Something stinks about the John Bolton “raid”. As if Trump’s Justice Department is throwing a bone to the Conservative base demonstrating that they’ll be “tough” and go after the establishment insiders who sin. While leaving the real bad fish to swim away.
I’ve said multiple times that it shouldn’t be hard to do two things, first, find out if Ilhan Omar married her brother to subvert immigration law. And second, is it true, or untrue, that the Clinton kid got 82 million in USAID dollars meant for Haiti, and spent 10 million of that on her wedding. Both should be easy cases to create, and prove. Either the DNA match is a bit too close for comfort in one, and the bank records are easy to trace in the other.
Yet the first person in the crosshairs is John Bolton, which makes no sense. I’m no fan of that warmonger Walrus faced idiot. But a raid on his home feels like a sideshow.
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I’ve avoided Starbucks forever. When I hear “Vente”, or “Tall”, and the verbal gymnastics one must employ merely to get a cup of coffee, I smell bullshit that is designed to add five dollars to the cost of anything and everything. It is all pretension brought to your corner coffee spot.
Traveling of late, particularly in airports, you are forced to deal with Starbucks. It is awful. If you want to mainline sugar in liquid form in the morning, fine, but don’t hide behind a chocolate spritz, a caramel drizzle, and whipped cream piled up higher than the actual liquid in the cup.
I find it odd the same people ordering these sugar-laden diabetes delivery systems in a cup look down on those who go to an IHOP and order the Rootie-Tootie-Fruity thing which I understand is pancakes with sprinkles and whipped cream with syrup.
Either way you are just mainlining sugar. For the record I don’t go to IHOP either.
I have become addicted to a morning cup of coffee, and all I want is a large cup of coffee with cream. Half-and-half really, we just all call it “cream”. How that isn’t universally available I can’t understand. It is easier to travel and find a caramel and chocolate laden batch of chicory-infused horseshit with whipped cream than a plain cup of coffee with cream.
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At first blush I wondered how anyone in ownership of Cracker Barrel could ruin the concept that clearly appeals to the masses. Then, upon further investigation, you find out that Wall Street Titan hedge funds Blackrock and Vanguard own some 57% of the stock. Meaning they took over the board, installed someone they trust, and decided to implement change to their own liking. Thus destroying the brand.
We used to travel the Pennsylvania hills on weekends during the Fall, seeing the leaves change color, stopping at fairs, wine events, festivals. The kids always loved the little “general store” attached to Cracker Barrel, so once or twice, maybe three times we stopped and had dinner, let the children go wild in the gift shop section when they were younger. I marveled at the concept of serving mashed potato meals on the cheap that were filling and hot, combined with coercing the proletariat to spend an equal amount of money in candy, stuffed animals, and more candy. First time I walked through one I wandered the gift shop and muttered to myself, “genius”.
With four kids we’d spend as much in the general store as we did for dinner. I haven’t been in a Cracker Barrel in over thirty years, but they seemed to have their place.
Now, with the Wall Street idiots in charge who don’t really understand the entire concept, they just might “Bud Light” the entire brand.
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I think we need a serious investigation to find out how much of Wall Street is owned by some combination of Blackrock, Vanguard, and Bridgewater Associates.
When I was a kid you could win or lose on Wall Street. Somehow, now, you can only win. No firms ever seem to lose. Oh, sure, in the 2008 melt-down some firms went belly-up, but other firms just ate the carcass like vultures.
I am starting to think that the entire portfolio of stocks is now controlled by three firms. With ownership of over 50% of all stock outstanding.
If you can’t see the dangers of three companies controlling all of US business, then you don’t understand the concept of Oligarchs.
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I can feel the pull of football season, pulling at my emotions. My Ravens are actually favored to win it all this year, if you go by betting lines in Las Vegas. That really wreaks havoc on being a fan. Because nothing less than a Super Bowl win is satisfying.
Going into the season, with the NFL mandating social causes be written in the end zone, some teams having male cheerleaders with less testosterone than the female cheerleaders, and becoming “Woke” in many ways, I’d like to just boycott the league.
I swore to neighbors who are also Baltimore transports to Florida that I would go to the beach on Sundays this season, and skip watching the games. But I feel that pull, and somehow I just know I’ll be trapped in my home on Sundays from 9AM with the London game, until 11PM and being forced to listen to that awful Chris Collinsworth. Man is he grating on the nerves.
Help me, Lord. I know Lamar is going to poop the bed, don’t make me go through it all again this year. He just isn’t a big game player and we still have that playdoh-headed coach.
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Read a hilarious Tweet today. It has Netflix asking if you’d enjoy watching a ten hour movie with the obvious answer “of course not”.
Then said “alright, we will break it down into ten one hour episodes that you can binge watch all in one night”.
If you’ve ever been up late saying “OK, just one more” you see the amusement in that Tweet.
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We live in a world where violence in poor neighborhoods is just expected. We grow numb hearing that 30 people are shot over the weekend in Chicago. Every weekend. As if the poor Black people living in such chaos just deserve their fate. Incredible.
Trump just might be bold enough to step in beyond DC
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Why aren’t we doing anything as a people to investigate how Big Tech is creating algorithms inside video games and streaming aimed at children to keep them engaged, and heighten their demand? These are young, developing brains. Ever see a child engage with one of their favorite programs? Ever try to take the game away?
It is as if some demon inside the game has mind-melded with the young participant, who is simply incapable of disengaging. The resulting “fit” they throw at having to be separated is ominous. As if you’ve allowed your offspring’s mind to be seized by some unseen and sinister intent.
Just as the tobacco companies created additives to strengthen the addiction, these video game companies are preying on our young. And nothing is being done to stop any of it. It isn’t even a topic of major discussion.
Any mom who has handed a five year old and iPad can tell you, these programs have an evil inside.
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I’ve come to the realization that in Congress we do not elect leaders that answer to us all. We elect servants to the Oligarchs, and Establishment Washington, DC. They are all immediately compromised. They serve Israel way before they serve their constituency, they serve Big Pharma before they take a breath in the morning.
They can stand in front of the voter and promise all kinds of reforms, all kinds of changes to benefit the middle class. But once they arrive in Washington, DC, their ass is owned.
Sure, I’ve heard this all my life, well over sixty years. And of course I saw “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” as a child, and realize that this is nothing new. I’ve seen the 1800’s cartoons writ large in the newspapers of the day, showing the politicians bowing before big industry.
But something has changed. The American people are making immediate demands that go immediately ignored. We all clamor for change and our pleas are met with complete silence.
And worse, the mainstream media is as purchased as Congress. That idiot Michael Goodwin at the “NY Post” says this week to “give up all this interest in Epstein”.
Right. Ignore that a foreign nation ran a blackmail campaign to own our politicians. Just look away and forget.
Every institution today, at every turn, is rotten to the core. Once billions entered the equation, even the most moral folded. Generational wealth is difficult to ignore.
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I see the midterm elections as a referendum on USAID. The only question being whether or not the Democrats were able to siphon out enough cash at the last minute to bring big dollars to the campaigns they need to emerge victorious in order to slow Trump.
If Trump was truly effective in cutting off the flow of dollars to USAID, which eventually found their way into Democratic coffers and Democratic dark money groups, then the Democrats are in real trouble. Losing a potential 5 seats in Texas is the least of their problems. I saw a statistic that said the DNC is way behind the RNC in funding right now.
Could that be a harbinger of a lack of funds to effectively compete in the mid-terms?
Did the Cackling Hen blowing a billion dollars in just twelve weeks at the end of her disastrous run for the Presidency create a slow roll of future cash, as the billionaire donors recoiled in disgust at seeing their money just wasted?
Time will tell. If Trump was able to kill their tax funded goose, and clean up voter rolls sufficiently enough to stop the steal, the Democrats may be in real danger.
But hey, I’ve danced on their grave before, and they rose like the walking dead they are to wreak havoc on our nation once again. We shall see.
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Trump cleaned up the DC homeless practically overnight. Bulldozing their tents and artifices, and forcing them into shelters, newly formed FEMA tents, or back home with relatives.
California could do the same, but then they’d have to shut off the 24 billion dollar Democrat money spigot that has nothing to do with solving the homeless crisis, and everything to do with creating a slush fund for Democrats.
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Trump actually has the Democrats throwing a fit that he cleaned up crime in DC overnight. There are definitely people alive today in DC, that would not be alive had Trump not acted. If he took his act into Chicago with the Guard, and prevented 30 lost lives a weekend and another 25 shot, he would show the Democrats as feckless in their response to providing decent living conditions to all citizens.
Send in the troops.
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Did you see the story highlighted in the NY Post about the pretty Irish immigrant designer who had found favor with the right NY crowd, and who had built a nice design business at the age of 33?
She threw it all away on drugs, ignoring the present danger of fentanyl laced cocaine. Found dead on a boat in Montauk. Being popular in design and feted by the money crowd, and extremely attractive, elevates you beyond the help, and you can become one of the crowd. When I used to do hotel renovation work, the number of rich hoteliers whose second wife was the interior designer on their first project was a cliche. I almost laughed out loud having to shake their hands in meetings to select colors and patterns for the guest rooms. They were always thin, blonde, and drop dead attractive. Same as this Irish import.
This is no longer the 1970’s, where a bump of cocaine, or a gram for the evening, kept the party going. This is Russian Roulette, where you have no idea what is in the package, and goosing the high with cheaper fentanyl is an easy way to make more cash.
If you are doing cocaine these days, well, I think that is too big a chance to take. And it just took one fabulous looking woman, and fabulous lifestyle down in NYC.
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Explain it to me as if I am seven, why do the Republicans always govern as if they are in the minority?
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I’m torn between thinking that AI, and these programs such as Grok, are the greatest invention since the telephone, or the biggest demon ever let loose out of the machine.
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A ten year old now has the world’s information in the palm of their hands. And yet we are teaching them as if it is 1932. That is ridiculous.
We need to teach them critical thinking, and relativism. And life skills such as balancing a checkbook, and understanding credit and interest.
When facts can be gathered at the push of a button, and simple query, it becomes folly to spend hours teaching information that can be gleaned instantaneously.
School curriculum should have been changed decades ago, and I’m not talking about adding in drag shows and rainbows.
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Did I mention we are closing in on pro football season? I am starting to hyperventilate.
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Excuse me, packaging companies, could we come up with a brownie container, or plastic cake “dish”, that doesn’t make more noise than a 747 taking off when you open it? I’m just off of open heart surgery three months ago, the last thing I need is for the wife to hear me attempting a late night snack watching television, I just want a half-a-brownie, not a lecture on how I’m killing myself and wasting a major procedure.
Cracking open the plastic brownie container makes enough noise to wake the dead. Want to know how bad it is? I’m actually considering baking brownies at home so I don’t have the packaging problem. I’m 67, I’ve never baked brownies in my life.
Women must have come up with this packaging. Hey Publix, get wise. Change up the cupcake and sweets containers. Forget appearance, silence is golden.
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Pssst…the real problem Democrats have with gerrymandering by Republicans is that they have already gerrymandered the states Democrats control so badly there is no juice left to squeeze.
Their reaction to Texas following their Illinois lead and redistricting is exactly why I loathe Democrats with the power of a thousand suns.
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I’m being robbed this season of one of my favorite things. We usually go North this time of year and live in Maryland into early October. I love the feeling of being on the beach in Maryland as September arrives, and Labor Day passes, and everyone living at the beach for the Summer is forced to retreat back to the city. Whether that be DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or even Shitsburgh, PA, with the kids going back to school, and parents returning to the job, the small beach town of Ocean City, Maryland is reduced to those 30 thousand hearty souls that call it a year-round residence.
Walking the beach, or even the golf course during September there, when the cool breeze rushes through portending the Fall months, you feel a wistful sense of cheating the seasons. Sir Rod sensed that feeling, he sang about it in “Maggie May”. It is both a happy and sad feeling, a wistful feeling, of there being obligations unmet, and a price to be paid, but you can’t tear yourself away to address all that right now.
Walking the still warm but mostly empty beach, where just weeks before tourists abound, you get a sense of being special, as if you’ve cheated “the man”, and refuse to bend to his nine-to-five demands.
The longer you stay, the colder the breeze, the bigger the sense of foreboding.
The heart surgeon decided there’d be no going North for me this year, and I’m on a thrice-a-week hospital workout schedule. Not that being condemned to Florida this year is a real price to pay.
But I do miss the fading October sun as I walk to my ball on the golf course near the beach this time of year, the weakening warmth the sun provides reminding that from this point forward the days will be shorter, cooler, and another Summer season has passed. I’ve been able to mark the passage of time this way for years now, this “hiccup year” will make next year feel even more special.
I’ve spent a lifetime in late September where I really should have been back in school.
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The PGA needs yet another “fix” to their championship. Scottie is the clear season champion this year. Fleetwood may have beaten an abbreviated field of 30 to get his first win, and a big check, and the chance to claim the title as season champ. But he is kidding himself. Scottie deserves all the accolades. Even in a year where Rory captured his “grand slam”.
The added strokes they took away this year would have easily given Scottie the title he deserved. They need another change. Fleetwood’s victory is nice and all, but no one is going to pretend he was the “season champ”.
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Heard a few people from another country speaking about Trump in a delicate tone. Schooled by the mainstream media broadcast worldwide that Trump is a buffoon, a fool, an awful person, who is ruining both our country and the Presidency. They tiptoed around the subject apparently to see where my own opinion might land.
I’d seen this act before at cocktail parties, social gatherings, family gatherings, where those opposed to Trump want to blast him, but want to test the waters for MAGA support first.
I stopped the hemming and hawing in its tracks by saying that Trump did two very, very important things that must be viewed alone, separate from all other arguments on his capabilities and tenure. First, he kept the worst human alive, the most detestable, corrupt, lying, piece of human filth with two eyeballs, Hillary Clinton, from ever ascending to the office of the Presidency. And second, after the disaster that was the Biden Presidency, he closed the borders and began some effort to remove from our midst all these illegals that drain our society, and decrease the wage rates.
And I said for those two things alone, exempting all other subjects and agenda, that every American alive should line up on Constitution Avenue and kiss Trump’s bare ass raw.
Let me tell you, that stopped all the hemming and hawing, and all political discussion.
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Obama has done nothing for his race in America. Nothing to advance them as a people, nothing to give Black people a hand up, and some help out.
He just built a monstrosity of a “Presidential Library” that split his own community in two. He enriched himself incredibly, with a net worth closing in on half-a-billion dollars.
He, himself, moved as far away from Black people as possible, to Martha’s Vineyard and the slopes of Hawaii. I don’t hear about any foundations that directly assist poor Blacks to better their opportunities in America, I only see him hanging out with the Hollywood Elite, sitting on their yachts, vacationing at their compounds.
And yet as a group they praise Obama beyond measure. Hold him up as sacred.
Obama helped himself. He did nothing for “his people”, this former community organizer.
I just don’t get it. Were I a part of the community, I’d feel a bit used.
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If you had told the ten year old me that I’d go years later in life absent consuming a Coca-Cola, I would have thought you had gone insane. I considered a Coca-Cola the elixir of the Gods then.
Haven’t had more than one Coca-Cola in the past three years. Odd how your tastes change through life. Same for me with candy. At ten I had no money, not even pocket change, and I’d stand in the grocery store line looking at the candy shelf with a longing. I yearned for the day when I might have enough money to purchase two, three, maybe even four candy bars at once.
These days I have enough money to buy the entire candy shelf, and I don’t give it a glance when checking out at the Super Market. I don’t give the entire shelf a thought.
I think my behavior later in life would piss off the ten year old me something fierce.
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Everyone expects that we will be controlled in the future by AI, or Big Tech. We will be controlled, but they will control us all through energy. Energy consumption.
Energy equals comfort. Energy equals freedom. Energy powers our lives in full.
Take away our ability to afford energy, take away our electricity, gas, all those fuels that provide our comfort, and give us the ability to move about, and we are powerless. We can’t hold a job, we can’t be comfortable in our own homes. We cannot survive.
Take a look at people after a major disaster, and absent power. Helpless. Begging for assistance. Worried and scared.
The politician who promises to make cheap, affordable, and plentiful energy available to all is the one that will succeed in the future. Energy drives our lives.
Temporary blackouts, control over your thermostat, mandates on home temperature settings, a scarcity of resources to power our lives, this can bring us all to our knees.
We better begin to focus our politicians on our energy grid. Especially in light of the fact that AI requires a shit-ton of power, and huge computer grids that command a great deal of electricity to operate.
We’ve been warned about clean water being a scarce necessity in the future. No one is talking about energy. And not just energy, but cheap, available energy.
I can see a day when the Oligarchs appeal to the politicians to cut our energy, in favor of powering AI as “our future”. At which point your thermostat will be set at 80 in August by dictate. As a huge “farm” of computers generating AI feast on power.
We are a vulnerable people. Energy is our Achilles Heel. Take notice early. Not late.
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