90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, December 25, 2020

Gender Sender Win Win Contender...

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break

Proof That Some Penguins Are Democrats...

Video: The assassination of Japanese politician Inejiro Asanuma

Are You Ready For The Robot Wars?

Notes From The Future: This Is What The Eiffel Tower Looked Like Before The Islamic State Of France Tore It Asunder...

Looks Like This Guy Had 1...err 10 Too Many....

Molon Labe Ya Pansy Assed Bitch!

Dance With Me, I Want To Be Your Partner..

If You Insist On Speeding, Learn To Drive...

Only You Can Rock Me, Rock Me...

Joe Biden Fights Dementia -OR- Amazing Gif Collection #18

Bull Ride -OR- Amazing Gif Collection #19
Pickup Truck Gets Unexpected Passenger -OR- Amazing Gif Collection #20
Motorcycle Explodes In Collision With Truck -OR- Amazing Gif Collection #21

Unwrapping Liberal Hypocrisy for Christmas

Each Christmas for the last twenty or so years I have received a Christmas card from a cousin of mine. She’s a very sweet person who, despite a very humble upbringing, has led a very privileged life. She is in her late fifties and married to a very computer-smart man who works for one of the Big Tech companies. She is from the same small town in Massachusetts where I grew up, and she was raised in an old-school Democrat household, which, though still misguided in the era of JFK and LBJ, was at least still America-loving and patriotic back in those days.

I just received this year’s card. I should note that her Christmas card always contains a two-page, single-spaced synopsis of the year that her family has had... essentially a blog in paper form. If that sounds like a good idea -- a good way of informing family and friends of how things are coming along with you and yours -- then you have obviously never received a Christmas card from my cousin.

The synopsis typically is a non-stop “humble brag,” as a buddy of mine would put it. It’s a way of showing how great things are going for them with just enough faux humility added in to make them appear gracious... barely. This year’s synopsis started out waxing philosophic, and it struck me as a very accurate encapsulation of liberal thinking as a whole; she wrote, “I long for world that puts humanity before lines on a map. I long for a world that admits we’re killing our host. I long for a world alive in the realization that humans, everywhere, are remarkably similar. I long for a world that recognizes an education is about far more than training for a job or vocations...”. It goes on for another line or two, but I think you get the point.

It’s a noxious combination of naïveté, virtue signaling, and simple-minded shortsightedness; essentially, the essence of liberalism today. I can’t help but break it down.

Line 1: “...a world that puts humanity before lines on a map.” I might point out that the address this card came from is in a wealthy suburb of Seattle, and it prices out on Zillow.com at a cool $1.6 million... or $4,700 per month if you were to try to rent it. I’m wondering if she considers her property lines just “lines on a map.” Perhaps she should take in some of the epidemic of homelessness in the Pacific Northwest. Certainly, she has room for a few dozen tents in her yard.

Line 2: “...a world that admits we’re killing our host.” For one thing, the use of the word “host” would either mean that she believes the Earth welcomed us in as some sort of guest, which is just weird, or that we are some sort of parasite that has embedded itself in the planet, which actually seems more fitting. Of course, she’s making a typical virtue-signaling plea for the world to not only accept climate change (formerly global warming until the data did not fit the narrative) as fact but also to accept that the governments we already know to be horribly corrupt are capable of devising the solution... all while she does nothing about the problem, of course.

Line 3: “...a world that recognizes that an education is about far more than training for a job or vocation.” A) She hasn’t had an actual job since roughly 1995, so... B) she arrogantly assumes that training for a job or vocation is somehow not a valuable pursuit. I’d note here that her mother was a nurse and her father was a union truck driver. I’d wonder what they would have to say about her apparent disdain for the working man.

One of my favorite humans Mike Rowe (see Returning the Favor and Dirty Jobs) has been working especially hard over the last several years to help us remember that “jobs and vocations” are actually not only a great way to make a living and provide for your family (often to the point of great personal wealth), but they are also a critical part of the fabric of our nation. I would opine that any job where one works hard and sweats for a living also contains the makings for one hell of an education; one that doesn’t require six figures worth of student loans to acquire.

The last line of the opening paragraph of my cousin’s diatribe talks about a world that seeks solutions not blame, friends instead of foes. I remember seeing many a post of hers over the last four years that specifically blamed President Trump for nearly every woe the world was experiencing, and that specifically named President Trump as their foe.

My cousin’s way of thinking seems to me to be a perfect illustration of the general thought process of the Left at large; borders are mean (but don’t let any of those people on my property); let’s put the same people who allowed alleged climate change to become a problem (long-time politicians, like Sleepy Joe, for instance) be in charge of fixing said problem; and college is the only way to...

‘Gretchen the Grinch’ comes out to play as defiant Michiganders hold festive Christmas MAGA parade

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer made an unexpected appearance at an anti-lockdown Christmas MAGA parade Wednesday at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing.

Well, kind of …

Rather, someone wearing a “Gretchen Grinch” costume showed up for the event, which was formally dubbed the “How the Gretch Stole Christmas” protest.

But considering the uncanny resemblance between the masked impostor and the governor herself, it was pretty much as if she herself was there.

Look:

You can’t even tell the difference!

The appearance of “Gretchen Grinch” was just one of many fun festivities that rocked Lansing from Wednesday afternoon through the evening as locals fed-up with their state’s restrictive lockdown restrictions gathered to protest.

“Michigan has had a really rough year under the rule of a tyrannous Governor and her overreaching government agencies who continue to suppress freedom, harass, and threaten Michiganders, who choose to practice their God-given freedoms,” the...

WATCH: Family Receives Surprise Military Homecoming for Christmas

A family in Elk Grove, California, got a huge surprise on Wednesday when a loved one who serves in the military returned home for the holidays.

“Nineteen-year-old Matthew Esguerra has been away from home for six months, so he and his dad teamed up to surprise the whole family,” KSBW reported.

Video footage showed the moment Esguerra’s dad gathered everyone for a picture, only to see the young sailor walk through their front door.

Several family members screamed and ran to embrace him and one was so overcome with emotion, she covered her face with her hands and sank to her knees.

“Matthew left for boot camp back in June, but because of the pandemic, his family was not able to attend his graduation,” the KSBW article read.

A similar instance occurred last week in Steubenville, Ohio, when Harrison Central High School basketball player Maddy Butler got the surprise of her life, according to WTOV.

As Butler’s team geared up to play Steubenville Catholic Central, their coaches told them to line up on the court.

When the announcer said it was time to welcome home a servicemember, Butler said, “I was oh my gosh, I love these videos, I’ve always wanted to see one in person.”

However, she realized a few moments later it was her brother, Fire Controlman Seamen Nathan Mayle, whom she had not seen in...

Incoming Officials Reveal Biden's Plan for Undoing Trump Immigration Restrictions

'Guardrails' and the recipe for boiled frog

In a December 15 article captioned "Boiling the Frog Slowly on Immigration", my colleague Mark Krikorian explained that President-elect presumptive Joe Biden will undo the Trump administration's immigration policies, but "will ... try to hide the politically explosive consequences from public view" by rolling out those changes incrementally. On Tuesday, the former vice president, Susan Rice — Biden's choice to lead the Domestic Policy Council — and others gave hints as to the recipe that he will use to do so.

The reference in Krikorian's headline to the "boiling frog" is a common analogy for any action that is done slowly to hide true intentions and inevitable outcomes. It is based on the premise that a frog put in boiling water will jump out and save itself, but a frog put in room-temperature water that is slowly heated will not sense it is being cooked until it is too late.

Rice tweeted:

And, as the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, Biden has vowed to "keep his pledge to roll back the Trump administration's restrictive asylum policies", but will do so "at a slower pace than he initially promised, to avoid winding up with '2 million people on our border.'"

Biden's campaign website was fairly clear about the former vice president's intentions — when he was running for president. He promised that in his first 100 days in office, he would: "End Trump's detrimental asylum policies", as well as the Migrant Protection Protocols — MPP or "Remain in Mexico", under which asylum seekers from countries other than Mexico must await hearings on their asylum claims on the Mexican side of the border.

Now, however, Biden is seemingly backtracking on those vows. He claims that it will take six months to rev up his plans, asserting that it will take months to stand up the machinery by which asylum claims can be heard. He blames government bureaucracy and the appropriations process.

Specifically, the Post references Biden's statements to the effect that "creating a system to process thousands of asylum seekers will take months," as "the government needs funding to put staffers such as 'asylum judges'" — logically referring to asylum officers in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) — "in place".

As I have explained previously, government hiring takes time, and appropriations are usually a year-long process, while USCIS funding comes from those who are seeking benefits from the agency. Nonetheless, Biden expects to have all of this done in "six months".

The Post continues: "Biden said he was not dragging his feet but 'setting up the guardrails' to find a solution to the immigration issue, instead of creating a crisis 'that complicates what we're trying to do.'"

The "crisis" that Biden is referring to is a rush of illegal migrants at the border, which is "bad optics" in Washington parlance — that is, a scenario that reveals the deleterious effects of governmental action, and which provokes a...

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Friday, December 25, 2020

Here Are Some Christmas Links From Previous Years...