Author Archive: Paul Epps

Biden-Harris

The J21 Coup

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My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best… pic.twitter.com/x8DnvuImJV — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024 For years now, you could go online every day and see new videos of Joe Biden falling down, mumbling incoherently, wandering around lost and confused. But if you said anything about this out loud, you’d be called a far-right MAGA propagandist (or something similar), accused of spreading disinformation. And by the way, according to Democrats and corporate media, those videos were fake. Then came the Trump-Biden debate. Why Biden would agree to stand next to Trump for 90 minutes and debate, I have no idea. My best guess is that,… Read more →

I Just Don’t Care Anymore

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I went into a local Circle K to buy a soda . . . they have one of those “double wide” soda machines with ice dispensers on both sides. When I went in, there was already a middle-aged gentleman filling up a Mountain Dew on the right side of the fountain, which he then set down well off to his left and started filling up another Mountain Dew. His first Mountain Dew was so far left, it was actually past the left side ice dispenser. I picked out a cup and started filling it with ice from the left-hand ice dispenser, which for some reason he took exception to. “Do you mind, buddy?” he said. “Do you really need the whole width of the store just to fill up a drink cup?” I asked. Politely, of course. He picked up his first Mountain Dew and moved it over closer to… Read more →

Drunk guy

I Used to Be Depressed, Broke and Anxious

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I used to be depressed, broke and anxious. Now I’m just depressed and anxious. 🙂 I appreciate this gentleman contributing free advice. It seems worthwhile. But something is off when the first thing a person tells you about themselves is how much money they make. I just read an article about a loneliness epidemic in Silicon Valley. People make a lot of money in Silicon Valley but apparently can’t figure out how to convert it into joy or connection. I’ve never seen any evidence that people with a lot of money are happier than anyone else. Quite the opposite, really. People think they’d be happy if they just had lots of money. Then they get lots of money and they’re no happier than they were before. Plus they’ve lost the fallback of thinking that the reason they’re not happy is that they don’t have a lot of money. There are… Read more →

Last Words

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It turns out that his last words — I am not kidding — were "Oh f—," which is what I guessed. Probably those are a lot of people's last words.https://t.co/3zvNVgmGIS via @people — Paul Epps (@paulepps) June 30, 2024 Read more →

Joe Biden - 2024 Debate 1

The First 2024 Presidential Debate is in the Books

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https://t.co/nNlT0xBJ3Z — Paul Epps (@paulepps) June 29, 2024 When the presidential debates were first announced, I said that there was no way Biden was going to do a debate, so now I have to admit that I was wrong. But also, you can probably understand why I said that. Biden is who he is. He’s mentally and physically enfeebled. As long as he doesn’t do something deranged, like challenge his opponent to a live debate, the media can continue to do their best to cover for him. For example: Ladies and gentlemen, let’s revisit this supercut from 12 days ago. Well done MSM! pic.twitter.com/pSrnmnoVMo — MAZE (@mazemoore) June 28, 2024 Here’s what Biden said the day after the debate: “I know I’m not a young man. I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t talk as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as… Read more →

Questions on the Hunter Biden Laptop

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https://t.co/VdehI82LV1 — Paul Epps (@paulepps) June 15, 2024 Hunter Biden was convicted of multiple felonies this week, in part owing to the verified contents of his laptop, which the New York Post reported on before the 2020 election. A group of 51 former U.S. intelligence officials released an open letter on Oct. 19, 2020, regarding the Post’s Oct. 14 report about the discovery of the laptop, the contents of which included documentation of a series of ethically questionable business deals that the Biden family was pursuing in both Ukraine and China, with the very likely involvement of Joe Biden himself. The letter asserted that the laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” If you read the fine print, the letter does say that while the signatories had no “evidence of Russian involvement,” the laptop op “would be consistent with some of the key methods Russia… Read more →

My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Jerry West

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I’ve always lived in Southern California — mostly in Orange County, south of LA. If you lived somewhere else, it’s probably not possible to describe what Jerry West meant to Los Angeles. It starts with what the Lakers mean to Los Angeles and then what West meant to the Lakers, as a Hall of Fame player, and then as a coach and general manager. Yes, there’s another professional basketball team in Los Angeles but only a few misfits care about them. Quality of life in Los Angeles is determined in large part by how well the Lakers are playing. West was synonymous with Laker basketball for 40 years. You could say that after West retired as a player, the Lakers were synonymous with Showtime, Magic Johnson, Kareem, James Worthy, and later with Kobe and Shaq and Phil Jackson. But West assembled the Showtime teams, acquired Kobe in a draft day… Read more →

Chet Walker

My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Chet Walker

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Hall of Fame forward Chet “The Jet” Walker, a seven-time NBA All-Star, has died at the age of 84. Although he played with other teams, I remember him as a member of the Chicago Bulls teams of the 1970s, with Bob Love, Jerry Sloan, Norm Van Lier and Clifford Ray. RIP Chet Walker Read more →

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson on the Hunter Biden Laptop

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Ex-Intel Chief James Clapper Says He Doesn’t Regret Signing Hunter Biden Laptop Letter — nationalreview.com My fellow Americans – The FBI had already verified the contents of the laptop when that letter was disseminated. The FBI testified under oath this week at the Hunter Biden trial that the contents were authentic. Clapper knew he was signing his name to a lie but why should he regret it? He’s a professional liar. His job is to lie to the country to further his own interests and the interests of the U.S. intelligence state. Also, if any of the media organizations that propagated and embellished the lie regret doing what they did, none to my knowledge have ever come forward to say so. Read more →

Financial Reporting by Liberal Arts Majors

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Payrolls popped by 272K in May — linkedin.com Yippee! They are part-time jobs. There was a significant decrease in full-time jobs and the unemployment rate rose to highest in over two years. (The photo above of the Now Hiring at Pizza Hut sign is from the actual LinkedIn story. I like it. Very appropriate.) It would be helpful to get some context around this 272,000 number, beyond just “Payrolls popped.” Nice alliteration though. Who says there’s no value in a liberal arts degree? Read more →

Four Offerings at the Moment of Transition

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Every person that I’ve met in this moment of transition [death] wanted to make four offerings. — Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and oncologist, speaking at the University of Pennsylvania commencement. The four are: I want to tell you that I love you. I want to tell you that I forgive you. Would you tell me that you love me? Would you give me your forgiveness? Read more →

Now there are some who think they confute a speaker the moment they ask, “What then ought we to do?” To these I will give the fairest and truest answer: not what you are doing now. — Demosthenes

Bill Walton, 1952-2024

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I grew up in Southern California and probably saw every game Bill Walton played at UCLA. I watched him in the NBA, and then as an announcer for PAC-12 basketball games. I bought his book and had it autographed. It feels like losing a family member. RIP Bill Walton View this post on Instagram A post shared by Paul Epps (@paulepps) Read more →

Climate Change — Is There Anything it Can’t Do?

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Climate change is behind increasing flight turbulence, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says — cnbc.com There’s no “asserted without evidence” caveat of the kind you see whenever Donald Trump says anything. Climate change is the default explanation for everything. “Climate change,” Buttigieg says and everyone just nods in agreement. I remember reading a news story several years ago saying that climate change was reducing the amount of fog in the Bay Area of California: The sight of Golden Gate Bridge towering above the fog will become increasing rare as climate change warms San Francisco bay, scientists have found. But a a news story from the previous summer stated that climate change was increasing the amount of Bay Area fog: The Bay Area just had its foggiest May in 50 years. And thanks to global warming, it’s about to get even foggier. Less fog? Climate change. More fog? Climate change. What if… Read more →

“All These Things That I Believed In For All These Years No Longer Exist”

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View this post on Instagram A post shared by CBS Sports College Football (@cbssportscfb) Read more →

The Wild Iris

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At the end of my suffering there was a door. Hear me out: that which you call death I remember. Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting. Then nothing. The weak sun flickered over the dry surface. It is terrible to survive as consciousness buried in the dark earth. Then it was over: that which you fear, being a soul and unable to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth bending a little. And what I took to be birds darting in low shrubs. You who do not remember passage from the other world I tell you I could speak again: whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice: from the center of my life came a great fountain, deep blue shadows on azure sea water. — Louise Glück, “The Wild Iris” Read more →

The Importance of Messaging

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Teens come up with trigonometry proof for Pythagorean Theorem, a problem that stumped math world for centuries https://t.co/g0z8IObsu4 via @60minutes — Paul Epps (@paulepps) May 18, 2024 These young ladies attended St. Mary’s Academy, a Catholic school for young Black women in New Orleans. The school has a 100 percent graduation rate and a 100 percent college acceptance rate. There’s no test to get in, but expectations are high and rules are strict: no cellphones, modest skirts, hair must be its natural color. The success formula seems to be pretty simple and that is that the school instills in students the idea that they have the ability to accomplish anything. I’ve always thought that would work. It seems like the message that most Black Americans, kids and adults, get is that if you’re Black, you can’t be successful in America because of racism. Your efforts will not be rewarded fairly.… Read more →

The Three Nevers of Working With Recruiters

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I recently read a LinkedIn post written by a recruiter, the gist of which was that recruiters are fully transparent with candidates, therefore candidates should be fully transparent with recruiters, and candidates who are not fully transparent about things like current salary are “cagey.” That was the word the author used — “cagey.” Multiple other recruiters added supportive comments. Full transparency is not a quality I associate with recruiters, even though I’ve worked with some excellent recruiters that I like a lot. Recruiters work for clients. They get paid by clients. When they submit you for a job, they also submit multiple other candidates to compete with you because that maximizes their chances of getting paid. I suppose everyone knows this but it’s never mentioned. It’s not something recruiters are transparent about. Never tell a recruiter your current salary. In some localities, like my state of California, asking a candidate’s… Read more →

The Fraud of “Disinformation”

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It is hard not to notice something quite odd about our courageous and noble combatants against disinformation: namely, they lie more frequently, more casually, and with far greater impact than any other societal faction. When they get caught in these lies, they never correct them, never explain them, and certainly never retract them – they instead simply move on to the next set of partisan lies because they genuinely believe that their cause of defeating Trump is so just and so righteous that anything and everything they invoke to further that aim, including overtly lying, is inherently justified. — Glenn Greenwald Read more →

California’s Workers Now Want $30 Minimum Wage

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California’s Workers Now Want $30 Minimum Wage — msn.com In January, California raised the minimum hourly wage from $11 to $16. In April, the minimum wage for fast-food workers went to $20. That’s a problem if you own a fast-food restaurant because in addition to the increased labor cost, you’ve got to deal with inflated prices for beef, poultry, vegetables, eggs, etc. You can either eat (no pun intended) the costs yourself or pass them on to customers, some of whom will become former customers because they can no longer afford to eat at McDonald’s. Another option is you can lay off workers — 10,000 fast-food workers in California have lost their job since the $20 minimum wage took effect. Nobody learned anything from that because now they want $30/hr. If you think about it for a minute, you’ll realize that if you have skills that are worth $30/hr, you’d… Read more →

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