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.