Decisions Decisions
02/07/23 07:08
I don't have much of a sense as to how this week is going to unfold so I'll take it one day at a time. There's nothing in particular that I have in mind to follow other than maybe the ongoing power struggle in Russia. Not that I care much about what happens in Russia, but it would be interesting to see if Putin gets the boot. I'm not buying any of the bullshit in the main street media about this Wagner Group guy and his alleged overthrow of Putin's regime. It's all wishful thinking on the part of the lunatic left. They fail to realize that there is a millennia-long legacy of strongmen leading Russia, and they should be careful about what they wish for. The big question with the Russians is and will always be, who will be in charge of Russia's nuclear weapons stockpile after the dust settles? Oh, and what plans does the new strongman, assuming there is a new strongman, have on the drawing board to use them to advance Russia's interests?
The Ev man came over for a little cookout yesterday afternoon. We threw a couple of chicken breasts on the grill and made grilled chicken sandwiches when all was said and done. He prefers his chicken sandwiches with lettuce, tomato, and onion. I think I sliced his onion a little too thick, truth be told. A little ketchup here, a few pickles there, a smidgeon of mayonnaise, and it all came together pretty nicely, in my opinion. The Ev man took the leftover chicken, rolls, lettuce, and tomato home for a late-night snack. I had him tend the grill at one point. He's not had much experience with grills, so it was funny to see how tentative he was when it came to turning over the chicken, etc. That needs to change. We committed as a family to sit down to a grilled meal at least once a week for the duration of the summer months. Why not? Right?
I'm pleased to report that our new air conditioner is working like a charm. As temperatures edged into the eighties and with humidity approaching 100% yesterday afternoon, I put the air conditioner on auto and let it run. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it cooled off the house as well, if not better than the air conditioning unit that it replaced. I think the jury was out until we had a good hot day to test the unit. I was a little concerned that the new standards the government has in place to minimize this and that as it pertains to the manufacturing of devices that consume energy, like our new air conditioner, would somehow lessen the performance of the very same device. It's a bit of a relief, actually, since I have no plan B. I suppose I could put the old unit back in the window, but I'm hard-pressed to even consider that option. I think we had a "Mikey likes it" moment here in the household when the missus gave me a thumbs-up when I asked if she was ok with the performance of our new air conditioner. As they say in the business, we are now "good to go."
I'm not sure who put him up to it, but I think it wasn't a bad idea. There were pictures of a buff Robert F Kennedy Jr in any number of newspapers and online yesterday where he was lifting weights and maybe doing a few push-ups while shirtless. Make no mistake about it, the guy appears to be in great shape for someone his age. If Biden has any ideas about taking this guy out behind the gym, he may want to think twice. Anyway, the visuals were about drawing a physical contrast between Kennedy and Biden, and it couldn't have been more stark. Who is better prepared to stand up to our country's challenges in the next four years? I mean physically and mentally prepared to meet those challenges. Who has the requisite musculature and mental acuity to do the job? Kennedy has already proven that he can speak in complete sentences without the need for cue cards. Now, thanks to the visuals provided by his campaign yesterday, we know he's got the so-called buff-ness required. It was interesting.
Did y'all see those videos online yesterday of the Pride parades in various cities around the country? It was the sickest shit I've ever seen. You had bare-assed males and females strutting their stuff to adoring crowds along the parade route. The men were actually nude from head to toe, and their junk was on display for all to see, including children of all ages. I thought we had laws in this country of ours against this sort of thing. I don't give a flying fuck about what consenting adults do in their own time. I care about our children's impressionable minds and what they may or may not get exposed to during their everyday lives. I don't want them getting exposed to porn in their school libraries, and I sure as shit don't want them sharing showers and restrooms with members of the opposite sex. There's a particular perversion and rot in our culture brought to our towns and cities by the Democrat Party that needs to be excised root and branch. It was on display in all of its putrid luridity yesterday in cities like Seattle, Boston, and New York City. God help us, and God help our children.
I don't know who the FBI agents think they were fooling. There was a video on the internet yesterday of a small group of masked men holding up nazi flags in front of an abortion clinic somewhere in Georgia. Who does that? Right? The next thing I know, I'm seeing a video of a group of seemingly well-intentioned men chasing these masked people down the street. They're pushing and shoving them and, in some cases, trying and actually unmasking some of these masked fools. I think the idea was to expose them as FBI agents, assuming that's what they were dealing with. The good news is that they did expose some of them as FBI agents. Of course, we knew that all along. Our Justice Department has been turned into a weapon of the radical left. Just don't put it past them to perpetuate any and all myths about the battle against White Supremacists and Nazis who, according to Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, are an existential threat to our society. Of course, we wouldn't know they exist were it not for FBI agents masquerading as white supremacists and a compliant media more than willing to televise their Kabuki theater. The ends always justify the means.
I keep thinking that if it had been Don Trump Jr shaking down the Chinese for $10 million instead of Hunter Biden, it would be a shitstorm in the media day in and day out. Instead, it's mostly crickets in the mainstream media. I'm beginning to think that the Bidens will get taken out sooner or later by the sheer volume of criminality and corruption going back a number of years. Day in and day out, we hear yet more stories, more WhatsApp texts, more this and that about the extortion plots and pay-for-play arrangements that the Bidens have been involved in with countries across the globe. That 10% for the big guy stuff seems to be the veritable tip of the iceberg when it comes to the level of corruption we are now learning about the Bidens. I think about the fact that if Hunter's laptop had been properly vetted during the 2020 election, polls show that Biden would have given up 7-8% of his support to Trump in the election. That was just the laptop. At what point is Biden so damaged politically now that he would lose to almost anyone running on the Republican ticket?
Knowing that taking down Trump would not pave the way for a Biden win raises any number of good questions. Do they even need to waste time and energy on Trump anymore? I mean, why bother if anyone can beat Biden? It only makes sense if the Democrats have another candidate in mind to replace Biden. But who? Elections aside, and speaking as an American here, I want to see the Bidens brought to Justice. I want to see the corruption and rot of our Justice Department ferreted out and torn root and branch from every last nook and cranny that they can find. This globalist bullshit our country has been courting has got to be brought to heel, and the likes of John Kerry brought before the Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity. These legions of sick perverted fucks that have been exposing themselves to our unsuspecting children in libraries and drag shows across our fruited plains need their own form of comeuppance, whatever that looks like. What would Jesus do? What would he do and say to a father who showers with his prepubescent daughter? Hell hath no fury like (you finish the sentence.)
I want to be careful about going down too many rabbit holes when it comes to teaching myself to play the guitar, but I think I owe it to myself to see if I can't learn to sight-read music. Otherwise, I think I'll find myself in a constant monkey-see-monkey-do type of thing. I guess I feel good about learning new songs and adding them to my oh-so-limited repertoire but to what end? I bought a thumb pick the other day because I'm wanting to learn and do something new with my instrument. Any fool can learn how to strum a few chords, but it takes more of an effort to fingerpick a tune or two. There is this Emanual guy on YouTube that has a few lessons out there for flat pickers or whatever you call guitar players who pick out songs rather than strum them to death like a John Denver. I'll never be that guy sitting around the campfire with a guitar over my shoulder, strumming out tunes from the Eagles and James Taylor. I'd rather stick myself in the eye with a hot poker. The funny thing is, I wish I could play music written by James Taylor. He's more of a classical finger picker than most people know. He was probably a bad example of what not to learn to play.
I watched Robert F Kennedy Jr's first nationally televised town hall last night. It was on News Nation, and Kennedy was interviewed by Elizabeth Vargas. God, she was a gasbag. I hate it when the interviewer becomes the story. She was a shill for the Biden Administration, judging by the number of times she interrupted him and disputed comments that he made on everything from vaccines to gun violence. I couldn't believe that Chris Cuomo brought her back on his show after the debate, where she continued to talk smack about Kennedy's performance. Did she ask one question about the criminal activity coming out of the White House and the Biden Crime Family? She did not. She was nearly apoplectic when Kennedy declined to say whether or not he would support the eventual nominee in the Democrat Party. I thought Kennedy was a lot like Trump in that he has a lot of appeal as an anti-establishment candidate. A populist even. Both he and Trump want to throw the lying elites out of office and restore honesty and integrity to the halls of government and the presidency. I like the guy, so I may change my party affiliation here in my state to vote for him in the primary against Bumbles.
I guess the last thing I would say about the Kennedy thing is that I wish they had interviewed more people who watched the event after the fact. Isn't that the idea behind these kinds of things? You have focus groups when all is said and done to gauge the impact of the candidate's performance. What grade did they give him? Would they consider voting for him based on what they saw and heard throughout the evening? They literally invited Democrats and independents to sit in the audience in multiple locations across our fruited plains, so why wouldn't you follow up with them? You might not if the candidate had a miserable time of it, but that was not the case. Kennedy acquitted himself as a thoughtful, intelligent, and serious person who thought that, as president, he would offer a viable alternative to the wobbly and imprecise candidacy of the current incumbent. Maybe News Nation got the word from on high, whoever the hell that is, that they could feel free to interview Kennedy, but they should do nothing that would effectively advance his candidacy. That would include, as you might imagine, showing glowing accounts from the people who watched the interview and who would now crawl over broken glass to cast their vote for Kennedy. That would simply be a bridge too far for the powers that be.
Biden was out on the stump last evening in Chicago, talking up his policy successes on the economy. It was a frightful performance by most accounts. Forget for a moment that nobody thinks that our economy is in all that great of shape. And the gaffes coming out of Biden's mouth were, as usual, off-the-charts stupid. He stumbled badly over several words, and at one point during the evening, he referred to Putin's war in Iraq. And, what the hell were those strap marks across the side of his face that surfaced when the lights hit him just so? His handlers put out the word, believe it or not, that they were strap marks from his CPAP machine. Do I have that right? It's the machine that people use to facilitate breathing while sleeping due to persisting or prolonged pulmonary issues. I'm making this stuff up as I go along, so feel free to make the necessary corrections. I'm believing none of it. Whatever the hell is going on, it more likely has to do with his receiving treatment for his late-stage dementia. It might even have something to do with making sure that he has the technology in place to do what he needs to do on the stump. Or, even crazier than that, maybe it's holding his mask in place. Maybe it's not Biden at all. See what happens when you get to the point where they lie so much about everything that your mind goes to great lengths and then some to answer simple questions about the things they say and do?
It looks and sounds like they have Attorney Garland dead to rights on lying to Congress. It's been a very convoluted road getting to the truth, but it seems like they have a handle on all of it now. I couldn't follow it at first, but I think I get it now. It helped to hear any number of people talk about it from their personal perspectives and experience. Even more surprising is the fact that the New York Times and CBS did pieces on the story, and they rarely, if ever, present facts to the public that are critical one way or another of the incumbent Democrat president of the United States. The gist of the story is that the Department of Justice colluded with President Biden and his people to prevent and effectively quash any and all inquiries that would implicate the president of the United States and his family members in a criminal conspiracy. Haven't the Democrats told us time and time again that "no one is above the law"? Garland lied to Congress about what authority the investigators had or didn't have when it came to following up with the people allegedly involved in the coverup, namely the president of the United States and his family members. He effectively perjured himself. That, my friends, is an impeachable offense.
We'll hear from the Supreme Court today about a couple of cases remaining on their docket for the 2022 term. Let's just say that I've not been impressed with the less-than-conservative outcomes I've seen in the last few of their announcements. It makes you wonder how much of what and how they decide cases is based on their desire to be popular or, at a minimum, not worthy of the rabid criticism leveled at them by the radicals on the left. It seems, in some cases, that holding vigils in front of the homes of the Justices pays dividends for the squishier of the Justices. Anyway, the Justices better deliver the right decision today on the issue of whether or not the president can wave debts owed by college students. Biden did just that to garner votes for the Democrats in the midterms, and he did it knowing full well that he did not have the power under the Constitution to do it. It should really be a nine-zero decision if you think about it. Matters of the purse are the purview of the Congress, plain and simple. The President cannot usurp the powers of Congress, no matter the cause. Get this one right, will ya? If you don't, the President will be queuing up reparations for blacks to ensure their support in 2024. It will be pay-for-play on steroids.
Oops. I think I missed the Supreme Court decision on the President's power to absolve debts by a day. The Supremes overturned affirmative action yesterday by a predictable margin of 6-3. Our conservative court has been waiting decades to overturn this one, and they did just that yesterday. The case was brought against Harvard and one other university in North Carolina by an individual who had been denied access despite the fact that his qualifications exceeded that of the minority students admitted at the time. Admissions have been race-based for the past fifty years, and that has essentially deprived other races of equal access to the same educational opportunities. Now, universities will be forced to admit students on merit instead of race. They will have to put their diversity quotas on the back burner. If blacks want to get into elite schools, they will have to demonstrate that they are qualified based on grades, test scores, etc. In other words, they will no longer be afforded a free ride based on skin color.
The radical leftists were absolutely beside themselves with this decision by the Court. I don't know why they thought it would turn out any differently than it did. We now need to move aggressively to take affirmative action out of other places in our institutions and our culture. I think we owe it to blacks who want equal opportunity and not a handout. But the clutching of pearls and the gnashing of teeth at this decision by the mainstream media and Biden himself, who referred to the Court as "not normal," was something else. I was sipping liberal tears from the moment the decision was announced sometime in the late morning here on the East Coast. "It's another attack on 50 years of precedence", they screamed. If nothing else, they want to tap into the rage of their leftist constituents by calling for the dismantling of the Court's conservative majority. Like the Roe v. Wade decision of 2022, they will make every effort to turn the court's decision into votes for Democrats in 2024. I'm guessing they will be forced to refocus their energies on yet another great decision (fingers crossed) by the Court today when the Court decides that the president does not have the power to absolve students of their debts. Long live the Supreme Court!
There is some other decision coming down today that deals with a person's right to sell their goods (as a vendor) to people of their choosing. In other words, if a baker doesn't want to make and sell cakes for same-sex couples or maybe some group that idolizes Satan, then he or she shouldn't have to do it. I know that's something of a thumbnail sketch, but I think it's close enough for government work. It seems to me that if you market your goods to the public, then you can't really pick and choose who you sell to without giving the appearance of discriminating against them. I suppose the public has the right to take their business elsewhere should that happen. Taken to the extreme, any number of stores could effectively pick and choose who they want to sell to, and to no one's surprise, that would make for a very weird marketplace. If I had to guess, I'd say that the conservatives on the Court will come down on the side of individual rights, and the libs will look at the collective impact on society and, more specifically, the impact on the rights of religious and racial-based minority groups. In two hours' time, we'll have decisions on both cases.
It scares the hell out of me to think of how these cases before the Supreme Court might have gone another way were it not for the fact that we have a conservative majority on the court. We'd have the courts signing off on presidents doing things that they simply are not entitled to do under our Constitution. It would effectively render our beloved Constitution as just another piece of paper with words on it that once meant something but is now meaningless for all intents and purposes. As for the case of the web designer, she would invariably be forced by the state to do something that is not in holding with her personal or religious beliefs. We would have colleges filling their student ranks based on diversity and past racial injustices at the expense of individuals applying based on merit and life experiences. The very fabric of our institutions, not to mention our culture, would be at risk in such a dystopian world. This is where we were headed, like a locomotive coming down the tracks, before the Court's decisions this week, so our collective concerns are not unfounded. I'm not sure I want to live in a country where the liberal majority has the final word. All three cases were 6-3 outcomes.
What the hell is going on in France? What are all these videos and pictures I'm seeing of cities and towns in France set on fire at the hands of disenchanted migrants? I'm not sure disenchanted is the right word, but they are clearly not happy with something. I heard one story about the rioting being caused by the actions of the police when handling (or mishandling) a motor vehicle incident involving one of their fellow migrants. It looked all too reminiscent of the George Floyd riots here in the States back a couple of years ago. Now that Bumbles Biden has let some fifteen million illegal aliens come unmolested across our Southern Border since his inauguration in 2021, perhaps it's just a matter of time before we see the same level of carnage and devastation laid upon our cities and towns by these people. Macron is blaming it on video games while dancing the night away at an Elton John concert well away from the fracas. Townspeople, especially fair-skinned townspeople, are at particular risk in going about their business. Did I mention that these rioters are armed? We're now several nights into this mayhem, and they say that the gendarmes are running low on ammunition thanks to France donating as much of their military might as they have to the Ukrainians in their fight against the Russians. Holy smokes.
Did you see that presidential poll coming out of the State of Ohio? Holy jumping Jesus. Trump had something like 59% to DeSantis's 15%. You go nowhere unless you win Ohio. Now where does DeSantis go? It seems that the harder he tries, the lower his approval ratings go. Every time I read a story about him, he's making yet another crazy promise to try and get his campaign back on track. His latest is that he is going to dissolve both the Department of Education (DOE) and the IRS. I think he's crossing over into la-la land with these things. I can see the DOE going by the boards, but the IRS? Quite frankly, it reeks of desperation. Trump is saying all the right things on the stump, and his latest promise to rid our government of every last departmental group working on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), is a real barn burner of an issue. The sooner we turn back the clock on these woke initiatives in our country, the sooner we can return to normal, whatever that looks like. Every other candidate is in the single digits and, more than likely, trying to put together an exit plan that saves face and stops the hemorrhaging of the few sheckles they have left in their meager bank accounts.
I told the missus that we picked a good time to have our driveway seal coated. We chose a day after our neighbor mowed her lawn so that all of that dust and dirt thrown into the air with the mowing of her lawn didn't come to rest on our nice new-ish looking driveway. We didn't actually plan it that way. That's just the way it worked out. We're now 48 hours later, and we've had just the right mix of sun, shade, and heat to facilitate the curing of the new coating. The missus thinks the weather has been a little too humid, but I respectfully disagree. I think 48 hours is the time it takes to cure it, so I'll just go with that, although I may put off driving on the driveway for another day or two just to be safe. We may get rain today, but I think we're sufficiently past the period of time when the rain would be an issue as it relates to the cure. When I think of all those little nooks, crannies, and spider-veined-sized fissures that got filled in with the seal coating, I'm delighted to know that not one of them is going to get any worse when winter rolls around in a few months. That's "peace of mind" in a nutshell.
I've also decided to take a very small break when it comes to loading my bird feeder with suet. This particular feeder is primarily a Woodpecker feeder. The Woodpeckers have been so ravenous lately that they come one after the other, sometimes waiting in what seems like an endless queue to have their turn at the suet. They came in various sizes and shapes, and I'm seeing what appear to be different generations of the same families of Woodpeckers appearing almost daily. I've even seen them feeding each other from time to time, putting the suet on their beaks and passing it along to maybe a mate or a sibling, I can't be sure. I swear to God that if I didn't have a suet feeder, and admittedly a suet that they've clearly taken a fancy to, that I might never see a Woodpecker in the hood. I'd likely hear the drumming of their beaks as they bore holes in the local trees in their search for insects, but catching a glimpse of them, maybe not so much. Anyway, maybe depriving them for a day or two might cut down on the number of birds coming around, if only for a time. I know my Hummingbirds will appreciate a little less traffic on our back deck where their feeders hang. Woodpeckers can be such bullies sometimes.
The Ev man came over for a little cookout yesterday afternoon. We threw a couple of chicken breasts on the grill and made grilled chicken sandwiches when all was said and done. He prefers his chicken sandwiches with lettuce, tomato, and onion. I think I sliced his onion a little too thick, truth be told. A little ketchup here, a few pickles there, a smidgeon of mayonnaise, and it all came together pretty nicely, in my opinion. The Ev man took the leftover chicken, rolls, lettuce, and tomato home for a late-night snack. I had him tend the grill at one point. He's not had much experience with grills, so it was funny to see how tentative he was when it came to turning over the chicken, etc. That needs to change. We committed as a family to sit down to a grilled meal at least once a week for the duration of the summer months. Why not? Right?
I'm pleased to report that our new air conditioner is working like a charm. As temperatures edged into the eighties and with humidity approaching 100% yesterday afternoon, I put the air conditioner on auto and let it run. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it cooled off the house as well, if not better than the air conditioning unit that it replaced. I think the jury was out until we had a good hot day to test the unit. I was a little concerned that the new standards the government has in place to minimize this and that as it pertains to the manufacturing of devices that consume energy, like our new air conditioner, would somehow lessen the performance of the very same device. It's a bit of a relief, actually, since I have no plan B. I suppose I could put the old unit back in the window, but I'm hard-pressed to even consider that option. I think we had a "Mikey likes it" moment here in the household when the missus gave me a thumbs-up when I asked if she was ok with the performance of our new air conditioner. As they say in the business, we are now "good to go."
I'm not sure who put him up to it, but I think it wasn't a bad idea. There were pictures of a buff Robert F Kennedy Jr in any number of newspapers and online yesterday where he was lifting weights and maybe doing a few push-ups while shirtless. Make no mistake about it, the guy appears to be in great shape for someone his age. If Biden has any ideas about taking this guy out behind the gym, he may want to think twice. Anyway, the visuals were about drawing a physical contrast between Kennedy and Biden, and it couldn't have been more stark. Who is better prepared to stand up to our country's challenges in the next four years? I mean physically and mentally prepared to meet those challenges. Who has the requisite musculature and mental acuity to do the job? Kennedy has already proven that he can speak in complete sentences without the need for cue cards. Now, thanks to the visuals provided by his campaign yesterday, we know he's got the so-called buff-ness required. It was interesting.
Did y'all see those videos online yesterday of the Pride parades in various cities around the country? It was the sickest shit I've ever seen. You had bare-assed males and females strutting their stuff to adoring crowds along the parade route. The men were actually nude from head to toe, and their junk was on display for all to see, including children of all ages. I thought we had laws in this country of ours against this sort of thing. I don't give a flying fuck about what consenting adults do in their own time. I care about our children's impressionable minds and what they may or may not get exposed to during their everyday lives. I don't want them getting exposed to porn in their school libraries, and I sure as shit don't want them sharing showers and restrooms with members of the opposite sex. There's a particular perversion and rot in our culture brought to our towns and cities by the Democrat Party that needs to be excised root and branch. It was on display in all of its putrid luridity yesterday in cities like Seattle, Boston, and New York City. God help us, and God help our children.
I don't know who the FBI agents think they were fooling. There was a video on the internet yesterday of a small group of masked men holding up nazi flags in front of an abortion clinic somewhere in Georgia. Who does that? Right? The next thing I know, I'm seeing a video of a group of seemingly well-intentioned men chasing these masked people down the street. They're pushing and shoving them and, in some cases, trying and actually unmasking some of these masked fools. I think the idea was to expose them as FBI agents, assuming that's what they were dealing with. The good news is that they did expose some of them as FBI agents. Of course, we knew that all along. Our Justice Department has been turned into a weapon of the radical left. Just don't put it past them to perpetuate any and all myths about the battle against White Supremacists and Nazis who, according to Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, are an existential threat to our society. Of course, we wouldn't know they exist were it not for FBI agents masquerading as white supremacists and a compliant media more than willing to televise their Kabuki theater. The ends always justify the means.
I keep thinking that if it had been Don Trump Jr shaking down the Chinese for $10 million instead of Hunter Biden, it would be a shitstorm in the media day in and day out. Instead, it's mostly crickets in the mainstream media. I'm beginning to think that the Bidens will get taken out sooner or later by the sheer volume of criminality and corruption going back a number of years. Day in and day out, we hear yet more stories, more WhatsApp texts, more this and that about the extortion plots and pay-for-play arrangements that the Bidens have been involved in with countries across the globe. That 10% for the big guy stuff seems to be the veritable tip of the iceberg when it comes to the level of corruption we are now learning about the Bidens. I think about the fact that if Hunter's laptop had been properly vetted during the 2020 election, polls show that Biden would have given up 7-8% of his support to Trump in the election. That was just the laptop. At what point is Biden so damaged politically now that he would lose to almost anyone running on the Republican ticket?
Knowing that taking down Trump would not pave the way for a Biden win raises any number of good questions. Do they even need to waste time and energy on Trump anymore? I mean, why bother if anyone can beat Biden? It only makes sense if the Democrats have another candidate in mind to replace Biden. But who? Elections aside, and speaking as an American here, I want to see the Bidens brought to Justice. I want to see the corruption and rot of our Justice Department ferreted out and torn root and branch from every last nook and cranny that they can find. This globalist bullshit our country has been courting has got to be brought to heel, and the likes of John Kerry brought before the Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity. These legions of sick perverted fucks that have been exposing themselves to our unsuspecting children in libraries and drag shows across our fruited plains need their own form of comeuppance, whatever that looks like. What would Jesus do? What would he do and say to a father who showers with his prepubescent daughter? Hell hath no fury like (you finish the sentence.)
I want to be careful about going down too many rabbit holes when it comes to teaching myself to play the guitar, but I think I owe it to myself to see if I can't learn to sight-read music. Otherwise, I think I'll find myself in a constant monkey-see-monkey-do type of thing. I guess I feel good about learning new songs and adding them to my oh-so-limited repertoire but to what end? I bought a thumb pick the other day because I'm wanting to learn and do something new with my instrument. Any fool can learn how to strum a few chords, but it takes more of an effort to fingerpick a tune or two. There is this Emanual guy on YouTube that has a few lessons out there for flat pickers or whatever you call guitar players who pick out songs rather than strum them to death like a John Denver. I'll never be that guy sitting around the campfire with a guitar over my shoulder, strumming out tunes from the Eagles and James Taylor. I'd rather stick myself in the eye with a hot poker. The funny thing is, I wish I could play music written by James Taylor. He's more of a classical finger picker than most people know. He was probably a bad example of what not to learn to play.
I watched Robert F Kennedy Jr's first nationally televised town hall last night. It was on News Nation, and Kennedy was interviewed by Elizabeth Vargas. God, she was a gasbag. I hate it when the interviewer becomes the story. She was a shill for the Biden Administration, judging by the number of times she interrupted him and disputed comments that he made on everything from vaccines to gun violence. I couldn't believe that Chris Cuomo brought her back on his show after the debate, where she continued to talk smack about Kennedy's performance. Did she ask one question about the criminal activity coming out of the White House and the Biden Crime Family? She did not. She was nearly apoplectic when Kennedy declined to say whether or not he would support the eventual nominee in the Democrat Party. I thought Kennedy was a lot like Trump in that he has a lot of appeal as an anti-establishment candidate. A populist even. Both he and Trump want to throw the lying elites out of office and restore honesty and integrity to the halls of government and the presidency. I like the guy, so I may change my party affiliation here in my state to vote for him in the primary against Bumbles.
I guess the last thing I would say about the Kennedy thing is that I wish they had interviewed more people who watched the event after the fact. Isn't that the idea behind these kinds of things? You have focus groups when all is said and done to gauge the impact of the candidate's performance. What grade did they give him? Would they consider voting for him based on what they saw and heard throughout the evening? They literally invited Democrats and independents to sit in the audience in multiple locations across our fruited plains, so why wouldn't you follow up with them? You might not if the candidate had a miserable time of it, but that was not the case. Kennedy acquitted himself as a thoughtful, intelligent, and serious person who thought that, as president, he would offer a viable alternative to the wobbly and imprecise candidacy of the current incumbent. Maybe News Nation got the word from on high, whoever the hell that is, that they could feel free to interview Kennedy, but they should do nothing that would effectively advance his candidacy. That would include, as you might imagine, showing glowing accounts from the people who watched the interview and who would now crawl over broken glass to cast their vote for Kennedy. That would simply be a bridge too far for the powers that be.
Biden was out on the stump last evening in Chicago, talking up his policy successes on the economy. It was a frightful performance by most accounts. Forget for a moment that nobody thinks that our economy is in all that great of shape. And the gaffes coming out of Biden's mouth were, as usual, off-the-charts stupid. He stumbled badly over several words, and at one point during the evening, he referred to Putin's war in Iraq. And, what the hell were those strap marks across the side of his face that surfaced when the lights hit him just so? His handlers put out the word, believe it or not, that they were strap marks from his CPAP machine. Do I have that right? It's the machine that people use to facilitate breathing while sleeping due to persisting or prolonged pulmonary issues. I'm making this stuff up as I go along, so feel free to make the necessary corrections. I'm believing none of it. Whatever the hell is going on, it more likely has to do with his receiving treatment for his late-stage dementia. It might even have something to do with making sure that he has the technology in place to do what he needs to do on the stump. Or, even crazier than that, maybe it's holding his mask in place. Maybe it's not Biden at all. See what happens when you get to the point where they lie so much about everything that your mind goes to great lengths and then some to answer simple questions about the things they say and do?
It looks and sounds like they have Attorney Garland dead to rights on lying to Congress. It's been a very convoluted road getting to the truth, but it seems like they have a handle on all of it now. I couldn't follow it at first, but I think I get it now. It helped to hear any number of people talk about it from their personal perspectives and experience. Even more surprising is the fact that the New York Times and CBS did pieces on the story, and they rarely, if ever, present facts to the public that are critical one way or another of the incumbent Democrat president of the United States. The gist of the story is that the Department of Justice colluded with President Biden and his people to prevent and effectively quash any and all inquiries that would implicate the president of the United States and his family members in a criminal conspiracy. Haven't the Democrats told us time and time again that "no one is above the law"? Garland lied to Congress about what authority the investigators had or didn't have when it came to following up with the people allegedly involved in the coverup, namely the president of the United States and his family members. He effectively perjured himself. That, my friends, is an impeachable offense.
We'll hear from the Supreme Court today about a couple of cases remaining on their docket for the 2022 term. Let's just say that I've not been impressed with the less-than-conservative outcomes I've seen in the last few of their announcements. It makes you wonder how much of what and how they decide cases is based on their desire to be popular or, at a minimum, not worthy of the rabid criticism leveled at them by the radicals on the left. It seems, in some cases, that holding vigils in front of the homes of the Justices pays dividends for the squishier of the Justices. Anyway, the Justices better deliver the right decision today on the issue of whether or not the president can wave debts owed by college students. Biden did just that to garner votes for the Democrats in the midterms, and he did it knowing full well that he did not have the power under the Constitution to do it. It should really be a nine-zero decision if you think about it. Matters of the purse are the purview of the Congress, plain and simple. The President cannot usurp the powers of Congress, no matter the cause. Get this one right, will ya? If you don't, the President will be queuing up reparations for blacks to ensure their support in 2024. It will be pay-for-play on steroids.
Oops. I think I missed the Supreme Court decision on the President's power to absolve debts by a day. The Supremes overturned affirmative action yesterday by a predictable margin of 6-3. Our conservative court has been waiting decades to overturn this one, and they did just that yesterday. The case was brought against Harvard and one other university in North Carolina by an individual who had been denied access despite the fact that his qualifications exceeded that of the minority students admitted at the time. Admissions have been race-based for the past fifty years, and that has essentially deprived other races of equal access to the same educational opportunities. Now, universities will be forced to admit students on merit instead of race. They will have to put their diversity quotas on the back burner. If blacks want to get into elite schools, they will have to demonstrate that they are qualified based on grades, test scores, etc. In other words, they will no longer be afforded a free ride based on skin color.
The radical leftists were absolutely beside themselves with this decision by the Court. I don't know why they thought it would turn out any differently than it did. We now need to move aggressively to take affirmative action out of other places in our institutions and our culture. I think we owe it to blacks who want equal opportunity and not a handout. But the clutching of pearls and the gnashing of teeth at this decision by the mainstream media and Biden himself, who referred to the Court as "not normal," was something else. I was sipping liberal tears from the moment the decision was announced sometime in the late morning here on the East Coast. "It's another attack on 50 years of precedence", they screamed. If nothing else, they want to tap into the rage of their leftist constituents by calling for the dismantling of the Court's conservative majority. Like the Roe v. Wade decision of 2022, they will make every effort to turn the court's decision into votes for Democrats in 2024. I'm guessing they will be forced to refocus their energies on yet another great decision (fingers crossed) by the Court today when the Court decides that the president does not have the power to absolve students of their debts. Long live the Supreme Court!
There is some other decision coming down today that deals with a person's right to sell their goods (as a vendor) to people of their choosing. In other words, if a baker doesn't want to make and sell cakes for same-sex couples or maybe some group that idolizes Satan, then he or she shouldn't have to do it. I know that's something of a thumbnail sketch, but I think it's close enough for government work. It seems to me that if you market your goods to the public, then you can't really pick and choose who you sell to without giving the appearance of discriminating against them. I suppose the public has the right to take their business elsewhere should that happen. Taken to the extreme, any number of stores could effectively pick and choose who they want to sell to, and to no one's surprise, that would make for a very weird marketplace. If I had to guess, I'd say that the conservatives on the Court will come down on the side of individual rights, and the libs will look at the collective impact on society and, more specifically, the impact on the rights of religious and racial-based minority groups. In two hours' time, we'll have decisions on both cases.
It scares the hell out of me to think of how these cases before the Supreme Court might have gone another way were it not for the fact that we have a conservative majority on the court. We'd have the courts signing off on presidents doing things that they simply are not entitled to do under our Constitution. It would effectively render our beloved Constitution as just another piece of paper with words on it that once meant something but is now meaningless for all intents and purposes. As for the case of the web designer, she would invariably be forced by the state to do something that is not in holding with her personal or religious beliefs. We would have colleges filling their student ranks based on diversity and past racial injustices at the expense of individuals applying based on merit and life experiences. The very fabric of our institutions, not to mention our culture, would be at risk in such a dystopian world. This is where we were headed, like a locomotive coming down the tracks, before the Court's decisions this week, so our collective concerns are not unfounded. I'm not sure I want to live in a country where the liberal majority has the final word. All three cases were 6-3 outcomes.
What the hell is going on in France? What are all these videos and pictures I'm seeing of cities and towns in France set on fire at the hands of disenchanted migrants? I'm not sure disenchanted is the right word, but they are clearly not happy with something. I heard one story about the rioting being caused by the actions of the police when handling (or mishandling) a motor vehicle incident involving one of their fellow migrants. It looked all too reminiscent of the George Floyd riots here in the States back a couple of years ago. Now that Bumbles Biden has let some fifteen million illegal aliens come unmolested across our Southern Border since his inauguration in 2021, perhaps it's just a matter of time before we see the same level of carnage and devastation laid upon our cities and towns by these people. Macron is blaming it on video games while dancing the night away at an Elton John concert well away from the fracas. Townspeople, especially fair-skinned townspeople, are at particular risk in going about their business. Did I mention that these rioters are armed? We're now several nights into this mayhem, and they say that the gendarmes are running low on ammunition thanks to France donating as much of their military might as they have to the Ukrainians in their fight against the Russians. Holy smokes.
Did you see that presidential poll coming out of the State of Ohio? Holy jumping Jesus. Trump had something like 59% to DeSantis's 15%. You go nowhere unless you win Ohio. Now where does DeSantis go? It seems that the harder he tries, the lower his approval ratings go. Every time I read a story about him, he's making yet another crazy promise to try and get his campaign back on track. His latest is that he is going to dissolve both the Department of Education (DOE) and the IRS. I think he's crossing over into la-la land with these things. I can see the DOE going by the boards, but the IRS? Quite frankly, it reeks of desperation. Trump is saying all the right things on the stump, and his latest promise to rid our government of every last departmental group working on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), is a real barn burner of an issue. The sooner we turn back the clock on these woke initiatives in our country, the sooner we can return to normal, whatever that looks like. Every other candidate is in the single digits and, more than likely, trying to put together an exit plan that saves face and stops the hemorrhaging of the few sheckles they have left in their meager bank accounts.
I told the missus that we picked a good time to have our driveway seal coated. We chose a day after our neighbor mowed her lawn so that all of that dust and dirt thrown into the air with the mowing of her lawn didn't come to rest on our nice new-ish looking driveway. We didn't actually plan it that way. That's just the way it worked out. We're now 48 hours later, and we've had just the right mix of sun, shade, and heat to facilitate the curing of the new coating. The missus thinks the weather has been a little too humid, but I respectfully disagree. I think 48 hours is the time it takes to cure it, so I'll just go with that, although I may put off driving on the driveway for another day or two just to be safe. We may get rain today, but I think we're sufficiently past the period of time when the rain would be an issue as it relates to the cure. When I think of all those little nooks, crannies, and spider-veined-sized fissures that got filled in with the seal coating, I'm delighted to know that not one of them is going to get any worse when winter rolls around in a few months. That's "peace of mind" in a nutshell.
I've also decided to take a very small break when it comes to loading my bird feeder with suet. This particular feeder is primarily a Woodpecker feeder. The Woodpeckers have been so ravenous lately that they come one after the other, sometimes waiting in what seems like an endless queue to have their turn at the suet. They came in various sizes and shapes, and I'm seeing what appear to be different generations of the same families of Woodpeckers appearing almost daily. I've even seen them feeding each other from time to time, putting the suet on their beaks and passing it along to maybe a mate or a sibling, I can't be sure. I swear to God that if I didn't have a suet feeder, and admittedly a suet that they've clearly taken a fancy to, that I might never see a Woodpecker in the hood. I'd likely hear the drumming of their beaks as they bore holes in the local trees in their search for insects, but catching a glimpse of them, maybe not so much. Anyway, maybe depriving them for a day or two might cut down on the number of birds coming around, if only for a time. I know my Hummingbirds will appreciate a little less traffic on our back deck where their feeders hang. Woodpeckers can be such bullies sometimes.