2022

My fervent wish for the New Year: An awakening of our American spirit, patriotism, and moral values. We have fallen into an abyss of confusion and discord perpetrated by dissident internal malcontents bent on strife and insurrection and malicious external forces courting our demise as the preeminent world superpower. We have been and our history has attested to our morality and benevolence but in our complacency in our very morality and benevolence have allowed national and international detractors to question and challenge our once impenitrable resolve. We are at a tipping point a scant wrong decision on our part,  one way or another, has the potential to bring us, as a nation, to our knees, assuring a catastrophic imbalance of national and international control and power of disastrous consequences! Please take heed, Americans.

Dizzying

 We’ve got to snap out of this political death spiral we are in. The Anarchists of their many stripes have us so divided and puzzled as to what is happening and what is not happening that we have lost our perspective as Americans, of our inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have to remind ourselves we are a country of the people, not the government! We are wallowing in frustration, chasing our tails in what to do while the collective malcontents rain discord, mistrust, and strife upon us in the most egregious ways. I’ve often thought they have overplayed their hand, they have reached their breaking point, the tide has turned, only to endure yet another round of absurdities-, telling me they are hypersensitive to their vulnerability come the mid-terms, so there is going to be no end to their divide and conquer subversive tactics in the interim, just more piling on! And, it appears we have no alternative other than to gird our lions, or do we?

And Now We Know

To what end, you may have asked yourself when appraising the Democrat Party’s hard swerve to the left in favoring socialism, tolerating lawlessness, instigating division among its citizenry, encouraging illegal immigration, spending us into financial ruin, countering our constitution, alienating our allies, appeasing our detractors and sworn enemies? Well, our former President Obama and now voice and conscious of the Democrat Party succinctly told us. In an economy of words: he said he intended to fundamentally change America as we know it! And to perpetuate that intention, his former Vice President, now President Joe Biden, in a peak of one-upmanship, advised he will be the most progressive president ever! How fundamental and progressive those changes were going to be escaped us. Now too apparent to us, their foreboding: a socialist government, by the government and for the government-, the United Socialist States of America. How do those potatoes sound to you!

Biden Who?

All of the world’s bad actors are seizing the moment: Putin is poised to invade Ukraine, Xi is threatening Taiwan, the Ayatollahs unabated going about enriching uranium. Soon I’m sure Kim Jung Un will resume his saber-rattling, joining his compatriots in adding to the mayhem of the moment. The loss of America's international respect and prestige wrought by this administration has precipitated a change in the international community’s perceived balance of power. This Administration has left no stone unturned to not only threaten our sovereignty as a constitution-driven Republic in mismanagement of domestic affairs but the world‘s order and tranquility in flawed foreign policy and displayed weakness.

Biden Speak

Again we are not to believe what we are seeing but what he is telling us. As his spokesperson, Jen Psaki, reiterated last night. Not misrepresentation, not spin, just flat-out lies. Remember the mantra: the more the democrats squeal and point an accusatory finger at conservatives, the more it is likely that they are guilty of the charge. And the media just nods their heads and parrots it back at us. An administration of mirrors! And in the same vain I did enjoy the self-righteous indignation expressed by Omar when poked by Congresswoman Boebert calling her a member of the “jihad squad.” Hilarious. And outcomes the race card.  Meanwhile, Omar’s anti-American tirades and anti-semitism are ignored by the press. Again we are not to believe what we hear and see with our own eyes and ears but what we are told to hear and see. The Dem’s antics are frightening!

Merry Christmas!

NPR this morning featured a story about how we Americans have to stop buying stuff because although consumerism is good for the economy, it’s bad for the environment. Huh?  So I have a novel idea: how about we close the border and stop letting more consumers into the country?  Seeing as how the Biden Administration intends to destroy the economy anyway and can’t seem to solve supply chain issues, this would appear to be a typical progressive tactic of spinning it into something that the proletariat class may not want, but our omniscient government shall provide. For their betterment, of course. After all, a little sacrifice is all they ask to save the planet. Just stop trying to buy stuff, you extravagant Americans; your bleating is irking the Bidenites!

The Atlantic Swerve

The Atlantic magazine continues to be a source of absurdity. Today’s article in question surmises that the majority of traffic fatalities in the US are not the result of driver error, rather the fault of car manufacturers for making heavy SUVs with not enough safety features, the designers of the road for not making signs visible enough and roadways that compel the driver to slow down. And of course, there’s the weather. Climate change, you know. The conclusion is that we should be more like Europe (of course) and drive little bitty underpowered cars for our own good. We should also employ their brilliant highway engineers who are apparently better than we are at fabricating annoying signage, suggesting they’ve never been to New York, and making roads unsuitable for speeds fast enough to cause any carnage. All part of the movement I suppose for us to cower in identifying yet another contrived threat to our well-being and to lower our standard of living expectations. The Atlantic must sequester their writers in cities where they have no use for a car and make sure they never travel abroad to make disparaging comparisons. Give me a break!

Fanning The Flames

Listening to NPR this morning lament that although Boston elected the first Woman of color as mayor, it is not enough. With three black candidates in the race and one of them the incumbent, they pointed to the overwhelming support of those candidates in black-majority districts at 75% but only 25% support for those black candidates in white-majority districts. Their goal conclusion? Racism, of course. And the implication that black voters should only vote for black candidates, despite Pressley, a member of the Squad, supporting the Asian candidate. So once again, to combat perceived racism, we must engage in more racism. The logic escapes me!

The Invasion

We are being invaded by immigrants who mostly stood idly by witnessing their own  Socialist/ Dictatorship led countries slip into the abyss of tyranny and oppression and now want out.  The vast majority of those coming are not seeking legal asylum from duress, but because the Biden administration invited them to come, even facilitated their coming by opening our southern border and incentivizing their coming with promises of citizenship, welfare, and retribution. And you can bet among them are those purely intent on doing us harm one way or another. A variation on this invasion is happening right here in our own backyard, our citizens fleeing Blue cities and states led by socialist bent politicians for Red suburbs and states less oppressive. Unfortunately, those citizen migrators of ours have many of the same bad intentions toward us as their foreign brethren. It appears nothing short of a total rebuke by congress of the Biden so-called “Build back better” legislation and related budgets will stem the tide.

Maddow’s Railings

She claims CRT was fabricated by the right wing media and Fox winning the day for Youngkin. Ridiculous. Doesn’t she recall when she banged the drum for Russia collusion ad nauseum?  Short memories these lefties. And NPR having the audacity to suggest that progressive voices on campus are being silenced when conservative speakers have been shouted down and their speaking invitations revoked under what amounts to liberal censorship. Does anyone on the left have any sense of self-awareness?

The Virginia, New Jersey Tell

Did the Progressives, Racists, and Liberals finally go too far in their BLM, Woke, and CRT agendas? Have they so antagonized and aroused the Republicans, Independents, and Moderate Democrats to rise up out of their lethargy and proclaim enough is enough and are not going to take it anymore? One can only hope. 

What Would The Pope know?

It amused me to no end that Biden claims that the Pope declared him a “good Catholic,” despite his stance on abortion rights and that he should continue receiving communion. All this despite a meeting two weeks hence when American bishops will have their say on the matter. This, of course, opens a whole new chapter on what the church is willing to overlook, as long as you continue being a “good Catholic.” Perhaps the pontiff should clarify exactly what that entails. But one would have expected such a decision from this, perhaps the most liberal pope ever appointed. Might the Vatican be willing to overlook something as inconvenient and theologically abhorrent as abortion if the good Catholic in question is a progressive whose politics are more consistent with the Pope’s worldview?  

No Good Comes From Research

While researching Friendly Skies entry I uncovered a treasure trove of Congressional perks that I wasn’t previously aware of.  You’re gonna love this. In addition to all the travel perks reported, members of Congress receive a gym membership for a nominal fee at a state of the art facility that includes a sauna, a steam room, paddleball and basketball courts, and a swimming pool. While the government was in its last shutdown, Congress kept the gym open with staffing and maintenance at taxpayerexpense. Their health care plans are additionally subsidized through Obamacare health exchanges despite making more than four times the poverty level, a rule that exempts the rest of us from subsidy.  According to Axios, that federal subsidy amounts to some 72% of their premiums. Their retirement plans are also tweaked.  Again according to the Motley Fool, the average social security recipient receives $15000 a year in benefits while a public worker’s pension will average around $26000. A retired member of Congress, however, who has served 20 years will reap $59000 in pension benefits annually, more than double that of the public worker and nearly four times that of the worker in the private sector.  But Axios reports that figure to be grossly underrepresented with some long term members of Congress receiving lifelong pensions that amount to 80% of their salary, or as much as $139200 inannual taxpayer-funded benefits. But they also have access to the “Thrift Savings Plan” which is a 401K-style investment vehicle.  Unlike a traditional 401K that charges approximately $5 in fees per $1000, the Congressional plan charges a mere $0.27 in fees per thousand, saving the members of Congress thousands in fees as compared to their private sector counterparts. Similarly, if a member of Congress is killed while in office, the family receives the equivalent of one year’s salary, a minimum of $17400 in compensation.  Contrast that to an active duty soldier killed in action whose family receives $100000 in compensation. Boston University reported that “some perks have more to do with convenience than money.”  Indeed. Members of Congress need only travel to the basement of their office building to find exclusive banks, barbershops, post offices, shoe shines and hair salons at reasonable prices.  It has been reported that the nail salon has been removed as a perk after public outcry but the services of the hair salon remain intact.  Plush Congressional offices, some with fireplaces, multiple rooms, and high ceilings are accessed from a free parking garage with underground tunnels to the Capitol. And thankfully in 2012, they passed the “Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act” preventing them from using insider information to trade stocks.  But early this year, according to the Fool, Congress eviscerated the primary disclosure portion of the bill so they no longer have to publicly disclose their trades and relevant insider knowledge.  So how exactly how can we keep track of their trades when they are not required to provide us with information about those trades?  With great difficulty, that’s how.  Or maybe just ask MBNA a few pointed questions about their relationship with “Working Class Joe” and how he accumulated his fortune.  Although older members of Congress whine incessantly about the loss of perks and the expense of maintaining a residence in both their home state and DC, it appears a rarity that members of Congress leave office without having accumulated greater wealth than when they arrived.

 

Alec Baldwin and the “Prop” Gun

Enough already with the prop gun.  For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last week, Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed his cinematographer on the set of the low-budget film “Rust”, where he is the producer and star, while rehearsing a scene in which he points a gun at the camera.  Not Smart. When will these sniveling liberals learn that when you handle firearms or even talk about them for that matter, it is wise to have someone on hand who actually knows what they’re doing. Explanations that it was a “Prop gun”, it was declared a “Cold Gun”, it accidentally “Misfired” or had a “Malfunction”are all complete nonsense.  All misdirection to blow smoke up the public’s backsides as Hollywood circles the wagons to protect their own, while figuring out who to offer up as a sacrificial lamb in this tragedy.  It didn’t take liberal darling Alec Baldwin’s publicist long before issuing statements and prompting a People Magazine article to convey to the public how “distraught” Mr. Baldwin is and how he is “suspending all projects” so he can “re-center” himself. What a load of rubbish. It would appear at this juncture that the lamb being led to the slaughter is the assistant director, David Halls, after Mamie Mitchell, the script supervisor, made an expletive- filled 911 call after the incident, accusing him of handing the loaded gun to Mr. Baldwin.  Further damning reports are emerging about this AD having had previous incidents where a gun on his set was “unexpectedly” discharged. Sorry, guns don’t unexpectedly discharge. They discharge when some idiot pulls the trigger. Of course, Ms. Mitchell already had a beef with the AD over script revisions, adding to the intrigue. It also leads one to ask the obvious question as to why an assistant director was in charge of the firearm, and why exactly didn’t the director intervene if they weren’t following protocol? 

 

In actuality, Hollywood sets should have an armorer who is responsible for the loading, handling and ultimately the safety and security of firearms on a movie set.  In another article, that armorer was identified as a relatively inexperienced 24 year-old woman, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was quoted as saying she”wasn’t sure if [she] was ready” in her first position as lead armorer on a film shot back in September.  She stated in a podcast shortly after filming the Nicolas Cage film, “The Old Way”, “I think loading blanks was like the scariest thing to me because I was like, Oh, I don’t know anything about it”. Seriously?  The gun should also have a chain of custody, where it leaves the armorer and may only have the prop master as an intermediary before the gun is handed to the actor.  The fact that the AD called out “cold gun” on the set, a term to describe a gun that is not loaded and has been determined to be safe, suggests that protocol was not followed. According to an affidavit filed by the Sante Fe Sherriff’s department, Guitierrez-Reed was the armorer who prepared the gun before assistant David Hall gave the gun to Baldwin. The prop master’s union has released a statement that states that the gun contained a “live round”.  Well, duh.  Further information has shown that investigators found live rounds on the set and in a fannypack and that the crew had been using the firearms for target practice with live rounds off the set.  The film was also plagued by budget constraints and had a film crew walk off the set prior to the day’s filming on which the accident occurred, further adding to the mayhem. Reports are also circulating that there were union issues when, for cost cutting reasons, local workers were substituted for union employees.  In short, this entire operation sounds like it was a disaster in the making. 

 

But let’s get down to the business of firearms.  It appears that there was in fact no “expert” armorer on the set.  The gun in question was no “prop” gun but was actually a vintage Colt, presumably a Single Action Army given the period piece that was being filmed.  That’s an actual gun, kids, not a “prop”. Itwas likely a .45 Long Colt, an impressively robust caliber at that. That gun is also single action, meaning that the gun had to be cocked before the trigger could be pulled.  Therefore Mr. Baldwin, who was apparently brandishing the gun in a cross-draw rig, had to reach across his body, draw the firearm, cock the hammer and pull the trigger for the gun to fire.  In other words, the gun did not malfunction or misfire at all. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. Mr. Baldwin, however, did not. He was rehearsing a scene in which he did this while facing the camera, putting the camera crew, in this case the director Joel Souza, who was grazed in the shoulder, and cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was struck in the abdomen and killed, in the line of fire.  Do we really have to go over gun safety again?  Apparently we should when liberals are involved. Listen up:  Always treat every gun as if it were loaded.Always point the gun in a safe direction. Always keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.   And that’s the dumbed down simplistic version so you nitwits can understand it.  So perhaps Mr. Baldwin and the rest of these Hollywood idiots should renew their NRA memberships and take a gun safety class. Oh right, these are the same idiots that condemn the NRA for lobbying for the gun rights of Americans and accuse them of putting assault weapons into the hands of children when in truth, the NRA is the foremost authority on firearms and firearms training.  And in an example of typical Hollywood posturing, other production companies, most notably ABC’s “The Rookie”, have announced that they will no longer use real firearms on their sets, and a petition is circulating that already has 25000 signatures asking for “Halyna’s Law” to ban real guns from sets.  Never let a crisis go to waste. I can’t wait for the next John Wick film where Keanu Reeves points hisorange nerf gun at the bad guy and shouts “bang!” Won’t that be exciting. Rather than ban real guns from the set, how about we ban incompetence. And Hollywood’s hypocritical spin culture.

Flying the Friendly Skies

Today we shall briefly steer away from our usual exercise in political commentary, instead choosing to offer a public service announcement for those considering travelling by air in the immediate future: Don’t do it.  Air travel, for those of us unable to afford chartered jets or who don’t have their own Gulfstream, has been reduced to nothing more than a painful incentive to procure a subscription to NETJETS.  Miserable, would be the most obvious descriptive.  As you may have surmised, I have recently flown domestic and wish to share my experience, because, well, I’m a sharing kind of guy. Obviously….. I pay taxes. But I digress. For travelers old enough to remember the golden age of air travel where well-dressed people possessing manners and some sense of decorum flew in relative comfort would be horrified to see the ill-bred, slovenly miscreants that now stalk the concourse, jockeying for position in their boarding groups to cram their carry-on baggage into the overhead racks in an attempt to avoid additional charges.  Thirty bucks per bag is now the going rate for checked luggage, a move by the airlines that hasessentially trained the public and the luggage industry into producing bags of suitable dimensions to satisfy airline requirements on what you can bring aboard.  Consequently, boarding the aircraft has become a mad rush to the gate to secure your space in the overhead bins.  Instead of casually strolling aboard, we now have the added stress of a line backed all the way up the sky bridge as passengers search for a spot, then attempt to fit their square peg bag into theround bag hole.  The passengers already seated in the aisle seats are thus subjected to a face full of someone’s exposed overweight midsection or worse yet, their backsides, as they huff and puff to lift their overstuffed case into the overhead racks.  Studies have shown that in this, the age of Covid, the greatest potential risk of contracting the bug from a fellow passenger occurs on entering and exiting the aircraft, when all the animals are crammed into the chute exerting themselves getting their bags into and out of the racks while the aircraft’s HVAC is not running at peak efficiency with the plane idle.  Hilariously, the second highest risk of exposure occurs when the flight attendants distribute beverages and snacks, and passengers are allowed to remove their masks.  Thus 184 passengers(Boeing 737 Max8), crammed into what is essentially a flying cigar tube, all remove their masks in unison, because everyone knows that Covid can’t be spread when you’re seated eating pretzels.  It’s all about the science, you know.  

 

And checking your bag, interestingly, subjects you to a weight limit where 50 pounds is the maximum allowed for your $30 surcharge.  Over that limit and you find yourself humiliated with the rest of the animals, hands-and-knees on the floor pulling brassieres and shoes out of your checked luggage and madly stuffing them into your carry-on bag to meet the weight limit.  All of this, of course, is a preposterous exercise in shifting weight from one bag to another, presumably to save the union baggage handler from straining his back while saving no weight at all onwhat is ultimately loaded onto the aircraft.  If you are unable to distribute the weight more evenly, you do have the option of paying an additional $100 penalty, and they end up taking the bag anyway.  The hell with the baggage handler’s sacroiliac.  And it amuses me to no end when a 300-pound passenger skates through with his 49-pound bag while the 110-pound elderly woman gets dinged for her bag being a pound overweight.  Clearly this isn’t about weight at all or they would require both the passenger and the bags to get on the scale.  Weight translates into fuel consumption and shouldn’t you pay your fair share? Now that would be fun.  

 

And flying with Gen Z is always entertaining; as apparently these woke 20-somethings suspect that rules are made for somebody else.  Yes, I am an old curmudgeon, but to employ your own boorish vernacular: you guys suck. With cellphones firmly in hand, masks casually protecting their chins only, or at best allowing their noses to remain exposed, I witnessed three of their ilk in a two row radius ignore the instructions to place their phones in airplane mode.  Instead they could clearly be seen texting, shopping, surfing instagram and streaming video while we taxied for takeoff.  The woman in front of me, her perfectly manicured nails highlighting her pudgy, uncalloused, unblemished hands, obviously unaccustomed to work of any sort, danced on the keyboard with the attention span of a fruit fly. Another young couple, he replete with trendy beanie, piercings and tattoos, was unable to sit still, sorting through the overhead rack three times in a two-hour flight, until he was finally treated to a flight attendant lecture on appropriate mask wearing and remaining seated. Idiots.  

 

And all this after receiving the militant recorded message on accepted masks that has been added on to the traditional, yet incredibly instructive, pantomime on how to buckle a seat belt.  Amusingly we were also told to remove our face masks prior to donning those yellow oxygen masks that magically drop from the ceiling when, as comedian Billy Connolly once said, we likely go into the ground like a [bleeping] dart. The mask instructions were repeated multiple times, specifically addressing the need to cover your nose and mouth, like we haven’t figured that out by now, with guidance as to the exclusion of mask types such as cloth, bandanas and mask that have valves.  So many rules.   And that was just on the airplane.  In the terminal, we were treated to a continuous loop every 15 minutes advising that federal mask mandates are in effect on airport property with a first offense fine of $1500 followed by a second offense fine of $3000.  Yet amazingly by comparison you can shoplift up to $950 worth of merchandise in San Francisco and it’s all good.  Any bags left unattended will be confiscated and searched.  You must comply, comrade. And speaking of complying, have you tangled with TSA recently?  Oy. I am convinced that they purposely have no standard set of rules from one airport to the next just to watch us take our belts and shoes off like good Pavlovian dogs, then tell us we don’t have to.  In an attempt to avoid this fiasco I actually enlisted in the TSA pre-check program where they suck $85 out of you, get your finger prints, photograph you, and run a background check, supposedly to allow you to whisk through the TSA checkpoint with minimal hassle.  It worked like a charm at my local second-tier airport where I was allowed to remain clothed and wasn’t scanned or otherwise violated, but it went right out the window when I hit the big leagues.  Miami International, an airport that makes you feel like you’re in a third world country without ever having to leave the continental United States, has no pre-check at all,instead subjecting everyone to the canine sniff test. Passengers are placed a certain distance apart and have to walk a runway while the dog and his handler walk around you in circles.  Proceed through the doggie zone at too brisk a pace and you get hollered at to return to the start and do it again.  They are militant and unpleasant in that Beirut airport style, absent the machine guns.  And even after you get sniffed by Rin-Tin-Tin, you still have to go through the metal detector so off with that belt anyway.  They do however throw you a bone by letting you leave your shoes on.  Thank you so much.

 

And in this era of equality, why exactly do we still have a first class section on the aircraft?  The very name implies a caste system, class distinction and inequality doesn’t it?   If they’re first class then that makes the rest of us second class, doesn’t it?  You know, those in steerage, the peons, serfs, proletariats, and riff-raff.  Choose one of the above. Whilst the rest of the cabin is crammed in cheek-to-jowl in 25 rows, six across, these elitist pretenders are luxuriating in four rows of four with a curtain between us so we can’t see how the other half lives.  Economy class seats are thinly padded affairs and are a mere 17 inches wide.  First class seats are a well cushioned, 21 inches wide with greater leg room and 7 degrees more recliner angle. And to make matters worse, part of the package is that they get to board the aircraft first, so they can sip their martinis out of a real glass while they watch the cattle get herded into the back in the walk of shame. Further, the first class cabin has its own restroom for a ratio of 16 passengers per one toilet.  The steerage cabin has two restrooms for 168 passengers, a ratioof 84:1. You better hope the norovirus is not flying along with you.  A passenger on my last flight asked the flight attendant what kind of beer they served.  We don’t serve alcohol “back here”, she replied. Her tone implied the unspoken “you peasant”.  But they have to pay more for those seats, you may reply.  Really?  Well I pay a helluva lot more taxes than 61% of America (you know, the 61% that pay no taxes at all) and I’m still waiting for my benefits. 

 

And while on the subject of equality, have you taken a brief survey of the racial makeup of the crowd on the concourse?  I had the misfortune of flying through Philadelphia, Washington Reagan and Miami and I’m here to tell you that anyone who suspects this country is lacking diversity, hasn’t been traveling by air.  Granted, Spanish is widely recognized as the loudest spoken language on the planet, which may contribute to the perception that everybody seems to be speaking it, and nobody seems capable of using their inside voice anymore, let alone put the damn phone to their ear rather than scream into the speaker held at arm’s length, but English was not overwhelmingly represented, and was well in the minority in Miami.  Further, Black and Brown, as the current liberal trend pigeonholes us into colors, were represented in numbers far exceeding their demographic, and certainly cannot be said to be oppressed based on their opportunity to travel by air.  And airport workers, those in custodial positions and service jobs, were overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic, reflective as one would suspect not of the country as a whole but perhaps more reflective of the urban communities in which airports are located. Opportunity for people of color also extended well into the gate attendants and flight crews where less than half of the flight attendants on my four flights were white. Yet I haven’t heard the cry from the left that airport workers are not diverse enough and white folks appear underrepresented.  I can’t comment on the pilots because nobody gets to see them anymore, barricaded in the cockpit as they are. But some of you may recall that there was a recent outcry that people of color were not adequately represented in the pilot’s ranks with calls to cast a wider net for applicants.  United Airlines announced that it “aims to train an incoming class of pilots in which enrollment rates of women and people of color equate those of white male students. Our flight deck should reflect the diverse group of people onboard our planes every day.  That’s why we plan for 50% of the 5000 pilots we train in the next decade to be women and people of color.” Uh-huh. Conservative author Brigitte Gabriel summed it up best when she responded:“United Airlines is now prioritizing race and gender over qualifications for hiring future pilots.  They are literally putting the lives of their customers at risk in the name of being woke”. Bingo. That could be the reason why United failed to make the list of the top 5 domestic airlines according to Travel + Leisure magazine.  Even more telling is that precisely zero airlines from the US made it onto thelist of the top 10 international airlines. 

 

On the last leg of my flight home, two members of Congress, both Republicans, were aboard the aircraft, checking in for a 3PM flight on a Friday afternoon.  Nice to know that they put in a full day at the office doing the people’s business.  Naturally, they were seated in first class. That got me thinking.  Who pays for this? Well, we do of course. Senators and members of the House get an annual expense account with Senators receiving a budget close to 3.3 million dollars while their colleagues in the House are allotted $900K for staff expenditures and an additional $250K for travel expenses.  As pointed out by the Motley Fool, “I’m not aware of any business out there where all employees equally get at least $1.2 million in expenses at their disposal.” Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spent $140K in the first half of the fiscal year on travel alone, much of it through private charters, earning him the nickname “Charter Chuck”.  In the interest of equality, it is important to note that he was equaled by Senator Cornyn (R-TX) who spent $38K alone on a Maryland retreat for his 59 staff members and the remainder on chartered flights in his home state of Texas.  Naturally the excuse is, that to make themselves accessible to their constituents, particularly in large states, they are required to extensively travel and cannot always conform their schedules to that of commercial airlines.  This despite the majority of Schumer’s trips destined for points less than one hour from a commercial airport. Citizens for Government Waste stated that “Charter flights should be the choice of last resort.  It shouldn’t be used like a cab.  It’s the most carbon intensive and expensive way to fly.” Keep that in mind the next time Chuck lectures you about the existential threat of climate change.  So with all these perks, their salary of $17400 per year, $223500 for the Speaker of the House, remains virtually untouched.  Additionally the Airport Authority reserves 92 parking spaces next to the terminal at both DC airports free of charge for members of Congress. And they obviously need those parking spaces for long-term parking.  After all, in the last year there were only 126 scheduled sessions of Congress and not one of them landed in a five-day workweek.  That leaves them 239 days off including all of August to meet with their constituents, tend to another job or just go on vacation. 

 

So for those of you who wish to bask in diversity, I urge you to seek your nearest major airport, stroll the concourse, and interface with your fellow mask-clad humans while packed into a sardine can as you hurtle through the skies at 400 miles per hour at an altitude of thirty thousand feet. Go for the full experience and overpack your bags to 51 pounds and try, just try to bring more than two carry-on items aboard.  Skip through the terminal with your mask resplendent under your chin, whilst consuming a bag of Cheese-Its, content with the knowledge that Covid won’t infect you if you’re eating. Taunt TSA with a pocket full of quarters and give that hard working, bomb-sniffing canine a Milk Bone and scratch him behind the ears.  Learn to speak Spanish. Really loud.  Don’t sit in first class, but use their restroom.  Change your seat and sit with the Gen Z crowd and finally learn how to use that damn iPhone. Post a selfie while you’re taking off.  Do try to catch a flight with a member of Congress just to see your tax dollars at work.  And perhaps you will be really lucky and get a pilot from United Airlines’ woke, and presumably dumbed down pilot training program.  As for the rest of you, save yourself some aggravation and drive there.

 

 

 

Irony

It’s rather ironic that to make amends for historical racism, the left wants to employ racism as the truncheon. With total disregard for the fact that the vast majority of Americans are relatively recent immigrants themselves with no ancestral ties to slavery. Like climate change casts a wider net than global warming. So it is with racism, where systemic racism entraps all white people as beneficiaries of their whiteness, labeling us all as white supremacists. Equality has been replaced with equity, where it is no longer enough to have equal opportunity; rather, the thought to be oppressed must be guaranteed equal outcome, regardless of merit. As with all standards, a progressive dumbing down of qualifications in the interest of what amounts to satisfying a racial quota will never succeed in fostering competence and excellence.

I'm Getting Repetitious

I don't understand where Biden and the Progressives are trying to take us; what is their motivation? I can't imagine that these DC ensconced employees of ours in their guise as public servants and elected officials can be so out of touch with we the people, yet be so in touch with the malcontents, anarchist, socialist among us. Their numbers keep growing exponentially no matter which political party is in power. Our Consitution once had assured, we the people, were the prime movers in determining the fate of our nation and that of its citizenry. Still, somehow that authority has been wrested away from us in political deception. We have lost touch with who we are, what we Americans are supposed to be, what the United States of America has been and stood for in the international community of nations. We've turned inward, consuming ourselves in division and mistrust, demonstrated in lawlessness and social disobedience. Reality has been replaced with aberrations of a  socialist state free of all social and economic strife and angst. It isn't going to happen, people; it has been tried the world over in various versions, never sustained.-, it simply doesn't work. How many times am I going to have to say it? It's abhorrent to human nature. What will it take for us to realize this Republic of ours is as good as it's going to get! Those illegal emigrants penetrating our borders know it.

Jefferson Prophesied

By now knowing my propensity to quote Thomas Jefferson you would expect me to dredge up this old Jefferson chestnut in light of our current politics: “It would be only a matter of time before the American system of government degenerated into an “elective despotism.” Warning our fledgling country’s citizens to take cautions to prevent it happening to our vulnerable Representative Democracy, our Republic. Prophecizing, public money, and public liberty, intended to be administrated collectively by our three branches of government to wind up in the hands of only one. The safeguards embodied in our constitution to prevent such a circumstance from happening have slowly and systematically been amended or eroded by those wishing us the same governance of our 

European brethren. The very government regimens that fostered our forefather’s emigration to the British colonies incited our independence that founded our nation. Here, near two hundred and fifty years later, we are in the throes of seeing his prophecy come to pass. I marvel at Jefferson’s foresight, cringe at the accuracy of his prediction. 

Premonitions Of Things To Come

People prefer clarity – or at least as close a facsimile as they can get. Since the start of the Biden administration, we can't seem to fatham what we are seeing and feeling to what we are being told we are seeing and feeling. Our government appears to be out of sync with reality. We’ve seen some push-back to a certain point but not to the extent of changing what seems to be our inexorable tilt toward a socialist Nanny State, forfeiture of our sovereignty in open borders, and abdication of our international leadership role. We are wallowing in uncertainties: China saber-rattling, Congress entertaining massive debt legislation, inflation a growing reality, Covid continuing to distract, the threat of domestic and international terrorism on the rise. Our morale and spirit faltering. All while our great melting pot is boiling over in division and diversion. What is it going to take to bring us to our senses?

What's Becoming Of Us?

Despite being accused of driving America towards socialism, it’s hard to believe that Biden would double down and appoint an ivy league Marxist as Comptroller of the Currency.  Even Janet Yellen was against this appointment. As reported in the WSJ, Cornell University law professor Saule Omarova graduated from Moscow State University on the Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship and “still believes that the Soviet economic system was superior.”  You just can’t make this stuff up. She openly supports government control over worker’s wages, citing the USSR having achieved gender wage equality through state oversight. But such regulation would be a trickle compared to the deluge of government overreach that she proposes. Asset prices, pay scales, capital, credit, and “systemically important financial assets” as well as the formation of a “National Investment Authority” to finance, you guessed it, a climate agenda is all part of her grand plan according to the WSJ editorial. Even more frightening is the proposal for a “Public Interest Council” made up of “highly paid” (her quote not mine) academics to supervise financial regulatory agencies. That’s highly paid with your money, incidentally. So not only will the government reach deep into the financial sector with Soviet-style oversight, but the newly minted bureaucracy will be made up of a bunch of leftist academic wonks. And this on the heels of the Biden Administration sneaking into their $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill the requirement for banks to report all transactions in your personal accounts that exceed $600 to the IRS. And where’s the outrage?  This is not just a violation of your 4th Amendment rights, but a Soviet-style takeover of our economy that reaches into your savings. Anyone lulled into complacency, believing the democrats’ simplistic bumper sticker slogans like “tax the rich,” “pay your fair share,” or “build back better” are succumbing to a smoke and mirror game, convincing you to walk in lockstep with their march towards socialism. American Marxism is here, and best you recognize the threat before it’s too late, comrade.

Are We Over?

Are you Progressives in your various guises of the mind we have run our course as a society, as the world's preeminent superpower? It's called Societal Collapse; look it up.  If so, may I ask who would you suggest replace us on the world stage? Therein lies the rub. Who would the most likely successor be, in your estimation, for the better, of course-, China, Russia, an Arab Caliphate? You know of these aspiring pretenders of whom I speak, their societies, their histories: Communist Socialism, an economic philosophy that has repeatedly failed the world over; a Theocratic Republic where an Islamic deity rules supreme? Do you see them in their emergence as international leaders, better arbiters, better benefactors to the community of nations than the United States served in that capacity? Tell me, what is it that you see that seemingly favors your preference for their brand of governance over that of ours: 250 years of lives lived in relative freedom, liberty, and prosperity? I'm at wit's end trying to figure out your perspective. What do you know that I can't seem to fathom? Or, are you just anarchist in Progressive clothing calling for the abolition of the United States as it stands simply because you want change for change’s sake? I'm inclined to think the latter, with self-serving animus as a further motivator.

Orwell Realized

And so it goes. It is an Orwellian 1984 landscape where history is rewritten, and the government tells you not to believe your eyes, believe their interpretation of what is happening. The Democrats, in their many stripes, have succeeded through indoctrination and a progressive dumbing down of education to make half of us into compliant socialist puppets. It seems to have happened so fast but has been their long cloaked game all along, accelerated by the convenience of the internet to disseminate their modern-day propaganda. And, to hear that addled New York Senator Nadler prattle on about “human infrastructure,” making immigrants into something inanimate, lumping them in amongst roads, bridges, and sewer systems. The ultimate Orwellian prediction of dehumanizing people into objects, mere numbers to be utilized by the Democrat Party. All, while we the opposition, the GOP in disarray, wring our hands in a benign fit of peak, allowing ourselves to be bullied by these insurrectionest.

The Peter Principal

Fumbling, bumbling Joe Biden, what has our electorate wrought! Our president is a study in ineptitude. If ever there was a president-elect not up to the challenges of the office, Joe Biden fills that bill in spades.  Long tolerated as an employed  affable political hack has finally reached his maximum level of incompetence, exemplifying the Peter-Principal prophecy. And, as a result, we are to endure, in full measure, that prophecy for at least two years if we can survive that long!

It Never Ends

 And now the medical journals all calling for something to be done about climate change because of its effects on health, especially that of ethnic minorities, of course. Had to get that in there. Even the Journal of Psychiatry is blaming an increase in suicides on, you guessed it: climate change. Couldn’t possibly be social media, could it? Or maybe Covid lockdowns?  Or the recession? Not even the old standby: racism?  Nope. Climate change. Why can’t these liberal, ivory tower dwelling, pointy headed twerps stay in their own lane and report on medical science. Like maybe some actually helpful data on the effectiveness of Covid vaccines for example. But no, they have to wade into the political arena. Didn’t they try this not too long ago by declaring gun control a medical issue?  I have an idea: how about reporting on something you may know something about?  Like reproduction. Specifically how humans continue to reproduce at an alarming rate, resulting in an abundance of carbon based life forms that not only expel more CO2 into the environment, but require places to live that gobble up more of your precious natural resources. There’s the solution to climate change staring these medical morons right in the face, but somehow the geniuses fail to report on it. It’s population control, dummies. And as an added benefit, it would also result in less people living in poverty, less territorial disputes, less damage from wildfires, less damage from hurricanes, the preservation of natural resources, less overcrowding, less disease, and more access to healthcare and services for the rest of us. Progress need not be synonymous with population growth. If you are truly interested in conservation, then control the numbers of the beasts that are consuming our planet. Humans. 

Are Entitlements Making America Anemic?

An interesting editorial appeared in the Wall Street Journalwhere Anthony Gill, a professor of political science, attempted to explain the success of the Taliban through an economics prism.  He referenced economist Laurence Iannacone, who argued that “organizations are “club goods” wherein members share many collective benefits such as welfare provision and fellowship.  Those benefits depend on active contribution. If everyone participates willingly, the organization is vibrant.  If many members are free-riders-receiving the benefits without pulling their weight-the quality of the good dissipates and the organization becomes anemic.” Perhaps this can be extrapolated and applied to western democracies as well,where religious and traditional beliefs have been replaced by government mandates and reliance on the state. With 61% of Americans paying no taxes in an era where the current administration is intent on increasing entitlements, most notably the $3.5 Trillion domestic spending billworking its way through Congress, are we ourselves becoming anemic?  With free pre-K, universal child care payments, paid family and medical leave and free community college setting the stage for the next push for single payer health care and guaranteed universal income, more beneficiaries will likely choose to remain on the sidelines and take a pass on “active contribution” without any disincentives.  Professor Gill observes that “to limit free riding, strict religious groups (like the Taliban) require members to prove their loyalty via costly and visible behavior that deters the lazy…”  In other words, they employ a carrot and stick approach, something that progressives in this country continue to move away from by removing disincentives that would otherwise keep the “lazy” productive.  Witness the Obama Administration that removed the requirement that an able bodied recipient had to prove to the welfare office that they were actively looking for work, or when a clean drug test was eliminatedas a requirement to receive benefits.  Reward sloth and,surprise…..you get more sloth.  Iannacone again: “stigmatizing behavior also limits the outside opportunities of group members and binds them to the organization.”  The welfare stigma has long been eliminated where even the term “welfare” has been replaced with “benefits” and the embarrassing food stamps and welfare checks replaced with credit cards.  And with the stigma removed, the immediate result was benefit cards being used in strip clubs and to purchase booze and cigarettes. Stigma eliminated, replaced with pride in being able to “work the system”. Not cool.  Especially not for the 39% of us who are actively contributing.  You know, the ones pulling the wagon. And with the most progressive tax structure in the world, where the top 10% of earners pay 71% of the tax burden, the Democrat party’s rallying cries of “tax the rich” and “pay your fair share” become even more repugnant in their outright misrepresentation of the facts. Professor Gill closes with a nod to the Taliban: “despite the seeming irrelevance of religion in the secular West, policy makers and military strategists would do well to understand its power elsewhere in the world.”  Perhaps we should consider a little religion as a potential cure for our anemia here at home.

Despondent

Sorry about this rant but it's raining and I’m depressed. I look on with a combination of amazement and disgust as the Taliban, appearing to all the world as a bunch of primitive, illiterate, goat herding, pajama-wearing, with a turban on one end and either decidedly unfashionable sandals or an absurdly out of place pair of white high-top basketball sneakers on the other, parade around Kabul with our military gear. Now I don’t doubt their resolve as a fighting force, but how can it be that our guys look like Robo-cop and these scruffy characters look like they just rolled out of bed and remained caught in the bedsheets. And yet we are the ones that turned tail, and they rule the day. What’s wrong with this picture? And even more infuriating is the fact that they now are in possession, gifted by our hapless government, of the latest in assault weapons, complete with high tech optics, thousands of dollars in hardware, that I as an American am banned from owning despite my Second Amendment protections. Once again, playing out on network television, a level of irony and hypocrisy that is apparently lost on the public. Like the thousands of illegal immigrants allowed into and dispersed across our country unfettered by Covid testing, vaccine passports, mask mandates, and all the other edicts American citizens have to endure, here we have the Taliban parading around Afghanistan with American made assault weapons that Americans are not allowed to own. Given to them by…..America. And if you really want to blow a gasket, head over to your local gun shop and price out an AR fitted with a Trijicon scope and a pair of night-vision goggles. Merry Christmas, indeed. And that won’t even be the fully automatic version. We haven’t been able to own those bad boys since 1934. Not that you’d want one. With ammo shortages continuing to plague sport shooters in the US, apparently, the only folks not concerned with keeping their magazines topped off are, you guessed it, the Taliban. Why? Because we left them enough ammo to last for years. Genius. So as we Americans sit here watching our country disintegrate and our rights dismantled, we may want to consider to whom can we turn for guidance. Maybe we should consult with the Taliban.  

Is there no end to this administration’s folly!

Both embarrassing and dispiriting, but what would you expect from a nation that boasted about having brought a master's program in gender studies to Kabul’s Stone Age university? We have been stripped naked on the world stage, our elite political class seen as the incompetent, self-serving boobs that they really are. Humiliating does not even begin to describe it. The WSJ made an outstanding observation that President Biden was somehow able to to dismantle every single President Trump agreement and accomplishment except the one he made with the Taliban. And with both President Trump and Vice President Pence now voicing their version of the actual agreement, it appears that President Biden’s blame game is just more posturing and finger pointing from this foreign policy dunce. Again from the Wall Street Journal: former defense secretary Robert Gates wrote in his 2014 memoir that then Vice-President Biden “has been wrong on nearly every foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades”. Thus President Biden’s only real achievement appears to be having attained a remarkable level of consistency to our detriment.

The Sky Is Falling!

You have forever besmirched the reputation of our military in Afghanistan, our international reputation as an ally; threatening our sovereignty in indecision at our southern border; tolerating mayhem and lawlessness in our streets; confusing us to the point of ambivalence in our response to Covid; spending us into insolvency; fanning the flames of Inflation. What do you have in store for us next JB?

The Woke Olympiad

 The Olympic Games have been crippled by the pandemic, yet it’s the media that seems intent on delivering the deathblow.  For years they have been criticized for showing less sport and more fluff.  Personal interest stories seem to dominate the coverage with the actual event a brief interlude between the requisite pre-game sob story and the post-game celebration.  And its win-win for the mediaeither way.  If their chosen competitor fails to achieve glory, then the story becomes all about their failure to win, their losing with dignity or the ascendency of the young heir apparent.  It’s been trending for decades and its getting worse.  With one network winning the rights to the games, the helpless viewer is left enduring the coverage or laying down some cash to purchase a premium Olympic channel to actually get a choice on what to watch, rather than stay up all night enduring Greco-Roman Wrestling while waiting for the promised coverage of the trampoline finals. This year we saw the huge amount of media attention piled on gymnast Simone Biles with headlines trumpeting her as the GOAT, expected to win as many as six gold medals.  With that kind of media pressure, exerted round the clock by social media, it is not unexpected that the talented Ms. Biles had a mental health crisis of sorts and withdrew from all but one event.  Similarly the US Women’s Soccer Team, defending World Cup Champions and media darlings for their fight for equal pay and their outspoken, gay, anti-Trump, team captain, veteran Megan Rapinoe, were overexposed in the press with expectations for overcoming their history of lackluster Olympic performance by adding a gold medal to their world championship.  The result was an opening game thumping by Sweden followed by a pedestrian performance that led to them squeaking by the Netherlands on penalty kicks to gain a spot in the elimination round.  This of course was followed by a match with Canada, a matchup that the media was quick to dramatize with a history of the US having snatched victory from them in London and the fact that they had never beaten the US in a major tournament.  Ever. Until yesterday, of course. 

 

But throw into the mix the current environment of woke activism and the coverage starts to get skewed towards that agenda with the media whipping it into a froth. Witness Raven Saunders, the gay, half green-haired US shot-putter who, after winning a silver medal, chose to remain after the medal ceremony and hold her arms in an X over her head, symbolic of the intersection at which oppressed people meet.  Or some such obtuse nonsense.  She apparently didn’t violate the specific Olympic policy and fortunately didn’t detract from the other medalists.  But how do I know what that display meant?  Because the media snakes stuck around to give her the airtime she was hoping for.  Complete with an interview. And later that night, the rainbow-haired Canadian runner Gabriela DeBues-Stafford, who went on to win the slowest of the three Women’s 1500 meter qualifying heats, held the camera like a magnet for an eternity while the announcer explained the LGBTQreason behind her recent changes in hairstyles.  Newsflash: nobody cares. The camera then blew past the next couple of apparently uninteresting and not black or gay enough competitors before coming to rest once again on someone who was either a real contender or who checked all the woke boxes for backstory. Not nice. A white Dutch runner who actually was a contender got the bum’s rush as well,with the announcer dismissing her as having had a lackluster year. Incidentally, she qualified. Take that.

 

The pot smoking, suspended US women’s sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson got some more press for her “miss me yet” tweet after the US failed to place in the 100 meter event, and was praised for her sportsmanship in congratulating the Jamaican sprint trio for sweeping the 100 meter final adding “powerful strong Black women dominating the sport”.  Wow.  Can you imagine if an athlete tweeted out “powerful strong white women dominating the sport” after, let’s see, how about water polo, synchronized swimming, virtually any long distance swimming event or maybe dressage to name a few? There would be outrage directed at someone daring to suggest anyracial dominance in a sporting event.  But nope, not Blackdominance. That’s to be celebrated.  In the meantime, you white folks shut up and get back in the pool or on your little horsies.  We will be coming for those sports eventually too.  

 

As for me, I do my best to carefully choose my events for viewing.  Gymnastics has become all about the backstory and now, Simone’s state of mind in anticipating a return to the beam event. Men’s gymnastics has taken a back seat to the media obsession with the Biles drama, so that has remained a safe option to avoid a woke lecture. Swimming remains a relatively safe choice, but track and field, the summer Olympics’ showcase, is more of a woke minefield.  Give me the events the media isn’t interested in, where I don’t need Turrico to fill me in, or just plain bungle the coverage altogether like he did with the Italians celebrating winning gold in the 100-meter and the high jump.  Equestrian events are obviously safe and it’s always a good day on the water with rowing, kayaking, canoeing, and that crazy whitewater thing. Cycling is also a relatively woke-free zone, especially the poorly covered but exciting track events. The BMX nonsense they can keep, with thoseadults on children’s bicycles. No thanks, back to the X-Games you go. And don’t get me started on what should and should not be included as Olympic events. I could go all Greek on you and pare this behemoth down to a week. Fencing, shooting and archery, is generally free of liberal intrusion but you may need to actively hunt for both coverage as well as stronger coffee pods given the time slots they’re telecast in.  In the final analysis the events that have become encumbered with woke backstories and garish displays of progressive groupthink are those in which Americans of color participate or in which LGBTQ members choose to wave their flag.  And the media obligingly gives them the airtime.  As opposed to say, showing us another more interesting sporting event.  This coverage has turned the games into the PEOPLE Magazine of sporting events.  And that’s a shame.  It’s the media that is turning viewers away from those sports, perpetuating their racist narrative. So go ahead, call me a sports racist.  But I tune into the Olympics to actually watch sports, regardless of the color of the participants, and I want to see the sports you don’t get to see that often.  Just spare me the whole woke backstory.