Gratitude

Rant on. I am getting damned tired of these woke-ass, broke-ass, stupid-assed cancel culture snowflakes! Apparently, it wasn’t enough for them to ruin just about everything in our daily lives, now they’re going after the holidays! Check it out:

Thanksgiving. It used to be over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house we go. But not so fast pilgrim, you don’t need to be traveling anywhere this Thanksgiving since you’ll be contributing to climate change if you are. Okay, fine, you can always celebrate turkey day at home. But, wait, you shouldn’t be eating that turkey either, because raising the fowl that we devour every year, produces a large carbon footprint that’s environmentally unacceptable. Alright, at least you can use it as a day for giving thanks. Nope can’t do that either, since the Pilgrims were interlopers on land that the indigenous peoples claimed as their own, so how can anyone be thankful for something like that? Enough already! Squanto (full name Tisquantum), the native credited with saving the Pilgrims’ bacon, was kidnapped and taken to Spain where he was sold into bondage. Fortunately, he was sold to an order of local monks who educated him and gave him back his freedom. He made his way to England and eventually was able to return to his native village in America, only to find that it had been wiped out by a plague. Since he spoke English, he became instrumental in assisting the Pilgrims in their negotiations with the local Pokanokets Indians. He introduced them to the fur trade and taught them how to sow and cultivate native crops, since the seeds they brought with them mostly failed to germinate. Maybe it’s just me, but why wouldn’t you want to give thanks for having an individual like this in your corner?

Christmas. Most of us have seen that Peloton commercial and know about the blowback the company received calling it sexist, misogynist, an example of the patriarchy, elitist, you name it. It’s gotten so bad that the company has lost approximately one and a half billion dollars of its market value, that’s billion with a “B”. I’ve watched that commercial enough times to be intimate with its content, but figured I’d watch it a few more times with a critical eye towards the events in question and do a little dissection on the side. So, here’s my take on things. This piece of equipment costs two grand. Anyone who’s going to give this as a gift is most likely doing so because someone’s been dropping hints, or they plan on using it themselves as well. The fact that this wife was filming herself on her phone means that she’s either keeping a video journal of her endeavors, posting on social media, or both. How many of us would voluntarily engage in such acts if we weren’t instrumental in the purchase of this gear or were feeling some sort of pressure to use it? Towards the end of the commercial, she’s watching this journal on the big screen TV with her hubby, expressing her gratitude and talking about how this journey of hers has stretched back over the past year and the metamorphosis that she’s undergone. Any idea on the cost of an exercise subscription? Thirty-nine bucks a month. That’s almost four hundred eighty dollars for the year. That’s a health club membership right there. Again, who’s spending that kind of coin unless they’re serious about what they’re doing?

So yeah. Gratitude is a big thing for me, and in both cases, it was pretty obvious that these idiots were long on the criticism aspect and short on the gratitude side of the house. But then again, I’m not surprised. These knuckleheads would see the glass as half empty despite everyone else calling it three quarters full. So, my recommendation to these fools would be to grow up, get over it, get on with your lives, and if you don’t have one, get one! That way, the rest of us can get on with ours!!  Rant off.

Impeach Trump, please!!

Apparently, there have been several recent national polls taken that indicate critical mass may have been reached for the impeachment and removal of the President of the United States. This, in and of itself, is no small task and is not something to be taken lightly. If this is the case, then a vote before the full House should be a no-brainer to officially kick off an impeachment inquiry.

What we’ve been witness to instead, has been a series of investigations by various committees (Judiciary, Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs) being conducted with the express purpose of stitching together enough “evidence”, I would assume, to bring about a vote for Articles of Impeachment. The majority in these committees gets to decide the rules of the game, so to speak, which includes who they want to call as witnesses before the committees, evidence to be admitted, conduct of the committee meetings, etc. The minority on the other hand, has little to no say in what happens and is along for the ride. Were there to be a vote to actually begin an inquiry, the minority would have the same abilities and authorities that the majority currently enjoys. Problem is, that vote would put a lot of Democrat legislators on record as having voted for impeachment (even though it was only to begin an inquiry). These same legislators ran on getting business done in DC and won their seats in districts that the President carried in 2016, and that has a lot of them very fearful about their chances for re-election.

Speaker Pelosi has been handed a conundrum of sorts, courtesy of the more radical elements in her party. Either press on with an attempt to impeach the President, satisfying the radicals, or play it safe and not go down that road, in the hopes of preserving her majority in the House. Her compromise (and not a very good one, at that) has been to commission the aforementioned committees. The ability of the majority to control the messaging coming out of these bodies, courtesy of well-placed leaks and an all too compliant media, have helped steer the narrative and public opinion in a direction more favorable to the Democrats.

For the President to get a fair shake, given all that has occurred, his only recourse may be for this mess to wind up in front of the Senate in a trial. At least there he’ll have the benefit of due process, a measure of reliable judicial processes and other rights accorded to the accused in a criminal proceeding (although this process is more political in nature). Since these proceedings will be no doubt be made public, it’s here the hoax that has been foisted on the American people will finally be laid bare. They will finally see the veil of secrecy that has masked these House investigations pulled back, exposing corrupt intent, a complete lack of candor and transparency, and an unwillingness to follow the rule of law.

Americans are a fair-minded people. They understand that politics at times can be a rough and tumble game played by some unsavory characters. What they cannot and will not accept though, are repeated attempts by one side at railroading an individual for no reason other than the fact that their candidate didn’t win the last election and that they don’t like the bedside manner of the individual who did win. This sort of behavior is sure to invoke the ire of an electorate that feels it has been lied to and used as a political prop on multiple occasions. Speaker Pelosi would do well to remember this, but I already think she does.

If I were to take the long view and offer up a plausible hypothesis as to all that has transpired and what is yet to come, it would go something like this: Mrs. Pelosi realizes that the only way to placate the bloodthirsty hordes is to try and offer the President’s head on a silver platter via the impeachment process. Knowing full well that “there’s no there there”, blowback is sure to follow if there is a trial in the Senate.  A trial that would lead to the eventual acquittal of the President and potentially cost her party its Majority in the House. Even if she managed to hold onto her majority, the aftermath would afford her and Democrat leadership the opportunity to re-exert influence over the party, since the more extreme elements would no longer have a leg to stand on. Once the dust has settled, I see two clear winners coming out of this, Speaker Pelosi and the President.

Liberal Jihadis

The link below is an article written by Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch, back in August of this year. In it, he makes the claim that Muslims and Christians (and Jews for that matter) do not worship the same God.

Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?

After reading this article, what I came away with was not that Muslims don’t worship the same God, but that they consider all of what occurs in the universe to be totally random, capricious, and arbitrary in nature. Hence a God who makes decisions affecting all of us that have no basis in reason, or any sort of a master plan. In fact, as far as our fates are concerned, life is nothing more than a roll of the cosmic dice and we’re just along for the ride. Free will and the right to self-determination are anathema to this belief structure, which is why the phrase “Allah willing” seems most apropos. More to the point, I’m not surprised that the far left has embraced protecting an ideology that is antithetical to our core beliefs.

Let me explain. The far left has had this dubious flirtation with expansionist totalitarian ideologies going back to the period between the first and second world wars. Back then, it was Soviet style Communism and the promises it held out for a more just and equal society. But, just like in Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, some folks were going to be more equal than others. These folks, the elite, which is the label that needs to be hung on them, were going to be the ones who controlled what actually happened. Which meant that, whatever decisions they made, everyone else would have to abide by them, regardless of the effects they may have had on the rest of us. Random, arbitrary, and capricious edicts and fiats became the law of the land in countries where this brand of Socialism was in practice: think Soviet Russia, Mao’s China, Cambodia under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and let’s not forget present day Venezuela under the Chavistas and Cuba under the Castros.

If you listen to some of our current day politicos, you can see this sort of thinking in play. The so-called Squad is a good example of this. The Green New Deal, the supposed brainchild of Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, is really part of a larger plan to radically transform the US economy under the guise of saving the planet. The Congresswoman’s former chief of staff (Saikat Chakrabarti) admitted as much during an interview with a progressive media outlet. As an aside, Mr. Chakrabarti is also one the founders of a group known as the Justice Democrats, the real power behind the throne when it comes to rooting out the motivations of the Squad and its pronouncements. In fact, the Green New Deal is part of a larger platform espoused by the group. BDS (boycott, divest, and sanction Israel), abolishing ICE, and ending the “broken windows” policing concept are among the more contentious aspects of this agenda.

More telling, is the fact that this mindset has been driving the thought processes of the political left to the point that the vast majority of candidates running for the presidential nomination of the Democrat party have embraced this mantra. They, their supporters, and their touts in the media and Hollywood, have absolutely no problem getting preachy with the rest of us about the things we should or shouldn’t be doing, saying, or even thinking.

Anyone who decides to question, or stray from this new liberal orthodoxy (read extreme progressivism), runs the risk of becoming a victim of the angry mob. Which brings me to the conclusion that jihadists and their terror/bullying tactics seem to fit in nicely with the leftist ideology the Democrat party is now embracing. These are tools designed to bring about acquiescence and enforce compliance on the masses, making us much easier to govern (read rule). For those who understand the limits of power, it is considered a means to an end, no more, no less. Of course, for those who seek power as an end unto itself, there will be no limit to the power they crave.