Revelations and research into the election continue from both Republican State Legislatures and from Democratic Federal Congress. But, as the story unfolds trying to indict Trump or his allies for the January 6 overrun of the Capitol, the same to-indict testimony cites evidence or arguments as to why the election may have been illegitimate and should have been reversed back in January. This doesn’t compel us to unseat Biden. Congress chose him under its privileges and powers granted by the Constitution. But with the past in the past, the only reason for Democrats to pursue Trump is that they fear his re-election because they know he would have won were it not for certain factors they don’t want the public to know about—more.
The issue at hand is not even about who should be president now, but rather what Congressional Democrats’ actions show that they know which they are not telling us. Most of all, they seem oblivious to how obvious it is to everyone but themselves.
Democrats are playing the Fool as perfectly as they always do—lots of posturing, promising, talking about the big wounds Republicans ignore, and then doing everything to make everything worse while their voters praise them for help. It irritates and excites the Republican base, opening the seas to welcome a Trump type who will actually get things done.
That’s how the Republican base sees things. The Democratic base keeps singing the lyrics from Tupac, “Still, I see no changes,” then still keeps on voting for entertainment to continue.
But, Senator Joe Manchin has about had enough. He and Bernie are against the bankrupt-us package of $3T pushed by POTUS and the entertaining Democratic Party. Mother Jones needs a lot of money fast, but broke the story on how Senator Joe might leave the DNC in order to not harm the party. Caught off guard, Joe Manchin arrived at the public position that it would be to save face for everyone—but even that had no takers from any of the ever-entertaining Democrats.
While Democrats bicker, Trump blows up Wall Street. The stock market literally had to shut down when he made a business move. Mainstream news—which is anything but profitable these days—would still have us think that Trump doesn’t matter, no matter how much Wall Street knows he does. Could the term “histrionic” apply somewhere?
Remember the good old days when Trump’s Twitter account was talk of the town? This is what happens when a president gets censored in a country with free speech.
America faces a deeper issue that whether vaccines can be mandated. We face a conflict between the Federal and State governments. The 10th Amendment is at stake. Mandating vaccines is not outlined in the Constitution. States can decide vaccine mandates on their own. Some in the Federal government don’t seem to agree.
Still, distaste for vaccines is not the fringe, idiosyncratic extremism that “vaxers” claim it is. With the head of the FOP in Chicago telling police not to get vaccinated, along with countless other objectors—including some 40% of Californian government workers—a popular demand to control “anti-vaxers” may be the largest minority oppressed in American history. The American Black population is only 12%, for which Democrats bend over backwards to help. With these forced vaccines—which go against their own campaign promises—the Democratic Party can no longer claim itself as the party that serves minorities.
Social media algorithms are a huge problem. Burning out YouTubers probably wouldn’t have hit the radar, only driven users elsewhere. But, Frances Haugen’s revelations from Facebook could be a game changer. This has full attention from both parties in Congress; more importantly, it has the attention of the American public.
The arguments says that greed directed Facebook to use “ranking” algorithms, which decide what users see on Facebook. It was purportedly safe because of AI. The moral lapse from greed is obvious. The untrustworthiness of AI is a warning for those who might follow this Google executive religion, that literally worships a man-made AI as a deity. But, no one in the discussion looks at the turning point of Facebook’s moral wandering: going public. It all started after Facebook’s IPO.
Once Facebook was publicly traded on the stock market, news stories quoted large investors angry that there weren’t more opportunities to place advertisements. Facebook stock tumbled after some bad images in the press, allowing opportunist investors to get more control of Facebook at a lower price. Now, we see the results of a heavy profit -oriented Facebook. The problem started when the company went public. Now, the problem has manifested itself through ranking manipulation. If the ranking manipulation can end across the social media empire, so many other problems would be solved. And, Facebook might be the last straw.
At the hearing, Haugen said:
If we had appropriate oversight or if we reformed 230 to make Facebook responsible for the consequences of their intentional ranking decisions, I think they would get rid of engagement ranking.
While Congress heard matters of greed and ranking manipulation in social media, the Arizona legislature dug deeper into election fraud form 2020. Nothing would undo Biden’s presidency because Congress chooses the president. But, major changes to end election fraud in the future could be soon coming. And, those who knew Trump had the vote would be vindicated, especially from attacks by a news industry that has contradicted everything coming from the Arizona hearings.
Changing social media may be the last hope for Democrats. They aren’t pushing their own political agenda because they know that their majority is not backed by the actual vote. If Biden and the House truly believed that they won the election fair and square, they would be pushing their Leftist goals hard. But, they aren’t. And, that says a lot about what they know that they aren’t telling us. So, they must join Republicans to force the issue on social media, essentially converting Facebook—and in turn YouTube—into public utilities.
When does regulation of hate become censorship of free speech? Facebook deleted content labeled as “misinformation” which is now seen as truth out of Arizona. But, movements should be larger than Facebook. If any fundamental change is to happen in a nation, it shouldn’t be from one post going viral on a website. That’s not what daily, ordinary social media platforms are for. We need daily events and lifestyle highlights to become viral. But, movements that change humanity must be bigger than anything social media could help or hinder. Such a movement is what we are looking at. Putting a stop to “ranking” algorithms was just one clip along the way of something much bigger—something that is already here and will only grow.
The US faces economic challenges. We’re about to be done with pandemic inflation—that is inflation wrought to tamp down economic fallout from the pandemic, but arguably a pandemic of inflation in itself. We can’t keep interest rates this low and we can’t keep printing money. Britain has also about had it. The West is due for a change of pace. Enter Taiwan.
China’s incursion of Taiwan’s airspace made Matt Drudge’s top three headlines this weekend. With 93 Chinese military jet incursions in three days, Taiwan says its preparing for war because it must. And, Taiwan rallies allies like Australia with the fact that Taiwan houses one of the largest IC conductor suppliers in the world.
But, consider more than just the Chinese aggression. Consider the Western economic situation.
Chinese aggression and the freedom of Taiwanese sells well to the general public. But, compassion alone does not shape global politics. China is chasing a dream of respect—which isn’t as motivating as Western economies needing a turbocharger. China isn’t just making a miscalculation on its military capacity by winning respect as the world’s bully. China is making the grave error of provoking when the allies of its sworn enemy are hungry. All eyes in the West are about to shift toward a war with China every bit as swift and embarrassing as the Opium Wars.
While China takes center stage, the Supreme Court gears up to review Roe v. Wade and gun owner rights.
A breakthrough in science could change how we make vaccines. Up until now, vaccines were made of dead viruses—but those are only trusted with viruses that don’t mutate. Corona viruses—like the flu and common cold and the COVID pneumoniavirus—do mutate. People doubt the COVID vaccines for the same reason they doubt flu vaccines. But, now we are looking at vaccines that don’t inject a piece of the dead virus, but only DNA from the mutating virus. That could be something that actually works, or it could be a disaster. We’ll have to wait and see, but it will upset everyone’s expectations.
Speaking of upsetting expectations and everyone, Congresswoman Liz Cheney wants an investigation into what happened in the White House January 2021, but there is no concern for investigating what happened at controversial, documented polling stations in November 2020. Americans don’t doubt what happened in January; some believe it was justified while others do not. Clearing up the truth about November would automatically clear up the verdict on January. So, one would think clearing up the truth of November would have priority. But, Washington priorities are not what one would think. This is a theatrical witch hunt. Accordingly, don’t expect any substantive results to come from Pelosi’s “January 6” panel.
While politicians squabble over how to chalk up 2020, billionaires squabble over philanthropy, and America marches on toward a Republican 2022. All eyes are on Justice Breyer since he’s the obvious next in line to go, and this would be the last chance for Democrats to replace a Democrat-appointee on the bench. Pride may keep him there into Republican control; we’ll see. Justices always make decisions in favor of the court. Washington always fudges in favor of Washington. And, everyone sees as it happens.
Minimum wage needs a definition. It was intended for people who have a job for the first time, like high school students who live with parents and need to learn how to show up for work. When that wage minimum is applied to long-term employee of fifteen years, something is wrong. And, raising the minimum wage is no answer.
Instead, minimum wage should be defined somehow so that it is not applied to an employee of fifteen years. One important test for whether an employee should receive minimum wage is filing taxes as a dependent or living with parents. That would create two minimum wages: one for young dependents working simple jobs and another for experienced adults who live on their own.
Why hasn’t this been discussed? Blanketly raising the floor on all wages across society doesn’t make the house stand taller, it just adds a step to climb while making the ceiling closer. That sounds more like creating a problem so a politician can campaign on fixing it.
Elections themselves are evermore in doubt. The biggest problem with election fraud isn’t in government, but with news articles about election fraud asserting that fraud claims are “unfounded” without evaluating why. That’s still going on. To quote the ENRON hearings, “One word: ‘California’.”
Even with great products, why do Disney and Apple seem to be part of the problem and not the solution? The Biblical interpretation is to examine the morals of leadership. That’s one way of explaining it.
Democrats are toast. They were played as the Fool card. All they’ve accomplished is reminding the public that Republicans aren’t so bad. Tax and spending hikes won’t work. Promising to never mandate vaccines then mandating vaccines is akin to H. W. Bush’s infamous “Read My Lips” speech in which he promised, “No new taxes.” It’s self sabotage; it may not even be intentional. With Republicans, it would likely be intentional; with Democrats, it doesn’t need to be. We can’t argue “conspiracy” on this one.
The UK doesn’t want to go near vaccine mandates, not even lockdown. It’s as if the rest of the world has moved on from COVID while Democrats in the US are still playing it for political capital. It’s much like Democrats addressing the racism issues of 1965 while campaigning in 2008, rather than addressing the racism issues of 2008 in 2008. That’s why America hasn’t seen progress on police racism. And, that’s why America isn’t seeing progress on COVID.
COVID was the “trump” card that trumped Trump in 2020. But, we’re on a new round and trump is a different suit. But, Democrats can’t figure out that they were never the trump card themselves. They always played the Fool. And in 2024, Republicans will comeback with the most dangerous popularity margin the nation has yet seen.
The culture war in America rages. Biden is a disheartened president, distraught over the loss of his son. This affects his ability to console the family of a lost soldier. The public dissents and supports along political lines because Biden hasn’t dealt with his grief of the past six years. In that context, he oversaw an exodus from Afghanistan.
Any political strategist would have known that Biden was overladen. American voters also thought so. Biden is not the enemy, but whoever put him in office with an apparent intention that things would happen as accordingly as they did. With McCarthy on the move against an evermore unpopular social media empire, it looks more and more like Biden was meant to play the fool in a Trump comeback.
The Supreme Court handed down a ruling that people can be sued, nothing new, except that it was about abortion. More and more, the Court is not as evenly divided as it once was. Recent decisions have split by wider margins than just one justice. Here, each of the four dissenters wrote their own opinion: Roberts had his usual love for bureaucracy, Breyer found his point of order to support his political ideology, while Kagan and Sotomayor loudly think abortion is constitutional anyway. Being no longer simple black-and-white in its rulings, the Court is operating closer to the healthy way it should.
The crises that brought down presidents! COVID was the prime excuse to hate Trump in his last year. It has now become the second reason to hate Biden and the reason California’s governor faces recall. Biden mainly faces the challenge of Afghanistan. A member of Trump’s former staff reminds us all.
This is the trouble with trusting politics. Republican voters trusted election polls, until rules were broken, then ignored. Democrat voters trusted the conclusion of Congress to choose Biden; now they have another Democrat in the White House to make people sick of Democrats. The cycle just keeps on.
We are looking at a Republican majority in the midterm election, as usual. Then, a possible Republican supermajority in the next general election, in which Trump will likely run and more likely win. Republicans managed a way to hold the Supreme Court through that time, which is suspicious.
No matter how good and benevolent, power corrupts and none should trust a supermajority within mankind. Fortunately, Trump isn’t seen as the immortal messiah his supporters once thought he was. Democrat voters already learned that lesson with Obama. Now, Republican voters have too.
Competence and tolerance! The Taliban has taken over Afghanistan. The former president, hated from both Taliban and a third party in Afghanistan, fled to Tajikistan. At press time, the 36-acre American embassy was near fully-evacuated if not completely. Taliban leaders pledge tolerance, cooperation, and no retribution against allies of the former government. They say they want a relationship with the United States. The American ambassador requested to stay.
Will we see peace and promises kept? That has yet to be seen, but the promise is a first step and will be remembered by God. Muslims claim to worship the God of Abraham. We’ll see the Taliban’s part in that too, and the Times will help everyone remember.
From America’s perspective, look at Biden’s leadership. Such turns of events did not happen under Trump. Biden blames his predecessor. Trump supporters may argue sowing and reaping—that coup begets coup. Biden’s election hinged on anomalous results in precincts with proven rule-breaking. That doubt was never cleared-up in the minds Trump supporters, though they have been smeared. That doesn’t seem like tolerance from the party of tolerance and choice. Nor does pressure—social, legal, or commercial—for vaccines seem like “choice” from the party of choice.
So, in the minds of Trump supporters, who may believe that coup begot coup, the Taliban’s “tolerance and cooperation” in Afghanistan may not pan out. But, we’ll have to wait and see. A promise kept from the Taliban would be welcome.
Did Trump stir the pot with his rhetoric? Maybe. But, the Capitol revolt in lieu of unresolved election irregularities and table pounding from Trump was as bad as it got. In the minds of Biden supporters—according to their votes and what followed—, the situation in Afghanistan is preferable to the Tweets of Trump. Some might reconsider their votes on both sides.
The big issue is leadership and results. Taliban strategy to take over Afghanistan did not consider the response from the former US president as much as it considered the response from the current US president. During the tenure of the current US president, the Taliban won and the US ran. Voters can see things for what they are.
Greed is off the charts. Key holders and masters of ceremony are showing their true colors. Apple reportedly profits off apps that charge money either for nothing or with shady sales terms, including casinos hidden in children’s apps. Rich and powerful, including Obama, party in large groups without masks, all while lecturing the world on vaccines and masks during a resurgence of COVID.
The greed is being seen for what it is, on full display. It exists among the very leaders trumpeting a strange kind of globalism where those leaders own even more, they obey fewer rules, create even more rules for everyone else, and where everyone else has barely enough freedom to walk to a park as the only way to enjoy the outdoors. Many would call that servitude. And, about half of American society that would be subjugated by it also applaud it—even while the greed of the would-be slave masters sets on full display.
This can indicate only one thing: God is about to put the humble on fuller display, then conquer this evil already on display. God will first show an infinitely better kind of globalism, cleaning earth by empowering more travel, knowledge, buying power, and other freedoms for all people—a “green model” the greedy elites never suggest. It will be led by Jesus when there is no more church because Jeremiah 31:34 and Hebrews 8:11 will have come to pass—when no one teaches another to know the Lord because everyone will know who brought this not-yet-discussed, true globalism. The secret will start with enforcing what Jesus was expelled for in Nazareth; the secret will be to enforce Jubilee. And, 2021 is a Jubliee year.
Fear. Pandemic protests are global. News narratives frustrate the White House. Germans and Aussies detest prevention measures. 600 were detained in Berlin. Meanwhile, Taiwan is down from a whopping 500 new cases in one day to 12. They wear masks, and check in at stores by either scribbling a name and phone number on a scrap of paper or sending a QR-code text message, then using a body-temperature hand-sanitizer combo machine. While the West divides in two paranoid groups, each calling the other paranoid, Taiwan re-opens dine-in restaurants.
Elections have consequences. They are coming, sooner for California, where a Democratic governor may have fallen out of favor and faces a recall vote. Trump raised lots of money—after losing in an election to many documented rule-breaking and suspicious-resulting precincts, in concert with Republicans who certified the rule-breaking precincts. Why would anyone suspect that Republicans helped voter fraud steal an election from one of the most popular and war-ending presidents of all time? It’s not like their party made $100M from his fundraising after he lost. No wait, they did.
That’s the problem with conspiracy theories. Most of them blame the wrong guy. If masks and other virus measures were part of a conspiracy theory, the theory should include the absolute necessity of public panic from both kinds of kooks. Without the vaxxers and anti-maskers fearing each other, America might have its numbers down to where Taiwan has. And, any election conspiracy theory should include that the RNC saw a profit in losing—just as they have for many decades.
It only grows more evident—the answers to America’s problems aren’t in any flavor of kookery, but in dropping fear and division so as to see the bigger picture.
Facebook church and vaccine passports—that’s what they said we shouldn’t fear. But, they’re here. The sultan of censorship, Facebook, is the favored platform of Hillsong’s virtual church. The problem isn’t with Facebook, but with Christian contradiction. The same people who view the online platform as having censored their champion president are the same people turning to Facebook when they get a free online video handout. Like an abused dog, they come right back to eat out of the hand that beat them.
As this “Delta Variant” of the China-centered pneumoniavirus comprises 40% of the pandemic from Florida, Missouri, and Texas, “vaccines” are the way out. If you want to drink inside rather than outside at an inside-only seating bar in San Francisco, you’ll need a vaccine card—exactly where we were promised things wouldn’t go. Of course, they have their reasons. If the promise makers were trustworthy, they’d find a way to stop those bars from making the requirements that fuel fear.
It’s not the vaccines nor the vaccine cards nor Facebook nor Sunday church that we need to fear. We should only fear contradicted living. But, in the wake of our hypocrisy, a new hope arises, celebrating people who live authentically.
Skateboarding has finally come to the Olympic Games!
This is a game-changer. And, it vindicates all those skaters who were chased by haters. Some of those kids whom house wives threw potted plants at could have medals hanging around their necks. The Times will never let history forget how much the victors are hated along the journey to the platform where the haters change their tune and hail the hated success. Hopefully history can teach more of us to not hate the good things that give us excellent results we want.
Skateboarding has become the adopted fifth element of hip hop culture, adding to DJ, MC, graffiti, and street dancing. It allows self expression to be yet one more healthy pursuit of passion that changes all our lives for the better, including mine, as Editor in Chief. Thank you skateboarding, for all you have done and will continue to do. You will always have a special place here at Pacific Daily Times.