My wife and I are truly blessed. We worked hard, kept our noses clean. And we are part of the very few with pensions and social security checks. Thank you, thank God. But every tax season we have to file taxes on our pensions AND social security. Pensions I get, but social security? Because of our pensions, which we earned, we fall into an income bracket that requires we pay taxes on social security. Now, when you look at this from the outside, it makes no sense to me. You give me money but then at the end of the year you are taking some back? And I won’t know how much I am giving back until I file? So[…]
Like oodles (meaning many) I have been watching the new College Professional Football Playoffs. And what I see saddens me. College football and the age of the college football student athlete are gone. I think that the current Playoff system, the NIL (Name – Image – Likeness) rules. and the transfer portal each by themselves are not bad but when combined have created a new PROFESSIONAL College football league in competition with the NFL. Look, a kid (and we must remember these are kids) should be able to go to the school they want if accepted by the school. And if someone is selling their name on jerseys and bobbleheads they should get a cut. But when all is combined[…]
I like to watch, once in awhile, CSPAN2 and CSPAN3. Sometimes you can catch a history lecture or history discussion or even a book or political discussion. I recently saw on the TV guide that there was a book discussion on “leadership” so I tuned in. Wow, what I got was two authors not talking about leadership. And these two authors were racist/racial/race relations/equal rights (or whatever they call themselves – not trying to insult) activists and they were only talking about racist/racial/race relations/equal rights activism. OK, got it. One author/lady came from a family of activists and wrote a book about her parents’ activism. Apparently she is a college professor and lawyer as well. Cool. But when asked about[…]
I don’t like to talk a lot about elections during the election season. I keep my voting to myself. But the 2024 elections are over. My state level voting was bad for me. My federal voting wasn’t too bad for me. Oh well, time for me to accept the results. But what is concerning to me is the rhetoric being spewed by by Democrat governors who don’t like the results. States run by democrats like California, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, etc. have democrat governors pledging to protect the rights of their citizens from actions by a newly elected President of the US. But these same governors don’t say what rights they are protecting their citizens from. One even goes so[…]
Inflation is bad. And we have just had a boatload of it. Since 2020 utilities are up 30%, gasoline up by 50%, and food up 20%. Americans are hurting but none so much as seniors. Look, I am not whining. But we are in election season and I don’t like what one party is offering. We need a change. Democrats have had 4 years to keep this from happening and they have failed. But seniors are hurting the most – because increases in pay such as Social Security and pensions have not kept up. And seniors will never catch up. That is the insidious nature of inflation. When I was working and we went through such an inflation period (as[…]
Well, election season is here. Now in all honesty I do not like to pick a candidate. That is not ever the objective of this little blog. But there are a few issues I think we all can discuss and debate. First, I hate to see someone sell their vote – or a candidate buy votes with promises of give-aways. If you vote for someone because they promise “free” abortions, or “free” $25,000 to buy a house, or “free” cell phones, or “free” transgender operations, or forgiveness of student loans, etc. then I have no respect for you. You were bought. Because tax payers are picking up the bills. Look at the costs “sanctuary cities” (their residents) are paying for[…]
A job reports came out this week and it started me thinking. The growth in jobs over the last year, proudly shouted about by the current President’s administration, had been over stated by more than 800,000! Now in this issue I am not going to say anything about government employees. But I do scratch my head when the woman in charge of the office responsible for determining job growth statistics denies any knowledge or can’t explain why the discrepancy occurred bothers me. It is her job! In the private sector had my estimates been off by 25 – 30% I would have been fired. But we all know government employees can’t be fired for performance. But I am an old[…]
Sorry I haven’t written lately but my wife and I took a long vacation to Italy. And wouldn’t you know it – there on Italian TV is news coverage of the shooting of Donald Trump. So, I have been thinking about this shooting for several weeks. I have decided to speak about something no one else is – the reason. I believe there are many who share responsibility for the actions of this kid. Chucky, Nancy, Adam, Hillary, Kamala, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, The View, CNN, and the Democrat Party all share some responsibility for the actions of this kid. For over five years these people and “news” organizations have been preaching that Trump was going to “destroy” democracy, “destroy”[…]
I am a veteran. Like most vets I have met and associate with, I don’t like war or even discuss war. Bombs, bullets, and shells do terrible things. And innocents always get caught up in it. But this week I listened to pundits afraid to let Ukraine attack Russia. Then, how can Ukraine win? I am not going to go into the slimey Europeans. Once again they are hiding. Once again they are willing to let another European country fall. Once again they are dumping this on the US. And of course they need Russian oil and gas because our President won’t allow the US to provide it. Climate! Forget about Ukrainian grain – they are willing to pay Russia[…]
OK. I get it. Lots of people dislike, even hate, other people. I have been known myself to even hate others. But I never stood in front of a court house advocating they be thrown in prison without a fair trial. That is unamerican. That is a threat to our system of justice. That id deplorable. Lo and behold I turn on the TV and what do I see? An “Actor” ranting and raving in front of a court house. Even advocating the person on trial be automatically found guilty and thrown in prison. Let’s be plain. Actors are pretenders. They pretend to be someone or something they are not. Like my grand kids when they were little. They ran[…]