So What Do We Get Out Of It?

The guy who wins the pool game is the one who plays several shots ahead.

I know a little bit about that wonderful game as I used to play it professionally.  And well.  So what's that got to do with our military actions in Iran?  A lot, as you'll soon see.

It's like playing three dimensional chess.  You've seen that, right?  Three chess boards, one on top of the other.  It's hard, very hard.  And winning requires one to play several moves ahead, and on multiple levels.  And we're playing several moves ahead with our actions in Iran.  How?  China, as everyone knows, is one of our two major competitors.  And some say, enemies.  The other is Russia.  But Russia's involved in a forever war with Ukraine, so we don't have to worry too much about them right now.  Maybe later, but not now.  However, we can make it more difficult for them to move their oil on the international stage.  

But China?  They want to bury us.  They want to chew us up and spit us out.  We know that.  They've told us so.  And they know we know that.  But we cannot simply bomb China like we're bombing Iran.  They could lose a couple of million people, or even a couple of hundred million people, and be better off.  They wouldn't have to feed them, which would be a benefit.  And they would respond, strike for strike, and likely kill half of us.  Or maybe all of us.  A problem.

So if we can't fight them, and beat them, what does America do to weaken China so much they no longer pose a threat?  They have one major weakness.  They have no oil.  And they need petroleum to fuel their industries.  And their military.  In fact, they import 10,000,000 barrels of crude oil per day.  Ten Million!  And up to now they've been getting all that oil from two places; Venezuela and Iran.  They've invested $Billions in shoring up their relationships with both countries.  Secure in the thought they'd guaranteed a forever supply of crude.  

But a couple of months ago we grabbed Venezuela's Marxist Prez Maduro, China's friend and oil supplier.  We turned Venezuela into a friend of America, whether they liked it or not.  We now direct Venezuela's oil to where we want it to go.  And one of those places isn't China.  In fact, we've taken some 80 million barrels of their oil directly to America at no cost to us whatsoever.  And we've siezed a dozen of their illegal shadow oil tankers on the open ocean, and taken that oil directly to Louisiana.  For refining into gasoline.  That's oil that would have gone to China.

You should know that 90% of Iran's oil has been going to China.  90%!  Iran's been selling that oil to China at a discount.  To fuel its war machine.  To pay off the Houtis and Hezbollah to threaten Israel, and to make missiles and drones.  It's not going there now.  

In addition to eliminating the Ayatollah and his henchmen, and giving the Iranians their one chance to overthrow their hard-line Muslim mullahs, we've sunk their navy, bombed their air defenses into oblivion, and stopped the flow of oil to China.  We even sunk their most valuable warship yesterday with a torpedo from one of our submarines.  The first time since the Second World War!  We'll likely wind up controlling where that oil goes as well, or at least making sure China gets no more of it.  Or if they do, they'll be paying market rates for it, a 40% increase over what they've been paying.  This puts a damper on their foreign currency stores, makes it much more costly to run their country, and renders them less capable of harming us or our friends.

And next, we will no doubt continue this chess game by negotiating the overthrow of Cuba and its communist leadership's 70 year stranglehold over its freedom-loving citizens.  After China, Venezuela's second biggest customer was Cuba.  It had been supplying them with cheap, wholesale oil.  Fueling Cuba's ability to govern their people with an iron fist.  Now?  We're making sure they get no more Venezuelan oil.  Recent news states their planes can't fly and their tourism industry, their major source of income, is collapsing.  Interesting, don't you think?  

In one quick but well reasoned chess move, Trump has defanged China, hampered Russia's ability to ship its oil, cut off Cuba's oil supply, and reduced our enemies to paper tigers.  Or in Venezuela's case, our vassal.  Three dimensional chess.  Trump and his advisors have been playing it.  His global competitors, haven't...     

It's About Damn Time!

One of the (few) benefits of age is we get to sometimes see both the beginning, and the end, of momentous events.  This is one such time.  

In my case I got to see the beginning and end of the Korean conflict.  And the Viet Nam Police Action.  And the Panama armed intervention.  And so with the Grenada assault.  And many others as well.  In fact, there have been 212 armed conflicts the United States has entered into in its almost 250 years.  12 of them major.  

In fact, there has not been a military action since the Second World War proclaimed by Congress as a "war."  We weren't smart enough to learn from the French when they got their ass handed to them in Viet Nam with their involvement at Dien Bien Phu (look it up).  So we invaded.  And lost 55,000 of our finest.  

We've had the Iraq invasion.  And 20 years of the Afghanistan debacle, costing us 4,000 soldiers and airmen.  Still no "war."  It seems we've used our military on a whim.  And depending upon which party's in power, whether outrage follows, or quiet acceptance.

And as someone who's worn the uniform of our Great Country, that pisses me off.  We've often sent our young men and women off to foreign wars to fight and die without knowing whether their impending sacrifices were warranted.  Or justified.  And that pisses me off.

However, every now and again there's a need so great that our military intervention is demanded.  Nay required.  So much so that we must gather ourselves up and bite the bullet.  Literally.  The events and circumstances over the past few days are one such need.

I'm blessed with a great memory.  Or plagued, perhaps.  I recall vividly when Jimmy Carter decided that the perceived human rights of foreigners was more important to him than our National Security.  In fact, I believe he put it above our national interests.  And if you're a part of the half of America that wasn't alive when all this unfolded, sit back and let me take you on a quick memory tour.

Raza Pahlevi, the Shah of Iran, was a fully westernized Middle Eastern leader, and one of few we could call a friend in that most dangerous part of the world.  Although a Suni Muslim, he led a secular government.  Women were fully integrated in their society, and equal.  They wore the latest Paris fashions and modern hairstyles, and paraded them openly on Tehran's streets.  His military was powerful.  We made it so.  In fact, at one time he owned 120 F-4 Phantom jet fighters he'd bought from us.  Second only to our own force.    

This angered his more hard-line religious leaders and their followers.  They openly protested, and he quickly imprisoned them.  This caused newly installed President Carter to object.  Strenously.  So much so that he refused to support the Shah with our full might.  And he was overthrown as a result.

That occurred in Early 1979.  Just as quickly the Ahatollah Khomeini left his palatial apartment on Paris' Champs Elysee and flew to Tehran.  And into the leadership of when then became a theocratic, American-hating dictatorship.  Thank you Jimmy Carter.

Soon, the Ahatollah's followers attacked our embassey.  They quickly took 66 hostages and held them for 444 days.  Thank you Jimmy Carter.  Carter tried to retrieve them, but the two planes he sent crashed into each other in a desert sandstorm and 17 of our soldiers and airmen were killed.  Another black eye.  

And then unfolded what became years of attacks on us and our friend Israel.  They blew up Saudi Arabia's Kobar Towers, killing 18 of our soldiers.  They shot a 737 out of the sky killing 200-plus Americans and Israelis.  Their proxies shot down a Pan-Am jet, killing more than 280 souls.  It went on.  And on.

In short, Iran and it's proxies, later funded by some $8.7 Billion Dollars of our money, gifted by B. Hussein Obama, proceeded to kill our soldiers and airmen.  This continued over a 47 year period.  

Reagan tried to talk them out of their goals.  So did Carter.  And Obama.  And even Trump in his first term.  It didn't work.  Death to America, the Big Satan, and Israel, the Little Satan, was their only goal.  And they funded those efforts by selling oil to our enemies at wholesale prices.  Many of us wondered when somebody, ANYBODY, would do somthing about it.  I had given up.  I was sure I'd die before I saw an end to this outrage.  I was wrong.  Somebody did something.  His name is Donald J. Trump.

Trump just unleashed the full fury of our military on Iran.  He assembled the largest armada of ships since the beginning of the Iraq conflict.  More than 200 war planes were sent to blow the crap out of Iran on Saturday morning.  F-15's.  And F-18's.  And F-22's.  And F-35's.  And A-10's.  And B-1's and B-2's.  And more than 60 refueling planes to keep them fighting.  And bombing.

This operation started on Israel's Sabath.  And in the daylight.  Iran's leaders weren't expecting that.  That's why we did it.  And we blew the Ayatollah and 46 of his henchmen our of their sandals in one swell foop.  And I jumped up and down.  No, actually, I can't jump up and down.  But I raised my fist in the air and yelled my support.  So did all my fellow Americans who knew enough to know this was the right thing to do.  And the right time to do it.

A succession of U. S. Presidents have tried to use words to change Iran's mind.  We talked.  And met.  And talked some more.  These efforts were unsuccessful.  Even though we bombed their nuclear fuel enrichment efforts last June, they hadn't learned.  Sometimes only bombs and bullets will work.  This was one such time.  No matter how this ends up, I say it's about damed time.

This unassuming little blog enables me to vent my overly large spleen.  I have.  I trust you'll agree with my views on the matter.  Not everybody's lived long enough or knows enough to support America in this effort.  I trust this little missive has changed a few minds... 

   

Now Here's a Question.

Have you ever noticed that every time we have an inflationary period, such as just happened with the Biden Administration, our elected representatives spend all their time trying to raise wages to meet the new higher prices, as opposed to lowering prices back to where they were before?

I know, I know.  Long sentence.  But it clearly states the reason for this blog posting.  Although I identify as a Black, gay and transgender San Franciscan, awaiting my reparations payment, I further identify as a straight, White male.  And the Left has taught us that identifying is all that counts, right?  However, I also sport a degree in Economics, enabling me to pontificate with unusual authority on the subject of today's rant.  

I normally don't need to know anything about the subjects I preach.  But in this case, I actually do. So if you're in a hurry, go ahead and wink off.  You've already got the gist of this little spleen venting.  But if you're got a few more minutes, please allow me to continue blathering...

Millions and millions of pensioners and retirees and those relying solely on Social Security benefits are now stuck with sky-high prices visited upon us by the Democrats.  Our Congressweenies bleat about their efforts to raise wages to meet the new prices.  The $15.00 cheeseburger that was $7.00 four years ago.  The average price of a new car is...ready for it?...$50,332.  Almost exactly double the price of just 8 years ago.  The $700 car payment is now the average.  That was your rent payment 4 years ago! Is that inflation?  Yes, Fellow Patriots, it is.  

I'd like you to think about the moving walkway at Los Angeles International Airport.  The one that takes you from the ticket counter to the gates, and back from the gates to the baggage claim.  It runs at exactly 8 miles per hour.  Much faster than the poor schlubs dragging their baggage alongside you as you roll along, standing still.  But if and when you step off, you're immediately left behind.  

That's also true if and when you retire.  You're immediately left behind.  You can no longer expect raises in income to offset continually increasing prices.  You're stuck with whatever you had, while others will receive wage bumps to stay even or ahead of inflation.  Like stairsteps that only go up, never down.  

What is someone who's trying to live on yesterday's money supposed to do in today's economic climate?  Their money is now worth 21% less than when Joe O'Biden took office.  And overspent us by more than $9 Trillion dollars during his 4 disasterous years.  Even though our Treasury took in $4.3 Trillion Dollars in tax revenues in 2023, an all-time record, Biden spent $6.4 Trillion that same year.  Remember, the definitiion of inflation is "Too many dollars chasing too few goods."  The Gubmint is competing with its own citizens as they both buy food, and clothing, and gas, and automobiles.  Resulting in ever-higher prices.

Remember, the Gubmint can print money.  You can't.  

Not all our elderly are capable of getting a job to supplement their withering income.  Many are infirm.  Not all can be a Wal-Mart greeter, especially if they cannot walk.  But the reality is they're screwed by their own Gubment.  A Gubment that forgets them while pandering to the unions with mandated wage hikes.

My first job sweeping out a store after school and on weekends paid me $0.75 cents an hour.  Today?  Our BoyGuv ("Hairgod") Newsom jacked up the pay for those who ask, "Would you like fries with that?," to $20.00 an hour.  Even though the Federal MinWage is only $7.62.  That caused the price of a Big Mac meal to increase to more than $13.00 in most states.  Your money's worth less, and it buys less.  How do those who are living on fixed incomes supposed to pay for those increases?  

There are 58 million retired citizens in America.  Wouldn't you think a smart politician would start sponsoring legislation to help lower prices instead of increasing wages?

I'm pissed.  Pay attention, legislators!  Start trying to restore the buying power of your retired constituents!  Remember, they vote!

A Plea For Normalcy From the Wokest State...

I'd guess about half of the residents of this once-Golden State have forgotten, or never knew, that we were at one time considered rather Conservative.

Yes, Fellow Patriots, since I arrived we've had the shank end of Reagan's two terms, two terms of Deukmejian, two terms of Wilson, and two terms of Ahhhhnold.  That's 32 of my 50 years here.  So how, one wonders, did California go off the rails in the past 14?  As an example, after blowing $92 Billion Dollars over a 14 year period on a bullet train, without a single mile of track having being laid, how did this State green light such a monumentally stupid idea?  Unless somebody, or several somebodies, intended to get rich as a result?  

And after the Supermajority Democrat Legislature gave our BoyGuv ("Hairgod") Newsom $25 Billion Dollars to eliminate our homeless (unhoused?) problem, our homeless encampment has grown to fully 40% of the Nation's total!  40% of 1.6 million!  And nobody has a reckoning as to where all that money went.

Did I mention somebody(ies) getting rich?

And how, after being fiscally prudent and notably low tax, did the Democrats who seized control of CA manage to take us over the proverbial cliff?  We have the highest income taxes, the most eggregious anti-gun laws, the most electric cars along with the highest electricity rates, out-of-control housing costs, the crappiest freeways, the most unemployed and the highest gasoline prices?  

In other words, we suck!  

I didn't arrive at that decision hurredly.  It took me nigh on to 50 years.  I recall driving over the San Bernardino Mountains and into the Los Angeles Basin that sunny day back in 1975.  I was moving here for a new job and couldn't have been happier.  I'd finally gotten my wish: a company to offer me a job and agree to pick up the tab for the move from Missouri.  

And on that day in June, '75, there were 50 gasoline refineries in California.  Proven oil reserves by the geological survey places CA at 6th, right behind Alaska.  We're sitting on top of the 7th richest oil and gas production areas among the states.  However, a succession of anti-oil and gas, "sky-is-falling" climate doom administrations has permitted the infrastructures to go sideways.  And a terrible tax and fee policy have forced many of those refineries to simply go out of business.  Just throw the keys over their shoulder and head for the hills.  So much so that we now rely on only 8 refineries to produce our gasoline.  Resulting in the highest gas prices in the Nation. 

Phillips 66 moved its operations out of CA and to Texas last year.  Chevron did as well.  And Valero, the USA's largest refiner, has made the decision to shell out over $One Billion Dollars to move out of Taxifornia by April, '26.  To escape California's gravitational pull.  Leaving us with only 7 refiners.  In other words, to run to greener pastures.  And any pasture is greener...

Think of it:  Our largest refiner was willing to spend $One Billion in cash not to improve production, or enhance efficiencies, or find new methods, but just pack up and leave.  Leave all the contracts and the contacts and the employees and an 85 year history, just to bolt CA.  

They still have facilities in Louisiana, and Texas, and Pennsylvania, and the U. K., and Wales, so they'll be okay.  They've shuttered their Benecia facility in Northern California.  They tried to sell it but nobody would buy it.  They knew it would be unprofitable if operated here in the single most awful place to do business in America.  Leaving us with 8% less production, resulting in a new loss of 20% of our refined gas and oil.  

While the rest of America pays an average of $2.18 for a gallon of gas, with some as low as $1.88, we pay $4.48.  And to that another $0.40 cents in extra fees will be tacked on when the "Summer Blend" kicks in come June.  A "Summer Blend" no other state requires, and a blend forced only to placate the global warming crowd.  It's predicted we'll be paying as much as $8 or $9 Dollars a gallon by '27.  In short, those of us who decided to live here and drive a car, are f**ked.  

We live on the West side of the Rocky Mountains.  Along with our other partners in Progressive Socialism, Oregon and Washington.  We have no pipelines over the Sierra Nevada to save us.  No way to rebuff the loss of refining capacity.  No way to sidestep the coming train wreck.  Reducing us to buying more than 40% of all our fuel from...the Bahamas?  Yes, Fellow Patriots, our gas is delivered via gigondo container ships that come around the Panama Canal from the Bahamas.  Forcing us to pay the freight for all that unneeded shipping and handling.  We're sitting on top of a heavy load of oil and gas, but the climate doomsayers won't let us take it out of the Earth.  They want solar and wind and, what?  Nothing?  Put everybody back on bicycles?  Or horse and buggies?  

The inmates are in clearly in charge of the asylum...

More than 1,000,000 highly-paid Californians have already packed up themselves and their families and ran for the exits over over the past 4 years.  And with them their tax base.  And the proposed "Billionaire's Tax" has caused more than $800 Billion of the $2 Trillion in wealth owned by the 200 or so Silicon Valley Boys to head Eastward.  To Vegas.  To Texas.  And to Florida.  Taking with them their tax base.  

The co-founder of Google just bought a $147 million dollar spread in Miami.  Meta's chairman Zuckerberg just moved to Vegas (for 184 days a year, one assumes).  Spielberg just moved to New York.  More than $800 Billion of our billionaires' $2 Trillion Dollars of wealth have already moved out.  With more to follow.  

And now the 2-dimenional, light thinkers in Sacramento have discovered that forcing everyone into electric cars has so reduced the gas taxes they don't pay at any pump, they must now find a new income source to pay for highway maintenance.  Taxing us by the mile driven, they're planning.  Six and one-half cents a mile, they say.  Are these people smoking some of those anti-God cigarettes?  Would that not necessarily create another expensive bureaucratic behemoth to worm its way into our lives?  Some $100,000 a year guy coming to our house in a Tesla to check our odometers so as to verify the mileage we put on our tax returns? 

In addtion to being raped at the gas pumps, who do you think will be forced to pony up more taxes that these escapees from that asylum won't now be paying?  They were writing checks for more than 51% of Taxifornia's total income taxes before the CPDLW (Commie Pinko Dummass Liberal Weenies) decided to finally murder the Golden Goose.  The heavy hitters are gone.  The future is known.  We are a failed enterprize.

I need to buy gas today.  I'll be heading for my friendly "Sam's" cheepass gas pumps to open my wallet.  One almost needs a "Heloc" or a 2nd mortgage to buy a full tank of fuel in Taxifornia these days.  I recall a gas war between Phillips and Standard Oil back when I was young.  We paid $0.19 cents a gallon.  And we burned it up with glee!  We got it pumped for us by an old guy in a uniform, who also cleaned our windshields, checked our tire pressures and our oil levels, took our money and delivered our change.  And then wished us a blessed day on our way out, while we made those soothing little "ding-ding" noises as we ran over the hoses.  Without our ever having to lift our asses out of the driver's seat.

I think I'll just go back to bed, assume the prenatal position, bring the covers up over my nose and hope to dream about something else.  Anything else.  

Are you feeling as I am?  Like the sheep who's been shorn a bit too often?   

It's Time to 'SAVE' America.

My Dad said, "Get up early tomorrow morning.  It's Election Day..."

One of my most indelible memories is the day my Dad drove me to middle school by way of several poling places.  

I normally rode my bike to middle school, but this day was different.  Even though it was November in Missouri, and was snowing heavily, and cold as a well digger's ass in the Klondike, he wanted to show me the lines forming around each of the polling places where our fellow citizens would be casting their votes.  He wanted to show me how much they valued their votes, and how much they cared about America.  Spitting snow, below freezing, but still lined up, awaiting their turn.  

On Election Day.  Not Election Week, or Election month, or Election Season.  Just Election Day.  One day to vote.  Take it or leave it...

Today is Presidents Day.  Funny, after 46 presidents, not including Trump, we cannot seem to give the more important of them their own day.  Just lump them all together and take the day off.  

For years now several of our "Bluer" states have been working overtime to subvert both the meaning, and the legitimacy, of the votes we cast.  They permit mail-in voting.  Even prefering mail-in voting.*  They do so because, they say, it's easier on their citizens.  It's also easier to cheat, as we've all heard, a fact they somehow fail to recognize.  Or fail to publicly recognize.  And they want it to stay that way.  

Our elected Republican Representatives in Congress have crafted what's called the "SAVE Act."  That stands for "Safeguard American Voter Eligibility" Act.  And it seeks to return America to the time when only citizens could vote.  Not illegal aliens, just citizens.  And also to return us to the time when we had an Election Day, not an Election Decade.  And they face an uphill battle.

A vote was just held in the House of Representatives on the SAVE Act.  It was passed 218 - 213.  213 Democrats voted against it.  All but one of our elected Democrats voted against citizens proving they are citizens before being allowed to vote.  One has to wonder why.  I think I know...

Let's first recognize the obvious: It takes an I.D. to board an airplane.  Or a bus.  Or a train.  It takes an I.D. to open a bank account.  Or buy cigarettes, or alcohol, or cash a check.  It even takes an I.D. to sign up for Obamacare.  It takes an I.D. to do almost anything these days, and Black folks and Hispanics need them also.  In fact, 72% of Democrats want the Save Act to pass.  And 79% of Hispanics and 82% of Blacks agree with them.  And fully 90% of Republicans desperately want it to pass.

And all that this new legislation asks is that you present proof of citizenship.  A birth certificate, a passport, or any other proof.  Easy to obtain.  And Black and Brown folks already have it.  

It's an 80 - 20 issue, Democrats!  When will you decide to recognize the obvious?

But Democrats won't drop their opposition for one primary reason.  Each Representative in Congress represents approximately 750,000 citizens.  And each state can either gain or lose seats in the House by the population of their respective states when the census comes around.  Total population.  Not of Whites or Blacks or citizens or illegal aliens, just how many bodies are residing in their respective states.  We know that the Biden Administration permitted more than 20,000,000 illegal aliens to flood into our Country from everywhere on Earth during his interminable 4 years, bolstering numerous sanctuary state populations.  And Democrats have alienated their own historical support groups of labor unions and the working poor and welfare recipients.  And they want to keep their new imported constituents from being deported by our ICE officers.  Because, once again, the 2030 Census counts only 'bodies,' not 'citizens.'  

In short, they'd rather keep murderers, rapists, thieves and pedophiles in their states than to have Immigration and Customs Enforcement run them down and deport them.  That is shocking, but not too terribly surprising.  They'll do anything to defeat Trump, including putting their own citizens at risk from illegal alien felons.  Felons who just might predate them on the streets of their states.  That's why they're losing representatives.  Because their citizens are running for the exits.  Illegals are fighting to stay in those states, and those states are helping them.  

Citizens, however, are heading for greener pastures.  And almost any pasture is greener.  Taxifornia, for example, has lost more than 1,000,000 high-earning citizens in just the past 4 years.  And during that period it's welcomed in more than 40% of the Nation's 1.6 million illegals.  Agreeing to give them free abortions, free legal representation, free lodging, free meals and free medical care.  Paid for by their taxpayers.  Who weren't asked if that was their choice.  Illegals may be illegal, but with our mild weather, they're certainly not stupid.  

Democrats don't care what their legal citizens want.  Only what their illegal non-citizens want.  Non-citizens they dearly hope to turn into voters.  Any way they can.  And they'll do so if they regain the House and the Senate in the Fall.

And now they're contending with the "Billionaire's Tax," which will undoubedly be on the 2026 ballot.  That will peel 5% of their 200 billionaire's net wealth, including artworks, vehicles, property, and stocks and bonds, to pay for illegal aliens' healthcare.  The illegal healthcare Trump has taken from them.  Really.  Not just cash or earnings, net wealth.  

Here's a shocker:  Billionaires may have much if not all their wealth in a company's stock.  Which they just might have to sell to pay the "soak the rich" tax.  They don't want to do that.  And neither do their employees.  That's why they're leaving in droves.  Duh!  

California's 200 billionaires had more than $2 TRILLION dollars in wealth while this bill was being considered.  And knowing the Lefties in this State would vote for it, more than $800,000,000,000, with a "B," of that wealth has already left.  Before they could be taxed.  One of the co-founders of Google, one Sergei Brin, just bought a house in Florida for $147,000,000.  Mark Zuckerberg just moved to Las Vegas.  Two zip codes in Silicon Valley just lost more than 40% of their tax base.  What are they going to do when they don't have these fat cats to tax?  They're going to tax their less-well-off citizens.  The middle-class is due to be screwed.  Duh!  

A blurb in today's news from a Las Vegas realtor indicated that fully 25% of their new buyers were from just 5 zip codes in California.  Chiefly from Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.  Not just billionaires, but the mobile rich.  Duh!

Let's return to those good old days when people voted on Election Day.  Only.  No more Election month, or year.  Just 'Day."  And also the only ones voting were those who legally could.  How about it, Fellow Patriots?  Call or write your representative and senator and demand they do the right thing.  And do it today.  They'll be voting on it in the Senate next week...

*  I went to Dana Rohrabacher's election night party.  He'd been in Congress for 30 years, was its recognized expert on Afghanistan, He was expected to win reelection handily.  He was far ahead when the evening closed and we all toasted him on his victory.  Exceppppt, two weeks later somebody dropped off more than 250,000 ballots to the County Registrar of Voters, and almost all of which were for Harley Rouda.  Rouda defeated Rohrabacher by a few votes, thus proving why ballot harvesting and group voting and a month to count votes are how the Left will win any way it can.  They've done it, they'll continue doing it.  Unless we stop them...

A Paean to My Father.

"Boy, if you don't know where you're going, ain't no road gonna' take you there."

That was one of my Father's famous quotes.  An admonition.  A warning.  And it was based upon his almost bottomless pit of personal experience.  Some of which I'm proud to pass along to you, my Fellow Patriots.

My Dad was diagnosed with scarlet fever when only a small child.  I was told he had numerous bouts of illness, and almost succumed to them on several occasions.  His illness was so severe he lost most of his hair and all of his teeth by the time he was in his early 20's.  

Born in 1909, people of his age were rife for the draft into the 2nd World War.  His illness prevented him serving and it pissed him off greatly.  So much so that he found another way to serve his beloved Country's interests.  Although he had no formal education beyond high school, he applied to become a bomb specialist at the Sunflower Ordinance Plant in Kansas.  And took numerous tests, and passed.  And then proceeded to build the 500 pound bombs our B-17's dropped on Hitler and his goons.  This made him proud.  It made his entire family proud.

After the war the State of Missouri found itself lacking  enough pharmacists to serve towns of less than 500 people.  Dad studied hard, I was told, and took the pharmacy exam.  And passed.  He founded "Cassity's Drug Store" in the tiny town of Bosworth, Missouri.  And then compounded medications for the folks in the area.  His drug store featured a soda fountain and a freezer for ice cream.  There were 5 gallon paper cartons full of different flavors of ice cream he used to make ice cream floats.  I can still taste them.  

From there he moved us to Chillicothe, MO, and opened an insurance agency.  He sold life and casualty insurance to everyone within the range of his Cadillacs.  He bought a new one every 6 months.  He was a car guy like me.  He then expanded his service to include a credit collection agency and a real estate brokerage.  He was quite successful, as everyone in the town knew.  

Oh yeah, by the way, Dad was a famous billiards star.  He won the 1931 and '32 Missouri State Pool Championships.  He was also a famous rifle and pistol shot also, winning numerous championships using both.  He shot 97 out of 100 in skeet, including 3 perfect 25's.

He was Grand Poobah (really!) of his Shrine lodge, and a 32nd Degree Mason.  Those achievements aren't easy to obtain, as those of you who know anything about them can attest.

So Dad was an achiever.  And his achievements prompted me to become an achiever as well.  I caught the pool bug from him, and by the time I was 16 I was on the road, hustling, 'er competing for other peoples' money on the green felt.  I was at one time ranked among the 50 best pool players in America by "Pool and Billiards Magazine."  I won the 1961 Iowa State Snooker Championship.  And later the 1968 European 9-ball Championship.  I even travelled with Minnesota Fats for a summer, putting on exibitions.  His real name was Rudolph Wanderone.  He was quite the showman, as a quick trip to Wikipedia will reflect.

Back to Dad.  Another of his famous preachments was, "Be careful who you choose to love.  You can only screw about an hour a day, if you're really good.  What are you gonna' do in the other 23 hours?"

About half of all marriages in America end in divorce.  Dad was counseling against becoming a statistic, and having to deal with scheister lawyers.  Whom he detested.  He used to say, "You know what looks good on a lawyer?  Black and tan.  The same colors as a doberman pincher."  Unfortunately, I failed to take his advice, but only once.  But that's another story...

Another famous Dad quote goes like this:  "The most dangerous man in America is the guy who don't know what he don't know."  He was always concerned that America would elect the fancy talkers with the fancy degrees with nothing behind the mouth.  Such as was created by and after the Woodrow Wilson Administration.  Wilson started the Progressive movement, and we're still fighting it to this day.  Yalies and two dimentional lightweights from Haaavid, puked forth from the Halls of Academy, were beginning to run our Country.  And they still are.  He was afraid the 40 year-olds with no experience would hipppmotize the voters and seize power for their benign motives.  A bunch of folks who don't know what they don't know.  Dad was wise beyond his years.

Dad also once said, "If you can make a horse like you, the dumbest animal on the planet, you can make your neighbor like you."  He was a great horseman, owning several during his lifetime.  And his neighbors always liked him, too.

A man once tried to break into our house.  Dad told us to hide under the couch.  He retrieved his .38 pistol and confronted the man, who was armed, and the guy started spraying bullets throughout the house.  Dad was forced to shoot and kill him.  Blew him clean off the porch.  After the sheriff cleared him, he commented to us, "A little bit of that guy went a long, long way."

"When you come to the fork in the road, take it."  That was Dad's way of saying you have to make decisions in life, and those who are so afraid to made that choice when confronted with it are doomed to fail.

Dad was the best salesman I ever met.  He could sell ice cubes to Eskimos.  So I remember vividly his admonition regarding sales.  He said, "You got to tell 'em what you're gonna' tell 'em, then tell 'em, then tell 'em what you told 'em."  Dad said you never sell anyone anything.  You just give them enough information to make an intelligent buying choice.  You need to become an advisor.  And if you do that, they'll most likely choose to take your advice.  

"You do what you gotta' do to get to where you want to be."  Dad and I were talking one day and I was bitching about something that was expected of me.  He told me I didn't have to do it.  But if I didn't I'd get run over by the wheels of life.  He told me I had to swallow hard and submit to the beaurocracy sometimes in order to keep on the track to success.  

As to beaurocracy and the beaurocrats who inhabit it, he said:  "Most of 'dem boys couldn't find their asses with both hands and a flashlight.  They couldn't manage to get a trail of ants to find a bowl of Jello."  But the guy who learns how to work within the beaurocracy will be the guy who wins in the end.

"Everybody loves the police until you need 'em," he once said. He told me there were a lot of good cops.  But that there were a lot that aren't.  And you'd never know which is which until you see those flashing lights in your rearview mirror.  Best thing, he told me, is to keep to the law and not attract attention.  There were many times I wished I'd taken his advice.

And finally, for today at least, we were hunting one time.  The subject came up about guns and various calibers and which ones were the most powerful.*  He once told me:  "You can kill anything in North America with one good shot from a .22 rifle."    Of course, he said, "If you miss, there's a few of 'em that'll eat 'cha."  

I lost my Dad at the young age of 66.  He died of a massive Myocardial Infarct, resulting from the weak heart he'd suffered with all his life.  But he left an enduring impression on me.  One I live with every day.  I hope your Dad was as influential in your life as mine was on me.  Dads are important.  Dads and Moms are important.  I'll speak about my Mom at a later time.  But two parent households are essential to good child development.  And we don't have enough of them these days.

I'll repeat here something I once read that sums up dads and our relationships with them.  "When I was 8 I thought my Dad knew everything.  When I was 16 I thought I knew half as much as my old man.  When I was 21 I thought I knew just as much as my dad.  When I was 25 I thought I knew twice as much as my old man.  And when I was 40, I wished I knew half as much as my old man..."   

*   I was an apprentice gunsmith and ballistician from the age of 13.  So I knew more even than my Father did about calibers and ballistics.  But I learned that day that he knew more about life than I ever would.   

  

Ancient Egyptians Didn't Build the Pyramids.

As you know, I identify as a "paleonarcheogeologist," among many other things.  I've studied on the subject, so that's quite enough to lay claim.  Plus, those on the Left have taught us that identifying as something you're not is A-Okay.  So I am.  Plus, I also identify as a Black gay transgender female, identifying as a White strait smart ordinary guy.  So, Fellow Patriots, I hereby offer up some of the results of my research.  Here goes...

I think we were taught all wrong.

Those who taught us ancient history way back when said civilization started in Sumeria about 6,000 years ago.  Ancient Sumeria was credited with the beginnings of agriculture, medicine, law, politics and all sorts of other good stuff.  Prior to which we were taught we were a bunch of hunter-gatherers foraging for that night's dinner.  Roving bands trying to bring down mastodons so they could eat. 

But even though archeologists are now forced to admit that bipedal hominids, our homo sapien forebears, first appeared on the Earth not 50,000 years ago, which they've long preached, but now as much as 300,000 years ago.  Or perhaps even longer.  The "Kolomat Structure" was just unearted in Slovenia.  It's made of fossilized wood, and appears to be the floor of a dwelling.  Made by a group of somebodies, but not humans.  We're told.  It's been carbon dated at - ready for it? - 456,000 years ago.

That's earlier than we're taught homo sapiens first appeared on our Timeline.  And that Timeline is important, as you'll see.  

Those same archeologists, who've taught us 6,000 years ago was the beginnings, are now forced to admit they were dead wrong.  The Gobekli Tepe digs in Southeastern Turkey proves there was a full-blown, highly sophistocated society some 12,800 years ago.  

Gobekli Tepe is a collection of some 20 enormous stone temples covering 20 acres that were built, and then buried, for some reason, long, long ago.  A time that corresponds to generally accepted theories that a meteor or comet smashed into the Earth during the Younger Dryas Period.*  Killing 75% of all the mammals, including mastodons, mammoths, saber tooth tigers and ground sloths the size of Clydesdale horses.  Every bit as ruinous as the Chixolub meteor that hit the Yucatan some 66 million years ago, credited with killing off the dinosaurs.  And ending life as we know it on the planet.

I preface all of this in order to bring your attention to the pyramids of Egypt.  Those same archeologists tell us that these enormous monoliths were built some 4,500 years ago.  By pharoahs to serve as their tombs.  Even though not a single mummy has been found in any of Egypts' 127 pyramids.  Even though every burial tomb in Egypt is covered head to toe with hyroglyphs, not a single one appears in any of these pyramids.  

In fact, not a single hyroglyph exists anywhere depicting how they were supposed to have built the pyramids.  The ancient Egyptians were famous for writing down everything that happened to them, except how the pyramids were built.  Interesting.  

But we're supposed to believe the Egyptians built them.  Consider this.  The ancient Egyptians had no beasts of burden.  They had not yet discovered the wheel.  They had no cranes or machinery to move and place the 2,500,000 stone blocks, each weighing from 5 to 55 tons, in the Great Pyramid of Khufu.  Stacking them 481 feet high.  On a plateau only 3/4 of an inch off of perfectly flat.  The size of 23 tennis courts all perfectly level.  752 feet on a side, it is, 8 sides total.  But the slight indentation resulting in the "8th side" may only be seen from above.  Like from a flying object.  Built at an angle of a perfect 57 degrees to a side.  Covering some 17 acres and weighing more than 6 million tons.  

The mathmatical anomolies the Great Pyramid features is well known.  Even to the fact that the circumference of the Pyramid is exactly the same as the speed of light in meters, out to the 12th digit.  But how about this?

The Egyptians are supposed to have quarried and shaped each of the stone blocks and delivered them by boat on the River Nile from 500 miles away.  Except all they had was copper tools.  Bronze had yet to be smelted.  That was 500 years in the future.  And copper is only a "3" on the MOS Scale of Hardness.  Just a bit harder than gold and silver.  Yet sandstone, the material used in the pyramids, has a hardness of "6 - 7."  And so does granite.  Except that red granite, the material that the King's Chamber, is made of, is 80% quartz.  It has a MOS-rating of "8."  So these stones could not have been shaped using copper.  They could have banged on them all day using a copper chisel without making a dent.  This effectively proves the ancient Egyptians didn't build the pyramids.  

And oh yeah, we're told by the archeologists the Great Pyramid was built in 4,508 in only 10 - 20 years.  Were that the case the 2,500,000 stone blocks in the Great Pyramid would have to have been emplaced at the rate of 2 every 5 minutes, around the clock.  Even stacking them hundreds of feet in the air.  Somehow.  Including the 70-ton red granite blocks making up the Kings Chamber.  Lifted somehow 300 feet up in the pyramid.  And perfectly placed.  If one uses a more reasonable estimate of one block every placed every half hour, the Pyramid would have taken more than 680 years to build...

My opinion is that a civilization existed prior to dynasties first appearing in Egypt some 5,000 years ago.  That's when the first pharoah showed up.  Even though the Egyptians claimed they had a 30,000 year history prior to that, our archeologists call that a "myth."  Inconvenient according to their "circle the wagons" mentality.  Timeline.  

Think about this:  If they don't look for it, they almost certainly won't find it.  And archeology seems to have stopped looking.  Then when something pops us that threatens their self-selected Timeline, they scoff.  "Myth."

A civilization that was wiped out by the flood caused by the melting of the glaciers they call "Meltwater Pulse 1A."   That occurred when that meteor or comet struck.  Raising the level of the oceans and seas more than 400 feet.  In hours.  Wiping out 22 cities in the Mediterranean's periphery in the process, as an example.  And now that we know our forebears' society had hundreds of thousands of years to be both eradicted and reborn as a new one, perhaps several times, I suggest the ancient Egyptians found their pyramids.  And then adopted and refurbished them.  Laying claim to have built them in the process.  Like they did the Sphinx.  Those sneaky old pharoahs were famous for doing that.  Erasing their predecessors from the hyroglyphs in their temples and replacing them with their own.

Boston College geologist Robert Shock tells us the Sphinx is about 12,800 years old.  He's deterimed this by the statue's patterns of erosion, caused, he says, by thousands of years of rain.  Back when North Africa was verdent.  All green and leafy.  And rainy.    

Just like the ancient Aztecs did when they found the gigantic pyramids in the Valley of the Sun just north of Mexico City back in the 1,500's.  They admitted to have done so.  The big one, called the Pyramid of the Sun, has a larger footprint than the Pyramid of Khufu.  Just like the Druids found Stonehenge in England.  5,000 years ago.    

There are more pyramids in Central America than there are in Egypt.  There are pyramids on every continent, possibly including Antartica.  Ask yourself:  what would cause all those supposedly hunter-gatherers all around the world to lay down their spears and start building gigantic stone pyramids and monolithic edifices several thousand years ago?  Were they all smoking something?  Or were they all under the tutelage of either visitors from afar, or a super-sophistocated society demanding that monuments be created to withstand the rigors of the millennia.  All featuring the same building techniques.  Perhaps to force us to realize We Are Not Alone?  And then disappearing, leaving those edifices for us to find.  And wrack our brains trying to figure out how and why they did it.  Like I am today.  Either enlightening or boring you to tears in the process.    

Maybe waaaay afar?  

*  "Younger Dryas" refers to a flower that blooms in the snow.  The snow that melted some 12,800 years ago.  The "Great Flood?"  Maybe.  

Crowds-On-Demand

That protest you're watching on TV right now may not be quite so "organic."

Whether you know it or not all those protests and marches you're watching, are filled, often to the brim, with paid actors and activists.

There exists a company called "Crowds-On-Demand" that will rent you bodies to protest whatever you want protested.  They pay their unemployed actors from $25.00 - $30.00 an hour, often with a several hundred $dollar minimum.  They'll rent you anywhere from a few raucous, loud, screaming bodies all the way up to several thousand.  Waving professionally-made signs at whomever will pay attention.  

And you're not suposed to notice.

Those orders for protesters come from the usual suspects.  The ACLU.  Move-On.org.  The Daily Beast.  A reclusive Chinese billionaire who doesn't like America's freedom.  The Tides Foundation and the Oceans Foundation, both Soros organizations.  All Marxist, solialist, communist outfits who're dedicated to turning America into Cuba.

You remember Soros, right?  He's the London School of Economics-educated Jew who was rumoured to have collaborated with the Nazis to turn in fellow Jews back in the 1940's.  As one of the first hedge funders he single-handedly tried to bankrupt the British Pound.  He was tried and convicted and jailed.  He was later freed with the understanding he'd never return to Europe.  So he set up camp just off the Highway 52 Exit on the Long Island Expressway.  And he's there spending his billions to elect Left-wing D.A's in Big Blue Cities to this day in order to free criminals on no-cash bail.  And he's done a good job at it as proven by our alarming crime statistics.  

Crowds-On-Demand, an L.A.-based company, admits to renting crowds for the "No Kings Rally" last year.  And for anti-Trump rallies.  And for all the anti-ICE protests unfolding nationwide.  And it's all performance art.  Just a block or two either way from the cameras view life unfolds quite normally.  Only play acting for the cameras to sway your opinion is their goal.

Crowds-On-Demand isn't the only protest renting company.  Just the biggest.  And they say the best.  Simply stated, if you're swayed by their performances, then they've accomplished their goal.  To undermine America's Rights and Freedoms.  To try and elevate Defund the Police to Defund our Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  An outfit that exists to hunt down and deport our worst of the worst.  They want to help their benefactors keep all the illegal aliens and turn them into voters.  

If you want illegal alien felons to stay in your neighborhood, get behind these companies' efforts.  If not, just understand they're paid to do what they're doing.  By the very worst among us.  Using capitalism against us.  Those who've benefited by America's freedoms and are now trying to remove them.  Those you watched bleat out scurilous platitudes on the Emmy's the other night.  Those with the money to try and destabilize America.  And are working overtime to do it.

I'm not swayed.  I hope you aren't either...

      

"Reefer Madness"

I grew up in a small town in Missouri.

It was under 10,000 in population.  Just under.  It was 9,800, I believe.  And try as it might, it couldn't crack that magic 10,000 number.

It was so small when I was coming up we didn't know there was such a thing as Maryjowanna.  All we knew is that a quart of Falstaff beer cost a $dollar.  And since I looked older than my years, I could buy it from the package store all day and all night.  Making me reeeely popular with my buds.  It got us where we wanted to go, so nobody complained that we didn't have that chemical high.  

We learned about pot from Playboy.  It educated us that weed was smoked by Black guys in underground hippie joints where folks mumbled unintelligable poetry and banged on bongos.  Since we didn't have hippie joints or bongos, we remained pretty much in the dark.

In fact, we were so "in the dark" that we had to learn there were folks who proclaimed themselves to be "bisexual."  From Playboy, once again.  In fact, one of my besties commented to me one day, "Chuck, if I get any sex at all, I think I'm gonna' have to buy it."  Yeah, that uninformed.

But I do remember the Gubmint making an anti-pot  movie and forcing our teachers to play it for us in school.  It was called "Reefer Madness."  It was a morality play proclaiming that smoking weed would turn you into a zombie.  And a criminal.  But it didn't work.  Folks liked to smoke dope, and they'd continue smoking it, even though they might get arrested.  

This continued all through the '60's and '70's and '80's and '90's.  But ever so slowly public opinion began to change.  Folks began to realize that smoking a joint every now and again wouldn't turn you into a serial killer.  And with that change in public opinion, the Gubmint began to turn down the heat.  In fact, some of our more liberal states started to think about how much they could make by legalizing it.  And therein lay the basis for this little blog entry.

Since the Big Blue States started legalizing pot in 2014 they've "earned" more than $30,000,000,000 (with a "B") in exize tax revenue.  That means over and above normal sales taxes.  Taxifornia, as an example, pulled in more than $576 Million Dollars in pot sales and exize tax revenue just last year.  Washington State realized $398 Million.  New York, Illinois and Oregon pulled in more than $200 Million Dollars each.  In just one year.  

My oh my, how getting rich off pot can change the opinions of those in a position to put us in jail.  

But the Federal Gubmint still hasn't decided to play along.  It's still illegal to buy or use or possess pot as far as the Feds are concerned.  So even though you can visit thousands of pot shops across the fruited plain, don't get caught by the Feds.  Don't try to bring it into 'Murica, or take it out, or try and board a public conveyance with a joint in your pocket.  You'll get arrested and spend some time in the hoosegow.

And don't try and deposit your sales receipts it into any bank that's a part of the Federal Reserve system.  Which is nearly every single bank.  They won't take it.  So where does the owner of a pot shop deposit the average $10,000 a day revenue they earn from pot sales?  Good question.  They sit on oodles of cash, and the Bad Guys know that.  They get followed home at night and robbed and pillaged and plundered.  And the Feds don't care.  

Some of the pot shops have banded together and started their own banks to handle the huge revenue they're earning.  Funding their own trucks to pick up the cash like Brinks won't.  This has helped minimize the crimes of opportunity they've been facing up to now.

It's thought that Prez Trump just might loosen the screws on Federal laws banning pot sales and usage.  The more Conservative among us are perplexed about this.  The more Liberal are begging him to do so.  And the Independents are on the side of the Liberals.  It just might win him some of those votes that have gone the other way.

You might have noticed there have been no crazed pot-addled wierdos raging through our neighborhoods now that pot is mainstream.  The pushback has stopped as pot sales and usage has become more normalized.  The public has learned that "Reefer Madness" was a lie.  And that pot smokers are usually curled up on the couch watching a Netflix movie.  

Like our Gubmint has been lying about UFO's since Roswell, their lies about weed have come back to bite them in the arse.  But all the while they're earning Major Bank from every single sale.

Taxifornia charges 31% on every pot sale.  It helps BoyGov ("Hairgod") Newsom try and make his "Train to Nowhere" a reality.  Finally.  After 12 years and $97 Billion dollars, without a single mile of track laid, it's about time...

Your Car is UgLEEE!

I'd guess your significant other is fairly good looking.

Maybe pretty even, or handsome, as the case may be.  That's likely why you chose to marry them, am I right?

So considering that marriages that end in divorce last an average of 7 years, and new car loans are made for an average of 7 years, with monthly payments averaging $755.00 a month, why did you choose to buy an ugly vehicle?

Think of it this way:  Divorces can cost up to $30,000 or even more.  And new cars cost on average $50,340.  And that $50,000 car will lose half it's value before your loan is paid off.  Making you lose about $30,000.  So the spouse you divorce will still be pretty, but why on Earth would you buy a vehicle that's as ugly as sin?

Did you know that 59.2% of all new vehicles are so-called SUV's.*  And if you add in pickup trucks, which are what SUV's are made on, it's up to 80.4%.  That's 4 out of 5 new buggies that are nothing more than 6,000 pound rolling behemoths.  And from 50 feet away, I'd defy you to tell me who made them.  

Or why...

And don't think I'm leaving 4-door sedans out of the mix.  From that same 50 feet of distance, there's no telling which manufacturer screwed them together.  They all look alike, and that's not a compliment.  Yet they all represent the second largest purchase you'll likely ever make.  

Do you buy an ugly house?  No.  So why buy an ugly car or truck?

Back in my day (I know, there's that 'way back when' thing), cars were beautiful.  They had to be or folks wouldn't buy them.  The designers penned them and the engineers were required to stuff all the bits and pieces into their designs.  Cars like the '57 Chrysler 300C, and the '57 Ford Thunderbird, and the '58 Studebaker Golden Hawk, and the '58 Plymouth Sport Fury (Christine), and the '65 Buick Riviera, and the '58 Chevy Chevelle, and the '60 Ford Starliner, and the '61 Chevy Impala "Bubble top," and the '62 Chevrolet Corvette.  

There are many, many more that I could list here, but suffice it to say they're all selling for 20 or more times their original sticker price on the auction circuit as this bit of fluff is written.

Notice nobody's rehabbing old Teslas.

And to top it all off, each of these '50's and '60's manufacturers had to bring out a brand new car every September.  An all-new model, with an all-new design.  Google the '58 Chevy Impala and then the '59 Chevy Impala.  No two cars could look more different one from the other.  And they both sold in the hundreds of thousands.  Today?  The engineers are in charge.  They tell the design team what to build, and then they do a "refresh" every five years or so.  Just to keep them from updating their resumes and moving on to greener pastures.

My suggestion?  Buy a completely reconditioned '68 - '70 Chevrolet Chevelle for $30,000 or so.  Everyone will drool over your ride, you won't have any trouble at all getting a date, banks will fall all over themselves to grant you the loan, and they're as simple as a rubber.  And if it breaks down, there are more than 120 different companies making replacement parts for those cars.  Plus, you won't lose 50% of their value through depreciation when you drive it off the dealer's showroom floor.  In fact, it will go up in value.  Like Faberge Eggs, they aren't making them any more...

*   Stands for "Sport Utility Vehicle."  Pickup trucks way back when were cheap as dirt.  So to fatten up manufacturer's profits, they started putting van bodies on the back of pickups.  And giving them quasi-sexy names, like SUV's.  And filling them full of options.  And then packing the window sticker with prices upwards of $100,000.  Having owned 127 cars, including most of those listed above, I feel qualified to offer an opinion:  People who buy Chevy Suburbans for $100k need a cranial exam...   

It's Time to Decontigu-ize.

The idea that America is United does not depend upon us being contiguous.

We're not contiguous right now, as Hawaii and Alaska are not physically connected to the other 48 states.

But the idea that our Country should all be physically connected goes all the way back to President James K. Polk in 1845.  He decided that We had a mandate from God to expand all the way to the Pacific Ocean.  That mandate was called "Manifest Destiny."  And we ran over dozens of Indian tribes* and a bunch of Mexicans in our headlong quest to honor that belief.

We then displaced the Queen of Hawaii and welcomed into our bosom while our gunboats were in their harbor.  And then bought Alaska from Russia for the princely sum of $7.2 Million Dollars.  Or, roughly $0.02 cents per acre.  

But through our ensuing near 250 years it appears that some of our citizenry has decided that Conservatism is not their cup of tea.  They've adopted Liberalism, or even Progressivism, as their clarion call.  They've decided that they won't accede to all the principles written down in our Constitution.  They've decided to "pick and choose" which of our Amendments to follow and which to ignore.  Thus proclaiming themselves to be rabid anarchists.  

To put it more succinctly, 256 of our villages, hamlets, townships, counties and states have decided to proclaim themselves "sanctuaries" for illegal aliens.  Meaning that those who are here illegally, lawbreakers all, are welcome to travel there, live there, work there and even vote there.  In direct violation of America's laws. 

More broadly, those states are located to the left of the Rocky Mountains (Taxifornia, Oregon and Washington), in the top dead center of our map (Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota), and our original 13 colonies (you know them). 

Presidents before Trump have chosen to simply ignore their lawbreaking.  To simply continue shipping them our tax money so they can spread it among their illegals (they call them "undocumented workers").  To the extent that they even award them with work permits and drivers licenses.  Even to drive 80,000 pound semis without knowing how to read or speak our language.  And to kill many of our motorists as a result.  And now Minnesota has been proven to allow some 100,000 Somalians to raid our Treasury to the tune of more than $9 Billion Dollars.  With a "B."

That would be bad enough, but Joe Biden permitted more than 12 (some say 20) million illegals to pour over our border during his 4 years of chaos.  And Trump is trying to rid America of the felons among them.  And there are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of felons among them.  If those sanctuary cities would turn over those felons to our ICE officers when they've captured them, just hand them over from their jails when ICE submits a detainer, like 27 of our States do, the problem would be minimized.  But they won't.  They let them out the back door while our ICE officers are out front.  Awaiting their detainer to be honored.  Clearly illegal.  But so is being a sanctuary.

So ICE has to scour their communities looking for those felons.  Meaning that other illegals they find may also be arrested in the process.  Risking the health and welfare of those officers.

The City of Minneapolis has decided not to accede to our ICE officers.  Minnesota's Governor, "Tampon Tim" Walz and Minneapolis' Mayor Jacon Frey, are actively fomenting chaos by setting their residents upon our ICE offciers.  Resulting in riots and vehicle ramming and even gunfire.  They apparently don't know about Article 2 in our Constitution, the "Supremacy Clause," giving the Federal Government the right to do what it's doing.  They prefer to relive 2020's George Floyd riots when the City was nearly burned to the ground.  A situation Donald Trump has stated might call for instituting the Insurrection Clause.  Enabling him to bypass "Posse Comitatus" and order in the Military.

All this could result in another Civil War.  But I prefer a simpler idea.  Let's give up on the idea of a contiguous United States and offload some of our dumber states to Canada.  Which has its own problems similar to our own.  Their Provinces on the extreme right of their map, principally Ottawa and Quebec, and British Columbia on the far left, are hard left in their ideology.  With more conservative Provinces located in the middle.  

So I'd suggest we trade Canada our CA, OR and WA, plus IL, WI and MN, and those original 13 Colonies, for Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba, all would be well.  There would be no more riots and vehicle ramming and paid protestors.  There would be no more ignoring ICE detainers for hardened felons.  There would be no more sanctuary cities, counties and states.  There would be no more problems of any kind.

What do you think of my idea?  Hit me with your ideas and let's start a movement.  Let's get our elected leaders to do something positive for a change.  And be sure to have a nice day... 

*  We now call them "Indigenous Personages."  Because they were here before our boy Christobal Columbo "found" America.  BTW, it wasn't lost.  The Vikings "found" it 1,000 years ago.  In fact, America is named for Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian hot shot whose ideas permeated the thinking of our Founding Fathers at the time.  

Just WHO do They Work For?

According to a Harvard Business Review article a few years back, one out of two new restaurants go bankrupt within the first year of operation.

And four out of five of them go upside down by the end of the fifth year.

And nineteen out of twenty go tits up by the tenth year.*

So why, I would ask, would anyone with even a modicum of horse sense decide to risk all the time, effort, energy and money necessary to open and run a restaurant, if they knew the odds were so stacked against them?

Because everyone wants to own a restaurant, apparently.  And many put their cash on the line to do so.  Historically, the "30-30-30" rule has been operative.  That rule states that restaurants should cough up about 30% of their operating expenses on food and related products.  And 30% on labor and related costs.  And another 30% will be spent on rent, insurance, phone and other overhead.  The last 10% has historically been expected as before tax profits.  Meaning a restauranteur should expect to pocket about 5% net as his operating profit.  

Rigggggttt!

No longer.  The cost of meat has skyrocketed of late, up some 36%.  Resulting in the cost of a steak on the plate costing the diner $60.00 or more.  Often mucho more.  

And labor has jumped up to as much as 38% - 40% of operating expenses, especially in Blue States like Taxifornia, Massachusetts, New York and Illinois.  There's a little town outside of Portland which just adopted a Minimum Wage of $21.16 per hour.  Our Federal MinWage is still $7.50, BTW.

All of this puts extreme pressure on the guy running your local restaurant to try and make ends meet any way he/she/it can.  And one of those ways is to try and shift the cost of labor from him/her/it off to the diner.  By adopting new charges and tipping policies.

Let's take a trip back in time and look at tipping and how it came to be.  The "tip" starting in Merry Olde England back in the 1750's.  If a guy felt his serving wench brought him his cup of mead in a timely fashion, he would toss her a tuppence.  For tipping means "To Insure Promptness."

Now?  A fat tip is now expected.  Nay, DEMANDED!  And the restauranteur has endorsed this expectation.  From 15%, which used to be the tippy top tip, to 25%, 30%, or even more.  The owner pays his wait staff a piddling hourly rate, and then convinces his staff that the diner will cover the rest.  So much has this become expected that the waiter and waitress gets pissed if the diner chooses to tip less than the now expected 20% or more.  And this often results in mediocre service based on that expectation.  There's even a case on the books of a waitress calling the cops in NYC for a diner having chosen not to tip at all.  

Really.

And then the owner is now slapping a charge on the bill of 20% or more so to cover his costs of labor.  Stating it will be spread among the staff to cover "a living wage."  As if that your obligation.  And then stating it's in addition to the tip, which you're expected to pay.

The MickeyD's and Burger Kings and Wendy's will still sell their burgers.  Some will continue to pay $15.00 for a BigMac, even though that number is declining.  

The high-end restaurants will still sell their meals for $100.00 a plate to those celebrating birthdays and wedding anniversaries.  

It's the mid-range restaurants which will suffer.  The Chili's and the Applebees and the Chipotles which used to be affordable, and are no longer.

I predict that the 95% failure rate will increase over the coming months.  The owners will rob peter to pay paul until peter squeals like a stuck hog.  That 5% net profit expectation will evaporate, leaving the owner to head out the back door, throw his keys over his shoulder and head on home.  Wishing he'd never acceded to that universal wish of restaurant ownership. 

Better either head on out to your favorite watering hole soon to get that overpriced steak you love so much as it may soon be unavailable.  The only guy who may win in this situation is the bankruptcy attorney.  But they always win, now don't they?

What a shame.  This has truly become a recipe for disaster...

*  I ran an NCO/EM club while serving in the Army way back when.  It was a converted B-29 hanger, seating 450 hungry, thirsty soldiers.  We had a kitchen and wait staff of 60 on weekend nights.  With a revolving stage, with one band playing off as another played on.  So I have a bit of experience in this whole restaurant managing bizz.  Enough to analyze our current situation and put forth my opinion as to how it's likely to end up.  And it's not good, Fellow Patriot.  Not good at all...