The truth, please

A few days ago, Paul Pelosi was assaulted in his San Francisco home in the middle of the night by a crazed lunatic who supposedly gained access by smashing through a door. From the news reports I have read, no alarm was triggered and the victim had to summon help by calling 911. Am I supposed to believe that a man worth $100 million sleeping in his mansion in the heart of crime-ridden San Francisco did not have a functioning security system? By the way, his wife is second in line to the U.S. Presidency and is despised by millions.

If no alarm went out, what might have prevented it?

• There was no security system. (That would be astonishing.)
• The system wasn't working.
• The resident of the house failed to activate the system before he went to bed.
• The crazed lunatic deactivated the system prior to smashing through the door.

When my parents retired, they moved from a small city to a much larger city to be closer to family. My brother insisted that one feature of their new home would be a security system. They got used to activating the alarm at night and whenever they were gone. If the alarm got triggered, the security company would call the house. If the proper response wasn't provided or if no one answered the phone, they would send the cops. This was in the mid-1980s. It's not rocket science.

A few years ago, I visited a friend in Northern Virginia who happened to live a couple houses away from the White House Chief of Staff. I parked along the street near their house and was greeted by Secret Service agents, who asked what I was doing there. Upon answering satisfactorily, I was directed to park a block further away.

The Secret Service also protects the family of the President, even alleged criminals such as Hunter Biden. They are renting a house in Malibu for $30,000 a month so they can protect Hunter, who lives next door. I presume they don't vacate the premises when Hunter is out of town.

The Speaker of the House is supposed to be protected by the Capitol Police rather than the Secret Service. As Tom Rogan writes in the Washington Examiner, "The Capitol Police must thus urgently answer two main questions. First, what protective systems were employed at the time of the attack — and if they were inactive, why? Were they malfunctioning and, if so, why weren't those malfunctions detected earlier? Second, why were no Capitol Police officers from the agency's San Francisco field office deployed for protective security patrols?"

The only conclusion I can draw from the latest incident is the Capitol Police aren't nearly as good at their job as the Secret Service is. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Secret Service agents sit around telling tasteless jokes about the Capitol Police.

If the Capitol Police can't tell us how they failed in their duty, that just encourages more conspiracy theories. Really, an illegal alien nudist activist from Berkeley who identifies as a Trumper despite all of his associates being BLM supporters managed to defeat the security sytem at the house of the most powerful woman in the world? How is that any more believable than her husband having a hookup-gone-wrong with a male prostitute? Try the truth for once; it's liberating.

Six months later: If any of the above questions have been answered, I must have missed it. The secrecy continues. I'll stop believing conspiracy theories when they give me a reason for doing so.

Propane privilege

I see Barrack Hussein Obama has installed not one but three propane tanks at his lavish Martha's Vineyard estate. Too bad he suffers from so much systematic racism that he can't install 10 tanks. Anyway, I thought fossil fuels were killing the planet.

Why would someone need propane tanks in their yard or compound? As I experienced this week in the Montana flooding, when the electricity goes out it is very handy to have an electrical generator, in my case powered by natural gas. With brownouts and blackouts all but promised this summer due to the increased demand and decreased supply of electricity, putting in a backup energy source is prudent. Never mind that Obama is a hypocrite for saying one thing and doing another. Why is the electrical system getting strained? Perhaps because during his time in office, Obama did everything he could to kill coal-fired power plants completely, and wind/solar can not make up the deficit. I read somewhere (I know, great attribution) that the entire state of Connecticut would have to be covered with windmills to power just New York City. And what happens when everyone is required to give up their gasoline vehicles for EVs? The math doesn't add up, but the same people who lecture us about medical science don't seen concerned about the limitations of current energy technology.

Every time we see John Kerry (the husband of ultra-rich ketchup/catsup heiress Teresa Heinz) boarding his private plane to go lecture someone, he takes a moment to remind us that we need to make sacrifices to save the planet. Harry/Henry Markle-Montbatten-Windsor tells us to strive for zero emissions to protect the environment as he rides two horses into the ground during a polo match, just after jetting back (privately of course) from his mum's celebration. Must be nice to be an elite and play by rules different than what is expected of the deplorables.

In the Soviet Union, the powerful had their dachas and everyone else was required to suffer. Just saying.

No Irish Need Apply

California is moving ahead with its slavery reparations program. Deroy Murdock sums up the problems with this absurdity at the Daily Signal.

"White Californians in the tens of millions belong to families who held no slaves, spent the antebellum years in Europe, bled to death at Antietam battling the Confederacy, or were themselves victims of feudalism, indentured servitude, and even slave labor. 'Why are fingers being pointed at us?' they surely ask."

Indeed. There is a story in my family of an ancestor who came over from Ireland as an indentured servant, ending up in the household of a Boston patrician. The penalty for rules violations was reduced food. That's right, the punishment for a servant whose family fled famine was to withhold her food.

A disturbing story indeed, but it didn't happen to me. The perpetrators are long dead. It would be ridiculous to seek reparations from the English who drove the Irish out of their homeland, or from the family of the overlord who took advantage of my ancester when she got here. No point to moving to California either. Only blacks can apply for reparations; no Irish need apply.

Criminality at Deutsche Bank

German law enforcement raided Deutsche Bank this week as, the Washington Examiner reported, "investigators are probing accusations that DWS (an asset management arm of the bank) used the popularity of ESG financial products to attract investment under false auspices and that those financial products were not as environmentally friendly as they purported to be."

I am not shocked that Deutsche Bank got caught doing something shady. During my time as a federal bank examiner, I had occasion to be at the New York branch of the bank a time or two. All of the examiners hated being there. We always thought the bank was trying to get away with something, even more so than at other paragons of non-virtue such as Credit Suisse and Wells Fargo. I don't know exactly what Deutsche Bank did in this case, but I have no doubt they are guilty. Because shady is what they do!

Moral Authority

Does government have moral authority? Starting in 1934, German soldiers swore an oath of allegiance not to the German state, but to Adolph Hitler personally. That's an extreme example of the dangers of a cult of personality. Would anyone claim that the Nazi government in the person of Adolph Hitler had moral authority?

Many government employees in this country, including all federal employees as far as I know, swear an oath that begins, "I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...." I swore this oath five times, four during my various stints at the FDIC and once as an extremely lowly temporary employee of the Census Bureau. In this last job, I was marking houses on a map, but the oath I swore made it sound like I could be called up to the front lines if necessary.

The oath doesn't say, "I will support and defend Donald Trump," or "Barry Hussein Obama", or "the Republican Party," or "the Democrat Party." It says "The Constitution!" Because those leaders and members of those parties who hold office have not honored their oaths, in my opinion they have no moral authority. I obey the law because these people have the authoritarian power to make life miserable for me, not because I believe they have any moral authority.

The Constitution is the law of the land. It is difficult to change. This is to prevent the worst aspect of democracy, the tyranny of temporary majorities. If those in power blatantly ignore the Constitution, as it seems they are doing more and more often, the result is lawlessness. F Trump, F Obama, and F their cultish followers for pushing this country down the road to anarchy.

(By the way, I named Obama rather than Biden because the former president is the object of the left's cult of personality, not the senile person who currently occupies the office of president. That's obvious to anyone who has been paying attention.)

Elon

Twitter is like booze, everyone knows it is bad for you but a lot of people indulge anyway. I've had a Twitter account since about 2016 but until this year never opined on anything. It really is a nasty habit. I've been trying to get banned intentionally for a few months now by reposting Babylon Bee stories, but haven't been able to get it done yet. (C'mon man, you banned them, why can't I get banned for reposting them?)

I don't think the Twitter user experience will get significantly better with Elon Musk as the new owner, but at least the company will be less likely to trample on people who don't bend the knee to the woke leftist agenda. If the sale goes through, I'm sure we will hear stories in the next few weeks about snowflakes who are traumatized that their employer will no longer be able to ban conservatives for expressing opinions that even five years ago would not have been "problematic." I'm sure if you want to switch jobs, some other woke company that thinks grooming is a constitutional right (Disney for example) will pay you for your intolerant snark.

BS on parade

You can buy a "Tax the Rich" hat for $26.99 (including shipping), a screaming deal at 20% off. The merchant – AOC.

I've got a proposal for making the rich pay their fair share, such as people who have a $180K+ salary, a generous pension, generous health benefits, an unlimited expense account and an online retail presence – make them pay back their student loans.

Update: Another modest proposal. If you want to institute a wealth tax, go after the $50+ billion in the Harvard endowment and the billions at other schools. They have profited handsomely from the government takeover of student loans, time for them to pay their FAIR SHARE!

When is Romo on?

Troy Aikman is getting $90 million over five years to jump from Fox to ESPN. This lines up with the $17.5 million Tony Romo gets from CBS each year. Sean McVay was offered $100 million to leave the Rams for Amazon. Kirk Herbstreit is being wooed by someone for the NFL while continuing his $6 million per year college deal with EPSN. Did I mention that these are announcers, not players?

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post is confused. So am I. Al Michaels might get multi-millions from someone if he decides to keep going at age 77. Al Michaels had an immortal moment 42 years ago with, "Do you believe in miracles?" but never once since then did I decide to watch a game because he was doing it. Yes, perhaps I would enjoy a game more with Michaels on the mic rather than Chris Myers, but I'm not changing my plans depending which gets an assignment. Dear CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, Amazon and whoever else is doing NFL games, I'm going to watch anyway. Why are you doing this? Can you send some stupid money my way?

The new version of the USFL kicks off April 16. I might watch for a while, then I'll probably get bored and switch it off. Even if the almighty (?) Troy Aikman himself is doing the game, whether I continue to watch depends on the players on the field.

By the way CBS, I think the bloom is off the Romo rose. He's now about 20% insightful and 80% annoying. But rather than stop watching, I'll just deploy the mute button to enjoy a few moments of peace.

Update 5/1/22: I watched a USFL game Saturday. Both of the quarterbacks were terrible, but I watched until Birmingham nailed it down at the end. I have no idea who the announcers were.

Short description

I have taken down all my posts in this blog, frankly, because I'm afraid of Biden's authoritative agencies and his syncophants in mainstream media and social media finding some fault with my writings, seizing on some details that I wrote about myself, tracking me down, and riding roughshod over the First Amendment to bring me in line. I'll just sum up briefly: I think both Biden and Trump are demagogues. I think both left-wing and right-wing extremists are potentially dangerous and, although they feel entitled to speak for everyone and drag everyone into their delusions, BY DEFINITION neither extremist group represents the vast majority of people who are centrist.

But as of today, I feel safe living in deep-red rural America and would not feel safe living in a Democrat-controlled big city with a rogue "Progressive" prosecutor. I live next to an avid proponent of the 2nd Amendment and do not feel unsafe. If I had to move back to my apartment in Chicago's West Loop where I lived 2011-13, I would feel unsafe. NRA members generally don't go around shooting people for no reason; gang-bangers have no such restriction.

That's all. Just about everything I had posted on this blog was some variation of that. Read the New York Post Opinion section and you'll get the idea. FJB. Let's Go Brandon.