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a culture in collapse

friday, january 19th, 2024

In the last six months, we have borne witness to many iconic moments evidencing the collapse of American culture.

The signs are everywhere and cover the gamut of politics, the economy, education, social life, popular culture, foreign policy, and the military. These symptoms of decay share common themes.

Our descent is self-induced; it is not a symptom of a foreign attack or subterfuge. Our erosion is not the result of poverty and want, but of leisure and excess. We are not suffering from existential crises of famine, plague, or the collapse of our grid and fuel sources. Prior, far poorer, and war-torn generations now seem far better off than what we are becoming.

What is happening to us is not due to an adherence to a too strict conservative tradition but is almost exclusively the wage of the progressive project.

In short, we are seeing fissures that America has not experienced in our cultural history since the Civil War. The radical Left apparently feels such chaos, anarchy, and nihilism are necessary to topple past norms and customs and thereby adhere to a socialist, equity agenda that no one in normal times would stomach.

Some of the decay is existential and fundamental; some anecdotal and illustrative. But either way, while decline came about gradually over decades, its sudden and abrupt chaos during the three years of Biden’s presidency has shocked Americans.

Financial Implosion

As long as interest rates were de facto zero, both parties ran up gargantuan debt. Now the national debt has hit $34 trillion. But two odd things have also happened under the Biden administration that are beginning to undermine the very existence of the U.S. financial system:

1) Interest rates have soared from de facto zero and are on a trajectory to 5.5%—meaning that the interest on the debt, in theory, in the not too distant future will require 20 percent of the annual budget, squeezing out both entitlements and defense.

2) Yet the upcoming rendezvous with economic Armageddon has not slowed a Biden administration intent on borrowing nearly $2 trillion in the current fiscal year.

The public is baffled: is the Left playing chicken with us? Is the strategy to “gorge the beast,” thereby demanding even higher federal taxes, which, combined with many state taxes, now exceed 50 percent of one’s income?

Is the goal massive “redistribution” by ensuring “equity” by gouging the middle class and rich? Or is the left’s goal more nihilistic: to force a remedy for insolvency by ensuring high inflation, renouncing government debt, or government appropriation of private capital?

Military Crises

Americans have lost deterrence abroad.

Confusion reigns among the public over why the Biden administration fled from Afghanistan, leaving behind billions of dollars of munitions and equipment in the hands of Taliban terrorists. Why did it allow a Chinese spy balloon to traverse the continental U.S. with impunity?

And why did Biden signal to Russia when preparing an invasion of Ukraine that our reaction would depend on the magnitude of Putin’s offensive? Why has military recruitment cratered, shorting the Pentagon of thousands of soldiers?

Why do Iranian proxies attack almost daily U.S. installations abroad and ships in the Red Sea, apparently without fear of reprisal? Why did Hamas slaughter Israelis on October 7? What explains our indifference or ennui?

Is the answer a deliberate effort to curb supposed American “arrogance” by once more leading from behind? Are we rebooting the Obama Administration’s bankrupt idea of empowering an Iranian crescent from Teheran to Damascus to Beirut to Gaza to ensure “creative tension” between Israel and the moderate Arabs and Persian-led theocratic Shiites?

Why do our officer classes rotate in and out of lucrative military consultantships, lobbying billets, and board membership on corporate defense contractors—as if their innate talents rather than their lifelong contacts with current serving procurement officers earned their exorbitant fees?

Why did our retired four stars with disdain violate the uniform code of military justice by serially and publicly trashing the commander in chief? Why has the Pentagon revolutionized the entire system of recruitment, promotions, and tenure in the armed forces by predicating them in large part on race, gender, and sexual orientation rather than merit or battlefield efficacy? Did we learn anything from the old Soviet commissariat system? Would we prefer to lose a war by promoting equity than win one by ensuring liberty?

Why did the top brass go after supposedly “insurrectionist” white males (who died at twice their demographics during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan) in the military, only to discover from their own internal investigations that no such cabal of “domestic terrorists” existed, and only to drive out thousands more of the maligned by stupidly requiring COVID vaccinations from those with naturally acquired immunity?

In sum, the U.S. will either undergo a post-Vietnam-like revolution in the military or, in late Roman imperial fashion, our armed forces will be unable to defend the interests or indeed, the very safety, of the U.S.

Race

Why, when so-called non-white ethnicities and races were achieving parity with or exceeding the majority population in per capita income and when racial intermarriage was commonplace, did we blow up the values of the civil rights movement and revert to precivilizational tribalism? Who were the sophists who convinced us that racially segregated dorms, safe spaces, and graduations, or using race as an arbiter of admissions and hiring, were not racist?

When did we lump together an entire cadre of diverse ancestries, ethnicities, religions, politics, classes, and values and dub them all “white,” and then smear them collectively in stereotypical fashion? When did we calibrate race as the chief determinative factor in our identities? Have we become premodern tribal people -- feuding clans right out of the Norse sagas, ghosts of the Balkans nursing ancient grievances and hatreds? Since when in history has a nation’s “diversity” ever been preferable to its “unity”?

The Sexes

Did anyone in, say, 2004 believe that in just twenty years, the Left would try to mainstream the previously rare medical malady of gender dysphoria into a transgendered civil rights issue by insisting on three rather than two sexes?

Would anyone have believed that leftists, gays, and feminists would have done their best to destroy a half-century of female athletic achievement by allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports and thereby erase the record performances of three generations of women?

Would anyone have believed that a feminist and accomplished swimmer like Riley Gaines would be cornered, swarmed, threatened, and barricaded in at a university for the crime of daring to state the obvious: that transgendered women are still, in terms of their musculoskeletal physiques and frames, males and thereby have no business competing in women’s sports?

Would anyone have believed that a gay senate aide would have engaged in passive, unprotected sex in a public and hallowed Senate chamber, filmed in graphic detail his act of sodomy, had it circulated among friends and social media, and then, when outrage followed, claimed victimhood by accusing those offended of being homophobic toward him and his active homosexual partner?

Lawlessness

We are witnessing the steady erasure of jurisprudence, both civil and criminal. Does the law as we knew it a mere decade ago still exist? Massive looting with impunity is now largely exempt from justice in our major blue-state cities. In Compton, a van slams into a Mexican bakery as waiting crowds swarm, loot, and destroy the business. And for what? Some free pies and cakes? Or the nihilist delight in ruining the livelihood of a hardworking family business?

Such smash-and-grabs rob stores of billions of dollars in revenue each year. Can we even comprehend that employees and security guards are now ordered to stand down, as if the apprehension of such thieves might in some way seem illiberal or racist?

Does anyone even care that pro-Hamas protestors—many in America as guests on green cards and student visas—shouted support for the October 7 massacre of Jews, screamed for the destruction of Israel and the Jews in it, shut down the Manhattan and Golden Gate Bridges, defiled the Lincoln Memorial and White House gates, and disrupted Christmas celebrations in our major cities with complete exemption? Is storming the California legislature, and disrupting it in session, now a felony in the manner of those convicted after January 6, or do we have two sets of laws, dependent on ideology, race, and party affiliation?

In one of the most chilling videos in memory, Las Vegas Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus was recently violently attacked by an unshackled career felon defendant (with three prior violent felony convictions and facing additional new felony counts). The assailant, Deobra Redden, leaped over the justice’s bench with ease and began beating her and pulling her hair before two bailiffs, with great difficulty, managed to restrain him. Why was Redden out on parole given his violent record, and why was he not shackled given his toxic past? His self-admitted effort to kill the judge, his ability nearly to pull it off, and the record of past leniency accorded him are a commentary on a sick society.

But then again, in our major cities, George-Soros-subsidized prosecutors have all but destroyed civil society. They have been systematically releasing felons with violent criminal records on the same day they are arrested, freeing convicted felons early from prisons and jails, and sabotaging the law by arbitrary enforcement on the grounds that it is inherently either unfair or racist.

The post civilization civil bookend to that precivilizational subterfuge was a systematic legal effort, for the first time in American history, to remove in an election year the leading primary and general election candidate Donald Trump from various state ballots. The Soviet-like charge was that he was guilty of “insurrection,” a crime he has never been charged with, much less convicted of. Meanwhile, three state prosecutors and one special federal counsel—all leftists and some previously bragging in their own election campaigns of their intention to destroy Trump—have charged candidate Trump with an array of felonies. The vast majority of Americans agree Trump would never have been so charged had he just not sought to seek reelection—or had been a liberal Democrat.

Education

In ancient times, the President of the Harvard Corporation was a signature scholar and intellectual, befitting Harvard’s own self-regard as the world’s most preeminent university. No longer.

Now-resigned president Coleen Gay’s meteoric career was based on a flimsy record of a mere 11 articles—the majority of them plagiarized. Her entire career was fueled by the tired pretext that the privileged Gay was somehow deserving of special deference given her race and gender.

Confronted with such corruption, the Harvard Corporation, its legal team, and 700 faculty sought to downplay Gay’s intellectual theft. Indeed, they smeared her critics as racist—only then to deal with her new billet as a professor of Political Science with a long record of plagiarism that was exempt from the sort of punishments dealt out to students and faculty for less egregious defenses.

How did Ivy League degrees so quickly become mostly certifications of ideological and woke orthodoxy? Or is it worse than that? Does a Stanford history major or Yale literature graduate know anything, respectively, about the Civil War or Shakespeare’s plays? Do they even know that we, the public, know that they don’t know?

Was Elizabeth Warren really Harvard’s first law professor of color? Was Claudine Gay truly an impressive and respected scholar of political science? Are the governing members of the Harvard Corporation the nation’s best and brightest?

How in less than five years did our elite universities destroy meritocracy, abolish SAT requirements, require DEI oaths and pledges, and mirror the worst commissariat institutions of the old Warsaw Pact nations and Soviet Union? How and why these elite universities blew themselves up in a mere decade will baffle historians for decades to come.

The End of Sovereignty

The Biden administration has shattered federal immigration law, as some 10 million illegal entries will have crossed unlawfully and with impunity in the first Biden term—all by intent. The southern border is not merely porous; it no longer even exists.

Did the Left want new constituents? New entitlement recipients to grow government and raise taxes on the clingers and deplorables?

Did it want a larger DEI base to replace the steady exodus of non-whites from left-wing agendas? Does it shun sovereignty, preferring a global village without arbitrary borders? Do these utopians in Malibu and Martha’s Vineyard similarly feel their own yards and grounds need no walls, no barriers, and no boundaries to deny the underprivileged their rights to enjoy what the predatory classes possess?

In this new America of ours, Joe Biden is hale and savvy, while Hunter did nothing wrong. Our heroes are Dylan Mulvaney, Gen. Rachel Levine, and the two Sams, Bankman-Fried and Brinton.

In today’s America, Karin Jean-Pierre is truthful, while Alejandro Mayorkas is honest. An innocent and saintly George Floyd was randomly murdered; his death proof of systemic police racism. And defunding the police brought calm and quiet, in the way our border is secure and the homeless are mere victims.

Dr. Jill is an impressive academic. Oprah and LeBron are the downtrodden and victimized. Gen. Mark Milley is a brave maverick, and so is Adam Schiff. The flight from Afghanistan marked a brilliantly organized retreat.

The Chinese balloon really did not take too many pictures of sensitive areas. January 6 was an armed insurrection, preplanned by fiery conspirators and revolutionaries. Ashli Babbitt deserved to be blasted in the neck for entering a broken window.

Kamala Harris is a wordsmith. Russian collusion really happened. So did Russian laptop disinformation. Christopher Steele’s dossier was mostly true, in the fashion of Claudine Gay’s dissertation and Barack Obama’s memoir. And 51 former intelligence authorities bravely came forward to offer their expertise in certifying that Hunter’s laptop was cooked up in Moscow.

With all this, what do we think the Iranians, Putin’s Russians, the communist Chinese, the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas now think of the United States?

That we are the nation that won World War II or fled from Afghanistan? Did the eight million who broke our laws and simply walked across our border respect us, fear us, admire us, or come here to manipulate and use us? Did Hamas appreciate the hundreds of millions of dollars we gave them, in the same way Iran was friendlier after we lifted the sanctions?

In sum, American civilization has been turned upside down, and we have a rendezvous soon with the once unthinkable and unimaginable.

A Day In The Life.

Up at 7a on Friday, I went thru my finger stick to check my BSL (Blood Sugar Level) and recorded it on my Diabetes 2 chart, upped the heat, made coffee and breakfast, took two 50mg Tramadol for various pains, fired-up the Win-7 Pentium HP desktop to let 32 million lines of code load, had a couple smokes in the semi-cool garage and checked the day's to-do list.

It was a damp, cold, sunny 28° morning; only some rain was forecast for today/tonite, and no snow forecast now -- just a ***High Wind Advisory*** -- until early next week. The coffee and a couple of Marlboros were good together, as usual. I tuned into the "Chris Stigall Show LIVE" from 6-9a, and then the "Chris Plante Show LIVE" 9-12noon, and later it will be the Rob Carson Show LIVE 12-3p. Sherry will be here at 1, so I'll catch that one on the station's podcast roster.

I had a onion/poppy seed bagel for breakfast; can't remember the last time I had a bagel! Good stuff. While scanning the weather and news sites, I ran across this BS crap: "Rice University Offers ‘Afrochemistry’ Class Detailing ‘Inequities in Chemistry’"... are they really f•cking kidding me? I had to read it 2x to make sure it wasn't a "Babylon Bee" spoof. Sadly, it isn't. Go ahead and throw-up; I'll wait. Oh, hold it: the Swedes are preparing for World War III, and as usual, Europe is panicking. Me? Not Yet, but I'm already "well prepared" for (almost) anything, except a direct nuke hit. Blech.

I left for the New Eastern Market at 10:30, picked-up my order, got back around 11:30, and unpacked the 2 bags. After some lunch, Sherry arrived at 1p, and we spent a good hour talking, and then left for Flinchbaugh's Orchard & Farm Market, to get some goodies. We both got a load, and came back to my place for a few minutes, as storms gathered just to the west, heading our way. Sherry left to get home ahead of the storms and coming dark. The hard rain and 50-60-70mph wind started all over again, and the forecast for a coming blizzard was posted on the weather sites. I had dinner, watched Discovery's "Gold Rush" and Motor Trend's "Mecum Auto Auction from Kissimmee (FL)" until midnight. Lights out.

Up at 7a on Saturday, to a 44°, mostly sunny, but no rain or wind, morning. I did the usual morning routine, had coffee and a few smokes in the garage, and tuned into some of the "CS Show" latest podcasts, on iHeart Radio (free account). I tried to get some timely "news" on my 82" Samsung QLED4 HD TV, but it was another "NBC" (Nothing But Crap) day; total shit. Hells bells, I can get news on the Net websites, anytime and all the time. No wonder TV is still dying slowly, and has been for over 15yrs. Drech.

A ***High Wind Warning*** has been posted to the weather-related sites, and local vehicle receivers, since Tuesday, and updated to include 70mph gusts. I see seat cushions, lawn chairs etc blowing around the backyards, and down the front street, almost every day. Crazy that people haven't secured stuff on their patios and decks, by now.

After lunch, I washed a load of 4 (17 in my collection) Classic Pendleton Board Shirts, hung-up to dry, and headed for the LR couch -- no errands or reason to go out -- for a 'short' snooze, and wound-up sleeping 3hrs. Yikes. Back up at 5:30, I checked the weather and news, and temps had dropped to 31°.

Checking AccuWeather.com's site, SEVERE COLD and SNOW Warnings for tonite thru Tuesday, were posted, so I garaged the Jeep. Des Moines, home of my Alma Mater, Drake University, was at a numbing and lethal -19°, as was the Northern Plains, Midwest and the massive cold front was moving South and East. I "fondly" remember opening-up and plowing my business' 20ac complex, from 1991 to 2012, 7 days a week, in zero+ and sub-zero temps, and huge snowfalls, except for getting frostbite (fingers, toes)`10-15 times, and I don't want to go thru that again.

I had a light dinner, watched more Motor Trend "Mecum Auto Auction" at Kissimmee (FL), and saw a 1962 Ferrari 250GT SWB "California Spyder" auctioned at an astounding $16,500,000! Stunning car and price.

Everytime you use your browser on the Net, whether with a PC or Mac, malicious "tracker files" -- aka "cookies" -- are installed unknowingly (to you) onto your unit's HD(s), and they relay information and data back to the originator, like the evil Google etc etc. Each night, I clean-off my computer's HD(s) with CCleaner (now using Professional version) and makes the computer and browser unencumbered and faster in the morning. I've used CCleaner, with my original Norton 360 Pro (huge suite of protections and utilities), MalwareBytes Pro (many utilities) and Opera's built-in AV feature. Protect yourself, finances and your device -- especially if you do any banking on it! -- and get a Free Trial copy of Norton 360, Norton Utilities Pro, and MalwareBytes along with CCleaner.

Mid-evening, I switched from "Mecum Auction" to History's "UnXplained Mysteries" until 12:30a, and bagged it for the night.

Up at 7:30a on Sunday, to a sunny, 30°, snow-free morning, despite all the doom-and-gloom forecasts of yesterday. Well, it almost was "snow-free" until around 10a, as 50mph winds and squalls blew thru the area. I tuned into the weather, news and some recent podcasts of the "CS Show", had another bagel for breakfast, and made a 2nd carafe of great coffee. I lounged around until almost 12noon, but had a list of chores for Sunday, as I do every week, and after a morning shave and shower, I got to it. Laundry, basement "prep" inventory, vacuum Jeep, download 2023 Well-Fargo 1099 Forms, and I settled-in to watch History's "American Pickers" for the evening. I called Sherry to make some plans for next week, had a bite of dinner and watched TV. Lights out at midnight.

Awake at 6 and up at 6:30a on Monday, to an overcast, very cold 21° at ZERO-DARK-THIRTY, morning. I quickly upped the heat, made coffee and had a couple smokes in the cold garage. I fired-up the oscillating tower heater in the garage, but that'll take 30-25mins to get warm. With a mug of Italian Dark Roast, I tuned into the "CS Show", and relaxed in my office-sunroom. I checked AccuWeather's 10-day forecast for the coming Winter Storm "Heather". Heh. The bitter cold's leading edge has just hit us overnight, and will get much worse tomorrow, with snow and ice. I rescheduled my Dr's appt at 11a tomorrow, to the first week of February. I'm staying inside; I don't drive on ice.

★ WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY! ★
• ...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 5 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 10 AM EST TUESDAY...
• WHAT: Snow expected. Total snow accumulations of 2 to 3", with up to 4 to 5 inches possible in some areas east of the Susquehanna Mainstem.
• WHERE: York, Lancaster, Adams Counties.
• WHEN: From 5 PM this afternoon to 10 AM EST Tuesday.
• IMPACTS: Plan on slippery road conditions. The hazardous conditions could impact the morning or evening commute.
• ADDITIONAL DETAILS: Hourly snowfall rates will be relatively light and mainly one-quarter of an inch per hour or less.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS:
• The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission remind motorists to adjust speeds based on driving conditions as winter weather impacts will include snow covered roads and limited visibility.
[Winter Storm "Ember" Watch! Climate Change! Global Warming! Kiss your asses goodbye. The demonKKKrat, leftist-eco-wackos are still 'in charge', and are going to destroy our country and way of life! Bend over and grab your ankles!]

I've been thinking about *this* for a while, and have arrived at an unpleasant conclusion, months ago: "Lawfare" is failing to stop Trump45, for the upcoming GE. My prediction: Trump will win a close 2024 GE (General Election), despite the left's massive fraud, cheating and corruption, but... the DEEP STATE WILL NEVER ALLOW HIM TO TAKE OFFICE. "SOMETHING" WILL HAPPEN. The democrats -> liberals -> progressives -> demonKKKrats -> Marxists + socialists + communists + fascists + anarchists + BLM are a violent, hate-filled, murderous group of subhumans. Watch for "it" to happen. I truly hope I'm wrong.

After breakfast, I tuned into the "CP Show" until noon, and left at 12:30p for my usual trip and 3 errands in Southern York County, before the roads get ugly tonite, and tomorrow morning. Traffic wasn't that heavy for a noontime run, I also stopped at Rite Aid to p/u a waiting Rx, and was back by 1:320p. After finishing the morning's coffee, I had lunch, crashed on the LR couch for 2½hrs, and woke-up ion the dark,. again. I hate when that happens. Temps were dropping very quickly into the low-20s, so I closed down the condo, and had a light dinner. It was snowing lightly, and I garaged the Jeep, so the snowplow crew could do their work in the morning. All that was on TV was the Iowa Caucus -- the "Hawkeye Cauci" (a Rish-ism)) crap, so I watched the Motor Trend "Iron Resurrection" marathon, flipped channels, until 1a, and unplugged.

Up at 6:30a on Tuesday, to a cold 23°, it had stopped snowing, with about 3-4". The snowplow crew was here earlier, and got the walks and driveways done. I fired-up the furnace, made coffee, had a couple smokes and when the desktop had loaded code, went to AccuWeather's maps. I scanned the weather and news, opened a new bag of House Espresso Coffee, and nicely follows the bag of House Italian Dark I just finished. The weather and local websites had this warning posted. DUH...

★ WINTER STORM WARNING! ★
• WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON EST TODAY
• WHAT: Heavy snow. Total accumulations of 4 to 6 inches.
• WHERE: Lebanon, York and Lancaster Counties.
• WHEN: Until noon EST Tuesday.
• IMPACTS: Plan on slippery road conditions, with ice and snow.
• ADDITIONAL DETAILS: Light snow will linger into mid/late morning.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS:
• The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission strongly encourage motorists to heed all travel restrictions and delay unnecessary travel as significant winter weather conditions will make travel very hazardous..
[Winter Storm "Ember" Warning! Climate Change! Global Warming! Kiss your asses goodbye. The demonKKKrat, leftist-eco-wackos are still 'in charge', and are going to destroy our country and way of life! Bend over and grab your ankles!]

Tesla owners in the sub-zero Chicagoland area, are finding out that their "EV cars" are dead in this weather. I've said that, on several occasions, the crappy Lithium-Ion batteries are junk, and won't charge, or hold a charge, in either extreme cold or very hot weather. Sucks to be them! No sympathy from me.

Nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one to do it with.

It was lightly snowing on-and-off all morning, and then we got some serious snow around 12noon, as I was starting a load of laundry and making a Rotisserie Chicken Salad on Toast Sandwich for lunch. I finished the laundry, started the dishwasher, and grabbed a 90min snooze on the LR couch. I had a boatload of eMail to get thru, and do some more inventorying on the basement';s 'prep supplies', and then settled-in to watch Motor Trend's "Iron Resurrection" Marathon, and then History's "Curse of Oak Island". After the late evening news, I bagged it at 11:30p. Good night, Irene./p>

Up at 5:45a on Wednesday morning, to a bitter cold 10°, 0-DARK-THIRTY morning start. First, the condo heat, and next the garage heater. I then started coffee, tuned into the "CS Show", and checked the weather and news. This brutal cold is a "gift" from the Northern Plains and Midwest, who've had below zero temps and a LOT of snow for the past week. The 5" we got yesterday pales in comparison to their dose. The news was all about post mortem-Iowa Caucus analyses, and RamaSwampy's rollover to Trump's campaign, now that he's been promised a plum Trump Administration position. The weather forecast: more cold and snow. Hey, it's Winter!

Taking a break, I called Sherry to chat and check on tomorrow's get-together, and we'll talk again tomorow morning. I had Pulled Pork BBQ w/ Sauce & Olive Pasta Salad for lunch; YES! I grabbed a 2hr snooze on the LR couch, did computer work most of the afternoon, and watched the 6p news on Fox. Another "NBC" (Nothing But Crap) Day, but History's "American Pickers" was on, with a new episode at 9; no brainer. I watched until 11:30p, and unplugged.

Oh swell, here comes another one...

★ WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY! ★
• WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM FRIDAY TO 1 AM EST SATURDAY
• WHAT: Snow expected. Total accumulations of 2 to 4 inches.
• WHERE: Portions of central Pennsylvania.
• WHEN: From 1 AM Friday to 1 AM EST Saturday.
• IMPACTS: Plan on slippery road conditions. The hazardous conditions could impact the morning or evening commute..
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS:
• The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission remind motorists to adjust speeds based on driving conditions as winter weather impacts will include snow covered roads and limited visibility.
[Winter Storm "Indigo" Warning! Climate Change! Global Warming! Kiss your asses goodbye. The demonKKKrat, leftist-eco-wackos are still 'in charge', and are going to destroy our country and way of life! Bend over and grab your ankles!]

I slept-in until 7:30a on Thursday, a cold, 16° morning. No snow yet, despite the maps showing there was. With the usual routines underway, I tuned into the "CS Show" and at 9, the "CP Show" and checked the weather maps and news on several websites. Sherry called at 11a, we rescheduled today's get-together until next week, so she could recuperate. After lunch, I left at 1:30p, I left to get some errands done -- Rutter's, Rite Aid Pharmacy, and the PA State Store -- got 4 days worth of mail, and was back home by 2p, unloaded the cargo, and enjoyed some "BUTTER" and "LaCrema" Chardonnay.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh shit! I've LOST my phone! I can't find it anywhere, have no land-line to call to locate it, and I DON'T frigging care!

I had a nice 2hr snooze, did some paperwork, finally found the damned phone, and had dinner. Another "NBC Day/Night" I watched some old Discovery+ "Gold Rush" episodes until 11p, and called it a day.

Tomorrow starts a new week here in the "Journal", and it's a clear one. I canceled my therapeutic massage and will reschedule it later.

Our Bad ‘Leaders’ Really Are Children of The Devil.

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it." (John 8:44 KJ21).

Jesus usually managed to say a lot, without speaking a lot of words.

Perhaps His opposite today would be the political class – the people who think that by possession of a seat of power somewhere, obtained somehow, they have been anointed to run the world, that the laws, rulings and dictates they spew forth must be obeyed by the entire world. America's Constitution would never have emerged from such a cultural cesspool, and it will not long survive the current lies of those who have emerged from Satan's fatherhood and believe they are destined to govern the entire world by virtue of their parentage.

The power-hungry today imagine themselves statesmen and women, not dark, shadowy, back-room deal makers and breakers. They like to speak great, flowing words that wash over one another, saturating the airwaves and keeping the audience hanging on, listening to the sound of the words, always believing until the very end that the speaker surely had something important to say. In the end, the audience remembers how well he or she spoke, but still knows little to nothing about what was spoken about. Hmm … maybe that is how we ended up with the "leadership" that America has had – at least during the lifetimes of most of us who call ourselves Boomers.

Our opening Jesus quote leaves no doubt that evil people didn't get where they are, behave as they do, and speak and act as they do, without help. Successful parents contribute to both the genetic makeup of their children, as well as the behavioral makeup. This used to be, and perhaps still is referred to as "nature and nurture."

But in our opening quote, Jesus wasn't speaking to children, he was speaking to adults. In linking them to the devil as their father He accounts for both their nature and nurture as leading to their current situation, in which they choose to do the works of the devil in their lives – and in the lives of others, if permitted.

If we move forward from Bible times to our present time, we see clearly the depth and breadth of those in our culture who are certainly the spiritual product of their father, the devil. Unfortunately, we see them in our government, our education, entertainment, business and almost all aspects of daily life where they can claim some sliver of power over others.

The present disinformation warfare we have all been engaged in (either producing, echoing, or consuming) is indeed a direct effort by the father of lies and his offspring to lead his soldiers forward with great, flowing words that – in the end – signify nothing. While we attempt to decipher the meaning of these words, Hell laughs, because after Jesus plundered Hell and left it following His Resurrection, there is no truth to be found in Hell.

The answer for those who attempt to parse and understand the lies of the devil's offspring in our day is not found in understanding, but rather in confronting the speakers with God's Word as recorded in the Bible. God forever honors His covenants and promises. Trying to "understand" a liar is futile. Lying isn't about clearing up confusion, it's about obtaining power over others. Once the liar possesses the power or the position, the need to convince anyone disappears.

Those are the stakes of the propaganda war the one-worlders are carrying out. They know perfectly well that their daddy is the father of lies, and that if they prevail over the church in this propaganda war, they will have won it all.

The Truth versus the devil's lies. The church was ill-equipped for this war, but I do not rule out another "Red Sea" moment, which reduced Egypt to an also-ran nation for all of history. The Bridegroom is unlikely to abandon the Bride in her hour of need, but I think she may have some remedial education to complete before she is ready for the wedding.

Can America Survive This Perversion of Our Justice System?

Here we are at the beginning of 2024. Election Day (should there actually be an Election Day) is a little over ten months away, and every day is a new outrage, a new WTF? moment, a new rule or norm shredded by the lunatics of the progressive left. This is happening to such a degree that the only conclusion to be drawn is that on the one hand, we have no government anymore — just an amalgam of cowardliness on the part of our elected and appointed officials (especially those of the Republican stripe) — and on the other hand, propagandized lawless provocateurs throwing temper tantrums and committing atrocities against the body politic and its legal system on a daily basis.

Every day as something else comes to light, I find myself saying, “No. That can’t be true.” Yet it is certainly happening.

Today’s spectacle out of Georgia: Fani Willis hired her lover, who has no experience trying felony cases, to be the chief prosecutor in the election case against Donald Trump. While she was making self-righteous and remarkably stupid pronouncements of her virtue and legal acumen, she was sleeping with Mr. Ward, allegedly her lover, and allowing him to bill the State of Georgia over $650,000. Among his bills, which she approved, are notations like a claim that he spent 24 hours on one day in November working on the case, requiring him to be paid for every minute of that day by the State. Seriously?

But as outrageous as this lunacy, this breach of public trust, and this likely felonious behavior are, it all pales in comparison to the clown show of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing of today in the Trump immunity case.

Another spectacle out of our justice system, which has been perhaps mortally wounded by the left in their Inspector Javert pursuit of Donald Trump No Matter What, is the three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit, none of whom asked a single intelligent question of either of the parties in the appeal of the Trump immunity case, but which reached the ultimate in tone-deaf idiocy with a question from the circuit judge on the appeals court, who asked, “If Donald Trump has immunity, couldn’t he order SEAL Team 6 to murder his political rivals?”

It is one thing for a wild-eyed bottom-feeder and zealot like Jack Smith, who has lost so many times in the Supreme Court, to advocate such an unsupported and dastardly “legal” argument like this. It is quite another for a partisan hack like the woman pretending to be a jurist to unthinkingly buy in to it and ask such a stupid and reckless question.

I suppose we can be thankful that at the moment the only thing Mr. Biden is doing is trying to throw his chief political rival in jail for the rest of his life. He’s certainly doing every nasty trick in the book to politically murder his chief rival. Not a great question, considering that misuse of the justice system is itself a political crime for which Mr. Biden will cry for immunity at some point. You know it, and so do I.

She might have also considered that a certain former president of the United States, Barack Obama, thought it was his right to order the execution of Americans overseas during the War on Terror without trial, without formal charge, and without anything resembling due process because it was less embarrassing than capturing them and keeping them in Gitmo. And if you don’t believe that, read the New York Times, who broke that story.

If I were that judge, I don’t think I would use that particular hypothetical, given the less than legal behavior of the her Democrat heroes. Is Obama immune to subsequent prosecution for those official acts of his? Is Biden? Execution without due process is murder by an officer of the state. According to Jack Smith, Obama is immune for extrajudicial killing, but Donald Trump is not for trying to investigate election fraud in 2020.

We can also consider the immunity of the vice president, who admitted on video to strongarming the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor investigating his son’s company. That was an act committed as an official of the United States. Is there immunity for that? How about taking bribes to skewer foreign policy while in office from foreign countries? Immunity for that? News flash: The only thing preventing Biden’s legal team from trying that argument is that they do not want immunity to be extended to Trump.

Let us also remember that the evidence is compelling that Mr. Obama in early January of 2017 sat in the Oval Office with the current president of the United States and put his imprimatur on the persecution and subversion of the incoming administration of Donald Trump through compromise and corruption of the FBI. Peaceful transition of power, eh? Underhanded and dishonest subversion, more like. That, my friends, if proven in a court, is conspiracy to commit sedition. Does the president have immunity for that?

The perversion of our judges and our justice system by people by Jack Smith and the three on the bench today in D.C. is one of the great tragedies of our current American situation. The legal hairs that would have to be split to find that Trump has no immunity when responding to claims of stolen and fraudulent votes in a presidential election, but Barack Obama has it for extrajudicial killing of American citizens without due process would be a marvel to behold. Or that Joe Biden has immunity for perverting and co-opting the DOJ to destroy his political rival or taking bribes and participating in a cover-up to this day to pervert the course of justice and hide his bribery and influence scheme – again, quite a trick.

This is not to say that the partisan hacks won’t try, but here’s the bottom line, ladies: you won’t get away with it, except temporarily. And they may not get away with ruling for Jack the Jackal even temporarily. Stay tuned to see how or if these leftist destroyers of our justice justify extrajudicial killing but not inquiry into election fraud.