Monthly Archives: January 2024

If You Trust the Government,
You May Need Therapy

By Rob Meyne

Jan. 27, 2024
4-min read

The portion of Americans who trust the government to do the right thing has plummeted to historic lows. Less than 20% of us trust the government. The other 80% might ask “are you not paying attention?”

It takes a willingness to ignore facts, and reject common sense, to believe much of what the government tells us. This is true for all levels of government, but particularly nationally.

This is not the same thing as saying the government never tells the truth. Sometimes it does. But every sentient creature in America should view governmental messages with skepticism and do their own homework before determining what is true.

Pew comments on the lack of trust in government:

“Public trust in the federal government, which has been low for decades, has returned to near record lows following a modest uptick in 2020 and 2021. Currently, fewer than two-in-ten Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always” (1%) or “most of the time” (15%). This is among the lowest trust measures in nearly seven decades of polling. Last year, 20% said they trusted the government just about always or most of the time.”

The real question, today, is why WOULD you trust the government?

The Gallup survey shows, unsurprisingly, that Americans trust their local government much more than the federal.

This is a fairly good rule of thumb. If all politicians should be viewed with skepticism – all PEOPLE should be viewed with some healthy skepticism – certainly, it is easier to learn about your local office holders than those who work in area code 202 and spend their nights at places like the Capital Grille.

A related, and hugely important, question is what media should we trust? The quick answer is “not many.” But here is another good rule of thumb: you should put more trust in people who encourage you to personally learn about issues than those who discourage it. You will likely never hear someone from MSNBC or CNN telling you to learn about things for yourself. That is the mark of a news outlet that is more interested in propaganda than truth.

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Kari Lake can’t be bought.
Nikki Haley is.

By J. Robert Smith

Jan. 27, 2024
5-min read

In a recorded conversation with Arizona Party chairman Jeff DeWit, Kari Lake is offered money by DeWit to back out of the race for the U.S. Senate. DeWit was playing bagman. He claimed to have gotten a request to approach Lake from “back east.”

“There are very powerful people who are gonna keep you out,” he [DeWit] said. “But they’re willing to put their money where their mouth is in a big way.”

The audio of the conversation was posted at Rumble. On Wednesday, DeWit resigned his position, charging that he was set up by Lake and her campaign. But he wasn’t set up. He incriminated himself. His words are his words. He brokered an offer to Lake. If he hadn’t resigned, he should have been removed by the Arizona GOP’s executive committee.

“Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” said the late Jesse Unruh, who was a Democrat mover-and-shaker in California for years. He coined the phrase.

Money has always made politics go-round. Doesn’t matter. Clean money, dirty money… money to candidates, money to officeholders, their families, friends, and favored interests. Money – and let’s add power, which corrupts plenty of politicians, bureaucrats, and every other suckerfish in the business.

Difference between past generations and today is politics is flush with money. Meaning, seas of bucks. Much of the dough is anonymous. Two Supreme Court rulings made that so.

Citizens United vs. the FEC was the biggie. Per Vox, July 1, 2021:

Citizens United stripped the government of its power to limit the amount of spending on elections, especially by corporations. But the decision also gave the Court’s blessing to nearly all laws requiring campaigns and political organizations to disclose their donors.

Republicans and conservatives (not one in the same) initially cheered the ruling. But what’s happened is that corporations have been taken over by so-called progressives. Corporate money tilts toward Democrat candidates. A lot of it.

Making matters worse, a second SCOTUS ruling (Americans for Prosperity vs. Bonta) struck down most donor disclosure laws. Scads of very wealthy people can give anonymously. It’s called “dark money,” and Democrats and left-wing causes are the greatest beneficiaries.

While most big dollars flow to Democrats and the left, there’s still some big money making its way to Republicans.

Nikki Haley, who’s the establishment’s attempt to foil Trump’s candidacy, is the recipient of some really big money.

Haley’s nonprofit – Stand for America, Inc. – didn’t redact some of donors names from tax forms a couple of years ago.

(From Politico, August 26, 2022):

Many of the GOP’s biggest donors are among those who funneled anonymous contributions to former U.N ambassador Nikki Haley’s nonprofit as she lays the groundwork for a prospective 2024 presidential bid, according to previously unreported tax documents obtained by POLITICO.

Haley’s nonprofit policy advocacy group, Stand For America, Inc., has received major donations from people including New York hedge fund manager Paul Singer, investor Stanley Druckenmiller, and Miriam Adelson and her late husband, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the Internal Revenue Service filings reveal.

You can bet that big-dollar donors are calling the shots in Haley’s presidential campaign. In fact…

Bloomberg reported on Jan. 24, 2024 that “Wall Street” donors were keeping Haley’s campaign from sinking.

Simone Levinson, a Haley backer and a co-host for the fundraiser, said she had not seen any donors drop their support of the candidate.

“People don’t just look at numbers, they look at behavior,” Levinson said, referring to Trump’s combative speech Tuesday night, in which he lambasted Haley. “People are now being reminded of this divisive hate-spewing rhetoric of the Donald. Is this really what you want representing our country, as opposed to Nikki?”

Topping things off, Haley has become a rich woman through politics.

Reports Forbes, August 8, 2023:

Since then [resigning as U.N. Ambassador], Haley’s net worth has ballooned from less than $1 million to an estimated $8 million. How did she make so much money in so little time? By following a tried-and-true playbook for politicians looking to cash in on their fame. Speeches to companies like Barclays and organizations such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs provided more money in a day than Haley had previously earned in a year. It’s not clear how many talks she gave from 2019 to 2021, but Haley hauled in $2.3 million from just 11 events in 2022.

Even Haley’s husband is in on the act. It isn’t unusual for family and friends to trade on an officeholder’s (or past officeholder’s) ties to have nice paydays.

Per the Daily Beast, August 12, 2023:

The latest financial disclosures from former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley reveal as much as $500,000 of her husband’s net worth derives from a mysterious “military technical services company”—an apparent shell entity tied to a government contractor seeking tax credits from her successor’s administration.

There is no evidence that Haley or her husband, Michael Haley, have broken any rules. However, the materials suggest the family could benefit financially from state and federal policy, including from the export of military equipment to Taiwan.

Haley isn’t extraordinary. Too many politicians – Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal – have sold themselves for a pound of flesh – or a side of beef or a whole hog, nowadays. And they’re not necessarily violating the law to do it.

Some politicians like Donald Trump and Kari Lake aren’t playing the game. In part, that’s why both catch holy hell. Haley does play the game, and for her, the payoffs are lucrative.

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Equal Opportunity for All Should Be Our Goal

By Rob Meyne

Jan. 21, 2024
5-min read

In 2011, Chicago pastor Corey Brooks lived for a while on the roof of an abandoned motel in his South Side neighborhood. He was protesting urban violence and hoping, through contributions, to raise money for a community center.

Brooks is a longtime advocate for people in his neighborhood, a devout Christian, and a respected leader. In the thirteen years since he lived on that roof, Brooks has learned firsthand of the damage being done to young blacks by contemporary Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts and Critical Race Theory (CRT).

Brooks has become a vocal and effective opponent of DEI, CRT, and other schools of thought that teach Americans that you’re either a victim or an oppressor based on your skin color. Brooks writes intelligently and clearly in a piece from Tablet Magazine. It is worth the read.

DEI has evolved into a catch-all phrase that leftists use to refer to everything that is good and worthwhile about fighting racism. If DEI a just referred to good faith efforts to lift up people who might need a helping hand, that would be one thing. No serious and sane person would object to that. That is not what DEI is. As is so often the case with the gospel of the left, the reality of their policies is different from their rhetoric.

It is likely that most people who embrace equity – people who run our schools, have jobs in corporate HR, or maybe work for a non-profit – talk about the concept as if it is a general, all-encompassing effort to pursue a fair and equal world. One doubts that most equity devotees can even define what it means. Most such people no doubt mean well. But the problem is they end up giving energy and momentum to a disastrous concept they don’t actually understand.

The people who implement equity as a policy, however, know that it isn’t the same thing as equality of opportunity. Equity demands equal results based on one’s membership in a group; equal opportunity has a goal of a color-blind society, where effort, talent, and merit matter and skin color cannot hold you back.

In practice, as it is actually implemented by government, DEI tells us that wealth, opportunity, rewards, and benefits should be allocated according to race, sex, and national origin, not by merit. It is all about racial quotas and rejects the role of merit in our society. DEI is perfectly suited for a socialist society but is antithetical to our own.

CRT is an intellectually vacuous set of objectives that have their roots in the Frankfurt School of communism. Yes, no one likes to admit that, and it doesn’t make one sound less conspiratorial to point it out, but it is true. Critical theory in general began with Marx and others who saw all of society as a war between the classes.

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Another Reason to Dump Fox News: Mike Lindell

By J Robert Smith

Jan. 15, 2024
2-min read

Fortune reported that after Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, it lost $690 million in value. That isn’t chump change. It’s stock prices have dipped by 12% since saying bye-bye to Carlson, according to invezz.

Making matters worse, Fox capitulated in a lawsuit filed by elections machine company Dominion Voting Systems. That payout was an eye-popping $787 million. Per invezz, another elections machine company “Smartmatic has filed a similar – but bigger – lawsuit.”

Variety reported in May of last year that Carlson was fired to settle with Dominion. Claims Variety:

“[An] unnamed [Fox] board member told Carlson that the condition does not appear in any of the settlement’s documents, and instead was a verbal agreement. If Fox didn’t comply, the settlement was off, Carlson was told.”

So, given the big dollar crunch, why would Fox give the heave-ho to any longtime advertisers?

Fox opted to “fire” advertiser Mike Lindell, who created and founded the My Pillow company. Lindell’s company sells more than pillows. My Pillow has struggled ever since retailers started to cancel the brand. Lindell dared publicly challenge the 2020 presidential election results. My Pillow being axed by Bed, Bath, Beyond a few years ago years ago was notable. Bed, Bath, Beyond closed its brick and mortar stores after years of financial struggles. There is a God.

You’d think the Murdochs would be all-in on repairing the financial hemorrhaging anyway they could. Along with finding new revenues, retaining tried and true advertisers is a no-brainer. But no go.

Instead, the Murdochs and their board continue to inch Fox News toward being yet another corporate news media outlet. Fox may never move as left as CNBC and CNN, but its a good bet that over time it’ll morph into a GOP establishment prop.

I dumped Fox when it booted Carlson. I don’t miss it. There are plenty of ways to get reliable news across the internet. Epoch Times and The Blaze are solid news sources, among others. Carlson has programming on X and pay-for programming. I’m also watching Newsmax more often.

Mike Lindell and his employees deserve better than what retailers and Fox News are doing to My Pillow. But remember this: Payback is hell. The day will come when they’ll wish they never played the cancellation game.

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Is Hunter’s Middle Name “Diogenes?”

By Rob Meyne

Jan. 3, 2024
4-min read

If you turn on Netflix or even broadcast TV, you would likely see something that would have been startling twenty years ago. Nudity, profanity, and main characters that identify as transexuals or ficus trees are common.

A similar situation has evolved in American presidential politics. Every week, something happens that would have been a headline-generating event in our parent’s generation. The unusual has become usual. The uncommon has become common.

The search for a decent journalist makes Diogenes’s challenge seem like a piece of cake. (It is not at all certain Diogenes ever said he was looking for an “…honest man.” If he were, he could steer clear of Washington and not reduce his chances of finding one.)

Digoense, by the way, was a founder of stoicism, and would be considered weird even if he was hanging out with the bizarre crowd at a waterfront sunset in Key West. Diogenes was known for doing all manner of things in public that one normally does in private – defecating, fornicating – all in a crowd. He sounded like someone you’d want to party with. If he lived today, he would livestream himself in flagrante delicto. Basically, he’d be Hunter Biden without the influence peddling gig.

Biden and Trump are the two likely nominees, but people are lining up in droves to say they wish they had another choice – anyone – hog, dog, or frog. Both candidates have high negatives and their average age is “deceased.” Trump at least still exhibits signs of life and mental acuity. Biden would likely lose a political debate if he had the gonads to accept one, unless he debated a kumquat or three-toed sloth, in which case it would probably be a push.

Never has a major political candidate been indicted for a crime while he was running for office. Certainly, never has a sitting president indicted his opponent. Never have the political machinations of state, local, and federal governments been coordinated deliberately to try to put a candidate, for whom they have expressed great disdain, behind bars. Never have the courts been used to try to throw a candidate off the ballot by claiming they were part of an insurrection.

If memory serves, the only significant political figure to run for president from prison was four-time candidate Eugene V. Debs, with home I share a hometown, who ran as a socialist. His highest vote total – something shy of a million – was when he was in prison. Somehow the phrase “Vote for Inmate 3994739 never quite caught on as well as the ”Hey, look me over” song used by Birch Bayh (also from Terre Haute) in his first run for the Senate.

On the Democrat side, the evidence that Joe Biden is a crook increases faster than Hunter’s bar bill at the Chateau Marmont.

The problem, of course, is not just that Hunter is a piece of human dung, although that is irrefutable. The PROBLEM is that this particular piece of dung routinely paid his father directly, as did other family members, paid him exorbitant rent, and even paid many of his bills for him. That Joe benefited financially from Hunter’s influence peddling is undeniable. Plus, courts have held that a person can be enriched in a way that qualified as criminal even if the actual financial largesse accumulated only for his close family. If a wife or son is “paid off,” does anyone really believe the husband or father does not benefit?

So we have a massive case of influence peddling, money laundering, and plain old-fashioned bribery that is being ignored or slow walked by a very corrupt Attorney General. On the other side, we have a former president who has been indicted in two jurisdictions with spectacularly weak cases that will require juries to accept legal arguments that are literally unprecedented. Another case is civil because the paucity of evidence against Trump would not sustain an actual criminal indictment.

So you have two possible or even likely crooks competing for the votes of people who loathe them. You have a complacent, lapdog media where true journalists are as rare as an honest Biden, and you have the entire political structure of one of our two major political parties doing their best imitation of a banana republic. Oh, and you have a credible third-party candidate taking votes from both of the major candidates.

You’ve got an economy on the brink and war breaking out on TWO international fronts with our allies involved and a non-zero chance we’ll have American boots on the ground. A cyberattack, EMP, or global nuclear holocaust is also a non-zero possibility.

And those are just the GOOD things happening.

If one tries to take the positive approach, that can help, but coming up with a rational reason to think everything is going to work out fine is more difficult by the day.

For now, I have to go buy a kumquat and see if I can talk a three-toed sloth into running as an independent. I’ll get back with you.

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