Diversity, Equity, Inclusion: My Thoughts - 1/23/2025

I'm going to walk into the DEI minefield. At least just a little. I'm going to try to get in and out as quickly as I can. I probably can't, though.

DEI why?

I oppose DEI hiring. If you ask me, when the Supreme Court outlawed Affirmative Action (because the program imposed systemic prejudice against certain ethnic and racial groups in favor of other), DEI sprung up in it's place as a replacement. If not DEI, then what, Matty P? How about qualifications and merit, and if someone or some organization is proven to be unfairly biasing hiring or enrollment decisions on the basis of race, address that wrong on a case by case basis.

I saw a Facebook friend ask the rhetorical question yesterday, "What's wrong with diversity and inclusion?" Let me answer. Nothing. What's wrong is when diversity and inclusion are higher on the totem pole of enrollment or employment priorities than qualifications, experience, and merit. What's wrong is when hiring standards, performance standards, and academic requirements are diminished in order to ensure some group or another that is for whatever reason deemed incapable of meeting the existing standard won't be left behind. How about bringing that group up instead of lowering standards? Otherwise, you're replacing what you perceive as one wrong on the basis of race or gender with another.

I saw a post today from a lefty on X. He said to MAGA, any minority in a job is "a DEI hire". I think some do think that, unfortunately. Do I? NO, not at all. So to me, what is a DEI hire? A DEI hire is someone who was hired on the basis of race, gender, or other criteria other than potential and merit. This person was hired (or enrolled in a school, same thing) with lesser qualifications and potential than other applicants who were bypassed in the hiring process, or worse, hiring standards were lowered in order to avail the job or school enrollment to them.

I have many friends in the airline industry. I know personally, many highly qualified women and minority airline pilots. But I also know that in many companies hiring criteria were lowered in order to improve numbers. Improve numbers? Yes. The percentage of women and minorities became an important factor in hiring and when not enough women and minorities were filling new hire classes, some airlines, most, actually, dropped their standards to rectify the problem. Both extremes can be a problem, ok? Lowering hiring standards in a safety sensitive job like airline pilot is a major problem, if you ask me. Hire the best people. Want more women and minorities? Train them better. Find jobs in which they can grow into what it is they need to become airline pilots without the asterisk of a lower standard for employment. And to be clear, not all minorities, not by a long shot, are underqualified. I am NOT saying that. But when standards are lowered, when an underqualified or historically underperforming minority or woman has an accident, the whole group is tainted by it.

The other extreme, NOT hiring women or minorities because you think white dudes are best, is equally and inexcusably wrong, too. I once worked at an almost exclusively white airline. I remember, day after day, wondering where the Black people were at. I think of 1000 or so pilots, I only remember one Black guy. Yeah, it was over 30 years ago, and there were less qualified Black people then, but really. Something's wrong there. I remember getting to my job at UPS, how proud I was every day for working with a diverse group that included Black, Asian, Hispanic men AND women. Competent people. Qualified people. NOT DEI hires, ok? My previous employer could have learned a lot from UPS and the folks who did recruitment and hiring there. One got it right. The other, not as much.

Shifting gears slightly, why did so many refer to Vice President Harris as a DEI hire? Two simple reasons. 1) Joe Biden said he was going to choose a black woman. So, he was intentionally NOT considering white women. He was intentionally NOT considering men at all. He narrowed the field to 25% or less (I don't know what that number would be exactly), and for the purpose NOT to select the best person, but to show the world how righteous and wonderful he was to give a woman of color the job. This calls into question, whether you like it or not, whether Kamala was the best choice. That leads me to the other reason. 2) Kamala Harris showed herself daily to be an inferior performer. This started in the 2020 Presidential Primaries, and carried through her failure as border czar, and her horrific performance in the 2024 campaign once she became the Democratic Party nominee. By the way, look at how she was nominated. Did she win a the Primaries? No. No merit at all. She was installed as nominee. If you can't see how that undermines perception of her, and then on the basis of how she performed, undermines the perceptions of other women and minorities, then we can't talk.

I don't think women and minorities are inferior. I don't think every woman, every minority is incapable. I don't think every woman and minority is a DEI hire. But as long as a school's enrollment standards, or a job's hiring practices put race and gender above competence, qualifications, and merit, when people see a woman, minority, or a person who's both, failing in their job, the slight "DEI hire" is going to, unfortunately, be bandied about.

The only thing worse than DEI hiring or enrollment based on race or gender is enrollment based on sexual preference or gender identity. That's another story for another day.

Birthright Citizenship and Deportations - 1/22/2025

This might shock some of you, but I have opinions on these issues. The incoming Trump Administration is wading into both issues better than waist deep, and, not surprisingly, getting pushback from the left on both. Let's delve into them, just a tiny bit.

On Birthright Citizenship: Students of our history will tell you that citizenship by birthright came to be as a way to ensure freed slaves were not denied citizenship. The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1868 and permanently ensured freed slaves had a right to citizenship. Like other rights, it is inalienable. Initially, Native Americans were excluded from citizenship as a birthright (at that time we were at war with many tribes in the west), but that was corrected in the 1920's in a Supreme Court decision, if my memory of our history serves me correctly.

The law wasn't intended for illegal immigrant's anchor babies or Chinese tourism babies to obtain citizenship, but, like it or not, is was interpreted thusly by the U.S. Supreme Court, and that's what we are living with now. I happen to think the Amendment and its subsequent interpretations are bad law, but that they are indeed, the law. I don't think the Trump Executive Order has a chance in hell of withstanding legal challenges, and just like Biden's student loan forgiveness, it's a proposal the President knows won't stand up. Just my opinion. Sorry if you disagree.

I'm glad Trump is tackling the issue, though. There are only two ways to properly, legally stop tourism and anchor baby citizenship, which are both bastardizations, in essence loopholes from original intent. An Executive Order isn't one of them. The first is a Supreme Court ruling. I doubt this is possible, even with a 6-3 sympathetic court, so forget that. The other is a new Amendment, an amendment to the 14th that clarifies who is entitled to birthright and that eliminates these loopholes. That is a long process, and in my opinion there are too many blue states where the measure won't pass for it to become a reality. So, sure, I'm glad Trump is tackling the issue, but at best I see a legal battle that leads only to more awareness of the issue, but no favorable resolution. I think the left wins this one, not because I agree with their position, but because the heavy lifting to amend the Constitution will require some support from the left, and I'm not seeing that. That still leaves deportation on the table for many who were NOT born here.

On Deportations: My advice to the Trump Administration is straightforward: expend all your time, energy, and political capital on 1) persons already designated for deportation, 2) persons known to have committed crimes of violence and other serious crimes in their home country, 3) persons who commit additional crimes here in the U.S.A., and 4) members of terrorist groups, including cartels and gangs. We have tens of millions of people here illegally, and I can't fathom a deportation program massive enough to evict them all in 4 years. But there are plenty of "low hanging fruit" that the government can, and should go after. I have little interest in arguments against deporting these folks. The U.S. is a sovereign nation, not a global penal colony. If you're against deporting 1-4, above, you're an idiot, an un-American asshole, or an idiotic anti-American asshole.

Only the wackiest of wackos on the left can argue against deporting Trent de Aragua members.

One of the problems I see on the left, is that their values place protecting people whose status is "undocumented immigrant" (to use their preferred terminology) higher than protecting the safety of U.S. citizenry. That's what sanctuary cities are all about. "We won't let those silly little crimes you commit here be used by the evil, Nazi xenophobes as an excuse to send you away." There isn't much I can do or say that's going to re-shuffle their moral hierarchy cards and re-prioritize. Not going to happen.

What I would also try to do, if I was Trump, is at the same time as I try to rid the country of as many of the aforementioned "low hanging fruits", is to NOT waste time and effort on illegal aliens here who 1) are gainfully employed and can have an employer vouch for them, 2) who are financially self-sufficient and NOT relying on the U.S. taxpayer for food, transportation, or shelter handouts, and 3) who have committed no additional crimes after making illegal entry in the country. 

I know that my ideas here might not be popular with some on the left, nor with others on the right, but we probably have 30,000,000 people here illegally, give or take. I in no way see 7,500,000 deportations a year as remotely possible, which is what it would take to clear them out in 4 years. If we concentrate on the worst of them and help the best of them, maybe something better can come from this very bad situation. If you're hard over on deporting all 30,000,000, all else be damned, prepare to be disappointed. And don't be surprised when you look in the mirror if you someday recognize an asshole looking back at you.

Trump's First 24 hours, Especially the Pardons - 1/21/2025

I have a lot to say about a lot that transpired yesterday. Off the top of my head, and without internet assist, some first thoughts. It was a lot, where to begin?

There are only two genders. That's it. Trans people may not like where they fall into the boy or girl spectrum, but it is what it is. I don't like that I'm 5'7" tall. I wanted to be 6'7" and play professional sports. But I am what I am. Saying there are two genders isn't anti gay or lesbian, by the way. And maybe it's just me, but if someone is gay or lesbian, logically they seem to know what gender they are. Popeye used to say "I am what I am" (actually, I think it was more like 'I yam what'sk I yam). Well, you are what you are. I get some people don't like it and others don't want to be it anymore. But, hey. Science.

Perhaps my favorite thing yesterday, was learning that President Trump removed the security clearances of the 51 former intelligence people who knowingly and intentionally lied, using their stature from previous office to mislead the American people about the Hunter Biden laptop, and in doing so, meddled with the 2020 election. If the 2020 election was stolen, it was these 51 and the scum in mainstream media who allied with them to perpetrate this lie, who stole it. The abused their privilege and lost it. It is right and just that they did. Candidly, they got off easy. They belong in jail, but this will have to do.

Trump moved to get the DEI out of government. Good riddance.

Trump also moved to bring Federal employees back into the office from their work at home cherry jobs. Don't like it? Get a real job.

He took steps to reverse Biden's INSANE immigration policies. This includes the "TSA Pre" of immigration, an app to whisk in and not be counted as an illegal immigrant. There's a proper number and manner of immigrants immigrating to the U.S. The Biden Administration handled this issue worse than any other, by a mile, bar none. If for no other reason than immigration policies and practices, Democrats had to be defeated in 2024. Thankfully they were.

My second favorite thing Trump did yesterday was that he designated the cartels as terrorists. These cartels have all kinds of U.S. and Mexican officials on their corrupt payrolls: judges, cops, Border Patrol people, bankers, mayors and other politicians, maybe even U.S. Congresspersons in the House or Senate. Now that the money trail smells like terrorism, it gives law enforcement lots of new tools. Since this terror is crossing our borders, it also brings about the possibility that our military get actively involved: "all enemies, foreign and domestic" and all that.

Gulf of America? Seems silly, but why not? Land on Mars? OK. Water for California? I would hope so. Pull out of WHO and Paris Climate? I think so. Lots of stuff, but the big one...

Since so many of my friends on the left are fired up over pardons yesterday, Biden did some, too.

He pardoned everyone involved in the kangaroo court that went by the name, "J-6 Committee". Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, CAPITAL POLICE OFFICERS who testified (capitalized for emphasis), all of them, Congressional Reps, Lawyers, Staffers. Nothing says, everything was on the up and up with the J-6 Committee worse than the whole bunch of them receiving Presidential Pardons. Biden told us it was a farce yesterday with these pardons.

Biden pardoned his family. The Biden Crime Family part at least. Nothing shows Biden corruption better than this. I'll leave it at that.

The Biden family are corrupt.

Speaking of Pardons, Joe pardoned General Milley. You know, the guy who said he'd let the Chinese know beforehand if Trump decided to act against them militarily. He's also the guy who was in charge and disobeyed Trump's order to withdraw our troops from Syria. And let's not leave out the dead military members due to the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. Milley's pardon goes back to 2014. This was a blanket pardon, meaning it doesn't matter what crime he may have committed, he's got a get out of jail free card.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, too, a blanket pardon dating back to 2014. "Nothing to see here, folks! Move along."

Yesterday Biden also pardoned an activist who murdered two FBI agents.

Trump pardoned the J-6 convicts and those alleged but not yet convicted. As I always do when I talk about this topic, I will start with this: people did wrong on January 6th. Before Jan 6th, when I heard there would be a protest that day, my immediate thought was, "Nothing good can come from it." I was right. The defendant's motives and the legitimacy or illegitimacy of those motives are irrelevant. Some of the people acted criminally and their actions were indefensible and wrong. I'm sorry if reading that offends you. It's how I feel. This does not apply to all of the persons convicted and or accused. I would guess it is 10%, maybe as high as 20%. So, if there are 1500 of these folks, I am referring to 150-300 of them. But there is the first rub. We aren't talking about 150-300 people. We're talking about 1500.

Trump pardoned them all. Some were legit criminals. Most people who get pardons are.

Washington D.C., it's residents, it's police department, it's prosecutors, it's jailers, and it's jurors are nearly mono-political in their leftward leanings. Because of the political climate and division in our country, the political leaning as uniformly toward the left. When I learned that the protesters would be tried in D.C., I thought, "Nothing good can come from it. The people who are being over-charged will have no fair chance." I was right again. Shit, some of these people have been held for years awaiting trial. Years.

For those persons who were overcharged and treated unfairly, made an example of is what they were, I supported a Presidential Pardon if Trump won. My position was that this issue should be adjudicated on a case by case basis, and non-violent persons NOT guilty of actual conspiratorial acts ought to be pardoned. Yesterday my opinion changed. I wholeheartedly support the blanket pardon President Trump issued yesterday. Before I move on, I should comment that I have seen reports today that the DC Mayor and DC Prison system have been dragging their feet with the releases of these now pardoned people. This goes directly to the bias in DC which is why I distrusted their process in the first place.

I changed my mind when I learned that Biden pardoned not only the J-6 Committee members, but also ther lawyers, their staff, AND CAPITAL POLICE OFFICERS who arrested J-6ers and also testified about J-6. Why in the fuck are the police getting pardons? Once I heard that, my initial response was, "Hell no!" Nothing could possibly have deepened my distrust of the process that ensnared grandma's who were in the Capital, took a selfie, and left to years in prison. Or so I thought. The pardon of these Capital Police Officers did just that. So, my opinion changed. If those police were pardoned, then ALL the J-6ers ought to be pardoned, and I'm glad they were.

First Post of 2025: Happy New Year! 1/3/2025

Happy New Year, friends. I hope Santa was good to all of you. He was good to me. I'm still breathing, walking and opining, so I'm going to say I'm doing better than some. I had some thoughts about politics and current events when I logged in here, but decided instead to talk about non-political, non-controversial stuff.

Sending best wishes to all who see this for a blessed and healthy 2025!

Did any of you make any resolutions? I made two.

The first is be healthier. That means I have to eat better (yup, more yucky fruits and vegetables), walk and exercise more, and in the process lose 15 or so pounds.

The second is to read more. When I started studying Italian, my reading went to shit. I'm still working on Italian, more on that in a minute, but the obsessions are mutually incompatible. So, I'm going to try a bit of toning down on both, and see if I can make them coexist in my day to day life. With these two activities, I tend to be either all in, or not at all. I think I can find healthy coexistence.

I'm studying Italian with a program called Italiano con Amore. It's a guided self study, more or less. That, plus I listen to and read podcast transcripts. I need a bit of a change, so I am going to try a new teacher, too. In addition, not instead of.

We've got some travels planned, the highlight is a Viking River Cruise this April with a bunch of my MCATA/Marine Corps buddies. We also hope to swing through the southwest in conjunction with the October MCATA Reunion in San Diego. Those plans are tentative and vague. Plenty of time for that. I have my 50th High School Reunion in New York in June, and a wedding in May. We'll work in Louisville a couple of times, at least, too. We sold the condo. It made good sense financially. There's a hotel near the kids, so that's our standing future travel plan.

I stepped down as Vice President of MCATA. The bylaws call for a three year term. I might not have minded staying on as long as Dave Harshbarger remains President, but the rules are the rules, and we've got a great new Vice President now. If one were to act as MCATA's VP for three years, I got the best three you can get. I was there and active during the entirety of the VMGR Memorial Monument project. I got to meet lots of important and awesome people, especially our Gold Star Families, and I got to work with the awesome members of the MCATA VMGR Monument Committee. I couldn't be prouder.

My wife and I have toyed with selling our Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda home and moving a little further south, but in the last 2-3 years, the housing market we'd be selling out of has kind of gone to shit.

Since my stepfather got sick and then passed about 2-1/2 years ago, I haven't gone fishing as much. Not as much as I'd like, anyway. I'm going to work on that. I really am.

My Mets got Juan Soto. Who knows who else comes along, but they're paying him. He better produce. My Giants suck suck suck suck. Something has to change there. Something? Anything. The Knicks are decent. My Cards had a pretty good year in football, and the basketball team got rid os useless and inept Kenny Payne. Kinda like our country is doing with Biden. But enough, no politics today.

I'll get back to politics and world events next time around. We've got a new President coming in, terrorists, there are no shortage of things to rant about. But not today.

Let me sign off by wishing you all the best 2025 you could possibly have. Even you assholes. I hope all your dreams come true, your year is healthy and prosperous. I hope all your family and friends prosper, too, and if you don't, that they share their wealth and good fortune with you. I hope your old friends reconnect, and your estranged families or family members find forgiveness and can let bygones be bygones. Some of them won't or can't. They're stubborn and proud, candidly, they're kind of dicks. Even a dick can see the light, they might just need someone to rip their blinders off. I give you permission: rip the blinders off the dicks in your family. And for God's sake, don't be one. That's the last word: Don't be a dick.

Happy New Year everybody.

Daniel Penny: Vigilante? - 12/10/2024

I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet today.

I remember in high school, we discussed the famous and tragic New York story of a woman named Kitty Genovese. She was supposedly raped and murdered in Queens in the 1960's. All kinds of people were said to have hear her screams and cries, but nobody had the decency to intervene. If anything would inspire a vigilante, it's stories like the tragic Kitty Genovese story. Not to digress...

Charles Bronson in "Death Wish".

Remember Charles Bronson in Death Wish? No there was a vigilante. He went looking for bad guys and meted out violent, permanent justice in ways that the police and justice system wouldn't, didn't, or couldn't. He took the law into his own hands.

I don't believe that has much resemblance to what Daniel Penny did. If there is resemblance, it is in that the justice system failed to remove a menace, Jordan Neely, from endangering society. Neely had reportedly been arrested 42 times. In one incident I read about, he broke a woman's eye socket in a literal random act of violence. The police and the courts failed to remove a menace from society, and he continued menacing, right up until his own behavior brought about his own avoidable death.

Daniel Penny innocent. The jury did the right thing...

Daniel Penny didn't go out looking for trouble. He intervened when a menace was engaged in menacing. Jordan Neely was aggressive and threatening, people were scared, Penny stepped up. He didn't look for a violent, serial threat, but he found one. He's a hero, but the way Alvin Bragg and New York have treated him, I'll be shocked if anyone ever steps up again.

...unlike this political activist disguised as a prosecutor.

Black Lives Matter is trying to incite violence and destruction by making this a racial issue. Never mind that two Black guys helped Penny restrain Neely. Never mind that a mixed race jury found him innocent UNANIMOUSLY.

The message from Alvin Bragg, AOC, BLM? Somple: Give us more Kitty Genovese, less Daniel Perry.

Where We Go From Here - Republicans (fourth and last in a series) - 12/4/2024

Hey, you dysfunctional Republicans: get your shit together!

So you won. Now comes the hard part. What are you going to do to make even more Americans than the ones who voted for and supported Trump and the Republicans this past November think the election benefited them? Was better for our country? If they had it to do over, they'd have voted Trump/ Republican, too? Winning is hard, but it is a beginning. The really hard stuff comes after the winning.

1) I see lots of talk of jettisoning non-MAGA incumbent Republicans in Primaries. It seems like a great idea, right up until the person you replace them with has to win in that state or congressional district. If those incumbents are RINOs, is it because the state is purple and the only path to election there is a more moderate, Democrat-lite kind of Republican. If so, the outcome is liable to be a Democrat-heavy candidate winning against your chosen replacement. Maybe you were better off with the RINO? I think the GOP need to put more effort into expanding the reach of the Republican party, not to shrink it through purification.

2) Keep promises. This begins with deportation. Be methodical and systematic with our deportation strategy. Deportation of millions will take years, maybe a decade. And it will cost a lot of money. Put ALL the effort into deporting all illegal immigrants who already have been screened and for whom deportations orders are already in place. Add in those who commit violent, drug, and other serious crimes, gang members, or serial criminals since they got here. Lastly, all the known criminals for crimes in their country of origin. Put 100% of the effort into these groups for the foreseeable future before even considering deporting anyone else.

3) Give Scott Presler an important role in organizing the GOP ground game for 2026 and 2028 on a national scale. Many of the existing local GOP organizations are a bunch of old farts who want to win future elections with past strategies. Voter registration, voter turnout, and ballot harvesting better than the Democrats is what it will take to beat the Democrats. Scott Presler can train the GOP ground army. Let him. Find 49 or more additional Scott Preslers, so there's at least one in every state.

4) Find ways to make minorities know the GOP is THEIR PARTY and is there for them. This means engaging minorities. Listening to them. Working WITH them to address the issues that matter to them. Don't be like damned Democrats who presume to know better and to know what's best for minorities, then keep them on a treadmill that goes nowhere, election cycle, after election cycle, after election cycle. You may find some of the concerns and issues minorities have are different for yours or traditional GOP constituent issues. Those issues and concerns are as important, or perhaps even more so, than your own are. If the engagement is sincere and productive, some of the minorities may find they have more in common with us than they would otherwise have thought, but were told by Democrats and the Democrat propaganda media it wasn't so. Prove those Democrats and propagandists wrong by our deeds, not just by us using the kind of empty words Democrats have placated and pacified them with for decades. Actions speak louder.

5) Continue to use and expand on non-traditional media: podcasts, live streams, social media, X-spaces, etc. Legacy media is a dishonest, government and Democrat propaganda operation and will bring NO new voters to the GOP. Let the Democrats have it. They can circle-jerk on CNN and in the lying NY Times all day and all night, telling each other how fabulous they are and singing Kumbaya, each with their hands busy in their nearest neighbor's pants. We've already abandoned trust in legacy print, broadcast, and cable sources, why throw them a lifeline?

6) Focus on enabling business to create jobs and to create an environment where hard workers from all walks of life can amass substantial wealth. People with good jobs making good money will remember who enabled them.

Where Do We Go From Here - Democrats (third in a series) - 12/3/2024

Here's some unsolicited advice for the Democratic Party and Democrat leadership in the wake of Trump's stunning return to the White House:

1) Stop letting Trump and Trumpism define your party's identity. "Who are you?" "We're not Trump! We're not like Trump! We resist Trump!" What I hear is you're nobody. You're nothingness. You're emptiness. Resistance ain't existence. "Whatever he's for, we're against, and what he's against, we're for." That's meaningless, empty nonsense.

2) Intersectionality has driven you further and further left, so much so that you're calling what used to be the center "extreme" and "far right." Get a goddamned moral compass instead of throwing your compass away every time some small faction within your ranks shrieks that where your compass points makes them sad, or makes them feel or look bad. Move rightward toward the center or prepare for eternal obscurity.

3) Identity politics, DEI, and really stupid economic policies lost you the working class. You probably disagree because some douchebag propagandist on TV told you it ain't so, but it is.

Edison Police evicted this lawyer from an Edison City Council Meeting. He had the audacity to defy their new rule banning the display of the U.S. flag. Put another way: Tell me you're un-American pieces of shit without telling me you're un-American pieces of shit. Thank you. Yes, you are un-American pieces of shit.

4) I know "America First" belongs to that other guy who you hate, but the shit your leaders say and do says y'all hate America, hate what it was and hate what it is. Find a way to be sincere and love our country. You realize what an indictment it is of your party that when we see a flag flying proudly and instantly know it's one of us and not one of you. You disagree? The fucking city of Edison, NJ has banned display of the U.S. flag at city council meetings. Do you know how fucked up that is to have elected Democrats think that banning the American flag is the right thing to do.

5) Find leaders who want my vote and the votes of people like me. Quit with the vilification of all of us who disagree with you guys, and listen to us and our concerns. You need new leaders. Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jefferies, the squad, Pelosi, Swalwell, and Schiff from California will keep us divided and at each other's throats.

6) Quit with the un-American bullshit of stacking the Supreme Court, eliminating the Electoral College, and all the rest.

7) To the rank and file Democrats who may see this, the one thing I advise more than any other thing? Change the fucking channel. The lying propagandists you salivate over daily are in large measure what got us here. Change the fucking channel. Please. The shit you're watching and listening to is the problem.

I know you won't listen to any of this, but somebody had to say it.