The single most obvious cultural reality about the current moment is that we’re inundated, every day, by signals telling us that [X] is [Not X], the don’t believe your lying eyes messaging that forms the hardened core of media and political product.
Yet she was surrounded by armed security, who trail and protect her 24/7.
In the up-is-down Newspeak of the committed Leftist, police arresting criminals is dangerous but letting unvetted border crossers, many of them criminals, roam free is safety and community.
I guess she wants to turn LA into a giant lawless slum so our new guests from Central America can feel right at home.
Showboating Bass (as well as her blood sisters and brothers; zombies who are the same inside but have different faces)) only seek to "raid the treasury and hire the relatives," as a commenter I admire elsewhere often says --- from what she has seen with her own eyes --- about local government Dem stiffs such as Bass & Co.
Great article. The ignorance of LA voters, who would support this woman to run anything, is staggering. Thanks for continuing to shine your light of common sense on this important issue and this completely unserious, dangerous and deranged “mayor”.
people underestimate the power of political machines and their patronage networks at their peril. They can maintain power over a place until it turns into Venezuela.
1600 of them which I expert were less than laudatory of Ms. Bass ... 😉🙂
[I was defenestrated by Jack Dorsey's minions several years ago -- open letter below -- and by Musk's more recently so I'm unable to join the party ... 😉🙂:
You are entirely correct about the facial expressions of the Mayor being incongruent with the settings, at least in the eyes of an ordinary observer. However, if there is some internal congruence within the Mayor, one only can hazard a guess at what that might be.
This insanity has been hitting us thick and fast, as Chris Bray pointed out, for some time now. Having to observe the lying politician spew compared to what is REAL always makes me think of this quotation from Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels). It's somewhat well-known but many have probably not seen or heard it. It's not exactly cheerful but it's accurate, which is not nothing:
“....In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
But many do believe, BELIEVE religiously, the lies. Those people are co-operators to the gaslighting and disintegration of cities and, ironically, credibility of "experts."
Having observed the local politicians up close, I think there are way fewer "true believers" than one would think. In their audience, however, there are more who are gullible; you might even say "hypnotized." Think of those who put "Love is Love" signs on their lawns. They get something from being "true believers" --- they get to think well of themselves. But some do wake up!
A few months ago for lunch I ate at Langers (famous for pastrami sandwich) across the street and after I decided to take a walk and told myself “MacArthur Park couldn’t be THAT bad could it” and crossed the street to walk through it. I could not make it past ten feet in. Aside from the shady characters that looked like they would murder you for a quarter, there was this weird smell and what I can only describe as an air of death that occupied the park. It was a bizarre experience.
The owner already announced a few months ago that he planned to close it due to all the issues that spill over from MacArthur Park. Despite all the bribes he’s had to pay the LAPD (not literal bribes - the restaurant and the owner has all sorts of plaques, recognitions, awards, etc. he’s received over the years all over the restaurant for public service and donations) he still can’t get resources to make the area safe. Very fitting too as the local LAPD station is the Rampart division famous for inspiring Training Day and The Shield.
It's happened to me twice now, in 2 different cities (Chicago and DC), to be eating in a supposedly nice restaurant when some huge, smelly, raggedy, loud, clearly paraglidingly-high-on-something person comes in and starts hectoring the other customers and the waitstaff. In the first case, an extra tough waitress shooed him out, and in the second case, the owners called the cops. A cop arrived quickly, but still we customers had quite a lengthy show of this scary person shouting at the top of his lungs that he wanted a free food NOW. The cop who finally arrived sat down with the guy and talked to him— the cop was brilliant, it was an education to watch.
But yeah, not good for the restaurant business, or a city's fiscal revenues either.
Don't get me started about the public parking lots.
Oh, I forgot to mention a 3rd experience of sitting in an Indian restaurant, a quite nice one, and watching through the window as a crowd of naked drugged up people (yes naked, as in pants down around ankles) started fighting over whatever it was in the city garbage can on the corner. You guessed it: Portland.
I just need someone to tell me simply and clearly: do Karen Bass and her supporters believe that we should have NO border controls? That no one here in LA or Cali or the USA should EVER be deported, despite being in the country illegally, even if they have a criminal record? And that once their beloved Wretched of the Earth arrive here, no matter how, they are instantly entitled to free housing, healthcare, lawyers, teachers etc, all on the public dime? Is this really what they believe and how they plan to govern? Is this what they call "Equity"?
But more importantly, can America, the idea, the republic, the rich, strong, successful country we inhabit, survive Social Justice ideology?
We have to be the first country in history that generously lauded and subsidized its own destruction, where the richest people in the richest state handed free matches and gasoline to people who hate them and want to kill them.
Social Justice really seems to mean that the West be destroyed, internally and externally, with its populace overtaken by angry entitled foreigners and its wealth shared among them, all to atone for our "privilege".
Karen Bass is the ultimate kakistocrat with a reverse Midas Touch—everything she does turns to shit, yet she'll still probably be re-elected by our apathetic lethargic populace, who've been crippled and neutered by white guilt. But, hey, the weather's still great!
Yes, it all makes perfect sense. Sort of the nature of progressivism.
I mean if you hand out wooden clogs to your supporters and tell them to go find "fires" to stomp out...well...then...there's a chance the fires are deliberate.
It’s a very unsatisfying end to the whole Epstein saga. Honestly if they can’t do better than he killed himself and his clients were ghosts … well I say I’m out. The pile of shit is too high. The establishment has lost all credibility. The social contract smashed into tiny pieces. The law is an ass and their claims to any authority has vanished into thin air … like a certain list.
It is not easy to do, finding the truth while exercising a certain level of disengagement. Your article reminds me of this little tidbit from Axios, with the headline of "Democrats told to 'get shot' for the anti-Trump resistance" (https://www.axios.com/2025/07/07/democrats-trump-resistance-violence-congress). A quote from the article: <<"The expectations aren't just unreal. They're dangerous," the eighth House Democrat said. >>
Yeah, that's kind of what happens when you scream "burn the witch" for ten years straight. At some point, the mob starts collecting kindling, never mind that you've been lying about the witch.
Does AI have common sense? I think not. My layman’s knowledge of AI sez no. While I’m not an AI specialist, I do know what AI purports to be and it ain’t got common sense. As much as a believer in technology as I am, I’m skeptical of the human ability to codify human common sense into executable code.
AI bases its training data set on what it finds on the internet and who its programmers decide what tidbits of information get prioritized over others.
Chris another great segment in your ongoing series, “The Fall of LA.” Karen Bass is not just an idiot, but she’s a complete idiot. Imagine the Sophie’s Choice Joe Biden faced when picking his “woman of color” for his VP candidate in 2020, and it was either Karen Bass or Kamala Harris.
I stopped watching all local news a few weeks ago because the first 20 minutes of every broadcast, everyday, was “ICE seen at Home Depot!” or “ICE seen at (insert name of LA neighborhood here)!” My brain is tired from the excessive gaslighting and the villainization of our Federal officers enforcing federal law in the streets thanks to sanctuary city laws. I find the blank screen of the turned off TV very calming.
The last few days have definitely felt like the upside-down of Stranger Things. Two realities, on a collision course that is going to realign things for a very long time. I’m praying the sane one wins the day. Still cautiously optimistic it will, but it is exhausting to wade through the crazy noise being generated.
I’m thinking of an anecdote I read about Susanne Wesley, married to the father of the Wesley brothers, who began the Methodist church. In her life she raised 19 children. As one could imagine it often got quite hectic. Moments of calm were hard to come by. But she found a way:
Nevertheless, Susanna found a creative way to find time with the Lord. Sitting in her chair with her apron over her head as she read her Bible was a subtle sign to her children: “I am having my quiet time with the Lord. Please don’t bother me.”
May we all be able to find creative ways of drowning out the signal noises of the insane, which are getting louder, and connect with the stillness inside to focus on the things that really matter.
Appreciate how you’re still able to wade through the noise for all your readers, Chris. 🙏
This has been my basic reaction to the news during a week in which I'm just sort of barely paying attention. Newsom posted some BS today and the whole comments section was just people ripping him to shreds.
The Epstein story ONLY makes sense if he's part of an op, and then it makes perfect sense. We had MULTIPLE trials of MULTIPLE people, there's obviously more than "nothing" there. The weight of the court documents alone would crush a man.
My early info on Axios was correct. I stand corrected, DOJ and FBI did publish same later.
And 💩 it is…
I was expecting (and posted) that Law would be Trump’s nemesis, I just wasn’t expecting it this way. He really can’t pick lawyers, probably none to be had.
So Learn about Laws, because decency, sanity and we ourselves are outlawed.
I stand somewhat corrected because of Leavitt Press Conference.
It is incompetent and self undermining to have this handled the way it was the last 24 hours.
This looks like 💩.
We’ll be given legalisms and nostrums and the rest, but I don’t care- it’s incompetent.
Frankly I don’t care if corrupt perverts suffer a slight miscarriage of justice. Probably legally they’re proceeding correctly AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM.
… and me personally on the matter of “laws” … lol I’ve been clear often enough.
We had a choice between law and order and the lawyers chose law for us.
We had a choice between law and civilization and the courts chose law for us.
We had a choice between law and survival and the courts tried to choose law for us but our President chose survival.
On this matter the law now taints everything good President Trump has done in 5 months with the worst possible filth … let’s hope he looks again and decides to step over the Protocols and Norms and grind some bugs under his boots.
I mean....at the very least we know there were two huge trials and multiple investigations............as far as I know, most of that information remains unreleased.
Yeah, I'm a little offended by the FBI pretending that we're all asking to see the actual child porn tapes. Nobody wants that. We just want the information about who was doing it.
We KNOW FOR A FACT that information exists, because they spent years investigating!
Repulsive ghoul of a mayor, continued:
https://x.com/MayorOfLA/status/1942348412785160193
Yet she was surrounded by armed security, who trail and protect her 24/7.
In the up-is-down Newspeak of the committed Leftist, police arresting criminals is dangerous but letting unvetted border crossers, many of them criminals, roam free is safety and community.
I guess she wants to turn LA into a giant lawless slum so our new guests from Central America can feel right at home.
Showboating Bass (as well as her blood sisters and brothers; zombies who are the same inside but have different faces)) only seek to "raid the treasury and hire the relatives," as a commenter I admire elsewhere often says --- from what she has seen with her own eyes --- about local government Dem stiffs such as Bass & Co.
Great article. The ignorance of LA voters, who would support this woman to run anything, is staggering. Thanks for continuing to shine your light of common sense on this important issue and this completely unserious, dangerous and deranged “mayor”.
It’s more about the power of the unions… especially the teacher and seiu.
people underestimate the power of political machines and their patronage networks at their peril. They can maintain power over a place until it turns into Venezuela.
The replies are delicious!
1600 of them which I expert were less than laudatory of Ms. Bass ... 😉🙂
[I was defenestrated by Jack Dorsey's minions several years ago -- open letter below -- and by Musk's more recently so I'm unable to join the party ... 😉🙂:
https://medium.com/@steersmann/open-letter-to-twitters-board-of-directors-d1c87603a832
)
You are entirely correct about the facial expressions of the Mayor being incongruent with the settings, at least in the eyes of an ordinary observer. However, if there is some internal congruence within the Mayor, one only can hazard a guess at what that might be.
Every time I see her grin I can’t help but think it’s a 💩 eating grin. I guess it goes with her 💩 for brains.
Yes. It reminds me of the joker’s smile.
Yes it does. Pure evil.
Potemkin village? 😉🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village
This insanity has been hitting us thick and fast, as Chris Bray pointed out, for some time now. Having to observe the lying politician spew compared to what is REAL always makes me think of this quotation from Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels). It's somewhat well-known but many have probably not seen or heard it. It's not exactly cheerful but it's accurate, which is not nothing:
“....In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
― Theodore Dalrymple
Yes
But many do believe, BELIEVE religiously, the lies. Those people are co-operators to the gaslighting and disintegration of cities and, ironically, credibility of "experts."
Having observed the local politicians up close, I think there are way fewer "true believers" than one would think. In their audience, however, there are more who are gullible; you might even say "hypnotized." Think of those who put "Love is Love" signs on their lawns. They get something from being "true believers" --- they get to think well of themselves. But some do wake up!
I haphazardly re-quote: "those who believe in absurdities, will commit atrocities"
100%
The fake news will not go down without a fake fight.
They're just upset because we used to be the rats in a maze; we were free to go anywhere as long as it was in the maze.
We tore down the walls of The Maze and that's where all the angst is coming from.
A few months ago for lunch I ate at Langers (famous for pastrami sandwich) across the street and after I decided to take a walk and told myself “MacArthur Park couldn’t be THAT bad could it” and crossed the street to walk through it. I could not make it past ten feet in. Aside from the shady characters that looked like they would murder you for a quarter, there was this weird smell and what I can only describe as an air of death that occupied the park. It was a bizarre experience.
You CAN'T MISS IT. If you just go there and see it yourself, it just hangs in the air. "An air of death" is exactly right.
I still go to Langer's, and I always wonder how long it can hang on.
The owner already announced a few months ago that he planned to close it due to all the issues that spill over from MacArthur Park. Despite all the bribes he’s had to pay the LAPD (not literal bribes - the restaurant and the owner has all sorts of plaques, recognitions, awards, etc. he’s received over the years all over the restaurant for public service and donations) he still can’t get resources to make the area safe. Very fitting too as the local LAPD station is the Rampart division famous for inspiring Training Day and The Shield.
It's happened to me twice now, in 2 different cities (Chicago and DC), to be eating in a supposedly nice restaurant when some huge, smelly, raggedy, loud, clearly paraglidingly-high-on-something person comes in and starts hectoring the other customers and the waitstaff. In the first case, an extra tough waitress shooed him out, and in the second case, the owners called the cops. A cop arrived quickly, but still we customers had quite a lengthy show of this scary person shouting at the top of his lungs that he wanted a free food NOW. The cop who finally arrived sat down with the guy and talked to him— the cop was brilliant, it was an education to watch.
But yeah, not good for the restaurant business, or a city's fiscal revenues either.
Don't get me started about the public parking lots.
Oh, I forgot to mention a 3rd experience of sitting in an Indian restaurant, a quite nice one, and watching through the window as a crowd of naked drugged up people (yes naked, as in pants down around ankles) started fighting over whatever it was in the city garbage can on the corner. You guessed it: Portland.
I just need someone to tell me simply and clearly: do Karen Bass and her supporters believe that we should have NO border controls? That no one here in LA or Cali or the USA should EVER be deported, despite being in the country illegally, even if they have a criminal record? And that once their beloved Wretched of the Earth arrive here, no matter how, they are instantly entitled to free housing, healthcare, lawyers, teachers etc, all on the public dime? Is this really what they believe and how they plan to govern? Is this what they call "Equity"?
But more importantly, can America, the idea, the republic, the rich, strong, successful country we inhabit, survive Social Justice ideology?
We have to be the first country in history that generously lauded and subsidized its own destruction, where the richest people in the richest state handed free matches and gasoline to people who hate them and want to kill them.
Social Justice really seems to mean that the West be destroyed, internally and externally, with its populace overtaken by angry entitled foreigners and its wealth shared among them, all to atone for our "privilege".
Karen Bass is the ultimate kakistocrat with a reverse Midas Touch—everything she does turns to shit, yet she'll still probably be re-elected by our apathetic lethargic populace, who've been crippled and neutered by white guilt. But, hey, the weather's still great!
Yes, it all makes perfect sense. Sort of the nature of progressivism.
I mean if you hand out wooden clogs to your supporters and tell them to go find "fires" to stomp out...well...then...there's a chance the fires are deliberate.
exactly right. there's never a real debate about the merits of these policies, just three word slogans.
I don't have any problem anymore calling the Democrat Party a death cult.
A criminal conspiracy aimed against the American people and humanity. They must be destroyed. They must be destroyed.
🙌 Totally agree!
Only one disagreement, Chris: This disorder is NOT mental.
It's spiritual, a disease of the heart and spirit...
MacArthur Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left my cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took too long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again, again
Worst hit song ever.
"We Built this City" is on the phone and would like to talk to you.
Worst song ever.
absolutely AND somehow got constant airplay on the radio!
"I've Never Been To Me" would also like a say.
HATED that song, too! Do you see a connection? 😉
no need for ipecac, sound therapy's the thing now
🙌👍 HATED that song!
I thought that song was about a MacArthur Park in NYC, but I could be wrong.
2 different shit cities, so....
Thanks For the chuckle!
NEVER take ANY comment i leave here seriously….unless I’m serious about it. 🫤
All that sweet, green ICEing flowing down!
Then by logical extension Ghislaine is free to walk.
She was trafficking children to ghosts
It’s a very unsatisfying end to the whole Epstein saga. Honestly if they can’t do better than he killed himself and his clients were ghosts … well I say I’m out. The pile of shit is too high. The establishment has lost all credibility. The social contract smashed into tiny pieces. The law is an ass and their claims to any authority has vanished into thin air … like a certain list.
LOL NOPE. Of course, if you were a madam, but there were never any johns, weren't you just unemployed???
It is not easy to do, finding the truth while exercising a certain level of disengagement. Your article reminds me of this little tidbit from Axios, with the headline of "Democrats told to 'get shot' for the anti-Trump resistance" (https://www.axios.com/2025/07/07/democrats-trump-resistance-violence-congress). A quote from the article: <<"The expectations aren't just unreal. They're dangerous," the eighth House Democrat said. >>
Yeah, that's kind of what happens when you scream "burn the witch" for ten years straight. At some point, the mob starts collecting kindling, never mind that you've been lying about the witch.
The initial impression of Bass is that she may be as dumb as she sounds, as opposed to those who simply say what they think their base wants to hear.
My sincere impression is that she's an actual moron.
She definitely has the vacuous eyes and smile that go with it.
Are you sure she’s not some lefty-prog animatronic ginned up by Disney?
Finding the truth is hard. It will get more difficult with AI.
Much. Ground truth will be life and death.
Does AI have common sense? I think not. My layman’s knowledge of AI sez no. While I’m not an AI specialist, I do know what AI purports to be and it ain’t got common sense. As much as a believer in technology as I am, I’m skeptical of the human ability to codify human common sense into executable code.
AI bases its training data set on what it finds on the internet and who its programmers decide what tidbits of information get prioritized over others.
The internet: decidedly biased left.
The AI programmers: decidedly biased left.
Any questions?
NO! It doesn’t. And can’t!
Chris another great segment in your ongoing series, “The Fall of LA.” Karen Bass is not just an idiot, but she’s a complete idiot. Imagine the Sophie’s Choice Joe Biden faced when picking his “woman of color” for his VP candidate in 2020, and it was either Karen Bass or Kamala Harris.
I stopped watching all local news a few weeks ago because the first 20 minutes of every broadcast, everyday, was “ICE seen at Home Depot!” or “ICE seen at (insert name of LA neighborhood here)!” My brain is tired from the excessive gaslighting and the villainization of our Federal officers enforcing federal law in the streets thanks to sanctuary city laws. I find the blank screen of the turned off TV very calming.
Someone worse than Harris for Biden VP? Mind-stunning.
The last few days have definitely felt like the upside-down of Stranger Things. Two realities, on a collision course that is going to realign things for a very long time. I’m praying the sane one wins the day. Still cautiously optimistic it will, but it is exhausting to wade through the crazy noise being generated.
I’m thinking of an anecdote I read about Susanne Wesley, married to the father of the Wesley brothers, who began the Methodist church. In her life she raised 19 children. As one could imagine it often got quite hectic. Moments of calm were hard to come by. But she found a way:
Nevertheless, Susanna found a creative way to find time with the Lord. Sitting in her chair with her apron over her head as she read her Bible was a subtle sign to her children: “I am having my quiet time with the Lord. Please don’t bother me.”
May we all be able to find creative ways of drowning out the signal noises of the insane, which are getting louder, and connect with the stillness inside to focus on the things that really matter.
Appreciate how you’re still able to wade through the noise for all your readers, Chris. 🙏
Great insights to MacArthur Park - I was not tracking.
As far as I’m concerned ICE can go Falling Down Michael Douglas on the whole thing, but I’m an asshole.
This has been my basic reaction to the news during a week in which I'm just sort of barely paying attention. Newsom posted some BS today and the whole comments section was just people ripping him to shreds.
The Epstein story ONLY makes sense if he's part of an op, and then it makes perfect sense. We had MULTIPLE trials of MULTIPLE people, there's obviously more than "nothing" there. The weight of the court documents alone would crush a man.
My early info on Axios was correct. I stand corrected, DOJ and FBI did publish same later.
And 💩 it is…
I was expecting (and posted) that Law would be Trump’s nemesis, I just wasn’t expecting it this way. He really can’t pick lawyers, probably none to be had.
So Learn about Laws, because decency, sanity and we ourselves are outlawed.
I dunno, the presser I saw with Leavitt seemed pretty clear to me.
https://x.com/Rothbard1776/status/1942333885066441150
Full video:
https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/white-house-daily-briefing/662155
I stand somewhat corrected because of Leavitt Press Conference.
It is incompetent and self undermining to have this handled the way it was the last 24 hours.
This looks like 💩.
We’ll be given legalisms and nostrums and the rest, but I don’t care- it’s incompetent.
Frankly I don’t care if corrupt perverts suffer a slight miscarriage of justice. Probably legally they’re proceeding correctly AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM.
… and me personally on the matter of “laws” … lol I’ve been clear often enough.
We had a choice between law and order and the lawyers chose law for us.
We had a choice between law and civilization and the courts chose law for us.
We had a choice between law and survival and the courts tried to choose law for us but our President chose survival.
On this matter the law now taints everything good President Trump has done in 5 months with the worst possible filth … let’s hope he looks again and decides to step over the Protocols and Norms and grind some bugs under his boots.
I mean....at the very least we know there were two huge trials and multiple investigations............as far as I know, most of that information remains unreleased.
The reasons given; they don’t have a “list”, and they don’t have blackmail, they don’t want to harm victims or release child pornography.
The last two are valid.
The first two aren’t.
This is bad governance and political incompetence.
… but that’s law for you.
This will be regretted more than the vaccine.
Yeah, I'm a little offended by the FBI pretending that we're all asking to see the actual child porn tapes. Nobody wants that. We just want the information about who was doing it.
We KNOW FOR A FACT that information exists, because they spent years investigating!