Month: November 2023

As many of you are aware, our military is having a big time problem recruiting. Granted not all branches are having this recruiting problem, but three of the four branches are having a major issue. FYI: The Marines are not having a problem. In fact as opposed to the other three branches of the military, the Marines do not seem to be having any issue. My guess is that this is because pride, professionalism, and challenge are all a part of being a marine. Likewise the standards to get into the Marines remain tight, and there are no perks accompanying signing up.

The Army recruiting is down for the third year in a row. This year the Army has 50,000 new recruits instead of the 65,000 that it hoped for, and as a consequence of this year after year of its poor recruiting numbers the total number in theArmy has dropped down to 452K instead of 485K. Similarly the navy is short 7,500 recruits despite offering perks to some to induce them to sign up. Likewise the Air Force is short 10% of its 26,877 goal. 

A recent article from the Washington Post essentially said that this recruiting shortfall across the three branches of the armed forces was a conundrum. To me there is no mystery here and rather, there is an easy common sense answer. 

Let’s assume that one is a graduating high school athlete, and he/she is considering which college to attend. First, there is a meeting with the college coach. Recruiting high school graduates is an integral part of a coach’s job. The coach is very aware that he must treat not only all the prospective recruits, but also all of the other kids on the present team with respect. If he doesn’t treat all of his players with respect, then  recruit A, recruit B, etc. will find out, and the word will spread. Consequently, before not too long, this commander-in-chief coach will be out of a job because he will have a recruiting shortfall … prospective recruits will not sign on. How would this be different than the present military commander-in-chief, Joe Biden, and his minions who did one thing after another during Covid to s**t on those in the military with his vaccine mandates,etc.

Similarly, when military physicians attempted to speak up about what they were seeing in terms of increased side-effects from the vaccines, the kibosh was put on them. Word of this utter disregard for these military physicians spread to those back home, and this lack of respect from the military higher-ups filtered down to future potential recruits.

Whereas no one would be surprised if a pompous, unsympathetic, surly, ‘my way or the highway’ college coach had difficulty recruiting new players for his team, why should anyone be surprised at the present day shortfall in military recruiting, considering who is the military commander-in-chief?

To me … an easy answer!

11/18/23

Last week I witnessed some of my grandkids playing “duck, duck, goose.”

For those no longer familiar with that kid’s game, it involves all the kids sitting in a circle, and then the chasing by the newly identified “goose.” When I saw them playing, the refrain of “duck, duck, duck etc” reminded me of our illustrious Supreme Court.

As I have pointed out many times before, if the Supreme Court had not ducked their responsibility in the aftermath of the 2000 Presidential election, our country would not be in the mess that it is in today. Hopefully the country will not have to depend on SCOTUS after the 2024 election.

Today I read about another SCOTUS “duck.”

From The Epoch Times,

“The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 13 declined to take up a lawsuit filed by four New Jersey nurses to challenge a now-scrapped state COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The justices will not examine a U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals decision that dismissed the nurses’ challenge as moot. In the Supreme Court’s list of orders released on Nov. 13, the court rejected an appeal in the case, Katie Sczesny, et al. v. Murphy, Gov. of New Jersey, et al. No comment from the justices was provided.”

The case involved a Covid vaccine mandate by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. In early 2022, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy issued an executive order that “unvaccinated covered workers must obtain their first dose of the primary series of a COVID-19 vaccination by January 27, 2022,” adding that those workers have to give “adequate proof” they’ve received all their shots by Feb. 28 of that year. Those who do not provide sufficient proof ‘must be considered noncompliant.’

“The nurses—Debra Hagen, Jamie Rumfield, Katie Sczesny, and Mariette Vitti—filed a lawsuit against the governor’s office and said that although the order allowed for religious or medical exemptions, the state “mass-denied religious exemptions in state institutions, stating that accommodating people with religious exemptions would constitute an ‘undue burden’ on the state because the employees with religious objections to the COVID-19 injections are a ‘threat’ to the safety of others.’

“A US. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order that declared their lawsuit moot after the New Jersey mandate has since been rescinded. The nurses then appealed their case to the Supreme Court”

Either what Governor Murphy did was legal or it wasn’t. The fact that “the case is now moot” because his vaccine mandate has been rescinded, is pure and simply a Duck by SCOTUS! When the next pandemic-like illness happens, and it will … we will all have to undergo the same rigamarole that these nurses had to go through, because SCOTUS ducked. When the country has important legal matters to deal with, one would think that SCOTUS would have the balls to step up (with apologies to the female members of the Court). Just like their election case cowardice, assuredly this will come back to bite them.

11/17/23

Perhaps an arbitrary question, but wouldn’t it have been prudent to evaluate the untoward health effects of cannabis before jumping off liberal groundswell of cannabis approval. Today I am going to talk about another as yet previously unknown side effect from cannabis.

Recreational use of cannabis is associated with a 1.5-fold increased risk for atrial arrhythmias, according to study findings presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2023, held in Philadelphia, PA, from November 11 to 13.

The analysis included 17 cohort studies (4 prospective observational) with 81,269,314 participants from North America, Europe, and Oceania. The patients had a mean age of 46 years (range, 41-72), and 45% were women.

Recreational cannabis use was associated with a significantly increased risk for atrial arrhythmias (OR, 1.55; 95% CI, 1.13-2.13), with a high degree of heterogeneity observed (I2 =99%). Meta-regression analysis showed that mean age was not a contributing factor (P =.58).

While atrial arrhythmias are often not life threatening, they can significantly increase the risk of stroke. What is even more amazing about this atrial arrhythmia-cannabis causal relationship is that age is not a contributing factor! Perhaps this should have been looked into before the rush to legalize its use. Just saying!

11/16/23

Apparently the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “substantially underestimated the role of the sun in global warming.” Which means it overestimated man’s role. Which is no surprise, given the IPCC’s shameful history of politicizing the climate and fabricating a temperature threshold that has no basis in science.

Oops! … but no apology from the mendacious IPCC.

From Capital Research Center:

In early March, the New York Times cited a recent report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with the headline, “Climate Change Is Speeding Toward Catastrophe”:

“Climate time bomb? One would think this should be cause for genuine alarm. However, note that the IPCC website has a disclaimer: “IPCC endeavors to ensure, but cannot and does not guarantee the accuracy, accessibility, integrity and timeliness of the information available on its Website” (emphasis added). How many websites have a disclaimer regarding supposed “facts,” the accuracy of which cannot be guaranteed—especially on such an important topic? Yet “immediate and drastic” changes to the entire world economy are necessary?”

But this is not the first time for the mendacious IPCC!

“The IPCC was caught in a massive lie by the Wall Street Journal in 1996 when it deleted conclusions contained in the report The Science of Climate Change 1995, approved for publication. The deleted lines

-None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.

-No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of the climate change observed to date] to anthropogenic [man-made] causes.

-Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced.”

Oops! … but no apology from the mendacious IPCC.

But wait! When the IPCC finds something that does not fit its predetermined conclusion, it cannot get away from its intrinsically mendacious proclivity … it merely does not leak its conclusion to the New York Times, or perhaps the equally mendacious NYT simply “forgets” to publish it.

From I&I:

According to James Taylor of the Heartland Institute, “scientists have documented, and even the IPCC has admitted, “that temperatures were warmer than today throughout most of the time period that human civilization has existed. Temperatures would have to keep warming at their present pace for at least another century or two before we reach temperatures that were common during early human civilization.” Therefore, “there can be no climate crisis – based on the notion of dangerously high temperatures – when humans have thrived in temperatures much warmer than today for most of the last 12,000 years.”

I am sure that even the mendacious IPCC would agree that 12,000 years is quite a long time!

11/14/23

The following is from a piece from Fox Business:

“Middle-class families in California are getting slammed with an “unreasonable” cost-of-living-penalty for simply residing in the Golden State, according to a new report.

“According to data from the Transparency Foundation’s Cost of California Report, a typical middle-class family of three earning $130,000 a year faces a financial burden of more than $26,000 because of higher living expenses.

“The foundation’s data showed that on every household budget, the cost to live in California is exponentially higher compared with the national average, according to Transparency Foundation Chairman Carl DeMaio, who laid blame on “costly mandates and bad policies.”

“DeMaio is calling on residents to demand a true cost-benefit analysis on every state law, regulation and mandate that is not imposed in other states. 

Here are the costs for California versus the national average in each category, according to the Transparency Foundation: 

• Housing: Homeowners pay 32% more in California and renters pay 47% more
• Gas: 25% more on average
• Food: Grocery bills are 4% higher
• Water: 47% higher
• Health care services: 42% higher
• State and local taxes: 14% higher
• Child care: 34% higher
• Electricity: 48% higher
• Car insurance: 22% higher
• Health insurance: 3% less
• Homeowner’s insurance: 68% less

This should be a warning to those who live outside of California …    

Consider what would happen to our country if Gavin Newsom, the present governor of California, became President! OMG!

11/13/23

 “Life is always full of tough choices.”

That could well have been said by Christie Werts who is deservedly my Sunday choice for someone that we can all admire.

The background is a bit complicated so bear with me.

Christie Werts, 48, married Wesley Werts, 45, in 2018. Both have children from their previous marriages: Mrs. Werts’s 15-year-old son, Vance, and 21-year-old daughter, Megan; and Mr. Werts’s son, Austin, 14, and daughter, Dakota, 10.

Mr. Werts’s ex-wife had struggled with drug addiction, leading to him winning custody of Austin and Dakota. The couple divorced in 2015. “She had a total of six kids,” Mrs. Werts said. “Two with my husband, then the rest each had a different father.”

From Epoch Bright:

In 2021, the couple found out Mr. Werts’s ex-wife was expecting again and 33 weeks pregnant; her sister had called them from hospital because the expectant mom was still doing drugs and very sick due to COVID-19. There was no one to take care of the baby.

Christie Werts was once a foster child, and said, “as if it was a sign from God, that she often dreamed of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby even before they learned about the child.”

“I told my husband, ‘We should take him,'” Mrs. Werts said. “We didn’t know race, we didn’t know gender, we didn’t know anything—I just knew we wanted to take this baby. I just knew that I felt like he could be with brothers and sisters instead of going into the system. We were already in love with this child.”

Baby Levi was born on Aug. 23, 2021, after his mother was induced at 33 weeks. She passed away four days later from a stroke resulting from a blood clot.

However, the whole process of adopting Levi was not easy. 

The Wertses reached out to Child Protective Services, who told them Levi could not leave the state of Texas because he still had a biological father. If the couple wanted to keep the baby out of care, they would have to move to Texas and become foster parents.

Subsequently the  Wertses sold their home in Ohio, and Mrs. Werts, who works in information technology, moved with the couple’s three youngest kids to Texas. Mr. Werts had to work out of state as a crane operator, so his wife worked extra hard to help their children adjust to the move.

The family then began the painstaking process of registering as “foster to adopt” parents, including 60 hours of classes, home checks, and house modifications, all while hoping nothing would complicate the process.

“Personally, because I believe in God, I felt like it was kind of God’s plan from the dreams, preparing me,” Mrs. Werts told The Epoch Times. “I’ve always known that God is real and that He works in our lives. But when you witness something that you have dreams [of], that God put in your heart, and then it turns into reality, I think my faith got even stronger.”

The Wertses moved back to Ohio in mid-December 2022 after finding a homeowner who supported their adoption journey and offered them a six-month lease-to-buy option on a farmhouse. After traversing every hurdle, they officially adopted 17-month-old Levi by virtual court proceeding on Jan. 24, 2023.

Truly an unbelievable story about a truly praiseworthy couple.

11/12/23

As many of you are already aware, I often listen when Senator John Kennedy (R,LA) speaks.Recently he said the following:

“We’re playing footsie, and we have for years with Qatar. Qatar does provide the electricity for Gaza. In effect, they give it to Hamas and the Biden administration allows it. The Biden administration allows billionaires to live in Qatar and not just from Hamas, but also from ISIS. The Biden administration sends a message of weakness when it refuses to enforce the oil sanctions on Iran, when it cut and ran in Afghanistan, when it removed the sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream II pipeline, when it gave Iran $4.5 billion in cash from the International Monetary Fund. And I could go on.”

And he did go on:

“President Biden and his team think while we’re in the middle of a bar fight or a prison riot, they want to quote Socrates and read Beowulf and think if we’re just nice guys, that we can be partners with Iran and we can’t. We have to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.”

To me “Quote Socrates and Read Beowulf’ is a classic line and will go down as such!

Seriously, if we want peace, Biden has got to go. The only way to peace is through strength, and from my perspective this means Donald Trump. It has taken long enough, but others are getting the same idea.

From The Epoch Times:

“Real estate tycoon Robert Bigelow, the biggest donor to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign, said he’s now backing former President Donald Trump, in part because the security threat posed by the unrest in the Middle East requires the “strongest commander” and that the former president is the obvious choice.”

Calling President Trump a “bull” and Mr. DeSantis “dinner,” Mr. Bigelow told The Financial Times in an interview Wednesday that he believes the former president’s campaign has built up significant steam, making him hard to beat.”

Bigelow continued, “I’ve got to look at who would probably be the strongest commander, with the most experience,” Mr. Bigelow told FT. “And that’s only one guy,” he continued, while calling President Trump “streetwise” and “a hell of an [expletive] kicker if he needed to be.”

At this point Senator Kennedy, Robert Bigelow, and I agree!

11/11/23

If you are an author there are some things that you would be hesitant to put in your new fictional novel, because they have already been used, and everybody is already familiar with that particular plot line. For instance, if one were to write about a “Manchurian Candidate,” your work would be suspect, as The Manchurian Candidate is a novel by Richard Condon, first published in 1959. It is about the son of a prominent U.S. political family who is brainwashed into being an unwitting assassin for a Communist conspiracy. 

If one were to write a novel based on a similar person, especially a politician, who is being used as a puppet by an enemy power, that author would probably be labeled a plagiarist. 

Now using some free association, combining a “Manchurian Candidate”and “plagiarist,” and guess what? … you would have Joe Biden. Everyone is familiar with examples of JB’s past plagiarism, but … Manchurian Candidate?

For a while I have had my suspicions that JB might be a sort of Manchurian Candidate, but his actions of late have increased my suspicions. Before I get to the present mess in the MidEast, let’s think back and analyze some of JB’s past actions. Where to start!

On the first day of his presidency, JB cancelled the Keystone Pipeline. Remember that prior to his first day in office the U.S. was energy independent, but one might ask if it was JB’s plan to torpedo that independence? To me the answer is … “yes!”

Anyone with a functioning brain could have predicted what JB’s war on fossil fuels would lead to. Namely, a significant rise in gasoline prices, which would inevitably lead to rampant inflation as fossil fuels are an intricate part of everyday life. 

At this point since everyone except the elitists is suffering from Biden’s inflation, one could ask, “Is this Biden caused inflation purposeful?” If a Manchurian Candidate wanted to destroy the way of life for Americans, is there a better way? 

Likewise  let’s think about JB’s open border policy. It certainly appears that he is purposely allowing millions of illegals to come into this country. These illegals could well be anybody. Could some of them be terrorists?  Possibly! … Or more likely, probably! Why would JB  allow millions of unscreened illegals to come into our country, willy-nilly? I could certainly understand why a Manchurian Candidate would do something so potentially nefarious, but why would JB? … unless!

Similarly, abandoning Afghanistan and leaving a zagillion dollars worth of weapons behind. Are some of these weapons being used by Hamas? Again, why? The same Manchurian Candidate question.

Additionally, we have our possible Manchurian Candidate tiptoeing around with Iran. Giving them billions of dollars when it is apparent that Iran is funding Hamas and Hezbollah. Can anybody explain to me how this can be good for America? 

The beat goes on and on! 

Perhaps writing a book titled, “The Manchurian Candidate 2” is not so far-fetched after all!

11/10/23

To be honest right upfront, I had been confused about the prosecuting of an elected official for something that he does while in office. Attorneys prosecuting Donald Trump in an obvious example of vendetta often get on their high horse and proudly proclaim that “no one is above the law!” While this kind of statement plays well with the liberal media and the uninformed reader, is appears to be a statement that is “true, true, but unrelated.”

True … no one is above the law. However, there is already a mechanism for adjudicating possible criminal activity by the President. It is called ‘impeachment.’

From The Epoch Times:

The former president had filed a motion to dismiss the case on Oct. 5, claiming the absolute immunity conferred to a U.S. president as outlined in the ruling of Nixon. v. Fitzgerald. Prosecutors argued that such an argument put President Trump above the law, as no one, even the president of the United States, should escape prosecution for serious crimes. The indictment against President Trump alleges crimes that depend on the state of mind, that he sought to defraud through “dishonesty, fraud, and deceit” in the aftermath of the 2020 elections, while President Trump maintains that he sought to investigate allegations of fraud in the 2020 elections.

In the new response, attorneys argued that the prosecutors misunderstand the scope and purpose of presidential immunity.

From Trump’s lawyers:

“To allow the president to be sued for his actions in office would ‘require the President to hesitate at every turn, conscious of the very real threat that one of many hundreds of prosecutors around the country may one day question his motives and seek to imprison him for his actions as President,’ they argued.”

They also argued that preventing criminal prosecution for official acts does not put the president “above the law,” because the proper process to indict a president should come from Congress.

Trump’s attorneys continued:

“The text of the Constitution—namely the Impeachment Judgment Clause—straightforwardly supports Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution absent conviction in the Senate. A convicted party is liable to criminal prosecution. Thus, a President who is not ‘convicted’ is not liable.”

“As the Supreme Court held in Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the President must have the ability to make decisive—and often unpopular— decisions regarding matters of public concern.”

To me it is still obvious that the 2020 Presidential election was ripe with fraud … fraud in multiple states. To prosecute Donald Trump because he wanted to look into these fraud allegations in the 2020 election is merely a vengeful vendetta, the goal of which is to prevent Mr. Trump from running again. 

Recall that these fraud allegations could have been addressed by the Supreme Court after the election, but SCOTUS ducked their responsibility and refused to address this issue … consequently the country is still paying for their reticence.

Hopefully this case will be thrown out otherwise the country may well be having to ask the Supreme Court if it has heard of ‘Nixon vs. Fitzgerald!’

11/9/23

After reading the following article from BlazeMedia, I am uber convinced that those who are pushing for an all electric transportation system do not know their arse from a hole in … !

The article is about the feasibility of switching semi-trucks and other large vehicles to fully electric.

The article is titled:

“Trucker perfectly dismantles electric vehicle narrative in 2 minutes: “You would need to pack 50,000 pounds of batteries!’”

The individual speaking is Chace Barber, trucker and founder of Edison Motors. He advocates for a push toward hybrid semi-trucks, as opposed to fully electric, because of two basic reasons.

“A logging truck uses about two and a half megawatts of power per day. The extra capacity in the battery means you need a three-megawatt battery pack. The biggest one is like a Tesla semi, which is like a one-megawatt. So you need three megawatts to run an electric truck,” Barber said.”

He went on, “That would mean you would need to pack 50,000 pounds — 40,000, 50,000 pounds of batteries just to do a full day.”

“Not only would the weight of such batteries cause many issues, but the braking system would need to be immediately and drastically improved in order to increase the stopping power.”

Barber then described how electrical infrastructure has not been updated in North America in some time and revealed that the grid is nowhere near the level that would be required to power all the essential vehicles.

“Let’s say we can even get those batteries down to the same weight where it’s reasonable, the grid infrastructure — we haven’t invested in our electrical grid since the 1950s, 1960s, ’70s.

In  B.C. [British Columbia] alone, there’s 5,000 logging trucks that haul logs,” he explained. The present power infrastructure could not handle the logging trucks alone … and that’s without even taking EV autos into consideration.

So what do we have?

On one side we have California’s Gavin Newsom and all of the EV fanatics in Washington pushing the country into a future with only EVs. It is a good bet that this crowd has never driven a truck, much less even ever ridden in or touched a truck.

On the other side we have someone who actually knows a lot about trucks telling us that going all EV is impossible.

Who should we trust and believe? … Hmmm!

11/7/23