Author: Californiacontrarian

From the beginning, let’s be clear, only rarely, do I ever buy a cup of coffee. When at the airport for an early morning flight, I may buy a cup of “Joe,” however, even that is unlikely if Starbucks is my only choice, because I do not really care for Starbuck’s coffee. For me, Starbucks’ Joe is too bitter, but to each his own.

Form BlazeNews:

“On 6/12/23 a federal jury  awarded Shannon Phillips a whopping $25 million in punitive damages and an additional $600,000 in compensatory damages after members unanimously agreed that Starbucks had fired her on racial grounds. “I was terminated because I am white,” Phillips said in court documentsfiled in 2019. “If I was black, I would not have been terminated. I was terminated because I complained of and objected to race discrimination.”

The circumstances surrounding Phillips’ termination began five years ago, when two black men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, were infamously arrested at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia after employees told them they could not use the store restrooms unless they first made a purchase. The men refused to leave or purchase anything, insisting that they were still waiting on a third party. Because of their intransigence that day, an employee eventually called the cops, and the two were arrested, though they were never charged with anyone crime.

Shannon Phillips was not present when all of this happened. In fact she may not have even been in the dame state as she was a regional director responsible for overseeing 100 stores spanning parts of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania and had little input in the day-to-day operations of those establishments.

According to Phillips subsequent to the described Philadelphia incident white employees became scapegoats. Soon thereafter, Phillips claimed she was ordered to place a white manager, who had been with the company for 15 years, on administrative leave for supposed racial discrimination, even though Phillips did not believe the man had done anything wrong.”

Phillips was then fired. Subsequently, Shannon Phillips filed a civil rights lawsuit claiming that she was fired because of her race. 

In the trial Starbucks claimed that Phillips was fired because she was incompetent. The jury disagreed, and decided that Starbucks was in the wrong. ($25 million in the wrong!) 

Is this another example of going “woke” leading to going broke? Be that as it may, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer Joe!

6/17/23

californiacontrarian

I am a “wannabe,” as I aspire to be a writer of fiction. With that in mind I am always attempting to improve my vocabulary. Just today I came across a word which I had vaguely heard, but was not confident that I knew what it meant.

That word is ‘chyron.’  I looked it up. A ‘chyron’ is “an electronically generated caption superimposed on a television or movie screen.” If one watches any cable news there are usually chyrons across the bottom of the screen. These chyrons are left on the screen for a minute or so, before being replaced by another chyron. In addition a chyron is often repeated or more typically alternates with a second chyron.

If a chyron is only shown once and for only less than thirty seconds … Hmmm!

But that’s what happened the other night on Fox News. At close to 9pm eastern time, Fox News had split screen. While the left side was showing Joe Biden speaking to some group at the White House, the right side of the screen was showing Donald Trump speaking to his supporters in New Jersey, after returning from his indictment proceedings in Miami. However that was far from the interesting part. The interesting part was the chyron on the bottom of the screen which read,:

“WANNABE DICTATOR SPEAKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE 

AFTER HAVING HIS POLITICAL RIVAL ARRESTED”

Wow! This chyron lasted less that thirty seconds (twenty-seven seconds to be exact), and was not repeated. Apparently heads rolled at Fox News, and many Democrats were apoplectic! However, there was one person who took full advantage of this possible malaprop, and that was Tucker Carlson. In his fourth Twitter soliloquy, he took full advantage in explaining what a dictator does and how a dictator acts. Over this thirteen minute clip Tucker Carlson compared Joe Biden’s policies to those of a dictator … eerily, many similarities! In addition, Carlson compared the special privileges bestowed by the media on the Biden family to those bestowed by the press in the country of a dictator … again, eerily many similarities. Initially this thirteen minute clip was poorly disguised as satire, but as it moved along it became very apparent that it was clearly not satire

BTW: I loved Carlson’s third Twitter monologue, but this most recent one is better … a real monster!

www.californiacontrarian.com

6/16/23

This week there has actually been some good news as Tucker Carlson just put out his third free Twitter monologue on the evening of 6/13. On the morning of 6/14, I watched this entire monologue. In fact I watched it twice, as it was amazing and very daring. 

Although I am usually not a believer in conspiracy theories, I found Tucker Carlson’s basic premise to be intriguing. 

 Carlson feels, like a lot of us similarly feel, that President Biden is using law enforcement to attempt to lock up his main political opponent.

He dates these multiple  prolonged Trump accusations over the years to something that he said during a Republican Presidential debate back on 2/16/2016 about the “weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” … at that time he said, “they lied,” and worse they knew they were lying. “They” being the Washington warmongers in the federal government complex. According to Carlson, this accusation put the bullseye on Trump, and that they will not be satisfied until the former President is in prison. Since then Donald Trump has been one who has consistently dissented from the Washington war agenda, and for this he has been and still is a marked man!

Carlson talks about other things in this approximately thirteen minute video, and he especially takes off after Mike Pompeo. I found this part of Carlson’s dialog to be especially entertaining.

Carlson admits that Donald Trump has flaws in his character. However, this is not something new, as many of Trump’s followers, including myself, say the same thing. Be that as it may, character flaws are not a reason to try to throw someone in prison … unless they cannot make that individual go away any other way!

The fact that Tucker Carlson speaks his mind on Twitter is good news, although it could well turn out to be a reason to try to throw him in prison.

Will Tucker Carlson’s 2/16/2016 turn out to be 6/13/2023? That would not be good news!

www.californiacontrarian.com

6/15/23

About a month ago CNN had a Town Hall with Donald Trump. The CNN interviewer was Kaitlin Collins. When Donald Trump alluded to voter fraud in Wisconsin during the 2020 election, Ms. Collins tersely cut him off, and said there was no voter fraud in Wisconsin. I guess that because she works for CNN, she is an expert on such matters!

Meanwhile in Racine County, Wisconsin the sheriff has conducted an investigation into suspicions of voter fraud involving patients in nursing homes. And despite the strong statement by CNN’s Kaitlin Collins, there was fraudulent activity not only in Racine County, but also in neighboring counties that have high populations. In three of these counties, 100% of nursing home residents voted. In two others 95% and 97% of nursing home residents voted.

In addition it turns out that a substantial number of these voting individuals are demented. As confirmed by subsequent videotaped interviews, many could not answer even the simplest of questions concerning the 2020 election. So how did these individuals vote? They voted by absentee ballots which they did not request. These ballots were then fraudulently filled out by nursing home staff, who were given the fraudulent okay by the Wisconsin Election Commission.

Note here that I am not flippantly using the term, “fraudulent,” as what the Wisconsin Election Commission did was blatantly against prescribed Wisconsin law.

So to be clear, what President Trump said was TRUE, and what Kaitlin Collins said in response was FALSE.

Indeed it seems that voting fraud was rampant in the 2020 presidential election specifically in Wisconsin, and I would guess that Wisconsin was not the only state that was decided fraudulently.

(For those who are interested in more detail on this issue, watch “Facts Matter” with Roman Balmakov on Epoch TV.)

californiacontrarian.com

6/14/23

The state of Kansas near the top as far as wind power is concerned  in fact Kansas is #7 on the list of states with highest wind speeds, tied with Virginia and Missouri.

The western and central regions of the state are much drier and have less rain than the eastern regions. Some cities are windier than others, but Kansas is, overall, a very windy place! At first glance Kansas would be a good locale for wind turbines, and the consequent generation of cheap wind generated electricity.

Since Kansas is basically flat and very windy, it should be the perfect locale for wind turbines. Land owners get paid big bucks to allow these wind turbines to be erected on their land, but what about their neighbors who are livestock producers and farmers.

Kansas livestock producers are a major outlet for hay, silage and feed grains that are produced within the state’s borders.

Today approximately 90% of the land area of Kansas is devoted to agriculture production. Besides wheat,the most important crops in Kansas are corn, soybeans, grain sorghum (milo) and hay.

Okay, so far, so good unless there is a problem with a turbine, like there recently was in Marshall county.

From the Epoch Times:

For Kansas state Rep. Carrie Barth, the broken turbine in Marshall County and its fiberglass debris scattered across farmland has confirmed one of the many loopholes industrial wind companies have to distance themselves from, namely responsibilities to the residents who live in their shadow.

“We have all of these bureaucracies to deal with health and environment, yet there’s no plan for remediating any problems that arise from these structures,” Barth told The Epoch Times.

The wind turbine, which is a part of the Irish Creek Wind Energy Center (ICWEC), was found broken on April 16.

The break caused fiberglass to shatter and spread onto the property of those who didn’t want the turbine there from the start; however, Barth said it’s now ruined the farmers’ crops. One farmer, she said, can’t bale his hay, and his cows aren’t able to safely graze the grass.

“I have a chunk of the fiberglass that I put in a Ziploc bag, and when I opened it, shards flew out of the top of it, so you can imagine what’s coming off the remaining portion of the dangling blade today compared to one little piece,” Barth said. “If this goes into our food supply, that is a huge concern for me.”

She said the farmer on the adjacent property has found chunks of fiberglass in his grass and won’t be able to use his hay when he bales it.

Ellen and Bob Koch own land a mile and a half away from the property where the turbine fell. Their cattle drink from a stream that converges along their farm from three smaller streams.

“A big rain will wash that fiberglass into the stream and float right down to our place,” Bob told The Epoch Times.

Every time they go along the county road on the property, they find a new piece of fiberglass, Ellen said.

NextEra, the company that built the wind complex, has yet to fix it or provide a thorough cleanup, though a blade remains hanging, which is a safety hazard, Barth said.

“It’s still dangling as we speak,” Barth said, sharing a video of the broken turbine.

According to Barth’s research, there are 4,000 wind turbines in Kansas.

So let’s see if I have this right. If I own a farm in Kansas, and my neighbor’s wind turbine blade comes crashing to the ground, and basically ruins my crops for the year, or perhaps forever, because of fiberglass particles, at present I do not have any recourse.

At present, NextEra itself issued no apology or immediate formal written plan to fix the turbine or offer environmental cleanup.

After speaking to a weeping constituent all Barth could think was, ‘This is wrong.’

6/13/23

Many months ago I discovered Jeff Childers, ‘Coffee & Covid,’ and now it is the first thing that I read every morning. (BTW, thank you, Kim!) There are not many guarantees in life, but I guarantee that if you like my blog you will love Jeff Childers.

Today after reading two of the topics covered in Coffee & Covid, I thought, “OMG, how the mighty have fallen!” For me, when I think of prestigious entities, a few stand out. For instance, until just recently, Fox News was one of them. It was head and shoulders better than MSNBC or CNN, but since they jettisoned Tucker Carlson, Fox News has come back to the pack of the other ho-hums.

When I used to think of universities, Harvard seemed to be at the pinnacle, but as of today it is no longer. Why?

From Coffee & Covid:

“Speaking of disgraced lockdown mavens who were replaced with someone even more awful, you’ll be pleased to know, I’m sure, that former Chicago mayor and gay Beetlejuice lookalike Lori Lightfoot has been appointed as a Senior Leadership Fellow for the fall term at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.”

Yes, this is the same Lori Lightfoot who was thoroughly defeated in her recent quest for a second term as mayor of the floundering city of Chicago.

Yes, the same Lori Lightfoot who said, “Systemic Racism is a public health crisis in Chicago.”

The same Lori Lightfoot also broke new ground in race relations.

From the Chicago Tribune on May 19, 2012:

“Mayor Lori Lightfoot chooses only reporters of color ahead of her two year anniversary, sparking debate over media diversity and access.”

OMG, how the once mighty Harvard has fallen!

However, falling further that either Fox News or Harvard is potentially the Wall Street Journal with the following from Coffee & Covid:

TRUMP AND SPECIAL COUNSEL SIGNAL EARLY STRATEGIES

Garland Wanted Politics Out Of the Justice Department

Then Trump Came Along

Tell that last line to the parents at School Board Meetings or to those Catholics who churches were infiltrated by the DOJ.

OMG, how the mighty WSJ has fallen! 

6/12/23

Tanner Charles Schaaf is 29 years old and lives in Roseville, Minnesota. He is a storm chaser. Granted, I do not know a lot about storm chasing, but to me it is Evel Knievel-like with the ultimate adrenaline surge as a reward by putting yourself at risk. 

On March 31, the highest category severe weather warning was issued in portions of the central United States. Tanner who has been chasing storms for the last 13 years got into his car and headed for a safe vantage point. He didn’t know it at the time, but a tornado that was rated EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita scale was coming, with wind speeds up to 170 miles per hour (approx. 273 kilometers per hour)

“It was the first storm chase of the year for me,” Tanner told The Epoch Times. “Usually tornadoes only last about 10 minutes, so when a tornado touches down, and one that’s really photogenic … you have to treasure every second. You only get a handful of those each year.”

From the Epoch Times:

At 3:48 p.m., Tanner was filming some very good footage when he noticed the tornado approaching a town a few miles south of Hedrick, Iowa. His excitement turned to fervent prayer. “I was praying against it. I was just like, man, don’t you dare drop a tornado over a town,” he said.

All of a sudden, through harsh winds and heavy rain, a parked vehicle with airbags deployed emerged on the road ahead. Tanner pulled over and watched the driver of the other vehicle open his door and step out. It was Wayne Sanders and his wife, whose family had three houses nearby.

Tanner said: “They were trying to get to their parents’ house before the tornado hit. They didn’t realize how fast the tornado was moving. … [Wayne] knew what he needed to do, but his wife was crying, and she had a dog. The door wasn’t opening properly so I had to really pull, got the door open, got her dog, and we put them in my vehicle.”

A moment of decision for Tanner Charles Schaaf … put himself in even more danger by going and trying to help the elderly couple, or play it safe and get some awesome pictures.

Tanner knew that he needed to stop and help the couple. Plus our hero did what a hero does. He went straight into the path of danger.

In shocking footage of Tanner’s onward journey shared on YouTube, the trio approaches the home of Wayne’s parents, Nancy and Clarence Sanders, only to see it destroyed. Mercifully, moments later, they find the elderly couple alive having sought shelter in the bathroom, the only room of the house that wasn’t completely ripped apart.

The elderly couple were okay, and Wayne’s wife suffered only a minor head injury.

That day, Tanner suffered his own loss before the afternoon was over; when a driver ahead broke unexpectedly. Tanner swerved into a ditch, totaling his car. Luckily, he sustained no injuries and hopes to be back on the road before long.

Going straight into the path of danger … that’ what a true hero does!   Hats off to Tanner Charles Schaaf.

6/11/23

(C)BS + (P)BS = (Real)B.S.

This was originally written and published on my blog back on 4/7/21!

Just another example of main stream media deceit.

A friend of mine insists that the Main Stream Media is not slanted one way or the other. He will never convince me of that, as to me the MSM is obviously not only slanted to the left, but also sometimes they just BS their viewers.

BTW: As everyone knows, in today’s vernacular, “B.S-ing” is merely a synonym for outright LYING!

What follows are two glaring examples of “BS-ing”:

From American Thinker:

In October, news broke that Hunter Biden had dropped a computer off at a repair store and never picked it up again.  The contents were so disturbing that the store owner tried to get the FBI interested.  When the FBI dropped the issue, the store-owner went public.  The left, with National Public Radio (locally PBS) taking the lead, immediately announced that the computer was probably a Russian fake.  Now, though, with Hunter admitting that it could well be his computer, PBS (NPR) is ‘fessing up that its reporting was wrong.

However, the media announced that the story was fake. The tech tyrants used that narrative as the justification to delete from social media any attempts to share the story.

(After the election, it turned out that the story was kept so secret that many ordinary Americans — unlike political obsessives — knew nothing about it.  A poll showed that one out of six people who voted for Biden would not have done so if they’d been aware of the computer and its contents.  Considering that Biden allegedly received over 81,000,000 votes, that means as many as 13,500,000 people would either have voted for Trump or withheld their votes from Biden.  Either way, no matter what Democrats did, they wouldn’t have been able to pretend Biden won.)

In a normal era, the story would have been a huge October surprise.

One of the leaders in the charge claiming that the computer was a Russian plant was PBS (NPR,which you, dear taxpayer, help pay for).  In October, NPR refused to cover the story.

What turns out to have been politically driven was NPR’s silence.

Later NPR cavalierly admitted that it made a massive error in reporting a major news item. There’s no remorse here.  NPR can make this admission because it knows it doesn’t matter. Its disgraceful behavior worked.

Another example of “BS-ing”:

The latest example of MSM deliberately twisting a story to have its intended effect be different from the truth is the CBS 60 Minute fiasco. For those of you not attuned to the obvious deceit by CBS, 60 Minutes  “interviewed” Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, and asked obviously leading questions which implied wrong-doing with the governor being in cahoots with Publix, a grocery chain. DeSantis thoughtfully responded and explained the entire situation . . . Conveniently 60 Minutes did not include his explanation, because of “time constraints.”

But apparently it’s worse that that.

From The Federalist:

Democrat Mayor of Palm Beach County Dave Kerner railed against CBS’s “60 Minutes.” Kerner said the special was “not just based on bad information – it was intentionally false.”

Kerner continued, “I know this because I offered to provide my insight into Palm Beach County’s vaccination efforts and 60 minutes declined.”

“They know that the Governor came to Palm Beach County and met with me and the County Administrator and we asked to expand the state’s partnership with Publix to Palm Beach County.”

Kerner continued:

“We also discussed our own local plans to expand mass vaccinations centers throughout the county, which the Governor has been incredibly supportive. We asked and he delivered. They had that information, and they left it out because it kneecaps their narrative.”

In addition, Florida’s Director of Emergency Management Jared Moskowitz, who previously served in the state legislature as a Democrat, also dispelled CBS’s conspiracy theory that DeSantis rammed COVID vaccines through Publix after the Miami Herald made the same claims in March.

“This idea why Publix was picked has been utter nonsense,” Moskowitz wrote. “We reached out to all pharmacies and they were the only one who at the time could execute on the mission.”

Hmmm! Two different Florida Democrats saying that CBS knowingly attempted to deceive its viewers. It seems as if 60 Minutes got caught with its hand in the cookie jar . . . In other words it lied by only including info that reinforced their leftward-slanted narrative.

Will 60 Minutes take the high road and apologize to its viewers for intentionally misleading them? Hmmm! 

My money is on, “No, it won’t.” I’ll cover all bets, and that is no BS.

4/7/21

6/10/23

Back when I was younger, words and definitions actually meant something. If one believed something that was not reality, then that individual was rightly deemed to be delusional. Despite what one may believe in his/her mind, if that belief is contrary to what really is, then that belief is a delusion. “Two plus two equals five” or “the sun sets in the east” are both obviously contrary to reality, and thus one who believes that these statements are true is delusional. Might we feel sorry for this misguided individual? … yes, we might. However, if another acquiesced to this altered way of viewing reality, and said, “you are correct … actually the sun does set in the east,” then sadly that person would also have to be judged to be delusional. If a whole bunch of individuals acquiesced, and agreed that two plus two did indeed equal five, then what you would have is the Democratic Party!

Show me a Democrat who has come out and said that one’s chromosomes determine one’s sex … elongated pause … If you do happen to identify a Democrat who says, “if one’s genetic makeup is XY, then that individual is a male,” then that individual is a DINO (Democrat In Name Only). 

Note that the recent Biden-appointed Supreme Court Justice could not define a ‘female.’ (I guess that fortitude is not a ‘sine qua non’ to be confirmed to SCOTUS!) Note that all of the Democrats in the Senate then acquiesced and agreed that she was worthy of being a lifelong Supreme Court Justice. 

Furthermore, note that this is not the only JB appointee who has confusion about reality. Here I mean basic reality, as I am referring to Sam Brinton. For those of you not familiar with Sam Brinton, he is an XY who thinks that he is XX. Perhaps, we should have empathy for this delusional individual, but instead our President, appointed him to the position of ‘nuclear waste manager.’ Granted this was before Sam Brinton  was arrested due to his stealing luggage at Reagan National Airport in February. BTW this will be Brinton’s third set of criminal charges for stealing ladies’ luggage. Think about that for a second. This is a delusional individual who has been delusional for quite a long time, and our President wanted him in charge of nuclear waste disposal! 

As I questioned above, should anyone who acquiesces to the beliefs of a delusional person also be considered to be delusional? 

Are delusional lunatics running the asylum?? … Hmmm!

6/10/23

“I’m from the government, and I am here to help.”

That was one of Ronald Reagan’s famous quotes detailing the nine scariest words in the English language  … famous because it is so true!

While I am sure that many of you are tired of hearing about Ivermectin and Covid, I just watched a video about how duplicitous the FDA was in reference to Ivermectin. As background the discoverers of Ivermectin  won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2015, and subsequently Ivermectin has been safely taken by billions of individuals, mainly in Africa. (Note: that is Billions with a capital B!) The side effect profile has been outstanding, it has been proven to be extremely safe. 

So why did the FDA create the following conundrum by stating that Ivermectin was not recommended for Covid, and then citing that people were overdosing on it. In actuality the overdoses were because desperate individuals were taking Ivermectin in doses meant for animals, and this was because they could not get Ivermectin in pill form, because it was “not recommended” by the FDA!

But it gets worse! On its website the FDA had an article titled, “Why 

You Should Not Use Ivermectin To Treat or Prevent Covid-19.” In this 

piece the FDA referred to 89 different referenced articles, of which 32 were completed trials. Of these 32 … take a deep breath here! … of these 32 referenced completed trials, 16 said that Ivermectin worked either as treatment or as prophylaxis for Covid. 6/32 gave Ivermectin mixed results, whereas 10 said that Ivermectin did not work. The 16 referenced studies that said that Ivermectin was beneficial included a 363 patient study from Bangladesh, an 89 patient trial from Israel, and a 229 health care worker study from Argentina. This last Argentinian study had a follow-up with 1200 individuals that showed similar beneficial results.

In other words, from studies noted on the FDA’s own website, Ivermectin had either positive result or a mixed benefit result  in 69% of the papers that the FDA referenced. So what did the FDA say, “You’re not a horse; you’re not a cow; seriously ya’ll. Stop it.”

Someday in the future perhaps we will find out the why as to this FDA conundrum … or in plain language, why the FDA lied to the American public.

( BTW, if you are interested there is an excellent video on Epoch Times. It is posted in “Facts Matter” by Roman Balmakov. It takes 12:16 to watch the entire video. I would strongly recommend it, especially to those who are “Ivermectin doubters.”)

6/9/23