Tuesday evening reading - December 3, 2024
More goodies from the stack of stuff I read on a daily basis here on Substack.
When I get to between six and eight posts (or so) I think are worth sharing, you’ll get Tuesday evening reading. It won’t be every week, but likely about once or twice a month. There’s nothing wrong with link love!
So here goes. Read them first then come back and see what I have to say with it.
I’m not wild about the punctuation, but the overall point by
is sound and it describes Trump voters, even in states where he didn’t win like Maryland and Delaware.His point is that we should press the advantage to get a batch of other stuff done at the state levels where we can. Obviously with a milquetoast GOP majority in Pennsylvania there is presented some amount of challenge, but the situation is better than that of facing a negative trifecta like those found in the First and (formerly) Free States.
I will have some ideas on that in the coming days, with a unique perspective I think we can adapt and use.
Sort of in the same vein comes this piece from
, who writes In This Dimension. In his vision, the quest for justice begins with former Gen. Mark Milley and continues through Alejandro Mayorkas, both of whom he presumes are guilty and deserving of the firing squad. (So don’t put him on the jury.)Yet Scipio makes a good point: without enforcement there is no such thing as Rule of Law. Maybe hanging is too good for them, but they were sure happy to try and fit Donald Trump for an orange jumpsuit for far lesser offenses.
Writing as
, the intriguing premise of this article is that millions of illegals were allowed to stream into the country - not necessarily as phony votes for Democrats, but also as a means to temper inflation by allowing big business to depress wages.If the Fed had raised rates to 15–20%, it would have blown up the debt and a sovereign debt default would have happened. The US government would have defaulted, with calamitous results for the entire world.
In such an inflationary environment, a wage/price spiral could have happened.
(…)
But don’t worry, my friends, because there was another way to stop a wage-price spiral: Crash the labor market by flooding it with cheap labor to keep wages down, and to lower the wages of citizens who live inside the borders of the country. This was easy for the Biden administration and the Fed, they simply opened the border and allowed illegal aliens to pour into the country.
The problem with this is that wages are depressed and jobs suddenly less available for the native working class. But that’s a win for Democrats as well as that group becomes more dependent on the government.
Hopefully we can arrest that decline in the coming months as many millions are either deported by force or self-deport, allowing the economy to seek its true level.
Working on another area of the resistance: I’m not a really big fan of X, but I occasionally head that way to see what is going on with breaking news. It seems like a somewhat middle-of-the-road news source with its Community Notes.
On the other hand,
managed to last just a few hours on BlueSky, which now seems to be the far-left alternative to X now that Elon Musk has straightened it out. He may have set the record for a ban hammer. As he assesses:BlueSky is nothing more than complete and total anti-Trump pathological madness, in addition to a plethora of weird anime, topped with a heaping scoop of degeneracy.
That sounds a bit like Facebook anymore. I was telling my wife about the love-hate relationship I have with that entity, since it’s generally poor at bringing me eyeballs but goes viral with the posts of mine I share just enough for me to keep the faith. I don’t see BlueSky getting that far with me.
Here’s one that doesn’t need a lot of comment from me except that I agree, from
.
When I looked at the building, I thought it wasn’t done yet. Then I realized that was the architect’s intent. Not saying anyone would confuse me with Frank Lloyd Wright or anything, but I think I could have made that look a bit better.
It’s a bit of a Thanksgiving leftover, but I thought this was a well-written comparison of two early American settlements by
. There’s a reason the Mayflower is prominent while Jamestown is somewhat lesser known.
Finally, I have days like the one
has, but they are fewer and farther between because I’m still working. But, still:Does my life have purpose? It does because writing is my purpose. It is my creative outlet, the thing that keeps my mind active, the elusive dream I pursue. Should I have more urgency in my writing? Maybe so but, then, perhaps, it would become too much of a chore and I would not find joy in it any longer. I have a friend who just published his first book and that has ignited a little more fire in my belly so I have a feeling that, to accomplish certain goals, I will have to start treating my writing like my life’s work. Suffice to say, right now I am still in the contemplation mode on that piece. I will note, though, that if I did not have writing as a passion that I pursue, I would probably be miserable in retirement. My little caveat of advice for anyone thinking about stepping away: have something that will feed your fires and give you purpose. You will find that the pleasurable activities and the relaxed pace lose their appeal when they become routine – especially if they don’t involve any social interaction at all.
I like the pace I write at here - two posts a week with the occasional Monday Memory or TER, plus a (generally) weekly post at The Knothole. I also do a piece once a week at The Patriot Post, plus a full-time job and side hustles related to that. It’s something that works for me, much more so than the pace I used to do where I posted daily at my old blog.
It’s also worth briefly pointing out that I always intended to be a writer in my retirement, but the Great Recession made me go about two decades early. So be it.
Thus, I may never retire, although I wouldn’t mind some additional coin coming my way from this Substack. (Hint, hint: I do have paid subscriptions.)
All that should keep a good reader going and thinking for awhile. Now I’ll keep collecting for next time.
In the meantime, though, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now. I also have a Holiday Sale going on - 50% off an annual subscription.
Thank you, Michael, for including my Thanksgiving post about the two colonies. I appreciate your kind comments.
Thank you for including me in your newsletter, Michael. Much appreciated!