Amerika

• Chase Bank shuts down ‘alt-right’ accounts

  So Chase is now “debanking” anyone who is loudly out of step with the narrative. I see two ways of viewing this.

  1) Bitcoin now gets thrown a lifeline. If the banking industry is now a PC Enforcerbot, then more people need a currency that Chase doesn’t make a market in.

  2) The Left has discovered the upside of corporate power. This will not ultimately be good for humanity. Look for more ways you can fend for yourself if you get partially “degrided” by PC Enforcerbot corporations.

• What Does Your Toilet Paper Have to Do With Inflation?

  So major corporations believe us to be stupid. Can you blame them? People get used to paying say $1.99 for their Scorn Flakes. The material inputs go up in price. The box gets smaller but still costs $1.99. Here’s how this practice got going.

  Edgar Dworsky, a consumer advocate in Boston and the founder of ConsumerWorld.org, added that the practice can be traced back to the early 1900s. As vending machines could not be reconfigured to accept, say, a nickel and a penny when prices increased, the solution was to reduce the size of the product in the machine. Ron Paul traces the practice back thousands of years to the days when a silver or gold coin would be “clipped.” Paul, 83, can remember when a candy bar cost a nickel. “All of a sudden the candy bar is a dollar, and it’s smaller!” he exclaimed. So shrinkflation is nothing new. But is the practice accelerating?
  

  This can be mathematically defeated by basing more of your microeconomic decisions on per unit pricing. This requires some discipline and a willingness to sometimes just get boring old Oatmeal rather than Scorn FLakes for breakfast. However, this does beat having the (((Zuckerbergs))) of the world call us stupid and then going to the store and proving them accurate.

• How Identity Politics Plays Right Into The Hands Of Big Business

  Is it really clear that Leftists own “Woke Corporations?” It could be more a function of corporations attempting to buy up cults of dumb Leftists to guaruntee levels of sales. It sure worked for HBO with “Game of Thrones.” Absent a unifying ideological and sociological sense of community, no rational person would buy a Game of Thrones stuffed dragon for anyone older than say 7. If a corporation can cut maybe 2 ads and get the three or four coolest people in a tribe to buy, the lemmings will follow right over the cliff. “Wokeness” may even be a cost-effective strategy. (((Faceberg))) and HBO could be taking over Leftists, rather than the other way around.

• How Egypt’s constitutional changes would put the military above the law

  In Egypt’s farcical March 2018 elections, President Abdelfattah al-Sisi was re-elected with 97.8% of the vote. A few months later, the former military chief was sworn in for his second – and, according to Egypt’s 2014 constitution, final – four-year term in office. Shortly thereafter, however, the regime began preparing to change the constitution. On 3 February 2019, a group of deputies submitted a motion to the Speaker of Parliament, which was adopted in principle on 14 February. Now, the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee is preparing a final version, which will require a two-thirds majority before it can be confirmed in a referendum. This parliamentary vote will most likely take place on 14-15 April.
  

  When a country that has been wrecked wants to crawl out of the garbage fire; before it is completely burned to death, they turn to the military. Maybe this isn’t always wise. Hugo Chavez and Augusto Pinochet both got their break in life as military men. So al-Sisi gets 12 more years and then amends the constitution again if he hasn’t settled in for a nice and comfy dirt nap. This brings up a nasty question that only some nasty over on The Dissident Right would ask.

  Who has the will and ability to help Egypt any more than al-Sisi? Anybody? What would an independent judiciary do for Egypt? Impose Sharia Law? Countries that make poor choices any time they ask “the people” will one day get a military dictator. It’s that or they get Charles Darwin’s iniquitous poltergeist. If you care at all about Egypt, pray for a Pinochet instead of another Chavez.

• Army Tells Shoddy Suppliers: Shape Up

  The Army is fed up with screwups on quality control for aircraft parts. One visibly angry general bashed Boeing here for chronic problems with key components of the AH-64 Apache gunship that hold the rotors together in flight — but that’s just the most glaring example. These wider supply problems not only harm readiness today, Army leaders warned this week. They could cripple the kind of large-scale, high-speed operations required in a future multi-domain war against Russia or China.
  

  This is a bigger problem than just a complicated rotary wing strap pack. Back before Benedict Arnold went over to The Dark Side of the force, he was driven crazy by contractors cheating his army. They were political merchants with cronies in The Continental Congress. President Eisenhower warned us on this front as well. Now we are stuck with the unenviable task of burning every one of these ticks off and bleeding accordingly. Picking one legislator out of 535 every year and chucking She/He/IT off the roof might help. Think of it as term limits on steroids.

• Pope Francis Mourns Excess Carbon Emissions Given Off By Notre Dame Fire

  “It is so tragic to see this beautiful, 900-year-old building go up in smoke—smoke that will continue to change our climate, the most pressing spiritual issue for the church today,” Francis said. “As I saw the flames leap upward toward the sky, all I could think of was the bleak future we are contributing toward as our kids only have a decade left on this planet.”
  

  All those who believe are flawed servants. Sinners who fall short of the glory of God. Some have more flaws than others. Some qualify for The Babylon Bee. A select few are so awful that even The Babylon Bee should preface their statements with html satire tags. Of course, no such html tag exists. But then again, prior to #AntiPope Francis, such extreme measures were not implicit requirements of online discourse. The man is awful. I commend The Babylon Bee for being imaginative to actually satire how bad this man truly is.

• Initial Jobless Claims Tumble To Fresh 50 Year Lows

  The last time this few Americans sought the help of government after losing a job was in November 1969. Initial Jobless Claims tumbled another 5K from the prior week’s revised 197K to just 192K: the second consecutive sub-200K print in 50 years, and the lowest print since September 1969.
  

  So how do you report this as bad news? Leave it to Zero Hedge. I love the pessimism. They actually question how this will impact The Fed. John Derbyshire would stand in admiration, with hand over heart. Point out that The USSA and The USSR were both still testing nukes the last time this few Amerikans made unemployemnt claims, and you get the following payoff in bold.

  …the Fed will be hard pressed to explain why it is pausing its rate hikes at a time when the fewest number of Americans are filing for jobless benefits in half a century.
  

  Never let the warm and happy sun mess up a good cloudy day.

• Scientists spur some activity in brains of slaughtered pigs

  Toadally awesome! Now do Socialists.

  Scientists restored some activity within the brains of pigs that had been slaughtered hours before, raising hopes for some medical advances and questions about the definition of death. The brains could not think or sense anything, researchers stressed. By medical standards “this is not a living brain,” said Nenad Sestan of the Yale School of Medicine, one of the researchers reporting the results Wednesday in the journal Nature.
  

  For some reason I think of what a person would be like if he had to walk around remembering what it felt like to die a horrible death. Are you sure you would like it with someone PTSD’d from a hideous death living or working next to you?

• The Mueller Report (Redacted Version)

  Presented without comment.

• The Artificial Intelligence Field Is Too White and Too Male, Researchers Say

  Women and people of color are deeply underrepresented, the report found, noting studies finding that about 80 percent of AI professors are men, while just 15 percent of AI research staff at Facebook and 10 percent at Google are women. People of color are also sidelined, making up only a fraction of staff at major tech companies. The result is a workforce frequently driven by white and male perspectives,
  

  It’s not a crisis. If they want this to work, they need to bring people who can do the math, programming and logical philosophy required. You either find those who can or you can’t. The only way to change that iron law is to accept certain levels of failure. If you are building artificial stupidity, you can hire whoever you feel like hiring.

• BTV mayor responds to Trump’s proposal to transport migrants to sanctuary cities

  “We know from decades of experience that newcomers to Burlington will make us more prosperous, more diverse and stronger, just as generations of past immigrants have driven our past growth and success,” Weinberger said. “This is not our first clash with the current federal administration. When President Trump tried to deputize our police officers to enforce his draconian immigration policies, we went to court alongside cities from across the country and stop him, preserving our right to make our own decisions about how best to keep our communities safe. When President Trump tried to block us from receiving federal grants, we fought back and the courts once more blocked his vindictive efforts.”
  

  So the #SJW doubles down… Good. Honor his request, Mr. President. Just make it a one-way ticket. Build the wall. Around Burlington. They can’t leave. Burlington can’t kick them out. Do it for the same reason we should never kick the socialists out of Venezuela. We need people to see how well this garbage really works.

• 61 Times Bill Kristol Was Reminded of Hitler and Churchill

  Oof. Hitler and Churchill are both dead. You can learn from knowing about both, but they don’t provide a perfect analogy for every conflict in the future. Brainless invocations of either are the mark of a demagogue. No wonder (((Bill Kristol))) does it 61 times. Has the man uttered a sentence in the past two years without an exclamation point?

• U.S. Naval Academy to Ban Transgender Students Starting in 2020

  The U.S. Naval Academy will ban people who are transgender from attending the school, beginning with the 2020 school year.
  

  The empire has begun to sense the rot at its core. There may be time to repair the damage. A lot of gay “victories” are really just wrecking balls swung into the current social order by those who hate our current society.

• SCOOP: HUD Planning Crackdown On Illegal Immigrants Taking Advantage Of Public Housing

  Welfare programs are never entirely intended to benefit the poor. They are often methods to control them or to skim off of their destitution. So what did LBJ really think about programs like AFDC? He doesn’t mince words. How do you think Walmart makes so much money opening what are essentially grocery stores in really poor neighborhoods? The EBT Card is for the grocer and the agro-business industry.

  Therefore, HUD free housing goes to those that some political clique wants to give a leg up. The only Section 8 the typical homeless war veteran gets involves a mental health discharge. How else did these illegals even hear about this program so rapidly? The political establishment wanted them favored in receiving these benefits in preference to other needy people. Like actual US citizens, for example. Welfare is never handed out with a decent and kind heart.

• Mayor Pete and the Crackup of Christianity

  Mayor Buttplug is a star because he destroys what his followers want him to destroy. He is deliberately hyped because of that. Lot’s of white mayors have joked around with white cops about their Knee-Grow problems. Not a lot of them get taped doing it.

  A male mayor with a female wife would be an ex-mayor at this point. Mayor Buttplug and his male wifey get to diss Operation Push. He is considered too useful a thorn in the side of normality to be tossed to the racism orcs. Therefore Buttplug gets away with it. Here’s why he is considered too useful to toss to an old has-been poon hound like Rev. Jesse Jackson.

  Already, among a good slice of America, especially the young, the West is guilty of centuries of racism, imperialism, colonialism, slavery, sexism, ethnic cleansing, religious persecution and cultural genocide against indigenous peoples. Now, according to Mayor Pete’s logic, the West is also guilty of centuries of hateful homophobia toward people living as God made them and intended them to live.
  

  Hey, hey, ho, ho
  Western Culture’s gotta go.

  Mayor Buttplug is just another milestone on that particular road to social perdition.

As part of Operation Just Cuz, I present John Fogerty. Just ‘cuz there are still a lot of fun things in life.

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