This is the car that gave Communism a bad name. Powered by a two-stroke pollution generator that maxed out at an ear-splitting 18 hp, the Trabant was a hollow lie of a car constructed of recycled worthlessness (actually, the body was made of a fiberglass-like Duroplast, reinforced with recycled fibers like cotton and wood). A virtual antique when it was designed in the 1950s, the Trabant was East Germany's answer to the VW Beetle — a "people's car," as if the people didn't have enough to worry about. Trabants smoked like an Iraqi oil fire, when they ran at all, and often lacked even the most basic of amenities, like brake lights or turn signals. But history has been kind to the Trabi. Thousands of East Germans drove their Trabants over the border when the Wall fell, which made it a kind of automotive liberator. Once across the border, the none-too-sentimental Ostdeutschlanders immediately abandoned their cars. Ich bin Junk!

Todd Lewis, a commenter on my previous article on PJ Media, put it succinctly. “It is a way for governments to advance totalitarian control of the populace, wreck the economy, and disempower the middle class.” His thesis is backed up in Joel Kotkin’s masterpiece "The Coming of Neo-Feudalism." Kotkin chronicles how the once-numerous and thriving middle class is relentlessly being phased out of existence by a power elite intent on re-medievalizing society while advancing their own social, political, and economic supremacy. Like the serf who lacked freedom of movement and was bound to the lord’s estate, the enfiefed EV owner for various reasons is tethered to a sort of manorial orbit.

The fact is that EV obsession has nothing to do with “saving the earth,” replacing fossil energy with presumably “clean” alternatives, or reducing across-the-board costs involving transportation and maintenance — all of which reasons are contra-indicated by the facts. They are delusions, mere fetishes, or outright lies that a modicum of sober research would render null and void. The real issue has to do with the ongoing battle between a market economy and a command economy, between a business-oriented system and a centripetal Marxist political organization, and between an individualistic political economy and oligarchic socialism.

The EV project is a major strategy in a political program that envisages replacing not simply fossil fuel propulsion with electrical power, which is neither feasible nor even conceivable, but swapping a free market economy, in which the law of supply and demand determines output and prices, for a centralized government authority that dictates production, prices, and distribution. Top-down control supersedes private enterprise.

In a command economy, the managerial class and state officials control the means of production, set prices, determine production goals, and limit or prohibit competition — as opposed to private individuals and joint-stock companies freely transacting business for personal profit or in the interest of stockholders, their decisions based on consumer demand. //

FrankD92
16 hours ago
“It is a way for governments to advance totalitarian control of the populace, wreck the economy, and disempower the middle class.”

These are exactly the purposes of the entire climate change hoax and associated "green new" scam.

Here's Trump's full quote: "I don't know if [Biden is] happy about that decision [to quit]. The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden. And I'm no Biden fan. But I'll tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint, you're looking at they took the presidency away."

Let me add one more thing before you go because this is another thing that needs to be said out loud, even though hardly anyone will. //

It was noble.

Biden was more than Trump's political rival. He's a man who has spent the last five years smearing Trump (and millions of Trump voters) as a racist, a phobic, a hater, a would-be dictator, an authoritarian, and worse. But now that Biden is as low as any president has been since Richard Nixon was forced out of office 50 years ago this week, Trump spoke the truth about what Biden's own party did to him.

There are lies, damned lies, and government statistics — and maybe none is more damnable than the official unemployment rate which is half the actual rate, according to Rasmussen. Worse, the number of Americans who are neither retired nor employed is more than four times higher than July's official rate of 4.3%. //

Rasmussen surveyed nearly 9,000 American adults and found that in July the percentage of Americans who are unemployed and looking for work — this is the number that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) should report each month — was 8.4%. The BLS reported a rosy 4.3% unemployment rate last month, up from June's equally imaginary 4.1%.

From there, things only get worse. Because under Bidenomics, of course, they do.

One in four adult Americans is retired, which is nice for them. Fifteen percent say they're entrepreneurs (that can be anything from driving an Uber to launching a Silicon Valley startup), and just under 30% are employed by a private company.

Nearly one in 10 work for the government at one level or another. //

That means the percentage of Americans who could be working and perhaps would really like to be working but either can't find work or have given up finding work is 18.1%. That's more than four times the official unemployment rate.

It also means that the 45% of Americans who do work in the private sector are, in one way or another, supporting the 55% who don't, can't, or won't work.

Shortly after Fox News Digital released bodycam video from Butler Township Police Department officers who were on the scene when Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, the Wall Street Journal posted audio also obtained from Butler PD bodycams revealing their frustration at the Secret Service for not securing the rooftop at AGR. //

GreenLanternMD etba_ss
3 hours ago edited
Does anyone but me think it was odd that the Secret Service never sent a counter sniper team to a Trump rally before this one? I’m thinking that was not so much lucky as it was to make sure the shooter died after killing Trump, just as Jack Ruby suddenly was able to kill Oswald. Dead men tell no tales about the CIA.

First off, the idea that the first inkling that Walz got of mobilization was a press release from the National Guard Bureau is ludicrous. The unit command group would have received a warning order, or WARNORD, months before the official notification. What is instructive is that in March, Walz told everyone that he intended to deploy with his battalion. For Walz to retire in May, his retirement request would have already been submitted. He not only abandoned his men, he lied to his constituents.

In short, neither of the newfound excuses for Walz is operable. He didn't retire from the National Guard to run for office because a) there was no requirement that he do so and b) because his campaign said he would deploy to Iraq with his unit, and the campaign would go on. He did know his unit would deploy to Iraq because it was public knowledge in March and the decision by the Pentagon to call up his unit would have been made months earlier. //

Mongo FKA ya think?
13 hours ago
How Walz’s career survived the DUI says there is more to this than meets the eyes and ears of the sheeple.

Huge news on Thursday as the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) announced that it will discontinue operations of its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative in the face of the antitrust suit filed against the entities by Elon Musk. On Tuesday, Musk filed suit in federal court in the Northern District of Texas against GARM and WFA. //

The suit followed a 39-page House report issued in July setting forth the harms caused by GARM. The House Judiciary Committee shared Thursday's announcement on its Twitter/X account.

House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 @JudiciaryGOP
·
#BREAKING: The “Global Alliance for Responsible Media” is discontinuing.

Big win for the First Amendment.

Big win for oversight.
12:42 PM · Aug 8, 2024. //

Now, before we get overly excited, let's be mindful that just because "GARM" appears to be folding, that doesn't mean the motivation behind its inception is going anywhere,... //

anon-7lqi
11 hours ago
What GARM was doing was so indefensible that just filing one suite made them shut it down.

Think about that. //

anon-1tw9 11 hours ago edited

It’s my understanding GARM arose from the ashes of a previous organization that folded when the pressure came, only to re-emerge with a new name, GARM. So it is that I believe GARM is forthright being renamed and will continue on.

How Did It Happen?

You don't give the Tsar unpleasant information. The invasion of Ukraine unfolded the way it did because the FSB directorate responsible for intelligence in Ukraine gave optimistic reports about the desire of Ukraine for an Anschluss and said the Ukrainian Army would not fight. According to Bloomberg, something similar happened this time.

Gerasimov and top officials "seemingly dismissed intelligence warnings that Ukrainian soldiers were gathering near the border with Russia’s western Kursk region as much as two weeks before they began the assault," Bloomberg said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was also not briefed on the troop buildup, the unnamed source reportedly told Bloomberg.

True or not true? It's hard to tell. //

Ukraine's challenge is to convert a tactical and operational victory into something that has strategic impact.

Russia has been knocked back on its heels, and Putin has been made to look rather ridiculous. He's not going to take that lying down because if the Tsar is not omnipotent, well, he's not the Tsar. It is hard to see how Gerasimov and most of the Russian General Staff survive this fiasco.

The episode has also demonstrated a degree of operational brilliance that no one expected. So far, the Ukrainians have seemed as mired in Soviet-era tactics as the Russians.

A recently surfaced recording of a Zoom call between the Biden/Harris team from 2020 reveals disconcerting evidence of the team's intentional targeting and manipulation of voters and relentless bullying of media outlets to control information. //

“One of the smartest things that the party did itself was over the last couple of years, they actually invested in a team that Tim runs… to detect and track misinformation and misinformation narratives in various corners of the internet and then flag them to platforms as a violation of their policy.” //

Matt Orfalea
@0rf
·
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Replying to @0rf
RINKEVICH: "We targeted folks based on online behavioral cues, building out personas, based on the type of content they were consuming, what they were searching, the kinds of websites they were visiting so that we could target folks in real-time as they were exposed to that… Show more

4:11 PM · Aug 7, 2024 //

Matt Orfalea
@0rf
·
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Replying to @0rf
But the Biden team didn't just get the media to forward their deception, they changed real votes. According to Rinkevich, "concern around [Biden's] mental acuity in particular went down by 8 points over the course of our campaign," resulting in "about 200K" votes for Biden. /16

4:11 PM · Aug 7, 2024

Vance on X: “I thought the reporters traveling with Kamala might be a little lonely given that she never answers questions from them, so I figured I’d come say hello and check out my new plane while I was at it.”

The rally was held at a hangar, and people had to ride in shuttle buses (yellow school buses) from the parking area to the hangar. The problem was, there were no signs telling them where to board shuttle buses upon return, and since the hangar was next to a UPS facility, by the time the rally ended there were UPS trucks everywhere, blocking the buses. According to attendee Josiah Lippincott it was utter chaos.

After US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google has a monopoly in two markets—general search services and general text advertising—everybody is wondering how Google might be forced to change its search business.

Specifically, the judge ruled that Google's exclusive deals with browser and device developers secured Google's monopoly. These so-called default agreements funneled the majority of online searches to Google search engine result pages (SERPs), where results could be found among text ads that have long generated the bulk of Google's revenue.

At trial, Mehta's ruling noted, it was estimated that if Google lost its most important default deal with Apple, Google "would lose around 65 percent of its revenue, even assuming that it could retain some users without the Safari default." //

But the remedies phase of litigation may have to wait until after Google's appeal, which experts said could take years to litigate before any remedies are ever proposed in court. Whether Google could be successful in appealing the ruling is currently being debated, with anti-monopoly advocates backing Mehta's ruling as "rock solid" and critics suggesting that the ruling's fresh takes on antitrust law are open to attack.

The space agency also confirmed key elements exclusively reported by Ars over the last week, chiefly that NASA has quietly been working for weeks with SpaceX on a potential rescue mission for Wilmore and Williams, that the Crew-9 mission launch has been delayed to September 24 to account for this possibility, and that Starliner is unable to undock autonomously with the current software configuration on the vehicle. //

FabioLx Seniorius Lurkius
6y
10
Subscriptor++
Makes you think that maybe, just maybe, they found issues in the autonomous software back in 2022, but didn't tell anyone because they weren't visible if you couldn't get access to detailed data, and they were banking on not needing it anymore. //

Ajax81611 Smack-Fu Master, in training
3y
50
Subscriptor
NASA's rules for human space flight require less than a 1 in 270 chance of LOM, LOC, or serious injury to the crew. I wish someone had asked, "What is the current risk level assessment? One in what number?" //

Ajax81611 Smack-Fu Master, in training
3y
50
Subscriptor
Why on Earth (pun?) would you on a TEST flight not leave in BOTH options, manual or automated return? I can't fathom that. If the answer is, "this spacecraft isn't capable of that," then I have a bunch of other questions. ///

Quite probably the hardware is different and they would need to test that integration before having confidence in the autonomous mode

The landmark antitrust ruling against Google on Monday is shaking up one of the longest-standing partnerships in tech. //

During a weekslong trial, Apple executives showed up to explain and defend the partnership. Under a deal that first took shape in 2002, Google paid a cut of search advertising revenue to Apple to direct its users to Google Search as default, with payments reaching $20 billion for 2022, according to the court’s findings. In exchange, Google got access to Apple’s valuable user base—more than half of all search queries in the US currently flow through Apple devices.

Where Vance was the ultimate volunteer, choosing a service he knew would result in deployment to Iraq, Walz approached his enlistment to get benefits and improve his chances for professional advancement. When Vance was ordered to Iraq, he went. When Walz, the senior noncommissioned officer in his battalion, was ordered to Iraq, he quit and left his men high and dry.

Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is being accused of cowardice and lying about his service record while he was serving in the Minnesota National Guard before his time as governor. In a letter to the editor of the West Central Tribune dated November 2, 2018, retired Command Sergeants Major Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr alleged that Walz lied or embellished his service record and shirked his duty as the senior enlisted leader of a Minnesota National Guard unit as it was about to be deployed to Iraq in 2005. //

When Walz and his battalion received warning orders that he, along with the battalion, would need to prepare for activation and mobilization for deployment to Iraq in early 2005, Walz committed the ultimate sin. He quit on his soldiers. //

His official retirement document states, SOLDIER NOT AVAILABLE FOR SIGNATURE. //

CrankyBoomer.substack.com
a day ago
When the going gets tough, the walzers go walzing.

This is not a slip of the tongue. Smith serves with Vance in the Senate. She has to be familiar with his life story. This was an attempt to set a narrative with CNN's native demographic of low-functioning midwits. Note how reluctant Acosta is to upset the apple cart.

Taken together, these two things indicate that Donald Trump and JD Vance are facing opponents who will casually tell the most extravagant lies and stoop to the worst kind of slanderous comments because they know their audience doesn't care and they have no fear of being challenged by the media.

There is no evidence that Donald Trump faked a disability to dodge the draft. That allegation has floated around and was investigated in detail by the New York Times. As Hasan was one of the loud voices pushing the debunked Russia Hoax, I wouldn't expect him to be particularly persuaded by the truth. But, arguendo, let's concede that a friendly doctor got Trump out of the draft after his student deferments ran out in 1972. By 1972, American involvement in the Vietnam War was running down. Trump's birthday is June 14, giving him a lottery number of 113. The highest lottery number called up in Trump's year of eligibility was 95. //

epaddon
8 hours ago
Donald Trump took a bullet. Tim Walz tried to avoid one. End of discussion.

The Left only destroys epaddon
8 hours ago
Donald Trump was hit by more bullets than Tim Walz was. 😁

streiff The Left only destroys
8 hours ago
Trump was missed by more bullets than Walz

Min Headroom llme epaddon
7 hours ago
And let’s not forget that after being shot and shot at Trump’s gotten right back up and gone right back out there, while knowing for a fact that the agency that is supposed to have his back is at best case incompetent for the job.

Walz didn’t even get to the point where he might get shot at before he cut and ran.

Gun sales have remained at over one million per month since 2019, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) reported. But they had leveled out before July 2024.

Historically high, gun sales had slowed month-over-month until the incident involving Trump and Harris' elevation to official Democratic presidential candidate, The Washington Examiner reported. //

The NSSF estimated that over the past five years, about 86,410,889 firearms have been sold. This is a significant increase since Biden took office. There appear to be indications that the attempt on Trump’s life may have contributed to the rise in gun purchases.

According to his official Report of Separation and Record of Service, he re-enlisted for six years on September 18th, 2001. However, in his response he says that he re-enlisted for four years, conveniently retiring a year before his battalion was deployed to Iraq. Even if he had re-enlisted for four years following Sept.11, his retirement date would have been September 18th, 2005. Why then did he "retire" on May 16th, 2005, before his supposed four-year enlistment was up? And he makes it sound like he "retired" a year before his battalion deployed to Iraq; when in reality he knew when he "retired" that the battalion would be deployed to Iraq.

Tim Walz is an American coward, plain and simple. He betrayed his word, his contract; he betrayed his men. He committed the ultimate act of betrayal, and that is irrefutable. It is beyond offensive to those of us who not only served our country but who had the honor and privilege to serve with our brothers and sisters in combat. //

SeekingRationalThought
8 hours ago
Well said. Having never served, I won't accuse Walz of cowardice. That is for veterans like the writer above, not the likes of me. However, remember this. If Walz, as the senior enlisted in his unit, was willing to abandon his troops, and his responsibilities to them, for personal gain (Congress), what isn't he willing to do for personal gain?