Category: TEOTWAWKI

Civil War 2.0 On Hold: Russia, Russia, Russia

“If Russia mobilizes, there will be a war.” – Nicholas and Alexandria

I saw a billboard advertising clocks the other day – I guess it’s a sign of the times.

  1. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  2. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  3. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  4. Open War.

The Clock O’Doom has dropped back.  For now.  The advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – The Clock Retreats – Violence And Censorship Update – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Hungry Days – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month.  I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues.  Also, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 650 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

https://wilderwealthywise.com/civil-war-weather-report-previous-posts/

The Clock Retreats

February was on a pace to at least keep the pressure up.

  • COVID was causing Canada to rip apart.
  • The Department of Homeland Security decided that (see below) that anyone who put forward “misleading narratives which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions” was a threat.
  • Truckers in the United States were getting ready to replicate the Canadian example in D.C.
  • Biden was less popular than syphilis.

Then?  Ukraine.  It’s completely stopped the concern about COVID.  Corona is . . . gone.  All hail Putin – the man who cured COVID.  The truckers are still on the side of freedom in the United States, but the press isn’t covering them at all.

From the Civil War 2.0 standpoint, though, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has completely sucked all the oxygen out of the room.  It is the only thing being discussed.  And public perception is moving quickly.  When the invasion was first launched, only 26% of people (mainly Leftists) wanted to have any American action taken.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution 426-3 supporting Ukraine, up to and including troops.  It’s a resolution, so it’s not a declaration of war.  But the Congressmen think their voters support intervention.  They’re right – 74% of people in the United States support a “no-fly” zone over Ukraine.

The only way to do that, of course, is for Americans to directly shoot down Russian planes.  I don’t think the Russians would take that well at all.  I don’t expect a no-fly zone because even Biden isn’t foolish enough to consider that.  I hope.

Regardless, the focus of the American public has been distracted.  They’ve stopped fighting each other (sort of) and for the moment, Civil War 2.0 is off the menu.  This is only a short-term event.  As we’ll cover down below (and in much more detail on Wednesday), this reprieve is only short term.  The invasion carries the seeds of stress that will ultimately make Civil War 2.0, much more likely.

For now, though, I’m moving the clock back to 10 minutes to midnight.

Violence And Censorship Update

As mentioned above, at the beginning of February, stress was actively added to the system.  First, the DHS decided that differing options counted as terrorism.  I’m hoping that they don’t see me calling their little note a blatant violation of the First Amendment as being in violation.  I mean, who wouldn’t trust a government that doesn’t want alternative views published?

See for yourself:

Certified Genius Adam Kinzinger (just kidding, I’m not sure he’s smart enough to spell his own name) said that “targeted assassinations” were coming if civil war breaks out.  I’m just hoping someone finds a room where he can have his coloring books in peace.

TD Bank, in Canada, gave funds for the Canadian truckers to the courts.  Why?  Having a different opinion means you’re a target.  The Emergencies Act gave them the right to do that.  As well as cut anyone who supported them, even verbally, out of the modern economic system.

And never forget – the Left wants people who love freedom bankrupt so they can never have a voice again.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real time.  They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings.  As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index.  On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Violence is flat.  February isn’t (usually) a big month for violence, so that’s to be expected.  I would expect the next few months to remain calm as well, perhaps turning back up in April.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, but instability fell in February.  Short month, and the focus is now more outward.

Economic:

The drop in economic confidence turned around this month, mainly on lower unemployment.  This is short term.

Illegal Aliens:

This data was at record levels for this time of year.  All-time record levels.  Again.

The Hungry Days

I’ve tried to model the way that people feel about the economy, politics, and violence above.  One thing those models don’t do is predict.  Here’s where a prediction is coming in, but it’s easier to predict what’s going to happen than predicting what will happen to a chocolate Easter bunny if you leave it alone in a room with a fat kid:

  • Ukraine is a tremendous producer of food for the world.
  • So is Russia.
  • Ukraine produces a lot of fertilizer and exports it.
  • So does Russia.

In the very best case, Ukrainian harvests will be far below normal.  If the war continues, the harvests may be nearly zero.  Ukraine may export no food – zero.  Their industry for producing fertilizer might be wrecked beyond use, or the docks might be destroyed.  Or the docks might be in Russian hands.

Russia, even if allowed to export, may choose to export food only to countries that don’t have sanctions against it.  Would you choose to export to people that have cut you off, and might not even have a mechanism to pay you, to people who cut off your Netflix®?

What happens if wheat producers comprising nearly 26% of wheat exports in the world . . . stop selling to most people either because they can’t or don’t want to?

The world gets hungry.  And if the millions of barrels of oil and billions of cubic feet of natural gas is off the market, the world gets poor.

So, we can end up in a world that is cold, hungry and poor.  Quickly.  And those are ideal conditions for Civil War 2.0.

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky.  Thanks so much, Ricky!!

Bad Guys

https://twitter.com/The_Real_Fly/status/1490379402005393413

https://twitter.com/The_Real_Fly/status/1487927709456031749

https://twitter.com/i/status/1484612953672347648

https://twitter.com/i/status/1490144736732188677

https://twitter.com/The_Real_Fly/status/1489137527659319298

https://twitter.com/i/status/1491418120086454278

https://twitter.com/Networkinvegas/status/1489654175570874368

https://gab.com/DrPaulGosar/posts/107814488157277312

https://twitter.com/NY_Scoop/status/1493116710173429761

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10483307/Shocking-video-shows-man-beaten-gang-Harlem-run-passing-car.html

https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/how-bad-is-crime-in-l-a/

Good Guys

https://twitter.com/BettyKPIX/status/1494117970221547521

https://youtu.be/R4Y-6zg6rL8

https://youtu.be/Z0qSqtKcUtQ

https://twitter.com/i/status/1494460147246067720

https://twitter.com/i/status/1494431313452941323

https://twitter.com/i/status/1490900444494712834

https://twitter.com/Orwells_Ghost_/status/1491944537299771400

https://roycewhite.substack.com/p/an-open-letter-to-the-black-bourgeoisie

One Guy

https://youtu.be/WOZI59tSv_4

Body Counts

https://goodsciencing.com/covid/athletes-suffer-cardiac-arrest-die-after-covid-shot/

https://sf.gov/sites/default/files/2021-01/2021%2001_OCME%20Overdose%20Report.pdf

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/gun_control/gun_violence_most_americans_want_stricter_enforcement_not_new_laws

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10542549/More-Americans-killed-GUNS-car-crashes.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10500759/Police-shot-dead-record-1-055-people-2021-young-black-men-disproportionate-majority.html

https://nypost.com/2022/02/06/bidens-first-year-in-office-saw-73-police-officers-killed-most-deaths-since-1995/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/these-cartel-terror-schools-in-mexico-give-cannibalism-exams-failure-is-not-an-option

Vote Counts

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1486032341210480645.html

https://apnews.com/article/elections-wisconsin-local-elections-election-2020-general-elections-6f786ced357f2d89f61a6bd32afcdd08

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/01/breaking-special-counsel-finds-mark-zuckerbergs-election-money-violated-wisconsin-bribery-laws/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/12/texas-voting-requirements-ballot-rejections

https://www.newsweek.com/film-claims-it-has-video-mules-stuffing-ballot-boxes-2020-election-1679583

https://heritageaction.com/toolkit/election-integrity-toolkit

 

Civil War…

https://rollcall.com/2022/02/03/civility-downhill-biden-poll/

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/bridgewater-s-ray-dalio-sees-u-s-on-path-to-civil-war-as-political-polarization-rises-1.1718043

https://www.conwaydailysun.com/opinion/columns/ross-douthat-let-s-not-invent-a-civil-war/article_921df052-74a0-11ec-a4e5-b37129c65643.html

https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/ross-douthats-civil-war-blame-game

https://www.oleantimesherald.com/opinion/is-america-bound-for-a-second-civil-war/article_280c209d-0480-5284-9421-95d71b83eb9b.html

https://bobschaffer-53068.medium.com/how-does-one-grasp-a-civil-war-5101af781ba2

https://greensboro.com/community/rockingham_now/opinion/are-we-bound-for-a-second-civil-war/article_9caf04b4-a6f0-5687-b55d-040a1271fddc.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/opinion/january-6-civil-war.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-close-to-violent-conflict-book-how-civil-wars-start-2022-1

https://slate.com/culture/2022/01/stephen-marche-next-civil-war-review.html

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/11/1071082955/imagine-another-american-civil-war-but-this-time-in-every-state

https://www.newsweek.com/our-second-civil-war-opinion-1670408

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/targeted-assassinations-coming-if-civil-war-breaks-out-adam-kinzinger/ar-AATKbqK

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2022-02-12/ucsd-prof-walter-civil-war

https://www.newsandtribune.com/news/worries-valid-troubling-but-civil-war-unlikely-experts-say/article_5a61c30c-7d40-11ec-ba25-67f07cf005fb.html

https://jacobinmag.com/2022/02/new-civil-war-apocalyptic-rhetoric-news-media-far-right-liberals

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/adam-kinzinger-civil-war-warning_n_62022630e4b0725faacec344

https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaire-investor-says-us-seemingly-on-path-civil-war-2022-2

https://observer-reporter.com/opinion/op-eds/op-ed-vigilantism-and-a-new-civil-war-a-warning/article_01df8b3e-853c-11ec-a851-cfae67c239f1.html

 

…Is Not The Worst That Can Happen…

http://assets.realclear.com/files/2022/03/1969_NEWSCHELLINGMEMO.pdf

When Change Comes

“There have been three major disasters and you were the only one unharmed.” – Unbreakable

What’s white, loud, and makes you spill your morning coffee? An avalanche.

There is a time and place when everything changes.

Sure, summer turns to fall which turns to winter which turns to, um, Daylight Savings Time. Regardless, like the seasons, some changes are reversible. I can freeze water and turn it into ice. Then, I can melt it and it’s water again and then I can freeze it. I then put it over my eyes – at least that way I look cool.

I saw Vanilla Ice at the local arena recently. He sold me a hot dog.

Reversible changes surround us. But there are irreversible changes, too. If I burn a piece of paper, it’s just gone. Forever. There is no physical process that can unburn the paper. Or bring back that Tweet® once you hit send – just ask Rosanne.

Changes like that happen to people and systems, too. I’m not going to focus on Russia tonight, but looking at Russia and Ukraine is instructive. When the ruble fell, it’s reversible. Will it reverse? Probably. At some point.

Maybe.

Will Ukraine ever be uninvaded? Nope. Heck, if you look at the history of Kiev/Kyiv it’s invaded approximately once every seven months. If ever there was a country that was more invaded, it wasn’t China, since only one person would take the Khansequences. The Ukrainian currency is called the hryvnia and it appears to be missing vowels. If Russia ends up conquering Ukraine, it won’t need any, since it, like the Roman denarius or the Babylonian shekel, will cease to exist.

There’s going to be so much losing. You’ll be tired of losing.

There are some things that you just don’t go back from. And that’s life. I wish I could go back in time and tell Pa Wilder to buy all the gold he could when anyone could purchase it all day long for $35 an ounce. If he had done that, I would have been a bullion heir.

In retrospect, it looks obvious. When Nixon did the irreversible – disconnected the dollar from gold, what did Pa Wilder think was going to happen? He thought the dollar would keep its value.

Why?

Because, after decades of the dollar being worth $35 an ounce, why would it ever change? For forty years of Pa’s life – gold had been priced at $35 an ounce. Gold would be (in the average person’s eyes in 1973) not a great investment.

But people, including Pa, missed the point. There was no physical process that would ever result in the dollar being backed by gold again. Nixon took the United States off the gold standard because he’d printed too much cash. And, as Biden will soon learn, prosperity doesn’t come from a printing press.

Wait, he made his money in Ukraine . . . .

I was watching a video from TIK History tonight when he brought up the conversation between a German and his banker back during Weimar Germany. “If you had only bought Swiss Francs (backed by gold) you would not have lost half your fortune.”

“But these are government bonds. Won’t they pay back?”

“The government that issued them no longer exists.”

In the United States, we have been in a very, very fortunate position. Our currency has been only ravaged by inflation and political theft over the years. We’ve been able to print up large quantities of dollars and just ship them over to people in other countries and they send us iPhones™ and soccer balls made by 12 year-olds since they apparently don’t have printing presses. Or because they have excess 12 year-olds.

Honestly, I’ve had 12 year-olds around the house, and I think one 12-year-old constitutes an excess 12-year-old.

Also, little kids from Nigeria are trying to give him US FIVE MILLION COOKYS.

Many currencies, like the Russian ruble, have been rendered nearly worthless nearly immediately by geopolitical events. That event is coming for the dollar.

I can’t tell you the date. I can’t give you the exact circumstances. But I will tell you that Charles Munger (Warren Buffet’s buddy) was in an interview where he flat out said that the dollar is eventually going to zero. The interviewer missed the point – when a currency implodes and goes to zero there is shock. There is starvation.

There are civil wars. There are revolutions.

But I can tell you after 2020, 2021, and now 2022 so far . . . change is in the air.

The Funniest Post You’ll Read Today About Ukraine And Impending Global War

“Now me, I’m overweight. My underwear has to be made specially at a factory in the Ukraine. They call me Daddy Round-Round. They send me a postcard every year.” – The Simpsons

Looks like the Democrats are changing focus!  Haven’t they heard about the huge rolling ball that is the economy?

I had three posts planned that would couple the main themes I write about, and they were planned to start today.  Meh.  It’s okay, I can write about that topic anytime, and I have the feeling that what most people want to talk about is Russia.  This will be shorter than most, because I have a collection of dank memes that will carry most of the narrative.  I’ve tweaked one or two, but most are “as found” on the ‘net.

In Soviet Russia, Internet brings cat to you!

I will admit to being wrong about the invasion – I thought that Putin would get what he wanted without using actual force.  Of course, being Russian, they typically use a chain, a tractor from Soviet Tractor Factory Collective No. 348, and an acetylene torch for wart removal, so I should have known.  Subtle is not in the typical playbook.  Some say the Russians play chess, but if they do, they use a shotgun.

Hello . . . Vindman.

I have some very strong feelings about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  I don’t care.  It’s not that I like the idea of a sovereign nation invading another one, but let’s face it:  these are two countries that both use wrapping paper for money and have languages that sound like someone is strangling a duck.  And?  We have zero national interests in Ukraine.

Silly old bear.  Everyone knows that, just like Piglet said, whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

I mean, unless Hunter is still taking tons of cash from them.  That would certainly be a casus belli.  Or a reason to scratch Putin’s belly.  Wait, I just channeled Joe Biden.  Who knew pants could be so wet, sticky, warm and uncomfortable?

If we don’t do something, Mexico might invade.  Oh, wait . . . .

I am not alone in not caring.  I saw an AP® poll that indicated only 26% of folks in the United States thought we should play a major role in the conflict.  About half thought we should have an uncredited walk-on cameo, and the rest just wanted to be left alone to polish their ARs in private.

I just wanted to add some things to my shirt.  Arts and crafts, really.

It’s the 26% that I find intriguing:  this 26% is mainly, but not all, Leftists.  I have no particular idea why Leftists hate Russia so much, but they really, really do.  I think it goes back to the 2016 election, where they think that Russia tipped the election for Trump.  It certainly had nothing to do with Hillary being as electable as the hind-end of a roadkill skunk.

I sure will be happy when they manage to un-Super Glue® his hands so he doesn’t have to sit like that.  I think Trump left all those bottles of glue around the White House as a prank.

So, here are the dank memes that describe the week.  They create their own narrative, sort of, but I’ll add in a word or two myself.

The First Rule of Leftism is You Don’t Deviate From The Narrative:

The Second Rule of Leftism is You Don’t Deviate From The Narrative:

The Leftists (and a Neocon) were out in force, setting up the New Narrative and letting you know exactly what they think about you:

Of course, I didn’t create this retort, but I thought it fit pretty well here:

An actual, frightening comment from a committed Lefty who knows the “Adults in Washington”:

And political opponents chimed in:

Then the even more schizoid side of the Left just had to chime in, letting us know what the real and important issues are:

And, when it’s time for lies, you know that the media will be there:

Of course, the US Armed Forces were there for a show of strength:

But of course, there is a war on, so sometimes navigational errors happen:

And India definitely wants in, sending their passenger jet alone into the no-fly war zone:

Leftists wonder why the Right isn’t on board:

Someone figured out that combat bridges are a thing and that Sam Hyde was with the Russians:

So, if this blows over, maybe I’ll just watch a movie this weekend:

Financial Vulnerability – Who Owns Your Money?

“Also, I’ve been told that the company’s expense accounts have been frozen. . . “ – Arrested Development

It’s hard to explain theft to a government, because they take things, literally.

The power to regulate is the power to destroy.  If you know who has that power over your life, that’s one aspect of preparedness – financial or otherwise.

Here’s an example I saw play out in real life:  In Modern Mayberry there was a retailer who had a small specialty shop.  Now, in Modern Mayberry there are limited shopping opportunities.  There’s the Walmart®.  There are seventeen antique stores selling stuff from nearby barns.  There’s a used kids clothes store – they’re very specific about just taking the clothes.  I tried to sell Pugsley during his difficult phase, and they simply wouldn’t take him.

But this shop was different.  It was a very specialized store – bicycles and parts – and nice bikes, the ones that cost more than the $75 that Walmart™ wants for a Huffy© with “some assembly required.”  It just so happened I was going through a biking phase, so I was gearing up.  One day, I got a package that I’d ordered from Amazon™ – I noticed that this small package (bicycle stuff) had come from the local retailer.

I thought to myself, “That’s weird.  Not as weird as a badger wearing underwear and lip gloss, but it’s not Saturday night yet, either.”

I did find two badgers in a U-Haul® once and called the ranger.  “Are they moving?” he asked.  “Maybe.  I guess that would explain the U-Haul®,” I replied.

I walked in there since I’d bought my bike from him and asked the owner what was up.  About the bikes, not the badgers.  I don’t think anyone can explain the badgers except people over at the military base, and they’re not talking.

The owner explained his business model to me.  It turned out that he did very little business locally.  What he had done was to build a small niche business selling specialty bike stuff on Amazon©.  Even though his merchandise was branded by non-Chinese makers, he bought it in bulk from China and sold it via Amazon®.

“I even sell some of it back to customers in China,” he laughed.

Then one day, Amazon© changed (in some fashion, I’m not aware of the details) the terms of the deal.  Within six months the shop was closed.  Within a year, he was divorced and had sold his house and had left to wander and find rights to wrong, or wrongs to write.  Or something.  I kinda got bored after he kept wanting me to snatch a pebble from his hand and stopped listening.

The six or so employees?  Also gone.  Not dead.  Just had to find new jobs, like looking for stuff in barns.  Side question – where did barn owls sleep before we invented barns?

The entire business gone – all with one, simple rule change.

Is there freedom of speech in Canada?  Sure, but if the government doesn’t agree with you, there won’t be freedom after speech.

Canada made a simple rule change, too.  They suspended the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  They decided that if you disagreed with them politically, you could have your money frozen.  I’d use the word “stolen” but it’s not clear that’s the case yet.  Of course, like any breaking news in the land of the Internet, take every story you see below with a grain of salt.

I knew Trudeau had a fixation on single moms, but this is ridiculous:

And they can shut down your life nearly immediately:

The idea is clear, though.  Just like that small businessman in Modern Mayberry, one tiny rule change can make everything go away.  In this case, of course, the rule change wasn’t tiny.  It allows banks to shut down the accounts of those people who try to get all their money.

And for what crime?  Giving (in some cases) token amounts to the Truckers Who Honked.  A $50 donation, made before the emergency act, before it was “illegal” resulted in all of her cash being (at least for now) forfeit.

To be clear, if the government can do that with a stroke of a pen, is it really your money?  Thankfully, though the Canadian government is taking a stand against tyranny.  In Ukraine:

Roses are red, sorry for the hypocrisy, we’ve just updated our foreign policy.

There was a push a while back for what’s called “Universal Basic Income.”  The idea that everyone would get a check each month for breathing.  Think the government would manipulate that to manipulate you?

Nah, no danger in with this, right?

It gets worse.  It turns out that this is, by far, the biggest dream that Leftists have had since, well, forever.  Let’s hear it straight from one of them on Plebbit® (Reddit©). . . .

This is what they admit that they want to do to those who don’t follow their dictates.  They admit this in public.  The poet and well-known philosophizer Samuel Hyde perhaps said it best:

And there’s certainly no danger and nothing you’d have to prepare for with this new government change, is there?

/pol/ Versus The Canadian Banking System

“Blame Canada.” – South Park, The Movie

Momma Bear angry!  I hope she packed him an extra-special lunch for his next day when he had to go Prime Minister around all those mean other boys.

Notes:  much of the memetic content is “as-found”.  We’ll also livestream on 2/16 at 9pm EST at this channel.  

Justin has had a bad run of it recently.  His mommy had to stick up for him in public, and those gosh darn people won’t do what he tells them to do!  Plus, he just recovered from his bout of the ‘Rona.

The problem is, first, that they were locking down his beloved Ottawa.  As the Bee® notes, that’s Justin’s job:

And this was driving the people crazy.  They felt like they were being held hostage:

Nothing Justin did seemed to make it better:

People weren’t at all sympathetic.

So Trudeau decided to double down.

One of the biggest fears that bankers used to have was the bank run.  That’s the phenomenon where people show up at the bank and demand cash.  Of course, the bank only keeps a few bucks on hand, so soon enough they run out.  What happens then?  People begin to get angry.  Pitchfork and torch angry.

Trudeau’s wife was robbed at gunpoint at an ATM.  The robber asked, “Do you ever want to see your husband again?”  She said, “No.”  They both had a good laugh.

For the record, only a small fraction of the currency in the country is actual, printed cash which is why if you want more than a small fraction of your cash from the bank, they’d pull out their pockets and shrug.  The vast majority of cash is just a collection of ones and zeros located in computers in various banks.

It’s a useful fiction so socialists and people wanting to finance wars can just print more cash to pay, and everyone pretends that it’s not stealing.  Countries have been very, very careful not to upset this particular applecart.  A politician can mess up a lot of systems, but that politician would have to be a fool to suggest that he’d freeze the bank accounts of millions of his own citizens.  Or that politician would be Justin Trudeau.

But I repeat myself.

That’s what Justin Trudeau did.  He indicated that, because he said so, they’d take all the money they wanted from anyone who they thought was helping the protesters.

No, actually even Gilligan wouldn’t have tried this nonsense (apologies to Aesop for spoiling Gilligan by comparing him to Trudeau).

Seriously, what was Trudeau thinking?  That the millions of people that, using emergency powers normally reserved for war against an outside enemy would just be pulled out because people wouldn’t take a shot he wanted and drove trucks and protested peacefully?  Oh, sure it was a peaceful but honk-filled protest, but that’s akin to a world war?

Honk War III?  World War Honk?  The Honkening?

Yup, I guess.  But this time there’s an amplifier.  /pol/.  /pol/ is a website run by the notorious hacker, 4chan.  /pol/ is, well, its own place.  It’s essentially an autism-powered supercomputer that has its own interests, language, and customs.  I really don’t recommend anyone go there.  Besides, they’re full.

But /pol/ is capable of wizardry.  The night that Kyle Rittenhouse created two good commies in Wisconsin, /pol/ had videos from every angle before and after the shooting, and identified the people Rittenhouse erased, including criminal records within hours.  They also tracked down an Antifa® killer from Portland and had his name, address, employer, and location before the police.

So, the crazy new idea to steal people’s money more quickly?  /pol/ jumped on that.

It didn’t take long for the word to get out to the world:

And it didn’t take long for the news suppression to hit:

Understand that this will probably come to nothing.  But also understand this:  the banking systems and veneer of civilization is thin . . . unlike future Trudeau.

I hear he stress eats.

War, You’re Soaking In It

“Fiddle-dee-dee! War, war, war, This war talk’s spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream. Besides, there isn’t going to be any war.” – Gone With the Wind

For whatever reason, French players are in “spectator only” mode.

War.  It’s one way we find out the difference between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin.

The traditional way that most people think about war involves troops and uniforms and guns and bombs.  That’s why people are focused on Ukraine – it seems like a time when the world might once again see something like in the old war movies.  Biden is especially wanting this, because it could distract the world from the economic and cultural ruin that’s spreading in the United States.  How else do you explain the free crack pipe initiative?

As I’ve noted before, the United States has spent trillions of dollars to try to make the “old” form of war obsolete.  As such, don’t expect the next war to look anything like the last wars.  Just like civilization, technology, and economy have evolved, so have the methods of war.

The aim of war is still the same, however:  to get your enemy to do something they would otherwise be unwilling to do, like watch The View.  You don’t have to use tanks or bombs to do it.  This was what the old Soviet Union planned to do with the United States – subvert it from within.

The Cold War really was a war.  The United States attempted to subvert the Soviet citizens through exposing them to the wonders of capitalism.  Plentiful food, for starters.  Blue jeans.  Rock and roll.  The average citizens could see that something was really, really wrong in their society.  At the end, people in the Eastern Bloc walked away from their governments.  In some cases, they evicted the former leadership 7.62mm at a time.

The Romanians made sure there wasn’t a next season.

The Soviet subversion of the United States was similar.  Just as the United States reviewed the cultural faults of the Soviets and exploited them, the Soviets looked at the problems in the United States and tried to undermine it using those problems.

And the undermining never stopped.  If you looked at the institutions under control of the Left in the 1970s, there weren’t that many.  The Left controlled:

  • Many Colleges and Universities.
  • The psychological establishment.
  • Lots of mainstream entertainment media.
  • Most mainstream news media.

This was, of course, the plan.  Get the Leftist foothold in academia and use it to indoctrinate the next generation.  The Left didn’t control the government schools at the time, because teachers work a long time, and most of the teachers in the 1970s graduated before the colleges fell.

Hippies refused Rolaids™, the last thing they wanted was an anti-acid.

That’s why this war was based on a “long march” through the institutions.  Sadly, even though the Soviet Union dissolved, their plan was still in motion.  Now, the following are mostly under the control of the Left:

  • The K-12 educational system.
  • Most Protestant religious organizations.
  • Most Catholic organizations.
  • The American Medical Association.
  • Most departments of the Federal government, absent the armed services.
  • The general officer corps of the armed services.
  • The courts.
  • Silicon Valley tech companies.
  • Most Fortune® 500™ companies.

Very quickly (within a decade, if nothing changes) the last institution will fall:

  • The junior officers and enlisted men of the armed services.

As I’ve discussed at length, part of the core of Leftism is hating the United States, the other is a pathological need to be a victim.  That’s why Leftist entertainment media always portrays the good guys as “the resistance” – what are they resisting?  The remnants of the United States.  Why do the statues have to come down?

Al has a molar pulled:  it was an inconvenient tooth.

The United States (as viewed from a common historical lens) cannot be allowed to have its mythology.  That mythology must be replaced by the new narrative – a mythology based on victimhood and oppression.  Even as they control the levers on every objective means of institutional power, they complain that the system is rigged against them.

Combined with that is the monetary policy of the United States which has been run with all of the discipline of a toddler in a room filled with chocolate birthday cakes.  As the bill for this mismanagement comes due, the tensions in the country will skyrocket.

The only thing the Left doesn’t have, are (at least) 80 million Americans who want nothing to do with the brave globalist/socialist future that’s planned.  I actually think the number will be substantially higher, because I think that when the center chooses sides, it will come down with the Right.

This situation is, of course, absolutely thrilling to China.  When I think about how China must factor in the United States into their plans in, say, the year 2040?  I think they assume that the United States will not be a factor on a global scale.

In the US, dogs are K-9.  In China, they are E-10.

In addition to the Soviet plan coming to final fruition, the United States is amazingly vulnerable to other things we don’t traditionally think of as war.  As mentioned above, we have an amazing mess in our monetary policy – and we have debt.  Think inflation is high now?  What happens when China starts dumping currency in the international market, and starts paying for oil with the Yuan?

Warfare in our current time starts to look like what someone did to the Iranians:  drop in a virus that makes their centrifuges that they were using to process nuclear material break.  Imagine the electrical grid being as reliable as Venezuela’s grid.  Sure, it could be enemy action.  But with current trends, it could also be our own ineptitude at running things in a world where hiring by merit seems to be a thing of the past.

What happens if every tenth financial transaction in our electronic payment system is “missed”?  How many days until the payment infrastructure is shut down and the entire country is in chaos?  What happens if Walmart™ experiences failure in the logistics and tracking system for the billions of dollars worth of goods that it handles?  How many people does Walmart© feed?

Due to the current emergency, Walmart™ has announced that they’ll open a second register.

These are all warfare, and don’t require a single soldier or a panzer division.  Moreover, this is exactly the type of warfare that has already been planned and prepared for in Moscow and Beijing.

I’d love to blame China, but the Chinese are mainly just looking out for the Chinese.  If the United States is in the way, the Chinese are going to pick the Chinese every time.  It’s self-interest.

And Biden and Putin?  One is a church-going Christian who loves his nation, who wants to help his people, and wants to secure his border.  The other is Joe Biden.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: The Jenga® Civil War And Lessons From Canada

“Superhero landing. She’s gonna do a superhero landing. Wait for it.” – Deadpool

What’s more than step 9, but not quite to step 10? This clock.

  1. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  2. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  3. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  4. Open War.

As close as we are to the precipice of war, be careful. Things could change at any minute. Avoid crowds. Get out of cities. Now. A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue: Front Matter – The Jenga® Civil War – Violence And Censorship Update – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Lessons From Canada – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month. I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues. Also, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 640 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

https://wilderwealthywise.com/civil-war-weather-report-previous-posts/

The Jenga™ Civil War

The game of Jenga© has been pretty popular in the United States since it was introduced into the United States. The object of the game should be familiar to most – build a tower taller and taller until it falls. It always falls. Someone tips the table, someone pulls out the one piece that shouldn’t come out, or Islamic terrorists decide to fly a chicken wing into it.

But Jenga™ illustrates something else. If you keep increasing the instability of a structure, it will fail. It’s an when, not an if. Jenga® doesn’t end until the tower falls over, and each pull and replace of a piece reduces stability.

As found on the Internet.

What causes the collapse?

It doesn’t matter, unless you’re the player that does it. What matters are the conditions. As I’ve tried to do below with the graphs, I’ve tried to create a barometer for conditions that might lead to Civil War. And, no, we’re really not there yet. Is the blood flowing? Certainly.

Are both sides engaged? Certainly not. That’s what scares the Leftists in Washington, D.C. to no end. The idea that people on the Right will engage in a strategic sense to start and end the phase of open-armed warfare keeps them up at night.

And it should. But, again, it’s not the spark. Historians in the future will write about the spark, but the spark would have no effect if the conditions weren’t there. What are the conditions? You know them, you feel them. There is no sense of who and what we are anymore.

As found.

As a nation, we have no goals except what hedonism can be sold to us weekly. It’s what’s streaming, what’s playing, and what new McFood© is coming out this week. Commercial activity can’t be the binding for a nation, so our ties are just as tight as those Jenga™ bricks, kept together by gravity, inertia and little else.

And every week the tower gets one brick higher.

Think Joe’s not taking this seriously?

Violence And Censorship Update

Again, not much on the organized violence this January. Censorship, as usual, is busy.

Rogan

Joe Rogan is a podcaster who has managed to become slightly more popular than me. His podcasts regularly pull 11,000,000 listeners. Rogan also was big enough to get serious A-list quests. All of that made Spotify® decide that Rogan is valuable. How valuable? They pay Rogan more than they pay for every bit of music that they stream. Yes. Joe Rogan is more important to Spotify© than all of the recorded music in the history of the world. He’s worth $100,000,000 to them.

And he’s said things that irritate people invested in the Narrative. He’s not vaxxed, and has (like your humble host) had the ‘VID. He took Ivermectin. I got by with chicken soup and loads of decongestant. I’ve never been much to listen to Joe, I’ve probably only heard a few minutes (in total) of his podcasts.

They’ve been after Joe, and it started with Neil Young. Despite being less relevant than greased back Fonzie hair, Neil made the papers with his demand that his music be pulled off of Spotify© because Joe Rogan said things he didn’t agree with. Then other, equally irrelevant artists followed stamping their walkers to demand that Spotify® not play them to the one person that asks for their song every six months.

As found.

That was just the start. Someone has now have gone back through Rogan’s early podcasts and have a supercut of him saying the only word that is now taboo for some people to say. Rogan has now apologized, which is the first mistake, and now his blood is in the water. What happens next?

Who can say?

DOJ

On January 11, the Department of Justice announced a new domestic terrorism task force, because “We have seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies.”

I’m not jumping on a limb and being Nostradamus by betting that it’s nearly certain that the people who started CHAZ as an avowed foreign nation won’t be prosecuted. But if someone tries to lead a trucker’s strike like in Ottawa? You can bet that the DOJ, FBI, NSA and every other three-letter agency will be on them. Because terrorism really only applies to things the Right does.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real time. They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings. As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index. On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Violence is down. January isn’t (usually) a big month for violence, so that’s to be expected. I would expect the next few months to remain calm as well, perhaps turning back up in April.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it’s headed upwards, fast. Joe has lost his base.

Economic:

The drop in economic confidence continued this month. Expect a bigger drop this month. The economy is falling apart.

Illegal Aliens:

This data was at record levels for this time of year. All-time record levels. Plus? Airflights for illegals. No DOJ task force for this . . .

Lessons from Canada

Canada has lived under very strict fear COVID restrictions. Trudeau has recently tightened the restrictions, especially with respect to truckers. You can look up the details, but to summarize: it was the last straw for many truckers.

As found, though in this case I don’t think he’s up to invading an ice cream store.

Truckers have a unique place in society. They provide that final lifeline on everything from the chlorine that the water treatment plant uses to food at Wal-Mart® to the toilet paper that everyone panic-bought in 2020. Many of them also own their own trucks. They work when they want to as owner operators.

As found.

Make them mad? Right now, hundreds of Canadian truckers have had enough, and are occupying Ottawa. How serious is Justine Trudeau taking this? He vanished like Saddam Hussein, but with better press coverage. He ran away, and left the Leftists of Ottawa to their own devices.

As found. I wonder what will happen to Justine’s son, Uday?

And they are upset. Apparently, their cats are of the very sensitive type (memes as found):

Also, the Leftists tried to set up a counter protest. /POL/ got into their communication channels, giving conflicting starting and ending times for the protest, and filling the protestors up with doubt, “Boy, that sure seems like a long time to protest, and it’s going to be cold out there. Don’t forget to dress in layers! I’ll be with you in spirit!”

As a lark, it has been a lot of fun for the Right, and already two provinces (they’re like states, but made of maple syrup) have indicated that restrictions are going away soon in those provinces. The convoy is working.

As such, the Ottawa police is now trying to crack down on the logistics of the truckers. Will it work? Maybe. Maybe not.

I think two lessons are that this will never, ever be allowed in the United States in a major Leftist city and will be censored by the major news media working in concert with .gov if it ever starts to develop. The crackdown would be ruthless, especially if it occurred in D.C. Leftists are as afraid of actual workers as they are of actual work.

As found. Also, Leftist logic thought process.

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky. Thanks so much, Ricky!!

Bad Guys (Jan 2022)…

NYC: https://twitter.com/i/status/1478006188856025097

NYC: https://twitter.com/AndrewPollackFL/status/1482023373165285379

Chicago: https://youtu.be/U1G2Gt loP0

Chicago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDN4S-mhplk

Detroit: https://youtu.be/C8ePWbzYTP8

Detroit: https://youtu.be/jv0LvsphFSA

Portland: https://youtu.be/TKnXY3pZWK8

LA: https://twitter.com/streetpeopleLA/status/1484350084439363586

LA: https://twitter.com/streetpeopleLA/status/1484356560956526593

San Jose: https://youtu.be/MfjkUJZFbl0

SF: https://twitter.com/i/status/1479164420148248576

Good Guys (Jan 2022)…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10402917/Two-teens-charged-murder-subway-attack-Good-Samaritan-killed.html

https://6abc.com/philadelphia-carjacking-driver-shoots-carjacker-fairmount-west-kensington/11452980/

One Guy

https://www.wpr.org/gun-kyle-rittenhouse-used-kenosha-shootings-be-destroyed

https://www.dailywire.com/news/kyle-rittenhouse-sits-down-with-candace-owens-discusses-future-plans-theres-going-to-be-some-accountability

Body Count (Jan 2022)

USA Surge 2021: https://invesbrain.com/states-investigating-surge-in-mortality-rate-among-18-49-year-olds-majority-unrelated-to-covid-19/

https://thelibertydaily.com/bombshell-cover-up-cancer-diagnoses-in-the-military-rose-over-three-fold-since-jabs-were-introduced/

USA Fentanyl 2021: https://secureservercdn.net/166.62.108.196/w7l.6b7.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/facts.pdf?time=1640209532

USA Weather 2021: https://twitter.com/NOAA/status/1480574295940161536

Chicago 2021: https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/violence.png?itok=BmL3yEVn

NYC 9 Days In 2022: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/01/11/05/52781909-10389089-image-a-8_1641877588156.jpg

Philly “Safe Streets Violence Interrupter” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts6XSYE4zNI

Blacks: https://www.unz.com/isteve/cdc-blacks-died-36-more-often-by-homicide-in-the-year-of-the-racial-reckoning/

Body Count (Snoop Dog “F**k The Police” Super Bowl Edition)

https://nypost.com/2022/01/29/snoop-dogg-at-super-bowl-halftime-show-becoming-even-worse-look/

https://nypost.com/2021/12/29/where-is-the-outrage-over-the-killing-of-keona-holley/

https://nypost.com/2022/01/06/cop-killed-with-own-gun-after-pleading-with-suspect-to-spare-life-prosecutor/

https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/world-news-chicago-female-police-officer-killed-one-wounded-in-traffic-stop-shooting/390867

https://www.foxnews.com/us/nyc-murderer-first-female-police-officer-paroled

https://jonathanturley.org/2021/12/23/the-potter-verdict-was-the-jury-right-but-the-law-wrong-on-culpable-negligence/

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/police-attacked-least-4-us-110120536.html

https://nleomf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2021-EOY-Fatality-Report-Final-web.pdf

Polled Lives Matter!!!

https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/brad-wilmouth/2022/01/02/did-gallup-end-most-admired-74-year-polling-tradition-avoid-trump

https://nypost.com/2022/01/02/34-percent-of-americans-say-violence-against-government-justified/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/1-in-3-americans-say-violence-against-government-can-be-justified-citing-fears-of-political-schism-pandemic/ar-AASld12

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/01/12/nearly-60-of-americans-worry-democracy-in-danger-of-collapse-poll-suggests/?sh=72ffc315483e

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/washington-secrets/democrats-ok-with-fines-prison-mandates-for-vax-deniers-poll

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/partner_surveys/jan_2022/covid_19_democratic_voters_support_harsh_measures_against_unvaccinated

https://www.theorganicprepper.com/survey-unvaccinated/

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

USA (MUST SEE): https://2000mules.com/

GA (MUST READ): https://www.truethevote.org/ttv-statement-regarding-georgia-ballot-harvesting-investigation/

GA : https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/georgia-opens-investigation-possible-illegal-ballot-harvesting-2020

GA :https://twitter.com/TalkMullins/status/1487299420752334848

GA : https://voterga.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Press-Release-VoterGA-Drop-Box-Custody-Chain-Analysis.pdf

GA : https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/01/huge-georgia-ballot-trafficking-whistleblower-admits-making-45000-stuffing-ballot-boxes-just-one-242-traffickers-possibly-1-million-ballots/

PA: https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/17/video-shows-pennsylvania-official-admitting-election-laws-were-broken-in-2020/

PA: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-s-nearly-2m-mail-in-pennsylvania-votes-in-2020-would-now-be-unconstitutional/ar-AATfqsq

TX: https://www.sos.texas.gov/elections/forms/phase1-progress-report.pdf

TX: https://www.theepochtimes.com/texas-audit-finds-over-11000-potential-non-citizens-registered-to-vote-other-problems_4188076.html

WI: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/589714-judge-rules-absentee-ballot-drop-boxes-cannot-be-used-in-wisconsin?amp

WI: https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/10/how-a-mark-zuckerberg-funded-nonprofit-turned-wisconsin-blue/

CA: https://ktla.com/news/local-news/no-evidence-of-election-fraud-by-man-found-passed-out-with-300-recall-ballots-drugs-in-torrance-police/

USA: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/09/politics/gop-election-voting-rights-battleground-states/index.html

USA: https://uncoverdc.com/2021/12/23/heritage-foundation-state-election-integrity-scorecard-puts-georgia-at-top/

USA: https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-judicial-nominee-said-proof-of-citizenship-is-voter-suppression

They Say It’s Your Birthday…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10391647/FBI-executive-assistant-director-stays-mum-Cruz-asks-agents-participated-January-6-riot.html

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/588446-division-reins-over-jan-6-anniversary

https://www.ajc.com/news/jimmy-carter-america-on-the-brink-of-a-widening-abyss/2ER2BJ2ZCJGQBBKHLUYSPPMRXU/

https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/17/democrats-are-priming-themselves-to-refuse-to-accept-any-election-defeats/

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2022/01/14/actor-nick-searcys-movie-capitol-punishment-is-the-best-doc-about-january-6-hed-know-he-was-there-n1549452

The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia…

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/01/11/remarks-by-president-biden-on-protecting-the-right-to-vote/

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/bidens-disastrous-georgia-speech-threw-away-his-last-chance-to-start-anew/

https://www.dailywire.com/news/mcconnell-blasts-bidens-profoundly-unpresidential-rant-he-propagandized-against-his-own-country

https://www.foxnews.com/media/mike-huckabee-biden-insane-georgia-voting-rights-speech

https://thehiu.com/bidens-georgia-speech-was-a-breaking-point/

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1481467050027466752%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/01/11/democracy-autocracy-or-hypocrisy-biden-to-call-for-curtailing-filibuster-rule-in-reversal-of-long-held-position/

Disco Inferno:

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/589888-kyrsten-sinema’s-courage-washington-hypocrisy-and-the-politics-of-rage

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2022/january/10/we-need-a-revolution/

https://abcnews.go.com/US/oath-keepers-spokesperson-warns-wing-propaganda-dangerous-bullets/story?id=82094999

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/09/what-makes-riots-conspiracies-cabals-and-insurrections-good-or-bad/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60036911

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/06/new-civil-war-about-what-exactly-526603

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/01/12/the-hysterical-fantasy-of-an-impending-civil-war/amp/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/16/the-next-civil-war-stephen-marche-how-civil-wars-start-barbara-walter-review-nightmare-scenarios-for-the-us

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/americas-asymmetric-civil-war

https://www.fastcompany.com/90572489/u-s-election-maps-are-wildly-misleading-so-this-designer-fixed-them

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Brookings-2economies11-20a_0.png?itok=EO-pIuFl

The End Of The World

https://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2022/01/if-unrest-soars-in-america-will-looters.html

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: January 6 Anniversary

“That shockwave created a subspace fracture.” – Sealab 2021

What’s more than step 9, but not quite to step 10?  This clock.

  1. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  2. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  3. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  4. Open War.

As close as we are to the precipice of war, be careful.  Things could change at any minute.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – January 6, The Anniversary – Violence And Censorship Update – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Cracks Widen – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month.  I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues.  Also, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 640 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

January 6, The Anniversary

January 6, 2021, a date that makes Leftist underwear uncomfortable.  After a year, we can certainly look back at what Joe Biden called, “The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”

From Joe’s perspective, that certainly makes sense, since his view of democracy is his people counting the votes.  The gathered people there believed what a majority (56%!) of the American people believe:  the election was rigged.  How rigged?  That 56% of American people believe it was that fraud that led to Joe Biden having a Secret Service detail with spare diapers rather than a nursing staff at a rest home filled with nurses for him to try to grope.

How long can Joe Biden wait in line to vote?  That Depends®.

The news was breathless, and January 6 has been used as Leftist propaganda to try to drive people away from the Right.  The list of mainstream news accomplices is endless.  Anderson Cooper called it the “worst single act of political violence since the Civil War,” apparently having forgotten that an actual bomb was used in the building in 1971.  Oh, sorry, those were Leftists blowing things up, so it’s okay.

The numbers break out the way you might think:  65%+ of people on the Right think the coverage is overblown.  60% of people on the Left think there hasn’t been enough coverage.  Guess who runs the newspapers and media?

Despite damage being limited to “broken glass and busted doors” inside the Capitol building, the cost of “enhanced security measures” was added to bring the total cost of the “riot” up to $30,000,000.

But a riot?  Most of the protestors were unarmed, and hurt no one.  There were 15 cops sent to the hospital (though data is lacking) it appears none of the injuries were all that bad, and they only kept one overnight.  My third grade birthday party was more violent, but I’ll tell you, Grandma could take a punch.

Contrast that to this:  several of the Capitol Police were later admonished for taking selfies with the protestors, and seemed more amused than frightened.

Except for that one cop who shot an unarmed woman in the neck.  You know, the cop who was so competent that he left his pistol in a bathroom.

This was one Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone that Leftists didn’t like.

No, this wasn’t a “riot”, and the Capitol wasn’t “stormed.”  This was a protest of a stolen election.  Had this been a real riot, and had the Capitol really been stormed?  The protesters would have brought weapons, and the Capitol would have fallen that day.  The main reason that didn’t happen?  People didn’t want to take over the Capitol and hadn’t really thought of it.

The second reason that didn’t happen?  The FBI didn’t have enough time to recruit more people.  Yup – the FBI has admitted that they had informants in the crowd, and some people have gone on record that those same FBI informants were the ones opening doors and inviting people inside.

Now it has been a year, and the Left will attempt to use January 6, 2021 to further divide the nation and portray anyone to the Right of AOC as an extremist.

Violence And Censorship Update

The big news is from Twitter® this month, though it was a slow month in general:

Ghislaine Maxwell Trial

Something bothered Twitter™ about @TrackerTrial’s coverage of the Ghislaine Maxwell trial.  As I understand it, it was just updates from actual news inside the trial.  Result:  permanent ban.  @TrackerTrial didn’t ban itself . . . .

Not an original, but very funny.

The ‘Rona

Say what you will about COVID, it looks like the ‘Rona is also excellent at killing the truth.  There have been dozens of documented cases where the “official narrative” has had to be walked back because it was, well, a lie.  And people get banned for any information that is counter to the “official narrative” even (and perhaps especially) if it’s a lie.  Twitter© took out two folks this time:

Dr. Robert Malone, virologist and immunologist was banned.  Also?  Marjorie Taylor Greene, member of the House of Representatives (and not at all a virologist or immunologist).

I can’t speak to Ms. Greene’s ban, but I can talk (a bit) about the heresy of Dr. Malone.  One of his early transgressions was saying the spike protein might be dangerous.  Since the “all death” category is up about 40% this year according to insurance companies and healthy athletes are suffering heart attacks on the field, it looks like he just might be right.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real-time.  They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings.  As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index.  On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Violence is up this month, but only slightly.  December isn’t (usually) a big month for violence, so that’s to be expected.  I would expect the next few months to remain calm as well, perhaps turning back up in March or April.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it ticked down this month for the first time in a while.  Deteriorating economic conditions could bring this up quickly.

Economic:

The drop in economic confidence continued this month.

Illegal Aliens:

This data was at record levels for three months this year.  Now it’s just a record for this time of year, nearly triple last December.

The Cracks Widen

The last time the Pew® group did a study of how divided we are as a country was in 2017.  It was eye-opening, for me.  It showed that we as a nation were growing farther apart, faster.  The data went back to the early 1990s, and showed that we were splitting apart until 9/11.

For a time, 9/11 became a unifying story in the middle of a sea of polarization.  The country marched into multiple wars with (nearly) unanimous consent.  In the end, though, those wars just sapped the treasury and disillusioned nearly everyone.  The culmination of that wasn’t the execution of Osama Bin Laden, nope.  The culmination of that was our panicked withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Remember when they ran Idiocracy as a film, and not on CNN®?

We now have no unified measure of what it is to be an American.  If you talk to the Left, literally everyone has the right to what America is.  To them, a good American is someone on a benefits program and a predictable vote for the Left.  Language and culture not required.

What, even, does America stand for?  As I’ve written before, those in the Globalist camp (not exactly the same as Leftists, but they root for the same team) think that everything that’s legal defines what is moral.  Obviously, they’re not the same, but the Globalists work long and hard to get dollars – that is their only god.

Is that all that the United States is?  A franchise opportunity waiting to exploit every legal opportunity?

No.  It is not.

In part, though, our current crisis is a crisis not of will, but of vision.  There is no single thing that unites a country when members of the Left describe the flag of the United States as “frightening” and “hateful.”

I actually believe that there are a considerable number of people on the Left who are of good conscience and want to make the world better.  Oddly, though, it has been reproduced again and again that Leftists simply cannot stand people on the Right.

So, what does that leave us?

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky.  Thanks so much, Ricky!!

Bad Guys!

PR: https://twitter.com/i/status/1469139447757299712

LA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahiIKFDkcHk

LA: https://youtu.be/p1ESzuENYdc

SF: https://twitter.com/i/status/1471202239272288258

??? : https://twitter.com/i/status/1469464813507997696

Chicago: https://youtu.be/9xJdJMrhgz8

Chicago: https://twitter.com/i/status/1468461553364062210

Seattle: https://twitter.com/i/status/1468346761756360706

Atlanta: https://twitter.com/i/status/1470225440132386816

Philly: https://twitter.com/i/status/1473434884962091008

Philly: https://twitter.com/i/status/1469846097807888386

 

Good Guy!!!

Ohio: https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1472924467806584836

 

One Guy…

Rittenhouse 1: https://youtu.be/bHAAA9gcso0

Rittenhouse 2: https://twitter.com/WhitlockJason/status/1471985787168301058

 

Body Counts…

https://abcnews.go.com/US/12-major-us-cities-top-annual-homicide-records/story?id=81466453

https://nypost.com/2021/12/09/beverly-hills-residents-arming-themselves-after-murder-violence/

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/fentanyl-overdoses-become-no-1-cause-of-death-among-us-adults-ages-18-45-a-national-emergency

 

Confused?

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/brian-williams-signs-off-the-11th-hour-for-the-final-time-warns-theyve-decided-to-burn-it-all-down-with-us-inside/

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/52-of-young-adults-surveyed-believe-us-democracy-in-trouble-or-failing-harvard-poll-finds

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/12/08/americans-need-conspiracy-theory-they-can-all-agree-on/

 

Polarize!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zNr8Pf1QkY

https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/fuck-trump/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r11tw1RwQk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I6VqX2O0KA

 

Vote For Change?

 

USA: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/washington-secrets/report-southern-gop-states-have-highest-election-integrity

FL: https://uncoverdc.com/2021/12/06/records-reveal-nextera-subsidiary-execs-behind-election-fraud-scheme/

MI: https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/court-fight-over-dead-people-on-voter-lists-heats-up-in-michigan_4162130.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge

MI: https://www.wxyz.com/news/read-michigan-other-state-details-of-aps-review-of-potential-voter-fraud-cases

WI: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-wisconsin-purchase/

AZ: https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/14/az-state-rep-reads-dem-whistleblowers-letter-to-the-doj-about-2020-election-fraud-during-election-integrity-hearing/

NY: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-elections-government/ny-nyc-council-set-to-approve-local-voting-rights-for-noncitizens-20211207-rbt6a4da7rbwvn5lrycvbz3y34-story.html

NY: https://jonathanturley.org/2021/12/10/is-new-yorks-voting-rights-for-non-citizens-legal/

UT: https://www.deseret.com/utah/2021/12/8/22825120/claims-sowing-seeds-of-doubt-in-utah-election-integrity-destructive-utah-lt-gov-says-voter-fraud

 

Revolt??

MUST READ: https://www.revolver.news/2021/12/damning-new-details-massive-web-unindicted-operators-january-6/

MUST READ TOO: https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/nov/17/story-doesnt-confirm-trump-supporter-jan-6-riot-fb/

https://dnyuz.com/2021/12/04/fearing-a-repeat-of-jan-6-congress-eyes-changes-to-electoral-count-law/

https://twitter.com/MeetThePress/status/1470044610588250112

https://www.newsweek.com/how-donald-trump-could-become-speaker-house-without-running-office-1657764

 

Civil War???

PoTAYto: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/tags/en/tag/boycotts

PoTAto: https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Untitled-design-70-.jpg?itok=Wkb6egwi

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/citizen-militias-in-the-u-s-are-moving-toward-more-violent-extremism/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/20/us-closer-to-civil-war-new-book-barbara-walter-trump-capitol-attack

https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/were-edging-closer-to-civil-war/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/retired-generals-urge-pentagon-to-take-steps-to-avert-civil-war-after-2024-election

Penultimate Day: The View From 2021

“Well, I simply observed, sir, that I’m felicitous since during the course of the penultimate solar sojourn, I terminated my uninterrupted categorization of the vocabulary of our post-Norman tongue.” – Blackadder The Third

I invented a time machine so I can view the Resurrection on TV – it’s amazing resolution: ADHD.

Penultimate Day.

This is the only unique Wilder Holiday that I know of. New Year’s Eve? That’s for tourists. It happens every year. It’s the last day of the year. But what about the next-to-last day of the year?

That’s Penultimate Day.

Penultimate Day started as a lark, maybe a decade ago.

The Mrs. decided that she didn’t like her Blackberry™ phone, and wanted to shop for a new phone. We did. The deals were all bad, so we didn’t buy a new phone. What then? We’d driven nearly 100 miles (the closest place to Modern Mayberry that sold phones then) and decided to . . . eat Italian food.

Driving 100 miles home, we made jokes about it, and Christened the day, Penultimate Day. The three tenets:

  1. Shop for a new cell phone (at Best Buy® is best),
  2. Don’t buy a new cell phone (you can decide to not purchase a cell phone nearly anywhere),
  3. Eat Italian food, namely at Olive Garden® (it’s close to Best Buy™). Since, when “You’re Here, You’re Family™” is their motto, I still wonder why they look weird at me when I take off my shoes and put on pajamas to eat with my shirt off.

Where did I go after eating all of those breadsticks? The hospitialiano.

Ta-da! You can celebrate, too! Well, at least you can celebrate next year, since my math shows that December 30, 2021, has (thankfully) perished from the annals of history.

Last year was lame. We were in the midst of (yet another) ‘Rona lockdown – 40 weeks to stop the spread, or something, so we stayed home. This year, though, it was time for a full and hearty observance of Penultimate Day. I arrived from home, ready to not purchase a cell phone.

Sadly, only Pugsley was ready to go. The Mrs. and The Boy claimed that they were deep in the clutches of some evil virus. Since Pugsley was patient zero, and I was in the midst of recovery, well, we let the weak decide the day. Here’s our scorecard:

  1. We didn’t shop for a new cell phone.
  2. We didn’t buy a new cell phone. Win!
  3. We ate Italian food. Win!

We ate Italian food because I made (with assistance) chicken Alfredo for dinner. Since everyone else old enough to drink was sick, it was up to me to drink the wine. I threw myself on that grenade for the family.

I had a real problem when I used a collie for gathering my sheep. I had 48, but he always brought back 50. He was bad about rounding up.

I’m a giver that way.

But what happened this year?

  1. Everybody was sick. Last year? Everywhere was closed. As simple as our task was, we failed it twice in a row.
  2. When we sent Pugsley to buy food for dinner, he reported that one supermarket was entirely out of pasta. Pasta is, well, one of the easiest things to make and distribute. Why is a national grocery store chain out of pasta?
  3. They had chicken. I cooked that, and The Mrs. pronounced it “dry.” She wasn’t being mean – she was being honest. Dry chicken isn’t due to a lack of moisture – dry chicken is due to a lack of fat. My bad. More butter next time. I thought that putting a stick under each of my armpits was enough. I’ll add more in 2022, though I’m unsure of which crevices to put it in.
  4. Pugsley said they were out of Alfredo sauce. Since that’s easier to make than adding water to ice, I gave him the ingredients to make it from scratch. Oops! They had Alfredo sauce. Just the wrong aisle.

The most disturbing thing Pugsley said was this: “It’s weird. It was like there was nothing in the store. Most of the shelves were bare.” Since The Mrs. had just complained, “Why do you tell them to buy more things, our pantry is so full we can hardly buy anything at all,” I smiled. When she said, “And you’ve infected them. When I ask them to buy one, of anything, they buy three.”

I smiled so hard my face ached.

Being a skeleton is nice – nothing gets under his skin.

I will probably go to the store in the next few days. That will be the first time in months. Not because of the ‘Rona, mind you, but because I really hate going to the store because there are people there. I’ll give a look to see what is missing, or what has gone up in price.

But it’s been two years since we’ve properly celebrated Penultimate Day. Before The Boy graduates from college, we have only one more. I’m not thinking that he’ll often decide to come home so we can travel and not purchase cell phones and then eat Italian food. So, we have just one more year where it’s the four of us.

The only hobbit I met was a jerk, a real douchebaggins.

This is the last post I’ll make this year, and even in the 10 years that we’ve been celebrating Penultimate Day I’ve seen very big differences to our lives – Penultimate Day used to be a lark, but now it’s a time to look back. In the failure of this Penultimate Day, I’m wondering – what does it mean? How have we as a nation changed in the last decade? Do we even still like Italian food?

  • Our nation has split apart farther than I ever thought it could go. There is rarely anything either side can agree on, except that they find the other side awful poopy heads.
  • The economy is even more poised for collapse. As it is, I think we’re riding a razor’s edge, where on either side is a collapse in prosperity that will last generations.
  • Alec Baldwin has finally made good on his promise to kill again.
  • The punchline to a joke since at least 1988 (really, look it up) inhabits the Oval Office despite a (legitimate) doubt that he was elected legally. The Left responds as they always do – by doubling down and declaring him the “most” legitimate President in our history.
  • We went from energy dependent to energy independent to energy dependent (and in crisis) in four years.
  • As far as I can tell, yes, everyone still likes Italian food.

We face a very unique crisis – one of cohesion, one of leadership, one of economic collapse. All at the same time. What will happen?

When I was a little kid, my dad made pasta when I was scared – to show me there was nothing to be Alfredo.

Who can know. All I know is that the Alfredo was pretty good tonight. And each day that my family spends together is special, and I cherish each one of those days. I have right now, so I will enjoy it.

As Marcus Aurelius said: “The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.”

Today I’ll focus and value those things I can control. And when I look at that? Penultimate Day 2021 wasn’t so bad after all. Happy New Year to all.

The Winds Of War?

“I admire your ethics. But right now, a little violence might help.” – Star Trek:  Enterprise

Is an inconsistency in a Cheech and Chong movie a pothole?

War in 2021 has much the same objective as war throughout human history – make the enemy do something that they otherwise wouldn’t do.  It’s never been pretty.  In the end, though, the old adage that violence doesn’t solve anything is wrong – ultimately violence solves quite a few things, as Heinlein notes in Starship Troopers:

“. . . I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea — a practice I shall always follow.  Anyone who clings to the historically untrue — and thoroughly immoral — doctrine that `violence never settles anything’ I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it.  The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon.  Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst.  Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms. . . .”

Our current military is ready to fight a war.  It’s just that the war in question is World War II.  Our armed forces absorbed the lessons of the Wehrmacht and now could totally defeat the Germans and the Japanese much more quickly than the first time.  Even I got caught into that mindset when I displayed dismay that the bomber fleet of the United States was down to just over 100 bombers.

Okay, not that kind of bomber . . .

My mind was locked into old paradigms:  1,000 bomber raids.  Those days are gone.  There is no real reason to send slow, crewed planes on missions where a much faster missile can do the job.  Big bomber raids are a thing that you only do against people who can’t shoot the bombers down which every significant near-peer enemy of the United States can.

And if you want to destroy a city?  You use a nuke – if I had a nuke, I’d call it Dr. W.  You know, W, M.D.?

Likewise, our aircraft carrier fleet is great when used against an enemy that can’t really fight back.  Use them against Iraq?  Sure.  Use aircraft carriers against China?

Ummm, that’s probably silly, since if a carrier is within fighter range of China, it’s probably in Chinese missile range, too.  American aircraft carriers are just targets preloaded with casualties.

Why am I writing about this today?

There are rumblings of war.  Putin looking to take over part of Ukraine?  China looking to take over Taiwan?  An American senator talking about a first strike against Russia?

I know when I yawned in physics class it set off a chain reaction.

To the extent the United States isn’t involved in either of these conflicts, things probably remain nice and boring.  If Putin wants the Donbas, I’m not sure that I care.  I have no idea why he might want it, but it seems like a lot of Russians live there.  I can certainly understand why he wants to keep the Crimean Peninsula, since that’s where he keeps his ships.

Again, I’m not sure that I care.  At all.

Taiwan is a different situation.  Its shore is as close as 81 miles to the Chinese mainland.  For the people in Taiwan, this is unfortunate.  From the standpoint of the United States – what, exactly would we do to help Taiwan if the Chinese invaded?

I don’t know.

I’m not sure that the United States could do anything.  In report after report, the United States loses, and loses quickly when China attempts to take Taiwan every time we wargame the situation.  Taiwan is 81 miles from China.  Taiwan is 5,000 miles from Hawaii.  To the extent that Taiwan isn’t prepared to defend itself, I’m pretty sure the United States has limited options in responding quickly.

I heard the Dalai Lama has a gambling problem.  He loves Tibet.

Which brings us to the face of war in 2021.  The Chinese have been thinking for a very long time about war with the United States.  To be sure, I’m willing to bet some very, very smart people in the United States have been thinking about just the same thing, when they weren’t distracted by Afghanistan or Iraq.

This following is from the 1999 treatise “Unrestricted Warfare” by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui. (LINK):

. . . if the attacking side secretly musters large amounts of capital without the enemy nation being aware of this at all and launches a sneak attack against its financial markets, then after causing a financial crisis, buries a computer virus and hacker detachment in the opponent’s computer system in 146 advance, while at the same time carrying out a network attack against the enemy so that the civilian electricity network, traffic dispatching network, financial transaction network, telephone communications network, and mass media network are completely paralyzed, this will cause the enemy nation to fall into social panic, street riots, and a political crisis. There is finally the forceful bearing down by the army, and military means are utilized in gradual stages until the enemy is forced to sign a dishonorable peace treaty. This admittedly does not attain to the domain spoken of by Sun Zi, wherein “the other army is subdued without fighting.”

The idea is simple – warfare encompasses absolutely every facet of the life of the enemy.  Destabilize the government.  Force their economy into chaos.  Starve them.  Own their communications systems.  In other words, it’s just like a Biden presidency.

The hippies tried to get to Afghanistan – they heard that smoking weed there got you stoned to death.

None of this is really new – destruction of civilian cohesion is a tactic that’s been used again and again.  At the end of World War I, the Allies kept a food blockade on Germany from 1914 until months after the November 1918 Armistice – the blockade lasted until July of 1919 to force Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles.  Over 100,000 German civilians died during the famine after the Armistice was signed.

The war envisioned by the Chinese (if it happens) won’t be the antiseptic thing that most civilians in the United States have dealt with since 9/11/2001.  It will involve the systems around us failing.  Imagine the utter loss of every modern convenience, including food being available and plentiful.  Then imagine there is no information on when (or even if) the help is coming.  Alone.  No food.  No power.  In the dark.

That’s what unrestricted warfare looks like.

After going through Hurricane Ike (a small one, by destructiveness standards) it was enlightening to watch the systems go down.  After four days, Home Despot® opened up, and was selling limited amounts.  How limited?  As I recall only 8 customers were allowed in the store at a time.  Purchases were done, as I recall, with cash only.  I went by to purchase a battery-operated fan, and was actually in and out fairly quickly – the Hurricane might have been a small one, virtually all services stopped.

Recovery was fairly quick because the damage was regional.  All of the surrounding areas pitched in and within a week, most power was back on in the city.  We had radio, so we were listening to the city come back to life in real-time.

I think when the astronauts saw this storm they said, “Houston, you have a problem.”

The interconnected, wired, and powered world has created an unparalleled ability to create wealth, to create comfort, and create convenience.  But it has added a great degree of fragility.  In 1919, if you had taken out the electricity to the United States, the result would have been inconvenient, but not fatal.  Some water systems might have failed, and people would have had to switch back to candles.  Abandoning the top floors of buildings that were inconvenient to reach except via elevator would be bad, but there would be no fundamental reason we couldn’t fix the systems:  this failure would hurt, but not paralyze us.

Today, it creates a system where unrestricted warfare could result in a conflict that would be over in minutes, and end with a country so devastated that it might never be rebuilt.

So, have a happy Monday!

This post was inspired in part by email with a reader – I’ll let them bring it up if they so choose.