Just as a follow-on thought -
This is infuriating, but I'm happy it's happening because it's yet another way in which it should be obvious to everyone the left basically doesn't believe in our system anymore. I'm going to borrow a line a commenter on instapundit put out there that sums things up really well -
“To tie it back to another commenter’s point in another thread, we have a managerial class who have MBAs and other credentials from all the correct schools, but are utter incompetents. They learned to game the system, and have relied on decades worth of accumulated social, political, cultural, and economic capital to carry them through these crises. Now that capital is almost used up, and they’re discovering that they are vastly overleveraged.”
They are purging the ranks, but stuffing them full of rats like themselves, and when they demand respect for authority people won't have much reason to take them seriously - and it's spread very overtly to the career civil service posts that people at least tried to pretend was non-partisan. Now they don't even care to take chances there.
It's an escalation, but one that needed to happen. Maybe people will have less room to kid themselves about the scope of this problem later.
I never want to hear democrats or 'moderates' complain about 'norms' ever again.
Same with the GOP establishment.
It is long past time for 'tit for tat' on stuff like this - you can't allow one party to systematically destroy almost every single tradition we've had because they like it and are 'doing it for the right reasons'. We don't have government by consent anymore if this continues.
They really, really like having an empty suit president. It's like they've think they've discovered the Midas Touch - it solves all their problems! They can just dump all the onus on him! What could go wrong?
'You educated me and I am GRATEFUL'
And then everybody clapped.
All the grace of a sledgehammer with VALIDATE ME imprinted on it.
It really stinks but by attempting to impeach Trump twice, the democrats have granted Joe Impeachment Armor. Because the only reason anyone would ever try to impeach Biden is because it was done to Trump, so obviously it's only revenge!
This is very temporary though. Especially if Joe keeps up the pace he's set for his first seven months.
Exactly. There's real precedence for this, as ISIS was rising to prominence they were as good as screaming to the world that they were jihadists while the world press was attempting to say 'oh its global warming' 'oh its a secular reaction to dictatorship' 'they dont really mean it, its just a show to convince their rabble'
It's worth noting that climate change as an issue routinely polls as at or near the bottom of voter's concerns, and this has been the case for literal decades.
They're taking on an impossible feat here, trying to get the public to care about this but at this point, given the kind of person in charge? I think they like the fact they're brute-force shoving this one through in the face of the public's apathy. At this point it feels like a lot of the chaos going on is punishing the public for daring to show signs of populism. The elite's goals don't have to make sense, and it's our place to shut up and take it.
This can't continue.
If it were a year ago? Sure.
This is the 20th anniversary and there's a festering hostage crisis involving, at best, hundreds, at worst, thousands. I don't know what necessarily will happen but 'status quo ante' is not it.
The news cycle is very likely to get seized by something else, before which the administration will try to take even more victory laps about how 'successful' the withdrawal was. They are obsessed with the narrative that withdrawing for withdrawal's sake for the 20th anniversary is required to generate good press for Joe. They are a bunch of arrogant asshats, and that invites people to do dramatic things to get their attention. ISIS played this game with the Iraqi Christian mass executions and the Obama administration. That administration was far more competent at managing the narrative and including at least a little sugar to go with what they're asking for.
Biden's team seems to think 'Lecture the little people and scream at them if they balk' is a productive messaging approach. There is no sugar. No dress up, just thuggish arrogance. I would expect the Taliban and their buddies to revel in this and the absurd amount of leverage Biden just dumped in their laps. Democrats could care less about the 20th anniversary of 9/11 beyond the possibility of a few good headlines for 'ending the war', but the Taliban, Al Qaeda, et. al. really care about that date. The war hasn't ended for them and they probably want to remind us at large about that fact.
Well, given how prone they are to throwing other people under the bus these kinds of cracks are inevitable. May it continue.
Because it was always going to entail a pivot to their pet issues about as soon as they could justify it.
'Office of Climate Change and Health Equity'
Just call it an 'Office of All the Things' while you're at it.
This username dates back to at least ~2009 or so. It's got nothing to do with the religious skeptic community - it's blunt, it's literally 'I am skeptical of the republican party', and this was back during the far-too-brief tea party days. Looking back now, those really were more innocent times, but folks were noticing. Identifying progressivism for what it really was, and solidifying the battle lines that now defines the establishment GOP versus the upstarts in very clear terms.
It's too bad the movement was co-opted by the insiders so quickly, but at the same time - the problem with our country is so severe that maybe there really wasn't any other way for people to wake up then for something like Biden and what he's done - and will keep doing. Because it's not over.
This was always going to be nothing other than a prolonged siege. It took us a long time to dig this hole, it's going to take a comparable effort to climb out of it.
'Surprised'
I largely agree, but on this? This was very predictable. I think it boils down to more of this being a game of political hot potato and every high-up decision maker kept trying to pass it along hoping it wouldn't explode in their hands. And then it blew up, just at the gate and among our troops.
For now, they are concluding 'blame the Taliban, personal responsibility avoided. Hooray!' But this kind of song and dance can't last. This is worse than incompetence, this should be treason for sake of dereliction of duty.
EDIT: Just want to add that the reports coming out about the State Department and higher level military interfering with and outright blocking private group's attempts to get people out and help points to something more nefarious going on behind the scenes than mere bungling.
Stories like this are why that's going to change. It's affecting more people and more people every day.
That one is a true classic. While this one is poor quality this is it - she even clumsily attempts to row!
But the difference between now and then is that increasingly these days they don't really try to dress things up anymore. There was a skill and charm in most, not all cases back then that is increasingly absent these days. Soon it will be more difficult to not notice and it shifts from fake-out, easy to swallow propaganda to an exercise in humiliation as they ask people to accept the absurd.
Well, there was Attack Watch from the Obama years, which barely lasted a week.
Retrogressives?
Try breaking through the shell of someone who buys into at least part of what's popular in the silicon valley worldview - then it's compounded by a general belief that the leftist worldview is part of the Inevitable Arc of History and you should just get with the program, bigot.
..because all the stats they see prove their point, all the people agree with them, blablabla.. nevermind that most social media has had thorough stifling of dissent and ideological purges. Ugh.
Props to you for your patience.
The local news is starting to pump 'Look how much the recall is costing you!' stories and other things attempting to make the argument that the recall is a pointless waste of money.
I have family (not all of them) who support this guy, but it is totally tribal. The 'noble centrist' I know isn't for Newsom, he's against Trump and Hicks and The South and the stereotype he's bought into that the right is full of dangerous anti-vaxxers who don't take the virus seriously, and.. ..agh, it's tiring. He equates them with 'Frat Bros' who are the deepest purveyors of sin in his worldview, for some reason. This justifies supporting people he doesn't like as a twisted sort of self defense.
He's backed himself into a corner where he's attempted to argue people exercising their freedom of choice with masks and vaccines impedes on other's people right to life, therefore these terrible people need to be fined and imprisoned and he's held that line for over a year. He tells me the real estate market in our area in southern California will explode in value in five years or less, and yet in the same breath worry about the 'Next Variant'. The inflation blindspot is significant, but then he reads the economist so I'm not surprised.
He's been quiet lately, though. I think he's ashamed or feeling a bit lost and not knowing where to turn, and there's more people out there then it first seems. The only thing he's told me recently about politics is that 'all politicians suck!'. I think his faction of people turning bitter and/or apathetic is part of why the polls for the recall are what they are - the left's hysterics are losing steam among 'the middle'. IE: The soft leftists who will never call themselves that and claim they're moderates.
AHAHAHAHA
Wow, we really have come a long way from the snarky left on Digg over ten years ago saying 'lol if you cant take the heat get out of the kitchen' and preening about how one didn't have a right to not be offended. They were such snarky assholes back then, seeing this complete 180 on their so called standards is delicious.
The 'Antifa are all proud boys instigators' argument is so tired. Two family members who live in Seattle buy that one hook line and sinker, and it makes no god-damned sense. They want to believe, thus it is so, and I think a big part of it is they flat out ignore stuff like this, hoping it will go away and 'normal' will return all on its own.
Oh well.
See below. Joe is worse than Obama by an order of magnitude is what I'm trying to say. I agree Joe's doing more things deliberately than what other people say, but with all the grace of a teetering drunk. For all the screaming the left did about how Trump supposedly was 'unpresidential', he conveyed strength. Obama at least had some charisma and could take command of an audience (Of sycophants, I know). Biden's got neither, doesn't care about it, and it's really bad when a president looks this flimsy.
Guys, the point I'm making, badly, is that Obama was a skilled opponent who knew that the presidency still had to look like the presidency. I completely was against almost everything he did, and while we did look weak under his leadership there was obviously a hand at the wheel and an ability to respond to things.
There is a gaping chasm in the Biden White House. His lack of leadership and complete disdain for tradition is like nothing I've ever seen - Obama was a 3/10 but with charisma. Joe's a 1/10. This is the kind of thing that instead of brooking trouble behind the scenes, loudly invites trouble to come out into the open. This is really not good for the country.
Because apparently this administration can't get enough of making it glaringly obvious Biden is extremely vain, and prefers being surrounded by yes men. Traits that definitely signal strong, decisive leadership able to make rapid decisions in a pinch.
There was a great line thrown out in an interview in the past few days and I wish I remembered who said it, to loosely paraphrase it - 'lives are being lost in the service of Joe Biden not having to admit he made a mistake'. What's casually threatening the armed forces at large if you've already committed to this path?
It's bad when I look wistfully back at the Obama era, and for as bad as that administration was, they knew how to spin bad news and at least tried to dress it up. These clowns don't give two shits how it looks.
But it's okay! They're sophisticated people!
These are weak, silly, unserious people, living in a complete fantasy world.
It's just - I've watched them do this for years, and to see this rot spreading to the National Archives is sickening but not surprising. They've spent so long inventing the great crisis to give their lives meaning, that once a real one smacks them in the face they won't know what to do except act like brutish thugs, apparently. They just yell and shout and gin up the press, and call it a day.
At least they're being so cartoonishly absurd about it.