Unvarnished. And from the Washington Post, no less. But what do I know?

Look, I’m just communicating facts here. It’s not my fault others don’t want to face reality. You want reality? Here it is:

Do you want to feel safe?
Do you want a safe place to start and grow a business?
Do you want a safe place to start and raise a family?
Do you want to be surrounded by people who will treat you with respect and as an equal, regardless of your race, creed, color, gender, and religion?
Do you want to live a life where you won’t be punished for who you are and what you believe?
Do you believe in individual freedom and everything this country has fought, bled, and died for?
Move to a “red” state.

…speaking of which, how’s that “Summer of Love” thing workin’ out fer ya, Mayor Durkan? Not so funny when the mob comes after you, is it?

How can this be? Or this? Aren’t we all supposed to be dead by now, aren’t we? You can bet the “blue state” lock-down governors are the very ones who have been fearing this. And dollars to doughnuts it is the “red states” that are the ones getting most of the action. Sure, it’s only anecdotal, but every day at the pool supply store we have at least one, perhaps two folks coming in who have just moved to Arizona with their very first swimming pools. Coronavirus “surge” be damned, (and, BTW, there is no “surge” in hospitalizations or deaths, only cases), the housing market around here is as hot as blazes.

…which is why our pussy governor’s decision to re-close all bars, theaters, gyms, and water works is so stupid.

The announcement comes on the same day the Arizona Department of Health Services reported 625 new cases in the state Monday morning with no new deaths. However, AZDHS said one of their lab partners did not report their numbers to the department on time, but that the numbers would be reflected in Tuesday’s update.

Look, I might expect some caution if our death rates and hospitalizations were skyrocketing but they’re not. Ducey has become quite the pussy, revealing himself to be just another milquetoast McCain-style publicity seeker seeking to cull favor with the local media and the Never Trumpers. I should have figured that out when he picked Martha McSally – perhaps the least effective and productive U.S. Senator to replace John McCain. She’s going to get slaughtered by Democrat Mark Kelly in November, and, to be honest, she should – I can’t think of a less charismatic personality and elected official.

…it’s just a total sham. The fact is, the COVID-19 virus isn’t going anywhere soon, and I doubt that any effective vaccine is anywhere on the horizon. Think about it: we never closed our economies up during the Spanish Influenza and Hong Kong Flu epidemics, so why are we doing this now? Maybe it’s because we as a country have grown so snowflake soft and risk-averse that many are afraid to leave their houses during the day and sleep with their lights on at night. It’s that bad.

This whole mail-in voting push by Democrats is such bullcrap, designed to foster more vote fraud. If you can wear a mask and stand six feet apart like you do at a WalMart, Lowe’s or your local supermarket you can vote in person. The city simply hires temps to quickly wipe down the booth for the next voter and people will move in and out just fine. But that’s just more common sense that is seriously uncommon these days.

Don’t take a knee for anyone except the Lord Jesus Christ.

Given the sentiments of the times, I just thought I’d post this quick link to (in my view) the greatest rock video of all time. (And, I would argue, along with “Hey Jude”, the greatest 45 RPM single of all time.)

Sure, they’re playing to a backing track – that’s fairly obvious – but I especially like when George tells Paul early on that “John’s microphone sounds like shit!” And I find the playful interplay of John’s and Paul’s expressions kind of interesting.

More than anything else, however, I think Lennon’s lyrics are just as poignant today as they were then: basically, he’s asking protesters and revolutionaries this: you want to change the current system? OK, what do you want to change it with? As we’ve seen with the CHAZ (or CHOP?) in Seattle, they haven’t got a clue beyond mindless Marxism bullshit, of which they haven’t a clue as to what they are talking about. You don’t believe me? Watch this pitiful display of ignorance between a shrieking, obviously disturbed BLM protester and someone who actually knows something about this nation’s history. She’s not just frightening, she’s an embarrassment to whatever cause she thinks she believes in. If the likes of her ever get into power, God help us all.

Seriously, never before in world history has a country ever had such an ignorant, uneducated so-called “elite” propped up by an equally ignorant and uneducated media. But this is what happens when leftism takes over your colleges and universities, I guess.

Anyways, it’s still a great video, illustrating just how talented and charismatic The Beatles were. There was never anything like them in rock music history, and the likes of them will never be seen again.

Pretty sunset, huh? That’s the sunset from Thursday night – an Arizona sunset if there ever was one. The picture was taken right from my driveway.

Call it the summer doldrums, if you will. Don’t feel like posting anything much for this weekend’s post. Lots of folks are heading north to the White Mountains and Flagstaff in anticipation of the Fourth of July weekend. I know that from folks buying chlorine shock to keep their pools from turning green while they’re away and the lack of traffic on the highways. And I say good for them – I think only now people are finally coming to terms with the shock they – and everyone else – has been through for the past three months due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Politically, I know the pollsters out there are all in a heat about the President’s chances in November and where his support lies, but this is one of those years where you can’t count on anything; anything truly could (and I think will) happen between now and November, so I’m not going to get my panties in a stitch one way or the other. I’m also not going to pay attention to what – if anything – any of the professional sports going on might or might not do: I’ve stopped watch MLB Network and the GOLF Channel and have no plans to go back to watching them anytime soon. I’ve got my health, a fun pool supply gig, enough money to give us a good life, clean water, plentiful food, and a roof over our heads. I got a house to keep clean and a backyard to maintain, and that’s really all I care about right now.

The folks that want to topple statues and make other’s lives miserable for their “cause” can kiss my ass. I don’t care about their cause. In my view, not only do “all lives matter” but especially “all unborn black lives matter” since obviously liberals, Democrats, and the mainstream media could care less how Planned Parenthood is virtually a death machine when it comes to black babies. Here’s a word to y’all: when you start caring as much for the lives of the black unborn of the future as you do about statues of dead people of the past I’ll know you’re serious about having a real discussion of how “black lives matter”. Because right now all I see is a bunch a spoiled, pampered white folks bullying others around because they’re losers and freaks with no life of their own. Here is my question: who raises monsters like this? I know my parents nor my cousins parents wouldn’t stand for it. We’d get our asses kicked!

But no worries, their fifteen moments of fame is about to come to an abrupt end.

I know that the whole recent COVID-19 “spike in cases” would be a heckuva lot more newsworthy to me if the death rate from it didn’t remain incredibly low. I guess forcing folks everywhere to wear just makes the powers-that-be feel like they’re important and the sheep out there feel like they’re a part of something bigger than they are. Again, more people searching for meaning in their lives. It’s very sad.

But enough. Me? I’m just going to take this weekend off – and then some – and not worry about a thing. Hope y’all will as well.

It was a quiet day until 6 PM rolled around. My store manager had left for the day – ninety minutes before closing – leaving me to pick up the stragglers needing chemicals and water tests after their own normal work days. Normally, I would have plenty of time to sweep the floors, restock the sales floor, take the cardboard out to the recycle bin and the trash to the trash bin in preparation for closing out the registers and calling it a day.

It all started innocently enough: a pretty young woman who smelled of very strong cotton candy (yuck!) came in for a water test – normally a five minute exercise. All well and good in and of itself, but two other folks followed her in shortly thereafter wanting water tests of their own.

This woman wanted to talk about the results. In detail. Her pool’s phosphates were through the roof (meaning she was going to need chemicals in order to head off algae), but she only had limited access to the rental property the pool was on, so we had to work out a treatment strategy that would work out both for her and her property.

Two more folks with water bottles entered the store.

…along with an elderly gentleman to whom I had sold a small bucket of chlorine tabs two hours before. When he was in earlier he was all hunched over, wearing a mask, seeming like a Joe Biden wanna-be – not really with it, asking his wife for help on everything.

The phone rang. This was a woman who said her husband wasn’t around (I didn’t ask why), but with two young children screaming in the background she wanted to know what the the results of the last water test was so she would know what chemicals to put in their pool. Looking at the line forming behind the water test station, all I could do was suggest she bring in a new water sample and we’d take it from there. Not good enough – she wanted to talk.

I was finally able to dispatch the woman who smelled like cotton candy with a bottle of no phosphates and a promise that she’d come back on Saturday for another water test. (I didn’t advise her to find another perfume.)

By this time the elderly gentleman with the bucket of tabs was no longer the feeble old gentleman I had helped earlier. Not only wasn’t he wearing his mask and feeble, but he wasn’t hunched over, either. He starts berating me and my store for charging him for a bucket of chlorine tabs that were all busted up. I tell him we can’t accept opened chemicals of any kind for returns, but we can do a straight-up exchange. Right in front of everyone he goes from Cat 4 to Cat 5.

(Normally, at this point, I would call the store manager, but I’ve still got the woman whose husband seems to have mysteriously disappeared on the line and I’m still trying to encourage her to bring a damned water sample into the store.)

Two more people come in the store for water tests. The line is now four deep.

To just get rid of the he irate elderly gentleman that I’ll refund his bucket of tabs (I’ll explain that to my store manager later), but only that (he had bought a chlorine floater with his purchase as well.

I finally get rid of the woman with the missing husband (and, more importantly in my view) the missing water test. The phone rings again. Now it’s a woman who wants to know if we have a play pool for children. I apologize to the crowd waiting for their water tests and get her a price.

In the confusion I make the mistake of refunding all the elderly gentleman’s earlier purchase (not just the chlorine tabs but the floater). He threatens that he’s going to go to Costco and get some “real” chlorine tabs. All I can say is – calmly – for him to do what he thinks he ought to do.

The folks in the water test line are getting restless. I see it in their body language.

I start the next water test, but realize I need to make sure the elderly gentleman still has to pay for the floater he bought earlier (remember, I refunded that as well as his “defective” chlorine tabs). I ring him up up and apologize for the broken up tabs. The register starts spitting out reams and reams of receipts of every different kind. It’s madness. I try to keep them all together and apologize to the gentleman for the defective product.

I complete the water test in front of me and sell the guy some chemicals.

I complete the next person’s water test and do the same.

That’s when I realize that the so-called “defective” bucket of tabs is no longer on the sales counter. Not only is the old, seemingly-decrepit elderly gentleman gone, but so are his “defective” tabs.

“Son of a bitch!” I yell, the four customers in the store wide-eyed at my pronouncement. “That old son of a bitch took me for a schnook!”.

Everyone laughs.

But it’s not funny – at least to me. Not only had I been played like some whale in Vegas, I also have to explain it to my store manager tomorrow morning. At least it was only $45 – we know there are professional hucksters who have taken our stores for $1K a pop.

It pisses me off that it was just circumstances that got me played for a fool. But it doesn’t feel good.

Something just didn’t seem right.

I mean, here I am, The Great White Shank, in the Valley of the Sun – the East Valley, to be specific – deep in what northwest the mainstream and local media have been calling a “massive surge in Coronavirus cases” (some use “surge”, others say “spike”, others calling it the second wave, all pronounced with grave eyes and tone from masked faces). I’m driving on the 60 back to my house and pass a large billboard advertising the services of a large local medical center with a digital ER wait time prominently displayed.

The wait time displayed is 0. As in zero minutes. Z-E-R-O.

“Hey”, I says to myself, “that can’t be right. I mean, I’ve just heard an hour of the “Good Morning, Arizona” show chock-full of COVID-19 alarming reports and features about the “surge” (or was it “spike”?) in new cases. Heck, I’ll admit I ended up having to turn it off because even I was starting to feel a little spooked. I mean, I half expected to hear an announcement of the various locations around the Valley where folks could bring their dead to be stacked like cord wood for ritual burning:

“If your loved one is between the ages of 25-40, East Valley residents are encouraged to bring the corpses of loved ones to our new COVID-19 Death Reception Area (DRA) located at northwest corner of Pecos Road and the Loop 202 next to the Applebees. DRA hours are 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday. Saturdays from 9 AM to 4 PM. The DRA will be closed on Sunday. Don’t forget to wear mask and gloves and follow safe distancing guidelines. Remember, we are all in this together.”

(After all, isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in a massive, world-wide pandemic where the death rate is skyrocketing?)

So why, on this gorgeous Friday morning in June is there no wait time at the ER? I would expect it to be at least 20-25 minutes, right? After all, Arizona is inundated with new COVID-19 cases, right?

The next day I was visiting a local liquor store for a bottle of Mount Gay Eclipse (my go-to rum for mojitos, as it should be yours) and they had the television on to the local FOX station. It’s around 4:30 PM and the programming was all COVID, all the time. I mean, no wonder why folks are freaking out.

I refuse to freak out. I also refuse to wear a mask in public. The whole thing is a joke.

You know how I know? Because the media is only just now back to the breathless COVID-19 coverage – at least, of course, until some white cop kills another unarmed black male, thereby setting all the usual Democratic-run inner cities back to looting and burning. Then COVID-19 coverage will then take its rightful place on the “Media Fear Scale”.

Because that’s what this country has become in this year of abject lunacy. We are being driven like pinballs from one fear to another: fear of the virus, fear of being caught in a protest, fear of being looted, fear of cops, fear of statues, fear of offending the mob, fear that our elected and public health officials will resume putting COVID-19 cases back into our nursing homes and long-term care facilities, fear that Democratic mayors and governors will keep them locked down until the end of time or the November elections (whichever comes first).

It’s a joke, right? But it’s not. The media have done their absolute best to create the environment we now find ourselves in. And (at least in the case of Arizona and I’m guessing everywhere else), the hysteria being whipped up – both nationally and locally – is simply unjustified. In fact, were the media were actually doing their jobs they would actually be trying to tamper down the hysteria, since, as Peter Heck writes in The Resurgent, What’s Happening in Arizona and the Southwest is Actually Really Good COVID News. He writes in part:

Shameless is the only word I can think of to describe it, though I know there have to be better ones out there. After months of scaring the American public with a constant drumbeat of fear porn regarding COVID-19, the media found in the economic re-openings of various states a new boogeyman to focus on.

With a few exceptions, which were unsurprisingly ignored, the states most aggressive in loosening lockdown restrictions were Republican led. It was the perfect situation for a mainstream media desperate to renew the Republicans-bad, Democrats-good template before the November elections.

The fact that there would be a spike in new infections was a given. No one with a brain ever thought that “flattening the curve” would prevent future infections – the medical strategy was to prevent hospital resources from being overrun, which would have turned a bad situation into a medical catastrophe. But the media was geared up and more than ready to crank the panic-generator up to full strength, eagerly anticipating a spiked graph they could plaster on the evening newscasts.

…

“Arizona’s COVID-19 spread is ‘alarming’ and action is needed, experts warn,” read the title of an Arizona Republic article on Wednesday. Yahoo News breathlessly warned about a “spike” in all the southwestern states.

Headline-only readers, who represent the vast majority of those who consume media (and share it on social media), began feverishly sharing the news. Even some more conservative voices, trained to be skeptical of media narratives, fell for it. But the truth is available for those who dig even just a little bit below the surface.

* Due to the COVID pandemic in the spring, there is now a back-log of so-called “elective surgeries. Those people are now coming to hospitals, thus taking up many beds. Not COVID related.

* All patients who come to the hospital for any reason are tested for COVID. It is logical that some, or even many, may test positive for the virus even without symptoms. They automatically then get labeled a hospitalized COVID case even if that’s not what they are there for.

Last Wednesday, in the middle of the dangerous “spike” the media was frantic about, there was one new COVID hospitalization in Arizona. One. The media patently refuses to focus on COVID deaths – a number that would actually reveal if some dangerous “second wave” was coming to America. Instead they focus on a number they know will never go down – total cases reported – and a number they see as exploitable – total hospitalization.

The truth is that what is happening in Arizona and the Southwest is actually good news for us all. People who are coming to the hospital FOR coronavirus is drastically low, but the number of coronavirus-positive patients in the hospital is high. That means the virus is far more widespread, but is largely asymptomatic and less deadly than believed.

This tweet by my U.S. House rep Andy Biggs (one of the truly good ones!) illustrates the kind of work the mainstream media SHOULD be reporting, but won’t. He doesn’t downplay the existence nor progression of COVID-19 in the US, but he doesn’t breathlessly promote the kind of fear and hysteria the mainstream media is simply because some well-known actor or actress or professional athlete is tested positive (as if their testing positive warrants more hype than the fact that literally tens of thousands of elderly people were systematically condemned to death by New York governor Andrew Cuomo by forcing nursing homes and LTC facilities to accept COVID-19 patients). Wouldn’t you think that would, oh, I don’t know, provide some much-needed perspective on the nature of things?

But as Heck writes in closing, “Just don’t expect that truth to be gracing the evening newscast any time soon.”

…most especially since hyping the Coronavirus will help hide the fact that Democratic-led cities hell-bent on defunding the police are now seeing a spike (my terms) in black-on-black violence.

Who woulda thunk it?

Word is that the long-term forecast says we could be seeing our first monsoony-related activity next weekend, but tonight in the Valley of the Sun it is a perfect evening. The air temp around 100, the pool temp around 90, and the Hemingway daiquiri temp probably around 40.

I attended my first Goodboys Zoom call yesterday and it was a lot of fun. Even though I won’t be attending this year it felt good to see everyone and know the crew appears to be doing quite well.

Not much else to write about for this weekend, except that I hope my Father’s Day card gets to my dad in time. He’s a great guy, is doing well for being 90, and it appears his senior living community has made it through the COVID-19 crisis quite well. Word is they expect to start taking some initial steps to the long road back to “normal”, and I wish them all the best.

See, it is exactly this kind of thing that is going to make presidential race polling impossible to do this year. Think about it: who wants to risk voicing their support for the President if, oh just say, a polling company “accidentally” released its list of phone numbers called and who has been identified as a Trump supporter. Could you imagine all the hate calls they’ll start getting? Could they then lose their job? Hell, yeah.

Headline: Alcoholic killer monkey leaves one man dead and 250 injured after going on rampage when his booze supply dried up. Me? I love the sub-heads:
* The monkey was formerly the pet of an occultist who fed him hard liquor in India
* But when his owner died, the booze-dependent imp went on the rampage
* Named Kalua, he targeted women and girls in particular with his vicious fangs
* He has now been captured and will spend the rest of his days in a cage at the zoo

…I’ve never been called a “booze-dependent imp” but I’m willing to give it a try…

I hope y’all have a great weekend. A happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. Me? I’ll be doing my pool supply store thing and just veg out for a while. The golf clubs are in the deepest recesses of the garage; there’s no spark of desire to even have a look at them right now – I’m kinda thinkin’ that maybe next year I might take the game back up, but there’s equally a chance I won’t. I know now – most especially after the Zoom call with some of my Goodboys pals the other night – that there’s no sense of jealousy or wishing I could be there with them this year. That would mean I’d have to hit the range and get at least a couple of rounds in ahead of time and I’m just not in a mindset to do that right now. I’ll be more than happy to be there “in spirit” and wish them all “happy trails”.

Did y’all know today is the longest day of the year? I think we’ll celebrate the Summer Solstice by lighting up the fire pit and making a night of it. Curiously enough, here in Phoenix the mornings have already started to come earlier, even though the sunsets will continue to get later through the end of the month.

Per Cassandra:

Highest Crime Cities in America, Party of Mayor:

1. St. Louis, Democrat
2. Detroit, Democrat
3. Baltimore, Democrat
4. Memphis, Democrat
5. Kansas City, Democrat
6. Little Rock, Democrat
7. Milwaukee, Democrat
8. Rockford, Democrat
9. Cleveland, Democrat
10. Stockton, Democrat

…and Seattle is hardly a utopian oasis. I mean, when you’ve lost Portland…

As Dave Rubin tweets, “What if, and hear me out on this one, it’s actually the progressives who are the racists, the homophobes, and the bigots, and they just use those labels on the rest of us because all they really want to do is control us?

Isn’t the very definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result? All of these inner cities, with the most vulnerable of our population, electing Democrats for decades. Democrats promising that – I promise – things will be different this time around.

They’re full of shit. Always have been. Always will be.

Nothing changes. Because nothing ever changes.

Everything stays the same. Because if you buck the system you you lose your job or get doxxed or stalked. Can you imagine conservatives doing something like this and getting away with it?

That ain’t gonna happen to me. I have my voice and I’m gonna use it.

Look, I’m not trying to cause a fight or a fuss. Believe it or not, I’m a lover, not a fighter. Never in a million years would I have ever thought that saying something as obvious as “all lives matter” would be controversial. But that’s the times we find ourselves in, folks. I know I’m a dinosaur: I believe in treating people equally. I don’t care who you are, what you are, or where you came from. I could give a shit. You’re no better than me and I’m no better than you (except when it come to golf!). I don’t judge you for who or what or who you are, and I expect the same accordingly.

If y’all can’t handle that – well that’s your problem, not mine.

The bottom line is that liberalism is a poison, and Democrats are the syringe administering it.

Just don’t blame me when the mob comes after you.

I have to admit, this whole year seems, as John Lennon once sang, “it seems so unreal to me.”. It’s like I’m living this existence watching from the outside in, as if I were some kind of a television sit-com, absent of the laugh track.

I’m kind of like two minds about the whole thing. On one hand I’m glad to be free of the healthcare IT meat-grinder where I really didn’t have any kind of life. On the other hand, I have to admit that I miss all the stress, the hassles, and the crises that had to be met and resolved on a daily basis. I miss my team, the folks in both the USA and in India who fought the good fight together. I loved being part of that team. I miss it. On the other hand, I don’t miss the stress, the hassles, and the crises that had to be met and resolved on a daily basis.

I think what I miss most of all is the scope. You have to understand, on a daily basis I’d be working with clients from Gloucestershire in the UK to some lonely outpost on an Indian reservation in Arizona. I would work with large medical centers and small community hospitals. Now? Now I’m dealing with customers having spas and swimming pools running anywhere from 1,500 gallons to 30,000 gallons. Instead of contributing to the health of living, breathing patients I’m now dealing with dads and moms who want to make sure their pool is swimmable by the kids and the grand kids.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, it’s just a different thing.

And the challenges I now face are completely different in every way you can imagine. Do we have enough shock on hand? Where are the replacement parts for a backwash valve? Did the registers balance at the end of the day? How do you tell a customer that if they want to get the algae out of the who-knows-how-old water in the swimming pool they just inherited they’re gonna have to spend some serious dough-re-mi on chemical because no one out here is going to be able to drain their pool before Halloween?

And then there are the grifters out there trying to screw our stores out of product. We’re all on the lookout for a “heavy-set Hispanic woman” who comes in and tries to buy expensive filter equipment on her Apple card, then, when it won’t go through she has the poor schnook at the counter dial a false 1-800 number to get an authorization code that turns out to be bupkis. And she gets away with it. Thankfully, she hasn’t hit our store yet!

It might all be anecdotal, but it seems we have a lot of newcomers to Arizona buying houses with swimming pools for the first time. I can tell you I’ve had two folks from Minnesota and at least five from California who are recent newcomers to Arizona. You can make your own minds up as to why – I don’t pry. But it seems to me all the bullshit going on out there is causing folks to leave “blue” states for the more, free, “red” states like Arizona. And we’re more than happy to help them; maintaining a swimming pool is a lot of work, but we can make a difference in their lives.

Case in point: had a guy come in last weekend with pictures of his pool. It looked awful, really green. I ran his water sample through our computer, then advised him on the steps he needed to take in order to have his pool ready for a Father’s Day cook-out and pool party. He was suspicious about the money I was asking him to spend on pool chemicals and the amount of babysitting it would take in order to turn it around, but he spent the money and promised to follow the regimen I prescribed. Yesterday he comes in all excited about how his water looked. I ran his sample through the computer and the change was nothing short of amazing. He was so happy, which in turn made me feel like I had played a small part in that happiness.

So it’s all different. The victories are smaller, but they remain victories nonetheless. And my boss was right: after a few trying days trying to get schooled on the hang of things, everything really is “chill”. The only stress I feel is trying not to let my co-workers down. But even with that, it’s truly the balls. I could never in a million years have ever imagined I’d be doing swimming pool retail as I’m currently doing, but it has been a great learning experience and it’s been fun. At 30-34 hours a week it’s a bit more than I had originally planned to do but the learning experience has made it all worthwhile. By and large our customers are friendly and want to be helped, and my manager tells me I’m a natural at making our customers feel at ease and want to come back. Our sales compared to last year are through the roof, but it’s not just me – all three of us are new to the the store and I enjoy the fact we work well together.

There’s a part of me that misses my old life, but a part of me that doesn’t. Of course, the severance pay hasn’t run out yet, so we’re not feeling any kind of financial pinch; come October when I start getting my pension from a gig a long time ago I’m hoping that will help in making me feel “really” retired when I turn 65. Until then I’m just going to enjoy the pool supply gig I’ve been fortunate to have found and just let it ride for as long as I can.

Stuff that validates everything The Great White Shank has been saying and linking to for months:

Headline: The Media Are Lying To You About Everything, Including The Riots. This is the article that triggered NBC News to try and get The Federalist website banned and de-platformed. You know what those B-17 bomber pilots used to say during World War II: you know by the amount of flak you’re taking when you’re over the target. One of the best articles I’ve ever read. Expect it to go viral over the next two days.

Headline: Nursing Homes Account For Over 40% Of U.S. Coronavirus Deaths. Had Mario Cuomo and the NY state Department of Health not sentenced thousands of people’s mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, loved ones, and friends to death by sending known COVID-19 patients to nursing home facilities, how different might the death total – and the mainstream media’s headlines – be different?

Headline: Pro-Black Lives Matter mayor calls attack on her house “domestic terrorism”. Because it’s only terrorism when it happens to you, not someone else. Didn’t I write the other day warning libs and Democrats that your support for what’s going on out there will never be enough for the mob? History tells us that sooner or later, those who are supporting the eating will get eaten themselves.

Headline: Patients with underlying conditions were 12 times as likely to die of covid-19 as otherwise healthy people, CDC finds.

In many metropolitan areas, majority-black areas have high rates of chronic health conditions including diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Those conditions compound a lack of access to medical care and the legacy of racism and its effect on health. In the District, neighborhoods that flank the eastern edge of the city are predominantly African American and have rates of these diseases above national levels. Those same neighborhoods have some of the highest incidence of coronavirus cases in the District, according to city health data.

Not that I trust anything the CDC says, but as I mentioned some time ago we’re going to find that COVID-19 is pretty damned particular about whom it infects at a deadly rate. As I’ve written before, at some point this country is going to have to have a serious discussion about public health and how we can encourage folks to take better care of themselves. Believe me, I’m no proponent of expanding the federal government, but at some point you have to find a way to help people help themselves early on to avoid much larger health problems in the future. I don’t have the answer, but I’m willing to listen to ideas. As I say (to evidently some controversy), ALL LIVES MATTER.

Headline: Fauci: I Haven’t Spoken to Trump ‘in Weeks’. This is a good thing. He’s an academic elitist who had no idea – zero idea – what he was talking about from the very beginning. Look, I’m a supporter of the President, but I don’t think he did himself any favors trusting Fauci and anything he said. Of course, no one had any reliable data to work with at the outset of the pandemic, so I’m not even sure Fauci is a bad guy. I just wish everyone involved at the start had the stones to admit they were only speculating because of their trust in the suspect models which turned out to be noting but kitty litter (but catnip for the mainstream media).

…think about it: how much easier (not to mention less detrimental to this country’s economy) would it have been for Fauci and “The Scarf Queen” to simply say “based on the little we know here are our recommendations: (1) quarantine all senior communities, nursing homes, and long-term care facilities; (2) anyone entering or living in those facilities must have their temperatures checked on a daily basis and wear masks. (2) And that’s it. (3) PERIOD.” I wonder exactly what the resulting death toll might have been.

Headline: The Monument-Destroying Mobs Don’t Hate The Confederacy, They Hate America. I think this is right. I see moron Boston mayor “Mahtee” Walsh is OK with the mob tearing down an Abraham Lincoln – Abraham Lincon – statue, for gawdsakes. These people are out of their fuckin’ minds. Here’s an idea: why don’t we just replace all these statues with monuments to Oprah Winfrey. She’s as much of a part of all this as anyone else. But what do I know? I guess I’m not one so much interested as others in getting in touch with my true feeeeeelings.

Headline: Democrat Senator Tim Kaine: “The US Didn’t Inherit Slavery From Anybody. We Created it”. Honest to God, you have to wonder how in hell these people get into elected office. These people are as dumb as rocks. It doesn’t take more than a look at, oh, say, Wikipedia (a left-leaning enclopedia if there ever was one) to know how ignorant this guy is and how stupid this sounds. And to think, this doofus might have actually been elected VP along with Hillary Clinton. All I can say is, thank God for the Electoral College.

Headline: Planned Parenthood Kills 247 Black Babies Every Day, But the Media Calls White Pro-Lifers Racist. I guess to most liberals, Democrats, progressives, and the mainstream media only some black lives matter. What a bunch of hypocrites. I’ve been preaching this line of thought ever since this blog was born and have been absolutely run over the coals for it: Democrats only care about the African-American vote when it is breathing come Election Day. Other than that they could give a shit.

Headline: 24 Hour Fitness files for bankruptcy, closes 134 locations. Was talking to one such owner at the pool store today. As I’ve mentioned before here the impact of the COVID-19 shutdowns on America’s retail landscape won’t truly be known for another year. Unless you’re being backed by serious dough-re-mi- or a large, well-financed chain, you’re going to see then (if not hundreds) of thousands of small retail restaurants and outlets just like fitness centers and salons all closing shop. As a result, you’ll see large numbers of strip malls being closed and put out of business. There is a huge day or reckoning coming for small entrepreneurs who haven’t suitable financed their operations for hard times.

Headline: Years of Rage: The intense cycle of protest is driving America to nervous collapse. You didn’t see anything close to this from whites and conservatives after Barack Obama was elected president. But that’s what the party of tolerance, acceptance, and diversity is all about. As I’ve written before – don’t blame Donald John Trump for this, blame Hillary Clinton.

See what happens when I don’t feed the blog for two weeks? The country goes to hell in a hand basket, social distancing went out the window with all the riots and looting, the Democratic mayor of Seattle is allowing her city to be taken over by anarchists, the cancel culture is removing statues, corporate CEOs, movies, and TV shows they don’t deem acceptable, you have another Democratic-run city police force kill another unarmed black man, and everyone (of course) is going to blame President Trump for it. It’s too much for just one blog post.

So I won’t bother.

Instead, let’s keep this weekend’s post simple. Lemme ask y’all a question: what do the following cities have in common?

Atlanta
Baltimore
Chicago
Milwaukee
Minneapolis
New York City
Philadelphia
Portland
San Francisco
Seattle
St. Louis

All are Democratic-run cities with a questionable record of care and support for the primarily African-American populations that reside in them. For the past two weeks, all you have heard is the outcry over police tactics and brutality on the cable news and mainstream news outlets, but nary a peep about the political affiliations of those who overseer these cities. My question is: when will Democrats be held accountable for the mayhem and chaos within these cities? Forget, for a moment, about poor George Lloyd and Rayshard Brooks: how many young blacks are going to be killed by black-on-black violence this weekend in the above-mentioned cities? I guarantee none of their names will make it to the NBC Nightly News or any other prime-time news programs.

See? My problem is, and always will be, the blatant hypocrisy you find in spades (am I allowed to use that word?) in the current media coverage of everything that’s going on. As I’ve written about in this place numerous times over the years, the Democratic Party and liberals in both government and the media have done African-Americans no favors in the past sixty-odd years. Between the Great Society programs implemented by Lyndon Johnson (and yes, Richard Nixon), the overwhelmingly-disproportionate number of black babies aborted by Planned Parenthood, Democratic governors and mayors who are only concerned about rounding up black votes come election time, and the Democratic politicians in Washington who have no problem paying lip service to African-Americans with dopey political stunts but do diddly-squat in terms of real legislation. They’d much rather not let good crises go to waste by pushing agendas like open borders, unfettered illegal immigration, the “Green New Deal” and “defunding the police” that will end up doing both inner cities and the livelihoods of the unemployed and the working poor who live in them far more harm than good.

As I see it, the only way we’re going to get out of this mess is for meaningful police reform that can only come by turning out these crappy Democratic mayors concerned only with exploiting their populations and increasing their power. Preferably, you would replace them with Republicans running on a law and order agenda who won’t kow-tow to the mob and who will ensure all of their citizens – both black and non-black – are all treated with the same amount of respect and dignity.

You see, here at Goodboys Nation weblog, ALL LIVES MATTER. I don’t buy the dumb slogans of the ignorant and pampered snowflakes who haven’t got a clue about what true injustice means. If America is such a bad place full of racism and injustice, why are we having to build a wall on our southern border to keep those who want to come here out? Believe me, I’d be more than happy to pick out, say, 1,000 lily-white Antifa bullies from, say, Seattle and Portland and put them outside of the southern border and replace them with 1,00 men, women, and children from Central and South America willing to work hard and build new lives for themselves in the USA. I guarantee you those Antifa pussies will be crying for their mommies and longing for their basement bedrooms with the big-screen TV and gaming computers bought for them by their loser parents as quick as you can say, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”.

As far as Antifa is concerned, I think this is a good start. Follow the money and the financiers of the movement and it will dry up quickly.

One final question: how many of those social justice warriors destroying and removing Christopher Columbus statues will order chicken parm at the nearest Italian restaurant that is open and serving. Talk about your cultural appropriation!