FBI Investigating Vet-Led Afghan Rescue Efforts

The few State Department officials who'd been willing to work with any of us are starting to peel off, citing pressure from on high. Now the FBI is showing up at people's door.

In one instance, agency officials showed up at the home of Scott Mann, founder of Task Force Pineapple, said Tim Parlatore, the group’s legal counsel. Such a visit is normal for the FBI, and the group cooperated fully, Parlatore said.

Some of the people described the outreach as nothing out of the ordinary and part of the growing public-private partnership on evacuations. “In my mind, the FBI was trying to be helpful, not intimidating,” a person familiar with the outreach said.

Others saw it differently.

Yeah, ask LTG(R) Michael Flynn how that friendly, helpful FBI visit 'just to clear things up' worked out for him. 

Related: FBI Admits its Really Hard to Solve Crimes They Didn't Make Up Themselves. 

The Mountain Heritage Festival

Mule Train! The Mountain Heritage Festival occurs annually (except in the annus horribilis of 2020) at Western Carolina University. It features mountain crafts, singing, dancing, and general good fun.

A team of Cherokee from the nearby reservation play a spirited game of stickball, "the little brother of war." It involves wrestling as well as running, tossing the ball with the stick, and so forth. 

If you enlarge the signs in this photo, you'll find that it is a blacksmith next to and working with a Cherokee coppersmith. The blacksmith produced traditional Scottish arts, including knives, swords, hammers, and chain mail armor. The collaboration between them mirrors that of the Scots immigrants and the Cherokee on the frontier, where the two communities were very close. 

Naturally there was bluegrass, gospel, and other mountain music.

Finishing the day with chicken grilled over the coals.

Redrum MC

There were a lot of these guys at the recent bike rally I went to, I think because they're a "First Nations" motorcycle club and it was held on the Cherokee Reservation. They're the only MC to ever address the United Nations; and apparently actor (and one time Conan the Cimmerian actor) Jason Momoa is a patched member. 

Momoa, if we take the whole 'nobody from the wrong ethnic group should ever play a character from another,' is definitely not a Cimmerian -- they're, according to Robert E. Howard who created Conan, the ancestors of the Celts and the Gaels and Highlanders. That said, Momoa is apparently a pretty cool guy and I am not in any way bothered that he played the character. It wasn't a great rendition, but that is more the director's and writer's fault. I thought he was great in Road to Paloma, and I'm looking forward to seeing him and others in the new Dune.

All the members I met or interacted with were honorable and upstanding. They say they're about positive images and respect for their traditions, and I notice that they aren't unwilling to take on non-Natives who happen to share their views. In that way they're inclusive beyond the ethnic lines they represent, which is nice to see going the other way as it often does not. 

Arizona Audit

The report was published today, and apparently has found issues with ballots at five times the margin of victory. I have not yet had a chance to read it, listen to the hearing, or review the findings. Nevertheless it is important to note.

The margin of victory was only about ten thousand, and normally in an audit of 2.1 million votes a difference of 50,000 wouldn't necessarily be out of line with expectations. It might change the result, but a certain amount of user error and mistakes are to be expected in a large election.

In this case, though, they knew how many extra votes they needed and had extra days to generate them. Sure enough, Wendy Rogers reports, 96% of the duplicate votes that were counted in the audit arrived after election day. The fact that the total numbers are relatively small doesn't mean that this wasn't a fraudulent outcome, because they had the opportunity to know exactly the target they needed to hit. 

I'll look at it as I'm able. I hope some of you will as well. 

UPDATE: I think she might have misunderstood what he said, but the spike is obvious and significant. 

UPDATE: The Federalist has a piece analyzing the results. 

Hospitalizations down again

 The numbers continue to go in the right direction.

A Lamb

He spoke very gently to her when they were first together.

For example, she once asked him if he had ever seen a lamb.

"I saw a lamb this morning," he said. "I looked in his eyes."

Then he stopped speaking, and she knew he was not happy.

...And If You Don't Like Me, Then Leave Me Alone

That advice is widely quoted in old folk songs, and it's good advice for these people. (By the way, having old folk songs is evidence of having a culture, though "whiteness" is not what it's properly called.)

Here's one of those old songs, as a matter of fact. 

Actually Charlie Daniels says about the same thing in "Long Haired Country Boy." 

It's very fine advice. It goes well with the two rules of business: mind yours, and stay out of mine.

UPDATE: Here's a folk song called "Fisherman's Son," which looks to be sung to the same tune as "Moonshiner." 

The sea is my lifeline the shore is my home

I've been to your cities I didn't stay long

I stared at the bright lights the dark city ways

I'll tell you that's not for me, no I couldn't stay....

I'm a fisherman's son got fisherman's blood

Just hauling the lobster and jigging the cod

And if you don't like me then leave me alone

And I'll go on singing my fisherman's song.

The Barrow Downs

Barrows are rising in popularity in the United Kingdom as a burial option. 

From the outside, they typically look just like small grassy hills, perhaps buttressed by some jagged, upright slabs that could’ve been nicked off of Stonehenge. But, each one also has a doorway literally into the hill, and some feature shelves lined with human remains, like a public mausoleum built into the earth....

Angel, whose company, Sacred Stones, has built three barrows since 2015 and is exploring building another six, recalls a visit to an ancient barrow.... the Cairn Holy tomb, which dates back to the fourth millennium B.C. The identities of those interred there are long lost, but something caught the eye of Angel and his daughter: fresh flowers recently left inside. “This is thousands of years old,” says Angel. In the intervening millennia, burial practices changed countless times. And yet, he says, he makes a point of returning to this same ancient barrow on every Scottish holiday he takes. Each time, without fail, he finds fresh flowers. The identity of those interred seems less important than celebrating their time on Earth, and the ancient barrow’s permanence made that possible thousands of years later.

Here is another article on the subject. 

Who Needs Industries?

The FDA decides to kill vaping. I always thought vaping was silly, but it's no worse than smoking (some argue better) and employed a lot of people. You'd think with the economy like it is that employment issue would be a concern.

It would be paranoid to think that the government was actively trying to destroy small businesses, but this has been a devastating year for small businesses of all sorts thanks to government actions. You might believe that some of those actions were necessary and justified. Even if so, why make it worse?

Equinox

 

Autumn arrives. 

Australian Horror Show

Mobs of police open fire on fleeing, unarmed protesters. For their safety, I suppose. 

Ghosts and Barracuda

 Hard blues for the last day of Summer. 

What Just Happened Here?

White House staff suddenly freaks out and expels the media during the middle of a conference with Biden and Boris Johnson. Johnson was mid-sentence when they suddenly push the press out of the room.

UPDATE: The White House explains that Johnson didn't have permission. 

"Our relationship with the United Kingdom and with Boris Johnson is so strong that we will be able to move beyond this, but he called on individuals from his press corps without alerting us to that intention in advance."

So it's a diplomatic affront that an allied head of government took questions from the press, at a press conference, without seeking permission. Fortunately, though we are understandably upset by this, our relationship is strong enough to survive it. 

Hey Oney!

This woman was tired of working at Walmart, and decided to tell the world.

After letting out a deep exhale, Mcgrath began by saying, “attention Walmart shoppers and associates, my name is Beth from electronics. I’ve been working at Walmart for almost five years and I can say that everyone here is overworked and underpaid.”

She continued to express her frustrations by calling out the store’s policies and management. “The attendant policy is b*******,” she continued. “We are treated from management and customers poorly every day. Whenever we have a problem with it we are told we are replaceable. I’m tired of the constant gaslighting. This company treats their elderly associates like s***.”

Mcgrath then got personal with her criticism of the store’s management. “To Jared, our store manager, you’re a pervert. Greta and Kathy, shame all y’all for treating your associates the way you do. I hope you don’t speak to your families the way you speak to us,” she declared. Mcgrath ended the video by exclaiming, “F*** management and f*** this job. I quit!”

In honor of that, a song from Johnny Cash.

 

More from Wuhan

This sounds like a great idea whose time has come. 

New documents show that just 18 months before the first Covid-19 cases appeared, researchers had submitted plans to release skin-penetrating nanoparticles containing “novel chimeric spike proteins” of bat coronaviruses into cave bats in Yunnan, China.

They also planned to create chimeric viruses, genetically enhanced to infect humans more easily, and requested $14million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to fund the work.

Papers, confirmed as genuine by a former member of the Trump administration, show they were hoping to introduce “human-specific cleavage sites” to bat coronaviruses which would make it easier for the virus to enter human cells. 

So, they told us they were going to do this. DARPA has been one of the leading agencies on preparing for coronavirus and other pandemics, and in fairness they have had notable successes in preparatory work. All the same, "let's engineer new spike proteins and release them to the wild" is not the kind of plan I would expect from anyone other than a James Bond villain. 

VP Harris: Biden Administration's Handling of Border Must Be Investigated

I seem to recall that she was named 'Border Czar,' but I suppose she means to say that she supports the investigation of and accountability for underlings, not the person in charge. 

Adventures in Headline Writing

The headline here is:

"Less than Half the Country Believes Biden Lacks 'Mental Soundness' To Be President: Poll."

The poll's actual finding: 48% believe he lacks the mental soundness, and 49% think he has it. 

So you could just as easily have headlined this:

"Less than Half the Country Believe Biden Has 'Mental Soundness' to be President." 

Or, since 3% said they weren't sure, giving you 51% who are sure he isn't fit or not sure he is:

"More than Half the Country Unsure of Biden's Mental Soundness as President." 

His speech today at the UN was pretty awful, but the UN itself is pretty awful. Anyone who commits to taking it seriously is already on the wrong track. 

#TraitorCawthorn

Some group called "Really American" is targeting my Congressman, Madison Cawthorn, with this ridiculous video. They are apparently trying to convince Pelosi and the House leadership to expel him from Congress over his rhetoric. 

The video intends to make him look like some kind of militant, but it is carefully edited to leave out the fact that he is in a wheelchair. It uses all the normal tricks of political ads -- slow motion, washed out colors, violent language and the like -- plus footage arising from Cawthorn's own choice to appear often with firearms in order to appeal to Second Amendment voters who are a big part of his constituency in Western North Carolina. 

This kind of thing is ridiculous and offensive. I have no brief for Cawthorn, who as far as I can tell from observing him is completely useless. Nevertheless he was chosen by our voters, and it is none of their business to deny us representation according to the choices our voters made. I'd rather see a better man in the office, but whichever representative occupies the space is our choice and not theirs. 

Meddling strangers are not welcome in these mountains.

Requiescant in Pace

Two men who were each significant thinkers have passed on in the last day, one from each side of the political spectrum.

Professor Emeritus Angelo Codevilla should be known to all of you. His most famous essay is here, and is as worth reading today as when he wrote it. Here is his final work, on the rescuing of America. In addition to being deeply insightful on the course and fate of the nation he loved, he was a scholar of and participant in intelligence operations. The nation loses one who was both a patriot and a serious thinker, either a sad loss and the combination a tragedy. 

Professor Charles Mills was a scholar from Trinidad who wrote chiefly about philosophy of race but also in Marxist thought. Unlike most people in that field, he was a man of extraordinary courtesy, one who undertook to discuss the issues of race in ways that were designed to illuminate the genuine problems and identify solutions that were acceptable. His death leaves the field much poorer intellectually at a time when it has grown in importance, and now affects major decisions at many institutions both government and corporate. Those decisions, already often terrible, will be worse because of the loss of his thoughtful and graceful participation. 

Losing the blue collars

 Oz gets feisty.

One Quarter to a Third of Navy SEALs Reject Vaccine

Hundreds of Special Operators will be disqualified from service over this, having a tremendous effect on the military's ability to carry out clandestine and covert operations. 

Younts said the Pentagon has put its threat in writing that unvaccinated SEALs, including those who get a religious exemption or already have natural immunity, will be forbidden from deploying with their teams, all but ending their special operator careers. Some were given a deadline of this week, he said....

Tim Parlatore, a lawyer who helped win the acquittal of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher in the alleged death of an ISIS prisoner, said he has confirmed large numbers of SEALS are declining to get the vaccine right now.

"It's in the hundreds. And it's not the senior leadership. It's all the shooters and it is going to have a huge impact," Parlatore said. "If they continue to with this asinine police you are going to have the complete decimation if the SEAL teams," he said.

It's a bit more than a decimation if it eliminates a quarter to a third of the force. That's on the order of two or three Roman decimations in a row.

The article talks quite a lot about people seeking a religious exemption from the vaccine, but they never bother to explain what the religious objection happens to be. I assume it has something to do with fetal tissue from cell lines drawn from abortions being used in the testing process, but it is never spelled out. 

SEALs take a long time to train, and it is difficult to recruit extra people who can pass the selection course anyway, so replacements will not quickly be forthcoming. 

An Amazing Display

Tex left a comment on the border post below that establishes a source for these 15,000 Haitians who suddenly turned up in Del Rio. It was another diplomatic failure by the Biden administration. 

[I]n January, the Biden administration began to  pressure Mexico to maintain and use its National Guard and immigration bureaucracy to slow the flow of expected caravans and of tens of thousands of Haitians and other migrants coming in from all over the world. This was a fairly quiet diplomatic campaign, and it coincided with billions in promised U.S. aid and other benefits such as covid vaccines. 

Instead of transferring the cash and vaccines, the Biden administration delayed -- and openly plotted to use the vaccine stockpiles for boosters instead, which drew resignations in protest at the FDA and a rebuke vote last week. Mexico decided to remind the US Government that it can always open the flood gates. 

The migrant interviews comport with the arrivals of bus after bus here in Acuna, about every 15 minutes all day long every day for a week, local business owners said. At the main city station, CIS witnessed buses pull in and empty out passengers who all appeared to be migrants....

A casual move such as suspending deterring strategies under cover of a holiday, or perhaps for the express purpose of transferring a humanitarian burden to the United States, indicates a diplomatic failure by the Biden administration in choosing carrots rather than Trump’s stick in dealing with Mexico. The move hints at how Mexico’s leadership regards the Biden administration’s quid pro quo arrangements of aid for help with illegal immigration from Guatemala.

This has led to astonishing visuals for a Democratic administration of Border Patrol Agents removing black Haitians using horses and whips. 

How can they be so bad at everything? This all happened the same week as the French recalling their ambassador over the submarine fleet being snaked out from under them. In addition to disrupting a major alliance, D29 points out in the comments to that post that the SSN fleet won't be available until 2040 -- thirteen years after the French fleet would have been fully operational. That means that this fleet won't come into service until after China's demographic collapse; during the full time that China has the manpower to wage expansionistic wars, Team Biden has ensured we'll be on the sidelines. 

It is an amazing display. I've never seen its like. 

UPDATE: The Vice report notwithstanding, I've yet to see any photographs or video of the "whips" they claim are being used. There is a good chance that these are just split reins that are being mistaken for whips by journalists; but the White House spokeswoman didn't push back against the claim that they were whips when asked about it. Of course, she's probably never sat on a horse outfitted with Western tack in her life. 

Just a Coincidence, Of Course

The judge in the Sussman case is married to Lisa Page's attorney. How is it that in a nation of 300,000,000 people the same few names turn up? 

Low profiles

 

Arizona Upcoming

The Arizona Audit is nearly complete, and is planning to release findings in the coming days. In the meantime, Gateway Pundit claims to have data that Arizona has run hundreds of thousands of voter identities past the Social Security Administration in recent months -- with over half finding 'no match.' 

The Gateway Pundit post also notes that Maricopa County has its own voter registration system, different from and independent of the ones the rest of the state uses.

Down on the Border

A significant escalation in what was already a crisis prompts the deployment of Texas state police. The Federal police, whose job this actually happens to be, are not stopping the invasion.

Followup on Imperial Pints

Back in May, I had a post that several of you enjoyed on the subject of American versus Imperial pints. Today I learned that the UK government, post-Brexit, is bringing back Imperial pint glasses marked with a crown stamp as assurance of proper measurement. We shall have to keep an eye out to see if those can be ordered for shipment to the United States. 

Non-monoculture

 My septic drainfield:  what we do instead of a lawn.  This year's very wet summer made everything especially happy, but the extra moisture from the drainfield is welcome, too.