When you have clueless city dwellers edit your reporting, only bad things can happen — such as triggering silly, irrelevant posts like this one

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Fox News has posted an article today on the sporting goods retailer Bass Pro Shops, and why not? It’s a slow news day, after all, but they chose to illustrate the piece with a stock photo of commercial cod fishery boat off of what appears to be Iceland and seem to identify it as a “Bass Tracker”. In fact, Bass’s “Tracker” boats are small, fast skiffs designed and built for pursuing freshwater bass on small lakes and ponds.

The Tracker as depicted by Fox:

The actual Bass Pro Shops Tracker:

If Fox’s photo editor weren’t so lazy, thrx could simply have lifted a picture from the Bass Pro’s website, as I have done. But sadly, I doubt that editor has any idea that “boats” come in different sizes and serve different purposes, which would be on par with the media’s understanding of firearms.

Spitting on the graves of better people than they’ll ever be

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another ivy league institution down

Aren’t you glad you’re paying the tuition debts for these self-absorbed, ignorant children who claim to be your betters? Of course, if they feel they owe no general debt to those who created and preserved this country at the cost of their lives, is it fair to ask them to take responsibility for their personal borrowings?

I wonder how smart it is to remind the public that he's used the state's judicial power to attack and torment his chief political enemy?

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“We are a nation of law – my law!”

Biden intends to inject himself (publicly — he’s been there all along behind the screen) into the Trump verdict. The millions of true Trump haters will cheer, but they’ve been cheering since the FBI raids and show trials began; it strikes me that, from polls I’ve read, a majority of Americans see these trials for what they are, and the White House piling on will just drive home the point that our Department of Justice has become a partisan tool, rather than the independent agency we all pretended to believe it was.

Maybe all will go swimmingly for the gang, but Biden’s handlers’ jubilance at the prospect of finally jumping into this farce strikes me as incautious.

And praising the judicial system now, when Hunter’s gun trial is set to begin in two weeks, may also pose a bit of a trap. Of course, the First son is to be tried in D.C., so the outcome: acquittal, is almost guaranteed, but a tad risky nonetheless.

More on our vigilant citizen patrols

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Twitchy’s got the latest

Scoop: Leonard Leo Caught Flying 'Appeal to Heaven' Flag

We know from MSNBC that "a Christian nationalist flag has been flown by Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito, right-wing activist Leonard Leo, and evangelical extremist House Speaker Mike Johnson." The Alito flag was flying last summer, but it's topping the headlines now as the media ensures we all know the flag is flown by MAGA insurrectionists.

We told you Christian nationalism was going to be the next white supremacy — it's the biggest threat to our democracy.

Leo was the longtime president of the Federalist Society. ProPublica ran a story in October called, "We Don’t Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right’s Supreme Court Supermajority." And now, thanks to a tip from a "nearby resident," ProPublica has discovered the "Appeal to Heaven" flag flying outside of Leo's home in Maine. It sounds like Leo's neighbors are as unhinged as Alito's.

Leonard’s been the target of angry Maine (and visiting) loonies since he bought a house on Mount Desert Island back in 2018, and their ire only increased when the Dobbs decision came down — Leonard’s a Catholic, and unlike the guy in the White House who also claims membership in the Mackerel Snapper branch of Christianity, he opposes abortions.

The Pine Tree Flag (or the An Appeal to Heaven Flag) was one of the flags used during the American Revolution. The flag, which featured a pine tree with the motto "An Appeal to Heaven", or less frequently "An Appeal to God", was used by a squadron of six schooners commissioned under George Washington's authority as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army beginning in October 1775.

The pine tree is a traditional symbol of New England. The phrase "appeal to heaven" appears in John Locke's Second Treatise on Government, where it is used to describe the right of revolution.

The flag is the official maritime ensign for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, though the script was removed in 1971. It was used by state navy vessels in addition to privateers sailing from Massachusetts.[3]

The phrase "Appeal to Heaven" is a particular expression of the right of revolution used by British philosopher John Locke in his Second Treatise on Government. The work was published in 1690 and refuted the theory of the divine right of kings. In chapter 14:[6]

And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that society, any superior power, to determine and give effective sentence in the case; yet they have, by a law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, viz. to judge, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven.[7]

Appeal to Heaven and Locke

Locke's enlightenment-age works on the topic of the philosophy of government were well-known and frequently quoted by colonial leaders in the 1760–1776 period prior to American independence. Locke's writing that most influenced the American philosophy of government was his Two Treatises of Government, and has been used to defend the secularization of American political structures.[8] Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, saw the Declaration as being copied from that work. Locke was not only one of the most-cited political philosophers during the Founding Era (~1776 to 1779), but also the single most frequently-cited source in the years from 1760 to 1776 (the period leading up to the Declaration of Independence).[9]

Prior to Colonel Reed's suggestion and Massachusetts General Court establishing the Pine Tree flag as the standard of the Massachusetts navy, "an appeal to Heaven" or similar expressions had been invoked by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in several resolutions, Patrick Henry in his Liberty or Death speech, and the Second Continental Congress in the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. Subsequently, the phrase was used again by the Second Continental Congress in the Declaration of Independence.

And this is a nice comment to the Xr’s post:

Inspired by our own government, no doubt

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Xi Jinping Revives Decades-Old Playbook To Supercharge China’s Surveillance State

Chinese President Xi Jinping is seeking a more potent surveillance state in China and reviving a Mao-era program to achieve it, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The revamped approach, dubbed the “Fengqiao Experience for a new era” by Xi, further utilizes everyday citizens to pre-emptively ward off any perceived threats to the government and solidify the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) grip on China’s sprawling society, according to the NYT. “Fengqiao” is a reference to a town in China where Mao-era residents were encouraged by the party to “re-educate” their neighbors through public humiliation and insults.

Beijing is encouraging local governments to hire increasing amounts of workers to watch “assigned grids,” and in April the party issued guidance for managing those workers, the NYT reported. The guidance outlines potential rewards and punishments for monitors of the grids, and calls for doubling down ideological instruction.

The newly unveiled approach adds to China’s already-expansive surveillance state, which boasts 15 million citizens as government informants as well as numerous police officers and party workers, according to the NYT.

January 3, 2024:

Citizen investigators help FBI track down Jan. 6 rioters

They started in January ‘21 and are still going strong.

Just in time for us to head off to our cottages on Fishers Island and make sure all the "No Trespassing" signs and barbed wire survived the winter storms

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fore! fishers island club awaits you and your selected guests

Biden’s Signature Bills Send Taxpayer Cash To East Coast’s Fanciest Locales For Airport Upgrades, Ferries And More

When the bipartisan infrastructure package became law in 2021, the White House stated that the bill would “invest in communities that have too often been left behind” and “grow the economy sustainably and equitably so that everyone gets ahead for decades to come,” among other things. Similarly, the White House describes the IRA as “delivering for underserved communities and those that have been too often left behind.”

The administration is spending more than $180,000 to build ferry boats and terminal facilities on Fishers Island, New York, according to Invest.gov. Fishers Island is “an exclusive enclave where generations of old-money families gather to sail and golf,” according to the Wall Street Journal, and dynastic families like the Roosevelts and Rockefellers have frequented the island, per the New York Post.

The administration is also routing $113,000 to upgrade the island’s airport, according to Invest.gov.

Elsewhere on the East Coast, the administration’s domestic agenda is directing nearly $300,000 to pay for improvements for the East Hampton Airport, according to Invest.gov. East Hampton is a favored escape of the New York City metropolitan area’s well-to-do, and some of the wealthiest of its vacationers are known to fly there via private jet or chartered helicopter.

Meanwhile, the administration is also spending $460,000 to deliver “safe streets and roads for all” on Nantucket, Massachusetts, another island getaway frequented by New England’s upper crust, according to Invest.gov. The Nantucket airport is also receiving $1.3 million to cover infrastructure upgrades.

…. Just a few miles away, the airport on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, is receiving $1 million from the Biden administration’s landmark bills to pay for improvements, according to Invest.gov. The island is another choice destination for elite New Englanders, and also hosts a massive $11 million estate owned by former President Barack Obama.

Block Island, a popular summer destination off the Rhode Island coast, is also benefiting from the Biden administration’s domestic agenda, with more than $750,000 in public funds going to build ferry boats and ferry terminal facilities servicing the island, according to Invest.gov. In 2023, the average price of the 29 homes sold on the island was just under $2 million, making it the most expensive area in Rhode Island, according to Lamacchia Realty.

The Westchester County Airport, a small facility located right on the border of New York state and Greenwich, Connecticut, is receiving $4.5 million for various upgrades, according to Invest.gov. The airport is frequently utilized by residents of Greenwich — one of the wealthiest towns in the entire country — looking to catch flights without having to go through the trouble of departing from New York City or Newark, New Jersey.

Further down the East Coast, the administration is spending $7.7 million on flood control and coastal emergencies between Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach, Delaware, according to Invest.gov. Biden himself owns a $2.7 million home in Rehoboth Beach, which he has enjoyed frequently throughout his first term as president.

In South Carolina, the administration is directing a whopping $8.3 million to the Hilton Head airport, according to Invest.gov. Hilton Head is “one of South Carolina’s most luxurious beach destinations” that offers “world-class golf courses, renowned restaurants, superb shopping and white-sand beaches as far as the eye can see,” according to Discover South Carolina.

Here’s how a local Fishers Island real estate agency describes this refuge from the hoi polloi, now even more affordable after Joe ordered the great unwashed to pay off your and your children’s Ivy League tuition bills.

About Fishers Island: An unspoiled gem – even during the summer months, the island is no more crowded than a small rural New England town.

How does Fishers Island manage to avoid the development and tourism that plague Long Island, Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, the Hamptons, Cape Cod and coastal Connecticut and Rhode Island? It’s simple. There are no hotels. Everyone here either owns or rents a home (or is their guest) on the island.

Without the overnight crowds to support tourism, the only tourists you’ll find are the guests you bring.

Fishers Island is the ultimate gated community – only the gate is a ferry.

And, from April through October, every ferry is greeted by a New York State Trooper. Couple this with the lowest population density of any ferry-served island in New England, and you have the perfect recipe for safety.

Pal Nancy and I and kids once vacationed on the island with friends who owned a house there. It was beautiful, quiet and, all in all, an idyllic spot; I didn’t, however, notice any particular signs of poverty that would have suggested federal dollars were needed.

You may call it looting, the UN Secretary General calls it a "self-distribution of supplies"

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$320 million, tiwce the original estimate, and climbing. Biden’s landbridge to Gaza is a debacle

The main issue, according to Waltz, is that the delivery outside of Gaza has not been the issue, but rather what happens once the aid is delivered across the border, at which point the aid faces the same issues as land-based delivery. 

"It’s going to run into the exact same problems the land routes have faced once it gets across the border," Waltz argued.  "The trucks get ransacked. They get attacked. When they do make it to the warehouse, it’s Hamas controlling the warehouses."

"Whether the trucks come from the sea or whether they come from land, they're going to run into the same buzzsaw of issues once they get inside.

Because of corruption and because they're being run by a terrorist dictatorship that is going to use aid to, one, feed and arm and resource itself, with more nutrients and medical supplies and fuel and what have you," he added. "Then, secondarily, use it as a lever to make sure the Palestinian people don't rise up against them."

Well, if there HAD been a betting pool, I think an affirmative vote would have been entitled to the proceeds — it’s close enough

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shameless

President Biden repeated a claim that he turned down an appointment to the Naval Academy, where he said he intended to play football, during his commencement speech at West Point on Saturday.

Biden, 81, told the graduates that he was “one of 10” appointed to the naval academy by Republican Delaware Sen. J. Caleb Boggs years before he’d go on to defeat him in the 1972 election to become a US Senator.

“I was appointed by the fella I ran against when I was 29 years old to the Naval Academy. I was one of 10. I wanted to play football,” Biden said in his remarks.

“And I’d found out two days earlier they had a quarterback named Roger Staubach and a halfback named Joe Bellino — I said, ‘I’m not going there.’ I went to Delaware. Not a joke,’ the president said.

After Ol’ Sniffer told this same malarky to Naval Academy graduates in 2022, this was reported in American Military News:

“Biden said he was appointed to the academy by then-Delaware Sen. J. Caleb Boggs in 1965, but that is the same year Biden graduated from the University of Delaware – and the Naval Academy does not offer advanced degrees, the New York Post reported.”