Here are two simple questions, but they come with one qualifying request.  The request is to put politics aside to answer them.

Question one: Do you believe freedom of speech is one of our most important rights?

Question two: Do you prefer a smaller but more efficient government than we have today?

Would anyone answer “no” to either question?

We strongly suspect that Elon Musk would answer with a loud “YES” to both. He’s at the center of both questions as the 2024 presidential election draws near.

Once upon a time, Musk was loved by the left.  Then he bought Twitter.  Now he’s not loved so much.

What happened?  What happened goes to the very core of both questions above.

Musk quickly ended the imbalance of censorship from the left on Twitter and in the process unwound the one-way definitions of disinformation, misinformation, and hate speech.

Along the way he kept asking employees at Twitter what they did for the company.  What is your job?  Incorrect was the answer “Umm.”

He quickly slashed a ton of dead weight on the payroll.  The social media platform now has only 1,500 employees, down from the 8,000 employed at the time of the acquisition.

Late last week he was drawn even nearer to the crux of the questions.

VP and Prez want-to-be Kamala Harris told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “he has lost his privileges and it should be taken down.  You can’t have one rule for Twitter and another for Facebook.  These social sites have to understand their power.  They are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any oversight and regulation and that has to stop.”

Isn’t freedom of speech a right, not a privilege?  Who has oversight and regulates what Kamala says to millions and millions?  Maybe she doesn’t like Musk’s resistance to conform to government-approved narratives?

Marc Zuckerberg admitted last week that he wished that Facebook would have more overtly pushed back on the Biden/Harris administration’s multiple requests for FB to censor jokes or dissents to be published about the government’s position on Covid 19 back in 2021.  Well well.

Former President Trump is reportedly eyeing a plan to involve prominent business executives, including Elon, in auditing federal agencies to identify programs to cut.

Elon’s blue checkmark tweet response was,  “I can’t wait.  There is a lot of waste and needless regulation government that needs to go.”

Back up the Waste Management trucks to DC and start managing the waste.

Real free speech and real government cuts.

New Texas resident Elon Musk says “Giddyup!”

 

 

 

Shortly after POTUS Barack Obama became the former prez he uttered the infamous sentence, “Never underestimate Joe Biden’s ability to mess things up.”

Actually, he did not say “mess.”  What he did say was a four-letter word though.

In 2019 Barack didn’t give Joe what he asked for.  Biden came to the clear Democratic Party leader and asked for his endorsement to run for president in 2020.  Instead, he told Joe, “You know you don’t have to do this.”

But Biden soldiered on.  He told us that the soul of the country was at stake.  This was after his son sold his and Joe’s soul to Ukraine, but we digress.

Eighty-one million votes and one “insurrection” later, Biden started calling the White House home.  Is Arizona finished counting votes yet?  We digress again.

Fast forward to the first debate of 2024 on Joe’s way to reelection, and he hit a pothole.  And, it was one big, incoherent, babbling run-on sentence after another surely caused by jet lag and a cold.  Or, not.

This was the beginning of the end publicly.  For DNC brass it was the middle.

When one runs for the highest office in all of the land he or she must win two votes.  The first one is the coronation from the internal powers who control the donation kitty.  The second is the Electoral College.

A couple of weeks later facing sharp persistent criticism, Biden landed in Los Angeles for a heavy Hollywood-hitting fundraiser hosted by Obama’s tight buddy, George Clooney.  With 28 mil secured Biden boarded Air Force One to head east.

But, once the checks cleared Clooney did the switch art of the old bait and switch.  He said the obvious out loud.  Biden has(most would say had) deteriorated significantly and wondered if he was fit to serve four more years.  Clooney, by Obama’s proxy,  green-lit the lieutenants.

Adam Shiff became the 20th Dem Rep/Senator to ask Biden to reconsider.  Reports are that friend Chuck Schumer, in a one-on-one, told Biden directly that he should stop the campaign.

Joe pressed on.  His inner circle has no conscience.  Yesterday, he forgot his appointed Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s name in an interview.  He referred to him as “the black man.”  Oh, yes he did.

By nightfall, he did all he could to stay vertical climbing ever so slowly up the short steps of Air Force One.

Now it’s Covid for the thrice-boosted one.  Joy Reid said this could be a benefit to the campaign. “He can remind people of what hell we went through because of Donald Trump.”

Campaign?

“It ain’t over ’til it’s over,”  Yogi Berra wisely reasoned long ago.  Joy heartedly agrees today.

The DNC plans to push back their convention a month.  Hmmmm.

Barack Obama has spoken.  Therefore, the money has as well.

It’s over.

The end.

 

 

It’s no secret that it’s a fine line in this country between civility and incivility.  Late Saturday afternoon it got as close to crossing over as the distance between former President Donald Trump’s ear and his head.

Luckily for him even more than us, it didn’t.

Who is to blame?  It starts with the deranged 20-year-old who pulled the trigger.  No gun has ever shot anyone.  It needs a human’s finger to pull the trigger.

But, it’s reached a point where that’s only the end result.

For the lone gunman to get to the high point on the roof a mere 130 yards away is a Secret Service failure plain and simple.  As a team, they looked balky(and that’s being kind) trying to surround Trump, move him to the safety of the limo, and whisk him away.

Three female agents looked like unsynchronized swimmers in dire need of floaties.  The relatively new leader of the USSS Kimberly Cheatle is the 27th Director of the U.S. Secret Service, sworn into office on September 17, 2022.  Her publicly stated goal of having 30% female agents ASAP might be ambitious.  How about having the very best candidates regardless of skin color, gender, and sexual orientation?

This was a DEI failure and an abject team job failure overall.  Ms. Cheatle should pay for it with her job.

But they were dealt this dangerous situation by an even deeper hand.

The animous that the left has for Donald Trump is unhinged.  Donald and the right have a hand in egging it on as well.

President Biden took to the airwaves yesterday.  “The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down.”

Just last week Biden was trying to rally the deflated Dem donors.  “I have one job, and that’s to beat Donald Trump. So, we’re done talking about the debate.  It’s time to put Donald Trump in a bullseye.”

You can almost hear him if asked today, “Oh, you know what I meant, come on man!”  Sir, we rarely know what you mean these days.

“Our very democracy is at stake.”  Trump will be a dictator from day one.”  “This is what Hitler did.”    Jeez, somebody better do something about this guy.

And, a very misguided 20-year-old who likely liked blue hair had a hair trigger because somehow he was triggered.  Go figure.

Social media is like watching a long rally in a ping-pong match.  “Gotch ya.”  “No, I got you.”  People only relent when their mom calls them to dinner or the phone battery needs recharging.

The mainstream media personalities are only cheerleaders for their chosen side while constantly castigating the other.

And then there is Hollywood for now.   It will mostly move to Canada if Trump gets reelected.

Kathy Griffin had his decapitated head in her hand.  Tiny Robert De Niro is going to slug him in the face.  Anthony Bourdain wants to poison him.  Madonna wants to blow him up.  Rosie O’Donnell ends it all by throwing him over a cliff even though she can’t see her shoelaces.

Some people believe that these actors are more than just that.

And, let’s be perfectly candid.  There are a lot of not-too-smart people.  And, it only takes one.

Where to from here?

For former President Trump luckily that answer is Milwaukee.  “Fight.”  Fight!”  “FIGHT!”

For America, we wonder.

 

 

 

 

 

Whether you only watch CNN in airports while waiting for a DEI-piloted plane, or if you watch them daily, most can agree that the network leans left.

So, when they presented their latest polling data five months before the Nov 2024 elections you can understand the apoplexy.

What was already known is that Biden is fatigued.  But what was discovered is that the Black Community might be increasingly fatigued with Biden.

If we aren’t supposed to see color why do we still recognize communities by color of skin?  We digress.

The CNN poll shows Biden with a 70% to 21% lead over Trump in 2024 with “likely Black voters” currently.  Sounds pretty good for the Dems?

Not so fast.  At the same time in 2020, Biden held an 86% to 7% margin.

If the 70-21 margin held on the actual ballots cast this fall it would be a six-decade low of African Americans supporting the Democratic candidate.  CNN Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten called it “a historic performance in the making” that “leaves me speechless.”

But he went on talking anyway.

When you look at Blacks 50 and older Biden holds an 74 point advantage over Trump down from 83 points in 2020.

But the under-50-year-old lead in 2024 plummets.  The advantage for this age group shrivels from +80 to +37.  In other words, only one-half as many “young uns” favor Biden four years later.  That’s a yuge change as one would say.

Harry shrieked, “The Blacks are leaving Biden in droves.”

The age-old political line is, “Ask yourself if you are better off than you were four years ago.”

For blacks should it be, “Ask yourself if you are better off than 60 years ago?”  While the answer is likely yes, is that gap still far too wide in their minds?

Trump asked Blacks in 2016 to vote for him.  He even uttered, “You’ve been voting one way forever, what have you got to lose?”  Political pundits panned the pandering labeling it racist.  Don’t they always?

But, perhaps unlike the glove the shoe might fit.

Does Biden need to go to the black church of his choice more often?  Maybe student debt forgiveness isn’t enough to buy a vote.  Ten thousand to first-time homeowners isn’t either.

How about a half-black female VP?  Maybe a black female Supreme Court Justice isn’t.

Maybe the historic first black female lesbian Press Secretary won’t get it.  You’ve seen Karine Jean Claude Pepe Le Phew Van Dame Pierre wax eloquently from the podium, haven’t you?

Maybe if we stopped calling “them” the Black Community and realized that interest rates, crime, inflation, wild spending, and illegal immigration impact us all negatively we’d progress.

Maybe CNN is fair and balanced after all.

Maybe.

What have we got to lose?

Everything.

 

 

The sound caused by the gavel bang still resonating in the Delaware courtroom was just slightly louder than the words still ringing in the ears of those present after the jury foreperson spoke yesterday.

Guilty! Guilty!  Guilty!

Three felonious convictions were the verdicts for Hunter Biden on the illegal purchase and ownership of a handgun while addicted to drugs.

That’s impressive in a bad way but falls far short of 34 guilty verdicts for Donald Trump several days ago for what no one knows.

Hunter stood tall and took his medicine like a man the lapdog media said.  Trump, on the other hand, acted like a petulant child crying wee, wee, wee all the way back to Mar-a-Lago.

We’re in rarified air this election cycle.  If you’re scoring at home we have a convicted former president running for office against a sitting president whose son is now a convicted felon as well.

And, you have credible allegations that the sitting one and his family profited greatly by the son’s “job” of extracting foreign money for peddling the influence of one Joseph Biden, aka “the big guy.”

Many folks say there is plenty of evidence of that and other crimes on the infamous Hunter Biden laptop dropped off for repair but never picked up.  Others, 51 in all from various intel agencies that you pay for, signed an official US document that the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation.

The wheels of justice grind slowly especially when the DOJ is in play.

Never mind that Joe Biden’s daughter, and Hunter’s sister, wrote in her diary that she remembers her father taking inappropriate showers with her when she was 10 years old.  “She must be believed!” went out of style when #metoo boomeranged.

If Trump wins the possibility that he goes scorched earth in DC and brings down the long arm of the law or “lawfare” on many hiding in the swamp is very real.  He’s playing with house money in term two.  And, he may utter, “You’re fired,” a time or 50.

If incumbent Biden wins the probability of him pardoning his son Hunter is great. He’s playing with house money in term two.  If Biden loses, he could issue the pardon on his way out of the White House door.

And maybe he should.  After all, in a 2019 interview with CNN, Biden said about his son, “He’s the most honorable and decent person I know.”

Joe, the black church-going Irishman must hang out with a tough crowd, though likely not as tough as the one that ate his uncle.

Can’t everyone grow up?  Well, that’s a problem too.

Biden is 81 and too often acts like he’s 95.

Trump is 77 and too often acts like he’s 5.

The choice is yours………………….. unless Fulton County gets involved again.

 

 

 

Are you still driving that big gas-guzzling, fossil fuel-emitting vehicle?   Shame on you, Joe Biden says.

Even if you were not one of the early pacers (not the car itself), didn’t you take advantage of the 10k incentive provided by your government to convert to an EV? No?

Well, if the obvious benefit of clean air and the financial incentive didn’t work, the Biden Administration has come up with another conversation starter.

Never mind that over the weekend the Hertz Car Rental CEO lost his job making a too-big bet on EVs.  Never mind that multiple (Audi, Ford, Mercedes, etc) car manufacturers reported disappointing earnings, high EV inventories, and factory cutbacks on production.

This week, the Biden administration is expected to finalize highly anticipated regulations targeting gas-powered vehicle tailpipe emissions, considered the tip of the spear in its efforts to electrify the transportation sector.

The Environmental Protection Agency is slated to issue the final rulemaking — which officials have boasted will incentivize greater adoption of electric vehicles, but which opponents have criticized as a de facto mandate.

We tried to sell you, incentivize you, and now we’ll force you.

“It certainly won’t do anything to improve human health. It won’t do anything to reduce pollution,” American Energy Institute president and CEO Jason Isaac, who has researched the EV market, said in a Sunday interview. “We’ve proven in this country that we’re already a world leader in clean air.”

“All it’s going to continue to do is push the costs of electric vehicles on to purchasers of internal combustion engine vehicles.”  Ah, there it is.

Mind or not, over 75% of the global emissions come from India and China combined.

But, but, BUT!  We have to do our part.  Others will follow.  Surely they will.   Won’t they?

Does this have anything to do with election season being upon us like smoke emanating from an exhaust pipe at a red light on Wilshire Blvd?

“This is purely being done for campaign reasons — to appease the leftist large donor base that are the climate alarmists that are driving this movement towards really what is a forced energy transition,” Isaac added.

“This policy is bad for consumers, the economy, and national security. It will sacrifice our hard-won U.S. energy strength for even greater dependence on China and the EV battery and mineral supply chain China controls,” opined American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers president and CEO Chet Thompson.

So who is right?  Father Biden and our government know best.  Remember how well they nailed that COVID thing?  Boosters and batteries are good for you.

Regardless, we have a ways to go.  According to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry group representing major automakers, 9.3% of total car purchases in the U.S. last year were electric or plug-in hybrid, up from 7% in 2022.  Most of those were in LA or similar urban areas with short-range driving needs.

EVs remain far more expensive than traditional gas-powered cars. Even factoring in generous federal and state subsidies, the average cost of an EV is about 52k while the average subcompact car costs 24k.

Well, in a Bidenomics sort of way at least they are affordable.

Maybe after we tackle shrinkflation we could tackle EV costs.

Maybe not.

 

As former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy packs up his office belongings to move down the hall this AM, there is a lot to unpack about how and why he was sent on his not-so-merry way.

First and foremost, remember that it took the Republicans 17 different votes to give him the gavel to begin with. You can call that a lot of things, but “mandate” isn’t one of them.

McCarthy agreed to a single vote “motion to vacate” to ascend to the Speakership to begin with.  He got the carrot, but the handful of votes that came with it still carried the stick.  Yesterday they used it.

Why?  This is where it gets complicated.  The simple answer is that enough Republicans felt like he was acting like a uniparty swamp RINO even though he swore to be otherwise.

You can call them MAGA Republicans, ultra-conservatives, malcontents, or even ass@#%*$ as one of our more fervent readers did late last evening.

But, can you blame those further to the right if they truly believe what they are doing for the country is the right thing?

The Democrats agreed.   They voted unanimously to oust McCarthy.  Well, of course, they did.  This morning the words disarray, chaotic, and worse are hurled at the Republicans.  It’s always a great day to knock down a rook on the political chessboard.

They always vote unanimously.  But, they have their factions too.  Bernie is a socialist.  The Squad is, well, The Squad.  Sheila Jackson Lee and Maxine Waters are tubas in the wind section of the band Nancy and The Blowhards.

But, is always voting unanimously good for the country?  Or, is it always good for your party?  Or, is it always good for your political career?  Ah, yes.  Now we’re getting somewhere.  If you want that DNC or RNC money and support to help your reelection campaign, vote accordingly.

It wasn’t always this way.  A great example is back in 1991 when the full Senate voted 52–48 to confirm now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.  In all, Thomas won with the support of 41 Republicans and 11 Democrats, while 46 Democrats and 2 Republicans voted to reject his nomination.

That’s when independent thinking was still in style, allowed, and even preferred.

Do you know that Matt Gaetz, the unflappable smug leader of the malcontents takes zero dollars in PAC money and less from lobbyists?  He sounds like an outsider that insiders would prefer stay outside of the Capitol.

You like sausage, but you want to pass on seeing how it’s made.  Yesterday, the meat grinder setting was on high.

If you want real change in DC you’re really up against it.  Ask Trump.

“We have no Speaker!” Egads!

One could argue that we have no minority leader in the Senate either.  Mitch McConnell, you say?  Please.

And, one could argue that we have no President.  Joe Biden, you say?  Ahem.

The House is in recess for a week.  We’ll get to another speaker.  And, the process might be as cantankerous as this last one was.

Sometimes real change is really hard.