Monday, September 30, 2019

Hyperbole Returns to San Diego

The San Diego Union Tribune sports writers are so ecstatic over the Chargers (who, it should be pointed out, are no longer even a San Diego team) winning a football game Sunday, that one of them writes that quarterback Philip Rivers, "has a decent shot of reaching the Super Bowl tournament."

First let's be clear that the Super Bowl is a football game, not a tournament.

Next, let's come back down to Earth and point out that the Chargers have played only four games of a sixteen game season and have won only two of those games while the Chiefs have won all four of the games they have played, making the Chargers tied for second in their division. Not to mention that they have yet to play the Chiefs and the Raiders each twice, leaving the playoffs rather much questionable.

Not to mention that the game they just won, and which made the local sports writers so ecstatic, was against Miami, which now has a record of 0-4 and cannot really be called a bad football team because it is pretty much not really a football team at all.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Endlessly Feckless

The party that brought us Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John Fitzgerald Kennedy has deteriorated to a band of harpies and dodderers whose sole motivation is the acquisition and preservation of power, and whose methods consist of a frantic contest to see who can offer the most lavish free lunch using other people’s, and mostly fictional, money.

Their current Plan A has been “RussiaGate,” a ship which they continued to steer long after it ran aground on the rocks of reality, fecklessly cranking on the helm and wondering why it was going in the wrong direction without realizing that it was hard aground and going nowhere.

They then moved to Plan B, which was called “Project 1619,” and was a plan that revised history to show that this nation was not founded in 1776 based on the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence, but was founded when the first shipload of African slaves landed on this continent in 1619, and that the new nation was intended as a market for African slaves. The purpose of Project 1619 was to demonstrate that the current president is a racist, but no logical explanation of how it does that has ever been offered.

The plan never ran aground for the simple reason that it never really left port. The public realized that, while this tomfoolery was great for destroying the “Make America Great” campaign, they didn’t really want a “Make America Awful” campaign to replace it, and even Democrats figured out that they weren’t going to be able to impeach a sitting president for aiding and abetting slavery in the 21st century.

So some Democrats noticed Joe Biden boasting about using $1 billion of US foreign aid money to extort Ukraine to fire their General Prosecutor and came up with Plan C, which boils down to, “Let’s impeach the current president for doing what Joe Biden did,” which actually has several flaws.

Flaw number one is, of course, that it shoots down in flames the leading Democratic presidential candidate, but that’s okay because he was the wrong gender anyway. Whoever the next president is, it must be a female. Sorry, Bernie, you’re next, but you should be used to it by now.

The second flaw is, of course, that the sitting president did not do what they claim he did, but that’s only a drawback if you’re not a Democrat. Liberals never let facts stand in the way of a good narrative, even though it was a Republican who famously claimed that, “we create our own reality, which you are at liberty to admire.”  Democrats do not really expect that their creation of reality, in which this nation's founding principle was the enslavement of African people, will be admired by anyone.

In order to enhance the culpability of the sitting presidency of doing what Joe Biden did, Democrats cook up various fictions to maintain that Joe Biden didn’t do it, as if his innocence somehow proves the sitting president’s guilt. The logic involved in that argument is somewhat less than impeccable, but…

One might think that lurking in the back of the Democratic mind is Plan D, which might involve an outline of constructive action, but it is becoming increasingly likely that such is not the case. ("Free lunch" cannot really be considered constructive.) They had nothing in 2016 other than preaching the evils of their opponents, and so far this cycle they seem to have nothing other than, “shampoo, rinse, repeat.”

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Whitewash

NBC News ran a segment last night which included an "exclusive interview" with the Ukrainian prosecutor who was fired at Joe Biden's behest. The interviewer went to great length to get the prosecutor to say that he had not seen any evidence that either Biden, father or son, had violated any Ukrainian law. Apparently extortion is legal in Ukraine.

It matters not. NBC's effort to keep Joe Biden out of this story is bullshit. Any prosecutor will tell you that motive is not an element of the crime.

Joe Biden is convicted of extortion out of his own mouth. "If the prosecutor's not fired you don't get the money." It doesn't matter why he did it. If you rob a bank and give the money to charity, you are still guilty of bank robbery, and you will serve the same jail sentence as if you had used the money to buy diamonds for your wife or a Rolex for yourself.

"If the prosecutor's not fired you don't get the money." Guilty, case closed.

Friday, September 27, 2019

Willful Blindness

Democrats are outraged that Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, but the sad fact is that there is no need to investigate him. Joe Biden has convicted himself out of his own mouth, repeatedly.

He tells us, “They’re walking out of the press conference and I said, ‘Nah, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars.’” The Ukrainian officials challenged him, reminding him that the president had authorized the money, and he says that he replied to them, “Call him. I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars.” He tells them that he’s leaving in six hours and, “If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money.”  He then finishes the story by saying, gleefully, “Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.”

You do not need to know anything about the Ukrainian prosecutor or what he was investigating. You do not need to know anything about Joe Biden’s son, the son’s business dealings, or Joe Biden’s knowledge of the son’s business.

The facts needed to convict Joe Biden of a felony are contained in the words that come out of his own mouth. Joe Biden, acting in his official capacity as Vice President of the United States, interfered in the internal governance of Ukraine, using $1 billion of US foreign aid money as an instrument of extortion to do so.

Democrats are saying the Trump “pressured Zelensky by implication” because the actual threat of not delivering $350 million in aid was not made verbally in the conversation. Perhaps. Some would say the so-called threat was not made at all. Joe Biden’s threat was not implied. “If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money.”

What Trump did say in the telephone conversation was that, “What Joe Biden did was really shameful,” a statement with which I find it hard to disagree.

The media’s response to that, in their commentary following Trump’s news conference was, stunningly, unbelievably, “There’s no evidence that Joe Biden did anything wrong.”

The media is accusing Trump, on evidence that at best is thinner than a single strand of a spider’s web and in actuality is entirely fictional, of holding foreign aid money as a quid pro quo for favors from a foreign leader, but in the face of Joe Biden actually boasting of doing precisely that they say that, “There’s no evidence that Joe Biden did anything wrong.”

There can be no stronger evidence that the media has become an instrument of political manipulation and propaganda, and that it is is devoted to deposing an elected president by any means.

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Redoubling on Double Standard

Hillary Clinton pays an ex-Russian agent to get dirt on her political rival while corrupting the Democratic Primary election, and when news of all that comes out the Democrats create “Russiagate” to brand Trump as a Russian agent.

After two full years of hysteria, that whole thing lies on the floor like a dead walrus while Democrats idly flog and poke the carcass hoping for signs of life.

Then Joe Biden brags about using $1 billion in US foreign aid to blackmail Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who is investigating the Ukrainian company that is enriching his son Hunter, and the Democrats create “Ukrainegate” before they even know what the telephone conversation in question actually contained, accusing Trump of maybe (there's no evidence) doing what they know for sure that Biden actually did do.

They really think this one is going to work, even though Hillary’s crimes were not identical to those attributed to Trump and that she did not admit them, while Biden’s crime is identical to that attributed to Trump, and not only has he admitted it, he actually brags about it repeatedly.

And, as an interesting little sidelight, they condemn Trump for not delivering the whistleblower to them, notwithstanding that no president in history and been as viciously prosecutorial of whistleblowers as Barack Obama, a policy of which Democrats were fully supportive.

Friday, September 20, 2019

The Antonio Brown Saga

New England fans were ecstatic. Bill Belichick is the one man in the NFL that will be able to control Tonio. This will make the Patriots 16-0 this season and turn the Super Bowl into a cakewalk. Oh, hahahaha. Not so much.

Monday, September 16, 2019

Hysteria Nation

Perhaps California could come up with this, but the following is from the today's issue of the Seattle Times.

"Two young people who used vaping products have been diagnosed with severe pulmonary lung diseases, bringing the total number of Washington state cases to three in what health officials say is a statewide outbreak of severe illnesses."

Three cases. 3. The number one larger than two. A "statewide outbreak."

Vaping has been around for several decades and has been practiced by millions of people. No problems have been reported until this month. Now we have 380 people sick and 6 people dead in a nation of 320 million people. Six people. Not six million, six thousand, or even six hundred. Six.

These people vaped, so it's time to panic. It's time to screech about the "vaping epidemic" (six dead, for God's sake), and ban vaping. "They were vaping and now they're dead."

We don't know what else they were doing. They may have been huffing paint. They may have been smoking magic mushrooms. But we have a fucking "vaping epidemic." God help us all.

Sunday, September 08, 2019

They Are Who We Thought They Were

And who they have been for several years. Favored by 7.5 points, the Chargers were tied with the Colts at the end of regulation, after the Colts had missed two short field goals and an extra point kick. The Chargers did manage to win in overtime, but... They had a team total of 166 yards rushing without Melvin Gordon, which makes his $13 million demand look sillier by the week.

The Kansas City Chiefs won 40-26, so they met expectations. Eli Manning went down in flames 35-17, so he lives up to his recent reputation. The Patriots massacred the Steelers 33-3 as Big Ben continues on his sad road to ignominy.

Friday, September 06, 2019

Thursday Night Football

Today's headline read, "Defenses Put Offenses To Sleep."

How about "Offenses Put Viewers To Sleep." That may have been the most over-hyped, worst football game I have ever watched. 100 years have brought us to this? A game in which the coaches do not know how to call plays; calling for a pass to be thrown behind the line of scrimmage when trailing by seven points, with three minutes left in the game, and 70 yards away from scoring?

As bad as the play calling was, offensive player execution was even worse. Dropped passes were matched by receivers running the wrong routes, quarterbacks missing open receivers, throwing passes that took the receivers out of bounds, and offensive linemen that were not even looking at the players they were supposed to block.

Fortunately, there will be some games Saturday being played by colleges, which have players and coaches who actually know what they're doing.

Tuesday, September 03, 2019

CA legalizes discrimination

SB 826, passed last year, added a section to the California Corporations Code to mandate that all corporations must include at least one female on their boards of directors. Larger corporations must include more than one. The benefit to corporations is unclear. The benefit to the state of California is even less clear.

Note that they do not need to include any males. A board of directors which is 100% female would be perfectly okay with the California Legislature, just not one which is 100% male. This is, somehow, not discriminatory.

Sunday, September 01, 2019

Low Expectations

Much excitement is being made about Auburn's freshman quarterback and his "awesome" performance against Oregon last night. I'm like, "What?"

The guy completed 13 passes out of 31 attempts, for 42%, which might be okay in Pop Warner leagues but stinks in the NCAA and utterly reeks in the SEC. It goes downhill from there. He threw two touchdowns and two interceptions, and the winning touchdown with nine seconds left in the game was badly underthrown. It was a completion only because the Oregon defender badly botched the defense.

For the entire game the announcers were raving about the wonderfulness of Gus Malzahn's play calling, and I was wondering what planet they were on. He continually ran straight into the teeth of Oregon's strength, leading to Auburn generating a total of 206 yards rushing, which normally would be a decent halftime figure for an Auburn team. Overall, he made Oregon look better than it actually is.

Auburn has LSU, Georgia and Alabama on their schedule, and if they don't get their shit all in one sock those three games are not going to be the only ones that embarrass the hell out of them.