Sometimes you have to be really smart to do something unbelievably stupid. History provides many examples of that. Thomas Edison was a brilliant inventor, but he was flat out wrong about alternating current. But fortunately for Edison, the man who figured this out, Nikola Tesla had very little money, so after being proved wrong, Edison just bought out Tesla, pretended he was in favor of alternating current all along and stole the credit.

John D. Rockefeller was making a fortune selling kerosine. When Edison invented the lightbulb, Rockefeller went on a crusade to prove that electricity was too dangerous to install in homes. He lost that fight big time. He was also frustrated by this awful smelling by-product unfortunately generated by the production of kerosine. It was highly flammable, and it literally vaporized at low temperatures. It was considered so worthless it was discarded in disgust. Today we know that byproduct as gasoline and suddenly John D. Rockefeller realized that he could make a lot more money selling gas than he could selling kerosine. Hence, Standard Oil.

A more recent example is the insane movement to respond to violence by BLM and Antifa by defunding the police responsible for defending us from these folks. Supposedly smart mayors did defund police with the inevitable result of an enormous surge in crime. It turns out that if you insult the people hired to protect you, at some point they won’t bother. Police are retiring in droves, and no one is applying to replace them.

Democrats are all in on requiring everyone to get vaccinated and carrying a vaccine card. They ignore the fact that the only reason we even have vaccines is because of Trump. But they also ignore something equally important. You can’t argue that people need a vaccine card to go anywhere and then argue that you can vote without having ID.

Jeff Bezos paid millions if not billions to fly into space in the ugliest rocket ever designed. The entire flight lasted 10 minutes and 10 seconds. The “crew” was “weightless” for about 4 minutes. They did incredible scientific studies like tossing skittles in each other’s mouth. Then Bezo landed and went into a victory dance. He thanked all Amazon employees for working so hard to make this possible.  It make him look like an idiot. About two seconds after he landed, NASA changed the definition of astronaut to be sure he was not included.

Then there was former President  Obama’s insane decision to throw a huge 3 day birthday bash to celebrate his 60^th birthday. At a time when vaccinated people are harassed into wearing masks, indoors, to protect people who are not vaccinated, Obama invited his celebrate friends to wine and dine mask free. Then he pretended to limit this to close friends and family, while all these celebrities showed up on their private jets. Suddenly the greatest President who ever lived looks more like a grinning clown act. That may have single handedly destroyed the Democratic narrative on masks and vaccines.

Governor Cuomo, the Love Gov, has per the New York Post, “reached the end of his grope.” He is literally being laughed out of office. His brother is likely to be laughed off the air at CNN. Now there are more and more signs that Governor Newsom may be destined for the political scrap heap. He recently got pressed during an interview by the Sacramento Bee. Now I live in Folsom, which is in Sacramento County. I stopped my subscription to the Sacramento Bee years ago because it is so liberal it is literally unreadable. Newsom obviously expected puff treatment from his favorite newspaper and was shocked when he was asked a tough question by Colleen McCain Nelson. Here is a link to the YouTube video of this:

Gavin Newsom Discusses Recall Election Issues With California Opinion Editors – YouTube

If you live in California, you have been inundated by commercials for Newsom starring Elizabeth Warren. She literally calls the recall another attempt by Trump supporters at voter suppression and an attempt to steal an election. Ever since that ad has been running, Newsom has been tanking in the polls. I recently chatted about this with a friend, who despises Newsom. He said he laughed out loud when he first saw this commercial and wondered if it was secretly written, tongue-in-cheek by Republican supporters of the recall. I have to admit that this is the same reaction I had the first time I saw this. I quickly noticed that she didn’t pretend that Newsom was doing a great job.

The recall election, again, will be totally by mail and they recently added a provision so you can print your own ballot. This is clearly designed to help Newsom win without regard to the legitimate vote count. But the polls are so bad that Democrats may not be able to steal enough votes to save him. Incredible.

Democrats are not the only ones who are brilliantly stupid. RINO Republicans compromised with Schumer to pass this massive infrastructure bill. Incredibly, this still may not pass, because the left wing Democrats in the House won’t settle for spending a mere $ trillion when they want so much more for woke politics and the green new deal. The only thing dumber than dancing with the devil is to forget that the devil is ultimately a loser.

Brilliantly stupid.

TDM

One of the most common criticisms of Donald Trump is regarding his “comb over.” He is often referred to as “Orange Hair.” Donald Trump clearly likes his hair, and he likes the way people refer to it. It is, in many ways, his trademark. I think most of his critics fail to understand that the more they complain about his hair, the more he likes it. In fact, the more people trash him, the more he enjoys the fight. He just fights back because Donald Trump actually enjoys fighting back. It is like the professional ballplayer who thrives on getting booed when he plays in a competitive ballpark. The player welcomes the boo’s because he considers them recognition of his power. Donald Trump has exactly that kind of personality. What he really fears is being ignored.

In many cases a comb over is considered to be a failed attempt to cover up baldness. As someone who is follically challenged, I understand the appeal of the comb over. But I also realize that most people are not impressed, so never bothered. I am also not sure I ever had enough hair to come close to pulling this off. In this case we have a Cuomo over, where the most powerful Governor in the United States, one of the most powerful men in the world, just resigned. Not only did he resign, but the White House Secretary, Jen Psaki, just kicked him on the way down. Some are slightly more kind, but absolutely no one is offering a hint of support.

Last Monday, August 2, 2021, few predicted that Cuomo would even consider resigning. Even after Letitia James released her report last Tuesday, on August 3, 2021, Andrew Cuomo arrogantly announced that he wasn’t even considering resigning. Perhaps there have been other politicians who suffered a similar fall from grace, but I can’t remember one. There are numerous reports that a lot of people secretly despised Andrew Cuomo, they just put up with him because they feared him. He has an apparently well-earned reputation of being brutal toward anyone who dared even pretend to challenge him. We have all seen movies or TV shows about politicians who are complete jerks in real life. People who can be charming and appealing during public appearances but who are selfish and arrogant and absolutely ruthless when the camera is off. We just seldom see someone like this in real life humiliated in such a public way.

Andrew Cuomo is probably a case study in narcissism. One could argue that almost every major political figure is afflicted by some level of narcissism. Donald Trump is clearly a narcissist who hated being challenged. But there was one important difference. Trump is a self-made man, who built a world-wide business empire. He was filthy rich and entitled before he became President, and he is still filthy rich after being President. His lifestyle may actually be more exuberant as a former President than it was as President. He wanted to be President, but he did not need to be President. While Trump was clearly humiliated at losing the election, he does not consider himself to be a loser.

Cuomo, on the other hand, is not rich. His net worth is estimated at about $6 million, and he may spend a lot of that on legal fees over the next few years. He doesn’t even own a house, his previous residence in the Hamptons was technically purchased by his former girlfriend. This means that in addition to the public humiliation, Cuomo may suffer personal financial humiliation. In addition, there is the personal humiliation. He instantly went overnight from being a class “A” celebrity, everyone wanted at their party, to being someone no one wants to invite to anything.

He probably does not realize the full extent of this yet. During his resignation speech he continued to be arrogant and is clearly under the illusion that someone is still listening to him. He would have been smarter to say nothing more than that he resigned, and he didn’t want to continue to be a distraction. But he could not bring himself to do that. The result is that in addition to the very public humiliation, Cuomo may suffer a far more painful fall from grace regarding his personal life. That makes him extremely dangerous. Numerous professional psychologists warn about what happens when an extreme narcissist is confronted with this kind of defeat. These people feel they are entitled, and it is apparently difficult, if not impossible, for them to accept the reality of such humiliation. Some resort to rage and some have even resorted to violence.

This reminds me of Jeffrey Epstein. When he was convicted and sentenced to jail a lot of people were horrified because Jeffrey knew where a lot of bodies were buried. Andrew Cuomo was the Governor of New York and had access to information the rest of us cannot even imagine. I used to know someone who was very highly connected with the Los Angeles County Prosecutor’s Office. He once told me the most valuable file on earth was the Los Angeles and Hollywood Police stop reports. These were the reports where people were stopped and questioned by the police, but not necessarily arrested or prosecuted. He told me about a couple examples, and they were beyond mind blowing. It was easy to understand why the people involved would have done almost anything to prevent these from becoming public.  If you want an example of something that is known, reflect on when Mel Gibson was stopped for drunk driving. When the video of that was released, his career never completely recovered.

It will be very interesting to watch what happens next. Some assume that the New York Assembly will still impeach Cuomo, but odds are a lot of them just want him to go, quietly. He will be moving from the Governor’s Mansion, a very secure place, to somewhere else, probably undisclosed. He will be encouraged to just keep his pension, keep his security detail, and keep his mouth closed. But the question is whether he is willing or even capable of doing that. This man is very angry, and he honestly believes he did nothing wrong, and this was all politically motivated. He is 63 years old, recently one of the most powerful men on the planet, destined to not only lose power, but to be ignored. It is hard to imagine a future for Andrew Cuomo that would come close to appealing to his enormous ego. It is even harder to imagine him just accepting this. It is far from clear that Andrew Cuomo is remotely capable of admitting, even to himself, doing anything wrong. He certainly is incapable of viewing this as remotely fair.

So, while the Cuomo over is nearly complete, there may be a lot more to the story. His resignation takes effect on August 24^th. We can guarantee there will be a lot of “negotiating” during that time. But there is a problem. No one can offer Cuomo what he desperately wants and needs, a future where he retains some level of relevance. As I wrote previously the one thing for certain is that Cuomo will never consider doing the right thing for the right reason. He will make decisions, like this one, only when he is left with no viable option. A lot of people know this and some of them just may be terrified.

This reminds me of one of my favorite cartoons. It is a picture of a pool of quicksand, with a hand sticking up “flipping the bird.” The caption says: “There goes an angry young man.” Soon you may just reproduce the same cartoon with this caption: “There goes Andrew Cuomo.”

TDM

Democrats and their fawning supporters would have you believe that climate change is an existential threat. They don’t actually believe that, or they would stop doing things like flying on jets and buying ocean front property. But they desperately want you to believe that. They also want you to be terrified of COVID 19 and whatever is next, since that enables them to continue controlling every aspect of your life. However, the real problem for them is a different kind of climate change. This is a change in the political climate that results when people just stop believing you anymore. There are several examples of this today.

Perhaps the dumbest thing any politician can do is to ignore the obvious and pretend the ridiculous is the new reality. There are several examples of that happening today. One is this insane attempt to convince people that someone can just change their gender by deciding they “feel” like they are the opposite sex. Any time pathologists examine a body, the first thing they know is the sex of the person. That is because, gasp, males and females are built differently. No amount of deep thinking, hormonal treatment or even surgery actually changes that. While there are exceptions, most of us can look at another person and rather quickly determine if that is male or female. Most people seem to like being the gender they were born with and fortunately most people of one sex like people of the other sex, but also like being different. This has been obvious to most people for as long as there is recorded history.

Another example is homelessness. All of us feel sympathy for people who fall into difficult financial times. The thought of homeless families trying to survive while living on the streets is always heart wrenching. It is also, fortunately, rare. We have all seen homeless people firsthand. In many cases it is easy to see why they are homeless.  In some cases, that is the lifestyle they choose. In other cases, mental illness or drug abuse is involved. One thing is certain, the Democratic strategy of spending lots of money to deal with homelessness just results in more homelessness. That is because there are also a certain number of people ready, willing, and able to seize the day if there is a chance of free money. This scene is playing out in every city across the country, yet somehow Democratic politicians want us to believe that things will get better if we just let them spend more money. Few buy this nonsense.

Most voters want honest and fair elections, most voters think there are serious problems with our elections and most support voter ID. The Democratic argument that requiring ID to vote is designed to suppress the black vote ignores reality.  Just about everyone who functions in this society has ID. That is because it is next to impossible to open a bank account, fly on a plane or even purchase cigarettes or alcohol without ID. Most people think that having to show ID is reasonable and necessary. So do Democrats, when buying a gun etc.  So, when Democrats rant about how unfair it is for those nasty Republicans daring ask people to show ID to vote, about 75% of the population, both Democrat and Republican, realize this is nonsense. If a recent poll by Rasmussen is accurate, and he has a very good record for getting things right, then up to 90% of voters think it is important to end cheating in our elections. This means that the more Democrats scream that Trump is telling the big lie when he questions the result of the 2020 election the more, they are alienating themselves from most voters.

These are just some obvious examples. There are more. The point being that somebody is really wrong here and the person getting this wrong is likely to pay a terrible price at the polls. We will soon know with the recall election regarding Governor Gavin Newsom. At first, the pundits said there was no chance he would be recalled. Lately they have changed their tune and are calling this a dead heat. It may depend on who decides to vote, and my guess is that the people who want him gone are far more motivated than those who support him. There is, of course, the California tradition of using mail-in ballots and vote harvesting to consider. But even that may not be enough to save Newsom. Democrats are promoting vote by mail and running ads by Elizabeth Warren accusing Republicans of “stealing power.” Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Think about this, smile, and just look around. What I see is a lot fewer people wearing masks and more people very concerned over the direction of this country. When Donald Trump was President, lots of people hated him. That is easy to understand, he has that kind of personality. But the country was headed in the right direction and most people were optimistic about their future. Today no one is exactly praising Joe Biden, at best they are pretending he is secretly competent. And no one thinks things are going well and that we are headed in the right direction. The only reason Kamala Harris is not already President of the United States is that she is Kamala Harris. We are very close to a “throw the bums out” consensus and since Democrats are the ones in power, they are the ones who should be terrified.

One final thought. No one, and I do mean no one, expects either Andrew or Chris Cuomo to do the right thing for the right reason. That is something neither of them will even consider. But this time, both are increasingly likely to be very public victims of the real climate change and some times climate change is a good thing.

TDM

JUST DESERTS – WHEN YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE!

Truth always outs and that is increasingly evident. While I never like to celebrate when someone self-destructs, there are situations where it is appropriate to recognize when justice is achieved. Today, several people are receiving well-deserved rewards for bad behavior.

Andrew Cuomo is in deep doo doo and even the MSM is no longer pretending otherwise. This is so bad that his brother Chris Cuomo is in danger of being fired by CNN. The report by the New York Attorney General was devastating and detailed. Then Andrew Cuomo poured gas on the fire by pretending this was all just an innocent manifestation of his exuberant Italian personality. In other words, he is so warm and loving to everyone that sometimes people misinterpret his friendliness and warmth for sexual harassment. The person who scripted this response should be fired. I wonder if this person is really that stupid or just hopes we are that stupid? I doubt that anyone believed him. I also doubt anyone was impressed by this. There are already numerous high level Democrats calling for his head.

Biden was asked about this today and he just told reporters to be quiet. Unbelievable.

Nancy Pelosi is also in trouble. She stupidly allowed congress to go into recess, without extending the eviction moratorium or increasing the debt limit. One of the problems with throwing money at problems is that eventually you run out of money, but the problems remain. Her January 6^th, 2021, insurrection inquisition is a disaster, and it didn’t help when it started with a sob festival by Capitol police officers. This was always guaranteed to be a partisan fiasco but when she refused to accept Jim Jordan and Jim Banks as members of the committee, she threw away the last chance for even a semblance of credibility. Her margin in the House is paper thin and even Democrats are not buying her leadership anymore.  In addition, protestors are literally showing up at her front door.

Joe Biden manages to embarrass himself on a daily basis. His senility is becoming increasingly difficult to hide. Recently a staff member handed him a note saying he had something on his chin, he scraped it off, and then apparently ate it. This was beyond bad. New reports about him are becoming shorter and shorter because it is difficult to find enough video footage that is not embarrassing. Jill Biden is carrying the torch at the Olympics. This has been so spectacular that even the fawning MSM is ignoring her. Joe’s favorability ratings are falling at warp speed and his handling of the COVID 19 pandemic has become a hot mess. Unemployment is soaring, so is inflation and now they are hinting at more lockdowns. This is not playing well in Peoria or anywhere else. There are even reports that his personal staff refers to him as the “Nightmare on Elm Street.”

The woke Olympics is in full meltdown. The MSM was promoting Simone Biles as the greatest of all time, only to have her drop out right at the start. This is unfortunate and we should all feel sympathy for her. She has been a remarkable athlete and a good ambassador for the U.S. But it created a huge problem for the MSM so focused on her that they missed the real story developing before their eyes. Sunisa lee won the gold medal in the Women’s individual all-around final. She is from the Hmong community, and this was a remarkable story. While it was sad to see Simone Giles sidelined, it was great to see other Americans step up to the plate and win gold medals themselves. It’s too bad NBC missed a lot of this.

The only person less popular that Joe Biden is Kamala Harris. Incredibly even Democrats are terrified at the thought of her taking over as President. She has accomplished nothing and her brief attempts at public appearances have deteriorated into fiascos. No one bought her act as a candidate for President, and no one is buying her act now.

I could give many more examples, but that would be redundant. Just ask a simple question. What has happened in the last three weeks that is making Democrats proud and excited about the future. Having difficulty coming up with something? So far, the principle Democratic response has been to scream that Republicans are much worse. Earth to Democrats. No one thinks that Republicans, including Donald Trump, are candidates for saint hood. We just realize that Democratic politicians are frequently guilty of the same or worse, it has just been ignored. Well, it isn’t being ignored now.

One final thought. The world’s greatest human, Barack Obama, made a brilliant decision to invite 500 guests to his waterfront mansion in Martha’s Vineyard for his 60^th birthday party. All this during a time when everyone else is being told to stay home and mask up. Even the fawning MSM is unimpressed. No one even pretends this was a good idea.

A lot of people are finding their positions on top of the pedestal in great jeopardy. In many cases, they are finally getting their just deserts. A sad day for them, but a strong indication of better days ahead for everyone else.

TDM

We often ignore history to our peril. Today there is an effective Tsunami warning system. We are all used to seeing Tsunami warnings only to have people report little or no significant damage. There have been Tsunamis, of course, and some of them have done a lot of damage, but not in places near to us. Hilo, Hawaii may be the most vulnerable city on the planet for damage from a major Tsunami. That is because of the shape of the harbor.

The University of Hawaii did a major study on this.

uhm_ma_3069_r.pdf (hawaii.edu)

I suspect some things never change. There was a major Tsunami that hit Hilo in 1946, there was another one that hit in 1960. By 1960 there was a warning system, and a warning was issued, complete with bulletins and sirens. Yet there had also been a lot of false warnings, so some people ignored them. Some people even went down to the shore to see this for themselves. Lives were lost as a result of that mistake.

Most of us know the Fairy Tale about the boy who cried wolf.  You might be interested to know that there has even been a financial analysis of the effect of “crying wolf.” Here is the link to an article showing the formulas.

www.yorku.ca/phall/HOME/wolf.html

The obvious point is that if you keep predicting dire events and you are wrong, there are consequences. We have all experienced this in real life. My phone gets alerts all the time, usually a wind or hot weather alert. They are interesting, but seldom provide information I didn’t already know and usually this information does not result in my taking any action. But the information is usually accurate.

I could write about COVID and the insanity regarding vaccines and masks and lockdowns, but more people are sick of hearing about COVID than by COVID itself. It is too depressing to focus on temporary insanity.

But there is something going on, that is going to have a major impact, and it is being ignored. Ironically, a lot of supposedly smart people are focused on doing things not only guaranteed to fail but if they accidentally succeed the results are potentially catastrophic. We are talking about climate change here, the real climate change, not the myth of global warming that is causing so much hysteria. Real scientists, who don’t care about the liberal agenda and are not influenced by the minimal impact of CO2 on global climate, are sounding the alarm. These scientists, unfortunately, are far more likely to be accurate. There are numerous legitimate scientific studies that show the same thing my miniature Schnauzer BeckyJo has figured out. If you are hit by sunlight, it is warmer. Since our house is air conditioned, she seeks rays of sunlight coming through the windows and chooses to lie there for her frequent naps. Then when the sun moves, so does BeckyJo. Frankly, our entire global climate is the same way. When there is more sunlight, it is warmer. We call that summer. When there is less sunlight it gets colder. We call that winter. This is obvious to everyone, except the climate change alarmists who should be paying attention to something really big. The sun is going through a period with lower sunspots and solar activity. When that happens, less sunlight reaches the earth. Things get colder, a lot colder.

Most people don’t know that there were times, not that long ago, when the earth was warmer than now. But then around 1645 there was the Maunder Minimum, which took place between 1645 and 1715. The sun had a prolonged sunspot minimum, similar to what scientists are predicting. The result was called the “Little Ice Age.” The earth was already cooler because of some serious volcanoes. Without being too repetitive, it got really cold and the winters of 1683, 1694 and 1708 were extremely cold. In England it was called “The Great Frost” in France it was called “Le Grand Hiver.” It was reported to be the coldest European winter in 500 years.

Now imagine, that just about when the Climate Change hysteria has reached its peak, when the Al Gores and Joe Bidens of this world are demanding immediate action, like getting rid of all gas powered vehicles, it starts getting colder, not warmer. This is a real possibility. It is also, unfortunately, a far more serious problem than the minimal impacts from any potential global warming. When it gets warmer, we grow more crops, and everyone does fine. When it gets colder, there are usually famines, and a lot of people die. Now that we have better technology, the impact of a cold wave would probably be lower, but still a higher risk than global warming.

The point being that despite man’s best efforts to muck things up, God is still in control. If He decides the earth needs to cool down a little, forcing everyone to buy an electric car is unlikely to change anything.

TDM

I had season tickets to the San Francisco Giants for over 20 years. My seats were in row 29, in the section behind home plate. I still remember the time I invited a former Major League ball players to a game with me. He was Kevin Maas who used to play for the New York Yankees. Two things happened that taught me a lot. One was that near us several other former major league ball players were sitting, watching the game with their families. I did not recognize any of them, but Kevin Maas sure knew them, and they all knew him. They kept coming up to us and saying hello to Kevin. They were all friendly. If he had not been there, I would have had no clue about this. It was an important reminder that sometimes there are very interesting people and things all around us, but if we don’t know then we don’t even notice.

The second thing that happened taught me that Major League ball players are nothing like the rest of us. At one point Chad Zerbe came in to pitch. He had been pitching well, so I was expecting good things. But after about two pitches, Kevin leaned over toward me and said: “he is raising his finger on his throwing hand when he throws his slider. They will pick up on that and start hitting him hard.”  I had a pair of binoculars in my bag, so I used them and focused on his pitching hand. I could not notice anything. Frankly, his hand looked mostly like a blur. But Kevin was right, the other team began hitting him, hard. I thought, perhaps, that Kevin was just toying with me, because I definitely could not see this. But then, the next day, there was a report in the paper that Chad Zerbe had been sent back to the minors, to work on his mechanics. I then realized that Kevin did see something, the other team saw something, and so did the pitching coaches for the SF Giants.

I still have no clue regarding what exactly Chad Zerbe was doing, but I had to realize that other people, with skills I could not even imagine, saw this very clearly.

This reminded me of a comment by Mike Krukow, an announcer for the Giants. He talked about how Barry Bonds would point out something to his teammates, but none of them could see what he was talking about. Bonds could see it, he could not understand why everyone else couldn’t see it, and the result was usually a home run.

I have learned that when people say they see something I don’t see, I just listen. Sometimes, they are just wrong. Sometimes they are delusional. But sometimes they are right, and we ignore them to our peril. Today, we have some very smart people saying the evidence of election fraud is overwhelming. We have other, supposedly smart people, saying they are wrong, and this is delusional. Not everyone who believes there was election fraud is an idiot. Not everyone who says there was no fraud is an Anti-Trump bigot. I believe that we are already on a path where the truth of this will become impossible to ignore one way or another. I personally think the fraud happened, primarily because the system was so obviously flawed that it was a recipe for fraud.

There are many people telling us that wearing masks helps prevent catching and spreading COVID. There are other people who say this is nonsense and masks do almost nothing. It is impossible to tell, because along with the mask mandates were drastic lockdowns where people stopped interacting with each other. I am reminded that the American Indians were devastated when they started interacting with Europeans, not necessarily because of guns, but because Europeans had diseases for which the American Indian had no immunity. Europeans did have a lot of immunity, so these diseases did not make them very ill. However, they literally killed American Indians.  This was a reminder that yes, one can avoid certain disease by being isolated, but being isolated also makes it very difficult to experience life.  A lot of people are quickly figuring out that the cure is worse than the disease. There are few things sadder than to see someone afraid to live for fear of dying.

A lot of important things are starting to come into focus. Things that we ignore are coming into our line of sight. Ultimately, truth is the best disinfection and while this is coming at great cost, ultimately the result will be worth it. Remember that our entire system of government was only possible when people realized not only what was wrong with the current system but were willing to learn from mistakes and create a whole new kind of government, a government of the people, for the people, by the people. Truth is always truth and truth will always prevail; it is just sometimes out of the line of sight.

TDM

We live in a world where being a celebrity results in unbelievable riches. There have always been super rich people and some of them have always been real jerks. But previously these were mostly people who inherited old money, or people who built business empires. Then we started a new class of rich, the celebrity class. Originally some of these people at least appeared to have real talent. They were movie stars, or musical performers or star athletes. They entertained people. But now we seem to have a new class of people who are famous primarily for being famous.

Perhaps the penultimate of this category is the bizarre case of “Prince Harry” and Meghan Markle. Harry famously wants to be known as a prince, while simultaneously trashing the royal family that made him a prince. He is then making a fortune, not because he has even pretended to accomplish something, but rather because he is bad mouthing the royal family that provides the only excuse for anyone knowing his name. For a while, Harry seemed like a decent guy who spent his time in the British military without being a total jerk. But his only talent now seems to be biting off the hand that fed him. His wife, Meghan Markle, is primarily famous for marrying him and then encouraging him on his mission of destruction. Ironically, she feels intitled because somehow marrying a prince made her the ultimate victim. Sadly, far too many people are thrilled at the opportunity to throw money at these two in hopes that they can be even more destructive.

Today actually accomplishing something takes second place to being a really good victim. I frankly find it hard to understand why anyone would care what either of them think about anything. But obviously a lot of people must care because they are making a fortune doing this.

Then I realized that these two are just part of the pattern. We used to admire people for, well, accomplishments. Or at least, the perception of accomplishment. Now no accomplishment is required, it is enough to be famous or to be against something. Some people are literally famous for being victims. This is so financially rewarding that people are faking being victims because it has become so lucrative. Just recently, another, politician was complaining about hate mail and death threats that she very likely wrote to herself.

Being “anti” something is not exactly new. There is always something to complain about. In addition, we all know people who aren’t happy unless they are unhappy.  But being “anti” is often only destructive, since there is little, or no thought given to the consequences. Some historians believe that some form of anarchy dates back to pre-history.

https://guides.loc.gov/chronicling-america-anarchist-incidents

In 1894 the Omaha Daily Bee described anarchists as “those who believe all human government is usurpation, tyranny, essentially wrong.”  President William McKinley was shot and killed by an anarchist.

Wiser people have learned from this and realize that while anarchy can be popular, and it may change things dramatically, it seldom solves problems. In the end, those who seek solutions rather than just change for changes sake are those who make things better. There is probably no better example of that than the difference between the French Revolution and the American Revolution. The American Revolution led to our constitution, our bill of rights, our limited government, and workable compromises between being able to govern while avoiding tyranny. The French Revolution led to violence and bloodshed, resulting in chaos and ultimately dictatorship.

Today we need to pay attention to those who are only interested in upping the “anti”, without actually proposing anything approaching a solution. That is particularly true when the “anti” is based on a patently false narrative. We are reminded that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

TDM

Someone apparently thought it would be a great idea to have Joe Biden do a Town Hall. It was hosted by CNN who predictably chose Don Lemon as the moderator. They then filled part of the hall with designated supporters. Based on the size of the audience, these are becoming increasingly difficult to find. It was an unmitigated disaster. This is easy to verify. The MSM has barely reported on this at all. Real Clear Politics, which at least pretends to be non-partisan gave a scathing review:

The Absolute Farce That Was the Biden-Lemon Town Hall | RealClearPolitics

Ok, this is an opinion by Joe Concha, who is not exactly a Biden fan, but most of the damage was done by Biden himself.

When asked about what the Biden administration would do to “incentivize” those who haven’t returned to work yet, Joe said the following:

“I think it really is a matter of people deciding now that they have opportunities to do other things, and there’s a shortage of employees. People are looking to make more money and to bargain. And so I think your business and the tourist business is really going to be in a bind for a little while.”

Here is his answer about whether children 12 and younger should be vaccinated:

“The question is whether or not we should be in a position where, you, uh, um, are why can’t the, the, the experts say we know that this virus is, in fact, uh, um, is going to be, or, excuse me, we know why all the drugs approved are not temporarily approved.” 

Incredibly, Don Lemon came perilously close to underperforming Biden, but that, of course, was an impossible task. His final question was:

Mr. President, you’ve been the big guy for six months now in the White House. Can you take us behind the scenes, something that was extraordinary or unusual that happened that stands out to you?”

Here is how the President of the United States, the man who holds the nuclear codes, responded:

“Yeah, ‘Mr. President, you didn’t close the door. … Mr. President, what the hell are you going out at this time for?'” (Laughter) “You know, it’s a wonderful honor. As you can tell, I hope I have very good manners, but I’m not very hung up on protocol.”

Far more people watched Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity than watched the CNN townhall with Joe Biden.  I was not one of them. This may shock some people, but I seldom watch either Carlson or Hannity. The reason is that I am sick and tired of hearing how bad things are with no one seeming to offer an ounce of optimism about anything. It is increasingly difficult to find anything worth watching on TV. I started watching the opening to the Olympics, got bored and just turned it off. It just seems so fake. There are no spectators, the Japanese people appear to be against the Olympics because they fear Covid 19 and the only thing that seems to be reported about our athletes is focused on the handful of people who kneel for the national anthem and do a variety of other things to slam America.  Then there are these world leaders, including First Lady Jill Biden, standing there, fully vaccinated, wearing masks, looking terrified. I hope NBC didn’t pay a lot of money to broadcast this disaster. Actually, I hope they did spend a lot of money.

In my opinion, if you don’t want to represent our country and be proud, then don’t. Say whatever you want but stop assuming that the entire world is waiting breathless for the opportunity for you to bad mouth your country as a reward for being selected for the Olympic team.

We do watch the San Francisco Giants, primarily because they have the best record in baseball, and they keep beating the Dodgers. Watching the Dodgers lose in the most painful way possible is worth the price of watching woke commercials. But we also boo the commercials, for sport. As for the NFL, well they have descended into the no viewer zone.

The point being is that the entire country is tuning out at an unprecedented pace. I suspect even Democrats are getting sick of this. The CDC is all over the place. One of our clients asked about guidelines for an employee who had a mild case of covid. He is now past the quarantine period, but still tested positive this week. The CDC says someone can test positive up to three weeks later, but you can’t infect anyone after nine days. But, even if you are vaccinated, you still need to wear a mask, except when you don’t need to wear a  mask, such as working at Amazon. If you get Covid, you are immune and can’t inflect anyone, but you still need to wear a mask, because you aren’t vaccinated, and if you are vaccinated you still have to wear a mask because other people may not be vaccinated. All of the above information came from the CDC. It is consistently inconsistent.

Today, Secretary of the Treasury warned that if we don’t raise the debt ceiling, like now, the consequences will be drastic. Hmm. This takes place next Sunday, and congress is already on recess. Nancy Pelosi is too busy gloating over the January 6^th commission to worry about something as minor as our international credit rating. Odds are they will find a way to fit this minor item into the agenda, somewhere, hoping no one realizes how much the debt ceiling is being raised. Otherwise, people might be concerned that we are spending too much money now, making it oh so difficult to explain why we need to spend another $3.3 trillion or so.

But here’s the good news. We have someone really sharp on the job. Joe Biden went to town, and this was so spectacular that everyone can now sleep easier, not! It did accomplish one thing. If you need a good laugh, go ahead, and watch some of this. If you can ignore the fact that this guy really is President of the United States, it is pretty hysterical. What could possibly go wrong?

TDM

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers visited the White House. If you read the reviews in the MSM, you would think that Tom Brady took shots at Donald Trump. That would be interesting because Brady was previously caught with a MAGA hat. This is an absolute case study in how some people hear what they want to hear and other people, listening to the same conversation heard something completely different.

Here is a headline saying that Brady trolled Donald Trump. There are many, but here is the one from ESPN:

Tom Brady trolls Donald Trump throughout White Home go to (Video) (espnsportsblog.com)

Here are the jokes that ESPN felt were aimed at Donald Trump:

“Not many people believe we could win, 40 percent in fact, still don’t believe we won. Do you understand that, Mr. President? “

Then later:

“People started calling me ‘Sleepy Tom’” after forgetting about the Chicago Downs.”

The author said this could have cost Brady a chance to play golf with Trump this summer. The assumption is that Brady changed his mind after Trump: “having become a symbol of bigotry and hate.”

The New York Post was more neutral and described this as Brady joking with Biden about election results:

Tom Brady jokes with Biden about election results, nicknames (nypost.com)

Other people, watching the same video, described this differently:

Tom Brady Trolls Election Deniers While Celebrating Super Bowl Win With Joe Biden at White House (popculture.com)

Still other people described this as Brady trolling Biden, right to his face.

USSANews.com | The Tea Party’s Front Page.

“Tom Brady Trolls Joe Biden Right To His Face And Breaks The Internet!”

So, was Brady saying that the people who think Trump won are delusional, or that nearly half the country questions whether Joe Biden really won the election. When he talked about being called “Sleepy Tom” for doing something he admitted was really stupid, was he praising Joe or laughing at him?

Obviously, no one knows what Brady really meant. We do know that during the Super Bowl itself, Brady trolled Democrats by using “Reagan, Reagan” as audible call sign. Brady is a sharp guy; odds are he knows that Joe Biden is not up to the job. I personally think he was trolling everyone by saying things that can be interpreted however one wants.  I have a tee shirt that says: “Enjoy  Weed” then underneath that it says, “California.” It is my favorite shirt because a ton of people, obvious pot smokers, come up to me giving a thumbs up. In other words, they are outing themselves. I just smile and say it’s a  town, but you just outed yourself. They usually laugh, sheepishly. Other people come up, know that Weed is a place, and smile. It is a classic example of something being interpreted completely differently, depending on who is reading it.

Here is a picture of that shirt.  Enjoy!

We are truly in a twilight zone where nearly half the people believe things that are demonstrably false. Some of this is because of a very visible coordination of misinformation by the DNC, the RINO Establishment, and the MSM. Lies are told over and over again until more and more people believe. But they are still lying. And ultimately, any strategy based on patently false assumptions is doomed to failure. People may not fully comprehend the absurd lies told to support irrational strategies to defeat climate change, that can’t possibly work, but they understand shortages, and hot days without air conditioning and skyrocketing gas costs. They also understand that all of the Democratic strategies to deal with homelessness has resulted spending astronomical sums to reward people for being homeless, which, predictably has resulted in a surge of homelessness.

In the meantime, we are thankfully granted brief moments of relief which put this all into perspective. What better way than an appropriately absurd comedy show. Whatever Tom Brady meant or didn’t meant, he definitely provided some well needed humor available to anyone who watched the Brady Bunch.

TDM

Just this week Fox News and other media outlets ran a story explaining why Ritz crackers have ridged edges. The explanation was that this made it possible to use the cracker to cut cheese, if no knife was available. Shannon Bream had one of her reporters test it out, and yup, it kinda sorta does let one cut cheese with a Ritz cracker. Perhaps Shannon Bream gave the best response ever when she said: “How could anyone be alive on this planet, this long, and not know that?” It does, in retrospect seem pretty obvious. It also seems impossible to understand why no one bothered to even ask the question before now. Strange.

Last year was strange. This year is turning out to be stranger. It is increasingly difficult to separate facts from fiction. It is impossible for those who rely on the unreliable MSM. Now we have the President of the United States saying that people are dying because of “misinformation” spread on social media. This is because, gasp, we are still short of 70% of people getting the COVID 19 vaccine. Now, if you believe the MSM, COVID 19 is back, in the worst possible form, and likely to kill everyone. Anyone who disagrees with this is spreading not just “misinformation,” but also “dangerous misinformation.”

So, I did a little research to find some of that “dangerous misinformation.” So far, I have seen reports of people getting sick from the vaccine itself. That appears to be accurate. Probably more accurate than the exaggerated hospitalization and death reports regarding COVID 19, with one exception. Elderly people in nursing homes did die from COVID 19 at alarming rates. This appears to have happened primarily in Blue States where Democratic Governors ordered patients in these facilities, who tested positive for COVID, sent back to the facility. The reason for this is obvious. When the state is paying for your health care, it feels it has the right to decide when and how that health care is delivered. They didn’t consider these elderly patients worth the cost. The result was that thousands of them died unnecessarily. But, if you point that out, you are probably guilty of spreading “misinformation.”

I now realize the real problem is that we have been misspelling this. It is not “misinformation” which implies that data is incorrect, it is “miss information” which means it strays from the required narrative. Anything that causes someone to draw the wrong conclusions is “miss information.” How date anyone challenge the reporting by the MSM or the rants coming from the White House? Are we to believe that these people are mere mortals, capable of error? Perish the thought. If Joe Biden says the Texas Voter ID law is racist, then it is racist, whether it is racist or not. If he says the rapid increases in the cost of gas is due to climate change, then it is due to climate change. Cancelling pipelines and blocking people from drilling for oil is not possibly a factor.  If Joe Biden says paying people more on unemployment is not discouraging them from working, then it is not discouraging them from working, even if they say it is discouraging them from working. Pointing out the obvious problem with this reasoning is “miss information” and while technically accurate is socially unacceptable.

The audit in Arizona has already found 73,000 ballot received but never sent out in the first place. CNN issued a scathing response saying that this could just be a case of missing paperwork. How could anyone possible consider this to be suspicious? Some would point out that having 73,000 ballots with no supporting paperwork is a problem, but that also would be “miss information.” Any information that creates a potential that Donald Trump was right when he says the election was stolen is by definition “miss information.” Anyone who dares suggest that it is increasingly hard to believe that 84 million people voted for someone as obvious inept and extremely radical as Joe Biden is not only spreading “miss information” but also spreading dangerous “miss information.” The next thing you know people will start asking hard questions about how anyone can have confidence is an election system that was at best completely disorganized. That would be so unacceptable, because it would cause people who wonder what or more specifically who decided it was a good idea to put someone like Joe Biden in the White House. Nothing could be more dangerous than that. Why, gasp, some of these people might even vote for Republicans, without understanding that the Republican Party is the Party of White Supremacy. That it is the price of “miss information” and if Republicans, not Democrats, are put in power we might return to the problems created by Donald Trump, like low interest rates, a soaring economy, a decreasing trade deficit and gasp, low unemployment for everyone, particularly minorities. It might confuse people into making very poor decisions regarding who is and who is not their real friends. That, of course, would be the ultimate tragedy. The only solution is to clamp down, once and for all, and eliminate “miss information.”

TDM