The good news: it looks like the auto workers' strike is getting close to being settled.
The bad news: you really can't afford a new car now.
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We should have a way of telling people when they have bad breath.
Something like, "Well, I'm bored... let's go brush our teeth."
Or, "I've got to make a phone call, hold this gum in your mouth for me, will you."
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In my job with a delivery company, I was getting directions to a customer's home.
The woman very specifically said, "From the main road in the center of town go two lights. Look for the post office. Turn left onto the next street. Go 1.3 miles. Drive past a red hydrant and then take the next right. Go 50 yards. My driveway is the second on the right, and the number is on the mailbox."
As I entered the information into the computer, I asked, "What color is your house?"
The woman paused a second, then said, "Hold on. I'll go check."
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Top 5 Last Minute Ideas of Scary Things To Dress Up As For Halloween:
An 8% Mortgage.
The 2024 Election.
"Jaws: The Musical".
"Chewing with our mouth open" guy.
Candy Corn.
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Be careful when you follow the masses.
Sometimes the 'm' is silent.
Quote of the Times;
“The newspapers were full of stories of worker layoffs and farm foreclosures and bank failures, just as they are today. All that has changed, in my opinion, is that, thanks to television, we can hide a Great Depression. We may even be hiding a Third World War.” – Vonaguet
Link of the Times;
Updating The 'Freedom Or Control' Corporate List To Help With Future Purchase Choices:
https://creativedestructionmedia.com/news/business/2023/08/11/announcing-the-freedom-or-control-corporate-list-to-help-with-future-purchase-choices/
Issue of the Times;
The Misogyny Myth by John Tierney
Women aren’t discriminated against in twenty-first-century America—but men increasingly are.
Misogyny is supposedly rampant in modern society, but where, exactly, does it lurk? For decades, researchers have hunted for evidence of overt discrimination against women as well as subtler varieties, like “systemic sexism” or “implicit bias.” But instead of detecting misogyny, they keep spotting something else.
Consider a new study that is one of the most sophisticated efforts to analyze implicit bias. Previous researchers typically looked for it by measuring split-second reactions to photos of faces: how long it takes to associate each face with a positive or negative attribute. Some studies reported that whites are quicker to associate black faces with negative attributes, but those experiments often involved small samples of college students. For this study, a team of psychologists led by Paul Connor of Columbia University recruited a nationally representative sample of adults and showed them more than just faces. The participants saw full-body photos of men and women of different races and ages, dressed in outfits ranging from well-tailored suits and blazers to scruffy hoodies, T-shirts, and tank tops.
Who was biased against whom? The researchers found no consistent patterns by race or by age. The participants were quicker to associate negative attributes with people in scruffier clothes, but that bias was fairly small. Only one strong and consistent bias emerged. Participants in every category—men and women of all races, ages, and social classes—were quicker to associate positive attributes with women and negative attributes with men.
The participants were guilty not of misogyny but of its opposite: misandry, a bias against men. This study merely measured unconscious reactions, so it doesn’t prove that they’d discriminate against men. The many critics of implicit-bias research maintain that measures of people’s “unconscious racism” bear scant relation to their conscious behavior. But when it comes to detecting misandry, we don’t need to probe the unconscious to find it. There is overwhelming evidence of conscious, blatant, and widespread discrimination against boys and men in modern societies.
If you haven’t heard of this evidence, it’s because of the well-documented misandrist bias in the public discussion of gender issues. Scholars, journalists, politicians, and activists will lavish attention on a small, badly flawed study if it purports to find bias against women, but they’ll ignore—or work to suppress—the wealth of solid research showing the opposite. Three decades ago, psychologists identified the “women-are-wonderful effect,” based on research showing that both sexes tended to rate women more positively than men. This effect has been confirmed repeatedly—women get higher ratings than men for intelligence as well as competence—and it’s obvious in popular culture.
“Toxic masculinity” and “testosterone poisoning” are widely blamed for many problems, but you don’t hear much about “toxic femininity” or “estrogen poisoning.” Who criticizes “femsplaining” or pretends to “believe all men”? If the patriarchy really did rule our society, the stock father character in television sitcoms would not be a “doofus dad” like Homer Simpson, and commercials wouldn’t keep showing wives outsmarting their husbands. (When’s the last time you saw a TV husband get something right?) Smug misandry has been box-office gold for Barbie, which delights in writing off men as hapless romantic partners, leering jerks, violent buffoons, and dimwitted tyrants who ought to let women run the world.
Numerous studies have shown that both sexes care more about harms to women than to men. Men get punished more severely than women for the same crime, and crimes against women are punished more severely than crimes against men. Institutions openly discriminate against men in hiring and promotion policies—and a majority of men as well as women favor affirmative-action programs for women.
The education establishment has obsessed for decades about the shortage of women in some science and tech disciplines, but few worry about males badly trailing by just about every other academic measure from kindergarten through graduate school. By the time boys finish high school (if they do), they’re so far behind that many colleges lower admissions standards for males—a rare instance of pro-male discrimination, though it’s not motivated by a desire to help men. Admissions directors do it because many women are loath to attend a college if the gender ratio is too skewed.
Gender disparities generally matter only if they work against women. In computing its Global Gender Gap, the much-quoted annual report, the World Economic Forum has explicitly ignored male disadvantages: if men fare worse on a particular dimension, a country still gets a perfect score for equality on that measure. Prodded by the federal Title IX law banning sexual discrimination in schools, educators have concentrated on eliminating disparities in athletics but not in other extracurricular programs, which mostly skew female. The fact that there are now three female college students for every two males is of no concern to the White House Gender Policy Council. Its “National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality” doesn’t even mention boys’ struggles in school, instead focusing exclusively on new ways to help female students get further ahead.
Of course, females in the past did suffer from outright discrimination, but most American institutions eliminated those barriers at least 40 years ago. Women have been a majority of college graduates since 1982 and dominate by many other key measures. They not only live longer than men but also benefit from a higher share of federal funding for medical research. They’re much less likely to be fatally injured on the job or commit suicide. They receive the lion’s share of Social Security and other entitlement payments (while men pay the lion’s share of taxes). They decide how to spend most of the family income. Women initiate most divorces and are much likelier to win custody of the children. While men are ahead in some ways—politicians love to denounce the “gender pay gap” and the “glass ceiling” supposedly limiting women—these disparities have been shown to be largely, if not entirely, due to personal preferences and choices, not discrimination.
Yet most people still believe in the “myth of pervasive misogyny,” as the social psychologists Cory Clark and Bo Winegard concluded in Quillette after surveying the research literature on gender bias. Noting that a Google Scholar search for “misogyny” yielded 114,000 results, while a search for “misandry” yielded only 2,340, they write: “We suspect this difference in interest in misogyny over misandry reflects not the relative prevalence of each type of prejudice, but rather greater concern for the well-being of women than men. All of the arguments, anecdotes, and data forwarded to support the narrative that we live in an implacably misogynistic society, in fact, may be evidence of precisely the opposite.”
Yes, the misogyny myth persists because both sexes want to believe it. Our greater concern for women’s well-being is presumably an innate bias that evolved because it helped the species multiply. From a reproductive standpoint, individual males are “expendable,” but females are not. Men are expected to sacrifice their lives defending women in every culture, from hunter-gatherer bands to modern nations like Ukraine, which allowed millions of women to flee the Russian invasion and required all men under 60 to stay and fight.
This instinct to protect women has been essential for societies to survive, but it has also made us easy prey for a modern industry of academics, journalists, activists, lobbyists, and bureaucrats who falsely blame sexism for any gender gap that doesn’t favor women. The misogyny myth has served the interests of this diversity industry, but it is enormously damaging to the rest of society—women as well as men.
In 2016, the Australian national government launched a rigorous quest to combat its own misogyny. As part of its “Gender Equality Strategy,” it brought in Harvard economist Michael J. Hiscox to address a disparity in the government workforce: women held 59 percent of the jobs but only 49 percent of the executive positions.
Hiscox’s team of behavioral scientists tested an approach inspired by a famous study of musicians auditioning to join symphony orchestras in America. It had reported that in blind auditions, with a screen hiding the musicians from judges, women were much more successful than in open auditions. Hiscox’s researchers adapted this gender-blind strategy for a randomized controlled trial involving more than 2,100 managers at Australian agencies. Each manager saw a group of résumés and shortlisted the most promising candidates for an executive position. Some saw résumés with no names; others saw the same résumés with either male or female names.
The experiment produced an “unintended consequence,” as the researchers ruefully noted in their report, “Going Blind to See More Clearly.” When managers evaluated a résumé with a female name like Wendy Richards, they were more likely to shortlist it than if they saw that same résumé with no name. And they were less likely to shortlist it if the name was Gary Richards. Australia’s public servants were clearly guilty of bias against men—and that was just fine with the architects of the Gender Equality Strategy. The crucial lesson from this experiment, Hiscox’s team concluded, was for the government to avoid gender-blind hiring procedures while seeking new ways to discriminate against men: “It remains clear that more work needs to be done to address the problem of gender inequality.”
This report of anti-male bias evoked little interest among journalists or academics. According to Google Scholar, it has averaged barely five citations annually in the academic literature—nothing like the impact of the orchestra study, which has averaged more than 100 citations annually since appearing in 2000 and become a perennial favorite in the media and at diversity conferences. Its conclusions were welcomed so eagerly that scholars ignored the contradictory data in the paper for nearly two decades.
It was not until 2019 that two analysts outside the diversity industry—a data scientist and a Columbia University statistician—noted a problem: overall, the female musicians did comparatively worse in the blind auditions than in the open auditions. It was only by fixing on a subset of the musicians that the researchers could identify an advantage for women, but this effect wasn’t consistent, and the findings were not statistically significant. These limitations were acknowledged by the authors and described in 2019 by Christina Hoff Sommers in the Wall Street Journal; yet since then, the orchestra study has kept racking up citations at an even higher rate—more than 200 in just the last year.
Its continuing popularity is no surprise to Lee Jussim, a social psychologist at Rutgers, who has surveyed the research literature. His analysis shows that studies reporting bias against female scientists tend to have much smaller samples (typically fewer than 200 subjects) than the studies that find either no bias or a bias against male scientists (typically more than 2,000 subjects). Larger studies normally carry more weight, but not on this topic: the smaller studies typically are cited more than five times as often in the research literature. “The only explanation I can think of is that finding a bias against women scientists is useful activist rhetoric for getting more resources and publicity,” he says. “So much of social science is propaganda masquerading as science.”
This selective science has been a boon for the diversity industry since the 1990s, when two reports purporting to find bias against female scientists made global headlines. One, led by female professors at MIT declaring themselves victims of discrimination, was faulted for presenting “no objective evidence whatsoever.” The other, by Swedish female scientists claiming that they had been unfairly denied grants, was severely criticized for its methodology—and when critics of its statistical manipulations asked to see the original data, they were told that the data had been lost. But the objections didn’t matter. The claims of bias became dogma, and the diversity industry has flourished ever since, thanks to support from corporations, private foundations, and public agencies like the National Science Foundation. The NSF has dispensed $270 million to institutions and activists through a program to “enhance gender equity” in science—and the money has kept flowing despite reams of contrary evidence from studies involving hundreds of universities and hundreds of thousands of grant proposals.
“The scientific establishment has been irresponsible in making all these pronouncements about bias against women without ever feeling the need to check the empirical literature,” says researcher Stephen Ceci. He and Wendy Williams—both psychologists at Cornell, and married to each other—have found that female scientists fare as well as, and often better than, comparable male scientists. To set the record straight, Ceci and Williams five years ago began an “adversarial collaboration” with another prominent researcher with a conflicting perspective, Shulamit Kahn, an economist at Boston University who had identified and criticized bias against women working in her field.
The result, published this year, is by far the most thorough and balanced assessment of gender bias in academic science. After sifting through thousands of studies, the authors conclude that, while female scientists in the past did face discrimination, since 2000 they have fared as well as comparable males in receiving federal grants or in getting an article accepted at a journal. And when it comes to being hired at universities, the authors find that women have an advantage over men with similar credentials. “Academia is actually doing a disservice to women and to science by perpetuating myths of bias against women that the weight of the evidence doesn’t support,” Kahn says. “It discourages women from entering academic careers and discourages institutions that have actually been quite successful in leveling the playing field.”
Why, then, are female professors still “underrepresented” on campus? Kahn and her coauthors point to two major factors. One, which they suggest could be addressed by making the tenure timetable more flexible, is that many female Ph.D.s choose jobs outside academia because they’re reluctant to juggle family responsibilities with the intense scholarly workload required to win tenure early in their careers. The other factor is the “gender productivity gap”: on average, female scientists publish fewer articles than male scientists do, and their individual articles are also cited less frequently. By the productivity standard, female scientists are often overrepresented in academia. Studies in the United States and Europe have shown that women typically need fewer publications and citations than men to be hired, to receive tenure, and to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Even if you still believe that some male academics are secretly biased against women, their sexism is clearly no match for the enormous social pressure to hire women—and that pressure is evident outside academia, too. Studies of hiring practices for both skilled and unskilled jobs have shown either no bias against women or a bias in their favor, particularly in female-dominated occupations like nursing and preschool teaching. As usual, all this evidence has received virtually no attention. “Female privilege” may be real, but it’s not newsworthy.
The diversity industry claims to be guided by a desire for “equity,” which sounds noble but is sufficiently vague to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean. A more precise term for the industry’s philosophy is equalitarianism, which was introduced to the psychological literature by Clark and Winegard. Equalitarianism, as they define it in an article with Roy Baumeister and Connor Hasty, is a psychological bias that “stems from an aversion to inequality and a desire to protect relatively low status groups, and includes three interrelated beliefs: (1) demographic groups do not differ biologically; (2) prejudice is ubiquitous and explains existing group disparities; (3) society can, and should, make all groups equal in society.”
To an equalitarian, there is nothing wrong with the Australian government or tenure committees deliberately discriminating against men, or with laws in some states and European countries forcing companies to appoint a quota of female board directors. Equalitarians seek the utopia envisioned by UN Women, the United Nations’ agency for women (there is no agency for men), in a 2020 publication titled “Welcome to Equiterra, Where Gender Equality Is Real.” The report is richly illustrated with drawings of an imaginary city where the sexes happily mingle in places like “Equal Representation Avenue,” “Inclusion Square,” and “Unstereotype Avenue.”
The report doesn’t explain exactly how Equiterra eliminated gender disparities, but a hint can be found at the “Toxic Masculinity Recycling Plant”—a place where, “through innovative dialogues and learning, toxic behaviors are transformed into attitudes that perpetuate gender equality.” Another hint is on Equiterra’s “Equal Pay Street,” where both sexes work at the same kinds of jobs for the same pay because “no systemic barriers . . . hold women back.”
In the real world, a full-time female worker over 25 in America earns 84 cents for every dollar a male earns, but even equalitarian researchers acknowledge that this gap is not due to overt sexual discrimination (illegal since the Equal Pay Act of 1963). It’s due mainly to men choosing higher-paying professions, like coding, instead of, say, teaching, and to the “motherhood penalty.” There’s no significant gender gap between childless singles in their twenties, but once they become parents, mothers tend to reduce their hours, switch to a lower-paying job with more flexibility, or drop out of the workforce. To equalitarians, these differences are the result of systemic sexism: gender stereotypes that discourage girls from seeking high-paying jobs and saddle them with an unfair share of child-care responsibilities.
But what would happen if all “systemic barriers” disappeared? Economists have studied an approximation of that equalitarian ideal by analyzing data from millions of Uber trips in America. Female drivers are assigned trips and paid fees determined by a gender-blind computer algorithm, and they benefit from the one clear example of sexism detected in the economists’ studies: while riders of both sexes give the same rating, on average, to male and female drivers, both sexes give bigger tips to the female drivers.
Yet the male drivers still end up earning more per hour than the female drivers—about 7 percent more, according to researchers from Stanford and the University of Chicago. One reason is that the men have gained more on-the-job expertise. They typically drive more hours weekly and stay longer with the firm, so they’ve had more time to learn how to maximize hourly earnings. But the main reason—the factor that accounts for about half the pay gap—involves a basic difference between the sexes. Men typically drive faster than women do, and Uber drivers are no exception. Their average speed is only 2 percent higher, but that small difference means more trips per hour.
This is the sort of sex difference that equalitarians prefer to ignore. They’ll blame the gender gap in highway fatalities on males’ tendency to drive faster and more recklessly due to “testosterone poisoning,” but they won’t admit that males’ greater aggressiveness and penchant for risk-taking can also be advantageous. No matter how many systemic barriers Equiterra’s rulers tear down, the male Uber drivers on that utopia’s Equal Pay Street will make more money—and so will men in many other professions because, on average, they will take more risks and compete more aggressively.
The “competition gap,” as it’s called, is already obvious in three-year-olds. Researchers debate how much is due to nature (hormonal differences) and how much to nurture, but there’s no question that males are more competitive. When asked during experiments how they’d like to be paid for performing tasks, women are likelier to prefer a flat rate per task, whereas men will choose to enter a tournament offering greater rewards but also the risk of earning less. On average, women care more about “work-life balance” and finding a job that seems personally and socially meaningful—typically, one in a comfortable environment that involves working with people rather than things. Men prioritize making money, so they’re willing to take less appealing jobs—work that’s tedious, outdoors, dirty, dangerous—with longer, less predictable hours. The gender pay gap among graduates of elite business schools is due in significant part to their job choices. The male MBAs are likelier to take jobs in finance and consulting, whereas the women tend to choose lower-paying industries that are less competitive and less risky.
Equalitarians complain that even in fields that are mainly female, too many men are in the top positions. But these positions make extreme demands, and men tend to be more extreme—in both directions. They predominate in homeless shelters and prisons, too. One reason for the gender gap between college students is that there are more boys with low IQs and learning disabilities. Female IQ scores don’t deviate from the average as much as men’s scores do, so there are more males at both the lower and the upper extremes, and this greater male variability is evident in many other traits.
Lawrence Summers lost his job as Harvard’s president after he dared to suggest this gender difference as a partial explanation for the preponderance of men at the pinnacle of scientific fields. But the equalitarian mob that ousted him couldn’t rebut his facts or his logic: whatever traits it takes to reach the top—intelligence, creativity, industriousness, obsessiveness, ambition—more males than females will be found in the 99th percentile. This pattern largely explains the gender gap in researchers’ productivity, which owes mainly to the disproportionate number of men at the extreme high end of the rankings.
The pattern is especially obvious in two pursuits with no systemic barriers to women: bridge and Scrabble. A majority of bridge players are women, but men have won virtually all the major championships open to both sexes (which is why there are also championships just for women). Women have long outnumbered men at Scrabble clubs and tournaments, but only one woman has ever won the national championship (in 1987). Today the 25 highest-ranked Scrabble players in North America are all men, and only five women rank in the top 100.
Anyone with an Internet connection can learn the right words and strategies for Scrabble, but women are less inclined to endure the requisite drudgery, as psychologists found in studies of competitors at the national championships. After controlling for various factors, the researchers concluded that the gender gap was mainly due to training preferences. Both sexes devoted about the same amount of time each week to Scrabble, but the women spent more of it playing games, whereas the men spent more time doing tedious anagram drills and analyzing past games—not as much fun as playing another person, but it gave them a competitive edge.
Whether it’s for trophies or promotions or dollars, men compete more avidly than women because they’ve always had more to lose. In the distant and not-so-distant past, DNA research has revealed, the typical woman had a good chance of finding a mate and passing on genes that survive today; but for men, the odds were skewed. The men who won wars and acquired more status and resources (like Genghis Khan) had more than their share of mating opportunities and descendants, while many others died without passing on their genes. To survive in the mating game, men had to prevail in competitions, and that remains true today.
Women still prefer winners. They’re the pickier sex—on Tinder, they’re much likelier to swipe left—and they’re especially picky when it comes to a partner’s income, education, and professional accomplishments, as researchers have found in analyses of mate preferences, activity on dating websites, and patterns of marriage and divorce. Most American women still want a man who makes at least as much as they do—and wealthier women are more determined than less affluent women to find someone with a successful career.
While some traditional attitudes about wives’ roles have shifted, husbands are still typically expected to be breadwinners. An American couple is more likely to divorce if the husband lacks a full-time job, but the wife’s employment status doesn’t affect the odds. Studies of divorce rates in dozens of other countries have confirmed this peril to unemployed men, which comedian Chris Rock has also observed: “Fellows, if you lose your job, you’re going to lose your woman. That’s right. She may not leave the day you lose it, but the countdown has begun.”
Equalitarians imagine that they can erase these sex differences by altering society’s “gender norms” and “gender schema,” but they’re ignoring biological realities (brain differences are already apparent in the womb) as well as the results of their own efforts. Despite a half-century of programs encouraging girls to enter male-dominated fields, women still vastly prefer the humanities and social sciences to physics and engineering. In fact, the gender gap in many professions tends to widen as countries modernize. In less developed countries, educated women are likelier to go into engineering because there aren’t many well-paying alternatives; but in richer countries, they take advantage of the wider opportunities in fields such as the law, social work, communications, and the arts.
These differences won’t disappear, and why should we wish them to? If women don’t want to become computer coders and don’t work as hard as men to publish papers or win Scrabble tournaments, it’s because they prefer to pursue other activities. The women who pay a motherhood penalty in their careers also reap a motherhood reward by spending more time with their children, and that reward typically means more to women than to men. In a Pew survey of American adults, fewer than a quarter of married mothers with children under 18 said that their ideal situation would be a full-time job.
Men, on average, have different priorities, as American universities discovered when they adjusted their tenure clocks to accommodate parents. After assistant professors were given an extra year to reach tenure for each new child, a study of the leading departments of economics showed that the tenure rate for women actually declined relative to men because the fathers—but not the mothers—used the extra time to publish more papers.
Some women, clearly, are just as competitive, ambitious, career-oriented, and money-hungry as any man. There just aren’t as many of them. Those women certainly deserve equal opportunities to succeed in their careers—but that’s not what equalitarians seek. They demand equal outcomes, an unreachable goal that provides endless pretexts to discriminate further against men. In their utopia, both sexes are equal, but one is more equal than the other.
The most visible victims of the misogyny myth are male—the boys whose needs are neglected in schools, the men denied jobs, promotions, and awards—but their plight has never aroused much sympathy, even among men. Journalists and scholars have chronicled their woes in books like Warren Farrell’s Myth of Male Power (1993), Lionel Tiger’s Decline of Males (1999), Christina Hoff Sommers’s War Against Boys (2000), Susan Pinker’s Sexual Paradox (2008), Roy Baumeister’s Is There Anything Good About Men? (2010), Kay Hymowitz’s Manning Up (2011), and Richard V. Reeves’s Of Boys and Men (2022). But the diversity industry continues to rule public policy and shape public opinion.
The more real progress that women make, the more both sexes worry about imaginary misogyny. In Gallup polls a decade ago, a majority of Americans believed that women had equal job opportunities; today, a majority disagree. Support has also risen for affirmative-action programs for women, which enjoy support from two-thirds of Americans and are especially popular among younger adults. Opposition is dismissed as a “backlash” against women, and those who argue for equal treatment of the sexes are labeled (absurdly) “male supremacists.” In academia and at companies like Google (which fired an engineer who wrote a memo accurately describing gender research), blaming a gender gap on sexual differences is a bigger career risk than ever—unless the gap reflects badly on men.
“Misandry is not only tolerated; it’s actively encouraged,” Winegard says. “It’s become a form of claptrap: if you go on Oprah and blame men for any problem, the audience will automatically clap. There’s open hostility toward normal masculine behavior. We used to measure people on a masculine scale and conclude that women are failed men. Now men are failed women.”
He and Clark, his coauthor (and spouse), haven’t had much success persuading fellow researchers or the public to recognize the pervasive anti-male bias, but they hope that the evidence will eventually make an impact, if only because misandry ultimately hurts women, too. There’d be more marriageable men with college degrees and successful careers if schools weren’t such hostile environments for males—from the primary schools promoting “girl power” to the colleges that eliminated due-process protections for men accused of sexual assault. Because of women’s reluctance to marry down, the three-to-two female-to-male ratio among college graduates makes it harder for both sexes to find spouses. “Some possible consequences,” Clark says, “include an increasing willingness among successful women to participate in nonmonogamous relationships with the limited number of desirable men and an increasing number of hostile involuntary celibate men.”
Both sexes have also been hurt by the misandrist excesses of the #MeToo movement. With a few exceptions—like the actress Amber Heard, successfully sued by her husband, Johnny Depp—women who wreck men’s reputations and careers with false accusations suffer few consequences in the media or the courts. Police and prosecutors have routinely refused to act, even in clear cases of perjury, as Bettina Arndt has documented. These injustices, along with the draconian punishments and policies imposed by the (mainly female) managers of human resources, have instilled fear in workplaces, stifling office romances (which, in the past, frequently led to marriage) as well as valuable professional relationships. Most women still want men to make the first move in courtship, but who wants to risk being reported to HR for subjecting a colleague to “unwanted attention”? Even a purely professional meeting in private is risky if something innocent gets misconstrued—or falsely described by a hostile colleague exploiting the believe-all-women bias.
Many male managers and workers have become leery to meet alone with a woman, a post-#MeToo trend confirmed in surveys and widely lamented by professional women and diversity consultants. (Naturally, the diversity industry blames this on men, expecting them to ignore the new risks they face.) An analysis of junior faculty seeking tenure in economics at 100 American universities concluded that #MeToo had imposed “unintended costs” on women. After the movement began, fewer research collaborations occurred between male and female professors (and the decline was steepest in blue states, where men presumably felt most vulnerable to #MeToo accusations). This decline didn’t affect the scholarly output of male junior professors, who compensated by doing more projects with other men. But the junior female professors didn’t increase their collaborations with other women, hurting their overall productivity.
The new male skittishness has raised an awkward topic for the diversity industry: the value of male mentors. The industry has long argued that women deserve favored treatment in promotions because, as leaders, they will provide more help to junior women struggling against the patriarchy’s misogyny. But is that true? In 2020, Nature Communications published a study of more than 3 million mentor-protégé relationships between the authors of scientific papers. It showed that neither the female junior scientists nor their female mentors reaped special benefits from working together: their subsequent research had less impact (as gauged by citations) than that of the female junior and senior scientists who collaborated with men.
The article, whose lead author was a female junior scientist, prompted so much outrage from senior female scientists that the journal apologized for publishing it and used a transparently cynical pretext (methodological nitpicks that had not been applied to similar research with politically acceptable conclusions) to pressure the authors into retracting the article. In their retraction statement, the authors explained that, while they considered their key findings “still valid,” they felt “deep regret” for causing female scientists “pain on an individual level.”
They also dutifully proclaimed their own “unwavering commitment to gender equity,” and concluded, “We hope the academic debate continues on how to achieve true equity in science—a debate that thrives on robust and vivid scientific exchange.” But how could they possibly believe that? The censorship of their paper demonstrated the opposite: the campaign for “gender equity” thrives by suppressing debate. Journal editors have become so fearful that even researchers with sterling publication records now have a hard time finding any journal to publish challenges to gender dogma. The diversity industry’s survival depends on bludgeoning scientists and the public to believe—or, at least, pretend to believe—in the misogyny myth.
The myth hurts us all because it undermines the system that has enabled both sexes to flourish as never before: meritocracy. The principle that people should succeed according to their abilities and achievements, not their membership in a group, is “the intellectual dynamite which has blown up old worlds,” as Adrian Wooldridge writes in The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World. The old stagnant aristocracies shielded themselves from competition by enforcing the myth that men of noble birth were inherently superior to male commoners and to all women. But that myth—and the spoils system for male aristocrats—couldn’t survive the meritocratic revolution.
When commoners got their chance to compete in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they transformed the world with innovations in government, science, medicine, public health, technology, and commerce. Women were still mostly excluded, but they reaped enormous benefits from the male competition. The most important gender gap reversed, as women’s life expectancy rose, equaling and then surpassing men’s. New industries and inventions—textile mills, food-processing companies, washing machines—liberated women from domestic labors that had consumed their days. Once freed to work outside the home in the twentieth century, they shattered the myth that women were too fragile and intellectually limited to succeed in the public sphere.
But now that meritocracy has brought unprecedented opportunities and prosperity to both sexes, it is being replaced by a new spoils system: equalitarianism. Like the old male aristocracy, the diversity industry libels one sex while giving unmerited rewards to the other. It again promotes mediocrity and stagnation, demeaning and demoralizing both sexes by penalizing hardworking men and encouraging women to wallow in imagined victimhood.
The diversity industry has corrupted science and so many other institutions that it has become as entrenched as the old aristocracy—and without even the pretense of the traditional noblesse oblige to the less privileged. No matter how much harm it does to society, no matter how badly it poisons relations between the sexes, the diversity industry will cling to its privilege until we recognize that it, too, is peddling a lie.
News of the Times;
Better Off Truant:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/are-baltimore-students-better-off-staying-home
Democrats Want Kids Dumb for Public School Indoctrination:
https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2023/10/23/the-morning-briefing-democrats-want-kids-dumb-for-public-school-indoctrination-n1736978
The Destruction Of Sarah Palin:
https://pjmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2009/07/27/the-destruction-of-sarah-palin-n179580
And there you have it: the entire roof just caved in on Joe Biden:
https://revolver.news/2023/10/and-there-you-have-it-the-entire-roof-just-caved-in-on-joe-biden/
Minneapolis’s prosecutors always knew George Floyd died of natural causes:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/10/minneapoliss_prosecutors_always_knew_george_floyd_died_of_natural_causes.html
Black Lives Matter Leader Stands Behind J6 Prisoners, Endorses Trump:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/black-lives-matter-leader-stands-behind-j6-prisoners-endorses-trump
Boy featured in COVID-vaccine campaign dies of heart attack at age 8:
https://www.wnd.com/2023/10/israeli-boy-featured-covid-vaccine-campaign-dies-heart-attack-age-8/
Over 50,000 Christians Killed in Nigeria Since 2009 Islamic Uprising:
https://www.aciafrica.org/news/8071/over-50000-christians-killed-in-nigeria-since-2009-islamic-uprising-intersociety-report
U.S. And Israeli Special Forces Went On A Scouting Mission To Gaza And Were "Shot To Pieces":
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/10/24/macgregor_us_and_israel_special_forces_went_on_a_scouting_mission_to_gaza_and_were_shot_to_pieces.html
Twitter Account Embarrasses Journalists By Performing Actual Journalism in Gaza:
https://twitchy.com/grateful-calvin/2023/10/18/twitter-account-embarrasses-journalists-by-performing-actual-journalism-with-hospital-bombing-n2388679
Would Israel Use Its Not-So-Secret Nuclear Arsenal:
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/would-israel-use-its-not-so-secret-nuclear-arsenal-if-war-expands-beyond-gaza
Nearly 70% Of American Soldiers Are Obese Or Overweight:
https://thenationalpulse.com/2023/10/21/nearly-70-of-american-soldiers-are-obese-or-overweight/
Major Study Claims to Identify The Root Cause of Obesity:
https://www.sciencealert.com/major-study-claims-to-identify-the-root-cause-of-obesity-fructose
George Soros Closes Offices Worldwide and Cuts Off 40% of its Staff:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/george-soross-25-billion-woke-empire-closes-offices/
Why America will Have its French Revolution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yuZp5JX2mI&ab_channel=Whatifalthist
Misandry?
Now?
A romantic wife sent her husband a text: "If you are sleeping, send me your dreams. If you are laughing, send me your smile. If you are drinking, send me a sip. I love you."
To which the husband replied, "I am on the toilet, please advise."
*.*
A woman trying to enter the U.S. with a box of giraffe feces had her precious contents confiscated and destroyed by customs agents.
She said she was planning to make necklaces out of them.
This might explain, at least in part, why she has no friends.
*.*
Top Five Advantages of being a Headless Horseman:
Think of all the money you'd save on haircuts.
Never having to decide about ear piercings.
You won't wake up with bed head.
Never have to worry about hat sizes.
Bullies powerless to give you "noogies"!
*.*
Oneliners:
Confucius say casket put in wrong hole is grave mistake.
To everyone who watches my life and gossips about it; season 2 is about to come out.
I took the shell off my snail thinking it would make him faster; it just made him sluggish.
I'm waiting for the day when schools use the trick math question: "How many teams are in the Big 10?"
Remember, if you won the Powerball lottery last night, don't forget about that $20 million you owe me.
Well, aren't we just too scoops of Grumpy in a bowl full of Grouchy this morning.
If you can think of a better fish pun, let minnow.
Look, someone's gotta be the weirdest person in any given social group and it might as well be me.
For $200, I'll show up to your house and give you ridiculous quotes on projects your wife wants done.
When you block your ex on everything and she messages you through eBay.
*.*
I'm not lazy.
I'm just on energy save mode.
Quote of the Times;
“We are devaluing American money so rapidly that in America today, you can’t even bribe Democrat Senators with cash alone!” - Congressman Matt Gaetz
Link of the Times;
"The Whole George Floyd Story Was A Lie":
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/whole-george-floyd-story-was-lie-tucker-carlson
Issue of the Times;
How My Views on Government Have Changed by Aaron Hertzberg
I used to regard the government as extremely inept/incompetent, fairly corrupt, and facing incentives that pushed institutions/officials to be generally corrupt and inept.
Now, I regard the government as fundamentally evil on par with other classical evil regimes throughout human history — something made clear by the government’s behavior during the pandemic.
1. The government went out of their way to suppress, sabotage, and destroy every available effective covid treatment, which by itself caused hundreds of thousands of deaths if not millions around the world. This wasn’t merely the government making claims disparaging the safety and efficacy of covid treatments – the government aggressively marshaled a “whole of government approach” to wield every available political lever to ruthlessly crush any and every treatment. The government took a leading role in targeting, harassing, deplatforming, delicensing, and terminating the careers of heroic dissident doctors who chose to treat covid patients in defiance of the nihilistic guidelines promulgated by the NIH and other agencies to ‘do nothing’ and send patients home until they ‘turned blue.’ The government also was an enthusiastic participant in conducting fraudulent trials for the express purpose of conjuring false data showing that popular effective covid treatments had no efficacy treating covid.
2. The other covid policies – lockdowns, facemasks, and the other forms of social restrictions – were some of the most evil and pernicious policies ever implemented by a society that considers itself to be ethical. It is now clear that the death toll from these policies exceeded the genuine death toll from covid disease (which itself was only significant because of the suppression and denial of treatment as stated above).
Moreover, the very policies championed and savagely implemented by Federal and state governments worsened the morbidity and mortality of covid disease. Forcing people to stay indoors, avoid exercising, avoid social contact, and a bevy of other things that dramatically raised the stress levels and obesity of the population at large made people far more susceptible to covid disease (as well as a host of other medical conditions).
Even more shockingly, these society-upending policies lacked any supportive evidence before they were implemented. It is now well-documented that none of the covid mitigations had any epidemiological impact. Lockdowns had no effect on the transmission or epidemiology of covid waves. Cloth/surgical facemasks did not reduce the spread of covid at all, and even the various types of N95 masks proved utterly useless in the hands of the general population.
Key government officials including Fauci actually admitted that they never took into account the myriad harms that such policies would inflict on society, which is not an ‘oversight’ – the least horrible possibility is that they had no regard for carnage caused by their policies, which is genuinely evil.
3. The covid vaccines – funded, marketed, and mandated by the government – were barely effective for maybe a few months at most, but caused a significant amount of death and severe life-altering injuries (I have done research work in this area, including compiling 3,300+ case report studies documenting various covid vaccine injuries/deaths in the formal academic literature). The government is STILL denying that there were any deaths associated with the mRNA vaccines at all – in 2023, with well over 300 cases of vaccine-associated deaths reported in the formal academic literature (!!!).
The toll from the covid vaccines in just the US is probably somewhere between 100,000-300,000 deaths, and maybe more (this is based on analyses of excess mortality, government disability data, insurance data, pharmacovigilance data, and survey study data). There are probably at least half a million people in the US living with significant injuries caused by a covid vaccine, and possibly more than 2 million. Because of the shockingly poor quality of US data and studies, it is very difficult to sort out the various causes of excess morbidity and mortality (covid disease, covid policies, covid vaccines) or to get a firm idea of how much is “excess” in the first place, but one thing is undeniable: the covid vaccines inflicted mass carnage across society.
4. The government tried to dehumanize unvaccinated people, and largely succeeded according to polling showing that a significant percentage of people if not outright majorities held a variety of shocking views about unvaccinated people including that they are selfish; stupid; a danger to society; should be forcibly confined to their homes; have their children taken away; and be relocated to “quarantine facilities.” A considerable plurality of vaccinated people, in a word, overtly despised the unvaccinated.
This sort of evil abhorrent demagoguery is historically exactly how a society is groomed to accept genocide of a minority group or faction within society.
5. The government prosecuted the most significant and consequential censorship regime in the history of any Western country, which besides for the widespread carnage it caused also demonstrates that the government has no regard for the rule of law or legal norms whatsoever and believes in a radical “ends justify the means” with no clear limitation.
It is worth underscoring that the carnage wreaked by censorship isn’t just the destruction of the social compact of society or the lethal effects of censoring knowledge of effective treatments from people who bereft of them died, but encompasses all sorts of second-order minutiae that you wouldn’t think of, such as suicides by people suffering from various conditions who were disconnected from their support groups when Facebook deleted the group and the personal accounts of its members.
6. The government is now acting like a dictatorial regime to label and categorize the positions of its political opposition as a “terrorist threat” (e.g. parents protesting school boards, religious Catholics, Latin mass adherents, advocates for gun rights, parental rights, etc., opponents of covid and other governmental policies, people who are skeptical of the official “man-made climate change” orthodoxy, et al).
7. The government is persecuting political dissent. The most obvious examples of this are the indictments of President Trump. However, this stretches far beyond the Trump indictments. The political prosecutions of thousands of January 6 protesters – if you pay attention to the actual Jan 6 criminal prosecutions – are a moral abomination. The vast majority of defendants did not do anything remotely violent or even illegal, but were held without bail for years in ‘unique’ prison conditions; denied proper legal representation (their public defenders were on the side of the government); denied a fair trial (a trial by jury of rabid political activists who hate you is a farce); and are being charged for crimes using novel concocted legal theories that have never been enforced for any other type of protester, including the far more violent and societally disruptive BLM/Antifa riots over the summer of 2020. The government also attempted to jail a pro-life activist for a decade on clearly spurious charges for shoving someone threatening his ten-year old child that was (surprisingly) rejected by a jury who found the defendant not guilty.
8. The US government is not only endorsing, marketing, and using its considerable power to impose the barbaric ideology of a litany of sexual deviancies that are nihilistic and depraved even beyond anything ever attributed to Sodom. This includes the federal government’s currently ongoing efforts to force institutions to implement demented wicked barbarism like the psychological, physical, and hormonal mutilation of children as “gender-affirming” care by withholding some types of federal funding for even schools or hospitals that refuse to allow men in the women’s bathrooms (or provide said ‘medical care’ if relevant). The sacrificing of children on the altar of demented gender ideology is quite literally a modern-day incarnation of Moloch.
9. The government is deliberately and willfully trying to impoverish its own citizens, and deprive them of many products that have become staple amenities in society (such as air conditioning, gas stoves, cars, etc etc etc etc). To properly flesh this out and demonstrate the ‘willful/deliberate’ nature of this would require a lengthy analysis of numerous decisions, statements, and actions of the relevant people/agencies that is beyond the scope of this “comment.” I mention this here only because it is one of the standout egregious dimensions of the cold-blooded wickedness that is the weltanschauung of the government today.
10. The government is encouraging and implementing a systematic regime of apartheid, particularly against straight white men. DEI seminars and workshops portraying white people, straight people, and religious people as invertebrate incorrigible evil racists are a ubiquitous feature across government agencies and public sector corporations. This evil and racist ideology is implemented through hiring/admission policies, spending priorities, conditions attached to receiving government grants, and pretty much anything that the government exerts any influence over.
11. The government as a general entity is a pathological liar so much so that if it were an actual person it would make Pinocchio a paragon of honesty by comparison. It is hard to distinguish between the US government and the USSR government at this point – practically everything they say now is a calculated lie.
In a general sense, the government is a diabolical, evil institution that is primarily concerned with pushing twisted ideologies, mutilating children, and persecuting political dissent, while willing to kill millions in pursuit of whatever political or other objectives they are trying to achieve.
News of the Times;
Boyzone’s Shane Lynch: ‘The music industry is Satanic’:
https://www.premierchristianity.com/features/boyzones-shane-lynch-the-music-industry-is-satanic/16349.article
Clemson removes tampon dispensers from men’s restrooms:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/clemson-removes-tampon-dispenser-from-mens-restrooms/
Biden Bans Traditional Pool Pumps:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/joe-biden-bans-traditional-pool-pumps/ar-AA1hEERM
I was kidnapped by my runaway electric car:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12592047/Driver-kidnapped-electric-car-Glasgow.html
Fifth Circuit Corrects Critical Error:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/05/fifth-circuit-corrects-critical-error-in-prior-ruling-to-shut-down-deep-state-censorship-tactic/
Western nation admits 74% of triple-vaccinated now at risk of VAIDS:
https://www.wnd.com/2023/10/western-nation-admits-74-triple-vaccinated-now-vaids/
New Zealand Gov’t Exempted Elite From ‘Deadly’ Covid Jabs:
https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/new-zealand-govt-exempted-elite-from-deadly-covid-jabs-while-forcing-vax-on-public/
Costco Is SELLING OUT of Gold Bars:
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/costco-gold-bars/
Chapter 11 Filings By Businesses Soar 61% So Far This Year
https://www.retaildive.com/news/chapter-11-bankruptcy-filings-soar/695590/
DHS Admits Biden’s Border Crisis Is Making It Easier For Terrorists To Enter America:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/11/dhs-admits-bidens-border-crisis-is-making-it-easier-for-terrorists-to-enter-america/
Why $365M DEI investment into STEM failed to diversify engineering:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/scholars-to-study-why-365m-dei-investment-into-stem-failed-to-diversify-engineering/
Basketball Coach Bemoans “Run-of-the-Mill White Kids”"
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/university-wisconsin-womens-basketball-coach-bemoans-run-mill/
Christian dad of 11 fired after opposing LGBT ‘pride’ activities:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/christian-dad-of-11-fired-after-opposing-lgbt-pride-activities-wearing-t-shirt-with-bible-verse/
Philadelphia Journalist Shot Dead In Home:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/philadelphia-journalist-who-mocked-concern-over-violent-crime-democrat-cities-shot-dead
Murdered Gay Journalist Who Mocked Conservatives Accused Of Grooming His Killer At 15:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/murdered-gay-journalist-who-mocked-conservatives-accused-grooming-his-killer-15
To which the husband replied, "I am on the toilet, please advise."
*.*
A woman trying to enter the U.S. with a box of giraffe feces had her precious contents confiscated and destroyed by customs agents.
She said she was planning to make necklaces out of them.
This might explain, at least in part, why she has no friends.
*.*
Top Five Advantages of being a Headless Horseman:
Think of all the money you'd save on haircuts.
Never having to decide about ear piercings.
You won't wake up with bed head.
Never have to worry about hat sizes.
Bullies powerless to give you "noogies"!
*.*
Oneliners:
Confucius say casket put in wrong hole is grave mistake.
To everyone who watches my life and gossips about it; season 2 is about to come out.
I took the shell off my snail thinking it would make him faster; it just made him sluggish.
I'm waiting for the day when schools use the trick math question: "How many teams are in the Big 10?"
Remember, if you won the Powerball lottery last night, don't forget about that $20 million you owe me.
Well, aren't we just too scoops of Grumpy in a bowl full of Grouchy this morning.
If you can think of a better fish pun, let minnow.
Look, someone's gotta be the weirdest person in any given social group and it might as well be me.
For $200, I'll show up to your house and give you ridiculous quotes on projects your wife wants done.
When you block your ex on everything and she messages you through eBay.
*.*
I'm not lazy.
I'm just on energy save mode.
Quote of the Times;
“We are devaluing American money so rapidly that in America today, you can’t even bribe Democrat Senators with cash alone!” - Congressman Matt Gaetz
Link of the Times;
"The Whole George Floyd Story Was A Lie":
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/whole-george-floyd-story-was-lie-tucker-carlson
Issue of the Times;
How My Views on Government Have Changed by Aaron Hertzberg
I used to regard the government as extremely inept/incompetent, fairly corrupt, and facing incentives that pushed institutions/officials to be generally corrupt and inept.
Now, I regard the government as fundamentally evil on par with other classical evil regimes throughout human history — something made clear by the government’s behavior during the pandemic.
1. The government went out of their way to suppress, sabotage, and destroy every available effective covid treatment, which by itself caused hundreds of thousands of deaths if not millions around the world. This wasn’t merely the government making claims disparaging the safety and efficacy of covid treatments – the government aggressively marshaled a “whole of government approach” to wield every available political lever to ruthlessly crush any and every treatment. The government took a leading role in targeting, harassing, deplatforming, delicensing, and terminating the careers of heroic dissident doctors who chose to treat covid patients in defiance of the nihilistic guidelines promulgated by the NIH and other agencies to ‘do nothing’ and send patients home until they ‘turned blue.’ The government also was an enthusiastic participant in conducting fraudulent trials for the express purpose of conjuring false data showing that popular effective covid treatments had no efficacy treating covid.
2. The other covid policies – lockdowns, facemasks, and the other forms of social restrictions – were some of the most evil and pernicious policies ever implemented by a society that considers itself to be ethical. It is now clear that the death toll from these policies exceeded the genuine death toll from covid disease (which itself was only significant because of the suppression and denial of treatment as stated above).
Moreover, the very policies championed and savagely implemented by Federal and state governments worsened the morbidity and mortality of covid disease. Forcing people to stay indoors, avoid exercising, avoid social contact, and a bevy of other things that dramatically raised the stress levels and obesity of the population at large made people far more susceptible to covid disease (as well as a host of other medical conditions).
Even more shockingly, these society-upending policies lacked any supportive evidence before they were implemented. It is now well-documented that none of the covid mitigations had any epidemiological impact. Lockdowns had no effect on the transmission or epidemiology of covid waves. Cloth/surgical facemasks did not reduce the spread of covid at all, and even the various types of N95 masks proved utterly useless in the hands of the general population.
Key government officials including Fauci actually admitted that they never took into account the myriad harms that such policies would inflict on society, which is not an ‘oversight’ – the least horrible possibility is that they had no regard for carnage caused by their policies, which is genuinely evil.
3. The covid vaccines – funded, marketed, and mandated by the government – were barely effective for maybe a few months at most, but caused a significant amount of death and severe life-altering injuries (I have done research work in this area, including compiling 3,300+ case report studies documenting various covid vaccine injuries/deaths in the formal academic literature). The government is STILL denying that there were any deaths associated with the mRNA vaccines at all – in 2023, with well over 300 cases of vaccine-associated deaths reported in the formal academic literature (!!!).
The toll from the covid vaccines in just the US is probably somewhere between 100,000-300,000 deaths, and maybe more (this is based on analyses of excess mortality, government disability data, insurance data, pharmacovigilance data, and survey study data). There are probably at least half a million people in the US living with significant injuries caused by a covid vaccine, and possibly more than 2 million. Because of the shockingly poor quality of US data and studies, it is very difficult to sort out the various causes of excess morbidity and mortality (covid disease, covid policies, covid vaccines) or to get a firm idea of how much is “excess” in the first place, but one thing is undeniable: the covid vaccines inflicted mass carnage across society.
4. The government tried to dehumanize unvaccinated people, and largely succeeded according to polling showing that a significant percentage of people if not outright majorities held a variety of shocking views about unvaccinated people including that they are selfish; stupid; a danger to society; should be forcibly confined to their homes; have their children taken away; and be relocated to “quarantine facilities.” A considerable plurality of vaccinated people, in a word, overtly despised the unvaccinated.
This sort of evil abhorrent demagoguery is historically exactly how a society is groomed to accept genocide of a minority group or faction within society.
5. The government prosecuted the most significant and consequential censorship regime in the history of any Western country, which besides for the widespread carnage it caused also demonstrates that the government has no regard for the rule of law or legal norms whatsoever and believes in a radical “ends justify the means” with no clear limitation.
It is worth underscoring that the carnage wreaked by censorship isn’t just the destruction of the social compact of society or the lethal effects of censoring knowledge of effective treatments from people who bereft of them died, but encompasses all sorts of second-order minutiae that you wouldn’t think of, such as suicides by people suffering from various conditions who were disconnected from their support groups when Facebook deleted the group and the personal accounts of its members.
6. The government is now acting like a dictatorial regime to label and categorize the positions of its political opposition as a “terrorist threat” (e.g. parents protesting school boards, religious Catholics, Latin mass adherents, advocates for gun rights, parental rights, etc., opponents of covid and other governmental policies, people who are skeptical of the official “man-made climate change” orthodoxy, et al).
7. The government is persecuting political dissent. The most obvious examples of this are the indictments of President Trump. However, this stretches far beyond the Trump indictments. The political prosecutions of thousands of January 6 protesters – if you pay attention to the actual Jan 6 criminal prosecutions – are a moral abomination. The vast majority of defendants did not do anything remotely violent or even illegal, but were held without bail for years in ‘unique’ prison conditions; denied proper legal representation (their public defenders were on the side of the government); denied a fair trial (a trial by jury of rabid political activists who hate you is a farce); and are being charged for crimes using novel concocted legal theories that have never been enforced for any other type of protester, including the far more violent and societally disruptive BLM/Antifa riots over the summer of 2020. The government also attempted to jail a pro-life activist for a decade on clearly spurious charges for shoving someone threatening his ten-year old child that was (surprisingly) rejected by a jury who found the defendant not guilty.
8. The US government is not only endorsing, marketing, and using its considerable power to impose the barbaric ideology of a litany of sexual deviancies that are nihilistic and depraved even beyond anything ever attributed to Sodom. This includes the federal government’s currently ongoing efforts to force institutions to implement demented wicked barbarism like the psychological, physical, and hormonal mutilation of children as “gender-affirming” care by withholding some types of federal funding for even schools or hospitals that refuse to allow men in the women’s bathrooms (or provide said ‘medical care’ if relevant). The sacrificing of children on the altar of demented gender ideology is quite literally a modern-day incarnation of Moloch.
9. The government is deliberately and willfully trying to impoverish its own citizens, and deprive them of many products that have become staple amenities in society (such as air conditioning, gas stoves, cars, etc etc etc etc). To properly flesh this out and demonstrate the ‘willful/deliberate’ nature of this would require a lengthy analysis of numerous decisions, statements, and actions of the relevant people/agencies that is beyond the scope of this “comment.” I mention this here only because it is one of the standout egregious dimensions of the cold-blooded wickedness that is the weltanschauung of the government today.
10. The government is encouraging and implementing a systematic regime of apartheid, particularly against straight white men. DEI seminars and workshops portraying white people, straight people, and religious people as invertebrate incorrigible evil racists are a ubiquitous feature across government agencies and public sector corporations. This evil and racist ideology is implemented through hiring/admission policies, spending priorities, conditions attached to receiving government grants, and pretty much anything that the government exerts any influence over.
11. The government as a general entity is a pathological liar so much so that if it were an actual person it would make Pinocchio a paragon of honesty by comparison. It is hard to distinguish between the US government and the USSR government at this point – practically everything they say now is a calculated lie.
In a general sense, the government is a diabolical, evil institution that is primarily concerned with pushing twisted ideologies, mutilating children, and persecuting political dissent, while willing to kill millions in pursuit of whatever political or other objectives they are trying to achieve.
News of the Times;
Boyzone’s Shane Lynch: ‘The music industry is Satanic’:
https://www.premierchristianity.com/features/boyzones-shane-lynch-the-music-industry-is-satanic/16349.article
Clemson removes tampon dispensers from men’s restrooms:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/clemson-removes-tampon-dispenser-from-mens-restrooms/
Biden Bans Traditional Pool Pumps:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/joe-biden-bans-traditional-pool-pumps/ar-AA1hEERM
I was kidnapped by my runaway electric car:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12592047/Driver-kidnapped-electric-car-Glasgow.html
Fifth Circuit Corrects Critical Error:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/05/fifth-circuit-corrects-critical-error-in-prior-ruling-to-shut-down-deep-state-censorship-tactic/
Western nation admits 74% of triple-vaccinated now at risk of VAIDS:
https://www.wnd.com/2023/10/western-nation-admits-74-triple-vaccinated-now-vaids/
New Zealand Gov’t Exempted Elite From ‘Deadly’ Covid Jabs:
https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/new-zealand-govt-exempted-elite-from-deadly-covid-jabs-while-forcing-vax-on-public/
Costco Is SELLING OUT of Gold Bars:
https://www.theorganicprepper.com/costco-gold-bars/
Chapter 11 Filings By Businesses Soar 61% So Far This Year
https://www.retaildive.com/news/chapter-11-bankruptcy-filings-soar/695590/
DHS Admits Biden’s Border Crisis Is Making It Easier For Terrorists To Enter America:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/11/dhs-admits-bidens-border-crisis-is-making-it-easier-for-terrorists-to-enter-america/
Why $365M DEI investment into STEM failed to diversify engineering:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/scholars-to-study-why-365m-dei-investment-into-stem-failed-to-diversify-engineering/
Basketball Coach Bemoans “Run-of-the-Mill White Kids”"
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/university-wisconsin-womens-basketball-coach-bemoans-run-mill/
Christian dad of 11 fired after opposing LGBT ‘pride’ activities:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/christian-dad-of-11-fired-after-opposing-lgbt-pride-activities-wearing-t-shirt-with-bible-verse/
Philadelphia Journalist Shot Dead In Home:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/philadelphia-journalist-who-mocked-concern-over-violent-crime-democrat-cities-shot-dead
Murdered Gay Journalist Who Mocked Conservatives Accused Of Grooming His Killer At 15:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/murdered-gay-journalist-who-mocked-conservatives-accused-grooming-his-killer-15
Rage?
Scientists say they're closer than ever to being able to bring back extinct animals.
Can there possibly be that many scientists that haven't seen a single one of the Jurassic Park movies?
*.*
Top Five Classic Signs Of Fall:
Rake that sat in the garage all summer mysteriously disappears.
Kids next door selling pumpkin spice lemonade.
My baseball team is at the playoffs... in the stands.
Pissed-off geese flying south in an "F" formation.
Neighbor's leaves gently blowing into my yard.
*.*
Oneliners:
I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but adding more cheese than the recipe called for was not one of them.
Anyone who doesn't know what shampoo tastes like has never washed a dog.
That song, "We're not going to take it" is over 40 years old and yet, I feel like we're still taking it.
Who knew the apocalypse was going to be so slow and expensive.
Apparently, when you treat people like they treat you, they get upset.
Due to personal reasons, I'll be drinking again this weekend.
If they really want to prepare high school kids for real life they'd offer a class called, "Working With Jerks."
Being excited to get into bed is a whole new level of adulting.
I'm pretty sure the person who put the first 'r' in February also decided how to spell Wednesday.
I'll Carpe Diem tomorrow.
*.*
The key to happiness is low expectations.
Lower, nope lower.
Keeeeeep going.
*.*
Whoever said out of sight out of mind never had a spider disappear in their bedroom.
Quote of the Times;
“The US Army and US Marines are running ads featuring White males again all of a sudden. I think this means we are definitely going to war.” - @WallStreetSilv
Link of the Times;
Make the ‘American Dream’ Great Again:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/10/is-american-dream-dead-new-survey-shows-americans-trust-help-society/
Issue of the Times;
Rand Paul rages at ‘staggering’ media ‘know-nothingism,’ COVID cover-up by Paul Bedard
Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) new book Deception is exactly what you thought it would be: a thorough takedown of Dr. Anthony Fauci and his disciples for feeding America a full plate of COVID-19 mush over the past three years.
Tapping an extraordinary amount of research, he wrote that Fauci and the National Institutes of Health not only funded dangerous gain-of-function virus research at a Wuhan, China, lab but that Fauci knew it was the source of COVID-19 as early as February 2020 and spent years covering it up.
“Fauci says he sleeps fine,” Paul wrote in the 524-page book published by Regnery. “In all likelihood, Fauci is lying — lying to himself, or the public, maybe both. His hubris and ego may not allow him to question his own role and responsibility even at 3:00 in the morning,” the Kentucky senator and ophthalmologist added.
But as important as getting in the last word after three years of sparring with Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, over the origins of the coronavirus was highlighting the ignorance of the Washington press corps and its reluctance to question the “cult” of Fauci.
“The ignorance of today’s ‘journalists’ is staggering. They only know how to repeat the dogma fed to them,” Paul wrote in Deception: The Great COVID Cover-Up.
Paul’s criticism came from his personal experience with “media jackals” when he became the first senator to test positive for COVID-19 and after he returned to work following the recommended quarantine.
First, he wrote, reporters hit him for staying at work after he took his initial test despite having no symptoms and no test results for a week. “Lost on all these armchair ‘Karens,’ was the fact that if you count a stomach ache as a COVID symptom, it had been 10 days since I had any iota of illness,” he wrote.
Then, after returning from Kentucky following his COVID-19 “sabbatical,” he encountered a “contagion of ‘know-nothingism’” from reporters.
"They barreled up to me with multiple masks on their twenty-something faces and demanded to know why I wasn’t wearing a mask," the senator said. "I calmly explained to them that the benefit of having survived COVID-19 was that I now had immunity."
That didn’t sit well with the press. “The reporters, none of whom had a science degree (nor had any of them likely even passed an advanced science course), angrily and self-righteously excoriated me for my ‘ignorance’ and my ‘dangerous noncompliance,'” Paul wrote.
“Their eyes visible above their ‘BLM’ and ‘Trust Science’ masks only narrowed in angry and impotent disbelief,” he said.
Paul also hit the media’s blind faith in Fauci, whose emails show he panned masks as ineffective in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
“Of course, while he was writing this privately, he was sanctimoniously lecturing me in a Senate hearing wearing a ridiculous Washington Nationals cloth mask. When I rightly called him out for his public health theater, he angrily and huffily denied that it was theater,” the Kentucky Republican said, adding, “I am still shocked at the childishly ignorant and emotional responses he gave, and by the media’s fawning response to it.”
If there is one lesson Paul wants learned from the crisis, it is to question authority. “I continue to be astonished at the lack of curiosity among Democrats and the mainstream media who for two years viewed COVID as such a great threat to humankind that it warranted the denial of civil liberties and education to millions of Americans. And now, they shrug their collective shoulders and ask us all to ‘move on.’ I, for one, will not," he said.
News of the Times;
Enemy 'civilian casualties' ok by me:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180303042746/https://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2002/07/25/enemy-civilian-casualties-ok-by-me-n1391583
We deserve better psyops:
https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/bbcs-reformed-conspiracy-theorist
Just Pass Everyone:
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/09/just-pass-everyone/
Education Secretary says he doesn't 'respect' parents thinking 'they know what's right for kids':
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/education-secretary-says-he-doesnt-respect-parents-thinking-they-know
Puberty Blockers Given to Teens Worsened Their Mental Illnesses:
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/406331.php
Rasmussen Poll Shows 30% of DEMOCRATS “at Least Somewhat Likely” to Vote for President Trump:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/yuge-latest-rasmussen-poll-shows-30-democrats-least/
NYC sees a surge in TUBERCULOSIS cases amid influx of migrants:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-10-11-nyc-tuberculosis-cases-surge-influx-of-migrants.html
And In Machete-Wielding-Educator News:
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2023/09/and-in-machete-wielding-educator-news.html
UNLV law school apologizes:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/unlv-law-school-apologizes-for-using-word-picnic-changes-it-to-lunch-by-the-lake/
Blood Pressure Drugs Recalled After Powerful Opioid Found:
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/fda-notice-blood-pressure-drugs-recalled-after-powerful-opioid-found
Prosecutors and our 'ham sandwich' nation:
https://www.savannahnow.com/story/lifestyle/columns/2015/04/09/george-will-prosecutors-and-our-ham-sandwich-nation/13618881007/
Defund The Police + Decriminalize Shoplifting:
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=55965
Washington National Cathedral replaces traditional stained glass with BLM windows:
https://notthebee.com/article/washington-national-cathedral-replaces-traditional-stained-glass-windows-with-ugly-modern-blm-windows-because-of-course
Far Left Activist Stabbed to Death by Unhinged Attacker:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/leftist-activist-stabbed-death-unhinged-attacker-near-nyc/
Homeless Pirates Pillage Leisure Boats In San Francisco Bay:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/aarg-homeless-pirates-pillage-leisure-boats-san-francisco-bay
Can there possibly be that many scientists that haven't seen a single one of the Jurassic Park movies?
*.*
Top Five Classic Signs Of Fall:
Rake that sat in the garage all summer mysteriously disappears.
Kids next door selling pumpkin spice lemonade.
My baseball team is at the playoffs... in the stands.
Pissed-off geese flying south in an "F" formation.
Neighbor's leaves gently blowing into my yard.
*.*
Oneliners:
I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but adding more cheese than the recipe called for was not one of them.
Anyone who doesn't know what shampoo tastes like has never washed a dog.
That song, "We're not going to take it" is over 40 years old and yet, I feel like we're still taking it.
Who knew the apocalypse was going to be so slow and expensive.
Apparently, when you treat people like they treat you, they get upset.
Due to personal reasons, I'll be drinking again this weekend.
If they really want to prepare high school kids for real life they'd offer a class called, "Working With Jerks."
Being excited to get into bed is a whole new level of adulting.
I'm pretty sure the person who put the first 'r' in February also decided how to spell Wednesday.
I'll Carpe Diem tomorrow.
*.*
The key to happiness is low expectations.
Lower, nope lower.
Keeeeeep going.
*.*
Whoever said out of sight out of mind never had a spider disappear in their bedroom.
Quote of the Times;
“The US Army and US Marines are running ads featuring White males again all of a sudden. I think this means we are definitely going to war.” - @WallStreetSilv
Link of the Times;
Make the ‘American Dream’ Great Again:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/10/is-american-dream-dead-new-survey-shows-americans-trust-help-society/
Issue of the Times;
Rand Paul rages at ‘staggering’ media ‘know-nothingism,’ COVID cover-up by Paul Bedard
Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) new book Deception is exactly what you thought it would be: a thorough takedown of Dr. Anthony Fauci and his disciples for feeding America a full plate of COVID-19 mush over the past three years.
Tapping an extraordinary amount of research, he wrote that Fauci and the National Institutes of Health not only funded dangerous gain-of-function virus research at a Wuhan, China, lab but that Fauci knew it was the source of COVID-19 as early as February 2020 and spent years covering it up.
“Fauci says he sleeps fine,” Paul wrote in the 524-page book published by Regnery. “In all likelihood, Fauci is lying — lying to himself, or the public, maybe both. His hubris and ego may not allow him to question his own role and responsibility even at 3:00 in the morning,” the Kentucky senator and ophthalmologist added.
But as important as getting in the last word after three years of sparring with Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, over the origins of the coronavirus was highlighting the ignorance of the Washington press corps and its reluctance to question the “cult” of Fauci.
“The ignorance of today’s ‘journalists’ is staggering. They only know how to repeat the dogma fed to them,” Paul wrote in Deception: The Great COVID Cover-Up.
Paul’s criticism came from his personal experience with “media jackals” when he became the first senator to test positive for COVID-19 and after he returned to work following the recommended quarantine.
First, he wrote, reporters hit him for staying at work after he took his initial test despite having no symptoms and no test results for a week. “Lost on all these armchair ‘Karens,’ was the fact that if you count a stomach ache as a COVID symptom, it had been 10 days since I had any iota of illness,” he wrote.
Then, after returning from Kentucky following his COVID-19 “sabbatical,” he encountered a “contagion of ‘know-nothingism’” from reporters.
"They barreled up to me with multiple masks on their twenty-something faces and demanded to know why I wasn’t wearing a mask," the senator said. "I calmly explained to them that the benefit of having survived COVID-19 was that I now had immunity."
That didn’t sit well with the press. “The reporters, none of whom had a science degree (nor had any of them likely even passed an advanced science course), angrily and self-righteously excoriated me for my ‘ignorance’ and my ‘dangerous noncompliance,'” Paul wrote.
“Their eyes visible above their ‘BLM’ and ‘Trust Science’ masks only narrowed in angry and impotent disbelief,” he said.
Paul also hit the media’s blind faith in Fauci, whose emails show he panned masks as ineffective in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
“Of course, while he was writing this privately, he was sanctimoniously lecturing me in a Senate hearing wearing a ridiculous Washington Nationals cloth mask. When I rightly called him out for his public health theater, he angrily and huffily denied that it was theater,” the Kentucky Republican said, adding, “I am still shocked at the childishly ignorant and emotional responses he gave, and by the media’s fawning response to it.”
If there is one lesson Paul wants learned from the crisis, it is to question authority. “I continue to be astonished at the lack of curiosity among Democrats and the mainstream media who for two years viewed COVID as such a great threat to humankind that it warranted the denial of civil liberties and education to millions of Americans. And now, they shrug their collective shoulders and ask us all to ‘move on.’ I, for one, will not," he said.
News of the Times;
Enemy 'civilian casualties' ok by me:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180303042746/https://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2002/07/25/enemy-civilian-casualties-ok-by-me-n1391583
We deserve better psyops:
https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/bbcs-reformed-conspiracy-theorist
Just Pass Everyone:
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2023/09/just-pass-everyone/
Education Secretary says he doesn't 'respect' parents thinking 'they know what's right for kids':
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/education-secretary-says-he-doesnt-respect-parents-thinking-they-know
Puberty Blockers Given to Teens Worsened Their Mental Illnesses:
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/406331.php
Rasmussen Poll Shows 30% of DEMOCRATS “at Least Somewhat Likely” to Vote for President Trump:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/yuge-latest-rasmussen-poll-shows-30-democrats-least/
NYC sees a surge in TUBERCULOSIS cases amid influx of migrants:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-10-11-nyc-tuberculosis-cases-surge-influx-of-migrants.html
And In Machete-Wielding-Educator News:
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2023/09/and-in-machete-wielding-educator-news.html
UNLV law school apologizes:
https://www.thecollegefix.com/unlv-law-school-apologizes-for-using-word-picnic-changes-it-to-lunch-by-the-lake/
Blood Pressure Drugs Recalled After Powerful Opioid Found:
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/fda-notice-blood-pressure-drugs-recalled-after-powerful-opioid-found
Prosecutors and our 'ham sandwich' nation:
https://www.savannahnow.com/story/lifestyle/columns/2015/04/09/george-will-prosecutors-and-our-ham-sandwich-nation/13618881007/
Defund The Police + Decriminalize Shoplifting:
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=55965
Washington National Cathedral replaces traditional stained glass with BLM windows:
https://notthebee.com/article/washington-national-cathedral-replaces-traditional-stained-glass-windows-with-ugly-modern-blm-windows-because-of-course
Far Left Activist Stabbed to Death by Unhinged Attacker:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/leftist-activist-stabbed-death-unhinged-attacker-near-nyc/
Homeless Pirates Pillage Leisure Boats In San Francisco Bay:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/aarg-homeless-pirates-pillage-leisure-boats-san-francisco-bay
Hand?
Oh, Monday.
Why do you have to be so consistent?
*.*
I married my wife for her looks...
But not the ones I've been getting lately.
*.*
Oneliners:
I was thinking about getting a ham radio, but I'm concerned about all that sodium.
Cleaning the house with kids is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos.
I hate when I'm waiting for Mom to cook dinner then I realize I'm Mom.
You can't plant flowers if you haven't botany.
Which wine pairs well with pretending to like sports?
SIGN: The last car to park here was never seen again.
When I was your age, I had to walk 10 feet through shag carpeting to change the TV channel.
It's me and my four hours of sleep against the world.
Every warning label has an awesome back story.
If you love someone, let them nap.
*.*
Top 5 Things We Wish The New iPhone 15 Was Able To Do:
Pay for itself.
Built-in Phasers, set to stun.
Floss me app.
Fillet a fish.
Air Fry.
*.*
Do not read the next sentence.
You little rebel, I like you.
Quote of the Times;
“Anyone who seriously believes that the war can be ended through Russian-Ukrainian negotiations lives in another world. Reality looks different. In reality, such issues can only be discussed between Washington and Moscow.” - Hungarian PM Viktor Orban
Link of the Times;
Eric July And Vox Day Respond To Attempts To Cancel Chuck Dixon:
https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/09/25/eric-july-and-vox-day-respond-to-attempts-to-cancel-chuck-dixon/
Issue of the Times;
Government Is The Hidden Hand Directing The Culture Wars by J.W. Rich
Recent data from the Pew Research Center shows that from 1994 to 2022, Americans’ views of opposing political parties became increasingly negative. In 1994, only 21 percent of Republicans and 17 percent of Democrats held “very unfavorable” views of the other party. In 2022, that category rose to 62 percent for Republicans and 54 percent for Democrats.
If we include those who hold “unfavorable” views, then over 80 percent of both Republicans and Democrats have negative views of the other party.
One of the many undesirable effects of this polarization is an environment in which anything can become a political lightning rod. Whether it involves Dr. Seuss books, Mr. Potato Head, or the Barbie movie, controversy seems to lurk around every societal corner. Nothing is safe, nothing is sacred, and anything can be weaponized by one political factor against another. The term often used to describe this perpetual conflict is “culture war”—a depressingly apt term. But through all the angry tweets, op-eds, and “cancel” campaigns, few ask about where these culture wars come from and whether we can end them.
While a complex social event is never the product of just one factor, culture wars generally emerge from one group of people using some form of power to pressure another group into changing its beliefs or behavior. The pressured group may fight back and cause the pressuring group to redouble its efforts. This cycle, if it continues, can broaden into a full-blown culture war.
What does this dynamic look like in practice? Imagine a country where a group of ice cream fanatics decide to make every citizen eat more ice cream. They might try to pass legislation that favors eating ice cream, attack and shame ice cream skeptics, and encourage eating ice cream as a social norm. They would probably win converts, but they would also make enemies (especially the lactose intolerant!). Those who do not wish to eat ice cream would react negatively and maybe try to push an anti–ice cream agenda. Soon, an ice cream culture war could break out, each side pressuring the other to conform to its beliefs.
The catalyst of a culture war is the pressure exerted by one group on another to adopt its ways of thinking and acting. But why do groups elect to use force on others to spread their viewpoints? Prima facie, there is no strong incentive to resort to aggressive evangelism. Societies are built through cooperation, even between those who disagree. The baker sells his bread to members of his political party as well as the opposing party. If he sold bread only to customers who adopted his political beliefs, the market would turn on him. The same incentive to cooperate exists for groups motivated by ideology. While it is certainly in their interest to add to their ranks, doing so in an aggressive and forceful manner is likely to work against them.
The state does not obey the same social norms as its citizens; its injunctions are not optional but coercive in nature. More importantly, such coercion (e.g., taxation, legislation, and law enforcement) does not exist in a vacuum but aims to achieve various ends. Interest groups looking to spread their beliefs can redirect state power to their own purposes. This may involve anything from getting a subsidy for an ideologically friendly company to using state-enforced censorship against ideological enemies.
As the power and reach of a state grows, so too do the opportunities to direct that power. In terms of total spending, the federal government of the United States is the largest in history. It is no coincidence that now, when the power of the state is greater than ever, culture wars are raging all around us. These conflicts are occurring not because people are deciding to fight with one another but because they are compelled to. If there were only free and voluntary associations, then alternative beliefs could coexist. There would be no need to promote, for example, one lifestyle over another, because everyone could live how they see fit.
But state power removes all choice and variety. As the state increases its control over domains like public school curricula and corporate subsidies, fewer ideas and directions are given a chance to succeed. Culture wars fester within such narrowing policy confines because values and beliefs are either represented or excluded.
Conflicts instigated through state power always spill into other areas of society. When the political representation or exclusion of one’s beliefs is at stake, a culture war can become an environment in which any means of defense seems fair game. Social institutions, corporations, and popular media can all be weaponized and wielded against one’s enemies. The result is as familiar as it is exhausting: unending conflict and controversy, with every institution, organization, and event in society politicized and nowhere to hide from the unceasing cross fire.
Culture wars are not created solely by the state, but a state with too much power makes them inevitable. High-minded sentiments about “having conversations” and “understanding the beliefs of others” might sound like appealing options for cooling the tensions of a culture war, but they gravely underestimate the scope of the problem. No amount of civil discussion will remove the divisions created by state power. Until that power is destroyed—or, at the very least, greatly diminished—the culture wars will continue.
News of the Times;
It’s No Accident The Southern Border Is Collapsing, It’s Intentional:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/21/its-no-accident-the-southern-border-is-collapsing-its-intentional/
Biden Admin Lets 221K+ Migrants Fly Directly Into U.S.:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/09/24/border-bypass-biden-admin-lets-221k-migrants-fly-directly-into-u-s-n1729490
American Tax Dollars Funding Way More Than Just Weapons in Ukraine:
https://www.westernjournal.com/uncovered-american-tax-dollars-funding-way-just-weapons-ukraine/
A war Russia set to win:
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/a-war-russia-set-to-win-441926
China is on a mission to spread deflation worldwide:
https://www.cryptopolitan.com/china-mission-to-spread-deflation-worldwide/
885,000 Full-Time Jobs Lost, 1.127 Million Part-Time Jobs Added:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/inside-todays-jobs-report-885000-full-time-jobs-lost-offset-1127-million-part-time-jobs
Dozens Of Baltimore Businesses Threaten to Not Pay Taxes:
https://www.newswars.com/weve-reached-our-breaking-point-dozens-of-baltimore-businesses-threaten-to-not-pay-taxes/
Killing Of Baltimore Tech CEO Is Yet Another Failure Of 'Soft-On-Crime' Policies:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/killing-baltimore-tech-ceo-yet-another-failure-soft-crime-policies-pushed-democrats
FBI Sued for What Elderly Man Says Happened to His Coin Collection:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/fbi-sued-elderly-man-says-happened-coin-collection/
Croydon stabbing:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12566905/Croydon-stabbing-girl-boy-bus-way-school-murder.html
Body of Forbes '30 Under 30' tech CEO, 26, was found on the roof:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12564889/amp/pava-lapere-baltimore-murder-jason-billingsley-roof.html
Vetoing Liquor Privatization:
https://reason.com/2015/07/03/vetoing-liquor-privatization-pennsylvani/
All Philly Liquor Stores Closed After Mass Looting:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/watch-all-hell-breaks-out-philadelphia-teen-looters-target-retail-stores
If you need some fire in your belly, watch this North Carolina mom:
https://notthebee.com/article/viral-video-shows-north-carolina-mom-go-nuclear-on-school-board-for-wasting-their-time-and-not-actually-educating-children
FBI Targets Trump Voters As Domestic Terrorists Ahead Of 2024 Election:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/04/fbi-targets-trump-voters-as-domestic-terrorists-ahead-of-2024-election/
Why do you have to be so consistent?
*.*
I married my wife for her looks...
But not the ones I've been getting lately.
*.*
Oneliners:
I was thinking about getting a ham radio, but I'm concerned about all that sodium.
Cleaning the house with kids is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos.
I hate when I'm waiting for Mom to cook dinner then I realize I'm Mom.
You can't plant flowers if you haven't botany.
Which wine pairs well with pretending to like sports?
SIGN: The last car to park here was never seen again.
When I was your age, I had to walk 10 feet through shag carpeting to change the TV channel.
It's me and my four hours of sleep against the world.
Every warning label has an awesome back story.
If you love someone, let them nap.
*.*
Top 5 Things We Wish The New iPhone 15 Was Able To Do:
Pay for itself.
Built-in Phasers, set to stun.
Floss me app.
Fillet a fish.
Air Fry.
*.*
Do not read the next sentence.
You little rebel, I like you.
Quote of the Times;
“Anyone who seriously believes that the war can be ended through Russian-Ukrainian negotiations lives in another world. Reality looks different. In reality, such issues can only be discussed between Washington and Moscow.” - Hungarian PM Viktor Orban
Link of the Times;
Eric July And Vox Day Respond To Attempts To Cancel Chuck Dixon:
https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/09/25/eric-july-and-vox-day-respond-to-attempts-to-cancel-chuck-dixon/
Issue of the Times;
Government Is The Hidden Hand Directing The Culture Wars by J.W. Rich
Recent data from the Pew Research Center shows that from 1994 to 2022, Americans’ views of opposing political parties became increasingly negative. In 1994, only 21 percent of Republicans and 17 percent of Democrats held “very unfavorable” views of the other party. In 2022, that category rose to 62 percent for Republicans and 54 percent for Democrats.
If we include those who hold “unfavorable” views, then over 80 percent of both Republicans and Democrats have negative views of the other party.
One of the many undesirable effects of this polarization is an environment in which anything can become a political lightning rod. Whether it involves Dr. Seuss books, Mr. Potato Head, or the Barbie movie, controversy seems to lurk around every societal corner. Nothing is safe, nothing is sacred, and anything can be weaponized by one political factor against another. The term often used to describe this perpetual conflict is “culture war”—a depressingly apt term. But through all the angry tweets, op-eds, and “cancel” campaigns, few ask about where these culture wars come from and whether we can end them.
While a complex social event is never the product of just one factor, culture wars generally emerge from one group of people using some form of power to pressure another group into changing its beliefs or behavior. The pressured group may fight back and cause the pressuring group to redouble its efforts. This cycle, if it continues, can broaden into a full-blown culture war.
What does this dynamic look like in practice? Imagine a country where a group of ice cream fanatics decide to make every citizen eat more ice cream. They might try to pass legislation that favors eating ice cream, attack and shame ice cream skeptics, and encourage eating ice cream as a social norm. They would probably win converts, but they would also make enemies (especially the lactose intolerant!). Those who do not wish to eat ice cream would react negatively and maybe try to push an anti–ice cream agenda. Soon, an ice cream culture war could break out, each side pressuring the other to conform to its beliefs.
The catalyst of a culture war is the pressure exerted by one group on another to adopt its ways of thinking and acting. But why do groups elect to use force on others to spread their viewpoints? Prima facie, there is no strong incentive to resort to aggressive evangelism. Societies are built through cooperation, even between those who disagree. The baker sells his bread to members of his political party as well as the opposing party. If he sold bread only to customers who adopted his political beliefs, the market would turn on him. The same incentive to cooperate exists for groups motivated by ideology. While it is certainly in their interest to add to their ranks, doing so in an aggressive and forceful manner is likely to work against them.
The state does not obey the same social norms as its citizens; its injunctions are not optional but coercive in nature. More importantly, such coercion (e.g., taxation, legislation, and law enforcement) does not exist in a vacuum but aims to achieve various ends. Interest groups looking to spread their beliefs can redirect state power to their own purposes. This may involve anything from getting a subsidy for an ideologically friendly company to using state-enforced censorship against ideological enemies.
As the power and reach of a state grows, so too do the opportunities to direct that power. In terms of total spending, the federal government of the United States is the largest in history. It is no coincidence that now, when the power of the state is greater than ever, culture wars are raging all around us. These conflicts are occurring not because people are deciding to fight with one another but because they are compelled to. If there were only free and voluntary associations, then alternative beliefs could coexist. There would be no need to promote, for example, one lifestyle over another, because everyone could live how they see fit.
But state power removes all choice and variety. As the state increases its control over domains like public school curricula and corporate subsidies, fewer ideas and directions are given a chance to succeed. Culture wars fester within such narrowing policy confines because values and beliefs are either represented or excluded.
Conflicts instigated through state power always spill into other areas of society. When the political representation or exclusion of one’s beliefs is at stake, a culture war can become an environment in which any means of defense seems fair game. Social institutions, corporations, and popular media can all be weaponized and wielded against one’s enemies. The result is as familiar as it is exhausting: unending conflict and controversy, with every institution, organization, and event in society politicized and nowhere to hide from the unceasing cross fire.
Culture wars are not created solely by the state, but a state with too much power makes them inevitable. High-minded sentiments about “having conversations” and “understanding the beliefs of others” might sound like appealing options for cooling the tensions of a culture war, but they gravely underestimate the scope of the problem. No amount of civil discussion will remove the divisions created by state power. Until that power is destroyed—or, at the very least, greatly diminished—the culture wars will continue.
News of the Times;
It’s No Accident The Southern Border Is Collapsing, It’s Intentional:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/21/its-no-accident-the-southern-border-is-collapsing-its-intentional/
Biden Admin Lets 221K+ Migrants Fly Directly Into U.S.:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/09/24/border-bypass-biden-admin-lets-221k-migrants-fly-directly-into-u-s-n1729490
American Tax Dollars Funding Way More Than Just Weapons in Ukraine:
https://www.westernjournal.com/uncovered-american-tax-dollars-funding-way-just-weapons-ukraine/
A war Russia set to win:
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/a-war-russia-set-to-win-441926
China is on a mission to spread deflation worldwide:
https://www.cryptopolitan.com/china-mission-to-spread-deflation-worldwide/
885,000 Full-Time Jobs Lost, 1.127 Million Part-Time Jobs Added:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/inside-todays-jobs-report-885000-full-time-jobs-lost-offset-1127-million-part-time-jobs
Dozens Of Baltimore Businesses Threaten to Not Pay Taxes:
https://www.newswars.com/weve-reached-our-breaking-point-dozens-of-baltimore-businesses-threaten-to-not-pay-taxes/
Killing Of Baltimore Tech CEO Is Yet Another Failure Of 'Soft-On-Crime' Policies:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/killing-baltimore-tech-ceo-yet-another-failure-soft-crime-policies-pushed-democrats
FBI Sued for What Elderly Man Says Happened to His Coin Collection:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/fbi-sued-elderly-man-says-happened-coin-collection/
Croydon stabbing:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12566905/Croydon-stabbing-girl-boy-bus-way-school-murder.html
Body of Forbes '30 Under 30' tech CEO, 26, was found on the roof:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12564889/amp/pava-lapere-baltimore-murder-jason-billingsley-roof.html
Vetoing Liquor Privatization:
https://reason.com/2015/07/03/vetoing-liquor-privatization-pennsylvani/
All Philly Liquor Stores Closed After Mass Looting:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/watch-all-hell-breaks-out-philadelphia-teen-looters-target-retail-stores
If you need some fire in your belly, watch this North Carolina mom:
https://notthebee.com/article/viral-video-shows-north-carolina-mom-go-nuclear-on-school-board-for-wasting-their-time-and-not-actually-educating-children
FBI Targets Trump Voters As Domestic Terrorists Ahead Of 2024 Election:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/04/fbi-targets-trump-voters-as-domestic-terrorists-ahead-of-2024-election/
Living?
Best get up and get going.
Today's bad decisions aren't going to make themselves!
*.*
SON: Can we go to a haunted house this year?
DAD: What's wrong with the one we live in?
SON: Huh?
DAD: Goodnight...
*.*
Oneliners:
Alexa, rake my leaves.
I've been diagnosed as a kleptomaniac; I've been taking all kinds of stuff for it.
Why does life keep teaching me lessons I have no desire to learn?
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
Everyone needs a friend that they probably shouldn't be able to sit next to at a serious function.
In Canada, is AI referred to as AI, eh?
If you were 7 when "Rock Lobster" came out, then you'd B-52 by now.
I'm at the age where I appreciate a nice handrail.
Moving day tip: wear lots of deodorant.
I'm fairly certain that my final word will be, "Oops!"
*.*
Top 5 Signs your Genie in the Lamp is a Dud:
He just granted you three fishes.
Keeps saying, "Well, you're no Aladdin."
Mid-riff exposing outfit shows off beer belly.
He identifies as a leprechaun.
Had Dylan Mulvaney's face laser etched into She / Her / Hers lamp.
*.*
Some days I amaze myself.
Other days, I put my phone in the freezer.
Quote of the Times;
“The United States, South Africa, and Zimbabwe all provide copious historical information on the economic results of changing the demographics of the population. And the per capita lifetime budgetary impact makes it clear that even a relatively small demographic shift on the order of 10 percent can have a massive and lasting impact on the wealth of nations.” - Vox Day
Link of the Times;
Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class:
https://nypost.com/2022/05/26/team-biden-might-be-purposefully-crushing-the-middle-class/
Issue of the Times;
The Middle Class Is Increasingly Becoming “The Impoverished Class” by Michael @ http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/
America’s middle class is being systematically eviscerated. When the Federal Reserve pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system during the pandemic, most Americans didn’t realize what that would do to them. That money certainly made the wealthy a whole lot wealthier, but it also dramatically increased the cost of living for the rest of us. So now inflation has been rising much faster than paychecks have, and the cost of living has become exceedingly oppressive. In fact, last year we witnessed the largest decline in real median household income in more than a decade…
The official tally is in and it is brutal: Americans suffered the biggest drop in household income in 2022 in a dozen years.
Real median household income was $74,580 in 2022, a drop of 2.3 percent from the prior year, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.
This is the biggest drop in household income since 2010, when it household income fell 2.6 percent. That means it is worse than the pandemic decline of 2.2 percent. It is the fourth worst year in records going back to 1985.
In 2010, the U.S. economy was just coming out of the horrible recession that we had just experienced in 2008 and 2009.
Those were not fun times.
And the times that we are moving into will not be fun either.
We are being told that “high inflation” is the primary reason why real median household income is falling…
The declines were driven by high inflation. The measure of inflation that is used to calculate real income rose 7.8 percent, the worst inflation since 1981.
1981 was a long time ago.
But at that time, the U.S. economy quickly recovered under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan.
We will not be so fortunate this time around.
Our leaders flooded the system with giant mountains of money, and almost everyone cheered as they were doing it.
But now we are paying the price.
Recently, a “Gen X mom” named Jessica McCabe made headlines all over the world when she posted a video on TikTok in which she expressed how frustrating it is to watch her adult children deeply struggle in this economy…
“I am so tired of feeling helpless as a parent,” McCabe started off the video. She acknowledged that her son was 25 and her daughter was 28 and explained: “I thought by teaching them what I learned, which is you work hard, you get a good job, you’re gonna get the things in life that you need, right? Worked for me, why wouldn’t it work for them?”
Unfortunately for all of us, the rules have changed.
What worked in the 1980s and 1990s simply does not work today.
In her video, she acknowledged that struggle is a part of life, but she also said that it is just so disheartening to see her kids “get further and further down” no matter how hard they try…
She continued: “I see them struggling, and before my generation comes at me, yes, I understand struggling as a part of life. We all struggle, but there’s a difference between struggling and drowning. So we struggled, and it was tough. But you know what, we made it. We knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel with our struggle. It seems like kids today, no matter how much they struggle, they just get further and further down.”
Sadly, this is the reality of life for most Americans today.
More than 60 percent of the nation is currently living paycheck to paycheck, and former Ford CEO Mark Fields just admitted to CNBC that someone needs to make more than $100,000 a year just to be able to afford a new vehicle these days…
The former Ford CEO said that a consumer has to “make over $100,000 to afford a new car.” As a result, the price of vehicles is starting to come down, which is leading to an inventory correction.
“Vehicles are getting older, they need to be replaced.”
Americans are keeping their vehicles longer than ever, and that is because most of us simply cannot afford to replace them.
As I have discussed previously, Americans are increasingly turning to debt to help make ends meet from month to month.
Credit card debt surged dramatically during the second quarter, and this is starting to become an enormous problem…
American households now have an average of $10,170 credit card debt, as record numbers say they are worried about being cut off from access to loans.
Data from the New York Federal Reserve shows nationwide credit card debt swelled by $43 billion in the second quarter of the year – the second largest increase on record.
Of course there is a limit to how much debt that U.S. consumers can take on, and financial institutions are starting to say “no” a lot more often…
Meanwhile a separate survey by the Fed revealed 60 percent of respondents found it more difficult to access credit – the highest level since the data series began in June 2013.
I warned my readers that the flow of credit would start to get tighter and tighter.
And now it is happening.
Right now, so many formerly middle class Americans have been pushed into what I call “the impoverished class”, and many that were formerly poor now find themselves pushed out into the streets.
In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal we have witnessed the largest increase in homelessness ever recorded this year…
The United States has seen the biggest ever spike in homeless people living on the streets – as preliminary figures showed a record 11 percent increase in one year.
There are nearly 600,000 rough sleepers across cities and towns in America, and the jump from 2022 to 2023 so far is the highest since the government started tracking the data in 2007, according to the WSJ.
Places like Oakland and San Francisco in California have become hotbeds for homelessness, as people living on the streets are like ‘drug tourists’ who arrive to have easy access to narcotics.
So please don’t believe anyone that tries to convince you that the economy is doing just fine.
It most certainly is not.
Homeless encampments are popping up like mushrooms all over the nation, and many communities are not pleased about this at all.
For example, just check out what has been happening in Austin, Texas…
Shocking footage has exposed the scene in an Austin park filled with liquor bottles, needles, Narcan and junk ‘as far as the eye can see,’ as a homeless encampment continues to grow.
The videos were of the West Bouldin Creek Greenbelt were posted on Monday by activist Jamie Hammonds, who reports from the Texas capital on the X page @DocumentingATX.
‘Another Greenbelt destroyed here in Austin… nothing but trash and junk as far as you can see… this is absolutely horrible,’ Hammonds said, adding that the encampment was at least the size of a football field, and you could smell it ‘even before you enter the greenbelt.’
As the economy continues to crumble, things are going to get even worse.
And as things get worse, the middle class will continue to shrink.
It is almost as if we are all playing a really bizarre game of musical chairs.
With each passing day, even more spots in the middle class are being removed from the game, and the ranks of “the impoverished class” continue to grow larger and larger.
News of the Times;
Russian foreign minister: US ‘directly at war’ with Russia:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/sep/24/russian-foreign-minister-us-directly-war-russia-us/
Child Poverty More than Doubled in Biden’s Second Year:
https://theohiostar.com/news/child-poverty-more-than-doubled-in-bidens-second-year-census-data-shows/ohstarstaff/2023/09/13/
Elites Enjoy Lavish Dinner at Palace of Versailles While Discussing Climate Change:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/elites-enjoy-lavish-dinner-palace-versailles-while-discussing/
Federal Judge Knocks Down DACA:
https://headlineusa.com/federal-judge-knocks-down-daca-rules-obamas-dreamers-scheme-illegal/
California man says his wife was stabbed to death:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/hemet-mom-killed-drugs-couple
Academic Whose Research ‘Proved’ Systemic Racism is Fired from University for Faking Data:
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/anti-white-academic-whose-research-proved-systemic-racism-is-fired-from-university-for-faking-data/
Woman Dies After Abortion at Planned Parenthood:
https://www.lifenews.com/2023/09/25/woman-dies-after-abortion-at-planned-parenthood-causes-deadly-sepsis/
Texas Republican Mayra Flores:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/texas-republican-mayra-flores-mexican-cartel-is-full/
Illegal Immigrant Who Was Released Into US by Biden Admin Arrested for Murder Months Later:
https://www.westernjournal.com/illegal-immigrant-released-us-biden-admin-arrested-murder-months-later/
Devastating risks of transitioning to 'green' energy:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12545855/Devastating-transition-green-energy-metal-mining-23-million-people-toxic-waste-rivers-polluted-farmland.html
The Two-Parent Advantage:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-two-parent-advantage
As Trump predicted, Washington and Jefferson are next:
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/09/20/as-trump-predicted-washington-and-jefferson-are-next-n579151
1,000 school districts support hiding kids' gender issue from parents:
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/stparents-rights-group-finds-1000-school-districts-support-kids-hiding
Western Heights principal defends drag queen alter ego:
https://nondoc.com/2023/09/11/western-heights-principal-shane-murnan-drag-queen-shantel-mandalay/
Today's bad decisions aren't going to make themselves!
*.*
SON: Can we go to a haunted house this year?
DAD: What's wrong with the one we live in?
SON: Huh?
DAD: Goodnight...
*.*
Oneliners:
Alexa, rake my leaves.
I've been diagnosed as a kleptomaniac; I've been taking all kinds of stuff for it.
Why does life keep teaching me lessons I have no desire to learn?
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
Everyone needs a friend that they probably shouldn't be able to sit next to at a serious function.
In Canada, is AI referred to as AI, eh?
If you were 7 when "Rock Lobster" came out, then you'd B-52 by now.
I'm at the age where I appreciate a nice handrail.
Moving day tip: wear lots of deodorant.
I'm fairly certain that my final word will be, "Oops!"
*.*
Top 5 Signs your Genie in the Lamp is a Dud:
He just granted you three fishes.
Keeps saying, "Well, you're no Aladdin."
Mid-riff exposing outfit shows off beer belly.
He identifies as a leprechaun.
Had Dylan Mulvaney's face laser etched into She / Her / Hers lamp.
*.*
Some days I amaze myself.
Other days, I put my phone in the freezer.
Quote of the Times;
“The United States, South Africa, and Zimbabwe all provide copious historical information on the economic results of changing the demographics of the population. And the per capita lifetime budgetary impact makes it clear that even a relatively small demographic shift on the order of 10 percent can have a massive and lasting impact on the wealth of nations.” - Vox Day
Link of the Times;
Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class:
https://nypost.com/2022/05/26/team-biden-might-be-purposefully-crushing-the-middle-class/
Issue of the Times;
The Middle Class Is Increasingly Becoming “The Impoverished Class” by Michael @ http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/
America’s middle class is being systematically eviscerated. When the Federal Reserve pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system during the pandemic, most Americans didn’t realize what that would do to them. That money certainly made the wealthy a whole lot wealthier, but it also dramatically increased the cost of living for the rest of us. So now inflation has been rising much faster than paychecks have, and the cost of living has become exceedingly oppressive. In fact, last year we witnessed the largest decline in real median household income in more than a decade…
The official tally is in and it is brutal: Americans suffered the biggest drop in household income in 2022 in a dozen years.
Real median household income was $74,580 in 2022, a drop of 2.3 percent from the prior year, the Census Bureau said Tuesday.
This is the biggest drop in household income since 2010, when it household income fell 2.6 percent. That means it is worse than the pandemic decline of 2.2 percent. It is the fourth worst year in records going back to 1985.
In 2010, the U.S. economy was just coming out of the horrible recession that we had just experienced in 2008 and 2009.
Those were not fun times.
And the times that we are moving into will not be fun either.
We are being told that “high inflation” is the primary reason why real median household income is falling…
The declines were driven by high inflation. The measure of inflation that is used to calculate real income rose 7.8 percent, the worst inflation since 1981.
1981 was a long time ago.
But at that time, the U.S. economy quickly recovered under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan.
We will not be so fortunate this time around.
Our leaders flooded the system with giant mountains of money, and almost everyone cheered as they were doing it.
But now we are paying the price.
Recently, a “Gen X mom” named Jessica McCabe made headlines all over the world when she posted a video on TikTok in which she expressed how frustrating it is to watch her adult children deeply struggle in this economy…
“I am so tired of feeling helpless as a parent,” McCabe started off the video. She acknowledged that her son was 25 and her daughter was 28 and explained: “I thought by teaching them what I learned, which is you work hard, you get a good job, you’re gonna get the things in life that you need, right? Worked for me, why wouldn’t it work for them?”
Unfortunately for all of us, the rules have changed.
What worked in the 1980s and 1990s simply does not work today.
In her video, she acknowledged that struggle is a part of life, but she also said that it is just so disheartening to see her kids “get further and further down” no matter how hard they try…
She continued: “I see them struggling, and before my generation comes at me, yes, I understand struggling as a part of life. We all struggle, but there’s a difference between struggling and drowning. So we struggled, and it was tough. But you know what, we made it. We knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel with our struggle. It seems like kids today, no matter how much they struggle, they just get further and further down.”
Sadly, this is the reality of life for most Americans today.
More than 60 percent of the nation is currently living paycheck to paycheck, and former Ford CEO Mark Fields just admitted to CNBC that someone needs to make more than $100,000 a year just to be able to afford a new vehicle these days…
The former Ford CEO said that a consumer has to “make over $100,000 to afford a new car.” As a result, the price of vehicles is starting to come down, which is leading to an inventory correction.
“Vehicles are getting older, they need to be replaced.”
Americans are keeping their vehicles longer than ever, and that is because most of us simply cannot afford to replace them.
As I have discussed previously, Americans are increasingly turning to debt to help make ends meet from month to month.
Credit card debt surged dramatically during the second quarter, and this is starting to become an enormous problem…
American households now have an average of $10,170 credit card debt, as record numbers say they are worried about being cut off from access to loans.
Data from the New York Federal Reserve shows nationwide credit card debt swelled by $43 billion in the second quarter of the year – the second largest increase on record.
Of course there is a limit to how much debt that U.S. consumers can take on, and financial institutions are starting to say “no” a lot more often…
Meanwhile a separate survey by the Fed revealed 60 percent of respondents found it more difficult to access credit – the highest level since the data series began in June 2013.
I warned my readers that the flow of credit would start to get tighter and tighter.
And now it is happening.
Right now, so many formerly middle class Americans have been pushed into what I call “the impoverished class”, and many that were formerly poor now find themselves pushed out into the streets.
In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal we have witnessed the largest increase in homelessness ever recorded this year…
The United States has seen the biggest ever spike in homeless people living on the streets – as preliminary figures showed a record 11 percent increase in one year.
There are nearly 600,000 rough sleepers across cities and towns in America, and the jump from 2022 to 2023 so far is the highest since the government started tracking the data in 2007, according to the WSJ.
Places like Oakland and San Francisco in California have become hotbeds for homelessness, as people living on the streets are like ‘drug tourists’ who arrive to have easy access to narcotics.
So please don’t believe anyone that tries to convince you that the economy is doing just fine.
It most certainly is not.
Homeless encampments are popping up like mushrooms all over the nation, and many communities are not pleased about this at all.
For example, just check out what has been happening in Austin, Texas…
Shocking footage has exposed the scene in an Austin park filled with liquor bottles, needles, Narcan and junk ‘as far as the eye can see,’ as a homeless encampment continues to grow.
The videos were of the West Bouldin Creek Greenbelt were posted on Monday by activist Jamie Hammonds, who reports from the Texas capital on the X page @DocumentingATX.
‘Another Greenbelt destroyed here in Austin… nothing but trash and junk as far as you can see… this is absolutely horrible,’ Hammonds said, adding that the encampment was at least the size of a football field, and you could smell it ‘even before you enter the greenbelt.’
As the economy continues to crumble, things are going to get even worse.
And as things get worse, the middle class will continue to shrink.
It is almost as if we are all playing a really bizarre game of musical chairs.
With each passing day, even more spots in the middle class are being removed from the game, and the ranks of “the impoverished class” continue to grow larger and larger.
News of the Times;
Russian foreign minister: US ‘directly at war’ with Russia:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/sep/24/russian-foreign-minister-us-directly-war-russia-us/
Child Poverty More than Doubled in Biden’s Second Year:
https://theohiostar.com/news/child-poverty-more-than-doubled-in-bidens-second-year-census-data-shows/ohstarstaff/2023/09/13/
Elites Enjoy Lavish Dinner at Palace of Versailles While Discussing Climate Change:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/elites-enjoy-lavish-dinner-palace-versailles-while-discussing/
Federal Judge Knocks Down DACA:
https://headlineusa.com/federal-judge-knocks-down-daca-rules-obamas-dreamers-scheme-illegal/
California man says his wife was stabbed to death:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/hemet-mom-killed-drugs-couple
Academic Whose Research ‘Proved’ Systemic Racism is Fired from University for Faking Data:
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/anti-white-academic-whose-research-proved-systemic-racism-is-fired-from-university-for-faking-data/
Woman Dies After Abortion at Planned Parenthood:
https://www.lifenews.com/2023/09/25/woman-dies-after-abortion-at-planned-parenthood-causes-deadly-sepsis/
Texas Republican Mayra Flores:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/09/texas-republican-mayra-flores-mexican-cartel-is-full/
Illegal Immigrant Who Was Released Into US by Biden Admin Arrested for Murder Months Later:
https://www.westernjournal.com/illegal-immigrant-released-us-biden-admin-arrested-murder-months-later/
Devastating risks of transitioning to 'green' energy:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12545855/Devastating-transition-green-energy-metal-mining-23-million-people-toxic-waste-rivers-polluted-farmland.html
The Two-Parent Advantage:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-two-parent-advantage
As Trump predicted, Washington and Jefferson are next:
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/09/20/as-trump-predicted-washington-and-jefferson-are-next-n579151
1,000 school districts support hiding kids' gender issue from parents:
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/stparents-rights-group-finds-1000-school-districts-support-kids-hiding
Western Heights principal defends drag queen alter ego:
https://nondoc.com/2023/09/11/western-heights-principal-shane-murnan-drag-queen-shantel-mandalay/
Several animals were savagely beaten in the making of this page, including but not limited to; kittens, rabbits, zebu, skunks, puppies, and platypus. Also several monkeys where force fed crack to improve their typing skills.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.