A conservative perspective

[Parihaka]

Which nonsense from 2016 is being repeated here as fact on the WAB?

Sure, I'll make another thread for you as and when they pop up.

[TopHatter]

Sure, I'll make another thread for you as and when they pop up.

Looking forward to it.

[Officer of Engineers]

As for children, my two are fairly grown up and complete geeks, though I have inherited two more through a new tryst. How's your wee princess?

Living on her own and met a nice guy. Studying Agriculture at Texas. Had to keep reminding her that Canadian dollars don't go that far in the US. Tried to Old Age home for a bit and found it too boring and moved back to my farm. Just my 2 dogs and my horse and join the neighbours once a week for dinner.

Three years ago, I went down to the US for a friend's wedding and on the spot, I decided to go on a 6 month fishing tour of the US. The Bass Pro Shop guy saw me coming and spent $2K of gear. Would want to put the gear to use again once this thing is over and tour the other half of the US.

[Parihaka]

Living on her own and met a nice guy. Studying Agriculture at Texas. Had to keep reminding her that Canadian dollars don't go that far in the US. Tried to Old Age home for a bit and found it too boring and moved back to my farm. Just my 2 dogs and my horse and join the neighbours once a week for dinner.

Three years ago, I went down to the US for a friend's wedding and on the spot, I decided to go on a 6 month fishing tour of the US. The Bass Pro Shop guy saw me coming and spent $2K of gear. Would want to put the gear to use again once this thing is over and tour the other half of the US.

That's very cool, I'm especially glad you're back on the farm, and you have time for 6 months fishing. :)
With any luck I'll be living on a much smaller island in about three years, we've bought the land and I'll start building next year. Small, but as off-grid as possible.

[Parihaka]

Meanwhile in totalitarian land...

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said people who are removed from one social media platform for spreading misinformation should face the same consequences across the board.

"You shouldn’t be banned from one platform and not others for providing misinformation out there," she said during a White House press briefing on Friday.

Psaki also said social media companies, such as Facebook, should "publicly" share information about the "impact" of misinformation.

Psaki said on Thursday that the Biden administration is working "to engage with them to better understand the enforcement of social media platform policies." She singled out "the false narrative that remains active out there about COVID-19 vaccines causing infertility."

"Again, this is troubling but a persistent narrative that we and many have seen, and we want to know that the social media platforms are taking steps to address it," she continued. "That is inaccurate, false information. If you were a parent, you would look at that information, and that would naturally raise concerns, but it's inaccurate. And that is an example of the kind of information that we are flagging or raising."

The intelligence community, according to the press secretary, believes Russia and China are amplifying the infertility messaging.

The administration estimated that "12 people" account for 65% of the posts spreading vaccine misinformation on Facebook, and Psaki promised reporters on Friday the White House would supply data to back up that claim.

Doubling down on Thursdays comments about their 'list' of people they wanted banned, now they want all platforms to ban in unison.

[Parihaka]

Doubling down on Thursdays comments about their 'list' of people they wanted banned, now they want all platforms to ban in unison.

This for context on the press secretary

[Parihaka]

Which neatly segues into

The FBI apologized to the secret court that handles national security investigations for the way it conducted surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser during the 2016 election, according to a court filing made public on Saturday.

FBI Director Christopher Wray outlined steps the bureau is taking to ensure it doesn't make the same mistakes again. He wrote in the filing to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the FBI will tighten procedures governing wiretapping applications to the court, which oversees intelligence gathering under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

POLITICS

Secret Surveillance Court Rebukes FBI, DOJ With Order To Re-Validate Their Work


The FBI response comes after a report last month from the Justice Department inspector general that revealed serious issues with the bureau's applications to the court to wiretap former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The FBI suspected Page had possible ties to Russia.

This of course is the sum total of the FBI punishment for illegally "wiretapping" the Trump campaign and subsequent presidency, based on the known-by-the-FBI-to-be-fictitious "pee tape" dossier compiled by the Democrat nominee Clinton, with assistance by the Russians, via Steele.

[Parihaka]

When Covid hit, under President Trump, it was, in some ways, a test of his commitment to one-man rule. A pandemic is a classic rationale for seizing emergency powers that end up not being so temporary (see Viktor Orbàn). What happened instead was denial, chaos, panic, constant drama, and an accelerated vaccine project (for which Trump deserves some credit). It proved what Michael Wolff argues in this week’s Dishcast: that Trump has too short an attention span, is too bad at management, and far too delusional to construct a viable, competent, authoritarian agenda. He just wanted to be the center of attention and for the virus to go away.

President Biden — a man who distinguished himself in the primary debates as the sole believer in the limits of presidential power — has now filled that authoritarian void. His extraordinary moratorium on evictions was swiftly struck down by the courts. The federal vaccine mandates are the second major power-grab by the executive branch.

With this maneuver, Biden is effectively over-ruling the role of states and the legislature in setting pandemic policy in favor of an emergency ruling by a government agency, OSHA. If you’ve ever worried about the “administrative state’s” power in dictating how Americans live their lives, your anxiety should have just gone up a notch. We will see how resilient this position is in the courts — the powers delegated by the Congress to OSHA are huge — but the sweep of this is as striking as the challenges of enforcing it are manifold.

Continues....

[zraver]

Eh, that's a real stretch there. Both totalitarian, sure. Both working with capitalists...um, ok. But unless you're a complete hermit kingdom like North Korea, working with capitalists isn't a particularly distinguishing feature. The Soviet Union worked with capitalists when they needed to.

Unless of course you were shooting for the "Nazis were Leftists before they called themselves National Socialists" angle?

Not much of a stretch. If you get down to the brass tacs which system am I describing?

The entire state serves the man at the top
The legislative and judicial are just rubber stamps for the executive
A Non-free press
Government and industry are in unison through centrally directed policies
Political prisoners who do not have a right to a fair trial or bail
At least 1 domestic enemy group
At least 1 irredentist claim against an outside group
Citizens do not enjoy rights the government cannot trample
Group memberships is more important than individual accomplishment

Nazi Germany, The USSR, the PRC, Saddam's Iraq, Assad's Syria, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Putin's Russia, Belorussia, Cold War Albania..... Communist, Nazi, its all window dressing to cover the truth: Statist.

[TopHatter]

Not much of a stretch. If you get down to the brass tacs which system am I describing?

Ehhh, totalitarianism? Like I originally acknowledged?

The original point trying to be made was that "There is a strong correlation between the CCP and the Nazis, totalitarianism mixed with working with capitalists."

To which I noted "unless you're a complete hermit kingdom like North Korea, working with capitalists isn't a particularly distinguishing feature."

Which you then basically proved by mentioning a whole shitload of totalitarian states that clearly work with capitalists....except you also mentioned North Korea, which strongly implies you didn't really read any of the aforementioned posts at all...which makes me wonder why you're digging up an extremely brief and rather pointless exchange from 3 months ago in the first place...

[zraver]

Ehhh, totalitarianism? Like I originally acknowledged?

The original point trying to be made was that "There is a strong correlation between the CCP and the Nazis, totalitarianism mixed with working with capitalists."

To which I noted "unless you're a complete hermit kingdom like North Korea, working with capitalists isn't a particularly distinguishing feature."

Which you then basically proved by mentioning a whole shitload of totalitarian states that clearly work with capitalists....except you also mentioned North Korea, which strongly implies you didn't really read any of the aforementioned posts at all...which makes me wonder why you're digging up an extremely brief and rather pointless exchange from 3 months ago in the first place...

1. I didn't check the date :/

2. I wasn't disagreeing with you.

3. I did not mention capitalist per se, just that government and industry work in unison. The USSR had people who ended up being oligarchs when the system crumbled. They did not arrive suddenly, they were already there, just as agents of the state rather than owners.

[TopHatter]

1. I didn't check the date :/

Happens to the best of us, no harm no foul

2. I wasn't disagreeing with you.

We weren't too far away for the most part, sure.

3. I did not mention capitalist per se, just that government and industry work in unison. The USSR had people who ended up being oligarchs when the system crumbled. They did not arrive suddenly, they were already there, just as agents of the state rather than owners.

That's where the disconnect appears to be (not your comment above). I was saying that totalitarianists working with capitalists wasn't all that uncommon, contrary to Iain's assertion about the Nazis and the CCCP.

[Albany Rifles]

An interesting story I heard last night on Marketplace demonstrating how the market economy meshes with the political messaging coming from the Central Committee of the PRC.

Kind of shows that all macroeconomics is really microeconomics stacked up (thanks Brother Peer Costello, ST John's College High School, 1975, my HS Econ teacher).

https://www.marketplace.org/2021/09/...omic-recovery/

[Parihaka]

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter: "Watching liberal media stars spend 5 years trying to thread the needle between "we are so grateful to the unelected but noble Generals thwarting Trump" and "only insane conspiracy nuts believe the US has a Deep State" has been quite dizzying." / Twitter

[Parihaka]

General Kellogg: Milley Must Resign Or Be Removed

SEPTEMBER 15, 2021 By Jordan Davidson
If reports that Gen. Mark Milley made secret calls to Communist China’s Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army are true, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should resign or be removed, says retired Gen. Keith Kellogg.

“If what is in the Woodward book is true, then Mark Milley needs to resign or be removed from his position immediately,” the former acting National Security Adviser under President Trump said on Fox News’s “Brian Kilmeade Show.”