Many, if not all the Democratic Party candidates vying for nomination for President, to a man, woman or other, support the removal and criminalization of the internal combustion engine. The cost to the environment like totally outweighs our need to grow and harvest food. You know, the soy beans and veggies necessary to support life on earth as they know it.
It wasn’t too long ago – just in the beginning of the 1900’s – that having enough food was a real concern. Does anybody remember the election slogan “a chicken in every pot”? Bonus points if you can name the politician who said it. Hunger does exist in America. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), as of just two years ago, 12.3 percent of American households remain food insecure – meaning that 1 in 8 households in the United States had difficulty at some time during the year in providing enough food for all their members.
These Democrat Party Candidates all support the starvation of low income and most unfortunate of our country! How can I say that?
To understand, one only needs to visit a farm – a place as alien as a church to the wonderful slaver socialist city dwellers, during the harvest. But be aware that the farmers, whose livelihoods depend upon a quick and successful harvest, may not be too happy to see you. The harvest is the short – a matter of hours – time in which farmers have to get their ripe crops in before the snow falls, rains come and the crop begins to rot in the fields. Without the use of many sophisticated, expensive mechanical devices known as “trucks”, “tractors”, “harvesters”, “combines” and a plethora of vehicles seen only on farms, the agricultural revolution with the delivered promise of inexpensive, nutritious food to feed rich and poor across our country and the world will be impossible.
I must confess that I was concerned when President Trump started slapping Tariff’s on China having been taught from youth that tariff’s had been one of the underlying causes of the Great Depression and knowing that China has been a great holder of our debt.
His confidence in his ability to manage our trade problems apparently has not been misplaced:
China will exempt some agricultural products from additional tariffs on U.S. goods, including pork and soybeans, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said Friday, in the latest sign of easing Sino-U.S. tensions before a new round of talks aimed at curbing a bruising trade war.
This development is of some disappointment to those looking to defeat him politically but not to producers of Pork and soybeans:
“The importance of this market to U.S. pork producers is clear,” said National Pork Producers Council President and North Carolina hog farmer David Herring. “U.S. pork exports could single handedly make a huge dent in the trade imbalance with China.”
An outbreak of deadly African swine fever, which has cut China’s pig herd by a third since mid-2018, has propelled Chinese pork prices to record levels and left the country in need of replacement supplies from overseas. U.S. pork exports to China so far this year have largely fallen short of expectations.
The concessions on pork and soybeans are significant, much more so than a two-week delay in tariffs. It signals that China can’t afford to deal with a lengthy trade war, especially not this year. They may not like it, but they still need to trade in order to feed their massive population, and China might have to get used to fully opening their markets and complying with agreements to do so.
President Trump, being more successful and more experienced in business than myself and recognizing that checking China’s expansion without military confrontation was a vital American interest apparently understands one of basic facts of life, a fact that he as a person who was born to wealth might not be expected to remember.
The most imposing nation no matter how large a standing army or how broad a shadow it casts on their neihbors, is impotent if it can’t feed it’s people.
There is a lot of talk about the game Monopoly Socialism from Hasbro. Leftists are upset and folks like me are delighted that the game pokes fun at Socialism, but let’s forget that for a moment as a gamer and ask the basic questions one might ask about a game, namely.
Is it playable?
Is it challenging?
Is it fun
Weaknesses
Is it worth your time?
1. As to the first question the game is very easy to play, the setup is not complicated because only the community fund gets any cash, the mechanics of the game are relatively easy and it tends to move quickly, sometimes VERY quickly. The one real issue with the game is that you’re a monopoly player you have to make sure you don’t use a monopoly mindset because that’s an easy way to lose. Which brings us to question 2
2. Is it Challenging. I was quite surprised that this game take a lot of thought. you are playing both against your opponents and the game itself. the nature of the game means that you have to take advantage of community handouts early to get power,
but to rely too much on it leads to everybody losing. In addition while wealth can help make a difference in winning, it’s not really the determining factor, particularly when there are so many cards that can counter you. Furthermore if you are too far in the lead it’s an incentive for the others to let the community fund run dry and everyone loses. Like socialism you have to boil the frog so to speak to make sure that those who can bring you down don’t understand how you are manipulating the system. Against strong players it takes an awful lot of skill to come out ahead…just like in socialism.
3. Is it fun? Well this depends. if you are a person of the right you will likely find it fun and funny right from the start simply because of the cards and effects like this one:
The fact that the game is challenging and requires wits is a bonus extra.
Now if you are a person on the left who has made socialism and politics their religion then you are likely going to be so pissed off that no amount of challenge and nuance will compensate for the great insult to your religion, however if you are a person with an open mind who likes a skillful challenge then you might still enjoy this game as it takes quite a bit of wits to win.
4. Weaknesses. Three come to mind, firstly it’s actually fairly easy to rumble the game in one respect. If the players right from the start decide not to take advantage of the system to get ahead in theory you can build up the community fund to a point where it might possible to advance on your own. However that might take a half hour of not trying to win, so depending on who you are playing with that doesn’t work.
There are some ambiguities in the rules, ,for example, while it suggest that all should contribute to the general fund it’s not clear that people can do it voluntarily. If you are a rich player it might be worth while to pay off the debts of the community to keep the game going and I think there should be a mechanism to do that.
We have also added a house rule that would be a good addition to the game in general. There are cards that remove your chits from project due to offenses against socialism, however in real life what tends to happen in real life that such a person commuting such an offense can usually be shaken down to buy forgiveness, so we added a rule where a person can buy forgiveness from the community with a contribution to the community fund and a partial payment to the person playing the card. Basically it’s the Al Sharpton rule and it adds another aspect to the game, both interesting and real.
Finally I’d like it if you could play with six rather than just four, because my gut tells me a larger group would be more interesting but much harder to win.
5. Finally is it worth your time. I think so, it’s a challenging game that can be finished in under an hour, even quicker if people aren’t careful. I don’t know if I’d pay the prices I’m seeing on Amazon right now but if you want a game that is fun to play, well designed, requires some wits and has just enough luck to not make it a forgone conclusion this game is it.
My congratulations to the design team, well done 4 1/2 out of five.
Today (Thursday) is the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary a holy day of obligation so my day began with mass at 8 to fulfill my duty as a Catholic.
However my plans for the rest of the day are not my normal Thursday routine. Instead of getting ready for my last day of work for the week I will be heading up to Manchester NH to cover the President’s rally due to begin at 7 pm.
Thanks to the change in the economy since the last time I covered the future President during a campaign I was able to take a vacation day rather than rushing to cover then candidate Trump and then rushing to work still wearing my suit & press credential when I punched in and walked onto the floor.
I decided against contacting Corey Lewandowski or folks from the NH GOP who I’ve covered for years to reverse this, I’m too old and too Sicilian for that. If the campaign doesn’t want me there so be it.
If I had been there my plan had been to collect data for a question in my mind that I wanted to answer:
“What does the Trump base think of proposed ‘redflag’ laws and will disappointing them on the issue be enough to make them stay home in 2020?”
I think I know what the answer to that question will be, but would have rather spoken from hard data than my best guess, no matter how informed said guess might be.
New Hampshire is the perfect place to ask this question for three reasons.
3. New Hampshire was a state President Trump lost by a hair in 2016 (47.62% to 47.25%) and is one that due to the booming economy might be expected to do better in circa 2020 even if there is a large run of Massachusetts voters suddenly appearing at the Granite State polls
It would have been wonderful to have a thirdchance to pose a question at a Trump campaign press conference, and frankly being able to question a sitting President would be the apex of any bloggers career, the real action however in my opinion, that matters in terms of Election 2020 is how his voters answered that question.
That’s, in my opinion, the story of the day, however I won’t be there to tell it.
But rest assured there will be plenty of members of the MSM who will be there, and their story of the day will be that the President is a racist, sexist, white supremacist whose economy is on the verge of recession and that those who support him are at best delusional or at worst aspiring Nazis who all aspire to be mass killers.
The fact that with minor variations this is the same story of the day that they have been telling since January 20th 2017 and before doesn’t seem to bother them as it fits in perfectly with the world view in their bubble.
Now maybe it’s just me but I’d think it would be a good idea to challenge this meme with 1st hand reporting and video to show it for the nonsense it is but hey if the President’s campaign doesn’t want that message challenged by someone like me, who am I to tell them otherwise?
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