Happy New Year!

Best wishes to all my friends here at Paco Enterprises. God bless America, God bless Australia, God bless Donald Trump and God bless you and yours, and may we all enjoy peace and prosperity in the coming year.

Pray for rain

Our thoughts and prayers are with our Australian mates as terrible fires blaze out of control in New South Wales.

Impeach him again!

"Impeachment of Trump Is Backfiring Already".

Obstinately pressing forward with impeachment also resulted in another record fundraising month for Trump and the Republican Party, which just recorded its best November ever, at $20.6 million raised from donors, many of them small donors.

That fundraising bonanza stands in stark contrast to that of the Democratic Party, which is currently more than $7 million in debt while having just over $6 million in cash on hand.

Correction

It looks like a story I linked last week was in error; it isn't red states that will be losing congressional representation, it's places like California and New York.

And now, a word from our sponsor

Somewhere, Jeff Flake's heart just went pitty-pat

"Biden Says He Would Consider Choosing a Republican as His Vice President".

LOL!

Clarice Feldman, in an article at The American Thinker, quotes a rant from one of the frequent commenters at Ace of Spades, and it is one for the ages:

"Nation still deeply divided day after vote”

Yeah, I love that trick. The nation's always "divided" when Dems don't get what they want.

I was forced to go to a Christmas party over the weekend and had to listen to some jackhole whine about how "divisive" Trump was and lament that we couldn't "come together."

I unloaded on that nickelf*cker -- "You want to talk divisive? I hated that dog-eating Kenyan crackhead every moment of the eight years he infested the White House. But you know what I didn't do, a**hole? I didn't riot in the streets. I didn't scream "HE'S NOT MY PRESIDENT!" I didn't gin up some phony, childish "Resistance." I didn't go into every damned restaurant and public space where Obama or any of his cabinet were and scream in their faces. And I sure as hell didn't hijack the FBI to create a phony dossier to impeach him 49 hours after he was inaugurated!

YOUR filthy party did all of that and more, right from the moment the polls closed and you knew that drunk, morally leprous hag of yours wasn't going to win. So you can take that f*cking 'divisive' talk and your crocodile tears about unity and shove them up you’re a** until you sh*t blood for a week!"

Ambiguity level: zero.

With failures like these, who needs success?

Victor Davis Hanson: "Trump’s ‘Failures’".

For better or worse, we are now fundamentally recalibrating the United States—not just redressing the prior Obama transformation, but the policies of past Republican administrations as well. And no one quite knows where it will end, given that almost all our experts who swore in January 2017 that the economy would tank were wrong. They were wrong again with their prediction of a late summer 2019 recession. And they may well be wrong again that confronting China would ensure a global trade cataclysm. Never underestimate how greatly the hatred of Donald Trump can warp the mind of a Ph.D.

Texas church shooting

A gunman opened fire at a church service in Texas, and was taken out by an armed member of the congregation. The assassin was one of two people killed (one other person is in critical condition). Video at the linked post (caution: graphic images).

Joe Biden, demonstrating his typical wisdom, recently criticized the governor of Texas for allowing concealed carry in houses of worship.

Vigilance required

Well, that was interesting

I'm not a huge Star Wars fan. I saw the first three movies, including the very first in the series on its release day (I went with my fiance, the future Mrs. Paco). I liked them, and was blown away by the special effects (now, I'm led to believe, completely overtaken by technological developments in movie making in the last 30 years). But I was never obsessed with the series.

Number 1 son, however, had a hankering to watch the Disney Star Wars series, The Mandalorian, and I confess, I rather enjoyed it, primarily because it struck me as an intergalactic reworking of the traditional western (bounty hunters, gunslingers, desert landscapes, the lone hero with his personal code of honor, etc.). One thing that startled me, though, was to learn over the course of the last two episodes that the primary villain is apparently...Cab Calloway.



That is, of course, Giancarlo Esposito, in the role of Moff Gideon - but when I first saw him emerge from a crowd of Stormtroopers, I half expected him to say, "Hi De Ho, hep cats and kittens!"

Update: We also watched Scorsese's The Irishman, starring Robert De Niro as hitman Frank Sheeran, Joe Pesci as mob boss Russell Bufalino and Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa. If the point of the movie was to highlight the banality of evil, then it succeeded admirably, because I've rarely seen a collection of more banal, awful human beings. The flick does give what I think is a realistic portrayal of the gangster psyche and culture: maudlin sentimentality spread thinly like icing on a poison cake; everything - love of family, love of friends, personal loyalty - everything trumped by the lust for power and money; pathological narcissism supported by amazing brutality; all topped off by the pursuit of the gaudy and tacky, in suits, houses and women. Hoffman's portrayal of Hoffa strikes me as over the top (more of a caricature, really), but he does undeniably get across Hoffa's arrogance and almost willful blindness to the danger his actions ultimately brought down on him. De Niro's pretty much typecast now as old school gangster, and he lived up (or down, depending on your perspective) to that persona in the movie. There was some new technology used in the film to "de-age" a few of the principals in order to show them in earlier days, but I didn't think it came off too well. De Niro, especially, just looked like an old guy with nice skin (the new technology apparently can't do anything about his old-man shuffle and arthritic mannerisms, which give the game away).

This project probably would have worked better as a mini-series; still, overall, I'd say worth watching once.

Sunday funnies

A beagle busts some moves...

He turned around so they could both see from r/aww

Sounds plausible: "Scholars Now Believe Jesus Ignored Magi's Gifts, Just Played With The Boxes They Came In".


From Powerline's "The Week in Pictures".

Happy Feet Friday

To take our minds off the cold for a few minutes, let's head down to Brazil with Bing Crosby and Xavier Cugat and his orchestra: "Baia" (1945).

Well, that didn't take long

Virginia's progs are really letting their freak flags fly, now that the Democrats have captured both houses of the legislature (along with the governor's office). They're not only all-in on gun control, they also want to override local zoning ordinances in order to push multi-family dwellings in what are currently single-family suburban developments: "Democrats Seek To Outlaw Suburban, Single-Family House Zoning, Calling It Racist And Bad For The Environment".

True

You can't go wrong with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

And here they are, with "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing".

Merry Christmas!

I wish all my friends in Paco Nation a joyous Christmas, and a prosperous New Year!

Here is a beautiful celebratory Christmas poem by G.K. Chesterton: The Wise Men.

And now, a word from our sponsor

Just like your federal government, Santa is watching you!

Ray Stevens, from 1962.

The Repugnant Reverend Al Sharpton addresses high and ghostly matters

In their desire to stir the pot, MSNBC will literally put any barely literate, mental defective on television, as long as he (or she, as the case may be) can be relied upon to spew nonsense about Trump and his supporters. Words like "moral" and "Christian" become obscenities in the mouth of this evil little troll.

Here's a sprightly Christmas number

Tennessee Ernie Ford sings "The Wassail Song".

Dingell-berries

President Trump made a joke recently, the point of which was the ambiguity concerning the late Congressman John Dingell's permanent spiritual residence. All day long, Yahoo News had the story of Trump "insulting" the memory of the late representative at the top of its home page, along with a photo of the grieving widow escorting her husband's casket out of what appeared to be a church.

As always, a little context comes in handy - for example, Daniel Greenfield's article: "The Hellish Legacy of the Dingell Family".

A decade ago, Time Magazine unveiled an in-depth article on the death of Detroit. One of the politicians whom the article blamed for Detroit’s woes was Rep. John Dingell.

The Dingell clan has held a congressional seat outside Detroit since 1932. Their 87-year tenure has not coincidentally coincided with the decline of a thriving industrial city into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

But it’s been good for the Dingells, three of whom have sat in their congressional seat since the days of Herbert Hoover, the rise of Hitler, and the radio age, and fattened their pockets on its sinecures.

Home for the Holidays

Perry Como with a Christmas season standard.

Sunday funnies

Trailer park...









Snail eyes.


I agree: there should be a dress code for airports.




From Powerline's "The Week in Pictures".

Good for AG Barr

He's now criticizing George Soros and his pocketful of district attorneys.

The FBI needs to be cleaned up (or shut down)

James Bovard, in a short, but fairly wide-ranging article over at the Daily Caller, sticks a few pins in the FBI's puffed up reputation, starting with Richard Jewell and moving on to the search for Eric Rudolph* (the real Olympic Park bomber, whose crime the government and the press tried to lay at Richard Jewell's feet).

* It isn't mentioned in the linked story, but Rudolph was eventually caught by a rookie cop in Murphy, North Carolina.

Robert Glenn "Junior" Johnson, RIP

Legendary stock car racer (and occasional moonshiner) Junior Johnson has died at 88.


The last American hero.

A twist on an old song

Bobby Darin gives "Auld Lang Syne" the Christmas treatment.

Gag a maggot

Here's another hysterical feminist who has passed her neuroses on to her children (if this really happened at all, and assuming it isn't parody). I take some pleasure in contemplating the very likely possibility that, when the Red Dawn comes, this little moppet will lose no time in informing on her mother for "right deviancy" or something, thus guaranteeing mom a lengthy stay in a labor camp. Feel free to invent your own "children's political epiphanies" in the comments section. Here's one to get you started:

My granddaughter had been curled up in a fetal position, in a state of catatonic shock, since the news of Trump's fraudulent electoral victory was announced on MSNBC on that fateful night in November of 2016. Tonight, when the vote to impeach was passed by the House, the news accounts reached her ears, and she immediately jumped out of bed, shouted "Thank Gaia!" and began break dancing and singing the "Internationale". The healing power of anti-fascism is amazing!

H/T: Ace

Happy Feet Friday

Bob Haggart and his Boys perform "Stand Still Stanley", with fine solos from - well, practically everybody: Danny Perry on guitar, trumpet man Chris Griffin, pianist Stan Freeman, Peanuts Hucko on clarinet, Toots Modello on alto sax and tenor sax man Artie Drelinger.




And here's today's selection from the musical advent calendar: Raymond Scott and his orchestra with "Christmas Night in Harlem".

Sorry, your Holiness....

...your heart may be in the right place with respect to the persecution of Christians in Burkina Faso, but I'm thinking that "interreligious dialogue" is not going to prove nearly as effective as a few score crates of M-4 rifles would.

Are you serious?

I suppose I should have known this, but I'm pretty sure I'm just hearing it for the first time.

I know that congressional seats are apportioned based on population, but I was not aware that the population numbers included illegal aliens for the purpose of allocating seats. What a disaster!

The 10-year surge in illegal and legal immigration has exploded the populations of mostly Democratic states enough that the 2020 census is likely to result in the redistribution of 24 House seats in states President Trump won, according to a new population analysis released Thursday morning.

This is sheer madness. People who aren't even supposed to be here are hijacking our country's destiny.

Some good points from Angelo Codevilla

William Webster, the only person ever to serve as head of both the CIA and the FBI, emerged briefly from his retirement hut in the Deep State swamp, to utter some comments on the FBI and its critics. Angelo Codevilla explains why Webster and his world view are antithetical to a genuinely free society. A couple of samples:

None would suggest, however, that Webster or any of our reigning security-crats intend what amount to new rules will be applicable generally; i.e. that they mean to grant to others the presumption of immunity from “second-guess[ing] discretionary judgments;” nor the right to surveil and investigate political enemies and then, laws on classified information notwithstanding, to spread results and innuendo so as to defeat or drive them from office.

In short, Webster’s “rule of law” amounts to the assertion that he and people like himself are the law. Hence, to criticize them is to criticize the rule of law.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And yet, regardless of what anyone might wish, the Left’s cynical use of the Steele dossier as a pretend-predicate for its activities has freed one and all to ignore the heretofore sacrosanct Fourth Amendment restriction that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . . .” Unless that restriction is reinstated by prosecuting and punishing the liberals and leftists who trashed it, the Right, too, will use the powers of intelligence, turbo-charged by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to its own advantage.

That is because unilateral adherence to law is untenably stupid.

I.e., two can play at that game.

The people are making preparations

It's good to see that the people are not just standing by, waiting for the Democrats to come for their guns: "Second Amendment Sanctuary Movement Spreads To Kentucky" (including Harlan County, the principal setting for one of my favorite television series, Justified).

Der Bingle sings one of my favorite Christmas songs

"Do You Hear What I Hear?"

Brilliant strategy or extreme panic attack?

"Pelosi Reportedly ‘Considering’ Impeachment Delay".

Indeed it does

"FISA Court: Carter Page ‘Misconduct… Calls Into Question’ Every Warrant FBI Ever Asked For".

BTW, perhaps after the impeachment circus has moved on, President Trump can get around to replacing Christopher Wray as head of the FBI. Just a thought.

Season's greetings, pards!

Here's Bob Wills with "Christmas on the Range".

Leftists really are kinda stupid

Paul Joseph Watson highlights some of Labour's "surprisingly" ineffective election tactics.

A sorry excuse for a human being

Even more so than Brennan, the odious Andrew Weissmann is a malevolent walking bag of wasted genetic material, and I would really like to see a grand-piano-sized piece of karma squash this vile bureaucratic parasite.

Is it warm in here or is it just me?

Canned Heat's "Christmas Boogie".

And now, a word from our sponsor

Maybe it's a form of jizya

"Associated Press reported Thursday that Pennsylvania State Representative Movita Johnson-Harrell, a hijab-wearing Muslim and a Democrat, has been charged with 'enriching herself by stealing money from a nonprofit organization she founded to serve the mentally ill and poor who were fighting addiction.' And so once again we get a lesson in the dangers of identity politics."

More from Robert Spenser: "Her value, in others words, was as a symbol, not as a legislator. It is likely that when Democratic Party top dogs were deciding on who should run for the State House from her district, no one knew or cared whether Movita Johnson-Harrell would be an honest or competent state representative. Her value was solely in the fact that she was a racial and religious minority, a Sharia-adherent Muslim in a party that reveres such people."

One would hope that the constituents of such frauds would eventually wise up and kick these people out of office, but unfortunately, the removal of these con artists seems to only happen as the result of criminal investigations by law enforcement agencies at the state and federal levels.

I suppose Scotland Yard is all over this

Who the hell (a) has $67 million worth of jewelry and (b) leaves it in her house when she goes on vacation? Well, obviously this woman, but just - wow. I wonder what kind of security system she had.

Yeah, yeah

I know it's Austin, which is primarily a cushy concentration camp for liberals in Texas, but, AGAIN I ask, what kind of parents let their kids go to drag queen story hour? Why? It's not enough that these people probably spend an inordinate amount of time making themselves obnoxious at work and on social media with their fraudulent virtue signaling, they've got to press their children into service, too?

David French just emailed to say "You really hate the blessings of liberty, don't you?"

My favorite Christmas hymn

Adeste Fideles, sung by the Vienna Boys' choir.

I never forget a face

I saw a recent photo of Hillary Clinton making the rounds on the internet today. She looks...different.




Strange. I was pretty sure I had seen that face before - and then it suddenly came to me.




Update: Friend and commenter JeffS posted Hillary's photo out there in social media land and got this response: "Looks like she had Epstein’s testicles implanted in her cheeks."

HAW!!!!

Smooth

Here's the mellow voice of Mel Torme, with "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".

Sunday funnies

Remember this guy?




Two from the Babylon Bee:

"Millenials In Panic As Outraged Boomers Threaten To Withhold Participation Trophies".

"Planned Parenthood Honors King Herod With Lifetime Achievement Award".


"Tortoise nervosa"...




From Powerline's "The Week in Pictures".

The smell of delusion

And, I think, the smell of failure in the larval stage. The Dispatch, a "conservative [sic] media company" put together out of nothing by Jonah Goldberg, Steve Hayes and David French, actually anticipates charging money for its services. Let's see what we're talking about:

Visitors to the site can choose to read content for free initially or purchase a "Founders Membership" for $1,500, which provides a lifetime membership and other perks including "priority access to meet-ups, events, conference call with top staffers" and "access to robust members-only discussion room."

"Everything will remain free for the next few months. Early next year, we’ll begin charging $10 a month or $100 a year for membership," Hayes indicates in an email to new subscribers.

Hey, I'd love to have a lifetime membership, and that "robust members-only discussion room" sounds like crazy fun, but I'm going to have to pass. My money's currently tied up in the development of a perpetual motion machine, and when the cabbage starts rolling in from that, I'm thinking about buying a Packard dealership.

C'mon, chillin, lez dance!

Here's an old Paco Enterprises favorite: the Tractors, with "The Santa Claus Boogie".

Great opportunity for regular readers

You saw it here first, folks! The Pistol Art Collective Online is proud to offer for auction the following work of art, made possible by our own Rinardman:



Let him describe this amazing contribution to the western, er, canon of art in his own words:

I thought you might be interested in the latest acquisition at the rinardman FRAUD* Art Gallery. It's titled "Duct tape and gun", and bidding for the unique artwork starts at $150,000. Sure, you can get a banana for $115,000, but this is a real gun, so the value is adjusted accordingly.

*Firearm Related Art Under Development

Get your sealed bids in now (note the reserve of $150,000).

Oh, and in your face, Sotheby's!

(Cannot be shipped to New York, Maryland, Illinois, California and, possibly, Virginia)

Sanctuary cities for me, but not for thee

So, sanctuary cities for illegal aliens are aok with many Virginia cities and towns, but not 2nd Amendment sanctuaries? Virginia's Dems are moving as quickly as they can to institute all kinds of new gun control laws in the commonwealth, and have been floating the idea of banning even the possession of so-called "assault" rifles, which would lead inevitably to confiscation. In response to this move, numerous counties and cities have declared themselves to be 2nd Amendment sanctuaries, where local law is refusing to enforce some or all of these proposed new regs and statutes.

Now comes this idiot, Dem Rep. Donald McEachen, who is encouraging Gov. Ralph "Coonman" Northam to deploy the National Guard, if necessary, to enforce these draconian new laws.

Just a reminder, dimwits: most National Guardsmen in Virginia don't come from places like Arlington and McClean. They come from the places that are enthusiastically passing 2nd Amendment sanctuary resolutions. In any event, I think the governor should lead by example. So, go ahead, Coonman, head on over to Pennington Gap or Dinwiddie or Bristol and start knocking on doors and talking through your bullhorn. Ought to get real interesting, real quick - like an episode of Justified.


I'm really likin' that decision to move to North Carolina. How about you boys?



"You bet, Cap'n Paco!"

Assortment

Alexthechick is another grave digger of the NeverTrump grifters' tottering reputations, and a must-read. They've done exactly what I figured they'd do: they've gone so far down the road of anti-Trump mania, and have proved to be so consistently, spectacularly wrong about everything, that the only honorable thing left to them is to acknowledge their own stupidity and bias and to find an occupation that has nothing to do with political punditry. Because even if they're forgiven, they have permanently forfeited their privilege to be heard and taken seriously on the subject of politics. Perhaps they can learn to code (but they had better hurry; I understand my 7-year-old granddaughter is studying the rudiments of coding, so she's already got a jump on them). More on the cuckservatives, here, by Tyler Lewis at American Thinker.

Forgotten but not gone, Eric Holder opens mouth, says words (Self-awareness level: zero).

Sharyl Atkinson lists 24 of AG Barr's observations in the wake of the release of IG Horowitz's report.

James Comey, delusional drama queen.

Well done, Sergeant! "Female Army Sergeant Repels Ambush, Kills 3, Becomes First Woman to Earn Silver Star Since WWII".

Congratulations to Boris Johnson and (we hope) Brexit. I hope his party's victory makes a difference (we will see).

Jerrold "The Hut" Nadler and his Stalinist fanboys (and fangirls) on the Judiciary Committee have voted to impeach President Trump. The articles of impeachment will now go to the full House for a vote. Afterwards, if approved by the House, the impeachment will move to the Senate for a "trial", which the donks don't have a prayer of winning. Wake me when the cold civil war gets hot.

Illegal aliens are not exactly, how should I put this, moving the needle toward lower crime rates.

Technology gone awry: "Couple says stranger hacked into bedroom Ring security camera set up to watch puppy".

Why do people have to be such a$$holes?

So, what's she complaining about?

Happy Feet Friday

Oh, yeah. It's the sultry saxophone of Ben Webster in “Woke Up Clipped”.




And here's today's musical advent calendar selection, "Lonesome Christmas" by Lowell Fulson.

Ho, ho, ho!

Why stop there?

Vicious, pinch-faced Democrat congressman Steve Cohen believes that Trump's phone call to Ukraine was an affront to, among other things, the "memory of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr."

How about Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa, not to mention Father Abraham and Jesus Christ? They'd probably be affronted, too, Steve. Check out this douchebag's picture at the linked post, incidentally. Isn't that the super secret white supremacist gang sign he's flashing there?

A different version of a Christmas classic

Here is a hauntingly beautiful version of "The Little Drummer Boy", sung by Marlene Dietrich (in German).

Republicans for the Ruling Class the Rule of Law

A group I never heard of before today called Republicans for the Rule of Law has created a digital billboard criticizing President Trump (the story's on HuffPost, which I refuse to link, but the gist is, "What is President Trump Hiding?").

There isn't a whole lot of info out there about the membership, except for a list of people on the "legal advisory board", which, hilariously in my opinion, includes the name of Wendell Wilkie II (that's some cutting edge, forward-looking Republicanism ya got there, boys! What, couldn't you find a descendant of Thomas Dewey, or a grand nephew of Harold Stassen?)

But scroll down to the bottom of the page, and there's the big giveaway: this organization of "conservative" Republicans is described as "a project of Defending Democracy Together", whose directorate includes, among other political and publishing failures, none other than William Kristol, Mona Charen, and ex-New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman.

A digital billboard campaign. Very 21st century, guys. Very revolutionary. Maybe you could put together a one-reel documentary and show it in drive-in theaters.

Wishing you a harmonious Christmas

And what better way to do that than with a song by those wonderful, harmonizing Beach Boys.

How do you like it, boys?

Decades ago, William F. Buckley, Jr., from the platform of his magazine, National Review, read the John Birch Society out of the conservative movement.

Today, Ace of Spades, Julie Kelley, Mollie Hemingway, Sean Davis and others are reading the National Review and its NeverTrumper grifter spawn out of that same movement.

And it is a thing of beauty.

Say "No!" to dynasties

Especially a dynasty featuring Pierce Bush - candidate for congress from Texas, grandson of George H.W. Bush, and an anti-Trumper, open borders advocate.

Her needs are simple and few

A sable coat, a new convertible, a platinum mine. Eartha Kitt sings "Santa Baby".

And now, a word from our sponsor

Outrageous

"The first responders were local policemen because the Pensacola Navy base is, like most U.S. military facilities, a gun-free zone. Joshua Watson was a rifle team captain at the Naval Academy. If he had been armed when Alshamrani began his rampage the outcome likely would have been different. Many, many other servicemen and women at Pensacola are perfectly competent to carry arms and do so away from the base. Bizarrely, not even the guards at Pensacola were armed."

This policy needs to change - NOW!

Did the secretive Matt Drudge sell out?

No, I don't mean "sell out" in the sense of becoming a knee-jerk NeverTrumper (although it's pretty clear he did that, too). I mean, did he sell his web site? Some people seem to think so.

"Complete whitewash"

So says Ace of Spades of the Horowitz report released today.

Fortunately, AG William Barr and US Attorney John Durham have (very politely) indicated that Horowitz is full of shit in some of his most important conclusions (you know, the ones that the Dems and the press will immediately jump on and tout as exoneration of the FBI).

The success (or not) of Barr and Durham in eventually bringing the coup plotters to justice will let us know pretty definitively whether the Deep State can be unwound, or at least brought to heel, under the law, or whether we shall truly have to begin contemplating an alternate political path to the one our erstwhile fellow citizens envision for us.

It's a close race!

In the Dumbass Congressional Sweepstakes, although the field is crowded, I always figured Maxine Waters and AOC were slightly out in front, heading for a photo finish. But then, out of nowhere, Al Green begins to close fast: "IMPEACH TRUMP BECAUSE OF…SLAVERY?"

It's beginning to look a lot like corruption...

...everywhere you go. "Bill Barr Indicts 8 Including Mueller Top Witness for Funneling Millions in Foreign Donations to Adam Schiff, Hillary Clinton and Top Senate Democrats".

Some of the donks ought to make like Rudolph, and run, run!

Yes, we have no bananas

To round out the banana artwork story, it's difficult to see how the finale could be any more perfect: "Wall of banana exhibit vandalized with lipstick at Art Basel: ‘Epstein didn’t kill himself.’"

Follow-up

"Man eats $120,000 piece of art -- a banana taped to wall".

Frankly, I'm kind of intrigued by friend and commenter Rebecca's speculation that the original "art work" - and other dubious creations like it - might actually be a way of laundering money. Inspired, if true.

From the musical advent calendar

Here's the dreamy baritone of Vaughan Monroe, with "Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!"

Sunday funnies

The heckler (note: This video will not play as an embed; however, if you click on the play button, you should get a screen that gives you the option to click on the original YouTube link. If that doesn't work, here's the link to the original page).




Chef Gareth Blackstock, um, mildly chastises one of his produce suppliers.




Dilbert provides a vision of the future of AI.


New, from Prehistoric Animal Christmas Ornaments: The Godzilla Christmas Tree!




From Powerline's "The Week in Pictures".

Looking ahead

Angelo Codevilla has some very initial, tentative thoughts about the future of our country, pointing out that our current divisions are likely to be permanent and that we - the "deplorables" - are going to have to blaze a new path to liberty. It is difficult for me to argue with these general observations:

How do we secure and perhaps restore our fast-diminishing freedom to live as Americans? And while we may wish for help from Trump, we have to look to ourselves and to other leaders for how we may counter the ruling class’s manifold assaults now, and especially in the long term.

Since 2016, the ruling class has left no doubt that it is not merely enacting chosen policies: It is expressing its identity, an identity that has grown and solidified over more than a half century, and that it is not capable of changing.

That really does mean that restoring anything like the Founders’ United States of America is out of the question. Constitutional conservatism on behalf of a country a large part of which is absorbed in revolutionary identity; that rejects the dictionary definition of words; that rejects common citizenship, is impossible. Not even winning a bloody civil war against the ruling class could accomplish such a thing.

The logical recourse is to conserve what can be conserved, and for it to be done by, of, and for those who wish to conserve it. However much force of what kind may be required to accomplish that, the objective has to be conservation of the people and ways that wish to be conserved.

That means some kind of separation.

Today's musical advent calendar selection

A unique rendition of "What Child is This?" by John Coltrane.

The man has a point

Mark Steyn: "I can no longer remember when I first used the line, but, as I've said many times before, sometimes a society becomes too stupid to survive."

You see, that's where I would have gone wrong

I would have used a pear and Gorilla tape: "Banana Duct-Taped to Wall Selling for $120K at Florida Art Gallery".

Vandal...

Happy Feet Friday

Something a little more “modern” than my usual offering (from 1966!). I was a huge fan of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels back in the late 60s and early 70s. Here they are with “C.C. Rider” (and a little “Jenny, Jenny” thrown in, for good measure).



And for today's musical advent calendar selection, we've got B.B. King with "Christmas Comes But Once a Year".

Presidential

Joe Biden got into a shouting match with another old geezer on the campaign trail.

Give it time. Eventually they're going to find Slow Joe walking down the median on I-95 in his bathrobe, in the rain. The guy needs an intervention.

A delicious alternative to Chick-Fil-A

If you live in the Norfolk/Hampton/Virginia Beach area, or plan to visit, if you like chicken, and if you'd like to... diversify your source of fast-food chicken dishes, permit me to recommend a local chain called Pollard's. They make a terrific pulled chicken BBQ sandwich, and their tenders are the best I've ever had. They also serve truly fabulous sweet potato fries.

Assortment

Is anybody surprised? "Despite Common Core Promises, U.S. Kids Repeat Poor Performance On Latest Global Test". Dumbing down our kids, and filling their heads with socialist propaganda and twisted notions of human sexuality. Future prospects of our nation: not looking too good.

Just one crazy coincidence after another: "On November 19, 2019, a banker with probable ties to Jeffrey Epstein is found dead much the same way Epstein was found dead."

Haw! "Welcome to Little Jerry's Airing of Grievances".

GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, to the Democrats' legal "experts": "To all of the witnesses: if you have personal knowledge of a single material fact in the Schiff report, please raise your hand."

The legal experts respond:




I would have thought that a simple death certificate would have sufficed.

From the invaluable Babylon Bee: "'Capitalism Has Failed Us!' Mark Ruffalo Shouts From Atop Massive Mountain Of Cash.

Outlaw

I have had nothing but contempt for Adam Schiff's management of the impeachment process. He is a hyperpartisan propagandist and liar whose type poses a threat to the rule of law and the peaceful operation of democracy.

But, as low as he is, he managed to plumb new depths in spying on his colleague, Rep. Devin Nunes.

Keep it up, Schiff old fellow. You're courting a knuckle sandwich, and you're liable to find yourself singing this song before too long

Three heads inferior to one

The Democrats called three legal "hexperts" to justify the rationale for the impeachment; Ace does his usual great job in scorching these three clunks, highlighting their partisanship and empty grandstanding (and neuroses). The Republicans, on the other hand, called a law professor as witness - Jonathan Turley - who, although a Democrat and a critic of President Trump, torpedoed congress's arguments for moving forward with impeachment.

Looks like the Bee and I are thinking along the same lines

"Narwhal Tusk Surrender Bins Installed Throughout The UK".

I think a narwhal tusk would look classy, hanging on my wall. And speaking of classy, was there ever anybody classier than Nat King Cole? Here he is with his 1961 version of "The Christmas Song".

So, doesn't George Conway have some ambulances to chase or something?

I mean, the guy's an attorney. Who the hell cares what he thinks about politics? (The left does, of course, because he's a very reliable NeverTrumper). And when is wife Kellyanne going to introduce his yeasty face to a three-iron or, at least, a rolled-up magazine?

Nice goin', there, Mo

"Hamas explosives chief accidentally blows himself up".

And now, a word from our sponsor

Perhaps we could punch up that beverage with a splash of "Gin for Christmas". Here's Lionel Hampton and his band.

Truer than ever

Yeah, I agree

All Peleton ads are stupid, but this one takes the gluten-free, low-fat cake.

The mayor of London to ban narwhal tusks in 4...3...2...

"Help came in a most unexpected form last Friday, when a knife-wielding terrorist on London Bridge was repeatedly jabbed with a five foot narwhal tusk - keeping him busy until police could arrive on scene to end the incident with a highly satisfying use of boomsticks."

LOL!

Evil Elf Peter Strzok filed a complaint with the Office of Professional Responsibility challenging his termination. OPR responded with a 27-page document pretty much stating how much art thou a weasel, let me count the ways.

I feel like celebrating Stzok's comeuppance with a little Christmas season cheer. Here's Fats Waller and his Rhythm with "Swingin' Them Jingle Bells", the second offering in our musical advent calendar.

Random items

#1 Son had surgery on Friday to reconstruct his ACL, and he's doing fine, although he's of no practical use to anyone for the next few weeks. Interestingly, the surgeon used a ligament from a cadaver in the process. I remarked to #1 that it came from a Mr. Bill "Live Grenade" Johnson, who had been shot and killed by police during an attempted armored car robbery. Think I had him going there for a minute.

I mentioned to the surgeon that I had seen an old movie long ago in which, as near as I can recall, a pianist lost his hands in a terrible accident, and a mad scientist sewed on a couple of replacement mitts from a murderer who had been executed, and the pianist started getting the urge to kill people. The surgeon reassured me that #1 was unlikely to suddenly develop an urge to go about randomly kneeing people in the groin. Whew! That's a relief!

Younger Son visited today; he's now working in the construction business. He showed me a couple of souvenirs he pulled from the recent demolition of a very old house (dating back, I believe, to the turn of the last century). Here's a specimen of the nails that were used, made by a local blacksmith back in the day. #2 Son says these babies really hold the wood together, and are very hard to remove.



He also found a tiny sample tin of talcum powder. The tin still has the powder in it, and it still smells faintly sweet.






Whoa, looky here! It's December 1st. Thought I'd do something like a musical advent calendar this year, and to kick things off, here's Mabel Scott from 1948 with the Boogie Woogie Santa Claus.

C'mon, Bruce, that's a croc

A REALLY, REALLY big croc!

H/T: Friend and commenter Bruce

BTW, the croc wrangler is asking readers to suggest names for this beast. I'd call him, "Shoe Store".

Sunday funnies

Redd Foxx: sanitized, but still not for the woke.




Bruno never has any trouble parking.


From Powerline's "The Week in Pictures":

HAW!!!!

First Trump drives his foes crazy on Twitter with his head photoshopped onto Rocky Balboa's body, then the Hong Kong demonstrators start flashing the picture during their protests.

President Trump is the antidote to the mainstream-media poison we've had to put up with for years. They simply do not have the wit to understand him, let alone effectively deal with him.

Happy Feet Friday

Drummer Cozy Cole and his band perform “Nice and Cozy” (1944). Other personnel are Fred Norman (trombone), Johnny Guarnieri (piano), Ray Coniff and Lammar Wright (trumpet), Teddy Waters (guitar), Billy Taylor (bass).



Bonus video! Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton and Chico Hamilton in a three-way drum competition from a 1958 TV broadcast.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am elsewhere today, and am having a spot of trouble reliably accessing my blog. The Paco's wish you all a great day, and splendid digestion.

Update Ok, access problem fixed. Will be blogging from behind enemy lines (Virginia) for a while; Number One son found out the hard way that trampolines are a young person's game, and now needs surgery on his knee. We'll be taking care of him and Maggie while he recuperates.

Daisy, the official dog of Paco Enterprises, saw a rabbit in the back yard last night and gave chase; however, she seemed to have reduced engine speed to one-third. I believe she was balancing her reluctance to actually catch the thing with her need to avoid being brought up on charges of demonstrating cowardice in the face of the enemy.

Another growing threat from abroad

Mexican cartels are infiltrating small towns across the U.S.

Courier Journal reporters pieced together CJNG’s network, from the suburbs of Seattle, the beaches of Mississippi and South Carolina, California’s coastline, the mountains of Virginia, small farming towns in Iowa and Nebraska, and across the Bluegrass State, including in Louisville, Lexington and Paducah.

A cartel member even worked at Kentucky's famed Calumet Farm, home to eight Kentucky Derby and three Triple Crown winners.

Ciro Macias Martinez led a double life, working as a horse groomer by day and overseeing the flow of $30 million worth of drugs into Kentucky by night before being imprisoned in 2018 for meth trafficking and money laundering, federal records show.

And now, a word from our sponsor

Chick-Fil-A dumps charitable giving for virtue signaling

Mrs. Paco and I met on a blind date, and the first place we dined together was at a Chick-Fil-A in Raleigh NC (it was the first time either of us had eaten there at all). We loved the chicken sandwiches, and it became sort of "our" place for decades afterwards.

In 2012, we were living in Fairfax, Virginia, and Chick-Fil-A had come under assault for the first time in a big way by leftist agitators because some of the owners were known to support organizations that honored traditional notions of the institution of marriage. A genuine grass-roots effort to show support for Chick-Fil-A arose, and one day, the local restaurant had a line of customers stretching from the building itself out across the parking lot and a hundred yards or so down the street. These loyal customers not only liked chicken sandwiches, they saw clearly that the proposed boycott by leftist organizations was an important battle in the culture war.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Some singer, who I had never heard of and whose name I can't remember now, got mobbed on Twitter because she had made some positive noises about the Salvation Army. The next thing I heard, she was apologizing profusely, and disassociating herself as rapidly as she could from the wrong-think of ever saying anything good about it. A week or so later, Chick-Fil-A announced that it will no longer be making donations to the Salvation Army - one of the largest providers for the homeless in the U.S., a cause that, supposedly, is paramount among Chick-Fil-A's charitable concerns. The Salvation Army provided a brief and elegant response via this Tweet.

The restaurant's corporate suits, of course, have denied that this has anything to do with leftist attempts at intimidation. Sorry, but the timing of the decision to cut off the Salvation Army, the rationale, the excuses being offered, the personnel who have been put in charge of the charitable foundation...I'm just not buying it. And, in any event, Chick-Fil-A has already been giving substantial sums of money to left-wing outfits, which I did not, in fact, know. But that won't make any difference to the radicals of the left; unless the company at some point, and soon, openly declares that it supports the moral neutrality (or perhaps even the moral superiority) of homosexual acts, it will get no credit at all from the social justice thugs. In the ongoing cultural war, the only thing acceptable to the left is unconditional surrender.

Mrs. Paco and I haven't eaten at a Chick-Fil-A for some time, and we don't plan on doing so again. Which is fine; we've developed a real fondness for Bojangles' sausage biscuits and dirty rice, and, naturally, there's always Five Guys.

Update Just barely satire: "Chick-Fil-A Replaces Cow Mascot With Golden Calf".

A matter of perspective

The Deep State saboteurs have melodramatic notions of being part of a "resistance" movement. They see themselves like this:



Whereas the rest of us see them like this:

Peter Strzok GIF from Peterstrzok GIFs

Good luck with that propaganda campaign, douchebags!

I'm surprised he didn't head on down to Petco and get some treats

"Dog takes joy ride around Fla. neighborhood after bumping owner’s car into reverse".

One piece of garbage journalism too many

"[Devin] Nunes will sue CNN for defamation for its false story claiming he traveled to Vienna and met with a Ukrainian to get dirt on Biden."

Have you had your daily ration of mendacity?

Sunday funnies

"Lego Introduces New Sharper Bricks That Instantly Kill You When You Step On Them".


Egg roulette.


Fingering the perp.


Bob Newhart psychoanalyzes Ben Franklin:




Important correction.


Haw! "News anchor goes viral after accidentally sending sick day email request to thousands". Some of the responses are hilarious.

Feel good story of the day

"Woman Sees Late Father in Ultrasound Photo of Baby".

Dear New York Times

For God's sake, we know you're hopelessly biased and irrelevant as an actual source of news. You don't have to keep trying to convince us: "NYT Story Criticizing Gabbard's White Pantsuit May Be the Most Ridiculous Article Ever Printed".

Seen in the neighborhood

A Mustang 347 Stroker (not sure of the year).