Category: Politics

Political posts about the right or left and everyone inbetween

Trump Indictment

The indictment of President Trump is nothing more than a mug shot photo op for the Left.

A grand jury is not a trial. It is a one-sided, rigged from the start, secret and closed-door, pep rally for the prosecution. Often politically motivated and even used as a political stepping stone by the attorney general or other prosecutor that calls one.

This grand jury and indictment is just that. A political show. The attorney general ran on the campaign promise to have a grand jury indict President Trump. This will be his feather in his cap if the idiot survives the fallout.

The charge itself is bogus. It isn’t a federal crime. In fact, it isn’t even a local crime any more. It has long lost due to the statute of limitations on this misdemeanor charge.

There will be fallout politically due to this 1st in the nation incident. The Left will use it against the 2024 Trump Campaign. And the Trump Campaign will use it in their favor as well. But it will also lead to more distrust in our government and justice system.

More Convention of States Nonsense

On Tuesday, March 28th, there will be a Convention of States rally at the Iowa Capitol. I encourage everyone who is able to come out and oppose this dangerous and foolish nonsense.

I am saddened to hear that Bob Vander Plaats of The Family Leader will be speaking in favor of this foolishness. But it doesn’t surprise me really.

Bob Vander Plaats had a unique opportunity as a Believer to witness to Donald Trump who was a guest of The Family Leader before his 2016 Presidential bid and eventual nomination. But The Family Leader under Bob’s leadership tossed that opportunity aside and dived head first into to the Cruz campaign. Even being a co-chair of it and allowing the campaign to operate out of The Family Leader’s offices.

The dangers of having a Convention of States are well known. It is far too important to allow this wicked and foolish event to take place. Now those that support it will try to sale you on assurances that cannot be guaranteed. Namely that how there will be a stated agenda and rules that prevent any form of action contrary to what is being sold as a reason for holding the Convention of States.

Do NOT let this fool you. At any political meeting. There is always the opportunity to through out the rules at the very beginning or even suspend the rules during the course of the convention. I have been at conventions where this has happened. And I assure you it will happen at a Convention of States.

There are people who wish to destroy the United States of America. Who wish to end the Republic and create a socialist state. America wont fall because of an outside military force. But it will fall from within if the Constitution can be destroyed and replaced but something else.

Our Founding Fathers meet in convention with the agenda of amending the Articles of Confederation that governed the young American nation. But instead they changed those rules and agenda and tossed out the entire Articles and created the Constitution we currently possess.

There are other means to getting what the Convention of States movement claims they want to accomplish and those means should be used.

I do not trust any living person to make amendments to our Constitution. Let alone to write a new one. Not even myself.

And yet here is a Believer, who has been fooled into this trap set by those who will destroy everything the Constitution protects once the Convention of States is called.

Bob Vander Plaats would have never made these two big mistakes had he had wise council in them. Unfortunately the wisest of those, his former assistant in all but name, resigned from the organization 2 years prior to the Cruz debacle. She would have told Bob straight out, in no uncertain terms, not to support Cruz and toss Trump under the bus like he did.

She would have also been against this Convention of States foolishness and called out the wickedness of what it is as well.

I know this for 100% fact. This is not a speculation as Bob’s former assistant was my late wife Kristen.

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

Granted, I’m a week late on this, but under the circumstances (namely me deciding to write about something else), I hope you’ll forgive me. And if not, well…I’ll pout.

Anyway, California is usually at the forefront of a lot of things, namely really bad ideas. Recently, San Francisco proposed a lump sum payment of $5 million to eligible blacks for reparations, among other proposals. Additionally, the state’s Reparation Task Force submitted a report to the California Legislature that Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to implement if the legislature doesn’t act.

As a result, I am stating for the record I now self-identify as a black resident of San Francisco. Please respect my privacy during my transition.

Seriously, reparations is a controversial subject to say the least, which means it’s perfect for your favorite blogger who writes a weekly series by this specific title to cover. Take that, “Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week” written by Jerry Funklemeyer!

reparations

What the Left thinks it means – monetary compensation given to blacks due to America’s slave history

What it really means – another way for white Leftists to blow through more of our money so they can feel good about themselves

The Civil War/War Between the States/War of Northern Aggression/The War the Movie “Glory” Was Based On was one of the most difficult and bloody times of our nation’s relatively young history. From 1861 to 1865, this country was more fractured than Jackie Chan’s body after doing his own stunts. But once the Union prevailed, the question was what to do next. Back then, they didn’t have Leftists to provide their sage advice about misogyny and trans rights in the former Confederacy, so it came down to a meeting between William T. Sherman and black ministers to create an attempt at reparations: 40 acres. (Mule, sold separately.)

And that attempt got scuttled by President Andrew Johnson, leaving the matter unresolved until recently.

There have been calls for reparations in recent history, but the idea really took off in 2020 thanks to the Democratic Primaries where there were…four black candidates out of 27. Five if you count Elizabeth Warren. And of those black candidates, none got the nomination, and only one (Kamala Harris) got to the White House as Puddin’ Head Joe’s Vice-President. Not too shabby for someone who I almost tied in the Iowa Caucuses and I didn’t even run.

Out of that and the shootings of blacks that occurred in 2019-2020, the idea of reparations gained new steam, which prompted California to create the aforementioned Reparations Task Force.

So, now that we’re back in the present, let’s start shitting on the reparations idea, shall we?

As a concept, reparations aren’t that hard to understand. We wronged an entire race of people by enslaving them and treating them worse than Ike treated Tina, so we want to try to balance the scales somehow. Admirable goal, but the logistical equivalent of an M.C. Escher drawing.

The biggest hurdle to the idea of reparations is the fact none of the people who are demanding it today were ever slaves. And it’s not like we can fire up the TARDIS, go back to 1865, drop off $5 million, and tell the slaves to invest heavily in Apple in 100+ years. Although time can be a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, it’s still bound by fixed events that can be tracked. And with the passage of time comes the birth of generation after generation that are removed from slavery altogether, save by bloodline.

But does bloodline alone create a solid enough link to award $5 million? That creates another speed bump to payday: what about those who either didn’t own slaves or fought for the Union in the Civil War? If bloodline is enough to give away money, it should also be good enough to exempt people from being forced to contribute to this monetary transfer. I have two relatives who fought for the Union (who, by the way, fought at least in part to end slavery). Yet, I get the feeling I would be expected to open my wallet and give generously to the Give Non-Slaves $5 Million Because Fuck You That’s Why Foundation.

And don’t get me started on their telethons!

Then, there’s the question of mixed-race children. Back in the day, white slaveowners knocked boots with slaves, which resulted in the genes of both races coming together to form a new life. Would the families of such a sexual union have to pay up or receive reparations? Or maybe they would just get $2.5 million? Or would the white half have to pay the black half $5 million?

Regardless, the fact we can even ask some of these questions without the pro-reparations side coming up with answers is not a good sign. But wait, there’s more!

Dropping $5 million into anyone’s lap is going to be significant, and it opens up any number of opportunities. And if it’s bundled in hundred dollar bills, it’s going to make the males in the audience sing tenor for a few years. For most people, though, it’s life-changing money, but only if it’s used intelligently. This is where human nature comes into play. If we get any amount of money from $2 on a scratch-off ticket to millions of dollars, our first instinct is to spend it. If this sum comes with few strings attached, though, we can get pretty reckless with it because in our minds it’s “free money.”

But just as any breadwinner today can tell you, money can run out fast if you’re not careful. Or if you vote for Puddin’ Head Joe, which is pretty much the same thing as not being careful.

When we don’t know or care how we get the money, we have less of an incentive to be smart with it. And, no, this isn’t a racial thing, but rather a human thing. Economists have studied this phenomenon for decades and it always ends the same way: the further we are away from earning money, the easier it gets to spend. Hence, the reason so many big lottery winners end up blowing their winnings and winding up right back where they started.

Guess what I think will happen to the reparations money if it gets approved.

And it’s not like there isn’t precedent with this. Remember Hurricane Katrina (which, oddly or appropriately enough, was the last time Kanye West was relevant)? Well, some inventive (and ultimately dishonest) people found a way to turn tragedy into a windfall to the tune of an estimated $2 billion. Between recipients of the aid spending the money on non-essential items, including vacations and porn, and others getting relief funds for people who didn’t exist, Katrina proved to be a disaster of a natural disaster response.

But the Katrina failure was more federal, right? Nothing like that could happen on the state level, right? Wellllll…not really. Our good friends on the Left Coast racked up an estimated $20 billion in fraud related to the pandemic. Leftists bad with money? Why that’s…pretty normal, really.

Now, why would I bring up Katrina and COVID in a discussion about reparations? To underscore a point that will taint the idea: governments, especially large ones, don’t keep good tabs on who is getting the money. It’s more of a rubber-stamp process. Granted, the reparations initiative in San Francisco comes with some conditions, but I’m not sure the state government that racked up ten times the Katrina fraud is capable of making sure the conditions are met.

But then again, it’s not meant to be effective or efficient except in one area: easing the guilt white Leftists feel over slavery. And they’re willing to spend as much of your money as possible to make sure they feel better no matter how long it takes! When you consider the amount of guilt a Leftist could prevent brownouts in California if it could be converted into electricity, let’s just say you might as well give the government access to your bank accounts. I mean, if China doesn’t already have it, thanks to TikTok.

It’s at this point I need to remind the white Leftists…none of you fuckknuckles were alive during slavery. You can feel bad about what happened generations ago, but to make it a central part of your life is a bit extreme and at this point silly. Kinda like the Young Turks, but less comedic. You cannot change the past, nor can you expect any amount of money to ever make it right because there will always be people willing to prey on your guilt to get more money out of you. As long as the greedy and dishonest among us see Leftist largess as free money, the spigot will never turn completely off and there will be fraud aplenty.

The thing is the Left has made it amazingly easy to game the system, thanks to the rhetoric they’ve already presented as true. And eagle-eyed readers already know how. Remember, the Left maintains how you self-identify is as real as how you are. Rachel Dolezal and Shawn King both identify as black in spite of being whiter than a medical isolation room run by Mormon IBM executives. Yet, they were/are considered to be authentic voices on the black experience in America.

Well, shit. If they can do it, so can I. And I can think of 5 million reasons to do it!

And California can’t say shit about it. Well, they can, but they’ll look like hypocritical assholes doing it. So, win-win!

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

This week was a big one for our friends at Fox News. Sure, the Left loves to talk about the Dominion defamation lawsuit against the network, but the Fox hate was cranked up to 12 (because 11 just won’t do) because of Tucker Carlson showing previously unreleased security footage from January 6th. You know, that insurrection that simultaneously could have destroyed the nation and was run by dumb Trump supporters?

Well, since both Leftists and, well, other Leftists are losing their collectivist shit over the footage, I figured it was time to take a look at the little cable network that could…bitch slap CNN and MSNBC into oblivion.

Fox News

What the Left thinks it means – a radical right wing network that lies to the country, thus becoming a national security threat

What it really means – a right-leaning network that represents everything the Left fears/hates

Fox News Channel began in 1996 from humble beginnings. Well, as humble as can be while being funded by a wealthy Australian. Anyway, Fox News was established as an alternative to the media, who lean so far left they walk at a 5 degree angle perpendicular to the ground, and it proved to be very successful. No longer did we have Leftist talking heads telling us what and how to think about the events of the day. Now, we had “fair and balanced” news.

Kinda.

It’s hard to overcome personal biases in the media, but Fox News at least tried to do it for a long time, and they still do. But try to convince a Leftist raised on Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann of that. They’ll continue to say Fox News isn’t really news because of all the lies they tell.

Seriously? Have you fucknuckles looked in the mirror lately?

Where the Left gets things twisted is a common blind spot for people: separating news from opinion. To the Left, the two are inseparable as they believe their opinions are facts. Granted, the Right does this as well, but in their defense people on the Right can be persuaded with facts most of the time. Their ego isn’t tied to being correct. The Left’s is.

But actual reporting has little to do with ego. The journalism of even the past 50 years has gone from hitting the pavement to hitting up a Leftist politician on Twitter to get a quote for a story that’s pretty much plug-and-play. Just add a quote or two, make Republicans look bad, and you’re done.

Fox News’ actual reporting isn’t anything like that from what I’ve seen. For one, they get blocked by Twitter Leftists. But more importantly the reporters on staff do amazing work. Even former Fox News contributors like Catherine Herridge found work after leaving it because of her reputation as a strong, driven reporter. And if you look at the body of her work, you’ll find a common theme: report the facts without emotional attachments. She’s like a female Data.

This blurring of lines between news and opinion actually makes the rest of the media look bad, mainly because they assume Fox News does what they do, only with more of a conservative bent. Of course, Leftists think…excuse me…AHAAAHAAAAAHAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAA!

So, where was I? Oh, yes, Leftist media.

Being anything to the right of the Socialist Socialite makes you incredible to Leftists, and not in a good way. Once you get branded as a conservative, Leftists no longer consider you to be human, let alone credible. Just ask Matt Taibbi, a reporter that used to work for Leftist rag Rolling Stone and is now reporter-non-grata for his role in the Twitter Files.

Yet, this is lazy thinking. Dismissing a source solely because of political leanings is silly. You need to take the time and really look at the body of work before you determine how badly they suck. Then, you can dismiss them.

In the case of Fox News, I can’t completely dismiss them for having no credibility. Their news side is consistently running circles around the competition by being good at their jobs. It’s the commentary side that ultimately hurts the network. Sure, they have solid contributors like Brit Hume, Greg Gutfeld, Tammy Bruce, and Tulsi Gabbard, people whose opinions aren’t hidden and even-handed.

Then, there’s the hard pro-Trump side like Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, neither of one I can stand because they just find ways to say the same things over and over again night after night. If I wanted to hear Trump talking points, I would go right to the source, not filtered through people whose opinions I care less about than the insane homeless man I see on my way to work. Although the homeless guy did give me some great stock tips…

Regardless, Fox News is doing something right because they continue to dominate the cable news ratings. Granted, ratings doesn’t always mean quality. I’m looking right at you “Friends.” You owe me 3 years of my life back watching Ross and Rachel. And no number of times singing “Smelly Cat” will make up for it.

Yet, Fox News has enough crossover appeal that it gets people on the Left and the Right to watch. This link is from 2019, so the numbers may have changed, but the fact Fox News continues to dominate month after month, year after year, makes it harder to dismiss the network as niche. Even with the Dominion lawsuit looming over them, it just doesn’t matter.

And that’s what pisses off Leftists the most. No matter what they do, no matter how many boycotts or hashtags they come up with, Fox News keeps chugging along, making CNN and MSNBC fight for the scraps. Or scrap for the scraps, if you prefer (and I do).

Of course, the Left can’t let that happen, so they’re doing what they can to attack Fox News. Hence, the accusations they’re a threat to national security and lie all the time. And hence the reason they have to lie about what Fox News is.

A lot of the “Fox News is a national security threat” bullshit arose in the aftermath of January 6th, a dark day in our history where…let me check my notes…a bunch of people attended a rally in Washington, DC, to protest an election they felt was stolen and some asshats decided to be destructive dicks. Apparently, protesting the results of a contested election is a national security threat to the Left.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries? Please pick up the white courtesy phone. You may be a national security threat.

Where Fox News comes into the picture is related to the Dominion lawsuit in that the network is alleged to have lied to its viewers about the 2020 Presidential election being stolen, which prompted the January 6th “insurrection,” which as we’ve been told is worse than 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and another “Scary Movie” sequel…combined.

I won’t dispute Fox News had a hand in the “stolen election” narrative. What I do dispute is that they knowingly lied. I didn’t vote for Trump or Puddin’ Head Joe, so I don’t really have a dog in the hunt, but I can’t completely dismiss the idea there was some funky shit going down at the polls. Polling places running out of ballots, allegations of renewed counting after most of the vote counters had left, and other irregularities became the coin of the Trump realm. I can’t say every accusation of election irregularities could be substantiated with facts, but there were enough to make me question whether the results we got on Election Day 2020 were real or Memorex. And, me being the curious boy I am, I want to get to the bottom of it.

And apparently Fox News did, too. When the rest of the media dismissed the possibility of election fraud out of hand (while saying the 2016 election was fundamentally flawed because of Russia, Russia, Russia), Fox News became the contrarian and started to look at what happened with a critical eye.

You know, like reporters are supposed to do?

But is this questioning a threat to national security? In a word. In two words, fuck no. In three words, fuckity fuck no. In four words…well, let’s just say there’s a lot more variations of “fuck” used.

The First Amendment says Congress cannot pass laws prohibiting the redress of grievances against the government. If a rally about possible election fraud isn’t a redress of grievances, I don’t know what is. At the very least, the January 6 protestors had a Constitutional right to do what they did. Once they breached the rules of decorum to commit criminal acts, that protection goes the way of Kamala Harris’ Presidential hopes in 2024.

On top of that, the concept of January 6th being a “riot” or an “insurrection” is being undone by the security footage being shown. Most of the people at the rally stayed outside, and those who gained access to the Capitol mostly…took a tour, some with the help of the Capitol Police on duty that day.

But wait a minute! Wouldn’t that prove the Left’s narrative about January 6th is full of shit? Why, yes…yes it would! But they can’t just say “The real reason we lied about January 6th is because we got scared by a bunch of non-violent Americans who disagree with us” because it would go over as well as giving David Duke an NAACP Image Award.

And not to put too fine a point on this, but who was President on January 6, 2021? That would be Donald Trump, not Puddin’ Head Joe. There was no transfer of power, no transition (except maybe for some members of the Biden Administration), and no attempt to overthrow the government. For January 6th to be an actual insurrection, the protestors/”rioters” would have to be seeking to overthrow…the man they supported for President in 2020. Fox News broadcasting security footage doesn’t make the lack of logic behind the “insurrection” go away, nor is it nearly as horrible as the Left wants to make it out to be. The only real threat with releasing the security footage isn’t to national security, but to the security of the Leftist narrative.

Now, for the lying. Not on my part, but to the allegations Fox News misinforms its viewers. Let’s just say any major media outlet that pushed even one-tenth of the stories about Russiagate being real should take all the seats. Much of what passes for reporting these days revolves around lying, whether it be omitting context, fabricating stories to advance a narrative, or spinning events to make one side look better than the other. In fact, most of the “reporters” today should get an additional pay for being the DNC’s steno pool.

Fox News is no different, except for the DNC steno pool bit. They do exactly what the rest of the media do, only for the Right instead of the Left. That’s not meant as an excuse, but rather an observation built over 35 years of studying the media both formally and informally. It’s hypocritical for the Left to hold Fox News to a higher standard than they hold themselves, but it’s par for the Alinsky course. Not that you’d ever get an actual admission of dishonesty from the Left, mind you. They’re still clinging to the “very fine people on both sides” lie as though it were a security blanket.

So, is Fox News as bad as its critics say it is? Yes, and no. They are a product of the current media environment and are guilty of at least some of the sins attributed to it. Overall, they’re no better or worse than any other media outlet, and much of the criticism levied against it is the result of partisan hyperbole. Having said that, Fox News has a lot of room to improve. Don’t fall back on reciting RNC/Donald Trump talking points and go back to reporting that lives up to the “fair and balanced” standard.

Oh, and fire Geraldo Rivera. He’s as useful as tits on Michael Moore.

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

After 3 years of COVID-19 coverage, we’re starting to come to a new understanding of what happened or could have happened. Of course, it was Russia, Russia, Russia!

One of the early hypotheses about COVID’s origins was it originated in a lab in Wuhan, China, and got out. Of course, the Left said it was bullshit and went about limiting even the illusion of a debate by getting social media companies to censor those who advanced the idea as plausible. Now, the FBI, Department of Energy, and other government entities are starting to say there might be something to the lab leak theory.

Which means we get to talk about it a bit more!

I know you’re out there. I can hear you groaning.

lab leak theory

What the Left thinks it means – a plausible, yet not seriously considered explanation for the spread of COVID-19

What it really means – a prime example of the Left controlling a narrative until it no longer benefits them

Just in case any Interwebs Po-Po are reading this, I must say I am not a doctor, nor should anything I say be considered medical advice. I’m just a guy who paid a little attention in high school science classes and occasionally makes humorous comments about the absurdity of life. Do not take my commentary seriously and don’t take any actions that goes against your legal and moral best interests without checking with your doctor, your religious leader, your family, some guy name Earl, or a tax professional. Hell, talk to them all just to be safe!

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s fuck up a narrative!

As faithful readers know, I like to do mental exercises to see how plausible an idea is. When there are breaks in the logic that can’t be explained away with an equally plausible explanation or after a couple of drinks, I dismiss it.

The lab leak theory? Not as easily dismissed as the Left made it sound.

Before COVID-19 became a household word (mainly because we weren’t supposed to leave the house), lab leaks weren’t uncommon. In fact, it keeps happening over and over again. At this rate, security guards in California are more secure than some labs!

So, this raises the question of why the Left’s tune changed with COVID-19 if they knew lab leaks were fairly common in recent history. It’s simple: President Donald Trump. After seeing Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, the Left had a Paul Bunyon-sized ax to grind and would resort to any means to get rid of Trump.

Even denying the science they claimed to be following from the jump.

And, yes, I’m just as shocked as you are that Leftists would lie so brazenly and expect us not to pay attention.

Yet, in spite of their best efforts to keep it quiet, the Left couldn’t completely drown out the lab leak theory because there was just enough there there to keep it alive. That’s the way all conspiracy theories work: find a kernel of truth (i.e. there is fluoride in our drinking water), expand it a little bit (i.e. the federal government is putting fluoride in our drinking water), and then add to it to absurd lengths (i.e. the federal government is putting fluoride in our drinking water for mind control).

Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like what global warming cultists do…naaaaaaah!

Even so, the lab leak theory never got to the last stage, but the Left made it look like it was there through the media coverage and their government lackeys. But, as so many matters originally dismissed as conspiracy theories these days, the truth started to make its way out and made the conspiracy a reality. Then, the media started to change their tune a bit to lessen the blow by admitting there was merit to the lab leak theory, but it was Trump’s fault it wasn’t taken seriously.

In other words, Leftist default position 1.

But this narrative falls apart because it’s an example of a logical fallacy called poisoning the well. In short, it’s when a party tries to discredit another party’s claims through character assassination rather than an actual argument. In other words, Leftist default position 2. Regardless of how you feel about a source, when he or she tells the truth, it’s the truth and should be recognized as such.

The fact Donald Trump was the most vocal and visible advocate of the lab leak theory made it easier for Leftists to dismiss it, but now the government they voted into office is saying he may be right after all makes it harder to dismiss now. And justifiably so. The possibility of COVID-19 escaping from a Chinese lab isn’t that far-fetched and seemed much more plausible than wet market bat-du-joir theory.

Now, the Left’s entire approach has been rendered more worthless than a Pauly Shore NFT, and they’re scrambling to memory-hole what they said before. The Left hates to be proven wrong on anything, so when it happens, they treat it like most children do: ignore it until it goes away and lie about it throughout. And as any parent will tell you, it doesn’t work.

And it won’t work here. Or it won’t work if we’re willing to stand firm on the side of the truth. Every time a Leftist comes around to accept the lab leak theory (rarer than how Dracula takes his steak tartare, but I’m trying to be optimistic), thank them for joining you on the right side of this issue and welcome them to the truth. And if they don’t run away screaming like they’ve been doused with holy water (or soap and water for that matter), show them the grace they didn’t show you. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it will piss them off to no end because it will be another Leftist idea that is proven wrong.

Loyalty Oath

The RNC is saying that all candidates for the 2024 Presidential election must sign a loyalty pledge to support the eventual nominee or they wont be allowed to debate. This is mainly aimed at President Donald Trump who rejected such a pledge back in 2016 and is so far rejecting such a pledge now.

However, Speaker Ryan has come out to state he would not attend the national convention if Trump was the nominee. I’m sure others would also make such statements as well.

If you want to go down this route with loyalty oaths. Make the entire RNC delegation pledge to support the nominee. Even if it is Trump and see how many want to sign it.

If that produces a lot of push back. Drop the idea. Loyalty pledges aren’t for the Republic. Democracies or all totalitarian Leftist states certainly. But they have no place on the right.

I am not for any one specific Republican candidate right now. I know of at least 3 people running for the nomination and there will be more. But right now I can’t say who I will support.

Irreconcilable Differences

It was bound to happen, kids. Marjorie Taylor Greene said something that almost made my head explode with the sheer stupidity of it. Recently she came out and said we need a “national divorce” between red and blue states. As much fun as it would be to have America turned into a sitcom trope, I think this is a bad idea. Why?

For one, because the idea started from a 2004 meme.

But more importantly, because it’s going to lead to civil war, no matter what MTG says. Right now, ideological rifts are wider than Steven Tyler’s mouth at a dental appointment. People on the Left and the Right wake up and choose violence, hatred, and half-witted squawking points from their shit-flingers of choice.

At the core of this strife is a fundamental difference, not just of ideas, but of reality itself. Take gender, for example. Right now, Leftists believe there are more genders than Baskin Robbins has ice cream flavors (dining tip: avoid the Gender Fluid Fudge Ripple), while the Right believes there are only two. Now, I’m not a biologist or a Supreme Court nominee for that matter, but if we’re going to fight over something that hasn’t become an issue until the past few years and isn’t rooted in the age-old conflict of reality versus feefees, something tells me splitting up the country will end badly.

Just think about the sheer logistics of such an enterprise. Although there are clear red and blue states, there are a number of purple states, such as my home state of Iowa. Sometimes, we vote for Democrats, and other times we vote for Republicans. Where exactly would we fit? Would it turn into a custody battle between California and Texas where we spend two weekends a month with one state and the other two weekends with the other? And what if one state lets us stay up past our bedtimes and buys us all the toys, games, and gadgets we want in an attempt to appear to be the “cool state”? Then, there would be getting used to our new “step-states” and trying to fit in.

These are the kind of questions people gung ho for a national divorce haven’t considered yet, if they’ve considered them at all.

The sad part is, having said all that, I don’t see any way out of it. There are too many differences for us to try to work on as a nation, and when we can’t even agree on how many genders there are, it’s pretty much destined to fail. There is no reimagined version of the Yalta Conference coming soon to a TV screen near you. America is, to put it bluntly, stuck in a swamp of our own creation. And I’m not talking about Washington, DC.

And don’t expect our national leaders to lend a hand. Not only do they get off on us being at each other’s throats like a Nosferatu fistfight, but the strife helps them get away with more underhanded shit. The wallet-busting multi-trillion dollar Omnibus Spending Bill from a few weeks ago proved that. And as long as the Left and the Right continue to let us bicker, the wheels of the country get further and further sucked into the marsh, making it harder for us to get out.

So, what do we do? First off, we should reject the idea of a national divorce, no matter who agrees with it, because the eventual conclusion of such an idea will be bloody, messy, and possibly fracture the country even more than it already is. Besides, we’ve already done this. Remember that little thing the kids like to call the Civil War/War Between the States/War of Northern Aggression/That Thing We Have Totally Forgotten About or Never Learned in the First Place Because Racism? Yeah, Gettysburg is gonna look like a Buddhist picnic compared ot what we have in store.

Beyond that…I got nothing. No, wait, I do have something: look past the differences we have and look for the similarities. At the end of the day, we’re all Americans (unless you’re reading this in a different country…but I can put in a good word for you and make sure you get the Honorary American tour package). It doesn’t matter if you’re a Trump-loving Republican named Roy or a non-binary genderfluid person named Magnolia with more pronouns than college majors, there are still some things that can bring us all together.

You know, like thinking Michael Bay should never make another movie ever?

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

If the Left didn’t hate Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy before now (spoiler alert: they did), giving access to tens of thousands of hours of surveillance footage from January 6th to Tucker Carlson. With Leftists already believing Carlson is a Russian asset, this has given them the opportunity to talk about national security. After all, letting a Russian asset (in their opinion) gain access to security footage from January 6, the most horrifying day in American history up there with Pearl Harbor and 9/11 (again, in their opinion), has to be a national security risk, right?

Well, to paraphrase the Commander in Briefs Bill Clinton, that depends on what your definition of national security is.

national security

What the Left believes it means – ummm…they’re still working on it

What it really means – a concept that means less and less with each passing year

To put it mildly, national security is a pretty big fucking deal. It’s essential to all of our lives, even if we don’t give it a first thought, let alone a second thought. It allows us to live free, or at least as freely as the Puddin’ Head Joe Administration will allows us to live. It ensures we don’t have to worry about foreign countries invading us and destroying America.

By the way, I’ve got my eye on you, Canada! No trying to get us to adopt the metric system on my watch!

If you really think about it, and I do because I have to entertain myself somehow since prices are higher than Willie Nelson on any day ending in day, national security touches every aspect of our lives on some level. So, why do we take it for granted?

A huge part of it is how invulnerable we’ve felt as a country since the Cold War. After the Berlin Wall fell, there were no more superpowers to challenge us. The Soviet Union was no more, China was years away from firing up its economic power, and the Middle East was, well, the Middle East. For all intents and purposes, we were untouchable.

Then 9/11 happened. That woke us up, at least for a little while, to how vulnerable we could still be. Granted, the warning signs were there if we had bothered to put 2 and 2 together and come up with something other than potato (thanks to Simon Miller for that joke). After all the outpouring of sympathy, all the brave words that we’d find who was responsible and bring them to justice, all the patriotic bunting and good feelings, we promptly…forgot about it after a year or so. But in our defense “Friends” was on, so…

Since then, our approach to national security has been spottier than a freckled-faced Jackson Pollock impersonator using a cheetah for a canvas. (Not something I’d recommend, by the way, especially if your clothes are dry clean only.) It’s become a stock talking point for both sides that has a level of gravitas and a seemingly untouchable nature about it that prevents Joe Sixpack or Taemmi Soylatte from thinking any deeper about it than “It’s good.”

And that’s where both parties fuck us at the drive-thru.

For decades, our national security has been tied to how much we’re willing to spend on it. With Republicans, it tends to be neat new weapons, gadgets, and tech, and with Democrats it tends to be more “soft” spending on diversity, diplomacy, and making sure other country’s fee-fees don’t get hurt by us. Yet, with all of that spending, we aren’t that much safer. If anything, we’ve gotten more lax due to an unhealthy cocktail of political gaslighting and social media.

Let’s start with the gaslighting since it’s the most pervasive and, thus, more fun to talk about. Both sides use this tactic to bolster their own version of national security. If you don’t approve of spending $450 on a screwdriver you can get at Home Depot for $8, the Right thinks you support China, North Korea, or dare I say it Trinidad Tobago marching down our streets and making us their bitches. If you don’t agree to using military (i.e. taxpayer) dollars to combat global climate change, the Left thinks you want to pollute the Earth to the point only cockroaches and the Kardashians would survive.

Both sides are wrong in the same bipartisan way. It doesn’t matter how much you spend on a security system if you never turn it on. And guess what, kids? We have been forgetting to turn it on for decades, all the while keeping every door unlocked and all our valuables in one convenient and highly visible spot for anyone to come along and take them.

And, yes, I’m about to talk about the balloon incident.

On January 28th, a Chinese balloon was able to fly over Alaska, western Canada, and parts of the United States before it was shot down over the East Coast. On February 4th. Even if you buy the multiple excuses the Left gave for why the balloon wasn’t shot down over, well, Alaska, the fact remains it took 8 fucking days and an entire cross country trip for us to do anything. And then, as if to try to balance out the dumbfuckery, we got hyper-vigilant and started shooting down balloons that weren’t even Chinese.

It’s one thing to double down after making a mistake. But the Puddin’ Head Joe Administration decided to double, triple, and quadruple down on the mistake just to show how serious they were. Which is to say not serious at all. The very fact a single balloon made it into American airspace, was recognized, and was allowed to go coast to coast without so much as a dart thrown at it is a serious breach of national security.

After all, we don’t know what kind of equipment the balloon had, if it had any. We are just being told that it was either harmless due to spy satellites giving better information or that it was made harmless because we jammed any transmissions (neither of which, I might add, has been established with any factual information). In other words, Leftists want us to believe the same balloon was ineffective because shut up.

After the Chinese balloon debacle, it’s a good thing there wasn’t a train derailment or…oh, wait. Never mind.

Even with what people observed, we had to endure Leftists telling us it wasn’t a big deal and people who said we should have shot the balloon down sooner were “bedwetters” as Senator Chris Murphy put it so inelegantly. To try to get Puddin’ Head Joe as far away from the blame as possible, they even tried to pull Donald Trump into it, saying he also had Chinese balloons come into American airspace during his Presidency, a claim that was later debunked by former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who said it didn’t happen. I mean, it was obvious, considering it was claimed those alleged balloon flights under Trump weren’t discovered allegedly until the Puddin’ Head Joe Administration…according to the Puddin’ Head Joe Administration.

I’m as shocked as you are the Administration would lie to cover up the Administration’s clusterfuck! And to try to make us feel bad or foolish for not buying the bullshit? That’s lower than an earthworm’s belt buckle.

Now, onto social media. Granted, I don’t have a high opinion of social media to begin with, but there’s one out there that is actually being used for surveillance against us. I’m speaking of TikTok, a popular app that has been linked to spying on journalists and has the potential to track information of American citizens and government workers.

Oh, and it should be pointed out the Trump Administration called this out in 2020, and people mocked them for it, saying it was a conspiracy spun for political advantage. Yeah…chalk up another “conspiracy theory” that wound up being a fact.

Before we take a victory lap at the Left being wrong again, consider the implications of what we know. China has access to information, which is in and of itself a matter of national security, not just because government employees might be doing a stupid dance for tens and tens of people to see. The thing that makes TikTok so dangerous is the fact so many Americans voluntarily give up this information.

In our society’s rush to be “Internet famous,” we have opened ourselves up to invasions of privacy and, yes, security. Say what you will about the Chinese, and believe me I have, but they have figured us out in 2023 America. Just give us a dopamine hit for meaningless videos and we’ll let them mine our data. Brilliant!

Although neither major party has it exactly right, I do have to say Republicans take national security more seriously. After all, the Left keeps saying domestic terrorism is the greatest threat to our national security right now. And by “domestic terrorism” they mean “anybody who disagrees with us and aren’t afraid to say anything about it.”

Look at how they painted parents who were concerned/outraged over pornographic books teaching children about homosexuality and blow jobs in elementary school. You would think these parents were one step below the Manson Family the way the Left talked. But when you get people of all stripes to come out against what you’re trying to push in elementary school, it’s no longer a matter of hatred, fear, or even national security. Maybe, just maybe, your ideas suck ass.

While the Left gets their collectivist panties in a bunch over people pretending to be badasses, we still have real issues with national security we need to address. And with China and Russia united over a) hating us, b) wanting to fuck our shit up as much as possible and c) having the means to do both electronically, we can’t afford to be asleep at the switch anymore.

But we need to be honest here. Neither major party is doing jack shit about protecting ourselves, mainly because we continue to confuse the definition to fit their ideological needs at the time. Is ANTIFA a national security threat? No, nor should they be considered such. Are Trump supporters national security threats? No, and they shouldn’t be considered such either. Once you start pulling away the layers of this fetid onion, you get closer and closer to the core of what national security actually looks like.

And what does it look like? A strong and vigilant population who strive for the same goal of protecting America regardless of their ideological differences. As we’ve seen since Kevin McCarthy’s actions involving January 6 footage, we’re a long ways off from that.

But, hey, at least we can still use TikTok, right?

Perot 2.0?

The year was 1992. Jay Leno became the host of “The Tonight Show” following Johnny Carson’s departure. We were still five years away from Hanson MMMBopping their way into our hearts. And a funny little man from Texas had the attention of a nation with some pretty radical ideas for the time.

I’m speaking of the late Ross Perot, two-time Presidential candidate under the Reform Party and favorite target for late night comedians. What has been lost to time has been just how impactful Perot was on politics in his relatively short time in it. Without his presence in the 1992, we might not have gotten a President Bill Clinton, a Vice President Al Gore, and a First Lady Hillary Clinton. Of course, we might not have had that if George H. W. Bush had campaigned like he wanted a second term as President, but that’s not important right now. What is important is how some people can impact an election merely by being in it.

What does that have to do with the upcoming 2024 Presidential election? Two words: bacon cheeseburger. And two more words: Donald Trump. Although Trump has already announced he is running as a Republican in 2024 (as his early attempts to attack Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis show), there’s still a part of me that thinks he will go third party if he doesn’t get the nod.

Can you say “Ross Perot 2: Electoral Boogaloo”? I knew you could.

Right now Trump has a significant, but not total, amount of support within Republican circles, especially with the grassroots. Much like Perot before him, Trump has advanced some unique ideas that, shockingly, make a lot of sense. And also like Perot, Trump has a level of unpredictability that makes him damn near impossible to figure out. But there is one thing that isn’t that hard to figure out: Trump loved being President.

And apparently I’m addicted to using colons.

Anyway, being President was clearly Trump’s favorite position because it afforded him more power than he’s ever had, along with more attention than he’s ever had. From a brand standpoint, there is no real downside because even negative attention is attention. Just ask Kim Kardashian. Even now, people can’t stop talking about him, whether it be blaming him for train derailments and Chinese balloons flying over the country, praising him to no end, or screaming about how he’s getting away with everything and should be thrown in jail.

So, completely rational mentions.

What happens if the Trump Train goes off the rails and he doesn’t get the nomination? There are going to be a lot of pissed-off people, enough to…oh, I don’t know…convince Trump to run as a third party candidate. And guess who gets the biggest benefit, even though he’s been an inept fuckknuckle as President?

Puddin’ Head Joe.

If Trump goes third party, is weakens the Republican candidate, whoever it is. That adds a lot of pressure on him or her to sway Trump voters, which may be a fool’s errand. Most Trump voters are Ride or Die with him, no matter what. And anyone who isn’t living a Boo Radley type existence knows it, which means Leftists will pick up on it in a couple of weeks.

Although the conventional political wisdom says third parties hurt Republicans more than Democrats, it’s only been an issue in recent history because third parties have siphoned enough votes away from a candidate to weaken the primary party candidate. Whether it’s Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, or Jill Stein, third parties get the rap for a candidate underperforming. With Trump, though, it is all but a certainty he will be the cause of a Republican defeat.

There are two ways to avert this scenario: let Trump win, or nominate someone who can sway Trump voters to vote for him or her. The former sets up a rematch with Puddin’ Head Joe, while the latter opens the door for a Trump third party run, thus ensuring history repeated itself. And a Trump-Biden rematch isn’t a guaranteed victory for the former President, even with Biden having the Midas Touch in reverse. There’s still enough hatred of the former President out there to make it tougher for him to win.

So, fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t.

Good luck with that.

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

If you want to see what kind of leader a man or woman is, watch them during times of difficulty. Anybody can lead when nothing happens. Case in point: the United Nations. But when something major happens, like…oh, I don’t know…a massive derailment in East Lebanon, Ohio, causing deaths, toxic chemicals being released, and a fire, among other things..the real leaders step up and take charge.

Then, there’s the Biden Administration. When something like the train derailment referenced above (a completely made-up and not at all real scenario, mind you) occurs, the government moves at the speed of light…colored sloths partying with Snoop Dogg and Willie Nelson in Amsterdam. I mean, it only took 10+ days for the White House to contact the mayor of East Lebanon…in this completely hypothetical example, of course.

This sort of situation would fall under the auspices of the Department of Transportation. So…yeah. We’re gonna talk about it this week.

the Department of Transportation

What the Left thinks it means – a federal agency that oversees any transportation concerns on a national level

What it really means – a federal agency that needs a serious revamp

The year was 1966. Miranda Rights became a thing, well before there was a “Sex In the City.” A young Ronald Reagan became Governor of California. And in 3 short years, an amazing young man would be born, one who would capture the imaginations of a hungry nation. That man, of course, is Paul Rudd.

Oh, and the Department of Transportation came into being via an act of Congress. And, as if this couldn’t get any better, the Department’s first day of work was April 1, 1967. Quite the April Fool’s joke.

The Department of Transportation’s mission statement is:

To deliver the world’s leading transportation system, serving the American people and economy through the safe, efficient, sustainable, and equitable movement of people and goods. 

To accomplish this, there are 11 agencies and bureaus that are under the DOT’s umbrella. They are:

– U.S. Department of Transportation Office of the Secretary (OST)
– National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
– Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
– Office of Inspector General (OIG)
– Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
– Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)
– Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)
– Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)
– Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation (GLS)
– Federal Transit Administration (FTA)
– Maritime Administration (MARAD)

Now, unless I’m completely off in my reading comprehension, I do believe railway safety might be in the Department of Transportation’s wheelhouse. Good thing there hasn’t been a major railway accident recently or things might get really embarrassing!

On a larger level, the Department of Transportation has its fingers in a lot of pies, which may not necessarily be bad as long as those fingers are actually accomplishing something or staying on top of issues affecting transportation on a national level. And with 55,000 employees, the job duties alone must keep them pretty busy.

I’d like to think that, but then I looked into the bullshit they’re working on instead of their jobs. Since February 3, the DOT issued 5 press releases, the most recent of which being announcing a Biden Administration initiative for a national network…of electric car chargers. Great for EV owners, not so good for the people of East Palestine…you know, if something happened there. And a quick search of their press releases shows…a big fat goose egg referencing the train derailment (that I completely made up off the top of my head).

But this is par for the course in government these days. For all of the talk (or lack thereof) about accountability, very few government drones get anything more serious than a tersely worded memo with all the force of a pillow fight. And even when some heads roll, it’s never the people running the department or agency. It’s usually the lowest-level drones with the least connection to the crime. Remember Lois Lerner? After a pretty public scandal where evidence showed she had a hand in committing tax fraud against conservative groups, she skated away like Brian Boitano.

So, what’s happening with the current DOT Secretary, Pete “Mr. Mom” Buttigieg? Well, that’s kinda hard to say, but what is clear is he’s doing his best to downplay the severity of the train derailment (which, I remind you, is completely hypothetical). After all, there are a thousand derailments per year, according to the Secretary, so this one (which is still completely hypothetical) is no big deal.

But at least he’s maintaining the DOT’s five core policy goals: safety, jobs, equity, climate, and innovation. Well, with the completely made up situation in East Lebanon, one has nothing to do with transportation (equity), one is guaranteed due to the derailment (jobs), and the other three are FUBAR. Even if you make the argument everyone in the community will be getting sick equitably, that’s a MOAFU: Mother of All Fuck-Ups.

It’s that this point we need to ask ourselves why we even have a Department of Transportation if they can’t even handle the basics of their jobs. You’ll get no argument from me on that front. Just judging from the shape of many of our interstates here in Iowa (where three of our four seasons are Construction), we could do better hiring the Three Stooges to take care of our roads, and they’re all dead.

Instead of just making jokes at the DOT’s expense (which is a lot of fucking fun), let me offer a solution. We currently have an infrastructure problem, as we’ve heard from people claiming health care and child care are infrastructure. But, nobody’s really doing anything about it. Even the recent Pork-A-Palooza…I mean omnibus spending bill split $87.3 billion between the DOT and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is an increase from the $81 billion from the 2022 fiscal year.

As much as the Left tells us we need more money to fix what’s broken, we need to figure out how exactly the Department of Transportation is spending the money we’re giving them. And judging from their self-published news stories, they’re focusing a lot of energy on passenger railroads, not commercial ones. And no matter how much is getting spent, it’s clear nothing proposed or earmarked would have stopped the derailment. You know, if it actually happened.

This means we need to do a full audit of what is being spent where and on what. If we’re spending more on feel-good but utterly irrelevant programs than we are on railway infrastructure, that has to change. Any derailment, large or small, disastrous or minor, is one too many. Even if Secretary Buttigieg and President Puddin’ Head Joe are blase about them, it’s not a good look because, well, trains are fucking transportation. Locate what needs to be fixed and spend the money to fix them. Even if it puts more Left-friendly projects on the back burner, learning how to be more inclusive in LGBTQIMTHEVERYMODELOFAMODERNMAJORGENERAL circles is less important than making sure trains don’t derail with the frequency of a celebrity going into rehab for the 248th time.

Along with this audit, we need to figure out what jobs they do that can be done at the state level. States have a vested interest in maintaining roads, bridges, and the like because otherwise no one would visit. Why not let them decide what needs to be fixed when? A bridge that’s more unstable than Lindsay Lohan on a bender with Charlie Sheen can’t wait to get fixed while millions get spent on a port in a completely different part of the country. Even if the port is in poor shape, it should be handled by those closest to the port rather than at a national level, where spending decisions are made by people who don’t care about either, but love the votes those decisions garner.

At this point, the Department of Transportation needs to be under the microscope so we can get a grasp on the problems we see everyday. And when there’s a major derailment that threatens the lives of people in a community, it shouldn’t take an act of God to get the Department or the President to say or do something.

Good thing I made up that scenario at East Palestine, Ohio, because if it really happened, there would be a lot of people looking like assholes right now.