PURDY GOOD!

Those of us living in Folsom, CA watched in awe when Jake Browning played quarterback for the Folsom High School Bulldogs. They won the California State Championship and during his career he threw for over 91 touchdowns. It was remarkable.

Jake then went on to Washington and became the sole reason I rooted for the Washington, Huskies. He was extremely effective. He is not huge, but he is 6-2 and weighs 209 pounds, so he is not small either. But no NFL team thought him worthy of being drafted. He played on the practice squad for two years with Minnesota and then played on the practice squad at Cincinnati for two years. It looked like he would never get a chance. Finally, this year, he became the backup for Joe Burrows. When Joe Burrows was hurt, Jake finally got a chance to start in the NFL. His first game was not that great, but in watching that game and the start of the recent game with Jacksonville, it was obvious that the coach called a very conservative and predictable game with predictable results. Then, suddenly, he apparently decided to give Jake a chance. The result was a stunning performance only equaled six times in the last 20 years, by people like Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning. It was not just good; it rocked the sports world.

Brock Purdy was the final pick of the 2022 NFL draft. He finally got a chance to start because both Trey Lance and Jimmie Garoppolo were injured. Since then, he has set the NFL world on fire, and many consider him to be the one of the very best quarterbacks playing today. Brock Purdy isn’t huge either, but he is 6’1” and weighs 202 pounds, so he isn’t small either.

This is just another classic example of the “experts” getting it very, very wrong. None of the experts predicted this. Both men were only given a chance because of injuries to people considered to be far superior. But when given their chance, both proved the experts wrong.

Today we live in a time where the unelected and often ill-informed celebrities in the media try to lecture us regarding their unsurpassed wisdom and perception. The result is that often the best performers are ignored and replaced by people far less capable and in some cases blatantly incompetent. There is no better example of that then Joe Biden. He is President of the United States because of a conspiracy by the Democratic Party and the MSM. Even if you swallow the nonsense about there being no voting irregularities during the 2020 election, the real conspiracy was to absolutely ignore the red flag warnings about Joe Biden while foaming at the mouth even the hint of a problem with Donald Trump. This included not only ignoring the hard-core evidence on the hard drive stupidly left with a repair shop by Hunter Biden, but literally claiming this was part of Russia misinformation, which is and was absurd.  If the MSM had just reported honestly regarding the Hunter Biden laptop, Joe Biden would have lost in a landslide.

The same was true regarding COVID 19. The so-called experts got almost everything wrong. For example, Trump was slammed for putting together a strategy to develop a vaccine. This was considered extremely dangerous, until Biden was selected, then the vaccine became a gift from God and a plan was developed to force everyone to take it, without regard to actual risk from COVID 19 and even less regard to the risk from the vaccine. Now I willingly got the vaccine, because of my age. However, if I had been 30, not so much.  Trump was pushed into implementing a national shutdown. One should note that the reason for this shutdown was to “delay” the spread of COVID until the medical community could gear up. But when the delay worked, that was ignored and instead the experts insisted on shutting down our schools and we couldn’t even go to Costco without being confronted by the mask nazis. The results were disastrous for the economy, for our educational system and most importantly, for Donald Trump. When Biden was “selected” his mission was to reverse every Trump policy in the shortest period of time without even attempting to find out if some of them were working. Most of them were working. If Joe Biden had done nothing except eat ice cream in his basement and refuse to return phone calls, he might now be considered one of our best Presidents.

Now the same experts who were wrong about Biden, wrong about Purdy, and wrong about Browning are now trying to choose our next set of leaders. They absolutely hate Ron DeSantis which should instantly be grounds for elevating his status. They love Nikki Haley, which should give us all pause. They hate Donald Trump with a passion that would be stunning, if it were focused on something that would possibly help someone, somewhere.

But the good news is that those who are consistently wrong are consistently wrong and no matter how loud they scream or how much airtime they get on TV, they are still wrong. Eventually life intervenes and it becomes embarrassingly obvious. I still like to watch football, but absolutely cannot stand the “pre-game” shows. Like the one that had three of the five experts predicting Iowa would beat Michigan. Even Urban Meyer, former head coach at Ohio State who despises the entire state of Michigan was not that stupid. (I did not watch this, but enjoyed the picture of them showing who they picked to win.)

I don’t know who the nominee for President in either party will be and neither do you. The people most likely to be wrong about this are those who are always wrong. But sometimes God intervenes and those who were never even considered a possible option suddenly emerge from the mist with stunning results. Purdy and Browning are two examples of that, but this is not limited to quarterbacks in the NFL. Mike Johnson might be another example of that. Republicans just may have picked a Speaker of the House driven more by moral courage than political correctness. It would be wise not to underestimate him.

If you doubt this, check out the picture of the private jet, frozen to a runway in Germany, because of the snowstorm caused by climate change (global warming) making someone late getting to Dubai in time to hear John Kerry fart while lecturing the rest of us regarding excess gas emissions. And who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor? Purdy good. Browning good. Those too stupid to recognize the obvious, not so much.

TDM

SNOW JOKE!

What is the fastest way to stop global warming? Easy, Schedule a meeting in one of those places reportedly having record heat, only to encounter a massive snowstorm. This is the same way to stop a drought in California. Announce that the drought is now permanent and irreversible, only to have it rain constantly over the next winter.

This is why the people who want the rest of us to buy this nonsense scheduled their meeting in Dubai, where it is 85 degrees. They hoped no one would notice that if you really are concerned about global warming, you wouldn’t fly all those carbon emitting jet planes to one of the hottest places on the planet. I mean if it is too hot in International Falls, Minnesota, then places like Dubai must be close to uninhabitable. Of course, if you go to Dubai, you see all these high-rise buildings, with air conditioning, powered by gas generators.

The host of the United Nations’ COP28 climate change summit was Sultan Al-Jaber, CEO of United Arab Emirates state oil company, ADNOC. He said the following in November:

“There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C.” He also pointed out that phasing out fossil fuels would “take the world back into caves.

Naturally the usual group of “scientists” described this as “an extraordinary, revealing, worrying and belligerent exchange.” What they didn’t do, because it does not exist, is provide actual scientific studies supporting their positions. There is a big difference between following the science, and following people who pretend to do scientific research. History has shown us that many prominent scientists were very wrong. However, true scientific studies disclosed often inconvenient truths ignored by those who are seldom right, but in their own opinion, never wrong.

In the meantime, at least some of the people traveling to Dubai to bitch about global warming, were stuck in Munich, Germany. Germany did not get the global warming memo. One would think that the decision to change global warming to climate change would be an important clue. But the game of Clue was never intended for the “clueless.”

Here’s a short quiz. “Suppose you are in an electric car caught in a snowstorm? You ran out of electricity. There are no electric tow trucks, so you must wait for a gas-powered tow truck to take you to the nearest charging station. When you get there the line is three miles long and it takes 42 hours to charge your car. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

In the meantime, your car has no heater. And, by the way, when an electric car loses power, sometimes that automatically locks all the doors. So, it can be a challenge to just get out of the car, assuming you had someplace to go.

There are lot of signs that people aren’t buying this anymore. They certainly aren’t buying electric vehicles. Those are great for people who have other cars, powered by gas. They are great for people more interested in saving money on taxes than in saving money. But for mere mortals, who need their cars to go someplace at a reasonable speed for a reasonable cost, not so much. States like California gave huge tax incentives to install solar. But then they realized that people with solar panels weren’t generating enough income for the state from taxes on electricity. So, they started requiring a minimum fee to stay connected to the power grid you no longer need. The reality is that the desire of a liberal government for people to switch to solar power disappears overnight if it conflicts with the insatiable appetite for increased tax revenues.

Solar power is great, and necessary, in California. You must be rich enough to afford solar panels so you can spend enough money to stop giving PG&E half your paycheck each month. But solar power in Michigan, where the sun seldom shines for six to seven months of the year, is not that great. The University of Michigan built a solar house.  Check out this 459 sq ft beauty.

Solar house built by University of Michigan solar team up for bid (michigandaily.com)

Predictably someone on CNN will explain how that snowstorm in Germany was caused by climate change (global warming). They hope that no one will notice that none of those $20 million ocean front homes owned by rich liberals like Obama are building sea walls. They also aren’t building them in Miami or San Francisco or anywhere else. The Maldives, which are supposed be sinking because of rising sea levels, are building enormous ocean front resorts:

THE 10 BEST Hotels in Maldives, Asia 2023 (from $43) – Tripadvisor

If you vacation there, for about $2,000 a night, you might just encounter renowned climate scientists like Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg, taking a break from her “pro-Hamas” demonstrations. (”Rin Tin Tin anyone?” “wolf, wolf”) They will tell you all about climate change (global warming), before rolling over to apply more sunscreen.

But look around you. More and more people are trusting their lying eyes more than the serial liars attempting to lead the Democratic Party and their supporting staff in the MSM. Just consider this. The biggest argument against Donald Trump is that he told the big lie about the 2020 election. The big lie that the election was riddled with systemic fraud. The problem is that each day there is more and more evidence of systemic fraud. The odor of fraud is so overwhelming that even some Democrats have noticed. Imagine attempting to re-elect someone as pathetic as Joe Biden, only to be confronted by millions of people who think Joe was inflicted on us by systemic fraud directed by the Democratic Party and embraced by the naïve liberal socialists masquerading as journalists in the MSM.  Fun to watch, but it is Snow Joke.

TDM

DEFINING MOMENT!

When I first learned about the proposed debate between Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom, moderated by Sean Hannity, it seemed hard to imagine. No one would confuse Sean Hannity with being moderate about anything. It is hard to imagine why Gavin Newsom thought this was a good idea.

Gavin Newsom was already in serious trouble because, well, California is in serious trouble. When we moved from California to Florida in May of last year, our moving company could not find a truck driver willing to make the trip. Getting someone to leave California to go to Florida is easy. Convincing them to make a return trip is a major challenge. Incredibly, this was so bad our “moving truck” ended up being shipped on a train.  There is reportedly a similar trouble with U-Haul trucks. Lot of them leaving California, not so many returning.

A lot of people underestimate Ron DeSantis. We saw him personally while he was campaigning for re-election as governor of Florida. He is a lot better speaker and debater than is portrayed in the MSM. I didn’t want DeSantis to run for President for two reasons. One is that we wanted to keep him as our Governor. The second is that he is too young. He is only 45 years old. If he wins election and serves 8 years as President, he will be in his early 50s, with no place left to go. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

But he is running and that means Republicans must choose between Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, or someone else, or in other words, Nikki Haley. Democrats are desperate to get rid of Trump and if they could replace him with Nikki Haley, win-win. She is the ideal Republican candidate. Almost certain to lose, and if she did win, certain to cave on principles to compromise with Democrats. The person they fear is DeSantis. They are doing everything possible to bring him down, including the usual distortions of his record and ridiculous insults. When you see those polls showing him in decline, always remember who does those polls and consider how accurate they have been in previous elections.

The debate was remarkable. It was a welcome relief from the previous fiascos masquerading as rational debate. Hannity allowed too much silly bickering between the two candidates, but it still provided the opportunity to make their case. Newsom was better than I expected, but he had a serious problems. One, he was trying to pretend Joe Biden is doing a good job. That alone was a bridge too far. Another was that he really believes Democratic talking points are based on actual evidence. They aren’t. The only people who believe Democratic talking points are people too stupid to matter. Finally it is impossible to ignore the stench of the mess he has created in California. The result was that DeSantis absolutely skewered him on several occasions. Hannity said they both would stay another 20 minutes, only to come back after a commercial break to say they both had prior commitments. Seriously who bought that? There are reports that it was Newsom’s wife who called an end to the debate. Although Gavin thought he did great, she knew better and took action to convince him to get up off the floor and stop the bleeding.

If you watched any of the snippets from the debate the vast majority are of Ron DeSantis sticking it too Newsom. Granted he had the easier task because there were so many targets of opportunity. Then Newsom did something guaranteed to elevate Ron DeSantis in the polls. He suggested DeSantis withdraw so Nikki Haley could defeat Donald Trump. Republicans are often stupid, but seldom dumb enough to take advice from someone like Gavin Newsom regarding who should be our the Republican nominee. What’s next, an endorsement from Putin?

The bottom line is that Newsom should go home, try to fix “something” in California and hope that he can put enough time and distance beyond this disaster to try and rescue the last remaining shreds of his once promising political career. He went from the inside track to the outhouse, and he was put there by a man he considers to be intellectually inferior.

DeSantis did miss an opportunity. When Newsom said he was following the science; DeSantis should have said the results prove Newsom can’t even define science. He keeps doing the same things, proven to be ineffective, over and over again, only to be shocked when he gets the exact same results. That is not the definition of science, it is the definition of insanity.

TDM

NEGOTIATING WITH HOSTAGE TAKERS!

One thing is always true regarding hostages. The person holding someone or something hostage has little regard for the safety or welfare of the hostage. The hostage only has value to the extent it can be used to extort payment from those who do value the hostage.

The pattern is always similar. The hostage is used to extort payment that would otherwise never be considered. If payment is not received, the hostage taker has no moral qualms about just killing the hostage. To them, the hostage is simply the means to an end. However, history teaches us that if we negotiate with hostage takers, it just encourages more people to take hostages. Sadly, sometimes the only way to stop hostage takers is to be willing to risk or even lose a hostage in the process.

Hamas is losing the war with Israel but winning the PR contest. They have a lot of people who should know better cheering on Israel for negotiating with the hostage takers, even when the demands are patently absurd. Here Israel is giving Hamas a desperately needed opportunity to regroup so they can prepare to attack again. Israel is gaining the release of fifty women and children held hostage. Hamas is gaining the return of about 150 Palestinian women and children currently held in Israeli jails. Hamas is more than willing to put innocent civilians, including children in harm’s way. They often use civilians as human shields. So, odds are the value of these “Israeli” prisoners is other than humanitarian.

To put this in perspective, in 2011 Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas Leader in Israel, was released after 23 years in Israel prisons as part of a “prisoner exchange.” It is reported that Yahya Sinwar is the number one target for Israel in Gaza today.

Ironically, it is Democrats who are screaming for negotiating with hostage takers. Perhaps they understand this better because Democrats are famous for taking hostages during negotiations with Republicans. The latest example of this was when Kevin McCarthy caved and gave Democrats what they wanted in a temporary spending bill. Democrats were willing to hold up pay, worldwide, for our military personnel in exchange for getting what they wanted. Real class. The MSM, rather than point out the obvious hostage taking, cheered on Republicans for caving to Democratic demands. This appears to happen in every negotiation with Democrats regarding spending. Democrats are willing to sacrifice things that have bi-partisan support to get increased funding for things Republicans strongly oppose. Just think about that for a minute. This is why it is nearly impossible to get any administration to cut unnecessary spending.

Each of us has seen this play out on the local level. When Democrats want to raise taxes, they always say this is necessary to prevent cuts to law enforcement, public safety, and schools. This is also hostage taking because they are cutting things with bi-partisan support in exchange for increased spending on other pet projects often out of touch with the priorities of the people they pretend to represent.

Sadly, this almost always works because Republicans routinely cave when confronted with hostages. One reason for this is that the MSM, which is increasingly left wing and overwhelmingly Democrats, NEVER even recognizes who is holding hostages and who is not.

You see this playing out right now. There is bi-partisan support for Israel, but Democrats and RINO Republicans are willing to hold this aid hostage until they can obtain more funds to waste on corruption in The Ukraine. While no one supports Russia invading Ukraine, the sad reality is that there is very little confidence that the amount of money we are spending is focused on defeating Russian. There is systemic corruption, which is to be expected because The Ukraine is famous for systemic corruption.

The MSM views any cutting of aid to The Ukraine as rewarding Russia, without even considering whether this aid is being used responsibly to achieve the goal of defeating Russia. The most irresponsible decision would be to allow Russia to gain more territory in The Ukraine as it did previously in Crimea. But it is equally irresponsible to keep sending money, used poorly, only to end up with identical results.

Winston Churchill faced a horrible dilemma shortly after being elected Prime Minister. There were British Troops, trapped in France but there were hundreds of thousands of troops trapped in Dunkirk. Churchill had to notify the commanders in France that there would be no assistance coming, despite the desperate situation, because he had to try and save the troops in Dunkirk. That had to have been a heart rendering, but necessary decision. This is like when he learned about the firebomb attack scheduled for Coventry, but he allowed that attack to proceed without even giving warning to the residents. The alleged reason he did that is that he felt he could not risk letting Germany know that Great Britain was reading its codes. I would never want to be personally confronted with this kind of decision but recognize that somethings these types of decisions are absolutely necessary.

We better learn who has the courage to do the necessary to stop hostage takers. This is always bitter and painful, but far less bitter and painful than allowing hostage takers to profit from their evil plans.

TDM

GALLOPING GERTIE!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TDM

HOMECOMING!

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

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

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

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

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

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

To my Vietnam Veteran comrades, “welcome home”!

TDM

BUYER BEWARE!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TDM

NO SUBSTITUTE!

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

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

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

Here is an exact quote from that speech:

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

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

In war there can be no substitute for victory.

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

McArthur went on to say:

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

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

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

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

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

This article concludes with the following statement:

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

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

TDM

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TDM

PLAYING CHICKEN!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TDM