Revisiting the insanity of the teacher union rip off known as the McCleary decision/budget.

Even after all these years, no one anywhere has explained to me where the State Constitution gives the Supreme Court the power/authority to require/order the Legislature to do anything.

That ability simply does not exist, any more than the Legislature can order the Supreme Court to produce a specific judicial decision in a specific case.

All of the fake Republicans who voted for this insanity, including Rivers and Wilson, used the Supreme Court demand as their excuse. But it is no excuse and the Legislature SHOULD have told the Court to go pound sand. 

The Legislature, who passed these massive tax increases mainly to provide horrific and completely undeserved pay increases to incompetent teachers who never deserved them, jacked our taxes with GOP help because they WANTED to do so, and merely used this fake reasoning as a cover for their betrayal.

Meanwhile, take a quick look at the OSPI report card.

Academic outcomes in this state are abysmal. Too much time is wasted on social programing and doing their best to cut parents completely out of the academic equation at the expense of academics with outcomes which suggest we punch out ignorant and in many cases, illiterate students like tickets at a movie theater.

See for yourself here: 

Kids only attend school regularly 69/7% of the time. Yet, 83.6% graduate.

Besides the 16%+ dropout rate, how is graduation even possible for the other 15% who don't even bother to show up?

And even for those who do show up and graduate, less than 51% are at grade level in English, less than 40% in math, and less than 43% in Science. 

Here's the union leftists' response to Rivers' betrayal: 

 

I know Paul Harris also got this leftist attaboy! from the democrats who would then turn around and campaign against them in the next election.

 

So... what happened to the promised "great education" these fringe-left unionists promised us?

I can't find it.

SIX YEARS LATER and it's STILL a nightmare of incompetence and illiteracy.

So tell me.... what good did this additional waste of billions accomplish?

The McCleary decision/budgets have made zero improvement in academic outcomes in this state. All it HAS done is to separate/waste more billions from an already horrifically overtaxed and over-inflationed constituency who have received NOTHING in return for the wasted billions Ann Rivers helped them to steal from us.

Our public schools system was a disgrace before the McCleary budget. Extra billions of dollars wasted later, it's no better and in some cases, are actually worse.

Thanks to legislators like Rivers and Wilson.

And how sad is that?

Kenny Vance weighed in at the time, and then responded to Rivers' subsequent sniveling here:

It's bad enough when other legislators lie, but it's tougher when your own allegedly Republican Senator feels compelled to do the same.

The harbinger of the end of electric vehicles? A tough 6 months for EV's.

For years, the warning signs have been on the wall, ignored by the leftists supporting the radical doctrine of leftist control masquerading as "environmentalism."

In so many things, we've been ordered to "believe the science."  And, frequently, the "sciences" has been deliberately manipulated to achieve the desired outcome.

Thus, we have the fringe-leftist's dogged determination to ram electric vehicles down our collective throats for purely "environmental" reasons.

States such as the Washington Soviet contest with unconstitutional edicts concerning, for example, limiting automotive purchases to the sale of only electric vehicles only, on the thoroughly disproven concept that these vehicles are environmentally cleaner since their power source is electricity over gasoline... without discussing the reality that most power is provided by coal-fired power plants as well as using horrifically polluting lithium batteries which cost a fortune to replace ($20,000 is a realistic figure).

Not to mention that pollution resulting from the stunning short life span of the tires on these vehicles.

Costs for the vehicles themselves are astronomical. (Typically, $14,000 more than conventional gasoline-powered vehicles) Keeping them recharged is a nightmare with costs equally stratospheric and climbing, not to mention the overwhelming lack of supportive infrastructure that makes availability of actually functioning chargers (which frequently won't work in cold weather) and, of course, the time wasted to recharge these things and the horrific losses in range and practicality in cold weather.

The costs for home chargers are also a consideration: the charger and installation can run between one to two thousand dollars.

Additionally, some EV companies have been confronted with numerous recalls, allegations of poor quality, and the insanity of limited/controlled repair options. A reputation for going up like match sticks, both in the event of an accident and spontaneously, play a role.

The result? Consumers have been paying attention. And the more attention they pay, the more the obvious shortcomings have come into play

The Wall Street Journal brings it altogether in their article: The Six Months That Short-Circuited the Electric-Vehicle Revolution

The Six Months That Short-Circuited the Electric-Vehicle Revolution

Automakers went all in on battery power, but buyers have proven more hesitant

One example from the story:

Lyndsey Grover, a Dallas-based pediatric anesthesiologist, said her husband was pushing her last year to replace her hybrid Volvo with an all-electric version, for environmental reasons. 

She looked at a Tesla Model Y and an electric Mercedes, but ended up with another Volvo—a plug-in hybrid that could travel some distance on battery power before switching to traditional hybrid mode. 

Her husband already had a Tesla Model S. She said it often requires a full night of charging at home, and even then, its range on a single charge often fell below estimates displayed by the vehicle. She felt the family needed at least one gas-powered vehicle.

I will likely never own an electric vehicle. And, as reality sets in and the monumentally inane demanded time lines are shown to be anywhere close to possible to meet, the fringe-left demands concerning EV's will fade as well. 

The proof of the leftist double-standard of justice and Biden shoots himself in the foot.

The only real surprise from the special counsel report on Biden's theft of documents, their illegal disclosure to non-cleared personnel and their subsequent lack of security was that he admitted it in the report at all.

There's only so much one can conclude from the report: first, that Biden is guilty of mishandling the documents, but everyone knew that already.

"A painful report for Biden: Hur laid out in detail how Biden mishandled classified materials, writing that FBI agents discovered materials from “the garage, offices, and basement den in Mr. Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.”

The materials included classified documents, including some marked at the highest top secret/sensitive compartmented information level, related to military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, as well as notebooks containing Biden's handwriting. Hur’s report also included photos depicting various parts of Biden’s homes, materials at issue in the investigation and other relevant scenes over the years."

Biden for his part, never had the authority to take or distribute any classified documents, nor did he have the authority shared by Trump to declassify any documents.

Biden, who has never taken responsibility for any of his myriad lies, missteps or mistakes; naturally blames everyone else for his actions:

 "President Joe Biden placed the blame for his handling of classified documents on his staff, saying he took responsibility for “not having seen exactly” what they were doing.

“I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing,” Biden said, when asked by a reporter if he took responsibility for being careless with classified material. “Things that appear in my garage, things that came out of my home, things that were moved -- not by me but my staff."

The leads to two possibilities: the Counsel's description of Biden's mental acuity and the basis for failing to recommend charges is accurate, in which case the reality of Biden's complete lack of fitness for the Office of the President is obvious and he must be removed via the 25th Amendment immediately... or, in the alternative, the Counsel's conclusions concerning that acuity are in error, in which case, Biden should be charged immediately.

Biden is a "well meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." For his part, Biden denies having the reduced mental ability of an avocado.

“How in the hell dare he raise that?” Biden said in response to the Counsel's characterizations of his failures to remember key dates and events.

It is, instead, this conclusion: One of two things is obviously true and one isn't.

The basis for failing to file charges is not, as leftists will claim, a lack of evidence to support the allegations Biden is clearly guilty of committing.

It is, instead, this conclusion:

“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” they wrote, adding that Biden “is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt.”

I reiterate: if that assessment is accurate, Biden has no business being in ANY office, let alone the presidency.

If that assessment is INaccurate, then there is no reason of any kind to avoid recommending charges against Biden.

That charges will NOT be recommended, even in the face of Biden's decimated mental health, is additional proof that there's one standard of justice for those in government on the left.... and a completely different standard for those in, or seeking, governmental positions on the right.

And the American people damned well know it

So. The US is heading towards a cliff. And where's our focus? The PR firm of Taylor and Travis.

Let me say at the outset that I care about... and for... celebrities'... precisely as much as they care about and for me.

And the reader knows that none of them give damn one about me.

In the Bread and Circuses world we've become, almost the entirety of this country's attention is glued to Taylor and Travis. Those who have their attention elsewhere and , like me, suggest that out time is better spent outside of that well-panned and media-fostered black hole are accused of "attacking" (mostly) Taylor Swift for one reason and one reason only: She is a she.

We're told to shut up if we don't go along with this cleverly managed flavor of the week who has been elevated to the level of "God's Gift To Entertainment." As a male, I'm frequently attacked for my views concerning women's issues. Speaking your mind results in efforts to be silenced, ridiculed, misinterpreted and, at least on one occasion, local media's efforts to cancel me.

Well, I'm reminded of two of the hallmarks of this particular blog that I try to live by. They're on the right of this screen but they're also imprinted on my heart:

“In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

George Orwell, author of 1984

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Dr. Martin Luther King

Our total inability to focus on things that matter, regardless of how unpleasant those things may be, results in this country being manipulated, being lied to and being put at risk.

The major issues confronting us are ignored. No one is ever held accountable for the damage inflicted and the deaths caused. Criminals are allowed to roam free. Homelessness is the worst it's ever been. Drug importation and use has literally wound up costing the deaths of 10's of thousands of lives. Crime rates continue to explode and murder rates set records. Public schools are a slow motion train wreck with mainly utterly horrific academic outcomes while schools focus on inculcating children with leftist tropes while they do all they can to mainstream the permanent sterilization, butchering and mutilation of children who can't get tattoos, can't enter in to contracts, can't own property and in many cases, can't even drive a car.

I refuse to respond to celebrity. I refuse to do anything because someone I've seen on a TV or movie screen tells me to do so.

Because here's the reality.

Americans do not WANT to think.

As a country, the people here are TOLD what and how to think and God Help those wise enough to throw off the shackles of societal expectations and political correctness to think for themselves.

Celebrities have an inordinate amount of power in forming/shaping opinion in this country, power I simply do not understand.

When a celebrity speaks? The entire world is required to listen.

How many times, for example, have we seen media on Bill Gates?

No so much for what he's done or doing, but instead for what he's saying?

I grant Gates' expertise in the field of computing. I freely acknowledge, unlike either Taylor or Travis, that Gates' company has built, perhaps, the single most impactful product the world has ever known: the Personal Computer.

But what knowledge or expertise is he imbued with beyond that?

How does that make him, or any other celebrity, an expert on anything?

I've frequently stated that my Spaniel knows more about politics than he does, yet, because of WHO HE IS, lack of qualifications or experience aside, we're expected to listen to him.

Or LeBron who knows how to play game but who knows nothing about the mechanics of government, or foreign policy, or law, or any number of things that make up the fabric of this country.

But because he's a celebrity, what he says frequently gets more attention than the president.

Who he hates, what he thinks, what he eats or drinks... all of those things are SUPPOSED to be important.

Why?

Meanwhile, as the title says, this country is beginning to sprint towards the edge of the cliff.

A $34 trillion debt. (Estimates are we'll be paying $700 billion in interest alone this year) All of the issues previously mentioned. A great many countries who seriously want us destroyed. A divide of leftist hate. A border that can't even really be called a border any more since it bears little resemblance to such a thing.

Our troops are getting killed. Countries around the world successfully play us for suckers. Terrorist supporters infest Congress. The dual tier of something called "justice" is screaming, Corruption at almost every level runs rampant. 

Post attack photo of of the Army post in Jordan

And where's the focus?

On a singer and a football player.

A few days ago after the attack on our forces in Jordan that killed 3 and maimed 40, I pointed out that neither of these people know the names of or care about any of them.

Our 3 soldiers killed in Jordan - Sgt William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia; Spc Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia, and Spc Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia.

Neither of these people, Taylor or Travis, know the names of nor care about any of the men and women slaughtered in Kabul towards the end of the horrific and ignominious (and cowardly) withdrawal from Afghanistan.

America is blissfully (and deliberately, as it turns out) quite unaware of the world around them.

And the people of this country wouldn't have it any other way.

After all, there's celebrities to worship. And we can't let anything interfere with that, can we?

From now on, remember that AI will be manipulating us all. How do we differentiate? Beats me.

While this happened in Slovakia, I have to agree with CNN which I do with the frequency of a Halley Comet flyby.

AI WILL be used in the upcoming election. The question is, how do you differentiate?

I wish I had a solution, or even a suggestion (outside of the obvious: don't believe anything you "hear" and only half of what you see.) to figure out which is which.

Just know in advance: there will be more and greater allegations in the run up to November. There will be more and greater efforts to involve this country DIRECTLY in foreign adventurism. Politicians WILL generate messaging that bears only a passing resemblance to truth.

If any resemblance at all.

At this point, sadly, it would seem that all we can do is rely on a weakened level of common sense, and hope for the best. Because unfortunately, whatever technology that can determine an AI product will only have a short time of effectiveness because, as it is said:

Whenever someone builds a better mouse trap?

Someone else will build a better mouse.

Taylor Swift. Travis Kelce. Politics and the lost perspective.

When it comes to politics, leftists excel at 2 things: labeling... and blaming.

Whenever something is going on, or something happens they don’t like, the leftist auto-response is immediate regardless of the issue. If they, themselves, cannot dominate the issue, then they have to find someone responsible for it that gives them an advantage in whatever the outcome may be.

Historically, examples abound. Mass shootings? Blame the NRA and/or “white supremacists.” Biden’s open border policies? Blame Trump and/or the GOP House for failing to bend over to their formalized open-border bills. Foreign policy debacles? Blame Trump. Out of control inflation? Trump.

I bring this up because as fast as a leftist will get involved in tearing down a Founding Father’s statue, they’re beginning to detect massive push-back against the unutterably overhyped and over exposed Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce duo,

Swift, leftists claim, is God’s Gift not only to entertainment, but to the world generally.

Therefore we, rhetorically speaking, have no choice but to bow down to the feet of this woman… sort of an extension of America’s inexplicable love affair with the billion dollar plus celebrity industry.

The unending media efforts to force us all into acceptance and support of the latest flavor of the week never cease. It’s a form of peer pressure that’s likened to being caught in a vice.

If you’re not a rabid fan of Swift, something, obviously, is wrong with you and you need to be castigated and then culled from the “cool kids” herd, left to drift alone as an outcast who doesn’t get it.

There is no doubt that leftists would, rhetorically, sell their own children to protect one of their icons. And because of America’s inexplicable desire to be told what to do by celebrities who are no more qualified, experienced or capable of ordering us about than my next door neighbor’s dog, the left’s calculous is that Swift is some sort of modern day super hero.

Therefore, she must be protected at all costs and those who don’t agree?

Well, they must be “punished.”

Here’s the reality: Swift is the highest profile leftist alive today. I believe that people around the world are far more concerned about her, her love life, what she’s wearing, what she’s eating, what brand of toilet paper she uses, and naturally, the millions of dollars’ worth of earned media she gets with every Kansas City Chief football game, than they are about our economy, our horrific public school system, our out of control borders and the impending blow up of a world war in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, I don't buy into the TS/TK hype. I wonder if she’s as remotely powerful in ordering her followers to support/vote for a clueless leftist numbskull bent on America’s destruction or not: after all, Swift got totally involved in the 2018 elections, throwing her weight behind Democrat former Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen over then Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

And how'd that work out? I ask that question to remind people of the result of her effort last time: the outcomes of the Senate race she was so public about?  Blackburn won by 10 points.

Leftist media is positively giddy about what they believe she can do to keep the clueless one in office in this year’s election, and maintain control of the Senate while getting the House back. (Of course, in the first two years of the Biden nightmare, democrats controlled all three Houses as well, and we’re still suffering as a result.)

I, on the other hand, suggest a more sober view: leftist reliance on Swift as their savoir should be sobered by her experience in the field. Her support of Bredesen resulted in a US Senator by the name of Blackburn.

Even now, we’re greeted with headlines that are essentially meaningless as the left attempts to portray Swift as a political demi-god.

USA Today, for example, bleated “more than 35000 register to vote after Taylor Swifts Instagram post.” That abysmal response notwithstanding, which means millions ignored her.

Swift, for her part, has, depending on what source you read, 272, or 274 or 275 million followers on Instagram, where told her followers to get out there and register to vote.

Leftist media literally peed their pants because, to hear them tell it, 35,000 did just that.

That’s right. 35,000. Out of 27Xmillion.

Well, presuming the 275 million follower figure is correct, that’s a compliance rate of 0.000127272727273, or 12 10000ths of 1% of her followers.

But like everything Swift does, the press releases were totally orchestrated to give the leftist media the incentive to provided her with additional millions of dollars’ worth of “earned media,” for free, claiming that their Second Coming of a political god was some sort of shaker and/or mover.

This is, of course, a mere sampling of what’s going to happen in the run-up to November. They’re going to pee on our legs and tell us it’s raining, a not unusual political ply but this time?

It’s gonna be on steroids.

As a result, leftist media will brook no nonsense when it comes to their political flavor of the week.

And the attacks have started already.

A female reporter for the LA Times asks: Ali - What's behind the right's attack on Swift-Kelce romance? Fear of a powerful woman.

Well, as aware as I and others politically to the right of Mao actually are, I find myself in contradiction to this leftist labeling crap.

To date, nothing Swift has done politically shows her capable of moving the needle politically in any significant way. If she couldn’t do it in the Tennessee Senate race, why on earth do these same people believe she can do it a national level when they offer precisely zero evidence beyond their fantasies that she actually can take over the political thinking for her “followers?”

Nevertheless, the article in question:  wants to assure everyone that “the right” is “attacking” their sainted leftist icon out of “fear of a powerful woman.”

The irony of a reporter for the LA Times, or the NY Times or the Washington Post or almost ANY media outlet, including our own democratian, discussing a “carefully constructed web of deceit” is difficult to overstate, considering these same sources of “news” beating us senseless with the web of deceit of Russian collusion or Hunter Biden’s laptop being Russian disinformation or “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” or any number of other leftist tropes used in an attempt to brutalize the right.

I’m reminded of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid getting up on the floor of the Senate and lying about then GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, when he knowingly claimed that Romney didn’t pay taxes for the last 10 years.., a lie so obvious and blatant that even the Washington Post admitted it, in an article entitled “Harry Reid lied about Mitt Romney’s taxes. He's still not sorry.”

When he was asked about it after the election, his response?

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

Politics, which took up most of my post-military life for some 30 odd years, taught me a great deal. But mainly, it taught me that it’s a brutal, vicious, blood-thirsty business, and while it can, and occasionally does, bring out the best in those involved, it all too often brings out the worst instead.

And this article in the left coast’s version of Pravda Izvestia is just another in the upcoming, and for the left, hopefully deafening, series of drum beats as we begin the process of what is likely to become the most brutal, hateful, despicable campaign the world has yet seen in the US, and this time, with the excuse that those perpetrating it didn’t do it… Artificial intelligence did it.

There is no denying that Taylor Swift is a huge success at what she does, as is her boyfriend of the month. That respect is definitely a testament to capitalism for her. To rise from relatively humble beginnings as a child to what she is now can only be called a _____________ success (Fill in the blank with whatever adjective works fort you) takes talent, drive, savvy and a world view that is difficult to quantify. Her political leanings are likely a result of the generally leftist bubble she lives in, but that’s also her privilege, in spite of the fact that when it suits them, to the left?

She represents everything they hate.

(As a brief aside, I’m reminded of gays protesting for Palestine… as if they wouldn’t be executed on the spot if they ever set foot in the place for being gay.)

But all of that is neither here nor there/

I don’t fear or dislike her personally at all. I don’t know her to do that one way or the other.

But it’s getting old. Real old. And if she was as far right as she is to the left, and if she was as male as Schwarzenegger; first, we wouldn’t be hearing about her and second, even if we did, I’d be saying/feeling the same way I do about any extensively over-hyped celebrity that leftists worship because it’s convenient right now for them to do so.

How many times does anyone want to watch the exact same show? How many times do you want to eat nothing but peanut butter sandwiches?

But I no more care about this woman and who she’s hanging out with than she cares about me. And I fail to see why I SHOULD care. Other than that, I don’t fear her in the least. But my thoughts are drawn to those 3 kids Biden got killed off in Jordan and the 13 dead in Kabul when he screwed Afghanistan with his embarrassing pullout and left tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons in the hands of the terrorist state.

I go to Willamette every now and then, and I see the stones of those who put their lives on the line to make Taylor Swift capable of achieving her heights of fame. My brother is one of them and I presume I will be as well at some point.

Their reward was just a stone, a flag, and for those who survived their time in the military for many, a lifetime of pain… until that lifetime quietly ended… for those not taken fighting a war we sent them to fight.

Who has done more? Who has achieved more? Who is more important?

Well, we all know the answer to that, even if we won’t admit it.