Category: Uncategorized

“There are as many opinions as there are people: each has his own view,” said Terence (185–159 BC), a Roman playwright

Last week after Trump’s inauguration I went to lunch with a friend who says that he is a Republican, but who had his own views. Almost immediately after sitting down, he started bemoaning the fact that President Trump was signing “way too many” executive orders in the first few days. I thought to myself … “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Indeed, I was right as the signing of multiple executive orders has continued on those things that President Trump campaigned on and promised to implement. There are no surprises here; the surprise is the speed at which he is accomplishing what he promised. I would guess that at some point that I will probably not agree with one, or even perhaps a few of these executive orders.

At present, my favorites include his “One Flag Policy,” and the DEI abolishment.
From the Free Beacon:
The Trump State Department implemented a landmark “One Flag Policy” policy on Monday, barring U.S. outposts at home and abroad from flying any other flag but the Stars and Stripes.
From the Epoch Times:
President Donald Trump’s latest executive action will cut off federal funding to any learning institutions that mandate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) provisions or hire contractors that engage in such practices.
The executive order says that any schools that receive federal money will be issued guidance for complying with this mandate within 120 days.

Your favorites and mine are probably not the same as each of us has our own view.
1/24/25

During a Mar-a-Lago conference then president-elect Donald Trump told reporters “The Panama Canal is vital to our country.” Trump also said he wouldn’t rule out using military force to take back control of the canal.
As background:
The United States built the canal over a decade in the early 1900s as a way to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, finishing the project in 1914.
Washington relinquished control of the waterway to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, under a treaty signed in 1977 by then-President Jimmy Carter.
The 1977 deal consists of two treaties: the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal, also known as the Neutrality Treaty, and the Panama Canal Treaty.
The Neutrality Treaty stipulates that the United States may use its military force to protect the Panama Canal from any threat to its neutrality, essentially allowing the United States to perpetually use the waterway.

“American ships are being severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape, or form, and that includes the United States Navy,” Trump said during his inaugural address in Washington on Jan. 20. “And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal.”

If, indeed, China, is now significantly influencing the running and the control of the canal, then that would appear to violate the Neutrality Treaty. … Hmmm!
At this point I suspect that Trump’s statements on the Panama Canal are commensurate of how he views the Art of the Deal.
Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino responded to Trump’s comments on Jan. 20, saying the canal belongs to Panama and will remain Panamanian territory.
However, I am not so sure that the Central American nation’s leader is willing to bet that Trump is bluffing!
“No presence of any nation in the world interferes with our administration,” Mulino wrote.
I guess we’ll see to which country the canal is vital.

1/23/25

It’s amazing to me that at the last minute Joe Biden issued pardons to many who have not been convicted of anything. In fact a lot of these last minute pardons were issued to individuals who have not even been charged with anything!

To me the only logical conclusion is that these now pardoned individuals are guilty … perhaps even guilty of things have haven’t even been yet discovered. If one is pardoned then that individual is obviously guilty. Why would an innocent individual be pardoned?

President Biden pardoned his siblings just minutes before leaving office on Monday. The pardon applies to James Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John Owens, and Francis Biden, the White House announced. What “crimes” were these individuals pardoned for?

Biden issued another wave of pre-emptive pardons earlier Monday morning, those going to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley and people associated with the House select committee investigation into January 6. What “crimes” were these individuals pardoned for?

In my mind the pardoning of the above noted individuals is a clear admission of their guilt, and even a person of diminished capacity, like ex-President Biden, realizes this.

In my mind these Biden pardons have made a mockery of the entire Presidential pardoning procedure, and President Trump should review the entire process after he pardons those individuals who were actually convicted of dubious crimes especially those involved with J6.

I do not pretend to be judge or even a lawyer, but how is it possible to pardon individuals for “crimes” that they haven’t even been accused of? Nonsense!
1/22/25

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated a bunch of strong individuals to be in his cabinet, and right away in the confirmation hearings various Democrat Senators started going after some nominees with innuendo and a bunch of “gotcha questions.”
From my perspective it became obvious almost right away that the Trump nominees were the smart folks and some of the Senate Democrats who were asking the questions were like what the cat dragged in! After the first few days of questions the main issue appeared to be … “which of the questioning Democrat Senators was the dumbest!” Granted my take may be biased, but my vote goes to Mazie Hirono from Hawaii. FYI: Megyn Kelly chose the new Senator from Michigan, Elissa Slotkin, for the worst of the worst. Of course Pocahontas from Massachusetts was right up there as expected! Others have picked Senators Tim Kaine from Virginia. So many to choose from!

The toughest sells — former Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, to serve as secretary of health and human services and director of national intelligence, respectively, and Kash Patel for director of the FBI — haven’t yet had confirmation hearings.

Be that as it may, the important takeaway from the questions hurled at the nominees by the various above noted yo-yo Senators is … “Is any Republican Senator going to want to be identified as the one who sided with the likes of Hirono, Kaine, Warren, or Slotkin?
Going out on a limb … I am going to predict that all of Trump’s nominees will be confirmed.
1/21/25

As most of you are aware Sunday is the day I write about either a hero or someone that we can admire. This week my choice is
Altadena’s Pete Villari, who returned during the fire, only to see that the back of his house was on fire. He grabbed a garden hose and a ladder and was able put that fire out.
Shortly thereafter he saw that a fence behind a neighbor’s house on his cul-de-sac was also on fire and he was also able to put that fire out also.
Subsequently he noted that fire had crept into the eaves of the house of another neighbor, George. Pete Villari put that fire out also. Then he noted that the backyard fence at Eleanor’s house was also on fire and he was successful at dousing that fence fire of his other neighbor.
All told the eight houses on that Altadena cul-de sac were saved in large part due to Pete Villari’s ten heroic hours. In addition later in that same evening he was able to disburse potential looters who were suspiciously eyeing the empty houses on his cul-de-sac.
Indeed Pete Villari is a true modern day hero!
1/19/25

Years ago there was a commercial that was set in an operating row and ended with:
“You’re not Dr. Stewart!”
“No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

What follows is a cursory explanation of the financial conundrum that California has put itself in.
From Townhall:
The priorities of the leaders of California and Los Angeles over the last decade have been homelessness, climate change, and providing services to undocumented migrants.
-Homelessness
Since 2019, California has invested $27 billion in homelessness, or about 4.5 billion per year. That amount does not include spending on firefighting, police, or emergency medical services for the homeless. Nor does it include the $40 billion the state spent on affordable housing.
-Undocumented migrants:
California spends over $30 billion per year to provide benefits and services to migrants who came to the US illegally, according to a recent cost analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The California Budget and Policy Center estimates that they contribute up to $9 billion annually in state and local taxes.
-Climatechange:
And California will spend over $48 billion on climate programs over the next seven years, or about seven billion annually.

All of this spending in the face of an unconscionable state debt!
In the fiscal year of 2024, California’s state debt stood at about 158.05 billion U.S. dollars. Comparatively, the state’s debt was 57.17 billion U.S. dollars in 2000.

Now while I am neither a CPA nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, even I can see that California’s financial situation is not sustainable.
1/18/25

As some of you may know I am on the far side of fifty and thus closer to sunset than to sunrise. I suspect that a lot of us “older sort” remember Looney Tunes, which were cartoon shorts featuring cherished characters including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Tweety, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Taz, Marvin the Martian, and Beaky Buzzard.
Oh … the nostalgia! However, for the younger readers who do not recall the old Looney Tunes, there are 206 strange characters that are we can now refer to as “looney.” These are the 206 House Democrats who on 1/14/25 voted against the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which excludes males from participating in women’s sports sponsored by organizations that receive federal funding.
The text stipulates that “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”

From Clay Travis on X
“Only two Democrats voted yes to keep men out of women’s sports. How insane is this? I can’t believe that it is Democrat party orthodoxy that men pretending to be women should be able to play women’s sports. Legit crazy town.”

I would love to be a fly on the wall when each of these 206 loonies individually explain his/her rationale to their daughters and granddaughters!
1/17/25

The initial part of what follows is taken from a blog of mine from 12/21/22:
“‘ … this vaccine is not completely safe, and has unprecedented harms.’
This was said by British cardiologist, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who initially encouraged the widespread use of COVID-19 vaccines until his father passed away suddenly of cardiac arrest after receiving the jab.
His father’s death prompted Malhotra to begin researching the safety profile of the vaccines. Based on his findings, he no longer believes the theoretical benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the very real risks.
Dr. Malhotra is not alone.
In June 2022, the FDA’s Tom Shimabukuro, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., identified as part of the CDC COVID-19 Vaccine Coordination Unit, reported that: “Current evidence supports a causal association between mRNA COVID-19 vaccination and myocarditis and pericarditis.”
Six months later, as of Dec. 2, 2022, there have been a total of 35,718 cases of myocarditis/pericarditis reported to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.
This skepticism is not confined to Britain and the U.S.
After witnessing as many as 70 cases of vaccine-related heart conditions, Australian Cardiologist Dr. Ross Walker is now saying publicly that he believes there should be a ban on the use of mRNA booster vaccines.”

Fortunately for them, none of the above mentioned individuals practice medicine in California, because the California Medical Board considers the expression of the doctors’ dissenting views on the disease as potentially dangerous misinformation that should be suppressed. The board argues it has legal authority to discipline the doctors for speech it deems to be medical misconduct.

Three doctors are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent a California agency from investigating them over their opposition to state-approved COVID-19 policies.
The physicians counter that just because they have medical licenses doesn’t mean they forfeit their free speech rights under the First Amendment.

This rigamarole has been now going on for years with appeals, appeals to appeals, etc. While I do not consider myself to be an expert on the Constitution, I do not recall any provision in that document that says or even implies that the right to free speech is suspended in case of a pandemic.
IMO, in this case the California Medical Board has again overstepped its authority.
Hopefully the Supreme Court will agree.

1/16/25

I was just reading about Trump’s recent press conference at Mar-a-Lago, and it occurred to me that part of it was classic Trump. When he was asked about potentially using military or economic measures to control Greenland or the Panama Canal, he responded, “I’m not going to commit to that.”

His comments during that press conference left many reporters puzzled, prompting repeated questions for clarification.
The president-elect emphasized that the United States needs both regions for economic and national security reasons.

Whatever measures president-elect Trump is considering or not considering, he is certainly not going to state them now. Part of “The Art of the Deal” is to always keep them guessing, and to always let them know that even some extreme positions are always a consideration.
From the Epoch Times:
“One of the benefits of Trump’s approach, whether intentional or not, is that it creates public discourse on issues that would typically be handled behind the scenes, Michael Walsh, a U.S. foreign policy expert, told The Epoch Times.
‘It stirs discussion and debate. And you’re seeing that right now. You hear people on the metro talking about Greenland and Panama,’ Walsh said.”

Perhaps within the next four years we’ll be talking about considering Greenland as the 51st state!
Remember: You heard it here first!
1/15/25

How many of you know much about Trump’s nominees to the various health agencies? I did recognize the names of the recent appointments, but to be honest, that’s are far as it went. Therefore when I read an article in Epoch Health, I thought that some of it would educational for my readers.
All of the following are excerpts from that 12/14/24 article from Epoch Health.

NIH Director: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

The National Institutes of Health is the largest funder of biomedical and behavioral research in the United States and worldwide.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and the new pick for the head of the NIH, would be making decisions on allocating potentially $50.1 billion of funds into research that would benefit American’s interest. Some expect Bhattacharya to reform the funding process to ensure that priorities for research grant approvals are driven by uncovering the root causes of the chronic disease epidemic in the United States rather than symptom mitigation medications.

“The NIH haven’t focused on any of the issues like obesity, they’ve done very little work on diabetes … smoking, these are major problems In the United States,” Dr. Cody Meissner, professor of pediatrics and medicine at Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine, told the Epoch Times in an interview.

The thing that I remember most about Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
is that he co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration with two other researchers. The Declaration advocated for focused protection, proposing that public health measures be primarily directed toward high-risk individuals while allowing young and healthy people to return to normal life.

As we have since learned the Great Barrington Declaration was spot on!

FDA Commissioner: Marty Makary

Dr. Marty Makary, a professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of several books, is seen as a person who values evidence more than consensus.

Makary’s op-eds throughout the pandemic showed an evolving view that adapted as more research emerged.

Makary criticized the way the CDC was keeping records on COVID-19 deaths, arguing that it has inflated COVID-19 mortality numbers by not differentiating people who died from COVID-19 as compared to those who died with COVID-19.
Makary welcomed vaccinations but has criticized the policymakers’ sole focus on driving up vaccination without considering herd immunity and also that children had significantly lower risks of dying from COVID-19 provided they did not have chronic health disease.

On problems with food and chemicals, at a congressional roundtable discussion hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc), Makary echoed beliefs Kennedy said during his campaign.

CDC Director: Dr. Dave Weldon
Prior to reading the aforementioned Epoch Health piece, I do not recall ever hearing Dr. Weldon’s name before, and consequently knew nothing about him.

Weldon is well known for being a skeptic of vaccine safety and a critic of the CDC.
During his time in Congress, from 1996 to 2008, Weldon tried three times to introduce a bill that would ban mercury vaccines. The bill was blocked each time by the health subcommittees.
Weldon’s views align closely with Kennedy’s on examining vaccine safety and removing conflicts of interest in health agencies.

At the start of his testimony at a 2002 hearing discussing vaccines and autism, Weldon praised vaccination systems as significant breakthroughs. However, he criticized the lack of transparency from agencies like the CDC, which does not allow researchers to access the vaccine safety data, and suggested “to open it up and let objective scientists look at it.”
He added that unless there is an open dialogue on vaccine safety, he will “never be satisfied that there isn’t some data suggesting that some children may have serious side effects,” including potential side effects of autism.

Three interesting picks for these health agencies. The next four years will certainly be very interesting!
1/14/25