Archive for the ‘under the fedora’ Category

Five AM Thoughts Under the Fedora Chicago on the Potomac What are they Hiding? , War involves killing? Who wouda thunk it! ,Get on With it, Adjusting the Schedule

Posted: March 25, 2024 by datechguy in Israel vs Hamas, News/opinion, under the fedora
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During the Obama years when his administration was young I pointed out repeatedly that he was basically a cheap Chicago Machine Pol.

It’s apparently much worse in the sense that his administration and the Biden admin that his people control have basically brought Chicago politics to the national level, where every part of government is used to quell & destroy opposition on one hand and the levers of power simply exist to enrich friends and perpetuate the machine, even down to the lowest civil service level.

They have remade the courts, the civil service and even the military in their image and the consequences of this are likely to destroy America or drive it toward Civil War and worst of all they’ve done it at the behest of our enemies.

I really don’t have words to describe what I think of the people who have allowed it to happen for the sake of power, status and greed but that’s a post Christian society for you.

A couple of days ago I saw it theorized that the reason Gallagher is resigning in a way to prevent his +15 GOP seat from being filled is to help the Democrats get the House long enough to declare Trump an “insurrectionist” and try to disqualify him per the SCOTUS ruling that killed the cases in Colorado etc.

There was a time when I would have laughed such a theory out the door but the incredible irrational fear and obsession the deep state and the left has of Trump has demonstrated that no tactic is beyond them.

This type of fear suggests that however bad and whatever illegalities and unconstitutional acts I might suspect have been going on during the Biden/Obama years, it’s much worse and they’re totally afraid of being exposed.

I must confess that I’m completely confused by how some people react to events in Ukraine and Russia

They are at war with each other and now have been for over two years. During war both sides try to attack the other, try to destroy infrastructure and target the other side. This tends to lead to death and destruction the scale of which depends on the size of the parties involved and the state of their military. This is how war actually works. It’s why it’s something to be avoided if at all possible.

So will people PLEASE stop having fits when Ukraine hits Russia and when Russia hits Ukraine and acting all shocked when it happens and concentrate on finding ways of ending the war instead. Surely there are easier ways of acquiring graft then this and frankly for those worried about the Russian Bear the lessons of this war would seem to be that the bear is not what people think it is.

Speaking of Military Confusion I’m a tad confused by Israel’s delay in moving into that final big Hamas City. I understand there might be logistical issues that they may be working out and given what we’ve seen there is plenty of mopping up to do farther north but I suspect if anything is going to move Hamas to made a deal for those hostages it’s the impending fall of that final safe haven.

Of course I’m still shocked they haven’t gone all General Sherman or more General Lemay on Gaza but that’s their call not mine.

Finally day one of up at five off to work at 6am, mass at 6 pm and home maybe 7-8 has gone without incident. It’s been 20 years since I’ve done 10 hour days so the real test isn’t the easy Sunday, it will be the Monday facing rush hour traffic and the Wednesday when I’ve done four straight.

Given the Biden economy & and the debt it’s helped me accrue combined with the empty tip jar I’m thinking of picking up a part time job on that now free day I have but I’m going to wait till I’ve done this a month or so to see how this sixty something body handles 10 hour days over the long haul first.

Five Fast Thoughts Under the Fedora AOC out and about, Narrative Narrative Narrative, Unpeople, “Wolf” in the CPAC fold and the countdown to the end continues

Posted: March 5, 2024 by datechguy in internet/free speech, media, politics, the courts, under the fedora
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Saw the article about AOC out with her guy and protesters bugging her about Gaza.

It’s rather ironic as she’s generally on their side but what really struck me is the photo of her out with her guy seemed so …. normal.

I’m partial to the sight of a young lady out with her man and frankly I’d like folks to leave her alone to enjoy those moment which are some of the most important in life.

I don’t watch a lot of the MSM but I made it a point of watching the reactions to the SCOTUS ruling on the attempts to kick Trump off the ballots in various blue states.

I found it hilarious that all of the stressed that the court didn’t acquit him of being an insurrectionist.

They didn’t have to, nobody has filed a charge of insurrection against him in federal court, in fact none of the J6 prisoners or defendants have in fact been charged with insurrection.

Their desperation to keep this narrative intact is very interesting and shows how far they’ve fallen, but it’s amazing how far a person will willingly let themselves fall if their paycheck is attached to it.

Have you noticed that in the minds of the media nothing delegitimizes an institution more than no longer following the narrative of the left.

Elon Musk, Ben Carson, The Supreme Court, Donald Trump, Naomi Wolf and yes J. K. Rowling were all feted and celebrated by the left for a very long time right up until the moment that they were perceived as a threat to the power of the left and the narrative they were selling.

Once they did as far as all those folks who loved and celebrated them were concerned they were now unpersons that needed to be destroyed.

Hey commies gotta commie.

There is an excellent substack by Naomi Wolf about visiting CPAC titled “Letter from CPAC” that you should read. There is one bit that jumped out at me:

We entered the Gaylord at the peak of CPAC, to an atrium thronged with happy visitors. My first, ignominious reaction to the scene, for which Brian rightly chided me, was: “This is not my culture.”

There was a buzz, from the moment we entered: a joyful vibe. After we checked in, changed, and ran down to join the festivities, we were struck by how pleasant and positive almost everyone was to us, and to each other. As someone reported to me the desk clerk had said, “I know they won’t approve of me saying this back in Southeast DC, where I come from, but you all are nice.”

Nice is a good and accurate word, a better description is “normal”

She goes though a list of folks she met and spoke to, many that she might disagree with on some issues and notes how different they are from how the media paints them.

It’s been six years years since I’ve been to CPAC the last time I went was with my sons and them seeing the MSM in action as they actually are taught them plenty.

Finally there are two reasons why you don’t see me at CPAC anymore. The first is as a full time employees where I work I only get so much vacation time and it won’t be till 2028 that I have the additional week that attending CPAC would require.

But the other is frankly that DaTipJar has dwindled to almost nothing, my last fundraiser only managed 25% of my goal and last month between subscriptions and tip jar hits I had exactly $2 left over after paying my writers.

I suspect the blog as a business will not survive long after the election and with money tight it will be an effort to survive to the election. It’s nothing about $5000 wouldn’t solve but that money simply isn’t there and in the end I don’t have a divine right to a single person’s dollar, I can only earn it by producing content that people think is worth it.

It’s disappointing to fail in business I’ve done so many times I’m just sorry I couldn’t provide better for my wife who deserves better. If I had followed my brothers into the civil service I might even now be retired or close to it with a pension, but I’m not ashamed of trying to make it as a writer/pundit and this blog has done good work, sometimes even important work. I’ve showed things and told things as they are which is why both Youtube now and pre-Musk twitter censored me. Best of all I’m proud to say I never sold out to push any narrative I didn’t believe in.

Hey in the end 16 years isn’t a bad run

How DARE those Jews rescue their hostages!, An Old Fashioned Rand Paul, Mahomes Twice in one game, Glenn Reynolds on Biden and consequences and Just a Shrove Tuesday Coincidence Under the Fedora

Posted: February 13, 2024 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, culture, election 2020, election 2024, elections, Israel, Israel vs Hamas, nfl, politics, Sports, under the fedora
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The speed of cultural change in this country amazes me. A recently as 5-10 years ago and definitely 20 years ago a military operation that successfully recused civilians taken hostage unharmed that took only one casualty slightly wounded and killed multiple terrorists in the process would be universally hailed by both sides of the political aisle and lionized by the press.

Instead it has at best been ignored and at worst attacked by sitting members of congress as a “massacre”.

There have been quite a few national disgraces over the last few years. This is one of them.

Rand Paul did something yesterday that we don’t see much of. An old fashioned filibuster of the Ukraine Bill where people actually hold the floor and talk.

While I concede that the current cloister rules are what allowed the chances at SCOTUS which finally doomed Roe I approve of both the Filibuster and Paul’s use of it here and would bring it back if I could, HOWEVER I’d only approve of the real thing.

You see for the last few decades rather than actually holding the floor and making the face a filibuster was considered as read if enough senators indicated they were behind it. I’ve always felt that was lazy. If a bill is worth filibustering it’s worth doing it for real.

Because of a previous vote Paul’s filibuster is limited but he’s playing out the string like Jackie Robinson remaining on the field watching Bobby Thompson circling the based ready to protest if he missed any of them on his way around them in the excitement of the moment.

Agree or disagree on various issues he’s a man of principle. We need more of them in congress.

The difference between a good player and a great player is how they perform when the chips are down. 

While Tom Brady will always have the edge on Patrick Mahomes because of their head to head record in the playoffs (favoring Brady 2-0) Mahomes with his 3rd Superbowl win proves he belongs in the GOAT conversation not just by the victory. But by the fact that TWICE in the same game he lead his team down the field to score the tying or winning points where failure would have meant defeat and did so with less than 30 seconds on the clock.

A lot of stat guys are not believers in “Clutch” performers. Mahomes as well as Brady proves such an assertion is nonsense. Having Mahomes follow Brady It’s like watching DiMaggio come after Ruth or Mantle after DiMaggio.

Oh and full marks to Brock Purdy the idea that a Mr. Irrelevant forced Mahomes in a situation where he had to do that is astounding

Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, the Blogfather has been worth reading for 23 years and if I actually had a bucket list lunch with him would be on it.

At substack yesterday he posted one of the best assessment of Joe Biden’s current situation that I’ve read. That something Reynolds has written is good is a given, but this is SO far above even his standard that you must read it. There are two bits that jump out at me:

As Time magazine reported shortly after the 2020 election, a “cabal” — Time’s word — of “left-wing activists and business titans” worked to get rid of Trump. It pushed mail-in voting. It moved to block election fraud suits brought by Trump and supporters. It employed social media censorship to mute pro-Trump arguments and amplify anti-Trump arguments. It sponsored protests.

Time called this a “conspiracy to save the election,” but in truth it was a conspiracy to save the election for the Democrats. The consequences in terms of lost faith in democracy have been severe, but the worst effect is that the winning ticket was never seriously vetted by the media or the campaign process. 

As one of those who was muted by twitter and is still muted by Youtube for this reason that really strikes home. The second:

After noting the Democrats desperate to replace him he makes what I think is THE critical point:

But whatever the Democrats do about 2024, I would like to see some accountability for the election of 2020.  A cabal of insiders colluded to control the outcome, through all sorts of underhanded tactics.  (Tech companies censored the Hunter Biden laptop story broken by The Post, and retired intelligence officials falsely claimed it was fake, Russian disinformation).  The press allowed Biden to campaign from his basement, covering up the truth that he was already unfit for office.

Now we’re in a pickle.  Whatever happens in this election, I would like to see some consequences for the games played with our democracy in 2020.  Elections belong to the voters, not the insiders.  Or at least they should.

To get that point across, we’re going to have to impose some costs on the folks who rigged the last one.

This states a basic truth that blue cities that were once the envy of the world and are now lawless places where police can be assaulted with impunity, where open air drug markets reign and business have fled. There have been people trying to steal elections for as long as there have been elections just has there have been thugs, drug deals and thieves in all of human history. They only get away with it when those whose job it is to stop them turn a blind eye for their own purposes and let them do it. 

Unless there are consequences for these actions both for those who did it and those who allowed it, it will happen again until the people finally say ENOUGH! 

I suspect if it reaches that point, ENOUGH will not be conveyed via an excellent essay on substack.

Finally as you might recall the WQPH 1st Annual Shrove Tuesday Brunch is scheduled to begin at 10:30 AM at Slattery’s Restaurant in Fitchburg. There have been a lot of small coincidences that have taken place to retard this event that seemed to be overcome. About 48 hours ago it appeared there was one that would not be, the projected storm that closed my place of work today with the potential of 13″ of snow falling fast right at the travel time. The restaurant mindful of the storm and scheduled to be closed on monday gave us till 4 PM on Sunday to cancel or reschedule. After discussion with the head of WQPH we decided to go ahead even if it meant half or less would show but dreaded that is was the wrong one. Yesterday I came home from Eucharist Adoration (cancelled today because of the potential storm) to a phone message from the owner who was there because of a funeral luncheon asking for one more confirmation one way or the other.

I called the head of the station again, our speaker coming down from NH and bringing a relic of the Crown of thorns was determined to come and give his talk on the feast of the Holy Face of Jesus. It was at this time I remembered General Patton’s famous weather prayer written by Fr James H. O’Neill a Catholic priest. I tweaked it and tweeted it out while sending a copy to the head of the station who email blasted it out to her prayer group. It reads:

“Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain the immoderate weather due tomorrow with which we have to contend. Grant us fair weather for Spiritual Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.

We ask this through Christ our Lord Amen”

As of this moment (4:47 AM woke up coughing) the snow that two days ago was predicted to start at 1 AM and end at 3 PM has not yet started (although it’s predicted to do so shortly and is now scheduled to end at 1 PM with an 80% chance of 1-3″ in my area, a walk in the park for any New Englander.

The Biden admin not withstanding this is still a free country and if you wish to believe this is a coincidence you are welcome to do so. If you don’t and are one of the folks who prayed that prayer at our request, thanks much for making the prayer and thanks to he who answered it.

Risk and Reward Under the Fedora: Gun Crime, Electric Car Compliance Credits, China Lab Theory, Victory Speeches and Jesus and Gaza

Posted: January 18, 2024 by datechguy in business, crime, economy, elections, Israel vs Hamas, media, medicine, middle east, politics, primaries, under the fedora
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A report out of Florida tells us that despite dire warnings from the left about “constitutional carry” adopted in Florida concerning violence the opposite effect has taken place:

Now, more than six months after the law’s adoption, evidence contradicts Democrats’ fearmongering that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry a loaded gun for self-defense would result in more “senseless tragedies.”

Since the legalization of constitutional carry in July 2023, Florida’s biggest cities saw a significant decrease in violent crimes, including shootings. In Jacksonville, murders and homicides dropped 6 percent in 2023 from the previous year.

Apparently in Florida the increased risk of getting shot by an armed citizen is no longer low enough to justify the reward of crime to many. Fortunately for criminals NYC doesn’t have said risk.

The move by Hertz to sell of 20,000 electric cars (just to Whom they will sell them to and how much on the dollar they will get we don’t know) illustrates something that drivers who jumped on the electric car bandwagon have been discovering to their regret. The risk of not having sufficient battery to get where you are going in the time allotted does not match the reward of the “efficiency” of an electric car.

And apparently it turns out that said “efficiency” has as much science behind it as the 6′ social distancing business:

When carmakers test gasoline-powered vehicles for compliance with the Transportation Department’s fuel-efficiency rules, they must use real values measured in a laboratory. By contrast, under an Energy Department rule, carmakers can arbitrarily multiply the efficiency of electric cars by 6.67. This means that although a 2022 Tesla Model Y tests at the equivalent of about 65 miles per gallon in a laboratory (roughly the same as a hybrid), it is counted as having an absurdly high compliance value of 430 mpg. That number has no basis in reality or law.

For exaggerating electric-car efficiency, the government rewards carmakers with compliance credits they can trade for cash. Economists estimate these credits could be worth billions: a vast cross-subsidy invented by bureaucrats and paid for by every person who buys a new gasoline-powered car.

If you ever wondered why carmakers were willing to take the risk of making cars people didn’t want to buy without the reward of actual buyers, now you know.

The times are a changing for the government COVID crowd who forced all kinds of rules upon us while censoring those who might speak out about risks.

One of those bits of censorship were hitting or de-platforming folks who theorized that COVID came from a lab leak in China. The whole Fauci team was big on going after such folks with the help of a compliant media.

One of that team doing the insisting was Dr. Francis Collins who had no problem calling such statements a “very destructive conspiracy” for years. But apparently the reward of such a stance disappears when one is asked about it under pains of perjury when testifying under oath:

In a significant U-turn, House Republicans who led the hearing revealed that Dr Collins, 73, told them that the lab leak hypothesis was not a conspiracy theory.

His answers were similar to those of Dr Fauci, who sat for a marathon 14 hours of questioning last week when he finally acknowledged that the lab leak theory — that Covid escaped from a Chinese biolab — should not have been so easily dismissed.

As we mentioned on Tuesday President Donald Trump decisively won the Iowa Caucus losing only a single county in the state (which by an odd coincidence ran out of party change forms giving democrats who had no caucus to attend a chance to influence the GOP results)

While I found the result interesting compared to 2016 given that Donald Trump now had a record as president vs speculation as to how he would govern. CNN cut away from his speech right away and MSNBC made it a point to not carry his victory speech at all.

“At this point in the evening the projected winner of the Iowa caucuses has just started giving his victory speech,” Maddow began, oddly avoiding Trump’s name. “We will keep an eye on that as it happens. We will let you know if there is any news made in that speech, if there is anything noteworthy, something substantive and important.”

I find this the most interesting thing of all because the small MSNBC audience is about as far left as they come yet even among such an audience they find the risk of such people hearing Donald Trump speaking live so great that they dare not allow him to challenge the narrative that they’ve been sold.

That’s really something.

Finally as Israel continues to discover more and more terror infrastructure in Gaza and continues to systematic take out both Hamas and the terror infrastructure pressure continues to rise among western allies of Hamas and Joe Biden in particular to hold Israel back before the destruction of Hamas becomes complete.

Hamas apparently did not foresee this result figuring they would be able to weather an Israeli response in their incredible terror tunnel network. (Frankly they should all go to an underdeveloped nation that needs miners as they certainly know about digging) which is odd because Hamas claims Jesus as a prophet and apparently didn’t take these words of Christ on risk and reward to heart:

Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.

Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.

Luke 14 28-32

Of course if Hamas actually followed Christ they would be taking the whole “love your enemies” business seriously and stop trying to slaughter Jews, but to Hamas et/al the risk of defeat, humiliation and the devastation and death of their people does not compare to the reward of slaughtered Jews.

(At least among those who do not have billions in cash and live far from Gaza that is).

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