Month: April 2022

As per my Sunday tradition, today the individual who is deserving of our praise is Jonté Lee, who is a high school physics and chemistry teacher at Calvin Coolidge High School in Washington D.C. Teaching high school in D.C. is, by itself, praiseworthy, but that is not the reason for his honored spot in my Sunday blog.

From The Epoch Times:

Known for going above and beyond in the classroom, Lee delighted students during the early 2020 lockdown when he set up a functional chemistry lab in his home kitchen. He went viral for this 2020 attempt to enrich his students’ virtual learning experience. Doing this during Covid was also praiseworthy, but nonetheless, that is not the reason for his honored spot in my Sunday piece.

Once a corporate marketing specialist, Lee has been teaching in Washington public schools for the last nine years. “My first call to teaching was when I volunteered for the ‘Big Brother Big Sister’ program while working in the private sector,” he explained. “There, I would read to my little brother twice a week. I liked it so much that I sought out to become a teacher.

“I enjoy making meaningful connections with students and pushing them academically forward. My greatest joy is seeing them grapple and learn a concept … Through teaching, I found my life’s passion.”

Like a lot of individuals Jonté Lee had student loans, and he owed a fair amount on these loans. Lee’s original student loans comprised $16,574 in 2004, $25,413 in 2005, and another $25,413 in 2006, totaling to just over $67,400 by graduation. With late fees and two deferments, said Lee, his principal balance was $88,339.90 exactly. Between 2008 and 2018, Lee paid roughly $400 a month in loan repayments, without a fixed interest rate or loan consolidation. But by May 2018, he had only paid off $33,067 of the principal balance, and at some point he decided that this situation needed to change.

Lee recalls his biggest challenge as having to change his attitude toward money. He felt embarrassed by the amount of debt he had accumulated.

He said, “I know what it is like to wake up in the middle of the night with a suffocating feeling of fear. I know what it is like to have my credit card swiped and pray that it goes through,” he confided. “For 12 years, I beat myself up about my student loans because I knew that some of that money did not go towards schooling. It went towards me having a good time.”

Jonté didn’t complain. He didn’t whine for someone else to pay off the debt he had accumulated. Instead he went “full throttle.”

“I worked extra jobs,” the teacher explained. “I taught additional classes after school and during the summer … I also drove for Uber and took on extra project jobs that involved teaching.”

“Working multiple jobs was exhausting and there were moments where I wanted to quit,” he admitted. “My original intent was to pay off my student loans in eight months … I had to readjust.”

After one year of careful planning and immense hard work, Lee officially paid off his outstanding $57,000 debt. He did the right thing, paying off his entire loan with hard work and a lot of sweat.

Truly Jonté Lee is a laudable individual.

4/10/22

These days just about everyone is suffering from high gas prices. Granted those who do not drive very much and those who drive electric vehicles are not suffering, but who are those people? Obviously those individuals are the ones who can work from home, and/or those who are affluent enough to be able to afford an electric car. Can the hoi polloi work from home? … ‘No!’ Can the common man afford an electric car? … ‘Hell no!’ Yet our Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is apparently not aware of this disconnect.

From Blazemedia:

“Last month, “Mayor Pete” made headlines when he said (in all seriousness) that the obvious solution for dealing with insanely high gas prices is to just go buy an electric vehicle. Maybe Mayor Pete doesn’t realize that most of us can’t afford to buy a new car at all, let alone an EV that costs “roughly $10,000 higher than the overall industry average,” according to Kelley Blue Book.”

Since I have been recently accused by some of being too harsh and biased against Democrats in high governmental positions, I decided to reconsider my position on Buttigieg’s apparent uninformed thought process. Maybe “Mayor Pete” was misquoted or perhaps he was up all night with the new babies, and thus did not realize what he was saying.

But no …!

Again from BlazeMedia:

“Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has doubled down on his out-of-touch messaging to Americans who are struggling to pay skyrocketing prices at the pump. He has let Americans know that we all need to get used to ‘wild price hikes’ until we ‘achieve a form of energy independence that is based on clean energy.’”

After listening to him say this, one consequently might ask, “Why is someone that is so out of touch with reality in such a high government position?” 

Err, … the answer is obvious! Look at who appointed him … J.B., who is as out of touch as “the Mayor.” On 3/31 Biden had an equally atrocious statement from the White House where he touted his plan to tackle the problem of high gas prices.

Biden explained:

“Under my plan, which is before Congress now, we can take advantage of the next generation of electric vehicles, that a typical driver will save about $80 a month from not having to pay gas at the pump.” 

In response to this absurdity, Twitter exploded:

“A ‘typical driver’ with an average credit score financing a bare bones Nissan Leaf will have a car payment of around $560 a month. So a net ‘savings’ of -$480 per month,” tweeted writer Jim Jamitis.

“The old man and his whole staff is way out of touch,” read another very popular response.

“These people live in a totally different world than the average citizen. They just don’t get it or else they do get it and keep pushing it hoping it comes true,” replied one critic.

From my perspective, OMG! “Out of touch” is much too kind!

And finally, a question to myself: “Should I continue to reconsider my so-called ‘biased positions’ on these high government bureaucrats?”

“Nē quaquam rūrsus!” (Translated from the Latin … “never again!”)

4/9/22

Is what we are seeing in the U.S. the front end of a pendulum swing? In the past when the pendulum has swung left, what followed was an opposite reaction, and the opposite reaction was more intense than the initial pendulum swing. For instance, Jimmy Carter’s pendulum swing gave us Ronald Reagan. Clinton’s presidency gave us George Bush. Obama gave us Trump, and now Biden will give us … Who?

I bring this up now, because I question whether or not this same pendulum principle applies to social issues. 

The recent election of Virginia’s new Governor was certainly a response to some school boards’ treatment of concerned parents, and the former Democratic Governor basically taking the side of the school boards and against the parents. (What a dummy-head! Going against parents is not a wise thing to do.)

In Florida, Disney has strongly come out against protecting innocent young children from sexual indoctrination and innuendo. In this situation, parents are strongly for the new Florida law. I hope there is a big reactive pendulum swing against Disney, and Disney pays a big price for its extreme leftward stupidity. (Only a dummy-head corporation would go against the wishes of parents.)

The NCAA is apparently for “men” competing in, and subsequently winning women’s swimming competitions. What part of being a dummy-head here, does the NCAA not understand?

And finally, some school teachers as well as some “school clubs” they are affiliated with, are not only encouraging children to transition to a different sex, but are telling the children not to tell their parents. Here I hope that the reactive pendulum swing goes into overdrive. Referring to these despicable teachers as “dummy-heads,” is actually doing a disservice to every day “dummy-heads.” Not only should these teachers be immediately fired, but they should be forever forbidden from ever teaching again. I sincerely hope that a ferocious pendulum swing hits them right between their legs.

Perhaps it was put best by Cuban American school choice advocate Hamlet Garcia: “The Democrats have made the biggest mistake of their lives by messing with our children, indoctrinating our schools, They have turned their most loyal voters into their worst enemies.”

Nowadays it is becoming much easier to identify “dummy-heads,” as even though their symbol is a donkey, in reality they are a horse’s ass.

4/8/22

For those of you who are Joe Biden fans you may have to put that bag over your head again. after you read the following.

What I am going to describe is the result of either Ineptitude, Ignorance, or Ignominy, or perhaps a combination of all three. If you are like me, you have a good idea what ‘Ineptitude’ is. Likewise, you have a good idea of what ‘Ignorance’ is. But ‘Ignominy,’ … not so much.(As I was looking for a third ‘I’ word, I happened on ‘Ignominy.’ It is a noun which means “disgrace; dishonor; public contempt.”)

A friend sent me the following. I was surprised as I had no idea of the magnitude of what I am going to relate to you. The first thing that I thought was if the President has access to this same information, why is he not acting appropriately on it. Why?? 

Is it his ‘Ineptitude?” Very possibly, as he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Is it his ‘Ignorance?” Again, very possibly, as I can reasonably guess that he is only aware of what is spoon fed to him.

Or is it his ‘Ignominy?’ Does he actually hold the U.S. in that much public contempt?

About 6 months ago, there was a news program on oil and one of The Forbes Bros. was the guest. The host said to Forbes, “I am going to ask you a direct question and I would like a direct answer; how much oil does the U.S. have in the ground?” Forbes did not miss a beat, he said, “More than all the Middle East put together.”

The U.S. Geological Service issued a report in April 2008 that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn’t been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and Extreme eastern Montana. It’s a formation known as the Williston Basin but is more commonly referred to as the ‘Bakken.’ A recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken’s massive reserves, And, we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels … yes, “billion” with a ‘B.’

And because this is Light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans … hold your breath, grit your teeth, or grab your Depends if appropriate … just $16 PER BARREL! For those of you not paying attention that is almost $100 per barrel less than the price of oil today!

To conclude:

We have more oil in our own country, than all the other proven reserves on Earth.

Here are the official estimates:

8 times as much oil as Saudi Arabia

18 times as much oil as Iraq

21 times as much oil as Kuwait

22 times as much oil as Iran

500 times as much oil as Yemen

And it’s all right here in the Western United States!

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we’ve got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East, more than 2 TRILLION barrels – Untapped. “That’s more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the World today,” reports The Denver Post.

So again I ask, “Where is Joe on this?” Which of the three ‘I’s’ is it?

4/7/2

On the CDC’s most recent COVID Data Tracker an interesting trend appears. This comprehensive set of data will not be believable to those who are pro-vaccine, and whose mantra is some form of “the anti-vaccers are dumb and stupid.” 

A conundrum! From the Data Tracker … The number of Covid cases, Covid deaths, and Covid hospitalizations are all impressively down compared to January of this year. (Detected infections are down to less than 30,000 a day from the high of over 800,000 a day in mid-January, according to CDC data. The seven-day average of currently hospitalized had dropped to about 11,000 on April 1, down from nearly 150,000 in January, though, according to the CDC, the vaccines still lower the risk of severe disease.) Similar trends are now being seen in Great Britain and Ireland.

To me the decreasing case numbers are not surprising as winter is over and Spring has begun. However what is surprising is the data from different counties in the U.S.

Counties with the highest rates of vaccination against COVID-19 are currently experiencing more cases than those with the lowest vaccination rates. To repeat, this is from data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

From Epoch News:

The 500 counties where 62–95 percent of the population has been vaccinated detected more than 75 cases per 100,000 residents on average in the past week. The 500 counties where 11–40 percent of the population has been vaccinated detected about 58 cases per 100,000 residents on average in the past week.

The least vaccinated counties tended to be much smaller, averaging less than 20,000 in population. The most vaccinated counties had an average population of over 330,000. More populous counties, however, weren’t more likely to have higher case rates.

Even when comparing counties of similar size, the most vaccinated ones tended to have higher case rates than those least vaccinated, and this held up in a myriad of different county populations from over a million to from 100,000 to 200,000.

Now I am not presupposing that the CDC data is 100% correct. No data actually is. Nonetheless, the consistency of this data is straightforward and convincing.

So what is the explanation for this apparent CDC conundrum? 

The most likely reason is that the vaccines lose their effectiveness over time. If this is the answer to the conundrum, then why are ‘those that know best’ recommending more boosters? President Biden, ostensibly, got his second booster a few days ago, and certainly all of the sheep should follow right along with the sheep herder, shouldn’t they?

On the other hand, could it be that natural immunity is the major reason that the unvaccinated are now doing better than the vaccinated? If this is the reason, could it be that not receiving any boosters or further boosters, and getting Omicron would be the wise choice for most individuals?

4/6/22

For whatever reason recently I have again started to listen to country music. Not just any type of country music, but more specifically country oldies, as are played on Sirius XM’s Willie’s Roadhouse. I realize that most of you are not particularly attracted to the country oldies, and Democrats in general are not fans of country music, but so be it. One of the reasons I like this genre of music has to do with the stories that these songs often tell. The other morning I heard a country oldie that was about a family mourning the loss of a loved one from a drug overdose. Right then I thought about the sadness experienced by family members when a tragedy like this occurs. I have to admit that right then I thought nasty things about those s.o.b.’s who are drug traffickers, as they are in a large part, ultimately responsible for these tragedies.

To put things into perspective, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 105,752 Americans died from drug overdoses from October 2020 to October 2021, and consequently similar sadness was likely experienced by over 100,000 families in the U.S. 

For those who aren’t aware, Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death in Americans aged 18 to 45 years old, and Fentanyl is now flowing torrentially into our country like water in a dry riverbed after the first big rainfall of the year. Most of this Fentanyl comes across our open southern border, but those in charge of our border security either are not aware of this problem or, more likely, just do not care. FYI: At our southern border, Customs and Border Protection are confiscating record amounts of fentanyl coming across from Mexico. For example, CBP seized over 11,201 pounds of fentanyl from October 2020 to September 2021, which is a 41 percent increase from the year before. That is enough fentanyl to kill 2.5 billion people or the entire U.S. population over 7 times Furthermore, the Fentanyl seized represents but a small percent of that which is successfully illegally transported across this border. 

Once this Fentanyl makes it into our cities and rural communities, it is the drug traffickers who are then responsible for local distribution.

Recently Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) proposed to advance H.R. 6184, also known as the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act.

The goal of the bill is to permanently place fentanyl-related substances into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, making it illegal to sell the molecularly-altered fentanyl substance manufactured by criminals. Fentanyl-related substances are currently temporarily under Schedule I. The bill is in response to the record number of drug overdoses in the United States stemming from fentanyl pills and other drugs laced with fentanyl. 

On 4/1/22 more than 200 House Democrats voted against H.R. 6184 … and no, this is not an April Fool’s joke. House Democrats’ opposition to the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act reportedly stems from its provision for mandatory-minimum sentences for fentanyl traffickers. ( I guess we all have our priorities!)

If your local House Representative voted against passage of this bill, perhaps a phone call from you on this matter would be appropriate.

Moreover, if more House Democrats listened to Willie’s Roadhouse, perhaps they would have more empathy for drug overdose victims and their families rather than fentanyl traffickers.

4/5/22

Last week I wrote about Joe Biden comments on and after his Europe/NATO trip, and especially on his answers to questions from Peter Doocy after he had returned to the U.S. Amazingly, Joe adamantly denied making statements that were caught on video. Basically, I said that President Biden was either a liar, extremely forgetful bordering on senility, or not in charge. (See “www.californiacontrarian.com” on 3/31/22) 

Well under the guise of honesty, I must tell you that one of my most frequent readers thought I was being much too tough on Joe Biden … “give him a break!” Further pointing out that he may well have been jet-lagged, and may have been flustered and nervous taking live questions from reporters. (questions that required ad lib answers that were not written on notecards.) Actually under that same guise of honesty, I will freely admit that both may have been true. He was probably jet-lagged, and he was probably flustered by having to actually answer questions, but, come on … “what the hell was he doing answering questions if either of the above were influencing his ability to provide straight forward truthful answers?”

Why didn’t he just fall back on one of his old standbys, as he has done multiple times in the past … “they told me that I was not supposed to answer answer any questions.”

And “no,” I was not being too tough on him! 

He is supposed to speak for the U.S.! Looking like a fool, jet-lagged or not is not really good for anybody, not the U.S, not our allies, and certainly not J.B. himself.

I bring this up today because of something that I read in a column by Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post

MARC THIESSEN: “I have a slightly different take than a lot of people on this. I think the walkback of Biden’s comment is much worse than the comment itself. First, it made Biden look incompetent, and second of all, it made America look weak. The idea that what he really meant to say was Putin shouldn’t be allowed to exercise power over the region? Everybody knows that’s not what he said. They heard the plain words of the president.”

 A slightly different take, indeed. Nonetheless, this ‘different take’ doesn’t change my conclusion in my 3/31 blog. If anything, Theissen’s opinion just further strengthens my view that Joe Biden is actually not the one in charge!

4/4/22

As is my custom on Sunday, I write about someone who is deserving of praise and respect. This week’s tribute is to a father-son duo from Queens.

“My dad’s a bull, like old-school men,” Louie Suljovic told WABC, “They don’t make them like they used to.”

What happened? And why are the father and his son being given my weekly coveted Sunday honor?

From BlazeMedia:

Police told WABC that a 61-year-old woman was pushing a grocery cart outside Louie’s Pizzeria & Restaurant in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens just before 9 p.m. Saturday, 3/26.

WABC said the Korean woman didn’t want to appear on camera but told the station she remembers being pushed from behind, knocked to the ground, having her bag stolen, and then being stabbed.

Louie Suljovic — a 38-year-old military veteran — told the station from his hospital bed that he was working behind the counter at Louie’s with his father, Charlie, when the attack took place.

Louie continued, “My father noticed it first, that the woman was attacked, and she was on the floor, and my understanding was he heard screaming. So he went after them and yelled my name. Once I heard my name, we both chased them down the block.”

The Suljovics held down two of the three suspects until police arrived, WABC said, and then the father and son walked themselves to the emergency room at Elmhurst Hospital across the street.

Louie Suljovic was stabbed while fighting the attackers, and Charlie Suljovic was stabbed in the back nine times. Both suffered collapsed lungs, and were hospitalized.

Louie’s Pizzeria is now closed and will probably remained closed for a few weeks while the owners recover.

Police tweeted that during the pandemic, Louie’s remained open and donated meals to Elmhurst Hospital staff and first responders.

“He and his father are among the very best New York has to offer,” police added in the tweet. “We thank them for their bravery and wish them a speedy recovery.”

I agree …”the very best New York has o offer.”

If I’m ever in Queens again, I will definitely be going to Louie’s Pizzeria

and I would encourage you to do the same.

4/3/22

“Does the right hand not know what the left hand is doing?” said Maine doctor Meryl Nass pointing to legislation passed last week by the New Hampshire house to make human-grade Ivermectin available without prescription. There is also similar pending legislation in several other states.

This Maine doctor Meryl Nass, had her  license was suspended in February by the state’s medical licensing board for prescribing alternative medicines to treat and prevent COVID-19 over the vaccine remedy.

According to the state’s complaint, the Maine board’s harsh scrutiny of Nass stems specifically from three legal prescriptions she wrote for ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.

The patients didn’t complain about the prescription. All recovered from the virus. One complaint came from a Twitter user, another from a hospital doctor, and a third from a midwife associated with the same hospital. The midwife complained about Nass’s prescription of hydroxychloroquine to a pregnant woman.

A witch-hunt? Very possibly.

Meanwhile in Virginia in a classic case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, a Virginia doctor has been awarded a legislative commendation for his study into alternative treatments of COVID-19 just a few days before the state’s medical licensing board informed him he was under investigation for misconduct for the same work.

On Mar. 11, the Virginia House of Delegates unanimously passed HR228, a resolution to recognize Dr. Paul Marik, founder of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), for what lawmakers called “his courageous treatment of critically ill COVID-19 patients.”

In its commendation of Marik, the Virginia lawmakers hailed him for “using repurposed approved Food and Drug Administration (FDA) generic drugs as a strategy to reduce the pandemic death rate, despite continuous challenges and barriers.”

Just a few days later Marik received a letter dated Mar. 15 from the Virginia Department of Health Professions informing him he had until Mar. 29 to respond to an investigation underway by the agency into his medical practices.

According to the letter, the investigation is based on a complaint from Sentara Hospitals, Norfolk, where Marik ran its intensive-care unit before it suspended him for refusing to prescribe Remdesivir and instead prescribed Ivermectin and other alternative treatments to COVID patients.

A witch-hunt? Very possibly!

Maine doctor Meryl Nass, told The Epoch Times, “the contradiction of the simultaneous commendation and investigation of Marik demonstrates that government administrations have ‘gone rogue’… to stifle doctor and patient choice and autonomy.”

“government administrations have ‘gone rogue’!” … An overwhelming understatement!

4/2/22

A friend of mine is a retired FBI agent and he told me about where and how “bad guys” hid some of their cash. From his personal experience he stated that cash would most often be found in plastic bags stuffed in freezers and/or put into books. Of course, all criminals would not use freezers and books, but apparently they felt that these hiding places were the best.

At this point I can almost hear you saying, “Okay, okay, interesting, but really who cares with the myriad of other problems all around us?”

My ex-FBI friend brought this up recently because he thinks that the next  move by Putin will be a retaliation for the credit card companies making most credit cards unusable in Russia.  This retaliation will involve cyber warfare such that credit cards will be unusable. Could the U.S. economy function without credit cards? … barely! When this happens there will be a run on banks as cash will be king. A truly scary process as with no credit cards cash will be the only acceptable thing at grocery stores, etc.

Now the purpose of this essay on the potential cyber warfare … His advice is to have cash available in your house, mainly hidden in your freezer and in certain books. He advises having enough to tide one over until the upcoming potential cyber shutdown is remedied. How much is enough? He suggested $2000. With interest rates very low, and one is able to access that much cash, I guess why not?

Why hide it? … because most will not have the foresight to plan for this potential catastrophe, and consequently there will be thievery of individual households when it becomes apparent that there is cash somewhere in that household. One final piece of advice from my friend is to make a note of where the cash is hidden so that if worse comes to worse, your other family members can find it.

4/1/22