COMMENTARY FROM jeffmoskin

[thelivyjr]

On another note, DEMOCRAT Adam "SHIFTY" Schiff went to some political doo in crime-ridden, DEMOCRAT-controlled San Francisco, now a lawless third-world country thanks to the DEMOCRATS, and had his car broken into and his luggage stolen while he was there ...

[jeffmoskin]

San Fran has seen better days, but you can't blame the Democrats. Mainly too many drugs on the street. And too many homeless because nobody can afford the rents there.

[thelivyjr]

Good morning, jeffmoskin!

Democrats like fast and loose, no morals whatsoever, no laws, no rules, do what you want when you want with absolutely no personal responsibility, and now they6 have San Francisco as a shining example of their success at destroying civilized society and replacing it with a world controlled by criminals ...

I'm not blaming them ...

I'm giving them high praise!

[jeffmoskin]

You are doing neither. SF has the same problems as LA or NYC. I grew up in a rent controlled apt in NYC. Where are they now? Turned into coops and condos, owned by sovereign wealth funds from the middle east.

And mostly unoccupied.

Just investments.

[thelivyjr]

As Joe Biden himself says, hey, he's a capitalist, and it is a capitalistic system we are living in here, and if it weren't like those capitalists that have bought up all those rent-controlled apartments, we wouldn't have an economy, period ...

And for there to be progress, somebody has to be hurt, and that is the way it goes in a capitalistic society like ours is ...

Joe Biden said that when he was explaining why he was a capitalist, because it's better to be at the top of the pile than is is to be at the bottom ...

Joe is canny like that, knowing which side the bread the butter is on, which is why Joe is president and that that other guy isn't ...

[thelivyjr]

Clinical Notes

George Jean Nathan and H.L. Mencken

American Mercury/October, 1924

The Champion. — Of the forty-eight sovereign States of this imperial federation, which is the worst?

In what one of them is a civilized man most uncomfortable?

Over half the votes, if the question were put to a vote, would probably be divided between California and Georgia.

Each, in its way, is almost unspeakable.

Georgia, of course, has never been civilized, save in a small area along the tidewater.

Even in the earliest days of the Republic, it was regarded as barbaric by its neighbors.

But California, at one time, promised to develop a charming and enlightened civilization.

There was a touch of tropical balm in its air, and a touch of Latin and even oriental color in its ideas.

Like Louisiana, it seemed likely to resist Americanization for many years; perhaps forever.

But now California, the old California, is simply extinct.

What remains is an Alsatia of retired Ford agents and crazy fat women — a paradise of Rotary and the New Thought.

Its laws are the most extravagant and idiotic ever heard of in Christendom.

Its public officers, and particularly its judges, are famous all over the world for their imbecilities.

When one hears of it at all, one hears that some citizen has been jailed for reading the Constitution of the United States, or that some new swami in a yellow bedtick has got all the realtors’ wives of Los Angeles by the ears.

When one hears of it further, it is only to learn that some distinguished movie wench in Hollywood has murdered another lover.

The State is run by its Chambers of Commerce, which is to say, by the worst variety of resident Babbits.

No man of any dignity seems to have any part in its public life.

Not an idea ever comes out of it — that is, not an idea beyond the grasp of a Kiwanis Club secretary, a Christian Science sorcerer, or a grand wizard of the American Legion.

Twice, of late, it has offered the country candidates for the presidency.

One was the Hon. Hiram Johnson and the other was the Hon. William Gibbs McAdoo!

Only Vermont can beat that record.

The minority of civilized Californians — who recently, by the way, sent out a call from Los Angeles for succor, as if they were beset by wolves! — commonly lay the blame for this degeneration of a once proud commonwealth upon the horde of morons that has flowed in from Iowa, Nebraska and the other cow-States, seeking relief from the bitter climate of the steppes.

The California realtors have been luring in these hinds for a generation past, and they now swarm in all the Southern towns, especially Los Angeles.

They come in with their savings, are swindled and sent home, and so make room for more.

While they remain and have any part of their money left, they patronize the swamis, buy oil stock, gape at the movie gals, and pack the Methodist churches.

Unquestionably, the influence of such vacuums has tended to degrade the general tone of California life; what was once a Spanish fiesta is now merely an upper Mississippi valley street-carnival.

But it is not to be forgotten that the Native Sons have gone down the chute with the newcomers — that there is little more sign of intellectual vigor in the old stock than there is in the new stock.

A few intransigents hold out against the tide of 100 per cent Americanism, but only a few.

The rest bawl against the Reds as loudly as any Iowa steer-stuffer.

The truth is that it is unjust to blame Iowa for the decay of California, for Iowa itself is now moving up, not down.

And so is Nebraska.

A few years ago both States were as sterile, intellectually, as Guatemala, but both are showing signs of progress today, and in another generation or two, as the Prohibition lunacy passes and the pall of Methodism begins to lift they will probably burst into very vigorous activity.

Some excellent stock is in them; it is very little contaminated by what is called Anglo-Saxon blood.

Iowa even today, is decidedly more civilized than California.

It is producing more ideas, and, more important still, it is carrying on a much less violent war against ideas.

I doubt whether any man who read the Constitution in Davenport or Des Moines would be jailed for it, as Upton Sinclair (or one of his friends) was in Pasadena.

The American Legion might protest, but the police would probably do nothing, for the learned judges of the State would not entertain the charge.

Thus California remains something of a mystery.

The whole United States, of course, has been going downhill since the beginning of the century, but why should one State go so much faster than the others?

Is the climate to blame?

Hardly.

The climate of San Francisco is thoroughly un-Californian, and yet San Francisco is almost as dead as Los Angeles.

It was there, indeed, that that California masterpiece, the Mooney case, was staged; it was there that the cops made three efforts to convict poor Fatty Arbuckle of murder in the first degree; it was there that the late Dr. Abrams launched a quackery that went Mother Eddy one better.

San Francisco, once the home of Mark Twain and Bret Harte, is now ravaged by Baptist dervishes and Prohibition enforcement officers.

But if the climate is not to blame, then what is?

Why should a great State, lovely physically and of romantic history, so violently renounce all sense and decency?

What has got into it?

God alone knows!

The case of Georgia is simpler.

It happens to be the chief battle ground between the poor white trash who have been in control of the whole South since the Civil War and the small but growing minority of civilized rebels.

That battle is going on all over the South, but in Georgia it is especially bitter, for there the poor-white trash are very strongly entrenched, and desperately determined to beat their antagonists.

They have many advantages.

They control the Legislature, they have the support of most of the newspapers, and they have produced a number of leaders of great boldness.

Hence the Ku Klux Klan.

Hence the prohibition of Darwinism.

Hence the tax of $1,000 a performance on grand opera.

But Georgia, though it is thus in the depths, is not hopeless.

There are civilized Georgians, and they are by no means inactive.

Today they carry on their fight against apparently hopeless odds, but if they keep their resolution they may win tomorrow.

At all events, they keep on fighting, bravely and even gayly.

But in California, as I have said, the civilized minority is in despair.

In Los Angeles, indeed, it has gone so far that it has thrown up its hands and cast itself upon the Christian charity of the rest of the country.

Interesting and insightful color commentary as always from H.L. Mencken on the true nature of reality in America, who would have had a field day with senile Joe Biden to write about ...

And did you know that before Joe became a politician, he was a long-haul trucker driving the big rigs, the eighteen wheels, from coast to coast 24/7/365 as a teamster union official to keep the country and its economy, which depends on long-haul truckers like Joe Biden being out there on the road every day, despite the weather, to keep it functioning ...

[thelivyjr]

On another note, jeffmoskin, Trump Media shares closed more than 12% higher today, so now is the time to buy the dip ...

[jeffmoskin]

I am a capitalist too. To paraphrase Churchill, it is the worst system except for all the others that have been tried. But like so many other things, it needs regulation to keep bad things from happening.

Which all started with Ray-Gun.

Morning in America

Mourning for America.

[thelivyjr]

What about Bubba Clinton?

[jeffmoskin]

He was certainly no Democrat. His first official act was to sign NAFTA, which single-handedly killed the small farmers in Mexico in favor of Dole and other big American ag companies. And we wonder why there are so many migrants heading north.

But he was good on TV, and that counts for a lot. Just ask Al Gore or Joe Biden