88 Comments

Neither side will accept the results of the election as legitimate. We will see the effects of 4 years of massive immigration lead to kinetics against our institutions and our churches. We will see mass shootings in places that innocents gather such as schools and churches. Evil will flourish. Good men will continue to do nothing. That’s just our domestic situation. Continue to get your house in order and prepare. It’s all a responsible American can do.

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What nonsense. Trumpanistas are the folks who lie about elections. Real Republicans lose with honor and grace. After the Brooks Brother’s riot of November 2000, a partisan court took the election from the winner and gave it to the loser. Here is what the Democrat said.

“Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it. I accept the finality of this outcome which will be ratified next Monday in the Electoral College. And tonight, for the sake of our unity of the people and the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession.

I also accept my responsibility, which I will discharge unconditionally, to honor the new president-elect and do everything possible to help him bring Americans together in fulfillment of the great vision that our Declaration of Independence defines and that our Constitution affirms and defends.”

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TLDR: you’re a Marxist. We all know that. Blah blah blah meh.

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Wait, what? I thought he was criticizing you *from the right*. Literally the opposite of Marxism.

I am genuinely confused here.

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You must be new here. He is a leftie. Always has been. He’s not criticizing from the right. He is quoting a democrat and trying to characterize what a “real republican” is. Stick around and read his drivel you will see him for what he is. If you think you’re confused imagine how he feels…

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I've been around the front porch since DADT days, and normally I can recognize my fellow travellers. Must be off my game. I apologize.

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No worries. I apologize if I came off as a dick.

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You’re an idiot. Liberals are not Marxists. Free enterprise is a liberal value. Real Republicans, the few that are left, believe in economic liberty, just like liberals. The Trumpanistas are like Progressives, authoritarian to their core. I doubt you could even explain what Marxism is, beyond “I don’t like that.” Here’s a hint, one group believes in the private ownership of property, the other does not.

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Blah blah meh temper tantrum.

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You confuse 18th century liberalism with what you are pushing. never the twain shall meet. You Marxists think the founders are rightwing extremists.

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Interesting, you present a hypothesis, “Democrats who lose elections will refuse to accept the results and lie about it like Trump and Lake.” Then when confronted with a Democrat who lost an election, and conceeded, you go all ad hominum. Nice.

The simple difference between Trumpanistas and the rest of us is that Trumpers put party over country. The 70% of Americans not infatuated with Orange Franco think that the proper response to losing a presidential election is to say, “this is America and we put country before party; we will stand together behind our new president.”

The "both sides do it," is a lie.

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You suffer from confirmation bias and lack reading comprehension. You also totally quoted some bullshit you made up because it fits your confirmation bias. Re-read what I wrote and quote it correctly.

What I ACTUALLY wrote:

“Neither side will accept the results of the election as legitimate”

Get your shit together. Stop emotional shit posting and actually read what people post. Libtardia is a mental illness. You prove it over and over again.

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You may have written it, but, you are wrong. Only a lying sack of shit would refuse to accept the results of an American election as legitimate.

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Oh your party is full of that. Exactly that… shit.

And typical you, skip the direct and specific call out by me on your bullshit and emotive misquoting of my original post and attempt to malign the original fact that neither side will accept the election results. Just like a libtard, enter a room and spread shit all over it. You truly don’t inspire anyone to want to read what you post. It’s all the same.

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When the election fraud is so obvious as it was in 2020, it is not a lie to regard such an election as illegit. The fact the courts refused to deal with teh hot potato is not evidence there was no fraud either. It is evidence they are poltroons who refused to do their duty.

Frankly, you, and your ilk, are liars and simply refuse to accept the consequences of your actions.

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So Hillary's a lying sack of shit. Nice of you to admit.

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I’m also no trumper, I know it’s hard for your cognitive dissonance to discern but not all constitutionalist are trump supporters. I know that hurts your feelings.

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Commie horse****, as usual.

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Feb 1·edited Feb 1

“Will the USA go broke before it sobers up?”

- Yes, our social spending is about to go through the roof to support the new 3/5ths citizens the Democrats need to irreversibly reapportion the House and Electoral College after the 2030 census.

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We are already broke. We've been broke for decades, and living on borrowed future money that's steadily drying up – much like our birth rate has been.

We are an empire in decline. Get small, get local, and get ready.

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My old friend Phil says all he can do is take care of his own AOR. I'm beginning to think he is correct.

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Control what you can control.

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Yup. No sense in getting spun up about events and decisions that we can't influence

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Feb 1Liked by CDR Salamander

Great article, Sal. I've been following your Terrible 20s articles since the beginning. You were right then and you're right now. The situation has only gotten worse in virtually every respect. I stand in awe of your continued ability to sound the alarm, as I have to admit to having lost (almost) all hope of this nation doing what it will take to right the ship until backed into a corner with no alternative. I would say that I hope I'm wrong, but hope is not a strategy.

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Getting our (U.S.) house in order will only happen after a major crisis, perhaps an existential one. Absent such a crisis, the current incentives simply don’t allow for it. We actually *need* the crisis in order to change those incentives - and therefore the outputs they produce.

Or, put differently, like any other addict we have to hit rock bottom before we can start to climb out of our self-made hole. Dicey as things may feel today, we’re still a decent ways above rock bottom.

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The Fourth Turning is about to lurch into view, from around the corner up ahead.

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I think we are already there.

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Maybe it's the modern version of the "phony war" that happened right after the Germans & Soviets conquered Poland in WWII.

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The calm before the storm and the swell is increasing in size.

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Feb 1·edited Feb 1

Until the electorate has an encounter with something they can no longer ignore, they will whistle past the graveyard. They'll do their part to continue to vote in the same manner that preserves a 90%+ incumbency rate in both houses. As usual CDR Sal... spot on... you must be growing weary from being right.

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When the Chickens come home, they will whine how it's all the governments fault and why don't they get their tail in gear and solve the problem they created?

The people will never accept responsibility for their own electoral idiocy.

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With government debt at 35 trillion and personal debt around 19 trillion the ship has taken on too much water making it impossible to right the ship. The only thing keeping the ship from capsizing is more debt and money printing which causes inflation which causes more debt…

Meanwhile the federal government continues to hire more employees…

Finally to keep the American public distracted we have continued rumors of war and other events that cause a continuous mass fear psychosis.

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35 T and 19T does not take into account the massive unfunded obligations out their. Perhaps that is the Fourth Turning OhioCoastie is referring to. The unfunded liabilities of Federal, State and local Governments I think is over $100T.

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Last I saw any stats on that, it was over 200 trillion.

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Not all personal and government debt is bad. If you borrow $40,000 for college, but you make $80,000 a year, it really is an investment.

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You spend 40,000 a year for college and fail out in year 3, then get a job as a bartender paying you $45,000/year.

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I think they prefer to be called “mixologists”.

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Especially when Biden forgives the borrowers debt and puts the burden of paying that $40K on the backs of the average taxpayer.

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I had independently concluded that "wars and rumors of wars" will be only the international chapter of the chaos of the next few years. I will refrain from commenting further. See comments by MRT's Haircut.

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Great summation. Totally accurate, totally depressing. The post modernists and Marxists who are funding and organizing the flow of "climate refugees" (amazing level of detail on that has recently come to my attention) are providing the accelerant the American Empire's funeral pyre. I suppose decline is a choice, but it would have been nice to get asked...

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I just wanted to put this on the table now that we’re in February 2021

*humor inbound*

When did we perfect time travel and do a planetary rewind?

When I woke up this morning, it was 2024.

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author

Well hell ... 4 is above 1 on my keyboard, I have big hands, and I cannot edit worth squat. Thanks for the heads-up JW.

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That's why it was a *humor inbound* post.

I couldn't resist.

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Feb 1·edited Feb 1

ha! with lots of Toughlove CDR, I call foul on the "big hands" routine.

noSir...it's called a "Freudian slip".....that subconscious yearning for the good 'ol days of, well, just three years ago....

time'll always bite you in the backside!

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Ye schaden't let slip a Freudean slip. If I might meander, it's like goosing the gander. Big Hands is innuendo, braggadocio... a sin though. I mis-type stuff all the time. Never blame my hands, eyes, dexterity or age. No, Sir, it's the keyboard. Spooner would have saything to sum about that.

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I have a most terrible keyboard. I keep replacing them, but quality control must be abysmall at those keyboard factories.

See what I mean?

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Icy watt yew meme, but I have bitter luck with keyboards and SpelCheck two. The keyboards I get are put together like cheap ricercars and give me "Etude, Brute" moments.

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Most of our country's ailments are self inflicted by elected politicians. (Yes, politician is a pejorative term.)

Politicians have learned "Santa Claus never lost an election."

Our declining education/indoctrination establishment has resulted in a population which is largely ignorant of history, ignorant of economics, woefully ignorant of civics understanding of how government works, but eager for instant gratification from someone else's pockets.

Thus we have low information voters making bad choices, but it is uncertain if voting results reflect actual votes or reflect fraudulent activity.

Too many Americans feel entitled, and don't bother saving for their future, and are fine with leaving $35 trillion in debt for their progeny to pay. Almost none are willing to forego their accustomed avalanche of "free stuff", or even a slight reduction to keep a balanced budget (ignoring the debt).

So, yeah, we are pretty much screwed. China is determined to do things we have told them not to do, but are (in reality) not likely to be able to prevent. Any attempt to stop them will be a disaster and add incalculable costs to our already unsustainable costs.

But, we have the wild cards of sleeper cells or cyber attacks from where? (China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, drug cartels, etc?) Even minor actions will result in costly chaos, and likely take years to recover to our current weak state.

Terrible Twenties, indeed. We were warned, but chose complacency and "free stuff" over prudent planning, or making difficult choices for long term benefit.

Perhaps our best deterrent against Chinese domination is to throw open our books and reveal exactly how screwed up we really are. They are better off not waging or winning a war against us and inheriting our dysfunctional and demanding population.

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If the Chinese are in cahoots with the WEF, I think preservation of our dysfunctional and demanding population may be counter-indicated.

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Ha ha, rein in spending thats a good one…. Sadly it will take at least a Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, 911 event to awaken the fat, lazy victim-minded, amoral sleeping giant

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To rein in spending, to wake up and fix what ails us will take the sound of 10,000,000 pangas chopping flesh, the PLA coming ashore in La Jolla, Daytona Beach and Atlantic City and the certain knowledge that our daughters will end up in seraglios and our sons harem eunuchs or janissaries. Couple of missed meals too.

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I refuse to give up. Being retired Civil Service, I have a stake in keeping things going.

But doing so will demand admitting that we HAVE a problem. And that has not been recognized yet.

Fixing it? I think that's more do-able than people realize. The Federal Government is insanely inefficient, particularly in the welfare agencies. I spoke to someone at GAO once, and he flatly said that DOD was a marvel of efficiency compared to welfare spending. Eliminate the overlap in programs, stop the featherbedding of personnel, and you're halfway there. The rest? No more Continuing Resolutions loaded with pork-barrel spending. There was a reason why the Confederate States Constitution prohibited omnibus spending bills - the problem was old 160 years ago. This should make things manageable.

And yes, it's going to take some sacrifices. The key will be to make it across the board - everybody's ox gets gored equally. We can sell shared sacrifice. It's been done before.

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All of us have a stake in keeping things going. I'm retired and living on savings, Social Security and a VA Disability check- so I am on the Government Dole.

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It’s possible to criticize the very thing we have become. We see the nobility in service. Congress and society at large has somehow have allowed welfare to be equated with career service and for some strange reason it all gets lumped in as “entitlements”; military pensions, disability and welfare handouts. The political class wield that like a clumsy gear when making leverage for pork.

I’d gladly give up my military pension for a resetting of our current situation and players in the board. I may have to anyways. Our course is not sustainable.

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I planned my retirement around...."you're on a military pension so we are reducing your Social Security by that amount."

In any case, I took it at 62 and banking it for the wife who will out live me.

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“I planned my retirement around...."you're on a military pension so we are reducing your Social Security by that amount."

If they did that, they’d better apply it to just about all government and private pensions. They’re all pretty much unfunded liabilities.

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Too be honest I also vacillated with there being no Social Security as well.

Almost all my assets are paper, plus I'm expecting housing values to crash when the boomers really start dying off further eroding my net wealth.

(Ain't I a bundle of retirement joy?)

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Using "entitlement" as a pejorative is newspeak. Welfare is not an entitlement. Social Security is. We paid into Social Security all our working life; you are damm right we are entitled to it. A military pension is earned, it is not a gift. Our soldiers are entitled to these payments.

Let's stop crying about "entitlements" and just pay them like we are supposed to.

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Reading comprehension is difficult for you. Try. You can do it.

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You’re right, welfare is not an entitlement. Now tell that to your fellow travelers. And nobody “paid into” Social Security, you paid a tax that went to support retirees receiving a Social Security check.

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I like the optimism. And if the right people with the will to fix things had the reins...I agree... Although hearing a comparison that makes the DOD sound like an efficiency marvel is downright terryfying!!🤣

I read somwhere recently that welfare programs cost $8-11 for every $1 handed out. In the days of computers and direct deposit, thats beyond ridiculous. We desperately need a purge of all federal agencies. (And yes, thatd include the DOD- having as many Admirals as we do ships is a BIG problem!!) Viveks call for a 50% cut is probably a bit extreme, but Im glad somebody is saying SOMTHING on that theme!!

The welfare spending and waste has to get reigned in. And the population needs to get weaned and get off its ass. A few years ago, I had a really tough financial patch...and I coulda started collecting all those freebies. But I refused, and struggled through it as an example for my kids. I was not going to let them see the government feeding me. No way in hell. So why is everyone else so comfortable with it?? How do we resell the American Dream, self reliance, and personal pride and responsibility???

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We start by giving people a reason to want to be American. Calling over 3/4ths of the republic, racist, rapists and extremists, doesn’t actually create a climate for people wanting to contribute any longer. See military recruiting as an example.

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Another problem with revenue; the belief there will be no tax avoidance if the current deductions are eliminated. Thomas Sowell has pointed out that the main reason revenues have increased with lower rates is people deciding the effort to avoid taxes isn't worth it.

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There's a cost to avoiding taxes. It's structured so that the Truly Rich can avoid paying, but the Payer Class takes the face shot.

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Government at Work

We want YOU for our Glorious Motherland!

[Insert uncivil and disrespectful comments [[sulphurously and copiously qualified]], including several obscenities and scatological observations of explicit vulgarity here...]

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"...scatological" - well dang sir!!!

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There's an upside to this: When the US resembles post Cold War Russia, all the Russians who came to the US to escape poverty will go back to Russia to once again escape poverty.

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Russia will likely be even more impoverished.

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Sal, I think you have become a Cassandra.

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Become?

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