It’d be interesting to take a poll that asks, Were you surprised by Zhou’s obvious dementia in his debate debacle? The results might give some clue as to who follows politics in this country. Nobody who does follow politics could possibly have been surprised. And yet the Fourth Branch, the media, desperately want us to believe that they didn’t know—or that we shouldn’t worry because he’s reported to be more or less in touch for about 6 hours a day (according to Axios’ sources). I suppose Bluto Barr would like you to believe he didn’t know Zhou was fuzzy on the best days, a criminal, or that the Hunter laptop was real. Everybody except six SCOTUS justices knows better—at least if they follow the news just a little bit.
Thanks Mark - amazing link on Nixon. My head is spinning.
So was Mark Felts admission a limited hangout?
Add to this the collusion between the Judge and Congress.
Sounds like what was done to Trump during his first term has echoes of what was done to Nixon. The differences being Trump fought back and completed his term.
And in 2020 Trump basically had a color revolution done against him that succeeded in installing Biden into office.
Also, as Trump understood, America was a very different country in 1968, with no alt sources of information. Mac and DD like to say that the military is living in 1991 and don't get conventional warfare any longer. But our ruling class--and just look at their average ages!--are still living in 1968. The "shadowy network" thought that even the bare recollection of civic and cultural virtue had been erased and a new "coalition of the fringes" (h/t Steve Sailer) could sweep all before it. Then came Trump. And he's back.
The big question, if Trump loses, what happens? Has Trump awakened a nation waiting to be born or will it just fade away?
There's a large dollop of stupidity here too. Remember Bader Ginsburg and how they forgot to get rid of her and replace her on Scotus? Looks like they've made the same screw up with Biden.
Yeah. That argues, btw, that Obama was never the shadow POTUS. It's the "shadowy network" of "interests" behind both of them that screwed up. But that could end up being a very good thing. Or a catastrophe, of course.
Lebanese army has been neutered by Hezbollah. Any attempt to build them up is just delusional. Same with the Lebanese Government. I have no idea what the impact due to changes in Lebanese demographics (more Sunni) due to Syrian ethnic cleansing has done to power structure in Lebanon.
I’m sure the Western elites think they can do a color revolution in Lebanon to push out Herzbollah influence. Very delusional.
Simplicitius embedded this video by Louis CK on open borders to display the mindset pushing it. Mind boggling. Note Hungarian Jewish grand father.
Note something interesting. How is it possible to talk about the malaise of hoi polloi in the West without once mentioning Christianity? What is "Western civilization" if not the civilization that grew out of Latin Christianity? And yet zero mention of that. Instead, there's lots of babbling about abstract issues of "civic virtue" etc. Civic virtue as we used to know it simply was the living out of Christian faith as meaningful to the life experience of the great majority of citizens. That's gone now, doubtfully recoverable on the same scale, yet no mention?
There is one mention of "religion" either--except for this: " the New World Religion defined by Satanic Ritual."
This is all completely typical of the libertarian brand of Liberalism. They babble about shallow political/philosophical ideas as if a living organic cultural unity can be built off such abstractions. Not gonna happen, and in its own weird way it's a doubling down on what got us to this point in the first place. Putin and Xi both understand that within their own historic and cultural contexts. Americans and Western Europeans don't, and that's the core of our crisis.
Simplicius mentions the SF "pride" event, without delving too deeply. In his twitter thread for the Thinker--in addition to far more lurid stuff--he retweeted a fascinating tweet:
in which a typical American business guy bemoans the loss of business in a town that was taken over by perverts--normals are staying away and business is suffering. It's a terrific read, as are the comments (MTG and Juanita Broadrick weigh in). What's notable, however, is lines like this:
"You have sexualized the town and now the money is going elsewhere.
People just want a coffee, sushi, a steak, a muffin and some ice cream.
They don’t care about who you sleep with, and to constantly explain to their kids what’s happening."
Normals are voting with their feet, but even this guy won't--or is afraid to--speak the truth. He has to make obeisance to the American public religion: Do your own thing--it's no one else's buisiness. Ain't no civic virtue possible from that foundation--it's how we got to the lack of civic virtue. Abstractions won't get us back. Christian faith may, but not as it came to America. What Latin Christianity offered was sound philosophical principles embedded in an historic person and event in an organic unity.
Recently I noted a poll showing a rather sharp decline in approval of "gay marriage". An indication of probably two things: 1) the shallowness of the original approval based on non-thought libertarian notions, and 2) the persistence of normal human nature still. But, salutary as this may be as an indicator, it needs to be based in something deeper than instinctive revulsion. That's what Christian faith used to provide.
More from L Johnson on Israel’s suicidal mission into Lebanon and the “place holder” Zhou’s incapacity to stop it:
“Joe Biden’s vacant, deteriorating mind is not a metaphor. It is a reality. The United States is the only country that can prevent this war but, like Biden on Thursday night’s debate stage, United States policymakers are frozen in place and unwilling to order Israel to stand down. We are encouraging the Israeli version of Thelma-and-Louise to step on the gas as they hurtle towards the edge of the Grand Canyon. Only in this case, the abyss is Lebanon.“
I really appreciate Sacks' clarity. We are being looted.
This situation at the national level happens at the local level everywhere: teachers unions work to elect the people who will sit across from them at the bargaining table to negotiate the terms of their employment.
The Biden Administration's 2021 federal contractor vaccine mandate recently showed us all how many people across this great land of ours are dependent on government money, and so will provide no real counterweight to increases in government spending made possible by the Federal Reserve.
Much to unpack in this post Mark. So I as I usually do I sprinkle in thoughts as I read and re-read the various topics interspersed.
"But, who are the people in this “shadowy network” (Korybko), “these interests who want to loot the Republic” (Sacks)?" IMO this feels very Clintonesque to me People like the Podesta clan et al.
Also, read an interesting reflection from a member of the 4th branch (Axios). IMO it is the 1st lady who has been in charge for 4+ years now. Did you see how she treated him (video) after the debate? Talked to him like a 2nd grader until he smiled. Good boy Zhou. She's in control. https://www.axios.com/2024/06/30/top-aides-shielded-biden-white-house-debate
Probably all of the usual suspects are involved: Team Obama (what do Susan Rice and Valjar do all day?), Team Clinton, the intelligence agencies, etc. There's probably a lot of internecine turf wars going on too. Expect that to get worse as we approach the big day.
I don't believe it is "any one person" who has the power. here's a link to Trump's buddy (David Sacks protege) Chamath talking about halfway through.
He says "All of that is systematically about a group of people that are unelected who are trying to control democracy. And I think that that's the most troubling takeaway from this. I don't think that you should take away from last night that Joe Biden had a bad debate. I think what we should take away is that there is a person who should be allowed to transition into the sunset and be celebrated for what he's done.
And instead, there are people that frankly, at the margins are acting pretty unethically, and at the limit is actually acting somewhat diabolically, to prop this person up so that they can keep power.
Celebrated for what he’s done??? You can’t be serious. Biden is corrupt financially and morally and potentially treasonous. The dementia is no excuse for his actions spanning decades!!
America has a long-time power structure that is shadowy in one sense and out in the open in another. For example, the most powerful lobby is not what most people think, it is in fact the "Business Roundtable" which is made up of the CEOs of the biggest corporations in America. They are the tip of the spear of the super rich when coming up with plans on how to control the government for their group benefit.
They are not the only powerful lobby of course, just the most influential when it comes to getting congress to make laws in their favor. Then there are all the super-rich old money families who have been grooming politicians and financially guiding the bureaucracy on the federal and state levels for a long time, including making sure certain people become judges, heads of regulatory commissions and so on.
Every state has their own ancien regime of large old money families with their tentacles in everything, who have developed the power structure of the state over a long period. The richest do that on a global level--the Rockefellers and all of their related oil rich families, Mellons, Fords, Morgans, Schiffs, etc. They bought up the government and set up the American empire after WWII in an attempt to dominate everywhere and have been assiduous in trying to expand and maintain control over it. Then there are the nouveau riche like the Walmart clan, the Tech rich, and many more who have tried to use their money and influence to get their nose under the old-money power structure tent.
Which is why Elon Musk has had so much difficulty. The nouveau riche can either join the long-time power structure dominated by old money families or get harassed by them if they try to challenge them. The old power structure used to dominate both Democrats and Republicans parties and still do to an extent, aka The Uniparty, but they were against Trump because he didn't toe the line on certain priorities that they see as necessary, i.e., continuing the long time goal of a unified business dominated political order where every nation's laws align with each other, follow the same rules and regulations, for business to work without the multinational corporations and banks needing to make different policies for every country.
They have been trying to set up a worldwide financial-regulatory-security system so they can dominate nations without any interference from nationalist agendas. That means overthrowing any government that doesn't go along with them. Trump said he didn't want to fight against the Russians, which is a main foe of their plan for a unified global order. For details see https://medium.com/@pamho/war-of-the-worlds-the-new-class-7d121bc83688
In a power vacuum, someone will always see their chance to organize, its the natural tendency of people to want to be lead which creates these opportunities.
This would be happening throughout all stratas of governance, from local level, the DC level.
With all this fighting for dominance via "any means necessary", no wonder "America is in decline". The crews who should be working together to run things, are working against each other for small personal gains that are significant only to themselves, at the cost of the greater good.
Thanks Mark - amazing link on Nixon. My head is spinning.
So was Mark Felts admission a limited hangout?
Add to this the collusion between the Judge and Congress.
Sounds like what was done to Trump during his first term has echoes of what was done to Nixon. The differences being Trump fought back and completed his term.
And in 2020 Trump basically had a color revolution done against him that succeeded in installing Biden into office.
Also, as Trump understood, America was a very different country in 1968, with no alt sources of information. Mac and DD like to say that the military is living in 1991 and don't get conventional warfare any longer. But our ruling class--and just look at their average ages!--are still living in 1968. The "shadowy network" thought that even the bare recollection of civic and cultural virtue had been erased and a new "coalition of the fringes" (h/t Steve Sailer) could sweep all before it. Then came Trump. And he's back.
The big question, if Trump loses, what happens? Has Trump awakened a nation waiting to be born or will it just fade away?
There's a large dollop of stupidity here too. Remember Bader Ginsburg and how they forgot to get rid of her and replace her on Scotus? Looks like they've made the same screw up with Biden.
Yeah. That argues, btw, that Obama was never the shadow POTUS. It's the "shadowy network" of "interests" behind both of them that screwed up. But that could end up being a very good thing. Or a catastrophe, of course.
Yep. Stupidity cuts both ways. It means that they will lose, but also that they will be prone to do the craziest things to retrieve the situation.
Lebanese army has been neutered by Hezbollah. Any attempt to build them up is just delusional. Same with the Lebanese Government. I have no idea what the impact due to changes in Lebanese demographics (more Sunni) due to Syrian ethnic cleansing has done to power structure in Lebanon.
I’m sure the Western elites think they can do a color revolution in Lebanon to push out Herzbollah influence. Very delusional.
Simplicitius embedded this video by Louis CK on open borders to display the mindset pushing it. Mind boggling. Note Hungarian Jewish grand father.
https://darkfutura.substack.com/p/the-hoi-polloi-are-sick?
Thanks for that.
Note something interesting. How is it possible to talk about the malaise of hoi polloi in the West without once mentioning Christianity? What is "Western civilization" if not the civilization that grew out of Latin Christianity? And yet zero mention of that. Instead, there's lots of babbling about abstract issues of "civic virtue" etc. Civic virtue as we used to know it simply was the living out of Christian faith as meaningful to the life experience of the great majority of citizens. That's gone now, doubtfully recoverable on the same scale, yet no mention?
There is one mention of "religion" either--except for this: " the New World Religion defined by Satanic Ritual."
This is all completely typical of the libertarian brand of Liberalism. They babble about shallow political/philosophical ideas as if a living organic cultural unity can be built off such abstractions. Not gonna happen, and in its own weird way it's a doubling down on what got us to this point in the first place. Putin and Xi both understand that within their own historic and cultural contexts. Americans and Western Europeans don't, and that's the core of our crisis.
Simplicius mentions the SF "pride" event, without delving too deeply. In his twitter thread for the Thinker--in addition to far more lurid stuff--he retweeted a fascinating tweet:
https://x.com/realpeteyb123/status/1807232742729421304
in which a typical American business guy bemoans the loss of business in a town that was taken over by perverts--normals are staying away and business is suffering. It's a terrific read, as are the comments (MTG and Juanita Broadrick weigh in). What's notable, however, is lines like this:
"You have sexualized the town and now the money is going elsewhere.
People just want a coffee, sushi, a steak, a muffin and some ice cream.
They don’t care about who you sleep with, and to constantly explain to their kids what’s happening."
Normals are voting with their feet, but even this guy won't--or is afraid to--speak the truth. He has to make obeisance to the American public religion: Do your own thing--it's no one else's buisiness. Ain't no civic virtue possible from that foundation--it's how we got to the lack of civic virtue. Abstractions won't get us back. Christian faith may, but not as it came to America. What Latin Christianity offered was sound philosophical principles embedded in an historic person and event in an organic unity.
Recently I noted a poll showing a rather sharp decline in approval of "gay marriage". An indication of probably two things: 1) the shallowness of the original approval based on non-thought libertarian notions, and 2) the persistence of normal human nature still. But, salutary as this may be as an indicator, it needs to be based in something deeper than instinctive revulsion. That's what Christian faith used to provide.
Correct. As usual, the GAE shows it has learnt nothing. It still believes that it can snap its fingers and the whole world jumps.
More from L Johnson on Israel’s suicidal mission into Lebanon and the “place holder” Zhou’s incapacity to stop it:
“Joe Biden’s vacant, deteriorating mind is not a metaphor. It is a reality. The United States is the only country that can prevent this war but, like Biden on Thursday night’s debate stage, United States policymakers are frozen in place and unwilling to order Israel to stand down. We are encouraging the Israeli version of Thelma-and-Louise to step on the gas as they hurtle towards the edge of the Grand Canyon. Only in this case, the abyss is Lebanon.“
Thanks. Late start today. Who believes he has any sort of hands on involvement, rather than being led by the Blinkens and Hochsteins?
Yes, extremely disconcerting.
The political establishment could be in for a big shock well before the election.
I really appreciate Sacks' clarity. We are being looted.
This situation at the national level happens at the local level everywhere: teachers unions work to elect the people who will sit across from them at the bargaining table to negotiate the terms of their employment.
The Biden Administration's 2021 federal contractor vaccine mandate recently showed us all how many people across this great land of ours are dependent on government money, and so will provide no real counterweight to increases in government spending made possible by the Federal Reserve.
Much to unpack in this post Mark. So I as I usually do I sprinkle in thoughts as I read and re-read the various topics interspersed.
"But, who are the people in this “shadowy network” (Korybko), “these interests who want to loot the Republic” (Sacks)?" IMO this feels very Clintonesque to me People like the Podesta clan et al.
Also, read an interesting reflection from a member of the 4th branch (Axios). IMO it is the 1st lady who has been in charge for 4+ years now. Did you see how she treated him (video) after the debate? Talked to him like a 2nd grader until he smiled. Good boy Zhou. She's in control. https://www.axios.com/2024/06/30/top-aides-shielded-biden-white-house-debate
There's truth in all of that, but the problem is that, while all these people have influence, who has the power? The power to dictate policy.
Probably all of the usual suspects are involved: Team Obama (what do Susan Rice and Valjar do all day?), Team Clinton, the intelligence agencies, etc. There's probably a lot of internecine turf wars going on too. Expect that to get worse as we approach the big day.
I don't believe it is "any one person" who has the power. here's a link to Trump's buddy (David Sacks protege) Chamath talking about halfway through.
He says "All of that is systematically about a group of people that are unelected who are trying to control democracy. And I think that that's the most troubling takeaway from this. I don't think that you should take away from last night that Joe Biden had a bad debate. I think what we should take away is that there is a person who should be allowed to transition into the sunset and be celebrated for what he's done.
And instead, there are people that frankly, at the margins are acting pretty unethically, and at the limit is actually acting somewhat diabolically, to prop this person up so that they can keep power.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/06/30/chamath_palihapitiya_the_key_debate_takeaway_is_joe_biden_has_not_actually_been_in_charge.html
Celebrated for what he’s done??? You can’t be serious. Biden is corrupt financially and morally and potentially treasonous. The dementia is no excuse for his actions spanning decades!!
Agreed. Chamath is a bit of a prude billionaire.
America has a long-time power structure that is shadowy in one sense and out in the open in another. For example, the most powerful lobby is not what most people think, it is in fact the "Business Roundtable" which is made up of the CEOs of the biggest corporations in America. They are the tip of the spear of the super rich when coming up with plans on how to control the government for their group benefit.
They are not the only powerful lobby of course, just the most influential when it comes to getting congress to make laws in their favor. Then there are all the super-rich old money families who have been grooming politicians and financially guiding the bureaucracy on the federal and state levels for a long time, including making sure certain people become judges, heads of regulatory commissions and so on.
Every state has their own ancien regime of large old money families with their tentacles in everything, who have developed the power structure of the state over a long period. The richest do that on a global level--the Rockefellers and all of their related oil rich families, Mellons, Fords, Morgans, Schiffs, etc. They bought up the government and set up the American empire after WWII in an attempt to dominate everywhere and have been assiduous in trying to expand and maintain control over it. Then there are the nouveau riche like the Walmart clan, the Tech rich, and many more who have tried to use their money and influence to get their nose under the old-money power structure tent.
Which is why Elon Musk has had so much difficulty. The nouveau riche can either join the long-time power structure dominated by old money families or get harassed by them if they try to challenge them. The old power structure used to dominate both Democrats and Republicans parties and still do to an extent, aka The Uniparty, but they were against Trump because he didn't toe the line on certain priorities that they see as necessary, i.e., continuing the long time goal of a unified business dominated political order where every nation's laws align with each other, follow the same rules and regulations, for business to work without the multinational corporations and banks needing to make different policies for every country.
They have been trying to set up a worldwide financial-regulatory-security system so they can dominate nations without any interference from nationalist agendas. That means overthrowing any government that doesn't go along with them. Trump said he didn't want to fight against the Russians, which is a main foe of their plan for a unified global order. For details see https://medium.com/@pamho/war-of-the-worlds-the-new-class-7d121bc83688
who is in charge?
Anyone with the balls to do so.
In a power vacuum, someone will always see their chance to organize, its the natural tendency of people to want to be lead which creates these opportunities.
This would be happening throughout all stratas of governance, from local level, the DC level.
With all this fighting for dominance via "any means necessary", no wonder "America is in decline". The crews who should be working together to run things, are working against each other for small personal gains that are significant only to themselves, at the cost of the greater good.