They struck at the king

And now they are rightfully paying the price:

Exacting swift punishment against those who crossed him, an emboldened President Donald Trump ousted two government officials who had delivered damaging testimony against him during his impeachment hearings. The president took retribution just two days after his acquittal by the Senate.

First came news Friday that Trump had ousted Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the decorated soldier and national security aide who played a central role in the Democrats’ impeachment case. Vindman’s lawyer said his client was escorted out of the White House complex Friday, told to leave in retaliation for “telling the truth.”

“The truth has cost Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman his job, his career, and his privacy,” attorney David Pressman said in a statement. Vindman’s twin brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, also was asked to leave his job as a White House lawyer on Friday, the Army said in a statement. Both men were reassigned to the Army.

Next came word that Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, also was out.

“I was advised today that the President intends to recall me effective immediately as United States Ambassador to the European Union,” Sondland said in a statement.

It's not "swift punishment", it is swift justice. And let there be considerably more of it soon!

No, you should ALL be ashamed

Avalanche insists that no one should feel ashamed for being taken in by Jordan Peterson. I very much disagree.

"I am ashamed for liking Jordan Peterson"

Every semi-normal person feels this way after having been taken for a destructive ride by a sociopath. "How how HOW could I have been so blind, not seen him for what he was? I cannot ever trust myself again!"

But there is no shame in being 'used' by a master-user! That would like saying, "I've just learned to play golf -- but Jack Nicklaus just destroyed me on the links! It's because there must be something wrong with me!"

No, you were just WAY outclassed! Ol' Jordie is a (probably literally) insanely talented master at sociopathic manipulation of normal folks. {Raises a rueful hand:} He sure 'got' me!

Sociopaths are not normal, and normal people have no useful defenses against the first one they meet; and often not further ones if they're unfortunate enough to run into another.

Whenever you get 'down' on yourself for not seeing it, remind yourself you had a run-in with a tiger on the veldt -- and got away with with a mere financial scratch! GOOD for you!

The problem is that I told everyone what Jordan Peterson was the moment I started paying any attention to him. I saw through his act at first glance and immediately observed several points of evidence that strongly indicated he had a disordered mind and a deceptive character. Yet four out of five people WHO HAD FOLLOWED ME FOR YEARS reacted angrily and insisted that I had to be wrong, despite the fact that there was absolutely ZERO evidence to support their position. And by zero evidence, I mean none whatsoever. Even the most cursory reading of anything he had ever written, dating all the way back to college, was sufficient to cast doubt on the man. It was one of the strangest things I've observed in the history of the blog.

There is no intellectual defense for that kind of reaction. This is precisely why I say MPAI. Most people are idiots, by which I mean that they are primarily driven by what makes them feel good at the moment, which is another way to say that they are predominately ruled by rhetoric. That is just as true of Avalanche, and the majority of people here - albeit a smaller majority than the norm - as it is of society in general. An idiot, to me, is anyone who believes, contra all philosophy, science, and history, that the truth of the matter is, or even can be, determined on the basis of his feelings about it.

Even when Protagoras says "man is the measure of all things" he is not referring to any one individual man, much less that man's feelings at a particular point in the space-time continuum.

These things are what they are. But don't say there is no shame in them. It's not for the rhetorical to judge or absolve the rhetorical, it is for those who are less susceptible to rhetoric to judge them. There were massive quantities of evidence indicating that Jordan Peterson was a fraud, and yet very, very few of his fans placed any weight on any of that preponderance of evidence, simply because he made them feel good for one reason or another.

If you fell for Peterson, then you should be ashamed and you should admit it to yourself. You should explore the reasons why you did so and why you were susceptible to his con. And you should do so in order to prevent yourself from falling just as readily for the very next fraud to come along. In fact, I would even suggest that the desire to explain away one's feeling of shame is indicative of the very vulnerability that led to the feeling in the first place.

If human history is any guide, many of those who fell for Jordan Peterson will fall for the next person to make them feel similarly good about themselves. Because MPAI.

XFL 2.0

I'll admit it, I am intrigued:

NO EXTRA POINT KICKS

Teams can go for one point from the 2-yard line, two points from the 5-yard line or three points from the 10-yard line. That means a team could score a nine-points in one possession. These three different scoring options will make a regulation tie a lot less likely. The options will create a fascinating wrinkle in coaching strategy. It’s likely that two-point conversions will be most common, but after a defensive touchdown, why not go for three?

SAFER KICKOFFS AND PUNTS

Two other game play innovations involved the kicking game: Kickoffs have been altered to make them safer so players aren’t hitting each other at full-speed. The kicker will kick off from the 30-yard line, 5 yards farther back than in the NFL, as a way to limit touchbacks. Most players will line up across from each other between the other 30- and 35-yard line and cannot move until the returner catches the ball.

The XFL made some changes to disincentivize punting, in the hopes of encouraging more teams to go for it on fourth down. Balls that are punted into the end zone or out of bounds will be marked at the 35-yard line, as opposed to the 20 in the NFL. The XFL is calling that a “major touchback.” If a team does punt, it will be more difficult to cover. No player on the punt team can run downfield until the ball is kicked, which will give returners more space to work with.

It looks as if the XFL is making a serious attempt to improve the game of football rather than simply imitate the NFL. That doesn't mean it will be successful, of course, but it does suggest that it may be worth watching. I really like the extra point(s) option. That's an indication of good game design.

A narrow escape

Fortunately for humanity, its greatest thinker has survived to think more of the thoughts that no one has thought before. Mikhaela Peterson explains the recent silence of Jordan Peterson:

The last year has been extremely difficult for our family. Dad was put on a low dose of a benzodiazepine a few years ago for anxiety following an extremely severe autoimmune reaction to food. He took the medication as prescribed. Last April when my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, the dose of the medication was increased. It became apparent that he was suffering from both a physical dependency and a paradoxical reaction to the medication. A paradoxical reaction means the drugs do the opposite of what they’re supposed to. These reactions are rare but are not unheard of.

For the last 8 months he’s been in unbearable discomfort from this drug, made worse when trying to remove it, because of the addition of withdrawal symptoms, stemming from physical dependence. He experienced terrible akathisia, which is a condition where the person feels an incredible, endless, irresistible restlessness, bordering on panic, and an inability to sit still. The reaction made him suicidal.

After several failed treatment attempts in North American hospitals, including attempts at tapering and micro-tapering, we had to seek an emergency medical benzodiazepine detox, which we were only able to find in Russia. It was incredibly gruelling, and was further complicated by severe pneumonia which we’ve been told he developed in one of the previous hospitals. He’s had to spend 4 weeks in the ICU in terrible shape, but, with the help of some extremely competent and courageous doctors, he survived.  The decision to bring him to Russia was made in extreme desperation, when we couldn’t find any better option. The uncertainty around his recovery has been one of the most difficult and scary experiences we’ve ever had.

So: Finally Dad is on the mend, even though there’s a lot of physiological damage that he needs to recover from. He’s improving, and is off the horrible medication. His sense of humour is back. He’s smiling again for the first time in months, but he still has a long way to go to recover fully.

It's more than a little strange, is it not, that a complete stranger could coincidentally happen to anticipate an emotional crisis of this magnitude prior to its occurrence? But setting aside the various possible causes of the crisis, let us simply observe that perhaps one would be, shall we say, unwise, to live one's life according to the philosophy and precepts of a man who is clearly unwell on multiple levels, including the physical, the psychological, and the spiritual.

When Churchians church

It's never all that difficult to distinguish the Churchians from the Christians, even when they are in the pulpit:

I finally got around to ordering Created To Be His Help Meet when my marriage seemed to be falling apart. I had really thought I was honoring God in my relationship toward my husband, yet I felt like I was living in prison, with him as my jailer. I couldn’t put the book down. It was just so liberating. I finally understood what God meant for me as a wife to be like, and I loved it....

Two Sundays later, our pastor stood in the pulpit and said that he was banning Created To Be His Help Meet from the church members, because it was too divisive. He said if we owned one, we were to throw it away. We were shocked. He has never banned church members from watching X- or R-rated movies. He has never banned anything, so why a simple marriage book?

After church, we asked our pastor what was in the book that was not right. He told us it was not because the book was not Scriptural, but because it was divisive, and therefore not good for the church body. My husband told him our marriage had been almost over, but because I had read Created To Be His Help Meet, we are more in love than we ever were.

Our pastor admitted he had not even read the book, but that several women had come to him insisting that he ban the book because it causes conflict. Are a few women going to decide what the rest of us are ALLOWED to read? If they don’t like it, we will not DEMAND that they read it, so why do they DEMAND that the rest of us not be ALLOWED to read it?

Churchians are to religion what cuckservatives are to politics. They will only ever shoot at that which is nominally on their own side, but is too "extreme" or "racist" or "divisive". They are the original wolves in sheep's clothing.

This church now knows everything it needs to know about their "pastor". He is not fit for church leadership and should be removed from the pulpit and expelled from the congregation at the earliest opportunity.

Remember, Jesus came to cause conflict. Jesus explicitly said that he came to divide people. Anyone who opposes the very concept of conflict or divisiveness is obviously and observably on the other side.

Now they're trying the gay one

As Anonymous Conservative has noted, the sudden bursts of overperformance on the part of Biden, Warren, Klobuchar, and now Buthesgay or whatever the name of the gay guy on the student council is, are just test runs by the DNC.

Support for former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg among Democratic and Independent voters in New Hampshire is gaining as the 2020 field gears up for the state's primary next week, the latest polling data shows.

The figures—gathered daily by 7 News and Emerson College Polling—showed that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders maintains a healthy lead in the state where he won more than 60 percent of votes in the 2016 contest.

On Wednesday, 38-year-old Buttegieg closed the gap by four points from Tuesday, a overall nine-point boost for the candidate since Monday. Sanders' support dropped one point from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Wednesday's figures put Sanders at 31 percent, Buttigieg at 21 percent, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren tied at 12 percent, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 11 percent.

Critics of the media often claim that they are just covering the horse race. This isn't actually true. What they're doing is floating various options and seeing which candidate the voters are willing to buy into. Biden and Warren have already blown their shots. Klobuchar was given a little extra bump due to her proximity to Iowa, but unsurprisingly, her appeal remained nonexistent. Sanders is nearly as unpopular with the bank-media complex as Trump. Now it's obviously the little gay guy's turn to be floated as a trial balloon, which is going to prove supremely unsuccessful.

Once you understand the polls are entirely fake, it's easy to see how they are utilized.

Okay, that would be bad

There is a possibility that the actual numbers for Corona-chan are considerably larger than the reported numbers:

As many experts question the veracity of China's statistics for the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, Tencent over the weekend seems to have inadvertently released what is potentially the actual number of infections and deaths, which were astronomically higher than official figures, but are eerily in line with predictions from a respected scientific journal.

As early as Jan. 26, netizens were reporting that Tencent, on its webpage titled "Epidemic Situation Tracker" was briefly showing data on the novel coronavirus (2019nCoV) in China that was much higher than official estimates, before suddenly switching to lower numbers. Taiwanese netizen Hiroki Lo that day reported that Tencent and NetEase were both posting "unmodified statistics," before switching to official numbers in short order.

On late Saturday evening (Feb. 1), the Tencent webpage showed confirmed cases of the Wuhan virus in China as standing at 154,023, 10 times the official figure at the time. It listed the number of suspected cases as 79,808, four times the official figure.

The number of cured cases was only 269, well below the official number that day of 300. Most ominously, the death toll listed was 24,589, vastly higher than the 300 officially listed that day.

I do find it unlikely that the death rate is 16 percent instead of 2 percent, though. If that were the case, more people outside of China would have died already.

Soros is not buying the best and brightest

The Soros-funded app that ruined the Iowa caucuses was written by amateurs:

Motherboard asked six cybersecurity and app development experts we trust to analyze the app. The app was built on top of React Native, an open-source app development package released by Facebook that can be used for both Android and iOS apps, according to Kasra Rahjerdi, who has been an Android developer since the original Android project was launched, and Robert Baptiste, a white-hat hacker who has exposed security flaws in many popular apps and reviewed the code. Rahjerdi said that the app contains default React Native metadata and that it comes off as a "very very off the shelf skeleton project plus add your own code kind of thing."

"Honestly, the biggest thing is—I don’t want to throw it under the bus—but the app was clearly done by someone following a tutorial. It’s similar to projects I do with my mentees who are learning how to code," Rahjerdi said. "They started with a starter package and they just added things on top of it. I get deja vu from my classes because the code looks like someone Googled things like 'how to add authentication to React Native App' and followed the instructions," Rahjerdi said.

"The mobile app looks hastily thrown together," Dan Guido, CEO of cybersecurity consulting firm Trail of Bits, told Motherboard.

Hey, look at the bright side of the debacle. At least journalists are finally learning to code!

Fake impeachment fail

The attempted dethroning of the god-emperor failed in the Senate, as we all knew it would:

The Senate on Wednesday voted to acquit President Donald Trump on both counts in his impeachment trial.

Forty-eight senators, including one Republican, found Trump guilty of abuse of power, while 52, all Republicans, voted to acquit him.

The president was also impeached on the charge of obstruction of Congress, in which all 53 Republicans found him not guilty and the remaining 47 senators voted to convict.

Now it is time for President Trump to demonstrate what happens to those who strike at the god-emperor and fail. Starting, of course, with Judas Romney.

The Black Musketeers

There may be seven of them. There may be three. Who knows anymore?

In an effort to celebrate Black History Month, and in a push for ethnic inclusiveness, book publisher Penguin Random House and retailer Barnes and Noble are turning white literary characters black.

For a promotional event in one of America’s largest cities, twelve classic novels are being given a facelift as covers swap characters’ races as a means of giving representation to individuals of varying ethnic backgrounds. Nothing in the novels themselves is being changed, so white characters within the so-called ‘diverse editions’ are still Caucasian in the text, making the move the literary world’s version of blackface.

Among the titles sacrificed on the altar of hollow pandering are Romeo and Juliet, Frankenstein, The Three Musketeers, and Moby Dick. Grabbing the most social media attention, however, is the updated cover to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as many believe it is dripping in racial stereotypes. The image depicts a black Dorothy, but instead of elegant ruby red slippers, the iconic shoes are replaced with a pair of sneakers.

And this is why Castalia Library is not only important, it is downright necessary. Because it is only a matter of time before Amazon starts deleting the non-updated versions from your digital libraries.

The amusing thing is that black authors are rightly irritated that Penguin and Barnes are attempting to use Black History Month to sell books by dead white authors instead of live black ones.

Mailvox: the spirit of Reepicheep

The talking mouse always was my favorite character in The Chronicles of Narnia:

I am reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader for the first time and I am reading chapter 12, the Dark Island. It has made me love Reepicheep and he reminds me of you, the dread Ilk, VFM et al.

The scene is set when Caspian is deciding on whether to sail into the darkness and all advice is to the contrary:

But all at once the clear voice of Reepicheep. "And why not?" he said. "Will someone explain to me why not?"

No one was anxious to explain, so Reepicheep continued: "If I were addressing peasants or slaves," he said, "I might suppose that this suggestion proceeded from cowardice. But I hope it will never be told in Narnia that a company of noble and royal persons in the flower of their age turned tail because they were afraid of the dark."

"But what manner of use would it be ploughing through that blackness?" asked Drinian.

"Use?" replied Reepicheep. "Use, Captain? If by use you mean filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honour and adventure. And here is as great an adventure as ever I heard of, and here, if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honours."

But this was the best reminding of your stout defense of friends such as Owen:

There came a cry, either of some inhuman voice or else a voice of one in such extremity of terror that he had almost lost his humanity. Caspian was still trying to speak his mouth was too dry-when the shrill voice of Reepicheep, which sounded louder than usual in that silence, was heard.

"Who calls?" it piped. "If you are a foe we do not fear you, and if you are a friend your enemies shall be taught the fear of us."

Long live the spirit of Reepicheep! May we all aspire to it.

Reepicheep represents the indomitable spirit, the unconquerable spirit, of Man. He kneels only to the king and to Aslan, he fears no evil, and to say that he embraces conflict would be a serious understatement. In my opinion, it is he, not Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, or Eustace, who is the true hero of the tale.

My owns plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise and Peepiceek will be head of the talking mice in Narnia.

We need more women in technology

If the Iowa caucuses don't demonstrate the importance of women in technology, I don't know what will:

Hours after a debacle that marred Monday’s Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses, investors in a company hired to tabulate votes through a new mobile app worked to distance themselves from the company at the center of the chaos, scrubbing digital trails publicly connecting them to the firm.

The chaos in Iowa on Monday evening put a microscope on one of Democratic Party’s youngest and fastest-rising digital stars, Tara McGowan, prompting serious questions—and some conspiracy theories—about the constellation of advocacy, technology, and quasi-news organizations she's built.

“It is a pattern of fake it till you make it,” one top Democrative operative said of McGowan and her firm, ACRONYM. “You talk a big game and then sort of hope it becomes true.”

On Monday, all eyes turned to one company in McGowan’s portfolio, Shadow Inc., as Iowa precinct chairs reported serious flaws with the app it had developed tabulate the vote. As complaints about the app trickled in on Monday, McGowan, who is the chief executive of Shadow investor ACRONYM, took to Twitter to describe her group as just that, an investor.

Miss McGowan probably should have stuck to talking about the need for more women in technology on the conference circuit. I sincerely commend the Democratic Party's commitment to women and diversities in technology, and recommend they boost that commitment to the 100 percent level. Remember, diversity is your strength and straight white male technology is witchcraft!

Anyhow, it's not a big mystery as to why ACRONYM bombed so badly despite being founded by "the Democrats most dangerous digital strategist."

Acronym has taken hardly any time in breaking the strategy-firm ecosystem in the nation’s capital. By the end of 2018, it had raised and managed more than $18 million, registered 60,000 voters, run 105 targeted ad campaigns in 15 states, helped elect 63 progressive candidates and won 61 percent of the races it invested in. Its staff has grown from five to 38 and it has quickly become one of the go-to digital organizing forces for everyone from Planned Parenthood and Emily’s List to Everytown for Gun Safety and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. 

McGowan is just another Elizabeth Holmes. And never trust a "strategist" who couldn't beat a 9-year-old boy in checkers.

Hey, at least it FLIES!

Given all the other problems with the F-35, I wouldn't have been surprised if it turned out that the overdesigned grand compromise didn't even stay in the sky:

The latest news about the F-35 isn't just bad - it's CATASTROPHIC. It turns out that this utter turkey of a plane is so badly built and designed that its gun can't even shoot straight:

Add a gun that can’t shoot straight to the problems that dog Lockheed Martin Corp.’s $428 billion F-35 program, including more than 800 software flaws.

The 25mm gun on Air Force models of the Joint Strike Fighter has “unacceptable” accuracy in hitting ground targets and is mounted in housing that’s cracking, the Pentagon’s test office said in its latest assessment of the costliest U.S. weapons system.

The annual assessment by Robert Behler, the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation, doesn’t disclose any major new failings in the plane’s flying capabilities. But it flags a long list of issues that his office said should be resolved -- including 13 described as Category 1 “must-fix” items that affect safety or combat capability -- before the F-35’s upcoming $22 billion Block 4 phase.

The number of software deficiencies totaled 873 as of November, according to the report obtained by Bloomberg News in advance of its release as soon as Friday. That’s down from 917 in September 2018, when the jet entered the intense combat testing required before full production, including 15 Category 1 items. What was to be a year of testing has now been extended another year until at least October.

“Although the program office is working to fix deficiencies, new discoveries are still being made, resulting in only a minor decrease in the overall number” and leaving “many significant‘’ ones to address, the assessment said.

Settle in with a stiff drink, chaps, because carving up this turkey is going to take a while.

Here's to hoping the empire goes out with a whimper and not a bang.

The necessity of debt cancellation

An excellent interview with Michael Hudson, author of And Forgive Them Their Debts:

Rees Jeannotte: To think about a more sensible way to deal with a debt crisis. Maybe you can use the most recent example of a national debt cancellation, namely here in Germany.

Michael Hudson: That’s right. The German Economic Miracle was the Allied debt reforms of 1947/48. They essentially wiped out all debts except for what employers owed their employees – you know, the workers’ wages and minimum working balances at the banks. It was easy for the Allies to cancel the debts owed to German creditors. because the creditors were mainly Nazis. The whole idea was to wipe them out. They didn’t the want to leave the former Nazis with financial power to take over the economy again. They wanted a Clean Slate.

Canceling the debts created the German Economic Miracle. Because the economy was able to operate without personal debt, and without much public debt or corporate debt. It was able to take off. Today, essentially you’re dealing with a criminalized banking class that I think we should treat in the same way that the Allies treated the Nazis. If you don’t cancel the debts owed to them, the economy is going to shrink and shrink, and polarize. We’re going to have essentially a neo-feudalism controlled by the creditor class, like you had in Rome in the Dark Ages. Do you really want a new Dark Age?

Rees Jeannotte: No, not particularly. This leads us into the financial crisis of 2008, where you were among the few people to predict it accurately. It was largely based on a giant private debt bubble. Private debt is something that we don’t hear much about. I tried to look for the totals on private debt worldwide. You find out the debt to GDP ratio for public debt. For government debt, but it’s never about private debt.

Michael Hudson: That is because the right-wing politicians want to abolish government and the social services it provides. Apart from the money governments owe for military spending and NATO, they owe pensions and health care. The right-wing program in Germany and Europe is to get rid of pensions, to lower them, to financialize and privatize the pension system instead of Germany’s pay-as-you-go system, which is quite good. They want to get rid of social spending.

Also, they look at government debt as the adversary of private debt. For instance, in the United States, President Clinton finally ran a budget surplus in the last year of his rule. What happens when a government runs a surplus? That means that it doesn’t spend money into the economy. The economy has to rely on banks to get credit, because every economy needs credit to function and grow. Bankers realize that if the government doesn’t provide the economy with money – by spending deficits into the economy to promote employment – then people will have to borrow from the banks. But if they keep borrowing from the banks to buy homes rising in price and just to maintain their living standards, their families will end up looking like Greece or Argentina. They’re going to have to pay more of their income as interest. Bankers will end up with the houses, and with private industry. They will end up controlling everything, including the government.

For thousands of years the leading tension of civilization has been over who is going to dominate and plan society’s economy. Will it be democratic governments or wise rulers seeking stability and military security? Or, will it be a financial oligarchy that wants to get rich by impoverishing the rest of society?

He's correct. The ultimate and mathematically certain outcome of the current financial system is that the owners of the banks own literally all the property and all of the people. This is not a question of right-wing vs left-wing, and it's very important to remember that banks are not capitalism, corporations are not human beings, and usury is not freedom.

Quite the opposite, as it happens.

As usual, there are commenters at Unz who can be relied upon to produce the retarded "conservative" attack on debt cancellation. Make no mistake, if at this point you still oppose debt cancellation on the grounds of "personal responsibility", you are economically retarded, by which I mean, you are so stupid, so shortsighted, and so unable to do the very simple math involved that if I had the ability to do so, I would forbid you to read this blog.

If it’s selective then people who made responsible economic decisions will be forced to subsidize the self-indulgent and/or foolish economic decisions of others. 

The inexorable math of usury and the way in which credit shifts the demand curve upward dictates that however "responsible" your economic decisions are, sooner or later you will be forced to not only "subsidize the self-indulgent and/or foolish economic decisions of others", you will be forced to make equally foolish decisions yourself. The fiscal conservative's belief in "responsible debt" is no different than the Churchian's belief in Judeochristianity, and it stems from exactly the same evil source.

Complete Iowa Fail

The Democrats just made a very powerful case for reelecting the god-emperor:

The Iowa presidential caucuses were thrown into chaos late Monday after the state Democratic Party said it found "inconsistencies," delaying results and causing widespread confusion across the state.

The Iowa Democratic Party said early Tuesday that it would release the results of the Iowa caucuses later Tuesday after "manually verifying all precinct results."

Party chair Troy Price said the party is "validating every piece of data we have against our paper trail. That system is taking longer than expected, but it's in place to ensure we are eventually able to report results with full confidence."

The state Democratic party's communications director, Mandy McClure, said on Monday night that there were "inconsistencies" in the reporting of three sets of results. "In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report," McClure said.

Translation: Creepy Joe was destroyed by Bernie Sanders, so they need more time to produce fake ballots and destroy enough of the Sanders votes. And given today's Democrats can't run either an impeachment or a caucus, who could possibly imagine that they can run the federal government successfully?

The reason for the shenanigans appears to be that the system is designed to prevent the most popular vote-getter from actually winning the most delegates if the establishment disapproves of him. This suggests that the delay is to make the votes look more like the delegate totals. It would look very bad if Sanders ends up with the same number of delegates as the candidates who have less than half his votes.

Sen. Bernie Sanders's supporters angrily stormed out of a caucus here on Monday night, calling the process a "joke" and a "waste of time" after they started out with more than twice as much support as any other candidate, but ending up in a five-way tie, with all viable candidates sharing one delegate apiece.

Under the complicated caucus system, there are multiple stages of voting. First, there is a vote to determine initial support. After that point, only candidates with 15% of the vote are considered viable. However, those voters who did not initially choose a viable candidate can migrate to another candidate. After the final numbers are counted, they are translated to delegate equivalents, which help determine how many supporters each campaign gets to send to state, and ultimately, national conventions.

After the initial vote at the First Presbyterian Church, just Sanders, with 32 votes, and Pete Buttigieg, with 15 votes, met the viability threshold of 13.

But then, in the second vote, Biden's support started to grow to as high as 16. Because he had votes to spare, his representatives siphoned them off to Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. As a result, all three just met the viability threshold.

After the shift, Sanders ended up with 37% support in the room, Buttigieg had 17%, and the three other campaigns each had just cleared 15%.

Since there were only five delegates to be awarded in this caucus location, and under rules no viable candidate can lose their single delegate if they only have one, each of the five campaigns ended up with one delegate apiece. This even though Sanders won by 20 points.

A partial result released by the Sanders campaign suggests that Sanders won about 30 percent of the vote, with Buttigieg and Warren finishing second and third. Goodbye, Creepy Joe!

It's not about the numbers

It's about the quality of the engagement and the strength of the commitment.

One blogger who is on SocialGalactic recently commented that his 85 followers on SocialGalactic have made a much bigger impact on his blog traffic than his 500 followers on Gab. We've seen similar results vis-a-vis social media platforms ranging from Instagram and Twitter to Facebook and Amazon.

But then, Man has known this since the days of Gideon and Leonidas. Better 200 who will stand and fight than 20,000 who will run.

Mailvox: the circle-back

A reader observes that Gammas never leave, they always linger about in the corners like a noxious fog:

I was reading the comments on your post yesterday on creating omegas. It struck me that last year I had someone I thought a friend who turned on me in a very public way for noticing uncomfortable facts. Then there was some cyber-stalking that struck me as rather creepy. Gamma behavior. You said Gammas will turn on you sooner or later.

Do they ever try to ingratiate themselves back into the good graces of the person they turned on to begin with? The faux-sincere apology or do they dig in that they were right? I was thinking that gammas are somewhat opportunistic and will try to get back into the circle if they think it is to their benefit.

Gammas will absolutely try to work their way back in, but they always do so in an indirect manner. They will try praising you or making positive, supportive comments, without ever admitting the fact that they were previously condemning you or apologizing for their past behavior. Of course, they will only take the ingratiation route until it becomes obvious that the tactic is not working, then they will revert to attacking you again.

Gammas are not "somewhat opportunistic", they are EXTREMELY opportunistic, which means that even when they are silent, they are always lurking about, looking to either ingratiate themselves or seek revenge, depending upon which opportunity happens to present itself first. I have witnessed Gammas lurking silently for years before taking the opportunity to strike back; for example, one Gamma troll whose name would be familiar to the Dread Ilk recently surfaced for the first time since 2014 in an attempt to glom onto the /r/Owen anklebiters and their campaign against UATV.

This is why you should never forget a Gamma or fail to observe his inevitable reappearance. Because you can be absolutely certain that he will never forgive nor forget anyone who has rejected him or publicly bested him, not until the heat death of the universe.

It's hard to decide how to cheat

Iowa Democrats are desperate to to find out how they'll be manipulated and misrepresented by their national counterparts in the caucuses tonight:

Underlying the bold pronouncements, campaigns and voters acknowledged a palpable sense of unpredictability and anxiety as Democrats begin selecting which candidate to send on to a November face-off with President Donald Trump. The Democratic race is unusually large and jumbled heading into Monday’s caucus. Four candidates were locked in a fight for victory in Iowa; others were in position to pull off surprisingly strong finishes.

“This is going to go right down to the last second,” said Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to Biden’s campaign.

Polls show Biden in a close race in Iowa with Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang are also competing aggressively in the state.

Democrats’ deep disdain for Trump has put many in the party on edge about the decision. A series of external forces has also heightened the sense of unpredictability in Iowa, including Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, which marooned Warren, Sanders and Klobuchar in Washington for much of the past week.

Many campaigns were looking to a final weekend poll to provide some measure of clarity. But late Saturday night, CNN and The Des Moines Register opted not to release the survey because of worries the results may have been compromised.

New caucus rules have also left the campaigns working in overdrive to set expectations before the contest. For the first time, the Iowa Democratic Party will release three sets of results: who voters align with at the start of the night; who they pick after voters supporting nonviable candidates get to make a second choice; and the number of state delegate equivalents each candidate gets.

Both national establishments manipulate and screw over their grass roots. But it's particularly interesting to observe it when the national establishment isn't sure of its direction. The one thing we can be fairly certain of is that Bernie Sanders will not be the beneficiary. He is to the current Democratic Party what Ron Paul was to the pre-Trump Republican Party. The problem is that the Democrats still haven't settled on their Mitt Romney.

UPDATE: Mike Cernovich reports the results of the spiked final Iowa poll. Looks like things are going south fast for Creepy Joe.

• 22 percent Sanders
• 18 percent Warren
• 16 percent Buttigieg
• 13 percent Biden

The greatest press conference of all time

Everyone knows that Prince's performance at Super Bowl XLI was the greatest halftime show ever. But most people don't know that his pre-Super Bowl press conference was arguably even more legendary.

When we said, “You’ll have to have a press conference. They would like to interview you,” Prince point blank said, “I don’t do interviews.”

Super Bowl LIV

This was my prediction the last time Andy Reid got to the Super Bowl:

Andy Reid is a solid coach, but he is not a great one. He doesn't get outcoached, for the most part, but neither does he outcoach anyone, not even Mike Tice. Bill Belicheck, on the other hand, has repeatedly proven himself to be a Jedi master, with game plans in this year's playoffs that left two very good teams, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, in near-complete disarray. Notice how there hasn't even been a whisper of Charlie Weis being distracted by his moonlighting job as the Notre Dame head coach of late. The Patriots are a strategic machine, awesome to behold.

Factor in the Terrell Owens injury and the "happy-to-be-there" factor of the Eagles, and I suspect that under the guidance of the maglia ex machina, the Patriots will methodically dismantle the Eagles. I don't think it will be a blow-out, and the combination of a tough Eagles defense and a screw-the-gameplan drive filled with scrambles by McNabb will probably help the Eagles make a last, desperate push to keep the game close in the third quarter, but this one should be over early in the fourth with a nail-in-the-coffin Patriots score.

I suspect Kyle Shanahan learned more from his Super Bowl failure than Andy Reid did from his. Despite all the media hype surrounding the Chiefs and Pat Mahomes, few observers seem to be paying much attention to the actual performance of the two teams this year or the way in which they played in getting to the Super Bowl. I really don't like the way Kansas City seems to come out flatter than flat in big games this year.

It is, of course, well known that in championship games, defense generally trumps even the most explosive offenses. The 49ers have the second-best yards/game defense and the eighth-best points/game defense. The Chiefs actually have the seventh-best points/game defense, although they give up more yards and rank only 17th in that category.

But when it comes down to it, I have more confidence in Shanahan + Garappolo + DEF-SF than I do in Reid + Mahomes + DEF-KC. Also, if the 49ers have the lead, Shanahan isn't going to make the mistake that Houston's O'Brien did by taking his foot off the gas.

49ers by 10.

Football Outsiders, on the other hand, predicts a Chiefs victory:

I give the slight edge to Kansas City. I think San Francisco will be able to have offensive success running the ball, but their defense is not going to go out and make Patrick Mahomes look like Kirk Cousins looked three weeks ago. Calling for a high-scoring game didn't end up working out for me last year but I'm calling for a high-scoring game again this year. I also think it will be close, but the Chiefs are the favorite with the better chance to come out ahead.

Both MDS and Florio from ProFootballTalk are also picking the Chiefs.


HALFTIME: 10-10. I don't watch the halftime show, or the commercials, but the game itself is pretty good. Shanahan was getting a little too cute early on, but now that he's gone back to the run, I expect San Francisco to start to take control in the third quarter.

4TH QUARTER: SF 20 KC 17. Kyle Shanahan is still a choker. Twice, he's faced 2nd-and-5, tried to get cute instead of relying upon his superior running game, thrown incomplete twice, and been forced to punt. Incredibly stupid considering they have the lead, the ball, and the clock. SF could and should win this game, but if they lose it, it's on Shanahan's poor play-calling in the fourth quarter.

Unbelievable! San Francisco is averaging nearly 9 yards per rush on the ground. It's first down inside Kansas City territory with four minutes left. So, naturally, you THROW THE BALL FOUR TIMES I A ROW for zero yards to lose the game. Absolutely INDEFENSIBLE stupidity. This is the second time Shanahan has thrown away a perfectly winnable Super Bowl for his team.

I don't like the 49ers. I didn't want them to win, although I'm not looking forward to all the unwarranted, but inevitable Mahomes worship to come. But watching the SF playcalling in the 4th quarter was downright painful. I can't even imagine how berserk the more knowledgeable 49er fans must have been going when watching that coaching choke job for the ages.

Bernie must have been winning

The Des Moines Register inexplicably refuses to release its final poll before the Iowa caucuses:

The Des Moines Register, CNN and Selzer & Co. have made the decision to not release the final installment of the CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll as planned this evening.

Nothing is more important to the Register and its polling partners than the integrity of the Iowa Poll. Today, a respondent raised an issue with the way the survey was administered, which could have compromised the results of the poll. It appears a candidate’s name was omitted in at least one interview in which the respondent was asked to name their preferred candidate.

While this appears to be isolated to one surveyor, we cannot confirm that with certainty. Therefore, the partners made the difficult decision to not to move forward with releasing the Iowa Poll.

Sanders was shown leading by as much as four points in the previous poll. The pollster with the best track record, had him five points ahead of Creepy Joe.

Selzer’s most recent poll, conducted Jan. 2-8, showed Sanders at 20 percent, Warren at 17 percent, Buttigieg at 16 percent and Biden at 15 percent. 

And "subsequent reports said that Pete Buttigieg's name had either been accidentally omitted or mispronounced by a poll worker during at least one call." Yeah, because that would have totally altered the results....

It's obvious that the Democrats desperately want to avoid throwing a decrepit jewish socialist up against the God-Emperor Donald I. As wicked and stupid as they are, even they understand that will end in disaster as blacks and Hispanics either stay home or vote for the only candidate they can possibly respect.

Buttigieg and Klobuchar are nonentities. Biden is as hapless as he is hopeless. Sanders is more obviously unelectable than Dukakis or Mondale ever were. Warren has been unable to generate enthusiasm. They have no one to stop the inevitable Trumpslide 2020.