DeSantis replies to Trump

 "Check the scoreboard."

Follow this link:  https://fb.watch/gPF0Y6cq5P/

Fellow Republicans, dump Trump. Please.

If he decides to run for president—as he might (or might not) announce soon—he’ll lose. Not just his own race, but also other GOP candidates up and down the ticket.

 

The evidence is in: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis shellacked Charlie Crist and Republicans swept statewide offices for the first time since post-Civil War Reconstruction era, in spite of former President Donald Trump’s shenanigans. In fact, Trump’s effort to discredit DeSantis might even have helped the Republican governor win his second term.

 

Recall how Trump’s endorsement was supposed to be the gold plating of Republican candidates. Well, it helped some of them win the party’s primary election, but not the generation election. According to Sky News Data and ForensicsUnit, Trump officially endorsed 174 of the 430 Republican House candidates. It concluded: “…[I]nitial analysis of their results suggests he didn’t help them very much. Counties with candidates backed by Trump increased Republican vote share by an average of 2.1 percentage points compared with the 2020 election, far less than the 8 percentage points gained by the Republicans in counties where he didn't announce support.” [Emphasis added.]

 

Perhaps not the kiss of death. Yet: Many voters approve of Trump policies, but not Trump. DeSantis’ policies and actions mirrored Trump’s policies, all done without the loathsome Trump’s active backing.  In fact, all done despite Trump’s transparent determination to eliminate DeSantis as a possible competitor in the 2024 presidential election.

 

There’s Trump’s reference to DeSantis as Ron "DeSanctimonious."  Great, just what we Republicans need—a destructive intraparty battle that will ensure a Democratic victory. Even more, there’s Trump’s ominous warning that he would bring up the governor’s “not very flattering” past is he decides to run. 

 

He told Fox News: “I think if he runs, he could hurt himself very badly. I really believe he could hurt himself badly. I think he would be making a mistake, I think the base would not like it — I don’t think it would be good for the party….I would tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering — I know more about him than anybody — other than, perhaps, his wife."

 

Typical of a candidate who typically called his fellow Republicans stupid names in the 2016 primary and demanded that Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp t resign. Yes, Trump is very, very popular with some of my Republican friends. But I’ve argued that while Trump will have an excited and supportive base, it’s far from enough to win the moderate and independent vote that any candidate of either party must have to win.

 

Like DeSantis did. 

Related:  Donald Trump is an albatross around the Republican neck: The former president had a bad night while Ron DeSantis is rising

News flash: Liberals are routinely dragged out of bed and killed!

As reported in a major daily newspaper:

"When liberals are being routinely dragged out of their beds at night and killed in the street, decent Americans awaiting their turn will ruefully remember Paul Pelosi"

That's right, routinely. Like a dreaded press gang, hordes of conservatives are descending in the dark on the homes of liberals, knocking down the doors, grabbing who's ever inside, and dragging them out to be shot, lynched or stoned. Think Ku Klux Klan. 

You might think that I'm making that quote up, but I read it in the Chicago Sun-Times in a column written by Neil Steinberg. The headline is "GOP cheers a ghastly crime: Republicans laugh off responsibility for Paul Pelosi being assaulted in his home."

I couldn't find any examples of liberals getting murdered on Google, but you know how those conservatives control the media, so I'm certain that these horrors have been censored. The attack on Pelosi somehow managed to escape the censors. 

But what's worse about all this, wrote Steinberg, is: "The haunting part [of the Pelosi attack] is the reaction after. The gales of GOP laughter, mingled with the lies they immediately, reflexively formed to shrug off responsibility for crime."

Guilty. I gathered (conspired) in secret last night with crazed Republicans to have an uproarious time mocking liberals/Democrats/progressives for whining about Pelosi getting clobbered in the noggin.

Steinberg, a former colleague when I was working at the Sun-Times, surely must be engaging in hyperbole--an exaggeration not meant to be taken seriously but to make a point. As a columnist, I'm sure I've done the same. But...accusing an entire class of people of murder?

I'm not in the business of comparing acts of violence committed by one side against the other. I'll leave that to the Daily Caller, which  has compiled a list  of attacks made against conservatives. There's the assassin who was planning to attack Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And more. Both sides have their share of lunatics. Like the white supremacist who drove his car into a peaceful demonstration in Charlottesville, killing one and injuring 35. Nor do I have any defense for Donald Trump Jr. (Jerk Jr.) and stupid Instagram post mocking the attack.

President Joe Biden warned last night about the "threat to democracy" posed by Republicans who don't agree with him. It was yet again another splitting attempt to gain votes (I don't see how, but his handlers apparently think so). 

Please, no more. From any side.

In this light I recommend this Wall Street Journal editorial that suggests what Biden should have said if he truly--as he has endlessly said--wants to unite the nation. Here's a sample:

“My fellow Americans, I’ve mentioned the MAGA threat. But to preserve democracy, it will take the efforts and honesty of both political parties. And we Democrats need to acknowledge that most Republicans feel as strongly and sincerely about fair elections as we do. After the 2020 election, hundreds of Republicans were the most important obstacle to Trump’s false claims of a stolen election."

He should have mentioned, for example, the heroism of former Vice President Mike Pence who refused to participate in Donald Trump's harebrained and dangerous attempt to prevent the transfer power to Biden. 

I guess it would have been too much to hope for. Just as it is too much to hope that Trump would leave the stage, quietly.

Musk's takeover of Twitter energizes battalions of Chicken Lickens, Ducky Luckies, Henny Pennys, Goosey Looseys and Turkey Lurkies

 "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" The left is reliving the folk tale with Elon Musk's buyout of Twitter. 

For some, quitting Twitter is a moral choice because good people can't contribute to evil by posting or even reading those posts. "Those posts" of course mean not just the whacky and extremists on the far right, but also just about anyone who disagrees with the woke pledges of allegiance. That means people who legitimately disagreed with Dr. Fauci's stream of misinformation and had the science to back up their disagreement.

Mostly Republicans, I should add.

High and mighty, the left would, if it could, drive Twitter out of business because it is in the hands of someone who is a free speech advocate. They don't see the problem of saying that they can and ought to make the judgment of what speech is allowed while saying that Musk or his appointees have no such right or ability.

As if to signal anti-left times to come, they point to how Musk has fired the top executives and is taking a closer look at the business plan. But that kind of complaint is just more evidence of the left's naivety. I don't know how many takeovers, senior management changes (e.g. publisher, editor-in-chief, etc.) had been made by new owners at the Chicago Sun-Times while I worked there. Same thing as I worked for The Signal Companies when it was taken over by Allied Chemical. As a PR director, I was one of the first to go.

The masters of irony are so, so upset by a multi-billionaire taking over a company, but not so much when the company adheres to woke dogma. Never mind the billionaires who a spending million on their left and far-left causes.

Are they so dense that they can't see the irony? Or do they see it but are so committed to their party and ideology that they can't be honest enough to admit it?

No, Vlad.We are not with you.

 The balls on that guy, Vladimir Putin. In his big deal speech today, he said American conservatives are on his side. He said as reported by the New York Times:

The nearly four-hour speech and question-and-answer session, with reference to “dozens of genders,” “gay parades’’ and “neoliberal elites,’’ relied on arguments used to animate the culture wars in the United States and Europe, an apparent effort to sway global public opinion in favor of Russia at a time when his army is losing ground in Ukraine.“

In the United States there’s a very strong part of the public who maintain traditional values, and they’re with us,” Mr. Putin said. “We know about this.” 

Give the Russian dictator his due for contributing to the deep divide in the United States. I anticipate that the left-leaning media will give this big play, arguing that cultural conservatives are on his side.

Nothing further from the truth. There's no alliance of freedom-loving Americans with the corrupt dictatorship that Putin heads. 

Oops, the name of Kathy Salvi, GOP challenger to Senator Tammy Duckworth, was left off the ballot.

 

Just a mistake, didn't mean to do it, no ill intent meant. 

Oh sure, you bet.

Thanks to the "mistake," Kathy Salvi's name on "hundreds" of ballots mailed out to voters in downstate  Illinois Schuyler County was replaced by Peggy Hubbard, whom Salvi beat in the Republican primary. 

Apparently the error was discovered after voters began returning completed ballots, prompting Schuyler County Clerk Mindy Garrett (who just happens to be a Democrat) to rule out any nasty stuff. Any votes without Salvi's name will be "set aside," yet still will be counted, she said.

Wait. What? Why aren't the ballots considered to be spoiled and discarded? I suppose that the logic is that no one meant to vote for Salvi, so the votes for Duckworth can't be discarded. And yet, any possible votes for Salvi have been cancelled. 

Salvi is demanding a better and more transparent  explanation from Garrett, which so far hasn't been made. As well she should. Illinois has a reputation as a corruption cesspool where one would expect every election to be legit. 

(Read the complete story here in the Chicago Tribune.)

Speaking of Salvi, she's being treated shamefully by state and nation Republican leadership. Turns out that party big wigs have decided that spending money to support Salvi would be wasted because, they must think, that Salvi is a sure loser in the deep blue state of Illinois.

(Read "Salvi stiffed by national and state Republican donors" in Illinois Review.)

Once more, the Illinois Republican party--if it can honestly be said that there is one--is worse than pathetic. Sure, Democrats dominate Illinois, but giving up on Salvi like this is disgraceful.

I know Salvi and she is exactly the kind of candidate party needs if it wants to no longer be comatose. She's smart, decent, independent and honest. She'd be vastly better than the go-along-to-get along Duckworth. 

Even if you think that Duckworth is a sure winner, voters must mark for Salvi to demonstrate that the party has quality candidates whom Republicans care enough about to support.

Here's a puzzle: Why haven't progressives demanded that J. Edgar Hoover's name be sandblasted off the FBI building in D.C.?

Today's FBI has become the mirror image of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's founder who politicized the agency as his personal police force.  

 

Progressives have demanded all kinds of removals--from statues of Washington and Lincoln on down--for every imagined offensive and deviation from moral precepts imposed by the woke. Yet, progressive have been mysteriously silent about why this honorarium to Hoover should remain.

The entrance to the FBI headquarters building in Washington D.C. is proudly displayed with the name of the agency's founder--J. Edgar Hoover. If there ever was someone who violated contemporary progressive rules in spades it was Hoover. 

Sure, he couldn't own slaves, but his secret activities assaulted some of those very laws that the FBI was supposed in enforce. You can get a taste of them here, in History.com. A summary (to list them all would be too longish.) would include his spying and keeping a dossier on Rev. Martin Luther King, Jk, Hoover believed King was a communist and a threat to national security, but more likely  was a threat to Hoover's rigid, right-wing beliefs. Hoover didn't keep King's dossier in his desk, but distributed to the media (to which I can personally attest). 

He compiled a long list of civil rights offenses and used the agency's investigators to blackmail officials  and others he didn't like. For example, he recorded details of President John F. Kennedy's extra-marital affairs.

His power was so complete that he died in office, without ever being subjected to the statuary 10-year-term limit. No one had the guts to confront this autocrat. 

So where are the progressives? If statues of Lincoln meet the woke's cancellation standards, surely Hoover should stand near the head of the line of the deserving to be rubbed out. Or maybe the Hoover-like corruption of the FBI mirrors the corruption and politicization that mars the agency today. Practices that fed the progressive agenda.

In Hoover-like practice, the FBI today is headed by political loyalists who have engineered campaigns to discredit the likes of Donald Trump and parents who want to exercise their right to raise their children as they wish. And a lot more. 

The latest example has been the trial of Igor Danchenko of lying to the FBI. He was acquitted, but durning the trial the FBI's politicization and corruption was on full display. 

Here's a taste of what was revealed as reported by the New York Post:

"Despite Danchenko’s acquittal, the trial produced a series of revelations about the FBI — including testimony from a bureau analyst that it had offered Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy who compiled the dossier, $1 million in October 2016 to make its outrageous claims against Trump stick.

"Court documents filed by Durham last month also indicated the FBI employed Danchenko as a paid confidential source for more than three-and-a-half years — hiring him even as he was being investigated for his role in compiling the dossier. 

"In court testimony last week, Danchenko’s FBI handler revealed the Russian national was paid more than $200,000 for his source work — including up to $3,000 for conducting a single meeting. The handler, Kevin Helson, added that he had requested Danchenko receive a $346,000 farewell payment when the bureau dropped him as a source in October 2020. That request was denied."

Now, FBI whistleblowers are turning up to detail just how corrupt the agency as become

There is hardly any question that Democrats, Hilary Clinton's campaign and other partisans have corrupted the FBI, at least at the leadership level, to defeat Trump's 2020 election and when that failed to launch a years-long, false campaign to discredit the former president.

I have no interest in defending Trump, who should be occupying a loony bin. But the FBI campaign--now established as fact--to use against Democrats' political enemies is no less a corruption of a government agency that is as corrupt as it was under Hoover.

Could that be the explanation of why Hoover has escaped the attention of progressives? Do they want to do anything that would demonstrate to today's Americans just how politically corrupt the FBI can become?

I have no other explanation than the possibility that progressives are so ignorant of history that they don't know that history can repeat itself.

Independent women fleeing Democrats in historic numbers

In a nutshell:  In September, women favored Democrats by 14 points, according to a a New York Times/Siena College poll. Now, independent women favor Republicans by 18 points.

That's a humongous 32-point swing. In just one month.  Staggering. Unheard of. 

As a journalist, I have never seen a swing that large so quickly. I can't say in the history of political polling going back to the days of President Harry S Truman that such a rapid switch is unprecedented. But I can't find or remember it happening.  It is certainly momentous.

And in this, the New York Times, buried the lede of the story--no surprise there. The amazing swing was mentioned in a few paragraphs deep in the story. The story led with news that everyone already knew: That Republicans were gaining an edge, as most voters worry about the economy. Either the editors are stupid or are so blinded by their partisanship that they missed what a student in a freshman in a journalism class would have spotted.

Hardly any need to explain the implications of such a massive shift. Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court scuttled Roe v. Wade, the 1972 decision that legalized abortion and, as is proper in a democratic country, will let the people decide what is legal, Democrats have been predicting a huge swing among independent women onto their side because if you're a women, you are pro-choice, no exceptions. Surely, the mid-term elections would be a referendum on abortion, Democratic strategists decreed. Abortion will become the biggest issue and allow their party to maintain its House majority and firmly control the Senate. 

Instead, the voters who identified abortion as the top issue amounted a mere five percent of those surveyed.

We'll see whose political strategy emerges victorious. But so far the signs aren't auspicious. The Times story noted: "But the poll showed that Republicans opened up a 10-percentage point lead among crucial independent voters, compared with a three-point edge for Democrats in September, as undecided voters moved toward Republicans." [Emphasis added.]

A side note: If you are college educated, you're more likely to vote for Democrats. Puzzling. You'd think that the better educated wouldn't so easily ignore the pressing issues--from inflation to crime and the open border. Maybe that's a commentary about the lousy job that higher education is doing.

I suspected there'd be a shift of independent women last year when I saw the organizing and the activism of suburban women who were outraged the Democrats in general had infected America with their pandemic school closures and the high-and-mighty attitude of school administrators, union leaders and the Biden admonition, an attitude that unbelievably denied the right of parents to raiser their kids as they think is best. 

More women who said they were Democrats were now voting for "the other guy. Think Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Democrats for the most part still don't see it. At least the party's progressive wing. How long will it take intelligent, moderate Democrats to rise up and take their party back? If there is a party left after the mid-term elections.

Chicago moves to suppress voters. Florida doesn't.

Parody

My blank mail-in ballot for the coming election arrived recently at my Florida home, but it's way too difficult to handle. My vote is being suppressed!

First of all, they expect me to walk to a mail box to send in my ballot to be counted. Good Lord! Why aren't they sending someone around to my house to pick it up?! 

Secondly, when I looked at the instructions for filling out the ballot they were clearly meant to suppress  the minority vote. Even though the ballot and instructions were in English and Spanish. What about Gaelic, my ancestors native tongue? This is offensive. This is not equity!

The complexity of the instructions is an arrow directed at people of color. I mean, you've got to put the completed ballot into a secrecy envelope that is inserted into the mailer. As if that's not complicated enough, you've got to remember to sign and date it. Far too complex for a person of color to understand.

Just requiring me to sign it is offensive. They're going to use my signature to see if it is identical to the  signature on my voter registration signature. What right does anyone have to question my honesyt? Just think of how many people, especially people of color, will forget to do it thereby invalidating my ballot.

The demand that my mailed-in ballot must be received before 7 p.m. on voting day surely is disenfranchisement. I demand that I have the right to vote when, where and how I vote. 

It's a threat to democracy.

Illinois governor debate scorecard: Bailey +1; Pritzker -3

 Most reports of the recent debate between Democrat incumbent Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Republican challenger, state Sen. Darren Bailey  focused on the their slinging back and forth charges that the other guy is lying

So, in the court of whose lying, it's a wash. Every politician prevaricates, fibs, embellishes, fabricates and equivocates so both  Pritzker and Bailey were essentially correct.

But on the issues, Bailey too often looked as if he was dodging and weaving. He could have scored more points if he had been better prepared and if he had more confidently, pointedly and clearly provided an answers.

For example, he knew he was going to be asked about the Democratic's biggest issue: abortion. He correctly said that restricting abortion in deep blue Illinois is practically and politically impossible. It came off as evasive. He should have attacked in detail the Democrats and Pritzker for enacting the most radical, extreme and permissive abortion law in the country. Under it, abortion is permitted without exceptions up to the moment of birth for any reason. Parents can legally be kept in the dark about their pre-teen or teenage daughter. 

That allowed Pritzker to blow hard about how he is protecting a woman's "right to choose." If only one of the moderators had asked him at what stage of pregnancy should abortion be restricted. 15 weeks? Viability?  Never? If the moderators had followed up, he would have had to say never.

But Pritzker is much more funderable on the issues that more voters care about. His claims about his "balanced" budget can be discarded on their face: He "balanced" the budget thanks to the federal one-time Covid-19 pandemic aid. It was so generous that Pritzker used it to fund teachers' and other government workers's pensions--something that the law doesn't permit. 

More to the point, the federal aid is a one-time payment. So, what happens next year when the munificent federal aid is not available. I guess he'll have to perform another slight of hand to balance next year's budget when the aid disappears. (I would have asked him if he became president would he continue to hand such larges to the states.)

Another major issue is the governor's overly wrought pandemic response. Lockdowns, classrooms shut down, restaurants and small businesses closed. He literally killed jobs. Would someone please tell him that he wasn't "following the science?" The comprehensive science that includes not just the sometimes wrong advice (actually, demands) of the likes of Tony Fauci but he ignored the science about how children have suffered emotionally, educationally and more from being subject "remote learning." Or how could you expect an economy not to suffer from shutting down the...economy.

Pritzker can be criticized on numerous fronts (see my new book, The governor you don't know, for the details). But my strongest criticism is reserved for the "journalists" who questioned the candidates. They made the mistake that so many reporters do these days: Not listening. There were multiple opportunities for follow-up questions that would have dug deeper into the candidates' answers. But, no. For the moderators, this was their moment. To show off. They had their prepared questions and come hell or high water, they would ask them. So, the debate wandered here and there, directionless and less useful than could be. Leaving more questions unanswered than answered.

So, who lost the debate? The viewers.

I'm interviewed by Jeanne Ives on her podcast, "The Real Story"

 

Jeanne Ives ran as a true conservative again Bruce Rauner and narrowly beat the incumbent governor. She's still active as one of the genuine voices of conservatism in Illinois.

We talked about Illinois politics, the captured media and lots more. We also discussed my book, "The Governor You Don't Know."  You can get a PDF or an audio version here: https://youtu.be/RFdUPxnTHbg  It's free. 

My new book: "The governor you don't know: What every Illinoisan should know."

 Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker represents just about everything that nudged me out of the liberal Democrat fold. I was a John F. Kennedy Democrat and I voted for every Democratic presidential candidate from Lyndon B. Johnson through Michael Dukakis. That includes George McGovern, who then was as far left as the Democrat Party would go (but not Americans as he lost every state except one).

But I realized that there was a growing difference between the party and me. It was a rift that turned into a yawning gap. It wasn't so much that I had changed, but that the party was moving away from me until I was utterly abandoned.

Here's an example of how it happened. When the HIV/AIDS epidemic broke out in the mid-1980s, the widely accepted public health measure to combat the disease was contact tracing. I wrote a Sun-Times column supporting the science, but not only did liberals disagree, they accused me of being homophobic. 

Why? The liberal agenda abruptly changed, so far to the left that it denied the science. You couldn't contract trace because it would be "embarrassing." It would needlessly exposed men who hadn't come out of the closet to discrimination. It would discourage gay men from getting tested. Laws were passed by pseudo-liberals to "protect' the identity of gay men. In Illinois, the long-established rule that required a blood test before marriage was abolished. And if you can believe this: One reason to end the required blood tests because "too many" people were getting married outside of Illinois to avoid getting the test. (Just think of the business the state was losing!)

Meanwhile, the disease spread to others: women and their newborns. Seriously ill patients who were infected from infected donated blood. So many of those who died from what was considered to be a death sentence. Effective treatments were eventually developed, but even without them, liberals and Democrats early on believed that it was better that people would die instead of properly following the science.

The liberal/progressive/Democrat left ironically have raised the anti-science banner against anyone who disagreed, even on legitimate scientific grounds, with the favored "remedies" to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. In truth, liberals/progressives/Democrats were the first to so crassly exploit science to run things. Trouble is, hardly anyone remembers. 

So, read my book to understand my loathing of Pritzker and the progressive agenda and why they have betrayed my liberal values.

The book is free. If you haven't received one in the mail, you can find it at pritzkerbook.com where you can download a PDF or audio version. Thank you for reading.

A "journalist" explains why reporting "both sides is "dangerous" for democracy. Seriously.

Shame on you if you believe that journalists should report both sides of a political issue. That's because journalists are supposed to protect you from stuff you don't need or shouldn't know by not reporting the bad stuff.

That's the premise from the exulted heights of the Poynter Institute, a self-appointed guardian of truth and beauty. You'll find that's the highlighted opinion by its chief media critic, one Tom Jones under the headline: "CNN 'hewing toward the center' is not necessarily good for our democracy." He wrote:

"Pushing for fairness and completeness in journalism as well as fewer “hot takes” is never a bad idea. But that’s not the same as making sure you present both sides. Sometimes, the other side shouldn’t be given a voice, particularly if that side’s argument is based on lies or pushes harmful agendas." 

Jones wrote that as a tsk-tsk he awarded to for a Chicago Tribune editorial that boldly violated the wisdom currently infecting "journalism" as practiced by today's media: "CNN is hewing toward the center? That's good for our democracy."

Indeed it is. After echoing MSNBC's liberal bias for years, the new CNN boss thought it was a good idea just to present the news instead of slanting it. That leaves MSNBC and FoxNews to clearly represent the opposing ideologies. That's a reflection of 18th and 19th century American newspapers that were openly partisan. You'd read the paper that best represents your views and basically ignore the other side. Eventually the racket became a profession as it adopted the principle that you should report both side or, more realistically, all sides.

So, now we have returned to the old, discredited "journalism" of reporting only one side. When I broke into the field decades ago, it was acknowledged that there is a certain degree of subjectivity is selecting what should be included in the story. Especially if it was a short story of just a few hundreds words. The decision wasn't based on the reporter's biases, but on the idea that readers are justified to demand reading all sides. 

Now the "journalist's" decision is based only on what he believes is the "truth." (How odd, when a liberal principle has been there's no objective truth.) 

So, according to Jones' dictates, here's how I should report his view of journalism: Not at all.  It must be so, because I haver determine that he's passing out "misinformation" or "disinformation." You the reader must be protected from his erroneous beliefs. They must not see the light of day. They must not be allowed to show up on social media. 

He'll no doubt reply that his view is the truth and mine is not. Except in my perspective, my view is the truth and not his.  Here's a lesson:: So much of the reporting on the cause and effects of the Covid-19 pandemic were wrong. Does that mean that they shouldn't have been reported? Shouldn't the media have been more diligent in reporting the "truth" about shutting down classrooms instead of allowing themselves to be the voice of the "wrong" side? 

At best, this leads to a stand-off in which some readers are denied the entire story. Well, here's another truth: poorly informed citizens of the wide range of views among all Americans isn't good for democracy. Even if some of those views are harebrained. 

With all the woke/liberal/progressive/Democratic rhetoric about how democracy is in danger these days, perhaps they'd do us all a service and strengthen democracy by climbing down from their exulted throne and finally listen with a curious, patient and open mind to the rest of us. 

Where have all the hurricanes gone?

 

Wasn't this hurricane season supposed to be among the worst because of global warming, oops, I mean  (in accordance with woke high priests) climate change?

In Florida, we're still waiting. I've probably jinxed it; one might be arriving shortly. The first one now is hitting Puerto Rico. It was a category one, now category 3--much less destructive than the category 5 storms that cause the most damage.

Aside from this late arrival, this was supposed to be a continuation of the growing number of hurricanes, as predicted by, well, you know whom--the usual chicken littles. Here, for example is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an arm of the Commerce Department, which under the Biden administration is an arm of Susan Rice and other puppeteers:

Forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service, are predicting above-average hurricane activity this year — which would make it the seventh consecutive above-average hurricane season. NOAA’s outlook for the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, which extends from June 1 to November 30, predicts a 65% chance of an above-normal season, a 25% chance of a near-normal season and a 10% chance of a below-normal season. [Emphasis added.]

Guess we beat the odds. As even NPR--the taxpayer funded arm of climate change hysterics-- reported about the slow-starting hurricane season: "This is quite unusual and is the first time that has occurred since 1997, and is only the third time that has happened since 1950." 

But, oh dear, things still can get horrible,  NOAA still expects above normal Atlantic hurricane season.  (Updated today.) And every admission that somehow the hurricane season got off to a slow start comes with a warning that things could get a lot worse, Just one category 5 hurricane could make for a historic season, don't ya know. 

Maybe so. But I'm waiting to hear the "experts" tell us that climate change explains all this. If there's flooding, blame climate change, If there's a drought, blame climate change. Well, here's a flash: The climate's always changing from the first appearance of climate. We're in a warming cycle, but if were in a cooling cycle, the same experts would be warning that Chicago will get buried by a mile-high glacier, like it once was not too long ago in Earth age.

Yet, the media, notoriously ignorant about real science, keep suggesting that a single event is sure proof that man-made warming is real. (Never mind that the public health experts junked their expertise by inaccurately, whether by design or incompetence, giving dangerous and wrong advice about snuffing out the Covid-19 pandemic.)

As the New York Times reported about the storm surge in Alaska:

Brian Brettschneider, a climatologist based in Anchorage, said global warming had likely contributed to the severity of the storm. The explosive development of storms this far north is atypical, he said, because water temperatures are normally too cold to allow tropical cyclones to form.“There’s a strong argument to be made that climate change tipped the scales to favor this storm,” he said. [Emphasis added.]

Of course.  

NOAA continues to document how the climate is changing, how sea ice is melting and how carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are rising, as it should. And I'm not going to be guilty of denying that the climate is changing because of a one-off event, as do so many media . 

But there's this; Can mankind really control the climate? Do you think that we can turn the climate stable, forever unchanged to suit our perceived needs? Is not it arrogant to argue that, at least at this point, that we can turn the climate into our handmaid, as if we had a thermostat that we can turn up or down? Can we be certain that every climate variable, known and yet to be known, is correct and accounted for in the climate models upon which so much of the predictions of disaster based?

There's no such thing as "settled science" as Al Gore and his doomsayer acolytes have said about climate change. Instead, climate change, just like the pandemic, has become politicized to serve the purpose of someone or something. 

So, let's truly "follow the scene" instead of corrupting it. 

 

Joe Biden is angry as hell and he won't take it anymore

Wow, that was some speech that President Joe Biden gave in which he compared "MAGA" Republicans to, well, just about anything despicable. After it was promised that this would be a unifying speech on the "battle for the soul of the nation."

Instead it was designed to give Democrats what they really wanted from Biden: Blood red meat passionately denouncing Republicans as threats to democracy and worthy of, I guess, knee capping. Hip hurray! That, along with abortion, should give  Democrats the power to stem the expected Red Tide and make a better showing in the mid-term elections. 

Well, I'm not taking it anymore either. I'll stamp my feet and give Biden my middle finger because he has accused, in a remarkable new way,  tens of millions of Republican voters of asasulting democracy by, gasp, having voted for Donald Trump. 

Attacking voters seems to be the new and goofy Democratic strategy for "bringing folks together." Take Charlie [Bend with the Wind] Crist, the one-tine Republican, one-time independent and now a Democrat running for Florida governor against Ron DeSantis. Cris told a reporter, "Those who support DeSantis should stay with him and vote for him. And. I. Don't. Want. Your. vote! If you have that hate in your heart, keep it there!"

Not that Trump also didn't hurl insults at his opponents. But I don't recall Trump or anyone else of either party telling people to vote for the other guy because he is so rotten to the core. Just like you are. Biden's and Cris' hatred for the opposition speaks volumes about their superior and insufferable self-regard. 

How the hell do either of the two know what's in the hearts of their political opposition. Painting the 74 million who voted for Trump with too-broad of a brush. It's ignorant and stupid.

There I'm speaking of those two and not all their supporters. I only wish that they would extend to Trump supporters the respect that every American citizen deserves. Instead some Democrats, like Hillary Clinton who called her opposition a "basket of deplorables" comprised of homophobes and other creeps. Ignorant shit-kickers who lack the sophistication and smarts of the elite progressives.

The saddest thing of all about Biden's speech is that he missed a monumental opportunity to enter the history books. Imagine if instead slandering his opponents, he actually lead Americans out of the swamp. Suppose he instead shocked the nation with these words:

In the spirit of working together, I will visit the southern border and see for myself the humanitarian crisis that our broken immigration laws have created. 

I will not ignore the plight of freedom-seeking people who drown trying to cross the Rio Grande. I'll talk to the unaccompanied children who face the terror of landing in a strange new land where people don't speak their languages. I'll check out the arrangements to temporarily house them. Little girls who are raped or sold as sex slaves will receive comfort and justice. I'll evaluate the steps that law enforcement is taking to stem the tide of fentanyl that is killing Americans.

 I'll meet with locals--Texans, mayors, property owners, churches, social services agencies--to see for myself the burdens and costs of trying to accommodate uninvited strangers. To see the strains on their resources. I'll try to get a handle on where these immigrants are heading and settling.

And I will recognize  that allowing millions of people to illegally sneak in a back door is terribly unfair to people who legally seek entry to America.

Everyone agrees that our immigration laws are broken. They are a confusing maze. I'll bet that only a handful of people watching my speech can accurately echo what the laws say in detail. They need to be simplified, based on the principle that America is indeed the open door to liberty.

My hope is that the visit will become a foundation for legislation that I will soon send to Congress to address the crisis on the border and to straighten out the hodgepodge of laws now on the books. It will contain items that both sides want, but not ones that fail to serve our national interest. We'll take another look at finishing The Wall and providing a path for those who have crossed illegally so they still can enjoy the fruits of our freedoms.

Some will say this is an impossible task. We will try because as hard as it will be, it is possible--if we acknowledge that there  people of good will on both sides. That we return to the principle that makes democracy work--the need for compromise, respect and mutual understanding.

My fellow Americans let us begin this work now.

If he had taken such a brave stand, he would be a statesman, a hero. He could have been a contender. Both sides will lose some of their base if Biden acts a true leader and others join the effort. But such  stunning might even be politically advantageous.It would prop up an unpopular president.  

Pie-in-the-Sky? Won't happen, ever? Especially before an election when both sides as digging with their unmoving demands. 

What we now know with unprecedented clarity that if we don't, democracy indeed will die. 

Donald Trump plunges deeper into lunacy

Even for ex-president Donald Trump, this was so extraordinary that no one probably even thought about doing it.

As a "remedy" for the "stolen" presidential election, he called for a reboot. He tweeted (the caps and the puzzling quotation marks, are his):

Now it comes out, conclusively, that the FBI BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION, knowing that if they didn't, "Trump would have easily won the 2020 Presidential election." This is massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country. REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner [him, of course] or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election immediately.

Huh? What?!

Err...There's a small matter of the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, that prescribes in detail how the election is run. Never mind that it says the president shall be elected for a term of four years, along with the vice president.

Certain questions immediately spring to mind:

How the hell is this supposed to work? Who has the power to declare the prior election to be null and void? Who has the power to order an immediate new election? President Joe Biden? Or maybe the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who will stage a coup with a go-along military?

How do you get past the little something in the Constitution that is so clear and present that it can be altered, changed or overridden without the prescribed procedure for its amendment? Certainly there'd be a lawsuit that any federal judge, who hasn't lost his mind, would rule against the very idea at the immediate outset. Without even getting close to the Supreme Court hearing the case.

Can individual states--the Blue ones--opt out of a new election? Would it set off a civil war with the National Guards of Blue and Red states in combat? 

Would Mike Pence--the guy who Trump loathes because the vice president refused to illegally overturn the election on Jan. 6th--be allowed to share the ticket with Trump? Or would Trump get to pick a new vice presidential candidate? What idiot would want to run with such a crazy man?

Aside from the legal absurdity of such an idea, there are the logistics. Who establishes the rules for how to proceed with a new election and how would such a complex and costly process be carried out?

My God, the idea of an unconstitutional, unreal and illegal coup is so absurd and frightening that it could only spring from a disturbed mind. From an egomaniac who thinks that the entire country is so in love with him that they'd junk the Constitution. Mind you, Trump claims to represent the GOP, a party whose heart and soul is allegiance to the sanctity of the Constitution. 

Maybe Trump was joking. Maybe it was a "trial balloon" that has all the buoyancy of a led ballon. 

Whatever. This peek into the troubled mind of Trump should scare the hell out of anyone, I mean even those who can look beyond his personal faults or his successful policies and who think he should return to the Oval Office. 

Once again, Trump has irrefutably demonstrated that he should never again be allowed even close to the White House. 

Illegal immigrants arrive in Chicago; Mayor Lightfoot says bring them on.

As if Chicago, a city already circling the drain, could afford to feed, house, educate and care for them entirely on the taxpayer's dime. And Gov. Prtizker also threw out the welcome mat--no problem--because the state, flush with pandemic "emergency" cash can afford anything and everything.

A Lightfoot spokesman said the city "will respond with essential services while these individuals navigate the next steps of their journey and our community partners have been working diligently to provide a safety net.” Lightfoot added that it's a problem created by "the prior administration."

A Pritzker spokesperson promised  "health care screenings, the offer of COVID-19 vaccines and emergency housing, along with additional legal resettlement assistance.” 

Naturally, Chicago is a "sanctuary city" so to be consistent, Lightfoot had no choice but to be welcoming. Her response is distinctly different than mayors of Washington D.C and New York, who squealed about how unfair it was to drop this problem on their doorsteps.

A response:

1. The problem wasn't created by the "prior administration." Only someone so blinded by ideology or partisanship can fail to recognize the million-yes more than a million--illegal immigrants have "walked" across the southern border. The daily coverage of the hundreds and thousands of people wading across the Rio Grande River and walking into America is documented by Fox News. Of course, you can't believe anything Fox News reports. They've paid all those people every day to stage a walk on.

2. The burdens being imposed on northern, Democratic sanctuary cities is nothing compared to what border cities, states and towns must pay. No southern, red state escapes the arriving buses and charter flights arriving in the dark of night.

Of course, Lightfoot has nothing to say about the deadly Fentanyl from China being smuggled across the border by the Mexican drug cartels and the number of Chicagoans are killed. Not that the city is counting.

The hundreds, if not the thousands, of illegal immigrants have drowned, died of thirst in the desert, raped, sex trafficked and traumatized children have been the direct result of the Biden administration.Yet the administration claims that the border is "closed." 

President Joe Biden and his administration are stupid enough to believe that Americans are stupid enough to accept apolicy that ignores the onslaught on the southern border. 

Meanwhile, as the New York Times reported: "Nine migrants drown as dozens are set down Rio Grande: A large group attempting to cross into Texas was overcome by a fast-moving current, the authorities said."

The Democrats sell themselves as the party of compassion. How compassionate is it to stand by while your policies are killing people?

This is the Barbershop's new location, for now anyway.

The Tribune has shut down ChicagoNow and thus blacking out my Barbershop and many other blogs. It was done without notificatioin and everyone on there no longer can access their archives, mailing list and posting dashboard. Please earmark this page because this will serve as my temporary blog until I can figure out what to do.