Death Knell
19/11/23 07:02
That first batch of lentil soup that the missus cooked up a week or so ago was not the best. I was quite frank with the missus when I told her that I usually go back for seconds but, this time, not so much. I couldn't put my finger on what precisely was missing, but, were I to guess, I would say that it was a spice of one kind or another. I'm not sure if she agreed with me or not since she followed the same recipe that she always uses. Fast forward three weeks, throw in a more recently purchased container of minced garlic and some nice new cumin from Penzy's, and we've got what I think is the original recipe back in the house. I throw in a healthy dose of shaved parmesan and asiago cheese to taste, and I am good to go. The missus likes the cheese as well, and she'll add some croutons to top it all off. If I wanted croutons, I'd have a piece of buttered toast with the soup, but that's just me. De-lish!
Mrs. G sent us an e-mail yesterday commenting on the number of people with COVID-19 in her facility. I don't know what the fuss is all about. I asked Mrs. G over this last weekend if anyone had gotten downright ill with the virus, or were we just talking sniffles and a bit of a cough here and there. Nope, just the sniffles, I think she said, if my recollection is correct. I was thinking to myself that most of the people in her facility more than likely have the latest and greatest booster shot, so how anyone comes down with anything is a question someone ought to be asking. The last I heard, the more shots you got, the more susceptible you are to the virus. Nonetheless, they keep getting the shots thinking that they now have more protection than they did before from whatever form this virus is taking these days. I'm starting to think that this is more of a mind virus than anything else. We all bought a pig in a poke back in 2020 when this thing came along. They're not done with their scaremongering.
Senator Scott has suspended his campaign for the presidency. I don't think he was catching on all that much anyway, so not a big deal. That means we'll have one less person on the debate stage come time for the fourth debate scheduled for December. Scott had so few followers that I'm not sure anyone's numbers are going to change now that he's dropping out. I don't believe that he endorsed anyone on the way out the door. The focus will now be on the remaining candidates, Haley, DeSantis, Christie, and Ramaswamy. Trump is still fifty points ahead of whoever is leading on any given day, but that hasn't deterred any of the candidates to date. They all think that Trump will be in jail by the time the first votes are tallied in any one or more of the states holding early primaries. They also all think, wrongly, in my opinion, that if Trump is in jail, he'll not get enough support to win anything, much less a primary. The Trumpiest among the remaining candidates is Ramaswamy. I think he plans to stay in just long enough to mess everyone and everything up, and will then get out after endorsing Trump. He's smarter than the lot of them, so buckle up.
Trump was actually mocking DeSantis in one of his recent rallies. He mimicked DeSantis walking off the stage at the last debate, where DeSantis was walking unsteadily off the stage due to what appeared to be an issue of sorts with the boots he was wearing. There have been memes aplenty on the internet speaking to the efforts that DeSantis and his camp have been making to make him appear taller than he really is. Those have been some of the kinder and light-hearted memes if you ask me. Have you seen the one where he does this funny little thing flicking motion with his tongue? It's demonic, I tell you. And when he has a full-throated laugh of any kind, he comes across as a hayseed. That might work in Iowa, but it's not something that we, as Americans, like to see in our presidents. This is what you do with somebody like DeSantis. You chip away at their credibility as a candidate until they've been reduced to a laughingstock. And now I'm hearing that one of DeSantis's big donors is jumping ship and going with Trump. It's literally the definition of a death knell.
Republicans in Washington had a chance yesterday to impeach the one mother fucker responsible for the invasion of our country, and they failed miserably. I'm talking about Mayorkis, Biden's immigration Czar. He's facilitated the entrance of some eight million illegal aliens into our country since Bumbles Biden took office. Did I mention that most of them are military-aged males? There were a half dozen Republicans who voted against the articles of impeachment set forth by Congresswoman Marjorie Tayor Greene. Every last one of these fuckers is a Judas and ought to be run out of the Republican Party. These Chamber of Commerce fucks put their personal pocketbooks ahead of the interests of their constituencies, and that cannot stand. Who's lining their bank accounts? That's what I want to know. I thought my Republican Party stood for the rule of law. Where do we go from here? If Bumbles steals the 2024 election, he'll run up the number of illegal aliens to the tune of some twenty million or more. I guess that's what Globalism looks like. Trump was right when he said that without borders, we have no country. That appears to be the goal of the Globalists. That appears to be our destiny.
We also appear to be well on our way to one-party rule here in the United States, with millions of illegals now pouring into red states and poised to vote for the party that invited them into our great country. There will be no such thing as a red state, only variations on the color blue. To think that Republicans greased the skids allowing this to happen makes me sick. Do they not realize that they're voting for their own demise? It's true what they say about money being the root of evil. You know every last one of these traitors is getting his or her pockets lined by people who have little to no interest in our future as a Republic. They despise our beloved Constitution and would sooner throw it out with the trash than spend one more day paying allegiance to it and everything it represents. These Judas's also stand at the ready to protect Biden and his criminal enterprise from the throes of impeachment as per the requirements under our Constitution. That alone should disqualify them from public office. If we cannot count on our public officials to do their jobs, then all is lost. We are no better than the third-world banana republics whose citizens fled their countries for our shores. We have become them, and they have become us. So much for the shining city on the hill that Ronald Reagan spoke so eloquently about.
I knew this day was coming. I knew I would have a lot of work ahead of me once the trees had shed all of their leaves. It's a big job but not an impossibly big job. I think that it might be useful to have a leaf blower to use, but finding one to rent at this time of year might be very difficult. I don't want to buy one because I'm not convinced that they are better at the end of the day than the job that I can do without it. Does that make any sense? I could also pay someone to come and take care of everything, but I'm not one to pay somebody to do a job that I can do just as easily myself. I also like the sense of satisfaction that I get when everything is tidied up hereabouts, so that's not nothing. At some point in my life, it will be too much to do, and I'll make the usual concessions, whatever that looks like. I'm not there yet. Home Depot rents these things, so maybe I'll go out to their website and see if they have one available just for shits and giggles. I recall trying a leaf blower some years ago, and I wasn't all that impressed. Certainly not impressed enough to go out and buy one of my own. There are a lot of nooks and crannies hereabouts where raking simply doesn't work. I guess this is what a real-time discussion on the pros and cons of using a leaf blower sounds and looks like.
We've been buying bottles of wine for Mrs. G for a while now. She has never expressed a preference one way or another other than to say that she prefers red wine. Oh, and they have to be screwtops since she has trouble with the corked variety. We've never concerned ourselves with any particular price point, although the typical bottle of wine we've purchased cost between $10 and $20. I have to imagine that she may not have liked one or more bottles we've purchased on her behalf, but she never complained, not even once. So, you can imagine my surprise when she started singing the praises of one of our recent purchases. "Pick me up another bottle of this if you can", she said. We've bought so many bottles from so many stores that we honestly couldn't remember where we bought that particular brand. Not to worry. I found a nice cache of her wine at my local supermarket. Whether they will carry it a month from now is anyone's guess. I won't stock up on the wine since she may tire of it, and then we're back to where we started. For now, she's happy, so we're happy. That's just how we roll.
My neighbor is in Florida now, and she'll be there for the rest of the winter. I typically clear her driveway of snow during the winter, but I'll not be doing that this winter. She apparently thought that asking me to clear her driveway while she was away for the winter was a bridge too far. It's one thing to lend a helping hand while she's there, but it's a horse of a different color if she's not on the premises. I'm not a caretaker, and I don't play one on television. I also have no desire to be a caretaker. She sent an e-mail yesterday talking about this or that problem with her furnace and how we might expect a bit more traffic than usual coming and going from her house. I've decided that I'm not going to respond to her e-mail one way or another. I really don't want to have a running dialogue with her about matters concerning her house. Do I sound like a terrible human being? I did agree to send her a picture or two of her property over the course of the winter. I hope I don't regret that. Oh, Johnny, would you mind clearing a path for the oilman sometime this week? I can hear her now. What am I supposed to say? No?
I placed an order for a nice turkey from Whole Foods. I'll pick that puppy up two days before Thanksgiving, along with any other miscellaneous fixins that catch my eye while we're there. I'm guessing the Ev man will join me when I go to pick up our bird. She'll be anywhere from 12-14 pounds. I think that should be enough for the three of us. Don't you think? We ordered a few other things to go with the turkey last year but found the lot of them didn't live up to our expectations. If I recall, the stuffing we ordered was a bit on the dry side and way too salty. We also ordered an oven-roasted vegetable dish that simply didn't cut the mustard. To say that I was surprised was an understatement. We've come to expect nothing but the best from Whole Foods. We may have to adjust our expectations. The missus enjoys the little cranberry pastry puffs that we picked up last year, although I didn't see them on the menu this year when I was placing the order. I have to believe that they are a Thanksgiving favorite, so, despite them not being available to order online, I think they'll be available when we get to the store. We're still undecided on the pie we'll have, although the Ev man said something about an apple pie. The missus usually makes her grandmother's pumpkin pie recipe, but I think I'm with the Ev man when it comes to the pie. The Ev man also asked that we make more deviled eggs than usual, and spicier deviled eggs, so the missus will be in charge of that dish.
Thus far, these lawsuits brought in various states to keep Trump off the ballot for the primary have fallen flat. They've either been tossed out or discharged in short order. It was, as anyone with half a brain could see, another attempt to take Trump out using what we refer to as "lawfare." I only learned about the outcomes by noticing a byline beneath the fold somewhere or maybe a tweet on Twitter. It was crickets on CNN and MSNBC. They've moved on. This is what they do. This is who they are. When it was a thing, they were all in on the movement to take Trump off the ballot in various states. It was a 24/7 news cycle of judicial experts and left-wing toadies fanning the flames of a fire that they hoped would culminate in a pyre that would consume Trump and his campaign. It was all wishful thinking, of course. Just as one fire was being put out, Trump used the word "vermin" in a speech that he gave somewhere which, according to the Leftists, is reminiscent of the language used by dictators like Hitler and Mussolini. It's wash, rinse, repeat. The Leftists are off and running with another storyline that they hope will erode certain Trump constituencies. You know what they say: If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will come to believe it yourself. It's Goebbels 101.
I was under the mistaken impression that the people running against Trump were waiting for the long arm of the law to catch up with Trump at which point they would emerge as the likely successor to run away with the Republican nomination. The problem with that assessment is that Trump is likely to win the Republican nomination long before any jury or judge is able to convict him at the rate things are going. That has to be terribly frustrating for the four or five candidates currently in the race. It also begs the question about what precisely they hope to gain even if Trump were somehow prevented from running. Trump's base of followers just wouldn't bother to show up at the polls to vote if that were to happen, or they might go to the polls and just write in Trump's name. Nobody likes or respects a candidate who is relying on the demise of another candidate in order to elevate their own standings. New Hampshire just announced the date of their primary, the first in the country, of January 23rd. My God, that's right around the corner. Bumbles Biden will not be on the ballot. If the FOX poll that I saw yesterday that had Trump at 62% nationally is correct, I'm guessing Trump will do quite well in the NH primary. The dark horse coming in second, in my estimation, will be Vivek Ramaswamy.
Imagine the United States rolling out the red carpet for a Communist like Xi Jinping. Imagine a city like San Fransicko moving all of its homeless and drug-addicted citizens off the curbs of that once-great city just to impress a communist dictator. You don't think Xi knows that San Fransicko is a nest of vipers? It bears mentioning that California and China have one thing in common when it comes to their political infrastructure. They are both one-party swamps where the absence of an alternative political party results in a virtual or veritable dictatorship. Did you see the photos of Biden and his laughingstock of an entourage sitting across the table at a state dinner of sorts from Xi and his consorts? Blinken looked terrified sitting next to the senile Joe Biden, who might at any moment say or do something that nobody had planned for due to his late-stage dementia. The clownish and bumbling Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, looked like she was scanning the table for more of the mushrooms that she so enjoyed when she last visited China. She seemed impervious to the feckless old fuck sitting next to her. The soy boy, Jake Sullivan, looked entirely out of his element and somewhat cowed by his Chinese counterparts. And then there was the octogenarian with God only knows how many facelifts later, John Kerry, ever the dolt and sitting at the far end of the table, hoping against hope that someone might acknowledge his pathetic existence.
Does anyone know what the hell Xi was even doing here? Was it to buoy Biden's flagging stature ahead of what looks to be a grueling presidential race in 2024? Does anyone think for a moment that getting an agreement from the Chinese dictator on anything from Taiwan to Artificial Intelligence (AI) is worth the paper it's written on? And why would we agree to slow down or stop advancing our work on AI just so Xi can catch up? We have got to stop our kowtowing to the Chinese on every damn thing under the sun. I heard that Biden said something about Xi not invading Taiwan in the near future. Even if I had that in writing, I wouldn't trust the Chinese as far as I can throw them. When it comes to climate change, which we all know is a hoax, China couldn't be more pleased to see the United States embracing this nonsense. It empowers countries like China and emasculates countries like the United States. How do we fight a war without carbon-based fuels? That's easy. We don't. Do we have any solar-powered nuclear submarines in our fleet? Not so much. Just so you know, John Kerry sided with Jane Fonda and the communists of North Korea during the Vietnam War so you know whose side he's on. Is any of this starting to make sense?
I've been as busy as a one-armed paper hanger with all of this yard work. I was right about all the leaves that I've had to clean up. I knew early on this season that I'd have a lot of leaves to clean up in the Fall because of all the rain we were having. It just makes for a busy Fall. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less. I do tend to put things off until the last minute, so I'll throw that out there. The more unpleasant the task, the longer it's going to take to get done. Take my shed, for example. It's mostly empty and ramshackle at best but critters here and there have made their way into the shed with their nesting materials and food for the winter. I've removed most things that they might otherwise nest in an effort to keep them from setting up shop. I've given up trying to plug the holes they've created to gain entrance to the shed so now I'm just biding my time until can find someone to remove the shed from our property. I'll probably run the mower one last time if only to warm it up so I can change the oil or mulch the last of the leaves that have fallen on our lawn. I made a metal run to the local recycling center yesterday with the last of the things from the shed. The last thing to go, and which I couldn't fit into the car, will be the Ev man's wheel-loady.
It seems like every time I find a good source of news on Twitter, no sooner do I tag it as my go-to newsfeed than it disappears into the ether. I liked this one particular newsfeed because it gave me updates on things going on in both Europe and the Middle East. The only conclusion that I can draw from the takedown of these sights is that someone doesn't want me and others like me to know what's really going on in these faraway places. The sight focused on both the war in Ukraine and the war going on in Israel. It never struck me as being biased, and that may be why I liked it as much as I did. It's easy to take sides in these things, so I'm not saying that I might like it more or less if it took sides or appeared to have a vested outcome in one or the other war. It was just a wealth of information, so I'm not happy to see that someone, maybe our government, decided that I shouldn't have access to the information. Now that I'm looking at what little else there is to see on Twitter when it comes to these wars, I'm more convinced than ever that there is an ongoing effort to keep information from the American people. I guess I'm also convinced that what I am seeing is what they want me to see. That leaves me feeling dubious at best about the information and angry that someone, whoever the fuck they are, has decided what information I can and cannot have access to. #PissedInPeoria
There seems to be some kind of all-out push in the media to rally around Nikki Haley as the alternative to Donald J. Trump. I heard someone suggest yesterday that they want to force Trump's hand to put her on the ticket with him. It's not a bad idea to have a woman on the ticket but why don't we let Trump decide who he does and doesn't want on the ticket with him? Besides, she's a neocon's neocon, and Trump is the first president ever who kept us out of wars and actively worked to reduce our military footprint in hellholes across the globe. It's the old oil and water thing. It would never work. If the Democrats take back the House of Representatives, how long do you think it would be before they would impeach Trump again and, in the chance that one court or another would convict him of one or more of the felonies he's been charged with, he might even get convicted in the Senate. Then, if Haley is Vice President, she'd slip into the Oval Office even though not one person ever voted to put her into the Oval Office. If Vivek can somehow take her down a peg or two, I can see him as a viable Vice President. I think he has a lot of support with whatever they're calling the youth vote these days so that would help the overall ticket get across the finish line. I also have to believe that he's on Trump's shortlist as a VP candidate so there's that.
I feel bad for that David Depape guy. He's the fella that has been accused of battery/assault, and who has just been found guilty in a court in San Fransicko, of attacking Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's husband. Something just stinks about that whole deal. My guess is that Depape was a male escort of sorts who was down on his luck and got a last-minute call in the early morning hours of such and such a date from an aging queen in the hoity-toity section of San Fransicko. They were probably having drinks and doing the things that aging queens and their consorts do, and Paul Pelosi inadvertently dialed 911. Once they knew the police were on their way, they devised a scheme to make it look like a break-in. How else do you explain the fact that Pelosi answered the door around 2 am wearing briefs and holding an adult beverage? My guess is that Depape gave Paul a whack as they had discussed, but it was a bit more than just a little whack with Depape not having much experience in using hammers to whack his Johns. I was hopeful but not optimistic that any of this would come out in court knowing what we know about what the Pelosis' had to do to protect the family name and reputation. Now, Depape is facing years in jail for playing along with a scheme that was never going to end well for him. I thought the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, was supposed to set you free?
Thank you, Speaker Michael Johnson. Thank you for keeping your word to release the January 6 tapes. His predecessor, the scurrilous Kevin McCarthy promised to release them too but never did. Just a real scumbag. We all know that the entire January 6 thing was a conspiracy by Pelosi and her ilk, with a major assist from our intelligence agencies, to frame Trump and all of his followers as insurrectionist and unworthy of the office of the Presidency. Trump's rally in our nation's capitol was the perfect launchpad for the execution of the so-called insurrection. With FBI agents infiltrating the crowds outside the capitol building, they effectively incited a riot which resulted in throngs of Trump supporters forcing their way into the capitol building. They were armed not with pistols and truncheons but with Trump flags and American flags. They peacefully roamed the hallways and offices of the building while Pelois's daughter and her camera crew ran for cover with her mother and other Democrats while filming what appeared to be a rushed and dangerous exodus. Her coverage was designed not for public consumption but rather for the upcoming show trial of the J6 Committee. Now that we have the footage, some 40,000 hours of it, the truth can finally be told of events that unfolded on that fateful day in our nation's capitol. It won't bring back Ashley Babbit, but it may lessen or void the eggregious sentences imposed by the corrupt DC courts and judges. If the good Lord's willin' and the creek don't rise, maybe we'll finally find out the truth about Ray Epps.
It looks like pies are out and apple crisp is in for Thanksgiving. I'm sitting here looking at a recipe that we have from one of our old cookbooks, and I'm thinking I need to tell the missus that we ought to make some of these dishes like the crisp ahead of time. We could make this one today were it not for the crowds that we might otherwise run into by going into the market the weekend before Thanksgiving. Us and everyone else, I might add. I don't mind crowds, but the missus does so I may be on my own if I decide to do this. I braved the crowds in the stores during the Covid craze while the missus rarely or never ventured out of the house. I wasn't happy about it, but there were days during the Covid craze when she would have put up with an empty refrigerator before exposing herself to the masses and their heavy breathing behind their masks in the stores. I don't think I ever caught her driving alone while wearing a mask, but I can't say for sure that she didn't. I've been content as of late to have her wait in the car while I run in to pick up a few things so that might work. It looks like we have a rainy day on our hands here on the Seacoast, so is there a better time to make this crisp recipe? What else can I make ahead of time? The missus likes to make cranberry sauce from whole cranberries so we could make that. That might be it.
We finally got around to watching the show entitled "Julia." It's the story of Julia Child and her rise to "stardom" back in the fifties as one of television's pioneers in the field of cooking shows. We've only watched two episodes so far, but that seems to be where it's all going. I readily admit to never having seen a show of hers but, then again, she was a bit behind my time. I certainly know of her reputation so none of what we're now watching is a mystery. Or, is it? Is there any truth to her being a spy back in the day? Where did I hear that? Thus far in the show, she's nothing if not a frumpy housewife with a quirky personality and a few good recipes under her belt from time spent in France while her husband toiled away during the day as our country's ambassador. Now back in the States and with her dutiful husband unemployed due to a change in administration, she has an opportunity to bring the joy of French cooking to the American public through her affiliation with a local public television station, WHDH. The missus would much rather be watching a Scottish drama, but she is, at least thus far, on board with the show and is willing to watch the remaining six episodes. I've heard a few curse words and some off-color humor here and there in the show that seem oddly out of place considering Cambridge, Massachusetts in the fifties, but these are likely mere distractions much like Julia's obsession with menopause and the ongoing rigamarole associated with getting a cooking show off the ground. Even more improbable considering today's technology and how far we've come from the fifties, is the fact that the original show was televised in black and white. Can you imagine?
Is it any surprise that there isn't a word anywhere in any of the usual headlines I look at that Republicans swept key races in Louisiana yesterday? If Democrats had won one or more seats that they would be crowing endlessly about the wins as a harbinger of things to come in the presidential elections just a year away. They would have a half dozen Democrat hacks on the Sunday morning talk shows this morning pushing narratives about the South coming of age and the power of the messaging relative to abortion, marginalized communities, LGBTQ rights, etc. I'll be watching the shows this morning, and I hope to see one or more Republicans raising the election wins and putting matters in the proper perspective. It's really just another example of the mainstream media doing what they do best: Touting their wins while ignoring wins by the other side. The only reason I know anything about the outcome of the races is that I saw a tweet this morning from Scott Pressler, who is a dedicated foot soldier (and a hero IMHO) in an effort to get Republicans out to the polls across our great country, congratulating both the winners of the various and sundry races as well as the people of Louisianna for getting out to the polls to vote. Huzzah!
Mrs. G sent us an e-mail yesterday commenting on the number of people with COVID-19 in her facility. I don't know what the fuss is all about. I asked Mrs. G over this last weekend if anyone had gotten downright ill with the virus, or were we just talking sniffles and a bit of a cough here and there. Nope, just the sniffles, I think she said, if my recollection is correct. I was thinking to myself that most of the people in her facility more than likely have the latest and greatest booster shot, so how anyone comes down with anything is a question someone ought to be asking. The last I heard, the more shots you got, the more susceptible you are to the virus. Nonetheless, they keep getting the shots thinking that they now have more protection than they did before from whatever form this virus is taking these days. I'm starting to think that this is more of a mind virus than anything else. We all bought a pig in a poke back in 2020 when this thing came along. They're not done with their scaremongering.
Senator Scott has suspended his campaign for the presidency. I don't think he was catching on all that much anyway, so not a big deal. That means we'll have one less person on the debate stage come time for the fourth debate scheduled for December. Scott had so few followers that I'm not sure anyone's numbers are going to change now that he's dropping out. I don't believe that he endorsed anyone on the way out the door. The focus will now be on the remaining candidates, Haley, DeSantis, Christie, and Ramaswamy. Trump is still fifty points ahead of whoever is leading on any given day, but that hasn't deterred any of the candidates to date. They all think that Trump will be in jail by the time the first votes are tallied in any one or more of the states holding early primaries. They also all think, wrongly, in my opinion, that if Trump is in jail, he'll not get enough support to win anything, much less a primary. The Trumpiest among the remaining candidates is Ramaswamy. I think he plans to stay in just long enough to mess everyone and everything up, and will then get out after endorsing Trump. He's smarter than the lot of them, so buckle up.
Trump was actually mocking DeSantis in one of his recent rallies. He mimicked DeSantis walking off the stage at the last debate, where DeSantis was walking unsteadily off the stage due to what appeared to be an issue of sorts with the boots he was wearing. There have been memes aplenty on the internet speaking to the efforts that DeSantis and his camp have been making to make him appear taller than he really is. Those have been some of the kinder and light-hearted memes if you ask me. Have you seen the one where he does this funny little thing flicking motion with his tongue? It's demonic, I tell you. And when he has a full-throated laugh of any kind, he comes across as a hayseed. That might work in Iowa, but it's not something that we, as Americans, like to see in our presidents. This is what you do with somebody like DeSantis. You chip away at their credibility as a candidate until they've been reduced to a laughingstock. And now I'm hearing that one of DeSantis's big donors is jumping ship and going with Trump. It's literally the definition of a death knell.
Republicans in Washington had a chance yesterday to impeach the one mother fucker responsible for the invasion of our country, and they failed miserably. I'm talking about Mayorkis, Biden's immigration Czar. He's facilitated the entrance of some eight million illegal aliens into our country since Bumbles Biden took office. Did I mention that most of them are military-aged males? There were a half dozen Republicans who voted against the articles of impeachment set forth by Congresswoman Marjorie Tayor Greene. Every last one of these fuckers is a Judas and ought to be run out of the Republican Party. These Chamber of Commerce fucks put their personal pocketbooks ahead of the interests of their constituencies, and that cannot stand. Who's lining their bank accounts? That's what I want to know. I thought my Republican Party stood for the rule of law. Where do we go from here? If Bumbles steals the 2024 election, he'll run up the number of illegal aliens to the tune of some twenty million or more. I guess that's what Globalism looks like. Trump was right when he said that without borders, we have no country. That appears to be the goal of the Globalists. That appears to be our destiny.
We also appear to be well on our way to one-party rule here in the United States, with millions of illegals now pouring into red states and poised to vote for the party that invited them into our great country. There will be no such thing as a red state, only variations on the color blue. To think that Republicans greased the skids allowing this to happen makes me sick. Do they not realize that they're voting for their own demise? It's true what they say about money being the root of evil. You know every last one of these traitors is getting his or her pockets lined by people who have little to no interest in our future as a Republic. They despise our beloved Constitution and would sooner throw it out with the trash than spend one more day paying allegiance to it and everything it represents. These Judas's also stand at the ready to protect Biden and his criminal enterprise from the throes of impeachment as per the requirements under our Constitution. That alone should disqualify them from public office. If we cannot count on our public officials to do their jobs, then all is lost. We are no better than the third-world banana republics whose citizens fled their countries for our shores. We have become them, and they have become us. So much for the shining city on the hill that Ronald Reagan spoke so eloquently about.
I knew this day was coming. I knew I would have a lot of work ahead of me once the trees had shed all of their leaves. It's a big job but not an impossibly big job. I think that it might be useful to have a leaf blower to use, but finding one to rent at this time of year might be very difficult. I don't want to buy one because I'm not convinced that they are better at the end of the day than the job that I can do without it. Does that make any sense? I could also pay someone to come and take care of everything, but I'm not one to pay somebody to do a job that I can do just as easily myself. I also like the sense of satisfaction that I get when everything is tidied up hereabouts, so that's not nothing. At some point in my life, it will be too much to do, and I'll make the usual concessions, whatever that looks like. I'm not there yet. Home Depot rents these things, so maybe I'll go out to their website and see if they have one available just for shits and giggles. I recall trying a leaf blower some years ago, and I wasn't all that impressed. Certainly not impressed enough to go out and buy one of my own. There are a lot of nooks and crannies hereabouts where raking simply doesn't work. I guess this is what a real-time discussion on the pros and cons of using a leaf blower sounds and looks like.
We've been buying bottles of wine for Mrs. G for a while now. She has never expressed a preference one way or another other than to say that she prefers red wine. Oh, and they have to be screwtops since she has trouble with the corked variety. We've never concerned ourselves with any particular price point, although the typical bottle of wine we've purchased cost between $10 and $20. I have to imagine that she may not have liked one or more bottles we've purchased on her behalf, but she never complained, not even once. So, you can imagine my surprise when she started singing the praises of one of our recent purchases. "Pick me up another bottle of this if you can", she said. We've bought so many bottles from so many stores that we honestly couldn't remember where we bought that particular brand. Not to worry. I found a nice cache of her wine at my local supermarket. Whether they will carry it a month from now is anyone's guess. I won't stock up on the wine since she may tire of it, and then we're back to where we started. For now, she's happy, so we're happy. That's just how we roll.
My neighbor is in Florida now, and she'll be there for the rest of the winter. I typically clear her driveway of snow during the winter, but I'll not be doing that this winter. She apparently thought that asking me to clear her driveway while she was away for the winter was a bridge too far. It's one thing to lend a helping hand while she's there, but it's a horse of a different color if she's not on the premises. I'm not a caretaker, and I don't play one on television. I also have no desire to be a caretaker. She sent an e-mail yesterday talking about this or that problem with her furnace and how we might expect a bit more traffic than usual coming and going from her house. I've decided that I'm not going to respond to her e-mail one way or another. I really don't want to have a running dialogue with her about matters concerning her house. Do I sound like a terrible human being? I did agree to send her a picture or two of her property over the course of the winter. I hope I don't regret that. Oh, Johnny, would you mind clearing a path for the oilman sometime this week? I can hear her now. What am I supposed to say? No?
I placed an order for a nice turkey from Whole Foods. I'll pick that puppy up two days before Thanksgiving, along with any other miscellaneous fixins that catch my eye while we're there. I'm guessing the Ev man will join me when I go to pick up our bird. She'll be anywhere from 12-14 pounds. I think that should be enough for the three of us. Don't you think? We ordered a few other things to go with the turkey last year but found the lot of them didn't live up to our expectations. If I recall, the stuffing we ordered was a bit on the dry side and way too salty. We also ordered an oven-roasted vegetable dish that simply didn't cut the mustard. To say that I was surprised was an understatement. We've come to expect nothing but the best from Whole Foods. We may have to adjust our expectations. The missus enjoys the little cranberry pastry puffs that we picked up last year, although I didn't see them on the menu this year when I was placing the order. I have to believe that they are a Thanksgiving favorite, so, despite them not being available to order online, I think they'll be available when we get to the store. We're still undecided on the pie we'll have, although the Ev man said something about an apple pie. The missus usually makes her grandmother's pumpkin pie recipe, but I think I'm with the Ev man when it comes to the pie. The Ev man also asked that we make more deviled eggs than usual, and spicier deviled eggs, so the missus will be in charge of that dish.
Thus far, these lawsuits brought in various states to keep Trump off the ballot for the primary have fallen flat. They've either been tossed out or discharged in short order. It was, as anyone with half a brain could see, another attempt to take Trump out using what we refer to as "lawfare." I only learned about the outcomes by noticing a byline beneath the fold somewhere or maybe a tweet on Twitter. It was crickets on CNN and MSNBC. They've moved on. This is what they do. This is who they are. When it was a thing, they were all in on the movement to take Trump off the ballot in various states. It was a 24/7 news cycle of judicial experts and left-wing toadies fanning the flames of a fire that they hoped would culminate in a pyre that would consume Trump and his campaign. It was all wishful thinking, of course. Just as one fire was being put out, Trump used the word "vermin" in a speech that he gave somewhere which, according to the Leftists, is reminiscent of the language used by dictators like Hitler and Mussolini. It's wash, rinse, repeat. The Leftists are off and running with another storyline that they hope will erode certain Trump constituencies. You know what they say: If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will come to believe it yourself. It's Goebbels 101.
I was under the mistaken impression that the people running against Trump were waiting for the long arm of the law to catch up with Trump at which point they would emerge as the likely successor to run away with the Republican nomination. The problem with that assessment is that Trump is likely to win the Republican nomination long before any jury or judge is able to convict him at the rate things are going. That has to be terribly frustrating for the four or five candidates currently in the race. It also begs the question about what precisely they hope to gain even if Trump were somehow prevented from running. Trump's base of followers just wouldn't bother to show up at the polls to vote if that were to happen, or they might go to the polls and just write in Trump's name. Nobody likes or respects a candidate who is relying on the demise of another candidate in order to elevate their own standings. New Hampshire just announced the date of their primary, the first in the country, of January 23rd. My God, that's right around the corner. Bumbles Biden will not be on the ballot. If the FOX poll that I saw yesterday that had Trump at 62% nationally is correct, I'm guessing Trump will do quite well in the NH primary. The dark horse coming in second, in my estimation, will be Vivek Ramaswamy.
Imagine the United States rolling out the red carpet for a Communist like Xi Jinping. Imagine a city like San Fransicko moving all of its homeless and drug-addicted citizens off the curbs of that once-great city just to impress a communist dictator. You don't think Xi knows that San Fransicko is a nest of vipers? It bears mentioning that California and China have one thing in common when it comes to their political infrastructure. They are both one-party swamps where the absence of an alternative political party results in a virtual or veritable dictatorship. Did you see the photos of Biden and his laughingstock of an entourage sitting across the table at a state dinner of sorts from Xi and his consorts? Blinken looked terrified sitting next to the senile Joe Biden, who might at any moment say or do something that nobody had planned for due to his late-stage dementia. The clownish and bumbling Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, looked like she was scanning the table for more of the mushrooms that she so enjoyed when she last visited China. She seemed impervious to the feckless old fuck sitting next to her. The soy boy, Jake Sullivan, looked entirely out of his element and somewhat cowed by his Chinese counterparts. And then there was the octogenarian with God only knows how many facelifts later, John Kerry, ever the dolt and sitting at the far end of the table, hoping against hope that someone might acknowledge his pathetic existence.
Does anyone know what the hell Xi was even doing here? Was it to buoy Biden's flagging stature ahead of what looks to be a grueling presidential race in 2024? Does anyone think for a moment that getting an agreement from the Chinese dictator on anything from Taiwan to Artificial Intelligence (AI) is worth the paper it's written on? And why would we agree to slow down or stop advancing our work on AI just so Xi can catch up? We have got to stop our kowtowing to the Chinese on every damn thing under the sun. I heard that Biden said something about Xi not invading Taiwan in the near future. Even if I had that in writing, I wouldn't trust the Chinese as far as I can throw them. When it comes to climate change, which we all know is a hoax, China couldn't be more pleased to see the United States embracing this nonsense. It empowers countries like China and emasculates countries like the United States. How do we fight a war without carbon-based fuels? That's easy. We don't. Do we have any solar-powered nuclear submarines in our fleet? Not so much. Just so you know, John Kerry sided with Jane Fonda and the communists of North Korea during the Vietnam War so you know whose side he's on. Is any of this starting to make sense?
I've been as busy as a one-armed paper hanger with all of this yard work. I was right about all the leaves that I've had to clean up. I knew early on this season that I'd have a lot of leaves to clean up in the Fall because of all the rain we were having. It just makes for a busy Fall. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less. I do tend to put things off until the last minute, so I'll throw that out there. The more unpleasant the task, the longer it's going to take to get done. Take my shed, for example. It's mostly empty and ramshackle at best but critters here and there have made their way into the shed with their nesting materials and food for the winter. I've removed most things that they might otherwise nest in an effort to keep them from setting up shop. I've given up trying to plug the holes they've created to gain entrance to the shed so now I'm just biding my time until can find someone to remove the shed from our property. I'll probably run the mower one last time if only to warm it up so I can change the oil or mulch the last of the leaves that have fallen on our lawn. I made a metal run to the local recycling center yesterday with the last of the things from the shed. The last thing to go, and which I couldn't fit into the car, will be the Ev man's wheel-loady.
It seems like every time I find a good source of news on Twitter, no sooner do I tag it as my go-to newsfeed than it disappears into the ether. I liked this one particular newsfeed because it gave me updates on things going on in both Europe and the Middle East. The only conclusion that I can draw from the takedown of these sights is that someone doesn't want me and others like me to know what's really going on in these faraway places. The sight focused on both the war in Ukraine and the war going on in Israel. It never struck me as being biased, and that may be why I liked it as much as I did. It's easy to take sides in these things, so I'm not saying that I might like it more or less if it took sides or appeared to have a vested outcome in one or the other war. It was just a wealth of information, so I'm not happy to see that someone, maybe our government, decided that I shouldn't have access to the information. Now that I'm looking at what little else there is to see on Twitter when it comes to these wars, I'm more convinced than ever that there is an ongoing effort to keep information from the American people. I guess I'm also convinced that what I am seeing is what they want me to see. That leaves me feeling dubious at best about the information and angry that someone, whoever the fuck they are, has decided what information I can and cannot have access to. #PissedInPeoria
There seems to be some kind of all-out push in the media to rally around Nikki Haley as the alternative to Donald J. Trump. I heard someone suggest yesterday that they want to force Trump's hand to put her on the ticket with him. It's not a bad idea to have a woman on the ticket but why don't we let Trump decide who he does and doesn't want on the ticket with him? Besides, she's a neocon's neocon, and Trump is the first president ever who kept us out of wars and actively worked to reduce our military footprint in hellholes across the globe. It's the old oil and water thing. It would never work. If the Democrats take back the House of Representatives, how long do you think it would be before they would impeach Trump again and, in the chance that one court or another would convict him of one or more of the felonies he's been charged with, he might even get convicted in the Senate. Then, if Haley is Vice President, she'd slip into the Oval Office even though not one person ever voted to put her into the Oval Office. If Vivek can somehow take her down a peg or two, I can see him as a viable Vice President. I think he has a lot of support with whatever they're calling the youth vote these days so that would help the overall ticket get across the finish line. I also have to believe that he's on Trump's shortlist as a VP candidate so there's that.
I feel bad for that David Depape guy. He's the fella that has been accused of battery/assault, and who has just been found guilty in a court in San Fransicko, of attacking Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi's husband. Something just stinks about that whole deal. My guess is that Depape was a male escort of sorts who was down on his luck and got a last-minute call in the early morning hours of such and such a date from an aging queen in the hoity-toity section of San Fransicko. They were probably having drinks and doing the things that aging queens and their consorts do, and Paul Pelosi inadvertently dialed 911. Once they knew the police were on their way, they devised a scheme to make it look like a break-in. How else do you explain the fact that Pelosi answered the door around 2 am wearing briefs and holding an adult beverage? My guess is that Depape gave Paul a whack as they had discussed, but it was a bit more than just a little whack with Depape not having much experience in using hammers to whack his Johns. I was hopeful but not optimistic that any of this would come out in court knowing what we know about what the Pelosis' had to do to protect the family name and reputation. Now, Depape is facing years in jail for playing along with a scheme that was never going to end well for him. I thought the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, was supposed to set you free?
Thank you, Speaker Michael Johnson. Thank you for keeping your word to release the January 6 tapes. His predecessor, the scurrilous Kevin McCarthy promised to release them too but never did. Just a real scumbag. We all know that the entire January 6 thing was a conspiracy by Pelosi and her ilk, with a major assist from our intelligence agencies, to frame Trump and all of his followers as insurrectionist and unworthy of the office of the Presidency. Trump's rally in our nation's capitol was the perfect launchpad for the execution of the so-called insurrection. With FBI agents infiltrating the crowds outside the capitol building, they effectively incited a riot which resulted in throngs of Trump supporters forcing their way into the capitol building. They were armed not with pistols and truncheons but with Trump flags and American flags. They peacefully roamed the hallways and offices of the building while Pelois's daughter and her camera crew ran for cover with her mother and other Democrats while filming what appeared to be a rushed and dangerous exodus. Her coverage was designed not for public consumption but rather for the upcoming show trial of the J6 Committee. Now that we have the footage, some 40,000 hours of it, the truth can finally be told of events that unfolded on that fateful day in our nation's capitol. It won't bring back Ashley Babbit, but it may lessen or void the eggregious sentences imposed by the corrupt DC courts and judges. If the good Lord's willin' and the creek don't rise, maybe we'll finally find out the truth about Ray Epps.
It looks like pies are out and apple crisp is in for Thanksgiving. I'm sitting here looking at a recipe that we have from one of our old cookbooks, and I'm thinking I need to tell the missus that we ought to make some of these dishes like the crisp ahead of time. We could make this one today were it not for the crowds that we might otherwise run into by going into the market the weekend before Thanksgiving. Us and everyone else, I might add. I don't mind crowds, but the missus does so I may be on my own if I decide to do this. I braved the crowds in the stores during the Covid craze while the missus rarely or never ventured out of the house. I wasn't happy about it, but there were days during the Covid craze when she would have put up with an empty refrigerator before exposing herself to the masses and their heavy breathing behind their masks in the stores. I don't think I ever caught her driving alone while wearing a mask, but I can't say for sure that she didn't. I've been content as of late to have her wait in the car while I run in to pick up a few things so that might work. It looks like we have a rainy day on our hands here on the Seacoast, so is there a better time to make this crisp recipe? What else can I make ahead of time? The missus likes to make cranberry sauce from whole cranberries so we could make that. That might be it.
We finally got around to watching the show entitled "Julia." It's the story of Julia Child and her rise to "stardom" back in the fifties as one of television's pioneers in the field of cooking shows. We've only watched two episodes so far, but that seems to be where it's all going. I readily admit to never having seen a show of hers but, then again, she was a bit behind my time. I certainly know of her reputation so none of what we're now watching is a mystery. Or, is it? Is there any truth to her being a spy back in the day? Where did I hear that? Thus far in the show, she's nothing if not a frumpy housewife with a quirky personality and a few good recipes under her belt from time spent in France while her husband toiled away during the day as our country's ambassador. Now back in the States and with her dutiful husband unemployed due to a change in administration, she has an opportunity to bring the joy of French cooking to the American public through her affiliation with a local public television station, WHDH. The missus would much rather be watching a Scottish drama, but she is, at least thus far, on board with the show and is willing to watch the remaining six episodes. I've heard a few curse words and some off-color humor here and there in the show that seem oddly out of place considering Cambridge, Massachusetts in the fifties, but these are likely mere distractions much like Julia's obsession with menopause and the ongoing rigamarole associated with getting a cooking show off the ground. Even more improbable considering today's technology and how far we've come from the fifties, is the fact that the original show was televised in black and white. Can you imagine?
Is it any surprise that there isn't a word anywhere in any of the usual headlines I look at that Republicans swept key races in Louisiana yesterday? If Democrats had won one or more seats that they would be crowing endlessly about the wins as a harbinger of things to come in the presidential elections just a year away. They would have a half dozen Democrat hacks on the Sunday morning talk shows this morning pushing narratives about the South coming of age and the power of the messaging relative to abortion, marginalized communities, LGBTQ rights, etc. I'll be watching the shows this morning, and I hope to see one or more Republicans raising the election wins and putting matters in the proper perspective. It's really just another example of the mainstream media doing what they do best: Touting their wins while ignoring wins by the other side. The only reason I know anything about the outcome of the races is that I saw a tweet this morning from Scott Pressler, who is a dedicated foot soldier (and a hero IMHO) in an effort to get Republicans out to the polls across our great country, congratulating both the winners of the various and sundry races as well as the people of Louisianna for getting out to the polls to vote. Huzzah!