Quite the week out there in DC. Meanwhile, back in flyover country, things seem somewhat, well, the same. Let us unpack a few things.
I am in the HVAC business, the owner of a distributor. Business is good. Since it is Winter and it is cold, we are firmly into the H of HVAC. Heating products are selling briskly. Customers coming in the door seem to be acting as they always have. Outside of a little water cooler talk about the riots in DC, the employees seem to be acting exactly the same. In fact, if I didn’t know about the riots, this could be pretty much any week in any January.
But…social media and all that. While waiting for some cream cheese to come to room temperature for a key lime pie I am making (the pie is completely inauthentic and made with Persian lime juice to boot) I decided to look at a few news sites and scroll twitter a bit and then write this post. What a cesspool social media is. Lots of CAPITAL LETTERS and rage and fury.
I see that the same benefit of a few “bad actors” won’t be applied to this riot like all of the other ones over the Summer. Hey that’s not fair! Sorry I laughed out loud while I typed that. We know. We get it. Too bad everyone couldn’t have gotten their panties in a bunch when the idiots were trashing the Federal Courthouse in Portland (they still are from what I hear) or any of a number of other federal, state and municipal buildings, as well as billions of dollars of private property – some of which literally went up in smoke.
I saw some video of the cop in the Capitol blowing that poor woman away. Looks bad. Will be interesting to see how he is treated.
Lots of calls for Trump to resign, get 25th amendmented, impeached and all that. I haven’t actually had time to hear exactly what he said, but I’m guessing that it wasn’t “hey thanks to all of you for coming, now get your asses up to the Capitol and trash that thing”.
I have to go to work tomorrow to get some things done that I couldn’t attack during the week. I plan on keeping off of social media as usual, and letting the screamers scream. I won’t hear them.
Will this event go down in the annals of history and be one of those “I remember where I was when” moments? I don’t think so. I could be wrong. I have a pie to make.
Dan: “Will this event go down in the annals of history and be one of those “I remember where I was when” moments? I don’t think so.”
I agree for the near term. 6 months from now, hardly anyone will even remember that — for a brief shining moment — citizen taxpayers were given free reign in the hallowed spaces they pay for so that the Best & Brightest can feel good about themselves.
But future historians (perhaps writing in Chinese) will note the demonstrations as the capstone of the 21st Century equivalent of Hitler sending Germany forces marching into the demilitarized Rhineland in 1936 — while the victors in WWI averted their eyes. Historians will note the failure of the then-Political Class to react to massive electoral fraud; the failure of the politicized media to report on the fraud; the cowardly refusal of judges to allow legal challenges. If the demonstrations in the DC Swamp are remembered at all, it will be simply as evidence of the widespread citizen frustration caused by the Political Class’s failure to react to the perversion of the electoral system.
I don’t see any way to interpret what’s going on right now as They are trying to provoke worse and worse, so they can seize more and more power. It really is freaking terrifying.
Is this a Peral Harbor, 911 moment? No. But you’re likely to remember the Reichstag Fire, long after the fact.
This is the beginning of the French Revolution, America style. The Left are the Jacobins.
Whether we come out the other end a renewed American Republic or a newfound American Empire is… the fun question…
I expect overreach, counter-reaction, demonization, suppression, and then God alone knows what.
The crap in the Capitol was probably at least partially (if not completely) a false-flag operation, and it was executed perfectly in order to shut Trump and his followers up.
Catch is? The only people listening/believing are the ones who’re already anti-Trump. The Trump side of the line is taking all this as confirmation, and the oligarchy is doing exactly the worst thing possible to amp things up.
They should have suborned Trump, co-opted him. Instead, they did what they did, and here we are. Don’t expect them to do anything smart, don’t expect them to de-escalate. They’re not that bright, and they completely misunderstand what the hell has been going on in this country.
Some people have said that Trump was what you get after what they did to the Tea Party. You are about to see the next click of the ratchet, because instead of addressing the underlying issues that the Tea Party and Trump represent, they’ve doubled down on the stupid. This is not going to end well, for anyone.
Even the assholes who ran Yellow Journalism back in the old days didn’t have the balls to shut down speech by their opponents. The ones we have now are not only ballsy enough, they’re stupid enough to think that they’re not going to see any negative consequences.
Wild times ahead, folks. Buckle your seatbelts.
Just tried to download parler…and it’s already been pulled from the Google play store. This is mind boggling.
Dan: “Will this event go down in the annals of history and be one of those “I remember where I was when” moments? I don’t think so.”
I wonder if people remembered where they were when the Boston Tea Party occurred.
I see that the same benefit of a few “bad actors” won’t be applied to this riot like all of the other ones over the Summer.
There are 545 bad actors, plus the majority of the Federal judiciary, and the vast majority of government civil servants (starting with the useless, incompetent, and hopelessly compromised FBI; the State Department has been in that class since WWII).
Bottom line: the Reds think that it’s time to make their move.
They may be right.
Then again, Allende thought it was time for the Reds to make their move in Chile. Oops.
The Reds thought it was time to make their move in Indonesia in 1965. Oops.
The Reds thought it was time to make their move in Spain in 1936. (Which bears so many disturbing parallels to the present.) Oops.
Luxemburg and Liebknecht thought it was time for them to make their move. Oops.
But future historians (perhaps writing in Chinese) will note the demonstrations as the capstone of the 21st Century equivalent of Hitler sending Germany forces marching into the demilitarized Rhineland in 1936 ”” while the victors in WWI averted their eyes.
No, I think this is more like Weimar Germany. WE can see the Fascists already pursuing those damned Trump voters who scared the Biden/Harris bus last November. There are so many FBI agents investigating that you would think it was a noose in a NASCAR garage. My daughter who is an FBI agent is full on with the message. Her response to my query about vote fraud is “BULLS**T!
Oh well, she is a lawyer so one cannot expect a reasoned response.
The “Domestic Terrorist” ploy is an introduction to gun control, in my opinion. Get those guns away from Trump voters before the next election !
Mike K: ” Get those guns away from Trump voters before the next election !”
If the Swamp Creatures were smart (I know! I know!), they would go after ammunition rather than guns. 500% tax on ammo, in the interest of public health and balancing the budget — who could object? Only those demanding 1,000% tax. New regulations on manufacturing bullets — they are lead, you know; think about the children! Restrictions on imports. So many ways to ensure that the peons run out of bullets really fast.
But I doubt that the Swamp Creatures have any concerns about the next election. They have proved they can do blatant electoral fraud with the blessings of a Supreme Court stacked with Republicrat appointees. There is room for improvement in the process, of course, to make it less obvious the next time. They will allow some tame Republicrats to be “elected”, just for appearances sake. Pierre Delicto’s Senate seat is safe, regardless of what the people of Utah may have to say about it.
@Gavin,
They are calculating within the rules of the game as it has been played; they’ve chosen to “color outside the lines” themselves, never understanding that by doing so, they’ve established a precedent and encouraged others to also go outside the rules.
Not sure where it all ends, but at the very least, I suspect there’s going to be an awful lot of “Irish Democracy”.
I’m hearing interesting stories out of Olympia, WA about a “mob action” at the Governor’s Palace. One that led to our sainted governor calling a press conference reducing the effect of his lockdown orders…
See, the thing is, these people don’t have the advantage of the aristos of yore; they live among us. What happens when a young cop standing on the line in front of the governor’s mansion gets a call from his wife, saying that there’s a crowd outside their house, with signs that have the family’s name on them?
Idiots like Antifa seem to forget that two can play at their little games, and that the last time around, that’s how we got the Nazis and Hitler. Trump ain’t the problem, just like the Tea Party wasn’t, either–The real problems are the underlying causes and grievances that aren’t getting addressed for a significant part of the population. Keep trying to stop that, and it’s just like turning off the safety valve on a boiler–You’re going to get something as a result, and you ain’t going to like it. At. All.
Can you access/use parler over the https URL? Wouldn’t that avoid having to install the app? Apple can go F themselves.
Dan, you think you would be exempt when the time comes?
Red Fascist rule will affect everyone. Sooner than you might think.
I’ve made this comment in a number of places the past couple of days: The folks who have been saying, “Donald Trump is the worst threat to democracy in my lifetime” are soon going to learn that the past four years were a walk in the park.
The real problems are the underlying causes and grievances that aren’t getting addressed for a significant part of the population. Keep trying to stop that, and it’s just like turning off the safety valve on a boiler–You’re going to get something as a result, and you ain’t going to like it. At. All.
I anticipate Biden, or the people running him, will push hard just as Clinton and Janet Reno did. Somewhere, there is a Tim McVeigh watching this. It only takes one or two with a real grievance.
Mike K: That’s why I said “They are trying to provoke worse and worse, so they can seize more and more power.” It is blatantly transparent at this point. It’s going to be up to the states to stand up to them, because the national GOP sure won’t.
“Will this event go down in the annals of history and be one of those “I remember where I was when” moments? I don’t think so.”
Actually it will be easy to remember where we were. We were all on lockdown.
Somewhere, there is a Tim McVeigh watching this.
Or a George Washington.
Apparently, Parler is being thrown off of AWS (Amazon Web Services). The other two big clouds are Google and IBM Azure. Notice in their statement that they chose to use their own technology rather than depending on AWS management tools. https://www.citizenfreepress.com/breaking/breaking-amazon-to-shut-down-all-parler-servers-tomorrow-night/
This seems to be a really stupid president for Amazon from a purely business stand point. Businesses were just starting to trust them to not screw things up worse than their own people. I wonder if their terms of service give them the right to cancel their commitments any time they disagree with a customer. Are they going to have a list of required political commitments? Will the next customers summarily kicked off be defense or energy? I doubt that antifa or blm have the sort of IT budget to keep them in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed.
I have never been very dependent on the other Amazon and have become somewhat reluctant recently to support them with my business. Lately, they have become very unreliable, and their political posturing is disagreeable. I can’t help wondering what the fallout will be if using them becomes a political statement that I, and many others, don’t want to make. It’s not like there aren’t many others more than willing to take my money without requiring political allegiance.
Amazon, Home of Woke IT!
Death6
MCS – I completely agree wrt the Amazon thing. Terrible, awful business decision. Same with Twitter shutting down Trump but leaving idiots like Farrakhan and others up who do nothing but foment hate.
Are you guys clueless? This will cost Amazon nothing. Conservatives don’t react to themselves or other conservatives getting smashed, and there are no other options anyway.
IN RE: Amazon
1) Under their terms of service, if you have anything long term with them [Kindle, Prime, vendor status/contract, etc.] they can pretty much change it at will for anything that is not a physical chattel you have already paid for. They can take your Kindle books away, and turn off your Kindle, etc.
2) However, it would hurt them somewhat to cancel your Amazon Prime membership. If you can, do so.
3) That does not mean that you do not USE Amazon for your purposes. They have gone to the expense of creating a wonderful catalog for goods. If you are looking for something, find it on Amazon. DO NOT BUY IT ON AMAZON. Contact the company with the Amazon listing online and buy it directly from them, eliminating Amazon’s cut of the sale.
Subotai Bahadur
Dan, I’m genuinely curious to see if the adults will step in and assert reality.
I doubt that Parler was using the free trial period. They wouldn’t have launched without serious legal guaranties in terms of availability and band width to just name two factors. If AWS can just set that aside on 24-48 hours notice, how can any business justify using them for anything important?
As far as boycotting Amazon is concerned, I doubt they could buy a cup of coffee with what they’ve made off of me in the last year. I already usually do a general search for anything that’s more than a few dollars because I’ve found it often pays.
The whole idea of Prime is to reduce “friction” that slows the transition from looking at something to buying it, but lately they seem inclined to adding steps in the process. I’m not stupid enough to believe in free shipping, I know I’ll be paying and actually am more inclined to use it for things like drop shipping presents that probably don’t make them much money but save me a lot.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. They may be gaining a short term advantage that may last as long as the Democrats control congress but I wouldn’t count on it. They have now taken ownership of everything on their system, are they stupid enough to believe that this will be the only thing they will be instructed to shut down.
Amazon as a business is a web hosting service with a money losing retail site that is designed to collect information on your browsing and shopping history…
@MCS – I agree with you and also wonder when the adults will come into the room. I’m quite certain Parler’s attorneys and/or their ownership have spent the weekend reading their terms of service/contract with Amazon. Words mean things. If Amazon can shut them down “just cuz”, well, so be it. It’s still terrible business any way you slice it. Interesting times ahead on that front.
At the same time, AWS is protesting the award of the $10 billion DOD JEDI contract to IBM. I recall the kids at Google wouldn’t countenance working for military. If they got the contract, would they demand veto authority on policy or just shut it down if they objected?
Even if you’re naive enough to believe that your politics won’t ever cause objection, what happens when they decide your business isn’t green enough?
MCS: no, to Microsoft, not IBM.
Jay Guevara
Then again, Allende thought it was time for the Reds to make their move in Chile. Oops.
The Reds thought it was time to make their move in Indonesia in 1965. Oops.
The opposition to Allende was quite aware of what happened in Indonesia. Graffiti saying “Ya viene Djkarta” ( Dkjarta [Jakarta] is coming) appeared all over Santiago during the Allende years.
I doubt it’s coming to the USA. Like Brian said….
I’ve been an Amazon customer since before the turn of the century.
Lately I’ve noticed that their phone app gets worse and less functional with every update- and I’ve stopped bothering with their desktop site. Functionally, it’s a minor annoyance that my account info and stuff I want to see is randomly buried behind a few cryptic icons. I’ve managed to get past all that.
But it’s quite more annoying that I have to scroll past endless advertising to shop and have to carefully investigate whether or not want I want to buy is actually a cheap Chinese knockoff falsely claiming to be an expensive OEM replacement part.
I don’t spend nearly as much time at their site as I used to- and that’s before they decided to get woke.
It will be even less going forward.
LOL.
https://twitter.com/Rasmussen_Poll/status/1349010951505379328
“Rasmussen Reports: Trump Holds 48 Percent Approval Despite Capitol Hill Riots
(This was from yesterday. Today his approval is – up.)”
Poor GOPe, they are all doomed. Oh well. They can still all be DC lobbyists after they lose their next primaries. Oh wait, their big business cronies are all giving them the stiff arm right now…
This from Scott Adams is genius. Maybe he can be convinced to run for office…
https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1349002983741165568
“If Republicans don’t submit articles of impeachment for Kamala Harris for encouraging summer BLM protests, they might want to think twice about impeaching Trump for the same behavior.”
LOL times infinity (from politico, which doesn’t deserve a link):
Another GOP House member flew home expecting to be greeted by concerned constituents after he endured the attack last week. Instead, what he and GOP colleagues heard chilled them to the core: “Do you think that Congress got the message?”
I think that the Capitol agenda was a bit interrupted by the arrival of the MAGA attendees.
There was a planned ANTIFA event for 11AM that day, and it was well underway as the MAGA people slowly arrived upon the scene. The MAGA crowd was watching, observing and trying to determine who/what/when/etc and merged with the ANTIFA crowd(convincingly clothed in MAGA disguise). Sullivan had published the time and place, and if you look, you can see at least 3 buses(similar to airport rent-a-car vans) dropping off a crew in a video online, ready for the ANTIFA show.
see image partway down the page here:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/behind-planned-armed-march-capitol-hill-deep-state-plot/
Flashbang grenades were reported prior to DJT ending his speech, the final bit of which was ‘dog whistled’ into the disturbed Speaker of the House determining it was encouragement to invade “Her House”. Of course it you want to find reasons, you can do it while staring at the ham sandwich you want to indict.
That said, the ANTIFA did their thing, and the unknowing MAGA old farts like me, wearing our indications of military service, US flags, and other indicators wandered the Capitol, while always staying within the velvet ropes placed to herd the visitor into areas considered sturdy enough to be ‘visitor proof’.
The whole thing ended up exposing some RINOs who reneged on their publicly state promise to object to the electoral vote. All that is even now, 5 days on, being used to put up barriers around DC, and who knows what across the country. A rigged ’emergency’ of there ever was one.
I do not think it was a wise decision on the part of the Left to conflate DJT with ANTIFA, their pet terrorists. People across the country have seen ANTIFA and BLM in action all summer long, do not want them to visit their home neighborhoods, and note the previous lack of enthusiasm on the part of the D’s to condemn the actions. I do not think it will reflect well on the Dems. What will follow depends. Biden will be a semi-lame duck from inauguration onward, until he steps down(for any reason among a large list) to allow Kamala to step up. She will remain under a cloud for the remainder of the term. There are enough who question the results of the election to cast a long-lasting shadow.
I personally want a full, in-depth forensic examination of the ‘swing states’ where performance exceeded that of BHO as Biden was so pathetic as a candidate that belief in that is difficult.
If data can be elicited that indicates a fraudulent election, the onus falls on the left and they should be treated as full fledged actors trying to illegally influence a Federal election and be brought to justice as the law allows. Go gettum.
“Biden will be a semi-lame duck from inauguration onward, until he steps down(for any reason among a large list) to allow Kamala to step up. She will remain under a cloud for the remainder of the term.”
A lame duck? Hell, Biden will be a quadriplegic duck, with a tube in his nose and another out his bladder, and Kammie the Whore will be under a cloud the size of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane.
If this wasn’t my country being transformed into a lame combination of Venezuela and early Soviet Russia, I’d be cynically amused by it all.
Quadraplegic or no, clouds covering Venus or no; so long as the Tyrants [regardless of party] are in power and we have no Social Compact, they can kill or ruin us at will. The key is knowing who will be the new Reinhard Heydrich, and when and where the new Wannsee Conference will be.
It is going to take some time for that to sink in enough for Resistance to grow.
Subotai Bahadur
The final episode of: Trump – The End Game.
Are you enjoying the show?
Sgt. Mom” “If this wasn’t my country being transformed into a lame combination of Venezuela and early Soviet Russia, I’d be cynically amused by it all.”
“Being transformed”? I think that it is a decade or so too late to use that expression. The Constitutional Republic has already been transformed. All that has happened with President Trump is that the extreme over-reaction of the Political Class to We the People electing an outsider has stripped away the pretenses and laid bare how deep their destruction of the former USA has been.
What we see now is an incestuous relationship among a rather small clique of politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, media types, & academics. Instead of businesses going out and winning customers by offering something better, faster, cheaper, they go to their bought-off politicians and get regulations which inhibit competition. And when the politicians don’t want any mention of something like Beijing Biden’s electoral fraud, a simple phone call to the media owners calls in the favor. The word for this system is Fascism. I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense, simply as an accurate description of the confluence of political & economic power which now rules the bureaucracy, the legal system, academia, and media.
What are we going to do about it? The main thing we can do is wait! The Political Class is so arrogant & uninformed that they have undermined the economy which made them rich & powerful. That economy is disintegrating, and their rule will collapse. It may take a few years, but economic collapse is inevitable. Then we will have our opportunity for retribution.
By the way, Epstein did not kill himself, and Beijing Biden did not get 80+ Million valid votes.
Honestly, at this point the critical question we need to be asking GOPers is, “have you been banned from twitter? if not, why not?”
Motivated by the fact that apparently Lauren Boebert’s account has been locked by twitter until after the inauguration…
As far as I can tell, Republicans in real life are holding the line much more firmly than the trash in DC, unexpectedly. More reason to change the laws so that congresscretins have to live full time in their own districts, rather than in the capital.