Archive for February, 2023

Tidbits and outrages

Posted: February 21, 2023 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

It is inconceivable that anyone should disagree that John Fetterman should resign from the U.S. Senate.

He’s suffered a stroke, has trouble reading and hearing, and just checked into the hospital for clinical depression.

In this woke world, Fetterman is somehow brave for admitting he’s depressed and shouldn’t be held to task for his physical and mental woes.

If Fetterman and his wife—the real power in the family—would see their way through this situation, the guy would be better off staying near home and getting healthy rather than hanging on to his seat.

I’ll admit I am not a fan of Fetterman. We, Republicans, selected the wrong candidate to run against him—a guy with extreme liberal ideas and no practical experience to draw on.

Fetterman’s resignation wouldn’t hurt the Democrats, and the Democrat governor would pick a Democrat to take over the seat until a special election. Since we Republicans can’t seem to get our act together in Pennsylvania, another Democrat would likely be ushered into the Senate, where the other Democrat is struggling with pancreatic cancer.

In another bit of idiocy, citizen journalist James O’Keefe has been pushed out as the leader of Project Veritas.

Ten years ago, I interviewed O’Keefe for my column in The Washington Times and was suitably impressed. See https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/31/harper-guerrilla-journalism/

Many journalists “want me silenced and shut down,” O’Keefe said back then. “They don’t want to let people into their cartel.”

He confronts the powerful, asks them questions, and often gets shocking answers. He has also done far more serious journalism than many Washington reporters.

Some of his employees claimed that O’Keefe was disrespectful toward them, including one who said he was called a “pussy.”

Having worked in the media for a long time, I consider that sobriquet about as mild as they come.

I hope O’Keefe starts up another band of media mercenaries to confront the comfortable.

Finally, a Temple University policeman was murdered over the weekend as he tried to stop a carjacking on campus.

I got into trouble with the Temple cops and some colleagues when I wrote a few years back that teachers and students should be allowed to carry weapons on campus.

I’d been surrounded by a group of young teenagers from a nearby high school, spat upon, and threatened. Having studied martial arts for many years, I was able to scare the group off.

But I pondered what would have happened to some of my less prepared colleagues and proffered that weapons should no longer be banned at a public school in the middle of public streets.

One colleague slammed her office door in my face. Later, I got a call from the Temple cops that I would be fired if I was found carrying even a legal weapon on campus.

I hope next week is a better one!

DeSantis Trump and the Fauci Card

Posted: February 20, 2023 by datechguy in election 2024
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Clarissa Saunders: Diz, Don Quixote with bill will get to his feet in a minute and speak two important words: “Willet Creek”. When that happens, the sliver knight will fall off his tightrope and puss will jump outta his boots.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939

In a campaign with a lot of memorable moments one moment during the 2016 campaign stood out to me.

It happened on May 16th 2016 on Morning Joe, the Panel was discussing Trump and Women and the attacks the Clinton campaign was making on him and they turned to Donny Deutch who said something that ended the conversation quickly:

Here’s the tennis game, Donald Trump kissed a woman in a bathing suit. Trump hits back: Tell me about the president’s relationship with a guy named Jeffrey Epstein. That’s your tennis match.

I was watching when he said those critical words and wrote about the reaction:

two things become immediately clear.

Everybody at the Table knows who Jeffery Epstein is, and what the story is

Nobody at the table wanted to talk about it

And elaborated further:

Mind you Trump hasn’t even bothered to say a word about Epstein yet and the table does its best to spin this in a different direction, but the very fact that Trump is who is forced MSNBC to deal with the story even if most of dealing with it was talking about Trump’s willingness to go there.

Take a look at the set of dejected faces on that video, remember those faces are being broadcast on MSNBC to liberal viewers who would never do a web search of the words “Jeffery Epstein + Bill Clinton”

This was written in May of 2016 when Jeffrey was still free as a bird and the thought of not killing himself wasn’t even in his mind.

Bottom line the mere mention of Epstein was something the left/media was desperate to avoid during that campaign.

And that brings us to election 2024 and Trump vs DeSantis.

For move than half a decade the MSM/Left has tried to link Donald Trump to something remotely Epsteinish and despite their best efforts they have failed miserably. Nor do I expect Ron DeSantis to join in such an effort if he decides to run, but while there is nothing Epstein like in his past to use against Donald Trump there is a name, known to all Americans that Ron DeSantis can deploy at any time if he wants to give Donald Trump fits in a GOP primary:

That name is Anthony Fauci

During the COVID crisis Donald Trump repeatedly deferred to Anthony Fauci rather than firing him. He allowed Fauci to advance policies that hurt the American public both physically and psycologically. We as a nation are still recovering and counting the costs of the reign of terror that Anthony Fauci let loose upon us with little restraint from the President. It was the single most critical mistate of his four years in office.

Now in fairness this was to be expected, at least early on. Donald Trump grew up in an era where Doctor’s were respected, where the Hippocratic Oath still emphasized “Do no Harm” and the science of virus and medicine was not something that was within Trump wide range of expertise. It is possible, even probable that Donald Trump could not picture a medical Doctor deceiving the public during a time of crisis to advance an agenda.

There are a ton of people, particularly in the medical field who lost their jobs because of the policies that Anthony Fauci pushed. There are people who have lost loved ones due to the policies that Anthony Fauci pushed.

It would take very little effort for Ron DeSantis to link Trump and Fauci and the Donald knows that. It’s no coincidence that he no longer pushes the COVID Vaccine at rallies as he discovered quickly.

To say this would be disaster for Trump in the primaries is the understatement of the year, this is why the attempt to play hardball with DeSantis is at best foolish and at worst reckless.

So what should Trump DO about a potential DeSantis run? Well I have a thought on that but that’s for another time.

America has its secretary of silly walks, Pete Buttigieg

Posted: February 19, 2023 by John Ruberry in Blame Trump, culture, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Yes, we have our secretary of silly walks, Pete Buttigieg. 

More on the walks in a bit.

Often described as “the smartest person in the room,” Mayor Pete to his friends, Pothole Pete to his growing list of detractors, the former McKinsey and Company consultant and mayor of South Bend, Indiana mayor has shown a great talent for cunningness in regard to his career advancement. 

He wasn’t an effective mayor and he’s been a disastrous secretary of transportation. In his 24 months at that job, he has faced three crises.

Buttigieg was AWOL during the supply chain crisis of 2021–he was on previously unannounced paternity leave–the holiday season flight disruptions of 2022, and now, there has been a recent increase in train derailments, including the one that led to a toxic mushroom cloud in East Palestine, Ohio. 

But it’s not his fault! It’s Donald Trump’s fault! Actually, Buttigieg is wrong, the Trump era rule change on trains had no effect on the East Palestine disaster.

But Buttigieg still has a job, and because he checks a sacrosanct “box” that is so important to the identitarians of the woke Democrat Party–Buttigieg is gay–he is still being discussed as a running mate for Biden in 2024. Like Chicago’s failed mayor, Lori Lightfoot, Kamala Harris is another “triple threat,” the vice president is Asian, Black, and a woman. Harris is the “first” of all three to serve as vice president, Michael O’Shea, writing for the Federalist, says that “Harris could only feasibly be replaced with another “first.'” 

And that “first” could mean Buttigieg, despite his flops.

I endured some Buttigiegs when I was toiling in the hospitality industry. They were smug, they always knew what to say and how to say it, and they looked good, but when it came to real work, they always had other things to do. 

At one hotel where I worked, we had a management company take over operations–and the Hotel Buttigiegs would nitpick us on nothingness—“Hey, can you have that neon beer sign moved to another window?”–but the real problems we faced would not be addressed. The hotel was falling apart and when one of my co-workers would bring that up obvious problem, the reply would be, “Well, the owners won’t invest their money into rehab.” Fine, I get it, but if these “experts,” these Buttigiegs, were so smart, they would either convince the owners to open their wallets, or they could find a way to make the hotel profitable. After all, they were the experts, as they would regularly remind us.

I remember one of those Hotel Buttigiegs dressing me down one day, literally, because my shirttail was out. Okay, that’s a legitimate criticism, but the reason I was disheveled is that there was a call for all able-bodied employees to help move chairs into a ballroom because a client’s meeting attracted far more attendees than expected. I answered the call–but Hotel Buttigieg didn’t. After all, he was “management.” Well, so was I, but I was not part of the elect, I was not a member of their management class, their little club of overpaid know-it-alls. But Hotel Buttigieg always had his shirt tucked in.

Before long, shirttail-critic stopped coming by–that was an improvement–and so did all of the other Hotel Buttigiegs. The challenges facing the hotel were largely intractable, partly because of these know-it-alls. They were AWOL, while their bosses were still collecting their management fees, because these Hotel Buttigiegs didn’t want their names muddied with our crappy hotel. They were presented with challenges–and they ran away. Because the Hotel Buttigiegs wanted to look good–ah, that tie is perfect with that suit–for their next undeserved promotion.

Pete Buttigieg as of this writing hasn’t visited East Palestine. But Donald Trump will be there on Wednesday. Trump, although he has no real power anymore, has never been afraid of a challenge. Unlike, well you know who.

Oh yeah, silly walks. 

I was in the audience at the Park West in Chicago in 1987 when Graham Chapman gave a fabulous lecture on his years with the Monty Python troupe. I hung on every word. There was a question-and-answer session, and Chapman, who died of cancer two years later, was asked about the silly walks sketch, one of the many legendary bits from the greatest comedy television show ever.

His reply went something like this, “Oh yes, back in Britain we had this member of parliament, who couldn’t do anything right, but the prime minister always found a cabinet position for him. So, when writing this sketch, we came up with the most ridiculous position we could imagine for him.” 

Watch as John Cleese kicks the sketch out of the park. 

America now has its secretary of silly walks, the incompetent Pete Buttigieg. Currently he’s in charge of the US Transportation Department, yet he might be a heartbeat away from the presidency in 2025.

But the residents of East Palestine aren’t laughing at all. Nor are they impressed. Even though Mayor Pete is so smart–he graduated from Harvard, you know–and he’s a former consultant from McKinsey–and oh yeah, did I mention how smart he is? And Buttigieg looks dashing in a suit too.

UPDATE February 22:

20 days after the toxic spill, and very likely only because he was shamed into it, Buttigieg will visit East Palestine tomorrow.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Donald Trump is either Getting Bad Advice or Ignoring Good Advice in DeSantis Attacks

Posted: February 19, 2023 by datechguy in election 2024, elections, elections, politics, primaries
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The first primaries and caucus’ for the 2024 presidential election are just under a year away but Donald Trump is wasting no time going after who would be his strongest potential rival for the GOP nomination, the very popular and successful governor of Florida Ron DeSantis.

For the last couple of week’s both Donald Trump himself and Team Trump have thrown mud everything from claiming DeSantis was a big fan of lockdowns (he wasn’t) to claiming George Soros endorsed him (he didn’t). None of this is a surprise, Donald Trump has always fought like a Democrat against potential rivals/ You might recall he used similar tactics against Ted Cruz in the primaries and frankly went so far that I had to think long and hard before endorsing him before the GOP primary. You might also recall that there was a big fuss concerning Ted Cruz’s speech at the convention because of these tactics.

In the end Cruz ended up supporting him and when Trump, to a lot of people’s surprise and delight, turned into not only the most conservative but the most successful president of the 21st century we all cheered. It was however his failure to address the issue of voter fraud (something I warned him about five days after the 2016 election) that cost him him re-election in 2020.

Now comes another GOP primary and the Democrats who were happy to promote him in 2016 are again convinced that Trump is their best shot in 2024 to keep power after putting the country through two of the hardest years it’s faced when not fighting a world war (I don’t count Ukraine as US troops are not actively fighting on the ground). Furthermore as Demonstrated by their love affair with Mitt Romney they will never fail to promote the message of any member of the GOP who targets his own party.

So Trump has turned to attacking DeSantis and the Trump hating press/left have been happy to repeat these attacks (What? You thought Meta/Facebook/Instagram let Trump back in because they were scared of the GOP congress? Please!) and will continue to give him such a free reign as long as DeSantis who they fear, is in the crosshairs. Th consistant with DaTechGuy’s 1st Law of Media Outrag with states:

The level of Outrage or interest of the media and their allies on the left concerning any insult or prevarication concerning a person or thing will routinely be equal to the inverse of the degree of the political distance between said media / leftists and and the target of said insult or prevarication at the time it is made.

The question is however: “Does this help or hinder Donald Trump to get the GOP nomination?” In My Opinion it does not for several reasons:

  • DeSantis has been visibly fighting the media/left since the day he was elected
  • He has been public enemy #1 for the left, the woke and the groomers in the press
  • He has managed very public victories such as the one over Disney advancing conservative cause.
  • People keep pouring into his state fleeing from the blue states
  • DeSantis who had won his first election by a squeaker won re-election by a landslide in a year when the rest of the GOP fizzled

and last but not least:

  • Not only are these charges demonstrably false GOP partisans, even those who prefer Trump KNOW they are false

Even worse for Trump DeSantis has taken the exact right tactic to counter said attacks.

  • Pointing to his work
  • Hitting Joe Biden
  • Declining to attack other republicans

Or to put it simply he’s not giving Trump’s attacks the time of day.

Now Donald Trump, despite his vigor is an old man and one thing that’s almost axiomatic is you aren’t going to get a man over 70 to change his nature. If in his gut he thinks this is the way to go it will take a lot of convincing to get him to change course.

All this adds up to a tactic that is not going anywhere nor is likely to go anywhere and even worse makes Trump vulnerable to a simple counter-attack that DeSantas hasn’t used yet, but that’s another post.

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