Et Tu US News & World

I always was under the impression that  US News & World was, at the least, a non-partisan or right-leaning news source-,apparently not. They ranked the top ten worst US presidents and scored Trump at #2 behind James Buchanan. Carter didn’t even make the list. They also fail to explain what parameters put them on the list. Could it be the likability factor as opposed to actual accomplishment? Terrible journalism and frankly nothing more than opinion posing as news. Their glowing photos of Obama “behind the scenes” and the distinctly leftist political cartoons should have tipped me off. Contrast the unflattering photos of “Trump and his supporters” with the highly staged and dignified pictures of Obama comforting children, engaged with world leaders, or shot against backgrounds of Stonehenge or glorious sunsets as he boards Air Force One. Propaganda at its most partisan and heavy-handed best. Absolutely disgraceful from a supposed news organization. 

Irrational

Gas prices are at record highs, inflation is the highest it’s been in 50 years, mortgage rates are climbing, the housing market is unaffordable, our cities are plagued with crime, our southern border is being overrun, supply chain issues can’t keep our shelves stocked, Ukraine is being bombed into the Stone Age, and this president of ours is making “Ghost Guns” a priority. Guns that are used in one-third of one percent of gun crimes. Beyond Absurd! 

AOC Has Gotten Into My Head

I have criticized Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in the past but I remain amazed that she is still a darling of the progressive left. The woman has accomplished nothing beyond furthering a radical self-serving leftist agenda and is positively vacuous. Conservative commentators feel obliged to torment me with her incessant ramblings delivered in that whiny voice with the wild hand gestures that have become endemic in female progressive politicians. Witness Nancy Pelosi who appears to be swatting flies, Kamala Harris looks to be shaking an imaginary box, and AOC is apparently trying to rehabilitate a wrist injury. Her response to all the attention she received while appearing in Florida maskless is classic millennial narcissism: “Republicans are mad they can’t date me”, she responded, accusing them of “projecting their sexual frustrations” and calling them “creepy weirdos.” Very mature and statesmanlike. Sorry Sandy, but you’re being criticized for being an immature hypocrite. A perusal of her social media presence is all that’s required as evidence. She actually posted a video detailing her expertise in applying make-up. Really, look it up. But not before taking an anti-emetic. Once again a demonstration of a phenomenal level of self-absorption and a total lack of self awareness. Shouldn’t congress be held to some standard of decorum?  Clearly this isn’t it. She is obviously and conspicuously marketing herself, cultivating a media persona that is a completely bogus fabrication. She is decidedly not the downtrodden Puerto Rican immigrant from the ‘hood, working the bar to put food on the table for her family. That is total nonsense. She is now offering merchandise to purchase on her website, seeking to create a brand and feather her nest. Such capitalist behavior from one who preaches against capitalism is, to coin a phrase from her own party’s poster child for hypocrisy: deplorable. And all the while promoting the Biden administration plans to forgive her student loan debt. Her posted video of her arrival in DC is enough to render one absolutely vomituitous. The queen of the Green New Deal, the czar of climate change sits on the floor of her tony Navy Yard apartment in one of the wealthiest zip codes in America sipping wine and assembling her IKEA furniture. Wow. There’s even a Whole Foods in the complex. You know, the grocery chain owned by Amazon, whose proposed warehouse she shot down in her district back home in New York. But as an expert on climate she appears oblivious as to her own carbon footprint. Although IKEA’s marketing has emphasized sustainability, they still source over 22% of their materials  from China and the majority of their furniture is made from wood. Although they claim they only source wood from sustainable forests, it isn’t clear exactly what that means. You may be planting a few trees but I am yet to witness a carbon neutral timber operation. Further logic would dictate that the carbon storing capacity of old growth will not be matched by the sapling that replaces it for decades. I’m not sure how they’re harvesting operation works but my chain saw does not run on wind or solar and delivering timber from forest to saw mill is going to need some heavy equipment that will likely require some fossil fuels. So much for the sustainable forest fairies, because this looks more like marketing than actual application. Especially in China. And exactly how does all this pressboard and laminated modular rubbish get from Sweden to AOCs apartment?  Oh my, isn’t shipping a rather inconvenient truth. And about that wine she’s drinking. Grape production and harvesting creates a rather substantial environmental footprint, sweetie. A great deal of land is required for cultivation and if she’s drinking California wine, water is a precious resource required in abundance for irrigation and the process of turning grapes to wine. Cultivating that land requires tractors and that requires diesel fuel. And those neatly trimmed rows are maintained with mechanical implements and a host of fungi and insects are kept at bay by a spray schedule, all run by that fossil fuel consuming tractor. And let’s not even get into the environmental impact of pesticides let alone the fact that maintaining soil nutrients requires fertilizer. That too is a product of fossil fuels. She might want to stick to bottled water but no, plastic bottles require petroleum and then they end up in the landfill. Your carpeting is likely nylon or polypropylene and that comes from……petroleum products. Oops. And about all the make-up and hair products required to maintain the image that your Republican colleagues are so attracted to:  cosmetics rely heavily on petroleum products as well. So it would appear that the only bonafide climate credentials AOC possesses is owning a Tesla. You know, a battery with wheels that required the strip mining of rare earth metals to produce. Mining operations that are dominated by China. And that Tesla likely sits at the airport in reserved congressional parking while she takes the shuttle back and forth to New York. You know the kind of aircraft that flies on gumdrops and rainbows. Certainly not aviation fuel. So the next time you hear the representative drone on about her climate credentials, think hard about the hypocrisy and realize what her ultimate goal is. The same goal of the majority of politicians:  to further themselves

Hypocrisy

The hypocrisy of the left is wearing me down to the level that as soon as they start using Democrat talking points and catchphrases like “climate denier” or “existential crisis,” I start to glaze over, knowing resistance is futile. A recent discussion with an East Coast professional colleague strayed into the realm of fossil fuel: “You know,” he started, “oil is a global commodity, and if we increase our domestic production, OPEC will respond by adjusting their production down, resulting in no net change and prices will remain high.”  Really?  How exactly do you think the foreign oil gets here?  Why do you think there has been such an emphasis on pipelines?  Do you think the transport of the commodity may factor into the price to the consumer?  Why is buying local a less expensive option for goods and services?  Granted, the issue is more complex than that, but basic principles of economics still apply. Oil-producing countries may even choose to increase production and flood the market, lowering the price and squeezing the profit margins on more labor-intensive extraction methods like tar sand and fracking operations. But predatory pricing hits the predator in the pocketbook as well, and money-starved economies that rely on fossil fuel production like Iran, Venezuela and now Russia, may not have the stomach for it over the long term. Meanwhile, my liberal friend continues driving his internal combustion European sports car and his wife an SUV while living in their exorbitant suburban McMansion where an enormous flat screen TV feeds them CNN talking points from the AOC school of economics. To resist is futile. 

Why Not

In watching China buy up thousands of acres of American farmland, why hasn't it occurred to our progressive left Congress “Greenies” so concerned about the vanishing Amazon rainforest, to take a page out of China’s playbook, and just buy the Amazon rainforest from the Brazilians. Indeed, if we can afford another multi-trillion dollar Biden social plan, we can afford to buy it too!.