Body Double
04/12/22 07:01
What, pray tell, will be grist for the mill this week, my friends? I'm sitting here with a completely open mind on a fine Monday morning. It's how I start every week, truth be told. Every week when I sit down to put something in this here blog, anyway. I've got my little personal heater running on high on the floor next to my feet, and it feels good. It's not all that cold out, maybe 46 degrees, give or take, but we turn off the furnace during the night, so there's a certain chill in the air when I get out of bed in the morning. Temperatures rarely get into the forties in the house overnight, but even the low fifties can have me reaching for a jacket when I get out of bed and, in a pinch, maybe a hat. And then I think of all the Ukrainians who are waking up inside their homes this morning without power and, in many instances, without running water. Damn.
This story in the news about Trump sitting down to dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Kanye West (Ye) and some White Nationalist, Nick Fuentes, is weird. You'd think that Trump sat down with the devil himself the way the left-wing media is going after him. They have one job between now and Election Day in 2024: To destroy Trump and to take him off the playing field where presidential politics are front and center. This is as good a place as any to start, I suppose. It's self-imposed, if you want to know the truth. I mean, Trump didn't have people watching his back when these clowns showed up at his home in Florida? Now, this is all anyone is talking about, and each and every republican in the Grand Ole Party will be asked to disavow Trump's sit-down with Fuentes the racist, Fuentes the White Nationalist, Fuentes the Jew-hater. It will be relentless.
I don't hear Trump threatening to release the tape of the dinner, so I have to believe that there's some truth to what's being reported. Where is Donald J Trump, the master counter-puncher? Where are his children and the former first lady, Melania? Is there no one willing to step into the fray to deflect the jabs and the uppercuts being thrown left and right at the President? All of the people hoping to run against him, the ones who have yet to announce their candidacies, are likely sitting back, watching this clusterfuck unfold, and just smacking their lips at the deliciousness of it all. Can you blame them? Keep in mind that Biden continues to do the bidding of the Communist Chinese, the bidding of the Russians, and he even signed off on Chevron's assisting Maduro, the leftist in Venezuela, in getting Venezuela's oil out of the ground. What do we hear from the media? It's fucking crickets.
It's like all of a sudden. There are Christmas Tree lots popping up everywhere. The missus and I went to Tuttles in Dover yesterday, where they were selling trees in the back lot at what seemed to me to be reasonable prices. If we had had more space in the car, we would have walked away with a tree. I don't think we've ever bought a Christmas tree this early in the season, so I'll just throw that out there. I'm not sure what it means, but the expression "striking while the iron is hot" comes to mind. It's like all of these Black Friday deals. You get them while the getting is good. Otherwise, you might not get them at all. Now, it's just a matter of time before we buy a tree. Half the battle is deciding when and where you are going to get the tree. We've got the "when" part down, now all we need is the "where" piece in order to complete the puzzle.
My neighbor stopped by yesterday with a nice serving or two of her homemade chili. I've not had any, but the missus says it was quite good and asked that I get the recipe so we can make a batch or two of our own. I can do that. She, our neighbor, talked a bit about problems she's having with her furnace. She's been using space heaters to stay warm since her furnace isn't working properly. She said something about it running okay, but it doesn't turn off when it should. She has a guy looking at it who has yet to sort out the specific problem so he can apply the appropriate fix or fixes. She also said something about her oil delivery company being too expensive, and that is why she isn't having them do the fixing. I had no sage advice to offer other than to tell her we had an extra space heater should she need it. She wasn't expecting much more from me, so she was likely not disappointed one way or another. Sometimes, I think it helps to just talk about things. Having someone listen helps too.
I'm not sure what to think of this whole recession thing that they keep talking about. How can you have a recession when unemployment rates are at an all-time low, oil prices are coming down by the day, interest rates are going up but not having the desired effect on home sales, and we just experienced a blockbuster of a Black Friday over the Thanksgiving weekend? If the Fed is supposed to be bringing down inflation by dampening demand with higher interest rates, it ain't working. Where do we go from here? Does the Fed raise interest rates by a full percentage point at their next meeting? How much more "pain" does the Fed need to inflict on the general public before they achieve their version of a soft landing? As to the impact of all of this on the stock market, even the experts can't agree at the moment on whether we're knee-deep in a Bear Market Rally or on the cusp of a new Bull Market.
Will we or will we not have a Santa Rally? The S&P is down roughly 15% YTD, so there's no question that folks following their 401k's would like to see a mother of all rallies unfold in the final weeks going into year-end. The Tech stocks have underperformed both the S&P and the DJIA year-to-date, so it would be nice to see the NASDAQ take a bit of a leadership role here. Without the NASDAQ getting back in the game, we're likely heading lower. Some say that as long as the Fed is raising interest rates, there will be no resumption of the bull market. Maybe we go sideways in the indices for a while until this all gets sorted out. I thought we might see more of a bump in the market when the republicans took the majority in the House of Representatives; You know how the stock market loves gridlock in the halls of Congress. Maybe it was priced in way back when.
What the hell is going on in China? The populace is up in arms over the heavy-handed tactics of the CCP if what I see in our media is correct. They (The American media) are bought and paid for by the CCP, so I suppose I should be taking all of it with a grain of salt. You know who else is bought and paid for by the CCP? That's right. I'm talking about Joey Bumbles Biden and the Biden Crime Family. You would think that Joey, who goes on endlessly about women's rights and the rights of the marginalized communities here in the US, would have a word or two to say about the suppression of the Chinese people. He's said nothing. Zippo. Notta. He's the first in line to get behind the "My Body, My Choice" movement, yet, when it comes to the bodies and choices of Chinese women, Joey tows the line for his CCP paymasters. He says nothing. Not one goddamn word.
As a country, we are either the shining city on the hill, or we're not. We either speak for the downtrodden and the repressed across the face of our planet, or we don't. It is particularly pathetic when you see the president of our great country taking a knee and kowtowing to the ruthless dictators of the world while they kill and silence their citizenry with their brutal tactics. These putrid fucks, from Joey Biden to the cucks in Hollywood and most of the democrats in our Congress who have taken and continue to take money from the CCP for their silence, are more than reprehensible when they say nothing. I'm embarrassed as an American citizen but not surprised since I'm well aware of the corruption that exists inside and outside our government. That is why it is so important for the new Congress to start the hearings about the Biden Crime Family and their connection with the CCP. The corruption needs to be exposed root and branch so it can be excised like the festering tumor from the American psyche that it is.
I should probably hold Apple's feet to the fire here as well. When you sign up to do business in a country like China, you essentially sell your soul just to get your feet in the door. Businesses like Apple often look the other way while profits trump human rights each and every time. I'm not aware of any country that has been considered off-limits by Apple due to its dismal record on human rights. That said, Apple is one of the more woke organizations here in our country, and they are on the front lines when it comes to vocalizing their support for the rights of the marginalized. You might expect them to have a supportive word or two about the citizens in China who make their products in factories with child labor and under very difficult circumstances. You would be wrong. The hypocrisy of Apple, staying silent while China's citizenry takes to the streets these past few days to protest their country's dismal record on human rights, as a woke corporation, is astoundingly rich.
I'm not quite sure that I understand what's going on between Apple and Elon Musk (Twitter.) I think Apple is threatening to take the Twitter application off the Apple Store if Elon Musk goes forward with his promise to release certain communications that will allegedly expose those organizations, people, and government officials who conspired with Twitter prior to Musk's purchase of the company to silence voices or to further certain narratives designed to deceive or distract the public. I think that's it in a nutshell. It sounds like Apple has some skin in the game here. It sounds like Apple is willing to do everything it can to stop Musk from going forward with his plans. Musk countered with a threat to produce his own phone that would go head-to-head with Apple's iPhone. You gotta love Musk's resolve. Hit em where it hurts, Elon! Crash the fucking joint and never look back. Before I go full Musk fanboy here, I think I'd like to know a little bit more about Musk's relationship, if any, with the CCP.
Did you see the video of Biden's nitwit of a Press Secretary at the podium yesterday? I could hardly believe my ears. I'm talking about Jean Pierre, or whatever her name is. She's the black lesbian Haitian press secretary who was hired, not for her skills and experience as a press secretary, but because of the color of her skin and the leftist ideology to which she subscribes. I'll cut to the chase. She was going on and on about the three American winners of the NOBEL prizes recently awarded, but she kept referring to the NOBLE prizes without missing a beat. I'm thinking to myself, what the bloody hell? How much more of this inept and indulgently corrupt Biden Administration are we going to have to endure? If we needed one more example of their sheer ineptness, this was it. Can you imagine how the winners felt hearing her mispronounce one of the more prestigious awards that one can receive? Were they in the audience? God, I hope not.
I wonder how the good people in Arizona who voted for Kari Lake feel today now that the Board of Supervisors in Maricopa County has certified the election for Katie Hobbs. It was heart-wrenching to watch all the Arizonans who voted for Ms. Lake plead their cases in front of the Board of Supervisors. You couldn't possibly watch those performances and walk away thinking that the election was on the up and up. The Democrats knew exactly what they had to do. They listened to the Republican pundits on radio and television as they encouraged Republican voters to wait and cast their votes on Election Day since that was likely to make it more difficult for the Democrats to steal the election. Democrats had voted early and often and had banked a large percentage of the overall vote by the time Election Day arrived. If the Democrats could gum up the works on Election Day, which they did masterfully, they could essentially prevent the Republicans from running up the numbers they needed to put Kari Lake over the top. Mission accomplished.
You might say that the Republicans made their bed, and they should now have to sleep in that bed. It's a shitty metaphor, I'll admit. That said, here we are. The question that we now have to ask is, what the hell is it going to take to have a judge agree with the voters in Arizona who have been screaming from the rooftops that their election was stolen? One possible remedy is to have a re-count in Maricopa County, where most of the alleged malfeasance took place. Surely, they have the receipts they need to make their case. And, those "receipts" cannot just be the people who showed up at the Board of Supervisors meeting to vent their frustration. They need real receipts. I know judges are remiss to redo elections without clear and convincing evidence that there was criminal intent involved in the process, but it seems that a re-count would be a reasonable remedy at a minimum, given the number of voters who signed an affidavit stating that they never had a chance to vote.
There is a lot at stake should the election results, as certified, stand in the final analysis. Some people believe that if Arizona ends up with a Democratic governor, all bets are off come 2024. In other words, it will make it even more difficult for a Republican to win the state in 2024 when the presidential elections are held. I don't think it's possible for a Republican to win the presidency without winning Arizona, electorally speaking. Someone will have to explain to me why having a Democratic governor makes a difference in who wins and who doesn't win a federal election. Are they saying that a Democratic governor can somehow skew the results of a federal election? Are they saying that having a democratic governor in place makes it easier for the democrats to steal the election? If we're to learn anything from this election in Arizona, assuming Katie Hobbs wins, it is that it didn't hurt to have a democrat like Katie Hobbs as Secretary of State when the votes were tallied (or not). The same might well be true come 2024 were Ms. Hobbs to be sworn in as Governor. I think I just answered my own question.
It's hard to believe. Tomorrow is December 1st. It's a steely grey out of doors as I look over my shoulder and across to my neighbor's yard. It's not Winter yet, but we're getting there. We have another twenty-one days to go before we start to see more daylight with each passing day instead of less. I'm feeling good about all the yard work that I've done in the last month or so, and that will have us sitting pretty once the snow starts to fall. I've added black sunflower to my nuts and berries mix in my bird feeders, and that seems to go a bit further than did a straightforward nuts and berries blend. I still have a bit of work left to do to square away the garage, and daytime temperatures are not so cold that working in the garage is a hardship. Not even close, actually. I put a little string of lights on the tree across the street from our home last year and was pleased to find out that all I needed to get them up and running this year was a new set of batteries. Never mind that the tree is on someone else's property. It's an unbuildable lot, actually, and the owners live in another state. A little more cheer never hurts.
I love these stories that you find out about after the fact and that have you scratching your head. So, Bumbles Biden and his entourage were paying a visit to a little island off the coast of Massachusetts recently called Nantucket. While on the island, they rented or otherwise secured the use of several vehicles that were theirs to use for the duration of their visit. After Bumbles and his minions departed the island, all five of the vehicles, having been parked at the airport, were summarily torched and destroyed. I use the word "torched" advisedly because no one is reporting on how the vehicles actually caught fire. In fact, I think that had I not seen the story in one of my feeds on Twitter, I might not have seen this story in the main street media. Make no mistake about it. That was by design.
It seems reasonable to me to be curious, at a minimum, about how it came to be that the entire fleet of vehicles was destroyed in the fire. Was the fire set? What were they trying to hide? What did Bumbles know, and when did he know it? One little nugget coming out is that Biden never personally used the vehicles in question. Now, why would they release that piece of information? Is it because they want to give Bumbles plausible deniability? Do they want to make sure that his press secretary also has plausible deniability once the press starts to pepper her with questions about the matter? Is there even a remote possibility that someone didn't want any DNA taken from one or more of the vehicles for fear that someone would find out that the man appearing here and there on the island as Bumbles Biden isn't really Bumbles Biden at all?
I know it sounds terribly conspiratorial, but it makes sense when you consider the fact that Bumbles couldn't even find the restroom in the Oval Office at the time of his inauguration. We're talking about advanced dementia here, folks. That reminds me. When was the last time this dope stood at the podium to take questions from the media? You know, like a real press conference? Every president in recent memory has stood at the podium every six months to take questions from the media about the state of our affairs. Not so for Bumbles. His lapdogs in the media have stopped asking why he doesn't do pressers. They know he's incapable of doing them. How much more evidence do we need before someone says something about the fact that this clown running around as Joey Bumbles Biden isn't actually Joe Biden at all? You know, Joe Biden from Scranton. Is the fire in Nantucket starting to make more sense now?
Is it me, or does something smell foul when it comes to the Biden Administration and the douchebag Zelensky in Ukraine? Is this the biggest money laundering operation in the history of money laundering? I wouldn't give that little money grubber another nickel without subjecting him and his immediate family to a forensic audit first. You know he's skimming billions right off the top, and it's likely sitting in some Switzerland bank account and out of reach of the auditors. Who the hell are these go-along-to-get-along politicians in our country who have been approving these money transfers to one of the most corrupt countries on the face of the planet? This has stink written all over it. You know Zelensky is going for the big enchilada when he talks openly about reconstruction and the trillions that will be required to fund said reconstruction. Over my fucking dead body, is what I say. I hope the new Republican Congress grows a pair and tells the little fuck, Zelensky, that he's on his own from here on in. There, I said it.
I've got a bad feeling about the run-off race in Georgia this coming Tuesday between Herschel Walker and Senator Warnock. The Democrats have taken stealing elections to a whole new level. There's no reason to think that they aren't bringing those very same skills and that very same set of political safecracking tools to the race in Georgia. They likely have a trunkload of two or more pre-filled ballots ready to go the minute the counting starts in halls and counties across the great peach state. They will only come out, of course, should Senator Warnock come up short in counties where he was expected to win or otherwise do well. Warnock's Senate seat, should he prevail, will give the democrats a one-seat majority in the Senate and, consequently, it is a seat worth stealing. You simply can't leave these things to sort themselves out anymore. There's too much at stake. God forbid the Republicans have a thing or two up their sleeves to thwart the thievery of the Democrats. There's something to be said for striking while the iron's hot.
The missus and I will be going down to Massachusetts today to wrap up the PC-to-iMac conversion that we started a couple of weeks back. The worse part of the whole schtick has been the drive down and back. What we'd hoped would be a one-trip down there to do this job turned into a two-trip instead. It's not the end of the world, but if I had my druthers, I'd not be making this trip today. Friday is no day to be driving into Boston because traffic is typically at its worse on Friday. It's just a massive snarl-fest. Maybe we can avoid some of it by going down a bit after the morning rush. I guess we'll see how that turns out. Anyway, if we can get the printer squared away, the Microsoft Office subscription moved over, and get his Carbonite up and running on his new computer, I think we can consider the trip a success.
Just another word or two on Ye. I'm not a fan of Kanye West, but I do think he knows how to manipulate the media. I can't even name a song that he's put out, and I suspect there have been more than a few of them. I don't think he did Trump any favors by showing up at Mar-a-Lago with a self-professed White Nationalist. I'm referring to this Fuentes guy. He's yet another person that I've never heard of. I have to agree with folks who say that this trip to Mar-a-Lago was a concerted effort on the part of Kanye and Fuentes to take down Trump. If Kanye was looking to take down Trump in order to better position himself in the race for the presidency, it was a nice try, but it was destined for failure. It's going to take more than a couple of thugs from the hood to take out Trump. Now, in recent days, Kanye is on tape saying something about liking Hitler. The guy doesn't know when to stop. It's no surprise that Musk had to step in and ban him from Twitter. The last thing that Musk wants, or needs, is to have his platform, Twitter, squarely in the crosshairs of the left for providing a platform for hate speech.
Did y'all see that televised handshake between President Macron of France and Bumbles Biden? It was fucking cringeworthy. Bumbles wouldn't let go of Macron's hand, and it was a good 45 seconds or so before Macron could free himself from the grips of the old man. All of this took place in full view of the audience, who had to wonder, to a person, what the bejeesus were they seeing unfold before their eyes? Where was Dr. Jill when he needed her? Who could intervene and save both Bumbles and Macron from what was quickly turning into a national, if not global, embarrassment? What the hell was Macron thinking? Imagine staring into the vacant eyes of an old demented, and senile man who has your hand in a death grip and won't let go despite your best efforts. Now imagine that this horror show is unfolding on national television. If you're Macron, you have to be seeing your future flashing before your eyes. He had to be wondering why he ever made the trip.
Bumbles and his boys played that one well, don't you think? I'm referring to his forgiving college loans to the tune of $10k for those who qualified and, better yet, $20k for those with Pell grants/loans. This was nothing more than a blatant effort to buy votes in advance of the mid-term elections. It all sounded so good. If you were laboring beneath a mountain of debt related to loans you took out to get an education, Bumbles was there to help you. It wasn't much, but $10k goes a long way when you don't have two nickels to rub together in the middle of a recession. He was Bumbles the beneficence. It didn't matter that what Bumbles was doing was unconstitutional. Most people weren't any the wiser. He would say, as only Bumbles could, I'll "work it out." The only problem with all of this is that Bumbles knew all too well that what he was offering was not in his wheelhouse to offer. It didn't matter. You beg, borrow, and steal, and you do whatever it takes to win the next election. This is who they (Democrats) are.
The mid-term election has now come and gone. The Supreme Court announced yesterday that they will be reviewing Biden's plan to forgive loans in the February 2023 session. With a six-three majority, the conservatives on the court will have the final say on Biden's plan. I think it's a foregone conclusion that Biden will get the pants-down spanking he deserves for offering to lessen the loans of so many Americans when he knew full he didn't have the authority to do it. Imagine thinking that you were going to get a reprieve of sorts on the college loans you took out all those years ago, only to find out now that it was nothing more than a pig in a poke. Bumbles did it because he expected to benefit from it at the polls. We all know politicians like Biden and just how sleazy they can be when it comes to lining their own pockets and advancing their own interests. None of it really matters anymore since Bumbles will likely not even remember making the promise by the time the Supremes hear the case. He barely remembers what he has for breakfast most days. God help us all.
Fast forward 12 hours, and I have to say, it was a long day yesterday down in Massachusetts. Thankfully, we ran into less traffic than usual both ways. We got hung up a bit when we hit a traffic jam on the way home but sitting in a snarl of traffic was a welcome reprieve to the otherwise helter-skelter nature of the rush hour traffic. They don't call it "rush" hour for nothing. Completing the set-up of the computer went well, and I think we accomplished everything we wanted to accomplish. These things always take longer than you think they are going to take, and this particular job, and I hesitate to call it a job because we were doing it for a friend, was no exception. I never anticipated having to drive down a second time to finish things up. It was instructive in the sense that it was a reminder to me of what the missus has to go through every time she makes the trip down there. I might want to make the case going forward that while it may have been profitable for the missus to make these trips from time to time to assist an old friend in the past, the risk-benefit profile all these years later is now skewing riskier than not with age being the most important consideration. Everything is more difficult when you get older. Well, almost everything.
I think it's great that the person we helped is getting a new computer with all the bells and whistles that you get when you buy a Mac. When you consider the fact that his new Mac is replacing an older PC, it paints an even prettier picture. That said, putting all of that power in the hands of someone who is no longer able to take advantage of the power that the computer wields is another story altogether. His shortcomings are almost entirely age-related, so there's literally nothing to be done. At best, I hope that he finds a way to do the few things that he enjoys doing, and by doing them over and over again, he will get the satisfaction that he's looking for from his new device. We're talking about sending and receiving e-mails, using Office applications like Word, checking this and that website, placing orders on the Amazon website, etc. He seems to have a good level of tolerance for his own inadequacies, so I don't see him getting overly frustrated, and that's a good thing. I assured him that the missus and I are but a phone call away should he have any problems that he can't resolve by himself. Driving back down there should be a last resort.
What the heck is Mr. Elon up to this time? I'm talking about Elon Musk. He's dredging up and exposing everything that was done by the previous people who ran Twitter, in conjunction with people inside and outside of Twitter, to suppress news that would be viewed as detrimental to the campaign to get Joe Biden elected in the 2020 presidential race against Donald J Trump. I guess if you're wanting to put yourself out there as a public square of sorts, it would behoove you to come clean about what those before you did and didn't do when they were in charge of the same so-called public square. You could say that Twitter's suppression of the Hunter laptop story was Exhibit A. That alone might may well have altered the outcome of the election and, ultimately, the direction of our country in the aftermath of the Biden inauguration. Is it possible that Russia might not have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president? Indeed, it is.
I don't think there's any question that what Elon Musk is doing in revealing all of Twitter's past sins, especially in conjunction with the efforts by our own government to prevent Donald Trump from getting a second term, has put him at great personal and professional risk. He doesn't seem to care, so that's a good thing. Then again, will we ever know everything there is to know, or will we have to take what he's telling us with a grain of salt. I'm going to wait to see if the frauds and the freaks from the Deep State are exposed before taking a full measure of what I think it is that Musk is wanting to accomplish. Until then, I remain a fan of the man, but a skeptical fan of the man. The Deep State might be perfectly happy to see all of this fall on Joe Biden's doorstep. Everyone knows that Scranton Joe has been bought and sold many times over in his fifty years in public service. More self-service than public service, you might say, but corrupt to the core nonetheless. Maybe this is the final straw that gives us the even more corrupt, and twice as stupid if that's possible, President Kamala Harris.
This story in the news about Trump sitting down to dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Kanye West (Ye) and some White Nationalist, Nick Fuentes, is weird. You'd think that Trump sat down with the devil himself the way the left-wing media is going after him. They have one job between now and Election Day in 2024: To destroy Trump and to take him off the playing field where presidential politics are front and center. This is as good a place as any to start, I suppose. It's self-imposed, if you want to know the truth. I mean, Trump didn't have people watching his back when these clowns showed up at his home in Florida? Now, this is all anyone is talking about, and each and every republican in the Grand Ole Party will be asked to disavow Trump's sit-down with Fuentes the racist, Fuentes the White Nationalist, Fuentes the Jew-hater. It will be relentless.
I don't hear Trump threatening to release the tape of the dinner, so I have to believe that there's some truth to what's being reported. Where is Donald J Trump, the master counter-puncher? Where are his children and the former first lady, Melania? Is there no one willing to step into the fray to deflect the jabs and the uppercuts being thrown left and right at the President? All of the people hoping to run against him, the ones who have yet to announce their candidacies, are likely sitting back, watching this clusterfuck unfold, and just smacking their lips at the deliciousness of it all. Can you blame them? Keep in mind that Biden continues to do the bidding of the Communist Chinese, the bidding of the Russians, and he even signed off on Chevron's assisting Maduro, the leftist in Venezuela, in getting Venezuela's oil out of the ground. What do we hear from the media? It's fucking crickets.
It's like all of a sudden. There are Christmas Tree lots popping up everywhere. The missus and I went to Tuttles in Dover yesterday, where they were selling trees in the back lot at what seemed to me to be reasonable prices. If we had had more space in the car, we would have walked away with a tree. I don't think we've ever bought a Christmas tree this early in the season, so I'll just throw that out there. I'm not sure what it means, but the expression "striking while the iron is hot" comes to mind. It's like all of these Black Friday deals. You get them while the getting is good. Otherwise, you might not get them at all. Now, it's just a matter of time before we buy a tree. Half the battle is deciding when and where you are going to get the tree. We've got the "when" part down, now all we need is the "where" piece in order to complete the puzzle.
My neighbor stopped by yesterday with a nice serving or two of her homemade chili. I've not had any, but the missus says it was quite good and asked that I get the recipe so we can make a batch or two of our own. I can do that. She, our neighbor, talked a bit about problems she's having with her furnace. She's been using space heaters to stay warm since her furnace isn't working properly. She said something about it running okay, but it doesn't turn off when it should. She has a guy looking at it who has yet to sort out the specific problem so he can apply the appropriate fix or fixes. She also said something about her oil delivery company being too expensive, and that is why she isn't having them do the fixing. I had no sage advice to offer other than to tell her we had an extra space heater should she need it. She wasn't expecting much more from me, so she was likely not disappointed one way or another. Sometimes, I think it helps to just talk about things. Having someone listen helps too.
I'm not sure what to think of this whole recession thing that they keep talking about. How can you have a recession when unemployment rates are at an all-time low, oil prices are coming down by the day, interest rates are going up but not having the desired effect on home sales, and we just experienced a blockbuster of a Black Friday over the Thanksgiving weekend? If the Fed is supposed to be bringing down inflation by dampening demand with higher interest rates, it ain't working. Where do we go from here? Does the Fed raise interest rates by a full percentage point at their next meeting? How much more "pain" does the Fed need to inflict on the general public before they achieve their version of a soft landing? As to the impact of all of this on the stock market, even the experts can't agree at the moment on whether we're knee-deep in a Bear Market Rally or on the cusp of a new Bull Market.
Will we or will we not have a Santa Rally? The S&P is down roughly 15% YTD, so there's no question that folks following their 401k's would like to see a mother of all rallies unfold in the final weeks going into year-end. The Tech stocks have underperformed both the S&P and the DJIA year-to-date, so it would be nice to see the NASDAQ take a bit of a leadership role here. Without the NASDAQ getting back in the game, we're likely heading lower. Some say that as long as the Fed is raising interest rates, there will be no resumption of the bull market. Maybe we go sideways in the indices for a while until this all gets sorted out. I thought we might see more of a bump in the market when the republicans took the majority in the House of Representatives; You know how the stock market loves gridlock in the halls of Congress. Maybe it was priced in way back when.
What the hell is going on in China? The populace is up in arms over the heavy-handed tactics of the CCP if what I see in our media is correct. They (The American media) are bought and paid for by the CCP, so I suppose I should be taking all of it with a grain of salt. You know who else is bought and paid for by the CCP? That's right. I'm talking about Joey Bumbles Biden and the Biden Crime Family. You would think that Joey, who goes on endlessly about women's rights and the rights of the marginalized communities here in the US, would have a word or two to say about the suppression of the Chinese people. He's said nothing. Zippo. Notta. He's the first in line to get behind the "My Body, My Choice" movement, yet, when it comes to the bodies and choices of Chinese women, Joey tows the line for his CCP paymasters. He says nothing. Not one goddamn word.
As a country, we are either the shining city on the hill, or we're not. We either speak for the downtrodden and the repressed across the face of our planet, or we don't. It is particularly pathetic when you see the president of our great country taking a knee and kowtowing to the ruthless dictators of the world while they kill and silence their citizenry with their brutal tactics. These putrid fucks, from Joey Biden to the cucks in Hollywood and most of the democrats in our Congress who have taken and continue to take money from the CCP for their silence, are more than reprehensible when they say nothing. I'm embarrassed as an American citizen but not surprised since I'm well aware of the corruption that exists inside and outside our government. That is why it is so important for the new Congress to start the hearings about the Biden Crime Family and their connection with the CCP. The corruption needs to be exposed root and branch so it can be excised like the festering tumor from the American psyche that it is.
I should probably hold Apple's feet to the fire here as well. When you sign up to do business in a country like China, you essentially sell your soul just to get your feet in the door. Businesses like Apple often look the other way while profits trump human rights each and every time. I'm not aware of any country that has been considered off-limits by Apple due to its dismal record on human rights. That said, Apple is one of the more woke organizations here in our country, and they are on the front lines when it comes to vocalizing their support for the rights of the marginalized. You might expect them to have a supportive word or two about the citizens in China who make their products in factories with child labor and under very difficult circumstances. You would be wrong. The hypocrisy of Apple, staying silent while China's citizenry takes to the streets these past few days to protest their country's dismal record on human rights, as a woke corporation, is astoundingly rich.
I'm not quite sure that I understand what's going on between Apple and Elon Musk (Twitter.) I think Apple is threatening to take the Twitter application off the Apple Store if Elon Musk goes forward with his promise to release certain communications that will allegedly expose those organizations, people, and government officials who conspired with Twitter prior to Musk's purchase of the company to silence voices or to further certain narratives designed to deceive or distract the public. I think that's it in a nutshell. It sounds like Apple has some skin in the game here. It sounds like Apple is willing to do everything it can to stop Musk from going forward with his plans. Musk countered with a threat to produce his own phone that would go head-to-head with Apple's iPhone. You gotta love Musk's resolve. Hit em where it hurts, Elon! Crash the fucking joint and never look back. Before I go full Musk fanboy here, I think I'd like to know a little bit more about Musk's relationship, if any, with the CCP.
Did you see the video of Biden's nitwit of a Press Secretary at the podium yesterday? I could hardly believe my ears. I'm talking about Jean Pierre, or whatever her name is. She's the black lesbian Haitian press secretary who was hired, not for her skills and experience as a press secretary, but because of the color of her skin and the leftist ideology to which she subscribes. I'll cut to the chase. She was going on and on about the three American winners of the NOBEL prizes recently awarded, but she kept referring to the NOBLE prizes without missing a beat. I'm thinking to myself, what the bloody hell? How much more of this inept and indulgently corrupt Biden Administration are we going to have to endure? If we needed one more example of their sheer ineptness, this was it. Can you imagine how the winners felt hearing her mispronounce one of the more prestigious awards that one can receive? Were they in the audience? God, I hope not.
I wonder how the good people in Arizona who voted for Kari Lake feel today now that the Board of Supervisors in Maricopa County has certified the election for Katie Hobbs. It was heart-wrenching to watch all the Arizonans who voted for Ms. Lake plead their cases in front of the Board of Supervisors. You couldn't possibly watch those performances and walk away thinking that the election was on the up and up. The Democrats knew exactly what they had to do. They listened to the Republican pundits on radio and television as they encouraged Republican voters to wait and cast their votes on Election Day since that was likely to make it more difficult for the Democrats to steal the election. Democrats had voted early and often and had banked a large percentage of the overall vote by the time Election Day arrived. If the Democrats could gum up the works on Election Day, which they did masterfully, they could essentially prevent the Republicans from running up the numbers they needed to put Kari Lake over the top. Mission accomplished.
You might say that the Republicans made their bed, and they should now have to sleep in that bed. It's a shitty metaphor, I'll admit. That said, here we are. The question that we now have to ask is, what the hell is it going to take to have a judge agree with the voters in Arizona who have been screaming from the rooftops that their election was stolen? One possible remedy is to have a re-count in Maricopa County, where most of the alleged malfeasance took place. Surely, they have the receipts they need to make their case. And, those "receipts" cannot just be the people who showed up at the Board of Supervisors meeting to vent their frustration. They need real receipts. I know judges are remiss to redo elections without clear and convincing evidence that there was criminal intent involved in the process, but it seems that a re-count would be a reasonable remedy at a minimum, given the number of voters who signed an affidavit stating that they never had a chance to vote.
There is a lot at stake should the election results, as certified, stand in the final analysis. Some people believe that if Arizona ends up with a Democratic governor, all bets are off come 2024. In other words, it will make it even more difficult for a Republican to win the state in 2024 when the presidential elections are held. I don't think it's possible for a Republican to win the presidency without winning Arizona, electorally speaking. Someone will have to explain to me why having a Democratic governor makes a difference in who wins and who doesn't win a federal election. Are they saying that a Democratic governor can somehow skew the results of a federal election? Are they saying that having a democratic governor in place makes it easier for the democrats to steal the election? If we're to learn anything from this election in Arizona, assuming Katie Hobbs wins, it is that it didn't hurt to have a democrat like Katie Hobbs as Secretary of State when the votes were tallied (or not). The same might well be true come 2024 were Ms. Hobbs to be sworn in as Governor. I think I just answered my own question.
It's hard to believe. Tomorrow is December 1st. It's a steely grey out of doors as I look over my shoulder and across to my neighbor's yard. It's not Winter yet, but we're getting there. We have another twenty-one days to go before we start to see more daylight with each passing day instead of less. I'm feeling good about all the yard work that I've done in the last month or so, and that will have us sitting pretty once the snow starts to fall. I've added black sunflower to my nuts and berries mix in my bird feeders, and that seems to go a bit further than did a straightforward nuts and berries blend. I still have a bit of work left to do to square away the garage, and daytime temperatures are not so cold that working in the garage is a hardship. Not even close, actually. I put a little string of lights on the tree across the street from our home last year and was pleased to find out that all I needed to get them up and running this year was a new set of batteries. Never mind that the tree is on someone else's property. It's an unbuildable lot, actually, and the owners live in another state. A little more cheer never hurts.
I love these stories that you find out about after the fact and that have you scratching your head. So, Bumbles Biden and his entourage were paying a visit to a little island off the coast of Massachusetts recently called Nantucket. While on the island, they rented or otherwise secured the use of several vehicles that were theirs to use for the duration of their visit. After Bumbles and his minions departed the island, all five of the vehicles, having been parked at the airport, were summarily torched and destroyed. I use the word "torched" advisedly because no one is reporting on how the vehicles actually caught fire. In fact, I think that had I not seen the story in one of my feeds on Twitter, I might not have seen this story in the main street media. Make no mistake about it. That was by design.
It seems reasonable to me to be curious, at a minimum, about how it came to be that the entire fleet of vehicles was destroyed in the fire. Was the fire set? What were they trying to hide? What did Bumbles know, and when did he know it? One little nugget coming out is that Biden never personally used the vehicles in question. Now, why would they release that piece of information? Is it because they want to give Bumbles plausible deniability? Do they want to make sure that his press secretary also has plausible deniability once the press starts to pepper her with questions about the matter? Is there even a remote possibility that someone didn't want any DNA taken from one or more of the vehicles for fear that someone would find out that the man appearing here and there on the island as Bumbles Biden isn't really Bumbles Biden at all?
I know it sounds terribly conspiratorial, but it makes sense when you consider the fact that Bumbles couldn't even find the restroom in the Oval Office at the time of his inauguration. We're talking about advanced dementia here, folks. That reminds me. When was the last time this dope stood at the podium to take questions from the media? You know, like a real press conference? Every president in recent memory has stood at the podium every six months to take questions from the media about the state of our affairs. Not so for Bumbles. His lapdogs in the media have stopped asking why he doesn't do pressers. They know he's incapable of doing them. How much more evidence do we need before someone says something about the fact that this clown running around as Joey Bumbles Biden isn't actually Joe Biden at all? You know, Joe Biden from Scranton. Is the fire in Nantucket starting to make more sense now?
Is it me, or does something smell foul when it comes to the Biden Administration and the douchebag Zelensky in Ukraine? Is this the biggest money laundering operation in the history of money laundering? I wouldn't give that little money grubber another nickel without subjecting him and his immediate family to a forensic audit first. You know he's skimming billions right off the top, and it's likely sitting in some Switzerland bank account and out of reach of the auditors. Who the hell are these go-along-to-get-along politicians in our country who have been approving these money transfers to one of the most corrupt countries on the face of the planet? This has stink written all over it. You know Zelensky is going for the big enchilada when he talks openly about reconstruction and the trillions that will be required to fund said reconstruction. Over my fucking dead body, is what I say. I hope the new Republican Congress grows a pair and tells the little fuck, Zelensky, that he's on his own from here on in. There, I said it.
I've got a bad feeling about the run-off race in Georgia this coming Tuesday between Herschel Walker and Senator Warnock. The Democrats have taken stealing elections to a whole new level. There's no reason to think that they aren't bringing those very same skills and that very same set of political safecracking tools to the race in Georgia. They likely have a trunkload of two or more pre-filled ballots ready to go the minute the counting starts in halls and counties across the great peach state. They will only come out, of course, should Senator Warnock come up short in counties where he was expected to win or otherwise do well. Warnock's Senate seat, should he prevail, will give the democrats a one-seat majority in the Senate and, consequently, it is a seat worth stealing. You simply can't leave these things to sort themselves out anymore. There's too much at stake. God forbid the Republicans have a thing or two up their sleeves to thwart the thievery of the Democrats. There's something to be said for striking while the iron's hot.
The missus and I will be going down to Massachusetts today to wrap up the PC-to-iMac conversion that we started a couple of weeks back. The worse part of the whole schtick has been the drive down and back. What we'd hoped would be a one-trip down there to do this job turned into a two-trip instead. It's not the end of the world, but if I had my druthers, I'd not be making this trip today. Friday is no day to be driving into Boston because traffic is typically at its worse on Friday. It's just a massive snarl-fest. Maybe we can avoid some of it by going down a bit after the morning rush. I guess we'll see how that turns out. Anyway, if we can get the printer squared away, the Microsoft Office subscription moved over, and get his Carbonite up and running on his new computer, I think we can consider the trip a success.
Just another word or two on Ye. I'm not a fan of Kanye West, but I do think he knows how to manipulate the media. I can't even name a song that he's put out, and I suspect there have been more than a few of them. I don't think he did Trump any favors by showing up at Mar-a-Lago with a self-professed White Nationalist. I'm referring to this Fuentes guy. He's yet another person that I've never heard of. I have to agree with folks who say that this trip to Mar-a-Lago was a concerted effort on the part of Kanye and Fuentes to take down Trump. If Kanye was looking to take down Trump in order to better position himself in the race for the presidency, it was a nice try, but it was destined for failure. It's going to take more than a couple of thugs from the hood to take out Trump. Now, in recent days, Kanye is on tape saying something about liking Hitler. The guy doesn't know when to stop. It's no surprise that Musk had to step in and ban him from Twitter. The last thing that Musk wants, or needs, is to have his platform, Twitter, squarely in the crosshairs of the left for providing a platform for hate speech.
Did y'all see that televised handshake between President Macron of France and Bumbles Biden? It was fucking cringeworthy. Bumbles wouldn't let go of Macron's hand, and it was a good 45 seconds or so before Macron could free himself from the grips of the old man. All of this took place in full view of the audience, who had to wonder, to a person, what the bejeesus were they seeing unfold before their eyes? Where was Dr. Jill when he needed her? Who could intervene and save both Bumbles and Macron from what was quickly turning into a national, if not global, embarrassment? What the hell was Macron thinking? Imagine staring into the vacant eyes of an old demented, and senile man who has your hand in a death grip and won't let go despite your best efforts. Now imagine that this horror show is unfolding on national television. If you're Macron, you have to be seeing your future flashing before your eyes. He had to be wondering why he ever made the trip.
Bumbles and his boys played that one well, don't you think? I'm referring to his forgiving college loans to the tune of $10k for those who qualified and, better yet, $20k for those with Pell grants/loans. This was nothing more than a blatant effort to buy votes in advance of the mid-term elections. It all sounded so good. If you were laboring beneath a mountain of debt related to loans you took out to get an education, Bumbles was there to help you. It wasn't much, but $10k goes a long way when you don't have two nickels to rub together in the middle of a recession. He was Bumbles the beneficence. It didn't matter that what Bumbles was doing was unconstitutional. Most people weren't any the wiser. He would say, as only Bumbles could, I'll "work it out." The only problem with all of this is that Bumbles knew all too well that what he was offering was not in his wheelhouse to offer. It didn't matter. You beg, borrow, and steal, and you do whatever it takes to win the next election. This is who they (Democrats) are.
The mid-term election has now come and gone. The Supreme Court announced yesterday that they will be reviewing Biden's plan to forgive loans in the February 2023 session. With a six-three majority, the conservatives on the court will have the final say on Biden's plan. I think it's a foregone conclusion that Biden will get the pants-down spanking he deserves for offering to lessen the loans of so many Americans when he knew full he didn't have the authority to do it. Imagine thinking that you were going to get a reprieve of sorts on the college loans you took out all those years ago, only to find out now that it was nothing more than a pig in a poke. Bumbles did it because he expected to benefit from it at the polls. We all know politicians like Biden and just how sleazy they can be when it comes to lining their own pockets and advancing their own interests. None of it really matters anymore since Bumbles will likely not even remember making the promise by the time the Supremes hear the case. He barely remembers what he has for breakfast most days. God help us all.
Fast forward 12 hours, and I have to say, it was a long day yesterday down in Massachusetts. Thankfully, we ran into less traffic than usual both ways. We got hung up a bit when we hit a traffic jam on the way home but sitting in a snarl of traffic was a welcome reprieve to the otherwise helter-skelter nature of the rush hour traffic. They don't call it "rush" hour for nothing. Completing the set-up of the computer went well, and I think we accomplished everything we wanted to accomplish. These things always take longer than you think they are going to take, and this particular job, and I hesitate to call it a job because we were doing it for a friend, was no exception. I never anticipated having to drive down a second time to finish things up. It was instructive in the sense that it was a reminder to me of what the missus has to go through every time she makes the trip down there. I might want to make the case going forward that while it may have been profitable for the missus to make these trips from time to time to assist an old friend in the past, the risk-benefit profile all these years later is now skewing riskier than not with age being the most important consideration. Everything is more difficult when you get older. Well, almost everything.
I think it's great that the person we helped is getting a new computer with all the bells and whistles that you get when you buy a Mac. When you consider the fact that his new Mac is replacing an older PC, it paints an even prettier picture. That said, putting all of that power in the hands of someone who is no longer able to take advantage of the power that the computer wields is another story altogether. His shortcomings are almost entirely age-related, so there's literally nothing to be done. At best, I hope that he finds a way to do the few things that he enjoys doing, and by doing them over and over again, he will get the satisfaction that he's looking for from his new device. We're talking about sending and receiving e-mails, using Office applications like Word, checking this and that website, placing orders on the Amazon website, etc. He seems to have a good level of tolerance for his own inadequacies, so I don't see him getting overly frustrated, and that's a good thing. I assured him that the missus and I are but a phone call away should he have any problems that he can't resolve by himself. Driving back down there should be a last resort.
What the heck is Mr. Elon up to this time? I'm talking about Elon Musk. He's dredging up and exposing everything that was done by the previous people who ran Twitter, in conjunction with people inside and outside of Twitter, to suppress news that would be viewed as detrimental to the campaign to get Joe Biden elected in the 2020 presidential race against Donald J Trump. I guess if you're wanting to put yourself out there as a public square of sorts, it would behoove you to come clean about what those before you did and didn't do when they were in charge of the same so-called public square. You could say that Twitter's suppression of the Hunter laptop story was Exhibit A. That alone might may well have altered the outcome of the election and, ultimately, the direction of our country in the aftermath of the Biden inauguration. Is it possible that Russia might not have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president? Indeed, it is.
I don't think there's any question that what Elon Musk is doing in revealing all of Twitter's past sins, especially in conjunction with the efforts by our own government to prevent Donald Trump from getting a second term, has put him at great personal and professional risk. He doesn't seem to care, so that's a good thing. Then again, will we ever know everything there is to know, or will we have to take what he's telling us with a grain of salt. I'm going to wait to see if the frauds and the freaks from the Deep State are exposed before taking a full measure of what I think it is that Musk is wanting to accomplish. Until then, I remain a fan of the man, but a skeptical fan of the man. The Deep State might be perfectly happy to see all of this fall on Joe Biden's doorstep. Everyone knows that Scranton Joe has been bought and sold many times over in his fifty years in public service. More self-service than public service, you might say, but corrupt to the core nonetheless. Maybe this is the final straw that gives us the even more corrupt, and twice as stupid if that's possible, President Kamala Harris.