Month: August 2023

As many of you are aware, I have never been a fan of LeBron James. His far left political views are about as far from my political feelings as one can get. Furthermore, when he comes with some reactionary statement that subsequently proves to be flat out wrong, he never apologizes … as was the case last year after a shooting in Ohio. 

Although he is admittedly a very good basketball player, I never have thought much of him as a person … until I read something on 7/30 which made me think that should take another look at LeBron James, the person.

Unbeknown to me LeBron James established the “I Promise School” in 2018 to help educate “at-risk” students. 

From BlazeMedia:

The ‘I Promise School’ proclaims, “With education as the driving force of change, the LeBron James Family Foundation is not only spreading that impact and improving lives of inner-city students and families, but also shifting the course of an entire community. Focusing on his hometown of Akron, the Foundation’s I PROMISE program provides year-round resources, access to opportunities, supportive skill development, constant encouragement and other wraparound supports to more than 1,300 Akron Public School students who have all been guaranteed college scholarships if they do their part.” (Underlining is mine.) “These efforts have culminated in the groundbreaking new public school – the I Promise School – that is taking an innovative approach to providing a challenging, supportive, and life-changing education, creating a new model for urban public education.”

Wow! Guaranteeing college scholarships for 1300 local students is indeed very impressive. Hats off to LeBron! … However, some bad news 

LeBron’s I Promise School – which teaches children from 1st to 8th grade – has recently been outed for poor performance in mathematics.

The Akron Beacon Journal reported this week: “This fall’s class of eighth graders at the I Promise School hasn’t had a single student pass the state’s basic math test since the group was in the third grade.”

The Akron Beacon Journal added, “The state has also issued its first concern about the school: two of I Promise’s biggest subgroups of students, black students and those with disabilities, are now testing in the bottom 5% in the state, landing the school on the Ohio Department of Education’s list of those requiring targeted intervention.”

Read back to the above ‘I Promise School’ proclamation … “ guaranteed college scholarships, if they do their part.”

To me, as a result of the extremely poor test results, it seems pretty obvious that somebody is not doing their part … and I doubt that it’s the students.

8/11/23

When one appoints someone to a position for which he/she has no qualifications, then it should be no surprise that chaos is likely to ensue. 

Such is the case with the person that Joe Biden appointed to be  the Health Secretary, Xavier Becerra. Where did Becerra receive his medical degree?  Err … he has no medical degree! Perhaps, rather, a Masters in Public Health ? Err … no! Any medical qualifications? Not really. 

Let’s be clear, Xavier Becerra is a lawyer. He has no medical experience or medical qualifications. Here I am not even referring  to marginal qualifications. He has zero, zip, nada qualifications for this office!

The United States secretary of health and human services the head of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United Stateson all health matters.

But let’s not be too harsh on poor unqualified Xavier Becerra. What knucklehead would appoint such an unqualified person to such an office, especially with Covid being a major problem? Three guesses …Joe Biden!

Could it be that Becerra’s  obvious political appointment to such a post in the Cabinet was the reason the President Biden made such poor choices concerning Covid vaccinations and mandates?

Here just recently we have another example why a lawyer should not pretend that he has medical qualifications or knowledge. President Joe Biden’s administration concedes that there is no scientific evidence to support an apparent recommendation to receive as many as six COVID-19 booster shots in a year.

After Health Secretary Xavier Becerra, a Biden appointee, wrote in a social media post on Nov. 29, 2022, that people should get vaccinated “if it’s been over 2 months since your last dose,” the Functional Government Initiative (FGI) filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents supporting the statements.

In a new response, the government said it had no evidence to support Mr. Becerra’s recommendation. Zero. Zip. Nada! None!

8/10/23

Is the recent podcast Dr. Paul Offit, a key FDA vaccine committee member was asked about myocarditis and the jabs. In response Dr. Offit made this startling admission, “There certainly is a causal link between vaccination and myocarditis and pericarditis. No doubt about it. The um … It’s unclear why. It may be, as was actually noticed in 2020, the SAR-Cov-2 virus, the spike protein, mimics one of the proteins on heart muscle cells, specifically the heavy chain of uh, uh, uh . So, If that’s true, while you’re making a  immune response to the spike protein, you’re also inadvertently making an immune response to your own heart muscle.”

Is the incidence of this myocarditis/pericarditis known or unknown? How many individuals are walking around with sub-clinical myocarditis/pericarditis? Do “they” know the actual incidence, and are just refusing to tell us? If so, Why? Similarly, to me there is a likelihood that myocarditis/pericarditis was the underlying cause of the ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrests in both Damar Hamlin and Bronny James. Why do “they” just not tell us what they think is the cause of what happened to both of these superb athletes? Furthermore, why did neither of them receive a defibrillator?

Are there other reasons why someone with sudden ventricular fibrillation

does not receive a defibrillator? Yes, and I will list them as follows:

Terminal or metastatic cancer

Other terminal diseases

Patient says, ‘no’

Alzheimer’s or other dementias

Very old or infirm

Severe electrolyte imbalance 

An acute myocardial infarction due to a blocked coronary artery

Severe respiratory failure

Which of the above is the case with either Damar Hamlin or Bronny James? None! Neither of them have had a defibrillator placed to insure that they would not die suddenly if their v. fib were to recur. 

If any of the above were true, then “they” would not have to resort to implicating commotio cordis in Hamlin’s case. As some of you are aware in Hamlin’s case, commodio cordis is practically impossible to prove unless there was an obvious direct hard blow to the chest, and nothing like that occurred. Likewise there has been no mention of commodio cordis even being fantasized with Bronny James.

So why are “they” continuing to keep us in the dark? Is the cause in either of them known or unknown? Hmmm! 

As we have all heard many times before … “the cover-up is often worse than the crime.” Does this apply here?

If the vaccine is the cause of a cardiac arrest because of vaccine induced myocarditis, what is the natural history of the new form of heart disease? The simple answer is … nobody knows!

In this regard Science Direct published a troubling study this week, featuring thirteen authors including the Chair of the University of Rome’s Pediatrics Department, titled “Relapsing myocarditis following initial recovery of post COVID-19 vaccination in two adolescent males – Case reports.” 

To summarize this article …two teenage boys, ages 15 & 16, had well documented myocarditis within days after receiving the Pfizer Covid vaccine. Months later after the symptoms had resolved, the cardiac blood tests and echocardiograms were stable. However in each individual both the echo-gram and the blood tests were again abnormal many months later.

From C&C:

Here’s what the researchers said about the young mens’ baffling prospects:

Long term outcome of myocarditis and pericarditis after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination is still a matter of debate since the recent onset of this condition and the need of a longer follow-up… The pathogenesis of COVID-19 mRNA-vaccination-related myocarditis still remains poorly understood… Given the short follow-up time and the recent history of the disease, it is still not known whether patients with a prior history of myocarditis after mRNA based COVID-19 vaccine are at increased risk of recurrent myocarditis… More efforts are needed to depict the underlying mechanisms beyond this phenomenon and to understand the risk of complications such as recurrence, potential evolution to dilated cardiomyopathy, and arrhythmias in the future.

While two well documented case reports do not indicate a trend, they do raise flags of suspicion. The nice thing about this article from Science Direct is that it is well documented and honest, which is more than I can say about any info on Damar Hamlin or Bronny James.

8/9/23

Last month I wrote about the apparent disconnect between what “those who know best” are “selling,” and what the rest of us are wanting to “buy.”

In that piece I concentrated on Germany, and today I would like to focus more specially on the U.S. … “What are the present feelings of Americans concerning Climate Change & EVs?”

From Watts Up With That?:

The Verge reports of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to announce tough new emission standards to force the phase out gasoline-powered cars while boosting the sale of electric vehicles to fulfil the Biden Administration’s climate policy goals. “Up to two thirds” of cars sold are mandated to be EV by 2032. Despite the relentless push for EVs, the working class has little interest. In a recent Gallup poll reported on Wednesday, just 2 percent of non-college respondents say they currently own an electric vehicle and a mere 9 percent say they are “seriously considering” purchasing one. The results are not much better for the population as a whole: just 4 percent own one and 12 percent say they are seriously considering one.

The University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute in collaboration with AP-NORC conducts an annual survey on climate attitudes. This year’s survey finds less, not more, urgency around climate change. The share of those who attribute climate change to humans, as opposed to natural changes in the environment, has fallen from 60 percent in 2018 to 49 percent. And where it matters most, putting one’s money where one’s mouth is, “the share of respondents who would be willing to spend their own money on tackling climate threats has also nosedived” according to the survey results. It would shock today’s privileged luxury believers that just 38 percent of Americans would support a carbon fee of just $1 on their energy bills each month. And that is 14 percentage points less than when they were asked the same question two years ago.

My question is whether or not “those who know best” will ever start paying attention to what the common man thinks and wants? If “those who know best” were a business, they would be forced to listen and pay attention … however, the ears of politicians seemingly only hear what they want to hear! 

californiacontrarian

8/8/23

As many of you are aware, I think that the 2020 presidential election was about as close to thievery as one can get. … no, that’s inaccurate. It was blatant thievery! Both Democrats and Republicans have told me that I am wrong, and I am sure that if Mike Pence knew me, he would also tell me that I am mistaken.

So what’s the big deal?

Well, the big deal is that the USA is still a free country. Thus, I am free to think whatever I wish. If I want, I can cite major irregularities in multiple states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Keep in mind that this is my opinion, and it is my right to think what I want to think. Even if I am wrong, it is still my First Amendment right to be wrong.

As many of you are aware, USA Today is a liberal newspaper, and Jonathan Turley is also basically a liberal attorney. However, that notwithstanding on 8/2/23 Jonathan Turley wrote an op-Ed in USA Today

in which he says, 

“If you take a red pen to protected free speech in this indictment, it would be reduced to a virtual haiku. Moreover, if you concede that Trump may have believed that the election was stolen, the complaint collapses.”

What if Trump lied? Apparently, no importa, as in the 2012 United States v. Alvarez decision, the Supreme Court held 6-3 that it is unconstitutional to criminalize lies in a case involving a politician who lied about military decorations. The court warned such criminalization “would give government a broad censorial power unprecedented in this Court’s cases or in our constitutional tradition. The mere potential for the exercise of that power casts a chill, a chill the First Amendment cannot permit if free speech, thought, and discourse are to remain a foundation of our freedom.”

And, this my friends, “Is a big deal!”

[FYI, A haiku is a major form of Japanese verse, written in 17 syllables divided into 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, and employing highly evocative allusions and comparisons, often on the subject of nature or one of the seasons.]

8/7/23

I assume that most readers are familiar with my Sunday pattern of writing about individuals that deserve our praise and respect. Ashleigh Taylor is such an individual.

On July 1, Sergeant Ashleigh Taylor of the Candler County Sheriff’s Department was called to respond to a vehicle crash on Highway 46. Sgt. Taylor arrived at the scene to find that the vehicle had driven off the road, into the woods and was on fire.

Georgia police have released dramatic body camera footage of a woman being rescued from a burning car. Due to the quick actions of the sergeant, a life was potentially saved.

After approaching the vehicle and shouting to get the attention of the driver, Sgt. Taylor smashed a front window with his baton and managed to haul the driver from her seat as flames grew along the underside of the car. In the meantime, a number of passing motorists, seeing the commotion, stopped by the side of the road to assist.

“Due to Sergeant Taylor’s swift actions, the driver was removed from a dangerous situation before it escalated,” Candler County Sheriff’s Office wrote on Instagram, sharing the footage. “Sheriff John Miles would like to commend Sergeant Ashleigh Taylor for a job well done.”

BTW:: The video from Sergeant Taylor’s body cam is quite impressive, and is available on YouTube.

8/6/23

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist …”

This quote is from a National  Pulse interview of Steven Sund  by Tucker Carlson. The “Tucker Carlson Tonight” interview, is being released by the National Pulse piecemeal, 

From BlazeNews:

Sund, a police officer for over 30 years, had been head of the U.S. Capitol Police from 2019 through the protests, but resigned Jan. 7 amid claims by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and others that “there was a failure of leadership at the top.”

Steven Sund, the former Capitol Police Chief, told Tucker Carlson in a controversial interview that “everything appears to be a cover-up” as it pertains to the Jan. 6, 2021, protests at the U.S. Capitol.

“Everything appears to be a cover-up,” continued Sund. “Like I said, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but when you look at the information and intelligence they had, the military had, it’s all watered down. … I’m not getting intelligence, I’m denied any support from National Guard in advance. I’m denied National Guard while we’re under attack for 71 minutes.”

Sund continued, “Could there possibly be actually … they kind of wanted something to happen? It’s not a far stretch to begin to think that. You know, it’s sad when you start putting everything together and thinking about the way this played out. … What was their end goal? You look at what’s happening. Was that their end goal?”

Raheem Kassam, editor in chief of the National Pulse, noted on Twitter that the Sund interview is “absolutely extraordinary” and emphasized that “none of us are suicidal, for the record.”

Was Jan 6 a conspiracy or is this National Pulse video a conspiracy about a non-conspiracy?

8/5/23

californiacontrarian

One of the questionable strategies in football is to basically ignore defense and to put your entire emphasis on offense. The logic goes something like this … “would you rather win 10-3 or 45-42?” While this strategy of “the best defense is a good offense” works sometimes, I hope it is not the guaranteed winning gambit that the Democrats believe it to be.

The following fliers were handed out while Trump was in court facing the latest “trumped-up” charge.

To me the pattern is obvious, and the liberal press finds it convenient to ignore what is going on with the Bidens while headlining what JB and the Dems are trying to do to Trump.

My local “newspaper” headlines that Trump is being charged, while nothing, and I mean nary a whisper, of anything about the Biden fiasco.

If there is anyone who believes that all of this is merely a coincidence … I have a bridge that I would like to sell them!

8/4/23

The headline in our local “newspaper” in exaggerated dark print read 

“Trump Charged in Bid to Overturn Election.”

No surprise, the front page article was from the Washington Post. Also not surprising was that there was no mention in the entire “newspaper” of Devon Archer’s closed testimony to a House committee. Probably just a coincidence that these two things occurred on the same day! Hmmm!

What should be obvious to anybody who has a thinking brain is that all of these anti-Trump lawsuits are being coordinated to interfere with him running for President. 

On that same day I read a very interesting take on how this federal lawsuit might just bite the anti-Trump leftists in the butt. 

From Jeff Childers  C&C:

This newest indictment includes four counts, for mainly two reasons: that President Trump “conspired to defraud the United States,” and that he “conspired to interfere with the certification of the election.” 

First, nearly all the conduct described in the four counts is speech, and not just speech, but political speech. Political speech is the most protected kind of speech under the Constitution’s First Amendment. That probably won’t stop the Obama-appointed judge from letting the case survive an inevitable motion to dismiss, but my initial take is the counts can’t survive without rewriting the Constitution.

The situation is slightly more complicated because the DOJ framed the counts as “fraud,” which is a type of speech that isn’t protectable, but that raises its own problems. Even if Trump did lie, which is debatable, lying isn’t illegal, not without something more, like being under oath, or harming someone who relied on the lie.

So the DOJ must first prove Trump lied, and then it must marry the lies to something else that can except them from First Amendment protection.

Which brings us to the DOJ’s next big problem, which is an interesting twist. A central material issue in this shiny new indictment is the truth or falsity of whether significant 2020 election fraud occurred or not. After all, the DOJ is claiming that Trump “lied” about election fraud, thereby — ironically — committing a fraud of his own.

In other words, they’re saying Trump committed fraud by alleging fraud. You can’t make this stuff up.”

Childers, who is a practicing attorney, then continues that the DOJ’s major problem will be “discovery,” as in order to prove that Trump lied when he said there was fraud, the court will have to allow discovery into those instances where Trump is claiming there was fraud. Consequently in these instances the DOJ will be forced to prove that fraud did not occur, and that, sport’s fans, will be impossible as there was obvious election fraud in multiple states.

I am going to look forward to the DOJ trying to prove a negative because as we all know proving a negative is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Let the fun begin!

8/3/23

Today I read news of something I thought was truly amazing.

From Twitchy:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is challenging President Biden for the Democrat nomination, and according to Real Clear Politics RFK Jr. has about 14 percent support.

According to Kennedy, he requested Secret Service protection during his run for the nomination but says the Biden administration denied that request: 

RFK Jr.commented , “Since the assassination of my father in 1968, candidates for president are provided Secret Service protection. But not me. 

“Typical turnaround time for pro forma protection requests from presidential candidates is 14-days. After 88-days of no response and after several follow-ups by our campaign, the Biden Administration just denied our request. Secretary Mayorkas: ‘I have determined that Secret Service protection for Robert F Kennedy Jr is not warranted at this time.’ Our campaign’s request included a 67-page report from the world’s leading protection firm, detailing unique and well established security and safety risks aside from commonplace death threats.”

This outright refusal is doubly perplexing in view of the recent personal ad hominem attacks that multiple Democrats leveled against RFK Jr. during a committee meeting on social media and alleged censorship. These Democrats were very nasty and more than rude. ‘Hateful’ would be the most descriptive word to describe the Democrats’ behavior, and now this refusal to provide secret service protection for RFK Jr.! Do the Democrats in power want an attempt on the life of RFK Jr.? … or worse? Think about the response of RFK Jr. supporters to this latest insult by JB and Mayorkas. At this point are any of these RFK backers going to support and vote for Biden? 

Could this sort of double whammy cause RFK Jr. to run as a third party candidate? Personally, I would not blame him!

8/2/23