Monday To the Last Drop Open Comments

Texas Executes Oldest Death Row Inmate for Killing Officer.
If this has already been posted, sorry.

Good morning gang. Nice to see Brother Dave posting good news right here on the front page this early in the morning. The patio is wet this morning, and the driveway is wet where exposed to the sky, but no water puddles. Still dark so not going out to read rain gauge, but it doubt it’s measurable. Nice and cool with north winds back today and a high in the mid to high 60’s it says. We’ll see if there is any response from my yard.

I’m a portable power generator guy rather than a whole house generator type, and I’ve got an addiction/obsession with power generators. And also a cheapskate. Anyway, over on Amazon I found a dual fuel 4500 or so watt generator set for about $400. Runs on gasoline or propane. Last winter I stored some gasoline containers outside for winter use, but I was never really comfortable with that set up. After a few months and winter was gone, I used all that gasoline in my automobile, so all I have stored right now is just a couple of gallons for the lawn tools. Butt, I also have a few bottles of propane stored out there, and I really don’t have much use for propane around here – no BBQ or outdoor patio flame – so really nothing. But propane stores for a long time and is safer that just having containers of gasoline about, so from that stand point, having a propane generators makes sense to me. The down side is that running it on propane results in significant reduction in power output, but based on my analysis, it’s over powered for my needs to begin with, so even at a reduced output level, it should be able to meet my needs with reserves. So anyway, I’m looking forward to getting it and assembling it and trying to get it running properly. Should not have to worry about draining the carburetor, getting old gas, and stuff like that too.

This one is not an inverter generator, and I do have an inverter generator to recharge batteries and run electronics, so I did not think I need another one. My research says that for running big items like refrigerator compressors and the like the old fashioned gensets actually work better. Problem is that the inverter generators still emit a modified sine wave and not actually a pure sine wave, but the amplitude is constant which is important to electronics while compressors and such are not as picky and just need brute force. They are louder, and the quieter inverter sets are best at RV camp sites and the like, but out here where I am, the noise is not really a factor. Anyway, I think this should round out all my generator needs, provide for safer and more convenient fuel storage, and the like. Of course, I’ll still have to store gasoline, but not so much and not for so long. I’m also scavenging for used propane bottles all the time.

OK, you all have a good day. More later.

Bonecrusher

Very busy weekend for me. Headcrusher came over and we cleaned and made significant progress at organizing the garage. I told him to imagine how he would set up his shop and do that here. I also encouraged him to come and do projects in our shop.
Yesterday, I did two batches of my gluten free bread and started another batch of Honeyshine.
We got a lot done and there is more to do but progress is progress and not to be discouraged.

Bonecrusher

HEY DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODE!
You gotcher ears on?

Texpat

This is an expose from Epoch Times so you might have to register with an email address to read the whole story.

Given the NEA’s frequently professed concern about low teacher pay, critics wonder why the union spends so little of the $377 million it received mostly in dues paid by 2.9 million members in 2021 on “representational activities”—that is, bargaining for better pay and working conditions for rank-and-file classroom teachers.

According to its latest LM2 report to the Department of Labor, the NEA spent only $32 million, or 8.5 percent of its total dues revenues, on those representational activities.

Calculated as a percentage of NEA total revenues from all sources of $588 million, the $32 million represents only 5.4 percent. The $588 million figure includes the $194 million the NEA received through the sale of “investments and fixed assets.”

NEA leadership is comprised of the biggest load of lying hypocrites in the country.

Digging deeper into the NEA’s LM2 reveals a union that pays lavish salaries to hundreds of its more than 1,900 employees, especially among those working in the national headquarters in Washington.

There are 344 NEA employees being paid more than $100,000 annually, nearly one of every five. Many of the 344 make twice or three times the national average teacher salary.

Another 45 NEA employees are paid more than $200,000 annually, with many of those receiving as much as four times the national average teacher salary.

Hurray! I have now passed 400 hours watch time on my YouTube channel. At this rate, I’ve only got 9 months to go before I hit the magic 4000 hour watch time to re-monetize.

Come on guys, watch a few more, or re-watch your old favorites. Just go to a playlist, hit play on the first one, turn down the sound, and go do something else.

I had a feeling that my body would be asking me about yesterday “WTH?”

Yep, taking it slowly this morning, and I anticipate some hang time in my near future. But it’s not as bad as I thought it might be.

I took a quick cruise around, and my transplants seem to have perked up. Well, except for my chocolate mint, which had only one teeny tiny leaf on it. It was in ICU when I bought it, so we’ll just see. Don’t know if that face jumping toad will come back, but this time I won’t be so surprised.

I realized that I forgot to plant a tub, so I just put some seeds in it. The soil is pretty wet, so need to water them in. We’re forecasted for some possible thunderstorms later, so, no watering for the next few days, at least.

My volunteer squash plant keeps putting out male flowers, so either it’s going to be all male flowers or the girls are late to the party. We shall see. My slicer tomato is getting bigger, and the volunteer tomato plant seems to be a grape tomato, based on the size of the fruit that’s forming. I guess it came up from a composted seed. Speaking of, I tossed all of those old seeds into my compost pile, along with some other debris, and thought the were all dead. Nope, I’ve got a pole bean that jumped up over night. I hadn’t planned on a vine coming out of that tote, so now I have to decide if I’m going to move it – soon – or if I leave it there and put up something for it to climb on. It’s close to a wall, so squirrels could easily get to it, so that’s a consideration….

And ants have moved into my bush bean tote, where I need to plant some more seeds. Not only are they a problem for me personally, some ants “farm” aphids, carrying them onto the plants and harvesting honeydew from them. Really bad for the plants. I saw a video of an ant bait that I’m going to try when the rain passes. Half sugar, half borax, enough water to make a paste, put it into a jar with holes in the lid, and let them carry it into the nest and feed it to all their mates. I have a small jar with a crack in it and some old lids that I can punch holes in…

I got distracted and didn’t get to my Latin last night, so I’ll try to dedicate some time this morning. After I post the C&C.

#7, you’re on but muted. Gotta help a friend.

Super Dave

#7 Streaming on mute. 😉
On Saturday I took the Wood Chipper off the back of the tractor for the first time in months. I need to put the sub-soiler on this morning to dig a ditch and yes Texpat I’m getting lazy but I will have to do some shove/pick mattock/hole digger work it both ends. If all goes according to plan I’ll pay for the plow in this first use, ($325).

Texpat

This young woman would have made a perfect wife for El Gordo. She really is impressive and knows a little about generators.

Texpat

Super Dave’s #2 link was the perfect complement to my OC image.

Super Dave

Psaki’s jaw-dropping answer when asked who should make rules for parents’ kids.
It starts at about the 40 second mark.

Texpat

Here’s an environmentally safe two-horsepower hay cutter with a nice driver.

Coffee & Covid ☙ Monday, April 25, 2022 ☙ WRAPPED

Good morning C&C! Today we’re back on schedule and I have a terrific post for you as well as new Operation Multiplier orders. Once you get to join the army in multiplying an incredibly deserving target, I’ve recapped my Save-A-Generation speech, and you’ll love it. Plus some hilarious local news from the Free State of Florida.

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*THE C&C ARMY POST*

OPERATION MULTIPLIER: Masks came off airplanes last week not thanks to the work of teams of government lawyers, but thanks to a small freedom activist group from Wyoming called the Health Freedom Defense Fund. It’s critical that we encourage regular citizens like HFDF and their lawyers, who worked on that lawsuit from last July until last Monday when the judge finally entered a decision. We need lots more of them, and the best way to get more is to reward the winners.

So today we will officially multiply the HFDF. This is real collective action, where together we can do something that none of us could possibly do by ourselves. It works because we ALL help out, however much or little we can. So do your part RIGHT NOW by clicking this link and giving however much (or little) is comfortable for you, just make sure the amount ends in a ‘2’ so they know it was us: https://secure.anedot.com/health-freedom-defense-fund-hfdf/donate. You can give $2, $5.22, $22, or $202. Whatever is easily affordable.

Even if you’re a first-time reader, please do it RIGHT NOW, and then come back here and continue reading today’s post, which is a great one that I worked on extra hard and extra sarcastically today, as a special Operation Multiplier bonus. It literally only takes a minute! You will feel GREAT after you do it, too. I PROMISE.

Yesterday afternoon in Orlando after my speech I met a very nice and entertaining Southwest flight attendant. She had me laughing with her stories about flying Karens, and encouraged me when she told about how she flung off her mask midflight Monday after getting the news about the decision. I’d like to give a special shout-out to all our C&C pilots and crew this morning. We’re thrilled for you guys! Finally free.

If you got down here and haven’t stopped to multiply HFDF yet, do it RIGHT NOW: https://secure.anedot.com/health-freedom-defense-fund-hfdf/donate. You’re a part of the C&C Army now, and we’re making history together.

/snip

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*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY*

Florida might be the “Free State of Florida” now, but, well, it’s still good old Florida down here. Fox News reported a story yesterday about a local law enforcement press briefing headlined, “Florida Sheriff Promotes Gun Safety Course for Residents to Shoot Home Invaders: ‘We Prefer That You Do’.”

Just days after I left the area following my “Save a Generation” appearance, Brandon J. Harris, 32, was arrested for breaking into several homes in Pace, Florida. He was finally stopped by a homeowner who fired at him several times. In a news briefing about the arrest, Santa Rosa Sheriff Bob Johnson said:

“One of the homeowners, he was breaking into their house, and they shot at him. So he continues to run, we finally corner him in a house that he broke into on Tom Sawyer and we cornered him in a bedroom. I guess they [the homeowner] think they did something wrong, which they did not. If someone’s breaking into your house, you’re more than welcome to shoot them in Santa Rosa County. We prefer that you do, actually. So, whoever that was, you’re not in trouble, come see us. We have a gun safety class we put on every other Saturday. If you take that, you’ll shoot a lot better, and hopefully you’ll save the taxpayers money.”

So! While we welcome all covid refugees in Florida, we just want you to learn how to shoot.

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*SAVE A GENERATION*

Here’s what I told the folks at the “Save A Generation” tour.

I’m just a regular lawyer from Florida who was convicted in March of 2020 that I had to use all my skills and strength to fight back against a monstrous tyranny that I saw coming at us fast. It wasn’t anything I ever set out to do, I’ve never been a political warrior before, ever, and mostly just minded my own business and tried to keep a low profile like most people.

But now, here I am, up on stages again and again, exercising my rights as a free American to FREE SPEECH. The tour was a celebration of free speech, a chance for citizens to hear different points of view for themselves, even where the speakers on the tour didn’t all agree with each other about many things. But we all do believe that freedom of speech is the greatest and most important right, possibly second only to freedom of religion, although I believe the two rights are bound up together, essential to any healthy civilization.

The recent efforts to squash speech are symptoms of democratic disease, and worse, a failure of imagination by a lot of people in charge who don’t recognize they are hurting themselves as much as the rest of us with their frantic attempts to control an un-controllable narrative. This kind of thing NEVER works out well for anybody. Never has.

Free speech is the reason we aren’t Shanghai right now. Sure, we have a terrific Constitution, a miraculous document conceived in liberty by our Founding Fathers in a time of inspired creation. But our Constitutional rights are only as good as what courts will enforce, and we’ve seen in the jab cases that the Supreme Court isn’t 100% reliable. So.

Free speech is what is saving us, and that’s why it’s under renewed attack by a new narrative, since the old one wasn’t working.

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I’ve been calling the new one Narrative 2.0, which claims that the most dangerous virus since the Black Plague of 1346 suddenly mutated into a harmless seasonal cold bug in late November of last year. Think about this: you’ve heard about how a new Omicron “sub variant” called BA.2 is now the “dominant” variant and is literally a million times more infectious than Omicron, which was literally a million times more infectious than Delta?

So why haven’t they NAMED the dominant new variant yet?

I mean, last year they could HARDLY WAIT to name each new variant. The papers even published the entire Greek alphabet so we could play the naming game with them, and look forward to a whole series of new variants of concern. But that’s gone now, no more alphabet, it’s just “BA.2.” You won’t remember the blandly-named BA.2, or BA.3, or BA.2.2.1 or whatever comes next after that. You probably didn’t even remember what BA.2 was called until I said it just now.

We’re in a new phase, an easier phase, and it’s tempting to go back to sleep, to “get back to normal,” which a year ago they promised would NEVER happen, we were going to have to get used to the “new” normal of masks and mandates. But then Republicans swept deep-blue Virginia in the November elections, and normal came rushing right back. It’s not politics, no, it’s Science. You believe that, right?

Don’t get distracted. That’s what they want you to be. That’s the reason for Narrative 2.0. But it ain’t over, not by a long shot.

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I’ve been told that, when you take race car driving lessons, the first thing they teach you is “never look at the wall.” The car goes toward what you focus on. Even if the car spins out of control, always look at the ROAD where you WANT the car to go. It’s basic psychology. You get what you focus on.

But during the pandemic, all too often we’ve focused on the “narrative wall,” what the psyops teams want us to look at. They know that even if it’s just in our own minds, we’ll create whatever they can trick us into focusing on. And for too long that’s been FEAR. Now it’s “getting back to normal.”

Don’t take the bait.

Instead, I ask you to focus on what I call “the hidden blessings of the pandemic.” There are a LOT of them, far too many to name them all. I’ll just give you a few examples. These are things you’d have NEVER predicted could happen, not in a million years. You wouldn’t even have bet that slippery weasel Fauci’s money on them.

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Let’s start with airplane masks, possibly one of the most hated of all the malodorous mask mandates that oozed out of the CDC’s sewage system. I think it was considered worst because of the threats of criminal prosecution and loss of flying rights if your mask slipped two millimeters under your nose while the flight attendant was having a bad day. Not to mention how it empowered overweight, middle-aged, poorly-coiffed Karens to splenetically scold and shame everyone on board every ten seconds.

The airplane mask mandate was lifted last Monday because of hard work done by CITIZENS, not government. And the Biden Administration just took it. Sure, they’ve appealed, but they aren’t asking for the mask mandate back, not yet anyway.

WE won that battle; we the people. A year ago you wouldn’t have believed it was possible. That’s good news. It proves we CAN turn these mandates around. The pandemic gave us a chance to learn how to do it.

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How about Florida’s reputation? Two years ago Florida was the “Florida Man” state. They imagined we were all riding alligators around holding beer cans in one hand and refusing to evacuate during hurricanes because we’d just put a casserole in the trailer’s easy-bake oven. And don’t forget about hanging chads. Popular memes featured Bugs Bunny busily sawing the state of Florida off the rest of the United States.

But now, we’re the Free State of Florida, leading the world, headed by Governor DeSantis, whose detractors even grudgingly admit is the most effective, most popular governor in the country. What they won’t admit is painfully obvious to everyone: DeSantis is popular and called unbeatable because he’s tapped into the strong will of the people. All the leftists can do is wail, spit nails, and call our popular will “racist” and “homophobic.”

DeSantis didn’t start out politically powerful. He won the governorship by a handful of votes over an obviously unqualified democrat opponent. It was the pandemic that gave DeSantis his opportunity to become the man his is now. Absent the pandemic, it’s extremely unlikely that DeSantis would have become a world icon for freedom.

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DeSantis is so politically empowered that he just pulled off the most understated miraculous political victory in Florida history: beating Disney. In a special session last week called by the Governor, Florida clipped Disney’s special tax breaks and its unparalleled rights to self-government.

It’s hard for non-Floridians to imagine how big an accomplishment that was. Disney was always Florida’s political third rail. You just didn’t touch Disney, not unless for some insane reason you wanted to be fried to a political crisp.

But after Disney attacked the Governor and Republican legislators in Florida over the state’s new anti-grooming law, Disney not only felt the sharp end of the tiki torch, but it lost online subscribers in droves, not to mention over $40 billion in stock value. And Governor DeSantis made it look effortless, getting the job done in a matter of days and moving on to new initiatives.

The leftwing papers down here have been DYING for Disney to fight back, to sue the state over the new law, but Disney has been awfully quiet this week, hasn’t it? That’s because Disney is smarter than the drooling, moronic reporters who think this will be settled in court. DISNEY LOSES EITHER WAY, and they know it.

If Disney sues Florida, DeSantis will run for Governor against that lawsuit. It’ll be in the news over and over as things develop in the case, reminding everyone about Disney’s hyper-woke grooming agenda, every time. And even if Disney won the lawsuit and, people will be completely outraged, because an activist judge will have protected a big, woke corporation’s special insider deals that the rest of us can’t get.

Disney’s brand name has been badly damaged. It is in a political hole, and unlike a bunch of mentally-defective reporters, it is politically savvy enough to realize that, and to shut up and stop digging.

You heard it here first. I predict Disney WON’T sue. The woke corporation will just take it, and it will try to repair its relationships in Florida instead. The pandemic created the circumstances where woke Disney could be beaten, starting from when horrified parents saw what their kids were really learning on “distant education” classes during the lockdowns and leading inevitably to the present moment.

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There’s a LOT more. How about CNN+? I guess there aren’t enough woke people to support the new 300 million-dollar streaming news network. Whoops. Poor Chris Wallace. He’s back looking for a job, in case you know anybody looking for an out-of-touch aging news anchor.

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How about the City of Philadelphia, which had to jettison its brand new mask mandate after just FOUR DAYS? I think the City just set the record for the shortest mask mandate in history. Philadelphia’s Health Department explained, “Due to decreasing hospitalizations and a leveling of case counts, the City will move to strongly recommending masks in indoor public spaces as opposed to a mask mandate.”

Twitter
#BREAKING: Philadelphia will rescind the city’s indoor mask mandate just days after the order went back into effect, city health officials tell CBS3.
Philadelphia Lifts Recently Reinstated Indoor Mask Mandate After COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations Level Off, Health Officials SayJust days after becoming the first major city to reimpose a mask mandate, Philly flipped the switch again with a unanimous vote from the Philadelphia Board of Health.cbsloc.al

So … its loopy mask mandate was working great, right? Cases down and all that? So … why end it, if it’s working? The whole thing is so dumb. Why can’t they just tell the truth, and say they made a mistake? The Bible says all liars will be thrown into the lake of fire. Just saying.

Plus … mask experts have pivoted and are now joining Team Reality. We’re winning the mask wars.

Twitter
I was called mask queen early in pandemic but we must look at data in kids. Those cloth masks toddlers wear don’t prevent transmission and group most likely to need to see faces. If parent wants to mask toddler suggest KF94 by physical science studies

Four COVID experts say it’s time to accept reality: Vaccines work, mask mandates don’tIt’s time to reassess our COVID prevention strategies in and outside of schools and…sfchronicle.com

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Finally, and maybe most importantly, how about the AVALANCHE of pro-freedom state laws? From ratcheting back emergency powers, reinforcing medical freedoms, banning CRT education, and supporting everything from free speech to Second Amendment gun rights, state legislatures all over the country have been very busy creating a state-level bulwark against an overreaching federal government.

More pro-life laws have passed since the pandemic began than in all the years since Roe v. Wade.

It’s hard to exaggerate how big a change in politics this represents. While not everyone on our side agrees with those politics, the new laws could result in saving a thousand times more lives than all the lives lost to covid, even if you accept the sketchy official numbers. Long captured in a delicate political balance, the recent shift in the pro-life issue was only possible because the left stabbed the heart of its own abortion rationale: “my body, my choice.”

Well ladies, it turns out it’s NOT your body, your choice, not when it comes to experimental mRNA shots, is it?

Now exposed for the fake dogma that it always was, “my body, my choice” has become a historic artifact. Rudderless, the pro-choice movement is drifting over a waterfall.

As great as all these developments are, it’s not over. It’s just getting started.

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So don’t look at the wall of fear, or the wall of limp passivity. Look instead at the wall of good news and winning. Let’s move THAT direction, toward even MORE changes that we need to exterminate the marxist termites so our kids and grandkids don’t have to shoot their way out.

Don’t look at what’s been happening as something NEW. I get it, it’s tempting to see this as a novel conspiracy to brain-chip us that started in 2019 or something and was cooked up along with some nice pancetti-wrapped broiled asparagus in Davos, Switzerland. Klaus Schwab is nothing more than a sinister version of Sergeant Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes (“you have no-THINK”). He’s a silly nobody and will eventually be tossed in the dustbin of history. Bill Gates is getting fatter and dumplier by the minute and eventually we’ll buy all that farmland back from him for pennies on the dollar.

Recent events are NOT new. They’ve been on the way for a LONG time while we were sleeping. For one example, the gay community tried to warn us about Fauci in the 1980’s, during the HIV pandemic, but we didn’t listen. Then that human termite Fauci — whose head looks just like a shrunken apple — burrowed his way right next to the President of the United States and did to all of US the exact same thing he did to gay people forty years before.

Just ask Robert Kennedy, he wrote a book all about it.

Another one is the military already experimented on our soldiers during the Gulf War with its disastrous experimental Anthrax vaccine, and we just took it. You want to talk about holding Nuremberg trials? We should have held them back when politicians and doctors experimented on our soldiers and manufactured untold amounts of human misery back during the Gulf War. But we didn’t. We were asleep. We weren’t paying attention. Now the SAME PEOPLE are doing it to the whole world.

The good news is we’re awake NOW. They have our full attention, this time.

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It’s not aspirational. We HAVE to keep fighting, or soon we’ll be right back where we started, or worse. None of the vaccine mandates have been repealed. They’re all still there, lurking, waiting to pass the November elections, for a more favorable political climate, and for a judge to throw out the temporary injunctions protecting most of us from forced vaccination. It’s coming this January, you can bet on it.

We have to stop this once and for all. We CAN do it, too. We’ve already proved that. Coffee & Covid’s Operation Multiplier is a great example of things it’s possible to do if we work together, things that would be impossible to do working alone.

I call my fighting-back formula, “shrinkage.” (Not THAT kind, please try to focus.) It’s THIS:

— We can shrink ALL vaccine requirements: school jab schedules, healthcare worker flu-jab requirements, and PLEASE, military vaccine mandates.

— We can shrink liability shields, by shaming the federal government into paying ALL vaccine injury claims. It’s the right thing to do. You can’t coerce people into taking a vaccine and then not pay when people get hurt. Same thing for employers. States can begin to make mandating employers share in the liability for employees who get hurt because of their demanding policies.

— We have to keep shrinking local emergency powers. Unelected public health officials shouldn’t be able to mandate ANYTHING. Only democratically-elected lawmakers should be able to pass laws affecting the general public, even in emergencies, except maybe for VERY short periods of time measured in days, not weeks or months.

Let’s shrink them. Shrinkage. We can do that. Let’s work together; a new tribe that has re-discovered each other because of our shared values, values of personal freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

I’m not saying it will be easy. There’s a LOT going on. But it IS possible; we CAN do it, and we MUST do it. For our children and their children and their children’s children. This is our time.

Super Dave

#11 Texpat, I got sucked into that one. That gal is impressive she even rewound the coils but the it was metal weld that put her over the top. Oh and safety first, standing in the water with a 120 VAC lamp? 😉

#16

Hubby told me a story once of a plumber, wading through water, plugging in his sewer machine.

He said the guy just smiled as sparks flew about his teeth.

/shiver

GJT

#11, 16

Just about the time I said to myself yeah right all those rusty bolts and nuts are just come right off she has to remove broken off studs. Good technique, I always welded a nut to them with probably 50/50 results.

Shannon

Attention Seniors and Geezers:

State of Texas Proposition 1

I was proud to Joint-Author Senate Joint Resolution 2 (SJR 2) during the 2nd Special Session of the 87th Texas Legislature to provide property tax relief for homeowners with a homestead exemption who are 65 and older or disabled. Proposition 1 will benefit individuals with an over 65 or disabled exemption on their homestead by providing for the same percentage reduction in an individual’s school district tax rate that everyone else received in 2019.

Legislation passed by the 86th Legislature in 2019 provided for compression of school district property tax rates beginning in that year, which lowered the tax burden for homeowners and other property owners. However, because homeowners who are elderly or disabled have their school district property taxes frozen, they did not all benefit from that tax rate compression. The proposed amendment will correct this by ensuring that all elderly and disabled homeowners receive school tax relief as a result of school district tax rate reductions in 2019 and subsequent years at the same time other homeowners and other property owners receive relief from school taxes.

There are 1.8 million over 65 exemptions and 180,000 disabled exemptions; on average these households will see a $110 reduction in the first year and $125 reduction in the second year. Reductions will continue to grow in subsequent years.

Here is how the State of Texas Proposition 1 will appear on voters’ ballots:

“The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for the reduction of the amount of a limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for general elementary and secondary public school purposes on the residence homestead of a person who is elderly or disabled to reflect any statutory reduction from the preceding tax year in the maximum compressed rate of the maintenance and operations taxes imposed for those purposes on the homestead.”

State of Texas Proposition 2

Another initiative I joint authored is Senate Joint Resolution 2 (SJR 2) during the 3rd Special Session of the 87th Texas Legislature to provide property tax relief for all residential homeowners with a homestead exemption. If passed, Proposition 2 will increase the amount your homestead exemption from ad valorem taxation for public school purposes from $25,000 to $40,000, thus reducing your property taxes owed.

On average, the homeowner will see a $176 savings in their school district tax bill. If passed, this amendment will be effective as of January 1, 2022.

SJR 2 will not reduce public education funding. The proposal instead increases the state’s share of education funding, keeping your local district whole while you receive savings each year hereafter.

Here is how the State of Texas Proposition 2 will appear on voters’ ballots:

“The constitutional amendment increasing the amount of the residence homestead exemption from ad valorem taxation for public school purposes from $25,000 to $40,000.”

– from Texas Senator Lois Kolkhorst

Shannon

Even ElGordo might vote for these two.

He might save enough to buy another generator.

Shannon

Unless he just likes paying more taxes than the younger generations.

Super Dave

~~Florida~~ Alabama Charcuterie. 😀

It even has Busch Beer.

Shannon

22
Being from Texas, someone is going to have to identify for me what that is being served with the crackers and Vienna sausages.

It looks like raw, butter-impregnated pie crust dough.

Shannon

Just looking at Vienna sausage makes me want to hurl.

#19, 20, et al. Just got back from voting – I was the second voter to show up. Out here, there are three ballots, three sign ins, and three boxes to drop the ballots into – 1 for the City, 1 for the ISD, and 1 for the County. The big issue locally is a school bond matter. San Saba Co has three ISD’s, so this only applies to SS ISD. Heated arguments are going on about this matter. The City has a contested councilman election, and an unopposed Mayor. The County matter is as Shannon describes in #19, but the wording on the ballot is very convoluted and confusing. I recommend a “yes” on that one – in fact on both of them.

Last time around we at the Olde Pharts coffee at Larry’s Table of Knowledge welcomed both candidates for County Judge for an informal chat over coffee, and we learned quite a bit – and I like to think the Candidates also learned quite a bit. Our consensus favored candidate won in the election. Today, we were debating the school bond matter, so one of the Olde Pharts just said hell, let’s just get answers to our questions from the horse’s mouth and called the Superintended of Schools over for a visit. That too proved informative, and both the pros and cons were able to get answers to their questions. It did not change my mind, but I most certainly did appreciate the opportunity to actually get real answer to real questions instead of listening to arguments for both sides which are uninformed. I expect the bond issue to pass as well. So anyway, in small town life, Larry’s Table of Knowledge turns out to be just that – who knew that it would become the epicenter of local political forces.

I’ve recorded about 1/10th inch of rain, which again is better than none, but hardly enough to make any real difference. We’ll see soon enough if it helps my lawn to finally turn green. But the northerly wind and cool temp is a welcome relief for now.

Have a great day you all.

squawkbox

In keeping with Texpat’s OC picture and Super Dave’s good news of the day…… My absolutely favorite cartoon.

squawkbox

Shannon

Just looking at Vienna sausage makes me want to hurl.

Heathen

Shannon

The stinkiest vehicle on the road is a rendering truck. It regularly visits meat markets and slaughter houses to pick up the unused bones, fat, blood, and other gross stuff. He takes it to a plant that processes that stuff into clean fat, lard, gelatin – all kinds of important products.

That plant is the next-to-the-last stop for that original animal.

Pretty sure anything left after that goes to the Vienna sausage plant.

Texpat

Tucker Max

@TuckerMax

We couldn’t find a school that was a healthy and safe place for our kids to learn…so we got like-minded families together and started our own. Twice. Our “Waldorf style” school is now under construction (pic below) on acreage in Dripping Springs.

I made an exception on my Twitter link rule because this is a great story. Go to this link to see the photos.

wagonburner

22/23/24
Izzat summa that foofy french cheese?!?

If yer gonna eat those “veenie weenies”, you gotta use Big Yellow mustard and American processed cheese food.

squawkbox

wagonburner

If yer gonna eat those “veenie weenies”, you gotta use Big Yellow mustard and American processed cheese food.

Obviously an enlightened sophisticate

Vienna sausages are good for feeding your dogs pills. Fish bait? Inducing vomiting in case a poison is ingested.

There ya’ go. Vienna sausages are like mosquitoes – I’m sure they serve a purpose, but it’s really hard to find one.

Texpat

Chris Bray is a former US Army infantry sergeant with the expected profane vocabulary. He writes for The Federalist where he doesn’t use it, but he is free to do so on his new substack site so you have been warned. It’s a brief and informative article on the history of free speech in America and the incorporation doctrine.

The reason free speech and a free press were in there as political premises in 1856, as contested values a new political party was fighting for….

Okay, hold on a minute. In 2022, we’re a little baffled that we’re fighting for free speech. An army of sniveling sh**weasels insists that we need guardrails around our discourse to prevent extremism, and Twitter employees gasp and sob as some horrible monster threatens to use their platform to let people just say stuff.

Stop trying to let people speak freely, you Nazis!

The whole thing is so baffling because we feel like the other side is trying to win the game as we amble out of the locker room and get on the team bus to head back to the hotel, like, game’s over, folks, we won an hour ago. Aren’t these long-settled questions? How is it that people are trying to drive us back against the powerful course of the American free speech tradition?

You see, Democrats have been trying to subvert and violate the First Amendment since the Founding. In 1857:

Southerners, feeling that Helper’s words were violence, moderated his content. A North Carolina minister, Daniel Worth, “preached against slavery in Guilford and Randolph counties, sold copies of Helper’s book and the Republican New York Tribune, and worked to convert people to the antislavery cause.” He was arrested by the Guilford County sheriff, convicted — for the crime of distributing an incendiary book — and sentenced to prison. See, they put guardrails on our discourse.

An important link in this piece leads to this site, The First Amendment Encyclopedia, at Middle Tennessee State University.

Viewed from another perspective, however, Gitlow represents a monumental shift in the Court’s approach to free speech and federalism. For nearly a century following Barron v. Baltimore (1833), the Court had treated the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, as applying only to the federal government.

With Gitlow, the Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee that individuals cannot be ”deprived of liberty without due process of law” applies free speech and free press protections to the states.

Through this so-called incorporation doctrine, the Court opened the door for the eventual case-by-case protection of nearly all other guarantees in the Bill of Rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause. Thus, Gitlow helped initiate the modern constitutional law era, extending the reach of constitutional rights and placing new limits on states.

News you can use: https://babylonbee.com/news/chris-wallace-now-regretting-getting-cnn-tramp-stamp

Texpat

An hour ago, the Wall Street Journal reported the Twitter board is in serious negotiations to accept Elon Musk’s offer to buy them out.

GO VERY LONG NOW ON POPCORN FUTURES !

Shannon

I believe you are correct, WB.
It’s cheese.

Texpat

The month of May may see journalists jumping out of windows at the NYT and WAPO.

Texpat

26 Squawk

I really do love that cartoon.

Shannon

Posted to YouTube 11 days ago.

Elon Musk at TED2022.

squawkbox

Texpat #38

Thumbs up

This whole Elon Musk thing takes me back to the C&C today.

Things can change. Things are changing. The pushback has begun, but we cannot become complacent. We cannot succumb to distraction and fall for misdirection of our focus, energy, and resources.

Because the ones who want to destroy us are relentless in their pursuit of power.

Shannon

41

Yes.

Because they will lie, cheat, steal, and murder to get it and expand it.

squawkbox

The pushback has begun…….. We cannot succumb to distraction and fall for misdirection of our focus, energy, and resources.

Hope springs eternal.So Mutts buys twitter. I’ll see his twitter and raise with

ABC
CBS
NBC
CNN
Fox
ENERY NEWSPAPER IN THE WORLD
Facebook
Hollywood
Washington DC
Academia
Religion

Frankly I do not know which is more dangerous, Twitter’s censoring. or Twitter becoming a “conservative” echo chamber. I cannot count the amount of conservative “echo” chambers I have been banned from for discussing returning to the ideals of a true Constitutional Government. Mark Levin expertly voiced my concerns over nationalism and yes even this “America First” movement. Okay “we’ are pushing back, but to what ends?

Shannon

Remember when you went to the carnival and on certain rides there were signs that said, “You Must Be This Tall To Ride” ?

Can’t we institute something similar at the point of sale of yoga pants??

Sheesh.

Shannon

Or maybe just outlaw yoga pants waist sizes over 26 inches.

squawkbox

Or maybe just outlaw yoga pants waist sizes over 26 inches.

federal or civil?

Texpat

43 Squawk

I watched Levin’s entire show Sunday night. It was absolutely excellent.

Or maybe just outlaw yoga pants waist sizes over 26 inches.

Preferably, any pants that cling must be accompanied by a top that will hang below the hips.

Cover that stuff up. If I wear yoga pants or leggings outside of the house, I wear a long t-shirt, top, or a tunic. I’m not comfortable exposing myself in that way. I’m well aware I have a few too many rolls on me to be attractive.

Can we change the saggy pants thing, too? Frankly, I don’t care about the color of your boxers. Nor the shape of your buttocks.

Texpat

Despite the fact I had a former neighbor who worked in her yard in attire proving she alone was the inspiration for the invention of leggings and yoga pants, I have been ranting on and off about women the size of small cars wearing them in public. The worst development was the use of psychedelic fabric that seemed to be favored by women wearing at least a size 55 waist.

Texpat

Can we change the saggy pants thing, too?

Hear Ye ! Hear Ye !

squawkbox

Texpat

RE: Levin

I have been arguing his points for years and especially when Trump entered office. On the one hand I liked Trumps policies on the other hand I recognized him as a central all powerful government type of guy. READ TRUMPS BOOKS.

The further we move even in descriptions from original intent we end up with a government like we got far from smaller government.

ABC
CBS
NBC
CNN
Fox
ENERY NEWSPAPER IN THE WORLD

Every one of those is on their way out as the primary means of communications. They’re right where Radio was in 1953: at the pinnacle of their power and the end of their relevance.

-The most popular Late night TV host is Greg Gutfeld.
-Joe Rogan added 2 million subscribers berween now and when they were trying to cancel him..
-Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers at a time they were forecast to gain 2.5 million, andctheirxstick is still heading south today.
-Disney is losing value and subscribers
-The Democrats are going to get creamed in November, the only uestion now being if the Republicans get Veto Proof majorities
-Polls show that Biden’s biggest loss of support is among the young and Hispanics, with Blacks not too far behind.

None of that would be happening if the Legacy Media had the kind of power you think they do. The culture is actually on our side, the internet gives ys a place to get together and not be afraid of media manfactured peer pressure. I liken this to the advent of Rush Limbaugh who gave us the knowledge taht its OK to think thecway we do, even if the media says nobody does.

The libs pushed too hard, too far, and too fast.

They thought they were invincible and made everyone miserable, frightened, and wissed off.

The rubber band effect will be sooooo gratifying to watch.

texanadian

#49: Spandex is a privilege, not a right.

Hello, everyone. It looks like spring may be arriving in Not so great White North. Mid 60’s today. Busy time up here but nothing interesting to talk about.

Katfish

#49 – Despite the fact I had a former neighbor who worked in her yard in attire proving she alone was the inspiration for the invention of leggings and yoga pants,

photographic evidence por favore! 😉

wagonburner

perv

Shannon

Our electricity co-op has a sizable piece of property up the road, just outside of Bellville. They bought it to construct this very strange looking facility that allows them to switch/redirect the power from some large, high voltage transmission lines.

Off to one side they installed a curious bunch of poles and lines that go nowhere. Recently they doubled the size of this project. Along the way I figured out it is a Lineman’s Rodeo facility.

Coming home just now there were about forty trucks there, from cities around the region. But the black cloud lurking to the north is now dumping a very nice rain on us.

Twitter been sold!

Per Ace:

But if true, this could be… helpful for The Culling of the Nose-Rings and Purple-Hairs.

Spandex is a privilege, not a right.

Reminds me of that line from Steel Magnolias: “It looks like two pigs fighting under a blanket.”

I never want that said about me. Not that it won’t, I just don’t want it.

squawkbox

Sarge

Legacy media suffers a setback but they are still the mainstream and will remain that.

The numbers you provide are FAR from a controlling interest.

And I resent this statement:

advent of Rush Limbaugh who gave us the knowledge taht its OK to think thecway we do, even if the media says nobody does.

Limbaugh did not “gives us any knowledge saying it is okay to think”. He did offer an opposing opinion to the American voter that at least 36M listeners on 600 stations glommed onto. Let me ask you something. If the 36M listeners were so influenced by fearless leader why did we get two terms of Clinton and two terms of Obama.? So I do not hold out much hope there is some sea change now or coming to media influence.

Limbaugh himself once said if the American people ever discover what the Democrats are all about they would never win another election. Uhhhhhh Obama revealed everything and the truth was laid bare. Let’s stipulate Biden did steal the election. Even with that consider the amount of people that did vote Democrat. It was quite the substantial number.

Contrary to popular belief I believe the American folks think for themselves. It did not take the media to convince them to depend on the government. It only took the government to offer them a check and schools to stop teaching federalism, constitutionalism, property rights and that taxes are theft.

wagonburner

Yoga pants, etc. need an application process

squawkbox

Spandex? Speedo? Speedo? Spandex?

SPANDEX

Bonecrusher

#61 Squawk:

and that taxes are theft.

Taxes are theft when they are collected for one purpose and then spent on another. In the real world it would be called misappropriation of funds.
While I will stipulate that some taxes are legitimate for things like funding: the military, roads, bridges, harbors, securing the borders, and other such Constitutionally mandated items; paying for NGOs to go to A-Stan to teach the peasants that an urinal is an art form, or that someone can change their gender back and forth merely by an act of will, or calling the BLM/Antifa burning riots over the summer mostly peaceful, the perpetrators of which suffering no consequences at all, while at the same time the legitimate political protesters of January 6 being illegally held without trial, bail, or access to counsel under the false claim of insurrection, can not be allowed to continue. If there is no correction, any semblance of rule of law will vanish and we will have anarchy: the blood will run in the streets up to a horse’s bridle.

mharper42

Took The Beautiful Travis to the new vet today. In his opinion, the only improvement was the much shorter drive involved. Otherwise he really hated it.

squawkbox

Bonecrusher

If we were run by the Constitution the military would be the only item taxed for at the fed level. Return the powers to the state level and they can tax for roads bridges etc. By moving the taxing authority closer to the electorate there is much better control of taxes.

As always, I blame the voter. We have gone so far from the ideas of personal property ownership rights that now it really makes no difference to me who steals my money. You do realize that we no longer own our homes. Don’t pay your property taxes or income taxes and look who owns it. Try to rent your home and tell Paul and his husband Peter you are not going to rent to them because you disagree with their lifestyle.

Dr phil Good-E=1984

Le Pen lost in France
Freedom can’t dance
Voting is the illusion
A glandular contusion

Was there ever any doubt
On a foregone conclusion
The game has been rigged
Marsupial confusion

Pancakes and fritters
Klaus Schwab likes to dither
Abbott’s on a string
a WEF puppet thing

Borders wide open
Buses are bloated
Goopeecons and totalitariancrats
Just a sidewalk’s big splat

Spoons and scissors
Quacks they wither
Floods and tides
Orangutans hide

The monkey’s the man
The sputum it spans
Sharks and ladders
In seasons much tattered

Monday’s a drag
A constant sea hag
In a Popeye cartoon
And a Brutus balloon

The country’s at list
A Titanic like shift
No admiral can save her
They’ve lost their sweet favor

A Wooden Dummy at the helm
a Ray Bradbury realm
Tales from the crypt
The sheep have been dipped

The citizenry is fattened
A Rock Hunter chasm
Decades of excess
And conglomerated spasms

Shannon

But mostly he watched with eager search

The belfry tower of the Old North Church,

As it rose above the graves on the hill,

Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height

A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,

But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight

A second lamp in the belfry burns.

– Longfellow

Texpat

Musk said from the beginning he wouldn’t negotiate. His $54.20 offer was final. All the smart people on Wall Street said Twitter would beat him up for a lot more money before they accept.

Twitter accepts offer at $54.20. Enough said.

The dude is a real stud. No doubt about it.

Texpat

I’m somewhere between Squawk and Sarge on the optimism/pessimism scale.

One thing for sure is – public life in the USA has gotten a whole lot more interesting in the last few weeks.

Also, I’m very worried about all the different ways the GOP can screw up a tsunami victory after November 2022. Only the Stupid Party could figure out a way to blow the deal even after they have won big.

Katfish

#70 –

Also, I’m very worried about all the different ways the GOP can screw up a tsunami victory after November 2022. Only the Stupid Party could figure out a way to blow the deal even after they have won big.

AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaMEN (and pass the amunition!)

#70 Starting off by electing that McCarthy person as Speaker will be the first sign that the Reps are willing to give it all back. With the Turtle remaining in charge of the Senate, that continues China’s control of the congress. How much further do you need to go. Those things will happen on day one, and it will be all downhill from there. Our leftward drift will continue right along, only maybe at a somewhat slower pace. I’ll never vote for another Dem, or another John Cornholio either. But I will keep trying.

Dr phil Good-E=1984

Only the Stupid Party could figure out a way to blow the deal even after they have won big.

Ruinous Rinos don’t want to win much less lead and that’s their comfort zone.
35 years of ruinous rinos has laid waste to the once great republic.
Their lust for blood money and power outpaces anything else in their lives.

They love the deal the way it is now and that’s why they conspired with the totalitariancrat party to steal the election and get rid of Trump.

Ukraine is their blood money laundering scheme on steroids.

The Kentucky Swamp Turtle and Kevin Frank Luntz McCarthy are the sleaziest of reptiles.

And dat’s the way I see it.

Texpat

Via Instapundit:

Anti-Gunners Are Trying to Decide Just How Bad the Ruling in NYSRPA v. Bruen Will Be

********

You wouldn’t think that you could write an article about the potential outcomes of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen without talking to at least one person on the plaintiffs’ side of the case, but the hacks at Fast Company managed to do just that.

I loved watching the smug slide off this clueless baby killer’s face.

Their arguments make no sense, and that deer-headlights look when asked to actually answer questions instead of spouting platitudes is a joy to watch. Maybe it’ll wake them up.

But I doubt it. Ripping a baby apart in the womb is so much more convenient than giving birth. And in the womb, no one can hear you scream.

squawkbox

Texpat

I am glad folks like you and Sarge are more optimistic than I am. It causes me to look at events in not quite so jaundiced eye.

I look at the Republicans and have just about the same disdain I have for Democrats. Too often I see men running for office with great promise only to succumb to the swamp. And then there are the Crenshaws of the world that really tick me off. I pegged him when he was running as the cretin that he is. He flat out lied and voters believed him and boy did I catch flack when he was running. You know all is lost when he wins the primaires and enters the “who ya gonna vote for now” zone. It has gotten very hard for me to civilly participate in the system because i see Crenshaws played over and over again.

Limbaugh did not “gives us any knowledge saying it is okay to think”. He did offer an opposing opinion to the American voter that at least 36M listeners on 600 stations glommed onto. Let me ask you something. If the 36M listeners were so influenced by fearless leader why did we get two terms of Clinton and two terms of Obama.? So I do not hold out much hope there is some sea change now or coming to media influence.

No Social Media to speak of during both of Clinton’s administration. No Twitter. No Facebook. No Tik Toc. No Instagram. Legacy media still on top.

Obama’s first term: existed in much the same environment, but Blogs were ascendant—and crashed as soon as Facebook began its rise. During his first Term, Twitter came out and it was initially billed as a conservative answer to Facebook, but both were at the bottom of their ascendency and on their way up.

Obama’s second term: C’mon. Mitt Frikkin Romney was the candidate.

Limbaugh himself once said if the American people ever discover what the Democrats are all about they would never win another election. Uhhhhhh Obama revealed everything and the truth was laid bare. Let’s stipulate Biden did steal the election. Even with that consider the amount of people that did vote Democrat. It was quite the substantial number.

Donald Trump won in 2016 largely because of his use of both Social Media and personal appearances–that’s why they took him off Twitter. The voters of Virginia discovered what the Democrats were all about, largely due to Social Media. Netflix and now Disney are losing the culture wars right now, again, due to Social Media.

Contrary to popular belief I believe the American folks think for themselves. It did not take the media to convince them to depend on the government. It only took the government to offer them a check and schools to stop teaching federalism, constitutionalism, property rights and that taxes are theft.

The media convinced them that they were all going to die if they didn’t submit to government. In two years, even though efforts were made to stop it, Social Media showed them that they didn’t need to be, and also showed them that millions of people didn’t think we were all going to die, and then demonstrated the fact.

The Legacy Media is on its way out. Its where the Town Crier was just before the printing press, where newspapers were just before Radio, where Radio was just before TV, where network TV news was just before Cable News. There’s a new way of getting info out, and its us talking to each other and posting to alternative and New Media sources. The big advantage we have right now is summed up in the phrase “The Left Can’t Meme“.

Two years ago, I said that we were looking at blue skies in 2022 because of the historical trend of the Party in the White House losing seats, Redistricting after the Census by a majority of State Houses being controlled by Republican legislatures, and the general ineptitude of the Democrats. Y’all mocked me and said it would’nt be true because the Democrats had learned how to steal elections. I’ll join you guys in the Eeyore Brigade if Congress doesn’t change hands in November. But right now, it looks like my “overly optimistic” predictions about 2022 are right on track, likely better than I thought they would be. And after the Recession of 2023, we’ll take the White House and maybe get that Cloture proof majority in the Senate.

CNN+ went down in humiliating flames, and there’s going to be a massive personnel and political focus change over there before 2024. Viewership of Network news is going to crash. People will get their news from streaming services and the Social Media posts of their friends and family. Its happening, and its a good thing.

Shannon

The Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation and Rice University did a poll in late March which included the May 24 GOP Primary Runoff in the Texas Attorney General race.

Here are the highlights discerned from the results:

In the May Republican attorney general primary runoff, Ken Paxton leads George P. Bush by 42% (65% to 23%, 12% undecided) among likely voters and by 51% (71% to 20%, 9% undecided) among the most likely voters.

Among white GOP primary voters, Paxton leads Bush by a 75% to 18% margin, while among Hispanic GOP primary voters Paxton leads Bush 55% to 25%.

Paxton and Bush retain the support of 92% and 90% of those voters who cast a ballot for them in March and plan to vote in the runoff.

An overwhelming majority (88%) of those who voted for Louie Gohmert in March plan to vote for Paxton in May, compared to only 9% for Bush.

Eva Guzman’s March voters are divided, with 35% intending to vote for Bush, 28% for Paxton and 37% still undecided.

Two-fifths of Republican primary voters say that they never would vote for George P. Bush. Two-thirds (66%) of these Republicans say a reason they never would vote for Bush is that he is a member of the Bush family. The next most common reasons are his oversight of The Alamo (42%) and that he is not conservative enough (41%).

Shannon

https://www.txhpf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/txhpf-report-2022runoffgeneralelection.pdf

Is it possible we are driving a stake through the heart of the Bush political dynasty? Finally?

Link for #78:

Shannon

77

The Eeyore Brigade.

Aaaahahahahaha. 🙂

Shannon

I’m half Eeyore, half Paul Revere.

Shannon

My brain is Eeyore.
My heart is Paul Revere.

mharper42

Mention of Eeyore gave me a flash-back with a hint of nostalgia to Austin when I lived and worked and went to UT back in the 70s. There was a large park somewhere along Lamar, the major north-south street on the west side of innermost Austin. Normally you could drive past that park and just see acres of greenery. But one day a year was Eeyore’s Birthday Party in Austin, and 10,000 people were in colorful costumes in that park.

Shannon

Dr phil Good-E=1984

The reality of Eeyore.
WEF Abbott folded like a cheap sans a belt slack suit on the truck inspections.

Shannon

We are extremely pleased to announce the 57th annual Eeyore’s Birthday celebration will be held on Saturday, April 30th, 2022.

mharper42

We are really getting a lot of rain! Dunno if my outdoor critters will be able to get any food tonight or not.

Shannon

85
The truck inspections were stupid, anyway. Standard DOT Mechanical inspection only.
No load inspections allowed.

Shannon

83
Still held at Pease Park on Lamar.

squawkbox

Sarge

Me thinks you give the media too much credit including Limbaugh. Most people believe what they believe long before sitting down and watching TV or listening to the radiot. They simply seek out someone who echos their beliefs or provides information (lies or truths) that meet with their expectations.

I like Michael Berry. He echos my thoughts, outside of news clips he does not shape my political beliefs, those are already there. Joe Rogan got his two million viewers/listeners because he stands out enough to be noticed. He aint shaping no one, he merely echos thought. Same phenomena occurs with the Democrats. Some folks might discover the stones to voice up but that was already there. They just needed a little push.

But I suppose everything we’re are babbling about depends on how we look at things. I look at things sorta like Marty.

Dr phil Good-E=1984

https://www.theepochtimes.com/border-patrol-union-abbott-should-absolutely-use-constitutional-invasion-powers-on-border_4411999.html

88 unckola

You see.
Even on the inspections he was a pretender.
Those agreements he signed with the Mexican governors is just more smoke and mirrors.

The BPU’s begging him to use his power and he won’t.

He won’t call it what it is, an invasion.
WEF loves open borders.

Me thinks you give the media too much credit including Limbaugh. Most people believe what they believe long before sitting down and watching TV or listening to the radiot. They simply seek out someone who echos their beliefs or provides information (lies or truths) that meet with their expectations.

You’re not getting it.

What Limbaugh did was let people know that what they were thinking wasn’t as bad as what the media was telling them. He knew they believed it long before they sat down to watch TV. He just let us know we weren’t alone or freakish in our views. People were self-censoring because of a non-existent peer pressure the media created. Limbaugh showed us that not only were we not alone, but it was OK to speak our minds. That’s why they hated him.

It was the beginning of the beginning. Thirty years later, we’re standing at the threshold of the beginning of the end.

GJT

Give optimism a chance!

squawkbox

Sarge

LOL I do not think we are anywhere near the end. Not even close. You and I both are old enough to remember the elation of the “R” side of the aisle when the “R”s took the house after 40 years. (It was 40 years wasn’t it?). People were writing the left epitaph how the DemParty was dead or on its last legs. We have heard that a couple times over the years. As in all conflict the enemy (ideas, beliefs) is beaten back but never eradicated.

Here is my fear…… be it Biden or whoever I fear another “D” residency 4 years that will be achieved by theft (again). Oh and Trump will not be back.

Texpat

I wish the governor of Texas had the plenary powers Dr phil Good believes that he does. Deploying fully armed Texas Guard and Texas National Guard troops to the international border with Mexico, without full authorization from the US Congress, exposes each of those individuals to all the state and local criminal laws regarding assault, battery, attempted murder, kidnapping and homicide that applies to any other citizen. You invite a huge constitutional train wreck here with military troops engaging in civil law enforcement.

Nobody stops to consider what the real live, down and dirty, rules of engagement might be and what could happen to those young volunteer Guardsmen in local, criminal courts.

Who in the hell wants to do that to young Texans or any other Americans ?

squawkbox

GJT

Give optimism a chance!

What color is that ribbon you are wearing.? LOL

95

Thank you

GJT

#96

Black

squawkbox

ohoh

Shannon

Social media companies de-platforming conservative views is obnoxious, even dangerous, but it’s not censorship. If bakers have a First Amendment right to choose which weddings they cater – and they do – Twitter should be able to choose who may post on their website. The “Flight 93 Election” genre of apocalyptic rhetoric is as clumsy as the Left’s climate hysteria about cities flooding by 2030. And American conservatives’ embrace of Hungary’s Viktor Orban as a model for governing a diverse, divided, continental republic sounds like nothing so much as Randianism for social conservatives.

Yet there is one argument supporting a Republican shift toward a more aggressive, even retributive culture war policy platform that is far more persuasive – and it stems from the ubiquitous liberal clap-back, “Build your own!”

Anytime conservatives complain about woke aggression – like social media de-platforming the Babylon Bee, baseball boycotting Georgia over its voter ID law, Amazon not selling conservative books, Facebook hiding stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop – you hear some version of this. And one thing that makes the line compelling is that it’s a particularly American conservative argument.

Yes, these entities may put their thumb on the scale for progressivism, the line suggests, but it’s a free country, brother. Quit your whining. If you want businesses and platforms to promote your views, go build them yourself and compete in the free, fair market against ours. Fox News and the conservative media industry was built on doing exactly that.

And, as a matter of principle, people should oppose using state power to punish partisan opponents just for exercising their constitutional right to engage public debates. So, for a lot of libertarians and conservatives, as daunting as the task seems, maybe building our own cultural and economic eco-system is the only honest way to compete.

Except, we already did.

Almost every institution the Left controls and has weaponized in the culture wars was created by and depends upon special, favorable treatment – even funding – from all Americans.

Conservatives don’t have to build our own social media platforms. We already created them – just like liberals did – when taxpayer-funded research created the Internet, when Congress allowed for its commercialization and wrote rules giving Internet publishers immunity from content responsibility under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Conservatives don’t have to build our own Disney – since it’s only by the generosity of the American people that Disney has enjoyed such special intellectual property protections for decades.

We don’t have to build our own financial system. We already did, when we gave Wall Street the bailout it asked for during the financial crisis in 2008.

We don’t have to build our own education system: conservatives’ taxes finance left-wing teachers unions and left-wing colleges and universities every bit as much as liberal ones.

We built our own sports leagues with tax breaks and subsidized stadiums. We built our own deep state by creating and sustaining the career civil service. Where would Hollywood socialists be without its lobbyists’ influence over federal IP law? Where would politicized scientists and woke public health “experts” be without taxpayer funding?

The problem for the left is that there is no serious consumer market demand for wokeness. It’s all driven by leftist culture war aggression, primarily driven via the federal bureaucracy. Cultural leftist elitism, properly understood, is just one massive government program.

Anti-cronyist conservatives and libertarians usually emphasize corrupt boondoggles like the federal sugar program or the Export-Import Bank. But from defense contracting down to local real estate taxes on retail stores’ parking lots, corporate America is propped up by the spoils of cozy relationships with “business friendly” governments of both parties and at all levels.

U.S. economic policy is not neutral toward business in any kind of pure, Adam Smithian sense, but a gigantic, convoluted network of special treatment for special interests.

So, when elites who run such special interests launch a smug, moral crusade against the same American people who have showered them with special treatment – against kids and marriage and Christianity and Biblical morality and poor students and Asians and straight men and girls’ sports and LGB people and feminists who don’t support trans-radicalism, and against Hispanics and borders and clean voter rolls and fossil fuels and meat-eating and, yes, against parents who don’t want public schools sexualizing kindergarteners — that abused, insulted public is well within its rights to withdraw some of its munificence.

Contrary to their glamorous, lionized portrayal in the media, woke elites waging culture war are not like Greek gods and goddesses throwing thunderbolts from Olympus. They are more like teenagers throwing temper tantrums in our basement. Woke capital’s obsequiousness toward Communist China all these years shows how shallow and insincere their supposed principles really are. Woke-ism is a marketing scam, a mask progressives wear to baptize their greedy materialism.

This would be one kind of problem if wokeism was a manifestation of public will as expressed by the free market. But it’s not. Pay attention to the man behind the curtain.

All of the woke Masters of the Universe are welfare cases – taxpayer funded schools and colleges, unfireable public employees, Wall Street TARPers and market manipulators, publicly financed sports arenas, Big Tech monopolists of taxpayer-created and taxpayer-protected technologies, corporate collaborators in Beijing’s brutality. Look at local, state, and federal budgets. We don’t work for the woke elite. They work for us.

Republicans don’t need to scrap two centuries of business-friendly policies across the country. But they should recognize that the culture wars are not actually waged on a level playing field. The supposed commanding heights the Left dominates are almost entirely built on contrivances of public policy, maintained solely by the sufferance of the American people.

(Part of the left’s fury about what’s happening now with Twitter is that they fear it will be the first institution they have ever marched through which they subsequently lost control of, in a terrifying premonition of government after civil service reform, education after school choice and the post millennial college crack up, and a military that gets back to winning wars instead of performative wokeness.)

Woke capital is of course free to join the Twitter mob in insulting Americans and our bourgeois values and our church-going and our patriotism and rights … but they have no entitlement to do so with our money. Insofar as lawmakers and taxpayers can answer aggressive, intolerant corporate wokeism with policies that withdraw special favors rather than impose special punishments, there really isn’t a good reason not to.

No, parents cannot abuse obnoxious teenage children. But they damn well can confiscate their phones and computers, deny them use of the car, and ground their asses until the grades come up and the attitude improves. If the woke corporate left really wants to follow up the Disney scuffle with a further escalation of their culture war against 80% of the American people, Republicans’ response should be a calm, cool, mom-ish, “Try me.”

– Ben Domenech

Dr phil Good-E=1984

So the fed government of the USA, via the Kenyan front loaded Wooden Dummy regime, can ignore all laws, conduct and command an invasion of its own country when it’s supposed to do just the opposite and all the border states can do is stack matchbox cars on the Rio Grande and send a few hundred illegals a week to dc on the taxpayer dime?.?

Ok then.
We lose.

Texpat

Tedtam & Dr phil Good

The very reliably conservative Kurt Schlichter wrote a very concise, clear column within the last couple of years about the difficulties facing authorities if they tried to use state National Guard troops to enforce border enforcement. It’s very tricky and dangerous regarding where the liabilities and responsibilities land regarding the individual soldiers involved.

Unfortunately, I didn’t save it, but it was very alarming for anyone considering the ramifications.

Texpat

RE: my #95

Kurt Schlicter is a former colonel in the US Army and was involved in several domestic disturbances…

After college, Kurt enlisted in the United States Army and received his commission as a second lieutenant through the Army Officer Candidate School. While stationed in West Germany, Kurt was deployed to Operation Desert Storm when he served in the conflict as a platoon leader. After leaving active duty, he joined the California Army National Guard and served in a variety of command and staff positions for over two decades.

Colonel Schlichter wears the silver “jump wings” of a qualified paratrooper and commanded the elite 1st Squadron, 18th Cavalry Regiment. A veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom (Kosovo), as well as the Los Angeles riots, the Northridge earthquake and the 2007 San Diego fires mobilizations, he is a graduate of the Army’s Combined Arms Staff Service School and the Command and General Staff College. He earned a master of Strategic Studies degree from the United States Army War College.

Texpat

101 phil

I don’t like it anymore than you do, but I’m not willing to put a bunch of young, part-time, volunteer Guardsmen on duty to get themselves charged with assault, attempted murder or homicide right now.

That is the way the world works at the moment and unless and until the State of Texas secedes and starts that separate battle, nothing will change.

There are plenty of things to dislike about Greg Abbott, but this is not something he can seriously confront.

Nite all. You all sleep tight.

mharper42

Well, the rain did stop and I was able to feed the critters. I no longer have a rain gauge, but I’m sure we got over an inch here, and it was needed.

Texpat

100 Shannon

If bakers have a First Amendment right to choose which weddings they cater – and they do – Twitter should be able to choose who may post on their website. The “Flight 93 Election” genre of apocalyptic rhetoric is as clumsy as the Left’s climate hysteria about cities flooding by 2030. And American conservatives’ embrace of Hungary’s Viktor Orban as a model for governing a diverse, divided, continental republic sounds like nothing so much as Randianism for social conservatives.

Why would Domenech hit the blocks with such stupid statements ?

I’ll take apart this rant tomorrow. There are things to like and things to question. But really, Ben ? You are going to war with Tucker Carlson over his visit to Hungary ? Don’t be an asshole.

Video series from the Institute of Human Anatomy, which used cadevers to discuss the human body, is discussing muscles only men have. This begs the question “can men control their balls?”

The guy is having a little fun with this. Normally the two presenters are pleasantly serious and informative.

Texpat

RE: #100 & Ben Domenech

The “Flight 93 Election” genre of apocalyptic rhetoric is as clumsy as the Left’s climate hysteria about cities flooding by 2030.

This is the kind of sloppy bombast you get when the writer marries somebody like Meghan McCain and suddenly decides it’s his chivalrous duty to gallantly defend his bride’s dead father.

Sheesh.

Adee

Snoopy Happy Dance here as we actually got rain this afternoon, all 2.27 inches. And there’s a prospect for more tomorrow morning. Northerly breeze and mid 60s overnight, low humidity. We had gone 3 weeks without rain, just morning fog to give not much moisture that evaporated once the sun came up.

Thank you Lord.

Texpat