2022: It sucked.
2023: Hoping for better.
That pretty much sums it all up…
Good bits? Slim pickings… Escaped California for Florida. Bought a bigger nicer house and a boat.
Hope for this 2023 year? Sail the boat more. Catch some Florida fish. See the WEFies and Euro GEBs “hair on fire” collapse as their Ukraine Money Laundry collapses and they discover that Russia & China are now partners and have Global Manufacturing, Energy, and Minerals pretty much sewn up. “Good luck with that”…
Global Warming? To quote Gandhi: “I think it would be a very good thing.” Like “Western Culture”…
So Happy New Year! to all, and may things only get better from here.
Musings from the Chiefio 
Many thanks EM and Happy New Year .. we must hope … and make it better will all our ability.
My brother reports Twitter is a very interesting place now. He got a free account after Musk took over. Apparently there are discussion groups that sometimes have thousands of people. He said you hear some news there before it comes more widely known. At any rate, he seems to be enjoying it. I don’t have a smart phone, so I guess I won’t be getting an account. Just reporting.
Maybe some hope on vaccinations of young people and children in 2023:
https://www.gbnews.uk/news/nhs-has-been-captured-by-big-pharma-says-tory-mp-as-he-calls-on-government-to-halt-mrna-rollout/415105
Still nothing in the YSM about excessive stillbirths, miscarriages, or drops in fertility, that may be the biggest long-term problems with the mRNA technology.
One of the things that came up on my Linked-In feed was someone (from a medical company) saying just how much of a success the mRNA technology was, and how many lives it had saved. Nearly all the comments on it opposed that viewpoint, so I figure that among a large proportion of the technically-competent people the reality is obvious. Unfortunately, seems like not a high proportion of the population is technically competent, though. Despite the obvious (to me at least) failures of the politicians to deal with problems correctly during the pandemic, or to sort out energy supply problems before they became a life and death situation, seems most people believe what they are told on the news by anyone with some claim to authority.
On the bright side, there should be some announcements this year on cheap ways to get energy and propulsion, with stuff that I used to think was impossible. Also cheap low-energy heating/cooling that I’m working on with a friend, where it turns out it’s possible to produce a constant temperature difference without needing to do work to sustain that temperature difference. The work put in goes into shifting the air around. Sneaky physics, and some technical problems that I think we’ve solved, and the underlying principle is that a system will tend towards an equilibrium at its lowest potential energy. If you disturb that equilibrium, it will move back towards it. Thus if you can find two equlibria, where the result of each one disturbs the equilibrium of the other one, the overall equilibrium situation is one of constant movement as each one moves towards equilibrium but cannot reach it because the other situation keeps disturbing it. One such situation happens in solar cells that are illuminated and will also work at a lower photon energy such as room-temperature radiation (so the input energy is always there), but we found another one using solvents. I call this principle “conflicting equilibria”, and it might be useful in other situations. I can’t yet put up a full explanation since Phil wants to patent the design, and hasn’t yet done that. Still, cheap aircon for those that need it, and cheap low-level heating (by around 20°C) for those that need heat instead. Also, very little to wear out or go wrong.
Happy New Year to all!
Robert Malone at Truth or Consequences VATP Summit
On the loss of integrity throughout our governments and TLAs, and the Twitter Files.
https://rumble.com/v20zrv4-robert-malone-at-truth-or-consequences-vatp-summit.html
Happy New Year to you all too :-)
Glad to see 2022 move into the history books. What do I want for 2023? Cheap, decentralized, energy production, but that is my second choice. First choice? A good ruling by the Supreme Court on the Brunson v. Adams Case.
https://usawatchdog.com/last-failsafe-to-fix-2020-election-at-supreme-court-brunson-v-adams/
Happy New Year
More dredging
“The UNPROFOR Cables”
“The established mythos of the Bosnian War is that Serb separatists, encouraged and directed by Slobodan Milošević and his acolytes in Belgrade, sought to forcibly seize Croat and Bosniak territory in service of creating an irredentist “Greater Serbia.” Every step of the way, they purged indigenous Muslims in a concerted, deliberate genocide, while refusing to engage in constructive peace talks.”
And
“We bombed the wrong side”
https://people.ece.ubc.ca/leonardo/pub/mackenzie04.htm
“And, So On To 2023”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2023/01/01/and-so-on-to-2023/
“Western Financial System to Mexico: Nice Peso You Got There, it’d be a Shame if Something Happened to It
December 29, 2022 | sundance | 193 Comments
As we’ve been saying for seven months, keep watching how the globalists respond to Mexico. AMLO doesn’t want to join the economic suicide pact known as Build Back Better, or the North American version “Green New Deal.” This puts him in a precarious place.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/12/29/western-financial-system-to-mexico-nice-peso-you-got-there-itd-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/
Mexico next potential BRICS member?
On vaccinations – “Anti-covid-“vaxers” are not “Anti-vaxers”
“Likewise I’m probably not going to say much more about “the virus”, our response to it, and what is likely incoming as a result of our “response.” Those who have and do get hammered the worst fall into two categories generally; those who were fragile originally and thus the virus was nothing really special at all since anything could have been the “last straw” and those who either voluntarily did stupid things or put up with whatever coercive measures were taken, not all of which were personal. The wild credit firehose spraying gasoline on a smoldering economy, as an example, might have seemed reasonable to some but never was; spraying gasoline on a smoldering fire sometimes lights it back up but sometimes it explodes in your face. That risk was foolish and yet everyone in the political sphere played along so they’d “get theirs.”
Fine and well, as far as it goes, but don’t kid yourself: The consequences are real, they’re not going away anytime soon and despite myself and a few others warning that these were bad ideas across the board nobody stepped out on the front porch in quantity and said “cut it out right now or else!”
Ask yourself this: We all grew up in this nation getting a bevvy of shots — Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Diphtheria, Polio and more. If you were born after about 1992 you got the varicella (Chicken Pox) shot. I had the standard assortment in the 1960s and I don’t regret any of them. How many people do you know who got those shots and then got the disease the shot allegedly protected them from? My count among those I’ve come into contact with across my 59 years on this rock is to my knowledge zero across all of those diseases.
If one person you knew drew a short straw, or it was you, then perhaps that could be excused as the one oddball failure because we all know nothing is perfect. But save me your rationalizations when it comes to this round because by far those who took the stabs got the disease anyway after being allegedly “immunized”, some people got it more than once (among the people I know the personal record post-jab is three alleged infections) and everyone knows it. Your ex-post-facto argument of “lesser outcome” is both unproved and an act of personal and public deception you cower behind instead of demanding political and economic heads for being talked into or coerced to accept these things under what is now proved false pretense. Fine; you deal with it, and if you were one of the people who did a personally foolish thing I doubt there’s anything that can be done to change the prize you either have or may get awarded for doing so. I will further caution that as with all such events there will be plenty of people who both deny what happened and why along with those trying to sell you some sort of snake oil they claim will fix it. Both are lies — of that I’m pretty certain.”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=247764
Other things discussed there too
Not sure when this was recorded. Computer glitch sets off 18 minute fireworks display in 25 seconds! This might be a foretaste of 2023.
2022 A Year of Madness of Crowds,
https://www.loa.org/news-and-views/1588-james-thurber-the-day-the-dam-broke
hoping 2023 will be a ‘wait a minute’ year. Happy New Year to E.M and all denizens.
@ The True N.
A lightening strike on the top of Stone Mountain Georgia did a similar thing in 1969 or 1970 (?)
Both interesting and ruinous (of the show) at the same time.
On average, we live pretty well: worse than last year, but definitely better than next year. – Russian joke.
@ jim2:
You can use your regular computer to get on Twitter.
Just sayin’…
@EM Smith
Just wondering – when I try to post a comment mentioning a well-known (to us) Dr RWM with a link to a recent video on “Truth or consequences”, the comment doesn’t appear. Not sure if it’s a WordPress glitch, or some kind of shadow banning, or moderation at your end – what do you think?
Keith,
Change or reverse a few letters or add a symbol, blank, or underline — and try again.
For emaxlpe, it deson’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aepapr, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm.
another ian, That’s a good take on the half-full joke.
However, EVERYTHING in 2022 was strictly by party line, so it would have to be:
Demo: It’s full
Repo: It’s empty
Reality: It’s piss
But on a more cheerful note:
https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/sicilys-ravaged-past-of-being-conquered-and-occupied-countless-times-is-reflected-in-todays-cultural-richness/news-story/4098bd69f5c33e92b6a1361fc0f3f703
@Simon:
Sounds a bit like the “regenerators” in a Sterling Engine… but different ;-)
@Another Ian:
OMG! that’s a good one!
Then the Outhouses too?
Per BRICS:
There’s a HUGE pent up frustration / pissed off-ness at The West (EU, UK, USA) for basically pissing on small countries for a couple of centuries. With the BRICS folks being, well, nice about stuff, there’s an ever growing line of countries looking to jump to their side of the ledger (especially now that the systems are built and Russia is an existence proof that they work.)
Just saw a RT Video today about the Central African Republic where their leaders basically said that.
Expect a lot of Africa and South America to make the move, along with Muslim countries.
@Keith:
Found it (only one copy) in the SPAM folder, so not me.
LINK: https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2023/01/01/2022-year-in-review/#comment-162055
Likely that “voted off the island” method that I’ve postulated is how the SPAM filter works (enough Mods toss something it gets tagged SPAM until this Mod hauls it back out).
@YMMV:
I must be part Sicilian then… My POV is anyone wanting “reparations” from folks who were never alive then for people who are not alive now, needs to also plan on paying “reparation” to the Republicans for ending Slavery and all UNION families that died in the doing it; plus a healthy sum to the British Navy for there part in the ending. Oh, and don’t forget to have that paid in large part by the African Warlords who enslaved neighbors and the Muslim Nations that did the trading…
Personally, I’d also point out that a lot of Irish were Indentured Servants (slaves in everything but name, really) so all folks with any Irish ancestry ought to get a cut of the “reparations” along with exemption from paying any. Just sayin’… fair is fair.
a lot of Irish were Indentured Servants
And if you want more unappreciated forgotten historical cheap labor, don’t forget the Chinese. Also non-complainers. They weren’t called Asian-Americans back then.
EM – I sent you an email with the principle of conflicted equilibria attached. Too early to make it public yet, and of course we need the experimental data that it actually works. Sort of thing that looks impossible overall until you break it down to all the processes involved and why each happens.
Something to think about during those long drives….
Thanks, Simon.
I’ll look it over and ponder. Won’t say anything about it until you say it is OK.
EM – I’ll leave it to your consideration as to when. If I suddenly go silent, could be I’m no longer around to be affected by who knows. The overall idea is however a bit like a koan, and probably needs a satori moment to see the point.
Regarding many small nations pissed at the West.
This is definitely happening. To paraphrase, the vanished past of all nations is dark with many shames.”
There is much truth to many accusations. And my concern is the US will bear the brunt of the animosity. Many things from the US were actually very good and helpful fir the world and post WW2. However the last couple of decades in particular we have harmed many. And I don’t expect Russia and China and the Islamic nations to do anything balanced. I expect this scenario will be used to break the petro dollar completely, and unfortunately, this and other actions I expect to manifest in a global economic fall.
David A
I’ve just finished reading Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick “The untold history of the United States”.
615 pages of text, pp 619 – 712 of “Notes” – I have not proof read the notes
Ends in 2013 with conclusions coloured by “CAGW” and what “Obama 1” might have done. One could say that their crystal ball was not well polished in the light of things since.
Heavily pictures the “American Empire” unless the “Notes” are extremely slanted.
Leaves one with the feeling that there is a religion taught that might be called “America the Greatest” with about as many jihadis as that other well known religion.
And that, if US gets a blooded nose in Ukraine, it will , like the Treaty of Versailles, be an excuse for another go probably sooner than later.
Views of a heathen looking from outside
FWIW
““Russian military bloggers, whose information has largely been reliable during the war, said …” ”
Seems to be a cite without a source but looks like there are some – maybe
https://blog.feedspot.com/russian_military_blogs/?_src=alsoin
Another Ian, I will in general concede my quoted assertion, “The vanished past of all nations are dark with many shames.”
I have seen some of Oliver Stone’s work that is good, and some that, IMV, is deeply biased. As EM has outlined well, agree with Russia or not, at least understand their position. Having achieved great global power, it is my view that the US did many decent things that helped other nations. It is also ever tempting to abuse power, and we certainly have. Long before I took Oliver Stones perspective, I would strive deeply to understand a counter viewpoint, or viewpoints.
My overriding concern and regretful expectation is that as our powers of technology have exceeded our spiritual maturity to engage them, we are globally more “One World” in a very practical technological fashion of instant global communication and vast international trade and corporations, then can survive the old hostilities re-enacted.
To”take down” the US, ( something we are doing quite well without the world blaming us) is to break the global economy, already riddled in debt and corruption. Will Ukraine be a catalyst. I don’t know. I somehow get the feeling that Russia very much does not want it to go beyond their clearly stated goals, and I think and believe the GEBs are losing popular support in most all nations. These WEF types, and Bidens and Merckles, and Trudeaus, and Bezos tech types, and the entire “woke” agenda etc… they, and their policies do not inspire folk to anything really. They mostly depress people in every way. I really think, after much pain, they will fail spectacularly.
David A
Not being a watcher of movies that is my first exposure to Oliver Stone, so a sort of “What the hell have I got here” approach.
They do air a fair bit of the Russian side over time, which generally seems less “empiratical”, and with a number of olive branches which were snubbed along the way
Some feedback on Russian sites
That was in the Sydney Morning Herald Ian, sorry- It was just amazing that they mentioned it.
That Feedspot site ranks like this-
“The best Russian Military blogs from thousands of blogs on the web and ranked by traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness.”
But sadly no rankings for information or accuracy.
I still use the Greek site-
https://warnews247-gr.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB
and a couple of reporters-
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUnc496-PPmFZVKlYxUnToA
https://www.youtube.com/c/DefensePoliticsAsia
And the rest of that quote
a couple of open sites-
https://www.moonofalabama.org/
https://thesaker.is/
and some Russian Telegram sites that need translating.
I braved a read of Moon Over Alabama. In the depths there it seems that Russia has a passive method for locating artillery and a very quick response time – and no detectable give aways
another Ian, I lost a post unfortunately. The gist was that I had sympathy for what happened here with PG. As an example there is a leftist group of posters at zerohedge, a long time hate America, hate Israel, support Islamist perspectives. I always found their linked assertions very short on many facts. ( In a general sense they ignored the evils of radical Islam, the burning of thousands of churches (still happening) the terrorist consequences of past Israeli attempts to appease, the decades of Islamic commitment to destroy Israel, and they ignored much history, cherry picking the past.)
Now, many of the sincere left feel betrayed and shocked as their democratic leaders are revealing their essential evil tyrannical ways on a national AND a global scale. The sincere left helped them achieve political power, and are shocked that they are now wedded to big business. They are now perhaps receptive to the wisdom of the founding principles of the US, a God given individual liberty and small weak central government. (Numerous anti vaccine substack writers are former leftists, that feel betrayed and shocked at the actions of the global leftists they once supported. Some politicians like Tubbi G , now an independent, fit in here as well.)
David – for most people, it’s hard to change beliefs, and any evidence that goes against those beliefs will normally be overlooked or discounted. Scientists are not immune to this, either, which is probably why CAGW is accepted as truth by so many people. When it comes to religion, beliefs get harder to drop since that involves many interlocking thought-structures that would need to change at the same time or in short succession to re-achieve a self-consistent system that doesn’t conflict.
People like to be certain that what they know is correct, and that there is an absolute right and wrong answer to any question (and that they have that answer). Reality, however, is that we can’t be sure any answer is actually correct, and you may never find out whether a decision was the optimum one at the time because in general you cannot see what would have happened if you had decided differently. Our world is actually chaotic where everything depends on everything else, and predictions can only be based on probabilities.
In engineering of course those predictions can be pretty-well certainties, and if something works (or doesn’t work) you’ll get the same result if you do the same thing, with the proviso that at the atomic level you can never do the same thing twice. Where we’re dealing with huge numbers of atoms, though, probabilities in practice end up so close to certainty that we may not see *something unexpected* happen in a lifetime or even the life of the universe.
So: in general we follow leaders who we expect (and hope, and mostly believe) to have considered a lot more things than we know about and thus have the right answer and the best decision about what to do. Sometimes those leaders will actually have done that, but there’s always the stuff that we don’t know we don’t know, and the problem of what we know is right but in fact isn’t. Thus with the vaccines, the belief of the inventors that they know enough about the immune system to be able to modify it safely. Odd thing here is that no-one seems to know how adjuvants actually work, except that they make the immune system concentrate on the nasty stuff you inject at the same time and where without the adjuvant the immune system would quietly destroy the injected stuff rather than overproduce antibodies to destroy any future attack as well, as it does with the adjuvant. Finding a better adjuvant is a matter of trial and error, for example using the blue blood of horseshoe crabs – maybe not something you’d really want injected since it’s very alien to our systems.
The problem with the leftist viewpoint is that a lot sounds good in theory, but human nature means that it won’t work in practice. Collectivised medical systems mean that no-one will be bankrupted by a medical problem, and can remain productive members of the population longer because medical problems can be fixed early. The downside is that incompetence won’t be rewarded by the patients deserting that bad doctor, since you won’t have a choice about who to go to. A safety-net for those temporarily out of work is a good thing, but if a person doesn’t get significantly more money for working than not-working, you’ll end up with a lot more not-working and higher taxes on those that do work to pay for the non-productive people. When taxes are too high, productivity drops, and everyone ends up poorer. Pure capitalism, where if you don’t work you don’t eat, also has its problems. Thus we really need to find the right middle way, with enough capitalism to encourage people to do their best to be productive, and enough socialism to protect people from accident or illness pauperising them. I’d expect as many opinions on the optimum split as the people I asked.
Interesting thing here is that the traditional ways in general work, since in a Darwinistic way the systems that didn’t work have failed and gone away. Any new system we bring in may have failure modes we haven’t thought of, and it will take a few generations at least to find out if they worked or not. Any new “reform” brought in (because politicians love to mess around with things) could cause a working system to collapse. In the meantime, changes in technology are producing their own stresses, and the rate of advances is accelerating too.
My strategy has been to become far less certain about anything, and though I know from experience what is possible to do I’m far less certain about what is impossible.
Whenever all of the necessary and sufficient conditions are present for contingent systems, they’ll have the same outcome they had before. The catch is *all necessary and sufficient conditions*; where what we think we know may not be so. For the Being that Is Being, that’s not the case. Choose wisely. Man does not live by bread (chemicals) alone. Faith is certain knowledge of that which we can’t know any other way. Faith flows from sound axioms and sound reasoning, too.
Simon, thank you for your thoughtful reply which I mostly agree with. We part slightly in a couple of directions. The first is a degree more than a direction. Take this which you said;
“Collectivised medical systems mean that no-one will be bankrupted by a medical problem, and can remain productive members of the population longer because medical problems can be fixed early. The downside is that incompetence won’t be rewarded by the patients deserting that bad doctor, since you won’t have a choice about who to go to…”
I think the upside is not accurate to observational evidence, and the downside is understated. There is a chance we will ALL be bankrupted by the incredible corruption within any system, enforced by the rule of law and the power of government. The US medical system is incredibly expensive and wasteful, and counter productive. The downside is manifestly far worse than medical doctor choice. It is what we are currently witnessing with the deadly vaccines and the government law backed tyranny.
I think you correctly point out that;
“human nature means that it won’t work in practice.”
yet it is important to my thinking to realize that the dark side of “human nature ” is always and everywhere what can and will fail in ANY system of government. Communism never hurt anyone, capitalism never hurt anyone, people within those systems hurt harmed, abused and murdered millions. Communism, practiced by Saints, would work just fine, and so would capitalism, and so would anarchy.
This is why it is my view that the best system is one that severely limits group power over others, versus any system that codifies that power under the rule of law and power over others. “Government is a necessary evil.”
IMV CD makes a critical observation. Being true to our nature, the good side, the spiritual side, is a necessary prerequisite for a society to prosper and live in harmony.
David – I think we pretty-much agree here, but I was trying to not write a full essay and keep the length down (a bit). The big problem with central control (which seems to apply to socialised medicine) is that you end up with a single point of failure when the people in control believe the wrong things and impose a single type of response/fix. The advantage of a diverse system is that though we’ll get a greater number of failures because there are more wrong choices than optimal choices, those failures will be limited in size and thus enough people will still exist to continue in the communities that chose differently.
Since I grew up in the UK with the NHS (it started about 6 years before I was born) and have now been living in France a couple of decades and have seen the French version of socialised medicine, I think it generally works OK and of course there remain unaffiliated doctors and dentists who you can go to instead, providing you can pay. Thus we are not actually limited to only the socialised medical system, though of course some politicians are intending to fix things to reduce the choices until only the State runs it. The French system may be a bit better than the UK system since you can choose your doctor and the hospitals are all private businesses but where a large proportion of the bill (70%) is paid by the government. A bit more expensive per person than the NHS, AFAIK, but probably worth the extra. Downside here is that there are a lot of forms to fill in and many separate bills (more paperwork, so less efficient).
However, it seems all governments followed the same song-sheet on Covid and the vaccines. Probably that response was set by the Bill Gates-sponsored exercise in 2019 gaming what would happen if such a virus emerged and the best response governments could provide to it. The virus duly emerged, and governments had the newly-agreed plan to deal with it, and they all followed it. Here I’d suggest the Peter principle was operating, where people had risen to their level of incompetence, and thus took “expert” advice from the WHO as being the logical thing to do. We’re down to that effective single-point failure mode again, even though those decisions were taken by committees.
For the rest of your comment, I agree. The problem, though, is how exactly you limit the power of government. Here, I think Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy applies, so that over time the government organisations tend to both grow and to focus on extending their reach and power rather than serving the people who pay for them. This seems to always have applied throughout history, resulting in civilisation collapses when the load became too great for the population to support. I don’t know if this boom/bust cycle can be beaten given the way humans work, though I do have hopes that cheap energy (from new technology), fast communications (from the net), and the rapid advance of effective automation (robots providing cheap manufacturing and other boons), will counter this and avoid the bust that seems imminent.
But: Hope is not a strategy….
Simon says, “The problem, though, is how exactly you limit the power of government.”
I think the foundational principles of the US, if enforced, are very successful at just that, with a few modifications in application to our current world. The deeper problem from my perspective is how to get society as a human whole, to up their game to avoid the dark side of human nature, and manifest the spiritual side. My recommendation for that is a deep and profound study and education on happiness, the attributes and qualities that universally achieve it, and the attributes and qualities that universally fail to achieve it and instead only promise happiness, but invariable and universally end in misery.
I know nothing at all of Kevin McCarthy but he seems to have been having great difficulty in getting elected speaker when I understand it is normally a formality. He seems to be very disliked by his fellow Republicans. Why is that?
David – the critical words here are “if enforced”. Seems to me that at the moment the Constitution is not being enforced, and others laws and regulations are either not enforced or are differentially enforced depending on whether it’s useful to the people currently in charge (may not be those who appear to be the leaders).
Today there are so many laws that no one person can know what they all are. Most likely everyone breaks laws every day. It’s thus pretty easy to find a cause to prosecute someone you want to punish.
Thus maybe the first place to start would be to both review the body of law and to remove the unneeded ones, and then to find a way to make the law so simple that it’s hard to evade or get around. Might even be as simple as “if 12 people think you shouldn’t have done that, it was wrong and you’ll be punished”.
@Tonyb
He’s not disliked by all Republicans, just the few who are still independent thinkers. McCarthy is the establishment Uniparty choice to carry on the status quo Washington BS. This has some further details:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/01/05/matt-gaetz-outlines-the-issues-underpinning-opposition-to-kevin-mccarthy-as-house-speaker/
Jon
Thank you. That is a lot of hold outs. It seems unlikely they will all back down so will it mean that McCarthy will need to withdraw in favour of another candidate?
It’s more likely that he offers concessions and committee chairs to the hold outs in return for their votes, but it is possible he withdraws. I fear it is all just temporary drama and the swamp will remain undamaged.
Tonyb
No need to panic – they’re no way close to breaking a record
FWIW, per McCarthy:
I am paying no attention to the repeated failures. Why? I have no ability to influence it at all, and it just gets my stomach turning to think about him.
I’d love to see a True Maga Republican swinging the gavel, but that’s highly unlikely. We are most likely to get some other RINO if McCarthy doesn’t bribe enough votes to get it again. In any case, whatever the crap turns out to be, I’m too jaded to have either hope about it or disdain at it.
When whoever gets the podium, then I’ll bother pondering at it. For now it just looks like pigs fighting over the slop in the trough…
@TonyB:
Look at the latest The Duran about McCarthy for “why”. McCarthy voted with Dems 46% of the time when Pelosi voted with Republicans only 7%. (And I’d wager that 7% was mostly bills doing things like announcing holidays and funding the cafeteria wine department…)
There is NO WAY you can reasonably “lead” your “side” when you are on the other side almost 1/2 the time. This asymmetry is why Republicans never make any progress on conservative issues. It is the very definition of RINO.
The key point that came out of the Trump Era was this: Republicans have finally had enough and they are no longer tolerant of “losing slowly” with compromise one way only and only from Republicans. Either you stand up for your party principles, or get the hell out of the way. (And if you don’t get the hell out of the way, expect to be primaried out or hounded out by your constituents… See Liz Chaney for example.)
We’re done wanting “Nice Guy who can work with The Other Side”. We want “That SOB who can strong arm them and sue their asses off if needed.”
Too early to know how the McCarthy votes will turn out. He and the other RINOs are still waiting for all the main-in ballots to be printed and arrive.
FWIW – I don’t have a link to this list –
“McCarthy/McConnell put up
$10 – 15 million against @AnthonySabetini
$9+ million against @MoBrooks
$4+ million against @joekent16jan19
$2+ million against @CollinsforTX
$1.7 milliom against @CawthornforNC
$10-12 million against @bgmasters
$5 million against @GenDonBolduc
And more”
McConnell is still remembered here. He was born here. He was a part of one of the ugliest and dirtiest state wide campaigns in my memory. Yes, I want to see McConnell retire or be voted out. McCarthy also has a less than stellar record. If McCarthy allows the one member vacate the chair rule to happen and it gets approved, that will hold him more accountable than most recent House Speakers.