I pre-ordered your book Rod , you are always ahead of your time. The Church and world need it urgently.
Living in Wonder will continue the work on Christian enchantment detailed in Alison Wilson’s (whose life was featured in the BBC teleseries ‘Mrs Wilson’ ) hidden spiritual gem ‘Before and After’. In the book Alison says:
“Now, God in his mercy, has recalled us to an appreciation of and thirst for mysticism. That interest needs directing to the unsurpassable truth and richness of the Christian tradition. That, in a very small way, is what I set out to do”.
I really don't know why we are paying attention to people who are clearly mentally ill.
Just consider, why they are doing this: They want attention!
That's really what it's all about. If we (the normies, so to speak) stop paying attention to them, they will lose their raison d-étre. Consider, how they aren't actually creating or producing anything. They aren't coming up with new ideas, new products, all they can do is piggyback on the work of people who actually create and produce things of value and ruin what they have done, by distorting or "queering" it. This is so obvious, for instance, with the likes of Disney, who have hired all these woke DEI people with zero talent, put them in charge of once beloved movie franchises and all they could do was "subvert" or in other words, ruin them. One by one, all these franchises have fallen and are now worthless. You see this an all areas of life, where talentless hacks, political operatives of the Left, really, are put in charge. The only thing they can do, is ruin whatever has been built up by competent and talented people, because they're simply incapable of anything else.
The only thing you can do on your end is to ignore and boycott them. Stop paying for streaming services. Don't buy products from woke, DEI companies, don't watch the olympics, pay no attention to the crazies. Eventually, they'll ruin themselves, because they lack the competence to do anything meaningful.
Speaking as a person with a serious mental illness, I take exception to this. These people are not mentally ill, they are people who have chosen to turn away from the truth and let hate and evil creep into their lives. They are people who destroy for the simple enjoyment of destruction. Some cynically use their sex or skin color to pervert social justice into personal gain. Others choose to embrace the demonic. Yes, there is mental illness in places (the trans community seems to be over represented with co-morbidities, conveniently blamed on “haters” and tragically left untreated), but saying all this is due to an underlying brain condition just gives a pass to people who have CHOSEN to reject truth and embrace demonic perversion. God is truth, the devil is lies. I think that is what is more horrifying about all this than anything else.
Hm, pneuma is the Greek word for spirit. Psyche is more like what we call the "soul", although in my view our notion of soul is sort of a psyche-spirit hybrid—sort of like how by "heart" we can mean the truest deepest spiritual core, and also just our feelings.
Traditionally humankind is described metaphysically (in Christian thought) as a Trinity of Body, Mind, and Soul. But we tend to stuff the Mind into the Soul and just recognize a duality
I think you bring up an important point. In this therapeutic age, we’re ready to see everything as “mental illness”—things we would’ve identified quite differently in ages past.
When people make morally corruptive choices, we can’t be surprised when their minds subsequently become warped. Any resemblance to genuine mental illness is counterfeit.
I tend to think that the concept of "mental illness" is incoherent. I see the person as being composed of flesh, psyche, and spirit. So an underlying brain problem would be a neurological issue of the flesh, and things like what we're observing here have to do with serious warpings of the psyche. A neurological condition could surely have effects on the psyche in a "bottom-up" way from the flesh; but as you say, the freely chosen rejection of truth and embrace of demonic perversion could wreck the psyche in a "top-down" way, from the spirit.
Yes. I think for many suffering mental illness the temptation of supposedly progressive ideologies is harder to resist. One can divert oneself from the pain by keeping frantically engaged in the drama of the claimed identity. It’s a self-creation at the level of psyche, and since it’s a self-creation, it is mainly a dramatis persona.
Nonetheless I agree with the OP that the onus is on the individual to suss out the lie he’s put on as mask. Most of these “mentally ill” people, those who make theater out of their public identity, know damn well they’re lying. Which is why John’s comment is justified. They may have taken up the lie as an escape route from pain, they may have taken it up as a means of self-aggrandizement, but in either case, they know it’s a lie.
A lot of what we call mental illness is in fact the dysregulation of the nervous system. What we feel somatically directly influences the kinds of thoughts we gravitate to, so it seems "mental."
For sure—and that's also why having a healthy gut is so important. I think that a lot of bad thoughts and such are quite literally the result of indigestion.
I agree. I’m coming firmly to the belief that I’ve never had depression and anxiety as described medically, I had despair due to the absence of God. Now, I also believe that the medication I was given has had some very real consequences to my physical systems.
It took a doctor of great faith (he’s Jewish) to help me onto the right path. We talk about faith all the time, now. He was the first one to notice that I truly started to get better after my conversion.
Depression and despair are different things though they can get wound up together. Medieval medicine recognized depression as an illness under the name Melacholia.
I agree with your points completely, and I too have an SMI (Bipolar I).
I would add to your analysis that the symbols chosen (Dionysus in particular) are very meaningful. Nietzsche himself thought that the Dionysian/Emotional/Female/Chaotic had been wrongly de-emphasized by the Greeks, such as Socrates, in their adoration of reason or the Apollonian. Being pro-Dionysus is a very big theme in Nietzsche's writing. The use of Dionysian imagery was not random. Someone or some thing knew of its import.
Are you serious? Do watch cable? Is there a series on that doesn't have LGBT agitprop either at the center of the concept or as a consistent leitmotiv? Do you know that at Yankee Stadium when the grounds crew comes out to rake the infield they play "YMCA" on the PA and little kids do the letter by stretching out their arms? The whole point is there won't be enough normies to create even a reasonable plurality the way things are going. It's one reason why this election is so important.
That's a good point, though like Rod, I'm in Hungary, so we're somewhat isolated from that here. Netflix is usually singled out as having the worst kind of relentless LGBT propaganda and I can kinda see it. Still, don't subscribe to netflix then. If people stop buying what they're offering, these companies will eventually go bankrupt. Look at what happened with Bud Light.
The rainbow is everywhere in America these days. Only comparison I can think of is the swastika. I forget where I was recently, but there was queer/pride virtue signaling in the most unlikely and irrelevant place. My mental reaction was like “you have to be kidding me and what does this possibly have to do with things here?”
Perfect analogy. The sodomyte idea of the rainbow is suited for femenazis and gaystapo storm troopers.
The reality is that the rainbow, G*d’s version of it, is a sign of the Noatic Covenant, whereby G*d commits unilaterally to never destroy the earth again by flooding. Christians who are indwelled by the Holy Spirit know that the earth will be destroyed by fire 🔥 very quickly on the Day of Judgment, the paraousia, the 2nd Advent. All human beings both the living and the dead will be resurrected for the Judgement by King Jesus. Many are destined for perdition and the Lake of Fire 🔥. A few receive their glorified bodies and are invited into the new earth to live Corum Deo, face to face, with King Jesus. This will be paradise for the Kingdom of G*d. No more tears, no more pain, no more wars, no mor sickness, no more sins, and no more death. Hallelujah, what a Saviour.
I agree that the overtaking of the rainbow symbol was triumphalism. It was their way of saying "Ours is the way now. There will be no other. Accept us or get out." Back when the gays had one color (pink!) they were much more sympathetic. For some reason the theft of the rainbow symbol irritates me deeply. It's one of the most beautiful natural phenomena. A great sign of hope!
2 thoughts: I don't watch TV at all, and haven't in years, but on the few occasions when my family can drag me into watching a movie it's practically a bingo game for me to spot the queerness deliberately worked into everything. Years ago, before I ditched Netflix, it was apparent that they were actively pushing gay material everywhere. Now I do occasionally play video games, and any kind of story driven game seems to have gay couples everywhere - Baldur's Gate is a recent example that makes sure to tell you at every opportunity that there are gay couples and girl-power everywhere.
But... this election won't fix anything in that regard. Trump was happy to light up the White House for pride month and dance around with the rainbow flag when it suited him. He had plenty of opportunities to undo damaging "dear colleague" covert executive orders leftover from the Obama years and whiffed. And he has shown that when faced with real crises he freezes, fumbles, and blames everyone around him when things go badly. Sure, it's a great way to flip the bird, but he'll likely do nothing substantive, and I doubt he'll do anything so brave as to fire the thousands of federal workers who are actively pushing this crap at every level.
I greatly prefer Ron DeSantis over Trump for those reasons. However, this is the hand we can play. Like Rod and many others, I will hold my nose and vote for Trump. The alternative is unthinkable. If Harris is selected, not elected, then all bets are off. I am a Reformed Calvinist. We will have something that resembles the Benedict Option for our close knit communities.
The alternative should be thought of, though, as Trump is no shoe-in, and likely could be utterly disastrous if he wins in ways that, while different from Harris, are more corrosive.
The endless catastrophization of every damned election is part of the problem - it is itself demonic. I have been hearing "TEH MOST IMPORTANT EVAH" election stuff for, what, the prior 6 elections at least? Breitbart got a lot wong, but he was partly right when he said "Politics is downstream of culture" (he was trying to be pithy), and the culture is long lost. Politics can have a positive influence on culture, but Trump and his cronies are not the ones to do so (and have shown, time and again, that they have no interest in doing so). He invited the Teamster's president to speak at the RNC, fer cryin' out loud. He will do nothing to help us, and is highly likely to instead do even more damage.
For the first time in my life I will not vote for any presidential candidate. I am an Orthodox Christian, and cannot in good conscience participate in this demonic dance.
That is your choice not to vote. Trump was a great POTUS in policies in his 1st term until Fauci’s monster destroyed the last year. Trump’s personality? Not so good. He is a wrecking ball for conservatives. I hope he wins and destroys the Deep State, both D’s and RINOs. And then clears the deck in 2028 for new faces. I was part of the Reagan Revolution beginning in 1979 and active in the Tea Party. Young folks who believe in G*d and the US Constitution will need to step up now and lead.
I have to disagree on Trump being "great". He got some things done, but by and large was scattershot and went for the low hanging fruit while eschewing anything hard or difficult (he lacked the attention span to actually pursue anything that would achieve lasting reform, or doing a thing about the "deep state").
And his wrecking ball cost the Republicans the House in 2018, plus the Senate in 2020 (his antics ensured the Georgia seats were lost - I had a friend who was working the Georgia get out the vote efforts for the run-offs, and he was told time and again by demoralized Republicans that Trump had convinced them to NOT vote.
I don't see him clearing the deck for 2028, I see him attacking and undermining anyone he thinks makes him look bad, or who doesn't kiss his ring.
Trump gets extra points from me for enduring and surviving the non-stop twisted, hate-filled efforts to subvert his campaign, sabotage his presidency, sue/censor/bankrupt/prosecute/convict him, and then assassinate him. I do believe he loves this country, and is genuinely grateful for all the opportunities it has given him. Sure, he's an egotist. So is Kamala -- but with less reason to be. And unlike her, he's not out to destroy everything I believe in.
I was doing the YMCA dance for decades before I realized it had anything to do with sexual orientation. And I would still dance it, should the occasion arise.
Back in the olden days, prior to the 1980s, the YMCA was a place where gay men with little means could go to find partners, to have sex and to foster relationships via grooming of boys. It was well-known, kind of an open secret. I am not sure when in its history the Young Mens' Christian Association transitioned from actually being a safe place for young men to gather and to play sports to a place with a bad reputation. And the song, played on all this and many, (most?) people, apparently never got the joke...which is exactly how it is done...Some thought the Village People were just funny characters?
I was literally told "you'll understand when you are older" by some LGB people about the YMCA song when I looked for an explanation about it, because I could sense there was something off in the room at the time about the level of interest in the song.
On one hand this was LGB people being relatively appropriate, rather than how too many people talk today in younger generations. On the other hand, it feels bad to look back to that interaction.
I agree. The Village people are pre-queer gay. The gay normies that Andrew Sullivan champions and represents. I like those folks. They're fun and they don't need us to construct new bathrooms for them, or invent new pronouns, etc.
YMCA / oh the gay joke was obvious and funny but then I went to NYU and the New School. My wife later told me, her family didn’t know this was - well- gay stuff! I was oh come on. But on top of that I was a night shift taxi driver. YMCA indeed.
I have mental health issues too. The thing is that we can only see and describe symptoms to the best of our ability. We simply don’t know someone’s spiritual life - we can only guess and think ‘something’s really off with this person’.
Because I struggle in this way, I can see when others are struggling in similar ways too. But it’s taken a lot of work on my part to determine what is noise and what’s an actual behavior problem. People can only focus on so much and we all have blind spots.
I agree there is a spiritual component, but it’s always the second thing I think about. The first is ‘this person needs ‘BetterHelp.com’. I’m not qualified to deal with crazy’. And then it’s a ‘this person probably needs Jesus too’.
A lot of our problems are heart issues and therapy only gets you so far. Therapy isn’t going to fix everything that’s wrong on a societal level, but most of our societies aren’t ready for that conversation.
If you're going to recommend Better Help, I'm going to recommend anyone considering them to do their research first. I've heard or read about some negative experiences people have had with them, from lackluster confidentiality to inept counseling.
These days, I don't think about them at all. They're just boring and do not have permission to live in rent-free in my head. Really, you're right: just ignore them for a week or a month, and we'll see that life goes on like they were never even there. They're parasites who gain strength from our attention, and we shouldn't indulge them.
Additionally, they themselves live in a bubble. This sort of thing will only fly in progressive bubbles within big Western cities. Anywhere else, it looks ridiculous and they have no idea, how out-of-touch they are with the vast majority of the planet's population.
I’d like to think you’re right . You’re not. Maybe because I’m older than you , I’ve seen the complete decimation of the old US Catholic ethnic culture.No this is worse than you think. Ignore it and it won’t go away.
"Attention" is the key word here. Not mental health or any other catch phrase. They want attention. I could wax poetic about their upbringing and lack of parental guidance despite a hovering adult or a myriad of other reasons for their pathological need for attention. But somehow, we are in a worldwide pandemic of attention seeking narcissists. And as others have already stated, stop giving them attention and they will stop only to try to find another way to get it. Not just ignoring their nonsense... I think some religions call it "shunning". Nonviolent, firm, shunning is in order. And as with most unruly children, once they don't have your attention, it actually gets worse for a while until they exhaust themselves and stop.
We are rushing to the cliff and are about to pour over it in an overwhelming crush of zealots. There is no one to say, let's take a knee, have a think and breathe for a moment. So, when this blows up and the fallout is settled, we'll see how important drag queen wigs and paraphernalia or blaming people with a different skin color is to their survival. Their over the top, attention seeking behavior is the product of a wealthy civilization. People in countries that are poor don't have time for this crap. Just my humble opinion
Very true about seeking attention. In my experience with the LGBTQ community, much of what happens in terms of communication is specifically related to seeking attention by transgression. Even if not transgression, it is other things that are all about calling attention. Social currency is the term for this, and why people double down on a race to the bottom - just being a little queer isn’t enough to stand out.
Funny thing is, I’ve known plenty of gay people and have had gay friends. Almost all of the older generation didn’t seek that type of attention. Obviously, part of that mindset was because of worry about negative consequences of being publicly gay (though some were out of the closet), but the younger ones are all about “look at me! I’m LGBTQ!”
Power is what they want most, and attention is second. I've been watching this go down for almost 20 years, and prior to that hearing gender suggestions to children on and off for almost 30 years thanks to an unusually progressive teacher who didn't get permission slips and another teacher who felt the need to teach Trans even though she was teaching that it was discredited, sort of a having it both ways. I'm a canary in the coal mine.
It takes some attention to have spaces where we can act like all this doesn't exist, and thus not giving it any power over us. I work very hard to give my kids a childhood without these concerns, but in doing so I have to work very hard to chose pieces of old pop culture to save to not make them strangers to other children. So instead of only working hard to give them God I also have to work hard to give them treats. We don't have a TV and that's what saved me from my old impulse of tuning in to the Olympics.
Also, not everyone is looking for attention. There are too many categories of trans, see Jennifer Bilek calling trans meaningless and suggesting Synthetic Sex Identities. Some people I know who got mixed up in the trans stuff started about 20 years ago, and it was about finding meaning, and very likely they will be the last ones out of the cult. Since then more people, not less, have signed up. The only way out I've personally seen is conversion to Christianity, although I've read online about others dropping it after it didn't make them happy.
They also do the shunning better than religious people. I'm shunned by some, but half shunned by others, so I have to work against my parenting being subverted by people who I love but who are compromised. I keep boundaries and I check all mail that comes to my kids. Family only realized that I really believe this year, before it was all politeness. The people indulging their TQ+ whims don't get to see my children at all.
They do want attention, but that's not why they are doing these things, and if you ignore them they will do them more and more until you can't do anything.
I don’t know! There is clearly a cultural war being waged here which has a goal. I think the goal is rather nebulous. But it appears- and I think RD has this right- it’s the queering of everything! It’s the everything that really gets me. At this point, I’m not making this up, there are even articles about queer food. Granted , I didn’t know you could have a queer carrot but what would I know? Now I don’t think any of this massive trans valuation of value has any end to it. It’s to be perpetual. This is why I periodically point out ,this isn’t Marxism. Marxism is ultimately nonsensical but it postulates a historical end state. Queer world trans values and trans values some more in perpetuity.So this is the product of a deeply wrong sensibility. It’s not just about wanting attention (although they are invariably narcissistic attention seekers who want to enshrine their non selves- it’s a misunderstanding to see narcissists as genuine egotists). I don’t think if you ignore them, they will go away. Yes in some instances, when you can , you should! So , What is to be Done? I don’t know .Well at minimum we need to , to quote one of Rieffs death work authors, to use Silence, Cunning and Exile. But I suspect more will be necessary.
What most people don't understand is how few of these people there really are out there. People consistently overestimate the number of various LGBTQ+ individuals in society, because media and entertainment exaggerate their numbers and cultural significance out of all proportion. Worldwide, their numbers are probably under 1 percent, in big liberal cities in the West, where they congregate, it is higher, but still a small minority.
I live in a medium-sized city in Hungary and I have never even met a trans or openly gay person here in my entire life. I saw a couple of them in Budapest and when I lived in London and Singapore. In college, I had one gay friend and knew of another guy who was (closeted) gay, though in both cases it was pretty obvious. There was not a single trans student in the entire university during my 4 years there.
It is as well to see Evil out in the open, where it cannot create anything of value, it can only destroy in jealousy and resentment that which is good.
I am totally amazed Rod, even after he takes a bullet and adds JD as his VP you can speak so negative about the only candidate that can possibly put the brakes on the utter annihilation of America by the liberals. To all those who think Trump is so dangerous and don’t vote for him do not ever complain when communism rules and Christians are shipped off to the gulags.
I am just trying to figure how Trump is significantly worse than Clinton, Obama and Biden. All have major flaws. Why focus on Trump's failures in such a way? Perhaps the Cathedral has been successful in so many ways.
I'm surprised that you can read me telling people that Trump is the only thing standing between us and those crackpots ruling us, and you can be mad at me for not being sufficiently pro-Trump. I'm not going to pretend that I think something about him that I don't, just so I can bring myself to vote for him. I'm going to vote for him without feeling bad about it. But I've got to be honest about what I really think ... and for that matter, I want people who have the same qualms about Trump that I do to think about whether, given the opposition, they can afford not to vote.
I understand, but I think "the cathedral" has been so effective in telling lies about Trump that so many people hate him based on those lies. I clearly see what is happening to us and fear that if we don't elect him, we will never get the chance to change the direction of this nation. The alternative is chaos and eventual communism.
I don't think he lies as much as he exaggerates about everything. And the left calls these lies. I'm with Rush on this who termed Trump's exaggerations as "an endearing quirk of his personality."
Honestly the more things his campaign is doing the more I lose faith that he will be able to hold anything back for long. Vance at least was a great choice
Trump has significant flaws (though they are overemphasized by his detractors). But virtues as a candidate too, and is a better choice than any Democrat.
I don't know what's going on over there in Hungary, but here in southern Ohio this morning when I type in "Donald Trump" I get nothing but results about Donald Trump. I wish I could post a screen print to show y'all. It is the case that the opening bar has"news about Harris, Trump", but the stories linked to appear to all involve Trump (or Trump and Vance) in some way. Of course the word "news" implies "new" and Trump has not done much new the last week or so other than react to stuff happening over among the Democrats so it's not surprising that's how those stories slant. Harris has been dominating the news cycle the last few days-- this is nor a nefarious google plot.
The substantial entries below the news bar are all about Trump, from his Wikipedia page to his campaign's website.
You're gaslighting. I am in Georgia and noticed the same thing that Rod was talking about. Plus, it's NOT true that Trump hasn't done anything "new" this past week. He gave an address to a conference of cryptocurrency folks and said that his administration would support cryptocurrencies. That in and of itself is huge news for financial privacy.
So, Mr. JonF311 - I'm calling you out on your obvious gaslighting here.
Had this same thing happen with Matt Walsh's new film "Am I Racist?" The google searches spin you all around, so if you want to watch the trailer it's much easier to go straight to youtube and search for it there.
Maybe Google just changed it? My headlines are “Trump loses it over devastating fox new poll on Kamala Harris,” “Trump defends Vance’s cat lady slur of Kamala Harris,” and “Trump says he will probably debate Kamala Harris,” etc. They’re all negative stories but they’re about him.
i had those same headlines, but as Rod said under where he posted he screenshot, it reads "Top Stories: News about Harris • Donald Trump" He also said people on X described it as about news about Harris before he gave the accurate report of what it says.
I'm in the UK and had the same experience as Jon: Harris didn't dominate. Most of the initial links were about the FBI interviewing Trump concerning the assassination attempt.
I googled from both Hungary and, using my VPN, the USA. Then I went back and read JonF very carefully. And it is so interesting.
I feel reasonably certain I see what both see.
Both JonF and Rod are 100 percent accurate in their descriptions of what they see, assuming they see what I see. JonF does to note that "Top Stories" after googling Donald Trump are all negative, and all "Top Stories" after googling Kamala Harris are positive, but an omission is not an inaccuracy (but hey Jon, did you notice?).
But then I set my VPN to UK and typed "Donald Trump" into Google. This is odd, Sue. I got "Top Stories: News about Harris" after typing Donald Trump. Not even about Trump/Harris, just "Top Stories: News about Harris". I know you believe me, Sue, but I wish I had a screenshot for everyone - it is kind of astonishing.
edit: Just googled from Hungary again. Now it too is "Top Stories News about Harris" when "Donald Trump" is googled. "White Dudes for Harris", "Harris Wants to Reform Supreme Court" and two face shots side by side , one of Trump caught in a momentary stupid expression and one of a normal looking Harris with the words "Presidential Campaign 2024".
Go to Google and type “attempted assassination of tru”. Stop on the “u”. “Trump” doesn’t doesn’t even come up. Still the case now, from here in Asia where I live. Ted Cruz pointed it out on X.
Other day someone pointed out that if you type “President Donald” you get “President Donald Duck” as first hit. Now that’s slightly better.
This really is over the top. On myriad topics I try either Google or Bing and I’m stonewalled. Used to be “controversial” info would appear on p. 5 or 6 of search results. Now it doesn’t appear. Period.
Really? I tried googling " attempted assassination of tru" and got Trump from Hungary. From my VPN for the USA and UK and Japan, the same. I even did it with quote around the phrase, so it had to search "tru" not Trump and still it was Trump.
I also tried "President Donald" but got Trump.
I agree, however, that google censors quite a lot and propagandizes quite a lot.
Honestly, I think we're forgetting that Google targets our results based on our search history. It doesn't just blanket return the same search results for everyone. Its sophistication is scary.
But...You Tube knows me well and serves up right wing all the time. Google gave me no non-Left media until page 5 of a search on Trump and no Fox until page 12. All Regime media.
Isn't this odd! I wonder whether there's some sort of algorithm where Google offers links according to previous Google searches? It seems unlikely, but who knows with such technology? Might it vary according to the browser (I use Firefox)? There are certainly differences depending on which search engine one chooses: I tried Google and Bing, and they brought up completely different links, with Bing considerably more negative than Google.
I agree, in part, with JonF. I’m seeing the same thing he does, here in New York. I’m even seeing auto-completion for “Trump assassination“ when I start typing in Trump.
HOWEVER, the auto-completion fix is new. Yesterday or the day before, that particular auto-completion was being suppressed by Google. I saw that with my own eyes.
I think Google is busy responding to its shenanigans being exposed, and the fixes have not been rolled out universally.
I could be wrong but I suspect Google these days tunes itself to the user's search preferences (as derived from past experience) which is why we may see somewhat different things.
You’re not wrong. You’re right. This is what’s been referred to as information silos. Google‘s business model, in part, is that it wants you to like it. It engages in a kind of high-tech flattery by skewing search results.
He's not gaslighting. I tried it too, in Tennessee, and I get the results he does.
However, yesterday I went to Meta AI and no matter how I worded it, it would not tell me about the assassination attempt. So I tried to find Thomas Matthew Crooks, and found this:
"I found information about a person named Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was arrested on July 13, 2024, at a Donald Trump rally in Ohio. According to reports, Crooks attempted to bring a loaded gun into the rally and was stopped by Secret Service agents.
Crooks, 23, was charged with attempting to assassinate a former President, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He was also charged with possession of a firearm in a restricted area."
Perhaps it would be wise for us all to figure out alternative search tools aside from Google and Meta AI, and stop using these obviously misleading tools.
In Louisiana, what comes up on Google when typing "Donald Trump" is information about Trump. Of course the first three are about Trump "Losing it over devastating poll" on Harris, Trump's "insult trap" as he searches for "slurs" about Harris, and Trump defending Vance's "cat lady slur" of Harris.
Why is this a problem? How else has Trump been in the news in the last few days? Like it or not Hartis has dominated the news cycle- just as Trump did during the Convention and after the shooting. This is how these things work. You're making something normal aerm sinister.
As noted by he had a major policy announcement about cryptocurrency. Perhaps this could have been reported? He has also had a number of campaign events including one with Vance. Could what had been said during those rallies have been reported?
And you might notice the negative terms used, "slurs," "insult trap," "Losing it." Perhaps similar terms are used regarding Harris on Google.
How is this a problem? Because 100 percent of news stories google cites are negative on Trump (regarding him) or positive on Harris (regarding her). - And you should see outside the USA where Donald Trump results in "Top Stories: News About Harris". I wish I had a place to post a screenshot.
I did think of that possibility. But how is it that Fox News shows up on Google, but only with it's negative Trump stories? There are lots of positive Trump stories at the Fox News site.
Hmm. Maybe they ARE gaming the results. I always find this hard to believe because I know if i were in these peoples' (Google engineers') position I wouldn't bother, and furthermore would know perfectly well that it was dishonest and wouldn't go there.
Heh. OK, are you also such a voter? Where is your first non-Regime result for "Donald Trump". And is JonF to be rewarded due to his faithfulness to narrative and thus anti-Trump for him as well? :)
I'm a huge Trump fan and have been since high school. And Google hates me for it, I'm certain.
I see your point about Google rewarding JonF and not punishing him with pro-Trump news. It doesn't make sense. But it could be that JonF is such a "different kind of cat" that Google doesn't know what to do with him and so they throw their hands up and say: "Give it to him straight!"
(I mean this with great affection for JonF. I wish Google would treat me this way!)
It changed this morning. I tried it last night at 10pm EST. I've noticed similar issues with google since covid. It didn't "fill in" with search suggestions at all last night.
We're back to "wack a mole". Every day we will be conspiracy theorists for noticing the media-moles that come and go.
Also in southern Ohio, Google brought up Trump. It's pretty much all negative news stories, but it is Trump or JD Vance in relation to Trump. If a person has a bias they might not notice that there's a bias becasue how could there be anything BUT negative stories about Trump?
In New England here. Put in Donald Trump at 0924 hrs: I got first, the Wikipedia link. Then one article from CNN on "Trump campaign won't commit to debate Harris until".... and the remainder from a year ago!! That was on DuckDuckGo.
On Google, I got a section about Trump, mostly pics with some facts. Below that it says: "News about Harris · Donald Trump" And it has articles about Trump's campaign trail. On the right it has an "about" section with a link to his website.
It is worth noting that what pops up when you search Google will vary greatly from region to region, and indeed computer to computer, ESPECIALLY depending on whether you are logged in to Google through your browser, AND depending on how you have your privacy and search history settings rigged. Keep in mind the following:
1. Google makes money on selling ads.
2. Google makes money on selling YOU to ad companies.
3. Google makes money on selling clicks to some sites as well.
4. So the more you search and click through them (however you do so), the more money they make off of you, your interests, and your energy.
They are engaged in a software feedback loop that first and foremost is selling YOU back to yourself (or at least a demographic model of you based on your IP address, and what others in your area are also searching for), in that if you engage with anything at all, they'll see that and say "ooh, that made us money, do it again." If you're like Rod and attracted to (and Rod himself has joked about this) "Dreher-bait", then you'll get more of that outrage fed back to you. If, by contrast, you are always looking at fishing gear, fishing spots, fishing tips, etc., and rarely engage with politics, then you're more likely to find those sorts of things in your news feed, but probably laced with stories about various outrages committed by the Department of the Interior, the EPA, etc.
And of course Google does censor much, and steer and manipulate people, suppress some things, promote others, etc. Some of this, BTW, is also to suppress sites that don't use any of Google's advertising engines or plugins.
If you are searching through a VPN, not logged into Google, using different browsers on the same machine for different tasks, etc., then this will fog their results and roll you back to a more demographic and geographic attempt to click-bait you.
But this also means that 2 people even sitting right next to each other can have wildly different search results on the same thing.
Trust not the Google to even be honest about what it's lying about, and understand that they're trying to have a profile on everyone in the world, to show them chiefly what they think will net them the most money. It's very possible for different people to get very different results.
Exactly. I cannot understand why any conservative would use Google at all nowadays. After 2023’s multiple search engine debacles, in which small, independent content creators (like myself) were decimated by upwards of 70% loss of traffic/ad revenue, it became kown that Google was rewarding Reddit and larger webites (despite their crowdsourcing and outdated information) with higher positioning, due to financial relationships with them. Along with this, they scraped smaller sites to populate their AI, which raises all sorts of copyright infringement issues. They’re too big for us little guys to sue, though. Stop using Google. Try Bing or DuckDuckGo.
Bing is Microsoft's pet, and I have found it only slightly less dishonest than Google (though I should note that after years of doing IT on Microsoft systems, and their endless drive to monopolize the PC, I just eschew their products on principle at this point).
I think Bing is a little more honest as you say. I have hope for Microsoft with their firing of the DEI department. I think you can depend on Microsoft to follow profits first. Google seems to be caught in the progressive trap (like Disney) that says they should value their ideology more than money.
~~you might not be aware of how brazenly what Curtis Yarvin calls “the Cathedral” is operating to engineer a Kamala Harris victory.~~
This should come as no surprise to anyone who remembers the "Shadow Campaign" from 2020, and the famous piece from Time in Feb. 2021 that laid it out. This year the anti-Trump forces (right and left) had to wait a bit because of Biden's poor showing at the debate, and for a decision on his replacement. But lo and behold, as soon as one was coronated, the anti-Trump noise machine started to move towards full volume.
The thing that is moving me towards a Trump vote this year is the realization that while, yes, DT is a loose cannon, when it comes to the Dems the entire party is a loose cannon, with no sense of self-awareness or internal governor. I'm an independent who despises the GOP, but at least with them you get some measure of Constitutional self-control. The Republicans can to a certain extent rein in Trump's tendencies to excess. With the Dems the excess is the point. Trump may be a buffoon, but ideology is more dangerous than buffoonery.
"The thing that is moving me towards a Trump vote this year is the realization that while, yes, DT is a loose cannon, when it comes to the Dems the entire party is a loose cannon, with no sense of self-awareness or internal governor. I'm an independent who despises the GOP, but at least with them you get some measure of Constitutional self-control. The Republicans can to a certain extent rein in Trump's tendencies to excess. With the Dems the excess is the point. Trump may be a buffoon, but ideology is more dangerous than buffoonery. "
Yes. No self-awareness. When you have cultural hegemony so your opinions are reinforced by media and entertainment, you aren't forced to think very hard.
Keep in mind what Hell ultimately wants. They hate us because God loves us. They cannot attack God directly, though they would love that ability. But their "rebellion" was a doomed effort from the start, which once again reveals something about the insanity and short-sighted stupidity of Hell. But they come after us because they cannot come after God. They hate God and everything He loves and stands for. So if they cannot attack Him directly, they come after His creation, including His most beloved, us. Stealing our worship, degrading our love, our appreciation of beauty, the various ways we take joy in how we experience creation (our enjoyment of food into gluttony, our enjoyment of drink into drunkenness, our enjoyment of physical love into wanton lust and all the bad things that come over the careless exercising of that, and so forth and so on.) But it is ultimately about our annihilation. Even our "worship", which is adoring and comprehending the divine, they seek to pervert. Ultimately, they don't really care for it for themselves, not for its own sake. It does nothing for them and they loathe it. They cannot have that relationship we can have with God. They want to use it, like they use everything else, to pervert, degrade and destroy. And to steal what is rightly God's and what we were made for.
All ultimately to lead us to destruction. And though they would take joy in pulling the trigger themselves, what gives Hell ultimate pleasure is seeing us doing it to ourselves. It is the one way, ultimate way, they have to hurt God. And it is curious, when you read accounts of where demons seem to want to take humans, is to convince us to kill ourselves, that life is no longer worth living, that the only thing to do is toss ourselves into the abyss. That is their last card they have to play, the worst blow they can inflict against the Almighty, whom they loathe.
That's the ultimate of this desperate dance of empty depravity. It is no celebration of life, and you can see the desperation in their eyes. It is the opposte.
France is a nation of deep history and culture, and this was their chance to showcase it to the world. Communist China, at the Beijing Olympics, may be a totalitarian state and not in the best shape themselves. But they still, somehow, had a sense of themselves as a nation, with all that means.
FRance, or at least those put in charge of these ceremonies, could not find that sense in themselves.
That blackout that struck Paris after, with that church lit up, was God letting those people know that a. there is hope still, even now, for all those who will turn to Him, and b. He always will get in the last word.
And in the end, all will see, but question is, will they comprehend?
At The End they will. “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This is both glorious and terrifying, isn’t it?
One of the things God always does is find a way to turn even our bad choices and other sufferings into something that works toward the ultimate good. We may never understand how in this life, but He does it just the same.
One way we can turn this travesty to good is to let it spur prayer, as you said.
In addition to praying for France and our whole civilization, I think this may be a good opportunity to pray especially for the conversion of the people involved and their eventual salvation. Because they have chosen to be in the worldwide news, it is even possible to pray for some of them by name instead of only in broad categories. Whether they ultimately convert or not, the prayer itself helps to bring good out of evil.
I'm on many a Zoom call with women like those pro-Kamala ladies, know that type of person well. One of them this past week, at a conference, wore a mask the entire time and ate her lunch outside lest she catch the dreaded COVID inside the crowded lunchroom with the rest of us.
Rest assured, these people firmly believe they are far more moral than you, even though their "morality" is rooted in literally nothing beyond human whims, subject to change.
Because these ladies are far more moral than you and I, that will allow them to do *anything* to you and I, no matter how evil and awful and cruel it is. They are, after all, on the side of everything good and right.
Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisitors would understand perfectly.
Indeed. Because they are "on the right side of history," and believe in the noble lie - lies told in service of the "greater good," according to them. So naked hatred in the name of inclusiveness is par for the course; whatever undemocratic means they need to employ to save "our democracy" are automatically forgiven, in their book. The "deplorables" aren't fellow countrymen, they're unenlightened roughnecks to be herded and managed.
And yet, they would love to tell you about how empathetic and caring they are for the "marginalized," as they actively work to marginalize the rest of us.
Actually they wouldn’t, the Inquisition was well documented for its commitment to due process, its strict record-keeping, and its humane treatment of prisoners in comparison to the secular authorities. This idea of the Inquisition as a monstrous organization is a Protestant myth that like so many others of its kind was absorbed into the corpus of left-wing dogma.
The way to understand this "strategy" is that they see this, I think un-wrongly, as a "base election".
That is, there are very, very few undecided votes out there. The evidence for this is how an assassination attempt on one of the candidates didn't have any significant effect on the polls. People on both sides are dug-in, and what the Democrats were missing was an enthusiastic base like Trump has. People on that side were "resigned" to vote for Biden, as the "Not-Trump-Option", but that's not an enthusiastic base, and it was quite questionable whether that kind of defensive voting, alone, would prevail for them in an election that has very few undecideds and which is therefore highly dependent on who mobilizes their base the best.
So yes they're throwing red meat to their base. And ... it's working. With their base. It isn't intended to work for the 100,000 meaningful (ie in meaningful states) undecided voters that there are in an electorate of ~155m votes cast. It's just not that important to appeal to the undecided voters. Trump recognizes that -- his rallies and his VP pick are designed to appeal to his base, and rally them, not to reach out to the small number of up for grabs voters. And the Democrats are, in effect, doing the same thing.
The fact is -- this IS energizing their base. That's clear. Their base is going bonkers. And so it's hard to criticize it for being "unfit for purpose", since the clear purpose is firing up the base, not outreach. Ads like the one criticizing the right for being sexual prudes are designed to play right into the stereotypes that the democratic base has, and it will be effective, especially among the young and female core base element for the Democrats. This is the opposite of bad strategy, really, in an election year which is all about the respective bases.
Now, they do have to take care that they don't also add to the motivation of Trump's base by what they are doing. Trump's own approach has had those same effects, as we know -- ie fired up his opposition as much as his base. But it isn't a bad strategy just because neoliberals like Tom Friedman are made uncomfortable by the soft part of the Democratic base's beliefs being spoken out loud.
The guy who said it best was Ryan Broderick, the leftist hack who got booted by Buzzfeed several years ago for plagiarism -- he said that it finally feels good to openly call out the right for being the weird, antisocial, incel losers that we all have known they were for years but chose not to say. Gloves off, game on.
Now Broderick is a hack and a horse's ass. But he's the voter they are trying to reach here, the somewhat demoralized by Biden Democratic base voter, and it's working in flying colors.
Republicans are rightly worried about this, because so far the Harris campaign has made no missteps (granted it's only a little over a week!), and it's irritating to watch it be so successful so quickly at what it is trying to do. And it's certainly the case that the entire mainstream media's collaboration in this has been driving the success of the campaign. But successful it is. The Republicans have their work cut out -- they need to amp up the base to vote not just for Trump but against Coconut. And they have to do that now.
I question whether that enthusiasm is deep. Or lasting. She's new. And bears the same negatives that got her wiped out in 2020 without even as many delegates as Mariam Williamson. And with the added negative of being an imcompetent nothing in a weak admin. It may be getting her a momentary bump, but wait until the newness wears off. She has to last a bit more than a week.
To know Harris is to loathe her. I imagine the Democrats will be developing a serious case of buyer's remorse at having gone all- in on her so quickly by the middle of September.
I'm certain this is true. Especially when initially, she seems to be engaging in quick right-wing pandering. No idea what she expect that to accomplish. The Right and indies are not going to be fooled and the Left loathes such.
I think there's a faction of the right, one that is smaller than it thinks it is, that is open to Kamala. These are the ones that come here and say Trump should dump Vance for Nikki Haley.
More Christians (not talking about you personally, but you know this exists) need to remember that we were taught to love and pray for our enemies, but we were NOT taught (very much the opposite) to believe we have no enemies.
Those people on the right are enemies. Love them, pray for them, but recognize they are enemies.
I saw some of her cooking videos. She's pretty good in the kitchen, ironically. She also has the right attitude about butter: "It makes [cookie dough] yummy."
My point is she may be more likable than people give her credit for. And she only has to be likable till November 5th.
And she's a ditz. I suspect that a lot of the Trump ads will be impressionistic, consisting of clips of her word salads, her laughter, and the like. I think she may be a gift, ultimately. She shouldn't be underestimated, obviously, but I think our side may be panicking a little. I imagine everyone who reads these comments knows the genius of Estee Palti, but if you don't, go to YouTube and treat yourself.
They always do. They don't react well when the variables change and they really don't react well when the Left seems happy about something. Our guys don't stop and think sometimes and many have terrible poker faces.
I think it's deep among the core base. Not because she's perfect in their eyes, but because she can win. And she's not 80. It's different from the 2020 primaries, because there the question was choosing between Harris and a bunch of other Democrats, including Sanders. That isn't the question now.
I agree that it's only a week, as I pointed out my post. But my point still stands: Republicans will dismiss this enthusiasm at their extreme peril.
Exactly right. Kamala Harris may be an absurd figure but she is guaranteed 45 % of the vote. A metal folding chair would get 45 % of the vote against Trump just by having the letter D next to it.
I don't think it matters whether or not she's popular. Biden campaigned from his basement, and garnered no enthusiasm to speak of, but we're all supposed to believe he got more votes than any other candidate ever. I went to cover what I assumed would be rallies for and against HRC during a lunchtime talk she gave here during her campaign, and I met two or three protesters, ONE counter-protester, and one foreign couple visiting the city who came out to look for a glimpse of what they thought might be the future president of the country. I was completely shocked and came home to tell my husband "there were no crowds at all--no one likes her!" In that election, the real numbers won. In the last one, Democrats made sure they didn't. I don't think the complete lack of support for Harris wlll matter at all.
"Republicans will dismiss this enthusiasm at their extreme peril.” You’re so right. Hugh Hewitt routinely says, “If it’s not close, they can’t cheat.” I’m amazed no one has mentioned the manufactured votes factor in this thread. Instead, most Republicans operate and pontificate as if the elections were actually fair.
Brendan, do you think a big part of Harris's appeal to the Dem base is, like Biden's, based on malleability? They're both weak puppets in the hands of progressive forces within the Party. To me it seems a sizeable segment of the Dem base is fired up not because she's a strong women but because she's the opposite.
In part, yes. I think another part, which often gets missed by our side, is that her sheer demographics excite their base. We don't get very excited over demographic characteristics of our candidates, generally, so we tend to downplay or miss that issue when it fires up the Democrats, but it generally does so.
With Kamala it's not so much her black aspect that is in play (black response has been relatively muted compared to Obama), but her sex. There are simply many, many base Democrats who have long wanted a woman president, and specifically a woman Democratic president, and "lost out" in 2016. Not all of these are single women, the largest single demographic in their base, but it also includes older women who are not necessarily far-left voters, but who are motivated to come out and vote for any woman who has a real possibility to win, which she does.
I think nobody in their base is fired up by her policies, her stump abilities, her charisma or intellect, or what have you. It's about her demographics. And I think your point about malleability fits well there, too -- they have qa fairly good confidence in the deep (and not so deep) state running things with a figurehead president (it's what they've been doing for years apparently), and this doesn't really bother many of them in and of itself -- as you say, in some ways it makes that person who is the figurehead capturable in ways that are unseen to the general public, which is always the way power prefers to operate. I think many on the left see that as far from ideal, but they also are in a mental space where there is a political/constitutional state of emergency (as silly as many on the right find that idea) and so they are more than willing to go with Plan B or Plan C or Plan D as long as it isn't Trump.
I think all of that makes this enthusiasm real. Having said that, it's early. And it's not evenly distributed among the democratic base (white laptop class has been having a non-stop political carnival atmosphere for over a week, whereas the "BIPOC" response has been much more muted). And so we will see if it actually works in November. November is still quite a ways away. But it's the case that the replacement has gotten their side much more than could have been reasonably expected, and it's obvious that it has surprised Republicans greatly. That's fine, there's time to react, but hand-waving isn't a reaction, it seems to me.
You're right, I'm among those who tend to forget the power of raw identity politics to the Left. It's almost insane how important that immutable and irrelevant factor has become to the Democrat Party. No, not insane. Childish. This election is going to be like that original Star Trek "bonk, bonk on the head" episode where everyone dies before growing up, so the planet is populated and run by unsupervised children and teenagers.
BIPOC will vote for her, it has never been different no matter how many times pubs believe ‘this time will be different, I just know it’ Megyn Kelly had such a person on today talking about this unicorn big tent coalition. Young people-same dam thing.
It's fairly easy to tweak up campaigns and candidates to get their votes, and easy to portray the Rs as being "other" for both groups. It isn't policy based, it's based on vibe, cultural fit, and a sense of whether they are "us" or "them".
Since you can't see the pic here, scroll down to the picture of Vance around 7. However, if the pic was on Twitter with the info, it would likely work. J.D has the same eyes at around age 7, i.e., unusually dark thick lash line - and the movie actor does not, so it is a good contrast,.
Wait...is is clear from the picture that I am saying J.D. Vance had that same eyeline at age 7 and that is essentially proof that he does not wear eyeliner?
I've just realized it is not clear from the rhetorical question, whose answer is "no", without seeing the picture. Argh. - - And yes, you would know even better from seeing him in person.
The eyeliner thing just crossed me yesterday, but what’s bigger imho is the Vance couch rumors, all over TikTok to devastating effect. I’ll let folks google that themselves, though.
I wonder, is this the election where the voting differences between men and women become irreconcilable? People may say that was the 2016 election, but 8 years hasn't improved anything. I'd say it's gotten worse, generally speaking.
What's on my mind is something like South Korea, where the men and women have entered a kind of "cold war" with each other.
Nobody wants to have fun anymore, it seems. Even hedonism has lost its allure! Joyless prigs, the lot of them.
<<The Olympic opening was carefully scripted and it tells a cohesive story. The error I think people are making is to interpret scenes independently. The show starts with three children entering a boat in which they are welcomed by a cloaked figure which is depicted like Charon in Greek mythology. They are obviously taken down river Styx, enter a tunnel and then emerge. We are in the Underworld from that point on. The headless corpses, burning islands, flying ghosts, lost souls on the shores of the river all set the stage. The most shocking scene to me was the cloaked rider on the pale horse leading the nations to the stage with the golden bull. This is followed by the Celine Dion song which I will post here translated to English:
The blue sky above us may collapse
And the Earth may well crumble
I don't care if you love me
I don't give a damn about the whole world
As long as love floods my mornings
As long as my body trembles under your hands
I don't care about problems
My love, since you love me
I would go to the ends of the earth
I would dye my hair blonde
If you asked me to
I would go and take down the Moon
I would go and steal fortune
If you asked me to
I would deny my homeland
I would deny my friends
If you asked me to
People can laugh at me
I would do anything
If you asked me to
If one day, life tears you away from me
If you die, if you are far from me
I don't care if you love me
Because I would die too
We will have eternity for ourselves
In the blue of all immensity
In heaven, no more problems
My love, do you believe we love each other?
God reunites those who love each other
This Edith Piaf song was chosen with a specific purpose. When sang in the underworld, the lyrics pledging absolute loyalty to the golden bull or dark forces, a willingness to sacrifice all mortal attachments, give up your friends, your homeland, a willingness to change your essence or identity, defying the natural order by taking down the moon, with the end of the song mocking God one more time, ironically implying that he will reunite those who love each other, in this case a union with dark forces that mimics and rivals God's love. A perfect song for the perfect ending of a diabolical ritual.>>
Man, this calls to mind Nietzsche's abyss gazing back into its viewer. Also, the many horror stories about people being controlled / driven mad by viewing something best left unseen.
Some other writer thought the ferryman was Charon, but then decided he was the Phantom of the Opera. But why not both?
When Jolly says in his non-apology that his feast of tolerance was a Bacchanal and not the Last Supper, why not both? Surely it is both; that is his tolerance and harmony.
Well that's... disturbing. I didn't see the whole thing, and didn't know the context. Thank you and the reader for explaining. I heard that Celine sang an Edith Piaf song, and for most people that will be "a famous French song" if they know even that much. My father LOVED Edith Piaf and all I know about her that she was a tragic, self-destructive person (he loved Judy Garland too--the fascination of self-immolation never appealed to me). That song is supposed to show a self-destructive slavery to passion, it's not an aspiration!!
Sorry, reader,I was with you until talk about deliberately choosing the Piaf song for underworld purposes, i.e. uniting with dark forces. So you know this? Respectfully, it seems to me that is both conspiracy theory and speaking to depression. You are right that the scenes connect, but they meant to lead from darkness to light (sewers to torch in the sky). They threw in blasphemy, perversion and lots of trans references, but they did not end with a diabolical ritual. It is possible to read too much into things.
Hymne a l'Amour - Hymn to Love - is a song that says (wrongly) nothing else matters but having romantic love. It was also sung at the Tokyo Olympics. Edith Piaf wrote the lyrics about the man she loved, who died in a plane crash. It is depressing and not helpful to many depressed people to sing "if you die, I will die" but it is not directly related to a diabolical ritual. Unless a large number of songs through the ages are actually diabolical rituals.
Piaf was the best choice for the conclusion, and this was he best choice for the magnificent voice of Celine Dion.
Rod says something like the Vigilant Citizen (paraphrase) are crazy but that does not mean they are always wrong.
There were problems - lots of occult influence, perversion, blasphemy. This is because many top artists are into those things. But I don't think we should conclude such a depressing thing as a full on diabolical plot. And just because - from Vigilant Citizen - Masons like "from darkness to light" does not mean there is something wrong with that idea.
I pre-ordered your book Rod , you are always ahead of your time. The Church and world need it urgently.
Living in Wonder will continue the work on Christian enchantment detailed in Alison Wilson’s (whose life was featured in the BBC teleseries ‘Mrs Wilson’ ) hidden spiritual gem ‘Before and After’. In the book Alison says:
“Now, God in his mercy, has recalled us to an appreciation of and thirst for mysticism. That interest needs directing to the unsurpassable truth and richness of the Christian tradition. That, in a very small way, is what I set out to do”.
Now JD is boring: JD Vance shows that impersonating Donald Trump is not that easyhttps://on.ft.com/4cWGKN8
Olympics are revolting, and politics can get one revolted, but loving on your wife is worth more than all the Bitcoin in the world
https://fatherofzoomers.substack.com/p/hodling?r=jejuu
I really don't know why we are paying attention to people who are clearly mentally ill.
Just consider, why they are doing this: They want attention!
That's really what it's all about. If we (the normies, so to speak) stop paying attention to them, they will lose their raison d-étre. Consider, how they aren't actually creating or producing anything. They aren't coming up with new ideas, new products, all they can do is piggyback on the work of people who actually create and produce things of value and ruin what they have done, by distorting or "queering" it. This is so obvious, for instance, with the likes of Disney, who have hired all these woke DEI people with zero talent, put them in charge of once beloved movie franchises and all they could do was "subvert" or in other words, ruin them. One by one, all these franchises have fallen and are now worthless. You see this an all areas of life, where talentless hacks, political operatives of the Left, really, are put in charge. The only thing they can do, is ruin whatever has been built up by competent and talented people, because they're simply incapable of anything else.
The only thing you can do on your end is to ignore and boycott them. Stop paying for streaming services. Don't buy products from woke, DEI companies, don't watch the olympics, pay no attention to the crazies. Eventually, they'll ruin themselves, because they lack the competence to do anything meaningful.
Speaking as a person with a serious mental illness, I take exception to this. These people are not mentally ill, they are people who have chosen to turn away from the truth and let hate and evil creep into their lives. They are people who destroy for the simple enjoyment of destruction. Some cynically use their sex or skin color to pervert social justice into personal gain. Others choose to embrace the demonic. Yes, there is mental illness in places (the trans community seems to be over represented with co-morbidities, conveniently blamed on “haters” and tragically left untreated), but saying all this is due to an underlying brain condition just gives a pass to people who have CHOSEN to reject truth and embrace demonic perversion. God is truth, the devil is lies. I think that is what is more horrifying about all this than anything else.
“God is truth, the devil is lies.” sums it up pretty well. Also, God is Life, the devil is death.
I'm not sure what the correct term would be. What I mean is abnormal.
Spiritually ill?
Psyche is basically the Greek word for spirit. So Psychiatric Illness is a word we already have to describe it.
Hm, pneuma is the Greek word for spirit. Psyche is more like what we call the "soul", although in my view our notion of soul is sort of a psyche-spirit hybrid—sort of like how by "heart" we can mean the truest deepest spiritual core, and also just our feelings.
Traditionally humankind is described metaphysically (in Christian thought) as a Trinity of Body, Mind, and Soul. But we tend to stuff the Mind into the Soul and just recognize a duality
Like.
I think you bring up an important point. In this therapeutic age, we’re ready to see everything as “mental illness”—things we would’ve identified quite differently in ages past.
When people make morally corruptive choices, we can’t be surprised when their minds subsequently become warped. Any resemblance to genuine mental illness is counterfeit.
I tend to think that the concept of "mental illness" is incoherent. I see the person as being composed of flesh, psyche, and spirit. So an underlying brain problem would be a neurological issue of the flesh, and things like what we're observing here have to do with serious warpings of the psyche. A neurological condition could surely have effects on the psyche in a "bottom-up" way from the flesh; but as you say, the freely chosen rejection of truth and embrace of demonic perversion could wreck the psyche in a "top-down" way, from the spirit.
Yes. I think for many suffering mental illness the temptation of supposedly progressive ideologies is harder to resist. One can divert oneself from the pain by keeping frantically engaged in the drama of the claimed identity. It’s a self-creation at the level of psyche, and since it’s a self-creation, it is mainly a dramatis persona.
Nonetheless I agree with the OP that the onus is on the individual to suss out the lie he’s put on as mask. Most of these “mentally ill” people, those who make theater out of their public identity, know damn well they’re lying. Which is why John’s comment is justified. They may have taken up the lie as an escape route from pain, they may have taken it up as a means of self-aggrandizement, but in either case, they know it’s a lie.
A lot of what we call mental illness is in fact the dysregulation of the nervous system. What we feel somatically directly influences the kinds of thoughts we gravitate to, so it seems "mental."
For sure—and that's also why having a healthy gut is so important. I think that a lot of bad thoughts and such are quite literally the result of indigestion.
I think the role of the gut microbiome is under-appreciated. For mental and physical health.
Over the last 20 years or so our understanding of this has increased enormously.
I agree. I’m coming firmly to the belief that I’ve never had depression and anxiety as described medically, I had despair due to the absence of God. Now, I also believe that the medication I was given has had some very real consequences to my physical systems.
It took a doctor of great faith (he’s Jewish) to help me onto the right path. We talk about faith all the time, now. He was the first one to notice that I truly started to get better after my conversion.
I strongly recommend Søren Kierkegaard’s book *The Sickness unto Death* on this topic.
Thanks!
You're blessed to have this doctor in your life.
I thank God for him every day.
Funny I have a very important Jewish psychiatrist. He's fantastic. His only demerit is he's from Michigan and goes on and on about U of M.
Depression and despair are different things though they can get wound up together. Medieval medicine recognized depression as an illness under the name Melacholia.
Great comment.
"Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done." (BSV)
Terrifying, really.
I agree with your points completely, and I too have an SMI (Bipolar I).
I would add to your analysis that the symbols chosen (Dionysus in particular) are very meaningful. Nietzsche himself thought that the Dionysian/Emotional/Female/Chaotic had been wrongly de-emphasized by the Greeks, such as Socrates, in their adoration of reason or the Apollonian. Being pro-Dionysus is a very big theme in Nietzsche's writing. The use of Dionysian imagery was not random. Someone or some thing knew of its import.
Are you serious? Do watch cable? Is there a series on that doesn't have LGBT agitprop either at the center of the concept or as a consistent leitmotiv? Do you know that at Yankee Stadium when the grounds crew comes out to rake the infield they play "YMCA" on the PA and little kids do the letter by stretching out their arms? The whole point is there won't be enough normies to create even a reasonable plurality the way things are going. It's one reason why this election is so important.
That's a good point, though like Rod, I'm in Hungary, so we're somewhat isolated from that here. Netflix is usually singled out as having the worst kind of relentless LGBT propaganda and I can kinda see it. Still, don't subscribe to netflix then. If people stop buying what they're offering, these companies will eventually go bankrupt. Look at what happened with Bud Light.
Sorry, did you mean to write, "If people STOP buying what they're offering, these companies will eventually go bankrupt"?
indeed. Thanks. corrected
The rainbow is everywhere in America these days. Only comparison I can think of is the swastika. I forget where I was recently, but there was queer/pride virtue signaling in the most unlikely and irrelevant place. My mental reaction was like “you have to be kidding me and what does this possibly have to do with things here?”
It's the latest religion and way to virtue signal.
Perfect analogy. The sodomyte idea of the rainbow is suited for femenazis and gaystapo storm troopers.
The reality is that the rainbow, G*d’s version of it, is a sign of the Noatic Covenant, whereby G*d commits unilaterally to never destroy the earth again by flooding. Christians who are indwelled by the Holy Spirit know that the earth will be destroyed by fire 🔥 very quickly on the Day of Judgment, the paraousia, the 2nd Advent. All human beings both the living and the dead will be resurrected for the Judgement by King Jesus. Many are destined for perdition and the Lake of Fire 🔥. A few receive their glorified bodies and are invited into the new earth to live Corum Deo, face to face, with King Jesus. This will be paradise for the Kingdom of G*d. No more tears, no more pain, no more wars, no mor sickness, no more sins, and no more death. Hallelujah, what a Saviour.
I agree that the overtaking of the rainbow symbol was triumphalism. It was their way of saying "Ours is the way now. There will be no other. Accept us or get out." Back when the gays had one color (pink!) they were much more sympathetic. For some reason the theft of the rainbow symbol irritates me deeply. It's one of the most beautiful natural phenomena. A great sign of hope!
2 thoughts: I don't watch TV at all, and haven't in years, but on the few occasions when my family can drag me into watching a movie it's practically a bingo game for me to spot the queerness deliberately worked into everything. Years ago, before I ditched Netflix, it was apparent that they were actively pushing gay material everywhere. Now I do occasionally play video games, and any kind of story driven game seems to have gay couples everywhere - Baldur's Gate is a recent example that makes sure to tell you at every opportunity that there are gay couples and girl-power everywhere.
But... this election won't fix anything in that regard. Trump was happy to light up the White House for pride month and dance around with the rainbow flag when it suited him. He had plenty of opportunities to undo damaging "dear colleague" covert executive orders leftover from the Obama years and whiffed. And he has shown that when faced with real crises he freezes, fumbles, and blames everyone around him when things go badly. Sure, it's a great way to flip the bird, but he'll likely do nothing substantive, and I doubt he'll do anything so brave as to fire the thousands of federal workers who are actively pushing this crap at every level.
I greatly prefer Ron DeSantis over Trump for those reasons. However, this is the hand we can play. Like Rod and many others, I will hold my nose and vote for Trump. The alternative is unthinkable. If Harris is selected, not elected, then all bets are off. I am a Reformed Calvinist. We will have something that resembles the Benedict Option for our close knit communities.
The alternative should be thought of, though, as Trump is no shoe-in, and likely could be utterly disastrous if he wins in ways that, while different from Harris, are more corrosive.
The endless catastrophization of every damned election is part of the problem - it is itself demonic. I have been hearing "TEH MOST IMPORTANT EVAH" election stuff for, what, the prior 6 elections at least? Breitbart got a lot wong, but he was partly right when he said "Politics is downstream of culture" (he was trying to be pithy), and the culture is long lost. Politics can have a positive influence on culture, but Trump and his cronies are not the ones to do so (and have shown, time and again, that they have no interest in doing so). He invited the Teamster's president to speak at the RNC, fer cryin' out loud. He will do nothing to help us, and is highly likely to instead do even more damage.
For the first time in my life I will not vote for any presidential candidate. I am an Orthodox Christian, and cannot in good conscience participate in this demonic dance.
That is your choice not to vote. Trump was a great POTUS in policies in his 1st term until Fauci’s monster destroyed the last year. Trump’s personality? Not so good. He is a wrecking ball for conservatives. I hope he wins and destroys the Deep State, both D’s and RINOs. And then clears the deck in 2028 for new faces. I was part of the Reagan Revolution beginning in 1979 and active in the Tea Party. Young folks who believe in G*d and the US Constitution will need to step up now and lead.
I have to disagree on Trump being "great". He got some things done, but by and large was scattershot and went for the low hanging fruit while eschewing anything hard or difficult (he lacked the attention span to actually pursue anything that would achieve lasting reform, or doing a thing about the "deep state").
And his wrecking ball cost the Republicans the House in 2018, plus the Senate in 2020 (his antics ensured the Georgia seats were lost - I had a friend who was working the Georgia get out the vote efforts for the run-offs, and he was told time and again by demoralized Republicans that Trump had convinced them to NOT vote.
I don't see him clearing the deck for 2028, I see him attacking and undermining anyone he thinks makes him look bad, or who doesn't kiss his ring.
Trump gets extra points from me for enduring and surviving the non-stop twisted, hate-filled efforts to subvert his campaign, sabotage his presidency, sue/censor/bankrupt/prosecute/convict him, and then assassinate him. I do believe he loves this country, and is genuinely grateful for all the opportunities it has given him. Sure, he's an egotist. So is Kamala -- but with less reason to be. And unlike her, he's not out to destroy everything I believe in.
I was doing the YMCA dance for decades before I realized it had anything to do with sexual orientation. And I would still dance it, should the occasion arise.
Back in the olden days, prior to the 1980s, the YMCA was a place where gay men with little means could go to find partners, to have sex and to foster relationships via grooming of boys. It was well-known, kind of an open secret. I am not sure when in its history the Young Mens' Christian Association transitioned from actually being a safe place for young men to gather and to play sports to a place with a bad reputation. And the song, played on all this and many, (most?) people, apparently never got the joke...which is exactly how it is done...Some thought the Village People were just funny characters?
I was literally told "you'll understand when you are older" by some LGB people about the YMCA song when I looked for an explanation about it, because I could sense there was something off in the room at the time about the level of interest in the song.
On one hand this was LGB people being relatively appropriate, rather than how too many people talk today in younger generations. On the other hand, it feels bad to look back to that interaction.
Washington DC's YMCA was a big homosexual hang out in the 60s and 70s.
This was not an open secret for me. Our local YMCA certainly didn't have that vibe. Maybe the SF ones. . .
First I’ve heard about it. In my WAY younger days I was so skeptical because it had the word Christian in it. Was to be avoided on those grounds.
Yes, I confess, I used to be very very stupid.
Californian attitudes can be hard to resist. Doesn't make you stupid.
I, too, used to think that way as a good, young, obnoxious lefty. Blind, deaf, and stupid. Thank God for His tender mercies.
Back in the day normies really didn’t know what was going on with any of it.
I agree. The Village people are pre-queer gay. The gay normies that Andrew Sullivan champions and represents. I like those folks. They're fun and they don't need us to construct new bathrooms for them, or invent new pronouns, etc.
The Indian is guilty of cultural appropriation.
Hah!
YMCA / oh the gay joke was obvious and funny but then I went to NYU and the New School. My wife later told me, her family didn’t know this was - well- gay stuff! I was oh come on. But on top of that I was a night shift taxi driver. YMCA indeed.
I have mental health issues too. The thing is that we can only see and describe symptoms to the best of our ability. We simply don’t know someone’s spiritual life - we can only guess and think ‘something’s really off with this person’.
Because I struggle in this way, I can see when others are struggling in similar ways too. But it’s taken a lot of work on my part to determine what is noise and what’s an actual behavior problem. People can only focus on so much and we all have blind spots.
I agree there is a spiritual component, but it’s always the second thing I think about. The first is ‘this person needs ‘BetterHelp.com’. I’m not qualified to deal with crazy’. And then it’s a ‘this person probably needs Jesus too’.
A lot of our problems are heart issues and therapy only gets you so far. Therapy isn’t going to fix everything that’s wrong on a societal level, but most of our societies aren’t ready for that conversation.
My spiritual father just recommended this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6oT_RoWB1U I haven't watched it yet but he loved it!
I have this same hierarchy of help. I'd never thought about it before, thanks.
Indeed
If you're going to recommend Better Help, I'm going to recommend anyone considering them to do their research first. I've heard or read about some negative experiences people have had with them, from lackluster confidentiality to inept counseling.
These days, I don't think about them at all. They're just boring and do not have permission to live in rent-free in my head. Really, you're right: just ignore them for a week or a month, and we'll see that life goes on like they were never even there. They're parasites who gain strength from our attention, and we shouldn't indulge them.
Additionally, they themselves live in a bubble. This sort of thing will only fly in progressive bubbles within big Western cities. Anywhere else, it looks ridiculous and they have no idea, how out-of-touch they are with the vast majority of the planet's population.
I sometimes refer to their project (if we may call it that) as the new white man's burden.
Me too!
I’d like to think you’re right . You’re not. Maybe because I’m older than you , I’ve seen the complete decimation of the old US Catholic ethnic culture.No this is worse than you think. Ignore it and it won’t go away.
"Attention" is the key word here. Not mental health or any other catch phrase. They want attention. I could wax poetic about their upbringing and lack of parental guidance despite a hovering adult or a myriad of other reasons for their pathological need for attention. But somehow, we are in a worldwide pandemic of attention seeking narcissists. And as others have already stated, stop giving them attention and they will stop only to try to find another way to get it. Not just ignoring their nonsense... I think some religions call it "shunning". Nonviolent, firm, shunning is in order. And as with most unruly children, once they don't have your attention, it actually gets worse for a while until they exhaust themselves and stop.
We are rushing to the cliff and are about to pour over it in an overwhelming crush of zealots. There is no one to say, let's take a knee, have a think and breathe for a moment. So, when this blows up and the fallout is settled, we'll see how important drag queen wigs and paraphernalia or blaming people with a different skin color is to their survival. Their over the top, attention seeking behavior is the product of a wealthy civilization. People in countries that are poor don't have time for this crap. Just my humble opinion
Very true about seeking attention. In my experience with the LGBTQ community, much of what happens in terms of communication is specifically related to seeking attention by transgression. Even if not transgression, it is other things that are all about calling attention. Social currency is the term for this, and why people double down on a race to the bottom - just being a little queer isn’t enough to stand out.
Funny thing is, I’ve known plenty of gay people and have had gay friends. Almost all of the older generation didn’t seek that type of attention. Obviously, part of that mindset was because of worry about negative consequences of being publicly gay (though some were out of the closet), but the younger ones are all about “look at me! I’m LGBTQ!”
I guess if you tell someone they should be proud of a thing they're likely to boast about it.
Not necessarily. There’s a beauty in private knowledge.
Power is what they want most, and attention is second. I've been watching this go down for almost 20 years, and prior to that hearing gender suggestions to children on and off for almost 30 years thanks to an unusually progressive teacher who didn't get permission slips and another teacher who felt the need to teach Trans even though she was teaching that it was discredited, sort of a having it both ways. I'm a canary in the coal mine.
It takes some attention to have spaces where we can act like all this doesn't exist, and thus not giving it any power over us. I work very hard to give my kids a childhood without these concerns, but in doing so I have to work very hard to chose pieces of old pop culture to save to not make them strangers to other children. So instead of only working hard to give them God I also have to work hard to give them treats. We don't have a TV and that's what saved me from my old impulse of tuning in to the Olympics.
Also, not everyone is looking for attention. There are too many categories of trans, see Jennifer Bilek calling trans meaningless and suggesting Synthetic Sex Identities. Some people I know who got mixed up in the trans stuff started about 20 years ago, and it was about finding meaning, and very likely they will be the last ones out of the cult. Since then more people, not less, have signed up. The only way out I've personally seen is conversion to Christianity, although I've read online about others dropping it after it didn't make them happy.
They also do the shunning better than religious people. I'm shunned by some, but half shunned by others, so I have to work against my parenting being subverted by people who I love but who are compromised. I keep boundaries and I check all mail that comes to my kids. Family only realized that I really believe this year, before it was all politeness. The people indulging their TQ+ whims don't get to see my children at all.
They do want attention, but that's not why they are doing these things, and if you ignore them they will do them more and more until you can't do anything.
It's not just attention, I agree. You can gain attention without asking people to invert their value system.
I don’t know! There is clearly a cultural war being waged here which has a goal. I think the goal is rather nebulous. But it appears- and I think RD has this right- it’s the queering of everything! It’s the everything that really gets me. At this point, I’m not making this up, there are even articles about queer food. Granted , I didn’t know you could have a queer carrot but what would I know? Now I don’t think any of this massive trans valuation of value has any end to it. It’s to be perpetual. This is why I periodically point out ,this isn’t Marxism. Marxism is ultimately nonsensical but it postulates a historical end state. Queer world trans values and trans values some more in perpetuity.So this is the product of a deeply wrong sensibility. It’s not just about wanting attention (although they are invariably narcissistic attention seekers who want to enshrine their non selves- it’s a misunderstanding to see narcissists as genuine egotists). I don’t think if you ignore them, they will go away. Yes in some instances, when you can , you should! So , What is to be Done? I don’t know .Well at minimum we need to , to quote one of Rieffs death work authors, to use Silence, Cunning and Exile. But I suspect more will be necessary.
What most people don't understand is how few of these people there really are out there. People consistently overestimate the number of various LGBTQ+ individuals in society, because media and entertainment exaggerate their numbers and cultural significance out of all proportion. Worldwide, their numbers are probably under 1 percent, in big liberal cities in the West, where they congregate, it is higher, but still a small minority.
I live in a medium-sized city in Hungary and I have never even met a trans or openly gay person here in my entire life. I saw a couple of them in Budapest and when I lived in London and Singapore. In college, I had one gay friend and knew of another guy who was (closeted) gay, though in both cases it was pretty obvious. There was not a single trans student in the entire university during my 4 years there.
Not so simple. This is pure evil, mental illness is an excuse.
Often and what is mental illness.
It is as well to see Evil out in the open, where it cannot create anything of value, it can only destroy in jealousy and resentment that which is good.
Your last few posts have pushed my mind, semi-surprisingly, towards illustrations of Rivendell and Lothlorien.
I am totally amazed Rod, even after he takes a bullet and adds JD as his VP you can speak so negative about the only candidate that can possibly put the brakes on the utter annihilation of America by the liberals. To all those who think Trump is so dangerous and don’t vote for him do not ever complain when communism rules and Christians are shipped off to the gulags.
I am just trying to figure how Trump is significantly worse than Clinton, Obama and Biden. All have major flaws. Why focus on Trump's failures in such a way? Perhaps the Cathedral has been successful in so many ways.
I'm surprised that you can read me telling people that Trump is the only thing standing between us and those crackpots ruling us, and you can be mad at me for not being sufficiently pro-Trump. I'm not going to pretend that I think something about him that I don't, just so I can bring myself to vote for him. I'm going to vote for him without feeling bad about it. But I've got to be honest about what I really think ... and for that matter, I want people who have the same qualms about Trump that I do to think about whether, given the opposition, they can afford not to vote.
I understand, but I think "the cathedral" has been so effective in telling lies about Trump that so many people hate him based on those lies. I clearly see what is happening to us and fear that if we don't elect him, we will never get the chance to change the direction of this nation. The alternative is chaos and eventual communism.
If only Trump hasn’t told so many lies about himself and others.
Name the lies, please!
I don't think he lies as much as he exaggerates about everything. And the left calls these lies. I'm with Rush on this who termed Trump's exaggerations as "an endearing quirk of his personality."
Honestly the more things his campaign is doing the more I lose faith that he will be able to hold anything back for long. Vance at least was a great choice
Trump has significant flaws (though they are overemphasized by his detractors). But virtues as a candidate too, and is a better choice than any Democrat.
I don't know what's going on over there in Hungary, but here in southern Ohio this morning when I type in "Donald Trump" I get nothing but results about Donald Trump. I wish I could post a screen print to show y'all. It is the case that the opening bar has"news about Harris, Trump", but the stories linked to appear to all involve Trump (or Trump and Vance) in some way. Of course the word "news" implies "new" and Trump has not done much new the last week or so other than react to stuff happening over among the Democrats so it's not surprising that's how those stories slant. Harris has been dominating the news cycle the last few days-- this is nor a nefarious google plot.
The substantial entries below the news bar are all about Trump, from his Wikipedia page to his campaign's website.
You're gaslighting. I am in Georgia and noticed the same thing that Rod was talking about. Plus, it's NOT true that Trump hasn't done anything "new" this past week. He gave an address to a conference of cryptocurrency folks and said that his administration would support cryptocurrencies. That in and of itself is huge news for financial privacy.
So, Mr. JonF311 - I'm calling you out on your obvious gaslighting here.
Have a great Tuesday!
Had this same thing happen with Matt Walsh's new film "Am I Racist?" The google searches spin you all around, so if you want to watch the trailer it's much easier to go straight to youtube and search for it there.
Until YouTube removes it
Don't accuse him of gaslighting, that's not good. Maybe it's really happening to him where he is.
You're quite right; I apologize to him for going too far in my reaction.
Maybe Google just changed it? My headlines are “Trump loses it over devastating fox new poll on Kamala Harris,” “Trump defends Vance’s cat lady slur of Kamala Harris,” and “Trump says he will probably debate Kamala Harris,” etc. They’re all negative stories but they’re about him.
i had those same headlines, but as Rod said under where he posted he screenshot, it reads "Top Stories: News about Harris • Donald Trump" He also said people on X described it as about news about Harris before he gave the accurate report of what it says.
It's possible that Google has identified JonF as a safe Harris voter and doesn't try to influence him any longer.
I'm personally glad JonF is feeling well enough to engage here again :)
I'm in the UK and had the same experience as Jon: Harris didn't dominate. Most of the initial links were about the FBI interviewing Trump concerning the assassination attempt.
I googled from both Hungary and, using my VPN, the USA. Then I went back and read JonF very carefully. And it is so interesting.
I feel reasonably certain I see what both see.
Both JonF and Rod are 100 percent accurate in their descriptions of what they see, assuming they see what I see. JonF does to note that "Top Stories" after googling Donald Trump are all negative, and all "Top Stories" after googling Kamala Harris are positive, but an omission is not an inaccuracy (but hey Jon, did you notice?).
But then I set my VPN to UK and typed "Donald Trump" into Google. This is odd, Sue. I got "Top Stories: News about Harris" after typing Donald Trump. Not even about Trump/Harris, just "Top Stories: News about Harris". I know you believe me, Sue, but I wish I had a screenshot for everyone - it is kind of astonishing.
edit: Just googled from Hungary again. Now it too is "Top Stories News about Harris" when "Donald Trump" is googled. "White Dudes for Harris", "Harris Wants to Reform Supreme Court" and two face shots side by side , one of Trump caught in a momentary stupid expression and one of a normal looking Harris with the words "Presidential Campaign 2024".
Thanks for performing that experiment. Make sure to save the screenshot for future reference.
Go to Google and type “attempted assassination of tru”. Stop on the “u”. “Trump” doesn’t doesn’t even come up. Still the case now, from here in Asia where I live. Ted Cruz pointed it out on X.
Other day someone pointed out that if you type “President Donald” you get “President Donald Duck” as first hit. Now that’s slightly better.
This really is over the top. On myriad topics I try either Google or Bing and I’m stonewalled. Used to be “controversial” info would appear on p. 5 or 6 of search results. Now it doesn’t appear. Period.
Really? I tried googling " attempted assassination of tru" and got Trump from Hungary. From my VPN for the USA and UK and Japan, the same. I even did it with quote around the phrase, so it had to search "tru" not Trump and still it was Trump.
I also tried "President Donald" but got Trump.
I agree, however, that google censors quite a lot and propagandizes quite a lot.
I did it just before posting my comment, here in Taiwan, and got “Truman,” a few other options, no “Trump” in the list.
Here’s one. Try “donate to trump campaign”. It works on Bing. On Google I get ZERO results starting at “tru”!
Honestly, I think we're forgetting that Google targets our results based on our search history. It doesn't just blanket return the same search results for everyone. Its sophistication is scary.
But...You Tube knows me well and serves up right wing all the time. Google gave me no non-Left media until page 5 of a search on Trump and no Fox until page 12. All Regime media.
Hmm. That does seem an unexpected difference.
Right? I just googled Donald Trump and got 8 stories about boobs. The deep state is on to me!
Similar experience.
Isn't this odd! I wonder whether there's some sort of algorithm where Google offers links according to previous Google searches? It seems unlikely, but who knows with such technology? Might it vary according to the browser (I use Firefox)? There are certainly differences depending on which search engine one chooses: I tried Google and Bing, and they brought up completely different links, with Bing considerably more negative than Google.
Of course they target based on search history--they sell this precise tech.
I agree, in part, with JonF. I’m seeing the same thing he does, here in New York. I’m even seeing auto-completion for “Trump assassination“ when I start typing in Trump.
HOWEVER, the auto-completion fix is new. Yesterday or the day before, that particular auto-completion was being suppressed by Google. I saw that with my own eyes.
I think Google is busy responding to its shenanigans being exposed, and the fixes have not been rolled out universally.
I could be wrong but I suspect Google these days tunes itself to the user's search preferences (as derived from past experience) which is why we may see somewhat different things.
You’re not wrong. You’re right. This is what’s been referred to as information silos. Google‘s business model, in part, is that it wants you to like it. It engages in a kind of high-tech flattery by skewing search results.
You're exactly right. Just like Amazon or Walmart will target advertising based on past purchases.
He's not gaslighting. I tried it too, in Tennessee, and I get the results he does.
However, yesterday I went to Meta AI and no matter how I worded it, it would not tell me about the assassination attempt. So I tried to find Thomas Matthew Crooks, and found this:
"I found information about a person named Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was arrested on July 13, 2024, at a Donald Trump rally in Ohio. According to reports, Crooks attempted to bring a loaded gun into the rally and was stopped by Secret Service agents.
Crooks, 23, was charged with attempting to assassinate a former President, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He was also charged with possession of a firearm in a restricted area."
Perhaps it would be wise for us all to figure out alternative search tools aside from Google and Meta AI, and stop using these obviously misleading tools.
Has anyone tried using DuckDuckGo?
I limit my Google/Bing searches to work and restaurants.
For politics and religion I turn to substack and X.
I use DuckDuckGo as a first pass and Google as a second pass. Some things work well, other times I get a feeling that I should Google.
DuckDuckGo has nothing like Google's medical/scientific pages.
Nah, my results were same as Jon's, googling from WA about 8am Pacific Time.
In Louisiana, what comes up on Google when typing "Donald Trump" is information about Trump. Of course the first three are about Trump "Losing it over devastating poll" on Harris, Trump's "insult trap" as he searches for "slurs" about Harris, and Trump defending Vance's "cat lady slur" of Harris.
Why is this a problem? How else has Trump been in the news in the last few days? Like it or not Hartis has dominated the news cycle- just as Trump did during the Convention and after the shooting. This is how these things work. You're making something normal aerm sinister.
As noted by he had a major policy announcement about cryptocurrency. Perhaps this could have been reported? He has also had a number of campaign events including one with Vance. Could what had been said during those rallies have been reported?
And you might notice the negative terms used, "slurs," "insult trap," "Losing it." Perhaps similar terms are used regarding Harris on Google.
How is this a problem? Because 100 percent of news stories google cites are negative on Trump (regarding him) or positive on Harris (regarding her). - And you should see outside the USA where Donald Trump results in "Top Stories: News About Harris". I wish I had a place to post a screenshot.
That could be being gamed by Google but might be an honest result too, since overall the media are anti-Trump.
I did think of that possibility. But how is it that Fox News shows up on Google, but only with it's negative Trump stories? There are lots of positive Trump stories at the Fox News site.
Hmm. Maybe they ARE gaming the results. I always find this hard to believe because I know if i were in these peoples' (Google engineers') position I wouldn't bother, and furthermore would know perfectly well that it was dishonest and wouldn't go there.
Clearly Google has identified you as a pro-Trump voter who needs to be brought back into the light.
Heh. OK, are you also such a voter? Where is your first non-Regime result for "Donald Trump". And is JonF to be rewarded due to his faithfulness to narrative and thus anti-Trump for him as well? :)
I'm a huge Trump fan and have been since high school. And Google hates me for it, I'm certain.
I see your point about Google rewarding JonF and not punishing him with pro-Trump news. It doesn't make sense. But it could be that JonF is such a "different kind of cat" that Google doesn't know what to do with him and so they throw their hands up and say: "Give it to him straight!"
(I mean this with great affection for JonF. I wish Google would treat me this way!)
Steve, over the first three is there a bold face header that says "Top Stories: News about Harris • Donald Trump" when you google Donald Trump?
Once again we face Jon's Golden Rule: If it didn't happen to him, it didn't happen to anybody ever.
Google was called out on it yesterday and is working hard at the moment to hide their bias. Simple as that.
It's very, very likely that JonF would get a different set of results from Google. He's not gaslighting anyone.
It changed this morning. I tried it last night at 10pm EST. I've noticed similar issues with google since covid. It didn't "fill in" with search suggestions at all last night.
We're back to "wack a mole". Every day we will be conspiracy theorists for noticing the media-moles that come and go.
Also in southern Ohio, Google brought up Trump. It's pretty much all negative news stories, but it is Trump or JD Vance in relation to Trump. If a person has a bias they might not notice that there's a bias becasue how could there be anything BUT negative stories about Trump?
In New England here. Put in Donald Trump at 0924 hrs: I got first, the Wikipedia link. Then one article from CNN on "Trump campaign won't commit to debate Harris until".... and the remainder from a year ago!! That was on DuckDuckGo.
On Google, I got a section about Trump, mostly pics with some facts. Below that it says: "News about Harris · Donald Trump" And it has articles about Trump's campaign trail. On the right it has an "about" section with a link to his website.
Just in case anyone is interested.
It is worth noting that what pops up when you search Google will vary greatly from region to region, and indeed computer to computer, ESPECIALLY depending on whether you are logged in to Google through your browser, AND depending on how you have your privacy and search history settings rigged. Keep in mind the following:
1. Google makes money on selling ads.
2. Google makes money on selling YOU to ad companies.
3. Google makes money on selling clicks to some sites as well.
4. So the more you search and click through them (however you do so), the more money they make off of you, your interests, and your energy.
They are engaged in a software feedback loop that first and foremost is selling YOU back to yourself (or at least a demographic model of you based on your IP address, and what others in your area are also searching for), in that if you engage with anything at all, they'll see that and say "ooh, that made us money, do it again." If you're like Rod and attracted to (and Rod himself has joked about this) "Dreher-bait", then you'll get more of that outrage fed back to you. If, by contrast, you are always looking at fishing gear, fishing spots, fishing tips, etc., and rarely engage with politics, then you're more likely to find those sorts of things in your news feed, but probably laced with stories about various outrages committed by the Department of the Interior, the EPA, etc.
And of course Google does censor much, and steer and manipulate people, suppress some things, promote others, etc. Some of this, BTW, is also to suppress sites that don't use any of Google's advertising engines or plugins.
If you are searching through a VPN, not logged into Google, using different browsers on the same machine for different tasks, etc., then this will fog their results and roll you back to a more demographic and geographic attempt to click-bait you.
But this also means that 2 people even sitting right next to each other can have wildly different search results on the same thing.
Trust not the Google to even be honest about what it's lying about, and understand that they're trying to have a profile on everyone in the world, to show them chiefly what they think will net them the most money. It's very possible for different people to get very different results.
Exactly. I cannot understand why any conservative would use Google at all nowadays. After 2023’s multiple search engine debacles, in which small, independent content creators (like myself) were decimated by upwards of 70% loss of traffic/ad revenue, it became kown that Google was rewarding Reddit and larger webites (despite their crowdsourcing and outdated information) with higher positioning, due to financial relationships with them. Along with this, they scraped smaller sites to populate their AI, which raises all sorts of copyright infringement issues. They’re too big for us little guys to sue, though. Stop using Google. Try Bing or DuckDuckGo.
Bing is Microsoft's pet, and I have found it only slightly less dishonest than Google (though I should note that after years of doing IT on Microsoft systems, and their endless drive to monopolize the PC, I just eschew their products on principle at this point).
I think Bing is a little more honest as you say. I have hope for Microsoft with their firing of the DEI department. I think you can depend on Microsoft to follow profits first. Google seems to be caught in the progressive trap (like Disney) that says they should value their ideology more than money.
Excellent points!
Agreed, that's was my experience too about an hour ago.
I cannot watch the video(s) of that vapid and self-centered girl for more than ten to fifteen seconds before I am compelled to exit. Just vomit.
Agreed. Huge annoyance factor. If Harris's campaign could pick her as a spokesperson Trump would clobber Harris in the election.
"If that means we have to make our peace with Donald Trump, so be it. There is no other option."
100%.
~~you might not be aware of how brazenly what Curtis Yarvin calls “the Cathedral” is operating to engineer a Kamala Harris victory.~~
This should come as no surprise to anyone who remembers the "Shadow Campaign" from 2020, and the famous piece from Time in Feb. 2021 that laid it out. This year the anti-Trump forces (right and left) had to wait a bit because of Biden's poor showing at the debate, and for a decision on his replacement. But lo and behold, as soon as one was coronated, the anti-Trump noise machine started to move towards full volume.
The thing that is moving me towards a Trump vote this year is the realization that while, yes, DT is a loose cannon, when it comes to the Dems the entire party is a loose cannon, with no sense of self-awareness or internal governor. I'm an independent who despises the GOP, but at least with them you get some measure of Constitutional self-control. The Republicans can to a certain extent rein in Trump's tendencies to excess. With the Dems the excess is the point. Trump may be a buffoon, but ideology is more dangerous than buffoonery.
"The thing that is moving me towards a Trump vote this year is the realization that while, yes, DT is a loose cannon, when it comes to the Dems the entire party is a loose cannon, with no sense of self-awareness or internal governor. I'm an independent who despises the GOP, but at least with them you get some measure of Constitutional self-control. The Republicans can to a certain extent rein in Trump's tendencies to excess. With the Dems the excess is the point. Trump may be a buffoon, but ideology is more dangerous than buffoonery. "
Amen!
Yes. No self-awareness. When you have cultural hegemony so your opinions are reinforced by media and entertainment, you aren't forced to think very hard.
Keep in mind what Hell ultimately wants. They hate us because God loves us. They cannot attack God directly, though they would love that ability. But their "rebellion" was a doomed effort from the start, which once again reveals something about the insanity and short-sighted stupidity of Hell. But they come after us because they cannot come after God. They hate God and everything He loves and stands for. So if they cannot attack Him directly, they come after His creation, including His most beloved, us. Stealing our worship, degrading our love, our appreciation of beauty, the various ways we take joy in how we experience creation (our enjoyment of food into gluttony, our enjoyment of drink into drunkenness, our enjoyment of physical love into wanton lust and all the bad things that come over the careless exercising of that, and so forth and so on.) But it is ultimately about our annihilation. Even our "worship", which is adoring and comprehending the divine, they seek to pervert. Ultimately, they don't really care for it for themselves, not for its own sake. It does nothing for them and they loathe it. They cannot have that relationship we can have with God. They want to use it, like they use everything else, to pervert, degrade and destroy. And to steal what is rightly God's and what we were made for.
All ultimately to lead us to destruction. And though they would take joy in pulling the trigger themselves, what gives Hell ultimate pleasure is seeing us doing it to ourselves. It is the one way, ultimate way, they have to hurt God. And it is curious, when you read accounts of where demons seem to want to take humans, is to convince us to kill ourselves, that life is no longer worth living, that the only thing to do is toss ourselves into the abyss. That is their last card they have to play, the worst blow they can inflict against the Almighty, whom they loathe.
That's the ultimate of this desperate dance of empty depravity. It is no celebration of life, and you can see the desperation in their eyes. It is the opposte.
France is a nation of deep history and culture, and this was their chance to showcase it to the world. Communist China, at the Beijing Olympics, may be a totalitarian state and not in the best shape themselves. But they still, somehow, had a sense of themselves as a nation, with all that means.
FRance, or at least those put in charge of these ceremonies, could not find that sense in themselves.
That blackout that struck Paris after, with that church lit up, was God letting those people know that a. there is hope still, even now, for all those who will turn to Him, and b. He always will get in the last word.
And in the end, all will see, but question is, will they comprehend?
Pray for FRance. Pray for us all.
Truer words were never spoken.
At The End they will. “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This is both glorious and terrifying, isn’t it?
Ultimate truth has that effect. No ability to deny. Any attempts become ash in one's throat.
One of the things God always does is find a way to turn even our bad choices and other sufferings into something that works toward the ultimate good. We may never understand how in this life, but He does it just the same.
One way we can turn this travesty to good is to let it spur prayer, as you said.
In addition to praying for France and our whole civilization, I think this may be a good opportunity to pray especially for the conversion of the people involved and their eventual salvation. Because they have chosen to be in the worldwide news, it is even possible to pray for some of them by name instead of only in broad categories. Whether they ultimately convert or not, the prayer itself helps to bring good out of evil.
And the Light shines in the darkness!
I'm on many a Zoom call with women like those pro-Kamala ladies, know that type of person well. One of them this past week, at a conference, wore a mask the entire time and ate her lunch outside lest she catch the dreaded COVID inside the crowded lunchroom with the rest of us.
Rest assured, these people firmly believe they are far more moral than you, even though their "morality" is rooted in literally nothing beyond human whims, subject to change.
Something wicked this way definitely comes.
Because these ladies are far more moral than you and I, that will allow them to do *anything* to you and I, no matter how evil and awful and cruel it is. They are, after all, on the side of everything good and right.
Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisitors would understand perfectly.
Indeed. Because they are "on the right side of history," and believe in the noble lie - lies told in service of the "greater good," according to them. So naked hatred in the name of inclusiveness is par for the course; whatever undemocratic means they need to employ to save "our democracy" are automatically forgiven, in their book. The "deplorables" aren't fellow countrymen, they're unenlightened roughnecks to be herded and managed.
And yet, they would love to tell you about how empathetic and caring they are for the "marginalized," as they actively work to marginalize the rest of us.
I don't think there's a more powerful emotion than fully justified hate.
It excuses everything because because whatever I do is for the good of your own sweet self and soul.
Or because you have it coming!
Actually they wouldn’t, the Inquisition was well documented for its commitment to due process, its strict record-keeping, and its humane treatment of prisoners in comparison to the secular authorities. This idea of the Inquisition as a monstrous organization is a Protestant myth that like so many others of its kind was absorbed into the corpus of left-wing dogma.
The way to understand this "strategy" is that they see this, I think un-wrongly, as a "base election".
That is, there are very, very few undecided votes out there. The evidence for this is how an assassination attempt on one of the candidates didn't have any significant effect on the polls. People on both sides are dug-in, and what the Democrats were missing was an enthusiastic base like Trump has. People on that side were "resigned" to vote for Biden, as the "Not-Trump-Option", but that's not an enthusiastic base, and it was quite questionable whether that kind of defensive voting, alone, would prevail for them in an election that has very few undecideds and which is therefore highly dependent on who mobilizes their base the best.
So yes they're throwing red meat to their base. And ... it's working. With their base. It isn't intended to work for the 100,000 meaningful (ie in meaningful states) undecided voters that there are in an electorate of ~155m votes cast. It's just not that important to appeal to the undecided voters. Trump recognizes that -- his rallies and his VP pick are designed to appeal to his base, and rally them, not to reach out to the small number of up for grabs voters. And the Democrats are, in effect, doing the same thing.
The fact is -- this IS energizing their base. That's clear. Their base is going bonkers. And so it's hard to criticize it for being "unfit for purpose", since the clear purpose is firing up the base, not outreach. Ads like the one criticizing the right for being sexual prudes are designed to play right into the stereotypes that the democratic base has, and it will be effective, especially among the young and female core base element for the Democrats. This is the opposite of bad strategy, really, in an election year which is all about the respective bases.
Now, they do have to take care that they don't also add to the motivation of Trump's base by what they are doing. Trump's own approach has had those same effects, as we know -- ie fired up his opposition as much as his base. But it isn't a bad strategy just because neoliberals like Tom Friedman are made uncomfortable by the soft part of the Democratic base's beliefs being spoken out loud.
The guy who said it best was Ryan Broderick, the leftist hack who got booted by Buzzfeed several years ago for plagiarism -- he said that it finally feels good to openly call out the right for being the weird, antisocial, incel losers that we all have known they were for years but chose not to say. Gloves off, game on.
Now Broderick is a hack and a horse's ass. But he's the voter they are trying to reach here, the somewhat demoralized by Biden Democratic base voter, and it's working in flying colors.
Republicans are rightly worried about this, because so far the Harris campaign has made no missteps (granted it's only a little over a week!), and it's irritating to watch it be so successful so quickly at what it is trying to do. And it's certainly the case that the entire mainstream media's collaboration in this has been driving the success of the campaign. But successful it is. The Republicans have their work cut out -- they need to amp up the base to vote not just for Trump but against Coconut. And they have to do that now.
I question whether that enthusiasm is deep. Or lasting. She's new. And bears the same negatives that got her wiped out in 2020 without even as many delegates as Mariam Williamson. And with the added negative of being an imcompetent nothing in a weak admin. It may be getting her a momentary bump, but wait until the newness wears off. She has to last a bit more than a week.
To know Harris is to loathe her. I imagine the Democrats will be developing a serious case of buyer's remorse at having gone all- in on her so quickly by the middle of September.
I'm certain this is true. Especially when initially, she seems to be engaging in quick right-wing pandering. No idea what she expect that to accomplish. The Right and indies are not going to be fooled and the Left loathes such.
I think there's a faction of the right, one that is smaller than it thinks it is, that is open to Kamala. These are the ones that come here and say Trump should dump Vance for Nikki Haley.
More Christians (not talking about you personally, but you know this exists) need to remember that we were taught to love and pray for our enemies, but we were NOT taught (very much the opposite) to believe we have no enemies.
Those people on the right are enemies. Love them, pray for them, but recognize they are enemies.
Joe Sobran would say, Jesus told us to pray for our enemies; he didn't tell us to pretend they're our friends.
I like that, that's very good.
I seem to have misplaced Hillary's cookie recipe.
I saw some of her cooking videos. She's pretty good in the kitchen, ironically. She also has the right attitude about butter: "It makes [cookie dough] yummy."
My point is she may be more likable than people give her credit for. And she only has to be likable till November 5th.
Agreed. She's ditzy, but comes off as more likable than Hillary. I don't have a good feeling about November.
And she's a ditz. I suspect that a lot of the Trump ads will be impressionistic, consisting of clips of her word salads, her laughter, and the like. I think she may be a gift, ultimately. She shouldn't be underestimated, obviously, but I think our side may be panicking a little. I imagine everyone who reads these comments knows the genius of Estee Palti, but if you don't, go to YouTube and treat yourself.
They always do. They don't react well when the variables change and they really don't react well when the Left seems happy about something. Our guys don't stop and think sometimes and many have terrible poker faces.
I think it's deep among the core base. Not because she's perfect in their eyes, but because she can win. And she's not 80. It's different from the 2020 primaries, because there the question was choosing between Harris and a bunch of other Democrats, including Sanders. That isn't the question now.
I agree that it's only a week, as I pointed out my post. But my point still stands: Republicans will dismiss this enthusiasm at their extreme peril.
Can she? Again, I reference her last run. Never dismiss, but likewise, don't panic or freak out.
Can she? Yes, if everything aligns for her perfectly. Will she? Well what are the odds of everything aligning for her perfectly. Not very good.
I give her even odds. But it's a ways to November.
Exactly right. Kamala Harris may be an absurd figure but she is guaranteed 45 % of the vote. A metal folding chair would get 45 % of the vote against Trump just by having the letter D next to it.
I don't think it matters whether or not she's popular. Biden campaigned from his basement, and garnered no enthusiasm to speak of, but we're all supposed to believe he got more votes than any other candidate ever. I went to cover what I assumed would be rallies for and against HRC during a lunchtime talk she gave here during her campaign, and I met two or three protesters, ONE counter-protester, and one foreign couple visiting the city who came out to look for a glimpse of what they thought might be the future president of the country. I was completely shocked and came home to tell my husband "there were no crowds at all--no one likes her!" In that election, the real numbers won. In the last one, Democrats made sure they didn't. I don't think the complete lack of support for Harris wlll matter at all.
"Republicans will dismiss this enthusiasm at their extreme peril.” You’re so right. Hugh Hewitt routinely says, “If it’s not close, they can’t cheat.” I’m amazed no one has mentioned the manufactured votes factor in this thread. Instead, most Republicans operate and pontificate as if the elections were actually fair.
Brendan, do you think a big part of Harris's appeal to the Dem base is, like Biden's, based on malleability? They're both weak puppets in the hands of progressive forces within the Party. To me it seems a sizeable segment of the Dem base is fired up not because she's a strong women but because she's the opposite.
In part, yes. I think another part, which often gets missed by our side, is that her sheer demographics excite their base. We don't get very excited over demographic characteristics of our candidates, generally, so we tend to downplay or miss that issue when it fires up the Democrats, but it generally does so.
With Kamala it's not so much her black aspect that is in play (black response has been relatively muted compared to Obama), but her sex. There are simply many, many base Democrats who have long wanted a woman president, and specifically a woman Democratic president, and "lost out" in 2016. Not all of these are single women, the largest single demographic in their base, but it also includes older women who are not necessarily far-left voters, but who are motivated to come out and vote for any woman who has a real possibility to win, which she does.
I think nobody in their base is fired up by her policies, her stump abilities, her charisma or intellect, or what have you. It's about her demographics. And I think your point about malleability fits well there, too -- they have qa fairly good confidence in the deep (and not so deep) state running things with a figurehead president (it's what they've been doing for years apparently), and this doesn't really bother many of them in and of itself -- as you say, in some ways it makes that person who is the figurehead capturable in ways that are unseen to the general public, which is always the way power prefers to operate. I think many on the left see that as far from ideal, but they also are in a mental space where there is a political/constitutional state of emergency (as silly as many on the right find that idea) and so they are more than willing to go with Plan B or Plan C or Plan D as long as it isn't Trump.
I think all of that makes this enthusiasm real. Having said that, it's early. And it's not evenly distributed among the democratic base (white laptop class has been having a non-stop political carnival atmosphere for over a week, whereas the "BIPOC" response has been much more muted). And so we will see if it actually works in November. November is still quite a ways away. But it's the case that the replacement has gotten their side much more than could have been reasonably expected, and it's obvious that it has surprised Republicans greatly. That's fine, there's time to react, but hand-waving isn't a reaction, it seems to me.
You're right, I'm among those who tend to forget the power of raw identity politics to the Left. It's almost insane how important that immutable and irrelevant factor has become to the Democrat Party. No, not insane. Childish. This election is going to be like that original Star Trek "bonk, bonk on the head" episode where everyone dies before growing up, so the planet is populated and run by unsupervised children and teenagers.
Neither is hand-wringing.
Most Democratic women don't like strong men. Many don't like men at all.
BIPOC will vote for her, it has never been different no matter how many times pubs believe ‘this time will be different, I just know it’ Megyn Kelly had such a person on today talking about this unicorn big tent coalition. Young people-same dam thing.
It's fairly easy to tweak up campaigns and candidates to get their votes, and easy to portray the Rs as being "other" for both groups. It isn't policy based, it's based on vibe, cultural fit, and a sense of whether they are "us" or "them".
*woman, not women
"Woman.....whoa-man!"
Have you heard about the "J.D. Vance wears eyeliner" thing? Apparently it is weird because a Republican does it. Whatever .
Anyway, anyone can feel free to steal this and post it on Twitter :)
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So, did J.D. Vance wear eyeliner around age 7? Movie (left) and the real J.D. Vance.
https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/hillbilly-elegy/
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Since you can't see the pic here, scroll down to the picture of Vance around 7. However, if the pic was on Twitter with the info, it would likely work. J.D has the same eyes at around age 7, i.e., unusually dark thick lash line - and the movie actor does not, so it is a good contrast,.
That's his real eyeline. It's very striking.
Wait...is is clear from the picture that I am saying J.D. Vance had that same eyeline at age 7 and that is essentially proof that he does not wear eyeliner?
I've just realized it is not clear from the rhetorical question, whose answer is "no", without seeing the picture. Argh. - - And yes, you would know even better from seeing him in person.
The eyeliner thing just crossed me yesterday, but what’s bigger imho is the Vance couch rumors, all over TikTok to devastating effect. I’ll let folks google that themselves, though.
I wonder, is this the election where the voting differences between men and women become irreconcilable? People may say that was the 2016 election, but 8 years hasn't improved anything. I'd say it's gotten worse, generally speaking.
What's on my mind is something like South Korea, where the men and women have entered a kind of "cold war" with each other.
Nobody wants to have fun anymore, it seems. Even hedonism has lost its allure! Joyless prigs, the lot of them.
A reader e-mails:
<<The Olympic opening was carefully scripted and it tells a cohesive story. The error I think people are making is to interpret scenes independently. The show starts with three children entering a boat in which they are welcomed by a cloaked figure which is depicted like Charon in Greek mythology. They are obviously taken down river Styx, enter a tunnel and then emerge. We are in the Underworld from that point on. The headless corpses, burning islands, flying ghosts, lost souls on the shores of the river all set the stage. The most shocking scene to me was the cloaked rider on the pale horse leading the nations to the stage with the golden bull. This is followed by the Celine Dion song which I will post here translated to English:
The blue sky above us may collapse
And the Earth may well crumble
I don't care if you love me
I don't give a damn about the whole world
As long as love floods my mornings
As long as my body trembles under your hands
I don't care about problems
My love, since you love me
I would go to the ends of the earth
I would dye my hair blonde
If you asked me to
I would go and take down the Moon
I would go and steal fortune
If you asked me to
I would deny my homeland
I would deny my friends
If you asked me to
People can laugh at me
I would do anything
If you asked me to
If one day, life tears you away from me
If you die, if you are far from me
I don't care if you love me
Because I would die too
We will have eternity for ourselves
In the blue of all immensity
In heaven, no more problems
My love, do you believe we love each other?
God reunites those who love each other
This Edith Piaf song was chosen with a specific purpose. When sang in the underworld, the lyrics pledging absolute loyalty to the golden bull or dark forces, a willingness to sacrifice all mortal attachments, give up your friends, your homeland, a willingness to change your essence or identity, defying the natural order by taking down the moon, with the end of the song mocking God one more time, ironically implying that he will reunite those who love each other, in this case a union with dark forces that mimics and rivals God's love. A perfect song for the perfect ending of a diabolical ritual.>>
Man, this calls to mind Nietzsche's abyss gazing back into its viewer. Also, the many horror stories about people being controlled / driven mad by viewing something best left unseen.
Some other writer thought the ferryman was Charon, but then decided he was the Phantom of the Opera. But why not both?
When Jolly says in his non-apology that his feast of tolerance was a Bacchanal and not the Last Supper, why not both? Surely it is both; that is his tolerance and harmony.
Aslan is Tash; Tash is Aslan.
It will be bad so pray Damm Hard now with all your heart and all your soul!🙏
Well that's... disturbing. I didn't see the whole thing, and didn't know the context. Thank you and the reader for explaining. I heard that Celine sang an Edith Piaf song, and for most people that will be "a famous French song" if they know even that much. My father LOVED Edith Piaf and all I know about her that she was a tragic, self-destructive person (he loved Judy Garland too--the fascination of self-immolation never appealed to me). That song is supposed to show a self-destructive slavery to passion, it's not an aspiration!!
Sorry, reader,I was with you until talk about deliberately choosing the Piaf song for underworld purposes, i.e. uniting with dark forces. So you know this? Respectfully, it seems to me that is both conspiracy theory and speaking to depression. You are right that the scenes connect, but they meant to lead from darkness to light (sewers to torch in the sky). They threw in blasphemy, perversion and lots of trans references, but they did not end with a diabolical ritual. It is possible to read too much into things.
Hymne a l'Amour - Hymn to Love - is a song that says (wrongly) nothing else matters but having romantic love. It was also sung at the Tokyo Olympics. Edith Piaf wrote the lyrics about the man she loved, who died in a plane crash. It is depressing and not helpful to many depressed people to sing "if you die, I will die" but it is not directly related to a diabolical ritual. Unless a large number of songs through the ages are actually diabolical rituals.
Piaf was the best choice for the conclusion, and this was he best choice for the magnificent voice of Celine Dion.
PS: Even "The Vigilant Citizen" did not have a problem with Celine Dion's song.
https://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/an-in-depth-look-at-the-depravity-of-the-2024-paris-olympics-opening-ceremony/
Rod says something like the Vigilant Citizen (paraphrase) are crazy but that does not mean they are always wrong.
There were problems - lots of occult influence, perversion, blasphemy. This is because many top artists are into those things. But I don't think we should conclude such a depressing thing as a full on diabolical plot. And just because - from Vigilant Citizen - Masons like "from darkness to light" does not mean there is something wrong with that idea.