Steyer Says Bye

Word is that Tom Steyer is dropping out of the presidential race tonight.

Right before the 1960 presidential election, John Kennedy wrote a book called Profiles in Courage.  (Okay, Pierre Salinger wrote the book but it was published under Kennedy's name.) 

Steyer should release a sequel called Profiles in Uselessness.  It could be all about how Steyer spent a quarter of a billion dollars running for president without winning even one delegate.  How embarrassing.

SCo-Mo

Old Joe Biden has won the South Carolina primary by a big margin and the media is already talking about whether or not Mike Bloomberg will drop out.  What complete nonsense.

First, Biden just won his first contest after losing in Iowa (4th), New Hampshire (5th)  and Nevada (2d).  This is hardly the rebirth of his campaign.  He's not dead, but he's hardly moving out to the front.  Biden only won in SC because, for the first time, there were a majority of black voters going to the polls.  That demography will be in place in only one of the 14 states that vote next Tuesday.  It's quite a stretch to think that Biden's doing well in SC means that he will come in strong across all 14 of those states.

Second, the polls in all the Tuesday states have Biden leading in only 2.  Sanders is up in most of the rest with Klobuchar ahead in Minnesota.  It's hard to believe that a win on a Saturday night will change the votes of millions of people two days later.

The mindless media ought to be more honest with its viewers.  Instead of using the last vote to indicate what will necessarily happen the following week in a different state, it might be nice if these geniuses didn't just jump to conclusions based upon what they heard last.

It's worth remembering the GOP primary in South Carolina in 2012.  In that race, Newt Gingrich won a blow out victory over Mitt Romney and others.  Newt's margin was much like Biden's this year.  After that Gingrich didn't win another state and soon dropped out of the race.

Biden deserves kudos for winning.  That's all.  When he wins a batch more states (if he ever does), there will be time enough for predicting where the entire nomination race is going.  Right now, it's way too soon.

One last note:  this is the third time Biden has run for president.  Tonight was the very first primary or caucus that Joe has ever won.

The Afghanistan Agreement

The USA signed a deal which is supposed to end the fighting in Afghanistan.  The Taliban and the Afghan government are the other signatories.  This is BIG BIG BIG BIG news.

Maybe the mainstream media is just slow, but this morning, the only media outlet I could find that was highlighting the peace treaty was the New York Post.

How can the media ignore or downplay the end to the longest war in US history?

The New Hoax Nonsense

It's truly disgusting to read the coverage in some of the Fake News media about what the President said regarding the corona virus.  According to many mainstream media outlets, Trump called the corona virus a "Hoax".  That's a blatant lie.  I know that because I actually watched Trump make the statement that the media is distorting.

Trump actually said that the Democrats and the media are not telling the truth with regard to how he has been dealing with the fight against the corona virus.  He didn't call the virus a hoax.  That's rather obvious to anyone who pays even the slightest attention to the news.  Two days ago, Trump held a press conference in the White House to explain to the American people what we know of the threat of the virus and about the steps being taken to try to control its spread.  That's not a hoax.  Starting about the same day, however, the media and the Dems have gone into overdrive to claim (falsely) that the President doesn't understand the threat of the virus, that he isn't doing enough to fight it, and that he has dismantled the government's ability to fight the virus.  None of that is true.

First, as for understanding the threat, Trump got that early.  That's why the USA had a ban on admitting people from China more than a month ago.  Interestingly enough, the Democrats and the media lambasted Trump for putting that ban in place.  It was "racist" and unfair according to such Dem leaders as Chuck Schumer.  Actually, though, it gave the USA another month to get ready for the virus by stopping the spread into this country from China (and then other places with major outbreaks.)

As for not doing enough to fight the virus, this is based mainly on the amount of money that Trump asked Congress to appropriate for the fight against the disease.  Trump requested $2.5 billion and said that he would use the $2.5 billion already appropriated for fighting the Ebola disease.  The Dems went crazy.  It's not enough and we shouldn't take money away from Ebola.  Nancy Pelosi called it shameful.  Within a day, the President said that if they wanted to appropriate more money, that would  be great.  It didn't matter.  Since then, the Dems in the House haven't appropriated anything or even taken any steps to do so.  Instead, they spent all their time complaining that Trump didn't ask for enough.

Finally, as to "dismantling" the government's ability to fight the virus, it's just another lie.  Trump did propose in his budget to reduce appropriations for the staffing of part of the CDC, but since Congress never passed appropriations on the subject, there were no cuts.

The criticism of Trump in this regard is truly a hoax.  It would be nice if the media and the Democrats would concern themselves with actually trying to protect Americans rather than with scoring political points based on lies.  The virus is serious stuff.  America needs serious people in Congress.

Trying For Defeat

Joe Biden is at it again.  Today, he told a crowd in South Carolina that the idea that China is any competition for the USA is "bizarre".   Biden had said the same thing last fall only to retract it a day or so later.  Now he's at it again.  China is a poor weak country according to Old Joe.  It can't even feed its own people or so Old Joe says.  Just look at how China treats its Muslim minority; Joe says this proves China is weak.  Actually China has the majority of its Muslims in prison camps.  Why does that indicate strength or weakness?  It just shows cruelty, inhumanity and a total disregard for human rights.

Tomorrow is the South Carolina primary.  It's Old Joe's chance to finally win one.  It sure looks like his statement today was Joe's plan to fall apart under pressure.

Take A Deep Breath

I'm angry.  I just listened to news reports from CBS and read articles from other mainstream media sources and saw messages from the Democrat candidates, all about the corona virus.  These people seem to be working a full blast to try to make this into a full scale panic.

Here's an example:  At 8:25, the CBS market reporter said that the market futures were holding at about down a bit less than half a percent where, he said, they had been for hours.  Five minutes later, the network put on a report about how the markets were continuing to "collapse".  The reporter could hardly catch his breath; he seemed in a panic.  Half a percent decline is hardly a collapse.  Sure, it comes after days of bad numbers, but it seemed more like the start of a pause.

Other sources are talking about the virus in apocalyptic terms.  Someone in NY is being tested for the virus.  OH NO!!!  They still don't know where one patient in California caught the disease.  Oh NO!!

Elizabeth Warren says we are in the midst of a "market crash" and a calamitous pandemic.  She's doing what she can to panic people.

Look. the corona virus is bad; no sane person would deny the possibilities.  It's not that bad, however.  Instead of generating panic, the media should be reporting information to educate people as to how to try to prevent the spread of the disease should it come to that.  Politicians should be trying to encourage people, not panic them.

Sixty Cases

There have been 60 cases of corona virus in the USA. That’s not very many

Of the 60 total, roughly 50 are people already known to be sick when they were brought back to the USA. These are Americans who were sick and stuck abroad. They went directly to medical facilities. The other 15 are people who came back from abroad with no sign of the disease or family members of those people with one exception. There is 1 person for whom the doctors can’t trace a line back to China.

From the level of hysteria you would think there were tens of thousands dying each day

I really can’t stand media hysteria pushed by morons who don’t seem to understand what’s going on.  

What About The Actual Facts?

I tuned into the Town Hall for Elizabeth Warren last night.  I watched for at least 30 seconds.  Warren fielded a question from a young black man who announced that those hardest hit in this country by climate change are people of color and who then asked Warren what she would do about it.  Warren began her response by talking about the importance of "climate change justice".  That was enough for me; I turned that nonsense off.

Think about this.  There is a debate about the existence and the cause of climate change; Warren and the questioner don't care about that debate.  That's fine.  The problem, though, is that their climate change position is predicated on predictions that a rise in greenhouse gases will cause the earth to warm by between 2 and 3 degrees over the next century.  How does a rise in the winter from lows of 42 to 44 degrees cause major harm especially to people of color?  How does a rise in the summer high temperatures from 90 to 92 cause major harm especially to people of color?  Just asking the question shows how silly it is.

Believe it or not, everything is not dependent on race.  The moron who asked the question does not understand this.  Warren should know better.  Either she does and should not be president because she is pandering to racists, or she doesn't and is therefore too stupid or misguided to be president.  

The Corona Virus Press Conference

President Trump gave a press conference that ended a few minutes ago.  The topic was the corona virus and the US response.  It was really worth watching.  Here are the key takeaways:

1.  So far there are only 15 cases of the virus in the USA and of those people, nearly all have recovered or are about to be fully recovered.  The bulk of the cases mentioned in the media as "US cases" are actually American people who were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship off the Japanese coast who were eventually returned to the USA and are being held in quarantine.

2.  There are some obviously knowledgeable and talented people who are heading the American response to the virus.

3.  The President put VP Pence in charge of organizing further US response to the threat of the virus.

4.  There are some simple measures that people can take to reduce the threat of the spread of the virus.  These are the basic measures that one would use to combat the spread of the flu.  Things like washing your hands, covering your coughs, and staying home if you feel sick are simple, but effective.

5.  The President does not want to politicize the fight against the spread of the virus.  He said that both Democrats and Republicans should be working together on this problem.

6.  There is no need for panic.

Trump gets high marks for this press conference.

Some Late Commentary on Last Night's Democrat Debate

What can one say about a bunch of adults talking over each other while waiving their arms to try to get recognition?  What can one say about moderators who don't ask obvious and important questions but who stick instead to things already covered many times?  What can one say about people who "misspeak" or lie or just seem to make things up as they go along?

The answer to these questions is to say, "It was just a typical Democrat debate."

Last night's clown show was no exception to the rule.  The Democrat debate was a disaster.

What's An Emergency

In the last few days, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized the Trump administration for seeking too many appeals to the Supreme Court on the basis that there is an "emergency".  At the same time, Democrat candidates for president have criticized Trump for not declaring an "emergency" due to the corona virus.  And, for what it is worth, the city of San Francisco yesterday declared a corona virus "emergency" even though there are NO cases of the virus in or even near that city.

So what's an emergency?  Why is it not a public health emergency in San Francisco when literally thousands of homeless people are defecating on the sidewalks and in parks and streets all over the city?  The diseases that can be spread through contact with that filth are rather severe, but the city does nothing to stop or even reduce the problem.  Centuries of human advancement in disposing of waste and in securing public health are being tossed aside in San Francisco, but they don't consider that an emergency.  Nope, the only health emergency is the possibility that a disease that has not come to San Francisco might make it there.  It's worth noting that one of the suspected transmission methods for the corona virus is through human feces.  In San Francisco, that could lead to a catastrophe because the city has failed to have any reasonable public health efforts.

Emergencies are not meant to be political weapons.  

There is No JUSTIFICATION For This

The Senate is considering a bill that would require medical care to be given to babies who are born alive after a failed abortion.  The Senate Democrats have filibustered the bill.  This afternoon, the senate voted 56 to 41 to end the filibuster.  There had to be 60 votes to stop the Democrats' filibuster, so the bill is now dead.

Think about that.  Senate Democrats, and ONLY Senate Democrats, voted to deny medical care to babies born alive if an abortion fails.  Senate Democrats voted to let babies die after birth is their mothers wanted them aborted.

I do not care where one comes down on the issue of abortion during the early portion of pregnancy.  An abortion at 3 months is very different than one at eight months where the child survives and then is just left to suffer and die because the mother no longer wants the child.  These babies are American citizens.  They are people, not fetuses (if you make that distinction).  They are entitled to the right that each of us have to LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Before Roe v. Wade, there was a congressman, Father Drinan, who was a Catholic priest.  He often said that when asked about abortion in the case of childrens with birth defects like Downs Syndrome or the like, that why not let the baby be born and then, if it had a birth defect, it could be put to death.  He wasn't serious.  In 1970, the idea that a baby would be left to die after birth was unthinkable, even for those who supported abortion.

How did the pro-abortionists get to the point where they think that leaving a baby without care so that it will die after a botched abortion is a moral or proper thing to do.

What's next?  Will the abortionists propose that mothers who have children but change their minds within the first six months can have the babies killed -- I mean aborted-- at that point?

The people who voted to bar treatment to these children born alive are monsters. 

And by the way, every Democrat presidential candidate holds that position.

Even CNN says It was a Lie

Remember a few days ago when the New York Times said that the intelligence agencies said that Russia was engaged in helping Trump?  Well now CNN is reporting that was just wrong. There’s no evidence of the Russians helping Trump. The source for the Times story was Adam Schiff

Does he ever tell the truth?

Trump and Modi -- Ignored By the Media

There really has been precious little coverage of President Trump's trip to India.  So far, I saw a number of stories about Trump's visit to the Taj Mahal with the first lady.  There were a few stories about the enormous rally held in a cricket stadium.  Today, the media focus seems to be a violent demonstration completely unrelated to Trump that happened in India while he was there.  These all miss the point of the visit, however.

Trump is signing a deal with Indian prime minister Modi during the trip for the USA to sell India about $3 billion in arms.  India is moving much closer to the USA.  That's the big news.  Anyone who remembers the Cold War remembers India as the head of the "non-aligned" nations.  Prime ministers like Indira Ghandi tried to play the USA off against the Soviet Union.  India stagnated economically in those years under socialism.  In the last decade or so, however, India has moved decisively away from socialism and embraced capitalism.  The result has been a rapidly growing Indian economy and a rising standard of living across the subcontinent.  Literally tens or hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty in India.  Indeed, India is now a growing rival in Asia for China.  The fact of much closer relations between the USA and India is one of the major geopolitical events of the last five years.  It has the ability to reshape much of what happens in Asia.  It's very good news for America.  No wonder the media is ignoring it.

But Hey, That Was Some Good Literacy Program

Bernie Sanders in the last few days has repeated some things he said over the years regarding Cuba.  That's no surprise until you realize what the man just said.  Sanders repeated that Fidel Castro did good things for Cuba.  He pointed to a literacy program that Castro started shortly after he took control in Havana.  So what if Castro's government killed thousands and put tens of thousands or more into prison camps.  So what if he took away the right of free speech, freedom of religion, economic freedom, and even the right to think for oneself.  So what if Castro's troops literally killed thousands of Cubans trying to flee from that country.  It didn't matter, cause he put in a good literacy program.  That's really the sort of claptrap that Bernie Sanders is now pushing.

I mention this because of a story I read tonight from the son of a Cuban refugee.  This fellow's father was a doctor in Cuba prior to Castor taking power.  This doctor was well know for providing treatment to poor patients for free.  When Castro took over, however, the health system was centralized under government control and it was no longer allowed to provide free service outside the government system.  The doctor managed to get his wife and children out of Cuba to Miami, but he stayed to take care of his elderly parents.  Soon after that, the doctor learned that the police were planning to arrest him.  He quickly joined a humanitarian group going to South America to provide aid.  On the very day he left, the police came to arrest him, but he was already gone.  They arrested his parents instead.  The doctor never went back but managed to get to the USA to join his wife and family.  Imagine being condemned to prison for the "crime" of providing free healthcare for the poor outside the government system.

A system that would arrest a doctor for this "crime" is not made into an acceptable government just because it has a literacy program of which Bernie approves.  The very idea that Sanders would praise a monster like Castro really tells us all that we ever need to know about him.  He can never be allowed to be president of the United States. 

Iran and the Virus

There are some very worrisome developments out of Iran today.  Iran is one of the few countries outside east Asia that has an outbreak of the corona virus.  Official figures put the number of cases at 48 and the death toll at 12.  One local official in Qom (which is the city at the center of this outbreak) says that there have been 70 deaths.  Either this guy is wrong or the Iranian government is lying about the extent of the outbreak.  Sadly, I would assume the regime is not telling the truth.

Also in Iran, the religious leader in Qom told those gathered for Friday prayers that the virus had been put in Qom by the USA.  He also went on to say that President Trump did this to get revenge for all the Americans who lost their lives at the hands of Muslims.  This is a rather blatant lie, but it plays right into the paranoia that the regime tries to promote regarding the USA.

The scariest thing about this Iranian outbreak is that Iran has nothing like the facilities and personnel in China who are combating the virus.  Nor would Iran take international help to fight the disease.  After all, how could they take help from the USA if people were infected through American actions?  Iran may well be a much more fertile place for the disease to grow and flourish than Wuhan in China.  It may, indeed, make it impossible to stop a pandemic.

What's going on in Nevada?

The Nevada caucus ended yesterday across that state around 6 pm Eastern time.  As I write this, it's 17 hours later and we only have results from 60% of the local precincts.  What's going on?

We know that the Nevada Democrats junked their original plan for reporting results.  They were going to use the same app that failed so miserably in Iowa.  That got replaced with each caucus leader entering the results on an I pad and emailing them to state headquarters.  Two days prior to the vote, that plan was also junked.  It was considered too complicated.  The final plan was for the leader at each caucus to write down the results on a sheet of paper and then call them in to the party headquarters.  That's not a very time consuming job.  Since there are only a few hundred precincts, all of the data should have been phoned in by a few hours after the voting ended.

Why are these results delayed?  Some say that there were problems with getting the results of early voting. That ended 4 days ago so there was plenty of time to put those numbers together. It can’t be that

So again, what is going on here?  It sure seems like the Dems are trying to reduce Bernies numbers. Last night the reported numbers for Bernie were in the mid 40s. Now they’re down to the high 30s. Is this related to the slow count ?

A Moment To Remember

Twitter is alive today with thousands of tweets calling on Chris Matthews to resign or MSNBC to fire him because of what he said about Bernie Sanders' victory in Nevada yesterday.  Matthews said that Bernie's big lead is as shocking as the fall of France to the Germans was in World War II.  According to Twitter, this comparison is anti-Semitic.  After all, Bernie's parents were Jewish (he's an atheist), so using any analogy to a Nazi victory has to be anti-Semitic, right?

Not right.

The point is that the fall of France in 1940 was a major shock.  It less than 25 years after World War I when the Germans faced the French and British (and eventually the USA) in eastern France for more than 4 years.  In 1940, the French fell in about 6 weeks from the start of the actual German offensive.  No one expected France's collapse in this way. 

It's not anti-Semitic to use this historical analogy.  The "moderate" Democrats are collapsing at the moment.  They may come back, but the idea that an avowed socialist who isn't even an actual Democrat might become the party's nominee is a major shock for Matthews.

What's more shocking than Bernie's success, though, is the idea that any of the remaining Dem candidates are "moderate".  They all want to raise taxes to soak the rich.  Those tax increases will surely hit the middle class as well if they are to come up with the resources required for all the free stuff the Dems want to give away.  The Dems all want to tear down the US border and end enforcement of our immigration laws.  They all want to destroy or severely restrict America's world-leading energy industry.  None of them seems to have thought about the dire and profound effect that their policies would have on the economy.  They're not moderates. They are either far leftists or total morons who don't understand what they are proposing.  Bernie's just honest.  

So Who's a Russian Asset Now?

In the past week, the New York Times launched yet another attack on President Trump based solely on supposed anonymous sources leaked from the House Intelligence Committee headed by Adam Schiff.  The story this time was a repeat; President Trump was being helped in his re-election campaign by the Russians, or so the Schiff said (anonymously).  Schiff, of course, was exposed as a complete liar on the subject of Russian collusion during the first installment of the Russia collusion hoax.  Schiff claimed he had overwhelming and complete proof of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.  Indeed, Schiff said this over and over again; he had the proof.  Then, when the Mueller Report was issued and found absolutely no evidence of any collusion, Schiff never offered any evidence nor did he even explain why he kept claiming that there was evidence of any collusion.  He just moved on to Ukraine and the impeachment mess.  That didn't stop the Times, though.  It published this hit piece about Russia helping Trump based upon anonymous sources that all came from Schiff.

This morning, the Times' story is unraveling.  The National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien, was asked by CBS News if he had seen the intelligence indicating that the Russians were helping Trump.  O'Brien responded,

“I haven’t seen any intelligence to support the reports that were leaked out of the House."

O'Brien was quick to add that he wasn't at the briefing in the House committee that is the supposed source of the Times' report.  He has discussed the briefing with some of the congressmen who were present.  They told him that they asked about intelligence that formed the basis for conclusions about whom, if anyone, the Russians were helping in the election, and the congressmen told O'Brien that there wasn't any such intelligence.

So the guy at the top of our intelligence apparatus says he hasn't seen any intelligence to support what the Times' reported and the people briefing the congressmen didn't have any. 

It seems that the Times and Schiff are just back to trying the Russia collusion hoax once again.

But it gets worse.  The Washington Post is reporting that Bernie Sanders was briefed that the Russians are helping his campaign.  Sanders confirms that this briefing took place about a month ago.  You can be sure that the people who leaked this are part of the group that wants to keep Sanders from the nomination. 

The truth is that this briefing, at least, makes some sense.  Trump has been a major problem for the Russians during the last three years.  Sanders wants to disengage American power from the world scene, something that would give the Russians an easy path to doing whatever they want.  Sanders reacted to the reports by telling the Russians to keep out.  And let's be quick to add that we know of nothing that ties Sanders to the Russians (other than that they all used to be Communists.)  Even the briefing about which the Post reported was only saying that the Russians were helping Bernie's campaign, not that there was any involvement by that campaign with the Russians.

But with the Times back in on the Trump Russia story, many of the usual suspects are claiming again that Trump is a Russian asset.  Just yesterday, Hillary Clinton took time away from her afternoon cocktails to tweet that out, for example.  We know that's not true.  But does that make Bernie Sanders a Russian asset?

Just who is the Russian asset?  Is there one?  Is this all a big mistake by the Russian leaders -- you know it's Putin on the fritz?  Let's hope this whole story gets the quick burial it deserves.

Results Driven Policy

Many people around the USA think that things could be much better in this country.  So how do we achieve that?  For a large segment, the key is ideology; we need to follow a particular philosophy and all will improve.  For others, the key is political party; we need to vote for a particular party and all will improve.  Still others want to fight against all change because things are as good as they can get.  Additional numbers are driven by philosophy or religion.  If you think about it, radical Islamic terrorists are pushing to make things better by following the dictates (as they understand them) of their religion.

The truth is that none of these ways work well.  Sure, some ideologies work better than others.  Some parties do better with one subject or another.  Some religion driven-views can make life for all better while others (like that radical Islamism mentioned above) can reduce the quality of life in dramatic fashion.

The real key to improving life is for society to answer two questions:

1.  What exactly constitutes a better life?

2.  What practices and policies can we follow that actually move us towards that better life?

This may seem simplistic, but it is one of the most complicated and difficult things to actually achieve.

Let's start with what constitutes a better life.  We should consider this from a societal standpoint.  To begin with, we can conclude that we want -- just like our founders wanted -- to have individual freedom.  Each individual be free to decide what constitutes a good life for him or her.  This basic decision was part of the original genius of the USA.  Prior to our founding, the decision regarding what was good for a nation was made by the king or the emperor or other ultimate leader.  These leaders were either considered gods or people who got their power from God.  There was no arguing with divine decisions; these decision were just to be followed.  After the Revolution, America became the first nation to realize that the decision regarding what is best for the country was one for the people to make.  The leaders got their power from the people rather than from Heaven.

There are some determinations of what constitutes a better life that still rely on divine direction or the equivalent.  Radical Islam views the construct of a society as good or bad depending on how well it follows a set of parameters stated in the Koran (or at least as the adherents believe is stated in the Koran.)  Far left movements -- be they communist or socialist -- nominally give the source of their power as the "people", but this is not true.  No country with an actual socialist or communist government has allowed the very people from whom the leadership claims to get its power make the choices regarding what the nature of a good life ought to be.  Consider China where millions of people perished in "re-education" camps because the government decided that these people held the wrong views regarding society.  Consider Venezuela where about 20% of the population fled the country to escape the "good life" inflicted by the socialists.  The economy contracted by over 70%, people were reduced to starvation and poverty was the norm for all (other than the leadership) because the people in charge wanted to do things to conform to their ideology.  Reality in Venezuela didn't matter.  Only Chavez and Maduro mattered.

In a society based upon individual freedom, let's posit that a better life is one that supplies individuals with the necessities of life like food, shelter, healthcare, etc.  Let's further posit that such a good society would provide protection to the individual from criminal activity and to the nation from foreign enemies.  Such a society would also provide a fair method for settling disputes that arise among the citizens so as to protect the weak and insure fairness and consistency in its results.

There is much more we could discuss regarding what constitutes a good life, but such a discussion could continue over 20 volumes and still be nowhere near complete.  Let's move instead to the second question: what policies should our nation follow so as to move towards a good life for all.

While this too is something that could be discussed nearly forever, there is one basic rule that ought to be followed if we are to move in the correct direction.  We need to have results-driven policies.  In other words, if a new policy is adopted and it works, we should keep it.  If the new policy does not work, it should be dropped and an alternative tried.

A results-driven policy sounds like a no brainer.  Of course we should do what works and not what doesn't work, right?  In reality, however, it is uncommon to see this practice actually followed.

Here's a good example:  In the mid 1960's Lyndon Johnson proposed a federally funded program called Head Start.  It provided pre-K schooling for children 3 and 4 years old.  These programs were set up across the nation.  First, the programs were in poor neighborhoods.  Today, pre-K programs of this sort are in cities and towns across the nation.  There are still political candidates who make it a major plank in their platform to extend pre-K programs for all children in their jurisdiction.  Over the last 50 years, the USA has spent many hundreds of billions of dollars on these programs.

But there's a problem with Head Start and equivalent programs:  they don't work.  Over the last 50 years there have been many studies done comparing children who went through the program and those who did not.  The latest large study was done by the US Department of Justice during the Obama administration.  The study found that after going through Head Start, the children in the program performed better in reading and arithmetic for first and second grade.  By third grade, there was no observable difference.  That lack of any difference remained constant for the rest of the children's schooling.  Think of that.  Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on a program with no lasting positive effect on the participants.  Just imagine if that same money had been spent hiring tutors for kids with challenges in English or math over the years.  More than a million kids could have been helped.

Another sort of practice that prevents results-driven policy comes from inertia.  Some policy is adopted by the government which works at first.  After a while, it stops having a positive impact.  Instead, though, it has a constituency that wants it to continue so that they can keep their benefits at the expense of the common good.  Here's a good example:  mohair subsidies.  Right after World War II, Congress adopted a program that gave subsidies to ranchers who raised sheep that provided mohair wool.  These fibers were used in uniforms for cold climates.  A few years later, the army adopted synthetic fibers for that purpose but the mohair subsidies just stayed in place.  Sixty years later, the subsidies were still being distributed.  It wasn't a huge program, just a few million dollars each year, tiny by federal standards.  Still, there was no longer any reason to encourage the production of mohair in the USA, so the money was totally wasted.  There were no good results for society, but inertia kept the program in place anyway.

Another example comes from the job training programs run by the federal government.  At last count there were over 100 separate programs.  Each has a director and management and separate offices.  There is no reason why the USA needs so many different programs.  We could easily get by with just a few programs with different focuses.  That would save hundreds of millions of dollars spent on overhead for all the many programs each year.  The savings could go to train more people or just to reduce the deficit.  Inertia keeps it in place.

With the presidential race underway, it would be refreshing to hear one of the challengers talk about adopting a results driven policy.  Imagine someone from the Democrats who ran on what he or she planned to do and how it would make the country better.   

Putting The Angry in Angry Bernie

In a rather funny twist, Bernie Sanders is getting majorly steamed because the media is treating him a bit like President Trump.  Bernie can't take it.

Here are some examples:

1.  According to reports in the New York Post, Bernie went ballistic prior to the Nevada Democrat debate the other day at the people from MSNBC who were there for the event.  Bernie screamed at the head of MSNBC for that network's "unfair" coverage of his campaign.  Apparently, Bernie was incensed that Chris Matthews attacked Bernie's socialist beliefs as something he (Matthews) didn't like. At least that was one of the items Bernie mentioned in his rant at the head of MSNBC.  Bernie also screamed at Chuck Todd (from MSNBC) that Bernie knew that Todd would ask him unfair questions at the debate.  Bernie also was upset that Todd had criticized the tactics used by the Bernie Bros online when someone disparaged Bernie.  In short, Bernie went ballistic because MSNBC said some negative things about him.

For those who are unaware, MSNBC regularly calls President Trump insane, an idiot, a racist, a homophobe, a danger to humanity, and the like.  People who support Trump are called Nazis, white supremacists, uneducated, hicks, and all manner of nasty names.  Trump takes this and responds in public by calling out that network (and others) as fake news.  Bernie, apparently, is too thin skinned to deal with criticism that is mild compared to what MSNBC throws at Trump.

2.  The Washington Post reported that Bernie had been briefed by the intelligence agencies that Russia was helping his campaign in 2020.  It was the same tactic that the media used to attack President Trump in 2016-19.  In fact, the NY Times tried to revive the Russia hoax just the day prior to the WaPo story on Bernie.  Trump laughed at it at his latest rally in Las Vegas last night.  Bernie, on the other hand, got incensed that the Post would say something like this.  Bernie can't take one article without losing it; Trump has taken an endless four year attack and is still laughing at it.

So, which of these two do you want facing America's enemies:  the angry man with the emotional maturity of a two year old, or President Trump?

It’s Trump’s Fault

According to the Washington Post the Russians are taking steps to interfere with the Democrat primary to help Bernie Sanders. No doubt it’s Trump’s fault.

Seriously, according to the media the Russkies are helping Trump and Sanders who are ahead anyway. It’s total nonsense. 

Which Matters More?

Here are a list of questions that the American people will have to answer in the 2020 election:

1.  Which matters more:

     a.  that a president can achieve record low minority unemployment, or
     b.  that a president takes another politician to task for supporting "stop and frisk" to fight crime?

A, of course, is Donald Trump's record.  B is something that Joe Biden said at the last Democrat debate about Mike Bloomberg.

2.  Which matters more:

     a.  that women's participation in the work force, wages and unemployment have all hit records, or
     b.  that a president takes another politician to task for calling some woman he doesn't like a "horse-faced lesbian"?

A, once again, is Donald Trump's record.  B is something that Elizabeth Warren said at the last Democrat debate about Mike Bloomberg.

3.  Which matters more:

     a.  that the after tax income for the average American family increases by 10,000 dollars over three years, or
     b.  That the wealthy have some of their wealth taken from them?

A is, you guessed it, the Trump record.  B is the goal of both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and they stick to that goal no matter what effect achieving it will have on the average American family.

4.  Which matters more:

a.  that the cost of oil and gas continues to decline due to record production so that filling up your car and heating your home becomes less expensive, or
b.  severe restrictions get place on oil and gas production in the USA with the result that millions of jobs are lost, gasoline costs go through the roof and heating ones home doubles in price or even more.

A is the Trump record.  B is the plan being pushed by nearly every Democrat candidate with the goal being to "combat" climate change even though moving production of oil and gas from the USA to other countries will have no effect on climate change.

5.  Which matters more:

a.  trying to achieve a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians by making clear to the Palestinians that they will no longer be supported by the USA if they don't try to negotiate peace, or
b.  trying to bring peace by condemning Israel while letting the Palestinians drift along making no attempt to reach a peace accord.

You guessed it:  A is Trump, while B is all of the Democrat candidates except for Warren and Sanders who want to actively punish Israel.

6.  Which matters more:

a.  pushing China to end its theft of American intellectual property, or
b.  letting China steal what it wants from the US all in the name of good relations?

A is Trump; B is Biden and Sanders.

7.  Which matters more:

a.  enforcing the laws with regard to illegal aliens, or
b.  changing the law so that the USA will be obligated to pay the cost to bring back illegal aliens with criminal records who have been deported.

A is Trump.  B is every Democrat candidate except Klobuchar.

There are many more questions one could ask, but this should make things clear.  No sane person could ever prefer B.  The Democrats are just nuts.

If At First You Don't Succeed, Lie, Lie Again

The New York Times and the Democrats are at it again.  The Times is running articles with screaming headlines about how Russia is trying to influence the 2020 election to help Trump and Trump fired the acting Director of National Intelligence because he had the temerity to war the House.  Let's see....Trump collusion with Russia...Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

It's amazing that the Times and the Democrats would launch yet another Russia collusion hoax, and it's even more amazing that they would do it in a way that is so obviously phony.

Remember, the Times and the Washington Post and the rest of the Democrat media spent close to three years pushing the story that in 2016, the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the election.  That turned out to be total nonsense, completely unsupported by the actual facts.  We even had a special prosecutor with a staff of only Democrats (wonder why that was) that had to announce after a two year investigation that there was no such collusion.  For years, there were stories about leaks from anonymous sources that this or that had happened that "proved" collusion.  After the prosecutor checked these all out, however, none of them proved true.  People like Adam Schiff even went on TV repeatedly and said that he had absolute proof of collusion by the Trump campaign only for it later to be revealed that Schiff was just making it all up.  There was no collusion.  So why would the Times trot this story out again but update it to 2020?

Let's look at the story.  Note that there are only anonymous sources.  Supposedly, there was a classified briefing in the House Intelligence Committee (chaired, of course, by Adam Schiff -- how convenient) about how Russia was trying to get Trump re-elected in 2020.  After that briefing supposedly five different "sources" broke the law by leaking classified information to the Times.  The result of this crime wave is that the Times publishes the story about the supposed classified briefing.  Isn't it amazing that only this House committee was briefed.  No one told the Senate.  Nope, the acting DNI went to the one committee he could be sure would leak like a sieve and supposedly said all this.  Not likely.

But consider the substance of the story.  According to the Times and the Democrats, Russia and Putin would rather have Trump in office than one of the Democrats.  That's rather strange.  Think of the difference in how Russia has fared in its relations with the USA since Trump has been in office.

In the decade before Trump took office, Russia overran about 30% of the neighboring country of Georgia.  President Bush immediately put sanctions on the Russians, but as soon as Obama the Democrat took office, he announced the "Russian Reset" which is a nice way of saying Obama got rid of all the sanctions on Russia.  The Russians got Georgia without any consequences.  Then a few years later, Russia conquered Crimea from Ukraine.  Obama took no action.  Russia then started an invasion of Eastern Ukraine with fierce fighting near cities like Donetsk.  Again, Obama did essentially nothing to help Ukraine stop the invasion.  The Ukrainians begged for defensive weapons to help stop the Russian tanks and soldiers, but Obama refused.  Obama allowed the Russians to run wild and took no action to stop the Russians from taking territory from their neighbors.

Then Trump took office.  In the three plus years since Trump took office, the Russians have not gotten one square inch of additional territory.  Trump sent defensive weapons to the Ukrainians.  That stopped the Russian onslaught in the eastern part of Ukraine.  Trump also put rather severe sanctions on Russians involved in the attack on Ukraine.

Beyond the weapons, however, Trump shook the foundations of the Russian economy.  Obama restricted drilling, exploration and production of America's oil and gas resources.  That had the effect of keeping world prices high.  Since about half of Russia's economy depends on the export of oil and gas, those high prices gave Putin the money needed to support his military adventures.  Trump unleashed America's energy resources.  He also approved export licenses for major liquified natural gas facilities.  The result is that the world price of oil and gas are both way down.  For a country like Russia which is so heavily dependent on oil and gas, this has been a disaster.

And let's not forget Syria.  In Syria, the Russians moved into that country while Obama just sat and watched.  Once Trump got into office, small American forces moved into Syria to coordinate the fight against ISIS.  More important, the US Air Force controlled the skies over Syria and kept ISIS on the defensive until is was wiped out.  At one point, however, the Russians sent their forces to attack installations in eastern Syria where America's allies and American advisers were stationed.  The Americans warned the approaching force to retreat, but they didn't.  As a result, US planes were called in and the attacking force was destroyed from the air.  The Russians suffered over 300 dead and they never again threatened American or allied forces. 

So why would Putin want Trump to continue in office?  The simple answer is that Putin would NOT want that.  He'd rather see Bernie Sanders as president so that the military of the USA could be severely degraded.  In fact, NONE of the Democrats want to confront Russian aggression against their neighbors.  Putin could go back to taking territory just like he did when Obama was in power.

Simply put, this whole story from the Times and the Democrats is just an obvious lie.  Interestingly enough, though, this Fake News isn't even a good lie.  No one with any sense would believe it.

The Best Tweet Ever

I just saw the best tweet ever.

Keith Ellison, the former congressman and current attorney general of Minnesota tweeted this:

"I have never seen @BernieSanders supporters being unusually mean or rude. Can someone send me an example of a “Bernie Bro” being bad. Also, are we holding all candidates responsible for the behavior of some of their supporters? Waiting to hear"

In response Congressman Steve Scalise tweeted this:

"I can think of an example."


Scalise, of course, was shot and nearly killed by a Bernie Sanders supporter who snuck up on a practice among Republican congressman for the annual congressional baseball game and opened fire.  But for some fast action by Capitol police, there could have been 20 dead congressmen.

Nothing, but nothing could have shut down the BS from Keith Ellison about the peace loving Bernie Bros better than this.

Time For The Federal Government to Act -- Cambridge, MA

The city council of Cambridge Massachusetts pass a new law this week which bars city police from arresting illegal aliens who are caught driving without a license.  The announced purpose of the law is to prevent ICE from arresting such illegals when they are due to be released.

This is blatant discrimination, and it should bring a response from the federal government.  The Civil Rights law provide that "NO PERSON in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or nationals origin, be excluded from participating in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. "

It is obvious that by limiting the special protection from arrest for driving without a license to people from countries other than the USA who are here illegally, the Cambridge City Counsel made a distinction based upon national origin.  After all, American citizens are still subject to arrest and they are denied this special protection because of their national origin.

This is sufficient for the Justice Department to sue to enjoin the city from using this new law, but that will take a long time to bring to fruition.  In the meantime, the Federal government should act by stopping all financial assistance of any sort to Cambridge.  According to the city budget, Cambridge gets substantial federal assistance (more than 7% of last year's budget came from DC).  All such assistance should be suspended immediately unless and until the City repeals this new law.

Such a move would not require any action by Congress.  President Trump could direct it immediately.

If Cambridge wants to undermine federal law enforcement in this way, the rest of the country should not subsidize those actions -- and that's the result required by law.

Here We Go Again

Israel announced today that the government had approved construction of about 3000 new homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos.  Almost immediately, the media began describing these homes as "illegal Israeli settlements".  It's truly amazing.

Here are a few facts

1.  1000 of the homes are in the Arab section of this neighborhood, and area called Beit Safafa.  Two thousand are in a new section that will be called Givat Hamatos.  These will likely be inhabited by Jews.

2.  The houses are in Jerusalem and they literally abut the Green Line.  That's the line where the border between Israeli and Jordanian territory was from 1949 to 1967.  Today, there is nothing left of that border.  There are no landmarks that tell one where it was.

3.  The houses are located between 1 and 2 miles from the Israeli parliament building and the buildings housing the main Israeli government agencies.

4.  In the last 50 years, the population of Jerusalem has increased greatly.  There are around 1.3 million people in the metro area with just under 900,000 within the city limits.  This is more than twice the population of 50 years ago.  The population is growing at close to 3% per year.  This population growth has made the need for new housing extremely great.

These facts are important to keep in mind.  Givat Hamatos is not some small settlement on a barren hill top in the middle of the West Bank.  It's just another new neighborhood in the heart of the growing city of Jerusalem.  It's not some sort of land grab; no residents are being moved to make way for these houses. 

The Palestinians have already denounced the new houses as "another attack on a two state solution".  That's pretty funny.  The Palestinians won't accept a two state solution, but they still pay lip service to it so as to criticize the Israelis.  President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority would rather raise bogus charges against these homes than to celebrate the huge new number of homes for Palestinian Arabs which are included in the new construction.  It's just sad.

Bloomberg Should Have Sung "I Got To Be Me"

I didn't watch most of the Democrat debate last night.  From the portions I've now seen, I agree with the consensus that Mike Bloomberg did not do well.  Every time I saw Bloomberg speak, he came across as trying to be something he's not.  Bloomberg got hammered by Elizabeth Warren for insulting women.  Just imagine if he had turned to her and said, "Well they didn't have your obvious grace and charm." and then laughed and said, "Really, if the main concern of the American people is how politically correct we speak about each other, then you're right, they would probably do best with someone else.  On the other hand, if, as I believe, the American people want a president who can get things done to benefit them, then I"m your man."  Mike could have embraced the fact -- based upon all these videos that have surfaced -- that he doesn't watch his words when speaking.

Bloomberg also got hammered by Joe Biden (by JOE BIDEN!!!) for the horrible racism of the stop and frisk policy in New York City while he was mayor.  Bloomberg responded by pointing out that he had apologized for that.  It was sad.  Just imagine if Bloomberg had turned to Biden and said, "When you actually run a major government or business, you have to make decisions that affect a great many people.  I've done that for the last 40 years.  If you had ever done something besides debating in the Senate or sitting around as VP waiting for the president to die, you would know that.  And as for Stop and Frisk, that policy was put in place to save lives and stop crime.  And you know whose lives it saved?  In New York over 80% of murder victims are minorities.  Stop and Frisk is 'Black Lives Matter' in action.  That policy helped us cut the number of murders in New York by 65% when it was in place.  That's hundreds or thousands of minority lives saved.  It's not racist to protect people from crime no matter what their race.  And it's not racist to stop criminals even if they are black or Hispanic."  This is clearly what Bloomberg actually believes; he said it often enough when he was mayor.

In other words, Bloomberg should have tried to be authentic.  He should have been himself and shown that self to the voters.  Some would have been turned off while others would have been enthused.

Meanwhile a few hundred miles to the south of the debate, President Trump spoke at a rally in Arizona.  No one has ever accused Trump of not being himself.  Indeed, he is sometimes too clear about what he thinks.  The American people understand that, however, and they know they are getting the real Trump, not some focus-grouped, consultant-advised phony who just says what he is told the voters want to hear.  No one can keep that up forever; eventually the real person comes out.

One last note on the "real person".  Last night we also got to see the real Elizabeth Warren.  She kept taking nasty shots at the other candidates.  She truly is a harridan.  She truly is freaked out that her support, which seemed so strong last fall, has melted away as people have come to see the real Liz.

Bernie Makes It Official

At a townhall on CNN last night Bernie Sanders announced he won’t release his health records moving forward. He says that a letter from his doctor with few details is enough.

Bernie is wrong. This is an old guy who just had a heart attack a few months ago. How can he ask anyone to vote for him when we don’t know his risk of having another heart attack?  America deserves to know.

This announcement by Sanders is getting almost no coverage in the mainstream media. Please tell your friends about it. Most likely it means that Bernie got bad news he doesn’t want to share. Before the next primary Democrats should hear about Bernie’s health

The Nonsense Of The Polls

Today brought a stark reminder once again of the silly reality of polling in the USA.  This morning, two new sets of national polls were released:  one was from Emerson and the other from ABC News/Washington Post.  Each set of polls included the current choice of Democrats for the presidential nomination as well as head to head match ups between President Trump and the leading Democrat contenders.  The results were such that perhaps two different countries were polled.

Here are some examples:

1.  Emerson says that Trump is leading all of the Democrats except for Sanders whom he trails by 2%.  ABC says Trump is trails every Democrat with Biden doing the best with a 7% lead. 

2.  Just for Biden vs. Trump, Emerson shows Trump getting a majority of votes and leading by 4%.  ABC shows Biden getting a majority and leading by 7%.

3. Among Democrats Emerson shows Biden with 22%.  ABC shows Biden with only 16% even though he does better against Trump in the head to heads.

There is no way that both of these two sets of polls can be accurate.  The differences are statistically significant.  So is ABC/Washington Post being accurate, or are they "cooking the books"?  Is Emerson providing faulty numbers?  We can't tell from the information released to the public.

What we can tell, though is that the endless stream of polls is not worth reading.

The Morons at NBC

This week Joy Reid is apparently substituting for Chris Hayes on MSNBC.  I tuned in for 2 minutes during a commercial and I saw Reid give a monologue about Abraham Lincoln's greatest mistake.  Reid thinks that Lincoln goofed in a really major way when he changed vice presidents when he ran for a second term.  During his first term, the Lincoln VP was Hannibal Hamlin, a Republican from Maine and a strong supporter of rights for freed slaves (according to Reid).  Lincoln replaced Hamlin with Andrew Johnson who was a Democrat from Tennessee.  When Lincoln was killed, Johnson took office and didn't want to support rights for freed slaves.

What shocked me about this was not the silliness of Reid's views.  No, it was the constant mistakes of history in what she said.  Remember, I only listened for at most two minutes.  During that time Reid said that switching vice presidents was Lincoln's biggest mistake during his six years in office.  Lincoln was only president for a few weeks longer than 4 years.  Reid also said that Lincoln was assassinated after five years in office.  Nope, Lincoln was killed just three weeks after being sworn in for his second term.  That's four years.  So in the space of just a few lines, Reid managed to give conflicting statements for the length of Lincoln's time in office and to be wrong with both. 

These are not difficult facts.  Surely someone at MSNBC is knows them.  Even if they don't know them, they are easy to look up.  How is it possible that some writer wrote Reid's statement, an editor looked at it and other people saw it in advance but not one of them noticed this elementary mistake of American history?

Will Murphy Be Walking Across Iran Next?

Connecticut's junior senator Chris Murphy has admitted now that he and some other Democrat senators met in Europe last week with the foreign minister of Iran. 

Take a step back and think about that.  Under American law, what Murphy did was illegal; the Logan Act prohibits private citizens from conducting their own foreign policy with foreign governments.  Nothing will come of that.  The Logan Act has been on the books since the 18th century and no one has ever been prosecuted for violating it.  Of course, for what it is worth, the Democrats -- including Murphy -- went crazy complaining that General Flynn had violated the Logan Act just prior to the Trump inauguration when the incoming National Security Adviser spoke to the Russian ambassador.  For Democrats, apparently the Logan act only applies to Republicans.

But let's forget about the Logan Act right now.  Think about what Murphy and the other Democrat senators did.  Right now, the USA and Iran are locked in a standoff.  America wants Iran to stop supporting and organizing terrorist attacks and to give up its nuclear weapons program.  Iran wants the USA to end the sanctions which are harming the Iranian economy.  In the last year, Iran's forces have supported terror attacks again Americans in Iraq, Syria and Yemen as well as on international waters.  Iran launched a drone strike that took out half of Saudi Arabia's oil production for a few weeks.  Iran organized an effort to capture the US embassy in Baghdad and to take Americans hostage.  Iranian controlled militias launched attacks on American soldiers across Iraq.  At the same time, the US forces struck back at the Iranian militias when they killed and injured Americans.  US forces struck and killed the head of Iran's Qods Force (and its chief terrorist) general Soleimani while he was in Baghdad.  America has sent thousands of additional forces to Iraq and elsewhere in that region.  Simply put, there is a serious confrontation between the USA and Iran that could quickly escalate to war should there be a misunderstanding by either side.

In this crisis atmosphere, Murphy and his fellow travelers took the step of meeting with Iran's foreign minister.  This move gives the Iranians a different insight into America's government.  Rather than facing a united America, the Iranians have been given the impression that America is split in confronting Iran's terror and nuclear weapons programs.  Murphy and his fellow travelers give the Iranians hope that if they can wait out president Trump, Iran might be able to go back to the "good old days" when president Obama and the Democrats gave Iran pretty much anything it wanted.  In other words, Murphy and the other Democrats worked against the success of current American foreign policy regarding Iran.

As noted above, this may be illegal.  More important, however, this is definitely against the interests of the American people and the USA.  Murphy and his fellow travelers put the interests of the Democrat Party ahead of the good of the country they want to lead.  What sort of scoundrel or fool would do such a thing.  Surely, even someone as bitterly partisan as Chris Murphy understands that trying to hurt Donald Trump by consorting with America's enemies is not a move that the Democrats ought to be taking.

It really is time for Murphy to resign.  What he did is unforgivable.

Something Doesn't Add UP

The passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship are starting to leave.  There were 3700 people aboard (passengers and crew) when the ship was quarantined off the shore at Yokohama, Japan a little less than 2 weeks ago.  The quarantine was imposed because a man who left the ship in Hong Kong six days earlier had just been diagnosed with the corona virus.  The Japanese authorities decided to take no chance that others on the ship might have been infected.

Well now, two weeks later, there are over 500 people who were on that ship who have been diagnosed with the virus.  That's about 15% of everyone on board.  The new cases continue to appear even though the people on board have been quarantined for all this time.  That means that those on board have been in their cabins and separated for all that time.

So how did the virus spread?  Did the people on board catch it from the guy who got off in Hong Kong?  He left the ship 19 days ago.  Since the medical experts tell us that the incubation period could not be more than 14 days, those coming down with new cases could not have caught it from that guy (patient zero in epidemiology terms).  So where did these new people catch the virus?  If they were sharing a room with someone else who had caught the virus, they could have gotten it in that way.  The problem is that some of the new cases are people who were in room where no one had previously been sick.  Did they catch it prior to the quarantine from others with the virus who had not yet shown any symptoms?  That too is possible, but the "experts" again tell us that people with no symptoms are much less likely to spread the disease.  So why the avalanche of new cases in the last four days?

One rather horrible possibility is that the quarantine measures put in place have been insufficient.  Perhaps someone preparing food for the passengers was infected and the disease was spread by means of the food being distributed to the quarantined people.  Even worse is the possibility that the disease can linger in the air long enough to pass through the ship's ventilation systems and it spread in that manner.

The Diamond Princess is the only site in the world outside China where there are so many known cases.  It is also the largest controlled area of people quarantined for which we can have observations.  We need to know how the disease on board spread in this way.  

Why Are Some Rights Given Preference Over Others?

One of the basic ideas that underlie the Constitution and the entire concept of American law is that, as the Declaration of Independence says, each person has been endowed by his or her creator with certain unalienable rights; among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

That concept evolved over time.  There was an exception for slaves at the time of the revolution in some of the states.  That was expunged at the time of the Civil War.  Women got the vote 100 years ago.  There are more examples, but basically, in each of these instances, the rights of the majority were expanded to cover more people.  Voting that was originally for white male property owners is now for all citizens, and so forth.

Today, that sort of expansion of equal rights is not enough for some.  These people push for superior rights for some who used to lack certain rights.  For example, some of the Democrat candidates for president are pushing for reparations as a result of slavery.  These candidates want people whose ancestors were slaves to get payments from the rest of the country.  That would make people who were the right race but who had no ancestors who were slaves get payments from people whose ancestors didn't even live in the USA during slavery.  How can that be "equality"?

Another example comes up with people who identify as a gender other than their biological sex.  Many trans people want the right to use showers in schools with those of the sex with which they identify.  It's their right, or so they say.  But what about the rights of the others in that shower?  Don't they have the right to shower with others of their same biological sex?  Why must the majority give up rights?  That's not spreading equality; rather it is elevating the rights of certain people above those of others. 

Brilliant Move Or Clown Show?

In the last year, former mayor of New York City Mike Bloomberg has either made a series of brilliant moves that will bring him the Democrat nomination for president or he has been the star in an ongoing clown show that reveals both his unsuitability for the office and the sorry state of Democrat politics.  Here are just a few of his moves:

1.  Bloomberg announced last spring that he would not be running for president.  He stayed on the sidelines for many months only to change his mind just a few months ago.  By the time he flipped, it was already too late to compete in the first four states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.  There's no way of knowing if Bloombergs avalanche of political ads would have propelled him into or close to the lead in any of these early states.  Certainly that strategy didn't work for Tom Steyer who has spent roughly $15,000 of his own money for each of the few votes he got in the first two contests.  Bloomberg did give Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren time to see their candidacies implode.  Also rans like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Julian Castro and the others have also been cleared away without any involvement from Bloomberg.  That's a positive for Mike.  On the other hand, candidates like Buttigieg and Klobuchar who could never have kept up with Bloomberg and his limitless source of cash have managed to establish themselves as real candidates in the first two contests.  Bernie Sanders has also been able to get the Socialist portion of the base firmly in his camp.  Bloomberg's delay most likely gave his main rivals time to dig themselves in so as to withstand the flood of Bloomberg ads.

2.  When he announced, Bloomberg decided to jettison some of his main positions from his days as mayor.  One thing for which Bloomberg was known in New York was keeping the crime rate in the city very low.  Bloomberg not only continued the policies put in place during the Giuliani years, but he also intensified them.  Stop and frisk and variable community policing were the two main components of his policy.  Stop and frisk gave police the right to stop and frisk people if the policeman had reasonable cause to believe that the subject might be illegally armed or else about to commit a criminal act.  That meant that a guy wearing gang insignia or lurking in the wrong place could be frisked.  Community policing used computerized statistics to put extra police into neighborhoods where there was any uptick in crime.  The idea was to stop crime before it got a foothold in a neighborhood.  The combination put more police in minority neighborhoods who then stopped and frisked people they though looked suspicious.  The far left (which in New York City means most Democrat politicians) said the programs were racist because they "targeted"  blacks and Hispanics.  Bloomberg, however, actively defended these policies.  He pointed out that they got thousands of guns off the street either by confiscation or by convincing young men with illegal weapons that it was foolhardy to carry that gun because they might get frisked by the cops.  The end result was that New York became the safest large city in the country.  That meant, as Bloomberg said many times, that literally thousands of lives -- mostly minority lives--were saved.  As Bloomberg put it, the program was not racist, rather ending the program would be consigning many blacks or Hispanics to being murdered and THAT is what would be racist.

About the time that Bloomberg announced his candidacy, he also announced that he had changed his view on stop and frisk.  He apologized for ever supporting it.  The program was racist according to Mike's new view.  So, in other words, in order to try to get the support of the far left base of the Democrat party, Mike threw away and even denounced perhaps his greatest achievement as mayor.

I'm sure that Bloomberg had done poll after poll after poll to determine what course to follow to attract Democrat votes.  Still, the question remains, how has this played?  How many voters really would stay away from voting for Mike because he supported a program that cut crime in his city in dramatic fashion.  Was it really racist to save black and Hispanic lives from murder and communities from crime?  Would Democrat voters looking for authenticity support the guy who threw away a program he supported for 12 years or would they prefer a guy who put forth a defense of that program and announced that as president he would always analyze what to do based upon what was good for Americans rather than what the loud mouthed protesters were shouting.  We will have to wait to see how this plays out.  This is especially true since now all sorts of video is surfacing of some of the things that Bloomberg said as mayor in support of these programs.  Even after having apologized for the programs, Bloomberg is still being denounced for his supposed racism.

3.  Bloomberg leaked to Drudge that he is considering naming Hillary Clinton as his candidate for VP.  I've written about this previously, but now I want to look at it with regard to how it will affect the race for the nomination.  Just who are the voters who are going to be attracted to Bloomberg because he might pick Hillary as VP?  Is Mike trying to pick up the black support for Joe Biden as that campaign disintegrates?  But hey, isn't Bloomberg a racist supporter of stop and frisk?  (Just kidding; he apologized.)  Seriously, what actual voter is going to select his or her candidate based upon who that candidate might pick for VP?  My guess is that Bloomberg would pick up the votes of Chelsea and her husband and also maybe he could get the vote from Bill Clinton, but who else would care enough about a possible VP to make their selection on that base?

Wouldn't the voters know that Bloomberg will never pick Hillary?  All those scandals would be back on the front page.  Even the new ones would be pushed to the front.  Would Bloomberg really pick a candidate with such a strong connection to Jeffrey Epstein and that whole mess?

So you decide.  Is Bloomberg a genius or a clown.  I know where my vote goes.  Personally, I think Mike is going to look really silly in those big floppy shoes.

Just Imagine This

According to the Drudge Report, Mike Bloomberg is considering naming Hillary Clinton as his candidate for VP.  This, we are told, would be a "formidable force" according to polling.

Just imagine that team.  Imagine it!

1.  First, Bloomberg obviously is unconcerned about all those reports of people who were inconvenient for Hillary, who have died mysteriously.  One wag earlier today tweeted that Hillary would come with an 8 foot long rope and a pre-written suicide not.

2.  My first item obviously got ahead of itself.  A bigger question would be Bloomberg/Clinton winning a general election.  How many of the Bernie Bros would stand for this.  A combination of the guy for whom the rules were changed in 2020 so he could beat Bernie with the woman for whom the same thing was done in 2016, hardly seems like the best way to pull in Bernie's supporters.  They might not actually vote for Trump, but it's hard to see them turning out on election day.

3.  Putting Hillary on the ticket makes it impossible for Bloomberg to be someone outside of the "swamp".  You just don't put the queen of the swamp on your ticket and then claim to be an outsider.

4.  There's only one politician in America whose presidential (or vice-presidential) candidacy is almost as tired as that of Hillary Clinton:  Joe Biden.  Adding Hillary guarantees Bloomberg an outcome similar to Biden's.

Personally, I think it's a wonderful idea.  It guarantees that Bloomberg has no chance. 

Questions For the Next Debate

On the 19th, the Democrats are going to debate in Las Vegas.  As of now, it looks like there will be six candidates on the stage: Biden, Bernie, Mayor Pete, Klobuchar and Warren have guaranteed places since they won delegates in either Iowa or New Hampshire or both.  Bloomberg seems likely to make it on polling although that is not guaranteed.  Steyer's and Gabbard's chances of participation are not very good.

What's important about the debate, however, is not who is in them, but rather what gets discussed.  So far the debates have centered on just a few issues.  The biggest interest for the moderators seems to have been how to get the candidates to argue with or attack each other.  We've had questions about what Sanders may or may not have said to Warren at a dinner two years ago.  We haven't had questions exploring much in the way of foreign policy.  We've had questions about comments or votes made decades ago, but there's been hardly a mention of trade policy with China or the EU or the UK.  There has also been no questioning about the best way to deal with the outbreak of the corona virus since that is something new.  Do the candidates approve of the government having cut off entry of people from China?  It would be nice to hear specifics.  No one is interested in hearing one of these candidates talk about the need for a new Manhattan project to fight the virus.  People deserve to hear sense rather than BS.

It would also be good to hear specifics from the candidates about the economy.  Stop questions that just let them lie about how terrible the economy is for many.  (The truth is that it's great for a vast majority.)  Why not ask them how they would continue the growth of jobs in the USA?  Why not ask them how they would deal with the loss of 14 million jobs across the country that would come from an end to fracking?  Why not ask them how to deal with the loss of millions of jobs in the banking and related fields if many of the new restrictions they are proposing were to go into effect?

And how about entitlements?  Ask them how they would preserve Social Security.  Ask them about Food Stamps.  Do they think it is a good thing that 8 million people came off the food stamp rolls in the last three years?  How do they pay for entitlements and welfare programs without raising taxes?  And by how much would they need to raise taxes, which taxes would they be, and when would they be raised?

Then there's military spending.  Would they cut it?  If so, by how much?  What items in particular would get cut?

How about the war in Afghanistan?  Do they have a plan to bring that to an end?

These are not minor questions.  We've had more than half a dozen debates and countless interviews for all these candidates.  Shouldn't we all know what the candidates think about these subjects?

Why Stop There?

Tom Steyer has a problem.  So far he's spent more than two hundred million dollars of his own money in his presidential campaign.  In Iowa and New Hampshire combined he got about 13,000 votes.  That' a little over $15000 per vote.  Tom is getting desperate to try to figure out a way to attract attention.  His latest stunt is to announce that once elected president, he will get enacted a national minimum wage of $22 per hour.

My question for Steyer is "why did you stop at only $22 per hour?"

Think about it.  Why not set the minimum wage at $100 per hour, or $10,000 per hour?  Wouldn't it be nice to come home after a 40 hour week with four hundred thousand dollars?  Work a full year for over 20 million bucks!  Hey, why not make it $100,000 per hour?  That would make nearly everyone in the entire country a billionaire in just a few years.  It would give Bernie Sanders a mental breakdown.

Obviously, were the minimum wage to rise to $22, we would get one of two results:

1.  There would be extreme inflation as prices rose to cover the huge cost increase for labor.

2.  America's economy would crash.  Jobs would be moved abroad to get cheaper labor costs.  Businesses in the USA would close since they would be unable to afford the higher wages.  The decline in employment and economic activity would bring on a long term depression.

Steyer knows this.  He's not only a bad candidate; he's a bad person.

Maybe Greta's Pointing The Wrong Way

In the last year, Greta Thunberg gained fame (like Time Magazine's Person of the Year) by coming to the USA to express her outrage over the lack of action on climate change.  Her catch phrase has been "How dare you....." 

So what's the reality?  Has the USA under President Trump actually contributed to the greenhouse gases that are supposedly driving climate change?  Did Trump just decide to ignore this supposed "crisis" so that his rich buddies in the oil industry could get richer still?

Today, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released the data regarding carbon emissions for 2019.  If you read the mainstream media, you already know that America is indiscriminately pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and no longer cares about the threat of climate change.  After all, Trump pulled the USA out of the Paris climate accords.  The problem, of course, is that none of this is true.

According to the IEA, in 2019, carbon emissions from the USA fell y 2.9% from the prior year.  That means that of all developed countries, emissions fell more in the USA since 2000 than in any other country.  Over that time, emissions from US sources fell by just about 20%. 

Emissions from the other developed countries are falling now too, pretty much in line with the current rate of decline in the USA.  The EU and Japan both have declines in emissions.

Despite these declines, worldwide emissions still rose slightly.  The entire increase came from underdeveloped nations like India and China.  Given these facts, why did Greta come to New York to scream "How dare you?"  Shouldn't someone have sent her to Beijing or New Delhi?

It's also worth remembering these statistics the next time that someone tells you about how urgently we need the Green New Deal.  As of 2019, fully two thirds of the emissions world wide came from underdeveloped nations.  Why would the USA, as one of the few big nations that has been consistently cutting emissions for the last 20 years, take steps that destroy our economy in the hope of stopping climate change?  Shouldn't those responsible for current emissions take the lead in dealing with that problem?

Looking At The Roger Stone Sentence

There seems to be a faulty circuit in the machine that generates perpetual outrage among the mainstream media and Democrats because of whatever the President does.  The latest big push by the Dems for -- you guessed it -- new investigations of Trump arise in connection with the sentencing of Roger Stone.  Stone is a friend of the President.  Stone was convicted of lying to a federal agent in a trial last year.  It was one of those process charges that arose out of the Mueller investigation.

Here are the pertinent details.

1.  After the trial, it was up to the judge to sentence Stone for these crimes. 

2.  Under the federal sentencing guidelines, the sentence for Stone is supposed to be lightened due to his advance age, his lack of any prior criminal convictions, and his health.

3.  Both the prosecution and the defense get to put in sentencing recommendations before the judge makes her decision. 

4.  The four attorneys who prosecuted Stone are actually from the Mueller team.  The prosecution, however, is under the direction of the Justice Department.

5.  The four Mueller attorneys put in a recommendation that Stone get sentenced to 9 years in prison.

6,  By way of contrast, Georges Papadopoulos who pled guilty to lying to an FBI agent was sentenced to two weeks in prison.  General Flynn who also pled guilty to lying to an FBI agent  has not yet been sentenced, but the Justice Department original recommendation was for probation only.

7.  The sentence recommended for Stone is outrageously long.  It is out of line with normal conduct by the Justice Department.

8.  Because the sentence recommended by the Mueller attorneys was way too long and because it had not been approved by the DOJ, the department withdrew that recommendation.  This was done by Attorney General Barr and DOJ without any conversation with the President or any request by the President for that action.

9.  In place of the original bizarre request from the Mueller team, the new DOJ request asks the Judge to make the decision while considering the nature of the crime, Stone's lack of a prior record, his age and his health.  That's exactly what the law requires the judge to do.

10.  The four Mueller attorneys resigned because their overly harsh sentencing request was withdrawn.

11.  The media and the Dems are still going crazy over this "outrage" of Barr asking the judge to follow the law.  After all, that's what Barr did; he asked the judge to follow the law, nothing more and nothing less.  And lest you think that I'm overstating the reaction from the media and the Dems, you should know that Schumer wants investigations, but many other Dems and media types have called for Barr to be -- yes, you guessed it -- impeached.

I don't think the media or the Dems will ever give up unless someone seeks an order of commitment for many of them.

Media Hype

It never fails to amaze just how much hype the media can put into a really minor event.

Bernie Sanders won the NH primary.  It was extremely close between Bernie and Mayor Pete.  Amy Klobuchar wasn't that far behind.  In Iowa, Sanders and Buttigieg won.  In neither state did Bernie or Pete get even 30% of the vote.  In other words, in these two small states the people who voted were pretty evenly split and a tiny plurality picked Bernie.  That's it!  Bernie is now the national front runner in the Democrat nomination race.  What utter nonsense.

The importance of NH is not who won.  Rather, it is important because of who lost.  Warren and Biden fell apart.  NH was the best state possible for Warren aside from Massachusetts.  She started with the bulk of the NH Dems knowing her from the Boston media that blankets the state.  Biden started with nearly universal name recognition from his years as VP.  In both their cases, for NH voters, to know them was NOT to love them.  Bernie also had an underperformance of a sort.  Four years ago, he got a large majority of the vote in NH.  Last night he struggled to get a quarter of the vote.  That means that something over half of his supporters from four years ago abandoned Bernie.

One thing that you may not know:  the candidate with the most votes yesterday in NH was President Trump.  Even without a race on the GOP side, Trump got way more votes than any Democrat.

But I guess the media will stick to its narrative.  NH was a big deal for Bernie Sanders, (except it wasn't).