I know there's a pony in here somewhere ...

A boy keeps pestering his parents for a pony for Christmas. 

Every day he keeps asking.  He writes Santa for a pony.  He whines. He prays, loudly.  He just keeps nagging and nagging.  As Christmas draws near, he pushes even harder.    

His parents have finally had enough.  So Christmas Eve, while he’s asleep, to teach him a lesson the parents put a couple of road apples in a box and place it under the tree for him. 

The next morning, he rushes to the tree and opens the box.  He sees the road apples. He looks around and says: “I know there’s a pony in here somewhere.”

That about sums up the Democrats’ reaction to the Mueller report. 

The Mueller report turned out to be a great disappointment for them: no evidence of collusion, no obstruction of justice, no indictments of Trump and his associates. This, after almost three years of investigations, 2800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, and 500 witness interviews.

Their reaction? They still think there’s a pony for them in there somewhere. 

A very recent poll of Democrats – after the release of the Attorney General’s summary of the report – showed that 59% don’t accept the results of the Mueller probe.

Remember, Democrats were absolutely, positively certain Mueller would get the goods on Trump; the goods they needed to convince the public Trump was a traitor and should be impeached if not imprisoned. The media kept saying the same thing for two years, day after day, night after night, promising that the “walls were closing in” on Trump and he was about to fall.   

Then the summary comes out. Nothing. How could that possibly be? 

House and Senate Democrats are now demanding to see the full, unredacted report. They insist that until they have a chance to review every last line, every witness interview, every bit of testimony before the grand juries, every piece of “evidence” Mueller and his team uncovered, they won’t be satisfied. Until then, and even after then, they will continue to investigate Trump.

They keep hoping against all evidence to the contrary that they will find something, anything, any thread to pull to prove Trump colluded with the Russians and obstructed justice. And if they can’t find anything related to those, they’ll go after Trump’s taxes, his business dealings, his affairs, his possible collusion with space aliens or replicants from the planet Gorgo, whatever.   

Years from now they’ll still be investigating. They’ll keep hoping to find something. 

Right now they’ve got nothing but road apples. Rather than accept the real conclusion, they’ll keep searching and searching. 

Because everyone knows where there’s road apples, there must be a pony. 

Sorry, but your kids are stupid …

Somebody needed to say this.  And I will.  It’s the truth.

I know all parents think their kids and grandkids are brilliant.  They see their kids or grandkids use a tablet or text on a smartphone and are amazed. 

I’m not.

Want to see how smart those kids and grandkids really are?

Ask them to do simple math without a calculator, tablet, smartphone, or computer – nothing complex like finding a square root; just basic addition, multiplication or division.  What’s 25 plus 17, for example.  What’s 7 times 8?  Divide 85 by 5?  Again, no cheating by using a separate device besides paper and pencil.  For the bonus round, ask them what 15% of 300 is. 

These are not tough questions; ordinary run-of-the-mill third graders used to be able to answer these. Now some college grads can’t. Some of them can’t even figure out how to make change if the cost of something is $2.08 and you hand them $2.25. 

Okay, you’ll say, they’ve never been good with math. Neither were you, you’ll say. So let’s skip math for a moment and move on. Let’s ask about the country where they live.   

You know, the United States of America. That one.     

Ask them what happened in 1776. Ask them how many states there are.  How many branches of the Federal government there are and what each is called?  Ask them how many members there are in the US House of Representatives, and how many US Senators there are.  How many Justices are there on the US Supreme Court? I bet a lot of recent college grads can’t get every one of these right.   

Knowing how to use a calculator, a tablet, a smartphone, or how to do a search on the Internet does not qualify anyone as brilliant, any more than knowing how to use a toaster does.  A lot of what parents perceive as super intelligence in their kids is just knowing which buttons to push.   

Let’s be honest. Without a lot of electronic help your kids and grandkids are fundamentally stupid. At least when it comes to what every citizen over the age of 12 should know.       

And as far as your kids and grandkids under 12, and especially your budding geniuses under 6 you’re so proud of, you need to realize that tapping on a picture icon is not a mark of genius. 

You can train rats and even pigeons to do that; does that make rats and pigeons as smart as your kids?  Perhaps not. 

But in terms of common sense, my money’s on the rats and pigeons. They know how to survive on their own; they know how to adapt.  I’m not so sure your kids and grandkids can. 

Now, I’m not saying your kids and grandkids don’t have the innate ability to learn. They do.  But they have to be taught. By you. By competent, honest teachers. Within a structure and curriculum that challenges them and forces them to master what they actually need to know. 

Not simply which buttons to push.  Or what to parrot back to please a teacher.

When they are young, they need to be taught facts, not opinion, or “experimented” on with the latest teaching theory du jour. They need to be taught to be skeptical, to ask questions without fear of offending someone or being held up to public ridicule by their teacher or their peers.  They need to learn to value knowledge over blind conformity. 

They need to learn to think, question, and discover what’s real, in other words.  

They also need to learn to read more than a tweet.   

And most of all, they need to stop buying what’s really shameless propaganda promoted by some teachers about science, American history, and our culture.

That’s where you – parents and grandparents – come in. Take a peek sometime at what your kids are being taught. Don’t just presume that all teachers are honest and doing a great job. Some are and a lot aren’t, anymore.  Some still have their jobs only because their union protects them. Some see their job less as teaching actual facts than converting students to their point of view. 

When you find one off the rails, spewing nonsense, call them out. When you find one bullying students into accepting their opinions as fact, expose them and move for their dismissal.    

If your kids are stupid it’s partially your fault if you don’t

Yet another bozo on the crazy bus ...

And the Democrat sideshow continues. 

“Beto” O’Rourke has thrown his hat into the ring.  He’s running for President.

Then again, who isn’t? 

So we now have privileged white guy that's a fake Hispanic – Beto (real name, Robert) O’Rourke –  who is about as Hispanic as I am Chinese, who was once charged with burglary, once charged with a DUI (and leaving the scene of an accident), once wrote a first-person fantasy about mowing down and killing two children in a crosswalk, once wrote a poem about a cow “buffing” his balls, told a reporter he'd tear down the border walls in El Paso if he could, and who now claims that he was "born" to run for President, yet doesn’t seem to have any concrete ideas about what he’d do if he actually became President.     

Chris Matthews thinks he's Kennedy-esque. I'm thinking Joe or Ted, maybe.  

At last count, we also have:

A fake African-American (with Jamaican/South Asian parents) who slept her way to big public jobs in California, who as District Attorney in San Francisco refused to go for the death penalty for the murderer of a police officer and was publicly rebuked by Diane Feinstein for that, claimed she smoked weed and listened to Tupac and Snoop Dogg while in college (although neither of them put out any recordings until years after she left college) – Kamala Harris.

A fake Native American who lied about it to get a position at Harvard – Elizabeth Warren. (Do I really need to say any more about her?)

An unrepentant socialist who honeymooned in the USSR, travels only on private jets and owns three homes while railing about climate change and income inequality, and whose wife is under investigation for shady financial deals when she ran a college – Bernie Sanders.

A former mayor of Newark who can’t say where millions in donations to fix public education in his city went, and referred to himself in a Congressional hearing as “Spartacus” – Corey Booker. 

A US Senator from Minnesota with a history of being abusive to her own staff, who ate a salad with her comb because a staffer forgot to get proper forks and then told that staffer to wash her comb – Amy Klobuchar. 

A former mayor of Denver who, despite starting a successful private business (a brewing company) and dabbling in real estate development, and made a lot of money as a capitalist is still not sure he’s really a capitalist – John Hickenlooper. 

A US Senator from New York who is a leading advocate for women’s rights and the #metoo movement yet had one of her own aides resign in protest over how she handled that aide’s claim of sexual harassment against another of her senior staffers, is a former pal of Harvey Weinstein and current pal of Hillary and the sexual predator-in-chief Bill Clinton – Kirsten Gillibrand.  

A US Representative from Hawaii, and former Iraq combat-zone veteran who once lobbied against LGBT rights as late as 2005 but now has “evolved” to support the LGBT community, and who once travelled to Syria to meet with and show her support for keeping the mass murderer of his own people and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in place – Tulsi Gabbard.   

And waiting in the wings to jump in at any time, a former US Senator from Delaware and former Vice President, who plagiarized his way through college, and once said you can’t go into a convenience store to buy cigarettes without an Indian accent, everyone’s favorite weird uncle and groper-in-chief – the gaffe-master himself, the one, the only, Joe Biden.

Quite a list.  Those are just the big names.  All of them publicly support the Green New Deal.  All of them support Medicare for all.  All of them are opposed to securing our borders.  All of them support amnesty for illegal immigrants.  All of them support some form of socialism. I believe all of them have also come out in favor of reparations.  

Quite a lot of folks jumping on the crazy bus. Beto’s just the latest bozo. 

Maybe when they go to the Democrat debates, they can all pile out of one little clown car wearing big shoes and red noses.

Seems appropriate to me.

The real reason Democrats are pushing Medicare for all ...

Democrats love promoting Medicare for all.

It’s catchy.  It sounds like something free. It promises guaranteed and comprehensive healthcare to everyone.  Regardless of age.  Regardless of anyone’s ability to pay. Regardless of pre-existing conditions.  And without having to deal with self-serving, greedy insurance companies.

It’s the perfect message for the ever-growing mooch market in America – those who won’t work and those who want something for nothing. Millennials in particular love the idea. Surprised? 

That alone is one big reason why Democrats are pushing it.

In reality, for most seniors who worked most of their lives Medicare is not and never has been free.  I pay a monthly charge for Medicare, as do millions of other seniors.

This is in addition to what I paid into it through mandatory payroll deductions for decades.  Those payroll deductions continued to rise over the years. I didn’t have a choice.  And today my monthly charges for Medicare continue to rise as well. 

Let’s all forget about the myth that Medicare is a gift from your generous Uncle Sam.  It’s not.   

Medicare is just another form of health insurance.  It doesn’t cover much, either, so you end up buying supplemental insurance to cover what basic Medicare doesn’t.  It doesn’t automatically cover prescription drugs, so you’ll need supplemental insurance for those, too. 

All told you’ll spend at least $300-$400 or more a month for halfway decent coverage.  

That’s about how much I paid for each of my employee’s coverage through Blue Cross or Aetna a few years ago. They got a lot better coverage for my money, however. 

At best, Medicare is better than nothing. But if you took all the money you paid in over the years, and the money you still have to pay now when you’re eligible, it’s not a great bargain.

Medicare for all only sounds good if you think it will be free no matter how old or well-off you are.  That Democrats keep avoiding the issue of who will pick up the tab is telling.    

Now, I wouldn’t be opposed to Medicare for all if everybody who took it paid for it. That’s probably what Democrats are ultimately planning but not saying.  A lot of the zing with Medicare for all goes away if they reveal that.   

I doubt many would voluntarily pay for it for all the decades they were forced to contribute by the Feds, and then have to pay even more to use it when they’re old enough to be eligible. That’s why the Medicare for all proponents quietly are coupling their scheme with eliminating the private health insurance industry altogether. 

Medicare for all only works if there’s no competition.  Right now there’s a lot. 

That’s a problem for the Medicare for all advocates. 

Employer-provided health insurance already covers about 150-million American workers. Those workers are also forced to pay into Medicare, too. That’s the overwhelming majority of the American workforce.  So most American workers already have health insurance. 

That insurance works just fine for most. Most people covered by employer-paid health insurance like it. You rarely hear that yet it’s true.   

Why then does anyone want to eliminate this in favor or Medicare for all? 

Simple. It’s a back-door way to get to single payer. 

The real reason behind the Democrats’ desire to get to single payer – the government – is not to provide better, more efficient, and less expensive healthcare.  It’s to take total control of healthcare.  That way politicians and bureaucrats decide who gets what, who qualifies for what procedures, and who gets what services for free and who pays through the nose for those same services to subsidize the rest. 

It's the ultimate power to play politics with taxpayer money. 

Politicians and bureaucrats can then decide that gender reassignment surgery for a 12-year-old is covered. That all abortions are covered.  Maybe liposuction for fat 15-year-olds.  Breast implants for adolescent boys.  They can also decide that all illegal immigrants and their families are automatically covered. They can pander to every special interest group under the sun.   

Yet they can also decide that knee or hip replacements won’t be covered if you’re over 70.  Nor organ transplants or open-heart surgery if they decide you’re too old.  Or that a Pacemaker for a 75-year-old isn’t covered because of their age but end-of-life drugs for the same individual will be.

In essence, politicians and bureaucrats will decide the cost/benefit of improving or extending someone’s quality of life.  Or even life or death.  That should scare everyone.   

That’s the power they seek.  That’s behind Medicare for all. 

Generation Duh ...

The Greatest Generation begat the Boomers.

The Boomers begat Gen X.  Gen X begat the Millennials.

Or as I prefer to call them:  Generation Duh. 

Generation Duh will probably begat no one.  We’re stuck with them for a while. 

That’s too bad because they are without a doubt the most aggressively ignorant generation in American history.   It’s not entirely their fault, however – they’ve been guided into willful stupidity by a variety of forces over the years.  Over indulgent parents, teachers, clueless guidance counselors, the media, Hollywood and celebrities have convinced them to embrace their lack of knowledge as a great thing.

That they are also perhaps the most depressed generation – given their reported use of therapists, as noted by the WSJ – frankly surprises me. I was always told that ignorance is bliss; consequently, they should be the happiest people on Earth.  But they’re not, for some reason. 

Maybe they’ve been taught they should be depressed. Wouldn’t surprise me.    

Trying to overcome their abject ignorance about the world in general is like pushing a rope. 

They don’t have any grasp of history, American or otherwise, except how evil we’ve always been to our own indigenous people, blacks, women and immigrants. How the Founding Fathers were slave owners.  How we’re solely responsible for poisoning the planet.  And how we continue to be the main source of pain, suffering and economic injustice here and abroad. 

That’s what they were taught in school. Seriously. 

They don’t understand science. They don’t understand basic economics.  They don’t understand why capitalism works and socialism doesn’t.  Or even why some people earn more than others.  

They don’t know how our government is supposed to operate, how laws are made, why we have a Constitution and why the Bill of Rights is such an important part of it.  

To learn any of the above they’d have to read a book, or at least more than a couple of sentences online.  That’s a lot to ask of a generation with the attention span of a mayfly.  Besides, book knowledge is irrelevant to them; it’s old news. 

They have absolutely no interest in learning anything that might interfere with their world view.

What they “believe” is all that matters.  And what they believe does not come from books. Or from actual experts who know the facts.  Instead, it comes from social media, and from celebrities who know even less than they do in most instances. 

That makes Generation Duh amazingly gullible; as gullible and ignorant as the social-media stars and celebrities in whom they’ve mistakenly placed their faith. If it’s trending it must be true.  If an Instagram star or rap artist says it, it must be true.  If a movie star says it, it must be true. 

That’s all they need to know. It’s been validated.  

No need to look any further; no need to investigate – end of story.  They have all the proof they need.  Plus, it’s easier that way.  They can go back to posting selfies, playing video and online games, or whining about how unjust the world, especially the US, is.    

Generation Duh is easy prey for the media and dishonest politicians, especially by those on the left.  Particularly when the message is that nothing is their own fault, but the fault of mysterious insidious forces conspiring against them.  This rings true to them. They love a conspiracy.   

We shouldn’t be surprised. Their entire lives they’ve been told that nothing bad is their fault. There’s always another culprit to blame.     

They got a bad grade because it’s the teacher’s fault. Or they have some medical condition.  Or they were upset because someone bullied them online.  Or they stayed up too late texting their friends.  It can’t simply be because they didn’t study, didn’t go to class, or didn’t do the work.  There’s always another explanation that removes them from any responsibility.   

They can’t pay back their college loans because they can’t get a job. They were always told that a college education would guarantee them a job, and a good paying one at that. That’s why they didn’t worry when they ran up thousands in debt to pursue a degree in French Poets of the 16^th Century, or Post-Modern Gender Issues, before they dropped out after a year or so. 

Now they can’t find anyone willing to hire them, much less pay them the big bucks they were expecting.  Clearly, somebody lied to them.  The folks that loaned them the money lied.  The college lied. They shouldn’t have to pay back the loan. It’s not their fault. 

It’s always something. Some excuse. Somebody else’s fault.

They are ripe for manipulation.  All a politician has to do is embrace their victimhood.  Tell them it’s going to fine and they’ve been right all along – it is always someone else’s fault. You’ve been lied to. You’ve been deceived.  And now it’s payback time.      

So you won’t have to pay back your loans. You can go to college for free.  You’ll get paid a “living wage” no matter what you do – that is, if you even choose to work, which you don’t have to, and you’ll still get paid. And you don’t have to worry about healthcare – it will be free, too. 

Who tells them this nutso crap?       

Just watch TV.  It’s the old familiar leftists and the new clueless ones.  It’s also practically everybody running to be the Democrat nominee for President in 2020, which is pretty much the same old familiar leftists plus the wannabe “cool kids” hoping to win over the Generation Duh with promises of unicorns for everyone, solar-powered cars and planes, and free money. 

Should the rest of us worry? I don’t think so. 

There are more of us than them.  And unlike Generation Duh – that likes to gather to protest, well, just about anything – we actually show up to vote, instead of simply bitching about everything.  Generation Duh has proven time and again, with rare exceptions, they can’t be bothered to vote. 

So why does Generation Duh get so much media coverage? It’s because they remind a lot of people in the media and die-hard liberals of themselves decades ago, when they were full of hopes and dreams and aspirations for a better and more just society. 

But Generation Duh isn’t really like them; the members of Generation Duh don’t actually know what they’re protesting against, or what they’re protesting for.  See what happens when someone tries to interview one of them during a protest.  They’re clueless. 

Are there exceptions? Sure. 

We can only hope they’re the ones who reproduce and have big families.  We need them. 

I suspect the other ones will be too busy texting.  

Our modern-day Bolsheviks ...

One meaning of the word Bolshevik in Russian is “one of the majority.”

The party chose it to imply that Bolsheviks represented the majority of Russians, when in fact they were a tiny minority of the Russian population. It was clever way to make them appear far more important than they really were. 

I’ve thought of this little historical tidbit many times in recent years. 

It’s made me skeptical any time someone claims the “majority” agree with them.  Or that a “majority” hold one belief or another.  Is it really a true mathematical majority of the whole or a majority of a carefully constrained subset? In essence, is it really a majority? 

Or is it, like the Bolsheviks, falsely claiming a majority that’s not real? 

Democrats and progressives on the left want everyone to believe they represent the majority of Americans.  They cite the popular vote won by Hillary and taking back the House in the recent midterms, plus their growing followings on social media as signs America’s on their side. 

Of course, these don’t really prove anything.  It’s an empty claim. 

But that doesn’t stop them. They are our modern Bolsheviks. 

You see this kind of false “majority” claim all the time. 

We’re told the majority of Hispanics here oppose cracking down on illegal immigration.  And that Hispanics in general think our immigration laws are racist.  

That’s what politicians and the media want us to believe.  It’s what scares the hell out of establishment Republicans: they’re afraid that pushing for a border wall and stricter immigration enforcement will drive Hispanic voters into the arms of Democrats now and in the future.

Is there any basis for that?  Probably not.

I’ll bet Hispanics who are American citizens here don’t want illegal immigration any more than non-Hispanic citizens. If anything, Hispanics who are American citizens, especially those who went through the lengthy and expensive legal process to become citizens, may be even more opposed to illegal immigration than non-Hispanic citizens. 

Recent surveys of legal Hispanic US citizens bear that out. 

I suspect illegal Hispanic immigrants have one opinion; legal Hispanic citizens quite another. It’s like polling people in prison on whether our penal code’s too strict.  What do you expect? 

To me, it’s just another case of a false majority claim.  There are too many. 

I can’t believe the majority of Americans think building a wall on our southern border is racist, or somehow immoral. I can’t believe the majority of Americans think sanctuary cities are a good idea. Or that illegal immigrants are entitled to the same government benefits as US citizens. 

Much less that the majority of Americans want to get rid of the Electoral College.  It may be the prevailing opinion among frustrated Democrats still smarting over the 2016 election, but they are nowhere near a majority of Americans by any measure – at best, Democrats are only 20-25% of the population.   

I don’t buy that the majority of Americans favor blanket forgiveness of student-loan debt.  Maybe the people who don’t want to pay back their loans support blanket forgiveness but most of us don’t. Nor do I accept that a majority believe all public colleges and universities should be tuition free, once someone explains what that would cost everybody in taxes.  

I don’t care what the cherry-picked polls report. For good reason. 

Surveys and polls are always tricky and can be easily manipulated to get the result you want; this is something everyone in the survey and polling industry knows. It all depends on who and how many you ask.  How the sample was drawn.  Who did the polling. 

And most importantly, how any specific question is framed. 

So if you ask: would you be in favor of cancelling the Trump tax cuts for the rich and use the increased revenue to help struggling students pay off their college loans, you’ll get one result.  If you ask: are you willing to pay higher taxes so others with outstanding student loans don’t have to pay them back, you’d get quite a different result. 

These are essentially the same questions, framed differently. That’s how the game is played.  

It’s like questions about the border wall. Ask if we should increase border security by adding barriers and more agents to keep out illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and human traffickers and you get one answer.  Ask if Trump should be allowed to spend billions on a border wall experts say won’t work just to fulfill his campaign promise and you get a different answer. 

Again, both are fundamentally accurate, but will intentionally skew the results.    

Do you support Federal funding for women’s health services provided by Planned Parenthood?  But this time ask it in different way: do you support Federal funding of Planned Parenthood – the largest provider of abortions in the country?  Both are true statements about Planned Parenthood, but both are intentionally misleading to elicit a specific response.   

Do you believe that healthcare is a right for everyone in America?  Or do you believe you should pay higher taxes and give up your employer-provided insurance so the government can give free, but limited, healthcare to everyone in America, whether they are citizens or not? 

The results depend on the wording of the question you ask.  And who you ask. 

They always do. 

So always be suspicious of anyone who claims they represent a “majority.” Like the surging progressive wing of the Democrats.  And particularly when the media bolsters those claims without proof beside some polling they did.

If their survey conclusions don’t pass your personal sniff test, dig deeper; look at the actual questions and see who and how many they polled. 

They’re counting on you not doing that. The same way the Bolsheviks counted on people not analyzing whether they were in fact a majority.     

Claiming a “majority” is not the same as having one.

Always remember the Bolsheviks.