One of the problems with a strategy based on false assumptions is that at some point it is destined to fail. One of the best examples of this was the spectacular collapse of the Tacoma Narrows bridge. Leon Moisseiff designed it to give the bridge a sleeping appearance without utilizing stiffening trusses. The bridge followed all the safety standards of the time during the design and construction and its “oscillations” were considered to be falling within acceptable limits: Unfortunately, all those safety standards were based on false assumptions.

Collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge: A Case Study – The Constructor

The bridge was doomed from day one and only lasted 4 months. The video of “Galloping Gertie,” even before the famous collapse, revealed problems that were increasingly impossible to ignore. Yet some people still tried to cross the bridge at the worse possible time anyway. You can see them clearly; they are the ones running for their lives.

It is interesting to contrast this with the Mackinac Bridge, which spans the gap between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan. I remember taking the ferry across the straits of Mackinac while the bridge was being built. The five-mile trip took about an hour, but we often spent hours waiting in line to board the ferry. Imagine waiting in line for 8 to 10 hours in freezing temperatures to take an hour-long turbulent ferry ride. Easy for me because it happened to our family on more than one occasion.

Today, we are seeing imminent failure on the horizon, due to questionable planning based on false assumptions. While the liberal left and their fawning supporters in the media have desperately tried to conceal the obvious, the cover-up is falling apart faster than the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

It turns out that criminals are, well, criminals, and “hoping” they will stop being criminals if you pretend, they are not really criminals has not exactly been a great success.

Anyone remotely familiar with the tradition of election fraud in large metropolitan areas controlled by Democrats was not surprised by what happened during the 2020 election. The surprise was the willingness of so many supposedly smart people to pretend that what was obviously true was “misinformation.”  That is particularly true when so many people, including Democrats, acknowledged that widespread vote by mail was a receipt for systemic fraud. The theoretical absence of voter fraud was supported by the reluctance of courts to get involved in election disputes. But pretending something did not happen does not mean it did not happen. It just means that at some point the truth will become too obvious to ignore. Ironically, it turns out that Democrats who recently felt betrayed by the system may have produced the evidence that was too strong even for liberal judges to ignore. The more we learn about the 2020 election, the more obvious who has been lying about it. Now Democrats have a fundamental problem in that not only did they support someone as plain awful as Joe Biden, but they also had to resort to wholesale cheating to push him over the starting line. Earth to the liberal left, if you are going to lie and cheat to get someone elected, try to limit your choices to someone at least potentially competent.

The attack on Israel by Hamas opened a lot of eyes. While all Muslims are not terrorists, and not all terrorists are Muslim, it is ridiculous to pretend there is no relationship with Islam and terrorism. The most important question is this. What would have happened if Israel wanted to wipe out the Palestinians in Gaza? The answer is they would have succeeded because Israel is clearly capable of doing exactly that. Instead, Israel vacated Gaza and even removed the graves of previous Jewish settlers. What would have happened if Hamas took control of Israel? The answer is that they would make Hitler look like an amateur.

Look around you. There are galloping Gerties all around. At least some of them will fail. This failure is likely to be spectacular. Every time liberals have taken over a country things have deteriorated to the extent that it becomes impossible to ignore. They always lose big time in a future election. The only exception is in countries where liberals manage to eliminate fair and honest elections. Sound familiar?

TDM

In the summer of 1970, I finally got the chance to go home after my third combat tour in Southeast Asia. I arrived in LAX, worn out both physically and mentally. As I was in the terminal walking to another gate to connect with my flight from LAX to Ohare Field in Chicago, I was confronted by a hippie looking couple who promptly got in my face, spit on me, and called me a war criminal. Welcome home.

When I was finally discharged, I just tried to put the war behind me. I still remember in horror watching Democrat remove Richard Nixon from office, and then refuse to let President Gerald Ford preserve the peace. After all those years and sacrifices, particularly by the men we left behind, Democrats in congress just decided that the war they had voted for just wasn’t worth it anymore, so they just quit.

For a long time, I rarely talked about the war. Why bother. Vietnam veterans were basically ignored unless we were portrayed as idiotic out of control homicidal drug addicts in some ridiculous movies. Then there was the disgraceful moment John Kerry lied before congress and called us all war criminals. The same John Kerry who pretended to throw his military medals away, only to have them resurface recently in a failed attempt to pretend he too deserves to be recognized as a veteran.

Then, in the late 1990s, I won a jacket at a trade show with a “Dicks” logo. At the time, I had never seen a Dick’s sporting goods store, so I thought the logo looked ridiculous. I convinced my wife to try and remove the logo. Instead, she covered it up with a Vietnam Veteran badge. I wasn’t enthusiastic about wearing that either. Then one day, while shopping in San Rafael, I felt a tap on my should. A woman looked at me and said: “Thank you for your service.” She didn’t realize that this was the first time I had been thanked for my service since the war. I had been home for over 25 years. I was shocked almost to the point of tears.

Now, after the two Iraq war, veterans are being honored again. Today it is common for someone to thank me for my service. Even at times when it was not expected. Like Yesterday. I was in the long, long gas line at Sam’s Club. This lady cut in front of me and managed to block three lanes at once. Eventually she finally got out of the car and used the pump in front of me. She couldn’t find her Sam’s Club card. Then she used the wrong credit card. Finally, she figured things out and started to pump gas. But even this took forever, because she took long pauses since at Sam’s club you must manually keep the pump grip closed and she was getting tired.

Finally, the car in front of her finished, so I pulled around her and backed into the empty space so I could pump gas. As I was pumping gas, she honked her horn at me and pointed to the back of my car. I walked back there, could see no problem, so went back to pumping gas. Then she honked at me again and pointed to the back of my car again. Now I was getting frustrated, so I just shrugged and kept pumping gas. At that point, she rolled down the window of her car, leaned out the window and then said: “thank you for your service.” Obviously, she had been pointing to my Vietnam Veteran license plate. I just smiled and said thank you. But I laughed about this all the way home. It is also a reminder to be a little slower to judge others.

To my Vietnam Veteran comrades, “welcome home”!

TDM

Most of us have learned an expensive lesson about being sold something we didn’t want or need because of a spectacular sales pitch. In my family we used to joke that you weren’t really married until you bought your first vacuum cleaner from a door-to-door salesman. It soon became obvious that we had paid far too much for features we would never use.

The same is true regarding political candidates. The MSM is famous for praising Republican candidates they consider sure losers in a general election. And if they accidentally win, they are almost certain to make unnecessary compromises with Democrats.

Nicki Halley was praised by Politico and the New York Times for her debate performance. This debate was run by NBC, who did a good job, but they are not our friends. In my opinion the highest praise for a Republican candidate is to be smeared continuously by the MSM. Obviously, the leader in that group is Donald Trump. The MSM almost foams at the mouth over any opportunity to slam him. Secretly they are praying he will be the 2024 Republican nominee because they consider him to be the candidate most likely to lose to Joe Biden. Yes, that Joe Biden.

The Joe Biden they secretly despise and the only reason they are not demanding his replacement is that, well, Democrats have no replacement. This is almost identical to how he got “elected” in the first place. All the other candidates self-destructed, none more spectacularly than Kamala Harris. It finally got down to Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden. Democrats knew that Bernie Sanders could lose 50 states, so they reluctantly chose Biden. He wasn’t good by any stretch of the imagination, but he was better than Bernie and supposedly normal and a safer choice than anyone else from the class of clowns competing for the nomination.

They are in the exact same place today. Joe Biden is a joke as a President, but there is literally no one on the horizon who would be more likely to beat Donald Trump. Democrats and their supporters in the MSM know Joe is a big loser, but they still think he can beat Donald Trump. Their mission is to see Trump be nominated and then be disqualified, at the last minute.

Some have opined that Michelle Obama would be a good alternative, but that is because she is invisible. She doesn’t do anything and doesn’t talk to anyone. If she did, it would soon become obvious that she would be a horrible candidate.

This means the real fear of Democrats is that a strong Republican will replace Donald Trump as the nominee. They are terrified of Ron DiSantis. He took Florida from a swing state to one where Republicans dominate, and he won re-election by 20 points. He is a far better communicator than they realize, because they are opposed to his world view and it doesn’t matter to them what anyone says, if it does not conform to their world view.

We frankly didn’t want DiSantis to run because we wanted him to continue as Governor. We won’t learn if he is a strong contender until the Iowa caucuses. DiSantis has won the endorsement of Kim Reynolds, who is the very popular and effective Governor of Iowa. That really matters and Trump knows this. In July he highly criticized her for not endorsing a candidate. He wanted her to endorse him. Well, she did endorse a candidate, and it wasn’t Trump. This creates a serious problem for Trump, because if he tries to trash her it could easily backfire bigly. If DiSantis wins the Iowa Caucuses, a lot of people will take serious notice.

No one can predict this. But what we can do is realize who is our enemy, and who our enemy is supporting. They hate Trump but fear DiSantis. They are promoting Nikki Haley. Buyer beware.

TDM

On April 5, 1951, General Douglas McArthur was invited to speak to congress, after being fired by President Harry S. Truman. Here is a link to that address. It is remarkable:

General Douglas MacArthur | Farewell Address to Congress | General Douglas MacArthur Milwaukee Memorial (macarthurmilwaukeeforum.com)

I remember watching this speech, but because I was only 4 years old in 1951, I suspect that I watched videos of it produced at a later date. Regardless of when or how I watched it, this speech still resonates with me.

Here is an exact quote from that speech:

“Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger international scope have never been successful. Military alliances, balances of power, Leagues of Nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be ‘by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blocks out, this alternative. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature and all the material and cultural developments of the past 2000 years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh. ”

But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision.

In war there can be no substitute for victory.

Ultimately the United States chose to negotiate an end to the fighting in Korea. While South Korea was liberated and free, North Korea descended into predictable despair.

McArthur went on to say:

There are some who for varying reasons would appease Red China. They are blind to history’s clear lesson, for history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier wars. It points to no single instance where this end has justified that means, where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace. Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative. Why, my soldiers asked me, surrender military advantages to an enemy in the field? I could not answer.

In retrospect, McArthur was unfortunately right about future wars with communism. The Vietnam was an example of that. Once again, the U.S. did not even consider seeking victory, and as a result all of Vietnam was lost. As a Vietnam combat veteran, the pain of our decision to surrender to communism, while victory was in sight, continues to this very day.

During World War II our military and civilian commanders made the decision to bomb Germany, including bombing civilian centers. PBS’s American Enterprise series broadcast a documentary titled “The Bombing of Germany.”

The Most Unethical Act: Losing a War – Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary Magazine

The last line of the film included the following remark by Conrad C. Crane, director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute. “The most unethical act for Allies in World War II would have been allowing themselves to lose.”

This article concludes with the following statement:

This is a concept that applies not only to the war against Hitler but also to the one that America is currently fighting against Islamo-fascists. We have heard a great deal in the past few years about unethical tactics both in terms of attacking terrorist strongholds and in dealing with prisoners who possess information about future threats. As the Obama administration tries to avoid further debacles like its reaction to the Christmas Day bombing attempt over Detroit and to maintain pressure on the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the conclusion of The Bombing of Germany should haunt them. It is all well and good to try to earn applause for being more moral than our opponents. But when facing an enemy whose goal is the destruction of our society and the murder of countless innocents, the prime objective must remain the same as it was in World War II. Allowing ourselves to lose such a war is the most unethical act imaginable.

That article was written by Jonathan S. Tobin in 2010. But it could be made today. There still is no substitute for victory. War is always awful. It is truly the scourge of mankind. But when war is necessary, the most unethical decision is to settle for something less than victory. When Democrats in congress forced President Gerald Ford to surrender in Vietnam, it threw the sacrifices made by every U.S. serviceman who fought in Vietnam, including me, on the scrap heap of history. If we are to fight a war, then we have a solemn duty to fully commit to achieving victory. McArthur warned us about this in 1951. It was true then; it is true now. When confronting evil, there is no substitute for victory.

TDM

This weekend we fall back to get ahead. We turn out clocks back by an hour, meaning we start our day earlier and end it sooner. It will be brighter outside at eight o’clock than it was today. But it will also get darker sooner. They always do this on Saturday night, so the only thing people risk missing is church. This week people who miss the memo risk showing up an hour early.

If my memory is correct, one of the arguments for “falling” back in the fall was so that school children could wait for the school bus during daylight. It would be interesting to know if this is still a reason for this. There are several people who propose just getting rid of daylight savings time, but nothing ever seems to change.

I personally think this all misses the point. On any given day, there are only so many hours of sunlight. All that man can do is change the clocks creating the illusion they are managing something. This is one in a long line of silly things man has done in a failed attempt to change reality. But daylight savings time is pretty harmless compared to some other brilliant ideas.

For as long as humankind has been writing things down, it has been well accepted that there are two, and only two, genders. If archeologists discover bones, the first thing they can determine is the sex of the individual. That is because this is, well, obvious. But not obvious to the woke crowd who would have us believe that one can change his or her gender by “thinking” they are the opposite sex. Then they want to change the rules for everyone else based on this illogical conclusion, with predictable results.

The Climate Change hysterical crowd is another example. I suspect there are two major groups within this crowd. One group, actually quite smart, who sees this as a way to make tons of money. The other group is composed of people dumb enough to believe the first group. Many people in the media, who cannot spell science and know nothing about the science, lecture the rest of us daily for ignoring the science. Does anyone see a pattern here.

Now, Mike Johnson is considered to be dangerous because he is a devote Christian. The usual suspects are opining that anyone dumb enough to believe the bible is too dangerously ignorant to be Speaker of the House. They claim that his view discriminates against anyone who dares disagree with him. The opposite is true. He isn’t discriminating against anyone; they are discriminating against him. For example, Pete Buttigieg, is a full-time LGBTQ activist who openly demands discriminating against anyone who does not share “his” worldview. Since he has zero accomplishments in any prior position and even fewer accomplishments in his current position, if he was not an LGBT activist, I doubt anyone would even know his name. That is the reality today, the problem is not discrimination against people because they are LGBTQ but rather discriminating against anyone who dares criticize them. It is a stark reminder of the pot calling the kettle black.

Mike Johnson is severely criticized for believing in the biblical account of creation. To the so-called cultured elite, anyone who believes is creation is too intellectually inferior to be worthy of an opinion. But instead, they have a world view based on a series of mathematically impossible events, occurring over and over again during the course of thousands if not millions of years, resulting in our current world. They fail to take into consideration that no matter how much we learn, we find that everything has been perfectly designed in a manner that no human could even hope to duplicate.

Thus, we are at the point where those who believe in things that are demonstrably false are loudly demanding that everyone join them in following the science. This is the same logic that decided changing our clocks twice a year would result in more sunlight.

TDM

Democrats are always united. Every Democrat can be counted on to vote for Hakeem Jeffries to be Speaker of the House. Every Democrat voted for Nancy Pelosi to be Speaker of the House. That does not mean they all agree with each other, they don’t. It doesn’t mean that this is best for the country. They just understand the need to be united to get anything done.

Republicans are not united, and they are playing an incredibly stupid game of chicken with no possible winners. The most likely outcome is mutual suicide. This is insane. It is understandably why some Republicans wanted to stop Kevin McCarthy. He is one of those politicians who considers compromise to be a virtue. Most pushed through the stop gap spending measure, with Democratic support, because Democrats would not support continuing to pay our military. In other words, Democrats were willing to hold the members of our military hostage, because they knew that eventually Republicans would surrender. There is legitimate concern over the long history of Republicans surrendering when confronted with hostages held by Democrats. Democrats are willing to let the country fail if they don’t succeed. But when Democrats succeed, the country fails anyway, it just may take longer.

The reality is that 94% of Republicans supported Kevin McCarthy. The only reason he was removed in that every Democrat in the House voted, along with 8 Republicans, to send McCarthy packing. Earth to the 8 imbeciles. If you only got you way because every Democrat in the House voted with you, it is time to rethink your strategy.

Democrats are having difficulty restraining the giggles. Republicans are unable to unify behind Jim Jordan or anyone else. The sad reality is that some Republicans are so peeved at the gang of 8, that they will never approve a speaker who is approved by them. It is understandable why they are furious at the 8 clowns who voted with Democrats to remove McCarthy. But it would be wiser to redirect that anger toward the Democrats who are united in destroying this country.

Sadly, at a time when this nation desperately needs leadership from the Republican Party, all they see is an empty chamber, made up of people who would rather scream at each other than attempt to accomplish something. Anything.

Democrats have mucked up everything. Joe Biden is a joke. Everything has gotten worse since he took office, and no one predicts improvement. There has probably never been a better opportunity for Republicans to seize the day and show the country how things can and should work. An opportunity squandered because Republicans would rather fight each other than to fight for the country. This isn’t funny anymore; this is just pathetic. Actually, it never was funny.

It is hard to imagine who will be the next Speaker of the House. Probably the dumbest possible decision would be to keep the current Temporary Speaker in office. No, the dumbest decision would be for four RINO Republicans to vote for Hakeem Jeffries. That should be unthinkable, but it isn’t.

It is clear the problem is not Jim Jordan. If there was some other candidate acceptable to both sides, other than Kevin McCarthy, that would be different. There isn’t. It is important to remember that the reason those 8 Republicans torpedoes Kevin McCarthy is that he considered compromising with Democrats to be an act of courage. It wasn’t, it was another in a long line of unnecessary Republican defeats resulting from leaders unwilling to fight when necessary.  The gang of 8 are disgusting, but they are not necessarily wrong. If Republicans do not unite to fight, now, for a change, then what would it take?

The game of chicken is already underway. The only question is who will flinch? Those who are fighting for the status quo, or those who are fighting to preserve this nation. We better pray that those who flinch before Democrats are the ones to flinch now. In the meantime the best way to describe the Republican party is beyond pathetic, it is suicidal.

TDM

While all Republicans are considered secret or not so secret members of the MAGA cult, liberal Democrats are more correctly referred to as Kool Aid drinkers. This reference, of course, is based on the sadly true Jonestown Massacre. That happened on November 18, 1978, when more than 900 members of the “Peoples Temple” committed mass suicide by drinking Kool Aid laced with cyanide. Jim Jones had founded the cult in Indiana, then relocated to California and finally to a jungle location in Guyana. Lesson to the wise, if the people leading you go from Indiana, to California, then to the jungle in Guyana, consider rethinking things. Leo Ryan, a congressman from California, heard that people were being held against their will, so he decided to go there personally to investigate. Things seemed to go well, until he tried to leave with some Peoples Temple defectors. They were ambushed by gunmen sent by Jim Jones and several people, including Ryan, were killed.

Jones then told his followers soldiers would come for them and torture them. That is when most of them willingly drank Kool Aid laced with cyanide, which unsurprisingly resulted in most of them dying. He then apparently shot himself in the head.   History.com has a detailed report on this:

Jonestown – Massacre, Guyana & Cult (history.com)

I remember watching contemporary news reports regarding this.  It was hard to believe that 900 people had been so incredibly stupid. But now watching the entire Democratic party self-destruct before our very eyes following people like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the “tribe” brings back memories we would rather forget.

The latest and greatest is the attempt to blame the fiasco in Israel on, you guessed it, Donald Trump. Forget the fact that it was Joe Biden to gave Iran $6 billion for American hostages. Ignore the decision to end the sanctions against Iran. Pay no attention to the public meetings where Biden routinely embarrasses himself and the country with insane and ridiculous lies about things that never happened followed by whispering nonsense into the microphone. No, no, no. The true source of the problem is Trump giving secret Israeli intelligence to, gasp, Russia. This apparently happened in 2017. No one knows for sure what “secrets’ were revealed, but this was very, very, very bad.  Just ask Michael Hayden, former Director of the CIA, who thinks it great fun to call for the extermination of Donald Trump.

Sadly, many of the usual suspects have bought this nonsense hook line and sinker. Of course, these people instantly devour any pablum regurgitated by the foreign policy experts on CNN. They are so obsessed with the imaginary threat of the evil Donald Trump that they are oblivious to the far more serious threat from the insane politics of the liberal left. Our country is literally being invaded over the open Southern border and in addition to Mexican Cartel members we learn that terrorists might have also seized the day. Our cities have become war zones and the only thing Democrats can consider doing about this is to fire more cops, hire leftist social workers, and take guns away from the only people who are not part of the problem. And, oh by the way, give the bad guys a “Get Out of Jail” card so this can be repeated over and over again. Then demand social media censor anyone who dares even hint this might not be a good idea. Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

If you want to see the end result of eating this kind of pablum just look at your television today.  This just isn’t funny anymore. This is even worse than drinking the Kool Aid. This is eating regurgitated pablum without even suspecting this is actually “Cereal Killer.”

TDM

When I was flying on combat missions over the Gulf of Tonkin on RC135 aircraft stationed at Kadena AB, Okinawa, many of my fellow crew members had the number 55 embroidered on their flight suits. Most people did not know what this meant. Those of us who knew, just smiled. The language spoken in Okinawa is Japanese. A high percentage of crew members on that plane, like me, were Vietnamese Linguists.  We were all very adept at picking up additional languages. The way to say 55 in Japanese is “go-jū go”. To an American who heard this, it sounded like “go jew go”. It was a way to show support for Israel, without being “politically incorrect.” Even today whenever I see 55, I am reminded of the six-day war.

Prior to the Balfour Declaration, about 90% of the people in Palestine were of Arab descent. They owned most of the land. However, after the establishment of the nation of Israel, that changed dramatically. When the Oslo Accords were signed, there were about 110,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem. There are now more than 700,000 of them. It should be no surprise to learn that many of the Palestinians think their land was stolen from them by the Jewish settlers.

Like most Americans, I understand the reason for establishing the Nation of Israel. Prior to that time, there seemed to be no place on earth where Jewish people could even hope to live in peace. But sometimes peace often comes at a very high cost. One thing is certain, the nation of Israel is surrounded by people who long for its’ destruction.

Perhaps the best lesson to learn here is the high cost of fighting a war where no one is victorious. During World War II the United States and its allies defeated both Japan and Germany. Prior to their defeat, the Japanese people were determined to defeat the U.S. at any cost. But now, Japan is one of our best friends. The same is true regarding Germany. Our relationship with Germany is not as strong as with Japan, but the German people are no longer considered a threat to us.

But that did not happen in the Middle East. The Gaza Strip has about 2.3 million inhabitants. Gaza is not exactly a garden spot; the unemployment rate is reportedly about 45%. There were numerous problems with terrorist attacks in Israel that originated in Gaza. In desperation, Israel built a wall leaving only one entry point to or from Israel from Gaza. Technically Israel no longer occupies Gaza, but it has full control over Gaza’s borders, airspace, and territorial waters. Now Hamas is attacking Israel from Gaza and other places using rockets, a lot of rockets. Does anyone really doubt that Iran is furnishing these rockets? Israel reports at least 2,200 rockets, Hamas says more than 5,000 rockets. In addition, Hamas terrorist operatives have infiltrated into Israel in several locations. Israel has announced it is at war with Hamas.

In the ultimate irony, this happened just days after Jake Sullivan announced that the region was “quieter today than it has been in two decades.” Nailed it!  In a total coincidence, this happened just a few weeks after the Biden administration gave Iran access to $6 billion in funds, stupidly saying Iran could not use them to promote terrorism. What could possibly go wrong? We can all breathe easier knowing that someone like Joe Biden is Commander in Chief during this challenging time. We can be sure that Iran is absolutely terrified.

The good news is that this is impossible to ignore. Even hard-core left wing activist Democrats are confronted with the reality of a dangerous world. This is a stark reminder of why the President of the United States matters. Even the MSM cannot spin this away. They may try, and fail, to blame Israel or even Donald Trump, but the reality is that this happened on Joe Biden’s watch and there is zero chance he will handle this well.

In May 1940, Neville “Peace in our time” Chamberlain was Prime Minister of Great Britain. Hitler had invaded Poland and theoretically World War II had already begun. But Chamberlain was still occupying space. Then in May 1940, German troops invaded Norway and there was nothing Chamberlain could do to stop them. Leo Avery pointed at Chamberlain and said: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.” (He was quoting Oliver Cromwell). Just days later, German invaded France, Chamberlain resigned, and Winston Churchill became the new Prime Minister.

One thing is certain, few people are going to have any confidence that Joe Biden is remotely capable of handling this. Change is on the way. In the meantime, we all better be praying that Israel wins this one. 55

You just can’t make this up. Eight Republicans have joined with every Democrat in the House to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. The math on this is quite simple: two hundred republicans voted to keep Kevin McCarthy. Eight voted to remove him. This means that over 96% of Republicans in the House wanted to keep McCarthy while slightly less than 4% decided he had to go. Obviously, there was zero change the 4% could win over the 96%, so they gleefully accepted the help of every Democrat in the House. House Democrats are always glad to watch Republicans self-destruct.

This is exactly what has been happening in our society, with devastating results. The tiniest minority of people are now demanding all decisions be made solely regarding their own selfish interests. They do not care about the impact of these decisions on anyone else. They succeed only because they convince others, mostly Democrats, to embrace the extortion.

At some point, soon and very soon, the ignored majority is likely to provide a very public display demonstrating why this is never a good idea. One would think that the self-destruction of the Bud Light brand would have provided an important clue, but some people never learn.

The Grace Hopper Celebration’s annual conference and career fair is designed to help women advance their careers in computing. That is a good idea, since it represents an opportunity for women to gain attention from prospective employers. But this year there was a problem. The problem is that the definition of woman was embraced to include transgender and even none-binary individuals. Apparently, several men, actually a lot of men, seized the day. All they had to do was enroll as non-binary, which of course requires zero biological differentiation. They swarmed over the convention in some cases shoving real woman out of the way in their pursuit of those coveted positions.

Men Overrun Grace Hopper Women In Tech Conference By Registering As Non-Binary – OutKick

“When you create a stupid system, don’t be surprised when people exploit it.”

I am not a huge fan of Kevin McCarthy. He has been a lot better than people like Paul Ryan or John Boehner. But this situation has little to do with his actual performance. It is rather the decision by eight individual Republicans who have decided that the Conservative Universe revolves around them and only them and they don’t even pretend to listen to anyone else. This is not a recipe for getting things done, it is a recipe for disaster. Earth to these eight clowns, if every Democrat in the House, all desperate for Speaker Hakim Jeffries, embraces your plan, rethink your plan. They are not on your side.

Who knows what will happen here, but one thing is certain. If Republicans cannot find a way to unite behind common interests, when necessary, they are doomed to fail. Democrats seldom make that mistake. They are always united. Usually wrong, but always united. Republicans should have learned this from the Revolutionary war. “We either hang together or we hang separately.”

My prediction is that Republicans will unite behind someone. If not Kevin McCarthy, someone even stronger. The first assignment for the next Speaker of the House will be to guarantee this never happens again. It is obvious that Democrats united to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. This was a deliberate action on their part to interfere with Republican Party leadership. Don’t be surprised to see Republicans return the favor. And, if you are one of the eight, it might be wise to start considering alternative career paths.

Hopefully wiser heads will prevail, with or without Kevin McCarthy. Letting the inmates run the institution is not exactly a winning strategy. Instead, this has instantly put the entire conservative agenda behind the “8 ball”. The good news is that in the long run, they may have united Republicans as never before. United to stop the great eight from running the show in the future. Equally united in in the knowledge that Democrats have zero interest in playing fair. Otherwise, the Republican agenda will be caught behind the 8 ball, which is not a good place to be.

TDM

Prior to the start of this NFL season, it was impossible to ignore the coronation of King Rodgers by the fawning self-righteous clowns who masquerade as objective announcers. It was nauseating. It used to be that only Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were capable of waxing ineloquently to the point where the only rational option was to watch the game without sound. Now there appear to be several other announcers too self-absorbed by their own narcissism to bother paying attention to what is beyond obvious to anyone watching the game. The result is continuous self-congratulatory and increasingly absurd instant analysis.

While it is always sad to see someone suffer the kind of injury experienced by Rodgers during the game between the Bills and the Jet’s, it was perhaps Karma to see what happens when a team, the NFL, and the entire NFL announcing society, became totally enthralled by King Rodgers, only to have that person exit stage right about five minutes into the 2023 season.

The ability of the TV camera crews to broadcast NFL games is truly astonishing, but one of the side effects is exposing the obvious bias by NFL referees. It is increasingly apparent that certain teams are favored by everyone, including the announcers and the NFL. The recent game between Kansas City and the New York Jets, who don’t actually play in New York, was a classic example. I really didn’t care who won, I was rooting for a scoreless tie. But to my surprise, the Jets put on a much better show than expected. Unfortunately, once again, the referees got involved in the outcome. On the last Kansas City drive, the referees appeared to be incapable of recognizing holding, when done by the Chiefs, tried to end the game with a ridiculous holding call on the Jets, then sealed the deal by again ignoring blatant holding by the Chiefs on the Patrick Mahomes “scramble”. This was obvious to me, and I suspect a cast of thousands, who literally were not rooting for either team. I was, however, rooting for a fair outcome, not determined by either the announcers or the referees.

This was second only to the blatant love affair between the NFL and the “alleged” love affair between Travis Kelsie and Taylor Swift. The pictures of Taylor Swift celebrating the Chiefs in a luxury sweet (pun intended) was a marriage made in heaven for the NFL marketing gurus. I personally have zero interest in the temporary passions of two narcissistic self-absorbed people like this. My only prediction is that sooner, rather than later, one or both will choose to move on, again. But this is guaranteed to raise ratings for the next Chief’s game and nothing else matters to those more focused on selling the NFL brand than running legitimate sporting contests.

Then I realized that this NFL game was a metaphor for what has gone wrong with America. We see a mainstream media increasingly incapable of honest reporting on any subject. They don’t even pretend to be objective anymore. If someone disagrees with the “narrative” the MSM pounces to attack. They arrogantly dismiss anyone who dares even hint that there is any possibility of systemic fraud during the 2020 election, even though the evidence is overwhelming. They are refusing to cover the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden, instead desperately pretending that what is obviously true and well documented is just an illusion created out of whole cloth by radical right ring conspiracy theorists. They are even more arrogant and dismissive of anyone who refuses to accept the “science” regarding climate change (“global warming”). The latest absurd theory was that climate change made the recent storm that drenched New York City, “wetter”. One is instantly humbled by the brilliance of that scientific observation.

I enjoy watching NFL games. But I absolutely cannot understand how anyone can tolerate the pre-game theatrical performances which have the potential to make Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) look good in comparison. In fact, I would suggest trying that. Just replace the current ground of celebrity know it all talking heads, with AI generated images likely to resemble a real human being more closely.

There is one bright side to all this. The “alternative” broadcast by Peyton and Eli Manning is hysterical. They both bait each other with sibling rivalry and observe things oblivious to the rest of us. During one play Monday night they noticed the brilliant performance by one wide receiver, who gave up on a play and just stood there while his quarterback was scrambling for his life. The defense player assigned to him gave up too, creating the opportunity for this guy to take one step, after a ball was thrown to him in desperation, to get an easy touchdown because the defensive player had given up on him being a potential target.

They are not perfect, often forgetting to watch the actual game, but at least they are different. Anything is better than a three-hour sentence of listening to Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.

In honor of this I have renamed the NFL production to “Celebrity Chiefs”.

TDM