60 Minutes, to be precise.

They've been caught editing the Harris interview -- and not just cutting out a word or two either.  It appears they replaced her word salad answer on Israel with a single sentence she spoke regarding Ukraine.

In other words they took an answer from one question and spliced it in place of the actual answer given.

Then they had the audacity to claim Trump was "afraid" of them.

Well 60 Minutes, it appears you self-documented your willingness to deliberately misrepresent the answers Harris gave to questions by splicing and dicing the answer from one question into another.  That's not "editing for clarity" or somesuch which we hear as an excuse all the time, its deliberate.

If the media wishes to destroy its own purpose its free to do that but I hope they're ok with being the first place ire is dispensed including against every single one of their employees if the Rule of Law is every lost -- because they will be, and anyone who continues to work for such an outfit, if that event comes, deserves it.

See for yourself: ttps://x.com/Geiger_Capital/status/1843703383087276529

Or even better, just watch this....

Civil War, that is.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday called for the elimination of the Electoral College during a fundraiser in California, a move some Democrats have advocated for in the past after election defeats. 

Of course the odds of Walz (or Harris) actually managing to pull that off are slim and none -- and Slim left the building some time ago because it would require a Constitutional Amendment to do -- and plenty of people, and states, are well-aware that it would lead to immediate secession.

In 2023, the Minnesota governor signed the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement in which each state would allocate all its electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote for president, regardless of how individual states voted. The compact would take effect only if supporters secure pledges from states with at least 270 electoral votes. 

Actually, that's unconstitutional as well -- Interstate Compacts are only permitted if Congress gives them explicit sanction, so that too is a stunt and again, it would lead to immediate secession.

Yes, I know plenty of people would like to see it go.  But the problem is that in a Constitutional Republic to make such a sweeping change and effectively enslave everyone not in a handful of states who have outsized populations you need the consent of the rest of the States.  You won't get it, and if anyone was to force it down everyone's throats those disenfranchised would have every reason -- and right -- to leave.

May I remind you that 2/3rds of Congress then 3/4 of the States would have to ratify said amendment.  They won't for obvious reasons; it would mean they would never again have national political representation at the Executive and such would be immediately followed by other shifts in the House to permanently debar them there as well.

I highly doubt that secession would be peacefully accommodated.

It certainly wasn't the last time and this time virtually everything is interconnected enough (e.g. power, communications, natural gas, etc.) that as soon as the shooting started everyone would be in the dark -- for openers.  Oh by the way, if you want just one tiny example of this the only plant that makes IV bags, run by Baxter, is in NC and currently offline.  Contemplate the outcome of a national divorce that is refused by force and suddenly nobody, anywhere, has any access to IV supplies and oh by the way refusal-by-force will of course mean a lot of people get shot and need surgery.  That's just one tiny example.

I didn't watch it all, but did some.

I doubt it will move anyone who has a "hard" position -- but it should.

You had two politicians on the stage: One who made his points and another who tried to play to emotion and, unlike what Harris did to Trump, the attempts to dig personally didn't work.

Walz lied in multiple specific places, including a couple that really do matter.  On the "botched abortion" issue he not only lied he ducked his own personal complicity in that Minnesota law used to require reporting on abortion attempts where there was an actual live birth and the care and results from same.  Walz was in office when that law was changed to remove the reporting and he signed it.  So yeah, it does happen, yeah, those children, and once born even during an abortion attempt that is a child by legal definition, have been left to die without even an attempt to provide comfort care (yes, I realize that most of the time that infant will die in that circumstance irrespective of care, but that doesn't excuse treating said prematurely-born infant as a piece of trash.)  The only reason to block reporting of results, of course, is that you don't think the public will like the record of "success" if they can see it.

Walz didn't answer the question, of course, as to whether he supported any sort of constraints on abortion.  And here is where I thought Vance, despite his personal convictions, came through: He accepted the will of the Ohio voters, even though they conflicted with his personal views.  That's his job, incidentally, and was his point: We should be seeking to persuade in the political conversation rather that demand, and when we fail to do so then the people have still spoken.

As for the two cases that Walz tried to use both were twisted lies.  I've read up on them.  Both were medication abortions that went bad.  This is a rare but known risk and there is no state in the US that prohibits a hospital (this is well beyond a simple office visit when it happens) treating a woman who has that occur.  These cases are extremely difficult and dangerous; there is no "abortion" issue when they occur because at that point there is no fetus.  Sepsis is a very dangerous thing no matter what induces it (in fact it has an extremely high mortality rate irrespective of the root cause; if you go into septic shock you have a 30-40% chance of death even with hospital treatment) and yet medication abortions are both safer and far less expensive than procedures.  Those are the facts but no medical intervention is ever risk-free.  To attempt to exploit this is an outrage and I think Vance did a good job of deflecting it without going after Walz's false characterizations directly, which IMHO was deserved but there were no points to be scored there.

Let's do guns.  What Walz refused to acknowledge (but Vance did in an oblique way) is that the changes in our society are environmental.  Well, what environmental changes?  Demographics, for one, and second psychoactive prescription drugs.  No, you don't get to grab guns and play that game after you import millions of violent people, destroy families among minorities in particular and drug a third of the population with mind-altering prescriptions that we know turn some small percentage of said people into violent rage monsters.  The answer to that isn't "ban guns" it is to ban DOCTORS prescribing that crap to kids and ban IMPORTING VIOLENT JACKASSES.  If you're not going to hang doctors who prescribe SSRIs to kids or imprison them when their patient turns into a rage monster, and ban importation of violent jackasses then the only remaining defense is more guns rather than less, and those guns have to be in the possession of school officials and teachers whether you like it or not.  Choose.

One of the most-telling parts of the debate, and where Walz fell flat, was on the housing and cost-of-living issues.  If you don't believe that admitting 20 million "migrants" puts upward pressure on all costs of living, including particularly housing when you say we're three million housing units short -- but you put nearly seven times as many people into the nation -- you're nuts.  Economics isn't a particularly complicated thing when you drill down into the basics, and the basics of supply and demand always hold.  Yes, labor issues are more-complex than a simple sound bite but supply and demand are the two basic immutable facts in all economic discussions; if you increase demand without a commensurate increase in supply prices rise.  Never mind putting ten+ million unskilled drivers on the road which wildly increases the crash rate and thus spikes car insurance that everyone needs to buy.  There are plenty of people who like this because they own said assets including rental properties and insurance firms.  Walz tried to play too-cute-by-half with personal anecdotes.  Vance was having none of that and on the facts he's right.

Vance cited a Federal Reserve paper on this as related to housing.  He wasn't lying:

Finally, there is a risk that strong consumer demand for services, increased immigration, and continued labor market tightness could lead to persistently high core services inflation. Given the current low inventory of affordable housing, the inflow of new immigrants to some geographic areas could result in upward pressure on rents, as additional housing supply may take time to materialize.

I tire of the "climate" nonsense.  You can listen to my two podcasts on the other side from recent days if you'd like, or just look up 1916 and the floods in Asheville occasioned from same.  Then, in case you think this is all "unexpected" or "human caused without precedent" go pull the flood zone maps from FEMA (which they conveniently do produce) and look at Asheville specifically.  Bluntly everyone had fair warning because it had happened before long before there were SUVs and the atmospheric combination that led to that outcome is relatively rare (good) but hardly unprecedented and thus that it would eventually occur again was fact.  The additional rainfall over the area (which indeed was extreme) was due to the strong cold front that preceded the storm and that same front, which just happened to come through at the time it did, left a cut-off low behind which is what resulted in the near-straight-northward motion and a bunch of additional moisture wildly adding to the rainfall totals.  We as humans like living in places that we think are pretty but they're often prone to these events and if we do not learn from history and at least do the engineering work to keep our infrastructure operational when they happen (and yes, it is possible) then the outcomes are worse, especially if we start bidding up said land and putting really expensive real estate on it.  This is similar to the couple of years ago fiber cut over in this area that was from a contractor who dug it up: There was no redundant pathing in the area at all for cable Internet, which is a monopoly here at present, and as a result virtually every store in the area couldn't take a credit card for a couple of days until they got it fixed.  If you don't spend the effort on engineering along with required redundancy and resilience then when the bad thing comes the outcome will be worse -- maybe catastrophically worse.  If there is just one legitimate job that Government has at all levels it is preventing this sort of cost-cutting and engineering malfeasance whether through ignorance or simply to pocket the money that should have been spent.  Government failed here just as it has many times before and then of course none of the politicians want to accept their piece of the blame for it and much of it was politics.  FEMA, for example, could have trivially bought and stored a thousand Starlink terminals which can blanket an impacted area with usable signal and they require only a modest amount of power to run, even when all other infrastructure in an area has been destroyed.  That would cost less than a million dollars including a small generator to power each and they have a zero recurring cost until they're needed, and then once the disaster is mitigated they can be boxed back up and await the next need.  Private parties are doing exactly that right now in the impacted areas.

One place where I thought both candidates were horridly weak was on health care generally.  Simply put if you don't enforce anti-monopoly laws there is no answer and the grab-bag of Obamacare, no matter how you slice it, is unsustainable and will collapse.  The answer to a huge part of this problem has been on the books for one hundred years and yet neither candidate went to where the Executive is obligated -- that is, to evenly enforce all the laws as written.  Walz kept trying to come back to "pre-existing conditions" but tell me, ladies and gentlemen, what you'd have to pay for fire insurance if you didn't buy it until after your house was already on fire.  Obviously in that situation it will be cheaper to simply eat the rebuilding cost because it takes the middleman out of the money transaction; either way the house is destroyed and the expense will occur.  IF your answer is that you have a right to force others to rebuild your house when in fact you set it on fire, whether through foolishness or even intentional conduct then just say so and we can proceed from there.  This is a conversation we must have; if your position is that we can ignore the root cause of the wild-eyed explosion in chronic and very expensive conditions, then simply demand everyone buy into it, you're going to preside over a government and financial system collapse.  The economics are clear and neither side has put forward an answer.  You may think RFK is a lunatic and in some ways I would agree but he is drawing attention to the fact that we need to address root causes because simply attempting to suck up more and more money will fail and when it does those who have the worst medical problems will get the worst of the outcome.  We can't prevent all of that but we sure can mitigate a lot of it and none of that mitigation will happen until we stop treating this as a problem for which one simply blows more money as we have proved through the last three or four decades that all the additional spending has not slowed or reversed the trend; in fact its gotten worse.

In the closing area I don't believe there was a contest at all.  Walz and Harris have been proved to have taken actions that were clearly unconstitutional and they sought to hide them when it comes to censorship.  They got caught and even Zuckerberg himself has admitted he was wrong to knuckle under and that the Biden/Harris administration did take those acts.  Walz's "fire in a theater" defense was factually wrong and has been turned away by the Supreme Court; no, you cannot censor in advance but consequences for actual false statements remain after the fact.  This, folks, was where you saw the difference on display between one candidate who believes that the First Amendment is first because it has to be and underlies everything else, and without it we no longer are America, and a candidate who doesn't believe that should hold when he doesn't agree with the message.

Incidentally this article is on this side of the blog because bringing up the fact that "pre-existing conditions" is identical to demanding that you be able to literally light your house on fire and then force your neighbor to pay to have it rebuilt has gotten me censored by Google in the past.  IF Walz and Harris could force me to shut up about the truth of such a position they would.

I would hope that only one of those positions is acceptable in a person who might actually have the authority to execute on same during the next four years especially when the current Vice-President in fact did exactly that during the last 3-1/2.

.... before you provoke or start one.

Let's take the Hezbollah detonating pagers and, it appears, now HTs as well.  People are trying to run a scare-op that the batteries exploded due to some firmware change.  No.  First most pagers run on a single AA battery because they're very low power as they do not transmit (the reason Hezbollah went to them in the first place; its very easy to "find" someone who is transmitting all the time, such as a cellphone.)  Those were clearly detonations, not fires, and thus the devices were tampered with.

Want my bet on how?  A "front company" that the other side (Mossad, basically) set up managed to bait Hezbollah on their orders with an "unbelievably good" price.  You know the old adage about something that's too good to be true?  It was; the front company bought the devices, put the explosives in them and then sold them at an intentional loss to Hezbollah.  I'll bet any amount of money you care to lose that's how it happened and every one of them went to the intended target.

There are plenty of people who are saying this is a "war crime" or similar.  Sorry but there's no such thing in this sort of context as I've pointed out before.  These devices were explicitly coded for an encrypted network used only by Hezbollah and thus useless in the secondary market or by others.  In other words there is an extremely high probability, near 100%, that only a Hezbollah person would have them since they'd be the only people for whom they would work and further, since they were remote triggered with a message only if on that encrypted network would they explode.  That they might be living with others who are family members or similar elicits nothing more than a shrug from me.

To those who argue that the political, non-fighting parts of a "government" are immune that's bullshit folks.  Oh you can take whatever position you want but you're wrong and I don't care if you like it or not.  Take the US: We have a "civilian command and control" structure up to the President as CiC.  Therefore the President, who is subject to being removed by impeachment through Congress, which in turn means the people because we elect Congress and they serve at our pleasure, is an actual combatant in any military action this nation takes -- it is he or she who issues actual operational orders and both that person and the entirety of Congress and all persons who are employed in support of either, directly and indirectly, are legitimate military targets if and when we engage in any military act.

Indeed the same can be reasonably construed even against civilians because without tax money and the civilian infrastructure, including the flow of money, no war can be prosecuted at all.  That's right folks -- you, I, and everyone else are legitimate targets if there is a war because but for our contributions there is no war since all wars require material and money.  You don't really think Rosie was a riveter for other than the purpose of prosecuting a war, do you?  Well if she was riveting to prosecute a war then Rosie is a legitimate target for the other side.

Oh and spare me the high-minded bullshit about America in this regard.  Do recall we put a cruise missile through Gaddafi's office window -- and can we talk about Saddam?  He was hanged, was he not?  Well then why would you not expect Biden and Harris -- along with the entire State Department cadre in support of that crap over there to hang if Ukraine loses?  The only reason they won't is the inability of the other side to reach said people and do it.  How sure are you they can't reach them -- and, since you generated the tax revenue that funded that war and thus are the reason it occurred, how sure might you be that they cannot reach you?  May I remind you that it is much easier to reach you or I than it is to reach the President?

Again -- if you don't like wars don't start one and don't let your activity be the reason one can be funded and continued either.

Speaking of wars those can be rather "un"-civil too.  Indeed war is the end result of reason in the context of politics that fails to find acceptance and one or both sides decide to continue by violent means.

Like, for example, attempted political assassinations of a candidate when you fear you might lose through the process of reason at the ballot box.

Let me point something out to those who are engaged in these events and those who effectively cheer them on such as the current Administration and its spokesperson as well as many in the government itself along with others among their families (e.g. Vindman's wife) who have made quips on social media like "no ears were harmed."

Are you sure you want a war because it sure appears, to this person, that the entire left side of the aisle not only wants one they're deliberately trying to provoke it right here at home!

Do you have any idea what that looks like if you get what you're provoking?

Let me explain it to you since the above principle applies to anyone who possesses a brain: Anyone involved in any way with the promotion, funding or operations of the side aggrieved is a legitimate target in the event of war.

Anyone and everyone.

Yes, you with a campaign sign on your front lawn or a bumper sticker on your car.  Your spouse and children who are part and parcel of the reason you labor and produce.  Anyone who has donated any amount of money to a political campaign or PAC, even one dollar is enough.  Anyone who works for an organization that has funded or is a SuperPac, or benefits from any interest said PACs advocate for.  All the businesses, magazines, newspapers, their corporate owners along with every single employee of same who are the reason said corporation earns money and thus can exist and more.

Yeah, that's like damn near the entire American population on one side or another and I, for one would rather not have simply going to the mailbox in the afternoon be a potential "shooting gallery" style event.

Then again I can reason and foresee the logical conclusion to this sort of stupidity and an awful lot of people in this nation apparently cannot.

If you start this crap that is in fact the "solution set" of people who are "fair game" and I'm sure you can figure out that you can either sit at home and try to protect your house and the people in from being destroyed or you can go to work or simply make a run to the store and expose same to destruction.  You can't do both because you can't be in two places at once and worse, everyone else is in the same situation at the same time and literally everyone is a potential aggressor with no way to know who will do the "evil" thing.  It is obviously impossible to either protect all the potential targets or arrest everyone with the means and potential motive to commit such an act when all it takes is utterly bog-common things everyone has at hand in their homes.

If you think the war in Gaza, Lebanon or Syria is bad you really need a wake-up call or perhaps a history lesson because in places like Rwanda, where they first banned guns, the people there didn't bother shooting anyone -- they used machetes and slaughtered about 20% of the population within a couple month's time.  Who doesn't have a steak knife within easy reach and if you think such is not a "big deal" go ask an EMT about whether such an attack is dangerous.

We have a serious problem in this nation -- and indeed worldwide -- in that people have become disconnected from the consequence of war and other forms of "unrest."  While a lone nutjob acts alone and with his or her own resources, which are typically quite-limited politically-motivated violence, such as the mobs in 2020 who burned, looted and murdered, "CHAZ" and similar garbage, the money-driven invasion of "migrants" that in fact has been repeatedly shown to be motivated and exploited on the basis of money and said persons allegedly "helped" are nothing more than human farm animals abused for said purpose and more are NOT the acts of singular individuals -- they are acts that require organization, coordination and participation to take place just like Rosie had to rivet that plane together so it could go bomb Germans and Japanese and both Rosie and the entire plant management, along with the suppliers of the metal, rivets and energy conspired together to do so.  Without every one of them no plane flies and thus no city gets bombed.

Hundreds of years ago every King understood this.  He had to leave his keep and get on his horse to prosecute the war because the war had to be led and the men needed said leadership and motivation.  This meant he had to risk being personally killed.  His men had to be so-motivated by his personal risk because they had to look the other guy in the eye while running him through with their swords and they knew damn well that the other guy would look them in the eye if he killed them in exactly the same way.  There were no "safe spaces", there were no "rules of war", if you lost your kids were frequently slaughtered like dogs and your wife raped so as to produce more of "their" side's genetic material, it was very likely your town would be burnt to ash and everyone knew that every single person in the nearest village and in fact through the entire land was exposed to this risk as soon as war began.

You thus only started and participated in said wars that were worth that deeply personal risk.  If directly attacked you had no choice; fight or die.  But otherwise, where you had a choice, you thought about it long and hard because there was no escaping the consequences all the way to the top.

Now look at everything post-WWII.  Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, the bullshit in Ukraine and now Hezbollah/Israel/whatever.  Why should we, or those in Europe, think we're free of risk when we want to fund and supply these people?  More to the point where do you think these assholes taking potshots and trying to blow up a political candidate get the idea they can do that without every one of their family members, and all of the political party members who have cheered on such acts via rhetoric such as displaying heads cut off in effigy being exposed to a retributive strike by members of the other side?

The old ways, before we had push-button technology, forced you to confront the reality of what you were doing, whether directly or by providing supply, aid and comfort to those engaged in said actions.  The "international" political apparatus of course wants to claim this is "illegitimate" through things like the "Geneva Conventions" but their concern is not for the people at large -- it is for their own skin and that of their families which damn well ought to be fully exposed up to and including at the cost of their lives when they wage war, whether directly, by proxy or by supply either through physical material or intelligence and whether domestically or otherwise.

Why?  Because only the very real risk of serious personal consequences -- not high-minded bullshit spewed from some ivory tower -- has a proven record of deterring people from being assholes.  Even that is not a perfect record by any means but the last 70 years and especially the last decade right here at home with the politically-motivated riots in 2020 none of which were punished make clear that all the high-minded and mealy-mouthed bullshit is worthless.  Without deterrence every unpunished crime begats another more-serious one because there is no cost imposed on anyone for committing it and therefore as long as there is benefit to commit the crime the pattern of escalation will continue.

Arson is one of the most-serious felonies that is on the books and in fact a person RAISING BAIL MONEY FOR THE ALLEGED OFFENDERS is running for President and the Governor of one of the focal states of said attacks who sat back AND LET IT HAPPEN, PARTICULARLY CENTERED AMONG BLACK BUSINESSES despite having command and control of the National Guard is her VP candidate.  Said candidates have the gall to expect black people's votes today!

The outrageous farming of humans for profit at the cost of their abuse over the last three decades, none of which has been punished even though all of it is a felony under laws on the books since the 1950s continues apace today including in Springfield Ohio.  Neither State OR Federal Government when under control of either party over the last two Administrations has brought a single charge under 8 USC 1324 even when citizens have been murdered by illegal aliens.

Further, in the last couple of political cycles the belief that such acts, along with the intentional and illegal obfuscation of  timely election results, coupled with a refusal by the judiciary to order actual evidence audits and the toss of any results where the chain of custody required by State Law is not properly maintained makes clear that everyone involved on all sides and in all branches of government believes THERE IS NO PRICE for even the most-hideous abuse and felony.

I rest my case.

I'm rather tired of this and am going to go down a short litany of facts which not even Musk, with his so-called "commitment" to free speech, will permit.

But first, receipts on the claim that Elon was and is lying in that he now admits his platform will censor FACTS:

Note that there are claims this "only applies to Brazil" due to some court case, but as you can see there is no distinction made in the cited post.  Therefore, if this is the case then let's see it in the formal TOS so it is in fact a tort IF IT IS A LIE.

Let me be clear:  Your sex/gender is determined at the moment of fusion of the two gametes no matter your species among sexually-reproducing organisms -- including but certainly not limited to human beings.  It cannot be changed from that instant in time forward, ever, no matter what you do because every single cell in that organism carries forward that determination as every single cell comes from that first cell's division into two.

Said organism is either male or female in every single case.  Yes, there are cases in which an error occurs and you get more than one or two "X" chromosomes, or for that matter only one X and no others at all, for example; the scientific name for that is "intersex."  This is quite rare but does happen -- its a genetic accident and properly characterized as an error, but it does occur.

This is not a "disease" but it is a genetic mutation and while a few of those people can in fact either sire or carry a child, its rare.  Most of the time if you're in that category you're sterile.  XXY, for example, is called Klinefelter's syndrome and typically results in a micropenis; most men with this produce little or no sperm as they also produce little testosterone.  But these people are male, despite having two "X" chromosomes (because they also have a "Y".)  Unfortunately most boys with this also have serious intellectual challenges.

Likewise someone who is born with "XXX" is female.  Many women with this have no outward symptoms but some have learning problems, seizures, and sometimes serious kidney abnormalities and premature menopause (ovarian failure at an uncharacteristic age.)  However, such a person is female.

There is nothing, however, anyone can do to change any of this from the first cellular division at conception forward.  A male, whether ordinarily XY or some combination that includes a "Y", can never become female.  A female, that is a person without a "Y" chromosome, can never become male.

From the moment of conception your neural, circulatory and other body systems develop differently depending on that chromosomal arrangement. This cannot be altered beyond that point no matter what you do; it is what it is.  A woman's body develops from conception with the blood supply capacity for a uterus and the child that may develop in same which no man ever has as just one example.  There is no way to create a female sexual response in a person conceived as a man because the neural connections are simply not there and never will be, and vice-versa, so even if we could fashion functional physical components and we can't even successfully do that.  As a result if you are conceived male you can never have a female sexual response, and if conceived female you can never have a man's sexual response.  It is not possible as from your first cellular division forward the neural connections for the other sex never develop and thus are not present.

As such sex is not "assigned at birth" and anyone saying that should be immediately and permanently committed to a rubber room; your sex is observed at birth (if Mom never had an ultrasound) but in most cases since women do it is observed while said child is still in-utero because the penis, if said child is male, is visible.  No penis?  It's a girl.  Penis?  It's a boy.  Period.

This doesn't mean you can't be unhappy you are male or female, or that your particular chromosomal assortment is unpleasant in your mind -- of course you can be unhappy with that just as you can be unhappy that your skin is white, black, brown or for that matter, if we discover little green men at some point, green.

But that you are unhappy with a fact does not make it untrue -- it just means you're unhappy.  As an adult you are free to undertake whatever actions you wish in an attempt to be happy (thus "pursuit of happiness") but you have no capacity or right to compel any other person to assist you in any way whatsoever, including "recognizing" what you desire but is physically impossible.  To demand otherwise or to enforce otherwise is to enslave someone else and worse, force them to lie which is never acceptable nor may it be compelled under any circumstance.

In fact someone who tries to compel you to speak a factual lie is violating both the Constitution and your rights which predate said Constitution and thus, by any reasonable standard has forfeited all their rights.  Yes, all of them.

Further, if you refuse to accept physical facts you are mentally defective and society must assume you will refuse to accept other physical facts which renders you manifestly dangerous when it comes to any task where the evaluation of physical facts is necessary for anyone else's safety.

No problem can ever be resolved without stating things that are facts.  We can debate that which is not a fact, but putting those opinions on the table in the open is how we find and reinforce facts and demote and ultimately destroy lies.  This is an essential part of any civil society.

Elon seems to think he has the right to abrogate that.  He does not, particularly after claiming that he stands for "free speech."  Neither does any other government official or private party.  A private party may tell you that your statement of facts is inconsistent with their private property rights and free association and thus demand you leave provided they did not make a former representation that you had the right to speak freely or they became, due to their position in society, an effective public square where such right of control of association has been lost as a consequence of their for-profit operation of what amounts to said public square.

Exactly where is that line?  That's a good debate but large social media sites are clearly under this purview in that they form an effective oligopoly and further give their membership the means to block communication with those who disagree.

Once you reach that critical threshold and provide the means to block said interaction you no longer can make a reasonable claim to "freedom to not associate in gross" because each person can choose on their own.

On a societal level this gets even more-serious when facts are concealed on purpose, as they are here.

For example, here: https://www.kctv5.com/2024/03/03/hundreds-fighting-six-flags-turns-into-firefight-with-officers-1-hospitalized/

It is incredibly disappointing that our community is disrupted at public events throughout the region by groups of underaged youth. Just like other venues in the area, we are committed to keeping this type of trouble outside our park and off our property. There was police activity involving gunshots; we want to confirm there was no shooting at our property or parking lot. This took place on South Service Road that is not owned or operated by Six Flags. However, we join our community and the Atlanta region in our commitment to safety and security. We won’t put up with that type of activity here.”

We all know what the probable distribution of the races of the people involved were.  Oh, and while the press won't say it there is video evidence from people who were there.  Where did the guns come from among underaged persons?  It is specifically that we refuse to call out the wild over-representation in this behavior among one specific group, that being young blacks, and making clear that we will not tolerate it and will throw those who commit felonies in prison irrespective of their underage status that leads to this happening.  If you say this on "X" -- or virtually any other social media -- you will get banned.  Well, I'm saying it and I don't give a shit if anyone likes it or not because it has been true for the last several decades, still is, and it won't stop until we call out the facts and demand that the government enforce the goddamned law against said persons without regard to their skin color or age and we make clear that is not a request -- either they do their job OR WE WILL on a summary basis.

Or how about this: https://rumble.com/v4glv96-senators-watch-in-disbelief-as-democrat-defends-child-sex-dolls-for-pedophi.html

Here's a Kentucky State Senator defending giving child sex dolls to pedophiles.

Remember that there are a whole bunch of people who defend this particular perversion saying that "well, you might be a minor-attracted person but you can choose to act on it."  True perhaps, but now have we decided that "acting on it" doesn't include fucking a doll that is in the shape and size of a child?  What happens when the doll pops or is simply unavailable and the urge to act on it is still there?  Oh gee that's really hard to figure out -- right?

Or how about the fact that illegal immigrants are not "newcomers" they are criminals.  Never mind that 8 USC 1324 defines as a criminal, 10 year in prison felony the following offenses related to any US and foreign persons and entities assisting said illegal aliens:

• Attempting to bring an alien into the United States at any place other than a designated port of entry irrespective of whether said person has received authorization to enter or remain in the US or not.  Any entity or person doing so has violated said law and every person involved in promoting or enabling such illegal crossings is a felon.  
• Transportation or movement of an alien knowing or recklessly disregarding that said person illegally entered into the United States is a criminal felony.
• Concealing an alien knowing or with reckless disregard for their illegal entry anywhere in the United States, whether by transportation, housing (e.g. in a building) or otherwise.
• Encouraging or inducing an alien to enter or remain in the United States, knowing or with reckless disregard for the fact that such entry is illegal, or engages in any conspiracy (e.g. combination of people or entities or planning) such acts.

For each person a party does this with where the intent is for financial gain or commercial advantage (e.g. employment, rental to such a person, etc.) the penalty is 10 years in prison.

If the violation is not for commercial or private financial gain (e.g. trafficking) the penalty is five years in prison.

If the alien commits an offense of bodily injury every person who was involved in the above gets 20 years in prison.

If the alien commits homicide the term for every person so-involved in any of the above is of any number of years up to and including life.

There is an exception for missionaries, believe it or not.  None of these people are of course.

There's more: If you merely attempt to bring an alien into the US without authorization (but fail, obviously, since the above covers if you succeed) you get one year in prison unless you do not bring said person immediately to a port of entry, in which case you get 10 (which is what the above carries, so that makes sense.)

If you knowingly hire ten or more illegal aliens within a 12 month period you get five years in prison.

Oh by the way, any conveyance used for any of this is subject to seizure and forfeiture!

So tell me, everyone, why do we tolerate the government intentionally violating this law and refusing to arrest anyone who harbors, transports, rents to, provides services to, treats medically, transports or otherwise harbors or assists anyone who is here illegally, all of which aids and abets said behavior and all of which is, under that actual law, already illegal.

These so-called "sanctuary cities" and states are in fact committing felonies and no, the elements of the State Government, private actors, NGOs, apartment and hotel owners, food vendors, transportation operators including airlines and others are not exempt from said law.  And yes this includes all the so-called "DREAMers" and every school, food vendor, lunchroom or employer who in any way assists them in being or remaining here.  It is all a serious crime.

Where was Donald Douchenozzle Trump on this?  This is not new law.  Why didn't he use it?  You know goddamn well the reason he didn't use it -- he didn't want to use it because his cocksucking voters love the illegal labor that destroys your wages, any more than Biden refuses because he wants them to be given the capacity to vote for more handouts, yet you still SUCK TRUMP'S DICK even after he refused to put in prison each and every single entity that broke the above law, including every landlord and other entity who so much as gives such a person a fucking sandwich.  Like, for example, all the farmers and other businesses who are using illegal labor.

Spare me the bullshit about "harassing" people who are, under this law, clearly felons, many of them US citizens or US corporations and government employees who are breaking the law by giving aid and comfort to said persons and harboring them, despite whatever excuse you wish to make when exactly none of them who entered here illegally have a right to be here.  Period.  Throw them all out and fry anyone in this nation who in any way assists or supports their entry or remaining here.  I don't give a shit who they are; they're criminals under the law -- and not "minor" criminals either.  End of conversation, full stop, that is the law and if the government will not enforce it then for each of those crimes not one person who is here illegally nor anyone who assists them in any way, no matter if government affiliated or not, has cause to complain if a felony is committed against THEM.

Let's continue because while this bullshit is a huge thing today its by no means the only bullshit that is ruining us and in fact in some cases killing us.

It is a fact that virtually everything in our modern civilization exists only because only competent people were hired to build and maintain same, most of which were White men, and as soon as we allowed anything other than competence to determine this process it all went to shit.

An example is Flint Michigan and their water system.  The lead feeder pipes for their water system were and are perfectly safe provided someone competent is running the system.  Why?  Because the lead pipe with proper water chemistry protects itself with a microscopic layer of oxide exactly as does aluminum when exposed to air and thus none of the lead goes into the water and poisons you.  Proof of this is that nobody got poisoned for decades until the water system shifted its source without people who knew what the fuck they were doing running it keeping said chemical balance intact.  THEN kids (and adults) started getting poisoned.

The people who built the system and operated it were mostly WHITE MEN.  Flint was an industrial town FULL OF WHITE MEN who ran the city services and did so competently.  Guess who this benefited tremendously?  All the black people who lived there, roughly half the population at the time, and who were not competent to build and run all of this on their own.  This was all well and fine until incompetent people were hired to replace the competent ones who either retired, quit because they were passed over for incompetent others or were literally forced out in the name of "diversity."

Who was the mayor when the water crisis hit?  Karen Weaver, who proudly claimed to be the 5th Black Mayor of Flint and first woman to hold the office, and by the way as noted she was only the person who was there when the decades-long degeneration of competence, which most-certainly did not happen in a year or two, finally got to the point of poisoning people.  Nonetheless rather than take responsibility for it and fixing it by restoring competence in the water department she blamed others and so did Obama, who I remind you is also Black.  Either of them could have demanded competence be restored to the water department and immediately resolved the problem instead of ripping up and replacing pipes while forcing the distribution of bottled water  (at great profit to the bottlers, I'm sure, and I'll bet that was a crony set of agreements too) that wasn't poisonous.

And who was most-likely to be poisoned?  Why black kids, of course, because when the color of your skin, sex and whatever gender you think you might be this afternoon is more important than your mental firepower you tend to wind up fucking your own people.  This was, of course, blamed on white people even though Flint first elected a Black Mayor in 1966.

Incidentally the 1950s were one of Flint's most-prosperous decades, centered in its middle-class manufacturing base and also incidentally in 1964, just before McCree's election, a massive scandal erupted over... you guessed it.... a plan to bring Lake Huron water into the city!  It was in the wake of that scandal that the city's water connection with Detroit was established.

Mayor McCree and all of his successors up until the crisis clearly did not believe having competent people run the water plant with full understanding of the supply's chemistry and any changes well in advance of them happening was the first and foremost job in order to insure the stability and safety of the water supply system in the city.  Whether that was due to lack of understanding that actual technical competence was required or willfully and intentionally hiring incompetent assholes I do not know -- but what I do know is that a bunch of black kids got poisoned as a direct result of not taking due care to make certain said chemistry requirements were met when the water source was changed.

Why is there no discussion of this?  Why don't we discuss how and why this actually happened?

Oh, that's an isolated incident eh?

Fani Willis anyone?  Yes, my first and foremost indication that Fani is incompetent at best might be her selection of "Gorilla Grip Pussy Pal" as her bluetooth device name.  That is clearly a clean indication that said person is extremely serious as a litigator and thinks with her head instead of her cunt.  Never mind the apparent presentation of evidence that she was both skimming public funds indirectly for her little indiscretions with a man she hired to participate in prosecuting Trump and was fucking him besides so one has to question whether the actual intent was to hire the best and finest to prosecute or to both get laid and have lavish vacations on the taxpayer dime while attacking a political enemy.  Of course her defense was "oh I'm Black and that's why people are after me" when it all blew up in her face.  Uh huh.

Any white person would already be under indictment for this sort of crap so sit down and shut the fuck up Fani, never mind your vapid County government which, I note, the Governor has utterly failed to stomp on.  He damn well should have years ago so there goes Georgia in the "DIEEEEEVERSITY" lottery as well.  Disqualified?  Where's the rather-obviously justified indictment from the STATE Attorney General and which party do people claim has actual competent and reasonable persons running under their banner?  Looks and smells like bullshit to me.

Good thing there weren't any black kids downstream of a water plant where she was controlling the chemical balance of the water, eh?  There might have been literal shit in that supply.

Oh, doesn't this sound a lot like the Smollett case?  Why, I think it might be sort of the same crap eh?

Just these couple of examples?

Oh, maybe not.  Let's talk about New York!  Lettia James (gee, what an odd coincidence that all of these people are black?) infamously went after Trump.  Oh, and by the way, James campaigned on "getting Trump" which incidentally is about as crooked as it gets and you'd think that standing alone would disqualify her from holding office never mind Howard University revoking her JD.  Nope.  But then of course Governor ("I think with my pussy, hear it ROAR!") Hochul tries to claim "oh this was a one off", only to have James almost-immediately go after one of the largest meat-processing firms in the United States under that very same law claiming that they're "climate abusers" and by God, she's going to single-handedly save the fucking planet!

Is this all just simple corruption or do we add in rank incompetence driven by sub-80 IQs across the board with an obvious outcome sort of like this:

Oh, that's offensive you say?  Well it might be but here's my reply:

Offended you I have, a shit I do not give.

Let's ask the question a different way:

Where is this sort of degeneration not in evidence?

You'll have a hard time with that.

We replace reliable carbon-fueled base load power plants with wind and solar which are not reliable as the wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine.  We haven't hanged a single person who did this shit anywhere even when it was proved to not work because you can't guarantee wind or sun in a given place and if that doesn't coincide with when you want power you don't get power at all.  ERCOT had its infamous freeze and they're not alone -- everyone is pulling this crap and the power companies and entities (some government run, some private sector) either have nobody in charge who is saying "heh ASSHOLES, our first job is to make goddamn sure we can generate the power when the customers require it and only when that is assured can we choose other priorities" or some diversity and/or green douchebag is telling those people to sit down and shut up or be fired -- and they're running the show.

Go watch that video up a bit again as many times as it takes because that's exactly what this sort of stupid shit constitutes when it comes to intelligence and this is going to be the repeated result if we don't cut it out right fucking now.

Oh, its just power?  Uh, no, it isn't.  We know based on simple facts that one cannot determine the long term effects of a medication without the time passing.  Its not possible, duh.  So we mandate, coerce and lie that we know something is safe when we know damn well that you can't figure out what will happen in five years until five years goes by.  If that's not deranged enough we gave the people who make this crap legal immunity and nobody hanged the politicians, the physicians, the pharmaceutical executives or all of the above even without waiting the required period of years because it is obvious that the claims are frauds as you can't figure out what will happen in a given time until the time passes.  That we now have discovered that indeed they're not "safe as promised" isn't really material in that the claim was a fraud right up front and now, given the passage of time, it is ADMITTED that the shots have killed and severely maimed people.  The only debate today is how many people got killed or maimed!

There are a couple hundred people who are alive today only due to dumb luck because someone at Boeing, Spirit (one of their contractors), both of which trumpet their "diversity initiatives" (see Boeing's and Spirit's bullshit for yourself), or someone doing work on the plane under either or both of their alleged supervision, did not install all four bolts on a hatch in one of their 737 aircraft.  Any ONE of the four bolts, nuts and cotter (or safety wire) would have held the door in place on the frame.  The NTSB has now shown (which was obvious by the way within minutes of landing when photos were posted publicly by passengers and which I commented on in a separate posting at the time) that none of the four bolts, nuts and keepers were installed.  Only dumb luck kept that door from hitting the stabilizer after it detached as it tumbled free.  Since that door masses somewhere around 70lbs if it had hit the stabilizer at a hundred knots or more of relative velocity (consider a car battery being shot at the tail of the plane at 100mph for an idea of the level of impact involved here) odds are extremely high that the stabilizer would have been severely damaged or destroyed and the entire aircraft and everyone on board would have been lost.

There have been several recent incidents between aircraft where near collisions have occurred during landing and takeoff -- and one actual impact.  The rate of these incidents recently has been stunningly high and may I remind you that a plane impacting another while landing or taking off is quite-likely to kill everyone in both aircraft.  A landing 737 comes in at about 120kts just before touchdown so how would you like to get hit if you're about to take off at 130mph because that is roughly the speed at which the collision will take place!  Is this apparent increase because we hire for diversity in the control tower and cockpit instead of for competence?  How long will it before one of those near-misses isn't a miss and a airliner full of passengers, or even two airliners, are destroyed along with everyone on board?  May I remind you that at least one of the planes usually has plenty of fuel on board to be turned into a mist and ignite on impact too.  If the impact doesn't get you the fireball probably will.

We hear of "cyber incidents" all the time.  One of the latest is a health care portal company that interconnects various providers and insurance firms.  Why is it happening in the first place and by the way why aren't the firms involved, when it is a cryptojack thing or similar, equipped with competent people who can roll back to the few hours or day before the cryptojacking got them?  Yes, you lose the couple of hours of work -- that beats being offline for days or weeks doesn't it?  Modern systems can do this if they're set up properly and if compartmentalized properly then the impact is localized to one small area anyway.  Oh, but that takes actual skill instead of a bunch of idiots over in India writing garbage code and by the way who's doing system administration and how come they're not competent enough to compartmentalize and limit this sort of damage?  Again we get to the base question: How do you expect things that require a group of people who have roughly a 115 IQ or better to operate them competently to continue working as expected when you hire people on their skin color or pronouns and don't give a crap that they have an 80 IQ or can't discern the fact that being born with a penis makes them male?

How many more examples would you like?

How about just one more?

What makes you believe that your physician actually understands anything about health?  Before you say "but mine is good even if many suck" I give you one RICHARD LEVINE who can't even discern that he is a man by the fact that he had a penis when born and further, he also can't manage his own body mass yet we are told that this person is an "expert" on human health AND WE MUST OBEY that which issues from his mouth!  What sort of mentally-defective IDIOT (that's all of us, by the way) allow anyone who can't figure out basic biological facts related to whether you're a man or a woman along with the inability to maintain reasonable body mass to make recommendations and even DICTATE POLICY MANDATES for the rest of America's people?  Has your doctor told you point-blank that Levine is both ridiculously obese and mentally deranged?  If he or she hasn't then that person is deranged too and you're insane to listen to a single thing that comes from their mouth.

How much of our civilization will survive if we keep putting people in positions of both authority and responsibility for things that we all count on working when they simply don't have the chops to do the job but are hired because they're either cheaper, their skin or sex is "correct" or they use the right pronouns?  If someone cannot tell from the presence of a penis or vagina on their body at the time of their birth if they're a man or a woman why would you believe they can accurately process anything else in their head?  Exactly how many examples of obvious failure to accurately process information do you need to see before you realize that if fantasy is permitted to intrude anywhere that matters in job performance you will have serious problems -- up to and including people becoming dead as a consequence.

Guess what?  People like me won't put up with that sort of shit and you can't make people like me, who are competent in our fields, work for you.  As those who are both competent and intelligent retire or simply say "fuck you" and quit rather than coddle another's mental derangement, never mind the probability of them screwing the pooch then blaming the competent guy because he "misgendered" them, leaving you with the green-haired, pronoun-spouting person who you don't dare call "sir" or "ma'm" lest you get a complaint filed against you through HR running the water plant or the data interchange for your local hospital the odds of you getting fucked up the ass rise precipitously.

We either stop all of this, right now, by whatever means we must, or what we currently claim to enjoy as "civilization" will collapse incrementally and each of us will get doled out our personal "find out" to go with the "fuck around" the hard way.  Perhaps it will come in different ways for each of us -- we'll be hit at 130mph while waiting for take-off in a plane, drink poisoned water out of our tap at home, get an injection of shit at the doctors office that paralyzes us, gives us cancer or a heart attack, we'll freeze to death because we let the power company replace reliable carbon-based generators with wind and solar and then it will be -20F at night and calm, resulting in our power going off, our furnace will not fire and we will freeze to death and similar sorts of means of going to meet God.

Oh by the way what do you think the S&P will trade at when all this happens and for how long do you think the average 80IQ person will sit back quietly when it does before they come looking for whatever food you might have, which just might include an intent to eat you personally?

I hear Venezuelans sometimes demand the right to rape young women and, if said women refuses, they just kill her and crush their skulls.  THAT is what we have degenerated to already on the illegal alien issue alone.  The next dead woman could very well be you, your wife or young daughter and yet nobody will get off their ass, demand it ALL stop NOW and enforce that demand even when the clear consequence of not doing so is possible DEATH and is on full display in your FACE.

It isn't like we had a prior display of this exact same insanity in Iowa not all that long ago with another illegal alien, is it?

Oh wait -- WE DID AND THE VICTIM'S NAME WAS MOLLIE.