Author: Californiacontrarian

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

This Sunday there is a bit of a twist from my usual Sunday heroes.

The idea of continuing to work after retirement is an issue that some of us   already have or will have to deal with. However, the idea of working after age ninety is most likely something that few, if any of us, will have to deal with. 

Robert “Bob” Rohloff of Appleton, Wisconsin, has been barbering for 75 years, and this year, at the age of 91, he’s fulfilled a bucket list dream by opening his very own barber shop.

Mr. Rohloff says knowing the trade is one thing, but personality is 90 percent of the business. “You have to be a people person,” he told The Epoch Times. “You’ve got to be a good visitor, a good listener, and a good person, and that’s the main thing. My dad was that way, and I grew up that way.”

Mr. Rohloff started his barbering apprenticeship in 1948 as a junior in high school. He attended vocational school every Monday and cut hair in front of a barber board on Thursday nights. Three years later, at the age of 19, he achieved his barbering license.

Mr. Rohloff knows he cannot work forever. But in the meantime, the nonagenarian firmly believes that staying occupied is vital.

“I have so many of my friends that have died, retired being in front of the TV. They don’t last long,” Mr. Rohloff said. “I look at retirement as being able to do what I want to do, but I don’t look at it as quitting working, and I don’t think people should. I think they should work as long as they can.”

Certainly Bob Rohloff is a unique individual, and his philosophy is one that should be admired by many … oops, except by me as I retired at 62y/o!

11/5/23

My son is a history teacher and has told me multiple times that something is only considered “history” after twenty-five years have transpired.

On 11/1/23 I read multiple things which made me wonder how history will consider Joe Biden. What will be the thing that history will remember him by? What will his legacy be? 

Perhaps his most formidable memory will be his foreign policy? … including his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Perhaps his shelling out of billions of dollars to an Ukraine-Russia war … a war that could not be won.

Perhaps it be will his inflation. Inflation that was primarily caused by his crippling of fossil fuel production in the U.S. Inflation that will have ruined the lives of many! 

Perhaps it will be the zagillions of dollars that he funneled to Iran even though everybody, except possibly him and his cronies, knew that this money was being used to support terrorists groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. 

Perhaps it will be his inept handling of Covid. His policies ruined many small businesses. Our country’s children will be paying the price for his snuggling up to the teacher’s unions for their entire lives! Our military recruiting is way down, surely partially the result of his heavy-handed military vaccine mandates.

Perhaps it will be the receipt of basic payola from foreign countries that Joe Biden attempted to underhandedly lateral to his son?

Although all of the above will be historical contenders for his failed presidency, after just reading three separate things, I predict that what Joe Biden will be remembered mostly for is something which has not yet occurred. I predict that sometime in the next few years there will be another terrorist attack(s) as a consequence of Biden’s open border policy. After reading the following three things, I challenge you not to be similarly fearful.

First, I listened to Alejandro Mayorkas, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security testify before a Senate sub-committee. During this hearing as headlined by the New York Post, “Alejandro Mayorkas admits 600,000 illegal ‘gotaways’ crossed border in 2023, and calls immigration system ‘broken’” Mayorkas is “in-charge” and by his own statement is clearly incompetent. 

Second,

On 10/31/23 Republican senators sounded the alarm on the Biden administration’s border policies after Border Patrol agents caught illegal border crossers who were carrying explosive devices that Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said were “tailor-made for terrorism.”

Four Republican senators said that over 8 million illegal border crossings have taken place under President Joe Biden’s watch, while asserting that explosive devices found on some border crossers in recent days represent an elevated risk of terror acts against the homeland.

Of the 600,000 “getaways” how many are potential terrorists who have access to explosive devices?

Third, from the Washington Times:

“Terrorist threats against the U.S. reached “a whole other level” after the Hamas attack on Israel, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray told Congress on Tuesday, saying the big players in terrorism have all renewed calls to attack America and its interests. He said the level of threats has heightened since President Biden took office …”

Ergo, putting these three recent news items into perspective, I feel that Joe Biden will be historically remembered for an upcoming terrorist attack stemming directly from his inane border policies.

11/2/23

As most of us remember Hillary Clinton used a private e-mail server when she was Secretary of State.

From the Epoch Times:

“Starting in 2014, the State Department asked Ms. Clinton and other former secretaries of state to hand over any work-related emails they held. As events unfolded, Ms. Clinton revealed she had been using an account maintained on a private server located in her New York residence, raising security concerns.

Ms. Clinton eventually produced 55,000 hard-copy pages of her exchanges, representing 30,000 emails. Investigations would later reveal about 100 emails contained classified information. A further 65 emails had information considered ‘Secret,’ while 22 were ‘Top Secret.’”

I think one could say that Ms. Clinton was either nefarious or dumb … or both!

Government officials’ use of private email for official business is discouraged under the law. Regardless, officials must still preserve all government-related emails conducted on their personal accounts under the Federal Records Act.

Why would a government official have a separate email account in a separate anonymous name? Perhaps one is solely using this anonymous email account to keep in touch with the grandchildren, asking them how their school day went. Actually, I could possibly believe that, as although I do not have a separate anonymous email account that I only use for my grandchildren, I do have a separate recipient group for them.

BUT … Why would government official have three separate pseudonym email accounts? Draw your own conclusions! 

Actually Joe Biden while he was Vice President, had three separate  pseudonym accounts, Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, and JRB Ware!

President Joe Biden sent and received thousands of emails through pseudonym accounts during his eight year tenure as vice president under President Barack Obama.

According to an Oct. 30 federal filing in an Atlanta Court, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has identified 82,000 pages worth of private email exchanges across President Biden’s three pseudonym accounts, Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, and JRB Ware.

Southeastern Legal Foundation has been pressing NARA for information

about President Biden’s emails since 2021, when it initially filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. A second request was sent in June of 2022.

According to the legal advocacy group, the email accounts were used by President Biden to “forward government information and discuss government business with his son, Hunter Biden, and others.”

Hmmm! Three separate email accounts under three different pseudonyms! Could it be that J.B. is either three times as nefarious or three times as dumb as Ms. Clinton? Draw your own conclusion!

11/1/23

At first I was I a quandary as to how people in the West could be so dumb, but then I look at who was supposedly elected President of the US, and I get it. (Even ‘Alexa’ now says that the 2020 election was stolen!)

Let’s first look at coal, and more specifically at coal generated energy in order to attempt to understand this apparent epidemic of stupidity in the West. 

At present the U.S. is doing mostly what the inane liberal politicians want to do, but does the closing of coal generating power plants in the US actually make any sense? If all of the CO2 generated in the US had an effect only on what was going to happen in the future to the US, then one could at least argue that what the liberal US politicians are forcing its citizens to do could at least possibly make some sense. But that is not how the earth works. 

Note to the liberal politicians: If it is the CO2 generated that supposedly will make a difference as far as future climate change, then it would be the world-wide generation that would make the difference.

From the Daily Mail:

“America has the third-biggest coal-fired electricity generation capacity in the world. India is second (after China) and is building more coal plants, as are the following Eastern countries … Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam. The Asia-Pacific now accounts for 80 per cent of global coal demand.

Even if America closed all its coal capacity tomorrow, it would quickly be more than matched by all the new coal plants coming on stream in China.

The grim truth is that China and other parts of Asia are now building so many new coal plants so fast that the ‘energy transition to net zero’ which British and other western politicians so obsess about is effectively meaningless.”

The liberals here in the US want us all to drive EV, and get rid of all things that use gas in order to cut carbon emissions. But let’s think about this for a minute.

From the Daily Mail:

“China claims its carbon emissions will peak in 2030 and hit net zero by 2060. But look at what it’s doing, not what it says: it is giving planning permission for two new coal-fired power plants every week (yes, every week).

Last year, it approved a record-breaking 106 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity. Permits are being handed out at an even higher rate this year.

The pace of construction is also increasing. China now has 243 GW of coal-fired capacity permitted or under construction.

One gigawatt is the equivalent of a coal power plant.”

So in the case of coal-fired power let’s realistically look at East vs. West. What is increasingly obvious is that the East is smart and the West is dumb!

10/30/23

Mark this day on your calendar!

Now for the first time I can remember, and probably for the first time ever the ACLU has sided with Donald Trump!

From The Epoch Times:

“The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) came out to advocate for what it believes are President Trump’s First Amendment rights in a rare statement of support, describing Judge Chutkan’s order as “vague” and “impermissibly broad” in restricting the former president’s free speech.”

The background is that “U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan had initially approved President Trump’s request for an administrative stay, or pause, on the gag order requested by government prosecutor special counsel Jack Smith. The gag order prohibited remarks that would “target” the prosecution and defense legal teams, court staff, and potential witnesses.

“In Judge Chutkan’s initial written opinion, she dismissed arguments made for First Amendment defenses, writing that the obligation to protect the proceedings from outside interference preceded First Amendment rights.”

To refresh one’s memory, this the Department of Justice’s federal election case accusing Trump of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Let’s be clear here. In my opinion the case against former President Trump is purely political harassment, as it is a made up case that is designed to prevent him from running for President in 2024. Special Counsel Jack Smith is a leftist hack, and Judge Chutkan is out of her league as she being manipulated both by the prosecution and the press. 

Again, let me repeat … 

News Flash: the ACLU is siding with Donald Trump!!!

if the ACLU is siding with President Trump, then Judge Chutkan must be way off base.

10/30/23

Before I get to the meat of this piece, I want to relate two similar situations with two separate individuals, 

Both of these individuals had received every Covid booster, and seemed a bit taken aback that they recently got Covid. Both basically said, “I had every recommended booster, and yet I got Covid.” It is interesting that both of these individuals are politically extremely liberal. Is there a correlation between being liberal and receiving every recommended Covid booster? Hmmm!  Perhaps a topic for another day.

Eerily my situation almost two years ago was a bit similar. Back then my wife and I were going back to the Chicago area for a wedding. Because on that trip, we were also planning on visiting my wife’s sister who was quite ill, we thought that it would be prudent to get a Covid booster, and so we did. Fifteen days after I got my booster, I came down with Covid. My question back then was, “Did the booster contribute to my getting Covid?” It was then, and still is now, my opinion that getting Covid within fifteen days of a Covid booster was not merely a coincidence. I suspect there was a cause-effect relationship. I guess perhaps I should further consider whether or not the Covid infection that these two separate acquaintances got, despite having had all the boosters, was, in fact, caused by or contributed to, by the boosters.

While I can hear rumblings of “poppycock” from some of you readers, first consider the following stats from Canada.

From the People’s Voice:

During the month of February, 2022 in Canada, there were many more cases of Covid among the double vaccinated and triple vaccinated population when compared to the unvaccinated. Why should this be considering that the vaccine allegedly reduced their risk of contracting Covid-19?

Perhaps there is another way of looking at it. 

Could it be that the Covid-19 vaccines damage the immune system and make recipients more likely to contract Covid-19?  Could it be that the vaccine effectiveness isn’t really a measure of a vaccine, but rather a measure of a vaccine-recipient’s immune system performance compared to the immune system performance of an unvaccinated person.

.Could that explain why these two different acquaintances recently got Covid despite the fact that they each had received “all of the recommended boosters?” Hmmm!

10/25/23

californiacontrarian

Is this concern about EVs merely theoretical or is it something that is warranted? The concern is about EVs and parking garages. Actually the concern is twofold.

The first concern has to do with the weight of EVs.

From just the news.com:

EVs elicit concerns because of just how heavy they are compared to traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. Many older parking garages were simply not built with the weights of modern cars in mind, let alone EVs. The lithium-ion batteries that power new EVs account for a large portion of the weight discrepancy with traditional cars. For example, according to automotive trade journal Jobber News, “An electric vehicle can weigh much more than its internal combustion engine counterpart (ICE) — the Ford F-150 Lightning can weigh 2,000-3,000 pounds more than the ICE version.”

The battery of an electric GMC Hummer weighs approximately 2,900 pounds, or about the same as an entire 2022 Honda Civic.

Experts in the U.K. have warned that parking garages “could be at risk of collapse as heavier electric vehicles put pressure on ageing infrastructure.”

“I don’t want to be too alarmist, but there definitely is the potential for some of the early car parks in poor condition to collapse,” Chris Whapples, a structural engineer and a consultant on parking garage regulation, told The Telegraph.

The second concern is over the fire hazard that EVs pose, especially when parked in commercial garages because of those buildings’ tight quarters and restricted access.

In June, Siemens AG released a White Paper reviewing fire safety protocols in parking garages housing electric vehicles. Smaller parking spaces, larger vehicles, and the increase of plastics in car design has led to greater risks from multi-vehicle fires in parking garages just with ICE vehicles, according to Siemens.

The Siemens report highlights two recent international garage fires—one in Liverpool, U.K. in 2017 and another at the Stavanger Airport in Norway in 2020—which both caused significant structural damage and loss of property. This danger could be amplified by electric vehicles.

Assuming that you were not injured or killed because of a fire or a collapse that destroyed your car that had been parked in a municipal garage, think of the paperwork fiasco that would ensue. Additionally of course all of your personal belongings that had been in that destroyed car would now be unretrievable.

So if you are forced to park in a commercial garage, perhaps the wise thing to do is to leave home a bit early so that you can locate the public garage that specifies, “No EVs allowed!”

10/24/23

californiacontrarian.com