Sunday Guest Appearance

I'm operating on quarantime and working my way through my inbox. Here is a guest piece from a long-time reader. Unmasking may or may not occur in the comments. This comes from eastern PA, so near enough to NYC and Philly to know a thing or two about getting hit by the coronavirus.

We are the progeny of pilgrims, patriots, and pioneers. Our forebears boarded wooden ships and sailed across an inhospitable ocean to pursue a life of freedom in a bountiful yet dangerous wilderness – from which life and civilization had to be built starting with little more than the will to survive and the perseverance to succeed. Our forebears fought a war against the greatest military power of the time to protect and preserve those hard-won freedoms in a new form of government that some called a “great experiment” and is also recognized as “American exceptionalism.” Our forebears later rode west in covered wagons across the continent to build lives for themselves and futures for their children.

We have been the aspiration of people around the globe who have come here to escape tyranny and pursue freedom, who shed their native-born beliefs to adopt and embrace the American dream, and who taught their children to love their adopted country. We are the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal; fought in the cold of Korea and the jungles of Vietnam. We have invented amazing machines, made stunning scientific discoveries, and landed men on the moon. We have brought more prosperity and more freedom to more people than any other nation in the history of the world. This is the legacy of the American people that we proudly point to as our heritage.

In this day and age we are required to temper American success with the recitation of sins that, frankly, are the sins of virtually every nation at the time of our founding, sins that many nations have also engaged in and some continue to engage in. America, like every other nation on Earth, is not perfect but it has always strived to be better and to live up to the high ideals expressed in our founding documents. We would rather fall short of lofty goals than to fall prey to appealing yet ignoble ones.

America today is facing the challenge of a pandemic. This is not a new challenge. There have been pandemics before and there will be pandemics again. We have lived through times when illnesses spread throughout the country – yet we managed to adapt to minimize the risk and continue to live our lives accepting that life has risk. Never have we so egregiously abridged the rights of healthy citizens for fear that they “may” be ill. Have we become so comfortable that we can no longer accept such risks, manage such risks, live with such risks? Has the American spirit been so coddled and indulged that we no longer look to ourselves to persevere in the face of a challenge but look to others to rescue us? Worse, have we forgotten that a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” means that we, the people, are the ones who need to step up in the face of hardship and not pretend there is some all powerful “government” that exists to save us from all difficulties?

We are America, we are the government, and we need to be the Americans that our history and our forebears have bequeathed to us. They took risks and faced fears and we should expect no less from ourselves. We did not leave tyrannical governments and build a new world only to cower in our homes while our “betters” and “experts” tell us what we may and may not do, who is essential and who is not, and arresting those who dare to disobey. While we may act on good information and appreciate leadership in times of crisis, we should not submit to capricious dictates that chain us to our homes while setting free convicted criminals all in the name of an illusive promise of safety. Are we a nation of cowards with our masks on and our hands out? No! The Constitution and the Bill of Rights have not been repealed. We need to remember who we are and fight for the freedoms that are our birthright as Americans – even, in fact especially, in times of crisis.

 

Comments

[Jack Lillywhite]

Primo?

I wonder who wrote it?

[Jane]

GreatGreat piece!

[Jane]

Btw Maria was fabulous. Watch her if you can!

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Willowed;
--OL, I think historically when things gets too easy, people become dissolute , lazy and stupid. Maybe when things get harder more people will get tougher.--

[Old Lurker]

Also willowed:

[Old Lurker]

Forgot to click "paste":

Jane "I don’t know if you noticed, but I became you last night."

I saw that and almost posted a "Welcome Home" greeting, Jane.

Iggy's comment above about Trump being hounded into distraction is a good one. I saw a story the other day about a lady who (stupidly) rescued a 30# French bulldog which had been raised for dog fighting...only to be killed by the cute little dog later. Or the image of all those Lilliputians successfully emasculating poor Gulliver in his travels...all that applies to Trump, circa 2020.

You take your eye off the ball just one time...

[Momto2]

Now I think I've discovered why the media ignore and/or demean Melania's looks. They see Stacey Abrams as a runway supermodel! I kid you not!

https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1261874908339953665

[Momto2]

More Stacey -

neontaster
@neontaster
Stacey Abrams is that person at the office who everyone hates but still gets the promotion because the boss doesn't feel like handling the frivolous HR complaint she'll file if he doesn't give it to her.

[Captain Hate]

The Romanian propaganda around the original Danube of Thought and Elena couldn't have been more ludicrous than the Tank Abrams treatment.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Didn't read the great essay at the top before I posted that 11:02 but it fit right in.

I think that is the eternal problem of man, or at least one of many.
We strive for success and prosperity but achieving it has the net effect, not on everyone but enough, of weakening us and making us complacent and thinking success is achieving our goals. More often than not our goals are counterproductive because it is the striving that makes us better and give us purpose.
Dude named Solomon picked up on that awhile back.
If you think about it there is a middle ground that truly matters.
Progs have a kernel of truth in their mania and that is helping our fellow man is a worthy goal. But their collective, coercive method leads to the worst monstrosities man has conjured.
Seeking great wealth is also not an inherently bad thing but it is kind of an empty one. And we see in people like Gates and Buffet and even Henry Ford that once great wealth is achieved that emptiness leads either them or their descendants to set about privately mucking about in other people's lives in concert with the collectivists. Collective do-goodism and great-man do-goodism are flip sides of the same guilt inspired, coercive working out of psychological problems of trying to perfect their fellow man because that's preferable to taking a look at themselves. Both are selfish, inward, self involved worldviews with a faux patina of altruism.

And that's why Jesus trod the lonely middle road of voluntarily offering help to His fellow man if they want it but coercing no one. And encouraging us that anything done collectively is done in the same spirit, privately and voluntarily. And that the offer is open to all not just our pals.
It's the only thing in which the journey [the striving] and the arrival [the goal] are equally satisfying and I think that's because the stakes are neither selfish nor temporal.

[MissMarple2]

Momto2,

The media thinks they can make or break anyone.It's up to us to refuse to allow them to influence us and to think for ourselves. I can't tell you how much I appreciated the laugh from that poster who posted that stupid picture of Abrams along with the Bart Simpson cartoon saying "Batman sure has let himself go."

[clarice]

Great quote, Tom Maguire

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

The responses on that Tank Abrams piece were pretty funny.

Every time I see her I automatically think of the slightly slow witted but loud fat kid who always played catcher in baseball or center in football or the comedy relief in a Rob Reiner or John Hughes flick.

[Extraneus]

Liz Cheney: Democrats ‘Mortified’ by Nancy Pelosi Defending China

Pelosi claimed on Thursday that Trump’s recent antagonism toward China merely serves as a diversion from his coronavirus response.

“What the president is saying about China is interesting — it’s an interesting diversion,” Pelosi said during a briefing on Thursday.

Cheney said that it is a “disgrace” for Pelosi to diminish the role China’s failure to contain the coronavirus has had on the tens of thousands of Americans that have died during the coronavirus outbreak.

Cheney told Breitbart News Daily host Alex Marlow, “The Democrats consistently and … their leader Nancy Pelosi particularly — demonstrate to the American people why they can’t be trusted to lead this country. When you’ve got close to 86,000 Americans who have died because of this global pandemic that was unleashed by the Chinese government, it is just a disgrace for the Speaker of the House to say [that] holding the government of China accountable is an ‘interesting diversion.'”

“I am confident there are many members of her own caucus in the House who are mortified. I know I am mortified by her on a daily basis, but I am confident, mortified in particular by what she said yesterday, because the American people know that China needs to be held accountable,” she added.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Relinking that great interview OL linked last thread because it goes with the little essay TM posted hand in glove;

‘We could open up again and forget the whole thing’

Epidemiologist Knut Wittkowski on the deadly consequences of lockdown.

[Threadkiller]

I'm operating on quarantime and working my way through my inbox.

LoL.

[Jane]

OL,

Whatever bumper sticker you decide on, get me one!

[Captain Hate]

Can Wittkowski talk some sense into DeWine?

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Large error in an otherwise excellent Pieces, clarice;

"We now believe that the death toll in China from the Wuhan virus was 640,000."

The intelligence was they had 640,000 cases not deaths. whether that was hospitalized cases or tested cases IDK, but I'm guessing the latter.

[Jack Lillywhite]

Iggy,

Where did you get China having 640K cases?

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Right click for a little Soviet [Sur]Realism.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Here JiB.

[Jane]

Althouse disagrees that Obama dissed Trump and says he unwittingly praised him. She makes a good case.

[Old Lurker]

Jane, I am going to look into those magnetic signs so I can change my rants each day...

[Jack Lillywhite]

Well, Iggy, that is interesting because when I googled “number of COVID-19 cases in China”, that particular number and article didn’t come up.

I wonder if Google is still playing footsie with the CCP?

[Jane]

LOL OL. I'm in!

[MissMarple2]

Jack,

Since the President let us know that the radical left controls Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, I assume that China is in control, too, since the DNC apparently feels that they are preferable to the dreaded Orange Man.

[Rocco]

Have we been infecting ourselves with the fertilizers we use? Makes me wonder if this has something to do with the large percentage of the population that test positive for antibodies? I think bat guana has tested positive for betacorona virus-C.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3739538/

[clarice]

neontaster is on the mark here.I've seen this .

[Old Lurker]

We just had an interesting talk with YL in New Canann where it seems the Karens are on a rampage with increasing, not decreasing vigor. Very serious discussion in that part of the world about how much school will be allowed next Fall, and whether our G'kids will get back to their Montessori settings.

YL was in tears when she called her Mom because she overheard her 3 YO twin Amy in the next room say to her sister "Annie. Remember when we were little we used to go to school, and to church, and to Sunday School and to the Library and the Playground?". Yesterday, their now 6 YO big brother moaned at bedtime "Mommy. I am sick of this Spring Vacation. I really need to go to school!"

So into that, even the PhD Scientist in her says, about the fact that they are not even allowed to walk the sidewalks in CT without social distancing and facemasks: "I got it when we needed to conserve hospital resources in the beginning...but how was it allowed to become THIS? Who decided THIS? I'm not sure there is even good science behind THESE rules at this point."

When Mrs. OL was replaying that talk at breakfast, I said "I know you get tired of my quoting 1984 every time something like this happens...(but allow me to do so again). I reminded her of the scene where Winston was being tortured to say something he knew to be false, lest the torture would continue. His antagonist replied "It is not that getting you to say it will make it so; the goal is to get you to say what we want you to say." (yes, I butchered that, I know.) I said that is exactly why they want us to all wear facemasks everywhere even when it makes no sense.

That is exactly where we are in the Russian Novel.

[Old Lurker]

"I wonder if Google is still playing footsie with the CCP?"

Oh Jack. There you go being a troublemaker again.

[clarice]

https://the-pipeline.org/climate-change-minorities-hardest-hit/
A very thoughtful essay by Michael Walsh

[Gentlejim]

OL,
Maybe go with a programmable LED message board. That way you can change whenever the mood strikes and you won’t have to wait on signs or stickers.

[Extraneus]

#Breaking: #China to sanction some #US individuals & entities in retaliation to their abuse of litigation against #China over #COVID19. They won't be symbolic moves but punitive measures that will cause GOP members like @HawleyMO to feel the pain: analysts https://t.co/BkwPYimoe5 pic.twitter.com/Ez9cVRFYRB

— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) May 14, 2020

...

Chinese state media singling me out with threats - and threatening Missouri too. Beijing can bluster all it wants. I’m not backing down https://t.co/nQJNC4ijg3

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) May 15, 2020

...

Brb. Finding a new communist country with gross human rights abuses to do business in. Bonus points if they unleashed a global pandemic on the world. https://t.co/QJU5KKxhTC

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) May 15, 2020

...

So apparently I’m on the Chinese government’s radar now.

Good.

Bring it. https://t.co/kIC5YIbUqf

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) May 14, 2020

[Old Lurker]

Perfect, G-Jim.

[Extraneus]

#China does this mean my site visit to the #Wuhan lab is off? https://t.co/qKcUVnqvly

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) May 14, 2020

[Captain Hate]

Scientists from University College London found that the mass genocide that accompanied the colonization of the Americas in the 15th century permanently altered Earth’s climate, due to “a huge swathe of abandoned agricultural land” that “pulled down enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to eventually chill the planet.”

How do you argue with nitbrains that believe this nonsense. I'm sure their betht modelth produthed that.

[Old Lurker]

"How do you argue with nitbrains that believe this nonsense."

You cannot.

[Captain Hate]

OL,

You and I voluntarily forked over part of our disposable income to a prominent promulgator of this nonsense.

[Narciso]

They live

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheLastRefuge2/status/1261858433382432780

[Narciso]

Oh

https://mobile.twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1262068637965389826

[MissMarple2]

henry,

My democrat sister called me just to say hello and visit.

Boy did I have to bite my tongue when she told me she FEELS SORRY for your governor!

[Narciso]

Launch the atomics

https://mobile.twitter.com/MarinaMedvin/status/1261972939005665280

[peter]

iggy@12:23, is that an Easter Island statue you posted?

[GUS]

This is beyond parody. Abrams is a fat loud mouth, nothing more.

Her fashion stance is best viewed on a JUMBOTRON.

Is she claiming to be Vice President yet??

[Old Lurker]

Indeed, Cap'n. In my case to more than a few of them as well.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

No peter. It appears to be the DNC's new main battle tank; the Abrams M1A1 Pivoting Super Model.
Features about a foot of next generation, active blubber armor and the newest one inch, smooth bore main gun concealed in the incisor gap situated in the lower aperture in the turret.
Been a lot of development issues as it has tended to eat its crew and the lower turret aperture tends to hinge open and spew malarkey at will.

[henry]

Gus, peril sensitive sunglasses are in order for that viewing. Throw your towel over your head to be safe.

[Threadkiller]

https://mobile.twitter.com/CalebJHull/status/1261853471730470912

Hahaha!

[Old Lurker]

Iggy: "Seeking great wealth is also not an inherently bad thing but it is kind of an empty one. And we see in people like Gates and Buffet and even Henry Ford that once great wealth is achieved that emptiness leads either them or their descendants to set about privately mucking about in other people's lives in concert with the collectivists. Collective do-goodism and great-man do-goodism are flip sides of the same guilt inspired, coercive working out of psychological problems of trying to perfect their fellow man because that's preferable to taking a look at themselves. Both are selfish, inward, self involved worldviews with a faux patina of altruism."

Ig, your first three words "Seeking Great Wealth" while perhaps not always being a bad thing is often not a good thing all by itself. And for sure the end-of-run results of a Ford or a Rockefeller and all their leftist foundations and deffective offspring, as well as today's Gates, and Zuckerjerks, and all the others have all the negative impacts you mention. No doubt at all. And perhaps their selfish motivations at the end were for the persoinal salvation reasons you mention.

But the immeasurable great good comes not from seeking the great wealth in and for itself by one man, but for striving to find within each self the ability to be the best one can be at what he yearns to be, and if possible, to do it better than anyone else before, whatever that objective was. And if that results in great wealth and great power, so be it. It was the striving by everybody that "lifts all boats", and allowing - hell encouraging - EVERYBODY to have the hope that they just might win the race or at least make it easier for their children to win theirs is the fuel that drives all that. From the beginning of human history.

That is the great flaw in trying to make a Gates or whomever the face of evil. Look not at what that one person did, but to the millions and millions who ran the race with him and tried to beat him. That's where the value was created. If the left achieves their end of making every single quasi successful individual the enemy who takes but does not pay his fair share, then that always ends in poverty for all.

And yes, I know I am preaching to the choir.

[henry]

Vid at link.

@acyn

Trump responds to Obama’s speech: "Look, he was an incompetent president, that's all I can say. Grossly incompetent."

https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1262074633836089345?s=21

[GUS]

Grossly incompetent and a criminal.

[Narciso]

Wheres a franco when you need one, see fujimiri and bordaberry

https://babalublog.com/2020/05/16/spains-socialist-government-helping-cuba-at-the-expense-of-its-own-people/

[Jane]

But the immeasurable great good comes not from seeking the great wealth in and for itself by one man, but for striving to find within each self the ability to be the best one can be at what he yearns to be, and if possible, to do it better than anyone else before, whatever that objective was.

I don't know what's going on, but once again, I completely agree with you OL. My guess is that the enormously wealthy want to give back, And rather than just hand it out they want to be responsible, which requires them to inquire where they don't belong. Not agreeing with that, does not change their accomplishments.

[matt - deplore me if you must]

I never realized that the Incas were such slash and burners (they weren't). And those poor Meskins! The Aztecs wiping them out and making heartburgers out of the other tribes. According to the history the Mayans pretty much wiped themselves out before Cortez.

So that leaves some Ecuadoreans and Colombians, a few Panamanian tribes, the po' Tainos in the Caribbean. And let's not forget the Amerindians, a few hundred k of them.

If they was all living in harmony with the earth and everything, I guess their environmental impact was nil. So when they all got xterminated, there environmental impact was nil minus x.

Dam Spaniards upset the global ecological balance as the Chinese, all 400 million of them, were burning megatons of yak feces for fuel.

It really seems as if the cloistered imbeciles have nothing better to do than make shit up. 1619 and now this.

Don't they realize that other people have access to the same information and think they are completely full of shit?

[MissMarple2]

GUS,

An incompetent criminal, too!

[Jack Lillywhite]

The Greates Troller in the history of Trolling and he does it in the minimum of words that the MSM print, broadcast or film at 11 not understanding how us the unwashed give him a virtual standing ovation every time.

Bravo Zulu, Mr. President.

[henry]

From crewe u, new brain communication found.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/373639/

[Narciso]

Well its a matter of what he does with that money doea he enable enslavement or liberty and to what degree.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Wretchard's latest

[Narciso]

Take this fellow

https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/mott-stewart-rawlings

[Extraneus]

"Look, he was an incompetent president, that's all I can say. Grossly incompetent."

lol

[Narciso]

I first heard of him through jim hougan who was kind of a taibbi in the 70s and 80d

[Old Lurker]

Jane "My guess is that the enormously wealthy want to give back..."

Two things. The lesser point is that applies to people of all places on the scale of wealth.

The more important point is the word you used: "GIVE". That implies handing over to someone he wants to, something one owns of his own free will for whatever motivates the giver to want to give it.

Having a Prog hand you a chart of what you are expected to give, especially when backed by the power of the state or even social shaming, is anything but a "Gift".

[GUS]

OL, the FULL COMMIE hates you. They don't want you to share, the want to take everything you have.
And they do NOT want to help the poor. If there are no poor, their LIES and PROPAGANDA are moot.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--That is the great flaw in trying to make a Gates or whomever the face of evil.--

Collectively the world is a better place when individuals are pursuing enlightened self interest. That's not because their enlightened self interest is altruistic but because they have to provide a service or good their fellow man will voluntarily utilize in order to serve their self interests.

Bill Gates was serving mankind when he was accumulating his hundred billion by providing a product that he somehow convinced a lot of people, including me, was not too horrible to own. That act almost inadvertently tames his worser natures.

The trouble usually starts once he decides he's now going to use that hundred billion to right the world's wrongs. That act, that he thinks is serving his better nature is in fact all too often feeding the worstest nature we have; the desire to improve our fellow man.

In pursuing our own self interest we have to give our fellow man what he really wants.
In seeking to improve our fellow man we try to give him what we think he should really want. And if he should prove so ungrateful as to not want what he's told he should, well the guy with a hundred billion knows a lot of guys who will make him learn to like it.
That is the road to hell and it is paved with a hundred billion good intentions...and a lot of bad ones too.

[Old Lurker]

All I can say to that, Ig, is Yep.

[Old Lurker]

Gus: "OL, the FULL COMMIE hates you."

Gus, I think there are a whole lot of budding, not yet full, commies that hate me too!

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

I will go so far as to say this; despite the occasional Dave Thomases of Wendy's fame who helped out orphans, it would probably be a net benefit to society if we had a mechanism that, the instant someone of great wealth stopped buying yachts and mansions and instead set up a foundation for the good of his fellow man that whatever wealth he pledged to that foundation was instantly incinerated and winked out of existence.

[Captain Hate]

Being a millionaire today is a lot easier than it used to be. A person still needs a good idea, a game plan to make it work and luck, but not the arduous commitment that a Rockefeller or Ford had to make. If it comes easy it goes the same way.

[Jack Lillywhite]

henry,

Where was Biden whe Crewe U conducted that neuroscience experiment?

[Captain Hate]

Dave Thomas never forgot where he came from.

[Old Lurker]

Cap'n "Being a millionaire today is a lot easier than it used to be."

Not to quibble, Cap'n, but to have a million bucks in 1970 dollars, you need to have $6,600,000 in 2020. So a geezer like me (and you) has to have a whole bunch of money to think we are equal to the millionaires of our youth.

First time I did that math, my head got a good deal smaller.

Don't even THINK what one has to accumulate in 2020 to equal what, say, my Grandfathers had circa 1932 or so.

[Jane]

Okay, IG and OL,

What would you do with 100 million?

[Old Lurker]

Jack "Where was Biden when Crewe U conducted that neuroscience experiment?"

They were using him as the Control Group where neurons never communicate with nuthin.

[GUS]

DANNY THOMAS.

[Jack Lillywhite]

OL 👍

[Extraneus]

Collectively the world is a better place when individuals are pursuing enlightened self interest.

Why is the word "enlightened" necessary?

[Old Lurker]

Jane "What would you do with 100 million?"

Hide it where nobody could ever find it or take it from me or even know I had it?

[Captain Hate]

No argument there, OL; my reference was primarily to the internet related wealth compared to heavy industry.

[Old Lurker]

Jane, OK, I'll be serious.

I'd use it to figure how to get my wife and my dogs and enough toilet paper to spend the summer on Nantucket without getting caught outside in MD or entering into MA, and without having to pass through the Karen states in between?

[Jack Lillywhite]

Hell, I remember when on Queen for a Day people would cry if the won $400.

Today, they would shrug if it was $1 million.

[D]

People who earn their money or inherit it can do what they want with it.
It is nobody’s business but theirs how they spend it.
If a person chooses a high tax state to live in that is on them.
I will not bail out states that don’t know how to manage their finances.
Chris Wallace asked today if Independents are going to care about Flynn and the spying on Trump when they vote.
Of course Juan and the designated Dem said of course not.
That is when I switched channels.
They are delusional if they think trying to oust a sitting President or spy on a political rival are ok to do.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

-Why is the word "enlightened" necessary?--

It's not.

[Buckeye]

Iggy

When my sister was in college she had a part time job with a landscaping company one summer.

They did the Thomas house, and invariably Dave’s wife would bring a pitcher of ice tea out by the pool and chat with her and her co-workers.

100% “regular gal”.

One of my high school buddies ran marketing for Wendy’s and always had good things to about Dave.

[D]

OL:
Is it possible to fly in from a neighboring state and have a relative watch the dogs until later in the summer?

[Old Lurker]

Jack "...won $400. Today, they would shrug if it was $1 million."

Hmmm. Tax takes half or more. The balance gets paid out over 20 years. OL says the purchasing power declines 80% over the span of adulthood (not counting JimmyK's prediction of runaway inflation...

Can I get that $400 in a gift card at Amazon?

[Captain Hate]

After decades of being hectored that Watergate was the worst thing to happen in the history of the world, next to Kent State, I guess now its no big deal, right? Have the history books been revised?

[GUS]

I agree, it's nobodies business what GATES does with his money. Yet he keeps trying to make it our business by buying political peeps. Gates is creepy.

[Old Lurker]

Maryrose, I was mostly joking to make my standing point. We will drive up like always...straight from home to YL's for the night (halfway), then straight to the Ferry in the morning. The Ferry guys say they will take us but we have to wear masks on the crossing and Nantucket wants us under house arrest for two weeks when we get there. They do not want us to stop at the supermarket on the way to our cell, so food for two weeks is supposed to be in the car.

LUNACY

[Captain Hate]

Your propery taxes will be reduced to compensate for being treated like a common criminal, amirite OL?

[Old Lurker]

You ARE funny, Cap'n.

[GUS]

STFU OL and put on that mask until FAUCI tells you all of the OLD FOLKS are dead and we are safe.

[rse]

I don't think that is true once buffett and gates put the bulk of their fortune in a foundation that is explicitly determined to bankroll a global transformation in our political and economic systems and we are to have no say.

It matters that it bankrolled something called Achievement Standards globally that enable the kind of mind needed for such a transformation. I understand how AS works and how it ties to IMS Global and learning objects and how the Pandemic's push into digital learning turbocharges the above, but I shouldn't in terms of what anyone actually told me. I dug it out.

If someone used their great wealth, like a jeffrey epstein, to bankroll criminal behavior, it would matter. It matters when they are pushing stealth, involuntary, revolution at the level of our minds and pocketbooks as well.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

What would I do with a hundred million?
I'd buy a Maserati Bora, A 1968 Hemi Charger and a 1965 E Type OTS and maybe a Ferrari 275 GTB short nose. And a few guns.
I'd build a nice little Victorian house and sock a few million away to leave, along with the aforementioned stuff, to my daughter.

The other $90 million I'd give to organizations like The Salvation Army and Samaritan's Purse that feed the starving and heal the sick and do it in the name of Christ.

[Extraneus]

Mollie Hemmingway:

Media Must Report Truth Of Anti-Trump Spy Operation Before It’s Too Late For Them

[Ralph Tacoma]

FwIW, I think Trump has handled the situation incredibly well. As I've said before I believe he truly is a great politician, and politics is the art of the possible. Trump doesn't accept others' definitions of what is possible but pursues things as far as he can go.

It's fair to say that we shouldn't have gone to the lockdowns, and I do believe that was Trump's original intention. However when things started ramping up rapidly in NYC and the surrounding area, he couldn't have afforded to do that without the MSM crucifying for "every death being his fault." Remember that when he acquiesced to the shutdown he was talking "two weeks to flatten the curve."

When the pressures built to keep things shutdown he staged the "I have the authority to order it nationwide" meme that allowed the governors to INSIST (as is constitutionally correct) that he didn't have the power, they did. That gave the MSM the chance to gloat about his lack of knowledge of the constitution and thee fact HE was wrong. The advantage of that was that has very effectively fixed it in the minds of the public that he is NOT responsible for onerous nature nor duration of the shutdowns.

Also, I think that having fixed the responsibility of the governors in the public's mind, he's causing the Dimocrats to demonstrate their true nature more effectively than an paid opposition ads would do. Don't forget that Trump has proved himself a master of generating free publicity. He knows that ultimately he must be seen as having done the most to get us through this. I think the fact that his poll numbers have continued to rise in spite of everything the Dims and the Media have tried to do say that he's playing the game very well. So far, he's come through every skirmish ahead of the other guys so I'm keeping my belief in him.

We're moving past the pandemic much more rapidly than the globalists want us to. Florida and Georgia have been reopening for three weeks now and their numbers have continued to improve. I think that by July Things will be greatly improved in many states with any Dimocrat states still trying to hold to a lockdown being standout examples of disaster. I do believe that overall the pandemic will prove to have improved Trump's odds for reelection, and to gain full control of Congress. Pollyanna? Maybe, but I like to hope!

[Jane]

OL,

That sure as hell wouldn't cost you a 100 million. Hell I'd do it for you for 10 million.

Is there a cause you would donate to without asking for a say in what it was spent on? If so, which one?

[Jane]

Good for you Iggy. Any strings attached?

[Jack Lillywhite]

What would I do with $10 million?

First, I would track down JoR, Andruil, Ben, and all their compatriots and make them eat shit for # weeks. Then I would buy me a Hikley 24foot and sail of to the sunset.