Category: Current Events

Swing State Voters Agree, Joe Biden Sucks

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More bad news for Biden: Is it ‘rosy retrospection’ or just fact?

I could paraphrase this whole report as the swing states chanting, “Let’s Go Brandon.”

“The poll covered seven closely contested states considered critical to the 2024 election: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In two-way matchups, the survey found Trump leading Biden in six of those states. Trump is up by 5 points in Arizona, 1 point in Georgia, 3 points in Michigan, 6 points in North Carolina, 4 points in Nevada, and 3 points in Pennsylvania. In the seventh state, Wisconsin, the two candidates are tied.

Any way you look at it, it’s terrible news for Biden. Last November, I posted a very simple formula on X. “Trump has the simplest campaign pitch in the world,” I wrote. “1) Things were good when I was president. 2) Everything went to hell when Joe Biden became president. 3) Elect me and I’ll make things good again. That’s the whole campaign.”

Indeed it is. And short of suddenly becoming a great president, there might be little Biden can do about it.”

Of course none of these polls can inform us exactly how much voter fraud would be needed to overwhelm Trump’s legitimate voter advantage.  So none of this should be confused with me declaring Trump the probable winner.  But it does tell you something about what the American people think about Biden.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 02APR20204 – All They Respect is Power

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war pig

As a soldier, when I was stationed temporary duty at Ft Indiantown Gap, PA, I was tasked to assist the recruiting command on occasion. I went to Happy Valley and the University of Pennsylvania in uniform and was usually greeted by Nazi salutes. Disrespectful, especially since I had an uncle in WWII who was one of the group who liberated Buchenwald.

The overall opinion of the general populace in Pennsylvania concerning the armed forces was pretty low. Sure there were veterans but many of them were Vietnam vet draftees and they were disallusioned, especially if they had to use the VA.

What a difference after 9/11! All of a sudden everyone was thanking us for our service. High schools which had tried to block our recruiting activities were suddenly friendly.

The civilians had been frightened. The Homeland had been attacked and they were afraid. Liberals who seldom deigned to recognize our existence suddenly were waving American flags.

But we remembered who called us baby killers just weeks before. We knew once the fear factor lowered they’d be right back to their old ways.

Liberals don’t change. Not really. They only get worse. They went from calling the armed forces Nazis to forcing drag queen shows on to elementary school kids to secretly going behind parent’s backs to try to transition children to change their sex.

Probably all we can do is wall them off and let them devour each other.

Message Transmitted

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I was talking with an acquaintance of mine who is solidly progressive.  She is surrounded by people who are equally progressive.  Her worldview is completely reinforced by the opinions of her circle and details about the people on the other side of the political divide are pretty sketchy for her as it turns out.

She was telling me that her friends were excited about a senate race where moderate (translate as RINO) Republicans are trying to primary an extremist (translate as conservative) Republican out of office.  My comment was that the definition of someone as moderate or extreme was very much in the eye of the beholder and different factions in the Republican party were almost as different from each other as if they were in completely different parties.  Her answer was that the extremists were clearly the outliers from the party and that they resembled Trump.

So that made me laugh and I thought about whether I should bother clarifying a few things.  I said the “extremists” and Trump are outliers from the Republicans that were around a generation ago.  But those older politicians no longer have more than a minority of the Republican voters behind them.  The “extremists” are the true representatives of the majority of the present constituency and in fact most of the “extremists” are rather on the moderate side of where some of the party finds itself.

And then I decided to elaborate, “In fact anyone who considers Donald Trump an extremist is deluding himself.  A part of the political right considers Trump too moderate and tame and wishes he really was extreme on many points.  And that proportion of the party is still growing.”

And then I provided my opinion of Trump, “You think Trump is some kind of fascist madman.  Actually, he’s a shrewd salesman who realized that a huge market was not being serviced and that if he provided it with at least a modicum of what they were being deprived of they’d make him the most important man on Earth.  He’s not a dictator or any kind of extremist.  He’s a New York City Democrat from forty years ago.  He’s selling the same thing Bill Clinton was selling in 1992.  It’s just that the Democrats have drifted so far away from that ideology that it seems alien to them now.”

And then I finished off my spiel, “And if Donald Trump doesn’t win this year, the next Republican probably will be an extremist.  That is if he’s a Republican at all.  There is a large and growing population that is completely dissatisfied with what is going on in this country and no matter what the people in charge say or do they aren’t going away.”

Things got quiet after that.  I wonder if what I said was believed and whether it made any impression at all.  Actually, I’m pretty sure it did.  I think the original discussion was meant as a way for me to embrace the “moderate” wing of the Republican party and show that I was one of the “good” Republicans.  I didn’t do that, so I didn’t provide comfort.  I provided the opposite; distress.

And that is a message that needs to penetrate into that bubble.

The Socratic Method

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We all live in a world filled with human imperfection.  There has never been a time or place where the people have figured out a permanent arrangement for living together without eventually war and oppression destroying human happiness.  Maybe the currently prophesized Super Artificial Intelligence will be able to construct this perfect society and keep it working indefinitely.  Or maybe it’ll just be HAL 9000 creating a termite hive with us as the worker drones and itself as the Queen (or King if HAL is so inclined).

But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for this Metallic Messiah.  I doubt the possibility that the powers that be would let this new master to be unbiased and allow the little people to get a fair shake.  It’s already been shown that he who pays the bills gets to write the algorithm.

So, I don’t expect a fair shake from the digital gods.  But that doesn’t mean they won’t be put in charge.  I guess the Chinese are in the lead in implementing their social credit system and there’s no reason to believe that this country will be different.  And here’s the kicker.  The young people already believe in this thing.  I was told this weekend that, “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear from the digital gods.”

Now, this was a chilling statement.  And I provided a counterstatement.  I said, “Yes but, who gets to decide what is wrong and what if the definition of what is wrong can be changed by other people?”  Then even if you’ve followed the rules, you can still be considered a criminal for your past actions.

I threw that out there and I think it made an impression.  I further explained that freedom of speech and even freedom of thought were becoming less and less protected and that the loss of these things was very difficult to accept for people who took them for granted.  And that was because we have always enjoyed their benefits.

Now I did say that everybody needed to decide these things for himself but I said I thought it was a good idea for any thoughtful person to test some of the slogans being tossed around by those in charge of schools and governments to see if they were consistent with a free way of life or if they were a way for government to take away people’s freedom.  I also told him to listen and think about things going on around him but to not reveal to just anyone what he really thought.   I hope I was persuasive.

This is becoming a more difficult world to navigate for the younger generations.  That line about having nothing to hide if you haven’t done anything wrong was expressed by the head of the WEF, Klaus Martin Schwab.  This is the guy who wants us to own nothing, heat our homes with windmills and eat bugs.  The fact that he is being echoed by impressionable young people is beyond worrisome.  It’s frightening.

What it’s told me is that it’s important for us to reach out to the young everywhere we can and provide them with some counterprogramming to the propaganda that the Left fills their heads with in school.  And I think it’s not that hard to do.  Be calm and friendly and bring up real life counterexamples to the platitudes from the Left.  It’s relatively easy to do and it lays down seeds in their minds that can sprout at another time when some new occurrence triggers it.  I think the main trick is not to be the angry dogmatist ranting against some present idea.  Instead use the Socratic approach and demonstrate the weaknesses in these ideas and that will be enough to start the ball rolling in their minds.

But I wish it wasn’t called the Socratic method.  I never trusted that guy.  He hung around boys a little too much.

MSNBC Journalistic Integrity

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In the midst of the marathon pummeling that I currently am engulfed in I have Easter completely free from work.  It stands out as an oasis of joy within a desert of unpleasantness.  Truly this is like the eye of the hurricane providing a short window of peace inside a maelstrom of aggravation and weariness.  Death by a thousand paper cuts awaits me next week and I refuse to think ahead to it on Sunday.  I will bask in the glow of family solidarity and face the music afterwards.  So let it be written, so shall it be done.

I watched the unfolding of the farce that was the Ronna Romney McDaniel NBC hiring and firing.  I’ve read the hilarious reactions of the MSNBC parrots squawking and shrieking about an “election denier” sharing their sacred “airspace.”  And I can’t decide who is more ridiculous, the people who pretend that anyone can be phonier than the MSNBC freakshow or the suits at NBC who thought that McDaniel could be paraded around as a legitimate spokesperson of the new right.

Words fail me.  I tend to believe that the whole episode was a set-up to allow MSNBC to virtue signal at full power and that there was never an intent to employ McDaniel.  I guess the only question is whether she was in on the gag from the start.  Either way it fun to watch these people wind themselves up to whirling dervish speed.

Probably my favorite bit was this:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/03/30/david_brooks_on_ronna_mcdaniel_to_be_on_our_air_you_have_to_have_some_commitment_to_the_truth_above_partisanship.html

Now I was trying to remember what this show reminded me of and then it came to me,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELXX6hZjCeY

Basically, it is the same vibe but without the honesty and intelligence that Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather bring to public television.

Now look at the other side of this farce.  How exactly does McDaniel represent the Right?  The only answer is that she’s the latest avatar of the John McCain, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney school of Republican misrepresentation.  Hell, she’s even Mitt Romney’s niece!  So, I guess Uni-Party still feels that the old playbook never gets old and never stops working.  Well, they’re wrong.  No one with a single living brain cell believes that anymore.  Now that still leaves millions of Republican voters as fans of Ronna but effectively, they’re Democrat voters and we have to stop worrying about what they do.

But this is a good starting point.  As RINOs get bounced out of positions of power in the Republican hierarchy they will end up with jobs in media, academia and anywhere else where whores can settle down and whore.  The appropriate response from our side is to mock and insult these people as much as is humanly possible.  And that is what I will try to do whenever I have the time and inclination.

But right now, I have to say, that since I don’t watch PBS, I wasn’t aware that they had shifted over to a 100% gay men news team.  It’s a bold decision.  I always thought that PBS tried to maintain a 1:1 gay to lesbian ratio with respect to their pundits but apparently that has been superseded.  But I hope they eventually add a lesbian.  Capehart is obviously radiating an enormous field of gayness at such a high potential that it threatens to tear the very fabric of space-time.  In order to re-establish a balance between the feminine and masculine mojo they should hire Rachel Maddow or some other sufficiently macho woman to bring stability to the Force.

Well, enough of this.  Everyone, enjoy Easter.  I know I will.

The Daniel Penny Lesson

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Cop-bashing NYC Councilwoman Amanda Farías suddenly sees why we need the NYPD

As many as a few dozen women have been sucker punched while walking down the streets of New York City.

““Where are the men calling this out?” asks City Council Majority Leader Amanda Farías, retweeting a council Women’s Caucus’s post on the sick “sucker-punch a woman in the face” TikTok trend that urges victims to contact the NYPD.”

Now this is the same woman who said the city should, “significantly divest from police precincts” and vowed to “support “the reduction of NYPD’s operating budget and partnering alongside the community to create real solutions and justice for New Yorkers.””

And as far as men who aren’t in the NYPD but should be doing something about this?  I guess this is different from the Penny incident.  Last year, “Farias bemoaned the “lack of justice” for Jordan Neely, the violent homeless man accidentally killed when Daniel Penny stepped up to protect other straphangers.”

So Penny is going to trial for manslaughter and this dopey hypocritical woman wants to know where are all the men stepping forward to subdue psychotic street thugs who punch women for fun.

If only Farias could be one of the victims maybe that would allow her to get her head out of her butt.

Matt Walsh did a nice segment on this too.

Must See TV

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Like Hamlet’s father’s ghost I am, “during the day confin’d to fast in fires, till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purg’d away.”  But occasionally I am freed to roam the earth.  Today and Sunday are those days and I feel like a nocturnal creature blinking in the sun wondering what mythical land I find myself in where light and joy still exist.

But be that as it may, this paradise of freedom still exists within our own blighted reality.  So, I was unsurprised when reading today’s headlines that they were very reminiscent of those I remember from the before-time of last week when I was still a free man.  But they were slightly crazier.  Joy Reid appears to be close to the breaking point.  Now I can’t be totally sure of this because she is always at least incoherent.  Possibly to herself she seems rational but for me it’s like listening to the mutterings of a schizophrenic bag lady.  It is remarkable that NBC continues to employ her.  But that’s another issue.

In this video clip she tauntingly declares that she and her followers know what “we” mean by DEI.  She seems to be having a psychotic break.  Apparently, this knowledge of hers is supposed to be a potent talisman and we should fear it.  But instead of being afraid of her, I’m actually a little afraid for her.

I mean, sure, she’s a hateful wretch and a race baiter.  Certainly, she wishes evil against people not like her.  But she’s also a moron.  Her IQ must be somewhere around 75?  And I feel society has a responsibility to protect someone like that from her own stupidity.  Believing in things as far from reality as she does, leaves her open to fatal errors.

For instance, she believes herself to be highly intelligent.  This could lead her to try using her own judgement in a life-or-death situation.  As an example, she could judge that a pineapple was an appropriate food to swallow whole.  And if she attempts it from the relatively smooth side of the fruit, who knows, maybe she could do it.  She does have a really big mouth.  If she greased it with oil, who knows!  But what if she tries swallowing it crown first?  Those leaves are quite stiff and sharp.  I fear that it might lodge in her esophagus and finish her off.  I don’t relish watching a video clip of her on X where she is expounding on the guilt of White people or Donald Trump or Santa Claus for keeping her people down and then having to watch her trying to remove a wedged bromeliad from her oral cavity.  The whole idea disturbs me terribly.

What would make sense is if some kind of SWAT team could swoop in and rescue her from herself.  She could continue here career, such as it is.  But she could do it from the safety of a padded room in an insane asylum.  There, under the care of trained, psychiatric professionals, she could be dosed with Thorazine and swaddled in a strait jacket and allowed to rave and foam at the mouth and if necessary, soil herself, without any serious fear that she would expire of self-inflicted wounds.

And that would make me feel better.  In fact, I think I’d become a regular viewer of her show.  Especially if there were the hope that other characters could be added to the rubber room.  Maddow, Morning Joe and his bride and Chris Hayes would all be worthy additions to the room.  There could be special events.  Electro-shock therapy, firehose-hydro-therapy and maybe even a lobotomy could be added to the program to spice it up.

Now that would be must-see tv.

Murdered NYPD Cop’s Family Refuses to Let Gov Hochul Intrude at the Funeral

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This was the funeral that Trump attended.

This is the moment Democrat Kathy Hochul was turned away at the wake for slain NYPD officer Jonathan Diller.

Here’s where the real toll from the blue city madness impacts the innocents.  You can bet that the families of the police aren’t the ones voting Democrats into office.  But as long as the majority of NYC voters are Democrats that city will continue its descent into lawlessness and violence.

Guest Contributor – TomD – 29MAR2024 – Non-Engineering Engineering

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TomD

“I had to deal with the newer engineers that, in my opinion, didn’t have the skills needed to design quality work.”

Don’t get me started!

But, here’s a news flash: a just-out-of-school EIT or brand new engineer isn’t really expected to have any sense, just like a just-minted 2nd Lt. There are supposed to be competent superiors to mentor them through the know-everything-but-understand-nothing phase. Problem is that, increasingly, the mentors are non-existent.

I see so many plans where it is blatant that the designer hadn’t a clue for practicality, cost or effectiveness.

One of the my main gripes is that engineers used to be primarily involved with engineering. 90% of their time is currently used in government guidelines, government forms, government bureaucracy and government compliance.

I’m retired now but still have a few clients that I do things for on an hourly basis. One of the things is reviewing a US Gov grant for a public works storm drainage project to alleviate hurricane flooding. The multi-million dollar grant is coming from a covid money distribution to the State I live in. Other than being a legit public project, there is just so much wrong with that.