Always, it seems, there is spin being applied to reality as the elites attempt to condition the underlings to accept indignities from wearing face diapers and suffering lockdowns to coping with the rocketing cost of living and not kicking up a fuss when Clueless Joe claims zero inflation.

Sometimes the propagandizing, the massaging of the truth, rises to outright manipulation so egregious that even a questionable legal system is forced to concede this and prosecute.

Such is the case regarding precious metals – gold and silver, and other lesser-traded examples such as platinum and palladium.

As a long-time holder of gold and silver and related investments due to my belief that our economic system is a house of cards, I am acutely aware of mysterious price action in the metals. The metals tend to drop on cue, despite overnight rises in Asia and Europe, when COMEX trading opens at 8:20 a.m. Eastern.

There used to be curious price action consistently around the aptly called London Gold Fix, which was re-christened in 2015 but still twice daily announces a price for gold in U.S. dollars as decided by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). This is an opaque process in which price is decided, not determined by open market operations.

There is a precious metals analyst named Ted Butler who for years publicly has been accusing U.S. trading firms of outright fraud in precious metals trading and the guy never gets sued, which speaks volumes.

Through the years, there have been periodic legal judgments against these firms regarding trading irregularities. But last week came a dilly when the global head of J.P. Morgan’s precious metals trading (a former LBMA member, too) and a J.P. Morgan colleague of his in precious metals were convicted of multiple trading offenses by a U.S. federal court.

One of the techniques of manipulators in general is called “spoofing” in which false orders are put into the computerized system, trying to induce price movement, and then pulled before the common folk can act on the manipulators’ specific orders, which most often are sells.

This is made possible by the firms having super computers with intense speed, located physically close to exchanges to gain nanoseconds in the execution, allowing them to front run the public.

By flooding sell orders into the system, this can create a stampede that continues due to the spooked public. Think of the stereotypical scene from western movies in which one gun shot or lightning strike sends the cattle herd stampeding.

You need human examples? Think of yelling fire in a crowded theater, having a great Black Friday sales price on a big-screen TV, or giving away cheese at the corner food pantry.

In each instance, rationality gives way to mad impulse. By the time sanity is regained, in the case of precious metals trading, those short (betting on declining prices) can buy cheap, run up prices and set in motion another decline to benefit from the movement.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Silver is the poster child for manipulation. This is both a precious and industrial metal, whose uses are massive, ranging from solar panels to use in all those nifty electronics society can’t manage to live without.

And yet silver sits at $19.06 an ounce as I write this Sunday afternoon, having plunged 46 cents in Friday trading. Silver was $50 an ounce in 1980 and nearly touched that range again in 2011. You name me another such widely used commodity whose much greater all-time high was achieved 40-plus years ago.

Oil, for example, SPIKED to $35 a barrel back in 1980 when silver was topping out at $50 an ounce. Have you checked the price of oil lately?

It is encouraging that legal action is being taken here and there against this practice of precious metals manipulation, but it’s quickly forgotten and strange price action resumes.

What would really hearten me would be if the propping up of investment markets by the Plunge Protection Team, or the investment manipulation by gabby members of the Federal Reserve Open Markets Committee (often referred to by skeptics as the Open Mouth Committee) would be widely discussed and critiqued.

It would be nice if LameStream media and social media outlets would be held to task legally for one-sided presentation and censoring.

It would be encouraging if electoral integrity and border security were considered desirable and necessary to the future success of the country.

As my late, terribly politically incorrect father would have said, don’t hold your hand over your butt (he didn’t say butt) waiting for that to happen or you will die of constipation.

With any luck, by late tonight Liz Cheney will be a lame-duck Congresswoman.

Wyoming primary elections are being held today and Cheney is expected to lose, “big time ” to borrow a phrase favored by her father.

It was Cheney, the consummate RINO (Republican in name only), who has been utilized to give “credibility” to the Jan. 6 show hearings.

Cheney is, after all, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, from a prominent Republican family. Who better to go after Donald Trump and thereby provide the illusion of bi-partisanship?

She is the ultimate Quisling.

But polls showed Cheney trailing by upwards of 30 percentage points in her re-election run, despite campaign funding from the left and an anti-Trump ad featuring Liz’s daddy, Dick.

Goodbye Liz, we hardly knew ye.

To understand Liz Cheney, one must understand that Donald Trump gained his time as president despite the best efforts of the Democrats and Republicans alike. Make that despite the efforts of elite Republicans. Main Street Republicans loved the Trump message. Most still do.

Trump spoke of America going astray politically and economically, both in domestic and foreign issues. He vowed to drain the D.C. Swamp, populated as it is by operatives from both parties.

That’s why Republicans fought almost as hard as Democrats to keep Trump out of office.

It’s why Republicans in high office did little to stop ongoing intelligence agency coup attempts, or election misdeeds designed to make the Trump time in the Oval Office a short as possible.

It is unlikely Wyoming elected Cheney expecting her to make it a personal crusade to destroy Trump. After all, 70 percent of the state had voted for Trump in 2020.

But Cheney, likely at the bidding of her fellow Republican elitists, wants to bury Trump politically. It’s not enough that he left office due to a questionable election outcome. Democrats and elite Republicans fear he still is popular and could rise phoenix-like from the ashes to run – even win – again.

Cheney, like her many other party-confused Senate counterparts among the RINO wing, ought just to do the right thing and swap parties. Their allegiances clearly are not with Republicans.

Better to make a clean break and get onboard with people they agree with philosophically.

Better to clear the decks for legitimate candidates to run, leaving us to be spared down the line from being expected to hold our noses and vote for the likes of Dr. Oz, current “Republican” candidate for Senate.

It’s time for truth in labeling when it comes to political parties. Voting out Cheney is a start.

So long, Liz. Don’t let the door hit you on the butt on your way out.

We had a yard sale yesterday and today, trying to clear out a lot of the belongings of my late mother. In the process, we got an amusing slice of life.

Understand that Ebay, Craigslist, and the retreat of traditional auctions to the online format, have combined to put a crimp in the once huge customer base for these in-person sales.

Flea markets have been similarly impacted by this digital trend, not to mention the heavy handed COVID lockdowns and protocols.

Against this backdrop, we erected our canopies and deployed merchandise on tables and tarp, with limited expectations.

The event was advertised for free on Facebook and Craigslist. We made up some cardboard signs to post at nearby intersections and sat back waiting for the money to rush into our pockets – just kidding.

My wife used to frequent yard/garage sales, often dragging me along. She seldom goes to them these days.

I used to enjoy community events, such as one formerly held in Riverside, in which many of the houses in that residential section participated.

The smart residents there merely rolled out some coolers to their front yards, stocked them with ice, bottled water and soda, and made out like bandits. It’s a variation of the story of how Levi Strauss made his money in the California gold rush not by mining, but by selling goods, particularly jeans, to the miners.

Our yard sale strategy was to move stuff with ultra-low pricing. A welcome benefit was that we didn’t got a lot of “will you take x for it ?” dickering.

One of my favorite characters, to be polite, was an older woman who came late Friday and early Saturday.

She spent Friday wanting explanations and demonstrations of items, including having us remove a nativity set from a box maybe two feet by one feet. It still was in its original packing but she wanted a guarantee it all were there, for the princely sum of $1!

This woman didn’t buy that set, or any of the other items she pored over, settling instead for a small stuffed animal for which she paid 25 cents – and paid for it with a $5 bill!

When she returned Saturday, this discriminating woman shopper needed my wife to pull a lighted Christmas bell decoration out of its box and plug it in to demonstrate its functionality. The woman didn’t buy it, of course.

She did buy some 25-cent item, but this time managed to have a quarter to pay.

This woman also told us she had been late Friday because the woman she was riding with earlier wouldn’t stop because it wasn’t advertised in the newspaper. How anachronistic.

Through it all, we encountered both early birds and people who arrived after sales hours, either wanting to look at merchandise before we had gotten it out, or even as we were packing it back into a storage shed.

We had a lot of political commentary owing in part to me keeping a Trump campaign sign in my yard. Many liked that. If people didn’t like it, they didn’t bother to mention so.

One older couple came back both days and bought with both hands, remarking at the attractive pricing. They were even buying for other people.

What I’ve learned is pretty much what I already knew. Most of those you bump into are personable, friendly, and just generally good people.

An unfortunate minority are sullen, disrespectful and have only a passing acquaintance with societal standards of courtesy.

I was surprised to find there is value in gaudy costume jewelry.

I was similarly surprised to discover one could put out unused items, with original price stickers still intact, and find people thinking what once cost $4 now isn’t worth 50 cents.

I learned there always are opportunists and hustlers looking to steal in the figurative sense by paying much less than the worth of an item that an unsuspecting seller might have offered – in this case a cast iron skillet.

On the whole, though, it was enjoyable.

We sold many items. Admittedly if you broke it down, the proceeds by the hours it took my wife, son and I to set up and tear down each day, not to mention the countless hours my wife spent going through my mother’s old house and sorting items, the pay was probably about 5 cents an hour.

Still, the weather was clear and sunny, but was neither overly hot nor humid.

I wouldn’t want to do this every weekend, as some seem to do. But it was an interesting experience just this once.

The Biden propaganda ministry never sleeps, and neither do its media mouthpieces.

Biden’s handlers had him out this week proclaiming “ZERO” inflation for July. The Clueless One repeated it several times, because even a guy on the fringes of being lucid found it hard to believe.

So, it was zero for July, but 8.5 percent higher when compared with July 2021. Which is more significant?

Biden and his handlers are doubling down on their long-running bet that the populace in general, and the electorate in particular, is a bunch of blithering idiots who will believe anything they are told.

Sadly, I’m not willing to state absolutely that the Biden take is incorrect. Voters have shown themselves to be morons on a majority basis many times in recent years. Why should it stop now?

And yet it does become absurdly tiring to see example after example of Biden’s propaganda minions torturing the truth and spinning it so hard as to make themselves and any observers dizzy.

One social media wag called them out, postulating that since Clueless Joe said there’s no inflation, then it follows there is no need for the profligate spending of the Inflation Reduction Act.

That’s the act even Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders said is a joke.

Propagandizing is everywhere.

When thirty or more armed FBI agents show up at Donald Trump’s Florida residence before dawn to force themselves in and grab alleged evidence, most news outlets reported it as a raid.

But now the propaganda people are pushing back and “raid” no longer can be used to describe the action. They merely were serving a warrant.

And Putin’s Russian forces didn’t invade Ukraine. They were only checking for some boxes of missing caviar.

The IRS, which inexplicably has been buying ammunition in large quantities, and has authorization to hire 87,000 additional agents, is advertising for some of those agents to be “willing to use deadly force.”

One consistent Biden regime apologist, marketwatch.com, noted this is nothing unusual or new. But when the deadly force ad was widely reported, nationalreview.com noted the job posting was later pulled down. Why do that if it was just more of the same?

All the IRS wanted was more agents willing to kill people, ostensibly for not paying their fair share of the taxes needed to support our socialist state. And people think that’s cause for concern!

No doubt propagandists will now say the ad was a response to all the right-wing terrorists pillaging the country. There must be some doing that, somewhere.

Biden’s propaganda team should not limit itself to domestic issues, or even current affairs for that matter.

They could rewrite history, re-christening The Great Depression as a Small Period Of Malaise.

The Jan. 6 Capitol “insurrection” should be marked down to a protest rally, sort of like those televised scenes of flaming communities that had “mostly peaceful protest” banners running below them.

Historic riots, such as Watts, or Liberty City, similarly were just mostly peaceful protests.

And China is not threatening Taiwan, but merely showing it cares about the breakaway island.

Russians aren’t looking to freeze Europeans this winter, just looking to keep them from wasting their money on oil or natural gas when they could use it better to pay taxes.

Nancy Pelosi’s son was not a freeloading opportunist, but just an Asian escort on that recent freebie junket to Taiwan and the like.

And Hunter Biden, last seen boarding a plane with The Big Guy for a vacation trip at taxpayer expense, is not just some loser with addiction problems regarding drugs and sex, but merely a guy who knows how to live large.

Change a few judgmental words here and there and it all seems better, especially if you’re preaching to an audience of idiots.

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We promise sports commentary on this blog and don’t deliver often enough. There are many reasons for that.

Although I spent most of 35 years working for newspapers writing about sports, I became severely turned off by the path of sports in general and the athletes in particular.

These days, I watch an occasional Major League Baseball game, but get more interested at playoff time.

Similarly, I routinely waste little to no time viewing regular season NHL, NBA, NFL, college basketball or college football play.

My DISH satellite television package a while back dropped the Pittsburgh sports provider channel due to high cost, which I didn’t mind. It was more a mercy killing, denying the transmission of endless hours of pathetic Pirates baseball, along with the non-stop whining of Penguins announcers reflecting the franchise’s mindset that it never gets a fair shake.

But sometimes events catch my eye. One such ridiculous moment occurred last night, when a Pirates player dropped his cell phone while sliding into third base, providing a microcosm moment to illustrate what ails sports and society. Replays have been everywhere.

In this way, Rodolfo Castro turned yet another Pirates loss into a lasting memory.

How absurd that a player would feel the need to have a cell phone tucked into his uniform pants during a game.

Baseball purists have rushed to cable television outlets to express outrage. They were just wasting their time.

Castro merely reflects our society, in which mostly everyone from school students to dinner partners cannot separate from their cell phones long enough to focus on those present. These digital zombies sleepwalk through life in a permanent state of divided attention.

You might think a player freshly called up to the Major Leagues could break the addiction, at least while running the bases. And you would be wrong.

Replays of the farce show a bemused umpire and an exasperated looking third base coach, who was charged with taking possession of the phone while play continued.

Big league baseball is a bit touchy about electronic devices on the playing field, what with all the charges and countercharges of sign stealing.

No doubt Castro is innocent on that front and was merely looking to send or accept some texts, or take a selfie with which to do some boasting on social media.

Pirates manager Derek Shelton, the latest captain of this baseball Titanic, handled the matter with apologetic tripe typical of those in positions of sporting authority – we use the authority part loosely.

Said Shelton: “This was just a kid who made a mistake.”

Excuse me! Castro is 23. He’s an adult by any legal definition. Immature, yes. Kid, no.

It is fitting that Castro would commit this faux pas while playing for the Pirates, an organization that consistently is short on talent, but compounds that inherent competitive problem by playing sloppy fundamental baseball.

There are actual chronological kids playing baseball on television these days, as youths compete to advance to the finals of the Little League World Series.

Let me know the next time a cell phone falls out of the pants of one of those players during play.

Shortly after finishing my earlier blog post, ending it with a sarcastic nod to our police state adding 87,000 members to the IRS Gestapo, I flipped on Cable TV news and heard Donald Trump’s Florida estate had been raided by the FBI.

Is this the Onion? The Babylon Bee? A mass April Fools’ joke?

No. No. And No.

Mark your calendars, ladies and gentlemen. Aug. 8, 2022, the date the United States descended into full Banana Republic status.

Begin with Attorney General Merrick Garland. Know him for his intense hard-on for all Republicans and conservatives because he didn’t get his seat on the Supreme Court bench.

Garland was nominated by Barack Obama in 2016, but the Republican-held Senate never voted on his nomination. They cited the so-called Biden rule, put forth by then-Senator Joe Biden (back when he didn’t need notes to enter a room) in a 1992 Senate floor speech basically declaring that presidents late in their term should not tinker with the Supreme Court until after the next election was finished.

I am sure it is mere coincidence that AG Garland sees noting wrong with Hunter Biden’s videoed illegal conduct, can’t find any reason to pursue legal action against Democrats or liberals, but can’t wait to lower the hammer on Republicans and conservatives, be they parents protesting school boards or ex-presidents not toeing the line quickly enough.

Similarly, the FBI, which has been outed as a partisan organization, continues to attempt to pin some sort of legal charge on Trump.

Note that in the past the FBI’s pursuit of same has led to changing interview records, providing false information to judges in order to get wiretaps, and generally playing fast and loose with the truth and the law, all in the interest of bringing down Trump.

Trump’s sin is to take on the D.C. Swamp. Trump wants to rid our nation’s capital of the elite inner-circle that feels it has the right to run things without ever having to stand for election, or emerge from the shadows.

Trump was warned, by prominent Democrats and Republicans alike, that you don’t mess with the deep state and survive. Trump continues to attempt to prove them wrong.

There was the sham Russian collusion angle. There were allegations of making illicit deals with foreign governments. More recently, the made-for-TV Jan. 6 hearings have attempted to paint Trump as an insurrectionist, relying on such things as hearsay testimony that was refuted by firsthand witnesses.

This raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, presumably to retrieve classified materials that Trump allegedly took with him when he exited the White House, was great theater for the drooling leftists.

Note that Hillary Clinton’s loose handling of classified materials never even raised the suggestion of a light slap on the wrist. Understand that the Clintons helped themselves to some valuable material possessions when they left the White House. Just an honest mistake.

Expect Garland to crawl out from under his rock sometime Tuesday to present weak rationalization for yet another attempt to publicly humiliate Trump and so seek to intimidate his supporters, from the rank-and-file to the upper reaches.

One legal expert, trying to give the FBI the benefit of the doubt for this unprecedented pre-dawn raid, said there would have had to have been a judge who signed off on the search warrant. You mean like the judges who agreed to surveillance of Trump’s campaign and administration based on erroneous FBI documentation? You mean evidence like that?

Anyone who believes in the U.S. Constitution and equal justice should be appalled by this raid.

You need some perspective? You think this was not an example of overkill for the sake of media optics? Try this:

Various reports had the number of FBI agents used to raid Trump as 30. The U.S. military sent just 23 SEALs on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Signs of systemic breakdowns are all around us, if only you care to look.

We had another miserable weekend for airline travelers, as flights were canceled and stranded passengers lamented being unable to get from Point A to Point B with any degree of certainty.

Airlines trotted out the usual excuses of weather, sprinkled with airport traffic problems and shortages of workers for the planes. Yahoo reported 10,000 flights delayed or canceled over the weekend.

I once had to do considerable traveling for my sportswriting job. Now I say a silent prayer of thanks each night that I no longer have to put up with airline travel, which became an ordeal post 9-11.

A companion national story to airline woes in recent days has noted the shortage of teachers with schools about to reopen, prompting some states to lower standards. We’re yet to reach the point where fogging a mirror qualifies one to instruct youth, but we’re headed in that direction.

Teachers, as is their wont, are whining about being overworked, underpaid, and generally underappreciated. In some cases all are true. In too many examples, none are the case.

A friend of mine, a teacher decades back, used to say teachers are the most insecure people with the most secure jobs. He was right then, and now.

Our schools are a mess, but a large part of that has to do with inept management and too many teachers just showing up and punching the clock, if not the hooligan students.

On a more personal level, I spent 4 ½ hours today at the house of my late mother, awaiting people from our glorious Greater Johnstown Water Authority to take out the meter. This is necessary because even if one has service turned off, there is a $9.99 a month fee because the service is available.

One only escapes that fee by having the meter removed and the line cut.

I have done the bureaucratic dance, as have other family members, trying to get this situation rectified. Finally, last week an appointment was made to have the meter removed.

I was given a choice of 9-noon, or noon to 4. I picked noon to 4, got to the house early today, just in case, and set about doing some things.

I mowed the grass, then went inside to sort through knickknacks and assorted clutter. I later listened to some podcasts on my phone, and then played two games of chess on a cell app.

It now was 3:40 p.m. and I began to suspect no water guy was coming.

I called the authority, dealt with a very unhelpful phone tree, and finally picked an inappropriate choice just to talk with someone.

Eventually, my call was answered and after much checking, I was assured someone would be dispatched. Apparently the work order had fallen through the cracks – figuratively not literally.

The guy expected a harsh welcome, but I assured him I understood it was morons in the office, not him, who had screwed the pooch.

He got there only about five minutes after the supposed window closed, and was gone in 15 or so more minutes

The guy is looking to retire as soon as possible, for which I commended him.

It’s a common sentiment, often even among those who only just started working.

We can’t find physically fit and mentally straight youth to join our Woke armed forces.

Farmers are being driven from their fields by government regulation and raging inflation.

The nation’s infrastructure has taken on a Third World look.

The Biden Regime wants to bankrupt fossil fuel companies, even as energy prices skyrocket.

That same regime has passed a spend until it hurts bill to – laugh, chuckle, guffaw – help rein in inflation.

But there is good news tonight. Money has been allotted to hire 87,000 more IRS agents, the better to harass the public into political submission through intimidation.

Yet another All American Amateur Baseball Association Tournament has concluded, with a familiar result, a New Orleans title earned via a Saturday night win over the local Paul Carpenter entry.

How soon, one might ask, before the AAABA acronym is changed to represent officially the New Orleans dominance, now standing at three consecutive titles and four of the past five, with a runnerup finish in that lone title miss?

Possible replacements:

Another Archetypal Amateur Baseball Ascent

And Again Anticlimactic Bayou Achievement.

Artful Antipathy And Bayou Avalanche.

Alone Again Atop Baseball Aristocracy.

Title redundancy isn’t exactly a new occurrence in the 77 seasons of the AAABA Tournament.

Baltimore won 8 of 9 tournaments from 2003-2011, with New Orleans in 2009 breaking up that run.

Washington won 5 of 6 from 1997-2002, again with New Orleans (2000) providing the lone interruption.

Before that, Baltimore won 12 of 16 from 1976 through 1991.

You will note that Baltimore and Washington no longer have franchises or send teams to the AAABA Tournament, allowing New Orleans to dominate as the last remaining member of the Big Four franchise list.

Detroit, also long ago having gone missing from the AAABA scene, had claimed a Big Four designation with a period of dominance by winning the AAABA Tournament five times in 10 seasons from 1969 through 1978.

The reality that New Orleans is the only member of the Big Four still sending a team to the Johnstown tournament takes some of the shine off their current domination.

Replacing the likes of Baltimore, Washington and Detroit has been impossible.

The list of AAABA franchises in general is such that multiple entries from the same franchise leagues are needed merely to flesh out the 16-team tournament field.

Johnstown long ago was accorded two entries annually, the better to increase the odds of success by a local team and thereby to draw paying customers to Point Stadium to help fund this whole exercise.

But this year necessity also required two teams from Brooklyn. The tournament hit a low of sorts in 2018, when along with two Johnstown entries, there were three apiece required from Buffalo and Brooklyn to reach 16 teams.

Both Johnstown entries made it to the Final Four of this year’s tournament which, depending on your perspective, speaks to the strength of the local league, or to the weakness of the tournament at large.

Regardless, we eagerly await 2023 and another presumptive New Orleans title.

Returning today from my daily walk, one timed to take advantage of a bit of dry weather, I came upon a neighbor standing on the sidewalk engaged in wistful contemplation of his next door neighbors’ house.

Said house having recently been put up for sale, this man was doing what most on the street now do, which would be hoping the new owners won’t be idiots.

It’s about a 50-50 gamble these days.

This once sedate neighborhood populated by mostly well-mannered families, has declined noticeably.

Now, this elderly couple has opted for apartment life elsewhere, leaving their house to be bought by someone new.

On the upside, if their asking price is met, the sale will put yet another boost into property values.

On the downside, if yet more out-of-control neighbors move in, it will quickly erase that gain.

The neighbor musing on the vacant house lives to the immediate right of it, and on the corner of the block. I told him he could just buy this neighboring house, rent it out to normal people, and thereby have a buffer.

I don’t have the option of relative isolation living three houses down to the left. This has been a peaceful week with my irritating neighbors to my right on vacation all week. But they will return soon, I’m sure.

Even worse, my neighbor to the left is contemplating selling her house, with all the uncertainty that would produce.

I spoke briefly about the neighborhood decline with this pensive neighbor, reciting chapter and verse about problems. I, and many like me, moved to neighborhoods such as ours in the Johnstown suburbs to escape the horrors of the Greater Johnstown School District for our children.

Understand I graduated once upon a time from Johnstown High School, have a son who teaches there, and have had considerable contact with students from recent years. I wouldn’t want to send a child of mine to that school district.

I paid the economic price to escape in the form of a higher purchase price and property taxes. That was supposed to provide an economic moat of sorts. But now I find through various governmental subsidies and programs, the troublemakers have had the way paid for them to follow me.

My neighbor was unaware that just this morning, within a stone’s throw of his house, a report on the police scanner had told of a passing driver’s concern that a man was prone in a yard.

Police investigated and discovered the downed man was laid low by a drug overdose, while he was in charge of not one, or two, but three young children.

The police activity continued for some time at that house.

Meanwhile, up the street and on the other side, a group of people (I hesitate to use the term family) moved in late last year, prompting the erection of two massive fences by neighbors on either side of them.

We still have people who think our street is a dragstrip. Often these are not residents but instead just people who feel the need to race through a residential area to bypass the never-ending sewer, gas line, water line, whatever construction on nearby Goucher Street.

As a side note, my rental garage a block away is a strip of such storage spots associated with a small apartment building that of late has taken on a Section 8 tenancy.

This affects me because their supposed economic hardships don’t seem to prevent them from owning cars. Lines have been painted on the pavement to help them park those cars correctly parallel to the building, leaving space for garage owners to exit their stalls.

A couple of tenants don’t seem to understand what those lines mean, parking well outside them, and even at a 45-degree angle to the building.

I tracked down one offender and noted she really needed to do a better job of parking. To her credit, she was apologetic and, for the most part, has parked correctly since.

But her scofflaw role has been taken by another poor parker. And I’m left to decide how to communicate to these people the need to park closer to the building.

I’ve gone so far as to contemplate renting a three-car garage miles away, presuming that might reduce my problems with access.

I’ve also contemplated moving to a house with more of what used to be called elbow room in terms of surrounding land. Skyrocketing house prices – thank you Biden Regime inflation – have put that on hold while I await the virtually inevitable rapid decline in housing prices that an economic recession and financial contraction bring.

Similarly, any plans to acquire yet another hobby car – although I’m a Mustang guy I’ve been researching C-4 Corvettes – have been sidetracked by unrealistic price rises.

Life for me has become a bit of a waiting game, spiced with observing our unfortunate case of neighborhood limbo – how low can things go?

Democrats think most of us are outright idiots. Are they correct?

The fact that Clueless Joe Biden sometimes bumbles into the Oval Office in an official capacity is a point for the Democrats’ belief in mass lunacy of the population, although admittedly that outcome came only with a big assist from the worker bees who made the vote totals come out right.

Still, Democratic control of the House of Representatives, and de facto control of the Senate also argue that Democrats are right and we’re mostly morons.

Emboldened by this apparent state of affairs, Democrats of all stripe have taken to outright fabrication of facts wherever and whenever, daring anyone to correct them.

I have written here in the past about the delusional Democrat I know who would not admit that Trump rallies outdrew Biden rallies. That’s how far the other side has slipped into their alternate reality.

Biden often gets a pass on his outrageous bastardization of the truth due to his obvious decline in cognitive function.

But is that contagious? Must be. How else to explain why just about every Democratic Donkey feels the need to lie blatantly?

Consider Biden energy advisor Amos Hochstein, who went on Fox at mid-week insisting that it is “just factually not true” to say gasoline prices in these United States were rising before Putin sent Russian troops into Ukraine.

This is as ridiculous as Biden regime attempts to redefine what constitutes a recession, flying in the face of their own past statements, when it was politically convenient to label two consecutive quarters of GDP decline as a recession if only because Republicans were in charge.

One story on Hochstein playing fast and loose with the truth quoted the gasoline price (presumably national average for regular unleaded) at $2.39 a gallon on Jan. 21, 2021, Biden’s first day on the job. The price on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia’s first day in Ukraine, $3.54.

Those figures were from a tweet by RNC Research, so let’s presume bias. I checked prices myself, on the U.S. Energy Information Administration web site. That’s a government site, hence the .gov extension on the URL (https://www.eia.gov).

That government site, no doubt maintained by bureaucracy members who lean hard left because their unions tell them to do so, had a monthly average price for January 2021 of $2.334 per gallon. The monthly average price for February 2022, $3.517 a gallon.

That looks to me like a rise of $1.18 a gallon, give or take, which is quite an increase BEFORE PUTIN INVADED UKRAINE!!!

I guess this is one reason why crazed leftist Democrats want math declared racist, so that they no longer need be hindered by it.

History and statistics in general similarly are terra incognito to Democrats.

A certain state senator from San Francisco, named (I kid you not) Wiener, is demanding a Monkeypox state of emergency be declared in California.

The number of confirmed Monkeypox cases in California is 346, with 222 in San Francisco. California’s population in the 2020 census was 39.35 million people. San Francisco’s population in that same census was 874,784, which almost sounds made up.

Regardless, 222 out of 874,784 or 346 out of 39.35 million is not typically thought of as state of emergency stuff.

Again, racist math. In this case, since Monkeypox is mostly spread within the gay community, it’s homophobic math.

Or maybe, just maybe, it is perspective. Democrats might want to book passage en masse to a quaint location we on the right like to call reality.

Democrats should love the fact that the borders are open there. One just need to bring evidence of possession of common sense and a tendency to tell the truth and you will be welcomed to reality, which is a nice place to live, work and raise your family.