Posts Tagged ‘election 2026’

Five Thoughts Under the Fedora: Graham over McConnell, Ignorance isn’t bliss, Yesterday’s Outrage is Today’s Ho-Hum, Planter Political Death and in Egypt yet another Islamic Conspiracy

Posted: July 12, 2026 by datechguy in culture, politics, Sports
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While everyone has been on the Mitch McConnell death watch the entire political world was caught completely by surprise by the sudden death of a seemingly healthy & vigorous Lindsey Graham.

It’s an important reminder that nobody is promised even tomorrow or even the rest of today.

Plus you never know, back when the Catholic “Sacrament of the Sick” which is now regularly given to those who are ill, was the called “The last rites” given to people expected to die my mother had received them 7 times before she was 50 due to illness & incidents.

She lived to be 88.

Of course Graham will get a full autopsy because he was considered “young” & that he was on Iran’s kill list but in my youth a person dying at 71 would not have elicited a 2nd thought.

A lot of people complain food is killing us or the environment is killing us or manufacturing is killing us but the truth is that we are living longer and longer because western civilization gives us a safer & cleaner life than than even the richest people 100 or 150 years ago.

As a biographer of Churchill, William Manchester, noted in the first of his three volumes on his life, the food served to the lords of the Manor in the 1890 would not pass a basic safety muster of today.

We live in what most people in history would consider a paradise & the only reason why so many young are discontented is because they’re too ignorant & uneducated to realize it & it’s in the interest in those who wish to use them to keep them that way.

The reaction to the death of Lindsey Graham is a great example of the new rules of culture and how they are applied.

As recent as two decades ago the idea that any person with a national platform would speak ill of the dead within 24 hours after they died unexpectedly was considered beyond the pale.

Today the fact that I completely expected to see it online, both by people who want to get credibility with their fellow haters & by their opponents to get clicks by saying how nasty they are for doing so, doesn’t move or outrage me at all.

It’s the natural results of the new rules. I disagree with these rules & I would like them to no longer exist but one must live in the world you’re in even if you wish it changed.

I can’t get angry at people when I don’t expect better from them.

Since we’re speaking of death it’s worth noting the political death of Graham Platner in Maine.

I was actually surprised that he pulled out of his race as he had nothing to lose by staying particularly since the left is completely terrified of the violent DSA types, not to mention his overwhelming victory over a sitting Democrat governor. Whatever incentive they offered must have been really something.

The only thing that really surprised me is how fast the media played the “boy were we stupid” card so soon after they had done so with Joe Biden.

That anybody falls for it is amazing, but it shouldn’t be. It’s amazing how much you don’t see when blindness fits into your political or financial desires.

I don’t blame fans of Egypt for being disappointed. After all they were up 2 goals with under 12 minutes to play for a chance to get to the final 8 in the World Cup before the defending champions with perhaps the single best player in the world managed to put three goals in the net

I don’t even mind them questioning the calls.

What I do mind is trying to turn their defeat by the defending champions into a Jewish conspiracy against Islam in general & Egypt in particular & also going after Argentine “football” as something corrupt.

The only thing funnier is how they champion the “Palestinian” cause while having one of the tightest fences & borders to keep Gazans out of their country.

Egypt’s team had a great run that it should be proud of. 150 countries would have celebrated a team in the final 16 & their fans would be right to lionize their players & coach’s skill. Alas that’s coupled with pulling this kind of idiocy because since they attributed their victories to calling on Allah to curse the Christians & Jews before each game it’s impossible that they might actual lose a legit match.

Fortunately they don’t care about losing the respect of outsiders like me as long as they’re able to lie to themselves.

No wonder today’s left embraces Islam so.

Oh Please PLEASE Br’er Democrats Don’t Force a Party Line Vote on Funding ICE!

Posted: February 4, 2026 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, politics
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From every possible direction it looked the same. It was going to be unreasonably easy for Allen Carpentier to enter the Circle of Traitors…the place of punishment for those who betrayed their benefactors

Inferno Larry Nivin & Jerry Pournelle 1976

I think some of the wisdom of Donald Trump might be rubbing off on the GOP.

I know this is generally considered “the stupid party” but there seems to be a glimmer of it on the shutdown votes.

For context let me remind you of what I wrote concerning Donald Trump & the Epstein files a little bit ago:

I think he’s going to let the Epstein stuff play out as far as he can all the time saying to people like Elizabeth Warren:

“Oh please Please Br’re Pocahontas don’t throw me into the Epstein patch!”

And then when the left is fully committed to both the release of the information and harsh punishment for all those involved (including all those who have given them millions upon millions over the years) and then BOOM!

When that time comes and the decides to give them exactly what they want, a lot of very rich and very bad leftists and their funders will find themselves in trouble meanwhile Donald Trump will be hopping away singing:

“Born and bred in a Briar Patch!”

And will hop away while the left convicts themselves.

This is pretty much turned out as I predicted as leftist from Reid Hoffman to Bill Gates are scrambling to do damage control & the Clintons try to figure out how to testify to congress on the subject without pleading the 5th.

This of course could be predicted by anyone who doesn’t by the MSM propaganda and has actually paid attention but the left doesn’t think that way. Their primary goal is to win the current news cycle and to keep their base angry.

That’s why I’m delighted at the fact that ICE funding is coming up again in two weeks.

It’s is very possible and even probable that our friends on the left who decided a short term shutdown was NBD to take a stand vs ICE think that a party line vote on funding ICE is a good thing to fire up their base, particularly with former GOP leaders speaking against the agency.

One might have thought that they would have learned from their pushing of Liz Cheney that people who GOP voters disagree with don’t have a lot of sway with conservative votes, no matter how much the MSM thinks otherwise but apparently not.

Let’s go to the polling:

The survey found that calls to defund ice are “politically toxic. When voters are told Democrats want to defund ICE or even shut down the government to stop ICE from enforcing immigration law, the political fallout is immediate and severe.”

  • The generic ballot flips from D+4 to R+0 if Democrats oppose ICE.
  •  If Democrats force a shutdown to defund ICE, Republicans take a 2‑point lead; that’s a 6-point shift away from Democrats over a single issue.
  • Swing voters shift a staggering 16 points toward Republicans under a shutdown scenario.

The results indicate that Democrats do not view illegal immigration as a “serious national problem.”

But nearly all Republicans (97%) and 60% of Independent voters see it as a major problem. Overall, 64% of midterm voters and 71% of swing voters agree.

That link to the Cygnal poll is to the site Legal Insurrection which perhaps Dems don’t read, but I’m told that they do on occasion watch CNN:

And I’m sure the left’s base can’t wait to turn out for the party of Trans protesters calling black Ice agents “Nigger” on camera:

But apparently none of that matters to those in the land of the bubble.. It’s going to be unreasonably easy for the Democrat left to smile and celebrate when ICE funding comes up for a vote in two weeks and passes on a strict party line vote.

Five Thoughts and Observations Under the Fedora: $269.9 Gas in Fitchburg, A Temporary Sign?, Open Roads, , Reagan 1981-84 redux? and A function of math not a Miracle of God

Posted: December 14, 2025 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, economy, politics, under the fedora
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This week I picked up my son from work and had him pump gas for me at the station near my church on Mechanic Street in Fitchburg because it’s the cheapest gas in town. The price was $273.9 and as I was almost empty it took a lot to fill it.

The very next day gas was at $269.9 which both annoyed me as I had filled up the day before but is a huge sign. If that price continues to drop it will mean an awful lot of extra cash in people’s pockets & a lowering of costs to every single business that gets a delivery by truck.

If this becomes a trend then it could be the sign of the turn in the economy that will change the dynamic in this country for 2026 or 2028.

Last year’s Christmas peak season, the final one of the Biden years was the shortest and weakest in my decade at the warehouse that I work at.

After dropping from 3 local warehouses to 1 during the 2nd year of Biden and losing our 2nd shift in the 3rd Biden year, last year’s peak lasted from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. By Tuesday every temp was gone and peak was finished with voluntary days off being offered.

Back during Trump’s first term we would be flat out for 3-4 weeks from Black Friday on, we’d have 10 hour days and at least one mandatory overtime day a week. We would bring in 100’s of temps to keep up with the work who would usually be kept till about the 14th or 20th of December with about a tenth of them, the best, kept on for the returns season who would eventually become full time employees.

In the first “peak” of the 2nd Trump term we’re not at that level but numbers were higher than expected and our temps were still here on last Friday (albeit they left two hours early that day). Word is we will be busy next week.

Even if the temps aren’t there tomorrow we would have kept them a full two weeks longer than last year. Does that mean the economy has turned around? I can’t say but it’s a data point.

There has been one more interesting sign of the times.

I generally try to leave for work by 6:20 AM to be at my place of work by 6:50-6:55 for my 7 AM shift.

Now when I worked every Sunday I knew I could leave as late as 6:30-6:35 and still (barring accidents on the highways) get to work in that time period but as a rule if it’s a school day and I leave for work anytime after 6:25 AM getting to work on time is iffy and leaving at 6:30 meant I’d have to punch in before I head to the cafeteria to put my lunch in the cooler to hit the grace period and have any shot of avoiding being late.

For reasons I won’t get into I’ve been running very late this week not leaving before 6:25 AM four of five days and leaving as late as 6:33 one day this week. Yet every single day the traffic has been so light that I’ve made it to work with plenty of time to spare. In fact the day I left on time I had so much spare time that I almost forgot to punch in as I sat waiting for the day to start.

Now Massachusetts being as blue as it gets has been fighting back on ICE’s attempts to apprehend illegal immigrants but that hasn’t stopped raids in Boston, Worcester and even in my city of Fitchburg from taking place.

I have no idea if this has effected the traffic coming north from Worcester or east from Gardner. People might be staying home because of the cold but I find the sudden end to the normal morning congestion on school days…interesting.

One of the advantages of age is being able to recognize patterns in history repeating not from books but from memory.

Back in the late 70’s the Carter economy was in the toilet which led to Ronald Reagan’s famous words:

As you know Reagan beat Carter and the economy took off, but it didn’t do so right away. The first year of Reagan was a tough one as he got his agenda passed and it wasn’t until 1982 that we saw signs of what would become one of the best economies of my lifetime. Alas for Reagan it didn’t happen fast enough for him to keep the Senate but it did happen fast enough for him to crush Mondale in 1984 so completely that even the blue states of Massachusetts, New York & California voted for him.

The Trump recovery which I’ve noted some signs of in this post is coming. I don’t know if it will come fast enough to save the House in 2026 but I know when it’s in full swing it’s going to make JD Vance a tough customer to beat in 2028, particularly if the best the left can come up with is Gavin Newsome or an AOC wannabe.

I feel very optimistic about the future & I suspect that as I near my retirement my country will be in good hands.

A few days ago I saw this tweet from Benny Johnson:

While I have seen more than my share of actual miracles from God (after a while they become almost mundane) this is not a miracle of God it’s a function of math as I noted in my reply:

For the last 60 years the left has promoted birth control, abortion, homosexuality & transgenderism even to the point of spaying their own kids. When you do that for two generations the population of people who believe what you do naturally decreases.

Meanwhile I’ve seen over the last few years a large rise in large families at church not quite at the 1940’s & 1950’s levels but getting there. Put simply Christians keep having kids and thus naturally are starting to catch up on unbelievers who don’t.

If the westerners had kids at the same rate they did in 1930 Islamic immigration even at the levels they have in Europe & Canada would have little effect.