We've Been Punked

Can you believe this 4155-page omnibus bill that just sailed through congress with a $1.7 trillion dollar price tag? Believe it. For openers, there’s $45 billion to Ukraine. Maybe, in addition to military hardware to fight a proxy war, Zelinsky can afford to buy a suit for his next appearance in Congress when he’s begging for cash. $39 billion to the justice department.  Yeah, that justice department. $3.6 million for a walking trail in Georgia to be named after Michelle Obama. Uh-huh. $3 million for a hip-hop museum in the Bronx. Visit it if you dare. $424 million to the National Institute of Health to fund research on minority health and health disparities. Sure, let’s give Fauci’s NIH more research money. That worked well.  $410 million to reimburse middle eastern countries for border security. Really. Foreign border security. Maybe so they can build some walls. And the list goes on: A highway friendly to bees. Diversity programs for the Pentagon. Salmon in the Pacific Northwest. And even sneaky little expansionist Government perks like FDA control of cosmetics, Banning driftnets in the fishing industry, and allowing athletes in military academies to waive their service requirement so they can play professional sports. How nice for them. And how about a new office building for the FBI? Sure, reward those guys. Maybe they need more room to monitor social media posts by conservatives. Merry Christmas, America; you’ve been punked. And to add to the good news for New Yorkers, their state assembly just voted to give themselves a $30000 raise, leapfrogging California’s assembly to become the highest-paid state assembly in the nation. $141000 a year for a part-time position. Nice gig. Meanwhile, their genius Governor, she of the shattered glass ceiling, proposed a $21 minimum wage to combat……inflation. Huh? Surely Kathy Hochul knows how inflation works…….oh, never mind. So congratulations, America. With record inflation and recession looming, you voted the mentally deficient back into office in the midterms, signaling to them that they have the mandate to reward themselves with salary increases and boatloads of pork. Now tell me again, who’s really mentally deficient?

It Makes No Sense To Me

Did you read the article on population growth in the WSJ last week?  I don’t understand the infatuation with an ever-increasing population. Sure, if economic growth is the focus, then you need more consumers to buy your products and, therefore, a larger labor force to produce them. But surely, ever-increasing population growth is not sustainable. It has been postulated in the past that we would eventually run out of resources to sustain the population growth, but the current thought is that this is not true. As technology advances, say the pundits, we become more efficient and are better able to find new resources and efficiently use the resources we have to increase production. But logically, how can that be the case?  Sooner or later, you will have to reach the tipping point, especially if the non-productive segment of society continues to grow, as we have seen of late. And where do we put all these people without adversely affecting quality of life?  I, for one, do not find cities with expansive homeless encampments esthetically pleasing. The futuristic urban decay and overcrowding portrayed in science fiction works like Blade Runner are not that difficult to imagine for anyone who has seen the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Mumbai, or even Detroit. To suggest that we continue engaging in urban sprawl at the expense of agricultural land or green spaces seems absurd. Do we continue upwards instead, making cities high-rise beehives?  Will Americans tolerate the cubicle living and work-centric existence of the Japanese? Not as long as we continue to offer a generous welfare state as an alternative. And as we attempt to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels in favor of electricity, how can our aging power grid keep up? How exactly are we going to generate that electrical power to keep the growing population warm, their EVs charged, and the lights on? And the demographics don’t make sense. The population is indeed shifting as well, but it appears to be a political migration, moving towards lower tax havens without regard to the supposed existential crisis of climate change. Why, with headlines screaming rising seas and scorching heat, are we seeing migration from cooler climates like the northeast to the south, particularly Florida, the Carolinas, and Texas, all incidentally with significant amounts of waterfront? Is there something the elites aren’t telling us?  Is this some Orwellian ploy to have the working class live in squalor while the privileged political class continues to hypocritically live in their gated communities and jet around the world to their climate summits where they fabricate policy for the masses?  

The Fantasy of Carbon Neutrality

 I want to know who the “experts” are that dreamt up this fantasy of carbon neutrality. What expertise do politicians have besides spending other people's money? We have neither the infrastructure nor the technology for this to be feasible. Even the CEO of Toyota has publicly stated that a fleet of fully electric vehicles is not a good idea and hybrid technology makes more sense given the technology and the physics of a fully electric SUV, the type of car Americans want to drive. And once again, rural Americans will suffer more with longer driving distances, the requirement for larger vehicles, and less developed infrastructure. This is getting stupid with politicians dappling in science, technology, and economics, drawing laws and regulations that defy logic, all motivated by a social reform agenda based on the cooperation of a banded together minority groups of malcontents, socialists, and anarchist biases. The people's voice is not being heard for the clammer of these lawless benefactors of this anti-American movement. The left has successfully pitted us against each other, never at a loss to divide. We appear too timid to call them out, content to stew in our complacency. I cringe at the outcome. New York today, a Blue State near you tomorrow.

Hochul’s Boondoggle cont.

The more I read about it, the crazier it gets. She is trying to install California-style cap-and-trade laws and eliminate gas-powered vehicles by 2035. Part of the plan calls for a “per mile” vehicle fee to make up for a loss in gas tax revenue. Once again, all well and good for city dwellers but economically disastrous for rural New Yorkers who routinely drive long distances to acquire basic necessities. And exactly how farming will be affected as they attempt to squash diesel fuel is unclear. Electric tractors? And who questions these plans for renewable energy sources will likely affect upstate New Yorkers disproportionately as well? Where exactly do you think they are going to put their solar farms and windmills?  And again, how is all this electrical energy going to be generated from solar and wind power alone? Technology tells us it is impossible in this time frame, if ever! It’s pure insanity! Get a grip, New Yorkers; your political choices have courted you for disaster.

Hochul Boondoggle

So to reward loyal democrat voters in the people’s republic of New York for allowing Kathy Hochul to break through the glass ceiling and become their first female governor, she has offered up some stunning proposals to battle climate change. Beginning in 2025, no new construction can use appliances and furnaces that burn fossil fuels. That’s right, oil, natural gas, and propane are all out in favor of electricity. And to further appease the climate zealots, after 2027, if your existing carbon-spewing unit fails, your gas range, your furnace, or your hot water heater, must be replaced with an electric unit. You know, those ultra-efficient baseboard electric heaters, those energy-saving electric hot water heaters, and those electric cooktops that are the choice of professional chefs all over the world. And the recommended option for your furnace?  Heat pumps. Uh-huh. Heat pumps in upstate New York. Surely football fans recall the five feet of snow that fell on Buffalo a couple of weeks ago, causing the game to be moved to Detroit. Or the 10 feet of lake effect snow that buried the Tug Hill plateau north of Syracuse a few years back?  And skiers commonly refer to the Lake Placid ski area Whiteface as Iceface. It gets cold there. And it snows. A lot. So let me get this straight: when rural New Yorkers are buried in snow, and it’s ten below zero outside, they want you to keep your family warm with heat pumps and electric baseboard heat?  Morons. Even the heat pump industry states it is an “ideal way to heat and cool your home if you live in a MODERATE climate.”  Lake Placid is not a moderate climate. It’s farther north than Toronto. That’s in Canada, Kathy. And as New Yorkers freeze to death, content that they are saving the environment with their EV charging in the garage, soup simmering on the electric range, while wrapping their electric hot water heater in yet another layer of insulation and taking shorter duration showers, they will be left to ponder exactly how all that electricity is being generated. Surely not solar in the middle of a snowstorm. And as the rolling blackouts hit as hard as the next nor’easter, you can’t even fire up your banned propane-fueled generators. Your home’s temperature may not be going up in the winter of 2025, but I guarantee your electric bill most certainly will.

Woes Unlimited

Can you believe this end-of-the-year Biden victory tour?  “Ends the year with a series of wins,” trumpets HuffPo, and Janet Yellen in the WSJ, proclaiming that Biden’s economic plan is kicking in. Look, inflation is falling! Sure, after rate hikes we haven’t seen in decades, it still remains five times higher than it was under Trump’s guidance. Five times. And gas prices are coming down as well, all part of Biden’s plan. No, they have gone down from historic highs because of a fortuitous decrease in demand. That won’t last. Nothing to do with the Biden plan, if there even is one. What a load of hooey. The economy is surviving despite Biden. And finance experts are predicting doom for 2023 if these economic policies continue. If the stock market is any indication of the future, tending to be predictive of economic climate six months from now, we are in deep trouble. But sending a few more billion to Ukraine and now the consideration being given to reparations……not just to Americans descended from slaves, but to African nations as well……should drive the economy deeper into an inflationary cycle and punish our economy here at home. Despite Yellen’s claim of Biden’s skilled navigation through troubled economic waters, we are a ship adrift. Without a rudder.  And most notably, without competent leadership. Which begs the question: with the majority of Americans unhappy with the direction the country is taking and with Biden’s approval ratings hovering at 40%, why did voters choose to re-elect incumbents and, in particular, reward democrats for their destructive policies?

And lest I forget, the democrats are back to considering making Puerto Rico the 51st state. Surely injecting 3 million welfare recipients into the economy will help balance the budget. 

Justice Adrift

I just read an online report rejoicing in the “lengthy prison terms for the Whitmer kidnappers.”  Another threat to our democracy Once again thwarted. Seriously. These mental midgets couldn’t have kidnapped their neighbor’s cat. But what is really frightening are the comments, one even praising law enforcement for “dealing with people who are set on harming our public officials.” Like Supreme Court Justices, for example? Hypocrisy anyone? And every time a comment suggests that this was another example of FBI malfeasance, they are barraged with accusations of being conspiracy theorists or QAnon operatives. Please, someone, show me an example of QAnon as an actual organization rather than a Huffington Post fantasy. The only fact I can derive from this exercise is that the left controls the media, and apparently, the minds of simpletons transformed into political zealots. 

What Is Happening To Us

How could our government agencies be weaponized to subvert our Democracy by political dissidents? We know why, but how? Our laws prohibit it! Government officials flouting our constitution; colluding with the media and Big Tech to control the Public Square through censorship and misinformation is both astounding and frightening. Third World antics at their worst. These politicians and their minions are nothing more than lawless subversives. The question now that they have been so blatantly outed is, what are we going to do about it-, I fear nothing! As a country, we have seemingly lost our soul; like myself, we reek of indignation, appalled at the aggression of these malcontents, yet do little more than our impersonations of Chicken Little while remaining firmly in our place, impotent to do anything definitive about it. The death throws of a failing society, I'm afraid. Tom Sowell’s premonitions are coming to pass.

Cynical

I'm so incensed over these Twitter reveals that my emerging holiday spirit has been nipped in the bud. I never was much of a conspiracy theorist, but after this Twitter dump, I may be a believer. Recall the adage that whatever the democrats are currently accusing the Republicans of doing, it is in actuality precisely what they are doing…..and getting away with it. It’s easy when you control the media, and apparently Twitter as well. Undermining democracy, colluding with the Russians and interfering with elections, you know, trivial stuff like that. Let’s control our education system and make this generation of students so stupid and confused that they won’t even know what sex they are. How else do you explain nearly 25% of Gen Z identifying as LGBTQ or non-binary? We will give them cell phones and get them hooked on social media, essentially an algorithm designed to be addictive. We will legalize marijuana which has been shown to alter brain chemistry and increase the incidence of psychosis. How else do you explain marijuana surpassing alcohol as the abuse of choice for our youth? We will then make them so reliant on government handouts and healthcare that they will continue to vote democrat in perpetuity. How else do you explain the fact that 85% of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and that survey incidentally is courtesy of CNN, yet only one incumbent Governor was defeated in the 2022 election?  Complacency? Stupidity? Or perhaps priorities. Perhaps the government check may be more important than the direction the country is taking. Far fetched? I used to think so. 

The Twitter Revelations

So much for your holiday reprieve from my ranting and raving. These Twitter revelations have me beside myself. You expect this level of conspiracy, censorship, and propaganda from the likes of China, not from what was once the beacon of democracy. But as we rail against it, as if to prove the depth of corruption, none of these revelations are being reported in the mainstream media. Then to top that, our. Commander-in-Cheat pandering to the LGBTQ Community trades the world's most notorious weapons dealer for a weed-smoking, tattooed, America-hating, lesbian person of color while an American marine rots in a Russian prison. And our similarly hyphenated White House press secretary praises her as a role model. I’m not sure what impresses me more, how far we have fallen or how fast. 

A Reprieve

I surmise the last thing you need from me, with the holiday season upon us, is my incessant ranting and raving of our society, our country, going down the tubes. So I have relented, giving you a reprieve. However, know I intend to return to my Slants soapbox with a vengeance just as soon as the dust settles from these mid-term elections. I'm observing, taking names, and keeping my eye on these Democrats, Republicans, and their dissident memberships. Rest assured, my small voice will be heard again. Wait for it. In the meantime, keep the faith and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.