Category: Uncategorized

For those of you not familiar with what is happening with EVs, here is the latest.

From Townhall:

“On Thursday, 2/22/24, Mercedes-Benz announced it was joining other automakers, such as Ford Motor Company, in rolling back its planned production of electric vehicles — the ones the Biden administration sought to force Americans to get regardless of whether families could afford them or the U.S. transportation system could handle the switch. 

Mercedes-Benz had previously announced an aggressive plan to turn its company into a major EV producer by 2025 but realized — just as Ford Motor Company did previously — that shunning gas-powered vehicles was not such a grand idea. 

Now, according to the company’s leadership, its at least 50 percent EV production goal has been pushed back by at least five years to 2030 due to weaker-than-anticipated consumer interest in making the transition.”

According to Fox Business, “[i]n the meantime, Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kaellenius reassured investors that the company will continue to manufacture combustion engine cars and improve its technology well into the next decade” and “current plans for updates mean ‘it is almost like we will have a new lineup in 2027 that will take us well into the 2030s,’ Kaellenius said.”

“The ambitious goals of U.S. policymakers and car manufacturers have collided with reality, as most consumers still do not trust electric cars and are turned off by high prices.”

While JB can make all of the mandates about Electric Vehicles that he wishes, his mandates will not make people buy things that they do not want and cannot afford. Likewise, automobile manufacturers are in business to make a profit, and they are finally realizing what I have been saying all along … “you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink or buy an EV!

2/27/24

For years black voters have been a mainstay of Democrats. Could this foundation be crumbling?

Estimates have an increasing number of black voters voting for Donald Trump  come November.  Based on Trump’s growing support among influential blacks, I am inclined to believe that Biden’s supposed support among black voters may be crumbling.

On 2/23/24 Trump spoke at two rallies. The first at the 6,000-seat Winthrop Coliseum in Rock Hill, about 70 miles north of Columbia S.C., and the second speaking to the Black Conservative Federation(BCF), where he underscored the importance of blacks helping him unseat Democrat President Joe Biden in the November general election.

Earlier in the day, President Trump spoke during a rally at the 6,000-seat Winthrop Coliseum in Rock Hill, S.C.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), whom President Trump named to his shortlist of potential running mates, spoke on behalf of the 45th president at both locations where President Trump spoke. So did another shortlist contender, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.).

Mr. Donalds, who serves as BCF chairman, told the Columbia audience: “Let me tell you, Rock Hill was rockin’ … and there’s a reason why that occurred. It occurred because our country is struggling … and because we have a terrible person at the helm of our country in Joe Biden.”

From the Epoch Times:

Former President Donald Trump, with help from a chorus of prominent black voices, is trying to drown out the old “blacks-should-vote-Democrat” mantra.

The Republican frontrunner and his allies, speaking to the Black Conservative Federation (BCF) on Feb. 23, underscored the importance of blacks helping him unseat Democrat President Joe Biden in the November general election.

Diante Johnson, president of the Black Conservative Federation (BCF) told the audience that he thinks President Trump will snare an unprecedented 50 percent of the black male vote this fall, which would decimate the incumbent’s chances.

BCF Vice President Quenton Jordan told the audience that he has seen the black conservative movement expand dramatically after being told that such a movement “couldn’t exist.”

More blacks are turning conservative, he said, because they care about what he calls “the four F’s: Family, Faith, Freedom, and Finances.”

Also in attendance was Alveda King, a niece of famed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. After representing Georgia as a Democrat congresswoman, Ms. King switched to the Republican Party. President Trump says he has known her for years.

Trump also recognized others who spoke at the event, including Mr. Donalds; Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas); former NFL player Jack Brewer; and Dr. Ben Carson, his Housing and Urban Development secretary, who received the BCF Lifetime Achievement Award.

The BCF presented President Trump with the Champion for Black America Award.

As President Trump reviewed accomplishments of his presidency and discussed issues of special significance to black Americans, he went off-script more than usual. Part of the time, however, it wasn’t by choice because “the teleprompter broke.”

President Trump told the BCF audience that he is dedicated to improving life for all Americans. He says his “Make America Great Again” slogan applies to everyone, regardless of race, creed, or ethnicity.

Two takes for me from 2/23 events:

First – Trump received the Champion for Black America Award. I haven’t heard of JB receiving any award from any black organization.

Second – Trump spoke for an extended period of time without a teleprompter, while JB cannot speak coherently for even a minute without a teleprompter.

Hopefully the two events on 2/23 will be a forerunner of the crumbling of a past Democrat foundation, the black voter.

2/26/24

Sunday is a day I devote to heroes.

Because February 19th is the  anniversary of the invasion of the small South Pacific island, of Iwo Jima, I thought that it would be appropriate to recognize some of of the 70,000 who fought there.

Perhaps all of us are familiar of the iconic monument of five Marines and one Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Iwo Jima in WWII. The 78-foot-tall granite and bronze monument in Washington, honors the Marines who fought and died at Iwo Jima. 

For those unfamiliar with what went on during the five week battle against the Japanese, the Battle for Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest ever fought by U.S. Marines. Nearly 7,000 Marines and other military personnel died in this fighting, and another 20,000 were wounded. We can honor them as well by remembering who they were and the hell they endured fighting for freedom. 

The following is a capsule summary of four Marines from the Epoch Times:

When we think of the Marines who hit the beach at Iwo Jima, the sailors and airmen who supported them, and even most of the Americans in uniform during World War II, it behooves us to remember that they were civilian soldiers, not professionals. They left behind mothers and fathers, wives and children. And most of them could never be described, as some commentators are wont to do, as boys. These young men had lived their entire adolescence during the Great Depression, had often worked as teenagers to help support their families, and were made fit and tough by that hardscrabble labor and poverty. Today’s notion of adolescence extending into the mid-20s would have been as foreign to them as the Pacific islands they invaded.

Donald Ruhl (1923–1945) grew up in Joliet, Montana, and graduated high school in 1942. From 1937 until graduation, he worked on a 400-acre ranch as a farm hand for $15 a week plus his room and board. On D-Day of the Iwo Jima landing, Ruhl killed two Japanese, one with his bayonet. The following day, he saved the life of a wounded fellow Marine by carrying him to safety. And on D-Day plus two, he threw himself onto an enemy satchel charge and died in that explosion while protecting the lives of nearby Marines. 

Texan First Lieutenant Jack Lummus (1915–1945) played baseball and football for Baylor University, left school before graduating, and was playing professional football for the New York Giants when the war came. He enlisted in the Marines, completed the then-called Officers Training School at Quantico, Virginia, commanded a platoon on Iwo Jima, and singlehandedly attacked enemy pillboxes, assaults that inspired his men to join his one-man charge. Wounded by shrapnel and a land mine, he died in a hospital just a few days after the charge.

Private First-Class Franklin Sigler (1924–1995) went straight from his New Jersey high school into the Marines, and then to Iwo Jima. There, he took command when his squad leader was wounded, launched a one-man attack and captured an enemy gun position, and fought back the Japanese who attempted to retake the post. Though he was wounded and under fire, he carried three other Marine casualties to safety. 

North Carolinian Rufus Herring (1921–1996) had command of a Landing Craft Gunboat when his ship came under attack. When Japanese mortars and artillery set his ship on fire and knocked out the conning station, killing most of the other officers, the severely wounded Herring directed operations aboard ship, including the guns returning the Japanese barrage, and brought the vessel and most of its crew to safety. Later, he became mayor of his beloved hometown of Roseboro, North Carolina. Before his death, he declined burial in Arlington Cemetery, preferring to rest in his native soil.

These are but four of the myriad of heroes who fought, bled, and died at Iwo Jima. 

2/25/24

Donald Trump has done it again! Done what? you may ask. He has appealed to another group of voters who have been forever caught in a trap. Here I am talking about the parents whose children who are trapped in failing schools. These parents, including many single parents cannot afford to send their children to any sort of private school. In addition, there are those who cannot home school their children, either because they have to work or do not have the schooling or the wherewithal to do home schooling. Because these families do not have a school choice option, these children are basically trapped in substandard schools. Consequently, in all likelihood, they will never achieve their full potential and thus will possibly be trapped in poverty for their entire life.

From CV NEWS FEED:

“Former President Donald Trump announced that if elected in November, he would support universal school choice as well as comprehensive tax credits for families who homeschool their children.

‘I will support a policy of universal school choice,’ Trump said while speaking at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Convention, in Nashville, TN, Thursday:night, 2/22/24.

The Republican frontrunner indicated he would allow ‘parents to choose the public, private, charter, or religious school that best suits their children.’

Trump stated that he would ‘support America’s homeschool families including allowing 529 Education Savings Accounts [ESAs] to be used for homeschooling expenses up to $10,000 a year per child completely tax free.’”

“In addition Mr. Trump said that he intends to ‘close the federal Department of Education, and … move everything back to the states where it belongs.’

Furthermore, Trump emphasized that he would make it a ‘top priority’ to ‘take back our education system from the communists and the freaks that are destroying it.’

‘On day one, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory [CRT], transgender insanity, and all other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children.’”

Kudos to DJT! It’s about time that someone is finally standing up for the mainly lower class children and their parents. When Trump is elected these families will have some realistic hopes for their children who will no longer be trapped.

2/24/24

As almost all of you are aware on 2/16/24 Alexei Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died  in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence, Russia’s prison agency said. He was 47.

Right from the beginning let me be clear … I am not a Putin backer. Navalny and Putin have been enemies for a very long time, and the presumption by many is that Navalny was murdered and that Putin was responsible. In actuality at this point we do not know what actually happened to Navalny, and we may never know. It is common knowledge that Navalny and Putin were political enemies, and most of us would agree that it is pure evil for anyone in politics to physically go after one’s political enemies. Certainly, if it is true that Putin was responsible for Navalny’s death, then this is the lowest an individual can go. 

However, what about going after one’s political enemies by attempting to put him/her in jail on trumped-up charges? What about attempting to bankrupt a political enemy by fining him/her a ridiculous amount for a trumped-up fictitious crime? While I would never try to equate murder with jailing or financially ruining a political opponent, nonetheless both of these would also be judged as pure evil.

Speaking of trumped-up charges for trumped-up alleged crimes, isn’t this exactly what Joe Biden and his intermediaries are trying to do to his political opponent, Donald Trump? Is there a difference between what an intermediary allegedly did to Putin’s political opponent, Alexei Navalny, and what Biden’s intermediaries are now doing to Biden’s political opponent, Donald Trump? 

2/23/24

Last night I happened to watch part of Laura Ingraham’s interview with Donald Trump, and in my opinion it was a very good interview.

At one point in response to his $354 million fine from his recent civil fraud trial in New York, Trump pulled out a copy of the 8th Amendment from his his pocket. He then read the section which states, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

To me this is exactly what this enormous fine is, especially when there was no victim.

When asked about potential revenge for a series of mistreatments by Democrat prosecutors, Mr. Trump said, “My revenge will be my success.”  I thought … good campaign slogan!

The other interesting part of the interview had to do with potential debates with Biden. When asked Trump responded, “I’ll do it right now on your show. I’ll challenge him right now.”

Everyone knows that JB will never debate Donald Trump for a multitude of reasons, even though many Libs will have pity on the well-meaning, but tottering senile old man.

At the end of the interview Laura Ingraham asked, “Why not drop out instead of face all of these legal battles?”

President Donald Trump: “I can’t because I want to make America great again.”

A good answer from a good American!

2/22/24

What if I told you that the Biden “Admin Paid German Agency to Help Teachers Turn Kids Against Conservative Media.” (This is a headline from Catholic Vote.) My sense is that at first you would not believe that headline. What if I added that this censorship program was funded by .American tax dollars? … again my sense is that you wold say, …”no way!”

What if I added that over 700 educators participated in a year-long series of State Department seminars hosted by the University of Rhode Island’s Media Education Lab (the ‘Rhode Island Lab’).”

These seminars introduced the teachers to various “censorship tools.” These included “video games designed to entice children to embrace leftist narratives and to compel them to use tech platforms that collude with the government to surveil and censor.”

What if I told you that this curriculum included lessons on promoting street protests for leftist causes, and detailed instructions on how to turn schoolchildren into media producers who advocate against free speech.

By this time my sense is that you would be saying, “NO WAY!”

However, the Media Research Council’s (MRC) Censorship Investigation Project uncovered the secret collaboration through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and analyzing public records.

MRC Legal Associate Tim Kilcullen reported Tuesday that both the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security funded the effort.

Kilcullen added, “Under the Biden administration, the U.S. embassy set up a “year-long, cross-national professional learning community,” dubbed the “Medialogue on Propaganda,” in order to export German socialist ideas of censorship to American educators.

If you haven’t bought in so far, what if I told you that according to Kilcullen, “A portion of the curriculum was ‘funded in part by leftist billionaires George and Alexander Soros.’”

If only a portion of what I have just told you is true, how frightening is that!

2/21/24

As most of you realize, I do not profess to be an expert on “climate change.” In fact, recently a friend lent me “Green Murder” by Ian Plimer, an Australian “climate change denier,” and I am having a tough time comprehending it.

Nonetheless, recently I did struggle through a piece by Daniel W. Nebert, a professor emeritus in Gene-Environment Interactions at the University of Cincinnati, and thought I would pass on the part related to Glacial Periods. Please bear with me and these large numbers as the end-message is quite clear.

It is my understanding that the following will be included in a future piece in American Thinker:

“From his seminal work while prisoner of war during WWI, Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovitchexplained how climate is influenced by variations in the Earth’s asymmetric orbit, axial tilt, and rotational wobble — each going through cycles lasting as long as 120,000 years.

It is widely recognized that Glacial Periods of about 95,000 years, interspersed with Interglacial Periods of approximately 25,000 years correspond with Milankovitch Cycles. Multiple incursions of glaciers occurred during the Pleistocene, an epoch lasting from about 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago, when Earth’s last Glacial Period ended. Around 24,000 years ago, present-day Lake Erie was covered with ice a mile thick. 

 Within each Interglacial Period, there’ve been warming periods, or “Mini-Summers.” For example, within the current Holocene Interglacial, there have been warmer periods known as the Minoan (1500 – 1200 BC), Roman (250 BC – 400 AD) and Medieval (900 – 1300 AD). Our Modern Warming Period began with the waning of the Little Ice Age (1300-1850). Today’s Mini-Summer is colder so far than all previous Mini-Summers over the last 8,500 years.”

So let me get this straight. 

Is the earth warming? … Yes, it is, but this is not the first such “Mini-Summer” that the earth has had. As with past “Mini-Summers” these  warming periods typically occur during periods of extreme cold referred to as Interglacial Periods.

Comparatively speaking this so-called period of “global warming” is not so much compared to prior episodes that have occurred over the past 8,500 years.

As any intelligent person knows warming is to be preferred to cooling as far as how the earth’s inhabitants get along. Death rates are much higher with extreme cold than with extreme heat. Imagine trying to grow food in freezing conditions as opposed to hot conditions. Crops will not grow if it is freezing. Imagine what America’s bread basket would be like if Lake Erie was covered with mile thick ice. Millions would starve if temperatures plunged!

At what point will this global warming paranoia cease? In my opinion, probably not until we get a Republican back in the White House!

2/20/24

Well it finally happened … in fact two things happened on 2/16/24 that I believe will clinch the 2024 Presidential election for Trump. Anyone who is not completely over the top anti-Trump will have to look at both of these things and think hmmm!  as both appear to be obviously political. I predict that most rational individuals will see right through what the far-left prejudicial New York judge and President JB are doing. Many will realize when they think about these two events that indeed, that neither of the emperors involved have any clothes!

First:

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron issued a ruling on Feb. 16, ordering former President Donald Trump and Trump Organization executives to pay $355 million in damages, and barring the former president from doing business in the state for three years.

President Trump also posted a lengthy social media statement, and then called a press conference in front of his Mar-a-Lago residence.

“This ‘decision’ is a Complete and Total SHAM,” he wrote. “There were No Victims, No Damages, No Complaints. Only satisfied Banks and Insurance Companies (which made a ton of money), GREAT Financial Statements, that didn’t even include the most valuable Asset – the TRUMP Brand, IRONCLAD Disclaimers (Buyer Beware, and Do you Own Due Diligence), and amazing Properties all over the World.”

Again any rational person will recognize the absurdity of this case and the financial penalty imposed.

Second:

Finally on 2/16/2& President Biden finally made his to East Palestine. Ohio. Most of you probably remember that East Palestine is a small town of less than 5,000 located in eastern Ohio very close to its border with Pennsylvania, and it was the site of a toxic train derailment. This toxic train derailment occurred in February … however it occurred in 2023!  It occurred on 2/3/23 to be exact. So why was J.B. there on 2/16/2024, more than a year later? Everyone knows that JB finally made an appearance at East Palestine, because it is election season. Supposedly the reason why JB waited more than one year to visit this beleaguered small town was that he had a busy schedule! … and East Palestine voted Republican in 2020. 

How long would it have taken for JB to fly back and forth to eastern Ohio and spend thirty minutes in East Palestine some time in the past year? … 

probably an hour and thirty minutes! To me it seems that all suffering individuals in East Palestine had to wait in line while JB took his “well deserved” 140+ days of vacation time this past year.

One of the Democrat’s spokesman noted that for a time this area was toxic, and hinted that the reason JB has not shown up in over a year might be because air in the area could have been dangerous. This shill of a spokesman forgot to mention that Donald Trump was there less than three weeks after the derailment, visiting both the fire station and a McDonald’s for far greater than thirty minutes … without even wearing a mask!

2/19/24

Last week I read something and thought, “Is it possible that California finally got something right?”

When the Common Core State Standards were introduced in 2010, they explicitly referenced learning keyboard skills in grades 3 through 5. The standards require fourth graders to type a full page in one sitting. As a result, cursive was largely abandoned in most school districts.

However, this trend is now reversing, according to data from MyCursive.com, which tracks cursive writing requirements nationwide. 

Cursive writing is making a comeback in many U.S. states after being dropped over a decade ago. Currently, 21 states mandate some form of handwriting education. Most recently, California passed a law in October 2023 making cursive handwriting mandatory from first through sixth grade.

Is this the right thing to do? 

According to a recent study, the answer is “yes.”

From Epoch Health:

A recent study from Norway found that the old-school art of handwriting engages parts of the brain that tapping on a keyboard does not. The intricate movements involved in handwriting activate more regions of the brain associated with learning than typing does.

The new study published in Frontiers in Psychology and led by Audrey van der Meer, a neuroscience researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, examined the differences between handwriting and typing. Ms. Van der Meer and her team analyzed the neural networks involved in both activities to uncover their respective impacts on brain connectivity.

“We show that when writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns are far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard,” she said in a press statement. “Such widespread brain connectivity is known to be crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, is beneficial for learning.”

So it does appear that our legislators in Sacramento do occasionally get something “write,” or should I better say, “correct!”

2/17/24