NYT: Nuclear Attack Schnuclear Attack, What Guam Really Needs to Fear is Climate Change

Via Instapundit, the New York Times will not let a petty little hiccup like nuclear war stand in the way of propagating its lunatic cultist dogmas.

What’s a greater threat to Guam? North Korea, or climate change? https://t.co/bPuBrFULC5
— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) August 11, 2017

Safe link to Daily Caller for coverage of the religious maniac daily, quoting the Times:

"The island of Guam made rare headlines this week when North Korea, responding to blustery language from President Trump, threatened to fire four ballistic missiles into waters near the American territory’s shores," the linked article reads. "Scientists in Guam, however, say they have at least one other major threat in mind: climate change."

Here's a question I'd like to ask. I'll try to figure out my own answer in the comments. But this is what I'm interested in:

When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?

I'm trying to remember when this happened to me. Oh, the media I knew was biased; but I didn't realize until the last decade that it was pig-ignorant and incompetent and filled with people who are mentally unwell.

The government -- well, I blithely assumed that people who ran the government (or other major institutions) were generally at least low-level qualified.

At some point I realized we are being led -- or rather controlled, as we do not follow willingly, but through coercion -- by misfits, morons, and maniacs.

It was both scarifying and liberating, in a dark way.

But I think these realizations came kind of slowly and I'm trying to think of major things that crystallized them.

It also changed my opinion of many of my fellow citizens and onetime allies: I now view them as fools and maniacs (or worse) themselves for apparently seeming to continue to believe that Everything's Okay and we're still being led (controlled) by, if not the best and brightest, certainly the somewhat good and reasonably intelligent.

Posted by: Ace at 04:41 PM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Oneth?

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 04:42 PM (bIwZ6)

2 The only thing we have tofear, is fear itself

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 04:43 PM (pPKG5)

3 twoeth

Posted by: Rick in SK at August 11, 2017 04:43 PM (FZYNt)

4 The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 04:43 PM (pPKG5)

5 I would say neither nukes or climate change are the most significant threats to Guam, but what do I know?

Posted by: Banana Splits Guy at August 11, 2017 04:44 PM (7h4Fr)

6 Four or five?

Posted by: StrawMan at August 11, 2017 04:44 PM (/PdIH)

7 We are so schlonged!

Posted by: BlueFalcon in Boston at August 11, 2017 04:44 PM (eqhcj)

8 Don't be a science denier unless we are talking biology. that gender stuff is fluid

Posted by: Rick in SK at August 11, 2017 04:44 PM (FZYNt)

9 For me, it was when Ted Kennedy wasn't removed from orifice after drowning MJK. In a normal world, he'd have been ostracized big time.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 04:44 PM (bIwZ6)

10
I thought tipping over was the greatest threat it faced?

Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 11, 2017 04:44 PM (493sH)

11 At some point I realized we are being led -- or rather controlled, as we do not follow willingly, but through coercion -- by misfits, morons, and maniacs.

Actually to be governed by misfits, morons and maniacs would be better.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 11, 2017 04:44 PM (ZTRlp)

12 I thought Guam only had to worry about flipping over.

Posted by: StrawMan at August 11, 2017 04:44 PM (/PdIH)

13 It is very hard to feel any sympathy for those so willfully blind. Alas far too many innocents will suffer because of them to wish that they suffer for their hubris.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at August 11, 2017 04:45 PM (1yjq9)

14 The reaction to 9/11 by libs sealed it for me, over the course of maybe three years.

Posted by: Mega at August 11, 2017 04:45 PM (rv0Fo)

15 >>>when Ted Kennedy wasn't removed from orifice

which one?

Posted by: Banana Splits Guy at August 11, 2017 04:46 PM (mNS8n)

16 > When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you?

Can't remember the details but it had to be the living through the 1970s. Plus serving in the Air Force.

Posted by: ArthurK at August 11, 2017 04:46 PM (tq2zh)

17 This has happened to me a few times, I read, make comment hit post but seems nothing happened but reloading all I get is the AoSHq banner and nothing else. So hit post again.

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 04:46 PM (pPKG5)

18 If Michael Moore visited Guam, then it would tip over.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at August 11, 2017 04:46 PM (1yjq9)

19 Is Guam the island some congressman is afraid will tip over? And if that happens why would fat boy bomb it?

Posted by: Northernlurker, who sometimes skulks and is now jobless and bored, so very bored at August 11, 2017 04:46 PM (hJrjt)

20 I sorta knew the people in the gov't were dumb. But once my wife started working there and we go a view form inside it was scary.

She's drifted ever more libertarian as things go on. If you say something like "we should just fire the bottom 10%" she'd likely respond "more."

Or my personal favorite "wow you keep getting promoted fast."
"I'm competent which automatically makes me the best employee in the room."

Posted by: tsrlbke PhD(c), rogue bioethicist at August 11, 2017 04:46 PM (dzmBR)

21 I think my attitude changed during the Bush II Administration when I realized that the media frenzy over Gitmo and such was no way connected to FDR's behavior during WWII, much of which provided legal cover for Bush GWOT actions. The failure to even notice the similarities when they were obvious to anyone with a causal acquaintance with 20th Century history was astounding.

Posted by: RS at August 11, 2017 04:46 PM (CNQqJ)

22 After I saw the last episode of The Prisoner as an adult and realized that it was a documentary.

Posted by: Joseph Dickerson at August 11, 2017 04:47 PM (LDV7V)

23 The real, I say the real threat is Guam tipping over!!

Posted by: Rep. Hank Johnson at August 11, 2017 04:47 PM (jxbfJ)

24 This is not about Taylor Swift.

But....at least it's not about fat-

Damn you North Korea!

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at August 11, 2017 04:47 PM (3OIiX)

25 Corgis called

Posted by: rickb223 at August 11, 2017 04:47 PM (U76Nz)

26 What were your feelings about this?

Incredulity.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 04:47 PM (bIwZ6)

27 >>>7 We are so schlonged!
Posted by: BlueFalcon in Boston

I happened across the meaning of "Blue Falcon" yesterday, and it's derogatory (it's military slang for a buddy-f***er, or backstabber, someone who throws a friend under the bus).

Just curious why you call yourself that, or if you even knew that meaning.

Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 04:47 PM (8rNrN)

28 For me, it was the early '60's and yes I'm old. But that was when I came (phrasing boom!) to the conclusion that the media, government and other institutions were morons that colluding with each other.

Posted by: Strobe at August 11, 2017 04:48 PM (gbWkA)

29 Actually to be governed by misfits, morons and maniacs would be better.
====

I'd prefer to be governed by the first 100 names in the "M" section of the phone book, as somebody once said.

Posted by: Geronimo Stilton at August 11, 2017 04:48 PM (PXbkt)

30 One thing that sticks out for me is Chris Matthews reporting every day about the imminent indictment of Dick Cheney. He would go to drama queen David Shuster and his breathless reporting accompanied by an into with special graphics and ominous music. This was about the time I entirely stopped watching cable news.

Posted by: mark1971 at August 11, 2017 04:48 PM (xPl2J)

31 Vaguely stronger storms will kill us all!!!

Posted by: Chris M at August 11, 2017 04:48 PM (eAZVt)

32 Prager was playing that clip this week and thought the Admiral did a masterful job, he didn't say who the congressman was , he didn't want to humiliate him.

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 04:48 PM (pPKG5)

33 I have a question from last thread. Isn't a Demi Moore, actually half a Moore?

Posted by: Northernlurker, who sometimes skulks and is now jobless and bored, so very bored at August 11, 2017 04:48 PM (hJrjt)

34 Or it could be oh the cartoon 'hero' Blue Falcon who's sidekick is Dynomutt.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at August 11, 2017 04:49 PM (1yjq9)

35 The left hates America so much that they figure anything is better.

Posted by: torabora at August 11, 2017 04:49 PM (6dFYM)

36 When Katrina happened and Kanye said Bush hates black people and he got away with it. After that I felt like I was in bizarro world.

Posted by: Jason at August 11, 2017 04:49 PM (uYpPl)

37 Yeah, the exceedingly slow rise of the ocean us much scarier than instantaneous hellfire and your outline seared into a concrete wall.

Posted by: Rob Crawford at August 11, 2017 04:49 PM (JgKcr)

38 What their angle of their dangle?

In the picture above......

Posted by: Widespread Pepe at August 11, 2017 04:49 PM (XFue2)

39 "When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?"

I think for me, it was around 2004. The Bush Derangement Syndrome had spread to the 'old' media types like Dan Rather. Add in the bad strategy in the Iraq invasion (didn't bring enough troops for occupation and didn't ask for volunteers for the fight when you could have found them)

It didn't scare me. Made me sad and angry. Started gunning up around then, to. Going from owning maybe 3 firearms to...more than three.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at August 11, 2017 04:50 PM (3OIiX)

40 How about we give all the nice people at the NYT a vacation. Pick an atoll in the South Pacific send them there free of charge, give Kim I'm Fat the GPS coordinates then dare him to hit it.

Posted by: Marcus T at August 11, 2017 04:50 PM (9KZTy)

41
Reagan selling drugs in the ghetto, creating AIDS, wanting to start WWIII....

Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 11, 2017 04:50 PM (493sH)

42 This also is playing along with the thought I made yesterday the Leftist group think now is giving the Norks nukes is ok.

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 04:50 PM (pPKG5)

43 >>>The reaction to 9/11 by libs sealed it for me, over the course of maybe three years.

My reaction to that was that they were very egotistical and ideological, and were lashing out at having their worldview (which affords them so much internal and external validation) being rubbished.

But that wasn't quite the same as realizing they were almost all entirely foolish, incompetent, and outright malicious.

For example: the GOP. It really only became obvious to me recently (within 5 years) that they're simply liars about what they're "fighting for."

They're fighting for favors for their corporate donors. Anything else they are just running on to get votes, so that they can pay off their corporate donors.

Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 04:50 PM (8rNrN)

44 which one?

His, naturally. He became The Lyin' of the Senate after that. Why any of his constituents continued to vote for him after that continues to be a mystery.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 04:50 PM (bIwZ6)

45 For me, it was Time magazine and Hinckley's attempted assassination. I was young and very into shooting at the time, and what they wrote about the "Devastator" ammunition used by Hinckley was so wrong it woke me up. And then I realized that they NEVER wrote anything that accurately represented technical details in any area, and I began to realize that they were actually pretty stupid. Murray Gell-Mann notwithstanding, once you realize you're being patronized by idiots, it's hard to go back to amnesia again.

The rest has been more of a set of layers of a rotten onion than any epiphanies - the smell is a good clue that what you're about to see is worse than what you've already seen. It's been a long time since I trusted traditional news media for anything.

Posted by: Bartlett at August 11, 2017 04:50 PM (zgaqX)

46 Authority has always been suspect.

Posted by: DaveA at August 11, 2017 04:50 PM (FhXTo)

47 I realized journalists couldn't be too smart when the dumbest people I went to school with were journalism majors. And education majors but that's another issue.

Posted by: NCKate at August 11, 2017 04:51 PM (8Xttu)

48 Ruby Ridge. Waco. The attempted railroading of Richard Jewell. And no one from the government at any level suffering any consequence for any of that.

Posted by: torquewrench at August 11, 2017 04:51 PM (ujwCG)

49
I don't know how to specifically answer your question Ace, but what I can say is I really became very politically aware around the time of the Clarence Thomas hearings. And then of course it came full circle in the aftermath of 9/11.

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at August 11, 2017 04:51 PM (mbhDw)

50 >>>33 I have a question from last thread. Isn't a Demi Moore, actually half a Moore?

before her breast augmentation, maybe a quarter Moore at best

Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 04:51 PM (8rNrN)

51 Is beachfront property decreasing in value?

Are (D) controlled municipalities changing building codes to address changes in the frost line?

There's you go.

Posted by: Moron Robbie, Not Quite as Low-IQ as Michael Obama, But Not as Smart as Some Birds at August 11, 2017 04:51 PM (psH+N)

52 Steyn is back on the Specialists

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 04:52 PM (pPKG5)

53 The real threat to Guam is all those stealth Japanese soldiers hidden in subterranean caves since WW2. They just been waiting for a sign.

Posted by: Zombie Emperor Hirohito at August 11, 2017 04:52 PM (HSepC)

54 The NYT went far left in the 30s and the rest of the lemmings followed them. The paper of record has a record, a communist one.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at August 11, 2017 04:52 PM (mpXpK)

55 I think it also helped growing up as a Small-government conservative from a young age. I absorbed the 'Government isn't the solution to the problem, government IS the problem' stuff from Reagan.

Then going into Pol Sci and realizing that bad people are drawn to power. That the Law was a weapon, not a way to mete out justice.

Guess I took half a redpill early.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at August 11, 2017 04:52 PM (3OIiX)

56 By harsher storms, they must mean those killer hurricanes and typhoons we were supposed to be getting all the time that never actually happened. In fact, we've had the mildest hurricanes ever since the opposite was predicted.

Posted by: OCBill at August 11, 2017 04:52 PM (df+Zi)

57 Or, if you prefer:

There your answer.

Posted by: Moron Robbie, Not Quite as Low-IQ as Michael Obama, But Not as Smart as Some Birds at August 11, 2017 04:52 PM (psH+N)

58 >>>I don't know how to specifically answer your question Ace, but what I can say is I really became very politically aware around the time of the Clarence Thomas hearings. And then of course it came full circle in the aftermath of 9/11.

That was Andrew Breitbart's Red Pill moment-- he says that's when he saw The Matrix.

But for him, it was about bias and dishonesty.

I guess I'm not asking about bias and dishonesty. I'm asking when/if you realized that we're in an asylum and the "doctors" in control are the most deranged of the bunch.

Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 04:52 PM (8rNrN)

59 >>>His, naturally.

Which one?
We all have more than one orifice.

Posted by: Banana Splits Guy at August 11, 2017 04:52 PM (7h4Fr)

60 Moldbug taught me that the Republicans were a protection racket, with nothing to say against the Democrats except, we have a different name. and then the 2008 crisis proved Moldbug right.

after this, I was uninterested in any Republican except one who was against Bush 's brand of Republican. I won't entertain a platform of "hurr durr libruls muh values". I won't fucking allow anyone to say "biggovemunt" in my presence.

I am tired of the cliches. they never did anything for me. all they do is reinforce that Republican politicians are liars and think I am stupid.

tldr, 2008. if Republicans can't manage a campaign against an outright communist like Barky, they can't manage a nation.

Posted by: Boulder terlit hobo at August 11, 2017 04:53 PM (jc0Ct)

61 For me it was during Vietnam, a war we were clearly winning.
The media won the war for the commies.
Almost all that followed has been commie influence or direct action against the USA, excluding a brief respite during Reagan.
Commie/Islamic influence is still an enormous problem in our federal government, even now.

Posted by: navybrat at August 11, 2017 04:53 PM (w7KSn)

62 I realized the MFM was spewing horseshit when I came back from Vietnam. When I finally started watching the news again, I saw that they were completely (and purposely) misrepresenting and misreporting on almost everything I saw over there.

Posted by: Soona at August 11, 2017 04:54 PM (Fmupd)

63 Why don't they take all the homeless people defecating on the streets in Seattle and put them in congress?

Posted by: Northernlurker, who sometimes skulks and is now jobless and bored, so very bored at August 11, 2017 04:54 PM (hJrjt)

64 The election of Barack Hussein Obama-Soetero.

*drops mic*

Seriously, that's when I knew for sure that the US is one fucked up place.

Posted by: GnuBreed at August 11, 2017 04:54 PM (6jaju)

65 Damn right climate change is the biggest threat ever when my paycheck depends on it.

Posted by: Government Sciency Scientist at August 11, 2017 04:54 PM (A3b6q)

66 I knew media was biased but a real tell was the coverage of the 2008 campaign.

When she first got named the VP candidate, MSM dug into Palin more in a week than they dug into Obama during the whole campaign. They broke the two-headed love-child story within days.

Meanwhile, what I dug into on my own was that Obama was as much a target over Tony Rezko as Gov Blagovich but the story got buried. Recall that Rezko gave Obama a thinly disguised bribe by buying the Obama's yard when he bought his big house in Chicago. That's the quid.

What was the quo? A little digging showed that as an IL state legislator, Obama made changes that helped Rezko pack the board of an IL state agency. Thereafter, you needed this board's approval to build or expand any medical facility in IL and had to bribe Rezko. The only politicians Rezko gave sizeable contributions to were Obama and Blago.

There was more dirt on Obama, if you only looked.

The biggest influence MSM has is not covering the obvious stories it should. The hagiography for Obama was just a bonus.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 11, 2017 04:54 PM (+7/1f)

67 For example: the GOP. It really only became obvious to me recently (within 5 years) that they're simply liars about what they're "fighting for."
---------------

That's a good example. For me it was how silent they were as the libs began to really dismantle and skullfuck the country in the summer of 2009. Other than the occasional grandstander or Sarah Palin, they were so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Kind of like how they are being now with all the garbage surrounding Trump and their fellow congresscritters getting SHOT.

It was disgusting and I have never looked at them the same. Many people, even here, couldn't see it and insisted they were really trying.

Posted by: Mega at August 11, 2017 04:55 PM (rv0Fo)

68 After 9/11, it hit me like a brick. These people gov. and MSM) are fucking idiots.

And insidious.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at August 11, 2017 04:55 PM (89T5c)

69 Would a global nuclear exchange have any effect on the climate?

Asking for a friend.

Posted by: Sam Adams at August 11, 2017 04:55 PM (DbadI)

70 The left's weird infatuation with all things Kennedy was always incomprehensible to me.

When this country elected Bill Clinton to the presidency, twice, I knew the left had jumped the shark.

I remeber reading all kinds of articles in Investors Business Daily about Clinton's dismal record and his continual f-ups prior to the first election, yet they elected him anyway. When Obama ran and there were articles everywhere about his dismal record and continual f-ups, I figured he'd be a shoe-in.

Posted by: RobdinellaMamma at August 11, 2017 04:55 PM (oQQwD)

71 I just can't take the NYT seriously. If they were really serious about solving the Anthropogenic Global Warming problem, they would be embracing the prospect of a nuclear winter.

Posted by: flounder, rebel, vulgarian, deplorable, winner at August 11, 2017 04:55 PM (tbOMB)

72 I would love to have the belief that it was some form of ignorance.

It's just pure evil and "the ends justifying the means".

These media people just look at their job like car salesman, how many "deals" can they close where they misinform enough people to get the election results they want.

If I'm going to pint to a year where the train really went off the rails, I would say in the 2000 Election during the Florida recount.

The media had of course been biased for a long time, but that's really when their mask slipped and they never really pretended much after that to be neutral.

Posted by: Maritime at August 11, 2017 04:55 PM (MbH5g)

73 At some point I realized we are being led -- or rather controlled, as we do not follow willingly, but through coercion -- by misfits, morons, and maniacs.

It was only recently, when I spent time with a government employee -- with both Savant Syndrome and Aspergers -- who I vainly attempted to reason some sense into his/her brain (a brain thoroughly unable to engage in cross hemispheric processing) that I realized this is the new 'normal'.

God help us we are so fvcking screwed if there are thousands in the government like him/her. Like some alien species with inferior brains, they *can* beat us. They're wired to win -- no matter what the cost.

Posted by: Slippery Slope Salesman at August 11, 2017 04:55 PM (EgwCt)

74 These are not your father's Founding Fathers.

Posted by: jd at August 11, 2017 04:56 PM (JX1fv)

75 Ace, I'm betting Blue Falcon is an F-Zero fan.

As for me, I don't think the American public is insane. Even for electing Obama: there were considerable upsides for racial harmony if he turned out to be a good President, and he was up against McCain- whose instability and stupidity might have made him an even worse pick in hindsight.

When was I certain the media was insane? Between Brexit and Trump. Made no small amount of money once I saw the way the wind was blowing. Until then I thought it was possible I was the one with twisted values.

Nope. It's them. And they do not even know how much more they have to lose.

Posted by: trev006 at August 11, 2017 04:56 PM (DeVCA)

76 I think when Tommy Thompson went on TV after the first Anthrax attack and said it was probably just a naturally occurring infection from soil (the first one seen in twenty-five years in the US, coincidentally happening 5 weeks after 9/11) that I realized that the government will always lie in their own interests, if such interests differ from their nominal employers, "the people of the United States"

Posted by: Sensitive new age guy at August 11, 2017 04:56 PM (mYDmK)

77 To answer your question, I had noticed what someone else had voiced before me. Any subject you were an expert on, you noticed they were spectacularly wrong about every time they reported on the most simple aspects. Then you realized they had to be that way about the other topics, too.

And it's like the optical illusion with the old lady and the beautiful young woman. Once you see it, you can't go back.

Posted by: Moron Robbie, Not Quite as Low-IQ as Michael Obama, But Not as Smart as Some Birds at August 11, 2017 04:56 PM (psH+N)

78 A kid in a Che Guevera t-shirt after 9-11 had me convinced people are being indoctrinated.

Posted by: Northernlurker, who sometimes skulks and is now jobless and bored, so very bored at August 11, 2017 04:57 PM (hJrjt)

79 This is the sentiment behind Buckley's "phone book" quote. Recognizing that everyone is an idiot, it is far safer to give the levers of power to random morons than to the narcissistic morons on the Harvard faculty.

Posted by: wooga at August 11, 2017 04:57 PM (WaVQv)

80 TheQuietMan: "I thought tipping over was the greatest threat it faced?"

Finally someone talkin' some sense!

Posted by: Hank Johnson at August 11, 2017 04:57 PM (H8S+R)

81 There was more dirt on Obama, if you only looked.

The biggest influence MSM has is not covering the obvious stories it should. The hagiography for Obama was just a bonus.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 11, 2017 04:54 PM (+7/1f)

Forcing the release of Jack Ryan's divorce records (on behalf of Barry) in the 2004 Senate race to get little Barry on the national stage.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 11, 2017 04:57 PM (493sH)

82 "When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the
government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually
deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about
this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?"

I think I'd always suspected it, simply because there were too many repeat episodes of things to chalk up to mere chance. The decisive moment vis a vis government was when I worked on Capitol Hill and saw the sausage-making up close and personal.

The feelings that followed were pretty dark, but not because of the corruption, stupidity, etc.; it was the realization that everyone pretty much accepted it and absolutely no one was ever going to do anything to stop it. It was watching Burke being played out in real life - evil would triumph because good people weren't going to do damned thing. (Though I now think it is more - but definitely not entirely - because of a lack of agreement on what to do and how to do it, and the lack of any sort of plan or organization that directly follow the former.)

Posted by: FaCubeItches at August 11, 2017 04:58 PM (rznWS)

83 For me it's been a matter of degrees, as I've steadily realized that, no matter how bad I thought things were, it was actually worse. Sometimes much, much worse.

It's why I don't even care right now where my polling place is now for next week's elections here. When you realized you have no control over the outcome, and you're pretty much fucked regardless, it's actually kind of liberating. Instead of worrying about DC screwing me over, I can instead concentrate on...um...well OK I'm screwed on all fronts these days, but that's beside my point...

Posted by: Brother Cavil, Abbot of St. Costello-on-the-Hurlingbone at August 11, 2017 04:58 PM (AM1GF)

84 >>>ce, I'm betting Blue Falcon is an F-Zero fan.

oh I hadn't heard of that. I see Blue Falcon is some featured jet in the game, right?

Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 04:58 PM (8rNrN)

85 I've always been aware that politicians for the most part are average at best except for their ambition to be a politician. I say that because I feel the same way about many of our Country's hired CEOs and upper management and military leaders.

Lucky for us there are enough unique and outstanding exceptions that we have been able to not just survive but to prosper.

Posted by: Jack Sock at August 11, 2017 04:59 PM (cqZPN)

86
"Climategate" email dumps showed me how venal and dishonest the whole ediface of science had become, although I had had personal experiences with the corruption of the vaunted peer review process fifteen years prior to that.

Bush 41 failing to slap down verbally that pussy who insisted that the President's job was to "take care of us" during the Richmond town hall "debate" in '92 was my eye-opener as to how deeply rot had infested the political sphere. That one still pisses me off to no end.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at August 11, 2017 04:59 PM (WoyGL)

87 Here's a question I'd like to ask. I'll try to figure out my own answer in the comments. But this is what I'm interested in:

When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?

For me mid 1990s. It started with the realization that Washington was one big scam that benefited the political elites and their elitist enablers (media, punditry, big business, etc.). Observing how actions didn't match the rhetoric from both sides. How the middle class and small business always seemed to get the short end of the stick.

My job exposed me to how legislation and regulation sausage were made and you could see they were all whores and could be bought by the full range of special interests from big business to big labor to big pander.

The stupid part came later. For years I gave them credit for 4 dimensional chess somehow being at work when they were basically just charismatic flim flam men and women given cover by the media and the system that the average person would never receive.

Posted by: Keith at August 11, 2017 04:59 PM (USf3s)

88 Around 2003, 2004, I think... after getting blown out of my office cubicle on 9/11, the New York Times told me the resulting next 10 years of insanity, unemployment, and the loss of everything I had was due mostly to my Islamophobia. I figured they were idiots at that point.

Posted by: gordonz at August 11, 2017 04:59 PM (jMfTa)

89
It was disgusting and I have never looked at them the same. Many people, even here, couldn't see it and insisted they were really trying.
Posted by: Mega

Your expectations are too damn high!

Posted by: Mitch McTurtle at August 11, 2017 04:59 PM (IqV8l)

90 My awareness of the utter corruption of our media came at a very early age. I was raised in a household full of firearms, and trained in firearms safety/hunter safety beginning at age nine. The media has NEVER been able to accurately or fairly portray firearms owners or hunters/sportsmen. My teachers, coincidentally, all shared the very same disability.

Posted by: Sam Adams at August 11, 2017 04:59 PM (DbadI)

91 My moment of clarity that both government and the media were consistently lying, was The Ozone Hole. The physical interactions of O2 and O3 in the atmosphere were ignored. I don't think there has been an honest study, government report, or analysis since.

Posted by: Jimmy Doolittle at August 11, 2017 04:59 PM (0O+FQ)

92 I was talking with a buddy of mine who works for local government in LA yesterday and he was telling me that LA is in a mild panic mode about the whole Nork Nuke situation.

They've been chasing fake problems so long(and failing miserably at those) that they have no idea how to approach a real one.

Maybe they can spend some money on a high speed train that goes faster than the Mach Stem Wave...

Posted by: Minuteman at August 11, 2017 05:00 PM (A3b6q)

93 btw I wasn't trying to insult BlueFalcon -- I was just wondering why he'd pick that name.

Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 05:00 PM (8rNrN)

94 It happened for me sometime in Obama's first term. Probably about when they passed Obamacare.

Posted by: Joe, living mobile at August 11, 2017 05:00 PM (Huj+P)

95 @17: "So hit post again."

I would advise against ever hitting a post.

Posted by: Zombie Sonny Nono at August 11, 2017 05:00 PM (rznWS)

96 My red pill moment was when I realized people were confusing real life with a mediocre 90s science fiction movie with progressively weaker sequels.

Posted by: Banana Splits Guy at August 11, 2017 05:00 PM (mNS8n)

97 the greatest threat to Guam, and to this country as a whole, is allowing people that pompously retarded to participate in the political process

Posted by: Grad School Fool at August 11, 2017 05:01 PM (swEzU)

98 The Red Pill? For me age 10 with Waco. Oh and CNN not acting like little girls during their staged news casts of the Gulf War as well.

Posted by: Widespread Pepe at August 11, 2017 05:01 PM (XFue2)

99 FWIW, I think in the back of my mind I've always known the GOPe was gutless. I mean my state sends Roy Blunt to either the senate or congress forever.

But I'm not sure what to do about it.

:shrug:

Back to writing my dissertation.

Posted by: tsrlbke PhD(c), rogue bioethicist at August 11, 2017 05:01 PM (dzmBR)

100 Oh, here's another. During the Poppy Bush presidency.

Remember the Kuwaiti nurse, smuggled out of the sheikhdom under the noses of the occuping Iraqis, who tearfully testified before the U.S. Congress about having witnessed Saddam's soldiers taking tiny babies out of incubators at her hospital and casually throw them on the floor to die?

And remember how it was later revealed that the young woman in question was not a nurse, had never worked in any medical capacity, had not been in occupied Kuwait City, and was in reality the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador, voicing a script written for her by the cynical PR flacks at Hill and Knowlton, who had been retained to sell the war to the American public?

Posted by: torquewrench at August 11, 2017 05:02 PM (ujwCG)

101 On the other hand, I knew the news media were lying idiots around when I turned six.

Posted by: Mega at August 11, 2017 05:02 PM (rv0Fo)

102 For me, it coincided with the movie "The Path to 9/11".

I used to be able to watch MSNBC, but the cr@p flowed so freely about "The Path to 9/11" that I couldn't watch MSNBC any more.

A day before Sept. 11, 2001, former President Bill Clinton told an audience that he could have had Osama bin Laden killed, but chose not to, because an attack could have endangered innocent women and children in Afghanistan.

Posted by: undocumented illegal SMOD at August 11, 2017 05:02 PM (e8kgV)

103 Kim Jung Un doesn't get his ass kissed by the North Korean media as much as Barry did by the MFM

Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 11, 2017 05:02 PM (493sH)

104 Would a global nuclear exchange have any effect on the climate?

Asking for a friend.

Posted by: Sam Adams

Kinda hard to kick up that much dust and kill that much biomass and not have an effect...

Posted by: Brother Cavil, Abbot of St. Costello-on-the-Hurlingbone at August 11, 2017 05:02 PM (AM1GF)

105 I think everyone reaches critical mass with the media at different points and the political bias was always understood. I think the recent supposedly "non-political" media bias is what's killing it for good that is filtering down to the center and non-crazy liberals who now see the media as a whole very differently. Gamergate. Marvel comics garbage. Google memo garbage. Bill Nye sciency garbage. You're seeing entertainment/culture, tech, and science reporters who are imbeciles writing what's politically expedient and EVERYONE with a brain sees it. It's why the Fake News smear works, its mainly used against morons like Jim Acosta and everyday people say, "oh yeah what a dummy." The left shouldn't have politicized things people enjoy for fun and relaxation, they probably could have pulled Hillary over the line otherwise.

Posted by: Brenden at August 11, 2017 05:02 PM (Am63W)

106 One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you YUUUUGE!

Posted by: Wet Rabbit at August 11, 2017 05:02 PM (IqV8l)

107
As for academia, schools stringing along enrollees at the college level and encouraging them to cascade downward to increasingly useless majors as they bombed out of harder ones showed me that colleges and universities were in their business solely for the money and screw the suckers enrolled there.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at August 11, 2017 05:03 PM (WoyGL)

108 I guess I realized in high school that just about all of my teachers were idiots, and I already knew more than they did on any subject, EXCEPT for an exceptional few in the hard sciences.

And I quickly realized, as soon as I had any contact with local government officials, that they were even stupider versions of my high school teachers. So this is nothing new to me, nice to be welcoming the rest of you on board.

Posted by: Tom Servo at August 11, 2017 05:03 PM (k1TUh)

109 Erosion, heat waves, storms - since when did all that shit start?

Posted by: Dang at August 11, 2017 05:03 PM (8b+oT)

110 The 90's were smoke and mirrors.

Posted by: Widespread Pepe at August 11, 2017 05:03 PM (XFue2)

111 The 90's were smoke and mirrors.

Posted by: Widespread Pepe at August 11, 2017 05:03 PM (XFue2)

Slick Willie: I didn't inhale

Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 11, 2017 05:04 PM (493sH)

112 Some where around 1967, I realized that before I could take anything in TV news as true, I had to see it at least two place.

Posted by: undocumented illegal SMOD at August 11, 2017 05:04 PM (e8kgV)

113 "When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the
government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually
deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about
this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?"

Government can be separated from media and dumb/deranged can be separated from self-interested, self-serving.

First major clue was the seizure or Washington Mutual and gift to JP Morgan, at the behest of JP Morgan during the 2008 financial freakout. Watching the hearings, doing the research, there was a mass of untoward happenings going on. Individuals/government, self-interested, media dumb/ignorant.

Last major clue was the Trump campaign, election, GOP and media behavior, and culminating in the "muh Russia" hoax. Lot's of "dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually
deranged" as well as self-interested and self-serving to go around to everyone.

Posted by: flounder, rebel, vulgarian, deplorable, winner at August 11, 2017 05:04 PM (tbOMB)

114 9 "For me, it was when Ted Kennedy wasn't removed from orifice after drowning MJK."

BINGO - it was that LIFE cover showing the fucker in a neck brace, like he was the fucking victim. And my mother had a group of lady friends over and they were all going "Oh what a tragedy!" but you could tell they weren't sorry for MJK. No, they were sorry they were down another Kennedy who could stink up the White House. Right then I knew most people were idiots, especially the ones called Democrats! Nothing that has happened since then to tell me I was wrong.

Okay, McCain is giving them a half decent run for it...

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at August 11, 2017 05:04 PM (n735I)

115 Posted by: torquewrench at August 11, 2017 05:02 PM (ujwCG)

Yeah Saddam never did anything like that. Poppy Bush just an ignorant war monger .

Posted by: Jack Sock at August 11, 2017 05:05 PM (cqZPN)

116 A few months ago I got stuck in a waiting room watching Kelly Ripa and Anderson Cooper talk about their cats. I wanted to kill myself. Who is consuming this shit?

Posted by: Mark1971 at August 11, 2017 05:05 PM (xPl2J)

117
The left shouldn't have politicized things people enjoy for fun and relaxation, they probably could have pulled Hillary over the line otherwise.
--------

Pulling Hillary over the line was never going to be a problem. The GOP was in on it.

The calculation never included Trump.

Posted by: Mega at August 11, 2017 05:05 PM (rv0Fo)

118 20 I sorta knew the people in the gov't were dumb. But once my wife started working there and we go a view form inside it was scary.

She's drifted ever more libertarian as things go on. If you say something like "we should just fire the bottom 10%" she'd likely respond "more."

Or my personal favorite "wow you keep getting promoted fast."
"I'm competent which automatically makes me the best employee in the room."
Posted by: tsrlbke PhD(c), rogue bioethicist at August 11, 2017 04:46 PM (dzmBR)

A buddy of mine got stationed at the Pentagon. Before he was apolitical and just live his life without a thought about government.

When I saw him last he was a through and through libertarian. I asked him what made him embrace that political viewpoint he told me:

"I saw THE organizational chart of the US Government."

Posted by: Minuteman at August 11, 2017 05:06 PM (A3b6q)

119 The government -- well, I blithely assumed that people who ran the government (or other major institutions) were generally at least low-level qualified.

At some point I realized we are being led -- or rather controlled, as we do not follow willingly, but through coercion -- by misfits, morons, and maniacs.

It was both scarifying and liberating, in a dark way.

yes.

We used to believe you could trust them to at least try to do the right thing. But, now you know they are only doing what is best for them, and their extended government/political/ruling class. It is a very tight group. Not many people can afford, or even know how to enter the game, which is what it is now. It's not serious. It's people who want the goods, not what is good for the people. You'll find a few who still believe in doing what's right, but very very few.

It is scary. How long has Congress been in the sewer in terms of polling numbers? We all know it, but what is being done about it? Good, decent people get stomped.

The river flows from certain universities and family lines. It's sick. Money and power block anyone of virtue.

Posted by: artisanal 'ette at August 11, 2017 05:06 PM (fceHP)

120 A few months ago I got stuck in a waiting room watching Kelly Ripa and Anderson Cooper talk about their cats. I wanted to kill myself. Who is consuming this shit?

Posted by: Mark1971 at August 11, 2017 05:05 PM (xPl2J)

Soccer moms: And we vote.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 11, 2017 05:06 PM (493sH)

121 104 Would a global nuclear exchange have any effect on the climate?

Asking for a friend.

Posted by: Sam Adams

Kinda hard to kick up that much dust and kill that much biomass and not have an effect...
Posted by: Brother Cavil

Wasn't it when Mount Pinatubo blew it's top, more stuff was released into the atmosphere that all the nuclear bombs that we have fired or test combined.

Posted by: rickb223 at August 11, 2017 05:06 PM (U76Nz)

122 @48: "Ruby Ridge. Waco. The attempted railroading of Richard Jewell. And no
one from the government at any level suffering any consequence for any
of that."

With respect to Ruby Ridge (1) and Waco (4), there were a few government folks who did their tickets punched - that's certainly a consequence.

Posted by: FaCubeItches at August 11, 2017 05:06 PM (rznWS)

123 Hardly any more exhibits for congressional IQ is some of the idiocy coming out of their mouths.

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 05:06 PM (pPKG5)

124 In his autobiography Carroll O'Connor said he figured out that the government and media were enemies of the public during the Korean War. Fascism is timeless.

Posted by: Steve Earle Song Ideas at August 11, 2017 05:07 PM (PvCxa)

125 There's a report on the radio news that a guy who sells bomb shelters in LA has people lined up to buy them, and that he's sold a year's worth - about 30 - since the latest Noel crisis started.

Speaking of the NYT, David Brooks wrote a surprisingly good column about Google firing that engineer, calling for the CEO of Google to resign, but the commenters are raising hell, agreeing with the firing. NYT subscribers are great consumers of confirmation bias.

Posted by: mercenary13 at August 11, 2017 05:07 PM (qP8xn)

126 I will say that I was...fanatically patriotic growing up. No idea why, nobody else in the family had their switched flipped like I did. And I was in favor of a strong central government, an empowered Federal government. Partly I think do to a lot of Civil War I reading I was doing at the time.

I didn't make the connection that a strong Federal government could/would be bad no matter which party held the White House until the 2000's, though.

Like I said, half a red pill growing up.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at August 11, 2017 05:07 PM (3OIiX)

127 Kinda hard to kick up that much dust and kill that much biomass and not have an effect...

Yep. Guam could have the effects of AGW over a few hundred years or so or Whoa Fat! could do it all in just a few minutes.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 05:07 PM (bIwZ6)

128 Media bias made me a conservative, that and logic. Also, better pies. I noticed the bias in the Bush v. Clinton election and once you notice the bias you see the stupidity.

Posted by: Dr Spank at August 11, 2017 05:07 PM (4e+hS)

129

btw, James Damore has an op-ed in the WSJ

Why I Was Fired by Google

James Damore says his good-faith effort to discuss differences between men and women in tech couldn't be tolerated in company's 'ideological echo chamber'

Posted by: artisanal 'ette at August 11, 2017 05:07 PM (fceHP)

130 For me , the media completely lost any shred of objectivity they may have had when the conservative media took it's first tentative steps to fight back. This is when it began to dawn on them that they may not have a monopoly on reporting. So I would date it to Bill Clinton "blaming" the Oklahoma City bombing on talk radio. Limbaugh's existence bugged the Clinton camp to no end.
The icing on the cake was the advent of FOX News in 1997. Once they were perceived as "conservative", all pretense of impartiality vanished and it was off to the races....

Posted by: JoeF. at August 11, 2017 05:08 PM (7uYFy)

131 The island itself is indeed more threatened by "climate change" over the next million years. The island will exist even if it is more radioactive than Chernobyl.

But for the inhabitants over the next 100 years, climate change is zero threat. But if a small Nork Nuke hits even 20 miles away, the tidal wave could still devastate inhabitants.

Posted by: illiniwek at August 11, 2017 05:08 PM (7Ep0P)

132 It also changed my opinion of many of my fellow citizens and onetime allies: I now view them as fools and maniacs (or worse) themselves for apparently seeming to continue to believe that Everything's Okay and we're still being led (controlled) by, if not the best and brightest, certainly the somewhat good and reasonably intelligent.

-
Mrs. Wrecks informed me last night of a new JFK assassination theory she got from that beacon of truth, NPR. It was the Mexicans. After all these years they still can't accept that a little commie puke killed JFK.

(Autocucumber changed JFK to NFL. No, the NFL wasn't assassinated. It committed suicide.)

Posted by: I'm Anonosaurus Wrecks and I approved this message at August 11, 2017 05:08 PM (Nwg0u)

133 North Korea crisis

Posted by: mercenary13 at August 11, 2017 05:08 PM (qP8xn)

134 AAAHHHHHHH!!! WATER! Why is it there??? MELTING ICE CAPS! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

Posted by: Al Gore at August 11, 2017 05:08 PM (/qEW2)

135 "At some point I realized we are being led -- or rather controlled, as we do not follow willingly, but through coercion -- by misfits, morons, and maniacs."

I think the word "Traitors" is what you are looking for.

Posted by: Curmudgeon at August 11, 2017 05:09 PM (ujg0T)

136 I realized the gov't was run by idiots when Condoleeza Rice came out and said "nobody could have predicted 9/11."

Setting aside our knowledge of the Bojinka plot and the first World Trade Center bombing, and that they knew Bin Laden had just killed Ahmad Shah Massou on 9/9/01, it was also obvious from a statistical analysis of terrorist methods at the time. So Rice was admitting that people who get paid to analyze terrorists for a living were incapable of seeing shit right under their noses.

Posted by: wooga at August 11, 2017 05:09 PM (WaVQv)

137 The reaction to 9/11 by libs sealed it for me, over the course of maybe three years.
Posted by: Mega

Ditto. Except for me it seemed more like one year. That event should have been a "Pearl Harbor" moment for my generation and a signal to make the Crusades look like fun time at summer camp.

Instead, the US got to be the world's policeman and half of the rest of Western civilization has had a serious low-T moment.

Pathetic.

This is how you get savages overrunning Europe and fat little dictator pansies threatening US interests with nukes. And we're not done yet . . . buckle up and just wait for it.

Posted by: Shinjinrui at August 11, 2017 05:10 PM (h5hE3)

138 Remember the Kuwaiti nurse, smuggled out of the sheikhdom under the noses of the occuping Iraqis, who tearfully testified before the U.S. Congress about having witnessed Saddam's soldiers taking tiny babies out of incubators at her hospital and casually throw them on the floor to die?

-------------

This happens all the time in abortion clinics in this country.

Posted by: Soona at August 11, 2017 05:10 PM (Fmupd)

139 Posted by: FaCubeItches at August 11, 2017 05:06 PM (rznWS)

My roommate was one of those that 'got his ticket' punched. Makes me have a slightly different perspective.

Posted by: Jack Sock at August 11, 2017 05:11 PM (cqZPN)

140 When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you?

*****

As a former intelligence guy, I learned to think with a dialectic perspective. It allowed me to call BS on everything I considered in an effort to view an issue differently.
It wasn't long before realizing this is how to look at everything that is announced by government: City, County, State and Federal.

Posted by: Diogenes at August 11, 2017 05:11 PM (0tfLf)

141 I grew up pretty cynical about government in general and politicians in particular, but from kind of a weird place. My dad was a PATCO air traffic controller that was fired by Reagan when I was 8. My parents had been Reagan Democrats, but his name became a bad word in our house. I grew up with griping about the dishonesty and incompetence of government in most of its forms. I didn't pay a lot of attention to politics the first few years of Clinton, but then realized that however bad it had been under Reagan -- and whatever his merits, the government was already big and incompetent, and didn't change much -- it was worse with Clinton. I drifted from semi-conservative Democrat to small L libertarian. I've never considered myself a Republican although I've voted for their candidates more often than not. And largely had my low opinion of politicians vindicated -- good at getting elected, full of themselves, greedy (for power mostly, but not entirely), and not really interesting in doing their 'jobs' beyond the extent necessary to get re-elected.

Even so, I didn't really get political until McCain won the primary and really paid attention to the switch in the media's attitude, 180 from maverick hero worship to snarking about the rabid and senile old coot. I knew there was media bias, but hadn't realized the extent until I started paying attention. At that point, whatever respect I had left for the media and/or their big government partners evaporated.

Posted by: bds` at August 11, 2017 05:11 PM (h2tdO)

142 For me , the media completely lost any shred of objectivity they may have had when the conservative media took it's first tentative steps to fight back. This is when it began to dawn on them that they may not have a monopoly on reporting. So I would date it to Bill Clinton "blaming" the Oklahoma City bombing on talk radio. Limbaugh's existence bugged the Clinton camp to no end.
The icing on the cake was the advent of FOX News in 1997. Once they were perceived as "conservative", all pretense of impartiality vanished and it was off to the races....
Posted by: JoeF. at August 11, 2017 05:08 PM (7uYFy)

good points

Imagine if the TV went black for a year or two. That is one quarter of the brainwashing battle right there.

Posted by: artisanal 'ette at August 11, 2017 05:11 PM (fceHP)

143 My liberal friends on Facebook seem to think that the North Korea problem was caused by electing Trump, and anything bad that happens now will be due to Trump being an idiot and causing a war.

My own disillusionment about the media has been a process more than a sudden event. I do remember one sudden thing though. I used to subscribe to _Newsweek_ magazine because I wanted to keep up on the news; then I read reporting (not editorial, reporting) about a shooting incident on a New York City subway. This included a sentence like this (from memory but I'm trying to quote it exactly): "Gun rights advocates have claimed that if a law-abiding person had been legally carrying a pistol on that train, the shooter could have been stopped and loss of life would have been less, but that never happens outside the movies." (Italics added by me, not in the original) This bit of editorializing mixed in with straight reporting was enough to make me cancel my subscription. I figured if I caught them telling me what to think on a subject I understood, I might not catch them telling me what to think on other subjects.

Posted by: mr_jack at August 11, 2017 05:11 PM (M59SC)

144 I think what made me question the Media was a story in the Washington Post around 1984. President Reagan had just made some change that allowed women to join the JayCees. The story in question said something to the effect of "and now the government is meddling in private organization," and it just struck me that had the decision gone the other way, the Post would be moaning on "denying women the same opportunities as men" or something similar.

In other words, no matter what he did Reagan could never win in their eyes.

Posted by: BeckoningChasm at August 11, 2017 05:11 PM (MZcWR)

145 and we're still being led (controlled) by, if not the best and brightest,

The only time any government was composed of the best and brightest was back during the founding of the US - and they built a nation able to withstand government by twerps, criminals, and shitheads. Unfortunately, the Founders had assumed that most of American society (the voting part, at least) would remain sane and decent (at least, in public). They never figured on the sort of perverted, twisted, insane self-hating culture that we have developed.

Anyway, after the Founders government has NEVER been made of the best and brightest. The best and brightest have better things to do and the Constitutionally limited federal government was built, specifically, to attract the mediocre.

Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at August 11, 2017 05:11 PM (rZ+mb)

146 "It also changed my opinion of many of my fellow citizens and onetime allies: I now view them as fools and maniacs (or worse) themselves for apparently seeming to continue to believe that Everything's Okay and we're still being led (controlled) by, if not the best and brightest, certainly the somewhat good and reasonably intelligent."

---

Felt that way for a long time, ace.

Posted by: SMFH at August 11, 2017 05:11 PM (sB1y1)

147 Well, I knew from childhood that the media were liars ... my father, a lifelong shooter, pointed out all the lies from back in the 60's when that big push started. NRA life member since my 18th birthday.

Plus, I had a 60's schooling: taught how to think, rather than what; also civics as it is no longer taught.
I had to learn the Constitution and pass a test on it to graduate from high school !

All that said, I was still raised a Chicago Democrat, but back when that could still be patriotic.

The obvious idiocy of Jimmuh Cattuh started some cracks in that. I voted for Reagan.

My real snapping point came in the 80's. I think it was the whole "Reagan Thinks Ketchup Is A Vegetable" controversy that pushed me over the edge. 90's was when I started using the phrase "Political Correctness", adopted from the Soviets, whose history I found interesting and increasingly
relevant to our own experience.

This whole century has just kept pushing ...

Sorry for the brief answer, I got pickles on the stove & in process all over the kitchen.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez, they are gaslighting us 24/7 at August 11, 2017 05:11 PM (Umfx1)

148 Dad was a WWII vet, served in the Persian Gulf. He was pretty much of a cynic, didn't trust the news or the government. His quote on newspapers was "Paper 'lies' still, they can write anything on it."

The nut doesn't fall far from the tree, so for all in tents and porpoises, been pretty much cynical myself since the 1960's.

Posted by: Edd Zachary at August 11, 2017 05:11 PM (wTini)

149 31 Vaguely stronger storms will kill us all!!!

Worse.. "Poisonous snakes will devour us whole!"

Funniest cartoon line ever, IMHO.

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at August 11, 2017 05:12 PM (n735I)

150 "When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you?"

I was a young private in the Army when I discovered the truth about authority; that is, some people in charge--thankfully few--might be crazy and/or stupid and/or hopelessly inept.

One of my battalion commanders was nuts--no, I don't mean he put on a Pattonesque tough-guy act for the troops or wore his work face or cultivated a persona. I mean he was deranged, not right in the head, bad wiring, having a nervous breakdown, who the hell knows? The Army found him out after he started getting really outwardly eccentric but thank God in Heaven he wasn't leading us when we actually did go into combat.

Posted by: troyriser at August 11, 2017 05:12 PM (4qf5a)

151 Hmm, I put some italics markup in there. What markup is accepted by the system here on AoSHQ?

Posted by: mr_jack at August 11, 2017 05:12 PM (M59SC)

152 Ace: "I now view them as fools and maniacs (or worse) themselves for apparently seeming to continue to believe that Everything's Okay and we're still being led (controlled) by, if not the best and brightest, certainly the somewhat good and reasonably intelligent."

I don't remember when "the Matrix" was exposed for me; it was gradual with peaks and valleys of stupidity. But it was a looong time ago. Probably more along the lines of when we as a nation went bankrupt and simply refused to change national behavior. Rampant denial and stupidity but mostly stupidity. It certainly pre-dated 9/11/01 by a good decade... maybe around the time Ross Perot ran the first time.

But as to the concluding paragraph, I think we need another term synonymous with Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect for observations of Leaders. Apparently, "we" forget and forgive and then listen to these incompetents and corruptocrats again after, at best, brief timeouts. It's uncanny.

In conclusion, people... they're the worst. And stupid.

Posted by: AnonymousDrivel at August 11, 2017 05:12 PM (H8S+R)

153 Mega, Please, it was a smart bet that they could turn Trump more toxic than Hillary, it just turned out not to be true. And the other billion Republican candidates in the primary were, what exactly? Jumping at the chance to lose to Hillary? Or perhaps wanting to run against the worst candidate in history and slide into the presidency.

Posted by: Brenden at August 11, 2017 05:12 PM (Am63W)

154 Posted by: Minuteman at August 11, 2017 05:06 PM (A3b6q)

My wife used to support universal health care. Now she'd probably mouth support because she's culturally liberal (and feels inclined to amongst her chatty liberal friends) but if you said "and it'll be run by the people you work with" (well not exactly) she'd go "oh fuck no."

At some level she's known for a while. Her mom is disabled after a TBI years back and every attempt to get help was bungled and ultimately dropped by the state. All this money we feed inot the system and they couldn't even get referrals for places we could pay for help out of the state. She's said before "there was a time, when I realized no one was coming and we were on our own." But it didn't really sink in how much that was true until she got inside.

Posted by: tsrlbke PhD(c), rogue bioethicist at August 11, 2017 05:12 PM (dzmBR)

155 I think it was the Lewinsky scandal--the married president was diddlling an intern in the oval office. Think about that. Incredible to watch those who tried to convince us (and are still trying to convince us) that it was no big deal.

Posted by: artemis at August 11, 2017 05:12 PM (AwPyG)

156
Just to talk out loud about something that's really bothering me -- what if we had a generation of youth with the exact inverse of psychotic? The psychotic is friendly, outgoing, the inverse is withdrawn. The psychotic hates animals, the inverse loves animals. The psychotic loves danger, the inverse requires 'safe spaces'. Etc etc etc.

I intend to go through an Aspergers self-assesment test at some point in time and confirm or dispute this. For now it seems 'plausible'. Worthy of at least taking a few moments to consider.

I'm throughly suspicious of people at the extremes. I don't want a government full of psychotics -- or the inverse. But the actions of this government in regards to PDJT seems to indicate that the inverse are solidly in control.

Posted by: Slippery Slope Salesman at August 11, 2017 05:13 PM (EgwCt)

157 27 >>>7 We are so schlonged!
Posted by: BlueFalcon in Boston

I happened across the meaning of "Blue Falcon" yesterday, and it's derogatory (it's military slang for a buddy-f***er, or backstabber, someone who throws a friend under the bus).

Just curious why you call yourself that, or if you even knew that meaning.

Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 04:47 PM (8rNrN)

I was in the Navy for 22 years, and still work closely with it, and I only first heard about Blue Falcon in the last year or so. I imagine it bubbled up out of the Air Force or something.

We called them Bravo Foxtrot - comes from the international letter names.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at August 11, 2017 05:13 PM (17QyB)

158 My realization came with the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987-88. I would tape them on my VCR during the day (while at work) and then play them at night (fast forward through a lot, it was deathly dull). And then listen to Dan Rather blather about something that happened that day, that had no relationship to what I saw.
That's when I knew that King Baby Dan was a liar, and that the network behind him were all liars.

You know, then checking into the past, you realized you had been lied to for YEARS. The myths about the Kennedy's, Johnson's Great Society years. A lot of things about the Viet Nam war, such a tragedy for the men who served.

I don't know where we go to get the truth, because a lot of people lie about a lot of things.

A lot of people cite later things, yet these correspond largely to when an individual person reaches an age of skeptical political awareness. It's been going on a long time, and continues to go on, right in front of us.

My Mother grew up in the 1930's, and told me the country never got closer to a dictatorship than under FDR. And the lies from the past continue to grow, even now.

Posted by: Bozo Conservative....outlaw in America at August 11, 2017 05:14 PM (S6Pax)

159 btw, James Damore has an op-ed in the WSJ

Why I Was Fired by Google

James Damore says his good-faith effort to discuss differences between men and women in tech couldn't be tolerated in company's 'ideological echo chamber'

Posted by: artisanal 'ette at August 11, 2017 05:07 PM (fceHP)

I hope to God that he really kicks the living shit out of Gargle

Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 11, 2017 05:14 PM (493sH)

160 For me it was the coordinated apoplectic response to Mitt Romney's response to Benghazi. Up until then I thought the media and government (redundant) were just biased. Their foaming rhetoric following Romney's completely sane statement on Benghazi and everything that followed convinced me they're totallt gnorant and morally retarded.

Posted by: Mike at August 11, 2017 05:15 PM (lnki2)

161

oh gosh
it's way past Scotch time!

TGIF all.

smile all weekend long

Posted by: artisanal 'ette at August 11, 2017 05:15 PM (fceHP)

162 Early 90's, When LA was on fire and I was flipping radio stations and tuned into the "Rush Limbaugh" guy, who was saying everything I had been thinking. Then I read his 1st book. Life was changed forever.

Posted by: Rick in SK at August 11, 2017 05:15 PM (FZYNt)

163 Wasn't it when Mount Pinatubo blew it's top, more stuff was released into the atmosphere that all the nuclear bombs that we have fired or test combined.

Posted by: rickb223

Enough to cause cooling in temps for a few years.

Now imagine a distributed event. One that also puts radioactivity into play in a large scale and disrupts systems in multiple places, human and otherwise.

Kinda bad.

Posted by: Brother Cavil, Abbot of St. Costello-on-the-Hurlingbone at August 11, 2017 05:15 PM (AM1GF)

164 I work for a company that has to deal with the EPA. They required us to do a test that we had never been done before. So I devised the test, ran the test and reported the results. They accepted the data and made decisions based on the results of the test.

10 years later, the government passes a law that says you have to inform test subject of any danger involved in a test. In the case of the test I performed, I was both directing the test and the doing the test. They decided the test, and the results were invalid because I did not inform MYSELF, of any potential dangers, based on a law passed years AFTER I performed the test.

I am only surprised they did not immediately demand we do the test over.

Posted by: JB1000, EAJ at August 11, 2017 05:15 PM (16OL0)

165 In the 1960s some friends and I put together a little band to entertain Marines wounded in Nam and recovering in the local navy hospital. We would go from ward to ward and got to talk to them. They weren't angry because they were wounded. They were pissed because they saw what that POS Cronkite and his cronies were reporting. And that the war was being led by politicians, specifically LBJ, for political reasons, not military purposes. This wasn't self pity because they were hurt but because their comrades were still being killed, their efforts wasted and maligned by this scum. Rather eye opening for a teenager.

That made me realize the government and press could be evil. It took longer to find out that many (okay, almost all) were not just incompetent but stupid to a frightening level.

Posted by: JTB at August 11, 2017 05:15 PM (V+03K)

166 I didn't have a single red pill moment, it was a process, but I can tell you the first crack in the dam. Susan Brownmiller's all-men-are-rapists screed Against Out Will.

Posted by: I'm Anonosaurus Wrecks and I approved this message at August 11, 2017 05:16 PM (Nwg0u)

167 Ace: Absolutely. The Blue Falcon is considered a flagship car in the F-Zero series, perfect for beginners and good for all skill levels. Its pilot, Captain Falcon, has a ""Falcon Punch" move in Smash Bros that is a popular meme.

Posted by: trev006 at August 11, 2017 05:16 PM (DeVCA)

168 1 - allow countries run by crazy people to have nukes and icbms
2 - those who know better convince us we need all nations to put nuclear weapons under the control of the UN
3 - another big step towards world government. G'night, folks.

Posted by: mallfly suPreme at August 11, 2017 05:16 PM (ILitO)

169 "When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the
government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually
deranged, and what confirmed it for you?"

Joining the Peace Corps. I had actually already been pretty much sure of it but I never imagined such worthless, naive incompetence was possible in an organization. The only thing they do well is generate propaganda to convince the rest of America what dedicated crack group of selfless humanitarians doing good works around the world they are. The host countries/communities and ex-volunteers know the reality is very different.

Posted by: Ripley at August 11, 2017 05:16 PM (MxEKc)

170 Ace, I think this was my red pill: http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf

It is a talk from Michael Crichton: Aliens Cause Global Warming
If you haven't read it, I cannot recommend it enough. A taste -
"I expected science to be, in Carl Sagan's memorable phrase, "a candle in a demon haunted world." And here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity. Some of the demons that haunt our world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not benefited from permitting these demons to escape free. But let's look at how it came to pass."

Posted by: BoB at August 11, 2017 05:17 PM (KSwV7)

171 The week of 9-11, Paula Zahn appropriating expertise on myriad topics, live and on t.v.; I particularly remember her sneering at people who had actual knowledge of structural aspects of the buildings. I don't think she was literally saying, "Fire can't melt steel," but she was overstepping the line that reporters need to not overstep. That was my wake-up call.

Posted by: m at August 11, 2017 05:17 PM (LRfkc)

172 I guess I'm not asking about bias and dishonesty. I'm asking when/if you realized that we're in an asylum and the "doctors" in control are the most deranged of the bunch.

This is going to be massively unpopular, but I don't think they are deranged. I think that we are in the middle of a great shift culturally as the epistomological implications of Darwin's theory of Natural Selection finally hits mainstream weltanshauung. Conservatives either are religious, in which case they don't believe that their minds were formed by random mutation (i.e., God formed them in some way), or they are irreligious but are still thinking of humans are the capacity for knowledge in ways that are informed by traditional western culture that was in turn based on traditional religious thought. In contrast, Progressives have taken the idea that our minds were formed wholly by random chance to heart, and have come to the inescapable conclusion that knowledge in the traditional western sense is impossible to have. Since objective reality is impossible to know, it follows that all truth claims are subjective and ultimately a means of power, ergo, they reject "reality" as just another way in which one group subjugates another. Since this is so, language and truth claims are reduced to weapons in the quest to subjugate and avoid subjugation.

Stupid, incompetent, destructive, and just plain wrong? Yes. Deranged? No.

Posted by: Grey Fox at August 11, 2017 05:17 PM (bZ7mE)

173 When the NORK leader said he was going for Guam I knew this was all a bunch of BS.

This is China playing a regional power game against the US using the NORKS as enforcers.

The US should tell the South Koreans it's a new day requiring new politics. They need to put their plushy toys down and accept that they are going to be ruled by a strongman until the situation normalizes. The Strongman will be given access to US nuclear weapons calibrated with a range that extends only to North Korea and the Chinese Coastline 200 miles in. Then sit back and let China become politically engaged.

Posted by: charley horse at August 11, 2017 05:17 PM (+kahX)

174 Fear of fear is a fearful thing.

Posted by: Fat Hercules at August 11, 2017 05:17 PM (LTHVh)

175 I became politically aware in college during Reagans first term. I sensed the media was unfair and the democrats didn't really have the best interest of the nation in mind

By Clintons election I had lost ANY respect for the media and began to realize that the democrats were actively working against the best interests of the nation

During GW Bush first term something changed. The media dropped all pretense of objectivity. Democrats were actively cheering for our defeat in Iraq. By 2004 the media had taken sides (many think this happened in 2008 with Dogeater but it happened with Kerry)

I thought republicans suffered from Stockholm syndrome because of the press. I now know better

Posted by: Blutarski-0.0 at August 11, 2017 05:18 PM (Y6JzV)

176 BoB, i've read that a few times.

Good speech.

Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 05:18 PM (8rNrN)

177 It's been a series of stages for me. I could point to several incidents that have contributed, but the two biggest ones were the Iraq war and the financial crash.

I supported the Iraq war under the assumption that the people in charge had a reasonable grasp of what we were getting into. I assumed a lot of the happy optimistic talk was just a P.R. facade, and that behind closed doors people were being more realistic. When it became clear to me that a lot of the folks at the top actually believed their own bullshit, and that much of our strategy seemed to be based on the fantasies of people who had no military experience and had never been within a thousand miles of a battlefield, that was a big turning point for me.

With the financial crash -- I moved to Florida in 2004. Florida, remember, was one of the centers of the housing bubble. Even in 2004, it seemed intuitively obvious to me as a layman with no expertise in economics that we were in a housing bubble and were headed for a major crash. I was watching people who made less money than me buying houses I did not think I could possibly afford. I was watching people taking out home equity loans that seemed absurd, to pay for ridiculous purchases. I kept thinking "Tulip craze."

But all the experts were telling me that my eyes were deceiving me. For a while there, I just assumed that all this financial stuff must have been over my head, because all the experts who supposedly studied this stuff for a living and got paid vast sums of money to be right about it seemed so cocksure. For a while, I was pretty sure *I* was the stupid one.

Then the financial crash happened, and all my dumb, naive ideas about finances -- ideas like, "gee, if you take out a loan, you ought to have a realistic plan for paying it back, one that does not involve magic and fairy dust and cotton-candy wishes" -- were proven right, and all the high-priced experts in government and media were wrong, wrong, wrong.

That was what tore it for me, I think. From that point onward I've tended to assume that much of what the establishment tells me is bullshit.

Posted by: Ex-liberal at August 11, 2017 05:18 PM (R1mDg)

178 i didn't recognize the depth of their ignorance, spitefulness or maliciousness until recently, the response to Trump's election exposed it too clearly to ignore.

But what now? Now that it's confirmed.

Posted by: BuckV at August 11, 2017 05:19 PM (JchI9)

179 Again, I believe it was talk radio in mid '90's. Rush Limbaugh used to poke fun at the Clinton's and more seriously point out their criminality AND how the media covered for them. People were receptive to his message because he was simply articulating what they already knew and believed. This led to copycats ( Hannity) and frauds (Savage) but the message spread.

Posted by: JoeF. at August 11, 2017 05:19 PM (7uYFy)

180 I happened across the meaning of "Blue Falcon" yesterday, and it's derogatory (it's military slang for a buddy-f***er, or backstabber, someone who throws a friend under the bus).

Just curious why you call yourself that, or if you even knew that meaning.

Posted by: ace

He may have been referring to the cartoon character, of course, which is what I naturally assumed. (First I've ever heard of the meaning you're mentioning...)

Posted by: Brother Cavil, Abbot of St. Costello-on-the-Hurlingbone at August 11, 2017 05:19 PM (AM1GF)

181 Wasn't it when Mount Pinatubo blew it's top, more stuff was released into the atmosphere that all the nuclear bombs that we have fired or test combined.
Posted by: rickb223 at August 11, 2017 05:06 PM (U76Nz)

------------

It doesn't even have to be as violent as Pinatubo. There are active volcanoes both above ground and below water that release enough energy and gases to make a small nuclear exchange look like a mouse fart.

Posted by: Soona at August 11, 2017 05:19 PM (Fmupd)

182 When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you?

When I was young I didn't pay much attention to the media but I've thought that way about government for as long as I can remember thinking about government, at all. I thought pretty much all of my elementary school teachers were idiots and I was suspicious of all authority figures.

I think my attitude really gelled when they instituted Black History Month while I was in elementary school. That was such a farce that it made me laugh and realize that they were trying to sell totally stupid lies. I was into math and science and when they tried to make George Washington Carver out to be one of the greatest scientists, ever, I was very much offended.

It was all downhill from there.

Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at August 11, 2017 05:19 PM (rZ+mb)

183 Although I was in college at the time didn't follow it closely, it was the Clarence Thomas hearings and Anita Hill's lies, portrayed as truth, by both the Democrats and the press. Especially her detailed testimony about the porn tapes and the lie detector test she supposedly passed.

My Lord. It was ridiculous.

Posted by: K-E at August 11, 2017 05:20 PM (uOEHQ)

184 153 Mega, Please, it was a smart bet that they could turn Trump more toxic than Hillary, it just turned out not to be true. And the other billion Republican candidates in the primary were, what exactly? Jumping at the chance to lose to Hillary?
--------------------

Some were. You seem to have forgotten "you have nothing to fear with Obama on the White House, my friendsh".

The rest are merely on lightly varying degrees of the same team. Sorry if you don't see it.

Then again, I dont know who you are so your revisionism of "worst candidate in history" is notable. Huge name recognition, inevitable, spent a billion dollars and had the whole media behind her. Trump masterfully turned that around and that is the ONLY reason she lost.

Posted by: Mega at August 11, 2017 05:20 PM (rv0Fo)

185 I thought that the only thing guam had to worry about was tipping over.

Posted by: Pious Agnostic at August 11, 2017 05:20 PM (jb6+d)

186 And Trump has FU money. That was the other magic ingredient.

Posted by: Mega at August 11, 2017 05:21 PM (rv0Fo)

187 >>>Stupid, incompetent, destructive, and just plain wrong? Yes. Deranged? No.

I still say deranged. I have repeated this ad nauseum, but a disbelief in God does not cure man's inherent need to believe or transcend. They disbelieve in God but have created a deranged anti-church to worship in.

And I do believe they are basically maniacal cultists.

These people are not happy people. They are not happy in their own lives or skins. They seek Meaning and Transcendence to fill the empty voids inside of them. They fill themselves with hate and sabotage and call it love and creation.

Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 05:22 PM (8rNrN)

188 Speaking of Michael Crichton and CAGW.

Nearly every Michael Crichton novel has been made into a movie except State of Fear, his prescient 2004 novel about eco-terrorists and the scam that is CAGW.

Why is that, I wonder?

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 11, 2017 05:22 PM (+7/1f)

189 If Michael Moore visited Guam he would eat it.

Posted by: gNewt at August 11, 2017 05:23 PM (X9Eva)

190 The Gray Lady has dementia.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 11, 2017 05:23 PM (0mRoj)

191 That damn island gets any hotter and we're gonna have to bring in a metric shit ton of ice cubes.

Posted by: Hank Johnson at August 11, 2017 05:23 PM (Tyii7)

192 "When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged"

Certainly when I realized Global Warming was not a problem, but a solution to a problem--the problem being "How can we trick the public into imposing higher taxes, World Government and control of industrial policy?"

What brought it home for me though, was the last eight years, when almost no one in Official Washington would utter the simple truth:

Barack Obama is an Islammunist traitor and Hillary Clinton is a jackleg criminal grifter.

Icing: only last month the House voted for the military to continue providing transgender operations. We are facing madmen chasing nukes and terrorism across the globe, and we can't even give wounded vets the care they earned...but we've got money for this?

That is insane. I now regard most of DC as some combination of arrogant, greedy, un-American, superstitious, retarded, perverted, malignant, criminal, extremist and/or treasonous.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at August 11, 2017 05:23 PM (Ndje9)

193 Or do a proper withdrawal and cede the region to the Chinese. Those are pretty much the choices. Talking tough and letting North Korea amass a large nuclear arsenal is not acceptable. Part of the deal Trump would need to make in tandem with the US withdrawing from Japan and South Korea is the dismantling of the North Korean Nuclear Program with direct US involvement. Unthinkable? Maybe not.

Fighting a war with the NORKS would show China the US arsenal and while the US was engaged, China would very probably take out the US 7th Fleet. I don't think all parties are ready to escalate to that degree. But that's what would happen if the US attacks North Korea. China is going to move just like they moved last time the US got too close.

Posted by: charley horse at August 11, 2017 05:23 PM (+kahX)

194 Don't discount the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings broadcast in it's entirety and in all it's glory for all to see. And there was no "FAUX News" around at the time....

Was watching clips. Strom Thurmond, Ted Kennedy, Joey Paste.....what theater.

Posted by: JoeF. at August 11, 2017 05:24 PM (7uYFy)

195 I have said for over 15 years that this nation is run by people who are suffering from profound mental disorders. Be at psychopathy, sociopathy or simple narcissism, it's been prevalent for some time. They just did a better job of masking it or deflecting it. They've since been arguing to normalize it and now they are simply letting their freak flag fly.

Posted by: SaltyDonnie at August 11, 2017 05:24 PM (BONA0)

196 Back in 2001, I'd Oder a pay per view to see Paula Zahn overstep lines. She would melt steel.

Posted by: Widespread Pepe at August 11, 2017 05:24 PM (XFue2)

197 Something else you learn on the inside is: very little changes. My wife started under Obama, she thought at first Trump would user in massive change, but for the most part the only change was the picture at the entrance. There's simply too much bureaucracy between her and congress/administration that honestly it keeps plugging along and probably would if we lost all contact with the congress/POTUS. (With the exception of the budget, but that only matters in broad strokes.)

Posted by: tsrlbke PhD(c), rogue bioethicist at August 11, 2017 05:24 PM (dzmBR)

198 I came to the party sometime after 93 when I had finished with the Navy. 9/11 cemented it and my full conversion into the church cinched it. I'm male, white (whatever that means), veteran, religious (attend weekly mass), gun owner, married, and all around deplorable. And we are well and truly screwed with the inept, ignorant, brainwashed profoundly broken government.

Posted by: USNtakim at August 11, 2017 05:24 PM (zZWkn)

199 For me, it was back in the early 1990s, and yes, it was a New York Times story. Story was a blurb put out about then Senator John Kerry claiming he'd found evidence that the Nixon administration had concealed the fact that some American troops had been killed or taken as POW/MIA in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam war. The article covered a full half page of the paper.

But if you read far enough into it (about 2/3 of the way) you learned the truth. What Kerry had found was some memos promulgated by then Undersecretary of Defense Wild Bill Clements (later governor of Texas). These memos did not conceal the fact that some of our guys had died, been taken prisoner or were MIA, but what they did direct was that all mention of where they had died (Laos or Cambodia) be expunged from their records. Technically, we were not supposed to be in those countries. But neither was the fucking NVA, which is who our guys were fighting there in the first goddam place. A nontrivial difference except for the usual suspects.

But once you dug far enough into the story, the truth finally comes out. In fact, at the tail end of the story Kerry is confronted with the truth, and he promptly starts backpedaling about about Mach 2, saying "Oh, never mind. That's not important".

But what got me was why didn't the fucking NYT say so in the first place, that Kerry was spouting nonsense from the start, rather than waiting until you got over 2/3 of the way through the damn story? That is the story that finally convinced me that the media was irretrievably around the damned political bend and no longer worth my time...

Posted by: The Oort Cloud - No-Longer-Deplorable Source of all SMODs at August 11, 2017 05:24 PM (RxCVB)

200 Team McCain sabotaged HIS OWN (wildly popular) VP ffs. While the campaign was still going.What team do you THINK they were on?

Posted by: Mega at August 11, 2017 05:25 PM (rv0Fo)

201 Also, when I was in elementary school they tried pushing the Metric bullshit, which ticked me off to no end and further solidified my opinion.

Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at August 11, 2017 05:25 PM (rZ+mb)

202 People left Christianity only to join some left wing mother goddess earth religion.

That is what this story proves...we might get nuked, but what is more important is we have angered the nature gods and must repent!

Mankind is wicked and must cleanse ourselves with new holy taxes on carbon.

Posted by: William Eaton at August 11, 2017 05:26 PM (MuTTO)

203 When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the
government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually
deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about
this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?

I was a Rush Baby, so I always knew that the media was firmly in the left's camp. But I think the crystallizing moment was Clinton's impeachment. The media was hailing Clinton as a hero, and even I, a middle-schooler, could see that Clinton evading impeachment would have disastrous consequences down the road (like Obama flushing the Constitution down the toilet). Was it scary? Not really, Rush made us laugh through it so we wouldn't cry. "In a Yuuugooooo...."

Posted by: pookysgirl at August 11, 2017 05:26 PM (XKZwp)

204 When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?

*****

We know that as far back as the NKVD that the Russians were seeking ways to topple America. Their goals: take control of education, unions, communications (media) and at least one political party. Not hard to consider they acquired control of both.
For the last 40 years politics have been a show. A dance. Pure theater.
America runs along day to day thru momentum. But the energy is running out and we are seeing the institutions of government for what they have become.

Posted by: Diogenes at August 11, 2017 05:26 PM (0tfLf)

205 Then the financial crash happened, and all my dumb, naive ideas about finances -- ideas like, "gee, if you take out a loan, you ought to have a realistic plan for paying it back, one that does not involve magic and fairy dust and cotton-candy wishes" -- were proven right, and all the high-priced experts in government and media were wrong, wrong, wrong.

That was what tore it for me, I think. From that point onward I've tended to assume that much of what the establishment tells me is bullshit.

Posted by: Ex-liberal at August 11, 2017 05:18 PM (R1mDg)

---

Ah but many of those over-extenders got to refinance or receive other assistance to stay in the homes or otherwise suffer much softer consequences, and the thrifty save-your-money types like us had our investments devalued by "quantitative easing" and extended 0% interest rates.

The over-extenders lost nothing.

I've been wondering who the idiots are.

Posted by: Moron Robbie, Not Quite as Low-IQ as Michael Obama, But Not as Smart as Some Birds at August 11, 2017 05:27 PM (psH+N)

206 I think my red pill moment was the lack of consequences for people with the right connections.

"Laws for thee but not for me" is SOP these days.

I was vaguely aware of the fact that connections would allow one to avoid consequences, to a certain extent, years ago.

However, it's far worse, these days, than it has ever been.

Posted by: Blake at August 11, 2017 05:27 PM (qC1Sy)

207 When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you?
Toss-up between a politician talking about the deficit/debt and the disgraceful way they continue to fund Planned Parenthood, rather than prosecute it for being ghoulish murderers.

What were your feelings about this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?
After the frustration and anger (which rekindles every time an msm/dnc/GOPe dissembles), I found overwhelming solace in The Word of God, which constantly, mercifully, forgivingly tells us that while we are in this world, we are thankfully not of this world, but God's eternal kingdom.

Posted by: Taqyia2Me @ Intersectionality of Deplorable & Irredeemable at August 11, 2017 05:27 PM (Ftuf+)

208

Well, to be fair, there were signs that we were being told just how much the media sucks.

Network the movie.

Mary Tyler Moore

Blazing Saddles

Posted by: Rev Dr E Marco Rubio Esq at August 11, 2017 05:27 PM (0WCz5)

209 "I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory..."

Grew up hearing that, and it stuck.

Posted by: Anon a mouse... at August 11, 2017 05:28 PM (MINbv)

210 At some point I realized we are being led -- or rather controlled, as we do not follow willingly, but through coercion -- by misfits, morons, and maniacs.

Now just cut that talk out right now, mister! I am a sane person. And a genius. If you ignore my advice, YOU are a dangerous psychopath who wants to destroy the planet.

Posted by: Al Gore at August 11, 2017 05:28 PM (/qEW2)

211 Supposedly, countries don't got to war with their trading partners.

If we ever got "hot" with China over the NORKs, it would have momentous consequences on trade. We'd lose, but the ChiComs would lose more. Even without this, my over/under is that China has ten years before it has a Life Event.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 11, 2017 05:29 PM (+7/1f)

212 In the 90's, I used to read the NY Times. Like actually *read* it... with a straight face. Without irony or disgust. I had a friend who worked at the magazine and I always thought, "wow, she has a great job." How could I have done that? Did it just go completely insane after 9/11 and GW Bush? Because if it was always like that then I was a babbling idiot in my 20's. I put my money on babbling idiot.

Posted by: gordonz at August 11, 2017 05:29 PM (jMfTa)

213 We know that as far back as the NKVD that the Russians were seeking ways to topple America. Their goals: take control of education, unions, communications (media) and at least one political party. Not hard to consider they acquired control of both.

Unfortunately they were wildly successful in their goals. There was one moment when we might have rip the bastards out with McCarthy but the left went after him and everyone associated with him to destroy them and stay in power.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 11, 2017 05:29 PM (493sH)

214 They Live.

What a red pilled movie.

Posted by: Widespread Pepe at August 11, 2017 05:29 PM (XFue2)

215 I think my attitude really gelled when they instituted Black History Month while I was in elementary school. That was such a farce that it made me laugh and realize that they were trying to sell totally stupid lies. I was into math and science and when they tried to make George Washington Carver out to be one of the greatest scientists, ever, I was very much offended.

-
The great Negro scientist meme that amuses/annoys me is Benjamin Braddock, inventor of the wooden clock. Where would we be today but for the wooden clock?

Posted by: I'm Anonosaurus Wrecks and I approved this message at August 11, 2017 05:30 PM (Nwg0u)

216 "When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?"

Good question. I think it was more of a process for me. I've always had an anti-authoritarian streak and been suspicious of government power. When I started thinking more that these people were deranged probably crystallized when I started seeing zombie's photo reports, then the way W was treated, then the worship of TFG leading up to and throughout his presidency. I think they've been this way for a long time but were a little more subtle about it until maybe 15-20 years ago, and it's only amped up since then.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 11, 2017 05:30 PM (0mRoj)

217 There isn't a doubt in my mind that Democrats are guided by Satan. In fact, their beliefs and methods are hard proof to me that evil is real.

They sell discarded fully-formed-baby parts, get rich off of it, but that's not enough... they want those who the practice disgusts to work and PAY for it.

Even if you don't believe in "Satan" as such, that is the stuff of evil.

Pure evil.

Posted by: Mega at August 11, 2017 05:30 PM (rv0Fo)

218 The last straw was realizing the republicans didn't want to actually pass anything in their platform.

Trump ripped off ALL the masks. Amazing.

Posted by: Max Power at August 11, 2017 05:31 PM (q177U)

219 To be fair, most voters aren't the brightest stars in the tool shed.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with an average voter. - W.C.

Posted by: Jack Sock at August 11, 2017 05:31 PM (cqZPN)

220 I still say deranged. I have repeated this ad nauseum, but a disbelief in God does not cure man's inherent need to believe or transcend. They disbelieve in God but have created a deranged anti-church to worship in.

And I do believe they are basically maniacal cultists.

These people are not happy people. They are not happy in their own lives or skins. They seek Meaning and Transcendence to fill the empty voids inside of them. They fill themselves with hate and sabotage and call it love and creation.

Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 05:22 PM (8rNrN)

-------------

Don't forget insanely delusional. But I agree. So many of the people that are spawning cults and making the news would have been locked up in mental institutions back in the days.

Posted by: Soona at August 11, 2017 05:31 PM (Fmupd)

221 But, as bad as government and media have been, a new low (new, by orders of magnitude) was hit with Barky's coverage and election. That was truly unprecedented. Never has any, even half-successful, society willingly elected to kill itself like that, using such a retarded and talentless instrument of self-destruction.

Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at August 11, 2017 05:31 PM (rZ+mb)

222 I was a kid. Literally a 15 year old. I was a little intense and used to have my dad drive me down to the library of congress so I could wallow in every book ever while I did my AP history, spanish, or english papers. Somehow I got assigned a paper (every student a different one) on Joseph McCarthy. There I had access to contemporanous articles and clips as well as scholarship from the time. My lefty ap prof probably wanted me to "learn" (an old lesbian with a bust of Lenin on her desk). My parents, older, and a product of their time had the normal media produced opinion of McCarthy. It dawned on me as I did the research, that not only was the prevalent "opinion" false, it was a fucking lie AND that was before the Venona papers came out.

Then it dawned on me. The left had created the lie, that they lied about Vietnam too, that everything they said was a lie because they were communists. Now I call them Anti-colonial, globalist, redistributionist collectivists, but it's the same shit. They became anti-war the minute we started fighting communists and not before.

However, I only very recently realized that the RIGHT was also swarming with lying assholes who were as bad or worse than the communist left. They are as or more evil as they are fine with the progressives (global redistributionist collectivists) and only want to pretend to have "principles" they cannot name in pursuit of not justice, liberty, or the shining city on the hill, but rather personal satisfaction and wealth.

The first happened in the 80s, the second this year.

Additionally, flipping Alan Dershowitz is arguing with some blue checked lefty on twitter. The guy is telling Dersh that Alexandria is a dem city and just as bad for a jury as DC so the only difference is race so Dersh is a "racist." NEITHER ONE seems to get that the Eastern District Court doesn't pull jurors from just Alexandria City. It's not a circuit court for God's sake.

Posted by: dagny at August 11, 2017 05:31 PM (wZuWv)

223 My theory is that government is run by very smart but evil people, that stay in the shadows. They keep the people divided by pushing various factions, with those factions led by corrupt and more stupid zealots. Obama was a useful idiot, brought along by his Frank Marshall Davis type mentors, overseen by other shadow figures. First black prez of ??? at Harvard ... never wrote a thing except gibberish.

Soros is Dr. Evil ... many like him more hidden. The brainy people are behind the scenes, or in the bureaucracy pushing the necessary buttons. Those buttons are to serve the shadow syndicates, and keep the government in chaotic agitation. They employ the baser Democrat faithful at lesser positions.

Brainy good people produce things or maybe have blogs and discuss how things should be, but they are generally not corrupt enough to work their way into the evil swamp that our government has become.

Posted by: illiniwek at August 11, 2017 05:31 PM (7Ep0P)

224 always knew they were incompetent. the crossing over moment(s)? Common Core and Globull Warmening

Posted by: TN flatlander at August 11, 2017 05:31 PM (27szy)

225 I was in the Navy for 22 years, and still work closely with it, and I only first heard about Blue Falcon in the last year or so. I imagine it bubbled up out of the Air Force or something.

We called them Bravo Foxtrot - comes from the international letter names.
Posted by: Jeff Weimer at August 11, 2017 05:13 PM (17QyB)

I was Air Force for 25 Years. Never heard the term. Maybe it's a Fighter Pilot Thing

Posted by: Minuteman at August 11, 2017 05:33 PM (A3b6q)

226 I figured out government institutions were filled with dummies when I started dealing with them concerning our business.

I also realized politicians are idiots when I personally know some of them.

I've thought the media were idiots and liars since about 1988.

Posted by: CaliGirl at August 11, 2017 05:33 PM (Ri/rl)

227 The great Negro scientist meme that amuses/annoys me is Benjamin Braddock, inventor of the wooden clock. Where would we be today but for the wooden clock?
Posted by: I'm Anonosaurus Wrecks and I approved this message at August 11, 2017 05:30 PM (Nwg0u)

But then I came along and saved the world.

Posted by: Clock Boy at August 11, 2017 05:33 PM (Fmupd)

228 I still say deranged. I have repeated this ad nauseum, but a disbelief in God does not cure man's inherent need to believe or transcend. They disbelieve in God but have created a deranged anti-church to worship in.

And I do believe they are basically maniacal cultists.

These people are not happy people. They are not happy in their own lives or skins. They seek Meaning and Transcendence to fill the empty voids inside of them. They fill themselves with hate and sabotage and call it love and creation.

No argument there. What I meant is that the rejection of rationality that lies behind their worldview is not itself irrational - that is, they didn't get up one morning and decide that ignoring reality sounded cool. It is a reaction to a very deep and subtle philosophical problem that has been around for a hundred and fifty years (cultures often take many, many generations before shifts in philosophy or religion impact the way normal people live or think).

Short version: Progressivism is the symptom, not the disease.

Posted by: Grey Fox at August 11, 2017 05:34 PM (bZ7mE)

229 I hope to God that he really kicks the living shit out of Gargle
Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 11, 2017 05:14 PM (493sH)

He writes well. Really good piece.

Good for him.

He's fighting back.

Posted by: artisanal 'ette at August 11, 2017 05:34 PM (fceHP)

230 The great Negro scientist meme that amuses/annoys me is Benjamin Braddock, inventor of the wooden clock. Where would we be today but for the wooden clock?
Posted by: I'm Anonosaurus Wrecks and I approved this message at August 11, 2017 05:30 PM (Nwg0u)

And of coursssse, Mussslimssss have been part of the founding of America ssssincccce the Mayflower. They tilled the farmsssss and fought in all warsssss sssincccce .....

Posted by: Barack O' Buttfuck at August 11, 2017 05:34 PM (7uYFy)

231 >>>Going from owning maybe 3 firearms to...more than three.

LMAO

Posted by: Max Power at August 11, 2017 05:34 PM (q177U)

232 I've had a number of WTF moments along the way though. Elian Gonzalez, Waco and Ruby Ridge were some of those.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 11, 2017 05:35 PM (0mRoj)

233 Benjamin Braddock, inventor of the wooden clock"

Huh? Isn't that Dustin H in The Graduate?

Posted by: Anon a mouse... at August 11, 2017 05:35 PM (MINbv)

234 1994

...when the Clinton regime announced that anyone under the age of 36 (might have been 30) would not be guranteed to receive Social Security.

But, they'd still be expected to pay the taxes.

Posted by: garrett at August 11, 2017 05:35 PM (pIZfS)

235 These people are not happy people. They are not happy in their own lives or skins. They seek Meaning and Transcendence to fill the empty voids inside of them. They fill themselves with hate and sabotage and call it love and creation.

Day care.

These people were taken from their mothers and day cared and/or had broken families. They missed the primary bond and have stayed "off" ever since. All the snowflake behavior is from that, it was rewarded by "caregivers" and guilty parents.

Posted by: dagny at August 11, 2017 05:35 PM (wZuWv)

236 For me, watching the GOPe taking sides against an R president and crapping the bed on Ocare. Self over country and party. I'd always assumed that the D's were self serving assholes, and that most govt. employees were selfish time servers, but I'd always assumed that the R's were at least patriotic. Like Reagan. No more. They're looking out for themselves, and fuck the rest of you.

Posted by: rickinstl at August 11, 2017 05:36 PM (hGXt7)

237 The last straw was realizing the republicans didn't want to actually pass anything in their platform.

Trump ripped off ALL the masks. Amazing.
Posted by: Max Power at August 11, 2017 05:31 PM (q177U)

Yep. Astounding, but absolutely true. No wonder they hate Trump so much. He's exposed them as frauds and charlatans.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at August 11, 2017 05:36 PM (Mouru)

238 Looking at smaller weaponry what would you get?
http://www.rockislandauction.com/flipbooks/71-MAILER/html5forpc.html?page=14&bbv=1&pcode=

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 05:36 PM (pPKG5)

239 Been getting a lot past Pixy lately

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 05:37 PM (pPKG5)

240
The one thing about the rank and file left is they are the biggest bunch of lemmings in the world. They will believe any horseshit their betters tell them to believe. 2+2=5 then 5 it is. They love to pretend they are independent thinkers but all they known is the party lines.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 11, 2017 05:37 PM (493sH)

241 225 I was in the Navy for 22 years, and still work closely with it, and I only first heard about Blue Falcon in the last year or so. I imagine it bubbled up out of the Air Force or something.

We called them Bravo Foxtrot - comes from the international letter names.
Posted by: Jeff Weimer at August 11, 2017 05:13 PM (17QyB)

I was Air Force for 25 Years. Never heard the term. Maybe it's a Fighter Pilot Thing
Posted by: Minuteman at August 11, 2017 05:33 PM (A3b6q)

*****

In the Army we just went with Buddy Fu*ker. Just easier.
Jody even sang about it.

Posted by: Diogenes at August 11, 2017 05:37 PM (0tfLf)

242 I first realized "it" when I started working in the professional world.

When I first encountered people with gobs of advanced degrees and certifications and an alphabet after their name who were dumber than shit, I knew the jig was up.

Posted by: Bicentennialguy at August 11, 2017 05:37 PM (nILVB)

243 Been reading more of the earlier comments. It's occurred to me that many of you need to get the hell off my lawn.

Posted by: Clock Boy at August 11, 2017 05:37 PM (Fmupd)

244 I was Air Force for 25 Years. Never heard the term. Maybe it's a Fighter Pilot Thing

Posted by: Minuteman at August 11, 2017 05:33 PM (A3b6q)

I guessed that only because the word falcon.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at August 11, 2017 05:37 PM (17QyB)

245 >>Looking at smaller weaponry what would you get?

A Shotgun!

Posted by: Joe Biden at August 11, 2017 05:38 PM (pIZfS)

246 It's been a very slow walk for me. Each incident, a Kennedy walked, a Carter turned they Ayatollah loose, congress tried to impeach Reagan because he was running the commies out of Central America, Bush went back on his tax pledge, Clinton bombed Christians in eastern Europe, Bush allowed the bureaucracy administrative authority over Iraq, congress and the judiciary allowed Obama and his communist allies to run rough shod over America; I thought was an isolated incident.

It was not until Donald J. Trump was elected president did it become evident to me that "big government" and the media were a ganglia of evil.
The deep state.

Posted by: gNewt at August 11, 2017 05:38 PM (X9Eva)

247 Off islamic dumbass sock

Posted by: Soona at August 11, 2017 05:38 PM (Fmupd)

248 "State of Fear" convinced me of the idiocy of the press and politicians. Sure, Crichton did suggest a sort of intelligent cabal in the epilogue, but the scene in which the Ted Danson's literary doppelganger is killed and eaten by cannibals (since made into a movie in its own right) sent the message that these people are too stupid to help themselves.

Posted by: Leland at August 11, 2017 05:38 PM (D4rQ6)

249 many of you need to get the hell off my lawn."

You first, junior.

Snort.

Posted by: Anon a mouse... at August 11, 2017 05:38 PM (MINbv)

250 The one thing about the rank and file left is they are the biggest bunch of lemmings in the world. They will believe any horseshit their betters tell them to believe. 2+2=5 then 5 it is. They love to pretend they are independent thinkers but all they known is the party lines.
Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 11, 2017 05:37 PM (493sH)

All the while calling any Republican politician and anyone who votes for them "stupid', "incompetent" and a "moron."

Posted by: Barack O' Buttfuck at August 11, 2017 05:38 PM (7uYFy)

251 A BAR on the upper left page 15,
( drools)

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 05:39 PM (pPKG5)

252 Forgot to mention, I figured out the GOVERNMENT itself was full of losers when I was in the military was assigned to work at the NSA. Yes, there were some 'good' people there. But I also saw the ridiculous way people were promoted. Bad people who should not be in charge of anything could end up as 'managers' or the next GS step up by checking off boxes and not really doing any work well. Just sitting your butt in a chair, racking up years in that chair, and then applying for the next grade level. Maybe you had to get some certificate or take some training...more boxes...but you never actually had to show any effort, gumption or knowledge that I could see.

I could've walked right into a cushy government job with my clearance, but I avoided it like the plague. I wanted to be promoted based on my work efforts, not on boxes I could check. Had enough of that in the military...and saw plenty of idiots get promotions with box checking.

Posted by: K-E at August 11, 2017 05:39 PM (uOEHQ)

253 Could Trump have beaten Obama in 2008?

I say no, because there weren't yet enough pissed off people and the US wanted someone different from Bush 43, and Obama was packaged "just right," but Trump surely would have knocked the halo off Obama's head, and would have had a puncher's chance at winning.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 11, 2017 05:39 PM (+7/1f)

254 Hanging Chads. That's when I understood the scope of retard with our betters. Anyways, the gig is up forevermore

Posted by: Fourofmore at August 11, 2017 05:39 PM (Blp1s)

255 Looking at smaller weaponry what would you get?

If I could afford it, the MG42, no question.

Posted by: Grump928(C) at August 11, 2017 05:39 PM (LTHVh)

256 Could Trump have beaten Obama in 2008?

I say no, because there weren't yet enough pissed off people and the US wanted someone different from Bush 43, and Obama was packaged "just right," but Trump surely would have knocked the halo off Obama's head, and would have had a puncher's chance at winning.
Posted by: Ignoramus at August 11, 2017 05:39 PM (+7/1f)

in 2012, he might have....

Posted by: Barack O' Buttfuck at August 11, 2017 05:40 PM (7uYFy)

257 @110: "The 90's were smoke and mirrors."

The smoke part we definitely agree with, but we never saw any mirrors.

Posted by: Zombie Branch Davidians at August 11, 2017 05:40 PM (rznWS)

258 Poor Guam.

We hardly knew ye.......

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at August 11, 2017 05:40 PM (5VlCp)

259 Tet. Walter Cronkite. That's when I *knew*.

Posted by: Thanatopsis at August 11, 2017 05:40 PM (JMJoW)

260 Ace:
"When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you?"

I used to work at a newspaper back in the '90s. One of my co-workers was a woman reporter who had been tapped as the new rising star, and was constantly showered with journalism awards and praise.

However, I could never quite reconcile in my mind this journalistic super-star I kept hearing about with the real woman sitting next to me in the office, a rather ordinary and not-particularly smart-seeming drone. How could they be the same person?

In retrospect, I realize now that she was showered with awards because she very consciously and deliberately was writing "advocacy journalism" articles -- i.e. feature stories with a unapologetic leftist slant.

But the life-changing moment of realization for me came one day, when, while writing an article, she turned to me and said, "Which came first -- the Vietnam War, or the Civil War?" For one brief moment I thought she was joking, but then I saw the earnestness in her eye, and my soul was instantly crushed.

"The Civil War," I said, dully.

"Really??" she chirped, and then went back to her award-winning journalism.

I was finished after that -- my opinion of the journalistic profession dropped to zero, and has stayed there ever since.

Posted by: zombie at August 11, 2017 05:40 PM (DQ4Fv)

261 but we never saw any mirrors."

Yeah. That would've been the 70's.

Posted by: Anon a mouse... at August 11, 2017 05:41 PM (MINbv)

262
My Red Pill moment was the Crash of '08. That's when I realized that our Wizards of Smart, the Ruling Class, are running the biggest Ponzi Scheme in history.

Posted by: publius, the Persistent Poperin Pear at August 11, 2017 05:41 PM (8O3HH)

263 Benjamin Braddock, inventor of the wooden clock"

Huh? Isn't that Dustin H in The Graduate?

-
Well, he banged Katherine Ross so he's OK.

Posted by: I'm Anonosaurus Wrecks and I approved this message at August 11, 2017 05:41 PM (Nwg0u)

264 My theory is that government is run by very smart but evil people, that stay in the shadows.

Rush was saying the same a few days ago. Personally, I just think they all know each other and have a common agenda which is peer corrected. I do agree that Soros, Steyer, and Jennifer Pritzker are tremendously influential.

Posted by: dagny at August 11, 2017 05:41 PM (wZuWv)

265 To be fair, most voters aren't the brightest stars in the tool shed.

It's tough to vote responsibly when all your hear from Progda is their propaganda. Although I will admit, seeing Trump win was something I didn't expect. It's good to see that more people are waking up to the giant scam being pulled on them.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 05:42 PM (bIwZ6)

266 "When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you?"

For me, the answer is Monica Lewinsky. I was young and dumb in 1992 and voted for Clinton/Gore for reasons that even then I couldn't properly explain, but I was convinced Clinton was the best choice.
Now, I had just spent, what, a year maybe, watching the media tear apart Clarence Thomas (and Bush I) for "sex crimes" and then to see them turn around and excuse every single thing Bill and Hill did or had ever done was, for me, wildly eye-opening. It peaked with Monica. If the feminists and the media wanted to crucify Thomas for what he did, then why were they making excuses for Clinton, who was revealed to be far far worse? That did it for me. I switched parties and in 2000 I voted for Bush 2 and have voted (just about) a straight Republican ticket ever since. Hypocrites. Every freaking one of them. I hate the Dems and the feminist establishment, and I really hate the F-ing media that has propped them up for the past 25 yrs. I hope they all burn in hell one day.

Posted by: DavyWavy at August 11, 2017 05:42 PM (a3zpD)

267 257 @110: "The 90's were smoke and mirrors."

The smoke part we definitely agree with, but we never saw any mirrors.
------

But I didn't inhale.

Posted by: Bill Clinton at August 11, 2017 05:42 PM (nILVB)

268 I first realized that many in the media don't know shit about what they are saying, during the first Gulf War.

Having lived in Saudi Arabia a long time, all these dweebs from CNN went to Saudi Arabia and started pontificating about things I knew from my life there were sprinkled with horseshit.

One was a man-on-the-street interview, asked a guy in a thobe what he thought about the recent crackdown on freedom of expression. This reporter, with a camera crew in tow, walked up to a Saudi and started asking him questions, in Dammam. When I had a camera that I opened in Dammam, to take a picture of a donkey with a cart, a policeman came up to me and pointed to my camera, pulled out his nightstick, and made me understand he would apply the nightstick to my camera if I didn't put it away.

Also, Saudis cannot comment out loud on their feelings about their government. Whenever such a conversation would come up with a co-worker, he (they were all men) would look over his shoulder to see if he was being overheard, and speak very quietly.

THAT was when I realized that these people know nothing about anything outside of Atlanta, and probably not much about Atlanta either, if the truth were told.

Posted by: MathMom at August 11, 2017 05:42 PM (FAsZt)

269 I forgot to list this 192, there's been so much EPA goldmine water under the bridge:

The original sin was, after voting for the Clintons in 1992, watching Hillary try to throw an innocent Billy Dale into federal prison just to cover her ass (a life-long pattern with her).

I had never seen anything so breathtakingly corrupt and imperiously yet criminally-arrogant in my whole life. I said "If that's what a Democrat is, I'm NOT one." And I've never voted for so much as a Democrat dog-catcher ever since.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at August 11, 2017 05:42 PM (Ndje9)

270 "When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the
government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually
deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about
this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?"

I think the politicians are clever enough to be elected, so in some sense they can't be totally deranged, because something conforms enough to reality to not be removed from office. They may say some things they don't believe or that they know doesn't make sense. My sense is that they are hypocrites, and also narcissistic because who would want to run for office otherwise.

I think the media dumbness started as movies with special effects started to win big for a while. Then reality TV became cheap. So you have trained your audience to be dumb, and also expect your audience to be dumb, in a stupid feedback loop.

University is where the cancer has been deep for years.

News has always been a bit of a greasy enterprise, but I think it had a relatively good era recently where some level of objectivity was prized by the people in the business. Those people have retired out. They got replaced by people from the universities infected with the leftist cancer. Then the whammy hit where ad revenue disappeared. The proficient people left.

The decline in marriage and family has left a lot of the younger generation detached from some realities like "how am I going to feed my kids" and "this is what's really important and it isn't political" and "what kind of world will my family live in."

Posted by: goodluckduck at August 11, 2017 05:42 PM (yqvys)

271 Mg-34 for my truck, Mp-44 for the back rack.

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 05:43 PM (pPKG5)

272 Nobody "comedian" with a. Sex tape calls for a military coup against Trump.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/272647/

Posted by: steevy at August 11, 2017 05:43 PM (rmVvL)

273 As I think more about it, I think the day that really emphasized to me the fact that our own government was not just stupid, but was evil, was that day in Waco when I heard the Davidian compound had been burned down, and everyone inside it killed. And everyone was high-fiving each other at the successful "conclusion" of the operation.

I knew right then that there had been no "accident" and that the people inside hadn't killed themselves. Our government, because they were sick of dealing with them, murdered all of those people, INCLUDING the children, just because they were sick of dealing with them and they were making them look bad on tv.

And then they spent the rest of forever shamelessly lying about how it went down, and all of the media were falling all over themselves agreeing that these people deserve it, and who cares.

At the time, I was at a job I disliked, and overheard 2 people I thought I got along with agreeing that they were glad it was all over. I never got past that, never spoke to anyone there again socially, and walked off that stinking job 6 weeks later, as soon as I could arrange a soft landing somewhere else.

Posted by: Tom Servo at August 11, 2017 05:43 PM (k1TUh)

274 237 The last straw was realizing the republicans didn't want to actually pass anything in their platform.

Trump ripped off ALL the masks. Amazing.
Posted by: Max Power at August 11, 2017 05:31 PM (q177U)

-------------

It has been quite a show, huh?

Posted by: Soona at August 11, 2017 05:43 PM (Fmupd)

275 When I started thinking more that these people were deranged probably crystallized when I started seeing zombie's photo reports, then the way W was treated, then the worship of TFG leading up to and throughout his presidency. I think they've been this way for a long time but were a little more subtle about it until maybe 15-20 years ago, and it's only amped up since then.
Posted by: Insomniac

My work on this planet is done.

I bid you good Earthlings adieu. To the stars!

Posted by: zombie at August 11, 2017 05:43 PM (DQ4Fv)

276 Looking at smaller weaponry what would you get?
http://www.rockislandauction.com/flipbooks/71-MAILER/html5forpc.html?page=14&bbv=1&pcode=

The MP-40 (ammo availability and overall controllability) or the PPsh.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at August 11, 2017 05:43 PM (3OIiX)

277 I really believe Jon Stewart is partly responsible for the absolute sorry state of public discourse in this country. He made a career--and became mega-rich--out of airing heavily-edited clips, making goofy faces and parading his obsession with FAUX!! News on a nightly basis.
And he managed to do this WHILE making his viewers feel "smart' and "hip."
He virtually invented "fake news'

Posted by: j at August 11, 2017 05:44 PM (7uYFy)

278 Also formerly decent horror writer and coke head author calls for Trump to be "removed".(Stephen King)

Posted by: steevy at August 11, 2017 05:44 PM (rmVvL)

279 When did I realize the media was completely untrustworthy?

In 1984, when Reagan was running against Mondale, there was a point at which Reagan was about 15 points ahead.

Dan Rather announced on the news that the election was a dead heat.

Around that time, I noticed an old man in town driving a car with the bumper sticker "I don't believe the liberal media."

I have not trusted the media since. The Clarence Thomas hearing confirmed everything I believed about the media.

Posted by: Ladylibertarian at August 11, 2017 05:45 PM (TdMsT)

280 Global Guaming. It's worse than nuclear war. Why are you people so callous and dense that you want to destroy the planet?

Posted by: Al Gore at August 11, 2017 05:45 PM (/qEW2)

281 I think the moment for me was after the Dan Rather fake documents Bush/National Guard story. It was such an obvious fake -- I read the whole font analysis document, even though I didn't need it; the discrediting detail for me was that the document was a memo called "CYA."

Now, people talk about "cover your ass" all the time in many political/corporate environments. But you don't put that in writing, in a memo, for the record. That's kind of the point. That's when I realized that Dan Rather is dumb. Really, really, dumb.

And when he then said something like "if it turns out those documents are fake, I'd like to break that story," I realized he had no ethics and no integrity and no shame at all about it. None.

Posted by: Splunge at August 11, 2017 05:45 PM (iMxBJ)

282 "My Red Pill moment was the Crash of '08. "

It's hard not to come up with a Goldman Sachs conspiracy here, including because of Paulson at Treasury, and ex-Goldman John Thain as CEO at Merrill.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 11, 2017 05:45 PM (+7/1f)

283 Original Walker Colt 1847 page 9

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 05:45 PM (pPKG5)

284 My moment was when NBC turned their logo green, in solidarity with the burgeoning green movement.

I was an environmental science major in college at the time and I thought it was idiotic.

Took me a few months to realize what the hell they were doing, but that was the turning point for sure.

Posted by: squeakywheel at August 11, 2017 05:46 PM (Y/UW5)

285 Dumb, ignorant and deranged? Not exactly, but Waco brought me to understand that the government was no longer on my side - if it ever was.

Posted by: Eisenhorn at August 11, 2017 05:47 PM (J9FkY)

286 When did I figure out the government was full of small-minded losers, authoritarians, dumb shits and even deranged minds in search of false faiths? And their coreligionists in the media equally coocoo?

Right after the passage of ObamaCare, when we saw a monopolist government feeding trough justified by so many as an "expense reducer". Thats probably when. Either that moment, or maybe it was when they passed the "Anti-Dog Eat Dog Act", at the request of so many large companies.

Posted by: John Galt at August 11, 2017 05:47 PM (ylUqT)

287 @145: "The only time any government was composed of the best and brightest was
back during the founding of the US - and they built a nation able to
withstand government by twerps, criminals, and shitheads.
Unfortunately, the Founders had assumed that most of American society
(the voting part, at least) would remain sane and decent (at least, in
public). They never figured on the sort of perverted, twisted, insane
self-hating culture that we have developed.

Anyway, after the Founders government has NEVER been made of the
best and brightest. The best and brightest have better things to do and
the Constitutionally limited federal government was built,
specifically, to attract the mediocre."

A number of the "best and brightest" were also excluded from the Constitutional Convention, so the fix was in even back then.

Posted by: FaCubeItches at August 11, 2017 05:47 PM (rznWS)

288 When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the
government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually
deranged, and what confirmed it for you?

I started working for the government.

Posted by: pep at August 11, 2017 05:47 PM (LAe3v)

289 1912 first year 1911page 7

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 05:48 PM (pPKG5)

290 However, I could never quite reconcile in my mind this journalistic super-star I kept hearing about with the real woman sitting next to me in the office, a rather ordinary and not-particularly smart-seeming drone. How could they be the same person?

--------------

The real reason? Fantastic bj's

Posted by: Soona at August 11, 2017 05:48 PM (Fmupd)

291 "To be fair, most voters aren't the brightest stars in the tool shed. "

Hey, stupid people deserve representation the same as anyone else!

Posted by: navybrat at August 11, 2017 05:49 PM (w7KSn)

292 When did I first get "woke woke"?

Devouring almost all of Ayn Rand's writings after reading The Fountainhead in the early 80's and realizing that most of the so-called leaders and elites were either Ellsworth Toohey or Peter Keating types.

Posted by: ShainS at August 11, 2017 05:49 PM (W6pkq)

293 When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?

Honestly ?

Oh ... for fuck's sake ... it's not like you're looking at this post. But whateverhoo ...

... I always thought the School Teachers said the same shit too loud too much too often. It always sounded like they got their lie together just like we did walking home.

But beyond that ?

After Ruby Ridge.

Posted by: ScoggDog at August 11, 2017 05:49 PM (fiGNd)

294 275 When I started thinking more that these people were deranged probably crystallized when I started seeing zombie's photo reports, then the way W was treated, then the worship of TFG leading up to and throughout his presidency. I think they've been this way for a long time but were a little more subtle about it until maybe 15-20 years ago, and it's only amped up since then.
Posted by: Insomniac

My work on this planet is done.

I bid you good Earthlings adieu. To the stars!
Posted by: zombie at August 11, 2017 05:43 PM (DQ4Fv)

Heh. Seriously though, you opened my eyes - rather graphically - to the fanaticism, cultural degeneracy and rot that I was vaguely aware existed but had not witnessed. It was highly instructive, albeit frequently nauseating.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 11, 2017 05:49 PM (0mRoj)

295
Either that moment, or maybe it was when they passed the "Anti-Dog Eat Dog Act", at the request of so many large companies.
Posted by: John Galt

What happens when a dog comes in contact with an anti-dog?

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at August 11, 2017 05:50 PM (IqV8l)

296 291 Well,that's another thing.People have the vote now who the Founders didn't intend....

Posted by: steevy at August 11, 2017 05:50 PM (rmVvL)

297 My work on this planet is done.

I bid you good Earthlings adieu. To the stars!
Posted by: zombie at August 11, 2017 05:43 PM (DQ4Fv)

You're not going to thank us for all the fish?

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 05:50 PM (bIwZ6)

298 @155: "I think it was the Lewinsky scandal--the married president was diddlling
an intern in the oval office. Think about that. Incredible to watch
those who tried to convince us (and are still trying to convince us)
that it was no big deal."

Kennedy used to fuck an East German *spy*. Compared to that, a pudgy intern is very much small potatoes.

Posted by: FaCubeItches at August 11, 2017 05:50 PM (rznWS)

299 Never really had this realization. My Dad taught me that all of the elected officials were just people- with all that entails.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Work Laptop at August 11, 2017 05:51 PM (Nk0mq)

300 http://ace.mu.nu
Ads blocked: 63

A new record!

Posted by: Ad block counter at August 11, 2017 05:51 PM (v9gSJ)

301 298 Shit,JFK was probably banging 3-4 spies at a time.

Posted by: steevy at August 11, 2017 05:51 PM (rmVvL)

302

My work on this planet is done.

I bid you good Earthlings adieu. To the stars!
Posted by: zombie at August 11, 2017 05:43 PM (DQ4Fv)

-------------

Nooooooo!

Posted by: Soona at August 11, 2017 05:51 PM (Fmupd)

303 War on warm is more critical than the war on terror.

Posted by: Al Gore at August 11, 2017 05:52 PM (/qEW2)

304 I knew right off the media was fake back in 1948 when the Chicago Daily Tribune ran their famous headline "Dewey Defeats Truman".

Everyone knew Dewey was an asshole who couldn't get lucky in a $5.00 whore house.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at August 11, 2017 05:52 PM (5VlCp)

305 "Dear alt.right Pentouse,"

heh.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at August 11, 2017 05:52 PM (Ndje9)

306 Tangential question. Who did Hank Johnson piss off? He makes a silly comment about Guam that nobody thinks he really meant, but he gets mocked for it apparently by both sides. Ordinarily, since he's a black Dem, he would have absolute immunity to say practically anything no matter if it was outrageously stupid, but not this time?

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at August 11, 2017 05:52 PM (4hIeD)

307 299 Never really had this realization. My Dad taught me that all of the elected officials were just people- with all that entails.
Posted by: Aetius451AD Work Laptop at August 11, 2017 05:51 PM (Nk0mq)

Like many kids of my generation I was raised with a steady drumbeat of "respect authority." However I learned from a very early age that people in positions of authority were, in the main, a bunch of dicks.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 11, 2017 05:52 PM (0mRoj)

308 "Shit,JFK was probably banging 3-4 spies at a time."

And no one could get a drink at the bar.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 11, 2017 05:52 PM (+7/1f)

309 Back to point in question
When schoolteachers tried to tell me the Left wing was communism and the right was Fascism, and they keep trying to beat that into me today.

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 05:53 PM (pPKG5)

310 What about those nasty mosquitos infected with zika virus that create shrunken-headed mutant babies? Shouldn't those pointy-headed asshole scientists on Guam and journalists at the NYT worry about that too?

Posted by: Fritz at August 11, 2017 05:53 PM (eLttb)

311 Glen Beck was pushing this earlier in the week , Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Stupidity . His POV is more on the moral ramifications which are of course predominant but the pragmatic side of Bonhoeffer's take on Stupidity is quite on point here.We are at the mercy of nitwits.

Posted by: jay hoenemeyer at August 11, 2017 05:54 PM (YrDFq)

312 By the way, did y'all see Sean Davis' tweet earlier today about the crazy anti-Trumper in Chester Pa. who finally had enough of his GOP neighbor, so last night he shot the dastardly Republican twice in the head with a .357?

No? The media didn't scream that story from the rafters? Wasn't there wall to wall coverage on CNN?

Hmmm...weird.

Posted by: John Galt at August 11, 2017 05:54 PM (ylUqT)

313 307 299 Never really had this realization. My Dad taught me that all of the elected officials were just people- with all that entails.
Posted by: Aetius451AD Work Laptop at August 11, 2017 05:51 PM (Nk0mq)

Like many kids of my generation I was raised with a steady drumbeat of "respect authority." However I learned from a very early age that people in positions of authority were, in the main, a bunch of dicks.
Posted by: Insomniac at August 11, 2017 05:52 PM (0mRoj)

Oh, do not get me wrong. I was darn sure taught respect/obedience for authority. I was just also taught that elected officials were morons- just like everyone else. Well, except Reagan- everyone in my family loved him.

Posted by: Aetius451AD Work Laptop at August 11, 2017 05:55 PM (Nk0mq)

314 After i drownded my GF I colluded with the Russians. hic

Posted by: Zombie Ted Kennedy at August 11, 2017 05:55 PM (6dFYM)

315 His POV is more on the moral ramifications which are of course
predominant but the pragmatic side of Bonhoeffer's take on Stupidity is
quite on point here

Uh..... whut?

Posted by: pep at August 11, 2017 05:55 PM (LAe3v)

316 Oh, do not get me wrong. I was darn sure taught respect/obedience for authority. I was just also taught that elected officials were morons- just like everyone else. Well, except Reagan- everyone in my family loved him.
Posted by: Aetius451AD Work Laptop at August 11, 2017 05:55 PM (Nk0mq)

I had a Reagan family too. One of the very few good things about my childhood.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 11, 2017 05:56 PM (0mRoj)

317 312 How much coverage did they give a a bunch of congressman being shoot on with one seriously wounded?Well,the FBI tells us that was just a random shooting anyway targeting no one in particular...

Posted by: steevy at August 11, 2017 05:57 PM (rmVvL)

318 I guess I'm not asking about bias and dishonesty. I'm asking when/if you realized that we're in an asylum and the "doctors" in control are the most deranged of the bunch.

Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 04:52 PM (8rNrN)

I'd have to say sometime during ex-President Cock Curious' 2nd term.

It's one thing to be wrong about everything. But to be batshit crazy and then try to weaponize that batshit crazy at the Federal level, that's just beyond the pale.

Posted by: Country Boy at August 11, 2017 05:57 PM (Jcg9Q)

319 I was just also taught that elected officials were morons- just like everyone else.

I was taught the same thing. And you know what? My Dad was right.

Posted by: pep at August 11, 2017 05:57 PM (LAe3v)

320 >>> I think that we are in the middle of a great shift culturally as the
epistomological implications of Darwin's theory of Natural Selection
finally hits mainstream weltanshauung.<<<<

"Old Charlie stole the handle
and the train it won't stop going,
There's no way to slow down....."

Posted by: the guy that moves pianos for a living at August 11, 2017 05:57 PM (x3uSY)

321 He makes a silly comment about Guam that nobody thinks he really meant...
====

I dunno.

When I heard about it, I assumed he was using a figure of speech. (Like "Its ecology might collapse," but he just chose the wrong word and didn't clarify.)

But then in the video, he actually does clarify. He says, "Tip over" with hand gestures to explain. And it doesn't look in the least like he's doing deadpan humor.

Posted by: Geronimo Stilton at August 11, 2017 05:58 PM (PXbkt)

322 Eying little girls with bad intent..

Posted by: Grump928(C) at August 11, 2017 05:59 PM (LTHVh)

323 320
>>> I think that we are in the middle of a great shift culturally as the

epistomological implications of Darwin's theory of Natural Selection

finally hits mainstream weltanshauung.<<<<

"Old Charlie stole the handle
and the train it won't stop going,
There's no way to slow down....."

Louis Lou-eye
Me gotta go now

Posted by: pep at August 11, 2017 05:59 PM (LAe3v)

324 I think you're right, Ace, that the government is full of incompetents and nincompoops, and that at this point our rulers' stupidity and banality are actually possibly as big a problem as the evil of their intentions.

But I think I've gradually come to this, too, and I think it's because it's happened gradually. And it's just a reflection of society as a whole. We have collectively become dumber and dumber with each passing decade. The film Idiocracy was a chilling prophecy, not a farce.

Posted by: Pastafarian at August 11, 2017 05:59 PM (sgHEm)

325 We're ruled by evil retards. It's as if our government were taken over by the Pakleds from Next Gen

Posted by: josephistan at August 11, 2017 06:00 PM (ANIFC)

326 Probably my first day of college (I went to UC Berkeley...).

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 11, 2017 06:00 PM (wYseH)

327 You can't just assert that we are biased. When I say you are turning the planet into an inferno, I speak from verifiable, scientific fact. You deny it for the sake of your own convenience.

Posted by: Al Gore at August 11, 2017 06:00 PM (/qEW2)

328 "It's hard not to come up with a Goldman Sachs
conspiracy here, including because of Paulson at Treasury, and
ex-Goldman John Thain as CEO at Merrill.
Posted by: Ignoramus

right ... those guys were running the "scam", telling the politicians what to do. Politicians were completely out of their element. It was an unregulated highly leveraged $600T derivative game gone bad. That was the Rick Santini Tea Party moment.

In The Big Short, Goldman was busy making billions. It took a meticulous smart guy to expose that dancers in Vegas owned two or five empty houses on margin, and the whole thing was a huge bubble. Goldman was not stupid, just busy making billions, then corruptly buying their way out of trouble. Government officials were clueless, gullible, corrupt.

Trump in 1990 (on CSpan) said we had regs hurting US and making a stock bubble, Greenspan pointed it out in 1994. But Government wanted more bubble all the time ... stocks must go up. Smart Greenspan was overruled by corrupt government. Corrupt hedge funds and millionaires got bailed out ... Corruption trumps Smart.

finally we get Trump an "outsider" ... so corruption (and BigGov dependents) are trying to destroy him. DC is a cartel now ... giant cult, religion, whatever ... they don't want change. They are a gang ... deeply devoted, cognitive dissonance blocks any intelligent self awareness.

Posted by: illiniwek at August 11, 2017 06:01 PM (7Ep0P)

329

I sense a Finale poat about to appear...

Posted by: Soothsayer -- bolded because it's a good'un at August 11, 2017 06:01 PM (qyXjk)

330 Don't understand the comment by Ray Van Dune - I've watched the clip by Hank Johnson - he was dead serious. He was really worried that Guam might tip over, because no one ever told him that islands in fact were not just big rafts that float around in the ocean. People have gone to great lengths to say "well it was a metaphor" or something, but it isn't. Hank Johnson has a mental capacity that it a little bit lower than the average 5 year old.

Which actually makes him a perfect representative for his district, since he's probably at least a median intelligence there.

Posted by: Tom Servo at August 11, 2017 06:01 PM (k1TUh)

331 323
320

>>> I think that we are in the middle of a great shift culturally as the

epistomological implications of Darwin's theory of Natural Selection

finally hits mainstream weltanshauung.<<<<

"Old Charlie stole the handle
and the train it won't stop going,
There's no way to slow down....."

Louis Lou-eye
Me gotta go now

Posted by: pep

Uhhhhhhh

Posted by: James Brown at August 11, 2017 06:01 PM (LAe3v)

332 I've watched the clip by Hank Johnson - he was dead serious. He was really worried that Guam might tip over, because no one ever told him that islands in fact were not just big rafts that float around in the ocean. People have gone to great lengths to say "well it was a metaphor" or something, but it isn't.
-----------

I agree. He really was serious. I give that military officer major props for holding it together and not bursting into laughter.

Posted by: bluebell at August 11, 2017 06:03 PM (UoSKV)

333 325 We're ruled by evil retards. It's as if our government were taken over by the Pakleds from Next Gen
Posted by: josephistan at August 11, 2017 06:00 PM (ANIFC)

Either you believe that the people that want to be in charge of you are AssHoles - and thus you want them to have less power over you.

Or you believe that the people that want to be in charge of you are Helpful - and thus you want them to have more power over you.

That's it. That's the choice. Choose.

Posted by: ScoggDog at August 11, 2017 06:03 PM (fiGNd)

334 Eying little girls with bad intent..
Posted by: Grump928(C) at August 11, 2017 05:59 PM (LTHVh)

Hey, Aqualung...

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at August 11, 2017 06:03 PM (3OIiX)

335 Well, it is Fat Friday so . . . .

Neo-Nazi Site "Daily Stormer" Complains American Neo-Nazis Are Too Fat To Be Taken Seriously By People . . .

Posted by: I'm Anonosaurus Wrecks and I approved this message at August 11, 2017 06:04 PM (Nwg0u)

336 Nikki Haley has nice tits.

Posted by: Soona at August 11, 2017 06:04 PM (Fmupd)

337 *smears shabby clothes*

Posted by: Insomniac at August 11, 2017 06:04 PM (0mRoj)

338 the movie idiocracy came directly from our house and senate. dude got his ideas somewhere.

Posted by: chavez the hugo at August 11, 2017 06:05 PM (KP5rU)

339 We are ruled by evil authoritarian retards, armed with CCTV cameras at most intersections, facial recognition software, social media self-revelation and endless cheap storage space. Investigations can track individual movements and association back years nearly instantly.

So don't piss off the crazies in charge. They are weaponized with great technology.

Posted by: John Galt at August 11, 2017 06:05 PM (ylUqT)

340 We're ruled by evil retards. It's as if our government were taken over by the Pakleds from Next Gen
Posted by: josephistan at August 11, 2017 06:00 PM (ANIFC)

Either you believe that the people that want to be in charge of you are AssHoles - and thus you want them to have less power over you.

Or you believe that the people that want to be in charge of you are Helpful - and thus you want them to have more power over you.

That's it. That's the choice. Choose.
Posted by: ScoggDog at August 11, 2017 06:03 PM (fiGNd)

ScoggDog be preachin' again!

Quoting Heinlein, there are only two types of people: Those who want power over others and those that don't.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at August 11, 2017 06:05 PM (3OIiX)

341 Off topic, but I gotta say Ace you're on fire today. I'm scrolling down through the earlier posts after our usual morning GorillaPundit and have loled several times. It's exhausting, really. You could say I'm plum tuckered out.

Posted by: Arnie Fufkin at August 11, 2017 06:06 PM (YQA13)

342 Old BattleMax(ine) has made some hum dingers

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 06:06 PM (pPKG5)

343 When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?
---
In the 80s. I joined some college friends for a night of horror role playing. I played a Senator. They said you're going to need more intelligence than that--and I said "No I don't."

...
That article is really a piece. It can't both be true that Trump is reckless and will cause NK to rain doom upon Guam and that Guam's biggest threat is the rise of sea levels in 10-15 years.

"Well, senators are really intelligent."

"No, they're not. They just need to be good at bullshit."

Posted by: Axeman at August 11, 2017 06:07 PM (2mC6G)

344 For me it was the 2008 election, I was already on the edge, I sent Ron Paul a lot of money, for me at the time, but I ended up pulling the lever for McCain in the general election.

I was out for drinks with my brothers in DC in August of 2007 and we were having a good laugh that McCain's run was over because Ron Paul had beat him in fundraising, boy was I wrong... anyway, I think it all crystalized during the financial crisis when Bush had to kill the free market to save it and what not... .then when the shit hit the fan and they had to vote for all this stuff, McCain I think did the right thing. He wanted to postpone the debate to go do the debate in the Senate with king putt, because they were both get this... the Senate.

He then got crucified by everyone... because he wanted to do his job and it was the statesman like thing to do.... now, I have as many or more issues with McCain than anyone, but I thought he made the right move there. I think anyone who wants to run for President should resign their office to focus full time on the race and make sure someone is doing the job that they were voted in for, but that's another debate.

After this, and the loss, I think that was the first time I started angling for if not Donald Trump, then a Trump like disruptor. It's hard to say, since he has flirted with a run so many times, I definitely wanted him to run in 2012... but I can't remember when exactly I said to my dad and brothers, "Trump can be president whenever he wants to be, he should run".

Looking back on my political ideology since say 2002 when I got out of college is interesting. I was an Iraq skeptic, but got on the rah rah train... did the counter protest deal. On that one I'd probably be on the other side now, but I could never join a rally with the cretins that fund those things.

Posted by: Dr. Shatterhand at August 11, 2017 06:07 PM (Hzzxg)

345 Arnie how did you make it past Manning?

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 06:07 PM (pPKG5)

346 Worked closely with an HR lady and developed a heavy crush on her. She was just okay looking, but smart as a whip and a hard worker. Then Mitt Romney said something about "Binders full of women". She got all upset and was mocking him about it to everyone, even though she knew damn well what he meant, and she often used that kind of HR-speak herself. Crush fizzled. Phoniness will do that.

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at August 11, 2017 06:07 PM (4hIeD)

347 "Nikki Haley has nice tits."

And a porn star name.

Coincidence? I think not!

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 11, 2017 06:08 PM (+7/1f)

348
330 Don't understand the comment by Ray Van Dune - I've watched the clip by Hank Johnson - he was dead serious. He was really worried that Guam might tip over, because no one ever told him that islands in fact were not just big rafts that float around in the ocean. People have gone to great lengths to say "well it was a metaphor" or something, but it isn't. Hank Johnson has a mental capacity that it a little bit lower than the average 5 year old.

Which actually makes him a perfect representative for his district, since he's probably at least a median intelligence there.

Posted by: Tom Servo at August 11, 2017 06:01 PM (k1TUh)

Yeah. Seriously stupid man. First time I'd ever heard of him was several years before the infamous Guam comment, he was on CSPAN arguing with a witness (the subject escapes me now, but the witness was a black businessman, if memory serves). Hank was getting pissy trying to get the better of the witness, right up until he used the witness' own argument to refute the witness' argument (it was even stupider than I make it sound).

You could practically HEAR the witness' eyes rolling as he said "Yeah, that's what I've been saying for the last hour." The confused look on Hank's face was priceless.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at August 11, 2017 06:08 PM (iFZVz)

349
ever wonder if they made a pron called the Princess & the Pee?

Posted by: Soothsayer -- bolded because it's a good'un at August 11, 2017 06:09 PM (qyXjk)

350 If we are attacked and destroyed by Nort Korea, I hope TRump loses the election and we gets Presdent Obama back.

Posted by: Mary Clogginstien from Brattleboro, VT at August 11, 2017 06:09 PM (WmgTn)

351 Lido missed the boat that day he left the shack
But that was all he missed
And he ain't comin' back
At a tombstone bar, in a juke joint car he made a stop
Just long enough to grab a handle off the top

Posted by: I'm Anonosaurus Wrecks and I approved this message at August 11, 2017 06:09 PM (Nwg0u)

352 Ben Shapiro went to Harvardyalecolumbia and there was a banquet in honor of the new freshmen class. The woman giving the speech would go on to be a SCOTUS. She said "You have arrived."

Which is to say that these young men and women were now the members of a gate-keeping and rent-seeking political cartel. As Insty says, this is the worst class of elites that America has ever had.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at August 11, 2017 06:09 PM (rnAwa)

353 So don't piss off the crazies in charge. They are weaponized with great technology.
Posted by: John Galt at August 11, 2017 06:05 PM (ylUqT)

I wish I could find it, but I ran across an article yesterday that talked about the people from Google who were quasi-governmental operatives and some of their travels around the world where they wielded their considerable power.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 06:09 PM (bIwZ6)

354 ScoggDog be preachin' again!

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards at August 11, 2017 06:05 PM (3OIiX)

Quit it ya' crazy bastard ...

Posted by: ScoggDog at August 11, 2017 06:09 PM (fiGNd)

355 Posted by: Axeman at August 11, 2017 06:07 PM (2mC6G)
---
Crap. Messed my post up.

Anyway, I should have pointed out that in the mid 80s, I watched a LOT of CSPAN and was a Poly-sci minor for a time, reading about 300 pages per day for a couple of Poly-sci courses.

Posted by: Axeman at August 11, 2017 06:11 PM (2mC6G)

356 When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually deranged, and what confirmed it for you?

Um, like, never? I've only discovered over the course of time that most Americans are too stupid to be allowed to vote. You people do not realize how disgusting you are.

Posted by: Al Gore at August 11, 2017 06:11 PM (/qEW2)

357 Realized that the media was plain dumb and lazy when I was working for the Federal Communications Commission. Had an pre-interview by some brain dead TV bimbo who actually asked what does the FCC do. She was really serious about it.

Posted by: RGallegos at August 11, 2017 06:11 PM (KVOl+)

358 NYT: Nuclear Attack Schnuclear Attack, What Guam Really Needs to Fear is Climate Change
---
Alternate Headline:

Mentally Ill at NYT Proclaim Guam Really Needs to Fear Climate Change, Not Nuclear Attack.

Posted by: shibumi at August 11, 2017 06:12 PM (aT+Bx)

359 I'm thankful for a Guam post. With Whoa-fat, Chelsea, and Whoa-fatter I thought this was going to be a day of proving that, even at closing time in a dark bar full of drunks, some people will always go home alone.

Posted by: geoffb5 at August 11, 2017 06:12 PM (d3wbb)

360
Next stop Chi town, Lido put the money down, let 'em roll
He said one more job ought to get it
One last shot 'fore we quit it
One for the road

Posted by: Grump928(C) at August 11, 2017 06:12 PM (LTHVh)

361 dude got his ideas somewhere."

He ripped off "The Marching Morons" and passed it off as his story. Would've worked, too, until someone at the studio caught it, so they dropped it like a rock.

Posted by: Anon a mouse... at August 11, 2017 06:12 PM (MINbv)

362 Hey, social justice issues are important to me from time to time. Once I was in a store and I had to go, bad. The men's room was occupied. I did what any civilized person would do: I waited. And I waited some more, until I couldn't wait any longer. So I identified as a woman (that had to go at that very moment) and ducked into the women's room.

My gender-identity crisis was fluid that day. Upon leaving the women's room, I identified as a man that didn't pee his pants. I've been putting that on job applications ever since.

Posted by: FireHorse at August 11, 2017 06:12 PM (zkGZ8)

363 I saw Trumplike Disruptor open for Superchicken at The Grey Eagle in '02.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at August 11, 2017 06:13 PM (rnAwa)

364 You ain't nothin' but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time

Posted by: more deep lyrics at August 11, 2017 06:13 PM (bS+V9)

365 >>>Crush fizzled. Phoniness will do that.

Posted by: Ray Van Dune<<<

Did you get to tap her ass at least once? If so, consider it time well spent.

Posted by: Fritz at August 11, 2017 06:14 PM (eLttb)

366 It looks like an early night for Billy Winn...

https://www.profootballrumors.com/2017/08/broncos-billy-winn-done-year

Posted by: steevy at August 11, 2017 06:14 PM (rmVvL)

367 When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the
government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually
deranged, and what confirmed it for you?
---
On the one year anniversary of 9/11 Nancy Pelosi gave a (apparently live, though it could have been recorded and with a green screen for all I know) TV news interview, I think on MSNBC (because we didn't really discover FNC until the Iraq war coverage), sitting with the crater that had been the World Trade Center over her shoulder, and said regarding Iraq that we shouldn't prove our strength by attacking it, but by showing we could absorb the next mass casualty event.

And no one in government or the media I was watching saw a problem with that position.

Posted by: Methos at August 11, 2017 06:15 PM (XQvuQ)

368 My eyes are burning!
( accidentally scrolled down threads again.)

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 06:16 PM (pPKG5)

369 My 22 year old son interned this summer and really liked the job. They are looking forward to making him a job offer when they are allowed to on Jan 1. He had a great time and learned a lot. However, he had a co-worker intern who was a sarcastic, santimonious, bitch. He couldn't figure out what was wrong with her and she was rude on her last day. I asked more. He said she ridiculed him for being in a frat.

Oh, she's a lefty feminazi. 'Nuff said. There's a taste of what these horrific people are like, and they're all like that. Avoid them as you can. If you can't beware of them like you would an office scorpion.

Posted by: dagny at August 11, 2017 06:16 PM (wZuWv)

370
Neo-Nazi Site "Daily Stormer" Complains American Neo-Nazis Are Too Fat To Be Taken Seriously By People . . .
Posted by: I'm Anonosaurus Wrecks and I approved this message at August 11, 2017 06:04 PM (Nwg0u)

So Neo-Nazis have fitness standards. Who knew?

Posted by: Northernlurker, who sometimes skulks and is now jobless and bored, so very bored at August 11, 2017 06:16 PM (hJrjt)

371 >>After 9/11, it hit me like a brick. These people gov. and MSM) are fucking idiots.

And insidious.

Yeah. That was a big wake-up moment.

There were several events that lead to the realization for me, but I think it was the one-two punch of the Anita Hill hearings, which were so ridiculous, followed by the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, where you had the same people who said a bad joke/failed flirtation was outrageous (and well al then had to take sexual harassment training ever since) --- but then suddenly getting your intern to blow you in the oval office, one time while conducting business over the phone, was a private matter and no biggie.

It became crystal clear they are all just playing games. Words and events mean what they want them to mean, depending how they can use them to score points, everything else be d@mned.

Posted by: Lizzy at August 11, 2017 06:16 PM (NOIQH)

372 Don't understand the comment by Ray Van Dune - I've watched the clip by Hank Johnson - he was dead serious.
---
That was my take as well. There's no indication of a joke--and the way he belabored it, would have made an odd use of committee time.

Posted by: Axeman at August 11, 2017 06:16 PM (2mC6G)

373 but smart as a whip

Why is a whip considered a particularly-intelligent work of the leathercrafter's art anyway?

Posted by: hwa-pshhh at August 11, 2017 06:16 PM (bS+V9)

374 @skip: I got past Manning only through dedicated perseverence

Posted by: Arnie Fufkin at August 11, 2017 06:17 PM (YQA13)

375 I really gotta get a nap but just wanted to say hi BackwardsBoy.
Good to have ya back.
Probably back later this evening for a bit.

Posted by: teej at August 11, 2017 06:17 PM (flbmJ)

376 In 1996 the Republicans took the House for the first time since Noah. CNN ran an all day banner that said, "What Went Wrong." I've not allowed it on near me since.

Posted by: dagny at August 11, 2017 06:18 PM (wZuWv)

377 If Michael Moore visited Guam, then it would tip over.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at August 11, 2017 04:46 PM (1yjq9)
..........

Not if he could somehow parachute down to the exact center of the island.
Then it would just sink.

Posted by: wth at August 11, 2017 06:18 PM (2WITp)

378 I'd post a snarky comment if the comments were big enough

Posted by: Tinfoilbaby at August 11, 2017 06:18 PM (6Ll1u)

379 Did the Mars rover ever make it over to where the astronauts left the flag?

Posted by: Sheila Jackson Lee at August 11, 2017 06:19 PM (IqV8l)

380 There is a reason most veterans are conservative; having seen the government up close and personal - they realize it has to be limited or it will kill us all.

Posted by: An Observation at August 11, 2017 06:19 PM (X/BmP)

381 Why is a whip considered a particularly-intelligent work of the leathercrafter's art anyway?

"Smart" can also mean quick. It's a play on words.

Posted by: dagny at August 11, 2017 06:19 PM (wZuWv)

382 After 9/11, it hit me like a brick. These people gov. and MSM) are fucking idiots.

Am I the only one that remembers the increased domestic surveillance part ? The deal where they started monitoring credit card transactions ?

Or the part where people like Ace said "Watch what you say" ?

Posted by: ScoggDog at August 11, 2017 06:19 PM (fiGNd)

383 Only surfers, windsurfers and wake boarders should be allowed as immigrants to Guam. They would be equipped to keep the island upright.

Posted by: Northernlurker, who sometimes skulks and is now jobless and bored, so very bored at August 11, 2017 06:20 PM (hJrjt)

384 The duck and cover cartoon they used to show me in elementary school starred Mitch McConnell and the turtle.

Posted by: Strobe at August 11, 2017 06:20 PM (gbWkA)

385 Lizzy, if you're still here - I sent you an email about a recipe, but just ignore it, because I persisted, and eventually figured it out all by my big-girl self.

Posted by: bluebell at August 11, 2017 06:20 PM (UoSKV)

386 Probably back later this evening for a bit.
Posted by: teej at August 11, 2017 06:17 PM (flbmJ)

Thanks, teej. It's good to see you and the Horde again. I missed you guys.

And thanks, Ace, for letting me back in. I promise I'll try to be good.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 06:20 PM (bIwZ6)

387 372 Don't understand the comment by Ray Van Dune - I've watched the clip by Hank Johnson - he was dead serious.
---
That was my take as well. There's no indication of a joke--and the way he belabored it, would have made an odd use of committee time.
Posted by: Axeman at August 11, 2017 06:16 PM (2mC6G)

The Congressional Black Caucus isn't exactly a Brain Trust.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 11, 2017 06:20 PM (0mRoj)

388 I liked it because it was a Disney production back when that meant something.

Posted by: Strobe at August 11, 2017 06:21 PM (gbWkA)

389 I guess I'm not asking about bias and dishonesty. I'm asking when/if you realized that we're in an asylum and the "doctors" in control are the most deranged of the bunch.
------

I concluded that Carter was an aberration. Though he did what was likely to be extended damage, we might recover. Reagan brought real hope. George the elder, I could live with. Clinton's election brought despair and the loss faith in the system. I was somewhat heartened by George the younger's tenure, but then...2008, and 2012.

By the end of Obama's years it was completely clear that the embedded Left/Progressives are driving the bus. Committed political/social leeches who care nothing about the Republic.

It's impossible to point a finger at who is responsible. Academe, the media, politicians, they're all part of a swampy, aggressive morass that is rolling over us.

I think the moment of true realization, for me, was 2008. That is when I accepted the fact that we are almost certainly fighting a rear-guard action. But fight, I shall.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 11, 2017 06:21 PM (OdK9v)

390 365 Did you get to tap her ass at least once? If so, consider it time well spent.

Fritz, gentlemen don't tell...

Yeah, a couple times.

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at August 11, 2017 06:21 PM (4hIeD)

391 Reading history about right after WW2 how the communist tried to take over all of Europe, and they came pretty close in France, Italy etc. Their propaganda was very effective even in the US. Millions in Europe fell for the song of peace and how great the peoples revolution would be. The Marshall plan was portrayed as America taking over Europe, when in reality it was Russian Communism that was doing it.

Posted by: Colin at August 11, 2017 06:22 PM (0kpdp)

392 The earliest example I can remember of media bias was during the 92 election. Character was an issue.

Katie Couric was doing an interview with Barbara Bush and Katie asked Barbara if she thought character really mattered in a president. Barbara replied, of course I do Katie, don't you? Katie replied I'm asking the questions here, like a witch.

The media have always acted like they knew everything and were rude and condescending to conservatives and republicans.

Posted by: CaliGirl at August 11, 2017 06:22 PM (Ri/rl)

393 They should rig sails on Guam and move it further away from NK

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 06:22 PM (pPKG5)

394 Only surfers, windsurfers and wake boarders should be allowed as immigrants to Guam. They would be equipped to keep the island upright.

Posted by: Northernlurker, who sometimes skulks and is now jobless and bored, so very bored at August 11, 2017 06:20 PM (hJrjt)
..........

and hot air balloonists if they promise to keep them tied down

Posted by: wth at August 11, 2017 06:22 PM (2WITp)

395 And thanks, Ace, for letting me back in. I promise I'll try to be good.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 06:20 PM (bIwZ6)

You're just not allowed to be first for

#twoweeks

Posted by: Country Boy at August 11, 2017 06:23 PM (Jcg9Q)

396 There were communist movements in every country during WWII, a large portion of the French Resistance were communists.

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 06:24 PM (pPKG5)

397 Probably when I realized the government is a jobs program for minorities.

So late 1980s early 1990s probably.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at August 11, 2017 06:24 PM (4ErVI)

398 My parents were life-long democrats, my father even the son of a one-term dem senator. They thought FDR was god-like. Yet, they hated the Kennedys and flipped. Of course, I missed that, but I wonder if that was something like my husband's entire NYC family turning from loony dem knee-jerk lefties to Trump lovers because of being horrified by Obama.

I think there's a reaction from not-betas to that elitest identity politics type of lefitst. I don't know if Kennedy was like that, but my dad thought he was a major fuck up after Cuba. Dad was still wish-washy during the Ford/Carter election and mom and I didn't let him vote, worried he'd vote for carter,

Posted by: dagny at August 11, 2017 06:24 PM (wZuWv)

399 Our Betters are psychotic and deranged addicts looking to get their jollies off in every degenerate way possible. It all boils down to this, which is sad.

Posted by: Widespread Pepe at August 11, 2017 06:25 PM (XFue2)

400 One major moment for me was when Clinton was being impeached, and he went to speak at the UN and received a standing ovation. The media jumped on this to say, see, the entire world thinks Clinton did nothing wrong, isn't it time for the Republicans to get with the program and drop this whole impeachment thing?

Another moment was the launch of Air America. It seemed obvious to me that the popularity of Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing talk show hosts was due to them being counters to the left-wing bias of the mainstream media. The left, though, seriously believed that people would just turn on the radio, turn to the nearest channel, and then absorb and repeat whatever they heard, so if only they could get some left-wing stations of their own they could change peoples' minds.

> For example: the GOP. It really only became obvious to me recently
(within 5 years) that they're simply liars about what they're "fighting
for."

For a long time I figured they were just pussies who didn't want the media saying bad things about them. I thought that up until this year, when a retarded monkey could have told them that they could have passed a word-for-word copy of the ACA, just confirming everything that the ACA had already put in place without changing anything, and they would have been accused of murdering children and sick people, and they didn't just say, "fuck it, let's do what our constituents want." That was really the clarifying moment when I realized they're in on it.

Posted by: Cave Johnson at August 11, 2017 06:25 PM (x/Lj2)

401 You're just not allowed to be first for

#twoweeks
Posted by: Country Boy at August 11, 2017 06:23 PM (Jcg9Q)

Well, don't look up. I still got it...

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 06:26 PM (bIwZ6)

402 396 There were communist movements in every country during WWII, a large portion of the French Resistance were communists.
Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 06:24 PM (pPKG5)

Most famous communists even before WWI were radicalized and educated in France. I just the Frankfurt School commies found an audience there.

Posted by: dagny at August 11, 2017 06:26 PM (wZuWv)

403 >>Am I the only one that remembers the increased domestic surveillance
part ? The deal where they started monitoring credit card transactions ?

Oh yeah. What I distinctly remember, though, was how the Dems and the press were bound and determined to thwart Bush to the point that they were happy to reveal his various terror-monitoring programs, the ones that were effectively tracking terror financing, getting intel from detainees, etc.
It's one of the main reasons I moved my family out off the DC area - it became clear they would welcome another terror attack because it would make Bush look bad.

Posted by: Lizzy at August 11, 2017 06:27 PM (NOIQH)

404 Nov 22 1963

Posted by: Ray at August 11, 2017 06:27 PM (Wa9nw)

405 "Smart" can also mean quick. It's a play on words.

Also painful; that smarts.

Posted by: Grump928(C) at August 11, 2017 06:27 PM (LTHVh)

406 Only 7% of Guam is white, according to wikipedia. I guess that's why you assholes don't give a shit if it is turned into an inferno because of global warming, and then nuked, because Trump provoked a minority by ridiculing him on twitter.

Posted by: Al Gore at August 11, 2017 06:28 PM (/qEW2)

407 Another example of media idiocy fueled by hatred for all the past societal norms.

Newsweek(not Vogue or fashion magazines or even US Weekly) has an article cattily bitching about how Melania and all the Trump women are out of fashion wearing stillettos. Additionally stillettos are sexist, and demeaning to women, because they cause the wearer to thrust their buttocks out into space in the same posture that monkeys and other animals due to signal sexual readiness.

Article written by ugly lesbians, no doubt.

Article at BB. I don't know anyone who reads Newsweek these days, including those stuck for three hours at the dentist.

Posted by: Jen the original at August 11, 2017 06:28 PM (F/8FR)

408 You're just not allowed to be first for

#twoweeks
Posted by: Country Boy at August 11, 2017 06:23 PM (Jcg9Q)

Well, don't look up. I still got it...

Posted by: BackwardsBoy at August 11, 2017 06:26 PM (bIwZ6)

That's what birthed the comment.

Posted by: Country Boy at August 11, 2017 06:29 PM (Jcg9Q)

409 They should rig sails on Guam and move it further away from NK

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 06:22 PM (pPKG5)
......

they could park it near Oahu and get much better tourism and house prices

Posted by: wth at August 11, 2017 06:29 PM (2WITp)

410 Article at BB. I don't know anyone who reads Newsweek these days, including those stuck for three hours at the dentist.
Posted by: Jen the original at August 11, 2017 06:28 PM (F/8FR)

The guy who bought Newsweek for $1 must think that's the worst investment he ever made.

Posted by: Northernlurker, who sometimes skulks and is now jobless and bored, so very bored at August 11, 2017 06:29 PM (hJrjt)

411 Expanding on my previous comment on veterans. My "Oh my god, I'm being led by fools" moment came in Vietnam; not any particular one incident - just the osmosis of day after endless day of dealing with the government seeping into me.

Posted by: An Observation at August 11, 2017 06:30 PM (X/BmP)

412 NOOD

Posted by: Skip at August 11, 2017 06:30 PM (pPKG5)

413 >>Article written by ugly lesbians, no doubt.

Jen, it's written by Nina Burleigh, a reporter who wrote should would gladly give Bill Clinton a bj for all he did to support abortion. Crazy.

Posted by: Lizzy at August 11, 2017 06:30 PM (NOIQH)

414 Speaking of idiots, somebody moved my garbage cans this morning so they could park in front of my house.

Posted by: wth at August 11, 2017 06:31 PM (2WITp)

415 I don't know if it was a specific moment for me but I will admit the same realization that we are being ruled by people who are only qualified to talk to each other and not actually run anything with any competence.

I will say this though. I really really really thought the insanity of 2016 would die down a couple of weeks after Trump won because c'mon it had to calm down. People weren't seriously that crazed, right? Right?

Every single day appears to be getting stupider than that last and I don't really want to know how bad it's going to get.

We are at a point where people hate Trump so much that, hey, North Korea firing missiles at a US territory is no big deal guys sheesh why are you acting like that's an act of war or something.

On a good note, though, Mommy's doglet is doing better so Mommy is holding off on taking her in for the final sleep. Doglet started eating again today and is still not showing any signs of being in pain so I'll take that win.

Posted by: alexthechick - happy happy manatees at August 11, 2017 06:31 PM (dEQP3)

416 Alex, I'm glad for the doggie. And your mum.

Posted by: bluebell at August 11, 2017 06:32 PM (UoSKV)

417 There was a reason that the term FUBAR came into being in Vietnam. Our WWII vets saw the same sort of things when they came up with SNAFU.

Posted by: An Observation at August 11, 2017 06:33 PM (X/BmP)

418 I was 12. Watched a 60 minutes piece, a real hand wringer, on the horrors of gun ownership. At 12 I began to note that the coverage was hideously slanted, and the "government officials" they chose to interview were less informed than I was. It was cemented through my junior high years by hearing hippie teachers describe things that I had first person accounts of, and watching media destroy the career of a dedicated LEO I was related to. They're clueless hacks, each and everyone.

Posted by: sixgunsam at August 11, 2017 06:33 PM (BTq26)

419 "When did you begin to suspect that the people in charge of the
government and the media were dumb, ignorant, and sometimes actually
deranged, and what confirmed it for you? What were your feelings about
this? That is, was it like taking the Red Pill? Was it scary?"

The Iraq War. In the run up to the 2004 election there was an article titled, A Boiling Cauldron of Anti-Bush Hatred, or something like that. Maybe it was published in '02 or '03. I read it and thought that it was true but a small slice of the Democrat group.

Then Howard Dean started kicking ass in Iowa and the leaders of the Demotratic Party figured out they had to get in line. So the Democrats started parroting the things the moon bats said. Horse Face came out with some classics like GWB miss-lead us into Iraq, etc.

If Horse face had won in 2004 maaaybe the Democratic leaders could have let it rest but they didn't win. The moon bats won everything in 2008 and now we have a party and population that is nuts.

Looking back, I have to say it began back in the '70's with the pro-abortion movement. If an individual can be given authority to decide if something is human or not, who is to say we can override their thinking on whether they are a man, woman or Napoleon. It's the same logic. They've just changed the nouns.

Posted by: inflammable at August 11, 2017 06:34 PM (aJ1YF)

420 On a good note, though, Mommy's doglet is doing better so Mommy is holding off on taking her in for the final sleep. Doglet started eating again today and is still not showing any signs of being in pain so I'll take that win.
Posted by: alexthechick - happy happy manatees at August 11, 2017 06:31 PM (dEQP3)

Then it's a good day. Enjoy it.

Posted by: ScoggDog at August 11, 2017 06:34 PM (fiGNd)

421 My first awakening was at the end of the Vietnam War.

I wasn't much into politics, despite the turmoil of the time. Besides, I was a recent immigrant and a young teen more worried about being unpopular than anything else.

My parents were staunch anti-communists and hated the Left. All 3 of my brothers served in the military; the oldest in VN. So I certainly wasn't a big fan of the anti-war movement, to the extent that I thought about it at all.

But I really thought the peaceniks were sincere.
I thought they were idealists. Imagine!
I thought they actually cared about the poor little Vietnamese.

Then came the boat people and killing fields.
And they did not care AT ALL.

That woke me up. That made me wonder what the Left was REALLY about. That made me interested.

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at August 11, 2017 06:34 PM (0jtPF)

422 Remember back in 2006 when the economy was awesome under GWB and every fricken day we were told that a recession was right around the corner. I strongly believe that the recession that finally came in 2008 was caused by the constant fake reporting of a bad economy that was actually pretty good.

Posted by: Lemmiwinks at August 11, 2017 06:34 PM (h1jJh)

423 Neo-Nazi Site "Daily Stormer" Complains American Neo-Nazis Are Too Fat To Be Taken Seriously By People . . .
Posted by: I'm Anonosaurus Wrecks and I approved this message at August 11, 2017 06:04 PM (Nwg0u)

So Neo-Nazis have fitness standards. Who knew?

-
I guess too much Goering not enough Goebbels.

Posted by: I'm Anonosaurus Wrecks and I approved this message at August 11, 2017 06:35 PM (Nwg0u)

424 OT-Sabo strikes again. This time about Google.

http://tinyurl.com/y7o8hwx7

And the stupid sign of the evening-after the 20 stupid signs seen this morning in one person's yard-

Love hates Trump-

Get it??

Because of course, you wouldn't have a smidgen of hate in your body if you hate Trump.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at August 11, 2017 06:37 PM (iVOAv)

425 I'd been on the lookout for media insanity for decades. And don't get me started on Dems in government, since LBJ.

But the run-up to the 2008 election was when I knew the Republic was dead, and the Age of Reason was over. I bought guns in 2007, moved to Kansas, and reconciled myself to do what I can in a rear-guard action.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at August 11, 2017 06:39 PM (hyuyC)

426 Sort of a retro-awakening: a few years ago I read how JFK conducted himself like such a frat-boy in his first meeting with Kruschev that the Kru was convinced Kennedy would roll over if he just put some missiles in Cuba. How could anybody fail to convince a corn farmer that you are not to be messed with, when you have the military power of the US at your fingertips?! Did MM accompany him on that trip perchance?

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at August 11, 2017 06:40 PM (4hIeD)

427 When I saw how Palin was torn apart by the media and sabotaged by her own party it lifted the veil for me. No democrat would have been treated that way EVER. Obamacare in the middle of the night, Benghazi and the way Obama allowed the uprising in Iran to be crushed just sealed it for me. Having lived in the middle east during the Shah years, it just broke my heart to see how callously he ignored those desperate people trying to regain some measure of freedom from the mullahs. Through it all, the establishment Republicans were nothing but theatre...

Posted by: cricket at August 11, 2017 06:41 PM (PLSbe)

428 Our Betters are psychotic and deranged addicts looking to get their jollies off in every degenerate way possible. It all boils down to this, which is sad.

Posted by: Widespread Pepe at August 11, 2017 06:25 PM (XFue2)

I see them as Roman senators walking hand in hand to the spa with the Geishas.

Posted by: gNewt at August 11, 2017 06:42 PM (X9Eva)

429 In the event of a global warming attack, how many days do the residents have to evacuate? A: They'd better start packing within the decade of the first warning signs. A century at most.

In the event of a nuclear attack, how many days do the residents have to evacuate? A: If they're still on the island after ten minutes, they're left to fate.

Posted by: DaveM at August 11, 2017 06:43 PM (FNtbC)

430 For example: the GOP. It really only became obvious to me recently (within 5 years) that they're simply liars about what they're "fighting for."
They're fighting for favors for their corporate donors. Anything else they are just running on to get votes, so that they can pay off their corporate donors.
Posted by: ace at August 11, 2017 04:50 PM
~~~~~

2004. How can you guys forget?!

That's when George W. and the quislings in the GOP tried to shove "immigration reform" (aka amnesty) down our throats. Thankfully, patriots melted down the Capitol switchboard and the cowards backed off.

Posted by: IrishEi at August 11, 2017 06:51 PM (HiDrR)

431 422 Remember back in 2006 when the economy was awesome under GWB and every fricken day we were told that a recession was right around the corner. I strongly believe that the recession that finally came in 2008 was caused by the constant fake reporting of a bad economy that was actually pretty good.

Damn right. I remember thinking "These fuckers are TRYING to create a fuckng recession!" And they did it. But never forget the role Chuck Schumer played in taking down Indy Mac to lower the stock price for his buddies. Fucker should swing.

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at August 11, 2017 06:52 PM (n735I)

432 I knew people were losing their minds when OJ Simpson walked. It was obvious that he was guilty of two brutal murders, yet he remained a celebrity, as several of his attorneys became famous.

He was a wolf amongst the lambs, and everyone seemed to be cheering for the wolf. The end of civilization, actually.

Posted by: True the Note at August 11, 2017 06:52 PM (SJ184)

433 For me it was when they tried to paint Andrew Breitbart as a racist when he released the video of the black attorney who couldn't decide if she wanted to help the poor white farmer during the Pigford thing. I was friends with Andrew and there wasn't a less racist person on the planet. His point was not to have her fired but to point out that the audience was completely i shocked by her suggestion.

Posted by: Alexander Irvine at August 11, 2017 06:54 PM (weV3+)

434 Completely un shocked

Posted by: Alexander Irvine at August 11, 2017 06:55 PM (weV3+)

435 I strongly believe that the recession that finally came in 2008 was caused by the constant fake reporting of a bad economy that was actually pretty good.

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at August 11, 2017 06:52 PM (n735I)
---
I don't think you understand what all was set into motion by Fannie and Freddie going into receivership. What put them there is ridiculous in the first place, as politicians used them since mid-Clinton to buy up all the bad housing loans that were made, and analysts warned for years that the GSE's could not continue to suck up all the bad debt. But cheap mortgages kept the housing numbers moving up, and the Clintons had the pinball machine up on their toes to play those numbers. Housing numbers had been used as significant indicators of economy strength, and politicians played with the numbers--the same way that they've moved volatile commodities out of the method they use to compute inflation (Bush Jr. removed the last one). Because good numbers -> votes.

The economy was not talked down--I'm not a skeptic against that ever happening, but that's not what happened in 2007. There were some serious readjustments made just from the rules of scarcity.

Posted by: Axeman at August 11, 2017 07:07 PM (2mC6G)

436 The media moment for me came with Wolf Blitzer asking one too many times, "How do you respond to the people who say that..."

And I'm sitting there thinking, " Don't you have ANY thinky-thoughts of your own, you f'k'n dope?"

Posted by: bour3 at August 11, 2017 07:10 PM (KXQr+)

437 Interesting comments. I may have to make time to read more / all of them.

For me there never really was an AHA! "red pill" moment. It's been a gradual thing, but I've always known to some extent.

I actually had a teacher in 9th grade that had us read the newspaper and comment on the political bias at play. As it happened, in my neck of the woods in CT, there was a left leaning paper - the Waterbury Republican, and a right leaning paper - the Danbury News Times. So even then, I had a sense of media bias, and more importantly, how to find it. As you well know, it has just been downhill at a breakneck pace ever since.

Maybe the closest thing to an AHA! moment was when a guy I know that works in the media in Boston told me that I would be shocked on how much the drivel on Twitter actually drives the news coverage. And if you read the 140 character drivel on twitter - WOW. That's almost unbelievable.

As far as dummies in politics ? Well, I'm pretty damn smart, so i see that in the vast majority of people, sadly. I would never expect that not to be the case with corrupt, money grubbing politicians.

Over the last 30 years, what I always sensed about the media and politicians has only become clearer, more obvious, and more extreme. Its as if in both cases they think they can keep everyone hoodwinked if they just double down on their stupidity. Then, maybe my AHA! moment was when they double and triple and quadrupled down on their stupidity and lying and managed to get Donald Fucking Trump elected President. And then, had the temerity to then double and triple and quadruple down further since then

I'm really dumbfounded at the state of the media and non-Trump politicians at this point. The only thing more amazing are the sheep on the left that just keep buying their bullshit.

Posted by: deadrody at August 11, 2017 07:21 PM (FvbGP)

438 I used to work in media. These people are dumb as a bag of hacked up furballs. From licking themselves. Especially TV news anchors. It was 1984 that it became obvious.

Posted by: ObjectionSustained at August 11, 2017 07:44 PM (1dAA5)

439 I pretty much realized we were screwed when every. Damned. Newscast ended with an animal story.

Posted by: ObjectionSustained at August 11, 2017 07:47 PM (1dAA5)

440 In answer to the question, it occurred to me about 25-30 years ago but was absolutely confirmed when I read the Stephen Glass stories in The New Republic. I knew they were left wing, but that all the writers there fell for such obvious bunk AND EVEN MORE SO that no "journalists", a significant number of whom read TNR, raised a single question about it. Not even in their "conservative" rival National Review, which I also subscribed to at the time.

Posted by: Wtp at August 11, 2017 07:50 PM (WQfDg)

441 For me it was when as a US Navy officer being involved in an event that became major international headlines. After a long period at sea, we finally pull into a liberty port only to be sequestered on board until a big wig from Naval Intelligence shows up and threatens us with prison if we say anything and training us on how to spot foreign intelligence operations that may seek us out. (We were in a foreign port.)

So, I finally get to my hotel and turn on CNN and most of the shit we were told not to talk about under threat of imprisonment had already been broadcasting for hours. And it didn't come from any of us. It had to have come from DC or wherever.

Even though they had a good portion of the "Top Secret" stuff they still fucked up many key details some of which could have been easily verified through available public knowledge. So, the narrative presented was all wrong, but the damaging information had been leaked. And this was TS/SCI level information. Code word/need to know shit.

There have also been a few other events that made it into a news story and in every case the media has fucked up the details to some extent. Really made me start to wonder if anything I read was correct.

Posted by: sniffybigtoe at August 11, 2017 07:54 PM (Ipdmm)

442 Also at the time we started going after Iraq and Afghanistan, post-9/11, I kept wondering when we were going to go after Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Oh, sure, Saddam was no saint and certainly supported his fair share of terrorism. But I had L.E.O. terrorism training from PRE-9/11 that indicated Saudi Arabia and Iran as the primary financiers of terrorism coming from that part of the world. Most of my training came from an F.B.I. courses, so if they knew, then certainly the best intel folks were sharing this with decision-makers in Washington.

Posted by: Shinjinrui at August 11, 2017 08:21 PM (h5hE3)

443 For me it was "Ivan Denesovich" quickly followed with "Gulag Archipelago" both by A. Solshinisyn (sic, sorry> the former guest of. Stalin's BnB system. I realized then (early 70's) that these leftist MF'ers were, at best, useful idiots, but the "leaders" were stone-cold murderers, or wanna-be murders.
Never looked back

Posted by: Paulfr at August 11, 2017 09:02 PM (QzF6i)

444 For me it was Clinton. Lets review, shall we? He serially sexually harassed any number of women. He got sued over it. On the stand he lied his pants off. Then he got caught, literally fucking with a woman young enough to be his daughter in the oval office. It all came out. guilty.

I realized everyone on the left was insane when he didn't just resign in disgrace. When democrats, progressives, and FUCKING FEMINISTS fought for him to keep his job.

It was an eye opening moment, a moment when I realized there were rules for us, and rules for them.

I'd always thought of politicians as my...well...employees. They work for me. I don't expect to love, worship, and be told what to do by my employees. Didn't care much about the details - I'd don't like all the people I hire, but if they get the job done, work well with other, and don't break the law...meh. They aren't supposed to be my best buds.

With Clinton I realized the relationship had changed. I thought I was in charge, but they thought THEY were in charge, and could do what the fuck they wanted. And that a LOT of people were okay with that, wanted that, would tolerate any amount of monkey business about that.

Imagine running a company like that, where the employees basically decide to do whatever they want, and can't be fired.

Posted by: Dean Wormer at August 11, 2017 09:41 PM (UgF8H)

445 I would add one more thing. Without getting personal, I have an excess of education, and lot of experience working on various projects. And over and over I would read an article in the paper about something I was involved with. And so often, half the information was wrong, or misleading, or confused cause and effect. Then I would turn the page, and read something about someplace I knew nothing about...and I began to wonder - if every article on a subject I know well is wrong, what does that say about the stuff I don't know well? Why am I assuming they are correct on anything?

Posted by: Dean Wormer at August 11, 2017 09:51 PM (UgF8H)

446 Dean Wormer

Worthy comments. Too bad only one person available to read them.

Posted by: French Jeton at August 11, 2017 10:36 PM (WMvHw)

447 For me, it occurred at work sometime around 2001, as the bottom dropped out of the dot-com bubble. I started to realize that pretty much everyone I worked with at my dot-com was full of s***.

Over the next few years, it became clear to me that our government was run by the same low quality, group-think intellects that created the dot-com bubble. That point was driven home when I renewed my drivers license and the DMV officer (in a backwater town) asked me why on earth I would register as a Republican?

The final straw was probably the Never Trump issue of National Review...when I realized that even right leaning "thought leaders" were intellectually bankrupt. Then I knew it. We were well and truly f***ed. Our ruling class and the bureaucracy was out of gas, and we were being ruled by imbeciles.

Posted by: Zon Toro at August 11, 2017 10:52 PM (V0pGL)

448 Ace is woke. Welcome.

Posted by: Small Rivers at August 11, 2017 11:00 PM (KL5Ns)

449 For me it was Clinton also. When he waggled his finger in MY FACE and lied directly to my face, and lied to Congress, and the media published stories about how " everyone lies" and "sometimes lying is good". And then he was impeached and still stayed in office, and there was no outcry from the media, although twenty years earlier they had screamed and cried and caused Nixon to resign rather than put the country through the disgrace of an impeachment trial.
And then there was Janet Reno, taking "full responsibility" for the Waco massacre, and not suffering any consequences at all. I thought she should have gone to prison or got the death penalty. She didn't even lose her job.
Then we had the election of that buffoon, Obama. The media showed their true colors absolutely on that one. And when he wanted to pass Obongocare the clown from Saturday Night Live found some ballots in the trunk of his car and got elected in time to vote for it. Oh and a supposed Republican voted for it in exchange for a bribe, but it was o.k. because the money went to his state instead of him.
But then came 2012. Surely, after all this, this guy will get laughed out of the primaries. Instead, flies landed on him, rats ran across the stage, (signs of the presence of Satan) and the Democrats voted God out of the party, and he won. Then I knew it wasn't just the media, and it wasn't just stupidity or ignorance, it was half of the American people, and they were genuinely evil.

Posted by: Weso Phuct at August 12, 2017 01:02 AM (ZhwLl)

450 For me, my media moment came when I was reading an excerpt of Mary Mapes book explaining away Rathergate when she claimed that repeated copying of the so-called incriminating documents regarding Bush had changed the fonts into New Times Roman. It was so preposterous a lie that I stopped reading it right there. If you put those documents in an atomic explosion it would not change the fonts into New Times Roman.

Before that sentence, I thought the liberal media was honest but just saw the Elephant from a different angle. After that sentence, I knew they were lying.

As for my government moment, I worked in a government agency that hired a lot of lawyers, none of whom were particularly impressive but all of whom were quite taken with themselves. I discovered that the bottom of the law school classes went into government. That explained a lot.

Posted by: Tantor at August 12, 2017 01:07 AM (sLvAU)

451 >>>446 Dean Wormer

Worthy comments. Too bad only one person available to read them.
Posted by: French Jeton at August 11, 2017 10:36 PM (WMvHw)

More than one.

Posted by: m at August 12, 2017 04:19 AM (LRfkc)

452 That moment came for me, when Truman fired MacArthur.

And, here we are.

Posted by: franksalterego at August 12, 2017 06:00 AM (3cq8T)

453 I realized the gov was not acting in the ppls best interest when I watched, on local Chicago TV, the city go totally down the tubes. The most vulnerable ppl in Chicago have been shit on for decades. The left takes no responsibility for destroying the lives of their constituents.

Posted by: Case Manager at August 13, 2017 11:15 AM (HYvr6)

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