Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

Covid Shot Committed: An Army of Ernst Jannings

Posted: May 2, 2023 by datechguy in culture, opinion/news
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I call these people “shot-committed”, a play on “pot-committed” in poker — a situation where you have too much money in the pot to fold, even if you know you’re behind.

Simulation Commander in comments:

I read this piece On Friendship With Self Righteous Cowards concerning those who still three years will not only not admit they were wrong about the COVID shots but still look down upon those who were right.

The piece was very good but the comments were where the action was to wit (all spelling retained):

Its sad. My pulmonary doctor brother in law has never reached out, Apologized or acknowledged anything…even after they required/demanded myself and my unvaxxed family take tests prior to our gathering for Christmas only for they themselves to all come down ill with covid that following February after their 3 plus shots. I honestly I dont ignore them…we pretend nothing happened but they are sort of dead to me now in a general sense…I feel nothing for them…ambivalent at best if only for the sake of my in laws and keeping the peace. They want us to visit but I can not bring myself to bother …plus it’s San Fran which is not real inviting either. They were willing to make our ailing in laws be alone for every holiday and then insisted on making us feel like dirty disease spreaders even when science and common sense contradicted this plainly and that in my opinion became clear very early on..my family had covid in early 2021 prior to vax so our risk of spread was at par with vaxxed. They are both doctors as well….and my brother in law even pushed us to vax our healthy 16 year old who had already had covid. I can’t. They were supposed to be smart but I lost all respect for doctors and the medical community after this. I am a CPA and could follow the freaking logic better than them….totally blind to their own politically driven group think. Yeah I can’t really go back…the emperor has no clothes. (Reference to a childhood fairy-tale)

I’m reminded of the hoops that my wife had to jump through including at one point getting a job in another state turning a 15 min drive to work to a 45 minute drive over her request for a religious exemption before she was able to find a place that accepted her religious exemption just before a deadline that not only required the shot but required all boosters if you got the shot.

It reminded me of this commentator:

My un-jabbed son was banished from his NYC office in Dec 2021 by government decree because he was un-jabbed. He was exiled to New Jersey. When the jab mandate was lifted, his NYC office asked when he would return. He said “never” because he found NJ to be a better place to work – no mandate and a new group of co-workers who didn’t recoil when he entered a room. Walking away can be the best choice in matters of principle.

We were lucky in one sense, neither me nor my retired brothers, nor my sons got the shot. My wife and oldest son got religious exemptions and my youngest and I both worked places where it was not required. This created a social circle, furthermore while at my church the people I shared daily mass people were a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated the judgement that others faced it not surface.

But for others the denial is strong to wit:

Had this text exchange with friends last week. Context was RFJ Jr. being correct on Covid shots.

Friend: 10X more people would have died without the shots. Vaccines are the new modern science.

Me: Who here got the shot and still caught Covid?

Friend 2: Vax is not preventative. Purpose is to mitigate symptoms.

Friend: Shorten illness and contagion so less are exposed (with a link to Harvard article).

Friend: But anti-vaxxers only care about themselves not humanity.

Me (feeling like I was in a 2021 time warp): Remind me why we had vax mandates. It was to prevent us from killing Grandma. Fauci told us if we got the shot we would not catch it and not spread it.

Friend: False.

Me: Why did we have mandates then?

Friend: We did not have mandates.

Of course, he made the shot mandatory for his employees.

I was incredulous that after everyone in the group caught Covid, they still felt this way about the shot, including the fellow R in the group (Friend 2).

The real question to many is: Why don’t they just take the “L” and move on? I think Ruth :

I haven’t gotten an apology or even an ACKNOWLEDGMENT that the shots didn’t work. They still say it prevented you from having a bad case and dying🙄. I think it’s PRIDE. people cannot admit they were wrong because then they would have to face the fact the government (which they all trust) lied to them. And that would open up a entire can of worms that they cannot deal with. That’s a biggy, my government lies!😳

And the woman who replied to her

Yes, and admitting the government lied to you whilst simultaneously holding a worldview where total government control will bring about equity and utopia means letting go of said worldview = total psychic collapse. So you see, you’ll be waiting a long time for an apology.

have it down pat.

It’s like being in Germany after the war we’re all living in a revival of Judgement at Nuremburg:

Mrs. Bertholt: I saw Mr. Perkins today. He told me they’d showed those pictures in the courtroom. Col. Lawson’s favorite pictures. He drags them out at any pretext, doesn’t he? Col. Lawson’s private chamber of horrors. Is that what you think we are? Do you think we knew of those things? Do you think we wanted to murder women and children? Do you believe that? Do you?

Judge Dan Haywood: Mrs. Bertholt, I don’t know what to believe.

Mrs. Bertholt: Good God. We’re sitting here drinking. How could you think that we knew? We did not know. We did not know!

Judge Dan Haywood: As far as I can make out, no one in this country knew.

The moment they admit they were wrong is the moment they have to accept responsibility and see themselves in the light of truth. I’ll close with the closing exchange from Judgement at Nuremburg:

Ernst Janning: Judge Haywood… the reason I asked you to come: Those people, those millions of people… I never knew it would come to that. You *must* believe it, *You must* believe it!

Judge Dan Haywood: Herr Janning, it “came to that” the *first time* you sentenced a man to death you *knew* to be innocent.

Do journalists have ethical standards anymore? Overlooked story about a Chicago Tribune reporter gives me doubts

Posted: April 30, 2023 by John Ruberry in culture, media, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

Late in 2021, the father of Chicago Tribune City Hall reporter Gregory Pratt, died. Father and son shared the same name, but the younger Pratt hadn’t seen his dad since he was five. That is, until shortly before the passing of the older Pratt, which the reporter, in a behind-the-pay-wall column, movingly wrote about in the Tribune. 

Last week, the Chicago City Wire, a newspaper often dismissed as “fake” and “pink slime” by liberals, noticed something in Pratt’s column, a link to a GoFundMe page organized by a cousin for the reporter, to defray the senior Pratt’s medical bills, That GoFundMe link should have immediately raised eyebrows. But it was the “fake” source that got the scoop.

The Chicago Tribune’s lead City Hall reporter Gregory Pratt solicited and received at least $1,790 in donations in a GoFundMe.com fundraiser benefiting his family from sources he covers– including elected officials, political consultants and lobbyists.

The donors included Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who gave him $150, along with Evelyn Chinea-García, the wife of recent mayoral candidate, U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia ($500) and former Illinois Deputy Governor and State Attorney General candidate Jesse Ruiz ($100).

Three members of the Chicago City Council Pratt covers – Ald. Gil Villegas (36th), Ald. Samantha Nugent (39th) and Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th)– also contributed to Pratt, along with Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner and lobbyist Michael Alvarez ($250) and Chicago political operatives Rebecca Carroll, Eli Stone, Carolyn Grisko and Joanna Klonsky, who recently worked for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Chicago City Wire, and several other papers, are published by Local Government Information Services, which was founded by conservative activist and WIND-AM radio personality Dan Proft in 2016.

I wrote about these publications here at Da Tech Guy last year.

A Twitter fight between Proft and Pratt ensued, which led former Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass to respond in the comments thread, “When a news organization gives editorial control to billionaire Bolshevik like George Soros, that news organization has no credibility. Any comment @chicagotribune @CTGuild @royalpratt???

Kass’ referral to @CTGuild is in regard to the Chicago Tribune Guild, the union representing Trib reporters. It is the organization that fought with the longtime conservative columnist at the Tribune over a 2020 column highly critical of Kim Foxx–you know, Jussie Smollett’s protector–where Kass brings up how Foxx and other big city Democratic catch-and-release prosecutors are funded by leftist billionaire George Soros. The Guild, of which Kass was not a member, in a biased manner deemed that column as anti-Semitic. The Guild’s protest led to a de facto demotion for Kass.

Pratt, whose Twitter handle is @royalpratt, displays the Chicago Tribune Guild logo on his Twitter page. 

As legendary baseball announcer Mel Allen used to say, “How about that?”

To be fair, for all I know, Kass and Pratt are best pals. Then again, probably not.

Proft and Kass’ objections to the GoFundMe linkage are fair. Could those donors who work in politics, and who Pratt is expected to cover without bias, expect more sympathetic coverage if he knows they contributed to his dad’s GoFundMe page?

I don’t know.

Here’s what the New York Times, on its ethics page, says about possible improprieties.

Personal relations with sources: Relationships with sources require the utmost in sound judgment and self discipline to prevent the fact or appearance of partiality. Cultivating sources is an essential skill, often practiced most effectively in informal settings outside of normal business hours. Yet staff members, especially those assigned to beats, must be sensitive that personal relationships with news sources can erode into favoritism, in fact or appearance. And conversely staff members must be aware that sources are eager to win our good will for reasons of their own.

Which brings me to beat reporting. Years ago, the Trib used to move around reporters in a seemingly bizarre fashion. For instance, Bruce Buursma went from the religion beat to covering the Chicago White Sox. Such transfers create more-rounded journalists –and since Chicago’s two baseball teams went nearly a century for one–and over a century for the other–between World Series titles, a faith reporter might have been just what baseball fans reading the Tribune needed at that time.

Sadly, for reporters coving elected officials, mostly but not exclusively on the left, politics is their religion. They are not journalists, they’re activists playing on the same team.

Here’s one more old story. Jay McMullen, who later married Chicago mayor Jane Byrne, was for over twenty years was the City Hall reporter for the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times. Eventually his bosses viewed McMullen as being too cozy with the pols he covered–so he was exiled to the real estate page. McMullen later worked for his wife during her single term in office.

Note: Two days ago, I emailed Gregory Pratt about my intention to write a blog post about the GoFundMe page controversy. I received an out-of-office reply that suggested I contact another person. As of the evening of April 30, I have not received a non-automated response from either of them.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

It’s just incidental Data but…

Posted: April 28, 2023 by datechguy in culture, opinion/news
Tags: ,

After mass this morning I stopped by a local combo Butcher Shop and liquor store to pick up some hamburger. As I was leaving I noticed the Bud Light guy dropping off booze and asked him how things were going with the sales.

He noted that sales were down a bit and that on the highway that morning he had one guy beep at him to give him a thumbs down. I sympathized as this fellow had nothing to do with the idiotic decisions made at the corporate level.

That was interesting but not as interesting as what happened later that evening.

Tonight I took my wife out to dinner at Texas Road House because I had a hankering for a steak larger than what’s offered at Longhorn but without paying an arm and a leg as some of the fancier steak houses in the area charge.

The place was packed when we got there with a 30 minute wait but we were told there were two spots at the bar if we were willing to sit there. To my surprise my wife jumped at the offer so we ended up at the bar with big screen carrying the NFL draft. all around. It was a few minutes before game six between the Bruins and Panthers and TV’s were duly changed when the game started.

The first thing I noticed was that my seat was directly opposite the beer taps so I could see every draft bear that was pourced.

Now I confess this is not a scientific study and there were times when I was paying more attention to the Bruins game or my steak than the taps, but during the hour plus that we spent at the bar, while I saw many a Coors light poured, more than a few Sam Adams and plenty of the local Wachusett ales going out I did not see a single Bud Light leave the station.

Again I note I cant guarantee that I didn’t miss a beer or two that went out but that I would not see a single Bud Light sold in a national restaurant in a deep blue state can not be a good sign for these guys.

Frankly if I were them I’d bring back the King from the “dilly dilly” stuff and have him pass judgement on the Marketing Department, not for trying expand the reach of the beer but for hitting the customer base in the process.

I suspect a commercial declaring they hope to share the joy of Bud light with all while sending them to the pit of despair for their disrespect of those who already enjoy Bud Light with the crowd responding “Dilly Dilly” would send the right message without explicitly saying words they don’t want to say aloud.

Until they do I suspect I will see more of what I saw tonight because no matter how many patriotic ads you make it’s just too easy to order a Coors or a Sam Adams or a Wachusett instead.

The Optional Federal 50% 75% & 90% Tax Rates, An Idea Whose Time has Come

Posted: April 21, 2023 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Today on twitter I saw this rather amusing video from Stephen Moore who covered a press conference of “patriotic millionaires” who joined Democrats in pushing for a 90% tax on those they called the “super rich”.

Their hesitation to do so without the official approval of the state suggests that it’s time for the federal government to import another idea from Massachusetts, one that is much better than turning “RomneyCare” into Obamacare?

Around 20 years ago Democrats in Massachusetts were pushing for a higher tax rate and we saw a bunch of very rich leftists doing what was being done in the video above, namely asking for their taxes to be raised, Barbara Anderson and Citizens for Limited Taxation made a sarcastic suggestion that they state offer an optional higher tax rate to those who wanted to pay more:

“We were just being sarcastic,” she says. “The next thing we knew, the legislature seemed to find our sarcasm relevant and so they passed the idea we had.”

In 2002, tax politics were serious in Massachusetts. Voters had passed a sharp decrease in the income tax rate, and lawmakers decided to slow that down. In that same year, they also passed the optional tax rate — a way to contribute just a little more to the state’s general fund.

Since that time Residents of the state have had the option to pay a 5.85% tax rate if they so choose and every year about 2000 people in the state make that choice, but that doesn’t include at least one pro-tax person you’ve heard of:

Elizabeth Warren wants to raise taxes if she’s elected president, but usually hasn’t chosen to pay more herself.

Massachusetts state income tax forms allow taxpayers to pay a higher rate to help out the state government. But according to tax returns posted on Warren’s presidential campaign web site, she didn’t do so at least nine years in a row.

I think it’s time that this law is passed federally but on a grander scale.

If I’m Kevin McCarthy as part of his debt ceiling deal I’d offer the Biden Administration the chance to include an optional tax rates in the tax code so that those millionaires who want a max rate of 90% can just check a box on their taxes and Viola their federal rate will be 90%.

In fact McCarthy could make it even fairer, he could add 3 optional rates, a 90% rate to satisfy those “ultra rich” and 75% rate for those who think 90% is too high and an economy sized 50% rate for the folks who are rich, but aren’t wealthy enough to be classified as “ultra rich”.

Hey if 2000 people in a small state like Massachusetts voluntarily choose a higher tax rate surely they’ll be able to find 100,000 people in a country of over 330 million willing to pay those higher tax rates. It could be the ultimate virtue signal for the super rich. Heck the Bidens could invite those folks to the White House and honor them for making that sacrifice to help their country and democrats can cite them as heroes of the revolution republic.

C’mon Kevin, let’s give these rich leftists a chance to put their money where their mouth is, literally.

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