The Last Time I Played Pool for Money...

As many of you may know, I was a professional pool player in my yout (what's a yout?).

Actually, I should say I played pool professionally.  There were no real "professional pool players" back then.  Just hustlers who made their living convincing others they weren't very good with a pool cue.  But I was never a hustler.  I'd simply walk into a pool room and place my cue case on the nearest table.  While all the pool room toads were intently focused, I'd take out my cue, hold it high in the air and announce, firmly, "I'm the best you've ever seen.  And if you don't believe me, bring me the best you've ever seen, and let's play..."

At which point I'd begin to drill balls into the pockets, and wait; wait for a hustler to appear magically out of the wallpaper a few minutes later.  And we'd play pool for money.  Sometimes lots of it.  And sometimes all night.  And this is one such a story...

                    +++++ ////  \\\\ +++++

I discovered at the age of 13 that when I picked up a pool cue people automatically gave me money.  Bushels of it.  Oh, I had to work like a rented mule for years to acquire that talent, but I was the best I'd ever seen by the age of 16.  And on the road by 17, "Touring" dirty dive bars (my favorite kind!) and seedy pool rooms all over the upper Midwest.  Would-be pool hustlers all across Kansas and Missouri and Iowa and Arkansas and Illinois learned not to answer the siren call when The Chuckmeister came to town...  

I keep getting asked, "What did your parents have to say about all of this?"  My answer: my Dad was the 1927 and '28 Missouri State pool champion, and so he understood that the DNA doesn't fall too far from the tree.  He convinced Mom to just let me be, as he was pretty sure I'd land on my feet.  Just as he'd done.  

And I did.  In spades (can I still say that?).  After a few scary years.  I was making money hand over fist.  I made $65,000 in 1963, as I recall, when the average postal worker was knocking down about $5,200 a year. 

A brand-new car cost $2,500.  Think about that.

You might therefore understand why I had great difficulty paying close attention to my college professors, who were making barely a third of what "The Chuckmeister" was knocking down.  My professional nom de plume.  That means moniker.  

And thus, the name of this unassuming little blog many years later.  Ahem...

Anyway, I played professionally for more than 10 years.  I even played in some tournaments, just for yucks.  I won the Ohio State Snooker Championship in 1961, for example, with a prize of a yuuuge trophy, a new Balabuska pool cue, and the chance to play 17-time World Pool Champion Willie Mosconi on television at the Grand Opening of the Olympic Lanes in St. Joseph, MO. 

What a trip!  I was a 17 year-old kid, sitting at the seat of my Pool God!  Given the chance to match wits with the absolute pinnacle of our sport!  Well before I was worthy.  I actually broke out in hives!  This was a enormous deal! 

Oh yeah, he won, if you have to ask.  But not by much.  We were playing 14.1 Call Shot.  I opened with a run of 16, then played a fairly good leave.  It wasn't fairly good.  He ran out to 125.  I mean, HELLO!  I was 17 years old and he was 67!  Unfair, much?

Anyway, I subsisted by living at college dorms, hiding from the draft to maintain my 2-S Deferment, buying new cars every six months, drag racing on a professional schedule to keep me from getting bored, playing poker in my spare time, chasing only the very prettiest girls, and doing whatever the Hell else I wanted, whenever I wanted.  Except attending classes, and studying.  Basically, I didn't attend college, I lived at college.  I mean, a guy has to have standards!  

And lemme' say again, I was 17!  I thought my feces had no odor!    

So you can understand I grew accustomed to being incorrigible.  And getting my way.  And winning gobs of money from room temperature I.Q.-types.  I told them to consider it tuition.  To the College of the Chuckmeister.  I don't think they appreciated my advice.  Or even understood it.

Anyway, to the-then present:  I parked my near-new black, 1965 442 Oldsmobile in front of the 12th Street Pool Hall on a Spring evening, just as the sun was setting.  My traveling companion "Little Dickie" Robertson (Hi Dickie, if you're out there!) and I went through the revolving doors and into the dim light of the aging pool room.

Revolving doors, I learned, because it had at one time been a hotel.     

And this was a glorious place.  It held about 14 pool and billiard and snooker tables, lined up one after the other, all the way back to end of the room.  So dark, and so smoky, one could hardly see the back end.  But we knew it was there.  You could hear it!  

As per usual, Dickie and I followed the noise.  It led to a 9-ball game.  One we quickly entered.  And one in which the stakes quickly escalated.  And the time passed.  And the players dropped off.  So that by about 11:00, there were only 3 of us left; Dickie and I, and one other miscreant.  Our mark.  Er, rather, opponent.

The normal way we played 9-ball back then was to put the money $stakes on top of the pool table light.  Then, after each game, the winner retrieves the stakes and the loser replaces them.  And the game goes on.  

So Dickie, on que, drops out.  And the "mark" and I continue on.  As I slowly "oooch" up the stakes.  By talking the mark into higher and higher bets.  I do so, I'm almost sorry to say, by belittling his talent, and sometimes his parentage.  And once the bets got to $100 a game, which was yuuuuuuge back then, and I was $2,800 ahead, I knew things were going to get "sporty."  

I started making "leaving" noises.  My yawning and stretching and shuffling my feet was supposed to let the mark know I was on my way out.  But the "mark" was having none of it.  When I finally said, "I'm going,"  the "mark" said, "Look around you.  Those guys all work for me.  And they'll rip your ass apart  unless you either give me back my money, or let me win it.  Your choice..."   

I'd broken the First Rule of hustling.  "Keep note of your surroundings."  And while I'd been concentrating on winning, about a dozen guys with motorcycle jackets had begun surrounding me.  You know, the kind with about 100 zippers on them.  Each.  And they all looked like a pack of wolves, just waiting for the chance to pounce.

Rule Number Two is, "Discretion is the Better Part of Valor."  That means, a strategic withdrawal is often wise.  As in, running like a bandit is a-okay.  Quite within bounds.  In fact, Rule Number Three is, "Running is great cardio.  Especially if it's away from a would-be assailant." 

So, I gave the raised eyebrow to Dickie and started making losing noises.  As in, I was going to start to lose to this sucker as he'd commanded.  But remember, I said this was an ex-hotel.  With a revolving door.  So, pocket full of cash, I gave the signal and we bolted.  I made it through the door first, then Dickie, who put his foot out to stop it from revolving further.  This caused about 12 guys to mash into a space normally occupied by about 8.

I ran to my car, opened it, reached under the front seat and pulled out my Model 29 Smith & Wesson .44 mag revolver.  The Big Boy.  The Dirty Harry gun.  The one if you ran out of ammo you could use it to beat them to death.  

I had several pistols sprinkled throughout the car, including a .359 S&W Highway Patrolman in the glovebox, but this one was closer.  And bigger.  Bit it was all about close.

I reached through and unlocked Dickie's door and rolled down the window.  I yelled for Dickie to come, and fast!  He gave up his blocking position at the door, ran to my car and dived through the window.  All at once there was a clot of humanity coming our way, dead-set on making us dead.  I laid my revolver over the roof of my 442, cocked it, and pointed it center mass at the lead "zipper."  And just as loud as I could, I shouted, "Take another step and I'll open you up like a can of tuna."  

Now, I don't know where exactly that came from, but at my threat, the cretins skidded to a halt.  It was a Mexican standoff, and all we had to do was find out which of us were the Mexicans.  

I couldn't tell you how long it took.  I remember thinking that even though I only had six shots in my revolver, being a .44 Magnum, I could could on each bullet taking out two, or even three guys.  I was actually calculating where to point to get the highest body count.  

It seemed like an hour before the Lead Cretin, the guy with the most zippers on his jacket, said, "Okay then, you son of a bitch!  But if you ever come back here, we'll kill you!"  I thought to myself, don't worry, I won't.  I seldom if ever revisit the scene of any of my crimes...

That's Rule Number Four...

And at that, they slowly melted back into the pool room, mumbling loudly under their breath as they went.  The Lead Cretin frequently looking back over his shoulder to try and intimidate me...as he did the walk of shame.

Dickie and I fired up the car and left a longgg strip of rubber as I put some miles between me and the pool room.  We said not a thing.  I doubt we could speak.  I don't know about Dickie, but I was shaking like a dog sh*tting razor blades.  I kept saying over and over again under my breath, "never again."

And then, when I found a friendly street lamp, I pulled over and parked.  I then opened the door, leaned out and projectile vomited.  For minutes.  Until there was nothing left to vomit.  Until it turned to bile.  Green bile.  Because I was was so fu**ing scared!  No, not afraid that I'd get killed.  No, afraid that I came ever so close to blowing that fu***r away and spending the rest of my life in prison!  

I had the hammer cocked.  I had my finger on the trigger.  I was more than capable of doing it.  I'd pulled down on a few others before, and knew if the cheese got binding I was ready.  And I was only his muscle twitch away from my life undergoing a major change.  His life, a big change for sure.  It would have been over.  But I'd be the guy the spending 23 hours a day in a 8' by 12' cell...

He could have zigged instead of zagged.  He could have blinked.  He could have have breathed wrong.  He could have just given me a dirty look!  But he didn't.  And he lived.  And so did I.  Barely.  Barely!  And so, that's the last time I played pool for money! Or had the slightest inclination to do so.  

I got "scared straight" that evening.  Oh, I've since trained others how to play, but I never again put my own money down on a game.  I found other pursuits in which to invest my time and attention.  I put the cue down after more than 12 years.  It was a demon that controlled my life for so very long.  I was addicted as if to an opiate.  Imagine, winning every time you play and rolling cash.  But for how long?  I barely escaped that life.  And earned a new one.  One with a wife and kids and a career and a life.   

But that's a story you already know...   

A Machiavellian Conspiracy?

Is it just me, or should we be concerned about the long-term consequences of O'Biden's recent legislative actions?  

Follow the bouncing ball:

Those in power have been hipppmotizzzed by the highly educated idiots amongst us to believe that "Global Warming," or "Climate Crisis," or "Climate Change," or whatever they've poll tested to call it now, will be the death of us all.  Unless we radically change our habits and go back to the horse and buggy.  I say "we" in the imperial sense, like the Queen (God rest her soul) used to wave her little gloved hand as she glided past the assembled masses in her gilded cage.  

But what I mean to say, is "you."  

The folks who ride around in limos and take private jets want you to stop using an SUV to get from place to place.  That's waaaaay too much freedom for them!  For you, I mean.  Too much freedom to ride around all willy nilly.  All hither and yon.  Go just anywhere you want, freedom?  What's up with that?  I mean, shouldn't you have to ask someone?  

They want you to use public transportation.  Or, preferably, ride a horse.  And be sure to clean up after...

Or, walk.  Mucho better.  Just walk...

It's John Kerry on steroids.  His fingerprints are all over this.  All of this sturm and drang we're now suffering through is part of a demonic plot by John Kerry and his cronies to keep all of "them" living in high style while "we," the Great Unwashed, the Proletariat, the Peons, the people who are breathing "his" air, start riding the bus.  And the train.  Standing up.  Holding onto a strap.  Whether we want to or not.

And we don't want to.  As in, F*ck You, Johnnie!

You knew he shot himself in the leg to get out of the Viet Nam war, didn't you?  The cowardly pr*ck.

So, a group of these overeducated, two-dimensional socialists get together in the Faculty Lounge at Yale and come up with this;  

     1.  They elect a guy (Joe O'Biden) who's dedicated to ending oil and gas drilling and leasing and usage.  Because they think oil is all "dirty" and should be outlawed.  Because they're scared the Earth will come to a fiery end in 8 or 10 or 12 years, and they want you to suffer for it.  'Cause it's your fault.  For driving an SUV and not raising your thermostat during the heat wave!  It's you, you Troglodyte!

     2.  This guy then stops all drilling and leasing; cuts off the Keystone-XL Pipeline, eliminating a future 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day into America, when we're currently only 400,000 barrels a day short; ends almost all offshore oil and gas leasing; stops all oil and gas exploration in the ANWR in Alaska; then greenlights the Nord Stream Two Pipeline to kiss Putin's ass and expedite Europe's Winter of Discontent.  Who does this bozo work for again?  

They'll be rioting in the streets over this come January.  Mark my words...  

     3.  His Party then passes legislation without a single Republican vote to give $7,500 of taxpayer's money to buyers of electric buggies.  Which cost, as of today, an average of $67,454.00.  Almost exactly twice as much as the average gas-powered car.  Car manufacturers love them because they're so profitable (20% of the parts, 20% of the time, and 20% of the labor to manufacture).  Except their 2,000 lb. batteries require "rare earths" to make, and those rare earths come from...China. 

That's ONE TON of batteries! 

     4.  Since half of America cannot afford a grossed-up electric golf cart like Joe and his Sycophants demand you drive, tax credit or not, they'll be forced out of their gas-powered cars sooner or later.  Most likely sooner.  Which means they'll be riding busses and taking the train, and even walking, whether it's safe or not, and whether they want to or not.  Which will entirely remake our relationship with our employers nationwide (Can't get to work?  You need a different job!). 

Those condescending, unappreciative elitists!

     5.  Automatically, almost over night, half of America will be forced onto public transportation.  Which is not ready for that increased ridership.  Within 12 years.  That's an eyeblink, historically speaking.  And some of that "half," like in California, which was built around gas-powered cars, will not be able to conform.  Lost Angeles is not Chicago!  L. A. is 75 miles wide and 125 miles long!  And neither is Salina, KS, or Rifle, CO, or Albuquerque, NM, or Centralia, IL.  Or Butte, Monfriggintana!  You could be miles from a bus or a train station, even before you try to board it!  And then maybe get knifed in the process!

     6.  No problem.  Can't get to work?  Just go on welfare.  Like your cousins in Chicago.  And Baltimore.  And in Philadelphia.  They've been living that "company town" lifestyle for generations.  You're easier to control that way.  And the new laws, plus their 87,000 new - and armed - IRS agents, will go about the business of extracting enough money from those evil rich people (employers) to pay for it.  Welcome aboard!  

You like that thinking?  That level of "Progressive" planning?  The way they intend to grab ahold' of your miserable little life?  And then never, ever let go?  And then most likely blame the "Ultra Super Fantasmagorical MAGA Republicans."  Well, lemme' tell you something they may have forgot to remember.  Our half of America is armed!  Heavily!  455,000,000 firearms!  And if pressed, presumably willing to use them! 

I will be subsequently writing about how Nature Abhors a Vacuum.  In this case, post "defund the police," I predict that vacuum will be filled by militias...   

What was it that guy said?  Oh yeah, "The Best Laid Plans... 

Education in the Dark Ages...

Waaay back when I was a kid, back in Medieval Times, there was a fork in the road when you got out of high school: you went to college if you were smart, and if you weren't, you didn't.

And if you didn't, you were thereafter confined to a morass of mediocrity.  

There was no choice.  No other options.  Except the military, of course.  Or the family farm.  Or perhaps the ministry.  But for all other occupations, you went to college if you were too smart to "work for a living," or so they thought. To shoe horses, or fix cars, or install HVAC systems, for instance.  The "underclass."  The "less well educated."  The forever condemned, is what they meant.  People looked down their noses at these folks.  The folks that made possible their standard of living.  The folks who brought gas to their cars.  Who brought food to their tables.

The folks that were earning a full-time, $Big Bucks paycheck while the others were learning all about Medieval Lesbian Poetry.  On a Gubmint student loan.  Which qualifies them for...nothing.  A loan that can never be discharged as a debt, even if they die.  Lemme' say again:  You cannot bankrupt yourself out of student loan debt!  

Now do you wonder why banks are crawling all over themselves to make these loans?

I think I went to college more out of fear for what might happen to me if I didn't.  In fact, I had recurring nightmares for months, even after I was out of college, that I had overslept and missed my finals.  I hadn't, of course, but even having nightmares over such a thing for so long should give you an idea how important it was back then to have a degree.  

In short, there were two kinds of people:  Those who'd graduated college, and those who hadn't.

And your "major" mattered not.  I had a double-major, for instance; Psychology and Economics.  Aren't I smart?  I planned to teach, hopefully at my home town high school, until I learned how much the job paid.  Bupkis.  With this degree I'd be qualified to ask, "Would you like fries with that?"  

Back then?  I was welcomed with open arms by a recruiter who just happened to be in the search firm I'd chosen that day.  As it happened there was a guy there from Pfizer Phamaceuticals looking for a newly-minted graduate just like me.  Or any warm body that looked semi-presentable, could fog a mirror and put a few words together.  And after a short interview, I was hired as Pfizer's newest "Pharmaceutical Manufacturer's Representative."  Not a single question was asked about my education.  Only, "When can you start?"

All of this happened while the ink was still drying on my diploma.  I could have left my car idling by the curb...

From that inauspicious beginning of trying to convince doctors in the plains of Kansas that my stuff was better than the other guy's stuff, I moved on up the corporate ladder until I was recruited  by another firm.  And yet another.  But after awhile, I had vacuumed up enough knowledge from all available sources about how to start and manage a corporation, that I started and managed a corporation.  And it worked out.  Famously!    

I have suggested forever that kids join the military immediately following high school.  Men or women, makes no difference.  They are kids when they go in, they'll be full-baked men and women when they get out.  And they'll travel the world.  And learn all kinds of new and wonderful stuff.  And make new friends.  Of all races and religions and nationalities.  And when they get out the Gubmint will pay for their college.  Which costs and arm and a leg.  So why not make your neighbor, the one who hates the Army, the one who has a Tesla you paid for, the one who thinks America sucks, now pay for your kid's college?

The commie pri*k!

Did you know that you can earn more than $100,000 a year as a lineman?  Or a fireman?  Or a cop?  Or a pipefitter?  Or more than a dozen other trades?  Many requiring no more than a high school degree? 

Did you know you can earn more than $250,000 a year as a farrier?  That means, "the guy who drops by sometimes and shoes horses."   

Or they could join the Peace Corps.  Or convert to Mormonism and go on a pilgrimage.  Or take a job painting those infernal yellow stripes down the center of the highway.  Just do SOMETHING to grow up!  Find a way to get from 18 to 21 without killing themselves or someone else!  

Or, they could go off to college, gain 15 pounds, get drunk or stoned all the time, flunk out, and blow a bunch of money, perhaps THEIR money, or their PARENT'S money, on student loans.  Like I did.  Your choice...  Or your kid's choice.  Except they're not smart enough to make that choice until they've reached the age of majority.  And they won't get there without making this choice.

Proof God has a sense of humor... 

I can say that everything important I now know I've learned since I got out of school.  Life experience is the very best teacher.  And the only way to get life experience is to live it!  To take chances.  To be daring.  To jump into the deep end of the pool...  

I did.  And I wish the same for you.  Good luck!

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

It hit me while I was watching the Telly the other day.  One of those smack-yourself-in-the-forehead sort of moments.

          "What we have here...

     is an infestation of lawyers!

We've been inundated by a invasion of attorneys!  They are everywhere!  Even on TV.  It seems that each of the talking heads that spew their particular brand of news to each other, and us, are law..yurzzz!.  Attorneys!  Barristers.  People who engage in highway robbery in broad daylight, without a mask or a firearm.  

Did you know there are more lawyers in Orange County, Taxifornia than in all of Canada?

They pick our pockets without consequence, every day of the year.  Because in our highly litigious society, anyone can sue anyone, at anytime (and often do!), so you just might need one of these leaches to keep your finances semi-secure and your ass out of the Graybar Hotel.  

Who else do you know that can look you in the eyes and charge you... 

             ...$700.00 an hour?  

The folks who somehow put together the bucks and the loans to get through law school, any law school, so they can now tell us plebes the way things now are, or they think ought to be.  As if they now have some special insight into "the answer" after having spent the past several years with their noses in a law book.  The answer, truly, is... "don't become a lawyer."  

I've often said that my best friend wouldn't be my best friend today if he hadn't been my best friend before he went off to law school.  They turned him from a fun-loving, little rolly-polly, Big City Jew, as he called himself, into regimented proof that "The Body Snatchers" movie was true!  They inhabit normal lawyers' bodies, who thereafter work overtime to change America into a socialist plutocracy.

Whom else do you know when asked a question their eyes go out of focus and they begin to read from the inside of their foreheads some law or obscure rule or regulation that controls our puny, insignificant existences?  Questions that only they know the answers to, as if in some not-so-secret "club."  A "club" of overeducated, underexperienced Democrats (85% vote that way!) who seek to even more fully control our insignificant little lives.  

And since they're doing a pretty good job of it so far, they have every reason to expect continued success...  

Oh yeah, they just got $10,000 of their student loans forgiven.  By that cranky old reprobate in the White House.  His action is unconstitutional, of course, and he'll get sued, of course.  And lose, of course.  But that'll be next year, well after the Election's over.  He'll have already gotten the political benefit from the "promise," he's given even though later unkept.  Like almost all of his promises.  

The commie puke. 

The joke's on him, however.  They were gonna' vote for him anyway...  

You remember that black and white movie, "The Body Snatchers," don't you?  The one I referred to up above?  The one where you were overtaken by the forces of evil if you went to sleep?  Thereafter you became one of..."them."  And the threat the movie implied was that soon, these soulless ghouls would overtake us all and replace us with automatons.  Those who would do the bidding of "Them."  Presumably your basic space aliens.  But maybe just "Swamp Creatures."  And I was finally struck by the fact that they have...won.  Some of us, the attorneys, are now them...

Even that cat Shakespeare in his "Midsommer Night's..." thingie that "...the lawyers should all be lashed together and marched into the sea."  "After first beating them to within an inch of their puny, worthless little elitist lives.  And then sending them an invoice, itemized in five-minute blocks of time for our efforts.  Like they do."  Or something to that effect.  

You get the idea.

Anyway, when we discovered that we had a pandemic of virus-ses, Trump developed an vaccine.  All by himself.  Or something.  Now that we have a pandemic of lawyers, shouldn't we come up with a suitable "innoculation?"  And just what could that "antidote" be?  

Think about it:  These bozos have gone to school for years learning how to fleece us like a Christmas lamb.  Shouldn't we all learn how to fight back?

Now, I don't recommend violence.  Usually.  No, that would never do.  We're far too civilized for that.  But perhaps a low-flying little Cessna 152 to drop some nerve agents or something.  Designed after secretly collecting the DNA of lawyers so the vaccine can be customized.  Individualized.  Quick, incapacitating.  Perhaps only removing their ability to speak.    

What, did something happen?  

Or maybe we could open gulags, like the Soviets were so famous for.  And hunt them down and put them to work painting those yellow stripes down the center of the highways.  The one down the middle of Death Valley, preferably.  In July and August and September.  Or better yet, "Reeducation Camps" so we can reverse the effects of their cultist training.

Or, maybe we start treating them like we treat our doctors.  Make them see patients who cannot pay, and then pay them one-third of their rates for seeing the indigent patients.  Fair?  

And then make them keep on seeing them under threat of a lawsuit.  How about we force lawyers to see clients for one-third of their hefty hourly rates?  Or even for free?  Just to pay us all back as a society for their having previously conspired to overcharge us all, just as we're now presuming to somehow now pay back Black people because their fore-fore-forebears were enslaved by those awful Whities?

You see the slippery-slope we're now headed down?

And now look at this:  A bunch of lawyers conspire and get the "PacAct" passed, which will pay to clean up the water around the Marine's famous Camp Le Jeune, SC.  And they've found a way to now sue the Federal Gubmint via that Act, that would be you and me, the Taxpayers, for any harm caused by that water, over several decades.  And all you have to do is watch the TV commercials and see the number of law firms which have gotten together into a cabal and started fishing for those of us who are hungry for some Uncle Sugar $'s.  Ukraine's getting it, why not them?  Pay attention.  I've counted 9 separate law firms paying for "call me if you're sick" commercials.  So far.  

I suggest that since we now have an oversupply of lawyers, just as we now seem to some to have an oversupply of White people, the Gubmint should now be forced to hire three non-attorneys for every future ambulance-chaser.  Or maybe six.  Or fourteen.  Sort of a reverse anti-discrimination law.

Maybe give everybody but lawyers a five-point bump on their tests like we used to give Blacks.  The "Great Society" in reverse.

Unfair to lawyers?  I recall winning a lawsuit I brought against a hospital who'd stiffed my company for a big chunk of $Change, and then my lawyer took about 20% of it.  For no more than four hours work.  And when you replace "20%" with "$14,000," it makes you sit up straight.  $14,000 and you And begin to ask, wha...?

About this time you may be asking yourself, "Does The Chuckmeister have a personal vendetta against lawyers?  Why yes, yes I do...

So, in the final analysis, are all lawyers bad people?  Ask Joe O'Biden, are all Republicans bad people?  The answer would most likely be the same...

"MAWA" Democrats...

In a speech given on national TV (except no broadcast networks carried it), in front of Independence Hall, on Federal Property, with the Marine Band playing, with two Marines in full dress blues at attention behind him, the whole thing bathed in a weird, scary red light, giving this whole Orwellian nonsense the imprimatur of acceptability, called 74 million Trump voters a

             "...threat to democracy."

He called them "MAGA Republicans."  He branded 74 million Trump voters as "semi fascists."

This cranky old reprobate them called them "MAGA Republicans."  13 times!  As if that's an insult?  

Lemme' see here.  "MAGA" means "Make America Great Again."  That just means what it says.  Remember, we put-upon Americans have been laboring under Democrat leadership for 11 of the past 15 years!  And we know Republicans stand for limited government, a strong military, low taxes and for keeping our wallets, our bedrooms and our choice of religions sacrosanct.  So I therefore take it as a complement!  And I would assume if he's so against that term, then perhaps his Party must be defined in the obverse.  As in,   

      "Make America Worse Again."   

He's saying it, I'm not...

The White House told us this was not to be a "political speech."  So they could have the taxpayers pay for this abominable excess.  If Hitler and Stalin had produced O'Biden's speech, it would have looked like this!  It's frankly enough to make thinking Americans sick to their stomachs...

In this speech about the threat to our democracy,* Mr. O'Biden chose not to mention the others of his failures that threaten our democracy.  He didn't mention the scourge of inflation that his out-of-control spending has caused; nor the invasion at our southern border which he refuses to secure; nor the out-of-control deaths from fentanyl his complicity has  wrought; nor the crime crises his "defund the police" Party has caused, that still plagues our biggest cities; nor the huge hike in gas and food prices he caused, which have driven millions of families into poverty.  Or even as something as managing our supply of baby formula!  He chose not to talk about those potential threats to our democracy which he either created or contributed to.  He chose to talk, rather, about an amorphous, ill-defined "boogaboo" which he expects his followers to now fear:  "Don't look here, where things are terrible, look over there!  I command you!"

Maybe the Democrats realize that the light they see at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.  And it's just about to run right over their tired arses.  And everything they've tried so far to shift the blame over to Republicans, who aren't in power, BTW, had not worked.  So it's time to up the ante.  To start using the "power insults."  The ones you never, ever use unless you're about to go down with the ship.  The ones like "You're a Nazi."  And a "fascist."  And a "racist."  Even if none of those things are true.

Even WHEN none of those are true!    

So one would think whoever is behind the curtain, calling the shots, would look ahead just a little and see where this is headed.  If these "MAGA Republicans" are such a threat, then we surely should do something about them, shouldn't we?  We should hunt them down and out them, at least!  We should shun them!  And maybe then tar and feather them, and run them out of town on a rail!  While all the time accusing those "MAGA Republicans" of causing all the trouble!  "It's not us, it's them!"  

They are MASTERS at projection!  They've been doing it for so long they should be!  Just remember, whatever they're accusing us of, they're guilty of!  Brand it into the inside of your forehead and read it anytime one of these slimy pukes begins to utter soothing noises.  They are a pack of thieves, just waiting to pounce!  

My suggestion?  Do what they accuse us of doing.  For once.  Prepare for the coming "war" they keep predicting will happen.  The "civil war" they think we're planning.  Connect with other Patriots nearby who are also unwilling to surrender their Rights.   Arm yourself with something you can use for self-protection, and then learn how to use it.  For your protection, and for the protection from Joe's Gang of Sycophants.  From the 87,000 new armed IRS agents.  You may just have to.

Oh yeah, I might mention, while there will now be 87,000 new IRS goons we have to deal with, notice there were no new Border Guards added...  

*  Hey Joe, you're a dummass!  We don't have a democracy!   We have a Representative Republic!  We elect those who then vote for our best interests.  No wonder you nearly flunked out of law school!

The "Peter Principle"

Only those near my age will remember the book, 

           "The Peter Principle."  

Basically, it was a best seller by Laurence Peter that warned us that folks will be promoted to their own level of incompetence.  

In other words, just because you're good at one job, you might not be good at the next level up.  Or the one after that.  And it's an indisputable fact that eons-old rules, both by union and by custom, necessitate promoting those with seniority before those with proven talent and ability.  That's the way it's been done, and that's the way it is done.  Notice, after more than 100 years in the Senate, where he did some say an "acceptable" job, Joe O'Biden is now POTUS.  One level up.  See how the "Peter Principle" works?

I was once made National Sales Manager of a company because I was the its top salesman.  I fired their old sales force, hired a new one, revamped the marketing and sales strategy, and then quadrupled sales.  Made them their first profits, ever.  In my case, their having promoted me was the right thing to do...for all the wrong reasons. 

I've seen it backfire more than I care to recall.  Especially in union jobs where firing a person in supervision takes an act of Congress.  Or some C-4... 

And Joe O'Biden is absolute proof that this "Principle" still holds sway.  Our beloved "Mumbler-in-Chief" reads whatever somebody behind the curtain has written on the TelePrompTer, poorly, then goes back to puttering in the Rose Garden.  He's an "Avatar."  An empty suit full of somebody else's ambitions.  

We just don't know whose ambitions...

For proof we have a stump speech he gave in friendly Pennsylvania recently.  He was railing against guns in general and AR-15's in particular.  This guy hates AR-15's!  I think he must have been scared by one when he was very little.  Maybe "Corn Pop" was brandishing one.  By the swimming pool.    

Oh wait, when he was little they were using flintlock muskets!

We know he prefers shotguns.  He told us all once that if we fear somebody's breaking in, just go to the window, open it up, and then blast away with your shotgun a few times.  That'll scare them away, Joe said.  Google it!  It's illegal, of course, and he's a fool, of course, but the "BidenStateMedia" never called him on it.  

I told you he just barely graduated from law school, didn't I?

He wants to outlaw the AR's, again.  Many don't know that he and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) managed to ram through a 10-year suspension on the sale of AR-style rifles back in 1984 by an all-Democrat legislature.  And it didn't stick, even after a 10 year trial.  These firearms were made available once again back in 1994 following the sunsetting of that law, after which there was no statistical increase in crime using the weapon.*  Old Joe would likes to tell us there was, but check for yourself; he lies about this just like he lies about everything else.  Or maybe whomever writes the tripe on his TelePrompTer lies, and he just reads them...

In his speech, for instance, he stated that bullets fired from an AR-15 travel "...6 times faster" than bullets fired from any other firearm.  What a dummass comment!  Actually, they're on the slow side, ballistically speaking.  Another lie.  

And they're also designed to "...tear off body parts" he said.  Actually, their little 40 grain bullets (the same size as in the .22 you have in your closet) tend to poke right on through their victim, rendering them as casualties, not mortalities.  They were designed that way back in the 1950's when this rifle cartridge was first produced for the military.  That's because a wounded soldier would require two other soldiers to cart him off the battlefield.  Thus, taking three out of the fight.  

The .223/.556 round used in the AR-15 was not designed to kill; just to wound.

Which is why, BTW, the AR-15 is illegal for use in deer hunting in 16 states.  This horrendous weapon that "tears off body parts?"  It's not powerful enough to kill deer!  The bullet's too small, and the velocity is too slow.  Wouldn't it be nice if your leaders told you the truth?  And wouldn't it be nice if their "State Media" did the same?  

Then Mr. O'Biden commented that there exists a segment of our society that might wish to engage America in combat.  Refreshing that "Tree of liberty" thing, as Old Joe said.  But Joe cautioned that you'd need an F-15 to take on our America.  Your AR against Joe's F-15.  Which we don't even use anymore.  Does he even know that?  Don't anyone tell Joe.  The news might be too much for him to handle...

What Good Ol' Joe doesn't seem to realize is that it won't be One Guy against an aging F-15.  It'll be millions of guys with their AR-15's taking on a totalitarian government that doesn't seem to get the news.  One whose military is full of "woke" soldiers, National Guardsmen who most likely agree with you, but who couldn't find their asses with both hands and a flashlight. 

That's when we get to that place where "We're Mad as Hell and We're Not Gonna' Take it Anymore!"

Except we're armed...

Have you seen the grief Dutch farmers are giving their totalitarian government over its efforts to combat future "Global Warming?"  Google it.  They dumped a million pounds of sh*t on their parliament's steps to express their outrage.  They've shut down their government.  Shame they gave up their firearms a few decades back.  

And wouldn't it be a shame if we shut down ours...

The FBI tells us 100 million Americans own more than 455 million firearms.  That's 3 x the number of firearms we possessed when B. Hussein Obama was consecrated.  Obviously we knew something was coming.  We knew it was time to arm-up.  To get ready for any possible conflagration.  One spurred on by "Progressive wokeness."  Not that one is deemed likely.  They're just showing their belief in the Boy Scout Creed:  "Be Prepared."  You know, "In time of peace, prepare for war?"  And it seems, we are!  And no, they're not united into any sort of militia.  Yet.  But if this "Progressive" nonsense continues, unabated, and if they continue sending armed IRS agents, and telling us what to drive and what to eat and where to live and who to hate, and love, I can't guarantee that they won't.

So Joe, it won't be One Guy against an F-15.  It will be One Million Guys armed to the hilt against a scared bunch of National Guardsmen trying to protect their own asses, agreeing with everything we represent.    

You avoid this reality at your own peril...

*   FBI, March, 2021

Your $11.99 Happy Meal...

I just got back from paying $9.49 for my $5.99 Happy Meal. 

I've been warning about this for years, lest we see our drive-thrus turn into "no-thrus."

And now to put further pressure on an important part of our economy, Taxifornia's Far-Left, Democrat-Controlled Legislature just passed the new "Food Council Law."  If our oily puke Gov. Newsom elects to sign it, and I see no reason why he wouldn't (big donors!), it would put 10 appointed bureaucrats, with only 4 coming from the food industry, in charge of setting the pay and work rules for a half-million fast food workers in California.  What could possibly go wrong?

And they can start by setting hourly pay at up to $22.00 an hour, and then increase it up to 3.5% each and every year for up to 10 years.  Does your work offer that sort of deal?  For unskilled casual workers?  Who were earning $15.00 an hour just last year?  

I might mention about here that the Service Employees International Union has been working for more than 15 years in an effort to try and force fast food giants like MickeyD's and Burger King to pay their workers more, so they could begin charging them union dues.  They've spent more than $60 Million Dollars of their members' dues in this effort.  You may have heard that union participation is at an all-time low, and this is them farming an entirely new source of membership.  Of course, these newly-enriched min-wage types would now bump up into a higher income tax bracket.  So by earning more, they'd be subject to income taxes in addition to their dues!  This would leave them pretty much at a wash.  But leaving the SEIU way, the union of hotel maids, waaay ahead.

And now they've found a way to do it.  Using our Gubmint as their change agent.  

So let's see now.  Fast food joints average a 3% - 5% after-tax profit margin.  Only.  By doubling, and in some cases tripling, their single largest cost of doing business, which is labor, they'll have no choice but to dramatically hike rates.  Dramatically.  And sometimes weekly!  That's why a $5.99 Happy Meal now costs $9.49.  And it's be $11.99 next month.

Think about this: our employee who's now making all this great new money won't be able to buy a Happy Meal from his own employer.  And neither will we!  But he'll now be paying income taxes, making Joe and his Band of Sycophants happy as a clam.  

And the SEIU will be doing just fine, thank you!