I wanted to take a break from reviewing food joints for a bit to get my salt content back to a reasonable levels. Instead, I wanted to discuss a current event that occurred at a Panera Bread outlet and subsequently went viral. A young women “cook,” videoed herself taking a frozen packet of mac and cheese and placing it into a pot of boiling water….removing minutes later, plating it, and commenting “this is how we make mac and cheese at Panera.” The chef was terminated for making the video. Panera went full law office on this incident, basically saying they would need to add a bunch of preservatives to the mac if they made it fresh etc. etc. etc. This has been the talk of the town lately and for good reason, Panera Bread claims to be chemical free, and fresh-made in house… kinda. The number of people in disbelief is astounding. Allow me to explain.
No quick serve, fast food, fast casual, or chain restaurant does scratch cooking anymore. They haven’t in a decade or more. The reasons for this make a lot of sense if you stop and think about it. Jack in the Box had an E.coli scare, Chipotle same deal, I believe Burger King had a scare…those incidents cost major $$$. In a world where corporations report earnings every 90 days and consumers are very fickle with their hard earned dollars, this cannot happen! So a couple things happened, corporations innovated and found ways to cut a metric ton of costs and raise profit margins tenfold. They found ways to cook everything in a factory in a centralized environment. To be clear, it’s not cooked to doneness, it’s essentially flash cooked, and vacuum sealed, and frozen. Food is then shipped to the store in a convenient portion-sized baggie and all the kitchen staff has to do is drop it in a pot of boiling water… just like the girl at Panera.
This creates a “consistent customer experience” buzz words used all the time in business now. The portions are the same size, same doneness, and the same price, effectively removing any customer complaints about the food. Better yet it’s the same at every store. I have been to BJ’s Brewhouse locations in Elk Grove, Folsom, and in Southern California. The pizza I had at each was identical, down to the same number of pepperonis on each.
It works for the customer since they like the continuity, but it didn’t work out so great for the kitchen staff. The cook at a restaurant like that never made a ton of money, but since the food used to be fairly scratch made, the money was equal to a modest middle class salary. Now however, no more need for a chef or the salary that goes with it, actually the skilled kitchen staff were not needed either…all were let go. Let’s face it, you do not need a degree to drop fries in a fryer or place a bag in of boiling water, set a timer, and when it goes off, plate it according to a picture. The money saved on salary and preparing all food remotely amounts to millions annually.
Think about it; food borne illness risk is very low, the experience is the same across locations, and customers are fooled. It’s a “can’t lose” business model. Such businesses find it a lot easier to pay their kitchen staff to resuscitate frozen food and cut up some additions, to be added to soups and sides, to make them appear fresh. In all honesty, do you really think their kitchen is capable of cranking out that many different entrees at light speed? Have you seen a menu at one of these places lately? Fish, steaks, chicken, shrimp, pizza, salad, different soups, wow! How many cooks in the kitchen would be needed? My point is, this girl shared with the world what many have known for years, corporate profits and uniform customer experience are far more important than making a product from scratch.
Sorry to disappoint you but the 90 day guys have made quite a few people naïve on this. Notice nowhere here did I take a shot at food quality, I am just trying to bring to light the fact that your food isn’t being made in that kitchen. The typical restaurant kitchen is an assembly area enforcing the corporation’s standards of uniform food quality. Do take notice that the jobs that used to pay half decent have been exchanged for those not paying much above minimum wage. It used to be a resume enhancer to say you were a cook at Applebee’s or Chili’s; but not anymore. I would say be a server, at least the tips are nice.
Johnnie Does
PS the chicken sandwich challenge is on hold until Popeye’s finally gets their act together and starts making it again.
I want to retire and live in peace, I really do. I left California and just want to enjoy my golden years…but I saw CRA champion, John Bolton, called Rudy Giuliani a hand grenade! I decided to pull the pin and throw it back.
Blogger note: Bolton was recently fired as National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump. Technically I guess you can say he resigned, but those in the know are aware he was told to leave.
Exit Bolton and now we have the Ukraine whistleblower BS. Anyone want to take bets Bolton is square in the middle of it? Now that he was removed, his sour grapes are showing. Oh, and the CRA’s have been showing since Trump got elected the nomination. By the way, does anyone even attend your local meetings? I have been told you are resorting to bribes of free lunch or dinner to get delegates to conventions now….SAD!
You could stand to learn a lesson or two from this; Trump is here to stay, and if I were him, I wouldn’t want your pointless, worthless endorsement. Trump got elected despite your best efforts; however, due to the influence that you out of touch whackos have on the Republican Party, he had to put several of your people into the White House cabinet just to keep you at bay.
Trump is not a politician. This is a key factoid you miss every day. He is beholden to no one and he actually wants to make America back into a country that is a world leader and being treated fairly. He views himself as the chairman and his cabinet as working directly for him, and he will show them no blind loyalty.
CRA motivational flyer as seen at Stop Trump call center
Bolton, in so many ways, sums up your pathetic existence. You both have values and beliefs rooted circa 1970. Why is every military engagement since Vietnam a perverse reenactment of the same failed policies? Bolton, like so many of you, are Neo-Cons who feel a need to engage in every war, topple every foreign government, and purchase every large, budget-busting military contraption out there–even if the military doesn’t want it. Seems like Bolton and Neo-cons can’t pass-up any shiny new toy no matter how impractical. Bolton finally got whacked from the only work he has ever know, working in “police the world” positions in every GOP Whitehouse for the last 30 years.
Look at some of your out of touch positions that have led to 28 plus years of horrible foreign policy issues. The CIA and the State Department have misread foreign governments for years, forcing us to keep our troops there, and costing us untold lives. Why don’t other countries pay their UN dues? How about NATO? Where are the foreign countries’ troops and monetary aid helping us occupy other countries? Iran Nuke deal? Paris Climate Accord? Kyoto Protocol? Those just empowered Russia, China, India, and Pakistan. What about pulling out of the Middle East? Who likes us and who hates us over there? I have lost track. Why are we patrolling unfriendly skies and sea lanes for our so-called allies when they are unwilling to do anything for themselves?
I will tell you one thing I know for a fact, Bolton would have never left Syria and I bet not a single one of you CRA folks would disagree. The Neo-Con moves of yesteryear are over. Trump has seen enough. He is on to the double dealing going on. Now you CRA folks are acting like Bolton is some statesman? Give me a break!
Look on the bright side, with William Weld running against Trump, there may be a chance after all (Currently, Vegas odds are 1/0). To win, the CRA needs to get their heavy hitter “Dream Team” involved, the gruesome twosome from South Sacramento. You know, the leader who has never won any campaign and the treasurer who has thus far notched two FPCC violations. Oh and while you’re at it, consider tossing in that social media guy that works for a fifth. Such a combination of talent sounds like the beginning of a winning plan to me.
Congrats Democrats, Elizabeth Warren is the leader in the club house. William eulogized Joe Biden’s failed campaign earlier, and thus it seems inevitable at this point that Warren will be their nominee. I talked to some Democrat friends of mine from time to time and they are overjoyed, as they feel any of their nominees could easily best Trump. To be honest, you have a decent stable of candidates, all have different pluses, but have major question marks that accompany them.
Actually, after some reflection, it looks like 2012 all over again. As a Conservative, I thought for sure that any candidate we had would destroy Barack Obama…and I am man enough to admit I misread the election 100%. I thought for sure Mitt Romney could do it. He was a seasoned businessman and a former governor to boot, talk about a perfect candidate! Then election night came and well, Romney got demolished. I miss read that election as badly as the Democrats are misreading this one. Allow me to explain.
Fauxcahontas
Conventional wisdom says Trump wants to face Biden or Sanders. Biden has a ton of baggage, especially now with his son being wrapped up in this Ukrainian pay to play scheme, or Sanders for being an out of whack socialist whose health is failing. (We here at Reallyright.com wish him a speedy recovery). However conventional wisdom is not always reliable. Trump and many Republicans want to face Liz Warren, for the very same reasons Trump beat Hillary. Warren, like Clinton, has a ton of baggage, from lying about her nationality…this will become a very big deal, to her odd story about being fired from her job when she was pregnant. (Keep in mind no one has corroborated this story, which is odd based on the environment we live in.) She is openly hostile toward Wall St. and very hostile toward CEO types, and the top 1%; keep in mind that quite a few of the wealthy vote overwhelmingly Democrat! She is radical on the environment, wants a very high salary floor, and rent control.
Additionally, she will be running against the “Broad Squad” who are pretty much out to set fire to any Democrat politician or nominee who doesn’t agree with everything they say. The Broad Squad are the power brokers in today’s Democrat Party. Lest you doubt me, just look at the way they have Nancy Pelosi so scared she is afraid to speak publicly.
Broad Squad
This leads me to Warren’s biggest problem, she is a committed leftist, who during the primary must kowtow to the far-left quasi socialist types. Then upon being nominated, she must try to track back toward the center to reach out to the independent types…problem is the Broad Squad is not going to stand for it! Ditto for Sanders supporters. They will do what they did in 2016; not vote or choose to vote for Trump! Sanders supporters are analogous to the Ron Paul supporters on the right a few years ago.
Race–American Indian
This brings me back to my original point. The Democrats don’t realize it yet, but they are the unsuspecting fly who is caught in the Venus fly trap. They didn’t want “Sleepy Joe” or old, crazy Bernie, so they settled on Liz Warren. Much like Republicans in 2008, they are caught in the trap. They think the trap will eventually release them, but their fate is settled. They, like the fly, will be slowly digested until come election night, they realize their dreams are over. This, folks, will be fun to watch, as Trump is salivating at the chance to take on Pocahontas in 2020, just trust us on this one. William has spoken until blue in the face in this space saying it’s CA vs the rest of the country in 2020, he will be proven correct.
Now that the evil winds have died down–for now–and electrical service is slowly being restored, we here in the socialist mecca of Venezuela, oops I mean California, have contained the Zombie outbreak…this time. Consider this a practice run for “the big one.” We, living here in the SMUD service area, did experience 48–mostly arson fires–on the first day of the PG&E blackout but I’m sure it’s just coincidence.
In light of the recent fright that Northern Californians experienced from the PG&E power outages, we here at Really Right noticed that PG&E was experiencing a public relations nightmare over this service interruption. Their local offices were egged, their vehicles were shot, and other acts of vandalism occurred as well. As a result, we felt that PG&E needs to undertake a “feel good” campaign to win back the hearts of customers. In a spirit of sympathy for both PG&E and their customers, we decided to screen potential candidates as the new spokesman for the embattled company.
Our first thought was Chuck Norris. Chuck is well known as a man’s man. He doesn’t seem to be gainfully employed any more, at least not in front of the camera so we thought a financially struggling company could afford him. However, we decided that Chuck is not right for a California based company; especially, one headquartered in San Francisco. Chuck is a manly conservative and isn’t compatible with a company that poured ratepayer money into opposing Proposition 8. Why an electric utility has any business in taking sides on whether marriage should be between one man and one woman is just proof that their management sucks. Also, having Chuck Norris associated with this utility has a bigger problem. You see, nobody turns the lights out on Chuck Norris, Chuck Norris puts their lights out.
Nobody turns out the lights on Chuck Norris
Michael Myers was another thought. What is October without Mike? The State is experiencing a lot of tension due to the fright given to them by PG&E and we are busily prepping for Halloween anyway. Baby Boomers, especially those in office, can really relate to Michael. When they were first dating in junior high, going to one of his movies was a surefire way to get a girl to curl-up in their arms. Oh, what fond memories. Mike has California roots being a well-known commodity in Hollywood. Mike is also known to avoid firearms and favors knives for his “wet work“. Given that our current Governor thinks that law abiding people shouldn’t be allowed firearms, this policy might seem to favor a guy like Michael Myers. However, Mike is known as the strong, silent type and like Chuck Norris, prefers to let his hands do the talking. He is really light on dialogue in his movies and that is a problem when you need a guy for doing voiceovers for commercials.
Michael Myers–light on dialogue
Our third candidate, Freddy Kruger, is strong in areas where Mike Myers is weak. Freddy has a distinctive voice that you never really forget. Freddy also is best known as a guy that reminds you to keep your lights on at night. In fact, Freddy has a following that never wants the lights to go off again. Freddy, unlike Myers, never wears a mask. As a disabled individual, Freddy has really used his disability to make a name for himself. The fact that Freddy is a grossly disfigured burn victim that is thriving amongst ordinary people is inspiring. You never know where he will pop-up next. This fact causes people to pay attention whenever he is on your television. Freddy could be a role model for what PG&E could become. Both have survived a horrible fire and PG&E is learning to overcome adversity and begin life anew. Freddy has been there and done that.
Freddy makes you want to keep the lights on
Some may wonder why I made the connection between Michael, Freddy, and PG&E. And for that, we circle back once again to San Francisco. The progressive leadership in San Francisco wants to dismember parts of PG&E. In some Frankenstein-like way, they want to create their own utility, but unlike a real utility, this one only owns transmission lines and no power generating facilities. I guess that would make it a very “green” utility with no carbon footprint other than that of an occasional fire. PG&E also provides natural gas service to “The City” but no word on who gets that slice of the company.
For those of us living in the real world, this idea makes absolutely no sense; especially, in that city. As the Sith Lord’s father liked to point out, nobody knows what is really under that city. Parts of their infrastructure date back to the Gold Rush era and there are no maps of what lies below the streets of San Francisco. Then there are the parts that survived the 1906 quake which again are not recorded but likely used in some spots. Thus San Francisco has many ancient components of their infrastructure that are in use way beyond their designed life. Taking on this liability is insane on the face of it. The city fathers may very well get their wish and live to regret it as “fire sale” can be defined in more than one sense.
San Francisco during 2017 blackout
Anyway, both PG&E and Freddy Kruger are associated with fright, fires, and dismemberment. It’s a match made in times of adversity, but it just might work. This association will inspire ratepayers to keep the lights on at any price as the alternative is too frightening. We here at Really Right think they ought to take a stab at it.
There will be a lot to unpack in this article, but I want to highlight a few key issues as to why race relations will never get better here. I ask you set aside any preconceived notions and put aside your bias and take this in before jumping to a conclusion. It actually is painful to write this because race relations actually got a lot better up until Barack Obama took office in 2008. It can actually be argued he set us back several generations.
1 Police Bias:
This kind of cuts both ways, the Rodney King incident, as well as the war on drugs has put scores of minorities (black, Hispanic, Asian etc.) in jail for crimes some could argue are petty in today’s world. The Rodney King incident caused the black community as a whole to no longer trust police; and as a result they mostly do not cooperate, and in some cases even shield perpetrators from justice.
Rodney King beating
As a result police look skeptically on young black men, and in some neighborhoods police even refuse to patrol out of fear for their own safety. Bottom line, the bias cuts both ways. When JJ Clavo was murdered in Del Paso Heights, the community did not help assist in finding the murderer, and the same holds true when a young/old white man in Folsom or Granite Bay goes on a crime spree and is not shot…there will always be a bias. But neither community is helping the matter
JJ Clavo
2 False Narratives:
Think Sharpton, Jackson Jr., Marcos Breton, and Benjamin Crump (the prominent civil rights lawyer) these guys decide to take a narrative they think fits the crime and run with it, and worse yet some in the media are more than happy to run with it. Examples include; hands up, don’t shoot! He was reaching for his wallet…not a gun. You can add Barack Obama too this as well saying, “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon Martin!” This did nothing but fan the flames and like anything else in this country, the partisans took sides and a screaming match ensued. Members of Congress even took to the dais and spoke about how the deceased or the police were 100% in the right and if you viewed it any other way you were a racist, or you hated the police!
3 Creating a False Prophet:
Trayvon Martin
In Florida, Trayvon Martin is viewed as a martyr. He attacked a night watchmen and ultimately paid with his own life. Regardless of what human piece of waste George Zimmerman (the watchman) did, we should not be honoring this kid. Michael Brown in Ferguson is getting a statue in his name and he is being compared to Martin Luther King Jr. Are you kidding me! This kid was hocked up on drugs and tried to steal a police officer’s service weapon to kill him. This guy is no civil rights icon and frankly he got what he deserved. Eric Garner in New York, he of “I can’t breathe fame.” He was a known criminal with a very long rap sheet to boot, including major drug usage. I will add, I think the police went too far, but at the same time when you have a record and a history, police treat you far different than someone with no record…check the stats. Stephon Clark in Sacramento? He had every drug in his body and quite a sum of alcohol, and now they are talking about naming a library after him? Huh?
This George Zimmerman did not found Men’s Warehouse
4 Hypocrisy:
In the cases of Martin, Brown, and Clark; those who defended them wanted to make sure their criminal histories, drug/alcohol abuse, and personal life info were not allowed anywhere near the trial, as to not cloud the judge/juries minds. However in the case of Amber Guyger (white police officer who entered wrong apartment and shot a black man), the prosecutor wanted all her texts/love life/history, everything you could think of included because…well somehow this was different. I guess justice for all, unless we wish to tip the scales!
Stephon Clark
5 The Amber Guyger Trial:
From the first minute, they made this into a racial crime, white police officer killing an unarmed black man, and in a sense it was true. Black Lives Matter did their usual, essentially portraying all white people as police sympathizers. Guyger, in the eyes of this young, white, male, made a major mistake that night. While I believe her testimony was a large steaming pile of crap, I feel bad for her in certain ways. First, her life is over. She, like the police officers in the other shootings, will be remembered as such for the remainder of her life. God may forgive but people do not.
Amber Guyger
Second, those clapping, whooping & hollering, and rejoicing after the guilty verdict should be ashamed. It is a courtroom not a local tavern or bar. Just remember, while Guyger may have been found guilty, her family was in attendance. Imagine the officers acting as such after being cleared of wrong doing??? Then BLM shouted and took to the streets after the sentencing phase the following day…there you go again, when you don’t get your way act out! While I will admit a sentence of 10 years, likely only being 5 years served seems a little light, just remember that the victim’s brother said he didn’t want the officer to go to jail. Also, a known police officer in prison has a target on their back for the duration of the prison stay. Lastly, this is Texas, where you are also sentenced by the jury, as opposed to a judge…most people do not want to send a peer away for a long time, especially someone with no criminal record.
6 The Guyger Trial Sentencing Phase:
I have mixed feelings about a lot of this as many of you probably do too. The optics of the bailiff stroking Guyger’s hair and comforting her do not look great; as anyone who wasn’t law enforcement would be getting handcuffed at this point. I have zero issue with the victim’s brother hugging Guyger, and the two of them showing raw emotion, actually this could have been a healing moment.
Victim’s brother hugging Guyger
I also didn’t care for the judge (Mrs. Kemp) hugging the defendant either. In this case, I do sympathize with the victim’s family. They lost a loved one and what happens? A police officer is convicted of murder, gets a light sentence, and a hug from the judge?
Judge hugging Guyger after guilty verdict
I don’t think many defendants have ever gotten so lucky. I have no issue with the judge giving Guyger a copy of the Holy Bible, actually in most of these cases, I believe the defendant should read the good book in hopes they can turn their life around and be a change agent. Fear not, a group has already filed a complaint about this judge for her actions regarding the Bible. Glad to see the atheists and agnostics decide to weigh in, and now the judge will face a commission investigating her actions. Were this in California, the judge would get a harsher sentence than the defendant.
This leads me to my conclusion.
Race in this country will continue to divide us, even long after all of us, the living are dead. To be very clear, America has a very rough history in regards to slavery and rights of others, but it is the year of our Lord 2019 and we are moving in the wrong direction. It will take leadership from all sides and making adults act like they have an IQ above that of a piece of lunch meat. I would like to see a citizen review commission created in place of the current internal affairs model that the police currently use. My reasoning is simple, “policing your own” pardon the pun will always be looked at through jaundiced eyes. Next we need so called “journalists” to quite the sensationalism. You are stoking the flames of hate and causing an unnecessary uprising. This goes for political types as well. So called leaders of the black community should focus on getting their people out of poverty and more importantly focus on the future. However none of this will happen. We no longer believe in the rule of law, instead we only believe in selective information that we deem to be factual. You have your “facts” and I have mine. You can look at any of the above examples and fallacies exist in every one….stoked by a media and partisans looking to push an agenda. Rather than trying to punish a white police officer, maybe take a page from the Jean family playbook, forgive and allow someone to move on? Except that is not in our DNA anymore. Everything now is “gotcha” and punishing one to atone for the sins of the whole. The charlatans such as Breton need to find real work and quit stirring up the natives. Also we need to be very wary of the prophet seeking profits (Sharpton, Jackson and Crump.) Race relations will never get better in this country until we try to move forward, and as I tell people, we must get into a car with a gas pedal, no brake pads, and no mirrors, the past is the past. Leave it there. We can never apologize enough, and frankly reparations are not a means to an end, just a temporary band aid.
Botham Jean
Sadly Botham Jean was killed by mistake, and he will never come back to this earth, and Amber Guyger will go away to prison and will never be the same, as she will always be connected to this tragedy. Additionally how sad that we as a country used Botham Jean, Amber Guyger, and the judge as puppets in a sick, twisted game to litigate race relations.
Yesterday, the Washington Examiner simultaneously ended Joe Biden’s flailing political campaign for President not just for 2020 but forever and they also ended the farce of impeaching President Trump.
The 2020 Democratic candidate with whom the CIA whistleblower had a “professional” tie is Joe Biden, according to intelligence officers and former White House officials.
Lawyers for the whistleblower said he had worked only “in the executive branch.” The Washington Examiner has established that he is a career CIA analyst who was detailed to the National Security Council at the White House and has since left. On Sept. 26, the New York Times reported that he was a CIA officer. On Oct. 4, the newspaper added that he “was detailed to the National Security Council at one point.”
Michael Atkinson, the Intelligence Community’s inspector general, told members of Congress that the whistleblower had a “professional tie” to a 2020 Democratic candidate. He had written earlier that while the whistleblower’s complaint was credible, he had shown “some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of a rival political candidate.”
A retired CIA officer told the Washington Examiner, “From everything we know about the whistleblower and his work in the executive branch then, there is absolutely no doubt he would have been working with Biden when he was vice president.”
As an experienced CIA official on the NSC with the deep knowledge of Ukraine that he demonstrated in his complaint, it is probable that the whistleblower briefed Biden and likely that he accompanied him on Air Force Two during at least one of the six visits the 2020 candidate made to the country.
But folks it’s even worse than this. Did you know that the Ukraine energy company in question paid Joe Biden $900,000?
As the son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, it seems pretty clear that he was there selling access. That’s the allegation. It’s a question that hasn’t gone away, and one that has irritated Joe Biden to no end. And now we’re hearing that Joe Biden was also paid $900,000 which was part of his lobbying fee on behalf of Burisma. The former vice president has repeatedly said that he and his son never discussed overseas business, despite being pictured in a photograph golfing with two Ukrainian energy executives. They didn’t talk business. Who are you kidding?
Joe & Hunter Biden with Ukraine energy officials 2014
Rudy Giuliani has alleged that a Ukrainian natural-gas company that employed Joe Biden’s son Hunter also paid the former vice president $900,000 in lobbying fees.
Appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity” Wednesday, President Trump’s personal lawyer cited as evidence claims made by Andriy Derkach, a member of Ukraine’s parliament.
“Biden, his son and his brother had a 30-year-long scam to make money, millions, selling his public office,” Giuliani told host Sean Hannity.
Derkach held a press conference earlier Wednesday in Kyiv where he claimed to have documents showing how Burisma Holdings paid Joe Biden the lobbying fees.
Hunter Biden worked for Burisma while his father served as vice president and acted as the point man on US effort to stamp out corruption in Ukraine. Hunter was paid $50,000 a month.
“Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the US-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners,” Derkach told reporters, referring to the investment company the younger Biden founded with Chris Heinz, the stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry.
Please note again that this is how people in Washington become multimillionaires on $125K a year salaries. Joe Biden gets a cut for allowing access, his son gets millions of dollars while Joe is Vice President and magically, we have John Kerry’s son involved in this too. Do you see the pattern?
Bill and Hillary Clinton lived off Bill’s $35K a year salary as Arkansas Governor and were flat broke when Bill took office. Now they are worth close to a billion dollars. Similar story with the Obamas. Go back and look at Lyndon Johnson, same song second verse… This has been going on for decades in Washington circles.
Meanwhile, Trump has put his assets in a blind trust and is working for free—he donates his salary to various groups. Unlike the others, Trump is taking a pay cut to be President.
Oh, The New York Post ends the article with a fake news fig leaf for Joe Biden trying to excuse what he did.
Derkach claimed Joe Biden pressured Ukraine in December 2015 to force the resignation of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and dangled $1?billion in loan guarantees as an incentive.
Prosecutors have found no evidence that either Biden did anything wrong, and Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment about details of the alleged documents.
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump and his allies, including Giuliani and Republican members of Congress, have alleged that Joe Biden sought to have Shokin fired because Shokin was investigating Burisma.
The fake news is “Trump and his allies…have alleged…” Yo dudes, Biden admitted it in front of a live audience. I’ve seen the tape and the transcript. Here’s one account of the event.
In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.’ I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden recalled telling Poroshenko.
“Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations event, insisting that President Obama was in on the threat.
Once and for all, America is saved from this pompous knucklehead ever being in the White House. Joe may be on the campaign trail for a while longer but his end is certain.
PG&E was able to accomplish something in the last 24 hours that has not happened since the Loma Prieto Earthquake. They shook all of NorCal to the core. PG&E announced they were going to shut off power to 600-800k homes in Northern California, in 34 different counties. This has been going on, albeit on a much smaller scale, over the last couple months because…well if PG&E is liable when their equipment causes a fire, they should have the right to cut the cord to your electricity. However it was never done on a scale this large, and as a result brought out a plethora of people who are; woke, shook, naïve, and others who get all their news from cable television.
Yikes! Boy is it fun to watch this drama unfold. As a result of watching the impending doom on the 24/7 news station of their choice, people suddenly started worrying that they could be without power for weeks…or that their area was affected…and as predicted by William in this space, panic began to set in. People suddenly began talking around the watercooler about solar power, backup batteries, and generators. Overnight these otherwise clueless people became armchair preppers.
I call these people; woke, naïve, shook, and cable watchers because they take a headline written for a cable news outlet (or their website) by some guy in Atlanta, New York, or Washington, D.C. and blow it way out of proportion.
Run for your lives, they’re cutting the power
Look at this text message I received…keep in mind if you live in Sacramento County like this guy does, you get your power from SMUD not PG&E. When I reminded him of this, it didn’t deter him in the least. He kept on objecting that it was on television and the radio so it must be true. What I told him didn’t matter; he wouldn’t believe me even after providing him irrefutable evidence.
Is PG&E cutting power in Sac County?
He kept objecting, “But I saw it on the news.” It wasn’t until I finally sent him an official statement from SMUD saying no blackouts are planned that he finally backed down.
(Editor’s note: I heard people voicing similar concerns at work as this was unfolding. People had no clue who their electric provider is even though they pay a monthly electric bill. I was amazed that a graphic used in a television broadcast could so easily override common sense and create such an uproar.)
Another friend of mine in PG&E territory called in a panic. I told her she wouldn’t be affected either as she lives in a heavily populated urban area…still it wasn’t good enough. Even after I sent this person the official map of affected homes from PG&E, this did nothing because she “heard it on the news.”
The blackouts have started and they are only affecting very rural areas so far; think Angel’s Camp, Mokelumne Hill, Mill Valley, and most of rural counties. The crisis has so far been averted; however, on the way home from the gym last night, I stopped at a local Safeway…and found the shelves with bottled water looking pretty bare! Therein lies the problem folks, I live in Sacramento County and it will not be affected by this shut off, yet the people who tuned in to view cable news last night missed that memo.
The general point here being, find a trusted source to get your news. The cable channels specialize in sensationalism and therefore won’t release the story until it creates the necessary drama. Sadly it had its intended result; it stirred up the natives. As a result, a lot of older and just plain naïve people were stirred into a frenzy and scared.
But hey, look at it this way, you spend $200 a month for all those channels even though you can only watch one at a time! Me on the other hand, I don’t need cable. Instead, I get to watch all of you scurry around like cockroaches because you do. That dear readers is entertainment.
Photo: Auburn, CA 10-09-2019 credit Sacramento Bee
For those of us in the shadow of the State Capitol, it’s just another day. However, if you live elsewhere in the State, things are anything but normal.
Shoot the Messenger
A PG&E employee was driving a truck Tuesday evening in Northern California’s Colusa County – before the electricity cutoffs – when a bullet shattered one of the vehicle’s windows, the California Highway Patrol told The Associated Press. The driver was not hurt, according to the AP.
CHP is investigating the incident, which occurred north of the town of Maxwell as the staffer headed southbound on Interstate 5, according to authorities. A white pickup may have pulled up beside the PG&E truck before the shooting, CHP Officer J. Sherwood told the San Francisco Chronicle.
More than a million people in California were without electricity Wednesday as the state’s largest utility pulled the plug to prevent a repeat of the past two years when windblown power lines sparked deadly wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes.
The unpopular move that disrupted daily life — prompted by forecasts calling for dry, gusty weather — came after catastrophic fires sent Pacific Gas & Electric Co. into bankruptcy and forced it to take more aggressive steps to prevent blazes.
The drastic measure caused long lines at supermarkets and hardware stores as people rushed to buy ice, coolers, flashlights and batteries across a swath of Northern California. Cars backed up at traffic lights that had gone dark. Schools and universities canceled classes. And many businesses closed.
Why have forest management when you can just pull the plug at random?
“I wish we weren’t in a situation where, in maybe one of the wealthiest jurisdictions in the world, we are turning power off to large swaths of the population every few weeks,” said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy program at Stanford University. “But it is better than what we’ve been through, and I very much hope that we get through this fire season without a repeat of 2017 or 2018.”
PG&E declared bankruptcy in January, in part because of potential liabilities from its role in some of the 2017 northern California fires and the 2018 Camp fire that killed a total of 129 people and destroyed tens of thousands of homes.
“Is it a huge inconvenience? Yes. Is it going to be dangerous? Yes,” Wara said. “There are lots of risks on the other side. Someone could die because they have a medical device.
PG&E should have been maintaining and updating its infrastructure before the crisis reached this point, said Mindy Spatt, a spokeswoman for the Utility Reform Network.
“PG&E should be held to higher standards than this,” she said. “No one wants to see another fire like the fires we’ve seen in the past, but we have to remember that the problem that these shutoffs are hopefully going to address are PG&E’s negligence and incompetence, and PG&E’s propensity to ignite fires.”
Now PG&E customers must bear the burden of navigating possibly days without power, with businesses losing money and people in possibly unsafe situations, Spatt said.
“Consumers would rather have their power shut off than have their homes and businesses burnt down, but they would also rather have a utility that didn’t start fires,” Spatt said.
The shutoffs are part of its wildfire mitigation plan, mandated by the state and agreed to by the California Public Utilities Commission, the state’s top power regulator. — Kevin Stark
Folks, when you live in a socialist state, you get socialist utilities too. We keep being told the lie by the ruling class that wind and solar are the way to energy independence so what happens on a sunny, windy day—conditions that we are told are best for energy production—why we cut the power off to people in the state’s flyover country.
But elites take care of their own. Tesla is prominently mentioned in two articles that I saw about the scheduled blackouts yesterday.
One article mentioned that the scheduled outages stopped just short of Tesla’s production facility in the San Jose area and the other was to juice-up before the lights go out.
The electric automaker issued a preemptive over-the-air advisory overnight to many vehicle owners, telling them to charge up ahead of the planned outages, which utility Pacific Gas & Electric began rolling out Wednesday to try to lessen the risk of wildfires.
“A utility company in your area announced they may turn off power in some areas of Northern California beginning October 9 as part of public safety power shut-offs, which may affect power to charging options,” the message read, according to social media posts. “We recommend charging your Tesla to 100% today to ensure your drive remains uninterrupted.”
So what ever happened to Elon’s promise that his cars could be charged as they were driven by solar cells built into the car? Actually, Toyota was promising something similar a few years ago but I digress…
I still haven’t heard whether Oakland participated in the lights out festivities.
Closing Comments
All of this bowing to the environmentalists goes back to the oil spill in Santa Barbara back in 1969. Up until that happened, nobody cared about the environmentalists. From that point forward, they increasingly gained access to influence public policy in California. Now nobody dares to act without their blessing.
Environmentalists purposely destroyed the logging industry in California and now we have tens of millions of dead and dying trees in our forests and nobody to cut them down. This is why we have decades of fuel gathering on the forest floor.
Dead and diseased trees in California #1
While PG&E did spark some fires, many in our State are the result of arson and nobody has been arrested for most of the manmade forest fires.
Dead and diseased trees in California #2
Any way you slice it, government failure is to blame for the current mess.
As predicted, Governor Newsom signed AB 1482 into law yesterday at a ceremony in Oakland. Any rental properties still standing when PG&E turns the power back on will be subject to this law beginning January first. The fact that this is a huge power grab by state officials and that voters just rejected a similar measure be damned.
Folks, this is just a fancy way to keep poor people poor and enhance the portfolios of the rich. You see, in recent history, the best place to get a return on your investment has been Wall Street. Arguably, the stock market is overvalued and there are some bubbles in various sectors that increase the risk of investing. Now, rich Liberals can invest in corporations that specialize in rent control properties and boutique housing in Oregon and California and get 25 times (not a typo) the return that you can get in a bank savings account, risk free and guaranteed forever. This revenue stream increases each year, plus they get a cost of living increase to keep ahead of inflation as well. This diversifies the savings of the rich and has a better return than traditional “Blue Chip” investments.
Folks when you hear that Warren Buffett gets rich on the backs of the poor, its stuff like this that he uses to gain and keep his wealth. If managed properly, any investment in a rent control scheme will double your money about every decade.
Here’s how Buffett does it:
Once the property needs maintenance, you can increase your wealth even more. You sell the rental property from Corporation A to Corporation B, both of which you own. Corporation B, fixes up the property using a third corporation that you also own to do the capital improvements. Once modernized, you can then increase the rent to current market values and then get new tenants and repeat the cycle.
Since nobody on the low end of the income ladder gets five percent wage increases each year plus a cost of living adjustment, the poor will get even poorer while the rich get richer.As an added bonus, at election time, the rich Liberals will play the class envy card and blame Republicans for the plight of the poor which they engineered.
In an historic first, humanity has been given advance warning that the Zombie Apocalypse is scheduled to begin tomorrow. Contrary to earlier reports, the evil corporate entity responsible for the end of life as we know it is not the Umbrella Corporation.
Umbrella Corp logo
Instead, government officials have announced that the responsible entity is a bankrupt company bent on self-preservation at the expense of humanity and what passes for civilization in this once Golden State. Enter one Pacific Gas and Electric Company. No not the cheesy 1960’s rock band but the once proud public utility.
Rock band Pacific Gas and Electric
The spark responsible for the anticipated chaos is the purposeful and simultaneous loss of electrical power in 30 California counties. The affected areas are expected to include Silicon Valley and peace loving Oakland.
PG&E 30-county blackout area
Here is the completed list of affected counties:
Alameda, Alpine, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Colusa, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Glenn, Lake, Mariposa, Mendocino, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Joaquin, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Tehama, Tuolumne, Yolo and Yuba
San Francisco blackouts expected here
Personally, my money is on the Raider’s fans to be the backbone of the lawlessness which will ensue; especially, if the blackouts go into overtime.
Raider fans eager to do their part
If this materializes as promised, look for Silicon Valley folks to transfer critical operations to other states with cheaper and more abundant power and less government red tape.
Oh, and here is a typical newsfeed of the warning being broadcast.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is warning customers that the utility may shut off power to 30 California counties this week because of a potentially widespread wind event.
The potential Public Safety Power Shutoff could impact more than 600,000 customers across Northern and Central California, the utility said Monday night.
The strong and dry wind event, forecast for Wednesday morning through Thursday afternoon, could impact much of PG&E’s service area, which includes northern, coastal and Bay Area counties. The National Weather Service has issued a fire weather watch for midweek.
“If PG&E decides to implement a PSPS, the company expects to begin turning off power for safety early Wednesday morning,” the utility said Monday night.
If you live in one of these areas stock up on water and shotgun shells today.
Oh to identify the zombies, look for the stranger carrying your neighbor’s television set or dragging his wife down the street towards their gasoline powered vehicles. Zombies don’t drive Tesla’s in PG&E service areas.
Raiders fan rehearsing for Zombie Apocalypse
Stay tuned to this blog for further developments as the situation warrants.
