Ten Piece Nuggets

This morning’s Ten(11) Piece Nuggets are so tender and tasty that they can almost replace baby formula.  Almost.  We’re delivering them to your virtual door this AM because who can afford to drive anymore?

  1. Megan Rapinoe and the U.S. Women’s National Team got what they’ve been wanting for so long.  The U.S. Soccer Federation just announced both the men’s and women’s national teams will receive equal pay.   The USWNT filed a lawsuit against the USSF shortly after winning the World Cup in 2019 accusing it of engaging in “institutionalized gender discrimination” against the team.
  2. Good for them.  Maybe the WNBA, as progressive as the NBA portends to be, will be next.  Wait until men’s soccer players who don’t make the team want to try out for the women’s team as they suddenly identify as women. We’ll see what the institution does about gender discrimination then.
  3. Be careful what you wish for.  In 2017, the USWNT played an exhibition game with FC Dallas against the club’s under-15 boys team. The famed women’s team, the winner of the 2019 Women’s World Cup, was soundly defeated in a 5-2 final.
  4.  This must be viewed as progress.  We know you’ve been hearing recently about how men can get pregnant.  The Biden administration even replaced the word “mothers” with “birthing people” in the 2022 fiscal year budget.  Now if they could replace the word “deficit” in the budget with either “balanced” or “surplus,” that would be a trick as amazing as men birthing people.
  5. Earlier this week, Los Angeles became the second metro area, joining San Francisco, with the average cost for a gallon of gasoline surpassing $6.  All of the liberal elite Hollywood types that moved to Canada when Trump was elected can be thankful that a gallon of gas was only $2 back then for their move north.
  6. Forget for a moment, if you have to, who coined the phrase.   But doesn’t the slogan MAGA- Make America Great Again sound so timely and desirous right about now?
  7. “In contrast, Russian elections are rigged,” George W Bush said yesterday. “Political opponents are imprisoned or otherwise eliminated from participating in the electoral process. The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean of Ukraine.”  Bush took a page(er, chapter) out of the Biden Gaffe book.  It was a beauty.
  8. That worthless Iraqi invasion under the Bush administration cost the U.S. about a trillion dollars and too many soldiers’ lives back when a trillion dollars was a lot of money and one life was one too many.  So far Ukraine(or Russia if you prefer) has cost us a measly 75 billion.
  9. “You know, those border communities are just getting killed down in southern Texas,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said Wednesday. “Biden should be given an honorary membership in the Mexican drug cartels because nobody has done more to help the cartels than Biden with his open-border policies.”  If you think DeSantis isn’t gearing up for a presidential nomination run then you probably think men can give birth.
  10. What’s the new number one cause of death in US adults aged 18-45?  Looking at their 401k statement?  No.  Traffic accidents?  Nope.  Covid-19?  Hell no.  Fentanyl overdose? Correct.  DeSantis will have many issues to run on.  This is a big one.  It’s one that still isn’t getting the attention it deserves.
  11. It’s been suggested to anyone that wants to write a book about CNN+ that they skip the first ten chapters and start with Chapter 11.  Jimmy Failla is a good follow on Twitter.

You’ve been served.

The Public Sentiment Pendulum

For the public sentiment pendulum to ever so slightly move in a direction opposite of its current one it takes only one net change of opinion. This move is barely discernable to the eye much less the national polls.

For the public sentiment pendulum to reverse course and begin an accelerating descent for the opposite side of the bottom/center “it takes a village” as Crooked Hillary used to say.

This course reverse is always aided by influencers.  They’re the ones that millions listen to and follow.

Ninety-five percent of our population are followers.  They want to be led.

Almost daily more coals are being dumped into the steam engine.  One big one was Elon Musk when he started speaking his mind and decided to buy Twitter so others can freely as well.   Make no mistake about it, the left inside and outside of the company has roared its collective concern.

It’s two for one.  Elon is an influencer.   Twitter and its shaping algorithms, bots, and suppression of expression are another.

But looky here, last week Netflix told its employees matter of factly that they had a choice.  They could work on the content that they don’t approve of, or they could leave the nest.

And, of all people, a now buffed Jeffery Bezos started pulling a bit right. In a tweet, Bezos accused Biden of ‘misdirection’ in response to the President saying inflation could be tamed by making wealthy firms ‘pay their fair share.’  “Raising corp taxes is fine to discuss. Taming inflation is critical to discuss. Mushing them together is just misdirection.”

Like Twitter and Netflix employees, the White House full of Biden handlers didn’t like the pushback from a man who they thought was bought and paid for.

“It doesn’t require a huge leap to figure out why one of the wealthiest individuals on Earth opposes an economic agenda for the middle class that cuts some of the biggest costs families face, fights inflation for the long haul, and adds to the historic deficit reduction the President is achieving by asking the richest taxpayers and corporations to pay their fair share,” deputy WH press secretary Andrew Bates said.  That’s a WhataSize bite of a nothing burger.

When your presidential approval rating is at a first term low of either 33% or 39% depending on which of the latest two polls you prefer, you see the pendulum coming right down the track at you.

Other presidents’ ratings have sagged early on including young Bush, Obama, and Trump.  What to do?  Fight back.  Regain the nation’s confidence.  Call it the war with words.

Roe v Wade is a firestarter.  But PR agencies are strongly advising major companies to go quietly into the night on this.  They saw the Disney melt.

And, now unfortunately so is the Buffalo mass shooting.  As with all mass murders, this one is uncalled for and terrible.

But, Biden sees light where others see darkness.  And, he’ll tell you so today from Buffalo.  He’ll wax on about the progress made against racism during his 40 years of public service(as if he had something to do with it), but tell you how far we still need to travel.  He didn’t travel to Waukesha, but we digress.  He’ll castigate Congress, demanding a call to arms to call some arms too dangerous to be sold anymore in the US.

Then, he’ll board Air Force One and be back at the big house in time for dinner and Matlock reruns.

The nearing midterms will be the ultimate judge of where the sentiment pendulum is.  But, for Biden and the left that pulls his strings, if they want a last two-year rerun of the first two years, they have a lot of ground to make up.

And, dangerous big guns like Musk and Bezos are firing in the wrong direction.

 

iPods, Smoking, and Combustion Engines

Did you or do you own an iPod?  Did you ever smoke cigarettes?  Will you trade in your gas guzzler when the time comes for an electric vehicle(EV)?

Yesterday the mother of all companies in tune with what people want/need, Apple, ended production on the tunes machine that changed how we listened to music-the iPod.

Why did they discontinue the iPod?  It’s pretty simple.  Apple and its competitors innovated.  You can listen to music, podcasts, etc. right from your phone from a variety of sources better known as apps.   The sound quality is amazing.

The life span of the iPod was a short but successful 20 years or so.  Innovation changed the game.

Cigarettes, regardless of brand, went from “smoke them if you got em” during WWII, to sexy in the ’60s, to the surgeon general warning us in the ’80s about how bad they were for your health, to frowned upon in the ’00s, to almost extinguished in the ’20s.

The lifespan of Winston, which “tastes good like a cigarette should,” was multiple generations.  Medical science changed the game.

In 1886, Carl Benz began the first commercial production of motor vehicles with internal combustion engines. By the 1890s, motor cars reached their modern stage of development.

The gasoline-powered car stands as one of the great inventions ever.  It revolutionized how we got around, how far we could go, and who we were.

And, a quick 130 or so years later it’s in the fight of its life.  EVs cometh.  And so does the government.

Sure, EVs are innovations to gas-powered cars and trucks like the phone is to the iPod.  Sure(we presume), EVs are healthier for our planet like not smoking is to smoking.

But this one feels forced.  Shouldn’t we let nature, innovation, education, and consumer preferences take their course?

“Biden admin’s new NEPA permitting rules will basically stop new oil and gas production,” wrote renowned economist Larry Kudlow yesterday.  “The Keystone XL pipeline is gone.  Alaska drilling is gone. Other smaller pipelines are gone. Those decisions have already been made by Biden’s Energy and Interior departments and his EPA.”

And, now new leases in the Gulf of Mexico have been canceled.  Additionally, Russian oil is off-limits and gasoline at the pump is already at an all-time high.

These new NEPA rules are so restrictive that they will slow down the $1 trillion infrastructure bill they passed including the green infrastructure (windmills, solar).  All projects will be subject to direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental impact reviews.

So while we are in a rush to go green, far-reaching regulations were passed that will now make us inspect the government-funded (read as you funded) green infrastructure projects to ensure they’re green.  We’re spending a lot of green for all of this.

Are you seeing red yet?  Your eyes are fine.  It’s probably just all of that government red tape that you are seeing.

Like baby formula, we’d like to see the supply of gas catch up with the demand for gas.  It would lower prices.  That would allow us to keep a bit of what we earn so that when taxes are raised to pay for all of this that government can’t afford, we’ll be able to afford to do so.

Eventually, won’t EVs win out? Capitalism drove us this far so to speak.

Until then, we’d like to “fill er up” a time or two more without going into what’s left of our savings accounts.

 

 

 

 

Ten Piece Nuggets

There is no shortage of turmoil and tumult in this tempestuous nation/world that we live in.  Hence there is no shortage of “you’re kidding me” moments, actions or misdeeds to box up a Ten Piece Nuggets weekly.  Supply chain issues we have none here.

  1. Ever played Wordle?  It’s a progressive use of only five-letter words chasing the word of the day.   Ever since The New York Times bought it 90 or so days ago, BBR’s been waiting for them to either screw it up, charge for it, or put their worldly slant on it.  This morning the NYT announced that it was removing the word “fetus” in a move to keep the game “distinct from the news.”
  2. This move put the game right into the news, which is of course exactly what they wanted.  Maybe if the word fetus is removed from our minds there will be no more fetuses?
  3. Try typing in the word “slave” next time you play.  It’s not there either.  If it helped get rid of slavery that’s a plus.  Of course, it didn’t.  But we can always change, alter, rewrite, or ignore history if need be.  And, most of all the word “slave” is offensive.
  4. Honorable Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has a hunch (like renowned seer Eric Swalwell) that this Roe V Wade overturn is just the start.  “To my friends in the LGBTQ+ community—the Supreme Court is coming for us next. This moment has to be a call to arms,” she tweeted.  And, she had more goodwill in her next.  “We will not surrender our rights without a fight—a fight to victory!”  Just rhetoric you say?  Perhaps.  Chicago has the highest murder rate in this country.  Mostly peaceful protests are sure to follow.
  5. Two quick years ago, Chuck Schumer had it with two justices specifically.   Speaking to the pro-abortion (meaning women’s wellness) activists in front of the Supreme Court building, Schumer called out Gorsuch and Kavanaugh by name, saying: “You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”  Just rhetoric you say?  Perhaps. New York, where Schumer hails from has marginally less gun violence than Chicago.
  6.  Was it rhetoric that got President Trump into trouble that lead to the January 6th insurrection?  Nope, it was a dereliction of duty some say.  Actually, it was stupidity just like the two outbursts above.  Of course, with each passing week, we are learning that the “storming” of the capitol might have had deeper planted roots.  Now that would be more than rhetoric and stupidity combined.
  7. All of the above is a win for the left.  Galvanize the base on the possible decision to return the abortion debate back to the states, but make it sound like SO much more than that.  Forget that gas prices climbed to an all-time high yesterday.  What border?  Do yourself a favor and skip peeking at your 401k.
  8. Bette Midler is encouraging women and girls to take a knee the next time “The Star-Spangled Banner” is played, in apparent protest of the U.S. Supreme Court’s forthcoming decision on Roe v. Wade.  While they’re kneeling could they say a prayer to ease the baby formula shortage?  Or, is that too much to ask?
  9. Meanwhile, did you know that a majority of pro-life advocates are women?  Did you know that the US is only one of seven countries on earth that allow elective abortion through all nine months of pregnancy?
  10.  The DOJ is launching a new office.  It’s the Office of Environmental Justice.  AG Merrick Garland released a statement, “Although violations of environmental laws can happen anywhere, communities of color, indigenous communities, and low-income communities often bear the brunt of the harm caused by environmental crime, pollution, and climate change.”  Shakedowns are in style all over again.  Better Call Saul.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                You’ve been served.

Ten Piece Nuggets-Random

Please seat yourself.  Labor shortages in the restaurant biz are acute.

BBR is committed to replacing all plastic straws with paper by 2030 assuming any trees are left.

  1.  We have a quick quiz to start us off.  Q- In 2012 who said, “Life begins at conception?”  A- Joe Biden, VP.
  2. The FBI is starting an investigation into the SCOTUS leak source.  It took a dozen agents two weeks to figure out the rope in Rusty Wallace’s garage was a door opener.  BBR’s guess on the conclusion date of their Supreme Court deep dive is 11/9, or 24 hours after the midterm vote.
  3. There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that O.J. Simpson pledged a cool million to help find the leaker.
  4.  We got from “you must socially distance, wear at least one mask, stay home, and get vaxxed four times” to “don’t tell me what to do with my body” quicker than Russia could gain control in Ukraine.
  5.  And just like that everyone 2 weeks ago who was not a biologist is now a biologist.
  6. The honorable Congressman from Cali, Eric Swalwell tweeted last evening, ” The Republicans won’t stop with banning abortion.  They want to ban interracial marriage. Do you want to save that?  Well, then you should probably vote.”  He really did.  Justice Clarence Thomas is holding on line two.
  7. Do any of the fine citizens of the great states of California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Hawaii realize that the possible(probable) overturn of Roe V. Wade will have zero effect on the ability to abort in their state?  As fast as Florida, Texas, Alabama, and South Dakota ban it or limit it, the above-mentioned states will pass legislation to protect it. The SC ruling would only return the decision-making to the states.
  8. Bernie Sanders knows what to do.  “Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW. And if there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes,” he tweeted.  So he wants to pass a law changing a centuries-old filibuster law to pass a law that the SC said should be a state’s choice.   Why not?  Bernie “Smooth” Sanders.
  9. While more than six in 10 registered voters continue to believe the U.S. Supreme Court should uphold Roe v. Wade, the latest Fox News poll also finds over half favor banning abortions after 15 weeks.  Conflicted we are.  A state-by-state breakdown, if Roe v. Wade gets tossed, would be interesting.
  10. All 22 Trump-endorsed candidates for office in yesterday’s Ohio and Indiana won their primaries.  RINO’s will be as scarce as lanterns and pitchforks this fall.  Mitch McConnell, are you listening?

You’ve been served.

 

A Leak Like No Other

In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on the case of Roe v Wade.  The majority opinion of the court made abortion legal nationwide.

Emotions about abortion ran high.  It was and is a nasty word for many.  So abortion was rebranded as pro-choice.  Pro-choice morphed into woman’s health.  Woman’s health was then repackaged as woman’s wellness.  It’s harder to debate woman’s wellness.

Eventually, the government was so concerned about women’s wellness that Planned Parenthood (founded in 1916) became a partially federally funded abortion, and woman’s wellness clinic.

Since we’re changing what we call things, should that part of the organization be renamed Not Planned Not Parenthood?

Fifty years later, there is a public debate as to who actually is a woman at the same time that we put a woman, Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court.  Brown Jackson testified before Congress that she couldn’t define what a woman was either.  When pressed, she said, “I am not a biologist.”

So last night’s bombshell, the SCOTUS leak of the first draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito for the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization., has vaulted the issue to the front page of American discourse all over again.  Alito writes, “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

That there is a leak is a bombshell unto itself.  And, is a very dangerous threat to a very important pillar of US democracy-the Justice System’s impartial operational sanctity.  Start the investigation today.

So why the leak?  It’s pretty obvious, and serves a dual purpose, doesn’t it?

Can enough pressure be applied to those siding with Alito to swing votes the other way to maintain the status quo?  And can the current political landscape be reshaped with this polarizing issue to the extent that the party in power can maintain that power by inciting and galvanizing its base?

Inevitably, the leak will spur Democrats to push for the passage of a bill to codify Roe.  To do so they would need to bust the filibuster rule or lower the threshold to end a filibuster from 60 yes votes to 51. That means all attention will immediately turn to, you guessed it, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

The midterm vote is on 11/8/22, or six months and five days from today.

If you’re the party from the left would you like to run on inflation, food shortages, Ukraine, Afghanistan, the southern border, crime, Biden’s poll numbers, and Kamala’s incompetence? Or, would you like to run away from all of that?

Or, would you prefer to watch “mostly peaceful protests” in this coming summer of love to combat that nasty “war on women?” You could then bank on that being the galvanizer to get the vote out and turned in your favor.

Is it a coincidence that Kamala Harris is the featured speaker tonight at the 30th Annual We Are EMILY National Conference and Gala, a pro-choice event?  Is it a coincidence that President Biden is scheduled to deliver his thoughts from the White House today on Roe V. Wade?

Or, is all of this well planned by the party that plans well?

One thing is for sure, the Supreme Court has reunited the nation on the question of which gender gets pregnant and gives birth.

Or, chooses not to.

For now.

 

Imagine That

Imagine a country governed by people who feel like a five-year-old understands gender orientation/identification but an 18-year-old doesn’t understand that if you borrow money for college you have to pay it back.

But for that to happen you’d have to imagine a country that has a president who said yesterday to teachers about their students at the White House Teachers of the Year Event, “they’re not somebody else’s children.  They’re yours when you’re in the classroom.”

Imagine studying, for example, art appreciation, and realizing at 25 years of age that your degree can’t afford a tank of gas much less a loan payback.

Some wake-up calls happen later than others, but all are part of life’s lessons.

Imagine that the keepers of the taxpayers’ money think it’s actually a good lesson to teach loan forgiveness.  Do car or house loans in the future come equipped with a ripcord too?  Why would we teach anyone to live within (or preferably below) their means?

Is this a downpayment for a vote in the midterms?

Imagine the understandable outrage of parents who scraped to save for their child’s college while watching another handout.

Imagine the understandable outrage of valuable blue-collar workers who learned a trade at their own expense and now inevitably realize that the student loan debt is transferred to their backs.

Imagine a party currently out of power that could succinctly “sell” against the shell game above, get elected, and actually do right by the everyday working man and woman in this country.

To do that you’d need to imagine that “man” and “woman” are words still recognized by men and women.

To do that you’d need to imagine a party that was conservative, not Republican that spends like the party in power.

To do that you’d need to imagine a party that did not have people named McConnell, McCarthy, Graham, Cheney, and Romney in powerful positions.

To do that you’d need progressive (not that kind) thinking.

Someone better think like that and fast.  Because progressive(that kind) thinking, in less than one week after Elon Musk finalized an agreement to buy Twitter the Department of Homeland Security, created what they are calling a Disinformation Governance Board’ dedicated to “countering misinformation.”

Lose control of Twitter? No problem!  We’ll wield a word ax over any and all spoken and written words.

A Ministry of Truth is what opponents are calling it.  Will the Disinformation Governance Board deem the characterization “Ministry of Truth” as misinformation?

Imagine someone running the Ministry named Nina Jankowicz.  Last week, Jankowicz said she opposes The First Amendment for apparently being bad for ‘marginalized communities.’  We’d imagine marginalized communities is gobbledy gook for “minorities.”

Now that we forgave student loans, let’s get back to the real problems in this country-equity, inclusion, and diversity!

Jeez. Wasn’t it just last week that Disney execs reimagined their imaginary characters to do just that?

Imagine that.

Ten Piece Nuggets-Random

Easy question.  What’s better than getting your week started with a healthy serving of Ten Piece Nuggets?

Easy Answer.  Nothing, just like the content of Kamala Harris’ responses to questions asked of her.

  1.  Today is the last day to file your 2021 tax return.  It’s 4/18 this year, not 4/15, because Friday was Emancipation Day (a legal holiday in the District of Columbia) and the IRS observed it.  If you haven’t yet be sure you do file today as every country in the world other than the United States is relying on the money.
  2.  Speaking of money, why is everyone more worried about how Elon Musk is spending his money than how the US government spends our money?
  3.  We forgot.   Nandy Pelosi lectured to us that government overspending isn’t inflationary.  So, no worries.  Joe Biden did as well, but may not remember doing so.  Thankfully, Build Back Better is on the very backburner now.  Hopefully, he forgets about that, too!
  4. Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post in 2016 for $250 million. Some of the paper’s columnists have vocally opposed Musk’s efforts. The left-leaning media outlet published a column from former CEO of Reddit Ellen K. Pao headlined, “Elon Musk’s vision of ‘free speech’ will be bad for Twitter.”  You can’t make this stuff up and sound this ignorant.  We now have visions of free speech.
  5. Do you know what Title 42 is?  On March 20, 2020, at the outset of the COVID-19 public health emergency, President Trump previewed a measure to curb “mass uncontrolled cross-border movement.”  That day, then CDC Director Robert Redfield invoked a World War II-era public health law to authorize U.S. border officials to promptly deport migrants. The law, found in Title 42 of the U.S. code, grants the government the “power to prohibit, in whole or in part, the introduction of persons and property” to stop a contagious disease from spreading in the U.S.  Now you do.
  6. To stop the contagious disease in Canada you must have had two Covid 19 vaccine doses at least 14 days prior to entering the country.  The Boston Red Sox have a series there starting next week and Manager Alex Cora said that they will be without multiple unvaccinated players.
  7. On April 1, now CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announced her agency would stop authorizing Title 42 on May 23, saying the expulsions of migrants are no longer necessary to protect public health.  Here comes the next huge illegal wave.  Even a Democratic candidate for the Texas Governorship opposes the move.  “It does not make sense to end this until there is a real plan and the capacity in place to handle those and address those that come over,” Beto O’Rourke said.
  8. Beto is fence-sitting a bit, but still, he at least wants a plan.  This administration has a plan.  The plan is to flood America with immigrants legal or not.  Texas has had it.  Bus no. 4 loaded last week and hit DC yesterday.  Oh, and Beto has no shot(pun intended) in Texas.  His opposition to guns is the deal-breaker.
  9. You can finally rest easy if you’re a pregnant man. Put your feet up like your female counterparts have done for centuries. Apple’s iOS 15.4 update, rolling out to all models of the iPhone since late March, recognizes you with an emoji of a pregnant man.  There is also a gender-neutral “person with crown” to go alongside the king and queen ones.  All are available in five skin colors, too.  So, to recap you can now be a pregnant male or a gender-neutral crowned person regardless of your skin tone. Inclusive indeed.
  10. Special Counsel John Durham is a deal maker.  He’s now giving immunity to up to five key witnesses in the Clinton campaign investigation of false Russian collusion in the 2016 election and prosecution of its lawyer Michael Sussmann.  Sussmann will wind up as roadkill for the Clintons.  There is a trail of it from Arkansas to DC and back and the stench covers decades.  Will the investigation result in more carnage?

You’ve been served.

 

Ten Piece Nuggets-Random

The fryer wouldn’t kick on right away this AM, so the Ten Piece Nuggets are in short order today.

  1.  By now you know that the CPI annualized for March roared in at 8.5%, the highest since 1981. By now you’ve heard the White House and its occupants refer to the runaway inflation as the “Putin Price Hike.”  We’d love to see the polling that the administration did on the catchy phrase.  In other words, how many Americans believe that this mess is Putin’s doing?  And/or how many thought it to be a good phrase to hide the obvious?
  2. Calling severe inflation the “Putin price hike” is a lie.  It’s also a distraction.  What they’re really saying is they plan to do little to attempt to stop it.
  3. After all, and we borrowed this one from one of our favorite readers, tapping our oil reserves instead of drilling is as stupid as tapping your 401k instead of going to work.
  4.  How can Frank James, “a person of interest,” in the NY subway shootings yesterday escape from the horrific scene and remain on the loose today?  The subway cameras weren’t working much like the jail cameras all around Jeffery Epstein’s cell.  That’s not a surprise.  The surprise is that the thousands of other cameras around the station didn’t pick up his exit path and allow authorities to trail him to some point.  Surely they know way more than what has been released to the public?
  5. Early reports state that James was known to the FBI but cleared in 2019.  Cleared?  What does that mean?  It means investigated, but not pursued beyond that, we presume.  Does anyone ever do any follow-up?  We’ve heard that excuse far too many times including 9/11.  The FBI was once a revered granite block of what was right with our country.  Now it’s Inspector Clouseau in a Pink Panther movie.
  6. You remember former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace.  The liberal that emerged from behind the Fox logo has reportedly been breaking down in front of his crew over the “miserable failure” of the new streaming platform CNN+.  The launch of CNN+ has been anything but stellar with the platform drawing close to 10,000 daily viewers and even fewer subscribers.  No one watches CNN.  Why would you pay to watch CNN+?  And, you already have another left streamer gaining steam named Disney+, but we digress.  Trump once told Chris that his father Mike was much better than him.  Harsh.  Accurate?

  7. CNN is now owned by WarnerMedia just as it is merging with Discovery, and some of the execs of these entities are a bit confused as to why CNN rushed through its launch of the now failing service before the merger was complete.  So far it’s a $300 million investment to attract 10k lost souls.  Does it sound like somebody owed somebody a favor?  Adding Jemele Hill to cover sports surely will help.  Won’t it?
  8. Warner Bros. has bowed to Chinese authorities by removing gay dialogue from its blockbuster sequel Fantastic Beasts: Secrets of Dumbledore, with the studio justifying its act of artistic censorship by describing it as “nuanced cuts” and “minor edits.”  This is taking “Don’t Say Gay” to a whole new level.  LA County will not allow its government employees to travel to Florida because of the bill.  Surely China is next?  Not if you follow the money.
  9. Texas has had it with the illegal immigration at the border.  Governor Abbott has begun to bus the migrants to Washington DC.  The first bus arrived this AM.  This should get interesting, very interesting, as Artie Johnson used to say.  The gamesmanship(read as political polarization of uneducated masses) has just begun as we go under the six-month mark till the midterms.
  10. Rep Darrel Issa tweeted yesterday, “Black Lives Matter sent some angry tweets, but still hasn’t come close to explaining its purchase of a $6 million mansion in LA-using donations to its charity.  We need an investigation more than ever.”

You’ve been served.

Basic Common Sense

A make-believe President Andrew Sheppard (actor Michael Douglas) interrupted a press conference in the movie An American President filmed in 1995 and said, “You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I’m gonna convince Americans that I’m right, and I’m gonna get the guns.”

“Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” shrieked Beto O’Rourke to roaring applause from a crowd at Texas Southern University during a Democratic Debate for a want-to-be President in 2015. “We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.”

Yesterday, our real president, though some would argue in title only, Joe Biden told us that he wants to rein in the use of untraceable firearms known as ghost guns that turn up frequently at crime scenes.  This attempt targets privately made firearms that can be assembled from purchased do-it-yourself kits.  The weapons lack serial numbers, which makes it difficult to trace the owner.

Commercial manufacturers of the kits will have to be licensed and must add serial numbers on the kits’ frame or receiver.  Commercial sellers of the kits will have to become licensed and will be required to run background checks on potential buyers.  It makes some sense as conventional retailers must do the same.  It just won’t stop anyone who wants a gun to find a way to get one.

“These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals,” Biden said in a Rose Garden ceremony attended by victims and families of gun violence. “We are going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice and, when we find them, put them in jail for a long, long time.”  Sounds like we’re not as interested in defunding the police as we were pre election.

Biden called the not call to arms “basic common sense.”  Except, it’s not.  Or, at least it’s not enough.

Well, it makes as much sense as Twitter employees who worry that Elon Musk, now Twitter’s largest shareholder, may turn their free speech platform into a platform that actually allows free speech, but we digress.

All together now- guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.

Adding serial numbers to parts will make illegal gun owners take a bit longer to file down the additional numbers to make them untraceable.  Also, stolen guns are stolen guns regardless of who cleared a background check originally.

There are over 330 million guns in this country that we can count. It’s the second amendment right.  If you don’t make another one, or file down another serial number, that’s enough for every man, woman, and child, regardless of their choice of pronouns, to pack heat.

Illinois and New York have the strictest gun control laws in the nation.  Ask the residents of Chicago’s south side or the Bronx how much that helps.

Criminal behavior starts way before someone puts a gun in their hand.  Once Veep Kamala figures out the root cause of illegal immigration maybe she can turn her attention to the root cause of criminal behavior.

Until then we can continue paying lip service to the problem as we do with China, Russia, inflation, debt, and the border.