Triggered, First thing in the morning! Yeah!

After years of working in corporate America, there are a few things that really trigger me.

One of those things is Emails with the words, “Mandatory”, “Comply”, “You Must”, “Required”, and my favorite is “Compliance is Mandatory”.

You see, these words or phrases never herald good news for any employee.

The term; “Mandatory Overtime” Only occurs in corporate email in the Summer when you’re planning a vacation, or in Fall/Winter before Thanksgiving or Christmas. That’s been my experience, your milage will vary.

Much like COVID’s 10 days to slow the spread there’s always a time component. Corporations always start with 30 days but all the employees know that’s complete bullshit. Whatever failures in planning that led to “Mandatory Overtime” in the first place are cumulative failures that cannot be resolved in 30 days and are much more likely to require 90 to 120 days.

But the HR department and management in general, lie in hopes of not having a bunch of people simply walk off the job.

Invariably Paid Time Off will be impacted and your employer will be looking for some kind of proof that you have a trip planned or are going in for surgery. The last company I worked for even added penalties if you were sick during Mandatory Overtime. They also had one guy drop dead at his desk because he was so terrified of losing his job, he neglected to seek medical assistance for a heart attack. Instead, he drove to work and died at his desk. Did the company relent? Hell NO! There were also miscellaneous people who went out on stress leave never to return.

If you’re a salaried employee, mandatory overtime actually reduces your hourly wage because you get no bonus or incentive to put in those hours. Usually, salaried employees don’t have enough “time in position” to benefit from stock options either. So even if the company succeeds due to salaried employees accepting their reduction in pay, there isn’t any long term benefit to them. But the executives see huge bonuses, and get plenty of accolades, even though they weren’t included in the “Mandatory Overtime” edict.

Having been in exactly the position above more times than I can count. The word “mandatory” has become a triggering word to me.

Over the years, “Comply”, “Compliance”, and “Must” have also become triggers for similar reasons.

“You must comply with the new standard”, means that you as an employee will have to set aside time to attend training. Often that time is supposed to be given to the company during some kind “lunch and learn” but the truth is you’re still working even though you’re not technically on the clock. After all, “this new training is for your benefit,” uh right…

If the training is from HR, it’s not for your benefit, it’s so the company can cover their ass.

Training of this type often includes: Sexual Harassment Training, New policies, (I assume new pronoun usage these days), Cheapening of Insurance, or Workplace Safety.

All of these sound like great things, until you read the fine print when you sign that you’ve taken the “Training”. 99% of my experience is that HR is making modifications to the terms of your employment and providing a mechanism that allows any perceived slight to be grounds for termination. Couple that with so called “Zero Tolerance Policies” and well being a white male… You’re screwed!

HR is not the employee’s friend and hasn’t been for decades.

Which leads me to my triggering this morning.

The California EDD sent an email that says in part;

Urgent: You Must Verify Your Employment or Self-Employment for Your PUA Claim

“Even though your Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits have ended, federal rules require you to provide documentation to prove that you were, or planned to be, self-employed or employed at some point between 01/01/2019 and 11/15/2020.”

They start the email by SHOUTING my name because apparently, the state of California doesn’t know how to use lower case.

They direct me to the State of California’s shitty website which is always a pain in the ass to log into, and is in fact, such a pain in the ass that I stopped using it, opting instead for snail mail.

Triggered though I am, I’m curious to know what the hell EDD is talking about and what kind of documentation they’re asking for, so I try to log in anyway. Don’t they already have all that documentation? It should be in their files.

The login inevitably fails and I’m locked out of the account for an hour. What’s new? EDD couldn’t program their way out of a one bit puzzle.

In this particular case it also looks like they’ve changed or updated their login page and are now showing me a security picture of a die and a comment that says 1997 Chevy.

This leads me to wonder if the login is fucked up or if someone has been playing around at stealing my account. Neither would surprise me with California EDD.

As an aside, I’ve applied to work for California EDD on several occasions since it’s obvious they could use someone testing their shitty software. They, like every single other potential employer, promptly ignored my application.

Honestly, at this point I’d be happy with a response from any potential employer that said literally, “Fuck off you piece of shit!” At least then I’d know where I stood.

While EDD was sending me money, I felt compelled to respond to their shit. Technically since they were paying me, I considered myself an employee. But now that they’re not sending me money, and I’m still unemployed…

I’m much less inclined to go out of my way to deal with them.

I’ll wait another 30 minutes and try again. If I still am unable to log into the web site I’ll have to decide to ignore them, or contact my state representative’s office. In the past the representative’s office has been the only way to make headway with the EDD.

I hate having to involve them in this bullshit but I may have no choice.

My Momma used to say…

“We can’t do that anymore, because too many people abused the privilege.”

It’s with this in mind, that I’ve been wondering about making services like Twitter and Facebook simply illegal.

I know this flies in the face of freedom, it says that these businesses would be shut down and their employees would be unemployed. That is antithetical to most core American values.

Bear with me here.

Twitter has become a cesspool of hate speech, most everyone agrees that is a true statement. After all, Twitter itself has seen fit to invest in all manner of protections against hate speech, from algorithms to manual reviewers.

Twitter has been forced to endure lawsuits and congressional hearings regarding censorship. Twitter now employs a cadre of high powered attorneys and law firms at great expense just to protect itself from legal action from people who are offended by what they read on Twitter, and those who sue because their opinions are deemed to be hate speech or misinformation.

Facebook is in the same boat.

The simplest solution is to shut down these corporations.

Too many people misuse these services, in some cases these services are being misused to the point that illegal activities are being coordinated through them. Congressional investigations have stated this was true in the Jan 6th event.

This means that both corporations have become inadvertent accomplices to criminality. Not just locally, but on a worldwide level.

Twitter and Facebook were good ideas. Their founders were naive about the nature of humanity. It’s not their fault that people say things that other people do not like. I’d suggest that both corporations accept that as experiments in connecting and unifying people, they’ve essentially failed.

This failed experiment is also not their fault. They’ve proved that too much information exchange between people tends to amplify the worst aspects of social interaction.

Shutting down these kinds of services would tend to limit the negative and deleterious effects of all kinds of misinformation.

Think about it. There wouldn’t be anymore vaccine misinformation.

Local problems would remain local.

Politicians would have to focus on getting votes by traveling to communities and interacting with the residents of the community.

Unqualified or poorly educated journalists wouldn’t be unable to spread unvetted information.

Opinions would no longer be taken as facts without any proof.

Juries in court cases would be easier to impanel because there would be less likelihood of bias or prejudiced information tainting the jury pool.

I think the benefits of shutting down these kinds of services would greatly outweigh the negative consequences.

There would be a period of adjustment of course.

People would have to learn how to live with privacy again. A lot of people would have to deal with addiction issues related to endless scrolling. Neighborhood and Community events could help to address these addiction issues, and at the same time could more effectively address local problems.

Local print media would possibly see a resurgence thereby creating more jobs.

Our government would find it much easier to make sure that their messaging was clear and understood. They could focus on the mainstream news outlets and make sure their statements were read precisely.

Surely, the elimination of all this free exchange of hate speech would be in the best interests of public safety and security.

Just a thought…

Hey it worked for Obama…

Just a few months ago President Biden said, “vaccine mandates are not the role of the federal government.”

Sort of like when President Obama said, “If you want to keep your doctor you can,”

We all know how both of those statements turned out.

The OSHA requirements regarding President Biden’s vaccine mandate have been published.

For a President who keeps telling us things are going to get better, that the supply chain will be fixed, that employment figures are going to get better, and everything will be happy happy joy joy, his actions sure don’t seem to be taking the United States in those directions.

At this point, any company who has less than 100 workers is likely to keep their employee number exactly where they are. So no additional jobs there.

Workers who for whatever reason don’t want to be vaccinated or share their vaccination status with their employer are in a really shitty position. They can either be fired on Jan 4 2022 or they can submit to a violation of their privacy and their bodily integrity to keep their jobs.

This is not freedom of choice. I don’t care how the media paints it, this is blackmail pure and simple. This is coercion and it is in direct violation of the Nuremberg Code.

The argument can be made that the COVID vaccines are in fact not vaccines, but are instead therapeutics. This argument has some merit in that the vaccines are not preventing infection, they are not conferring immunity, and their effectiveness is very short acting. Unlike say the smallpox, measles, or polio vaccines.

There’s been a lot of conflation using smallpox, measles, and polio vaccines as examples of why you should get a COVID vaccine. But let’s be realistic. Smallpox, measles, and polio vaccine confer lifelong protections against those diseases.

It’s become blatantly obvious that this is not the case with the COVID vaccines. Which means the COVID concoction is a therapeutic. It lessens the severity of the infection, but does not provide immunity.

Otherwise why would the vaccinated still have to wear masks to protect themselves? You could even argue that the COVID vaccines are on par with Hydroxychloroquine, Monoclonal Antibodies, Ivermectin, or the host of other therapeutics used in other countries. Lets not forget the 6 month booster shots either.

That starts to sound more and more like therapy, not a vaccine doesn’t it?

Smallpox, polio, and measles don’t require any additional safeguards post vaccination do they? Discussing these tried and true vaccines in the same breath with the COVID vaccine is a false equivalence.

The Biden mandate goes on. If you don’t want to take the vaccine, you must be tested once a week and you have to foot the bill for the testing, not the employer, not the government who is demanding this onerous procedure.

You, the employee, the taxpayer, the person just trying to pay your bills and put food on your table. Plus you’ll be masked up at all times in your workplace.

This is another example of blackmail perpetrated on the American People by the American Government.

As an aside, it is demonstrative of the criminality of the American Government and an excellent example of why this government is teetering on the knifes edge of failure.

Mind you, if the American government fails… The American Experiment is over. God only knows what that looks like… The nation states of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, all fighting among themselves for resources?

The OSHA mandate just keeps on giving. The employer will be fined $14,000 for each “violation” of the mandate with increasing fines for each infraction. There are also supposed to be OSHA inspectors presumably popping in for spot checks at random intervals. Can you say graft?

Hey OSHA inspector… Here’s a couple of grand. Just call our operation good and you’ll get two grand every month, just between us okay.

Do not labor under any illusion, graft as described, won’t or can’t happen. Ask any construction crew about building inspections, or corporation about current OSHA inspections. This shit is going on all the time. But the stakes will be higher now. The OSHA COVID police will have plenty of incentive, and leverage to demand payoffs.

$2000, today Mr Corporation, or $14000 every time I come to see you. You pick!

Smart business people will choose the $2000 and roll it into the cost of doing business.

You can’t blame the business people either. No one wears or keeps their mask on properly, or all the time. An OSHA inspector, at any time could walk through a building and note people taking their masks off for a variety of innocent or necessary reasons. Blowing their noses, asthmatics taking a hit from their inhalers, a diabetic needing to eat a little snack at their desk to keep their blood sugar normal, etc.

The OSHA inspectors will be shooting fish in a barrel, eventually they’ll realize that all the have to do is walk into the owners office with their clipboard, and walk out 30 seconds later with a wad of cash. Easy Money!

But Biden and OSHA estimate that this blackmail will result in 23 million more people getting “vaccinated”.

All the while, unvetted “refugees” or border crossers are allowed to move freely throughout the country will no vaccination requirements at all.

So President Biden tell us again how we’re going to have a land of milk and honey, with supply disruptions that your mandates only exacerbate? When businesses will be constantly disrupted by inspections? When your mandate dictates the firing of people adding to unemployment?

All this over a virus that 99% of the population survives, and over a vaccine that the CDC’s own data shows has the single highest contribution to the VAERS database practically ever?

Mr President with all due respect to your office… Sir, you need to resign. Your administration is more dangerous to America, her people, and prosperity, than almost anything short of a nuclear war.

Holy Hanna! Great Payday for illegals!

This is one of those articles that you say to yourself has to be from The Onion, or some other satire site.

But it’s not. The Wall Street Journal has an article here where they’re describing the latest Biden boondoggle.

The administration is floating a plan to give illegals who were affected by the “Remain in Mexico” plan up to $450,000 dollars per person.

If you’re talking about a single parent and a child… $900,000 dollars just for walking across the border. It could be more…

It could also be less, but the fact remains that’s more money than the majority of American citizens earn, working their asses off, in 10 years. You know, the union guys Biden loves so much, the average working stiff, the fast food person, Joe’s ice cream vendor… You get the picture.

Hey Kamala! I think I found your root cause of illegal immigration. People have figured out that America is loaded with suckers whose government just gives away taxpayer’s money!

Our Tax Dollars hard at work. Uh, yeah, good job Joe.

I can see that some of these people may be due some kind of compensation if the conditions they were subjected to warrant it, maybe…

But I always come back to the same fundamental questions.

Did you know that crossing the border without permission was illegal?

If you did, (as evidenced by your hiring a smuggler,) then why did you cross?

Although, I’d sneak into Mexico if I thought the Mexican government would pay me $450,000 dollars in compensation.

$450,000… Wow, that’s 7.5 times what I last made in a year. Meaning, I could ride that 450,000 comfortably for 7 years and not have to worry about working to pay my bills until I was eligible to retire. God, that would be a comfort since apparently I’m too old, and the wrong color to work at all these days.

Screw White privilege, I want some of that Brown privilege!

Throw me in a cage for a few months… PLEASE! For that kind of money there’s not a lot I wouldn’t do. Especially since I’d bet it’s going to be tax free.

With ideas like this, how can the Biden Administration wonder why they’re being booed, their polling numbers are underwater, or why #FJB or “Let’s go Brandon” have become prevalent?

Washington D.C. is full of Dumbasses!

Ya know, I miss “Mean” Tweets.

I know, everyone is saying, “What do you mean? How could you say something like that?”

Let me explain, (or bail on this post, it’s your right to not have to read something potentially disturbing.)

I miss Trumps politically incorrect, 3am on the toilet blasts at people that pissed him off. At least they were often (not always) fair targets.

Trump didn’t call out the American people like they were spoiled children as Biden has done.

Biden has offended my intelligence more times than I can count.

Trump may have been an asshole but he was an asshole from start to finish. He didn’t try to be one thing pre-election and then turn into something completely different.

He was always good for a cringeworthy tweet over my morning coffee and honestly he often started my day with a laugh.

Over time I even came to like the job he was doing and I felt secure that regardless of whose feelings he hurt, he was interested in making America a great place.

There’s an old saying, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” Trump was right about a lot of things.

I keep asking how it is that the Biden Administration is consistently wrong about everything. That Administration is so obviously severely broken. Yet they appear to keep blundering from disaster to disaster oblivious to the trail of destruction they’re leaving in their wake.

Trump is no longer The President. You’d think that would be the end of it, but you’d be wrong. The man is still having to dance to the Democrats tunes and they’re going after him hard.

How much of that multi-trillion dollar boondoggle of a budget will the Democrats in Congress spend in hearing after hearing in their attempts to hang something, anything around Trump’s neck?

Is this really something we, as Americans want to continue to pay for? I don’t, I have no desire to keep spending money so that Pelosi and the Squad can continue to feed their egos.

There’s no percentage in it for us. Unless you really want to have more show trials and kangaroo courts. It would be better for the Democrats to make a big pile of money and burn it, or perhaps make some donations to the poor they’re always going on about, but never really helping.

If show trials and kangaroo courts is where we’re headed, then it’s time for folks like me to find another country. Malta? Switzerland? Norway? Russia?

What’s brought this train of thought into my head, is that Trump announced he was going to start his own social media platform earlier this week.

Okay, more power to him, if he thinks he can do it better than others, I say great.

The thing is, the platform, which is not even up & running yet, has been hacked. There were no users, it was just a place on the internet. But even that was too much for some liberal hackers.

Who the fuck cares? Did hacking a new company make them feel like they were a big deal or something? Honestly, that’s like strangling a baby with it’s own umbilical cord.

It speaks volumes about the kind of people that seem to be in control of our country and says nothing about the viability or worthiness of the site.

What do these people think Trump is going to do? is he supposed to just drop dead? How can the people who hate this man so much, live with themselves? That kind of hatred 24/7 will eat you alive.

Regardless of my disagreements with some of Trumps policies, I can’t help but think of him as a patriot. Of all the people in Washington D.C. he not only didn’t make any money due to his Presidency, he lost a shit ton of his personal fortune.

There was no gain in him being The President it’s been nothing but a royal pain in his ass, before, during, and after. I’ve said it before, “If Trump was to liquidate all his US holdings, Fire all US employees, and move to a country without any extradition, I wouldn’t blame him one bit.”

Hell, at this point I’d consider moving to the same country, although in truth, I’d bet the cost of living would be way out of my price range.

I hope Trump doesn’t run in 2024. Much as I’d like to see a return of “Mean” Tweets.

I look at him and think, “Dude, you tried. A significant portion of the American people (Myself Included,) appreciate that you gave it a go. Apparently, a larger percentage of America hates your guts. Don’t put yourself through the wringer again. It’s really not worth your time or effort. I’d rather see you living well somewhere flipping the finger to the Democrats and laughing all the way to the bank.”

I want to see all the investigations into Donald Trump suspended. We clearly have bigger fish to fry in this country right now. Trump was impeached TWICE and both times all we got for our money was a big nothing.

We did learn that all the Russia claims were nothing but fevered fantasy on the part of some Democrats. By the way, we paid for this theater twice.

Once to have the lies made up, written down, and leaked. The second time we paid was to have them investigated and debunked.

At this point, I don’t want to hear anything more about Donald Trump. He’s done his time, paid the fine, let’s just let him go back to being a businessman, entertainer, and author.


I’ve come to think America is on the decline and there’s nothing short of a conflict between the polarized factions with blood running in the streets, where a “Winner take all” situation will change that.

That saddens me. But realistically I don’t see any other option.

The Attorney General of the United States of America said in testimony today before Congress, essentially that there is a two tiered justice system, and that the “Left” through their allies in Congress have weaponized the justice system… Again!

Only this time it’s worse than it was under Obama. Astonishingly, Garland made no apology for his participation. He admitted that he’d marshaled the justice system against parents speaking their minds about their children’s education as if they were domestic terrorists.

He did this based on nothing more than a letter sent to The President. A letter that the White House appears to have coached the National School Boards Association on. They made sure that the “proper” inflammatory language was used for maximum effect.

A.G. Garland also admitted there’s been no investigation as to the veracity of the National School Boards Association claims that the parents are Domestic Terrorists.

To my limited view this seems odd. I would think that when you start using words like Domestic Terrorist there would at least be some kind of confirmation.

Does this mean that “Enemies of the state” can be declared by any aggrieved party, at any time? Does this mean all you have to do is send a letter to The President about your neighbor down the block that’s not mowing their lawn, to have them thrown into gitmo?

Ohh, let me grab my enemy list. This is gonna be fun!

Where does this bullshit stop? I think at this point it won’t.


The First Amendment hasn’t been struck from The Constitution, by law. It certainly appears that it’s been struck from The Constitution in deed.

Remember, part of the First Amendment guarantees the citizens right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

Once The First Amendment is gone, we’re all going to be in service to The State. Much like the colonies were to an unfair monarch. The inherent greed and unfair treatment of the colonists by that monarch, started a little thing called The Revolution. If you’re unfamiliar with it, there are tons of books to be read on the subject.