Another day, well what is new

 What does it take to start a Super PAC? And yes I know I can do my own research.

It wasn’t a rhetorical question, it was a lazy one. I do need to research it. I do not know if it can be called Conservatives against Crazy, CAC, but it has to be something.

I am seeing the headlines coming out of the CPAC affair and tells me even more conservatives that aren’t crazy need to get together and do something. The Republican Party does not represent anyone anymore.

It has split into the big business faction and the Trump faction. And yes I know you know this because this has been the news for the last few weeks. I say it to illustrate how important it is for conservatives, especially independents to start aligning with something so we can honestly start putting together a conservative agenda. Right now the best alternative is the Solidarity Party so maybe I could use the CAC PAC to help fund them and independent initiatives. 

Senator Sasse seems to be holding down the fort of sanity by himself and I am still not sure how I feel about him. At least he is defining what a conservate going forward may look like, yet he is trying to hold onto the Republican Party. 

One good run of independents or combination of independents and the Solidarity Party or other similar parties and the Republican Party as historically known is dead.

Better to be in front of change than behind it.

And someone please help the Mavericks get consistent and play better overall at the end of games even when they are playing well. As a fan I am losing hair.

Cheers

Random comments in early 2021

 First of all something positive, or at least sort of positive. Teddy there is a time and place for everything so when it is time, enjoy, but Cancun, seriously? 

When it is the proper next time try Ixtapa, less crowded, less rushed, especially back in the day, the beaches are softer, longer, lazier, and you can really hear the waves at night sitting by the ole hotel pool, with a couple shots of tequila and Luis Miguel’s Romances playing in the background. Now this is how you relax. Too much luxury can spoil, but there is just the right amount that makes it all worthwhile. 

Not sure if seeing you there would change my mind about you, still struggling with that respect of others thing with you, but at least you can unwind. I may have to go to confession since we are all suppose to respect each other, oh well. 

And speaking of confession, what was that lady thinking, fansonly and kids in a Catholic school, sure breaking 40 of the Ten Commandments is going to ingratiate you with the local priests and make an impression with the principal and if you feel you have any grievance with the fact the kids were asked to leave, uh.....time to dig a little deeper in the ole brain synapses.

And if you are Catholic and didn’t get the 40 out of 10 joke, well next time you are in line for the confessional (it is Lent) pay a bit more attention to the examination of consciousness literature that gets handed out. There is about a hundred ways to sin for each Commandment.

Going back to respect, do not know what to say except thanks Rupert Murdoch for creating an entire army of Americans who think they are conservative, but are more brain washed minions than anything else. And what is scary is many are very intelligent hard working people. They are not “deplorables”, lost maybe, but real human beings who have come to hate the pretentious left because Fox told them to and the pretentious left keeps giving them reasons. 

I am not talking about people like Cruz, Hawley, Graham, McCarthy, Carlson, Hannity and others, they sold their soul on purpose, it is the great unwashed wondering why all Americans cannot look and think like them and if they don’t they are the enemy. Murdoch did a number on this country and one day I hope there is a reckoning for him and his madness. And there are many conservatives who are actually conservatives that get drowned out by the people who have gone off the deep end. Even a few who actually liked some of Trump's policies. Too bad he had no intention of actually following through on implementing anything. 

Many of you are starting to think about spring break and beaches in Mexico would be fun, but we blew that up years ago having too much fun in the 70′s and 80′s. Now the Cartels and Covid make those days a memory. Maybe one day our grandchildren will be able to enjoy simple fun vacations again. 

Stay safe, no matter how many people say it ain’t so Joe, Covid is nowhere near gone. 

And lets end on a positive note, thank you NASA, Perseverance is a national treasure.  Good job everyone

The new work from home conundrum

A few posts ago I talked about the need for some changes to laws or rules or regulations to start protecting a new workforce or people that may be moved to home so businesses can save some money. I mentioned there might be new issues to resolve or work out since many people were making major changes to their homes to be able to do this because of the pandemic.

I just read an article that talks about one of these problems and guess what, it comes back to bite us from the former President’s 2017 tax law.

Here is a bit from an article from Yahoo Money by Janna Herron. God only knows if I will get into trouble from copying these two paragraphs that I included below, but to better start waking up the American workforce you need to start gathering this information. I will take the chance because at least I care.* The two paragraphs below I found very interesting

Regular employees

Many companies allowed or even encouraged their employees to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic, but any expenses employees incurred to make the new setup work aren’t deductible on your federal income tax returns. Nor are any expenses related to your home office space, like utilities, insurance, or taxes.

That’s because the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, signed into law at the end of 2017 under the Trump administration, got rid of the unreimbursed business expense deduction for employees along with the home office deduction for employees.

This goes to two of my favorite talking points, the tax code disfavors the middle class and we need to rethink how we write public policy. I wonder if anyone in Congress has thought about what you need for tax purposes and/or help you get reimbursed from your company. I said in the previous post change is going to happen and we need to start addressing it from our end. This article was about the ability to claim tax deductions on working from home and there is more to it, but for many people this is going to hit home hard. I know because the better half hasn’t spent a full five days in her old office since March of 2020 and she is working more than full time. I bet way too many others are in the same boat. 

And then there are teachers who are in a current yo yo of home virtual teaching and some classroom teaching. Another very specific group that needs help.

Start writing your state and national legislators or soon you will have more heaped on you to benefit the one group who needs no benefits.

*And speaking of caring how in the heck did AOC figure out helping people here in Texas when one of her biggest critics split for Mexico. Aren’t conservatives suppose to be the Christians?  Yes, they are, but some people really aren’t conservatives......

Lets start complaining about 2024.

This is my second attempt at this post. I start these on an apple laptop that doesn’t have word, so if you hit the wrong key it all disappears and I have no idea how to get it back. Originally this was one of the children’s laptops and I inherited it. I never spent any energy learning what to do with it. I am old so Word works because you can always hit the go back key.

Anyway you ask, why start talking about 2024? Aren’t you the person that says, we start politicking too soon? And how can you talk about 2024 when all hades is breaking loose in Texas (besides Ted Cruz). And it is and it is terrible. We are some  of the lucky ones, we lost water twice temporarily and power once temporarily. Literally within hundreds of feet from our front door it has been much worse, flooding and loss of water simultaneously for some of our neighbors. So we do feel lucky, our thermostat has been at 66-68 and lights are on most of the time in just the one room we are inhabiting for the moment. Probably not perfect, but we are trying, but I say this knowing this is no consolation for the millions who had no power for a good portion of this week. 

Grocery stores are closed or the shelves are bare. I haven’t even tried to drive to see if any fast food or restaurants are open. I can walk to a grocery store so again we are among the lucky ones. So why on God’s green earth do I want to start talking about 2024?

Well because.   It is going to matter and yes we still need new parties, but I haven’t managed to convince too many other people of this need so we are going to be stuck with Democrats and Republicans again. And what happened this week in Texas is only snapshot of the incompetence of things to come. The hate will continue; practical governing is not going to happen, and disasters will come and go, but will we have any real solutions to helping the people, basically the vast majority of the country?

So why be a hater, you ask me. Well here is one that Democrats and Republicans really do not want to think about, but 2024 has a good chance of being Haley v. Harris.I am not saying these are the best people to be president, I am just saying these are the two people with the best chance of being candidates at this point for 2024. And I think this may carry forward to 2024. For the Republicans, Cotton, Sasse, maybe? Haley won’t get Trump’s support because she is a woman so it doesn’t matter if she fails to mend fences with Trump, what matters is the Republican operatives are going to realize anyone Trump supports will lose in a general election, Sasse and Cotton won’t get Trump’s support so the Party won’t or cannot coalesce around them. And by then some of Trump’s sway will have migrated to only the most diehards, but enough Republicans will still be diehard Trumpers to keep certain candidates from winning. Haley though will offer the Republicans the best chance of winning because the thought of Harris running will scare the dickens out of the diehards enough to accept Haley as the best counter and the Republican operatives understand politics enough to know to win they need to win back votes they lost in 2020. And Haley gives them this chance.

And for the Democrats, seriously who else do they have in 2024? Absolutely no one. I said it six years ago, the Democrats have not been developing a base to create electable candidates. They had Joe Biden and he is old, Sanders is old, Clinton should have never happened, after that who have they got? No one new, no one somewhat young that is electable on the national stage except by 2024, four years of being in the national news behind Biden makes Harris the only viable candidate the Democrats will have by then. Think back a year, who ran in the Democrat primaries? If they couldn’t muster up enough excitement to beat Biden in 2020, who is going to grab your attention between now and 2024? Seriously who? Sure AOC will be in the headlines, but she is nowhere near electable at the national level. Democratic socialism or whatever you want to call it, doesn’t reach a majority of this country’s interest, much less votes. Think I am wrong then why did the Republicans not lose more in the Senate and did gain in the House? Hmmmm? For the upteenth time, most Americans are moderately conservative including minorities. And most are in the middle class and this whole group are the people who decide elections especially at the national level. For this very reason Biden won. The women in the suburbs could stand Biden because he drifts towards the middle. Haley v Harris splits all this vote and makes the race very interesting, but a dollar to a dime the party leaders of both parties do not want this race. They would be fools to fight it, but hey they are fools and they will fight it. And yet, I am telling you now as we sit here freezing our back ends off, this is the hottest race going for 2024. 

Tell me how I am wrong.

And I could have dumped a ton of hate on the Republicans right now, something about them not being conservative or Christian and are hypocrites, and wrote all the reasons why, but that can be a real simple post. What is the Golden rule you didn’t ask, love God first and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Simple and to the point, right?

So if you put all your energy into Trump and hold him up as your leader then you have someone who puts himself above God and spends his days disrespecting everyone who doesn’t kowtow to him and has absolutely no idea what is conservatism, how can you call yourself a Christian and a conservative? So it is an easy dig, and even the never Trumpers or people who avoided Trump can fall into this, but hey I didn’t write that post, because you know I said I would stay positive with this blog. 

Hey the Democrats are clueless with their ideas, but at least they are honest and consistent with their cluelessness.

For a long time there were many four letter words you could not say on TV or the radio, but unfortunately the word hate was never one of them. 

Or maybe it is time to go to confession since it is Lent.

Winter wonderland

 Happy Valentine’s Day

We are having winter weather here in North Texas for a change and it is just getting started.

Nature’s natural quarantine.

Stay safe

Two topics: why Trump’s “insurrection” failed and this GOP center right party or new center right party,,, yeah right

 When you are basically an entitled country with entitled political leader(s) and entitled citizenry, any insurrections or revolutions just don’t stand a chance in hades. Most successful uprisings have behind it honest grievances or starving peasants or a combination of both.

When some of the combatants fly to the site of the insurrection in a private plane, you just don’t have the mindset for real change. And Trump’s manufactured anger of false claims about the election being stolen just don’t ramp up that the people were wronged and the whole country needs to oust the enemy, especially when the enemy is Trump’s I hate this person de jour enemy. 

Most true revolutionaries don’t have time to take selfies or maybe they do, but that is usually after they won the day. Yes, so entitled middle class or upper middle citizens and entitled anti government actors storm the Capitol Building and then back off when the reinforcements come in says much about how strong the anger in them was or how strong the grievance actually was, and since most to all probably had a good breakfast and a good dinner, the starving peasants just didn’t make the charade parade. This just wasn’t the ingredients for a successful insurrection. 

And now we have a group of Republicans all of a sudden wanting to create a center right party that is going to play footsie with the Democrats on some ideas and hold up lofty ideals for center right policies the rest of the time. Where was this 20 -30 years ago when they all signed Grover Norquists blood pact on taxes for the rich, when they came on Fox News and touted trickle down economic theory to benefit the average Joe, where was this when they spent a fortune on the military while screaming we need to balance the budget, where was this when lobbyists took over the Capitol Building (and did a heck of better job than Trump’s insurrection) and lied to the very people that voted for them day in and day out based on the creation of hatred towards those very same Democrats being the enemy and all of them were socialists or communists. Where were they then? 

And center right policies, do they even know what is a center right policy? Even one? I have been writing for years center right policies and I have not seen one similar idea from any Republican in my entire life. So I have no faith they have found religion and are now going to take the leap of faith and come up with conservative ideas to help the working and middle class. They haven’t done it before, so what makes me think they will do it now. 

We need new parties because the Democrats are clueless, the Republicans are hypocrites, and our country needs some forward thinking policy while maintaining our values, mores, our belief in creating something better for our children, and striving to reach the ideals of our Constitution that all men are created equal and all should have equal opportunity. This break off group of Republicans need to show much more than a ZOOM conference to convince people like me that they represent any type of change and especially one that might actually do something for people like me. 

I still believe for a new party to truly represent the values of our country to respond to the needs of the people it will probably come from the people; a more bottom up development, not the existing elites trying to repackage the same ole crap.

Maybe I am wrong, but just like Trump’s insurrection there aren’t the ingredients on the surface to make me believe this is worth the buy in. 

And I want to thank someone up north for sending us the potential that we may actually get some real snow this year. I will believe it when I see it, but there is hope. 

The modern apology sort of

 The problem with scatter reading news articles throughout the day, you forget where you saw one and cannot give credit where credit is due. So, this is not some unique perspective I came up with, yet one I want to add my two cents. And there have been many discussions or articles that have touched on this topic before.

I read an article today or maybe even yesterday. I have been pretty busy the last few days. The article addressed the political or modern apology, where people will say an apology or feign one or act like they said one and the article mentioned Rep Greene from Georgia supposed apology about what happened in the Republican House meeting and that she has changed or something. 

I am barely hitting the main points of this article, but over the years I have noticed that politicians offer some type of apology for a variety of transgressions. Yet we are now at the point where we do not believe them or feel they are insincere. This development comes from not holding people accountable for what they have done over time.

Too many politicians or other public figures still get re-elected, or carry on with their daily lives or move to a new role, yet still remain successful and still pretty much behave the same way just do not get caught anymore. 

There is this mindset that if a person says I didn’t mean it or it wasn’t what you think or hides behind an excuse they can move on. And I am not talking about a former president, I am talking in general.

The real virtue of not doing the activity that may need an apology later is gone. We accept less from people. And of course we shouldn’t. 

How do we get back to a norm where doing the right thing in the first place is what is expected? There will always be mistakes, we are human, but this lack of any standard, much less a higher standard is why we are having so many problems today. And when our leaders aren’t held accountable, how can the rest of society by held accountable. Sure most people are, but society breaks down when the leaders live a do as I say, but not as I do mentality. And currently our country is actually much further down a new path that started with that attitude and is having a hard time orienting itself nowadays. 

It is sad that elected officials have no remorse for their actions, expect people to move on even with what appears as minor mistakes.  I finally remember the example from the story that started this thought.

This is from state legislative body and there was a committee meeting being conducted on ZOOM. The Committee chair was a woman and had to take a quick break and apparently another Representative didn’t realize his mic was still on and said something derogatory about the Chairwoman. So when it was brought to his attention he apologized and everyone said that is not the way we conduct business. Yes there is something subtle here. The whole apology or discussion was about the fact he said this outloud where people could hear and that was what he apologized for, not  and this is important, for saying it in any circumstance. It only mattered because he was caught in a public setting and it was only wrong because it was heard. The Representative never apologized for the derogatory term as being wrong in any setting. It is subtle but it shows in a small way we have lost touch with respecting each other and showing common courtesy in any setting, not when we are caught or in a particular incident. The derogatory term is wrong at any time and should never have been said about anyone in any circumstance.

Again we make mistakes sometimes, but not to acknowledge the true mistake nor make it a practice to do what is right in the first place are the subtle cracks showing when a society is falling from grace. 

And right now I fear we have fallen through and down some crevices. 

Is this the plan for the GOP establishment, or should it be?

 Is the establishment of the GOP hoping to wait out Trump and the Trump supporters? Do they think that if they let him walk for the impeachment that hopefully his energy fades away and his supporters scatter, some looking for another Trump, some drifting back to their GOP? 

Who knows, but it doesn’t seem they know what to do. They are not coming out hard to rid themselves of Trump, nor are they jumping back on the bandwagon and going all in on Trump. 

If you are a conservative, it doesn’t matter, The GOP establishment is not conservative, they are just supporters of big business and lied to the middle and working class people that consider themselves conservative that supporting the super rich and their faux version of capitalism is being conservative. 

Trump then came along and lied to these very same people that he was their answer. That he would straighten out Washington and drain the swamp. Yet he was the swamp all along. So basically you had two identities lying to the same people and after all this time they do not know which way is up or sideways.

Just as a reminder and I have said this before, one reason this can happen is that people who consider themselves conservative tend to be conformists. They want to be part of the crowd and belong. This causes this pack mentality when you have someone like Trump taking charge. They reinforce their group think and then Trump’s hyperbole drives it to a new level.

Either way, many Americans are conservative, but the people leading them whether the establishment GOP or Trump are not. Which means the long and short of it is that there are no real conservatives at the National level. Oh every now and then one of them spouts something that approaches conservative public policy, but day in and day out it is all lip speak with no real substance. 

Don’t believe me, when was the last time you saw a comprehensive plan coming from anyone at the national level in the GOP?  I know many people say the GOP is the party of obstructionism, but they also have no idea what to do. The only plan they have is whatever they can do to cut taxes for the rich, hence the years of lies from the GOP establishment mentioned above. The other is the megaphone they give to a pro-life agenda that is nothing more than a megaphone.  Now as a conservative I believe you cannot legislate morality, some of the GOP with the megaphone yell at their supporters you can legislate morality, but all that does is fail. Issues of faith and social conservatism are won when you win people’s hearts and teach values, not preach values. People with megaphones do not care, they just like yelling in them. It makes them they are important. Unfortunately people listen to them. 

Still we have no real public policy to enhance a conservative platform. And as long as the GOP establishment and the Trumpers control or fight for control we will hear more noise, but no substance. 

So when does the rank and file members of the GOP and the independent conservatives realize the truth and break off from this debacle going on now within the GOP and actually devise a true strategy, find a path forward, and rebuild faith in a balanced approach to governing?

It may or may not be the plan for the GOP establishment to try and wait out the Trumpers, but real conservatism doesn’t have the time to wait out either.

Hey, February ain’t that bad

 So the winter blues have set in, no one is doing anything, the world is blah, 

Are you sure?

The non party “Big Game” is tomorrow; St. Valentine’s Day is next week, the non party Mardi Gras is getting ramped up; President’s day is right around the corner so you get to buy a mattress on sale; it is still cold as heck, but yes it is true March is just weeks away; and for some Ash Wednesday, Lent and whatever you gave up for Lent begins the slow repentant and reflective days till Easter.

And somewhere out there someone is getting vaccinated so hopefully the march to normalcy is beginning. Or whatever normalcy is about to become. 

And yes I am hoping for one snowfall before winter ends which may be after next week here in North Texas. In the north, probably not, but here we have a cold snap coming and that may be our last real shot of winter. 

Next Sunday we are half way through February and in Texas that can just about end winter. We may have a few minor cold fronts, but soon those will just be the triggers for thunderstorms till May. Maybe not, it is Texas and if you do not like the weather, wait a moment. I am not holding my breath though.

And speaking of the big game, there seems to be at least a few people interested. I read an article this morning that says this ah big game has more big bets placed on it than any other. According to the article we are not talking massive numbers of large bets, just more than before.

LV:  KC vs Tampa Bay, The Weekend at the half and no Budweiser commercials, I am sure the NFL would loved to have had a barn burner of something for everyone during the pandemic, but hey  there is a chance there might be an actual game this year. I might watch five minutes to find out. 

Otherwise it is household chores for the afternoon.

So stay home for the big game, stay home for Valentines, get dusted with ashes instead of the cross of ashes, and buy your mattress online, normalcy ain’t here yet.

Stay safe

And least I not forget, Congress will start putzing around this week grandstanding and showboating and getting nothing accomplished while the conspiracists rule the day.  Or maybe February is that bad.