Mayor Pete and 'the Bradley Effect'

Depending on which poll you trust, Pete Buttigieg (D) wavers between a whopping 24% in the Iowa State poll, and hovering around 7 to 9% in most of the other polls of late.  Should Mayor Pete pull off a major upset and win the Iowa caucus in February, he could be a serious challenge to the other mainstream Democrats (also called Socialists) in the field.

Then again, it's that faith that you put into these polls.  If we all recall, Donald Trump 'had no path' to the Oval Office just a month out from the elections.  No chance, no way, no how.  The polls had Hillary Clinton ahead by double digits, and yet that's not the way it went, not even close.

I suspect that back in 2016, if a pollster asked you if you supported Donald Trump, you would tell them that you did not, lest your house get egged, toilet papered, or worse, set on fire by Antifa or another Democratic organization which is prone to violence.  But left alone in that voting booth, all by yourself with just that chad waiting to be punched without anybody knowing, you knew what to do.

Same thing happened to Mayor Tom Bradley (D-Ca) who ran for the California governor's seat against the ultimate victor in 1982, George Dukmejian (R-Ca) and yet Bradley lost despite a huge lead in the polls right up to the day of the election.  The subsequent 'Bradley Effect' was applied to a white vs black contest, and the results of polling that had respondents indicating they would vote for the black and yet did otherwise, responding that they would support the black candidate out of fear of appearing to be racist to the pollster should they lean the other way.  

This effect can widely be applied to any number of electoral dynamics, such as the Trump/Clinton tilt in 2016, or in this case, not wanting to appear to be anti-gay and indicate support for openly gay candidate Mayor Pete, but once in that booth pulling another handle than the one they told the pollster.

Mayor Pete and his supporters are clearly suggesting the the U.S. is ready for a gay president.  I suspect they are wrong; most of the U.S. voters are not actively against the gay movement, but it is a very noisy, vocal and hostile constituency and to slight this crowd in any way will invite undesirable effects onto those foolish enough to oppose this movement publicly.  Better to just bake their wedding cake and shut up.

We will certainly see in a few weeks how this all plays out, but my guess is that Mayor Pete and his gay movement will fall by the wayside with a distant 5th or 6th place showing in Iowa despite the polls.  

The 'Bradley Effect', or something akin to it will surface, and Mayor Pete will diminish from the front page to become a footnote down the road, similar to the late Geraldine Ferarro (first woman to be tapped for U.S. Veep).  We are still waiting for that first woman to show up on the winning ticket.

And the first gay president is a long way off as well.

Michael Bloomberg ain't the guy...

...not even close.

Yes, he may have bamboozled and flim-flammed in addition to having bought his way into three terms as mayor of a liberal pinko large town, but if he thinks that his bazillions of dollars will buy his way into the heartland and the presidency, he is sorely mistaken.  He thinks he's the voice of moderation among commie pinko socialists.  Yes, he's slighly more moderate than Ho-Chi Minh, leans just a tad less left than Mao Tse-Tung, and is slightly to the right of Josef Stalin.  He's as much of a moderate as Fidel Castro.

Don't get me wrong, I fully encourage him to spend as much money as he sees fit and watch it swirl down the toilet.  No amount of money can buy bad politics in Fly Over Country.  It will not affect any of The Great Unwashed.  The Dirt People out here aren't having any of it.  Just ask Jeb! how much it costs per vote to convince people that your bad policies are good for them.

Michael Bloomberg has been surrounded by yes men for who knows how long.  And those shameless butt smoochers surrounding Bloomberg all to a man agreed that he could buy his way into the Oval Office.

Not a chance.  He also assumed that since The Donald could do it (he didn't spend anywhere near the Old Crone in the last election), so can he.  Nope.  The Donald is a showman.  Little Michael is not.  The Donald can hold an audience.  Little Michael stutters in a monotone with his hems and haws, the guy is no public speaker.  The Donald is 6'3" tall.  Little Michael isn't.  The Donald has led a nation out of a liberal malaise, and Little Michael hasn't.

Sure, all of these things taken individually can be shrugged off.  Added all up, Little Michael stands no chance of even getting the Democrat tap as candidate.  The guy is just a grown-up Baby Yoda.  A toad, and Americans don't elect toads to national office.

In addition, Little Michael's policies are the stuff of certain defeat: grab all of your guns, close all the coal plants, and ban Big Gulps and Juul e-cigarettes, in addition to easing that Green New Deal in under the rug.  

Not the stuff that has mobs of admirers begging to sign up for any of that garbage.

But he is certainly free to throw away great big huge gobs of cash chasing the dream.  This is The Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, he's free to blow as much serious scratch as he wants. And he has it to spare.

Republicans could have impeached Obama on lots of 'high crimes and misdemeanors'

So this is now the standard for impeachment: the party out of power doesn't like the guy in the Oval Office, but controls the House: since they hate the presidents' guts, he's gotta go.  Write up the articles of impeachment here (fill in the blank, doesn't matter, we'll get some lawyers and pinko professors to argue the details).

The impeachment bar is now so low, that if a sitting president sneezes without saying 'excuse me,' he's out.  Impeach the sumbitch.

This standard, however low it is currently, was more than adequate to impeach Barry on any number of crimes/misdemeanors that Barry Obama had committed during his 8 years of regime:

* Fast-n-Furious - any 2nd year law school student could write up reasonable impeachment articles on this one, the guy's hare brained scheme on getting rid of the 2nd Amendment got people killed.

* IRS Scandal - again, that same 2nd year law student could argue this with credibility when Barry and his minions were weaponizing the IRS against their opponents.

* Pallets of cash to Iran: a no-brainer high crime and misdemeanor giving aid and comfort to our enemy.

* Tapping the phone lines of then-GOP candidate Donald Trump at his NY Trump Tower residence.  Sure, he only had about a year left in office, but still...

* Weaponizing the Justice Department assets against his opponents, as I am pretty sure that the culprits with their fingerprints all over this high crime and misdemeanor (Stryzok/Page/Comey/McCabe/Brennan/Clapper, just to name a few) would invariably rat Barry out as the master mind once the screws were put to them

And the list of high crimes/misdemeanors is long and lots of bad things that Barry had a hand in didn't make the above list, chief among them was that almost everybody in the GOP ranks hated Barry's guts.  They loathed the commie pinko.

But they didn't impeach him, although they could have given today's standard, they could have impeached him ten times over...

Hulu, Fubo TV, Apple TV, what's a Luddite to do....

Yes, Fredd the Luddite is going to cut the cable (or satellite, as it were).  Our DirectTV invoice has now climbed to $136.47/month, and we don't have any fancy package, just the basic stuff.

We've had DirectTV for about 20 years now, and have not really had a problem with it, other than no movie channels such as HBO and Showtime, Starz, none of that.  Had we opted into those premium channels, and our monthly bill would approach two C-notes a month; way too damn much.

Our daughter is pushing for Hulu with a Netflix account, and other than the $90 or so initial investment for the Roku box, it would run around $60/month, or 43% of what we are forking out now. Very attractive pricing, not only is Fredd a Luddite, but he's also a cheapskate. The missus, however, really wants 'The Hallmark Channel,' that airs those dopey predictable Christmas movies.  Hulu does not include the Hallmark Channel.  

Additionally, Hulu  does not include the Pac-12 Network, either.  Luddite Fredd the Cheapskate is addicted to his Oregon Duck football and basketball teams, and has been jones-ing on coverage for the last 20 years because DirectTV does not have the Pac-12 Network, either.

But Sling-TV has both Pac-12 and Hallmark, but not Fox News or Fox Business Channel (both of which Luddite Fredd cannot take another breath on this earth without).  

Apple TV has an enormous channel selection, but not Hallmark or Pac-12, but it has Fox News, but not Fox Business.  Then there's Disney + just hitting the streets, it looks great.

So many streaming services, all of them over half the price of our DirectTV account per month.  But none of them have everything we want.

What to do, what to do.......

Luddite Fredd is paralyzed with indecision.  But he's still a cheapskate.  And DirectTV is on its way out. 

All of this effort from congress on non-bacon stuff

When local voters head to the polls, they vote their pocketbooks, for the most part.  And they vote for politicians who will bring home the bacon, and again, for the most part.

What kind of bacon have the Democrat members of congress brought home to their constituents who sent them to Washington D.C. to grab some of that bacon?

There's been really nothing that the majority party in the House can claim as any kind of accomplishment.  Not a damn thing.  And these Democrats expect that their constituents, who look in the fridge right before going to the voting booth, see not a single slice of that promised bacon, will send them back to Washington D.C. in 2020 yet again.  Democrat voters elected their guys and gals to pass legislation that will bring home jobs, projects and social justice (yes, they want that, whatever that means). You know, bacon.  

The Democrats in the House are only working on one thing: impeach the president over something, anything.  And this is not exactly what Joe and Jill Sixpack voted for when they handed the gavel back to Nancy Pelosi.  There is not one crumb of bacon involved in any of this nonsense.  

I am thinking that all of this impeachment foolishness will blow up in their faces.  Their hatred of Donald Trump will doom their re-election chances in November next year.

Which is OK with me.  

Elija Cummings remembered as a 'great man.'

Yes, a 'great man.'  Those words will probably be chiseled on his gargantuan tombstone in front of his enormous mausoleum, a tomb fitting of Great Men who have passed unto the hands of the Lord.

Because he was a Democrat, all of Elija Cummings failures will be swept under the rug, never to be discussed again.  Ever.  There is still the issue of the missing $1.5 BILLION dollars that was ear marked to ease the blight in his district of Baltimore, but not one penny of that $1.5 BILLION dollars was ever spent anywhere near Baltimore and has not been seen anywhere else, either.  Not yet, at least.  And certainly Baltimore remains the rat infested hell hole that it has always been, or for at least the last 50 years or maybe more.  I would think that $1.5 BILLION would go a long way towards solving at least a few of Baltimore's myriad of problems.

Had Elija Cummings been a Republican, this would be the issue chiseled into his tombstone.  "Where is the $1.5 BILLION, Elija?  Rest in Peace".  But none of that will happen, because Elija Cummings was a Democrat.  A black Democrat at that.  He will be remembered as a 'great man.'  A leader of the Civil Rights movement, who was there and was down for the struggle in Selma.

There have been other 'great men' who's reputation in America's eyes are that of ogre, criminal and malfeasant.

O.J. Simpson was a great man.  Huh, you say?  That double-murdering thug who beat the rap and is now the most hated man in America, THAT O.J.?  Yes, that O.J.  Nobody recalls that while a running back at USC he was setting rushing records en route to a Heisman Trophy.  Yes, that O.J. who when playing for the Buffalo Bills was the first man to rush for over 2,000 yards in a single season.  Yes, that O.J. who charmed his way into the movies and was seen in Hertz commercials hurdling over luggage and wandering up and down the sidelines on Monday Night Football, microphone in hand, yes that O.J.  We all loved O.J.

And now all of that is forgotten.  He is a hated double murderer, the scum of the earth.  But he was a great man, once.  Not anymore.

What about Richard Nixon?  Huh, you say?  The lying criminal ex-president who covered up the heinous crime of some of his stupid cronies who broke into his opponents offices seeking dirt?  Yes, that Richard Nixon.  Nobody remembers that it was Dick Nixon who was the avowed enemy of communism back in the 1950's during the Red Scare.  As vice president under Eisenhower, Dick Nixon was the lead man to beat back the commie scourge that was creeping into our government.  He was the great man to cede the presidential election in 1960 to JFK and not contest the Illinois vote count that then Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley conjured up from graveyards and death certificates on file in the Windy City.  Those votes from dead people, had they been tossed, would have put Dick Nixon over the hump. would have landed all of Illinois electoral votes into the Nixon column and not the JFK column, and he would have been elected president in 1960.  He chose not to sink the U.S. into that quagmire 'for the good of the country.'  (unlike Al Gore, who sued Dubya over the Florida vote...and we are still seeing the seething rage of the left owing to the decision going Dubya's way to this very day).

Dick Nixon is the man who, through 'ping pong diplomacy' opened up the Chinese markets globally after meeting with Chow En-Lai and other Chinese heavy weights.  Dick Nixon also ended the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, a war started by Democrats to feed what Eisenhower a few years earlier warned us about: the military industrial complex.

Yes, Richard M. Nixon was a great man.  But what do we remember him as?  "I am not a crook" crook.  And yet all he did was stick up for his guys, for better or for worse.

Yes, both of these guys were Great Men.  Orenthal James Simpson and Richard Milhouse Nixon. Not anymore.

Elija Cummings is now at the right hand of Jesus.  A Great Man.  I am still wondering where that $1.5 BILLION dollars is.  That kind of money demands an investigation.  But that will not happen, not to a 'GREAT MAN' like Elija Cummings.

I liken Elija Cummings memory to the likes of other Great Men, such as O.J. and Tricky Dick.

Sympathy for workers on strike...

...and I got none.  I particularly have no sympathy for public employees who go out on strike, like the Chicago Teacher's Union now on strike for more, more, more.....

These greedy bastard were offered a 16% raise over 5 years, not bad considering they only work 9 months out of the year, have some of the most opulent benefits packages available anywhere on earth, and can never get fired for any reason, except maybe murder - and even then, the union fights tooth and nail to keep these murderers on the payroll.

Nope, 16% pay raise?  Uh-uh.  No way Jose.  They want way more than that, in addition to guaranteed affordable housing forever, and a few other ridiculous demands, or they walk the picket lines.

The strikers at General Motors are slightly more sympathetic, but not much.  They are going up against a management structure of a private enterprise that determines their compensation, and that does not affect the general public directly: if GM's products are not available owing to a strike, we can always buy a Ford, a Chrysler, a Volkswagen or a Porsche.  No biggie.  And GM, should they choose, can just fire all of these strikers and hire scabs, completely legal. 

Not so with striking public unions: yes, like Ronald Reagan fired all of the striking air traffic controllers in the 1980's, that option is not on the table for public school districts.  And parents cannot simply enroll their children elsewhere in the event that their local schools remain on strike.  Nope, these kids are held hostage by these rotten public unions and there is nothing mom and dad can do about it, not really.

As contrasted with private companies and their unions, public employees are not striking against and demanding concessions from private employers.  No siree Bob.  They are demanding concessions from the taxpayers.  And yet we tax payers already put in place public employees to manage our public schools: the mayors of the cities.  These elected officials are our representatives regarding educational resources, and when public school unions decide to buck what the duly elected mayors have established as reasonable compensation, they are bucking us - John and Suzie Q. Public.

To hell with them, I say.  Fire the lot of them, send them screaming into the night and force them to eat out of dumpsters.  If they want to play hardball, well then welcome to the NFL.

Ditto with private company unions, just on principles.

California is now a 3rd World country

Yes, the Golden State has crossed that threshold: it is no longer simply a misguided state that is in need of adult supervision.  It has now progressed into a full fledged 3rd world country.

In-flows of illegals have swamped the social safety net long ago.  Emergency rooms at hospitals now resemble Cuban waiting rooms with sick illegal aliens piled to the ceilings waiting for a nurse practitioner to come by with a Band-aid and an aspirin (to treat a broken arm caused by another illegal immigrant pushing them down into the street after stealing their shopping cart filled with all of their worldly possessions).

The homeless (aka bums, hobos, vagrants, I've already covered this) are now everywhere you look in California (except Belair and Beverly Hills, I've already covered this as well).

The San Joachin Valley used to be the bread basket of America, and it's now dried up because politicians chose to protect the snail darter from extinction (huh?) and let millions of acres of productive farmland dry up as they diverted irrigation water back out to the ocean (huh?).

Forest fires burn out of control as politicians have buckled to leftist organizations such as the Sierra Club's demands that clearing brush and over growth from forests be halted in order to save the environment (huh?).

Now PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric, the villain in "Erin Brockovitch") is cutting off electricity to around 800,000 Californians to preemptively avoid catching anything on fire during high winds and dry conditions (which California is known for most of the year).  

People in 3rd world countries have it better off than many Californians currently.  And we can attribute all of California's woes to their affinity to elect and re-elect liberal politicians state wide, from dog catcher to governor.  Year in and year out.

You would think they would learn.  Nope, no learnin' goin' on in The Golden State.

'Homelessness" is a choice

You can call them whatever you wish: the homeless, the real estate-challenged, the un-housed, or put some other happy face on these wretches.

As for mean spirited, black hearted ol' Fredd, I call them what they have always been called by rational people: vagrants.  That, or bums, vagabonds, ne-er-do-wells, miscreants, hobos, I'm sure there are a few more accurate terms out there that don't come to mind right now.  In any event, these people who choose to live on the streets and sponge off of the crumbs of society have indeed made a choice: to live like animals on the mean streets of America.

America has many freedoms that other countries deny their citizens; the freedom of assembly, the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion and yes - the freedom to fail.  We don't demand that anybody succeed in anything.  We encourage success, but success is not mandated.  You can bomb out in life if you want to here in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

We Americans have also been generous to a fault in years past to accommodate those that are for whatever reason down on their luck.  Churches have historically reached out to the down and out.  Charities such as the Salvation Army, Goodwill and St. Vincent DePaul, all are still around and willing to lend a hand to those who need it.  There are still food banks, soup kitchens, warming centers and lots of Americans that donate to all of these charitable efforts even as we speak.

But the vagrants that choose (and yes, they choose) to turn their back on efforts to help them should not garner any pity or empathy whatsoever from polite society.  There is every manner of help for these vagrants should they want it.

But they don't.

There are many factors that put people out onto the streets; drug addition, mental illness, stubbornness in turning their back on their families and friends who want to help them.  Or just flat out laziness.  And a myriad of other factors as well.  All of them are choices, with the exception of mental illness, and often that is a result of poor choices in life leading up to what many would consider mental impairment.  You try and live in Chicago on a grate in January, and then tell me how clearly you are thinking lately.

Back in the day (25 years ago or so?) there were still vagrants here and there, but nothing like the infestation in major urban areas we see today.  Back then, vagrancy laws were in place and enforced; if you had no visible means of support, and you caught the attention of a law enforcement agent, you would be picked up and put in jail.  At that point, the police would attempt to find your family or loved ones to see if somebody could bail you out and vouch for your future conformity to laws on the books, such as loitering, vagrancy, disturbing the peace, trespassing or public indecency such as defecating or urinating in public.

What is now different today than it was in days gone by with regards to the explosion of vagrants on our streets?  Simple: we have bleeding heart liberal politicians who tie law enforcement hands in enforcing the laws that are still on the books: disturbing the peace, public indecency, trespassing and so on.  The local voters who put these politicians into office desire their neighborhoods and businesses be bombarded by the pesky vagrants; they must, since they vote into office these bleeding heart pinkos who desire more homelessness (vagrancy), not less.  Voters want more vagrancy, they must according to the numbers of vagrants we see on urban streets, so many that law enforcement agents must step over without so much as making eye contact.

Homelessness is a choice; and so is putting up with it.  Notice there is not one single bum living on a sidewalk anywhere in Belair, CA.  Or Beverly Hills.  The residents of these upper crust cities will not have it.  Nor do you see any bums on the streets of Snyder, TX, Gadsden AL or Goshen IN: small town folks don't put up with this nonsense, either.

Citizens of LA, Chicago, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco: you need to vote out your current liberal governments, and start policing up these vagrants.  Folks without visible means of support and the drug addicts/mentally impaired need to be incarcerated.  Just like days gone by.  Those who have any brains will get jobs to avoid incarceration, and those nuts/drug addicts will languish in prison.  Which is where they should be, not on the streets.

Solving America's mental health problems, for the solution read on....

Starting in the 1960's, the U.S. slowly abandoned the concept of locking crazy people away in mental health institutions such as were run by Nurse Ratched in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.'  By the 1990's, they were all shuttered and the inmates were turned loose to fend for themselves.

We as a nation chose this path and were of the opinion that it was better to have sociopaths, drug addicts, and the myriad of undesirables living among us rather than risk a few innocents getting caught up in the mental health system.  The abuses of courts and medical practitioners in committing otherwise sane and law abiding people to confinement in mental health institutes has run its course, and we will not return to those former Soviet/East German-style practices anytime soon. And we still are of this opinion as I speak.

And now we are seeing crazy/evil people shooting up schools, malls and work places.  We step over mumbling basket cases living on the mean streets of urban liberal cities.  "Don't make eye contact" is the best protection against these human debris, or so they say.  Ignore them.  That solution is not really working all that well anymore.

We are not considering bringing back the nut houses and insane asylums of the past.  But the former inmates of these institutions are now starting to cause great harm to many in polite society.  How does the law abiding citizen protect themselves from these miscreants among us?

Simple.

1.  Enact a national concealed weapon carry law that allows free people to protect themselves from those that would harm them.  Yes, the miscreants would also wind up with concealed weapons themselves, but should they choose to wield their weapons against others, they would meet deadly return fire almost assuredly.  Soon, the many miscreant evil-doers would find that their aggression against others will assuredly result in their own injury or demise and accordingly they will cease using force to enhance their positions at the expense of others.  It's difficult to say with any precision how many good people comprise society versus the proportion of criminal elements but in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, I would have to say that 90% good vs evil is roughly the number.

In short order, violent crimes committed by undesirables against law abiding citizens would fade to levels acceptable to our society.  Reducing that number to zero is simply not taking into account reality and human nature and we will as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west always have crime.  But we could live with the resulting lower numbers of  violent crimes such as murders, kidnappings, rapes, robberies, etc., as they most assuredly would plummet to levels not seen before.  The most aggressive scum bags would wind up in the morgue, while the marginal nut jobs would have a basic understanding that should they choose to harm others, their days would be numbered.

Will this proposal turn the country into 'the Wild Wild West?'  Where there are gun fights on every corner at all times of the day and night and that scenes from the 'O.K. Corral' will play out as a result of a minor disagreement or perceived insult?  No.  The Wild Wild West was never like that, either.  Polite folks were armed to the teeth back in those days, and the evil elements knew that drawing their guns on others almost always ended up in a hail of gun fire coming their way.

An armed society is a polite society.  Or, as NRA President Wayne LaPierre correctly puts it, 'the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.'  No truer words were ever spoken.

2.  Enact national vagrancy laws.   It's no longer considered against the law to be a bum.  Or, as we used to call them, a vagrant, a hobo, a vagabond.  Someone with no visible means of support.  They are now called 'the homeless.'  Nuts to that.  We need to call them what they are, and that would be vagrants.  Vagrants with no visible means of support always resort to crime to prop up their chosen disreputable lifestyles.  And these criminals prey on the rest of us polite folk.  Bring back the days when these undesirables were rounded up and thrown in jail.  Regardless of whether they are nuts or not, they need to be incarcerated.  Many of these bums will in time understand that they need to get a job to avoid the slammer.  The crazy will languish in jail.  So be it.

Get ready for the sob stories.....

Yes, it's hurricane season again in the warm waters of the Caribbean, Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.  Happens every year, without exception; hurricanes develop and wipe things out.

Like the sun coming up in the east and setting in the west, you can count on it.  Every year.  Every dagnab, doggone, dadgum year (as they say down there where these hurricanes happen).  Some are just bigger than others, but they all cause damage.

The highest point in the Bahamas is around 40 feet above sea level, but most of the inhabitants live around 5 feet about sea level.  The photos of the devastation from the wind and storm surge on the western islands reveals almost complete destruction of anything man made.  And most of the trees, too.

Everybody who has lived in U.S. hurricane prone areas for 10 years or so knows about these hurricanes - they've lived through them (or many of them have lived through them).  And yet when hurricanes rise up and wipe out their mobile home, there they are; standing there in front of the camera, stained wife-beater T-shirt proudly displayed, tears in their eyes wondering how such a thing could happen.  And then the Governor declares the place an emergency, FEMA swoops in and hands out free goodies, and everybody gets free stuff.  

Who pays for all this free stuff and rebuilding going on in known flood areas and hurricane alleys?  The rest of us do, those who don't build with the intent on getting wiped out.  We cough up in tax payer dollars and increased insurance premiums for these idiots who get reimbursed by all the common sense folks out there who don't put themselves in harms way on purpose.

Why do we put up with this, year in and year out?  And why, when the gambler stumbles out of the casino dead broke, after having put up his life savings on black at the roulette table and it came up green, do we not dip into our pockets and bail this poor wretch out?

And why, when the sky diver's widow appears on TV, crying for the recent loss of her hubby whose chute didn't open, don't we just pay off all her debts and retire her mortgage and pay for all her kid's college tuition?

And how about all of those dopes who build their houses in New Orleans - BELOW SEA LEVEL - and then the inevitable flood comes into town, destroying everything there.  Are we still bailing out those dopes?

Apparently we are.  When will we ever stop enabling these fools who knowingly put themselves in peril, always expecting more sensible folk to come to their rescue?

Probably never.  Sigh.

Sure fire way to get ahead in America

It's simple: grab a U-Haul and move.

If you grew up in a location where all your family and friends are still there after 20 years, this doesn't mean that you have to stay there, too.  Yes, family and friends are important; that's why they make jet airliners and highways so that you can visit them from time to time AFTER YOU MOVE.

But the biggest mistake anybody can make, and I mean ANYBODY is to pass up opportunities that lie elsewhere just because nana or Grampy will miss you.  You are guaranteeing that your future will be less prosperous by sticking with your kin.

Words to the wise are to follow.  Get a job with a large company that has multiple locations throughout the U.S.  Do a very good job at your current location, and get recognized as a producer, a team player, you know, an asset.

Keep a lookout for opportunities that offer a promotion, better pay, working conditions or lifestyle than what you have, let the company know that you are willing to take on additional responsibility and are also amenable to relocating.

When the opportunity arises, TAKE IT.  Move up in life.  And then DO IT AGAIN; make yourself invaluable at that next job, and keep your eyes open for yet another step up in life.  AND THEN DO IT YET AGAIN.  

Yes, poor ol' nana and Grampy will miss having you over for supper every Sunday, but they will get over it.  If you think that staying within 10 miles of where you were born is a good idea, just ask all of those folks who thought the same thing in West Baltimore, Watts, Harlem, south and west sides of Chicago, Newark, Cleveland, Youngstown, Scranton, etc. etc.  Those guys have lots of family and friends around them, sure.  But they are as poor as church mice, and the bullets and rats do not enhance things, not at all.

Just move.  Works almost every time it's tried.

Pocahontas and Crazy Bernie fighting for the wrong things

Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma) is puzzled as to how anybody can want the presidency of the U.S. by saying what they can't do and what they won't fight for.  This 8th grade argument supporting efforts to grant everybody in the world free health care, free college, free everything was in response to John Delaney (D-Md) trying to reign in all of those Santa Clauses (8 or 9 of them) on stage last night when he said that Democrats might want to forego promising things that will never happen, lest Donald Trump win re-election.

Most of the candidates vying for the Democrat nod for the Oval Office are all for free stuff for everybody, reparations for slavery, forgiveness of all student loans, health care for illegals (meaning for everybody in the world who figures out a way to step one foot inside the U.S.).  I am thinking that if all of these dopes are promising things that will never, ever happen, then why not support issues that are way more devastating than not having free stuff?

Like gravity.  That stuff kills millions of people every month, what with skydiving accidents, parachute malfunctions, airplane crashes and even people slipping and falling in the bathtub or shower.  Why not campaign on promises to get rid of gravity?  Everybody would sign up for that, right?  I certainly would.

Or old age.    This scourge has been around for, well, a really long time.  And it is THE most deadly malady to face everybody on earth that makes it to their golden years.  Old age is 100% lethal in the long run.  Nobody (with the exception of Nancy Pelosi, who is now around 4,000 years old) will escape its ravages.  Why don't these fruity moon bat nutbag Democrats run on eliminating old age from the face of the earth?  I would sign up for that, too.  Count me in.

John Delaney was the most reasonable guy up on that Democrat debate stage last night in Detroit, maybe only slightly more reasonable than John Hickenlooper, in trying to pull these whack jobs back into reality.

And yet the mainstream media outlets such as CNN, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, etc., have all officially shoveled dirt into John Delaney's presidential aspiration grave.  He's just not stupid enough to get the Democrat tap for president.  Not by a long shot.

Still, these Utopian dreamers are chasing the wrong windmills.  These dip sticks should start campaigning on sure fire, lead pipe cinches like these dreadful scourges, and instead should be spewing from their pie holes: "Old age, I say, Gravity.  They are killers, vote for ME and I will stamp them out, and we can all live forever in our meadows filled with unicorns and gum drops."

And still they drone on and on about doling out free stuff, which comparatively speaking is chump change, small potatoes.  Go for the blue chips, you guys (and gals, and squaws).  I know you got it in you.

Idiots.

"Bernie's Bill of Rights"

Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) just gave a speech at Georgetown University in which he espoused a number of 'rights:'

1.  Medicare for all - health care should be a right, and not a privilege, according to Bernie and all leftists.

2.  Everybody has a right to a living wage of $15.00/hour or more.

3.  Everybody has a right to free higher education.

I think he listed a few more 'rights', but these three are the ones I recall him blathering about.  If you ask me, a 'right' that is granted to you shouldn't cost me anything, because I should have a right to keep the money I earned.  Sounds reasonable, right?

The Bill of Rights (1st ten Amendments to the Constitution) are all granted to U.S. citizens and don't cost other citizens anything at all: the right to bear arms is just that; that doesn't mean that you are granted the right to have a free firearm given to you.  The right to practice freely whatever religion you choose, that's also in the Bill of Rights, but that does not mean I must be forced to build you a church so that you can practice your freedom of religion.

These 'Rights' that Bernie says we all should have are not rights, or at least not the definition of a right that the Founding Fathers had in mind when they set up our system of government.  These rights of Bernie cost a lot of money to somebody other than the holder of the 'right.'

A right of free college sounds good, but college costs big bucks, and if that right is granted to somebody, someone else pays for it, namely the taxpayer.  And when taxpayers are forced to fund free stuff for others, that's called theft and it's nowhere near considered a 'right.'  

The 'right' to make a minimum of $15/hour, sounds pretty good.  But that is not a right, if employers are required to fund a position that is worth $7/hour to them, then they are being squeezed by an additional $8/hour per 'right holding employee.'  Notice that McDonald's and other fast food establishments may be forced to pay a minimum wage, but as of yet they are not forced to hire anybody if they choose not to: kiosks are starting to pop up in these restaurants, which require only an initial capital investment, and subsequent ZERO wages afterwards.  The effect of this 'right' to make $15/hour winds up granting the 'right holder' an effective wage of $0.00/hour, when his job is automated.  

Bernie's Bill of Rights sounds good to free loaders, sponges and ne-er-do-wells.  But to the rest of us, it just sounds like re-packaged socialism in a box called 'rights.'

Why socialism fails - 'the tragedy of the commons'

It was painful to listen to the arguments on the town hall hosted by Fox News anchor

Charles Payne the other night in his 'Capitalism vs Socialism' debate.

The pro-socialist panel all had one assumption that they based their entire argument on: that people are essentially good, and that they will behave in a manner that benefits society when participating in a system of shared resources.

That assumption sounds great on paper; given a choice to screw things up for everybody else, or do the right thing and control your desires, people will do the right thing.  On paper, everybody would agree that if this assumption is correct, then socialism should work out great.

Herein lies the rub: it has been shown in practice throughout man's history on this planet that when given this choice, many will not do the right thing, and that ultimately these shared resources dry up for everyone except those whose job it is to dole them out.  

People will almost always make the choice that benefits them and their like-minded associates, and to hell with the rest of those who also share their world.  And this choice is often made by those oblivious to the harm they will do to society.  It really doesn't matter.  Shared resources will be hogged by a small group of sociopaths every time.  It may even be a tiny fraction of the population sharing that resource, those minority hogs will screw things up for everybody every time.

The practical results of this can be seen as early as when mankind figured out how to start a fire.  They would then set the forest on fire, and then when half their world was burnt to the ground and lots of dead animals (and people) resulted, they would go through the burnt countryside and eat the cooked victims (presumably animals, but you never know).  To hell with the victims, all they cared about was chowing down on those dead burnt deer.

But the socialists on that Fox News panel failed to recognize this human trait.  They moaned and groaned that in a time of great prosperity in this country, there are those that have been left behind and that those poor souls did not get their 'fair share' of the benefits of the good times.  Accordingly, these socialist pundits propose dumping this evil fair market system in favor of a government controlled economy, where the down and out will be given their 'fair share' that would have otherwise been snatched by the rich scumbags who gamed the system in their favor.

That argument is so false, it only takes a moment to think on how things would work out should they win the day and install a government controlled system whereby the down and out get a slice of the pie, regardless of their contributions towards the general public good.

"Free riders", or whatever you want to call them, will soil such a system right away.  There will always be a minority (or sometimes a majority) of folk who will lie sideways in the public trough.  If it's free, they will dig in whole hog.  Why work for something if it will be given to you?  Why indeed?

The difference between capitalists and socialists is one major view on humanity: capitalists view human behavior in a practical manner (with justified skepticism on whether most people will act in a manner that will not harm the system).  Socialists assume that people are always good, and that they will follow the rules and not screw things up for the rest of us by gaming the system.

Oh, to live in the land of the perfect socialist system where unicorns frolic in the meadow full of gum drops, and where there is not a tear in any eye.  That land has never existed anywhere on earth, ever.

But that doesn't stop these socialists from trying to force their false Utopia on the rest of us.

Plugs Biden throws hat into ring, (again)

This latest foray into presidential primaries will be Joe Biden's third time around.  First time in 1988, he garnered 1% or so before he was forced to drop out because of the negative coverage of his blatant plagiarism of other people's speeches.  Any Republican had done this, and their political careers would have been over forever.

Nope, not Lunch Bucket Joe Biden.  He threw his hat into the ring again in 2008, and again, got pounded by the heavyweights at the time (Barry Obama and Crooked Hillary).  Uptick on that campaign was getting the tap for Veep, where he had a subsequent run of 8 years of mediocrity and gaffes, which simply was an add on to his prior 40 years of public service consisting primarily of mediocrity and gaffes.  

What is different this time around?  Not one damn thing.  He's still a gaffe machine, still has no accomplishments to speak of, and now has 19 other candidates sniping at his piss poor 47 year record.  He will be lucky to make it out of this primary season unscathed, as he will surely be battered and bruised with his terrible record completely out there for Donald Trump to shred with glee in the general election.

But I do believe this goof ball will indeed be the last man standing on the Democrat side, as the other 19 idiots running against him are touting The Green New Deal, Medicare for All, Free College, and lately Reparations for Slavery - all serious deal killers for anybody seeking the Oval Office.

The Donald will have Four More Years.  

Elites pave the way for their kid's college.....

We are as a nation shocked...SHOCKED!!!  Rich celebrities fudge their kid's application process into elite colleges, what outrage!!!  Then we all wonder if it was our kid's slot that was stolen by these rich ass wipes who bought that slot, which should have been available on merit only (yeah, right.).

Did anyone ever check George H.W. Bush's merits when he applied to Yale (his daddy was Sen. Preston Bush).  I don't think so.  No need, everybody knows 41 was the smartest guy ever to trod the soil (not).  How about his little boy Dubya's credentials on his application to Yale?  No need, everybody knows Dubya was brilliant (yeah, right).  And Chelsea Clinton's application for admission to Stanford?  Did that ever see the light of day?  No need, she's brilliant. 

What took everybody so long to get indignant about this?  It's been going on since man crawled out of the ooze: huge caveman rises to the head of the tribe owing to brute strength, then hands the club/pointy stick over to his son when the time comes.  Who saw that coming?  Everybody, that's who.

The news desk chief interviews a bunch of folk to anchor the evening news broadcast: he picks the tall young handsome guy with cleft chin, chiseled good looks and full head of hair, and rejects the bald old short fat guys who also applied.  Shocking, isn't it?  It should not shock anybody.

Skinny little pencil neck 98 pound weakling applies to sumo wrestling school: his application gets lost, but several 500 pounders behind him in line are escorted right in, no waiting.  Discrimination, we shout!  Shut up, you dopes: this is the way life works.

Duh.

And yet the headlines screetch: "Elites pave the way for their kid's college admission."  As shocking as "Dog bites man."  Or, "Trunk full of votes found in Democrat's car trunk, and he wins election."

Wake up.  This is how things always have been, are and always will be.  I'm not saying it's the way things SHOULD be, but dumb ol' Fredd is nothing if not a practical, realistic cynic.

Which nutbag will the Dems tap to challenge The Donald?

The list of liberals vying for the Democrat nomination for 2020 is currently, to quote the late Barbara ('Babs') Bush, 'a sorry lot.'

With the Democrat zeitgeist roaring down the socialist road under the leadership of the latest liberal dummy, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, the planks within the party heading up to the election look much like the framework established in 1972 by George McGovern: tax the hell out of everybody, and then provide free stuff to everybody.  That kind of idiocy worked great for McGovern to get the nomination, but I think we all remember how that went for him in the general election.  Richard Nixon ate George's lunch to win re-election, and Dick Nixon was no conservative.

Bernie Sanders established the theme in 2016: medicare for everybody, free college for everybody,  tax the bejeezus out of everybody except the poor, free stuff for everybody!  He gave Crooked Hillary a run for her money in the primaries, and you better believe a lot of current Dem hopefuls took notes on how Bernie did so well.  Even though he got cheated blind by Hillary, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Democrat machine and their rigged 'super delegate' sham of a nomination process, the path to the 2020 Democratic nomination is clear: promise free shit for everybody.  And most if not nearly all the big liberal names are going with promising everything to everybody for free.  Well, not everybody: if you are a rich fat cat, you get nothing except fleeced.

Sure, Donald Trump has baggage which may challenge his electoral chops, but I have to believe that even the dumbest of the dumb fellow Americans of mine have got to know that there is no free lunch.

I'll go out on a limb here and predict that The Donald will win re-election, but not by a landslide.  Unless Pochahontas (Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-Ma) gets the tap, then all bets are off.  Trump will mop the floor with Heap Big White Hope.

Chicago to elect a Democrat to replace Rahm Emanual as mayor

There's not a single Republican to be seen in the Chicao mayoral race as far as the eye can see.  The Windy City, The City of Big Shoulders, Chi-Town, 4th largest city in the U.S. (and falling, it is losing thousands and thousands of residents every year, those who move to escape the violence and high taxes) is yet again going to elect a Democrat as mayor.

There hasn't been a Republican mayor in Chicago since 'Big Bill' Thompson stepped down in 1931.  Since then, Democrats have ruled Chicago politics with an iron fist.  

And since then, the city has run up unsustainable pension liabilities to the tune of $42 BILLION dollars, with a B.  Additionally, it has one of the highest per capita murder rates for a major city in the world.  Gangs rule the south and west sides of this city, and it simply isn't safe to walk the streets at night without risking your life.  It just isn't.  And the taxes within the city are some of the highest in the nation.

And mayor Rahm Emanual (D) is stepping down after 8 years at the helm, only to be replaced next month by one of the following candidates:

• Toni Preckwinkle (D)
• Gery Chico (D)
• Susana Mendoza (D)
• Paul Vallas (D)
• Dorothy Brown (D)
• Bill Daley (D)
• Lori Lightfoot (D)
• Willy Wilson (D)
• Bob Fioretti (D)
• Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia (D)
• Neal Sales-Griffin(D)
• La Shawn Ford (D)
• John Kozlan (D)
• Amara Enyia (D)
• Garry McCarthy (D)
• Jeremiah Joyce Jr. (D)

Each and every one of these candidates on the ballot believes in their heart of hearts that Chicago needs tighter gun restrictions to help bring gun violence down.  And yet statistics prove again and again that an armed population is a polite population.  Taking away guns from law abiding citizens just makes them vulnerable to armed criminals.  Duh.

Every one of the candidates is OK with the sky high taxes currently paid by their future constituents.  Perfectly OK with them, and almost all of them plan to raise taxes in some manner.

And not one of these candidates above have any clue as to how to fix the time bomb that is their unfunded pension obligation.  This topic is not even on the list of issues for the campaign.  Huh?

  

One would think that the residents of Chicago must like all the murders, insolvency and taxes going on in their city.  They must, since they are voting for more of the same - yet another tax and spend, gun grabbing Democrat to call the shots for yet another 4 years in their dying, shrinking, deadly city.