Obsessed Army

 “It’s the most wonderful time of year.”

 

That Christmas song lyric and title was penned by the late singer, song writer, and television host, Andy Williams.  The song itself is a fun, upbeat ditty that actually gets stuck inside your head as an earworm, but a catchy, seasonal earworm.

 

Tune your radio dial during the Yule season and I’m certain you will eventually find it and tap your toe to it while you’re humming or singing along.  It, like all other carols, mentions joy, peace, love, friends, unity, Christmas presents, and children.

 

Like it or not, if anything can get you into the ‘Christmas Spirit,’ this happy song will.

 

Imagine climbing into your vehicle to shop for loved ones and you’ll probably still be hearing this song rattle around inside your head.  After locating a precious parking spot to help Santa Claus finish his shopping list, you head into the store only to be met by a military figure.

 

That figure can be a man or woman, usually ringing a hand bell, while normally dressed in a relatively non-descript blue uniform; adjacent thereto will be a red kettle proudly adorned with the logo: Salvation Army.

 

As a small child I recall my Mother dragging into and out of the local A&P market pleading for a ride on the coin-operated automated horse, using my stellar behavior as a bargaining chit.  It often worked unless one of these Salvation Army people was strategically stationed adjacent to the door.

 

That loose change for a ride on a fiberglass Champion would normally go into that red kettle to help the Salvation Army with their mission.

 

My old friend Champion

I stopped begging for one of those valued rides some 60-years ago, actually following my Mom’s footsteps by dropping money – change and folding cash, both – into those kettles ever since.

 

But this year is different. 

 

No, I’m not going back to riding Champion.  Rather, I’m writing this to offer some facts about Salvation Army folks; things are changing at the request of the Salvation Army itself.

 

After many months of national “wokeness,” the weak-minded among us bipeds are jockeying – maybe ‘wrestling’ would be a better term – to try to reach the pinnacle of stupidity and insensitiveness, first.  And the Salvation Army may well be in the lead.

 

When my Mom’s money disappeared into that hole in the cover on the red kettle, I never thought about where it was going, or for what.  Nor did I question her generosity to strangers without fanfare.  Eventually I realized that she was simply doing the “right thing.”

 

And until just recently, I never really cared where that cash went so, I decided to dig into the details.

 

The Salvation Army is an organization of civilian “soldiers” that are supposed to operate on the ‘front line’ of many social matters.  Those matters include “human need wherever, whenever and however we can,” according to their website.

 

Beneath those words appear a series of photos with the words: Volunteer; Donate; Help, Hope and Home; Provide Shelter; Missing Persons; Combat Human Trafficking; Equip Families; Teach Kids; Empower the Arts; Employment Opportunities; Combat Addiction; and Love the Elderly.

 

While those are noble goals they are pretty nebulous and beg for more detail.  And somehow they are financially-driven, and assumedly partially funded by those red kettles.

 

The latest revenue figures available are from 2019; total revenue for the Salvation Army was an amazing $3,863,646,000.  Their revenue costs for that year stand at $407,845,000.

 

That’s a lot of money, both folding and otherwise.  So where does it go?

 

Thanks for asking.

 

It’s Woke 2021, and sheeple around the world have been compliantly lining up to hit themselves on their heads as a sort of punishment for racism and slavery with which they had no involvement.

 

It seems as though the Salvation Army has reached the apex of solving all problems mentioned above including employment, addiction, teaching kids, and providing shelter.  Now it’s time for them to wade into the polluted waters of - yes, you guessed it – racism.

 

Following their United States Army brethren, the Salvation Army feels they have the definitive answer to the question of racial division.  January 8^th and 9^th is expected to witness “The Young Adult Racial Justice Forum,” to be hosted by the Salvation Army Metropolitan Division, Chicago, Illinois.

 

This new and improved Salvation Army appears to be shadowing the U.S. Army in its ardent efforts to gin-up racial division rather than unity.

 

Something sinister seems to be afoot with these two esteemed “armies” driving a wedge between homogenized America’s peoples.  Using event descriptions such as “We believe racial justice is an urgent issue close to the heart of God,” presents a dangerous façade that doesn’t reflect the true state of today’s America.

 

Once again, the narcissists leading the Salvation Army are veering off-course by intentionally driving the racial bus, on which we all ride, off the proverbial cliff. 

 

And not unlike U.S. Army General Mark Milley and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the Salvation Army soldiers are being fed the tripe of systemic racism that doesn’t necessarily exist, but garners hateful and divisive feelings from the accused.

 

This year my grocery store change is going toward a donation to a more unifying, needy organization that doesn’t justify intolerance and disruptive feelings by invoking God during the celebration of his Son, Jesus.

 

Unto us a Savior is born.

 

I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Fortuitous

 
God bless Nancy Pelosi.  This non-assuming woman, who appears to have had so many face lists her navel is now on her chin, is worth an estimated $196,000,000.  This astonishing amount is the result of a salary of $193,000 per year, as the Speaker of the House, along with a gift for investing.

Incorruptible Nancy Pelosi

 

Of course her husband, Paul, is a venture capitalist who is every bit as successful as Speaker Pelosi, herself.  Of course.

 

The question that begs an answer is: how could Mr. Pelosi acquire so much information on potential business deals and trading information that he could be ready to pounce and make scads of money?  That would be more than ten-years of saving to reach $1,000,000.

 

It may be an incredible coincidence that Paul Pelosi bought a modest $1,000,000 worth of Tesla stock in December 2020.  That, in and of itself, would not be amazing.  The amazing part is that soon thereafter, Congress expressed a genuine interest in resupplying the federal guvment vehicle fleet with electric vehicles.  Tesla, for your edification, makes only electric vehicles.

 

Facts:  Vehicles in use by the federal guvment amount to more than 645,000.  Speaker Pelosi, is a California Democrat.  Tesla vehicles are manufactured in California.  Ms. Pelosi voted for an all-electric vehicle motor pool for the guvment.

 

I know, I know.  That is just a coincidence.  But I never used the words ‘pay-to-play corruption,’ either, so please don’t sue me.

 

Nor am I implying The Speaker or her cash-savvy husband are using insider trading to make money – much like the scenario that led Martha Stewart to spend five-months in a federal prison, for lying to a federal agent.  Just saying.

 

Mr. and Ms. Pelosi appear to have exercised stock maneuvers known as ‘call options’ which allowed the couple to buy Tesla stock at a reduced rate until 2022.  Fortuitous is an excellent word to use to describe this stroke-of-luck.

 

“A Pelosi spokesman said her husband, not the Speaker, made the Tesla bets and the Speaker’s political relationships were irrelevant,” according to The Washington Times’ James Varney.  Does The Speaker talk in her sleep?

 

For your information, there are laws that prohibit insider trading, using proprietary knowledge to affect financial deals, just for such outward-appearing situations.

 

Even if there weren’t any statutes in place to guard against such maneuvers, the optics alone of the “perception is reality” phrase comes to mind.

 

Not to be left out of this sleazy arrangement of a husband POSSIBLY using his spouse’s information to buy stocks in a company that would virtually guarantee an astonishing return-on-investment, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, re-introduced pertinent legislation.

 

“Senator Warren’s bill “would ban stock trading by Congress members,” the aforementioned James Varney said.

 

“After nearly four years of the most corrupt president in American history and with U.S. senators brazenly trading stocks to profit from a raging pandemic, the Anti-Corruption and Public /integrity Act is more urgent than ever,” added Mr. Varney of a statement from Ms. Warren.

 

In fact, concurring Speaker Pelosi was so angry about the alleged shenanigans of the previous administration (sure she was,) as Ms. Warren, that Speaker Pelosi’s “spokesman rebuffed questions about the speaker’s stand on Ms. Warren’s bill and the move to an all-electric fleet saying it was ‘not relevant.’”

 

Of course Ms. Warren was not speaking about Ms. Pelosi’s, or any other guvment official’s financial dealings, or how a guvment employee could parlay a salary of $193,000 per annum into a $196,000,000 bank account.  Of course not.

Almost Better Than Free

 Let’s have some fun and put a couple of time-honored adages together.

 

First adage:  What goes up must come down.

 

Second adage:  If you think its expensive now, just wait until it’s free.

 

Idiom:  There’s an exception to every rule.

 

Sir Isaac Newton in need of a haircut

The first adage is usually attributed to Sir Isaac Newton regarding his “discovery” of gravity.  Newton learned that, according to legend, apples fell from trees because of gravity.  He was supposedly sitting beneath an apple tree, drinking tea, when an apple fell onto his noggin.  I was just a young lad when all this happened in 1679, and surmise this was a legend, rather than fact.

 

Our second adage is from a writer, P.J. O’Rourke, who was talking about then-president Barack Hussein O’Bama’s idealistic pimping of his Obamacare/Affordable Care Act insurance scam.  O’Bama promised healthcare would be free, but how would it be paid for?  He promised no higher taxes because this plan was so airtight that it would pay for itself.  It didn’t, which is why we are now inundated with countless TV ads for insurance.

 

Not to let a hare-brained idea go to waste, environmentalists have been banging their climate change drums since 1973.  Goading federal, state, and local guvments into spending billions upon billions of dollars on useless projects since then, environmentalists have an expensive itch to soothe: renewable energy.

 

Even private industries have been embarrassed into following suit, by playing the clean energy game – one competition that will have no winner – into “investing” obscene amounts of dollars as a form of “hush money,” not at all unlike Mafia shakedowns of yore.

 

Just as long as the dough keeps flowing, everyone is happy.  Guvments can ignore real changes by simply taxing the masses, corporations can continue with their businesses while passing the bills onto their customers, and the environmentalists can continue gadding about the world carping about pollution with their payoffs.  The only real losers are those who pay the bills.

 

If only we could find a way to make all this free…

 

According to the Tampa Electric Co., Tampa, Florida, they have that solution.  In February 2021, Tampa Electric was seeking a rate increase of what amounted to 18%, to begin switching their electricity to solar power.  Yeah!

 

Tampa Electric CEO Nancy Tower, said, “We know that investments we are planning are necessary to deliver benefits over time.”  Of course they are. 

 

“To continue delivering the value our customers deserve, we must plan for the long term, making investments now that create a better energy future,” she added.

 

It seems as though Tampa Electric is currently on track to generate 14% of its power from solar over the next two-years.  What could possibly go wrong?

 

Ms. Tower never used the words cost-effective, efficient, lower bills, or even cleaner environment.  Those would have been the keynote words to encourage the Florida state utility regulators to approve this rate increase.  Alas, one can now only speculate.

 

Adage one, would make Sir Isaac weep because centuries later, his words have proven to be false.  “What goes up must come down.”

 

Our idiom would certainly be relevant here because “There’s an exception to every rule” does not apply to getting lower utility costs because of renewable energy.

 

Adage two, just as with O’bama’s free healthcare bill, the prices associated therewith can only be expected to rise.  Once again, idiom one is germane to this adage, whose exception is that despite all claims, prices will rise, and dramatically so.  Which leads to another saying.

 

“There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Winky

Years and years and years ago I used to enjoy the comics in the newspaper.

 

I was a youngster way back when – I’m so old my blood type has been discontinued – my daily routine began with reading a newspaper.

 

Back then, newspapers offered two editions: one morning and one evening, each providing unique information on the day’s most recent stories.

 

I don’t recall if the evening edition included comics, but the morning was chock full o’ amusement.

 

In any case, this display of levity made me smile as I’m sure it did countless others.

 

When I reached my 12^th birthday and I began contemplating my future endeavor that I quickly realized any potential would likely combine my quirky sense of humor with my enjoyment of art.  I could grow up to be a cartoonist.  Unfortunately, I had trouble drawing a straight line.

 

It would be another few years before I began smoking cigarettes that I discovered the solution to my problem: Winky.

 

Winky was a character of a deer that appeared on matchbooks.  Matchbooks were necessary to dispensing matches which were necessary to lighting cigarettes in lieu of a lighter, and they were cheap ways to advertise.  It was the advent of the “Draw Winky” campaign.

 

The time was subsequent to World War II, and the Korean War, when GI’s were leaving service and searching for work.  Most smoked, and many lacked marketable skills, hence the cartoon art effort.

 

Along with Winky, Cuddles, a pirate, Spunky, a GI, a boxer dog, and a clown – no, not joe biden – also appeared on these valuable passports to gainful employment.  In retrospect, all now seem pretty easy to draw, but these mail-order art schools made the task seem otherwise without their classes.

 

Whether this inaugural “distance learning” effort was successful is open to opinion, as there were several, each offering a different character to replicate in order to judge the applicant’s abilities.  I’ll bet anyone with a check or money order was instantly qualified.

 

I never did submit an application because I was preoccupied with sixth-grade, which made my cartoonist career a mere pipe dream.  Besides, by the eight-grade I has my sights set on a professional baseball career.  But I digress.

 

But things have changed throughout the years.  Newspapers cut back to one edition per day, humor became politically correct, comics evolved into unfunny topical matters, all leading to fewer job opportunities for “matchbook artists.”

 

In retrospect it appears to be a good thing I didn’t pursue a career in drawing.

 

Still I wonder if I could have graduated from inking a cute deer to more timely political tripe.  Hopefully all my drawing wouldn’t closely resemble a turtle wearing a newsboy cap or a gruff pirate.  Unfortunately we’ll never know.

 

On the other hand, my “plan B” baseball skills excel over those cartoonists that likely need the fresh air.

 

 

 

 

Squeeze Play

 Since 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been trying to “find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally in an equitable way.”

 

Through this Convention, “every country on Earth is treaty-bound to ‘avoid dangerous climate change,” and has done so via regular gatherings.  The most recent was only weeks ago, entitled Council of the Parties, or COP26.

 

Sounding very important, COP26 was well-attended in Glasgow, Scotland, by world representatives including President Joseph Robinette Biden and John Kerry, from the United States.  Both American representatives agreed that climate change represents an existential threat to the Earth, a sentiment agreed upon by most attendees.

 

Forget the existential threat of systemic racism, or systemic economic inequity, or education disparity, or systemic crime, or energy, jobs, or corruption, this COP26 was laser-focused on climate change.

 

Boltneck Kerry piously addressed the Council on America’s sin of using irreplaceable fossil fuels to keep our citizens warm, lighted, and able to prepare food, through electricity.  Sins, indeed.

 

Poor countries seem to be given a free pass on their pollution transgressions because of their inability to be financially extorted the way more affluent nations have been.

 

Kerry’s horse face explained that the United States was willing to sacrifice comfort for long-term global goals toward climate stability which, by “expert” estimates, would mean great discomfort and sacrifices primarily by American citizens.

 

Gone would be the days of spacious vehicles, recreational boats and jetskis, and thermostats set at comfortable levels.  But all would be for the common good of attempting to avert climate change.  Yea!

 

President Biden mumbled his way through his allotted address time at COP26 to make similar concessions and promises of austere future existences of hard working Americans who have earned their place at the table of rewards of air-conditioned summers and warmer winters.  Alas, both Biden and Kerry felt otherwise.

 

Promising that major American automobile manufacturers would be making electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030, to appease this punitive Convention left me with more questions than answers for this climate change brain trust.

 

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has been a dismal failure for decades, losing a pleasantly surprising $9,200,000,000 in 2020.  That figure is “pleasant” because it was expected to lose billions of dollars more.

 

What could possibly turn this economic boondoggle around?  The definitive answer is new postal vehicles.

 

This brilliant idea will buy as many as 165,000 new trucks for the USPS, some of which may be hitting the streets in 2023.  The contract was awarded to a Wisconsin company through the equally genius Build Back Better plan which awards $6,000,000,000 to help speed production of the mail trucks.

 

According to The Daily Times story, appearing its November 12, 2021 issue, “Climate activists have pressured the USPS for the better part of a decade to retool its fleet.”

 

A Democrat California representative, Jared Huffman, put this legislation together.  His take was, “we ought to step up and do something.  This isn’t gonna fix everything.  But it’s a very nice first step.”

 

Not being sure what the second step will be, $6,000,000,000 is lot of money.  But the kicker is that this “first step” was rued by Huffman because “the USPS contract that allows for the production of gas-powered vehicles undercuts the climate goals.”  Uh, oh!

Sweet new USPS non-EV truck

 

“Gas-powered vehicles” you ask?

 

Yep.  Those 165,000 new USPS vehicles are NOT EVs, rather they are nifty-looking gas-powered trucks that the COP26 was promised would disappear in order to save the planet.

 

Maybe Biden and Kerry will have continued luck goading Congress into squeezing more money out of United States citizens for other hare-brained projects in the future.  Let’s hope they don’t run out of other people’s money, though.

Hilarious, But Not Funny

 “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”

 

That sentence is attributed to the late Groucho Marx of the wonderfully funny Marx Brothers comedy team, and couldn’t be truer.

The Marx Brothers

 

Although active for 44-years, until 1949, the Marx Brothers could make a garden rock laugh.  Sometimes known as the ‘Thinking Man’s Three Stooges,” Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo Marx used rapid-fire dialog to evoke chuckles, rather than slapstick comedy methods.

 

Since the demise of both the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges decades ago, the world was left with a void in the comedy arena that seemed impossible to refill.

 

Until the Congressional elections, that is.

 

It seems as though there are many Congress people who appear to have taken the above-mentioned comedy chasm as a personal crusade to fill with their own brand of levity. And they have done so with aplomb.

 

The first on this list of aspiring entertainers is Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA).  Rep. Schiff found his inspiration in comedy when Donald John Trump was elected President in 2016.

 

Through a series of fact contortions, Schiff, along with other smarmy Democrat politicians, began a campaign, instigated by Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, to discredit President Trump’s election.

 

“Collusion” was the catch-word of the succeeding four-years in Democrat efforts to dishonor President Trump and his constituents.  During that time, Schiff made one joke after another.

 

Claiming to have “irrefutable evidence” of collusion with the Russians, to steal the election from Clinton, Schiff repeated such baseless claims nearly daily until successor Joseph Robinette Biden was sworn into office in January 2021.

 

Even then, Schiff insisted he was correct and many of his claims were taken out of context; unfortunately, the Congressional Federal Record printed every word from Schiff’s lips, and are now a matter of, well, federal record. 

 

Next up is a woman named Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX).  Congress woman Lee is largely known for her arrogance among staffers and people not-of-color.  Quick to rally the troops around topical matters, Lee seems to have a deaf ear when it comes to sexual harassment and workplace abuses.

 

Demanding to be known as “Queen Jackson,” Lee once forced a woman on a united Airlines flight to cede her seat to Lee.  A subsequent social media post by the relocated flyer resulted in a public accusation of racism against African-American Lee, in reality, an African-American bully.  But why be left out of the racism arena?

 

Being drunk with power and a limited vocabulary, Lee often uses words such as “racist,” “bigot,” “racist, and “racist,” to make her points, always humorous for people with an IQ above room temperature.

 

And then we reach Congressman Henry Calvin Johnson, Jr., aka: Hank Johnson (D-GA).

 

Johnson is best described as ‘a hoot.’  In 2010, Johnson raised eyebrows during a House Armed Services Committee hearing.  That discussion regarded a planned military buildup of Guam, a U.S. territory island in the Pacific.

 

In a seemingly feeble attempt to exude his intelligence, Johnson expressed concerns about this buildup to Adm. Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific fleet.

 

Johnson stated his “fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize.”  No lie.  Mentally likening Guam to a swimming pool raft, Johnson proved why a college education is not really worth much.

 

Willard – with a semi-smile and semi-look of disbelief – tactfully responded, “We don’t anticipate that.”  And that is why Willard is an admiral and Johnson is a laughingstock.

 

So when you hear pious politicians pontificating about vaccines, higher taxes, inflation, critical race theory, defunding the police, border control, Russian collusion, the supply chain, Ukraine, and climate change, realize what Groucho Marx was saying.

 

He may have been the great thinker before his time.

For Thee, Not For Me

 Anger seems to be abounding, evidenced by near daily news stories about random killings and assaults, school board meeting brouhahas, and fights aboard flying airplanes.

 

With everyone on edge over inane COVID vaccine regulations, soaring consumer costs, and uncontrolled southern border crossings, the words “short fuse” don’t begin to describe the brink on which our nation is teetering.

 

Of course, these public and private demons are usually handled quietly as a family or internally.  Until some outsider feels the need to interject their wisdom in your business, that is.

 

Being reared in a religious family, I studied the catechism and the Bible to reinforce my beliefs, which are strong and devout.  Amen.

 

But as of late, non-Christians, and Christians alike, have felt the unchecked need to attempt to impose their thoughts and feelings upon my own sensibilities.

 

An example would be my belief in most of the Bible.  Therein is a parable mentioning a fellow named Noah.  Without building you the watch to tell you the time, Noah was instructed, by God, to construct an ark, in preparation for a coming devastating flood.

 

Noah dutifully complied and gathered breeding pairs of animals to assist in the repopulation of the Earth. 

 

This story usually garners more disdain than other biblical writings because of its outlandish claims of a global flood, the volume of passenger creatures, and the actions of God.  However, being a Christian, faith is part of not questioning God or His deeds and actions, because He is almighty and infallible.

 

Such staunch beliefs are commonly mocked, and its adherents berated as being of low intelligence and easily misled.  Plain and simple, those atheists are wrong.

 

As an example, they claim my God cannot be proven as He cannot be seen, scripture is too nebulous and unbelievable, and a loving God would not subject His followers to pain and suffering.

 

As such, Christians like me are often condemned for having false beliefs in a pretend God, largely because the disbelievers have no faith.  Period.

 

On the other hand, those very same atheists – disbelievers – have their own “religion” by which they live and breathe and expect me to blindly follow, without question.

 

Their ersatz religion is “climate change,” a false god practiced at the altar of Mother Earth.

 

Yes, climate change is a notion that morphed from a half-baked idea into a multibillion dollar, organized crime-like, world-wide operation, using the Earth’s inhabitants as suckers.

 

IF YOU ARE NOW GRASPING YOUR CHEST IN PAIN, PLEASE STOP READING AND RECYCLE SOMETHING.

 

As I am writing this, world leaders are meeting in Scotland to discuss many issues concerning the entire planet, including climate change.  Yea!

 

In fact, President Joseph Robinette Biden is speaking to the assembled pious attendees, laying the groundwork for their Church of Climate Change religion to address this “existential” threat to humanity.  Existential, I say.

 

Yes, these same people who mocked Christians in an attempt to drive people away from their established religions are now promoting their own version of a religion, in a way P.T. Barnum could only dream.

 

School children and parents, alike, as well as teachers, corporate executives, bankers, and politicians, have all accepted the Church of Climate Change as their official mode of transportation toward the future.  And this gravy train is full of enticing money, as an aside to its socially conscious message.

 

My plan: Two for me, none for you

Keep in mind that these heathens mocked others for worshiping an entity that is invisible and, according to them, uncaring.  Those same traits can be found in the Church of Climate Change, but likely won’t.

 

For the record, since its inception, the Church of Climate Change has always been an exercise in transferring money and lame actions into so-called noble measures directly attempting to correct their claims of man-man ruination of our planet.  Once again, they are wrong.

 

If you really want to see how sincere those anointed few Church of Climate Change leaders are about correcting environmental problems, read on.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, both skipped this critical meeting to control the Earth’s destiny and that of its inhabitants.

 

And just ahead of his G-20 gathering in Scotland, President Biden was given an audience in Rome, Italy, by Pope Francis, at the Vatican.  President Biden, whose brilliant domestic energy policy has driven up gasoline prices by more than a dollar, clearly had no issue with that.

 

In fact, Biden’s caravan wound its way through Rome – all 85-vehicles.  Yep.  Eighty-five. 

 

Not as environmentally-conscious at someone from the Church of Climate Change would have you believe.  Too bad I’m not as smart as these climate change mental weaklings.