I used to live near Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. Hot, dry and the desert has a beauty all its own. Yes, I saw tumbling tumbleweeds, rattle snakes and cactuses (cacti). Back then, I lived in a mobile home and when theeconomy callapsed in the early 1990’s, I noticed a cute little trick the government did to make the downturn not look as bad as it really was. They claimed a low unemployment rate which was to make you think that things weren’t as bad as they really were.
Let us make an example to show the trick. Let us take a guy named George, who has a job at Lockheed making $25 per hour on a union job. Let us also say he gets layed-off which adds 1 to the unemployment columb, but his unemployment is only good for 8 weeks.
Situation A: he tries to find work but can’t. His unemployment benefits are exhausted and he is no longer getting unemployment benefits. He is taken off the unemployment numbers. Now, the government does not count him and he ‘no longer counts’. The unemployment numbers are lessened by taking him off the unemployment rolls, but he still is not working and unemployed.
Situation B: he can only find work building camper shells at $15 per hour. He is taken off the unemployment rolls even though he has almost cut his former salary nearly in half. The unemployment count that the government uses does not paint a full picture of the situation, it only counts those actively recieving unemployment benefits and not the number of people unemployed. It will not show, for instance, any and all unemployed people not working that have exhausted their unemployment benefits. So, net time you here the gov’t saying we have low unemployment, that just means there is a low number of people actively recieving benefits. That is what I witnessed when living in the desert just north of Los Angeles. Many people with good union jobs that drove down to the outskirts of LA lost those jobs and some lost their homes and were forced to take whatever jobs that they could making much less that they did. That is a recession. Now, if those people that are no longer recieving benefits AND can’t find a job, too many people in that situation and you are looking at a depression.

Let me first say that, if you have read my blogs back in 2016, I was not initially a Trump supporter. My support was for Ted Cruz who I thought, and still think would be a good president. But, to my pleasant suprise, Trump was a good president and as a non politician, delivered on his promises. He is the first person to actually loose half of his personal wealth as president. He lost over 2 billion (with a b) dollars as compared to every other occupant of the oval office who gained enormous wealth. Even Bill Clinton, who claimed to leave office broke had actually made millions.
I will also stipulate, that now the truth is becoming exposed that if it were not for the illegal actions of those in the FBI and CIA, Trump would have been elected in 2020, not to mention the illegal actions of Hillary Clinton and the many people involved in the fake FISA warrant to investigate and eventually impeach Donald Trump. The fact that nobody involved in these felonies is in jail is proof of a double standard in politics.
That being said, there are too many ignorant morons allowed to vote that would rather vote for Karl Marx than Donald Trump, which is exactly what they got in 2020 with Joe Biden. Even in the 2022 mid term elections, when we should have had a ‘red tidal wave’ we only got at best, a pink trinkle. Mostly because Trump can’t stop talking about the ‘stolen’ election and fraud that happened in 2020. American voters are not that smart and have become nothing more than sheeple that can be ‘programmed’ to vote for their own demise. That is why, many people are attracted to Ron DeSantis. He has proven to be a strong leader in a blue state (one heavily democratic) and capable of winning re-election in double digits but more importantly, has less baggage and is younger than Donald Trump. Again, it is not fair what happened to Trump and there are many that deserve prosecution for lying and deseption (I would personally like to see Hillary Clinton in an orange jumpsuit behind bars for many years for her corruption). But in 2024, we, the Conservative Constitutionalists, have to win to be able to correct the damage perpetrated on America. The unfortunate truth is, that without the support of the independants and maybe some of the more right leaning democrats, we can’t win against the ballot harvesting and cheating that is planned in 2024. As was once observed, if it ain’t close, they can’t win meaning that with all the fake baggage and real baggage that Donald Trump has, he has a deminished possibility of winning. And it does not help Trump to be acting like a spoiled child and calling Ron DeSantis ‘Sanctimonious’. That proves to me that Trump is afraid of DeSantis supporters. Trump basically supprised the dems in control in 2016 with his win. It has been reported that Hillary and her supporters were so supprised, that Hillary herself blew her cool and had a tantrum when she lost. So now, I see Trump acting like Hillary did in 2016 and I am afraid that Trump can’t win with his baggage. So, I for one will say thank you Trump for what you did BUT to attack DeSantis like this turns me off from you. It’s not personal, Mr Trump, but we have to win first before we start to correct the damage of Joe Biden.

Every year, after December 1st, I have to watch a few movies before Christmas day to help me get into the spirit of the holidays. “It’s a Wonderful Life” 1946 with Jimmy Stewart, “A Christmas Story” 1983 with Darren McGavin, “Lethal Weapon” 1987 with Mel Gibson, “Die Hard” 1988 with Bruce Willis, “A Christmas Carol” 1938 with Reginald Owen, although Patrick Stewart did a very good portrayal in 1999. Other movies I can watch them or skip them, but these I need to see before Christmas day.

It’s a Wonderful life reminds me that even though I did not get the life I thought I wanted, I still have had a good life with everyone that I influenced. And while I may never know everyone that I influenced, I did influence many. A Christmas Story reminds me of a simpler time in my life. While it wasn’t my dream to have a Red Ryder BB gun, mine was the Minolta Weathermatic waterproof 110 camera that I had to have. At that time, I still had dreams of becomming an Oceanographer and I was part fish because I loved to snorkle in the Pacific Ocean. A simpler time when there was more ‘good will’ toward your fellow man and my only job as a kid was to study and watch Saturday morning cartoons like Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour. Lethal Weapon reminds me that sometimes, the best friend just may be your opposite, and ‘Im getting to old for this shtuff. I said shtuff. My mother reads my blogs, so I said shtuff. Die Hard is a reminder to never give up. Just like Winston Churchill once said “Never give up. Never, never never give up”. I am reminded of the picture of a crane swallowing a frog, but the frog has its hands trying to choke the crane and the picture is encaptioned Never give up.

And the story of A Christmas Carol has many lessons, one of which is the warning given to Scrooge from the Spirit of Christmas present when Scrooge sees a wrinkled hand from under his cloak. A boy called ignorance and a girl named want. The boy named ignorance was the more dangerous of the two. I look around in America today and see examples of both of these dangerous children. Mankind has fostered both. Both are dangerous and destructive yet, as Charles Dickens warned, ignorance is the more dangerous of the two. We have a generation of people wallowing in ignorance and lack of respect for themselves as well as their fellow man (and woman). I can see only one sollution to a generation of ignorant people, it is called vouchers. Taxpayers pay for education and parents, not a village, are responsible for their children. So the power to chose what school to send their children is paramount is correcting the damage of public education where teachers are allowed to teach the children that trans-woman are normal, drag queens can strip tease in front of kindergartners and parents that protest are placed on the FBI terrorist watch list. I will still use words like mother, father, man, woman and I sleep in a Master Bedroom. And anyone that pushes or thinks that ESG is a good idea is, in fact an ignorant and dangerous person. Yes, Dickens warned us of ignorance and want, both being dangerous and destructive to society.

What movies/stories do you enjoy and what lessons do they teach you?