Monday Open Comments

A slightly older Dr. Malone column, which I’ve been waiting to present here.  It’s gonna be hard to condense it down.

Crisis is Opportunity

On the doorstep of a fifth-generation warfare civil war. #PsyWar Civil War.

We are now in a fifth-generation warfare civil war, which has been building up to this point for quite a while now. Whether or not you are aware of this is irrelevant.

The territory being fought over is your mind.

This is now rising to the level of becoming a crisis. However, coexisting with every crisis, there are opportunities for those willing and able to see.

Those who lost the election in the popular vote and electoral college now actively seek to overturn and obstruct the will of the electorate through nefarious means. For example, House Democrats … are trying to form a “shadow government” to defy and undermine President Trump’s authority. The Democratic Party and their surrogates in corporate media are trying to lead an unconstitutional “insurrection” against President Trump.

The other day, I was on a Zoom teleconference with the International Crisis Summit team… I suddenly realized that we are in the midst of a second Civil War. Only it is not a kinetic war. It is an information war. A Fifth Generation Warfare-based Civil War, to be technically precise.

[Brief description of the three branches of our government] Donald Trump has just been elected as the next US President, heading up the executive branch. For the most part, the executive branch is where the bureaucracy resides.

Senate Consent to Presidential Appointments

According to Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, the President has the power to nominate federal officers, subject to the Senate’s consent. This provision ensures a system of checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches.

  • The President nominates federal officers, including Ambassadors, public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States.
  • The Senate provides “advice and consent” on these nominations, which has been interpreted as allowing it to reject or confirm the President’s choices.
  • The Constitution does not grant Congress the power to exercise the appointment power directly; instead, it limits Congress’s role to advising and consenting on the President’s nominations.

The Framers aimed to prevent tyranny by dividing the appointment power between the President and the Senate….

The Appointments Clause serves as a restraint on Congress, preventing it from exercising the appointment power or circumventing the President’s authority….

… the President has a relatively small number of politically appointed associates. The US Constitution states that the US Senate has the right and duty to advise and consent to those appointments,… In the case of the Presidential appointments, this “advice and consent” role has evolved into a lengthy vetting process in which Senators are actively lobbied by …(“Lobbyists”) to either agree to or attempt to block presidential appointments… But with Presidential appointments, the system has developed into high art Kabuki theater in which appointees are typically subjected to a variety of character assassination attacks …designed to deny their appointment,…

[Malone points out that due to the 17th Amendment, Senators no longer represent their state governments, but are now political actors representing themselves, including their “advise and consent” role.  The current situation includes political cabals attempting to establish a “shadow government” and attempting to stymie Trump’s picks for his executive positions. This takes the form of smearing reputations via disinformation, slander, etc.]

… In other words, to engage in fifth-generation warfare skirmishes to deny the elected incoming President his chosen staff.

/snip

My point in sharing this is that there are many good people in the FDA bureaucracy who have become quite frustrated with the way things are, and (if approached openly and professionally) are willing to work “across the aisle” to enable reforms….

[Malone discusses the use of crisis to bring cohesive forces to bear, and not just be used to divide and conquer.]

The US government and administrative state face multiple internal and external threats. The greatest of those is the federal deficit and debt, resulting from decades of mismanagement by both political parties. Without resorting to … the infinite range of psychological warfare weapons now available, we should be able to put aside our differences and unify around this common enemy. Now is the time for the grownups to step up and set an example of professionalism and to focus on the task at hand. … And we don’t need temper tantrums from those who could not convince a majority of the American public of the merit of their plans, perspectives, and arguments.

We need to be civil to each other. For if we don’t hang together, we shall certainly hang separately.


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46 responses to “Monday Open Comments”

  1. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
    Dr phil Good-E=1984

    first 1st
    mornin hosers
    get some cheerios and coffee.

    now back to bed.

  2. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    50 degrees @ 5 AM this morning, much better than 36 and we’ll hit the mid 70’s by noon.
    Mornin’ Gang

  3. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    My sister has been wanting me to fix a pot of oyster stew for some time now. Also since my wife doesn’t like it the idea was to fix it sometime when my wife was out of town but yesterday I did what I often do when I make my wife tater soup. I made extra white sauce, a lot this time and made a pot tater soup and another pot of oyster stew served with crackers and cheese. Man was it good and wife said the tater soup was good also. FWIW; I make my tater soup with lyonnaised taters and sauteed onions.

  4. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    CFP posted a link to this fascinating story over the weekend.

    The agricultural world is witnessing a remarkable transformation, driven by groundbreaking technology. Among the most fascinating innovations is a farming robot equipped with lasers that can destroy hundreds of thousands of weeds in mere hours. This high-tech solution is not just a marvel of engineering but a timely response to persistent challenges in farming, from labor shortages to the environmental impact of chemical herbicides.

    and,

    The robot operates with minimal human intervention, scanning rows of crops using 12 high-resolution cameras that detect weeds in real time. Its onboard AI system processes this information, distinguishing weeds from crops with incredible accuracy. Once a weed is identified, carbon dioxide lasers target and destroy it instantly, leaving the surrounding soil undisturbed. This approach eliminates the need for chemical herbicides, reducing environmental harm while preserving soil health. It also alleviates the physical burden of manual weeding, offering farmers a more efficient alternative.

    1. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      I posted a link to that type of technology a few months ago after seeing it on the Sunday morning Farm Report. But it did used herbicide not lasers.

  5. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Inez Stepman at the Claremont Institute has a graph.

    Since I was 8 years old, spending per pupil in public education has increased on average across the nation by 192%. This figure is adjusted for inflation. Math and reading skills have remained static or declined over the same 64 year period.

  6. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Personally, I’ve never liked the term “working class. The farmer running a complex, 21st century, technologically sophisticated operation, a small business owner and the lawyer, surgeon and CPA are all working. “Working class” implies everyone in a dress shirt and tie is sitting around the country club all day, everyday. Although, Salena Zito is exactly right here:

    Biden Was the Fluke in 2020, Not Trump in 2016

    In interview after interview, waitresses, welders, rank-and-file union members, plumbers, HVAC small-business owners, hairdressers and barbers would tell national news reporters, including me, that they were voting for Trump.

        No matter how often these voters said this, it often was dismissed as an outlier. Or it was placed in a silo of race, meaning it was only the white working class. The blindness among reporters and Democrats was that they thought it was only white middle-class voters behaving that way, missing that working-class voters of all races were voting shoulder to shoulder.

        Why? Because these voters are culturally connected to each other through their communities where they live together, their children attend schools together, and they work side by side. Plus, they share other cultural touchstones, such as church attendance, elevated concerns about crime in their neighborhoods, and the economic stress that affects them all.

    1. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      Very good article but most of the Democrats still don’t get it. BTW; I did like this part and it is true of other states as well not just Pennsylvania;

      When Biden dropped out and Harris jumped in, what experts missed was that the die was already cast with working-class voters. She was not reaching them in the way she needed. These voters, men and women, care more about whether they can pay for a car repair when their check engine light goes on than they care about abortion access.

  7. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    David Strom at HotAir includes this quote from the New York Times in his column today. The incompetent fools running automakers didn’t fight back with any vigor against Obama and Biden. They just rolled over and stupidly assumed if they could be forced into making EVs, then the American people would herd like sheep into dealerships. They were in for a big damn surprise to discover we don’t march like lackeys to politician’s commands.

    In fact, most automakers don’t love the more stringent rules Mr. Biden put in place. But they have already invested billions in a transition to electric vehicles, and fear that if Mr. Trump made an abrupt change as he has promised, they could be undercut by automakers who sell cheaper, gas-powered cars. They argue it would harm an industry that is a backbone of American manufacturing and employs 1.1 million people.

    Lobbyists and officials from several car companies say the automakers want the Biden regulations to remain largely intact, with some changes such as more time for compliance and lower penalties for companies that don’t meet the requirements.

    One wild card in negotiations is Elon Musk, the top Trump adviser and chief executive of Tesla, which accounts for half of electric vehicle sales in the United States.

    In a previously unreported Nov. 12 letter to Mr. Trump, John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents 42 car companies that produce nearly all the new vehicles sold in the United States, wrote that in order for the auto industry to remain “successful and competitive,” it needed “stability and predictability in auto-related emissions standards.”

  8. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Spend 4 minutes plus with Pete Hegseth and you will know why he is a great choice for SecDef. All those senior bureaucrats in the Pentagon have flop-sweat worrying whether they’ll be driving an Uber car next year.

    1. Tedtam Avatar
      Tedtam

      I mentioned this clip the other day. He’s absolutely correct.

  9. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Charles Murray on X, but will anybody listen ? Given the IQ level of higher education leaders today, probably not.

    1/2 Advice for small colleges with good-but-not-top-tier prestige: The first among you to announce that henceforth admissions will be based exclusively on test scores will immediately become a safety application for 1500-1600 SAT students who are subsequently turned down.

    2/2 by the top tier for “holistic” reasons. Your 2025 entering class will be sensationally talented. Within a few years, you will be flooded with top applicants, a high proportion of which have parents who can pay full tuition. Your prestige will have soared.

  10. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    I thought Tulsi Gabbard lived in California. I just read she and her husband live in Leander, the “little town” north of Austin. I got a ticket doing 90 in a 50 mph zone in the middle of the night in Leander back in the 70s when it had 2,000 residents. I was coming back from West Texas. Leander has 81,371 people living there now. Sheesh.

    1. wagonburner Avatar
      wagonburner

      Get a load of Parnelli Jones over here.

  11. squawkbox Avatar
    squawkbox

    Found this and thought it was kewl

    1. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      Great find, Squawk.

      1. Shannon Avatar
        Shannon

        Those were the days, eh?

  12. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Don Surber takes the tariffs will doom America to poverty crowd to the woodshed and knocks the tar out of them.

    “Tariffs are going to be inflationary, there’s no disputing that,” Walmart finance chief John David Rainey told Fox News on Thursday.

    and yet,

    The same dumb argument was made in Trump’s first term. Big business tells us that free trade creates jobs and tariffs hurt Americans. Corporate America never explains why all our factories are closed and the Midwest is dying.

    If tariffs are as inflationary as Fortune and Walmart claim, then why was the annual inflation rate only 1.9% under President Trump even after he imposed tariffs on Red China?

    but,

    “Ex-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Says Trump’s China Trade War Could Mean Long-Term Pain.”

    Ah yes, Paulson was the principled man who refused to give Lehman Brothers a $50 billion bailout loan, which triggered quick recession, which took $750 billion in bailouts to fix.

    Same panic. Same magazine. Same argument.

    But this time, it will be different.

  13. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Prayer and bead time is over, Lovely Daughter and I had a lovely conversation while I put in two miles on the treadmill, and it’s darkening here at the Dome. I think I’m going to get my shower done before what looks like a storm hits here.

  14. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    TT 11:03

    The only thing on the radar at all is over hundred miles out in the Gulf.

  15. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    I wonder – if Biden pardons Hunter, does this mean that Hunter can be compelled to testify against other members of his family, since he can’t incriminate himself? At that point, pleading the Fifth makes no sense.

    This could be interesting.

  16. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
    Dr phil Good-E=1984

    Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Nov. 24 on CNN that his panel will have “lots of questions” for Gabbard, singling out her meeting as a congresswoman with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad as a point of contention.

    Lankford voted to confirm garland.
    Murkowski and collins also voted to confirm garland and mayorkas.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/senators-signal-trump-nominees-gabbard-hegseth-will-face-grilling-congress

    hypocrites.

  17. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
    Dr phil Good-E=1984

    Auntie em, uncklo.
    it’s a twister, it’s a twister.

  18. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    I got busy payin’ bills ‘n such after my shower, I plumb forgot about the C&C!

    Good morning, C&C, it’s the Monday before Thanksgiving! We have so much to be thankful for, but also much to remember for our fellow citizens who continue to struggle for now. In today’s fiery roundup: vaccine-pushing Megachurch pastor collapses mid-sermon; eye-watering woke editorial exposes failed narrative shift attempt; New York Times post-election analysis exposes profound problems for Democrats; Trump’s quintessentially American character; how Trump transformed the GOP brand back to its populist origin; and how the Democrat brand collapsed back into its perpetual pro-slavery roots.

    Forgot the link: https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/reversion-monday-november-25-2024

  19. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    First, prayers for this man:

    This morning we are praying for Dallas megachurch Pastor ‘Bishop’ T. D. Jakes. He experienced a sudden and unexpected cardiac event during services yesterday…..

    Fortunately, it sounds like he’s stable. I’m sure there were a lot of parents having serious discussions with their young’uns after that event.

     Coincidentally, Pastor Jakes was one of the very first Evangelical leaders to shoot right out of the propaganda gate in January 2021, by platforming human cockroach and anti-human atheist Tony Fauci, so the ratlike bureaucrat could convince skeptical black Christians to accept the unsafe and ineffective shots:

    /snip

    There is plausible evidence the cooperation of some Evangelical leaders was purchased, to help push vaccines and to dilute the strength of people’s religious objections to the jabs, with the pieces of silver sloshed to financially-strapped churches through shady NGO’s and non-profits. At the very least, uncooperative faith leaders could not or would not receive helpful government largesse in the form of grants for community vaccination initiatives and so forth.

    Anyway, I’m not implying anything about Pastor Jakes. He is a generic example of the larger problem. But that’s not even why I included his story in today’s post. It was because of this next astonishing article.

    Here’s the next article:

    Far-left Afru.com is a news/blog site that claims to “combine art and fashion with lifestyle commentary to create a strong social justice brand.” It’s so over-the-top woke it makes me suspect some three-letter agency is really behind it. Anyway, superficially, it is aimed at aggressively gay black folks and white “allies.” 

    Mr. C. admits that the article he is referencing may be as much as a year old, but here ’tis:

    In any case, sometime late last year, the “AFRU STAFF” published an angry editorial that blew my socks off when I recently came across it. It was headlined, “They knew: why didn’t the unvaccinated do more to warn us?

    It was exactly what it sounded like. It was not ironic or sarcastic. “Our blood,” AFRU coldly claimed, “is now on their hands.” These three paragraphs summarize the article’s sentiment:

    The unvaccinated had access to important information about the potential side effects of vaccines. They knew about the risks of severe allergic reactions, blood clots, and other serious health complications. They knew that vaccines did not immunize us. They knew it wasn’t effective, and that they can cause more harm than good.

    They knew all of that, but instead of warning us, the unvaccinated chose to remain silent. They chose to look the other way and not speak out about the potential dangers of vaccines. They let millions of good folks who did the right thing (at the time) fall to death and disease, and many antivaxxers even gloated online about how their coin flip had been the right bet. The more diabolical even urged folks they disagree with to “get boosted.”

    We are good people; we took those injections because it was the right thing to do — until it wasn’t. The silence of the unvaccinated was a dangerous, sociopathic, and irresponsible decision that has had serious consequences for those of us who received the vaccinations. And silence is, after all, consent.

    I’m with Mr. C. on the loud scoffing noises that emanated from my mouth when I read the above quote. We, the ‘unvaxxed’ were ostracized, shut down, humiliated, and in some cases, denied employment or access to needed services. Remember the folks were were denied kidneys because they refused the jab? Our screaming wasn’t nonexistent, it was muffled under the brutal hand of our political attackers as they dragged us into closets where they tried to hide us from polite, compliant society.

    …First, we’ve certainly come a long way if the dark underbelly of the wokeverse has shifted from denying vaccine injuries exist to blaming unvaccinated people for them.

    It also occurred to me that this narrative was a nifty way of stopping some woke people from waking up to what their government did to them, by shifting the blame off bureaucrats onto their fellow citizens who managed to escape the same fate, which is just the kind of narrative a murky, off-book, three-letter-agency would cook up.

    Or it could be the natural inclination of the emotionally weak to blame others rather than take responsibility for their own decisions – but I also keep in mind that the gubmint lied loudly, and long, about the “data”.

    In the short period of time during which it was open for user comments, the article’s vast comment section did not end well:

    They knew: why didn’t the unvaccinated do more to warn us?

    I haven’t looked at the comments yet, but comments have been shut down due to the brutality of the responses.

    As they should be. Don’t blame folks for not warning you when (1) you wouldn’t listen and (2) our voices were shut down, brutally. Here’s a loud “F word” followed by the appropriate pronoun for you.

  20. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Dr Phil, call your office ! It’s never too soon to join the gang fight !

    In one corner, at the tender age of 40, is JD Vance. He’s a military veteran who was deployed in Iraq, graduated from Yale, has three children, and had a meteoric rise to the top of the ranks of the GOP.

    In the other corner, at the tender age of 46, is Ron DeSantis. He’s a military veteran who was deployed in Iraq, graduated from Yale, has three children, and had a meteoric rise to the top of the ranks of the GOP.

    But despite their surface-level similarities, the two are starkly different people.

    Right now, President-elect Trump is the undisputed master of MAGAtropolis. He runs the kingdom; the throne is his. But four years from now?

    Well, it won’t be the meek who inherits the earth.

    Instead, it’ll almost certainly be a military veteran who was deployed in Iraq, graduated from Yale, has three children, and had a meteoric rise to the top of the ranks of the GOP.

    1. Dr phil Good-E=1984 Avatar
      Dr phil Good-E=1984

      I was just discussing that with my brother this morning.
      Desantis vs Vance.

  21. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    After a discussion of Trump’s win and a dissection of data; Mr. C. explains Trump’s appeal using comparisons to former great presidents and his appeal to “new” voters. Then he goes to this:

    Which brings us to the really bad news for Democrats. Unlike Trump’s 2016 victory, this time his win signals a problem far beyond brilliant electoral gamesmanship. This time, Trump’s win signals a permanent shift in voter preferences.

    Democrats never saw it coming.

    “This pattern,” the Times glumly admitted, “has no modern precedent. It suggests that the backlash against Democrats during 2021 and 2022 affected the political allegiance of millions of voters — and ultimately the electoral map.”

    In other words, MAGA is not a historical blip. It is a trend.

    “Mr. Trump,” the Times continued, “flipped all of it around, weakening Democrats’ bonds with working-class voters, as well as nonwhite and young ones.” Trump’s victory “has shattered Democratic dreams of building a new majority with the rise of a new generation of young and nonwhite voters.”

    More than made-up fears the dark night of fascism has finally landed on the United States instead of on Europe, this, more than anything else, is what truly terrifies and deeply discombobulates the Democrats. The Democrat party’s brand has reverted to the brand of big institutions, of aggressive preservation of elite norms, of sneering, arrogant academics and wealthy, slave-holding authoritarianism.

    They’ve been Bud-Lited. And because it is true, it will be next to impossible for the Democrats to shed their authentic brand without the kind of fundamental transformation that their current ossified, geriatric leaders are institutionally unable to effect.

    We can hope that the “woke” have been truly “awakened”.

  22. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    I have a smoked turkey thawing out in the frig. I’ve never been a big fan of turkey so cooking one has never been a priority for me. I like the smoked turkey better anyway.

    Handsome Son and Lovely DIL will be here for breakfast on Thanksgiving Day, heading off to her folks’ place for dinner shortly after. I’m thinking of making some smoked turkey omelets and baked sweet potatoes for the morning meal. Hubby and I can throw something together later when we get hungry.

    Gone are our days of big family get togethers on the holidays. Eldest Sis used to host Thanksgiving, but age and health issues stopped that about five years ago. All of my siblings are busy with their progeny on the holidays now. LD & Family are visiting her in-laws, and Handsome and LDIL 99% of the time go see her folks. Fortunately, her family loves Handsome as much as I do, so that’s good. Hubby and I are pretty much empty nesters 365 days a year now.

  23. Bonecrusher Avatar
    Bonecrusher

    Jaguar Goes Full Bud Light, Destroys Brand

    This may have been discussed in a previous post, but it is worthy of repeating. Jaguar actually out bud lighted Bud Light in this ad which by the way, does not even show one of its vehicles. There is not a ‘normal’ person in the ad, they are all deranged freaks.
    Because of this ad, I seriously doubt the viability of the Jaguar brand in 2026 if it even makes it that long.

    1. Super Dave Avatar
      Super Dave

      Yup that was on Fox last week. Did I tell you that there is no CAR in the ad?!
      Oh and NOT Steve McQueen. 😀

  24. Bonecrusher Avatar
    Bonecrusher

    Let’s have a rational look at the Israel/Hamas war. The pejorative ‘genocide’ is absurd.

  25. wagonburner Avatar
    wagonburner

    The commercial Bud Light should have done all along.

    https://youtu.be/TO6hngy9Ajw?si=XVWb9Ce4Vq1RwauJ

  26. Adee Avatar
    Adee

    Well, I tried to give the Hambone opener 5 stars but could only make one star stay on. Assistance, please.

    1. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      I scored it at 5 stars earlier but somebody around here is jacking with the star rating. Hmmm…

  27. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    There was a black tie gratitude dinner at the White House for the pathetic old Joe Biden. He stepped out of the race to allow Kamala to run and endorsed her candidacy to throw it into the face of Obama and Pelosi. Whatever everyone’s motivations were, Joe gave her a shot at the title and she didn’t even have the class to fly back to DC and show up for the event. What a miserable, ungrateful piece of s**t this woman is.

    1. Shannon Avatar
      Shannon

      FJB, Obama, Harris, Pelosi, Hillary

      The Scumbags deserve each other.

  28. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    I had to laugh. Saturday was my 36th wedding anniversary.
    There were actually two occasions when we both forgot about it and when we realized it, we laughed until we cried. Too funny.
    Busy Thanksgiving holidays can do that to ya.

    1. Texpat Avatar
      Texpat

      Only somebody as strange as my brother gets married on Thanksgiving Eve.

  29. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    You think you’re a tough guy ? Think you can whip anybody in a fight ?

    Try taking care of your 11 month old granddaughter for several hours. She can knock you over with a feather or a toothless grin, dude. You don’t have a chance and it’s a KO, not a TKO.

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