Puppetry
05/02/23 16:29
Good morning, world! Can you believe that February is just two days away? What about those weird football playoff games on the telly yesterday? Purdy, the 23-year-old quarterback for the 49ers, was taken out of the game early with an injury. He was replaced by a third-string guy who clearly was not up to the task of getting his team across the finish line. It made the game less interesting to watch, and it didn't get any better as their opponents racked up touchdown after touchdown. The final score was something like 31-7. In the second game of the day, the Bengals player shoved the QB of the Chiefs after both had gone out of bounds, which garnered a penalty that put the Chiefs within range to get a field goal in the final seconds of the game, which put the Chiefs up 23-20 over the Bengals. I mean, who does that? Did he intentionally throw the game?
The Ev man just messaged me with a picture of his purchases sitting on a conveyor belt at a local grocery store. He said something about not having any food at his house. I texted him back and told him that I thought he needed to buy bigger milks. I don't think he disagrees with that, but he never texted me back, so that's that. I'm glad to see him doing a little shopping to get what he needs instead of just hitting a drive-up window at a local Mcdonald's or other every time he needs something to eat. There was a time in the not-so-distant past when he wouldn't go out food shopping, so it's a bit of a relief to see him out there. It was so bad at one point that I suggested he place his order ahead of time and pick it up at the appointed hour. He could get the things he needed without stepping foot in the store. We tried that once or twice with some success.
I really need to get the tires squared away on our car. If that means I'm buying replacement tires sooner than necessary, then so be it. I can't have the missus out on the highway, especially during the winter, running the risk of getting into an accident because she has tires that aren't up to snuff. I noticed some unusual tread wear on the front right tire that had me wondering how things got so bad so fast. I was in the shop not long ago, and I know they suggested I get an alignment, but the tire wear looked normal, so I didn't follow up. The good news is that I'm close enough to needing to replace the tires anyway, so I'll pop into Portsmouth for an alignment. The dealership wanted some $300 for an alignment. Let's see how much this garage in Portsmouth charges.
My guitar practice is coming along pretty well. I've been trying to learn this particular song, and it's taking a long time. I've discovered that you need to start slowly, and the speed will come in time. If you try to rush things, it all falls apart. It's a muscle memory thing, or so I'm finding out. The song I'm working on doesn't sound quite right when I play it slowly, so I've been intentionally rushing my playing. And predictably, I'm tripping all over myself. I need a metronome. That should help me with the beats-per-minute thing. Should I buy a separate metronome or simply get a metronome app on my phone? Does needing a metronome mean that I'm a more serious student? One thing I like about this song I'm learning is that it involves a certain fingerpicking style. I'm not just strumming away like a blithering idiot in my practice sessions. I'm sure music theory isn't far behind. Stay tuned. No, really.
I wonder how the citizens in Ukraine feel about all of the military hardware being shipped to their country. I'm talking about the everyday Joe, or whatever the Ukrainian equivalent for Joe is in that country. I'm talking about the mothers and fathers who might like to see a cessation of hostilities so they can send their children to school without worrying about their being raped or killed en route. Does this latest acquisition of tanks from countries around the world give them more or less confidence that the neighborhoods in which they and their families live will even exist in the coming weeks and months? It's true that some might prefer death to life under Russian rule, but there must be others who might want to take their chances regardless. Has anyone seen any polling on Zelesnky's leadership? And now Ukraine is reportedly looking to acquire jets. Biden says no, but this is the same clown who said "no" to tanks not long ago.
Did anyone see Tucker Carlson's segment last night on America's food supply? I tuned in a little late, so I didn't see the initial clip he played about Biden when he referenced food shortages in America while giving a speech in Europe. I also haven't heard anything about Biden's comments in the media. That's no surprise. They continue to do the bidding of the Democrat party by suppressing Biden's idiocy while playing up things that otherwise appeal to his lunatic constituency. Tucker talked about egg production in the country and mentioned that chickens are laying fewer eggs due to the feed being fed to them. In whose interest is it to reduce the number of eggs made available to the American consumer? And then you have the suspicious fire the other day that killed thousands of chickens in a plant somewhere in Connecticut. It sure sounds like a reality-based conspiracy to me. The price of eggs is already out of reach for everyone but the uber-wealthy, so where the hell is this all going?
Should I head to the store today to stock up on food? What should I purchase? How much food will I need to survive this famine coming down the pike? If I put a garden in this summer, will it be plundered by the millions of illegal aliens crossing into our country at the invitation of Joe Biden and his Democrat party? What firearms will I need to purchase to protect myself and my family? Will firearms even be available when the time comes when I need one? I read an article not long ago that sang the praises of eating bugs and how they are a likely source of protein in the future. Well, folks, the future seems to be now. These articles don't appear willy-nilly. These are probably the same ass-clowns who want you to go out and buy an electric car so we can allegedly reduce our carbon footprint on the planet. They never tell you that without a carbon-based economy, we're easy pickings for the global depots who, just incidentally, are building more coal-fired plants and not fewer.
You know that these idiots in the Biden Administration plant stories in the media just to see what kind of reaction they can get. Right? More to the point, they realize that introducing these bizarre ideas gradually is better than implementing them right out of the box. It''s the old frog in the boiling water routine. A more recent example is the gas stove nonsense, where they plan to outlaw the production and use of gas stoves. They don't care who they hurt, how many businesses they put out of business, or who may have an opposing view. These are the leftists doing what leftists have done from the jump. It's their way or the fucking highway. This is also what a one-party government looks like. Think California or New York. Both are bastions of the nuttiest of the nutty. And not just nutty, dangerous. Maybe starving people is just one more arrow in their quiver for controlling the population. You'll eat bugs, and you'll be happy. I'm old enough to remember when owning a Prius was the wet dream of every leftist coast-to-coast. Times sure have changed, and not for the better.
I don't know about you, but I'm a little concerned about where all this stuff I hear about Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going. Chat GPT has been in the news lately as the latest and greatest example of how one particular form of AI will revolutionize our society. It's very convincing, you have to admit. It's quite obvious how devastating this application can be for certain careers. You'll no longer have job postings for people to write computer code. If you work in Hollywood and you need a scriptwriter, just dial up the Chat GBT app, and you are off and running. Bigger picture, I'm concerned about who controls the reins of AI in our society. Is that even possible? I don't want the leftists anywhere near this tool, but that may be asking too much. They have control of everything else, from our educational institutions to what propaganda they get to spew out from the sewer that is Hollywood, so the horse may have already left the barn, euphemistically speaking. Is this what losing control feels like?
Speaking of horses leaving the barn, are you hearing the stories about the illegal aliens in New York City? The first question I have is if they are invited into our country by Bumbles Biden and then put up in the finest hotels in one of our greatest cities, can they still be considered "illegal"? Anyway, it turns out that these animals are trashing everything in sight in the hotels in which they're being housed. We're not talking about the Motel Six chain of motels. These are some of New York City's finest hotels which ordinarily fetch a hefty price and are usually only frequented by high rollers. These ungrateful fucks have been given everything they need, and this is the thanks they give? Now, they want to move out of the hotels and into some of the real estate on the West side of New York, where condos go for tens of millions of dollars. I have no sympathy for the people who brought these ingrates into our country or those who decided that putting them in our hotels was a good idea. You make your bed, and you fucking sleep in it. The good news is that we know where to find them when the time comes to deport their lazy, ungrateful, and criminal asses. The bad news is they are still flowing into our country at the rate of a million illegal aliens a month.
If I'm not mistaken, the Republicans in Congress just announced that they are bringing Articles of Impeachment against Mayorkis, the guy responsible for the policies that allow all of these animals into our country. He is the ass clown who, when asked about the border, will tell you with a straight face that we have no problem at the border. The problem is, Biden will just replace him with another leftist freak who will be just as bad, or God forbid, even worse. How eager do you think some of the poorest of the poor living in abject squalor in some of the shithole countries south of our border are going to be to come to our country after receiving texts, pictures, and videos of the lavish lifestyles now being afforded to their loved ones who braved the trip northward to America? They'll be coming across our border by the tens of millions a month. These hearings on the border crisis kick off in a week, and I plan to tune in. There would be no congressional hearings if the democrats controlled the House of Representatives. They approve and applaud Biden's immigration policies. The sooner they turn our states blue, the sooner they can turn our country into another California or New York City. God help us.
We'll hear from Powell today on the future of rate hikes. The consensus seems to be that he'll announce a 25 basis point rate hike. In my opinion, there is still much too much froth in the financial markets, and announcing a 25 basis point rate hike will only fuel more froth and speculation. If you have been watching the stock market over the last few weeks, you'd think Powell was planning to announce rate cuts today. You know, the pivot thing. A veritable soft landing. Corporate earnings and forward guidance across the board have taken a hit, but valuations have remained elevated. None of this portends good things for inflation rates, which is at the crux of what drives or doesn't drive the Fed to do what they do with interest rates. With China opening its markets, competition for raw materials globally will only stoke inflation rates in the US and elsewhere, so I think Powell needs to get out in front of this with something more than a 25 basis point rate hike. Marginally higher unemployment rates also don't seem to be impacting demand for goods and services, so I suspect the culling of the corporate herd will continue unabated for the foreseeable future.
I was out food shopping the other day and was about to pick up a moderately sized block of feta cheese when I noticed the price. They wanted ten bucks for that block of feta cheese. I put it right back on the shelf. I don't know who they think they're squeezing, but I don't need feta cheese that much that I'm willing to pay three times the price I was paying just a month or two ago. I like feta cheese, but not that much. Maybe this is how they make up for falling sales numbers - they just raise the price to make up for the difference. Not on my dime, you mother fuckers. These clowns hear the word "inflation" and don't want to be the last kid on the block to raise their prices for fear of being left behind. There is such a thing as pricing your product out of the average consumer's reach. Is this any worse than the two small heads of organic broccoli I saw on the shelf the other day with a price tag of $9.95? I didn't buy those either.
Fast forward 24 hours, and I can now report that Powell came out and announced an interest rate hike of 25 basis points. As I mentioned, it's not enough to tamp down demand where it can directly impact inflation. Why would he signal risk-on to the investment community when his previous messaging was just the opposite? Maybe he's accepting the fact that inflation is likely to stay elevated as long as we're on a perpetual war footing with our involvement in the Ukraine/Russia conflict. That being the case, he's increasing interest rates to make sure that the mom-and-pop investors who can't afford to have their live's savings in the casino (stock market) get a return of some kind on their savings, however marginal. The wealth effect created by gains in the stock market for those who still have money to invest will keep the economy humming along as well, so it's a win-win. Housing will remain largely unaffordable for the average Joe; Electric vehicles will remain largely out of reach for the average consumer; inflation will continue to cut into family budgets across the board, and everything will be reassessed after we stop sending every last one of our tax dollars, and then some, to the panhandler in Ukraine.
I heard on the news yesterday that they "raided" Biden's beach house in Rehobeth, Delaware. It was all done with the cooperation of the president and his attorneys, they reported. This comes three weeks after they reported that other files were found in another of Biden's residences. What took the FBI so long to get their sorry asses out to the Rehobeth site? Biden has had more than enough time to clear that residence of any incriminating documents before the FBI showed up to conduct their search, and one has to wonder. Was that the plan all along? It's a damn Kabuki dance by Biden and his DOJ, and nobody's buying their bullshit. I continue to ask why the intelligence agencies are covering up crimes by the Biden Crime Family when they have all the evidence they need to send Joey and his entire cabal of criminals in that family to prison for a hundred years. Maybe that should tell us what a rat's nest the DOJ and their brethren agencies are. Does any of this remind you of the stories of old about J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI back in the day, who kept secret files on governmental officials to use as he saw fit when he needed a favor, if you know what I mean?
The funeral for that guy who the five cops killed was held yesterday in Memphis. I think his name was Tyree Nichols or something. Tyree was black, as were the five rogue cops who beat him to death. We still don't know why the cops pulled him over. You would think that would be an important part of the story. Not that it would justify what the cops did to him because nobody deserves to die at the hands of the police. The media wants this story to be all about police brutality and the oppression brought about by White Supremacy and racism. Never mind that none of the participants were white. This is George Floyd 2.0. Or was his name Floyd George? I can't remember. Anyway, just when you thought they couldn't exploit this young fellow's death enough, who shows up at the funeral? None other than race hustlers like Al Sharpton, The clownish Vice President Harris (Wille's main squeeze), and other notable race baiters who will go unmentioned here. This was your democrat party doing what democrats do. They live and die by the cardinal rule, "never let a good crisis go to waste." Race exploitation is just the cherry on top.
Stop the damn presses! Are you telling me that a Chinese spy balloon is hovering over our ICBM sites in Montana, and this idiot Biden sitting in the White House won't issue the order to shoot it down? How much more do we need to see to convince us that the Bidens are card-carrying members of the Chinese Communist Party? The media immediately covered for Biden by saying that Biden issued the order to shoot it down, but the Military talked him out of it. That's bullshit. If we had a spy balloon hovering over Beijing, how long do you think it would take the Chinese to shoot that fucker out of the sky? You know how this works. Right? You give them an inch, they take a mile. When we fail to protect our interests against enemies who would do us harm, this opens the door to even more skullduggery. The Chinese have to be laughing their asses off at the sheer incompetence and idiocy of what passes for American leadership sitting in our nation's White House. They know, of course, that they own Bumbles Biden, and he'll do what they tell him to do. It's humiliating, to say the least.
I feel pretty good about seeing Ilhan Omar kicked off the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday by a majority vote in the House of Representatives. She's the vile antisemite sitting in Congress who referred to 9/11 when she uttered the insanely contemptible phrase "somebody did something." She was referring to what her brethren did on that fateful day in 2001 when 3,000 of our fellow Americans lost their lives when the Twin Towers collapsed in New York City. She's free to spew her hatred in other committees should she so choose, but not on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Good riddance is what I say. Her fellow Democrats had their little five-minute speeches before the vote, where they acted like the whiny little bitches that they are. The histrionics were embarrassing and not a good look for our country. And, I have to ask the question. If she hates America so much, she should return to the shithole that is Somalia, where she came from. Bon voyage, bitch! That's french for good riddance.
I'm on a bit of a tear this morning. That Chinese spy balloon thing has my mind going in a thousand different directions. Maybe someone will come to their senses today and do what needs to be done. It's an act of defiance by one of our sworn enemies, and we're acting like we're willing to look the other way no matter what they do. I thought the Chinese had crossed the line when they opened up police stations in select cities across America to police their own people. Are we a sovereign country or not? Nobody said or did anything to stop that out-and-out bullshit. Now we have these spy balloons flying over our cities, sucking up the bandwidth of intelligence or whatever passes for intelligence these days in our country. This is a seminal moment in our nation's history, folks. I'm guessing it won't be long before Chinese cruisers are seen off our shores, or, God forbid, the Chinese military will be training their troops on our soil. What if the Chinese put up another spy balloon? How many spy balloons are too many spy balloons?
I've been riding my bike this past week, with temperatures hovering around thirty degrees without much trouble at all. I wanted to tell the missus that I was never chilled one way or another for even a moment. She never asked, so I never said anything. I've got all the right gear to wear when it gets cold, so it's not like I'm braving anything if you get my drift. It's more about wearing the right number of layers than anything else. I'm not sure it's possible to wear too many layers when it gets into the twenties, but I'm always pushing the limits and trying different things. Let's just say that the jury is still out. Temperatures will be in the single digits today, with wind chills well below zero. This will not be a good day to be out and about on my bicycle. I might be okay with riding when temperatures are in the twenties, but the wind chill factor has me thinking twice about just how ballsy I want to be about doing this. The thought of taking a day off feels pretty good, too, so that's how I'm leaning like it or not.
It was minus nine on our thermometer when I got up a little before six this morning. Wind chills are running in the minus twenty to minus thirty range as I sit here at the keyboard in my jammies and wool hat. The missus was talking to me yesterday about how furnaces can't quite keep up when the temperatures get this cold. That was her roundabout way of telling me to keep the fucking thing running come hell or high water. We generally turn off our heat during the night, but last night was an exception. I was a bit fearful that the lines running from our oil tank to our furnace might freeze, and then where would we be? We'd be up shit's creek without a paddle, as my dad used to say. I had visions of being put on hold for hours when calling for service and having things go from bad to worse as the temperatures inside our house plunged in the overnight hours. I went to bed listening to what I thought was a furnace struggling to keep up with the demands to push even more heat into our home than it was designed to deliver. I woke up every few hours and turned it down a notch or two, thinking that doing so would give it a much-needed break. We have another 24 hours of this cold before temperatures start to moderate.
There has been no resolution overnight on that so-called Chinese weather balloon flying across our fruited plains. It's still up there sucking up data from here, there, and everywhere over cities and towns in the continental United States. You know we're not getting the real story from our government. Right? They've spun themselves in circles on this one, but the balloon continues on its directed path unmolested per orders from Bumbles himself. There is a hue and a cry across our land to shoot it out of the sky, but Bumbles is having none of it. Biden's military said something about the dangers of a debris field that could endanger lives if the balloon was shot out of the sky. Tell that to the people in Montana, where there are more cattle than people. It could have been brought down when it entered Alaskan air space for chrissakes, but Bumbles was content to bend over once again for his masters in Beijing, and the balloon was allowed to proceed on its path. There are now rumors of a second Chinese balloon that may either be entering or has entered our air space. Do we need any more evidence that the Biden crime family has been bought and paid for by the Chinese Communist Party? I certainly don't.
I was telling the missus the other day that I was home with her the morning of 9/11 in 2001 when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center in NYC. My first thought was that someone in a Cessna had lost their way in the myriad of high rises that dot the NYC skyline and had crashed headlong into one of New York City's more prominent buildings. I remember thinking before leaving for work that morning that there was enough confusion in the reporting about what precisely had flown into the building that I might want to follow up once I was in my car and en route to my job. The missus disputed my account and thought it unlikely that I was still home at 8;45 am that morning when the first plane hit. "You would have been at work or, at a minimum, well on your way to work at 8:45 back then, Johnny", she insisted. It's the one day in my life, tragic as it was for our country, where I have an almost perfect memory of what happened, where I was moment by moment, for at least the better part of that fateful day. Sorry, sweets. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
It's Sunday, and I need to get this week's blog out the door. I won't keep you much longer. I can hardly wait to watch the Sunday morning talking heads singing Bumble's praises for having the courage to shoot down the weather balloon that finally found its way out of the continental USA and off the shore of South Carolina by yesterday morning. You'll not hear one of them criticizing our fearless Commander-in-Chief for allowing the balloon to traverse our great nation coast to coast before giving our military the go-ahead to shoot it out of the sky. The weather balloon, which was really a spying and reconnaissance balloon piloted by the Chinese Communist Party, has effectively scooped up every last bit of intelligence and data they were looking to collect as it flew over every one of our nation's premier military installations. The data was back in Bejing by the time Bumbles gave the order, but that won't matter to Biden's praetorian guard, that is, the media. Americans know better, and this feckless piece of trash sitting behind the Resolute desk in our Oval Office has sold out our country once again. Just a complete and utter disgrace.
The Ev man just messaged me with a picture of his purchases sitting on a conveyor belt at a local grocery store. He said something about not having any food at his house. I texted him back and told him that I thought he needed to buy bigger milks. I don't think he disagrees with that, but he never texted me back, so that's that. I'm glad to see him doing a little shopping to get what he needs instead of just hitting a drive-up window at a local Mcdonald's or other every time he needs something to eat. There was a time in the not-so-distant past when he wouldn't go out food shopping, so it's a bit of a relief to see him out there. It was so bad at one point that I suggested he place his order ahead of time and pick it up at the appointed hour. He could get the things he needed without stepping foot in the store. We tried that once or twice with some success.
I really need to get the tires squared away on our car. If that means I'm buying replacement tires sooner than necessary, then so be it. I can't have the missus out on the highway, especially during the winter, running the risk of getting into an accident because she has tires that aren't up to snuff. I noticed some unusual tread wear on the front right tire that had me wondering how things got so bad so fast. I was in the shop not long ago, and I know they suggested I get an alignment, but the tire wear looked normal, so I didn't follow up. The good news is that I'm close enough to needing to replace the tires anyway, so I'll pop into Portsmouth for an alignment. The dealership wanted some $300 for an alignment. Let's see how much this garage in Portsmouth charges.
My guitar practice is coming along pretty well. I've been trying to learn this particular song, and it's taking a long time. I've discovered that you need to start slowly, and the speed will come in time. If you try to rush things, it all falls apart. It's a muscle memory thing, or so I'm finding out. The song I'm working on doesn't sound quite right when I play it slowly, so I've been intentionally rushing my playing. And predictably, I'm tripping all over myself. I need a metronome. That should help me with the beats-per-minute thing. Should I buy a separate metronome or simply get a metronome app on my phone? Does needing a metronome mean that I'm a more serious student? One thing I like about this song I'm learning is that it involves a certain fingerpicking style. I'm not just strumming away like a blithering idiot in my practice sessions. I'm sure music theory isn't far behind. Stay tuned. No, really.
I wonder how the citizens in Ukraine feel about all of the military hardware being shipped to their country. I'm talking about the everyday Joe, or whatever the Ukrainian equivalent for Joe is in that country. I'm talking about the mothers and fathers who might like to see a cessation of hostilities so they can send their children to school without worrying about their being raped or killed en route. Does this latest acquisition of tanks from countries around the world give them more or less confidence that the neighborhoods in which they and their families live will even exist in the coming weeks and months? It's true that some might prefer death to life under Russian rule, but there must be others who might want to take their chances regardless. Has anyone seen any polling on Zelesnky's leadership? And now Ukraine is reportedly looking to acquire jets. Biden says no, but this is the same clown who said "no" to tanks not long ago.
Did anyone see Tucker Carlson's segment last night on America's food supply? I tuned in a little late, so I didn't see the initial clip he played about Biden when he referenced food shortages in America while giving a speech in Europe. I also haven't heard anything about Biden's comments in the media. That's no surprise. They continue to do the bidding of the Democrat party by suppressing Biden's idiocy while playing up things that otherwise appeal to his lunatic constituency. Tucker talked about egg production in the country and mentioned that chickens are laying fewer eggs due to the feed being fed to them. In whose interest is it to reduce the number of eggs made available to the American consumer? And then you have the suspicious fire the other day that killed thousands of chickens in a plant somewhere in Connecticut. It sure sounds like a reality-based conspiracy to me. The price of eggs is already out of reach for everyone but the uber-wealthy, so where the hell is this all going?
Should I head to the store today to stock up on food? What should I purchase? How much food will I need to survive this famine coming down the pike? If I put a garden in this summer, will it be plundered by the millions of illegal aliens crossing into our country at the invitation of Joe Biden and his Democrat party? What firearms will I need to purchase to protect myself and my family? Will firearms even be available when the time comes when I need one? I read an article not long ago that sang the praises of eating bugs and how they are a likely source of protein in the future. Well, folks, the future seems to be now. These articles don't appear willy-nilly. These are probably the same ass-clowns who want you to go out and buy an electric car so we can allegedly reduce our carbon footprint on the planet. They never tell you that without a carbon-based economy, we're easy pickings for the global depots who, just incidentally, are building more coal-fired plants and not fewer.
You know that these idiots in the Biden Administration plant stories in the media just to see what kind of reaction they can get. Right? More to the point, they realize that introducing these bizarre ideas gradually is better than implementing them right out of the box. It''s the old frog in the boiling water routine. A more recent example is the gas stove nonsense, where they plan to outlaw the production and use of gas stoves. They don't care who they hurt, how many businesses they put out of business, or who may have an opposing view. These are the leftists doing what leftists have done from the jump. It's their way or the fucking highway. This is also what a one-party government looks like. Think California or New York. Both are bastions of the nuttiest of the nutty. And not just nutty, dangerous. Maybe starving people is just one more arrow in their quiver for controlling the population. You'll eat bugs, and you'll be happy. I'm old enough to remember when owning a Prius was the wet dream of every leftist coast-to-coast. Times sure have changed, and not for the better.
I don't know about you, but I'm a little concerned about where all this stuff I hear about Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going. Chat GPT has been in the news lately as the latest and greatest example of how one particular form of AI will revolutionize our society. It's very convincing, you have to admit. It's quite obvious how devastating this application can be for certain careers. You'll no longer have job postings for people to write computer code. If you work in Hollywood and you need a scriptwriter, just dial up the Chat GBT app, and you are off and running. Bigger picture, I'm concerned about who controls the reins of AI in our society. Is that even possible? I don't want the leftists anywhere near this tool, but that may be asking too much. They have control of everything else, from our educational institutions to what propaganda they get to spew out from the sewer that is Hollywood, so the horse may have already left the barn, euphemistically speaking. Is this what losing control feels like?
Speaking of horses leaving the barn, are you hearing the stories about the illegal aliens in New York City? The first question I have is if they are invited into our country by Bumbles Biden and then put up in the finest hotels in one of our greatest cities, can they still be considered "illegal"? Anyway, it turns out that these animals are trashing everything in sight in the hotels in which they're being housed. We're not talking about the Motel Six chain of motels. These are some of New York City's finest hotels which ordinarily fetch a hefty price and are usually only frequented by high rollers. These ungrateful fucks have been given everything they need, and this is the thanks they give? Now, they want to move out of the hotels and into some of the real estate on the West side of New York, where condos go for tens of millions of dollars. I have no sympathy for the people who brought these ingrates into our country or those who decided that putting them in our hotels was a good idea. You make your bed, and you fucking sleep in it. The good news is that we know where to find them when the time comes to deport their lazy, ungrateful, and criminal asses. The bad news is they are still flowing into our country at the rate of a million illegal aliens a month.
If I'm not mistaken, the Republicans in Congress just announced that they are bringing Articles of Impeachment against Mayorkis, the guy responsible for the policies that allow all of these animals into our country. He is the ass clown who, when asked about the border, will tell you with a straight face that we have no problem at the border. The problem is, Biden will just replace him with another leftist freak who will be just as bad, or God forbid, even worse. How eager do you think some of the poorest of the poor living in abject squalor in some of the shithole countries south of our border are going to be to come to our country after receiving texts, pictures, and videos of the lavish lifestyles now being afforded to their loved ones who braved the trip northward to America? They'll be coming across our border by the tens of millions a month. These hearings on the border crisis kick off in a week, and I plan to tune in. There would be no congressional hearings if the democrats controlled the House of Representatives. They approve and applaud Biden's immigration policies. The sooner they turn our states blue, the sooner they can turn our country into another California or New York City. God help us.
We'll hear from Powell today on the future of rate hikes. The consensus seems to be that he'll announce a 25 basis point rate hike. In my opinion, there is still much too much froth in the financial markets, and announcing a 25 basis point rate hike will only fuel more froth and speculation. If you have been watching the stock market over the last few weeks, you'd think Powell was planning to announce rate cuts today. You know, the pivot thing. A veritable soft landing. Corporate earnings and forward guidance across the board have taken a hit, but valuations have remained elevated. None of this portends good things for inflation rates, which is at the crux of what drives or doesn't drive the Fed to do what they do with interest rates. With China opening its markets, competition for raw materials globally will only stoke inflation rates in the US and elsewhere, so I think Powell needs to get out in front of this with something more than a 25 basis point rate hike. Marginally higher unemployment rates also don't seem to be impacting demand for goods and services, so I suspect the culling of the corporate herd will continue unabated for the foreseeable future.
I was out food shopping the other day and was about to pick up a moderately sized block of feta cheese when I noticed the price. They wanted ten bucks for that block of feta cheese. I put it right back on the shelf. I don't know who they think they're squeezing, but I don't need feta cheese that much that I'm willing to pay three times the price I was paying just a month or two ago. I like feta cheese, but not that much. Maybe this is how they make up for falling sales numbers - they just raise the price to make up for the difference. Not on my dime, you mother fuckers. These clowns hear the word "inflation" and don't want to be the last kid on the block to raise their prices for fear of being left behind. There is such a thing as pricing your product out of the average consumer's reach. Is this any worse than the two small heads of organic broccoli I saw on the shelf the other day with a price tag of $9.95? I didn't buy those either.
Fast forward 24 hours, and I can now report that Powell came out and announced an interest rate hike of 25 basis points. As I mentioned, it's not enough to tamp down demand where it can directly impact inflation. Why would he signal risk-on to the investment community when his previous messaging was just the opposite? Maybe he's accepting the fact that inflation is likely to stay elevated as long as we're on a perpetual war footing with our involvement in the Ukraine/Russia conflict. That being the case, he's increasing interest rates to make sure that the mom-and-pop investors who can't afford to have their live's savings in the casino (stock market) get a return of some kind on their savings, however marginal. The wealth effect created by gains in the stock market for those who still have money to invest will keep the economy humming along as well, so it's a win-win. Housing will remain largely unaffordable for the average Joe; Electric vehicles will remain largely out of reach for the average consumer; inflation will continue to cut into family budgets across the board, and everything will be reassessed after we stop sending every last one of our tax dollars, and then some, to the panhandler in Ukraine.
I heard on the news yesterday that they "raided" Biden's beach house in Rehobeth, Delaware. It was all done with the cooperation of the president and his attorneys, they reported. This comes three weeks after they reported that other files were found in another of Biden's residences. What took the FBI so long to get their sorry asses out to the Rehobeth site? Biden has had more than enough time to clear that residence of any incriminating documents before the FBI showed up to conduct their search, and one has to wonder. Was that the plan all along? It's a damn Kabuki dance by Biden and his DOJ, and nobody's buying their bullshit. I continue to ask why the intelligence agencies are covering up crimes by the Biden Crime Family when they have all the evidence they need to send Joey and his entire cabal of criminals in that family to prison for a hundred years. Maybe that should tell us what a rat's nest the DOJ and their brethren agencies are. Does any of this remind you of the stories of old about J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI back in the day, who kept secret files on governmental officials to use as he saw fit when he needed a favor, if you know what I mean?
The funeral for that guy who the five cops killed was held yesterday in Memphis. I think his name was Tyree Nichols or something. Tyree was black, as were the five rogue cops who beat him to death. We still don't know why the cops pulled him over. You would think that would be an important part of the story. Not that it would justify what the cops did to him because nobody deserves to die at the hands of the police. The media wants this story to be all about police brutality and the oppression brought about by White Supremacy and racism. Never mind that none of the participants were white. This is George Floyd 2.0. Or was his name Floyd George? I can't remember. Anyway, just when you thought they couldn't exploit this young fellow's death enough, who shows up at the funeral? None other than race hustlers like Al Sharpton, The clownish Vice President Harris (Wille's main squeeze), and other notable race baiters who will go unmentioned here. This was your democrat party doing what democrats do. They live and die by the cardinal rule, "never let a good crisis go to waste." Race exploitation is just the cherry on top.
Stop the damn presses! Are you telling me that a Chinese spy balloon is hovering over our ICBM sites in Montana, and this idiot Biden sitting in the White House won't issue the order to shoot it down? How much more do we need to see to convince us that the Bidens are card-carrying members of the Chinese Communist Party? The media immediately covered for Biden by saying that Biden issued the order to shoot it down, but the Military talked him out of it. That's bullshit. If we had a spy balloon hovering over Beijing, how long do you think it would take the Chinese to shoot that fucker out of the sky? You know how this works. Right? You give them an inch, they take a mile. When we fail to protect our interests against enemies who would do us harm, this opens the door to even more skullduggery. The Chinese have to be laughing their asses off at the sheer incompetence and idiocy of what passes for American leadership sitting in our nation's White House. They know, of course, that they own Bumbles Biden, and he'll do what they tell him to do. It's humiliating, to say the least.
I feel pretty good about seeing Ilhan Omar kicked off the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday by a majority vote in the House of Representatives. She's the vile antisemite sitting in Congress who referred to 9/11 when she uttered the insanely contemptible phrase "somebody did something." She was referring to what her brethren did on that fateful day in 2001 when 3,000 of our fellow Americans lost their lives when the Twin Towers collapsed in New York City. She's free to spew her hatred in other committees should she so choose, but not on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Good riddance is what I say. Her fellow Democrats had their little five-minute speeches before the vote, where they acted like the whiny little bitches that they are. The histrionics were embarrassing and not a good look for our country. And, I have to ask the question. If she hates America so much, she should return to the shithole that is Somalia, where she came from. Bon voyage, bitch! That's french for good riddance.
I'm on a bit of a tear this morning. That Chinese spy balloon thing has my mind going in a thousand different directions. Maybe someone will come to their senses today and do what needs to be done. It's an act of defiance by one of our sworn enemies, and we're acting like we're willing to look the other way no matter what they do. I thought the Chinese had crossed the line when they opened up police stations in select cities across America to police their own people. Are we a sovereign country or not? Nobody said or did anything to stop that out-and-out bullshit. Now we have these spy balloons flying over our cities, sucking up the bandwidth of intelligence or whatever passes for intelligence these days in our country. This is a seminal moment in our nation's history, folks. I'm guessing it won't be long before Chinese cruisers are seen off our shores, or, God forbid, the Chinese military will be training their troops on our soil. What if the Chinese put up another spy balloon? How many spy balloons are too many spy balloons?
I've been riding my bike this past week, with temperatures hovering around thirty degrees without much trouble at all. I wanted to tell the missus that I was never chilled one way or another for even a moment. She never asked, so I never said anything. I've got all the right gear to wear when it gets cold, so it's not like I'm braving anything if you get my drift. It's more about wearing the right number of layers than anything else. I'm not sure it's possible to wear too many layers when it gets into the twenties, but I'm always pushing the limits and trying different things. Let's just say that the jury is still out. Temperatures will be in the single digits today, with wind chills well below zero. This will not be a good day to be out and about on my bicycle. I might be okay with riding when temperatures are in the twenties, but the wind chill factor has me thinking twice about just how ballsy I want to be about doing this. The thought of taking a day off feels pretty good, too, so that's how I'm leaning like it or not.
It was minus nine on our thermometer when I got up a little before six this morning. Wind chills are running in the minus twenty to minus thirty range as I sit here at the keyboard in my jammies and wool hat. The missus was talking to me yesterday about how furnaces can't quite keep up when the temperatures get this cold. That was her roundabout way of telling me to keep the fucking thing running come hell or high water. We generally turn off our heat during the night, but last night was an exception. I was a bit fearful that the lines running from our oil tank to our furnace might freeze, and then where would we be? We'd be up shit's creek without a paddle, as my dad used to say. I had visions of being put on hold for hours when calling for service and having things go from bad to worse as the temperatures inside our house plunged in the overnight hours. I went to bed listening to what I thought was a furnace struggling to keep up with the demands to push even more heat into our home than it was designed to deliver. I woke up every few hours and turned it down a notch or two, thinking that doing so would give it a much-needed break. We have another 24 hours of this cold before temperatures start to moderate.
There has been no resolution overnight on that so-called Chinese weather balloon flying across our fruited plains. It's still up there sucking up data from here, there, and everywhere over cities and towns in the continental United States. You know we're not getting the real story from our government. Right? They've spun themselves in circles on this one, but the balloon continues on its directed path unmolested per orders from Bumbles himself. There is a hue and a cry across our land to shoot it out of the sky, but Bumbles is having none of it. Biden's military said something about the dangers of a debris field that could endanger lives if the balloon was shot out of the sky. Tell that to the people in Montana, where there are more cattle than people. It could have been brought down when it entered Alaskan air space for chrissakes, but Bumbles was content to bend over once again for his masters in Beijing, and the balloon was allowed to proceed on its path. There are now rumors of a second Chinese balloon that may either be entering or has entered our air space. Do we need any more evidence that the Biden crime family has been bought and paid for by the Chinese Communist Party? I certainly don't.
I was telling the missus the other day that I was home with her the morning of 9/11 in 2001 when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center in NYC. My first thought was that someone in a Cessna had lost their way in the myriad of high rises that dot the NYC skyline and had crashed headlong into one of New York City's more prominent buildings. I remember thinking before leaving for work that morning that there was enough confusion in the reporting about what precisely had flown into the building that I might want to follow up once I was in my car and en route to my job. The missus disputed my account and thought it unlikely that I was still home at 8;45 am that morning when the first plane hit. "You would have been at work or, at a minimum, well on your way to work at 8:45 back then, Johnny", she insisted. It's the one day in my life, tragic as it was for our country, where I have an almost perfect memory of what happened, where I was moment by moment, for at least the better part of that fateful day. Sorry, sweets. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
It's Sunday, and I need to get this week's blog out the door. I won't keep you much longer. I can hardly wait to watch the Sunday morning talking heads singing Bumble's praises for having the courage to shoot down the weather balloon that finally found its way out of the continental USA and off the shore of South Carolina by yesterday morning. You'll not hear one of them criticizing our fearless Commander-in-Chief for allowing the balloon to traverse our great nation coast to coast before giving our military the go-ahead to shoot it out of the sky. The weather balloon, which was really a spying and reconnaissance balloon piloted by the Chinese Communist Party, has effectively scooped up every last bit of intelligence and data they were looking to collect as it flew over every one of our nation's premier military installations. The data was back in Bejing by the time Bumbles gave the order, but that won't matter to Biden's praetorian guard, that is, the media. Americans know better, and this feckless piece of trash sitting behind the Resolute desk in our Oval Office has sold out our country once again. Just a complete and utter disgrace.