Our local Idiot of The Year is the NJ Governor's wife, Tammy Murphy, who somehow thought that there were phalanxes of voters in HoHoKus just dying to see her replace Mendacious Menendez as a U.S. Senator. That delusion perished in the sunlight of reality.
04/01/24: With a hefty hockey-assist point from the knowledge that when Covid Murphy bankrupted (and murdered) thousands with his Cuomoian (NYS gov) business lockdowns/from-hospital-to-nursing home dumps, he and Tammy also thought it a good idea to get a good night's sleep or two at their villa in Italy (bought with Murphy's accrued investment-banking Goldman Sachs lucre). Instant disapproval. And we remembered.
Yes, the wealthy Left are out of touch with reality.
I sure enjoyed the irony when Menendez publicly defended his crony-capitalism by threatening his fellow anti-Capitalist Democrat politicians with exposing (and thus ending) their own.
It is ironic that the wealthy left are fleeing the rapidly crumbling cities destroyed by their leftist policies - - San Francisco, LA, Portland, Seattle, NY etc. Not only have they destroyed these cities but they have created an immense threat to our banking system.
Recently one of LA's most desirable high rise buildings was in foreclosure , valued at only 1/3 of its value a few years ago as the result of businesses fleeing the City. Up the coast in San Francisco both office and retail properties are valued at a fraction of their mortgage loans.
Will enough of these awakened peeps vote Republican to overcome Democrat un-democratic ballot harvesting, control of elections through "zuck-bucks", and persecution of political opponents?
Hopefully the lesson is transferable ....... Bud Light's endorsement of the tranny lifestyle cost the stockholders something like $6 BILLION. Hopefully the stockholders will hold them responsible for the theft of stockholder value and their betrayal of the stockholder interests.
The private sector (*not* the captured part, which is huge and essentially a part of the public sector) naturally penalizes mis-judgment, adjusts to demand, and therefore improves.
Public sector improvement (i.e. massive reduction in public power and market influence), on the other hand, is never natural. It requires the People to constantly *restrict* the natural tendency for State growth. We have failed over the last 100+ years to do so, and we don't have much time left before it's 1984.
Obviously, judging by the results, an empty threat.
Whitney Webb's "One Nation Under Blackmail" was his guidebook:
"Where did I go wrong?!"
When we were bombed out of the One World Trade Center in 1993, across the river we went to Jersey City where the bank had a Just-In-Case duplicate office.
My work being entirely interwoven with the contents of the document vault in 1 WTC (which turned into a Paper Cemetery when the bank went under, later in the decade), I spent the next four weeks taking magnificently long lunch hours.
(Greenwich Village in March is the most depressing place I've ever seen, second only to Fort Richardson, Alaska in the winter of 1976-77.)
I'm having a 12 noon pop at a bar in some dive in JC when in strode Menendez, then a congressman.
The omnipotent venality of the man preceded him like the aura of Halley's Comet, if the tail were to precede the comet.
Down bowed and scraped the ma├оtre d' as the waiters in mercenary unison took his coat and guided him to his table.
A repulsive sight. Have never forgotten that moment.
You're more than welcome. The Taibbi columns --- aside from their intrinsic value and brilliance, enhanced by the author's "up yours" festive sense of humor --- have turned into an unanticipated opportunity to write down what's been percolating since 1952. I might be eligible for a "Grandpa Moses" finger-painting award.
I've had similar experience commenting across substack, and it has been not just liberating, but psyche-saving, if that makes sense.
I wonder why it never occured to me that *civil* discourse, with its "disagreeing agreeably", and an emphasis on substance makes all the difference.
And I have found so many good writers like yourself. I would recommend starting your own stack if you are willing to make those wonderful "percolations" public, except that substack has stretched my reading budget too thin to guarantee I would have time to read you!!
--- Back in 2017, The Gunga-Dung-Bezos (Amazon) Brigade in India decided that my book reviews were blasphemous --- "violating community standards," as if the standards of someone in New New Delhi (Seattle WA) were superior to mine.
700+ reviews were obliterated. Just like that.
(AND the b*stards expect you to CONTINUE to order stuff on Prime. Granted, 0.00001% of their customers read books, much less write about having read them, so their Delete Jihad wasn't a big MBA-Wharton no-no, but that's besides the point.)
Someone someday will do exactly the same thing to Substack because if Musk can buy Twitter, someone equally wealthy as Musk will buy Substack.
And their intentions, my cynical antenna informs me, will be dishonorable (a comparison to Musk in this respect is not intended and does not exist).
--- Once I start writing to please anyone other than myself, I'll be corrupted.
Gradually, the Virginia Cowlesian* "the fact thats" and the "not only... but alsos" and "Buts"** at the start of my sentences will combine to Kudzu my prose.
But I'll be so delighted with my month $39.09 checks from Stripe, I'll be the last to notice.
("Harrumph! Harrumph!")
Things are swell the way they are.
People enjoy laughing.
And for the time being, we're on target.
Be well, and keep in touch.
*An otherwise admirable WWII journalist and post-war author.
** "But" signals us to pause, or even stop, reading. Why would such a word EVER be located at the START of a sentence? "I dunno."
Oh, HELL NO to entering THAT world! IтАЩd never go back to it! Women are the WORST, most territorial backstabbing drama characters of anyone out there! And YES, I can write this without remorse because IтАЩve lived it!!!
"Everyone here ought to stop by the NBC site for a proper scolding by Richard Engel about the ignorance of the bigoted term "Chinese virus,"... delivered from his [impeccable] moral pinnacle previously occupied by Brian Williams, Matt Lauer and most recently, Chris Matthews."
And mine:
DR: I personally remember the days when you could be fired from NBC for moral turpitude.
04/03/24: Then you must be immensely enjoying the public spectacle of the five exclusively female NBC-Pravda "News" 30 Rock execs shrieking and tearing each other's hair out trying to avoid being fingered as one of The Women (hello, Claire Booth Luce!) Who Hired Ronna McDaniel.
[Which is all very strange in itself since their boss, Se├▒or Conde --- "The Revenge of Telemundo" --- had publically taken sole responsibility for the McDaniel Hired-Fired Dumpster Inferno. Maybe if they had watched, you know, the "news," they would have known this before launching their hussy-diabolical diatribes.]
Worthy successors indeed to Fili-Krushel and Deborah Turness, the one-time Big NBC-Pravda execs in charge when Lyin' Brian William's fables were exposed.
F-K in the aftermath landed in a cushy, empty executive Comcast office before returning to the beaten-path as an Upper East Side nosh-commando.
FCD ("Forever Cool" Debby) was rewarded with the biggest media job in the UK, BBC-Pravda "News."
(Honorable mention goes to the putz who in January 2019 had to spend $160,000,000 to get rid of his prize hire, Megan Kelly. His name escapes me for the moment. Another H.M. is Third-Sex-Specimen Noah Oppenheim, long gone.)
Nothing changes.
Actually, that's not true. The male goons were replaced by the FemDolts.
Good to hear, always! And she can't go wrong with "Mind The Gaffe, The Penguin Guide to Common Errors in English," by Larry Trask [1944-2004]; Penguin Group (2002 paperback).
The title is misleading; it sounds like a "scold" book (a grammar "specialty," which is why no one wants anything to do with it). MTG isn't like that at all. Mr. Trask's robust and resilient sense of humor will win over readers of all ages.
Above all, buy the English edition; AVOID the American edition!
"Some writers are concerned about what the presence of certain kinds of commenters says about them."
These "writers" should get the hell out of the writing business and enter into beauty pageants.
Or politics.
Our local Idiot of The Year is the NJ Governor's wife, Tammy Murphy, who somehow thought that there were phalanxes of voters in HoHoKus just dying to see her replace Mendacious Menendez as a U.S. Senator. That delusion perished in the sunlight of reality.
Sweet sunshine!
Freedom's disinfectant.
04/01/24: With a hefty hockey-assist point from the knowledge that when Covid Murphy bankrupted (and murdered) thousands with his Cuomoian (NYS gov) business lockdowns/from-hospital-to-nursing home dumps, he and Tammy also thought it a good idea to get a good night's sleep or two at their villa in Italy (bought with Murphy's accrued investment-banking Goldman Sachs lucre). Instant disapproval. And we remembered.
Yes, the wealthy Left are out of touch with reality.
I sure enjoyed the irony when Menendez publicly defended his crony-capitalism by threatening his fellow anti-Capitalist Democrat politicians with exposing (and thus ending) their own.
It is ironic that the wealthy left are fleeing the rapidly crumbling cities destroyed by their leftist policies - - San Francisco, LA, Portland, Seattle, NY etc. Not only have they destroyed these cities but they have created an immense threat to our banking system.
Recently one of LA's most desirable high rise buildings was in foreclosure , valued at only 1/3 of its value a few years ago as the result of businesses fleeing the City. Up the coast in San Francisco both office and retail properties are valued at a fraction of their mortgage loans.
It's not just a bunch of whiny white guys complaining . The Oakland NAACP issued a public letter calling for more police and recall of the Soros sponsored prosecutor https://californiapolicycenter.org/oakland-naacp-calls-on-politicians-to-crack-down-on-criminals/
Biden bailed out Silicon Valley Bank and investors based on their extraordinary volume of political contributions to far left democrats.
The public is finally catching on to the madness as Biden sinks to his knees, apologizing for calling a killer of an innocent young woman an "illegal"
Yep.
Will enough of these awakened peeps vote Republican to overcome Democrat un-democratic ballot harvesting, control of elections through "zuck-bucks", and persecution of political opponents?
Hopefully the lesson is transferable ....... Bud Light's endorsement of the tranny lifestyle cost the stockholders something like $6 BILLION. Hopefully the stockholders will hold them responsible for the theft of stockholder value and their betrayal of the stockholder interests.
The private sector (*not* the captured part, which is huge and essentially a part of the public sector) naturally penalizes mis-judgment, adjusts to demand, and therefore improves.
Public sector improvement (i.e. massive reduction in public power and market influence), on the other hand, is never natural. It requires the People to constantly *restrict* the natural tendency for State growth. We have failed over the last 100+ years to do so, and we don't have much time left before it's 1984.
Obviously, judging by the results, an empty threat.
Whitney Webb's "One Nation Under Blackmail" was his guidebook:
"Where did I go wrong?!"
When we were bombed out of the One World Trade Center in 1993, across the river we went to Jersey City where the bank had a Just-In-Case duplicate office.
My work being entirely interwoven with the contents of the document vault in 1 WTC (which turned into a Paper Cemetery when the bank went under, later in the decade), I spent the next four weeks taking magnificently long lunch hours.
(Greenwich Village in March is the most depressing place I've ever seen, second only to Fort Richardson, Alaska in the winter of 1976-77.)
I'm having a 12 noon pop at a bar in some dive in JC when in strode Menendez, then a congressman.
The omnipotent venality of the man preceded him like the aura of Halley's Comet, if the tail were to precede the comet.
Down bowed and scraped the ma├оtre d' as the waiters in mercenary unison took his coat and guided him to his table.
A repulsive sight. Have never forgotten that moment.
Wow! (And yet *not* surprising.)
Thanks for the story, Don.
You're more than welcome. The Taibbi columns --- aside from their intrinsic value and brilliance, enhanced by the author's "up yours" festive sense of humor --- have turned into an unanticipated opportunity to write down what's been percolating since 1952. I might be eligible for a "Grandpa Moses" finger-painting award.
I've had similar experience commenting across substack, and it has been not just liberating, but psyche-saving, if that makes sense.
I wonder why it never occured to me that *civil* discourse, with its "disagreeing agreeably", and an emphasis on substance makes all the difference.
And I have found so many good writers like yourself. I would recommend starting your own stack if you are willing to make those wonderful "percolations" public, except that substack has stretched my reading budget too thin to guarantee I would have time to read you!!
Thanks again, Don.
My pleasure!
Others have recommended "your own stack."
May I pass on the suggestion?
--- Back in 2017, The Gunga-Dung-Bezos (Amazon) Brigade in India decided that my book reviews were blasphemous --- "violating community standards," as if the standards of someone in New New Delhi (Seattle WA) were superior to mine.
700+ reviews were obliterated. Just like that.
(AND the b*stards expect you to CONTINUE to order stuff on Prime. Granted, 0.00001% of their customers read books, much less write about having read them, so their Delete Jihad wasn't a big MBA-Wharton no-no, but that's besides the point.)
Someone someday will do exactly the same thing to Substack because if Musk can buy Twitter, someone equally wealthy as Musk will buy Substack.
And their intentions, my cynical antenna informs me, will be dishonorable (a comparison to Musk in this respect is not intended and does not exist).
--- Once I start writing to please anyone other than myself, I'll be corrupted.
Gradually, the Virginia Cowlesian* "the fact thats" and the "not only... but alsos" and "Buts"** at the start of my sentences will combine to Kudzu my prose.
But I'll be so delighted with my month $39.09 checks from Stripe, I'll be the last to notice.
("Harrumph! Harrumph!")
Things are swell the way they are.
People enjoy laughing.
And for the time being, we're on target.
Be well, and keep in touch.
*An otherwise admirable WWII journalist and post-war author.
** "But" signals us to pause, or even stop, reading. Why would such a word EVER be located at the START of a sentence? "I dunno."
Oh, HELL NO to entering THAT world! IтАЩd never go back to it! Women are the WORST, most territorial backstabbing drama characters of anyone out there! And YES, I can write this without remorse because IтАЩve lived it!!!
And here's a blast from the NBC-Pravda past:
A comment posted on Mark Steyn's website...
"Paul G. тАв Mar 18, 2020 at 22:18
"Everyone here ought to stop by the NBC site for a proper scolding by Richard Engel about the ignorance of the bigoted term "Chinese virus,"... delivered from his [impeccable] moral pinnacle previously occupied by Brian Williams, Matt Lauer and most recently, Chris Matthews."
And mine:
DR: I personally remember the days when you could be fired from NBC for moral turpitude.
04/03/24: Then you must be immensely enjoying the public spectacle of the five exclusively female NBC-Pravda "News" 30 Rock execs shrieking and tearing each other's hair out trying to avoid being fingered as one of The Women (hello, Claire Booth Luce!) Who Hired Ronna McDaniel.
[Which is all very strange in itself since their boss, Se├▒or Conde --- "The Revenge of Telemundo" --- had publically taken sole responsibility for the McDaniel Hired-Fired Dumpster Inferno. Maybe if they had watched, you know, the "news," they would have known this before launching their hussy-diabolical diatribes.]
Worthy successors indeed to Fili-Krushel and Deborah Turness, the one-time Big NBC-Pravda execs in charge when Lyin' Brian William's fables were exposed.
F-K in the aftermath landed in a cushy, empty executive Comcast office before returning to the beaten-path as an Upper East Side nosh-commando.
FCD ("Forever Cool" Debby) was rewarded with the biggest media job in the UK, BBC-Pravda "News."
(Honorable mention goes to the putz who in January 2019 had to spend $160,000,000 to get rid of his prize hire, Megan Kelly. His name escapes me for the moment. Another H.M. is Third-Sex-Specimen Noah Oppenheim, long gone.)
Nothing changes.
Actually, that's not true. The male goons were replaced by the FemDolts.
Granted, identical results. Money corrupts impartially, emphatically, completely.
And tonight, The Rockies beat the Cubs in Chicago.
Good to hear, always! And she can't go wrong with "Mind The Gaffe, The Penguin Guide to Common Errors in English," by Larry Trask [1944-2004]; Penguin Group (2002 paperback).
The title is misleading; it sounds like a "scold" book (a grammar "specialty," which is why no one wants anything to do with it). MTG isn't like that at all. Mr. Trask's robust and resilient sense of humor will win over readers of all ages.
Above all, buy the English edition; AVOID the American edition!