By Sherman Frederick/Properly Subversive
It’s hard to keep up with California, but when it comes to the high price of gasoline, Nevada’s doing its level best.
Today, California has the highest average price of gasoline in America, coming in at $6.29 a gallon. And, Nevada is No. 2 – yea, we’re No. 2! – at $5.42 a gallon.
The average price of gas nationwide is $3.80.
When I was in college, way back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, gas was 27 cents a gallon and with a fill-up you got a free set of steak knives.
Look, you can’t blame President Joe Biden and Nevada’s Democratic U.S. Senators – Catherine Cortez Masto and Jackie Rosen – for no longer getting free steak knives with every fill-up. But, you sure can point the finger at them for Nevada’s $5.42 a gallon gasoline, along with soaring food prices and just about everything else that’s happened to our pocketbooks in the last two years.
UNITY?
President Biden’s tenure hasn’t exactly been inspiring.
Not only have his economic policies failed, which, by the way, our two Senators supported like sheep, he’s been singularly inept on just about everything else. Remember in his inaugural address he said “we can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.”
Practice what you preach, Mr. President. I’m one Nevadan that’s just a bit tired of being shouted at. The name calling isn’t pleasant either.
COGNITIVE DECLINE
There’s convincing evidence to believe that the president is in significant cognitive decline. We’ve all winced at the weird gaffes – turning to shake hands with no one, handing pens to the U.S. flag and being led off the stage like a lost child by his caretaker wife, Jill.
But the latest is one of the worst. On stage, on television, in front of gawd and everyone, he called out to a dead woman to stand up and be recognized for her work on hunger.
“Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie? I think she was going to be here,” Biden said last week. The stunned crowd hushed because they knew what was what.
Indiana GOP lawmaker Jackie Walorski died on Aug. 3 in a brutal car crash.
The only guy in the room separated from this reality was the most powerful man on the planet, our president.
NEVADANS SUFFER
Ladies and gentlemen of the Silver State, these are hard times. If Nevada’s two senators had an ounce of Nevada left in them, they’d be gently calling for an evaluation of the president’s mental capability. They’d be publicly opposing crazy stuff like student debt forgiveness – which by the way is unconstitutional as hell – and injecting a little Nevada common sense into National health policy as it relates to COVID restrictions and shutdowns.
Nevada’s U.S. senators – our top leaders in Washington – walk alongside the Biden procession like obedient acolytes. Bended knee seems to be all Nevada’s leaders have to offer.
Meanwhile, Nevadans suffer. Everytime I fill up with gasoline, I’m reminded of this.
OH, KAMALA
Vice President Kamala Harris visited Korea last week and gave a speech in which she mixed up which Korea is actually our friend. It’s “South” Korea, not “North” Korea, madame VP.
She followed that mistake with a word-salad racist sounding quip telling fellow Democrats that “communities of color” should be first in line for relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
During a talk with Priyanka Chopra at the Democratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum she said:
“We have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity. If we want people to be in an equal place sometimes we need to take into account those disparities and do that work.”
That statement brought a hailstorm of criticism.
Christina Pushaw, rapid response director for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said: “If a hurricane hits a state, we should expect the government to help all those affected: black, brown white, purple, green.”
Elon Musk put a finer point on it: Resource allocation “should be according to greatest need, not race or anything else.”
Hey, you think Nevada’s senators will disassociate themselves from this kind of racism? Don’t count on it.
(Hat tip to the New York Post for its reporting on this.)
ONE MORE THING
– On my tombstone write: “Not appreciating my puns while I was alive was a grave mistake.”
– I shot a man in Reno, with a paintball gun, just to watch him dye.
– The difference between a well dressed man on a unicycle and a poorly dressed man on a bicycle is attire.
– The latest statistics released by the Nevada State Office of Rapture Equity shows no one from Sparks, Hawthorne or Ely was raptured to heaven on Sept. 25, 2022, although this car was found abandoned in beautiful downtown Mesquite.
Until next week avoid soreheads, laugh a little and always question authority.
“Properly Subversive” is commentary written by Sherman R. Frederick, a Nevada Hall of Fame journalist and co-founder of Battle Born Media, a news organization dedicated to the preservation of community newspapers. Mr. Frederick loves feedback. You can reach him by email at shermfrederick@ gmail. com.