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Two Years Ago: Reviewing Covid Morons

It’s been nearly two years since a lot of idiots in town (mostly liberals) lost their minds over Covid. The first few weeks were forgivable – we had no clue what we were dealing with. By mid-April, it became obvious very quickly that this was being blown WILDLY out of proportion and only the very old and/or sickly were truly at risk.

That didn’t stop a bunch of idiots like Melissa Johnson, Julie Cain Landrum, Jennifer Moreno, Karen Spivey-Cummings and Potato Head Stephanie Fitzharris from becoming hysterical as their feeble minds broke under the barrage of CNN propaganda.

I hate to say it, but middle-aged females (plus Bruce Haywood) fell for this bullshit the hardest and kept the stupidity alive for another 22 months or so. They were the ones throwing coffee in peoples’ faces and screaming about masks until they were blue in the face. They were the ones riding around in cars by themselves with masks on.

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I really question if we should allow them to vote in the future.

I’ll be reviewing some of these morons over the next few months – both for amusement factor and to remind EVERYONE never to listen to these clowns again. About anything.

Melissa “Crazy Cane Lady” Johnson was one of the biggest offenders. I’ve written about her extensively. But here is a gem I found about her pontificating on the schools re-opening in the fall of 2020. Mind you, this moron does NOT EVEN HAVE SCHOOL-AGED KIDS and should have kept her fat mouth shut to begin with.

Let’s see how her rantings have held up over time:

“Just as well if not better than classrooms”? Absolutely, 10,000% wrong. You could not BE more wrong. Remote learning (which Bruce Haywood also demanded) was an unmitigated disaster. Millions of kids’ lives have been ruined and their educations set back YEARS – some will never recover. Melissa and Bruce don’t really care about that. That’s because they are selfish assholes and terrible people.

“Their lives are at risk”. No they weren’t. In fact, females (who comprise a huge majority of teachers) are at far LESS risk than men when it comes to Covid deaths. Women under 45 are at greater risk of being killed in a car accident than by Covid. We knew this early on but morons like Melissa chose to ignore it. So did morons like Cathy Kuehne (ANOTHER middle-aged female!)

“Along with those of children“. Spectacularly wrong again. Your child is more likely to get eaten by a bear than die of Covid. This was DEFINITELY known early on, but scumbag teachers’ unions used fearmongering to avoid going back to work. Imbeciles like Melissa Johnson enabled it and cheer leaded it by spreading MISINFORMATION back in 2020.

“I pray I am wrong”. Don’t worry dear, you were and always are. No surprises there.

“Sounds like a huge disaster”. It wasn’t. Thank god nobody listened to the Crazy Cane Lady and shut down schools in the fall. School started up in August 2020 and ZERO kids or teachers died.

That includes the terrified school teacher Cathy “Pork Chop” Kuehne:

#Wear your mask! Even though it does nothing! I caught Covid anyways…or maybe it was allergies. Mmmmm, I like pork chops!

Of course, if we HAD listened to these clowns, the harm would have been MASSIVE. Crazy Cane Lady would have later crawled off into the tall weeds and pretended she never said all this and it wouldn’t have effected her anyways. Which is why we ignore clowns like Crazy Cane Lady and it’s why idiots like her are in charge of NOTHING but their own miserable lives, thankfully.

“I really want to be wrong”. Guess what? You were. Spectacularly so. Please refrain from giving advice in the future about ANYTHING. You lack brains, logic, and critical thinking skills. Please also refrain from voting. Thanks.

I Think Misti Talbert Hates Children

So this has been making the rounds lately:

Awesome idea! Who DOESN’T love splash pads? This would be a GREAT addition to the City and can be used by literally HUNDREDS of kids.

But $50,000 sounds like a lot of money, doesn’t it? Actually, with the amount of money wasted by Misti Talbert (as mayor), the LEDC board, most of city council and then Misti Talbert (as LEDC president), the City could have a splash pad on every corner of the City. Literally dozens and dozens of them! We’d be up to our assholes in splash pads.

Since we don’t have even ONE splash pad, I have to assume that Misti Talbert hates children. She chose to blow hundreds of thousands millions of dollars during her tenure as mayor and LEDC prez, but not a penny on anything for the kids. Look at all the dumb shit she wasted money on that benefited NOBODY at all or only a select few:

Most recently, LEDC Prez Talbert begged City council for $971,000 for the Business Pork project. That was money the City got from the Feds and could have been used for a LOT of City projects. Instead it will be set on fire with the other $6 million dollars before it. That’s almost TWENTY SPLASH PADS!

Talbert was a HUGE cheerleader for the opulent City council chambers (which gets used about 4 hours per month and only by City council and City employees). Many council members didn’t want to spend $750,000 on the project but Misti and her crew ended up blowing $1.5 million on it anyways. That’s THIRTY SPLASH PADS!

Grayson and White were outnumbered by morons like Misti Talbert, TJ Monroe and Chuck Williamson

She and her council were instrumental in selling the building for $75,000 and then buying it back for $229,000 – oops. Another THREE SPLASH PADS right there!

Talbert and her crew also okayed blowing $180,000 on a pre-fab bathroom at Campbell Park – even though Misti herself signed off on a combo concessions stand AND restrooms at Garret Soccer Complex for only $19,000 prior to that! It never registered in her pea brain that she shouldn’t pay almost TEN TIMES MORE than she did previously for LESS building! The difference between $19,000 and $180,000? That would be THREE MORE SPLASH PADS!

Let’s not forget the Azbell Electronics A/V system scam that started this entire blog. Misti and City council accepted a bid from Broadcast Works for $34,000 but then inexplicably handed Azbell $95,000 for the exact same job a year later without offering Broadcast Works a chance to rebid. That $60,000 difference could have bought yet another nice splash pad for the kids.

How many splash pads are we up to? I lost count.

Let not forget Deorald Finney – the rich developer that was gifted $72,000 in ‘free’ electrical hookups for his subdivision (Stone Valley) – another splash pad right there!

Oh, and former City council member Chris Harrison with S2M2 begged for $185,000 for HIS development (Brodie Estates) – which he got. There goes another THREE SPLASH PADS! Sheeeit!

Just a small example of how Misti Talbert, TJ Monroe and the LEDC have wasted MOUNTAINS of money that could have been used for something awesome like a splash pad. Instead, it was handed away to special interests or themselves.

What meanies who clearly hate kids.

Honorable mentions:

Hostess House “facelift” of $1.4 million = 28 splash pads

Running electricity and water to Business Pork in 2015 for $1 million (still sits empty 7 years later) = 20 splash pads

Blowing $120,000 on a “comprehensive plan” for the City’s growth = 2.4 splash pads

Wasting $12,000 for plans for a $1.4 million bike trail that will never get built = 1/4 of a splash pad

City Handing Out MORE Electrical Subsidies to Developers While Hiking Rates For All You Suckers

Last February we heard former mayor Talbert heap praise on city manager deGraffenreid for his deft handling of the winter storm and the electrical cost spikes. We were told the electrical fund was in awesome shape and we should all kiss Finley’s bean bag in thanks for this.

We found out months later that this was all a lie and, in fact, the electrical fund was in bad shape – thus rates would need to be hiked on all the peasants on November 1st, 2021.

Oddly, at the EXACT SAME TIME the City was hiking rates to shore up the fund, they were handing out even MORE free electrical hookups to developers so those developers could save about $1,600 on houses they will likely sell for over $200,000.

On November 8th, the City signed an agreement to waive $19,716 worth of electrical hookups for the Hidden Oaks subdivision you see going in on Old Naruna road. There will be 12 houses in there.

Hidden-Oaks-Executed-DA-AgreementDownload

This isn’t the first time the City has handed out free electrical stuff to developers. Recall that Deorald Finney got the same deal – which cost the City $72,000 in lost revenue.

Hillside Acres got $37,254 in “incentives” for free electrical hookups.

Now Hidden Oaks will cost the City $19,716 in lost revenue.

Funny that the City has to subsidize growth with hundreds of thousands in tax dollars at the very same time Talbert is hysterically pointing south and telling us “they’re coming! They’re coming!”.

No shit they are coming. They’re coming no matter what. You should be EXTRACTING your pound of flesh NOW with impact fees on developers – not handing them free shit, you morons.

Because not far down the road lies millions in costs (see photo below) to ‘improve water pressure’ and ‘accommodate growth’ and all the other very costly measures needed to handle a massive influx of Austin retards:

Just the water pressure issues ALONE will cost City $1,000,000.00

The “upper pressure plane” issue started about the time they plunked 67 new homes up there. Talbert would have you believe that the tiny increase in property taxes they get from those 67 houses will somehow offset the millions in future water/wastewater expenses. Which makes her an imbecile of biblical proportions.

Lampasshole Smarter Than Local Doctor

A mere five months ago, “doctor” James Cain was in the paper admonishing everyone to get vaccinated – no questions asked. He didn’t care about natural immunity. Never even occurred to him. Didn’t care about your age, weight or anything else. Just get the jab.

Who knows how many young, healthy people he pushed into getting that useless jab. Who knows how many suffered adverse reactions because of his moronic advice.

When I went to what would be my first (and last) visit to him as my new doctor, I told him I wanted to get a Covid antibody test, as you’ll recall. His response?

“What purpose would that serve?”

Jesus H. Christ.

He told the newspaper: “Cain said he discusses the vaccine science to hesitant patients and stresses the need to “trust in their doctors.”

Unfortunately, SOME doctors (like him) had no idea what they were talking about and ignored a hundred years of established science.

Here is where we are today:

What a complete embarrassment to the medical community. He probably suggests leeches for high blood pressure too.

Cain also said: “He also encourages people to get vaccinated because the “shots prevent death” and to help decrease the workload in area hospitals due to COVID-related admissions“

Literally NONE of that is true.

The most aggravating part of the Covid debacle is all the morons who panicked and gave shitty advice and screamed at those of us who kept our heads never had to answer for their crimes. They just slink off into the tall weeds and pretend they never said any of that stuff.

Things I’ve learned in the past 2 years:

1. Way more people are a lot dumber than I thought

2. That’s it. That’s all I got

Business Pork Prospects – Part III (PhoLicious)

We covered Nextlink in the last segment. It’s time to look at PhoLicious.

PHOLICIOUS: You gotta love the owners. They came out of nowhere and have a kick-ass little spot across from Hoffpauir Feed Store, they’re on Amazon, they have a slick website, they both seem SUPER nice. They quit their old jobs (thanks Covid!) and took the plunge. I have zero doubt they put in 16 hour days and kill themselves to make it work. They are the quintessential small business owner taking risk and working hard to build something of value.

In other words, the exact OPPOSITE of Julie Landrum at Wool & Vine.

I hope they are a raging success and make a million bucks.

BUT – does that make them a realistic candidate as a viable tenant for the $7.1 million dollar Business Pork and all the infrastructure it entails?

Sadly, no. For several reasons:

#1 Their HUGE pressing need is just plain old space. Just a big, empty warehouse. I’m guessing that a MASSIVE percentage of their business is actually the Amazon side of things. I’ve seen their Facebook videos of piles and piles of boxes (filled with the kits) and there’s just no way they are selling all that in town here. The owner also admitted to me during a chat that they REALLY need warehouse space.

She also lamented the ridiculous cost of land around town. I agreed. There are a hell of a lot of property owners who are deluded about what their building is worth – which is why we have MANY empty building sitting around town.

Here is a thought: call up the owner of one of these empty buildings that is sitting there earning $0 in rent and offer to use it as a warehouse. I can think of a few immediately:

Rutlands. This was supposed to be turned into lofts, according to an article from THREE YEARS ago. It sits there – big and empty and waiting to hold Pho boxes.

“Millican’s Dry Goods” eyesore that sits on the square right next to Windsor Foods and the county offices. I’ve been inside that spot. It is massive. I believe the owners live in Kempner or Cove. Make them an offer.

The old AmVets building. Pretty sure it’s empty ever since Twisted Oak went under. That’s also a huge spot.

#2 They are in a cut-throat business and have only been around a short while. There is no guarantee they will be around in two years (it will be at LEAST another 18 months before the Business Pork is ‘shovel ready’ for the second time).

On Amazon, they are competing with the likes of “Phonomenal” and about a dozen other Pho makers. PhoLicious needs to get their price down about 20% if they hope to compete long term. I know this because my best friend is former VP of global operations for Golden State Foods and he knows the business.

[In fact, if PhoLicious happens to read this and wants to pick his brain, contact me at lampasshole@protonmail.com]

#3 They don’t really employ anyone right now. I think it’s just the two of them doing everything themselves. Maybe have another body or two at $15/hr to put the kits together, but we are not talking a huge amount of jobs here. Certainly not enough to justify $7.1 million dollars in land, roads, electricity, water, etc that the Business Pork has committed to.

In conclusion: while I certainly hope they hit it big, there is a lot of uncertainty here and not really the potential for massive jobs (like, say, Ajinomoto Windsor type jobs). If their financials are solid and prospects good, they should be able to EASILY get a bank loan (if needed) and secure some warehouse rental space that is badly needed to reach the next level.

Damn, all this talk about pho is making me hungry. I think I’ll head up to Pholicious and grab a beef pho kit!

P.S. – it’s funny to me that LEDC is bending over backwards for a tiny, brand-new, yet-to-be-proven little “food production” operation when they told Anijimoto Foods to go fuck themselves in 2016 when Ajinomoto offered to bring TWO HUNDRED MORE JOBS to Lampasas. Classic LEDC stupidity. Ironically, Talbert, Monroe and Williamson were all on city council at that time too.

Make City Council Great Again!

Yesterday when I picked up the kid from school, I noticed a dog trotting down the street.

It had some hard excrement stuck to its matted fur just to the left of his asshole. This reminded me of City council a little bit.

You see, eventually that hardened turd will fall off and his bum can be clean again. Just like city council can be awesome again. We just need to remove some turds.

Like Cathy Kuehne.

Be sure to vote ABC in May (Anyone But Cathy)

Didya Know? (Industrial Park Edition)

I decided to start a new feature here called “Didya Know?”. It will be a collection of crazy quotes/facts I find from the archived minutes of City council and the LEDC that wildly contradict their current actions and statements.

It is meant to remind citizens (and the bureaucrats/politicians themselves) of all the empty promises and Big Plans that were made and that never came to fruition.

Hopefully, THAT will lead current council members and citizens to take all of these CURRENT grandiose plans with a grain of salt and to view promises of big returns with a skeptical eye.

DIDYA KNOW??

The ‘industrial park’ that the LEDC is now about to lease out for ‘1-2 years’ for “RV and boat storage” was ORIGINALLY intended “to promote economic development with a discounted lease for the business owneras long as primary jobs were created.” [page 20 under Current Development]

Call me crazy, but letting some guy have the land cheap so he can rent it out for RV and boat storage doesn’t sound to me like it’s going to create ANY jobs, let alone those of the “primary” type. Sounds like a big eyesore that benefits one person, to be honest.

Yet another example of the LEDC being rudderless while going in 12 different directions at once and accomplishing nothing at all.

Business Pork Prospects – Part II

We covered the first two Business Pork prospects in Part I a few days ago. Let’s look into the other supposed prospects that are going to fill the LEDC’s beloved Goat Pasture and bring in all those piles of money and jobs.

NEXTLINK INTERNET: Seems like a legit and kick-ass company. They sounded too good to be true when they first showed up in the area and their name is unfortunately similar to the much-hated “Suddenlink” – but my neighbor five miles down the road swears by Nextlink. I’m actually having a tech come out to check my location next week. If it’s all they say it is, I get triple the product at half the cost compared to my current provider (Viasat).

So they pass the first test: they are legit, offering a product people want at a great price and they aren’t going to disappear in 9 months, most likely.

The next question is what their actual needs are in terms of space. The main headquarters are up in Hudson Oaks, as near as I can tell. So Talbert and the LEDC can forget about some huge corporate headquarters landing in the Business Pork. That ain’t gonna happen.

The best you’re going to do is a little satellite office – which Nextlink obviously already has. In fact, they are out there on 580 East with all the other commercial enterprises! They are literally a block east of the LEDC’s very own Industrial Park they are trying so hard to fill! Crazy, right??

Shitty ‘industrial park’ weed patch. Not to be confused with the ‘business pork’ weed patch.

Almost makes me wonder why the LEDC wasn’t on-the-ball enough to hook Nextlink up with their shitty “Industrial Park” back when they moved into the area last year! As you can see in the photo, the Economic development team was nowhere to be found. The fact that Nextlink did their own thing and steered clear of the Talbert, Walsh and the other LEDC buffoons makes me think that owner Chris Huffman is a brilliant man, indeed.

Internet service provider Nextlink holds ribbon-cutting
Ribbon cutting April 2021…NOT in the Industrial Park!

Somehow, Nextlink found that spot on 580 east and managed to thrive without any involvement from Talbert, Walsh or the other LEDC Keystone Kops. It is a very big, nice, kick-ass location and it appears that is all they need to function for the foreseeable future.

It’s also odd that Nextlink somehow managed to find a great commercial spot over there when Talbert keeps assuring us that there is “no more commercial space in Lampasas – the Business Pork is it”. Very odd indeed!

More reviews coming soon…

LEDC Literally Has No Idea What To Do With The Business Pork

Funny what you find in the archives sometimes.

It’s been hilarious watching the LEDC and Talbert trying to make a case for why blowing ANOTHER $2.7 million on the Business Pork is so awesome and necessary.

FIRST it was all about “jobs” it would bring. HUNDREDS of them, probably!

THEN it was all about the property taxes it would generate (which is nonsense).

THEN it was all about selling electricity to them. More nonsense.

THEN after they screwed it all up so badly and nobody moved in, they talked about selling it all and making it residential, which Talbert pooh poohed because that just wouldn’t generate much income. She explained all that to Zac Morris during her Valentines Day Begging.

(Of course, she had no problem handing Deorald Finney $72,000 in free stuff for HIS residential development. Nor did she have a problem with handing her formal City council buddy Chris Harrison $185,000 for HIS new company (S2M2) and THEIR development:)

“Econ dev” makes sense only for former City council chums, apparently

But if you go WAY back into ancient history (Jan 2015), you can see that the LEDC WAS planning to just sell the land to developers as recently as then! From the minutes (page 2 under “Staff Updates”):

“The refinancing of the land is considered taxable becauseit was purchased with the intent to sell land for private development…LEDC does not have enough revenue to pay off the existing loan and take on the additional debt service…one of the ways to offset the additional interest is to pay down the land loanwhen property is sold to a developer.“

Wow. So for a LARGE portion of the Business Pork history, the intent was to just sell off the land to developers and let THEM incur the expense of developing it.

As much as Talbert likes to portray herself as a leader who is “committed to this project”, it is clear that they have changed their minds over and over about the direction of the Business Pork.

A slightly less-charitable way of putting it would be that they have no fucking idea what they are doing.

Handing millions of dollars to the likes of Talbert, TJ Monroe and the other dingbats to play in the sand on south 183 is like handing a bottle of whiskey and car keys to a teenaged boy. The results are just as predictable.

City Not Done Blowing Money On Old City Hall (aka Jack Calvert Building)

This entire blog exists solely due to City council wasting almost $100,000 on an A/V system for an opulent new council chambers back in July of 2018. The colossal waste of tax money fired a rage in me that is still burning here to this day, clearly.

That was just the tip of the iceberg as City council ended up blowing around $1.5 million to “renovate” Old City Hall and give themselves a fancy new council chambers. Initially, some members of council balked at an estimated cost around $700,000 (which was DOUBLE what they had budgeted at $350,000).

Of course, they ended up not only blowing the $700,000 but another $800,000 on top of it. The waste and incompetence was chronicled here in excruciating detail. Misti Talbert and Chuck “The Vampire” Williamson were instrumental in keeping the monstrosity alive.

You’d think they’d be done wasting money on it by now – seeing as how they had a big fancy dedication in December of 2019.

You’d be wrong.

Listed in the possible uses for a new $6,300,000 bond offering they will be discussing in three days time (possible cost to taxpayer of$9,143,000over 20 years – page 111) is this gem:

Upper pressure plane = where Deorald Finney built his 67 houses with subsidies from City council

ANOTHER quarter million to be spent on their vanity project. You know, for lighting and shrubs and stuff.

My god.

I guess the new official total for the Talbert ‘Wow factor’ Vanity project will be more like $1,750,000 before it is all said and done.