Anyone remotely familiar with the NFL is all too familiar with the “prevent defense.” This is where a team suddenly decides, typically during the last two minutes of a game, to dramatically change the way they run their defense. They drop their cornerbacks and safeties way back to prevent the other team from making a long play. Wise announcers often say that the “prevent defense” only prevents the team deploying this from winning. We saw a classic example of that last Sunday night. The Packers were playing the 49ers and went ahead with 37 seconds on the clock. The 49ers kicked off and immediately went into the “prevent defense.” The result was what anyone remotely familiar with Aaron Rodgers expected. He threw a couple of 20 yards passes. That took Green Bay from their own 25 yard line to the 49er 32 yard line. Then they kicked a field goal as time ran out, winning the game.

The 49ers had made life difficult for Aaron Rodgers all game. Perhaps I am wrong, but I suspect if they had run their traditional defense that would have made it much harder for Aaron Rodgers to beat them. One should note that I did not care who won that game, so this is just an observation, not a gripe.

Today we are seeing the political version of “prevent defense” and odds are it will have similar results. Democrats have been promising to pass a $1.5 trillion bi-partisan infrastructure bill, which isn’t actually bi-partisan and then a $3.5 trillion social justice bill which they hope to pass through reconciliation. They need to do this through reconciliation because no Republican, even RINOs like Mitt Romney, will vote for this disaster. But there is trouble in River or should I say Capital City. It turns out Democrats can’t even pass the $1.5 trillion bi-partisan infrastructure bill, because it isn’t actually bi-partisan and progressives in the Senate are on a mission for all or nothing. Nancy Pelosi dropped this down to $500 billion, and still couldn’t get it passed. In the meantime, if progressives can’t get their $3.5 trillion play toy, they are going to take the ball and go home. Meanwhile moderate Democrats, a term used extremely lightly, in the Senate like Manchin and Sinema, are opposed to the “Big Deal.” Krysten Sinema has already left Washington, so there already are not enough Democratic votes in the Senate.

Nancy Pelosi delayed the bill because she knew it could not pass. Joe Biden is on the way over to congress ready to put his incredible personal leadership and communication skills on full display to push this over the line. I doubt that this will impress anyone. This is a hot mess, for Democrats, but great news for the rest of us. The reason I called this the “prevent defense” is that Democrats already know they are on their way to a historical drubbing next fall. Everything Joe Biden has touched, and I do mean everything, has turned out to be a complete disaster. The economy is tanking, inflation is soaring, and even the MSM is concerned about the potential for 400,000 plus new future star citizens to cross our open borders, without bothering to pass goal and certainly without getting vaccinated or tested for COVID. So, in order to prevent getting hammered next year, Democrats decided they must pass something, anything, so they can at least pretend an accomplishment only to prove that they can’t even get enough support within their own party to do anything.

No one in the Democratic Party is going to be happy about this. Perhaps the person who will get the most blame is Nancy Pelosi, but Chuck Schumer won’t be far behind. Everyone already blames Biden, so he won’t feel much impact. Incredibly Progressive Democrats are planning on Kamala Harris taking center stage and leading their base to victory in November 22. What could possibly go wrong with that brilliant strategy?

Like I wrote in the first paragraph, the “prevent defense” primarily prevents winning. In this case the good news is that if Democrats keep up this brilliant path to glory, November 2022 is likely to result in a world class day of Thanksgiving.

TDM

It appears that the first time “SOS” was used when after the Titanic struck an iceberg. It was Morse Code for Save Our Ship. Now one could argue that “SOS” stands for “Stuck on Stupid.” The Democratic Party is officially stuck on stupid, with predictable results. Democrats were forced to choose Joe Biden as their nominee for President, even though he was clearly unqualified for the job. Biden has a long history of telling ridiculous lies and being wrong on almost every major foreign policy decision. His family appears to be hopelessly corrupt, and he has a personal history of creepy behavior. He has zero public speaking ability and is absolutely incapable of reading a room.  In his previous attempts to run for President he was basically laughed out of the contest with about 5% of the vote. In fact, during the 2020 primary season, the same thing was happening to Biden until the South Carolina Primary. Everybody in both parties knew he was a loser. Ultimately Democrats were forced to choose between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. They reluctantly chose Biden. Incredibly, he was still better than all the other Democrats who ran for President. Astonishing when you think about it.

Compare that to the Republicans who ran for President in 2016.  John Kasich, Gov of Ohio; Ted Cruz, Sen from Texas; Marco Rubio, Sen from Florida; Ben Carson, Neurosurgeon; Jeb Bush, Gov of Florida; Jim Gilmore, Gov of Virginia, Chris Christie, Gov of New Jersey; Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard; Rick Santorum, Sen from Pennsylvania; Rand Paul, Sen from Kentucky; and Mike Huckabee, Gov of Arkansas. Any of them far superior to Joe Biden. They lost because Donald Trump beat them.

In addition, Republican candidates who withdrew before the primaries included George Pataki, Gov of New York; Lindsey Graham, Sen from South Carolina; Bobby Jindal, Gov of Louisiana; Scott Walker, Gov of Wisconsin; and Rick Perry, Gov of Texas.  Even these guys, none of whom came close, are all better than Joe Biden.

The result is that even though Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, they have not been able to accomplish ANYTHING. Instead, Joe Biden made a bunch of idiotic executive decisions, all of which made everything worse. I cannot think of a single thing that has improved since the 2020 election. But we have achieved the worst military defeat and diplomatic fiasco in American History. The whole world is either throwing up or laughing at us. Unemployment is skyrocketing, crime is skyrocketing, gas prices are skyrocketing. Heck, the cost of everything is skyrocketing and due to worldwide supply problems, even with the higher costs, businesses have trouble even getting product. These are just some of the problems and Joe’s only plan is to force everyone, except illegal aliens, to get vaccinated. Democrats still desperately try to blame everything on Donald Trump, but that ship has sailed.

For months we heard about the bi-partisan infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion mega deal. Both of them went completely down in flames. Democrats didn’t come close to passing either. Instead, as I predicted, Democrats and Republicans united on the one thing that always unites them, kicking the debt ceiling limit a little farther down the road.

Think about this for a minute and allow yourself a tiny little smile. Joe Biden is obviously a disaster, but if he were to be replaced, what Democrat is available to do the job? Joe Manchin would have zero chance of getting support from the Democratic Party. Gov Cuomo has resigned and Gov Newsom was nearly recalled. Name the Democratic Governor with nationwide name recognition. Don’t bother, there are none. The somewhat well-known names, like Gretchen Witmer from Michigan and Phil Murphy from New Jersey have serious problems in their own states. Democrats literally have no bench. Instead, they have “leaders” like AOC, who are actually neither talented nor smart.

Mitch McConnell just destroyed Chuck Schumer by agreeing only to suspend the debt limit and doing nothing else. He didn’t even agree to raise the debt limit, instead he said that was the Democrats job. The problem for Democrats is that their margin in the House is razor thin and they have zero margin in the Senate. The progressives are demanding huge spending bills and the moderates are saying no way.  There are about 48 progressives in the House, so it will be extremely difficult for Democrats to pass something they oppose. Yet any legislation acceptable to progressives will not be acceptable to moderates. The result is that while Democrats have a majority, they have no leadership, and they are bitterly divided. The Republican party, on the other hand, appears to be very united and even RINO Republicans are sniffing the air, sensing the sweet, sweet smell of victory.

The few remaining smart Democrats have to be looking at Biden’s polling results and experiencing night sweats just thinking about the 2022 election. Many feared that Biden would be a puppet president, but it is clear he is making his own decisions. Even Obama has started to trash Biden. He only listens when someone reminds him to put on his mask, refuse to answer questions and where to locate the ice cream.

No one in either party is expressing any confidence that Democrats will do well in the 2022 elections. An off year election is historically bad for the party in power. When you combine this with the disastrous performance by the Biden administration, a perfect storm is brewing. Democrats know they are in serious trouble, but the biggest problem is not the polling, it is the increasing evidence that they are stuck on stupid.

TDM

Following is an article from the Sunday Times in London. This is amazing and devastating. If only a major U.S. Newspaper had the integrity to publish the obvious truth:

So Trump was right: the election was rigged. And our next one will be too | Comment | The Sunday Times (thetimes.co.uk)

The American public is slowly waking up to the fact that they are being led by an ineffectually devious, senile halfwit. Donald Trump is back in the lead in the opinion polls. Imagine how awful a president must be if people would rather that sack of meat with mittens were back in charge.

Soon the public will wake up to something even more unpleasant and sinister: that the last presidential election was a fraud, rigged by big business, the labour unions and, more than anything, the media and the tech companies. If that election had taken place in any other country, it would have been called “unfree”. And, as more and more evidence emerges, it terrifies me that the same thing could happen here.

This not only attacks the Biden Administration, but it also attacks the MSM in the U.S.

What worries me most is that so few liberal commentators seem capable of understanding that this was a grotesque manipulation of democracy. And yet surely they must see it, no matter how appalling Trump seemed to them (and indeed, quite often, to me). Instead, those very acts that subverted democracy are depicted as valorous.

Let me translate: “hating Donald Trump, although understandable, is not a substitute for truth and logic.”

We are truly living in parallel universes. One, created out of whole cloth by the Trump hating MSM, and the other populated by truth which is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Regardless of what one wanted to believe, prior to that Senate Hearing, it is no longer possible to even pretend Biden is remotely capable of being President of the United States. Every single military officer who testified threw Biden under the Bus. Either they were lying, or he was lying. Few will believe that it was Biden telling the truth.

Now, thanks to a London Newspaper, we finally have someone willing to talk about the elephant in the room. I will paraphrase: “Just because you so desperately wanted to defeat Donald Trump does not mean he was wrong when he said the election was rigged.” BINGO There actually is evidence the election was rigged. The big lie is pretending the opposite is true. This is not some myth created by the delusional Trump and his deplorable followers. It was rigged. That has been obvious to a lot of us from day one.

We all knew that during the campaign there was an illegal conspiracy between high tech, the DNC, the MSM and RINO Republicans to defeat Donald Trump, by any means necessary. Then, when this did not work, they resorted to rigging the election. An election so obviously flawed that a liberal writer from London, who absolutely despises Donald Trump, has been forced to admit the truth. The big lie is that the election was not rigged. The bigger lie is that this is not a threat to all of us.

The MSM remains convinced that overturning the results of the 2020 election is the worst-case scenario. Trump has not made this easier with his continues rants and raves. Ironically, if he had just gone home, turned off his twitter account and just shut up, there would already be a national demand to fix this by reversing the results of the 2020 election. But I don’t think that will happen, I think the best we can hope for now is a new national election, not involving mail-in ballots. Yet there is no provision in the constitution for dealing with any of this.

At least people are finally being confronted with the cold, hard truth and it is about TIMES.

TDM

The hearings today with the top military brass are shocking for a lot of reasons. One is that the top brass all threw Biden under the bus. It is clear that Biden and Biden alone owns this mess. Although they dumped on Trump, as expected, they admitted that Trump was at least listening to them. They also admitted monumental failure of their own leadership:

Afghanistan updates: Generals say they opposed Biden decision to withdraw all troops (msn.com)

In his opening statement Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin admitted that our entire effort in Afghanistan was a failure:

“We helped build a state, Mr. Chairman, but we could not forge a nation,” he said. “The fact that the Afghan army we and our partners trained simply melted away — in many cases without firing a shot — took us all by surprise. And it would be dishonest to claim otherwise.”

They directly contradicted Joe Biden:

Milley: “My assessment was back in the fall of ’20 and remained consistent throughout that we should keep a steady state of 2,500, could bounce up to 3,500, something like that, to move towards the negotiated gated solution,”

McKenzie: I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. And I also recommended earlier in the fall of 2020 that we would maintain 4,500 at that time — those are my personal views. I also had a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces, and eventually the Afghan government,”

Biden: “no one” that “he can recall” advised him to keep a force of 2,500 troops behind.

Milley did not actually justify himself regarding the call with China, but in attempting to save himself, he threw Nancy Pelosi completely under the bus:

Milley Told Pelosi He’s Not Qualified to Determine Trump’s ‘Mental Health’ (businessinsider.com)

Here is what the “book” says Pelosi told Milley:

“He’s crazy. You know he’s crazy,” Pelosi reportedly said, adding, “[I]s there anybody in charge at the White House who was doing anything but kissing his fat butt all over this?”

Milley:  “Pelosi in January called him to “inquire about the President’s ability to launch nuclear weapons. I sought to assure her that nuclear launch is governed by a very specific and deliberate process.”

The top US general said Pelosi was “concerned and made various personal references characterizing the President.” Milley underscored to Pelosi that the president has unilateral authority to launch nuclear weapons “but he doesn’t launch them alone,” he said.

Milley added that he also told Pelosi, “I am not qualified to determine the mental health of the president of the United States.

Milley confirmed that Trump was rational and was not issuing insane demands:

“I know, I am certain, President Trump did not intend on attacking the Chinese and it is my directed responsibility to convey presidential orders and intent.” 

“My task at that time was to de-escalate. My message was consistent: calm, steady, de-escalate,” Milley said. “We re not going to attack you.” 

So, if anyone attempted an insurrection, it was Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who literally called the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and told him to ignore commands from the President of the United States because she thought he was crazy. She also made insulting reference to President Trump’s weight, which is not actually evidence of insanity.

Somethings are clear. There is bi-partisan outrage at this. Even Democrats are questioning the threat to National Security because of the relationship between the Taliban and Pakistan since Pakistan is reported to have 150 nuclear weapons.

One thing I have noticed is that Democrats are not exactly carrying the water for the Biden Administration. While some have tried to shift some of the blame to Trump, no one is pretending this was a good result. There is bi-partisan concern and outrage.

This will not go unnoticed, even by the MSM. Jake Tapper even talked about focusing totally on Donald Trump regarding the 2022 elections because otherwise Democrats are in deep trouble. That is an open admission that the MSM is on a mission to cover-up for Democrats and an admission that they are finding the task increasingly difficult.

TDM

I must admit that I have never watched the View. My only knowledge of the show comes from internet reporting, mostly negative. But I did watch a replay of the fiasco last week and it was EXTREMELY valuable.

Here are a series of video’s:

The View: Co-Hosts Test Positive for COVID on Live TV! – Bing video

This is beyond ridiculous. These hosts were expelled from the set because Kamala Harris was scheduled to appear. They could not risk exposing her to COVID. When she did appear, it was remotely, not in the studio.

Kamala Harris’ in-studio ‘The View’ interview goes on remotely after 2 hosts test positive for COVID-19 – Chicago Sun-Times (suntimes.com)

When Harris appeared, remotely, she said they would both be fine because they had been vaccinated. But it gets even better because it turned out neither of them actually had COVID. They were “false positives.”

What a joke. Here is what was reported today:

‘The View’ hosts say they had false positive Covid tests during Kamala Harris interview (nbcnews.com)

“Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro were pulled off the air Friday in a startling moment of live television that forced an abbreviated Harris interview to be conducted remotely.

None of the hosts who were on Friday came into contact with Harris. Hostin and Navarro, along with Joy Behar and Sara Haines, were tested multiple times over the weekend and all results were negative, the show said.

“It really was uncomfortable for my results to be released publicly before I even knew what was going on,” Hostin said on Monday.

She said her husband, a doctor, had to be pulled out of surgery as a precautionary measure when the news became known, and her children were taken out of school. All are safe, she said.

“I was flabbergasted,” Navarro said.”

So, here’s the deal. All of the hosts were vaccinated. They were tested multiple times, all negative. Then, just before the show, they were tested again, to be double damn sure, and two of them tested positive. The show was a mess where the remaining hosts had to ask for questions from the audience. Kamala Harris was too terrified to show in person, so they rigged up a video feed. She still managed to botch almost everything she said about the border crisis, the crisis she is supposed to be managing. Now were learn that the two hosts weren’t positive after all.

But the damage wasn’t limited to a stupid TV show. Oh no, Sunny Hostin’s husband is a surgeon and they literally pulled him out of surgery because of the positive test. And, by the way, her kids were pulled from school.

If people were paying attention, and that is questionable, lessons were learned. One is that we are testing far too many people far too often. Another is that at least some of the positive tests are false positives. In addition, the response to the false positives, from two fully vaccinated people who had tested negative numerous times recently, resulted in a surgeon being pulled from surgery, kids being pulled from school and the Vice President of the United States too terrified to visit the set of the View.

This is mostly funny, but it is also public display proving that the Biden Administration is literally insane regarding COVID. Today Joe is publicly getting a booster shot. People are wearing masks all the time. People are being forced to be vaccinated, including some people who are already immune and others who have very little risk of getting sick if they catch COVID. Its’ become a mad, mad, mad, mad world and it is increasingly clear that the inmates are running the institution.

All of this was put on display in full public view, yet my guess is that most of the people dumb enough to watch this program failed to grasp the significance of what was going on, even though it was in full view.

TDM

There is a lot going on that could have a major impact on the world economy. One of them is the possible economic collapse of Evergrande, a Chinese property company.

Remember when a couple of really stupid kids would play a game of chicken with their cars. There were even movies about this. Both cars would head straight toward each other. Obviously, if there was a head on collision, both drivers would likely die. The loser was the person who was the first to swerve away. In other words, the first person to act responsibly was considered the loser. Wow!

Right now, Democrats and Republicans are playing chicken with our entire economy at stake. This is regarding extending the debt limit.

While most of us believe the government spends money without any regard to the consequences, there actually is a debt limit. This is the amount of money that Congress will allow the Treasury to borrow to keep the government running. Think of it like a limit to your VISA or Master Card. Once you exceed that limit, you can’t buy anything, even things you need desperately. When this happens to a family, they may go bankrupt. Many companies have gone bankrupt when they couldn’t pay their bills. This is exactly why some predict that Evergrande may go bankrupt with economic consequences felt around the world. The attached article from CNBC does a good job of explaining this:

Evergrande debt: Collapse could have domino effect on China properties (cnbc.com)

Currently the debt limit appears to be set at $28.4 trillion, which is already pretty staggering. In 2019 the GDP was about $21.4 trillion, so we already owe more than the entire economy produces in a single year. Everyone agrees that we owe a lot more than we should and that at some point this is going to be a problem.

Now we are very close to exceeding the debt limit and if that happens the Treasury will have to take drastic action, including failing to make payments due on our debt, which may be owed to foreign countries. Everyone agrees that this is beyond bad.

But even though both Democrats and Republican agree this is a huge problem, they do not agree on how to fix it. Democrats are demanding Republicans agree to add trillions of dollars to our current spending for this infrastructure bill and a lot of additional entitlement spending. Republicans are standing firm and saying that they will not vote to increase the debt limit if these bills are part of the agreement. Neither side appears willing to budge.

Democrats WANT that spending bill. Republicans are deeply opposed to that spending bill. Somebody is either going to swerve or there will be an economic head-on collision.

Historically there has always been a last minute, bi-partisan bill, to extend the debt limit without addressing other issues. That is what happened when Trump was President. So far, this time, neither party appears to be willing to budge.

The following article from MSN typically blames everything on Republicans.

GOP plan to block House measure could trigger an unprecedented $28tn default (msn.com)

This will happen on October 1, 2021, so time is rapidly running out. My best guess is that they will do what they have always done before, which is just pass a stand-alone bill to increase the debt limit and kick the ugly can down the road one more time.

One thing is certain, there is little or no potential for Democrats and Republicans to work together in a responsible manner for the good of the country. You can blame that on either party, but that is the sad reality. When you combine that with an obviously inept President totally incapable of even pretending to provide leadership, the problem is compounded. Throw in a Senate that is deadlocked and the recipe for disaster is obvious. If is often said that nothing serious ever changes until things reach rock bottom. American was an isolationist nation, even after Hitler invaded France, until Japan attacked us on December 7, 1941. Then and only then did the nation become unified in a mission to defeat both Germany and Japan.

The consequences of failing to extend the debt limit are impossible to fully predict, but everyone agrees it would be beyond horrific. But so would be the failure to recognize that we simply cannot keep spending money we do not have. Venezuela is a classic example of that. It went from being one of the richest nations on earth to an economic disaster. That will not happen here, the United States is not Venezuela. But at some point, the chickens will come home to roost and delaying that just increases the size of the ultimate disaster and the cost to put things in order.

In the meantime, watch the chicken dance going on in Washington.  We do not know what will happen, but we do know it will really matter. If only we could find a way to limit the casualties to the chickens.

TDM

There are now a lot of people accusing each other of the “big lie.” So far, only one “big lie” has been investigated and that was the Russian Collusion Hoax. We now know, thanks to John Durham, that this was just an extremely poorly sourced hit piece bought, paid for, and promoted by Hillary Clinton and the Hillary Clinton campaign. We also know that the sole motivation for this was their hatred of Donald Trump. Apparently hating Donald Trump is grounds for doing anything. We also know that the FBI bought this and the witch hunt, which included the entire Robert Mueller fiasco, should never have happened. If you want to talk about illegal activities specifically designed to overturn the results of a federal election, look no further.

All of the MSM refers to the big lie as Trump saying the 2020 election was rigged. Unfortunately, there is a huge difference between noticing what is obvious and proving it. That has never been truer than regarding the 2020 election. A lot of things happened that are grounds for suspicion, and these were not invented out of whole cloth by Donald Trump. One of the problems is that the entire election process was so sloppy that it is hard for anyone to be confident in the results. There were massive mail-in ballots, sent to millions of people, creating numerous opportunities for fraud. Even Democrats admitted that, before the 2020 election, when they thought it might impact them. Each party assumes the other party will do anything to win, and odds are they are both right.

But a few things are obvious. Democrats dominate every major metropolitan area. Is this because their policies are so popular? Or is it because it is easier to control results in these areas. Anyone remotely familiar with Chicago politics knows the power of the machine. If someone is even suspected of voting the wrong way, it can be a painful experience. In 2011 a Republican won the race to replace Anthony Weiner in congress. Democrats had held that seat since 1920. Previous winners of that seat include a guy named Chuck Schumer and Geraldine Ferraro. But one of the interesting things is how Bob Turner won this seat. The following article from the Daily Beast provides an interesting insight into what happens in Democratic districts:

Anthony Weiner’s Old Congressional Seat Claimed by Republican Bob Turner (thedailybeast.com)

The people pulling voters to polls and handing out palm cards on street corners were mostly supplied by the unions endorsing Weprin. 1199SEIU, the UFT, the UFOA, and the construction workers’ union were most prominently visible in the polling sites around Weprin’s headquarters. The Daily Beast spoke with about 20 field volunteers, 15 of whom were workers sent by their unions to leaflet at polling sites. The 1199SEIU campaign worker holding the door to Weprin’s campaign office even told The Daily Beast that his union was paying him to be there. But Weprin, who again thanked unions for their support after the results of the race had become clear, seemed unable to muster sufficient neighborhood enthusiasm for his campaign. Union-supplied campaign workers don’t know the neighborhoods as well as grassroots volunteers might, and even on a day when no other race was dividing the neighborhood’s attention, the Queens County Democrats apparently could not put enough local volunteers on the streets.

There were people supplied by the unions around every polling site. In a normal year, they would have been outnumbered by Democratic volunteers. They were pulling people to polls, handing out palm cards and working hard to get every voter to vote and to vote the right way.  Because there are so many people packed in such a close area a political organization may literally have information on every voter in the district. It is quite simple, the smaller the district, geographically, the easier it is for this type of organization to control results. The only reason a Republican even came close is that Anthony Weiner was beyond toxic.

I can’t begin to count the times I have watched election results, where a Republican was winning, by a narrow margin, and some reporter said they were waiting for votes from some Democratic district that would probably change the results. It seems like the only time the Republican won was if the lead was so overwhelming in the rest of the state that there weren’t enough votes left to change the outcome.

The point being that denying that there is any systemic fraud regarding our elections is ridiculous. The only question is how much fraud and whether it was enough to change the results. Even if the 2020 election was as perfect as being reported on CNN consider the following: In 2020 Donald Trump won in 2,497 counties while Joe Biden won only 477 counties. But those 477 counties account for 70% of the economy. Is this really fair?

Fair and Honest elections are one of the cornerstones of our society. People in both parties pointed out the obvious problems with mail in ballots.

‘Chaos.’ ‘Fraud.’ Democrats Once Warned Against Voting Changes They Now Call For (townhall.com)

Back during the 2008 Democratic Primary when Florida was considering mail-in ballots, Obama specifically cited the need for signature verification, to ensure “they can check to make sure that the right people are voting.”  Remember, he was competing against Hillary Clinton at the time, so he had legitimate cause to be concerned.

In 200 CNN reported that DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s position on proposals to vastly expand mail-in ballots responded by saying: “A mail-in ballots has wrong written all over it.”

In 2002 Steny Hoyer and Bernie Sanders co-sponsored a bill saying: “First-time voters who register by mail will be required to produce some form of identification.”

The “big lie” is not whether or not the 2020 election was rigged. We actually don’t know the answer to that yet. The “big lie” is that this was the most honest election in history and there is nothing suspicious about Democrats working so hard to prevent any legitimate investigation. The really “big lie” is that there is no problem with a massive mail-in election. As stated above, both parties are on record admitting this is a serious problem and a recipe for fraud.

Joe Biden is literally self-destructing. His performance during the UN speech and subsequent meeting with Boris Johnson was beyond pathetic. It is increasingly obviously that his own staff is terrified he will answer questions and go off script. We are facing crisis after crisis, none of which were handled well by Biden and most of which are the direct result of poor decisions on his part. This cannot continue. Even the MSM has turned on Biden. A lot of people really hate Donald Trump. In 1940, most of the British establishment hated Winston Churchill. On May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill was chosen to be Prime Minister because there was no other acceptable option. Donald Trump should never be confused with Winston Churchill, but Joe Biden is a case study in the Neville Chamberlain school of mismanagement. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Something must be done. Something will be done. The only remaining question is what and when. One thing is certain, overturning the results of the 2020 election is no longer the worst-case scenario.

TDM

There are more and more stories surfacing, all designed to portray Donald Trump as dangerously delusional. But one of the problems with these type of stories is that they can go both ways. For example, Trump is roundly criticized for saying he didn’t think the U.S.S. Gerald Ford Aircraft carrier looked right. He also complained about the cost and the efficiency of the elevators. Here is a report on that from Business Insider:

Trump Ranted About US Aircraft Carrier to Military Officials: Book (businessinsider.com)

I don’t doubt that this story is accurate. But it is also ridiculous. One notices that Trump didn’t demand they overhaul the ship. He just said complained about the cost and said: “The generals and admirals were horrible businessmen, Trump complained repeatedly, and particularly terrible at acquisition and deal making on ships, ensuring the military was always being ripped off,” the book said.

One will note that President Eisenhower warned us about this when he was President. Here is what he said in his farewell address:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction…

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together. [emphasis added]

Trump was basically saying the same thing. That there is danger in having all decisions made by what he called the military industrial complex. Yes, he has red hair. Yes, his personality can be annoying. But, at least in this case, he had a point. Check out how many former flag officers are now bagging big bucks from Defense Contractors. The conflict of interest is obvious. There are some people who describe what they consider to be spectacular failures as a result. They are not necessarily correct in their evaluation, but these are legitimate questions. Here is what William Astore wrote about this in March of this year:

The spectacular and expensive failures of the U.S. military – Alternet.org

He is a retired Lieutenant Colonel (USAF) who taught at the Air Force Academy and the Naval Post Graduate School. I don’t pretend to be qualified to answer his questions or confirm the validity of his opinions. But read what he wrote about the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers:

* And speaking of boats, perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that the Navy has had serious problems of its own with its most recent Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers. That service started building carriers in the 1920s, so one might imagine that, by now, the brass had gained some mastery of the process of updating them and building new ones. But never underestimate the allure of cramming unproven and expensive technologies for “next generation” success on board such vessels. Include among them, when it comes to the Ford-class carriers, elevators for raising munitions that notoriously don’t operate well and a catapult system for launching planes from the deck (known as the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System or EMALS) that’s constantly breaking down. As you might imagine, not much can happen on an aircraft carrier when you can’t load munitions or launch planes effectively. Each new Ford-class carrier costs in the neighborhood of $14 billion, yet despite all that money, it simply “isn’t very good at actually being a carrier,” as an article in Popular Mechanics magazine bluntly put it recently. Think of it as the KC-46 of the seas.

So, instead of being offended that Trump would ask questions, maybe General Milley should have asked himself if Trump had a point. Perhaps if he did that, Trump wouldn’t have felt the need to bring it up over and over and over again? Is the problem here that Trump kept asking the same question or that Milley just didn’t want to hear about it? In other words, what if Trump had a point?

I think the advancements in technology are a large part of what has kept us safe. The success of Iron Dome in protecting Israel against multiple rocket attacks borders on miraculous. On numerous occasions the U.S. had completely destroyed sophisticated air defense systems thought to be effective. Check out how quickly the U.S. overwhelmed the Iraqi air defense system. But history also teaches us that sometimes the most important lessons come from highly flawed messengers. Sometimes we assume that because some lacks what we consider to be the right level of expertise that nothing they say could be true. And if we don’t like someone, we may not hear something very important.

I have personal experience with this. When I worked for Spartan Stores, Inc. we had an SI Order Matic Machine (We called it Big Blue). It was 30 ft high, and it was really amazing to watch in action. We were all very proud. All these boxes of groceries would just slide down onto this multistory conveyor system and the boxes came out the other end, in exactly the right order to put on pallets. I sometimes took visitors from other countries on a tour of our distribution warehouse just so they could see this amazing machine in action. Yet I remember talking to someone who worked on the machine, and he laughed and said, “Sometimes I wonder if this does not take more effort than it is worth.”  I ignored this, because to me the SI Order Matic was an obvious success. For the record, I had little influence over the operation of this machine.

Later, I went to work for Fleming Foods. When I visited their distribution center, I instantly noticed they did not have an SI Order Matic. That surprised me, so I asked them if they had ever considered it. They laughed and said: “We had one, we realized it took more effort to run it than it was worth, so we tore it down and went back to manual picking.” I later learned that Spartan Stores discontinued using the SI Order Matic for the exact same reason, in 1987.

Penicillin was discovered by a Scottish scientist named Andrew Fleming.

Alexander Fleming Discovery and Development of Penicillin – Landmark – American Chemical Society (acs.org)

He had a bunch of petri dishes that contained colonies of staphylococcus, the bacterial that causes boils. But on one dish, he discovered one area where the bacteria was not growing. He noticed that there was a blob of mold there. Prior to this, no one seriously considered mold to be much help in curing illness. He then did more tests and found out this mold juice killed streptococcus, meningococcus, and diphtheria bacillus. He was able to isolate penicillin from the “mold juice.” He published a report on this in 1929. But not much was done until some doctors at Oxford started working on it in 1939. Ironically, the first person they used it on was a man who scratched his face while pruning roses and developed a life-threatening infection. He was injected with penicillin and started to recover, but they ran out of the drug, so he died anyway. But someone realized how valuable penicillin could be if made available to British troops wounded on the battlefield. To make a long story short, a decision was made to visit the U.S. and get help producing this more efficiently. Several U.S. Pharmaceutical companies including Merck, Squibb, Lilly, and Pfizer were looking into this when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Suddenly, the need became urgent. By March 1942 there was enough penicillin available to treat one patient. By 1943 they were able to produce 21 billion units, in 1944 they produced 1,663 billion units. In 1945 that had increased to 6.8 trillion units. By 1949 the annual production of penicillin in the U.S. was increased to 133,229 billion units and the price dropped from $20 per 100,000 units to less than ten cents. Penicillin has saved a lot of lives, including mine. I was injected with massive doses of penicillin when I got Scarlet Fever while in basic training.

The point being that sometimes the greatest lessons come from listening to people who notice things that matter. Mocking Donald Trump, President of the United States, and ignoring important questions because you don’t like his personality is the opposite of leadership.

TDM

If you have spent any amount of time watching murder mysteries a couple of things become clear. One is that there is a big difference between believing someone is guilty of a crime and proving someone is guilty. It is also obvious that sometimes the best detectives get this wrong. They start out assuming one person is responsible only to later be confronted with facts proving them wrong. Sometimes, even when all the facts seem to line up, the truth remains elusive. That is one reason these shows can be so intriguing.

There are also times when detectives are convinced of someone’s guilt, they are right about it, but they cannot prove it. Sometimes, justice delayed truly is justice denied. The problem is exasperated by the fact that a really smart criminal can sometimes be very skilled at not leaving any evidence.

We recently had a case like that in the Sacramento area. The following article describes this case:

Golden State Killer admits to dozens of rapes, 13 murders (apnews.com)

In this case the killer was nicknamed the Golden state Killer. It took over ten years before police even figured out that a serious of assaults in Central and Northern California were connected to slayings in Southern California. Actually, they never figured out who had done this. What happened was that critical DNA evidence has been preserved. But no one matched that DNA. Then someone, in a stroke of brilliance, searched a genealogical DNA database to look for “similar” DNA from potential relatives. They found “distant relatives” matching the DNA. Then, when they figured out the prime suspect was Joseph James DeAngelo, they still had to get a sample of his DNA. They got it from the door of a car driven by him while he was shopping at Hobby Lobby. Later they found more DNA in his trash.

How Investigators Got the Golden State Killer Suspect’s DNA | Time

There is no doubt that DeAngelo was the guy, he eventually confessed. But some people were troubled at the thought that police could get forensic access to people’s DNA who were clearly not involved in this crime at all. It is reported that two states, Maryland, and Montana, now limit forensic genealogy because of this concern.

The point being that when dealing with very bright criminals it is often difficult, if not impossible to get the evidence necessary to convict them. In the case of DeAngelo he wasn’t even a suspect until someone did the forensic DNA analysis of people not involved in the crime.

A lot of people were very frustrated at the length of time it took John Durham to finally indict someone who matters. It seems pretty obvious, just from what was reported in the MSM, that the Hillary campaign had basically planted fake evidence to create the Russian collusion myth. Some people still believe the myth, because they need to believe that Trump was compromised by Russia. But in reading the actual indictment handed down against Michael Sussman it is now easy to understand why this took so long. Here is a copy of the actual Indictment:

Sussmann Indictment | PDF (scribd.com)

I must admit this also explains why people like James Comey took these allegations seriously. It also explains why some in the MSM bought the story. Some of them still buy the story because they want to believe. What Durham has done is to build his case and slowly and methodically document it down, in some cases, to the very minute. We can be certain that some very highly compensated and skilled attorneys are already working overtime to fight this indictment. If Durham had not taken the time and effort to investigate this case it is likely that no indictment and certainly no criminal charges would have been the result. Instead, the Russian collusion myth would have continued forever, in at least the minds of those most fixated on hating Donald Trump.

This is also a reminder of why a quick investigation into the obvious election fraud we all saw during the 2020 election had no chance of succeeding. But there is another story out there, just surfacing, that may change that too. We all know about the forensic audit in Arizona. There has never been an election scrutinized to this level of detail. But other people were working on this from a very different angle. They have been reviewing hours and hours of CCV video. It turns out that in a lot of cases, the voter lock boxes were under constant video surveillance. There are allegations that they now have video of people, carrying bags of ballots, and dropping them off into several different lock boxes at multiple locations. We have all seen detective shows where someone was looking at hours of video tape watching for one minute detail that helped solve a crime. Well, it appears that a team of people may have been doing exactly that regarding the 2020 election. Here is what Breitbart had to say on the topic:

True The Vote Conducting Massive Clandestine Voter Fraud Investigation (breitbart.com)

If accurate, this is astonishing. They apparently started by getting a collection of cellphone GPS data in key election hot spots. This included evaluating 10 trillion cell phone pings. They then used this data to gather surveillance video on drop boxes in Georgia and other states. Incredibly, they are talking about viewing two million minutes of video. There are apparently at least three teams of analysts still pouring through the data. True the Vote is responsible for this effort. It is just possible they may be close to producing evidence that will prove a significant amount of systemic fraud during the 2020 election. Perhaps even enough to overturn the results.

It has already shown why this was such a daunting task and why the evidence rushed together following the election was obvious inadequate to convince a court of law. It will be very interesting to see what happens next. It could be beyond explosive.

When you combine this with the obvious mess being inflicted on the entire world by the Biden administration, then almost anything is possible. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and some people literally may have looked at two million pictures.

In the meantime, Bull Durham may have done us all a favor by refused to be rushed and by also refusing to back off.

TDM

Prior to and following the 2020 election, Nancy Pelosi was questioning whether Donald Trump was fit to be Commander in Chief. She apparently was terrified that Trump literally wanted to nuke China. I have seen no evidence that Trump even considered this. In fact, Trump stopped the military from launching an attack against Iran because of the alleged shootdown of a U.S. drone. If anything, the U.S. Military complained loudly about what Trump would not authorize, not that he was threatening everyone.

Yet, incredibly, the Washington Post is reporting that twice, during the final months of the Trump administration, Gen Mark A. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, told General Li Zuoncheng of China that the U.S. would not strike and if they did, he would warn them. Milley has no confirmed this. He is proud of this.

The person who created the crisis was not Trump, it was Nancy Pelosi. She said she wanted to wrest control of America’s nuclear arsenal away from the President, who she described as unhinged. I personally would be a lot more concerned about having someone like Nancy Pelosi in charge of the Nuclear Arsenal.

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/pelosi-trump-nuclear-codes-authority/

In response to this, General Milley told Pelosi that Trump had the sole authority. But then Milley apparently took it on himself to bypass the President and communicate directly with China.

Bob Woodward is reporting on this. I wonder if he realizes that he is discussing treason at the very highest level of the deep state. No one is alleging that Trump had any plans to attack anyone. Even Milley does not claim that. In fact, Milley admitted that when he said: “The American Government is stable and everything is going to be ok.”

But it was far from ok, because it is clear that General Milley felt that he, and not President Trump was in charge. He allegedly told military commanders that he, not President Trump would need to approve any order. Not only that, but he also never even told President Trump about that phone call. That is unacceptable. It is literally tantamount to treason.

In this case, Milley felt that he was the adult in the room, but what if you had a General who thought we should re-invade Afghanistan. Just look at what has already happened in Afghanistan. Biden clearly overruled the Deep State, with disastrous results. Just this week Biden was speaking when someone literally cut off his microphone. Obviously, someone felt compelled and authorized to silence the President of the United States. While anyone watching Biden, who is showing signs of dementia, should be concerned about him making these kind of decisions, the solution is not to change one of the most fundamental safeguards in our constitution. If the President is not up to the job, the 25^th Amendment provides a solution. That solution does not include Nancy Pelosi asking for the nuclear codes and it does not include General Milley ignoring the constitution. It does not include someone deciding when and where Joe Biden can speak. If Milley really thought Trump was unhinged, he should have followed channels and notified Vice President Pence and the cabinet. He did not do that. He just chose to bypass Trump.

I have seen zero evidence that Donald Trump intended to attack anyone. There is no doubt that he is angry, with cause, about what he still considers to be a stolen election, but no one suggests he was unhinged and about to launch nuclear weapons. So, if China got that perception, what was the source of that? At least part of this was because of completely irresponsible comments by Nancy Pelosi and by equally irresponsible reporting in the MSM. This is not only wrong, but also extremely dangerous. What would have happened if China really believed that Trump would launch an unprovoked nuclear attack? Would they just ignore that? This is exactly the kind of situation where an accidental nuclear war is possible. Perhaps even worse would be if a country felt they could attack us with a nuclear weapon, and we would be unwilling or unable to respond?

We now have a full-fledged constitutional crisis on our hands and a lot of people, in both parties, better realize that. We will soon learn if there are any Democrats who are willing to consider putting national security first ahead of party politics. Regardless of the reasoning involved, General Milley effectively conducted a military coup. There is no other possible explanation when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff decides he has the authority to by-pass the President of the United States. There is a reason the President and only the President has the nuclear codes. If there is an issue, the second in Command is not the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense, it is the Vice President. Did anyone even discuss this with the only possible alternative to Trump, Mike Pence. Did anyone even hint that Mike Pence is delusional?

A President may need to make that kind of horrible decision some day, without a lot of notice. There won’t be time for congressional hearings. Failure to respond could result in irreversible catastrophe. We now have proof that the Deep State exists and that it considers itself all powerful. The good news is that General Milley wasn’t determined to attack anyone. The bad news is that a future Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff may have a very different view. General McArthur wanted to attack China during the Korean War. Yet when Truman fired him, McArthur accepted that decision. That is because even though McArthur thought Truman was wrong, he respected the fact that the constitution gives that power to the President of the United States, not the military. There were numerous times when Eisenhower strongly disagreed with FDR with regard to political decisions, but he accepted the constitutional authority given to FDR.

There are always people who disagree on almost every subject. One of the things that keeps us safe is separation of power and civilian control over the military. If General McClellan had refused to accept the constitutional authority of Abraham Lincoln, he would have ended the civil war by negotiating with the South. He did not do that, instead he ran for President on a platform recommending exactly that. Fortunately, for everyone, he lost that election. That is why we have elections. That is why we elect a President. That is why the military reports to him and not vice versa. It is why we have the 25^th Amendment. It is why no political party should have even considered nominating someone as obviously incapable as Joe Biden to be President of the United States.

It used to be that neither party would consider nominating someone clearly incapable of being President. Sadly, those days are gone. It is why we have an immediate and serious constitutional crisis. The crisis is compounded by irresponsible reporting that routinely accused President Trump of being mentally unstable and falsely claimed that Trump was lying about almost everything. The same MSM that is overtly covering up the obvious problems with Joe Biden. It is Biden who tells ridiculous, easily debunked lies. It is Biden who shows signs of irrational rage.

Based on what I am seeing come across on social media etc., I really think this is about to explode. The outrage may not be limited to Republicans. We are in serious trouble if this is limited to Republicans. Democrats should be equally concerned about this. One thing that appears to be consistent in both parties is anger over conducting a 20 year war in Afghanistan only to suffer a humiliating defeat. While some blame Bush, some blame Obama, some blame Trump and some will blame Biden, no one is happy with this result. No one is pretending this is even close to acceptable. At least some of that blame should fall squarely on the shoulders of the Deep State.

I cannot possibly predict this. We have never seen anything like this. Perhaps the closest was when Truman fired McArthur. McArthur resigned and famously gave a speech to a joint session of congress. He harshly criticized the decisions made by Truman, but he also recognized that Truman had the authority to make those decisions. He ended by saying:

“I now close my military career and just fade way, an old solider who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good Bye.”

While many people believed and still believe that McArthur was right about what needed to be done, no one suggested a military coup. No one proposed leaving such decisions up to the military. McArthur understood that. Milley, not so much. Ironically, he may just may have accidentally provided the wakeup call needed regarding the usurpation of power by the deep state. General Milley has stupidly verified some of our worst fears. Now he is even admitting it and pretending he did the right thing. He does not realize that hating Donald Trump does not actually trump the Constitution of the United States. Now the question is whether any Democrat will rise to the challenge and do the right thing for the right reason.

In the ultimte irony, people like Milley are simultaneous demanding people follow the chain of command, while themselves being deliberately insubordinate. We can be certain that at least some military commanders have figured this out and they will not keep silent. One of the most despicable people out there is Lt. Colonel Vindman who literally gave highly questionable testimony designed to get Trump impeached and removed from office. But even Vindman is outraged by this and is openly demanding that General Mark Milley must resign. Vindman tried to misuse the constitution, but at least he realized that the constitution matters.

TDM