Extremism redux: what's happening in Washington D.C.

 

About ten days ago I published an article titled "The tragic poison of extremism".  I quoted Rod Dreher at length, and his warnings about how anti-semitic and far-right-wing thinking were becoming real dangers on the right wing of American politics.  A lively discussion ensued in Comments, with some for and some against those views.

Yesterday Mr. Dreher published a follow-up article titled "What I Saw And Heard In Washington".  Here are a few excerpts.

It was an intense and busy long weekend for me in the capital city. I learned a hell of a lot about the new radicalism racing through the young Right there. What I’m going to say about it is to inform you. Nobody talked to me on the record. What I say is my impression of a number of conversations I had with people (conservatives) who are directly involved in this world. Every one of them is appalled by what’s happening (well, maybe not one of the guys, but he always plays his cards close to his vest), and all have serious doubts about the ability of the institutional Right to deal with it. It’s easier for me simply to do a mash-up of all the things I heard, rather than try to attribute them to people I can’t quote by name anyway. Remember, this is a diary, not a newspaper.

. . .

I asked one astute Zoomer what the Groypers actually wanted (meaning, what were their demands). He said, “They don’t have any. They just want to tear everything down.”

Then he went on to explain in calm, rational detail why his generation is so utterly screwed. The problems are mostly economic and material, in his view (and this is something echoed by other conversations). They don’t have good career prospects, they’ll probably never be able to buy a home, many are heavily indebted with student loans that they were advised by authorities to take out, and the idea that they are likely to marry and start families seems increasingly remote.

Moreover, they grew up in a country that had lost its common culture. Many of these young men are fatherless. Most of them spent their youths being told that as whites, and especially as white males, they are what’s wrong with the world. Their own speech was policed with Stasi-like ruthlessness for racism and bigotry, while people on the Left routinely slandered whites, males, Christians, and heterosexuals — and were even rewarded for it.

F—k that, seems to be the reaction now.

. . .

The inability of us older people — Boomers, Xers, and older Millennials — to comprehend the world through the eyes of Zoomers is a big, big problem. Another strong theme: while it’s important to take a clear stand against anti-Semitism in the ranks, there is no way to gatekeep our way out of this. You cannot simply point at the Zoomers and say, “Thou shalt not,” and expect it to work. The problems are too deep and complex, and anyway, they have learned to have no respect for authority.

Why should they? The institutions of our society, as they see it, have lied and lied and lied, and still lie. They still lie in many ways about race (e.g., refusing to be honest about black crime), they lied about Covid, they lied about males and females, and they forced the insanity of gender ideology on us all. The military lied about Iraq. The universities embraced and enforced ideologies of lies. The Catholic Church lied about sexual abuse, and the connection to the prevalence of sexually active gay priests honeycombing the institution. They lied about the benefits of mass migration and diversity. They lied about Trump and Russia. The political parties and their corporate allies lied about what globalism would mean for ordinary people. The media have lied and do lie about most things.

. . .

I could go on — boy, could I — but you get the idea. Trust in the system is gone. Hell, I share most of these conclusions myself! The difference is that I am not a nihilist; I don’t want to tear it all down, but rather reform it. There are no historical examples in which “tearing it all down” produced a better, more just, more functional order. The Zoomers don’t seem to have any knowledge of history, nor do they care about it.

They don’t even take Trump all that seriously, it appears. They see him as an out-of-touch Boomer whose value lies in how he can be used to achieve the system’s destruction. It has not escaped their notice that the ten months into Trump’s second term, the economy is still crap. As an American living abroad in a more affordable country, going to coffee shops, bars and restaurants, I was stunned by how expensive everyday life is in the US. The recent opinion polls showing that by a large margin, most Americans (not only Zoomers) are down on the Trump administration’s handling of the economy — that reflects the good judgment of the American people, I’m sorry to say. If the Republicans don’t get their act together, and fast, they’re going to be shellacked in the 2026 midterms.

There's more at the link.

As I said in my earlier article, I highly recommend that you click over to Mr. Dreher's latest essay and read it in full for yourself.  You may not agree with all that he says, but he'll certainly give you plentiful food for thought.

Peter

Armistice Day

 

All over the world (except the United States), this date, November 11th, is solemnly commemorated as Armistice Day.  On the eleventh day of November, 1918, at the eleventh hour, the guns fell silent across Europe as World War I, the so-called "War To End All Wars", finally ground to a halt.

Both of my grandparents fought in that war.  My paternal grandfather and his wife came to live with my mother and father in their declining years (as was common in an earlier generation - they weren't dumped into old-age homes).  One of my earliest memories was of my grandfather's constant hacking cough, the result of injuries sustained from a German gas attack on the trenches during that war.  His lungs never fully recovered, and the injury shortened his life appreciably.  Thus, even though the war had finished decades before I was born, it still touched my memory.  He died when I was three or four years old, I don't recall precisely which.  The house was somehow very still without his coughing . . .

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Peter

Happy birthday, USMC - and thanks for helping to keep me alive

 

Today is the 250th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, founded on 10 November 1775.  Congratulations to the Corps and all its members.

I have a particular reason to thank the Corps.  After the Vietnam War, a number of former US Marines didn't want to go back to the USA, because anti-war sentiment was rampant and they were fed up with being accused of being "baby-killers" and sundry other pleasantries.  Instead, they wanted to go on "killing commies", as some of them put it.  A number of them made their way to southern Africa, joining the armed forces of South Africa and Rhodesia.  I met several of them in both countries.

I've never forgotten one of them in particular.  I won't name him, at his request some years ago.  I was a raw recruit, lying prone on the firing line during basic training.  I was bored, shooting a few rounds, waiting for score, then doing the same again ad nauseam.  The blistering hot African heat didn't help matters.  I muttered something to the man alongside me, something like "When are we going to stop wasting time on this **** and do something more interesting?"

I felt a kick on my outstretched boot. Rolling halfway over and looking up, I saw one of our instructors, a former US Marine now wearing South African Warrant Officer insignia.  I shriveled internally, waiting to be reamed for talking out of turn and assigned punishment PT.  Instead, the Warrant Officer just looked tired.  Glaring down at me, he said, "Recruit, an amateur practices until he's got it right.  A professional practices until he can't get it wrong!"  He didn't wait for a reply, but turned away to sort out another recruit who wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing.

I've never forgotten that moment, or his words.  They became a mantra for me, and I'm sure they kept me alive in some engagements during my military service and afterwards.  From 1976 through 1994, South Africa was plagued with constant internal unrest, terrorism and authoritarian crackdowns.  I had the misfortune to be on the scene, in and out of uniform, for over 100 shooting engagements.  I bear some of the scars of those years to this day.  I kept that former Marine's advice firmly in mind through it all, and that mental and physical preparedness (as well as, of course, the grace of God!) is probably the only reason I survived those years.

So, thank you, USMC.  I have personal cause to be grateful to you!

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 285

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Back in 1988, the world was more than usually in turmoil.  The Soviet Union was in its death throes, with political instability the order of the day.  Economies all over the world weren't doing great, and a lot of people were very uncertain about the future.  Amid all that, the 1992 Barcelona Olympics organizing committee decreed that songs wanting to be considered for the anthem of the Games had to be published and submitted no later than 1988, so as to give adequate time for them to be compared and considered.

Freddie Mercury of the rock band Queen (already dying of AIDS) and Montserrat Caballé (whom he regarded as the best soprano of the time) launched a bombshell hit into all that.  Their duet "Barcelona" was an instant hit, and would undoubtedly have been the primary anthem of the 1992 Olympics if Freddie had lived that long and been able to perform it live at the opening ceremony.  Sadly, his illness was too far advanced.  Nevertheless, it's remained a perennial favorite among his fans, and one of mine as well.

Here's an extended live version of "Barcelona".

I'm very sorry we lost Freddie Mercury when we did.  He might have brought us several decades more of his unique style in music.  However, this was a heck of a swan song for him.

Peter

"The Internet was a mistake"

 

So postulates Stephan Pastis, anyway.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

On the other hand, the modern world literally could not function without it, so I guess we have to put up with its quirks and quibbles . . .

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  The cartoon above reminds me of this 2008 classic from XKCD:

Nothing much has changed, has it?

Too cute!

 

I had to laugh out loud while watching this.

Good dogs!

Peter

An unforeseen danger in a sleep supplement

 

I've used a melatonin supplement as a sleep aid for over a year.  I take one tablet at night before going to bed, and have found it helps me sleep more regularly, with less waking up in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately, I may have to stop that.  A new report says melatonin can be a two-edged sword.

New research has linked long-term melatonin use with a significantly increased risk of heart failure, hospitalization and death.

An observational study from the American Heart Association (AHA) examined five years of health records of 130,828 adults with insomnia, half of whom used melatonin for at least one year. The other half did not take the supplement.

People who were prescribed other sleep medications or already had confirmed heart failure were excluded from the analysis.

The researchers found that long-term melatonin use in those with chronic insomnia was linked to a 90% increased chance of incident heart failure compared to non-users.

Additionally, participants who filled at least two melatonin prescriptions at least 90 days apart had an 82% higher risk of developing heart failure compared with those who did not use melatonin, according to the observational study.

A secondary analysis revealed that participants who took melatonin were nearly 3.5 times as likely to be hospitalized for heart failure and twice as likely to die.

There's more at the link.

What I found particularly depressing was that this study deliberately excluded people who "already had confirmed heart failure".  That would include me, after two heart attacks.  If melatonin increased cardiac risks to the extent reported in people with healthy hearts, what about folks like me with unhealthy ones?

I know a number of people who use melatonin as I do - some of them recommended it to me.  It does work as a sleep aid, in my experience.  However, no matter how effective it may be in the latter capacity, if it's going to add to the stress on my heart, I'm going to have to stop using it.

Have any readers had experiences that might bear out this report?  If so, please tell us about them in Comments.

Peter

Health update

 

I figured it was time to give you all an update on how my health situation is progressing (particularly those generous souls who donated to my fund-raising appeal).

My right kidney was removed on September 26.  It's been a long, slow recovery since then, with stringent restrictions on how much I can lift and what I can do.  The incisions (multiple) have been healing a lot more slowly than I'd like, and are still not fully covered with skin, but then they were very deep.  Also, as my surgeon has repeatedly pointed out, in one's late 60's one's body doesn't recover as fast as it did in one's late 20's!  Fortunately, the progress is all in the right direction, albeit a lot too slow for my impatient self.  With luck, I hope everything will be "skinned over" (if I can put it that way) by the beginning of December, when my other restrictions are scheduled to be eased.  That means I can get on with rehab and rebuilding my strength.

I've had a first consultation with a highly-rated local rehab facility, planning for post-operative reconditioning and extended work on strengthening my core and (hopefully) getting the muscles around my lower spine in better condition to support the surgery that's planned for that area.  It's going to take time to build up to three sessions a week, but I'm going to work at it.  Hopefully I'll combine stretching and conditioning (under supervision) with swimming and exercise bicycle/elliptical workouts.  I hope to start that in December, and plan to work on it for up to (and if necessary more than) a year, depending on what happens next.

I'm still undergoing tests to help the neurosurgeon decide what surgery would be most effective to address my spinal issues.  Unfortunately, the tests are uncovering complications that we hadn't expected.  On Monday this week I went to a neurologist for an electromyograph, both surface (using electrodes) and subcutaneous (using needles).  If I understood the technicians correctly, this is supposed to reveal current drop through the nerves and muscles, showing precisely which muscles are most affected by problems.  From that information, the neurosurgeon can deduce which part(s) of the spine are most affected, because it'll be the nerves flowing from it to the muscle(s) concerned that are the ones needing attention.  It's a bit complicated for a simple man like me (ahem), but I think that's the gist of it.  The test revealed definite deterioration since the last one I had, twenty years ago, but in different areas of the legs - which is not very helpful!

The test also revealed an additional nerve problem, peripheral neuropathy, which must now be tracked down to its source and taken into account when planning surgery.  I wasn't aware of that problem, but the neurologist explained it was because the level of pain from my already-damaged nerves was high enough to "mask" the lower-level pain and discomfort caused by the neuropathy.  What next?  Your guess is as good as mine.

(Oh - and further thanks to those of you who donated to my fund-raiser.  Monday's test billed at a cool $6,300 for a couple of hours being poked and prodded by two technicians and a neurosurgeon.  Thanks to you, that's no longer the financial headache it might otherwise have been.)

My next step, probably in early December, will be another consultation with my neurosurgeon, bringing together the results of all the tests I've been through over the last four months or so.  He'll tell me what he's diagnosed as a result, and the surgery he recommends to fix the problem(s).  At that point I'm going to put matters on hold locally, get full copies of all the tests and their results, and go see another neurosurgeon in DFW to get a second opinion.  Given the cost of this exercise and the potential for things to go wrong, I want to be very sure of my options before I move forward.  That will probably happen during the first quarter of 2026, after which we'll see what happens.

Thanks again for your help and support, and particularly for your prayers.  They're greatly appreciated.

Peter

Electoral fraud that preceded the election: hijacking the 2020 census

 

It seems that the 2020 census deliberately mis-apportioned state populations, which in turn led to mis-allocation of electoral seats per state.  Nice when you can fix the results before the election even begins!

Redistricting is a sum of blocks. Distort the blocks, and you distort the districts, the legislatures, and the House. This practice is not merely bad policy; it is plainly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Department of Commerce v. House of Representatives (1999) made clear that statistical sampling for apportionment is illegal on statutory grounds. Abowd’s algorithmic manipulation is statistical sampling by another name, an unlawful substitution of estimated data for an actual enumeration required by the Constitution.

The proof arrived in March and May of 2022 when the Bureau’s own quality checks exposed a lopsided pattern. Fourteen states had statistically significant coverage errors, eight with overcounts and six with undercounts. The tilt was unmistakable. Democratic-leaning states were widely overcounted. Republican-leaning states were widely undercounted. Florida’s undercount was roughly three quarters of a million people. Texas’s undercount was on the order of a half million. Minnesota and Rhode Island kept seats they would have lost under an accurate count. Colorado gained a seat it did not deserve. Florida and Texas each missed multiple seats they should have gained. Analysts estimate the net effect was a shift of nine House seats away from Republican-leaning states and toward Democratic-leaning states. The Electoral College moved with them. More than $86 billion in federal formula funds followed.

. . .

The stakes are immense. The Census Bureau’s operations across a decade cost taxpayers on the order of $25 billion. Citizens paid for accurate data and received a noisy approximation that tilted representation and shifted money. Republican states are projected to lose almost $90 billion in federal funds across the decade as a result of the miscounts. Democratic states are projected to gain $57 billion. This is not a rounding error. It is a reweighting of national political power and public finance by mathematical fiat.

There's much more at the link.  It provides graphic evidence of what I can only presume is Deep State manipulation of our electoral machinery, to give their approved candidates and causes a built-in advantage even before a single vote is cast.  That situation still exists, and will govern national elections for the next half-decade or more until a new census can re-calculate our population and fairly apportion its distribution.  It means President Trump is fighting a built-in, institutionalized disadvantage in every election he and his party fight.

Food for thought.  Remember to get out and vote today!

Peter

Yet more evidence of how US taxpayers have been robbed blind by left-wing progressive policies

 

Two reports caught my eye over the weekend.  Just remind yourself as you read them that they are the fruit of four years of the Biden administration - and if President Trump is forced to back down on his policies (e.g. through losses in the mid-term elections, or court rulings) we'll be back in the same situation in no time.

First:  "SNAP’s Hidden Reality: 83 Million Citizens and Illegal Aliens Are Dependent on Food Aid Each Year".

The most frequently cited statistic about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is that about 43 million Americans rely on it each month to feed themselves and their families. That number is often used to justify the program’s scale and reach. But this monthly average hides a far more disturbing truth. Because of high turnover, the real number of Americans who receive SNAP benefits at some point during a given year is much higher. Federal data show that 52% of new enrollees leave within one year, and 67% within two years. That means that across twelve months, between 63 and 83 million unique individuals participate in the program. In other words, about 22% of the entire US population uses SNAP to buy food during any calendar year. This is not a small anti-poverty program. It is a vast, parallel food economy. The only way such numbers make sense is if many more illegal immigrants are benefiting from the system than politicians admit.

. . .

SNAP benefits are set to be suspended on November 1 if the shutdown persists, and states like California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington have each announced that their food programs for illegal immigrants will be suspended at the same time. These programs were supposedly distinct from SNAP, yet their funding halts when SNAP halts. That coincidence exposes the truth: the money, the systems, and the administrative pipelines are connected. States have long played a shell game, quietly routing federal funds into state-level programs for illegal immigrants. The shutdown has revealed the link.

The implications are enormous. If SNAP were truly separate from these state programs, the shutdown would inconvenience them, not paralyze them. Their paralysis proves a shared infrastructure, shared databases, shared eligibility systems, and, most troublingly, shared funding streams. This confirms what conservatives have long argued: state officials are using federal welfare mechanisms to subsidize benefits for illegal immigrants. It is not a clean firewall between programs. It is a revolving door.

There's more at the link.

Next:  "Nearly $200M in Direct Federal Grants Has Been Aimed at Expanding Programs to Serve Illegal Immigrants".

Illegal immigrants have benefitted from at least $197 million in direct federal healthcare-related grants since fiscal year 2021, according to new research from Open the Books. This figure does not include indirect spending on illegal immigrants via Medicaid, which was estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to be around $27 billion from FY 2017-2023, nor does it account for education spending that benefits illegal immigrants and their children, which amounts to an estimated $70 billion annually.

. . .

Health-related spending is principally directed towards programs serving the neediest members of society, such as the homeless, drug-addicted, or otherwise medically fragile. The expansion of programs to include illegal immigrants both encourages illegal migration into the United States and directs spending away from high-poverty Americans.

. . .

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, illegal immigration costs taxpayers $150.7 billion per year [at] the federal state and local level. Meanwhile, this year’s budget reconciliation bill directs $45 billion to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s detention budget and nearly $30 billion to ICE’s enforcement and deportation operations over the next four years. The bill directs an additional $46.5 billion to border security infrastructure.

Again, more at the link.

So much for our taxpayer dollars.  So much for constitutional and legal provisions forbidding the expenditure of taxpayer dollars on those not entitled to such support.  The previous administration appears to have disregarded those provisions wholesale.  If these numbers don't demonstrate the absolute contempt that the progressive left wing of US politics has for taxpayers and regular citizens, then I don't know what will.

Even with all that President Trump has accomplished so far, we remain balanced on a knife-edge as far as our future fiscal policies are concerned.  If the progressive left gains control of the House and Senate during the 2026 mid-term elections, and/or if left-wing judges use the judicial system to block much of the President's program, then we're neck-deep in the financial dwang once again . . . and given how deep that noxious substance already is in our body politic, I don't know whether we'll be able to dig our way out again.  That's particularly troubling in the light of opinion polls suggesting that a majority of the electorate is not happy with the President's policies for one reason or another.  (Whether or not those polls are accurate is another question:  without knowing the exact statistics of who and how many were sampled, when and where, it's one I can't answer.)

It's up to all of us, individually and collectively, to keep up the pressure, encourage all those we know to think rationally and count their pennies (particularly those given to the taxman), and stop that from happening.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 284

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

I tend to be rather old-fashioned in my music tastes.  I'm unlikely to enjoy most songs written this century (with a few notable exceptions when composed and/or performed by older artists and groups, who were brought up to know what music was, as opposed to a noise!).  As for alleged rap "music", I refuse to dignify it with the label "music" at all.

However, there are always exceptions to every rule, and I came across one this week.  Shaboozey has been writing and performing songs since 2014, when he was only 19 years old.  His music "combines hip-hop, country, rock, and Americana", and he appears to carry off the blend with aplomb.

The track I listened to is called simply "Good News".  The lyrics may be found here, if you need them.  Give it a listen, and see what you think.

You'll find more of his music at his YouTube channel.  I plan to listen to more of it, to see how his undoubted talent develops.  This young man may have a serious musical future.

Peter

Happy (or horrible) Halloween, depending on your taste!

 

Peter

The wheels on the trucks... are falling off?

 

The CEO of Freightwaves warns that the "Largest capacity purge in history" is coming to the US commercial trucking market.

The freight industry is experiencing what experts describe as one of the most interesting times ever in freight—though unfortunately, not in a positive way for most participants. Motor carriers and freight brokers across the spectrum are feeling significant pain from weak freight volumes and a rapidly changing operating climate. What we’re witnessing appears to be the calm before a significant storm, with indicators pointing toward what could become the largest capacity washout in trucking history.

With the risk of the market eliminating 600,000 active drivers, the largest capacity purge in history may be coming, bringing COVID-like spot rates. The difference this time is that there won’t be a flood of immigrants created by Biden’s open borders, which offered an endless supply of truck drivers. The capacity relief valve for shippers and brokers is forever shut, meaning carriers will have to pay up in terms of higher pay and bonuses for truck drivers. Capacity will also be much harder to find.

The Great Capacity Purge is coming and there will be no relief valve for shippers or brokers.

. . .

When accounting for the overlap between drivers affected by non-domiciled CDL [Commercial Driver License] restrictions and ELP enforcement, plus undocumented drivers and restrictions on new hires, the total at-risk population could exceed 600,000 drivers—representing about 17% of active drivers, according to transport economist Noël Perry.

Carriers that rely upon immigrant labor or carriers that don’t qualify under the new rules will likely go out of business.

The combination of regulatory changes and prolonged freight recession conditions is creating an environment ripe for significant market disruption. Industry experts anticipate numerous bankruptcies among both carriers and brokers in the coming months as financial pressures mount.

There's more at the link.

In one sense, this is going to produce difficulties in distributing goods from manufacturer or importer, to wholesaler, to retailer.  Shipments will be more expensive due to less trucks (and commercial drivers) on the roads.  It may cause serious economic repercussions for many businesses.

On the other hand, US truck drivers who've long complained about illegal aliens and foreign drivers taking over the trucking business are already seeing improvements in their prospects.  I've seen several drivers post on social media that they're getting rates 20-30% higher than before from spot brokers, and they look forward to this trend continuing.  If, as the article states, up to half a million or more foreign and non-domiciled CDL holders are eliminated from the trucking market, it can only be good news for American workers wanting their jobs back - assuming they do want them back, and haven't moved on to work in other industries.

On the other hand, the decrease in such drivers might have repercussions for the US truck fleet as a whole.

The proliferation of non-domiciled CDLs has coincided with a dramatic increase in trucking capacity across the United States. Since the FMCSA permitted foreigners to obtain non-domiciled CDLs in March 2019, the industry has added more than 310,000 trucks to American roads.

It is not a stretch to believe that at least half of the new capacity has come from non-domiciled CDL holders. We know that 200,000 CDLs were issued, but it is unclear how many of these are still active and currently driving over the road.

Regardless, the industry has suffered greatly from the surge of new truck drivers and the sudden influx of capacity. These new participants have contributed significantly to market oversupply conditions, resulting in the longest freight recession in history ... As the DOT and FMCSA work to implement stricter controls on these licenses, capacity will certainly tighten. The question on the mind of every freight market executive: When will we feel it?

Again, more at the link.

It might soon be a good time to buy that used 18-wheeler you always wanted to convert into a gigantic travel trailer setup . . .

Peter

Good question!

 

Found in several places on social media:

Perhaps, if enough SNAP/EBT recipients lose their heads and riot over the suspension of those benefits, the taxpayers who fund them will also rise up in revolt and demand that their taxes be used for the good of the country, rather than the feeding of the feckless.

Peter

The tragic poison of extremism

 

I've been worried for years about how the extremes of American politics, both left- and right-wing, have been growing stronger, and eroding the center.  Mutual tolerance, openness to new ideas, and acceptance that others can be right and we can be wrong, have always been the hallmark of civilized discussion.  Trouble is, as our civilization crumbles under so many pressures, so too do those hallmarks.

Rod Dreher, a commenter whose insights I value greatly, has written two columns about anti-Semitism and its disastrous effect on right-wing politics.  They epitomize the dangers I'm seeing in the body politic as a whole right now, because the same comments can be applied to other extreme viewpoints as well.  They're long articles, but worth investing the time to read them in full.

In his first essay, Dreher examines the rise of the "groyper" influence.

Every one of the right-wing Jews to whom I spoke last night believe that Tucker Carlson is the most dangerous man in America to Jews, because in their view, he’s the most important mainstreamer of anti-Semitism on the Right. This was painful for me to hear, because I consider Tucker a friend, and though I have been disturbed by the anti-Jewish turn his rhetoric has taken, I had not been aware of how extensive his anti-Jewish commentary had been (I don’t regularly listen to his podcast), nor the effect his rhetoric has had on the outlook of American Jews.

. . .

As we left the Green Room headed to the stage, we saw on our phones that Tucker had hosted [Nick] Fuentes on his show. For me, this was a bright red line that I was hoping Tucker would not cross. But cross it he did ... Tucker asked nothing about Fuentes’s past statements praising Hitler, or any number of horrific things that have come out of that kid’s mouth, (e.g., “We will make Jews die in the holy war.). And then there’s ... blaming “organized Jewry” for threatening the existence of America, because they allegedly put the tribe over the common good.

. . .

The fact that Tucker Carlson, the most influential right-wing media figure in America, went from dismissing Fuentes early this year as a gay twerp in a Chicago basement, to having him on his show and blessing him with a soft interview, is a sign of the times. And not a good one. It was a two-man Unite The Right rally. Bad times ahead. The time to find your courage, fellow conservatives and Christians, and speak out against this stuff, is NOW.

Fuentes comes off on the Tucker broadcast as reasonable, despite his anti-Semitism, sexism, and deranged bigotries. If you are tempted to think of Fuentes that way, I advise you to look at this long compilation of the sick pedophilic stuff Fuentes and his followers have posted online. (There is no pedophilia imagery, don’t worry; it’s just screengrabs of texts and videos in which they celebrate pederasty and rape.)

. . .

As I’ve long said: Jews are canaries in the civilizational coal mine. As the gatekeepers and authorities are collapsing everywhere, we are going to see horrible things. I am thinking this morning about my warning from twenty years ago to the Left that if they accepted anti-white identity politics, they were going to legitimize pro-white, anti-everybody else identity politics among a younger generation that lacks the taboos. And it has happened. It is a howling absurdity that Fuentes, Candace, et al. claim to be Christians while promoting this stuff, but you should know that outside the US, the connection between Jew-hating and Christianity is historically well-established.

So, by the same logic, if the Right legitimizes Fuentes-style identitarianism, it is going to push normie liberals (what few there are left) further into radicalism. This is the Weimar dynamic: the feeble and discredited center could not hold against the growing strength of left-wing and right-wing radicals.

. . .

Many of us on the Right have wondered for years why decent liberals in authority kept their mouths shut about the left-wing anti-white bigots. And then the crazies took over the party. It’s happening to the Right now. I don’t know where this is going, but it’s nowhere good — and it’s getting there with accelerating speed.

A frightening thought: what if there are no gatekeepers at all anymore? What if anybody can say anything, and do not risk political exile or irrelevance?

There's more at the link.  Disturbing, but highly recommended reading.

In his second essay, Dreher looks at the similarities between the Weimar Republic in post-World-War-I Germany, and current political events in the USA, and puts the "groyper" phenomenon in that perspective.

I was talking today with a Christian I know who is a big player in conservative politics, and who is as appalled by it as I am. He tells me that what normie outsiders like me don’t know is that something like 30 to 40 percent of the Republican staff in Washington under the age of 30 are Groypers — that is, followers of Nick Fuentes.

Let that sink in.

. . .

The essential appeal of Trump, I learned, is not so much from his policy proposals (there weren’t many), but because he was a big fat finger in the face of a corrupt Republican establishment.

I didn’t vote [in 2016], because I couldn’t stomach Trump, I would never have voted for Hillary, and my vote didn’t matter in Louisiana anyway, as it was destined to go to Trump in the electoral college. But watching how the Left went into manic overdrive to destroy him and everything related to him changed me. The Kavanaugh hearings in 2018 broke me. I realized that as bad as Trump was on so much, he was the only thing standing between Us and Them. I voted for him in 2020, and though I wasn’t in the US in 2024, I openly supported him then. The Biden administration showed us what wokeness in power would and could do. I had no qualms at all about supporting Trump 2024, even though his personal character flaws are all too clear, still.

Now it seems that Fuentes is having the same kind of appeal to Zoomers as Trump did for Boomers and others a decade ago. Compared to Fuentes, though, Trump comes off as Marcus Aurelius. The Fuentes you see on the Tucker interview is not at all the Fuentes of his livestreams.

I simply cannot understand the logic behind treating Fuentes as a normal political actor — even if he has a relatively big following. He is a deeply bad man, with no redeeming qualities. If his mode of discourse, and beliefs, become part of the mainstream of conservatism, we’re done, and we will deserve it. To normalize Fuentes is to move the Overton Window where it must not go. It’s like saying, “Well, I personally disapprove of sniffing glue, and I think it’s bad for us, but if we are going to stop people from glue-sniffing, we need to listen to them to see why they take pleasure in sniffing glue.”

Look at what happened to the Left once they started giving respect and attention to the radical Left. We got the Great Awokening, in which it was considered perfectly legitimate to attack white people as evil because of the color of their skin, and to cancel people for simply dissenting from whatever new radical thing they demanded we all accept as truth. Now they’re about to elect an actual old-Zoomer Islamic race communist as mayor of the most important city in America. Zohran Mamdani is a million times more charismatic than Nick Fuentes, but I see them as part of the same trajectory of American politics.

. . .

I’ve used the term “Weimar America” from time to time, but now, it be gettin’ real.

What we mean when we talk about “Weimar Germany” is that time in Germany between the end of the First World War and Hitler’s accession to power in 1933, when Germany’s democracy wobbled under the pressure of economic collapse, and the falling-apart of all institutions, including parties of the center. Moral norms evaporated, especially around sexuality. Real power in the streets shifted to extremes of Left and Right.

. . .

This past spring, at a screening of the LNBL documentary in Nashville, a woman in the audience asked if I thought the danger of “soft totalitarianism” had passed because Trump was in office again, and the woke were on the defense.

No, I said, because all the conditions that [Hannah] Arendt identified as present in a society ready for totalitarianism are still with us. I don’t want to live in a right-wing society like that any more than I want to live in a left-wing one.

. . .

I have zero sympathy for people on the Left in all this. They chose not only to platform, but to bring into policymaking people every bit as radical as Nick Fuentes, only more educated, and better able to negotiate institutional culture. For at least twenty years, I have been publicly saying to liberals that if you embrace and advocate for identity politics of the Left, you are going to call up the very same thing from the Right one of these days.

. . .

Let me say to you, whether you are on the Left or the Right (and I do have some left-wing readers): if you don’t have a Bright Red Line for the kind of radicalism you are willing to tolerate in public, you had better lay one down, because you are going to be tested.

. . .

Weimar America. If, God forbid, there is a high-profile political assassination, or a severe economic downturn, we are going to be in very, very bad trouble. You all know I’m a blackpill kind of guy, but it seems that reality is catching up to my doomerism.

Again, more at the link.

I can't argue with Mr. Dreher's opinion of Mr. Fuentes.  If you're in any doubt about that, go read the thread that outlines Mr. Fuentes' personal morality (linked above).  If that doesn't persuade you, you may be beyond help.

I've been more and more worried by the number of bloggers and "opinionators" (for want of a better word) who are growing more and more anti-Semitic in their diatribes.  To blame any one group for the troubles of our society, of our body politic, is ludicrous.  After all, if any one group was so consistently focused on achieving world domination, surely it would have succeeded long ago?  I reject any attempt to assign responsibility and/or blame to a group.  It's always the individual who's at fault.  Sure, a group of equally guilty individuals may gather together to achieve their joint aims, but inevitably, the group falls apart sooner or later.  (Read any reputable history book for evidence of that.)

Applying that to our country today, I don't blame Democrats, or Republicans, or liberals, or conservatives, or Jews, or snake-handling Bible-belt evangelicals, for the state we're in.  Those groups are part of the problem, but they're made up of individuals who've been more or less persuaded that their particular group has the answers, and everybody else is part of the problem.  I've been personally on the scene of at least a dozen civil wars and inter-tribal conflicts, and in every case the individuals involved were not the problem.  The problem was always charismatic leaders who used emotion, religion (or tribal superstition) and outright violence to achieve their ends.  When the dying was over, it was never a question of "He did it!" or "She did it!" - it was always "They did it!", with "They" being whichever group could be most conveniently blamed.  That simply meant that another generation would be raised to hate that group or groups, and the conflict would start all over again in future.

Right now, we have groups who are more than willing to kill Leftists, and others who are more than willing to kill Rightists.  They don't care whether the people they kill are good or bad - simply by attaching a label to them, they are defined as "on our side" or "enemies".  With such attitudes becoming more and more prevalent, these United States cannot stand united for much longer.  To put it in a Biblical perspective, "a house divided against itself cannot stand".  We've already seen far too many examples of that in this country:  try "Bleeding Kansas" for a start.  There are many others.

Please, friends, stop and think about this.  It's all around us - and it may yet destroy us.

Peter

Sad news

 

Regular readers will remember my bleg a few weeks ago to help James and Tirzah Burns.  James was suffering from pancreatic and other problems, and was in a bad way.  I linked to a GiveSendGo fundraiser for them.

Sadly, James didn't make it.  His illness was too far advanced.  He went home last week under hospice care, and died yesterday afternoon.

Tirzah is left with their two young children, a son and a daughter, and now has to take care of all the arrangements for the funeral and a host of legal paperwork.  James was the family breadwinner, so there's also the question of how the family will earn a living in future.  My wife and I love and highly respect Tirzah, so we're sure she'll be working hard to find solutions, but to lose one's "other half" is . . . well, to call it "traumatic" is a massive understatement!  She's got a very big load on her shoulders for the next few months.

If you're able, please click over to their fundraiser and help the family with even a small amount.  Every little helps.

May James rest in God's peace, and may his sins be forgiven him.

Peter

The convoluted world of international arms deals

 

It's been reported that Turkey is to buy 20 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft from Britain.

It is the largest fighter jet export deal in almost two decades and will support thousands of jobs across the UK for years to come, the government said.

. . .

The Eurofighter jets are jointly produced by Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain, and the deal was subject to approval from the other members of the consortium.

About 37% of each jet's production takes place in the UK, including final assembly at BAE Systems plants in Warton and Samlesbury in Lancashire.

The government said the deal would support 6,000 jobs at the two BAE plants, 1,100 in south-west England, including at the Rolls-Royce plant in Bristol, and 800 in Scotland.

It is the first new order of UK Typhoons since 2017.

Describing the agreement as the "biggest jets export deal in a generation", defence secretary John Healey said it would "pump billions of pounds into our economy and keep British Typhoon production lines turning long into the future".

There's more at the link.

What struck me at once was the minuscule size of the order.  Twenty fighter aircraft is a drop in the bucket compared to the Turkish Air Force's existing combat aircraft fleet, which includes well over 200 F-16's.  Furthermore, if the quoted figures are accurate, an ₤8 billion order averages out to a cost per plane of ₤400 million apiece - a ridiculously high amount, even if it includes future support and training expenditure.  To make matters even more confusing, Turkey is developing its own stealth fighter to replace its F-16's in due course.  The Typhoons are no better technology than the F-16 - so why buy them?  What's going on?

The answer is convoluted.

• Turkey has long been interested in using the Typhoon's power plant, the Eurojet EJ200 engine, in its Kaan fighters.  Based on a Rolls-Royce design, the latter company offered to help Turkey develop its own derivative of the EJ200 for the new fighter.  That agreement was derailed through political squabbles.  Initial prototypes of the Kaan will use US-sourced engines, and a locally-manufactured engine will power production models.  By buying Typhoons now, Turkey will gain access to European-standard engines and technology that can be used to train its pilots, engineers and technicians ahead of widespread introduction of the Kaan in due course;  and it can reverse-engineer Typhoon technology to improve its domestic equivalent products.  It will thus have access to both American and NATO-standard hardware and software.
• Turkey is trying to improve relations with other European nations, particularly given the geopolitical pressures caused by its involvement in Syria and other Middle Eastern nations.  By effectively "bribing" the British government with a massive arms order, it probably expects British diplomatic and economic pressure over Middle Eastern issues to decrease.
• The Typhoon is an aircraft type that has never seen combat in the Middle East.  Israel knows the capabilities of American combat aircraft very well, since it flies them in its own air force.  It may be that Turkey figures a different style of aircraft, with different electronics and systems, might give it an edge if it comes to a shooting conflict over Syria or elsewhere.

I get the feeling that Turkey is following Qatar's example.  Qatar is a tiny island nation in the Persian Gulf, but operates one of the most sophisticated air forces anywhere.  It flies Eurofighter Typhoons, US F-15's and French Rafale aircraft.  It's ridiculous to operate so many types of diverse aircraft in relatively small numbers, but that's not the point.  By spending tens of billions of dollars on such technology, Qatar is effectively buying influence in the nations that sell them.  They'll be less likely (Qatar hopes) to put pressure on that nation to support Middle Eastern initiatives it doesn't like, and less likely to approve Israeli action against Qatar for its ongoing support of Middle Eastern terrorist movements like Hamas and Hezbollah.  Instead of asking "What's the right thing to do?", diplomats from supplier countries will be forced to ask "What will it cost us in terms of sales and support of defense technology if we allow this or don't allow that?"  It's yet another example of "follow the money".

Effectively, Turkey is trying to lock the UK into the same kind of deal.  "We'll pay you well above the odds for a few fighters, provided you shut up about sensitive issues in the Middle East that affect us."  Furthermore, the current British government has made such a flaming mess of running the country that it's desperate for funds from anywhere, so it'll be more than willing to be "bribed" like this.

There's a distinctly distasteful odor about this arms deal . . .

Peter

Is the US intelligence apparatus deliberately playing us false?

 

From Larry Lambert over at Virtual Mirage:

(h/t Sam Fadis) Steve Witkoff called out CIA for providing him and Jared Kushner with completely faulty intelligence regarding Hamas and the negotiations to end the fighting in Gaza. And he did it on air on 60 Minutes.

The President himself is directly involved. Witkoff and Kushner are the President’s personal envoys. For CIA to get the intel picture completely wrong is a monumental failure and leads immediately to the next, and most important question: Why? Why was CIA so wide of the mark with its analysis? Two possibilities present themselves immediately. Either CIA’s intelligence was just that bad, or people in CIA and likely the broader Intelligence Community (IC) were deliberately feeding the President’s top men bad intel.

Today’s CIA quite frankly has little or no insight into the inner workings of groups like Hamas. That would require risk. That would require moxie. That would require leaving Northern Virginia and talking to foreigners. If you don’t want to risk it, you can take whatever intel the Israelis pass you on the subject and base your analysis on that. If the Israelis are telling the truth and have solid sources, you may be OK temporarily. If the Israelis, the guys who did not see a Hamas offensive building on the other side of a wall a couple of years ago, have bad intel, then we do too. Most alarming of all, of course, if the Israelis decide to lie to us for political reasons, we will not know it. We will be led around by the nose and steered in the wrong direction.

The Intelligence Community (in all its manifestations) has only one job. One. Provide truth to power. Clandestine activity (Covert Action) must stem from that, as does everything else. If you can’t provide the truth to power, you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.

People within the IC are deliberately feeding the President and his key people bad intelligence. And, just as bad, they are refusing to pass on certain information to the policy makers in this administration. There remain people within the IC who oppose this President and his appointees and are using intelligence as a weapon to frustrate President Trump’s political objectives. They want him to fail. They don’t care about the consequences for American national security. They want to inflict political damage because they are laser-focused on putting a Democrat in the White House in 2028 who will guarantee the continued existence of the Deep State and prevent the American people from regaining control over the vast federal bureaucracy.

Since Trump sat down in the White House for the second time, there has been no real reorganization. No meaningful change of any kind has actually occurred. Director Ratcliffe sits atop an organization that remains structured essentially as John Brennan wanted and run by people who made rank and climbed the ladder under either Brennan or his surrogate, Gina Haspel. All of the people who thought it was appropriate to designate “crying spaces” where employees could retreat to compose themselves when Trump won in 2016 are still there. All the folks who looked the other way when the attack on the CIA base in Benghazi was blamed on a peaceful demonstration that got out of hand are still there. All the individuals who sat and watched while a slow-motion coup against Donald Trump went on year after year are still there, just in much more senior positions now.

I can only hope that President Trump and his leadership team are fully aware of all this (which I assume they are), and are doing something about it (of which I'm not so sure).  One can't bring in complete outsiders to assume all intelligence agency leading positions without discarding literally generations worth of experience and insight.  Outsiders simply can't have that depth of insight.  However, if the existing leadership isn't using or providing that depth of insight, can we afford to keep them in place?

One has questions . . .

Peter