Friday, February 26, 2021

Dear Smith College: I Have a Few Requests

Why The Left Can't Handle Donald Trump | Russell Brand

I was only going to watch the first three minutes where gives Donald Trump credit.  I also watched the next three minutes where he gives his political brand as being some sort of redistribute all the wealth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YofLsS3vfOU

First COVID-19 vaccination

A couple of hours ago I got my first COVID-19 vaccination. It was the Pfizer vaccine, which is the one I wanted since I was able to make an appointment for my next vaccine just three weeks from now.

I didn't even feel the shot. This was no worse than a flu shot. However, my arm immediately started feeling sore. It still feels a little sore, but not very much. Afterward, I had to wait in an observation area for 15 minutes which was no problem.



A word on gambling and feeling alone

Despite some strong language, this seems like some of the best advice I have ever heard.

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Economic Civil War - The American Mind

This might not be anything new, but I am personally very worried about the direction the country is headed in.

https://americanmind.org/salvo/economic-civil-war/

Judge Blocks Enforcement of Biden’s Moratorium on Most Deportations

Gina Carano Did NOTHING Wrong - Rosario Dawson is NEXT

This is relevant because of the outrage mob's relentless tendency to go after people.  A several-month-long Twitter campaign successfully removed Gina Carano from a part in The Mandalorian TV series, which was a part that she was good at.  The agency that represented her dropped her.  This may have ruined her career  This got started over her refusal online to use people's preferred pronouns.  She tended to express conservative viewpoints, but only slightly.  Her political views are not totally clear.

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

The Authoritarian Left Is OUT OF CONTROL

I heard this on the radio earlier today. The key point about suppressing free speech starts at 5:20. Everything up to point is just him trying to define Authoritarianism.


Best wishes,

John Coffey

Bungie Gets Too Woke, Even For Me!

He makes a few good points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO3ex7q4B3U

Actually, I agree with the "Get Woke, Go Broke" crowd.

The New Documentary About Far-Left Extremism

I didn't watch all of this, but the speaker thinks that far-right extremists are more dangerous than far-left extremists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlRb6BZqwg8&list=PLQjQKfvegGtnS5VqnYHWGDt365koSsbDt&index=6

In response, I wrote ...

What few right-wing extremists there are in total are far less dangerous than the far-left extremism in total. Far-left extremism is becoming the norm, whereas the vast majority of conservatives reject extremism.

Fauci Should Be Fired

Monday, February 22, 2021

COKE GOES WOKE: Coca-Cola's Anti-White Training Video | Louder with Crowder

I found the whole video interesting, but at 1:01:00 he plays a clip and then does a Donald Trump parody that really made me laugh.

Friday, February 19, 2021

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Gutfeld On Woke Schools In America

"This is an attack on western civilization."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2jwmVf-k-A

Glenn Beck remembers Rush Limbaugh: 'He was a great teacher'

Ben Shapiro Reflects on the Life and Legacy of Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh Dies & VILE Losers Celebrate It! Reactions From Steven Crowder, Ben Shaprio & More

Carl Benjamin - Making Sense Of 2021's Madness | Modern Wisdom Podcast #280

This is a pretty interesting discussion on an intellectual level.  If you want the short version, the meat of it starts at 42 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7v5A_ibSjQ

Rush Limbaugh

Twelve and a half months ago, I heard Rush Limbaugh announce on his program that he had stage 4 lung cancer. I was noticing recently that he had taken about a 3-week break from his broadcast program, only having guest hosts. About 3 weeks ago he thought that he was doing well. At noon today, his program was started by his wife who announced his passing this morning. Then the program played clips from his past broadcasts.

I have wondered for months what would happen to the program after Rush Limbaugh passed away? I assume that the program will shut down. Ben Shapiro would be a great replacement. When Paul Harvey passed away, his son, Paul Harvey Jr., took over, but the show failed to find an audience.

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Identity politics

Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. discussed identity politics extensively in his 1991 book The Disuniting of America. Schlesinger, a strong supporter of liberal conceptions of civil rights, argues that a liberal democracy requires a common basis for culture and society to function. Rather than seeing civil society as already fractured along lines of power and powerlessness (according to race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.), Schlesinger suggests that basing politics on group marginalization is itself what fractures the civil polity, and that identity politics therefore works against creating real opportunities for ending marginalization. Schlesinger believes that "movements for civil rights should aim toward full acceptance and integration of marginalized groups into the mainstream culture, rather than … perpetuating that marginalization through affirmations of difference.

Similarly in the United Kingdom, author Owen Jones argues that identity politics often marginalize the working class.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_politics#Debates_and_criticism

Monday, February 15, 2021

Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum address

"whenever the vicious portion of [our] population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing-presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity, depend upon it, this government cannot last. By such things the feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from it"

Everything I know about the Capital riot.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxRMoqNnfvw

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/02/14/lindsey-graham-says-mitch-mcconnells-trump-speech-may-haunt-gop/4481763001/

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/graham-mcconnell-anti-trump-speech

My position is that the President has a constitutional right to express his political views to a crowd of supporters, even if he is very wrong.  He also told the crowd to make their voices heard peacefully.  

When it comes to politics, what they allow you to know is only the surface of what really happens.

I heard that there were 100 bad actors with weapons arrested outside the Capital building before Trump started his speech.  Some of the rioters started 20 minutes before Trump finished his speech.  There is evidence that this was planned for a couple of months.  There was evidence and warnings three days before the event that this would happen, at which point Trump offered to send in 10,000 National Guard troops and was told not to by the leaders in the Capitol building.  Reportedly, they had sufficient warning to prevent this.  Clearly, this was planned in advance and not the result of Trump's speech.

There is still much that we don't know.  The facts still need to be established.  They didn't call witnesses from the mob as to their motivation.  There is some evidence, clear but small, of Antifa and BLM involvement.  Some Antifa people were told to wear their MAGA hats on backwards so that they could identify each other from the actual Trump supporters.  So there is a very real possibility that the worst of the violence was a false flag operation.  If you were Antifa and wanted to stir up trouble, why wouldn't you come to this event?

There is no information about the people in the Capitol Building being armed, making this not an insurrection, but a riot.  If you look at the videos, some were clearly moving quickly with apparent violent intent, but many more wandered in after with a slow shuffle that appeared peaceful.

There is much confusion about the deaths.  Three of the deaths were medical in nature.  It is hard statistically to get tens of thousands of people in one place and not have a medical emergency.  Someone shot and killed an unarmed woman climbing through a window.  This might have been excessive force.  

However, the circumstances around the death of the policeman have been confusing and contradictory.  We were told that he was hit with a fire extinguisher, and then that he wasn't.  There is contradictory information about whether or not he went to the hospital and when.  We just recently found out that he had a stroke in the late evening.  

I have also heard that there were a couple of suicides related to the event.

I hope that a very thorough investigation is being done on the events of that day.  We probably need a 9-11 type commission on the event.

Some of the "evidence" presented during the trial quoted left-leaning press articles that were relying on unnamed sources.

The press is reporting bad behavior on the part of President Trump during the riot.  If accurately reported, I cannot defend his actions.  My reaction would have been to assert law and order as quickly as possible.  However, I am not sure about the jurisdiction here, since the Capitol Police eventually got control of the situation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/mccarthy-trump-got-expletive-filled-argument-during-capitol-riots-sources-n1257805

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/us/politics/trump-capitol-riot.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56004916

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/15/956842958/what-we-know-so-far-a-timeline-of-security-at-the-capitol-on-january-6

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/10/capitol-riots-trump-and-biden-transition-news-live-updates.html


Most of the legal cases about election fraud were dismissed for legal reasons without presenting evidence.  It has been reported that in the few cases where evidence was presented, the Trump team won 2/3 of these cases. None of this was enough to affect the outcome.  Some of the cases are still pending, although this won't matter.

There were dozens of sworn affidavits of fraud.

People wanted to audit the voting machine software, but they were repeatedly denied.  There were reports of voting machines switching votes to Biden, although others claimed that this was user error.  Trump clearly believed that the election was stolen.  There were discussions in the White House right up to January 6th as to if they could get to the voting machines to audit their software.

We are expected to accept the popular narrative, that the election was fair, despite any evidence to the contrary.  I don't know.  I am convinced that there was some fraud, but I don't have evidence at all that this was enough to sway the election.  My desire is that this will be thoroughly investigated so that we can know with confidence that this election was fair and that all future elections will be fair.



Thursday, February 11, 2021

Gina Carano Did Nothing Wrong

Gina Carano FIRED by Lucasfilm, dropped by agency - Was it the right move?

Yesterday, Disney fired Gina Carano from her role on The Mandalorian because of her social media posts.  This started with her refusal to use some gender pronouns, which started a huge outrage of people hating her and trying to get her fired.  This has been going on for many months.  The straw that broke the camel's back was her comparing hating people for their political views to people in Nazi Germany hating the Jews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEKdZAdeI4w

Matt Jarbo is a YouTuber who I happen to like, but he threatened to ban from his channel anyone who disagrees with him.  In response to this, I wrote...

"You have long been one of my favorite people on youtube, but I am deeply disappointed that you have distorted what she said.  This is a common and convenient tactic by the left.  How long have they been calling conservatives Nazis?  Forever.  She did not equate the current cancel culture toward conservatives with the murder of the Jews.   She said that people were being taught to hate their neighbors, which is exactly what I am seeing whenever I encounter people on the extreme left.  The vitriol is very strong.  I have been called the most foul names for supporting President Trump.  Like many people on the left, you want to ban those who disagree with you.  (BTW, Pedro Pascal in 2018 posted two photos side by side comparing kids in cages to people in the Nazi death camps.  I suspect that Disney will do nothing.  BTW, his photo that he labeled "American in 2018" wasn't from 2018 nor from America.)

The way Gina Carano has been treated is very unjust.  You cannot have a free society without free speech and the right to disagree.  Her real crime is not accepting the far-left narrative.  You should be on her side."

Sunday, February 7, 2021

Elon Musk says he won’t take coronavirus vaccine, calls Bill Gates a ‘knucklehead’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lPkvteqKig

Sort of confirms my view of Elon Musk.  Will he still be saying, "Everybody dies" when he is on his deathbed unable to breathe?  This isn't just an old person's disease.  I have seen countless cases of younger people who have died.  You are still at risk at age 30, 40, and 50.


Friday, February 5, 2021

Biden’s order could let China control US electric grid

During Pandemic, China Sent Millions of Counterfeit Masks, Test Kits to US: Customs Data

The Secret Bipartisan Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election | Time

This is the inside story of the conspiracy to save the 2020 election, based on access to the group's inner workings, never-before-seen documents and interviews with dozens of those involved from across the political spectrum. It is the story of an unprecedented, creative and determined campaign whose success also reveals how close the nation came to disaster. "Every attempt to interfere with the proper outcome of the election was defeated," says Ian Bassin, co-founder of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan rule-of-law advocacy group. "But it's massively important for the country to understand that it didn't happen accidentally. The system didn't work magically. Democracy is not self-executing."

That's why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream–a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.

I Asked Bill Gates What's The Next Crisis?

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Fwd: New America

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Larry Trout 



I didn't declare war on the establishment; it declared war on me.

It declared war on me when it supported energy policies that could enrich Saudi Arabia and Russia and would cost me more money at the gas pump or on my power bill.

It declared war on me when it told me my ideas weren't worthy of debate and discussion or that they were even so dangerous they couldn't be shared publicly.

It declared war on me when it used the police powers of the FBI and CIA to first spy on a presidential candidate and then worked to undermine the administration of that candidate after he was elected.

It declared war on me when it told me my religious beliefs did not deserve the protection of the First Amendment.

It declared war on me when it told me boys could compete against girls in high school sports and that they could shower together afterwards.

It declared war on me when it offered citizenship to illegal aliens and shipped American jobs to China.

It declared war on me when it mocked the usefulness of a wall on the Mexican border and simultaneously put up a razor-wire fence around the Capitol.

It declared war on me when it tried to defund the police so that millions of Americans would be left defenseless against mobs from antifa and Black Lives Matter.

It declared war on me when it said America was never great.

It declared war on me when it told my children they are not good enough because they are white.

It declared war on me when it said that defending the Constitution's rules on federal elections is sedition.

It declared war on me when it told me that I was a domestic terrorist if I didn't believe the government's official pronouncements about elections, about free speech, and about right and wrong.

Let's just say it plainly: The establishment declared war on me and on all conservative Americans when it decided that leftist orthodoxy was more important than the Constitution.

Don't believe me? Fine, why should you believe a Trump supporter? You've been indoctrinated by the national media, Big Tech oligarchs, the Democratic Party, and academic elites to believe without questioning that people like me can't be trusted. But you don't have to take my word for it. Listen instead to John Brennan, the former CIA director under President Obama, who speaks authoritatively for the Deep State:

He said on MSNBC that "the members of the Biden team who have been nominated or have been appointed, are now moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about what looks very similar to insurgency movements that we've seen overseas, where they germinate in different parts of the country and they gain strength and it brings together an unholy alliance frequently of religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians."

This "guilt by labeling" is the antithesis of fair play or justice. It is a convenient mechanism for the ruling class to herd people into identity clusters so that individual rights can be supplanted by group responsibility. If this reminds you of China's Cultural Revolution, you are not wrong. The ruling class wants you to conform, confirm and comply. If you step outside the lines, be prepared to be shamed, silenced and ostracized.

A shocking example was provided Wednesday when Douglass Mackey of Delray Beach, Fla., was arrested for creating memes that allegedly misled voters in 2016 to think they could vote by texting instead of by actually going to the polls. This is the equivalent of arresting Sacha Baron Cohen for exposing the gullibility of the rich and famous. The FBI offered no evidence that Mackey actually convinced anyone not to vote, but even if it did, so what? Would you rather live in a country where the FBI is hunting down pranksters — four years after the supposed transgression — or a country where voters are expected to be able to recognize a joke when they see one?

But nothing can be taken for granted any more. The people — and even their representatives and senators — are considered enemies of the state because they hold opinions that don't meet the standards of Joe Biden or (this is even scarier!) Jake Tapper.

No wonder the people are starting to rise up and rebel against the plutocracy. It's not "We the Oligarchs" who are the source of power in the Constitution, but "We the People," yet the ruling establishment has forgotten that. If people like Donald Trump and Douglass Mackey are deemed to be "enemies of the state," then those who would suppress them and their freedoms must be considered "enemies of the people."

A house divided against itself cannot long stand, but if there is to be a truce it will not come from submission, but from a recognition that all people are created equal, that they all have certain inalienable rights, and that among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those words were worth fighting for once. Are they worth fighting for today?

I don't know, but I do know this: If Americans can't have liberty, we can't have America either — at least not one that is distinguishable from China. The time has come to make a choice.



--

A funny and pretty good description of Gamestop

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Larry Trout 


Fwd: acronyms are racist



---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Larry Trout 

The San Francisco Unified School District's art department moved to eliminate acronyms from its name, saying that the abbreviations are tied to "white supremacy culture."

"We are prioritizing antiracist arts instruction in our work," said Director of the Arts Department Sam Bass while announcing that the acronym "VAPA," which stands for visual and performing arts, would be changed to the SFUSD Arts Department.

"It is a very simple step we can take to just be referred to as the SFUSD Arts Department for families to better understand who we are," Bass said.

San Francisco school moves to eliminate acronyms due to their ties to 'white supremacy culture' (washingtonexaminer.com)

Did they just replace the VAPA acronym withe the SFUSD Arts Dept. Acronym?

We should probably ask a BLM representative what they think of acronyms?


Trey Gowdy: Crooked FBI members undermine trust in the agency

Monday, February 1, 2021

Trump's Lawyers Are Unlikely to Focus on Election Fraud Claims

Something went terribly wrong with Trump's defense (Opinion) - CNN

Trump's planned defense that the election was stolen, seems like a terrible idea and irrelevant to the charges.  It can only make Trump look bad.  People are going to think that he is a nut case.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/31/opinions/trump-legal-team-impeachment-honig/index.html

Re: Tesla only making money because laws take it from other companies

I've been pretty pessimistic about Tesla just as I have been pessimistic about electric cars.  They cost a great deal more and give you much less range.  Although Elon Musk is an interesting innovator, some of his ideas seemed questionable, like the hyper-loop and putting a colony on Mars.  I wondered if he might be a bit of a con man.

On Mon, Feb 1, 2021 at 2:49 AM Larry Trout wrote:
Eleven states require automakers sell a certain percentage of zero-emissions vehicles by 2025. If they can't, the automakers have to buy regulatory credits from another automaker that meets those requirements -- such as Tesla, which exclusively sells electric cars.
It's a lucrative business for Tesla -- bringing in $3.3 billion over the course of the last five years, nearly half of that in 2020 alone. The $1.6 billion in regulatory credits it received last year far outweighed Tesla's net income of $721 million -- meaning Tesla would have otherwise posted a net loss in 2020.
"These guys are losing money selling cars. They're making money selling credits. And the credits are going away," said Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research and one of the biggest bears on Tesla (TSLA) shares.

Growth of COVID-19

I used to follow the COVID numbers almost daily, but this got tiresome especially since the numbers kept going up. I was shocked yesterday to see that Indiana was up to 626,682 cases. This is double the number of cases in November, which is almost 1 out of ten people. Presumably, there are many more mild cases that we don't know about, which could mean that up to half the state has been infected.

In January of last year, I was already sounding the alarm when it was just a few thousand cases in China. I noticed that the trend was rapidly exponential, although some of my friends on Facebook were saying it wasn't really exponential growth because China was just doing a better job of detecting the disease. In February, public officials were saying that this isn't a big threat with many people saying that the flu was going to kill a great many more people.

In early March there weren't that many cases in the U.S., and it looked like the disease was contained, but by March 21 the disease had exploded and was everywhere in the country.

--
Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

Fwd: Death of Hong Kong

Cindy had a comfortable lifestyle in Hong Kong: she owned several properties with her husband, they had a good business going. But last year she made up her mind to leave it all behind and move her family to Britain, and not even a global pandemic was going to sway her decision.

"To uproot ourselves like this is definitely not easy. But things got uglier last year, the government was really driving us away," said the businesswoman and mother of two young children who didn't give her family name because she feared repercussions for speaking out against the Chinese government. "Everything we value – freedom of speech, fair elections, liberties – has been eroded. It's no longer the Hong Kong we knew, it's no longer somewhere we can call home."

Cindy, who landed in London last week, is one of thousands of Hong Kongers fleeing their hometown since Beijing imposed a draconian national security law on the territory last summer.

Some are leaving because they fear punishment for supporting pro-democracy protests. But many others, like her, say China's encroachment on their way of life and civil liberties has become unbearable, and they want to seek a better future for their children abroad. Most say they don't plan to ever go back.

Many firmed up their exit plans after Britain announced in July that it would open a special immigration pathway for up to 5 million eligible Hong Kongers to live, work and eventually settle in the U.K.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this week the offer shows Britain is honoring its "profound ties of history" with Hong Kong, a former colony that reverted to Chinese rule in 1997 on the understanding that it would retain its Western-style freedoms and much of its political autonomy not seen on mainland China.


Thousands of Hong Kong citizens flee to the U.K., fearing China crackdown | KTLA