Befuddled

There are so many things that confuse and/or disappoint me in this world today. I never in a million years think that I would be a protester. I have now participated in two “No Kings” protests. What confuses me is that most of the people on the right are totally blind to why these protest are going on. Like I have said, I am just glad Jennifer did not live to see all of this. It would have really bothered her and would have made her physically ill.

Meanwhile we get closer and closer to 1930’s Germany. We have the Gestapo (ICE) running around grabbing up people, many for no apparent reason other than the color of their skin. We have a leader who pardons some very bad people. He is handing out pardons like candy.

Now these people he has pardoned are not necessarily murders and rapists, but they are maybe worse, they are con men that have swindled many people of billions of dollars collectively and this does not include all of the January 6 idiots. The most recent notable pardon was George Santos (if that is his real name). Many of these people as part of their sentence were supposed to “pay back” the people they swindled. Some of those people are you and me, because they defrauded the government. However, their pardon wipes that slate clean and “We The People” are left holding the bag.

If you have a chance, watch some of Liz Oyer’s you tube video’s. She is the former US Pardon Attorney that was fired by the President because she refused to proceed with pardoning Mel Gibson so he could get his rights to own guns back. She does a good job explaining some of the complex legal issues and pardoning process. Her latest one on Mr. Santos is a good one to start with.

She said this particular pardon, almost broke her. Not because of Santos himself, but just how significant and abusive of the pardoning process it was. She says in the video, him getting pardoned by Trump and forever beholding to him, may be worse than prison itself. It is the blatant disregard of the President of the people that Santos robbed or misrepresented as a US Congressman that bothered her.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout of people at the No Kings event for a small town like Mesquite that is comprised largely of Trump supporters. There were some Trump supporters out counter protesting and you know what that is fine it is their right to do so. Interestingly some of those were driving around in their trucks with their Trump flags blowing in the wind, but they were wearing masks so you could not see their faces. Very interesting to me.

I was disappointed that there were not more young people in the crowd. There were some but not as many as I would have like to have seen or that should have been out there. Of course many of these young people don’t grasp the impacts of the changes to Medicare/Medicaid programs are eventually going to impact them at some point in their life.

I personally entered a new point in my medical insurance world. I got enrolled in the ConocoPhillips insurance program as I completed my annual enrollment process this week. Fortunately it is not a big change from the Marathon process (still Blue Cross Blue Shield) and I feel blessed to still have health insurance. Of course the cost is higher and I no longer have vision insurance, but that was such a pittance, I am pretty sure Marathon was about to drop that anyway. So all in all I feel fortunate.

After the protest, I went to a brew fest at the CasaBlanca Casino. It was such a nice day for it and nothing better to drown the disappoint than tasting a bunch of different alcohols. Now it was advertised as a Brew Fest, but it had a ton of non-beer drinks. One of these non-beers was my favorite. A photo of it is below.

Now when I was drinking it I thought it actually had green tea in it. So I was thinking I was maybe getting some green tea health benefits, but it does not. Oh well! All I can say is this stuff is a nice refreshing drink on a hot day. I usually only like my bourbon straight, but really enjoyed this drink. The vendor even let me sneak a fully unopened can out to take home. Currently you can only get this in Nevada and Arizona. They also have a version made with Vodka. I did not try it.

Anyway it was a very nice event on a beautiful Nevada Day. On my way out of the event I stopped in the Casino. I had a $15 dollar Mega Millions winning in my pocket, so I used that to try my luck at the slot machines. Well I walked out with $80 in my pocket. So all in all a good day.