Tag: Government

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Dominoes

No, not in the old Cold War thinking.

As I was setting up the BBQ for Summer cookouts. I grabbed the Propane canister and gave it a good shake. It was about half full.

“Oh, I should go have this topped off,” I thought.

Then I thought about the gas in my car and thought, “I should probably fill the tank too.”

Then I thought about the price of gas and how much it was going to cost me. Almost $100, Damn! That’s a lot of cash. I decided to wait on both.

These thoughts inevitably led me down the road to petroleum and the economy in general.

I honestly can’t think of a single factor that has more control over our whole economy with more far reaching effect than petroleum cost.

We’ve all been feeling the pain at the gas pump. Many of us use gasoline on a daily basis. If we’re lucky we only fill up once a week or less. (I’m in the less category thank goodness.)

But it’s not just gasoline.

Jet Fuel is derived from Kerosene (petroleum). If the price of Jet fuels go up, then so do the prices of passenger tickets and air freight.

Kerosene is also used to heat homes in the North East. Even in the South when I was a boy, we had a 55 gallon drum in our backyard. Every fall, the Kerosene man filled the drum and if it was a cold winter he’d come back again in December or January. The big Kerosene heater in the hallway of the house was a center of activity on cold mornings. We’d have our coats draped over it for a few minutes to warm ‘em up before heading out for the day.

Diesel Fuel (petroleum) has seen prices skyrocketing in recent months too. We’re all familiar with Diesel. It fuels the 18 Wheelers that deliver almost all the goods we depend on to our shopping centers, grocery stores, gas stations, etc. If it costs more, then so do our goods.

That’s a simple equation to get your head around.

What’s easy to forget about Diesel is all the other things that it powers.

Most ships for example. Not just your fancy Cruise ship. But those big assed cargo carriers that deliver cars, and manufactured goods, from China and the rest of the world. Yes, even those big oil tankers are powered by Diesel.

Estelle Maersk on her maiden voyage. Credit Simon Burchett www.channelphotography.com

Then there’s the fishing fleet. You know, the fishermen that catch Salmon, Tuna, Crab, Lobster, and Shrimp. If their fuel prices go up, so does the cost of your Summer Seafood festival.

Most farms use Diesel to plow the fields, run irrigation pumps, harvest the crops, dry the grain, and ship it to factories to make bread.

Cattle Ranches, Chicken Farms, Dairy Farms, and all the rest are dependent on Diesel to run the heavy equipment like skip loaders, and backhoes. Some may use Diesel generators to run heaters in the Winter so food animals don’t freeze to death before they’re ready for market. Then they transport those animals to slaughter houses using Diesel trucks.

Even the railroads are dependent on Diesel. Most of the locomotives use big Diesel generators to power big electric motors that drive the locomotive, carrying goods all over the country.

Cranes, bulldozers, Cement Mixers, Dump Trucks, and all manner of construction equipment use Diesel fuel to level the ground for new housing developments, and raise girders for skyscrapers. Those same machines are used to make roads and maintain them. Snow plows, garbage trucks, school buses, and lots of city buses use Diesel fuel to provide necessary services.

Given that Diesel fuel prices have doubled in the past year it’s reasonable to expect for the cost of all these goods and services to go up as well. Or the services will be curtailed to maintain profitability and the ability to make payroll for the entities that provide them.

The practical upshot is that everything will become more expensive. From a box of Cheerios to that slice of ham in your lunch pail.

It’s not just fuel either. The ink in your ball point pen is oil based. Kiln drying of lumber will become more expensive, adding to the cost of lumber. Which in turn adds to the cost of construction.

Plastics of every type become more expensive from the plastic tub your cream cheese comes in, to the wrap the butcher puts over ground beef in the meat section.

Recycling plastic, (Only about 50% efficient,) while a good thing, has an interesting effect. With each recycle, the quality of the plastic goes down. This implies that there is a finite number of times a plastic wrapper or container can be recycled into useful life before it ends up in a trash dump.

Ultimately, new plastic wraps or containers will have to be made from petroleum, and the increased production costs will be seen by the consumer as higher prices.

Even fertilizer is petrochemical based. Making fertilizer more expensive will either translate into higher food prices or shortages. A lot of farms run on very tight budgets. An increase of 1% can mean that the fields in the north 40 don’t get planted.

President Biden has said,

“When it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over,”

Well, he’s right about one thing. This is a transition. I don’t know if I’d call it incredible. I also found his choice of the words, “…the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels…” to be odd.

I’d characterize his statement as reckless domestic policy. However, America is not the world…

Thinking about the rising petroleum prices and our government’s hand in those price increases domestically, I have to ask.

What are they thinking?

If the idea is to force America off a petroleum based economy this isn’t the way to do it. First and foremost, the infrastructure isn’t ready for this miracle transition.

It’s almost as if the Administration is thinking about automobiles only, and neglecting to consider the overall impact of their energy policies.

I for one don’t buy into blaming Russia for our energy prices. On the first day in office President Biden took steps to thwart American energy independence and his administration hasn’t stopped since.

All the Biden Administration has succeeded in doing is kicking our economy in the balls, while it was trying to get up after the COVID lockdowns.

In a way, this could be characterized as a “Shadow” lockdown. I know I’m traveling less. I’m staying home because I don’t want to spend the cash on fuel.

All of my household errands are planned to minimize travel and maximize the return on driving. (In truth, this is not terribly different from my normal way of doing things.) What I have noticed is that I’ll put off making a trip to pick up something I need for a project until I’ve got to get several items in the same general location.

That, replicated across millions of households also has an effect on our economy. Couple this behavior with people tightening their belts, the unavailability of some products due to production or supply chain issues, and I start to wonder if people may be simply choosing not to purchase things. In effect making do with what they’ve already got or going without entirely.

That could have far reaching economic implications over time.

Just in housing, we know that recent reports state housing starts are down. But we know that more people are coming to this country who will need to be housed. The cost of my little house has jumped by almost $100,000 (According to Zillow estimates) in the past two years.

That kind of price increase will certainly exclude a number of home buyers from the market. Especially if the cost of living and interest rates continues to squeeze those buyers from both ends.

Rental costs are skyrocketing too. The rental cost of an apartment alone begs the question; How are thousands of people with limited skills streaming into this country going to afford a place to live? Even if the government, A.K.A the taxpayers subsidize these folks living arrangements?

Many of these folks are arriving with no jobs, few skills, and no transportation. While at the same time, this country is generally built around everyone having a vehicle.

When factoring the cost of used vehicles, increasing food prices, along with the gas prices to power them, how are these folks supposed to make it?

I can understand people wanting to come to this country because of the “Dream” of America. The harsh reality of what is happening due to poor government policies is another thing entirely.

It’s been said that midterm elections are a referendum on the current administration. If that is true then the upcoming midterms should be a bloodbath. The question is, will the administration get the message?

Will Washington D.C. understand that the unintended consequences of their actions have been far more devastating, and potentially longer lasting, than an actual attack on our country?

I suspect that the baby formula crisis is only the tip of the iceberg.

“Winter is coming,” as was said so often in Game of Thrones.

This upcoming winter may be long, cold, and deadly. I say that seriously.

Each year we hear of the elderly freezing to death because they can’t afford heating oil. We hear of people being found dead because they used a charcoal BBQ inside to heat their homes. What happens if food supplies run low, while simultaneously more people are forced to curtail their heating expenses? Will this become a starve or freeze situation?

Just how “green” is it having people going into forests cutting down trees to feed their fireplaces?

How will this country react if desperation reaches a level of “Survival, Cancels out concepts like Right and Wrong”?

The die may well have already been cast. Planting season is well underway. Decisions about how many fields to plant and with what crops have already been made. Cattle and poultry production schedules have been set based on current cost and anticipated cost to the ranchers.

All of these producers have to make profit to feed their families too.

Grain reserves may provide a buffer this winter. But by next spring, if nothing is done to address fuel costs, and with it supply chain issues, the following winter may be really hard.

How many Americans is this administration willing to lose in their incredible transition? How much destruction to the economy will this administration do, or idly stand by and watch before they take action?

Only time will tell.

I will not be surprised if soon the Mexican and Canadian Governments have to set up checkpoints to process a sudden influx of migrants trying to get into their countries.

The Canadians already have pretty strict immigration controls in place. The Mexico side of America isn’t too worried about people coming into Mexico. Since most people are trying to get into America they’ve left a lot of the worry to America’s Immigration and Border patrol.

I find myself sometimes wondering how Mexico will react if suddenly, the flow of immigrants reverses? What happens when / if people who’ve come to America decide that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and head South for a better life lower fuel costs, lower cost of living, less regulations, and a warmer climate?

What would that look like? Would the Mexican army suddenly be patrolling their side of the border?

I’m not trying to be depressing, or depressed. These trains of thought sometimes start in my head and once started, have to run to their conclusion.

This one started with me shaking a propane canister on Memorial Day, in preparation to grill a couple of burgers.

This time next year, I might have lost the 10 pounds I’ve been wanting to lose and Memorial Day lunch might be a couple of wayward rabbits seasoned with rosemary or wild sage.

A lot can change in a year. I hope whatever change comes, it’s for the better.

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If the GOP takes the House and Senate will it make any difference?

Unfortunately, I think it won’t.

I had hoped that it would put controls on the Biden Administration but now…

We’ve already seen what “accidentally releasing” a draft opinion on Roe v. Wade has done. I’ll grant you, the protests in the streets aren’t up to the par of our most recent “Summer of love,” but if the Democratic majority is tossed out on their collective asses as they well deserve, I expect the burning and looting to start all over again.

Republicans have been painted as sitting at the right hand of Satan. Conservatives are seen as racist minions of the Devil. Collectively, the two groups have been demonized as White supremacist domestic terrorists.

While to my knowledge, few if any of these assertions are true. There is a remarkably large group of people who believe it to be so.

Perception often becomes reality. Even when gravity doesn’t suddenly switch off on demand.

Those who believe Republicans and conservatives are terrorists, will require little to go back to rioting in the streets. I’ll not be surprised if we see people falling to their knees, rending their clothing, and crying as the election result are made known.

This poor individual. They’ve become the face of over dramatic stupidity.

I’ll be waiting for the tearful pronouncements, “Democracy is dead,” “NAZIS control Congress.”

I suspect that there will be a large number of saintly Democratic Candidates demanding recounts claiming that the demonic Republicans cheated at the ballot boxes or suppressed voters. Even in areas where the elections followed the same rules as the 2020 election.

They’ll trundle out the usual examples. People of Color, the poor, the sick, and you can bet there will be a trans person who won’t be able to vote “authentically as themselves” because their ID doesn’t match the name they give at the polling place.

I’m betting that first day with new members in Congress will be a circus. I haven’t figured out what kind of distraction the far left people within the Democratic Party will come up with, but I’m sure it will be amusingly transparent to everyone except the protestors.

There’s another problem though. Once all the protestors have gone home because it’s too cold to bother, the Republicans may choose not to take strong immediate action to curb the Biden Administration’s obvious screw-ups.

Why?

If I were running the Republican Party, I’d be inclined to let the current administration continue stepping on all the rakes they’ve left on the White House lawn.

They’ve pretty much looked like a bad combination of The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Abbot & Costello, and the Keystone Cops.

Were I thinking about maintaining Republican control for decades I’d let the administration continue to show just how incompetent they are. Let them destroy themselves, allow their policies and decisions to paint them as buffoons. Hey, I can be as much of a bastard as everyone else!

That would effectively gut any Democratic Party candidates for at least the next decade, possibly longer. Mothers who couldn’t feed their babies will have a very long memory. Truckers and commuters who lost their jobs due to gas prices will be unforgiving for a very long time.

Then at the last moment, preferably when Biden or Harris is on their knees before Congress begging for help. Only then does a Republican Congress roll out conservative, fiscally responsible, solutions to the Biden /Harris Administration’s self inflicted wounds.

The Biden / Harris Administration must be destroyed totally and shamed so throughly that none of the participants ever attempt to hold a political office again. The last thing I’d want (were I directing the Republican Party) is to allow the Biden / Harris Administration any room to say anything they did was a success.

Make sure that when the gas prices drop, The Country knows it’s the Conservative Republican Congress’s doing.

When the illegal border crossings stop, and the criminals who have used the open border to bring their crime, trafficking, drugs, and misery, are brought to justice. Make sure the Country knows who it was that took appropriate action.

When the shelves are stocked again, shipments are on time and under budget, driving cost of consumer goods down. Make sure there’s a (C) for Conservative visible on the shelf tags, to remind folks who actually does the job.

Then go after every single one of the former members of Congress who wrought this disaster. For those who lined their pockets from the misery of the American People regardless of their party affiliation… If the evidence supports incarceration, put them in the cells formerly occupied by the prisoners illegally held without due process or speedy trial in the Jan 6th riot.

To be clear, I don’t think the Republican Party or conservatives are saints. But I think they’d do a damn sight better than the current crop of morons running our country.

Sadly, it hinges on the newly elected officials in Congress putting the People first.

As I stated, I’m concerned that instead of taking action, they’ll choose vengeance. In their vengeance, the American People will still be pawns and suffer at the hands of power mad politicians.

I think, the only hope to rein in power mad politicians is the prospect of a very long prison sentence at hard labor, or hangman’s noose, if they’re caught.

When the presidential campaigns start up. I sincerely hope that Donald Trump has the good sense not to run. I don’t think he was a bad President. By comparison to Biden… He was awesome. Then again as Biden stands today, a psychotic monkey with a gun would be preferable.

Yeah I really don’t like Biden and haven’t liked him for as long as I can remember. I think maybe in the early days, he might have at least had his heart in the right place, but that faded very quickly.

I’d like to see pragmatic independent candidates who were unafraid to speak the truth. I’d like them to have a plan, and be willing to share their thoughts with the public during the campaign. Personally I eliminate candidates that appear to be pandering to specific groups.

I pay attention to candidates that have a consistent story, and those that say something like; “Oh, that’s an interesting point. I hadn’t considered that, you may have changed my approach,” to one of their competitors will have my full and undivided attention.

The last election, every candidate said something like, “We have to go totally green in energy production.” But few of them spoke about their vision for getting from where we are, to a green future.

I’d have asked, “Are you proposing using the advances we’ve made in nuclear reactors? Do you propose every roof of every home in America have solar panels? Is your proposal to create wind farms? Create more Hydroelectric power generation? What is your plan to achieve this goal?”

You don’t have to believe in climate change, to implicitly understand the less pollution we generate, the less we have to clean up. The less oil or coal we use, the longer those resources last. Everyone gets that. Even the most adamant Climate Change Denier won’t argue.

What they will argue with, is being told they’re going to have to use technology that isn’t adequate to their needs. For example, having to buy 2 pricey electric tractors to keep up their farm production where they only needed one 20 year old diesel tractor to do the job before.

Folks will balk at being told that fuel prices are going to be taxed into the stratosphere as an incentive to switch to inadequate technologies, by people who don’t have the sense to step around cow shit in a field. (No, Senator… That’s not a mud puddle! Those shoes weren’t expensive were they?)

Trust me, working folks will leap to demonstrably superior tools. Check out any construction site and you’ll find all the workers using battery powered tools all over the place. No cords, same capability, it’s a no brainer. Even nail guns are going battery. It’s nice to not have a compressor and a long assed pneumatic hose when you’re doing finish work.

A local handyman here, deploys solar panels across the hood of his truck to power battery chargers for his tools. He’s not high tech, he’s not a greenie, he’s just pragmatic. He works on vacation or rental homes that often have the power turned off.

The point is, instead of screwing with gas taxes and mandates, a politician should have a broad plan.

They should be able to say, “Yes, I want solar panels on every roof. During the day we should be able to direct excess power from the housing panels to power our schools or offices where we learn and work. Hopefully it would be enough that we could direct oil and coal generated power to industry during the day, increasing our GDP but overall reducing the fossil generated kilowatts those plants have to produce. At night, I’d like to have the ability to redirect oil and coal generated power to light and heat or cool our homes. We’ll use this system until we can bring new safer nuclear plants online. My plan is to transition in a logical, planned way. Along the way, I’m confident we will make new discoveries and those may make the transition faster, and more efficient. To that end, I propose that we fund as much energy research as possible. Not just power generation, but also power storage. I propose that we mine, refine, and produce the raw materials and finished products here in America. This provides jobs and potentially can increase our exports to other nations.“

Every politician should be able to lay out various plans to address the issues of the day.

You don’t have to agree with the plan. But someone who lays out the broad strokes at least has thought about it. They’re not just pandering to activists for votes. The harder step is holding them accountable and calling them out if they haven’t delivered on their plan(s).

I use the same approach when reviewing all candidates.

It’s a given that no one candidate is going to embody every cause of the day. What I’m looking for is a candidate or candidates that at least are bold enough to speak their minds, honest enough to admit they don’t know everything, and smart enough to have thought about the issues.

Sadly, we’ve created a world where one misstep or poorly chosen word can destroy a candidate who would otherwise be the best person for the job. This allows only the pretty, the pandering, the disingenuous, and those driven by greed for money or power to hold office.

I don’t think that’s likely to change anytime soon.

This is why I think the Republican “Red Wave” in the midterms is going to be a big nothing burger.

The new boss will be exactly the same as the old boss.

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Color me Surprised!

I caught a report from Twitter that Nina Jankowicz resigned as the director of The Ministry Of Truth. A.K.A. The Disinformation Governance Board.

Unfortunately this doesn’t mean that the Disinformation Governance Board is really dead. Perhaps someone should drive a stake through its heart?

Works for me!

Another report quoted The Biden Administration as painting Jankowicz the victim of vicious attacks and mean people, once Ms. Jankowicz’s Tik-Tok videos started making the rounds.

How do they figure that? She made the videos, no-one held a gun to her head, she created and published those videos of her own free will.

That those videos became the subject of derision and bad jokes is just the way the ball bounces.

Apparently, the DHS is also pausing the Disinformation Governance Board in its entirety. I’m not sure I believe that. Then again, I’m not sure exactly what I believe coming out of our government anymore. I’ve read more articles in the past few months that I thought were satire and had a good laugh, only to find out that they were true.

It’s gotten pretty bad when “Truth” coming from government spokespersons reads like a Saturday Night Live skit. (Back when they were actually funny, that is.)

If they did pause the Disinformation Governance Board or better yet are going to kill it altogether I can only say praise God and pass the ammunition!

Now if we can only get the Department of Homeland Security to disband. While we start cleaning up the various messes at the DOJ, FBI, and all the other alphabet agencies.

I know that sounds like a conspiracy theory but I can’t help it. In the past 5 or 6 years the DOJ and FBI have made some very questionable decisions and those decisions haven’t reinforced my belief in their objectivity or pursuit of actual justice.

I think something is very wrong in those agencies and wonder if they shouldn’t be revamped and brought back to their original mission. The real question is what part of the government is the right one to do that?

Who would the people trust?

[Somewhere deep in the bowels of Washington DC government… There’s someone contemplating that question. Any minute they’ll decide to create a Department of Public Trust..]

I’m going back to watching porn.

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Beware the echo chamber…

After two years of more of less isolation, perhaps we’ve all fallen into our own personal echo chambers.

It’s not intentional. It’s simply what happens in isolation. There will be those who say we’ve not been isolated because we have the internet and the news, etc. But we have been isolated from people and friends who challenge our beliefs.

It’s the personal interactions, it’s the people we care about, our friends, family, etc. who add balance to our thoughts and opinions. Without those people challenging us, we fall into patterns where it’s far too easy to self validate what we think and as humans do, we assume that we’re right.

COVID has provided a perfect storm in this regard.

No matter how egalitarian we try to be in our news absorption we inevitably develop biases and preferred news sources. It could happen because those sources have pretty people, or entertaining pieces, or that they simply validate what we’re already thinking. Eventually we choose those sources that we’re comfortable with. Then we narrow our focus to only the comfortable.

Without discussion and interaction. Without people we respect and care about pushing back and saying, “Well this report here says thus and such,” it’s easy to create an echo chamber and not notice it.

I’m guilty… Are you?

That’s not about laying blame. None of us should feel threatened by this realization. It’s just a sign post that says, “Hey there, we need to do better.” None of us are perfect, but we all should at least aspire to keep walking that path and get as close as possible.

The problem with echo chambers is they feed division. Everyone walks around with their own entrenched beliefs and they defend them.

How many people have said, or been heard to say, “You are wrong and I don’t want to be friends anymore,”? Isn’t that the same as a dating profile saying “Republicans don’t contact me,”

That’s not healing, that’s not being open minded. It’s in the discussion of even closely held beliefs that validation, or error is uncovered. Sometimes neither validation or error is uncovered but the discussion provides enlightenment.

The enlightenment I’m talking about is understanding what drives the core belief. For example. Just because someone was tried for a crime and there was nothing uncovered in a trial that was legally actionable. It doesn’t mean there was nothing there in the first place. It may mean that someone was skating along the boundaries of the law and they were clever enough or lucky enough to stay just out of reach.

Al Capone is a good example. For years the FBI and other law enforcement knew Capone was in charge of a massive criminal organization. They could never actually pin anything on him directly. They didn’t have sufficient evidence and no matter how many times they arrested Capone, the case always fell apart. Until the IRS got involved. Then it was a whole new ball game.

Maybe, a way forward for all of us, is to have those uncomfortable discussions. But both parties really need to listen.

That’s the hard part, listening and divorcing yourself from your beliefs for a time. That way, you can get into the head of the other person thereby understanding the factual or not so factual underpinning of why they believe a certain way about something.

It doesn’t matter if you agree or not with their belief. What matters is that we all acknowledge that no-one is an idiot for thinking in a way we don’t agree with. It’s just that we each put “facts” together in some kind of order that makes it possible to cope with the world around us.

I’ve written in these pages that I personally think something was amiss in the most recent election. For that matter I could make a case that something has been amiss in elections going back decades.

When I’ve said that I thought the most recent election should be investigated. It wasn’t to depose Biden and install Trump. I honestly don’t care about which of the two is president.

I’m not even sure if constitutionally Biden could be removed at this point. I don’t even want to consider the chaos that removing a Biden Administration and installing a Trump Administration would cause. I guess I’m more of a, “Well, we’re here now, we just have to muddle through,” we have to do better next time. I don’t like Biden. I personally think he’s incompetent, but Harris is no better.

I as a voter, don’t like being placed in a situation where I feel that I have to choose the devil or the deep blue sea.

That doesn’t mean that I’m pro Trump. I personally think that he did some things that were beneficial for the country in the near term but I don’t have enough knowledge of politics to be able to project how those near term benefits play out over time. I’m willing to acknowledge that perhaps the folks who were screaming about his policies know, or knew something I missed.

When I say I think we should look at the elections, I’m saying that from a perspective of fixing what’s broken.

How do we change the system to make sure that the next election, everyone feels confident enough in the system that they believe the results represent the will of the electorate? I’d like for everyone to be able to comfortably say, “I didn’t like the result but that’s okay, because the system was fair and it works.“

I’d be willing to bet that average folks on both sides of the political gulf could get behind that. The politicians might not like it all that much, but the people they’re supposed to represent might like it a lot.

It hit me, that folks might not understand the nuance I’m talking about. I’d like to see a disassembly of the voting process to find the bugs and plug them. That would be a big task, and it would take representation from all parties, not just the big two. That’s also why I’m in the near term pro voter ID.

I’m not about preventing someone from casting their vote. I am about preventing someone from casting 20 votes. Yes, it would be inconvenient to have to present ID to obtain a ballot. but the benefit outweighs the inconvenience. God knows, I remember how slow it was to write a check and present ID in the grocery store line.

I’d like to see the next election, be clean. I’d like for there to be no margin for a candidate to do what Trump did this last election. We should remember that before Trump, there was Al Gore claiming the election irregularities.

Folks call it “The Big Lie”. I call it a warning sign. How about we figure out a way to eliminate the possibility of “The Big Lie” altogether? That seems like a worth while enterprise doesn’t it?

I’m amazed how many people have Trump living in their heads rent free. I’d prefer to push him into history and deal with what is in front of us. Yes, I acknowledge that Trump is living in my head rent free too. I try very hard to only let him have a cheap studio apartment with a leaky toilet. It’s hard to do because there’s so much media attention still focused on him.

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Its Baaaack…

Hunter Biden’s laptop is back in the news.

Apparently, The New York Times walked back its claims that Hunter’s laptop was a Russian hoax. The Times is now saying the laptop and the information it contained is authentic.

Politico also ran a similar story that the laptop in question was part of a disinformation campaign. I don’t think they have retracted their stories yet.

NewsGuard claimed that there was no way the information could be verified. They, however were talking about the New York Times original article.

I’ll admit, there are intelligence organizations that could have spent the time to put together something as intricate as the email chains contained on that laptop. They could have put together a bunch of the videos and pictures too. They could have forged the text messages easily.

The question I always asked about it was why? Why would Russia expend such significant resources to paint a known drug addict, even if he was the son of a presidential candidate, in a negative light?

If the Russians were behind Trump then it would make sense that they’d try to keep Trump in office. That being said, the general thought pre-election was that Trump was going to win.

Unless the Russians knew something that the general public didn’t. Was it that the Russians were worried Biden was going to win?

That makes no sense. If the Russians were interfering in our election process, and they were backing Trump then it would have been pretty much a “Lock” Trump would win.

On the other hand, If the Russians were not significantly involved with Trump but instead wanted to return to the Obama/Biden era where they could engage in their expansionistic goals, then again it makes no sense for them to have expended the resources. Had the laptop been taken seriously pre-election it could have derailed the Biden campaign and undermined the Russian expansionism.

Then there’s the data on the laptop itself. The email threads I was able to read before the data disappeared were boringly routine. Yes, the emails were talking about the business of making connections with the “Movers & Shakers” of various governments but once you get past the shock of that, it was boring routine scheduling and money transfers.

The videos were shocking, but the male in the videos (whether it was Hunter or not,) was very consistent in his voice patterns. His speech had the proper accent for someone from the northeast. Moreover, the sounds he made during sex were consistent.

Let’s be frank, we all know that during sex, we make sounds that are pretty unique to us. Ask your spouse, and you’ll find that there’s a certain pattern to your breathing, a slight guttural vocalization, a particular sound that you only make pre-orgasm. If your spouse is paying attention, they’ll use those cues to get you there, or back off so that the fun continues.

The male in the videos that I saw demonstrated the same patterns over and over again. This doesn’t prove it was Hunter, but it does suggest that it was the same guy. I can’t say too much about the women in the videos, there were many, and rarely did two videos have the same woman or girl.

If you want an example, watch some porn. Choose one particular performer, watch several movies they’re in, and listen. You’ll see what I mean. It’s more prominent with males in porn because “The Money Shot” is often repeated from different angles.

All of this led me to believe that the laptop was in fact authentic. It’s no one thing, it’s the intricacy and consistency.

On my laptop, I do things the same way. I have habits and patterns that are like a fingerprint. The way data is laid out is recognizable to me. I can grab an unlabeled data storage device and know it’s mine just by the way information is stored.

It’s my opinion the volume of information on the laptop, and its associated consistency couldn’t have been created by a hundred Russian agents. It looked more like one person over time.

I’m not saying that a disinformation campaign is impossible, I suggest that it is unlikely.

If we believe that the laptop is in fact Hunter’s. Then it opens a nasty can of worms. Was Hunter brokering access to his father, The Vice President, during the Obama years? If this is true then do we have a Sitting President who is compromised?

That was the fear during the Trump administration. Isn’t that possibility what triggered the first impeachment proceeding? Do we have a smoking gun so to speak that points to graft, corruption, pay for play, and all the things of which Trump was accused?

Is it possible that Congress had all the “right” crimes but the wrong man?

It’s unlikely that anything will be done about it at this point. Biden is one year into his term, Congress took almost three years to impeach Trump and. they were fast walking the process. Congress will no doubt drag their feet in any impeachment proceedings for Biden. I’d bet that we won’t know the full impact of Hunter’s laptop for at least 8 years.

By then the laptop will just be a minor footnote in history.

The question is this;

If this laptop had belonged to Eric Trump would it have been swept under the carpet?

The question is rhetorical. We all know that it would have been front page world wide.

The larger question is;

Why? Why do we allow this difference? A crime is a crime. That is supposed to be absolute, not money, leader, or party dependent. The FBI has had the laptop for almost 2 years, yet there have been no arrests and very few subpoenas.

Lady Justice is blindfolded for a reason. She’s supposed to represent the best of equal justice under the law. She’s not supposed to see race, or wealth, or power, or anything at all, except was the law broken.

Our Justice system is supposed to enforce the law absolutely. Exceptions may be made in extreme circumstances, (such as self defense), but exceptions should never become the rule.