Posted: December 27, 2022 by datechguy in politics
Donald Trump said something interesting concerning GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell:
The Marxist Democrats must have something really big on Mitch McConnell in order to get him and some of his friendly “Republican” Senators to pass the horrendous “All Democrat, All the Way” OMINOUS Bill. It gives Border Security to other countries, but ZERO $’s to the U.S., it fully funds the corrupt “Justice” Department, FBI (which RIGGED the Presidential Election!), and even the Trump Hating Special “Prosecutor.” It is also a massive giveaway & capitulation to CHINA, making COCO CHOW so happy!
I actually suspect this is the norm rather than the exception. I suspect that when a promising young alderman or state rep starts advancing the deep state gets right to work. They look for an opening to compromise them, maybe it’s a “companion” at a party, maybe it’s a financial consideration that they insist is legal, maybe it’s a favor for a son, daughter, brother or sister, or if they are already compromised in some way, they promise to keep it quiet during any election to higher office. They provide comfort, wealth and advancement.
But once these favors are taken, they’re owned and said favor is held over their head to compel action and then the compelled action exasperates the hold until the subject is held in bonds that they are terrified of breaking because if they do then all the wealth, power, influence and comfort they have acquired for themselves and their family and friends can suddenly disappear. Even worse an investigation can take place where the process is the punishment, a process that will take years and most of the gains that they have acquired in years or decades of the grift.
This is the type of hold I suspect an awful lot of people are subject to in congress and other places these days and I suspect these hold are exercised, not on every vote or every issue, but in the key moments where it’s needed to protect the deep state and those who profit from it.
I could be totally wrong about this, as could Donald Trump, but I doubt it.
Blogger on the right with a friend near Augusta, Georgia in 2021
By John Ruberry
Last week my wife was invited to a party hosted by one of my daughter’s friends.
Who wasn’t? Me.
There was some-and-forth, but my daughter explained that the host, who has been to my home and whose mother I’ve known for years through an old job, didn’t think I’d be “comfortable” there. After some probing, it became clear that it was my conservative political views that were the problem for them.
I pressed my daughter, “What kind of ogre do they think I am?” Well, I muscled my way into an invite–after all, I’ve lived all of my life in the Chicago area, so I know all about muscling–and do you know what? I showed up to the party. The guests found me whimsical and charming. In other words–I was lovable myself.
Over on Facebook I’ve been unfriended by many old friends–now unfriends–and at least one relative over my posts there.
In addition to my Sunday blog entries on this site I have my own blog, Marathon Pundit. The rollicking comment threads on my Facebook page–or more accurately, argument threads–bring traffic to my blog, and sometimes, here at Da Tech Guy. Friends–in the flesh ones that is–as well as co-workers, look forward to the next tiff on my Facebook page. I’m reminded of that constantly. And as I am now in my sixth decade, my real career, parts of which involve writing, is winding down. Moreso than ever, as William Shakespeare said to the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who, “Words are my trade.” Well, maybe not completely, but I do earn money blogging and I hope to earn more.
Hey, I gotta eat.
And I absolutely do believe in what I write. And I voted for Donald J. Trump four times–twice in the Illinois Republican Primary and twice in the general election. I’m proud of those votes and I’m still 80/20 in regard to the former president.
About those old friends: Many of them are carrying on without me. Sadly, but I suspect they see me as someone who has transformed himself into an SNL caricature of a conservative, a cross between the Muppets’ Sam Eagle and Archie Bunker, but sans the bigotry on the last one.
I have long ears–and because of the blog–a long tongue. Oh, I stole that last line from Lawrence of Arabia.
The invitations to get-togethers have stopped coming from most of them. I’ve been cancelled.
Bah humbug.
Oh, please don’t worry about me. I have a wife a daughter who love me. And many new friends. And I’m still in touch with some of those old friends. During my most recent vacations, in Alaska and Georgia, I re-connected with two of them–and I met a third friend in Texas, who I met through my blogging. That’s me up there on the right last year, with a high school friend who lives near Augusta, Georgia, who I hadn’t seen since we graduated so many years ago. That moment is my favorite of the current decade.
A new friend–we met through Twitter–invited me for coffee when he visited Illinois this spring.
Even if I was really even partially Sam Eagle/Archie Bunker, your humble blogger is so much more. I work in an industry, automotive, that utterly fascinates people and I have numerous tips in regard to buying a car–without being ripped off. Your Marathon Pundit, currently nursing an injured hip, is really a runner. I’ve run 33 marathons. In addition to the blogging, I have another side hustle, stock photography. On the job, my real one, I’ve showed clients my portfolio, a couple of them are now selling pics online too.
I’m not a one trick eagle.
Yet it is only Sam Eagle/Archie Bunker the liberals only see. Perhaps that is all they want to see. Such is life as a conservative in Deep Blue Illinois.
Maybe I am the bad guy. On the flipside, I don’t believe so. According to a couple of polls, one here and another one here, it is the denizens of the left who are more likely to unfriend someone on social media than conservatives over politics. Oh yeah, liberals. The ones who so often have “Coexist” bumper stickers on their cars and “Hate Has No Home Here” signs on their lawn.
Everyone is welcome in their world. Except for folks who don’t share their political beliefs. As for myself, I’ve never unfriended anyone on social media because of their political views.
Well, this is not the Christmas message you are accustomed to, but please let me reiterate, I am fine–please don’t tell Mrs. Marathon Pundit to hide the sharp objects.
Christmas is a time for welcoming others. In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Scrooge’s nephew always invited the miser to his home for Christmas dinner.
Next Sunday is New Year’s Day. As Robert Burns wrote, “Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never thought upon.”
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
And God bless us, everyone.
Never forget.
Now it’s time for me to get dressed in my finest and head over to my sister’s home for a Christmas feast.
A special thanks goes to that friend in Georgia for permission to use the above photograph for this blog entry.
John Ruberry regularly blogs from the Chicago area at Marathon Pundit.
There seems to be a lot of weird things going on with the NFL in terms of rulings and results. Many odd endings, many surprise finishes and results. It makes games rather interesting.
A lot of people have commented on these things but nobody is talking about the elephant in the room which is the proliferation of gambling on sports.
Can anyone tell me why we should not assume that the hundreds of millions being bet on the NFL is not affecting how the game is played, coached or refed?
Old friend Ladd Ehlinger (Filmladd) now has a Youtube Channel, you can find it and his material here:
I suggest subscribing, I’d do it myself but as you all know I’ve been permanently suspended from youtube for daring to suggest that election 2020 was not completely honest.
For the record you can find most of my material than managed to migrate on my Rumble channel here.
The first two episodes of season 3 of The Chosen are now both available so those of us who did not go to the theatre are caught up.
They have already managed to pay for two complete episodes of season 4 and are less than $32,000 away from making it three out of 8 as of this writing.
It will be interesting to see how much more of season four is paid for as the next four episodes are broadcast along with a 2nd movie premiere that is apparently planned for episodes 7 & 8. They’re 15 million to go to finish funding that season. I’d not be surprised if have it all funded before Easter (April 9th) but I suspect that before this season has been broadcast they will be at least 5 episodes completely paid for.
While this has been the slowest Christmas I’ve ever seen at work we had a tiny burst of orders this week.
It seems a lot of people believe that if you order something with two day delivery seven days before Christmas you’ll still manage to get it on time. Of course if EVERYONE decides to try to order 2nd day at the same time then there isn’t enough capacity to get everything in time delivered.
This happens every single Christmas as if nobody every learns. That’s one thing I’ll give Amazon, they started warning people “This will arrive after Christmas” last week.
Of course if you celebrate all seven days of Christmas that’s not a problem.
Finally the Jan 6th committee kangaroo court has decided recommended charges against Donald Trump in their last days and the media is practically orgasmic.
It’s a testament to how effective Donald Trump was as president that the left/media has spent the last six years going through so much effort to demonize him even to the point (as the twitter files expose) of the FBI actively working to help fix the election.
My thought is it would have been a lot easier for the deep state to not worry about it and ride out a re-election. By now they’d be almost done with him and able to resume business and graft as usual. In fact I suspect if they had made a deal or two with him early he wouldn’t have gotten in their way all that much.
If it was worth that much effort to keep him from the office the rot that is going on must be a lot worse and a lot deeper than we even now currently think. It also explains why the left was so panicked about Musk taking over Twitter.
Yet for some reason Trump scared them so much that they have come out into the open to be seen, giving us the choice to deal wit it or let it be. That more than anything else has been the greatest legacy of his administration that it has given us the people the choice of keeping our republic or freely letting it go.
A poll with surprising findings was released on Thursday by Fox Chicago about Chicago’s mayoral election on Friday. Yeah, yeah, I know, many political polls about the recently concluded congressional elections were wrong, and there were serious polling errors in 2016 and 2018 as well. But stick with me here.
The mayoral poll, conducted by M3 Strategies, shows that US Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia is favored by 28 percent of respondents, followed by former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas at 19 percent, incumbent Lori Lightfoot at 15 percent, and Willie Wilson, a businessman and philanthropist, at 13 percent.
There are eleven candidates for mayor of America’s third-largest–for now–city, although petition challenges might winnow the field. The first round of voting, along with races for alderpersons in each of Chicago’s 50 wards, as well as for city clerk and treasurer, will be held on February 28, if no candidates achieve a majority in their races, the top two candidates are matched in an April runoff.
So, if the poll is correct, that means that Lori Lightfoot, who in my opinion is America’s worst big city mayor, she won’t make it to the second round. Lightfoot’s term in mayor has been disastrous on many levels–too many to list here.
On the latest episode Fox Chicago Flannery Fired Up show, host Mike Flannery said about crime, “nearly three-fourths of Chicago voters now say is their number one issue.” Lightfoot, as a candidate said that the crime levels of 2019 were “unacceptable.” Flannery then fact checked Lightfoot’s recent statement that “we are down 15 percent in homicides, 20 percent in shootings.” But those are numbers looking back to last year. Flannery did the right thing, scolding Lightfoot.
“When she took office in 2019,” Flannery said, “she inherited a dramatically declining rate of bloody street violence, but the medical examiner reports that homicides this year are 41 percent higher than in 2019.”
It’s easy to understand why Lightfoot is polling so terribly. M3 Strategy’s Matt Podgorski was a guest on that Flannery Fired Up installment, of the incumbent he said, “You’re looking at a situation where [there is] a negative view of 74 percent of likely voters and about 70 percent of them think she does not deserve another term. Only two percent of Chicago voters haven’t formed an opinion of Mayor Lightfoot.”
“Those are unprecedently bad numbers,” Podgorski concluded.
I can’t see a way out for Lightfoot. Apparently, Chicago voters, up to a point, aren’t completely stupid.
Besides her inability to stem Chicago’s rise in violence–which her apologists point out is part of a national increase in mayhem while failing to mention that Los Angeles and New York, which are more populous, have lower murder totals–Lightfoot’s petulant and overbearing COVID-19 lockdown policy produced a tragic irony. After she spotted a large group of males congregating on a beach, the next day she ordered Chicago police officers to enforce the closure of that beach. Later that day, cops did next to nothing as rioters tore up and looted Chicago’s North Michigan Avenue shopping district.
Lightfoot has acted bizarrely, once allegedly told an Italian-American group who supports the return of Chicago’s Christopher Columbus statues to public view, “I have the biggest d*ck in Chicago.” She once went full-Jack Nicholson in The Shining in a repetitive email rant.
Chicago voters, as I alluded earlier, still have much room for improvement. Chuy Garcia, then a Cook County commissioner, surprisingly forced incumbent Rahm Emanuel into a runoff in the 2015 mayoral race, running to the left of Emanuel. In 2016 Garcia endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. Last year the leftist magazine In These Times, in a collaboration with the Chicago Reader, gushingly wrote of Garcia’s working with the Squad in Washington, “It’s not surprising that García has taken up with Congress’ left rebels.”
Garcia enjoys a sizeable lead in the Fox Chicago poll. Garcia collected $2,900 from indicted FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Worse, the Protect our Futures PAC spent over $150,000 on glossy mailers to introduce Garcia to new voters in his redrawn congressional district, even though Chuy was running unopposed in the November election.
Buying something, SBF?
What about the other two top contenders to replace Lightfoot? Willie Wilson, a gadfly candidate who somehow has convinced some Chicago conservatives he is one of them, can arguably–because of his regular grocery and gasoline giveaways--be called a vote buyer. Paul Vallas, another perennial candidate, is the only mayoral candidate talking real sense about crime. Unless I missed something, he’s the only mayoral candidate who is explicitly critical of Cook County’s catch-and-release prosecutor, Kim Foxx.
Whoever is Chicago’s next mayor, the, ahem, winner faces a monumental series of challenges. Besides crime, the mayor will have to cope with a declining tax base, as businesses are fleeing. And Chicago’s pension bomb looms–eventually it will explode. Chicago is the most corrupt city in America. And what about the lead in Chicago’s water pipes?
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