by Peter Boyles | Jun 20, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
President John L. Lewis
I’ve talked about this many times before, but I grew up in a little steel mill coal mine town on the Allegheny River. And coal miners were a very special part of the men I witnessed growing up. There are two stories that I always remember. One was in the 7th grade and they had school announcements on the public address system when kids lost their parents, or something would happen. The announcement would come before school started. We sat alphabetically and with a name that begins “Bo” the girl behind me had a name that began with “Ca” and the announcement came that her father had died in a coal mine. The infamous Newfield Mine. The roof had fallen in on her dad and I don’t think they ever got his body out.
Later that day I was playing first base with the first organized ball team I played on, and one of the air shafts from the coal mine came up on an angle about 50 yards behind third base. I remember standing on the bag and thinking that Barbara’s father was down there, and I realized how dangerous that job was.
Later, I was working in a steel mill 4-12 p.m. and we got off at midnight. If you know steel mills or coal mines there are bars surrounding all the gates where the men went in and out. And across the railroad tracks from the mill I worked at was a bar-restaurant that actually advertised that they had color TV and it was air conditioned.
That was the place that we headed. It was the summer of 1964. We were talking politics, and these old miners and mill workers would come in there, watch TV and nurse beers in the evening. The wise ass that I am now was who I was then, and the old guys were all named Skee, or Stash, or Stanu, and I asked this old man who he was voting for in the presidential. He turned to me and said who’s running? And I said Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. And he looked at me and said my president is John L. Lewis. And I remember thinking what a fool he was until later I realized that the great John L. had done more for that guy than all the presidents put together.
John L. got vacation pay, safety in the mines, better pay. The Newfield coal mine had an incredibly bloody history. Management actually kept machine guns, tear gas bombs, and rifles to try and stop strikers and organizers.
To this day it angers me when some guy driving down I-25 in his BMW, sipping white wine in the evening with vacation pay, retirement plans, and medical benefits, says terrible things about the old unions. The unions won that for him as well.
Now comes Joe Biden. The publisher of this paper Chuck Bonniwell, Mark Crowley our site engineer, and myself were at the Trump convention in Cleveland in 2016. Walking around were two honest to God West Virginia coal miners. Their hard hats were covered with stickers, and they were beat up from hitting the sides of the mines. And I went over and introduced myself and they were the real deal, and they were there for Donald Trump. Hillary was threatening to shut down coal mining in America. Now Joe Biden wants to shut down coal mines and replace them with wind and solar. And I’m watching these greenies celebrate the kinds of men I just talked about losing their jobs.
Biden’s crack down on coal powered plants, new rules requiring coal plants and gas plants to match carbon captured technology and mitigate 90 percent of emissions, and instead of trying to meet those requirements, they’ll just close the mines. Pushing these men into retirement. It’s a sad day.
The choice that’s coming for us is in November, when we find ourselves really stumped by both candidates. This green agenda under a reelected Joe Biden is going to be costly. While our biggest rival, the Peoples Republic of China, has doubled its coal fired power growth to 2,400 coal fired power stations since the year 2000. They’ve doubled their coal fired plants and Joe Biden is closing ours down.
Can anybody on the Front Range imagine the impact on Colorado Springs and Pueblo where the coal plants are? You think those bird killer wind turbines are going to run the Front Range? I guess it just looks good on paper. And it makes me more of a Trump guy, and I hate Trump.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | May 20, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
Traditionally the media found a way to take initials of prominent politicians and begin to write about them that way like FDR, JFK, HST, and Ike. What would LBJ and MCJ have in common? During the Vietnam war LBJ did one of the most underhanded monetary maneuvers that has never received a lot of attention. He raided Social Security funds to fight his war.
Now, let’s take our current mayor MCJ. He is raiding the budgets of the city of Denver to pay for his seemingly endless demands to support the homeless, to no avail, as the number of homeless in Denver has tripled since 2018.
In the most recent five years of data, the Denver metro area has seen a total number of people homeless rise from 5,200 to almost 15,000. The homeless crisis worsens despite the $274 million-dollar investment. Oh, and by the way, if you noticed how MCJ dresses and acts, wearing a white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar with the tie pulled down, sleeves rolled up, a disheveled look, he is channeling RFK Sr.
Continued raids on parks and recreation budgets, slashing recreation center hours, reducing snow plowing, and the police and fire budgets, but the showstopper is now the list of demands from illegal immigrants.
If you haven’t seen the 13 demands from the illegal immigrants (newcomers), they say that you as a taxpayer must meet those demands before they will leave their camps. The demands were presented by a white, blonde woman wearing a pro-Palestinian scarf. The demands include free immigration lawyers and, my personal favorite, culturally appropriate food with fresh ingredients provided by you the taxpayer instead of those premade meals. They want rice, chicken, flour, oil, butter, tomatoes, and onions, etc., that can be cooked on site.
They’ve lobbied Denver Human Services and they’re holding out and say the City has reneged on deals with them in the past. The demands are amazing, as they also claim they’re being punished for eating outside food. They claim their children are becoming malnourished because of the actions of the city of Denver.
They want medical help, unlimited shower access, the city will provide privacy for families and individuals within the shelter, no more verbal, physical, or mental abuse, including no sheriffs sleeping inside and monitoring them 24-7.
They say they’re not criminals but they’re being treated as such. Transportation for their kids to and from schools, the City must provide documents in Spanish and English, including numbers to call if they are being mistreated. And something I bet you can’t get, to schedule a meeting with MCJ.
I’m stunned by this. These are unbelievable demands. I’ve got $20 that says the City will meet, or is meeting, those demands as we speak. The late Bob Cote always talked about the bird feeder. Yeah you’re gonna get song birds, you’re gonna get squirrels, bears, and anything else that can reach in there and eat. Do you think these are the last demands these newcomers will make if this list of 13 is met?
I leave you with this. Denver has spent tens of millions of dollars on illegal immigrants and Denver property owners are being asked to open their homes to newcomer families. I wonder how many people are now living at the Mayor’s. Folks we’re in trouble. If you look back at what LBJ’s administration did you can almost predict the outcome of MCJ and the city of Denver.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Apr 19, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
How did this great hatred emerge between Iran and the United States? Always remember that when you get a degree in history you get an arts degree, you don’t get a science degree, because history is interpretive. And you can’t interpret two plus two equals other than it’s four, it can’t be five and it can’t be three. But in history two and two can equal five, or for that matter 105. So why do the Iranians hate the United States of America?
There is a short answer and there are long answers. But if you go back into the end of the Second World War, the Shah’s father was considered pro Germany. And he was overthrown by the Soviet-British movement. After the Second World War British Petroleum moves into Iran.
There as a democratically elected prime minister in 1953. His name was Mohammed Mossadegh.
There were enormous environmental crimes taking place in Iran around the oil. The Nazi Shah’s son was being placed back on the throne by an overthrow of the democratically elected government and the American CIA, British intelligence. The oil multinationals overthrew him and installed him again, through the eyes of history some say, with a brutal dictator, the Shah. For 27 years the Shah ran Iran. He was diagnosed with cancer, the United States said give him asylum, while the Iranians wanted to try him for his crimes. If you consider the reasons that the Iranians see the U.S. as a bully in the Middle East, ask yourself what would you or the U.S. do if a foreign power treated our country in that manner. Why is Iran our enemy?
After the arrival of the Ayatollahs and the Shah flees, then comes the Iran-Iraq War. Beginning in September of 1980 through August of 1988 some people believe the war continued off and on for years. It was triggered when Saddam invaded Iran. The United States, when Saddam was a good guy, supports Iraq giving Saddam several billion dollars in aid which included Bell helicopters. We now know through declassified CIA documents that the U.S. knew Saddam was using chemical weapons. Iranian death estimates are between 100,000 and 250,000 and the United States was helping pick targets for Saddam. And as I’ve said before you may not know much at all of this but the Iranians sure as hell do. That friendship was one of the green lights for Saddam to invade Kuwait thinking the U.S. was his ally.
Again, the country that I love engineers a coup against a democratically elected, mind you, secular government, and imposed a monarchy on the country for all of those years.
It’s important to remember Iranians are not Arabs. They consider themselves Indo Europeans and they are Shia Muslims which has set them on course against other Muslim countries.
My experience is most Iranians love our country, but the real issue, pretty much like everyone else, is with the government.
Following 9/11, George W. Bush, arguably the worst president in my lifetime, when now we all know that Saddam had nothing to do with that terrible day as well as Baby Kim in Korea, and they put Iran on what they call the axis of evil. I’m not defending them but none of those countries had anything to do with the terrible attack on our country on 9/11. The real perpetrators were the Saudi Arabians. And as history tells us December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. As we all know December 8th FDR declared war against Japan. But in his stead George W. declares war against Saddam. That’s not lost on the power in the middle east. It may be lost on you and I, but for the so-called man in the street in the Middle East, it’s not lost on them. So, what’s the way out?
I come back to those moments that historians have said there are places in the world where there is no tomorrow it’s simply yesterday repeating itself.
You gotta ask yourself why are we there? And now we seem to have a host of enemies that could have been avoided. The Iranians that I have met are very generous people and what do you do when they say they want to defend the honor of their people? And the killing continues.
Thanks for taking time out to read this. I remain as puzzled as you are.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Mar 18, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
Once again Colorado lawmakers are currently considering the possibility of allowing supervised drug injection sites. Denver City Council voted 12 to 1 in November 2018 to approve a pilot program. It’s back again.
In January 2019, Steffan Tubbs and I, and former Denver Police Officer Mark Crowley went to Vancouver, which was home to North America’s first and finest injection facility. It was a hellhole.
It’s like telling people to stay on drugs and keep ruining your life. That’s how I saw Vancouver. Mark Crowley a 30-plus year Denver street cop said he’s never seen anything quite like it. Vancouver’s downtown east side is an outdoor drug market and death emporium. And now the clarion call returns to bring it to Colorado.
The United States of America currently has two safe injection sites in New York City, and Rhode Island has one. New York is requesting millions of dollars to fund four additional sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Does anybody really understand what Pandora’s box would be released by safe injection sites?
At the time an elected Denver official said he had visited Vancouver, and you could put one of those injection sites at his house. I immediately threw the BS flag. Anyone who’s been at one of those sites and watched the neighborhood turn into a place where dealers openly sell drugs like ballpark hotdog vendors and children step over syringes to get to the school bus knows no one would want one in their neighborhood. The programs in New York and throughout the country are a re-creation of the Opium Wars that brought about the end of the dynasties of China.
What did we learn from the Opium Wars? History, the great teacher, what was learned in history? That people ignore the causes and effects of the Opium War. The British had been illegally exporting opium from the same place it comes from today, Afghanistan. Addiction to opium became widespread in China causing serious social and economic disruption. In 1840, the Chinese government confiscated and destroyed chests of opium. Later that year the British began the first of the so-called Opium Wars. The more powerful British were easily victorious over the Chinese. The addiction ultimately led to the weakening of the Chinese dynastic system and paved the way for the warlords.
None of that’s lost on the Chinese. They’re the principal supplier of fentanyl. It’s an incredibly powerful and addictive synthetic heroin. If you remember the original advocates for supervised injection sites wanted safe injection sites principally for free drug paraphernalia to use heroin. This was way before fentanyl was as prevalent as it is today.
Fentanyl has increased the death toll of IV drug users.
What is the goal of these people? They say they want to stop the spread of disease associated with dirty needles. They want to make it safe for people to commit suicide on the installment plan. There are enough problems in the city of Denver right now; imagine if you were to add safe injection sites.
The Mandarin class that allowed the opium into China is really no different than the Mandarin class in Colorado and Denver. When opium got off-the-leash and into the mouths of the working class Chinese the dynasty came to an end. Imagine the enticements that would be offered up to young people when it becomes okay to use a drug that makes Chinese opium look like a Bayer aspirin. The call goes out. This has been beaten back in Colorado once before, for God’s sake don’t let them bring safe injection sites back.
Forgive them Lord for they know not what they do. Or do they?
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Feb 19, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
I remember being in high school and reading … and I had to check this… Frank R. Stockton’s short story from 1882, The Lady or the Tiger. It’s a story about a nasty king who rules the land and has a public trial by ordeal of someone who was opposed to his rule. A handsome young man is accused of the crime and is brought into the public arena and must choose one of two doors. Behind one door is a woman who the king has chosen to be a match for the accused and behind the other is a hungry tiger.
Both doors are soundproofed to prevent the young man from hearing what’s behind each one. If he chooses the door with the woman behind it, he’s innocent but must immediately marry her. If he chooses the tiger, he is deemed guilty and you can only imagine.
The king then learns that his daughter has a lover, the handsome young man. The Princess realizes that the woman behind the door is someone she hates, a rival for the love of the accused. When he looks to the Princess for help, she indicates the door on his right which he opens. The choice is never revealed. It’s always left up to all of us who comes out of the open door, the lady or the tiger.
The Princess’ dilemma is she loses her handsome young man either way. He’s eaten by the tiger or married to her rival. It’s a dilemma we all face now. Joe Biden is behind one door and Donald Trump behind the other. Joe Biden every day slips further and further into dementia. It’s overwhelmingly self-evident that Biden’s mental abilities come into question after the Special Counsel report of his handling of classified documents, he was dubbed an elderly man with a poor memory.
There are seemingly no more Biden protectors or defenders. Joe is a year older than I am and kept saying his memory was fine and for all of us to take a look at what he’s done since he became president. That’s the last thing I’d be saying, Joe. Seemingly every focus group that I’m able to read on the internet will mention they don’t believe Joe has all of his faculties.
Now comes Donald Trump. Enough things have been said about Donald Trump that I don’t need to go back over them in this column. But what we face is the rematch that most Americans don’t want. Nationwide polls have Donald Trump leading Biden, and a lot of unsure people are people that are planning to vote for someone else. I’ve been asked many times, as if it matters, Peter, what do you think is going to happen? In 1968 Lyndon Johnson went on national television and told the American people he’s not going to seek the nomination in the November presidential election. That the torch would pass to Hubert Humphrey.
How do we shake out of this? Yogi Berra once said, “Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.” Will Donald Trump return to the White House? Will Joe Biden return to the White House?
Given how the United States is in the world today, given all the different scenarios and tragic potential outcomes, will Biden step aside? Who’s in the wings? Will the Republican Party turn away from Donald Trump knowing he cannot win a general election? It’s an extremely dangerous time in the world. Joe Biden is having memory lapses and Donald Trump absolutely scares the hell out of me. Which will it be the lady or the tiger? We stand in the arena reaching for a door handle.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Jan 19, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
“If I wuz you” is a punchline to a great joke. Your uncle comes out of the bathroom on Thanksgiving afternoon and says I wouldn’t go in there if I wuz you.
The United States under Joe Biden, here we go again.
One of my many idols in history has been the great George Orwell. Orwell said, “All the war propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred comes inevitably from people who are not fighting.”
Let’s begin.
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon told so many lies about southeast Asia. The almost agreed upon figure now is our country spent 141 billion dollars in Vietnam in 14 years. 58,220 American soldiers lost; no one will ever know how many southeast Asians; and North Vietnam is 1.1 million soldiers killed, and to what end?
Next, of course, comes George Bush and Dick Cheney. The Iraq war has cost the U.S. nearly two trillion dollars. When the United States decided to leave, or some people say was evicted from Iraq, the bill of the war was an estimated 1.922 trillion dollars. And as you know, much like southeast Asia, totally based on lies.
There are so many young men and women out there, the veteran suicide rate has skyrocketed, and once again to what end? The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and August of 2021, the United States left. I ask you, what have you now learned?
These beginnings often become trip wire wars. One of my favorite historians, Barbara Tuchman, says the first World War was a series of people stepping on the tripwire. A tripwire war. A lie or an actual event can lead to the insanity that World War One was or the insanity that you and I are watching now. The Iranians seem to be just waiting in the wings. The Biden Administration sends carrier fleets, and Biden bypasses Congress on aid to Ukraine and Israel. We have given so many billions of dollars of weapons and what is the end use? And how will this end?
I fear the United States is going back to the craziness of Nixon-Johnson, or Bush-Cheney times, and it really is up to voters to try and stop this.
The Houthi rebels are vowing retaliation after the U.S. hit them with airstrikes in Yemen. U.S. Navy warships and fighter jets on the Dwight Eisenhower took part in the operation against them. The U.S. Air Force Mideast Command says it struck over 60 targets in 16 sites in Yemen. The trip wire is there.
So, much like your uncle coming out of the bathroom on Thanksgiving, I wouldn’t go in there “if I wuz you.”
— Peter Boyles
