What do you expect when New Yorkers elect a Communist for their mayor – twice?

I used to love New York City. There was so much to do and see, but if one were from the heartland like me, one could be perfectly content to just walk the streets and look at architecture and people.

One might seek out venues one had seen in the movies, such as in Woody Allen’s Manhattan; perhaps Elaine’s. And when one got weary from walking, one could sit down at one of two major opera houses. And after a performance one might grab a beer at P.J. Clark’s across the street from the Met and muse about what a wonderful city one was visiting, where the Bronx is up and the Battery’s down.

It really was a helluva town.  Tragically, I used to love New York City, but there’s not much left to love. In fact, many are saying the city is dead and isn’t coming back.

Yes, he actually asked this question to his audience yesterday (8/31) in Pittsburgh on his first “campaign stop” rally since emerging from his basement.

The words “audience” for his “rally” need to be in sarcasm quotes, as only a few dozen people showed up along with seven reporters.  How pathetic can you get?

Joe Biden is in the Catch-22 of his political career. If he stays in his basement, he faces the legitimate question of whether he’s fit — both physically and mentally — to assume the duties of the presidency. If he hits the campaign trail, he runs the risk of… Pittsburgh.

The latter wasn’t a pretty sight. At all. Put another way, Joe had a very bad day in Pittsburgh. A really bad day. And social media on both sides knows it.

Ephesus in 200 BC

Ruins of Ephesus today

In February, New York was the world’s most dynamic metropolis. By August, the city was more like the ruins of Ephesus. It is not all that hard to blow up a culture. You can do it in a summer if you haven’t much worry about others.

When you loot and burn a Target in an hour, it takes months to realize there are no more neighborhood Target-stocked groceries, toilet paper, and Advil to buy this winter.

You can in a night assault the police, spit at them, hope to infect them with the coronavirus, and even burn them alive. But when you call 911 in a few weeks after your car is vandalized, your wallet is stolen, and your spouse is violent, and no one comes, only then do you sense that you earlier were voting for a pre-civilized wilderness.

And that wilderness can come in a blink of history’s eye.

How lovely! On Durham's 8 hour Brennan interview: Was John Brennan Just Put In A Completely Legitimate Perjury Trap?

Attention Mike Ryan!

Psychopathic racist PR: EXCLUSIVE: Insider at PR Giant Publicis Groupe Reveals Far-left Racism Spreading Through Woke Capitalism

Real election interference: Twitter Censors Trump Tweet About 'Voter Security Disaster'

Big Brother Zuck is watching you to make sure that nothing that you say goes viral without His Royal Majesty’s  approval: Report: Facebook Introducing a 'Virality Circuit Breaker' to Prevent Spread of Viral Content

Tell a big enough lie long enough - and maybe the BBC(!) will fact check it. (I wonder if that fact-checker still has his job) BBC Fact-checks Joe Biden for Charlottesville 'Very Fine People' Hoax

There’s lots more!

“Biden should not concede under any circumstances” -Hillary Clinton, August 25,2020

In his speech, Biden actually endorses the “Trump provocateur” justification for the “darkness” in which we find ourselves.  “The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long,” Biden said. “Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division.”

Whose anger? Who caused the fear? Who caused the division? Trump did—the same way he created the riots. He failed to bend the knee to the church of wokeness. The solution, Biden reminded us, is ending dissent and uniting to unite, Communist Chinese-style, under a monopoly of Democrat power.

The four days of the Democrat infomercial were characterized by misery and anger.  Not one of the Democrat speakers even smiled.  They made it clear, each and every one of them, that they hate this country.

The speakers on the first night of the Republican convention were from an altogether different planet.  They represented those of us who love this country, who know that it is not a racist nation.  Every speaker had a story to tell, and all of the stories were a powerful expression of why those who told them love America and are grateful for what this country means to them.

If nothing else, the architects of the 2020 Democrat Convention appeared to be ignorant of irony.

Either that, or they know irony so well and cared so little that they wished to ram it down the throats of the few who watched the nightly taped speeches—as if to say, “We’re hypocrites and proud of it—and what are you going to do about it?”

Well, we could start by pointing out and laughing at the ludicrous irony of Dem luminaries such as Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Andrew Cuomo parodying themselves without knowing it.

Don't let anyone guilt you over the bad consequences of their own behavior; unwise shortsighted  behavior that results in deadly consequences rather than systemic racism  is causing more minority deaths from the Wuhan virus:

Social distancing responses to COVID-19 emergency declarations strongly differentiated by income

November 3, 2020; the shape of things to come:

Election Roulette: How To Rig An Outcome

Something about China; interesting correlation between crops, culture, and humans regulating human  behavior:

Historically rice-farming societies have tighter social norms in China and worldwide

Good comments on inflation:

The Road To Inflation In Post-COVID Times

If you thought that the 737-MAX was as bad as it could get, just wait for airplanes designed by this generation of STEM graduates:

Students Claim 'Merit'-Criteria "Possess Inherent Bias"

This will fix it:

"That's Ridiculous": Jill Biden - Not Joe, Appears On Live TV To Defend VP's Cognitive Ability

There’s lots more!

[This is long yet one of Victor’s best.  There is an abundance of ammo here to clear the field of any woketards you may meet –JW]

What created the hatred of Trump and his supporters was not a rather heterodox political agenda (see below), but a style that took on the Left on its own terms, and shocked a Republican establishment — by shrugging as irrelevant his ostracism by the traditional conservative beltway insider.

I would prefer a supposed braggart cracking down on China, or a purported narcissist closing the border, or an alleged demagogue promising change in the Rust Belt than any more sermons from privileged gentlemen conservatives.

Such as Jeb Bush tolerating illegal immigration as “an act of love,” or silent agreement that those manufacturing “jobs are not coming back” as Obama put it, or wonkishly boy wonder Paul Ryan being drilled in a debate by the vacuous smiling Joker Joe Biden or Mitt Romney oblivious that Candy Crowley had just hijacked his debate momentum—and with it the election.

Crassness is not a requisite for needed change, but so often in a flawed world the two are shared, in the reverse fashion that gaseous pieties are frequently voiced by the sober and judicious.

But all this is irrelevant when we consider what Trump did rather than what he said.  Here is a compendium.

photo ©Jack Wheeler

[Having been to Somaliland three times, and writing about it in TTP for years – e.g., The Country That Does Exist (Feb. 2011) – I am so pleased to see Michael Horton explain how Islamic terrorists, while winning in Somalia, are being defeated in Somaliland – JW]

The tempo of Jihadist Al-Shabaab’s operations in Somalia has steadily increased, despite a dramatic escalation in U.S.-led drone strikes in Somalia.  In fact, indications have emerged that al-Shabaab is gaining new capabilities and tactics, such as the use of hand-launched drones.

However, Al-Shabaab has failed to establish an enduring presence in the autonomous but unrecognized Republic of Somaliland. The government of Somaliland’s military budget is the equivalent of an accounting error when compared with what has been—and continues to be—spent in Somalia by its international backers.

Yet, with its limited resources, Somaliland has achieved what the military forces of Kenya, Turkey, Ethiopia, and the United States have failed to achieve in Somalia: it has denied al-Shabaab a foothold.

How has Somaliland achieved this?

"From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step." —Denis Diderot (1713-1784) – leader of the French Enlightenment

Tonight (8/19) at the Virtual Democrat Convention in Milwaukee, Kamala Harris will virtually accept her party’s nomination for Vice-President (she will be in Chevy Chase, Maryland at the time).

Joe Biden's handlers opting for Kamala Harris as his running mate is downright entertaining. It's as though they let Trump choose Biden's V.P. candidate.  Harris polled near the very bottom of all the Democrats who threw their hat in the ring as presidential wannabes.

Of all the women among consideration, Harris has the greatest dearth of character – which, when you think of it, is in character for the Democrats.

For 48 years they’ve lied to the world

Ordinarily, most of us wouldn't care too much about a political leader's love life. After all, President Trump is a stellar president but his personal life hasn't been perfect. Big deal. Trump's never brought it up to win votes out on the campaign trail.

Joe Biden's different. He's using the occasion of his previous wife, Neilia Hunter Biden's death in a car crash along with that of his baby daughter to tell us how compassionate he is, in a bid to reap political hay.

Now it looks like he was cheating on Neilia by having an affair with another man’s wife – yes, the now-Jill Biden.

New Normal: From "Corona-Totalitarianism" To The Invasion Of The "New Normals"

Fed promises to steal our US dollar savings: Fed Commitment To Let Inflation Run Isn't A Promise; It's A Threat

More on the HCQ narrative: Big Pharma's 'Narrative' Is Failing

Paying for infections - what could possibly go wrong? California Will Soon Be Paying $1,250 To People Who Test Positive For Coronavirus

And lots more!

According to media accounts, a “power outage” delayed the debut of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris yesterday (8/13) — a foreshadowing of what we can expect from an anti-energy Biden–Harris administration.

Both are committed to an extreme environmentalism that will cripple America’s oil and gas industry. Harris is opposed to all fracking. Biden has made as his vice-presidential running mate a San Francisco radical, whose voting record puts her to the left of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

But the media, seeking to con independents, is casting Harris as a “pragmatic moderate.” Right. She is no more moderate than Biden, who has promised to be the most liberal president ever. His administration would combine the worst of the Obama years with all the extreme Left radicalism of today’s Democrat Party.

On ample display Wednesday was the ticket’s relentless demagoguery. Both Biden and Harris are audacious and monumental liars. It is a toss-up as to who lied more in their speeches.

The Fall of Rome by Thomas Cole, 1836

To understand the extraordinary events in America today, it is helpful to look at the ancient wisdom of Greece and Rome. As the wise historian Thucydides said, “If we forget the errors of the past, we are doomed to repeat them.”

The ancient Greco-Roman historian Polybius (200-118 B.C.) developed a theory of the “lifecycle” of a republic. Like a human being, a republic is born, is young, matures, grows old, and dies.

Ironically, the virtues of an early republic—hard work, honesty, courage, frugality, morality—lead to the great wealth and power which then contribute to its decline.

Imperial regimes become proud and arrogant, depraved, foolish, self-indulgent, and unethical. Sound familiar?

We could be discussing headline-grabbing issues, such as the Black Lives Matter riots in Chicago (where looting now equals reparations), schoolteachers refusing to teach while demanding pay, or any other Leftist retreat from reality.  But frankly, I'm bored.

I have had it up to here and beyond with the Leftists' dystopian flights from reality.  I want normal life back again, and I think a lot of other people do, too.  Therefore, I'd like to propose a new Trump/Pence campaign slogan, or mantra if you will:

MANA! Make America Normal Again

Americans have long been proud of the fact that, unlike European countries, America never went the route of totalitarianism as embodied in Communism , Fascism, and Nazism.

This achievement may be coming to an end.

In order to understand why, it is first necessary to understand why European countries embraced—or fell victim to—totalitarian doctrines.  For we are about to do the same.

Joe Biden and the Democrat Party may have seriously hobbled their election prospects in November by refusing to send out staff and volunteers to campaign door-to-door, building the essential “ground game” that helps win elections.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) claim to have volunteers and staff knocking on 1 million doors a week across America.

The Biden campaign and the Democrat National Committee (DNC) claim that they are not committing political suicide but merely adapting to the coronavirus pandemic (what’s the difference?). They told Politico that they can compensate for the lack of in-person canvassing with phone calls, texts, digital organizing, and virtual meet-ups with voters. Right.

The Trump campaign appears to have taken the exact opposite approach.

[A selection of links sent from Skye on what he thinks is worth TTPers’ consideration this week.  It should get you ready for the HFR tomorrow.  He welcomes your feedback and comments on the Forum!]

Turley on trollmeister Trump:

"Blood-Chilling" Or Just A Tweet? Debunking The Coup d'Trump

Its who counts the deaths and how they are counted:

MN Senator Investigated for Criticism of CDC Virus Death Count Guide

CDC: 'Perverse Incentive' for Hospitals to Inflate Coronavirus Deaths

De Blasio stupidly admitting to flagrant First Amendment civil rights violation:

De Blasio: Painting BLM Murals My Decision That 'Transcends All Normal Realities' - Anyone Else Who Wants Mural Has to Apply

Ratings Crash for NBA, MLB After Protest-Filled Debuts

Cultural suicide used to be a popular diagnosis of why things suddenly just quit.

Historians such as Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee cited social cannibalism to explain why once-successful states, institutions, and cultures simply died off.

Their common explanation was that the arrogance of success ensures lethal consequences. Once elites became pampered and arrogant, they feel exempt from their ancestors’ respect for moral and spiritual laws  — such as the need for thrift, moderation, and transcendence.

Take professional sports.

Anti-Putin demonstration in Khabarovsk, Siberia, August 2, 2020

The protests in Khabarovsk and other Russian cities in Siberia and the Far East over the last month have called attention to something that has been a problem for the central Russian government since at least the 19th century.

Moscow is already more concerned about Siberian regionalism than ever before. But now, the Siberians themselves—ethnic Russian and non-Russian alike—are giving the center more compelling reasons to worry.

“Held: Because it is evident that any recount seeking to meet 3 U. S. C. § 5's December 12 "safe-harbor" date would be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause, the Florida Supreme Court's judgment ordering manual recounts is reversed.” – SCOTUS Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000)

Democrats are so invested in their revisionist history concerning Bush v. Gore that they have forgotten why SCOTUS actually stopped the Florida recounts on December 12, 2000. That was the “safe harbor” date after which the state’s electors may not have been counted.

The Dems have actually laid a trap for themselves.  Here’s why.

In his latest incarnation as president emeritus and corporate multimillionaire community activist, we are reminded of the earlier Barack Obama of “get in their face,” “take a gun to a knife fight,” and “punish our enemies” vintage.

From time to time, Obama ventures from his hilltop, seaside, $12 million “you didn’t build that” Martha’s Vineyard Estate or his tony Washington, D.C. $8 million “spread the wealth” mansion to lecture the nation on all of its racist sins, past and present.

Obama has always been blind and deaf to the irony of himself. When the truth is finally known, the nation will learn that the Obama Administration was one of the most corrupt in history.  But for now, he is in our face again.  Why?

Winning is everything to these people, even if it means destroying the United States of America to do it (cf. Portland, Seattle, Chicago, and so forth).

So where is Dr. Anthony Fauci in all this?

His bizarre wild pitch at the Washington Nationals baseball opening last Thursday (7/23) is symbolic in the way the “pandemic panic” under which we live, has to a great degree been exacerbated by Dr. Fauci and his colleagues and their arrogance, cheered on, inevitably, by the Democrats and their media choir.

Call it Deep State Medicine.

Have we reached Peak Corporate Cave-In?

It kind of looks like it - Trader Joe's has decided to reverse course and not change all the brand labels of its products to satisfy the wokeness demands of a tiny, largely white, racism-parsing left-wing mob. Here's their statement.

That's a big change from all the cancel culture that's taking every minority face off food-label packaging. Reading through the lines of the corporate statement tells us a lot of just why, and is it commendable:

He came, he saw, he ate their lunch.

Yesterday (7/28) in four hours of testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Bill Barr, denied a meal break, feasted instead on a gaggle of Democrat amateurs.  Another congressional hearing, another Dem disaster.

They planned a public hanging of the attorney general and spent weeks constructing their scaffold.  But the Dems were led by Rep. Jerry Nadler, whose rabidness is exceeded only by his haplessness.

The start was delayed because Nadler was in a minor car accident. That was obviously an omen, but Nadler doesn’t take hints, so he plowed forward into a head-on crash with a heavyweight opponent superior in ­every way.

Jack will be the first to tell you, as his wife of so many years, I am his most honest critic.  Recently, he was interviewed by Justin Huff on his YouTube show Smart Aspirations.  I found it so entertaining – so Jack being himself – that I told him, “TTPers need to see this!”  I hope you enjoy watching Jack explain this amazing life of his – and let us know what you think on the Forum. Have fun!  - Rebel

“It’s my greatest concern. My single greatest concern. This president is going to try to steal this election.”

--Joe Biden, June 10, 2020

They are literally destroying everything they can to make you pay the price for rejecting them. So what we have here is a montage of the Democrats and the Drive-Bys talking about Trump preparing to steal the next election using federal troops.

She knows the end is nigh

What accounts for the frenzied shift to hysterical language among Leftists when attempting to demean the president every time they open their mouths?  That is an easy question; they know that Biden is a pathetic loser and that Trump is going to defeat him handily in November.

Thus, we hear terms like "storm troopers," "militia," "private troops," and other nonsensical language to describe Trump's light-touch attempts at rescuing those Democrat-run cities that are under siege by violent Marxist groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

They don't seem to grasp the fact that much of America is laughing at them for their misplaced arrogance and crying for the residents of those cities being destroyed by Leftist officials and the well-organized, well-funded anarchist groups that have turned them into war zones.

In the 1960s and early '70s, the U.S. was convulsed by massive protests calling for radical changes in the country's attitudes on race, class, gender and sexual orientation. The Vietnam War and widespread college deferments were the fuel that ignited prior peaceful civil disobedience.

Sometimes the demonstrations became violent, as with the Watts riots of 1965 and the protests at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Terrorists from the Weathermen (later called the Weather Underground) bombed dozens of government buildings.

Yet a half-century after the earlier revolution, today's cultural revolution is vastly different -- and far more dangerous.  Here’s why.

As India and China confront each other across the Himalayas, it also clearly appears to have driven India and the United States closer. The two have conducted joint military exercises and seem to have been in regular contact, including regarding the Sino-Indian confrontation.

What is more surprising is a series of high-profile statements from senior U.S. officials and lawmakers supporting India. In contrast to the present tensions, during the 2017 Doklam confrontation, this time in Galwan on the other Western side of the Himalayas, the situation appears different.  [See maps below]

If you take black and white left-wing rhetoric seriously, blacks are not human beings like members of other races.

They are first and foremost black; they are human beings defined before anything else by their color—not their humanity, their personality, their character, their mind or their heart. So much so that, according to white and black leftists, if you dissent from this racist view, you are now labelled racist.

The idiocy and inhumanity of this, the “progressive” view of black people, is easily demonstrated.

Every country in the world is experiencing its own particular version of the ongoing global health-and-economic crisis.  Russia faces a particularly complex one, aggravated by outstanding and escalating mismanagement.

Putin relies on the habitual combination of information control and targeted repressions for suppressing the discontent; yet, his own sociological research, conducted—rather unconventionally—by the Federal Protection Service (FSO), warns about rising anger (Meduza.io, July 16).

Feigning supreme confidence, Putin refuses to acknowledge the swift erosion of his severely corrupt autocratic regime, but denials only back him into an ever-tighter corner, from which, as previous experiences indicate, he tends to lash out violently—and in an unpredictable direction.

Cultural revolutions are insidious and not just because they seek to change the way people think, write, speak, and act. They are also dangerous because they are fueled by self-righteous sanctimoniousness, expressed in seemingly innocuous terms such as “social activism,” “equality,” and “fairness.”

The ultimate aim of the Jacobin, Bolshevik, or Maoist is raw power—force of the sort sought by Hugo Chavez or the Castro dynasty to get rich, inflict payback on their perceived enemies, reward friends, and pose as saviors.

So beware when the Marxist racialists who run Black Lives Matter, the wannabe Maoists of Antifa, the George Soros-paid activists, “the Squad” and hundreds of state and local officials like them in cities such as Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis, and Big Tech billionaires take power.

These are “caring” people who couldn’t care less about the working classes or the thousands of African-Americans murdered in America’s inner cities.

POTUS, Tulsa OK, June 19, 2020

Given the polls, you would think anyone positing Donald Trump has already won the 2020 election is some kind of blithering idiot—and maybe I am. (I’ve been called worse.)

But I can’t help but think that in current conditions the polls are not only not worth the paper they’re printed on, digital or otherwise, they’re about as accurate as a thermometer run over by a six-wheeler.

No one sensible is talking about their political allegiance these days in public—especially to an anonymous pollster.

Instead, they’re buying guns, in record numbers.

The National Football League celebrated its 100th anniversary last year. This should be a time of self-congratulation for the brutal sport, which has no similar counterpart outside the United States.

The NFL's megaprofits dwarf those of other professional sports in the U.S. The Super Bowl, not the World Series, is America's national sports event.

Yet the NFL is in deep trouble like never before.  Here’s why – and here are helpful suggestions on how it could cure its hypocrisy.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday (7/14) listed over 40 different disastrous things that former Vice President Joe Biden proposed to do if elected president.

“It’s probably never been a time when candidates are so different,” Trump said during a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House. “We want law and order; they don’t want law and order. We want strong closed borders with people able to come in through merit, through a legal process; they don’t want to have any borders at all.”

Here is the list of Biden’s proposals, drawn from the transcript of the president’s press conference:

America is depressed. The combination of the Chinese coronavirus and racial unrest has left many Americans searching for ways to avoid the news. Donald Trump’s popularity has suffered—not because he is responsible for these problems but rather because they happened while he occupies the nation’s highest office.

What Americans need now is a jolt of positivity and optimism. Many loyal Trump supporters have lost hope for America and fear that even if the president wins four more years, it will not matter. To make matters worse, some supporters don’t even have clarity as to what the president’s 2020 message is.

So, while the campaign slogan for 2016 was “Make America Great Again,” allow me to offer a variation for 2020: Make America Dream Again!

To that end, I offer some suggestions for a platform that might inspire such dreaming:

[Yesterday, Bari Weiss – whom Vanity Fair  called the New York Times's "star opinion writer" and The Jerusalem Post  named  the seventh most influential Jew in the world – wrote a resignation letter to the Times’ publisher A.G. Sulzberger.  Fox News reported it as an event that “rocked the entire media world” – “a scathing indictment of the paper’s out-of-control liberal culture.”  Her letter in full is below.]

Dear A.G.,

It is with sadness that I write to tell you that I am resigning from The New York Times.

I joined the paper with gratitude and optimism three years ago. I was hired with the goal of bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your pages: first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others who would not naturally think of The Times as their home…

Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.

Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor.

USS Ronald Reagan and USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Groups steam in formation in the South China Sea (7/06)

[For many years, TTPers have known about the deranged Chicom claim of the entire South China Sea.  A typical article is The Trap of Lizzie Webber (March 2009).  How deranged?  Here is a map of the Chicom claim:

The South China Sea is Where Chicoms Must Stop Being Children (June 2015).  Now, ace national security reporter Bill Gertz gives us the latest on how President Trump is standing up to the Chicoms in one of the world’s most critically strategic areas. – JW]