Happy Christmas Bank Holiday Monday!
Well, that's if you're in most of the Commonwealth or Europe. In America, it's just a regular ol' working day, and I'll be hard at it, nose to the grindstone, for a full hour of guest-host-level semi-competence on "Tucker Carlson Tonight". The fun starts at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific - with a rerun for West Coasters and late birds at midnight Eastern/9pm Pacific. Hope you'll dial us up if you are in the presence of the receiving apparatus.
As for the Yankee lack of what we quaintly called, pre-Covid, a "day off" or a "long weekend", my traditional take on the holiday without end can be found here - although I've since amended my view: after ten months of a locked-down world, we're in Narnia; ever winter but never Christmas.
~I'm not sure what will be on the agenda for tonight: It was a lively Yuletide in Nashville, with a Christmas Day bombing. The President, notwithstanding his blistering denunciation of the mega-swamp "Covid Relief Bill", has now signed it into law. He is planning one last rally in Georgia, in an effort to save the sorry hides of Senators Purdue and Loeffler: The latter is a point behind, the former is presently 0.1 per cent ahead (which means the dead will win it for the Dems).
Both senators are protesting the imprisonment in the Cayman Islands of a Georgia teenager for breaking the British colony's quarantine law. I don't myself see what's "conservative" about their position: The most basic tool available to any territory to control the spread of ChiCom-19 is restrictions upon non-citizens and non-residents.
Oh, and that new Covid that's seventy bazillion times as lethal? It's landed in North America, with the first two cases in Ontario. Is the new Super-Mega-Hyper-Gonorrhea arising from WuFlu antibiotics here yet? Why, yes, it is. The last time the Ãœber-Clap was in the news was when the UK's Project Fear fearmongers warned it would afflict the land as a consequence of voting for Brexit.
So Boris has just concluded his post-Brexit deal with the EU ...and Coronarrhea shows up? Coincidence? Or just another example of Chairman Xi's attention to detail?
~We had a busy Christmas at SteynOnline, starting with a Song of the Week audio special, with Elisabeth von Trapp and Hanno Schilf joining me for live music and the story behind a Christmas Eve classic: "Silent Night." Also on Christmas Eve we concluded the last of this year's Yuletide Tales for Our Time - in this case a festive caper of my own inspired by a news item Tucker sprang on me one night, The Little Christmas Tree: You can find the opening episode here, Part Two here and the happy ending here. On Christmas Day I hosted this year's Covid-constrained Mark Steyn Christmas Show with caroling and conversation from Randy Bachman, Martha Stewart, Dana, Everything But the Girl, Siân Phillips and many more. On Boxing Day, we rounded up a bonanza of seasonal goodies, and took a look back at post-Christmas sales. Later I covered for Kathy Shaidle on the movie beat with an audio special on those we lost in 2020. Our Sunday song selection offered something musically analogous with a salute to 2020's fallen songwriters. If you were too busy getting arrested for inviting granny over for eggnog, we hope you'll want to check out one or three of the foregoing as a new week begins.
~If antifa porch pirates 'alf-inched all those presents you ordered from AmazonGlobalMonopoly.com, you can seriously mollify your loved one with a stateroom on the third annual Mark Steyn cruise (following our sold-out inaugural voyage two years ago, and our sold-out second voyage last year). And don't forget the present that lasts all year: A one-year gift membership in The Mark Steyn Club, including:
~Our above-mentioned audio adventures in Tales for Our Time: you won't want to miss our new one starting next week;
~Exclusive Steyn Store member pricing on over 40 books, mugs, T-shirts, and other products;
~The opportunity to engage in live Clubland Q&A sessions with yours truly;
~Transcript and audio versions of The Mark Steyn Show, Mark's Mailbox, and other video content;
~My ongoing series of video poetry;
~Advance booking for my live appearances around the world, should such events ever again be permitted;
~Customized email alerts for new content in your areas of interest;
~The opportunity to join me and my guests on next year's third annual Mark Steyn Club Cruise, assuming we're ever allowed to sail;
~and the chance to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.
See you on the telly for Tucker tonight.
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Beg to differ on the composition of Georgia Senate candidate Kelly Loeffler's "hide." It's far from sorry, and frankly the whisper campaign circulating against her in some conservative media has quite curious origins. I've now received several mailers from the Koch, or shall I say Koch-Soros axis warning Georgia social conservatives that if they vote in the Senate runoff, they might have their privacy violated in some nebulous way. The funders named on these demoralization glossies? Club for Growth, AKA the Kochs, AKA the very group that tried to undermine Trump's 2016 election in order to install Marco! or Jeb or the then unfortunately compromised and unelectable Ted Cruz, who lacked the resources to make it on the national scene without selling his soul, however temporarily, to these open borders scum. They would have settled then for anyone other than Trump, and now they're going for the trifecta.
This stuff needs to stop. And we need to start telling some hard truths about the people manipulating the citizen activist right, no matter who they are or what they own. If we lose the Senate, it will be catastrophic.
Faster than otherwise.
I have no love for the Georgia GOP and believe me, the feeling is quite mutual. But I'll crawl through glass to vote for Loeffler and Perdue (who really is a squish). Loeffler isn't. Sometimes having more money than, say, Trump, puts one in a good position to continue his legacy. And she is bringing it. The open borders leftitarian whisperers on the right don't care if we lose the Senate, and they have bought some bedfellows in strange places throughout Conservatism Inc. to sow confusion and fear. It's time to name them, shame them, and get to the damn polls to save the Senate.
Tina, your apparent faith in the integrity of the system - in Georgia, of all places - is puzzling, given the predictions (rather than the polls): No matter how many like-minded conservatives crawl through glass to vote, the Dems will smash them - and they'll do so with the support of many of their Republican colleagues.
I hadn't watched Fox News since that faithful night in November when they suddenly decided that they no longer wanted my viewership. I only tuned in to see Mark Steyn as a fill in for Tucker.
Aside from Mark's wit and wisdom the first thing that grabbed my attention was the verbiage just above the chyron. "Standing up for what's right (TM)" What the heck does that mean? Apparently it doesn't mean standing up for a clean electoral process. The trademark (TM) symbol is a nice touch. It shows just how phony and contrived that slogan is.
I may make another return to Fox if Mark guest hosts again, but that will probably be about it.
Oh durn, must we bid farewell to Christmas so soon? I had a cheery personal Christmas story concerning myself and our club to tell, but it looks like I'm too late and we're already back to (redacted) politics.
Sigh.
GOP politicians have the tactical acumen of a bag of hammers. You have people who were screwed by their stupid and corrupt government, people who are on the virge of losing their businesses, their homes and their families. They are desperate for help and how do the GOP lawmakers respond? Give them lectures on Austrian economics and tell them to go pound sand. And when they get crushed like a bug in Georgia they will all be scratching their heads wondering what the hell happened. For God's sake if you want to push the fiscal responsibility angle go after spending billions for woke nonsense in other countries while Americans are suffering because that's a winning issue that resonates with voters.
Well-put.
The first time I became aware of the Austrian Economics intellectual leftitarian cabal, I was speaking before this guy sporting extreme hipster sideburns at an event in Florida. He mocked the crowd of decent, conservative retirees while scolding them about his superior knowledge of Hayek. Nothing wrong with a little Hayek, but the sideburns really got to me.
Who the heck are these arsehats, I asked myself. They call themselves Freedomworks or something.
We shut down our country to protect the most vulnerable and the elderly and when the vaccine came out they give it to the young and the essential. After what we have seen, it is clear to me that the deaths in the nursing homes were intentional. They want as many old white people dead and they are using this pandemic to make it happen. They accuse us of pushing Grandma off a cliff when they are throwing Grandma out of a plane with no parachute. They claim to protect the elderly yet don't give the vaccine to them first. Whatever new strain comes out and whatever new vaccines are made, we won't get them until the establishment says so and by that time we won't be needing it because we would have already have gotten it.
Brian, agree with you on this one. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. If everyone was back at their job, about 150 million workers would be paying for the benefits received by those over 65 who have retired and hope to live on their benefits. With the Baby Boomers now firmly entrenched in this retired cohort, the system counts on having about 2.5 workers for every "beneficiary". The federal budget has always been balanced by using the retirement taxes paid for general expenses, with each diversion being accounted for with a piece of paper, an IOU basically. Until recently, more retirement taxes were coming in than was going out. But now the benefits are competing with all the other parasites who swim in the deep swamp for their share of the tax receipts, or more recently, the unrestrained borrowing of the Treasury, and this competition will become less pretty as time goes on. How convenient was it that recovering CV patients could be transported to nursing homes under Cuomo's orders, and how tragic were the deaths of tens of thousands. It was just business, nothing personal. After all, the last six months of life are generally the ones with the greatest healthcare expenditures. Cuomo shortened the six months to six weeks. It was just business. The distribution of the vaccine is likewise another example of pragmaticism and good business practices by Big Brother.
Are we having a George W. Bush moment? Remember when he said "The weapons are there" when it came to the WMDs that Saddam Hussein allegedly had. Then we started the Iraq war and marched straight to their capital and what do you know: No WMDs. Then, instead of admitting he was wrong, changed his statement to "We had to remove a threat that was causing instability in the Middle East." That was the reason why many Americans went to Obama.
Now I see it regarding this election. They have changed the rhetoric from the election being stolen to being about "election integrity". Yes, it's not important that your vote was stolen, what is important is that you participate the next time when we steal your vote from you again. Just how daft can these people be? I'm not going to settle for another news network even if it's created by Trump. Once again, we lower our expectations while the left goes for it. Where are our demonstrations and protests? Where is our anger other than in the comments we post?
Brian,
A big part of the problem is thus. Despite the best efforts of our governors many of us still have jobs to show up for every weekday. Not only does that keep us from protesting late into the night and burning stuff, it gives us something to lose. If I get videoed out protesting or worse yet, setting light to something, I will very likely lose my job, which is a good one.
When it comes to the Left however, for most of these "protesters" protesting and burning stuff IS their job.
Brian, you may not have followed the course of the US occupation of Iraq subsequent to Saddam's capture and execution. There were caches of poison gas that had been buried to prevent their discovery. About 20 US servicemen were badly injured in the four years following our victory while unearthing these stores. The weapons of mass destruction were in poor condition, but the poison worked just fine. To Bush's shame, he denied these men Purple Hearts. Absent this award, the victims have been given second class treatment by the government. Saddam also buried Mig fighters as a way of hiding them from our searches, so don't think that he was using burial as a crude disposal technique. It is also the case that Saddam's generals wondered why he didn't use these weapons during our rapid thrust northward. So the weapons were real, they just weren't part of the swap's narrative once they decided to dump Bush.
I was well aware of the UN weapons inspectors being denied access to various installations. Saddam gassed his own people but it wasn't considered to be a big enough a deal for the US or the UN at that time to do anything. Even during Operation Desert Storm when Iraq was invading Kuwait, we just chased them back to Iraq and didn't finish the job and we got crickets from the UN on any form of punishment. Iraq was no different than Syria in terms of their military might and we aren't "freeing" Syria now over their involvement for their actions against Israel. Iraq in the end was another neocon experiment on nation building that failed because the people still chant "Death to America" after all we have done for them.
Depending on what direction the owner's political affiliations go, that may be true. But say one of their employees was on camera rioting, if their bosses fire them, they'll have cancel culture shut them down because they don't believe black lives matter. Left leaning businesses fear the mob and will turn a blind eye if one of their employees does something wrong so long as it's not murder.
Caught your 10 minute intro on TCT and loved every second of it. I wish Fox would just stream Tucker's show so those of us who don't have TV or the appropriate internet provider could listen in. But I guess they aren't rally interested in increasing the number of people who watch their show. By the way, I just looked at the opinion page of the WSJ and here are tomorrow's headlines:
"How Tariffs Deepened the DC Swamp: Maybe the GOP will stand up on trade once Joe Biden is picking winners." In other words, if a US company can't compete with slave labor manning essential industries, then it needs to disappear in the US, so our service economy can get cheap trinkets. The same goes for organ donations, how can a voluntary system compete with one that can harvest a needed replacement on demand? Trump wanted to make the US the winner, and that, apparently, is the wrong choice.
"Trump Gives Schumer an Assist: The President writes a $2,000 check to make Democrats the majority." All you losers out there who haven't been able to earn anything, you need to spend more time waiting in line at the food bank. You'd be surprised how far $600 will stretch if you forego that morning latte. This is especially true for all you under-capitalized small businesses that can't hack 9 months of no revenue to cover contractual expenses, like leases. So your governor locked you up for nine months, get over it!
"Japan's Biden Jitters: From Tokyo, a pointed Taiwan question for the President-elect." Maybe Trump did something right after all? Nah. A 200 ship Navy with no training and no down time will be awesome once the new diversity measures make it clear that China has nothing to fear from the US and those foolish countries who thoughtlessly allied themselves with us.
"Can Snowden Bamboozle Trump: He stole American security secrets. His allies cajole the President for a pardon." This is the paper that gave Biden and his son a pass thru October, and now presume that the institutions that Snowden outed will somehow counterbalance Biden's oriental predilections. These are the very institutions that used a helicopter and 29 FBI agents to surround Oliver Stone's house prior to dragging his deaf wife out to the street in her night clothes, all for the benefit of CNN. Who, exactly, do these goons work for?
So they have decided to dispense with any attempt at appearing disinterested. Deep dive into the muck.
I thought I walked in on an Alien Tape commercial on Tucker Carlson, but it turned out it was Mark Steyn LIVE!
Regarding the Wuhan Virus lockdowns and mask-wearing, we are in the "socialism didn't work because we never really tried it" stage. It's politically impossible to to do a Gorbachev and admit that the solutions being forced on the populace don't work because it's a virus.
So the pols and police double down.
Eventually, and presumably after January 21st, they will declare Glasnost.
Will the people buy it?
Chairman Xi's attention to detail has been to use biological warfare in a way that a great power - a free nation - responded by waging war on itself (and letting the CCP get away with it). It's the same throughout the West: Xi knows us better than we know ourselves, from the enemy within to our civilisational ennui. Our "leaders" are as corrupt as theirs, and our citizens just as compliant with being manipulated and ruled over - including by our cancel culture twist on China's "social credit system".
America (along with the West) is in big trouble if the ship can't be turned around *by the people*. See Jesse Watters' recent take on "A Complacent Country".
PS. Given what has transpired in less than a year *despite* President Trump holding the line, Raheem Kassam is right about not delaying until the 2022 midterms: "1. Because an election was stolen; 2. Coz Trump voters don't (and shouldn't) care about the GOP; 3. Coz Rs won't ever win an election again if we don't sort this mess out. Just a few thoughts."
The GOP is the problem, Kate.
109 House Republicans voted to override Trump's veto on the appalling National Defense Act.
The GOP is part of the problem, Perry - and symptomatic of the bigger problem. That's according to Rush Limbaugh, by the way. (See comment and quotes by Brian: "Rush said he hardly sees anyone on our side doing anything. [...] Rush said our base hasn't shown up to hold anyone we've elected accountable for decades. [...] We created the RINOs because deep down, we are RINOs. We only show up every first Tuesday in November and we disappear. We need to admit that the establishment Republicans exist because we allowed it to exist. We aren't without blame in this."
Watch Jesse Watters' "A Complacent Country" - the whole 10 minutes. It's not only the corrupt leadership and culture, but the acceptance of it.
It's the same with conservatives throughout the English-speaking world, but America is leading the way.
Brian is correct... "We aren't without blame in this".
I finally watched Jesse Watters and he's right. We allowed this to happen because we've given in to the belief that there is nothing we can do. We put all of our eggs into one political basket and pray for things to happen. We care too much about how we are perceived by the other side but they have already judged us and we are guilty, now and forever. We have one shot to live in this world and we won't be given another one. There is a line in the movie "The Running Man" that explains my frustrations.
"All I've seen is a bunch of low foreheads who think they can change the world with dreams and talk. It's too late for that. If you're not ready to act, give me a break and shut up."
Here, here, Perry. Republican or Democrat, they all answer to the same donors.
Chairman Eleven and KGB-emeritus goon Putin took FDR's line, "The only thing we have to fear...is fear itself" not as a warning, but as a strategy. Our politics is as dry and combustible as a California (or Australian) hillside. Putin lit a match with a few ads on FB in 2016, and the country sizzled for three years, with Democrats throwing gasoline on the flames to put them out. Once that conflagration died down, Eleven released his Luftwaffe of overseas passenger planes from Wuhan (grounding the domestic fleet) to decimate populations from Aachen to Zuwarah, and then get the survivors to go at each other's throats rather than blame the perp (which would be both xenophobic and racist, no need to take you pick). There's an old playground joke in which you goad someone into fisticuffs by saying "Let's you and him fight." Chairman Eleven and Putin get the joke, and are having a right old laugh at our expense.
In terms of the GOP, Perry, is it cowardice or corruption that underpins the problem?
Or is it just careerism, whereby it makes sense to be submerged in the Swamp?
"... at each other's throats rather than blame the perp" - exactly! As Andrew Lawton pointed out, the CCP is celebrating the fact that Western countries turned it into a domestic/ left-right issue.
That includes conservatives - who initially criticised China for exporting the virus and hoarding PPE - shrugging off the corpse count (as both too low *and* too high).
"Reparations... for what?!!"
Ha! "Bill Clinton is probably really sweating right now." from your link to the happy clappy story.
I thought sexual congress with strangers or non-family members was outlawed. In which case, either "partners" are sharing their dose back and forth, or someone is sneaking out and getting laid at masqued balls.
The latter being one good reason amongst several for Hillary avoiding her conjugal duty with Bill. I think of SAHB's NEXT whenever I read Gonorrhea. Just discovered it was written by Jacques Brel - I wonder if it will make Song of the Week one Sunday.
A quick look at the Bat Sh*t crazy stories on-line suggests that Mark's cup runneth over for Tucker.
The Republicans made it clear that they weren't going to show solidarity with Trump when it came to this bill. The bill may stink but compared to what they'll do when they get into office, it will be chump change compared to what they have planned. Once again, the Republicans are reverting to their old ways. Shameful.
So, the ChiCom virus interbred with the Killer Bees to transform itself into a lethal contagion that makes great honey. Or no? Anyway, just read Don Surber on the reinstallation of the Kleptocrat Party, and I would be soft-soaping it to call it sobering. He compares the Biden crime family to the Corleones--unfavorably. The Corleones had standards (they just said no to drugs); the Bidens? If they didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all. I'll add The Sopranos: Uncle Junior Soprano only pretended to be non compos mentis (to avoid prison). Anyone think Joe's faking? Me neither.