So in 4 different “news” casts this Saturday morning I have heard the phrase “The Supreme Court will have to interpret how the 14th amendment applies here”.

Not the real question, which is how it can apply at all??? As Mr Trump has never been charged with, nor tried for (much less convicted of) Insurrection….

Again the spin is that there was an insurrection, and it was instigated and led by Donald J Trump. They’ve spent the last few days or so telling us again and again that there  was indeed an insurrection and giving us dramatically produced and edited stories about that day, where tens of thousands of crazed Right Wing maniacs murdered Capitol police officers and stormed the Capitol building that they were defending in order to (somehow) take over the government and force them to name the Donald King King of Americka or something.

None of which is true. But the are, yet again, preparing the battlespace…using words and phrases like “the debunked claims of Election Fraud” and

One wonders how these people can say this sort of shit with a straight face.

Hoorah!

NRA’s longtime CEO Wayne LaPierre announces shocking resignation just DAYS before the start of his New York corruption trial

That slimy son-of-a-bitch should have been gone long ago. I never understood why the board allowed him to stay in his position. And I have not given a DIME to, nor promoted  anything related to, the NRA for many years because of that asshole. He did more damage to the NRA than anyone else….and wasted MILLIONS of the NRA (the member’s) money .

Good riddance.

So there’s 2 guys at the Range that actually do the day-to-day fixing and maintenance of the building and it’s systems….water filters, furnace filters, salt for the softener, Indoor air handler filters, oiling the target turners, general maintenance, caulking, fixing the toilets and door seals, and light fixtures and that sort of handyman stuff.

One of them is a guy named Larry. The other is me. We are volunteers and do it because no one else does and it needs to be done….aand we do it as we have time to do it.

Both of us have been somewhat busy and honestly, we fell down on the job.

The regular competitive shooters came to me and said that they didn’t think that the big air handler for the indoor range was working….and they were right:

The unit has three sets of filters…2 with indicator lights and one without. The first is simply a standard (cheap) furnace filter that is changed monthly… 25 x 25 x 1 inch. It gets the big soot (this filter housing was added after the original installation) The second is a thicker 25 x 25 x 5 filter that pulls most of the rest of the soot out of the air. The third is a large HEPA type bag filter. The second and third filters are original equipment on the air handler and they have indicator lights for when they are clogged. The first filter is an add-on to let a cheap filter do most of the soot filtering before it hits the expensive,  bigger filters.

Last month, I was unable to make the first week at the range (Thursday)… (which is when we change the first  filter….either Larry or I do it). But Larry was unable to make it to the meeting as well, and so the pre-filter wasn’t changed…It filled with soot and eventually collapsed and was sucked into the next filter, the 5 inch thick one…..leading to that filter being mostly clogged as well. So that filter indicator light was on, and there wasn’t much airflow happening. But everyone else just ignored the indicator light….So they were shooting indoors with, essentially, no ventilation.

The crew that complained wanted (sorta demanded) to know why no one had made sure that the filter was changed…I asked them if I or Larry was gonna get our pay cut for failing to ensure that the job was done….silence….”How much do you get paid?”

“Nothing”, was the reply. “I don’t get a dime and neither does Larry. We just do it ’cause no one else does it and it needs to be done…. If yer gonna bitch, then I suppose we can stop doing it altogether.,, Guess it’s your problem now. ”

They were all apologetic and asked if I would show them where the filters were kept and how to change ’em. They just assumed that someone was responsible and that the maintenance just happened.

‘Tis interesting…these aren’t stupid people. But they just assume that stuff is done, with no idea how it happens or who does it…or what needs to be done…and that it happens when it needs to happen because someone does it.

It is, I think, indicative of our society at large….No one knows, really, who makes sure that the power works, or that the water pipes are maintained…that the sewers are kept flowing and the natural gas lines have gas in them at the right pressure….Nor are they in any way cognizant of what has to happen to make sure those systems work.

And when those people stop doing their job, or are simply unable to so so for whatever reason, society, like the Range, will grind to a halt.

Rapidly.

And not being charged for it.

(Alternate title: Fuck around and Find out the hard way)

I so wanna live in Texas. They have their priorities set right.

Grand jury DECLINES to charge ‘hero’ vigilante who shot and killed serial thief Eugene Washington inside Houston taqueria as he was walking away after robbery

Look at it this way: He will not reoffend.

Sadly, like cabooses on trains, they are simply not needed anymore.

Electric lights replaced kerosene or carbide lamps.

Timers and electricity replaced the needs for a person to light the lamp or turn on the light. (or wind the weights that turned the light reflector).

At the end of it, like many other things and processes, automation and electricity made the lighthouse keeper obsolete.

S0 the Biden Administration is negotiating….

He’s (or whoever is pulling his puppet strings) is willing to “support a new border authority to expel migrants without asylum screenings, as well as a dramatic expansion of immigration detention and deportations“ in exchange for more funding for Ukraine. 

Think about this. He’s willing to stop letting people enter (and stay) illegally into the United States, in exchange for giving even more of our money, money ta the United States doesn’t have (so a deficit) to Ukraine, (and, one assumes, with the appropriate gratuity to the “Big Guy”).

Hes holding our country hostage and wants us to pay the ransom to Ukraine.

IF ever there is evidence that he doesn’t have the welfare of the Untied States and it’s citizens as his first though and priority, that his loyalties are for sale, this is it.

Oddly, we didn’t see all these illegal border crossers during the Trump years…

Under the Biden Administration, there is no additional money in the budget for more Border Patrol agents.

But there was, oddly, enough money for 78,000 (yes, seventy-eight Thousand) new ARMED IRS agents.

Biden and his handlers WANT more illegals and they are gonna tax the hell out of you to pay for them.

Isn’t just our internal economic pain. It isn’t the inflation, the deficit, the ever rising supply of dollars…

It is the fact that the world is finding other currencies to use for international debt settlement.

The US dollar will soon be Just Another Currency, rather than the premiere medium of exchange.

And without that prestige and utility, the value of the Dollar to other countries will decline. Leading to all sorts of issues. Why buy dollars when other currencies will do just as well for settling debts?

All part of that “Fundamentally Changing of the United States” that Barry Soetoro promised us.

Of course, this change is making the US a lesser country, but he did promise change….

“Teens”

“Young People”.

It’s always the same code words.

Those damned Amish Yoots. always causing trouble.

So the mayors of Chicago and New York tried to stem the tide of illegal immigrants (The news media is now calling the “Migrants”…leaving out the “illegal” part…) being dropped off in their city…they have mandated that busses arriving be scheduled, and limited.

So Texas is simply dropping them off in the suburbs….in towns close to the Blue cities.

And the cites are unhappy that hey can’t stop the tide of illegals that arrive in their space and demand housing, food, and shelter.

Funny, they won’t do anything to stop the tide of illegals coming over the border into Texas and New Mexico….they still encourage border crossers, and haven’t decried Biden’s border policies.

But they are greatly unhappy that Texas is still succeeding in dropping off (some of) their unwanted boarder crossers. Plus this in Chicago

After all, no one is scheduling all those folks crossing the border into Texas, are they?  And Biden wants to prevent Texas from enforcing the state laws keeping illegals out of Texas..

Share the Pain, Isn’t that part of the Socialist Mantra?