From Balls To The Walz – Wednesday’s Hunker-Bunker Report

Good morning from my Hunker-Bunker set into the hills of West Seattle. There is a bit fog out there this morning, so I cannot see the Puget Sound. But I can smell the salt water and sea weeds from here. It is 0600 hrs and according to my pill caddy, it is a Wednesday.

I want a bear hunting suit. I don’t need one, but it sure would be nice to deal with all the people out there when I am not being paid to deal with them. This would be my “don’t fuck with me today” outfit. I’m bringing this up because today I have to go out and reprovision my Hunker-Bunker, which means I will have to deal with the random idiot drivers, and random idiot shoppers and homeless drug addicts and whatnot. I am sure to lose my patience at least once today.

Today’s report has a WEIRD assortment of news.

We’ll start with the “Balls”.

Louisiana is only the 4th place in the world to impose surgical castration on child rapists.

From the article:

Democratic Senator Regina Barrow, who authored the law, said she received several “devastating reports” of sexual violence against children – with some cases resulting in death.

She said: “You have those people who are really sick and I’ve heard about some of those cases where they don’t know if anything would really help except to keep them incarcerated.

“So, in that scenario, we need to keep them incarcerated.”

Barrows says she hopes the “threat of losing a part of one’s body” would keep child abusers from committing heinous crimes.

No offense to Senator Barrow, but Jesus fucking Christ, lady, you just glossed over the obvious solution:

Stop letting them out of prison. There is no ‘redemption’, or ‘rehabilitation’ for sex offenders of any stripe. Rape and sexual abuse acts have little to nothing to do with sex, and is more about power and dominion over a weaker individual. Unless we are talking about castration above the shoulders, then I don’t see this anything more than a draconian form of punishment. What happens after the castrated guy rapes and/or kills another victim after you’ve let them out?

If you are already admitting that there is little or nothing you can do to keep them from reoffending, then why in the fuck are you still letting them out? Either kill them or lock them up for life.

Next…

‘Squad’ member Cori Bush loses congressional primary

They come. They flash. They Burn. They Go. I see that Corey Bush has just been handed her walking papers. It’s what happens when your constituents have found someone they like more for the job. Maybe someone who isn’t a verbal and social liability. If you’ve pissed off enough people, maybe they will be encouraged to find your replacement.

It’s easy to get mad at a congresscritter. But you also have to consider that they got where they are because the majority of voters who bothered to vote in their district or state elections VOTED for them.

Yesterday was yet another ‘primary’ day here in Washington. We are predominately a ‘mail-in ballot’ state, being one of the first to adopt. My ballot is still here on my desk. Unopened until just this very moment…

“The envelope please…”

There are TWENTY-EIGHT candidates for governor! That’s not counting the write-in slot. What’s funny is that everyone knows who the two front runners are: Bob Fergusson for the Democrats and Dave Reichert for the Republicans. Except for this one little quirk: The Washington State GOP endorsed MAGA candidate Semi Bird for governor.

Here’s the thing: Did you catch the fact that my ballot is currently open and sitting on my desk this morning? I, like 85% of other registered Washington voters, didn’t bother to do something as simple as filling out a ballot and dropping it into our mail box or a drop box.

Again, the will of the constituency…

Snoop Dogg is raking in the cash

Five hundred grand a day is pretty good money for a gig where all you have to do is show up and model. And you know what? More power to him.

Uhhh…

Where’s Sigmund Freud when you need him?

Hamas replaces its political leader with its actual leader

I don’t know why Israel went out of its way to kill the political leader of Hamas, when the military leader of Hamas — Yahya Sinwar — was in reality the actual leader and the one calling the shots. The political leader was really nothing more than the public spokesman. Sinwar has always the one driving this bus.

But now he has made himself official.

ALWAYS THE JEWS…

Venezuelan Dictator Nicolas Maduro Blames Israel For Civil Unrest After He Stole Election

Here’s an idea: Since Israel pretty much considers the Palestinian people to be “refugees” within the State of Israel, maybe they can resettle them in Venezuela.

But as far as Israel being responsible for civil unrest in Venezuela? Has this guy been sticking eels up his ass?

The Pandemic Labor Model is OVER

For the past three years the labor market has kowtowed to the pampered tech workers who have demanded the ability to work from home, whenever and wherever they wanted to. When companies like Amazon, Google, T-Mobile et al started insisting that their employees start showing up at least two or three days a week, they were met with resistance and the companies caved. During the pandemic, they continued to hire workers — who also worked from home so that eventually their workforce was almost double its pre-pandemic size.

Now the markets are correcting. And it seems to be coming as a complete surprise and shock to a lot of people. The media is breathlessly talking about ‘recession’ and ‘massive layoffs’ because the insanely-high stock market took a thousand point dive in one day.

“Investors are moving to bonds!” as the tech stocks deflate. “We are in another ‘dot-com bubble burst’!”

First of all, why is any of this surprising? The pandemic economy couldn’t last forever. Like it or not, our economy is closely knitted together with the ‘global economy’ as a whole, so when the Central Bank of Japan decides to finally raise its interest rates thereby taking away the last cheap source of money in the world, it had an immediate effect on the world’s stock exchanges.

I don’t see anyone jumping out of skyscraper windows. The only people that I see freaking out are the talking heads. Wall Street seems to be taking it in stride. There’s a LOT of money to be made in a drop like this

Isn’t this exactly what the Fed has been trying to do since they started raising interest rates to slow down inflation? They were deliberately trying to slow down the labor market, to slow down growth in an effort to slow down spending and demand until the supply chain could catch back up. The stated goal of the the Fed was to attempt to bring down inflation by lowering rates just enough so as to not trigger a recession. The hope was for what they termed to be a “soft landing”.

To prevent a recurring rise in inflation, they have to be careful in lowering the interest rates over time.

Like it or not, this is the system we have. We can complain about it forever and not everyone will be happy with the results. But what we have is probably about as fair as it gets.

Gee, who didn’t see this coming?

Donald Trump’s Health Is of Increasing Concern to Voters

Monkey see, monkey do? I mean, it makes sense. Trump may be a chicken, but he ain’t a spring chicken. If you are being honest, I don’t care how ardent of a Trump supporter you are, you would have to admit that the Donald Trump today isn’t the Donald Trump in 2016. or even 2020. He, like Joe Biden, are showing their declination in almost real time.

The Democrats have successfully gone from being a losing party just three short weeks ago to a party with a sixty-year-old, energizing duo who are drawing “Trump-sized” crowds of people who had all but written off the 2024 election. Now there are a growing number of Republicans who wish they could do the same.

At the very least, I think a lot of them would love to get rid of JD Vance. I think he’s starting to become one of those Dan Quayle candidates, who will forever be out of politics three months from now. The question is, will he go back to being the genuine version of himself, or will he stick with this made-up MAGA version? Either way, he’s shown himself to be a liability.

Donald Trump would never step aside. He’s the RNC nominee. The only way he leaves is if HE agrees to leave. IF there is anyone out there who thinks that Donald J. Trump, demented or not, is ever going to agree to step aside, then I have a Space Needle and the box it came in that I will sell to you for cheap.

Jill Stein has a better chance of becoming POTUS than Donald Trump voluntarily stepping aside.

But yeah, as I’ve stated here all along, Donald Trump’s age and health ARE a concern. I’ve been very consistent about this. About BOTH Biden and Trump. Both have been devolving before our eyes.

The question is, who would you replace him with?

Let’s Make America Great Again

Just like “America First”, Donald Trump lifted his slogans from previous candidates. You can never accuse Donald Trump of being original.

But ever since reprised the ‘Make America Great Again’, I’ve always wondered when exactly it was that Donald Trump considered “great”.

I mean, the phrase itself is subjective, isn’t it? “make America great again” doesn’t give you any parameters to work with other than the entire American history, so it is up to you to decide when that period of time was.

So when does Donald Trump think America was at its ‘Greatest‘?

It’s a fair question, isn’t it? Considering that it is a subjective subject, we each have our own idea of the period of time we’d like to emulate. Isn’t that reasonable?

Well, we don’t have to look all that far, Donald Trump has told us.

Donald Trump reveals when he thinks America was great. It turns out that Donald has two periods of time that he considers ‘great’:

The answer, Trump explained, was during periods of military and industrial expansion at the onset of the 20th century and again in the years after World War II.

“If you look back, it really was, there was a period of time when we were developing at the turn of the century which was a pretty wild time for this country and pretty wild in terms of building that machine, that machine was really based on entrepreneurship,” he told the Times.

Trump also pointed to the “late ’40s and ‘50s,” a time when, he said, “we were not pushed around, we were respected by everybody, we had just won a war, we were pretty much doing what we had to do.”

Not on his list: The Reagan Era.

–Gregory Krieg, CNN Updated 5:36 PM EDT, Mon March 28, 2016

So he’s basically looking at it from an international viewpoint of the US of A. What he isn’t talking about are the internal social and political corruption issues going on during the so-called ‘Gilded Age’ leading into the following ‘Progressive Era’. While America did enjoy a major economic expansion following the end of the second world war, it wasn’t without coming at the expense of a lot of minorities in this country. I remember all too well what it was like growing up Jewish in small town, rural America in the 1950s.

Okay, when do YOU think America was great, DJ? Well, thank you for asking. (I can hear you thinking it)

Simple: America has ALWAYS been great, and we continue to improve upon it. We’ve always been a work in progress, and as long as we continue to carry on with being “America” we will continue to build. Sometimes we may face periods of emergency or drought. It’s a fucking planet subject to all sorts of predictable and unpredictable events. A butterfly in Australia… and all that.

Our greatness is also measured in how we rebound from problems…

If we spend our time looking for the negatives in our lives we will always find more than we can stand. Start looking for the good things going on, to help balance out any negative feelings you have over all.

Just keep that in mind.

…To the Walz

“Dad bod” This was the first thing out of my grand Niece’s mouth this morning when she saw this photo – and she meant it in a good way. She felt ‘comfort’ in this photo. He looks like he’s dressed to go to Home Depot to get some toilet repair parts, or maybe go out and mow the lawn before it gets too hot.

This is the extent that many young voters go to decide who to vote for.

Oh well, I’ve got to go out and be amongst … people. ewww.