Archive for July, 2022

5 Quick Thoughts Under the Fedora The Liberal City Ten Count, Easy pickings in Kenly NC, Reynolds Jan 6th Prediction, Hume -2 Mil, Avoid Monkeying Around to Avoid Monkey-Pox

Posted: July 24, 2022 by datechguy in under the fedora

Today’s First Reading at Mass was Abraham asking God if he would spare Sodom & Gomorra if he could find at least 50, then 45, then 30 and finally 10 people and God answering

“For the sake of those ten I will not destroy it.”

Genesis 18:32b

With the mass migration of normal people from blue states and areas I have a sinking feeling that cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore, NYC and DC have a bureaucrat whose job it is to make sure that the population of actual faithful Catholics living in the city limits never falls below ten.

I suspect this job has become more vital over time

A Town in North Carolina police force has resigned en masse over a new city manager citing a “hostile work environment”

The new town manager has a history of employment in liberal cities and I suspect brought a lot of that with her to this town in NC, but I suspect the new woke agenda isn’t playing here:

“It is with a heavy heart that I take this action. I have been with the town since 2004 and fully expected to finish my law enforcement career with the Town of Kenly. Unfortunately, there are decisions being made that jeopardize my safety and make me question what the future will hold for a Kenly Police Officer,” wrote officer G.W. Strong.

There are a lot of liberal cities bleeding police and heading to departments big and small in Red States. I suspect none of those police will be heading to Kenly North Carolina.

If I’m a thief or gang member from Raleigh or Goldsboro I’d be planning on an excursion to Kenly in a couple of weeks as there will likely be easy pickings, but if you want your small town to become more “progressive” you can’t do it without cost.

I noted that Glenn Reynolds in his linkage of a Johnathan Turley piece on the latest from the Jan 6th committee ended with this comment:

Also, if things keep going the way they’re going, the January 6 “insurrectionists” will ultimately be looked back upon as martyrs who tried to prevent a tragedy.

All of what has happened has been due to cowardice. The unwillingness to bluntly state that there were shenanigans in the last election that the establishment left and their allies in the judiciary in the blue states and regions they took place in were unwilling to call out in fear of rocking the boat has had huge consequences for this country and caused incredible pain to hundreds of millions of people.

I shudder to think what the result will be when they try this again in 2024, I suspect the result will not be as peaceful.

I really can’t do better than Stacy McCain in his takedown of Edenborough University over them cancelling David Hume (d 1776) for not being sufficiently woke by 21st century standards:

defaming the dead is easy work. Hume was a man of formidable skill in argumentation, and if anyone at the time had found fault with this footnote in his essay, certainly Hume would have been capable of defending himself. As it was, of course, no one in 18th-century Europe had any reason to question Hume’s judgment on this matter. How many avid believers in racial equality were there in England in 1758? Few, if any, I’m sure, and probably they had more important matters to deal with than accosting a Scottish philosopher about a footnote.

Really, why was this deemed important enough to rename a building at the University of Edinburgh? Is it any wonder that donors are canceling their bequests? What a silly tempest in a teapot — “Ban the dead racist David Hume!” — yet the Eminent Scholars in charge of a university evidently took it seriously.

Well they likely didn’t need those 2 million pounds of bequests cancelled so far anyways did they.

UPDATE soon to be banned:

The media keeps breathlessly going on about Monkey Pox however they have not yet been able to report on what for them would be the holy grail for Monkey Pox. An outbreak among monogamous straight people.

Put simply for all the hysteria concerning Monkeypox if you want to avoid the disease here is the secret:

Monogamous sex with one monogamous partner

I’d like to point out this cunning plan works with both straight and gay couples.

and I’ll leave you with this tweet:

Pritzker meddled in GOP gubernatorial primaries

Posted: July 24, 2022 by John Ruberry in covid, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Amazingly, the quiet presidential campaign of J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire pol from the family that created the Hyatt hotel chain and more, continues. That says about the girth of Illinois governor’s ego and the threadbare status of the Democratic presidential bench, as the failures of the Joe Biden administration continue to mount.

Illinois, despite the influx of COVID bailout cash, remains a financial basket case. At best, Pritzker and his fellow Democrats have only chipped away at the state’s pension bomb. Illinois has the worst-funded public pension system among the states. In 2021 the Prairie State lost 122,000 residents, only New York and the District of Columbia, percentage-wise, saw a bigger population drop.

At Wirepoints, Mark Glennon, justifiably eviscerated Pritzker in his critique of the governor’s trial run of a presidential campaign speech given last weekend in Florida. Yes, Florida, the place that Democrats, including Pritzker’s wife during the worst period of the COVID-19 lockdowns, flock to, despite the governorship of Ron DeSantis, a man they hate. Oh, while in Florida–Pritzker was there to give the keynote speech at a gathering of Florida Democrats–he contracted COVID. I wish him well–as someone who was afflicted with COVID last month, I can say that it is not an enjoyable experience. 

I’m going to focus on just a couple of items from Pritzker’s dishonest Florida speech. “We honor the results of elections,” Pritzker said, obviously alluding to the Capitol Riot and its show trial investigation of it by the House January 6th Committee. In response Glennon retorted, “In Illinois, that would be elections based on the most gerrymandered map in the nation, which he approved in violation of what many regarded as his most important campaign promise – to deliver fair maps.” Yes, Pritzker repeatedly vowed as a candidate in 2018 to veto gerrymandered legislative and congressional maps. The Democratic supermajorities in the General Assembly–in place because of the 2011 gerrymandered map–sent to Pritzker’s desk new contorted legislative maps, which Pritzker signed into law. 

Pritzker lied–and free and fair congressional and state legislative elections in the Land of Lincoln died. But since Glennon’s article was posted, the Chicago Tribune revealed that Pritzker this year contributed $24 million to the Democratic Governors Association. That group spent millions on ads supporting the most conservative Republican candidate running to replace Pritzker this autumn, state Sen. Darren Bailey, who easily won the GOP nomination. Yes, I voted for Bailey. 

As with other races the DGA has meddled in, the group saw Bailey as the most conservative, or in their likely thoughts, the most extreme candidate. And presumably the easiest one for Democrats to defeat in November. But such a ploy might backfire. In another Republican gubernatorial primary race that the Democratic Governors Association meddled in, its preferred “extreme” candidate, Doug Mastriano, trails the Democratic nominee by only a few points. Yes, he can win, which has some Dems nervous. 

On the flipside, imagine the mainstream media uproar if Republicans funded the campaigns of a Bernie Bro socialist running in a Democratic primary. They’d cry, “Election interference,” and “This is undermining free and fair elections!”

A couple of times in my lifetime–on the presidential level–Democrats received the GOP general election candidate they were rooting for, Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Donald Trump in 2016. You know what happened.

Bailey, in deep blue Illinois, faces a tougher hurdle than Mastriano. But much can happen in the next four months, and Joe Biden’s continued mismanagement of the economy, the border–heck, his complete mismanagement of everything–may compel moderate Land of Lincoln voters to send a message to the Democrats. 

Are there enough such Illinoisans to send Pritzker packing? 

Not yet, as a recent poll tells us.

Because of high taxes, Illinoisans suffer from among the highest gasoline prices in the nation. Pritzker, under the guise of a tax cut, is forcing Illinois gas station owners to post signs informing motorists of the “tax cut,” which is really a delay in an inflation adjustment, suspending it until December. Gas station operators who refuse to post the required signage face a $500-a-day fine. Without the fine threat, Illinois grocers are also being forced to post similar signage about a one-year suspension of a one-percent sales tax.

If Pritzker prevails over Bailey, look for his presidential campaign to begin. It will fail. Pritzker is not a likable candidate–and Illinois’ standards are low. His flat speeches are drenched in condescension. Pritzker comes across as a sleazy closer at a Las Vegas timeshare presentation, a meeting that you only agreed to endure after being promised free show tickets and two glasses of wine “Sign here,” he’d say, “you won’t regret it,” as all 350 pounds of him leans into you.

But not even alcohol can make Pritzker more palatable. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Why we’re not solving the veteran suicide problem

Posted: July 23, 2022 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Uncategorized
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Spoiler alert: its because we’re solving the wrong problem.

You can’t walk around on a military base without being innundated with suicide prevention materials. Walk down any hallway and there’s a poster with the hotline number. Navigate to any DoD website and there is a 24/7 military suicide chat line linked at the bottom. Heck, even if you sit down to do your business in the bathroom, you’ll see a suicide prevention poster on the inside of the door.

Granted, the suicide rate in the military is rising. The military is composed mainly of 18-25 year old men, who traditionally have the highest rate of suicide. Combined with the stress of working in a job field where people actively try to kill you while you kill them, and you’d think that would spike the suicide rate. But for the longest time, despite the many years spent in Afghanistan and Iraq, military suicide was statistically lower than average.

From Suicide Rates Among Active Duty Service Members Compared with Civilian Counterparts, 2005–2014

Look at 2005-2008 here. The rate is far below what you would expect. You can look at the crude numbers here as well.

It’s obvious though that the rate was rising. If you look at combat deaths and the news, the United States had a nasty surge in combat deaths from 2009-2011. This was when we were trying to drawdown in Iraq and surging in Afghanistan. It would be easy to blame the added stress for the rise in suicide. But I’m not so sure. After the surge, the number of combat deaths plummeted, yet the military suicide rate continued to rise. The additional stresses of combat, once removed, don’t support the hypothesis that it caused the increase in suicide.

In order to have enough troops to surge, the military, particularly the Army, waived a lot of requirements, including physical standards and prior drug use. This means that instead of selecting from the best of the crop, you get a swath of people that look more like most Americans, which means you get the suicide rate of most Americans. Notice that the suicide rate plateaus and matches the average civilian rate.

This is further confirmed by looking at the most recent suicide rates. The rate slowly began rising again from 2018 until today, despite a continued decline in combat deaths. Now its rising again. What are we doing that might cause it to rise?

From DoD Suicide Report
From DoD Report on Suicide

If you look at my previous posts here, I’ve been complaining about the drop in standards and loss in direction for the military for a while now. The Army finally admitted it will simply be short 10,000 troops, but that it “wanted to maintain high standards” instead of recruiting more soldiers. To that I call BS, because they already lowered standards a lot in order to get to where they are at now.

Worse still, we’re cutting back on training. The Army softened its boot camp, which caused retention to go up, but likely didn’t help build soldier’s confidence. Most of the services have cut back on specialized training (the Navy in particular), so its harder for service members to feel like an expert in their field. Combine that with a refocus on things like “extremism training,” and military members can’t be faulted for feeling a bit adrift.

So we’re lowering entrance standards, which we have proof raises our sucide rate, AND we’re shortening and softening our training, making less capable military members (who, by the way, KNOW that they aren’t as capable). That’s a bad combination, and its the real reason behind the continued rise in suicide. It’s not that we lack the funding for suicide prevention programs. It’s that we’re solving the wrong problem.

Until we solve the standards problem, we can’t begin to prevent military suicide.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

And if you’re thinking about suicide, put it off for a day, watch this Jordan Peterson video, and then call a friend or a hotline. We’d rather have you around.

Cheney 2024? She’d be Running for the Cash & Status

Posted: July 23, 2022 by datechguy in Uncategorized

I don’t understand the confusion about a possible Liz Cheney run for the GOP nomination for President.

But on what planet does Cheney think she would seriously have a shot at the nomination in 2024? She could obviously try to run as an independent and wind up on the back page like almost everyone else who has tried it. But to run as a Republican, she would have to win primaries in a lot of states where Donald Trump remains very popular, including her home state. Not every Republican voter is a Trump fan, it’s true. And there are still many who probably wish he would stay on the sidelines and let the party move on without the constant circus atmosphere that Trump always generates. But that doesn’t mean that they want to see him being trashed by Cheney in prime time every night on CNN.

The mistake here is the thought that she actually thinks she could win the nomination or that getting elected would be her goal.

The reality is that money would flow to from the left to her campaign, because her every appearance would be trashing Donald Trump. She would be constantly on TV not as a former congresswoman but as a former GOP presidential candidate. Furthermore those campaign funds can be used to enrich herself and or others to allow her influence.

Cheney likely has decades of life ahead of her, and apparently wants to delay her comfortable retirement as a person wealth but no influence for as long as possible. Once she is of no further use to the left she will discarded as all useful idiots are for the left who will not forgive her for opposing abortion and of course she will not be welcome on the right either.

So a 2024 Stop Trump campaign will be the best shot to delay that decent into irrelevance at least till she hits 60

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