Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Election 2020, Environment, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, Global Warming, History, Humor, Immigration, Liberalism, Media Bias, Politics, Progressives, The United States | Tags: Blame., Guilt, Your Fault!
What is it about Liberals? Why do they want us all to feel guilty? We are not supposed to be thankful on Thanksgiving, because we should feel guilty about the Native Americans. We should feel guilty if we call them Indians rather than “Native Americans”.
Some, “Antifa” or something else, have been out rioting and tearing down statues again this weekend, The statues are torn down because we should feel guilty about putting up a statue to someone currently considered unworthy. like George Washington because he once owned a few slaves. Though historically he did not like slavery and had no wish to create a plantation out of Mount Vernon. But that was 244 years ago, and statues of George Washington must be destroyed today to assuage our guilt? Makes no sense whatsoever.
George Washington, father of our country, had a few things more going for him than just the possibility that he owned a very few slaves. Many plantation owners did own slaves at the time, Society, worldwide had not yet decided that owning slaves was wrong. The young people out to riot and break windows and loot and break things seem far more interested in doing that and getting away with it because they were part of a big bunch of people all having fun doing it. Had they been promptly arrested and stuck in cells until someone bailed them out, the whole rationale for rioting might be somewhat different.
Those who choose to feel guilty about celebrating Thanksgiving because we displaced the Indians, might remember that the Native Americans did a lot of massacres as well, of the intruding Englishmen. The history of civilization is full of people being displaced by other warlike tribes, and civilizations have arisen and vanished all over the earth. Supposedly that is why we study history to understand how the world has changed in the past and will undoubtedly change more in the future. But we really don’t need to feel guilty about a past that we had nothing to do with.
If you recall, when Joe Biden decided to run for the office of the presidency, he said that he wanted a black woman as his vice president, and so chose Kamala Harris. So he wanted the credit for choosing a black woman who might become the first black and the first woman to become president rather than choosing someone for their outstanding qualifications and skills.
If you appear in public without wearing a mask, you are supposed to feel guilty. Governors have ordered people to refrain from having Thanksgiving dinners because of Covid. Wags have tacked lifesize representations of those governors to windows where people might be having a Thanksgiving dinner against governors orders. Those governors who issued orders and then had their own celebration were quickly discovered and mocked in the press, and theoretically made to feel properly guilty. Anyone departing from the conventional wisdom of the moment must be guilty, and exposed.
It was hard to choose an image, because there are so many. All the members of the House abjectly kneeling on the floor of Congress. AOC weeping as she clings to a chain-link fence staring out at what turned out to be an empty parking lot that supposedly represented imprisoned illegals at the border, Elizabeth Warren emphasizing her “Indian heritage”, once even with a Native American. All the previous presidents conferring happily with Vladimir Putin, but only Trump being accused of some kind of wrongdoing across a table from him.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Election 2020, Freedom, History, Media Bias, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, Technology, The United States | Tags: 2020 Election, Democrat Corruption, vote fraud
I have no idea if any of President Trump’s efforts to expose the vast amounts of fraud in the election will bear fruit. A little common sense suggests that it was undoubtedly massive, but scattered. Democrats have spent the last four years trying to demonize, dislodge, destroy, discredit in one way or another, anything that Donald Trump did. There is always partisanship in elections, that’s why there is more than one party. But after the onslaught of attacks over the four years, to assume that the election was clean, fair, and honest defies common sense.
The Obama Administration went to work even before Donald Trump took office, and a summary of their efforts over the four years is startling. It began with claims of Russian association, and grew from that. Hollywood “celebrities” chimed in daily, which gets them brownie points in Lefty Hollywood. There has always been plenty of partisanship, but the effort to destroy Trump and the seething hatred for him has been quite remarkable. In four years, he’s managed to do quite a good job in spite of them. I’ve lived through quite a number of presidential administrations, and this one has been something new and different. He got the economy going again, raised possibilities for Blacks significantly with opportunity zones.
A Chinese virus arrived in the Seattle area was soon identified, and traffic from China was ended promptly. No, Trump was not responsible for the deaths from the virus, but he put in place an effort to understand the disease and find temporary remedies and develop what promise to be successful vaccines in just four years. That is really quite remarkable. Democrats have tried to blame him for each fatality, and encouraged a world of riots, protests and damage to citizens and shop holders. Stores, all kinds of businesses, vehicles, civic buildings, statues mindlessly torn down, race wars, a nationwide temper tantrum, and we are suppose to assume that the recent election was peaceful, fair, and honest? Uh-huh.
That does not mean that the presumed election of Joe Biden can be overturned. We’ll see what happens when the Electoral College meets on December 14, and if Biden is then declared president-elect.
Like many who have never felt it necessary to investigate anything, Biden seems to have swallowed whole the idea that if we don’t do something right now about the climate, we have little time left. The autistic child from Sweden whose job is to enrich her parents, is still a world celebrity. “Environmentalists” are often not the people who know something about the environment, but people who “feel” about the environment. Somewhere I think I still have an entertaining video of some tree-lovers out loving trees. Did you see the news that the Christmas tree arrived at the White House with an owl still tucked in among the branches.? Cute little fellow.
Filed under: Big Tech, Capitalism, Capitalism, Coronavirus, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Election 2020, Global Warming, Junk Science, Law, Media Bias, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, Socialism, The Constitution
He said he had a “mandate” He just seemed a little unsure about what the mandate was about. It seems to be about the climate, but polls show that people aren’t particularly worried about the climate. The Earth has warmed slightly, and there is a little increased CO2, which is plant food. Carbon dioxide is a natural fertilizer for plants, and crops around the world are growing a little more bountiful, and there are far fewer hungry people.
Joe Biden wants to ban “fracking” which is simply an easier, cleaner way of extracting natural gas. He waffles a lot, I guess because he doesn’t know what fracking is, only that it is clearly bad. Raising the price of gasoline drastically would be crippling for the economy- a jump from around $2 to over $4 would make people sit up and notice.
Since somewhere around 1988 politicians and activists have tried to sell the American people on the idea that fossil fuels are bad, and that we have access to remedies. We don’t. Wind and solar don’t work. We have pretty conclusively proved that. They simply do not and cannot produce enough energy to run a modern society. What gets transitioned is your standard of living.
You can replace coal, for example, with natural gas, but you haven’t accomplished anything. The wind does not blow all the time, and may not blow for days, and some days it may blow too hard for the turbines. The sun does not shine every day. There are clouds. Some days it rains. Nuclear power works, but since Chernobyl and Fukushima in Japan, there’s not much interest in nuclear energy. Wind turbines and solar arrays cannot be manufactured or installed without massive quantities of fossil fuels. Nothing happens in our modern world without fossil fuels, from our manufacturers to a trip to the grocery store where most of the products are produced with the use of fossil fuels, to the fleets of trucks that transport goods around the country.
Democrats claim there is no election fraud, but seven Milwaukee Wards report more presidential votes than registered voters. State voter turnout is nearly 90 percent, which is virtually impossible. The Climate Crisis and the Covid Crisis are melding. The WHO Director-General said the pandemic has given new impetus to the need to accelerate efforts to respond to climate change, which they said in 2018 was the greatest health challenge of the 21st century. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon says it’s time to “Reinvent Capitalism Post-Coronavirus. But never fear, Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian has spoken with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, about building a better Tech Industry.
Enter Solyndra in the blank space over Bob Hope’s head in the sidebar. That was a massive and costly solar experiment. And as for wind farms, it costs over $35,000 to dismantle a single worn-out turbine, if I remember correctly.
My favorite voter remains the elderly gentleman who voted, who was born in 1823. There are other surprising voters, but that one takes the cake.
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, Economics, Election 2020, Environment, Global Warming, History, Junk Science, Media Bias, Progressivism, The United States | Tags: Christiana Figueres, Climate Change, Elizabeth Warren
RECENT EARTH CLIMATE HISTORY
600 – 200 B.C.: An Unnamed Cold Period
200 BC to about AD 600: The Roman Warming
600 to 900: The Dark Ages Cold Period
900 to 1300: Medieval Warming
1300 to 1850: The Little Ice Age (two stages)
MODERN CLIMATE HISTORY
1850 – 1940: Especially between 1920-1940: Warming
1940 to 1975: Cooling Trend
1976-1978: Sudden Warming Spurt
1979 to 1998: +1º
1998 to 2011: +1º
The Medieval Warming period led to the Renaissance which began approximately in 1300 and ended approximately in 1700. A bountiful time, wine grapes grew in England, food was plentiful and there was a flowering of learning and art. Think Michelangelo, Raphael, and Copernicus among others. What I’m getting at here, is the idea that if we are facing climate doom, the world is going to die in 10 or 12 years if we don’t save it by stopping “fracking,” stop using oil and gasoline, and eliminating plastic bags. That’s what you get for listening to “celebrities” instead of studying up on the science.
I was an English Major, which means that I learned how to read hard stuff, and read a lot. That does not mean that I’m always right, much as I like to think so. Christiana Figueres, the General Secretary of the IPCC, was quite sure that the object of “climate change” was as a tool to get rid of Capitalism. Leftists do not like capitalism, which seems a bit strange, but economics is not their strong point. Capitalists to them are business CEOs and owners, and the “Rich”. The Left is entitled to be in charge because they are morally superior, it would be helpful if we all understood that.
Conservatives have long sneered at the Left because they were the Southern slave owners in the Civil War, but the Left has ended that accusation by electing the first black president, who served for two terms, which puts them back in the morally superior category. Global Warming, plastic bags, ending fracking, and giving taxpayer money to illegal aliens adds to their sense of superiority.
America is a nation of immigrants, as you know, which leads them to believe that immigrants are special, and just because they can’t be bothered to enter the country the legal way, shouldn’t keep them from sharing in the bounty of America. So Leftists care about illegal immigrants, which means hating I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and making sure that illegal immigrants get stimulus money. It is that mindset that makes them believe that if little immigrant children were kept in cages, it was obviously done by conservatives, contrary to the actual actions of the Obama administration. Once you get the “entitled to be in charge because they are morally superior” theme firmly in mind, it makes understanding all the other stuff simple. Or at least it helps.
Elizabeth Warren ranted that President Trump was trying to kill everybody in the world because he would not correctly address climate change, or something like that. The very slight warming we have had has brought enormous blessings to the world. The slight increase in the amount of CO² in the atmosphere has been a bounty for mankind for it is a natural fertilizer for plants. More bountiful crops mean the hungry are well fed and there is less starvation in the world. Forests grow more as well, and there is more wood for fuel and for building homes.
In case there is any confusion, Elizabeth Warren is calling her climate program “The Blue New Deal”. Don’t want any confusion with the Green thing.
Do make time to visit Climate Depot and Dr. Roy Spencer and the others listed in the sidebar. There’s an enormous amount of hype out there, and the best defense are informed citizens. Solar energy and wind energy are nice, when they aren’t killing birds, but they cannot provide the energy needed by a modern society. Just doesn’t work.
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: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Energy, Environment, Global Warming, History, Junk Science, Law, Media Bias, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, Science/Technology, The United States
We have had some nice rain over the last two days, and the skies have cleared, the air has cleared, and we’re pretty much back to normal. California is not. The government is not sure at all just who they should listen to, and the result has been a catastrophe.
Environmentalists want everyone to believe that we can forego nasty petroleum fuels, and rely on clean, beautiful wind and solar energy which is free, well, except for the huge cost of wind turbines, their upkeep, the rare minerals required to construct them and the underlying simple fact that the wind does not blow all the time, nor does the sun shine on solar arrays all the time. There are cloudy days and rainy days when neither wind nor sun are noticeable. Wind and sun may be visible, but they are not necessarily available when needed. We are so accustomed to having energy at the flick of a switch that we don’t really give it any thought at all.
At the dawn of the nuclear age, we thought we could power anything with nuclear energy, but then there was the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, still an abandoned city, I believe. And then the Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011 in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, which was started by the Tòhoku earthquake and tsunami. A couple of disasters like that and interest in nuclear plants begins to fade. In the United States we have some great river systems and dams that produce lots of reliable energy, but the environmentalists squawk about the fish runs and damage the dams do. Probably everything that has an upside also has a downside. Some want to remove all dams, just because.
We are uncertain about costs and benefits, usefulness and dangers, needs, in other words we don’t know very much about the problems at all, and are apt to fall for anything that sounds good, particularly if it is fairly remote. When it’s your house that burned down, you pay a little closer attention.
Dr. Roy Spencer PhD, who runs the satellites that measure the earths’ temperature for NASA, has several basis articles at his website on, for example, “Global Warming 101”, “Global Warming Background”, “Global Warming Natural or Manmade?” which you will find useful. There are others in the sidebar, and each of those will direct you to other scientific sites.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is getting a well-deserved batch of criticism for his handling of the wildfires. The Native Americans learned to minimize the damage by controlled small fires and cutting away dead trees and brush, but we moderns have had more trouble getting our minds around the problem. Did you know it costs something over $43,000 to dismantle a single wind turbine?
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Immigration, Law, Media Bias, Police, Politics, Progressives, Regulation, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: A Dependable Scholar, Facts and Statistics, Heather MacDonald
Democrats are undoubtedly studying late into the night, to find a way to disrupt President Trump’s naming of a candidate for the Supreme Court to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. They are considering a new impeachment trial or two, whether this brings back the Russian horde is not known. One supposes that Russians rate higher on the really terrifying terrorists than those from other countries. After all the Russians are known for suddenly poisoning people right on the street.
They supposedly are considering just walking out, boycotting as it were, to delay the inevitable. Speaker Pelosi apparently has a couple of impeachments up her sleeves, she clearly feels that most everything Trump has done is grounds for impeachment, and considers it an excellent way to get the nomination of anyone over and done with. Almost anything will do because what they want is delay, so that it becomes too late to advance a candidate before the election.
They speak in generalities, and of course what the Supreme Court is all about is insisting that matters of law follow the Constitution. And of course at that point what is it that they really meant when they wrote the Constitution? I assume that by this time you are as sick of all the nonsense as I am and want them to just get on with the business of the government. The Constitution is quite clear. When there is a vacancy, the President may nominate a successor, who is to be approved by the Senate. Simple and clear.
The difficult part is that Amy Comey Barrett, who seems to be the leading candidate, is a practicing Catholic. The great fear is that she might rule on Roe v. Wade, the abortion bill, passed and in effect, but could be brought before the Court again. This is an immeasurably contentious bill. Many women feel that nobody else has any right to tell them what they may or may not do with their bodies. Others see abortion as the murder of a real baby. When things are in such dramatic opposition, there is no comfortable middle ground. And of course religion has strong opinions.
In this day and age, when preventive measures are readily available, if one does not want to bear a child, it seems incumbent on them to use preventative measures. Responsibility is required. No one should have to bear a child conceived by rape, but just how you sort that out is difficult. There are a lot of couples who are unable to bear children and desperate to adopt.
There are many areas that are equally contentious matters. Look at the current furor about the police. At one end of the scale is Chicago, which seems to have some violent neighborhoods and a significant weekly death toll. Some seem to think that the police are so violent and corrupt that they must be eliminated, and others who know of too much drugs and street crime in their cities want more police protection.
Your best source for sorting things out is Heather MacDonald, a serious scholar who goes to the source and digs out the real statistics, as opposed to what is more sensational and reported on the news. You can find her at the Manhattan Institute, or City Journal, or her many valuable books : The War on Cops, The Burden of Bad Ideas, Are Cops Racist?, and The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan Than Today’s. All invaluable. Or just type her name into your search-bar.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Election 2020, Freedom, History, Law, Liberalism, Media Bias, News of the Weird, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, Socialism, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Democrat Control Freaks, My Way or the Highway, Never Mind the Constitution
Clearly the Democrat Party has gone stark raving bonkers. They firmly believe that they are supposed to be in control of the federal government and clearly Donald Trump is an aberration. Not supposed to be that way. They were destined to have the first woman President of the United States, and they still haven’t recovered and are still desperately trying to find a way to get rid of the evil Donald Trump. They keep dragging up the Russians, but the facts simply don’t support their efforts. I’m beginning to think that they were so fixated on electing the First Woman President, that they have simply gone a bit off the rails. Those “Firsts” on the record are very important to Democrats.
Their hatred for President Trump has surpassed all norms. Bob Woodward, longtime journalist, features himself as an investigative journalist, with many left-leaning books to his credit about any scandal he can hype. He, of course, doesn’t like Donald Trump. So this time, he blames President Trump for the Corona-19 virus and every death it caused. If you are going throw accusations around, might as well pick a biggie.
I live currently in a Seattle suburb. The first American exposure and death from Covid-19, came to the next suburb just north of my house. Apparently someone carrying the disease returned to relatives in a nursing home directly from Wuhan, China. Everyone contacted by that person contracted the disease and most died. President Trump slapped a freeze on flights from China immediately. Vast outcry from the Left. Bigot, Racist, etc, etc, etc. Trump gathered up the most informed advisers he could find, Dr.Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in January of 2020, and Dr. Rebecca Birx, and listened closely to their advice. State Governors demanded help, they needed ventilators, Trump pushed American auto makers to shift some production to making ventilators, Governors demanded more hospital beds, Trump sent two US Navy hospital ships, and military hospitals were set up in parks and stadiums where there was room. Masks were needed and produced. The record goes on with the President trying to meet every new need, and shut down that which was not safe. Impossible to control everything that was going on. New York Governor Cuomo directed ailing elders to be treated in senior care homes, and caused vast numbers of deaths of the elderly. Cruise ships that had someone infected on board became death traps. Lots of deadly mistakes were made as we learned about the disease. Mr. Woodward, a small former journalistic star, has betrayed his profession and whatever honored journalistic career he once had, with a partisan attack that is just a partisan lie. Shame on him.
Now we have the battle of the Supreme Court. Democrats are outraged that with Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death, President Trump will, as the Constitution requires, name a new justice for the Senate to approve. Democrats are threatening to impeach Trump once again, for any reason they can think up, anything to keep him from naming a new candidate to replace the late Justice Ginsberg. He has no right to do this when there’s an election coming up in two months, and Biden might win, and then he would appoint a left-leaning candidate.
The Constitution is just fine, until it doesn’t support what you want to do. Naming a potentially conservative justice to the Supreme Court just means the Democrats will have to pack the court and expand the number of justices so they can be in control. They are Democrats and entitled not to be troubled by some hillbilly backwoods bunch of Conservatives, who just don’t understand the way it was meant to be.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Domestic Policy, Environment, History, Junk Science, Media Bias, Politics | Tags: Dead Brush and Trees Removed, It is NOT Climate Change, Thinned Forests
We had a little rain last night. Not exactly the needed downpour, but still significant rain, and the hill across the way is now more visible. Today there is supposed to be light rain, and it’s not till next Thursday that the online forecast suggests real rain. We’ll see. The online forecast seems to be an iffy business. On the way to an appointment yesterday, downtown Bellevue was wreathed in light gray smoke. Just enough so to be noticeable. It is raining now.
“Climate Change” is quite emphatically not the cause of wildfires in the Pacific Coast States — California, Oregon and Washington, no matter how plaintively the governors of those respective states claim that it is beyond their control. The fires are man-made and have resulted in unnecessary deaths. The cause is mismanagement of western forestlands by the elected officials who are charged with managing them efficiently for the benefit of the public who has given them those offices.
There are “environmentalists” who dream of natural green forests and don’t like the idea of human interference. I usually assume that they all live in downtown apartments, and have little contact with actual nature. I grew up on 400 acres of actual nature with a river flowing through it, bordering on National Forest and Bureau of Land Management land. There are unfriendly animals, bear, coyotes, lynx and cougar, rattlesnakes, skunks, and porcupines. Never ran into a cougar, but I’ve heard them scream. ”
“Environmentalists” have warped ideas of the out-of-doors which they encounter only on long weekends and vacations. Their ideas of pristine nature don’t mix with solar cells and windmills. Sounds good, but they just do not produce enough energy to maintain a modern society. Nuclear energy works well, but since Chernobyl in 1986 and the Fukushima disaster in 2011, people are scared of nuclear energy, though neither accident was inevitable. We learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others, not always, but often.
We are not interfering with nature if we clear out the deadwood and trim trees and dead brush across forestlands and wilderness. We do it in our own yards so it doesn’t become an eyesore. California Governor Gavin Newsom and Washington Governor Jay Inslee are major climate fanatics, assuming that “climate change” is to blame for anything unpleasant. There’s been widespread objection to “clear cutting” and logging in general. Joe Biden is already suggesting that he would adopt the “Green New Deal” which is more useless windmills and his back and forth about banning “fracking” which he was all for until he found out that there are a lot of “fracking” jobs in Pennsylvania.
West Coast wildfire will not end with a fight on climate change. Clear cutting and controlled burning to thin overgrown forest and removing deadwood works nicely. Native Americans have been managing their forests for years with just such efforts. Joe Biden has accused President Trump of being a “climate arsonist” for not “heeding the science” in claiming that climate change is the cause of the wildfires. The headline at Politico is “Biden labels Trump a climate arsonist, accusing him of net heeding science.” Uh huh.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, History, Media Bias, National Security, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Police, Politics, Progressives, Regulation | Tags: Consequences, Damage in the Millions, Riots and Mayhem
What happens to a city that is consumed with riots and protests, damage to shops and businesses, looting, police attacked, cars and other vehicles damaged or destroyed? We have answers from many businesses, who say they are moving out. Some to other safer cities or safer states, some to different areas of a city. Some just giving up. Do lots of new businesses move in to replace them? That will be a long time coming.
Portland is coming up on 100 days of riots and protests in the streets. The mayor impolitely said “no thanks” to the President’s offer of federal help to quell the violence. Portland has become nationally known as a home to Antifa.
When we have had big celebrations or parades in Seattle, it is not unusual for Portland Antifa to come up and try to start trouble. Curious about what Antifa is? Or other questionable groups? Visit www.discoverthenetworks.org to learn about the organizations attempting to tear America down.
So people will want to risk starting up a business in downtown Portland? Or Portland at all? People who were thinking about moving to a new city are going to move to Portland? If a city gets a bad reputation, how long does it take to get rid of it, and prove that the bad reputation was not justified. And how many people just decide to move elsewhere. There are always ramifications. And that goes for Minneapolis, and Kenosha as well.
How did we get here? Who decided that rioting and protesting were the way to go? Not really all that surprising.
We know the Democrats are desperate to be in control, but American elections should not descend to this level.
ADDENDUM: Here’s another take on The Economic Scars of Rioting from National Review. Democrats need to be held accountable for what they have done with their Trump Derangement Syndrome. What makes it even more pathetic is that he is doing a remarkably good job. The unemployment rate has dropped to 8.4% as August has seen 1.4 million new jobs. The fourth straight month of added jobs in the economy. Back in April unemployment was 14.7%. Looks like we may have a Corona Virus vaccine later this fall. If you look hard there is lots of other good news, and big accomplishments.
American Elephants 