Almost nailed 'em with Phillip

Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

Lyrics in case you want to sing along

Run them jewels fast, run them, run them jewels fast
Run them, run them, r-run them, run them, fuck the slow mo

Fashion slave, you protestin' to get in a fuckin' look book
Everything I scribble's like The Anarchist Cookbook
(Look good, posing in a centerfold of Crook Book)
Black on black on black with a ski mask, that is my crook look
How you like my stylin', bruh? Ain't nobody stylin', bruh
'Bout to turn this mothafucka up like Riker's Island, bruh
Where my thuggers and my cripples and my blooders and my brothers?
When you niggas gon' unite and kill the police, mothafuckas?
Or take over a jail, give those COs hell
The burnin' of the sulfur, God damn I love the smell
Blankets and pillow torchin', where the fuck the warden?
And when you find him, we don't kill him, we just waterboard him
We killin' 'em for freedom cause they tortured us for boredom
And even if some good ones die, fuck it, the Lord'll sort 'em

We out of order, your honor, you're out of order
This whole court is unimportant, you fuckers are walkin' corpses
I'm a flip wig synonym, livin' within distortion
I'll bite into a cyanide molar before you whores win
I'm a New Yorkian, I fuck for the jump
I wear my Yankee so tilted I actually walk with a hunch
Look at Mikey, I think he likey, we are sinister sons
(Aye, we the type to beat the preacher with a grin and a gun)

Run them jewels fast, run them, run them jewels fast
Run them, run them, r-run them, r-run them, run them, r-run them
Run them jewels fast, run them, run them jewels fast
Run them, run them, r-run them, r-run them, run them, r-run them

A wise man once said, ("We all dead, fuck it")
Just spit it disgusting youngin', and hold your nuts while you're gunnin'
I listened, tatted a sentence on my dick last summer
Now I'll never get that phrase off my brain, it's no wonder
I'm here to buy hearts, I got hundreds, honey
The cheaper the parts, the better buy for the money
I'm trained in vagina whisperin', glistenin'
Waitin' for their christenin', I know the neighbors can't help but listen in
A dirty boy who come down on a side of dissonance
I can't even relax without sirens off in the distances
Not shittin' you, little buddy, this fuckin' island's a prison
The only solace I have is the act of conjugal visitin'

My solitary condition's preventin' conjugal visits
Go mane and missin' my misses, they keepin' me from my children
Conditions create a villain, the villain is givin' vision
The vision becomes a vow to seek vengeance on all the vicious
Liars and politicians, profiteers of the prisons
The forehead engravers, enslavers of men and women
Includin' members of clergy that rule on you through religion
(So strippin' kids to the nude and then tell 'em God'll forgive 'em)

Run them jewels fast, run them, run them jewels fast
Run them, run them, r-run them, r-run them, run them, r-run them
Run them jewels fast, run them, run them jewels fast
Run them, run them, r-run them, r-run them, run them, r-run them

It's De La on the cut, liftin' 6 on your stitchy crew
I'm miles ahead of you, you can sip my bitches brew
My battle status is burnin' mansions from Dallas to Malibu
Check my résumé, your residence is residue
Call her a skin job and my honey dip'll backflip for you
You playin', God your eye sockets, she gon' rip in two
We sick of bleedin' out a trace, spray a victim, you
Done dyin', Phillip AK Dickin' you
With clips in the bottom, we dippin' from Gotham
Yes eclipsed by the shadows, a dark dance to the coffin
I'm a fellow with melanin, suspect of a felony
Ripped like Rakim Allah, feds is checkin' my melody
Yes aggressively tested we'll bump stretchers and penalties
Dump cases with face and the cop pleas when we seizing a pump
With reason to dump on you global grand dragons
Still pilin' fast, plus Afghani toe taggin'
Now they trackin' me and we bustin' back, see
The only thing that close quicker than our caskets be the factories

Run them jewels fast, run them, run them jewels fast
Run them, run them, r-run them, r-run them, run them, r-run them
Run them jewels fast, run them, run them jewels fast
Run them, run them, r-run them, r-run them, run them, r-run them

Bullshit you liar.
Trump blocked relevant witnesses, not the house. He had no credible witnesses on his behalf because none exist. The witnesses he wasn't allowed were the Bidens, because even if every baseless accusation he made against them was true (spoiler, not one is) it's 100% irrelevant. What HE did is the issue.

Bob, you and Trump's position on anyone not kowtowing sufficiently and loudly exclaiming how amazing his (non existent) clothes are is "fuck them". Always has been. Hardly possible to represent America when you say 2/3 are America haters that should be hanged for treason.

The democrats wanted more evidence from day one, and the Whitehouse used every possible excuse to deny them ANY. I can't wait for 2021 when republican control is lost, barring more massive Republican voter fraud (which has been perpetrated by a republican in every intentional case found this century- including all actual examples Trump's investigation found from 2016; Terri Lynn Rote, Phillip Cook, Audrey Cook, Gladys Coego, and worst ever-Leslie McCrae Dowless who collected hundreds of absentee ballots and filled them out for Republican candidates, forging the signatures of hundreds of voters in her position as paid political operative for the Trump supported Republican candidate Mark Harris). When the house, Senate, and executive are all democratic and republicans are silenced with their sycophantic and cowardly abdication of duty, civility, and sanity to someone who doesn't comprehend one of those concepts a whit, I'm sure you'll finally understand how bad that is.

The Senate didn't listen to shit. Republicans, save one, were prepared to acquit without any evidence or testimony. Liar.

The theatrics are from Republicans....all non cult members see that clearly, that's why 2/3 of Americans supported his removal, and the other 1/3 wouldn't convict him of murder if he shot Romney in cold blood during the state of the union. The president being an unimpeachable king is what the constitution was designed to prevent, and the precedent the Republicans set here will end our country if it's the new norm. Start learning Mandarin....oh sorry, forgot that the "L" word is a swear word to your ilk.

It's the entire US that lost, something you'll understand when the next president breaks the law and Republicans are ignored when they complain. The state of the union is "crumbling into dust". The divider in chief has seen to that. "Winning!". *facepalm

BTW, you're also wrong about the dumbasses (again, one word not two). Trumpsters are the uneducated by and large, and a vast majority of them (59%bad/33%good) believe higher education is a bad thing.
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/the-growing-partisan-divide-in-views-of-higher-education/ It's likely that statistic is due to the fact that most of today's Republicans couldn't get into college because most of you are too dumb to meet the requirements, and those who aren't, like my family, have left the party in disgust.

Republicans are the moronic anti American anti education anti fact anti science anti fiscal responsibility anti choice bigots too stupid and gleefully ignorant to know they're stupid ignorant morons. There's absolutely no question or doubt among those who aren't willfully ignorant, who believe in fact, or who believe in education.
Sad.

Your brain has turned to mush.
Seek medical attention.

The Southern Strategy was in response to Kennedy's civil rights act, which passed after his assassination....a strategy implemented largely after it's passing.

Although the phrase "Southern Strategy" is often attributed to Nixon's political strategist Kevin Phillips, he did not originate it[15] but popularized it.[16] In an interview included in a 1970 New York Times article, Phillips stated his analysis based on studies of ethnic voting:

"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats".[1]

So, if by "sensible Democrats" you mean the racist ones angry that non whites now have rights, you're partially correct, except that it did work, he did peel them off and won the presidency because of their support.
*facepalm

Robertson - That is all.
The flat shouldn't even still be manufactured.
Phillips is by far the worst.

@newtboy,

missed your reply, you need to check the video again as you clearly didn't watch what I'm watching.
You said:
"I disagree 100%. Sane people did this to stop the rapidly escalating anger between the kids and (disgusting) black Israelites before the kids attacked the Israelites, which seemed inevitable because no one was controlling the kids (or the small group of Black Israelites) and the kids were getting more and more rowdy."
At 1:09 the Black Israelites are making fun of the kids specifically because they are "keeping their distance". At 1:11 the kids are presumably standing/jumping doing one of their school chants, moving no closer to the black Israelites. At 1:12 after the chant, the kids all sit down. After the kids have been not only 'keeping their distance', but sitting down now for a minute is when Nathan Phillips comes in to 'de-escalate' things. You can not honestly paint that as looking like an 'inevitable attack' was coming from the kids. The reality is the kids were staying back, and sitting down while the Black Israelite adults continued trying unsuccessfully to escalate things.

You later said:
"and note smirk boy is not there, he gets into the stationary elders face later. "

If you look at 1:13, smirk boy is 3 rows back from the elder. If you watch till 1:14 you notice that the camera man isn't moving, but Phillips gets further and further away because is walking slowly into the crowd of students. The students don't so much surround him, they make way as he invades their personal space until they move until about 1:15. If you watch 1:15, the camera is the same place as it was back at 1:11, the kids are at the same distance from the camera and the same location on the stairs, but now you can't even see Phillips because he's so far into the group.

I gotta admit, I'm a little floored you can come away still seeing what you want to see...

Yes, he gets between them, and the kids then close in and surround him....in a group.....hi-ya-hi-ya-ing, woo-boo-boo-boo-boo-ing and tomahawk chopping.
He is also on multiple video interviews saying they did block his ceremony, which was permitted, and it's undeniable that the kids and black Israelites interrupted the ceremony that started at the reflecting pool and was supposed to end at the top of the steps the kids took over. That said, he didn't get between the other two groups to continue the closing ceremony, he did it to separate and distract them and instead became the target for both groups.

I disagree 100%. Sane people did this to stop the rapidly escalating anger between the kids and (disgusting) black Israelites before the kids attacked the Israelites, which seemed inevitable because no one was controlling the kids (or the small group of Black Israelites) and the kids were getting more and more rowdy. A few insane people say the kids weren't being racist or insulting, and that's absolutely asinine and completely divorced from reality. They were intentionally insultingly racist....and towards a different group than the group that insulted them.

Watched the long version from 1:11-3:11, no shoving into the kids, no Phillips, that's the black Israelites screaming their nonsense at natives, disrupting their ceremony.
So I checked 1:11:00-1:13:00....when he comes in.....and note smirk boy is not there, he gets into the stationary elders face later. It's bears mentioning that his tactics worked too, he instantly calmed the situation and diverted the hopping mad boy's attention from attacking the Israelites to deriding the natives. Even the Israelites are impressed. Not sure what point you thought that makes, but it's not yours.

He was absolutely not aggressive in the least, and did not push or even touch a single person that I saw, and stopped in front of the kids who quickly surround him. Why are you lying?

Smirk boy might have an argument if he was alone, but smirking in the man's face for nearly 10 minutes while hundreds of your friends dance around you shouting insults and laughing derisively is not an attempt to defuse, it's a clear and obvious power play he thought he won until the shit storm hit....now he's trying to claim he wasn't being disrespectful....I call bullshit. He knew exactly what he was doing, and expected to be big man on campus for it....probably is. Do you think he would find it respectful if a black kid smirked inches from his mother's face as she performed (or any time) while his friends taunted her incessantly? Doubt it.

The next March for life is probably going to end with thousands of blm activists, possibly claiming they were just insulted by white supremacists, so any disruptions, insults, or rudeness towards the anti choice March will be ignored. Turnabout is fair play, and rapid escalation is the MO of this century.

Too bad the adults in the church group decided to egg the kids on rather than turn the other cheek. No surprise, the school and republicans claim the kids did nothing at all wrong. 100% certain they would think it's wrong if aimed at them, or done by non white non Christians, or even white kids in Hillary hats.

Worst for these kids, they are now poster children FOR PRO abortion groups.....their new commercial could be any portion of these videos captioned "your unwanted kid could be one like these, with their public actions drawing death threats, property threats, and unending verbal assault to your family and communities".

So much for helping their cause by attending the march. All they've done is expose the utter disrespect Christians accept from their children towards others, even defend. My parents would have skinned me alive and offered the pelt as contrition if I acted that way towards an adult, and we don't believe in Jebus.

Did you check out the summary of the video evidence posted by eric3579? Or in the nearly 2 hr one I linked skip to 1:11 and check out the interaction between the drummer and the kids.

The kids stay in their group, and the drummer and his followers wade right into them, with lots of room to go around. Phillips is on audio recording declaring that he did NOT feel that he was blocked from any closing ceremony, but that he wanted to go in and separate the kids from the black Israelites to 'descalate' the situation. Eric3579's video again has Phillips audio statement about what he was doing, listen to that and then watch the longer video for a minute or two at 1:11 when Phillips wades in. He's clearly lying, he went in aggressively pushing into the middle of the crowd of kids, hardly what any sane person wanting to deescalate the situation would do.

Steve Schmidt and Kevin Philips both piss me the hell off.

Both are directly responsible for the dissolution of rational discourse in American politics. Both have done incalculable -- and perhaps irreversible -- damage to America's democracy. Both said damn the consequences when they were conniving to force their toxic ideology on the American people.

Now they both have religion when everything's gone to shit.

To their credits, both have tried to atone for their sins -- Phillips with his book "American Theocracy"; Schmidt with his renunciation of the GOP and everything it stands for -- but the damage has already been done.

Phillips and Schmidt are both incredibly intelligent men and as such, they should have known better. That they're trying trying to clean up their mess is laudable, but that they made it in the first place -- and fucked all of us in making it -- is utterly galling.

It's funny how he talks about the dynamic range of CDs, when producers decided pretty quickly that range was for pussies and What We Needed Was MOAR LOUDNESS!!

Regarding the scratch proof thing, apparently, the original spec for the CD was very fault tolerant. You could actually burn a cigarette hole through it and it would still play. However, it only held 60 minutes of music and the head of audio at Phillips demanded that it could hold 74m for one of Beethovens symphonies (I forget which one).

That story is probably apocryphal though.

Kevin Phillips saw this shit coming:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Theocracy

Well that's a couple of hours of my life I won't regret.

A few very interesting arrangements, not all of which I enjoyed, but it was a nice mellow experience.

Just because I took notes myself (some of which may be wrong), here's what they played:

4:58 Warszawa - (Instrumental)
8:55 Station to Station - Neil Hannon & Amanda Palmer
16:04 The Man Who Sold The World - Conor O'Brien
22:24 This Is Not America - Neil Hannon & Elf Kid
27:44 Life On Mars? - Mark Almond
33:22 Lady Grinning Soul - Anna Calvi & Jherek Bischoff
40:21 Ashes To Ashes - Paul Buchannan
46:14 Fame - Laura Mvula
50:54 (I didn't recognise this one) - (Instrumental)
53:52 Girl Loves Me - Laura Mvula & Paul Buchannan
58:32 I can't give everything away - Paul Buchannan
1:05:31 Blackstar - Amanda Palmer & Anna Calvi
1:16:01 Heroes- Amanda Palmer, Anna Calvi & Jherek Bischoff
1:21:13 Always Crashing In The Same Car - Phillipe Jaroussky
1:27:39 Starman - Mark Almond
1:33:00 Rebel Rebel - (Instrumental)
1:35:03 Valentine's Day - John Cale
1:40:49 Sorrow - John Cale & Anna Calvi
1:46:47 Space Oddity - John Cale & House Gospel Choir
1:57:09 After All - (Various artists) + House Gospel Choir
2:02:45 Lets Dance - (Proms audience)

Cassowary attacks

Cassowaries have a reputation in folklore for being dangerous to people and domestic animals. During World War II American and Australian troops stationed in New Guinea were warned to steer clear of them. In his book Living Birds of the World from 1958, ornithologist Ernest Thomas Gilliard wrote:

The inner or second of the three toes is fitted with a long, straight, murderous nail which can sever an arm or eviscerate an abdomen with ease. There are many records of natives being killed by this bird.

This assessment of the danger posed by cassowaries has been repeated in print by authors including Gregory S. Paul (1988) and Jared Diamond (1997). A 2003 historical study of 221 cassowary attacks showed that 150 had been against humans. 75% of these had been from cassowaries that had been fed by people. 71% of the time the bird had chased or charged the victim. 15% of the time they kicked. Of the attacks, 73% involved the birds expecting or snatching food, 5% involved defending natural food sources, 15% involved defending themselves from attack, and 7% involved defending their chicks or eggs. The 150 attacks included only one human death.

The one documented human death was caused by a cassowary on 6 April 1926. 16-year-old Phillip McClean and his brother, aged 13, came across a cassowary on their property and decided to try to kill it by striking it with clubs. The bird kicked the younger boy, who fell and ran away as his older brother struck the bird. The older McClean then tripped and fell to the ground. While he was on the ground the cassowary kicked him in the neck, opening a 1.25 cm (0.49 in) wound which may have severed his jugular vein. The boy died of his injuries shortly afterwards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary

Tom and Jerry's cousin, Phillipe.



Squirrels are all French. Don't bother disagreeing. I know it.