Weekly Funnies, Fredo Reappears

And so, Chris Cuomo thinks being called Fredo is a racial slur, personally, I think anybody stupid enough to think so is typecast as a Fredo, but then when I look in my mirror, I don’t see a useless propagandist for the CPUSA. His mileage no doubt varies.

Not to mention starting conspiracy theories

Funny, just the other day on our Hong Kong update, Scoop and I were discussing this in comments.

 

America Offers To Trade All Of Its Communists For Democratic Protesters In Hong Konghttps://t.co/U2VAmQrPnZ

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) August 14, 2019

 

White privilege, right here

I. am. Booot.

Another move towards world dominance. Yay!

Who’s a good boy?

And, of course

And so another week of silliness, mostly unintentional, somebody will be just as stupid next week, depend on it.

Sunday Funnies: Arkanicide Edition

Things like Epstein’s suicide should not happen on Friday, it doesn’t leave much time to produce the requisite memes.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and a couple of years is not conducive to belief in the fairness of the investigation

**BREAKING STATEMENT FROM AG Barr**

“Mr. Epstein’s death raises serious questions that must be answered. In addition to the FBI’s investigation, I have consulted with the Inspector General who is opening an investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Epstein’s death.”

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) August 10, 2019

So we’ll see, but the government has an awful lot riding on this, like whatever small shred of credibility it has left.

 

And, of course

 

Children’s Crusade and Fascist Idiots

From the Colonel:

You look at the Democratic debaters and you despair. It’s a hackneyed collection of motley mediocrities that includes, among other things, an unrepentant crusty commie, an ersatz squaw, a golddigging narc, a handsy grandpa, a furry, and a New Age weirdo who unironically channels Oddball from Kelly’s Heroes.

To quote the gender fluidity pioneers of Twisted Sister, America, if that’s your best, your best won’t do.

Now, we’re supposed to ignore their undeniable lousiness because we’re in a crisis. The crisis appears to be that our elite has been denied total power via the defeat of Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit, but that’s not how they sell it. It’s a crisis of rampant bigotry. It’s a crisis of foreigners not being subsidized by Americans. It’s a crisis of the weather maybe being different in a century. But these crises share one thing in common: only the liberal elite can save us.

Well, there is a crisis, but not the one they are pushing. The looming existential challenge we face is not the failure to appease some angry climate goddess but, rather, the frivolous priorities of these bored beneficiaries of the bounty of Western civilization. They got handed a world of peace and prosperity unparalleled in human history and instead of appreciating and protecting it they want to toss it all away. Why? Precisely because they got handed it. The dummies who make up our elite don’t value the society they inherited because think this is the natural state of man – that all this just sort of happened and that it will go on just sort of happening forever no matter how much they undermine its foundations.

But it won’t.

Let’s start with the most basic problem, which is that the undistinguished members of our ruling caste hate the people they presume to rule over. It’s not a matter of simply regarding the proles as uncouth and vulgar and not our sort of people. It’s hate. Bitter, clingy hate. And our elite feels no obligation to the people who make their cushy lives possible. A functioning ruling class at least tries to rule; ours finds that too much work and instead focuses on Chardonnay and condescension.

You look back in history and the upper class at least showed up for the hard stuff. The Roman elite was out there on the battlefield with the peasants (that was after they allowed the mob into the army – for a long time only the patricians were allowed to fight). The British upper class was out there on the battlefield too. The elite used to acknowledge obligations to their lessers, and when they stopped doing that, things went sideways. When Flavius and the gang decided to let the barbarians handle the strenuous work of defending the Empire and chilled in the local vomitorium instead of hoofing it to battle the Parthians, Rome started falling. The British upper class doesn’t do anything harder today than ring up the local bobbies to demand the arrest of Twitter yobs who say mean things.

The American ruling class is garbage too. Did any of those 671 Democrats up on that stage ever seem to side with their own society?

Keep reading, he is, as usual spot on. Personally, I don’t care if you buy his books or not, but his diagnosis is correct.

And now they think we should join a children’s crusade led by a brain-damaged 16-year old whose own parents can’t be bothered to tell her to STFU and get back in school where you belong.

From The Federalist:

The heroine of the environmental movement is on her way. Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish celebrity protester, has finally figured out a way to bring her extremist message to the New World.

Thunberg, who has been the focus of adulatory coverage throughout Europe and in mainstream American outlets such as CNN, the New York Times, and a cover story in Time magazine, is a teenage sensation leading a movement of angry European children. Thunberg and her fans are demanding that their country’s governments act to stop global warming. What’s more, they are denouncing as sellouts even those who agree with their goal but are reluctant to adopt the extremist measures such as those Thunberg’s ally Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) put forward in the Green New Deal.

To promote her cause, Thunberg skipped school every Friday for the last year (she’ll be taking the 2019-20 school year off) and held a weekly vigil outside the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm. Reportedly, tens of thousands of fellow students have been following her lead to play hooky.

Given what a mess the left has made of schools, missing 20% may or may not be a big deal, but they surely could learn something somewhere.

Thunberg and her movement operate with some clear advantages. Since they are a children’s crusade, they are credited with the best possible motives and not asked to fully or coherently explain their goals or how they might be achieved without doing more harm than good. Their impatience with the business of democracy in which one must persuade people rather than merely issuing diktats is similarly depicted as evidence of their high ideals rather than ignorance or anti-democratic sentiments.

As for journalists who point out the flaws in these young people’s arguments, the inconsistency in their behavior, or ponder whether children should be skipping school to pursue a political agenda, progressives denounce them as bullies picking on nice kids. Politicians who have the temerity to push back even mildly against the lack of respect and common courtesy that Thunberg and her followers consistently demonstrate must expect a tidal wave of criticism for their so-called insensitivity.

Yeah, well, they can stick their nonsense and their totalitarian tendencies whee the sun don’t shine. This old world has rocked on pretty well without them for thousands of years, and I bet it will for a few more. If their countries are stupid enough to fall for this nonsense – well that’s their problem. Personally, I like to eat, jeep warm and cool, and ride in cars, and yes, even fly on occasion. If Momma Earth can’t handle that, well what’s the point anyway?

Yeah, I’ve had enough, somebody give the whole bunch a great big cup of STFU and turn the bloody children’s crusade back where they came from. I’m beginning to understand the Pied Piper better every day.

Speaking of Mass Shootings

And so, everybody is flapping their jaws about El Paso and Dayton. In fact, I’m going to a bit as well. But here is a caveat. Second City Cop tells us that two definitionally mass shootings happened in Chicago’s 010 Police District (on the west side) resulting in 14 shot, and this.

A West Side hospital [The superb Mt. Sanai] was forced to stop accepting patients on the tail end of a violent weekend that has left 47 people been shot, four fatally, across the city.

Saturday night, resources were stretched to the breaking point as officers responded to multiple shootings in Chicago’s 10th Police District, which includes West Side neighborhoods such as Lawndale, Douglas Park and Homan Square. The shootings all occurred within a three hour period, resulting in 17 people injured and at least one dead.

So, why the Hell do these people not count? Could it be because they are black and shot by blacks, in a Democratic city that doesn’t give two F***s about their citizens, as long as they vote as they’re told, long after they’re dead, even? They probably prefer that, dead people don’t talk back.

My reading would indicate that many of these gunfights (and they are far worse, and more random than anything in the ‘Wild West’ was) are most often battles between drug-selling gangs, whose members are often the only male influence on young boys in these neighborhoods. The result of the ‘War on Poverty” all those years ago.

Now about the other two.

Paul Mirengoff at PowerLine says this:

In the case of El Paso, the murderer’s writings are anti-immigrant, but also apparently socialist in some respects. In the case of Dayton, the writings reportedly are avowedly socialist, anti-Trump, pro-Elizabeth Warren, and sympathetic to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Who cares? These are deeply disturbed, evil men. Their political views deserve no attention.

In short, crazy people are dangerous. Duh! This too, though:

The underlying cause is mental disturbance, the same phenomenon that’s causing high suicide rates. Why the seeming epidemic of mental disturbance? I don’t know for sure.

I suspect, though, that the breakdown of the family is one important factor. Another, probably related to the first, is a decline in religious faith.

I also suspect that rapid technological change and the increasing complexity of American life are contributors. One technological change seems very likely to be playing a part — the rise of the internet and social media.

Those may well be factors, but I think the best thinking on this comes from England, specifically Peter Hitchen’s Mail on Sunday column.

…crucial facts do not come to light for long months, even years,  after these events – if they ever do. In my experience, police all over the world are sublimely uninterested (in Britain actively uninterested|) in the drug use of the perpetrators of such crimes, and often only stumble across them by accident.

But there are some features of the El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, killings on which I will comment.  As usual, the reporting concentrates upon the horror of the crimes, as it must. But it is then swiftly followed by editorialising about guns and gun control of the usual sort, which neglects to wonder whether, as mass gun ownership is not new in the USA, but dates back to the foundation of the country, whereas these sort of rampage killings only really began about 50 years ago, and have been growing more common in the past five years,  the free availability of guns alone can be blamed for these incidents.

But in this case there is also quite a lot about the supposed ‘right-wing extremism’ of one of the two accused, the alleged El Paso killer Patrick Crusius.  (Not the other killer though, see below) I have discussed the significance of such affiliations here in long posts on the Jo Cox murder here https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2019/04/my-reply-to-the-secret-barrister-.html

I would also draw readers’ attention to what I wrote about the Charlottesville killer, Fields, two years ago (the caveat still very much applies ) https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2017/08/on-the-miserable-events-in-charlottesville-virginia.html

My questions, as to what might have caused Fields to become mentally ill enough to be rejected by the US Army in the first place, were not innocent. I stick by my belief that, if you find a mentally-ill young person in the modern world, you will almost certainly find a current or former marijuana user.  But this grows harder to establish definitively, as police in many jurisdictions long ago gave up even cautions or diversion programmes for those found in possession of marijuana, and are not interested in probing it now. In fact they are positively uninterested, because the connection makes their abandonment of law-enforcement look foolish. So while five or ten years ago their drug abuse might have been recorded, it is not now.

More than a year after his crime, in November 2018, the range of drugs (potentially amphetamines, ‘anti-anxiety’ medication and SSRIs) , which Fields may have been legally taking, possibly all at once, was briefly revealed at his trial: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/james-alex-fields-trial-deadly-charlottesville-white-nationalist-rally-set-n939991 The key pasage reads : ‘Fields later told a judge he is being treated for bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression and ADHD.’

‘Treated’, of course, means ‘given drugs’.

Do read it all because I think Mr. Hitchens is spot on the reason why. The more we know about drugs, the scarier they get, legal or illegal. And other than the surrender of most teachers, would you like to know the biggest difference now from when I went to school? That’s right, other than a couple losers who smoked Marijuana, nobody was doing drugs. Quite a difference.

 

Note that R.S. McCain also has some very good thoughts, here.

And Mary Brett wrote the best article I’ve read in years (likely ever) on the effects of marijuana (the British call it Cannabis) on The Conservative Woman.

 

 

Sunday Funnies: Horsemen and Debates

 

Did you watch the Democrat Debate?  Nope, I didn’t, were what 16 months out, and I already know every single one of them wants to hurt the country. There are better ways to waste time. But the highlights are funny, I’ll admit.

This should cover most of it…

You know when I was growing up around Chicago, there was lots of corruption, but minor things usually got fixed, garbage picked up, rats sort of under control (except in the projects, of course). Something has changed.

And, of course

The First Master of the Tweet

This came across my screen yesterday, from J.R. Dunn at American Thinker.

We have all seen no end of pieces criticizing, condemning and apologizing for Trump’s use of the tweet as his major weapon for undermining the left-wing media monopoly, driving his opponents into a frenzy, and striking fear and confusion into the left. In truth, seldom if ever are Trump’s tweets mentioned in any context at all without the writer shuffling his feet, dropping his head in shame and whimpering, “Maybe he shouldn’t do that… uh, right?”

Not all these people are #NeverTrumpers. Many of them mean well, and are sincerely concerned with the impression that Trump makes and the unintended consequences that may result. But all of it, no matter what the intent, is without exception an exercise in missing the point.

I admit it, I used to, but I’m a practical man, nobody is going to stop the President of the US from Tweeting if he wants to. Then I paid attention and I saw how effective it is.

So Trump blithely continues tweeting, at his leisure and in his own time, on topics of his choosing and expressing them in his own unique style. Each tweet is utterly unpredictable, and all of them seem to strike at a weak spot in the American left’s defenses, like cruise missiles coming out of nowhere, striking their target and leaving the enemy with no means of counterstriking. The wails, shrieks, and gibbering arise from the left, and Trump moves on without even bothering to answer. With his tweets, which cost him nothing and require almost no effort, Trump has done more damage to the left than the last half-dozen Republican presidents.

And that’s the beauty, nobody has found a way to effectively counterattack.

The same can be said of Trump’s latest violation of Twitter good taste against Elijah Cummings, who has for decades posed as a champion of civil rights while doing absolutely nothing for his miserable Baltimore constituents living in what amounts to the American Somalia. Trump immediately put Cummings – and the left – on the defensive, rendering Cummings’ border machinations irrelevant and shifting the argument to territory where Cummings is most vulnerable – his actual record in Congress. The left’s response was less than impressive. One left-wing critic on CNN burst into tears as he bemoaned Trump’s use of the term “infested” to describe Baltimore’s slums. A political movement that has been reduced to tears is one that not much can be expected from.

It’s true, it’s not overly tasteful (or Presidential, whatever that is). But you know, I think the reason so many say that is that he is effective, very effective, like a rapier against a hunting knife. He draws a bit of blood, and then the opposition always makes it worse, widening the wound. Is there an effective counter? With Donald Trump, I doubt it. He’s pitch-perfect.

I think if we of the right have any sense at all (I often do question that!), we’ll quite whingeing about unpresidential things and realize that with Trump, we have made more progress certainly since Reagan, and quite possibly since Coolidge.

And we have laughed more than we ever have, and at our opponents, not ourselves for once.

Most of you know, I’m one of those geeks who thinks the Declaration and the Constitution have the answers, and they do, but only if they are read, understood, and applied. They have no meaning if they are systematically ignored. And that is what the left does. Remember Obama’s pen and phone? That’s what that meant, nothing less than the Divine Right of Kings, just like Charles the First, although Barmy got off easy, getting rich instead of a head shorter.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy as the American conservatives laugh, and smile, and discomfit, and leave the left in disarray. With the President and his phone leading the charge, we are finally winning, and it’s great.