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Merry Christmas to you and yours, and I hope you have a wonderful new year.
My gift was the Omicron variant. Caught it at a Slava (Serbian celebration of patron saint, terrible food but excellent alcohol, held indoors with 20 people). The hosts (my brother-in-law and sister-in-law) tested positive and exhibit flu-like symptoms. I am asymptomatic.
Mrs. Mick, her parents, our sons were at the same event, all test negative so far.
Hate to say it, but this sounds like the kind of ongoing forgiveness that Americans tend to extend to really old senior citizens (75+). “Oh listen to crazy Aunt Ruth.” No different for this old knucklehead, Joe Biden. I realize it’s a cosmic joke that he’s our president, but what are you going to do?
African-Americans who voted for Biden en masse, who gave the Democratic primary to Biden (the only candidate who could beat Trump at the time) now have the highest unemployment rate amongst all ethnic groups.
Despite June’s positive jobs numbers, Black workers continue to face high unemployment
It went down during Obama’s terms starting at 11%, then declining to about 5%) and Trump’s presidency by about 1% per year on average, from a high of 17% to about 6.5%, then back up to 15.4% during the pandemic and still at 10%. The white unemployment rate is close to what it was before the pandemic, the black unemployment rate is another 4% higher, give or take.
One thing I never understood about Kamala Harris. She was Willie Brown’s girlfriend when she was in her late 20s and he was in his 60s (and married). Herb Caen used to write about them regularly. They saw each other for two years.
Willie Brown is very open about the fact that he gave her her first two political positions. When pressed, he told a reporter “and I gave her a BMW, too.”
With all the #metoo noise, I’m surprised that no one took Harris to task. Unlike the women demeaned and raped by Harvey Weinstein, Harris did the opposite. She used sex, apparently, to gain political positions, to get close to a powerful man, and perhaps to acquire a fine German automobile.
So why aren’t women up in arms over Harris’s past?
I must say, Spielberg should have set this somewhere other than NY. It just doesn’t play in DiBlasio’s random street crime city. The story is out of time in this city.
Maybe Cupertino…
Not to worry. The Legal Intelligencer claims that the media is actually harsher on Democrats.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/why-the-media-is-worse-for-biden-than-trump.html
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Dems want Biden to start swinging at Republicans, BTW. But can he? Can he go seriously negative, especially when he needs Republican cooperation to approve his agenda?
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/29/dems-want-biden-to-go-negative-523427
Exhibit #32,478 in favor of one-way racism. If you’re not caucasian you are kind and good and virtuous and by definition, you can do no wrong.
If you’re caucasian, well, the formula is simple
white = white supremacist, fundamentally racist at your core.
A few thoughts:
- These were three genuinely bad guys, convicted of bad things, seeking to commit mayhem during civil unrest. These weren’t protestors as they’re generally defined.
- Kyle Rittenhouse faced a media onslaught (as did the Covington kid, and others) who desperately seek white supremacists where they generally don’t exist. The number of actual white supremacists in this country is a very small number compared with the “white = white supremacist” narrative of certain media and interest groups in this country.
- If the verdict had been anything other than not guilty on all counts, I fear what would become of our collective ability to defend ourselves and our property. It was such a ridiculously obvious outcome, yet there are numerous elements who are shocked, aghast, etc., when really they prefer anarchy and they certainly don’t want citizens to own firearms or for there to be a Second amendment.
- Those same interest groups and media keep using the term “crossing state lines” as if that’s somehow derogatory. Nothing illegal about crossing a state line. He had the gun legally, procured it in the state, and the interest groups are implying or stating that he went hunting for legitimate protestors.
- When I was 14, a friend of mine and I were walking in downtown Santa Cruz, one of the street kids took umbrage to our looks, and attacked my friend with his skateboard. The kid was never the same, had to drop out of school. It’s a big, heavy, edged weapon that should be treated as such.
- The fact that Grosskreutz was wearing a paramedic hat and the fact that his hands were in the air meant that he was disguising his intentions with the gun. He clearly tried to get the drop on Rittenhouse. Why this hasn’t been reported (or charged) is a mystery.
- The media keeps referring to Rittenhouse as “this kid,” essentially stating or implying that he’s too young to be a protective force in the middle of a riot, excuse me, a peaceful protest. 17 year olds enlist in the military. About 6% of enlistees are 17 (with parental permission), so there’s 5,000 – 7,000 17 year olds in the U. S. military at any time. They’re old enough.
- Part of the argument in favor of guns is that it levels the playing field. A much smaller or outnumbered person has protection…as did Rittenhouse.
My family’s in the prune business, a business that my grandfather (Stanford, ’42) started and ran successfully through three generations. It exists today, and still has offices in Santa Clara Valley, though the operations are about three hours north.
A few decades ago, John Cleese was approached by representatives of the prune industry, thinking that he would be a terrific spokesperson in advertisements and so forth. Apparently, Cleese was really keen to do it (after all, it is the most humorous all fruits…), but his manager talked him out of it with some version of a “you’re-not-getting-any-younger-and-people-already-think-you’re-old-and-this-prune-thing-will-put-you-over-the-brink.” Too bad…
It’s amazing that with all the criticism of Trump being a pariah internationally, the U.S. was actually taken seriously with him at the helm. I don’t think anybody takes Biden seriously. Even his staff. It’s one of the strangest, weakest leadership profiles that I have ever seen outside of a family business. China may be thinking “now’s our chance.”
So that raises the realistic, non-partisan question: who was the last President that was broadly respected as an international player? Probably not Trum. Not Obama. Not Bush II. Clinton? Maybe. Bush I? Definitely.
