Why I Voted for the Felon They Kept Trying to Kill

   Yesterday, a Pastor I think quite highly about, made a post on Facebook asking some pointed questions of Christians who supported Trump.  He ended up taking the post down, and my memory is not the greatest so I do not remember all the questions he asked.  I did comment, something I do not normally do on political posts on Facebook.  This time, though, I felt the questions were asked in an honest attempt to understand.  However, a comment on a social media site does not always cover all the bases.  In the last 24 hours I have thought a great deal on those questions, and so I made the decision to put together a longer blog post.  It is my hope that if tag him, he will read it, because again, I feel he asked those questions in good faith.

   President Trump fired 17 Inspectors General on Friday.  The Office of Inspector General is tasked with overseeing pretty much every department of the federal government.  Their main goal is to make sure that taxpayer money is being spent properly, to detect and prevent waste, fraud and abuse, and to make sure agencies are adhering to the regulations governing them.  There are over 70 of them, so he didn't gut the OIG.  I can't seem to find a complete list of who he fired, so I'm only going to offer opinions on the information I found.  Yesterday I read an article that the government made close to 162 billion dollars in improper payments in 2024.  From the Government Accountability Office, I found that number to be 236 billion dollars in 2023. Considering the job of IGs is to combat this, is it possible some of them were fired for failing to do their jobs?  In two years that's 400 billion dollars that was... wasted.  I also noticed that he fired the IGs for the Pentagon and the VA.  In November of 2024 the Pentagon failed it's seventh audit in a row.  The Pentagon has a budget of 824 billion dollars and was unable to account for where all that money went.  Only 9 of the 28 sub audits passed.  We all know the VA is a mess, so I have no problem seeing how that IG got fired.  I'm not convinced he shouldn't have fired them all and hired new people far more capable of making sure billions and billions of dollars aren't just disappearing. (In any private company that would be considered a crime.)

   President Trump also revoked the security clearances of 51 current and former intelligence officials.  Here's the thing:  those 51 intelligence officials lied in order to provide cover for the 2020 Biden/Harris campaign.  They told the American people that Hunter Biden's laptop had all the hallmarks of a Russian Information operation. (That's important, because they said "Information" instead of "Disinformation" in order to provide cover for their lie. They also rightly knew it would make it seem like it was fabricated, even though that isn't exactly what they said.) Except, at that time, the FBI was well aware that it wasn't.  They had authenticated a laptop they'd had in their possession for nearly a year.  That laptop contained information that was damaging to both Hunter Biden and his father.  Antony Blinken, the man who would become Secretary of State, and was at that time a Biden campaign official, called his good friend Michael Morrell, Deputy CIA Director, to provide talking points to combat the information.  Mr. Morrell admitted he organized the letter specifically to help Joe Biden in the upcoming debate.  People with security clearances, and at times access to the most sensitive information, used their positions within the intelligence community to LIE to the American people.  It undermines our trust in our government and the people who are tasked with protecting us.  They don't deserve to retain those clearances.

   They removed a portrait of Mark Milley, as if that is somehow a crime.  I can think of a few crimes General Milley ought to be investigated for, but Joe Biden saw fit to issue him a pre-emptive pardon for crimes that have never even been investigated.  He told his Chinese counterpart he would warn him if Trump was going to attack China.  That might be considered treason.  Just maybe.  At the time Trump was Commander-in-Chief, and General Milley was more than willing to undermine his Commander-in-Chief.  I'm not sure why that conversation was ever had since Trump wasn't really in the business of starting wars, but either way, I think a military court might have a field day with that.  There was also his involvement with the absolute horror show that was the Afghanistan withdrawal, but there is information out there that General Milley did tried to warn Joe Biden.  So at least he's not completely incompetent.  Maybe.

   Trump pardoned most of the J6 prisoners.  He commuted the sentences of a few pending further review.  J6 was a terrible riot.  And yes, it was a riot, not an insurrection.  At no point was anyone charged with insurrection, and Trump was never charged with inciting an insurrection.  The worst charge levied on any J6er was "obstruction of justice" or "obstructing the Jan 6th joint session".  If obstructing Congress is a crime there are quite a few Democrats who should be in jail, because in 2023 they sang gun control songs to avoid actually going about the business of Congress.  People who never even entered the capitol and who were just standing around outside were charged with this crime.  They were threatened with worse charges to get them to plead out to this crime.  Many of these people had never had a speeding ticket, never mind a felony charge on their record.  But, be that as it may, if that's how we want to treat rioters, we should treat them all that way.  Hundreds of police officers were injured during the BLM Riots of 2020.  Hundreds.  How many people went to jail for months, never mind years, for that?  An entire police precinct was burned to the ground.  The federal building in Portland was firebombed for days. An entire section of Seattle was taken over, which ended up with death and rape and sexual assault, and ambulances and police couldn't even help.  How many of those people went to prison?  Vice President Kamala Harris STILL has the tweet up on her X account asking people to contribute to the fund to bail out people who burned down their cities.  There is not supposed to be two-tiered justice in this country.  We already know most Elites don't pay for their crimes (Congressional slush fund to pay off sexual harassment and assault claims, anyone?), but now we've decided some riots are better than others.  So, no, pardoning J6ers, very few of whom assaulted police officers, doesn't bother me.

   There were a few other things, but as I said, my memory fails me at this time.  So now I want to move on to the questions that weren't asked, and while I doubt anyone will answer them, I think it's worth noting that I know quite a few Christians, or at least people who call themselves that, who did vote for Joe Biden, because "Orange Man Bad".  

   Do you honestly believe that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion makes our society less racist?  We had a Vice President chosen because she was black woman.  We had  Supreme Court Justice chosen because she was a black woman.  We had a press secretary who checked black, woman, and lesbian boxes.  Do you think any of those decisions made us a more inclusive society?  Do you think I deserve a job over a man who can do my job better, simply because I am a woman?  Do you think Asian students should be denied college admissions in favor of BIPOC people who aren't as qualified?  Or maybe I should put this another way.... do you think people of color can't succeed without those things?  I am asking you to look deep inside yourself if you think that people of color are unable to succeed without a handout out from the white man.  Sorry, that's as racist as it sounds.  Stop.  And I say this as a woman who was just told last week that all of my accomplishments, the things I worked so hard for, I was awarded because of DEI, because no man really wanted me to have them.  That's as offensive as it gets.  

   Do you have issues with the fact that for at least a year, most likely longer, we had a president who was not capable of doing the job he was elected to do?  He needed frequent naps, he hardly held cabinet meetings, he missed out on important diplomatic meetings overseas to sleep, he was basically barely functioning. He was protected and coddled by an inner circle for almost his entire Presidency.  Someone was running the government but it was likely not the person people voted for.  Do you care?  Do you think the American people deserve to know which aides and government cronies were acting as President?  Do you think that's how a "democracy" should be run?

   Are you okay with a Department of Justice that DID go after the President's political opponent?  There is evidence that lawyers involved in the cases in New York and Georgia were in touch with and getting advice from the White House.  That seems like something we should avoid in a "democracy".  

   Are you okay with a President who calls half the country enemies of democracy?  Because we were told, by Joe Biden, that if we were strong supporters of Trump, after everything we knew, that's exactly what we were.  

   Do you honestly believe that offering gender affirming care that involves sterilizing drugs and cutting off the body parts of children is okay?  Have we really lost our way that badly?  Because I firmly believe that we will look back on this and realize that we ruined a generation of children in the name of "gender theory".  That cat is out of the bag.  We can never put it back.  And no parent who allowed their child to do this is ever going to be able to admit they harmed their child.  So they will fight to the death to believe this was the right thing to do.  The experts told them it was.  

   The same class of people who lost 400 billion dollars in 2 years.  Who told us masks don't work and then they do.  Who told us a vaccine would stop us from getting COVID, then it would stop us from transmitting COVID, then it would stop us dying from COVID, and then at least it's better than nothing!  Who told us that gathering in large groups to protest George Floyd's death was okay, but gathering in church on Sunday wasn't.  Who told us that COVID came from a wet market, and then nope, it really came from that lab that was funded with American tax dollars.  Who told us they weren't censoring us on Facebook and Twitter, only for Facebook and Twitter executives to say "um, yes they were."  Who told us Afghanistan was a success, only for us to watch every right Afghan women had evaporate into dust.  Who scream that the Palestinians are dying for no reason, while not mentioning the hostages Hamas still has.  Who tell us God is dead, feelings are better than fact, that a lie in service of a greater cause is better than the truth.

   The last four years have been some of the most trying years I've gone through.  I finally had the career I wanted only to see every raise I got erased by crippling inflation.  I was called a bigot for refusing to see people different than me as... well.. different.  They bleed the same color as me, God loves them, that's all that matters, except it isn't.  I was wished paralyzing misery because I wouldn't put a Pride Flag in my profile picture in June.  It doesn't matter that I don't care who you sleep with, I had to celebrate who you sleep with.  (No, I don't, and I don't expect you to do it for me either.) I was told I was a grandma killer because I wasn't vaccinated for COVID.  I was told I had no compassion for other people.  I've been told I'm an enemy of democracy.   I've watched millions of illegal immigrants pour over our borders and be given housing and money, while American citizens in North Carolina mountains were living in tents in the winter, fighting for a $750 check.  I lost an uncle and we were only allowed to have 20 people at his funeral.  I've had enough.  I want my country back.  That's why I voted for Donald Trump.  That's why I would have walked over broken glass to vote for Donald Trump.  

Now the Truth Can Be Told?

    Donald Trump was inaugurated yesterday, in case you didn't know.  Now that neither Joe Biden or Kamala Harris will inhabit the White House, there is no longer a need to protect them.  So it appears that now the truth can be told.

   For the better part of four years anyone who questioned Joe Biden's ability to do the job required of a President of the United States was dismissed.  We were ageists, he was sharp as a tack, Donald Trump is worse, and in the words of Joe Scarborough he was the "best Joe Biden ever!"  Then on Thursday, June 27, 2024, we were vindicated.  (I am right, I swear I'm right, Swear I knew it all along*)

   On that stage was a man who was barely able to string 3 coherent words together.  "We finally beat Medicare!"  I still don't know what that means.  In front of the whole country, the whole world, the leader of the free world was exposed as a "well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."  And an inability to contain one complete thought in his head.

   But up to that point, every video of him stumbling over simple phrases, mixing up the names of world leaders, calling on dead people to stand up and be recognized, was billed as "misinformation" or "cheap fakes."  Oh how the media tried to tell us not to believe our lying eyes.  

   Before you could blink, media figures were demanding he step aside, and less than a month later they got their wish.  Joe Biden withdrew and he endorsed Kamala Harris.  I could write a whole blog post in and of itself on the trainwreck that was Kamala Harris and a "New Way Forward".  But that's not what this is about.  This is about the fact that once Joe Biden exited and even more so, once Kamala lost, the media (outside of X, the conservative and independent blogs, and the Wall Street Journal) started to let slip stories and details about Joe's years in the White House.

   For the record, I was fond, from the very beginning of Joe's tenure, of Ben Shapiro's nickname "Potatus."  Many of us knew, and were not afraid of saying it nor inclined to pretend otherwise simply because Orange Man Bad, that he was not all there.  He was certainly more there when he was elected than say, two years later, when many of us questioned whether he was actually the President.  And for record, many of us do not believe he is a well-meaning elderly man, but more a power-tripping corrupt narcissist.  But by 2022, he was just a sad little king of a sad little hill.  And he was not calling the shots.  No, this isn't my opinion.  Multiple stories, including in the New York Times, have confirmed that aides around Mr. Biden were keeping him as insulated as possible.  From the press, from his donors, from his cabinet members, from members of Congress, even Democrat members.  Who was making the decisions, because it wasn't that man on the stage in June of 2024.  That man couldn't make a decision.  Whose finger was on the nuclear button?  

   Truth is, we are lucky that our enemies didn't do more to take advantage of the situation that became clear that sultry summer night.  We are very lucky.  And that was the moment it should have stopped being just about an election, and someone in the government should have seriously considered the 25th amendment.   That we would spend the next seven months with a President who was barely aware is a crime.  Actually, the crime is that we were lied to, for years, about his mental state.  But it's even more criminal that when it was apparent, everyone thought it was just fine for him to continue being brain dead and the President at the same time.

   The problem with our country?  No one ever pays a price for being wrong.  For at least 2 years, a cabal of unelected bureaucrats were acting as the President of the United States.  We don't know who they were, we don't know which decisions they made, we know nothing.  They will never be held accountable.  That's what's wrong.  No one ever pays for being wrong.

   Now Donald Trump is President.  He earned my vote in Butler, Pennsylvania when someone tried to kill him.  We still hear about Lee Harvey Oswald, but no one talks about the guy who came within inches of killing the former President and leading Presidential Candidate.  Someone else tried a month later.  And I'm thinking someone might try again.  And I hate to say it, but I leaned toward the guy everyone is trying to make dead, because there's a reason. (And it's not that he's Hitler... that is just getting way too old.)  

   But even with Mr. Trump in the White House, still, no one will pay for the coverup of a non compos mentis President.  Now the Truth can be told, except now, it's too little too late.

*Dashboard Confessional - Vindicated

Things That Make You Go Hmmm....

    I lost a post.  I know it was here, at one point, and now it's.... gone.  I'm wondering if it got removed/censored because of it's content.  It would really be a shame if my very sporadic posts got deleted.  I've been writing on Blogger for awhile, although not with any regularity.  Life gets in the way, and as no one is paying me to do this I have to actually go work for a living.

   I know most of my posts are directed at the left side of the political spectrum, but every once in awhile it's a good idea to look at your own side and take stock.  I was forced to do that when I sort of went back to Twitter/X. Now I have no side.  I have officially left the right.  (No, I won't be joining the left, because I don't see the point in leaving one set of crazies in exchange for another.)

   It started, way back around Easter, when the Daily Wire and Candace Owen parted ways.  Whatever the reasons might have been, it was preceded by a rather petty and childish X war, based on the fact that, when questioned, Ben Shapiro honestly answered a question in which he disagreed with some things Candace had said.  Now, whether or not those things are why she no longer has a home on DW anymore, no one is really saying.  I pay for DW, and I have no intention of leaving it.  There's just way too much good content.  And honestly, I could care less about their little war.  During this time, Candace started to, well, she went off the deep end. 

   Apparently, Ms. Owens decided, not long after October 7th, that Israel is bad and Hamas controlled Gaza is good.  She's in some great company: Kanye West, Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, the protesters on our college campuses.  She actually believed (or maybe still believes) that the "Muslim Quarter" is the only place Arabs and Muslims can live in Israel.  And she claimed to have obtained that knowledge when she went to Israel.  You'll excuse me if I think she should gain a few more facts before I take her ideas about Gaza seriously.

   Then she decided to takees the phrase "Christ is King" and use it as a bludgeon with which to beat Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew.  As a Christ Follower that felt icky.  

   And then... a lot of people on the right seemed to be agreeing with her and Andrew Tate.  You know, the guy who seduced women so that he could have them perform sex acts on camera for money which he would keep.  Kinda like a pimp...err.... no actually a pimp.

   Suddenly, these people who claim to be conservative and right-leaning are bashing Jews, and even better, trying to make Germans out to be the victims of World War II.

   Then you have Tucker Carlson, who thinks that Russian Prices are so much better than here, not realizing that the poorest people in the US are better off than most Russian citizens.  Oh, and we are the scourge of the earth for dropping atomic bombs on Japan when they refused to surrender and thus saved millions of lives that would have been lost in a ground war in Asia.  

   All of this to say, I'm turning in my right card and deciding I'm done with both sides.  I'm can't take either side anymore.  I mean... just look at the choices they gave us for President!

June

   So I have spent the last few days thinking about writing a blog post, but I have so many things going around in my head, I was having trouble deciding on just one.  Today, I decided to just start writing and see what comes out.  It may very well be word vomit, and for that I apologize.

  I wanted to talk about banning books.  We seemed to have become very confused on what exactly banning books means.  Refusing to stock sexually explicit books in an elementary school is not banning books, especially if you can go on Amazon and order that book and have it delivered to you the next day.  I spent most of my life in conservative Christian schools.  And yet, from 6th grade on, I developed an intense fascination with the writer, John Saul.  He wrote horror books.  I also really had a thing for the Sweet Valley High books (yes, my tastes were all over the map.)  Neither one of those books could be found in my Christian School library, but somehow I managed to read them all.  They were effectively "banned" in my school, but they weren't banned in general society.  As a matter of fact, most of them were available at my public library.  There are a bunch of books I can't get at my public library, because they have been shouted down by people who don't want others to read them, but I can still get them on Amazon if I really want to read them.  My point?  Not allowing sexually explicit books in a school library is not banning books.  It's simply not allowing them in a single space, a space where a kid can check out a book, never bring it home, and the parents will never know.  I'm a big proponent of parents ... you know...parenting their kids.  My mom let me read John Saul, and I'm grateful for that, because I really loved his books.  In turn, when the Christian Schools were banning Harry Potter (I still don't get that), I let my kids read them all.  I was parenting, my way.  Not the way anyone else wanted me to.  Schools do not take the place of parents, and sexually explicit material doesn't belong in the hands of elementary aged school kids if their parents don't approve.

  When did we start forcing kids to participate in events that may contradict the way their parents are raising them.  We can disagree with how certain parents raise their children, but they aren't our children, and we don't get dictate how they are raised.  Due to the occasionally explicit content that can be seen at Pride parades, I would never take my elementary aged child to one.  However, if some other parent wants to do that, it's none of my business.  But what if I don't think my kid should be forced to wear rainbows and celebrate pride?  Now I'm a bigot?  Look, I don't care what you do in your bedroom.  That's between you and God.  And if you want to dress up like a woman, or a man, because you feel like you are in the wrong body, I'm not gonna tell you can't.  But I also don't really think I need to celebrate that.  And I don't think kids should be forced to either.  We've gone from equal rights to "we get a whole month where celebration is compulsory and if you don't, then you are the worst human being on the planet".   I read the other day from a person on one of my social media accounts "I wish all you homophobes the most uncomfortable month."  But you see, because I'm not dressing in rainbows and bowing down to the LGBTQ+ gods, I'm a homophobe.  Never mind that I have never treated any person in that group badly, ever.  Nor would I, since it kind of goes against my belief system.  I'm not having an uncomfortable month, sorry.  I think it's all a little bit overkill.  Honestly, if you, as a straight person, have to post some affirming message to the LGBTQ+ community on social media every day to prove you love them, I'd suggest the problem is with you.  Me?  I treat all people the same, every day of the year, and I kinda think most of them are more than okay with that.  And if they aren't?  Sorry?  But let's stop forcing people to celebrate or be branded intolerant.  I'm sure many people would not approve of certain aspects of my life, but as long as they treat me as a human being, I'm good with that.  And let's stop forcing kids to celebrate as if that will make them more tolerant.  Remeber when you were a kid how you felt about your parents and school forcing you to do things... and if it made you more tolerant of those things.  

  I guess where I'm really going with this is why can't we just live and let live.  Why do I need to make you feel better about the things you do in your life?  I'm not asking you to make me feel better about the things I do in mine.  And honestly, why should you care?  If you are happy, if you are loved, if you are afforded the opportunity to achieve your dreams, why do you care what your next door neighbor thinks? (Maybe, if you met my next door neighbor, you would understand why I don't give two craps what she thinks, but that's a story for another day.)  Why do you feel the need to not only be accepted, but also to be celebrated, and to have everyone participate in your lifestyle?  Just go be happy.   And stop caring about what everyone thinks.  Trust me, life is so much better that way.

Some Right, Some Wrong...

But still a lack of personal responsibility.  Let me explain.

I recently read an article from Real Clear Investigations, "Night Train to Oblivion:Anatomy of an American OD".  They hit on some good points, and they missed on a few others, but there is an extreme lack of personal responsibility in this story.  

There is a lot of blame to go around in the current Opioid Epidemic.  The blame doesn't rest soley on the back of the Sackler's from Purdue Pharma, or for that matter, on pharmaceutical companies in general.  Of course, Big Pharma has a big share of blame, but so does the FDA, doctors with organizations who pushed "pain as the fifth vital sign", pharmacies who were more interested in making a profit, even when they knew they were seeing suspect prescriptions, and the patients and their families.  (Although some families tried their best to fight the idea that long-term opioid use was perfectly okay.)

I encourage you to read the article, but I'm going to tackle a few things they brought up.

Adam Rashid, the addict who died of a Fentanyl OD, was seen in a San Francisco Hospital, and released in the morning on the day he died.  I believe the doctor who released him was wrong.  According to the article Adam was a schizophrenic, which means, any threat he makes needs to be taken seriously.  He should have been placed on a 72 hour hold and evaluated, regardless of his drug status.  (He was seeking Klonopin, which is a pretty heavy anti-anxiety).  However, that didn't happen.   I agree with the article that this doctor failed in his duty.  However, Adam most likely would have been released in 72 hours, and then, odds are, he eventually ends up the same way. (more explanation on this later.)

The article goes on to say his parents picked him up from the hospital, but on the way to their house he became paranoid, demanded to be let out, and threatened to kidnap (?) his little brother, whom he had done drugs with in the past, and take him to New York.  So the parents let him out of the car just a few blocks from the Tenderloin, and for good measure gave him $30 to get food.  The Tenderloin is a well-known population center for homeless drug addicts, and dad gave him cash.  Dad is wearing really dark rose-colored glasses, is really stupid, or is seriously naive to the world of addicts, even though he's apparently been dealing with one for years.  You don't give an addict cash, especially not when you just dropped him off within easy walking distance of a drug haven.  

Apparently, Adam did what anyone with any knowledge of addiction could have guessed.  He bought Fentanyl, smoked it, and passed out in a GAP store.  An ambulance was called, but the paramedics were able to wake him up.  They had to keep waking him up on the way to the hospital, but at no point was he not breathing, and they could actually wake him up.  At the hospital he was released a couple of hours after arrival. The article makes mention of the fact that paramedics didn't give him narcan.  Okay.  He wasn't in the physical condition to receive narcan.  They could and did wake him up.  Opiods, especially strong ones, have the effect of putting people into a deep sleep.  I promise you if he had actually overdosed they would not have been able to wake him up.  Narcan wasn't called for, and if they had given it to him, it would have sent him into immediate withdrawal. The most likely outcome for that scenario would have been him refusing to go anywhere with the paramedics and ... he probably ends up the same way.

The article goes on to delve into how bad the system is when dealing with addicts, and I agree.  It is bad.  It is even worse when dealing with addicts who have mental health issues.  However, by all rights, everything the article says about Adam doesn't lead me to believe had any interest in getting clean.  He supposedly told a doctor there at the second hospital he visited that day, but nothing he had done up to that point hinted at him being interested in getting clean.  Especially not asking to be let out of the car right near a place he could easly get drugs.  

An addict has to want to get help, and the fact is, most of them don't really want to give up their addiction.  Opioids make a person feel good, and a lot of addicts don't want to go back to reality.  On top of that, once you have true opioid use disorder, your brain is now rewired to require those drugs, and if you don't have them, you will absolutely feel like you are going to die, and depending on your level of disorder, you may actually die.  It's hard for a person who really wants to get better to actually succeed (look up the statistics on relapses for opioid use disorder).  You can't force people into rehab (which this article tiptoes around, but it's there), because they will most likely go back to using the second they leave.  

Does this mean we should give up on addicts?  No, absolutely not.  I have seen people who didn't look like they'd be alive another day, and 6 months later they are clean, working, and getting back to life.  Some people can quit opioids cold turkey and not relapse, but it's not the norm.  Suboxone, and to a lesser extent, methadone, have a better track record.

Today we push for safe injection sites, places to get clean needles, narcan vending machines, and safe drug kits with crack pipes and needles in them.  These things are, most times, paid with taxpayer funds.  What if we took more of those taxpayer funds and invested them in Medication Assisted Treatment for addicts?  That would actually help people stay alive.

I say this, because if we keep giving people the ability to get high "safely" all we are doing is counting the days for that person until they become Adam... riding a subway line back and forth, dead from an overdose.  I think that's just not good enough.

Out of My Cold Dead Hands

 So, I am well aware that I have been absent since before 2022 started.  The short explanation is that going to school and working is hard.  I have set a hard date for my board certification exam (August 15th), and I expect after that things will calm down a little. 

Welcome to the Jungle, we've got fun and games.... (h/t: Guns 'n Roses)

There are six guns in my house.  I have finally reached the place where I have more guns than adults who can fire them.  This was a goal, so score one for me!  Have I offended you with that?  Here's the thing: my guns haven't shot a single person.  Ever.  One of them is over 40 years old.  Color me crazy, but it might be because no one in my house is planning to use said guns in the commission of a crime, like say, murder.  My point is the simple truth:  Guns don't kill people, people kill people.  I suggest we get to work, as a country, to figure out why people thinking walking into a school and blowing away kids is somehow the thing to do (at least it has been since Columbine).  What's changed in the last 30 years, because once upon a time a 12 year old could purchase a rifle in a Sears Catalog, and they weren't blowing up schools.  We could also do ourselves a favor by understanding that criminals don't follow laws, so passing more laws most likely won't stop them.  Last time I looked, murder was still illegal, but that happens every day.  Guns laws exist to restrict the purchase of guns by the people least likely to break the law.  I won't be giving up my guns.  There are 100 million law-abiding citizens who own guns, and I don't think they are keen on giving up their guns, either.  So, come and take them.  Really.  Let's see how that works out. 

But the children, Amy!  It's for the kids!  Let's add a disclaimer to that statement.  It's for the already born children who are wanted.  Most people screaming and yelling about gun control also have no problem, whatsoever, with the death of 63 million children since 1973.  That death toll is worse than Hitler.  It's creeping up on Communism.   Using children as a pawn in a political war is disgusting.  

There are 19 dead children in Uvalde, where the adults in charge had a series of opportunities to stop this before the mentally deranged 18 year old showed up on school property with a gun.  The people in charge, the people gun-control advocates want to control our access to guns, failed on every level.  And then, when they did show up, the police, which everyone wanted defunded two years ago, but which now they want to be in sole possession of all guns, stood outside, for over an hour, while a mentally damaged, barely-adult took pot shots at fourth graders.  

Now, a good portion of the political class in Washington, stands on the bodies of those children, while attempting to undermine my constitutional right to own a gun.  (Side note: I plan on buying an AR-15, and no stupid, fact-missing meme on Facebook is going to guilt me into not owning one.)  

The first 10 amendments to the constitution, better known as the Bill of Rights, guarantees American citizens certain rights.  The government doesn't grant them.  The government is tasked solely with making sure those rights aren't taken away.  The phrase "shall not be infringed" is pretty absolute.  Unlike all the other constitutional rights we've invented by trying to determine the meaning of this word or that word, this one is clear-cut.  And despite our *President yammering on that you couldn't own a cannon when the second amendment was written, the fact is, you could.  You could plant a cannon on your front lawn, legally.  It's the "free" part of the second amendment that seems to be something the left can't understand.  "necessary to the security of a FREE state".  This wasn't about the army, this was about citizens having the option to fight against tyranny, even if that tyranny came from their own government. The English King and government wanted to disarm the colonies.  The newly created Americans were intimately familiar with how vulnerable that made them.  They set out to make sure that never happened again.  The militia was any able bodied male over the age of 16, and they didn't have a locked building full of guns for their use.  They were expected to own a gun that could be used.  Well-regulated merely meant that they knew how to use the guns that they were obligated to buy in order to be a part of the "militia".  In the end, our founding fathers set up a system whereby the government would fail in it's duty to "defend and protect the constitution from enemies, both foreign and domestic" if it "infringed" on the rights of American Citizens to own guns.  

So, in conclusion, I own guns.  Legally.  I don't plan on giving them up, because that would be a clear violation of my constitutional rights, which my government is supposed to protect.  I own them because I believe they are the best defense against those who wish to do me harm, up to and including my own government.  You can try to take them, but you'll have to pry them out of my cold dead hands, and since many of you don't believe in owning guns, I have a feeling, I'll win.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." ~U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Second Amendment

When Feelings (and apparently Justices) Don't Need Facts

I have a few questions about the vaccine mandate that no one seems to be able to answer.  The mandate makes little sense to me, because of these questions.

If those who want to be vaccinated, are vaccinated, and the vaccines effectively protect against serious illness and death in most cases, then what is the compelling interest in forcing the vaccine on people who don't want it?  

We now know (despite previous statements to the contrary) that the COVID-19 vaccine does not prevent a person from catching and spreading the virus.  If you need proof of that, look to major sports in the US.  Despite the vast majority of players being vaccinated, COVID has spread like wildfire through the ranks of the NBA, NFL and NHL.  It got so bad in the NFL that they changed their policies. So, if a vaccinated person can spread and catch the virus, how exactly does the mandate protect anyone?  

Does the mandate violate equal protection under the law by requiring vaccine mandates for business with 100 employees, but not those with 97?  Are employees of smaller businesses less important than those of larger businesses?  As far as I know, most OSHA safety regulations for a certain type of business apply whether the business has 10 employees or 1,000.  Except for this one.  If the compelling interest is that it's OSHA's job to protect employees from unsafe conditions, they appear to only want to help the employees of big business. 

I think those questions need to be answered.

I like to follow cases in the Supreme Court.  I had a compelling interest to follow the challenge to the vaccine mandate.  I was taken aback by the falsehoods promoted by men and women who are supposed to be smarter than the average person.  I am the average person, and I know:

1) Hospitals are not crowded with seriously ill COVID patients.  The are crowded with seriously scared patients.  People who need a test because they were exposed, even though they show no symptoms.  People with mild cold symptoms.  People who are positive but show no symptoms.  People who are suffering mental health issues, either brought on or made worse by two years of COVID panic and isolation.  People with other medical issues who put off treatment out of fear of catching COVID.

2) Justice Breyer said that there were 750 million new cases the day before arguments.  Now, he never said that was in the US alone, which would be impossible, since there aren't 750 million people in the US.  However, the worldwide total on January 6, the day before the hearing, the total of new positive cases was at 2.5 million.  Breyer over counted the new cases by a magnitude of over 20.  

3) Justice Sotomayor said we had 100,000 children seriously ill with COVID, many of them on ventilators.  We haven't had 100,000 children seriously ill with COVID in the almost 2 years of the pandemic.  Currently we have about 5,000 hospitalized with COVID, but not necessarily because of COVID.  They are often hospitalized for another reason and because most hospitals test all inpatients, they may be positive, but that's not the reason they are in the hospital.  5,000 and 100,000 are different numbers..by a lot.

4) Justice Sotomayor said Omicron is as deadly as Delta, and I'm pretty sure, outside of Allhapundit of HotAir fame, she is the only person saying this.  

It's hard to argue a case before Justices with such a woeful lack of knowledge about the subject they are arguing. 

The fact is, if you didn't know by now, everyone is going to get some variant of COVID.  The vaccines do no prevent a person from getting COVID, although if you look at certain populations, they seem really surprised they caught COVID despite getting vaccinated and boosted and wearing masks and not gathering and.... A virus has one job, to replicate and infect as many people as possible.  It doesn't care if you wear a mask, if you stay six feet away from everyone, if you live in your basement, and if you get the needle every four months.  It's going to mutate to do it's job if it has to, and that means the formula for the vaccine was outdated the day they released it to the public.  By the time they formulate a booster that protects against Omicron, the virus will have mutated to whatever Greek letter comes next.  

It's time we get on with the business of living our life, and it's more than time that we stop shaming people who don't follow the ever changing government edicts, because frankly they haven't done much to instill confidence.  

As Andy Dufresne says in Shawshank Redemptiong 

"Get busy living or get busy dying."

I, for one, want to live.

Small Bites End of Year Edition - Sports, COVID and Idiocy in 2021

 So, as it's Christmas Season, I work 4 days a week and spend the other three on schoolwork, and I can guarantee, unless something juicy happens that demands a full blog, this will be my last Small Bites of the year.  I really hope to do better next year.  My apologies.

The news hit today the Brown/Raiders, Seahawks/Ram and Eagles/Team Formerly Known as the Redskins games will be rescheduled.  Anyone who thought the NFL was going to let any games be forfeited is taking some really good drugs.  At no point, and especially during playoff races, did the NFL ever have any intention of a game not getting played.  Also, their policy was specific in that it related to unvaccinated players, and not vaccinated players, and most of the 100 players currently in COVID protocols are vaccinated.  Apparently, the NFL is the number one proving ground for the idea, promoted not just by fringe "anti-vaxxers" that vaccinated people can contract and spread COVID.   If you want to throw that one out, look at the NHL, who has put three teams out of action until Christmas.  Or the NBA, who cancelled several games this week due to huge COVID outbreaks, almost all of them among the vaccinated.  It's so bad for the Brooklyn Nets that they activated the controversial unvaccinated Kyrie Irving, because their vaccinated players are in COVID protocols.  The irony is delicious.  Maybe it shouldn't be, but it's been clear, since late summer, that new variants of COVID are able to break through the protection the vaccines offer.  Despite protestations to the contrary, there is such a thing is natural immunity, and it may very well be as robust as the vaccines.  We don't really know, because in this country we won't do the studies to actually find out.  Israel did, but we don't pay attention to that science.  Regardless, I find this whole situation incredibly amusing.  If that makes me a bad person so be it.  I don't think it does.

Everyone is so wrapped up in COVID panic, that they are drowning out the voices in the wilderness who are talking about all the bad things that happened because of how we chose to deal with COVID.  We know that children are generally not susceptible to serious illness from COVID.  We know that schools are not superspreaders for the disease.  And yet we kept vast swaths of kids out of school for more than a year and subjected them to substandard education.  We took away their ability to socialize, to see people laugh, to hang out with their friends.  The effects of that will plague them long into the future.  In the short term, they are showing up in ERs in droves and not with COVID.  With mental health issues that no child should have.  Suicides are up, attempted suicides are up.  Mental health units are overwhelmed and have no beds available.  Drug use and abuse, along with overdoses are magnitudes higher.  Also astronomically high is the incidence of heart attack and stroke, which happens when people forgo medical treatment for more than a year due to fear.  Hospitals are closing, after losing billions of dollars when hospitals were basically only operating as emergency wards.  People are living in abject fear of a virus that has a 98% survival rate.  They test positive and show up in the ER, even if they have mild symptoms, or none at all.  It's crazy, and it's a public health failure on the highest level.  The cure is far worse than the disease.  Walk a mile in my shoes, or my husband's shoes, and you will see a far different picture than the media and the politicians portray. 

Meanwhile, while so many people are acting like Chicken Little when it comes to Omicron, little factoids are lost in the shuffle.  After the mess in Afghanistan in August, the State Department told us only about 200 Americans were left behind.  Last week, a small detail was released and no one even knew it happened.  That State Department said they had exfiltrated 900 Americans since then.  Apparently, their numbers were bull, but we knew that didn't we?  With all the evidence in major sports, our *President is still saying that vaccinated people can't spread COVID.  They keep acting like inflation isn't a big deal (tell that to my gas and grocery bill), and have spent months blaming everything and everyone that isn't them for the horrible side effects of their own policies.  

In short, 2021 was barely any better than 2020, and 2022 could be worse.  All things being equal, 81 million Americans voted for this.  Apparently many of them are regretting that, but I have little to no sympathy for them.  You get what you ask for.  

As for me and mine, we will not lay down and die so the elites can live in their utopia where they rule and everyone worships the ground they walk on.  It's more likely, if that happens, we will feel more like North Koreans than say, the workers paradise that these people claim they can bring about.  Either way, I won't back down.  I hope some of you will do the same.

Small Bites, Edition Five

 I know, I've been MIA for awhile.  Life gets crazy, you know?  I've actually discovered a better way to keep this blog going, so we'll see if that works.

I've decided not to delve into the Afghanistan situation (I was going to say "debacle", but I'm trying not to come out swinging...all the time.)  First, it would take more than a paragraph, and second, my tear ducts simply can't take a rehashing of that event, when there are others here that will give them plenty of a workout.

I'm not a big fan of Bob Woodward.  Frankly, I think the man has been churning out the book equivalent of tabloid magazines for years in hopes of reclaiming his Watergate glory.  Since his expose of that coverup, there isn't a President he hasn't tried to take down, and each time he claims it's far worse than Watergate.  It's not just Republicans either.  He's tried to nail them all.  Give him time, and he'll have some sordid tale about Joe Biden too.  I say all that, because I have been largely skeptical of his claims that General Mark Milley did what Mr. Woodward says he did.  Until General Milley himself didn't deny that he did it, only stated that what he did was well within his rights.  Say what?  Unless your head is buried under a rock, you know by now that our Allies, our actual Allies, felt completely blindsided by the way the US withdrew from Afghanistan. You would think, if General Milley really thinks he was within his rights to gather military leaders to by pass a sitting President, and if he thinks he was within his rights to contact his counterpart in China (not exactly an ally) and give assurances that he would warn him if we chose to attack, he might have considered calling our allies and letting them in on our withdrawal plan.  Apparently he didn't.  As other news stories have shown, our own *President tried to convince the Afghani President to paint a better face on the actions of the Taliban whether it was "true or not."   General Milley didn't seem all that concerned that our *President was bold faced lying to the American public about what was really happening.  No, he was worried about Donald Trump starting a nuclear war, a completely unfounded worry.  I humbly suggest it might be time for General Milley to retire, possibly to a military prison.

Do you know what the FBI was doing in 2015 and 2016?  We know what they weren't doing.  They clearly weren't arresting Larry Nassar for multiple instances of sexual assault with multiple minors.  This does not, in any way, absolve USA Gymnastics and the USOPC.  There are a lot of people walking around free who deserve to be in jail.  The rub here, is that maybe they would be if the FBI hadn't sat on claims that a rampant pedophile was on the loose and had been given access by these very organizations to a full compliment of victims.  Instead, for 17 long months, they didn't do a damn thing.  Honestly, if the stories are true, that they were offered jobs and benefits by USAG and USOPC, it's frightening that FBI agents can be bribed to allow a prolific child predator to go free.   The FBI director at the time was James Comey.  That guy so many people trusted on the fairy tale of Russian Collusion.  Yeah... he should hide under a rock too.  Do yourself a favor. The next time you think the FBI has any integrity, go watch the Senate Hearing with Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols and Ally Raisman.  That should cure that delusion.

I saw an article this weekend about a transgender female who competed in MMA.  He/She completely annihilated the biological female he/she was facing.  This is bad enough.  What was worse was finding out that he/she had served 6 years in the US Special forces, a division of the armed forces that, until very recently, was the province of men.  We are watching women's sports become obsolete as we allow more and more biological males to compete as women.  It's simple.  Get a female hairstyle, get some boob implants, cut off your penis and be given a fake vagina, and you can now, legally, beat up on a women.  No amount of hormones changes basic biological facts, you know that thing called science that everyone wants to follow, unless of course it's the science of biological gender.  We don't want to follow that science.  I remember a time when a man knocking around a woman was a crime, one that could cost you everything, including your career.  Ray Rice remembers too.

Last, I came across a nice little tidbit this morning.  It appears that Facebook (I know, you are laughing before I even say it, but it's not funny....at all), anyway, they apparently hid internal company studies that show instagram increases mental issues in young girls.  Young females who spend time on instagram are more likely to have an eating disorder, suffer depression and anxiety and even commit suicide.  And Facebook knew this, even while telling everyone that their social media platforms are doing nothing of the sort.  It shouldn't really be a surprise, considering I also discovered this past week that Facebook has a small group of untouchables.  People on their platform that can say and do pretty much anything, even if it violates the community standards that keep landing us peons in facebook jail.  Those people are celebrities, big corporations who subscribe to Facebook groupthink, and politicians of the same persuasion as Facebook.  Yeah, really not surprising.

Until Next Time....

Science! Or Not

How do you raise a gender neutral child? That's the question I find myself asking today, as I read news that the American Medical Association wants to remove the sex designation from the public section of birth certificates. Ten states allow you to designate your child as "X" on their birth certificate.  My assumption is that is done so that parents can't be accused of misgendering their child, and can allow their child to decide, at some point, which sex they wish to be.  The other 40 don't allow that, but a full 48 states will allow you to change your gender when you discover whether you want to be a boy, a girl, or something else.  I'm not sure what that something else is, but let's go with it for now.  But still, I ask myself, how to you raise a gender neutral child?  What name do you give them?  What clothes do you dress them in?  What toys do you buy them?  What if by the age of 5 they still don't know what gender they are?  How do handle going to school when the vast majority of their peers are either boys or girls, but Mommy and Daddy never told them if they're a boy or a girl?  

Biological sex is fixed.  I know that's not a popular thing to say these days, but it is a scientific fact, except in the rare cases of intersex people.   Your biological sex is determined at conception.  You either have two X chromosomes or a X and a Y chromosome.  Those chromosomes determine your biological sex.  When I say this, please understand I am not discounting those who suffer from Gender Dysphoria or Gender Identity Disorder.  GID is a real thing, with real causes, and real ramifications, physical and psychological.  There are people who feel like they are one gender and trapped in the body of the opposite biological sex.  Notice how I did that?  Gender and biological sex are not the same thing. 

That's where all this is leading me.  If biological sex is a fixed scientific fact, and it is, then how do you raise a gender neutral child, or to be more precise, how can you possible think that's an okay thing to do?  It's as if that child is already starting out on the wrong foot, so to speak.  The highest figure for people who have GID is one out of every 20,000.  That means that 19,999 children born will identify their gender with their biological sex.  If you declare your child gender neutral, there is a very good chance they will spend some of their most formative year being denied the ability to be who they really are, to use the transgender movement's own words.  Do you really think you are doing your child a favor?  

In order to make life easier on your child, if by some chance they are the 1 in the 20,000, you are making your child's life infinitely harder if the are the 1 in 19,999.  Despite what some doctors say, I don't believe a 2 year old or even a 5 year old have any idea what gender they are, outside of how they are raised.  My daughter spent 18 months thinking she was a dinosaur.  It didn't make her a dinosaur.  She liked dolls, but she also really loved hot wheels.  Neither of my girls wear dresses unless they absolutely have to... weddings, funerals.  That's about it. They are more comfortable in a jeans and a t-shirt.  Does that make them a boy?

So I get back to, how do you raise a gender neutral child? What I really am asking is how do you raise a gender neutral child who isn't screwed up for life, because mom and dad decided to jump on some politically correct train that says if you label your child a girl or a boy you are damaging them.  People with GID suffer, and you not labeling them won't change that.  You can't change their sex before they are born, you can't even change it immediately after they are born.  It's those physical characteristics that cause psychological problems, and no matter what you do, you can't change that.  So give your child a bloody gender and stop damaging them.

Amy Branches Off

 As anyone who reads this space knows, I generally stay in the political realm.  I have been known to branch off occasionally into football, but that's usually still connected in some way to politics.  Today I want to take a minute to focus on another sport that is as closely followed by people in my house as football.... gymnastics.

There is no way to describe the disappointment we felt when they postponed the Tokyo Olympics to 2021. The Summer Olympics have been my favorite for most of my adult life.  I love volleyball and beach volleyball, swimming, diving, equestrian competition, and most of all, gymnastics.  Having followed gymnastics since Mary Lou won her gold medal in 1984, I am supremely aware of how hard the sport is, and how little the general public understands what it takes to be an Olympic Gymnast.  Thousands upon thousands of little girls join the sport with a dream, and at the end of the day, five are chosen.  That's it, five.  Imagine telling a class of college football draftees that only five of them would be chosen.  More, tell those high school and college players there is no life outside their sport.  They have to train at their sport for eight hours a day, six days a week, and even then, the odds of reaching their dream are closer to 0% then 100%.   It's hard, it's physically and mentally punishing.  So I know if I was disappointed, the athletes themselves must be devastated.  

I could go into the ridiculousness of the FIG, when they decided to shrink the teams from five to four and institute their crazy World Cup system that no one really understood.  Or how many American news sites put a bullseye on Jade Carey, who qualified through the World Cup and then had the audacity to get better and then start competing in the runup to trials. (In fairness, the World Cup system is jacked, and if you don't follow the sport all the time you would have no idea how it worked.  I doubt those only Olympic year gymnastics reporters have any clue, and frankly, it's really not their fault.)

Instead, I want to talk about USA Gymnastics.  Unless your head is buried under a rock, you know that the USAG suffered a real hit to it's reputation, credibility, and pocket when it was revealed that the long-time team doctor, Larry Nassar, was arrested for molesting hundreds of young gymnasts.  It's horrifying that this went on, and what's more horrifying is that it took Maggie Nichols to finally report it in June of 2015.  It doesn't say anything good about the organization or it's hundreds of member coaches that this was going on for decades before one girl had the guts to talk about it.  It puts a huge spotlight on the Karolyi's and USAG's decision to put them in charge.  Heck we all thought the worst part of gymnastics was the berating and driving young girls to eating disorders.  This is worse.  USAG failed to report sexual abuse of a minor in compliance with the law.  Steve Penny, the then president, Marta Karolyi, the then national team coordinator, and Maggie's coach.  They all broke the law.  According to USAG, and Michigan State University, Maggie Nichols was known as "Athlete A".   The Indy Star was, of course, chasing this down at the same time that Maggie was fighting her own battle.  Thank God they did. Without their tireless investigation and refusal to give up, I'm not sure Maggie's case would have gone anywhere. 

While USAG sat on the allegations for 5 months, they did report it to the FBI in 2015.  What happened next is such a travesty of justice, and one that has barely been mentioned.  The FBI sat on the information, for months.  Many, many months.  USAG actually had to contact the FBI 8 months after they reported it, because nothing was being done.  Eight months.  In which time it is alleged that somewhere between 40 and 70 girls and women were the victims of Larry Nassar's abuse. The FBI slow walked an investigation.  There are some allegations that Steve Penny was offering jobs with the USOC to the agents.  So what?  You are a law enforcement officer.  One of them was the Special Agent in Charge.  This was your job, and I don't care if he offered you Emperor of the World, these women and girls deserved better from the nation's top law enforcement agency.  I'll insert a little politics... maybe they were just too busy spying on then candidate Donald Trump to actually do their job.

USAG, USOC, and the University of Michigan don't deserve any credit.  The FBI failing to do their job does not exonerate those organizations for their own failures.  The most outspoken girls, I have discovered, are the ones who attained their dreams.  They are on the news and have profiles done about them, but until Netflix made Athlete A, no one knew how instrumental Maggie Nichols was, or what she sacrificed.  You see, Maggie should have been a 2016 Olympian.  She deserved to go.  We were told that Marta said she had to be able to do that harder vault to have any chance of making the team, a vault that 3 other girls chosen for that team could not and did not do.  I believe Maggie was left off the team because she threatened the reputation of the very person making the decision.  Maggie was sexually assaulted at the Karolyi's national team camp.  They knew, and they waited 5 months to report it.  They had files of girls abused by coaches that they never reported.  And so, she was shunted to the back of the pack, and her dream was done.  Maggie is the hero.  Not Aly Raisman, not Jaime Danszcher, McKayla Maroney, Gabby Douglas, or even Simone Biles.  Maggie.  The girl who gave up her dream so that in the future, many other girls will hopefully be saved a devastating, life-altering, horrific act.  Thank you, Maggie.  She did go on to have an amazingly successful collegiate career, becoming the NCAA All Around Champion in both 2018 and 2019. 

Now USAG's high performance coordinator is Tom Forster.  Tom is a different breed.  Still tough and demanding, but different.  He wants the best for those girls, but he also knows so many of them will never be an Olympic Champion.  There were some interesting rumblings when fan favorites (like Gabby Douglas had once been) were left off the National Team and not invited to Olympic Trials.  Tom really liked some of those girls, but in the end, only the best can go, and he chose the best.  So you are pissed that your favorite didn't get to go.  I was pissed in 2016 when they left Maggie off the team, and she wasn't my favorite. (I'm a GOAT fan all the way.) I still rooted for our girls to win.  You should too.  And you should be utterly thankful that the guy in charge isn't a Karolyi.  

There She Stands

 

It's the flag, the one that represents our country.  Some people still fly it in front of their homes.  Some people actually have them flying from their cars.  I remember a time nearly 20 years ago when everyone was flying them, carrying them... it was a different time.  When I look around today, I start to think it was a different place.

 "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color." - Colin Kaepernick

That's where it really all started.  Yes, there were a few people here and there who burned flags or danced on them or whatever, but for the most part it was Colin, kneeling on a football field.  I could spend time going into his reasons for doing so - what he said they were and what I believe they were - but that's not necessary for this post.   Colin further explained that much of what he was protesting was police brutality.  White police officers shooting unarmed black men.  Half the problem with his supposed reason is that he was basing it on recent wide spread news media coverage of unarmed black men who were killed during police interactions.  Quite a few of those very covered stories turned out not to be as benign as they were billed.  Full disclosure:  Hands up, don't shoot never happened.  On average, about 10 unarmed black men are shot by the police every year.  You are far more likely to be killed by the police if you are white.  That's an inconvenient fact no one ever talks about.  All 10 of them MAY have been tragic.  Unarmed doesn't equal not dangerous.  However, we are literally upending our history for something that is more rare than death by lightning strike.

That's all the background I'm giving, because this post will be way too long if I start talking about systemic racism, Critical Race Theory, and the 1619 project.  The fact is, in this country, there are people who truly feel they are oppressed.  Maybe it's because oppression in our country, at least for the last 50 years, is not the way oppression is defined by a good portion of the rest of the world.  A few examples:

Go to Iran and start a public fight for women's equality issues.

Go to Saudi Arabia and fly a pride flag.

Go to Hong Kong and protest China.

Go to Russia and complain about Vladimir Putin.

I could keep going, but I don't think it's necessary.  Oppression, true oppression, isn't something most living US citizens can comprehend.  Oppression is a statue of some Confederate General, someone flying the Confederate flag, a person saying something someone disagrees with...shall I keep going?  Oppression in the US is about words and requires trigger warning.  Oppression in Russia is getting poisoned by the former KGB.  Oppression in China is re-education camps and slave labor.  Oppression in Saudi Arabia is a death sentence.  In Iran, the woman gets stoned for being raped, while her rapist walks free... by law.  I think I'm making my point, but maybe not.

This morning I woke up to the news that the citizens of Cuba are protesting their communist overlords, who have, not surprisingly, made living in Cuba pretty terrible.  (People don't try to swim the 90 miles to Florida for nothing.)  One of the articles I read had this picture posted:

 Amazing.  People in an oppressive country, are carrying an American flag.  Let's rewind to 2019:

Those people there are Hong Kong Citizens protesting the Chinese government with.... an American Flag.  

Why?  What do all these people, from other countries, see in our flag that our own citizens fail to see.  Recently a BLM Chapter in Utah declared the US Flag a Hate Symbol.  But in truly oppressive countries with truly oppressed people, they carry that flag as a symbol of something they want, something they crave, something for which they hope.  Frederick Douglass had that same hope, which he expressed in the same speech that leftists drag out on 4th of July.  You see Douglass new that a nation founded on the principles in the Declaration of Independence would (and did) shine a light on the injustice of slavery.  That the genius of the founders and the country they created would necessitate the end of slavery and eventually the equality (not equity) that the slaves craved.  That flag stands for hope.  It is a light to all the oppressed in the world.  We would do well to remember that.

When evil calls itself a martyr
When all your hopes come crashing down
Someone will pull her from the rubble
There she stands

We've seen her flying torn and tattered
We've seen her stand the test of time
And through it all the fools have fallen
There she stands

By the dawn's, early light
And through the fight. She stands

~Michael W Smith

Small Bites, Edition 4 (May 30, 2021)

I'm sitting here, at this moment, reading news headlines.

Nearly 1/3 of Americans have been vaccinated against COVID-19.  Dr. Marty Makary, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, believes nearly half of all Americans have developed natural immunity to COVID-19.  Now some of those who had the virus also got vaccinated, so there is overlap that does not allow us to calculate the actual number of immune individuals in our country.  I believe I had COVID before they had a test, or even knew the disease existed.  With recent news of three researchers being hospitalized with COVID symptoms prior to the Chinese deciding to report on the virus, it is even more likely my belief is correct.  A recent study has found that even asymptomatic and those with mild symptoms have the same level of immunity as those vaccinated, and the studies propose that people who have been infected could continue to make antibodies or the rest of their life.  I am choosing not to get vaccinated.  That is my choice, and I will not allow anyone to bully me into getting vaccinated on the idea that I am a danger to others.  Vaccinated people are protected, according to the CDC.  They do not have to mask up in all but very specific circumstances.  Why? Because they are protected from the virus.  Those with natural immunity are also protected.  Those who either didn't have COVID or aren't vaccinated should take whatever precautions they feel necessary.   

OSHA has decided to avoid discouraging employers from encouraging or even mandating the vaccine, so they will no longer require employers who mandate the vaccine to report adverse effects as worker's compensation claims.  I'm trying to play this out in my head, but if you are injured or made sick by something you employer mandates that you do as part of retaining your employment, isn't that the definition of a worker's compensation claim?  Whether it's being vaccinated or driving a forklift shouldn't matter.  But, we need to jam vaccination down everyone's throat, so no, even if your employer makes your continued employment contingent on you getting vaccinated, they don't have to pay up should you miss work, be hospitalized or even die from their mandate.  This is not safety, it's asinine.

The University of Louisville did the first major study on the efficacy of mask mandates at stopping the spread of COVID.  Guess what they found?  Yep, you got it, mask mandates did not, in any way shape or form, regardless of the level of the outbreak, slow the spread of COVID.  Got that?  Mask mandates were nothing more than political theater.  They even say that, in a nice way.  The mandates provided a sense of solidarity and community, but as an effective medical protection, they were utterly useless.  Since mask mandates did indeed increase the level of mask wearing, but had little to no effect on the spread, you can extrapolate that masks themselves did little to stop the spread of COVID.  We had virtually no flu this season and people insisted that was because of masks, yet we had a huge winter spike in COVID, and that was because people weren't wearing the masks.  Common sense fails people, all the time.

Places all over the country are trying to hire employees but can't.  Some people (see common sense failing) are insisting that it's because employers aren't paying enough.  But most of the places around me are paying twice as much as minimum wage, sometimes even more.  See, when you pay people to stay home, they have no incentive to go to work, and some states allowed you to refuse to return to a job if you were scared of COVID.  They incentivized people to stay home.  Duh.

Yeah, today was all COVID all the time.  Sorry about that.  That other subjects on my list cannot be covered in one paragraph.

Until next time....

COVID Panic Porn

Project Veritas somehow managed to get a CNN executive to admit that they used COVID-19 trackers to induce fear, because fear sells.  For almost a year, they had their case and death counters up on the screen 24/7.  As I don't watch much CNN, I'm not sure if they are still doing that, but my guess would be that, now that Donald Trump is no longer president, they don't need to keep people living in fear of orange man killing them all.  Still, I don't know, so don't take my word for it.

CNN may no longer be inducing panic with their tickers, but our president*, despite the fact that he's fully vaccinated, is still wearing one, and sometimes two masks.  Last week, he had a video climate summit and wore a mask... on a video call.  No other world leader felt it necessary to wear a mask on a call where the participants were all in another country.  I'm guessing ours is still trying to play up the pandemic, even though, by any sane person's best guess, he doesn't need to be masked up all the time.

The New York Times also wants to keep the panic porn alive and well with this article on Friday: How COVID upended a Century of Patterns in U.S. Deaths

It starts out with this line:

"The U.S. death rate in 2020 was the highest above normal since the early 1900s — even surpassing the calamity of the 1918 flu pandemic."

Then they share this little graph:

Which clearly makes it look as bad as they wanted it to.  Later on they shared yet another graphic which kind of undercuts what they said, but it wasn't at the top of the page, so likely most of the public won't ever see it, and trust me, no major media source is going to publish past the first graph.

Clearly, we didn't really break the pattern of the 1918 Spanish Flu.  Not even close. But then we got this tidbit:

Combined with deaths in the first few months of this year, Covid-19 has now claimed more than half a million lives in the United States. The total number of Covid-19 deaths so far is on track to surpass the toll of the 1918 pandemic, which killed an estimated 675,000 nationwide.

There are other charts as well, but you can get a graph to say anything you want depending on how you input the data.  The fact is that little paragraph is widely misleading, in that it attempts to equate our current pandemic with the Spanish flu of 1918.  Except you can't not really.  The US population was one third of what it is now.  So I did some number crunching.

If COVID is on track to kill as many people as the Spanish Flu did, accounting for population differences, the numbers would have to be this:

US Population 2020: 330,222,422

Positive Cases: 92,462,278

Deaths: 2,034,170

But this is the current information:

US Population 2020: 330,222,422

Positive Cases: 31,883,289

Deaths: 565,272

So no, we aren't anywhere near the Spanish Flu, which was far more virulent (10% verses 28%) and more deadly (1.7% verses 2.2%).

So even if CNN is backing off their panic porn (once again, I have no idea), the Times is keeping it alive, along with our President* who is vaccinated and still acting like the end is near.

**This took me all of 20 minutes, to find the data, do the math, and then put it in a blog.  The Times must really think we're idiots.

Small Bites, Edition 3, April 23, 2021

 So, I took an unexpected break.  I have bosses who need to use vacation time.  Vacation time for bosses, means more working hours for me.  I don't mind, I have great bosses, and they richly deserve all their time off.  However, when I'm working all those hours, I don't have time for much else.  I'm trying so hard to make this more regular, I promise.  On that note, here's your third edition of Small Bites.

This week, a jury convicted Officer Derek Chavin of one count of second degree murder, one count of third degree murder, and one count of manslaughter.  The third degree murder charge, per Minnesota standards didn't even apply, but hey, whatever.  Derek Chauvin should go to prison.  I don't believe he was the sole cause of the death of George Floyd, but he was partly responsible.  What do I mean?  He didn't inject Floyd with a lethal overdose of fentanyl.  He didn't block his coronary arteries either.  He did however fail to address the obvious medical issue Floyd was having, and that makes him complicit in the man's death.  For that, he should be going to prison.  However, some of our more vocal citizens may have made that not possible.  Maxine Waters should have stayed home, instead of going to Minnesota and inciting violence.  The Minneapolis Star Tribune should have avoided printing nameless in depth biographies of the jurors in their newspaper on the very day the jury was to start deliberating.  BLM shouldn't have threatened to burn down the city if they didn't get the verdict they wanted.  All of those things could give the defense the opportunity to appeal for a mistrial.  The judge in the case even said as much.  And at least one juror has said "I didn't want the city burning down again.  I was afraid they would come after me."  Yikes.

Apparently Loudon County in Virginia is going to do away with advanced math classes for anyone under 11th grade.  No more honors math for your kids!  Way to deprive math geniuses of their chance in the STEM fields, especially female kids.  All this is supposed to be in the name of equity.  Here's the thing. Not every kid, no matter how smart, is good enough in every subject to take advanced classes.  The ones who are should have the opportunity to do so.  Depriving them of that opportunity in the name of equity is just plain stupid.

I have a message for certain members of our elite, and by elite I mean, politicians, actors, and CEOs.  (I use elite in the loosest way possible, since I don't truly believe those people are better than me.) Stop telling black people they are too dumb, backward, poor or whatever, to do simple things.  It's denigrating, even when you clothe it in kente cloth, kneeling, and anti-racism.  You can't buy alcohol without ID.  You can't board a plane without ID. You can't buy a gun without ID.  You can't go visit the White House...oh wait, nevermind, you can't do that anyway because it's behind a fence.  My point is, you can't get through life without a photo ID.  So claiming that needing one to vote is somehow racist, is pretty much claiming that living life is racist.  And claiming that, particularly, minority people are unable to do something required to participate in life is just... well, it's racist.  So please, stop.

Lebron James targeted a police officer, and then deleted the tweet, when it caused more hate.  Duh.  It's obvious King James was drafted right out of high school, because I would hope a college attendee would realize that posting a picture of a police officer saying "you're next" is inviting the kind of hate one purports to be against.  That is to say, hate not involving hating on white people, cops, and anything the Chinese government hates.  Chinese government hate is good.  It wasn't hate that was being spread by the way.  It was people calling out James because apparently he cared more about the knife wielding criminal then the poor black girl about to be gutted.  Tweet deleted, but not before everyone basically called him the fool that he is.  

Which leads me to a reflective moment.  Why do we care so much what actors, sports stars and mediocre pop singers think?  These are people who pretend to be someone else, play a game, or get auto-tuned for a living.  They aren't better than us just because they have their mug on our TV screen.  They aren't more altruistic or morally superior.  They are there to entertain us, not to educate us.  Pardon me for sounding like a horrible person, but I don't want them educating me.  Most of them just aren't that smart.  Yet we have made them our de facto spokespeople.  Why?  It's sad that they think they have the ability to influence the way we think, or maybe it's sad that we actually let them influence the way we think.  

Yeah, that's it from me.  Until next time....