Maybe it would have been wiser to just sit the last one out. Or even to have done like Khan in Star Trek II and – for hate’s sake – voted for her.
Why not, after all?
It might have turned out better.
Obamacare wasn’t going away in any case; I think we all knew that, deep down. The idea of the feds ever voluntarily giving back power once acquired is preposterous. It is a thing only fools and children could possibly believe in, like Santa Claus.
Under her, we would still have Obamacare, of course. But under him, we are now to be dunned $3,000 for each year we elect not to be “covered.” This will have the effect of turning hundreds of thousands of people – possibly millions – into debt slaves or “criminals” or both. A person – young, not much money or perhaps self-employed – goes “without coverage” (but not costing anyone a cent) for say five years and now he “owes” the insurance mafia $15,000. Will the government seize his bank accounts and property and dun his paycheck to collect it on behalf of the mafia?
This is what is meant by Repeal and Replace.
Instead of the so-called Individual Mandate, which belts us with a punitive tax paid to the government annually for failing to purchase coverage, we are to be dunned by the insurance mafia – backed by the government – if we elect not to be covered and two to three times as much.
That is the Republicans’ idea of a “market-based health care reform.”
Big corporations using the government to rob us. We might as well all be stamping out license plates in a federal pen someplace.
It gets worse – of course.
She would not have been as vicious as he is becoming with regard to arbitrarily illegal drugs. They would of course have remained illegal; there is simply too much money and power in it to ever allow the War on Some Drugs to peter out entirely. But a North Korean-style jihad against non-violent users/sellers of arbitrarily illegal drugs would likely not have been initiated under her Leadership.
We are about to get exactly that – a jihad – under his Leadership.
The worst sort of jihad. Moralistic braying about the arbitrary “sinful” conduct of others, which is the sort of thing Republicans specialize in.
This ought to make especially Libertarians cringe – those who “held their noses” and voted for him as the lesser of two evils, or a kind of damage control/firewall against the perceived looming depredations of her.
As bad as Leader Obama was – and as bad as Leader Hillary would have been – we now have Leader Trump and it not only makes no difference, the difference is becoming worse.
She at least had to pay some lip service to the putative mild-mannered humanism of the far-from-Jeffersonian “liberalism” she and hers pretend to represent. After all, the Democrats care about people.
Republicans suffer under no such impediment.
His people care about Law and Order. About crushing enemies, seeing them driven before them and hearing the lamentations of their women. They are perpetually priapic about The Homeland and might as well begin playing Die Fahne Hoch at their rallies. They love The Flag and all it represents – which is to say, government power.
Their power.
And what good is power if you don’t use it?
Against non-violent users and sellers of arbitrarily illegal drugs, for instance? But that is small potatoes. The real itchy-triggerdness is directed against – as always – The Enemies of Freedom abroad.
These are located very far abroad. So far abroad they are literally incapable of so much as poking Our Freedoms in the ribs. Yet they must be shown who is boss by the Big Boss, who not only itches to say You’re Fired! but also itches to fire something – many things – at these Enemies of Freedom. It keeps the flags waving, you see – and also disposes of some otherwise useless military surplus which will, of course, need to be replaced (never repealed) at tremendous expense.
Else Our Freedoms will be in jeopardy.
Because, you see, ten 100,000 ton nuclear powered aircraft carriers and 18 Ohio Class nuclear subs each carrying a dozen nuclear-tipped missiles and then another 10,000 or so nukes stored away in various places in the Homeland plus about 8,000 jet fighters, bombers and other military aircraft of various types and an annual budget of around $600 billion isn’t quite sufficient to protect Our Freedoms from evildoers abroad.
He wants more of all these things. Like Herman Goring at Karinhall, who played with his trains while his pet lion gamboled in the background.
She would have stolen and spent our money on things, too – including War Things. But probably less so. Which was what we – those of us who got Charlie Brown’d by his Lucy – expected him to do.
Now we’re getting it and then some – a worse-than-Obamacare federal bayonet in our backs plus a Drug War on Viagra and the always-more-fervent Republican fetish for The Troops and anything wrapped in The Flag.
It’s like a tent revival scene from the ’30s, sweaty and turgid.
Or another kind of revival.
Cue Die Fahne Hoch.
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Oh Trump sucked from day one. Candidate Trump said all the right things, President Trump did everything he said he was against. More war more useless miltary spending, exploding defiicit. He just signed a bill that gives 20 million to Pakistan for gender studies and 500 million to Sudan – huh? Didnt negotiate anything. Could have hired his sons and non-military and outsiders for staff positions. Nope. We get Kushner and stone dumb generals instead. Hired nothing but traitors. Still trying to start a war with Iran by sending B52s on a 30 hour flight there – huh? He let Obama and Hilary off the hook but hes not getting left off the hook. the left will come after him with knives, And of course presiding over tha most bullshit election in our history
Why would any reasonable person believe a guy that paroles and pardons creeps like Jonathan Pollard and Scooter Libby would do the same for Assange and Snowden?
an article even more appropriate two years later as Trump hired the most nauseous people from the Bush and Obama eras to “advise” him. And we’re still in the regime change business licking our chops at Venezuela and Iran. Its such a big joke. Not one war has been ended or reduced. And Assange and Manning are still being tortured. We actually elected President Kushner and didnt know it.
Here’s my facebook. https://www.facebook.com/tor.munkov Stop by and post on my wall. Especially if you’re also in the Pollock Mafia or a Cyganie.
Trump is trying to bring an Israeli nationalist egoist mindset to America.
Most Jews worldwide live the Make Israel Great Again. They either help Israel directly. Or help diaspora Jews and think secretly and aloof to whatever nation they happen to inhabit.
This is the kind of NAP I advocate.
Trump is trying to do some basic things to make the protestant nation state healthy again.
Of course I prefer anarcho capitalism ideally. But I do think what Trump is doing is useful.
I would certainly not like the US to be over-run by violent immigrants like most German speaking EU nations have been.
It’s a long slog, but everywhere in the world is not collapsing. Look at Israel. Switzerland. Japan. Certainly they are as authoritarian as here. But they are far less diverse and chaotic.
Why not do as the Jews do. Say we are paleo conservatives. Or Christian minarchist theocrats. Whatever they want to hear so they’ll leave us in peace. And do business with us so we can amass a cache of fuck you money.
Then come here and plot how we are really going to live and thrive when we’ve “Jewed” the statists long enough and hard enough that we have all kinds of property and capital and means of production and established relations with powerful phyles who are comfortable dealing with us.
Jews only appear to sell out. Same with Chinese or Japanese. They take jobs and run businesses here. But the way they really live includes ties to their homeland. What the NAP Cooperative still lacks is a homeland. A single place where we can point to, that our beliefs are made manifest. And that at least some people live in peace and by trade.
And not by force and by violence.
Technically are Jews, Japs, Chinks, stealing from us? Probably. But that is a good thing for them.
It could also be good thing for us if we can learn to stomach it. Otherwise we end up living as their niggers and colonists. It’s either or. Their is no moral realm where are better than other cultures.
There is only objective reality, and how things really are. After you’ve fully redpilled and admit you used to be a slave to altruism. That your lives had become unmanageable.
We admitted we were powerless over altruism – that our lives had been lived for others long dead. Or captaining grand churches. Or imaginary eternal heavens. Or idealized enlightenments and renaissances.
We are pathetic morality crack heads. Unable to go even a few minutes without some kind of guilt or self hate. We need the crack pipeline of high sounding mirrors and smoke.
That we must think in binary. That there is a day and a night. Not that there is always a local level of observable lumenosity. Seen from space. What we call day and night means nothing outside our orbit. Our whole concept of time is primitive. Based on hominids who only live on the surface of one world 4000 miles from the spherical center.
We haven’t even mastered our gravity well. We don’t live in zeppelins. And on the oceans. In the Antartic. Deep in the mantle. Even in the core which is technically possible.
How can we even conceive of property on a grid system. When we inhabit a sphere. Someone else could live a mile beneath us. Men would grow use to the heat and pressure. And many new types of mankind would emerge and evolve.
Even men who’ve always live in orbit in a slow rotating shell at low gravity. People could live that breathed only nitrogen and took supplements to prevent eschemia.
There is no box to think outside of it. Boxes don’t exist in nature. It is a geometric savagery we someday will transcend the way we’ve transcended spears and stone tools.
Hetero Bonobo Sapiens. All of us in a troop. Yet all of us free to diverge and to trade and to economically, physically specialize and uniquely adapt.
NAPology is a limitless percept.
Eric! NOooooooooooooooooooooo! Hillary would have had goons breaking down our doors looking for hidden guns by now, we’d all be forced to buy a Prius or ride a bus (Government Cattle Car), our kids would be forced to wear Gender Neutral Uniforms to school that would look like Hillary’s Mao Wear in NAZI Brown, all restaurants would be forced to weigh patrons on entry and provide customers over 110 pounds the appropriate Tofu and Lettuce Menu.
Keeping Trump protects our guns.
On that basis he is a libertarian and it is reasonable to support him for what he gets right.
http://www.lneilsmith.org/whyguns.html
10,000,000 people will march on Washington if they try to impeach Trump… they will be heavily armed. I will be one of them.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-17/10000000-people-will-march-washington-if-they-impeach-trump-they-will-be-armed-no-ki
Hi Tor,
I wonder… I now suspect that Trump may decide only “heroes” (armed government workers) may possess weapons because… Officer Safety.
I don’t think he is Putin’s cock holster. But I do think his veneration of armed government workers is as bad or worse than Gail’s!
Stephen Colbert reference? Really? He’s the Pravda of comedy.
Maybe Trump’s already sedated and in a bunker and his CIA double is the White House.
He’s been solid on guns so far.
Trump reaffirms law and order, gun rights vows
http://www.guns.com/2017/01/24/trump-reaffirms-law-and-order-gun-rights-vows/
He’s following the law and past precedent faithfully.
Bush Sr was CIA head.
Literally The American Putin.
Chimp was Putin Junior.
Trump agenda was in many Respects Ross Perot – Ron Paul agenda.
Time will tell if it reaches fruition.
If Pence takes up the Trumpian candidate mantel, it’d be better than the usual at least.
A bit over the top implementing Godwin’s Law, eh? Granted, Trump has made many mistakes. But consider…. There is a lot of resistance to re-igniting the Drug War to the proportions of the past, to cite your main attack on Trump and Sessions. So that might not even happen. Hillary really would have been our worst nightmare, starting or escalating wars all over the world, esp. against Russia. Trump hasn’t been perfect, but seems to be getting along with Russia and China. The Syria bombing was wrong, but it looks like it’s over. North Korea is cooling down. The CAFE standards, as you have noted, have been restrained. Gorsuch probably will be OK, although we won’t know for a decade or more; Hillary’s pick would have tilted the Supreme Court against gun rights and come up with who knows what horrible decisions. We’ll get some tax cuts. “Obamacare wasn’t going away in any case,” you wrote; looks like we’re just stuck with it, although there’s a chance Trump might make it a little better. With Hillary, we would be marching toward single payer. Trump isn’t destroying trade, just renegotiating some of the worst deals. Something had to be done about immigration, and so far just from Trump blabbing, illegal crossings are down 70%. The economy is growing faster. Trump is, if anything, entertaining, unlike the dour Hillary. All that surface stuff about the Russians, the Comey firing and Trump being nuts is just Main Sleaze Media fake news.
Hi John,
My chief worry is that Trump will prove to be – is proving to be – another Chimp in that his disastrous presidency will result in the “blowback election” of someone like Warren. Just as the Chimp made Obama inevitable – as I never tire of reminding Republicans who supported him (as they now support Trump).
Things began to go south when Trump began to speak of replacing rather than repealing Obamacare. With the got-damned Republicans holding all three branches, this should have been the one promise delivered on.
But, no.
As always, the GOP enshrines and cements what the Democrats initiate.
And lately, all Trump seems interested in talking about is how “we” need to spend more to “rebuild” the “defense” apparat of the federal government; that and sucking cop.
I’ve had my fill, can’t abide anymore of it.
Even Anne Coulter is saying sayonara.
Eric, you make a lot of good points. It’s probably bad no matter what. But I don’t think the Chimp/Bush comparison is apt. The $7 trillion Iraq/Afghan wars smashed the economy and brought on the Dems in 2006 and 2008, hence Obamacare. Trump is against any big new wars, although he’s continuing some of those left him by Bush/Obama. Trump learned that lesson. By contrast, to keep to the issue at hand, if Hillary had won: 1. A likely confrontation with Russia, possibly nuclear. She’s as psycho as McCain. That’s why Walter Block formed Libertarians for Trump; granted Walter is not that happy with Trump in office. 2. Syria turned into Libya, also her doing back in 2011: millions dead, millions more streaming into Europe and the USA. 3. Really bad Supreme Court appointments. One by now, maybe two if Ginsburg had retired. Kiss 2nd Amendment goodbye. 4. 55 mph CAFE permanent, raised later on. 5. (Despite Coulter’s understandable misgivings under Trump:) Instead of Trump’s 70% reduction in illegal immigration, a 70% increase under HRC. (See Hans Hoppe on libertarians and immigration.) As in California, that would guarantee Democratic victories for decades. The Republicans leave a lot to be desired, esp. at the national level, but at least there’s some give and take; and at the local level, Republicans sometimes can do good things. Compare Texas (0% state income tax) to California (13.5% top rate). 6. Not even a chance of a decent Obamacare replacement; instead, single-payer. We’ll likely get single-payer anyway, but in maybe 10 years. 7. No chance of tax cuts. 8. No chance of returning to the pre-1971 gold standard, something Trump has talked about. Of course, that was a defective gold standard, but was better than what we’ve suffered since. 9. A major recession begun on Nov. 9; stock market down 50%; unemployment 10%.
Here’s Coulter’s latest take: “Every time I try to be mad at Trump, the media reel me back in by launching some ridiculous, unprovoked attack. This time, it’s the fake news story about Trump ‘leaking’ classified information to the Russkies.”
The rest here: http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/05/17/ann-coulter-every-time-try-mad-trump-media-pull-back/
Hi John,
I desperately look for positive things to say about him – but this Syria business, the North Korea crap, the “repeal and replace” stuff … it’s infuriating. Many – me among them – supported (if that’s the right word) him because god help us if the alternative slithered on her slime trail into the White House. But we’re just getting More of the Same. True, he has not rescinded the 2A. But I dread that he will render it a nullity by empowering the Sturmabteilung (law enforcement) to a degree even she would not have done.
But most of all, I dread that the stage has been set for . . . her.
Not Clinton. Thank god, she is almost ready for that formaldehyde flushing and isn’t long for this world.
No, I mean . . . her.
The other New England termagant, Elizabeth Warren. Or worse.
Trump – like The Chimp did for Obama – could make her inevitable.
This may have been the plan all along.
We may not need concern ourselves with presidents much longer. The anti-Trump narrative has half the country or more believing that the deep state technocrats are always right. That POTUS must follow their instructions. After Trump could be open technocratic rule with it known that the elected government is ceremonial. Even if not so the next president will do as instructed.
It won’t be Warren. She’ll be 71 in 2020 and doesn’t have IT. She wouldn’t do well in the primaries. After being out of power even 4 years, the Dems will want to win. That means winning back the working class voters in MI, PA and WI. So it’ll be somebody like Brian Schweitzer, former Montana governor and a gun and oil drilling enthusiast.
But I still think, despite all the ongoing nonsense, Trump will be a highly successful president, albeit with dumb actions like a new drug war (probably not as bad as some fear). He will be re-elected in 2020.
Minnie Haha?…………………………………………………………………
I am guessing we don’t even know who that person is (this is assuming Trump does the full 8 years, which is still likely). It will be someone not well known now. Both Bill Clinton and Barry Obama were virtually unknown nationwide five years before they became president. Obama wasn’t known nationally until 2004 (when he spoke at the DNC conv.). Bill wasn’t known until he was running in the primary in 1992.
That happens now, because a known person has known dirt. And it is harder to hide in this age. Hillary knows this problem all too well now. She has been known since 1992 as well, and people never really liked her from day 1.
And its a reason Obama ran for president so fast. He knew, that the more you knew about him, the less you would like him. It was now or never. Had things and timing been a bit different, he would likely still be in an unknown Illinois state senate (no not the US senate, the state senate) seat in a crappy south side Chicago district.
I guess there was suppose to be some hope that Trump would be different, he talked different and seemed to be different. I hope this proves to everyone that there is NO DIFFERENCE, it doesn’t matter who you vote for. They never give up power and control, it is not ever going to happen. Never.
We got the the wars, we got the spending, we got the control. Who knows, maybe we would be better off with Hillary, couldn’t be much worse. She might have pushed us into single payer, free healthcare which is where it needs to go. There is no rational “fix” for it, only more control. So might as well stop breaking families backs trying to afford healthcare.
Hi Todd,
I agree.
I believe Trump may prove far worse than Hillary – much as The Chimp turned out to be far worse than Al Gore.
As I never tire of pointing out to my Republican friends (the few I still have!) it was The Chimp tat made the inconceivable – Obama – inevitable.
What will come after Trump?
not just that. Chimp pushed and signed Patriot act!! What horror will Trump sign? What war might he start?
Yup. And Republicans like Gail will wrap themselves in “old glory” and cheer it…
Woah… I have been not following politics for the past few months… Are you saying that if i don’t have health insurance, I owe $3000 a year?
The health bill isn’t final yet. The senate is finalizing it.
As it now stands insurers can charge you up to 30% more in premiums if you have a lapse in coverage.
In eric’s case this means as much as $3,000 a year.
If you can’t control everybody with a law, increase the penalties till they can’t tolerate the situation. I certainly wish everybody in this country would realize we’re getting just what the Illuminati has had in the making practically, forever as it pertains to this country. Home of the brave(Gail…..safely tucked away watching from the sidelines), land of the free(freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose).
Hi C_lover,
Yup. Under Trump’s “plan,” the insurance mafia will be able to dun you $3,000 per year for each year you go “uninsured.”
I already “owe” them $1,500 (six months, about, for 2017).
They will have to come get and it.
Hi Eric,
I looked at the language … under the current wording, the insurance companies will get to whop you a 30% surcharge for one year if you get coverage after being uncovered.
It doesn’t say they can hit you up with a fine if you’re uninsured and continue to be so.
If they inserted different language at the last moment, I’d like to see it.
It’s still odious meddling, but it doesn’t appear to do what you say it does.
They really want to take care of me but they’ll kill me if I refuse. Ironic.
The Machiavellian in me was hoping for a Hillary victory. With Madam Hillary in charge, our collapse wouldn’t be postponed. Hillary would have given us that overdue, bloody revolution. If you think about it, Trump is the ideal puppet for the elite. He’s certainly giving anti-establishment voters a false sense of security…..
Hi Handler,
Yep. Just as The Chimp made Obama possible, even inevitable, The Orange One will make Warren (or much worse) inevitable.
Hi Eric:
A bit OT: could you make this my icon?
i.vimeocdn.com/filter/overlay?src0=https%3A%2F%2Fi.vimeocdn.com%2Fvideo%2F195544750_1280x960.jpg&src1=https%3A%2F%2Ff.vimeocdn.com%2Fimages_v6%2Fshare%2Fplay_icon_overlay.png
Handler, here’s good article on Machiavelli and how he’s been misinterpreted for 300 years. http://lewrockwell.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6ad24f4cd1574f1f7b8a0a03a&id=08790080a3&e=62e95e6f13
I read Machiavelli for a literary course, not political. I was taught in school that it was mostly satire in terms of it being a manual for good leadership.
However, it was from that book I realized that North Korea is not controlled by KIM. He is a puppet, like all government figureheads.
I think we are not seeing the forest for the trees. What is going on right now is much more serious: Trump firing Comey like he did and reminding us of Watergate in the process means the US is beginning to lose its great power status to the other big boys in the yard: China, and, to a lesser extent, Russia
Another bonus of TrumpCare? It repeals the mandate that health care insurance must be provided by employers with over 50 full time employees. Now, I am all for mandates being rescinded of course, but imagine the reaction when millions of addlepated AmeriKunts suddenly find themselves on the hook for the ENTIRE monthly bill for health care “insurance”, just like the self employed, marginally employed or part time employed. In my case the increase will be from roughly $500 to $1600 a month, assuming my employer drops employee health care across the board, which I see no reason why they would not. Nor do I see any reason why thousands of other large employers would not do the same either. And once that happens, you’ll be able to hear the caterwauling of millions of aggrieved Boobus from space. Government will then jump on the chance to finally enact “single payer” mandatory government health care. Trump will happily sign it, since he has been in favor of it all along – http://ijr.com/2016/02/537107-5-times-donald-trump-praised-socialized-healthcare/
And if you think health care is intrusive, expensive and unresponsive now, just wait until it’s “free”.
Just like CO2 restrictions, nothing will be outside the bounds of government regulation and control: sour, unresponsive and bitter “DMV Fraus” will be your bedside companions, and all your assets will be subject to civil forfeiture to pay back the common fund.
It can still get much worse. A feminine Soviet demise. Not a masculine purposeful German one.
The deep state can completely marginalize and isolate Trump.
Then hand Pence the reigns so he can create a fundamentalist christian dictatorship as orthodox and strict as Russia in the Red counties, and as corrupt and irresponsible as Greece in the blue counties.
Sessions, Mattis, and team will be the new Western Politburo for the entire Western Bloc.
And World corporate climate Czar Tillerson in charge of all industry.
Sigh.
If I weren’t so worn out, I’d leave. But it’s too much to pick up sticks, so here I shall stay and await the tsunami… remember the scene in Deep Impact?
Where to go now? New Zealand has been swamped by Westerners figuring that they are Zimbabweification or Shariah Declaration away from being exterminated in “their” countries.
WWIII will not be the swift radioactive flash that we of the last generation had anticipated. It will a thousand ethnic cleansings and 500 purges. A slow bloody campaign of Bolshevik and Islamic terror. The microwave death will become rather appealing soon enough.
I am always reminded of Lex Luther’s amazement in Superman II about “this thing going the distance.” What is coming already has me wishing that the World War III we worried nightly about had come to fruition and gave the world the enema it has needed since the 1960’s.
There’s no good option… absent FTL technology… which by the way I am convinced exists. I know, I’m a kook…
By dint of knowing the speed of light and knowing it’s a constant, you are convinced that something travels faster. Sounds good to me. A drowning man can see hope in the merest of perceived saviors even if it’s only an illusion. I’ll be glad to throw you a rope of hope for a reservation when the FTL ship sails so to speak. I don’t see a hell of a lot I like these days. The Gail sort of cluelessness is preferable to seeing it for what it is in some ways. I’ll see freedom in my dreams.
All aboard. People of the world, join hands, for the love train, love train…..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQvmCzILBfE
eric, I watched a video yesterday on YT about CERN. One thing they’re trying to do with CERN is FTL and a video of UFO’s said to be FTL. They are really going for a time portal due to some results they won’t speak of. Think of time as a book and we’re currently a single page in it.
I think the Trump regime is worth it for the entertainment value. Just the wailings of the chattering classes makes it worth it.
Eight years of Hillary’s condescending “I won” bullying would have been insufferable.
Trump is the best we had any reason to believe we would get. Civil War 2 is still coming, but it won’t be under Frau Clinton and her wagging finger as she opened the gates to 50 Million more muslims.
After 8 years of the mahogany godling, did anyone furtively believe we could have George Washington?
Hi Thought,
No – I wasn’t expecting Washington. But I did have some slight hope that he might actually rescind Obamacare – not enshrine it. And that instead of blowing hard about “regime changing” foreign turdocracies, he would actually do something about changing the regime in DC…
eric, you tapered off there ha ha. At least I, if not everyone else, didn’t let his hopes get high enough to be surprised. The surprise would have been him doing anything he said he would. I’m sure glad I bought that tribe size jar of Vaseline last year since I don’t expect to be able to afford it this year…..I have too many Republicans with big bucks who’ll need it worse. Funny how they never seem to get enough ain’t it?
For the time being, I’ve done a lot of sky watching at night. They haven’t taken the Milky Way away…..yet…..but I can feel it in my old bones it’s acomin. The stars at night are still bright deep in the heart of Texas(tears come to my eyes)and I can only hope they’ll be the brightest things I see at night.
I’m back to early sixties and it feels good. Sit around at night and look at the stars and sip a cold one or three, listen to the coyotes howl, CJ raising hell back and playing their own challenge back to them on my smart phone. It could be worse….and I know that’s right! And to think you and I see the same stars and have the same soundtrack.
8SM, et al,
You wrote:
“I’m back to early sixties and it feels good. Sit around at night and look at the stars and sip a cold one or three, listen to the coyotes howl, CJ raising hell back and playing their own challenge back to them on my smart phone. It could be worse….and I know that’s right! And to think you and I see the same stars and have the same soundtrack.”
I’ll tell you what I tell my friend who I have known since 1966….”If the world ends tomorrow, we will have had the good fortune to live in the best conditions in the best place at the best time in human history. Further, I don’t see how given current trends, any population will ever have it better on the whole. We were not rich in fiscal terms, but we had an unprecedented run of freedom, unique in human history!”(FWIW, I was born in 1950…do the math)
It is galling to watch the collapse of the empire and to realize at one time the ideals had so much potential. I know that as a libertarian I view individuals based on their singular character, but the millennial generation has been so brainwashed, that I see little hope for them. So, I’ll sit here in SE TN and raise a glass to you and Eric as we await the fall.
As to Trump, what can I say….surely nobody with more than a few braincells functioning ever believed any real progress was possible given the political environment that exists within the deep state. At least Hillary Clinton did not make it into the dictatorship.
Salute!
Guiseppe, it IS galling to watch freedom take a back seat to stupidity but it’s happening right on schedule via bad schools and people who, if they knew better, were simply tilting at windmills if they wanted to stop it.
In late Feb. of 1950 a fat baby boy was born during a blizzard and unbeknownst to him, it would be the last time he saw any normal moisture fall until he was 8 years old.
Back then everyone in west Tx was poor but we didn’t know it and life was really good.
BTW, a couple years ago I met a guy from SE Tn. who turned out to be a person in kind. He makes some righteous shine too.
Scary… I think he has tried to do what he said he was going to, but the Republican Congress and the Fifth Column Obama Bureaucrats and judges have thwarted him. With the aside of the Kushner hijacking of the presidency – he and his wife should be barred from any government involvement – from what I see Trump has done far more than any of his “Republican” opponents would have and is a marked improvement over Frau Hillary.
Trump is three card monte master. Watch the hand, no this hand. As he moves the shells around and infuriates his political opponents he is replacing the pea out of sight.
I have stated before that America’s Kafka Healthcare system could never be fixed and was on this path as soon as Medicare and Medicaid were started. The free heroin of a federal printing press gets far too many hooked with tremendous appetites for the “product.” With one end of the industry free to get high as a kite, the rest of the industry gets pulled up along with it. Free from the gravity of economics and the ability of people not helping spread the federal smack around to actually pay, there is no gravity to rein in the expense – see fraud, theft and abuse.
I live in Schumer’s home district. You want to talk about “Russian influence” come see what goes on here. Medicaid/Medicare fraud is a $50 Billion NY industry, it fuels the creation of Eastern European millionaires by the thousands. Fraud clinics, fraud doctors, attorneys – then the accountants, secondary employees, real estate agents, “developers” to launder all of that money – Medicare/Medicaid fraud is as profitable as the drug trade without the risk of local police and rival cartels coming at you. At worst there is an infrequent FBI investigation – a quick headline, then a quiet fine is paid, a slight jail sentence once in awhile, with the guilty allowed to retain 95% of the proceeds and free to go right back into the fraud. I watch it happen weekly. Schumer often runs interference and is quick to scream “antisemitism” should any zealous prosecutor not know who butters his bread.
Time and time again I looked into who the builders were buying multi-million dollar properties and then “developing” them into million+ condos – the names repeatedly show up as having been arrested for medicaid fraud.
You really have to understand the scope of it to get a handle on just who will stop any attempt at reining in the free smack. Those of us who understand what transpires here were laughing when Obamacare was enacted – the russians whom Schumer has been “influenced” by for decades were overjoyed that the federal printing press would ultimately get behind millions more “patients” and that the wealth extracted from the suckers who had to now cough up exponential increases in premiums as they faced fines/forced wealth extractions if they did not participate. They went from Mercedes Benzes to Bentleys and Rolls Royces. Some are building heliports on their roofs now.
The machine is so immense now and the its velocity unstoppable, that it would take an immoveable object of immutable integrity to even slow it down. Without Congressional support, Trump even he he were that immoveable and immutable object would be barely a slight dip in the road that the beast would race over.
Dear Thought, you wrote “I think he has tried to do what he said he was going to, but the Republican Congress and the Fifth Column Obama Bureaucrats and judges have thwarted him.”
The wife ast me to ast u whut u were drinking when you wrote that. We r por and gettin porer just listnin to Trump speek so we cain spen a lot on likker but we wont to fele liek that jis fer a fu ours befor we di. We wil b atha likker stor later. Thanx so much.
You’re right to blame Obamacare on Bush, who was so horrible we got the Dem supermajority in the Senate, 2009-10. There’s also no way to repeal it 100%. The only way “out,” such as it is, would be to produce real solid economic growth for a couple of years, 5-7% as under Reagan, with no inflation, then 1) use that to put the 24 million (or whatever the real number is) dependent on Obamacare onto Medicare/Medicaid, costing maybe $100 billion a year; 2) repeal Obamacare entirely. Not my solution. But it would be workable.
The republicans and this replace Obamacare BS is reminding me of the Star Trek episode where they go to a planet that was interfered with and based upon Nazi Germany. John Gill (one of Kirk’s professors at the *academy*) interferes with a planet’s development because under the Nazi’s it was a highly productive state (he found the good in a bad situation which all the bad is to be ignored i.e. *pre-existing conditions*). Of course in the episode John Gill, while dying, realizes his mistake and agrees that *non-interference* “The Prime Directive” is the only way. The republicans always talk the game of freedom and free markets but always end up violating the prime directive.
Trumpcare was not about to give up the two primary purposes of Obamacare.
1) More wealth for the medical cartel.
2) Using “health insurance” as a tool to enslave people to corporate employment.
Every time I hear Horst Wessel Lied I see this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPks6vvjIwg
Elwood Blues, A known traffic menace.
“I hate Illinois nazis”
-Joliet Jake.
What’s that last photo? Hermann Göring playing with model trains?
The interesting turn-of-phrase I heard the other week about President Trump is that he’s political chemotherapy.
You know – poisonous enough to kill the cancer but (hopefully) not poisonous to kill the host.
Yup – the Reichsmarschall at Karinhall… playing with his trains…
Once again, Eric, you are so right. I really thought he might “drain the swamp”, and I so wished that what I thought was a middle finger to the establishment would truly shake things up. Alas, not only more of the same, but now even worse. Not to mention the fact that, whatever direction he takes us in, he is truly an egotistical, arrogant dipshit who has no idea what the fuck he is doing. Can’t help but wonder, perhaps he intended to “make America great again “, but the deep state powers that be showed him what’s what real quick? Maybe a little lesson about who really blew JFK’s brains out, or who really took out those towers in NY. Makes you wonder, Trump seems to have changed his tune real quick.