DSome people in government appear desperate to continue controlling our lives. The method of choice is requiring people to wear masks, non-medical grade, proven to be ineffective, even for people who have been vaccinated. So how do they get people to continuing doing things that don’t work and border on ridiculous. The answer is to scare them. You scare them with the “science.”

There is no science showing that wearing a non-medical mask in an uncontrolled environment accomplishes anything. There are studies showing that if people sneeze, violently, while wearing a mask, it travels a shorter distance. But studies comparing places with strict mask mandates and places with no mask mandates show very little difference. The only way to truly test something like this is to use a carefully conducted scientific study that compares results with two similar groups with the only difference being who wears masks all the time and who doesn’t. Real scientific studies require special controls, usually a double blind study, and careful measurement of results. No one has come close to doing that regarding masks. I personally think the only thing masks accomplished was to have people stay home and avoid mingling with other people at all. That is a good way to prevent getting any communicable disease, like a cold, but it is impossible for society to function this way for very long without extreme economic effects. You know, like what is happening now. Then, when people finally do mingle, the disease just starts spreading again. That is exactly what happened with the Spanish Flu, but those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it.  Delaying the spread of COVID, until we had a vaccine, arguably worked, but now that we have a vaccine, it is time to return to normal.

Some people want everyone to continue wearing masks, all the time, even if vaccinated. The facts do not support this. Fewer people are getting hospitalized from COVID and fewer are dying, so they must focus on something else.  Oh, how about the percent of positive tests. Then this number is extrapolated to produce really scary numbers. That is where the bad math comes in.

Let me explain. I will use the COVID 19 dashboard for California.

https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/

As of today, there have been 3,748,365 total cases with 63,598 deaths. There have been 71,458,534 tests with 130,709 tests. There have been 42,782,508 vaccines administered.  If you do simple math, you see that the total positivity rate is 5.25%, for the entire population, and at worst that is now 3.6%  (The website says 3.7%). Then this is used to justify desperate things, like LA county making everyone wear masks again, even if vaccinated. The problem is that these numbers are very misleading. The only question is whether this is deliberate distortion or mere incompetence. There is obviously a big difference regarding the number of people being tested, who is being tested and why they are being tested. For example, they did 130,709 tests today.  Earlier this year, they were testing over 400,000 people per day. The number of people being tested has dropped significantly, for a good reason. They used to require tests of almost everyone. For example, if you had to get a medical procedure, you got a test, if you had to travel you got a test, etc. Put another way, earlier this year they were testing over 800 people per 100,000 people.  Everyone knows this. There used to be test sites all over the place. Now, not so much.

There is a reason fewer people are being tested. It is because they now mostly test people who are unvaccinated or who have symptoms. Also because hospitalizations and deaths, are thankfully way down. Even unvaccinated people are tested less often.

So, let’s look at that math. As recently as March we were still testing about 450 people per 100,000 or about 300,000 tests. Now we are testing between about 200 people per 100k or about 120,000 per day.  So, if the positivity rate is 3.7%, let’s use the state estimate, that means there were about 125,702 people tested and 4,651 of them tested positive. But, if they had tested at the same level they were doing in March, they would have tested about 300,000 people yet the results would probably be about the same or say a little higher, about 5,000.  That would be a positivity rate of about 1.7%, assuming you were testing the same way you did in March. Put another way, we were testing 450 per 100k but now are testing only about 200 people per 100,000. In order to determine the positivity rate per 100,000, you should take that into consideration. This means the positivity rate per 100k is not rising, it is falling. Instead of 5.4 cases per 100k it should be 5.4 cases per 200k, which would be 2.7 per 100k.  Oops, crisis over.

This is verified by the more important data, hospitalized patients, and deaths.  The number of hospitalized patients was about 20,000 in February, today it is about 2,077 or about 10 percent of that.  And this number has not changed much since April. There were 46 more patients today and this is an increase of about 2.3%.  The number of new cases is increasing very slightly, 0.1% and the number of deaths is increasing very slightly by about 0.1% per day.  The point being that the numbers with the least credibility are being used to scare people into taking action proven to be ineffective.

It is extremely critical during an emergency, that people can trust the information provided by our government officials. In this case the information being presented is highly misleading and it ignores other data that paints a very different picture. I am not sure which is worse; if this is done intentionally or if this is mere incompetence. The only thing certain is that it is extremely misleading and it is dangerous. The problem is that the next time there is a crisis, people simply may not trust the government.

The MSM should wake up to this and start spending a couple of minutes studying the data. I am not a scientist or a doctor. These numbers are beyond obvious, and they are readily available. It doesn’t take a genius to at least ask pointed questions. That is particularly true when the lockdowns and mask mandates have been so economically devastating. In addition, there are other tests showing that for some people wearing a mask is actually dangerous. That is particularly true if people keep wearing the same mask, without ever cleaning it. People have avoided getting crucial medical tests because of unnecessary lockdowns. I still think more people may die from COVID restrictions than from COVID itself.  At a minimum, if this disease is going to control our lives, people ought to be asking serious questions and demanding honest and serious answers.  Instead, anyone who even pretends to challenge the status quo is quickly silenced. Today the White House admitted asking Facebook to stop anyone from spreading misinformation. Misinformation is anyone who disagrees with them. That is remarkable when much of the information coming from this White House regarding COVID has been discredited.

It is long past time to stop making decisions on bad science and worse math.

TDM

The Arizona audit results are in, and they are stunning. Some things are certain. One is that the usual suspects will go postal and immediate challenge the audit. One notes that if the audit supported the original results, this would not be happening. Another is that to the extent possible the MSM will avoid reporting on this at all. This will be dismissed as more delusional nonsense from the basket of deplorables.

It will be beyond interesting to see how well these guys have documented their findings. Based on preliminary reports and the reported double checking of results, this may be very well documented. It better be well documented, because if they did find evidence that Trump actually won the election in Arizona, we will instantly enter a not so brave new world. There are a lot of people who are terrified at the prospect of a legitimate challenge to the 2020 election. They should be. But frankly, they should have been just as worried during the period from November 3, 2020, to January 2, 2021, when a proper investigation could have removed a lot of questions while there was time to fix things. Pretending there are no questions or that they are all illegitimate is a recipe for disaster. A disaster that could have been avoided. A disaster that is looming on the horizon.

Things are so bad that a significant number of Republicans in Southern States are apparently seriously asking whether it is time, again, to secede from the union. That is extremely unlikely to happen, but it is indicative of how seriously people are viewing the problem. Almost anything is possible.

Some were probably hoping that this audit would answer a lot of questions. Actually, it raises more questions than it answered. For example, the audit showed that there were 74,000 ballots received, but there is no record that they were even mailed out. They have found obvious duplicate ballots. In some ways, this was the worst possible result for Democrats. There is no one wildly screaming that Trump won, they just very simply and professionally pointed out reasons why it is impossible to trust the official results. If nothing else, this is a case study in how not to conduct an election. Regardless of the impact on the 2020 results, a lot of people are going to demand changes to prevent this from happening again. This is ridiculous. Here we are, more than 8 months after an election and we don’t really know who won?  Seriously? Frankly, it was better when we just used paper ballots counted by hand. At best, this is hopelessly incompetent. At worst, the 2020 election was stolen. Which do you prefer, mere stupidity or criminality? Neither is remotely acceptable.

Hopefully at least some people will recognize the obvious. This is a serious problem and if it is not fixed a lot of people, perhaps even a majority of people, will lose confidence in the system itself. If you want to see what this looks like, check out Cuba.

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law Professor said that Trump should be charged with insurrection over January 6^th.

Laurence Tribe: Charge Trump With “Insurrection” Over January 6 | Video | RealClearPolitics

His statement is ridiculous. He says he is not going to judge any of the evidence in advance, but then judges the evidence in advance. Then he mentioned Jeffrey Toobin, yes that Jeffrey Toobin, and says that even though Toobin realizes there are legal problems with doing this for the first time, that is not a reason to not do it.  When Jeffrey Toobin hesitates to do something because he thinks it is stupid, that should really scare people.

This is utter nonsense, particularly from someone who claims to be an expert on the law. Then, incredibly, after not judging the evidence in advance, he opines that “this was the first insurrection that we had since the Civil War.” This is not just wrong, it is not just absurd, it is insane. That causes me to wonder why someone of this stature would say something so ridiculous. The only possible answer is that he is absolutely terrified at the alternative. The alternative being that when Trump said the election was stolen, it was because the election was stolen, and when people responded with anger, they had just cause because the election was stolen and no one in a position of authority was willing to do anything about it. They weren’t even willing to investigate. That should terrify people like Laurence Tribe.

Now, in the ultimate act of absurdity, congress, which should be investigating the 2020 election itself, is instead investigating whether Trump was encouraging an insurrection by pointing out the obvious. We can survive Joe Biden being President. We could even survive having Kamala Harris as President. We can survive Chuck Schumer being Majority Leader of the Senate and Nancy Pelosi being Speaker of the House, all of them pushing insane and irresponsible socialist legislation down our collective throats. It will be painful, but we will survive. But we cannot survive being stupid enough to believe the nonsense about there being zero problems with the 2020 election.

This is rapidly coming to a head. Democrats are pushing legislation to make it far easier to steal elections. Republicans are pushing legislation making it much hard to cheat. Every poll shows the Republicans have the winning argument unless the poll is taken only by anchors in the MSM. Each day provides more proof that these clowns will repeat any Democratic talking point, even when those talking points are not only wrong, but they are also absurd.

Anyone paying attention should realize who is winning and who is losing this argument. The MLB All Star game moved from Atlanta for precisely this reason had dismal ratings. Now the NFL is planning on pushing BLM nonsense and is even planning on playing the “Black National Anthem” before every game. Perhaps people who promote this song should remember that this was a hymn, written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson in 1900 for the Anniversary of Abraham Lincoln. You know “that” Abraham Lincoln. The first REPUBLICAN President. The one who freed the slaves by defeating DEMOCRATS. I doubt that very many African Americans were even consulted about this decision.  There is nothing wrong with the words to the song, just the fact that people forget who made the song necessary and who made it possible. Hint, hint, it was Democrats who made it necessary and Republicans who made it possible. Just saying.

In any event, the only thing certain is turmoil, like we have seldom seen in this country. Those current considering themselves in power, in both parties, are actually on withering heights and sooner than you think that white mountain upon which they have installed their thrones may resemble that condominium tower in Surfside Florida.

TDM

The Democratic narrative is collapsing. This is happening so fast that it is often difficult to keep up. Several things are developing, simultaneously, that are guaranteed to rock the political landscape. This would already be happening if the MSM was not desperately trying to cover-up everything Biden. But that cover-up is unraveling, and the protective barrier is breaking down. It is now only a matter of time, and not much time.

The attached article, from the Associated Press, is just one example of leaks in the protective barrier. While the Biden administration and the MSM parrots are shrieking that the January 6^th, 2021, protests was an armed insurrection, equal in seriousness to the civil war, the facts are getting in the way of the narrative. So far, other than in outrageous statements made by prominent Democrats and RINOs like Liz Cheney, swallowed whole by the MSM, no one has actually been charged with conspiracy, or sedition or treason. Not even close.

Are Jan. 6 rioters traitors? So far, criminal charges say no (apnews.com)

There were some participants in this event who said incredibly stupid things. For example, read the statements attributed to Thomas Caldwell:

He has been charged alongside other members and associates of the far-right Oath Keepers extremist group with conspiring to block the vote certification.

He later boasted in a message to a friend about grabbing an American flag, joining the crowd that surged toward the Capitol and saying, “let’s storm the place and hang the traitors.” The 65-year-old from Virginia told his friend, “If we’d had guns I guarantee we would have killed 100 politicians.”

If you want information about the Oath Keepers, here is a link to their website. You decide if this is a far-right extremist group.  Guardians of the Republic – Oath Keepers

One notes that they didn’t have guns. Another guy, Guy Reffitt, allegedly spoke of “dragging … people out of the Capitol by their ankles” He was one of the few people armed and was carrying a gun and wearing body armor. Even he put a different perspective on this when he wrote:  “If overthrow (of the government) was the quest,” Reffitt wrote about Jan. 6, “it would have no doubt been overthrown.” In addition to be incredibly stupid, because no one on January 6th, 2021, was remotely capable of overthrowing the government, it is an admission that this was never even the plan.

It is unlikely that anyone will be charged with a truly serious crime including treason or sedition. Some people will be charged, with things like trespass or in the case of Mr. Reffitt with entering a restricted building with a deadly weapon. But it is increasingly obvious that there was not even an attempt at insurrection. Just a handful of people who got over-heated and said and did dumb things.

Another shoe is about to drop and that is the result of election audits, particularly in Arizona. There are increasing reports that these will be beyond explosive. That would explain why they are spending so much time verifying everything. If solid proof is provided that not only was there massive fraud, but it was also more than enough to change the ultimate results, that changes everything. Even the MSM will take notice. There will be an immediate attempt to discredit the audit, but ultimately that may only increase its credibility.

Now combine this with runaway inflation, skyrocketing gas prices and a President Biden who looks increasingly inept. To make things even more impossible, no one in either party is suggesting it is time for Kamala to take over, because she is even worse. People are just now realizing the amount of freedom we all surrendered because of COVID 19. If the government tries to reinstate some of this, they will be playing with fire. California is now demanding that all students wear a mask for in person learning. I doubt seriously that this will be well received.

The government is simultaneously telling us the vaccine, developed primarily because of the leadership of Donald Trump, is the only thing protecting us, but even if you are vaccinated you still have to act as if you are not. The only solution to this is to force people who do not want the vaccine, who do not think they need the vaccine and who fear the vaccine may have dangerous side effects, to get the vaccine anyway. But, even after being forced to get the vaccine, it won’t matter, because there will always be some people who remain unvaccinated. If this does not make any sense to you, it is because it does not make any sense.

In the meantime, the people in Cuba are trying to finally get rid of the communist government that destroyed their country. We should not underestimate this. Wanna be socialists in the United States often point to universal health care in Cuba as an example of how communism did some good things. The problem is that healthcare in Cuba is a hot mess and part of the reason all those people are protesting.

Things are really heating up. Just imagine if the American people are confronted with overwhelming evidence that Joe Biden is president only because of a corrupt election that was covered up by the DNC and the MSM.  That not only did they cover that up, but they also tried to silence anyone who dared even raise the possibility of a problem. There is nothing in our constitution that addresses this. There is no process to do a recall or even to “de-certify” results, even if they are proven to be fraudulent. We are already steaming toward a 2022 election that is likely to be a political bloodbath for Democrats. But the next Presidential election isn’t until 2024. It is far from certain that Joe Biden will even be alive by then and few would predict that his senility would not have advanced to the point of no return. No one wants Kamala. Just recently she insulted minorities by saying they couldn’t be required to have Voter ID because they didn’t have access to xerox machines. There was bi-partisan booing. She is one of the few people capable of making Joe Biden look good in comparison.

I doubt seriously that there is any potential that Donald Trump will be reinstated as President. But we are close to the point where somebody must do something. When Abraham Lincoln won the Presidency no one in either party thought he was up to the job. His own cabinet prepared to do the governing and planned to reduce him to a place holder. Remember that he was not even the featured speaker at Gettysburg, they only invited him because they had to reluctantly include him in the program. But Lincoln was far more capable than they imagined, and they ended up following his leadership. Joe Biden is no Abraham Lincoln.

Each of Biden’s attempts at a press conference ends up only showcasing his ineptitude. They also reek of desperation. He is pleading with people to believe him, while telling absurd lies that even he doesn’t believe. He is literally trying to argue that the Texas Voting rights legislation is pure Jim Crow, worse than the civil war. Only truly desperate left-wing anchors on the MSM are even pretending this is logical. Watch for more and more MSM reporters to start deserting the Biden Administration narrative. When the ship of state is so clearly headed toward the shoals, wise people abandon ship.

The Biden administration is headed toward an epic fall. That is no longer even up to debate. The question is when? The more important question is what happens after the fall?

TDM

It is really hot out there.  Here in Sacramento, we are used to getting 100 degree days. We always talk about how it is a dry heat. That is true by the way, I would rather deal with Sacramento at 100 then Miami at 90 because of the humidity. But hot is still, well, hot. Last summer, we drove home through Death Valley, in July. The temperature was about 119 degrees. Probably normal for Death Valley that time of year. Fortunately, our car air conditioner was working fine, so we really didn’t notice the difference until we stopped at a store, in the middle of the valley. The walk from the parking lot to the store was impressive. But it was also not as bad as I expected. Now I wouldn’t want to camp out in this, and we spent the minimum time getting to and from our car. We also started our car, remotely, so it had cooled off before we got back in. But the point is that in the modern era, with air conditioned cars and home, we can handle this.

I couldn’t help but notice that some of the records being threatened happened in 1895. Now in 1895 there was no air conditioning, so people had to rely on electric fans. But then I did some research and discovered that the Folsom Powerhouse did not go into operation until July 13, 1895, so it is unlikely that anyone even had electric fans. I sometimes wonder how people could possibly stand this type of weather. I wonder more why anyone would even try.

Today our Governor is blaming all this on climate change. We note that he did not say global warming. That is because scientists don’t use global warming because it is too easy to disprove. So, they use climate change, but they mean global warming. Every day we hear people promising to change California to develop clean energy, so we won’t rely on fossil fuels at all by 2030. How the this is going to reduce world-wide CO2 levels, when places like China are not even pretending to change remains a mystery to me. I also am not sure how they intend to do this. I have seen no evidence that solar, or wind energy will come close. In addition, a lot of people here are buying backup generators, run by natural gas, to provide power when the electrical grid fails. This is happening at the same time some geniuses are demanding that all new building are totally electric, with no natural gas. We hope that the electric grid does not fail this time. So far, SMUD, has not cut power during this kind of event.

We recently got a great offer from PG&E to connect our thermostat with their grid, in exchange for about a $75 bonus. I read the fine print, and this would allow PG&E to manipulate my thermometer to 78 degrees, to reduce energy use. This of course would happen during the hottest part of the day, when we need the air conditioning the most. Since PG&E doesn’t even supply our electricity, I ignored their offer. In addition, we have solar panels on our house, precisely so I don’t have to turn down the air conditioning on a day like today. Duh!

The point is that stupid ideas are going up faster than the temperature. With this kind of brilliant management, we could see a return to 1895, complete with extremely hot weather and the joy of dealing with this without air conditioning. We also could be dealing with it without air conditioning in our cars either because the plan is to make all cars electric, and if the electric grid goes down, so do they. Incredibly people are responding to weather patterns that have been around for centuries with plans to manage them by micromanaging everything creating a real potential for worst case scenarios, say around 2030. Nice! Few realize something that should be obvious. We have a lot of oil, and we have a lot of natural gas. We have been using these fuels safely for decades and they are abundant. Gas powers our cars very well, the air is remarkably clean, and our homes are warm in winter and cool in summer.

Solar Farms take up enormous space and no one knows the full environmental impact. We do know that there is a significant cost to transmitting power any distance. We also know that wind farms also take up a lot of space and they only work well, if the wind is blowing at exactly the right speed. If you drive by a wind farm, you soon notice that most of the windmills are not, well, windmilling. That is because windmills only work for a certain narrow range of wind speeds. If the wind is too strong, they shut down. If the wind is too weak, they don’t move. So, they use a variety of windmills so that some of them work most of the time, assuming there is some wind. Also,  assuming they aren’t in places, other than California, where they can freeze at the worst possible time. Or that some Russian Hacker hasn’t shut down the grid demanding ransom money. In other words, what could possibly go wrong, with the answer being, just about everything.

When I was growing up, we didn’t even have TV. Then we got TV, but it was black and white. Then we got color TV, but the TV sets were expensive, and the color wasn’t that good. Now TV sets are dirt cheap, and the color is amazing. Our telephone was on a party line. Several different people shared the same line. Dialing long distance was expensive and a challenge. Today almost everyone has a smart phone that is actually a computer. If you have an apple watch, you can use that as a phone. The point is that technology is great, and it has made our lives better. But we may be close to the point where the same technology that has made us free may become the technology that enslaves us. That is particularly true as the government takes more and more control of technology.

Regardless of who you wanted to win the 2020 election, the MSM and the social media networks were all in on defeating Donald Trump. If Trump is right, when this failed, they just used technology to change the results. Hopefully, there will be real investigations and we will all learn the full truth about this. We already know that the MSM and social media were united in a campaign to make Trump look bad, in every way possible. They were definitely in collusion to micromanage how each of us make decisions that personally impact us. We have been warned. If we do not recognize the danger and put in safeguards, the future may start to look a lot like 1895. Actually, it will be even worse, because the government and only the government will decide winners and losers. Not based on performance or character but rather on skin color and things like gender identity. They have already tried this, Joe Biden tried to give agricultural support only to black farmers.

Always remember that government that can give you everything you want can also take away everything you need. One thing is certain, the politicians in charge will always put themselves first with little or no regard for anyone else. The other thing that is certain is that they will make incredibly dumb decisions that negatively impact everyone else and then blame it on Donald Trump or whoever else happens to be available.

TDM

People have been trying, and failing, to civilize Afghanistan since Alexander the Great. It has never worked out well. The Soviet Union famously invaded Afghanistan when Jimmy Carter was President. Jimmy responded by boycotting the Moscow Olympics. We then went through several years where the Olympics were basically destroyed by politics with numerous retaliatory boycotts. Once again, we have a U.S. President, threatening to boycott the Olympics in China. Only this time, the cost may be far higher than retaliatory boycotts. Such a move could be considered a loss of face by China and the results could be beyond catastrophic.

To be fair, Donald Trump was also planning on removing troops from Afghanistan. He was demanding Generals provide some definition of success that would justify continuing to put troops in harm’s way. But at least Trump was allowing the military to decide how and when to achieve this. Biden just ordered everyone out and as a result we are leaving in the worst possible way. According to reports, we abandoned Bagram Airbase and didn’t even bother to tell our hosts we were deserting them. Nice! There are numerous reports, all too believable, that Afghan troops are surrendering left and right to the Taliban and gleefully handling over those nice new American guns, ammunition and Humvees. There is no hint that the U.S. will do anything to even slow this down.  This is not just shameful, it is humiliating.

I still shudder at what happened in Vietnam. I was a Vietnamese linguist, so I knew what was really happening. Despite the many mistakes, we made in trying to fight that war with one hand tied behind our back, we were winning. The North Vietnamese were ready to give up. They feared Richard Nixon and believed him when he said they could have peace or they could have war, but they had to choose. This is almost identical to the message President Eisenhower sent to end the Korean War. He told China they could have peace, or they could have war, but if they chose war, it would not be confined to the Korean peninsula. They signed a cease fire, and it is still in effect today. If Richard Nixon had not been removed from office, odds are high that the cease fire would have held and today South Vietnam would look a lot like South Korea. But once Nixon was removed, for doing things that Democratic Presidents did on steroids, that was all thrown away. Democrats had total control of congress and Gerald Ford was not strong enough to fight the war without their backing. The result was a humiliating loss for the U.S. That was bad enough, but the highest price was paid by those who stupidly assumed the U.S. was capable of being a dependable ally.

Most people today are still in denial over who we were fighting against and what we were fighting for in Vietnam. They assumed this was just a civil war that was none of our business. The truth was quite different. The communists were willing to sacrifice over a million people to gain total control. They had zero interest in compromise. Many of the Vietnamese who escaped, after we deserted them, did so at great risk and arrived in this country with next to nothing. Yet they realized this was still the land of opportunity and they thrived. If you doubt that, talk to any of those brave people who risked all to come to America. Ask them if they are interested in moving back to Vietnam. Ask them how many of their friends and relatives still living in Vietnam tell them they made the wrong decision.

Yet the anti-war crowd, who wanted to end that war without regard to the consequences, remain oblivious to those consequences. Seldom in the history of the world have so many people been so blissfully proud of achieving such horrendous results while remaining so oblivious.

Well, we are doing it again. While we may argue that our actions in Afghanistan perhaps reduced the chance of another 9-11 type attack, that will be small comfort to the honest people remaining in Afghanistan who will be left to pick up the pieces. In addition, we may not have prevented this type of attack, merely postponed it. ISIS seized the day in Iraq and Syria due to the decision by President Obama to just abandon Iraq. Expect similar results in Afghanistan, on steroids, because neither Syria nor Russia will have any interest in even resisting the coming horror.  More importantly, what nation on earth would be dumb enough to trust us after this fiasco.

At the same time, we are weakened domestically by run-away inflation, dwindling supplies, skyrocketing unemployment and a re-introduction of the misery index. Joe Biden brags about creating new jobs, but there are no new jobs, just some people slowly returning to jobs needlessly lost during the pandemic. He has even slowed down that process by foolishly paying people to delay returning to work. There is no chance this is going to work out well, for anyone.

The only good news is that Jimmy Carter brought us Ronald Reagan and Ronald Reagan brought us morning in America. That part of history also repeats itself, but once again only at great cost. In addition, the usual suspects, as always, will learn nothing from history.

TDM

It is increasingly clear that something must be done about Joe Biden. The problems are beyond obvious. But it is also becoming clear that no one, in either party, is excited about turning things over to Kamala Harris. At least Joe has the excuse of age and senility. There is no such excuse for her. Today we may have seen further evidence of this and potentially tentative steps toward a strategy to deal with the Kamala problem first, paving the way for a solution to the Joe problem. Politico, which has become very liberal, published a major hit piece on her. Not only that, but they did research dating back to her Presidential campaign.

‘Not a healthy environment’: Kamala Harris’ office rife with dissent – POLITICO

The New York Post went a step further. Their headline reads as follows:

Report claims Kamala Harris’ staff feels they are ‘treated like s–t’ (nypost.com)

She’s No. 2: Report claims Kamala Harris’ staff feels they are ‘treated like s–t’

The Number two here does not refer to her position in line to the Presidency.

It is shocking that Politico would write this article about a liberal Democrat female VP. This really doesn’t pull any punches and it is unlikely Politico would have published this without a wink and a nod from the real DNC establishment. One will note that this doesn’t mean Politico is secretly joining the Trump parade. Far from it. What it does mean is that the problems regarding Kamala have gone public and we can expect more of this. Watch closely to see if any prominent Democrats start rising to her defense. One would think that a liberal Democratic woman, particularly the first woman of color, to be VP would be quickly defended. But that does not seem to be happening. Instead, I am seeing articles saying that most Americans blame her for the border problems. That seems a bit unfair, even to me, because this problem was created by Biden, and he just dumped it on her because he has no clue how to fix things. But again, I look around for the Kamala Harris faithful and so far, they are few and far between. Oh, the usual suspects in magazines like Vogue are still gushing, but they aren’t exactly talking about any accomplishments. On the other hand, there appears to be an effort to elevate Nurse Jill to second in command. She is the one, not Kamala, going to the Olympic games.

This is impossible to predict, but things are definitely changing, and we should all pay attention. One will recall that before Democrats took out Richard Nixon, they took out Spiro Agnew. He was replaced with Gerald Ford, who the Democrats considered to be a competent caretaker but not really a threat. They were right about that, as he was beaten by Jimmy Carter.

One problem for Democrats is that they don’t have a bench. The only name that Republicans would probably consider would be Joe Manchin and it is not clear he could get support from enough Democrats. Once again, this is a reminder that Democrats are caught in a trap they constructed themselves. In the meanwhile, every time the world turns, it exposes another serious problem Democrats created all by themselves. It turns out that doing everything exactly the opposite of what Donald Trump did or would do is not necessarily a plan for success. Trump had and has, his issues, but some of his plans, like regarding the border and the economy were working pretty well. If Democrats were smart, they would have just done the same thing and repackaged it as their own idea. That is what they did with the vaccine distribution, and it is the only thing close to being a success. But then, one would have to do a lot of research to find an establishment Democrat capable of logic and common sense. Seen one lately? Anyone?

Put this in the context of the rapid public disclosure of systemic problems with the 2020 election. Ironically, the knee jerk decision to suspend Rudy Giuliani’s law license may just be the straw that breaks the camels back. The problem is that in making this decision they relied on specific allegations of Rudy Giuliani lying about the 2020 election, when the opposite is true. Giuliani has his issues, like stupidly dying his hair only to have it “leak” on national TV and occasionally speaking when it appears he may have had a couple. But he is a brilliant attorney, and his legal filings will withhold scrutiny. In other words, while Rudy did not tell any lies in his legal arguments on behalf of Donald Trump, those trying to destroy him are telling lies. That might work, if the only coverage was by CNN, but this will be elevated to real courts, with real judges who will make real decisions and the facts all support Rudy. So, about the same time those who took this unprecedented and illegal action against Giuliani will be exposed we will also be dealing with the results of the Arizona audit. The only thing worse than having a President as obviously incompetent as Joe Biden is if people are confronted with the reality that people cheated to put him there.

This is a time when Democrats desperately need a real leader to step forward. Instead, they keep pushing out Joe and trying to hide Kamala. This is unlikely to end well for them.

TDM

Sometimes the best description of what is going on today has already been written, long ago, for a different reason.

“SEND IN THE CLOWNS.”  SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM – SEND IN THE CLOWNS LYRICS (songlyrics.com)

Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the clowns.

Isn’t it bliss?
Don’t you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can’t move.
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.

Just when I’d stopped
Opening doors,
Finally knowing
The one that I wanted was yours,
Making my entrance again
With my usual flair,
Sure of my lines,
No one is there.

Don’t you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you’d want what I want –
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.
Quick, send in the clowns.

What a surprise.
Who could foresee
I’d come to feel about you
What you’d felt about me?
Why only now when I see
That you’d drifted away?
What a surprise.
What a cliché.

Isn’t it rich?
Isn’t it queer?
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don’t bother – they’re here.

There have been many people who speculated, incorrectly, about the true meaning of these lyrics. We don’t have to guess. The person who wrote the song, Stephen Sondheim explained this in a 1990 interview:

 “It’s a theater reference meaning ‘if the show isn’t going well, let send in the clowns’, in other words, “let’s do the jokes.” Then he ends with explaining the last line: “Don’t bother, they’re here, which means ‘we are the fools.’”

It is only a matter of time before the clowns in the MSM are confronted with the reality that they, indeed, are the fools. They have been putting on quite a show, lying about anything and everything for far too long. But all the lies are being exposed, one by one. The latest fiasco, the Democratic Primary in NYC is just one of many examples. It turns out the people running this input 135,000 “test ballots” into the voting machines, to make sure they worked. But they forgot to remove them. Oops. When they ran the real ballots, they forgot about the test ballots so included them in the results. When the error was discovered, they tried desperately to claw back initial reports. Now no one knows who is actually in the lead. By the way, it may take days, if not weeks to sort this out, and no matter what the result, few will believe it.

The impact of this will reach far beyond New York. Just when the self-righteous anchors on the MSM were lecturing us about daring to question the results of the best run election in American History, New York City just put on a public demonstration of how easy it is to muck up an election.

Combine that with the Arizona election audit report which is getting ready to drop and there it is, the perfect storm. The people running the audit clearly know how to maintain security because there have been zero leaks. We can be sure if there was any evidence supporting the claim that it was Trump telling the big lie about election results, we would already know that. Anything negative about Trump ALWAYS leaks. Numerous delegations from other states have visited and all reported being impressed by the process. Now we are either going to see a lot of Republicans, standing in a circle, desperately trying, and failing to wipe the collective egg off their faces, or they have the evidence. We will soon know the answer to that.

I think the Democrat narrative is about to come crashing down faster than that condominium tower in Florida. The MSM will desperately try to send in the clowns, to distract. But they’ve been warned:

 “Quick, send in the clowns, don’t bother – they’re here.”  The clowns are already here, they’ve always been here, they have just been exposed. They are the fools and soon everyone will know that.

TDM

Did you fill up your car with gas for the 4^th of July. I bet you experienced long lines and shocking prices. Gas is now over $4 per gallon here in California. It is rising rapidly, everywhere. It is also impacting people more than you can imagine. It may surprise you to learn that gas stations are not thrilled over the increase in price. The amount they make does not increase much if at all. Most of it goes to taxes and the oil companies. Many gas stations make more from the convenience store attached than they do from selling gas. When people are angry at gas prices, that also stops them from buying things inside. No winners here!

Here in sunny California gas taxes go up on July 1^st, again. California already has the highest tax rate in the country at 62.47 cents per gallon. In addition, because our gas is different than from other states, it is always higher.  California cities, particularly LA, were built on the theory that everyone loves driving their car. So, we have more cars driving more places. It all adds up to a higher cost per gallon. California gas is always higher than almost anywhere else.

We were promised that these gas taxes would all be used to, you guessed it, rebuild infrastructure. That would be the same infrastructure on which Joe Biden wants to spend another $6 trillion. This of course is to complete all the shovel ready jobs promised by Obama. While Biden and Newsom are dreaming of a bright future where everyone drives electric cars powered by sunflower seeds and hot air, the reality is that most cars need gas. You don’t have to be an economist to realize that everyone is impacted by higher gas prices. No one is celebrating. Neither BLM nor Antifa have marches scheduled to celebrate higher gas prices. Instead, Democrats with the help of their allies in the press will try to blame this, on Donald Trump, or at least those nasty Republicans who won’t vote for Democratic spending bills. They are already trying, and failing, to blame Republicans for the defund the police movement. I doubt that anyone is buying that nonsense.

What we are buying is gas, lots of gas, and it means everyone gets a little angrier every time they fill up their car. If I were running for Governor of California to replace Gavin Newsom, I would be running the same ad, over and over again. I would have a video of someone approaching a gas station, with a line about a mile long,  and over head would be a sign blinking with a new price every 10 seconds starting at $10. Then I would say, “Thanks Gavin, nice work!” Then I show a picture of people filling up their cars wearing a mask. “Thanks Gavin, Nice work.” The I would show a picture of some rich guy driving by in this Tesla waving a sign that says: “Thanks Gavin, Nice Work!”

There are a lot of things coming together, all bad for Democrats. People are sick of masks. They are sick of being Woke. They are sick of transgender males competing against females. Has anyone wondered why there are no transgender females completing with males? They are sick of people calling for defunding the police while they live in their gated communities guarded by armed private security. They are sick of being lied to, about Russian Collusion, about COVID, about masks, about the 2020 election, about almost everything. In the meantime, police are retiring or just quitting in droves. Few are showing up to replace them. Crime is skyrocketing. Cities with the most gun control have the least control of guns. LeBron James “woke” the NBA, resulting in a massive turnoff of viewers. When his team was eliminated, ratings immediate shot back up.

The difference this time is that everyone is unified on one and only one subject. No one thinks things are going well. They differ strongly on who to blame, but not one likes this. And in case they start to feel better, they are reminded whenever they buy anything. It isn’t just the cost of gas that is going up, it is everything. In the meantime, Joe is getting worse by the minute. Today he leaned into the microphone and whispered again. We are not sure why. He remembered being at Proterra’s Bus Factory, in person, but he never actually went there. Then he repeated the story about Amtrak Conductor Angelo Negri. A story so obviously false that it is laughable. Angelo retired in 1993 over 22 years before the date Biden remembers so well.

So here we are. Joe is deteriorating before our eyes and Kamala Harris looks even worse. She botched the border trip so bad that even the MSM noticed. People are shredding their masks and good luck with trying to get them to put them on again. And now, when after a year, we can finally go somewhere and do something, we can’t afford it because we don’t have a job and gas is too expensive.

The entire Democratic agenda is going up like a gas balloon, a gas balloon that is destined to totally run out of gas, with disastrous results. The only solution they ever consider is spending more of your money. I used to joke that when a store asks if you want “cash back” they are talking about “your own cash.” They aren’t “giving” you anything. Sometimes I think Democratic Governors in blue states hope that no one notices they are always spending other people’s money. If you pay taxes, they are spending your money.

In the meantime, where are all those leaders in the DNC, who will arise out of the ashes to find a way forward. Anyone one? Anywhere? AOC? Ilhan Omar? Anyone one? Perhaps one of those Blue State Governors. Oh, on second thought, maybe not. Oh, over there, the guy wearing two masks while drinking coffee through a straw. That is exactly the kind of leadership we want and need. Good luck with that!

The only thing certain is that everything is going up, faster than you think, with one exception. The exception is any hope of Democrats finding a way out of the mess they created. Did you notice that Biden even attacked Iran militia in Syria? I am sure Joe has them terrified. “Wag the Dog anyone?” Oops, that was a movie, and it didn’t work then either.

TDM

Establishment Democrats had to know Joe Biden was not up to the job. Joe Biden has never been up to the job and his senility is becoming more evident by the day.  This was obvious long before the 2020 election. But they convinced themselves that anything or anyone was better than Donald Trump. Plus, they considered Joe to be nothing more or less than a placeholder. Someone they could “manage.”  But they managed to both underestimate and overestimate Joe Biden at the same time. I doubt anyone in the Democratic establishment expected much from Joe. He was put there as a place holder, so that wiser, more competent heads could run the show. Joe is being managed by others, they are just not part of the Democratic establishment.

While Joe has not exactly been in the lead, neither are they. He appears to be marching to the beat of invisible and incompetent drummers, totally out of step not only with the rest of the country, but with the Democratic establishment. Smart establishment Democrats only want their leader to say insane things in order to get elected. They don’t really want the same insanity to continue when a candidate is successfully elected to office.  They only want someone who gives the usual suspects enough encouragement to keep them quiet, while never giving way to policies they all agree would be disastrous.

They are now caught in a trap, designed by themselves, from which there is no apparent exit. If they admit Joe was never up to the job, they cannot defend choosing him as their nominee. The same thing is true for the MSM. They openly campaigned to defeat Trump, resulting in the election, of well, Joe. This was never going to end well. They should have known that. Secretly, they probably did know that, but they were blinded by their hatred of Donald Trump who was living rent-free in their collective heads.

Joe has been surprisingly effective, at mucking things up. His executive orders border on insanity. But no matter how bad Joe performs, Kamala Harris is guaranteed to be worse. It is increasingly clear that even Democrats have zero interest in her becoming President of the United States. If anything, they are more appalled by her performance than Joe’s

The problem is that Joe isn’t capable of playing the game, any game, and his backup is batting zero. If Kamala Harris were close to acceptable, they would already be working on a convenient illness where Joe could reluctantly hand over the reins in a dignified matter. But he would be handing them over to someone who is likely to giggle and cackle while accepting them. Then proceed on a path to destruction that makes Joe look good in comparison.

There are numerous reports that Jill Biden despises Kamala Harris. Nurse Jill is not going to willingly give over the reins of control to someone she despises. The result is that there is no exit strategy, there isn’t even an emergency exit strategy. Instead, the only option, equally unacceptable, is to sit back and watch this unfold in real-time, getting worse every week if not every day. In the meantime, when Kamala does briefly surface, on her way to her home in California, she instantly reminds EVERYONE why she would be even worse.

Remember this, the only reason Democrats chose Joe was that they thought he was the only alternative to Bernie Sanders. They feared, with justification, that Bernie could lose by an unprecedented landslide. While Bernie has his legion of people insanely shrieking his praise, there were never enough of them. The one things Democrats fear the most is losing. So, they did the unthinkable, they united behind Joe Biden.

Then, to make things worse, they put Joe and themselves in a pickle by insisting he choose a woman of color as his VP. Incredibly, Kamala was far and away the best available option meeting those criteria. Just think about this for a moment and allow yourself a brief smile. Joe, who is just plain awful, was still better than all the other DNC candidates for President. Kamala Harris, who finished last among the other DNC candidates for President, was still better than the other options available once the choice was limited to a woman of color. This means that as bad as these two clowns are, they are still the cream of the DNC crop. There is absolutely no Democrat, even close to the horizon, who offers even a faint hope of turning things around. That is because the Democratic Party sold its soul, assuming it ever had one, to the progressive left and are left with only skeletons barely resembling a real human being.

It is nothing more or less than the slum of all fears.

TDM

They sometime say that bomber pilots knew that when they started getting flak, they were close to the target. That is also true in American politics. The louder some people scream, the more evidence they are becoming terrified. Liberals are desperately trying to sustain the myth that there were no legitimate concerns about the 2020 election. They are desperate for you to believe that this was all made up by delusional supporters of Donald Trump. They call this the “big lie.” Just recently the State of New York decided to disbar Rudy Giuliani from repeating this big lie. This is not because they are confident, and the data is on their side. It is because the opposite is true. They are desperately trying to silence any discussion of the facts.

The audit is Arizona is done and they are preparing a report. A report they know will be instantly trashed by the MSM and which will be challenged in court by Democrats. If Democrats thought there was a realistic possibility this report would not find indisputable evidence of election fraud, they would not care. They would just be preparing to crow “I told you so.” Instead, those who ran the sloppiest election in American history have resorted to criticizing the people conducting the most thorough and transparent audit ever. That is an act of pure desperation. The people conducting this audit know the challenges ahead and they are gearing up for battle. Everything we see and hear points toward results that will be more than explosive and the loud screams from the liberal left are designed to distract people from the tidal wave heading their way. They are so terrified now that they are trying to prevent anyone from even daring to hint that the 2020 election might have had some problems.

I don’t believe this is going to work. I am not delusional. I don’t bother to read conspiracy websites. I just pay close attention to what is said, by both sides. It is increasingly obvious who has evidence and who does not. Who is pounding the facts and who is just pounding?  I suspect that a lot, if not most, Americans have a similar opinion. By every measurement, the MSM is no longer considered to be a credible source. All the MSM participants are shredding viewers and readers, but none more than CNN. People are tuning out at a record pace. The result is that any poll of readers and/or viewers is now worthless. If you want to know how people really feel, talk to those who are not reading or listening to you anymore.

Democrats are even more terrified of the truth about the January 6, 2021, “insurrection.” What really happened is beyond obvious. Trump had a huge rally. There were estimates that more than 1 million people were there. Trump was complaining about the election. He was complaining that he thought it had been stolen. He made specific allegations, none of which have been disputed. Instead, we are reminded of the numerous times the courts refused to get involved as if this answered all possible questions. In most cases, the courts didn’t bother to do any investigation or ask any questions at all.

He was asking congress, which was the only entity left that could do anything to at least investigate. People were angry. Not because of what Trump said, but because what he said was so obviously true.  They were furious that, under the circumstances, no one would even pretend to investigate. No one seem to care.

A handful of people, at the most about 900, managed to get inside of the Capitol. At least some of them were waved in by Capitol Police. Others may have been Antifa, FBI informants or even undercover FBI agents. There were some people there acting like professional agitators and there is no evidence of them showing up at previous Trump rallies. But even if you focus on the worst looking participants there is still no record of anyone being armed and no one was throwing bombs. The biggest act of violence was breaking a window. The only person shot was an unarmed white female Trump supporter, surrounded by Capitol Police officers. Numerous “insurgents” were identified because of pictures of themselves they posted on Instagram or Facebook. Only one person has been sentenced, and that was for 3 years’ probation for trespass. She was also prohibited from owning a gun, although there is nothing about her that even hints at a potential for violence. Democrats will leap at any chance to deny gun ownership to anyone for any reason unless they are associated with Antifa or BLM.

Some people acted irresponsibly, but to call this an organized insurrection is absurd. There were people there, acting like professional agitators, encouraging other people to do things that were dangerous, stupid, and illegal. But they weren’t trying to overthrow anything, they were trying to get the existing government to listen and do its’ job. They were trying to preserve the Constitution, not overthrow it.

Incredibly, Democrats decided to launch, another, failed impeachment of Trump, 24 hours before Biden took office, with the ridiculous theory that he was plotting to overthrow the government. This pure, sad, inept, ridiculous, and plain silly political theatre, was sadly embraced by the usual RINO Republicans led by the insufferable Mitt Romney.

The narrative on the January 6^th, 2021, narrative is collapsing at the speed of light. But that didn’t stop the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from lying about this during his testimony before congress. He said the following:

‘I want to understand white rage, and I’m white. … What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? … I want to find that out.’

— Gen. Mark Milley

Thousands of people did not assault the building, they did not try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America. About a million people participated in a rally, demanding congress “preserve” the constitution. Even if Milley was right about motive, no report lists more than 900 people getting inside the Capitol on January 6^th, and at least some of them appear to have been invited by Capitol Police. If General Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff really believes this, then this represents a total and complete failure of our military intelligence operations. If he doesn’t believe this, then he is lying. Either way, he self-disqualified himself to be an officer, of any rank, in the U.S. Military.

The only Capitol Police officer who died, apparently suffered a stroke, after the event was over. I have heard people claim over 1,000 Capitol Police officers were injured. The highest documented number I have seen is 140 and none of the injuries appear to be serious. Any injury of a police officer in the line of duty is unacceptable, but there were certainly a lot fewer injuries than experienced during the BLM protests last summer.

So far, all the allegations against Trump have been rudely dismissed. In some cases, such as the alleged Russian Collusion, they have been thoroughly debunked. Virtually nothing said about him has ever been proven. Much of what was said about him has been totally discredited. The latest example was the claim that Trump ordered people tear gassed so he could do a photo op in front of St John’s Church. Even the Bishop ripped Trump. It was all a lie. Trump wasn’t even involved in the decision to remove protestors. They were removed, by the Capitol Police, because they were literally threatening federal property. The truth was always there, but it was ignored by the MSM. It was more than ignored, it was deliberately distorted by people like Jim Acosta at CNN who pretended to have facts that never existed. This has been a drumbeat for years. Anything bad you say about Trump must be true, facts are neither necessary nor relevant.

I believe both myths are about to go down in flames with it the future of the Democratic Party. It is bad enough when you lie and are caught. It is even worse if you refuse to apologize or even admit you might possibly be wrong and double down in the theatre of the absurd. But it is even worse when you keep making the same mistake, over and over again, and idiotically expect different results.

Seriously?  For one thing, this is literally the definition of insanity. Another is the old saying: “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” Fewer and fewer people are buying this nonsense. The day of reckoning is at hand, and it will be here sooner than anyone on either side can even imagine.  Joe Biden is deteriorating at an alarming rate. He recently was whispering into the microphone. The best description I have heard of this bizarre performance was creepy. That would be funny, except that Joe Biden is President of the United States and he could whisper authorization to nuke somebody. The good news is that I doubt anyone would listen, but the bad news is that “someone” needs exactly that kind of authority and if it is not the President of the United States, then who? General Mills? Please!

Kamala Harris has been intimidated, by Trump, to finally go to the border. She went to El Paso, lied, and then ran before anyone could ask questions. She is headed toward a roundtable, of carefully selected people who agree with her on everything. This doesn’t come close to passing the smell test and even the MSM reporters noticed. If they looked around, they would notice they are in El Paso, Texas, where things are better exactly because the border was closed. That is so obvious that even the MSM noticed when Trump visited El Paso.

The liberal media was furious that Trump would claim that the border wall had helped make El Paso safer. Ultimately, in trashing Trump this article admitted that closing the border was a key factor, it just started before the fence. In 1993 Customs and Border Patrol sector Chief Sivestre Reyes developed operation “Hold the Line”, where he stationed 400 Border Patrol agents at the border. The wall, constructed later, just made this possible without resorting to a human wall.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fact-check-trump-claims-wall-made-el-paso-safe-data-n969506

Big changes to border security did help El Paso — it just wasn’t the fence Trump is now hailing.

In 1993, Customs and Border Protection sector chief Silvestre Reyes tried something new.

Operation “Hold the Line” stationed 400 Border Patrol agents across the border and implemented new technologies, putting a show of force along the border that effectively sealed a porous border.

The New York Times reported at the time that the effort stopped thousands of people crossing every day, crime started dropping immediately and day laborers began obtaining permits to cross the border legally instead of crossing on foot. The newspaper also noted that Reyes was applauded for cleaning up the city with limited force. Previously, the Times reported, border agents had focused on apprehending and detaining immigrants — not simply deterring them — in a tactic that bolstered budgets. The operation gathered little immediate praise, but similar show of force tactics were eventually implemented in other areas.

In other words, never allow Trump to take or get credit for anything, anywhere, anytime, regardless of circumstances. If the facts don’t fit the narrative, just lie, or make something up.

The problem for Democrats is that a lot of light is being shown on several important topics and in every case, it displays a reality far different that what the MSM is reporting. Instead, the Democratic Party and its fawning supporters in the MSM have been presenting a fatal version of reality that is doomed to die from exposure. One good thing about summer is the days are longer and it is easier to see important things in the sunlight.

TDM