I mean, everyone is going on and on how she is the first “Woman of Color” Vice President candidate..

But other than having sorta brownish skin, what color is she? She isn’t African, except partly through some of her fathers’s ancestors. He was from British Jamaica…

It isn’t from her mother, she is from India. 

(here for some background)

She isn’t, except for the shade of her skin, an “American” black person. Certainly not an “African-American”. 

But I guess to those DNC Liberals, all people that are darker than them are all the same….These are the same folks that think that we need lesser standards for non-whites, after all. 

 Gah. 

Had to travel to Cleveland for a deposition. (I was not the one being deposed)

Flew the 182 to Burke Lakefront Airport (BKL)… flight time was about 2 hours. Much better than the nearly 6 hour drive. (Or the 4-1/2 hour time to travel if I had flown commercial)

Flight was enjoyable. Fairly smooth, fairly uneventful. When I got to the Cleveland class Bravo airspace, I asked if they would clear me direct instead of having to go around it. They gave me clearance through, direct BKL, so that took 15 minutes off my flight time. Never hurts to ask. Sometimes you get lucky.  One almost NEVER gets VFR clearance through the class B airspace in Chicago.  Landed, taxiied, parked as the marshaller directed, tied the wings down, checked in at Signature Flight Support, and locked the plane. waited a bit for their courtesy shuttle and off I went. I got to the hotel (near the Stadium) and spent the evening looking around a nearly deserted area that is apparently usually teeming with people from football games and conventions and such. 

The downtown area near the stadium is like a scene from a dystopian novel. probably less than 10% of “normal”. Not much business travel to fill the hotels and there is NO convention business. The Hilton had rates of $129 a night, so I stayed there. It is a sad reflection of what it once was. Services are at a minimum. If it is even 10% full I’d be surprised. They have to be losing tens of thousands of dollars a day. There is only one restaurant open, and that wasn’t being used much. The food was good though. Services are at a minimum. No valet services, few bellhop services, no concierge at all, no room service, etc. Masks are, of course, required in all indoor spaces. 

Since the place I had to be in the morning was only about 2 miles from the hotel, and the evening was cool, I thought I’d walk to it and see where I needed to be, just to get some exercise in and reconnoiter the area. 

Nope, …I changed my mind about 2 blocks from the hotel (heading west)…I did not realize until then that the streets change hands at night. Gone were the smiling, happy folks, clean cut and greeting even strangers with a “hello” (while, of course, staying “Socially Distant”)…in were a bunch of much more scruffy looking folks, playing loud rap music on their car stereos and congregating closely. It looked like a scene from Mogadishu…seriously.  Lots and lots of things being offered for sale, if you know what I mean. Men squaring off and women chatting and showing off for the men. No one was in any way threatening, mind you, but it was clear that not only did I stand out in my differences, but that I, whether because I was a stranger or because I was white, was not welcome. 

I took the hint and went back to the hotel. I found the same thing about 4 blocks south as well. I ended up going back and staying in my room, as there wasn’t much to do…

The day of depositions went well and we got done about 7 pm local,  earlier than I had been told to expect, and I got an Uber to the hotel. Called 1-800 WX-Brief and decided to fly home that evening as the weather was clear, broken layer of clouds at 7500 and only about 15 knots of headwind forecast. 

Went to the FBO and untied the plane, and had them top off my tanks. I MIGHT have been able to make it, but the forecast headwind would make the trip back home with the fuel I had left marginal, so I chose to buy their (fairly expensive) fuel. 

Checked the oil, used their ladder to clean the windshield, and waited 5 minutes to check the fuel for water. Fired up and called ground for taxi.

They had me wait at 06R while a Learjet crossed to 06L, then cleared me for takeoff. However, I was afraid of the jetwash of the big Lear sitting just of my runway, so I waited….and waited…and waited. He didn’t move, and Tower called me and repeated that I was “clear to takeoff” I told ’em that I was waiting for the jet to move as I was afraid they’d blow me off the runway, so they asked him to pull up a bit and he did, then I took off. 

Climbed out on runway heading as instructed, and then turned left “West on course” when they cleared me to do so. Changed to Cleveland Departure and, again, they cleared me right through their class B airspace at 6500 feet MSL.  

I never did find that headwind. My groundspeed matched my airspeed for nearly the whole flight plus or minus a knot or two. I moved right along at about 134 knots. Pretty smooth flight in the calm air. VFR all the way. 

1.9 hours home. If I had known the winds were gonna be calm, rather than a headwind, I would not have bought the expensive gas, and paid nearly $2 less per gallon back home. But, better to land with expensive gas in the tank than none at all. 

2 hours each way is so much better than nearly 6 hours driving (each way). This a part of the reason that I own a plane….I just don’t get to use it that much for that what with the WuHan stuff these days. 

 (the above was sarcasm, just in case you weren’t aware of that)

Nevada sends nearly a quarter million votes via US Mail to wrong addresses. 

and, of course, there’s all the “rejected” ballots, (lots of reasons, some legit, some not, some caused by the voters, some caused by the USPS) that happen in Mail-in votes….

And those are just the ones where honest errors were made. How many more can be mis/un/not counted when the folks that have and interest in defrauding the voters get involved? We know that Donald Trump had to (in the last election) not only win a majority of voters, but overcome the “margin of fraud” in many “blue” enclaves. 

Why should we think that the political party that (disingenuously) tells us that it is racist to require people to prove they are who they claim to be in order to vote (Racist? Black people don’t possess government ID? Really? Or are they too stupid to get one? Too lazy to get one? Who is racist here? ) won’t continue the vote manipulation that has historically happened in Blue strongholds? 

Why, if we can go to the grocery store and the liquor store and such in a safe manner as long as we wear a mask, can we not vote safely wearing a mask? If we can march in the streets shoulder to shoulder for hours with a bunch of unmasked strangers why is standing in a line for a few minutes so dangerous? (Masked and, “socially Distanced” of course) 

One with a suspicious and untrusting attitude (such as myself) might think that there is an….underhanded reason for such changes….

 So, in addition to being Willie Brown’s “Side Piece” so she could get the appointments that have led to her current positions (some might think she had prostituted herself for those positions, but other might just say that she was “helped” by a friend…you decide for yourself) there is this to consider….

Let us not forget that a year and a half or so ago, Ms Harris said about Joe Biden, when he was accused by a bunch of women of “Inappropriate touching” that she believed those women …. “I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it.” . (to be fair to Dopey Joe, this was at the height of the “Mee Tooo” movement, where nearly every left leaning woman who could get a camera to focus on her long enough had a story to tell about a man being bad to her)…

Yet now, since she couldn’t get enough people to want her as President, she’s hitched her wagon to the star of Joe Biden….

Odd, innit, what ambition and lust for power will do to a person, especially one with a history like Ms Harris. Some people have standards and moral, then there are politicians….then folks like Ms Harris, for whom no sacrifice, no sell out is too great for advancement. 

You’d think that, if she wasn’t lying when she “believed” those women, that she wouldn’t want anything to do with a man she has all but accused of being a serial rapist. But then again, she’s sold a part of her for advancement once, what is another piece of her soul?  

 So the planned March/Protest/Riot/Shutdown of the Dan Ryan Expressway was a fizzle…

Oddly enough, when the police (the Illinois State Police, actually) stood in a line and blocked access, the protesters, already less than well organized, chose to do their protest on City of Chicago streets instead. 

Funny how that works, innit? When these folks who want to protest are not allowed to do so, when confronted with an authority that says “NO, Not Here” then they….don’t. 

If the leftist mayors in Blue cites would learn from this lesson, and NOT LET THE SHIT START, then they wouldn’t have to stop it later. 

Kudos to the ISP for not letting folks commit a Federal and State crime…and especially for not aiding them in committing one. 

 Seems that the feds investigating the “RussiaGate”  debacle by the FBI…By that I mean the malfeasance in targeting the Trump campaign to try and keep him out of the 2016 Presidential election…In essence, politicizing the FBI….have found someone they have been investigating that figures it’s easier to cooperate and plead guilty. 

I fully expect that there will be more folks that are convicted from the leads he will be providing. 

Unless, of course, he is suddenly introduced to Jeffrey Epstein. 

 Macy’s has informed it’s landlord that it will be leaving it’s Water Tower Place store location in Chicago’s “Mag Mile”. 

I guess they got tired of the looting, and the failure of the city’s Administration to provide enough police to keep the peace when looters came out of the south and west sides to break windows and steal merchandise.  The images of cops sitting in their cars, outnumbered 20:1 and helpless to intervene while (mostly) poor black folks brazenly walked through broken glass doors and windows and left with armloads of merchandise. While teams of people loaded large box trucks (some say U-Hauls) and left with tens of thousands of dollars of property. (One would have though that the cops would have taken license numbers, but what do I know?). 

Merchants cannot do business without the rule of law. 

I expect that in a year, three at most, the “Mag Mile” will not be so “Magnificent”… It will take a while, but it will soon be an empty shell, as merchants leave for safer places to do business, taking with them millions of dollars in wages, taxes and ancillary costs that will, instead, go to other, safer, communities. 

Look at Detroit and other cities where riots happened. They still haven’t recovered even decades later. 

Macey’s is just the first rock in the avalanche. 

 To my brother. 

If you were a car, you’d be a “classic”. 

 “…someone whose resume suggests being ready to step in, if and when Biden decides to step aside.“

I guess the cat is out of the bag then. We all know Biden will have to “step aside” because of failing mental faculties very soon. It is sad that they are using him this way

This gets (should they win) a fairly far Left candidate into the White House when she could not make it there on her own…

And it was CNN who brought it to the forefront. 

 What, exactly, Kamala Harris had to do THIS time to get her position as Joe Biden’s VP pick. 

I mean, it isn’t like she hasn’t “assumed a position” before, is it? 

Was in Joe himself? Or someone (or someones) else that she had to take care of. 

Enquiring minds and all that. 

You would have thought that even the DNC would have found a woman with some character to be the First Black Vice President nominee. 

I see it as giver her some payback for services rendered but they realize that Joe (and now Kamala) won’t be in the white house after Nov, so they have nothing to lose….