Rue the Day
19/03/23 07:07
I haven't looked at the futures in the financial markets yet this morning, but the DAX is down over two percent. I'm just curious about where we might find ourselves this coming week after two regional bank failures this past week. Yellen (Treasury Secretary) announced that the FDIC would cover insured and uninsured depositors to prevent a contagion of sorts from bringing down the whole kit and kaboodle. They're not calling it a bailout, but that is precisely what it is.
This is a taxpayer-funded bailout, plain and simple. Whatever happened to the $250k limit? If you had more than that in the bank when the bank went under, you were up shits creek without a paddle. I gather this has something to do with the fact that both banks, SVB and Signature, are woke banks. Both are more concerned about equity, diversity, and inclusion to the exclusion of profitability. That is always a recipe for pure fuckery. Perhaps you're familiar with the expression, go woke, go broke.
We didn't know about the collapse of the Signature Bank until Yellen announced the bailout of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB.) Two banks collapsing within days of each other does not a banking system collapse make, but it sure is a good start. Both of these banks were publicly traded banks, so their stockholders and debtholders are now completely fucked. I suspect some people bought their stocks precisely because they were "woke" institutions. Those stocks and bonds have now gone to zero. Isn't that how it's supposed to work? You take risks, and sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose.
I am particularly bothered by the fact that the FDIC is making the depositors whole regardless of the $250k limit. What's next? If I buy Amazon stock and the stock goes into the toilet, will the government send me a check to compensate me for my losses? Forget for a minute, if you can, that Biden is also proposing to tax your unrealized gains in his latest budget proposal. This is pure unadulterated insanity. Do you see my concern? And, how do you think the people in East Palestine, Ohio, feel this morning? They can't get Petey Butt-Edge-Edge, or Bumbles Biden, to show up in their town after a train derailment poisoned their entire town, much less bring a check to cover the expense of cleaning up everything that needs to be cleaned up. Oh, that's right. Those are Trump voters.
If I had money in a regional bank, would I be looking to withdraw those monies this morning at first light? Will I be the only one standing in line waiting for their doors to open? If I owned stock in a regional bank, how much downside would I be willing to endure before I sold it all? Maybe I'm better off selling it today and letting the chips fall where they may. I look at the clown show that is the Biden Administration, and I have zero confidence that they know what the hell they're doing to deal with this financial crisis we find ourselves in. It's the lack of confidence in the leadership of our country that is at the root of many of the problems we see at this moment in our history. It doesn't help that we have a senile old fool sitting in our White House. He's the face of what passes for leadership on the world stage, and that is a serious problem. I think Obama said it best: "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up."
If I'm not selling or transferring assets today, maybe I'm taking a few sheckles out just in case we end up with a real cluster and greenbacks are hard to find. What would I have to trade if I needed to feed my family? I could sell some of our shit on Etsy, but you're assuming we'd still be able to do that, and I'm not so sure that's true. If I had some cash, would I be in a better place were I to buy some gold coins with which to barter? Do I have any skills to bargain with if I run out of things to sell? How about our food supplies? While I still have a couple of nickels to rub together, should I be looking to order some mail-order food stuffs? You know, the kind of vacuum-packed supplies that last some ten to fifteen years. I think the bottom line is that we are totally unprepared to survive in a dog-eat-dog world. Thank God for the second amendment.
I'm new to Spaces on Twitter, although for now, at least, I'm just dropping in to listen. It's where you go on Twitter to listen to people discussing issues. It's live, and it's kinda neat. I wonder just how efficient this format is when it comes to influencing people beyond what you see in the section of Twitter that is just text. There is usually a host and any number of active participants on any given subject. The level of expertise on part of the speakers, especially with the bank failures in the news as one example, is incredible. These guys and gals know of which they speak. It can also be a black hole, or a rabbit hole if you will, where conspiracies and other things go to die. The good news is that plenty of people know what they're talking about in Spaces, so speakers going off on a tangent are often quickly reined in. If you have the time and inclination, it's like finding a radio talk show whose participants are discussing a topic near and dear to your heart, be it knitting, politics, or banking failures.
Yesterday (Monday) is now in the history books. With the bad banking business in the news, predicting how the day would shake out regarding bank stocks and the stock market generally was hard, if not impossible, to sort out. Bank stocks were hit pretty hard during the day, and many bank stocks stopped trading during the day due to volatility issues, etc. If you were conspiracy-minded, you probably thought these two to three recent bank failures were just two of many more bank failures to come where the three to four remaining banks standing at the end of the day would force us to accept the dreaded digital currency. I had to laugh as I watched some of the talking heads on the telly wax on and on about how Biden's three-minute speech at 9 am in the morning went a long way to allay people's fears about bank contagions and the like. Do you mean the speech where he read his cue cards and promptly scurried off stage as reporters continued to pepper him with questions? Anyway, the major indices were a bit up or down at the end of the day, depending on which one you were interested in. Mission accomplished?
I saw a tweet from the woman that I follow on Twitter who moved to Taiwan with her husband recently. She asked if anyone thought moving her money from a bank in the United States to Taiwan might be a good idea. As an aside, she blames Biden for her losses in the stock market in 2022, and she can't wait to vote for Trump again should he get the nomination. By her own admission, her retirement account is down about 25% thanks to Biden's incompetence, and the woke fucks he surrounds himself with in the White House. What do you tell her? She can wait for more shoes to drop in the American stock market, or she can wake up one morning to invading forces from Mainland China. She could follow the crowds and move her monies to one or more major banking institutions like JP Morgan, etc. The Mainland China thing is worrisome on a lot of levels. If you wake up to someone holding a bayonet to your throat, your bank account balance is the last thing you're worrying about. That's my two cents, for what it's worth.
What's happening with the American drone that the Ruskies forced into the Black Sea yesterday morning? It was apparently flying over international waters when it was taken down. If I had to guess, it was probably gathering intelligence for the Ukrainians in their war with Russia. The usual warmongers like Senator Lindsey Graham are beating their chests and calling Bumbles Biden the new Rodney Dangerfield on the global stage for not responding with guns-a-blazing. I'm not sure it calls for that kind of response. If we're really wanting to keep our involvement in the Ukraine war at current levels, that is to say, keep doing what we're doing, then we should let bygones be bygones and just tell the Ruskies to keep their distance the next time. If we don't want to give the Ukrainians F-16s because we don't want to be dragged into the conflict, then we can't very well let this drone thing get blown out of proportion.
I'm thinking a lot about the near misses I'm hearing about these days at airports and such. Tucker Carlson was talking not long ago about various diversity hires that airlines seem to be making and to the exclusion of more qualified candidates. I've said as much in my blog posts, and I'm happy to repeat myself: I want to lay eyes on the pilot before getting aboard any scheduled flight. That isn't to say that you can't have a perfectly qualified candidate from a marginalized community somewhere rise up and become the best of the best. You absolutely can. I don't know what I'll be looking for, so I'll welcome suggestions on same. Should I discount male pilots wearing prosthetic breasts? How about women with bulges in places you wouldn't expect to see bulges? Should I be concerned about male pilots wearing women's designer dresses? How about pilots wearing pro-abortion pins on their lapels? Or, pilots wearing sneakers emblazoned with "Fuck Trump" decals? This isn't about Petey Butt-Edge-Edge anymore. It's bigger than him. We need to figure this out and fast.
There are days when I wish I had been born a black person. More to the point, a black person with roots steeped in the Californian slave trade. I know, that sounds crazy. Right? Who would wish that upon anyone? It was a dark period in our history, and many a slave probably rued the day when they landed on our shores after being shipped like cattle across the raging seas back in the day. There's only one problem with that picture. If I'm not mistaken, California did not have a slave trade, per se. If I'm right about that, why are governmental officials in California trying to decide how much money each and every one of the descendants of said slaves should receive as reparations?
All right, so I only wanted to be black with an ancestry in the slave trade so I could get in line and collect my five million dollars. Does that make me a bad person? It's not doing blackface, is it? State budgets aside, what would giving that much money to thousands of black people even look like? That's a discussion for another day. I'm happy to take race out of the picture and apply the principle to any group of people. Now imagine how those black people might react when government officials decide that reparations are warranted, but they just don't have the money to pay them. I can hear them now: "I feel your pain." Something tells me that ain't going to cut it. Every race baiter from Al Sharpton to that Crump fella, and let's not forget BLM, will be on-site beating the drums of discontent and pushing for payment, or else. It's a bridge too far, I tell you. It will be Selma on steroids. Me thinks they've created a monster, but that's just me.
I am getting off to a slow start this morning. I'm not sure why. It's not like there isn't stuff out there worth commenting on. There surely is. I always worry about days like this where I sit down at my keyboard and just draw blanks. I've said all I want to say about bank contagion and the like. I could probably go on a bit about Governor DeSanctimonious and his comments about Ukraine being nothing more than a border dispute. Conservatives across the board denounced the Governor's comments. Since when are conservatives pro-war? Didn't we laud Trump for his stance against waging wars across the globe? I'm not talking about the usual neocons. You know, those neocons who never saw a war they didn't like. When you see what's happening today with our country facing imminent and simultaneous conflicts with countries like China, Russia, and North Korea under democratic leadership, I think we need voices like Trump's and DeSantis out there on the hustings walking back some of this crazy talk.
The Ruskies have already warned us that if we interfere with any more of their flights over the Indian Ocean, they will declare war against the United States. Kim in North Korea has warned the United States of serious consequences if we proceed with planned joint exercises in South Korea in and around the Korean peninsula. China has signed a joint pact with Iran, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. In other words, Bumbles Biden has us in a fucking tinderbox that could go sideways in a hurry. How the hell did we get here? Is there some doctrine out there that says we're better off if all of our adversaries have their nuclear warheads pointed in our direction? Is this Biden wanting to distract our populace from a rapidly deteriorating economy? Is Bumbles drinking the "wartime president's are more popular" Koolaid? Interestingly, we hear nothing from our NATO partners in response to the bellicose messaging from our sworn enemies. I wonder why.
The headlines on CNN when it comes to the war in Ukraine these days have become so predictable. Erin Burnett, in particular, who comes on at 7 pm ET every night, feeds her audience a steady stream of schlock that says the Ruskies are running out of men and ammunition. She'll throw in an interview or two with disaffected Russian soldiers from the front to help make her point. I haven't quite figured out what she's hoping to accomplish other than to possibly and intentionally mislead her viewers into thinking that the billions of dollars we've sent to Ukraine were not a lost cause. On the other hand, if you've ever heard Colonel Douglas McGregor giving his opinion on the topic, he'll tell you that the Russians are beating the hell out of the Ukrainian troops daily. If we're to believe McGregor, Russia is winning this war and winning it handily. McGregor's fear is not that the Russians will win the war, but rather that the United States will do something stupid to get us into an intractable conflict with a nuclear superpower. I think his exact words included the word "insanity." This is on you, Bumbles.
It sounds like one of the Congressional committees led by Republicans has finally received the documents they requested from the US Treasury regarding banking transfers between the Bidens and various countries. There used to be a process in place that identified unusually large money transfers between banks and government officials before Bumbles ordered that process shut down early on in his administration. Bumbles couldn't very well have congressional oversight when it came to his family's overseas dealings. How would he explain the tens of millions of dollars exchanged between countries like China and Russia and the members of his immediate family? God forbid anyone suggest that Joe Biden, and his extended family, were involved in an international pay-for-play scheme. He's Scranton Joe, for chrissakes. One revelation thus far is that more members of the extended Biden family are involved in these schemes than previously known or suspected. Cast your net far and wide, is what I say.
This guy Comer in Congress is like a dog with a bone. He will get the dirt on the Biden Crime Family come hell or high water. All of this will lead to an impeachment of the most corrupt president of our country since its founding. Unfortunately, you'll not find one democrat willing to convict Biden in the Senate, so it's unlikely Bumbles will get the boot from our beloved White House. The good news is that we'll dirty the sucker up so badly that he'll hopefully resign from office in disgrace. Then again, here you have a president of the United States selling out his country to the Communist Chinese Party for a few sheckles for he and his family members. As soon as he is out of office, the gravy train for the Biden Crime Family is over. Unless and until that happens, Bumbles will continue to lie about his affiliations and associations with the CCP, his son Hunter's business dealings, and God knows what else. The bad news for Bumbles is, we've got the fucking receipts. People are talking. Can you say "treason?"
It's a story that the main street media won't talk about. Biden is their boy, and they'll defend him until the end. By the way, these payments or wires from the CCP started in 2017, well before the 2020 election when Biden garnered some eighty-million votes to win the presidency. What role did the CCP play in getting Bumbles across the finish line and into the White House? How did Biden get more votes than any previous president on record, including Barry Obama? You know, the Manchurian candidate from Kenya. The very same guy, incidentally, who says he went to Harvard, yet none of his supposed classmates at Harvard remembers anyone named Barack Obama. Once in office, the CCP started calling in their chips. Biden has done a lot of things that have benefitted the CCP directly, including selling down our Strategic Petroleum Reserves to the CCP at a steep discount, sidelining the production of petroleum products nationwide, weakening our armed forces by implementing woke policies, and not holding the CCP responsible for the millions of Americans who died from the Chinese virus (Covid) just to name a few. Make no mistake about it. The media has been and continues to be, complicit.
I thought I saw a list of bills recently proposed by various legislatures across the country to bring in digital currencies. These damn bills need to be killed in the crib. I don't have the intellectual bandwidth to understand the entire scope of what that might mean for our citizenry, but one example that comes to mind is the fellow who inadvertently jaywalks and finds that the fine for his jaywalking has been deducted from his bank account. He was identified with facial identification software and fined accordingly. You know our government can read license plates using satellites in outer space, so don't be surprised when you find your bank account docked for every mile you go over the speed limit. No transaction will go untaxed, and they will take monies as they see fit, whether they be for their Climate Change projects, their social justice initiatives, their endless wars, and their insatiable appetites for domestic intelligence gathering (spying), and you will comply like the sheep that you are. Just say "no," dammit.
Poland is the first country to send fighter jets (4) to Ukraine. Slovakia reported this morning that they are sending 13 fighter jets to Ukraine for their upcoming Spring counteroffensive. What would you do if you were Vlad? Would you bomb every airfield in Ukraine to smithereens? Would you target the planes with your own fleet of fighter jets? Would there be dogfights across the skies of Ukraine day and night? I've not heard Vlad issue any threats one way or another as it relates to the introduction of fighter jets to the conflict, although that isn't to say he hasn't. UPDATE: Putin responds: "We will destroy them without impacting the course of the war." Well, there you have it. The introduction of these fighter jets is, in my opinion, escalatory in nature and quite possibly an existential threat were they to be used to strike targets inside Russia itself. I'm not sure that either side needs to throw more cordwood onto what is already a bloody and smoldering pyre of insanity. That said, I hear very little about airstrikes in Ukraine by fighter jets from Russia. Most of what they launch into Ukraine comes from offshore assets if what I read on Twitter is correct. That's a big if.
The worse our economy gets here in the United States, the more I worry about Bumbles getting us into a kinetic war somewhere to divert our attention from his utter malfeasance and incompetence. Xi Jinping, the leader of China, is visiting Russia in the next week or so, and I hear that Bumbles is beside himself thinking that Xi will somehow broker a deal to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. Wait a minute! I thought Bumbles was the leader of the free world. Isn't he supposed to be leading the charge when it comes to managing world affairs? Surely, if Xi Jinping can pull this off, it will reveal Bumbles for the stooge that he is and has been since Russia invaded Ukraine a couple of years back. All of the lives lost on both sides of the conflict and for what? So Bumbles and his fellow stooges in NATO could beat their chests trying to eke out a pyrrhic victory in the corrupt wasteland that is Ukraine? Will Bumbles go out of his way to queer the deal prior to Xi's arrival in Moscow? How precisely will he do that? And, at what cost to America as the "shining city on the hill," as Ronald Reagan so eloquently stated in his 1988 State of the Union speech.
North Korea is saying they now have eight hundred thousand men who have volunteered to fight should their leader, Kim, call them into service. Something tells me that volunteering isn't really a thing in North Korea. It sounds a little too democratic to me. Democracy isn't really a thing in North Korea either. When Kim tells you to jump, you ask him how high. When Kim tells you to fight, you ask him when and where. What do you think happens to conscientious objectors in North Korea? The better question is probably, what happens to their children and, God forbid, their extended families, should you refuse the "request" of your leader when he calls you into service. I don't know if eight hundred thousand men are going to cut the mustard if shit really hits the fan on the Korean Peninsula. Don't the Americans have tens of thousands of troops stationed in South Korea? What kind of standing army does South Korea have? I guess we'll find out soon enough. Kim has promised to declare war should the US and South Korea proceed with planned military exercises in the next week or so. Just between you and me, I could use a mean tweet or two about right now.
The missus will lend a hand to her old boss in Massachusetts tomorrow. He needs to replace his old iPhone 7 with an updated version, probably an iPhone 14. I don't think the 15s are out yet. Anyway, she's a little sketchy about how all of this will go down. When I say "lend a hand," it's probably more accurate to say "hold his hand." That is to say, I'm not sure he could do this were it not for my missus. He's of that generation where there were no such things as mobile phones or computers so there's that. He's just not conversant on the subject(s), so he doesn't know what questions to ask, who to ask them of, or anything of the sort. That's where my missus comes in. She's marginally better equipped to do all of this, and perhaps more importantly, he trusts implicitly on such matters. If the Apple store where they plan to make the purchase provides the right level of support when the two of them visit the store tomorrow, I think it will work out just fine. In my experience, updating your iPhone is never really seamless. If anyone can make it seem seamless, it's the uber-efficient and well-trained staff at the Apple Store. When all is said and done, he is still going to have to learn to live with an iPhone 14 that no longer has a "Home" button. That could be a bitch.
What is all this nonsense in the news about Trump being arrested next week? Please don't tell me some fool in a district attorney's office in New York City will arrest a former president of the United States over some hush money paid to a porn star seven years ago. I mean, who does that? This must be some half-cocked wet dream of the left-wing media consultants so they can put up chyrons daily on the telly about Trump while ignoring the bigger story of the collapse and jailing of the members of the Biden Crime Family.
As icing on the cake, they have to be hoping against hope that the non-stop pictures of Trump in an orange jumpsuit will remind the voting public that he is no longer a viable candidate for the highest office in our land in 2024. You know this sort of thing only happens in banana republics. Right? I think this has less to do with the District Attorney's office in New York and more with Biden's FBI and our collective Intelligence agencies. They are all working towards one end: Stopping Trump from returning to the Presidency in 2024. More importantly, keeping the presidency in the hands of the leftists who now control the levers of our country. That is, until the twelve million illegal immigrants Biden has brought into our country become eligible to vote. Then, and only then, will their control of our government in perpetuity be assured.
When it comes to arresting Donald J Trump for a nothing burger in New York, it will be interesting to see who in the Republican party takes a stand to push back against the audacity of the left to try to jail their political opponents ahead of a presidential election in 2024. I'm now seeing people on Twitter who had no plans to vote for Trump in 2024 standing up and tweeting that there is nothing more important than voting for Donald Trump in 2024. I would hasten to add for folks who don't have all the facts when it comes to Trump that the left has been trying to put Trump in jail since he came down the elevator in 2016 to announce his candidacy. They tried to tarnish his presidency by putting the man through two bogus impeachments, neither of which resulted in his removal from office. Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is real. And those republican candidates hoping to gain an advantage by Trump's arrest, yet saying nothing about his arrest, will rue the day they turned their back on Donald J Trump in his time of need. We will not forget.
This is a taxpayer-funded bailout, plain and simple. Whatever happened to the $250k limit? If you had more than that in the bank when the bank went under, you were up shits creek without a paddle. I gather this has something to do with the fact that both banks, SVB and Signature, are woke banks. Both are more concerned about equity, diversity, and inclusion to the exclusion of profitability. That is always a recipe for pure fuckery. Perhaps you're familiar with the expression, go woke, go broke.
We didn't know about the collapse of the Signature Bank until Yellen announced the bailout of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB.) Two banks collapsing within days of each other does not a banking system collapse make, but it sure is a good start. Both of these banks were publicly traded banks, so their stockholders and debtholders are now completely fucked. I suspect some people bought their stocks precisely because they were "woke" institutions. Those stocks and bonds have now gone to zero. Isn't that how it's supposed to work? You take risks, and sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose.
I am particularly bothered by the fact that the FDIC is making the depositors whole regardless of the $250k limit. What's next? If I buy Amazon stock and the stock goes into the toilet, will the government send me a check to compensate me for my losses? Forget for a minute, if you can, that Biden is also proposing to tax your unrealized gains in his latest budget proposal. This is pure unadulterated insanity. Do you see my concern? And, how do you think the people in East Palestine, Ohio, feel this morning? They can't get Petey Butt-Edge-Edge, or Bumbles Biden, to show up in their town after a train derailment poisoned their entire town, much less bring a check to cover the expense of cleaning up everything that needs to be cleaned up. Oh, that's right. Those are Trump voters.
If I had money in a regional bank, would I be looking to withdraw those monies this morning at first light? Will I be the only one standing in line waiting for their doors to open? If I owned stock in a regional bank, how much downside would I be willing to endure before I sold it all? Maybe I'm better off selling it today and letting the chips fall where they may. I look at the clown show that is the Biden Administration, and I have zero confidence that they know what the hell they're doing to deal with this financial crisis we find ourselves in. It's the lack of confidence in the leadership of our country that is at the root of many of the problems we see at this moment in our history. It doesn't help that we have a senile old fool sitting in our White House. He's the face of what passes for leadership on the world stage, and that is a serious problem. I think Obama said it best: "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up."
If I'm not selling or transferring assets today, maybe I'm taking a few sheckles out just in case we end up with a real cluster and greenbacks are hard to find. What would I have to trade if I needed to feed my family? I could sell some of our shit on Etsy, but you're assuming we'd still be able to do that, and I'm not so sure that's true. If I had some cash, would I be in a better place were I to buy some gold coins with which to barter? Do I have any skills to bargain with if I run out of things to sell? How about our food supplies? While I still have a couple of nickels to rub together, should I be looking to order some mail-order food stuffs? You know, the kind of vacuum-packed supplies that last some ten to fifteen years. I think the bottom line is that we are totally unprepared to survive in a dog-eat-dog world. Thank God for the second amendment.
I'm new to Spaces on Twitter, although for now, at least, I'm just dropping in to listen. It's where you go on Twitter to listen to people discussing issues. It's live, and it's kinda neat. I wonder just how efficient this format is when it comes to influencing people beyond what you see in the section of Twitter that is just text. There is usually a host and any number of active participants on any given subject. The level of expertise on part of the speakers, especially with the bank failures in the news as one example, is incredible. These guys and gals know of which they speak. It can also be a black hole, or a rabbit hole if you will, where conspiracies and other things go to die. The good news is that plenty of people know what they're talking about in Spaces, so speakers going off on a tangent are often quickly reined in. If you have the time and inclination, it's like finding a radio talk show whose participants are discussing a topic near and dear to your heart, be it knitting, politics, or banking failures.
Yesterday (Monday) is now in the history books. With the bad banking business in the news, predicting how the day would shake out regarding bank stocks and the stock market generally was hard, if not impossible, to sort out. Bank stocks were hit pretty hard during the day, and many bank stocks stopped trading during the day due to volatility issues, etc. If you were conspiracy-minded, you probably thought these two to three recent bank failures were just two of many more bank failures to come where the three to four remaining banks standing at the end of the day would force us to accept the dreaded digital currency. I had to laugh as I watched some of the talking heads on the telly wax on and on about how Biden's three-minute speech at 9 am in the morning went a long way to allay people's fears about bank contagions and the like. Do you mean the speech where he read his cue cards and promptly scurried off stage as reporters continued to pepper him with questions? Anyway, the major indices were a bit up or down at the end of the day, depending on which one you were interested in. Mission accomplished?
I saw a tweet from the woman that I follow on Twitter who moved to Taiwan with her husband recently. She asked if anyone thought moving her money from a bank in the United States to Taiwan might be a good idea. As an aside, she blames Biden for her losses in the stock market in 2022, and she can't wait to vote for Trump again should he get the nomination. By her own admission, her retirement account is down about 25% thanks to Biden's incompetence, and the woke fucks he surrounds himself with in the White House. What do you tell her? She can wait for more shoes to drop in the American stock market, or she can wake up one morning to invading forces from Mainland China. She could follow the crowds and move her monies to one or more major banking institutions like JP Morgan, etc. The Mainland China thing is worrisome on a lot of levels. If you wake up to someone holding a bayonet to your throat, your bank account balance is the last thing you're worrying about. That's my two cents, for what it's worth.
What's happening with the American drone that the Ruskies forced into the Black Sea yesterday morning? It was apparently flying over international waters when it was taken down. If I had to guess, it was probably gathering intelligence for the Ukrainians in their war with Russia. The usual warmongers like Senator Lindsey Graham are beating their chests and calling Bumbles Biden the new Rodney Dangerfield on the global stage for not responding with guns-a-blazing. I'm not sure it calls for that kind of response. If we're really wanting to keep our involvement in the Ukraine war at current levels, that is to say, keep doing what we're doing, then we should let bygones be bygones and just tell the Ruskies to keep their distance the next time. If we don't want to give the Ukrainians F-16s because we don't want to be dragged into the conflict, then we can't very well let this drone thing get blown out of proportion.
I'm thinking a lot about the near misses I'm hearing about these days at airports and such. Tucker Carlson was talking not long ago about various diversity hires that airlines seem to be making and to the exclusion of more qualified candidates. I've said as much in my blog posts, and I'm happy to repeat myself: I want to lay eyes on the pilot before getting aboard any scheduled flight. That isn't to say that you can't have a perfectly qualified candidate from a marginalized community somewhere rise up and become the best of the best. You absolutely can. I don't know what I'll be looking for, so I'll welcome suggestions on same. Should I discount male pilots wearing prosthetic breasts? How about women with bulges in places you wouldn't expect to see bulges? Should I be concerned about male pilots wearing women's designer dresses? How about pilots wearing pro-abortion pins on their lapels? Or, pilots wearing sneakers emblazoned with "Fuck Trump" decals? This isn't about Petey Butt-Edge-Edge anymore. It's bigger than him. We need to figure this out and fast.
There are days when I wish I had been born a black person. More to the point, a black person with roots steeped in the Californian slave trade. I know, that sounds crazy. Right? Who would wish that upon anyone? It was a dark period in our history, and many a slave probably rued the day when they landed on our shores after being shipped like cattle across the raging seas back in the day. There's only one problem with that picture. If I'm not mistaken, California did not have a slave trade, per se. If I'm right about that, why are governmental officials in California trying to decide how much money each and every one of the descendants of said slaves should receive as reparations?
All right, so I only wanted to be black with an ancestry in the slave trade so I could get in line and collect my five million dollars. Does that make me a bad person? It's not doing blackface, is it? State budgets aside, what would giving that much money to thousands of black people even look like? That's a discussion for another day. I'm happy to take race out of the picture and apply the principle to any group of people. Now imagine how those black people might react when government officials decide that reparations are warranted, but they just don't have the money to pay them. I can hear them now: "I feel your pain." Something tells me that ain't going to cut it. Every race baiter from Al Sharpton to that Crump fella, and let's not forget BLM, will be on-site beating the drums of discontent and pushing for payment, or else. It's a bridge too far, I tell you. It will be Selma on steroids. Me thinks they've created a monster, but that's just me.
I am getting off to a slow start this morning. I'm not sure why. It's not like there isn't stuff out there worth commenting on. There surely is. I always worry about days like this where I sit down at my keyboard and just draw blanks. I've said all I want to say about bank contagion and the like. I could probably go on a bit about Governor DeSanctimonious and his comments about Ukraine being nothing more than a border dispute. Conservatives across the board denounced the Governor's comments. Since when are conservatives pro-war? Didn't we laud Trump for his stance against waging wars across the globe? I'm not talking about the usual neocons. You know, those neocons who never saw a war they didn't like. When you see what's happening today with our country facing imminent and simultaneous conflicts with countries like China, Russia, and North Korea under democratic leadership, I think we need voices like Trump's and DeSantis out there on the hustings walking back some of this crazy talk.
The Ruskies have already warned us that if we interfere with any more of their flights over the Indian Ocean, they will declare war against the United States. Kim in North Korea has warned the United States of serious consequences if we proceed with planned joint exercises in South Korea in and around the Korean peninsula. China has signed a joint pact with Iran, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. In other words, Bumbles Biden has us in a fucking tinderbox that could go sideways in a hurry. How the hell did we get here? Is there some doctrine out there that says we're better off if all of our adversaries have their nuclear warheads pointed in our direction? Is this Biden wanting to distract our populace from a rapidly deteriorating economy? Is Bumbles drinking the "wartime president's are more popular" Koolaid? Interestingly, we hear nothing from our NATO partners in response to the bellicose messaging from our sworn enemies. I wonder why.
The headlines on CNN when it comes to the war in Ukraine these days have become so predictable. Erin Burnett, in particular, who comes on at 7 pm ET every night, feeds her audience a steady stream of schlock that says the Ruskies are running out of men and ammunition. She'll throw in an interview or two with disaffected Russian soldiers from the front to help make her point. I haven't quite figured out what she's hoping to accomplish other than to possibly and intentionally mislead her viewers into thinking that the billions of dollars we've sent to Ukraine were not a lost cause. On the other hand, if you've ever heard Colonel Douglas McGregor giving his opinion on the topic, he'll tell you that the Russians are beating the hell out of the Ukrainian troops daily. If we're to believe McGregor, Russia is winning this war and winning it handily. McGregor's fear is not that the Russians will win the war, but rather that the United States will do something stupid to get us into an intractable conflict with a nuclear superpower. I think his exact words included the word "insanity." This is on you, Bumbles.
It sounds like one of the Congressional committees led by Republicans has finally received the documents they requested from the US Treasury regarding banking transfers between the Bidens and various countries. There used to be a process in place that identified unusually large money transfers between banks and government officials before Bumbles ordered that process shut down early on in his administration. Bumbles couldn't very well have congressional oversight when it came to his family's overseas dealings. How would he explain the tens of millions of dollars exchanged between countries like China and Russia and the members of his immediate family? God forbid anyone suggest that Joe Biden, and his extended family, were involved in an international pay-for-play scheme. He's Scranton Joe, for chrissakes. One revelation thus far is that more members of the extended Biden family are involved in these schemes than previously known or suspected. Cast your net far and wide, is what I say.
This guy Comer in Congress is like a dog with a bone. He will get the dirt on the Biden Crime Family come hell or high water. All of this will lead to an impeachment of the most corrupt president of our country since its founding. Unfortunately, you'll not find one democrat willing to convict Biden in the Senate, so it's unlikely Bumbles will get the boot from our beloved White House. The good news is that we'll dirty the sucker up so badly that he'll hopefully resign from office in disgrace. Then again, here you have a president of the United States selling out his country to the Communist Chinese Party for a few sheckles for he and his family members. As soon as he is out of office, the gravy train for the Biden Crime Family is over. Unless and until that happens, Bumbles will continue to lie about his affiliations and associations with the CCP, his son Hunter's business dealings, and God knows what else. The bad news for Bumbles is, we've got the fucking receipts. People are talking. Can you say "treason?"
It's a story that the main street media won't talk about. Biden is their boy, and they'll defend him until the end. By the way, these payments or wires from the CCP started in 2017, well before the 2020 election when Biden garnered some eighty-million votes to win the presidency. What role did the CCP play in getting Bumbles across the finish line and into the White House? How did Biden get more votes than any previous president on record, including Barry Obama? You know, the Manchurian candidate from Kenya. The very same guy, incidentally, who says he went to Harvard, yet none of his supposed classmates at Harvard remembers anyone named Barack Obama. Once in office, the CCP started calling in their chips. Biden has done a lot of things that have benefitted the CCP directly, including selling down our Strategic Petroleum Reserves to the CCP at a steep discount, sidelining the production of petroleum products nationwide, weakening our armed forces by implementing woke policies, and not holding the CCP responsible for the millions of Americans who died from the Chinese virus (Covid) just to name a few. Make no mistake about it. The media has been and continues to be, complicit.
I thought I saw a list of bills recently proposed by various legislatures across the country to bring in digital currencies. These damn bills need to be killed in the crib. I don't have the intellectual bandwidth to understand the entire scope of what that might mean for our citizenry, but one example that comes to mind is the fellow who inadvertently jaywalks and finds that the fine for his jaywalking has been deducted from his bank account. He was identified with facial identification software and fined accordingly. You know our government can read license plates using satellites in outer space, so don't be surprised when you find your bank account docked for every mile you go over the speed limit. No transaction will go untaxed, and they will take monies as they see fit, whether they be for their Climate Change projects, their social justice initiatives, their endless wars, and their insatiable appetites for domestic intelligence gathering (spying), and you will comply like the sheep that you are. Just say "no," dammit.
Poland is the first country to send fighter jets (4) to Ukraine. Slovakia reported this morning that they are sending 13 fighter jets to Ukraine for their upcoming Spring counteroffensive. What would you do if you were Vlad? Would you bomb every airfield in Ukraine to smithereens? Would you target the planes with your own fleet of fighter jets? Would there be dogfights across the skies of Ukraine day and night? I've not heard Vlad issue any threats one way or another as it relates to the introduction of fighter jets to the conflict, although that isn't to say he hasn't. UPDATE: Putin responds: "We will destroy them without impacting the course of the war." Well, there you have it. The introduction of these fighter jets is, in my opinion, escalatory in nature and quite possibly an existential threat were they to be used to strike targets inside Russia itself. I'm not sure that either side needs to throw more cordwood onto what is already a bloody and smoldering pyre of insanity. That said, I hear very little about airstrikes in Ukraine by fighter jets from Russia. Most of what they launch into Ukraine comes from offshore assets if what I read on Twitter is correct. That's a big if.
The worse our economy gets here in the United States, the more I worry about Bumbles getting us into a kinetic war somewhere to divert our attention from his utter malfeasance and incompetence. Xi Jinping, the leader of China, is visiting Russia in the next week or so, and I hear that Bumbles is beside himself thinking that Xi will somehow broker a deal to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. Wait a minute! I thought Bumbles was the leader of the free world. Isn't he supposed to be leading the charge when it comes to managing world affairs? Surely, if Xi Jinping can pull this off, it will reveal Bumbles for the stooge that he is and has been since Russia invaded Ukraine a couple of years back. All of the lives lost on both sides of the conflict and for what? So Bumbles and his fellow stooges in NATO could beat their chests trying to eke out a pyrrhic victory in the corrupt wasteland that is Ukraine? Will Bumbles go out of his way to queer the deal prior to Xi's arrival in Moscow? How precisely will he do that? And, at what cost to America as the "shining city on the hill," as Ronald Reagan so eloquently stated in his 1988 State of the Union speech.
North Korea is saying they now have eight hundred thousand men who have volunteered to fight should their leader, Kim, call them into service. Something tells me that volunteering isn't really a thing in North Korea. It sounds a little too democratic to me. Democracy isn't really a thing in North Korea either. When Kim tells you to jump, you ask him how high. When Kim tells you to fight, you ask him when and where. What do you think happens to conscientious objectors in North Korea? The better question is probably, what happens to their children and, God forbid, their extended families, should you refuse the "request" of your leader when he calls you into service. I don't know if eight hundred thousand men are going to cut the mustard if shit really hits the fan on the Korean Peninsula. Don't the Americans have tens of thousands of troops stationed in South Korea? What kind of standing army does South Korea have? I guess we'll find out soon enough. Kim has promised to declare war should the US and South Korea proceed with planned military exercises in the next week or so. Just between you and me, I could use a mean tweet or two about right now.
The missus will lend a hand to her old boss in Massachusetts tomorrow. He needs to replace his old iPhone 7 with an updated version, probably an iPhone 14. I don't think the 15s are out yet. Anyway, she's a little sketchy about how all of this will go down. When I say "lend a hand," it's probably more accurate to say "hold his hand." That is to say, I'm not sure he could do this were it not for my missus. He's of that generation where there were no such things as mobile phones or computers so there's that. He's just not conversant on the subject(s), so he doesn't know what questions to ask, who to ask them of, or anything of the sort. That's where my missus comes in. She's marginally better equipped to do all of this, and perhaps more importantly, he trusts implicitly on such matters. If the Apple store where they plan to make the purchase provides the right level of support when the two of them visit the store tomorrow, I think it will work out just fine. In my experience, updating your iPhone is never really seamless. If anyone can make it seem seamless, it's the uber-efficient and well-trained staff at the Apple Store. When all is said and done, he is still going to have to learn to live with an iPhone 14 that no longer has a "Home" button. That could be a bitch.
What is all this nonsense in the news about Trump being arrested next week? Please don't tell me some fool in a district attorney's office in New York City will arrest a former president of the United States over some hush money paid to a porn star seven years ago. I mean, who does that? This must be some half-cocked wet dream of the left-wing media consultants so they can put up chyrons daily on the telly about Trump while ignoring the bigger story of the collapse and jailing of the members of the Biden Crime Family.
As icing on the cake, they have to be hoping against hope that the non-stop pictures of Trump in an orange jumpsuit will remind the voting public that he is no longer a viable candidate for the highest office in our land in 2024. You know this sort of thing only happens in banana republics. Right? I think this has less to do with the District Attorney's office in New York and more with Biden's FBI and our collective Intelligence agencies. They are all working towards one end: Stopping Trump from returning to the Presidency in 2024. More importantly, keeping the presidency in the hands of the leftists who now control the levers of our country. That is, until the twelve million illegal immigrants Biden has brought into our country become eligible to vote. Then, and only then, will their control of our government in perpetuity be assured.
When it comes to arresting Donald J Trump for a nothing burger in New York, it will be interesting to see who in the Republican party takes a stand to push back against the audacity of the left to try to jail their political opponents ahead of a presidential election in 2024. I'm now seeing people on Twitter who had no plans to vote for Trump in 2024 standing up and tweeting that there is nothing more important than voting for Donald Trump in 2024. I would hasten to add for folks who don't have all the facts when it comes to Trump that the left has been trying to put Trump in jail since he came down the elevator in 2016 to announce his candidacy. They tried to tarnish his presidency by putting the man through two bogus impeachments, neither of which resulted in his removal from office. Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is real. And those republican candidates hoping to gain an advantage by Trump's arrest, yet saying nothing about his arrest, will rue the day they turned their back on Donald J Trump in his time of need. We will not forget.