Hedontic Adaptation

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Remember when you got a new 45 rpm record with a song you just loved? It had a “hook” in it that you couldn’t get out of your mind. You played it over and over again. You knew every note, every lyric. You hummed it to yourself. You sang it in the shower. It caused an emotional response.

At some point, you simply got tired of it.

This phenomenon is called Hedonic Adaptation. It’s the concept that when we experience something enjoyable repeatedly or in excess, our emotional response to it diminishes over time. Essentially, we get used to it, and it no longer feels as special or exciting.

BEWARE OF THIS PHENOMENON when reading all the GOOD headlines and associated articles.

We’re getting too used to the announcements of ICE/CBP/DEA/ATF/FBI/Local LEO roundups of illegal aliens.

We’re getting too used to the fact that our border is NOW closed!

We’re becoming blasé about the return of normalcy.

We must resist the tendency to expect “our next fix” of good news.

We must continue to celebrate that law and order is slowly but surely coming back to our land.

We must lengthen our attention spans, step back and look at the big picture of the turnaround that is occurring in America and not expect a rah rah headline every day, every hour or every minute.

You get the idea.

Meanwhile, let’s enjoy watching the Democrats continue to make fools of themselves.

Let’s enjoy seeing videos of multi-colored-hair losers prancing around with their stupid signs, chanting their trite and childish slogans led by Dem(agogue), hypocrite, leftist ‘leaders’ (Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, Murphy, Hogg, AOC, Ohmar, Raskin, and so many other clowns…).

Let’s laugh together.

Let’s not allow ourselves get tired of this!

It’s Hard to Hold Down the Bile

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As I leaf through the images of the 50501 protests around the country I’m sickened by what I see. The detritus of humanity: the unproductive, the losers, the self-absorbed, the ignorant, the spoiled, the impetuous, the insolent, the corrupt, the desperate-for-attention, the FOMO, the lemmings, the addled, the dumbed-down, the brain-polluted, the brain-dead, the indolent, the limp-wristed underbelly of our society with their multi-colored hair, pre-printed placards and obnoxious, droning “Hey Hey Ho Ho” chants…I’m disgusted by it all.

How sick is this? From what you recall of history, is this not the substance of the communist revolution? That may sound hyperbolic, but to suggest that these orchestrated “protests” are similar to the 18th century uprisings is not fanciful.

Yes, I know I’m supposed to be tolerant of all people, open to dialogue, respectful of different opinions.

But these people (I hesitate to call them that… ‘vermin’ is more apt) don’t have opinions, they won’t listen to reason or facts or arguments based on reality. They don’t even know what is real anymore! Up is down, right is left, men are women, women are men, or “non-gendered”.

“Oh,” my well-to-do, highly educated liberal acquaintances will say, “They’re just opposing the chaos that Orange Man has wrought.” “Look what he’s done to democracy, to the rule of law, he’s a dictator, he’s inhuman, he’s a fascist, he’s not a legitimate president…” and so on and so forth. These used to be, nominally, friends. Now I can’t stand to be around them. I dread going to the grocery store and having to stand in line with these self-absorbed, in-your-face wastoids.

Occasionally I’ll see a “normal” mom with kids in tow, dressed like kids are supposed to be dressed and behaving like kids are supposed to behave. It’s jarring…so unexpected…almost out of place!

But refreshing. I almost feel like approaching them and saying, “Thank you for being normal.”

In fact, there have been times in a restaurant when I’ve stopped at a table with a mom and dad and two kids quietly sipping milk, no iPads, Apple watches or iPhones in sight, and offered my compliments on just how wonderful it was to behold the scene they made.

By way of contrast, I’m becoming immune to the depravity around me.

As I sit here trying to articulate my dismay and sadness with what’s going on in our country at the moment, I’m at a loss for words. Writers far wiser than I have said it better. I merely add my contempt and revulsion to theirs.

But it’s Easter Sunday. One side of my face is bright red and painful. I shall try to turn and offer the other side.

On the Tariffs and the Market

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The imbalance and unfairness of our international trade has built up over decades. Like a ratchet on a coiled spring, click by click it has gotten worse, and previous administrations have done little to nothing about it. We have subsidized our trading partners to incalculable levels and the only way to stop this abuse is to strip that ratchet.

That’s what Trump has done. And the coil is unravelling. It’s violent, it’s unsettling, but it’s healthy. Like purging the Deep State of necrotic practices and people. Like throwing the BS flag on the field and halting the play until the sideline brawls can be brought under control. Like a bull in a china shop, yes, but the merchandise in the shop is Temu junk and NEEDS to be discarded and replaced with quality goods.

Look beyond the headlines, weeping, waling and gnashing of teeth. Talk about “resets”! We needed one, and it has taken a President with an America-First agenda and motivation to effect it.

Yes, our portofolios are bloodied, (let me remind you, that’s ON PAPER) but the strength, resiliency, innovation, energy and fortitude of our people and our nation’s productive capacity remains and hasn’t lost anything. The paper losses in the stock market over the last couple of days are a reflection not of our strength but a symptom of the weak-knee’d hand-wringers who mutter under their breath in corners, cocktails in hand, spouting their “view” and jumping on the lemming bandwagon driven by Chicken Little.

Had you bought Citibank at around $6 a share on the 1st of January 2009 after the market similarly crashed, you’d be smiling today. This is another one of those opportune times. If you have ANY investable cash…

Stand by to buy!

ONE HUNDRED DAYS COMING UP ON APRIL 29th

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The list of things this Administration has done in the first 66 days (!) is too long to enumerate here. However, one has only to watch the histrionics, idiocy, petulance, childishness and utter stupidity of the Left aka Democrats to know it has been incredibly effective.

In retrospect, had Trump re-assumed office in January 2021 as he rightly should have (the truth will eventually come out…anyone who believes Biden received 81 million LEGITIMATE votes is beyond help), his impact in the second term would not have gotten off to such a consequential start. America had to go through the four years of Biden to finally, fully expose the Democrats and all their shananigans.

Now we’re making REAL progress, but the fight is still raging and will no doubt intensify over the next couple of years. The spread of years of Leftist, metastatic ideology and the poisoning of so many American minds will not be reversed easily. The pendulum has begun what will be an arduous swing back to the right, but we are a long way from restoring sanity, strength and traditionalism in our country.

Over the last year we here at GrumpsReport have been engaged in this fight on other social media and internet-based battlegrounds under various pseudonyns and through various conduits. What began here as a full throated voice for MAGA long before it was called that has been joined by many courageous voices willing, like us, to speak out against the caustic and necrotizing antics of the Democrats and establishment, neo-conservative Republicans who chose (and still choose) to preserve the lunacy or status quo.

The drivers are always the same: power and money. The Democrats don’t care about what’s good for America or society. They narcissistically and arrogantly think that if they have the power, they can achieve some kind of utopian fantasy where everyone “can all get along”, everyone prospers, everyone is happy. Of course, THEY will determine how the human and worldly assets get distributed, how the rules apply, and what consitutes prosperity and happiness! It is an evil, demonic ideology and it’s been playing out before our eyes for years.

To combat this evil we have to continue to emerge from complacency and, to quote President Trump,

FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!

We will continue to do so. We hope our readers will as well.

THIS is Where We Are Now!

Law and Order, Politics

FROM ROB (Contributor) IN TEXAS

Two hundred and forty-eight years and six days ago some dude named Jefferson wrote the following:

“ governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Writing letters to the editor won’t do it, because the media are part and parcel of the abusers and usurpers. Voting for different leaders won’t help because the voting system has been completely corrupted by the absolute despots to insure their death grip on power. 

The Founders reached a point where they couldn’t live another day under the leadership of the mad king of their era, along with his minions, and they did the unthinkable. 

We have reached that same point. Think about it. Real hard. It’s time. 

Here’s How I Predict Things Will Go Down

America, Elections, Law and Order, Politics

Primary season has officially begun. Let me begin with the caveat: BARRING ANY CATACLYSMIC/BLACK SWAN EVENT, the 2024 Election will be the nastiest, bloodiest, most disgraceful, embarrassing and most controversial one yet.

It’s always “the most important election in our lifetime”. That’s like saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” or “If you get to that fork in the road, take it!”.

I still believe a Black Swan or worse, and “Unknown Unknown” event will take place between now and the election. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term Black Swan, the Wikipedia description isn’t bad: “an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying that presumed black swans did not exist, until they were discovered in Australia in 1697, and it then became reinterpreted to mean an unforeseen and consequential event.

Given the chaos that we are now experiencing, I also wouldn’t rule out the “Unknown Unknown”. In 2002 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld explained, “There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

So, I think either a Black Swan or an Unknown Unknown event (I distinguish between the two only by degree of surprise and impact) will take place before the election.

But barring one of these:

  1. Trump will win the GOP nomination by March.
  2. Biden will win the Dem nomination by March.
  3. In August or latest September 2024 Biden will announce he will not stand for re-election thereby, per the Dem rules, the DNC will appoint a candidate, either Newsome, Michelle or someone who is being groomed right now and will come out of the woodwork.
  4. The nastiness and skullduggery of the DNC as they continue to try to take down Trump will reach unprecedented heights and civil war will ensue in checkout lines and across breakfast and dinner tables.
  5. If the GOP can get their forces aligned and their messaging right, and if they will do WHATEVER IT TAKES TO ENSURE THAT ONLY LEGITIMATE VOTES ARE COUNTED, i.e. DEMAND observation access to the key polling sites around the country where we got screwed in 2020…
  6. Trump will win the election decisively. The GOP will win the Senate and barely retain the House.
  7. The Left will go nuts. There will be civil unrest/demonstrations/riots/destruction that will make the Occupy Wall Street, Hands Up Don’t Shoot, George Floyd, CHAZ, CHOP and January 6th riots look like playground squabbles.
  8. Martial law will be declared.
  9. There will be numerous attempts on Trump’s life. All will be foiled. He will be sworn in January 2025 and will immediately begin to clean up the Swamp, with mixed results.
  10. The REAL insurrection of the Left will continue and the four most tumultuous years in U.S. history will begin (you don’t think the Left is going to stand down do you???!!!)

So much can and will happen between now and January 2025 that I know I’m going to have to modify this prediction, but as I see it right now, that’s what’s going to happen.

We’ll see. Keep your seatbelts fastened.

How Can Anyone With A Brain Vote Democrat?

America, Elections, Government, Headlines, Media, Morality, Politics, Reason, Society & Culture

I’ve been trying to answer this question for years. With what’s presently going on here in America but also around the world, the mess having been created and perpetuated by Leftist/Democrat ideology and policy, the question is acutely relevant.

I’ve written in the past about how a dumb-downed, feeble-minded, intellectually lazy and lemming-like half of the nation or the honestly naive (e.g. children) get their news, thus their perception of reality, from the propagandist-legacy media, “The View”, late-night ‘comedy’, social media, among themselves at cocktail parties, play-dates, and worst of all, from college lecterns and from behind teachers’ desks. Even children’s cartoons have a Left-slant to them. Have you ever noticed how adults/parents, particularly those with traditional views, are always portrayed in them as doofuses, bad guys, tyrants, unfair, authoritarians, clueless or inept?

I’ve argued that no amount of logic, no amount of REAL reality, no actual consequences phase Democrats. They continue to vote and act in concert. Leftist ideology is constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY, shoved into our faces and into our ears. For those without either the will or the ability to use even an ounce of critical thinking; for those unwilling or unable to recognize cause and effect and the impact of Democrat policies on their daily lives; for those who’s perception of reality is formed by high-production-value Hollywood propaganda… it’s ingrained. It’s imprinted.

I’m reminded of a frightening scene from the Will Smith movie, “I am Legend”. It’s a post-apocalyptic thriller where zombie-humans come out at night to kill and eat anything living but during the day hide in dark places because they are repelled by sunlight. One day the protagonist’s dog goes missing. He follows him into a dark garage and comes upon a group of zombies clumped together, all facing inward, moving only slightly as they breathe heavily. (The picture above is a screen grab of this scene.)

THIS is what Democrats remind me of! They clump. They all look the same, repeat the same words, vote the same way, irrespective of what it does to them and those around them!

Another author, Greg Salsbury, writing in American Thinker had a complementary spin on the answer to the question.

He suggests in his article: Understanding the ‘Always Blue’ Mindest (American Thinker 11/19/23) that “simple association” is what drives Democrats in zombie-esq fashion to pull the blue lever at each election. By association he means the constant barrage of “Red is bad, Blue is good”, in-your-face messaging that really does brainwash a brain-addled thus receptive population. As he states, “The concept of “Always vote blue, no matter who” has been programmed into tens of millions of voters.”

A conclusion he reaches, with which I mostly agree, is “Republicans must understand that there are no magic facts or talking points, no silver bullet arguments, no game-changing photographic or videographic evidence that will suddenly open the eyes of most Democrats. Gravity still exists, and so does the “always blue” mindset. Republicans need to forget conversion and focus on the base and independents—exclusively.“

However, in my opinion, concentrating on the base and independents (do the latter really exist? – a topic for another time) is not enough. Couple the corruption, cheating, rigging, ballot-stuffing and other Democrat tactics to steal elections with the impact of attractive and enticing “celebrities” touting Leftist drivel with the implication that Blue is Good, Red is Bad and we will get the kind of results we got in the elections a couple of weeks ago and are at risk of losing big next November!

THE ONLY WAY to counter this tsunami of cancerous and evil indoctrination is to encourage the few celebrities with brains and courage to create the reverse association: Red is good, Blue is bad. It’s happening in small drips and drabs already. If only we could get rid of Ronna McDaniel and all the rest of the tired and anachronistic GOP implants and replace them with fighter, competent, articulate, Celebrity-Leaders who could face the media and champion conservative principles, then MAYBE we’d have a chance to turn our country around. Kari Lake would be an obvious choice but there are many others who could fill the bill. How about Tom Selleck, or Dana Loesch, or Tom Brady or someone like them (I’m just throwing darts here…)

That SOMEONE is out there. He or she, like us, has had enough and has the courage and is sufficiently secure to speak out, speak loudly, instruct, influence and convince the brain-addled that the path to greater peace and prosperity is through Conservative/Traditional policies and actions…

Red is Good. Blue is Bad. Rinse, repeat.

Has The Threat To America Of A Repeat 9-11 Increased Since Hamas Assaulted Israel?

America, Emergency Preparedness, Headlines, Law and Order, World Affairs

Simple answer…yes! They skyrocketed when Biden came into office and renewed the weak, pandering policy towards radical Islam that Obama initiated.

Having so recklessly diminished our security and squandered our sole-superpower role, every rogue nation itching to increase their position in the world has plotted and prepared to take advantage of our having turned in our Sheriff’s badge. Russia-Ukraine, China-Taiwan, NORKO missiles flying over Japan, the invasion of the West by the Third World, and now The Islamic Brotherhood/Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran’s move on Israel are all manifestations of Joe’s abrogation of our responsibility to maintain order.

Since 9-11 there have been 34 incidents of Islamic terrorism in the U.S. [1] 139 people were killed in these incidents, 506 people injured. If we were to add what happened on 9-11, of course, the numbers would be much higher: 3132 killed; 9039 injured. The number of incidents, perhaps even the deaths and injuries, on paper, may appear relatively small, but the horror of the Boston Marathon bombing, the mass shooting at an Orlando Nightclub in 2012, the 2015 San Bernardino attack…we all recall the images, overrides the numbers.

With all the illegal aliens Biden has allowed to swarm across our border do you have any doubt that “sleeper cells” of terrorists assembled in countless one-bedroom apartments in chaotic cities but also in bucolic suburban towns are real, not just bad guys in Netflix movies?

Now we’re on the precipice of World War Three. Have any doubts about that? What are the chances of the following playing out over the next few weeks and months?

  1. Israel commits the majority of their resources in Gaza.
  2. Iran gives the signal for Hezbollah to launch a full scale attack from the North.
  3. The U.S., facing diminishing weapons stocks increasingly redirects resources to Israel from Ukraine allowing Russia to prevail and directly threaten NATO.
  4. Iran successfully galvanizes the Arab world, uniting Sunni’s and Shia in Jihad against Israel.
  5. The U.S. is forced to support Israel with air resources.
  6. China, holding backa at the moment, moves on Taiwan.
  7. The U.S. is forced to put tanks, artillery, Patriot missile batteries and even ground troops into Israel.
  8. Israel takes out the Iranian energy infrastructure.
  9. Iran together with other Arab states declares overt war on Israel.
  10. Israel nukes Iran’s uranium enrichment sites.

There are myriad scenarios with these elements being war-gamed in the basement of the Pentagon and elsewhere around the Western intelligence planning centers and they all sound like they were made for MSM prime time, “if it bleeds it leads”, “follow the money” programming. In short, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, and with missiles and bombs flying, tunnel-rats gearing up and moving out, war ships mustering…we’re sitting on a powder keg.

At what point do the mullahs of the Islamic Brotherhood give the signal for those terror cells to simultaneously come out of the woodwork and attack our highly vulnerable soft targets: churches, malls, theaters, stadiums, schools, etc.?

Are you aware that there are nine power substations in American that, if destroyed simultaneously, would knock down the ENTIRE U.S. power grid for from anywhere between three months and a year? And do you know how vulnerable these substations are to conventional small arms attack from 2-3 man squads of terrorists, or to cyber attacks such as the one that brought down the Colonial Pipeline in July 2021? Do you know how relatively easy it is/would be to blow up vans full of explosives in the tunnels or on the bridges leading to Manhattan thus bringing New York to a screeching, panic’ d halt? Many of us have felt the disruption and pain of natural disasters like Sandy, Katrina, Isaias, Maui, etc. but even more of us felt the effects of COVID and of course, 9-11. But have you ever seriously considered the implications of a 3 month + national grid down situation?

With things as precarious as they are in the world right now, with so many of us going about our daily lives as if nothing was going on, with our guard so down… if you were a terrorist wouldn’t you figure this would be a good time to assault America?

I implore my readers to contemplate the situation and PREPARE as best you can for those awful consequences that would attend YOU if what’s going on in the Middle East and elsewhere escalates into full blown kinetic, cyber and psychological war.

Get help and advice from whomever and wherever you trust (I would NOT trust government resources – the cavalry didn’t come over the hill in the knick of time for any of the disasters I mentioned earlier), but remember:

It’s too late to plan and prepare once it starts happening, whatever “it” is!

Head on a swivel, watch your six, STAY VIGILANT!   

[1] See https://johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/wrjp255a.html

Saying Inflation Is Abating Is True, But It’s Gaslighting

America, Economy, Finance and Investments, Government, Headlines, Reason

I read a Reuters headline this morning: “Fed’s Goolsbee says fall in US inflation is not just a blip” and the sip of coffee I had just taken got stuck at the top of my throat. My degree in economics was largely useless, but one thing I do remember was the class on this subject because it dealt with why the price of gas I put in my 1970 Pontiac Le Mans was rising from 28 cents (!) a gallon to $.32 to $.35. (Yeah, I’m that old.)

Let’s start with the words, “fall in US inflation”. Sounds like a good thing, right? It is, except that the gaslighting is inherent in trying to create the impression that PRICES of goods and services are falling. Ain’t so. THEY ARE STILL RISING.

Inflation means RISING PRICES. It doesn’t mean HIGHER PRICES. If we are experiencing inflation, it means simply that prices are rising. To say that there is a “fall” in inflation therefore doesn’t mean that prices are coming down but that they’re NOT RISING AS FAST.

It’s a lot like the nonsense that spews forth from politicians’ mouths when they talk about REDUCING SPENDING. They’re lying. They’re not reducing spending at all…they’re reducing the RATE at which spending is increasing. How the hell else do you think we went from discussing budgets and spending levels in the BILLIONS to budgets and spending levels in the TRILLIONS!

What’s more…inflation (i.e. PRICES started rising) kicked in with a vengeance after Biden came into office. The general (rate of) inflation over the four years Trump was in office was 1-2% per year. Prices were still rising, but at a slow pace. Wages rose (you got about a 2-3% raise each of those years right?) and so you were gaining in that your income was rising faster than the cost of things and thus your standard of living was improving!

Biden comes in, whacks energy production, starts throwing money out of helicopters both to our own population as well as the mullahs, and pretty quickly gas doubles (and in some cases triples), a half-gallon of milk hits $6, a dozen eggs as much as $5 and needless to say, our standard of living starts to retract very quickly.

Meanwhile, expenses for employers go up as well leaving less to pay employees, so while INFLATION is raging close to double digits, take home pay remains stagnant. Thanks Joe.

All of this is academic of course. We all feel the effects of rising prices (aka INFLATION) whether we’re well off or just making ends meet.

So when Biden’s minions spew garbage like, paraphrasing the Reuters article, “inflation (what they want you to believe to be PRICES) is coming down”: first, it’s NOT prices that are coming down, they’re just rising at a slower rate, and second, THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PRICES HAVING RISEN TO THESE RIDICULOUS LEVELS TO START WITH!

Don’t allow ourselves to be gaslighted. Don’t believe what this administration says for a second. Believe your eyes and the fewer greenbacks in your pockets!

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