Perilous Times
09/07/23 07:20
We're off and running on a new week here in journal-land. Welcome one, welcome all. I have no particular bones to pick with anyone or anything as I sit here wondering how I'm going to get through a few paragraphs just this morning if I have nothing to say. A little sunshine would be nice today after a day yesterday of seemingly relentless torrential rain. That might be too much to hope for. The missus and I talked about taking Mrs. G for a ride today, so that will give us an activity should it come to pass. Is there any question as to whether or not Mrs. G might like to get out to a local farmstand or maybe to her favorite take-out haunt, Kentucky Fried Chicken? In my humble opinion, no. We've not asked her yet, but I suspect she'll be in with both feet when we pose the question. Will you be having the three-piece meal or the four-piece meal today, Mrs. G?
So, our Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, will be paying a visit to China in the coming days. I thought we were in a cold war of sorts with the Communist Chinese Party. I know they invited Biden's Secretary of State, Blinken, for a visit last month, and they demonstrated their disdain for the fool, and America by extension, by showing him in unflattering poses standing at Xi's side. That prompted Biden to refer to Xi as a dictator after Blinken was safely back on American soil. I think Xi and his comrades are still waiting for Biden's apology for having given the order to shoot down their spy balloon. Biden and compliant media issued no such apology, but rather they subsequently put out any number of false and misleading articles about how the spy balloon failed to vacuum up data and transmit it back to Beijing. It gets worse. Another spy balloon was seen last week over Wyoming or Montanna, and Biden's praetorian guard, the media, issued a full-throated denial that it was a Chinese spy balloon. They were, no doubt, lying through their teeth at the behest of Biden and his fellow Leftists.
Make no mistake about it, Biden is a fully owned asset of the Chinese Communist Party. China was on to Biden and his appetite for wealth and power well before he was installed as President of the United States, and they invested heavily and often in Joe Biden and his extended family accordingly. Even today, Biden is turning over countries in South America to the Chinese after supporting, funding, and ensuring the rise of socialism and socialist dictators like Lula in Brazil. Daniel Greenfield wrote just such an article in FreeRepublic.com today. It is a continuation of Obama's policies which only gives credence to the suspicions that people have had all along, which is to say, knowing what we know about Biden's late-stage dementia, who is really in charge in our beloved White House? Xi's conditions for resuming normal relations with the United States include the lifting of tariffs on Chinese goods. This may well explain Yellen's visit to mainland China. Everything else you see and hear is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
It really is incredible when you think about it. We have a President who is selling out our country to a foreign adversary for a few pieces of gold, relatively speaking. It goes on day in and day out, and nobody can stop it. Our very infrastructure and institutions support and enforce the crimes of a derelict and compromised President and his criminal family members. Republican committees in Congress have unveiled an extensive patchwork of LLCs that the Bidens have used to launder monies from shakedowns of regimes across the globe, yet all we ever hear from anyone in the media is that there is no evidence that the Big Guy (Joe Biden) is involved in any of it. If I'm not mistaken, at last count, they accounted for some forty to fifty million dollars going into Biden's coffers from America's adversaries across the globe. Trump was impeached for a perfectly good phone call, yet the Republicans have yet to launch a formal inquiry into Biden's alleged criminal deeds. Can they not find a single example of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors?
Have we heard anything about anything when it comes to China setting up a military installation in Cuba? We have not. Biden knows that Cuba is just 90 miles off Florida's shores. Right? It's frightening when you think about the kinds of things China can launch from Cuba and just how quickly said launch or launches could reach American soil. Has the military brass informed Biden of China's arsenal of hypersonic missiles? You know, the missiles that can reach the United States in seconds, not minutes, not hours. Nobody ever talks about the accuracy of these types of weapons. I presume we have no defense against such weaponry. God forbid they scare the bejesus out of the American people by sharing what they know about the absolute power and destruction that these weapons can rain down on human populations. I suspect that's not something that Washington wants the people in America, from the corn fields in Iowa to the steel production facilities in Northern Maine, to know or worry about. I'm just thinking out loud here.
Is anyone worried about countries like Russia and China forging compacts with countries like Iran? I thought Iran was a lone bad actor on the world stage. Apparently, they're now buds with fellow bad actors. So much for the leadership of one Joseph Biden on the world stage. I saw some headlines this morning about Iran battleships being fitted with hypersonic missiles. Now, why would Iran need hypersonic missiles? Israel, are you listening? How is that Iron Dome working out for you? Can it defend against hypersonic missiles? All I'm saying is that we see a lot of things going on in the world that pose an existential threat to countries like the United States and Israel. What do we hear from Washington, DC? It's crickets. It's like we're watching things go from bad to worse, and nobody's doing anything about anything. That Douglas McGregor guy says that he doesn't think we'll have elections here in the United States in 2024. Talk about foreboding. What that suggests to me is that Biden will declare martial law and, like that clown in Ukraine, he'll jail his political opponents, and he'll cancel elections to prevent his own ouster at the hands of an outraged citizenry.
I'm still not convinced that having the collective West sending every last one of their military assets to that grifter, Zelensky, isn't part of a larger plan to deplete weapon stockpiles in order to weaken our countries against bad actors who would like nothing more than to send the lot of us to the dustbin of history. Is that why we and our NATO allies, what's left of them, are so hesitant to send our best jet fighters to the shithole in Ukraine? We're going to need them to defend ourselves should it comes to that in the end. Besides, how many Leopard tanks that countries have sent to Ukraine are still operating on Ukrainian soil?
The fact of the matter is Putin has targeted them and destroyed many of them before they ever saw any action on the battlefield. Some of that is guesswork on my part, and some of right out of rags like the Daily Mail. Who doesn't think that Russia has the wherewithal to ferret out these Leopard tanks and destroy them in one or more fell swoops? If it's true what they tell us about satellites being able to read license plates from outer space, then you have to guess that Russia has the technology and the weaponry to get the job done. Zelensky knows they have that capability, so what's that all about?
What the hell! Someone in the White House called in the hazmat teams when they discovered a bag of white powder on the premises. I'm not sure when they determined that the bag of white powder was cocaine, but that's what we're hearing at the moment. Did I mention that Biden's son Hunter, the crackhead, has been living at the White House as late? One might jump to the conclusion that the cocaine belongs to Hunter, but that may not be true. Based on what we've seen of Hunter's dad, Bumbles, lately, with all of his yelling and whispering and looking hyper and lost at the same time, the cocaine could belong to him.
How about this? Dr. Jill is getting tired of Hunter muddying up her husband's prospects for a second term, and she's not about to let some crackhead like Hunter mess that up. So, you drop a dime on our husband's son and let the chips fall where they may. Maybe we have a mole in the White House, one of those long-term civil servants who stay on after Administrations come and go. They have the utmost respect for everything the White House represents, and they will not suffer the likes of the trailer trash and the debauchery that the Bidens have brought to the doorstep of their beloved White House. It's high time someone called 9-1-1.
It will be interesting to see how Biden's praetorian guard, the media, tries to hide this under the rug. You should also know that if they're talking about cocaine in the White House, they have precious little time to talk about the criminal activity of the Bidens. The White House would like nothing more than to change the subject after the WhatsApp message written by Hunter surfaced last week where he was shaking down his contacts in China for a $5 million dollar payout, which, to no one's surprise, showed up in Hunter's bank account a week later. We're coming off a 4-day holiday weekend, and the White House needed something to change up the conversation. You might even say that they were desperate to change the conversation.
Is this the sleaziest bunch of losers we've ever had in the White House, or what? We're also coming off a weekend of activities for Bumbles where, once again, he has shown the world just how cognitively challenged he really is. He was seen on stage speaking in what sounded like "tongues" and wandering aimlessly as he is prone to do these days. Kamala Harris has to be wondering each and every day these days if today isn't the day. The day Bumbles leaves the stage for good, and she becomes the first "black" female president. And, like every other day when that happens, she has to be thinking to herself, what the hell is it going to take to get this guy to step down? There is not one Democrat calling for the activation of the 25th Amendment to remove Joe Biden from office. That's not exactly an endorsement of Kamala Harris. They're all in for Bumbles and another four years in the White House. This is the hill they've decided they want to die on. It will be fitting if Trump is the guy who buries them in 2024.
The missus and I will be taking a ride down to Massachusetts today for her doctor's appointment. I was thinking I wouldn't go with her but thought better of it when I remembered just how miserable that drive is. Will it be any better now that we're halfway through the week that was, and still is, I suppose, a vacation week for a lot of people? The fourth fell on a Tuesday this year, so a lot of people just take the whole week off. We'll see if it makes any difference in the amount of traffic on the roads. I should be careful what I ask for. More traffic can make for a more modulated flow of traffic, and that's not a bad thing. I'd rather be going at a steady clip of 40-50 mph instead of a breakneck 65-75 mph, given my druthers. I also don't make that drive very often anymore, so getting reacclimated in real-time can be a challenge. The last thing anybody making that drive every day wants is a fellow driver who can't go with the flow. That's how people get in accidents. That's how people die.
Y'all know that Mark Levin guy? He's the talk show guy who is an uber-conservative and who has a show of his own on FOX and also appears occasionally on the Sean Hannity show. He's quite a historian in his own right, and his radio shows can be quite interesting if you're into that sort of thing. If you miss a show or two, you can always catch up by taking in one of his podcasts. Anyway, he's been whining a bit as of late because his new book is not getting the kind of attention that he thinks it deserves. He says quite often that his wife tells him that it's his best book yet. Of course, she does, you damn fool. What is she supposed to say? I don't know how much of what he's now saying about Target not carrying his book because it's too polarizing and is manufactured in order to sell more books, but it all seems just a little too contrived for my tastes. He says that Target has informed him that they will carry his book online but not in their stores. It's a little rich when you consider the fact that Target, with all their woke shit, is about as polarizing as you can get. I wish Mark luck, but his incessant whining makes me less inclined to buy his book than not. Maybe I'll reconsider when it hits the discount rack.
I keep thinking about Trump's rally in that small town in South Carolina a week or so ago. Crowd estimates ranged anywhere between 50,000-75,000 people. It was a barn burner of a rally. South Carolina is also an early primary state, so this rally tells us a little bit about which way the good people in South Carolina will be voting come Primary Day. It also says a lot about who may or may not be voting for the two other candidates from South Carolina, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott. Neither Haley of Scott could muster a crowd a quarter the size of Trump's crowd, so the Trump rally was tantamount to a political shot across both their bows. Both are viable vice presidential candidates, so there's that. I have to imagine that the sight of that crowd also set the DeSantis people back on their heels. They're still banking on Trump being in jail by the time the first vote is cast, so we'll see how that works out for them. If the DeSantis people are looking to the chump, Fanny Willis, in Georgia to save their asses by issuing her long-promised indictment against Trump, they'll need to be careful what they wish for. Thus far, indictments have increased Trump's appeal, not the other way around.
I'm thinking that I'd better get out on the road for my bike ride early today before the traffic picks up and things get congested. I'm not sure what we're expecting for the weather today, but the sun is out at the moment, so I'll assume it's going to be another hot one. Hopefully not as hot as yesterday, but we'll see. What I don't want to do is to ride in the middle of the day when things are really smoking, both in terms of traffic and when and where UV rays are concerned. I put the lotion on, but you know it's never enough. They say that skin cancer is on the rise this year. I don't know if that's coming from the Climate Change crowd or the folks trying to sell their sunblock products. Either way, it pays to be careful out there, especially when you have some control over how much exposure you get on any given day. I'm all in when it comes to wearing long sleeve shirts and visors to keep the sun off my face. I worry a little less about the exposure of my lower body, but I rarely miss a chance to spray on a bit of Trader Joe's suntan lotion just for shits and giggles.
I was having a chat with my brother from another mother the other day about Medicare stuff. He said something about sitting down with one of those people who volunteer to help folks get up and running when they first go on Medicare. I think he walked away more confused than when he first walked in. Just so you know, that's perfectly normal. It all needs to be sorted, and everyone does that in their own way. You can buy books, or you can look on the internet, where there is a virtual smorgasbord of material to digest. You kind of have to pick and choose what you think applies to you, and, in most cases, you think wrong. I think the Medicare folks have done a great job with their website, so that's where I would go were I looking to get up to speed on the signup process.
There are drug plans to consider, and then there are supplement plans you'll want to look at to cover the 20% or so not covered by Medicare's Plan B. The rules are generally pretty standard, but some rules can be state-specific. In other words, some states give you more or less flexibility when it comes to changing your individual plans. You never see much paper from Medicare once you're up and running unless you've not met your deductibles, so that's a good thing. That assumes, of course, that you're paying your Plan B and Plan D premiums online. If you collect social security, I think the plan B premiums come out of your monthly SS payment. There's lots to learn, so I think my bro is off to a good start.
Am I really running so low on material that I have to write something about Medicare? Maybe I'm better off not writing anything at all. Nobody gives a flying shite about Medicare. Well, almost nobody. I saw a story yesterday about the United States sending cluster bombs to the Ukrainians for use against the Russians. The Russians responded accordingly, accusing the United States of escalating the conflict or something along those lines. I'm paraphrasing, of course. Is this one of those deals with the frog in the hot water? The next thing you know, we'll be in a hot war with Russia, and we'll wonder how the hell it came to that. Don't think for a moment that Bumbles Biden wouldn't declare war on Russia if he thought it would cement another four years in the White House for him, Dr. Jill, and Hunter the Bagman/Crackhead. And don't think for a minute that Russia will be alone in its battle against NATO and the United States. These newly formed alliances with Russia, China, etc., will ensure that we go into a full-blown World War Three in short order.
I say let the Europeans fight their own battles when it comes to defending Ukraine. The United States has no strategic interests in the border skirmish between Russia and Ukraine. Unfortunately, the Military Industrial Complex in the United States is of a very different opinion on the matter. They've never met a war that they didn't like, and there's a boatload of money to be made. Everybody profits, and that's the end of the discussion. Why our politicians don't push back is another story. It probably has something to do with the decades of our government's demonization of Russia, and nobody dares to stand up and say enough is enough without sounding like a patsy for the Russians. That's a one-way ticket out of political office. You may recall how Trump was vilified mercilessly in the media when he said something about it being better to work with our "enemies" than to be at odds with them constantly. The media is, of course, the praetorian guard of our Intelligence agencies, so they do what they're told. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will probably tell you that his uncle Jack was killed by the CIA because of his anti-war stance. See where I'm going with this?
File this under "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The Federal Judge in Louisianna came down hard on the Biden Administration when they ruled that the Biden Administration can't work with Social Media to suppress free speech. There were plenty of examples in the case where Biden and his minions had Social Media sites take down postings that they didn't like or that they thought offered an alternative view to narratives that they were trying to impress upon the American public. Some posters on the sites were shadowbanned or taken down indefinitely after posting something that the Biden Administration didn't like. Sites like Twitter, prior to Musk purchasing the site, were often willing participants in the blackballing of conservative posters and often worked hand in hand with Biden's Intelligence Agencies to do their bidding. All it ever took was a quick e-mail, a phone call, or a text, and it was "mission accomplished." Here's the kicker: The Biden Administration is appealing the decision. So, they want to continue to suppress free speech? Do they want to continue to have social media sites help them steal elections? The quick and dirty answer is a resounding "yes."
Now there's a bit of a kerfuffle over the United States giving Ukraine cluster bombs when 50 countries across the globe have signed off on not using them for a number of mostly humanitarian-related reasons. I heard some commentary about "dud" rates being an issue and that the bombs we're giving Ukraine have a very low dud rate. Apparently, if any number of the individual bombs contained within a cluster bomb fails to explode on contact, they can explode at any time in the future. This has real-life consequences for populations well after the war is over. I've heard others say that Russia is using cluster bombs against the Ukrainians so that gives others like the United States moral cover for doing the same for Ukraine. Bumbles Biden was asked in the last day or two about the delivery of these bombs to Ukraine, and he responded by saying something about Ukraine running out of ammunition. What the hell is he even talking about? Did he really just admit to the Russians that the West's weapons stockpiles have been largely depleted? That has to be highly classified information. What am I missing?
I guess if the objective is to kill as many Russians as possible in order to drive them out of your country, why wouldn't you do what you could, including using cluster bombs, to achieve that objective? You would think Ukrainians fighting on the front lines would be pleased as punch to get more bang for their buck, so to speak. If you can use half the ammunition and kill twice or more the number of Russians shooting at you, why wouldn't you do that? Maybe this has more to do with how the generals wage their wars, and it has less to do with what grunts in the foxholes think about the weaponry they're using to kill the enemy. It wasn't that long ago when Bumbles Biden tagged Putin as a war criminal for doing something so heinous that he deserved to be judged not by the world's leaders but rather by the justices sitting in The Hague. Maybe Putin targeted civilian populations, I can't remember exactly. You need to steer clear of schoolchildren and nuns when you give orders to your troops. Anyway, I don't hear anyone calling Bumbles a war criminal, so clearly, there's a double standard in play here. Don't think for a minute that civilian populations in Ukraine are not at risk both in real-time and longer-term when these weapons are being deployed on Ukrainian soil.
The missus and I are watching a series on the telly entitled "Silo." It's an Apple production, so draw your own conclusions. We're five episodes into the ten-episode series, and I just don't know if we're going to make it through the rest of the episodes. It is so slow-moving that it feels like we're watching paint dry sometimes. It's just interesting enough that we tune in to see what's going to happen next, but then we stop watching after about 15 to 20 minutes. You hate to stop in the middle of something, but I think we're about to make an exception in the case of this show. It also feels like a weird thing to complain about. Were it a book, I might turn to the last page or two just to see how things turn out, and then I'd be done. I almost don't care what happens next to the characters that we've come to know and like or dislike, and there are plenty of both. I've had similar experiences with other Apple shows, and I'm thinking it's an Apple thing. I've also watched some Apple shows where I can't wait for season two to come around. This is not one of those shows. I'm probably a little less reluctant than the missus to scuttle the flick, but I'm on board if she comes to me this morning proposing that we move on. Okay, little darlings, whatever you say.
I just finished up a book about the Golden State Killer and how genealogy helped to find this elusive killer decades after his last victim died. He just stopped cold turkey back in the eighties. The DNA thing is just so cool when you think of it. The building of family trees based on genetics and the samples left behind by criminals is giving law enforcement a new set of tools to bring these animals to justice. Just as capital punishment on the books doesn't stop people from killing people, it's doubtful that knowledge about DNA will stop a pervert from carrying out this or that sick fantasy. I've read other accounts where killers deposit the bodies of their victims in a body of water to cleanse any and all residue of their crimes, so it's probably not a non-issue for killers with a plan to address such matters. Like everything else, DNA degrades over time. One scientist in the book was actually able to obtain DNA from a hair follicle without the associated roots. When you think about the number of things that we as humans shed in the course of any given day, you'd think that it would be easy pickings for the DNA police, yet this is an ever-evolving science with many pitfalls, some more obvious than others. If we can find these sickos before they die a natural death, there is a chance we can give the victims and their families the justice they deserve.
Did you see those pictures of Treasury Secretary Yellen bowing like a dog to one of Xi's compatriots on her recent trip to China? This comes on the heels of Tony Blinken's visit to China, where they showed him standing on a stage shaking hands with Xi, and Blinken looked completely subservient. China has no respect for these clowns being dispatched from Biden's White House, and that's abundantly clear from the photos they share with the world's media. Does anyone even know what these clowns are over there trying to accomplish? On one hand, you have Bumbles Biden warning Xi to "be careful" regarding China's role in the Ukraine war implying, for better or worse, that the United States has some control over China's economic well-being. On the other hand, you have Yellen kowtowing to her hosts in China and assuring them that the "world is big enough for both the US and China to thrive." Well, which is it, Madam Secretary? Is this what power-sharing looks like?
The woman that I follow on Twitter, who is in Taiwan with her husband for a two-year stint, is now warning about an imminent invasion of that island by China. She says that she's not leaving until she gets the order from our State Department to evacuate. I suggested to her that that order may not be forthcoming. Perhaps she is unaware of the protracted and deadly ordeal of the Americans left behind when Bumbles decided to withdraw from Afghanistan. It was not one of America's finest moments. One might say that Russia looked at the Afghan fiasco born of the Bumbles Administration and rightly concluded that they could do what they damn well pleased and not be any worse off for it. If any of what we're hearing daily in the American press about Bumble's being compromised by the Chinese thanks to China's having invested heavily in Biden and members of his extended family, then I have to believe that Taiwan is nothing more than low-hanging fruit for Xi and his generals. Americans on the island will no doubt become pawns in a global power play between Washington and Beijing. It will be the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis all over again. My advice would be to get out while you can. The sooner, the better.
I wonder if what they say about the sophisticated chips produced in Taiwanese factories is correct. That is to say, should the flow of chips be interrupted, we in the West would be in deep shit. Should the Chinese throw up a naval blockade around Taiwan and prevent the flow of goods from the island, they say that it would be Good Night Irene for us in the United States. Production lines on everything from cars to microwaves would literally stand still without the chips needed for final assembly. How did we as a country ever allow this to happen? It's not like we don't have the know-how and the finances to achieve independence when it comes to manufacturing chips and a thousand other things that are produced outside of the United States. Anyway, they've got us by the balls if they want to bring us to our knees. Imagine the concessions they could extract from our weak-kneed politicians. Did we learn nothing during the Covid nonsense when, to everyone's amazement and consternation, we discovered that most of our pharmaceuticals are made in China? Who's laughing now?
So, our Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, will be paying a visit to China in the coming days. I thought we were in a cold war of sorts with the Communist Chinese Party. I know they invited Biden's Secretary of State, Blinken, for a visit last month, and they demonstrated their disdain for the fool, and America by extension, by showing him in unflattering poses standing at Xi's side. That prompted Biden to refer to Xi as a dictator after Blinken was safely back on American soil. I think Xi and his comrades are still waiting for Biden's apology for having given the order to shoot down their spy balloon. Biden and compliant media issued no such apology, but rather they subsequently put out any number of false and misleading articles about how the spy balloon failed to vacuum up data and transmit it back to Beijing. It gets worse. Another spy balloon was seen last week over Wyoming or Montanna, and Biden's praetorian guard, the media, issued a full-throated denial that it was a Chinese spy balloon. They were, no doubt, lying through their teeth at the behest of Biden and his fellow Leftists.
Make no mistake about it, Biden is a fully owned asset of the Chinese Communist Party. China was on to Biden and his appetite for wealth and power well before he was installed as President of the United States, and they invested heavily and often in Joe Biden and his extended family accordingly. Even today, Biden is turning over countries in South America to the Chinese after supporting, funding, and ensuring the rise of socialism and socialist dictators like Lula in Brazil. Daniel Greenfield wrote just such an article in FreeRepublic.com today. It is a continuation of Obama's policies which only gives credence to the suspicions that people have had all along, which is to say, knowing what we know about Biden's late-stage dementia, who is really in charge in our beloved White House? Xi's conditions for resuming normal relations with the United States include the lifting of tariffs on Chinese goods. This may well explain Yellen's visit to mainland China. Everything else you see and hear is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
It really is incredible when you think about it. We have a President who is selling out our country to a foreign adversary for a few pieces of gold, relatively speaking. It goes on day in and day out, and nobody can stop it. Our very infrastructure and institutions support and enforce the crimes of a derelict and compromised President and his criminal family members. Republican committees in Congress have unveiled an extensive patchwork of LLCs that the Bidens have used to launder monies from shakedowns of regimes across the globe, yet all we ever hear from anyone in the media is that there is no evidence that the Big Guy (Joe Biden) is involved in any of it. If I'm not mistaken, at last count, they accounted for some forty to fifty million dollars going into Biden's coffers from America's adversaries across the globe. Trump was impeached for a perfectly good phone call, yet the Republicans have yet to launch a formal inquiry into Biden's alleged criminal deeds. Can they not find a single example of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors?
Have we heard anything about anything when it comes to China setting up a military installation in Cuba? We have not. Biden knows that Cuba is just 90 miles off Florida's shores. Right? It's frightening when you think about the kinds of things China can launch from Cuba and just how quickly said launch or launches could reach American soil. Has the military brass informed Biden of China's arsenal of hypersonic missiles? You know, the missiles that can reach the United States in seconds, not minutes, not hours. Nobody ever talks about the accuracy of these types of weapons. I presume we have no defense against such weaponry. God forbid they scare the bejesus out of the American people by sharing what they know about the absolute power and destruction that these weapons can rain down on human populations. I suspect that's not something that Washington wants the people in America, from the corn fields in Iowa to the steel production facilities in Northern Maine, to know or worry about. I'm just thinking out loud here.
Is anyone worried about countries like Russia and China forging compacts with countries like Iran? I thought Iran was a lone bad actor on the world stage. Apparently, they're now buds with fellow bad actors. So much for the leadership of one Joseph Biden on the world stage. I saw some headlines this morning about Iran battleships being fitted with hypersonic missiles. Now, why would Iran need hypersonic missiles? Israel, are you listening? How is that Iron Dome working out for you? Can it defend against hypersonic missiles? All I'm saying is that we see a lot of things going on in the world that pose an existential threat to countries like the United States and Israel. What do we hear from Washington, DC? It's crickets. It's like we're watching things go from bad to worse, and nobody's doing anything about anything. That Douglas McGregor guy says that he doesn't think we'll have elections here in the United States in 2024. Talk about foreboding. What that suggests to me is that Biden will declare martial law and, like that clown in Ukraine, he'll jail his political opponents, and he'll cancel elections to prevent his own ouster at the hands of an outraged citizenry.
I'm still not convinced that having the collective West sending every last one of their military assets to that grifter, Zelensky, isn't part of a larger plan to deplete weapon stockpiles in order to weaken our countries against bad actors who would like nothing more than to send the lot of us to the dustbin of history. Is that why we and our NATO allies, what's left of them, are so hesitant to send our best jet fighters to the shithole in Ukraine? We're going to need them to defend ourselves should it comes to that in the end. Besides, how many Leopard tanks that countries have sent to Ukraine are still operating on Ukrainian soil?
The fact of the matter is Putin has targeted them and destroyed many of them before they ever saw any action on the battlefield. Some of that is guesswork on my part, and some of right out of rags like the Daily Mail. Who doesn't think that Russia has the wherewithal to ferret out these Leopard tanks and destroy them in one or more fell swoops? If it's true what they tell us about satellites being able to read license plates from outer space, then you have to guess that Russia has the technology and the weaponry to get the job done. Zelensky knows they have that capability, so what's that all about?
What the hell! Someone in the White House called in the hazmat teams when they discovered a bag of white powder on the premises. I'm not sure when they determined that the bag of white powder was cocaine, but that's what we're hearing at the moment. Did I mention that Biden's son Hunter, the crackhead, has been living at the White House as late? One might jump to the conclusion that the cocaine belongs to Hunter, but that may not be true. Based on what we've seen of Hunter's dad, Bumbles, lately, with all of his yelling and whispering and looking hyper and lost at the same time, the cocaine could belong to him.
How about this? Dr. Jill is getting tired of Hunter muddying up her husband's prospects for a second term, and she's not about to let some crackhead like Hunter mess that up. So, you drop a dime on our husband's son and let the chips fall where they may. Maybe we have a mole in the White House, one of those long-term civil servants who stay on after Administrations come and go. They have the utmost respect for everything the White House represents, and they will not suffer the likes of the trailer trash and the debauchery that the Bidens have brought to the doorstep of their beloved White House. It's high time someone called 9-1-1.
It will be interesting to see how Biden's praetorian guard, the media, tries to hide this under the rug. You should also know that if they're talking about cocaine in the White House, they have precious little time to talk about the criminal activity of the Bidens. The White House would like nothing more than to change the subject after the WhatsApp message written by Hunter surfaced last week where he was shaking down his contacts in China for a $5 million dollar payout, which, to no one's surprise, showed up in Hunter's bank account a week later. We're coming off a 4-day holiday weekend, and the White House needed something to change up the conversation. You might even say that they were desperate to change the conversation.
Is this the sleaziest bunch of losers we've ever had in the White House, or what? We're also coming off a weekend of activities for Bumbles where, once again, he has shown the world just how cognitively challenged he really is. He was seen on stage speaking in what sounded like "tongues" and wandering aimlessly as he is prone to do these days. Kamala Harris has to be wondering each and every day these days if today isn't the day. The day Bumbles leaves the stage for good, and she becomes the first "black" female president. And, like every other day when that happens, she has to be thinking to herself, what the hell is it going to take to get this guy to step down? There is not one Democrat calling for the activation of the 25th Amendment to remove Joe Biden from office. That's not exactly an endorsement of Kamala Harris. They're all in for Bumbles and another four years in the White House. This is the hill they've decided they want to die on. It will be fitting if Trump is the guy who buries them in 2024.
The missus and I will be taking a ride down to Massachusetts today for her doctor's appointment. I was thinking I wouldn't go with her but thought better of it when I remembered just how miserable that drive is. Will it be any better now that we're halfway through the week that was, and still is, I suppose, a vacation week for a lot of people? The fourth fell on a Tuesday this year, so a lot of people just take the whole week off. We'll see if it makes any difference in the amount of traffic on the roads. I should be careful what I ask for. More traffic can make for a more modulated flow of traffic, and that's not a bad thing. I'd rather be going at a steady clip of 40-50 mph instead of a breakneck 65-75 mph, given my druthers. I also don't make that drive very often anymore, so getting reacclimated in real-time can be a challenge. The last thing anybody making that drive every day wants is a fellow driver who can't go with the flow. That's how people get in accidents. That's how people die.
Y'all know that Mark Levin guy? He's the talk show guy who is an uber-conservative and who has a show of his own on FOX and also appears occasionally on the Sean Hannity show. He's quite a historian in his own right, and his radio shows can be quite interesting if you're into that sort of thing. If you miss a show or two, you can always catch up by taking in one of his podcasts. Anyway, he's been whining a bit as of late because his new book is not getting the kind of attention that he thinks it deserves. He says quite often that his wife tells him that it's his best book yet. Of course, she does, you damn fool. What is she supposed to say? I don't know how much of what he's now saying about Target not carrying his book because it's too polarizing and is manufactured in order to sell more books, but it all seems just a little too contrived for my tastes. He says that Target has informed him that they will carry his book online but not in their stores. It's a little rich when you consider the fact that Target, with all their woke shit, is about as polarizing as you can get. I wish Mark luck, but his incessant whining makes me less inclined to buy his book than not. Maybe I'll reconsider when it hits the discount rack.
I keep thinking about Trump's rally in that small town in South Carolina a week or so ago. Crowd estimates ranged anywhere between 50,000-75,000 people. It was a barn burner of a rally. South Carolina is also an early primary state, so this rally tells us a little bit about which way the good people in South Carolina will be voting come Primary Day. It also says a lot about who may or may not be voting for the two other candidates from South Carolina, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott. Neither Haley of Scott could muster a crowd a quarter the size of Trump's crowd, so the Trump rally was tantamount to a political shot across both their bows. Both are viable vice presidential candidates, so there's that. I have to imagine that the sight of that crowd also set the DeSantis people back on their heels. They're still banking on Trump being in jail by the time the first vote is cast, so we'll see how that works out for them. If the DeSantis people are looking to the chump, Fanny Willis, in Georgia to save their asses by issuing her long-promised indictment against Trump, they'll need to be careful what they wish for. Thus far, indictments have increased Trump's appeal, not the other way around.
I'm thinking that I'd better get out on the road for my bike ride early today before the traffic picks up and things get congested. I'm not sure what we're expecting for the weather today, but the sun is out at the moment, so I'll assume it's going to be another hot one. Hopefully not as hot as yesterday, but we'll see. What I don't want to do is to ride in the middle of the day when things are really smoking, both in terms of traffic and when and where UV rays are concerned. I put the lotion on, but you know it's never enough. They say that skin cancer is on the rise this year. I don't know if that's coming from the Climate Change crowd or the folks trying to sell their sunblock products. Either way, it pays to be careful out there, especially when you have some control over how much exposure you get on any given day. I'm all in when it comes to wearing long sleeve shirts and visors to keep the sun off my face. I worry a little less about the exposure of my lower body, but I rarely miss a chance to spray on a bit of Trader Joe's suntan lotion just for shits and giggles.
I was having a chat with my brother from another mother the other day about Medicare stuff. He said something about sitting down with one of those people who volunteer to help folks get up and running when they first go on Medicare. I think he walked away more confused than when he first walked in. Just so you know, that's perfectly normal. It all needs to be sorted, and everyone does that in their own way. You can buy books, or you can look on the internet, where there is a virtual smorgasbord of material to digest. You kind of have to pick and choose what you think applies to you, and, in most cases, you think wrong. I think the Medicare folks have done a great job with their website, so that's where I would go were I looking to get up to speed on the signup process.
There are drug plans to consider, and then there are supplement plans you'll want to look at to cover the 20% or so not covered by Medicare's Plan B. The rules are generally pretty standard, but some rules can be state-specific. In other words, some states give you more or less flexibility when it comes to changing your individual plans. You never see much paper from Medicare once you're up and running unless you've not met your deductibles, so that's a good thing. That assumes, of course, that you're paying your Plan B and Plan D premiums online. If you collect social security, I think the plan B premiums come out of your monthly SS payment. There's lots to learn, so I think my bro is off to a good start.
Am I really running so low on material that I have to write something about Medicare? Maybe I'm better off not writing anything at all. Nobody gives a flying shite about Medicare. Well, almost nobody. I saw a story yesterday about the United States sending cluster bombs to the Ukrainians for use against the Russians. The Russians responded accordingly, accusing the United States of escalating the conflict or something along those lines. I'm paraphrasing, of course. Is this one of those deals with the frog in the hot water? The next thing you know, we'll be in a hot war with Russia, and we'll wonder how the hell it came to that. Don't think for a moment that Bumbles Biden wouldn't declare war on Russia if he thought it would cement another four years in the White House for him, Dr. Jill, and Hunter the Bagman/Crackhead. And don't think for a minute that Russia will be alone in its battle against NATO and the United States. These newly formed alliances with Russia, China, etc., will ensure that we go into a full-blown World War Three in short order.
I say let the Europeans fight their own battles when it comes to defending Ukraine. The United States has no strategic interests in the border skirmish between Russia and Ukraine. Unfortunately, the Military Industrial Complex in the United States is of a very different opinion on the matter. They've never met a war that they didn't like, and there's a boatload of money to be made. Everybody profits, and that's the end of the discussion. Why our politicians don't push back is another story. It probably has something to do with the decades of our government's demonization of Russia, and nobody dares to stand up and say enough is enough without sounding like a patsy for the Russians. That's a one-way ticket out of political office. You may recall how Trump was vilified mercilessly in the media when he said something about it being better to work with our "enemies" than to be at odds with them constantly. The media is, of course, the praetorian guard of our Intelligence agencies, so they do what they're told. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will probably tell you that his uncle Jack was killed by the CIA because of his anti-war stance. See where I'm going with this?
File this under "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The Federal Judge in Louisianna came down hard on the Biden Administration when they ruled that the Biden Administration can't work with Social Media to suppress free speech. There were plenty of examples in the case where Biden and his minions had Social Media sites take down postings that they didn't like or that they thought offered an alternative view to narratives that they were trying to impress upon the American public. Some posters on the sites were shadowbanned or taken down indefinitely after posting something that the Biden Administration didn't like. Sites like Twitter, prior to Musk purchasing the site, were often willing participants in the blackballing of conservative posters and often worked hand in hand with Biden's Intelligence Agencies to do their bidding. All it ever took was a quick e-mail, a phone call, or a text, and it was "mission accomplished." Here's the kicker: The Biden Administration is appealing the decision. So, they want to continue to suppress free speech? Do they want to continue to have social media sites help them steal elections? The quick and dirty answer is a resounding "yes."
Now there's a bit of a kerfuffle over the United States giving Ukraine cluster bombs when 50 countries across the globe have signed off on not using them for a number of mostly humanitarian-related reasons. I heard some commentary about "dud" rates being an issue and that the bombs we're giving Ukraine have a very low dud rate. Apparently, if any number of the individual bombs contained within a cluster bomb fails to explode on contact, they can explode at any time in the future. This has real-life consequences for populations well after the war is over. I've heard others say that Russia is using cluster bombs against the Ukrainians so that gives others like the United States moral cover for doing the same for Ukraine. Bumbles Biden was asked in the last day or two about the delivery of these bombs to Ukraine, and he responded by saying something about Ukraine running out of ammunition. What the hell is he even talking about? Did he really just admit to the Russians that the West's weapons stockpiles have been largely depleted? That has to be highly classified information. What am I missing?
I guess if the objective is to kill as many Russians as possible in order to drive them out of your country, why wouldn't you do what you could, including using cluster bombs, to achieve that objective? You would think Ukrainians fighting on the front lines would be pleased as punch to get more bang for their buck, so to speak. If you can use half the ammunition and kill twice or more the number of Russians shooting at you, why wouldn't you do that? Maybe this has more to do with how the generals wage their wars, and it has less to do with what grunts in the foxholes think about the weaponry they're using to kill the enemy. It wasn't that long ago when Bumbles Biden tagged Putin as a war criminal for doing something so heinous that he deserved to be judged not by the world's leaders but rather by the justices sitting in The Hague. Maybe Putin targeted civilian populations, I can't remember exactly. You need to steer clear of schoolchildren and nuns when you give orders to your troops. Anyway, I don't hear anyone calling Bumbles a war criminal, so clearly, there's a double standard in play here. Don't think for a minute that civilian populations in Ukraine are not at risk both in real-time and longer-term when these weapons are being deployed on Ukrainian soil.
The missus and I are watching a series on the telly entitled "Silo." It's an Apple production, so draw your own conclusions. We're five episodes into the ten-episode series, and I just don't know if we're going to make it through the rest of the episodes. It is so slow-moving that it feels like we're watching paint dry sometimes. It's just interesting enough that we tune in to see what's going to happen next, but then we stop watching after about 15 to 20 minutes. You hate to stop in the middle of something, but I think we're about to make an exception in the case of this show. It also feels like a weird thing to complain about. Were it a book, I might turn to the last page or two just to see how things turn out, and then I'd be done. I almost don't care what happens next to the characters that we've come to know and like or dislike, and there are plenty of both. I've had similar experiences with other Apple shows, and I'm thinking it's an Apple thing. I've also watched some Apple shows where I can't wait for season two to come around. This is not one of those shows. I'm probably a little less reluctant than the missus to scuttle the flick, but I'm on board if she comes to me this morning proposing that we move on. Okay, little darlings, whatever you say.
I just finished up a book about the Golden State Killer and how genealogy helped to find this elusive killer decades after his last victim died. He just stopped cold turkey back in the eighties. The DNA thing is just so cool when you think of it. The building of family trees based on genetics and the samples left behind by criminals is giving law enforcement a new set of tools to bring these animals to justice. Just as capital punishment on the books doesn't stop people from killing people, it's doubtful that knowledge about DNA will stop a pervert from carrying out this or that sick fantasy. I've read other accounts where killers deposit the bodies of their victims in a body of water to cleanse any and all residue of their crimes, so it's probably not a non-issue for killers with a plan to address such matters. Like everything else, DNA degrades over time. One scientist in the book was actually able to obtain DNA from a hair follicle without the associated roots. When you think about the number of things that we as humans shed in the course of any given day, you'd think that it would be easy pickings for the DNA police, yet this is an ever-evolving science with many pitfalls, some more obvious than others. If we can find these sickos before they die a natural death, there is a chance we can give the victims and their families the justice they deserve.
Did you see those pictures of Treasury Secretary Yellen bowing like a dog to one of Xi's compatriots on her recent trip to China? This comes on the heels of Tony Blinken's visit to China, where they showed him standing on a stage shaking hands with Xi, and Blinken looked completely subservient. China has no respect for these clowns being dispatched from Biden's White House, and that's abundantly clear from the photos they share with the world's media. Does anyone even know what these clowns are over there trying to accomplish? On one hand, you have Bumbles Biden warning Xi to "be careful" regarding China's role in the Ukraine war implying, for better or worse, that the United States has some control over China's economic well-being. On the other hand, you have Yellen kowtowing to her hosts in China and assuring them that the "world is big enough for both the US and China to thrive." Well, which is it, Madam Secretary? Is this what power-sharing looks like?
The woman that I follow on Twitter, who is in Taiwan with her husband for a two-year stint, is now warning about an imminent invasion of that island by China. She says that she's not leaving until she gets the order from our State Department to evacuate. I suggested to her that that order may not be forthcoming. Perhaps she is unaware of the protracted and deadly ordeal of the Americans left behind when Bumbles decided to withdraw from Afghanistan. It was not one of America's finest moments. One might say that Russia looked at the Afghan fiasco born of the Bumbles Administration and rightly concluded that they could do what they damn well pleased and not be any worse off for it. If any of what we're hearing daily in the American press about Bumble's being compromised by the Chinese thanks to China's having invested heavily in Biden and members of his extended family, then I have to believe that Taiwan is nothing more than low-hanging fruit for Xi and his generals. Americans on the island will no doubt become pawns in a global power play between Washington and Beijing. It will be the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis all over again. My advice would be to get out while you can. The sooner, the better.
I wonder if what they say about the sophisticated chips produced in Taiwanese factories is correct. That is to say, should the flow of chips be interrupted, we in the West would be in deep shit. Should the Chinese throw up a naval blockade around Taiwan and prevent the flow of goods from the island, they say that it would be Good Night Irene for us in the United States. Production lines on everything from cars to microwaves would literally stand still without the chips needed for final assembly. How did we as a country ever allow this to happen? It's not like we don't have the know-how and the finances to achieve independence when it comes to manufacturing chips and a thousand other things that are produced outside of the United States. Anyway, they've got us by the balls if they want to bring us to our knees. Imagine the concessions they could extract from our weak-kneed politicians. Did we learn nothing during the Covid nonsense when, to everyone's amazement and consternation, we discovered that most of our pharmaceuticals are made in China? Who's laughing now?