Month: February 2022

Attacking Democrats on high gasoline prices is the best way to kick them in the gas this fall

Morton Grove, Illinois, February 27, 2022

By John Ruberry

By dodging a question on this weekend’s edition of Flannery Fired Up of Fox Chicago, US Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) offered up, unintentionally, perhaps the most vulnerable issue, and there are many or them, that Democrats face this fall.

That issue is soaring gasoline prices. 

After explaining to host Mike Flannery how Russia supplies a large amount of natural gas to western Europe, Quigley said, without proof, “That is going to be shut off.”

Then Flannery serves up a fastball query to Quigley. “So, if we end up with four-dollar, five-dollar or more a-gallon gasoline, that’s going to hurt Democrats this fall. What should President Biden do about that? What can he do about it? Because we have American oil producers holding back, they’re saying that your Democrats in Congress and President Biden are hostile to energy.”

“You know I don’t buy that at all,” was Quigley’s flaccid response, then the Democrat retreated to a classic fallback, the appeal to sympathy fallacy, when he discussed how he met with residents of Chicago’s Ukranian Village neighborhood, and then pivoted to another logic fallacy, appeal to ridicule, by attacking former President Trump, stating, in a great exaggeration, how Trump recently praised Vladimir Putin. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average price of gasoline in the Chicago area, where Quigley and I live, was $2.47-a-gallon in January 2021, the month when Trump left office and was succeeded by Joe Biden. In January this year it was $3.56-a-gallon, more than a dollar more. I live in Cook County, where gas taxes are higher, I’m seeing $3.91-a-gallon now in Morton Grove, Illinois. Amazingly, again according to the BLS, the national average was only slightly higher than Chicago area prices, probably because the figures are skewed by California’s extortion-level overtaxing of gasoline. 

Apologists for Biden and the Democrats claim a post-lockdown economic turnaround is responsible for the gas price hikes. That’s a lie, the worst of the lockdowns were over in the autumn of 2020, when Trump was still president. Among Biden’s first acts as president was cancelling the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The Biden administration is halting or delaying new leases to drill on federal land. Less petroleum means less gasoline which means higher prices. 

Now, using the January 2021-2022 gas prices hike numbers, assuming you fill up your 15-gallon gas tank for your automobile once a week, you are now paying $16 -a-week additional for fuel. Spread that expense over a year and you are over $800 poorer now. And I was using the January 2002 price. And gas prices have gone up since then and they are headed higher, even Biden admits that, because of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Let’s Go Brandon!

Drill here, drill now, pay less, vote Republican!

Stop the Green New Deal!

“Fact-checkers,” the Ministry of Truth wing of the media and the Democratic Party, have produced numerous reports that such energy analyses as mine are “inconclusive” or “missing context.”  These “fact-checkers” are keyboard propagandist tricksters of the three-card Monte variety. Luckily more people are laughing at them, or worse, since leftists crave attention of all kinds, even negative, they’re now ignoring the “fact-checkers.”

So, Quigley, when he avoided Flannery’s question, admitted his party’s biggest political vulnerability, high gasoline prices. If Biden reverses his anti-energy policies, it can be a potent weapon, a non-violent one, against Vladimir Putin and Russia, by driving down petroleum and natural gas prices. Western Europe of course is a major consumer of Russian natural gas, as Quigley explained.

If Biden stays the course on failure–high energy prices will deliver an electoral wipeout for the Dems.

They’ll deserve it.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Ukraine and Korea, more of the same

In January 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson gave a speech discussing, among other things, where he thought US interests around the world sat. The United States had been supporting the South Korean government with training and arms to quell a communist uprising in their country, and had been so successful that it seemed they would be able to withdraw from the peninsula entirely later that year. Unfortunately for Mr. Acheson, his speech was likely one of several indicators that the Soviet Union used to ultimately decide that the US would not intervene in a Korean Conflict. Josef Stalin authorized Kim Il-Sung later that spring to begin his invasion, which kicked off in June of 1950.

The Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China and North Korea all counted on the United States not intervening in Korea. That turned into a miscalculation that ultimately cost over one million lives between the two sides and countless scars that are still visible in the landscape and culture today. It was a worthy sacrifice, as South Korea has remained a strong and independent country that demonstrates what a real democratic government can look like in Asia.

The Ukrainian invasion came as a surprise to nobody. Russia’s interest in Ukraine has been stated from the very beginning, and it has been calculating the time and place of an invasion for some time. Perhaps the most important reason it launched now, verses in the past, was the assurance that it could invade without interference from the US and NATO. Similar to Korea, the invasion is designed to be quick, precise and achieve victory in a matter of days. Whether it does or not remains to be seen.

Authoritarian governments bent on invasion will never back down from their intentions, but they also aren’t stupid. They all perform the cold calculations of cost when they consider actions, and those costs skyrocket if a country like the US, France, Japan, UK, or other nations intervene. The Russians and Chinese militaries aren’t without faults, and they know those faults well, and they do in fact fear legitimate military intervention by Western democracies. But as shown in Korea, when we telegraph weakness or even indifference, it pushes these calculations in a direction we don’t want.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

The late Charlie Taylor was not a wide receiver for the Washington Commanders, he played for the Redskins

By John Ruberry

On Saturday, Charley Taylor, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame who spent his entire National Football League career with the Washington Redskins, mostly as a wide receiver, died Saturday. He was 79. Taylor is the franchise leader in receiving touchdowns and overall TDs, and he was named to the Pro Bowl eight times.

Taylor, an African-American, was drafted by the Redskins in 1964, just two years after Washington became the last NFL team to integrate. That’s an interesting story, which ESPN doesn’t bother to mention. From 1946, the year before Jackie Robinson broke the color line in Major League Baseball, thru 1970, the ‘Skins got what they deserved, they had just four winning seasons and no playoff appearances. 

But if you look at the ESPN.com headline for the story about Taylor’s death, you’ll think he played for the modern incarnation of the Washington team. It reads, at the time of the posting of this blog entry, “Washington Commanders Hall of Fame wide receiver Charley Taylor dies at 80.” 

The Washington National Football League franchise has been using the Commanders nickname for not even three weeks. Controversial for years, the Redskins moniker reaches back nine decades, to the brief period when they played in Boston. “Redskins” has always been perceived as a pejorative. No, let me use a stronger term, a racist insult. Native Americans and many other people have long called for a name change, the process accelerated two years ago after the murder of George Floyd, and for the last two years the team known as the Washington Football Team. 

“Go team!” Yawn.

But the Redskins they once were. Obscuring or omitting that fact by the media is a disservice to their audiences. Or it could be that ESPN is surrendering to its innate wokeness, or it is afraid the 50 or so people who agitate constantly online about any leftist grievance they can find, such as the storied “Cat Lady” who hounds Dan Bongino.

Not surprisingly, the Washington Post also omitted “Redskins” in its Taylor obituary. The facts and history die in darkness, it seems. So did the Associated Press, CNN, and NBC Sports.

The New York Times, which hasn’t as this posting has published a report on the death of Taylor, famously says that it publishes “All the news that’s fit to print.”

Instead, the woke media publishes “All the news the way we think it should be or how it should have been.”

Oh, I don’t have a personal horse in this battle, I’m a Chicago Bears fan. Other than their Super Bowl XX win nearly, sob, four decades ago, my favorite memory of the Monsters of the Midway was their upset win of the Commanders–just kidding, the Redskins, then the defending Super Bowl champions–on the road in a 1984 playoff win. Mike Ditka’s Chicago Bears announced to the world that they had arrived as an elite NFL team. 

The Pro Football Hall of Fame entry on Taylor, for now at least, says he played for the Redskins.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Candidates are being vetted now…are you part of the process?

With everyone focused on November elections, its easy to forget that right now, as we speak, candidates are being vetted to run at the local, state and federal level. Especially for local elections, where the winner often wins by less than a thousand votes, and frequently less than a hundred votes, now is the time when candidates get setup with the party architecture and start building their campaign and fundraising.

This is also the time where upstart candidates have a chance of booting out the establishment folks in the primaries and caucuses. We hear about this for federal candidates, but surprisingly little for state and local candidates. The big reason is that the local parties are run by very few people, who often wield significant influence.

Which brings me to my main point: are you getting involved now? Are you attending your local Republican or Libertarian meetings? Are you part of that process? Are you asking the hard questions of the candidates? Are you donating to candidates you like? Are you getting signatures to get them on the ballot?

Too many times, we have trusted party leadership to vet a slate of candidates and assume that they will do a good job. That’s how we wind up with the Lisa Murkowskis, Liz Cheneys and Arlen Specters of the world, who win elections but don’t actually support the policies that their party supports. They sneak in because the majority of people aren’t part of the selection process.

Now is the time to get involved. Everyone is busy, but find the one thing you’re able to do. Maybe its walking around getting signatures for your school board and local representatives to get them on the ballot. If so, do that. Maybe you’re more extroverted and are good at asking hard questions at a party meeting. If so, do that. The point is, find what you’re capable of and do it now, while encouraging your friends to get involved as well.

We can’t make the Republican party great in November if we don’t start today.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you like this post, please help the author by purchasing his book.

Biden and Western weakness will hand Ukraine over to Russia

Bumper sticker that reads, in Ukranian, “Putin is a d*ckhead.”

By John Ruberry

“History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.” Ronald Reagan.

Contrary to the lessons that are almost certainly taught in American universities by leftist professors, large military budgets are not a precursor to war. In reality history teaches us something different.

As the Ottoman Empire declined in the 19th and 20th centuries, the Turks were faced with numerous rebellions and wars. They were on the losing side in nearly all of them, as ethnic groups and nations saw their opportunities, and for the most part, took them. One of those opportunistic states was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, itself in decline. Its annexation of Bosnia, nominally still part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1908 nearly caused a war in the Balkans. But a few years later there were two conflicts, the First Balkan War and the Second Balkan War, which, along with the assassination of the heir apparent of Austria-Hungary in Bosnia in 1914, and to be fair some other European disputes, set the table for World War I. 

The First World War brought us World War II, arguably the same conflict with a two-decade intermission, which led to the Cold War, then the collapse of communism, with eventually, former KGB agent Vladimir Putin becoming the de facto president-for-life of Russia.

Do you see where weakness leads us?

Last year, with the inauguration of Joe Biden, an emphasis on wokeness and diversity was pushed by our military leaders, instead of more important things, such as defending America and confronting enemies. Far worse for the appearance of American military strength was the rapid fall of Afghanistan. As bad as the fall of Saigon was for the image of the USA, the South Vietnamese were able to hold off the communists for two years after the departure of American combat troops. Afghanistan fell before Joe Biden’s pullout date. 

Which brings us back to Putin. 

Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. As soon as this week, Russian troops, including some in Putin’s client-state of Belarus, could invade the rest of Ukraine. While I am not an advocate of sending troops to Ukraine, now that is, if Biden had sent a tripwire contingent of American and NATO ally troops to Ukraine last summer, that very well may have been enough to scare off Putin. We have troops in South Korea that aren’t sizable enough to defeat the North Koreans, but an invasion from the north would almost certainly lead to a national outrage and call for a swift response to avenge American casualties and to protect South Korea. There are NATO troops in the Baltic States, and yes, Estonia, Lativa, and Lithuania are members of NATO, which are serving a similar role. 

For those calling for an economic boycott of Russia. Good luck with that. The best way to punish Russia in the pocketbook is to stop buying Russian oil and natural gas, the latter is a crucial energy source for western Europe. That will not happen. 

Biden projected weakness early in his presidency by waiving sanctions against the Russian company building the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 originate in Vyborg, Russia. It’s important to remember that between the world wars, Vyborg was part of Finland, but the Soviet Union seized it in the Winter War of 1939-1940. 

As for fossil fuels in America, Biden is instead hitching his shaky wagon to Green New Deal follies. 

Humiliating defeats don’t necessarily lead to more debacles. The first major World War II battle between American forces and the Nazis was the Battle of Kasserine Pass in North Africa, it was a fiasco for the Allies. 

What happened next?

The American commander, General Lloyd Fredendall, was sent stateside and was replaced by General George S. Patton.

After the Afghanistan rout, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, still has his job. 

Was anyone fired after the fall of Kabul? I don’t believe so. 

Worse, Putin likely sees Biden as not only weak, but as someone suffering from cognitive decline. At the very least, Biden and his top aides, were indecisive as Afghanistan collapsed, according to recently declassified documents.

Which brings us back to that Reagan quote. 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

COVID wallpaper

No, I’m not talking about putting up wallpaper with little COVID molecules on it. Maybe I’ll consider that for a Halloween haunted house though, to scare all the liberals into wearing masks 😉

I’m actually talking about how COVID has covered over a whole list of other serious issues. For the past two years, the main topic of discuss in almost all suburban homes has been COVID and its impacts on the home and family. It’s difficult to have a conversation with any of my friends that doesn’t touch on the disease in some way. The problem with this is it removes focus from a lot of other problems.

For example, our military is facing a manpower crisis. If you only read some headlines, you’d see that the Navy met its recruitment goals for the year. But that covers up the fact that its hemorrhaging manpower at a higher than normal rate. It can’t fill its sea billets that contribute the most to its ability as a fighting force, and it can’t keep Surface Warfare Officers.

Evaluating personnel data from 2004 to 2020, the agency found from Navy data that retention for SWOs was so low that the service changed how it inducted junior officers to ensure an adequate number of department heads for surface ships.

USNI News

In my community, my detailer already announced that there were significantly more retirements than expected, and they will simply be gapping billets. I’m not even mad at the detailer, he is simply working with what he has.

Gee, who could have seen this coming?

What about our economy? Everyone is focused on COVID’s impact to the supply chain, but there has been little focus on the brittleness of our economy. The fact that most of our advanced microchips come out of one country (Taiwan), or that most if not all of rare earth metals come from one country (China), or that our infrastructure has been ravaged for years by poor management and maintenance with nobody held accountable (see multiple dam collapses that past two years), or that we can’t seem to manage water in the state that produces most of our produce (California), or that we have a massive power crisis because we’ve been shutting down nuclear power plants (even Vox! says its a problem).

These economic problems have solutions that take years to implement. Some solutions are finally coming, such as Intel’s new chip plant being placed in Ohio. But its woefully behind schedule, and a glance through Biden’s “Build Debt Better!” plan didn’t show much resolution for any of these. In most cases, its not financing that is the issue, its holding the people responsible for the day-to-day management of these problems accountable, something that government in general has a bad track record of accomplishing.

But probably the worst bit of COVID wallpaper is cultural. COVID has become the excuse for people to live out their worst tendencies. Want to publicly shame people online and in-person? Want to kick people out of their jobs for personal medical decisions? Want to make demands of other people’s children? Want to do all this from the isolated safety of your home while you work on your laptop? Then COVID was just the thing for you! It’s no surprise that so many people don’t want the COVID restrictions to go away, because it removes their ability to boss others around.

COVID is like cheap wallpaper. It’s covering up a whole magnitude of other problems, and as the crisis goes away, we’re going to realize that we have always had much more important problems to solve.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you like this post, please consider supporting the author by purchasing his book.

Democrats exposed as complete frauds on gerrymandering

By John Ruberry

The latest, I think, Democratic Party Chicken Little existential crisis is “voting rights.” In attacking a Georgia voting reform law, President Joe Biden called it “Jim Crow on steroids,” a hateful and thoroughly dishonest claim.

C’mon man!

The end of partisan gerrymandering was one of Biden’s selling points as he stumped for his “voting rights” bills.

“For too long, partisan gerrymandering has allowed politicians to rig the political process and draw districts in their favor.” Biden said on Twitter two days ago,” voters should choose their representatives — not the other way around.” The was president celebrating a court victory for Democrats challenging a Republican-drawn state legislative map in North Carolina.

Biden and other prominent Democrats are silent on egregious gerrymandering by their party. For instance, New York currently has 27 congressional seats, slow population growth brings that number down by one for the next Congress. The current New York congressional delegation has nineteen Democrats and eight Republicans, but the new map, passed by the state Assembly, could bring a new tally, 22 Democrats and just four GOPers. 

The Dems are also quiet on Democratic gerrymandering in Maryland. That state’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, last year called on Biden to ask attorney general Merrick Garland to sue Maryland over partsian gerrymandering. Garland is probably too focused on using his FBI to harass parents who protest school boards.

Illinois, under the iron-fist rule of Boss Michael Madigan, the longtime state House speaker and Democratic party chairman, perfected Dem gerrymandering with his 2000 and 2010 remaps. Madigan was finally ousted as speaker last year and he quickly resigned his party office, but the chicanery continues.

With the departure of Madigan, Illinois’ governor, J.B. Pritzker, is finally the most powerful Democrat in the Prairie State. In 2018 he repeatedly promised to veto gerrymandered remaps. The grandiloquent rhetoric continued after his election. “As I’ve said since I was a candidate, I will veto any map that is unfair,” Pritzker said in 2019. “It’s the right thing to do. We’re going to have to make sure that here in Illinois we’re not gerrymandering, that we’re drawing maps that are fair and competitive. That’s what’s best for the voters of the state, that they have choices when they go to the ballot.” 

Last year Pritzker signed the gerrymandered legislative and congressional remaps into law.  

Leftists who read this blog post will howl out, “What the gerrymandering in Texas, Tennessee, and Florida?”

Well, what about it?

Okay, yes, that’s wrong too. But the GOP is not cloaking themselves, as Biden and the Democrats are, in the memory of Martin Luther King and John Lewis. The Democrats are the bigger hypocrites here. 

Barack Obama and his first attorney general, Eric Holder, have been frequent critics of Republican gerrymandering, however, and you shouldn’t be surprised by now, they are mum on gerrymandering that favors the Democrats. 

On Twitter last week, Holder also praised the court ruling against the North Carolina state legislature remap.

Holder is the chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which, because of its selective silence, can rightly be called a front group for supporters of Democratic partisan gerrymandering.

Don’t look for the hack mainstream media to blow the whistle on this blatant hypocrisy by the Democrats.

A responsible parent knows how to counter the “but-everyone-else-does-it” defense from a naughty child.

John Ruberry regularly blogs from gerrymandered Illinois at Marathon Pundit.

Why my kids are still masked

On his first day in office, Governor Youngkin signed an executive order repealing the mask mandate. Contrary to popular media belief, he didn’t make it illegal to wear masks in school. You can in fact still have your child wear a mask if you want to. In typical liberal fashion, people began suing the governor for providing the freedom to choose whether to mask your child or not. The list includes plenty of people that I personally know.

Now, you might think I’d be the first one to tell my kids to remove their masks. And yet, I’m not.

Why is that? Did I suddenly get cold feet when all this freedom was given to me? Am I secretly a germaphobe that has been called out into the open? Did I suddenly lose my spinal cord like so many senior military members?

Nope, none of that. The simple reason is that while the mask mandate is gone, my school district has some insidious rules that punish students for not wearing masks. Not directly of course, because that would open the spineless bureaucrats to lawsuits and more public shaming. These are instead indirect consequences, conducted in a sort of administrative warfare that is most often found at your local DMV.

If your student doesn’t wear a mask, and there is an outbreak, then he or she (or meow, or whatever you want people to call you) will have to quarantine at home for at least 5 days and take a bunch of COVID tests. But if your student is wearing a mask….no quarantine.

Yup. So if you choose freedom, you’ll get punished if anyone tests positive for COVID in a classroom. But keep that mask on, and you can still go to school.

So for the parents that want their kids to stay in school, rather than be virtually schooled, you take a massive risk of 5 days of at-home babysitting if your kid doesn’t wear a mask. If both parents work, or its a single parent family, will you risk that? Will you tell your job you need more flexible hours? Will you risk the hassle of losing another week due to some kid testing positive for COVID, even if they aren’t showing signs of actual sickness.

Some people might. Most won’t. So it’s not a surprise that most parents in my school district are still sending their kids with masks. Its not because we don’t want the freedom. It’s because the school district decided to impose its will anyway via administrative means. And until we dump these people to the curb like the trash that they are, all the executive orders in the world won’t bring the freedom they promise to the average family in Virginia.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you enjoyed this article, please consider purchasing my book on Amazon or Audible to help me and my family.

Don’t read one, Read two

Don’t buy one, buy two

Harry Bartell pitching Petri Wine on the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Hi All

If you’re visiting DatechGuyblog.org and enjoying the fine work of John Rubbery & navygrade36bureaucrat you might be wondering why I don’t post much here myself

Why I don’t post regularly here is simple, this is now the official BACKUP site for the primary blog which is now datechguyblog.blog which is actually our original wordpress blog from when we first started back in Nov of 2008 before we moved to Datechguyblog.com and before said site blew up which is still having repercussions for me.

“But DaTechGuy” you ask, “If this is the backup site why are two of your paid writers, including one of your original Magnificent seven writers posting here instead of there?”

Good Question.

Apparently they are having issues with the other site and circumstances have not allowed me to fully address them yet. So rather than creating new accounts and jumping through hoops they have continued to post here.

In one respect it’s good because that means this location remains fresh though it divides my hits.

But frankly I stopped counting and chasing hits once I realized that the primary drivers of hits have been censoring stuff. I’m more interested in making sure you get their insights and attention and if it comes via here rather then there and as long as enough is coming through DaTipJar to support both sites, it’s all good.

So by all means continue to stop here at datechguyblog.org and check out our fine writers here but don’t hesitate to stop over at datechguyblog.blog and me and the rest of our fine writers.

Don’t read one, read two.