Sitting Ducks
13/11/22 07:04
One more day to go here, folks. Election Day is tomorrow. Bumbles Biden is out there on the stump talking about how he's going to shut down all drilling in the United States. He's actually talking about this as Pennsylvanians are planning to go to the polls to vote in the midterm elections tomorrow. Pennsylvania has some of the largest deposits of natural gas and oil in the country. They will be voting against their best interests if they vote for the Democrats. Why their Senate and Gubernatorial races are so close, I have no idea. We're down to the wire now, so let's hope that people wake up before it's too late. There's a lot riding on the outcome of tomorrow's elections. Here's praying that we republicans take back both houses of Congress.
You have to admit, though, Bumbles Biden did say that he was all in on the green energy bullshit when he ran for president in 2020. He may have actually said that he was going to shut down all energy production here in the United States. The left-wing media had done such a good job of demonizing Trump over the course of his four-year term that a lot of Americans were willing to vote for Beezlebub rather than endure one more mean tweet from Trump. I'm still not buying the fact that Biden got eighty-one million votes, so let's not lose sight of that fact. One of Biden's first directives after his inauguration was to shut down the Keystone Pipeline project, which put thirty thousand people out of work. I don't know how having both houses of Congress is going to stop Bumbles from doing more damage to our country, but it probably can't hurt.
It would be a mistake to view this election as just one more change of political leadership in races across our country. Never before in the history of our country have we been in a position to speak more loudly and more clearly about our collective displeasure at where Biden and his leftist minions have taken our country over the last two years. If tomorrow does turn out to be the tsunami that everyone thinks it is going to be, it will be a total and complete repudiation of Biden and everything that his Administration represents.
Enough is enough. None of what Biden has done, and continues to do, from leaving our borders open to shutting down our domestic oil production, has benefitted Americans. It has benefitted the Communist Chinese and the Russians, and God only knows who else. They would love nothing better than to see our country limit itself to wind and solar while they continue to build coal-burning plants and invest in natural gas and oil production around the world. We'd be, in a word or two, sitting ducks if and when the time came to defend our interests and those of our allies around the world.
I do worry, though, about whether or not the elections tomorrow are going to be on the up and up. Who doesn't think for a minute that Kathy Hochul (Democrat Governor) in New York won't do everything and anything she can to hang onto power? Stealing elections is nothing new to Democrats, so this should be a walk in the park if that is what they're planning. Would it surprise me to find out that she and her people were working hand-in-hand with the Communist Chinese to print ballots that they could dump into one or more of New York's Boroughs under the darkness of night just to ensure her victory? No, it would not. When it comes to Democrats stealing elections, it's wash, rinse, repeat. The same is true of Hobbs, the Democrat candidate running against Kari Lake in Arizona. Hobbs seems eerily confident despite lagging behind Lake in the polls by maybe double digits. It just worries me to no end when I hear the leftist media asking the question time and time again of candidates like Kari Lake, "will you accept the outcome of the election?"
I'll probably never understand why so many of these races are as close as they are. It seems like the Senate races are all within a point or two, and all are within the margin of error. Does that mean that half of our citizenry agrees with what Joey Bumbles Biden has done and continues to do to our country? That is one scary thought. Maybe it just speaks to the fact that we are polarized as all get out when it comes to our politics. Democrats think that everything Republicans do is bad for our country and vice versa. But it's not just some theoretical framework we're talking about when you can't afford to put food on your family's tables because one political party or the other has implemented policies that throw your living standards into a cocked hat. Why would you tolerate a political party whose policies encourage criminals rather than hold them to account for their crimes? These differences couldn't be starker. I still don't know why these damn races are as close as they are. Color me skeptical.
Election Day has arrived. I never thought it would get here, but here we are. The missus and I will cast our ballots sometime this morning at the local elementary school. And then, we wait. I'll want to be careful about drawing conclusions prematurely as it all unfolds later this evening since early returns can be notoriously misleading. I don't want to break out the pom-poms too early, nor do I wish to get too distressed early on, thinking that my candidates are not going to have a good night. A good night in my humble opinion is for the republicans to win back majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. If it comes down to a run-off in Georgia to see who wins the Senate, then I think it's a fairly safe bet that Walker will win that battle, and we'll end up with a 51-49 advantage in the Senate after all the valid votes are counted. If we can get Walker in the door with anything better than 50% of the vote, that will avoid a run-off, and we can all rest easy.
Elon Musk tweeted something yesterday to the effect that everyone should vote "Republican." He said that he's always voted for democrats, but this year would be different. No explanation was needed, and none was required from anyone who follows Elon Musk. They knew precisely what he meant, although I have to imagine that the left had their panties in a wad after seeing Elon's tweet. The old Twitter, the Twitter that everyone used prior to Musk buying the company, would have had its leftist algorithms up and running to ensure that the leftist candidates were given the highest priority right up until Election Day. If you were a Trump supporter, you could just forget about having your tweets see the light of day. They would be dead in the water, euphemistically speaking. So, we need to take our hats off to Mr. Musk and thank him for providing a level playing field for everyone. File this under "Not all heroes wear capes."
Well, so much for the red wave. It was barely worth staying up for last night. Nobody saw this coming. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives, it will only be by a couple of seats. I guess that's better than not winning the House at all. The best estimates were that the Republicans would win the House by maybe 20 seats or more. I should be satisfied that we'll see Pelosi unseated as House Majority leader, yet the margin is so thin that it remains to be seen what Republicans can get done. The Senate is up in the air as well. That retard Fetterman beat Oz in Pennsylvania, if you can believe that. You know, the guy who wants to do away with fracking and any sort of energy production in an otherwise energy-rich Pennsylvania. So, half of the residents in Pennsylvania went to the polls yesterday to vote against their best interests? I'm just not buying it. Did I mention that Fetterman can't speak in complete sentences?
Polls in Arizona just three days ago had Kari Lake (Gubernatorial candidate) running ahead of her opponent, Hobbs, by some 11 points. Yet, I think Hobbs is ahead, if only by a little, as I sit here the morning after. There were issues in Maricopa County that surfaced midday yesterday where votes were not being properly tabulated or some such nonsense. Mind you, Republicans were expected to flood the polls on Election Day in Arizona, so if you were a county in Arizona looking to manipulate counts, this was your opportunity. It looks like they stepped up to the plate and did just that. I don't know who, maybe the Mexican Cartels, but whoever it was wanted nothing to do with the policies that Lake and her people were promising to implement once in office. Lake may still pull this one out, so let the counting continue. If Lake doesn't win, it will be the most obvious theft of an election that I've seen as of late, and I've seen a few. So much for the Momma bear.
If I'm feeling good about anything this morning, it is that the swine Pappas and his counterpart in the Senate, Hassan, will both be in the Minority in the next Congress. Polls had Leavitt beating Pappas by 5 points here in New Hampshire just a day or two ahead of Election day. So, explain to me where that lead went. Is this yet another stolen election? How did the Democrats steal it? Have they perfected the steal so completely and thoroughly that it leaves you speechless when you see a candidate who is expected to lose, then win, and by a surprising margin? Let's just say there are a lot of people waking up this morning to an election outcome that nobody saw coming. Is this all about Trump? Was the plan all along to take Trump-like candidates off the table ahead of the 2024 presidential election? They would have needed buy-in from a lot of people from both political camps. Don't give me any bullshit about a more perfect Union. Please.
I'm happy to see the missus using our new Vornado space heater. It gets the job done, so why wouldn't she use it? Well, it has a smell to it that you may be familiar with if you've ever bought a new hair dryer. I left it in the garage for a couple of days to see if it wouldn't air out a little bit, but that didn't help much. The trick is that the longer you run it, the sooner the smell goes away. I walked in on her when she was working in the computer room yesterday, and she had the space heater up and running, and I couldn't have been happier. It reminds me of the television commercial back in the day for Life cereal with the character, Mikey, who loves his Life cereal: Mikey likes it! It makes me want to order another one for our living room. I think the missus would like one for the bathroom, too. That might make a nice Christmas present for the missus!
I'm starting to feel the crunch now when it comes to getting this place ready for Winter. I spent a couple of hours outside yesterday raking leaves, so that has me feeling like I'm getting things under control. I cleared the deck off at the end of last week, and that got the ball rolling a little bit. I need to clean out the room in the garage so I can squeeze a few things in there over the winter. I told the missus the other day that it might be a good idea to fill up the generator with gas and fill a couple of five-gallon jugs with gasoline as well in the event we have something akin to energy blackouts or worse over these next few months. Our generator works great, and we have our home wired to run mostly off the generator in the event of a power outage. It's all about being prepared for contingencies. The sooner I buy the gasoline, the better I'll feel.
We need to get on the stick and order our Thanksgiving stuff. It's November 10th already, for chrissakes. We should take care of that today. We'll be buying everything we need from Whole Foods again. I'm trying to talk the missus into making as few dishes as possible just to make my life easier when it comes time to clean up everything after dinner. She'll want to make her grandmother's pumpkin pie and a nice batch of her homemade whipped cream for dessert. She said something about using Stovetop stuffing, but I reminded her that Whole Foods has an even better stuffing that we can order along with our turkey. We've never cooked our stuffing inside our turkey, and we'll likely not do that this year. I might suggest to the missus that we forgo our usual LeSeur canned peas this year and have frozen sweet peas instead. Aside from lessening the sodium in our diets that come with consuming peas from the can, frozen peas are likely superior in taste to the canned variety. Oh, and the missus loves to make her own cranberry sauce using real cranberries. God bless her little heart.
The vote counting continues in a lot of races country-wide that have yet to be settled. Kari Lake is expecting to win the gubernatorial race in Arizona when all the votes are counted, but that hasn't happened yet. They released one tranche of votes last evening that may have added to her opponent's numbers. This is death by a thousand cuts, any way you slice it. Kari and her people believe that same-day votes heavily favor her and her fellow republican candidates, so if that's how it shakes out, that's great. What if that Hobbs bitch tips the scales in her favor behind the scenes? She and her people are doing the counting, so who doesn't think that she would cheat if that's what it takes to become Governor of the great state of Arizona? I guess what I'm saying is that if the new vote tallies favor Hobbs instead, then all hell could break loose. Have you ever seen a momma bear on steroids? The House races have yet to secure a win for the Republicans, and the Senate is still undecided just two days out from the mid-term election. Don't forget the runoff in Georgia.
I signed up for an Amazon Music trial this summer, and I canceled it after the 6-month trial period. Who doesn't like free music? The funny thing is, once I quit the trial, I could still access and play the music. I'm thinking to myself, what is this all about? Did my cancellation not go through? Are they going to start charging me a monthly fee to listen to the music? I thought I was going to have to ask the missus to check our statement to make sure that we weren't being charged. It all felt a little criminal to me as I was using a music service without paying for the service. If it was an honest mistake on their part, and they failed to put through the cancellation behind the scenes, is that my problem? Who am I to tell them how to run their business? No sooner had I stopped worrying about having the music police show up on my doorstep when Amazon went public with the statement that any and all Amazon Prime members now had unlimited access to their music libraries. That explains everything. I am fucking good to go. Is it too early to start listening to Christmas music?
Speaking of Christmas, can you believe that Whole Foods had Christmas trees on sale when we visited the store the other day? What the hell, man! It's too early, no? That got the missus and me talking about our plans to buy a tree for the upcoming holiday. The missus said something about the price of trees this year and how they are likely to be up over last year. I think we paid about $75 for a tree last year, and, believe me, it wasn't any great shakes. Could trees come in at $100 this year, with inflation being cray-cray and all? I think it could. We talked about buying a tree from Walmart or at least taking a look at what they have, thinking their prices would be more reasonable than those trees sold at roadside sites. "But they're all trussed up, and we can't see what they look like", the missus exclaimed. Who buys a Christmas tree sight unseen? The quick and dirty answer is, nobody. I'll unbundle as many as I have to until I'm satisfied if that is what it takes. Arrest me if you have to.
I feel a little bad about a conversation I had with my neighbor yesterday. It wasn't so much about what was said, but rather it had more to do with what went unsaid. She had blown the leaves on her lawn to the edge of the street, and there they were in all their glory. There were several piles, in fact, and all seemingly destined to be taken across the street and deposited into the woods. I don't know that she was hinting that I should lend a hand in accomplishing that task, but I think there may have been a little bit of that, truth be told.
I was out moving my own piles of leaves here and there when she stopped to talk to me, so she may have thought to herself, maybe I can get this schlep to help a little old lady in distress. I didn't tell her that I was doing my best to clean up my own lawn despite the fact that I was suffering from bruised ribs after falling off my bike a couple of weeks back. I suggested that she have the lad that she hired over the summer to cut her lawn to now assist in moving the piles of leaves. I think that wasn't the answer she was looking for, so that was the end of that conversation. I don't mind pitching in here and there to mow her lawn when she's away on vacation, but I'm not wanting to extend those services to include leaf removal in the Fall. That's a big job, and that's no word of a lie. Once you sign up for that sort of thing, there's no turning back. I'll be on the hook every year. It's better to nip this fucker in the bud right here and now. She didn't ask me outright, and I didn't volunteer.
Trump will be making an announcement next week from his home in Mar-a-lago, Florida. Prior to the lackluster results coming on the heels of the mid-term elections this past Tuesday, Trump was expected to make his decision on running in 2024 based on how well or how poorly the Republicans fared in the mid-terms. We still don't know who won the House or the Senate because certain states are still counting votes. That's right, I said. They are still counting votes. Or, knowing democrats as we do, they are still in the process of stealing votes. I'm not sure where all of this leaves Trump when it comes to making his decision. What I do know is that the RINO's in the Republican party are out on the stump pushing the narrative that the tepid results of the mid-terms are a direct result of Trump's involvement in the races. They are pushing for Republicans to move past Trump as quickly as possible lest he jeopardizes even more seats come 2024.
It's pure poppycock, of course. Keep in mind that backstabbers behind the scenes, the likes of Paul Ryan and his ilk, want to push their own version of republicanism, and it's Trump who sees a clearer path to victory for America and, I think, fully intends to see that through to completion when he announces that he'll be running for president again in 2024. Trump has been pretty darn prescient about a lot of things since he came down the elevator in 2015 to announce his run for the presidency, and in the intervening years until he "lost" to Biden in 2020, so I trust his judgment and now await his announcement next week before breaking out the champagne. I'm not sure what this means for DeSantis, so we'll just have to wait to see how it all plays out. What if, and this is a big if, Trump announces that DeSantis is going to join him on the ticket as his Vice President? I'm just spitballing here, but 2024 is coming, and it'll be here before we know it.
The missus asked me yesterday what I wanted for Christmas. I told her that there wasn't anything in particular that I wanted or needed. Are there any toys that I don't have that I might want? Not really. Our televisions are getting a little long in the tooth, but they still work fine, so I don't need the next best thing that Sony or Samsung have to offer. I need a couple of tires for my bike, but that isn't something that I would expect Santa to put beneath our tree on Christmas morning. The missus has other people to consider when it comes to buying presents, so I'll suggest that she concentrate on them and not me. What about those video headsets that are all the rage this year? I have this nagging fear that if I put them on, I might not want to take them off. I spend enough time on electronic devices as it is, so enough said there. I think it's true what they say about giving being better than receiving, so that's my answer, and I'm sticking to it.
What the heck happened in the financial markets yesterday? The major indices here in the United States surged throughout the day after the CPI report came in below expectations. Just barely below expectations, I would hasten to add. With good news being hard to come by in today's markets, any good news will be enough to light a fire under a stock market that has been under pressure since January of this year. The S&P was up some 5.5% on the day. The NASDAQ was up some 8%. For people who have lost their shirts in the market this year, they got a little bit of relief when all was said and done. How far it goes and how long it lasts remains to be seen. We're still in an inflationary bear market, so anyone not attuned to that fact is going to be an unhappy camper when they see their returns edging downward again. We're a ways away from capitulation, so here's my advice: Buckle up.! By the time this is all over, you'll wish you had jumped on the iBonds that went on sale a couple of weeks back at 9%. It's true as well that you don't see the kind of action that we saw in the markets today in bull markets. You just don't.
What the hell is going on with this so-called FTX bankruptcy? This company is worth $16 billion one day, and four days later, they're worth zero. How the hell does that happen? I'm not going to pretend that I understand what FTX was other than what I'm now reading. It was an exchange of sorts for cryptocurrencies. I give the founder credit for building a company worth that much money, but to see the damn thing go under this quickly is just kind of weird. I'd have to see their list of creditors to get a sense as to who lost what, but I'm already hearing some familiar names (Tom Brady) of people who can probably afford the kind of money I'm hearing they've lost. I'm also not sure that any of these people will ever get anything back since FTX didn't have much in the way of hard assets that could be liquidated. It's worth mentioning that the founder was a major contributor to the democrat party, maybe only second to the likes of George Soros. That works for me. Just sayin'.
Can you believe those sons-of-bitches out in Arizona and Nevada are still counting ballots? The damn election was this past Tuesday and today is Friday. You know those mother fucking democrats are working overtime to steal both the Governor's seat in Arizona and the Senatorial spot in Nevada. Right? If Nevada knows how to do anything, they know how to count things. Nevada is the home of the best casinos in the world, and, believe me, they know how to count things. Evidently, that skill set does not extend to the people currently counting ballots in that state. And, wouldn't you know it, the last ballots to be counted are those ballots coming from Clark county in Nevada, home to none other than the infamous Las Vegas strip. Remember, the democrats can't win if they can't steal. It looks like the heist of the century is in motion and underway. Oh, and if the republicans are counting on winning a few seats in California to put them over the top in the race to win the House, they don't know much about California politics.
It's been a poopy week for the missus. She's just exhausted. I'm glad that she won't be traveling to Massachusetts this weekend. She needs to say "no" now and then when she's being asked to work. These weekend schticks that she's been doing here and there for years now should be winding down soon. Driving home in the dark will be a thing of the past. A distant memory, if you will. It's possible that she can do what she needs to do long distance, so we'll have to see how that works out, if at all. I'll miss the oatmeal raisin cookies that they send her home with, and I'm quite sure that the missus will miss having her Flat Whites at Starbucks before hitting the road for her drive home. I'm just as happy that she won't be putting the extra miles on our car, and with the price of gas as expensive as it is these days, the trip down and back is now less lucrative than it used to be. Speaking of gas, it's quite possible that her employer will run out of gas long before the missus needs to tell him that she can't do it anymore.
It's so funny. One thing that I remember my dad being emphatic about back in the day was that we should stay away from preservatives like BHA and BHT. I don't even remember where we might have seen these so-called preservatives. If I had to guess, I would guess that it was used in the packaging of cereals as it is these days. We ate a lot of Puffed Rice and Puffed Wheat back in the day, so maybe those cereals were suspect. Wheaties and Cheerios may have contained the preservative as well. When we didn't have Pop-Tarts available, we consumed all of the above. Pops might have preferred that we eat oatmeal all the time, but being teenagers on the run as we were, oatmeal just didn't cut the mustard. I see BHA and BHT these days in the same cereals, and I find myself looking for healthier alternatives that are available at stores like Whole Foods. It does make me wonder if Pop's cautionary tales of the past were more than just bluster seeing as I'm still here talking about them decades later. Pops wasn't a zealot one way or the other about these kinds of things, but as lessons go, I think this was a good one. Whether it explains why I'm still here all these years later is an altogether different question.
I saw Bumbles Biden on the telly at some Climate Change meeting the other day going on and on about doing away with our country's reliance on carbon-based fuels by 2030. Has he completely lost his mind? I know he just reads what they put in front of him, but this is sheer lunacy. Our nation is an energy powerhouse, a literal Saudi Arabia of the Americas, yet he and his left-wing nut jobs want to regulate these energy sources out of business. I was hopeful that Republicans winning the House and Senate in the mid-terms would help to keep Biden's nuttier initiatives like killing our oil and gas industries in check. I didn't factor in the theft of key races by the Democrats, so that's on me. He was even talking about monitoring methane levels using satellite technology. If you're in the livestock business, they're coming for you. If you enjoy a nice cut of prime rib with the missus on the weekends, you'll need to think again. This is a global initiative, and the Bidenistas are making up for lost time after four years of Trump in office. Oh, and global powerhouses like China and Russia could not be happier. We're sitting ducks with this green-energy bullshit, and Biden knows it.
I don't know that I have any good parting words for this weeks blog. We're probably just one or two stolen seats away from the Democrats stealing the House after they stole the Senate seat in Nevada from Adam Laxalt within the last twenty fours. Did I mention that the cameras went down for around eight hours in the building where the votes were being tallied in Nevada senate race? That only happens when people are stealing things. The Democrats now have 50 senate seats, by hook or crook I might add, and they are looking to make it 51 seats when they steal the Georgia seat from Herschel Walker in the runoff scheduled for December 6th. If Republicans can win that seat, and if Republicans can convince Joe Manchin to switch political parties, Republicans can take back the Senate. Wouldn't that be something. And what, pray tell, will this FTX bankruptcy fiasco mean for the crypto world this coming week? Aside from all of that, everything is just fucking ducky.
You have to admit, though, Bumbles Biden did say that he was all in on the green energy bullshit when he ran for president in 2020. He may have actually said that he was going to shut down all energy production here in the United States. The left-wing media had done such a good job of demonizing Trump over the course of his four-year term that a lot of Americans were willing to vote for Beezlebub rather than endure one more mean tweet from Trump. I'm still not buying the fact that Biden got eighty-one million votes, so let's not lose sight of that fact. One of Biden's first directives after his inauguration was to shut down the Keystone Pipeline project, which put thirty thousand people out of work. I don't know how having both houses of Congress is going to stop Bumbles from doing more damage to our country, but it probably can't hurt.
It would be a mistake to view this election as just one more change of political leadership in races across our country. Never before in the history of our country have we been in a position to speak more loudly and more clearly about our collective displeasure at where Biden and his leftist minions have taken our country over the last two years. If tomorrow does turn out to be the tsunami that everyone thinks it is going to be, it will be a total and complete repudiation of Biden and everything that his Administration represents.
Enough is enough. None of what Biden has done, and continues to do, from leaving our borders open to shutting down our domestic oil production, has benefitted Americans. It has benefitted the Communist Chinese and the Russians, and God only knows who else. They would love nothing better than to see our country limit itself to wind and solar while they continue to build coal-burning plants and invest in natural gas and oil production around the world. We'd be, in a word or two, sitting ducks if and when the time came to defend our interests and those of our allies around the world.
I do worry, though, about whether or not the elections tomorrow are going to be on the up and up. Who doesn't think for a minute that Kathy Hochul (Democrat Governor) in New York won't do everything and anything she can to hang onto power? Stealing elections is nothing new to Democrats, so this should be a walk in the park if that is what they're planning. Would it surprise me to find out that she and her people were working hand-in-hand with the Communist Chinese to print ballots that they could dump into one or more of New York's Boroughs under the darkness of night just to ensure her victory? No, it would not. When it comes to Democrats stealing elections, it's wash, rinse, repeat. The same is true of Hobbs, the Democrat candidate running against Kari Lake in Arizona. Hobbs seems eerily confident despite lagging behind Lake in the polls by maybe double digits. It just worries me to no end when I hear the leftist media asking the question time and time again of candidates like Kari Lake, "will you accept the outcome of the election?"
I'll probably never understand why so many of these races are as close as they are. It seems like the Senate races are all within a point or two, and all are within the margin of error. Does that mean that half of our citizenry agrees with what Joey Bumbles Biden has done and continues to do to our country? That is one scary thought. Maybe it just speaks to the fact that we are polarized as all get out when it comes to our politics. Democrats think that everything Republicans do is bad for our country and vice versa. But it's not just some theoretical framework we're talking about when you can't afford to put food on your family's tables because one political party or the other has implemented policies that throw your living standards into a cocked hat. Why would you tolerate a political party whose policies encourage criminals rather than hold them to account for their crimes? These differences couldn't be starker. I still don't know why these damn races are as close as they are. Color me skeptical.
Election Day has arrived. I never thought it would get here, but here we are. The missus and I will cast our ballots sometime this morning at the local elementary school. And then, we wait. I'll want to be careful about drawing conclusions prematurely as it all unfolds later this evening since early returns can be notoriously misleading. I don't want to break out the pom-poms too early, nor do I wish to get too distressed early on, thinking that my candidates are not going to have a good night. A good night in my humble opinion is for the republicans to win back majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. If it comes down to a run-off in Georgia to see who wins the Senate, then I think it's a fairly safe bet that Walker will win that battle, and we'll end up with a 51-49 advantage in the Senate after all the valid votes are counted. If we can get Walker in the door with anything better than 50% of the vote, that will avoid a run-off, and we can all rest easy.
Elon Musk tweeted something yesterday to the effect that everyone should vote "Republican." He said that he's always voted for democrats, but this year would be different. No explanation was needed, and none was required from anyone who follows Elon Musk. They knew precisely what he meant, although I have to imagine that the left had their panties in a wad after seeing Elon's tweet. The old Twitter, the Twitter that everyone used prior to Musk buying the company, would have had its leftist algorithms up and running to ensure that the leftist candidates were given the highest priority right up until Election Day. If you were a Trump supporter, you could just forget about having your tweets see the light of day. They would be dead in the water, euphemistically speaking. So, we need to take our hats off to Mr. Musk and thank him for providing a level playing field for everyone. File this under "Not all heroes wear capes."
Well, so much for the red wave. It was barely worth staying up for last night. Nobody saw this coming. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives, it will only be by a couple of seats. I guess that's better than not winning the House at all. The best estimates were that the Republicans would win the House by maybe 20 seats or more. I should be satisfied that we'll see Pelosi unseated as House Majority leader, yet the margin is so thin that it remains to be seen what Republicans can get done. The Senate is up in the air as well. That retard Fetterman beat Oz in Pennsylvania, if you can believe that. You know, the guy who wants to do away with fracking and any sort of energy production in an otherwise energy-rich Pennsylvania. So, half of the residents in Pennsylvania went to the polls yesterday to vote against their best interests? I'm just not buying it. Did I mention that Fetterman can't speak in complete sentences?
Polls in Arizona just three days ago had Kari Lake (Gubernatorial candidate) running ahead of her opponent, Hobbs, by some 11 points. Yet, I think Hobbs is ahead, if only by a little, as I sit here the morning after. There were issues in Maricopa County that surfaced midday yesterday where votes were not being properly tabulated or some such nonsense. Mind you, Republicans were expected to flood the polls on Election Day in Arizona, so if you were a county in Arizona looking to manipulate counts, this was your opportunity. It looks like they stepped up to the plate and did just that. I don't know who, maybe the Mexican Cartels, but whoever it was wanted nothing to do with the policies that Lake and her people were promising to implement once in office. Lake may still pull this one out, so let the counting continue. If Lake doesn't win, it will be the most obvious theft of an election that I've seen as of late, and I've seen a few. So much for the Momma bear.
If I'm feeling good about anything this morning, it is that the swine Pappas and his counterpart in the Senate, Hassan, will both be in the Minority in the next Congress. Polls had Leavitt beating Pappas by 5 points here in New Hampshire just a day or two ahead of Election day. So, explain to me where that lead went. Is this yet another stolen election? How did the Democrats steal it? Have they perfected the steal so completely and thoroughly that it leaves you speechless when you see a candidate who is expected to lose, then win, and by a surprising margin? Let's just say there are a lot of people waking up this morning to an election outcome that nobody saw coming. Is this all about Trump? Was the plan all along to take Trump-like candidates off the table ahead of the 2024 presidential election? They would have needed buy-in from a lot of people from both political camps. Don't give me any bullshit about a more perfect Union. Please.
I'm happy to see the missus using our new Vornado space heater. It gets the job done, so why wouldn't she use it? Well, it has a smell to it that you may be familiar with if you've ever bought a new hair dryer. I left it in the garage for a couple of days to see if it wouldn't air out a little bit, but that didn't help much. The trick is that the longer you run it, the sooner the smell goes away. I walked in on her when she was working in the computer room yesterday, and she had the space heater up and running, and I couldn't have been happier. It reminds me of the television commercial back in the day for Life cereal with the character, Mikey, who loves his Life cereal: Mikey likes it! It makes me want to order another one for our living room. I think the missus would like one for the bathroom, too. That might make a nice Christmas present for the missus!
I'm starting to feel the crunch now when it comes to getting this place ready for Winter. I spent a couple of hours outside yesterday raking leaves, so that has me feeling like I'm getting things under control. I cleared the deck off at the end of last week, and that got the ball rolling a little bit. I need to clean out the room in the garage so I can squeeze a few things in there over the winter. I told the missus the other day that it might be a good idea to fill up the generator with gas and fill a couple of five-gallon jugs with gasoline as well in the event we have something akin to energy blackouts or worse over these next few months. Our generator works great, and we have our home wired to run mostly off the generator in the event of a power outage. It's all about being prepared for contingencies. The sooner I buy the gasoline, the better I'll feel.
We need to get on the stick and order our Thanksgiving stuff. It's November 10th already, for chrissakes. We should take care of that today. We'll be buying everything we need from Whole Foods again. I'm trying to talk the missus into making as few dishes as possible just to make my life easier when it comes time to clean up everything after dinner. She'll want to make her grandmother's pumpkin pie and a nice batch of her homemade whipped cream for dessert. She said something about using Stovetop stuffing, but I reminded her that Whole Foods has an even better stuffing that we can order along with our turkey. We've never cooked our stuffing inside our turkey, and we'll likely not do that this year. I might suggest to the missus that we forgo our usual LeSeur canned peas this year and have frozen sweet peas instead. Aside from lessening the sodium in our diets that come with consuming peas from the can, frozen peas are likely superior in taste to the canned variety. Oh, and the missus loves to make her own cranberry sauce using real cranberries. God bless her little heart.
The vote counting continues in a lot of races country-wide that have yet to be settled. Kari Lake is expecting to win the gubernatorial race in Arizona when all the votes are counted, but that hasn't happened yet. They released one tranche of votes last evening that may have added to her opponent's numbers. This is death by a thousand cuts, any way you slice it. Kari and her people believe that same-day votes heavily favor her and her fellow republican candidates, so if that's how it shakes out, that's great. What if that Hobbs bitch tips the scales in her favor behind the scenes? She and her people are doing the counting, so who doesn't think that she would cheat if that's what it takes to become Governor of the great state of Arizona? I guess what I'm saying is that if the new vote tallies favor Hobbs instead, then all hell could break loose. Have you ever seen a momma bear on steroids? The House races have yet to secure a win for the Republicans, and the Senate is still undecided just two days out from the mid-term election. Don't forget the runoff in Georgia.
I signed up for an Amazon Music trial this summer, and I canceled it after the 6-month trial period. Who doesn't like free music? The funny thing is, once I quit the trial, I could still access and play the music. I'm thinking to myself, what is this all about? Did my cancellation not go through? Are they going to start charging me a monthly fee to listen to the music? I thought I was going to have to ask the missus to check our statement to make sure that we weren't being charged. It all felt a little criminal to me as I was using a music service without paying for the service. If it was an honest mistake on their part, and they failed to put through the cancellation behind the scenes, is that my problem? Who am I to tell them how to run their business? No sooner had I stopped worrying about having the music police show up on my doorstep when Amazon went public with the statement that any and all Amazon Prime members now had unlimited access to their music libraries. That explains everything. I am fucking good to go. Is it too early to start listening to Christmas music?
Speaking of Christmas, can you believe that Whole Foods had Christmas trees on sale when we visited the store the other day? What the hell, man! It's too early, no? That got the missus and me talking about our plans to buy a tree for the upcoming holiday. The missus said something about the price of trees this year and how they are likely to be up over last year. I think we paid about $75 for a tree last year, and, believe me, it wasn't any great shakes. Could trees come in at $100 this year, with inflation being cray-cray and all? I think it could. We talked about buying a tree from Walmart or at least taking a look at what they have, thinking their prices would be more reasonable than those trees sold at roadside sites. "But they're all trussed up, and we can't see what they look like", the missus exclaimed. Who buys a Christmas tree sight unseen? The quick and dirty answer is, nobody. I'll unbundle as many as I have to until I'm satisfied if that is what it takes. Arrest me if you have to.
I feel a little bad about a conversation I had with my neighbor yesterday. It wasn't so much about what was said, but rather it had more to do with what went unsaid. She had blown the leaves on her lawn to the edge of the street, and there they were in all their glory. There were several piles, in fact, and all seemingly destined to be taken across the street and deposited into the woods. I don't know that she was hinting that I should lend a hand in accomplishing that task, but I think there may have been a little bit of that, truth be told.
I was out moving my own piles of leaves here and there when she stopped to talk to me, so she may have thought to herself, maybe I can get this schlep to help a little old lady in distress. I didn't tell her that I was doing my best to clean up my own lawn despite the fact that I was suffering from bruised ribs after falling off my bike a couple of weeks back. I suggested that she have the lad that she hired over the summer to cut her lawn to now assist in moving the piles of leaves. I think that wasn't the answer she was looking for, so that was the end of that conversation. I don't mind pitching in here and there to mow her lawn when she's away on vacation, but I'm not wanting to extend those services to include leaf removal in the Fall. That's a big job, and that's no word of a lie. Once you sign up for that sort of thing, there's no turning back. I'll be on the hook every year. It's better to nip this fucker in the bud right here and now. She didn't ask me outright, and I didn't volunteer.
Trump will be making an announcement next week from his home in Mar-a-lago, Florida. Prior to the lackluster results coming on the heels of the mid-term elections this past Tuesday, Trump was expected to make his decision on running in 2024 based on how well or how poorly the Republicans fared in the mid-terms. We still don't know who won the House or the Senate because certain states are still counting votes. That's right, I said. They are still counting votes. Or, knowing democrats as we do, they are still in the process of stealing votes. I'm not sure where all of this leaves Trump when it comes to making his decision. What I do know is that the RINO's in the Republican party are out on the stump pushing the narrative that the tepid results of the mid-terms are a direct result of Trump's involvement in the races. They are pushing for Republicans to move past Trump as quickly as possible lest he jeopardizes even more seats come 2024.
It's pure poppycock, of course. Keep in mind that backstabbers behind the scenes, the likes of Paul Ryan and his ilk, want to push their own version of republicanism, and it's Trump who sees a clearer path to victory for America and, I think, fully intends to see that through to completion when he announces that he'll be running for president again in 2024. Trump has been pretty darn prescient about a lot of things since he came down the elevator in 2015 to announce his run for the presidency, and in the intervening years until he "lost" to Biden in 2020, so I trust his judgment and now await his announcement next week before breaking out the champagne. I'm not sure what this means for DeSantis, so we'll just have to wait to see how it all plays out. What if, and this is a big if, Trump announces that DeSantis is going to join him on the ticket as his Vice President? I'm just spitballing here, but 2024 is coming, and it'll be here before we know it.
The missus asked me yesterday what I wanted for Christmas. I told her that there wasn't anything in particular that I wanted or needed. Are there any toys that I don't have that I might want? Not really. Our televisions are getting a little long in the tooth, but they still work fine, so I don't need the next best thing that Sony or Samsung have to offer. I need a couple of tires for my bike, but that isn't something that I would expect Santa to put beneath our tree on Christmas morning. The missus has other people to consider when it comes to buying presents, so I'll suggest that she concentrate on them and not me. What about those video headsets that are all the rage this year? I have this nagging fear that if I put them on, I might not want to take them off. I spend enough time on electronic devices as it is, so enough said there. I think it's true what they say about giving being better than receiving, so that's my answer, and I'm sticking to it.
What the heck happened in the financial markets yesterday? The major indices here in the United States surged throughout the day after the CPI report came in below expectations. Just barely below expectations, I would hasten to add. With good news being hard to come by in today's markets, any good news will be enough to light a fire under a stock market that has been under pressure since January of this year. The S&P was up some 5.5% on the day. The NASDAQ was up some 8%. For people who have lost their shirts in the market this year, they got a little bit of relief when all was said and done. How far it goes and how long it lasts remains to be seen. We're still in an inflationary bear market, so anyone not attuned to that fact is going to be an unhappy camper when they see their returns edging downward again. We're a ways away from capitulation, so here's my advice: Buckle up.! By the time this is all over, you'll wish you had jumped on the iBonds that went on sale a couple of weeks back at 9%. It's true as well that you don't see the kind of action that we saw in the markets today in bull markets. You just don't.
What the hell is going on with this so-called FTX bankruptcy? This company is worth $16 billion one day, and four days later, they're worth zero. How the hell does that happen? I'm not going to pretend that I understand what FTX was other than what I'm now reading. It was an exchange of sorts for cryptocurrencies. I give the founder credit for building a company worth that much money, but to see the damn thing go under this quickly is just kind of weird. I'd have to see their list of creditors to get a sense as to who lost what, but I'm already hearing some familiar names (Tom Brady) of people who can probably afford the kind of money I'm hearing they've lost. I'm also not sure that any of these people will ever get anything back since FTX didn't have much in the way of hard assets that could be liquidated. It's worth mentioning that the founder was a major contributor to the democrat party, maybe only second to the likes of George Soros. That works for me. Just sayin'.
Can you believe those sons-of-bitches out in Arizona and Nevada are still counting ballots? The damn election was this past Tuesday and today is Friday. You know those mother fucking democrats are working overtime to steal both the Governor's seat in Arizona and the Senatorial spot in Nevada. Right? If Nevada knows how to do anything, they know how to count things. Nevada is the home of the best casinos in the world, and, believe me, they know how to count things. Evidently, that skill set does not extend to the people currently counting ballots in that state. And, wouldn't you know it, the last ballots to be counted are those ballots coming from Clark county in Nevada, home to none other than the infamous Las Vegas strip. Remember, the democrats can't win if they can't steal. It looks like the heist of the century is in motion and underway. Oh, and if the republicans are counting on winning a few seats in California to put them over the top in the race to win the House, they don't know much about California politics.
It's been a poopy week for the missus. She's just exhausted. I'm glad that she won't be traveling to Massachusetts this weekend. She needs to say "no" now and then when she's being asked to work. These weekend schticks that she's been doing here and there for years now should be winding down soon. Driving home in the dark will be a thing of the past. A distant memory, if you will. It's possible that she can do what she needs to do long distance, so we'll have to see how that works out, if at all. I'll miss the oatmeal raisin cookies that they send her home with, and I'm quite sure that the missus will miss having her Flat Whites at Starbucks before hitting the road for her drive home. I'm just as happy that she won't be putting the extra miles on our car, and with the price of gas as expensive as it is these days, the trip down and back is now less lucrative than it used to be. Speaking of gas, it's quite possible that her employer will run out of gas long before the missus needs to tell him that she can't do it anymore.
It's so funny. One thing that I remember my dad being emphatic about back in the day was that we should stay away from preservatives like BHA and BHT. I don't even remember where we might have seen these so-called preservatives. If I had to guess, I would guess that it was used in the packaging of cereals as it is these days. We ate a lot of Puffed Rice and Puffed Wheat back in the day, so maybe those cereals were suspect. Wheaties and Cheerios may have contained the preservative as well. When we didn't have Pop-Tarts available, we consumed all of the above. Pops might have preferred that we eat oatmeal all the time, but being teenagers on the run as we were, oatmeal just didn't cut the mustard. I see BHA and BHT these days in the same cereals, and I find myself looking for healthier alternatives that are available at stores like Whole Foods. It does make me wonder if Pop's cautionary tales of the past were more than just bluster seeing as I'm still here talking about them decades later. Pops wasn't a zealot one way or the other about these kinds of things, but as lessons go, I think this was a good one. Whether it explains why I'm still here all these years later is an altogether different question.
I saw Bumbles Biden on the telly at some Climate Change meeting the other day going on and on about doing away with our country's reliance on carbon-based fuels by 2030. Has he completely lost his mind? I know he just reads what they put in front of him, but this is sheer lunacy. Our nation is an energy powerhouse, a literal Saudi Arabia of the Americas, yet he and his left-wing nut jobs want to regulate these energy sources out of business. I was hopeful that Republicans winning the House and Senate in the mid-terms would help to keep Biden's nuttier initiatives like killing our oil and gas industries in check. I didn't factor in the theft of key races by the Democrats, so that's on me. He was even talking about monitoring methane levels using satellite technology. If you're in the livestock business, they're coming for you. If you enjoy a nice cut of prime rib with the missus on the weekends, you'll need to think again. This is a global initiative, and the Bidenistas are making up for lost time after four years of Trump in office. Oh, and global powerhouses like China and Russia could not be happier. We're sitting ducks with this green-energy bullshit, and Biden knows it.
I don't know that I have any good parting words for this weeks blog. We're probably just one or two stolen seats away from the Democrats stealing the House after they stole the Senate seat in Nevada from Adam Laxalt within the last twenty fours. Did I mention that the cameras went down for around eight hours in the building where the votes were being tallied in Nevada senate race? That only happens when people are stealing things. The Democrats now have 50 senate seats, by hook or crook I might add, and they are looking to make it 51 seats when they steal the Georgia seat from Herschel Walker in the runoff scheduled for December 6th. If Republicans can win that seat, and if Republicans can convince Joe Manchin to switch political parties, Republicans can take back the Senate. Wouldn't that be something. And what, pray tell, will this FTX bankruptcy fiasco mean for the crypto world this coming week? Aside from all of that, everything is just fucking ducky.