Happy New Year
Hello everyone! It’s been a long time. As the saying goes, it’s not you – it’s me.
Anyway, my resolution for 2024 is to post daily. Let’s face it: the world has gotten ever crazier since I began this blog nearly 20 years ago. Even though it might seem impossible, the new year promises to be even more insane than ever.
So hang on. No matter how many twists, turns, and near disasters befall us, I’ll be here to give you my unvarnished opinion.
Happy Birthday, America!
My mother came from Austria, escaping Soviet rule. My grandmother arrived two years earlier, after surviving Hitler’s death camps and Soviet occupation. I grew up with the stories of those times.
I’ve visited my relatives in Austria, Hungary, Germany and Finland. They all bear the scars of Eastern European occupation and the daily reminders of those days.
I’ve always been proud to call myself an American. The knowledge of what my forebears endured to finally taste the freedom we take for granted never fails to humble me. So today, as I celebrate the founding of our unique nation; a nation, which despite our travails and faults, remains a shining beacon for everyone who yearns to breathe free, I recognize how truly blessed I am to be American.
May God Bless the United States of America.
Indebted to 14
I posted this a couple of weeks ago, when Democrats were whispering about the silly idea that the President could bypass Congress and “invoke” the 14th Amendment. Well, they aren’t whispering it any longer. They’ve taken to shouting from the mountain that President G̶e̶e̶z̶e̶r̶ Biden has to do so NOW.
Please.
So here, without further ado (not that it will shut them up)..
Rant time again!
Liberals are cheerleading the dementia patient in the Oval Office decision not to negotiate on the national debt. They are also, at the same time, decrying the fact that the federal government will soon run out of cash, which would trigger a default.
Their machinations would be laughable in normal times and be seen as nothing more than a negotiating tactic. But they seem willing to trigger that default because they refuse to acknowledge the underlying cause: federal spending that’s ballooned so fast it’s crashing the economy.
They try to misdirect the conversation with a couple of talking points that are patently false. Indeed, they are Orwellian in their absurdity. But because the public doesn’t have even rudimentary knowledge of finance and mass media (which is equally ignorant) refuses to check these claims, they are taken with more belief than the gospels.
The first is that the…
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What’s Wrong With the Yankees?
The first month of the season is over and the New York Yankees, once favorites to win their division, are struggling to stay above .500 and find themselves 9 games out of first place. Their 17-15 record even has them on the outside looking in at a wild card spot.
What went wrong?
Simply put, the Yankees were built around 3 potential future Hall of Famers – Gerrit Cole, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton – without adequate support to survive baseball’s grueling 162-game schedule. The obvious flaws that were revealed in last season’s second half were never properly addressed. Let’s examine them.
Shortstop: Last season, the Yankees traded for Isiah Kiner-Falefa, a player not known for his offense but generally thought to be a good defender. By the midpoint, however, IKF showed that his bat was everything it was billed to be (almost non-existent) but his glovework left a lot to be desired. An upgrade was needed. But he was never considered to be the long-term solution. Instead, the hope was that one of the Yankee prospects would be. That decision meant the Yankees never entertained giving offers to any of the four all-star shortstops that were free agents this past offseason. Phenom Anthony Volpe won the starting shortstop job in Spring Training. So far, his defense has been better than expected. But after a month in the bigs, Volpe is hitting .221 with an OPS+ of 91, which is essentially the same production they received from Kiner-Falefa last year. Volpe might still develop into a shortstop on par with Carlos Correa or Trea Turner, and he has shown flashes. But at the moment, he can’t be called an upgrade.
Bullpen: Last season’s closer had one of the most epic flame-outs in MLB history. Ineffective when he did pitch, Aroldis Chapman suffered through some of the most bizarre injuries ever and then threw a petulant temper tantrum that resulted in him not being put on the postseason roster. His understudy, Clay Holmes, was almost unhittable in the first half but reverted to the form he showed in Pittsburgh in the second. The Yankees came into 2023 needing a reliable closer, but rather than try to obtain one, the team opted to roll with much the same crew as in 2022.
Middle relief hasn’t been a problem. Ian Hamilton, Ron Marinaccio, Wandy Peralta, and Michel King have been solid. But Holmes has been a disaster in the closer role. In only 10 innings of work, he has allowed 7 runs on 11 hits and 5 walks. He’s also hit two batters and thrown a pair of wild pitches. That ineffectiveness has led to 3 blown saves. The Yankees will probably continue to roll with Holmes in the closer role. But it’s beginning to look like that three-month stretch last season was an outlier to the reliever’s career 4.15 ERA.
Outfield: At the end of last season, the Yankees had a serviceable center fielder and not much else on the grass. The Yankees took care of one problem by resigning “Arson” Judge, coming off his monstrous MVP campaign. But despite having to resort to playing a rookie utility infielder in left field in the playoffs, the team did nothing to address the position. Granted, the options available weren’t great. Andrew Benintendi was probably the best option, but he chose to sign with the White Sox and avoid the East Coast media. Cody Bellinger might have been worth a flyer, but the Yankees didn’t consider him (hindsight being 20/20. his 7 home runs and 158 OPS+ would look pretty good in pinstripes).
Instead, the Yanks decided to give the job to Aaron Hicks, who had spent the previous three seasons either striking out or on the injured list and playing so poorly on defense the erstwhile center fielder was shifted away from there. Hicks has been even worse than most fans feared, posting a 10 OPS+ and routinely turning fly balls into adventures.
Third base: Incumbent third baseman Josh Donaldson proved last season he is a shell of the former MVP player he once was. While his glovework remained among the best in the game, he could no longer hit a major-league fastball. While DJ Lemahieu proved capable at the hot corner, another season-ending injury forced Donaldson into playing every day and inexplicably, Aaron Boone insisted on hitting him in the middle of the order That gave opposing pitchers an easy landing spot behind Stanton. His inability to hit not only hurt him, but pitchers began pitching around Stanton, contributing to his second-half decline.
For some reason, the Yankee brain trust didn’t try to upgrade the position, opting to give the job to Donaldson. True to form, he played poorly before landing on the IL with yet another leg injury. While LeMahieu has returned to form while playing the position, his injury history means there is nobody who can fill the position when the inevitable happens.
Rotation: The Yankees came into the offseason with a supremely talented but fragile starting rotation. While Cole has proven to be a durable workhorse, the other projected starters were certainly not. Luis Severino has hardly pitched since 2019. Frankie Montas had a bum shoulder, and Nestor Cortes had only one career season throwing more than 150 innings. So Brian Cashman went out and gave $162 million to Carlos Rodon, another supremely talented pitcher with a worrying injury history.
By the time the season rolled around, those injury concerns turned into reality. Montas never even threw a pitch before needing season-ending surgery. Neither Severino nor Rodon has thrown a pitch yet this season. It’s meant pitchers originally ticketed for the minors have had to throw more than half the innings thrown by the Yankee starting pitchers, with a 5.32 ERA. Clarke Schmidt, in particular, has been a nightmare, with a 5.83 ERA and somehow already accumulating -0.6 bWAR.
Depth: It’s true that every team has to weather injuries. But it is also true that the Yankees understood they had more than their share of players with significant injury histories. Judge, Stanton, Rodon, Severino, LeMahieu, and CF Harrison Bader all have spent a lot of time hurt over the past few seasons. Additionally, 1B Anthony Rizzo has played with a twingy back and Cortes is coming off his first season with more than 150 innings. The front office should have spent the winter bolstering the reserves to help the team weather the inevitable injuries.
For some reason, it chose to trade away the best depth pieces the team had last season and not replenish for this one. So we’ve witnessed the Franchy Cordero/Willie Calhoun/Jhony Brito Yankees this April.
Nor is there much help in the upper minors. While fans might clamor for Jasson Dominguez, he’s playing his first season at AA. Estevan Florial has been (thankfully) optioned off the 40-man roster. Everson Pereira is back at AA and only hitting .232. Andres Chapparro is only hitting .231, Elijah Dunham .253. Among the pitchers, one-time phenom Deivi Garcia is learning how to be a reliever and having a rough go of it so far. Likewise Matt Krook,
The Yankees will certainly be a better team if they can get back to full strength. But even then, the problems in the outfield, at third, and in the bullpen mean this year’s squad is not a championship caliber club. Indeed, with 7 games against the first-place Rays over the next 10 days, it’s conceivable the team might well be buried before the calendar turns to June. Could the Yankees be sellers at the trade deadline, similar to the 2016 season? It isn’t unthinkable and that says more about how poorly this roster was constructed than anything else.
Indebted to 14
Rant time again!
Liberals are cheerleading the dementia patient in the Oval Office decision not to negotiate on the national debt. They are also, at the same time, decrying the fact that the federal government will soon run out of cash, which would trigger a default.
Their machinations would be laughable in normal times and be seen as nothing more than a negotiating tactic. But they seem willing to trigger that default because they refuse to acknowledge the underlying cause: federal spending that’s ballooned so fast it’s crashing the economy.
They try to misdirect the conversation with a couple of talking points that are patently false. Indeed, they are Orwellian in their absurdity. But because the public doesn’t have even rudimentary knowledge of finance and mass media (which is equally ignorant) refuses to check these claims, they are taken with more belief than the gospels.
The first is that the “Trump tax cuts” are what’s bankrupting the government. What they never mention is that ever since they were enacted, federal revenues have skyrocketed to record levels. That’s in both real dollars ($4.9 trillion last year) and as a share of GDP (23.6%). You can complain about the “rich not paying their fair share” (another bizarre liberal talking point), but a reality check shows that the half of the country that does pay taxes is paying more than ever. The problem isn’t one of not having enough revenue. The problem is that the government is spending our money faster than a drunken sailor on liberty in Thailand.
But what’s really piqued my ire is the latest talking point, which seems to have come out over the weekend. It’s that the President can ignore Congress and declare that the public debt can skyrocket without constraint. They use two claims to support this absurdity. The first is that since Congress passed the spending, to begin with, it implied that the debt incurred is already authorized. But realizing that anyone can say they’ll buy something, but not bother to pay for it (think about all those credit card defaults!), they’ve begun shifting to a new argument.
And this is the one that REALLY drives me nuts. Liberals are now of the opinion that the US Constitution gives the president this mythological power to bypass Congress. To buttress this claim, they point to the 14th Amendment. The argument is that the wording in clause 4 says, “The validity of the public debt of the United States… shall not be questioned.”
What a bunch of cow manure.
The ellipses are used to forget about the entire midsection of the first sentence, which actually reads, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” Further, it ignores the rest of the clause, which states, “But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.”
Why does this specious argument drive me nuts? Because any high school student, never mind the learned members of the commentariat, can read that and understand what the meaning behind this clause is. After the Civil War, Congress was making it clear that the debts incurred by the Confederacy were null and void, and they would only pay the debts incurred by the Union. This was an important statement to make in what is a civil rights amendment. Many of the debts created by the South were not only related to arming and equipping an army but recapturing former slaves who were escaping bondage and fleeing to the North. Without it, former slave owners would have been able to sue the government for damages incurred by losing their former property. Without the fourth clause to the 14th Amendment, slavery would have effectively been recognized as a legal practice requiring remuneration for granting people their freedom.
It has nothing to do with what the media dubbed “the debt ceiling.” That is an entirely separate animal and the fact that supposed liberals are all for invoking the anti-slavery part of our Constitution to effectively enslave the entire country is not only offensive and disingenuous but speaks to their mindset. We are nothing but chattel to them; a means to enrich themselves on the backs of our enterprise.
The Magic of Trump
One of the things that constantly seems to puzzle political types is Donald Trump’s strength among the Republican electorate. Consider these recent polls:
- While no politician in the nation enjoys a positive approval rating, Ron DeSantis leads the pack with a 43% rating and a +1.4% over his negatives. Trump is at 38.7 and -16.7, respectively.
- In head-to-head matchups, DeSantis beats Joe Biden by 6 points, while Trump and Biden are virtually tied.
- 73% of Americans say the country needs younger leadership. 71% think there should be an “age cap” of 70. Trump would be 78 if he won the presidency. Biden would be 82. DeSantis would only be 46.
- Yet in state head-to-head matchups, Trump beats DeSantis by anywhere from 3 to 40 points. Even in Florida, where DeSantis is arguably the nation’s most successful governor, he only holds a 4 point advantage.

So, what gives? Republicans would seem to want to win. They almost universally loathe Biden and his administration. They bemoan the leftward lurch the country is taking on everything from transgenderism to education. Yet in survey after survey, Donald Trump wins the GOP nomination. He doesn’t win in a squeaker, he wins in a landslide, capturing virtually every state in which we have polling data and most of those by double-digits. When you add in the already also-rans (Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Asa Hutchinson, and Vivek Ramaswamy), his lead only increases as they pull 2-3x as many from DeSantis as they do Trump.
This is the puzzle that bedevils so many in our political commentariat. Trump is remarkably unpopular among everyone except self-identified Republicans. They remember the way his administration seemed as lost as everyone else in Washington during Covid. They watched in horror as his administration imploded after the 2020 election. They remember the deranged midnight tweets. So if Republicans want to win so badly, why do they cling to Trump like cat hair to a black suit?*
The problem has to do with what Washington expects from politicians. Often, they’re correct in that candidates should have a record of successful governance. They should be calm under fire. They should have consistent policies that poll well. Above all, they should be likable.
Whatever Donald Trump may be, he certainly isn’t any of those things.
What Donald Trump does have is the same thing that propelled Ronald Reagan into the White House 42 years ago. He is an avatar for change. The reason he doesn’t share the same popularity as Reagan did (and remember, Reagan wasn’t a terribly popular politician in 1979) is that unlike in 1980, half the country is just fine with the way things are going. Yes, polling consistently shows less than 30% of the country is happy with the way things are going. Yet that number is misleading. Of the 70%+ that want things to change, about half want the country to tilt further to the left. Those remaining 35% or so who want a return to the right are firmly in the GOP camp. And those voters are overwhelmingly saying they want Donald Trump as their candidate.
So why is any Ivy League educated, thrice bankrupt billionaire seen as an avatar for change and not the younger, more accomplished challenger, Ron DeSantis? It’s largely because the public is very aware of Donald Trump’s past. They love the unfiltered language, the stream-of-consciousness outbursts, and the devil-may-care attitude. They may not like the history of peccadilloes and unsavory characters that have been in his orbit for two generations. But all of those things – the controversies, the divorces, the affairs, the Don Kings and mobsters, point to what is appealing to his supporters. He is not “just another politician,” even though he’s been involved in politics for almost 60 years. He is still the anti-politician.
If you’re upset with decades of “the process” giving you nothing but a perceived middle finger, then you want someone willing to give a middle finger to the process. THAT is Donald Trump, and that is the Trump magic. What the nattering nabobs of Capitol Hill still fail to grasp is that there are millions of Americans who are frankly beyond upset at the political system, who want to simply tell their government that they’ve had it, who want to give them a middle finger. A big, orange middle finger, in this case.
*if you own a cat and a black suit, you get the analogy. If not, you need to get a cat. Or a black suit. Or both.
The Love of Christ
Time for a rant.
I keep hearing, often from people who mean well, that “Jesus loves you because of who you are.” It’s become so accepted by our world, and why not? It’s pleasant. It’s nice. It means that I’m loved just the way I am.
The problem is this is terrible theology. Yes, you’re loved – but not for who you are but who you can be.
Who you are is a fallen creature. God made us in his image (Genesis 1:27), but we are inheritors of original sin (Romans 3:23). You may think of yourself as a good person. You never murdered anyone. You try to be nice to your neighbors. You pay your bills and don’t cheat on your taxes.
Those are all good things! But they don’t make you a good person – at least not in God’s eyes. Every single day, you commit a multitude of sins. Jesus told us that even thinking of a sinful act was as bad as acting on it (Matthew 5:28).
So if we’re a constant disappointment to God, why would Jesus love us? He loves us because we can mend our ways. Christ preached the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32), in which a wayward child disappoints his father, even going so far as to live as far away as possible. But when the son returns home, his father not only forgives him but throws a party to celebrate his return.
So it is with us. No matter how much we disappoint our Father, he is willing to forgive us. There’s a good chance you’ve seen the phrase “John 3:16” displayed on signs at sporting events and concerts and the like. It is a simple, but perhaps the most powerful, Bible verse.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that those who believe should not perish but have everlasting life
This is what we can become and it is what God wants for us. We’re told that God wants everyone to come to Him (2 Peter 3:9). Like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son, our Father is willing to forgive us and welcome us home with great rejoicing.
So yes, Jesus loves you for who you might be – a believer of God’s word. It’s his fervent wish that you will become a true follower (John 10:27) and trust in Him. We say that the greatest love anyone can have for someone else is dying to save their life.
This is exactly what Christ did for all of us. He willingly accepted the unjust judgements of men and allowed himself to suffer torture and indignity before being executed, hung on a cross. And then, God raised him from the dead.
So will you accept His love, his gift of eternal existence? If you believe, then all you need to do is profess your faith, admit your sinful nature, and ask forgiveness.
I pray that you’ve done so. If you have, find a Bible believing church. If not, I pray that perhaps these words will encourage you to eventually come to Christ.
Random Baseball Thoughts
I know I haven’t been writing much lately. In fact, this might be my first post of the year. But what better way to break the ice than a quick discussion of first impressions about the new baseball rules? I’ve only watched a handful of games this weekend, but I already have thoughts.
*The Pitch Clock: I’m going to be a huge fan. I’m not sure when EVERYONE became a “Human Rain Delay,” but there’s no doubt the game had slowed to a crawl. I mean, it got to the point you could cook a 5 course meal between pitches. I grew up with baseball in the 1970s, when night games started at 7:30 and ended before the 10 o’clock news came on.
The three games I watched this weekend all ended in about 2 1/2 hours. And this is Spring Training, when games are typically longer! Hallelujah!
*Defensive Shifts: Again, I’m a fan of their being banned. I was never a fan of them to begin with. After all, baseball was played for over a century without teams going to 4 outfielders and 3 men between first and second. Joe Maddon and Terry Francona won’t like it, but you know what I saw? Hard ground balls going for singles instead of 9-6-4 double plays.
Larger bases: I know the idea was to improve safety and that might prove to be the case. But those bigger bases have cut down the distance between them. It’s forced players to be quicker when making throws and making decisions. That makes the game more exciting and anything that raises the excitement level is good.
*Limited Pickoff Attempts: the jury is still out. I’ve only seen one player take advantage. But I suspect this is because there just aren’t very many base stealers in the game right now. But there are a bunch in the minors, and we’ve already heard some current major leaguers talk about improving their stolen base totals.
That’s it for now. But stay tuned. Baseball is back and looks to be better than ever.
Our National Reading Problem
I’m reblogging this post from an old friend who also happens to be one of our nation’s leading educators., It is one of the most important things you will read this year. An illiterate nation is something our Founders understood would be devastating. If we don’t do something now, we’re headed in that direction.
A Senate Stunner
I’ve seen (at last count) ten gajillion articles trying to decipher AZ Senator Sinema’s decision to register as an independent. I don’t think I read one that gets it right.
I think the vast majority of us are reasonably well-plugged into politics at various levels. Some (ok, maybe more than some) of us have been watching and been part of elections since before the invention of fire, so nothing should surprise us. And yet, everyone seems to be.
Ms. Sinema was always much further left than the typical Democrat on social issues but to the right of even some Republicans on fiscal issues. Further, she’s been a proponent of the traditional rules of the Senate. So while registered as a Democrat and voting with party leadership more than 98% of the time, the former Green Party candidate never really fit into a neat “D” shaped box.
All of this might seem incidental, but for over a year she’s been the target of the leftist base of the Democrats. There are a couple of other Democrats who are also targets, but the biggest difference in her case is Reuben Gallego. Mr. Gallego is a former congressman and very popular in AZ among leftists. He’s already gearing up for a primary run and had an excellent chance of defeating Ms. Sinema, whose approval ratings among AZ Democrats mirrors the President’s overall approval.
In short, if there was a Democrat ready to declare as an independent after Democrats secured a 51st seat, it was Kirsten Sinema.
Now going forward, not much will change in the Senate’s composition. As mentioned previously, she’s voted with near unanimity with Democratic leadership. There’s no reason to suspect that will change now. She is keeping her committee assignments. If anything, Majority Leader Schumer can be expected to throw even more olive branches her way, as her vote will be crucial to many of his priorities (not least of which is keeping one AOC off his heels in NY).
It’s Good Not To Be The Donald
Trumplicans who won:
- JD Vance
Trumplicans who didn’t win:
- Don Bolduc
- Lee Zeldin
- Dr. Oz
- Doug Mastriano
- Dan Cox
- Herschel Walker
- Blake Masters
- Kari Lake
As of 6:30am, Kelly Tschibika and Lisa Murkowski were virtually tied. Adam Laxalt held a slim lead over Catherine Cortez-Mastro.
Also of note, three GOP governors who are not in Trump’s orbit crushed their opponents:
- Brian Kemp
- Greg Abbott
- Ron DeSantis
In-depth analysis to follow, but it looks like the “red wave” crashed on the shoals of Trumpism.
Dissecting An Embarrassing Failure
The New York Yankees, once the class of Major League Baseball, have just suffered yet another postseason defeat coming on the heels of a regular season collapse. At the All-Star break, this is a team that seemed poised for a historic 118-win season. In the end, they did set a record: they became the first team to ever lose 5 consecutive AL Championship series.
What happened?
A quick review of the season tells us this team was never as good as it played in May and June. It probably wasn’t as bad as it played in August. The reality is this was a bad roster construction, led by a middling manager, who made it to the playoffs on the back of a Herculean effort by Aaron Judge. This was the inevitable result.
To begin to understand what went wrong, we need to travel back to last offseason. Coming off an ignoble defeat in the Wild Card game to the hated Red Sox, the team’s management correctly identified several gaping holes in the team’s roster. Poor defense, especially on the infield, was targeted as an area for improvement. Specifically, the middle of the diamond – catcher, shortstop, and second base all fielded well below league average. Fans also recognized center and left field were not positions of strength.
General manager Brian Cashman spent most of the offseason not doing much more than rappeling off buildings and sleeping on a sidewalk. But in March, he pulled the trigger on a franchise-altering trade. Struggling catcher (and one-time top 5 prospect) Gary Sanchez and popular third baseman Gio Urshela were shipped off to Minnesota for former MVP Josh Donaldson, Gold Glove shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and catching prospect Ben Rortvedt.
The thought process behind the trade was obvious to most. Despite the deepest, most free-agency class of shortstops in history, the Yankees didn’t want to spend the money on a long-term commitment to one. First, they had three shortstop prospects in the high minors who all profiled as potential MLB starters in Oswald Peraza, Oswaldo Cabrera, and Anthony Volpe. Second, the team already had huge contracts on the books in Giancarlo Stanton and Gerrit Cole and was trying to extend Judge, which they knew would take another substantial contract.
So instead, we watched Javy Baez sign with the Tigers, the Rangers scoop up a pair in Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, and Francisco Lindor re-sign with the crosstown rival Mets. T o add insult to injury, the Twins took the $59 million they saved by shipping Donaldson to the Yankees and used it to sign Carlos Correa.
It was a risky gamble by the Yankees. In the end, nobody won the trade. Sanchez has continued his decline and is no longer viewed by Minnesota as a catcher. Urshela had a decent season, hitting .285, but his power numbers fell off a cliff. Correa overcame a horrid first half to post a decent slash line – and promptly opted out of his contract.
But on the Yankees’ side, the trade was a disaster. Kiner-Falefa started out as a fan favorite, thanks to his backstory and effervescent personality. But we’re still wondering how he ever won a Gold Glove, as his defensive miscues finally led to him riding the bench more than playing in the playoffs. His bonehead play on a double-play ball in Game 4 of the ALCS was his season in a microcosm. His teammate was charged with an error, but his failure to execute a play taught kids in Little League led to the game-winning runs being scored by Houston.
As for Donaldson, his age showed in very ugly ways. His high point came on Opening Day when his extra-inning hit gave the Yankees a win. But we watched as his bat got slower and slower throughout the season, unable to catch up to fastballs. It turned the former “Bringer of Rain” into a strikeout machine. Defensively, he remains one of the best. But his .172, 16 strikeout performance this postseason is indicative of what can be expected of him going forward, particularly on the heels of a second half that saw him struggle to a .219/.305/.356 slash.
And Rortvedt? He has yet to play an inning for the Yanks. His injuries forced the team to make a sudden trade for an afterthought from Texas named Jose Trevino. All Trevino did was make the All-Star team.
The other area of concern was the pitching staff. It wasn’t a question of talent, but health. Indeed, over the first half of the season, Yankee starting pitchers were leading the league in innings, ERA, and strikeouts, while the bullpen saw the emergence of Clay Holmes and Michael King as lockdown relievers in the late innings. Ah, but that health. Nobody doubted Cole would rebound. But Luis Severino hadn’t pitched more than 12 innings in 3 seasons, Nestor Cortez had never pitched more than 93 innings in any season, and Jordan Montgomery and Jameison Taillon had injury-marred careers. Domingo German hadn’t pitched in nearly two seasons due to a lengthy domestic violence suspension.
In the end, that inning load played a crucial factor as Severino spent another stint on the 60-day IL, and German struggled in his first few starts back. But where the injuries really began to pile up was in the bullpen. As Boone struggled to manage his starters’ innings, the suddenly overtaxed bullpen began dropping like flies. King exited in July with an elbow fracture. Holmes had to be shut down twice and his effectiveness was noticeably less after his surprise trip to the All-Star game. Before the season was over, 32 men would toe the slab for the Yankees.
Things in the ‘pen certainly weren’t helped by the implosion of former closer Aroldis Chapman. Once possessing a 105mph fastball, the relatively pedestrian 97mph heater he featured proved very hittable, and his tendency to suddenly shy away from it led to obscene walk rates. Chapman was clearly a big part of the plan coming into the season, but by June he had played himself into a mop-up role. A couple of bizarre injuries (including one from an infected tattoo) and poor play led to the one-time superstar being left off the postseason roster.
Another failure came as a result of the midseason moves made to try and bolster the team. Nobody can fault GM Cashman for acquiring Andrew Benintendi, and the unfortunate broken finger he suffered can’t be laid at his feet. But trading for a pair of injured players in Frankie Montas (from the A’s) and Harrison Bader (Cardinals) raised quite a few eyebrows. More eyebrows were raised when the team refused to part ways with Volpe or Peraza in exchange for Luis Castillo, or Gleyber Torres for Pablo Lopez – but did trade from an already thinning staff by sending Montgomery for Bader. While Bader’s return for the playoffs was a lone bright spot for the Yankees. his inactivity for most of the second half left them playing the downright horrible Aaron Hicks (.216/.330/.316, 86 OPS+), and eventually, pressing Cabrera into an OF role.
As for the manager, Aaron Boone has three strengths: his ability to handle the rapacious NY media, his ability to communicate with the front office, and the players genuinely like and respect him. But after 5 seasons, it’s extremely obvious he lacks a sense of strategy, for the ebb and flow of a game, and for managing a bullpen.
Perhaps the greatest indictment of the 2022 Yankees is they entered the season with questions at catcher, second base, shortstop, third base, left field, and center field, along with pitching depth and the manager. They ended the season with the only answer seemingly found at catcher and (hopefully) center – and a looming enormous vacancy potential if Aaron Judge signs elsewhere this offseason.
I’ll delve into how I think they can fix these problems at a later date. Stay tuned…
God & Foxholes
Earlier today, I was ruminating on a few things when out of nowhere the old saying, “there’s no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole” came to mind.
You might be familiar with it. It relates to the concept that when facing the enemy, soldiers suddenly get religion. I can certainly understand it. I found myself praying fervently in such situations and that was years before receiving my salvation.
When you stop to think about it, it isn’t just soldiers in foxholes who find themselves asking the Almighty for help in dire circumstances. Perhaps you haven’t been saved but still found yourself praying for help in a time of need. Don’t think so? I can almost guarantee at least once in your life you’ve said something along the lines of, “Hey God, get me out of this and I’ll donate to the Children’s Hospital” or “If You help me pay my bills, I’ll go to church every Sunday” or “Dear God, please help my kid get over the flu and I’ll write a big check this Sunday.” Sound familiar?
Odds are that those without salvation will wonder “why did I do that?” once the drama has cleared. They might feel foolish. They probably won’t tell anyone that they actually prayed. If anyone was in earshot, they’ll deny it or try to explain it away. That’s a funny thing, because psychiatrists make a meaty living by telling people that their prayers are just a cultural remnant from their childhood. a way of coping with stress that is meaningless.
Don’t believe the psychiatrists.
For those of us who are saved, I could go into a long dissertation here about whether God hears and answers the prayers of the unrepentant. Or delve into why that entire prayer structure is wrong. Maybe we will discuss those things, some other time. But this post is for those among my readers who aren’t saved yet.
I’m here to tell you that those prayers are not worthless and to assure you that God did indeed hear you when you asked for help. How do I know this? My Bible says that God doesn’t want anyone to go away from Him (2 Peter 3:9). It tells me that God hears everyone, even if they aren’t in a state of Grace. Consider the case of the Ninevites. The prophet Jonah warns them of impending doom. They pray for deliverance and God spares them. These were not men of faith; indeed they had a jolly time persecuting Jews. But God heard them and spared them.
The Bible also tells me that God is constantly talking to us, even when we aren’t saved. It’s all an attempt to bring us back to Him. Paul wrote to the Romans about how God uses our conscience to talk to us (Romans 2:14-16). James wrote about a myriad of other ways God speaks to us as individuals. God is using me to speak to you right at this moment. And GOD USES OUR PRAYERS TO SPEAK TO US.
One of the few things I truly despise is the false teachers who warp Scripture to fit their personal agenda. I’ve heard people preach that if you’re unsaved, God won’t hear your prayers. They often twist John 9:31 into a pretzel to make this point, but they’re wrong. I’m not going to get a scriptural argument on this point. But just follow the logic here: if we say the way to salvation is through prayer, and God doesn’t hear the prayers of the unsaved, then how do they get saved?
That’s what this little post is all about. I’m hoping that by now you’ll have come to recognize that during those times of fear, anxiety, doubt, and pain God was calling out to you. He was letting you know that if you simply trust in Him, he can and will set things right.
If you have, then the world’s simplest prayer
God, I know I have sinned. I have done wrong in your eyes and beg forgiveness.
I believe that your Son Jesus died for my sin and ask Him to enter my heart
and promise to follow Him as Lord and Savior
will set you free. If you just prayed that prayer, find a Bible-believing and -teaching church near you.
If not, I hope I’ve given you something to consider. But don’t think about it for too long. After all, tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone and if you stuck around this long, God is speaking to you now.
To The Moon
When I was 4 years old, my mother let me stay up late and watch Neil Armstrong take that giant leap for mankind. I was hooked. The rest of my adolescence was spent dreaming of and planning to be an astronaut. I watched with fascination during the rest of the Apollo missions, the hookup with the Soyuz capsule, Skylab, and the space shuttle. As things turned out, I never realized that dream but my interest in space travel hasn’t waned. In fact, I have the NASA and ESA channels locked into my TV.
I was naturally interested when NASA announced they were planning a return to the moon. And naturally, I was disappointed when Artemis 1 didn’t get off the launch pad. When I heard the reason the launch was twice scrubbed is due to 45-year-old engine technology failing, I was stunned.
We’ve spent billions on the SLS rocket, and NASA is using the same engines that powered the space shuttle? Billions on research and technology development, but Lockheed couldn’t come up with something better? What the heck are we doing?
Further, why the moon? NASA says it is to eventually build a moon base. But of what use is a moon base? As a platform for launching expeditions to other planets, it’s useless. A geosynchronous space station, to which supplies and parts could be resupplied relatively easily, is more logical. Besides, we’ve been there already and discovered it to be as inhospitable a place as our solar system offers.
When you dig into this program, these are just a few things that stick out like a sore thumb. Here’s the reality. NASA lost the space race. Not to the Russians (who are using even older tech). Not to the Chinese, the Indians, or the Europeans. No, NASA lost the space race to Elon Musk and SpaceX. They know it, the world knows it, but the public largely doesn’t know it. Yet. Once they do?
They won’t stand for spending billions on a government program that can’t compete with the private sector.
NASA is being kept alive for two reasons. First, it is the government’s way of getting the nascent Space Force into its theater of operation (never mind that actual launches are handled by SpaceX). The other reason? The second and third largest NASA contractors (after SpaceX) are Lockheed and Raytheon, who also happen to be two of the Pentagon’s biggest suppliers. They are also the two principal leads on the SLS design.
Beginning to see a pattern here? Lockheed and Raytheon have soaked the government for billions of dollars, for a design that is fundamentally unchanged from the 1970s, for a rocket they can’t even get off the ground. In the meantime, Musk’s SpaceX is already handling almost 80% of NASA’s launches. Oh, and while NASA is struggling to get back to the moon, SpaceX is powering ahead with their own heavy launch space vehicle, Starship.
And they aren’t trying for the moon. They’re aiming for Mars – and not to visit. Musk plans to plant a colony, officially marking humanity’s expansion from our terrestrial roots. While NASA and its military contractors fall further behind schedule on trying to get 4 people to the moon, SpaceX is on target to land 50 people on Mars by the end of 2029.
The bloody nose for NASA would be immense. The reality is that NASA should have been dissolved years ago. Their functions are already being managed by SpaceX. It has become merely a way for the government to funnel billions of tax dollars to military contractors. it is a boondoggle wrapped in corruption, incapable of doing things the private sector does routinely.
Fascism Arises
The leader strides to the podium. Behind him is the nation’s oldest government building, recognizable by all. It’s portico is bathed in a dark crimson light, making the brickwork somehow ominous. The normally white columns stand out, like flickering pillars of fire. Members of an elite military unit stand at the ready in the background, their dress uniforms barely distinguishable in the lighting – except for the white caps they wear.
He raises his fists in the air and launches into a twenty minute long rant, decrying his political opposition as enemies of the state. He yells, he screams that they intend to tear down the country. He vows to fight them, to destroy these political opponents. With wild gesticulations punctuating his every word, he exhorts his followers to ensure the voices of the opposition are silenced.
What I’ve just described might sound like a speech delivered by Adolph Hitler. Or Benito Mussolini. Or Fidel Castro. But it isn’t.
This was Joseph R. Biden, 46th President of the United States, evoking the memories of petty tyrants throughout history.
It should scare the bejeezus out of you. This is the same President that in the past month has unleashed the federal police against his political opponents, bypassed Congress to spend a trillion dollars of public money to solidify his support among his most ardent supporters, is desperately trying to “normalize” relations with the world’s greatest terrorist state, and is determined to prolong a European war.
He says he wants to warn us about the rise of fascism in the United States? Too late. It’s arrived in the person of the president.
Did You Earn A Useless Degree? Now You Get A Bailout!
One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was, “write as you speak.” This might sound intuitive to you, but for me, it took some serious retraining. You see, I dropped $10 dollar words into everything I wrote. After all, I reasoned, I had spent a lot of money to get the education where I learned those words. Why shouldn’t I use them? What I didn’t understand was that most people don’t want to run for a dictionary every time they opened one of my emails. I had failed to “read the room,” as the saying goes.
The same can be said for the President’s asinine student loan bailout. I understand why he did it. Protestations from the administration aside, Joe Biden’s poll numbers are further underwater than a nuclear submarine awaiting orders. In particular, he is way underwater with what might be the group that put him over the top in 2020: 20-something college graduates. So giving them a cool $20,000 must have looked like a gimme to him.
Look, I get buying votes. It’s a practice as old as the republic
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers it can bribe the public with the public’s money.
Alexis de Tocqueville
except in this case, it isn’t Congress, it’s the President.
That brings us to the first problem with this handout. The Constitution makes it pretty plain that any appropriations are supposed to begin in the House of Representatives (Article 1, Section 7). Nowhere does the President have the authority to magically create money to hand out to a select group of people. He’s claiming that an obscure law, meant to provide temporary relief after 9/11, gives him that authority. Most legal beagles are dubious. The lawsuits to come should be entertaining.
Now, as mentioned, the money to pay for this isn’t being reapportioned from some other program. At least, none that anyone knows about. That means this is brand new spending. How much brand-new spending? Nobody’s quite sure. The administration (via the OMB) thinks $260 billion. The CBO thinks it’s more like $500 billion. Just yesterday, Penn-Wharton said this will end up costing you and me $1 trillion. Last week, Democrats were crowing about their “Inflation Reduction Act” (protip: it does no such thing) and the $210 billion in deficit savings it is supposed to bring. Well, with a stroke of his pen, their nominal party leader just played Enola Gay to their Hiroshima.
Then there’s the question of income redistribution. Nobody will ever confuse me as someone in favor of such schemes. But if you’re a fan of such socialist hogwash, let me ask: are you in favor of a reverse Robin Hood scheme in which the government steals from the poor and gives to the rich? That’s exactly what this is: waitresses and truck drivers will be sending part of their paychecks to lawyers and accountants, so they can buy their soy lattes. On what planet is that considered fair or equitable?
I understand how difficult it is the pay off onerous (sorry, $10 word. Buy a dictionary) student debt. My personal debt was over $72,000 and took 18 years to pay off. But that’s the thing. I made my monthly payments, even during the 2001 and 2008 recessions. Once upon a time, that wasn’t anything to talk about. Everyone did it. It was called being an adult. But we have a senile president being led around by the craziest people in Congress. Responsibility is passe.
Nations Have Seasons
This was written by someone else, who’s been gracious enough to allow me to post it here. I might not have written it, but the thoughts mirror mine and possibly yours. Leave your feedback in the comments.
Imagine a Roman of the 2nd century contemplating an empire that stretched from Britain to the Near East, thinking: This will endure forever…. Forever was about 500 years, give or take.
France was pivotal in the 17th and 18th centuries; now the land of Charles Martel is on its way to becoming part of the Muslim ummah. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the sun never set on the British empire; now Albion exists in perpetual twilight. Its 96-year-old sovereign is a fitting symbol for a nation in terminal decline. In the 1980s, Japan seemed poised to buy the world. Business schools taught Japanese management techniques. Today, its birth rate is so low and its population aging so rapidly that an industry has sprung up to remove the remains of elderly Japanese who die alone.
We’ve gone from a republican government guided by a constitution to a regime of revolving elites. We have less freedom with each passing year. Like a signpost to the coming reign of terror, the cancel culture is everywhere. We’ve traded the American Revolution for the Cultural Revolution. The pathetic creature in the White House is an empty vessel filled by his handlers.
At the G-7 Summit, ‘Dr. Jill’ had to lead him like a child.
When we were young and vigorous, our leader was too. Now a feeble nation is led by the oldest man to ever serve in the presidency. We can’t defend our borders, our history (including monuments to past greatness) or our streets. Our cities have become anarchist playgrounds. We are a nation of dependents, mendicants, and misplaced charity.
Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.
The president of the United States can’t even quote the beginning of the Declaration of Independence (‘You know – The Thing’) correctly.
Ivy League graduates routinely fail history tests that 5th graders could pass a generation ago.
Crime rates soar; we blame the 2nd Amendment and slash police budgets.
We slaughter the unborn in the name of freedom, while our birth rate dips lower year by year.
People who fight racism by seeking to convince members of one race that they’re inherently evil, and others that they are perpetual victims. A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale said she fantasizes about “unloading a revolver into the head of any white person.”
Our ‘entertainment’ is sadistic, nihilistic, and as enduring as a candy bar wrapper thrown in the trash. Our music is noise that spans the spectrum from annoying to repulsive.
Our culture is certifiably insane!
Our national debt is so high that we can no longer even pretend that we will repay it one day. It’s a $31-trillion monument to our improvidence and refusal to confront reality.
Patriotism is called insurrection, treason celebrated, and perversion sanctified.
A man in blue gets less respect than a man in a dress.
We’re asking soldiers to fight for a nation our leaders no longer believe in.
How meekly most of us submitted to Fauci-ism (the regime of face masks, lockdowns, and hand sanitizers) shows the impending death of the American spirit.
This is the nation that took in my immigrant great grandparents, whose uniform my Grandpa, my father and most of my uncles wore in the
Navy & Military.
During Britain’s darkest hour, when its professional army was trapped at Dunkirk and a German invasion seemed imminent, Churchill reminded his countrymen, “Nations that go down fighting rise again, and those that surrender tamely are finished.” The same might be said of causes. If we let America slip through our fingers if we lose without a fight, what will posterity say of us? While the prognosis is far from good, only God knows if America’s day in the sun is over.
I don’t want to imagine a world without America, even though it becomes increasingly likely.
I believe that we in America are at the moment in time to stand up, or let it fall! We now may soon be at the next step in our country’s future.
I believe that it might be closer than we think.
“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
Edward R. Murrow
Restoring Trust in Our Elections
Pulled from the archives. Now that primary season is over and we’re headed for another general election in 2 1/2 months, this seems like a good time to dust this one off.
It seems you can’t pick up a newspaper (ok, I’m being quaint, but some of us do still read newspapers) or turn on your television without hearing about how our elections are under assault. If the Russians aren’t rotting our minds with memes of Hillary Clinton drunkenly gazing at balloons, the Chinese are hacking into our voter rolls. When the Chinese aren’t hacking into voter rolls, the Iranians are hacking the voting machines themselves. When the Iranians aren’t playing centrifuge subterfuge with the voting machines, the North Koreans are actually changing vote totals.
It’s a wonder a beloved TV sitcom character hasn’t been elected to Congress with all this electronic doo-dah. Oh, wait…
Okay, the security of our electronic voting systems are important. I don’t mean to belittle them. But that insecurity highlights a much bigger problem our nation faces: in a representative republic, the integrity of the electoral process cannot be open to interpretation. When it is, then the legitimacy of the election outcomes that select our representatives comes into question. No government without said legitimacy can stand for long.
It seems to me that I’m not the only one thinking the way we vote has become an absolute mess over the last twenty years. You would have thought that after the disaster of the 2000 election, the one in which “Hanging Chad” came to mean something other than executing a yuppie horse thief, we would have gotten our act together. But as the most recent election demonstrated, if anything we got worse at both voting and counting the vote. Of course, much of the coverage centered on our favorite county (Broward) in our favorite state (Florida) for electoral shenanigans. This overlooks that there were nearly four dozen House races that still weren’t called a full week after the election. It overlooks serious charges of vote tampering and fraud in California, New Jersey, Illinois, Georgia, Alaska, North Carolina, and Utah.
Since we didn’t learn from the disaster that was 2000, allow me to propose some simple changes that would be relatively simple to implement that would go a long way to ending the nonsense. Will it end voting irregularities forever? No, of course not. They are a feature of any voting system since man-made systems are imperfectible. But we can do much better than we have to date.
Step 1: Implement a national Voter ID system
Look, forget all the nonsense about poor people, or black people, or Hispanic people, not being able to get a valid state ID. It’s the 21st century, for chrissakes. There is absolutely no reason an adult should not have a valid ID. I challenge you to find me a state where you can buy a beer or pack of cigarettes without a valid ID. If we demand you have a valid ID for something as mundane as getting a cold brew at a restaurant, any argument against having one for something as important as voting is ridiculous on its face. Remember this sob story? The only reason he was prevented from breaking the law was due to Tennessee’s voter ID law.
Yeah, Voter ID laws work exactly as intended. Which may be why the same crowd that is all for open borders and illegal immigrants voting in our elections are so against them.
Step 2: Get rid of early voting
It seems many of the problems we run into with counting the vote (and where some of the greatest opportunities for general screwing with the ballots) comes from the fact that in some jurisdictions, people can actually begin voting up to a month before election day. There are other reasons to get rid of early voting (seriously, who but the most partisan hack is 100% certain of who they’re going to cast their ballot for a month before election day?), but that’s another post for another day. Anyway, the nonsense we witnessed around the country last November, with ballots mysteriously materializing from car trunks and classroom closets, would immediately end simply by getting rid of early voting. I understand voting in the middle of the week is inconvenient for a great many people, but that brings me to my next suggestion, which is…
Step 3: Make all national elections a national holiday
See, now nobody has the excuse they can’t get off work to go vote. Yes, the lines might be long. But if voting becomes a holiday, think about this: how long will it be before the nation’s retailer’s start offering discounts when you present that “I voted” sticker? I bet Friendly’s even starts offering a free scoop of ice cream!
Step 4: End “ballot harvesting”
Look, I don’t know who came up with this piece of insanity. I’m ambivalent about absentee ballots, to begin with (I can’t get around particularly well these days, but I still show up to vote in person), but if your state is going to allow them, shouldn’t the very least expectation be that you put the doggone thing in the mailbox yourself? I don’t know who thought the idea of letting party operatives handle them was a brilliant idea, but they need to be taken out back and put out of their misery the same way we do horses with broken legs. Heck, we’re ten weeks past the election and one district in North Carolina got so fouled up with ballot tampering as a result of this idiocy that they likely need to call a special election. Stories have come from California of voters just signing a blank ballot and handing it over to a party apparatchik. I’m 100% certain no tampering happened in those instances whatsoever, right?
Step 5: Get rid of electronic voting machines
I don’t know if the Russians or Iranians or little green men from Mars are trying to break into the electronic voting systems in use around the US. What I do know is there is enough distrust that those systems can be secured against sophisticated hacks (or even hacks from 300 pound couch potatoes) that we should have already stopped using them.
Step 6 : JIT ballot verification
This is little more technical, but every bit as important as anything else. During the latest Broward “Whose Vote is It Anyway” episode, we were once again treated to election workers trying to decipher illegible ballots. Just because that wasn’t enough fun, then we heard that poll workers could, in the event a ballot was indecipherable, just fill out an alternate one. Just fill out an alternate one? Are you kidding me?
In software engineering, we use “Just-In-Time” testing to validate that our code at least has the correct syntax and spelling to not cause a digital rejection of our work when trying to make it do something. It isn’t that hard to do something similar with a paper ballot. Optical scanners, which have been around for longer than most of you who read this blog, can detect if too many circles on a line (or a row) are filled in, and if they’re filled in correctly – and check this out, they CAN EVEN COUNT THE VOTE IN REAL TIME. If your ballot is illegible, for whatever reason, the poll worker can hand you another blank, destroy the bad one and scan the corrected ballot all before you leave the voting booth! Amazing!
This won’t completely end the questions about voting. Some states will complain vociferously about Congress passing any further restrictions. I can already hear the Chamber of Commerce harping on yet another paid holiday. Democrats will kvetch about Voter ID and the loss of early voting, Republicans about JIT verification. Both will scream bloody murder over ending harvesting.
But these six steps will make our elections more secure and provide for quicker vote tabulation. They address some of the biggest questions the nation has about our elections. It puts what is the most vital process in republic back into the sunlight, restoring the trust that the process isn’t corrupted. In short, it is the first step in injecting some sanity back into our politics.
We D̶o̶n̶’̶t̶ ̶ Got Him!
As I’m writing this, we’re finding out more about the FBI raid at the Mar-a-Lago resort, the primary residence of former President Trump. I won’t bother rehashing the details from last Monday. Unless you’ve been living on Mars, you’re already aware of them. Heck, odds are that even if you’ve been living on Mars, you’re aware of them.
Of far more import is the reason behind the seizure of the documents. The Department of Justice hasn’t said much of anything. What we know is from the cover page of the warrant and the property list. According to them, they took cases of classified documents, including some marked “Top Secret” and “SCI.” They also grabbed some photo albums and a letter from the Italian Prime Minister.
We also know that they were looking for evidence of espionage.
I don’t want to say that’s a fantastic allegation, but stop to consider what that charge means. It means that a President of the United States is actively working as a spy for an unnamed foreign government.
Ok, forget fantastic. I know the severely TDS impaired types are lapping that up. But we’ve seen this story before, with the dummied up “Russia Russia Russia” idiocy that tied the nation in knots for 3 years. Let’s not forget how many times we heard that the FBI had proof of that conspiracy, only to have it all fall apart.
So, here we are (again). The FBI is trying to tell us that Donald Trump is a foreign agent (again). Their proof? Well, we don’t have any (again) and they won’t tell us their causi belli (again).
All of this is quite laughable, except that the Very Serious People are all nodding their heads like those dashboard bobble-heads in agreement. “We got him NOW!” they’re screaming from the ivory towers.
Except, of course, they don’t have him on anything. Trump’s lawyers are already saying the documents in question were declassified before he left office – and that they notified the DOJ and National Archives of this back in June. Already this latest tempest in a teapot is devolving into what amounts to a bureaucratic snafu, a battle over clerical matters of what paperwork was filed where and with whom.
Of far greater importance is what the raid signifies to everyone to the right politically of Al Gore. I keep hearing from pundits that Merrick Garland is apolitical. I think that’s a massive miscalculation. Garland is every bit as political as any member of Joe Biden’s cabinet. More than likely, he authorized the extremely broad search-and-seizure warrant in hopes of uncovering damning evidence that Trump led the January 6th riots.
It’s a political miscalculation of the highest order. Instead of finding a silver bullet, they let a genie out that may never get back into the bottle. Why? Regardless of what many non-Trump conservatives think about Trump as a man, most just had their suspicions about progressive infiltration of our government confirmed. Instead of permanently putting Donald Trump to pasture, Garland’s faux pas probably handed the GOP nomination in 2024 to him.
You can bet Trump will remind voters of the DOJ’s corruption daily during that campaign, ginning up the GOP turnout. Democrats may well rue August 8, 2022 for a long, long time.
Shitholes, Fucktards & Distractions
I dug this one out of the archives from three years ago. Yes, the specific topic (immigration reform) isn’t currently a hot topic. But the problems I ranted about have only become worse. Read on… if you dare.
Well, THERE’S a headline I never thought I would see, much less write.
Unless you’ve been living on Mars for the past week, you might be confused by this topic. It certainly seems a great number of people who should know better – our politicians, our press and our pundits – are confounded, similarly to how a dog might wonder what his master is up to by having a bone yanked away just as he’s about to take a bite.
So a quick refresher course might be in order, both for those recently arrived from outer space and us more earthbound types.
On January 9, during what became an impromptu, hour-long televised bipartisan meeting on immigration matters in the Cabinet Room, the basic framework for granting amnesty to the roughly 800,000 “Dreamers” seemed agreed to. In exchange for amnesty, Democrats would agree to a $1.8 billion down payment on border security measures, which presumably would go towards further development of the border wall. Hammering out the long overdue overhaul to America’s immigration system would be fast-tracked after the budget was passed.
But in typical Washington fashion, nobody could long stand the positive vibes. Liberals immediately decried the border wall, Trumpkins decried the amnesty. And so…
On January 11, a new “Gang of Six’ (apparently, the old “Gang of Eight” atrophied in the bright sunlight the last time Congress attempted to tackle immigration) struck a deal that they simply had to know was going to be a non-starter with anyone politically left of California. In exchange for amnesty not only for “Dreamers,” but their extended families, granting permanent residency to everyone here under Temporary Protected Status and a couple thousand fewer lottery visas, the government would get $1.8 billion in border security measures.
The White House almost immediately announced their displeasure with essentially granting fully legal status to over 4 million illegal aliens. Which brings us to…
Can you say “verpiss dich?” No? How about “shithole” (or “shithouse,” depending on who’s interpretation of events you choose to believe)?
That evening, during a meeting with the Gang of Six and a few others, the President made his position clear: no more unfettered immigration from shithole (or shithouse) countries, which he loosely defined as being Haiti, El Salvador, and pretty much all of Africa. But not Norway.
And so, for four days now, any discussion of doing the actual work required of this Congress and the Executive branch – little things, like passing spending plans for the federal government and actually passing a realistic immigration plan and doing something about border security and doing something about entitlements and…
You get the picture? Instead of focusing on the real business of governance, we’re distracted by discussions of the President’s racial animus. (For the zillionth time, he isn’t a racist – but he is, as we all are, a prejudiced shithole. Deal with it.) And here’s the part that drives people like me nuts: any substantive discussion regarding immigration is immediately tinged with calls of “racism” by those opposed to anything other than fully open borders. All because the President uttered a rather crass epithet in describing a rather larger segment of the world.
Here’s what should be beyond dispute: there are large swaths of the globe in Africa, Asia, Central and South America that are, in the common vernacular, either outhouses or the holes located at the bottom of an outhouse. There isn’t one sane person who would describe Haiti, Gabon, Rwanda or Chad as a prime tourist destination. Nobody except a Jack Nicholson character would characterize Thailand, Libya, El Salvador or Venezuela as the kind of place where you would want to raise your kids (it’s a great neighborhood, Mr. Nicholson – on a good day, you can get three hours of electricity, the corner market will have toilet paper and the drug gangs will only take half your belongings!).
Here’s what should also be beyond dispute: not everyone from a basket case nation is themselves a basket case. Yes, the predominant population in those places isn’t
****TRIGGER WARNING****
(the following statement will be too true for some of you)
what we want as new Americans. After all, if they were their countries wouldn’t be basket case outhouses. But some of those people are the sorts of folks we do want to come here, and those should be the ones we allow in.
****TRIGGER WARNING CANCELLED****
Merit has nothing to do with nation of origin or skin color. Conversely,
****TRIGG… oh, screw it
barring someone from, say, Haiti likewise has nothing to do with skin color, either. But the President’s remarks, which were in response to the asinine idea that the “temporary” in TPS now means the same thing as permanent in non-Washington speak, have been twisted, misconstrued, massaged and rebranded by both sides of the identity politics war into competing clarion calls.
That’s what all the teeth gnashing , thumb sucking and 140 character diatribes of the past four days have left us with. If you happen to agree with the President’s position that maybe, just maybe, a system that right now says if your homeland, which wasn’t in particularly great shape to begin with, get whacked with a hurricane, you get to stay here indefinitely, is off-kilter, you’re branded a racist. If you sort of wandered over the border, or maybe overstayed a tourist visa, a couple of decades ago, no biggie – you get to stay, too (why should our laws apply to you? You meant well)! If you think that a system that says we’re going to have immigration based on a lottery, where winning not only means you get to set up house here, but you can bring your mother, your brother, your great uncle and your second cousin thrice removed while we deny a software engineer residency is just a wee bit out of whack, you’re a racist. If you happen to think the systems in Canada, India, Japan, South Korea, etc, and so forth (all, by the way, “enlightened liberal” democratic societies) might be something we could learn from, you’re obviously a racist. Because those damned Canucks are totally racist, eh?
So, how do we get out of this miasma of non-productivity? I’d suggest the first thing to do would be for both sides to ditch to identity politics and identity politicians, pundits, journalists and all the rest of that diaspora. Al Sharpton, you gotta go. Same for you, Sean Hannity. Because so help me, if I hear one more idiot yell “I’m a proud black man!’ or type in all caps “I’M PROUD TO BE WHITE”, I just might lose it.
Speaking of identity politicians, if I see one more disingenuous congresscritter emerge from a private meeting fuming about language, I might just have to point them to their own past statements (bunch of hypocrites, the lot of ’em). Besides, ever listen to the tapes from the Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon Oval Offices? You would hear language that would make a Parris Island Drill Instructor blush. And Trumplicans don’t get a pass on this, either. Saying the President didn’t utter one epithet because he used a different cuss word is equally disingenuous. It was pure huckstering on both sides, and it had the desired effect. The status quo will remain for at least two more years. Congratulations! Washington has once again succeeded at doing the one thing it’s proven incredibly efficient at: creating new problems while ignoring the existing ones. It’s back to the ramparts, you plebes – fight the good fight and if the country burns in the meantime…well, at least I won reelection.
Political Baseballs 