Game Set Match
22/10/23 19:13
Bumbles Biden did an interview with Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes last night. You have to wonder just how much editing went on behind the scenes to clean up the nonsense coming out of Biden's mouth. What I did hear, and they were just snippets after the fact, told me that Biden has little to no understanding of what's happening behind the scenes in Israel or in Gaza. He was well known as the dumbest senator in Washington during his tenure as Delaware's Senator for the past fifty years or so, and now he's better known as the dumbest president in the history of our country. Factor in his late-stage dementia, and we have a real shit show on our hands. But, that is what shows like 60 Minutes do. It's all about cleaning up on aisle nine. Whatever it takes to get their guy over the finish line, shows like 60 Minutes are there to get the job done.
I'm not wanting to beat this Gaza thing to death, but there may be some things that stick out one way or another, and I'll be all over those things like white on rice. I saw one tweet this morning from some muckety muck in Germany who was warning Iran to stay out of the war in Israel. I'm thinking to myself, who is this clown? The other thing I was thinking is that Germany needs to stay in their own lane. They can barely afford to send what little they have to support the grifter Zelensky in Ukraine, so sticking their nose into another fracas halfway across the globe is probably not something I'd advise. Maybe this is Germany's way of saying we did some bad things back in the day, and this is the least we can do now to make amends. Maybe this is precisely the lane that Germany needs to be in. Maybe being late to the game with your support is better than not being there with your support at all. This is getting very circular.
I don't know how I feel about our country having so much military hardware sitting off the coast of Israel. I have no problem with our full-scale support of one of our strongest allies in the Middle East, but I worry that we're going to be seen as giving cover to Israel while they commit extreme atrocities against innocent Palestinian people living in Gaza. If we weren't there to support them, might Israel's efforts to decimate the ranks of Hamas take on a different look and feel? It's easy to be full of piss and vinegar when you know that someone has your back, but the real test is what you do when no one has your back. It all started with our country sending one aircraft carrier to Israel, and now we have enough military hardware in the region to wage a full-scale World War. Surely, you're familiar with the expression, "Watch what we do, not what we say."
Here I am thinking that the shuffle diplomacy being conducted by Biden's toadies like Anthony Blinken is all about getting the right parties to the table so we can help negotiate an end to the conflict. I wouldn't be surprised if we were offering vast sums of cash and cash equivalents to various factions in the fight in order to resolve matters. Maybe what Blinken and his milquetoast minions are really saying is, take the cash, or we're going to unleash holy hell in the region. Did you see the story in the Washington Post about the Saudi prince who kept Blinken waiting all night for a meeting? The headline reads as follows: "Blinken meets resistance in courtship of Egypt and Saudi Arabia on Gaza war." They have zero respect for the clowns in the Biden Administration. That's not going to stop most Biden-friendly media outlets from touting Blinken's efforts as the next coming of Henry Kissinger, so, again, it's important to watch what they do and not what they say. I'm not talking about Blinken.
I watched the New England Patriots yesterday go down in flames in game six against the Las Vegas Raiders. It was so sweet. What's your record now, Billy Boy? Is it 1-5? Let me spell that out for you: You've led your team to the worst record in the history of the New England Patriots with one win and six losses. Who does that and keeps his job as a coach in the NFL? It was Belachick's 500th game, and he was looking forward to being crowned as the coach with the most wins or something like that. The Patriot's quarterback, Mac Jones, was poised to deliver that win, but, as with every other game he's played thus far this season, he too came up short. Why do I come away from every game the Patriots play thinking that Mac Jones isn't ready for prime time in the NFL? He's got an inescapable air of incompetence about him that he carries on his back like an eight-hundred-pound gorilla. He just looks defeated. Whoever's decision it was to put this guy in the team's ranks ought to be fired. They just need to clean house: Belachick-Jones-Belachick's son, etc. Go right on down the line.
What is this about Biden traveling to Israel while Israelis are in the fight of their lives against Hamas and Hezbollah? If there's a point to all of this, it's lost on me. There's probably a photo-op or two scheduled in there, so that shouldn't surprise anyone. One radio talk show guy I like listening to says that Biden is going there to stop or slow down the invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli troops. Does that mean that Bumbles Biden is taking his marching orders from countries like Iran and Egypt? And, don't American presidents typically keep these kinds of trips on the down low so as not to tip off potential terrorists from targeting them either en route or when they step off onto the tarmac? If they take out Bumbles mid-flight, that might well position Kamala Harris very nicely to step into the role of Commander-in-Chief with just enough time ahead of the 2024 elections to get a little experience under her belt. For better, or worse, I might add. If Lunchbucket Joe is smart, he'll load up Air Force One on his return trip with Jewish Americans looking to escape the besieged country of Israel. That could tip the electoral scales in a state like Florida, which, not coincidentally, boasts a disproportionately large population of Jewish residents.
The other part that I don't get is that Bumbles Biden can't carry on a conversation without cue cards, so how on earth is he supposed to take part in a discussion with Israeli officials about events unfolding on the ground in Israel? As the dumbest president in the history of our great republic, forgetting for a moment that he is cognitively challenged and continually force-fed performance-enhancing drugs, there is no way he can make a contribution one way or another that will make any sense to the people sitting around the table with him in the bunker. So, I'll ask again: What the hell is he going to Israel for, and what is he expecting to achieve? Has he already dropped off pallets of cash to the Palestinians in exchange for the Americans that they are holding hostage? Would that surprise anyone? Keep in mind that this is the same guy who has a history of shaking down world leaders for cash in order to enrich his family members. Anyone who puts his own personal interests and those of his extended family ahead of his country as president is morally and ethically corrupt enough to continue that kind of corruption, especially if he believes it will significantly improve his odds of winning a second term as president.
I haven't been paying too much attention to the Speaker's race in Congress, so it is what it is. I was quite happy to see McCarthy ousted because he was doing Biden's bidding at every turn. He was a real weasel. It's Jim Jordan's chance today, so we'll see if he gets the votes he needs. Jordan is another swamp rat without a lot of accomplishments, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope that he'll hold the line on things like budgets, borders, and however many subpoenas are required to hold Joe Biden to account for his decades of corruption. I get the math that makes everything more difficult on the Republican side of the ledger, and there's a special place in hell for those squishy Republicans who care and are willing to fight harder for Democrat initiatives than Republican initiatives. Jordan will never get votes from those members of his caucus who think that he played a part in McCarthy's ouster, so that is just one of many flies in the ointment that Jordan needs to deal with if he is to end up with the gavel at the end of the day. McCarthy has endorsed Jordan, so maybe they're tight as ticks after all, as the saying goes. It's all about compromise at the end of the day anyway. Right? Not if your name is Hakeem Jeffries. No siree fucking Bob.
There was a huge explosion in Gaza last evening that leveled a hospital, killing some 500 Palestinians. Israel came out immediately and blamed the blast and the killing of hundreds of Palestinians on Hamas. Hamas pointed the finger at the Israelis for the bombing. Palestinians across the globe took to the streets, outraged at Israel for the bombing. Israeli and American embassies in a number of countries immediately came under attack by mobs of Palestinians and Palestinian sympathizers. With no proof whatsoever, pundits on both sides of the conflict assured their viewers and listeners that one side or the other bore responsibility for the blast. Even Bumbles Biden, not wanting to anger his Israeli hosts, declared, "Based on what I've seen, it was done by the other team. Not you. But, there's a lot of people out there who are not sure." Of course, he was repeating what he had on his cue cards in front of him, being the doddering old fool he is. I don't have any proof either, but it wouldn't be the first time that Israel denied something only to fess up after the fact. And, after seeing what Hamas was capable of in the cold-blooded massacring of Israelis a week ago, I wouldn't put it past them either.
I have to laugh. The bombing of the hospital was so over the top that the Jordanian leader canceled the meeting they had scheduled with Bumbles Biden. Bumbles, of course, had flown to Israel to meet with Netanyahu before going on to meet with the Jordanian leader. The American media went out of their way to cover for Bumbles by saying that the meeting was canceled without saying who canceled the meeting. To admit that anyone would cancel a meeting with the great Bumbles Biden during these perilous times was just a bridge too far for the fawning praetorian media in our country. Everything they say and do has to elevate the Democrat Party's increasingly demented and corrupt nominee, Bumbles Biden, no matter how much malarkey gets baked into the cake along the way. If you were an American citizen watching network news, you took the cancelation in stride while assuring yourself that Bumbles and his handlers knew what they were doing when they canceled the meeting. You had no idea you were being played. This is who they are. This is what they do.
We're probably all better off that Bumbles didn't meet with the Jordanian leader. Who the hell knows what would come out of Bumble's mouth at any point in time? And, which Bumbles would we see in these meetings? Would it be the Bumbles of the recent past who is prone to falling asleep in meetings and, God forbid, opening his mouth to speak, saying something stupid or incomprehensible? Would it be the Bumbles Biden of Neil Kinnock fame where he plagiarized Kinnock's speech while campaigning? Would it be the Bumbles Biden who makes things up out of whole cloth? How much of what he has to say would have to be fact-checked? How many aides would they need to assist the cognitively failing Commander-in-Chief? Did I mention that Bumbles said that he was born in Israel during his visit to Israel? Spoiler alert: He was born in Pennsylvania. He also denied reports that American troops would get involved if Hezbollah weighed in on the conflict. That, of course, was widely reported and believed to be the official position of the United States. Bumbles either forgot or was never briefed on the plans. Or, maybe he was briefed and still forgot.
The Lord works in mysterious ways. That's the only way I can explain how this problem I've been having got resolved. Around ten every morning, my Internet would drop the signal for maybe a minute or so before kicking back in. It was never a huge problem, but God forbid the missus was on a work phone call or in the middle of something when it happened. I don't even want to tell you how many things I tried to fix the damn problem before just giving up. None of the fixes I Googled seemed to have anything to do with what I needed to fix, or the fixes were so complicated that I wanted nothing to do with any of them. I was pretty well convinced that my problem had nothing to do with my equipment, although it seemed too trivial to warrant getting a technician to pay a visit. I can't recall when it started, but I think it's been going on for six months now. Just this past Monday, out of nowhere, it stopped going down. Tuesday came around, and with fingers crossed, we never lost the connection. As I sit here today, and it's now Thursday, we're a good four days now without an outage.
It occurred to me that the beginning and end of this irksome little problem began and ended with the arrival and departure of my neighbor's friend. He comes every Spring with his camper trailer and stays until the middle of October when he heads south to Florida for the winter. He parks his trailer on her property at the end of our cul-de-sac. How any of this has anything to do with the problem I was having, I haven't a clue. I would hasten to add that her friend, if I'm not mistaken, is not savvy enough when it comes to computers to cause me or anyone else any problems. I could be wrong. I also don't recall having this issue in past years, and he's been coming up from Florida for a lot of years. I've had a good mind to send an e-mail to our neighbors to inquire if they've had similar problems but have never quite gotten around to sending out that e-mail. Maybe they have, and maybe they got it squared away, which, in turn, squared away my problem. I don't know what I'm going to do if it just starts up again. I'm getting used to it being up now and like it. Fingers crossed.
I need to turn my attention today to a couple of other little projects I have around the house. I'm so inept when it comes to fixing these kinds of things. I just can't get my brain around how to even start thinking about how to fix the problems. Never mind that I don't have the tools that I think I need to fix what needs to be fixed. I can always rent the tools, but I don't even know what tool to rent. If it turns out that I need the tool for multiple days, I end up ponying up enough cash to buy the tool outright. I'll probably never need the tool again, so I'm hard-pressed to buy the tool outright. Does any of this make any sense? Here's the issue: I've got a piece of wood (approximately three feet in length) on my deck that I need to remove since it's rotting a bit on one end and needs to be replaced. My problem is that I can't really remove the piece of wood because I can't loosen the nails enough to pry the piece of wood from its mooring. I'll give it another try today, and, God willing, I'll get it done. It's been a bit of an eyesore, so the missus will be pleased if I can sort it out. you know what they say. Happy wife, happy marriage.
There's really been a bit of a buzz in various financial newsletters about an upcoming rally in the indices that coincides with the usual seasonal activity associated with the third year of a presidential term. With so many stocks now trading below their 50 and 200-day moving averages, and with little to no leadership, it's hard to see how any of that results in a year-end rally. Add to the mix the fact that ten-year treasuries are close to five percent and going higher, and Brent crude is now trading above $90 a barrel, it's a wonder the indices are staying afloat much less chopping around and trading close to all-time highs. In my opinion, a good rout in stocks may be just what the doctor ordered ahead of any rally we may or may not see this Fall. Someone said that when the time comes to get back into the market after a good washout, you probably won't want to get back in. Loosely translated, that means you should get back into the market when fear is at an all-time high (Extreme Fear). That's the time, assuming you have a few spare pesos floating around, that you take advantage of what could turn out to be the Mother Of All Buying (MOAB) opportunities. I'm thinking around 3900 on the S&P might do the trick. Pay no attention to Jim Cramer and his buds on CNBC. They do not have your best interests at heart.
Did y'all see Bumbles give his second primetime speech in his first term to the American people last night? The missus asked me, "Have his eyes always looked like that?" They were literally slits carved into his forehead. I don't know if it was the drugs running through his veins or the myriad of facelifts he's had over the years that created the ghastly effect we were witnessing on national television. They said he spoke for 20 minutes, but I think I tuned out after about 45 seconds. He was blathering on about this and that; we've heard it all before. He looked more reptilian than Churchillian, and the lighting in the room did him no favors. Bumbles reminded me a little of the grifter, Zelensky, who goes around the globe on bended knee, looking for more funding for himself and his oligarchs. Only this time, Bumbles was exploiting the deaths of Israeli children to continue sending our hard-earned tax dollars to both Ukraine and Israel. It was disgraceful. If I hear one more word about Putin's designs on the Baltic states were he to win in Ukraine, I think I'm going to lose it. And Bumble's half-hearted admonition to Hamas not to avail themselves of the one hundred million in aid Biden approved for the Palestinians was laughable. Everyone knows that the Palestinian people won't see a dime of that money.
It's weird when you think about it. Bumble's policies have actually enriched Iran, and the attack by Hamas on Israel just a week ago or so now probably wouldn't have happened had Bumbles continued Trump's policies. I'm not just talking about the six billion that Bumbles gave to Iran in exchange for five American hostages. Word has it that Bumbles has done little to enforce the existing sanctions Trump put on Iran. Bumbles and the Palestinian sympathizers in his inner circle actually look the other way while Iran gets richer by the day by peddling their petroleum products around the globe. It gets worse. Bumbles embraces the zero-carbon initiatives of the Climate Cultists to shut down oil and gas production in our country while driving prices higher on the world market, which further enriches countries like Iran. Bumbles then has the audacity to travel to Israel in the middle of a hot war to embrace Netanyahu, who knows full well about Bumble's complicity with the enemies in their backyard. Keep in mind that Bumble's people are still working on reviving the JCPOA deal, which will give Iran the nuclear bomb that they've longed for. That will, of course, be the beginning of the end for the state of Israel.
Can you imagine the chyrons on CNN day in and day out if Hamas was holding an untold number of Americans hostage during a Trump presidency? Yet, we don't have a clue about the number of Americans being held hostage. Nobody is even asking the question. The American media is silent on the subject. We all know why, of course. Bumbles Biden has an election to win in 2024, and his praetorian guard, the mainstream media, is doing everything they can to help him. Maybe more to the point, they are doing nothing to hurt him. Hamas has not only the Americans that they kidnapped that fateful day in Israel, but they also seem to have a lot more Americans roaming around in Gaza in various humanitarian capacities who are now looking to get out of the country before they too are targeted.
What are the chances that the one hundred million in "aid" sent to Gaza by Bumbles was Bumbles paying ransom once again? Bumbles can be the knight in shining armor riding into the shithole that is Gaza on Air Force One to fly American hostages out of the country and back to their tearful and appreciative relatives waiting on the tarmac in America. Part and parcel of that back-room deal designed to boost Bumble's ratings is Israel's participation in the agreement whereby there will be no ground invasion to ferret out the Hamas terrorists. They will live another day to kill and maim Israelis. Now you know why Bumbles went on national television to make the case for giving Israel billions of dollars. The Rubes in Congress seem to be none the wiser about any of it and will more than likely sign off on everything Bumbles is requesting. This is not Bumble's first rodeo. He knows how the game is played, and he and his extended family allegedly have untold millions of dollars hidden away in undisclosed locations to show for his efforts. The Clintons are pikers compared to Joe Biden.
I saw a national poll yesterday with Trump at 59% and everyone else in single digits. Thats right. You heard me right. Keebler Elves like DeSantis and Haley are in single digits. In any other world, the primary would be over. The political parties would be demanding that the candidates in single digits drop out. Why continue muddying the waters? The candidates in single digits aren't going to win the primary, so, should they stay in to fight another day, they will effectively drain resources and support from the person who appears to have a seemingly insurmountable lead. Why would the party not want to coalesce around the leader in terms of marshaling resources and support? I know. I know. National polls don't mean squat. That's not how we elect our leaders. It still begs the question, why do these hangers-ons continue to stay in the race? They must be banking on the 100+ indictments taking Trump out of the race. That's not the way that I'd want to win the primary, but that's just me. Is it me, or does it seem like Trump is trying to force the judge's hand by deliberately violating his gag order so the judge will sentence him to jail ahead of any sentence he may get as a result of one or more of the trials scheduled between now and Election Day? It would be easier for his supporters to cast a vote for him as a victim of Joe Biden's corrupt and vindictive Justice Department rather than as a criminal convicted by a jury of his peers. Just thinking out loud here.
I'm hoping that I'll have a few days ahead of me here to do a little painting before the guys come around to install our gutters. It would help if rain held off so I'm not trying to put a coat of paint on damp surfaces. I've got everything I need to slap a coat or two of paint on the house, so I'm as ready as I can be. I also need to do a little caulking on our new skylights. I've never really used a caulking gun, so I had to look it up on YouTube. It seems pretty straightforward. It also seems like the kind of job where I go out and buy what I need for the job, and then I put the job off until I'm forced to do it. Or, it never gets done at all. I don't know what's the matter with me sometimes. I think I'm just not suited for some things. It's the old square peg-in-a-round-hole thing. Who can I blame that on? I remember when I was ten years old, my dad asked me to get him a Philips head screwdriver. I returned with the wrong kind of screwdriver. That set a whole lot of things in motion, and from that day on, I don't think I ever got right in the head when it came to working with tools and the like. For all you dads out there, it's the little things in your relationship with your children that will ultimately make them or break them. I think I just answered my own question.
I also don't know what's going on with my bird feeders. I took them down for the summer based on both the cost of bird food and the natural ability of birds to fend for themselves during the summer months. As I recall, the birds were emptying my feeders at a record pace just before I took down the feeders. Now that the feeders are back up, the birds have not returned in the numbers I recall from earlier in the season. Even stranger is that the local squirrel population, which usually makes a beeline for my feeders, seems uninterested in the feeders. Maybe all of that will change with the coming of winter and the scarcity of food in their natural environment. Maybe I shouldn't be complaining that my feeders aren't emptying as quickly as they were earlier this Spring. At $25 for a 14-pound bag of bird food, it can be expensive. For those real granola types living off the grid who typically don't have two nickels to rub together, the price of bird food these days may well mean that they don't get fed. I wonder if we'll see the turkeys come around again. They disappeared when the bird feeders were taken away. Funny how that works.
I saw a headline in the news today about Biden missing his chance to fill our Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) when the price of oil was cheap. Nonsense. This beleaguered old fool never had any intention of refilling the SPR. Whether he's not doing that because of his radical views on Climate Change or he's doing it because he's intentionally putting our nation at the mercy of our enemies in the coming holocaust of World War III, I can't tell for sure. I might have thought that he might refill it so he could empty it again ahead of the 2024 elections while taking a victory lap for lowering gas prices. But, the mainstream media is covering for this old fool as they usually do, and they're putting out headlines like the one I read to mislead, obfuscate, or just outright lie to the American people. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Bumbles is making money on the side from the makers of electric vehicles like GM and Tesla. He and his extended family have been on the take for decades. The good news, if there is any, is that Comer's committee in Congress now has evidence of a direct payment to Bumbles from a foreign source. They've also tied the purchase of his beach home in Rehobeth to a $5 million dollar wire sent directly from the Communist Chinese Party. Game. Set. Match.
Did you hear about the 40-year-old Jewish woman stabbed to death in Detroit? Reports say that the investigation of her death is ongoing. She wasn't just any old 40-year-old woman in Detroit. She was the Board President of her congregation and a Jewish Community Leader as well as a Democratic activist. If you believe that this was just a random act of violence, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. This is a spillover of the violence in the Middle East. Is this any different than the landlord we heard about a week or so ago who killed a six-year-old Palestinian living in one of his apartments with his family? Maybe it's all a reaction to what people are seeing on their television sets coming from the Middle East or wherever. Don't forget about the Jewish stars scratched on the outside of people's homes in Britain in the wake of the Israeli massacre by the Hamas terrorists. I don't know where any of this ends, and I don't hear enough people yelling at the top of their lungs to make it stop. I honestly don't know where we go from here.
I'm not wanting to beat this Gaza thing to death, but there may be some things that stick out one way or another, and I'll be all over those things like white on rice. I saw one tweet this morning from some muckety muck in Germany who was warning Iran to stay out of the war in Israel. I'm thinking to myself, who is this clown? The other thing I was thinking is that Germany needs to stay in their own lane. They can barely afford to send what little they have to support the grifter Zelensky in Ukraine, so sticking their nose into another fracas halfway across the globe is probably not something I'd advise. Maybe this is Germany's way of saying we did some bad things back in the day, and this is the least we can do now to make amends. Maybe this is precisely the lane that Germany needs to be in. Maybe being late to the game with your support is better than not being there with your support at all. This is getting very circular.
I don't know how I feel about our country having so much military hardware sitting off the coast of Israel. I have no problem with our full-scale support of one of our strongest allies in the Middle East, but I worry that we're going to be seen as giving cover to Israel while they commit extreme atrocities against innocent Palestinian people living in Gaza. If we weren't there to support them, might Israel's efforts to decimate the ranks of Hamas take on a different look and feel? It's easy to be full of piss and vinegar when you know that someone has your back, but the real test is what you do when no one has your back. It all started with our country sending one aircraft carrier to Israel, and now we have enough military hardware in the region to wage a full-scale World War. Surely, you're familiar with the expression, "Watch what we do, not what we say."
Here I am thinking that the shuffle diplomacy being conducted by Biden's toadies like Anthony Blinken is all about getting the right parties to the table so we can help negotiate an end to the conflict. I wouldn't be surprised if we were offering vast sums of cash and cash equivalents to various factions in the fight in order to resolve matters. Maybe what Blinken and his milquetoast minions are really saying is, take the cash, or we're going to unleash holy hell in the region. Did you see the story in the Washington Post about the Saudi prince who kept Blinken waiting all night for a meeting? The headline reads as follows: "Blinken meets resistance in courtship of Egypt and Saudi Arabia on Gaza war." They have zero respect for the clowns in the Biden Administration. That's not going to stop most Biden-friendly media outlets from touting Blinken's efforts as the next coming of Henry Kissinger, so, again, it's important to watch what they do and not what they say. I'm not talking about Blinken.
I watched the New England Patriots yesterday go down in flames in game six against the Las Vegas Raiders. It was so sweet. What's your record now, Billy Boy? Is it 1-5? Let me spell that out for you: You've led your team to the worst record in the history of the New England Patriots with one win and six losses. Who does that and keeps his job as a coach in the NFL? It was Belachick's 500th game, and he was looking forward to being crowned as the coach with the most wins or something like that. The Patriot's quarterback, Mac Jones, was poised to deliver that win, but, as with every other game he's played thus far this season, he too came up short. Why do I come away from every game the Patriots play thinking that Mac Jones isn't ready for prime time in the NFL? He's got an inescapable air of incompetence about him that he carries on his back like an eight-hundred-pound gorilla. He just looks defeated. Whoever's decision it was to put this guy in the team's ranks ought to be fired. They just need to clean house: Belachick-Jones-Belachick's son, etc. Go right on down the line.
What is this about Biden traveling to Israel while Israelis are in the fight of their lives against Hamas and Hezbollah? If there's a point to all of this, it's lost on me. There's probably a photo-op or two scheduled in there, so that shouldn't surprise anyone. One radio talk show guy I like listening to says that Biden is going there to stop or slow down the invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli troops. Does that mean that Bumbles Biden is taking his marching orders from countries like Iran and Egypt? And, don't American presidents typically keep these kinds of trips on the down low so as not to tip off potential terrorists from targeting them either en route or when they step off onto the tarmac? If they take out Bumbles mid-flight, that might well position Kamala Harris very nicely to step into the role of Commander-in-Chief with just enough time ahead of the 2024 elections to get a little experience under her belt. For better, or worse, I might add. If Lunchbucket Joe is smart, he'll load up Air Force One on his return trip with Jewish Americans looking to escape the besieged country of Israel. That could tip the electoral scales in a state like Florida, which, not coincidentally, boasts a disproportionately large population of Jewish residents.
The other part that I don't get is that Bumbles Biden can't carry on a conversation without cue cards, so how on earth is he supposed to take part in a discussion with Israeli officials about events unfolding on the ground in Israel? As the dumbest president in the history of our great republic, forgetting for a moment that he is cognitively challenged and continually force-fed performance-enhancing drugs, there is no way he can make a contribution one way or another that will make any sense to the people sitting around the table with him in the bunker. So, I'll ask again: What the hell is he going to Israel for, and what is he expecting to achieve? Has he already dropped off pallets of cash to the Palestinians in exchange for the Americans that they are holding hostage? Would that surprise anyone? Keep in mind that this is the same guy who has a history of shaking down world leaders for cash in order to enrich his family members. Anyone who puts his own personal interests and those of his extended family ahead of his country as president is morally and ethically corrupt enough to continue that kind of corruption, especially if he believes it will significantly improve his odds of winning a second term as president.
I haven't been paying too much attention to the Speaker's race in Congress, so it is what it is. I was quite happy to see McCarthy ousted because he was doing Biden's bidding at every turn. He was a real weasel. It's Jim Jordan's chance today, so we'll see if he gets the votes he needs. Jordan is another swamp rat without a lot of accomplishments, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope that he'll hold the line on things like budgets, borders, and however many subpoenas are required to hold Joe Biden to account for his decades of corruption. I get the math that makes everything more difficult on the Republican side of the ledger, and there's a special place in hell for those squishy Republicans who care and are willing to fight harder for Democrat initiatives than Republican initiatives. Jordan will never get votes from those members of his caucus who think that he played a part in McCarthy's ouster, so that is just one of many flies in the ointment that Jordan needs to deal with if he is to end up with the gavel at the end of the day. McCarthy has endorsed Jordan, so maybe they're tight as ticks after all, as the saying goes. It's all about compromise at the end of the day anyway. Right? Not if your name is Hakeem Jeffries. No siree fucking Bob.
There was a huge explosion in Gaza last evening that leveled a hospital, killing some 500 Palestinians. Israel came out immediately and blamed the blast and the killing of hundreds of Palestinians on Hamas. Hamas pointed the finger at the Israelis for the bombing. Palestinians across the globe took to the streets, outraged at Israel for the bombing. Israeli and American embassies in a number of countries immediately came under attack by mobs of Palestinians and Palestinian sympathizers. With no proof whatsoever, pundits on both sides of the conflict assured their viewers and listeners that one side or the other bore responsibility for the blast. Even Bumbles Biden, not wanting to anger his Israeli hosts, declared, "Based on what I've seen, it was done by the other team. Not you. But, there's a lot of people out there who are not sure." Of course, he was repeating what he had on his cue cards in front of him, being the doddering old fool he is. I don't have any proof either, but it wouldn't be the first time that Israel denied something only to fess up after the fact. And, after seeing what Hamas was capable of in the cold-blooded massacring of Israelis a week ago, I wouldn't put it past them either.
I have to laugh. The bombing of the hospital was so over the top that the Jordanian leader canceled the meeting they had scheduled with Bumbles Biden. Bumbles, of course, had flown to Israel to meet with Netanyahu before going on to meet with the Jordanian leader. The American media went out of their way to cover for Bumbles by saying that the meeting was canceled without saying who canceled the meeting. To admit that anyone would cancel a meeting with the great Bumbles Biden during these perilous times was just a bridge too far for the fawning praetorian media in our country. Everything they say and do has to elevate the Democrat Party's increasingly demented and corrupt nominee, Bumbles Biden, no matter how much malarkey gets baked into the cake along the way. If you were an American citizen watching network news, you took the cancelation in stride while assuring yourself that Bumbles and his handlers knew what they were doing when they canceled the meeting. You had no idea you were being played. This is who they are. This is what they do.
We're probably all better off that Bumbles didn't meet with the Jordanian leader. Who the hell knows what would come out of Bumble's mouth at any point in time? And, which Bumbles would we see in these meetings? Would it be the Bumbles of the recent past who is prone to falling asleep in meetings and, God forbid, opening his mouth to speak, saying something stupid or incomprehensible? Would it be the Bumbles Biden of Neil Kinnock fame where he plagiarized Kinnock's speech while campaigning? Would it be the Bumbles Biden who makes things up out of whole cloth? How much of what he has to say would have to be fact-checked? How many aides would they need to assist the cognitively failing Commander-in-Chief? Did I mention that Bumbles said that he was born in Israel during his visit to Israel? Spoiler alert: He was born in Pennsylvania. He also denied reports that American troops would get involved if Hezbollah weighed in on the conflict. That, of course, was widely reported and believed to be the official position of the United States. Bumbles either forgot or was never briefed on the plans. Or, maybe he was briefed and still forgot.
The Lord works in mysterious ways. That's the only way I can explain how this problem I've been having got resolved. Around ten every morning, my Internet would drop the signal for maybe a minute or so before kicking back in. It was never a huge problem, but God forbid the missus was on a work phone call or in the middle of something when it happened. I don't even want to tell you how many things I tried to fix the damn problem before just giving up. None of the fixes I Googled seemed to have anything to do with what I needed to fix, or the fixes were so complicated that I wanted nothing to do with any of them. I was pretty well convinced that my problem had nothing to do with my equipment, although it seemed too trivial to warrant getting a technician to pay a visit. I can't recall when it started, but I think it's been going on for six months now. Just this past Monday, out of nowhere, it stopped going down. Tuesday came around, and with fingers crossed, we never lost the connection. As I sit here today, and it's now Thursday, we're a good four days now without an outage.
It occurred to me that the beginning and end of this irksome little problem began and ended with the arrival and departure of my neighbor's friend. He comes every Spring with his camper trailer and stays until the middle of October when he heads south to Florida for the winter. He parks his trailer on her property at the end of our cul-de-sac. How any of this has anything to do with the problem I was having, I haven't a clue. I would hasten to add that her friend, if I'm not mistaken, is not savvy enough when it comes to computers to cause me or anyone else any problems. I could be wrong. I also don't recall having this issue in past years, and he's been coming up from Florida for a lot of years. I've had a good mind to send an e-mail to our neighbors to inquire if they've had similar problems but have never quite gotten around to sending out that e-mail. Maybe they have, and maybe they got it squared away, which, in turn, squared away my problem. I don't know what I'm going to do if it just starts up again. I'm getting used to it being up now and like it. Fingers crossed.
I need to turn my attention today to a couple of other little projects I have around the house. I'm so inept when it comes to fixing these kinds of things. I just can't get my brain around how to even start thinking about how to fix the problems. Never mind that I don't have the tools that I think I need to fix what needs to be fixed. I can always rent the tools, but I don't even know what tool to rent. If it turns out that I need the tool for multiple days, I end up ponying up enough cash to buy the tool outright. I'll probably never need the tool again, so I'm hard-pressed to buy the tool outright. Does any of this make any sense? Here's the issue: I've got a piece of wood (approximately three feet in length) on my deck that I need to remove since it's rotting a bit on one end and needs to be replaced. My problem is that I can't really remove the piece of wood because I can't loosen the nails enough to pry the piece of wood from its mooring. I'll give it another try today, and, God willing, I'll get it done. It's been a bit of an eyesore, so the missus will be pleased if I can sort it out. you know what they say. Happy wife, happy marriage.
There's really been a bit of a buzz in various financial newsletters about an upcoming rally in the indices that coincides with the usual seasonal activity associated with the third year of a presidential term. With so many stocks now trading below their 50 and 200-day moving averages, and with little to no leadership, it's hard to see how any of that results in a year-end rally. Add to the mix the fact that ten-year treasuries are close to five percent and going higher, and Brent crude is now trading above $90 a barrel, it's a wonder the indices are staying afloat much less chopping around and trading close to all-time highs. In my opinion, a good rout in stocks may be just what the doctor ordered ahead of any rally we may or may not see this Fall. Someone said that when the time comes to get back into the market after a good washout, you probably won't want to get back in. Loosely translated, that means you should get back into the market when fear is at an all-time high (Extreme Fear). That's the time, assuming you have a few spare pesos floating around, that you take advantage of what could turn out to be the Mother Of All Buying (MOAB) opportunities. I'm thinking around 3900 on the S&P might do the trick. Pay no attention to Jim Cramer and his buds on CNBC. They do not have your best interests at heart.
Did y'all see Bumbles give his second primetime speech in his first term to the American people last night? The missus asked me, "Have his eyes always looked like that?" They were literally slits carved into his forehead. I don't know if it was the drugs running through his veins or the myriad of facelifts he's had over the years that created the ghastly effect we were witnessing on national television. They said he spoke for 20 minutes, but I think I tuned out after about 45 seconds. He was blathering on about this and that; we've heard it all before. He looked more reptilian than Churchillian, and the lighting in the room did him no favors. Bumbles reminded me a little of the grifter, Zelensky, who goes around the globe on bended knee, looking for more funding for himself and his oligarchs. Only this time, Bumbles was exploiting the deaths of Israeli children to continue sending our hard-earned tax dollars to both Ukraine and Israel. It was disgraceful. If I hear one more word about Putin's designs on the Baltic states were he to win in Ukraine, I think I'm going to lose it. And Bumble's half-hearted admonition to Hamas not to avail themselves of the one hundred million in aid Biden approved for the Palestinians was laughable. Everyone knows that the Palestinian people won't see a dime of that money.
It's weird when you think about it. Bumble's policies have actually enriched Iran, and the attack by Hamas on Israel just a week ago or so now probably wouldn't have happened had Bumbles continued Trump's policies. I'm not just talking about the six billion that Bumbles gave to Iran in exchange for five American hostages. Word has it that Bumbles has done little to enforce the existing sanctions Trump put on Iran. Bumbles and the Palestinian sympathizers in his inner circle actually look the other way while Iran gets richer by the day by peddling their petroleum products around the globe. It gets worse. Bumbles embraces the zero-carbon initiatives of the Climate Cultists to shut down oil and gas production in our country while driving prices higher on the world market, which further enriches countries like Iran. Bumbles then has the audacity to travel to Israel in the middle of a hot war to embrace Netanyahu, who knows full well about Bumble's complicity with the enemies in their backyard. Keep in mind that Bumble's people are still working on reviving the JCPOA deal, which will give Iran the nuclear bomb that they've longed for. That will, of course, be the beginning of the end for the state of Israel.
Can you imagine the chyrons on CNN day in and day out if Hamas was holding an untold number of Americans hostage during a Trump presidency? Yet, we don't have a clue about the number of Americans being held hostage. Nobody is even asking the question. The American media is silent on the subject. We all know why, of course. Bumbles Biden has an election to win in 2024, and his praetorian guard, the mainstream media, is doing everything they can to help him. Maybe more to the point, they are doing nothing to hurt him. Hamas has not only the Americans that they kidnapped that fateful day in Israel, but they also seem to have a lot more Americans roaming around in Gaza in various humanitarian capacities who are now looking to get out of the country before they too are targeted.
What are the chances that the one hundred million in "aid" sent to Gaza by Bumbles was Bumbles paying ransom once again? Bumbles can be the knight in shining armor riding into the shithole that is Gaza on Air Force One to fly American hostages out of the country and back to their tearful and appreciative relatives waiting on the tarmac in America. Part and parcel of that back-room deal designed to boost Bumble's ratings is Israel's participation in the agreement whereby there will be no ground invasion to ferret out the Hamas terrorists. They will live another day to kill and maim Israelis. Now you know why Bumbles went on national television to make the case for giving Israel billions of dollars. The Rubes in Congress seem to be none the wiser about any of it and will more than likely sign off on everything Bumbles is requesting. This is not Bumble's first rodeo. He knows how the game is played, and he and his extended family allegedly have untold millions of dollars hidden away in undisclosed locations to show for his efforts. The Clintons are pikers compared to Joe Biden.
I saw a national poll yesterday with Trump at 59% and everyone else in single digits. Thats right. You heard me right. Keebler Elves like DeSantis and Haley are in single digits. In any other world, the primary would be over. The political parties would be demanding that the candidates in single digits drop out. Why continue muddying the waters? The candidates in single digits aren't going to win the primary, so, should they stay in to fight another day, they will effectively drain resources and support from the person who appears to have a seemingly insurmountable lead. Why would the party not want to coalesce around the leader in terms of marshaling resources and support? I know. I know. National polls don't mean squat. That's not how we elect our leaders. It still begs the question, why do these hangers-ons continue to stay in the race? They must be banking on the 100+ indictments taking Trump out of the race. That's not the way that I'd want to win the primary, but that's just me. Is it me, or does it seem like Trump is trying to force the judge's hand by deliberately violating his gag order so the judge will sentence him to jail ahead of any sentence he may get as a result of one or more of the trials scheduled between now and Election Day? It would be easier for his supporters to cast a vote for him as a victim of Joe Biden's corrupt and vindictive Justice Department rather than as a criminal convicted by a jury of his peers. Just thinking out loud here.
I'm hoping that I'll have a few days ahead of me here to do a little painting before the guys come around to install our gutters. It would help if rain held off so I'm not trying to put a coat of paint on damp surfaces. I've got everything I need to slap a coat or two of paint on the house, so I'm as ready as I can be. I also need to do a little caulking on our new skylights. I've never really used a caulking gun, so I had to look it up on YouTube. It seems pretty straightforward. It also seems like the kind of job where I go out and buy what I need for the job, and then I put the job off until I'm forced to do it. Or, it never gets done at all. I don't know what's the matter with me sometimes. I think I'm just not suited for some things. It's the old square peg-in-a-round-hole thing. Who can I blame that on? I remember when I was ten years old, my dad asked me to get him a Philips head screwdriver. I returned with the wrong kind of screwdriver. That set a whole lot of things in motion, and from that day on, I don't think I ever got right in the head when it came to working with tools and the like. For all you dads out there, it's the little things in your relationship with your children that will ultimately make them or break them. I think I just answered my own question.
I also don't know what's going on with my bird feeders. I took them down for the summer based on both the cost of bird food and the natural ability of birds to fend for themselves during the summer months. As I recall, the birds were emptying my feeders at a record pace just before I took down the feeders. Now that the feeders are back up, the birds have not returned in the numbers I recall from earlier in the season. Even stranger is that the local squirrel population, which usually makes a beeline for my feeders, seems uninterested in the feeders. Maybe all of that will change with the coming of winter and the scarcity of food in their natural environment. Maybe I shouldn't be complaining that my feeders aren't emptying as quickly as they were earlier this Spring. At $25 for a 14-pound bag of bird food, it can be expensive. For those real granola types living off the grid who typically don't have two nickels to rub together, the price of bird food these days may well mean that they don't get fed. I wonder if we'll see the turkeys come around again. They disappeared when the bird feeders were taken away. Funny how that works.
I saw a headline in the news today about Biden missing his chance to fill our Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) when the price of oil was cheap. Nonsense. This beleaguered old fool never had any intention of refilling the SPR. Whether he's not doing that because of his radical views on Climate Change or he's doing it because he's intentionally putting our nation at the mercy of our enemies in the coming holocaust of World War III, I can't tell for sure. I might have thought that he might refill it so he could empty it again ahead of the 2024 elections while taking a victory lap for lowering gas prices. But, the mainstream media is covering for this old fool as they usually do, and they're putting out headlines like the one I read to mislead, obfuscate, or just outright lie to the American people. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Bumbles is making money on the side from the makers of electric vehicles like GM and Tesla. He and his extended family have been on the take for decades. The good news, if there is any, is that Comer's committee in Congress now has evidence of a direct payment to Bumbles from a foreign source. They've also tied the purchase of his beach home in Rehobeth to a $5 million dollar wire sent directly from the Communist Chinese Party. Game. Set. Match.
Did you hear about the 40-year-old Jewish woman stabbed to death in Detroit? Reports say that the investigation of her death is ongoing. She wasn't just any old 40-year-old woman in Detroit. She was the Board President of her congregation and a Jewish Community Leader as well as a Democratic activist. If you believe that this was just a random act of violence, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. This is a spillover of the violence in the Middle East. Is this any different than the landlord we heard about a week or so ago who killed a six-year-old Palestinian living in one of his apartments with his family? Maybe it's all a reaction to what people are seeing on their television sets coming from the Middle East or wherever. Don't forget about the Jewish stars scratched on the outside of people's homes in Britain in the wake of the Israeli massacre by the Hamas terrorists. I don't know where any of this ends, and I don't hear enough people yelling at the top of their lungs to make it stop. I honestly don't know where we go from here.