Tag: follow the money

The “Bruen” Gun Control Decision

2nd Amendment, Emergency Preparedness, Headlines, Reason, Society & Culture

The Left and the Right are immediately reacting to the SCOTUS decision to strike down the New York “must show cause” law that requires citizens to prove they have some kind of special need for self defense to obtain a concealed carry gun permit. Justice Thomas’ opinion for the majority is straightforward and the conclusion obvious. You shouldn’t have to PROVE you have a special need in order to benefit from the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Period! What galls me, however, is the panting whine of the Left that “this will turn New York City into the Wild West”. Nonsense. New York and all the other major cities are ALREADY the Wild West, where LAWLESSNESS RULES! What the possibility of ordinary citizens walking the streets of Manhattan with concealed guns will do is DETER many a thug from playing the “knockout game” (for example) or give a citizen a fighting chance to defend himself or herself when accosted by bad guys. The media doesn’t talk about the deterrence impact, however. They immediately go to the extremes to formulate the debate and controversy. That conflict, of course, like the car wreck by the roadside, is where the money is. Follow the money.

Taking Stock of Where We Are

America, Education, Politics, Reason, Society & Culture, Values

Ok, it’s been a little over a month now and as I predicted, the damage being done by the Left is already starting to take its toll. Our energy independence has already been damaged and gas prices are rising quickly, The Democrats are bending over backwards to hug the Iranians. They’ve rejoined the farcical Paris Climate Accords. There’s a bill just passed by the House that will encourage boys to invade the girls’ bath and changing rooms and win all the track and field awards. Everything GOOD about the last four years is being deliberately undermined. Why?…to try to erase/cancel anything and everything about Trump and permanently banish him from politics and the Earth!

Is it just me, or does this appear to be the most childish, petulant, unhinged and tantrum-throwing behavior ever exhibited by human beings…grown-ups (not adults and not children) you’ve ever witnessed? I wish I could draw…I’d have two scenes in the cartoon I have in mind. In the first Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff and the rest of the Cabal are lying on the floor in a circle stamping their feet and fists and screaming, “Hillary should have been President! He stole the presidency from her.” In the second they’re all standing, jumping up and down screaming, “We showed them! We won!”

I think a third scene is needed. The same Cabal is sitting around a table, this time with the addition of people like Soros, Gates, Zuckerberg, Kerry, etc. Kamala Harris is there, of course, and Susan Rice is whispering in her ear saying, “Now, let’s do anything and everything we must to ensure we have power permanently in our hands: we’ll open the borders and give the illegals voting rights; we’ll demand compliance with draconian identity and “protection” regulations and statutes like mandatory vaccinations and mask wearing that will subjugate the peons and make them bend to our will. In short order they won’t be able to shop for groceries without an approved identity card! We’ll reward the homosexuals, transvestites and transgender ‘dysphoriacs’ so we can show how woke we are and continue the brainwashing we’ve been engaged in since the 60’s. We’ll push the military and intelligence community into accepting, no, celebrating sexual deviance and put leaders in place who will kowtow to us. Oh, and we’ll take away people’s ability to defend themselves by scrapping the 2nd Amendment. Don’t worry Ms. Vice President, as you know, Joe isn’t going to last for long and YOU will soon be our first woman (.sic), er gender-neutral, President.”

The tragedy of the above scenario is that it isn’t Orwellian fiction. It’s happening, right before our eyes and right here in River City (1)! The lunatics are indeed running the asylum, and the adults are chasing around after them as if they were herding cats or trying to catch a swarm of crickets. The Right is desperately trying to preserve traditional norms in politics and government. We are trying to act dignified and mature while the idiots on the Left don’t give a damn anymore who they offend, who they hurt…they don’t even acknowledge the United States as a sovereign, constitutional republic anymore! They say anything, do anything and with the endorsement and unbridled assistance of Big Tech and the media, will continue with their depravity and self-destructive, puerile antics until one of two things happen. Either: a) the People successfully revolt and cause the idiots to suffer the consequences of their idiocy (e.g. Gavin Newsome and Andrew Cuomo getting politically lynched) or b) enough anger and disgust builds up that the People, witnessing their impotence in the face of razor-wire protected government spewing forth diktats against their best interests, realize that collectively they have the power to root out and defeat the Leftists. The secession movements get traction, or some people get so pissed off that they REALLY incite armed rebellion and insurrection!

Both of the above are already happening, and this may not end well. So, in the meantime, getting prepared for not just temporary but long term utility interruptions, diminishing our reliance on tech and finding and supporting alternative sources of news and opinion are just some of the things we ought to be thinking about.

It’s said that “We are what we read.” Well, we also need to cleave to the voices we agree with! Forget the honest, liberal notion that we should welcome all opinions and views and subject everything, transparently, to honest debate. BS! If you think an honest debate can be had with domestic terrorists like the Democrat Party hyena leadership, I say, “Open your eyes…you’re sadly deluded!” Instead, gain strength and fighting words from those who can “say it better than we.”

A lot of people say, “That’s crazy! Reading and listening to conservative media is as bad as what the Left is doing listening to the mainstream demagogues and sycophants.” “It’s just as bad to live in the Right -wing bubble as it is to live in the Leftist one!”

I disagree. I’m discriminating and smart enough, thank you, to separate conspiracy myths and right-wing click bait from conservative-leaning and neutral news reporting and opinion. And I’m a skeptic of ALL media if I smell that what I’m reading is nothing more than sensationalism meant to lead the authors to “The Money”!

So, I constantly review and alter my newsfeed diet. Here is what I’m reading/viewing now:

The Epoch Times
Gateway Pundit
The Liberty Daily
Bongino Report
Just the News
Zero Hedge
Town Hall
American Thinker
Newsmax
Free Republic
The Daily Wire
Mike Huckabee.com
The Conservative Treehouse
Straight Line Logic
Liberty Nation News
Whatfinger
Love Breeds Accountability
World News Daily
Redstate
Jonathan Turley
Mark Levin

You’ll notice Fox News isn’t on the list. Since Rupert turned over management to his son(s), their “follow the money” pursuit has caused them to abandon their original traditional/conservative roots. The Right personalities and pundits who remain, like Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, etc. will eventually abandon the sinking ship and move to new, alternative platforms (or, like Lou Dobbs, will be cancelled).

You’ll also notice that I no longer have the Wall Street Journal on my list. The Journal, which was a mainstay of my diet for over 40 years, I’ve come to realize with age and wisdom is exclusively dedicated to the “Follow the Money” theme. In their case, of course, Money IS the topic and to have the worship and pursuit of money, even “clean” money as a constant in my diet seems misplaced now.

So I encourage my readers to be wise, be skeptical, be careful, be patient, thoughtful. Rededicate yourselves to Right principles. Live them. Do not abide fools…some of your friends may simply have to cease being your friends.

Be tolerant and patient with family members still under the spell of the little screens two inches from their noses… who lack wisdom, are filled with Leftist doctrine because they haven’t the exposure to Right principles, who lack courage to throw the BS flag and go along to get along. Love them despite their profligacy, sheepishness and naivete. It’s very easy to be angered when we hear nonsense coming out of their mouths with so much conviction. It often takes tremendous restraint to calmly, in our “indoor voices” try to exorcise the cancer they’ve been infected with.

Trying times.

Never give up. Never, never, give up.

(1) For those of you too young to get this reference, refer to the lyrics of the song, “Ya Got Trouble” from the 1957 Broadway Play and subsequent films, “The Music Man”.

Perception

America, Politics, Society & Culture, Values

I’ve written about this before, but it’s plain to see that two halves of our population can look at the exact same set of facts and firmly believe positions that are 180 degrees apart. But it is astounding that ANYONE in this country can look at the Democrats’ impeachment antics as credible, or the horrifying (to those of us with brains who are paying attention) stupidity coming out of the mouths of the Democrat candidates for President as believable, yet there are many, even if not 50% of the population, who do. THAT’s what’s scary about what we’re witnessing…that ostensibly ‘normal’ people could buy the nonsense the Left is peddling.

Don’t they get it? How is it that they can’t see how perniciously calculating, conniving, dishonest and hypocritical the Left is?

I have a theory. It goes back to the basic principle that our perception is based on our experience (see my post (https://grumpsreport.com/?s=Briggs). In my opinion, the experiences of half the country have consisted of Leftist indoctrination, read brainwashing.

The Left is brilliant at manipulation, false-impression-creation, misrepresentation, and above all, in knowing how to play on human emotions. They cannot appeal to peoples’ left brains so they go after the right hemisphere and heart strings. Play the right music in the background and a horror film becomes a comedy. Set the lights just right and the ugly can appear beautiful. Put just the right amount of quiver in your voice and twist the story line and you can make anyone a victim. Celebrating losers and victims is their stock-in-trade. Disagree with that and you’re a racist, bigot, heartless, entitled, privileged old white person the product of a discriminatory society bent on crushing the less fortunate.  

Hollywood is of course the crucible in which all the leftist soup is created. The world’s greatest experts in deception and heart-string manipulation, Hollywood has fed generation after generation since the Greatest Generation with emotional drivel which, while entertaining, is taken as reality. It is THIS emotional drivel that has been the diet of those, in my opinion, who believe what the Left is saying and doing.

It’s no wonder therefore that the EXPERIENCE of half the country…the half that have swallowed the drivel with little to no critical thinking, are empty vessels into which the current Leftist nonsense can be easily poured. It fills their souls with emotional satisfaction to hear concepts like “Medicare for All” and Welcoming (i.e. ‘Open’) Borders. And it’s what allows them to believe the lies about children in cages and every other lie put forth by the Left.

It’s not FAKE NEWS, it’s blatant indoctrination, messaging with an agenda, subjective twisting of facts, figures, data to push a narrative that anyone with a functional LEFT brain sees as destructive to mankind and the world. The “Media” is just a court jester, pandering to whomever will buy their verbal diarrhea for the highest amount.

Follow the money. Always. The self-righteous and hyper-hypocritical Left will do whatever maximizes the cash in their pockets, and the quickest way to undeservedly do so is to amass and exercise POWER.

To be fair, there are plenty on the RIGHT who subscribe to this strategy and who take advantage of it. But like so many other things, IT’S A QUESTION OF DEGREE. The Left is guilty of lying, cheating, and indiscriminately acting in ways that benefit themselves thousands of times more frequently than the Right.

Not until the weak-minded and gullible face REAL reality ( I can’t believe I’ve had to use such a term ) or have their heart strings pulled by Goodness, Grace, God or the Holy Spirit, or whatever universal positive Force you subscribe to, or, alternatively, have an experience or experiences that wake them up to the real world, will they make their way back to the realm of the grounded human race with traditional values and practices, and will our Country revert to its position as Light Shining on the Hill.

As We Start a New Decade

America, Economy, Entertainment, Family, Finance and Investments, Government, Politics, Science, Society & Culture, Technology

Where to begin? The last couple of months has been marked by a series of headlines that even Hollywood couldn’t invent. You’d have to be living under a rock not to see or hear what’s been happening in the economy, politics, society, media, technology, defense, even the environment.

In the economy. Forget the statistics – they’re useless in depicting what’s really going on in your wallet. The old adage “Figures lie and liars figure” has never been more true. Depending on how the pundits and so-called “experts” spin them, the only thing that really matters is how we and our families are doing. It’s a good time to ask the question, “Are you better off now than you were three years ago?”

For the vast majority of Americans, the answer is an unequivocal “Yes.” Rising wages, low inflation, increasing productivity, greater convenience and utility provided in part by technology, in part by innovation, systems and processes…all have improved our lives. The stock market at all time highs doesn’t just impact the wealthy. It impacts everyone. Whether or not you have an investment portfolio, economic GROWTH, which the stock market reflects, increases demand for goods and services, including the things made by the companies we work for and the services WE render. That all translates to improvements in our lifestyle.

In politics. The cataclysmic impact of the 2016 election on the status quo, what some call the “Deep State” or the legions of government minions many of whom work hard but produce little of value, has slowed the slide down the slippery slope the Left has had us on for so long. It is a long slog back up, but the shrill, childish and petulant voice and actions of the so-called but misnamed “progressives” have been fully exposed. The cancer has been identified and bit by bit it is being eradicated such that the greatness and “can do” spirit of America has begun to re-emerge.

In society. Some are content to let the next couple of generations have the world they’re making. I am not. I believe it is still my duty as a parent and as a concerned citizen to impart traditional values and traditional norms to my children and grandchildren. Basics like manners, virtues such as thrift and hard work, meritocracy, courage, self-reliance, communication and interpersonal relation skills in the face of technological isolation (a subject for another time), the importance of family, charity, trustworthiness, and on and on. These are things that I’m afraid the next two generations don’t fully understand, appreciate or possess as much as they should.

In media. As I have stated often, the impact of the “one-to-many” amplification provided by the Internet has allowed the most fringe-lunatic, caustic voices to reach and influence many. We used to say that PowerPoint made everyone a graphic artist. Similarly, Social Media has made everyone and anyone a journalist or pundit (present company included). The firehose of data not all of which is actual information but all of which is biased and deceptive in one form or another has created a distorted reality…in fact, it has changed reality and societal norms, not always for the better. Character assassination, taunting and hazing, for example, are facilitated and empowered with the new media. And like the accident by the side of the road, it is the macabre, shocking and emotion and nerve-tingling input we receive that we pay the most attention to and are most influenced by. Never has the need for critical thinking been greater. And never has it been found more wanting.

In technology. Rapid advances in technology are proving to be be both good and bad. This is a subject which we’ll touch on more and more as robotics, artificial intelligence and quantum computing impact our society and livelihood more and more, and at an accelerating rate. My wife received an umbrella from the firm she works for recently. Nice umbrella, but would you believe it came with an APP!!!! Yes, an umbrella with an App! For those of you who are blissfully unaware of what an APP is…it’s just a software program dedicated to doing a limited set of tasks on your desktop, laptop, tablet or phone like report the weather or control your whole house! I mean really…an umbrella with an APP???!!!!

In defense. Envy is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason. It spawns evil leaders and causes even whole nations (or quasi-nations) to seek power and dominance at the expense of others. Rodney King had it right when he said, “Can we all get along?” The answer is “no”, not until a perfect, benevolent leader (e.g. Jesus Christ) comes along who can inspire men with free will to follow Him so as to eschew and eliminate evil. In the meantime, the United States, despite all its imperfections, is still the best surrogate or substitute because our form of government vests power (nominally) in the people, i.e. spread across everyone rather than a single benevolent, charismatic leader. Our constitutional republic or representative democracy has been the greatest catalyst to human advancement in the history of the world, despite its faults. It is not just worth defending…it MUST be defended against those who seek to destroy it out of envy and a thirst for power. Wilsonian appeasement of evil cannot and must not be tolerated. Might doesn’t make Right, but adults (the U.S. at its best) must stop and modify the aberrant behavior of petulant and in some cases violently misbehaving children (Iran, NOKO, Venezuela, Russia, China). As arrogant as that sounds, it is, in my opinion, an apt characterization of the current world stage and depiction of our responsibility as a nation.

In the environment. I’m not running for office so I’ll state it plainly. Climate change is real – it changes all the time. And man has little to nothing to do with it. The famous George Carlin routine says it best where he humorously but acerbically rants at environmentalists while pointing out how insignificant mankind is when compared to the history of the earth and concludes, “The planet is fine. The people are f****d!” The wildfires in Australia? No, not global warming…man-kindled by a bunch of malcontent Leftists as it turns out. Bears floating on minuscule ice packs? Nonsense…they swam several miles out there to hang out and fish! Follow the money! If there’s a tree-hugging environmentalist/alarmist out there, there are grant dollars nearby. “Please pass the offering plate…”

Are there Rightist sins? Of course! But in the grand scheme of things, the principles of the Right are, in fact, RIGHT! Evil exists over here as well – crony capitalism comes to mind. But for my money, Winston Churchill was also right (.sic): “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms which have been tried…” and by extension…conservative/Right principles are the worst form of societal norms except for all those other forms (socialism, communism, democratic socialism, etc.) that have been tried.

And America still stands as the light shining on the hill. God Bless Her! Happy New Year and Happy New Decade.

The Forgotten Majority

America, Economy, History, Society & Culture

The Left assiduously and furiously manufactures, celebrates and loudly publicizes victimhood. This gives them a pretense to extort money they can use as currency to gather power, influence and advance their agenda. Meanwhile, the majority of Americans keep their heads down and continue to do their jobs and their best for their families, their friends, their community, their country, and themselves.  

In her exhaustively and incisively researched seminal work, “The Forgotten Man” (Harper Collins, New York, 2007) Amity Shlaes argues conclusively that the Great Depression was man-made and completely avoidable. She borrowed the term “Forgotten Man” from  William Graham Sumner’s use of the term in his 1883 speech of the same name. The Left has always equated the Forgotten Man with those who stood in the bread lines during the Depression. However, Sumner and Shlaes used the term to denote the regular guy who had to pay for all the promises that politicians, both before, during and after Roosevelt made to garner power and control.

I submit that today, the Silent Majority is the Forgotten Man, comprised of similar salt-of-the-earth people who have had to pay for all the promises made by Roosevelt’s intellectual progeny, including today’s Leftists.

It used to be just the snail darter. Remember them? It’s tiny a fish that bleeding-heart enviro-fascists manufactured victimhood for in 1973 to halt completion of a dam in California. The controversy went all the way to the Supreme Court. Long story short, the dam was built, the snail darters relocated all at a cost no doubt of hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions to taxpayers. It, however, lined the pockets of the Defenders of the Snail Darters Brigade (I made that up but I can’t help but wonder if money could have been made on a tee-shirt run with that emblazoned on it!) and Leftists were left (.sic) to feel good about how they’d saved a species. As a side note, the environmental shamans themselves assert that 150 species A DAY (!) become extinct. But the snail darter became the cause célèbre du jour and the money, when followed, led right into the wallets of the enviro-fascists, their cohorts and allies.

Today, pick whatever Leftist drivel you wish, on whatever topic you wish: border protection, religion, free speech, 2nd amendment, abortion, gender confusion, climate change, taxation, law and order, national defense, public education, etc. etc. The economic price, the damage to our society and culture, the frightening impact on our children and grandchildren of what the Left has concocted and viciously squeal…the burden will be carried by the hardworking Forgotten Majority who always pay the price, just as they did during the Depression.

When the Left professes to worry about some minority victim being offended, or potentially offended (think Colin Kaepernick and Betsy Ross Nike sneakers) and seek to punish the offenders; when they rewrite history and seek to “fundamentally transform” our nation according to their warped ideology (think the painting over of the George Washington school mural in San Francisco), let’s not forget the majority, The FORGOTTEN Majority.

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