Why Joe Biden? The Big Mistake of 2020- 7/28/2022

Oops. Stumbled again!

When I look at President Biden's abysmal performance, how Democrats came to choose Joe Biden as their guy is a real head scratcher. The guy is just awful at the job. I've counted the ways he's bad in past blogs, so I won't rehash them again. This post is not about election integrity, 2020 voter fraud or other cheating, either. It is simple me expressing my opinion of how Joe Biden became the Democratic candidate, and ultimately our President, and by how I mean the rationale, the reasons. Here they are and my assessment of those "hows", too.

1. "We are a deeply divided nation and Joe Biden is a uniter. He can bring us together." I haven't seen it. I'm not feeling it. That's what we were told, but it's not true. Joe is as much a partisan and every bit a part of the division and rancor and anyone else. He has a temper and showed his ass a number of times in public settings when challenged or faced with dissent. "I don't work for you!"

2. "Joe Biden is the only one of them who can beat Trump." I don't know how much the cheating impacted the result, but I do agree, Trump would have fared better against every single other Democratic Party hopeful who took part in the primaries.

3. "Joe Biden will bring about a return to normalcy in Washington." That didn't work out. Nope. The Jan 6th Committee, protests at SCOTUS Justice's houses, etc. The place is every bit the circus it was under Trump. We just got some new clowns, and we still have way too many of the same old clowns. But we don't have normal.

4. "It's Joe Biden's time." No it wasn't. He's way past his prime. He couldn't get past other nominees in previous presidential campaigns earlier in his career when he was in better shape mentally and physically. Now a mere shell of himself it's his time? Hell no. He's way, way past prime time. Maybe it was "his turn", but it was a mistake, a real boner. His time is long past.

Sometimes the electorate makes a mistake. Now you know how the big mistake of 2020 was made.

An Open Letter to My Democrat Friends, I Want to Understand - 7/27/2022

In the last 30 to 40 years, political polarization in the US has gotten worse and worse. I am not going to cite instance after instance. But I will say we have gotten more and more tribal and that the feuding and hostility between tribes has ratcheted up in and during each and every Presidential Administration and campaign since Reagan. It reached a critical mass during the Clinton years. Then there were the Bush years, need I say more? By the time the Obama years were upon us, social media became a factor, joining a corrupt and biased media complex intent in creating division among us. If media sowed the seeds of division among us, social media was and surely is the fertilizer of it. I thought that the division had reached it's summit with Trump. I was wrong. The Biden years are proving to be every bit as divided and caustic. Touted as a uniter, Biden has done none of that. I actually think things are worse now than ever between us. I am NOT blaming Biden for that, but I AM saying he sure as hell isn't a unifying figure. I cannot think of a single issue about which I thought the Biden Administration was reaching out to me as a conservative, not with an olive branch of reconciliation, not with an offer of peace, not with anything. Not ever. Not at all.

So, rather than letting media or social media speak for me and letting anyone presume to know what I think, let me lay it out for you.

I don't hate you or distrust you because you're a Democrat. I hate some of the politicians who are standard bearers for your party, but I know most of you, if not all you who I am blessed to call my friends, are good people and well-intentioned. But there is so much that I simply do not understand.

I want to understand how you feel about the issues that divide us. I remember in 2016 an exchange with a Democrat friend who wanted to know why I was supporting Trump. I told him the same thing I still believe today: that Trump is a highly imperfect person, detestable in many ways, but that he seemed to me to be the only political figure on the scene with the USA's best interests at heart. ALL the others, at every point on the political spectrum, seemed to me to be compromised by special interests, domestic and foreign. This to me still seems the case.

I want to understand. The US was built on a foundation of immigrants who came here to better themselves. I am totally in support of the US continuing this tradition, The waves of people coming here illegally is NOT in keeping with anything resembling that tradition, in my opinion. Why do you not object to the immigration crisis taking place in the USA right now? If this is okay in your opinion, why and how do we move forward with 1,000,000 and more every year coming in undocumented and as of now under Biden, unfettered?

I want to understand. Desiring cleaner energy and protecting our environment is a good and righteous thing. Do you really and truly believe that the Biden Administration's energy policies have had no bearing on fuel prices, and that this is strictly a Putin issue? Is the Biden Administration handling this issue well, and if you believe that is the case, please tell me how you see the balance between green energy policy and energy prices playing out now and moving forward. Who is it that you trust to make the right moves for mom and pop and Joe Six Pack moving forward?

I want to understand. Every social issue today seems to be controlled by extremists on both sides, but in as much as your side presently controls both bodies in Congress, and the White House, are you well represented on social issues? For example, are you in agreement that we should no longer refer to the people who gave birth to us as "mothers", and instead ought to call them "people who give birth"? The whole gender thing totally befuddles me. Sure, gender dysphoria is a thing. There are people who identify as the opposite gender from the one we would define by what's in their pants or their DNA. I don't mind letting them live in a way that will allow them to feel at home and at peace with their self identity. But the movement seems instead to want to undermine all of us whose self-identity is aligned with more traditional definitions of male and female, boy and girl, man and woman. I don't understand how Disney World discontinuing welcoming "boys and girls" of all ages makes society a better place. I don't understand how medical professionals advocating that we discontinue the process of gendering newborns until they are old enough to make that determination of their own free will makes society a better place for us all. Help me to understand that. If you think think that this is the right thing for society, I want to understand how and why. If you don't, why do I not hear Democrats objecting vociferously?

I want to understand. Almost 60 years have passed since the Civil Rights Bill of 1964 was passed. Most of our largest cities have large minority populations and also are and have been under liberal or Democratic leadership for most of that time. Do we still have the kind of racial oppression that warranted passage of the 1964 law? If so, has the leadership to which I referred failed minorities? Help me to understand.

I want to understand. Do you think schools K-12 and colleges and universities in 2022 are meeting our society's education needs as they translate to the educated's contributions to a thriving and productive society?

I want to understand. What are the top 3 or 4 political issues that will most influence you in the mid-terms and then in the 2024 General Election? I hesitate to tell mine, as I am not looking for your response to my opinion, I want to understand your opinions.

I would love to see you rank, first to last, your preference for President in 2024 if the following were your choices and specifically why you feel of all these this person best represents your views. Ignore their ages, this is more a hypothetical to see where their/your views align. I want to understand.

Joe Biden. Kamala Harris, Joe Manchin, Kristen Sinema, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Alexandria Occasio-Cortez, Maxine Waters, Liz Cheney, Andrew Cuomo, Michelle Obama.

Pick one only and help me to understand how their position on issues reflects your views and your desires for our future. Again please ignore age, which I know for several of these is a reason they're not a realistic candidate.

Were you able to get through all that? Extra credit if you got through all that and never mentioned Trump in response to my questions. If "Trump" was indeed a part of your logic to answer these, may I respectfully request that you try again? Trump shouldn't be inside your head. If he is he's clouding your vision. No offense.

Reading US History and a Stunning Analogy - 7/23/2022

I read a lot of US history. I'm currently reading the first volume of Shelby Foote's famous Civil War trilogy, The Civil War: A Narrative. Vol 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville (1958). Note that it was written in 1958, a year after I was born. I would have read it sooner, but we were at the library and mom realized that I had a poopy diaper. Then I just never got around to it. But I finally have, and I'm reading it now. As I am reading, I'm about 100 pages in, Foote's description of the issue(s) leading up to the war stike me as stunning. The cliché, 'those who ignore history are damned to repeat it' rings in my ears.

Slavery was a moral abomination and is a stain on our history.

The reason for the Civil War is almost always explained one of two ways: the war was over slavery, and the right to own slaves, or it is explained as being a war over 'states rights'. The latter, 'states rights', is almost exclusively the basis cited by people sympathetic to the Confederacy's secession from and war with the Union. I don't ever recall, in my life, anyone justifying secession because they believe slavery was morally acceptable. 'States rights' is the way they justify it. Other people, me, believe the war was fought over slavery. Do southern states or did/do the people in them have the right to own slaves? Both explanations for the war are right, each in their own way, but neither reason answers the other.

Slavery is a moral issue, cut and dry. It is either OK to own slaves or it isn't. It is either OK to think of Black people are lesser forms of life, unworthy of equal standing with whites, or it isn't. But you won't hear hardly anyone who sees the war as having been one over states rights ever even address the morality or immorality of slavery. As I read about the dispute and the rhetoric surrounding it, I had a wow moment. 'States rights' was and is a damned cop out. I suppose it was way easier to look one's own self in the mirror for standing up for states rights than it was to look in the mirror and feel pride in making the case that slavery was morally acceptable, that Black people are some lesser form of life. Is slavery morally acceptable? Are Blacks lesser beings? How does history judge it?

I am trying to keep this short. Well, at least I'm trying to.

Is not abortion/the right to choose nearly a perfect analogy to the Civil War? Abortion is a moral issue, it is either OK to abort, or it isn't. I can entertain the validity of discussion of viability, and that the morality of the issue may change as each pregnancy progresses toward term, but whether or not the act is moral or immoral can't be discarded from the debate. If you think the act is moral, then say it. 'A woman's right to choose' and 'a woman must not be told what she can and can't do with her own body' are cop out arguments, plain and simple, not at all unlike the way that 'states rights' was a cop out for justifying slavery.

It was like feeling a feeling of deja-vu all over again.

States rights and the right to choose are both arguments that sidestep the important moral question to resolve debate to a desired end. We know how, enlightened by the passage of time, history now judges slavery. It will be well beyond my time in this life, but someday history will pass its judgement on abortion or the right to choose, too.

Jan 6th, Why I'm Not Watching, Why I Don't Care - 7/22/2022

Jan 6th hearings are designed to damage Trump politically.

I'm not watching.

I don't care.

Before I proceed, let me say this: What happened on January 6th was wrong and it was tragic. It was a mistake from the get go. I believe protests over the conduct and execution of the 2020 election WERE appropriate, but January 6th in Washington, DC, the date and place set for the Electoral College to do it's thing was simply the wrong time and place. 

Furthermore, as January 6th unfolded, I felt that it was incumbent on President Trump to publicly and loudly discourage and disavow any illegal acts of protest at all, and in real time.

OK, so I am not giving a pass. So, why am I not watching?

Nothing will be done to look at the basis for the protests. Nothing. I can cite a long list of pre-election, Election Day, and post-Election Day improprieties and illegalities. Every rule was bent and twisted in ways that created doubt of the legitimacy of the process, at least in my mind as I watched it play out in real time. Do I KNOW that the election was stolen? No. Richard Baris, the People's Pundit, a pollster who I trust, warned that GA and PA were definitely in play for the Democrats. I knew from that that it would be close and could go either way. Further, I recognized how much dislike and disdain so many had of Trump's personality and style. Even so, I either underestimated, or something fishy went on for Joe Biden, a guy who didn't even have a legitimate campaign getting 81,000,000 votes. It felt and still feel like something fishy went on.

There is nothing bi-partisan about staffing a committee with only people vehement opponents to and antagonists to the subject of its investigation, in this case, Trump. There is no serious cross-examination of witnesses that might undermine their recollection, motive, or honesty in testifying.

The same clowns on the Democrat side of this committee were Russian collusion hoaxers and bogus impeachment participants. These clowns abandoned every single morsel of possible credibility with me in the 6 years since the Hillary Clinton Russian collusion hoax was perpetrated on us, leading to a bogus Mueller investigation. Now you want me to salivate watching these same scumbags stage a kangaroo court, show trial? Fuck that. Fuck them.

In the end they will prove NOT that Trump was part of a conspiracy, but that he exercised poor judgement and inactivity when he ought to have spoke up. The depth of his sense of betrayal by partisans who controlled the electoral process and his belief in the unfairness of the election, which is why, in my opinion, that he didn't do the right thing, will NOT be explored.

Nothing I didn't already believe to be the case will come from it, and nothing to encourage me about the sanctity, safety, and security of our elections moving forward will be presented. On the positive side, though, I now have another couple of Republican names to despise, one being Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.

Rep. Cheney's opponent is Harriet Hageman. I just donated to Hageman's campaign. Liz Cheney must go.

Immigration, Our National Disgrace - 7/21/2022

In my opinion, President Biden is a terrible President. He's not just bad, he's inept. What are his weak areas? Everything. All of them. He's terrible. And what is his biggest failure? Energy? It's bad, but no. Inflation? Worst in 40 years. No again. Foreign policy? Afghan withdrawal? Education? Nope, no, nah.

Immigration and handling of migrants entering illegally is the topper. I saw one projection that we are on track for 6 million illegal immigrants by the end of the President's term in January of 2025. To put 6 million into perspective, here are the US most populous cities in 2022, according to the Census Bureau:

1. New York City, NY (Population: 8,622,357)
2. Los Angeles, CA (Population: 4,085,014)
3. Chicago, IL (Population: 2,670,406)
4. Houston, TX (Population: 2,378,146)
5. Phoenix, AZ (Population: 1,743,469)
6. Philadelphia, PA (Population: 1,590,402)
7. San Antonio, TX (Population: 1,579,504)
8. San Diego, CA (Population: 1,469,490)
9. Dallas, TX (Population: 1,400,337)
10. San Jose, CA (Population: 1,036,242)

So 6 million is more than the population of any US city except New York. 6 million is greater than the population of 31 states was in 2021. Conversely, or another way to put it, only 19 states have a population of 6 million or more. 6 million is approximately equal to the population of Maryland or Missouri.

We don't have infrastructure for these people. We don't have the legal capacity (courtrooms, judges, law enforcement, etc.) to process them even if we did. I remember an old cliche, one you may not be familiar with, maybe you are. It says, "If you owe the bank $10,000.00 and you can't pay it back, you're in trouble. If you owe the bank $10,000,000.00 and you can't pay it back, the banker is in trouble." 100,000 people entering our country illegally is far too many. 1.5 million per year? Beyond unmanageable by several magnitudes.

Our leadership has failed us on this. Congress... fail. DHS... fail. CBP... fail. President Biden? Massive massive massive fail. During a Democratic Presidential Debate in 2020, Biden went along with all the other candidates, saying people here illegally should be entitled to taxpayer funded healthcare. Yeah, he did. So don't even try to tell me he didn't roll out the welcome mat and turn on the neon "come on over" signs. Fail, fail, fail, fail. He put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the border, remember? Fail.

Before I close by stating my own proposals, let me state for the record. I do not dislike immigrants, Mexican, other Hispanics or any other on the basis of nationality, race, or religion. LGBTQ+ etc, etc. Good people are good people. Bad are bad, it cuts across oll demographics. Because of the sheer numbers, it is imperative to state explicitly again though, that I do not hate Mexican or other Hispanic people. I truly believe that like anyone else, the majority of immigrants are good people looking to better their lives. But like the $10k vs. $10 mil cliche, with as many as 6 million illegal immigrants in 4 years, we are in trouble. It is a broken dam and we are downstream being flooded. It's a major problem.

What do I propose? And, by the way, I wish Republicans, who at least would seem to align more closely with my views, would make some real proposals on the issue. They won't. Because they suck. Short of hanging out the welcome sign like Biden and the Democrats have, Republicans are still a major problem here. It takes two to tango, and our failed leadership in D.C. are doing a two party shuffle dance that is far more spasmodic than rhythmic.

1. Build a wall. Yes, with doors and a way in, but channel people to entry points. A big, hard to circumvent wall. A barrier to illegal entry as best as possible. 

2. Beef up ALL aspects of immigrant processing, especially appointing enough background investigators, clerical, law enforcement, health and human services persons, and judicial staff to process immigrants and asylum seekers in a timely manner. A good portion of our illegal immigration is because legal immigration is slow enough to be called next to impossible.

3. (Congress) Reform immigration law. Make it easier for hardworking, needed workers to enter. On the other hand, make it more difficult for criminals, drug and human traffickers to come in and or to stay if they're her already. A Constitutional Amendment that differentiates between people here legally and those who are here illegally would be excellent. Give illegals 12 months, maybe 24, or some other finite period to declare their presence and enjoin a process of legalization. At the conclusion, they are legal aliens, no longer illegal. This amendment would once and for all settle the question, are illegal immigrants entitled to taxpayer funded benefits? Not just no, HELL NO!

4. Make a path to legal status and eventually to citizenship for law abiding, hard working immigrants, even those now here illegally. Deal HARSHLY with criminal illegal aliens guilty of violent crimes, drug or human trafficking. When I say harshly, I mean as harsh as possibly short of cruel and unusual.

If I had my way, tens of millions of people here now illegally will be able to come out of the shadows, allowed to live well, prosper, and legally contribute to American greatness (I love that phrase). Many, many criminals will be deported.

President Biden is a failure at nearly everything. It's time we wake up and see that. And while we're at it, to put his totally and completely failed immigration policies at the top of that dubious list of failures. But when it comes to US immigration failure, Congress, and I mean on both sides of the aisle, have also failed us. Biden does not deserve to be blamed alone, there is blame to go around. Plenty.

 

Indiana Mall Shooting Quick Hitters - 7/18/2022

A good guy with a gun killed a bad guy with a gun. We need more good guys with guns killing bad guys with guns. Yes, I said what I said.

If you don't like the idea of good guys with guns, what's your plan to disarm bad guys? I guarantee your plan will only or mostly disarm good guys. Bad guys won't play along. Why? They're bad guys. So, about your plan... It's a dumb plan.

How come this happened yesterday and they still haven't released the mall killer's identity? The killer is dead, right? It's probably going to turn out the scumbag was well known to authorities or to people in the community. What makes me say that? Because it's consistently the case. Not 100% of the time, but frequently enough that it's a fairly safe bet.

Another thought, I note that in addition to lacking a name, the shooter's ethnicity and race are also unreported in the stories I read. Maybe the race is out there somewhere else, I don't know. I will only say that in general when it's a white male race info seems to get reported right away. Again, it's not a 100% truth, but it does seem like reporters are either simply more comfortable reporting that the bad guy is white, or worse, they do so purposely to advance an agenda.

To the preceding paragraph: I don't give a shit what color the bad guy was. Bad guys are bad guys and it ain't about color, it's about character and behavior. I'm all for bad guys of every color who perpetrate criminal violence meeting their makers. This includes mall shooters and bodega bullies.

Lastly, it's sad for the victims and their families. People went to a mall, maybe looking for shoes, earrings, a new iPhone, or blue jeans, and some evil creep stole their loves and their lives from them without warning. May God give them all the comfort and strength they need.

"The Shot" - 7/15/2022 - 2

Covid Boosters

I got the initial Vaccine in January of 2021. Then I got the booster. I even went and got a second booster. I get a flu shot every year. I've got my old people's shots, too: the shingles and pneumonia vaccines. So don't call me an anti-vaxxer. History would show that you were wrong to do so.

If I ever get another Covid booster, they'll have to have made a better case than they have to this point to convince me it's in my best interest. By my reckoning, the risks of getting it verses not getting it no longer tilt toward getting it. The stuff has shown to be less and less effective as the virus mutates to evade it. Hell, one guy I know got the shot a month ago, his second booster, and three weeks later he got Covid. I didn't see his, "so thankful I was boosted now that I got Covid" tweet.

And before you jump in with the "they never said you wouldn't catch it if you get the shot" bullshit, yes they did. Lemme ask you one, simple question: If getting the shot never meant that you wouldn't catch it, then why in the hell did they refer to something called "breakthrough cases" or "breakthrough infections"? They don't talk about breakthrough infections anymore, now do they? No, they damned sure don't. That terminology has disappeared. Why?

This quote is from early last year. Posted for liars who say, "They never said that." Yeah, they did.

Ineffectual Joe Biden, Four Reasons Why - 7/15/2022

Ineffectual. You could look it up:

ineffectual

ĭn″ĭ-fĕk′choo͞-əl

adjective

1. Not producing the desired effect: synonym: futile.
2. Lacking forcefulness or effectiveness; inadequate or incompetent.
3. Not producing the proper effect; without effect; inefficient; weak; useless; futile; unavailing

(Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.)

President Joe Biden.

I'm calling President Biden 'ineffectual'. Let's set aside debate over my assertion that this is so. Is there really any debate? The guy sucks at his job. Seriously. For those of you reading this who disagree, I've got no answer for you. If you think he's doing a good job, you just go right on thinking that. I can't stop you and I won't argue with you or debate you about it. For the rest of us, for those with ears to hear and eyes to see, I give you four reasons why Joe Biden is "Lacking forcefulness or effectiveness; inadequate or incompetent".

1. He has no electoral mandate. You'd think a President with 81,000,000 votes would have a massive mandate, but Joe doesn't. Why not? The electorate voted against Trump, not for Biden or a Biden agenda. It's that simple. Very few people were enthusiastic about the man. "Who you gonna vote for?" "Anyone but Trump." Votes like that don't confer a mandate. They just don't. And lacking a mandate translates to a lack of support for his agenda. If there was a true "Biden Agenda" that America was overcome with enthusiasm for, Joe Biden would have been President a long time ago. He only won when faced with an opponent that the Democrat base and far too many independents and Republicans found unacceptable. The strategy was, "Who will beat Trump?", not "What's best for the U.S.A.?" It shows.

2. He isn’t governing from his own ideological center. Instead, President Biden, long a more moderate fixture among Democrats, has allowed the progressives to shape and push his agenda. Maybe that's what most Democrats want, I concede that may be true, but that's not who Joe is. It's hard to inspire enthusiasm and support when you're not being true to your own self, and Joe Biden is being true to the progressives he fears in his party, but not to himself. Think about how that weakens his message.

3. He has ideologues, academicians, career bureaucrats, and personnel selected on the basis of identity politics, many of than anti-business and anti capitalism, managing our economy. There is very little private sector experience from corporate America in this Administration. The people making policy simply don't understand the adverse impact on productivity their policies have. These people prioritize social justice and ecological justice over productivity. James Carville famously said, "It's the economy, stupid!" At the heart of President Biden's weakness is really bad economic policy. Productivity, which mostly, almost exclusively means private sector productivity when we talk about driving the economy, isn't what it needs to be. Why isn't it? Because the Biden team has issues like transgender rights and climate change at the top of their moral hierarchy. Not to argue against any of the Biden social or environmental priorities here, but productivity is the engine that propels our economy. The issues important to the Administration are more a steering rudder, but surely not an engine. There is very little experience or understanding within the administration from the private sector, and the economy is showing us how much is dislikes ideologues, academics, bureaucrats, and wokesters tinkering in in the engine room.

4. He’s simply too old, frail, and in decline. He lacks the stamina to put in the required long hard hours, and he clearly lacks the cognitive skills to be anything more than a puppet for the policy wonks. Don't even begin to tell me he's fine, full if vim, vigor, vitality, and intellectual prowess. No, he ain't and you know it, too. Quit pretending different. He often looks befuddled and sometimes seems to wander off into la la land. His handlers give him crib notes telling him sit and stand. He reads the teleprompter like Ron Burgundy. He's got dementia and it shows. Everyone knows it, even the liberal press is starting to talk about it, after covering it up and concealing it as best they could. They were "Anyone but Trump" accomplices, and hiding Joe's cognitive decline was a necessary piece of the puzzle to defeating Trump.

So, if you're wondering why Joe Biden has been ineffectual, wonder no more. I just told you.

Conclusions, HB and 'The Big Guy' - 7/12/2022

What happens when information is withheld, metered, tailored, and obviously distorted? Well, in my case I tend to draw my own conclusions. Sometimes it's not what you think, but usually it probably is exactly that.

Did you see the shit (yes, it is shit, that's the best word in this context) that's been released from Hunter's iCloud? It's terrible and it's disgusting. But really, who cares, right? We all already knew the guy is a scumbag, a lowlife, and a drug addicted pedophile. The content is salacious and damning, but honestly, I don't know how damning the perversion is to his father, aka 'the big guy'. But it damned sure puts HB in a bad light. We all knew all that already, at least those of us with our eyes opened knew it. What to me is more relevant to our country and more of a concern are the implications and my conclusions as they relate to his father, the Puppet In Chief, President Joe Biden.

Now, to begin with, I'm not referencing the fact that HB has JB listed as 'Pedo Pete' in his contacts. Just because we know HB is a pedo and now we learn that he has named JB 'Pedo Pete' in his contacts doesn't PROVE JB is a Pedo. I'm sure a lot of you have your dad listed in your cellphone contact list as 'Pedo ____ ', don't you? You don't? Weird.

10% for 'The Big Guy'!

No, the implications and conclusions I'm drawing from this have to do with corruption and sale of influence. It is simply this: if the drug stuff, the perversion stuff, the pedophilia stuff has all been shown to be true in words, photos, and on video, it stands to reason that other 'disputed' and denied allegations regarding the President and related to HB's electronic device content are also very likely to be true. Simply put, it is clear to me that HB sold his father's (aka 'the bug guy' and 'Pedo Pete') influence, and that JB profited from it. It would be very hard for you to convince me otherwise. And before you come at me with "not proven" or "not convicted" or whatever, I know that. But I have ears to hear and eyes to see. This avalanche of confirmation of just what a scumbag HB is makes denials of the pay for play corruption ring very shallow with me.

"That's just how it works. Been going on forever, and will always. The powerful always cash in on power and it's no big deal." Fuck that. Fuck you for saying that. Our President, the same "the big guy' who was getting his 10%, and the same President who has been an avowed enemy of US oil production, just released 50 million barrels of oil from the US Strategic Oil Reserve. Bad enough he is depleting our strategic reserve instead of rallying industry to increase production, but even worse, he's releasing at least some of it to overseas interests, including China. Some of that oil going to China is being bought up by Sinopec, the company with which HB worked, you know, the job for which he had ZERO qualification, but he did have a connection to 'the big guy'. Well, now 'the big guy' is paying back the back half of the quid pro quo by selling out the US in a time of energy crunch in favor of HB's Chinese connections.

The Big Guy is taking good care of Sinopec.

Not proven you say? Well, no shit it's not proven. None of the corrupt agencies, or corrupt Congress has any interest in it. Got news for you, I don't care. Now that I can see the other HB shit was absolutely and totally true, there's nothing to prove. You've got to convince me JB isn't corrupt. I don't have to prove shit.

Today's Insanity, "Baked Goods" and "Birthing People" - 7/7/2022

Just when I had let the insanity that is Teacher's Unions slip from my mind for a bit, there come reports today that the NEA (National Education Association) is discussing replacing the word "mother" with "birthing parent" as a way of being more inclusive of LGBTQ+ people. These people are ridiculous. No kidding, they're absolutely ridiculous.

I love my mother. She is my mother. I am not going to call her my "birthing parent". I am not going to call your mother your "birthing parent". I am not going to call a gay person's mother "birthing parent". I am not going to call a trans person's mother "birthing parent". I am not going to refer to anyone as "birthing parent." If you are LGBTQ+ and for some reason the terms "mother" and "motherhood" bother you, I am sorry to hear that. That doesn't negate or invalidate motherhood. And I'm sorry if motherhood bothers you. Do you know who else may be bothered or saddened by the words mother and motherhood? People with broken hearts because their mother, their mom, their mommy, mama has passed away. I've never heard a one of them ask that we not use that hurtful term.

Imagine if a certain oatmeal cookie felt more like a cherry pie.  Didn't feel like a cookie at all, as a matter of fact. Feels like a cherry pie, 100% a cherry pie. Always identified as a cherry pie, even as they were lifted from the cookie sheet with the oatmeal cookies that identify as such. Follow along.

Cherry Pie Cookies

"Everyone calls me a cookie, but I am a pie. Call me "Cherry Pie" please."

"OK, my dear Oatmeal Cookie, oops, I mean Cherry Pie, if it will make you feel better, from now on I'll call you Cherry Pie. I'll try to get used to your new name, I promise."

"Thank you, I appreciate it."

"Hey, Cherry Pie, now that you realize that you're not a cookie, are you still friends with Sugar Cookie and Peanut Butter Cookie?" All at once, Cherry Pie starts to cry.

"Why are you crying, Cherry Pie?"

"It hurts my feelings when you call Sugar and Peanut Putter "Cookie"."

"What, but they're still cookies, right?"

"When you call them "Cookie" it makes me feel bad, because I'm a cherry pie now."

"If I don't call them Cookie, what would you prefer I call them?"

"Baked Goods. Call them Baked Goods, that fits us all, all us CPCDMs (cookies, pies, cakes, donuts, and muffins).

"You gotta be shitting me."

"Nope, I'm serious, call us all "Baked Goods" and I'll feel better about who I am."

"Fuck off, Oatmeal Cookie, I ain't calling anyone Baked Goods."

"Most wack-a-doodle-doo" politician of 2022" - 7/6/2022

Tiara Mack, a Rhode Island State Senator, got my attention the last couple of days. I want to crown her "most wack-a-doodle-doo" politician of 2022. I know it's only mid-year, and I suppose someone even more wacky may come along and take the award in the second half, but right now Ms. Mack is the clear front runner.

Vote for me I'll.... (screenshot from Tiara Mack's tik-tok)

She posted the above video to her social media doing a headstand, her head in the beach sand, wearing a somewhat skimpy bikini, shaking her larger than voluptuous booty in a movement that may be a twerk, except it is upside down.

She proudly proclaimed that teaching "comprehensive, queer inclusive, pleasure based sex ed" was the highlight of her teaching experience. Does she discuss her favorite toys and and sources of gay pornography? It's pleasure based after all.

I wrote about the politicians on the extreme left and right just the other day. Well, Washington needs Tiara Mack. Someone has to make the idiots we send there to represent us seem halfway normal. Tiara Mack is perfect for it. She's so far out on the fringe, the fringe is downright moderate in comparison. And, hey. If you want someone with their ass in the air and their head in the sand, Tiara's your girl!

Matty's Lament, Washinton is Broken - 7/4/2022

It's broke and I don't know how we're ever going to fix it. Political discourse is rabid, acidic, poisonous, ugly, and has become pointless. It really has. I don't have the answers, but there are three things I want to point to.

Discourse is in the gutter.

 

Where do you go to get your disinformation and vitriol?

Cable news, FoxNews, CNN, MSNBC. It's bad enough that all the broadcast major networks are biased. Cable news networks, thinking back to the 90's and the Clinton era, took bias to a new level. But worse than that, they sold us arguing, bickering, and insults and called it political discourse. With each televised argument, I could feel my anger at "the other side" rise up within me. While sometimes the arguments were intolerable, often the underlying issues were of great importance. They'd talk over each other, filibuster, and toss insults back and forth. I'd find myself sucked into watching, and with every passing day I became more and more unhappy with and intolerant of the other side. I knew "my team" was just as bad, but at least they were fighting against that other nonsense. That kind of TV set discourse back, way, way back. The ugliest face of each side became the face of the whole for those on the other side of the political fence. And both sides were so ugly, it was very hard for anyone to stay on the fence for any length of time.

Twitter, where the fringes define the whole.

Social Media, especially Twitter. Anonymity. Vitriol. Yes, I use Twitter. It's the public square in 2022. But the state of discourse there is awful. Memes and insults. Mischaracterizations and untruths. >99% talk, <1% listen. On social media there is near zero listening to understand, talking to be understood. Instead it's destructive, attacking, monologues designed to gain the admiration of like thinkers, those who think differently? Be damned. It's not helpful.

Lied for years about having evidence. Re-elected anyway.

Electing and re-electing extreme lightning rod politicians who become perfect caricatures of how the opposing point of view paints the entirety of the other side (Ocasio-Cortez, Schiff, Boebert, Taylor Green). This last point I want to make is how we let lightning rods, the far extremes of each side, define the whole of it. For every outrageous thing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says, there are 10 Democrats who are unheard. For whatever crazy thing Rep. Lauren Boebert might have to say, there are 10 Republicans who didn't get any mention at all on TV or social media. And as crazy as it seems, the bulk of each side seems to like the extreme whack jobs out there on the fringe. As long as Marjorie Taylor Green and Adam Schiff are making noise on the fringe, then the others feel like they've got duck and cover room to act unhindered by public attention or scrutiny.

Washington is broken.

Immigration Reform 7/3/2022

I'm trying to write a blog post about immigration reform, but I can't find nor fit the words. So lemme just say this: the vast majority, by a mile, are hardworking people looking for the opportunity to improve their lives. Yes, there is human trafficking, drug smuggling, and there are some violent criminals among them. But again, the vast majority are NOT involved in any of those things. By a mile. The majority of whom I speak are people I want to see come here and prosper. Legally.

 

Immigration Reform NOW!

Our politicians from both sides of the aisle are supposed to make laws. One badly needed is a reform of immigration policy and infrastructure. Why?

 

Our economy needs these workers. Period. A vast majority of the workers I'm referring to come from Mexico. I see such workers all the time. From my perspective, these folks work their asses off.

We need to make it possible for the workers we need to enter legally. We need to vet each and every immigrant to limit the number of undesirable people: criminals, gang people, drug runners, human traffickers. Yes they are a small minority in the big scheme of it, but we owe it to ourselves to do our best to weed out those types, even if small in number.

 

Why isn't it fixed? Because our politicians like divisive issues. On both sides of the aisle they're dug in. Like many other issues, they treat compromise as failure. All or none. Our way or the highway. But in this case, as in many others, Win-Lose is Lose-Lose. Special interests like the situation as it is now. We elect people to argue for our position, so we will "win", but we don't elect them to actually solve the problem.

People who come here illegally are in the wrong, even though most are coming for the right reasons. Washington is in the wrong, no matter how indignantly right they and their supporters profess them to be right.

 

Reform immigration now!