Every night, around 9:30 p.m. I take my Miniature Schnauzer, Becky Jo, out for a walk. The goal is for her to poop. I bring along a little plastic bag, so I can properly reduce global warming by cleaning up the end product. Dog owners know that their four-legged family members develop preferred locations to perform bodily functions. Becky Jo is no exception. But last night, she went to a new location, on a different neighbor’s yard. As I shined my flashlight on her, to properly identify the objects that needed to be picked up, I noticed a new sign, just put up yesterday. It was for Charlie Crist to be the next governor of Florida. She decided to poop right underneath that sign. I was tempted to leave things there, as a token of my appreciation, but reluctantly did the right thing and removed the incriminating evidence. It is probably a good thing I didn’t have my cell phone with me, because I would have had difficulty resisting the urge to take a picture of this. When I told my wife about this, we both praised Becky for her foresight, political perception, and performance.

There are other signs of the times. One is the outcome of the baseball playoffs. We can be sure that MLB and all the advertisers were dreaming of an epic clash between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees. If that had happened the viewership would have been off the charts and the announcers would have come prepared with endless anecdotes about previous Yankee-Dodger world series. But that was not to be, instead it will be the Houston Astros and the Philadelphia Phillies. The truth is that neither playoff series was even close, and the Astros and the Phillies earned their way into the World Series. Their fans are over the moon, but the rest of the country is unlikely to take much notice.

I couldn’t help but reflect that Philadelphia and Houston are both located in states where Democratic dreams are fading as fast as the hopes of the Yankee and Dodger fans. Yes, there will be a world series. No, your team won’t be there.

It is impossible to predict the final results in Philadelphia, but it is probably Doctor Oz who is shopping for apparel appropriate to wear to the U.S. Senate and Doug Mastriano is gaining ground rapidly on Josh Shapiro in the governor’s race. In Texas, Democratic dreams of Beto O’Rourke beating Greg Abbot have already melted away, again.

Things are now so obvious that even the MSM is starting to notice. No one, other than Whoopi Goldberg on The View, even pretends anymore. She remains distressed that Stacy Abrams, who she wants to be President of the United States, appears to be losing bigly to Brian Kemp, again. We wonder if she will complain about this election being stolen, too?

In the meantime, just when you thought Joe Biden could not possibly get worse, he gets worse. If Democrats are smart, which is an oxymoron, they will send Joe to Delaware, for the duration, blame it on Covid and pray for the sympathy vote. But prayers, from people who don’t actually believe in God, are not particularly likely to be well received.

Everywhere you look, it is a sign of the times. Women are responding to the drum beat of Democratic politicians campaigning solely on the right to choose an abortion by choosing to become Republicans. They can join the Hispanics and Black people who are also in a rush to flee the insanity.

Regardless of what Democratic politicians say, or what is reported by the MSM, gas prices are scary high, food prices are skyrocketing and if you have money, it is harder to find things. You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but right now Democrats aren’t fooling anyone. (Abe was right, again)

Few, other than my neighbor, even pretend otherwise. Those who still pretend should not be surprised to receive gifts, such as the one delivered by Becky.

TDM

Are you sick and tired of all those campaign ads yet? I suspect the answer is a resounding yes, for people in both parties. It is often said that the campaign that has the most money to spend usually wins, but I wonder if that is actually true. The following article from Politico is interesting. This sure seems like another case of “follow the money.” Only in this case, the money is deserting races where Republicans were once considered to be at risk.

House Democrats retrench as GOP money floods the map – POLITICO

“Frustrated Democrats bemoan that their party’s outside groups are unable — or, some say privately, unwilling — to devote precious funds toward what they see as winnable seats.”

House Democrats’ panic has escalated this month as GOP outside groups continued to smash fundraising records. Despite high candidate fundraising, Democrats have been unable to respond with the same volume of money, and the party has struggled to free up the resources to attack potentially endangered Republican incumbents — a crucial part of their strategy, since they need to offset expected losses in more conservative Democratic-held districts.

Democrats currently have just a 5-seat majority and already seem to be abandoning some tough seats that their incumbents currently hold in Arizona, Wisconsin, Texas, and Michigan.

“The No. 1 factor here is money,” said Tim Persico, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

I for one am not sure that spending enormous amounts of money on stupid ads most people choose to ignore really decides elections. But I am absolutely certain that not being able to run any ads at all is a recipe for disaster. Perhaps not because the ads actually work, but rather because running no ads at all is even worse.

Once again it is time to follow the money. This time the money is circling the drain, along with the wishes and dreams of the Democratic Party. Less than two years ago Democrats were on top of the world. They controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. They blew it. Joe Biden has turned out to be worse than anyone imagined. We all expected him to be boring and uninspiring. All that was necessary was for him to change nothing. Instead, he went on a mission, between breaks to Delaware, to reverse every Trump policy without regard to the consequences. Today we all know the consequences.

He received little or no help from the House or the Senate since neither Chuck Schumer nor Nancy Pelosi have demonstrated even faint hints of leadership. This is so bad that even if Democrats somehow manage to keep control of the House or the Senate, neither of them is likely to survive in leadership.

So, follow the money, it is easy to see, Democrats get up every morning in a quest to find another way to waste more money on things that have not and cannot work in the faint hope that somehow, this time, it will be different. It won’t. Follow the money. After circling the drain, it will lead to a nationwide Democratic political graveyard.

TDM

If someone is really smart, they will make a movie about the Joe Biden presidency. Several possible titles come to mind. “The Man Who Never Was.” “The Wizard of Ahhs” or “The Madness of King Joe.” They wouldn’t even have to make things up. Joe provides ample material on a daily basis. This would be hysterical if he wasn’t President of the United States. I would even suggest hiring Chevy Chase for the starring role, since he is obviously skilled at playing the useful, or not so useful, idiot.

But Joe Biden is President of the United States and while the entire world is laughing at us, this is not really funny. This is so bad that virtually everyone assumes that someone, other than Joe, is secretly in charge, but no one seems to know who that someone is. Frankly, things are deteriorating so badly, on every front, that I doubt anyone wants to take ownership of this mess.

Perhaps the last person on earth to realize that Joe simply is not up to the job is Joe Biden. He obviously lives in his own little world, oblivious to reality. We saw absolute proof of that when he stupidly told the Mayor of Ft. Myers that “no one f—s with a Biden.”  I then realized that Joe tells all these absurd lies about things he never did because Joe embraces his own delusions. He probably thinks he is the best President in the history of the United States, doing a wonderful job. He doesn’t even notice that no one shows up to see him. I doubt anyone even tries to tell him everyone laughs at his daily gaffes and blunders. Joe just keeps reading his que cards and operates under the illusion that he is good at this. The number one characteristic of incompetent people is that they don’t know they are incompetent. Joe is the head of that class.

It is increasingly clear that no one else is buying this any more and that includes Democrats. In fact, Joe may have more to fear from Democrats than Republicans, because he is dragging the entire Democratic party down the drain with him. Those Democrats, particularly younger Democrats, miraculously still standing after the people get to vote, expressing their love and appreciation for everything Biden, will be furious, scared and determined. Furious that they are being dragged down by this disaster, scared that their own personal survival may be at risk, and determined to find a way to end Bidenopoly.

But, like a storm cloud following a hurricane, Kamala Harris lurks just over the horizon. Few things scare Democrats more than the prospect of replacing Joe with Kamala. I doubt that anyone in either party thinks she would be an upgrade. It would be like replacing the captain of the Titanic with the crew member who just sunk a life boat. It reminds me of a movie, I can’t remember the name, where this guy who works in a TV studio dreams of being in front of the microphone. But when he gets his chance, he literally breaks out in a sweat and can hardly speak.

I recently talked to a Guy who used to run the Met’s fantasy baseball camps. He told me about one “fantasy” player who knew he was going to get a chance to hit against Tom Seaver on the last day of camp. Unfortunately, he told everyone he was going to smoke one and Seaver heard about it. Seaver threw three pitches. The first was a curve ball that backed the guy off the plate. The second was slider on the outside corner that nearly had him falling over. The third was a 95-mph heater right down the middle that the guy watched for strike three. Then the catcher handed him the ball. Tom Seaver had written on it, saying “enjoy your three and out.”

Kinda like that. Never, never land. Joe never was a star student, he barely passed. He never hit a ball off the wall during the congressional baseball game, he struck out. He never drove an 18-wheeler, he was just a passenger. Never marched with Martin Luther King, was too busy making friends with former Klans men like Robert Byrd. Never did any of the things he remembers so well. Never seen anything like this. Hope we never see anything like this in the future. Never, never, land.

TDM

I do not know what will happen during the midterm election. No one knows, until the counting is done. But I certainly know who thinks they are losing, big time. Democrats are absolutely freaking out over several developments. Perhaps the most important is that at the worst possible time, Joe Biden is putting on an unprecedented display of ignorance and incompetence. In addition, he doesn’t even gain the sympathy vote because he is such an obvious jerk. The result is that his approval rating has plummeted to new lows and that may be over estimating things. This is so bad that Saturday Night even ridiculed him. It is so bad that no Democrat, other than Charlie Crist in Florida, seems to think Joe Biden is an asset. It is so bad that Barrack Obama is not bothering to campaign for Democrats, probably because he may not be that sharp, but he knows a losing hand when he sees it.

This is frankly so bad it is becoming scary. Is it really possible that the Democratic machine, fueled with all those delicious dollars from big business and Hollywood celebrities is really going to crash and burn like this. How can a party that gets so much free fawning coverage from the MSM possibly muck things up this bad? It seems too good to be true, but all the signs are there. Perhaps the big October surprise this year is there is no October surprise. Democrats sure seem to be caught in a perfect storm of their own manufacture.

They went all in on pro-choice, failing to understand something really important. When it costs $7 per gallon to fill your car, when the cost of everything is skyrocketing if you can even find it. When a senile fool pretending to be President of the United States starts saying stupid things about nuclear Armageddon. When the party that wants to take away your guns is proving why they are actually necessary. When our schools are a hot mess. When our economy is in the tank and getting worse by the minute. People aren’t all that focused on the need for an abortion when birth control is readily available. When the Republican governor of Florida builds a new highway bridge in three days, while “President” Biden is deciding whether or not to visit. When the President of the United States is 15 to 24 points underwater during a mid-term election in every swing state. Then don’t bet on blue.

Granted, Republicans are famous for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Granted Democrats are equally focused on stealing another election. Granted the MSM is still all in on the DNC, without regard to the consequences. Remember that Don Lemon cried his way off his last Prime Time TV show, still oblivious as to why this happened. Remember that someone paid Chris Cuomo about 1/20^th of his prior salary, only to discover that no one cared to watch him. And remember that even Jen Psaki is trashing Biden now that he is no longer paying her to lie for him.

Remember that the walls closing in on Donald Trump keep falling on his enemies. Remember that people line up for hours just to listen to what Democrats call the irrational rants of a senile fool, while Joe Biden has to pay a fortune to draw enough people to fill a phone booth.

Perhaps the red wave will fade away. Perhaps Democrats will keep both the House and the Senate. Perhaps Wisconsin will be 80 degrees in February. Perhaps Gavin Newsom will impress anyone other than the assigned committee to count votes in California. Perhaps Hurricane Ian will make a U-turn and return to CUBA. Perhaps, just perhaps, but don’t bet on it. Instead follow the money, or should I say, what’s left of the money. The money that even Nancy Pelosi isn’t spending to try and rescue lost causes. Watch for Democrats, lots of Democrats, and their supporters in the MSM, all desperately seeking Susan, or should I say some kind of employment. All of them will blame Joe Biden, conveniently forgetting that they and they alone were the ones who made him possible in the first place.

Slip sliding away
Slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip sliding away

Democrats, less than two years ago, had it all. They had the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. They had everything except a plan and an ounce of leadership. They also didn’t have even a shred of character or common decency. Now, enjoy the ride and watch it all slip sliding away.

TDM

Usually, it is Democrats who strike with the October surprise. But this time, the real October surprise is no surprise at all. It is rather that things are rapidly becoming too obvious to ignore. Democrats were and are counting on outrage over the repeal of Roe v Wade to save the day. But every poll shows comparable results. No one, and I do mean no one, thinks things are going well. No one expects anything to get better. No one thinks we are heading in the right direction. Whether fair or not, most of the blame lands on Joe Biden. But in reality, the blame falls on a lot of people. Starting with those stupid enough to put him in the Oval office and expecting something different. The list is actually exceptionally long. It includes much of the MSM, which ignored the obvious and embraced the ridiculous. Sometimes it is hard to determine if they are this corrupt or just this stupid. One thing is certain, they see a vastly different world than the one I see wherever I look. At times, the difference is so stark that one must ask a fundamental question, are they this far out of touch, or am I that far out of touch.

This reminds me of an incident when I was on a Risk Management Think Tank. A broker had gathered some of the top risk managers in the country to some meeting at Hilton Head Island, so they could “pick our brains.” The first night there was this presentation by a risk manager for a major corporation. He described a bold innovative approach to risk management, one that did not focus on thinks like claims and loss control, but rather compensating geophysical activity that made these largely irrelevant. He had all kinds of charts and graphs. After the meeting, I went to dinner with a friend who was also a risk manager. He was someone I knew and respected. I said: “either everything I ever learned about risk management is wrong, or this guy is insane.” He looked at me, smiled, and said: “you’re not the one who’s insane.”

I won’t mention the name of that individual or his company but can say it was a household name and was one of the most respected companies in the world, until it collapsed overnight and literally disintegrated.

The same standard applies now. There are a lot of people trying to convince everyone else of things that simply are not possibly true. Yes, men and women are built differently and regardless of how one view his or herself, that doesn’t really change anything. Yes, criminals are criminals, they have zero interest in living by the rules and the only effective solution is to put them in places where they cannot hurt anyone else. Governments, even the best governments, are inherently inefficient and corrupt. The smart people in government know this and they just get out of the way of the truly capable and creative. The role of government must not to pick winner and losers, they tend to always pick losers It is far more effective to keep a level playing field. When they do that, the truly creative people take over and the rising tide lifts all ships.

The more money government spends, the more it wastes, the higher inflation, the less equity and the more frustration for the average citizen. If a government wants to build things like roads and bridges, GREAT! But when they want to end the global warming, excuse me climate change, that has been going on for centuries, by doing things that can’t possibly work, don’t expect good results.

This is sure looking like a very red October, for several reasons. Democrats have control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, social media, and the MSM. They desperately try to silence anyone and everyone who disagrees with them. As a result, they live in a bubble that does not represent reality and like most people living in bubbles, everyone can see right through them. But one is reminded that equal responsibility goes to the Republicans who found a way to be outwitted by such obvious dim wits.

We may be strongly divided regarding who may or may not fix this, but there is little doubt regarding who simply cannot be trusted. Quite bluntly when the ship of state is sailing directly toward the shoals, anyone who wants to change course is an attractive alternative. Republicans are unlikely to win big this November, but Democrats are almost certain to lose. As if things weren’t bad enough, this hurricane is going to take a lot of wind out of the Democratic sales (pun intended) and skyrocketing gas prices won’t help. Blaming the other guy, solely because he or she is the other guy, ain’t going to work this time. Baring a miracle, the world will turn upside down this November. The question is who out there can right the ship.

TDM

Normally during this time of year, we brace ourselves for a Democratic inspired October surprise. Perhaps the best example of that was when the story of George W. Bush’s DUI arrest was leaked to the press the weekend before the 2000 election. It almost worked and Bush defeated Gore by the narrowest of margins. The worst example of this was on October 31, 1968, which LBJ announced a complete bombing halt of North Vietnam. The timing was obviously designed to help Hubert Humphrey defeat Richard Nixon. It did not work. But it did make deprive Richard Nixon of the options necessary to win that war.

This year we may see a lot of October surprises, none of them desired by Democrats, that will have an enormous impact on the Mid-Term elections. Ironically Democrats are largely responsible for most of this, but obviously did not intend the inevitable results.

GAS PRICES

The cost of gas is going up. Biden is running out of oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve which he used to artificially lower gas prices. Gas prices have already started to rise and that is likely to increase even faster in the near future.

HOUSING MARKET

The interest rate on a new home mortgage is now around 6.5%.  One year ago, it was about 2.5%. This is easy to understand. The monthly payment on a $500,000 home increased from $1.976 per month to $3,160 per month. That will price a lot of people right out of the market for a new house.

ABORTION

Stupid is as Stupid does. Stacy Abrams argued that the sounds of a fetal heartbeat at 6 weeks was artificially generated to create a false argument against abortion. In addition to being laughed off the stage, she pointed out something the pro-choice movement chooses to ignore. Abortion is not just about the woman; it is about ending a heartbeat. The entire Democratic argument has been that abortion is only about the woman’s right to her own body, Stacy Abrams just made it very obvious that this is not actually true.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Governor Newsom signed a bill allowing human bodies to be composted, instead of buried in a casket. His argument that this would be helpful in reducing climate change is just laugh out loud stupid. No one is buying this.

THE STOCK MARKET

The stock market is officially in a bear market, lower than when it started the year. This affects a lot more people than you realize, but particularly people counting on their stock portfolio to fund their retirement.

CRIME

Fortunately, most of us live in pretty safe areas. However, there is a serious issue regarding rising crime statistics and most people are concerned about this. The reality is that a certain percentage of people have zero interest in following rules. The only known solution is to put these people behind bars. It would be nice if that wasn’t necessary, but history teaches us that there is no rational alternative. Democrats have foolishly ignored this reality and it is going to hurt them big time.

INFLATION

Anyone who has been to a grocery story or even gone out to eat, knows that inflation is all too real. While rich people can absorb this, the average person cannot. The reason is that most people have limited disposable income and when the cost of food, gas, electricity and housing increases, there is little margin for error. No one in the MSM can actually explain this away. It is really simple. When Biden took office, this was not a problem, now it is a big problem. As Bill Clinton famously said, “it’s the economy, stupid.”

In order for Democrats to have a reversal of the big red wave, they need to convince people to fear something even more. It is said that we seldom experience our greatest hopes or worst fears. Democrats are very close to delivering on our worst fears. While the MSM pretends to ignore this, facts are stubborn things, and the facts all point to a red storm warning.

What could make this even worse? Easy. Have the President of the United States shows up 30 minutes late for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the most watched funeral in the history of mankind. How, exactly, does any American Administration allow something this stupid to happen. Sadly, a better question is was anyone really surprised?

TDM

If you listen to the MSM you might think that Democrats are making a strong comeback and might do better than expected during the 2022 Midterm elections. That is what they want you to believe. More importantly, it is what they want to believe. But the opposite may be true and for the worst possible reason they could even imagine. What if the true strength of Donald Trump is not what he does but rather his ability to generate such unbridled blind hatred in his enemies.

Democrats may have found their own worst enemy and it is “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” One would think that seeing him “lose” the 2020 election would be enough. The daily humiliation of being replaced in the Oval Office by a buffoon like Joe Biden would be enough. The assaults on his financial enterprise, such as withdrawal of PGA tour events would be enough. The list goes on and on. Any normal human being would have been destroyed by all of this. How many of us could handle not only the unrelenting personal attacks, but the same vitriol and hatred toward anyone who even pretends to admire us? How many of us could handle watching your family humiliated and slandered solely because they are related to you?

Yet none of this seems to even slow Trump down. Instead, he becomes more Trumpian. He shouts louder insults. He continues his unprecedented “I am the greatest” tour where he verbally assaults anyone, he considers a remote possibility of a threat to his self-perceived position of grandeur.

It is easy to see some of this and wonder if Trump “is” actually losing it. Then, a moment of truth. A moment when everything suddenly snaps into focus. What makes Trump so dangerous is that he lives in the heads of his worst enemies. They are so blinded by hatred of him that they will do anything to destroy him, even if they destroy themselves in the process. That is the real lesson of the raid on Mar-a-logo. It was so unnecessary. The only motivation was the desire to hurt Donald Trump. If the real reason for this raid was a perceived threat to national security, it was handled in the worst way possible. The same is true regarding the numerous prosecutors who keep pretending they have enough evidence to finally indict Donald Trump, for something. They don’t, or they would have already done that. The result is that all the promises that “this time the walls are really closing in, this time we have him, this time he is finally done” are destined to fail, always for the same reason. Hatred blinds one to reality.

Perhaps the real October surprise will come as a result of Democrats, once again, attacking Donald Trump. Not because this will succeed, but rather because the backlash will be so severe and unprecedented. They will make Trump the most important political personage of our lifetime. Trump’s real strength is not his accomplishments, which are actually far greater than his enemies will ever admit, but rather his ability to get completely and totally under their skin. Under their skin so thoroughly that they will literally slap themselves into oblivious because they just can’t resist scratching the itch.

I am reminded of some famous quotes by Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Einstein:

Mahatma Gandhi Quote: The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong…. – CoolNSmart

Mahatma Gandhi: “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

Albert Einstein: “Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore.”

I think that somewhere, when no one is looking, Trump smiles into a mirror and say: “bring it on, the more you hate me, the more you will end up hating yourself.” In the ultimate victory, Trump Derangement Syndrome will prove fatal to a lot of people long before Trump even pretends to care. Like the enemies of Israel during the time of Gideon, those who ignore the Trumpet’s roar just may suffer the ultimate humiliating defeat.

TDM

President Joe Biden scored a major victory when two of the unions representing railroad road workers agreed to a settlement. Or at least that is what some would have you believe. This allegedly includes a 24% wage increase. But that is over 5 years, and the way things are going, that may not be enough. But it is enough to raise the cost of everything shipped by rail. In addition, a deal is a deal, except in this case, if the workers vote no, there still is no deal. The union leaders don’t actually get to decide. This has to be voted on, and at least some reports say the railroad workers are less than thrilled.

The reality is that the railroad unions have Biden over a barrel, and they know it. His panicked approval for this contract is evidence of that. Compare that to when Railroad workers tried to strike while Truman was President. He called in the Armey to seize control of the railroads.

Truman orders army to seize control of railroads – HISTORY

Or when Air Traffic controllers tried to strike while Reagan was in office. He fired them:

Ronald Reagan fires 11,359 air-traffic controllers – HISTORY

Even FDR who was very pro-union was opposed to public sector unions. This was so obvious even the New York Times figured it out:

F.D.R. Warned Us About Public Sector Unions – NYTimes.com

“The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”

Joe Biden caved and offered the railroad unions a 24% wage increase over the next five years. The union leaders approved, we don’t know if the rank and file will agree. But the obvious problem is that when you cave to hostage takers, you just encourage people to take more hostages. When you think about it every public sector union has the ability to deny desperately needed services without regard to the consequences. People in California already know this, since every state-wide elected official was endorsed by a public sector union. It is almost impossible to get elected in California without their support.

At some point, someone is going to have to pull a Truman or a Reagan or this will spiral completely out of control The President least likely to do that is Joe Biden. It is also extremely unlikely that people like Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer will encourage him to grow a spine.

This is a lose-lose situation. At best, Biden just encouraged a deal guaranteed to make inflation even worse. At best even the threat of a strike has already hurt the already struggling supply chain. But what if all this was in vain because the workers strike anyway. If there is any way for a President to handle something even worse than Biden handled the withdrawal from Afghanistan, this may be it.

Also consider the stupidity of doing something that makes us more dependent on gas and diesel chugging trucks while simultaneously telling us everyone needs to save up for an electric car. The only thing dumber than this would be to cancel the Key Stone Pipeline, which actually was the most environmentally safe method of moving large quantities of gas and oil, trying to stop new oil leases, and making it much harder to frack for new oil and then act surprised when the price of gas skyrockets. Yes, that dumb.

If the American people understand the true impact of the feckless way the Biden Administration handled this threatened railroad strike, then those who engineered this fiasco will be the ones riding the rails to destruction and they just make take a significant portion of the Democratic Party along for the ride.

TDM

The judge presiding over the Mar-a-logo document dispute has not only approved a special master, but she has also denied the DOJ request to access classified records. That is an enormous win for Trump and a humiliating defeat for the DOJ. The judge quite simply decided that no, the DOJ is not above the law, and no, it is not the sole arbiter of who has access to highly classified information. If the DOJ appeals this, they risk losing at the Supreme Court.

The constitution is quite clear regarding this subject. So are prior Supreme Court decisions. The President has the final authority regarding what is or is not classified. It should be pointed out that the DOJ reports to the President, not congress. While the DOJ should be non-partisan, that does not mean it is above criticism, particularly when the criticism is regarding possible political bias. Anyone paying attention during the last couple of decades knows that the DOJ has done things that at least appear to be highly partisan. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller to be special counsel overseeing an investigation to alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election. We now know that there was never any evidence of Russia collusion with Trump, while there actually is evidence of direct involvement by the Hillary Clinton campaign. It should be pointed out that the special counsel found no evidence of collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia or anyone else.

On the other hand, even though FBI Director James Comey admitted that Hillary Clinton’s mail servers were unsecured, and they contained classified information he decided the following:

Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System — FBI

The FBI did not determine what was or was not classified. It deferred that position to the “U.S. government agency that was a likely ‘owner’ of information in the email,”

“FBI investigators have also read all of the approximately 30,000 e-mails provided by Secretary Clinton to the State Department in December 2014. Where an e-mail was assessed as possibly containing classified information, the FBI referred the e-mail to any U.S. government agency that was a likely “owner” of information in the e-mail, so that agency could make a determination as to whether the e-mail contained classified information at the time it was sent or received, or whether there was reason to classify the e-mail now, even if its content was not classified at the time it was sent (that is the process sometimes referred to as “up-classifying”)

The FBI assumed that Secretary Clinton did not intend to violate any laws, but there is no evidence they even interviewed anyone involved. The analysis appears to have been based solely on the emails reviewed. Even this review described this as “extremely careless in their handling of sensitive, highly classified information.”

The FBI was very specific in describing the highly sensitive nature of some of the information they found on those servers:

“For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails)”

These documents were not stored in a secured room guarded by the Secret Service, they were put on an unclassified personal server that was not even supported by full time security staff:

“None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.”

The FBI could not find a case that supported bringing criminal charges:

In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

Contrast this with the treatment given Donald Trump regarding documents at Mar-a-logo. The partisan bias of the FBI literally leaps off the page. Judge Raymond Dearie, just appointed special master, was allegedly duped into signing a FISA warrant against Carter Page, only to later learn that the FBI has distorted and possibly falsified information to get that warrant. Remember the slogan: “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” I doubt that Judge Raymond Dearie is too inclined to take FBI representations at face value.

There are many people in the MSM who would like you to believe that the DOJ and the FBI are both pure as the wind driven snow and above reproach. The opposite is increasingly obvious and if this special master recognizes that and takes appropriate action, this could be one of the most explosive political bombshells in our nation’s history. The decision by the DOJ and the FBI to raid Mar-a-logo, just before the mid-term elections, has the stench of political motivation. Wouldn’t it be beyond sweet if this backfired into the ultimate October surprise that blows sky high just before the mid-term elections. Red October may just become reality.

Prince, excuse me “King” Charles is not exactly an easy person to like. Even if one ignores his turbulent personal life, he is another one of those ill-informed climate change alarmists demanding action that cannot possibly work to protect from a hazard that does not actually exist. For the record, I do not know if the earth is getting warmer or colder. I suspect it is getting warmer, slowly, primarily because it has been getting warmer, slowly, since the 1600s. But the hysteria about the earth getting too hot to sustain human life is absurd.

The following chart from the Environmental Protection Agency is a classic example of how this is distorted.

Climate Change Indicators: Heat-Related Deaths | US EPA

This represents the number of deaths, from heat, per million people. The highest year was in 1980 when it was 3. The most recent year, 2020, it was a little over 1.5. This makes one wonder what happens if it gets cold? The following article from the New York Post answers that question:

More die of cold: Media’s heat-death climate obsession leads to lousy fixes (nypost.com)

It turns out in the U.S. and Canada about 2,500 people die from heat each year. But more than 100,000 die from cold. That means you are 40 times more likely to die from being too cold then being too hot. Now if people like King George and Gavin Newsom have their way, this could change. If we screw up the power grid by blocking coal, gas, or nuclear-powered generators, and we increase demand by adding all those electric cars, more people will die from heat, mostly because they won’t have access to air conditioning. Even more people will die from cold, because of the lack of heat. This exposes an inconvenient truth that we have almost nothing to fear from a warming climate, even if that is happening, but we have a lot to fear from politicians trying to fix something they cannot possibly fix, if it exists, while simultaneously reducing the amount of energy needed to handle that change. This should be beyond obvious, and it is, beyond being obvious to those who follow the science primarily by ignoring the biased group think that pretends to be science. King Charles, who actually has a gift for being wrong on nearly every issue, is one of the leaders of the “Let’s be stupid” pact.

But he is fortunate indeed to have a daughter-in-law the caliber of Meghan Markle. She not only hates Charles, but she also appears to be working overtime to make sure her husband, “Prince” Harry hates him too. We should all be so fortunate as to have an enemy the caliber of Meghan Markle. Incredibly she makes Charles look good in comparison.

If I were living in England and I saw Charles, wearing his silly medals, pronounce himself my King, the likely response would either be to throw up or laugh so hard it hurts. Then if I realized that I was paying for this nonsense I would find this less than amusing. I am not even sure the British monarchy can even survive the “King Charles” era, but if there is one person who can generate genuine sympathy for the Royal Family, even including “King Charles”, it is Meghan Markle. She has the magic touch.

TDM