Right wing conspiracy

 

Brain teaser, the buffalo from Buffalo

Bisons from Buffalo that the other Bisons from Buffalo bully, they themselves bully the other Bisons from Buffalo.

The report on the FBI

"President Biden has shown no problem in labeling his political opponents as racists, fascists, and domestic terrorists. The FBI under Director Wray has been willing to exert its law-enforcement tools in a manner guided by political calculations. Whistleblowers allege that the FBI is manipulating data about domestic violent extremism to support the Biden Administration’s political agenda. Other information suggests the FBI prioritizes investigations and uses differing tactics based on political considerations—using aggressive tactics against political opponents of the Biden Administration while going softer on, or outright ignoring, allegations against the Administration’s political allies. Perhaps the best case study of the FBI’s and Justice Department’s abuse of authorities for political purposes is the FBI’s use of counterterrorism resources to target moms and dads who spoke out at school board meetings in the fall of 2021.As a result, there emerges an apparent double standard in the enforcement of federal law" And now the full report is out.

You can download https://republicans-judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/HJC_STAFF_FBI_REPORT.pdf

And don't forget to vote. Stop the Democrats from ruining our country.

TikTok and gen Z

Deeply disturbing. "A new report from CM Group shows that 41% of gen Z obtains news and information on TikTok – more than any other generation. Not only that, TikTok is much more popular with gen Z than TV news, news radio or news websites. TikTok is not a fad that publishers can ignore. For gen Z, it’s a primary news destination."

TikTok is owned by its Chinese parent company ByteDance, which is based in Beijing--it's a collection tool for data about Americans, its biggest users. Chinese aren't allowed to use it. I wouldn't even look at it let alone use it. Democrats are using it for really stupid political ads--like white candidates dancing like it was 1985.

The Great Harvest of the Biden Administration

If you are a Democrat voter, or just someone who doesn't vote but speaks garbled Democrat, you must be proud of your harvest.

What happened to academic freedom? Wokeism

"As an evolutionary biologist, I am quite used to attempts to censor research and suppress knowledge. But for most of my career, that kind of behavior came from the right. In the old days, most students and administrators were actually on our side; we were aligned against creationists. Now, the threat comes mainly from the left. . .We each have our own woke tipping point—the moment you realize that social justice is no longer what we thought it was, but has instead morphed into an ugly authoritarianism." Laura Maroja

If you are a Democrat, vote like your life depends on it, because it does. Your party has let the margins and marginals take over. CRT and gendermandering in schools, millions of illegals storming the border, raging inflation, Americans held in foreign jails, abandoning our allies and principals in a Biden Bug Out in Afghanistan, children locked out of their schools and losing 2 grade levels, shortage of medical personnel and hospitals closing because of early retirements due to power struggles and your anti-science swampy government, fentanyl grown in China flooding over the border, demands to kill the unborn up to the day of birth, incompetent people in the White House, gaslighting so bad we could light up and heat Europe for the winter, and a media with no morals and no boundaries protecting politicians. What have I overlooked? Your complicity in destroying the best economy and strongest border because you didn't like Trump's snarky attitude? For that you sold us down the river?

Weep for the ignorance and power imposed on us

"From April 2020 through at least the end of 2021, Americans died from non-Covid causes at an average annual rate 97,000 in excess of previous trends. Hypertension and heart disease deaths combined were elevated 32,000. Diabetes or obesity, drug-induced causes, and alcohol-induced causes were each elevated 12,000 to 15,000 above previous (upward) trends. Drug deaths especially followed an alarming trend, only to significantly exceed it during the pandemic to reach 108,000 for calendar year 2021. Homicide and motor-vehicle fatalities combined were elevated almost 10,000. Various other causes combined to add 18,000. While Covid deaths overwhelmingly afflict senior citizens, absolute numbers of non-Covid excess deaths are similar for each of the 18-44, 45-64, and over-65 age groups, with essentially no aggregate excess deaths of children. Mortality from all causes during the pandemic was elevated 26 percent for working-age adults (18-64), as compared to 18 percent for the elderly. Other data on drug addictions, non-fatal shootings, weight gain, and cancer screenings point to a historic, yet largely unacknowledged, health emergency."

https://www.nber.org/papers/w30104?

NON-COVID EXCESS DEATHS, 2020-21: COLLATERAL DAMAGE OF POLICY CHOICES? Casey B. Mulligan, Robert D. Arnott. Working Paper 30104, http://www.nber.org/papers/w30104, June 2022.

White suburban women move to the right 27 percentage points

So white liberal suburban women are turning away from the Democrats. Good for them. It would seem that these women can be mama bears after all. Perhaps pushing boys onto girls' athletic teams and into their locker rooms is not such a great draw when momma had hopes her little girl could get a college athletic scholarship or place in the Olympics. Women who were always pro-choice perhaps figured out there was something different than expelling a 6 week old fetus with 2 pills than chopping up a 9 month unborn baby ready to take her place in life. Or maybe she knows some kids dead from fentanyl grown in China and brought through the loosey-goosey Biden border by Mexican drug cartels. Locking their kids out of school and forcing them to wear masks when all the "science" showed it was not only bad for the kids, it was a huge money maker for Big Pharma, and a peek at the sort of power grabs the Democrat Party has in store for the future. And never forget, even the upper middle class mom goes to the grocery store and gas station. They went to college. They know it is government policy that creates inflation.

White Suburban Women voters are shifting to Republicans in 2022  – USA Herald

WSJ Poll: White Suburban Women Shift 15 Points In Favor Of Republicans In Congress | The Daily Wire

There's some good news in endurance and recovery!

There's a guy in our church I've known slightly over the years--a fantastic musician and a gourmet chef. What a combination. So we "friended" on Facebook, but a year ago his name was on the church list for prayer. I learned he had a brain tumor--so over the past year I've sent five cards since he didn't seem to be getting better. But today on Facebook he posted this, and I was so happy to see it.

"Well, friends and family, I’m still here! One year ago today, I was admitted to Riverside Methodist Hospital for a “routine” craniotomy in order to remove a tennis ball-sized brain tumor (benign, thankfully). I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid as we had no idea what to expect after it was all over. Was that indicative of my lack of faith in God? Maybe. Or perhaps it was just simply my mortal fear of the unknown and what the future would hold manifesting itself.

The tumor removal surgery went fine, but as an added bonus, I earned three subsequent trips to the ER for bladder issues, sepsis, and blood clots; two by ambulance, (one of which I don’t remember at all), along with a 10-day stint in a rehab hospital. I’m not even going to approach the question of why some people are healed and others are not - I’ll ask God about that later. The point of this is to simply give thanks.

But where to start? There were so many people involved in this journey, all of whom played various roles along the way. First and foremost, I thank God for seeing me through this, even when I doubted Him. I thank God for the tumor (I know, that sounds weird), but it serves as a reminder and affirmation that good can come out of just about anything. I thank God for the multitude of doctors, nurses, and caregivers who attended to me while I was in the hospital. They are truly His angels on Earth facilitating His work. 

I thank God for First Responders (I still have flashbacks when I hear sirens). I thank God that we live in a place where we have access to quality healthcare and clean hospitals. I thank God for all of the additional support people, including Physical, Occupational, and Speech Therapists, along with visiting nurses, who helped me re-learn everyday things that I took for granted, like walking, writing, and peeing, just to name a few. I thank God for an employer that provides good benefits along with bosses and co-workers who were understanding, accommodating, and genuinely concerned with my wellbeing and recovery. And most of all, I thank God for my wife and daughter, who, because of their diligence and attentiveness, literally kept me from dying on several occasions. 

I thank God for the Body of Believers - everyone who prayed and/or sent positive thoughts and well-wishes (too many to count!) I thank God for everyone who sent cards, provided meals, called, visited, and checked in on Connie and Alissa to see if we needed anything. I thank God for the men who provided us with a Christmas tree and decorations after we lost ours in a storage facility fire. And I thank God for everyone who otherwise contributed care and concern for us. 

“Thank you” just seems so inadequate compared to what you all provided. I am humbled and will be eternally grateful for each and every one of you. If this past year has taught me anything, it’s to take nothing for granted - every day is a gift from God and tomorrow is not guaranteed. If you’ve read this far, I honestly believe that the past year can best be summed up in the following scripture verse: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer” (Romans 12:12). 

Amen! God bless all y’all!

The Digital Stasi--a term for Big Tech

"Digital Stasi"--what an excellent term for our Big Tech in cahoots with the Democrat power structure. I heard it on the Buck Sexton show--he has a podcast and is co-host of The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show. I used to see him regularly on the Glenn Beck program. But, just to be sure I caught the irony, I looked it up. It turns out that those in the know use it frequently. "The Stasi was one of the most hated and feared institutions of the East German communist government." It was established in 1950 but with no specific legislation (sounds familiar) and started small. It was "responsible for both domestic political surveillance and foreign espionage, and it was overseen by the ruling Socialist Unity Party. Its staff was at first quite small, and its chief responsibilities were counterintelligence against Western agents and the suppression of the last vestiges of Nazism. Soon, however, the Stasi became known for kidnapping former East German officials who had fled the country; many of those who were forcibly returned were executed." So you see, the original thought was to track down former Nazis, but it moved on to grabbing and executing "loyal" members of the party who had seen the light and fled to freedom. Sounds like the collaboration between Merrick Garland and YouTube.

Red cap, green cap, white and blue caps

There it sits on my kitchen counter. The lid to a plastic milk container. Bright red. Sometimes it's a lid to one of our innumerable (or so it seems) pill containers from the pharmacy. A hard plastic--different from the bottle it closes. Much harder to recycle. After 2 years of saving them for a youth project at Lakeside to create durable outside benches, I still feel the pull. Recycling and reuse will not save the planet, but then, neither does wearing masks and closing playgrounds. God has plans for his creation, and we sometimes kid ourselves about "helping." That said, it's a good idea, and the benches looked really good. It's a useful way to teach us all that we can do a little bit, we can be more careful, and we can take a closer look at how we use our resources. Does your youth group need a project? https://www.greentreeplastics.com/ (I don't know what organization Lakeside used, but there are a number like this.) If I can ever figure out who on our very large staff at UALC is in charge of projects, I'll suggest this. Meanwhile, I'll give it to you.

Which Charities Collect Plastic Bottle Tops? (reference.com)

Why Union Station?

Why did the Biden handlers book him for Union Station? It's filthy, with closed up businesses that failed due to government imposed lockdowns, surrounded by tents of homeless people (who were removed for this event). Surely he's not trying to smear Republicans again with his failures? He tries to kick the faithful in the butt with these stories about how wild eyed MAGA supporters are taking over the nation. Sure. 

In the colleges? Nope. 

In the entertainment industry? Never. 

The legacy news factories like WaPo and NYT? Guess again.

How about Big Tech? They can't even get a janitor's job. 

Maybe the deep swamp, like loyal FBI agents to go after parents or pro-lifers? Hardly. 

Oh, I know--in the public libraries--where only Democrats get hired? 

Did he tell that old story about how his son died in Iraq--or maybe it was the Ukraine?

https://nypost.com/2022/11/02/conservatives-mock-biden-over-speech-at-neglected-unsafe-dc-train-station/?

Beau Biden didn't die in or because of Iraq

One of Joe Biden's favorite lies is that his son died in Iraq, and if he's having a good day and remembers that his handlers told him not to say that, he corrects it to "because" he served in Iraq. And sometimes he gets it mixed up with Ukraine but says Beau was on his mind. Beau Biden died of glioblastoma, not from anything that happened to him in Iraq. (He was a military lawyer.) He can be commended for serving--a lot of sons of the privileged don't do that. He was certainly a greater man than Hunter Biden, who then consoled Beau's widow by going to bed with her. Glioblastoma also killed Ted Kennedy and John McCain, but that horrible, deadly cancer did not kill Beau.

Since our son died of glioblastoma in 2020 and I was his caregiver,  I try to read as little as possible about it. Here's a study of the last 10 days: "The most frequent signs and symptoms in the last 10 days before death were decrease in level of consciousness (95%), fever (88%), dysphagia (65%), seizures (65%), and headache (33%). Concerning medication, 95% received opioids. There was a high need for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (77%) and anticonvulsants (75%). Steroids were given to 56%." There really has been little new in that field, although other cancers have shown great advancements in treatment. It's slash and burn for glioblastoma. Cut the tumor out which lets it spread; then burn the brain with toxic chemo and/or radiation.

 
As awful as Iraq was for thousands of our military, it didn't kill Beau Biden.

Interim Report on the Origins of Covid-19

 Report An Analysis of the Origins of COVID-19 (senate.gov)

"A Senate investigation into the origins of COVID-19 has concluded that the virus most likely leaked out of a Chinese laboratory.

The interim report, released by Republicans on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Thursday, found a lack of evidence supporting the theory that COVID-19 was passed from animals to humans, and named China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology as the likely source of the virus." NY Post

What would be the motives of Democrats who refused to even consider the lab leak theory?  Fear of attacks by China?  Fear of loss of business if the Chinese were offended? Afraid Trump was right and they'd look even more stupid than they already do?  Or. Maybe they just didn't care.

The woke ads on TV

Has there been a break through? Last night I was watching an old movie (Sweet home Alabama, 2002, forgotten the channel) and there was a 10 commercial break. 8 of the 10 DID NOT have a minority as lead spox/actor, and the 10th was for Lincoln and had no people in it at all. Later I was watching another channel, forgotten the topic, and it was the same way. Let's hope this break out of sanity continues. I think the constant push for minorities in ads was working against the systemic racism message. Ads are unrealistic as it is and if you combine all that luxury, good life and fun and games with handsome, healthy POC, it just doesn't show well with the news media's woke messages about how evil and racist Americans are. Perhaps a stockholder or two noticed it.

The pandemic deniers--all Democrats with a few RINOs

 "School administrators often were more concerned with changing the name of a school rather than ensuring that students would receive an excellent education, or really any education at all. We were told to accept this whether we liked it or not. Educrats and teachers unions know best, little children. No wonder there was a massive parent revolt." 

In the long run, the Democrats will try to deny (talk about deniers!) that they had anything to do with this, that they were just following the science, which kept changing. That's just a lie. Even for the Republican governors and pastors who followed their bad lead. We had years of research and experience to show what to do with a massive health threat. 1) Protect the vulnerable, 2) allow the rest to keep life going. No matter how many times I wrote about masks studies (I was a medical librarian), some engineer would pounce and say I couldn't possibly know as much as he did. Some Democrats are now coming around, they see the economy is in shambles with their party being blamed, they've read the data on what has been done to the children. Now they say, "Well, sorry. We didn't know. Science is like that." Well, tough cookies. A lot of people knew you were wrong and instead of a "conversation" you destroyed their careers and reputations.

And since Democrats don't learn, they just lose, this will happen again. They are hoping the lies and clown show of January 6 trial and their October surprise at the "unguarded" Pelosi mansion will be enough to rekindled the hate, fear and angst in their faithful to get them to the polls. ‘Scientific-Technological Elite’ Is Destroying Self-Government in America (dailysignal.com)

"This is the crisis Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis frequently points to, citing Dwight Eisenhower’s presidential farewell address in January 1961. The speech is frequently remembered for Ike’s warnings about the military-industrial complex. Eisenhower also warned about a growing “scientific-technological elite” that would pervert both genuine science and public policy.

A federally funded and tightly interwoven system of science and research—such as what developed in the United States in the 20th century—made the industry susceptible to being captured by an elite clique and molded by powerful insiders rather than open-minded scientists and the ordinary Americans it was meant to serve."

Transparency in salaries

ABC is reporting on a new "transparency" movement on salaries led in part by a Tik Tok spox/influencer. I heard the usual, especially POC and pay gap. However, unless you also ask about benefits and history with the company, it's meaningless. Elementary school teachers, look it up, make about $75/hour according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics if you factor in benefits. And it's much higher for those in administrative positions. Nothing makes people more unhappy than saying teaching is one of the best paying professions in the U.S. Also, government workers, which are heavily female and black, make far more than the private sector. Norma has the facts. Media lie. Politicians lie. Unions lie.

Total benefit costs consist of five major categories and include 18 benefit costs:
• Paid leave - vacation, holiday, sick, and personal leave;
• Supplemental pay - overtime and premium, shift differentials, and nonproduction bonuses;
• Insurance - life, health, short-term and long-term disability;
• Retirement and savings - defined benefit and defined contribution; and
• Legally required benefits - Social Security [refers to Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program], Medicare, federal and state unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf 

Look specifically at Table 2 and Table 3 by occupational group. If BLS is wrong about teachers, then it's also wrong about accountants and truck drivers.

That said, I think teaching is one of the most difficult and important jobs; it's just too bad that their union leaders are such crooks.

2022 is the 500th anniversary of Luther's New Testament, 1522-2022

"German translations of the Bible have been around since the Middle Ages. After Gutenberg printed a Latin Bible in Germany around 1465, vernacular Bibles in German quickly followed. A Bible in High German was issued by Johannes Mentelin in Strasbourg in 1466. Low German vernacular Bibles were issued in Cologne in 1478 and 1479. In all, before Martin Luther issued his famous translation of the New Testament in 1522 (Luther’s full translation of the Bible was published in 1534), there were at least 18 editions printed of the complete Bible in German and several dozen editions of portions of the Bible, such as Gospel books and Psalters." https://scblog.lib.byu.edu/2013/04/24/german-bibles/

So, I suppose you could say this is a Brigham Young University Library (Mormon) source, but that's not the only source that reports on the many Bibles available in German before Luther's famous translation. Here's another one:

"By the time of Luther's birth in 1483, no fewer than nine such editions of the complete Bible in High German and two in Low German had appeared, with further ones still to come before the publication of the Reformer's "September Testament" in 1522. In fact, by the latter date, the total had increased to fourteen High-German and four Low-German editions of the entire Bible, to say nothing of editions of portions of Scripture and manuscript copies." https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/books/86/

Excerpt from the book, "German Bibles Before Luther, The Story of 14 High-German Editions," by Kenneth Strand, 1966. So why do I open a magazine from Fall 2022 (Lutheran Bible Translators Messenger) and read:

"Five hundred years ago, the German people lived in darkness. They needed relief and deliverance of the Gospel message. The church used a Latin translation, something only the educated understood. Some translations were available in other languages, but they were not very good."

Here's my take (and I'm a Lutheran in NALC, one of the newer synods):

1. To the victor belong the archives (this is a librarian axiom). All the easily available church history books are published by Protestant scholars and publishers, each of which has its own bias on the Bible and history,

 
2. Misinformation and disinformation is not a feature of just the 21st century. What we read, hear and "know" is cumulative, paraphrased, folded in on itself and sometimes just gossip. I read a few paragraphs in the Strand book (you can download it), and it would seem that before the early 20th century, no one even looked for older German translations.

3. Technology was changing lives and creating revolutions in the 15th century also, and Gutenberg did more for our learning and making information available quickly than Zuckerburg.

Just my thoughts.

The Pelosi attack is fishy

Nancy Pelosi said she wanted to punch Trump out and she'd be happy to go to jail for it. Hillary Clinton called 80 million Americans deplorable. Joe Biden has sent his Justice Department to attack parents at school board meetings and pro-lifers at abortion clinics. His verbal assaults on Republicans could be the source of vandalism at pregnancy clinics and offices of GOP. In fact, Biden has been the worst. Gov. Cuomo of New York said "America was never great." Then they have the nerve to call out Republicans for word violence when a crazy man attacked Pelosi's husband (at least that's the story right now--looks very fishy--smells like Smollet). Where were Pelosi's security guards and how did the police happen to be in the room before the perp attacked her husband? Isn't she the one who was also in charge of the security of the Capitol on January 6 and ignored the warnings?

A homeless, mentally disturbed illegal alien nudist who lives in a camp with a BLM banner at his place and all the media jump on the get Trump bandwagon. Yet it was Nancy Pelosi who threated Trump and said she'd be happy to go to jail.

And again, we won't be able to state the obvious, just like all of 2020-2021-2022 about the pandemic and its origin without fearing loss of a job, being called a racist, a white supremist, or a right wing nut. Once again, the Democrats will shut down our constitutionally protected speech.

A map of the history of slavery

 https://youtu.be/40d0eDAQ3t0

This documentary estimates that there are about 50 million slaves in the world today.  That's higher than most of the estimates I've heard.