In case everybody missed it this holiday season, Red Pill Cult leader Vox Day has launched a new line of comic-books. Vox is under the impression that comics publishers Detective Comics (DC) and Marvel are pushing a Left-Wing agenda on America's youth. Vox calls ths being 'SWJ Converged' (meaning any organization that doesn't bow to his obvious genius).
Hence, his Alpha-Front group, Castalia House has introduced to us to a new superhero, Alt-Hero.
Despite the series being published in Finland, and the hero's girlfriend sporting the colors of a breakaway country which killed thousands of Americans; Vox tells us that Alt-Hero is all about defending American values. Looking at some of the excerpts of the series, it appears that Alt-Hero's character is modeled more on 'Based Stick-Man' than Superman, et al.
Reaction to the new series has been met by professionals and laymen alike with a mixture of laughter and disgust. But one of the most disgusting things is Vox' statement that his series is designed to elevate "every American, Western, and Christian value." What he's succeeded in doing once again is giving all Conservatives and Christians a bad name.
The reason that this series will fail---like most of Vox' schemes---is because it's ultimate goal isn't to produce anything of any socially redeeming value. It's based on Vox taking his petty revenge on an industry and "triggering SJWs". This is like his envious attack on John Scalzi. He fails to produce good writing because his objectives are personal; and therefore one-dimensional.
Alt-Hero, for example, makes it a point to use his superpowers to remove illegal immigrants from American streets. What kind of a superhero uses his incredible powers against migrant farm-workers? That's a bully, not a superhero. What makes superheroes super is that they fight super-villains. There is always something in the character of such heroes that they fight for the defenseless; they inspire hope and confidence in the people.
The second reason that Alt-Hero will fail is because Vox doesn't understand market forces. The Comics Industry is struggling---not because readers are leaving in protest---but because it's an old media form that can't compete well with the new. Comics are a product not only of the pre-Internet days, but of the pre-Television days. The Golden Age of comics meant a monthly issue or a 5-panel daily run in a newspaper. Today, we can download these same series and read them in their entirety in a couple of hours. A parallel form of media, which is no longer produced, were movie serials. Today, one can go to Youtube and watch in 3 hours what it once took audiences 15 weeks to see.
This is also the reason for the Comic Industry's modern tendency to create minority or female heroes and heroines. Not necessarily because they are 'SJW converged'; but because they are trying to boost their circulation by reaching out to wider demographics. Vox doesn't have a market beyond his own echo-chamber.
The third reason is just plain bad writing.
This is truly pathetic stuff. Again, Vox' narcissism is his undoing. He can't relate well to others and thinks that this kind of shallow narrative is actually going to appeal to anybody.
Other characters include the Red-Pill Girl version of Wonder Woman:
And these kinds of ridiculous villains:
While we believe that our culture could use some traditional comics again, this kind of material makes the postmodern stuff actually look good. If these are the 'Alt' heroes, we should probably stick with the ones that we have.
The Corporate Media has been busily inventing more fake-news to attack Trump this holiday season. While they were busy spreading unsubstantiated rumors about something- someone-supposedly-said-about-somebody-else, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was announcing that the US Department of Justice recovered nearly $4 billion from fraud cases committed by entities involved with the Federal Government in 2017.
Sessions identified Health Care, Housing, and Procurement Services as the largest sectors for fraud and abuse.
Despite Obama's boasts last year that Obamacare was fraud-free; over $900 million were recovered from pharmaceutical and medical device contractors alone. Mylan Inc., the central company in the Epipen Scandal forked over $231 million to Medicare and another $214 million to State healthcare agencies. Shire Pharmaceuticals was arguably even more corrupt than Epipen. They had an extensive list of blatant corruption that cost them $350 million in total fines. Session mentioned E-Clinical Works---a story we spoke of here in June---a healthcare software company who falsified its product's qualifications for government contracts. If we recall correctly, they were caught after their system failed during a data breach. They paid $155 million in restitution.
$543 million was recovered in housing and mortgage fraud. Mostly in these cases, the lenders were billing HUD to guarantee loans on properties which they knew to be unqualified. One company was actually certifying homes that were in substandard condition, then selling insurance policies to a provider which they controlled. The scam thus collected mortgages for dangerous building and collected again on the insurance when a problem arose.
Procurement Fraud was also quite blatant. The largest settlement came against a Kuwaiti firm for price-gouging foodstuffs for the US Military. This was a $95 million judgment; but raises the bigger question of why we have foreign contractors supplying the US Army.
Sessions mentioned catching a solar-energy company that ripped off $30 million under Obama's Stimulus Package; another $30 million from a company marketing 'Obama-phones' and a Small Business Administration contractor was caught bid-rigging and fined $16 million.
All of this corruption certainly adds up. It will be interesting to watch Swamp-Draining in 2018, for certain.
President Trump signed two bills into law today, one extending funding for certain government projects pending a Congressional vote. The other was H.R.1; the Comprehensive Tax Reform Act of 2017. This was something of a surprise, as most predicted that it would be signed in January.
The tax reform Bill is probably the most significant act---of many others---that the new Administration has accomplished. Senators McConnell, Hatch, Thune, Enzi, Black, Toomey, and Scott deserve credit as well, for accomplishing this tremendous feat before Christmas. This Bill eliminated several long-standing injustices in the Tax Code and contained with it two riders dealing with long-stalled issues.
The Corporate Media is gnawing its collective tongue in rage; thus they have failed to discuss the benefits of the new law.
One highlight of the Bill eliminated the Estate Tax on family farms. This alone would have made the Bill a great one. The Estate Tax on farms has been a decades-long injustice and has literally ruined thousands of farmers, ranchers, fisheries, orchards, etc. What would happen is that a farmer (for example) would die and leave the farm to his heirs. People in agriculture typically have very little money, but their estates were often valued in the millions because their land and equipment was high-value. Their heirs thus were hit with an Inheritance Tax that often forced them to liquidate the business to pay. No more. Nothing will revive American Agriculture like this will.
The Bill also cut Corporate Tax rates by 14%. The Left has been focusing their ire on this particular aspect of the new law. But this because they don't understand Economics. The Sanders supporters were always complaining about wealth disparities. The reason that so much wealth was being hoarded was because it cost too much to invest it. In other words, this is Reaganomics, though it will flow rather than trickle down, since Trump's cut is much higher.
Another major change is doubling deductions on personal taxes. This is going to have a major effect on reducing consumer debt. More money will be available for personal use.
An economic issue we've spoken of much here is the need to strengthen the US Dollar. The effects of tax cuts will be short-term unless the Dollar-value reverses inflationary tendencies. It will take some time to see whether or not the Dollar rises. Both Trump and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin seem to favor the floating dollar, so it will be dependent on the market moreso than policy. However, as Trump pointed out in today's speech, the new reforms will go a long way towards eliminating outsourcing. One of the Bill's features is a 100% deduction for Fiscal Year investments. This is called expensing, and it provides a huge incentive for businesses to invest domestically. Administration estimates are that this alone will return $3-5 trillion from overseas investments.
Investors have already been moving towards America again, even before the Bill was signed. The Market should---in theory at least---respond with higher Dollar valuations. The Dollar right now is about 97 cents below Base Year 1913. What will help our economy long-term would be that if these---and future---tax reforms lead to price deflation.
The two riders on H.R.1 were outstanding achievements as well. One of these terminates the individual mandate for Obamacare. Although Obamacare wasn't repealed in toto this year, one of its worst features was repealed. What this repeal basically does is stops forcing people to take Obamacare over better plans, while leaving in place its availability for those who can't afford health insurance. Even some Liberals originally supported this over Obamacare. It effectively simply extends Medicare to all indigents instead of forcing it on everyone.
The second rider opened ANWR for oil exploration and drilling. This issue has been stalled most of our adult lives; and probably no readers under 30 or so even remember what it was all about. Huge oil deposits were discovered below the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and it was proposed during the Energy Crisis of the 1970s to free up this government land for oil. The proposal was stopped during the Carter Administration and Reagan was unable to get approval from Congress to start it again. Bush Sr. more or less gave up on the idea and it really hasn't surfaced as a political issue since. But the oil is still there; and now the political will is there to go for it again.
ANWR has been stalled for so long that there aren't any up-to-date statistics on how much of our foreign oil consumption it would reduce; but in the 1970s and 1980s estimates were very high. Some speculated then that the Alaskan Peninsula is about as oil-rich as the Arabian Peninsula. Time will tell; but opening ANWR can't but help in this regard.
So saying: Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year in 2017 actually sounds like we mean it again.
Taking another significant initiative, President Trump signed an Executive Order yesterday ordering the US Department of the Interior to take immediate steps to reduce American dependence on imports of critical minerals. Thanks to our incompetent Media, most of us were unaware until now how serious the problem was.
Critical Minerals are used in a variety of high-tech applications. The US Geological Survey lists 23---mostly rare---minerals as 'critical' because of their applications in sophisticated communications, computers, and other high-speed technologies. According to an Interior Department analysis released this week, the US is now 100% dependent on foreign imports for 20 of these 23 elements.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke today issued a notice to the USGS to report within 60 days to determine American capacity for production of these substances and to suggest how they may be implemented. Some of these minerals used to be produced here like Cobalt, which is used in corrosion-resistant alloys. We are also 100% dependent on Lithium, used extensively in batteries and also medicinally. Graphite, another 100% import, is essential for steel production and is used industrially to manufacture lubricants. Automotive braking systems use graphite as well.
China is the major exporter of these minerals.
Trump's move was applauded universally across national mining, engineering, and investment sectors. Andrew Cosgrove, Bloomberg's Senior Mining and Energy Analyst said "This initiative will open up new avenues of growth. Companies reliant on these minerals will be less like to outsource or seek investment in foreign properties."
Most importantly from the national interest standpoint, critical mineral independence will prevent severe disruptions that could result from national emergencies like war or terrorist attacks. It will also strengthen innovation by keeping Research and Development closer to home.
Klaus Schultz, who prepared the USGS Report, announced too that the report contains forecasts of future requirements which can be updated as technology or production needs change. This will ensure that the US faces no critical shortages in the future.
Congressman Rob Bishop of Utah, who chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources said: "A country blessed with abundant natural resources shouldn't be mineral-dependent and vulnerable. This move addresses an economic and security threat that has festered across Administrations for far too long. I look forward to continuing work with the Trump Administration to reverse this disturbing trend."
Bishop is absolutely right. It is yet another failing of the Deep State that so vital an issue was ignored and denied for so long.
As we've probably all seen over the years, the Whacko Left Wing has an especial dislike for the Christmas Season. While others are joining with family and friends. exchanging gifts and celebrating; Leftists are typically shaming us. They point to the drug addicts and street bums (i.e. the 'homeless') and try to shame us for enjoying big Christmas Dinners. They shame us for giving gifts to those about whom we care, when the money could have been spent on one of their crackpot causes. They protest Christmas displays and ladies wearing new fur coats; they block traffic and chain themselves to store doors, etc.
And the First Family is a natural target of their wrath because they take Christmas seriously and encourage others to do the same. Ivanka Kushner---attractive, cultured, successful, and a mother---is a natural target of the kind of bitterness and envy that drives motivates most Leftists. Thus when Ivanka paid a surprise visit to a high school in Norwalk, Connecticut, some parents were outraged that they weren't notified in advance so that their young wards wouldn't have to endure personal exposure to a Trump.
Ivanka was accompanied by the CEO of IBM Corporation---who incidentally was the one who invited her to visit. IBM funds a program at this school which allows students to take college-level technology courses for high-school credit. News 12 New Jersey reported that some parents 'who oppose the President's views' took their students home in protest.
Actually, in September, President Trump signed an Executive Order increasing funding for programs just like these. So what were these people opposing? Well, reading through the comments on News 12's website, we get a glimpse of their mentality. One dolt named Ed Miller snorted at a Trump supporter: "What evidence do you have that she's caring and smart?" and at another: "So you think it's an honor to be in a room with someone who had an ongoing sexual relationship with her own father when in her teens?" and another: "Who knows what really happened there since her meeting was in secret?"
Another nutcase named Marsha Garn opined: "Ivanka was only thinking of herself. It never crossed her mind that she might be doing something wrong or offensive by not notifying parents that she planned to meet with their children."
A kook called 'Binary Kilowatt' added: "All you supporters forget she's a Trump. The very name alone sparks disgust. The entire family has had dealings with the Italian Mafia... I wouldn't want my kids anywhere near these POS".
While these things were happening in Connecticut, Trash-Culture pop star 'Eminem' released a new Christmastide ditty which fantasizes about finding Ivanka's body in the trunk of a car. Left-Wing critics actually complained that the song was misogynist, without a word of complaint about threatening the Presidential Family.
These are the kinds of people who'd now be running things if Hillary Clinton had won last year. Which gives us something else to be thankful for at Christmas.
A Red Pill cultist who writes under the name of Artisanal Toad is at it again. When we last encountered this illustrious fellow, he was explaining to us how rape, polygamy, and domestic violence are really Christian Virtues. Now he's at it again, this time explaining how Feminism has supposedly corrupted Biblical translations. He says that he favors the New American Study Bible---which was first published in 1971. Presumably, Feminist translations must include the Vulgate; which St. Jerome translated in the 5th Century.
The source of his translations, however, isn't too important since Mr. Toad is clearly picking whatever passages of Scripture are necessary to support his own dogmas. Here is a specimen of his scholarship from his last article, Feminism and Bible Translation:
"A virgin has no agency. She is married to any eligible man who takes her virginity whether she consents to marriage or not. She may be forced into a marriage that she does not desire and does not consent to by her father, as a free woman, or she may be denied marriage by her father. She may be sold into permanent slavery by her father to be the concubine of a free man (a slave-wife) or to be the wife of another slave. Or she may be raped into marriage against her will and over her objections."
Which statement is liberally salted with Biblical passages taken completely out of context. It doesn't seem to occur to Mr. Toad that everything he just described is completely illegal under even under the secular laws of Christian countries. We haven't had legal slavery in the United States since 1863 and rape has never been legal here. Paternal permission for marriage is only required when the affianced bride is legally a minor. Not a single one of these laws has the slightest thing to do with Feminist policy.
Aside from that, it is singular that Christ speaks of the Church Universal as 'His Bride' and of Christians singularly as 'His Children'. Nowhere in the New Testament is marriage spoken of in any sense but monogamous. When Christ speaks of a husband and wife becoming 'one flesh' this is obviously impossible to reconcile with polygamy. The Catechism goes into some explanation of this passage and concludes:
"Polygamy is not in accord with the moral law. Conjugal communion is radically contradicted by polygamy; this in fact directly negates the plan of God which was revealed from the beginning because it is contrary to the equal personal dignity of men and women who in Holy Matrimony give themselves with a love that is total and therefore unique and exclusive." (p.2387)
This passage refers thus to everything that is wrong with Mr. Toad's (and most of the Red Pillian's) exegeses. Everything that Toad and other Red Pills argue revolves around being contrary to the equal personal dignity of men and women." While Toad claims to be anti-Feminist, his teachings are really much closer to Radical Feminism than to Christianity on this point of equal dignity. Equal dignity of the sexes is the same as Gender Polarity, which we've written about on many occasions.
Toad unwittingly confesses that his doctrine is Male Supremacy when he writes further that: "The issue here is one of authority....who has authority over the virgin? Only the father or the betrothed husband. There can be no one else with authority over her."
And what of Christ's authority over her? Toad claims that rape is a moral act and the Catechism addresses this as well:
"Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person...Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It is always an intrinsically evil act." (p.2356)
Therein lies one of the metaphysical contradictions of Red Pill Doctrine. If women have no moral agency, then they are not accountable to God for their actions and therefore not responsible for them, nor capable of sin. The Red Pills can only argue that God gave man dominion over women in the same way that He gave Adam dominion over the creatures of the earth. But nobody holds lower animals morally responsible for their action. A lion who kills and eats a farmer's sheep is only being a lion---he's not a thief nor a murderer.
And so again the Red Pill appeal to Scripture falls flat. Like most of their false teachings, their notions of marriage can't withstand even the light of human reason, let alone the Revelations of Christian truth.
Midway through the month of December, the Whacko Left has gone into full meltdown mode---even to the point where suspicion has arisen against them for causing the railroad disaster in Olympia, Washington today---good men still have been busy doing good things.
For example, most of us probably haven't heard that the US Forest Service and a group of private conservation groups announced the beginning of one of the largest game preserve projects in recent history. The project is called Mid-South Rebirth and involves the entire Cumberland Plateau region of the Daniel Boone National Forest in Kentucky.
The project is aimed at restoring the regional habitat which has fallen into neglect for nearly 20 years. Beginning with the Clinton Administration, environmental extremists largely abandoned forest management. The last three administrations also closed national forests to public access; a policy which the Trump Administration recently reversed.
On the Cumberland Plateau, an epidemic of Bark Beetles wiped out the native Short-Leaf Pine at the end of the 20th Century. Non-native species invaded---taking with them many of the larger fauna of the area. The Wild Turkey population was especially hard-hit.
But the new project aims to clear non-native trees and replant the Plateau with the native pine. New Administration policies will allow Forestry officials to take measures to eradicate the beetles, should they return. And the area is to be restocked with Wild Turkeys.
Past bad management also caused wildfires on the Plateau---as is currently happening in California. The renovation project is building fire-breaks and practicing controlled burns. Fire Prevention was also discouraged in the past.
Environmentalists educated in Left-Wing universities were taught the false theory that forest management---and human intervention in general---negatively impacted the ecosystem. This theory is based on a laissez-faire attitude towards Nature: the idea that Nature balances itself if left alone. This fits into the general Leftist schemata that Civilization itself is a negative thing.
Organizations like The National Wild Turkey Federation is made up mostly of outdoor sportsmen; and they have been the lead in organizing the project. Conservationism as it originally developed was the product of men who spent time in the outdoors, like President Theodore Roosevelt, author John Burroughs, and others. Care for the environment has always been a Conservative position. People have forgotten that the last century's last Republican Administrations: Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush Sr. passed most of the strongest anti-pollution laws which cleaned up polluted waterways and urban smog in Liberal-run cities like New York and Los Angeles. President Trump is continuing the trend.
The project is also expected to create new jobs in an area badly in need of them. When completed, about 30,000 acres will be reopened to outdoor sportsmen and tourists.
