Boy, Harvard Sure Doesn’t Make Them Like It Used To.

Yes, David Hogg just said the quiet part out loud.

But don’t worry my little friend, with your quick wit, complete grasp of economic principles,

The guy who actually created a pillow empire and the kid voted most likely to get smothered by a pillow

and total command of liberal logic

nobody will ever mistake your unmasked mug for that of a rational human being.

And for the record, no cogent thought ever began with the phrase “I feel the need.” But since you do, please, feel free to wear the mask of the identity group by which you choose to be known.

In related news: China takes first step towards colonizing Mars and in the process brings Covid-19 to the unsuspecting inhabitants.

Not to worry: since the U.S. was there first we’ll get credit for it.

 

Happy Caturday.

I’m warning you David, if you make me wear this stupid face mask one more time I’m going to ‘feel the need’ to shred you with my super powers.

NOTICE: IT LOOKS LIKE DISQUS IS HAVING SOME SORT OF PROBLEM TODAY. PLEASE STAND BY. I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE ISSUE IS BUT HOPE IT CAN BE SORTED.

The Return of Fashion Friday

I got an email last week from a longtime reader who said she really missed the fashion commentary MOTUS used to provide. So today I’m resurrecting the Mirror’s original focus for a special Fashion Friday edition.

We begin with this fashion shot from West Virginia of Dr. Jilly with U.S. Senator Joe Manchin and his wife, Gayle, Jennifer Garner and some other dude with good hair

First thing you’ll notice - because we’ve been trained to notice it over the past year - is that they’re all facemask-free. That’s because Dr. Fauci was on CNN simultaneously granting fully vaccinated people a special dispensation from wearing them, indoors and outdoors! Thank you Dr. Fauci!

Still, there are rules:

Vaccinated? CDC says it's OK to ditch masks. But it's not OK to harass people wearing them.

The CDC eased mask guidance but didn't say you shouldn’t wear a mask, can't wear one or are entitled to mouth off about other people’s masks. 

Funny how that works, it’s NOT okay to “mouth off about other people wearing masks” but just last week it was perfectly acceptable to mouth off about people NOT wearing masks.” I just can’t keep up.

But back to our fashion blogging: Ms. Garner accompanied Dr. Jilly on a vaccine promoting appearance at the clinic set up at her hometown high school. I’d like to compliment Jennifer on her professional appearance, although the glasses might have been a bit over the top.

Wait, what? Is that actually a “Redskins” banner on the wall! How have they not been canceled? Or at least defunded?

Likewise professionally turned out was Gayle Manchin, former president of the West Virginia Board of Education and former state Secretary for Education and the Arts, who wore a simple blue dress. Standing out from the rest of the field – a trick she learned while serving as Lady-in-Waiting to then FLOTUS Michelle Obama – was Dr. Jilly Biden. A vision of loveliness and froth in her youthful, flippy-skirted ill-fitted white frock topped with a wrinkly ill-fitting pink blazer and an endless strand of pearls.

The pink blazer came with its own matching pink face diaper, a must-have fashion accessory up until yesterday. Dr. Jill wore it upon her departure for West Virginia, before having received the holy dispensation from St. Fauci.

And that’s all I’ve got, It seems I’ve grown a little rusty in the fashion-reporting department. I might have to take a refresher course in order to reestablish my full fashion-blogger creds.

Until then I’ll simply bid adieu to our current FLOTUS-INO, may she always be Forever 21. Even if she is turning 70 in a few weeks.

It’s Rehab Time

I’ve got a busy morning so I leave you with a few reading assignments. It struck me how many people are of-a-sudden beginning to view what’s happening in a broader perspective than petty politics. From Evelyn Markus’ piece that draws painfully accurate comparisons of 21st century America to the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany, to Simon Black’s article that traces the trajectory of a failed culture all the way back to the Romans, to Stacy McCain, who examines societal breakdown through one man’s lens – all focus on a civilization in retrograde.

America Playing With Fire

- Evelyn Markus notes the many similarities current day America shares with Nazi Germany in the 1930s -  obsession with race, suppression of dissent, control of the news and confiscation of history and culture.

What used to be unimaginable is now taking place in America. We see certain aspects of totalitarianism in the United States: the obsession with race, declaring an ethnic group collectively guilty, shaming, humiliations based on ethnicity, lootings, arson, racist violence, intimidation of opponents, cancel culture, controlled dissemination of news, and indoctrination of children in schools. We see fake news, conspiracy theories, an overhaul of history, a new language imposed, and unprosecuted theft. All in the name of a more just culture.

Ms. Markus ends on a decidedly downbeat note, wondering who will liberate us from the stranglehold of totalitarianism. 

Western Civilization has become a never-ending Jerry Springer episode

- Simon Black

It’s difficult to not see the historical parallels when reading the daily news in our own times…

Similar to ancient Rome, there is no cohesion, no community, no civility. People are now so tightly wound that nearly every possible issue leads to outrage and violence.

Sometimes it feels like western civilization has become a never-ending Jerry Springer episode, replete with fist fights, race riots, screaming matches, puerile insults… and an eager, bloodlusty crowd chanting for more.

Ancient Romans had their Coliseum. We have Twitter.

Black is actually hawking gold and global assets, but ignore that, he still presents an interesting perspective on our current societal malfunction.

Falling Down and Falling Apart

“I’m the bad guy? How’d that happen? I did everything they told me to.”

- Stacy McCain

McCain discusses Falling Apart, a 1993 movie in which the breakdown of a man tracks with the breakdown of society.

We have heard a lot of rhetoric about “social justice” lately, by which liberals mean a redistribution of rewards and punishments in the system, for the benefit of those allegedly suffering oppression. In reality, however, oppression is not neatly distributed according to the identity-politics formulae of the Left. Everybody has their own grievances, and attempts to explain human frustrations by such simplistic labels as “systemic racism” — or “patriarchy” — fail to capture this reality.

None of these articles provide a neat answer to the problem before us but taken collectively they certainly do reframe our current malaise as an age old situation that will not somehow fix itself.

It’s rehab time baby, rehab.

I Don’t WANT To Be ANTIFA

The Steal, in progress, November 3, 2020:

Liz Cheney, no doubt surprised that her colleagues are so upset with her “there was no voting fraud” stance that they’re actually going to remove her from her leadership position, fired off a 6 minute speech from the House floor last night. The media termed it  “scathing” and  “fiery,” the rest of us viewed it as contemptuous and self-serving.

"Today, we face a threat America has never seen before. A former president who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol, in an effort to steal the election, has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him," she said Tuesday. "He risks inciting further violence. Millions of Americans have been misled by the former president, they have heard only his words, but not the truth. As he continues to undermine our democratic process, sowing seeds of doubt about whether democracy really works at all."

Voter fraud: to Democrats it’s just part of infrastructure.

As an aside, I have added Liz Cheney to the long and growing list of politicians who are dead to me due to the breadth of their betrayal of principle. If you are a long time reader you know that my fundamental belief is that sooner or later all politicians disappoint, for one reason or another. Some such disappointments are indicative of such deep dishonesty they are unforgivable. Lesser disappointments of the “we all have clay feet’ variety I will deal with, as we must.

Otherwise we’re all ANTIFA.

I don't want to be ANTIFA.

I’d Rather Make America Great Again

America is in a funk, Gallup tells us. I can’t think why, let’s see if we can puzzle it out together:

Hyperinflation headed our way, check.

Joey and Janet managing the money supply might explain why cryptocurrencies are so hot right now.

High unemployment, check.

Because paying people not to work never fails to deliver.

Gas lines forming to the right, check.

And we didn’t even need any hostages this time to do it! Except us of course.

Higher taxes headed our way, check. But not on you! Only on rich people. And corporations.

How is this so hard for people to grasp?

Looking like a ninny to the rest of the world? Check.

Who is that masked man?

Throw in a world-wide pandemic, even if it is on the wane, and you’ve got yourself a first class case of good old fashioned malaise, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Jimmy Carter’s days. Lawdy, lawdy, lawdy. Whose fault is this anyway? I mean in addition to Trump.

In his infamous Malaise speech Jimmy Carter blamed everybody else, accusing his fellow citizens of worshipping “self-indulgence and consumption” – like staying warm in the dead of winter - and for their “fragmentation and self-interest.”

“It is a crisis of confidence. … We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.” – Jimmy Carter, 1979

Joey appears to be following his lead, blaming all non-POC in this country of “systemic racism” as well as “Neanderthal thinking” for not wearing face masks in Zoom meetings. Because otherwise we’re all gonna die!

“We remain in a once-in-a-century public health crisis that’s led to the most unequal job and economic crisis in modern history. And the crisis is only deepening. It’s not getting better; it’s deepening.”

Well, there’s only one way out of this Great American Malaise: tax and spend. And has Joey ever got a plan for that!  His $2.3 trillion "infrastructure" plan and the $2 trillion Family Plan will fix things right up.

Honestly, this show was bad enough first time around, I don’t think America needs another season of it.

 

I’d really rather Make America Great Again.

Where There Be Dead Fisheyes There Be Kahlusion

Hillary, original author of the ‘Russian Kahlusion (10 parts Kahlua, 10 parts Stoli) cost me the election’ theory, is still at it.

Five years later and she’s still whining about the Russia backed Macedonian content farmers who stole the election from her; further proof that you can always rely on Democrats accusing their opponents of doing exactly what they do themselves.

But this time, to prove how dreadful Russia is, she blamed them for the Brexit vote as well. You can watch it here if you wish but to spare you from having to actually listen to the bitter old hag rag on, this is essentially what she said during a British think tank discussion about the ‘future of liberal democracies’.

…Clinton once again resurrected the Russian boogeyman, and suggested that: ‘I think there was also significant evidence of Russian involvement, if not influence or interference, in Brexit.’

Of course she hasn’t a wit of proof to back her claim, but that’s scarcely a requirement in today’s arena of ideas. One could argue that her old boss, Obama, ran more demonstrable interference on the Brexit vote than Russia even thought of.

Still, it’s good to see that Hillary’s got that old bounce back in her step. And I see that she’s resurrected that youthful Benghazi-gate era hairstyle that was always so attractive. You know, the thin, flat, stringy and lifeless style that serves as such a good metaphor for her Russia-interference-cost-me-the-election-theory.

Yeah, that’s a good look on a stupid old broad. The pearls are a nice touch.

Is it just me or does her lack of facial symmetry bother anyone else? Does it grow with age like noses and ears or does it require cosmetic fillers and copious doses of duplicity to achieve? In any event I think it goes well with the dead fisheyes.

But I digress: my original intent was to ask if you think Wretchard doesn’t have a point here:

Nah, that’s probably not it.

I’ll take Chinese Collusion for $2 billion

Because Life Doesn’t Come With a Guidebook, It Comes With A Mom

Some version of this has become my perennial Mother’s Day Post.

Can you believe it…it’s Mother’s Day already! Even during stressful times like these the years  tick by at an alarming rate. I can’t say for sure whether the universe is expanding but I can verify the fact that time is accelerating. My Mom has been gone for 12 years already this month, which doesn’t even seem possible, sometimes it seems she was here just yesterday. Mom: ever a part of you, always with you, even when she isn’t.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.

 

To celebrate mothers is to celebrate life itself. Like virtually everything else in life there are exceptions but for the most part mothers are indeed exceptional in their unconditional love and devotion. At a Mother’s Day gathering in 2017 Melania Trump explained it this way:

“Mother is a title that claims your heart and changes your life forever. In fact, it has been said that having a child means allowing your heart to walk around outside of your body.”

So if you’re lucky enough to still have your mom around, grab some flowers and thank the woman who let her heart walk around independent of her body.

Give her a big hug (assuming neither of you have the Wuhan cooties of course). If she’s no longer with you, honor her memory by recalling the good times you had when you were both impossibly young.

For time is indeed a most fleeting commodity.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there – and to everyone else who has, or ever had, a Mom.

Moms:because life doesn’t come with guidebook, it comes with a mom