Archive for February, 2021

What’s in YOUR wallet?

Posted: February 27, 2021 by ng36b in business, economy, News/opinion, Uncomfortable Truths
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Most Americans are going to get a small influx of money in the next 60 days, due to two separate events. First, the 1.9 trillion dollar COVID-19 bill that is 90% about bailing out Democrat-supporting regions of the country will include some sort of stimulus checks, likely the $1400 per individual. Also, most people are filing their taxes between now and April, and most Americans will get some sort of refund on their taxes.

The thing is, most of this money gets spent without thinking about future consequences. The local used car dealerships always run “sales” this time of year that mention tax returns, and I’m seeing “stimulus check” sales advertisements popping up now. Yet we’re not going into happy times anytime soon. If you watch the stock market and references by the Fed that indicate inflation is going to come roaring back should give us pause.

If you’re not one to care about the Fed, then look more locally. Wood prices at Lowes and Home Depot are well double what they were a year ago, between the boom in home building due to low interest rates and COVID-19 shutting down the lumber mills for a time. Gas is more expensive now. I’ve had more Amazon packages getting delivered late than ever before. Stores are still running out of basic items, and while this is infrequent now, remember that is essentially never happened in the past.

All this indicates we’re in for a bumpy ride for at least two years, if not four. I’m not going to get caught unprepared for this, and you shouldn’t either. I suggest you prioritize spending this way:

  1. Debt. Get rid of any debt you can. Car almost paid off? Pay it off now. Credit card debts? Pay them off or work a forgiveness plan, an especially good idea now since card companies are also taking advantage of low interest rates.
    I would also refinance your house if you haven’t done so. Most people can’t simply pay off their mortgage, but you can make a principle payment to pay it off earlier, and shifting to bi-weekly payments (if your company allows you to) will cut years off the back end.
  2. Build up supplies. COVID-19 taught us that everything from toilet paper to sweet potatoes will be in short supply. It’s going to happen again. Rather than fight lines at a store, build up a 1-3 month supply of basics that don’t really ever go bad: bottled water, paper products, disposable eating utensils, soap and cleaning supplies. You should also keep about 2 weeks of meals in reserve. I have things like spaghetti and frozen foods that can keep for a long time just hanging out. They occasionally save me when dinner decides to catch on fire, and when the stores were swamped in the initial stages of pandemic, this food let me stretch our groceries further.
  3. Fix what you can. Americans are pretty handy people, but we also can be lazy. Plenty of homes and vehicles have little things that need repair. Get those done now. Don’t wait forever on car maintenance. The pandemic backed our local dealership up by a month for appointments. Same goes for home maintenance, even if you do it yourself, you may not get the supplies when people buy out the stores.
  4. Set your investing on automatic. Unless you’re smart on the stock market, you’re best off making long term investments on mutual funds. Whatever your investing strategy, put it on automatic through automatic funds transfers and investments. Too many people get scared when the market comes down and sell, which is the worst time to do that. Putting it on cruise control helps you take advantage of the down market over time.
  5. Build up your local network. This may not cost much money, but its critical. Do you know your neighbors? Do you know a local electrician, plumber, car mechanic and veterinarian? Remember how even routine house calls for minor issues became a major problem in the pandemic? You avoid this by knowing local people. Now is the time to get to know them and be on good terms, so when you need their help in a pinch, you can get it.

Don’t throw your stimulus to the wind! Set yourself up now to get through the trying times ahead.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

A Switch in Time Might Save Nine but Doom 300 Million

Posted: February 26, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

This week the Supreme Court decided that they didn’t want to touch any of the election cases that finally made their way to them calling them moot with the election over.

In one respect this is not a surprise in that the modern era the court tends to prefer to punt whenever possible. Furthermore with the threat of court packing they seem to have decided to go the way of Justice Owen Roberts whose sudden switch in terms of his voting pattern during the FDR when he was threating to pack the court, era removed his desire to follow through with his scheme far more than any backlash from the public.

But the feckless move to prevent the Biden Administration from court packing will have a huge cost in four years.

It’s axiomatic that when you reward behavior you get more of it and we had plenty of election irregularities last time around to say the least. Because they were so glaring and obvious the courts doing their best to duck these issues (or in the case of the Stacked PA court simply ignoring the law) avoided ruling on the merits of the various cases using issues like standing to dismiss said suits over and over.

Many of us who were outraged by all of this, and particularly outraged by the court not willing to rule before the electoral count however figured the various suits would continue through to courts and were willing to give this election a mulligan figuring the cases would eventually be ruled on their merits and the fraud prevented.

For the republic to be saved this was vital. If I am wrong (and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests I’m not) and the election wasn’t stolen it was vital to demonstrate this to the millions like me who think otherwise, if it WAS stolen (and I maintain that it is) then it was vital to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

Now we know that is not going to be the case and we can expect the same pattern in the next cycle when suits concerning fraud before the election are dismissed because the injury has not taken place and suits after the election dismissed because they should have been filed before and said suits making it to SCOTUS being dismissed over jurisdiction or being moot.

This means that tens of millions of Americans, many of them heavily armed are going to go into the next election with the assumption that:

  1. The election will be rigged or stolen
  2. The courts will either abet this stealing or ignore it

I can’t think of anything that the court could have done to make an actual civil war more likely than this.

Over the last month we have seen a consorted effort to sell a false narrative that a bunch of unarmed protesters (with a nice sprinkle of Antifa to goad them on and $ provided by the networks for those who did the goading) taking selfies were a violent “insurrection”.

Thanks to the fecklessness of the court the chances of us seeing the real thing in the next few years with actual armed men and women ready to fight have increased dramatically.

My they be happy with their choices

Zilla Update: Down to $900 to go by Monday 9 AM or the car is repoed

Posted: February 26, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Heard from Zilla today. The good news is that you guys came through enough that she has been able to get some basics that is needed since getting out of the hospital, and my thanks to everyone who helped.

The bad news is that she’s still $900 short & unless she can come up with it by 9 AM Monday the car is repoed.

If you can help, Please clink here and kick in.

The “For the People Act of 2021” will make stealing elections the new normal for Democrats

Posted: February 25, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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It is safe to say that the successful theft of the 2020 presidential election by the Democrats has greatly emboldened them.  It took an amazing amount of effort by state and local Democrat officials, both elected and those that volunteered. The Democrats in the House of Representatives are now attempting to codify all of the dirty tricks they used into a rather odorous piece of legislation they refer to as “For the People Act.”  If it passes Republicans will find it extremely difficult to win future federal elections.

The For the People Act is described in great detail in this National Review article.  Here is their analysis of the bill:

H.R. 1 would federalize and micromanage the election process administered by the states, imposing unnecessary, unwise, and unconstitutional mandates on the states and reversing the decentralization of the American election process—which is essential to the protection of our liberty and freedom..

It is important to keep in mind the Democrat Party is now controlled by the most radical leftists who want to dominate all aspects of the lives of every American.

For the remaining portion of this article I will copy provisions from the National Review and add my own analysis.  All emphasis was added by the author of the original article.

It would implement nationwide the worst changes in election rules that occurred during the 2020 election and go even further in eroding and eliminating basic security protocols that states have in place. The bill would interfere with the ability of states and their citizens to determine the qualifications and eligibility of voters, to ensure the accuracy of voter registration rolls, to secure the fairness and integrity of elections, to participate and speak freely in the political process, and to determine the district boundary lines for electing their representatives.

Just about the entire bill is unconstitutional.  The States are granted the authority under the Constitution to set the time, place, and details of state and federal elections.  The federal government is granted a supervisory role only, leaving the states to actually manage the elections.

Seize the authority of states to regulate voter registration and the voting process by forcing states to implement early voting, automatic voter registration, same-day registration, online voter registration, and no-fault absentee balloting.

All of these provisions have been used extensively in blue states to make sure the Democrat party will continue to hold power even if the population of the state changes to Republican.

Make it easier to commit fraud and promote chaos at the polls through same-day registration, as election officials would have no time to verify the accuracy of voter registration information and the eligibility of an individual to vote and could not anticipate the number of ballots and precinct workers that would be needed at specific polling locations.

It is so obvious that these provisions will make election fraud by Democrats so much more easy. It would not be possible to verify any of the same day registrations.  Individuals could travel from polling location to location and those ineligible to vote in elections would do so easily. 

I was going to add analysis after each section explaining why each would make future theft of elections easier but there is no need.  I changed my mind because it is so obvious to anyone.

Degrade the accuracy of registration lists by requiring states to automatically register all individuals (as opposed to “citizens”) from state and federal databases, such as state Departments of Motor Vehicles, corrections and welfare offices, and federal agencies such as the Social Security Administration, the Department of Labor, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the Department of Health and Human Services. This would register large numbers of ineligible voters, including aliens, and cause multiple or duplicate registrations of the same individuals and put federal agencies in charge of determining a person’s domicile for voting purposes (as well as that individual’s taxing state).

Constitute a recipe for massive voter registration fraud by hackers and cyber criminals through online voter registration that is not tied to an existing state record, such as a driver’s license. 

Mandate no-fault absentee ballots, which are the tool of choice for vote thieves. It would ban witness signature or notarization requirements for absentee ballots; force states to accept absentee ballots received up to 10 days after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by Election Day; and require states to allow vote trafficking (vote harvesting) so that any third parties—including campaign staffers and political consultants—can pick up and deliver absentee ballots.

Prevent election officials from checking the eligibility and qualifications of voters and removing ineligible voters. This includes restrictions on using the U.S. Postal Service’s national change-of-address system to verify the address of registered voters; participating in state programs that compare voter registration lists to detect individuals registered in multiple states; or ever removing registrants due to a failure to vote no matter how much time has elapsed.

Ban state voter ID laws by forcing states to allow individuals to vote without an ID and merely signing a statement in which they claim they are who they say they are.

Expand regulation and government censorship of campaigns and political activity and speech, including online and policy-related speech. H.R. 1 would impose onerous legal and administrative compliance burdens and costs on candidates, citizens, civic groups, unions, corporations, and nonprofit organizations.

Transfer the right to draw congressional districts from state legislatures to “independent” commissions whose members are unaccountable to voters.

Limit access to federal courts for anyone challenging H.R. 1. The bill would prohibit the filing of any lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of H.R. 1 anywhere except in the District Court for the District of Columbia and would allow the court to order all plaintiffs and intervenors, regardless of their number (such as all 50 states), “to file joint papers or to be represented by a single attorney at oral argument,” severely limiting the legal representation and due process rights of challengers.

If the Republicans in the Senate cave and do not filibuster this legislation so it does not pass when comes up for a vote, that will be stupidest move they could ever make.  I was going to say that even the Republican establishment could not be spineless or dumb enough to not stand up strongly against this abominations, but I am no longer sure.  If the Democrats pass this through reconciliation or other dirty tricks it would be another coup, one that would be nearly impossible to reverse.

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