MAGA-nificent
08/05/22 06:33
Global warming may be a hoax by the flat earthers but I'm not taking any chances. I'm putting my hummingbird feeders out earlier than usual this Spring. They usually show up around May 5th or so but I'm beating them to the punch by putting my feeders out on May 2nd. I know it's not much earlier but it's earlier by a day or two so we'll leave it at that. I'm mindful of the fact that the longer the feeders sit out there the more coagulated the sugar concoction becomes and that doesn't make for a welcoming experience when my little friends finally show up. I can't and won't have them going without their sucrose after such a long and arduous trek northward to my backyard and environs. That just won't cut the mustard.
I spent a couple of hours with he Ev man yesterday working on his apartment. I do what I can when I can. He'll tell his people that I lent a hand or maybe he won't. I'm not sure they'll believe him if he tells them that he did it all by his lonesome. He can spruce up a place with the best of them but he has to be in just the right place to pull it all together. More often than not, he's not in that place. That isn't to say that he doesn't know he's not in that place so that's where I come in. I have a particular knack for restoring order from chaos and if I can be there to lead by example it's all the better. Watch and learn.
The missus will be waking up to a nice hot spinach, broccoli, and mushroom quiche right out of the oven this morning. I scraped together a few ingredients that I didn't know I had and I was off the to races. I like a good smattering of shredded cheese in my quiche but I had none so used feta cheese instead. I sautéed mushrooms in a little garlic and oil and they'll plump up the quiche nicely if everything goes as expected. I don't make my quiche with a crust but I've not heard any complaints so crust-less it is. I think we have some nice whole wheat bread which I'm wanting to toast up and serve with a little butter and jam. Damn!
I think Mrs G is ready to get the hell out of rehab and back home. She said as much when we spoke on the phone last evening. Can you blame her? I think she thinks that she's made enough progress that she's ready and willing to take the next step in the process. That has to mean that she's feeling stronger and more capable when it comes to getting back to living her life on her terms. She even said something about being picked up in our car and not taking the van that is otherwise equipped to transport patients in rehab from point A to point B. She's wanting to get the show on the road so to speak and she's just a little miffed that no one in her facility seems to share her sense of urgency. Let's do this, bitch-ez!
I have to go pick up a roto-tiller today to do a little roto-tilling here and there around our house. I have a garden, if you can call it that, that has been neglected for the better part of a year that will need turning over so the tiller is just what the doctor ordered. I'll put some grass seed down in another area that I intend to till and it will be nice to see that area restored as it were to its original condition. That's the part of our lawn where I had a wood pile rotting for the better part of a year or two so the soil should be in very good shape. This will be one of those 4-hour rental schticks from Home Depot that I've been doing this year if you include the chainsaw that I rented within the last four weeks.
I have to laugh. I heard some talking head yesterday talking about the fact that Kamala Harris, the worst possible Vice President in the history of our country, took exception to the fact that people in Biden's circle failed to stand up when she entered a room. They stand up when Biden enters the room so why should it be any different when she enters a room. Right? What a fucking clown show we have for a President and Vice President. You can't make this stuff up. I mean, who the fuck does she think she is? If you ask me, neither one of these asshats deserves the niceties that goes along with being a President and Vice President. They are a couple of grifters who managed to steal an election and that will be their legacy enduring or otherwise. They know it and so do we.
Harris has to be frustrated by the fact that Bumbling and Demented Joey Biden still hasn't stepped down from his official duties as President of the United States. She probably can't understand how it is that he is still on his feet and carrying on with the duties that fall in his wheelhouse on any given day in our nation's capitol. He could barely get out a complete sentence as a candidate without relying on cue cards or teleprompters so she figured he was probably good to go for maybe a few months and then it would be all hers. She would be the very first woman president. She could literally taste it. It was a Faustian bargain that is looking less and less like a bargain with each passing day.
It looks like the leftists are at it again. Somebody with access to Supreme Court rulings snatched a draft copy of the Roe v Wade ruling and released it to the rabid liberal media outlet, Politico. At first blush, it looks like the Supremes are going to overturn Roe in a 5-4 ruling. Maybe it's 6-3, not sure. Aside from the fact that this kind of skullduggery is not at all usual or even expected in our venerable Supreme Court, it has triggered the left in a way that was completely predictable. Maybe that was the plan all along, Fire up the troops ahead of the Midterm elections and see if that doesn't change the trajectory of what everyone expects will be a republican tsunami in November.
What you won't hear from the liberal nut jobs running around our nation's capitol day in and day out with their little pink hats on is that abortion will be sent back to the individual States if it's struck down at the federal level. There will now be relentless calls from the Bernie Sander's and his ilk in Congress to pack the Supreme Court to put a stop to this travesty of justice. The left will now launch a multi-front assault to whip up their constituencies into the kind of frenzy that only comes around once in a hundred years. Who was it that coined the phrase, "Never let a crisis go to waste?" This is their moment. This is precisely what the leaker of the ruling had in mind. Something tells me that he or she did not act alone. This was a conspiracy.
I've got my eye on the Ohio primary race today. I was a little slow in coming around to liking J.D. Vance but come around I did and I'm now firmly in his camp for better or worse. I think I've mentioned this previously so this should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been reading this here blog. Not that anyone does, but that's a subject for a different day. I'm looking at it as a test of Trump's status as a king maker. I'll not think any less of Trump were his candidates to lose their races but if they do win it could tell us a little something about Trump's ability to continue to influence outcomes in races that will more than likely put our party (conservatives) in the winner's circle from now through 2024. Steve Bannon thinks we'll be able to keep the democrats out of power for the next one hundred years. Something in between would suit me just fine.
It will be interesting to see what kind of reaction we get out of the Supreme Court as a result of this leak. Will John Roberts step up to the podium and say anything about this business? I don't know how you smooth something like this over. It's in the media's hands now and they are going to do the bidding of their masters, the liberal political establishment. I think I'll just tune it all out for the next day or two and let the chips fall where they may. I wonder about the timing. Will this issue become less dominant with each passing month? Is there enough time between now and the election in November to slow down this so-called locomotive? What could possibly take it off the front pages of the rags that pass for newspapers in our great country? Newspapers? Who the fuck reads newspapers any more? It's all about social media. Musk to the rescue?
I think I'm on to something here. The left was maybe counting on having Twitter as their go-to social media application when the Roe v Wade ruling came down. They were counting on Big Tech to create the kind of tidal wave of anti-republican momentum around this issue that would keep the democrats in power for another two years and maybe more. That would certainly explain the gnashing of teeth and the pearl clutching on the left as a result of Musk buying Twitter as this now throws their plans into a cocked hat. What I worry about is that Musk's purchase of Twitter won't be finalized until October. That leaves a lot of time for the deep state leftist operatives working in the shadows at Twitter to do their dirty work. These bastards have gamed it all out. This is what they do. This is who they are.
My hummingbird feeders have been up for a day or two now and just yesterday the missus and I were standing in the back room when one of the little buggers came around to our feeder on the deck. Talk about perfect timing. It's always very exciting to see them come back around for another year and I'm happy to report that we were more than ready for them this time. I want the feeders up and available to them after their long journey north. Have a little nectar after your long trip, won't you? The missus informs me that she saw a hummingbird outside our bedroom window this morning. I'm assuming that these are two separate and distinct hummingbirds. They're quite territorial so it would surprise me to know that they are one and the same. I'm guessing they are not.
Fast forward 24 hours and primary elections in Ohio and Indiana are over. The fat lady, as it were, has sung. J.D. Vance won the bid to be Ohio's republican senate candidate and will face a democrat hack by the name of Ryan in the Fall. Ohio is a deep red state so I'm guessing Ohio will be sending J.D. Vance to the US senate in November to replace Rob Portman. There were an assortment of 21 other races in Ohio and Indiana all with Trump endorsed candidates who won their races handily. In other words, it was MAGA-nificent night for Trump and it pretty much sums up everything we knew about his role in the Republican Party as kingmaker and future candidate for president in 2024. 22-0. Just wow!
The good folks at the rehab joint where Mrs G is currently hanging out while she continues her recovery took her over to her apartment yesterday for the first time since she left there on a stretcher some weeks ago. They were onsite to assess any and all of her physical needs prior to her returning to her unit next week. If things needed to be raised or lowered, they made plans to get those things done before her return. I asked Mrs G last night when we spoke to her on the phone how it felt to be back home again. Without remembering her exact words, suffice it to say she was both relieved and excited at the prospects of getting back home and on with her life. If she had any trepidation whatsoever about being up to the task physically, I wasn't hearing any of it. The one question I should have asked but forgot to ask is, what can we do to help?
Today is the day when J. Powell informs the country as to just how much he's going to raise interest rates. Which J. Powell will we see at the podium? Will he be the hawkish and seldom seen J. Powell wanting to raise interest rates an unheard of 75 basis points? Or, will we see the more dovish J. Powell coming in at 50 basis points? What kind of guidance will he signal? I guess we'll see just how interested he is in taming inflation after ignoring any and all opportunities he had heretofore when it would have made more sense to raise rates. How will the financial markets react to his messaging? He's supposed to be dampening demand so I'm hoping for messaging that sends the markets lower instead of higher. Let's take a little more steam out of the markets, shall we? No one likes to see irrational exuberance in the markets when inflation is coming in hot at 8.6%.
I don't know how you watch your television shows but I like to save a season's worth of shows and then binge the hell out of them. Depending on the network, some shows are posted all at once and at other times they are posted weekly. I mean, waiting a week to see another episode of a show that you really like can be painful. There is also a certain rhythm and flow to story lines that typically don't factor in the element of time. In other words, you're supposed to be on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. Commercials for cleaning products and hemorrhoid creams don't help whatsoever so I prefer my shows to be commercial free. One way, and maybe the only way, to keep story lines intact is to collect the episodes and play them back-to-back after you've saved them all to your collection.
The missus will tempt me now and then to watch a show before we have all the episodes. She is also the kind of person who likes to know how a book is going to end before she starts reading a book so there's that. She suggested the other day that we take a peek at the new show on Showtime, "The Man Who Fell To Earth." I don't know why but I agreed. Maybe it's because I'm old enough to remember the movie from the seventies when David Bowie played the lead. The premise of the show has stuck with me all these years so a remake had some allure to be sure. Let's just say that I was completely gobsmacked when I watched the first episode. It was astonishingly good. I liked it so much that I wanted to watch the episode again. Once thing is for certain. I'll be watching this when it comes out every week. Forget the binging. Drastic times call for drastic measures. I think this one is right up there with one of my other favorite shows by Apple entitled "Severance."
If the creek don't rise and the good Lord's willin', I'll fold a little of that manure I picked up the other day into the soil in our garden. I bought two bags of the stuff so no sense in not using it all. It can't make our crop of vegetables any worse, can it? I'm wanting my tomatoes plump and juicy so this manure stuff should make all of that and more possible. I'll likely regret not learning how to can veggies but that horse has left the barn so no sense in chasing it down at this point. We've never had excess anything given the size of our garden but these things cross your mind when the prospects of a bumper crop loom large. The first step, at any rate, is to get the manure folded into the soil. I can do that. All in a good day's work.
I tuned in to the debate last night in Pennsylvania where the top contenders for the republicans to replace the republican incumbent, Pat Toomey, took to the stage. I don't really know any of the candidates, Dr. Oz included, so I thought I might like to have look at them in real time. Did I mention that the missus thinks that Dr. Oz is a nut? I'm not sure that I know what to look for in senatorial candidates so I want to say that up front. I expected the usual ebb and flow that one sees in any debate and I wasn't disappointed. There wasn't much in the way of fireworks either and that may have been due to the control exerted over the debate by the moderator. She should have encouraged or allowed them to go after each other free form instead of tying their hands behind their backs by shutting them down or maybe not giving them time enough to respond to charges leveled by their fellow debaters.
There are really only two of the five (Oz and McCormick) in the race who have any chance of becoming the next senator of Pennsylvania. I didn't see much difference between the two of them on the debate stage and the post-debate polls agreed with me since the polls had the two of them but a percentage point apart. Trump is supporting Oz since he thinks Oz has a better chance of beating the democrat candidate whose name escapes me at the moment. I think I expected more from Oz since he has a long history and presence in the media as a host of any number of nationally based shows. He just wasn't that impressive. Does he even have the necessary gravitas to be the next senator from Pennsylvania? The fact that 40% of republican voters in Pennsylvania are undecided at this point should tell us a little something. No?
I wouldn't say that Oz wasn't articulate but I would say that his responses were a little bit on the light side considering what he was asking of the people of Pennsylvania. The good news for Oz was that his opponent wasn't that much more articulate. Maybe "articulate" isn't the right word. You'd like to think that someone running for senator would have a good grasp of the facts when it comes to global affairs. It isn't enough for McCormick to accuse Oz of being a shill for the country of Turkey just because Oz served in the Turkish military or because he has a dual citizenship. The residents of Pennsylvania care about this why? And Oz accusing McCormick of mishandling pension funds of Pennsylvania's seniors was an equally poor attempt to move the needle in his direction. If nothing changes in the next few weeks leading up the primary, I'm guessing the Trump endorsement will make the difference when the final votes are cast. Oz in a landslide?
I made the mistake of telling Mrs G about my experience as a fourth grader when I nearly passed out while on a field visit to a local veterinarian's office. To this day I can't recall what that specific smell was although it was probably some ammonia based concoction that they use to keep things sterile in an otherwise typically un-sterile environment. I just remember being taken outside to get some fresh air while my classmates did whatever they did inside the office. Anyway, I think Mrs G now thinks that I am less open to spending time in medical facilities and that loosely translates to my not wanting to lend a hand or assist if and when she is going in and out of these types of places. She said something last night about going it alone today at the doctor's office because she knew I wasn't a fan based on what I told her about my visit to the veterinarian's office. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. I'll need to convey that to her asap.
Where the hell did that come from? I found a tick on my chest last night as I lay in bed. The little bugger was burrowed in pretty good and he or she was starting to look a little engorged as best I could tell from what little I could see of it given my angle of vision. I asked the missus to get the bottle of alcohol, a piece of cotton gauze, and the little tick scooper that we keep on hand for such emergencies. "Gag the little fucker with the alcohol and I'll see if I can't grab his head and body with the little scooper," I pleaded.
It took a bit of tugging and plucking but I finally extracted what was left of the little bugger seemingly piece by piece from my torso. Neither of us could confirm when all was said and done that it was a tick even with the magnifying glass that we had on hand. We'll need to put a call in the doctor's office this morning for a dose or two of doxycycline. That should do the trick. And yes, my little darlings, I'll do a better job next time of checking my body for ticks when I come in from doing yard work. Promises promises.
What am I hearing about this far-left group calling themselves "Ruth Sent Me"? They apparently published the addresses of the Supreme Court justices in an attempt to intimidate and even threaten them because of their apparent support for killing the Roe v Wade decision in the crib. The reference to "Ruth" is Ruth Ginsburg who, despite being a proponent for abortion and abortion related freedoms, did not think that the Roe decision was a well reasoned decision. So, they may want to rethink their group's name. Maybe it tells us something about just how stupid and deranged they are. Why is this not an overt threat to the Court and why has the FBI not been dispatched to both protect the Justices and their families and find and jail the people responsible for publishing the addresses? Get on the fucking stick! I don't care what Joe Biden says.
Joey's mouthpiece, Jen Psaki, says that the people most likely responsible for the publishing of the addresses did so because they are "mad" and they have a right to express their feelings. In other words, the Biden Administration both supports and encourages violence as a tool to be used by their supporters in fighting back against the patriots in the MAGA movement. It was Trump's three justices who made overturning this Roe decision possible so it's game-on for the leftists. I agree with the prevailing sentiment that says the Court should just go ahead and release the ruling now and let the chips fall where they may. It was a draft memo that had been leaked but the Court tipped their hand on how they were going to rule so let's just get it out there. The longer they wait, the longer the violence and the threats will continue in their putrid attempts to have one or more Justices change their minds. If anything, this should stiffen their spines. Who knows, maybe there is still time to get John Roberts on board with the decision to overturn Roe.
The missus and I took Mrs G to see her doctor yesterday morning. I was a little concerned that we hadn't given ourselves enough time to deal with the logistics of getting Mrs G in and out of her facility and in and out of our car in time to get to her doctor's office on time. Little did I know that Mrs G was more than up to the task and, if I do say so myself, the progress that she's made even since the last time we saw her is quite remarkable. She's still using a walker to get about but the shuffling is gone and her gait is almost back to where it was before her accident. We made it to the doctor's office well ahead of schedule and that made for a more relaxed time once we arrived at the hospital. You know how nerve racking the checking in and out process can be when you're behind schedule. Well, there was none of that. She got a clean bill of health from her doctor and he even said something about her seemingly remarkable recovery compared to some others who fared less well after their surgery. It was a good morning.
I was a little concerned that she might end up back at her facility after the lunch hour and I wasn't sure what that meant other than her going without lunch. I suggested that we pick up a sub and maybe a nice iced coffee and maybe even a jelly donut so she wouldn't end up back at her facility empty handed and hungry. We're talking about a small iced coffee half caffeinated and half non-caffeinated with creme and a straw if you please. Oh, and for the sub, we thought she might like to have a ham sub from Jersey Mike's (Mike's way!) but opted instead for a half Moe's since the noon hour loomed large and Jersey Mike's was probably over-the-top busy. That was just a guess but probably a good guess knowing what we know about Jersey Mike's and how busy they've been every time we ended up there around the lunch hour. The missus and I treated ourselves to a couple of chocolate crullers at Dunkin'. Guilty pleasures all but what the hey.
What a weird week it's been in the financial markets. If you have a 401K, I hope you're not watching it too closely. It will give you heartburn. If you're looking forward to retirement and you're counting on your 401k as the mother of all nest eggs, do not look at your balances. I'm not sure when you can start paying attention again but bottoming processes in the market take some time so just sit back and let it play out. I suppose you could yank your shekels out the market but that can be dicey. When would you get back in? What if the market surges and you're on the sidelines feeling all comfy and cozy about being out of the market? Is there anything worse than being out of the market while the market is going up. How about being in the market while the market is going down? Day after day you see nothing but red ink and CNN comes on at 8 at night with a special called, "Markets in Turmoil." Anyway, the market (NASDAQ) was up 4 percent on Wednesday and down 5 percent on Thursday of this week. Talk about a fucking roller coaster.
They tried to keep Marjorie Greene Taylor off the ballot in Georgia but they failed spectacularly. They, and I'm referring to the democrat party, alleged that her so-called participation in the event in our nation's capitol on January 6th made her ineligible to be on the ballot. The judge ruled today that they failed in their attempt to keep her off the ballot. That's my girl! Kicking butt and taking names. The fact that it even got into a courtroom is a joke in itself. I'd like to see her beat her opponent like a rented mule come November. She will, hopefully, be re-elected in November with the tsunami of a red wave that will likely give the boot to upwards of 40 percent of sitting democrats in Congress. The pearl clutching will be glorious.
One last thing. I wish I had a nickel for every article written these days in the liberal rags in our nation about corporate boards and the lack of so-called diversity of their members. More specifically, the leftists writing these articles more often than not piss and moan about the whiteness of boards. First of all, it's none of their fucking business who company's do and don't have sitting on their boards. Second of all, if it just so happens that the best qualified people applying for seats on the board are white then you work with what you have. Thirdly, what the hell does skin color have to do with making one qualified or not qualified to sit on a company's board? The same goes true for one's nationality. If you have your choice between a Somalian with an 8th grade education and someone from the Midwest with a degree from Harvard, you tell the Somalian to screw. Life experience is good but having a record of accomplishment and success is better. It just is.
I spent a couple of hours with he Ev man yesterday working on his apartment. I do what I can when I can. He'll tell his people that I lent a hand or maybe he won't. I'm not sure they'll believe him if he tells them that he did it all by his lonesome. He can spruce up a place with the best of them but he has to be in just the right place to pull it all together. More often than not, he's not in that place. That isn't to say that he doesn't know he's not in that place so that's where I come in. I have a particular knack for restoring order from chaos and if I can be there to lead by example it's all the better. Watch and learn.
The missus will be waking up to a nice hot spinach, broccoli, and mushroom quiche right out of the oven this morning. I scraped together a few ingredients that I didn't know I had and I was off the to races. I like a good smattering of shredded cheese in my quiche but I had none so used feta cheese instead. I sautéed mushrooms in a little garlic and oil and they'll plump up the quiche nicely if everything goes as expected. I don't make my quiche with a crust but I've not heard any complaints so crust-less it is. I think we have some nice whole wheat bread which I'm wanting to toast up and serve with a little butter and jam. Damn!
I think Mrs G is ready to get the hell out of rehab and back home. She said as much when we spoke on the phone last evening. Can you blame her? I think she thinks that she's made enough progress that she's ready and willing to take the next step in the process. That has to mean that she's feeling stronger and more capable when it comes to getting back to living her life on her terms. She even said something about being picked up in our car and not taking the van that is otherwise equipped to transport patients in rehab from point A to point B. She's wanting to get the show on the road so to speak and she's just a little miffed that no one in her facility seems to share her sense of urgency. Let's do this, bitch-ez!
I have to go pick up a roto-tiller today to do a little roto-tilling here and there around our house. I have a garden, if you can call it that, that has been neglected for the better part of a year that will need turning over so the tiller is just what the doctor ordered. I'll put some grass seed down in another area that I intend to till and it will be nice to see that area restored as it were to its original condition. That's the part of our lawn where I had a wood pile rotting for the better part of a year or two so the soil should be in very good shape. This will be one of those 4-hour rental schticks from Home Depot that I've been doing this year if you include the chainsaw that I rented within the last four weeks.
I have to laugh. I heard some talking head yesterday talking about the fact that Kamala Harris, the worst possible Vice President in the history of our country, took exception to the fact that people in Biden's circle failed to stand up when she entered a room. They stand up when Biden enters the room so why should it be any different when she enters a room. Right? What a fucking clown show we have for a President and Vice President. You can't make this stuff up. I mean, who the fuck does she think she is? If you ask me, neither one of these asshats deserves the niceties that goes along with being a President and Vice President. They are a couple of grifters who managed to steal an election and that will be their legacy enduring or otherwise. They know it and so do we.
Harris has to be frustrated by the fact that Bumbling and Demented Joey Biden still hasn't stepped down from his official duties as President of the United States. She probably can't understand how it is that he is still on his feet and carrying on with the duties that fall in his wheelhouse on any given day in our nation's capitol. He could barely get out a complete sentence as a candidate without relying on cue cards or teleprompters so she figured he was probably good to go for maybe a few months and then it would be all hers. She would be the very first woman president. She could literally taste it. It was a Faustian bargain that is looking less and less like a bargain with each passing day.
It looks like the leftists are at it again. Somebody with access to Supreme Court rulings snatched a draft copy of the Roe v Wade ruling and released it to the rabid liberal media outlet, Politico. At first blush, it looks like the Supremes are going to overturn Roe in a 5-4 ruling. Maybe it's 6-3, not sure. Aside from the fact that this kind of skullduggery is not at all usual or even expected in our venerable Supreme Court, it has triggered the left in a way that was completely predictable. Maybe that was the plan all along, Fire up the troops ahead of the Midterm elections and see if that doesn't change the trajectory of what everyone expects will be a republican tsunami in November.
What you won't hear from the liberal nut jobs running around our nation's capitol day in and day out with their little pink hats on is that abortion will be sent back to the individual States if it's struck down at the federal level. There will now be relentless calls from the Bernie Sander's and his ilk in Congress to pack the Supreme Court to put a stop to this travesty of justice. The left will now launch a multi-front assault to whip up their constituencies into the kind of frenzy that only comes around once in a hundred years. Who was it that coined the phrase, "Never let a crisis go to waste?" This is their moment. This is precisely what the leaker of the ruling had in mind. Something tells me that he or she did not act alone. This was a conspiracy.
I've got my eye on the Ohio primary race today. I was a little slow in coming around to liking J.D. Vance but come around I did and I'm now firmly in his camp for better or worse. I think I've mentioned this previously so this should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been reading this here blog. Not that anyone does, but that's a subject for a different day. I'm looking at it as a test of Trump's status as a king maker. I'll not think any less of Trump were his candidates to lose their races but if they do win it could tell us a little something about Trump's ability to continue to influence outcomes in races that will more than likely put our party (conservatives) in the winner's circle from now through 2024. Steve Bannon thinks we'll be able to keep the democrats out of power for the next one hundred years. Something in between would suit me just fine.
It will be interesting to see what kind of reaction we get out of the Supreme Court as a result of this leak. Will John Roberts step up to the podium and say anything about this business? I don't know how you smooth something like this over. It's in the media's hands now and they are going to do the bidding of their masters, the liberal political establishment. I think I'll just tune it all out for the next day or two and let the chips fall where they may. I wonder about the timing. Will this issue become less dominant with each passing month? Is there enough time between now and the election in November to slow down this so-called locomotive? What could possibly take it off the front pages of the rags that pass for newspapers in our great country? Newspapers? Who the fuck reads newspapers any more? It's all about social media. Musk to the rescue?
I think I'm on to something here. The left was maybe counting on having Twitter as their go-to social media application when the Roe v Wade ruling came down. They were counting on Big Tech to create the kind of tidal wave of anti-republican momentum around this issue that would keep the democrats in power for another two years and maybe more. That would certainly explain the gnashing of teeth and the pearl clutching on the left as a result of Musk buying Twitter as this now throws their plans into a cocked hat. What I worry about is that Musk's purchase of Twitter won't be finalized until October. That leaves a lot of time for the deep state leftist operatives working in the shadows at Twitter to do their dirty work. These bastards have gamed it all out. This is what they do. This is who they are.
My hummingbird feeders have been up for a day or two now and just yesterday the missus and I were standing in the back room when one of the little buggers came around to our feeder on the deck. Talk about perfect timing. It's always very exciting to see them come back around for another year and I'm happy to report that we were more than ready for them this time. I want the feeders up and available to them after their long journey north. Have a little nectar after your long trip, won't you? The missus informs me that she saw a hummingbird outside our bedroom window this morning. I'm assuming that these are two separate and distinct hummingbirds. They're quite territorial so it would surprise me to know that they are one and the same. I'm guessing they are not.
Fast forward 24 hours and primary elections in Ohio and Indiana are over. The fat lady, as it were, has sung. J.D. Vance won the bid to be Ohio's republican senate candidate and will face a democrat hack by the name of Ryan in the Fall. Ohio is a deep red state so I'm guessing Ohio will be sending J.D. Vance to the US senate in November to replace Rob Portman. There were an assortment of 21 other races in Ohio and Indiana all with Trump endorsed candidates who won their races handily. In other words, it was MAGA-nificent night for Trump and it pretty much sums up everything we knew about his role in the Republican Party as kingmaker and future candidate for president in 2024. 22-0. Just wow!
The good folks at the rehab joint where Mrs G is currently hanging out while she continues her recovery took her over to her apartment yesterday for the first time since she left there on a stretcher some weeks ago. They were onsite to assess any and all of her physical needs prior to her returning to her unit next week. If things needed to be raised or lowered, they made plans to get those things done before her return. I asked Mrs G last night when we spoke to her on the phone how it felt to be back home again. Without remembering her exact words, suffice it to say she was both relieved and excited at the prospects of getting back home and on with her life. If she had any trepidation whatsoever about being up to the task physically, I wasn't hearing any of it. The one question I should have asked but forgot to ask is, what can we do to help?
Today is the day when J. Powell informs the country as to just how much he's going to raise interest rates. Which J. Powell will we see at the podium? Will he be the hawkish and seldom seen J. Powell wanting to raise interest rates an unheard of 75 basis points? Or, will we see the more dovish J. Powell coming in at 50 basis points? What kind of guidance will he signal? I guess we'll see just how interested he is in taming inflation after ignoring any and all opportunities he had heretofore when it would have made more sense to raise rates. How will the financial markets react to his messaging? He's supposed to be dampening demand so I'm hoping for messaging that sends the markets lower instead of higher. Let's take a little more steam out of the markets, shall we? No one likes to see irrational exuberance in the markets when inflation is coming in hot at 8.6%.
I don't know how you watch your television shows but I like to save a season's worth of shows and then binge the hell out of them. Depending on the network, some shows are posted all at once and at other times they are posted weekly. I mean, waiting a week to see another episode of a show that you really like can be painful. There is also a certain rhythm and flow to story lines that typically don't factor in the element of time. In other words, you're supposed to be on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. Commercials for cleaning products and hemorrhoid creams don't help whatsoever so I prefer my shows to be commercial free. One way, and maybe the only way, to keep story lines intact is to collect the episodes and play them back-to-back after you've saved them all to your collection.
The missus will tempt me now and then to watch a show before we have all the episodes. She is also the kind of person who likes to know how a book is going to end before she starts reading a book so there's that. She suggested the other day that we take a peek at the new show on Showtime, "The Man Who Fell To Earth." I don't know why but I agreed. Maybe it's because I'm old enough to remember the movie from the seventies when David Bowie played the lead. The premise of the show has stuck with me all these years so a remake had some allure to be sure. Let's just say that I was completely gobsmacked when I watched the first episode. It was astonishingly good. I liked it so much that I wanted to watch the episode again. Once thing is for certain. I'll be watching this when it comes out every week. Forget the binging. Drastic times call for drastic measures. I think this one is right up there with one of my other favorite shows by Apple entitled "Severance."
If the creek don't rise and the good Lord's willin', I'll fold a little of that manure I picked up the other day into the soil in our garden. I bought two bags of the stuff so no sense in not using it all. It can't make our crop of vegetables any worse, can it? I'm wanting my tomatoes plump and juicy so this manure stuff should make all of that and more possible. I'll likely regret not learning how to can veggies but that horse has left the barn so no sense in chasing it down at this point. We've never had excess anything given the size of our garden but these things cross your mind when the prospects of a bumper crop loom large. The first step, at any rate, is to get the manure folded into the soil. I can do that. All in a good day's work.
I tuned in to the debate last night in Pennsylvania where the top contenders for the republicans to replace the republican incumbent, Pat Toomey, took to the stage. I don't really know any of the candidates, Dr. Oz included, so I thought I might like to have look at them in real time. Did I mention that the missus thinks that Dr. Oz is a nut? I'm not sure that I know what to look for in senatorial candidates so I want to say that up front. I expected the usual ebb and flow that one sees in any debate and I wasn't disappointed. There wasn't much in the way of fireworks either and that may have been due to the control exerted over the debate by the moderator. She should have encouraged or allowed them to go after each other free form instead of tying their hands behind their backs by shutting them down or maybe not giving them time enough to respond to charges leveled by their fellow debaters.
There are really only two of the five (Oz and McCormick) in the race who have any chance of becoming the next senator of Pennsylvania. I didn't see much difference between the two of them on the debate stage and the post-debate polls agreed with me since the polls had the two of them but a percentage point apart. Trump is supporting Oz since he thinks Oz has a better chance of beating the democrat candidate whose name escapes me at the moment. I think I expected more from Oz since he has a long history and presence in the media as a host of any number of nationally based shows. He just wasn't that impressive. Does he even have the necessary gravitas to be the next senator from Pennsylvania? The fact that 40% of republican voters in Pennsylvania are undecided at this point should tell us a little something. No?
I wouldn't say that Oz wasn't articulate but I would say that his responses were a little bit on the light side considering what he was asking of the people of Pennsylvania. The good news for Oz was that his opponent wasn't that much more articulate. Maybe "articulate" isn't the right word. You'd like to think that someone running for senator would have a good grasp of the facts when it comes to global affairs. It isn't enough for McCormick to accuse Oz of being a shill for the country of Turkey just because Oz served in the Turkish military or because he has a dual citizenship. The residents of Pennsylvania care about this why? And Oz accusing McCormick of mishandling pension funds of Pennsylvania's seniors was an equally poor attempt to move the needle in his direction. If nothing changes in the next few weeks leading up the primary, I'm guessing the Trump endorsement will make the difference when the final votes are cast. Oz in a landslide?
I made the mistake of telling Mrs G about my experience as a fourth grader when I nearly passed out while on a field visit to a local veterinarian's office. To this day I can't recall what that specific smell was although it was probably some ammonia based concoction that they use to keep things sterile in an otherwise typically un-sterile environment. I just remember being taken outside to get some fresh air while my classmates did whatever they did inside the office. Anyway, I think Mrs G now thinks that I am less open to spending time in medical facilities and that loosely translates to my not wanting to lend a hand or assist if and when she is going in and out of these types of places. She said something last night about going it alone today at the doctor's office because she knew I wasn't a fan based on what I told her about my visit to the veterinarian's office. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. I'll need to convey that to her asap.
Where the hell did that come from? I found a tick on my chest last night as I lay in bed. The little bugger was burrowed in pretty good and he or she was starting to look a little engorged as best I could tell from what little I could see of it given my angle of vision. I asked the missus to get the bottle of alcohol, a piece of cotton gauze, and the little tick scooper that we keep on hand for such emergencies. "Gag the little fucker with the alcohol and I'll see if I can't grab his head and body with the little scooper," I pleaded.
It took a bit of tugging and plucking but I finally extracted what was left of the little bugger seemingly piece by piece from my torso. Neither of us could confirm when all was said and done that it was a tick even with the magnifying glass that we had on hand. We'll need to put a call in the doctor's office this morning for a dose or two of doxycycline. That should do the trick. And yes, my little darlings, I'll do a better job next time of checking my body for ticks when I come in from doing yard work. Promises promises.
What am I hearing about this far-left group calling themselves "Ruth Sent Me"? They apparently published the addresses of the Supreme Court justices in an attempt to intimidate and even threaten them because of their apparent support for killing the Roe v Wade decision in the crib. The reference to "Ruth" is Ruth Ginsburg who, despite being a proponent for abortion and abortion related freedoms, did not think that the Roe decision was a well reasoned decision. So, they may want to rethink their group's name. Maybe it tells us something about just how stupid and deranged they are. Why is this not an overt threat to the Court and why has the FBI not been dispatched to both protect the Justices and their families and find and jail the people responsible for publishing the addresses? Get on the fucking stick! I don't care what Joe Biden says.
Joey's mouthpiece, Jen Psaki, says that the people most likely responsible for the publishing of the addresses did so because they are "mad" and they have a right to express their feelings. In other words, the Biden Administration both supports and encourages violence as a tool to be used by their supporters in fighting back against the patriots in the MAGA movement. It was Trump's three justices who made overturning this Roe decision possible so it's game-on for the leftists. I agree with the prevailing sentiment that says the Court should just go ahead and release the ruling now and let the chips fall where they may. It was a draft memo that had been leaked but the Court tipped their hand on how they were going to rule so let's just get it out there. The longer they wait, the longer the violence and the threats will continue in their putrid attempts to have one or more Justices change their minds. If anything, this should stiffen their spines. Who knows, maybe there is still time to get John Roberts on board with the decision to overturn Roe.
The missus and I took Mrs G to see her doctor yesterday morning. I was a little concerned that we hadn't given ourselves enough time to deal with the logistics of getting Mrs G in and out of her facility and in and out of our car in time to get to her doctor's office on time. Little did I know that Mrs G was more than up to the task and, if I do say so myself, the progress that she's made even since the last time we saw her is quite remarkable. She's still using a walker to get about but the shuffling is gone and her gait is almost back to where it was before her accident. We made it to the doctor's office well ahead of schedule and that made for a more relaxed time once we arrived at the hospital. You know how nerve racking the checking in and out process can be when you're behind schedule. Well, there was none of that. She got a clean bill of health from her doctor and he even said something about her seemingly remarkable recovery compared to some others who fared less well after their surgery. It was a good morning.
I was a little concerned that she might end up back at her facility after the lunch hour and I wasn't sure what that meant other than her going without lunch. I suggested that we pick up a sub and maybe a nice iced coffee and maybe even a jelly donut so she wouldn't end up back at her facility empty handed and hungry. We're talking about a small iced coffee half caffeinated and half non-caffeinated with creme and a straw if you please. Oh, and for the sub, we thought she might like to have a ham sub from Jersey Mike's (Mike's way!) but opted instead for a half Moe's since the noon hour loomed large and Jersey Mike's was probably over-the-top busy. That was just a guess but probably a good guess knowing what we know about Jersey Mike's and how busy they've been every time we ended up there around the lunch hour. The missus and I treated ourselves to a couple of chocolate crullers at Dunkin'. Guilty pleasures all but what the hey.
What a weird week it's been in the financial markets. If you have a 401K, I hope you're not watching it too closely. It will give you heartburn. If you're looking forward to retirement and you're counting on your 401k as the mother of all nest eggs, do not look at your balances. I'm not sure when you can start paying attention again but bottoming processes in the market take some time so just sit back and let it play out. I suppose you could yank your shekels out the market but that can be dicey. When would you get back in? What if the market surges and you're on the sidelines feeling all comfy and cozy about being out of the market? Is there anything worse than being out of the market while the market is going up. How about being in the market while the market is going down? Day after day you see nothing but red ink and CNN comes on at 8 at night with a special called, "Markets in Turmoil." Anyway, the market (NASDAQ) was up 4 percent on Wednesday and down 5 percent on Thursday of this week. Talk about a fucking roller coaster.
They tried to keep Marjorie Greene Taylor off the ballot in Georgia but they failed spectacularly. They, and I'm referring to the democrat party, alleged that her so-called participation in the event in our nation's capitol on January 6th made her ineligible to be on the ballot. The judge ruled today that they failed in their attempt to keep her off the ballot. That's my girl! Kicking butt and taking names. The fact that it even got into a courtroom is a joke in itself. I'd like to see her beat her opponent like a rented mule come November. She will, hopefully, be re-elected in November with the tsunami of a red wave that will likely give the boot to upwards of 40 percent of sitting democrats in Congress. The pearl clutching will be glorious.
One last thing. I wish I had a nickel for every article written these days in the liberal rags in our nation about corporate boards and the lack of so-called diversity of their members. More specifically, the leftists writing these articles more often than not piss and moan about the whiteness of boards. First of all, it's none of their fucking business who company's do and don't have sitting on their boards. Second of all, if it just so happens that the best qualified people applying for seats on the board are white then you work with what you have. Thirdly, what the hell does skin color have to do with making one qualified or not qualified to sit on a company's board? The same goes true for one's nationality. If you have your choice between a Somalian with an 8th grade education and someone from the Midwest with a degree from Harvard, you tell the Somalian to screw. Life experience is good but having a record of accomplishment and success is better. It just is.