No. Mean. Tweets!

I was going to write about the “unexpectedly” bad JOBS! JOBS! JOBS! report (which was off by a mere 74% from expectations) but Neo has already written the definitive post on this: The economy surprises the “experts” – again:

It happens nearly every time, almost like Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football. Why are they called “experts”? Well, they’re expert at predicting what the left wishes will happen, and then they’re expert at being perpetually astonished at what actually does happen:

The April jobs report showed the U.S. added only 266,000 jobs during the month and the unemployment ticked up to 6.1%.

Economists are usually off the mark, but holy cow. They predicted 978,000 job growth and unemployment of 5.8%. I have never seen such a huge difference between prediction and numbers.

Miserable considering the U.S. started to see some growth at the end of former President Donald Trump’s term.

And the NY Times, for example, headlines an article about the report this way: “The Jobs Report: The Boom That Wasn’t/April’s anemic job creation was so out of line with what other indicators have suggested that it will take some time to unravel the mystery.”

Might I suggest that if it takes you more than 2 seconds to ‘unravel the mystery’ of there being 7.4 million job openings but only 266,000 people getting one of those jobs perhaps you ought not try to walk and chew gum at the same time.

As usual the Left won’t let facts get in the way of what they want – which is always more sugar!

Biden said the jobs figures actually show “more help is needed” via his $4 trillion infrastructure and “families” proposals and denied the slowdown is because of the subsidy that he signed into law in March.

Specifically, another round of stimulus checks, $15 minimum wage and universal childcare. There’s nothing wrong here that a little more “Keynesian fairy dust” can’t fix.

One thing we know for sure, the Left will continue to deny that there is any relation between people refusing to go back to work and the $300 weekly supplemental unemployment benefit currently available. They seem genetically incapable of grasping the fact that if you pay people not to work many will do just that.

But hey, as long as we’re not getting any more of those mean tweets everything’s ok, right?

      

History: Some Re-assembly Required

History only provides lessons when it is taught straight up, without a chaser.

When that’s no longer done all the old ‘isms’ tend to repeat themselves, often re-branded and decked out in the most au courant finery, but always the same old utopian ideology at the core. And unless thwarted early-on always, always with the same ending: genocide followed by dystopia.

On it’s face it it would seem infeasible for history to be so systematically erased while at the same time being simultaneously repeated: in fact it is not a coincidence, it is a necessity. History must be obscured if you wish to lead people down the same well-worn path.

Don’t ever delude yourselves with the naïve belief that it could never happen here, of course it can. History does not just repeat, it travels. As Roger Simon notes in We Live in the Era of the New Conformists 

“…the left and the semi-left, progressives and liberals, masses of them in our country from the corporate world to the media to the academy to entertainment, are the New Conformists.”

And there is nothing an authoritarian regime needs more than a herd of conformists.

“Italian novelist Alberto Moravia tried to explain why so many of his countrymen became Fascists under Mussolini. It was because of their desire to fit in, to seem normal, to follow the crowd. He called the novel ‘The Conformist’.”

Simon quotes from a 1976 Tom Wolfe article about how shocking Solzhenitsyn’s expose of the Soviet’s Gulag was:

The publication of The Gulag Archipelago in 1973, however, was a wholly unexpected blow. No one was ready for the obscene horror and grotesque scale of what Solzhenitsyn called “Our Sewage Disposal System”—in which tens of millions were shipped in boxcars to con­centration camps all over the country, in which tens of millions died, in which entire races and national groups were liquidated, insofar as they had existed in the Soviet Union. Moreover, said Solzhenitsyn, the system had not begun with Stalin but with Lenin, who had im­mediately exterminated non-Bolshevik opponents of the old regime and especially the student factions. It was impossible any longer to distinguish the Communist liquidation apparatus from the Nazi.

Yet Solzhenitsyn went still further. He said that not only Stalinism, not only Leninism, not only Communism — but socialism itself led to the concentration camps; and not only socialism, but Marxism; and not only Marxism but any ideology that sought to reorganize morality on an a priori basis. Sadder still, it was impossible to say that Soviet socialism was not “real socialism.” On the contrary — it was socialism done by experts!

All that’s necessary to fall headlong into the abyss is to let socialist experts call the shots.  Which of course the conformists seem hell-bent on doing.

Consider the way many western countries mistakenly concluded last year that strict Chinese-style lockdowns were the right way to cope with COVID, not realizing that no free society could possibly tolerate restrictions as draconian as the ones imposed all over China from late January last year…  Neil Ferguson, the Imperial College epidemiologist, who was influential in the UK’s decision to lock down, has been quite open about his inspiration. ‘If China had not done it, the year would have been very different,’ he admitted in an interview in December. ‘“It’s a communist one-party state,” we said. “We couldn’t get away with it in Europe,” we thought. And then Italy did it. And we realized we could.’

History: some re-assembly required:

“Why are we surprised that the socialists running the increasingly corporatist business world take their cues from — and overlook the myriad horrors of — socialism done by today’s experts?”

No, YOU Shut Up!

The current cultural miasma we find ourselves in might lead you to ask “where did we go wrong?” To which I reply “what do you mean ‘we’ Kemosabe?

It certainly wasn’t us who determined language had to evolve to the point of meaninglessness in order to accommodate the sensitivities of the loonies amongst us.

Nor was it us who determined that our elections needed to be “fortified” to ensure victory to the cabal.

“Saved” – I don’t think that word means what you think it means, Time

The simple term “rigged” was so old school, and had so many negative connotations.

Time has published an explainer piece offering a fascinating insight into how the presidential election was won. It’s titled “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign that Saved the 2020 Election.”

The fascinating part is what it tells us about the brazenness of the left in general and the corrupt, mendacious MSM in particular: they are now heavy-hinting that they cheated but want you to know that it’s all OK because they were doing it to not to destroy democracy but to preserve and enhance it.

Do you see what they just did there?

The Democrats (and their sympathisers) didn’t rig the election. They just fortified it by taking care to ensure the right guy won rather than the wrong guy won, regardless of what those pesky voters might misguidedly have wanted.

The next thing you know the same cabal will be normalizing this type of “election” forevermore, whereas it’s for the “good of the people” and therefore perfectly justifiable.

This is where we are headed now with the”‘stolen” election. Columnists who blithely assured us that the election was above board may now begin to finesse their position.

“OK, so maybe it was rigged,” they will start to concede. ‘But isn’t that always the case with elections? And anyway it’s a done deal now.”

So if you’re still wondering how we got here wonder no more. We arrived by caving to the demands of the cabal who took it upon themselves to set the new standards, define all the terms and tell you the appropriate way to think, act…and vote. For the longest time all they required was for you to just SHUT UP!

Don’t do that.

Simply refuse to do that.

Newest Member of the Better Mistakes Tomorrow Club

Not since “New Coke” has Coca-Cola insisted on being so wrongheaded.

“New” Coke lasted just 79 days before Coke customers rebelled and the company was forced to revert to the original recipe.

"The simple fact is that all of the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on a new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the depth and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people." Donald R. Keough, then Coca-Cola President.

The embarrassing flop went on to replace Ford’s Edsel as the #1 marketing blunder of the ages. Just 6 years ago, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the fiasco, Coke again acknowledged it’s mistake and claimed to have learned a forever lesson.

“Thirty years ago, we introduced New Coke with no shortage of hype and fanfare. And it did succeed in shaking up the market. But not in the way it was intended. When we look back, this was the pivotal moment when we learned that fiercely loyal consumers -- not the Company -- own Coca-Cola and all of our brands. It is a lesson that we take seriously and one that becomes clearer and more obvious with each passing anniversary."

Until, that is, they entered the enlightened age of Woke Coke. In their wokeness the company introduced first an illegal policy of hiring only law firms that pass its quota test for diversity. Simultaneously they implemented a mandatory employee “training” program to pass that diversity along to a workforce that they apparently considered “too white.”

Alas, it seems “Woke Coke” is nearly as big a hit as “New Coke.”

‘Woke’ Coke Pauses Diversity Plan After ‘Intense Backlash,’ Plan Author Suddenly Resigns…

I here-by award to the Coca-Cola Company the esteemed Obama-era prize:

Today’s post proudly sponsored by the Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum twins:

A Democrat Legacy: A Hobbit House For Humanity

Well looky here, MSM finally noticed that prices might be inching up a tad:

GOSH HOWD THAT HAPPEN https://t.co/QoGxs5itTN

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) May 3, 2021

Don’t worry though: it’s just transitory.

Quick: name the last time this country experienced hyper-inflation. *hint*

We’re pleased to share this wonderful photo from the @POTUS and @FLOTUS visit to see the Carters in Plains, Ga.!

Thank you President and Mrs. Biden! pic.twitter.com/QcA33iUev4

— The Carter Center (@CarterCenter) May 4, 2021

I’m guessing the ‘Bidens-in-a Hobbit-house’ effect is the result of either an amateur or an auteur photographer. Either way it’s a pretty clever illustration:  the incredible shrinking Carters symbolizing the incredible shrinking dollar that comes with hyper-inflation.

Doesn’t appear to be that transitory from my perspective though.

Giddy-up Space Cowgirl

The Victory Girls skewer the VP - Kamala Gets Another Job She Won’t Do – describing yet another “top level responsibility” relegated to this very self-important woman-of-powerful-means.

Space, the final frontier. Kamala Harris has been granted another job in addition to her handling of the border crisis. Even though she won’t venture to the border, Kamala is going to get us to Mars, apparently. Over the weekend, it was announced she will chair the National Space Council.

In the world of pseudo-responsibilities this is a big deal. In reality it means nothing as Sarah Hoyt noted, Kamala just doesn’t do work:

“Her idea of life is to get new clothes and pose as a celebrity.”

In fairness that’s actually a fairly good description of the entire elite left: Barry of the perfectly creased trousers, Joey of the trendy fitted little boy suits, Madame Pelosi of the designer finery and Madame Vice President in her Armani suit and pearls. They’re all better suited to Hollywood than Washington, but why settle for fame and fortune when you can have all that and power too.

Thus, the boundaries between the two illusionary worlds have blurred to the point where there’s quite often more drama in D.C. than there is in Tinsel Town. And Washington is proud to boast of being home to all the very worst actors.

Giddy-up Space Cowgirl

WASS (We. Are. So. Screwed.)

Hello May, Now Do Your Thing

Whenever I’m asked what I miss most about youth I answer “the optimism.”

Hello May,

You seem a bit hesitant to commit this year.

Please do, you’re arrival will be as welcome as, well, a breath of fresh air

So stop screwing around and settle in please; we could really use your optimism this year.

Springtime, 1921, Penleigh Boyd (1890-1923)

I’m Really Sorry That Train Has Left The Station

It takes a special brain to lose it’s train of thought at an Amtrak station.

Biden even funded an Amtrak from Florida down to Tampa!

WOW!!!! pic.twitter.com/3NQccxAnh5

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) April 30, 2021

And Joey’s got one of those special brains. In case you missed it, here’s an exact transcript:

“When I was Vice President with Barack, he allowed me to put together a budget for Amtrak and it had money for high-speed rail at 200 MPH, from…Charlotte, another line going from…in Florida, down to Tampa, another line — if we had moved…we’d have that tunnel fixed in New York now.”

Needless to say, that was a complete train wreck, and there’s no light to be seen at the end of the tunnel in New York.

Hurry up Joey, the train’s leaving the station and you’re not on it.

Can you even imagine being one of Joey’s designated handlers these days?

Hello? White House? It’s Joe. How do I get off this train?

How long can they maintain this charade you ask? Well, they’ve been running a variation on this scam for decades now, so who knows? But it didn’t help that Joey himself let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, last week when he told reporters he’d “get in trouble” if he answered any more (unrehearsed, unscripted) questions.

Kind of makes you wonder if maybe we didn’t “accidentally” get on the wrong train doesn’t it?

Until we can figure out how to get things back on track it might be best to cancel all the trains until further notice.

Happy Caturday