Obvious to those willing to see

Thoughts for a Sunday morning

"Hillary Clinton sure got her money’s worth with the Fusion GPS deal: it induced a three-year psychotic break in the body politic, destroyed the legitimacy of federal law enforcement, turned a once-proud, free, and rational press into an infernal engine of bad faith, and is finally leading her Democratic Party to an ignominious suicide. And the damage is far from complete. It’s even possible that Mrs. Clinton will return to personally escort the party over the cliff..." - James Howard Kunstler 

More people finally waking up

Matt Taibbi's a journalist probably best known for his work at Rolling Stone.

Bernie Sanders once cited Taibbi as a journalist who "speaks truth to power."

And now?

Taibbi writes of turmoil in the federal government, a government that finds itself caught up in a "permanent coup."

I don’t believe most Americans have thought through what a successful campaign to oust Donald Trump would look like. Most casual news consumers can only think of it in terms of Mike Pence becoming president. The real problem would be the precedent of a de facto intelligence community veto over elections, using the lunatic spookworld brand of politics that has dominated the last three years of anti-Trump agitation.

If Americans were still mostly a thinking people, thoughts like this would have dominated discussions three years ago.

Instead, we've been lead down a path the nation will likely long regret.

Also saw this on social media this morning. I pretty much hate how true is rings today:

Wish I could say this was a joke

"I've held an AR-15 in my hand, I wish I had it. It is as heavy as 10 boxes that you might be moving and the bullet that is utilized, a .50-caliber, these kinds of bullets need to be licensed and do not need to be on the street" - Rep Sheila Jackson Lee.

Smooth sailing for Democrats into 2020, or will rough seas sink their socialist fantasies?

"In these horse latitudes of late summer, with the seas becalmed and the riggings a’creak, the Resistance’s ship-of-the-line (a.k.a. the Democratic Party) drifts ever further out of sight of land... Months from now, the accursed vessel may be discovered mysteriously deserted, prompting tales of mutiny and cannibalism, like the brigantine Mary Celeste of legend." - James Howard Kunstler

Deadly good intentions

"The 2003 heat wave killed 7,000 people in Germany. And, today, only 3% of German households have air conditioning. Germany’s Ministry of the Environment refused to back air conditioning as a response to global warming...  In Europe, people are dying because they’ve been told that their sacrifices will save the planet." -Daniel Greenfield, at Sultan Knish 

New Zealand's new gun control. Yeah, right...

Democrats in the US may want to follow New Zealand's path on gun control.

But even New Zealanders aren't buying into it. 

I dare say non-compliance in the US would be far more pervasive.

Texas hit by heatwave energy crisis

Seen this?

Texas Power Grid Operator Declares Level 1 Emergency Amid "Extreme Heat"

Why is Texas low on "juice"? 

Because too many coal plants were taken down too fast, without replacement capacity in place.

The warnings were plentiful.

This one from just last January:

Another Texas power plant is mothballed, raising concerns over reserves and prices

"The White Supremacy Hoax"

Via American Greatness: 

The specter of white supremacy haunts America. Let us empower the government to crush it. 

Just yesterday, “the deplorables” were to be deplored because they were “racist, sexist, homophobic,” clingers to “God and guns,” and Russian dupes to boot. Today, the agility and unanimity with which our politicians and media—heck, the ruling class—have shifted to indicting roughly 72 percent of the population as white supremacists, likely violent, would fill with envy their homologues in China, Cuba, North Korea, and other tyrannical places. By comparison, Joseph Goebbels had sloppy message discipline. Not even the Soviets in their salad days were so “on message!” 

 One may suppose that our ruling class merely intends to energize its constituencies and cower the opposition in the 2020 elections. But this is no game. Their proposals would impose pre-punishment for pre-crimes on persons accused or “suspected” of being a “white supremacist.” By whom? On the basis of what? 

In practice, a “white supremacist” is anyone whom anyone in power dislikes enough to so label him. Who would accept being outlawed at will? Our ruling class plays with matches in a house drenched in gasoline.  

 
The author is Andrew Codevilla, professor emeritus at Boston University, former U.S. Naval officer, a U.S. Foreign Services Officer, and a member of President-Elect Reagan’s Transition Teams within the U.S. Department of State. He served as a U.S. Senate staff member dealing with oversight of the U.S. intelligence services, and has held a professorial lecturer at Georgetown University and a Senior Research Fellow for the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta...

Democratic Socialists met for a convetion.

And seemed to have trouble deciding which they hated more: Capitalism or gendered pronouns.

A look into what happened during one part of the national convention of the Democratic Socialists of America in Atlanta this weekend. pic.twitter.com/bWekVQxPWV

— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) August 4, 2019

Out of the mouths of babes...

"Children don’t choose to advocate for political agendas. That choice is made for them. Sometimes those decisions are made by their parents. Other times it’s made by a totalitarian machine lubricated by hundreds of thousands in grant money stolen from their parents in order to brainwash their children." - Daniel Greenfield

Easter Forecast from 1910

Here's a magazine cartoon from early in the progressive era, published in 1910.

It's entitled "Easter Forecast: Increasing Cloudiness", and  shows clouds of bunnies, chicks, eggs 'n such, some of which are partially obscuring an empty cross and a crown of thorns apparently embedded on an Eucharist wafer.

Click to enlarge. Source: Library of Congress

Pretty darn perceptive for something from 109 years ago.