A Measure of Idiocy

I’ll give you an assessment of where we are right now. Roughly half the people in the country believe that if you give up your stove, your car your cargo capable trucks, your hamburgers, your roast beef, your gas powered furnace, your gas powered dryer, and eat bugs, the weather will improve….

And all because some rich morons who fly their private jets into Davos, emitting more pollutants into the air in that one trip then you will in your entire lifetime, tell you so.

Are we clear on this?

Below is a photographic list of those 51 agents of the doj who blatantly lied about then president Donald Trump in an attempt to unseat him.

John Hinderaker this morning looks at what he calls “woke capitalism” , (not exactly accurate but a reasonable label) and says:

So, what is going on here? I don’t get it. We obviously are not
dealing with traditional assumptions about corporate behavior. These companies are not appealing to a substantial customer segment. They evidently don’t mind incurring the puzzlement, if not wrath, of much of their customer base. They can’t possibly be profit maximizing, as economists tell us they do, and ought to do.

Some say that companies are being dominated by left-leaning HR and
marketing departments. Maybe so. But HR departments don’t make decisionso of this sort, and the normal assumption is that marketing departments
are trying to market. That is, to maximize sales. These days, that
doesn’t seem to be the case. And the worst offenders are often CEOs who
have been hired as PR face men, not nuts and bolts managers.

What’s going on here really isn’t all that hard to guesstimate. The large investors in places like Target are not the average American whence all this angry reaction to woke marketing is coming from.

The large investors are people like Bill Gates, George Soros, to name two possible examples … All appropriately hidden behind mutual investment firms of course. I have no doubt China has their hand and this as well.

Market Realist is kind enough to provide the numbers this morning:

Mutual funds own over 42 percent of Target, while other institutional investors own more than 39 percent of the discount retailer. The Vanguard Group and SSgA Funds Management, Inc. are Target’s top two shareholders. They own an 8.88 percent and a 7.18 percent stake, respectively, in the company. Another top shareholder is Capital Research & Management Company.

Now, obviously this is speculation, but it does fit the available facts, rather snugly.

I mean, think about it: average Americans are reacting to something that’s as popular with them as a skunk is at a church picnic. Their voices are being heard but it doesn’t seem to be changing much of anything in terms of what the corporations want to do. As an example we have the Target CEO, one Brian Cornell, claiming that we’ll capitalism is just great for Target, and he says just the thing for society as a whole. (Yeah, right.)

While this seems a rather blatant appeal to morality, while embracing immorality, it should be said that corporations, particularly those involved in sales, have never been particularly moral in the past. They tend to lean where the money is. For as long as I’ve been alive anyway, the money is with Middle America. But now suddenly they seem to be ditching Middle America in favor of leftism as embodied by the Uber rich leftists who seem bent on taking over everything. And places like Target, Disney, Budweiser,etc, all seem to be acting as if it’s a coordinated script.

Which raises the question:

What would explain them all marching off to the same drummer? What else would explain the coordination of all of these now woke businesses, besides direction / threats from the group of large scale investors who also happen to be left leaning?

And isn’t it interesting that the leftists among Us who traditionally have been against the Uber rich now suddenly find themselves aligned with them?

As for the title of this post, please excuse my paraphrasing Pogo. But it does seem clear that the origin of this lunge to the left by some American corporations, talking among them, is not coming from Middle America.

I’ve been saying for quite some time that there is an anger brewing in Middle America that will be difficult to control if not impossible. But by golly, these people are trying. They don’t seem to care very much about the anger being directed at them which tells me that there is a larger motivation than the money of Middle America.

Having watched this stuff for 60 years and more, it’s my take the these moves are being directed by the larger investors… Who all see their political aims coming to fruition through these moves.

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With graduations not happening because of this covid-19 over reaction, the high school graduates among Us are pretty much being ignored I think by society as a whole.

I’m going to pass along something I wrote to our younger boy when he graduated from high school a few years back, in the hope that both graduates and parents of today will get something out of it.

Ok, , so you’re graduating.

It’s of course a huge day in your yet young life, and one that you should be proud to have accomplished. Certainly, I want you to know that your Mom and I are proud of you for having gotten here, and I want, in a fatherly way, to advise you on what you’re going to find of the far side of this milestone.

The first thing you’re going to find is that you’re the same person, that you always were. I know that might come as a bit of a shock to you, or perhaps even a disappointment, so I thought to get that out in the open, right off. This might not make sense to you right now, but given a few years, it will. We, many of us, spend our childhoods thinking that some milestone will change us, like someone’s tapped us on the bean with a magic wand. … Presto-chango, you’re an adult. Well, it’s not quite that straightforward a process.

I once wrote that at our core, we’re still, and always, the same scared little 12 year old we have always been. By that I mean, there’s always the self-doubts that drive us, and they never go away. They keep us questioning ourselves, and our actions…. Do I really want to do this? Do I really not want to do that? That’s a good thing, actually, because it helps to keep us from doing really stupid stuff.

But inherent in that same 12 year old is a sense of wonder. Its important that you never lose that, because once you do, you really do start changing, and growing old. I wrote to this point a few Christmases ago. That bit contains some lessons you should never forget.

The second thing I want you to know is that you already know right from wrong, and good from bad. I and your mom have taught you that much, hopefully by example. All the rest of it is mere application of those principles, and I know you’re capable of dealing with such matters out of hand.

The third thing I want you to know, in case this wasn’t made clear to you, this milestone doesn’t mark the end of your learning process, but the beginning. The last 12 years worth of schooling was about teaching you how to learn. Yes, you learned stuff along the way, but mostly this was about training your brain to adapt correctly to conditions you and I cannot yet see. You’ve gotten to this point because you’ve proven your ability there. And that brings me to…

The fourth thing…Change is part of life. Often as not that change is painful to accept. Usually, its harder if we don’t accept such change… but always remember, within that context, the right and wrong you know so well. Remember that those who tolerate everything stand for nothing. It comes down, my son, to what you will and will not stand for. You are defined by those choices.

The fifth thing is simple and yet broad in its implications. There will never be a better spokeman for you, than you. Don’t be waiting for someone to come along to express your desires, your needs, and your perceptions. While that statement is certainly applicable to the political, it also involves your personal life as well. If we hold, as I have for decades, now, that our politics is the expression of our most closely held beliefs, and needs, then this part of my writing here cannot be separated from the political, OR the personal. Don’t depend on government. Not only will government never be the perfect spokesman for you, but anything that government provides, can only be given to you after being taken from someone else. Right and wrong, again.

The sixth thing you need to know is that you need to cut yourself some slack. There are always disappointments in our lives… both the professional and the personal. Failed relationships, jobs, etc… places we zigged when we should have zagged. And often, some of the most painful disappointments are where we didn’t do anything wrong, at all. Trust me when I tell you that some situations will be hard to live with, and we all have them. Old jobs. Old relationships. Things we have done that we’re not particularly proud of. Avoid, if you can mulling these over for extended periods. These things will rip you up faster than a coral reef. You need to forgive yourself and others… and continue on.

And finally, know that your Mom and I love you… and that will never change. We think you’re a very special person. We know the good things you are capable of. We are here for you.

Congratulations on your graduation. Now, for the next step.

The left likes to use the word “unsustainable” what it’s trying to talk us out of privately owned transportation. Funny how that word never seems to get mentioned when we’re talking about spending habits of Democrats every time they have the power of government.

Let’s set up a quick overview of the situation. The numbers are more than a little rough but they will give you an idea of what we’re facing:

At the moment, you and I are giving up on the order of 65% of our income to cover taxes and fees and unfunded mandates, if we are counting all levels of government. Businesses are paying even higher tax, particularly small businesses (which the left considers wealthy individuals by the way).

Thing is, businesses don’t pay tax, you and I do, when we do business with them. That heavy tax load is simply passed on to us as a cost of doing business. So in fact the taxation goes well over 65%. Taxation of businesses is simply a way to hide the tax the government imposes on you and I.

Now with that as a backdrop let’s consider the national debt, which at the moment is going up on the order more or less of 2 trillion dollars a year. In other words, we are actually taking into the tax coffers 2 trillion dollars less than the drunken sailors known as Democrats are spending year over year. This is the very definition of unsustainable and yet they’ll never mention it.

Now this is a bit rhetorical, but when is the last time you actually heard of Democrats actually cut expending?

Nine times out of 10 they’re going to give you an argument if you even try to cut the rate of increased spending year over year…. And you can forget about actual spending cuts.

And by the way the military spending? We are rapidly approaching the day, if we haven’t arrived there already, where just the service on the debt… Not actually paying it down, but just paying the interest on it is about on par with what we’re spending on the military.

I don’t know about you, but in my book that constitutes an unsustainable economic situation. Something has to give… And trust me on this, one way or the other it will.

Does anybody think that the economy is going to withstand the additional two trillion dollars of taxation that would be required to balance the budget?

Me, neither.

And history bears this out.

Back in the ’80s, Ronald Reagan made a deal with the Democrats then infesting Congress. the idea was we lower the tax rates to get the economy going and in turn Congress would agree to rain in on spending. The lowering tax rates got the economy going to the point where the text income at the Federal coffers better than doubled. Thing is, the Democrats in Congress who are always about buying votes, saw that extra money coming into the Federal coffers and spent approximately 165% of it. In short we’re still waiting for the cuts they promised

Does anybody believe that the Democrats are going to even consider 2 trillion dollars worth of spending cuts, not cuts on the rate of inflation not cuts on the rate of increase but actual cuts?

Me, neither.

We are headed for a economic crisis of nuclear bomb proportions. And the sad part is the Democrats will be pointing the fingers at everybody else for the economic crisis they themselves have caused. And it’s not like we haven’t been warning about this for decades now.

This is what Donald Trump was talking about the other day when he suggested in that CNN interview, that default on the debt is going to happen anyway. He understands as Maggie Thatcher did that eventually, you run out of other people’s money.

There will come a time… and it’s not too far down the road… where we simply won’t be able to keep printing money anymore to remain solvent. There’s a number of economists already who are suggesting that default on our debts is unavoidable, now.

And it’s not like warnings weren’t issued.

If you haven’t seen Jonathan turley’s extensive and well-written write-up on the Durham report, you seriously need to. Here you go.

Remember the anti-Trump whistleblower regarding the phone call to Ukraine that they insisted their name be kept secret. Thank you Congressman Adam “Shifty” Schiff.

But, Whistleblowers exposing the FBI and the Left’s crimes have their lives in danger and of course the media is right there trying to destroy their lives and the lives of their families.

Are there really Americans out there that don’t see this? Or, maybe they see this but somehow justify it?

Oh they see it and they justify it so many of them. They’ve been justifying attacks on Trump for close on a decade now. Now it’s gotten to the point where they’re doing the same thing with anybody who defends him or for that matter anybody not in lockstep with the far left. Witness what’s been going on with Ron DeSantis lately.

Are these the same experts that bundled so badly in their initial handling of the covid-19 virus while they were illegally doing gain of function research? The law against gain of function research was established because mere mortals recognized that the experts can screw up too. And so they did :

These are the same experts of course that came up with so much inaccurate and contradictory conclusions which of course were forced into policy because they happen to be attached to the government.

Then we have global warming.
Oops.
Global cooling.
Oops.
We’ll call it climate change that way we’re covered both ways and no matter which way it goes we can blame human activity and therefore control it.

Those are merely two examples of the miles long list of inaccuracies, and outright fabrications promulgated by the so-called experts.

All too often on the advice of experts we have caused death and destruction on a scale that would be impossible without the expert label and certainly would be impossible without the force of government behind that advice turned into law.

These days the experts are telling us that there are 247.3 sexes, that men can have babies, that the preborn are not human, (and therefore can be killed indiscriminately). And that eating bugs will improve the climate.

And finally, I note with interest that the experts are now telling us that for the continued survival of the planet we need to remove most humans from it. Of course, this too is nothing new, The Population Bomb was released, when, 1968, wasn’t it?

All of which leaves us with the question:
“Experts at what, precisely?”

Mind you, this is not a defense, I’m not suggesting by any means that Feinstein shouldn’t be replaced, …along with of course Fetterman, Pelosi and of course Biden.

The point here being, Democrats will make arguments that sound good at the time…(well, at least it sounded good to them at the time)… but will come back and bite them in the butt not too far into the future. This is one such case. Of course Democrats will tell you they don’t see it that way, but even when pressed on the matter, they cannot explain why they continue to support people who so clearly lack the ability to function.

The answer to the question of why they do that is rather simple. The unspoken consensus is that should the obvious be acknowledged, it will damage the ability of Democrats as a whole to maintain what they crave most:

Power.

Ironically, this is an admission on the part of the Democrats as a whole that these mental deficients are the best they have to offer the American people. Never mind that’s such people totally lack the ability to analyze the insane policies that they espouse… One needs only to look at the quality of life, the level of crime, the level of taxation, businesses escaping, and the number of people moving out of the districts they represent to understand the effect of such policies.

Their biggest usefulness is that they unquestioningly support such insanity.

This is the party of young ideas… Represented by a band of oxygenarians, who truly have no idea why Feinstein’s district is the hell hole that it has become, for example.

The truly insane part, is that people continue to pull the lever for them, simply because they have a D after their name, without any further analysis whatever.

I will close this one by observing that this is precisely the kind of abuse is that the founders vigorously warned us about from a strong central government.

Who are you going to blame for this one, Greta?

Writing in Nature Communications, the scientists say these weak layers—made up of historic biological material—made the area susceptible to failure in the face of earthquakes and other seismic activity.

They also highlight that the layers formed at a time when temperatures in Antarctica were up to 3°C warmer than they are today, when sea levels were higher and ice sheets much smaller than at present.
Wait a minute… I thought it was man and his use of fossil fuels that causes such things.

But these events that they’re talking about in this article predate Man by quite a while.

Wait a minute… I thought it was man and his use of fossil fuels that causes such things.

But these events that they’re talking about in this article predate Man by quite a while.

I know, let’s ask Al Gore. He’ll know all about it.

Oh, wait….

Have you ever noticed that every time the Democrats don’t get their way on spend, spend, spend, (in this case raising the debt ceiling so that they can spend more), they threaten social security?

Mind you, they don’t threaten Congressional paychecks. They don’t threaten the amount of spending that we’ve been doing on housing, feeding and attending to the healthcare needs of the millions of illegals they’ve allowed into the country. No, they threaten social security.

That should tell you quite a bit.

Raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated.” Those words from the Durham Report summed up one of the most damning investigations in the Justice Department’s history.

In the 305-page report released Monday, special counsel John Durham concluded that the Trump-Russia investigation was launched without a required minimal level of evidence and shattered a host of departmental standards. Let that sink in: The Justice Department — as well as the media that covered it — effectively shut down a duly elected presidency, based on what turned out to be a politically engineered hoax.

That would make anyone angry. Really angry. Trump-level angry.

The fact is, in this instance, Donald Trump was correct when he said he was the target of a political hitjob funded by the Clinton campaign and maintained by virtually every media outlet. There is a word for that: disinformation…

In the end, it is not a crime to be unethical or incompetent, so no charges will be filed as a result of the report. Durham clearly hopes that the belated transparency provided by his report will produce greater future accountability. That may be the only naive aspect of his findings.

Of course, the FBI promptly issued a statement that it has — once more — reformed itself in light of its failures. But who really believes this is unlikely to occur again?

Thing is, as Turley himself points out, it’s already happened again, in the form of the non-investigation of the Hunter Biden laptop, which we would not even have known about, absent a copy of it in the hands of Rudy Giuliani.

And by the way, speaking of Giuliani:

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and attorney for former President Donald Trump, is being sued in a lawsuit seeking $10 million in damages by a former employee accusing him of “sexual assault and harassment, wage theft, and other misconduct.”

And of course all of this is happening in the southern district of New York. Does anyone really believe this would be going on absent his involvement with the Biden laptop? Work that equation for a while.

And of course the mainstream media still can’t admit any of this. Apparently the feel is, if they admit they screwed up on this nobody will believe them on anything. Which is precisely, of course, what they deserve. To say nothing of the idea that if the mainstream media admits they screwed this one up, it’s damaging to the leftist power structure that they have endeavored so many years to support.

Turley suggests it’s not a crime to be incompetent.

I find that statement questionable at best on two levels. On its face, and on the question of, if this is mere incompetence we’re dealing with, here.

People… The truth is this: You don’t get this level of consistency over a period of years without planning, forethought, and competence. These people knew exactly what they were doing. In the graphic below is a list of people who were peddling the Russia collusion story and who should in reality be behind bars … Every single one of them… but at the least should never be believed again by anyone with an ounce of integrity. Never forget that these people were willing to put people in jail, and ruin lives knowing that they had absolutely nothing in terms of actual evidence.

You’ll never see the mainstream media covering this story with any  vigor, because what’s happened here is Durham given evidence that exonerates Donald Trump. What’s left of Fox network actually reported it, CNN danced around it somewhat.

So, in shorts, Durham has done is confirm what we already knew. The FBI is being used as the political enforcement arm of the Democrat party. The real question to my mind, who’s going to jail over this?