The Ed Sullivan Show

 In the advent of television in the 1940’s, a fellow named Ed Sullivan, wound up with something called a “variety show.” Back in the day, variety shows consisted of a variety – hence the name – of acts with an amusing tone, utilizing the ‘something for everyone’ premise.

Often including singers, dancers, magicians, even a guy balancing a spinning plate on a stick (you had to be there to appreciate it,) and people who bent spoons with their minds, these one-hour long shows were guaranteed to both draw and capture viewer’s attention.

Ed Sullivan

Those times were simpler and entertaining without the now-regular talk show guests who appear in order to hawk their latest books, albums, or concert tours.

Although in grainy black and white, those shows were what Americans yearned for to help them cope with their sometimes mundane lives. Witness The Ed Sullivan Show which ran from 1948 until 1971, on CBS Sunday nights from 8 until 9.

As a kid, I was particularly curious as to how that plate-spinning guy performed his mesmerizing feat; he kept me rapt for his allotted 5-minutes of fame, and that's all that mattered to me. After all, it was entertainment. Mission accomplished.

Fast forward to today, July 2024, where we find ourselves amid a world-wide crisis at every turn of every day.

From men supposedly being able to give birth, to people being fired from their jobs for misusing pronouns, to praising mentally deficient politicians, or believing killing babies is a noble activity, times have certainly morphed into an era and place unrecognizable to many of Earth’s current inhabitants.

Enter Donald J. Trump, a man who was elected and served as our 45^th president from 2017 until 2021.

Spending most of his life as a businessman, he was once considered a Democrat, even hobnobbing with former NY Senator Saint Hillary Clinton, before breaking ranks with the Dems largely due to their obscene tax and spend policies.

Becoming an instant sinner by leaving New York State for tax-friendly Florida, Trump hit the ground running to become one of the few non-lawyer presidents in American history. Without a legal background or political history to be used as a barometer, Trump won the presidency in 2016, much to the chagrin of weak-minded individuals.

Resorting to name-calling throughout the campaign, augmented by lies, lies, and more lies, Trump was at a distinct disadvantage by spending the majority of his time attempting to debunk this blizzard of falsehoods used in an effort to besmirch his reputation. Alas, it didn’t work.

Even after his election, St. Hillary insisted he “stole” the election, and that Trump was not the “legitimate” president – a charge that is still perpetuated by the sleazy, complicit media.

Further lying about his “collusion” with Russian president Putin, him making pro-Nazi remarks, tipping the balance of democracy in America, and being virulently anti-immigrant (please note: Trump is married to an immigrant,) his entire term was pockmarked with one-lawsuit-after-another.

With a questionable presidential election run against candidate Joseph Robinette Biden, in 2020, Biden, who rarely left his Delaware home to campaign, was deemed the winner, a point of contention by many until this day.

Using ultra-liberal judges, in conjunction with Leftist legal jurisdictions, lawsuits designed to silence and punish Trump seemed effective. Using phrases such as “stolen election,” “reinvented banana republic,” and “rule of law,” another smear crusade against Trump was begun in earnest.

Relying on a clearly apparent one-sided judicial system, Attorney General Merrick Garland was instrumental in playing a sordid game of ‘legal chess’ by using non-guvment lawyers as prosecutors to legally harass, as well as financially bankrupt Trump, plus associates and supporters,

In what can be easily perceived as an intimidation movement, Garland – who, under Trump – was being considered for a Supreme Court Justice, only now seemingly reacting as a proverbial woman scorned. Not a good look for a national legal icon whose favorite line is: “No one is above the law.”

Waiting with bated breath for the next opportunity to hamstring Trump’s follow-up presidential run, Garland’s high-flying hot air balloon is suddenly developing holes, and is currently sinking to terra firma, quickly.

Likely panicking with the arrival of daily polling numbers, Garland’s Gestapo-like Department of Justice has been busy filing one suit after another against Trump along with his Make America Great Again (MAGA) followers, while taking a respite from investigating PTAs and local school districts.

But it was July 13, when in Butler, Pennsylvania, at yet another Trump rally, that a twenty-year old local resident tried to change history and did so in an unusual way.

This man took his father’s rifle to the Trump rally to kill – assassinate – Donald Trump. As of this writing, no one knows why, but “an investigation continues.”

This is where the story gets good.

It seems as though the Butler Police Department, U.S. Secret Service (USSS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), are all now participants in what is known as “Tag – you’re it!”

Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of DHS, under whose purview is the USSS, has been not only lying saying “the Border is closed,” for years now, is currently pointing his crooked finger at USSS Director Kimberly A. Cheatle.

Because this tragedy involved an attempted assassination of a guvment official, the FBI has become involved.

To recap: USSS appears to have dropped the ball in its job to protect a dignitary – Donald Trump. According to news sources, the USSS instructed the Butler PD to concern themselves with traffic control.

During the early part of the rally, numerous civilians attempted to alert the USSS to the fact a suspicious individual was lurking about the area and was even located on a nearby roof.

The person-in-question wound-up being the sniper. The Butler PD was ignored, the USSS poo-pooed the report, presidential candidate Trump was shot by the aforementioned sniper, the FBI is conducting an investigation into the shooting, and now everyone’s arms are tired from pointing at everyone else.

On July 17^th, Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, cornered Director Cheatle and demanded answers from her while both were attending the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Video plainly shows shouts to Cheatle were ignored.

President Biden made a brief remark about the shooting, then immediately went into hiding at one of his Delaware homes, while allegedly suffering from COVID. (Evidently his multiple vaccinations haven’t worked, as promised.)

So here we are, desperately awaiting the passing of time to see who will represent the Democrats in the upcoming presidential election, and if former President Trump will be able to survive assassination attempts, to reach the November 5^th finish line.

Not unlike The Ed Sullivan Show, today’s real world is chock full o’ entertainment. An octogenarian with trouble communicating and walking and telling the truth is front and center, as his opponent who is reported to being double-digits ahead in the polls is target of the media, Dems, and foreign nations.

All the while, comedians, businesses, middle class Americans, oil and gas suppliers, schools, the elderly, infirmed, Eco-conscious, investors, bankers, and illegal aliens, aided and abetted by the media, are all anxiously awaiting to see who the next great performer on the world stage will be, for all to behold, just like our anticipation on Sunday nights with Ed.

The difference between then and now is back then, no one was harmed or targeted for prison based upon lies, and differences of opinion. You now know how Democrats operate in order to attain and retain power.

Vote wisely.

Number 22

  There are three types of people in this world. One is the overenthusiastic, rabid fan of sports; the second is the person who absolutely hates sports; and the last is the individual like me who could care less.

As you’re reading this, I’m pretty sure you are mentally conjuring up images of personal encounters with people who neatly fit into each of these categories.

That being said, I was somewhat surprised a few years ago when I was dating a single woman who was a mother to a high school daughter who played basketball. The daughter was not very good, and each game only cemented the fact she was not going to college on a basketball scholarship.

In fact, the surprise came in the form of there being a girls basketball team, period. I, too played basketball in both school and on neighborhood playgrounds; I was no better than this woman’s daughter, but the secret was I knew my skills and limitations.

Such life lessons can be cruel, but all are valuable.

So it was with interest that I noticed a sports-related news story about a phenom recently appearing on the basketball scene. The timing couldn’t have been better, what with the upcoming quadrennial Summer Olympics, which are to be held in France this year.

It seems that professional women’s basketball is officially played through a league called the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), and has been so since the mid-1990’s. After all these years, the WNBA has been met with very little in the way of success for a variety of reasons.

Evidently, WNBA players largely consist of women who are low-scoring whiners, as well as appearing overly-masculine. Such a combination appears to remain a mystery as to why the male portion of the population is not attracted to this sport, only drawing more whining from the WNBA players, themselves.

Simple economics explains why the lack of viewership has resulted in the bargain prices of WNBA game tickets. Watching someone – anyone – dribble a ball should actually be seen as punishment, rather than commanding exorbitant hard-earned Bidenomics dollars.

Short of providing a show of someone duct taping Taylor Swift’s mouth while enjoying a prime rib dinner, commanding $25 per ticket to see the Las Vegas Aces – the reigning champions – would be the only incentive to cough up that kind of money for what you receive in return.

Being self-perceived victims in their WNBA world, WNBAers have discovered a solution to the slow sales of their low-ticket prices: find a gimmick that would attract people to attend games and watch their games on television.

Enter Caitlin Clark. I don’t know much about Clark other than what I’ve seen on TV or casually read on the interweb. Evidently Clark is phenom who until 2024, played basketball for the Iowa Hawkeyes, and now plays professional basketball for the Indiana Fever.

The Golden Goose

According to nearly all on-line stories, Clark has excelled at scoring by consistently making 3-point shots, thereby pushing The Fever to regular wins. Applying the law of supply and demand, ticket prices to see Clark play has dramatically risen by $100 per seat, to sell-out crowds.

Such a meteoric rise in interest has even encouraged ESPN to begin broadcasting WNBA games and generated insatiable sales of her number 22 jersey. It seems as though the WNBA’s Golden Goose has been found.

What could possibly go wrong with this magical, emotional elixir, you ask.

Thanks for asking; racism and jealousy are the definitive answers.

Unfortunately, Caitlin Clark is not like the large majority of the WNBA – Clark is white, heterosexual, and even keeled, almost to the point of being a reasonable adult in a world of professional children’s games.

Easily outscoring her fellow teammates, Clark has been the target of what would be an arrestable offense of assault off the basketball court. Being purposely shoved onto the hardwood floors, deliberately elbowed and intentionally bonked on the head, her opponents have been regularly demonstrating frustration and jealousy at the new true, genuine athlete.

Not being a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hire, Clark has fielded post-game interviews with aplomb and grace, much the chagrin of her on-court assailants. Of course, the equally annoyed sportscasters – many of whom are as race-driven as Clark’s opponents – continue to throw tripe in an attempt to smear true talent over the long-held WNBA DEI hiring norms.

Being unable to compete with someone who worked hard, and elucubrated on inherent gifts, these envious women basketball thugs can only outdo Clark with physical violence.

Proving just how petty these female bigots truly are, the USA Women’s Olympic Basketball Team has decided to exclude this acquisition of adeptness and talent from participating in the 2024 Olympics as a USA representative. A mumbled excuse that Caitlin Clark wasn’t seasoned enough to play in such an important game was issued.

Clark, being her usual self, smiled and accepted her biased snub. Of course, time will tell as to how intellectually accurate this decision was.

Receiving exactly for which they so ardently wished, the WNBA has reached a crossroad. After publicly crying about the low pay in the WNBA, these covetous haters are suddenly, spitefully angry a newcomer has apparently solved their money problem.

Excluding her presence from the Olympics, using her as punching bag, and badmouthing her professional “weakness,” is doing nothing except further ruining the WNBA along with women’s sports.

Looks as though the WNBA is having The Golden Goose for dinner.

Now What?

  It’s been just over four-years since Joseph Robinette Biden captured America’s hearts to become the 46^th president of the United States.

Coming off a stellar four-year term of Donald J. Trump, Biden managed this miraculous win by doing something never seen in an election cycle: he hid in his basement. Rather than traipsing about the country, shaking hands, meeting and greeting, sniffing hair, or making copious stump speeches, then-Vice President Biden opted to hunker down and let the mainstream media (MSM) do the rest.

Granted, our nation was in the throes of a somewhat serious influenza outbreak – COVID-19 – since early 2020, both Biden and the MSM capitalized on this over-inflated crisis by gaslighting the terrified American public even imposing the largest quarantine in history – without referring to it as a quarantine.

Suddenly, publicly, Americans were entering a new era approaching a presidential election, one that involved standing six-feet apart, wearing the correct face masks, mandating inoculations of questionable anti-virus drugs, even losing jobs because of draconian laws closing businesses.

Schools were shut down in favor of distance learning, workers’ hours were cut, beaches were closed, while citations were gleefully issued for fishing and gardening – communist-style.

To keep day-to-day operations “normal,” we desperately needed to continue with the election to reassure the populace everything would be alright. Elections nation-wide were open to voting, but voting-by-mail, as early as September 2020. Bored citizens eagerly mailed-in ballots to ensure their votes would be counted.

While some thought this was a terrible idea – largely because of the possibility of voter fraud by not having to show personal identification – others felt this was another wonderful opportunity to secure the “win” for Democrat Joe Biden.

Ready for another term of
pain and suffering for Americans

The MSM was agog, pleased that Barack Hussein Obama’s third term was finally upon us, which immediately began the shenanigans. Literally on Day One in office, Biden began reversing former-President Trump’s efforts to make America great again – his slogan for his election, abbreviated MAGA.

People crowded around Biden wearing COVID masks while he gleefully signed orders to open the Southern Border to ALL, even encouraging every alien to join the hoopla so as not to miss out on the free phones, food vouchers, healthcare, housing, and $5000 gift cards. What could possibly go wrong?

I’m glad you asked.

An incredible influx of non-English speaking foreigners invaded the United States, dragging babies, diseases, and attitudes into our once-sovereign nation. Ever since, the holier-than-thou “sanctuary cities,” have been carping about the enormous unseen costs associated with giving free stuff to law-breakers.

Yes, they are lawbreakers because – well – they broke the law by illegally entering the country, and not meeting the criteria for citizenship, having compliant medical records, and not wearing the oh, so critical COVID masks.

Yet, these miscreants were welcomed with open arms and smiles. Of course, those local sanctuary city politicians were slowly realizing that the stunt of snubbing the “rule of law” was not conducive to an orderly way of life.

Taxes needed to be raised to make ends meet. All the while, the prices and costs of everything else meteorically rose to record highs with the help of compliant sycophants such as Pete Buttigieg, Janet Yellen, Lloyd Austin, Merrick Garland, and Jennifer Granholm – a living, breathing rainbow flag of DEI failure.

With the MSM covering for all the shortcomings of this Biden Administration Dumpster Fire, nothing was reported with any truth, or accuracy. Since before the 2016 elections, the MSM climbed into bed with many current and former public officials to ensure the voting public that Donald Trump was dangerous, needing to be silenced for all the lies he was telling. And that was a lie.

By swirling “facts” around inside a media blender, anything President Trump said or did during the 2016 election cycle was deemed “fake news,” only adding to the confusing circus-like environment created by misinformation (Read: outright lies,) thereby blurring lines between truth and fiction.

Since this campaign worked so well in 2016, it was resurrected to be used against any Biden administration opponent beginning in 2021.

Some examples include: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg being given $7.5B to build electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in 2021. Within the past three years, a grand total of seven have been installed. Not bad for a guvment operation. EV’s were guaranteed to save us money. Of course they lied while offering lame excuses. I’ll wager a gas station doesn’t cost $1,000,000,000, to build.

Then there’s Janet Yellen, Treasure Secretary, who, in 2021 insisted interest rates and prices were soaring because of something she termed “transitory inflation.” She added inflation would soon come down – within three or four months – in late 2021. It now seems as though “transitory” means "I also lied to you."

Meet Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who hit the ground running with his theory on racism and hate in the U.S. military. Although a West Point graduate and retired four-star (count them) general, he insisted a hard scrabble study be conducted on anti-black and anti-gay hatred alive and well inside the armed forces.

After several years, it was determined that Austin really is as stupid as he looks, inasmuch as there was no merit to this specious claim. By the way, did he ever wonder how he got those four stars?

Let’s not forget Jennifer Granholm, the Secretary of Energy. This Canadian-born American was the only qualified person in America to be appointed to this lofty position that has proven to be in charge of destroying the oil, coal, and liquid natural gas (LNG) industries in our nation.

Diligently working to cripple our energy independence, Granholm, almost single-handedly broke the back of the U.S. using our own natural resources by having to buy those resources from Russia, China, and Venezuela. Now those foes are rich and using that income to purchase arms to possibly use against us.

And last, but not least, Attorney General Merrick Garland, once a candidate for Supreme Court Justice, has proven his Left-leaning tendencies by enthusiastically ignoring the “rule of law” in favor of biased charging and prosecutions based on political party.

Not unlike smarmy tactics used in Third-World nations, Garland has virtually normalized – with the unvarnished aid of the MSM – overcharging and reinterpreting laws in favor of his (Read: Biden’s) desired outcome.

But all this began to quickly collapse, following a great years-long run of conning the American people into believing up was down, left was right, and good was bad. And all it took was a mere 90-minutes to start the swirl around the toilet bowl of dirty politics.

It was June 27, 2024, a date selected by the Biden administration to debate Donald Trump. Using criteria established by Biden’s Organized Crime Family, times, rules, moderators, and even bathroom breaks, were established, as Trump’s political epitaph was being written by both Biden and the MSM.

Preparing for more than a week in semi-seclusion – 16 aides and professional politicians – ferreted Biden away to ‘train’ for a debate regarding his job; this is the job for which he has been gainfully employed, raking in $400,000/year, for three and a half years, already.

As a hint, he should have been fired for theft from the federal guvment by stealing based on his 50-year career impersonating a competent politician. Just saying.

Unfortunately, the Great Debate between Biden and Trump was akin to the movie “Titanic.” we know how it began, and we know how it ended. Now for the critics to tell us what we saw.

To be kind, Biden should have been wheeled off the stage on a gurney holding a participation trophy; Trump, on the other hand, should have received a rose bouquet and standing ovation. Too bad the MSM was busy attempting to figure out how to spin this tornado of lies, lies, and more lies aided by the MSM.

Following weeks of gaslighting about artificial intelligence (AI) and its association with recent videos of Biden falling down on a bike, up a staircase, sideways on a stage, Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Press Secretary, regularly spun these disasters by fabricating the cover stories to neatly hide the truth.

But it was Biden catatonically being led away from a podium by his bestest buddy, Barack, at a fundraiser, not to mention a Juneteenth celebration, when the Biden House of Cards began to officially collapse. No longer able to blame someone else for his shortcomings, Biden proved he was nothing more than a hollow figure without a direction or purpose.

All the alleged artificially created videos by MAGAs were proven to be more fibs, as the leak in the boat enlarged. The MSM has been scrambling ever since, trying to do damage control in an effort to continue the national course of destruction. Who could replace Biden?

If only the Democrats could find another America Last politician before the November elections.

Let’s hope they go back to the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) list for their next great candidate.

Green Nude Eel

 College kids amassing on campi, Americans drenched in bloody overseas battles, a divided Congress and Senate, out-of-control spending, eminent inflation, Leftists gaslighting voters, rampant drug use, stark racial division, crime soaring, and we are on the cusp of a quickly approaching a presidential election; this is both 1968 and 2024.

If we all awoke from a giant coma, we would find ourselves hard-pressed to believe we have returned to a distasteful place from which we survived 56-years ago. But why did we return and how did we forget from whence we came?

Just finishing traumatizing America with World War II in Europe and the Pacific, plus the Korean War in Asia, American politicians found a new avenue for spending countless more taxpayer dollars on another crisis: Vietnam.

Keep in mind I’m no Vietnam expert but, Vietnam was, and remains, a thorn in which the United States has no interest other than as a shredder for American dollars and lives.

In fact, the U.S. became involved because of a theory that following a communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, the colonial French were concerned Southeast Asian countries would fall like dominoes to the Soviets. As such, America decided to bankroll the French struggle there with money and arms.

Sound familiar? Volodymyr Zelenskyy should be a clue. But let’s not blame only the president of Ukraine – the fact President Joseph Robinette Biden and both the House and Senate decided to bankroll corrupt President Zelenskyy is stunning in and of itself. Since 2022, $380,000,000,000 in aid has headed to Ukraine. I wonder if Zelenskyy has a key to the White House yet.

A tidy sum for almost anyone. I find it hard to believe there are people serving in the U.S. Congress and Senate who are unfamiliar with the occurrences of years past – which is termed “history” – and the machinations of current-day logistics called “shenanigans.”

Conveniently forgetting the past is the friend of politicians world-wide. Pols rely on poor memories or newly-coined terms ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ to extract seemingly countless dollars and goods from the public supply chain and coffers, are all used in the name of progress.

With history classes virtually non-existent in American schools, children are left with timeline voids without explanations as to how things developed throughout the years. Old codgers who are my age are often mistaken for WWII veterans – missing the mark by at least two or three decades.

Korea is now merely a land ‘over there” without even a current college student able to find it on a globe. Vietnam is another far-away country without background, where more than 56,000 American lives were lost, along with countless maimings, and permanent psychological scars were created.

Forgotten along with most those casualties are the civilians, who were often killed as targets rather than collaterally.

Southeast Asian rulers frequently use average citizens for propaganda in photos; that tactic is further employed in the Ukraine conflict. Showing dead babies, bloodied women and charred children’s bodies have proven excellent ways to turn the tide of fighting quickly into cease-fires all in the name of humanity.

Marchers paraded across college and university campuses carrying crudely made signs ordering our politicians and military leaders to ‘Stop the war.’ They demanded the carnage end while taunting police assigned to protect professors, deans, and other students.

While noble in intent, these marchers were often secretly organized and funded by communist infiltrators interested in helping “the other side win” the conflict du jour.

But it is with great interest that I now catch and read the news about today’s similar college protests to stop the killing of innocent people. Today’s conflict, though, is something that defies explanation.

It seems that in October 2023, Hamas – a Palestinian terrorist organization – felt compelled to send hundreds of missiles, along with suicide attackers into Israel, in an unprovoked attack.

Hundreds of innocent Israelis were killed, while many were taken hostage by Hamas. Not surprisingly, Israel fought back with a vengeance, and justifiably so.

Today we are seeing protests demanding the Israeli victims immediately cease fighting back, all in the name of peace. Added to this mix, foreign nations have been insisting the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) begin talks to mitigate the carnage being thrust upon Gaza. Good luck with that.

With Biden ordering a pier specially built to aid with food and water shipments to Gaza residents, more “humanitarian” supplies are now reaching the Hamas fighters, being diverted from inhabitants. Another boneheaded Biden plan for screwing everything up.

Not to be deterred, Democratic congresspeople have been shutting down our domestic oil drilling and exploration efforts, striking under-the-table deals with China and Venezuela for minerals used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, plus aiding the Biden Administration conjure up inane plans to wreak havoc on our nation’s economy, all with smiling nods from many sleazy politicians both past and present.

Insisting water levels are rising to beyond dangerous levels due to melting glaciers and ice bergs, we are being warned about one-day finding our homes under water. End of discussion. Except that The Clinton's, Obama’s, Kerry’s, and oddly-enough the Biden’s all own waterfront property. That seems awfully curious.

A few years ago, a character named Greta Thunberg, a Swedish child, popped up in the news like a turd in the punch bowl. Her background is settled in communist-style activism geared toward environmentalism. A quick look into her life exposes her parents as being Communists with a capital ‘C.’

Demonstrating a clear agenda favoring the dissolution of individual rights, Thunberg meteorically rose to idol status with the assistance of the mainstream media, only to attract the attention of another narcissist, American Congressgal Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC).

Seemingly mesmerized by Thunberg’s notoriety, along with her ability to freely travel world-wide, without financial restrictions, an enamored AOC quickly adopted her toxic speech of controlling all resources of the world for the betterment of society.

As a Congressgal, AOC sought and easily found the ears of presidential candidate Joseph Robinette Biden, who was freshly coming off a stint as vice president to Barack Obama. Not being a deep thinker, AOC fashioned her own special plan for saving the Earth from imminent self-destruction.

Stealing her plan’s mechanics, as well as its name, AOC insisted Biden not consider her shoddy environment lifeboat, but insist this hare-brained idea be budgeted for and implemented, if he was elected. He was, and the games began.

Calling this boondoggle the Green New Deal, after President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, she could only imagine her own bronze statue on Pennsylvania Avenue eternally commemorating her brilliance. Personally, I prefer Green Nude Eel, because it clearly demonstrates the inanity of AOC and anything exiting her head, as well as the slipperiness of her extortion scheme and lies.

 A Green Nude Eel

Ignoring evidence this hokey rush-to-fame was merely a multi-trillion-dollar scam, Biden quickly – along with a compliant Congress and Senate – began passing fits and starts of AOC’s last chance for a legacy.

Introducing bills that include outlawing internal combustion engine vehicles; requiring new strict standards for dishwashers, air conditioners, and refrigerators; prohibiting drilling for oil, natural gas, mining anthracite coal, as well as fracking; forcing the conversion of military vehicles and operations to rechargeable; besides depleting the Strategic Oil Reserve – to be used in times of national crises, has placed America’s national security on the precipice of disaster.

For the record, this is not something new; it is new to America, though. Such shenanigans have been going on in Canada and Europe – remember Greta Thunberg? - for some years now.

Sick and tired of suddenly higher utility prices, repeated brownouts, remarkable reduction in food and fuel supplies, farmers leaving their farms, and winter fuel oil being effectively used as a weapon, Europeans have just ejected their own Leftist politicians for instituting these same policies.

Complaining about the uninformed populace not being intelligent enough to understand this is all for their own good, all but one of the recent G7 countries decided to rid themselves of those Leftists killing their once-great nations. Congratulations!

Fighting in the Middle East, a potential war with China over Taiwan, Iran developing nuclear capabilities, Russia’s fight with Ukraine, plus their naval ships in Cuban docks, a dwindling supply of fresh oil for our military and infrastructure, our national supply of domestic food waning, and unrest on college campus’ world-wide, paint a tenuous promising, solid future.

We are quickly approaching the proverbial fork in the road in our own elections in America. These antics should serve as a hint – no, warning – of things to come if we proceed without trepidation and say a resounding, “NO!” to more of this invented tripe.

Kill the Green Nude Eel. 

Progress

 It was December 25^th, 1991, when my sainted wife and I were in God’s Waiting Room, aka: Florida. We flew there to celebrate Christmas with my parents and, incidentally, had a wonderful time.

As per tradition, Mother had a turkey, while we supplied the accessories consisting of potatoes, mushrooms, cranberry sauce, yams, plus stuffing; Mom wanted stuffing because that’s what her Betty Crocker Cookbook insisted, she use.

Mom's version was written in Sanskrit

By the way, stuffing varies from dressing because dressing is cooked independent of the bird, while stuffing is prepared inside the turkey’s cavity. Cooking it inside increases the cooking time because the hot air cannot efficiently reach inside the entirety of the bird. You’re welcome.

The temperature was unusually cold for Florida requiring people to cover their tropical outdoor plants with blankets and sheets and such, while the human inhabitants needed winter jackets and coats – odd because it was Florida. After all it never snows in Florida.

Unfortunately, the snow began falling immediately after the turkey was placed in Mom’s electric stove oven.

We were all being enthralled by Dad’s description of how Florida Power, their utility company, recently installed a regulator on his electric box. Guaranteed to save countless dollars, this limiter was off until the red light indicated otherwise.

Florida Power found the solution to “brown-outs” which were often caused by air conditioners in the dreadful Spring, Summer, and Autumn, heat; lest we forget the furnace during the short winter months. As an aside, people like to be comfortable so, they turn on their heat or air conditioners in order to cool their homes and cars.

After about 90-minutes of on this brilliant cost-saving arrangement from the electric company, my Mom noticed the turkey remained pale and chilled inside the oven. It should be at least a bit tanned, but it wasn’t.

The television was on, along with the traditional Christmas specials, to entertain the family in preparation for the celebration of the coming of Baby Jesus. Just when a crass commercial should have been shown, a public notice was being read in a news-style blurb to any and all viewers.

‘Florida Power had instituted a brown-out alert for the following areas: and the list began in earnest.’

My Dad was furious, Mom was attempting to process this information, while my sainted wife and I were ducking for cover. The mystery of the wan turkey had been solved! It was the electric company that had modified our usage of the electricity because of the unusually high demand.

It seems the furnace heat was also generated by electricity, and nearly everyone in Florida was freezing, hence the low electricity flow precluding the oven from properly reaching a useful temperature.

It seemed as though the electric company’s modified usage of electricity would be continued until Florida Power felt otherwise, Amen.

Dad was hungry, Mom was scouring Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for advice, and I was curious how my smart parents could have been conned into paying for a product they were not able to use because of bureaucracy.

Yet here we, as a nation are, today.

Our brilliant president, Joe “Plugs” Biden, along with Jennifer Granholm, Pete Buttigieg, plus a smattering of compliant electric companies, nation-wide, are all giggling that they are now currently subjecting Americans to the games they are playing with our lives and money and futures.

Nearly immediately upon entering office, Plugs signed an Executive Order mandating the end of any vehicle not of the electric type. Guaranteeing an immediate cost-saving return, added to the convenience of not having to ‘gas-up,’ the electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers have been busy, busy, busy, pushing their hokum with aplomb.

An immediate rise in sales of Tesla EVs was evident with America’s highways and byways now becoming cluttered with “T” emblems emblazoned thereon. Ford, Chevrolet, Audi, Mercedes, Toyota, and Hyundai are also offering their versions of EVs for convenience and economy.

Economy in the form of not buying gas or diesel fuel, besides ‘refueling’ your EV at home convenience, are two weak selling points, that is. Unfortunately, all is not what it seems.

To encourage more rich people to purchase EVs, incentives in the form of rebates are being offered. The way these rebates work is the guvment takes your tax dollars and gives them to “the wealthy who are not paying their fair share.”

Costing upwards of $70,000, EV buyers can use their 2024 federal electric vehicle tax credit of $7500, to help defray the costs. The same is likely to occur during our switch from gas to electric ranges.

Taking a lengthy trip in your EV has consequences, too. Needing to be charged pretty regularly, Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, the third-least qualified Biden cabinet secretary, promised to build 500,000 charging stations across the American nation. And he has done so with great success.

In January 2024, the Biden-Harris administration announced they signed a grant to the tune of $623,000,000 for building EV charging stations. As of today, there have been a grand total of…

Seven stations built with that money. Pretty successful if you ask me. Let’s have a round of applause for Secretary Pete! A quick check with my calculator promised me that at this rate, it will only take 41,666 years tom complete this ambitious project. Now that is forward thinking. Yea!

Of course, we should calculate the replacement costs of the batteries used to power these EVs. Costing in the $8,000 to $10,000 range, replacement batteries seem like a terrific way for the consumers/owners/drivers to save some real money. Remember that cost effectiveness over buying gas that Plugs intentionally inflated?

All this is for the good of the environment, according to the federal funding pickpockets. Grant monies, federal contracts, as well as assistance programs, all feed this monstrous guvmental juggernaut.

In fact, this giant environmental scam is nothing more than another ladder rung to control the average American’s mobility and sense of self. By selling you a product, such as an EV, with no way of charging it, perpetual brown-outs to limit your availability to electricity and costing exorbitant amounts of money to preclude the “average” person from buying one, they only guarantee more control over you.

With everything electric – vehicles, stoves, water heaters, air conditioners, furnaces, lighting, and outdoor equipment, the guvment can, and will, control everything – EVERYTHING – in your life.

What you eat, when you eat, what you drive, when and where you travel, vacation distances, plus your home’s thermostat, are all going to be controlling factors in your life, sooner rather than later.

Democrats have long desired the elimination of our comfortable societal norms. They call eliminating electricity in favor of candles, progress.

That’s another example of the guvment making you go cold turkey.

Welcome to the Jungle

 

Today’s story is recycled from June 2022. And, as usual, is worth re-reading inasmuch as it is germane to events of June 2024. Please enjoy it.

We’ll return with a fresh, gluten-free story next week. Thanks for reading.

Last look at a 50-star flag, maybe

  We are upon exciting times in our lives.  On June 19^th, 2022, America celebrated its newest federal holiday, and the date should be the dead giveaway.

 

“Juneteenth Day” is the latest of holidays enacted into law to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in Texas.  Although not celebrated in all states, or even an official day off from work, Juneteenth is a special day to memorialize and enjoy.

 

African Americans have been fighting for this race-specific holiday for decades, to finally have President Joseph Robinette Biden sign this Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.

 

This is a noble act, indeed, coming from a life-long politician who, himself, has been an overt racist while serving as a Senator from Delaware, cheering the end of slavery seems odd for a staunch bigot.  In 1977, Biden actually said “Integrating black students would turn schools into ‘a jungle…a racial jungle.’”

 

He’s made highly offensive remarks about accents of people-of-color, blacks attending largely-white schools, and even giving a glowing eulogy for the late Senator Robert Byrd – a well-known member of the Ku Klux Klan.

 

Without apologizing for his past vile public remarks, Biden gladly rode the wave of popularity of this landmark bill through what is known as “pandering.”

 

Still, Juneteenth Day was inaugurally celebrated by a largely black community – the same black community that has lately been screaming at random whites for decades of systemic racism.

 

Falsely alleging that the celebrated freed African Americans have been targeted for incarceration or murder by police and white supremacists, this fresh holiday was designed to also celebrate nonviolence and multiculturalism. 

 

With a bitter taste still in the mouths of most Americans, from the riots of the death of George Floyd, a Marxist organization designed to intimidate and terrorize whites – Black Lives Matter (BLM) –  was contrived to further drive a wedge between the races.

 

But Juneteenth Day was created to stop some “perceived” superiority of white people over blacks.  This effort in and of itself is racist as the pendulum swings from one side to the other.

 

Gathering in select groups based by race seemed like a stellar idea – something called “segregation” – the thing that prompted the American Civil War to end this behavior.

 

With such a removed group celebrating the unity and culture and contributions of blacks, it would not be out of the question to expect a more unifying gathering comprised almost exclusively of African Americans.

 

But you would be wrong.

 

One of the largest Juneteenth celebrations occurred in Washington, D.C., a long, largely black populated “city” that also serves as home to the Seat of Government. 

 

Commonly abbreviated “DC,” this city has been in an embroiled kerfuffle with Congress to change its status from a city to a state.  Such a move would create two new Senatorial seats and at least one Congressional seat.  And those would likely be Democrat controlled.

 

Black DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is up for re-election soon, has been an outspoken pro-state advocate for her tiny area.  In fact, on Flag Day, which is celebrated on June 14^th, Mayor Bowser flew a flag adorned with 51-stars, which represent our number of states.

 

Her anticipation was greeted with smiles and clenched fists of solidarity, all in apparent approval of her lame effort to circumvent the legal design of DC.

 

Most visitors to DC come to see the monuments, statues, and museums.  However, the drug addicts, and prostitutes, and homeless, are cleverly hidden on side streets and alleys – far enough away from out-of-town visitors’ eyes, and the vision of politicians.

 

Eager to celebrate a black holiday for black people in a black town, an unauthorized Juneteenth Day party sprouted up like a weed on a golf course.  Unfortunately its illegality was ignored by authorities who looked the other way so as not to stifle the festivities.

 

After all, since guns are illegal in DC – and have been for about 50-years – what kind of trouble could occur?

 

But it was on this inaugural celebration day that at least one person felt compelled to shoot an illegal gun inside this crowded event.  One armed 15-year old African American boy was struck and killed, while countless others were injured by additional partiers running to escape the mayhem.

 

Here is the bottom line: BLM marched to intimidate guiltless members of our society using mentally twisted theories about racism, desperately trying to continue the sordid practice of segregation, only find that black lives don’t really matter because it’s only a cheap slogan.

Stealing Our Money

 My late father had a few standard sayings that really evoked thought. “Save your money,” “Be frugal,” and “That costs too much,” were but a few. Those with added value, however, often contained prognostications only Nostradamus could muster.

Upon returning from the service/gas station, supermarket, or lumber yard, Dad would spend the next hour, or so, grousing about the cost of everything he just saw, touched, or bought. My favorite was his foretelling the world’s road to perdition.

His thoughts on life were to trade honest work for an honest paycheck; he did so with great pride. And what he brought home in pay was what he expected to be as just compensation. The thing is, other people got in the grift without recourse, and that was not fair.

“Just wait,” he’d begin. “Someday – SOMEDAY – they’ll figure out how to charge us for air!” remains his best loved guess at the future, largely because it came true. Oddly enough, most of his episodes with ESP also have been realized, much to my surprise.

Paying good money to park your car, turning on a faucet for water, driving your own car on roads for which you were already taxed, and giving more money to the guvment for the benefit of receiving your Social Security (SS) fund money, were but a smattering of his favorite topics.

Looking both back on history, and forward to tomorrow, his complaints were nothing more than tearing a page off the calendar, only to be re-dated without altering any other notations.

When city dwellers turn on the water faucet in their homes they pay for both water and sewer; water being charged by the gallon, plus added sewer charges for the municipality to recoup treatment of the dirty water, ensures it will be resold to city dwellers again. That’s paying for water.

Finding yourself on the road with a low-on-air tire, you make your way to the nearest gas station. There, you will discover a self-service pump which requires money to refill your tire. Costing upwards of one-dollar for several minutes, this amounts to paying for air.

Let’s not forget the SS benefit checks we get from the fund in which we dutifully and “voluntarily” paid for at least 40-quarters. FYI, it was no more voluntary than succumbing to gravity. Legalized theft is a pretty good description for the another guvment-generated Ponzi Scheme.

In the Great Depression Era, Willie Sutton, a prolific career bank robber, was asked why he robbed banks. Sutton simply replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”

Sutton’s philosophy wasn’t much more profound than my Dad’s. Basic answers to basic dilemmas.

Don’t think that those lizard-like politicians we’ve all come to know and love haven’t been paying attention to your savings.

Enter the anointed, self-centered, sleazy, smarter-than-thou, narcissistic, politicians who are at the helm of our nation’s economic ship. And it’s sinking.

In 1913, the federal income tax system was born. At that time, our nation taxed only 1% of the top 1% of Americans to help fund our rapidly growing country. By 1919, the top tax rate was 77%. Not bad work if you’re a professional thief disguised as a Congressman or Senator.

Admittedly in the throes of World War I, and with a rapid decline of available blue collar workers, the tenor of America was quickly changing into a monster that would only grow, and never shrink. If you need an excellent example, please read on.

Something of which you may never have heard is likely the National Helium Reserve (NHR), also known as the Federal Helium Reserve. It is a federal guvment agency created around World War I to ensure the United States guvment always had enough strategic helium for the war effort.

It seems as though brilliant guvment minds felt it necessary to maintain a healthy stockpile of helium in case we needed to fight a war with helium balloons. Yes, indeed.

A facility near Amarillo, Texas, once held 1,000,000,000 cubic meters of helium, just in case. Then something shocking happened: it was decided the NHR would be shut down in 2021.

What???

For the record, it is 2024, and the haggling over who will auction what off to whom, and when, remains in limbo, with a decision likely soon. Maybe.

See what I mean when I use the words “a monster that would only grow, and never shrink?”

Our nation has been spending money we don’t have. For years, our bloated budget deficit has been inflating faster than Nancy Pelosi’s ego. Currently $34,000,000,000,000 in arrears, our professional politicians have finally connected all the dots and arrived at a solution to their money woes.

Indeed, it is to force hard-working people to pay even more of their earned dollars to the guvment because you’re too stupid to handle your money wisely. After all, you proved your lack of intelligence by electing, re-electing, re-re-electing, and re-re-re-electing these same politicians to office. Right?

A knockoff of The Three Stooges

Enter Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), and Elizabeth Warren. These three deep thinkers genuinely believe they have a right to your money, like it or not. Riding President Biden’s coattails to bringing America closer to Communism, these mooks merely ignore your pleas for financial relief.

Their simple-minded solution to this astronomical deficit is to tax their way out of it. Using a tried and true method – not unlike obese dieters eating their way to weight-loss – this Gang of Three (GOT) feel that spending to feed the beast will only result in prosperity.

Imagining they have rights to your precious overtime, vacation compensation, savings, stock market investments, real estate holdings, coin collections, classic car collections, even unpaid life insurance policies, the GOT wants your money, and pronto.

How do I know? Because they said so.

During a CNN interview between Jake Tapper and AOC, on September 18, 2018, Tapper asked her a question worth $40,000,000,000,000. That’s 40 trillion dollars – in the event your eyes glazed over.

Attempting to explain her compassionate take on giving free healthcare to everyone through a single-payer system that will only cost $40T, AOC insisted a simple tax increase on the wealthiest Americans would do the trick.

Unfortunately, her calculator batteries passed away before she could muster a comprehensive budget idea. She mentioned that this brilliant idea of hers would be so well fashioned that “We need to realize when we look at something like Medicare for all, Medicare for all would save the American people a very large amount of money.” Of course it would, just as the Affordable Care Act, aka: Obamacare, collapsed under its own weight.

By the way, her business acumen was acquired at Boston University College of Arts and Sciences, where she received a degree in economics.

Yes, you read that correctly: economics. Boston University must be very, very proud. But I digress.

Tapper proceeded to query her as to from whence this giant savings was going to come; she stuttered while searching for an appropriate fabrication and arrived at: tax increases would supply $2T, over ten years. A relentless Tapper continued by asking about the remaining $38T void.

AOC cleared her throat and mumbled something about changing the name of her astronomical tax increases to “investments.” Yeah, that should do it; problem solved!

Another bird of a feather, Senator Bernie Sanders, agrees with AOC when it comes to taking other people’s money. A multi-millionaire himself, Sanders considers himself self-made because he’s been sucking on various local, state, and federal guvment teats since 1981. Not the arduous dirt-under-your-fingernails work you’d expect from an 82-year old gasbag with his hand on your wallet.

AOC and Sanders, alike, are two aspiring Communists who feel they are smarter than you, and they are. You see, they have both been elected and re-elected by their constituents who clearly enjoy the games these two are playing.

Not to be outdone, Senator Elizabeth Warren, professional kook from Massachusetts, has been proudly announcing her ardent attempt to secure federal funding – probably because there’s such an enormous surplus – to grab more of your cash to pay for electric school buses, “Symbols of how we are fighting climate change.”

Again, using money from everyone except her, Warren couldn’t be happier ‘sticking it to the Man,’ otherwise known as corporate titans. Always working for the little man, Warren has a proven track record of promoting the confiscation of money, higher minimum wages, Israeli animosity, plus killing innocent babies, may now be up for the Women’s Movement canonization award.

Between the GOT, they’re tied, running neck-and-neck to outdo every other politician claiming to do more for you, while they remain deaf to your actual needs and wants. Lower prices, less social hostility, more law and order, and speaking the truth, may help ingratiate themselves with hardworking Americans. Oh, and free air.

On the other hand, they’re still anointed, self-centered, sleazy, smarter-than-thou, narcissistic, lizard-like politicians.