(0601). Morning all. Have a good one. (0803)

 

8. Kathy’s newsletter (see TCW in blogrolls)

… had this among other things … think she’d been to a Vaxx oppression conference or whatever:

”In a funny way, the Saturday experience was worse. Adding to the aura of infirmity and hardship was something else: identity, stripped or unrecognised; people who’ve been labelled, shunned and, above all, excluded. Ironic, is it not? The nonpersons in the eyes of the political establishment and media elite that Orwell predicted in 1949; the only group not allowed its own community leader.”

Very similar mood to mine in Sun 7 in the last part.

7. “Religion”, incorporating Now and Next

Firstly, from inside the biblical Christian world:

And from outside … Rolf:

“Our leaders think they can avoid addressing in the national forum systemic issues of public order arising from dangerous ideologies. Better – easier, at any rate – to leave such matters for local police and courts to deal with piecemeal. 

Perhaps they don’t know enough about our nation’s past. Fifteen members of the Coalition government of 2010 – including David Cameron – were graduates of Oxford’s PPE program, which currently lists knowledge of maths as ‘recommended’ but of history as merely ‘helpful.’

Yet history will show that ideas, especially in religion, can result in blood and fire. In the sixteenth century Protestant bishops were burned alive outside Balliol College, and hangmen tore the guts out of Catholic priests at Tyburn.

Today we face the challenge of Islamic extremism.”

The danger is in drawing the conclusions our hardwired modern mindset demands, formed from observation from a distance of religious fanaticism … which can obscure why so many over two millennia, from scholars and other learned people, down to the lowliest Joan of Arc have adopted that position, view, in for example the hymn Amazing Grace.

There is most certainly something in there just as regenerating as a family … not an intellectual thing but more a reordering of the inner person, which has been attested countless times over the millennia and the tale is always the same. It’s a bit like the reordering of things in the U.S. just now which has had repercussions all over the world, which has briught back a feelgood factor in “decent” people, unbrainwashed.

The degree of opposition to that simple reordering … well you can see it in the demonrats and RINOs, in the slightly older than teenage female hysteria and spotty herbert, wispy bearded violence … up to the crooks at the top. It’s the calm restating of unpalatable truths … which make it easy to see that this Paula person is a wrong ‘un.

In centuries past, the synod level miscreants, the priestly class, the Wolseys, the Cromwells have kept the common man in thrall, in fear of hellfire unless paying indulgences and thus the burnings and torture have gone on and on … the examples of horror Rolf mentioned, just as with the deathcult, the murder, rape and mistreatment … which are so far from the Amazing Grace tale as to almost be on another planet. So far from tea with the vicar of a Sunday of yesteryear.

But in this modern day, with almost zero kudos in admitting a simple faith … in fact quite a bit of being shunned, plus tolerated and “humoured” by one’s own friends … why on earth would anyone put himself through that, isolating himself? Could it be that there is a kernel of truth in it? In the final analysis?

And there it is … there’s the rub and why it never dies, despite severe oppression and repression, ostracism … not unlike freedom itself really, not unlike family, joy, jollity, bonhomie … they’re nice, they lead to a feeling of safety, stability, the proper ordering of priorities, people treating others honestly and fairly, people liking the results of hard work.

Unlike the demonrat, RINO, Wokeleft sinisterati vision … which is always, always has resulted in societal division and destruction.

6. DAD drop at 964

a) A total of 110 deaths, 341 injuries and an explosion in cocaine seizures: drug trafficking continues to grow in France, as shown in 2024.

b) …but the good people of Bordeaux have found a way of stopping the drug dealing – noise ! There were about twenty of them, this Tuesday, February 4th at nightfall, to express their fed-upness.

c) We will soon be able to find yellow mealworm larvae powder on our plates. This is what the European Commission validated on January 20, 2025. A measure that should take effect on February 10.

d) That kind M. Macron has given six Mirage Jets to (The) Ukraine – how long will they last ?

5. A pundit would be derelict in his duty

… if he dd not comment on punditry from time to time. When doing your rounds, not all opinions are equal and simply experience and cynicism eventually lead to recognising a good ‘un and a nowhere or wishful. Wishfuls are fine if aligned with pro-people policy but to get to the nitty gritty, you watch out for pundits being fed good copy by those in the game … pundits such as Amuse, Publius, Cynical Publius:

“It’s great to see Americans finally systematically dismantling the Deep State. But the Deep State has many, many components and tools, some of which most people are not even aware of. I want to talk about one of those hidden components now. One of the more pernicious components of the Deep State—and something that will be very hard to defeat—is the pro bono programs of “BigLaw” firms. To see what I mean, Google the name of your favorite BigLaw firm and the words “pro bono.” You’ll soon discover that there are literally armies of highly-paid, highly-educated lawyers litigating all of the left’s favorite causes, from abortion, to deprivation of gun rights, to mutilating of children’s genitalia, to protecting illegal aliens, to you name it. When you see that some Obama-appointed federal district court judge in some insanely liberal district enjoined some Trump 2.0 initiative, invariably pro bono BigLaw lawyers are involved. (Personal anecdote: I went to law school right out of the Army and joined a BigLaw firm. After I joined, my firm proudly trumpeted that they had served as pro bono counsel for Gitmo terrorists. You know—the same terrorists who had been trying to kill me a few years earlier.) The Latin words “pro bono” mean “for good,” with an implication—in the legal context—of “for free.” And therein lies the Achilles’ heel of leftist pro bono law—it’s not “free,” not really. That “free” work is actually funded by paying clients. BigLaw first year associates bill out at around $850 an hour these days, with senior associates and partners often approaching and sometimes over $2,000 per hour. Those outrageous fees are what fund leftist pro bono litigation—ultimately it is PAYING CLIENTS who pay to promote these leftist causes. So how do we fix this? Big clients of BigLaw firms need to ask what sorts of pro bono projects these firms are involved in, and if the answer is the usual array of neo-Marxist causes, then the big client needs to take their big business and big legal fees elsewhere to a BigLaw firm not enmeshed in protecting the Deep State. The Bill Ackmans and Elon Musks of the world need to start asking these questions, and before long these firms will see what their leftist advocacy is doing to their bottom line, and necessary change will occur. But awareness is the key, hence this post.”

10:28 PM · Feb 7, 2025

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_law_firms_by_revenue

“Another avenue here is stockholder advocacy steering boards of directors to move their legal business to law firms not engaged in leftist causes.”

Robert Francis Cooke:

“Shareholder lawsuits for waste of corporate assets in paying legal fees that include a markup to cover the pro bono. Sounds like some MAGA lawyers could make some nice class action fees. Corporations won’t move their business- just have to negotiate fees excluding the pro bono markup. It will end fast.”

David Herrick:

“Excellent point, but the problem is that many of the legal departments at Big Law’s clients are equally woke, so I kind of doubt they will rise up in unison to demand that the firms stop subsidizing woke pro bono work. Even clients one would think should be anti-woke promote DEI.”

Mike Davis (DJT’s govt lawyer):

“The temporary-restraining order by DC U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols against the President’s USAID personnel decisions is truly lawless and dangerous. (The President cannot order U.S. officials overseas to come home within 30 days? Seriously? Judges actually think they have that power?) Nichols proves even former Clarence Thomas clerks who go DC big-law are unreliable picks for the federal bench.”