Tag: Biden

Daily Life, Government, Politics

Who Has The Biscuit?

As I watched the President give an address from the Oval Office last night, I had a thought. Where is the biscuit? Hear me out… If you’re not aware, the president carries a laminated card with him at all times called the biscuit. The biscuit is a card that has all the authentication codes required for a nuclear response should we come under attack. As you can imagine, it’s kind of a big deal to ensure the president has that card with him always. There’s a military officer within physical reach of the president 24/7 who carries the nuclear “football”. The football is a briefcase containing laminated sheets of potential responses to an attack and the steps needed to carry it out. A menu of sorts. Clearly the most consequential action a president can take.

For the entirety of his presidency Biden’s detractors have made fun of, or at least made reference to, his age and lack of mental acuity. Captain Applesauce, Pudding Brain, the ice cream president, etc… Watching the Oval Office address last night it was abundantly clear that the man is in trouble from a health perspective. Mumbling, loud swallowing, difficulty reading the teleprompter, and a clear inability to modulate his voice. He drifts from low and hard to hear to loud with sudden verbal emphasis in odd places. There’s something wrong. Add to that his obvious moments of confusion when he’s out and about with every staff member holding their collective breath when he has to navigate stairs or cross a large open space – he’s an elderly adult with Parkinsons and some level of related dementia.

Whatever. All we have to do is coast for six more months and someone with at least some level of mental acuity will be in charge, right? Here’s my thought experiment. There’s been a number of campaign activities lately in which staff members had to hand the president cash and instruct him how/who to tip during the staged visit. He has to be constantly redirected as to where he’s supposed to be looking and interacting with. What makes you think he’s able to dress each morning and ensure he has the biscuit with him before he leaves the private residence? What would happen if, god forbid, an incident happened and he needed to produce the biscuit and make launch decisions in response to an attack?

It’s happened before. Buzz Patterson carried the nuclear football for Clinton and wrote about that time in his book. He shared that during a routine check, it came out that Clinton had “misplaced” the launch codes. Obviously it’s a big deal as new codes need to be created and distributed to every nuclear launch platform – planes, submarines, and land based launchers. They never found the card with the codes. Clinton had all his mental faculties, he just had his mind on… well other things.

I wonder how often they check to see that the president has the biscuit? The person carrying the nuclear football is literally feet away from the president at all times. He/she sees everything that happens and clearly is the single best person to make a judgement call about the presidents fitness for office. I think there’s an interesting question around this. As a military officer (there’s one from each branch of service that rotate carrying the football) what legal obligation do they have to say something about the fitness of their superior officer to continue to serve? Who and how would they report that to?

It’s one thing from a political perspective for presidential aids and staff to ignore or cover for a president in decline. It’s entirely another thing for a group of senior military officers to ignore what they see. I wonder, do they feel the president is fully capable of continuing in his role or are they being quiet for career security? It would obviously be career suicide to say something. In reading Buzz Pattersons book it’s clear that these officers take their duty very seriously. I can’t imagine what goes through their minds each day they interact with the president.

It’s all terribly frightening if you think about it. The president has six minutes from a confirmed nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile launch towards the US to make a decision. I guess we’ll rely on Dr. Jill to fill in for the next six months.

Anyway, have a happy Thursday!

Government, Politics

Remain Calm, All Is Well

Well that was an unexpected news filled weekend. I would not have had attempted assassination on my bingo card when I woke up Saturday morning. As information slowly starts leaking out, as a registered contrarian, I have to say something doesn’t seem right. I’m reminded of a great scene in the movie Casino. Ace the casino manager confronts Don the slots supervisor after three machines in a row hit a jackpot:

Ace Rothstein : Listen, if you didn’t know you were being scammed you’re too fuckin’ dumb to keep this job, if you did know, you were in on it. Either way, YOU’RE OUT!

Look, I’ve never been in the military or been a police officer, but I was a Boy Scout and a lifeguard which is close enough to have an informed opinion about this. How this shooting occurred is stretching the lines of credulity. So what you want me to believe is that some 20 year old dorky dungeons and dragons player who apparently has zero social media footprint, and lives in his mom’s basement, pulled this off all by himself? That he cased out the location beforehand, knew where the stage and podium would be and the exact time Trump would start speaking? So you’re saying he managed to get to the location carrying a ladder and a rifle a handful of minutes beforehand and there wasn’t one element of security positioned to spot him? Or, maybe that the ladder was prepositioned and there wasn’t any sort of security sweep to notice it? We’re to believe that a sniper team was clearly observing a dude with a rifle on a roof and they did nothing?

Just like the Casino movie quote – either someone else was involved in this, or this is one of the biggest displays of security incompetence we’ve ever witnessed. Knowing that the Biden administration values DEI over merit, I’d like to believe it’s just massive incompetence.

We’re hearing that most of the protective personnel were DHS security and not secret service due to lack of resources. Watching some of the female agents on the stage, well… let’s just say they didn’t appear to be operating as a well oiled machine. I can accept that maybe the secret service resources were stretched thin and this was the B or C team that was deployed to protect Trump. Apparently the secret service is now claiming that perimeter security was the responsibility of local PD. If folks are already starting to cover their butts and point fingers, then yes maybe this was all just due to incompetence. We have untold billions to send to Ukraine, but can’t afford to protect a former president? Yeah, ok.

But… but even the most small town yokel Barney Fife police officer would probably guess that securing rooftops might be a good idea. Or at the bare minimum that maybe an officer or a rent-a-cop security guy should be placed so that someone can’t just walk up to unsecured areas around the former president without being noticed. I have a very hard time believing that not a single person thought about this. Maybe if this was a spur of the moment visit and nobody had time to scope out the area, but this wasn’t a last minute visit. It was a rally planned well in advance. Could the US Secret Service really have screwed up that badly?

The other option is that this was intentional. We’ve done it before. The FBI (who’s now in charge of the investigation) HATES Trump. The CIA would be happy to have Kamala in charge. There’s plenty of motivation for various agencies to make a move to prevent a change to the status quo. Had it been successful, the DOJ and FBI certainly would have slow walked any sort of investigation so Biden or Kamala could be put in place for another term.

I don’t know. I don’t want to believe either scenario. Sadly, I wouldn’t be shocked at either one being true. Government incompetence grows at an exponential rate (feel safe flying these days?) One nutjob getting lucky that the C team benchwarmers happened to be in charge during this trip isn’t completely crazy. However, the deep state hates Trump with the power of a thousand suns. All things being equal, with Biden’s DNC support collapsing last week a Trump win looked more likely which presents an existential crisis for the government power machine. If they thought they could get away with it, I wouldn’t put it past them.

Either way, it’s not a good look for us as a country. Would we rather be completely incompetent or admit to planning hit jobs? We’ll never know the answer because we no longer have a press/media that’s willing to do actual journalism and search for the truth.

If Trump was smart he’d call up Erik Prince today (former CEO of Blackwater) and hire him out to provide private security for himself, family, and whomever his new VP pick will be. It’s clear that the government can no longer be trusted to provide reliable security.

How in the world did we ever get to this point? Indeed, The Fourth Turning is rapidly picking up speed. I don’t think there’s much to do at this point other than grab your popcorn and watch the chaos unfold.

Government, Politics

Remember The Doomsday Clock?

I’m old enough to remember practicing ‘duck and cover’ drills in elementary school. I’m not sure how diving under my desk with my hands over my head was going to protect me from a nuclear blast, but I was ready. We all knew about the Doomsday Clock that had been created in 1947 in the aftermath of the manhattan project. The closer the hands got to midnight, the closer we were to all out nuclear war and global armageddon. The hands have been moved forward and backwards 25 times since its creation. The hands are currently the closest to midnight they’ve ever been. The clock was set to 90 seconds last year. That’s an even more dire risk assessment than during the Cold War. I don’t give the clock much credence (they now include global warming in the calculation), but it is a proxy for the current world-wide unrest. Thinking about the Doomsday Clock made me change my mind about our current political crisis.

It hasn’t been a secret that Biden is not running the country. It’s not clear who the final decision maker is or even if there is one. Perhaps everything is run by committee. Realistically I don’t think it matters who the democratic candidate is. Biden, Harris, Newsom, etc… if they win nothing changes. The same committee will still be running the country. Up until yesterday’s NATO press conference I was content to keep Biden in the running as I think he’s the best chance Trump has to win. Not that I think Trump is a great choice, but he’d be lightyears better than the current administration. But listening to the NATO speeches about global expansion and Biden’s disastrous big boy press conference, I believe for the safety of the country the president needs to be removed from office.

As I have been saying for a long time, the president clearly has Parkinsons and some level of dementia. Up until the campaign started in ernest, they’ve managed to mostly keep him out of sight and the press was happy to play along. Watching the press conference it was even more clear for me that the man is unable to maintain a train of thought, forgets names, and is word searching. The disease is progressing rapidly and even if he were to win (which is not out of the question), I guarantee that he’d have to be removed from office within six months.

I was an RN on a neuro floor for years and spent plenty of time with Parkinson’s patients. Several of the lesser known side effects of the disease are paranoia and hallucinations. That’s a scary thought. The leader of the free world, the man with the nuclear codes, might be experiencing wild mood swings and paranoia stemming from an inability to distinguish between reality and hallucinations. If you watched the press conference, towards the end he had a weird shouting outburst after randomly talking about guns. That’s the Parkinsons in action. Who knows what else will set him off when he’s behind closed doors?

I’d like to believe there’s enough people and systems in place that Biden can’t just willy nilly start launching missiles, or order a carrier strike group to provoke China, but I don’t have a lot of faith in this administration. I think the real worry is that the rest of the world sees with crystal clear clarity that the president is incapacitated. That increases the odds of bad actors out there doing something serious in an already unstable world. I absolutely do not trust this administration to make smart decisions and keep from starting WWIII. I think everyone from Iran, China, North Korea, to Islamic sleeper cells in our country are currently evaluating making a move now prior to the election. We’re in a pretty vulnerable and frightening spot at the moment.

I never thought I’d say this, but at this moment I’d rather have Biden step down (or be removed) and have Harris as president for the next six months. I don’t think she’d be any more competent than the dementia patient, but at least she wouldn’t be suffering from hallucinations. As long as she can keep from cackling she’d at least be able to read the teleprompter and “look” semi-presidential. That might be enough to keep the world at status quo.

My god, how did we get to this place? The cabal, the committee, whoever’s been running things, are some truly evil people. People who are willing to put the country and the world at risk so they can maintain power and keep the military industrial complex running. They’ve been happy to keep an actual dementia patient propped up as a figurehead so they can achieve their goals. It’s insane when you think about it.

So even though removing Biden reduces Trumps chances to 50/50 at best, I still think it’s the right thing to do. We’re at a scary inflection point.

I think the Doomsday Clock is closer to 30 seconds now.

Government, Politics

The Real Debate Takeaway

It was obvious going way back to the 2020 election. The DNC kept Biden in the basement under the pretext of Covid. They didn’t let him answer press questions, he had virtually zero rallies, and wasn’t allowed to interact with the public other than to offer commentary on ice cream. From day one it was obvious to EVERYONE that Joe Biden was a doddering old man incapable of a quick trip to the grocery store, let alone running the country. If you didn’t think so, you’re lying. As his term progressed, Captain Applesauce’s decline has accelerated. It’s been impossible to ignore. Trump derangement syndrome may have prevented you from saying it out loud, but deep down you knew. Joseph Biden has not been the one running the country. So the frightening takeaway from the debate is the complicity of the media.

For three and a half years the mainstream media has ignored, hidden, and otherwise looked the other way as Biden’s Parkinson’s and dementia rapidly advanced. Literally every other day there’s been a new video of Biden walking like a robot, freezing up, mumbling incoherently, and getting lost on stage. It’s been impossible to ignore. Yet the media chose to pretend it wasn’t happening. Again as a reminder, Trump walked gingerly down a ramp after giving a speech and the media en masse contemplated for days if he was still fit enough to remain president. The difference in media coverage couldn’t be more stark.

Following the debate I tuned into the CNN panel to see what the reaction would be. To watch the phony shock at suddenly seeing Biden’s condition for the first time was performance art at its finest. Every single panelist pretended like they had no idea Biden’s cognitive state was so bad. Van Jones was practically in tears. HOW COME NOBODY TOLD US THE PRESIDENT WASN’T FUNCTIONAL?!?!

These people in the media are scum. They knew damn well what the state of his condition was and happily obfuscated it while it served their allegiance to the DNC. Now that the bat signal has gone out, everyone clutches their pearls and says he can no longer remain the candidate… and maybe needs to step down now. How do these “journalists” look at themselves in the mirror each morning? Just evil.

So the question you have to ask yourself, if the media is perfectly fine with actively hiding the mental and physical condition of the president of the United States while it supports their political leaning… what else are they willing to hide? Why should I trust anything the media reports on? (hint, you shouldn’t)

So as we move forward with the removal of the assisted living patient from the Oval Office, remember what the media did. They lied and actively obscured the physical and mental state of the president for years because of party loyalty. Anything they say about the president or whomever is selected as the new candidate will be nothing more than talking points handed down from the party apparatchiks.

However much you hate the media, it’s not enough.

Government, Politics

Will There Be A Debate?

There’s some 3D chess going on over at the DNC right now that I can’t stop thinking about. I was genuinely surprised when the Biden campaign agreed to debate the bad orange man. The first debate, hosted by CNN, will be on June 27. The entire planet sees that Biden is not the same person he was four years ago. The man has rapidly advancing dementia and at this point struggles to read a teleprompter. He can barely form a coherent sentence and his handlers prevent him from answering any press questions. When he does interact with the press he has a pre-printed card with his answers to the carefully screened questions. I do not believe Biden is capable of standing up for an hour and speaking extemporaneously in response to debate questions – even if he has the questions in advance. The mans mental faculties are simply too far gone at this point to handle this sort of challenge. So the million dollar question… why would the DNC risk putting him on the stage? It makes no sense.

One possibility is that they want him to fail spectacularly and use that as the excuse to give his delegates to Gavin Newsom at the convention. Or, maybe the thought is that his stage performance will be so alarming, they’ll invoke the 25th amendment to make Kamala the first female president. If she was already the sitting president that would at least give her a chance at being reelected.

Maybe they never intended to actually debate? It could be that there was always a planned reason to reject the debate. Could Trump being found guilty yesterday be the reason? Biden can claim that he has no interest in debating a convicted felon and will therefore skip the debate.

Who knows – maybe all these trips to the beach in Delaware have actually been debate prep and Biden will come out and surprise us all. Maybe.

These are certainly strange times. I predicted long ago that Biden will not be the nominee. I still think that’s the case… but I’ll admit that I’m puzzled at what’s going on. I was sure Biden would have dropped out by now to give Gavin or Kamala plenty of time to campaign. I guess in reality people don’t actually pay attention until the last few months so changing candidates at the convention in August may not be that big of a deal.

It’s just hard to imagine that the DNC would risk the presidency by keeping Biden as the candidate. Unless all along the plan was to assume that at least one of the many Trump trials would either imprison him or so severely cripple his campaign he wouldn’t have a chance. Biden is reelected and steps down shortly after so Kamala can take the helm. The Obama regime can have their first woman president and another useful stooge to do their bidding.

This game of thrones is getting interesting for sure. No matter which way it turns out, I think things are going to get spicy for the country. Good for the oligarchs, not so good for the regular people.

Keep your head on a swivel my friends.

Government, Politics, Solving the wrong problem

Is It Omertà Or Something Else?

I know, I know, it’s a broken record. Millions of people a year streaming across our border. Tens of thousands a day. Politicians, governors, and mayors all shouting at each other and pointing fingers. Meanwhile, nothing changes. Texas finally got mad, put the national guard at a popular crossing spot and have prevented the border patrol from entering. Naturally the Biden admin and DHS have issued a cease and desist order and are threatening to take it to the DOJ. Among all the wailing and gnashing of teeth on both sides of the issue, what’s the one thing you never hear? Any criticism of Mexico.

Doesn’t that seem odd? An actual national emergency and crisis at the border and nobody seems to be mad or critical of the country where the problem originates. If Canada suddenly decided to start driving across the border to dump raw sewage and nuclear waste in our northern forests, I’m pretty sure someone would say something. I’d go so far as to say that we’d probably start threatening trade status if they didn’t knock it off. But a humanitarian and national security crisis on the southern border… crickets.

I get it – Mexico isn’t actually capable of stopping the influx. The government is too corrupt and the cartels are too powerful. But at least they could pretend they’re doing something. Put some troops on the borders. Throw out a few rows of razor wire. Place some warning signs. Something. Anything.

But they don’t even try. And we say nothing. Why is that? Why won’t a single politician, left or right, call out and/or threaten Mexico? The only politician I can think of to say something was Trump while campaigning. You remember – “I’m going to build that big, beautiful, wall and make Mexico pay for it”. The president of Mexico just laughed and said no. And Trump and congress did… nothing.

Well, that’s not true. Trump threatened sanctions against Mexican imports. He then suspended his threats and signed the new USMCA trade deal. Boy, we really showed them didn’t we?

What exactly is the hold Mexico has over us? Why are we afraid to say or do anything to the country that’s invading us by proxy? I don’t get it.

It’s almost like all the players in this drama know the real reasons behind this game, but won’t say.

Omerta.

Government, Politics

It’s Chaos, Baby!

In case you missed it, which would be difficult to do, the state of Colorado removed the bad orange man from their ballot. The CO state Supreme Court ruled that due to insurrection, mean tweets, something or other, he is ineligible because of the 14th amendment. Odds are that the federal Supreme Court will overturn it, but you never know. It doesn’t really matter, because the actual point is chaos. Now, I’m going to say some things that the Trump diehards don’t want to hear. Buckle up, buttercup.

So let’s imagine for a second that Trump has managed to somehow beat or delay the 92 felony counts pending against him. And he’s prevailed in his, now, three Supreme Court filings and whatever future lawsuits will be filed between now and GOP convention. Assume the current polling is actually accurate and he manages to secure the GOP nomination. Now what?

Are you really going to delude yourself into thinking that the bulk of the Haley/DeSantis voters will happily turn out and vote for him in the general election? The never-Trump wing of the Republican Party is substantial. The big money machine of the enterprise is not going to support Trump (they want Haley). So in an era in which we know the GOP needs to eclipse 80+ million votes to beat the DNC candidate… in an environment in which the GOP has done NOTHING to combat the mail-in/absentee/Zuckerbucks issues that plagued the last election – you’re going to tell me that an absolute crushing avalanche of republican voters in swing states are going to turn out on Election Day and vote Trump in? Hmmm, ok.

I guess it might happen. I’ve been wrong before. Let’s say the bad orange man actually does manage to win. What next? Trump is a walking ego-driven chaos factory. You thought the deep state/media machine conspired against him at every turn last go ’round? You ain’t seen nothing yet baby. He will be steamrolled and blocked at every possible turn. In all likelihood the GOP will have lost both the house and senate, so he’s not going to get anything done there.

All the things he’s currently saying he’ll get done during his ego stroking rallies today… he didn’t get them done last time. What makes you think he’d get them done this time when the deep state opposition will be 100x greater than it was his last term?

One of his greatest failings last time was poor personnel choices. The end result was that virtually all major players in the Trump White House either turned against him and/or are now mired in legal actions brought by the DOJ. What sane, competent person would agree to serve Trump this time – knowing that most likely they’ll be facing millions of dollars in legal fees before the term is over?

Trump absolutely gets credit for not screwing up an already accelerating economy and unemployment rate (yes, really). But at the same time he didn’t build the wall and didn’t make Mexico pay for anything (despite controlling the house and senate), he gave us Fauci, Birx, the untested vaccine, mandatory jabs, lockdowns, he didn’t clean out the FBI or the DOJ, and added $7.8 Trillion to the national debt. Oh, and a lot of mean tweets.

Outside of the Trump rallies, people remember these things. They remember the chaos. I don’t think the average GOP voter wants another four years of the bad orange man sucking all the oxygen out of the room 24×7, for little effect. But I could be wrong.

All that aside, here’s the key issue. I suspect the deep state/DNC is salivating at the idea of Trump losing either the GOP nomination or the presidency due to court actions (as opposed to simply losing early in the primaries to another candidate). Why? Because the Right will lose their collective minds. If Trump is blocked from wining the GOP nomination I think we’ll see actual violence. Trump is the symptom of a bigger problem. The Right feels that they’re losing the country. The far left, woke, open borders, DEI policies are crushing what’s left of the American identity. Trump being quashed by the machine is going to send some folks over the edge – even the never-Trumpers would be angry (relieved, but still furious at the injustice).

And THAT is what the deep state is waiting for. Any excuse to come down like a ton of bricks with enhanced security, monitoring, and control. Federal misinformation departments, a supercharged DOJ and FBI, unending FISA warrantless searches… they’ll have their rational. We can’t have an angry right-wing marching in the streets. Leaked DHS memos already show they consider nationalist/white supremacist domestic terror to be one of the top security concerns. J6 and arrests for posting memes will seem like child’s play. Speak out against anything in the government approved lexicon and you’re toast. And President Newsom, with Democratic control of the house and senate, will happily usher in this new era of the Orwellian/American empire.

Or maybe not. Maybe the DNC is stupid enough to keep Biden as the candidate. Maybe Haley will win and our only issue will be war with the greater Middle East and Russia.

Either way, 2024 is going to be interesting times.

Welcome to the Jungle, Guns ‘N Roses

Welcome to the jungle it gets worse here everyday
You learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play
If you got a hunger for what you see, you’ll take it eventually
You can have anything you want but you better not take it from me

In the jungle, welcome to the jungle
Watch it bring you to your kn-kn-knees, knees
I’m gonna watch you bleed

Politics

Attack Of The Lizard People

Unless you’re a weird political junkie like me, it’s doubtful you watched last nights DeSantis/Newsom debate. I’ll save you the hassle of finding a replay of it and give you the TLDR; Newsom won. Not in the traditional sense. DeSantis won on facts and substance. He probably won the likability factor too… not because he’s especially charismatic, but because Newsom is so smarmy and loathsome. Newsom won because he gave a masterclass on how to lie, deflect, and give a non-answer to everything.

Why is this important? On paper Newsom has nothing he can run on. California is a dumpster fire. San Francisco (he was the former mayor) is a dumpster fire surrounded by human poop. And Newsom is doubling down on everything that destroyed California. Normally this would be a recipe for election disaster. But last night Newsom showed that he can duck, dodge, and weave his way through every negative fact thrown at him and come out smelling like a rose. If you knew nothing about the current state of California you’d think it was a bastion of freedom, safety, and a low cost of living after listening to the governor.

The man lied, twisted facts, deflected, and turned everything into an attack on his opponent like nothing I’ve seen before. It was impressive. And his liberal base will eat it up.

Make no mistake, this was nothing more than a probing action against an enemy to look for weakness. Newsom needed to see if he could deflect the reality of the dystopian state of California. He needed to see how DeSantis would react to abortion, LGBTQ+ hate, book banning, and environmental questions. Mission accomplished.

Remember, Newsoms audience isn’t the right. It’s the left. It’s the legions of lefties who suffer from massive Trump derangement syndrome. It’s minorities. It’s the vapid, empty headed college students. It’s Antifa. It’s BLM. These folks are the majority of every major population center in the country. And they all think Trump and DeSantis are fascist, book burning, Hitlers who will destroy the country and return us to the horrible 1950’s (Newsom even brought this up in the debate).

How good is Newsom? Even the residents of California who see the crime, skyrocketing prices, taxes, drugs, and human feces every day, voted not to recall him by an absolutely massive margin. He managed to create some weird Stockholm syndrome and convince the citizens of that state that they really weren’t seeing what they thought were seeing on a daily basis. Now, imagine what he’ll be able to do with the liberal base and wine sipping soccer moms in the rest of the country.

You will see a campaign of 24×7 shouting from the rooftops: women’s reproductive rights; hate and discrimination; paying your fair share; common sense gun safety. And the left will eat it up because nothing scares them more than a Trump-like figure returning to the Whitehouse. You thought it was impressive that Biden got 81 million votes? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

So to recap:

Biden will drop out and Newsom will be the candidate. (I admit, I thought for sure it would have already happened)

It’s doubtful Trump will be the candidate. The man has 92 felony counts pending against him. Regardless of what you think of the validity of those charges, he’s not beating all of them. Will the Republican Party re-nominate an egotistic, 78 year old convicted felon? Maybe, but remember half the Right are die-hard never Trumpers. Plus, Trump is a one man voter turnout machine for the left. The left hates him with the power of a thousand suns. No, DeSantis will be the nominee.

So a damaged DeSantis plagued by scores of butt-hurt Trump fans who won’t support him, against the slick car salesman Newsom? Say hello to President Newsom. The lizard-man wins hands down.

I think the only chance the right has in ’24, and I mean the ONLY chance, is if Biden actually does run. This is why the Republican house doesn’t want to actually impeach him. Investigate, investigate, investigate, and damage him as much as possible. Keep the base angry and frustrated to spark turnout. A frail, cognitively damaged Biden with legitimate corruption allegations around his neck, MIGHT be beatable.

I just don’t see the Democratic Party wanting to take that chance.

Either way, buckle up buttercup. This isn’t going to be pretty.

“Hard times create strong men; strong men create good times; good times create weak men; and weak men create hard times.” <– P.S you are here

Daily Life

Mid Week Thoughts

I’m trying to avoid another long, rambling post inspired by my Norse ancestors that discusses in excruciating detail the world history of invasion and conquest. Therefore I’ll keep today’s post to some short random thoughts.

  • Mrs Troutdog and I have been in-transit, traveling, and otherwise had zero predictability in our schedules for at least a month now (if not longer). We came home to a refrigerator whose sole contents were half a bag of shredded cheese, mayonnaise, and two eggs. We didn’t want to shop because we’re heading out again and won’t be back until next week. I made a comment of something along the lines of “whew, it’ll be nice when we finally get back to a regular schedule”. This morning I remembered an older post I’d written addressing this false feeling. It’s a crutch to think that “as soon as things calm down” I’ll get back to my routine. I’ve been using that crutch all summer. The harsh truth is that I don’t have a routine to get back to. It’s past due time to fix that.
  • I have no idea who this politician is since I’m not Canadian. Doesn’t matter – take a moment and watch this exchange. It’s a masterclass on how to handle the press. Journalism is garbage today. This “journalist” exemplifies the media establishment. He throws out vague statements like “a lot of people would say” and “taking a page out of Trumps playbook”, yet can’t define or articulate what any of those things or people are. We need people who can call this garbage journalism out and push back on the standard narrative.
  • It’s an El Niño year and hard to tell what the snow is going to do in my part of the world. I’m torn. I want snow. We’re also in the desperate last stages of a hardscape project in the backyard that’s going to be down to the wire to complete before snowfall. I think I’ll selfishly wish for a delayed start to the season so my project can get done.
  • Speaking of ski season, I don’t know what to expect this year. I’m having surgery to repair torn abdominal muscles in a few weeks. The surgeon says I should be able to be back on the slopes in six weeks. That puts me at mid-December. In theory I should be good to go. This will be my first ever surgery. How I managed to not seriously hurt myself before this is a mystery. I have no idea what to expect. (note to self, go re-read my first point)
  • It’s fall in my part of the world and we have leaves. Lots and lots of leaves falling. I filled up six bags plus the garbage can a few days ago. There’s easily another six to eight bags worth of leaves that have fallen since then. Picking up leaves is not among my favorite yard work tasks.
  • I find it interesting that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has produced 600,000-800,000 wounded and dead. Nobody is calling for a cease-fire or pleading to protect innocent civilian life. Israel strikes back at Hamas after being brutally attacked and there’s near instantaneous wailing and gnashing of teeth to cease-fire and protect precious innocent civilians. Why is that?
  • Speaking of Hamas, the hospital being bombed story last night was the perfect representation of how the media covers the conflict. Something explodes at a hospital and Hamas instantly accuses Israel of intentionally targeting and bombing a hospital. 500 people killed! Oh, the humanity! What sort of butcher would do such a thing? The media ran with it. Members of congress condemned Israel for it. And this morning… oops, it was Hamas’ own rocket that landed in a parking lot with an unknown number of casualties, but certainly not 500. The retractions and apologies for the false story? Crickets…
  • This is our president making a statement in a pivotal moment for a potentially dangerous and escalating conflict. It’s embarrassing and frightening. I can only imagine what other world leaders are thinking. If you voted for Biden, can you now honestly say that you feel good about that choice? Was a protest vote against Trump worth having a dementia patient in charge? The curious thing is… who’s really calling the shots? We know it’s not Biden.
  • I’m going fly fishing this weekend on one of the hardest and trickiest rivers to fish. It’s world-renown. We’re going with a guide, so at least I have a tiny chance of landing something. My single goal is to not embarrass myself too badly. There’s a reason I haven’t attempted to fish this stretch before. Wish me luck.

And that’s that. Another week and a half of travel and non-routine. Then surgery and recovery. Interesting times. Go out and do something fun in the fall colors. Winter is just around the corner!

Politics

Predictions

The 2024 elections seem like a long way off and it feels silly to speculate on what might happen so early in the process. I’m probably going to be wrong, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that we’re going to have another four years of Biden. Here’s why…

The democratic primary has the concept of “superdelegates”. Because of this, the party establishment controls who will win the nomination (see Bernie Sanders, x2). The democratic party elite are perfectly happy having a useful idiot as a placeholder to do their bidding. As long as he doesn’t decline much further, he’s their man.

The man waiting in the wings is Gavin Newsom. He’s already traveling the country and putting fundraising and staffing feelers out. He just launched a PAC with 10 million dollars from his existing campaign funds. He won’t challenge Biden but is poised to jump in if the establishment decides the current commander in chief can no longer follow instructions.

Trump (A.K.A the bad orange man) is the dream candidate for democrats. There is no other republican candidate who can turn out the democratic vote better than Trump. While I don’t believe for a second that Biden received 13 million more votes than Obama, the sheer democratic turnout for someone who campaigned from his basement should scare the pants off of republicans.

Nothing sparks more outrage for democrats than Trump. And what is the democrat-controlled media and justice system currently doing? Everything possible to stir up more Trump outrage. Indictments, court cases, rehashing scandals, and never-ending analysis of every perceived horrible thing Trump has ever done. This will continue ad nauseum for the next year. And Trump, being the thin-skinned narcissist he is, will rise to the occasion and spend this year name calling and chanting about stolen elections. It’s a dumpster fire the democrats will keep pouring gasoline on.

The problem is that Trump voters don’t realize it’s already a lost battle. Trump barely won in ’16 and got spanked in ’20. Virtually all the candidates he endorsed in the ’22 midterms lost. The GOP does not know how to counter the democratic vote gathering machine and spends their time issuing pithy statements about virtue while the democrats clean their clocks in every big population city. It’s like Groundhog Day and Lucy with the football all wrapped up in one. Why does this keep happening to me? (see RNC chair Ronna McDaniel)

If Trump wins the nomination, there aren’t enough MAGA votes to overcome the democratic machine. And, there’s probably a reasonably large number of republican voters who will sit out rather than put up with four more years of Trump chaos. The establishment GOP leaders hate Trump and won’t lift a finger to help him. The deep state will do everything possible to further torpedo his chances. The DNC will hammer home the message of Trump chaos, scandal, racism, and abortion. Game, set, match.

The obvious wildcard is DeSantis. Trump is already attacking him nonstop, and I saw the first MAGA funded anti-DeSantis attack ad the other night. Trump is clearly worried. It’s unclear if DeSantis can win the nomination. To do so, he’s going to have to go hardcore against Trump. He’ll have to be nasty and hammer home Trump’s flaws. But if he does that, he’s going to piss off all the MAGA sycophants big time. If DeSantis eeks out the nomination, will all the butt-hurt Trump supporters turn out for him? That’s a big maybe.

For DeSantis to win the presidency, he’ll need to destroy Trump, win back the support of the MAGA crowd he pissed off, thread the needle of gaining GOP establishment support, and then win over the suburban soccer mom crowd. With the media already crafting him as the “don’t say gay” and book burning guy… he’ll have a tough job to gain any crossover support from any of the centrist liberal crowd.

My gut feeling is that DeSantis would emerge from the nomination battle with Trump too bruised to be effective against the DNC machine.

My sense is that the only chance of a republican winning the presidency in ’24 would be some sort of Trump scandal that comes out in the next few months that’s so egregious, even the MAGA faithful couldn’t stomach supporting him. If that happens soon enough, DeSantis can cleanly win the nomination and have enough MAGA support to have a sporting chance of defeating the DNC.

The democratic party is in good shape. They own the media and the deep state. They have a useful puppet already in place. If he screws up or has a massive stroke, pretty boy Newsom is ready to go. The democratic faithful already kept Newsom in place with an overwhelming majority vote in his failed recall effort. There’s no reason to think he’d do any differently on the national stage. He’s bulletproof.

So, barring any unforeseen circumstances, (nuclear exchange, massive financial melt-down, etc…) I give the democratic party an 85-90% chance of maintaining the presidency.

So there you go. My official prediction. Let’s see how off base I am. And yes, I’ll publicly eat crow if it turns out I have no idea what I’m talking about.