And so it begins. Starting today, as I already wrote about at excessive length here, I enter a period of involuntary nostalgia, regret and sadness, beginning with today’s anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, followed tomorrow by my first wedding anniversary in 43 years with no marriage to celebrate. Maybe this explains why I have even less sympathy for my Facebook friends still weeping, raging and making asses of themselves over the election loss by the worst major Presidential candidate in at least 150 years. Let’s see what they’re up to [I’m checking Facebook….]
Oh! It’s stupid meme day! One FBF posted this meme inspired by Communist Robert Reich…
George Soros and Bill Gates, of course, are purely benign in their use of their resources. Another posts this trenchant commentary:
Ugh. Please do better…
Ethics Alarms 
An eternal mystery: Why do so many Jews like Robert Reich and Bernie Sanders long for America to be turned into Soviet Russia? Didn’t they notice what the Soviets did to Russian Jews? Does the term “pogrom” mean anything to them? Do they know where so many Russian Jews migrated? A mystery.
Even though they believe America is unexceptional, they somehow believe that we will do Communism better.
Someone on reddit asked why the French turned to Napoleon. I explained that they wanted the chaos of the French Revolution and its aftermath (the Terror) to end and return to some kind of normalcy. The person then asked why they caused the chaos in the first place.
My answer:
“It was never their intent to cause the chaos. They genuinely thought they were creating a better life, a life based on reason and enlightenment, not on the old order of monarchy and religion. But the revolutionaries got impatient with those who were slow to embrace the new order of things and heads began to roll to the point where they began executing their own supporters for not being pure enough in their revolutionary spirit. It’s a cautionary tale that violence often breeds violence and that fanaticism is not confined to any one political philosophy.”
“We will do Communism better.” Such incredible hubris. We’re not stupid, we’re smart!
I don’t think they want to do Communism better, they just want to do Communism the same way, but this time THEY get to be at the top. They want to be at the top and more importantly, they want US under their boot.
For the last one.
Inflation is inflation of the money supply. To support unprecedented illegal immigration, the federal government is printing vast amounts of money to feed them, house them, fly them around the country to escape law enforcement, give them medical care, educate them, etc. This isn’t growing the GDP or the economy, so this excess money dilutes the money already in existence. This results in the commodities costing more in dollars. Deporting the tens of millions of illegal immigrants won’t make the cost of eggs in dollars go down (the damage has been done), but it will slow the continual increase and possibly prevent runaway inflation.
In places like Springfield, OH and several towns in Pennsylvania, the illegal immigrants are being used to displace American workers in decent paying factory jobs while driving up housing costs with subsidized payments to ‘staffing agencies’ to ‘take care of them’. Bringing in slave labor to displace free workers hurts the country as a whole.
Well put Michael. Those 10 million mouths eat eggs and a host of other foods. Reducing the number of mouths consuming food will cause the prices to fall.
The first determinant of demand is number of consumers.
Anyone have an idea which Target Audience JAGUAR was angling for, here?
The inimitable Greg Gutfeld: Did We Just Witness A Lineup Of Biden’s Previous Cabinet Picks In The New Jaguar Commercial
PWS
I saw the ad. I have no idea what market this is attempting to impress. I like the idea of “driver equity”. Especially for cars that start at about $90,000.00. Hey, I have a new political slogan when I run for President: “A Jaguar in every garage!”
jvb
[Just posted on this before I saw the reference here!]
I was reading an article at Catholic Answers by Michael Schmiesing that was addressing the notion of inflation as theft, and differentiating inflation from taxation (and defending the notion that taxation, despite libertarian claims, is not ipso facto theft). The main thrust is that the government, which largely controls inflation by controlling the available money supply, by allowing inflation is stealing from the American people by devaluing their money. This especially hits the poor the hardest. I think we could debate whether or not that actually constitutes to stealing, but many economists have noted that inflation means paying back a debt with money that is worth less than the money borrowed, which is advantageous to the debtor. The federal government, being a huge debtor, likes inflation for that reason. The average American, though, has to continually deal with prices increasing and worrying about whether wages increase to keep up with inflation.
To answer the question of the price of eggs (the normal 18-count large eggs I buy when from $2.50 to over $5.60 in the past few years), I have a couple of quick observations. First, by reducing demand and keeping the supply the same, you lower prices. We can argue whether deporting 10 million people keeps the supply the same, since some of those 10 million might be taking care of the chickens. Under the table. For far less than minimum wage. And that might actually make eggs slightly more expensive for the increased production costs. But removing the demand on eggs by 10 million people would do a lot to depress the cost of eggs. Anyone with the slightest understand of economics could answer that.
But aside from that, there’s a stupidity in connecting one policy with one result, as though that were the totality of what is in the works. There are important reasons, not just economic, why the border needs secured and the millions of people here illegally need addressed. Look at the last years of the Western Roman Empire, when unchecked migration of entire Germanic clans resulted in pockets of autonomous government and frequent rebellions against Roman rule, which ultimately resulted in the fracture of the empire beyond repair. But consider also the human condition of many people entering the US illegally, with the massive issue of human trafficking.
Frankly, the Democratic messaging of how fields won’t get picked, lawns won’t get mown, and other services break down when illegals are deported suggests to me that they are perfectly fine with using illegal immigrants as slave labor.
It’s funny how people think assets “gaining in value,” e.g., your house being “worth more” is a good thing. They never look at the rapidly vanishing value of their dollars. My best friend from college grew up on Long Island and worked for a German guy who ran a sprinkler installation company. John would do impersonations of his boss, Zeke, or some such. His favorite line of Zeke’s was his raging, “Iss not pros-perity, iz FLATION!” And this was back in the ’60s. Of course, I suspect Zeke could very well remember The Weimar Republic.
My parents built the house I came home to from the hospital in 1951 for $12,500. The house has a current Zillow value of over $500,000. Great investment, huh? No, look what happened to the value of that $12,500. It’s been decimated.
The Romans?
Why would you bring up the Romans?
That was so long ago.
The Roman Empire is not even around anymore.
That’s ancient history!
What could we possibly learn from history?
-Jut
They were white colonial settlers.
The sarcasm aside, I would reference other migrations that have had devastating impacts on local populations, but the closest apples-to-apples comparison I could make (that I’m actually informed about) would be the Goths and Vandals making a muck of the Roman political infrastructure in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. (The Huns were another matter entirely…)
I do think there is a lesson to be learned about a mess of European immigrants flooding various locations and entirely destroying local peoples, even empires, but since anything bad happening to the descendants of those European immigrants is a GOOD thing (apparently), I’m not sure that comparison would hit home nearly as well as it should.
And, there’s apparently the concern by leftists that right-wing radicals think of the Roman Empire multiple times a day, so I’m just trying to keep up my end of the radicalism.
Sarcasm aside, the fall of the Roman Empire is perfectly analogous, so long as you don’t refer to the invasion on the southern border as one of barbaric hordes.
-Jut
Ryan wrote, ” . . . pockets of autonomous government and frequent rebellions against Roman rule, which ultimately resulted in the fracture of the empire beyond repair.”
Isn’t that what is happening with numerous local and state governments openly declaring they will not, under any circumstances, help, support, aid, or otherwise participate in deporting illegal aliens if Trump makes such a demand? Isn’t that defiance of the Constitution and the supposed rule of law? What is Trump supposed to do, then? Shrug his shoulders and say, “well, I tried but Michelle Wu in Boston won’t help me.” Or does he say, “Uh, Michelle? You won’t help? Cool. You know all that federal money you get to meet your budget? Guess what? Nashville needs it more. We are sending it over there. Sorry. Have a nice day.”
jvb
Any thoughts on this one?
https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/21/deus-in-machina-swiss-church-installs-ai-powered-jesus
That is horrible. I mean, it is one thing to portray Jesus in a movie. It is another to have an AI ‘Jesus’ to dole out advice. How is this different from all the priests claiming that they are Jesus? You can train the priests the same way you train the AI, so why can’t they all claim to be Jesus?
Here is a post on Threads worth writing about.
https://www.threads.net/@mejercit/post/DCmV8qwvsP4
Heard something interesting today: Christians fall into 2 categories: People who would withhold food from 100 for fear 1 didn’t need it and people who would feed 100 out of concern 1 was hungry.
-andrew.j.gibbons1
My reply:
So what is the right balance?
I think it’s a reductionist argument. Christians don’t fear one person won’t need food (or housing or medical care or health care or whatever the Magic Pill argument that’s being made), they are concerned that a large number of people are being conditioned to eshew responsibility for a poor work ethic, bad financial decisions and irresponsible spending habits by becoming dependent on taxpayer handouts to enable those behaviors.
Most Americans don’t have a problem helping people in need. We do have a problem with giving someone a fish every day who refuses to learn how to fish himself.
Not to detract from your fantastic comment at all, but “We do have a problem with giving someone a fish every day who refuses to learn how to fish himself…” I think short sells the problem. It is an insidious evil to handicap someone by making them dependent on you or a government for their needs. Just as we’d rightly condemn a parent who never taught her child how to be an adult, in order to exercise control or even just to keep the child in her life, so we recognize that limiting a person’s potential, even if done with good intentions, is a horrible disservice.
Bingo!
HITLER finds out Trump won
MONEY QUOTE: Comparing me to Trump achieved absolutely nothing
MONEY QUOTE, 2.0: Harris compared Trump to me, I’m nothing like him; I didn’t win after I lost.
PWS
I wonder if there are any State Department employees who are planning to work to undermine Trump’s foreign policy agenda?
Nah.
https://freebeacon.com/biden-harris-administration/unacceptable-that-the-department-accommodates-this-behavior-house-foreign-affairs-member-calls-for-state-dept-briefing-over-post-election-therapy-sessions/
From that article:
That is definitely part of the problem. We hire these people to promote the national interest abroad, not promote partisan political goals or agendas.
I told my sisters there was some news we would all regard as good (albeit for different reasons):
Matt Gaetz has announced he will not be taking his seat in the next Congress. So time for DeSantis to schedule an election as soon as possible.
I told them I’d heard he might be thinking of running for governor in 2026, since DeSantis is term limited. They said that they’d heard DeSantis might appoint him to fill Rubio’s seat in the Senate. We all hope that’s not going to happen, although I suspect again for different reasons.
So that’s one gone in the Republican version of the Squad. A few more to go.
And it’s a bit less of a problem for the speaker next year as he tries to guide the House.
You skipped your traditional JFK post.
One thing of note, although last year marked the official time frame. We’re farther past the 9/11 attacks than the JFK assassination was past Pearl Harbor.
In terms of cultural memory and trauma that seems significant. Though it might not be.
Yup. I’ll have to do some of the usual Christmas stuff, but from JFK’s assassination, through today, my first wedding anniversary without a wife, and the holiday depression ahead all the way past New Year, I’m trying to think about other things. Unfortunately, none of them are cheering me up either.
I feel Lincoln’s assassination still looms large after 160 years.
Ugh. Sorry. It certainly weighs heavier. I know you posted many days about about not attended someone else’s thanksgiving as an “orphan”. But frankly is precisely what Thanksgiving is partly about. We host our family and any friends and any acquaintances that don’t have a place to celebrate with others. Often the non-family are people temporarily in town or permanent residences whose families are too far.
Every single one has said it was worth attending as “an orphan” (in different words). And it’s worth it for the other attendees too.
By the way- if you were to randomly fly to Fort Worth- you’d be welcome at the West household.
I love Fort Worth. John Wayne’s favorite hattery is there.
I didn’t realize that!