Category: News

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He’s been right about a lot, wouldn’t be surprised if he’s right about this.

President Trump.Trump said he’s going to be weeding out illegal immigrants from the Social Security system.

Since then, X has been alive with people telling us very seriously that Illegals can’t get Social Security benefits. Then acting like Trump is dumb or crazy or whatever.

Hmmm. Really? So if one of these folks is using a stolen SSN to work, you think that somehow they’re not going to use that SSN to do other things? Apply for credit cards perhaps? Mortgage loans? Bank Accounts?

Really? Nobody is that naive.

The other half had his identity stolen on a couple of occasions. Once, it was just a couple of debit card numbers, but the other time it was his whole credit history. He wasn’t aware there was a problem until he tried to get a loan for an instrument, then he found out that there was someone else running around using his social security number.

How ever did this bad person get the other half’s SSN? Oh that was due either to a medical insurance company breach, or a doctor’s office closing. We later found out that all the medical records had simply been dumped in the dumpster out behind the office.

It didn’t matter. It cost us a lot of time and money to get everything sorted out. 

If someone has your SSN, name, and date of birth, they could possibly start collecting on Social Security too.

That’s called stealing you know. Not that any of the liberals care about little things like stealing, or crime in general.

Unless it disturbs them.

When drugs come to the rentals in their neighborhoods, or an HOA socialite is mugged for her earrings in a common area.

Then liberals who previously wanted to defund the fascist police, while being kind to the poor immigrants seeking a better life, will hire a mercenary goon squad to patrol and harass everyone walking through a neighborhood.

We know that a lot of those liberals manage to look the other way, & pay under the table dirt cheap wages to illegals too. Liberals don’t seem to understand that paying someone 10 cents an hour is essentially slavery. Say that out loud to a liberal and they’ll lose their shit.

I’ve long been annoyed that everything is tied to a SSN. Credit applications, Tax filing, Mortgages, Car Loans, Medical records, Insurance, and God knows what else. 

It wasn’t supposed to be that way.

Back at the dawn of time when I got my SS card, the accompanying paperwork said specifically that this number wasn’t to be used as ID.

Yet that’s exactly what it’s been used for. Lots of people forget that SSN is an account number, to your forced contributions to a retirement savings account, that doesn’t pay a particularly good interest rate.

At this point we might as well use the number as our phone number, drivers license, and car plate number. Everyone knows our account numbers.

I’d bet we’ve all received at least 10 notices of security breaches where our name, address, SSN, and phone number has been dumped out on the internet for sale.

I’ve been informed that my personal data was leaked by the Office of Personnel Management of the United States government. You know what they said? Too bad, so sad, perhaps you should invest in a credit counseling service.

At least corporations provided credit monitoring services for a few years!

Given all of this.

Is it that far a stretch to entertain that some number of illegal immigrants might be getting social security payments they’re not entitled to?

Illegal Immigrants, as Tom Homan said, are all criminals. He’s right, and I fell out of my chair when he said it directly to someone questioning him about deportations.

Until I heard him say it, I thought I was some kind of idiot that just didn’t understand the issue.

The moment a person crosses our border without permission, or overstays their Visa, they are, by definition, a criminal because they committed a criminal act. If they’re willing to start out committing a crime, what’s to stop them from stealing someone’s identity?

Liberals would justify even that, as okay (as long as it wasn’t their identity,) because the poor illegal is just trying to work and feed their family and they needed a SSN to work. Or retire.

Here’s something few people ever find out.

If you claim unemployment benefits, or assistance for medical costs, or disability payments, all of which are tired to your SSN. The state sends you a 1099 form. 

YES! Boys and Girls, you have to pay Federal taxes on that “Income” If you’re in a state with income tax, you get to pay them too.

So some illegal running around with your SSN can do a whole lot of damage, before they even begin to fuck you out of your tiny assed social security check.

All of this is to say, it’s very possible that some 87 year old grannie, or someone who’s contacting the Social Security office on Monday morning ready to retire, may find out they’ve got nothing because someone else got there before they did.

Trump saying that he’s ordering it to be looked into is a good thing. Even if they find nothing, at least the American People can have faith in the Social Security Administration. 

If an audit does find fraud, then booting the fraudsters out of the system means people who deserve the funds will likely get them, and perhaps Social Security will last a bit longer.

I question the Democrats screaming about Doge looking into Social Security.

We know over the years, both the Democrats and Republicans have raided SS funds. We the People assume that the money has been paid back. What if it hasn’t? Worse yet, would be finding that money is still being siphoned off for stupid projects like those at USAID.

I’ll tell you what. If all the retirees eating tuna, cutting their medications in half, and paying taxes on their SS income were to find out they’d been spending a billion a year for something like “Condoms for Convents”, or half a billion on “Feed a Jihadi for Jesus”…

The old folks (myself included) would tear down the Capitol and smash every stone to dust with their walkers & canes.

I envision exchanges like this between the Capitol police and the old folks;

“Yeah sonny, that’s a pretty badge, so what? I’m on my last legs here, I’ll be dead in 6 months from cancer. I can’t feel anything on my left side… This here is a kamikaze run for me! Tear gas? That’s all ya got? I’ve been smoking Lucky’s for 65 years! I could huff that canister & chase it with straight bourbon! So bring it, ya pussy!”

(Thanks to Grok for generating the image.)

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They shoot looters don’t they?

Los angeles fire.LA officials seem shocked and dismayed that looting is happening in evacuation zones.

Really? These folks allowed essentially lawlessness for the past, what… 6-8 years, now they’re shocked that it’s become “Normal”?

Listening to the LA Officials, I’m angry that they’re not addressing making policy & procedural changes to make sure something like this never happens again.

Chief Luna is the only one who seems to be making sense. He’s arresting looters.

Personally, I think looters should just be shot. Save everyone the time and trouble of trials and all that crap. Plus it provides a great object lesson about leaving other people’s shit alone.

On the news this morning KTLA interviewed a  lady who said she witnessed amidst her evacuating her family, folks were driving up in cars, then running up to neighbors doors. She thought they were helping people evacuate. Turns out it was looters taking advantage of the chaos to steal shit.

Animals!

There’s not enough punishment for that kind of behavior. 

I suppose the looters could be staked out on the lawns of the homes they were looting. You know, let the fire gods decide their guilt or innocence.

That’s why there are some people who will not evacuate their homes when asked to do so. They’re afraid that they’ll come home to the place being ransacked and robbed with zero leads or hope of getting their stuff back.

That puts firefighters and police in danger protecting people who remain in harms way.

I guess that’s why I’m kind of a zero tolerance policy guy on the matter of looting.

Even here, when the whole town was evacuated, there were looters who got arrested. This town is maybe 4000 people. Most of whom are middle class, (or were before Biden took office,) we don’t have tons of nice stuff. Yet we had looters trying to steal what we did have.

I suppose I get really angry about looting because it’s like the looters are kicking people when they’re down. It’s not fair, and cruel when you think about it.

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Fire & Ice

I woke up to 6” of unexpected snow yesterday morning. I’d been worrying about the wind and red flag fire warnings.

My day was consumed with snow removal and I’ve been taking down Christmas decorations. 

I’m taking this opportunity to repack and consolidate the decorations into fewer boxes and a bit better organization. I’m aiming for certain types of decorations and supplies being in clearly marked boxes. You know, Hallmark battery powered ornaments in one box. Keepsake ornaments in another box. Replacement lights, power cords, and those kinds of accessories in another box. Organization makes decoration a lot easier and pleasurable.

By the end of day yesterday, the Palisades fire erupted. Followed by additional wildfires across LA County.

Santa Ana winds are whipping through the canyons with hurricane gusts. That means that embers are flying and the potential for spot fires is very high.

For the time being, the winds are blowing mostly offshore, which means that the wind is blowing the fires away from me and the abundant fuel in the foothills and forests.

Where I am, the winds are very calm just breezes really.

On the other side of the mountain that is not the case. I’m watching the fires in Altadena and Sylmar very carefully. If the wind were to shift, and that fire started burning to the North, What happened with the Bridge fire could happen again only worse this time.

The Altadena fire is burning near where the Bridge fire began in Sept. For a time in Sept, I thought our whole little town was going to be wiped out.

The Calfire people were amazing and the town was saved with only a few buildings lost.

Santa Ana winds are whipping through the canyons with hurricane gusts. That means that embers are flying and the potential for spot fires is very high.

Aircraft are grounded due to the winds.

I’m betting that the property losses are going to be astronomical.

I feel so sorry for people who’ve lost their homes. I know what that feels like.

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Good Golly!

The beat goes on.

The insane beat that is. New Orleans, Las Vegas, A New York subway where a woman is burned to death and a) nobody helped. b) the lady appeared to just stand there. Fog that people claim isn’t fog, unknown drones in the New Jersey sky.

New flu, Bill Gates still researching mosquitoes that can vaccinate, reports of people in hospitals given Covid vaccine without their consent while under anesthesia, reports of some kind of mRNA vaccine that is airborne & uses humans as a transmission vector, mask requirements are back in some places, some kind of weird respiratory affliction that is causing low level discomfort.

People looking up and noticing, apparently for the first time that planes sometime leave condensation in their wake. Although there are other bits of information that suggest this isn’t condensation but is instead some kind of chemical.

This is just a small sampling of the buzz on X.

At the rate conspiracy theories have been proving true lately, I’m not counting anything out. I’m a skeptic but I am starting to wonder.

Even the actual facts don’t make sense. One guy drives through a crowd for no apparent reason then gets out of his rented vehicle and starts shooting? Why?

Another guy rents a cybertruck, of all things, drives from Colorado to Las Vegas stops to recharge 8 times, taking the long way from point a to point b. Then shoots himself, and blows up the truck in front of a Trump hotel. Oh and the guy is ex military, and knows how to make a bomb big enough to have taken the front of the hotel off, instead, the explosion is confined mostly to the cybertruck and does only minimal damage to the hotel.

Then we find that the fire was hot enough to burn the body beyond recognition, & melt some of the weapons he was carrying, but that his plastic military ID and the data storage in his phone somehow survived?

An odd coincidence is that the vehicles in both cases were rented via Temu. I never heard of Temu before. My Sick side wonders if this was some perverse publicity stunt to get Temu on the map so to speak.

None of this makes sense and looks like people are just randomly losing their minds. Don’t even look at the way people behave on planes anymore.

We’re not even 5 days into the new year. It looks like this is going to be an interesting year.

There are those who claim that the world government, (whatever that is,) wants to kill us all and that our own government is complicit in this dastardly plan.

I’m not sure.

I’ve been contemplating the assertion that the “World Elite Government” wants us dead. If I accept that as true then I ask why? It doesn’t serve their purpose. Without the peons who will grow their food, harvest it, cook it, and be a slave to them catering to their every whim?

How will they keep the lights on, stay warm and comfortable in their mountain or beachfront villas? There is a singular truth proven time and again. Those at the very top of our society have very few real world practical skills. Without an underclass with knowhow they’ll be dead as soon as the food or fuel runs out.

How will they remain wealthy without tax revenues rolling in? There has to be a logic to wanting to kill everyone off. Remaining one of the comfortable elite becomes far more difficult without a population to oppress and control.

Alternatively, there have been rumors about some kind of UFO disclosure. I find myself wondering if the “World Elite Government” isn’t intending to actually kill us off. What would happen if an alien species had made a deal with the elites for food? What if all the chemicals and drugs aren’t to kill us, but are instead some kind of marinade? Like the old Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man.

I’d consider moving to another country. But it’s just as insane elsewhere as it is in America.

Honestly if I could afford it, I think I’d like to live in Norway Iceland, Greenland, or Sweden. Just a little cabin along a fjord. Some fields, maybe raising goats or sheep. A short ride to a smallish village and generally being left the hell alone.

An island, a forest, or practically anywhere would serve just as well as long as I didn’t have to deal with the nuttiness.

Hmm… Suddenly, I can see the appeal of the elites wanting to reduce the population…

I’ve always suspected Thanos from the Marvel Comics wasn’t far off base. He was morally ambiguous, but cutting 1/2 the population of the universe would insure enough resources for everyone.

Here on earth, one might accept that plagues like the Black Death, and Spanish Flu of 1918 were failsafes. A sort of natural population control. You might even view COVID as a failed human attempt at triggering a “culling”.

I’m turning off the news, and ignoring the communication systems for the next few days. This train of thought is dark and even though I feel better than I have for about a week. I don’t need any help finding myself on the path to a dark depression.

Have a great weekend. Fingers crossed nothing else crazy happens.

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I can’t say the news of Jimmy Carter’s death was surprising.

When they hauled him out to support Kamala Harris, it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t doing well. May he rest in peace.

I felt really bad for him, he wasn’t the best president, but he was a decent man and he didn’t deserve to be paraded around like it appeared the party was doing. Especially not just to prop up a candidate. I thought it was very unseemly.

I wasn’t likely to vote for Kamala anyway, but I imagine that some folks were wondering if this was another example of the Democrat party simply being too damn old.

That’s not to say the Republican Party is any better. Mitch McConnell is obviously no spring chicken. I’ve written elsewhere in the blog that he should retire and go home to Kentucky.

As we wind down the year, I’m hoping for some peace and quiet. Maybe a week of just silence, reflection, and everyone taking a breath.

I know I’m pissing into the wind.

With the inauguration coming up, I’m positive there’s going to be massive insanity and after the inauguration there will be newer, stupider, levels of insanity. I hope that Trump can in fact do some good. Who knows? Maybe he will before the machine in Washington, (comprised of scum of the earth Democrats & Republicans,) manages to start thwarting anything and everything that he tries to accomplish. That’s predicated on Trump living up to his ad copy. I’m not sure, and have never been totally sure, about Trump or his reasoning in becoming president. The times I’ve voted for him were, in reality, votes against his opponents.

I’m hopeful of Trump and DOGE.

I have always thought that the United States government should be run like a business. The inefficiency and stupid regulations make everything in the government cost double or triple what it should.

Here’s a quick example of what I’m talking about. I once worked on a project where the government had specified the exact model of CPU and exact type of memory, down to the number of pins each chip was to have.

The problem is, technology advances, new chips are designed yearly, everything gets faster, smaller, and less power hungry. The project itself was supposed to run for 5 years, in reality it had been running for 10, and was likely to run for another 10 years when I joined it.

In the time that passed, the chips used in the project had gone from being leading edge to discontinued. The government, rather than update the specifications and adapt, chose to have the old chips custom manufactured, at 20 times the cost of current commercially available models which did the same thing faster and were 100% backward compatible.

This is one way that toilet seats cost $6000.00

I don’t know if there’s any truth to a story I heard about a government “Quality Inspector” who saved his job and lined his pockets, by “discovering” that the insulation on wire wasn’t the proper thickness.

Electrical insulation, like everything else is constantly improving. As materials science advances we discover new materials that work the same as, or better, than old materials. What supposedly happened is that the wire insulation in this guys project had converted from a rubberized vinyl to a teflon vinyl material. The latter being lighter, tougher, less prone to abrasive damage, and providing superior insulation qualities at higher voltages. It was also thinner.

At some point, 20 years before, when the project was being contemplated, some brilliant jackass had for reasons unknown, measured and then wrote into a specification, the thickness of the rubberized insulation on the wire the project was using at the time.

Our “Quality Inspector” protected his job and the jobs of others on the project by making a stink about the wire being out of specification. He neglected to mention the new wire was superior in every way. His findings were that the wire was out of spec and the project would have to secure wire that met the spec then rework all the machinery that incorporated the “out of spec” wire. This also meant that he & his brother in law could purchase a small abandoned wire manufacturing plant that just so happened to make wire with the right thickness insulation. They charged 3 times market price and their only customer was the United States Government.

This is how government waste is perpetuated, and why it costs $25 thousand dollars for a military radio with shittier specifications and capabilities than a consumer product for $500 dollars.

Trump & his DOGE department have a lot more to do than just slash their way through the bureaucracy in Washington D.C. I think their time limit is unrealistic too.

So much of the waste is literally written into what amounts to law within the congressional budget it will take years of effort to cut. I could see warehouses being filled with custom made, government issue, obsolete rotary dial telephones because of a line item in a budget from 1968 is still in force.

The kicker is, over the years, property might have been purchased, then new warehouses built to house the overflow of rotary dial phones that were no longer in use.

That’s the less obvious kind of waste that needs to be burned out of our government. I don’t think DOGE is up to it. I don’t think they have a clue what they’re up against, just how far the waste goes, or the consequences of severing the snakes head. For all anyone knows, government waste might be a hydra where cutting off one head gets you 2 more.

I may apply to work for them. Just for the hell of it, it might be fun. A man should enjoy his work shouldn’t he?