How Out Of Touch Can You Get?

Joe Biden was addressing the AFL-CIO unions last Tuesday and unloaded on them. He cannot believe the coverage he’s getting in the press or the blame he’s getting around the country for his time in office. He doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong!

How out of touch can you get?

Biden has long been chided for having “mental acuity issues”. Well, he showed it in spades this past week. Here are some of his quotes:

“I’ve done everything in my power to blunt Vladimir Putin’s gas hike . Just since he invaded Ukraine, it’s gone up $1.74 a gallon, because of nothing else but that.” According to a new poll by liberal pollster YouGov/Yahoo, 30% a plurality blame Biden for the gas hike. That’s more than the 23% (mostly Democrats) that blame the oil industry for price gouging.

Biden went further, adding that he is constantly being barraged by the fact that inflation is caused by his out of control inflation. “I don’t want to hear anymore of these lies about reckless spending! We’re changing people’s lives!” Biden will give the argument that the inflation is “global” and that the US isn’t the only ones suffering from it. However, his handling of the inflation problem is hovering at 30% approval. And I have an idea he’s going to hear a lot more about his reckless spending! I will say though, Biden was right in his statement. He IS changing people’s lives, just not for the better!

I guess if I had to put a finger on the statements, it goes back to the Democrat playbook that says you apologize for nothing…EVER! You deflect the criticism as long as you can, you deny it is happening, and then you find someone else to blame for it. When you think of high gas prices, that’s exactly what happened. First it was COVID’s fault (they couldn’t deny it was actually happening because prices WERE going up rapidly). Then they blamed it on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. They still haven’t connected the dots that dropping Keystone XL Pipeline and it’s 900 million barrels of oil a day, had anything to do with it. They still don’t include the fact that the drilling the Anwar oil fields in Alaska being stopped had anything to do with it. And they still don’t believe cancelling oil drilling leases had anything to do with it. It’s all Putin.

And the same thing holds true when you talk about inflation. Is inflation up around the world? Since Biden took office, the United States inflation rate (annualized) has gone from 1.4% to 8.6%. That’s up 7.2% over 18 months. Let’s look at other countries, and I’m trying to find countries that had higher inflation increases than we did. I couldn’t find one. Even Ukraine, which is in the midst of a devestating war with Russia only went up 1.6% over the last year. So, let’s compare in our neck of the woods. Canada’s inflation rate went from 6.7% to 6.8% in the last 18 months. Mexico’s went from 7.68% to 7.65%, actually going down. Oh, Cuba did increase 1.5%. No one compared to the US. It’s not a global thing. It’s a BIDEN thing!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Jobs Numbers Are Out. It’s Who You Believe That Determines How Good They Are

The good news for the economy is that there were 428,000 “new” jobs added to the economy in the month of April. The “experts” said it would be about 300,000, so the good news is, the economy added more jobs than was predicted. The jobless rate held steady at 3.6%, which is still 0.1% above where it was before the whole COVID thing hit back in February/March of 2020.

The thing that you won’t hear Joe Biden or the administration or the talking heads on the snowflake news channels say is, there were 4 MILLION Americans that have quit their jobs this year without going to a new job.

My question is why?

Obviously, when you add jobs to the economy it’s good because people are earning money, they’ve gotten off the couch, they’re contributing to society. That’s good for the country, regardless what side of the political spectrum you’re on. However, when millions of people say they’ve had enough, be it because of vaccine mandates, or mask mandates, or they just hit retirement age and decided to rest and relax, that’s a lot of folks not contributing.

The overall problems with our economy is still there. First of all, the government does not add new jobs to the economy unless they are expanding government. That’s the only way Joe Biden should be getting credit. We are still adding back the jobs that were lost during COVID, and according to CNN Business, they say that by the end of August of this year, all of the jobs lost due to COVID will have been added back into the workforce.

Now, that means that all that Biden claims to have “added” and “grown” as far as jobs is concerned isn’t really the truth. All he’s been able to do is slowly, over the past year and a half add back some of the jobs that were lost when we shut down. He hasn’t expanded the economy. In fact, as the GDP shows from the first quarter, we have contracted the sized of our economy. One more bad quarter means that we’ve hit the definition of “recession”. That would be about six to eight months earlier than most economic experts are predicting. They are saying that 2023 is when we should tighten our belts (if you do such a thing during a recession), and be ready for high inflation and a lower economy. That will be far enough into Biden’s watch as president that there isn’t any way he can blame Trump for that. He’s going to have to step up and take the responsibility for it.

Yes, we are slowly getting back to normal after COVID. And that’s a good thing. I don’t know anyone that wants our economy to falter or fail. But having said that, we’re a long ways off from where we were with Trump as president. Inflation is wholly seven times higher now than it was back then. Gas prices are wholly $2.50 a gallon higher now than it was back then. We had no supply chain issues back then. And we had no problems on the southern border.

What is scary is that we have real problems. And what are the Democrats screaming about? They are screaming about an early draft that was leaked on abortion from the Supreme Court. It means nothing. It could be entirely reversed by June. They need to focus on what’s happening now and not worry about what may happen up the road. Even then, it’s not going to eliminate abortions. It only is going to allow the states to make that decision, which is what the 10th Amendment says should happen anyway. We can only pray that one day, these snowflakes would look to the future and figure out what’s BEST for America!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Putin’s Gas Prices???

Apparently not. Here is the one place I feel I have to say I’m 100% against the lame excuses that Joe Biden is throwing out there about how the gas price spikes we’ve seen around the country have been the fault of Vladimir Putin’s invading Ukraine. But I must also say at the same time, I kinda sorta feel sorry for the guy. Why?

Nobody’s buying his excuse.

Rasmussen campe out with a study last week that showed that while Joe Biden wanted to blame the high price of gas on COVID originally, and then on supply chain issues, now it’s become Vladimir Putin’s fault. And Americans aren’t buying it a bit. 84% of those folks surveyed said that they think the high cost of gasoline, heating oil, natural gas, and other petroleum products is a “serious problem” including 61% who say it’s a “very serious problem”. And they blame Joe Biden for the increase. About 15% of those surveyed feel that Biden has it right i blaming Putin. Those numbers aren’t good if you’re a Biden fan.

First of all it shows what no president in our country’s history wants to see happen. It shows a huge lack of credibility on Biden’s part. Americans want to see a president that is open, forthright, and honest when it comes to issues. They want the president to tell it like it is. If it’s bad news, give it to us straight. If it’s good news, fine. But don’t try to spin it. And as we’ve seen in Biden’s case, he’s not very good at spinning a story to his way of thinking. It’d probably be best if he just came out and admitted that the price hikes and inflation rates were caused by his over-spending and the hyper-printing of money that has gone on. Sure, he can probably lay some of it off to Donald Trump, who also spent a ton of money on COVID relief. But that had very little to do with the price of gas. Back then, if anything, gasoline prices dropped because we weren’t going anywhere.

The longer Joe Biden plays this game that it’s COVID’s fault, or it’s a supply chain fault, or it’s the fault of the Russians, the worse it’s going to get for him. Americans trust him about as much as they trust the broadcast news networks, or CNN or MSNBC (or even Fox News for that matter). Media is seen as way too partisan, way too political, and way too heavily editorializing the news they do decide to cover. Joe Biden is right there along side of them. If he only would come clean, and accept the responsibility that it’s his fault mostly, I think more Americans than 15% would cut him some slack.

The only problem is, like with the situation at the southern border, Biden doesn’t have a plan on how to deal with things at the gas pump. There’s no plan in place on how to handle thousands of illegals trying to get into this country, the courts are fed up with his not following the law, and the Supreme Court just last week heard oral arguments that “Remain In Mexico” needed to stay in place and be enforced. Likewise, there will be more lawsuits up the road telling Biden to reverse his decisions on higher priced fossil fuels in favor of what he sees as “clean energy” (which is debatable at best).

If Biden stays on this path, not only is he going to be the worst president in US history, he may just end up with the entire country hating him and wanting him to leave before the end of his second year.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Is It A Big Deal Harris Gets COVID?

If you’re like me, you probably chuckled when you heard the news that the Second Cackler had gotten COVID. After all of the protocols that have been put in place to see that these VIP’s in our government stay healthy, Vice President K-baby Harris came down with it anyway. Why? Well, she will probably tell you it wasn’t because she wasn’t wearing a mask! Now, having said all that, I certainly don’t wish that anyone, on either side of the political spectrum catch this disease. The good news for Harris is that she’s not showing any symptoms. She had been scheduled to receive the Tuesday morning President’s Daily Brief, but after the test, she went home where she’s self-isolating.

So, is it a big deal that Harris got COVID?

In short, yes. For Democrats, it’s a huge deal. K-baby Harris is the tie-breaking vote in the Senate. They basically have their entire week screwed up for this week and probably next week because they can’t get anything passed.

What is probably just as upsetting to Majority Leader Chuckles Schumer is the fact that both Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Chris Murphy (D-CT) have tested positive for the virus. That means that there are only going to be at most 48 Democrats in the chamber, and no Vice President to break a tie should a couple of Republicans like Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney decide to jump ship and join them. Basically, until all of these folks get back to work, the Senate is basically in limbo.

Scheduled to come before the Senate was the nomination of Lisa Cook to sit on the Federal Reserve Board, and Alvaro Bedoya to join the Federal Trade Commission. Cook’s vote will most likely take place and fail, though Bedoya’s vote will take place later. But if the GOP also objects to moving Bedoya’s vote, that could also fail. Other than those two nominations, there really isn’t anything super pressing for Democrats. All it is going to do is compact the already tight time line they have to get things done before the November election when you figure in all of the recesses and breaks they take.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

EXTRA! Free At Last!

Anyone that has traveled in the past couple of years has had to put up with wearing a mask while on a cruise ship, a train, a bus, or a plane. For a short time type of deal, it’s not that bad, and most of us just slogged through it. For longer trips (like a two-week cruise?) it can be a nightmare. And I really feel sorry for people that work in industries that are still requiring them to be masked at work!

But thanks to Federal Court Judge, Katheryn Kimble Mizelle, those days appear to be over. She issued a ruling stating the Centers for Disease Control has over-stepped their boundaries by issuing a three week extension of the mask mandate for folks traveling around the country.

Now, by way of a personal story, as you’re reading this, you should know that my wife and I SHOULD be on a cruise through the Panama Canal right now. We cancelled it in December for two reasons. One is the fact that neither of us wanted to wear a mask any time we were outside our cabin (as the cruise line was requiring), and the second was the cruise line had cancelled three of our four shore excursions. What’s the sense in spending that type of money to go on a great multi-week vacation if you can’t get off the ship, and you have to wear a mask? So, we decided to cancel.

I feel much better about this decision now, but am still grateful that Judge Mizelle made her ruling. Delta Airlines released an interesting statement that basically asked everyone for patients in dealing with the situation, as not everyone in TSA or the Airlines would get the news at the same time, and it may take a day or two to disseminate that information throughout the industry. They are exactly right. But overall, this is good news.

I realize that there have been several states that are getting surges in COVID still today, and I know people are still dying from the disease. But if you’ve decided to get the vaccination (totally your choice in my world), and you’ve gotten the booster (ditto), why are you worried? You should be covered. Or at least you’ve lessened the severity of the disease. Now, I won’t say it’s a guarantee, there are no guarantees in life, but I can tell you out here in the desert, most have been vaccinated to the point we reached “herd immunity” back in the summer of last year.

It’s going to be great to be able to get back to normal when traveling again. I know the Biden administration thinks this is a terrible idea, but I thought mask mandates were a terrible idea, so I guess we’re even. Enjoy breathing without a mask. You’ve earned that right!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Will Biden’s “Strong Week” Continue?

As far as weeks go, this past week was probably the strongest for Joe Biden since he occupied 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He had to almost want to dance to Marine One which took him to Delaware on Friday evening. Overall, he would be happy with the week he had.

Even though it had a lot of lackluster involved.

At least Biden avoided major pitfalls. He did have some things go his way. His State of the Union speech wasn’t the best of his life. But it was “good enough” because he didn’t stop and stammer half way through it like he does with normal communications with people. The ratings were the lowest in the last 30 years which may be a reason why people generally gave him at least a passing grade. It wasn’t that they watched it so much as they heard about it on the mainstream snowflake news networks.

Biden also had a relatively strong jobs report come out that showed that he “added” over 600,000 new jobs to the economy. Well, let’s get that right. He didn’t add anything. First of all, we aren’t back to the pre-COVID levels of employment yet, so all that happened is more of the people that lost their jobs went back to work finally after now two years of sitting on their couch. And while yes, 600,000 going back to work is nice as compared to what’s been happening month after month over the past year, it really isn’t Joe Biden doing anything to help it. He’s not out there recruiting people to work at Olive Garden. And he’s not out there hiring people for jobs in government.

He had a decent week in terms of COVID when he and his administration have finally come to the realization that hey, masks aren’t all they are cracked up to be. Pelosi and her cabal lifted their mask restrictions on the House floor in time for the SOTU address, even though the Senate rescinded mask wearing long ago. And it looks as if with Ukraine on the forefront in the news, COVID was going to take a back seat anyway, so why not just be done with it once and for all.

The one sticking point that Biden has yet to deal with is Ukraine. And when the job gets tough, what does he do? He sends his Vice President, K-baby Harris in to try and tackle the job. So she’s going to Poland and Romania and visiting our troops stationed over there. She’ll probably try a Romanian accent she’s been working on while over there. But it goes to show that Biden doesn’t think there is an easy solution to the problem. He always gives Harris the tougher assignments. It’s probably because a) he doesn’t want to travel half way around the world and b) he isn’t sure what to do when he gets there. And America isn’t behind Biden or Harris with their efforts. There are 54% of Americans that think Biden has screwed the pooch on this one, and is pretty consistent with the other items he’s touched since getting into office.

If America gets through this without getting into a hot war, it will be by the grace of God Almighty, and not Joe. Make no mistake about it, this president has nothing but words when it comes to diplomacy with the rest of the world.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

There’s An Olympics Going On?

I was in a store recently and there were a couple of women talking about something going on in China. I thought they may have been talking about the latest COVID outbreak, you know, since it started there and all. But no! They said they were talking about some figure skater in the Olympics!

Olympics?

Apparently there is an Olympic Games going on in China! Who knew? Well, unless you’re one of the dwindling few folks that are tuning in to NBC over the past few days, you probably were as unaware about it as I was!

Now, I will admit readily, I’m not a fan of the Olympics and haven’t been for several cycles. Oh, at one point, we were all gathered around the television every evening to find out how America did against the rest of the world. But as I grew older, and busier, the Olympics took less and less of my time. In fact, I know they were in Korea some place. I know Rio hosted a summer games, and I think I recall London did too a while back. But I just can’t seem to get excited about it any more.

And apparently, the rest of you are in the same boat.

While the ratings over the last week have shown NBC to win the night each of the seven that I checked, with between eight and ten million viewers (about double what the other networks were getting), I read an interesting article that said the Opening Ceremonies, usually one of the largest watched events, had their lowest ratings ever. And the nightly ratings since then have been substantially lower than what they were four years ago.

What is interesting is the spin that NBC is putting on it. NBC Sports Chairman, Pete Bevacqua said, “For us, it’s been difficult. There’s no way around this. The fact that we’ve been able to bring these Games to life during a pandemic with only a six-month window between the two [Olympics], the ratings are — of course we always want to have the ratings better — but the ratings for these Games, as I said, are about where we thought they’d be.”

There you go. That’s the “official” spin on why no one (and by that I mean only 8-10 million people a day) are watching the Olympics. They are doing what they thought they’d be doing. And the billions of dollars that NBC is spending on covering the games, albeit that most of the commentary is coming out of 30 Rock in New York City, and NOT Beijing, seems to be a lot for a little.

Now, the fact that the ratings are down isn’t surprising. The US didn’t send a governmental delegation to China, as they usually do for these events. There were several advertisers that pulled out to boycott China’s human rights abuses, and of course, there’s the whole Wuhan Virus thing still going on there. And is it still that they aren’t allowing fans in the stands? Not sure, not having seen it, but I think I heard that somewhere. But one other reason that the ratings could be lower is that all of the other networks basically have conceded the month of February to NBC. You’re not seeing many if any of the regular programming on the other networks. Why put up top rated shows that are costly to produce if everyone is going to be watching the Olympics? Of course, not everyone is.

That’s why the Olympics are winning the nights. Little competition, and nothing much else to do. I mean, we can only watch Boomer Esiason and Dani Ruah doing their favorite Super Bowl commercials so many times before that gets boring, right?

The thing to understand here is that the Olympics, the modern version of which started in 1896 in Athens, as homage to the ancient games. They reached their peak in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and have been slipping in the ratings ever since. Oh, there have been exceptions, like the 1980 United States gold medal hockey win. But other than that, it’s been a slow decline.

Frankly, I can’t get into sports like luge, or ski jumping, or some of the other weirder sports like curling (sorry Canada) that only pop to the surface every four years. I’ve got too much going on to worry about which German or Norwegian is going to win the biathlon. So, if you’re into the Olympics, great. Cheer for me. I’ve got to dry the dishes.

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

OFF WITH THE MASKS!

I know that Democrats in Washington, DC are not liking what’s going on around the country. They hate it that their attempt to drag COVID out as long as possible to keep a tighter rein on Americans (and the world) is falling apart. And it’s teaching us a valuable lesson.

After a while, Americans don’t put up with government telling them what to do.

And that is exactly why socialism and liberalism is dead in this country. Oh, it’s like the print newspaper…it’s still on life support, but the more America sees of it, the less they think it’s the way of the future. Maybe something good is coming out of two years of restrictions and mandates, over-spending, and law suits?

What I find interesting is that it’s not the Republican Governors that are revolting against Washington, Biden, and the CDC. It’s the blue states. Places like California, Washington, Oregon, Michigan, and Colorado are cancelling their mask mandates and letting people return to “normal” living. In Nevada, they have already lifted the mask mandates and told the casinos in Vegas and Reno that they are able to do the same if they want. I did a quick check and called a few the other day when the change went into effect. Not one casino told me they still had the mask mandate in place.

What is interesting is Biden is still wearing a mask on occasion. But more and more pictures and videos are coming out of politicians (mostly Democrats) that don’t wear a mask when they are meeting with people, but when they take the obligatory picture of the politician with the group, the politician puts the mask on. It comes off right after the camera goes away. Think Stacy Abrams down in Georgia. What an embarrassment she is to her party! But it goes beyond that. AOC has been caught, London Breed, Mayor of San Francisco has been caught, Pelosi has been caught, K-baby Harris has been caught, Gavin Newsome has been caught, it goes on and on.

And that America is finally waking up to the fact that we are going to get on with our lives is a good thing. Oh, it’s not a good thing for Biden. He can’t blame slow job growth, high inflation, a supply chain problem, southern border crisis, and Ukraine on COVID any longer. He has to take responsibility for actions that are only his doing, not some nebulous viral infection.

And I’m sure the folks in Congress, while happy that they aren’t going to have to wear masks in the House of Representatives any longer (though Pelosi hasn’t quite lifted that restriction as of this writing), they see positive movement. And they were worried about it because America was communicating with them and letting them know how unhappy we were as we get set to enter year three of the pandemic.

The other good news is that we can finally say goodbye to Anthony Fauci! There is a guy that had his 15 minutes of fame run out a long time ago, but refused to leave the stage. It will be good not to hear his name again on newscasts!

So, get out, maskless, and breath the clean, fresh, air! It’s time to take back America, and hope this never EVER happens again!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!

Time To “UnMask” America?

I don’t think there are more than a handful of people in this country that would argue that we as a nation are tired of COVID. We’re tired of the ludicrous “mandates”, or plans that the Biden administration says they have, but we never see, and of the myriad of threats, tacit and otherwise, that are thrown at those that don’t want to get vaccinated. Now, public health officials all over the country, from all political factions and walks of life are saying, it’s time to start lifting the restrictions. Not just a few, but all of them.

And America says, “It’s about damn time!”

Only in heavily Democrat areas like New York City, LA, and Washington DC are mask mandates and social distancing still in effect. Oh, there are still all sorts of mandates in schools, which is funny when you think of it because the kids are the least susceptible of catching it, and if they do, they find it’s the mildest case. But it just goes to show that this isn’t just a pandemic. It’s a power grab.

And that is the most important thing to remember about this whole COVID thing.

In my “conspiracy-laden world”, this has been a test. It’s been a trial run that has been put on by the Chinese with help from the United States to see exactly how long we all could go being forced to change up our lives, give up our freedoms, and listen to what the government says we should do. And there’s a good reason for it.

If you look at where this country is heading politically, it’s moving farther and farther to the left. You cannot achieve socialism without gaining total control over the populace. It doesn’t work otherwise. We’ve seen snippets of what happens when segments of society don’t fall in line. People refuse to wear masks on airplanes, they don’t want to social distance, we see those in charge not wearing masks even as they tell us to do so. And when they do wear masks, it’s only as long as the cameras are on. The minute the paparazzi turn off the cameras, government officials tear off their masks like they were laced with hydrochloric acid.

And that was the first hint in my mind that yes, we’ve had a pandemic, but it’s been going on far too long for not the right reasons. Put another way, I’m more convinced this was some sort of control grab than I am that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen”. I know there are some of you out there that will never believe that, but I think there’s more proof in the COVID theory, than the election fraud theory (where no one has been able to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt).

It’s time to take off the masks. It’s time for Joe Biden to stop blaming all of his shortcomings on COVID, and climate change and start being some semblance of a leader. Let America see what you really can do as a leader and not blame everyone but yourself for the shortcomings that you’ve been exposing to us so far. And then we can make a decision in November of this year, and in 2024 whether or not you deserve to stay in your basement in Wilmington!

Carry on world, you’re dismissed!

“Strong” Jobs Report Not Enough

The January Jobs Report came out on Friday. Oh, if you listen to Joe Biden, it was great! They were only supposed to add some 125,000 jobs in January, but the number was 467,000, significantly higher! Of course, the Labor Department also moved the November and December numbers that showed lackluster growth up, pointing to calculating errors and new data as the reason.

Here’s the fun part.

In the United States today, according to these latest figures, there are 5.7 million unemployed Americans. We still aren’t anywhere near the employment levels that we were at prior to COVID, so it’s not as if they’re serving the celebratory ham at the White House (or in Delaware where Biden is again hiding out this weekend). The unemployment rate, which was at 3.5% last month ticked up to 4.0%. And you may be asking yourself, “How in the world does that happen?” We add some 340,000 MORE jobs than anyone predicted, and yet the unemployment rate goes UP?

Yup. That’s because as more and more people are running out of unemployment benefits, they end up with no money coming in what-so-ever. And when that happens, they realize that yes, they still have a bunch of child care to pay, and inflation eats away at their buying power, and yes, gas prices are still making it impossible for those truck drivers to get to Long Beach to carry unloaded cargo to their destinations.

Now, if you look at the jobs figures without all the hype you understand one thing that becomes abundantly clear. Joe Biden’s administration hasn’t CREATED any new jobs. All they are doing is sending people that were employed BACK to work. No job has been created. In fact, according to former Treasury Department officials, they have actually squelched the growth of employment in the country and actually slowed the recovery because of their ineptitude. That is the message that the mainstream snowflake media failed to report on. There is NO job growth. There is only a slowing in the number of jobs that were filled, then eliminated by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and now are slowly (very slowly) being refilled.

The good news in all of this is, that Biden’s mask mandate is kaput because the Supreme Court has ruled he can’t be doing that. After all, it IS a states’ issue. And while there are businesses and municipalities and counties, and even states that can and have employ such a measure, Biden can’t do that as far as the entire country is concerned. That is unconstitutional.

So, what’s the jobs report say about the economy as a whole? Not a whole lot. Oh, there were a bunch of increases in the hospitality and leisure industry, but one would expect that. More and more cruise ships are sailing these days, even though they are finding it difficult to find passengers willing to wear masks for their “dream vacation”. And restaurants that had been closed, or had to close during weekends or operate limited hours because of staffing issues are starting to find people that are willing to come to work for sub-minimum wage plus tips again. It’s a slog, not helped by Biden’s economic proposals, but it’s starting to turn around as all of the various variants of COVID get weaker and weaker (as was predicted).

Maybe next year at this time, we’ll finally be through with this! And hopefully by this time next year, Biden’s agenda will be in flames as the Dems lose both houses of Congress! We can only hope!

Carry on world…you’re dismissed!