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SKYE’S LINKS 09/28/23

Ending the Kleptocracy


As Elon Musk leads the way toward Supreme Court challenges to the Administrative State, the era of federal tyranny and arbitrary rulings might end. The Chevron Deference results from a 1980s SCOTUS ruling that allows apparatchiks within federal agencies to make up rules and prosecute discretions with impunity. These departments and agencies maintain magistrates to hear their rules applied politically or for profit. Aggressive agencies never lose in their kangaroo courts. This tyranny costs the economy dearly.

Musk is challenging the government in several directions and is sailing into a favorable Supreme Court. His most important challenge is constitutional, as the administrative judges are far removed from the supervision of the President. They are silos of government unto themselves.

ESG is failing everywhere, as is most of the enviro movement. The memo went out earlier this month, and BlackRock is leading the rollback.

Disaster Capitalism is one of the dems get rich quick gimmicks, and Biden’s efforts might keep him from the ballot. Wouldn’t this be a turn of events?

All this and much more are at Today’s Skye’s Links.

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MARSHMALLOWS, GREEN TEA, AND SUCCESS IN LIFE

marshmallow-test[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on August 22, 2013.  The cure for addiction to rewards-without-effort (government welfare) afflicting so many millions is needed more than ever today. Several TTPers have told me they consider this one of the most important articles ever in TTP.]

TTP August 22, 2013

It began in Trinidad.  Walter Mischel, a Jewish kid from Vienna whose family escaped from the Nazis to Brooklyn, was doing field work on the Caribbean island for his Ph.D. in psychology.  It was 1955, and he noticed the population was split between people whose families came from India and those from Africa.

The Indians thought the Africans were “impulsive hedonists” who lived for the moment and never cared for the future, while the Africans thought the Indians only cared about “stuffing money into their mattresses” and didn’t know how to have fun.  He wondered what lay behind such assessments.

In 1966, when the Stanford Psych Department launched its Bing Nursery School to research child development, Walter thought back to his days in Trinidad and came up with an experiment that was to become famous as the Stanford Marshmallow Test.

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TATARSTAN CAPITALIZES ON CHINA’S EXPANDING ROLE IN MIDDLE VOLGA

6republics-od-russ-middle-volga

[For some time now, TTP has been telling you about the independence movements in Russia’s Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, with Moslem Tatars and Bashkirs fighting in Ukraine against Russia, knowing Ukraine’s freedom will lead to theirs and start the breakup of Russia. With that, they know they can prosper for they have a lot of oil, easily extractable with no permafrost like in Siberia.

And TTP has been telling you for years about the long-range designs Chicom China has on eastern Siberia.  Now, our friend Paul Goble tells us the latest: China’s campaign to separate the Middle Volga from Russia.]

Kazan, Tatarstan. Russians have become increasingly concerned with the expansion of Chinese influence in the Russian Far East, along the Northern Sea Route, and in some of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

Now, the Kremlin is confronted with a potentially more disturbing development: the rise of China as a major player not just along Russia’s periphery but near its core. Beijing has been increasing its investments and influence in Tatarstan and the Middle Volga.

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IS THE LEFT HAPPY THEY GOT THEIR WISH?

wishbone-warAmerica has been in a veritable cultural revolution since the 1960s. Nearly all our major institutions finally became woke—the administrative state, traditional and social media, universities, K-12, the corporate boardroom, entertainment, professional sports, and the foundations.

So the Obama and the Biden administrations finally seemed to have achieved their aims, in what the Obamas once boasted would be the “fundamental transformation” of America into something unrecognizable by its Founders.

But what they gave us was nihilism—the destruction of norms, laws, and customs. There is no border, no criminal justice system, no real president any more.

The citizen is a serf, the illegal alien the veritable citizen. The former needs a passport to reenter the country, the latter is waved on through. There is a slob in gym shorts and a hoodie establishing dress codes for the Senate, teen murderers bragging that they won’t spend a day in jail, and a would-be state legislator filming herself doing sexual gymnastics while begging for cash only to be upset over the invasion of her “privacy.”

So the Left got what it wanted and gave us our new America. And the result?

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BIDEN CONDEMNS MENENDEZ FOR ROOKIE CORRUPTION

biden-condemns-menendezWASHINGTON, D.C. — With Democratic Senator Bob Menendez facing charges of bribery, President Biden weighed in this morning, condemning the Senator for accepting his bribes in bars of gold rather than fungible assets laundered through 20 shell companies.

"Gold? That's a real rookie move, Jack!" said Biden to reporters. "If you're gonna get rich off a bribe, you gotta have money wired to several different shell companies over the globe which will then launder the money and wire it to your son in exchange for a painting, who will then buy some expensive items, and give you your cut. Come on, man! This ain't rocket surgery! Don't they launder money in Mexico or wherever this Menendez guy is from?"

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TYSON’S TWADDLE – WOKEISM POSING AS SCIENCE

neil-degrasse-tyson-twaddles[Is there a more obnoxious jerk who epitomizes woke arrogant speaking-for-science fraudulence more than Neil DeGrasse Tyson?  Read on how he was so masterfully exposed by two knowledgeable Brits.]

Bruce Thornton and others have usefully dubbed it “scientism”: “Dressing up ideological beliefs or even fads in the quantitative data and forbidding jargon of real sciences like physics or engineering.”

It allows progressives who actually know and care nothing about science to boast that they “believe in science” or “follow the science” whereas their reactionary opponents, presumably, do not.

For some years now, the premier prophet of scientism in America has been Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who since 1996 has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, and who, like his fellow astrophysicist Carl Sagan before him, has won fame as a promoter and popularizer of science.

Until, that is, he was exposed as a bloviating fraud last Saturday (9/23).

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FLASHBACK FRIDAY: RIDING A YAK AT RANGDUM

yak-riding-at-rangdum Rangdum Gompa, Zanskar, August 1993. Ever ridden a yak? Brandon did when was 10 at the Rangdum Tibetan Monastery or Gompa atop a small hill at 13,225 feet high in an extremely remote region of the Himalayas in India called Zanskar. It was part of our Indian Tibet expedition which will be repeating soon – and this time Brandon will be leading the expedition. I’ll just be along for the ride. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #161 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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PENA PALACE

pena-palaceBuilt as the summer residence of the Portuguese Royal family almost 200 years ago, Pena Palace stands atop the highest hill of the Sintra mountains with stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean far below.

Today a museum showpiece and World Heritage Site, it is one of the most spectacular castles in all Europe. I was here with your fellow TTPers completing another marvelous exploration of the wondrous land of Portugal in October last year. We’ll be here again next Spring - hope you’ll be with us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #231 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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THE CARRICK-A-REDE ROPE BRIDGE

carrick-a-rede-rope-bridge One of the most dramatic sights along the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland is the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. Originally built in the 1660s by salmon fishermen to get to their nets on the tiny islet of Carrick, it spans 70 feet across and 100 feet above the ocean waters surging below. It’s still used by the fishermen to this day. And while it’s been sturdily reinforced since it was a simple rope bridge, it’s still an invigorating experience to negotiate – especially in the wind and rain when I was there. Don’t pass it up if you’re ever in Northern Ireland. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #232 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL BOOKSTORE

livraria-lello-bookstore This is the Livraria Lello bookstore in Porto, Portugal where I am right now. Built in 1906, its Neo-Gothic/Art Noveau architecture and design make it the world’s most beautiful place to buy books. Not only was J.K. Rowling inspired to write her Harry Potter books here, but she based the dramatic staircase at Hogwarts on the work of art staircase at “The Lello” that you see above. Porto oozes with such beauty, charm, and entrancement. You deserve to experience it for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #230 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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THE GOLDEN ELEPHANTS OF DZANGA BAI

golden-elephant

Deep in the African rain forest where the Central African Republic, Cameroun, and the Congo come together, there is a swampy clearing of mineral and salt-rich mud where hundreds of elephants come to soak in the mud to absorb the minerals, turning their skin golden.  Other forest animals congregate here as well – buffalo, sitatunga and bongo antelope.  In the mountains nearby, there are an uncountable number of gorillas.  The clearing is called Dzanga Bai by the native Ba’aka Pygmies who live in small encampments in the forest.

We conducted our Gorillas and Pygmies expedition here in 2012.  It was an unforgettable experience, never to be repeated. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #278 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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HALF-FULL REPORT 09/22/23

It’s All About The Spectacle


It really is all about the spectacle according to the New Left, and whether critical systems can be disrupted such as city services or military avionics software.

We follow up on Skye’s Links from yesterday concerning the strange F-35 aircraft crash and what it means.

Ukraine’s survival might depend on gearing up the Arsenal of Democracy but the West no longer has a machine tools industry. These are the tools used to make the machines that produce goods. The problem needs urgent attention.

The fourth installment of leftist theory outlined in Beautiful Trouble, the modern replacement for Rules for Radicals, continues. The hand of Russian military doctrine in modern leftism becomes self-evident.

Please join us for this week’s HFR, and as always, your insights are greatly appreciated on the forum.

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SKYE’S LINKS 09/21/23

The Great Decentralization


A battle is being fought over control of A.I.

Who will control the technology? The decentralized billions of people, or the few and powerful?

With control comes the power of the global narrative and the ability to separate right-think from wrong-think. Throughout human history, the good guys have seldom been the thought police.

Or, as many are beginning to realize:

The Right of the People to Keep and Deploy Computer Models Shall Not Be Infringed.

Information control runs far and deep. Something caused the computer on a Marine F-35B aircraft to eject the very surprised pilot while the plane was in level flight. The Marines are taking this very seriously. Did something malfunction? Is the software buggy, or did someone send a digital signal to the aircraft?

By this time next year, billions, or maybe tens of billions of election campaign messages will have been computer-generated and sent. Most messaging will be ephemeral, meaning it appears briefly and then vanishes without a trace. George Soros is investing much money into mass brainwashing via TikTok. Even the candidates will appear as computer-generated images, making fake and inflammatory statements.

Truth is under automated assault as the narrative reaches beyond hospitals killing grandma for fedbucks and global interests inventing a climate crisis. Just how deep is the deep state? It continues to fear Trump at all levels.

Economic conditions are concerning as the Federal Reserve is losing ground to inflation. If the A.I. technology behind the manipulation of the 2024 election is used to create a financial panic, we might experience Weimar Germany, Version 2.0.

The narrative is too powerful to be in the hands of a few.

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“YOU’RE MEN, AIN’T YA?”

[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on December 22, 2017. It so deeply resonates today as the Democrats were allowed to steal Trump’s reelection in 2020 – frankly inconceivable to me back in 2017 – and are doing everything they can to prevent his reelection once again in 2024. And will attempt to steal 2024 no matter who the GOP nominee is.  Thus the most important question of our time now is, “You’re Americans, ain’t ya?  Will you be or won’t ya?”]

TTP, December 22, 2017

This is an epic scene in the great western, Open Range (2003), starring Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall.  They are “free grazers,” hated by the crooked sheriff and kingpin land baron who tyrannize the town the grazers are passing through and have killed one of their cowboys.

At the bar, a townsman says, “Shame what this town’s come to.”  Costner responds, “You can do something about it.”

The townsman is frightened at the prospect, objecting, “We’re freighters, Ralph here’s a shopkeeper.”

Costner looks at him with disgust: “You’re men, ain’t ya?”

The townsman, defensively: “I didn’t raise my boys just to see ‘em killed.”

Costner: “Well, you may not know this, but there are things that gnaw on a man worse than dying.”

At the end of Open Range, Costner and Duvall alone face the kingpin and all his henchmen.  Their courage in the ensuing gunfight inspires the townspeople to join the two grazers in gunning down the evil that had plagued them.

That is what Trump is doing for America.  Politics is downstream of culture, so they say.  Not for Trump.  As uniquely befits him, Trump is going in reverse – changing our politics will change our culture.

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