Stolen Vote!!!

I arrived at the polling station in a good mood, having established beforehand that yes, I was a registered voter and registered to vote in 3rd District TX withal.  Also, I found the address of the nearest polling station and off I went, all ready to cast my primary vote against that little crapweasel Rep. Van Taylor and for the righteous judge, Keith Self.

My good mood evaporated when I got my ballot paper.  There, at the top of the list were three names I’d never heard of before.  So I went back to the polling folks and said, “I think there’s something wrong — these aren’t the 3rd District Republican House candidates.”

“Oh,” came the reply, “you’ve been redistricted into the 4th District.”
“No I haven’t.  I checked on the official TXVote.org website just a couple hours ago, and according to them, I’m registered in the 3rd.”
“Ah,” came the airy reply, “I don’t think the website was updated in time.”

I didn’t do what I wanted to do because I’d left my guns in the car and anyway, I think it may be illegal to destroy those poxy voting machines with gunfire.

So I didn’t vote for any of the strangers, because I don’t know them.  I did, however, vote for the Usual Suspects — Jim Abbot, Ken Paxton and the other top Republican worms, and pretty much nobody else except the names I already knew from previous elections.  (I nearly voted for ex-LTC Allen West instead of Abbott in protest, but he can run again, and then I will.)

I was going to write to the Governor demanding heads on pikes, or worse, for the incompetent assholes who are supposed to do this stuff — aren’t computer systems wonderful? — but I had to allow my wrath to cool, because apparently it’s against the law to say some of the things I was going to say.

Anyway, all has ended well, because the little crapweasel has canceled his reelection campaign, no doubt because he was only going to lose the runoff to Judge Self as more and more voters realized what a little crapweasel he really is.  Strange that in an ultra-conservative district, voters aren’t going to take too kindly to his support of anti-Trumpers and shagging some houri  extramaritally.

Which means that a former LTC and -judge and staunch conservative is going to Washington on our behalf.  I mean their  behalf, because I’ve been shunted out of his district.  I have no idea what the 4th District is all about, and now I know how the Wandering Jew felt.

By the way, in learning about the candidates, I discovered that two of the Democrat nominees are an ex-Californian and ex-Bostonian respectively.  Fuck me, that didn’t take long.


And thankee muchly to the Loyal Readers who emailed me about Crapweasel’s withdrawal.

 

Two Takes, Same Conclusion

First take:

You won’t hear this on CNN, but Putin’s Army of Darkness, in the most complex and ambitious ground maneuver operation since World War 2, following the Soviet “deep war” playbook, is also working on cutting off the Ukrainian army group in the Donbass from Kiev. This is by far the most capable (or only capable) large portion of the Ukrainian army. Yesterday, its main reserves of diesel fuel were destroyed from the air. It will soon be cut off and immobile.

Once that happens, the entire Donbass front collapses (they will no longer have a “front”), and BILLIONS of dollars in U.S.-funded or U.S.-supplied weaponry will be captured almost without a battle. (To be clear, it’s almost all U.S. funded or supplied—even most of the Soviet vintage stuff was bought and shipped in from Poland, Czechia, etc. by the CIA, “off the books” but well documented in videos of tank trains crossing the border into Ukraine, in 2015-2016.)

The Russians have finally entered Kharkov, Ukraine’s second largest city, very close to the Russian border. Previously, they had bypassed it the same way that America bypassed every town in southern Iraq to reach Baghdad in 2003. On Saturday night, they finally wasted all significant, organized resistance with a rain of thermobaric death in the outskirts. Today, they started to go in and mop up. Of course, it’s not a job for one day.

Second take:

It remains to be seen if Putin’s plan will succeed or fail, but what is clear is that there was a plan to invade Ukraine in force, and that plan has been executed since day one.

Ukrainian troops are putting up a valiant fight facing long odds and difficult conditions. Russia holds most if not all of the advantages.  It can, and has, attacked Ukraine from three different directions. The Russian military holds a decided advantage in manpower, as well as air, naval and armor superiority.  It has vast resources to draw on. While Ukraine has the support of much of the international community, which is providing weapons, Ukraine is fighting alone.

Believing Russia’s assault is going poorly may make us feel better but is at odds with the facts.

Sobering stuff.  And given the fog of war at the moment, both are plausible and well-reasoned arguments.

Bad Influence

I’m sorry to see that P.J. O’Rourke has left us for that Great Editorial Office In The Sky.

Although I didn’t agree with much of his later writing, I loved his earlier books (Parliament Of Whores, Eat The Rich, etc.) and I do owe him a debt of gratitude.

You see, when I was homeschooling the kids, whenever they asked a question about politics or taxes or any of that, I simply pointed them to the relevant chapter in one of P.J.’s books, and let him be their guide.  (Also, they didn’t always believe my explanation because for some reason they thought I was a right-wing conservative, and wanted an “impartial” perspective, ho ho.)

The Son&Heir now has all O’Rourke’s books on his shelf, and I truly believe that these have formed his socio-political outlook, such as it is.

No better legacy.

Aargh

“Well Kim,”  you may ask, “how was your trip to the tax guy yesterday?”

About the same as your dog getting its temperature taken for the first time:

What I love most about the tax code for retirees is that no matter how large the “contributions” you paid into SocSec, you don’t get enough to live on when you do finally retire;  then as a retiree, when you earn a little extra money trying to make ends meet, your SocSec income is taxed.

So how do I really feel?

Johnny Not-So English

Mr. Bean has created a stir:

Rowan Atkinson has reportedly finally moved into his ‘space age petrol station’ mansion after a decade-long planning row with neighbours. The Blackadder star, 67, initially bought the 1930s quaint English home – known as Handsmooth House – and its 16 acres of land for £2.6million in 2006.

He shocked locals in the charming seventh century village of Ipsden in Oxfordshire when he knocked it down and installed a modern 8,000 sq. ft. glass and steel mansion designed by top U.S. architect Richard Meier in its place.

Oy.  From this:

…to this:

Now I’ll grant you that House #1 needed a lot of restoration.  And I’ll also grant you that House #2 is located where nobody can see it (at least from the road).

But seriously?

I note, by the way, that he has ample space to park his supercar collection:

Small wonder that it took him ten years to get permission to build this dropping of visual excrement.  It should have taken longer.

State Of Nature

From Glenn:

“The justice system isn’t really there to protect citizens from criminals. It’s there to protect criminals from citizens.  And within limits that’s a good thing, but when you create a state of nature, you get a state of nature.  And in the state of nature people absolutely do kill to protect their property from marauders.”

So the more lawless Democrats make places, it becomes more likely that ordinary people are going to take the law BACK into their own hands.

Always remember:  we deputize the enforcement of law to the agents of the State.  But should those agents, or their masters, refuse to enforce, maintain or protect the law, We The People have every right to take over that responsibility.

Life, liberty and property:  they’re ours, and we are going to keep them.  It’s a perfectly natural act, as Glenn says.

And if the the agents of the State — politicians, governors, district attorneys or the police — don’t much care for that eventuality, screw them.