I’m surprised that anyone is having that much difficulty with inflation since most anyone with any intelligence has managed to either negotiate a raise to offset inflation, or has moved to a new higher-paying job. But if you’re one of those who’s struggling financially due to inflation, here’s where the blame lies . . .

When Covid hit in early 2020, Trump did nothing. Like Nero, he fiddled while America got burned by Covid. By the time anything was done, it was too late, and the route his adminstration took was to shut down businesses, which was the worst thing they could have ever done, second only to throwing billions of government money at it, another big reason why inflation occurred.

People used Covid, the resulting shutdowns & fear as an excuse to stop working. As the labor force contracted heavily, the manual labor needed to produce goods dried up, so companies had problems getting their goods to the marketplace, and the supply chain disruption helped to cause inflation. To get help, the companies started offering more & more money to get people to come to work, which also drove prices up. Over 4 years in, we’re still seeing shortages of grocery items due to lack of labor.

Here’s your flow chart of how we got here & who’s to blame:
> Covid hit in early 2020.
> Trump’s lack of response failed to stop or control it.
> Trump instituted shutdowns which encouraged people to stop working & going out.
> Prices rose as a result of lack of labor & scarcity of goods/services.
> Prices rose further due to the influx of gov’t money through Trump’s SBA programs.

Trumps name is all over the inflation we’re experiencing today. If your main concern right now in your choice for president is the economy & inflation, why vote for Trump when he caused it in the first place?

There are only a few ways to contain inflation, and one of them isn’t throwing more money into the economy to battle high prices as you only feed the inflationary monster, not slay it. Increasing wages & easy gov’t loans only added fuel to the fire. We can’t become a communist country & order companies to stop raising prices, but that would be a decent solution as most of the rise in prices is due to corporate greed pushing the envelope by increasing prices well beyond the rate of inflation. Some building products & food products have increased by double what they were before Covid; we’re talking about a 100% increase in prices when inflation has only increased prices overall since 2019 by just 15% over and above the nominal 1.5% increase we normally see annually.

Jimmy Carter’s adminstration saw interest rates as high as 18% in 1980 to try and stop inflation & it caused a recession that lasted over a decade that was only tempered by a rising stock & bond market. Today’s Fed did a much better job in raising the Federal Funds rates just enough to choke off inflation and is now in the process of easing, but it may take until the end of 2025 or into 2026 to see mortgage rates come back to the 5% to 6% range that historically has been a good range for sustainable economic growth without stifling or overstimulating it.

Would you associate with, do business with or befriend someone who had been found guilty of sexual assault & had advocated for sexual assaults in audio/video recordings?

What about someone whose businesses had filed bankruptcy multiple times? Would you trust this person & do business with him or his companies knowing that you may not get paid if his companies file bankruptcy again?

Would you trust someone who has been a proven repeated liar?

Would you respect someone who has committed adultery numerous times?

What about someone who is alleged to have attempted & committed Federal and/or State crimes numerous times?

No to all of the above?? Then why would you VOTE for someone like that??

I get it that your principles are strong & that voting against the other side’s principles may seem so important that voting for an evil candidate of the “correct” party is justified, but YOU have to have the proper principles to not vote for someone in legion with evil in order for your party to win, as you (and all of us) lose either way. History has been down this road before and it ended badly when the wrong person was elected simply due to politics, fear & popularism more than once — Adolf Hitler, George Wallace, David Duke, etc. You have to be willing to vote for politicians who have decency & respect for the laws & for mankind itself even if it means your candidate doesn’t win. You can act like a supporter outwardly if politics among your family & friends is important, but when you go into that voting booth, you have to choose the better person regardless of your politics & socio-connections & no one has to know you did the right thing in the privacy of that voting booth.

Wearing pink to raise awareness of breast cancer is pointless virtue signaling, i.e., broadcasting an opinion or support for something you really don’t care about or don’t understand in the first place. The same thing is happening now with “support” of Alzheimers.

A number of organizations & businesses are lighting their buildings in the color teal today (Fri, Nov. 1, 2024) in support of people with & a cure for Alzheimers. It’s pointless and has no effect on the disease & is just a waste of time & money. The only thing that will help is more research to find a cure & effective treatment. People who have Alzheimers & their caretakers don’t need your support or concern — they need treatment & a cure.

The “pinkwashing” support for breast cancer has been going on now for 30+ years and it’s done little to stop breast cancer or to lessen its impact on society. According to the Maurer Foundation, whose mission statement is to promote BCA, breast cancer rates for women under 50 have remained stable since 1985 when the BCA movement started, and breast cancer rates for women over 50 have remained stable since 2002.  There was a spike in cancer rates in the 90’s  simply due to overdiagnoses, which means either finding breast cancer that didn’t need to be treated, or finding something that was believed to be breast cancer, but wasn’t — a false positive. 

In every 1,000 women, according to research done in 2015 by a group funded by the Norwegian Cancer Society, appx 200 of them either get a false positive, and up to 50 more women of them either have a cancer overdiagnosed, or are later found to not have cancer after a biopsy is done, and 3 of them get cancer in-between screenings, which means screening didn’t find it as it became visible only between visits & screeening did no good.  That means 25% of women who get screened are not being served by the screenings and will be falsely diagnosed or incur medical bills & a lot of mental anguish for nothing.  Only 2 out of 1,000 will be saved by the screens. What affects it is the medical community doing more to get women screened for it, not the general public making people aware of it by wearing a pink ribbon or pink clothing.

In fact, the guidelines we go by today have caused some trouble as we’re seeing more false diagnoses and more unnecessary procedures that are painful & costly & mentally burdening, which the medical community say is a necessary by-product of better screening, but it’s because current screening isn’t good enough to determine what’s cancer and what isn’t.

Lately, the cancer rate for women under 40 has stalled, meaning we’ve reached the bottom of the curve for them, though the rate is trending downward slightly for those over 40. However, this has nothing to do with people wearing pink in the general public. It’s due to what the medical community has done in the past decades to find it.

Kamala suspended her 2020 Presidential campaign before 15 other candidates did, which you can infer means that 15 other candidates had more support, or at least the same support she had, which is little to none. Most people who met & talked with her & listened to her speeches didn’t like her for one reason or another. She’s not likable, and that’s a major consideration for President that you can only overcome if your opponent is even less likeable than you, and Trump fits that mold well. There are obviously way less Trump supporters now than he had in 2020 & way way less than 2016. The more you get of Trump, the less you want.

How could that change inside of 4 years? Just because she’s the VP shouldn’t mean she’s the one Dems should put forth as the next Presidential candidate. Biden was VP for 8 years and the Dems went with Hillary, who would’ve done a better job than Biden in my opinion. For one thing, she had a former 2-term President as a non-paid advisor in her bedroom, when he’s not in someone else’s bedroom at least.

It surely can’t be because Biden endorsed her. This is the same doddering & confused old man that the Dems didn’t want as President just last week, so why would anything he says be elevated to that level of importance, like helping to decide who the next Democratic Presidential candidate will be?

The Dems tried running a women in 2016 & it failed, and against the same man they’re facing now. Hillary had a lot more Dem & independent support, so why do they think it will work now? Obama was half-black, so you figure that being half-black not only isn’t a liability, it’s a plus as it gets you all the black vote and gets blacks turning out to vote who normally wouldn’t even show up. But Obama wasn’t a woman either. Until a woman is elected President, we’re going to have this conversation, as a woman has never won the Presidency, although Kamala was on the 1st ticket to win that had a woman President or VP candidate on it (remember Geraldine Ferraro from 1984?)

I also don’t think it will soon matter who the Dem candidate is, as Dems will start winning the battleground states for good as more minorities are born & turn out to vote along with students, at least as long as the states keep it easy to vote by having weeks to vote & accepting/encouraging absentee ballots & no ID.

It appears that the battleground states of Georgia & Arizona may soon always be Dem states from here on out, but the coup de grace is that Texas may flip within the next election or two. In 2020, Trump won Texas with only 52% of the vote. If the Dems can flip that state, it’s all over but the crying for the GOP. Alaska was also only 52% for Trump, but of little relevance. NC was won by Trump with a slim 1.3% margin and less than 50% of the vote and that could flip Dem in 2024. Florida is still a slender GOP state that once was Dem & could flip back as Trump won with only 51% there. Both of those states would give as insurmountable a Dem lead as winning Texas would.

On the flip side, Minnesota, Virginia, New Hampshire & Maine have always been strong Dem states, but the Dems only won 52% to 53% in those states that year and could be future battleground states. Arizona & Georgia were surprisingly battleground states who typically voted GOP & went Dem instead, and former DEM strongholds like NV, PA & WI are now battleground states that could go either way or flip permanently GOP as Ohio seemingly has. VA is rumored to be in play for the GOP in 2024, but I don’t believe it any more than Iowa possibly being in play for Dems.

An actor is not an expert on guns or ammo. It is not the actor’s job to ensure a gun is safe to use or has blanks. That’s why they have an Armorer & a Safety Coordinator. The only requirement is that the gun being fired is a safe distance from anyone, which is recommended as being 6 feet.

Halyna Hutchins stood only 2 feet away from Baldwin (within the range of injury even from a blank) & was instructing him on how to fire the weapon and where to point it when it accidentally discharged according to Baldwin. She should have known better and would have if safety meetings had been held on a regular basis to pound home the danegers of prop weapons.

Baldwin’s claim of an accidental misfire by the gun on its own is corroborated by evidence that on at least 2 occasions just days prior, weapons had accidentally discharged on set, probably due to faulty triggers or hammers, which should have been caught & corrected by the Armorer (Gutierrez-Reed) & mainly the Safety Coordinator (Dave Halls) & especially the Line Producer (Gabrielle Pickle), who’s mainly in charge of production, and there should have been plenty of safety meetings telling people not to point at anything you don’t want to shoot & to stand a minimum of 6 ft away from the gun, and to mainly ensure all rounds on set are blanks, which can be done by experts like Halls & Gutierrez-Reed

However, Ms Gutierrez-Reed wasn’t even the Armorer on the day the incident happened. She had been transferred strictly to Props & was told not to conduct anymore training or safety meetings or act as Armorer by Gabrielle Pickle, the Line Producer.

Once you read the report which you can find online by the NM State OSHB (the state’s equivalent to OSHA), you may determine that Gabrielle Pickle, who was in charge for the most part & ignored many safety concerns according to the report, and the Safety Coordinator of the film, Dave Halls, were responsible for her death, as Halls is the one who loaded the live rounds in the gun & also handed the gun to Baldwin, not Gutierrez-Reed.  Why they haven’t been charged is unusual in my opinion. You can find this report online. Halls was involved in other gun safety incidents on other films.

Calling someone an atheist has been a pejorative term for the most part used by those who believe in religion. My thought is, why have a term for someone who doesn’t believe in religion unless it’s pejorative? There’s no term for someone who doesn’t believe in a flying yellow cheese god of which we have no proof of its existence, but ironically, there is a term for those who believe in that — we call them “crazy”. If you believe in a flat earth, people call you a flat earther; they don’t call the rest of us anything because we’re not stupid enough to believe in a flat earth. There’s also no word for people who don’t believe in the moon hoax or who don’t believe in astrology. I simply don’t believe in religion and we don’t need a term for that unless there are so many people who do believe in religion & who want to control minds & hearts & money, and therefore use the term to denote & denigrate those who aren’t part of the group.

It amazes me that otherwise intelligent people believe in religion without investigating its claims, but a lot of them haven’t as they’ve been indoctrinated into it from an early age, and religion has a strong psychological hold on people due to that. Many people are afraid to “take the red pill” & learn the truth because religion has convinced people that those who don’t believe in it are evil. Each religion has convinced its followers that their religion is the only true one above all the other 3,000 religions that have come and gone or otherwise remain, and that you must have faith & believe in it regardless of a lack of any scientific evidence of it being true, and that even if you don’t believe, you should still offer fealty to it “just in case you’re wrong”. We don’t hang garlic cloves over our doors just in case vampires exist. God, Allah, Vishnu, Jeses, Satan, angels, Heaven, Hell — none of this exists in reality & never has & never will. It’s all fairy tales made up to control societies & wealth. 

If you believe in a religion, you are an “atheist” to the other 2,999 religions that ever existed.  Islam says that if you don’t do what the Koran tells you to do, you will suffer an eternity in Hell, but you don’t lose sleep over that if you believe in another religion.  Non-believers of religion feel about your religion the same way you feel about other religions.  Their just willing to go 1 more god further than you.

George Carlin said that interacting with most people one-on-one is a great experience (at least for a short while), but once they group together, that’s when it all goes downhill & they work to put down others who aren’t part of the group. They try to control them because it makes those in the group feel good about themselves to be looked upon as great & to have power over others.

Take for example a group of bikers, whether you call them a biker club or biker gang or whatever. Most bikers are outside of the mainstream of society & frowned upon, so they group together to feel special. In that group, like animals, they select as leaders those who are the strongest physically and/or socio-politically, i.e., the person who is the most feared and/or most-liked. Other characteristics which would help the group better in the long run such as intelligence & compassion are looked upon are liabilities since the members of the group lack empathy for others (or themselves in most cases as evidenced by their addictive behaviors & lack of a proper diet), and because bikers by and large are not intelligent.

This same type of behavior carries over to other groups such as religion. You see this in all churches, even in the same religion. Those who join the church are told that first & foremost, this is the correct religion, and that this is the best church within that religion. It’s important to elevate themselves as nobody else is going to do it otherwise, and it creates a power struggle within the group, starting with the elders who control all church business & socio-politics, including the minister. Churches are simply social clubs, just like biker clubs, bridge clubs, country clubs, etc. If you wanted to follow a religion, you don’t need a church to do so.

Science tells us a lot of truth & also gives us a lot of logic to ponder. Science tells us that we need proof that something is true, or at least a plausible theory based on the known facts. We don’t know the origin of the universe, but to ascribe it to a deity that created it is utter nonsense when there’s no proof of that. If we’re going to believe in things without proof, there’s no end to where that road would lead us.

One way to promote your group & its beliefs is to deny facts as being incorrect assumptions simply because they’re not aligned with the group’s beliefs, or to ascribe to theories that are unproven & typically make no sense. You can explain away anything you want as being true regardless of the lack of facts, or the existance of even 1 fact that, if acknowledged, would tear down the walls built by the group to shield it from the truth & perpuate the lie to serve the group’s cause, which is simply power.

Denial of facts occurs in politics also . Politics are simply another form of a group seeking to gain power over others & elevate themselves, and the way its adherents act nowadays, politics is simply another form of religion, but extremism has been around a lot longer than Donald Trump; he & his followers are just the latest iteration of it. The Woke Left is the same shoe on a different foot pointed in the opposite direction, but both are pointed in directions that are far from reasonable reality.

Groucho Marx jokingly said “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” Mark Twain said “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please”, which is essentially saying that if you took the time to search out & learn the facts, you would have to be lying to yourself knowing that you’re distorting them.

Religion & its adherents have created a lot of false narratives to buttress their argument. One of them is the First Cause which basically states that everything has a cause except God, which simply existed as the First Cause, but this flies in the face of science. Everything comes from something. A god would have to come from some kind of matter, so that matter existed before the god, and that matter that before the god came from other matter.

Scientists have no problem with the theory that everything simply exists and there’s no logical explanation for it. The Big Bang may have happened many times into infinity, with planets all going outward, then running out of steam & coming back together into a new Big Bang. There may be parallel universes we aren’t aware of. Who knows? Certainly not religion, so why should it make assumptions that can’t be proven as fact?

People who drive SUVs and other vehicles that are “blackout” (i.e., black body with black sidewall tires) are people who are trying to look like cops, which is a bad idea as it not only should be reserved for law enforcement, if a bad guy mistakes you for a cop, you could get killed. Also from a safety standpoint, black vehicles are hard to see & are way more often in accidents than other vehicle colors according to many studies.

Most people who like Classic Rock know the Eagles & know their story, and also know that Don Felder is no longer with the group as of 2001, The problem is that they THINK they know why, but from the docs I’ve read, it appears to be a lot more convoluted and I have a bit more sympathy for Felder’s position now that I know more about it, but I still don’t agree with his reasoning, only the legalities of it all.

Let me first say that I don’t know all the facts, but I don’t think anybody except them & insiders do, and they’re all under a Non-Disclosure Agreement, so they can’t legally say much about it, which is why we’re all left to speculate, but let’s at least use the facts as we think we know them based on court filings & what the parties have said publicly.

Felder wasn’t an original member, and didn’t contribute nearly as much to the group as Henley & Frey, both of which are facts, not opinions. Not saying he didn’t do big things, but not as nearly much as H&F.

I’ve always said that Felder wasn’t a crucial part of the group by 2000 since their recording heyday has passed by & being that he didn’t write much & sang almost nothing. The last 23 years have proved that point as they’re a tremendous draw without Felder just as they were with him. I always believed the group could’ve gone on with just Henley or Frey and a bunch of hired hands, which is essentially what’s happening now, but 2 of those hired hands are Walsh & Schmidt, who’ve been onstage with The Eagles for 47 years now.

Notice I said Walsh & Schmidt were “hired hands”, and I didn’t say they were “in the band for 47 years” because they’re never been “in the band”, just hired hands, and most people don’t understand and/or know that. Walsh & Schmidt got a paycheck for recording & touring, and they got writer & publishing royalties for what they wrote, but that’s it. They had no ownership of the brand or any of the music other than what they wrote, and they got no album sales royalties or profit points for concerts or other royalties, earnings & merchandising fees paid to the band. Once you know that, their position & Felder’s position starts making sense. So what was Felder legally?

When Felder joined, Henley & Frey cut Felder in to the band’s brand enterprise, as former members Bernie Leadon & Randy Meisner were co-owners of the band as well. The 4 original members’ shares went from 25% (4-way split of revenue) to 20% (5-way split), which they all agreed to as they still had the communal spirit. Felder was not a hired gun — he was a full-fledged legal part-owner of the brand. That’s where Henley & Frey screwed up, by not treating it as a business, but as a communal partnership. Felder should have been a hired gun, especially since he didn’t contribute nearly as much as Henley & Frey to the songwriting or lead vocals. Yes, he came up with the chords for Hotel California, but H&F wrote all the lyrics & changed the feel of the song to be more Rock. Felder wrote the chord changes to Victim Of Love, but H&F wrote those lyrics & worked on the arrangement, and Felder created the opening bass hook on One Of These Nights, and he co-wrote The Disco Strangler & Those Shoes, once again with H&F writing the lyrics. That’s about the total sum of anything important that he contributed in the way of songwriting.

Later on, Leadon & then Meisner sold their 20% stakes back to the band & exited the band by their own choices. At that point, Henley, Frey & Felder each owned 33.33% of the band enterprise, and Walsh & Schmidt were simply hired hands with no ownership, which is what you would expect from any band & how it should have been done with Felder. Being a hired hand with the Eagles is better than not being anything at all to them.

Felder is upset because of these points that I’m aware of:

1. H&F put together an agreement in 2000 negotiating a new monetary split for H&F, Felder & the other 2 guys which really benefitted H&F tremendously as they were to receive the lion’s share of profits from a new box set & upcoming tour. That’s only legal if Felder doesn’t agree to it, but he signed off on that deal; however, he says he was coerced & misled into signing that agreement due to lack of information he was entitled to. The box set represents past work which Felder owned 1/3rd of, and as far as future concerts, projects & merch, that would have to be by negotiation — they can’t just take any part of Felder’s 33% without his permission. The reasoning behind Felder agreeing to take less than 33% of future projects would be to work & earn money, which he needed due a pending divorce. Getting than 33% was better than getting zero, as H&F could’ve simply stopping touring & all projects & Felder would have been helpless. That’s probably what the “coercion” claim is related to; I don’t know, but I don’t see that as coercion as H&F had a right to not work if they didn’t want to work. Being that the band was an LLC, they could outvote Felder on whether they worked or not.
2. Being a co-owner, Felder had the right to inspect & audit the books of the band to see where the money was going & coming from, but he claims Henley & Frey refused to let him do that. That was mistake #2 by H&F if true, #1 being cutting Felder in as a co-owner in the first place when it wasn’t necessary.

I agree that H&F should’ve gotten the lion’s share of profits from future endeavors such as tours or new albums as they were solo stars & original members & owned 2/3rd of the band, but since Felder was a 33% owner, he would have to agree to it. H&F produced the 2000 document saying he did, which he says he was coerced & misled into signing because he wasn’t being told all the facts due to not being able to see the books. I agree that Walsh was a solo star, but he didn’t own any part of the band — the guys had wised up when Walsh & Schmidt came aboard & didn’t give them a piece of the brand.

I believe Felder was correct in not having to give up any profits on past material. I also believe he had the legal right to inspect the books upon demand as a co-owner, and I believe H&F had no legal right to kick him out of the brand, but they did have the right to kick him out of the band. They could have voted to replace him on stage, but they would still have to pay him his 33% on revenue from past projects & whatever split he agreed to in the 2000 agreement for all future concerts whether he’s there or not. This has happened before in bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Toto, Steely Dan & others where a former member is paid a share simply due to ownership issues & yet has nothing to do with the band anymore; in many cases, it’s a dead member’s estate/family suing for profits. Just because you die, your business partner doesn’t get your share of the business assets unless you specifically agreed to that in writing, and who would?

I don’t agree with Felder’s communal, equal-share split of profits position for future endeavors. I believe that if he went along with the new profit split for future work as he should have, and simply calmed down & waited for the wheels to turn that he maybe would’ve eventually received the financial info he wanted without suing & he’d still be in the band and would’ve made far more than any settlement he got, which was anywhere between $10 mil & $40 mil. He sued for $50 mil.

There are changes that must be made to the laws regarding who can be the US President & even be qualified to run for the office. But they may never get done due to politics, and mainly because it would require a constitutional amendment passed by 75% of states, which would affect mostly the red states.

People with felony convictions should not be allowed to be President or even run for the office. Felons aren’t even allowed to vote in all but 2 states. The age of candidates should also be raised to a minimum of 50 years old on the date of the election to get a more mature person. The laws preventing those who engage in insurrection should be clarified to say that those who are convicted of insurrection & sedition are barred from running or being President.

Students in April-May 2024 have been protesting Israel’s efforts in the Gaza war not because their opinions have merit, or even because they know & understand any basic facts about the issues, or because they basically don’t like Jews. They’re protesting because of a trend we’ve all been observing of teens for many decades, especially these last couple of decades . . .

They want to be liked.

Seriously. This is just a fad, and they do it so they’ll be liked by their peers and won’t have FOMO. In this age of the internet & specifically social media, people are connected in an Orwellian manner. Everybody knows what everybody else is doing, and the popular people have more followers and more “likes” on their posts. It’s like they never left high school. The y join these groups simply to fit in & be liked.

The protests mean nothing other than to the students’ narcissism. This too shall pass.