Filed under: Coronavirus, Democrat Corruption, Election 2020, Energy, Global Warming, Health Care, Junk Science, Law, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, Science/Technology, The United States
Joe Biden is coming up with new regulations, new advisors, new treatments. He may insist that everyone wear masks, but the role of masks is much misunderstood. A mask protects other people from your exhalations, spittle, coughs or sneezes. It does not protect you from other people. The mask is meant keep your spittle in. Your protection from other people’s coughs or spittle is dependent on your washing your hands obsessively and frequently, social-distancing, and not touching your face. Almost counter-intuitive. Stay home. You may soon be ordered to do so. Governors are all over the map with their orders and directions, and may or may not know what they are talking about. Apparently Thanksgiving dinner is out. Governors may order you to forget it.
I am remaining confined at home, ordering groceries delivered. Difficult. The folks that pack the groceries don’t know that bananas must be a little greenish at the ends, and no brown spots. They don’t know that you sniff at the stem end of a cantaloupe to see if it smells like cantaloupe. If it doesn’t it’s no good. Those are the little complications of shopping at the grocery store. Who knew that the bagels you ordered might turn out to be whole wheat bagels? Whoever heard of whole wheat bagels? Don’t open the door to anyone.
Joe Biden’s Coronavirus Adviser urges a lockdown for “4 to 6 weeks.” He suggests that “we could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers, for losses to small companies, to medium-sized companies or city, state, county governments. We could do all of that. (The doctor is a little light on his understanding of economics) He wrote that the problem with the March to May lockdown was that it was not uniformly stringent across the country.
Biden’s four leading priorities: Covid-19, economic recovery, racial equity and climate change. No delusions that a Biden administration will be good for liberty or limited government.
Breitbart headline” “Biden to Make Combatting Climate Change an “All-of-Government Agenda.” Well, there we go. There is nothing anyone can do to “combat climate change.” The climate has been changing for millions of years. The climate today is very much like it was 1,000 years ago. Carbon dioxide is a natural fertilizer for plants, and crops around the world are bountiful. Hungry people are being fed. Joe Biden will formulate a governing strategy to curb carbon emissions by maximizing executive authority. He will rejoin the Paris Climate Accord on his first day at the White House and create a new division within the Department of Justice to combat pollution.There’s a proposal to spen $2 trillion over four years to combat climate change.
One million jew jobs in the auto industry to boost the production of energy-efficient vehicles. Legislation to incentivize individuals to trade in their gas=powered vehicles for ones running on either electricity or hydrogen. He apparently wants to adopt a 100 percent clean-electricity standard by 2035.
This might have a rather large impact on the coal and natural gas industries that produce about 63 percent of all electricity in the country. You cannot trust your government. You have to be informed, and know what these nutcases are up to.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Coronavirus, Democrat Corruption, Election 2020, Health Care, History, Media Bias, National Security, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, The United States | Tags: COVID-19, Elderly Victims, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York City.
As I was saying, thank goodness that it’s only a few days till the election. Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York State, has just announced that “I’m holding Trump Responsible for Every’ Coronavirus Death in this Country.” He actually said that on ABC’s “The View”
Governor Andrew Cuomo, undoubtedly thinking that he was doing the right thing, sent 6,300 Covid-19 elderly patients to nursing homes, assuming that the older folks would be better cared for by people accustomed to caring for the elderly. Dreadful mistake. One of the highest nursing home death tolls in the nation.
Cuomo has blamed everyone else, but not himself. Now he has settled on President Trump, because the Democrats are hoping that blaming Trump for all the coronavirus deaths will win the election for them.
On Tuesday, Cuomo was asked about a report from the Associated Press that his team had added more than 1,700 deaths to the count of those who died in nursing homes, bringing the total to at least 4,813. “I don’t know the details, frankly,” the governor answered, turning to an aide. Sgt. Schultz reporting for duty!
I guess there are examples in history of those who have denied something or other until their deathbeds. Does it work? I have no idea, but it’s quite clear that the governor made a dreadful mistake. Is it better to admit it or just deny forever. Trying to blame President Trump, however, is really dirty, extremely dirty, politics.
As I pointed out earlier, back when we first learned about the virus and it’s potential pandemic, Dr. Deborah Birx, presidential advisor with Dr. Anthony Fauci early on, said that if we were very, very lucky and did everything right, we might get only around 200,000 deaths from the pandemic. We’re at 213,000 now.
Democrats are desperate to blame Trump for the deaths, will it work? Probably with the Hollywood crowd, who seem to find it useful to proclaim their hatred for the President. I am thoroughly sick of Hollywood ‘”celebrities” and it will probably be a long time before I ever see a Hollywood movie again. British movies are usually better anyway.
Donald Trump, whether you like him or not, has done a very good job with the virus. (Including trying out the disease for himself and his family). He sought out the most recommended advisers, did everything he could to fulfill the needs of the Governors, who expressed their gratitude for his help. Forced the Auto industry to make ventilators, the military set up temporary hospitals in tents and stadiums, he sent our hospital ships to New York and to the West Coast. Has done what he can to help other countries as well, and is sharing what we have learned with the rest of the world. So all of the deaths from the coronavirus, are his fault?
As I was saying, politics gets pretty nasty in the final days of an election.
Filed under: Big Tech, Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Conservatism, Coronavirus, Democrat Corruption, Economics, Election 2020, Freedom, Health Care, History, Media Bias, Politics, Progressivism, Socialism, The United States | Tags: Big Tech, Covid-19 Coronavirus, The Election
The days close to an election get a little wild. Everyone is panicking. at least slightly, and frightened that the opposition will possibly win, so it’s getting nasty out there. Congress has called Big Tech in before them to have a little discussion about their interference in the election which has gone far beyond what is allowed or permissible. Or if the laws don’t control what they have done, Congress may have to fix the laws, which is completely within their power. Twitter is, of course the biggest offender, but the others are not far behind.
Corporations used to understand their role, but Big Tech has been called “masters of the universe” in jest so often that they may have come to believe it, to assume that their “fact-checkers” have some validity, or that their interference is fine because all their employees agree with them anyway. Congress does not agree, and if they need to fix the laws, Congress will do just that. Corporations used to have a clear idea of their role, which was to cooperate and stay out of it.
Democrats biggest claim is that Donald Trump is somehow responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic, responsible for all the deaths, and it is all clearly his fault. So There! Au contraire. Back when the Chinese virus first arrived and we first began to understand what we might be in for, Dr. Deborah Birx who was adviser to the president along with Dr. Anthony Fauci said that if we were very fortunate and very lucky, we might have only somewhere around 200,000 deaths over the course of the disease. We are at 231,000 today, so perhaps we have done pretty well, while regretting every loss.
Democrats are now preparing to impeach Amy Comey Barrett. They don’t know what for yet, but they’ll find something. Which shows not how much they dislike the immensely competent and capable new justice of the Supreme Court, but that they do not understand the purpose of the Supreme Court and view it as a partisan organization, which they must control along with everything else. Their drive for control of the economy is insatiable, so perhaps the Bidens are not the only ones prospering from their time in public office.
I’m beginning to think we should change the qualifications to run for public office which should be adjusted a little more, and require some greater understanding of American history and contemporary economics. Kamala Harris’s husband, Douglas Emhoff, remarked that his wife was going to be the President of the United States, so apparently they don’t think Joe Biden is going to make it through a full term either.
Be sure to vote, only once each, please. And take it very seriously, for it is a very serious matter.
ADDENDUM: One would think that businesses would understand that probably half of their customers would belong to the opposite party, and wouldn’t approve of being lectured to or their expressing their party line.
Filed under: Capitalism, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2020, Health Care, History, Media Bias, Politics, Science/Technology, The United States | Tags: COVID-19, Fact Checking, Internet Changes.
The internet is changing. Of course it is always changing, but the way in which it is changing is something new. The initial idea was that it would be an opportunity for what were formerly magazines available in bookstores or by subscription to have a second outlet, and far more would be available for free. It was assumed that the ability to reach so many people online would create advertising that could reach so many people that it would pay for everything.
Different people use the internet differently. I’m a reader, and am usually looking for information rather than entertainment. Others want to share their lives with their friends and the internet replaces a lot of phone calls and letters with the ability to include pictures and have lots of sharing. Some use it entirely for work, and get their entertainment from television or online movies. I’m looking for world and national news, politics, general information. I do not want to hear from Hollywood “celebrities” at all. If they make a good movie, I might go to a theater, but their abilities lean toward acting, not useful thought. “Celebrities” have name recognition and are “click-bait” for websites. So would-be celebrities no longer have to pay press agents, they only need to say something outrageous, and their utterances make “news.” I don’t want an internet that is all about people insulting each other.
Google has taken over control of advertising, and where ads can be placed on the page and where they can appear. Along with many others, I’m annoyed by ads that block or limit the piece I am trying to read. There are others who don’t like ads, so an industry has sprung up to make ads less frequent or even to make them disappear (for a fee). So, surprisingly there are ads for services that remove all ads, which has resulted in websites demanding that you block your ad removal service or they won’t let you read the piece you are reading. Google lets you block ads but wants to know why you are blocking them, I presume to try to discover your reasoning and figure out how to get around it.
Ads are not producing the revenue needed to pay for the staff of writers that the various websites have employed. You have undoubtedly noticed that the websites are asking you to subscribe to get the important pieces, which they will label to show that you can only read them if you have subscribed. The question now is if you will subscribe so you can read everything, and if the number of people who will subscribe is enough to pay the salaries and benefits of all the writers the website wants to employ, and helps to maintain the cost of having a website. Everybody’s expectations were perhaps a little higher then was justified.
How many websites do you visit each day, how many of those want you to subscribe? I visit about 20 websites each day. I could whittle that down a bit, but if you multiply the monthly cost of all for 12 months, and add it all together, it’s a fairly significant sum. Not going to happen. How will the internet develop to cope with all this? I spent a lot of years working in advertising, and some significant shifts from Google would improve things.
Tried tonight to watch a bit of the vice-presidential candidates’ debate. Different moderator, different tactics, but impossible to limit candidates to the assigned time. Kamala Harris has come equipped with many attack modes, most of them simply political attacks that are completely untrue. Many might believe your attack that President Trump did not respond correctly to the Covid -19 virus, but it’s just false.
The virus was unknown when it hit the nursing home in the next suburb to the north of my house, but as soon as it became known that a visitor who was returning from Wuhan, China had infected many of the residents, President Trump slammed a halt to all traffic from China. In January, which provoked screaming outrage from Democrats who accused him of racism and xenophobia. He promptly began a deliberate and thorough response to the needs of each state. We had to learn about the virus before we could do the right thing.
To try to blame President Trump for all the corona-virus deaths to date (and in the future) is absurd. Kamala Harris is attempting to use in the debate tonight all the party-line accusations the Democrats have come up with so far, most of them unfair or untrue. Many actions taken with care turned out to be unneeded (like the tent hospitals the military set up) that were not used at all. Ms. Harris is not projecting vast competency.
Joe Biden has spent 36 years in Congress as a likeable senator, without significant accomplishment, and 8 years as Barack Obama’s vice president. He is 77 years old, and appears to be afflicted by “senior moments” or some oncoming dementia which many find troubling for a future president. Many worry that Kamala Harris could become president for she doesn’t seem qualified. Biden’s family seems to have been significantly enriched by vice-presidential influence. In a political season, the charges will be many, and not all of them are true, as I’m sure you have noticed, and internet fact-checks aren’t significantly accurate.
Donald Trump has been attacked with the most vicious slanders that the Democrats can find. I can’t remember a campaign ever that has been so angry and so unfair. Trump is not one to suffer silently, and Twitter has been his major outlet. He slams right back. Many find his “tweets” “unpresidential”, which depends on your ideas of the proper words of a president. I’ve lived through a significant number of Presidents, but this campaign really is different. We are faced with a pandemic from Wuhan, China that has killed thousands across the world. We have had to learn about it slowly, step by step. Most of the rest of the world has suffered too. Stop and think about the toilet paper crisis.
The U.S. has had 7,640,890 confirmed cases. 214,947 deaths, and 4,958,850 Americans have recovered. Joe Biden tried to claim there were 200 million deaths, so you see how easy it is to get tangled up in the numbers. Two hundred thousand is still too many. Globally there have been 36,063,675 confirmed cases and 1,054.153 deaths while around 25 million have recovered.
Democrats are urging people to avoid the vaccines that may be available before the end of the year, because” Trump is involved”. That’s going too far. People are apt to fear vaccines, but when you understand the testing involved, our official guidelines are pretty trustworthy. There are protocols in the United States for vaccines to make sure that none are released before they have been thoroughly tested and are remarkably safe.
When you know your history, of pandemics and new medicines and new treatments, the United States ranks remarkably highly for such a big country. We have a really fine medical sector, and they do a pretty good job. Lots of diseases still out there, but they are working hard to conquer them. News today about planets that seem to be habitable, and perhaps even more habitable than this one. And now we have a Space Force, and what is next, and where will we go?
Filed under: China, Coronavirus, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Health Care, Heartwarming, History, National Security, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Progressives, Science/Technology, The United States | Tags: Blame, Stick it to Trump, The Corona Virus
Democrats keep trying to rid us of President Donald Trump, they tried impeachment, several times. They loathe Trump, but they just can’t figure out how to get rid of him and his systematic repeal of Obama’s progressive project. The problem is that the Democrats just want to be in control. Just what it is that they expect to accomplish when they manage to get control isn’t really clear, and there’s the rub.
The current best idea seems to be blaming him for the Corona Virus. If they can just manage to establish that he didn’t respond quickly enough, professionally enough, carefully enough or something like that, then they can blame him for all of the Covid-19 deaths. That would take care of him!
The first COVID-19 deaths in the United States happened a few miles north of my house when a visitor to a nursing home who had just returned from Wuhan, China infected the residents. President Trump quickly banned any and all flights from China. He referred to it as the China virus or the Wuhan virus. (Outcry. Racial prejudice, etc.) Got automobile companies making ventilators, everybody making masks, hospital ships in New York harbor and in California, Cruise ships anchored, military setting up emergency hospitals in tents in public parks and in parking garages. Experts called in to advise.
Of course they don’t mention that, they talk about results. Here are the five COVID-19 Charts Democrats are anxious to hide. Click on the link. Copy and save the link. Share it with family and friends!
This is from http://www.issues&insights.com, a fairly new website founded by the writers from Investors Business Daily, and is excellent. It has become one of my favorites. They even feature Michael Ramirez’s wonderful political cartoons.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Coronavirus, Domestic Policy, Education, Europe, Health Care, History, Politics, Regulation | Tags: CDC, State Health Departments, Think Tanks
It is now August, and attention has turned to the back to school problem. Nobody seems to know what to do. So far online lessons have not been a rousing success. Some kids do them, some refuse, and some have not done any. Not every family has a computer. As the school year gets closer, the battle is heating up. Avik Roy writes in the Wall Street Journal: (There may be a subscription barrier.)
The second-largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, is preparing for its members to go on strike if schools reopen without their assent. President Trump has expressed a desire to “cut off funding” for schools that don’t reopen. It doesn’t help that the debate is taking place during the 2020 presidential campaign and a late-summer rise in coronavirus-related cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Teachers contracts are mostly school district matters, and what happens and what they are supposed to do and whether or not they get paid for teaching or not teaching is supposedly in the contract. Some teachers, naturally, are terrified they will get the virus in the classroom. Small children don’t seem to transmit the disease. Governors don’t know what to do, kids really do need to be in school, many parents (both) work outside the home. Teachers are not trained or skilled in creating online classes, and who makes sure the kid does the lessons anyway? Kids do not joyfully tackle a new lesson, at least mine didn’t.
We do know that school closures cause significant damage to children, damage that videoconferences cannot repair. Boston reported that one in five public school children dropped out. Many children from poorer families depend on reduced-price or free meals at school. The social science journal SSRN reported that school closures led to a 27% decline in reports of child abuse, because teachers may be the first ones to notice signs of maltreatment.
Other industrialized countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Germany, Finland, Iceland and France reopened schools in April and May, and their experience has largely been positive. Timing varied. Denmark was careful, requiring children to stay 2 meters apart whenever possible. Children were grouped into “bubbles” of 12, and required to wash their hands every two hours but did not wear masks. Denmark concluded that according to data from the European CDC, you could not see any negative effects from the opening of schools.
Children do not seem to play a significant role in the transmission of the virus. France started with a social distancing of four square meters and reduced it to one linear meter and they made attendance mandatory for primary and middle schools.
It sounds as if the greater danger to teachers is other teachers and staff. More and better information can be found at the CDC, the think tanks like Hoover.org, AEI.org, CATO.org, Reason.org and others. Here is an article titled “Open the Schools–or Kiss the Economy Goodbye” by Allison Schrager from the Manhattan Institute.
President Trump wants to see the kids in school. Some Governors just don’t know what to do. Many doctors have said they see no problem with sending their own children to school. Keep in mind that it is small children that don’t seem to spread the virus. Older children are another matter. I don’t know what the cut-off age when you start to worry is. My three kids are long grown, so I am not affected, but I understand the concern. More knowledge will help.
Filed under: Coronavirus, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2020, Freedom, Health Care, History, Media Bias, National Security, Police, Politics, Progressives, Regulation, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Complaints About the Speech, Mt. Rushmore, Politics and Protests
Every time you assume that things couldn’t get any weirder, they do. Yesterday, Hillary announced that she would have done a much better job with the Corona virus than Trump. Uh huh. Her record does not so indicate. Today, she questioned that if Trump lost the election — would he leave office peacefully? Needing attention are we?
The Sioux bellyached about Trump coming to Mt. Rushmore because the monument was on their sacred lands, but the monument was built when the “sacred lands” belonged to the Cheyenne, not the Sioux. And sacredness seems to be related to fireworks and American heroes, though native Americans are citizens too and entitled to all the protections of the Declaration. Many Native Americans have served in the military and are proud of their service. I’m not convinced that all native Americans are possessive of Mt. Rushmore and resent it being used for a 4th of July Celebration, but I simply don’t know.
There were complaints from the usual suspects that Trump was having a White Supremacy Celebration, and so on, and on, every bit of news is to be accompanied by an attack on Trump. Democrats are worried about Joe Biden. They are worried about his mental confusion too. They are trying to cooperate with his desire to have a woman vice president, preferably black. Silicon Valley seems enthralled with Elizabeth Warren, but the party prefers Kamala Harris. Or Susan Rice. This could get interesting.
They simply cannot stop expressing their hatred for this president, and it is embarrassing for them when he had the economy booming, until the pandemic hit. Now with the excellent job creation in June, it certainly looks like it will soon be booming again. President Trump, as a successful businessman, has a pretty good understanding of just how much over regulation affects the economy, and the Democrats’ demand for absolute control leads them to over-regulate every time. They can’t help themselves.
There has been an uptick in Covid infections, whether from the protests or from people getting together in groups (do I repeat myself?) is an unknown. The American people are sick of shutdowns and masks and distancing and the whole thing. They will wear masks when it’s clear that it is necessary and a good idea, but they are also very, very fed up.
A peer-reviewed study from the Henry Ford Health System concluded that hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug touted by Trump as a potential good treatment for coronavirus, successfully lowered mortality rates for hospitalized coronavirus patients. Results were published Thursday in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Infectious Diseases. There were no adverse effects on the heart. Positive news, hope it pans out. The press does not want any positive Trump stories.
The “potential” part should not be ignored, but neither should it be ignored just because Trump thought it sounded like a possible potential. There’s another potential vaccine that looks promising too. These small encouraging developments should not be ignored just because Trump favored them.
President Trump gave a splendid patriotic speech at Mt. Rushmore, and assorted Democrats called it dark, and the New York Times could not find enough dismal words to apply. A Seth Abramson, a columnist for Newsweek, was completely flummoxed by the passages in the presidential speech where Mr. Trump was mentioning the statues and monuments we have all witnessed being torn down, burnt or destroyed across the country. Abramson could not understand why he was claiming that people were tearing down statues. As a noted journalist, he has apparently missed the whole thing. It is a confusing time, is it not?
It would be nice if we were all on the same page, but there is an election coming up in November, and that seems to be more important than ordinary things like riots and protests, statue-toppling and virtue-signaling. Way too much virtue-signaling.
ADDENDUM: Here’s a good example of weird. Emory & Henry College in Virginia is considering discarding the wasp as it’s mascot. The bug, probably for it’s sting. They are concerned about the connection to WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) and possibly not being sensitive enough to matters of race.
Filed under: Australia, Canada, Coronavirus, Crime, Domestic Policy, Economy, England, France, Freedom, Health Care, History, Humor, Intelligence, Law, Media Bias, Police, Politics, Regulation, Seattle WA, The United States | Tags: Destroying Statues, Fury and Outrage, Rewriting the Past
Here’s the box they built around the statue of Winston Churchill in Britain. Police also protected the cenotaph, and protesters bravely threw some statues into the River Thames.
In Whittier, California, BLM protesters defaced a statue of John Greenleaf. Who is he? He was a prominent Quaker abolitionist, known for his anti-slavery writings. A picture shows the usual graffiti. Sometimes, it seems, we get a little over-excited about attacking statues. Of course, unlike attacking real people, statues just sit there and behave like the inanimate objects they are, and there’s no fuss unless the police catch you at it, and even then it depends on what the local rules are about attacking statues. It is entirely about the symbolism, and attacking a king symbolically ranks a little higher than a symbolic mere member of Parliament, for example.
Of course in America we went for bigger targets than mere statues (which were attacked as well) but that can’t compare to HBO blacklisting Gone With the Wind. Good Grief! Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. Hattie McDaniels, who is black, won the first Oscar ever given to a person of another race. It was well deserved, but there’s the rub. She played the role of Mammy, a slave.
Well, never mind Oscars, the outrage was furious. Banning Gone With the Wind! America’s favorite movie of all time. What happened immediately was that everybody went out and bought a copy for their own, and just think through the economics of that little stunt, and how it would reverberate down through the years. I can even quote you the opening lines of the book: “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm, as the Tarelton twins were.”
HBO decided that unbanning Gone With the Wind was probably the better idea, but because of George Floyd and all, they hired Black scholar and TCM host Jacqueline Stewart. She is a professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. Cinema and Media Studies is a major at the University of Chicago? It has not been yet announced just when GWTW and Scarlett and Brett will return to streaming services. Jacqueline Stewart will provide an introduction to the movie, so you understand the correct viewpoint. This is a very odd time, we can’t seem to decide whether we can allow history to remain unchanged, or if we have to have a do-over that we like better. Historically, we do recognize that the Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Southern forces fired on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and on April 15, President Lincoln issued a public declaration than an insurrection existed and called for 75,000 militia to stop the rebellion. It ended on April 9, 1865 when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S, Grant at the Appomattox Court House, with a remarkable lot of history in between those two dates. If you are unfamiliar with the Civil War, study up! You’ll be glad you did. Here’s a guide to books on the war.
You might want to look up the Emancipation Proclamation.
Race has come up as a major subject in the international outrage over the death of George Floyd. Statues are being destroyed in this country, in Britain, Australia, Scotland–Robert the Bruce, the Scottish King who freed Scotland from England’s clutches, and who knows where else, which accomplishes nothing at all, but expresses varying degrees of outrage over varying subjects. The Civil War in general, any generals who fought for the South, anything named for a general who fought for the South, that sort of thing. Fort Bragg and Fort Benning are especially mentioned as needing to be renamed immediately to appease the anger about race. Quick, can you tell me where Fort Bragg is, and who it is named for? Didn’t think so. How about Fort Benning — location, named for? If we are going to be outraged and change names, shouldn’t we know what we are talking about, and how it relates to, for example, “CHAZ” or “CHOP” as it is now, on six blocks of Capitol Hill in Seattle? And what does that have to do with putting a box around the statue of Winston Churchill in Britain?
What seemed to happen to George Floyd was clearly an outrage, but what actually happened was not as it seemed. The call to police about Floyd was that he was trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. We never learned if it was counterfeit or not. There must have been some kind of resisting arrest going on for him to end up on the ground with an officer holding him down with his knee.
Floyd was a very large man who worked as security in a night club, a “bouncer” as they are called, as did the police officer, and they apparently worked at the same establishment. The cause of death is unclear. Yes, he was saying “I can’t breathe” but before the choke hold as well. He was apparently high on fentanyl. The autopsies (there were two) also mentioned a heart attack, and another fatal condition. The officer has been charged with murder, but in the middle of international outrage. I have no idea. It just sounds like it is a lot more complicated than we were led to believe. The outrage over what was seen on film was huge. The emotion stirred up was huge and has led to all the rest.
Hopefully, enough information will eventually come out to clarify the whole thing. Why it has led to the destruction of Columbus statues, names of anything connected to the South in the Civil War, remains unknown. Aunt Jemima syrup has changed its name and picture. Kellogg’s Rice Crispies has been attacked for Snap, Crackle and Pop who seem to be three white boys. The same white boys are on the Cocoa Crispies box, although the cereal is brown. In other words, a big section of America has become certifiable. A City Councilman in Charlotte, SC has declared that it is time to proclaim that racism is a public health crisis. The worst reaction is the call to defund the police. which is beyond stupid. Unfortunately it has all been exacerbated by the CORONA-19 turmoil and societal shutdown and all the chaos that has caused. Emotions were already stirred up by people locked down.
This too shall pass. From the Federalist: “Why White People Will Always Be Racists: Whites are continually put into the position of forever having to prove the negative, that they’re not racists. This is impossible. And that’s the point.”
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cool Site of the Day, Coronavirus, Economics, Freedom, Health Care, Law, Media Bias, Politics, Regulation, Science/Technology | Tags: Confusion and Concern, Re-Opening the Coountry, The Lockdown
Scott W. Atlas, MD, is a Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and the former Chief of Neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center. Here he writes on “How to Re-Open Society Using Evidence, Medical Science, and Logic.”
I like the title: and the qualifications for his advice, especially ‘logic’. Do read the whole thing. We need to be a little more informed in the wake of the media efforts to stir up something, anything, to keep Trump from winning re-election. It’s getting heated-up out there as accusations are flying and clarity is in short supply. Here is a link to Dr. Atlas’ biography.
Also from the Hoover Institution: Peter Robinson interviews Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on his new MLB COVID-19 study and the problems of the Lockdown for Major League Baseball.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, Health Care, History, Law, National Security, News, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Essential Reading, It's Our Job!, Protecting Freedom
In the current situation, I have dragged out some old, but favorite books: Angelo M. Codevilla’s The Ruling Class, and Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom. I suspect a great many of us are sick of being confined, bossed around, and lied to. I think of government as a management group chosen to take care of the details that we cannot individually cope with. I vaguely hope that those we have chosen are up to the job, but don’t expect all that much. and I usually turn out to be more or less correct. In his Foreword. Professor Codevilla says:
It is about the fact that America now divides ever more sharply into two classes, the smaller of which holds the commanding heights of government, from which it disposes in ever greater detail of America’s economic energies, from which it ordains new ways of living as if it had the right to do so, and from which it asserts that that right is based on the majority class’s stupidity, racism, and violent tendencies.
A little later, in another chapter, he adds:
Our Ruling Class’ agenda is power for itself. It seeks and exercises that power through unremarkable patronage and promises thereof, as well as by courting supporters and denigrating opponents. These ordinary means, however, are having remarkable effects on America’s body politic, because their practice is wrapped up in our Ruling Class’ peculiar intellectual and moral pretenses. Chief among these is an ideological belief that it has an exclusive, Gnostic grip on modern science’s secrets. Nevertheless, as we look at how our Ruling Class is making our economic livelihood ever more dependent on itself, at how it is running a system of representation and a legal system quite opposite to those bequeathed to us by our founders, as well as at how it is disaggregating our families and dispiriting our souls, let us keep in mind that this agenda is driven primarily by mundane personal interest. This agenda proceeds from claims that our Ruling Class knows formulae for spreading economic wealth, for engineering social happiness, and for legal and constitutional fairness. It claims as well to be more resistant than the rest of us to the temptation to profit personally from power. In short, it proceeds from the premise of human inequality and leads to even greater inequality. But, pretenses notwithstanding, our Ruling Class was no more present at the creation of our nation than the rest of us, nor are they any less self interested. Its members too put on their pants one leg at a time.
Does that sound a bit familiar, as if it is touching on the world of today? We Americans like to think that we are the freest people on earth, that the rest of the world envies us as they cope with their difficult governments. We find AOC fascinating because of her absolute ignorance of American history and American beliefs. Today she was back with the idea that we kept illegal immigrant children in cages, to boost her support for Biden, completely unaware that it was the Obama administration which did that.
Charles Schumer spoke up to say that the Democrats would present us with a “Rooseveltian” world, as if that was something to yearn for. They still believe in FDR’s Administration, unaware that his efforts with the Great Depression made it last seven years longer than it should have. Two economists from UCLA, Lee Ohanian and Harold Cole proved that conclusively. Don’t need to do that again. We should have learned what a failure FDR was, but it’s hard to give up your heroes. Michael Moore has a new movie out admitting that wind farms and solar arrays do not work. How this will sit with the Democrats remains to be seen. They are very open to the “Green New Deal,” unfortunately.
Milton Friedman’s book is an essential for every library. He asks on the second page:
How can we benefit from the promise of government while avoiding the threat to freedom? Two broad principles embodied in our Constitution give an answer that has preserved our freedom so far, though they have been violated repeatedly in practice while proclaimed as precept.
First. the scope of government must be limited. Its major function must be to protect our freedom both from the enemies outside our gates and from our fellow citizens: to preserve law and order, to enforce private contracts, to foster competitive markets. Beyond this major function, government may enable us at times to accomplish jointly what we would find it more difficult or expensive to accomplish severally. However, any such use of government is fraught with danger. We should not and cannot avoid using government in this way. But there should be a clear and large balance of advantages before we do. By relying privately on voluntary co-operation and private enterprise, in both economic and other activities, we can insure that the private sector is a check on the powers of the governmental sector and an effective protection of freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought.
The second broad principle is that government power must be dispersed. If government is to exercise power, better in the country than in the state, better in the state than in Washington. If I do not like what my local community does, be it in sewage disposal, or zoning, or schools, I can move to another local community, and though few may take this step, the mere possibility acts as a check. If I do not like what my state does, I can move to another. If I do not like what Washington imposes, I have few alternatives in this world of jealous nations.
You see, we are not alone in our discontent. It has been recognized by some of our most celebrated minds. If that gives you some comfort in your locked-down situation. They tell us that meat should be more plentiful in the grocery stores very shortly, but that is dependent on getting everybody in the meat-packing plants in masks and protective gear, I think. The government recognizes the problem and is working on it. Nobody has explained why I could not get any eggs!
The books are available from Amazon, and used copies are really cheap.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Coronavirus, Domestic Policy, Environment, Global Warming, Health Care, History, Junk Science, Law, Media Bias, National Security, Politics, Regulation, Science/Technology | Tags: Earth Day 2020, Save The Planet, The Planet is Fine
Another Earth Day comes quietly this year. All the excitement about “saving the planet” to the extent that there was any, went back to Sweden with Greta Thunberg, who is back to working on special Fridays for skipping school to protest the lack of action on a changing climate.. San Francisco painted her picture on the side of a building, which I assume is still there. Our concern is with staying “locked down.”
Climate activists see the COVID-19 lockdowns as a dress rehearsal for “Climate Emergency.”
We have an “incredible responsibility” to “actually converge the solutions — at least the financial solutions — to coronavirus to the financial solutions for climate. Because what we cannot afford to do is to jump out of the frying pan of COVID and into the raging fire of climate change.”
Well, what more could you ask? Businesses shut down, vast unemployment as restaurants, deprived of customers cannot stay open. People forced to stay home — means no shoppers, no groups of people, means no parties, no events. Air traffic is shut down, just think of all the nasty carbon removed from the atmosphere! But the environment is in more jeopardy than ever, right? Well, no. America at the end of World War II was much dirtier than America is today in 2020. Air pollution has declined dramatically. Drinking water is clean and safe. Since pre-industrial times there has been approximately 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming, and almost 50% more CO2 in the atmosphere, which, since carbon dioxide is a natural fertilizer for plants, means the earth is getting greener. Plants and trees are growing, more hungry people are being fed. There are no more toxic waste sites that threaten the planet’s health.
So who is all excited about the COVID-19 lockdown and what it portends for America? Well, Tom Steyer, who is a loon. John Kerry, ditto, and of course Christiana Figueres. Who? Christiana Figueres was at one time the general secretary of the UN’s IPCC, and one of the people behind the infamous Paris Agreement, which President Trump firmly got us out of in 2017, which was a very good thing.
In early February of 2015, Christiana Figueres revealed at a news conference, that the object of the climate crisis was in reality not to save the Earth from degradation from a climate disaster, but to eliminate Capitalism. They truly hate the economic system that has made us free and wealthy and successful in every way. Certainly there is a lot of envy for the booming American economy, the rich, the wealth of goods produced, and undoubtedly the way we go around the world trying to help out, disapproving of other governments who don’t consider freedom as a worthy value, when what they want is more control. You would think they might consider trying a little capitalism just to see if it would work, but rage and envy are all they have. Even our very own Democrats don’t get it.
So Happy Earth Day, 2020. Mark Perry at AEI called up the video from stand-up comedian George Carlin who shared his thoughts in 2007 on the whole saving the planet bit. Great fun, even if you’ve seen it before.
Filed under: Coronavirus, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, Health Care, History, Politics, Regulation, The United States | Tags: Ending the Shutdown, Protests and Repression, The Corona Virus
Americans don’t like being bossed around. The corona virus shutdown has gone on too long and people want to get back to normal. They want to go back to work, a good percentage of those who were working from home would just as soon head back to the office. Life has been so disrupted that they just want it to stop. The advisories about the disease have been challenged so much that they don’t know what’s really necessary anymore. Is it really important to stay six feet away from everyone? Different medical experts don’t agree with each other, and nobody knows who is right or wrong.
Protests are breaking out, people are trying to organize bigger protests, Facebook and Twitter are not going to allow their free speech, because they want to control what people may or may not say on their venues, without understanding that their efforts at control are also offensive. President Trump clearly recognizes the need of the public to get back to work, yet COVID-19 is far more infectious than was originally assumed, and he doesn’t want more Americans to die. How much is needed protection of the American people and how much can be ignored because it is too much control?
Democrats are desperately anxious to prevent Donald Trump from winning a second term. Are they still enraged that Hillary won the popular vote, but not, as the Constitution allows, the Electoral College? They intend to get rid of the Electoral College as quickly as possible, so that will not happen again. Does anyone stop to think about where we would be if Hillary had been elected? We would still have the corona virus emergency. When Hillary was Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, one of her Ambassadors in a country under threat from terrorists, had been begging for weeks for more security. Hillary ignored the pleas, and in consequence killed not only her Ambassador, but his aide and two valiant former Navy Seals who were all lost in an attack on the Embassy. And she would have protected a nation from a poorly understood virus?
On the other hand, Communism and Socialism appeal to some because they offer more control of the people. America exists because earliest settlers objected to British efforts to control and tax her American citizens. The impulse to control the actions and thoughts of other people is buried deep in human nature. People who are quite sure they are right simply want everybody else to do it their way. You see Communism at work in China, with everyone monitored all the time. Correct and obedient behavior will earn you privileges like being able to take a trip on a train or bus.
So here we are. Feisty Americans are sick of the shutdown, and they want it ended now. How will this one play out? The people of other countries react a little differently. Is it just Americans too used to freedom, and having won wars to defend their freedom to whom it really matters?
American Elephants 