I see some of my friends and relatives, real Trump haters, celebrating with glee having received their second vaccination (for Covid). Being vaccinated is a matter of personal choice. I personally think it is a good thing, but like other issues, I don’t press my beliefs on others.
Yes. I research them. I study some of them. I state them. I don’t reprint on social media idiotic statements that bear no connection to any sense of truth just because they support my ego or verify my sense of self or my feelings at any given time.
I differentiate my beliefs and opinions from fact. And unlike what the woke people do so readily, I don’t say that my feelings are facts and ask people to accept my feelings as such.
These days I rarely carry cash, any cash whatsoever. So if I want a coffee and don’t want to charge it, I may feel poor for not having money in my pocket to pay for a coffee. My feeling poor, does not mean in effect that I am poor. Were that the case on April 15th I would tell the government I feel poor, therefore I am poor by your own standards, and so I won’t pay any taxes. (So you know, their own standards say that if a boy identifies as a girl on any given day and sees the doctor, the doctor must treat them by their identification.)
Okay. These days we could on like this forever. The hypocrisy is more obvious and certainly more rampant than ever before.
So I just want to say a couple of things to all you Trump-haters I know who have celebrated or are celebrating your vaccination on social media. First, if it weren’t for President Trump, you wouldn’t have a vaccine yet. Remember candidates Biden and Harris saying they wouldn’t trust the vaccine developed under Trump? Gee, now they want to take credit for solving the problem.
Yes, people, it was Trump’s initiative and foresight that developed the vaccine, your vaccination, (a feat which medical scientists equate to making the trip to the moon that Kennedy initiated in less than one year as opposed to the decade it actually took). Hate Trump as you will, still, no matter what you do, you’ll never delete him. You’ll never diminish that which he was so right about. Your vitriol will only make it more manifest.
Say thank you to President Trump for your vaccination and your safety. The Democrats could never have done it in the time Trump did.
By Peter Weiss
The memory chain is interesting. I’d bet for scientists and doctors who work with our brains that it is overwhelmingly interesting.
This morning I was buttering a piece of toast and instantaneously I thought of Uncle Charlie. He is long, long gone, and sometime if you want to talk about tough lives, not the tough lives of the privileged protestors today, we can talk about him.
Buttering bread and Uncle Charlie, he was known for putting the butter on extremely thick, what was known in those days (because they didn’t know anything in those days like they know today) as heart-attack thick. Best buttered bread you could get, that was Uncle Charlie.
He was married to Aunt Hannah. She is long, long gone. Aunt Hannah: housedress, white bobby sox, house slippers similar to what I’m wearing now, open-toe, flat heel, just that one strap across the bottom of the toes.
Aunt Hannah was in love with the Brooklyn Dodgers. She lived across the street from where they played, knew all the players, went to the games, all the games.
Spring started yesterday; today is the first full day of Spring. Up here in the northeast we don’t really know if we’re done with the snow or not, but looks like it – maybe. My wife and daughter are upstairs sleeping. I made breakfast for them, they ate, they went upstairs separately and when I looked in on them they were peacefully asleep.
I feel somewhat content. I don’t generally feel this way. More often I feel pressured and stressed, worried (GAD) and harried.
But not at this moment. Thank God for that. I feel very grateful these days, filled with gratitude. We’ve survived Covid and are vaccinated. My daughter is in school, has been in school since July 2020 half-time and since December 2020 full-time. In many ways her Covid journey is the paradigm for how we should have been handling it altogether. Maybe we would have been handling it better all along and would be handling it better now if the Democrats hadn’t used it as the key political weapon in their seize-power-control-America-forever arsenal.
But that is what it is and it’s for another time.
I’m posting this little piece first, before I post some new things. I work in the mental health field and while the Democrats piss away 2 trillion dollars for bull shit that’s not necessary and which has proven over the last 55 years not to in any way accomplish that which they say they want to accomplish, that very small percentage of kiddos and adults with serious mental health issues suffers inordinately more and worse than anyone else except the elderly they let die (maybe purposefully).
Yes! Those with serious mental health issues and disabilities are a small percentage of our population. As such and by the nature of their ailments, they are underfunded, mostly under-represented politically and most incapable of advocating for themselves.
Over this Covid time the mental health services system has become saturated and it is very hard to find services. My workload volume has increased 140%.
So I have no apologies for not posting for a few weeks. I have no apologies for me at all. I’ve been busy.
Regarding apologies, those who would tell us to feel bad about ourselves for who and what we are based upon our skin color and political beliefs should be apologizing to us by simply passing strict term limits for themselves. Their attempting to teach such ridiculousness to our little children in public schools is beyond despicable and disgusting. It is obscene.
What they are doing and what their lapdog press is promoting is the real insurrection in America.
And so it goes.
Memory chain: I remember my father being a POW in Nazi Germany for three and a half years. Hitler killed almost 10 million people. Moving toward that totalitarianism is the real insurrection in America.
By Peter Weiss
When was the last time any of our lawmakers could not fill up their tank with gas because they needed the money for food?
When was the last time any of our lawmakers had to lower the temperature in their home/apartment by five degrees (and therefore be cold) to save on energy so they could afford to buy necessities for their family?
When was the last time increased energy prices meant a lawmaker’s/Congressman’s family could not afford a much needed new washing machine?
When was the last time any of our esteemed millionaire lawmakers got fired from a lucrative job and was told to go get a job in a field in which the jobs were not there yet, weren’t going to be there, or were only there in China?
When was the last time we heard about Kerry’s wife, you know the Heinz heiress who is worth about a billion dollars?
When do you think Kerry, so quick to put people out of work, worried about money, about his financial future, about whether or not he had a job? When do you think he last thought that maybe he should cut his energy footprint instead of claiming special privilege?
When was the last time we got the truth from Pavda USA, the mainstream media Democrat lapdogs?
And when was the last time we got the truth from the American Politburo, those multi-millionaire oligarchs who claim to be everyday people like you and me? Or from their multi-billionaire oligarchs, most of them media owners, who own them, run them and run the mainstream media that licks their feet?
Monday Morning Rant: just some when questions.
By Peter Weiss
The first and major purpose of a government is to protect its citizens and to protect the rights of its citizens. This is stated in various ways and goes back to the Ancient Greeks who said that the purpose of government was to improve the lives of its citizens. Note the operative word: citizens. One more time, since that word is very clear: to protect the rights of its citizens. The operative word is citizens.
No. The United States is not a world government. No. The citizens of the United States are not world citizens. No the citizens of the United States do not have citizens’ rights in any other country unless they hold citizenship there too. Similarly, and consequently, citizens of other countries do not have citizens’ rights in the United States. They are not world citizens unless other countries want to accept that fact, and honestly there aren’t any yet.
So, how stupid is America?
The first sure sign of America’s stupidity is the game its citizens allow the government to play with its language and its confuscating of the definition of citizen.
No. Illegal aliens are not undocumented citizens. No. Although the government under the past and now this president would have you think so, it is not wrong to call illegal aliens illegals. It is also not wrong to call them aliens. They are not immigrants if by immigrant one means a person who comes to establish permanent residence. Permanent residence implies legal status though not necessarily citizenship. So if an illegal alien in his or her heart wants to stay here permanently, the best he or she can become is a long-term undetected illegal alien. He or she would not be a citizen, can never become a citizen without moving through the proper channels to do so, and is only here by the fact that he or she remains undetected.
Illegal aliens are not entitled to the benefits of citizenship and should not be. They should not be allowed to vote. They should not get public housing, welfare, social security or food stamps. They should not be entitled to any form of public assistance.
So how stupid is America?
America affords all of the above to its illegal aliens. The shameless leaders, from the Congress down to local state and city governments, offer us all kinds of silly arguments to protect their ability to keep the flow of illegals coming into the United States. It is in their best interests, but it is not in our best interests. Most of our leaders these days are millionaires and being leaders they do not spend much of their own money. They and their children and families, for the most part, live in the gated cities, protected by bodyguards and private security, and sometimes by the Secret Service. Their world is not our world.
How stupid is America?
State and city governments won’t even turn over public voting records to the Justice Department. They are required to do so upon written notice but fail to comply. Why? What are they afraid of? Why, in America, the land of the free where anyone can walk into a DMV and get an official ID, is an ID not required to vote?
There are only several reasons for the stupidity of the American Citizens allowing their governments, local, state and Federal, to perpetrate this ridiculousness. One is indifference. A second is not wanting to rock the freebie boat. A third is ignorance. Our public education, by the way, is a reason unto its own for why we are so stupid.
America the stupid. Only in America can an illegal alien get a legal aid lawyer and sue the government for not protecting his/her rights. Only in America are American citizens and taxpayers forced to support those who have broken our law, do not legally belong here and are very often treated better than the hardworking citizens supporting them.
So, how stupid are we?
By Peter Weiss
America is more divided than ever before. We hear this statement made over and over. Actually we hear a lot of things nowadays, especially with 24/7 cable news channels which not only say a lot of things, but say them over and over and over. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe it isn’t. Regardless, it is a fact of our life.
I wonder: are we more divided than we were during the Civil War times? Than during the Viet Nam War times? What do they mean by divided? Do they, whoever they are, mean divided politically? Racially? By religion? Culture? By economics?
Which station(s) do you watch? Which newspapers do you read? Do you get your news from social media? Do you pay any attention to the news at all? I mean, one of my friends recently said that now that marijuana was legal in his state he was just gonna chill out for the rest of his life and not pay any attention to this ridiculous stuff.
Your answers to the questions above tend to define which shoes you wear, especially if you subscribe exclusively to one grouping of any of them. Our shoes are determined, very often, by where we’re born, to whom we’re born, our parents’ experiences and beliefs and their socio-economic status.
No matter which shoes you wear, however, on some level what’s going on in this country is ridiculous, even in the realm of the absurd. Actually it’s in the realm of the theater of the absurd. But on another level it is very real, especially if the effects of what’s going on impact your income, benefits, taxes, services or education.
Once again, as said before, this is tough stuff. Remember, about fifty per cent of the American population doesn’t pay taxes and many of these people get money back from the government. They wear one set of shoes. Those who pay taxes wear a different set of shoes. Those people who have children benefit from free public education. Those with no children who pay taxes pay for the public education of people with children. These groups wear different sets of shoes. In America, such groupings are numerous and varied. Some people in America aren’t here legally and still get money and benefits from the government, this despite what the government would have you believe. These people wear a different set of shoes. If you’ve been waiting to immigrate here legally and have tried to do it the right way, you wear one pair of shoes. If you’re the illegal collecting benefits, you wear a different set.
Different points of view, depending upon which shoes you wear is a characteristic trademark of America. It is one of our greatest strengths. It can also be one of our greatest weaknesses, especially when we let the priorities our country was founded upon deteriorate into ridiculousness. For example, in certain states one can be fined, even put in jail for using the wrong pronoun. Imagine that! For another example, during the Obama administration if one’s findings on climate change contradicted theirs, one could be prosecuted. Imagine that! When our rights are suppressed because of the shoes we wear, our country’s values have been diminished and we as a free country are in peril.
Which shoes do you wear? Maybe you wear many different shoes. Maybe not. Whichever shoes you wear though, you should be free to wear them without fear of being suppressed for wearing them.
By Peter Weiss
Toward the end of the Trump administration, the wife one of my cousins de-friended me on facebook because she did not agree with my political positions.
That’s well and good, really. That’s America, the ability to disagree.
Wasn’t good enough to de-friend me. She had make a big pronouncement of it, a public spectacle of it, if you will.
Her choice. Still America.
Bottom line of what she did, and maybe she doesn’t care, is that I probably won’t ever speak to my cousin again. He’s old, I’m getting old. We probably will have no more actual interplay on this earth.
I’m saddened. What I feel is a deep sadness.
I’m a writer. I write fiction and non-fiction. You can like or not like my fiction. You can agree with or disagree with my opinion pieces. As you wish. That’s America.
I’m also a researcher. Researchers learn to only cite peer-reviewed and accepted sources, those that are based upon scholarly study. They also learn to check out all sources to examine their veracity. They are taught that when one study is paid for by an entity who then determines it’s veracity — well then something smells funny.
You know like all the environmental studies our government relies upon, that our government has paid for and continues to pay for and whose funding depends upon results that support our government’s position. Stinks a little bit.
Researches also learn that when censorship comes into play, which is why 90% of the American people don’t believe the mainstream media anymore and less than 20% approve of our Senators and Congressmen — well then something smells funny and something is fishy.
As a free and curious person, that which they don’t want me to know is precisely what I want to know.
I don’t sit at an electronic device and press “like” then indiscriminately re-post other people’s opinions. I certainly don’t re-post without checking the veracity of what’s being said.
Of course I feel that my personal opinion is right. It’s my opinion. But I don’t criticize, threaten, hate or call names at people who don’t agree with me.
Such vitriol is well…deeply saddening.
Yesterday I happened to see a remark on facebook by a different cousin, same family. It was so filled with venom that I wondered how such ugliness came to be. My uncle, the father of this cousin, was the sweetest man in the whole world. My mother and he deeply loved each other as siblings. Of all the siblings, he was the most sensitively emotional and wonderfully sweet and caring.
I’m shocked that such a public display could come from a child of his. I’m further shocked that some of the “family” could simply like and/or approve of such a public display.
Where and when did we come to believe that such a tantrum could and should be publicly displayed?
It’s this publicly expressed and then the herd-like approval of such ugliness that makes me feel deeply sad.
All together, I fear we’ve lost what matters most within ourselves.
By Peter Weiss
How stupid are we?
Talking about America, there seems to be no limit to the depth of our stupidity, the depth of the pit of stupidity we have fallen into. It’s rather amazing actually. Think about it. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin wall came down, the United States was the only world power. In the thirty years since then we have allowed Russia to regain its world-power status and we have allowed China to become a world power. China’s economy has overtaken ours and just recently, for the first time ever, the dollar is no longer the world currency.
So how stupid are we? Well, how stupid can you be?
The war on poverty has been going on for fifty-two years, since 1965. We’ve poured twenty-three billion dollars into it. That’s 23,000,000,000. For that money there has been no real noticeable change in the poverty rate and no real change in the demographics of the people in poverty. Yet we continue down the same road. Stupid?
As regards education, we spend more per capita than any other country and yet we rank a whopping twenty-seventh in the world in education. Now that’s a big bang for the buck. Furthermore, segregation was outlawed in 1954 and yet our schools are becoming more and more segregated. The rate at which segregation is occurring continues to increase.
Stupid?
It gets better. There are those who fought against segregation who now insist they have a right to their own spaces, or they insist that whites not be allowed into certain spaces. Well then…
Stupid? You bet
Just as stupid and actually most dangerous to our society is the disregard shown for logic and facts. Replacing logic and facts are feelings and subjectivity. The gender identity laws exemplify this. But that raises a controversial issue and God forbid that should happen. So let’s put it this way. Mr. X doesn’t have any cash and can’t buy that five-dollar super mochaccino he wants because he left his wallet in his Porsche. He feels poor. He identifies with poor people at that moment. In accordance with the gender identity rules, he is poor. He identifies himself as poor, ergo, by the new rules, he is poor. If that happened on April 15th, Mr. X should be eligible for not paying taxes and even getting an earned income credit.
Stupid? Beyond stupid. How stupid can we be?
Let’s see. Remember “you have to sign it to see what’s in it?” Stupid? Well, what’s even more stupid is that she’s still in office and the head of her party. She’s not stupid. She didn’t have to read it because she doesn’t have to deal with it. She and her cronies voted themselves an exception so they could stay on the government congressional plan. That’s the Cadillac of Cadillacs plan.
Stupid? Not them! Us. More than half of them are millionaires And they way their positions work, they don’t really have to pay for anything. Our tax dollars pay for everything. Or, they’re having a great, self-enriching time on our dime. So how stupid can we be?
Russia. Russia’s goal is to create chaos here in America. Well, look at what our media has been pushing for the last four years and more. Look at what the party of opposition, now leadership and in control, has done. How stupid are we as a people and as a nation? Haven’t we played right into Putin’s hands? China’s hands? Stupid.
Well, aren’t we stupid for allowing all this to go on? Aren’t we more stupid for continuing to fund it?
Finally, as the liberals push left toward the welfare state and socialism, history tells us that capitalism and the free market pay for the bulk of all charity work done throughout the world. It also tells us that no socialist government thus far has ever managed to succeed. Why would we push toward that which we know will fail?
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Really, how stupid are we? Pretty damn stupid.
By Peter Weiss
Are you maybe someone who has lost a family member, maybe a son or daughter, because of an illegal alien? Drunk driving incident? Convenience store robbery? In the wrong place at the wrong time? Gang incident?
Maybe you haven’t actually “lost” anyone, but maybe you or someone you know has lost benefits because of illegal aliens, like a disabled child no longer eligible for lunch subsidies because your state has accepted and is paying the benefits to illegal aliens, which, by the way, you, the taxpaying citizen, don’t have a right to know about?
Maybe you haven’t actually lost benefits, but maybe you just can’t get to see the doctor you want to see because he/she is so overworked and overbooked due to the influx of those illegal immigrants on Medicaid (who are not supposed to be receiving benefits but who are despite what they say) that the next appointment which you need now is a month away.
Which Shoes Do You Wear?
Maybe you are an illegal alien who was brought here as a child with no say in the matter, someone who has gone to school, learned the language, and not broken the law.
Or maybe you are an illegal alien who came here on your own and worked here for years and years keeping a low profile and not getting into any trouble, someone who has tried to remain invisible as much as possible so you can stay here and have a better life than you had where you came from.
Which Shoes Do You Wear?
Any way you slice it, this one is a really tough one. Unlike many other issues, this one is truly complex and difficult, one for which there is no one-size-fits-all answer.
But there are some things that are facts.
- Illegal immigration into the United States is a real problem.
- Our government and its illustrious leaders (on both sides) have been derelict in their duties of dealing with this problem, kicking the can down the road, so to speak, for decades.
- Our government and its illustrious leaders are not telling us the truth about illegal immigration, who is coming in, where they are being relocated to, what states are accepting them, whether or not they are getting welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and Social Security benefits.
- The media is not reporting accurately regarding this issue and many others. The media does not report the reality of the problem, choosing instead to promote a left-wing liberal bias leaning toward socialist values.
- Spokespeople for the illegal immigration population do not present an accurate or fair depiction of their clientele and opt for the heartbreaking talking points about how all the “good” illegals who came here by no choice of their own will be deported by this hateful president (the all or nothing argument).
- The left-wing Democrats depict this issue in the same way the media mimics it.
- DACA is not what it seems, and when one reads the reality of what it is versus what it was supposed to be, that becomes evident.
- American citizens should be the first priority of the American Government and no one else’s rights should abrogate or supersede American citizens’ rights.
That last point is incontrovertible. Also incontrovertible is the fact that the government, by its inability or lack of desire to deal with this issue has simply exacerbated it.
So, which shoes do you wear?
Are you paying for the illegal aliens when you can hardly put food on your own table? Are they taking jobs that you would want but can’t get because they are working for lower wages than you would expect to be paid? Are you a victim of their crimes?
Are you an honest, hard-working illegal-alien person just trying to get by? A child who was brought here by no choice of your own?
This one is a tough one. Which Shoes Do You Wear?
By Peter Weiss
Are you a payer or a payee? Or are you both?
As the tax bill looms in conference and is being formulated into one bill to be sent to the president, we hear a lot of information about the bill. Most of what we hear from the left side is scare tactics and divisive rhetoric, about how us regular people will pay more in taxes and the rich will get big tax breaks, about how it will increase the gap between the rich and the poor, about how it will decimate Medicare and Medicaid, and on and on. Nancy Pelosi called it Armageddon, as if she, with her more than 115 million dollar net worth has any understanding of what such Armageddon would be.
Most of what we hear from the right side is about how it will stimulate fiscal growth and corporate growth, put people back to work again, put more money in the pockets of us regular people who have been paying taxes, repatriate a lot of cash that is overseas which will in turn help corporations to invest in themselves and grow, thus employing more people, not touch Medicare or Medicaid, and on and on.
Somewhere in between the left side’s rhetoric and the right side’s selling points is something getting toward truth.
Remember balance? The first rule of real research aimed at truth is balance, an honest look for and appraisal of the bonafide research about the issue.
So which shoes do you wear and what do you want to believe?
If you are a payee, and have mostly been a payee, and if you have no real incentive to be anything other than a payee, you can choose to believe the left’s point of view and sit on your sofa and feel angry about those who will maybe pay less and are richer than you while those others go out to work to pay for your benefits. And you can choose to believe the left’s divisive talk about how the rich get richer, which is actually true, while they neglect to tell you that the rich actually work for their riches and employ most of us regular people who make regular wages, which is also true.
If you are a payer, a tax payer, someone who’s been wondering for a long time how come the government takes a good chunk of your modest income and then the state and city governments come along and take another good chunk of your modest income, you might tend to believe what the right’s selling points are trying to show you, that you might have to pay a little less, which, since you are paying for everything for everyone who is a payee, doesn’t seem like a bad thing at all.
So there are some facts out there, that are really facts that give some indication as to what’s actually going on here and what is political BS. who pays taxes latest Federal tax data
The top one percent (1%) of Americans pay forty-three percent (43%) of the Federal taxes. Forty-five percent (45%)of the people pay no federal taxes at all. Those of us at different levels in between pay the rest. The two links show slightly different percentages and so you can see what’s close to real.
Once again, you can cut and paste onto your Facebook page the misleading headline bullet-list points of either side, left or right, and thus be part of the left’s divisive, fear-mongering rhetoric or part of the right’s economic selling points, true or not.
But if you’re one of the ones who pay nothing, receive everything and have no skin in the game, it seems like you should really stay pretty quiet. And if you are one of ones who are giving a chunk of your pension and Social Security to the government to pay for those who pay nothing, then it seems like you really ought to find out what is real and accurate and support that.
Which shoes do you wear?
By Peter Weiss
How you look at things really depends upon which shoes you wear. We all think we know everything, and yet we actually know very little. Even those of us who have many years of advanced education know very little, and if our advanced education was any good (because nowadays the “goodness” of the education being presented is really in question), the first thing it should have taught us is that even when we’re experts we actually know very little of what there is to know.
My Doctoral adviser told me, when I first started my Doctoral studies, that none of the professors wanted to know my opinion about anything until I had the letters after my name. What he was saying, and he did articulate this directly, was that the word I should be absent in my papers, that the professors were only interested in valid research to support any thesis presented. He was careful to assert the necessity for balance at the same time. When one looks at an issue, one must look at all the research, not just one strain. When one ignores the opposing point of view and its valid research, the balance scale is tipped and the end result is often skewed if not visibly ridiculous.
So what my Doctoral Adviser was actually saying was that there are rules to research that must be followed and that when the rules are not followed the research and findings are generally not valid.
A good example of this is the climate change issue in America. When all the research is funded by the agency (the US Government) and the researchers’ funding is dependent upon findings which support the best interests of the agency’s position (in the Obama administration it was that climate change was our biggest problem and concern), there’s a good bet that all the research is going to reflect the agency’s position. Compound this with the Attorney General and many State Attorneys General literally prosecuting researchers whose findings contradicted the government’s position—yes for those of us with short memories, which our government officials count on us having, that is what happened—it becomes a really safe bet that the research, its findings and premises then being sold to us by people with political agendas is very skewed and imbalanced.
This does not mean to say that none of the research is valid or that climate change is not an issue. It is only to attest to the notion that research needs to be balanced to actually aim toward discovering truth. When people in power rewrite the rules of research to obtain the results they want and use the powers of money and litigation to suppress differing research, we’ve got a real crisis and it’s a good bet they’re not interested in truth.
A good example of balance is when Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich went on the road together in support of supporting failing schools in the cities. Sharpton and Gingrich on the road together. Now those two don’t see eye to eye on much, but when from their differing viewpoints they come to the same conclusions, it’s a good bet that overall they were heading toward a truth. In this case it was that there is a real problem with inner-city education.
So which shoes do you wear? There are many different viewpoints in many different areas, and none of us really know anything compared to what there is to know. When we start acting like we know everything and are right about everything and we use power to demand others see it our way, we’re in real trouble.
Take a look out there. Maybe stop and think sometimes before you cut and paste something on your social media whose veracity you haven’t checked out. It’s time to get back to real research and move away from believing our politicians (on both sides) who continually spout all or nothing arguments. Anyone who knows anything about debate knows the all or nothing argument is a fallacious one.
Einstein said: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
