I was thinking of going to San Francisco to pick up a couple of nice Christmas gifts at Louis Vuitton. After hearing the mayor of San Francisco yesterday get tough on store theft, I may as well shop here since I’ll have to pay for ‘em.

President Biden’s prize package, the Buy Back Better bill, (sorry, I meant Build Back Better), is down the drain. Fifty Republican Senators and Sen. Joe Manchin outnumber 48 or 49 other Senators. Joe Manchin, who represents West Virginia, said today, “I can’t vote for anything I can’t explain to West Virginians.”

Let me give you just two questions about the bill that Manchin can’t explain. Why is it advertised as costing $1,750,000,000,000.00 over ten years when it will actually cost about $5,000,000,000,000.00? And if the bill includes early childhood education for 3-and 4-year-olds, why must the educators be members of a teacher’s union? Does this exclude funding for moms, aunts and grandparents, and even organized child care provided by churches and small business?

And here’s one claim by the President that NO ONE can explain. With inflation above 6%, how could adding TRILLIONS in debt reduce inflation?

Maybe it’s time for a few other Senators to speak up about Build Back Better. For example, Sen. Brown of Ohio and Sen. Kelly of Arizona have been silent. Do they stand with Manchin, or are they more aligned with Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, Congresswomen Omar of Minnesota and Cori Bush of Missouri?

Texas decided to build their own wall.  Disgusted with President Biden’s open border policy, they are protecting their own ranches and property. The President is so biased against any deterrent, that he refuses to let Texas buy and use the Billions of dollars’ worth of unused 30-foot steel wall sections laying along the Rio Grande. Maybe Biden is holding onto the wall sections with plans to sell them, at ten cents on the dollar, to Ukraine to keep out the Russians.

It appears Russia and China will team up against the U.S. Don’t be surprised if they bribe Iran to launch a full attack on Israel. And while Washington is deciding whether to defend Israel, Putin and Xi will invade Ukraine and Taiwan. Now, that’s not a prediction. And I hope it never happens. Someone in the White House had better be ready with a quick, solid answer if the phone rings at 3 a.m.

Merry Christmas. Despite the issues mentioned, don’t let ‘em interfere with the Christmas spirit. The spirit of Christmas is not reserved only for Christians either. Joe Manchin is not a Grinch even if he stopped Joe Biden from playing Santa Claus to America. Texans aren’t against immigrants; half of ‘em along the border have Mexican roots. And a growing number in the rest of the state immigrated from California. What about Putin and Xi? No comment.

Historic (Christmas) quotes by Will Rogers:

“I am too busy replacing presents to write today. I bought some mechanical and electric things for the kids and wore ’em out playing with ’em myself.”  DT #120, Dec. 23, 1926

“Merry Christmas, my constant readers, both of you…. Men, act surprised this morning as if you didn’t know the tie was coming.”  DT #121, Dec. 24, 1926

“Well, tomorrow is ‘wish’ day. Everybody is ‘wishing’ somebody something, and I guess it’s just as well everybody don’t know what they are being ‘wished.’ But, generally speaking, we do have good cheer in our hearts on Christmas. ‘Course, we can’t hardly wait till the day is over and to get back to our devilment again.” DT # 1379, Dec. 24, 1930