"Oh How The Years Go By" (opens in separate window)

darkness dying

friday, february 21st, 2024

The exorcism of the USA just keeps revving up. You can tell by the number of revolutions-per-minute Elizabeth Warren’s head spins while she spews pea soup at the cameras. Who knew what a demon-infested slough USA Management Central was? And yes, I would like some insight as to how humble civil servants like Liz Warren accrue a $12-million fortune . . . and $30-million for Samantha Power (ex-USAID-chief) . . . and more than $150-million for Nancy Pelosi. Could it be as simple as just good stock-picking? (Is that how they spend their time?)

You have reason to suspect that what goes on in Washington DC is the greatest racketeering operation ever run on God’s green earth. “A threat to our democracy!” the Party of Chaos spouted incessantly during the election campaign in re: Donald J. Trump. “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” The Washington Post still declares on its name-plate. Yet, who exactly kept the lights off the past four years? Who scrambled the brains of the nation’s management and thinking classes? Who made mental illness aspirational?

You begin to detect that by “our democracy” they actually meant “our everlasting grift.” And it didn’t die in darkness — it thrived, grew, and spread in the moist bureaucratic darkness like the Devil’s own slime mold. And now it is being revealed, to the astonished disgust of slightly more than half the nation that was not on-the-take. Turn over a log in the woods and you have the metaphor for “our democracy.” Countless hundred-footed things slither around under it, their feeding interrupted . . .

The political left’s success springs from its dedication to organizing its member ranks and their activities. Organizing has been the key to their grand plan for arriving at Utopia. Except, sometime near the dawn of this century, with the torch of communism burning out, they realized that Utopia was a destination unlikely to be reached. Instead, they could turn their organizing talent to directing the money flow from their ever-expanding roster of world-saving NGOs into the bank accounts of their own member ranks.

USAID was the poster-child for that, a flowering of mutually-referential dollar feedback loops providing six-figure “jobs” and non-stop cocktail partying for the elite surplus churned out of the left’s training academies, Harvard, Brown, Yale — with a whopping vig paid to congress-persons and senators who disbursed massive taxpayer funding for each newly-sprouted org dedicated to the uplift of the “marginalized and oppressed.”

Of course, that was merely the feeding frenzy of the small fish on the surface. Deeper down, the money-flow was going to much more demonic enterprises: the color revolution gang in the CIA, State Department, and God knows what other surreptitious agencies. . . Antifa and BLM (the Democratic Party’s shock troops) . . . the news industry (now completely corrupted into a global mind-fucking operation) . . . Hollywood’s zeitgeist-shaping dream factory of girl-boss fantasies. . . book publishing (with its zillion-dollar “advances-on-royalties” to political celebrity authors, who could never possibly earn-out that windfall on book sales) . . . the school systems at every level . . . the medical-pharma matrix . . . the military procurement racket too vast to even quantify (and the probable cause of the Pentagon’s consistent audit failures) . . . and, we’ve learned recently, the care-and-feeding of twenty-million illegal aliens ushered into our country by the “Joe Biden” / Al Mayorkas travel agency.

This colossal worm-farm lies exposed now with its slithering denizens drying up under the DOGE sunlamp. The response by the political left’s clown troop fronting for all these scams is the most pathetic performative cluster-B psychodrama ever enacted on the streets of our nation’s capital: Schumer, Maxine Waters, Ayanna Pressley, Liz Warren, and every other mewling loser in Wokedom singing that old union ditty Which Side Are You On for the cameras — as if they were reenacting the 1907 Monongah Mining Disaster. They are crying— as the old saying goes — all the way to the bank.

The histrionics of the past three weeks are only the beginning, you understand, since USAID was just a mole-hill beside the mountain range of past turpitudes yet coming into view as Mr. Trump’s generals deploy in the battle-space. Yesterday — mirabile dictu! — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was sworn-in for Health and Human Services, to oversee the empire of fraud that public health became during the rogue reign of Tony Fauci and his cohorts. The flip-side of MAHA is Make Medicine Truthful Again. Everything about health-care in America slouches in disrepute and ignominy, from the doctors hostage to their private equity taskmasters to the faked drug trials at FDA to the deliberate data mismanagement at CDC to the grant-and-kickback game at NIH and NIAID, to the hellscape of medical insurance fraud, to the revolving door between pharma and government —RFK faces one of the most onerous tasks of filth-clearing since Hercules shoveled out the Augean stables. And then there’s the giant hairball of poisoned American food.

The solitary figure who remains absent on the playing field is Kash Patel, and you can tell by the delaying tactics employed by the Party of Chaos that they (and their blob allies) dread the coming day that he gets confirmed to lead the FBI. That’s when the combined forces of avalanche, tsunami, earthquake, and fire send forth an exterminating spewage of long-suppressed information about the 1960s assassinations, RussiaGate, the Epstein matter, the Ukraine money-laundry, and any number of other unresolved treasonous scandals. It’s going to happen. And, if by some quirk of fate, Mr. Patel fails to get the votes, somebody else eventually will, somebody equally capable of fumigating that rat-hole. When that day comes, I’m sure Chuck Schumer will sing Kumbaya from the Capitol steps, expecting to make it all magically go away.

© 2.14.2025 by James Howard Kunstler, "ClusterFuck Nation".

A Day In The Life.

Up at 7:15a on Friday, a sunny, windless 25°F morning, I went thru my finger stick to check my BSL (Blood Sugar Level) and recorded it on my Diabetes 2 chart, made coffee, skipped the two 50mg Tramadol and 300mg Gabapentin for various pains, took a 250mg Bayer Aspirin, fired-up the Win-7 Pentium HP Desktop to let 32 million lines of code load, had a couple smokes in the garage and checked the leftover errands list. Sherry has plans to stop-by today, so we'll have some time together.

While enjoying the new Kona Coffee, I tuned into the "CP Show LIVE", as I do most every morning, fed the squirrels -- no bluejays so far -- and just tried to get warm. It was one of "those days" where my fingertips just wouldn't warm-up and stay warm. After lunch, Sherry arrived around 1:15p, and we left for Flinchbaugh's Orchard & Farm Market, and then to Saubel's Market, on the way back to the condo. We had our usual good time, with lots of hugs and kisses, after not having seen each other since last week. She left for home around 5:45, I closed the condo and watched the evening news, switched to Discovery's "Gold Rush" until 1a, and bagged it for the night. Snow, ice and rain coming tomorrow.

Awake at 5a and finally up at 5:30a on Saturday, in anticipation of Winter Storm "Jett" snow, I upped the heat, made coffee, had a few smokes in the garage, and scanned the weather forecast maps and new headlines. A ***High Wind Warning*** was posted, but it was dead still outside, as I had another smoker in the open garage. A very cloudy, cold 29°, but NO SNOW, yet. A ***WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY*** notice was posted on local sites, around 9a. BFD.

The snow started around 11a, and it was heavy. We easily got 2" with 45mins. Temps rose to 34-35° and the 3" snow began to disappear. The rain arrived around 7p, and lasted much of the evening and night, melting most of the snow. I had the last of the Pot Roast Stew for dinner, watched the news, Motor Trend's "Vegas Rat Rods" and unplugged for the night, at 1a.

Up at 9:15a on Sunday, an overcast, balmy" 39°, drizzly morning, forecast to hit the low-50s. I upped the heat, made a carafe of new coffee, called Fool's "Velvet Hammer" (arabica bean) and scanned the news and weather. I got ready for the day, had Poached Eggs In a Bowl w/ Toast, and Sis stopped by to visit. She brought 3 big containers of Homemade Chili, and I reciprocated with a bag full of Filet Mignon and Ribeye Steaks. A ***SEVERE WIND ADVISORY*** was posted to the area's weather and news websites.

The wind picked-up as soon as the massive storm front finally passed thru, with 30-40mph and gusts of 50-60mph, moving garbage and recycle bins, small animals and children (just kidding) all over the streets. Temps dropped from the low-50s into the low-30s, very quickly, and I closed the condo. The wind was H-O-W-L-I-N-G! I had dinner, watched the news and switched to Discovery's "Homestead Rescue" until 12 midnight. Lights out.

Up at 8a on Monday, a 27°, sunny very still windy from yesterday's powerful storms, which did a LOT of damage in the Southeast before moving up here. I scanned the news headlines and weather forecasts, had breakfast, tuned into the "CP Show LIVE", and left around 12:15p for the cleaners in Dallastown, and the Jeep dealer in Red Lion. Things were doing OK until I got to Thornton Jeep, when the smarmy, little asshole, fill-in "service advisor" scumbag Hunter -- mu usual service advisor was off for the day -- told me they were full-up until next Monday, it wouldn't hurt his feelings "if I went elsewhere", told me to rent a vehicle rather than drive mine w/ "check engine ;light blinking". Punk. I made a 1p app't for Monday.

Ha, dumbass moron Margaret Brennan on CBS' "60 Minutes" said "Free Speech" was the reason for the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. How incredibly stupid leftist bullshit. Here's the full story on that. I think DOGE is doing a great job, with a few minor errors corrected, but the next demonKKKrat president will undo it all, and rehire every damned one of the leftist slackers, and with back pay. And so much more. Count on it.

After a 90min nap, I had dinner, watched the news and switched to Motor Trend's "Iron Resurrection" until 10, and next switched to The Weather Channel's unusual series of nature documentaries, "Weird Earth", unplugging at 1a. JoAnne's in at 8:30a.

Up at 6a with the alarm, I upped the heat, made coffee, had breakfast, got ready for the day, and scanned the news and weather. JoAnne arrived at 9:30a and got to work. I was listening to the "CP Show LIVE" until 10:30, and then hit the LR couch again until 12:15p;, tired from too little sleep last night. After a quick 45min snooze, I felt much better, did some condo chores and closed the condo as temps dropped into the teens. Another Winter Storm -- "Kingston" -- is almost there, not here, down in the South, and is going to impact millions of unprepared people. I watched the evening news, had a small dinner, and switched to History's "Ancient Aliens" and TWC's "Weird Weather", until 1a. Lights out.

Up at 9a on Wednesday, a bitter cold 17°, overcast morning, with a 1-2" snow advisory for tomorrow, I upped the heat, made coffee and scanned the news and weather websites. I had breakfast, and listened to the "CP Show LIVE" until 12noon, got ready for the day and Sherry arrived around 1p.

Hilarious: shit-for-brains, horseface, leftist moron Sheryl Crow (I don't know who she is), just sold/ got rid of her Tesla -- note Yahoo the article's date -- because she now hates Elon Musk, since he's working with Trump to find corruption, waste, fraud and abuse in US Govt agencies. The BIG problem is that the pic she's in, show the Nashville, KY, leaves just turning yellow -- but that was back in October/November 2024, NOT recently, as she'd have us believe. LIAR!

Sherry and I had 4+ wonderful hours together, drove to nearby Saubel's Market to get a few things, and we'll talk over the weekend about some time together next week, my Monday Jeep service repairs also permitting. As temps quickly dropped around 5:30p, I closed the condo and garage, had some dinner, watched the news and switched to Discovery's "Expedition X" until 11, and then to TWC's "Weird Earth" series, until 12:30a, and unplugged.

Up at 7a on Thursday, an overcast, brutally cold 15°, light snow forecast for afternoon, morning. I fired-up the furnace, made Kona Coffee, tuned into the "CS Show LIVE" from 6-9a, and had a couple smokes in the garage. Snow flurries started around 10a, but there won't be any accumulation, since the squalls moving thru aren't large. Correction: we did have a couple large squalls and got close to a ½", which melted in the afternoon.

After lunch, I started working on the dreaded 2024 Income Taxes file, and questionnaire from my CPA. By 4p, I grabbed a nice 90min nap, had dinner and watched the news, then switched to History's "American Pickers" and Discovery's "Homestead Rescue" until 12 midnight. Lights out. Dr's app't in the mid-morning.

Tomorrow starts a new week here in the "Journal", and other than a Monday Jeep repair service app't, it's a clear week for me. I'll call Sherry over the weekend, and we'll make some plans on Monday, after I find out the verdict on the Jeep damage.

Trump, Musk, and the Deep State: The Battle Over Transparency Begins.

Here we go again. At the beginning of his first term as president, Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily banning travel from several countries—Yemen, for example, Sudan, Libya, and four others—that had been identified as major exporters of terrorism. The left went nuts, excoriating Trump for his “racist” “Muslim travel ban.”

It wasn’t a “Muslim travel ban,” but try telling that to Seattle District Court judge James Robart. He sniffed the air, sensed the pleasing hysteria and press coverage, and issued a cursory restraining order against Trump’s executive order. The humorous part of Robart’s order came towards the end. As I wrote at the time, Robart insisted that the “declaratory and injunctive relief” outlined in his order be applied immediately and on a “nationwide basis” (my emphasis).

Seattle has spoken, Comrades! Judge Robarts finds (where? how?) that his court has jurisdiction over … well, over just about everything: the president and the head of the Department of Homeland Security, for starters, but also “the United States of America (collectively).”

So all across the fruited plain, “Federal Defendants and all their respective officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and persons acting in concert or participation with them are hereby ENJOINED and RESTRAINED” from enforcing the President’s executive order.

This may be the best place to pause and point out that Donald Trump, acting as the president of the United States, was perfectly within his rights to issue an executive order to suspend travel from particular countries.

And so it is now with Trump’s deputies in the Department of Government Efficiency. Tasked with the Herculean labor of unscrambling the byzantine Rube Goldberg device that is the 21st-century administrative state for furthering corruption, illegal payments, and partisan influence at home and abroad, DOGE commander Elon Musk and his laptop-and-algorithm-toting lieutenants have been patiently uncovering the pyramid of waste, fraud, and abuse that is the foundation of the United States government in its twenty-first-century incarnation.

In a remarkable piece called “Override: Inside The Revolution Rewiring American Power,” a blogger known as EKO showed how it worked. Four young coders arrive at the Treasury Department in the wee hours of January 21. Within hours they have succeeded in tracing long-hidden payment directions.

No committees. No approvals. No red tape. Just four coders with unprecedented access and algorithms ready to run.

“The beautiful thing about payment systems,” noted a transition official watching their screens, “is that they don’t lie. You can spin policy all day long, but money leaves a trail.”

That trail led to staggering discoveries. Programs marked as independent revealed coordinated funding streams. Grants labeled as humanitarian aid showed curious detours through complex networks. Black budgets once shrouded in secrecy began to unravel under algorithmic scrutiny.

The difference between Trump’s first term and his second (acknowledged) term can be explained in two words: velocity and preparedness. In 2017, Trump’s initiatives were hampered, blindsided, litigated, and smothered in red tape. This time the Leviathan’s usual expedients are impotent. “Their traditional defenses—slow-walking decisions, leaking damaging stories, stonewalling requests—proved useless against an opponent moving faster than their systems could react. By the time they drafted their first memo objecting to this breach, three more systems had already been mapped.” And here’s the point:

“Pull this thread,” a senior official warned, watching patterns emerge across DOGE’s screens, “and the whole sweater unravels.”

He wasn’t wrong. But he misunderstood something crucial: That was exactly the point.

The left gets it. And their heads are exploding. So far, their biggest gun was the creaky cannon Judge Robart wheeled out: the emergency injunction with immediate “nationwide effect.”

The New York Times, a house organ for anti-Trump hysteria, has a long hand-wringing column about the latest wheeze. Paul A. Engelmayer, a U.S. District Judge appointed by Barrack Obama, just issued an “emergency order” to restrict Elon Musk’s and DOGE’s access to the Treasury Department’s payment and data system. He also insisted that anyone who had access to those systems after January 20 “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.” Fun part: even Scott Bessent, the Secretary of the Treasury, is prohibited from looking into the corrupt structures of his own department.

Engelmayer’s order came in response to a lawsuit filed on Friday by Letitia James, Attorney General of New York and professional scourge of all things Trump, along with 18 other Democratic state attorneys general. What was the charge? The stated predicate was that by authorizing the investigation, Trump had failed in his Constitutional duty to “faithfully execute the laws enacted by Congress.” The real predicate was that Musk’s beavers were uncovering the inner mechanism of the deep state and the resulting truths were unbearable.

“Humankind,” said T. S. Eliot, in “Burnt Norton,” “cannot bear very much reality.” Similarly, Bureaucrats cannot bear very much transparency. Like vampires, the sunlight is fatal to them.

How will Trump respond? We do not know yet. I hope it will be at least partly as Andrew Jackson is said to have responded in his contretemps with Chief Justice John Marshall. In 1834, the Supreme Court determined that the Cherokee Indians owned Northern Georgia. Nevertheless, Andrew Jackson evicted the Indians, reputedly observing that Marshall “has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”

Lincoln responded in a similar fashion to Chief Justice Roger Taney in 1861. In April of that year, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus between Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. This allowed military commanders to imprison suspected saboteurs without indictment. Taney said (in “Ex Parte Merryman”) that Lincoln did not have the authority to do this. Lincoln basically ignored him, invoking the novel doctrine of “nonacquiesence.”

As usual, Lincoln demonstrated his deep understanding of the issues involved. “Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted,” he asked Taney, “and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the Government should be overthrown when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it?”

In my view, Trump’s actions to expose the partisan corruption of the administrative state are in response to an existential threat is as grave, if less bloody, than the Civil War. The permanent bureaucracy that rules us has for decades been erecting and fortifying a nearly impenetrable edifice from which to preserve its privileges and power, stifle criticism, and export its globalist agenda. Donald Trump was elected to deconstruct that edifice. Elon Musk is one of his most potent aides in accomplishing that task. Of course, the left is hysterical. Their gravy train is being derailed before their eyes. The people who elected Trump are delighted.

I suspect that the squeals and tantrums of the ruling party and its minions will amount to no more than theater. I further suspect that Trump will resort not only to “nonacquiesence” but also to non-payment. In 2022, New York received $383 billion in federal spending. There are many ways in which Trump could stanch the flow of federal dollars to obstreperous states. I think he should consider them all. I am also happy to see some official pushback. Rep. Darrell Issa, for example, just announced that he is “immediately introducing legislation next week to stop these rogue judges and allow Trump and DOGE to tell you where government is spending your money.” Good for him.

One final suggestion. If left-wing regime-party judges can issue emergency restraining orders with “immediate nationwide effect,” why couldn’t a politically mature district judge in, say, Alabama do the same, overturning the order issued by his left-wing colleague on an “immediate, nationwide basis?” I offer the idea free and for nothing.

© 2.09.2025 by Roger Kimball, "American Greatness".