
Insifad,
Yesssss, and no one loves them more than the grateful, newly freed populations of Gaza and Lebanon.
70% of brainwashed Gazans, who learn to hate Jews when they’re in elementary school approved of October 7. Amusingly, Israel had left Gaza in 2005. And the people that the Gazans butchered were left wing Israelis who tried to have a peaceful relationship with them. The Lebanese people want Hezbollah out of their country. You actually don’t know what you’re talking about, but presumably are listening to others who also tell you that Jews rule the world. Truly laughable.
Comics:
https://ragheadthefiendlyterrorist.wordpress.com/
Every syllable of your post is so preposterous as to make rebuttal redundant.
In other words, you have no viable response, other than BS. Got it.
Then allow me: Iran is not and never has been the "death cult" that U.S./Israel propaganda portrays it to be. The actual motive behind the decades-long antipathy to Iran has two causes.
For the U.S., it's that Iran under the Shah was a dependable servant of U.S. power, but in the revolution of 1979 Iran escaped imperial control. It therefore has to be punished lest it set an example for others to follow, and if possible be brought back into the imperial fold.
For Israel, Iran is the last man standing in the Middle East in opposing the Greater Israel project: the Israeli ethnostate's ambition to ethnically cleanse its neighbours (they're doing that right this minute in Gaza and in southern Lebanon) and expand into their territory.
Israel is an undeclared nuclear weapons state. They and the USA have spent the last five decades raving and drooling that Iran is going to acquire nuclear weapons Any Minute Now and we (they) have to Do Something before the Smoking Gun Comes in the Form of a Mushroom Cloud. All evidence, meanwhile, indicates that the Iranians have scrupulously stopped short of enriching uranium to weapons grade, while also keeping their options open to develop a nuclear deterrent if and when it becomes the sole alternative to their own destruction. Theocracy or not, they have been supremely rational in this and it's the USA and especially Israel who have the most to gain by using nukes to finally get their way, once all else has failed.
Thanks for doing the heavy lifting here, S.A. Half of the pro-Israel readership here lies knowingly; the other half have no fucking clue. Life is too short to bother with either group.
And yet you "think" you have a clue. Hilarious.
The minute I hear someone talk about The greater Israel Project’, I discount everything else they have to say. There is no ‘project’ in Israel to take over the Middle East. FFS, they even gave back the Sinai Peninsula that they won in war. Apparently you don’t understand what a death cult is…..even the IRGC admits that you are never rewarded in LIFE, but only martyred in death, and that is their goal. I suggest if you really want to understand what is going on in Iran, you take a look at Tousi TV on youtube.
They gave Sinai back before the Fundamentalists came to power. Shame on you for your lies and trickery. Anyone can see the map of Greater Israel by just googling, Map of Greater Israel - as you well know.
“The minute I hear someone talk about The greater Israel Project’, I discount everything else they have to say.” More fool you, then. I award you no points but wish you the best of luck.
Would Sunni Saudi Arabia tolerate a nuclear armed Shi'a Iran?
Once again US & Israeli troops are doing the Saudis dirty work.
You are aware that FDR and Ibn-Saud signed a treaty in 1943 that commits America to defend SA and provide weaponry in exchange for oil? That treaty still exists. It was the basis for the Kuwait war and most of America’s presence in the Gulf.
We are committed to the Sunnis.
Yes, just as Hitler took orders from the Mufti and Biff takes orders from Muffy.
Well, if our creation and world-wide distribution of that bio weapon (aka the covid virus/vaccine) and the bombing of the Nordstream pipeline didn't make us a pariah state, I doubt this will either.
The control of the flow of oil in the Persian gulf resides ultimately with Iran. Iran could do well just selling oil to China while restricting or denying the other gulf states to sell their oil to the rest of the world. So, who should we want to control that straight, goat fuckers bent on guillotining the infidels or, the current global hegemon? I agree with most of what you wrote but our options are limited to two choices: apologize to the Iranians and send them pallets of cash or reduce our stockpiles of B61s.
Xi needs to do his part by taking Taiwan right now. The United States is too weak to do anything, but it will help to demoralize the crazies behind Trump.
So you hope.
Maybe Obama was calling on the Globalist authoritarian neofeudalist Carney to ask for refugee status in case he is ever held to account for his shady activities in the US.
Yes, Obama is the original slim-shady. Interesting factoid, the name Obama means "bent over," or "limping," in the Luo language of Kenya. I simply call him the "Userper" from Kenya.
You can't make this stuff up, kenya?
That is interesting. Sounds about right.
Carney is a huckster using the Canadian anti-annexation sentiment for his own benefit.
Canadians have never liked the USA starting when Canada was a refuge for Tories from the Revolutionary War.
I see Carney as an actual enemy of the US.
Carney is a technocrat and, as such, is an enemy of 99.99% of the human race.
On that we can agree. I did not vote for his party and don't intend to.
He's an enemy of the Canadian people. JohnAZ is full of shit. Most Canadians love the US. Stop listening to the propaganda from the Laurentian elite and talk to real Canadians in Moosejaw, Fort Erie and Brandon before you open your pie hole.
What about God's country, Regina BC? And don't get me started about Kamloops girls....
Oh, this is just stupendous.
JohnAZ: Here we were, fresh off two centuries of peace, prosperity, allyship, and mutually beneficial trade with our American neighbour. Then one day out of fucking nowhere, Trump pipes up brightly and shits all over Canada, declares America the victim, and blithely declares us American property. But to hear you talk, "anti-annexation sentiment" is a provocation *we* are doing to *you*. The audacity, it burns.
John Schrauth: Of course you fucking do. That's step one of the game plan: declare us an enemy so that when you strip flesh off our bones, it's because *we* provoked *you*.
DARVO: Deny, accuse, reverse victim and offender. That's what narcissist abusers do in private life. It's now what the USA has become on the world stage. And you have thousands of nukes. I feel sick.
I am fond of your country and take no satisfaction in the following. As you probably understand, the US business model in recent decades has been to stop producing anything and to prosper by financial chicanery and stealing the resources of other countries.
As we are seeing now in the Middle East, the US has lost its capacity to keep playing that game insupportably far from home, but it must continue somewhere, of we go (deservedly) down the shitter.
When Trump was bloviating about Canada and Greenland he was signally a reaffirmation of the Monroe Doctrine without making the other part explicit: that we are now forced to give up on the other hemisphere.
In that case, his proposals for new resource-rich targets makes ruthless good sense.
Unfortunately I pretty much agree with your assessment, Mr. Skillington. Even before Trump dropped all pretense and proudly pledged allegiance to the black flag, every Canadian who witnessed Russia's treatment of Ukraine felt a sense of unease at the back of their minds.
There is no tyrant as unappeasable as geography: the USA isn't going away anytime soon. Neither are we, but the very idea of Canada just might. The thought of that puts irons in my soul.
Canada cracks down on free speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and protest (truckers), freezes bank accounts of anyone refusing to toe the "Castreau" socialist authoritarian party line, institutes government assisted (mandated) suicide, bans most firearms, floods the country with unassimilable migrants, cozies up to China and is preparing to destroy the Canadian auto industry by flooding in rolling Chinese spy bot EV's. What's next? Chinese bases? Do you have any idea what the damned World Economic Forum is all about? Carney is one of the honchos there if I understand correctly. The country we once so admired and loved, filled with tough men with good manners has been replaced by a soon to be Caliphate dotted with Chinese PLA and PLAN bases. Are you all really such incredible shitheads that you do not see the error of having empowered a guy as your leader who is also a British and Irish citizen and leader of the premiere one world government movement? You feel sick? WE FEEL SICK!
It's impossible to debunk this much xenophobic clownish paranoia in real time. I'll limit my response to the following.
First: I take your "clownish shitheads" remarks to be referring specifically to Mark Carney. As if I could be unaware that he's a technocrat's technocrat, former head of not one but two central banks, and that he was parachuted into power by the Liberal party's brain trust with no previous history of representing Canadians in Parliament or of any other engagement with our democratic institutions? I'm unaware his actual policies are those of a moderate Conservative from the years before Maple MAGA brain-rot took over the Canadian right? That nothing drives MAGA crazy quite like a moderately right-coded guy in an expensive suit who isn't their particular brand of paranoid lunatic? If you think you know something, anything, about Mark Carney that I don't, you need to take a deep breath and stop to consider how you came to think that.
Second: to me, most of your litany says far less about the topics you glance at than it does about the speaker. Suffice to say, I pity you, but more than that I scorn you. And more again than that, I *see* you: you, and everything you say, are symptoms of a real and looming threat. You and the MAGA right have talked yourselves into a state of mind where there is a real chance you'll try to dismember my country, depose our government, rob us of our self-determination, and break us on the American wheel. If you put your minds, your wealth, and your military to the tasks, there's really nothing we can do to stop you, any more than Iraq or Afghanistan could, or than Ukraine could stop Russia. I fear for my country, and for the future my loved ones might inherit. For all that they might lose. All because you think Canada's future is rightfully up to you and Donald Trump, not up to us.
You've demonstrated no inhibition for delivering long screeds as your responses. I take that as confirmation you are unable to refute my factual assertions regarding the sad state of affairs in Canada and somehow imagine you will not be seen as a BS'ing windbag by employing excessive verbosity.
Darvo is a most potent drug.
Others? War of 1812 when America tried invasion and “54/40 or fight” when the USA and Britain split the Northwest.
Bottom line? The USA has 340 million people and a vastly superior economy. Canada has 41 million people and its economy is being destroyed by Trumpomics.
No wonder Alberta, the most wealthy and productive sector of Canada is having thought about getting out of the Ottawa nuthouse.
Within and among all the things we Canadians have taken for granted, a cancer has been growing. Our wealthy and powerful neighbour, at peace with us for centuries, has developed a psychosis.
It hadn't escaped our notice what a fat slob our neighbour has become. And we maintained a discreet silence about the corrupt sources of vast income that kept the more favoured members of the fat slob's family living in tacky opulence.
But it seems like the fat slob's grifts aren't grifting so well anymore. The slob, sprawled in his recliner, absently flipping channels, is starting to look particularly hungry, and particularly sorry for himself. His eyes turn our way, and in that moment of eye contact, what we see reflected back isn't ourselves. What the slob sees with his greedy pig eyes is no longer a respected neighbour. He sees a bucket of chicken wings that he longs to swallow and wipe our grease off his chins.
Of course, no one can eat an entire bucket in one swallow. No, you do it one at a time. Pick your target, look for a fault line, stick a chisel into it, and start hammering. That's the régime change playbook, and we've seen you practice it for over a century. Now it's our turn.
Mind you, it's not that I expect to change your mind by holding up a mirror to your hatefulness and your greed. No, I just want you to understand that you are seen for what you are. You the individual, JohnAZ, and what your country has become under Donald Trump, greedy fat pig that he is.
YOU apparently do not have your own mirror. Your country is descending into third world shithole status at about 100 mph.
Delusion, of the xenophobic variety. If anything, Canada is cream-skimming: using the wealth and peace we enjoy to siphon excellence from the four corners of the earth, to our great and continuing benefit.
Speaking for myself, but I suspect for many other Canadians as well, I increasingly fear it's exactly your brand of xenophobia that will fuck this up for us, and a lot else besides.
Good grief the moron changed his name. More gas bagging and whining. Same stupid posts endlessly.
Huh? Who did?
We can only hope.
Glad to see the indigenous Brits realizing they are the first targets in the genocide of the free west, and trying to prevent the globalist holocaust, on English land. In the end I think it will take the repatriation of all Islamists to Islamic lands, and every British traitor swinging from a lamp post. Either that or the British history books will be written in Farsi.
"free west"
That's the funniest thing I have read this morning. Free west, my big fat ass we are free. Western people wouldn't know "freedom" if it rose up and bit a big chunk out of their asses.
Two words: Property Tax.
Property tax ensures that we westerners will never own our property free and clear of intrusion from our government overlords. If we cannot own property then we are nothing. Period.
We are taxed to the hilt in the USA. Property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, inheritance taxes and so on and so on. How is this freedom? What do we get for all these taxes paid? Free health care? Nope. Our healthcare is the most expensive on the planet. A nose cone on a missile headed for Tehran? Yeah, I'm sure glad I forked over nearly 50% of my income in taxes to help pay Lockheed to make another missile. Let me wear a gold star sticker on my forehead.
Free west. That's hilarious.
You aren't going to get a pro-tax argument from me: I know they are ruinous and unconstitutional. But answer me this: to what place are you moving where citizens are more free?
If you are paying for aliens to break in here and have children on your dime, you are already conquered. We do and we are.
Good.
That's the sorry state of the world in which we live. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that other places are better off than the USA. I'm only saying that we are not as "free" as people tell themselves they are. I am a 6th generation American and this is my home and there is nowhere else I would go to live. I'm only saying that if we cannot own our property free and clear from government intrusion that we are not "free." Sure, I can go to church, own a gun, shop when I want, go on vacation when I want. In that aspect I have some freedom. But, at least 1/3 of the time I work is for the government and I have to pay an annual rent payment to the government for the right to live on my property that I have paid for with money that was already taxed.
I paid sales taxes on my home and land. Why is that not enough.
Property tax never ends. The government owns everything. More people should awaken to this nonsense and put and end to it.
I suppose we're all sort of like the serfs, working our plot of land, while the multinationals bring in skilled and unskilled laborers from around the world, undercutting our wages, and paid for in part by, well, us the taxpayers.
In NY State, we are told it’s a school tax. I’ve never sent a child to public school. In any case, every American child should receive education… but it seems that after a certain age, one should be exempt of onerous taxation.
No property tax. Period. Find another way to get money for schools. Our property should be ours to own free and clear from government intrusion or theft by the government. Do a specific school tax on top of sales taxes. Or, just send people a bill every year for school taxes. Anything would be better than paying the government for the right to live on land and in a home that I bought and paid for with money that was already taxes (income tax) and upon which a sales tax was paid as well.
Taxation in this nation is out of control and governments know it. The problem is the governments refuse to reduce spending because the people constantly demand more from their governments rather than relying upon themselves.
Our government has three options to raise revenue:
1) Taxes which are and have been so much of a burden and waste, that people are finally starting to push back.
2) Get loans from others via selling US Treasuries - 67% now purchased by the Fed - because others are no longer willing to loan us money.
3) Print money - the current form of thinly disguised QE is through the Pentagon 2027 budget request of $2.5 Trillion. For Covid "Relief" it was $5.2 Trillion. Printers go brrrr...
Don't' worry about inflation though, that's from the oil shock. Wink, wink. Think gold.
The Federal Government should fund itself from tariffs and sales taxes (and seriously reduce its size and scope, but that is a different discussion for a different time). I have no problem with sales taxes. Sales taxes gives an individual the opportunity to either pay the tax or wait until they can afford to pay the tax on the product they wish to purchase. Property taxes steal our right to actually own.....well......anything. If we fall on hard times and can't pay the annual rent payment to the county they could put our property up for tax sale and sell it right out from under us.
This insidious evil known as property tax takes from us the right to own anything. That is not freedom.
CP -you jogged my memory of a long-time annoyance of mine, and subterfuge of the governments (all) to mislead the masses - even the relatively smart ones.
Every mention in every article in the media says something to the effect of "The government is paying" this much for such and such, or the "government is subsidizing" such and such.
For the lesser informed, which is actually quite a surprising many, the "government" does not have some big pot of money to pay for and subsidize all the foolishness - it's obviously the taxpayers' money, but repeated use of the phrasing rams the narrative home. It's simple psychological conditioning.
It should be made mandatory that every mention in writing should change "government" to "taxpayers". Some dumbasses don't realize that we pay for everything. Try it next time you read an article and see how the context changes. You know, I'm not suggesting you're a dumbass. :-)
They are clever in how they get their taxes.
1. Property taxes. Most Americans don't realize they pay property taxes because the banks pay them out of mortgage escrow accounts. All the idiots know is that they pay their mortgage.
2. Income taxes. Ole Ronnie Reagan instituted the "withholdings." Most daft Americans don't even focus on their gross pay anymore, all they see is their net pay. They don't believe they are paying taxes.
I can guarantee that if Americans had to save money and then write a check for all the taxes they owed they would be pissing razorblades in anger.
Withholdings and escrow are as insidious as the silent tax known as "inflation" which sucks the value of our savings without any truth in taxation.
Taxation WITH representation has not served us well.
I am a dumbass, at least according to a few who frequent this blog (see JohnAZ, he no longer respects me because I disagreed with his pro-war position).
Well, you should love Elizabeth Warren and Bernie’s desire for a wealth tax.
And yes, you have, but for your antiUSA statements. This country committed itself to protect the world after WW2 and has tried to do so.
Property tax originated to fund schools. It has been debated about ever since. We live in a country that is aging quickly and the obvious question is why older people should pay for schools. The result is becoming vouchers, charter and magnet schools along with home schooling. In the ,
Meantime, property taxes are an onerous continuation of government redistributing wealth to welfare.
Forgot tariffs.
Tariffs fall under taxes, just on the import of foreign goods.
Yes tariffs are a tax but specifically unless you call it out most people don't think of it.
Our horrendous tax burden supports crappy public schools, lousy roads, lack of water, globalistic war footing, but most of all welfare, half of which goes to people who have no right to be here.
No worries, the criminal elements in our society will absorb the welfare folks and spread their drugs and booze out to the rest.
The biggest joke is that people actually “care” about the debt. That is a bigger joke than Jimmy Kimmel.
The bars at night are loud and bright,
Deep in the heart of Taxes.
How ironic that the American colonists rebelled against British rule partly over taxes.
Just an excuse. The country made its own way as a colony of England and resented being “slaves” to the English corporations of the day. The Tea Party was a response to being forced to only buying tea from one English company.
England was actually right to try to tax Americans for the coats of the French and Indian war, but America was not even consulted on how to do that.
Add on the fact that the area that made the biggest noise was in New England, where the beginnings of a manufacturing economy was gaining steam, and they were in direct competition with England’s companies. That is why the Intolerable Acts were directed at Boston.
No Taxation without Representation was one item. Don’t Tread on Me was a statement about the freedom of choice which England was trying to remove.
150 years later, Ghandi used the same arguments in India.
As you say, there were many causal factors for the American Revolution, not all especially honorable. That's why I carefully said, "partly over taxes."
In truth, I wrote the comment just to be able to include the wordplay of "Deep in the heart of Taxes." Sometimes I can't stop myself from punning.
I have a feeling you’ve never lived anywhere else other than the US.
Not true Inisfad. I lived in Australia for 5 years. 1990 - 1995. I left before Australia did its big gun grab and turned to shit. I've also lived in Mexico on and off and in different exchanges and became fluent in Spanish.
Y tu? Donde has vivido que no es parte de los Estados Unidos? Translation And you? Where have you lived that is not part of the United States?
The EU. Irleland.
He's a dual citizen, but of what country?!
The one living rent-free in your narrow little racist mind.
Too bad its about 75 years too late.
Are the Brits the problem or is the EU? Remember that the British Brexited. It seems to me that the horrendous influx of immigrants were invited by the EU.
A large number of Brits would like to get their Country back, but the Government opposes the idea. Where's that Magna Carta when you need it? Oh, its a dusty document in a museum...pretty much in the same state as our Founding documents. It's sad when words on parchment have no meaning...
The UK government, after Brexit, did everything it could to void it. Take a look at Promethean Action to see exactly the role that the British empire has played, and continues to play, in global politics. Remember Boris Johnson advising Zelensky not to accept the original peace treaty? Or Lloyds of London suddenly no longer insurance vessels in the Person Gulf? Interesting…..
Ukraine was slated to be a second Israel. Thank God for the Russian Army, the only thing that opposes the complete triumph of Satanism.
LOL…The Ukraine has more legitimate Nazis than any other country in the world, so so what unlikely to be the second Israel.
Yeah, you're losing there too. Looks like it's going to have to be Argentina. Are there still Nazis in Argentina?
There are across the way in Montevideo right across the bay from Buenos Ares. Nothing more stuck up than a fake European from Argentina.
Farrage is a Capitalist totally on board with mass immigration for cheap labor. The Bankers want it for their own reasons and he's not privy to them, but he knows they can destroy him so he stays in his own lane and does what he's told to do.
Agreed 100%.
We may be only months, or even weeks away from President Trump declaring an Insurrection, and instituting Martial Law in numerous leftist states and cities. The Virginia Democrat Party machine (with the national Democrat Party cheering on) is considering basically sacking the entire Virginia Supreme Court and replacing it with Democrat stooges who would give them the Congressional seats that the Democrats covet in the U.S. House of Representative races there. There is de facto proof that the Democrat Party has no respect for the Rule of Law or the Constitution (federal or state) if the the Law or Constitution conflicts with their goal of establishing a de facto Socialist dictatorship in the U.S. The Democrats' end-around play for years now has been to cheat, subvert, and lie to establish Democrat fiefdoms city-by-city and state-by-state until they control enough Representatives, Electoral College votes, and judgeships to get rid of the U.S. Constitution and Rule of Law as functioning guardrails against a their de facto Socialist dictatorship.
Democrats are no longer even hiding their intent to do exactly those things. The insurrection isn't coming--it is here and it has been here since Obama. Sadly, it is clear that the Democrats--a Party that has been thoroughly infiltrated by Fascist/Socialists and Communist/Socialists--has been busily brainwashing tens of millions of Americans--liberals, leftists, and other "woke" morons--to actually support and even to riot, assassinate, assault, destroy, and murder for the cause. President Trump was duly elected in 2024 on his promise to put a stop to the leftist violence, revolt, and Socialist nonsense.
Of course, if President Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act, the very Democrats who are fomenting the insurrection will bleat that Trump is a dictator and anti-freedom. We may soon reach a point that President Trump will have no choice but to invoke the Insurrection Act, anyway, because--if he does not--America will be lost as a Republic. The Democrats will make sure of it--and, if the Democrats succeed in taking power, they will "neutralize" anyone who has opposed or continues to oppose them. Democrats openly talk about "re-education camps" and openly conspire to persecute and jail their political opponents if the Democrats gain power. Don't dismiss it as "just sound bites" or "tough talk"--the Democrats mean it.
"There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide."
-Ayn Rand
Wall of text skipped. "President Trump declaring an Insurrection, and instituting Martial Law" is exactly what he attempted in the Twin Cities and manifestly failed to accomplish. The good people of Minneapolis and St. Paul saw the effort for exactly what it was: a half-assed but fully-despicable effort to impose despotism on free people. They refused to cooperate, and Trump withdrew his ICE goons.
But Trump will certainly try again, given how he's stuffing cash down ICE's craw with both hands. That at any rate is the playbook: use despotic force to provoke a backlash, then declare the backlash to his own actions as justification. Rinse, repeat, spread as far and wide as possible until you're Circus Hitler. Fortunately, the USA is full of people who recognize Trump's (and your) disrespect for their freedoms, and are prepare to respect themselves all the more to make up for it.
The "ICE goons", as leftist criminal thugs like to call them, were simply enforcing duly enacted Federal law and a bunch of treasonous leftist pigs tried to obstruct ICE from doing the job they swore an Oath to do. And, yes, America does have plenty of leftist piles of treasonous shit who will engage in violence because they WANT a Civil War. As far as I'm concerned, the leftist piles of shit have made their own lives worthless--they no longer serve any productive or civilized purpose, if they ever did in the first place.
Wanna know how I know it’s you and your MAGA fellows who are spoiling for violence, bloodshed and civil war, and this is just projection? Because I spend lots of time in leftist spaces. The subject of civil war never, and I mean never, just comes up.
Seriously, spend some time reading Jacobin and count how many times you come across a reference to civil war in the USA. Cross off any cases that mean the original 19th century version, or that are responding to/examining comment originating from the right. You’ll have vanishingly few cases left. (And you’re not gonna read Jacobin, let’s get real.)
Back in the nineties, I read The Turner Diaries just for shiggles. It culminates in the ‘Day of the Rope’, a climactic explosion of hyperviolence that redeems all struggles and sets the world in its proper shape. Three decades later and all that’s changed about fascists is their number and their shamelessness.
Bc you are a leftist.
Does killing President Trump ever come up? That might cause civil war.
Yes, we killed two leftists and fall apart morally speaking. Iran killed 25,000 and didn't even break a sweat. They are a real nation, we are merely a "country". Google the respective etymologies. They have lasted for thousand of years. We don't even have another 100.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tehran-s-latest-move-just-pushed-trump-closer-to-escalation/vi-AA23l8LC?ocid=socialshare
Could you stump for the failing disaster that is the current Iran anymore?
>> ... if the Democrats succeed in taking power, they will "neutralize" anyone who has opposed or continues to oppose them. Democrats openly talk about "re-education camps" and openly conspire to persecute and jail their political opponents if the Democrats gain power. <<
I'm for sure no defender of the Democrat party, and agree they have dangerous tendencies, but isn't this a little hysterical?
Can you cite one instance of a Democrat officially talking about "re-education camps"? Or a Democrat "openly" conspiring to persecute and jail their opponents once they're in power?
Warning of falling sky doesn't help.
"Or a Democrat "openly" conspiring to persecute and jail their opponents once they're in power?"
Well, Hillary Clinton, for one. In October 2023, she was quoted saying this about conservative Trump supporters: "“Maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members.” Understand, Hillary Clinton is a top member of the Hillary/Obama/Soros Democrat Socialist cabal; and the Democrat Party is still filled with operatives from that cabal--Susan Rice, Elias, Rummler, et al--all dedicated to dismantling anyone challenging their power.
There are few people I detest as much as Hillary Clinton, but come on. "A formal deprogramming" is ambiguous enough not to qualify as urging Trump supporters be sent to re-education camps. Nor is it equivalent to openly conspiring to persecute and jail Democrats' opponents.
More than a few congresscreatures are economical about observing ethics and laws. We can both hope they get what they deserve. But wild exaggeration is not a step forward.
The Camps are already built. If we don't fill them with illegals and traitors, they will fill them with patriots.
If peace breaks out, Trump could show he addressed many of his campaign promises in his first two years.
Sure we.might not like the Iran conflict, but neither does he, but that's what it took.
If he can deliver some government fraud and anti-lawfare wins he could really say he's doing the hard work.
The IRGC and the DNC are cornered rats. One or both will act on it this Summer. Don't be surprised when they do nor the framing of the narrative when it's spun.
Iran had the audacity to put it's country right smack in the middle of all those US military bases. But now, unlike the bully from the other side of the world, Iran cannot get up and move, and it cannot take it's 12 nautical mile, sovereign, territorial coastline waters with it. Until the Law of the Sea Treaty is scuppered, Iran has every legal right to "sanction" hostile ships from it's territorial water. Remember that antiquated phrase, "The Rule of Law?"
Do you really think that the world powers dependent on the oil passing through the straits will allow the Tehran insane asylum to cut off their oil supply? Already, Europe is realizing that losing the Straits to Iran will cripple them, same with China. Trump-Xi should be interesting. Until a global coalition stops Iran, the USN will.
They will have no choice. Turkey charges $5.83 per net ton for ships passing the Dardanelles and Bosphorus straights. They are it's sovereign waters.
Why is this so impossible for people to apprehend? The Straight of Hormuz is NOT "international waters."
A barrel of crude weighs between 300 and 315 pounds. This works out to between $ 1. and $1.11/bbl, using Turkey's privilege rate.
So whose is it. Iran’s? Qatar’s? UAE’s? Bahrain’s? Saudi Arabia’s?
Turkey has both sides of the Bosporus, but even so Russia and the rest of the world might have something to say if they tried to control it, like Iran.
Everybody seems to forget that the USA is committed to the Arabian States to defend Saudi Arabia since 1943. It is a treaty. FDR and Ibn-Saud signed it long before the Israel nation was born.
The entire straight, within 100 km of the hairpin point in each direction is the territorial waters of Iran in the east half and Oman in the west. Iran has offered to split the user fee with Oman. The entire east coast of the Persian Gulf (why do you think that name?) from it's border with Pakistan in the south to the border of Iraq in the north is Iran's. Qatar, UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia can/may charge a docking/loading, etc. fee, but those ships must pass through Iran/Oman legally sovereign water. It is beyond dispute.
Acknowledged, now go convince the world that will have to pay more for its oil, if Iran allows it to be passed, that Iran has that right. If you are a believer in The Long Emergency, as I am, 20% less oil will not be tolerated by the world. The USA needs to walk away and allow the world to sink in their own oil deficit. Europe first.
It's a frickin' piece of paper John, big deal, whatta they going to do, write us a sternly worded letter. I'm quaking in my boots as I type this.
Now the financial connections that's the rope that binds us...
Do you really think the world powers dependent on the oil passing through the straits are such chumps they'll blame Iran, and not the United States?
There's a good reason why every president before Trump refused to try to régime-change Iran. They saw the results coming a mile away. Whereas Trump tripped all the way over his own puny dick and created his own problem, which is going to give the entire planet a heart attack. That's an *awesome* way to get the entire planet lined up to protect themselves from your stupidity and menace.
Israelis are now loathed in most countries, and us as well since we carry water for them.
Our oil supply was fine, thanks very much, until the US attacked Iran. Now we're looking at fuel and food shortages as a way into the predator class' long-desired digital rationing system. This is Covid 2.0. They may even overlay it with the panto-virus - they seem to be keeping a lot of agendas in reserve to see which work best.
War humper JohnAZ is back on the pro-war war path again. Tear him a new one ShielaB.
Sorry, CP, she cannot as she has lost my respect as she has retreated from reality, just like you. You both have turned into just two more name callers.
I didn't call you any names. I pointed out the flaws in your fake-Christian worldview.
Fake -Christian? Why don’t you go and read Matthew 24, and then repeat. Jesus is telling His folks about the inevitability of war, of false prophets of phony Messiahs. Like Mohammed.
“Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming ‘I am the Messiah’, and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. National will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All of these are the beginning of birth pains.”
Then move to Revelation where John tells us what Jesus told Him, that all the Kings of the world will finally be destroyed by God and all will be judged by Him. Then a new world will be started.
So go right ahead and get off calling me a war monger. My desire for quick and meaningful warfare is right there for you to read. The Kings, like Iran, or any other egomaniacal state leader, will be destroyed and quickly. Islam, to me, approaches Anti-Christ level.
"Christian" warmongering is so deeply disappointing and dystopian, CK. It's like their Christianity is just an optional add-on that can be laid aside and hidden in a drawer when circumstances (are contrived to) demand. But it's part of prophecy. Wars and rumours of wars, followed by the counterfeit peacemaker(s).
JohnAZ doesn't respect me anymore. Gosh, SheilaB, I just don't know what I am going to do with the rest of my life. My entire life's mission was to make sure that JohnAZ respects me. Dadgum. What shall I do now?
Not only do Christians warmonger, they twist Christ's teachings to infer that Christ was pro-war. It's disgusting to behold.
It truly is. You have to wonder what they see when they read the Gospel. Neither Christ nor his apostles even *defended* themselves, let alone used violence to preserve their lifestyle or whatever the JohnAZs of the world think they're doing.
I'm likewise brokenhearted to find that I'm no longer respected by Arizona's combo of Constantine and Genghis Khan.
Christian? Jesus never promised us a rose garden. Quite the opposite. He submitted to the violence of men, he warned his followers about the “wars” they were going to face during the rise of Christianity, He dispatched them at the Ascension with the directive to convert all nations to Christianity. Do you think that was totally peaceful?
War is the only way that Man has found to resolve disputes, it seems. I think is a gigantic black mark against our species. I do favor quick and deadly war as an alternative to 10:or 20:year fiascos. Trump, due to the insolence of the Iranian leadership, is going to clobber them and prior to the fall elections.
You will get your cheap gas and oil back this fall, thanks to Trump sticking up for you.
Who said he promised us a rose garden? That's not the same as spending decades fighting AGGRESSIVE NOT DEFENSIVE wars against the world.
Please point to the bit where Christ told his followers to convert the nations by warfare, because I've missed it all these years. Have you lost your mind?
"You will get your cheap gas and oil back this fall, thanks to Trump sticking up for you."
Yes I guess you have.
He told his followers to get out Judaism. People like you say we should serve them as 2nd class citizens.
What happened to the North Sea oil? What happened to British guts? Europe doesn’t even stick up for itself anymore, just the Muslims. Not even the Scots.
Are you ever going to forget the Covid fiasco, it does absolutely no good bringing it up over and over and over. I would worry more about the state of cowardice in Europe first.
So, more war humping, as CK would say. That seems to be all you have to offer. No, I'm not going to forget the covid operation (absolutely NOT a fiasco - it achieved what it was meant to achieve and continues to achieve it). It was Phase 1 of the strategy that is continuing with Iran (Stage 2) and included Ukraine and Gaza on the way.
The demoralisation of Europe and the UK was planned by the same people that planned the attack on Iran (no, it wasn't the puppet, Trump).
Re North Sea Oil, it's crumbs anyway compared to the likes of Venezuela, and it has to be sold on the world market, so it doesn't benefit the UK as much as you'd think. You're right that it was abandoned for the genocidal Net Zero agenda that was forced on all of Europe. The Showrunners have just admitted, through the IPCC, that their dire climate predictions were nonsense ('implausible' in IPCC-speak), because the Showrunners have discovered that the data centres they're building to surveille us cost an arm and a leg in both energy and water (it'll be our arms and legs that will be sacrificed for them, obviously). So they're backtracking on 'climate goals' but hardly anyone is talking about it because that's the way it rolls.
https://theexposenews.com/2026/05/09/ipcc-admits-its-doomsday-model-is-implausible/
MSM aren't touching it, of course.
Re 'panto-virus' perhaps Americans aren't familiar with pantomimes?
I love how Carney fully described how his Governor General can "dismiss government" and is CINC of the armed forces. The GG, Louise Arbour, is globalism defined, hence Barry Soetoro's dispatch to Ottawa the other day.
What armed forces?
No kidding! Lol...
Yes, and? Canada inherited the Westminster system from the UK. The disembodied Crown represents the sovereign power of the state, personified by the King or Queen of England whose representative in Canada is the Governor General. These are legal fictions which are our version of America's separation of powers. They are relics of a past in which government served at the pleasure of the sovereign, who held all power. Today, they have no actual power -- none whatsoever, only symbolic roles, including the fact that the armed forces ultimately answer to civilian authority, not the other way around.
You might say, we have a funny way of doing things. To which my reply would be, who cares what you think? We're doing fine as we are and we're not the country that's visibly having a nervous breakdown.
Just one question, SA. If the world divides between the USA and BRICS+, which side will you be on? No fence sitting BS, you will have to make a choice if the great divide happens.
I will be on the side that respects me personally and my country's sovereignty.
Trump/MAGA's attitude toward Canadians having basic self-respect in the face of intense provocation reminds me of that old Jack Handey line: "A man doesn't automatically get my respect. He has to get down on his knees in the dirt and beg for it." Except you mean it sincerely, and take pleasure from inflicting it for real. A hearty "fuck you" is what you earn every single time.
And China, through the Obama led socialists, is invading western Canada just as it is invading our west coast.
Again I ask, make your choice, instead of a bunch of anti-USA TDS bullshit. Who do you want to be affected by the most, the USA or China? It will come down to that if things keep going the way it is.
Oh my fucking god with this China bullshit.
This China bullshit of yours is the exact same bullshit that created the problem the USA is having right now in the Persian Gulf. The USA followed the scent of bullshit into Iraq, and everyone watched it fail. The USA followed the scent of bullshit into Iraq, and everyone watched it fail. The USA followed the scent of bullshit into attacking Iran, and the wreckage of American failure is all around us. Trump has blocked the economic aorta of the planet, and thanks to him all of civilization is about to plunge into depression and starvation.
And now you hold this ‘China China China’ cow patty under my nose, demanding I declare whether it smells like ambrosia. Why should I give a shit about your US/China question? You really, really, really have a genuine need to make everything about yourself.
If you’ve been reading Kunstler long enough, you’ll recall he has said every story has an ending. What he called the end of ‘happy motoring’ is actually the end of overwhelming U.S. power and the advantages that brings. That’s been the message from the start, and now that it’s actually happening all you know how to do is gnaw on the same old bone when the entire fucking point is that it’s been picked clean. Everything is changing… except *your* expectations, and all you know how to do is keep playing as if my agenda is yours to set.
Dude. It’s over. The story is over. Find a new story to tell yourself about the world and America’s place in it. For the sake of my fucking sanity, if nothing else.
I do not give one damn about your sanity or what is left of it.
Phil.
You are delusional and plenty of Canadians posting here support that.
Or in total denial.
Yeah Canada is doing real fine. Ok. Right. Oh, you're Canadian. Right.
That’s correct, we are and I am. It’s your media diet that has filled you with the grievance-fueled, ideologically-directed delusion that (a) there’s something wrong with us, and (b) anything at all about Canada is your fucking problem to begin with.
Your worthless opinion is simply another symptom. It’s precisely your attitude that has led to the USA squandering its strength in stupid wars for the last quarter century, as if you could bomb your way to success. Having squandered all that strength, Trump has now delivered the coup de grace and you will simply have to withdraw. Having grown weak, your plan is to declare victory and use what strength you have left to fuck over the countries closest to you. Because that’s all you can afford anymore.
Firstly, I don't own a tv, don't watch or listen to MSM news. But clearly your country w Mr. Carney in charge and as a Commonwealth of a dying oligarchy you are in serious denial and it's not my fucking problem. My attitude and opinion has absolutely nothing to do with the way this country has been run for the last 50yrs,. In case you are unaware I am not a part of this or any other government. I see you subscribe to the leftist propaganda regarding our President, too bad for you. Typical Canadian head in the sand ignorance.
Thanks for the update on the clusterfuck that has become Iran. All I know is I paid $4.94 for a gallon of 88 ethanol free fuel yesterday. That is the most I have ever paid for gasoline. Ever. Two months ago I was paying $2.98. For most people that is the only "benefit" we Americans are receiving from this shit show that has become the USA's engagement in Iran. Diesel is now hovering around $6.00 a gallon and those truck drivers aren't eating that additional cost, they are passing it down to their customers who in turn pass that on down to us, the little schmuck who has to buy food.
Trump is unraveling the "great economy" he has been so bombastic about. If he doesn't get a resolution to this nonsense ASAP I don't care what the SCOTUS did to the gerrymandering antics of the Democrat Party, the American people are going to vote Democrat.
President Trump had nothing to gain politically in the short term by engaging in military action against Iran. He, in my opinion, correctly understood that the crazy theocratic dictators in Iran would pose an existential threat to the U.S. and its allies if it ever acquired nuclear weapons the means to deliver them beyond the Mideast. I'm willing to endure some short-term economic pain to make sure that Iran does not now--or ever--have that capability.
As for the Democrats winning the election--well, whatever economic pain you are bitching about right now won't be temporary under a Democrat regime, it will be permanent and a whole lot worse. Gas will $10/gal., diesel $12/gal., if you can find either at all. You will be forced to buy an EV--and pay full price for it, while your ICE vehicle will be worthless on the resale market. Electricity will be $0.50 or a even $1.00 per KWH, and there will be rolling blackouts. If the Democrat de facto Socialist dictators think that you are using your EV for "non-essential" or the "wrong" purposes, they will just turn it off. You will live where they tell you, and who your neighbors will be. You will be powerless to stop the homeless and druggies from squatting on your property. They will outlaw home education, private schools, or parochial education for your children--they will go the public schools to be indoctrinated by Socialist teachers who work for the Socialist regime, not for you. Your "unrealized" gains in value of any property that you own will be taxed at confiscatory rates and, if you can not pay or refuse to pay the taxes, your property will be confiscated by the regime. The Socialist regime will "control" prices, but everything--including food--will be rationed. America will be transformed from an obese nation to a starving nation. Medical care will be "free", but the government will tell you what doctor you will see and will decide if you "merit" treatment. And you will be told that you live in a "Socialist Paradise."
That is what voting for Democrats will get you. The biggest battle within the Democrat Party is between the Fascist/Socialist wing and the Communist/Socialist wing. Conservative capitalists are not the Fascists in the U.S.--U.S. Fascists are all Democrats.
"The difference between [socialism and fascism] is superficial and purely formal, but it is significant psychologically: it brings the authoritarian nature of a planned economy crudely into the open. The main characteristic of socialism (and of communism) is public ownership of the means of production, and, therefore, the abolition of private property. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal." -Ayn Rand
"It is a matter of record that in the German Election of 1933, the Communist Party was ordered by its leaders to vote for the Nazis - with the explanation that they could later fight the Nazis for power, but first they had to help destroy their common enemy : capitalism and its parliamentary form of government." -Ayn Rand
I would like to get a hold of the all seeing crystal ball you are looking through that is providing you with clairvoyance on how all the world's affairs are going to work themselves out.
Can you tell me where you obtained yours?
You're a neo-con war humper just like Lindsey Graham. "Freedom 4 Conservatives" my ass.
Such people conserve nothing but their portfolios. Poor F4C thinks that they are care about him and his little porfolio. Capitalist are the Carnies. F4Cs are the rubes. Communists are thugs who work for the Capitalists in case the carnies get out of hand or see through the shell games.
You don't understand what Fascism is, so everything you say about it is nonsense. Fascists and Communists hate each other, you doofus.
That is a blatant LIE. Communists and Fascists are both Socialist. You have been brainwashed to think otherwise--by leftist Socialists, of course. Communists and Fascists are united in their hatred of free market capitalism and a Constitutional Republic. I know that you are likely too brainwashed to accept what Hitler said about it, but there are some people out there, unlike you, who are not brainwashed:
"It is not Germany that will turn Bolshevist, but Bolshevism that will become a sort of National Socialism. Besides, there is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separate us from it… The petit bourgeois Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the Communist always will."
-Adolf Hitler
Google General Franco and Fascists vs Communists in Spain.
From AI:
“The End of "Happy Motoring"Peak Oil and Energy Dependency:
“Kunstler argues that the car-based system assumes cheap, endless energy. In The Long Emergency, he predicts that the depletion of fossil fuels will make this way of life unviable.”
Day 73 of the 3 day war and comical Kunstler continues his Zionist nonsense. And appears not to know that Farage is fully paid up COL stooge!
Beginning to wonder if Jim ain't on the payroll directly as well. If not, he certainly should be.
Jim's getting on in years now. Shame that he's evidently chosen this hill to die on. His novels aren't half bad. Should have stuck to those, unless all this political BS is just some sort of PR stunt to gain readers.
I've been telling them on here what Farage is till my voice gets hoarse. Nobody listens ... As Francis Bacon famously said, people prefer to believe what they would prefer to be true. Frog-face Farage is going to relish doing his job for the central banks, getting us all on to digital rationing apps, while making healthcare unaffordable for everyone except people like him and only available to those who take all their state-mandated injections.
“whatever official utterances come out of Iran, you must discount by about 99.9-percent.” I’d say the same thing about our officials utterances as well.
We have to remember the Gulf War is an asymmetrical war of attrition. It was always known the US would win militarily. What wasn't known was how this would play out over the first month, year, decade. The war itself has damaged NATO in a way Putin could not. That's not very strategic in a world that seems to be heating up. We have never hit 431.12 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, Jim, but typically May's number will be higher: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ This should be global headlines, not series of "skirmishes" on the other side of the world.
Great points! Another lesson currently being learned is that 20'th century style mass warfare no longer really cuts it here in the 21'st. The world is a much more complicated place now. Even the Russians are learning that the hard way, although they're light years ahead of the US. The MIC funding grift is going to have to reinvent itself if it wants to survive, provided it doesn't kill its host first, of course.
Trump claimed it would cost $1.8 million to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue. The Interior Department then moved to pay a Virginia firm called Atlantic Industrial Coatings $13.1 million for the job — a 628% increase over Trump’s stated figure.
A comment someone posted on this news item today:
“Comments often ask, when are the people that voted for this administration going to say enough? The answer is probably never, and it’s due to the fact millions never hear anything about these issues. Besides the usual suspects: Fox News, Newsmax, AON news, the Sinclair Group owns 295 local stations across the country, mostly in Rural areas where this is the only news people get. They control almost 50% of the market.
“So the sad truth is that we have a huge swath of the country who hear nothing about these issues. When you control the media and control the courts you control the Nation.”
Yep.
Yes. The media have literally blood on their hands for their treachery and lies. Justice will come to them in time.
The truly sad thing is that that small amount of grift is utterly inconsequential in the current scale of things. We're a nation drunk on credit led by the very class who extends it.
But yeah let’s indict Jerome Powell for cost overruns.
“Of course, whatever official utterances come out of Iran, you must discount by about 99.9-percent.”
Really?
How about these official utterances from Trump?
“Go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days.”
“It’s always been a four-week process. We figured it will be four weeks or so. It’s always been about a four-week process, so — as strong as it is, it’s a big country, it’ll take four weeks — or less.”
“No, I might’ve forced their hand. They [Iran] were going to attack. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. So if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”
“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER! After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction, making it economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. IRAN WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE. ‘MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).’”
“It’s a waste of time. They’ve lost everything. They’ve lost their navy. They’ve lost everything they can lose.”
“We’ve wiped every single force in Iran out, very completely. They have no leadership. It’s all been blown up.”
“Well, it’s both. It’s both. It’s an excursion that will keep us out of a war, and the war is going to be — I mean, for them it’s a war. For us, it’s turned out to be easier than we thought.”
And these are only a few from March. Yeah, let’s talk about official utterances. What the hell, and we haven’t even gotten to Hegseth and his nonsense.
Two weeks to clatten the furve.
My favorite Trump lie was when he flat out declared that "The war is over" about two weeks ago. I mean, I can't make this stuff up.
Years ago there was a best selling book converted into a decent movie; Three Faces of Eve. About dissociative identify disorder. Kind of reminds me of Trump.
By many accounts in private he can be polite, likable and civil. Then we get the public bombastic, insulting, crude version. Finally at night and early morning on Truth Social we get the spoiled teen version venting on any and all while stamping his feet.
You’re right, hard to make this stuff up.
Makes me wonder if anti-psychotic prescription drugs aren't involved as well. We know for sure they were enabling Biden that way, so why not Trump as well? Supports the idea that these elected idiots are largely actors playing a role.