Excerpt: Walter and Matt discuss Joe Biden's speech, Dock Ellis's no-hitter, Roman Catholic holidays, the merits of presidential lying, the absence of Joni Mitchell, and more
That speech was a terrifying escalation of rhetoric. I've seen many comments that say "whatabout Trump, he said shit like this all the time'. The reality is that Trump targeted the leadership of the left, not citizens. Biden just verbally attacked half the country, and did it in a manor I've never witnessed in my 65 years. I'm sure his base loved it, but I can't believe he didn't lose a shit ton of independents, who now believe that not only are his policies are bad, but so are his leadership/figurehead abilities.
This is a man who goes on vacation about 4 days every week and emerges every once in a while in order to make everyone think, “What the fuck did he just say?” We all know guys this who sit at the end of the bar all night until they get up and say stuff that is incomprehensible and loud. The question is always who is putting the words on the teleprompter? Who and how many people in the White House think this sort of thing is brilliant? Perhaps the plumbing system has become self aware?
I listened to this yesterday and LOVED you and Walter. I'll be putting it on my washing-dishes playlist from now on. But I've continued to brood over a bad feeling that this speech was a set-up. Biden is being intentionally staged and lit and animated to appear Satanic. Walter is right that this is a get-out-the-vote speech ... for Republicans. It puts every Republican or individual who 'lives in MAGA country under threat where, as Walter says, anyone active in MAGA has put their lawyer on speed dial. Something very, very fishy is going on. It's not what it seems on the surface, I think.
Whatever else it may have been, the Independence Hall address was anything but shocking.
After the Russiagate hoax, the BLM riots, the covert license the state granted to ANTIFA to confront MAGA supporters, the election, the vindictive and opportunistic over-reaction to the Jan 6 protest no one can be truly surprised by anything other than Biden's candour.
The address was designed to intimidate and demoralise opponents and perhaps provoke the deplorables in order to justify a new wave of repression in the name of protecting "our democracy".
In the near future we can most likely expect escalating political violence and authoritarianism, leading ultimately to a low grade conflict mostly fought by propaganda, psy-ops and carefully focused police repression (supplemented by a few assassinations, beatings and plenty of abusive incarceration).
The oligarchs, the Deep State and their mass constituency of professionals and managers are prepared to rule over ruins if the alternative is compromise with the deplorables. We are seeing the next stage in the life-cycle of an emerging gangster regime that is closer to Ukrainian, Latin American or African norms than those of the American past.
What 'biden' should have said, but never could. (or would)
I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
Everything the perma-gov cabal is doing right now is obviously geared towards provoking the violence they keep promising. It's so passive-aggressive it's a parody. But their intentions are no joke. The federal government is armed to the teeth, both law enforcement and civilian agencies, and in my view, they're spoiling for a fight. Our national slogan could be "Just give us a reason."
The evil left is being overtly provocative to try and get a reaction. What a bunch of assholes!! As usual the fascists are calling everyone else a fascist. Despicable.
Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for Governor of Arizona, has said (in an interview on One America) that she would not have certified Biden's Arizona win, had she been in office in 2020.
There are at least 100 similar "stop the steal" Republicans running for state and federal office in November.
But hey! Let's talk about the optics of Biden's speech! That's what's really important!!!
It's insane: they complain about political violence here in the US, while they destroy whole countries with their military violence? We're supposed to believe they're sincere?
Being a journalist nowadays seems awful....having to listen to this crap and then attempt providing rational analysis to what at base is nonsensical blather.
I have a different take. Biden’s inflammatory speech Thursday night was not directed at MAGA Republicans. No, it was aimed squarely at those DEMOCRATS who in their hearts of hearts are not on board with his destructive policies and rhetoric.
The message was clear: If, like over a million Democrats in 2021, you leave the Democrat party and register as a Republican, you are going straight to cultural hell and will deserve the systemic bullying, derision, erasure, and assault on your liberties especially reserved for MAGA Republicans. You will be subject to censorship and harassment, and perhaps be made the special target of politicized government agencies. Like the FBI. Or the IRS.
If you jump ship, you will not be spared. You will be treated as a traitor. Biden’s message to those who are on the fence is: if you are not a Democrat, you are not an American.
MAGA Republicans are accustomed to this treatment.
To wavering Democrats, Independents and everyone else: Step out of line and you're next.
I get it. It was the earthly embodiment of Dark Brandon. It it hadn’t been for the real military personnel having his back, I’d have clapped at the stagecraft. I sort of was disappointed that he didn’t have a F-15 and maybe a nuclear bomb on stage with him.
Hint. Hint. You dastardly semi-fascist American citizens that dared to vote in 2016, don’t do it this time, or substantial penalties will be applied, somewhat quoted from the movie, The Jerk.
That speech was a terrifying escalation of rhetoric. I've seen many comments that say "whatabout Trump, he said shit like this all the time'. The reality is that Trump targeted the leadership of the left, not citizens. Biden just verbally attacked half the country, and did it in a manor I've never witnessed in my 65 years. I'm sure his base loved it, but I can't believe he didn't lose a shit ton of independents, who now believe that not only are his policies are bad, but so are his leadership/figurehead abilities.
This is a man who goes on vacation about 4 days every week and emerges every once in a while in order to make everyone think, “What the fuck did he just say?” We all know guys this who sit at the end of the bar all night until they get up and say stuff that is incomprehensible and loud. The question is always who is putting the words on the teleprompter? Who and how many people in the White House think this sort of thing is brilliant? Perhaps the plumbing system has become self aware?
I listened to this yesterday and LOVED you and Walter. I'll be putting it on my washing-dishes playlist from now on. But I've continued to brood over a bad feeling that this speech was a set-up. Biden is being intentionally staged and lit and animated to appear Satanic. Walter is right that this is a get-out-the-vote speech ... for Republicans. It puts every Republican or individual who 'lives in MAGA country under threat where, as Walter says, anyone active in MAGA has put their lawyer on speed dial. Something very, very fishy is going on. It's not what it seems on the surface, I think.
I keep hearing Marvin Gay singing “What’s going on”
Whatever else it may have been, the Independence Hall address was anything but shocking.
After the Russiagate hoax, the BLM riots, the covert license the state granted to ANTIFA to confront MAGA supporters, the election, the vindictive and opportunistic over-reaction to the Jan 6 protest no one can be truly surprised by anything other than Biden's candour.
The address was designed to intimidate and demoralise opponents and perhaps provoke the deplorables in order to justify a new wave of repression in the name of protecting "our democracy".
In the near future we can most likely expect escalating political violence and authoritarianism, leading ultimately to a low grade conflict mostly fought by propaganda, psy-ops and carefully focused police repression (supplemented by a few assassinations, beatings and plenty of abusive incarceration).
The oligarchs, the Deep State and their mass constituency of professionals and managers are prepared to rule over ruins if the alternative is compromise with the deplorables. We are seeing the next stage in the life-cycle of an emerging gangster regime that is closer to Ukrainian, Latin American or African norms than those of the American past.
What 'biden' should have said, but never could. (or would)
I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
-- Howard Beale
Everything the perma-gov cabal is doing right now is obviously geared towards provoking the violence they keep promising. It's so passive-aggressive it's a parody. But their intentions are no joke. The federal government is armed to the teeth, both law enforcement and civilian agencies, and in my view, they're spoiling for a fight. Our national slogan could be "Just give us a reason."
The evil left is being overtly provocative to try and get a reaction. What a bunch of assholes!! As usual the fascists are calling everyone else a fascist. Despicable.
Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for Governor of Arizona, has said (in an interview on One America) that she would not have certified Biden's Arizona win, had she been in office in 2020.
There are at least 100 similar "stop the steal" Republicans running for state and federal office in November.
But hey! Let's talk about the optics of Biden's speech! That's what's really important!!!
More and more it looks like the dems will do what it takes to prevent Trump from running, and if that fails, refusing to allow him to take power.
I have always believed that even the dems and the deep state would not play dice with the American experiment; but here we are.
I'm good with watching TV and gaining weight as opposed to civil war. If they come to my house, tho. . .https://scubacat.substack.com/p/when-they-come-for-me
It's insane: they complain about political violence here in the US, while they destroy whole countries with their military violence? We're supposed to believe they're sincere?
Being a journalist nowadays seems awful....having to listen to this crap and then attempt providing rational analysis to what at base is nonsensical blather.
I have a different take. Biden’s inflammatory speech Thursday night was not directed at MAGA Republicans. No, it was aimed squarely at those DEMOCRATS who in their hearts of hearts are not on board with his destructive policies and rhetoric.
The message was clear: If, like over a million Democrats in 2021, you leave the Democrat party and register as a Republican, you are going straight to cultural hell and will deserve the systemic bullying, derision, erasure, and assault on your liberties especially reserved for MAGA Republicans. You will be subject to censorship and harassment, and perhaps be made the special target of politicized government agencies. Like the FBI. Or the IRS.
If you jump ship, you will not be spared. You will be treated as a traitor. Biden’s message to those who are on the fence is: if you are not a Democrat, you are not an American.
MAGA Republicans are accustomed to this treatment.
To wavering Democrats, Independents and everyone else: Step out of line and you're next.
Consider yourselves warned.
I get it. It was the earthly embodiment of Dark Brandon. It it hadn’t been for the real military personnel having his back, I’d have clapped at the stagecraft. I sort of was disappointed that he didn’t have a F-15 and maybe a nuclear bomb on stage with him.
Hint. Hint. You dastardly semi-fascist American citizens that dared to vote in 2016, don’t do it this time, or substantial penalties will be applied, somewhat quoted from the movie, The Jerk.
Don’t forget the Red Room scene from Twin Peaks.