To All My Liberal Friends:Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2022, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only country in the Western Hemisphere . Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.To All My Conservative Friends:Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!!!!
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People are speculating on who would run in 2024 if Biden does not. Hell, Biden cannot even walk, much less run, in 2021.
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Hillary, as with most politicians lives in a world totally disconnected from reality. She/they become royalty, live in a cocoon where all their sycophants tell them what they want to hear, ie. you are loved, admired and re-electable. In this instance the blind is leading the blind.
Even worse, we allow these idiots to have their finger on a red button that could result in the total destruction of the world.
Xi's leadership is under scrutiny and any misstep could lead to serious consequences.
China's commercial aggressiveness has made Silk Road Projects less effective as well.
As for Russia, Putin might find himself way over his ski's if the west comes together and makes some bold decisions. The opportunity is there but the leadership is lacking.
As for Iran, their obstinance and aggressive moves to obtain nuclear weapons continues to back Israel into a corner from which it must eventually respond.
The entire world is moving towards an unstable and contentious period. It would be nice if there was evidence cooler heads might prevail. Time will tell as we enter 2022. ++++++++ Harvard is loaded with socialist, leftist, Communist leaning professors. It is in style to be a professor in The Ivies and to be radical leftists. It is the path way to tenure. It was ging on whe I attended The University of Pennsylvana in the 1950's.
Breaking: Harvard Professor ‘Found Guilty’ By Jury Of Concealing Relationship With Chinese Government+++++++++++++++ Another day another U.N anti-Semitic vote. What's new?
By Victor Rosenthal
If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.
– Abba Eban
“Off with her head!” the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.
“Who cares for you” said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”
— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
The so-called “United Nations” has reached a new low in its descent from an idealistic organization dedicated to humanizing the behavior of nations, into a massive scam operation whose only consistent objective, aside from the enrichment of its employees, is the destruction of the Jewish state.
Read more...Staying home and turning the town around
EAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio — Greg Bricker, 35, is the kind of young person every city, town or neighborhood in this country would be grateful to have living in the community.
Unlike the folks who walk around complaining to anyone within earshot about how bad things are but never lift a finger to do a thing about it — or who flee to the suburbs at the first chance they can get — Mr. Bricker looked around at the decay in his beloved hometown and the local government’s incompetence in attending to it and decided he should run for mayor to make East Liverpool a better place to live.
In August 2019, just before the deadline to become a write-in candidate for that Nov. 5’s election, Mr. Bricker announced his candidacy. And, in spite of hearing through most of the short campaign that a vote for him was a wasted vote, he handily bested the incumbent Democratic mayor and another independent challenger.
Mr. Bricker thought the toughest challenges he’d face as the new mayor would be the raging opioid crisis that had made national news, the blight caused by a profusion of abandoned homes that needed to be demolished — and how on earth was he going to attract small businesses to the downtown area?
But just months into his term, COVID hit and everything got a whole lot harder.
“I just put my head down, made sure that we kept our people safe, but I never stopped doing the things I promised to do,” said Mr. Bricker.
Dubbed the “Pottery Capital of the World” during its heyday when it had more than 300 pottery companies, East Liverpool today hosts only two: the American Mug & Stein Company, formerly Pioneer Pottery, and the Fiesta Table Ware Company. The factory where the colorful Fiestaware plates are made is just across the Newell Bridge, one of the first all-steel suspension bridges in the country. Built to accommodate all of the workers going from town to the factory, the bridge is one of the rare privately owned bridges in the country; it costs 75 cents to cross the 115-year-old structure one way, $1 both ways, and 5 cents to walk across to the other side — which Mr. Bricker has done to go see his wife Katie, whose family owns the company
When most of the pottery companies left, so did a lot of the people. No one moved into the homes left vacant, and neighborhoods decayed.
Many of the businesses left the diamond, the charming town square that also started to decay as the population dwindled. One of the businesses that stayed was Mr. Bricker’s family cafeteria — part deli, part cafeteria, part diner and always fully packed with customers. Bricker’s was founded by Greg’s great-grandfather, and everyone will tell you it does not look much different now than when he opened it in 1930.
Mr. Bricker stands in front of it with his nearly 1-year-old daughter, Claire. He wears a navy smock with “Bricker’s” stitched across the breast — not because he loves his family name, but because he has taken on yet another role in the city: owner of the family business.
“I grew up working here as a kid, all through the summers when I was in high school, then went away to college. When my Uncle Dan decided he wanted to retire and sell it, I just could not imagine anyone but a Bricker owning and running it. Plus, it is the heart of the downtown,” he said.
He’s not wrong. The place bustled the entire time we talked, people picking up milk and eggs, meats and cheeses from the deli, sitting in the diner after choosing some comfort food from the cafeteria; the door was always swinging open.
Mr. Bricker still has his financial planning business down the street; he is still in the mayor’s office every day; now he just takes his mayoral lunches from behind the counter, working the noon shift in addition to everything else.
In the less than two years that he has been mayor, the changes to East Liverpool have been nothing short of remarkable. “It all began with Renovatio’s — I mean, that truly has been the catalyst for a lot of this,” he said pointing to a restaurant in a downtown that’s now on its way back.
Renovatio’s opened its doors to the public after a million-dollar remodel of the old Potters Bank & Trust Company in February 2020, and it’s part of Mr. Bricker’s blueprint for bringing life back to the grand old city. “Majestic” doesn’t do it justice — with a wood-fired pizza oven, ambiance and rooftop dining that offers a stunning view of the Ohio River and the cliffs above it.
Mr. Bricker said their investment is showing other people the opportunities they can have here: “They’re doing a great job, and they have a great business. They’re always busy. The woman who bought this little building,” he said, pointing to different building, a charming three-story structure, “well she’s not from East Liverpool; she’s from Lisbon, Ohio, which is just 15 minutes north, but she said 75 percent of her customers are from East Liverpool, so why wouldn’t she open a store here?”
Mr. Bricker said, “people keep saying, ‘You’re crazy for doing this in East Liverpool,’ whereas the people who truly see the vision and the opportunities say, ‘Why wouldn’t I do it in East Liverpool?’ … I was told the same thing when I opened a registered investment advisory firm in downtown Liverpool. People thought I was insane. There’s no money here. It’s abandonment and blight, but I mean, I manage $42 million now. I have over 100 clients. Opportunity is here. You can’t convince me otherwise.”
Indeed you cannot.
Every community in this country needs young people who aspire to make their neighborhoods or cities or small towns better, someone who refuses to be told things cannot be done, just because it has never been done before; for too many generations young people like Mr. Bricker went off to college, as he did, but didn’t return.
Mr. Bricker said he had to: “I could not be that person who left and did nothing to try to make things better. Someone had to step up.”
He said in the past six months alone, there have been five buildings downtown —vacant for over a decade — that have finally changed hands. “They’re turning them around and saving the buildings, revitalizing them, and renting them out,” he said. “The one lady, she has the entire first floor of a four-floor building already rented. The need and demand is here. That’s what we’ve been trying to solve since day one, that the opportunity is here, and what’s exciting is you’re finally seeing people jump on board and buy into that.”
He has also influenced other non-political people to run for office — this past November businessman Tom Beagle, another political newcomer, defeated an incumbent councilperson in the city’s first ward, 64.5 percent to 35.5 percent.
Mr. Bricker does not see himself making politics a career, despite his unprecedented success in not just winning office, but actually living up to his promises. One thing he said he does see for his family is calling this city home forever.
“Someone’s got to run the deli.”
Click here for the full story.
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Your government at work:
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