Kubrick, teaming with science fiction author and icon Arthur C. Clarke and special effects guru Douglas Trumbull, produced a visual odyssey unlike any film ever made to that point in history. Some of the special effects had to be invented to fulfill Kubrick’s vision.

After a very slow start, and some blistering criticism, the film eventually became the year’s biggest movie, garnering four Academy Awards. As the 60s led to the expanded use of psychoactive drugs and the growing collusion of video with music, Kubrick’s extended MTV-like musical video captured the imagination of hippies, film students and scientists as well.

The story is essentially about man’s obsession with space travel and the interface between technology and humanity, and the constraints of mortality and time.

But Kubrick made the movie an orgy of conflict, a crazy montage of color, light, sound and image. The dialogue is sparse and obtuse. Much of it is the conflict between Dave, the lead astronaut and his computer companion HAL.

Recent advances in digital technology and computer enhanced compositions should make any space film over fifty years old look silly. Not 2001: A Space Odyssey! Kubrick used every trick in the available book of film science to project future advances in telemetry, gravity suits, communications and computerization.

To me, the film is a metaphor for our current state of social division, of rejection of authority and subjugation of humanity to technology. The long trip into space reflects our country’s 275 year struggle to create a new form of self-government, to free ourselves from the restraints of British colonialism, and our current state of civil political upheaval and inner conflict.

Dave and his noble crew, knowing they have little chance of returning alive, confront the challenge of interstellar space travel, just as our founding fathers confronted the challenge of inventing an entirely new and untried form of self government. They do it with honor and commitment. The everpresent HAL, who represents the all-knowing aristocracy, the authority of knowledge, and the interests of the state, realizes that the humans cannot get along without him, so he decides he can get along without them.

To HAL, humans are just an obstacle to efficiency.

They demand consensus, failsafe mechanisms and protocols. HAL realizes he is the smartest thing onboard, so he sets out to cleanse the project before it falls short of its intended mission. HAL decides he is going to eliminate the weak links to success, the mortal humans.

HAL is the Progressive Leader, always thinking about the outcome, dispatching the inconvenience of humanity, and blaming any shortcomings on the operators (the people) because they don’t know any better.

Deep into the journey through outer space, Captain Dave is forced to disable HAL, the onboard computer that directs all of the technology. He has to choose who will be the beneficiary of the odyssey, humans or robots?

This is a metaphor for the clash between progressives and conservatives. The former thinks they are the smart ones and can better steer the ship, so they struggle to disarm the opposition. Conservatives are Captain Dave, who initially respected HAL for his quick and creative suggestions, but soon realizes the artificial intelligence is a deadly threat to his existence and the success of the project. Conservatives trust history and though they are eager to explore the future, they are not willing to go charging into it based solely on scientific theory.

When HAL pleads with the Captain Dave, who is gradually disassembling his intelligence modules, “Just what do you think you are doing, Dave?” I found it haunting, because it so closely parallels our cultural dilemma: When we watch terrorists slaughter innocent civilians, or psychopathic young men gun down school children with high powered assault rifles, we have to ask ourselves, with all of our wealth and technology why are we so helpless to stop random carnage coming from our children. When we see progressive solutions implimented, only to collapse under their own weight, we have to ask, “Just what do you think you are doing, Dave?”

When I see politicians declaring American cities as sanctuary for illegal immigrant criminals, I have to ask, “Just what do you think you are doing Dave?”

As a culture we argue about policy, about budgets, about protocols, and inevitably make little or no progress. We are conflicted with competing solutions: should we ban guns or fight guns with more guns? Should people use the same bathroom so as to avoid making others feel uncomfortable? Is it discriminatory to suggest people should refrain from sex with minors? Is it wrong to execute people who execute people? Is all of our wealth and convenience really good, or is there some underlying cultural disease that is killing us slowly?

Who is good and who is evil?

Are we the Captain Dave? Or are we the omniscient computer?

Kubrick went on to release A Clockwork Orange just a few years later. It also challenged our notions of humanity and authority. Nearly five decades after its release, the film feels recent. He accurately predicted current trends toward extreme nihilism, tribalism and dehumanization, of physical disfigurement and self-degradation as expressions of individualism, and mass tranquilization as a law enforcement tool, for social stabilization and for recreation. Themes he broached in the early seventies are everyday news stories in 2018. In the film, he used Russians as a foil to Western social progress, extreme sex as a weapon, and popular entertainment as a propaganda tool.

Kubrick touches all of the bases in his dystopian hell: the roving gangs of zombie-like psychopaths (Islamic terrorists and inner city gangs), the gender confusion and psychological conflict and disaffection of feminized men, and extreme anger and turmoil generated by broken and disengaged families, or of veterans of war or of football, and the tendency of government to resort to authoritarianism and brutality to homogenize society.

The overall mood of A Clockwork Orange is that elitists will always want to perfect humanity. They will forsake religion, because it is considered an illusion and is in direct competition for the souls of the population. Government will instead turn to science to find solutions to mankind’s restless and dangerous tendencies. People like Alex (the lead character in the film) starts out as a brute, nearly finds redemption, then returns to his violent and abusive character, will never be cured, so he must be managed by high tech police forces.

Kubrick, who was viewed as an Orwellian libertine, reflects my current view of society: our eyes are too big for our stomachs.

We bite off more than we can chew and invest too much trust in government to fix everything. Then when it disappoints us, we turn to government again, to try another tactic to fix it. It is an abusive relationship of interdependence and self-inflicted pain. We keep hitting our collective heads against the wall, then wonder why society keeps struggling to keep the peace and provide equanimity.

Where we once used family discipline and self-restraint, community churches, social pressures and shame, to influence and enforce community standards, we now have laws for everything. We enforce them with financial pressures, fines and fees, or through threats of litigation, or in many cases incarceration. Where A Clockwork Orange described forced viewing of indoctrination videos, we send our kids to expensive colleges where they are trained in the finer points of politically correct behavior through years of groupthink collaborations.

Kubrick will always be remembered as one of America’s most iconic movie making geniuses, but he was also considered a brute and an enigma; no one really understood his politics or his motivations, other than he wanted to break filmmaking ground and entertain people.

On both counts, he succeeded, but beyond that, he projected some disturbing ideas about where our society was headed just a half century ago.

You may be able to get over being robbed by some local thief. The broken window of your car and the missing envelope of cash you had placed in your glovebox overnight. The cash you had just earned in tips working at a local restaurant. It was $400 of hard earned tip money.

When you went to your car Sunday morning and saw the shattered window, you knew right away, it had to be someone nearby. A neighbor or someone close to you had to have watched you. It was not routine for you to leave large amounts of cash in the glovebox, but the night before after your shift, you did sit in the driveway, count your money, and deliberately lean over and stuffed the envelope into the glovebox. Someone had to have been watching!

You hated losing the money, which was a lot to a 19 year-old. But even worse, you felt violated!

You guessed your 18-year-old neighbor was the only viable suspect, but there was absolutely nothing you could do because the evidence was gone. Going to the police would not work because they would simply say, “how do we know there ever was any money?”

You may think you are over the night, after your 15th birthday, when your mother protected your dad after he punched you in the face for violating his curfew. She saw it happen and later rationalized it by suggesting he had a hard day at work. She lost your love and trust on that day. Now, years later, on Mothers Day, you are kissing her, handing her flowers and a card that praises her mothering skills. You are desperately trying to forget her betrayal. But deep down inside, you still resent her willingness to accept something so evil. Plus, you know, and so does she, his abuse was much more common and sick than that incident alone.

Everyone has deep seated resentment over something. Some memories hurt more than others. For some, their whole lives have been altered by betrayals, abuse or abandonment. Some victims can never establish long-term relationships, especially if they suffered sexual abuse.

Whether it is being victimized by family, or criminals, or even by people of authority, victimhood is real. Emotional scars affect us sometimes more than we think.

As a Nation, a collective of people all living together, trying to stay alive, to raise families, to provide a better future for our children, we are also vulnerable to scarring. I have said over and over, as a 13 year-old, I was scarred by the assassination of JFK. Five decades later, his public murder still haunts me.

Since 9/11, I have made the case that our nation was traumatized by the violence of the attack on the Twin Towers. The complete incapacitation of Manhattan, of the airline industry, of the continuing Fear Porn of the Middle East Islamic Jihad and the Radical Islamic Revolution. Then it was Climate Change, the War On Whiteness, the Feminist Movement, and now the War On Gender Assignment. As a white, conservative male I have a target on my back.

Let’s not forget the COVID19 Pandemic: The War On Socialization. Everyone was treated like sheep. The Elites of the World demonstrated just how little they respect human dignity.

One calamity after another, our nation has been undergoing an Emotional Breakdown ever since.

We are all wounded emotionally, though most will not acknowledge the damage. Instead we self-medicate with alcohol and drugs, rich food, gambling and spending addictions and entertainment obsessions.

We protect our interests by living in a bubble that we have constructed to block out the bad memories and to submerge ourselves in positive thoughts. We don’t think of ourselves as victims. At least not consciously.

But the truth is out there if you are willing to look outside your bubble…

Look at how the privileged act in the privacy of their gated mansions. Literally dozens, every day, are being accused and arrested for acts of physical abuse and sexual deviancy. Rich celebrities are raising, in distorted numbers, emotionally damaged, angry, resentful, and often sexually confused and alienated kids. Dozens of politicians, who have discovered amazing sources of great wealth while working inside the public services arena, are being accused of, and often convicted of corruption. Wealthy and brilliant scientists, authors, academics and financial gurus, are committing suicide at astronomical rates. Every major televised event (Super Bowl, Oscars, Grammys, Olympics) is saturated with Satanic imagery of a sexual nature. Millions of unborn babies are terminated simply because the parents want to avoid the ‘hassles” of children.

We don’t venerate life like we used to.

If people of great means are so uncomfortable in their own skin, how do you think struggling Americans feel?

Lower and middle income citizens are unable to participate in home ownership, to travel, to attend college, to start a business or a family. The 21st century is turning out to be the complete opposite of the 20th century in America. We are reverting to a two-tiered society with a small portion enjoying great wealth and the other suffering like slaves on a plantation. They get what is necessary to survive, but not enough to thrive.

Millions of children and citizens are simply disappearing off the face of the Earth. The Census reports are stunning: Birthrates are under the rate required to sustain our species. Marriage is a dying institution. Our schools have failed to produce literate young adults. Americans no longer recognize religion as a core value.

Make America Great Again is considered by many to be a Republican (white men only) trope to suggest our nation would return to a time when racism ruled, when women were dismissed as second class citizens and gay people were beaten and imprisoned.

To me, that viewpoint is simply another way to redefine, dismiss and destroy what on the surface is a movement to restore America’s original identity: One Nation, under God, with Liberty and Justice for ALL!

My point is: In the course of history, mankind sustains some gains and losses. We suffer epidemics, earthquakes, hurricanes, wars, and financial collapses, but we also discover important advances in technology, in medicine, in agriculture, even in personal improvement techniques.

The key is to keep the gains ahead of the losses and to overcome our emotional frailties to keep us moving ahead. I don’t suggest it’s better to forget our setbacks, because if you don’t learn from them, it is too easy to repeat them. But I do think it important to keep them in perspective.

I have explored the concept of ‘Perspecticide’ in my previous publications. It is a term to describe the “murder of one’s perspective”. How it is possible for negative forces to literally steal a personality and replace it with a different one. That goes for both our individual personality and our collective cultural personality.

That repurposing of a personality occurs when the assailant wipes the victims memory clean by reframing their history. Programming a new agenda, a new Operating System, so to speak. One they can control for their own benefit.

This is what is happening to America. Slowly but surely America’s enemies are redefining our Nation’s history, replacing pride with guilt, demanding ‘equity’ for everyone at the expense of merit, undermining our nations foundational institutions of the right to own property, to carry a weapon, to speak out against government, to travel freely and to practice your religion without government interference.

When our election system, whose purpose is to reflect the personality of America, is stolen, it can be altered. It can be reprogrammed. Therefore, stealing an election is the Ultimate Act of War on America. If we have become so distracted, so isolated by our personal and collective bubbles, that we can’t even acknowledge the hijacking of our Government by abusive forces, then we are doomed to become the victims of coercive abuse.

Unless we wake up, recognize the crime of election corruption as the Murder of our American Identity, and hold those responsible accountable for their Capitol Crimes Against Our Nation, it will be the end of our American Soul.

To truly make America great again, we must first and foremost, reestablish the accuracy and legitimacy of our election system. Otherwise, America will become just another figment of our forgotten past.

Since November 7th, 2020, I have been seriously bothered by what was an OBVIOUSLY stolen election. I didn’t need President Trump to tell me what I saw. I didn’t listen to the corporate- owned major media’s gaslighting, telling me I didn’t really see what I just saw.

The most depressing thing was watching cell phone videos of ballot counters submitting and scanning ballots over and over. Watching election monitors boarding up the election centers to hide their crimes. Watching news reports of election centers closing at midnight and sending volunteer ballot counters home for the evening. Watching TV election returns broadcast obvious graphics anomalies, showing surges in Biden votes at 4:30 am on election night, suddenly and inexplicably overcoming huge Trump leads.

I was watching hundreds of my fellow citizens committing felonies! Or worse, committing treason! It was clearly an organized scheme. How could this be? How could so many folks rationalize cheating during a Presidential election? Don’t they have any conscience?

I have struggled with this sense of betrayal ever since.

These people, the ones who knowingly contributed to the corruption of a Federal Election Process, cannot be given any measure of sympathy. Not for their ignorance, their personal anger or sense of victimhood. When you steal the vote of a fellow citizen by diluting the legitimate pool of votes, you are a threat to our most precious asset: Our fundamental right to participate in the democratic process.

That makes you a criminal of the highest order.

No different than a child molester stealing a child’s innocence. Than a soldier deserter, who joins the enemy in combat, threatening the lives of his brothers-in-arms. Or a counterfeiter stealing your car-for-sale by handing you thousands of fake dollars.

Participating in the process of counterfeiting an election is no different than counterfeiting money. In fact, it is worse because it puts people in places of tremendous power and influence, who have no allegiance to the citizens they pretend to represent. It confers a sense of parental guardianship on people who are willing to destroy the future of their own ‘children’. Undermining the Democratic, Constitutional-based Republic puts the future of every American at great risk.

Then there is the pain I feel about the fact that so many so-called Americans 'have accepted the tsunami of polluted reporting about what happened in November 2020, then later in January 2021. It kills me to see some otherwise educated and respected politicians, journalists and educators repeat “verbatim” the contrived gaslight threats, “The election of 2020 was the most secure and fair election in our history.” Or, “election deniers continue to claim previously debunked theories about election fraud are real” and “every challenge to election fraud has been overturned in the courts”...

None of which is accurate.

Why are these prominent “Americans” so invested in propping up the greatest crime ever perpetrated on our country? What could be so important to them that they would rationalize the legitimacy of corrupting the nation’s election process?

Why was the Electoral College, who ultimately certifies the vote tabulations as fair and accurate, so completely unaware that more than just a few state’s election processes were so compromised?

Next week I will explore that question as we approach the June Midterms…

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past half a century, you must understand how the left disrespects your intelligence. Since the Palestinian terrorist’s slaughter and torture of Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972, right up to the recent riots and clashes between extremists groups in Charlottesville, Boston, Minnesota and Portland, the violence has always been fostered by leftist anarchists.

Back in the sixties, seventies and eighties, it was the Baader-Meinhof Group, a far left German movement of outright anarchists. Germany was also undergoing vast social upheaval, industrialization and conflicts over racism, women’s liberation and anti-imperialism, all calling cards of leftist politics. The Meinhof Gang became a cause celeb, romanticizing the outlaws as social justice warriors.

There were charges that the East German Stasi (a paramilitary group supported by the East German communist government) lent substantial financial and logistical support to the killers.

The underlying motives for the hostage taking, the destruction of government property including statues and buildings, was nearly identical to the stated causes of today’s ANTIFA or Occupy Wall Street anarchists.

Many young people in that era felt disenfranchised from job opportunity, and from integration into West German and greater European capitalist society. Just as the newly freed East Germans, who were then suddenly competing with the West Germans for jobs, many young people today feel like the economic deck is stacked against them.

Sound familiar? Apologists for leftist groups like ANTIFA, Black Lives Matter, Palestinian Liberation Front, or radical Islamic terrorists like Boko Haram and ISIS, make the same claims. If only the world’s resources were more equally distributed, everything would be copacetic.

Now our youth are being taught at major universities and even at high school levels, that causing disruption and violence is a socially just way of restoring what leftists claim are rights and respect that has been denied to minorities and women since the civil war ended. That white privilege is by default ‘a crime against humanity’ so whatever it takes to focus attention on their cause is justifiable.

But leftists, or as they prefer to be called today, the Progressives, think we aren’t paying attention, so not only do they think we are dumb, but lazy too. They don’t think we know what’s going on. Admittedly, do to the tsunami of misinformation, it is getting harder to stay well informed, but if there is a demographic that will keep trying, it is conservatives who cherish the legacy and traditions of Americanism.

If you look at the mainstream media, and how so many supposed popular leaders are buying the lie that all of this civil unrest and domestic terrorism is coming from the ‘alt-right’ you would have to conclude that anyone who considers themselves conservative, is a bigoted racist, who brandishes weapons and attacks innocent civilians.

That is the consistent narrative across most major news media broadcasts. But they have lost most of their audience. From its launch in 1980, CNN has claimed itself to be The First Name In News, but has lost much of it’s audience in the past ten years.

For March 2024:

“Among viewers 25-54, the demographic group most valued by advertisers, CNN’s total day ratings delivery was 81,000 viewers—which represents the lowest rated week in the key demo since 2014.” -- Forbes Business

I bet you cannot name one major incident where there has been loss of life, police deaths or even mass arrests, that was directed by skinheads, neo-Nazis or any other white supremacist organizations. Mainly because they have such miniscule support, but also because they are not as revolutionary in spirit. Don’t point to the Oklahoma State Building bombing. That was one crazy, angry and psychopathic dude. I am talking about organized protest groups that end up creating death and mayhem, burning business, beating up bystanders, burning flags and turning over police cars, and attacking officers of the law.

Then look at all of the stuff going on college campuses where one professor ordered a special escape door put into the back of his office so he could bail out when enraged progressive students would eventually come hunting for anyone who was not in alignment with their anti-fascist fascism.

Today’s rioting and violence is coming exclusively from the left.

When you get Sanders supporters, Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter and other racially motivated minority groups forming an alliance, toss in the incredibly upset and angry Clinton Democrats who had their Queen denied her throne, you have an explosive formula of angry activists that show no respect for our election processes, for law enforcement practices, or for private property rights. And they cannot stand to have their cause marginalized, especially by someone they regard as a “Reality TV Show Host.’

Imagine if anti-abortionists took the same position, that killing abortion providers is justified? (Of course that has happened, but in very few cases were they coordinated attacks on abortion clinics).

In Charlottesville, the media has conflated Neo Nazis and Skinheads as right wing Nationalists, and racist white supremacists who want to impose ‘law and order’ by building a new SS of federal troops. But this ignores the long history of Naziism. Remember, Hitler named his movement the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Like all leftists, Hitler failed to mention that he would also be a totalitarian president of his war loving, imperialist regime. That he would exterminate people who didn’t conform or that were not of Aryan descent.

So beware of the simpletons who get their history from watching Marvel ‘Avenger’ or Guy Fawkes ‘V For Vendetta’ movies. The left ( i.e., Academia, Hollywood, the DNC and much of the new media conglomerates, Facebook, Google, Snapchat) has made it their business to dumb down young people, and much of the baby boomer generation has simply had it too good. America is vulnerable because we have stopped being serious about the effort it takes to protect our multicultural, ubiquitous experiment in individual freedom and responsibility, and forgotten how much our geo-political opponents want to destroy it.

Fighting for freedom and social egalitarianism is a never ending journey and hard decisions have to be made along the way. The war over health care is a microcosm of the conflict between generations and the inability of much of our population to think critically about the long term ramifications of giving the government total control over your health, or worse, over what you know.

Maybe I can rope you in…

By 1998, what had been, for 13 years, a quiet, peaceful, laid-back retirement, was becoming a stressful, unstable and disturbing existence for Don Carter. His little piece of heaven was not the same. Nothing was the same. The kids weren’t kids anymore. His wife was fed up with him, decidedly going in a different direction. He was out of fun things to do: No more school sports events, no more skiing (his knee was too unstable), no more hunting trips, snowmobile riding, trail rides, or boys night outs. Still in his early fifties, Don was feeling much older.

His only form of entertainment, other than hanging out at Riley’s Tavern, was golfing at the club. He played in a skins game every Friday. He also played with a couple of friends in their usual Monday Match. They would meet at noon, figure how many showed up and put together a match of Best Ball. They would play 18 holes for $5 per player, three ways: First nine low team, second nine low team, and total low team. More often than not, everyone would either win or lose $5.

Every once in awhile Don would join a game during the week, and when possible, he’d play in Men’s Club tournaments that happened on holidays like Veterans Day, Labor Day or the annual Halloween Costume event.

Other than golf, Don kept himself in shape by working out in his garage using a multi station weight and cable machine and a treadmill. He managed to keep his weight stable despite the six pack a day beer habit.

The truth was coming over his world like a bank of fog rolling over the hills on a cool November evening. He was done with this lifestyle. It was time for a change. A big change. It felt like he was going back in time by moving to Billings and going back to work. But it also felt like a chance to renew his old self. Get back in the game, reassert his competitive nature. Pick up right where he left off, minus the drama of dancing with the wolves.

And stay just one step ahead of that rolling fog bank.

You can order a 8 x 11” printed copy at https://books.by/rick-elkin. It is only $12.99…Thank You for supporting my work!

In 1970, responding to Federal laws, California passed the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) that requires state and local agencies to adopt all feasible measures to mitigate any identified negative environmental impacts prior to project approvals and permits. CEQA makes environmental protection a mandatory part of every California state and local (public) agency’s decision making process.

Since then, the State of California has required every city and county to:

A) File an Official General Growth Management Plan.

B) Adequately plan to meet the housing needs of every element of their community.

Has half a century of government meddling improved our ability to provide adequate housing for our citizens? The answer is an unequivocal no! The problem is only getting worse, not better. On every level, the housing crisis has exploded.

Prices are the leading indicator of the health of the housing element in any community. When prices are high, it indicates demand is high. If the building industry could simply build more homes to meet the demand, don’t you think they would? Based on prices, you would think that new home construction would be booming, providing thousands of good jobs, which in turn supports service industries like automotive sales, restaurants, theaters and schools.

But that is not happening. All of those important economic segments are in deep trouble. There is more to the story.

I spent the majority of my working years in the new home construction business. During the 80’s San Diego County experienced a monster housing boom. We were building close to 20K homes a year. Prices were attainable. Communities were popping up all over the county. New business opportunities were happening in many different segments: High tech, medical, golf, entertainment, agriculture and education. The suppliers for home construction struggled to keep up with increasing demand and shorter lead times.

Builders are good at studying the marketplace. They can predict the number of homes they will need to build in any given year. They are usually very accurate, because they have to be. In the building business, the fastest way to go broke is to overbuild for the market demand. It is like the fresh food section at the supermarket: If you over-buy and the food spoils, you will lose money. Newly built houses continue to cost money even after they are constructed. Developers must pay property tax, utility set up fees, loan interest payments, maintenance fees and marketing costs. When a builder constructs hundreds of homes in a region, they carry enormous construction loans. If those buildings go unsold for any length of time, the developer risks bankruptcy.

The Democrat run State of California is trying to force the builder community to offer more “affordable” homes. But developers are not going to do anything that doesn’t make economic sense. The legislators need to understand how home development economics work. Just demanding more housing is the last thing they should be doing.

Instead, they should be encouraging more agricultural land development, more manufacturing businesses to set up shop in California. You have to have a strong employment base to bring lower range buyers into the marketplace. Instead, California is suffering an exodus of powerful employers due to excessive taxes and regulations.

If they could make the numbers work, builders would be standing in line for building permits in San Diego County. But they are not.

The reason we are suffering extremely high housing prices is more complex than just high demand. It has more to do with government policy and the jobs market and less to do with construction volume.

Yes, there is a shortage of For Sale homes. But the building industry has been warning about this issue since I was involved with the Building Industry Association (BIA) back in the mid 80’s. The BIA issued annual reports projecting how many homes would be needed in the coming decades just to keep up with population growth. Year after year, the numbers kept getting worse. We were falling behind by thousands of homes while the population grew exponentially.

I remember defending my position in the home building business to my friends who viewed developers as vulchers, moving into mostly rural areas and converting them into densely populated, often walled suburbs. They suggested the builder industry was exploitive and insensitive to those already living in the less populated areas.

I understood their anxiety, but I warned them, “Where are your kids going to live? Are you ok with them having to move out of state? Don’t you think they should have the same opportunities to enjoy San Diego that you have?”

In 2026 my now middle-aged kids are confronted with potentially being forced to relocate because of housing costs.

California Policy Lab reports, “On average, movers relocate to neighborhoods where monthly housing costs are $672 less. After seven years, they are 48% (or 11 percentage-points) more likely to own a home.”

Unfortunately, the Never In My Backyard (NIMBY) attitude has survived and California’s Democrat voters have continually piled more and more economically destructive restrictions on land use, building permits, trucking fees, product safety controls, insurance requirements, lending mandates, and newer, more extensive environmental laws. Now builders are confronted with tariffs and delivery delays, all of which jack up production costs.

As far as the buyers economics? Well, it isn’t a problem if you have already owned a home for more than a decade. But if you are a first time buyer, making less than $180K household income, forget it. You are out of luck, because the lenders can’t risk you going upside down on a million-dollar mortgage.*

So those folks enter the rental market. What does that do? Puts additional pressure on rental supply, meaning rates go up as demand goes up. It is a vicious cycle.

Recently, the California Department of Housing Development demanded the City of Escondido build a minimum of 9,600 new housing units by the year 2029. The State claims the City has been lackadaisical about meeting it’s goals over the past decade.

Dane White, the Mayor of Escondido, reacted to the mandate by simply stating, “We didn’t have the resources”.**

Of course you don’t. Our government is not in the building business. And they shouldn’t be. Leave it to the experts. The only thing government can do is get out of the way! Unfortunately, our semi-socialist California legislators are totally unaware that they are the problem.

We should learn from China’s mistakes.

Around the turn-of-the-century China went on a home building spree, funded by the State, of course. Now they are sitting on an estimated 80 million unoccupied homes/apartments. The Chinese banking and building industry are near collapse because the money they have put up will never be recovered. ***

Central planning, or government overreach, cannot be tolerated in America’s free market economy. Tell California regulators to “Stand Down” or we may end up in the same housing industry ditch as China.

* https://capolicylab.org/priced-out-relocation-amidst-californias-affordability-crisis/

* https://capolicylab.org/priced-out-relocation-amidst-californias-affordability-crisis/

* www.klw-law.com/companies-leaving-california

**www.10news.com/news/local-news/escondido-struggles-to-meet-state-mandate-requiring-the-city-to-build-9-607-new-housing-units-by-2029

***www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/chinas-property-slump-deepens-and-threatens-more-than-the-housing-sector/

The Padres started fast in 2025. Up until August last season, the team was in first palace in the NL West division. Fans were optimistic in ‘25 as the bats were making contact and the pitchers looked fresh and motivated. Injuries to Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish, Brian Hoeing and Jason Heyward forced management to make adjustments to the roster early in 2025. Then Fernando Tatis pulled a hamstring. In the end, the superstar loaded Dodger lineup went all the way to a World Championship.

This year, in Spring Training, Dodger teams went 20-9. The Padres broke even at 15-15. Since Opening Day, the Padres are looking weak and confused. So far, we are averaging 3 runs per game. I don’t see the look in Manny and Tati’s eyes that say “I got this!”

There is something odd about the team chemistry. During after-game interviews, though everyone is touting team spirit, talent and enthusiasm, it just doesn’t feel genuine. I don’t doubt the players are all on the same page, committed to putting it all on the line, but sometimes you can tell there is something missing. An intangible emotional umbilical cord that feeds subliminal motivation, is absent.

In 2024 the season was dedicated to the memory of owner Peter Siedler. His dedication to bringing the best talent together in San Diego to finally put the Padres into a position to challenge the hated Dodgers, was an effective motivational tool. And the players fed off of it.

In 2025 the impetus of adding first tier pitching with Dylan Cease and Tanner Scott, the energy of young Jackson Merrill starting his career like a house-on-fire and adding 3-time batting champion Luis Arraez, slugger Ramon Laureano and flamethrower Mason Miller, stoked the fire in the community’s belly. It took until the last weeks of the season for that energy to flame out.

Last year was one of the most exciting seasons in a decade, and we have all been looking forward to 2025 to exacting revenge from our abusive cousins in LA.

I was seriously shocked when Mike Shildt resigned last fall. I will never agree entirely with every decision managers make, but ‘Shildty’ made more good decisions than bad. He had the respect of his players, and managed a team rife with unfortunate injuries, extremely well. His resignation story, that he was physically and psychologically overwhelmed, didn’t sit right with me. So I was certain there was more to it, something in the background that was inconsistent with the ‘health issue’ cover story.

There were reports that Shildt was verbally and emotionally abrasive to several of his coaches. I have some thoughts on that. Why only coaches? Abusive and combative personalities don’t usually confine their outbursts to only a select audience. Did players complain? I don’t think that was ever suggested.

He had a track record managing the St. Louis Cardinals. They let him go when his contract was up. If he was unstable in the clubhouse there, why didn’t Padre management know about it? Was it because laws prohibit past employers from revealing damaging information to future employers? Maddenly, that is most likely true. Since the Padres gave Shildt a 4-year contract in 2023, they couldn’t have known he was toxic in the workplace. That seems criminal when multi-million dollar contracts are involved. Or maybe, it simply wasn’t true…

I don’t think Shildt voluntarily resigned. If I am right, and there was pressure from management (most likely AJ Preller) and Shildt was shown the door, then I think it might help explain why the team seems so unfocused in 2026.

Players are sensitive to expectation pressures. When the front office is unsatisfied with a manager who takes it into the playoffs in both of his campaigns, what are the players supposed to think? Is management expecting perfection? If he is not good enough, what about me?

There is another possible scenario: If he was simply holding his coaching staff to high standards, and spoke forcefully to get their attention, he may, under current cultural standards, qualify as a workplace “abuser”. It wouldn’t surprise me if the combination of front office expectations, emotionally sensitive coaches who have been brought along in our 21st century progressive environment of avoiding responsibility and victimhood attitudes, it all added up to a no-win outlook that Shildt and Preller mutually agreed was untenable.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

But the fact remains, the Padres Organization has a history of instability. Since it’s founding in 1969, the San Diego MLB franchise has suffered economic downturns, underfunded ownership, and drug use accusations, In too many cases, when the terms of contracts offered were reasonably close, some very talented people decided the sensational fans, phenomenal stadium and unbeatable weather, wasn’t enough to entice them to make their home in San Diego.

So what is the problem with the Padres?

Is it the 5 decade long losing record? The unstable ownership? The revolving door of players, coaches and managers? The laid-back atmosphere of life at the beach?

Is it always all about money?

When I analyse guys like Shohei Ohtani and see that he has already made more money than anyone could possibly spend in two lifetimes, and I watch how motivated he is, it is clear to me that the force required to play at your highest ability is definitely not just loads of money.

Personally, I made the decision in 1977 to move to San Diego to start a new life. I was leaving 27 years in LA, most of that time living at or near the beach. I had a 12 year career in the Ski Industry and many longtime relationships I would have to walk away from. But I felt compelled to escape the toxic atmosphere in LA. I wanted to live in the neighborhood of America’s Finest City. I wanted 69 degree weather almost everyday. I wanted less traffic, less pretense, and a closer sense of community.

I knew it would mean some sacrifices for me. But I was looking into my future and it was obvious it wasn’t going to be in the massive metropolitan matrix of LA.

Maybe some super rich athletes are aware that by the time they are 40, they can choose to locate wherever they want. They are banking on settling down with family, and potentially many friends and former player buddies, somewhere in California (probably not, because of tax issues) or Florida. Or, who knows…

So Padre fans can only hope that while some players are here, for whatever period it may be, that they can use the Petco Park Vibe to unite the current team, excite the sell-out crowds, and surprise the MLB community, and punch themselves a ticket to the World Series in 2026.

When I moved to Escondido in 1977 I embraced the professional sports teams in San Diego. I became a Clippers, Charger and Padres fan. For life.

All I have left now is the Padres. I ain’t quitting them, ever…

…She had also noticed several new tattoos, some in color, and they are decidedly Spanish, and depicting fighting frogs or some sort of Naval Military symbols. She never cared for tattoos and couldn’t understand what any of them meant, so she payed little attention. But she also knew they were very expensive.

“Let me see if I can learn something from him, Jer. He is talkative with me, especially when we are alone. I don’t see any evidence of drug use, but I could be wrong. It is probably better if I talk to him when he works the night shift and sleeps during the day. Sometimes we have a late breakfast together, before he goes to bed and after you’ve gone to work. Maybe I can get him to tell me something he wouldn’t share with you.”

“Just be very careful. If he is involved with some bad people, and he got that money from a drug deal, or from a robbery, you don’t want to be involved in any way. You must talk to him as a parent who cares about him. Is he dating? Is he gambling? Never mention money…”

Molly is a little angry. Has Xavier been holding out on them?

He knows how tight the household finances are. He knows she is hurting for cash. He has never said anything during their encounters about his struggles. He used to complain all the time, that he was underpaid. Now that she thinks about it, he stopped complaining a few months ago.

Jeremiah is also wondering why Molly seemed to abruptly change her mind about kicking Xavier out of their apartment. When she recommended “giving him some slack” Jeremiah was shocked. Just a month or so ago she wanted him out, as soon as possible. She warned him, Xavier might be a problem. Now, knowing what Jeremiah just found in his closet, was she going to be angry? What about the baby? The last thing Molly needs is more stress. As they have struggled financially, she is feeling pressured to find new customers, to help Jeremiah with the living expenses.

Molly is concerned because in the not too distant future, she has to tell Jeremiah the ‘bad news’ that she has suffered a miscarriage. Just how and when has yet to be determined, but she is certain, that time is not right now.

And then there is the dermatology report Jeremiah has not told Molly about.

Channel surfing late last night I caught Florence Foster Jenkins, a 2016 film starring Hugh Grant and Meryl Streep. Directed by Steven Frears, it is extremely unique. It took me a few minutes to get hooked, but as it unfolded, I became enchanted.

Why? Well, it is set in the 1944 New York. Though filmed in Liverpool, the filmmakers cleverly transformed the downtown area to look exactly like Manhattan in 1944. Reflecting the post war exuberance, the message is all about privilege and ambition.

Streep plays Florence Foster Jenkins, an heiress to great wealth and a retired musical instructor, who fancies herself becoming an operatic singer. She hires an assistant, Hugh Grant, who becomes her lifelong companion. Since both are such amazing actors, I was interested in the motives for both actors to accept roles in such an unusual, somewhat dark, almost gloomy psychological mystery drama. I came away with an even higher regard for both them and the script. Though it was not a big box office hit, it has received widespread accolades for it’s excellence in moviemaking.

Though Miss Jenkins is the object of both affection and ridicule, we can’t help but feel compassion for her relentless ambition. Beyond the charming yet disturbing characters surrounding Jenkins, pandering to her ego, pretending that they are serving her interests, there is a lot of subtext: Issues that are ignored and left unsaid.

I also have a reputation for reading into films subtle allegory. Something I learned in college when my professors would point out metaphors I completely missed while reading the Classics.

In this case, I couldn’t help but see the parallels with todays political scene.

For example, Hugh Grant, St. Clair Bayfield (Jenkin’s loyal pseudo lover/companion) is a metaphor of our modern media. They (the media complex) tell us what we are seeing. They babysit us, manipulate information, control the narrative, and polish the egos of their audience, just like Bayfield does for Miss Jenkins, who he affectionately refers to as ‘Bunny’.

Bayfield hires Cosme McMoon, an aspiring and upcoming classical pianist, to accompany the aspiring singer. They practice relentlessly, though she is never able to carry a tune. Before her occasional public performances, Mr. McMoon suffers anxiety attacks, knowing they will be embarrassed and mocked. He worries his musical legitimacy will be impugned. He challenges Bayfield about his fears:

McMoon, “I am a serious pianist!”

Bayfield, “Oh, you think I don’t have ambition? I was a good actor. But I was never going to be a great actor. It was very hard to admit that to myself. But once I had, I felt free from the tyranny of ambition.”

This is a central point of the film. It takes work to disengage oneself from the search for approval. But once you do, you are free to express yourself, to create and live!

To me, Cosme McMoon represents post WW II traditional Liberal Democrats: Hard working, ambitious patriots, willing to do whatever it takes to further the American Legacy, but worried about looking bad to our allies. Conflicted but ambitious to lose the colonialist image. But Bayfield, on the other hand, embraces ambition, but prefers to watch it consume Miss Jenkins. He gets his joy vicariously, while floating around the social circles in the background, playing God to his heiress.

Meanwhile, Florence Foster Jenkins, brilliantly portrayed by Streep, is an allegory for Joe Biden’s Presidency. America has just barely survived the four years of Biden’s complete ineptitude. He claimed to have restored the Covid damaged economy, while engaging us in another endless war of attrition in Ukraine . He printed new money and spread it around carelessly, buying friends while depleting the power of the dollar. All along promising to unite our racially conflicted country. Instead, by abandoning border controls, he managed to disrupt any sense of community we had before Covid. In just four years, he piled an additional $10 trillion onto the existing $26 trillion national debt.

He was simultaneously mocked and applauded.

We are no closer to peace in Ukraine, the Gaza Strip, the streets of Minnesota, Detroit or Manhattan. The poor old guy may have meant well, but unfortunately, he never had the skill set, the personality or the work ethic to fill the role. But he did have the sycophantic supporting cast. The well compensated, misinformed or just ideologically driven worker bees that found ways to keep his illusions alive.

At the conclusion of Florence Foster Jenkins final Carnegie Hall concert, a full house stood in admiration for an old lady who simultaneously exhibited hubris and ambition, while butchering the lyrics and dancing like a kindergartener. The audience screams at her, mocking her musicianship, while clapping and whistling at her ‘comedic genius’.

I would suggest the audience reaction personifies Cognitive Dissonance. The single most persistent and mystifying cultural phenomenon of the 21st Century in America.

Based on a true story, the writers weave unbreakable determinations, self delusion, personal loyalty and love, all intertwined with humor and sadness. Something you don’t often see in the modern era of filmmaking.

Maybe the filmmakers could someday make a sequel: Joseph Robinette Biden/The Tyranny of Ambition.

At the 89th Academy Awards, Meryl Streep was nominated for Best Actress, which marked her 20th Oscar nomination, and the film won Best Costume Design. It also received four nominations at the 74th Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. In December, 2016 Hugh Grant won Best Actor at the Evening Standard British Film Awards show.

To buy/rent go to: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=florence+foster+jenkins+full+movie

Love to hear what you think.

- Jerry put himself through college working in the automotive sales industry. He worked in the finance department of a local Ford dealership doing the “backend” of the deals, structuring the loans, confirming the buyers credit rating, completing the paperwork of the sales contracts. Occasionally he would fill in for sales agents when they were out sick or on vacation, so he had a thorough knowledge of the whole process.

He also witnessed the dark side of the industry: the common use of stimulants. Jerry was never going to go down that road because, as a teenager, he saw a lot of that amongst the people in the bars his dad frequented. Those were bitter memories. He never suspected his dad of using, but he was certain many of the other men were. It was amazing how many beers someone can consume after snorting a couple lines of coke. He also knew one of the advantages his dad, and eventually himself, would always have, and that was the ability to out-think his competition. So keeping a clear head was priority one.

Jerry was driven. He was willing to work anytime he could to make extra money and to get ahead. Once he finished his MBA, he went full time at the dealership, but it was grueling work, nights, weekends and holidays and he felt under appreciated and under paid. While Don hooked up with his college sweetheart and relocated to San Diego, Jerry was working long hours at the car lot in LA.

Then one day Jerry was looking at the sales contract paperwork for a man who worked at a government job. He was a Special Assistant to the Chief Investigator at the Securities Exchange Commission. He reported his annual income at $170K. That sparked Jerry’s interest. The guys credit rating was golden. He lived in a really nice neighborhood. And he had been at the job for only seven years.

It took him 13 months after submitting his application, but Jerry hooked up with the SEC. In 1978 the agency enrolled him in advanced securities studies and investigative techniques classes. He aced them. They placed him in their Western Regional offices in Santa Ana.

Jerry had found nirvana. He had always wondered what it was about drugs that held users so captive while simultaneously destroying their lives. He had found the same kind of elixir, except in this case he was doing society a service and making a great living at the same time.

He always loved competition, but investigating securities crimes was the ultimate challenge and getting convictions the best rush he ever felt.

His targets were counterfeiters, honey pot charlatans, stock market scammers and ponzi scheme magicians. Most looked like the nice guy next door while they swindled their victims out of every last dime of their savings.

In order for agents to properly infiltrate and investigate securities fraud, the commission would set them up with phony business profiles, and even better yet, they paid for Jerry to join Big Canyon Country Club, in Newport Beach. Part of his job was to mingle with bankers and financial wranglers who funded big developments, securities managers, high net worth consultants, anyone who was involved in high finance. That was the community he worked. And many of those folks were into golf. Hanging with them in an atmosphere of relaxation, anything goes guy-talk, was a powerful tool to uncovering secrets. So he worked the club house restaurants and bars after his rounds, hoping to find some high roller types he could hook up with.

Five years later, the Western Regional Director visited the Santa Ana SEC offices. The bureau was planning to expand into San Diego, as it was emerging as a booming economy. They were looking for volunteers to move down south. Jerry couldn’t get his hand up fast enough. He was tired of fighting traffic, of spending the majority of his time on the numerous freeways interconnecting LA and Orange County. In his mind moving into San Diego County would be an exciting new frontier of untold riches.

After five years of service, he was still renting in Santa Ana. Housing costs in the Orange County area were still too high, so he was certain he could buy a lot more house in the suburbs of San Diego than he could dream about in west Orange County.

Six months later Jerry bought a newly constructed tract house in Chula Vista and immediately joined the San Diego Country Club. He was attracted to it because the course resembled Whittier Narrows, designed by William Bell Jr., who had recently remodeled the SDCC course. And the membership profile fit the target: Mostly upper-end homeowners working in the San Diego Downtown financial district. He also was attracted to it’s heritage, sponsoring several pro contests and an annual charity event to raise money for kids golf.

It was while playing in the Billy Casper inspired fundraiser “Billy’s Kids” in August, 1983, that Jerry spots an old friend in the parking lot, that would prove to be a turning point in Don Carter’s life.

***

If we didn’t know better, we might think this election year (2016) is just another reality TV show called ‘Animal Farm, USA.’ The 4-legged farm animals have become the 2-legged humans.

Suddenly, a TV game show host billionaire comes along and says, “We have to secure our borders. Without borders, we don’t have a country. I will build a world class wall. The finest border wall ever built. It will be easy, and I will make the Mexican government pay for it. Aren’t you tired of losing at everything?”

And with one brilliantly conceived stroke, Donald Trump sucks the air right out of the national campaign room!

The idea that one candidate, by recognizing one issue as the elephant in the room, could have so much impact on the future direction of our country is stunning. But it shouldn’t be. Illegal immigration is a microcosm of the problems every industrialized country on the planet is currently, or about to, face. The idea that borders are a thing of the past is so antithetical to the concept of civilization, of law and order, of human dignity, and of national identity, it is counter intuitive.

The impact and cost of uncontrolled migration is so enormous and widespread, it fosters a loss of controls of currency, of trade, of cultural identities, and of physical, financial and employment security. Leaving the doors to our home unlocked is just the beginning of a myriad of cascading problems, all of which are contributing to our nation’s political indigestion.

Isn’t it poetic justice that a reality TV star, an egocentric real estate developer and author of a business textbook would be the one to slap us collectively across the face to awaken us to the fact that we are truly lost. That his skill set, his highly developed system of recognizing subtle, sometimes subliminal messages would be the only one of hundreds of ‘qualified’ political leaders to seize on the single mutant cancer cell that is leading us down a dead end road to perdition?

If and when any country loses its identity by abandoning borders, refusing to enforce duly enacted laws, redistributes the hard earned assets of its indigenous citizens, it simply ceases to exist. And along with it goes the human inventory, the entrepreneurship, the initiative to achieve great things and the sense of loyalty and sacrifice any society needs to sustain its viability.

When a soldier is pinned down in a trench and realizes he is about to lose his life, he may ask, for what?

For something that everyone on the planet already has? For a lawless, uncivilized country that offers no peace, no justice and no safety for its citizens? Why not hold up the white flag of surrender and hand over your weapon and your life to your enemy? Some on the left would say, that’s a good idea, we never accomplish anything with war. So, in their mind, we would have been better off had we let Hitler run the table and dominate the world. Or perhaps it would have been Japan, or North Korea, or Russia. The point is, the only ones who ever threaten to run the world are the leftists, the statists, the communists or fascists who think they know better than the average person, and can determine just what we should all be doing in their utopia.

Just ask Napoleon, the Alpha Donkey in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

So now is the time to ask: Are we Americans lost? Do we have what it takes to admit our failures while at the same time recognizing what an important and absolutely essential element America plays in the success of civilization on mother earth? Or are we about to do what everyone did at Orwell’s Animal Farm, “The animals, watching through the window, realize with a start that, as they look around the room of the farmhouse, they can no longer distinguish which of the card players are pigs and which are human beings.”

Here is a teaser, just to get your attention:

Driving home from his downtown office, Don is thinking: What was Jason Clayborne thinking when he talked about Jamie in such a way? What reason would he have to drop such a nuclear bomb on the husband of one of his best friend’s daughter? Was he drunk? Was he angry at Bill Altman? Was he just venting anger about what could become a major financial loss?

Or, is it possible he knew something Don didn’t? Don knows nothing about any bachelorette party, Jamie never told him about it. The problem now was should he challenge Jamie? Has she been keeping a dark secret from him, and if so, what would it mean to their relationship if he were to suddenly confront her about something so terrible? Jason said it was something that happened a long time ago…how long ago?

As he fought traffic on Highway 5 going up to Del Mar, Don decided it may be better to just stay ignorant. Or at least pretend to be. He is battling himself about this Team DeMille investment, about his desire to bail out on his career, and now, all of a sudden, he is asking some questions about why Jamie has been so guarded sexually. Is his own simmering guilt about having sexual dalliances affecting his performances? Is she suffering latent sexual confusion, repressed anger and resentment, and feelings of abandonment from Don?

Is this all a figment of his imagination, and is it undermining his ability to do his job, to be intimate with his wife, and to make good decisions? As he turns onto his street, his mind is cluttered, his body is racked with anxiety.

He has to walk into his house and try to be perfectly normal when Jamie says:

“Hey honey! How was your day?”

You don’t need the Substack app to order my book. Just go to: https://books.by/rick-elkin/blindsided and you can also order my latest analysis of our nation’s health. Trump’s Second Coming: Donald Should Be Dead and So Should America…

***

Just as he walks into his office, he is followed in by an older woman and a female officer who will serve as a translator. She introduces Jun to Mrs. Rosalynn Beltran, and notes she is not good at English.

“Please be seated. Thank you for coming here, Mrs. Beltran. I need to find Roberto as soon as possible. Can you help me?”

Mrs. Beltran explains, slowly, so the female officer has time to translate for Jun.

Female officer: “She said, I am sorry to hear about the woman who was kidnapped. It could have been Roberto, I don’t know. But he did tell me he was in very big trouble, just before he left in his truck.”

“Where did he go?”

Female officer: “She said he was going down to Baja. He has friends there. When he left he kissed me goodbye. He never does that.”

Jun: “Why is that important?”

Mrs. Beltran looks at the female officer, then starts to cry. “She said, she thinks it meant he wasn’t coming back.”

Jun looks at the interpreter. “Ask her if Roberto has ever been involved with violence, especially toward women.”

It takes a few moments for Rosalynn to gather herself. She nods, then puts her head down into her hands. Then she starts to speak quickly.

Interpreter: “My son escaped from a Mexican prison two years ago. He was serving a sentence for assault. He came here illegally. He has been living here with a cousin who was just deported last month. They shared an apartment. He was desperate, I guess. He was employed, so I don’t understand why he would leave me, his family and friends, if he wasn’t running away from the law.”

Detective Jun stands up and tells the female officer to see that Mrs. Beltran is seen out. He is sure now that Roberto is his suspect. But he is also certain that if he made his way to Mexico, he will never be back in America again

.

It is available at https://books.by/rick-elkin/blindsided as a PrintOnDemand (POD) book. It’s about family secrets,

“For Peter, it was a mystery why his big brother suddenly rejected what appeared to be a privileged and luxurious lifestyle. Sunny weather, financial abundance, and close family relationships wasn't enough to satisfy Don's ambitions?
For Don, there were secrets he almost took to his grave.”

Here is a teaser, just to get your attention:

He finds a very strange looking duffel bag stuffed into a cardboard box in the back corner of his closet. It is almost military looking, with camouflage PVC coated heavy duty canvass material, and enormous, double stitched nylon straps, with super thick zippers and an air valve. It looks as if it is waterproof and airtight…It is crumpled into the bottom of the box, so Jeremiah pulls it out.

There is something weighty in it, so he unzips it. He immediately zips it back up, refolds it and places it in exactly the same place in the box. He quietly and quickly exits Xavier’s room, and moments later Molly walks in with Ericberto’s carnitas burritos for dinner.

He has barely had time to slow his heart rate down, as she unrolls the burritos onto a paper plate.

“Which salsa do you want, red or green?”

“Don’t know if I can even eat right now, Molly…”

“I know it’s kinda late, but (she looks up). You look like you just saw a ghost! Are you ok?”

“No. I am not ok. I am scared shitless!”

“By what?”

“I am not supposed to tell you anything, so please promise me you will keep a secret. It is a life or death situation, so please, can you promise to say nothing to nobody if I share something terrible with you?”

“Now you are scaring me! I promise. But first, do I really need to know? I hate keeping secrets!”

“Me too. But this involves Xavier. What you warned me about may be coming true. So I need to tell you to keep you safe!”

“Oh, shit! What now?”

“I just found a stash of cash in his room. It is bundled cash, like it was stolen from a bank or something. It looked like all big bills. It had to be twenty or thirty thousand dollars, or more!”

Neither one touches their food. Molly pushes her chair back and demands to see it. Jeremiah stops her in her tracks.

“No, honey, you can’t touch it. I didn’t touch it. I put it back as perfectly as possible because Xavier can’t know I found it. We have to decide, do we turn him in? Do we ignore it and let him deal with his demons? Molly, I have more to tell you…”

Molly interrupts him, “Jesus Christ! We’re talkin’ scary shit!”

Jeremiah knows he has reached a point of no return. Once he brings Molly into the circle of intrigue, she becomes a potential witness, or worse, a victim. He is convinced, at this point, that he is dealing with something very serious. How does a maintenance worker making $12 an hour come into possession of machine bundled stacks of 50 and 100 dollar bills? Dozens of them? And what in the hell was Xavier doing driving off with the head of fairgrounds security yesterday afternoon? Something Rafael Alvarez didn’t want to talk about this morning? And what was Angela Del Pilar alluding to when she told Jeremiah about the DEA investigation going on at the racetrack? She said it had to do with money smuggling

…

Watching the SOTU speech on Tuesday, February 24th, I was overwhelmed by the obvious discomfort of the Democrat side of the isle when President Trump listed the series of policy initiatives he was undertaking to stop corruption, fraud and misuse of public funds.

Instead of standing and applauding like all of the Republicans, they sat on their hands. They didn’t move. They showed no emotion other than shock.

Trump has ridden up alongside the Great Gravy Train of Corruption and Theft of tax dollars, and boarded the runaway train. Joined by his Gang of Marauders, the newly formed War On Fraud division, to be directed by Vice-President JD Vance, and including the on-going Department Of Government Efficiency and the newly remodeled Federal Bureau of Investigation, the President’s Gang of Marauders are systematically dismantling the massive embezzlement and money laundering Gravy Train the Democrats have been conducting for decades.

You could see the look of fear on their faces because they know the truth is coming out.

Voters are wondering, how do Congressional leaders enter office with average net worth and within just a few years become multi-multi millionaires?

How did Minnesota Governor Tim Walz launder eight BILLION tax dollars? How has the Governor of California, one of the nations most wealthy and vital states, accumulated nearly FIFTY BILLION in debt, while his California Democrat Party is awash in millions of campaign dollars?

The only answer is those that are riding the train want the criminal enterprise to continue.

Our nation has the highest average annual student expenditures in our history, yet our students are ranked near the lowest in the world in reading, writing and arithmetic. Where is all the money going? Oh, maybe the largest collective union in our country ( National Education Association ) might know.

Americans have been paying the highest costs for medicine in the world! Big Pharma profits are off the charts, but Washington DC doesn’t do anything about it. They illegally forced all Americans to enroll in Obamacare, then we watched our healthcare become less effective and more expensive. Why?

Big Insurance has wracked up humongous profits since the passage of ObamaCare. Politicians rake in millions of campaign dollars from them, while American’s medical costs are skyrocketing.

The truth is Pharmaceutical/Healthcare, along with High Tech manufacturing, Trade and Education Unions and Insurance/Financial industry interests spend the most cash lobbying activities on The Hill. Whatever direction the legislative train is going, they are the conductors.

The numbers are so astronomical it is easy to understand how siphoning a million here, a million there can get lost in the smog of deceit…

If you have ever visited Washington D.C., you had to be shocked by the ostentatious display of Aristocratic arrogance: Politicians routinely being escorted to The Hill by Capitol Police Motorcycle Brigades, motorcades of Blackout Limousines and dozens of media piranhas feeding on every move of current controversial legislators. It is a Broadway-caliber show of self importance rivaling Tiberius, Caligula or Nero.

When was the last time you saw a Democrat (or any politician) show up in a Penny’s polyester suit and tie? Not be accompanied by a team of bodyguards?

The air of wealth is thick around the Capitol buildings in every state and especially in Washington D.C. I liken the greed and corruption situation to any Mafia operation: Focus on the richest and most prolific businesses. They are easier to skim. Big cash rich operations like union organizations, insurance and banking, shipping and transportation, and trash collection, are, like government, great sources of skimming, extortion and racketeering scams.

Especially when you have the power to impose taxes, fees and regulations. It is an irresistible opportunity to collect some “vig”.

Americans have, for the past three decades, watched trillions of taxpayer dollars get spent on almost anything BUT our own needs: Our nation’s infrastructure, student achievement, finding cures for cancer, diabetes, alzheimer’s or autism. Instead the Gravy Train-track has led to Ukraine, Israel, the Military Industrial Complex, media and entertainment partnerships, buying billions of vaccines and USAID laundering scams.

So now, with the Trump Marauders boarding the runaway Gravy Train, there is at least some hope they can derail the Great Gravy Train Robbery of the 21st Century.

Fortune Magazine reports that a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco suggests that by stopping the tsunami of illegal immigration, President Donald Trump may actually be undermining the restoration of our economy. The report suggests that Joe Biden’s border policies, or total lack thereof, were directly lowering homebuilding prices, increasing housing availability, and boosting the overall economy during his four year administration.

Since 2020 America has not increased housing availability, home ownership or lowered housing costs. The numbers don’t lie. For everyone not in the top 3% income bracket, renting or buying a home is increasingly more difficult.

Their report claims that by putting a stop to the indiscriminate siege across our southern border, Trump is forcing home builders to pay higher wages to a shrinking workforce. That the slower rate of new construction is slowing demand for supply chains and all housing cost more.

If you view the data in a pure supply vs. demand vacuum, it would make sense: Less supply of workers and building supplies in an atmosphere of unrelenting demand will result in higher retail costs to buyers.

Over the next few years we will see if they are right. Trump is only 1 ½ years into his administration, so it’s too soon to tell.

Upon taking office in January 2025, the housing market was in shambles. High interest rates ( 71/2 - 8 1/2% APR) since 2021 and increased loan approval requirements have kept millions out of the home acquisition market. In just in the past 10 years, home prices have increased over 30%.

Post Covid supply lines took years to return to normal. Between 2020 and 2023 builders were over-ordering and storing supplies to assure project completion schedules. Lumber, plumbing, roofing and appliance costs were high and deliveries were uncertain. That resulted in serious supply chain shortages, reduced production capacity and manufacturer consolidation. Even if new home construction could return to 1980’s and 90’s levels, manufacturing capacity would not be able to keep up.

Since 2020 a 25% Inflation rate is stealing the value of the dollar, so sellers want more because they will need more to repurchase another home. The pressure to keep home prices high is an economic conundrum.

The FRBofSF report assumes any recovery of housing supply and demand going forward will be hampered by the “crackdown” on illegal immigration. But that is a faulty assumption. Much of the increase in housing costs has nothing to do with the workforce or the cost of materials. Huge increases in government regulation costs, such as zoning/rezoning fees, environmental studies fees and delays, fire retardant, solar power, water saving and drainage design requirements, all together add millions to the budgets of community infrastructure.

A simple Google search: “National data shows regulatory costs averaged $93,870 per single-family home in 2021, a staggering 44% increase from $65,224 just a decade earlier. For multifamily developments, regulations consume 40.6% of total development costs, with building code changes alone accounting for 11.1% of the final price. (Dec 5, 2025)”

The exponential surge in housing costs since the turn of the century has affected all levels of personal economics. What used to be 25% of a family expense, mortgage or rent, is now often more than 50% of the family monthly cost-of-living expense. When you add up associated costs of ownership, i.e., HOA fees, insurance and property taxes, some folks are spending nearly 65% of their income on their home before they own a car, buy gasoline, pay for cable, internet, cell phone or utilities like natural gas, electricity, and water.

With so little left for food, entertainment, travel or investment, the nation’s economy suffers from minimalist discretionary spending.

So, let’s look at who has been getting screwed. The immigrant population is the service sector, right? The Democrats always say, “We are for the working people: Those that serve us food, clean restrooms and office spaces, do the dirty work of landscape maintenance, road, roof and auto repairs.”

By inviting unvetted, uneducated and untrained immigrants to expand the workforce, who is getting displaced? It’s not the management, the intellectual or professional segment. It’s not the government employees, the healthcare or educational workers. In reality, the immigrants are nothing more than a new age slave population. They are controlled by their illegal status, by their fear of discovery. The millions of undocumented workers in America will not be participating in the housing market other than to fill rooms in massive low income apartment complexes subsidized by government spending. In the meantime, they are filling up hospital emergency rooms, primary schools and daycare centers. They are receiving food and clothing subsidies, and making it harder on all of those who were already here.

Uncontrolled immigration is creating crowded plantations of modern era slaves. So politicians have to transfer more money into plantation population management.

And who pays those subsidies? Taxpayers. And how? Property taxes. Sales taxes. Gasoline taxes. Zoning fees. When basic commodities cost more, they generate higher levels of taxes and fees.

In recent years, huge corporate investment funds ( BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard ) are buying up millions of single family homes. They focus on buying distressed properties sold at foreclosure auctions. Then they turn around and rent them out. To those middle-class families that don’t have $150K or more to put down on a mortgage. What does that do to the average cost of homes for sale? It decreases the supply in an unnatural way, It is part of the corporate strategy: Buy huge inventories of abandoned, upside down mortgages at wholesale prices. Decrease the overall sales supply by converting them to rentals, then sell at a huge markup after amortizing your self-funded mortgage for ten years.

That kind of free market price manipulation is illegal in the financial industry.

I would argue that the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has less than honorable ambitions with their housing market assessment report. It appears Big Finance is trying to provide cover for Big Government from any attempt by Republicans to stop corporations from turning the housing market into another Wall Street Playground.

By ignoring the overall economic mess DJT inherited, ignoring the impact of corporate investing in the housing market, the suffocating burdens of government over-regulation and by assuming legal citizens in America will not be willing to accept wages builders are paying to framers, plumbers, concrete pumpers and electricians on their construction sites, they are spreading economic fear porn.

If Yellow Cab Co. picks up a couple of bank robbers outside the bank and drives them a few blocks away and drops them off, are they liable? Could the company be charged for participating in their escape?

What if it was an Uber driver? If you are being paid, knowingly or not, to participate in a crime, aren’t you still legally liable? I remember the old saying, “Ignorance is no excuse” and wonder if that applies to having no knowledge that a crime is in progress? That your activities are contributing to the success of the heist, or the fraud.

Passing counterfeit money is, technically, a crime. Even if you are unaware the bills are phony.

Is it ok for Verizon to allow counterfeiters to use the texting of Apple’s stolen logo to engage their phone system users in fake security warnings and soliciting credit cards to install phony digital safety systems?

At what point do we hold people accountable for enabling crimes?

I think we can all agree, unless you are being held hostage or have a gun pointed at your head, you shouldn’t be driving the getaway car, passing counterfeit identities or facilitating communications between crooks.

And if you do those things while capable of interfering with the criminal process, you are, by default, guilty of subordination, at the least, and an accomplice, at worst

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You may be naive, unaware, distracted or oblivious, but you are not an innocent bystander.

Our major media industry, ( i.e., newspapers/magazines, TV, telephone, radio and on-line social media podcasters, bloggers and commentators ) all try to evade any form of responsibility for their contributions to scammers. They claim, “The media is just the message. Don’t blame us. We are just delivering the information. What others do with it isn’t our problem.”

In the New World of Digital Communications, we have to distinguish between the “Media” and the “Medium” because they are two different things. The “Media” are the pixels that make up the picture on your computer or TV screen. The more of them and the more closely grouped they are, the clearer the picture. The “Medium” however, is the screen. The collection of liquid crystals spread between layers of phosphorus and glass create an image. Stimulated by electrons, it moves and changes colors. It is active vs. passive information.

The “Medium” then is that picture, or the content, that we see. Whether in a still photo (magazines, newspapers, books, etc. ) or video projection ( TV, computer monitor or IED ) the user is engaged by a multi dimensional continuous stream of information.

This form of informational delivery has an entirely different effect on our brains. Reading about a murder is different than watching a murder take place. The emotional impact is quantitatively different.

My point is, the media companies want to have maximum impact on their customers, because they are in the influence business. So it is entirely disingenuous to claim to not be responsible for what the information they deliver actually does. They know what they are doing, every inch of the way. They have the tools to measure the impact, to monitor the deliveries, and to filter out bad actors.

If what they delivered was benign, they wouldn’t be concerned who is watching, reading and listening to their content. They are not innocent bystanders, any more than Charlie Manson was.

We Americans take freedom for granted. Why not? We haven’t had to defend the freedom of our citizens since the War of 1812! We fight with and for other people around the world, and we convince ourselves that if we don’t stop authoritarian movements like the North Vietnamese, or the North Koreans, or even the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, that they may eventually be at our borders. So our young men, and more recently our women too, go out and fight to the death to preserve something that has become second nature. And for that amazing sacrifice, too many of our spoiled rotten citizens hold our military in contempt!

Fighting wars has become politically incorrect, because, I guess, some people are convinced that freedom is indigenous to the human spirit and can never be revoked. And the truth is, since the War of 1812, American freedom has been ubiquitous

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So what happens when a cultural system of governance, a social habit, becomes second nature? With so much freedom to make your own decisions, to work or not to work, to practice birth control or not, to be religiously devout or not, to be courteous or just rude, what effect does that incessant lack of responsibility do to human beings?

Is freedom like paint, where over time it erodes and peels? Is it like skin, that grows old and wrinkled and less attractive as when it was young and taught and tender? Is freedom a jacket that we wear, but can be removed? Is it just an idea, that has no tangible presence except that when it isn’t present, life is more often unbearable?

People all over the world acknowledge the “idea” of America, that the government belongs to and works for the people, is unique among nations. That is why so many people immigrate here if they have the opportunity. They see the great abundance we enjoy: the fresh food, the great healthcare, the widespread availability of schooling, training and advancement. They see the integration of races, religions and sexes. They know how America has, for generations, been the critical parent of the rest of the world, standing up to the Nazis and the Communists of Russia, China, and eastern Europe. We have created an era of peace unlike any other in the history of mankind.

But all good things must pass, or so they say in history books and literature and in social conversations around the world. No dynasty in the history of mankind has survived more than a few generations. One after another, they all start to crumble under their own weight. They slowly erode into the landscape of history, just as they reach their peak of success and excess.

The Kingdom of the Pharaohs, the Aztec and Mayan Dynasties and the Roman Empire, all gone, all ashes in between the layers of turf that coat the planet Earth. Will the Era of Freedom, the American Dream, the post World War Era pass on under the relentless decay of self inflicted traumas from racial, ethnic, gender and tribal conflict?

It is apparent that we have passed the peak of our personal freedoms. There are far fewer of them now than just a decade ago: Freedom of speech is nearly gone. Since the inception of politically correct speech, we all have to be very careful about how we discuss religion, work or anything controversial, because much of our language, many simple words, are now classified as ‘triggering.’

We cannot travel with impunity anymore. It is no longer rare for people to be detained at the airport after being searched for weapons, or contraband.

We cannot run our businesses any way we want anymore. There are all kinds of laws involving employee rights, salary equality, and sexual discrimination. Laws that interfere with how, who and for how much business owners can staff their company.

We cannot just rent or sell our property anymore without worrying about how we word advertising, how we interview candidates and what we allow renters to do with our property.

The hull of the Unsinkable American Dream Ship is starting to feel the effects of two hundred years of rust. And the waters we are navigating are never going to stop lapping at our weaknesses, our complacency and our arrogance.

Yesterday I abandoned my plans to open a new restaurant named My Souper Bowl.

I have fantasized about the idea for years. I think a drive-thru featuring healthy soups and other “bowl” meals would thrive in an era where people are growing increasingly suspicious of processed foods. We all know most burger and taco joints ultra process their main menu items like french fries, burger buns, taco meat and chicken nuggets.

My Souper Bowl would feature a changing menu of always fresh ingredients, offering a variety of soups, chilis and cold gazpacho and shrimp avocado salsa salads for warmer weather days.

But the 2026 Super Bowl just wrecked my plans. What a Hot Mess the whole thing turned out to be…

NFL owners and management have demeaned the name, the whole image of focusing on the best of the best in America’s favorite sport, to the degree that I can’t risk associating my investment on that famous brand anymore.They took a two and a half hour program and stretched it out two additional hours. After the amazing opening ceremonies and fly-over, it went rapidly downhill from there…

The game itself was boring. I can’t really blame management for that, but once again we were shown a number of instances where young players think it is OK to celebrate themselves for making a single play. They taunt their opponents, spin the ball in front of officials, pound their chest, throw kisses to the audience and display their unrestrained narcissism for the whole world to see. It’s disgusting…

I believe the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show, more so than some of the recent editions that were also tainted by hyper sexualization, terrible ‘music’ and over wrought dance choreography, has left a scar that may never properly heal. Our nation was physically and mentally abused by the leadership of the NFL corporation.

I know, many fans love this genre of ‘music’ but the overall presentation is where it went off the rails.

The interesting outcome of the debate over which halftime presentation was more widely watched ( the alternate cable and online show by TPUSA and Kid Rock vs. Bad Bunny ) completely misses the point. Instead of arguing over who watched what, we should be asking, “Whose idea was this?” What is driving the management of the most successful sports enterprise on Earth to purposely insert a massive cultural wedge into the American Psyche?

You know I am right. It was purposely provocative.

Why is there even any consideration of putting a Spanish speaking/singing rapper, a Puerto Rican America Hater ( who has been overtly anti border enforcement and English language ) a sexist Latino Macho Man who verbally dismisses the value of sexual fidelity, on a worldwide Media Pedestal?

Why?

Who could possibly benefit from thumbing your corporate nose at 60% of the American people? Does the NFL have any sense of what mothers think about exposing their children to women shaking their nearly naked booty while Bad Bunny sings perverse and misogynist lyrics?

“Real G, guiding the new generations with the OG one

Galactic style lust

Yes, so that your panties get wet

Get horny and versatile

More slutty than Betty Boop…

Because you look hot,

because you look hot (Push it in me completely)

Really big tits like Lourdes Chacón

Really big ass like Iris Chacón

I don’t know why I haven’t seen the pussy

But let’s go to bed to fuck you in panties…”

If the 2026 Super Bowl was a late night TV show, it would still have violated many Federal Communication Broadcasting Rules.

It is supposedly the culmination of a season of weekend contests pitting the greatest football players on Earth. It is a celebration of a national pastime. It draws fans from all age brackets, including young, impressionable and (hopefully) still naive kids. It could, and should, be the most unifying and celebratory day of the year! People of every ethnicity, gender and age can take the day off from politics and civil conflict, and come together to simply have some fun.

Instead, we were subjected to a halftime celebration of self indulgent gratuitous sexual exhibitionism, horribly out-of-tune and poorly orchestrated electronic noise and vacuous and promiscuous lyrics.

The NFL has been hugely successful at attracting women viewers. So, I have to ask, what are female fans to think?

To me, it is symbolic of an abusive relationship. Where the dude ignores the needs of his partner. He demands complete loyalty from her, despite constantly flirting with other women. He dresses her down when she objects, minimizing her hurt feelings, Then holds her up as a trophy to his male friends, while she ‘hopes’ he will eventually repay her for her fidelity, only to be disappointed when he brags to his friends that he is a ‘Free Man’ and can do whatever he wants.

The management of the NFL business franchise is 95% men and has revealed their misogynistic roots and growing arrogance. They are mimicking a sexually coercive and abusive relationship with their customers.

Now, let’s talk about the white male football fan. The Super Bowl halftime show assumes they don’t exist. At least the entertainment chosen for the past five years has had only one white performer appear on stage ( Eminem, who acts black ):

• 2025: Kendrick Lamar, SZA

• 2024: Usher, Alicia Keys, Jermaine Dupri, H.E.R., will.i.am, Lil Jon, Ludacris

• 2023: Rihanna

• 2022: Eminem, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige

• 2021: The Weeknd

• 2020: Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Bad Bunny, J Balvin, Emme Muñiz

I guess we white guys just don’t rank with those in charge of booking Super Bowl halftime talent ( i.e., Jay Z). Do we whites have to see white artists to validate our ethnicity? No, but why are we being systematically excluded?

Would NFL fans have enjoyed seeing Zac Bryan, Metallica or The Eagles on the stage? Roger Goodell said Bad Bunny is one of the Worlds greatest stars. Someday maybe, but not yet.

So what to do if many of you, like me, feel left behind. I still like watching games, but it is coming at a price I am beginning to resent. Games are being spread amongst too many sources ( Major Networks Fox, CBS and NBC. Plus, streaming services like Paramount + , Amazon Prime and Apple). Now I am being asked to pay subscription fees for those on top of my cable/satellite fees. I am getting nickel and dimed to death.

I am rapidly approaching a line in the sand…

“For now, 3I/ATLAS remains a point of light in our telescopes—either a strange visitor from a distant natural nursery” or, as scientist Avi Loeb implies, “a bottle with a message we are too afraid to read.” --- Harvard Science Review

As the world approaches the Great Revelation that Earth is not the only planet that supports life and that other Biological Beings have previously visited our planet, I keep asking myself questions.

Of course ‘they’ would be interested in us, just like we are interested in them. We are trying desperately to explore the universe, so why wouldn’t other intelligent beings want to do the same?

Look at how much progress we have made in technological innovation in just the past 100 years. We’ve landed men on the Moon, robotic machines on Mars, and sent exploratory satellites to the edge of the solar system. Imagine what we will be capable of in another 500 years.

Our planet is at least 3 ½ billion years old, so we are slow to develop, but our technology is exploding exponentially now. What if we had started faster? Could some other planet have supported life and become technologically more advanced before we invented the wheel? Could they have been sharing technology with many other civilizations in other galaxies for thousands of years?

Why are they only now showing a renewed interest in Earth? Or have they been coming and going for thousands of years?

It would seem reasonable to assume there could be more advanced beings out there somewhere. If so, what do they want from us? If they are much further along the maturation ladder than we, wouldn’t it behoove them to leave us alone? If they had the firepower to eviscerate us with some sort of ultrasound wave weapon or biologic toxin, what would they gain by using it?

Are they simply looking for real estate? Land to expand their enterprise? Do they need something we have? Since whatever they want, we have always had, why now?

Some recent archaeological digs have uncovered what could appear to be exotic metals deep in Earth’s crust. Metal fragments of what appear to be constructed engineering from potentially alien craft. The carbon dating indicates they are at least 50,000 years old.

Any advanced space travelers that came across a planet that thrived in the Sun’s Golden Zone of perfect temperatures, abundance of water, and a forgiving gravitational field, would obviously be attracted. So why did they come and go?

Why didn’t they conquer and occupy?

For decades there have been claims of finding crashed UAPs on many continents. No government has been willing to officially certify authenticity. So, the public has to assume they are all bogus claims. All just “conspiracy theories”.

Most so called ‘experts’ do not believe we are being, or ever have been, visited by extraterrestrial beings.

One big question continues to bug me…if there are extraterrestrials that possess superior technology and engineering skills, so advanced they can navigate extreme variations in time, space and temperature, and can evade our detection for hundreds of years, why do their highly advanced aeronautical machines keep crashing?

That would be empirical evidence that they are great engineers but terrible pilots…