Several years ago, while traveling on Bart to an Oakland Raiders game, I noticed something very sobering. There was a long, long, long line of railroad tank cars, most of which looked pretty ancient, sitting there waiting to be loaded up with gas or oil and transported. That was when I realize that these tank cars were traveling through cities and towns all over the country and to me, and my hunch was most people were unaware of the potential disaster traveling through their town. At a minimum, at least to me, this looked like a really bad accident waiting to happen.

This is one reason it seemed obvious that projects like the Keystone Pipeline were a far better solution to move such highly inflammable material safely. While there is probably no way to completely eliminate the risk, a pipeline sure seems like a better option.

Now we have had that horrible train accident in East Palestine, Ohio. To me this looks like another Camp LeJeune case just waiting to develop. I personally expect liability claims from this incident to last years if not decades. If I lived near there, I would probably move, regardless of the personal expense. While staying there I would avoid being outdoors anywhere near the site and would probably only drink bottled water. But the real question is why this train was even allowed anywhere near this town. In this case the derailment appears to have been caused by an overheated bearing on an axle, but there are a lot of other things that could cause something similar. Trains can derail for a lot of reasons, including sabotage. If you have ever traveled any distance on a train, you quickly notice that they sway and bounce a lot. That is true even if the rails are relatively new and in good condition. One has to wonder how many railroad tracks in use today meet that standard.

I suspect this is going to be a major wakeup call for a lot of people. Perhaps it is time we all ask exactly what is traveling on those railroad tracks. Trains started operating in the mid-1800s, in some cases before the civil war. However, with the invention of the automobile, the interstate highway system, and the use of trucks to transport goods, in some cases rail lines were literally abandoned without sufficient consideration as to their value. For example, Los Angeles had a vast network of electric railway lines. There were over 1,000 miles of track. But these tracks were abandoned and destroyed, and the last segment of the system was abandoned in 1961. Now, even with a daily traffic nightmare, it would be impossible to rebuild that system any time soon.

Map details LA’s Red Car streetcar lines – Curbed LA

In any event it is time for serious people to evaluate the risk vs reward particularly when considering the transport of hazardous materials. We’ve been warned, the question is will anyone listen.

One thing is certain, there is probably no one less qualified than Pete Buttigieg to lead the way forward. In addition, we need honest reporting from people totally unlike Jake Tapper, who asked the NTSB representative a question based on Democratic talking points and specifically Buttigieg’s failed attempt to blame this, predictably, on Donald Trump. He should have been public embarrassed at the response to his incredibly stupid question, but that would require him to have the ability to even recognize the error.

NTSB Chair Shuts Down Pete Buttigieg’s Pathetic Blaming of Donald Trump for Train Derailment – RedState

Yes, there are legitimate questions. A lot of people should be demanding answers. But to really fix this, if possible, this should involve the minimal number of elected public officials from either party.

One wonders if the Chinese don’t have the best solution, just transport everything by balloon. What could possibly go wrong.

Hindenburg disaster – Wikipedia

TDM

For the record, I am not a huge Tucker Carlson fan. But sometimes the loudest criticism of him is when he is actually right. For example, every time we get a hurricane, someone from CNN, MSNBC etc., will explain that this is proof of global warming. Anyone who dares hint at anything different is a dreaded “climate change denier.” Tucker was guilty of touching the third rail of climate change politics. But, if you do even a little research on hurricanes it soon becomes obvious that really big hurricanes have been hitting Florida for over 100 years, this runs in cycles, and there is no discernible increase in the number or severity of these storms. They do cause more damage now, because there are a lot more people and structures available for destruction.

You can see this for yourself, just drive from Miami to Key West. You will see that there once was a rail road, but a hurricane destroyed it. That happened on Labor Day, 1935. It was a huge category 5. It took seven years to build that railroad right of way, and four hours for the hurricane to destroy it.

And by the way, the weather temperature charts developed by NOAA show NO global warming over the past eight years. But you will never hear that from the MSM. In addition, they keep talking about this massive ice shelf in Antarctica that will melt and rained sea level by 500 ft. Ok, not quite that much, but a lot. Well perhaps you remember iceberg A68a, which broke off Antarctica in 2017. It was 100 miles long and 30 miles wide. That has now melted almost completely and is stuck near South Georgia Island. But this huge melting iceshelf didn’t raise sea level, at all. Why? Because, duh, it was already melting before, which is why it broke off. It did add fresh water, which resulted in more fish and the penguins rejoiced, but that is another story:

An Extraordinary Iceberg Is Gone, but Not Forgotten – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Note that the NYT article ignored the fact that this had zero impact on sea level. But this should be obvious. You can test this yourself. Just put some ice in a glass of water. Measure the height of the water. Now let the ice melt. Then measure the height of the water. It is exactly the same:

buoyancy – Why does ice melting not change the water level in a container? – Physics Stack Exchange

Archimedes’ principle states that the weight of water displaced will equal the upward buoyancy force provided by that water. Hmmm. The Archimedes principle. That would be the Greek mathematician who lived in Syracuse, Sicily, around 3 BCE. Of course, that does not provide nearly enough time for the people in the MSM to notice. Actually, this is misleading because a melting iceberg does replace salt water with fresh water. So, if all the ice in the world melted, that would raise sea level world wide by a whopping 4 to 6 centimeters. Horror of horrors.

In an even greater miracle, Kevin McCarthy, that Kevin McCarthy just gave about 51,000 hours of video from January 6^th, 2021, to Tucker Carlson. Tucker and his team are pouring through this, and the results are likely to be very humiliating for Democrats. There is a REASON they didn’t want the public to see these videos. Keep tuned because this could easily become must see television. Now Tucker Carlson is guaranteed to selectively edit this material, but of course, the January 6^th committee already had two years to do that. We can be absolutely certain that every minute of video that supported the Insurrection theory, has been reported already. It is what we did not see that is likely to change people’s minds.

This is a sign that Kevin McCarthy and the new Republican Party is actually going to start fighting back and they aren’t going to use the Democratic Playbook. Perhaps during the 6,000 vote calls necessary to get McCarthy elected Speaker of the House, he figured that out. So far, the loudest voices in this Republican congress are those who have been ignored for far too long.

Stay tuned because we have never seen anything like this before. Many of us have wondered why Republicans were so pathetic at fighting back. Perhaps they have finally learned something important. Democrats are not their friends, they are not even their friendly foes, they are people who have been at war. They were at war with us, but we were not at war with them. Until now. Grin and Tucker it. This is just the beginning.

TDM

Do you ever wonder if we are somehow caught in a real-life bizarre version of Ground Hog Day. Every day we see pretty the same thing, and we also see the usual suspects either feign ignorance or ignore the obvious. The mental problems with Joe Biden are now so obvious that reporting on them has reached the point of boring replication. The response to the obvious is also sadly predictable. Republicans point and sneer but do nothing. Democrats spin around in a circle with one eye closed hoping to see something else next time around. Then there are the true KoolAid drinkers like the ladies on The View who are absolutely brilliant at drawing the wrong conclusion about nearly everything..

Now add in the ridiculous reality of that huge Chinese Surveillance balloon traveling slowing across the U.S., taking pictures of some of the most secure locations in this country. Joe Biden, upon advice of our military commanders, ordered it shot down only after it had successfully cleared the South Carolina coast. That they discover another one over Alaska. They shoot that down. Oops there is another one, over the Yukon. Canada invites U.S. jets to shoot that down. Then, incredibly, another one, this time over Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. That is shot down too.

But this gets worse. The one shot down over Alaska is smaller and shaped like an octagon. The one over Lake Huron allegedly looks like an oversize grey coffee can. When asked about this, the U.S. Military says they can’t rule out alien sourcing. Are you kidding me? Why on earth is anyone in the MSM even pretending to take this seriously anymore? Today the Biden Administration smugly said these were happening during the Trump administration too, but they weren’t skilled enough to detect them. Really? Is anyone buying this nonsense? Other than Don Lemon on CNN of course.

This reminds me of when a home missionary friend of my father’s visited us in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He told us this weird story about seeing a flying saucer land on a frozen lake in Northern Minnesota while he was out ice fishing. He said in a short period of time a U.S. Air Force truck showed up, blocked off the site, told him to forget what he saw. Then, he watched the flying saucer take off again. He was a very devout Baptist minister, so alcohol consumption was not an explanation, but this was off the charts unbelievable. At the time he told this story, I was about five years old, and this had supposedly happened several years earlier. I often wondered what on earth he was talking about until one day, years later, I saw this link realized this is probably what he saw:

Vought V-173 – Wikipedia

I have always suspected that those numerous UFO sightings were always some kind of double secret aircraft. Now I realize some of them may have been relatively small balloons. I am pretty convinced that if aliens did approach us, it would be with something more sophisticated than these silly objects.

It is increasingly obvious that a whole lot of people are either lying about this or they are hopelessly delusional. The only thing certain is that the least likely explanation regarding anything is that given by the Biden administration. The only explanation with less credibility than something said by a spokesman for the Biden Administration is if the President (save us) himself tries to explain.

But all of this ignores the real problem. We live in a very real and very scary world with countries like North Korean, Russia and China who have nuclear weapons. We live in a world with all too real enemies and all too serious challenges. Combine this with the very real possibility that the President of the United States may have had his son sell influence to the highest bidder, including to people in places like China and Russia. What is it going to take before even Democrats and their fawning buddies in the MSM start to notice?  When will they come to the grim realization that this is putting each and every one of us at risk. This isn’t even close to funny anymore.

But there is hope. Donald Trump is still not President. That is all the Never Trumpers need or even want to know. They consider anything else to be an improvement. Well welcome to the land of anything else. Frankly some of the things Trump has done recently are so narcissistic and outright stupid that they create genuine concern about his fitness for office. But then I turn on my TV, and I see Joe Biden, and the only words that can come close to describing this is “Full Mental Jacket.” This is what happens when you steal an election without regard to who or what replaced Donald Trump as President of the United States and even less regard to the consequences of that decision.

TDM

P.S. What could possibly be worse than this? Easy, she is standing just in back of Joe Biden, watching her husband kiss Dr. Jill on the lips.

It is now official. The United States does not have a capable Commander in Chief. When our founding fathers wrote the constitution, they most definitely did not want another King. But they also realized that someone has to be in a position to make the tough decisions necessary to defend this country. Today, we have a very noticeable vacancy in that position.

It is now widely reported that China has sent a “spy” balloon over much of our country. In order to understand the seriousness of this situation, ask yourself what China would do if we sent a similar balloon to survey China. The answer is beyond obvious. They would do everything possible to shoot it down. We would be lucky if it stopped there. They could conceivably use this as justification to attack somewhere. It wouldn’t necessarily be some place as obvious as Taiwan, but they would consider that to be an insult so severe that failure to respond would result in loss of face.

The problem for the Biden Administration, and for the Democratic party, is that virtually everyone not employed by CNN realizes this. Even those people who usually drink the liberal KoolAid understand this. Even those who pretend our open southern border is not a problem understand this. Even those who think it is a brilliant idea to defund the police understand this. Everyone, that is besides the only person who matters, Joe Biden, understands this.

What makes this even more important is that the solution is so obvious. You just shoot it down. Then make a big production of showing the world what China was “trying” to do. Then you punish China, in the most open and obvious way possible and demand an apology.

Even if Biden was too terrified to actually shoot this puppy down, the United States could have found a million ways to “take the air out of the balloon.” An unexplained “catastrophic failure” of the balloon would have also solved the problem. But instead, Biden acknowledged it was there, acknowledged it was a threat, and just ignored it anyway.

Sadly, Biden is not doing that or anything else that matters. Stopping Antony Blinken from going on his previously scheduled trip to China was probably met with snickers and applause. Blinken is one of the few people on this planet who made Hillary Clinton look good as Secretary of State. Blinken is even fluent in French, so he already knows the language of surrender. Blinken cancelling this trip removed the last chance for the U.S. to have a Frank and Ernest conversation with China explaining the consequences of getting into a real confrontation with the U.S. But the problem is the “Frank and Ernest” cartoon characters have credibility than Joe Biden or anyone associated with his administration.

Frank and Ernest by Thaves for January 29, 2023 – GoComics

If one looked recently, there has been bi-partisan cooperation with Keven McCarthy on some important issues. For example, a resolution denouncing socialism won by a 328 -86-14 vote. 109 Democrats voted for the resolution, 86 voted no and 14 voted present. The vote to create the “Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party” passed 365 to 65.

If they took a vote to express their opinion about the Chinese balloon blatantly violating our airspace, the vote might be close to unanimous. This begs the question, why is Biden so unwilling to do the obvious. Even Republicans would praise him for shooting down that balloon. The country would probably rally around him. If the balloon coming down caused damage, that would be blamed on the Chinese, not the U.S. So that begs the question; why? I often say that never assume malice when mere incompetence is a satisfactory explanation. But this is so obvious and so wrong that at least some people might ask if something else is going on. Does the Chinese Communist party have some kind of leverage on Joe Biden? That would be unthinkable, but unfortunately, not beyond the realm of possibility.

In any case, if Biden doesn’t let the air out of that Chinese balloon, he may be letting the air out of the remain shreds of his administration and a significant portion of the current Democratic Party may go along for the ride. Unfortunately, in the meantime, the entire country is at obvious risk because of the vacancy in the office of President of the United States.

TDM

Most of us are familiar with the Hans Christian Andersen story about the emperor who was tricked into walking down the street naked, arrogantly assuming he was wearing clothes invisible to those who are stupid and incompetent.

The Emperor’s New Clothes – Wikipedia

Most of us realize that the emperor was “exposed” as being the one truly stupid. But one notes that even after this becomes obvious to everyone, he continued down the street walking more proudly then ever. But it is important to realize that many more people were involved. His officials and even the emperor actually visited the looms, where the imaginary clothes were being made, and ignored the obvious fact that they were totally empty. In addition, the town people went along with the charade, until a young girl pointed out the obvious. Then everyone, but the emperor started laughing.

Han Christian Andersen did not invent this story, it was apparently based on a 1335 story from a Spanish medieval collection. It may even date back to Aesop and even Persian folktales. The point being that the arrogance and stupidity of people in power is not exactly new. Part of the problem is that few people in direct contact with really powerful people often lack the courage to tell them an uncomfortable truth.

One could write another folk tale about Joe Biden, and it would be remarkably similar. There are a lot of people, close to Biden, who see the truth about the man, but they are unwilling to confront him and are more than willing to try and deceive everyone else. The result is a man who is increasingly willing to believes he is uniquely brilliant and qualified to be President of the United States without regard to any evidence to the contrary. This would explain why he keeps telling the same stupid lies about supposed personal accomplishments that are easily discredited. He has convinced himself that they are true, and no one tell him the lies are beyond obvious. It explains why he was stupid enough to slam Donald Trump for having classified documents, apparently oblivious to the fact that he also had similar documents in unsecure locations. Then he stupidly tried to say that since these were in the same location where he stored his prized Corvette, he was shocked to learn that this was not actually a good thing.

Now at the point where this has been disclosed. Today the FBI is searching his Delaware Beach House. This isn’t happening on a Friday, to avoid the news cycle, it is happening Wednesday morning, a time guaranteed to receive widespread media attention. This search cannot end well. If they don’t find any documents, everyone will question why it took them six months to do the search. If they do find classified documents, it will be impossible to explain away. All’s well that ends, well. The illusion of the Biden competency is now on full display, increasingly obvious to everyone, in both parties. He may continue walking, proudly, naked, down the street, but instead of applause he is hearing nothing but increasingly loud laughter. He is in the process of being laughed off the stage.

Normally, everyone would unite behind his replacement, the Vice President. But the Vice President is Kamala Harris, and not one thinks she is remotely capable of handling the job. This has brought us full circle to the fiasco of the 2020 election. In the desperate all-out effort to defeat Donald Trump, little consideration was given to the consequences of putting someone as stupid and incompetent as Joe Biden in the White House. Even less consideration was given to the lack of options available to change this, in the event things went south. Well, welcome to south, with still no viable options available to fix this.

When Woodrow Wilson became incapacitated because of a stroke, his doctor lied about it , his wife took over, and congress went along with the charade. As early as 1792, congress anticipated the need for a line of succession. The constitution says the vice president becomes president if the elected one dies or becomes debilitated.  In 1886 another succession act was passed that, after the Vice President, replaced the leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives with the Presidential Cabinet, starting with the Secretary of State. It changed again on July 18, 1947, when President Harry Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act. That changes the order of succession from the vice president to the Speaker of the House and then the President Pro Tempore of the Senate. After the Kennedy assassination, the 25^th Amendment was signed in 1967. This puts the Vice President immediately in power if the President is incapacitated, even temporarily. It was invoked during Ronald Reagans surgery for colon cancer and for George W. Bush’s colonoscopies in 2002 and 2007.

But none of these involved a Vice President so obviously incapable of being President. This times everyone knows the emperor has no clothes, the problem is that no viable solution to the problem is even on the horizon.

TDM

The winds of change are blowing strong and picking up steam. People in both political parties are hungry for change. Republicans are tired of RINO Republicans who squander opportunity after opportunity. Most Democrats are not actually proud of the woke movement and they feel the pain of economic ineptitude along with everyone else. Everyone is united in one goal, somebody else please, anybody, please. The most popular option, if available, today would be “none of the above.”

We are already seeing that in the Democratic Party. The good bye Joe movement is all too real and unless he wakes up and decides to exit gracefully, will become far more aggressive. They are trying to send him a strong message and are praying he understands. But one of the problems with Joe Biden is that he really believes the lies he tells, and he really believes he is doing a great job as President.

But the winds of change are also blowing for the GOP. Donald Trump is desperately trying to resurrect his political career by running for President in 2024. Ironically, he is adopting the strategy of Hillary Clinton, who won the nomination by destroying any potential candidate. He will be successful, for candidates like Nicky Haley and John Bolton. But he is likely to destroy himself in the process. A lot of people thought he did a good job as President. A lot of people agree that the 2020 election was highly flawed resulted in the worst political mistake in American history installing someone as inept and unethical as Joe Biden in the White House. But his act is getting old and his support may have dwindled to the point where he can still be highly destructive, but he cannot possibly win election to be President of the United States in 2024. That may be unfair, but it is reality. The really smart candidate will be one who avoids engaging in debate with Donald Trump and instead waits for the moment when his candidacy becomes untenable.

We may also face the most serious constitutional crisis in our country, ever. The problem is that if some of the allegations against Hunter Biden are true, they may represent a very serious national security risk. It is bad enough that Hunter Biden and the entire Biden family clearly sold Joe Biden’s influence to the highest bidder. It is frightening to think that this included people from our worst enemies, including Russia and China. But that pales in comparison to the potential that Hunter Biden was granted access to highly classified information and that he may have leaked some of this information to foreign governments. This is so serious that even a hard-core Democrat like Mark Warner sat up and started paying attention. This means that in addition to the Democrats who want to see Joe go, for purely political reasons, there are at least some Democrats who legitimately fear he is a risk to national security.

Now combine this with the fact that Joe’s annual physical is overdue, and the White House is stonewalling that. The numerous people warning that we are heading toward a recession. Incredibly, just yesterday, Biden posted a picture of himself in a GMC Hummer EV, supposedly promoting the electric vehicle tax credit. This car cost between $87,000 to $110,000, which exceeds the maximum cost for which the $7,500 credit is available. This is as tone deaf as it gets.

Here in Florida, we are already seeing some of that change. DeSantis won election four years ago, running against a man who was recently indicted on wire fraud charges, by the narrowest of margins. Four years later, he defeated former Governor Charlie Crist by over 20 percentage points. Even Democrats now refer to Florida as a very red state. Everyone, and I do mean everyone is checking out what happened in Florida to effect such a profound change. That answer is DeSantis, who did what he said he would do and will not back down even in the face of the strongest possible opposition. It turns out that a lot of people like someone who says what he means and means what he says. We are very likely to see other politicians learning from this and acting accordingly. Winners are always studied and copied.

One hopes that the cycle is running strongly against those who have been so destructive. That does seem like the most likely outcome. But no cycle last forever and those who fail to exploit the opportunities arising out of this cycle, need to keep that in mind. Everyone needs to be alert for change, some positive, some negative. However, keep in mind that the least reliable source of information at the moment is the MSM, including Fox. They are far better at reporting on what has happened than in predicting what will happen. The winds of change are blowing hard, and eventually everyone will notice. The only thing we know for certain is who has mucked things up to a fare-thee well. Change, significant change, is coming. This is a high wind warning.

TDM

Sometimes reality is weirder than any imagined plot. Joe Biden is President of the United States for one and only one reason, he is not Donald Trump. Democrats were so desperate to get rid of Donald Trump that they chose Joe Biden to being their nominee solely because they decided he was the ONLY Democrat running who had ANY chance of beating Donald Trump. Even then he won by the narrowest of margins with the help of miraculous late night vote totals in the usual suspect locations famous for voter fraud in the bluest of blue Democratic cities.

No one in the MSM noticed the stench from the 2020 election. Actually, they did notice and chose to lie about it. The situation was not helped when Trump got some really horrible legal advice, pursuing wild conspiracies while ignoring issues that could have changed the outcome. For example, it is indisputable that in Pennsylvania, votes were counted differently in some very blue counties than they were in other parts of the state. That is exactly the issue that caused the Supreme Court to intervene during the 2000 presidential election. A decision, by the way, that was 7-2 meaning some of the liberal judges agreed.  The 5-3 decision was the one to stop counting.

The unfortunate result was President Joe Biden, and he has turned out to be worse than anyone expected. Many have speculated that Joe was not really in charge. That there was a double secret probation committee making all the decisions. But the real problem is that Joe, despite his obvious mental decline, thinks he is in charge. He is the one that has made the most disastrous decisions. Then, incredibly, this frail shadow of a human being decided he would run for re-election. Boom! Democrats were faced with the impossible scheme. Donald Trump, gasp, could even beat Biden, which to them would be the worst-case scenario for the establishment in both parties. Or, at best, Joe could eek out another “miraculous” victory and Democrats would have to spend four more years watching him muck things up to a fare-thee well. And I do mean fare-thee-well, because if Joe spends four more years as President by 2028 the revolution would be complete, and Democrats would be swept totally out to see.

No one, in either party, wants Joe anymore. We can be absolutely certain that neither party will even consider doing the right thing, for the right reason. What’s a mother to do? Well, just maybe, now we know. The perfect solution. Miraculously discover documents, ignored for years, that have “Top Secret” markings found in brilliant locations like the garage where Joe stores his Corvette and where Hunter had held some really spectacular parties. Game on!  Former Obama officials are trashing him. Even CNN joined the blame game. Predictably some Democrats smell blood and are turning on Joe. If you get rid of Joe for improperly storing classified documents, that makes it impossible for Trump to become President again. Right? Win-win.

Then, just when you thought this couldn’t get worse, it got worse. Friday, the FBI discovered even more documents at Biden’s Delaware home, after an alleged 13-hour strip search. Nice! This is now rapidly becoming a constitutional crisis. Goodbye Joe is coming, whether we want it or not. The real question is who or what will replace him. Kamala is standing on the side of the stage, giggling, saying “look at me.” Those who do are throwing up.

Congratulations to those who thought the election of Donald Trump would be the end of the age. If Trump had won re-election, he would already be the lamest of lame duck Presidents. The Trump era would be officially over next year. Instead, this script reminds me of the song, “Goodbye Joe.”

Good Bye Joe

lyrics to good bye joe – Search (bing.com)

Time is full of changes, Joe, and now you’ve got to go
Don’t forget that we loved on the highland
Goodbye, Joe (goodbye, Joe)

Goodbye, Joe (goodbye, Joe)
Goodbye, Joe (goodbye, Joe)
Goodbye, Joe (goodbye, Joe)
Goodbye, Joe (goodbye, Joe)

TDM

It is increasingly obvious that the DNC establishment is so done with Joe Biden. There are probably two main factors. One is that the DNC is now convinced that Donald Trump will not be a major factor in 2024. They may be wrong about that, but they believe that. The removes the “only” justification for choosing Joe Biden as the 2020 candidate for President. They were desperate for someone, anyone, who could beat Donald Trump. The other DNC candidates all self-eliminated, leaving the choice between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. Even the DNC establishment realized that Bernie Sanders would be a total disaster.

Republicans will investigate Joe Biden, but they are so not in a rush. They have him right where they want him, stinking up the White House. Increasingly it will be Democrats, not Republicans, desperate to move on. While a significant number of Democratic politicians in Washington, D. C. are certifiably insane, they are not all drinking the liberal left KoolAid.

CNN just admitted that Hunter Biden was conducting business deals, that stink to high heaven, while trading on his father’s name. Of course, they have known this all along, but their hatred of Donald Trump and lust for power blinded them to the disaster unfolding before their eyes. Well eyes wide open now.

This does not mean the MSM is going to start reporting objectively. They will remain highly partisan in favor of Democrats. But it does mean that someone has given permission to start reporting the truth about Joe Biden, and that is a really big deal.

The MSM has been telling huge lies, in a failed attempt to cover-up for everything Biden. That included lying about the serious and obvious problems with the 2020 election. A lot of people are going to be shocked at the extent to which the MSM has mislead them. This has already started with the “Biden classified document scandal”, but it won’t end there. It has already morphed into asking serious questions about Hunter Biden. But once people realize they have been lied to, over and over again, they are increasingly reluctant to trust those people who perpetuated this lie again. “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” Combine that with the abject failure of Democratic policies, the destruction of our economy, the increasing fear of criminal violence, and the run-a-way Woke movement, and this may become a perfect storm. One very obvious question is: “If you were lying about this, what else were you lying about?” Good Question.

Most people are glad to see 2021 and 2022 in the rear-view mirror. But 2022 wasn’t much of an improvement over 2021, and 2023 just may be an extremely challenging year. At times like this, don’t be surprised if the House of Card built by the liberal left wing of the Democratic Party and their supporters in the MSM suffers a catastrophic collapse. There are at least some members of the DNC establishment very concerned and they are more than willing to cast Joe Biden overboard in a failed effort to save a sinking ship. But don’t bet on a House of Cards withstanding a perfect storm.

TDM

We never really know what goes on behind closed doors in Washington, D.C. We can get hints of this from sources like the MSM and social media, but we can be sure that some of the most important conversations are very private and that seldom changes. In addition, when private conversations are leaked, it is always important to look at who is leaking the information and why. We can also apply the speed test, since the time of things sometimes tells us a lot.

I was once scheduled to speak at a conference, following Admiral Buzz Zumwalt. As a result, we spent about an hour in the green room with no one else around. He was appointed Chief of Naval Operations by Richard Nixon in May of 1970. He later ran for the U.S. Senate, as a Democrat, from Virginia, where he was defeated by Harry F. Byrd, Jr.

He told me several personal stories, about politicians in both parties, and the Vietnam War that I found beyond fascinating. In some cases, it became obvious that some things that seemed obvious to me were very different than what actually happened, at least according to his version of events..

Another incident, somewhat embarrassing for me, happened in Hamilton, Bermuda. The insurance company I managed had its headquarters in Bermuda, so I was invited to a private social event at the home of the president of one of the largest banks in Bermuda. He had invited another guest, an English gentleman, who had obviously been drinking, a lot. This man proceeded to tell me he had been the head of British Intelligence during World War II. He talked about inventing explosive coal that his operatives would drop into railroad tender cars, from bridges. When that “lump of coal” reached the engine, it would explode. He even talked about personally catching Joe Kennedy, JFK’s dad, sending British military secrets to Germany in the U.S. diplomatic pouch. Joe Kennedy had been Ambassador to the Court of St James at the time. This guy claimed he had flown personally to Washington, D.C., and confronted FDR with the evidence. FDR then recalled Joe Kennedy from his post in Great Britain. I mentioned what this guy said, to another guest and asked if this was possibly true. He said: “Bill sometimes talks too much when he has been drinking.” I stupidly assumed this meant he was making things up. Actually, he was talking too much, but he was also telling the truth.

I didn’t realize my error until on a business trip to New York City in February of 1989. I picked up a New York Times. There was an article in there about the death of Sir William Stephenson, former head of the British Intelligence along with a picture of the man I had met in Bermuda.

William Stephenson, British Spy Known as Intrepid, Is Dead at 93 – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

They even made a movie about him called “A Man Called Intrepid”.

I was absolutely shocked to learn that everything he told me was true. I was just too stupid, at the time, to even consider the possibility that he was the genuine article. I still consider this as a missed opportunity.

While we seldom get a chance to learn about truly private conversations, we can often observe the results of those events. One important clue is how quickly things can change. It is well documented that  FDR recalled Joe Kennedy as Ambassador to the Court of St. James. Most people just didn’t know why, and FDR certainly wasn’t willing to explain this to anyone. At the time Joe Kennedy was planning on running for President. After his “meeting” with FDR, he announced that FDR was probably the best President in U.S. history.

There have now been two special counsels appointed by Merrick Garland, one investigating Trump and one investigating Biden. This has never happened before. The special counsel investigating Trump could be expected to release his report either during the primary elections or shortly after Trump won the nomination. It wouldn’t be released sooner than that, because the “ongoing” investigation rule is great at preventing anyone else from getting any information.

But the timing of the special counsel report on Biden is more interesting. The events resulting in this appointment have been known for months, but Garland only acted after learning that McCarthy would be the Speaker of the House and after intense pressure from the Freedom Caucus, agreed to investigate improper politicization of the DOJ and other government agencies.  That is unlikely to be a coincidence. It may also be a sign that the Democratic establishment is so done with Joe Biden. It seems very unlikely that, after this, he will be able to win the nomination for re-election and I wouldn’t be surprised if he “decides” it is time to hang up his robes and run out the clock on this his one, and only, term. If he conveniently decides to leave gracefully, the special counsel report will probably be released in November or December 2024, after it no longer matters. But, if he foolishly tries to fight the current and run for re-election, this may move much faster.

The point being that the speed at which either of these investigations moves will provide a strong hint regarding what is going on behind closed doors. At a minimum, this will be interesting to watch.

TDM

What goes around comes around. Ever since Trump was elected, the MSM and Democrats have attacked him relentlessly. They even tried to impeach him twice. None of the serious charges against him have been proven true. Many have been totally debunked.

All of this was possible because Paul Ryan was and is a “never-Trumper” and Republicans did zero investigations of Democrats while he was Speaker of the House. Nancy Pelosi was even worse, with her unrelenting attacks on Trump and any Republican remotely connected with January 6th. But there is an old saying, “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Republicans only took full control of the House on Monday, and a lot of Democrats are already showing signs of pure panic.

There may also be something else going on. It appears as though some members of the Democratic establishment have had enough of Joe Biden. They were probably hoping he would just announce plans to ride off into the sunset, but instead he is threatening to run for re-election. Perhaps that explains some of the recent leaks, all bad for Biden, some of them involving things that had previously been ignored.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents. One suspects he noticed that Republicans are going to investigate the politicization of the DOJ and other government agencies. It is increasingly clear that Republicans are ready, willing, and able to investigate a lot of things ignored by the MSM and the DNC.

There was even a report that the FBI had Seth Rich’s laptop, and that they knew he had leaked the Hillary Clinton emails to WikiLeaks. Apparently, these documents are about to be released because of a freedom of information request. If this is true, it means the FBI knew the Russia Collusion charge against Trump had zero merit, yet James Comey appointed a Special Counsel anyway.

Credibility, once lost, is often impossible to restore. Most people are reluctant to believe that the MSM, the DOJ, and the FBI would deliberately lie to the American people. To anyone doing some research and paying any attention, these lies were always obvious. But they were ignored by the MSM which dismissed these as discredited conspiracy theories. One reason for that opinion is that they all realize this would be unthinkable. Well start thinking the unthinkable. There are several cases when the lies are no longer possible to ignore.

For the past two years, the January 6^th committee has successfully managed the narrative. They painted a picture of an armed insurrection, fueled by Donald Trump, which threatened our democracy. Incredibly, Hakeem Jeffries, who every Democrat voted to be Speaker of the House, repeated this nonsense.

But there is another side to this story, and it is coming to a screen near you. Republicans reportedly have 14,000 hours of video, suppressed by the January 6^th committee that show a lot of photo ops, but not much resembling an insurrection. They will also show who approved increased security, Donald Trump, and who blocked it, Nancy Pelosi. The former Chief of the Capitol Police wrote a scathing book, and he didn’t pull any punches. He is not a friend of Donald Trump, by any means, but he absolutely despises Nancy Pelosi.

So far, Kevin McCarthy is playing hard ball and he is proving to be very skilled at making his points. He has even convinced Democrats to support a select committee on China and got significant Democratic support for blocking Biden from giving more oil from our strategic oil reserve to China.

What goes around sometimes does come around. The winds of change are blowing strongly and some people who thought their power was eternal are about to experience a major wind fall.  Enjoy. This could be fun to watch.

TDM