Thanksgiving Thanks and Thoughts

Your thankful Peasant wants to thank all of you, 

my wonderful, delightful, and enthusiastic readers 

for your ongoing support through your readership

and your comments about those posts which have

moved you to give your thoughts and opinions on.

May you all have a most Happy Thanksgiving and 

be able to spend it with your families and friends,

enjoying each other's company and each other's

love! May you also enjoy some grand Thanksgiving 

dinners too! Put away your calorie counters and just

enjoy the bountiful treat, for it is a part of this

beautiful holiday!

Let us also be thankful for one good thing which came

from some otherwise disappointing election results:

we took back the House and unseated ultra-liberal and

ultra-crooked Nancy Pelosi from the position of House

Speaker, defanging Pelosi by dethroning her! Word has 

it that she'll serve out her new term in the House but not

be House Minority Leader, then retire. Let's all give her

a hale and hearty goodbye when she does pack it in;

to not let the chamber door whack her on the way out!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

MEM

 

Socialists Are What Socialists Do

Yvon Chouinard, billionaire, founder of Patagonia, a $3B Company,

and avowed socialist, recently transferred control of his vast company

to a newly founded environmental organization of some sort.

Two things to keep in mind here: One, a great many wealthy people 

don't like to publicly acknowledge that they are wealthy. Two, even

self-avowed socialists will do everything they can to avoid capital 

gains, gift, and inheritance taxes. This billionaire claims that he 

never intended to be come a billionaire or for Patagonia to become

a $3B company. He just feels that his creation's profits would be 

better utilized if kept from the U.S. government, to Uncle Sam's

consternation. 

Well, many Americans feel the same way about their earnings, many 

of whom don't make nearly as much money as does Chouinard and

his company. But let them try to play keep away from our government's

coffers and see what happens. One rule for the Liberal Establishment 

elite, vast wealth and all; another rule for the peasants. 

Is it any wonder why I have taken up my pitchfork? 

MEM  

Post Election Day Thoughts

We've put the 2022 mid-term elections behind us,

and it's all over but the shouting. Your favorite Peasant 

is now going to do a little shouting myself.

What was supposed to be a red tsunami turned out to be

a red ripple. Yes, the Republicans won enough seats in the 

House to wrest it from the Democrats, and yes,

they dethroned Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker; she's no

longer the second in line for the presidency and is not the

second-most powerful government office holder in the 

country (thank God!!!). But instead of taking forty or more

seats to have a significant majority, they picked up less than

half that, and although the Senate races are not all settled

it looks like the GOP will have, when all is said and done,

picked up just one or two seats there, if any. The Senate 

could remain at 50 seats for each party, leaving the chamber

in the Democrats' hands with Vice President Harris in

the tie-breaking position. I haven't yet seen the final tally on

the gubernatorial races around the country, but sadly my

state, Wisconsin, has re-elected very left-wing Tony Evers

to a second term in the governor's office; yes, the knob who

was willing to let Kenosha burn to the ground during the riot 

in that major Wisconsin city in 2020, the year that such riots 

and carnage took place in many U.S. cities, all run by 

Democrats of course, many in states run by Democrat 

governors like Evers. Some other government officials

and advisors to Evers badgered him (no pun intended) to 

send the Wisconsin National Guard to Kenosha to quell

the riot and prevent more damage, and finally prevailed 

upon the governor to dispatch some Guard personnel to 

the stricken city, which they saved from further mayhem.

The honcho who did not add more staff to the department 

responsible for getting people their unemployment checks

when they applied at the time of Evers' lockdown mandates

when the coronavirus hit the state, causing many workers to 

be laid off. This resulted in many workers having their checks

delayed or not receiving them at all (your angered Peasant was

one of the latter). The Supremo (Stupremo?) who mandated 

schools and churches to be closed, and when schools reopened 

mandated the schoolchildren, all the way up to high school age,

wear safety masks to school, even though his administration

knew full well that the masks were ineffective against the virus

(as did many other Dem government officials in the other states).

Students fell badly behind in their schoolwork and their learning

while workers either worked from home (if at all) or, if they could

return to work at their places of employment, had to wear masks

and get vaccines, which also were not very efficient in keeping 

away the virus as it turned out. Workers refusing to get vaccinated

were faced with dismissal from their jobs. Families and friends 

could not gather together in numbers above a set limit in their own

homes (!). Restaurants, bars, pubs, theatres, and sports facilities

were either closed or severely limited in terms of how many people

could be in these places at any given time. And there were more 

such indignities and outrages as well.

Evers gave every reason not to re-elect him, but he had the good 

fortune to run against a candidate from the GOP who ran a campaign

which left much to be desired, including an accusation of sexual

harassment in his construction business to which he either weakly

or never responded to (if Tim Michels did respond I somehow

missed it). Evers won by 52% to 48% in the final vote, but a 

more aggressive candidate would have won the race easily, sparing

we Wisconsinites another four years of this clueless, careless, 

passionless, absolutely lacking in empathy elitist pig. Michels is an

honorable man, but he was a mediocre campaigner and candidate.

The attorney general's race was a close-but-no-cigar effort to unseat 

Democrat incumbent Josh Kaul, an AG with a bleeding heart for 

criminals but no empathy for their victims, nor any concern for 

the law-abiding citizenry. His refusal to enforce a 150-year-old law

on Wisconsin's books greatly curbing abortion was another reason

to send him packing, as it does no service to have an AG who will

only enforce laws that he approves of. 

At least we succeeded in re-electing U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, 

a Republican who has served two terms and came to the Senate

straight from his plastics manufacturing company, never having 

run for office before. He defeated, albeit narrowly, a radical left-

wing Democrat and current Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, who is 

even more gung ho for criminals being treated with kid gloves and

a penchant for supporting taxes high and plentiful on the wealthy and 

the middle class while not paying his own taxes (property) and 

not paying traffic tickets, both going back a while. 

There have been mistakes, overlooked opportunities, failures, and 

insufficiently aggressive tactics in the campaigns of some of the 

Republican candidates for state constitutional offices and legislative 

offices, some of which have cost the campaigns victories. This has

held true for many races in other states as well. The Republicans did

indeed have some important victories and accomplishments

in the midterms, but with an overhaul of their campaigning methods

and practices they can have red tsunamis instead of pitiful little ripples 

or worse, painful defeats in races that they should easily have won. 

The GOP has two years to fix this, or else it's another four years

of ornery, elitist, demented Joe Biden or someone as bad if not

worse.

MEM

A Word About Election Day (Which is Tomorrow): VOTE!

Friends, as you are aware tomorrow is Election Day. 

Although the presidency isn't up for grabs (wait a 

couple more years) both the House and the Senate are.

If we can swing both chambers, as the Democrats

have a narrow majority in the former while the latter,

although tied up at 50 seats apiece, is in Democrat

hands with the Dem Vice President holding the 

tie-breaking vote when a tie occurs on legislation 

voted on, then we can have a buffer against President

Biden's radical agenda formed by the radical elements 

which have taken over the Democrat Party in recent years.

There won't be any more "stimulus" programs or 

any other multi-trillion dollar schemes which would 

guarantee we'd never have a low-debt load, let alone

debt-free country again, nor ever again have a balanced 

federal budget.

There also would be no more pushing far-left "educational"

texts, classes. programs, and other components of a radical

agenda on our schoolchildren either. Nor any "gender equity"

ploys such as biological members of one gender having to 

compete in sports against transgender athletes who have

a considerable advantage because they still have the 

musculature of the gender that they naturally had.

And there will be no more laws penalizing people 

who improperly refer to another's gender, that is, 

mistaking the other person's pronoun to be referred to

as, i.e. fines, disciplinary action at work or school, or 

worse. We shall also do away with shockingly lax criminal

laws regarding penalizing criminals. We can dismantle 

the lefties' progressive plan to turn our country into a 

socialist hell, and to eradicate it for all time.

We can restore sanity along with Constitutional rule of law 

in all areas and aspects of American life. We not only can, 

we must, for the sake of not only ourselves and our families 

and communities but also for the generations to come. 

We can restore our country to the kind of country that it was 

meant to be once again. And all we need to do is simply 

to take that all-important first step, which is to vote tomorrow.

You all know who the candidates are that will work with us to 

make all of this possible. But they can't help if we don't exercise 

our right and our duty to vote.

It's easy to register to vote; you can do so at your polling place.

Bring family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and classmates

with you. Get as many people whom you know to the polls as

you can! 

But most importantly, just vote. Please, vote. Vote as if your lives

depend on it, because they do. Our way of life, and the quality of

life for us all, the American people, are on the line. The very things 

which make our lives livable. The reasons why so many people

flocked to our country since its inception, all for having a better 

life. The elements of our national society which has made our

country the envy of the world. 

Vote.

Vote! 

VOTE!

MEM

Lina Khan Can't

Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan 

has had loads of fun, pushing around businesses since

being installed in her current government position. 

However, she may have recently met her match.   

Walmart answered a punch Khan fired at them with

a punch of their own by challenging an abusive

lawsuit via challenging the agency's enforcement power.

Federal agencies, with their legions of bureaucrats, 

make rules and regulations that have the force of 

laws, and backed by the law itself. Walmart is battling 

back at the action taken against the retailer and the notion  

that an agency can do this with impunity. 

The FTC lawsuit claims Walmart aided and abetted 

con artists who took advantage of their customers, but

said suit has skimpy evidence. The FTC doesn't show that

Walmart had done anything wrong; rather, it argues that 

the company turned a "blind eye" by processing money 

transfers requested by customers who had been swindled.

This despite the fact that Walmart ran various anti-fraud 

programs including requiring customers to show government-

issued photo identification and warning them about scams.

However, the FTC complains that Walmart should have 

done more to stop the less than estimated 0.08% (!) of 

payments which customers unknowingly sent to the 

confidence tricksters via Walmart's money-transfer 

services. Furthermore, the FTC also argues that Walmart's

mere awareness that some of their customers might be

cheated (!!) makes the retailer liable for damages.

That's tantamount to a tire store selling sets of tires to 

their customers while being at all aware that any and all

of the tires may go flat by developing a leak or getting

punctured, then holding the tire store liable for any 

damages.

Walmart makes a powerful case that Congress "exceeded 

the limit on the powers that may be constitutionally vested"

in the FTC when it granted the bureaucratic agency the

authority to sue businesses in federal court. The basis of 

their case is the Supreme Court's Humphrey's Executor

(1935) precedent. In that case, the Court upheld restrictions 

on the President's removal authority of FTC commissioners

on the grounds that the FTC was an "administrative body" 

that exercises only "quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial powers"

such as conducting administrative adjudications as well as 

making investigations and reports to Congress. However,

in the 1970s Congress gave the FTC fundamentally executive 

powers by allowing it to seek injunctions and monetary relief

in federal court. Walmart stated that this act is invalid under 

Humphrey's Executor. Walmart held that if the President can't

fire commissioners at will, then they can't wield executive power.

Walmart is seeking merely to reaffirm Humphrey's limitations 

in their case which illustrates how agencies that are supposed 

to be independent have become constitution-flouting bullies

without accountability regarding how they use their power.

FTC Chair Lina Khan, take note. The FTC is not a branch of 

the federal government, and you, madam, are not a queen, 

even though you like to act like one.

MEM