A Debate Retrospective

 The media coverage of the first presidential debate emphasizes the fireworks but there was plenty of actual news that gets little notice. Here are some real biggies:

1. Biden wouldn’t commit to opposing his party’s efforts to pack the Supreme Court if elected. Such a move would fundamentally destroy the court. 

.  Biden said Antifa isn’t real but it is just an idea. It makes me wonder how an idea riots every night in Portland and how an idea assaults police, burns buildings and loots storeS

3.  Trump said he’s president for four years and has a duty during that time to appoint new Supreme Court Justices  Biden has no answer

4.  Biden actually said he never supported the Green New adeal  Biden’s website says the opposite  Biden was lying  

5.  Biden says he supports green energy and will phase out fossil fuels  That’s lunacy  where do we get power if there’s no wind at night so no solar or wind power

6.  Trump pointed out he achieved the lowest unemployment ever for minorities and Biden responds that Trump did nothing for minorities   Biden just ignores reality

7. Biden has no economic plan   He had a good opportunity to present his plan but didn’t do so  All he discussed was raising taxes which clearly won’t work  

8  Biden said for the umpteenth time that Trump has no plan for healthcare  Biden ignored the outline presented by the GOP at their convention  Trump didn’t explain his plan well though so Biden got by with the lie

Why Wait?

 Tomorrow is the first presidential candidate debate. CNN and MSNBC have decided not to wait. CNN released a poll tonight which supposedly found that of 500 people polled, 59% declared Biden the winner. Meanwhile MSNBC released a poll in which 62% of respondents said the President Trump’s performance showed racist beliefs. Hard to believe they would do this, right?

Trump’s Taxes And Times Nonsense

 In a rather shoddy bit of reporting the NYTimes put out a story claiming the President didn’t pay any federal income taxes for the decade prior to his taking office due to losses in his businesses. Of course, the story presupposes that the reporters have seen  the tax returns  I doubt they have seen anything. The President called the story Fake News and the Trump Organization says it is not true.   This reminds me of the lie Harry Reid put out during the 2012 campaign. Reid announced that Mitt Romney paid no taxes for ten years. The media immediately ran with the story even though it was a total lie. When Reid was later confronted with his lie after the election, his response was “we won didn’t we”. 

The reality is that the Main Street media has no way to know the President’s tax returns for the ten years in question. This is pure BS.  

They Don’t Get It

 I just read three new article explaining how demographic change doomed the GOP. These fools don’t get it. Blacks are moving in significant numbers towards the Republicans. Trump gets higher approval figures than any recent GOP president. Hispanics are also moving towards the GOP. Latest polls in Florida have Trump leading Biden among Hispanics. Asian Americans are majority GOP. So why the demographic nonsense?

Watch

 Watch the video at this site. It says it all

https://mobile.twitter.com/SNOWFLAKEREPELL/status/1308584514889736192

Hunter got 3.5 million from wife of Moscow mayor

 Looks like the Senate finally found Russian collusion. Hunter Biden got 3.5 million dollars from the billionaire wife of the mayor of Moscow. This was when Hunter’s dad Joe Biden was VP. 

One has to wonder what Joe did to get that cash for his kid  unlikely Joe will tell us  we’ll just get lies

Remember just 2 days ago  Joe said he has never earned $400000 in any year in his life  No one asked him how his net worth increased by over ten million dollars in the last 4 years  

Scare, Hysteria, Panic For Fun and Profit

 It never fails to amaze just how much panic the media seeks to create regarding the virus. Just today I saw scare pieces lamenting the rise this past week in new cases over last week. But here’s the point. New cases plummeted for nine weeks in a row falling by more than 50%. The media didn’t mention this news. Now there’s a slight uptick and the media goes crazy

Or how about this one:  all spring and summer the media told us how the virus didn’t fall off in the hot weather. Now as fall and winter arrive, the media is filled with stories about how the virus will get worse in cold weather. 

Not all virus news is bad. Someone should alert the media

Question of the Day

 Here's the question of the day.  What do 273,000 Iranian rials equal?  

If you said one dollar, you were correct.  The Iranian economy is in such shambles that the exchange rate between the rial and the dollar is now 273,000 to one.  This makes it nearly impossible for Iran to import anything into the country except on the basis of barter or by using foreign currency.  This kind of the destruction of a currency has happened in other countries over the years.  It cannot go on for long.  

Right now, there is a battle over ongoing sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program.  The Iranians violated the terms of the JCPOA (the Iranian nuclear agreement negotiated by Obama/Biden administration that guaranteed nuclear weapons to the Iranians.)  The USA withdrew from that foolish agreement when President Trump took office and restored the sanctions on Iran.  Even so, the other five signatories to the agreement (UK, France, Germany, Russia and China) stayed in the agreement.  Iran, however, just ignored the promises it had made in the JCPOA.  A recent inspection by the nuclear scientists from the UN revealed that Iran had more than four times more material for nuclear weapons than it was allowed under the JCPOA.  The US wants full sanctions by the UN restored on Iran.  The Iranians rage that there will be terrible consequences if the full sanctions are put back.  America, however, can pretty much put the sanctions on itself.  If the President orders full sanctions on anyone trading with Iran -- including banks --then essentially no one else around the world will risk being hit by US sanctions so as to trade with the Iranians.

It will be tense in the region for the next few months.  The Iranians may lash out in anger over their being put back into a box.  On the other hand, the Iranians probably know that President Trump would strike back at Iran very forcefully, something they are unlikely to risk.  They already saw Trump take out general Sulemani, and none of the mullahs want to follow in his path to the grave.  Iran also knows that if Biden wins the election, he will restore the misguided policy of the past that allowed Iran to sponsor terrorism, build nukes and otherwise cause problems with impunity.  My guess is that there will be a lot of Iranian government eyes watching the returns in November and rooting for Biden.  Indeed, there's likely much more enthusiasm in Tehran for Biden than there is anywhere else on earth with the possible exception of Beijing.

What is this? Five???

 There's yet another story of a woman who claimed to be Black but who turned out to be white.  This time, it's a college professor who pulled the fake out.  She didn't even go to family funerals for fear that her secret would be exposed.  She has been fired from her position.  This is the fifth high profile race faker who suffered the same fate.

That brings up an interesting question.  Why did Elizabeth Warren get to skate by when she falsely claimed to be Native American.  Both Harvard Law School and Penn Law School proudly announced her as the school's first professor who was a Native American.  Phony Cherokee Liz even ran for president and got a total pass from the media for her racial masquerade.  What was happening?  Why do these non-entity professors and head of NAACP chapters have to resign and depart the scene while Warren is still in the senate and totally unashamed of her fraudulent past?

Wouldn't it be refreshing if Old Joe Biden called upon Warren to resign from the senate because of her past fraud.  Of course, Joe has lied repeatedly about his past too.  He claimed to have done well in law school when he actually was in the bottom 10% of his class.  he claimed to have gotten three undergraduate degrees when he just got one.  He claimed that he had received a full academic scholarship on merit when he didn't.  And, of course, he claimed that his father was a coal miner when he stole a speech from the leader of the British Labour Party and claimed it as his own background.  But hey, that's just old Joe.  The media doesn't care when he lies.  Hopefully, the American people will.

Why Trump is Going To Win

 Polls show Biden with the lead, right?  Old Joe is a certain winner, just like Hillary Clinton was in 2016, right?  

The likely answer to those questions is "certainly not".  As of now, Trump is much more likely to win for a number of reasons.  Here are some of the more important ones:

1.  The turnout by college students is going to collapse.  This group votes heavily Democrat, but they can't make their voices heard if they don't vote.  Normally, in September and October, there are busy efforts on college campuses by local Democrats to register these new voters and to get them to the polls.  Turnout among students is usually lower than among older voters, but it is still significant.  For example, Dane County Wisconsin which is the home of the University of Wisconsin had the highest percentage vote for Clinton in 2016 among all Wisconsin counties.  That's right; Dane county had a bigger percentage for Hillary than Milwaukee county did.  But the 40,000 students who are usually at U W, aren't all there right now because of restrictions due to the virus, and among those who are at campus, there are no gathering places where voting registrations can take place.  Sure, there will be some students who register, but not as many as usual.  Multiply this by 50 states and hundreds of campuses and the impact of fewer students voting becomes major.  In close states, this will truly hurt Biden's efforts.

2.  The Democrats are not running any in person get out the vote efforts.  Because of the virus, the Biden campaign decided not to have people going door to door to ask for votes.  This is a traditional method for getting out the vote, first by identifying who is supporting one's candidate and then returning right before or on election day to get the supporters to the polls.  The door to door campaigners can also convince some voters to support their candidate.  Biden and the Dems are trying to do this on line.  It's not the same.  When someone knocks on your door, most people answer the door.  When someone sends you a political email, most people delete it without reading it.  And if the political email asks for personal information from which the campaign could gather a supporters' list, many more people will worry that it is a scam and not give any info.  This will have a major impact on election day.  And if you doubt how big a difference there is between the campaigns, consider this:  in Minnesota, Biden didn't start to have any local organizers or offices until the end of August.  By that time, the Trump organization had already knocked on over one million doors in Minnesota.

The Dems are also relying on early voting and voting by mail to get an advantage.  Traditionally, the Dems excel in getting early voters to the polls.  That isn't true this year.  Think, for example, of one of the biggest successes that the Dems have had with early voting.  It's a program called "souls to the polls".  The Democrats bring buses to line up outside of Black churches after services which then take the congregants to early voting.  The Dems got literally hundreds of thousands (or more) votes in this way.  But in 2020, there are no church services because of the COVID restrictions put in place by mostly Democrat governors.  You can't get congregants to vote if there are no congregations.  This applies also to early voting from events.  You can't gather voters from state fairs, school football games, or the like if these events are either cancelled or happening without an audience due to COVID restrictions.

3.  The Democrats argue that their voters will still vote by mail or show up at the polls, but this brings up the third big problem for the Dems.  Simply put, there is no enthusiasm for Biden/Harris.  When Biden leaves the bunker and ventures out, he speaks to empty rooms.  The Dems say that the rooms are empty by design so as to promote social distancing.  But consider the crowds along the way of the motorcades used by Biden to get to his destination.  When President Trump appears in a town, there are always thousands of supporters lining the motorcade route.  They wave signs and get excited as Trump drives by in his car.  Nothing like that happens when Biden shows up.  I have yet to see a crowd gathered to see a glimpse of Biden.  They are not at the events and they are not outside.  This lack of enthusiasm is even reflected in the polls that are reported.  The President has much higher numbers of the voters supporting him who say that they are very enthusiastic about his candidacy than is the case with Biden's supporters.  Just think if it rains in the Philadelphia metro area on election day.  How many voters who support Biden are going to decide that they don't want to go out into the rain for a candidate that they don't care much about?

4.  But, but, but the polls.... The Dems tell us that their guy is ahead in these polls.  Here too, there are strange indicators that we have to look at.  One important one is that minority voters are much friendly and more supportive of Trump in 2020 than they were in 2016.  The President gets a job approval rating of almost 33% among Black voters.  Hispanics in certain polls give Trump majority approval.  Asian-Americans have given the President ratings of over 65% approval.  To be fair, these are polls that rely on small samples (of course just like the basic head to head polls.)  If Trump gets 20% of the Black vote and 45% of the Hispanic vote, Biden cannot win.  Recent polling in Florida shows Biden losing the Hispanic vote to Trump.  One of the likely Supreme Court nominees that Trump could name is a Cuban American from the Miami metro area.  That nomination alone could lock in Florida for Trump.  But aside from the nomination, the Dems are losing major ground with one of the main building blocks of their coalition:  minorities.

5.  While we are talking about the polls, we should also remember the "shy" Trump voters.  It's not easy to use shy and Trump in the same sentence, but "shy Trump voters" are people who don't want to let anyone know that they support the President for fear of retribution.  Remember if there are only 2% of the total number of voters who fit within this category, then Trump is actually leading in most of the battleground states.

6.  Then there are the voter registration figures.  Not all states have registration by party, but some of the battleground states do have this.  In Pennsylvania, for example, the Democrats' lead among registered voters has been cut by about 250,000 voters since 2016.  The GOP has also surged compared to the Dems among registrations in Florida and North Carolina and elsewhere.  There are no battleground states where the Dems made meaningful gains.  These are not polls.  They are actual numbers from actual people.  It seems like a safe bet that almost every new voter who registered as Republican this year is going to vote for Trump while those who registered as Democrats will likely vote for Biden.  That's a pickup for Trump.

7.  Then there are the intangibles.  The Dems say that they have made enormous gains among white college educated suburban women.  The polling certainly says that Biden is doing better among this group than Hillary did (which is surprising given that Hillary was a woman).  Still, if there are any more execution type attacks on police (like Compton) or if there are any riots/attacks in suburbs, how many of these women will decide that safety is more important than style.  How many will choose Trump at that point rather than Joe Biden whose VP candidate is still supporting funds to bail out the thugs, arsonists and rioters?

We still have a long way to go until this election is over.  Anything can happen, and events that no one is anticipating could shake things up big time.  Just a day ago, no one was anticipating that Justice Ginsburg would pass away.  Who knows what's coming next?  Will a vaccine be approved so that fear of the virus is diminished?  Will the economy roar back?  We know that the third quarter GDP figures are likely to show growth in the 30%-40% range.  That's a figure that America has never seen the like of previously.  Will job growth continue very strong?  Will there be a sudden rise in COVID cases which will push the other way?  We don't know.

The one thing that we do know, however, is that Biden right now is the likely loser.  He knows this.  His team knows this.  If you doubt this, then remember just one thing:  Joe hid in his basement in Delaware for four months and coasted along on his lead in the polls.  Now, he is going out to read speeches off of teleprompters to empty rooms and to take a few pre-scripted questions.  In other words, Biden has flipped the script of his campaign.  If you wanted a sure sign that the Biden campaign understands that it has lost the lead, this is it.  You know that Biden's team doesn't want him out there in public where he is one gaffe away from blowing the entire election.  Still, they now put him out there.  They know and they are trying desperately to change things.

Interesting Doubletalk

 In the same week, there were protests by essentially the same group of people complaining about global warming and seeking to abolish ice.  Don't they realize that global warming will abolish ice?

Pay No Attention To What I said Then

 The Democrats are melting down because President Trump might appoint a Justice to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  Here's what Chuck Schumer said

Oh wait.  He said that in 2016.  Now four years later, he says it would be a travesty to have the Senate do what he wanted them to do then.

Here's another one.  This time, it's Hillary Clinton speaking

War and Peace

 Remember all the way back to 2016?  That year the Democrats told us that voting for Donald Trump was voting for endless wars.  The line from the Dems was that Trump was either a warmonger or an incompetent who would stumble into needless confrontations and wars.  America's military would pay the price and our standing in the world would be destroyed.

Well now it's 2020.  As bad as this year has been on so many fronts, it certainly has not been filled with wars involving the USA.  In fact, in the last four years, President Trump has ended wars, not begun them.  Unlike Obama/Biden, Trump has not started any foreign wars.  Obama/Biden put US forces in harms way to confront and fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but these forces were so limited in their rules of engagement that the battle went slowly and was needlessly bloody for US forces.  Trump changed that and ended ISIS and its caliphate quickly.  Under Obama/Biden, the USA was on the edge of war with North Korea.  Trump didn't achieve nuclear disarmament with the NK regime, but we now have a much more peaceful relationship with that country.  War is now much less likely.

Then there's the Middle East.  As President Trump moved forward with his changes to US policy in the region, the Dems and the "experts" told us repeatedly how that new policy was doomed to failure and how it would prevent any peace for ages.  Of course, in the last two months, Trump's policy brought about peace agreements between Israel and the Arab states of Bahrain and the UAE.  There are persistent rumors that peace with Saudi Arabia is on the horizon for the Israelis as well.  The Palestinians no longer have a veto over everything that happens in the region.

So how are the Democrats reacting to being so wrong over the last four years?  Joe Biden is now saying that only he and his party can bring peace to the world.  President Trump, they say, will just start and cause more wars.  Seriously, Biden -- who voted for the Iraq War (that Trump opposed) -- is now campaigning as the "bringer of peace."  Okay, I realize that saying that Biden is campaigning is a bit of a strong word.  Still Biden's press releases and his speeches to empty rooms contain his claim to be an opponent of war.

Where Is COVID Worst

 I just watched Joe Biden say that COVID is worst right now in the USA, that it is much less prevalent in Europe, and that 200,000 more people will die in the USA from the disease this year if things don't get changed.  The guy doesn't have a clue.

To fact check Biden's statement, I went to the figures that Johns Hopkins Medical School publishes each day that list total and new cases and deaths in each country around the world.  Here are a few choice facts:

1.  In India yesterday, there were 97,000 plus new people who tested positive for the virus.  That's more than double the just over 40,000 who tested positive in the USA.  There were also more cases in Brazil than in the USA yesterday.

2.  If you would prefer to look at cases per 100,000 people instead of total cases, consider that Brazil has only about two thirds as many people as the USA.  That puts its cases per 100,000 people at more than 50% higher than the American figure.  Argentina has only one eighth as many people as the USA, but it has roughly 30% of the US number of cases.  That means that the Argentines are running at an infection rate per 100,000 people that is about twice as high as that in the USA.

3.  And as for Biden's claim that things are better in Europe, let's take a look at Spain.  Spain has about 15% as many people as the USA, but it has a rate of new infections per 100,000 that is about four times that of the USA.  France is also running at a significantly higher rate of infections per 100,000 people than the USA.

4.  And how about Biden's claim that there will be another 200,000 dead from the virus in the USA this year?  In the six and a half months since the first death in the USA from the virus, we have not reached 200,000 deaths.  The numbers of deaths per infection were much greater in March and April than they have been lately.  Treatment is much improved.  The mortality rate from infections of the virus has fallen by more than 50%.  For Biden to state -- without any scientific backup-- that the deaths will more than double in the next three and a half months just shows how he doesn't even understand what he is reading off the teleprompter.  There would have to be an average of more than 2000 deaths per day to get to 200,000 total deaths.  There have been only six days since the start of the pandemic when there were more than 2000 deaths in the USA and they were all prior to May first before better treatments were available.  

So not a single one of Biden's claim is factually correct.  NOT ONE.

Odds and Ends

 There are a few items that need attention today.

1.  Joe Biden talked yesterday about suburbs that will be burned to the ground or destroyed in super storms due to climate change.  He is still screaming about the "record" fires out west and how they are a result of climate change.

I wrote previously that this was a lie.  From 1930-1950, there were at least twice as many acres burned in fires as we have seen this year with one year hitting ten times the number of acres compared to 2020.  So no record has occurred.  

Now, I checked and found that according to the UN, total numbers of forest fires worldwide is down substantially this year over last.  Climate change affects the entire world.  If there were any relation between the climate and these fires, then we should be seeing more fires worldwide, not just in a few states out west that stopped taking anti-fire land management actions.

2.  CNN got desperate in coverage of a Biden event for Latino voters.  There were hardly any people at the event (less than 20).  CNN didn't want to show this, so they used a picture of a Trump rally among Hispanic voters that had an enormous crowd and labelled it a Biden rally.  Some eagle eyed folks noticed this and blew the whistle on the internet.  CNN has yet to acknowledge their fraud or apologize for it.

A Question That Need Answers

 There is an important question that really need to be answered if we are to understand our world.

Why has China not had any resurgence in COVID19 cases after the initial blast it suffered in February and March?  A well-credentialed Chinese virologist and epidemiologist has published a paper in which she presents proof that the virus was manufactured in a Chinese lab and then intentionally released on the world.  If the Chinese had a vaccine or other cure for the virus, that would explain why China suffered so comparatively little at the hands of the virus.  I realize that this sounds more like the plot of a third rate movie than an actual event, but even hack writers in Hollywood get their story straight on occasion.  

If the Chinese really released the virus on the rest of the world in order to gain an advantage against other countries, that is a heinous act of war.  I'm not suggesting a nuclear response against the Chinese, but a total cut off of all trade by all countries with the Chinese would be appropriate.

Headline Of The Day

 The headline of the day comes from the NY Post.  It brings up the question, "What did they expect?"

Minneapolis City Council alarmed by crime surge after defunding police

When Is Natural Unnatural?

 So far this year, there have been 4.6 million acres that have burned across the western USA.  Today, there is even smoke high in the sky over the east coast which was brought there from California by the jet stream.  Politicians like California governor Newsom have been screaming that this is proof positive that global warming is upon us.  The media keeps screaming that these are record fires.  Nothing like fires of this magnitude has been seen ever before.

So is this all true?  Are we in the midst of the "end times" of climate change?  Hardly.  Let's look at a little history.

1.  Throughout the last few thousand years, there have been periodic fires that cleared western forests and grasslands as well.  This was nature's mechanism for clearing debris from the forest.  There are even types of trees in these forests whose seeds only germinate after being exposed to the heat of a fire.  In other words, fires were so common that some plants adapted so that their seeds would be the first to regrow in the affected areas.  The fires were started by lighting strikes, the same cause which has ignited most of the recent fires out west.

2.  Throughout all but the most recent history, there was little humans could do to stop the fires.  They were part of nature and were just too big to stop.  Mostly, people kept out of living in areas prone to blazes.

3.  In 1930, just 90 years ago, the acreage that burned in the western USA totaled 50 million acreas.  That's an area slightly larger than the state of New York.  During the following 20 years, the level of fires declined but it never fell below ten million acres per year.  To put that in context, every year between 1930 and 1950 saw at least twice as many acres burned out west as has happened this year in what the media calls "record" fires.  These are all official government statistics.

4.  By 1950, the US forestry service had adopted a practice of controlled burns.  The service actually started fires in certain areas so that there would be breaks in the forest when natural fires began.  This was designed to prevent massive out-of-control fires from burning entire regions.  There was a checkerboard pattern often used in these controlled burns.

5.  The practice of controlled burns took the level of fires down in a major way.  But then about 25 years ago, the environmentalists began to complain that humans should not interfere with the natural processes of the forest.  We shouldn't clear brush that provided homes for animals but which is also the kindling for major fires.  We shouldn't burn any of the forest in controlled burns because of the damage this did to wildlife.  Not surprisingly, the politicians -- eager to virtue signal how strongly environmental they were -- adopted this view.  To a great extent, controlled burns and brush clearing became a thing of the past.

6.  After 25 years, the conditions that led to big fires have returned to the West.  The problem now, however, is that after so many years of few fires, people have moved into these regions and are right in the way of the flames.

What we are seeing out west is not record fires.  It is a return to the norm that existed for thousands of years prior to steps taken by people to control the fires.  It is the result of a misguided environmental policy that believes that "natural" is always better than human intervention.  It isn't, and now we are paying the price.  And as for proof of global warming, remember that the fires 90 years ago, long before global warming was even an idea, were ten times worse than this year.  So much for the "proof".

Do They Think We Have No Memory?

 The big claim from the media and the Dems right now is that President Trump downplayed the threat of the corona virus.  As usual, the Dems and the media tell us that people died because Trump said this was no more than the flu.  The people weren't told how serious this was and so they treated it lightly.

Do they think we don't have memories of the early days of the pandemic?  How about these memories:

1.  In March, when the White House Corona Virus Task Force was first having \daily briefings, the President (along with drs. Fauci and Birx) told us that the models showed that if America did nothing to fight the virus we could expect 2.2 million dead in the pandemic.  That's TWO MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND dead.  So according to the media and the Dems, this is President Trump making light of the virus?  This extremely frightening number of potential deaths was supposedly part of Trump downplaying the threat?  Really?

2.  At that same briefing, the President once again outlined steps that were being taken that, if everyone cooperated, would keep the death toll down to between 100,000 and 220,000.  This is downplaying the threat?  The Dems and the media really expect that we have all forgotten this?

3.  From the very beginning of the virus appearing as a threat, Trump talked about the actions needed to fight it.  In the State of the Union address on February 4, the President discussed working together with China to try to prevent the spread of the virus.  At that point, there had not been any cases in the USA, but Trump still put it in the State of the Union.  The World Health Organization was still pushing the Chinese lie that the virus could not spread from person to person.  Even so, Trump was working to fight it.

4.  When President Trump shut off travel from China, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats all derided the move.  It was racist, they shouted.  There was no need.  The pundits followed a similar line.  But now these same people are busy telling us how Trump downplayed the virus.  Not quite--it was the media and the Dems who did that.

5.  So we have a virus that began in China and which the Chinese lied about so that the rest of the world did not know how serious a threat it truly was.  That virus spread around the world to about 170 countries.  For a long time President Trump made efforts to have the government fight the disease over the constant criticism and opposition of the Dems.  But now, the Dems complain that Trump downplayed the disease.  He's responsible for every person who died and everyone who got sick.  They just want to rewrite history.

The Insanity of The Left

 We've all heard about so called sanctuary cities.  Those are localities that will not cooperate with the federal government by holding illegal aliens who are in custody for ICE to collect them.  Supposedly, this is because ICE only gave the sanctuary city a detainer request, that is, a letter asking the locality to please notify ICE and hold the alien until ICE can get there to collect him or her.  The sanctuary cities and their defenders claim that the ICE detainer letters do not have the force of law.

Well now, NY State has gone much, much further.  It had an MS-13 gang member in prison and the feds got an indictment of that prisoner for murder unrelated to the reason the guy was incarcerated.  The feds filed their warrant as required by law.  Despite this, New York authorities granted the guy parole and just released him without even telling ICE that it was letting an accused murderer go.

Think about that.  This is not some question of immigration law.  This is a gang member indicted for murder.  MURDER!!!  And the NY authorities just released him without telling the feds.  NY and its crazy leftist government has reached the point where it favors accused murderers who are illegal aliens over federal law enforcement.

What an outrage.

Lancaster Update

 I wrote earlier today about events in Lancaster PA.  Now there's a bit more news.  The rioters who were arrested have had bail hearings and bail was set at $1 million each.  They can't make bail.  These thugs are off the streets.

The judge who set the bail was elected in Lancaster County which is heavily Republican rather than in just the city of Lancaster which has a Democrat mayor.

Too bad there weren't judges with backbone in Portland, Minneapolis, Seattle, NYC, etc.

The Difference in Lancaster -- And Why?

 Lancaster is a small city (like 60,000) people in south central Pennsylvania.  It is also the site of the latest unrest over a police shooting.  Video shot by police body cameras shows the man who was shot running towards the police brandishing a knife.  Not surprisingly, the police shot him.  Of course, the immediate response was the usual one; it was racism.  Yes, RACISM!!  Police shot a black man, so it must be racist.

After the shooting, there was unrest in Lancaster.  It was a pale imitation of the sort of unrest we've seen in big cities like Minneapolis and elsewhere.  Still there was some arson and vandalism.  That continued even after the video showing the man running towards the police waiving his knife was released.  RACISM!!!  The facts didn't matter.  It was racist for the police to shoot a black man; they should have just gotten knifed.

What is different in Lancaster, though, is the local reaction to the uproar.  Last night in Lancaster, there were eight people arrested for rioting.  It seems as if the local police and city government have taken a stronger stand against the rioters than was the case in the bigger Democrat cities.  So why is that?

There seem to be a few differences in Lancaster that are worth pointing out.  

First, let's note one similarity.  The city's mayor is a Democrat.  Lancaster, however, is not a lop-sided Democrat locality where the mayor can feel safe in his or her job.  In fact, Lancaster is located in Lancaster County which has about half a million people.  It is strongly Republican; President Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 in the county with around 60% of the vote.  The mayor in Lancaster can just do what she wants without it affecting her re-election chances.

Second, Lancaster is a much smaller city that hot spots like Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis etc.  The people in the city government likely know many of the people who were or would be affected by ongoing riots.  The impact of the actions by the "mostly peaceful protesters" (sorry, I couldn't resist) on the local population was clearly felt by the local politicians.  It was not some theoretical but impersonal impact like that felt by the other Democrats in the cities with unrest.

Third, there appears to be little question that the police acted properly.  When George Floyd died in Minneapolis due to drug overdose, that fact was not released for weeks.  Until then, there was just the video of the policeman with his foot on Floyd's neck.  It looked clearly like Floyd was the victim of police misconduct.  

Fourth, we are getting close to the election, and it has become rather clear that the people across the country do not like what they have seen with regard to the hands off treatment of rioters, looters and thugs.  

Hopefully, peace will be restored in Lancaster.  If the rioters continue to be taken off the streets, the end to the riot will come that much faster. 

Dems Now Trying To Cheat On The Census

 It's unbelievable the things that the Democrats try to do to get any possible political advantage.  Now they are trying to delay completion of the census into 2021 so that a potential president Biden could put his finger on the scale to get blue areas better results in the count.

Under the Constitution, there has to be a census every ten years and it has to be conducted as directed by Congress.  The current law says that the census has to be completed by December 31 of 2020.  The Census Bureau is on track to complete its work on time even though the pandemic has interrupted some of its efforts.  Actually, much more of the work of the Census has been done on line and by email, mail and phone than ever before.  Technology has allowed this year's census to have a higher response rate than was the case ten or twenty years ago.  

Despite this, the Democrats have gone to court (don't they always) to seek an injunction prohibiting the government from completing the census this year.  The Dems claim the Census Bureau needs more time to complete its work because of the virus.  The Dems got a friendly Dem judge to issue a preliminary order granting more time.  The Census Bureau, however, says it doesn't need more time.

The hope of the Democrats is to use the courts to give a potential president Biden's team the chance to use statistical adjustments to increase the population of blue states and blue regions within red states in order to give them an advantage in future elections.  They would have more seats in Congress and more electoral votes for their states.

Hopefully, the order will be appealed and the matter will get decided quickly on an emergency basis.  The court doesn't have the power to change the law to suit the Dems if the Census Bureau itself says it doesn't need more time.

The Western Fires and Climate Change

 The big push regarding climate change these days is to tie the forest fires out west with man made global warming and scream hysterically.  The problem, of course, is that there is nothing that ties the fires to any changing climate.

There are many people who believe that the fires have been set by some of the leftist groups trying to take control of society through climate change regulations.  Who knows if any of that is true.  It seems pretty wild, but if these same sorts of groups burn down cities to "help" those who homes and businesses get burnt, then maybe they really are idiotic enough to burn forests to save the climate.

Let's assume that most of the fires were started by lighting strikes, though.  The existence of lightening is not changed whether or not the average temp is 72 or 73 degrees (and that's the sort of climate change we are talking about).  There are dry years and there are rainy years, even out west.  It used to be said that the rain each year was determined by whether or not there was an El Nino phenomenon in the Pacific or a La Nina.  These were warmer or cooler spots on the surface of the Pacific that guided weather systems north or southward.  Now it's all climate change because ...well...it's the story of the moment.

Of course, the severe forest fires this year are also the result of using "natural" methods in land management.  It used to be that particularly in dry years, the forestry service would try to clear much of the dry brush out of the forests so that any blazes would have much less fuel to burn.  The environmentalists who now scream about climate change previously marched about only using natural methods for land manage.  Clearing brush was bad; nature would clear it away in fires.  Seriously, these people who are now going berserk over fires wanted the US Forestry service to let natural fires clear away the brush.  It's like an opponent of vaccines getting upset when his or her child gets measles that was totally preventable with the vaccine.  What did they expect would happen?

Worth Noting

 Here's something that is noteworthy:  Three weeks ago, President Trump held an event on the White House lawn to accept the GOP nomination for 2020.  The media and the Democrats went crazy criticizing the speech as a "super spreader event" that would lead to massive virus infections since not everyone wore masks.  Now, a study has been done going back over the last two days to everyone who attended the speech.  There has not been even one case of COVID infection among those who were at the event.  Given the two week maximum incubation period for the virus, that means that not a single person got the virus at the event.  Once again, the nonsense in the media and among the Democrats about this event being dangerous has been proven to be just so much nonsense.

Bye Bye BDS

 BDS is the shorthand way to refer to the Boycott, Divesment, Sanctions effort run by anti-Israeli forces in certain countries.  Certainly, the Palestinians support it, but in the USA, its primary supporters are all left wing Democrats.  They promote a boycott of all Israeli companies.  They ask investors to sell stock in any Israeli enterprise (the divestment) and they also seek the imposition of sanctions on the Israeli economy.

BDS gained strength among some Democrats, particularly the Squad and its supporters.  For what it's worth the BLM movement supports BDS, although one has to wonder what Israel and the Palestinians have to do with the supposed systemic racism in America.

Tonight, however, it is pretty clear that the BDS movement is in tatters.  The Arab world (which is the supposed beneficiary of BDS) has obviously abandoned the core mechanism of BDS.  The United Arab Emirates, a major economic power on the Arabian Gulf normalized diplomatic and economic relations with Israel about a month ago.  Then Saudi Arabia relaxed its economic boycott of Israel by allowing flights from that country in its airspace.  Yesterday Bahrain, another rich Gulf state, announced normalization of diplomatic and economic relations with Israel.  Now tonight, Morocco announced that it was establishing an air link with Israel.  While it may be true that traffic on those flights will be limited for now due to the corona virus, this will eventually be an important economic link between the two countries.  It's like an avalanche of new economic ties between Israel and the Arab nations.

One has to wonder if the Democrats will continue to support BDS if the Arabs abandon it.  Will Biden finally denounce BDS?  Will Kamala Harris do that?  

My guess is that most of the far left Democrats won't even notice the change in the Middle East.  Pelosi called all these events a "distraction".  The greatest move towards peace in 25 years is a "distraction" according to Pelosi because it was brought about through the efforts of President Trump.  Unbelievable. 

COVID -- Better Testing, Better Treatment -- By The Numbers

 There are three states that tell the tale of COVID in the USA.  Connecticut, Oregon and Oklahoma all have approximately the same number of people.  In Oklahoma, there have been 68,000 confirmed cases, Connecticut had 54,000 cases and Oregon had 28,000.  The number of people dying in each state from the virus, though, was CT - 4480, OK - 888 and OR - 499.  Why are the differences so striking?  Why could Oklahoma have about 25% more cases than Connecticut but only about 20% as many deaths.  If things were equal in both states, the Oklahoma case numbers should have resulted in 5500 deaths using the same mortality rate as Connecticut, but there were only 888 deaths.

The answer seems to come from two sources:  better testing finding more cases and better treatments resulting in better outcomes.

First let's look at testing.  The bulk of the CT cases were in the early days of the pandemic before the full testing apparatus was up and running.  A great many people with no or few symptoms were never tested.  Oklahoma's big case load came recently.  At that point, testing for everyone was easily available.  That means that many of the no or mild symptom case were picked up.  That explains why OK had so many more cases in the same size population.

Then there's better treatments.  CT had over 11,000 people hospitalized with the virus, and 4500 died.  OK had over 5000 hospitalized with the virus and 888 died.  That means that over 40% of those hospitalized in CT died while less than 20% of those hospitalized in OK died.  Obviously, these are rough numbers because not everyone who died was first hospitalized.  In general, though, people dying made it to hospitals first.  Since the cases in CT were bunched in the early days of the pandemic and those in OK have been much more recent, it would seem that better treatments for the virus has led to better outcomes for the hospitalized patients.

What America's Recognizing Reality Has Brought to the Middle East

 Think back over the last four years with regard to America's policy in the Middle East.

First, we had President Trump move the US embassy in Israel to the actual Israeli capital, Jerusalem.  The "experts" and the pundits all screamed that this would lead to rioting in the streets across the region, a loss of US influence with the Arab states, and an end to any movement towards peace in the Middle East.  They were wrong.  The embassy was moved, and none of the negatives occurred.  The "experts" got it wrong.  America could change a policy under which we only recognized a fiction that Tel Aviv was the real capital rather than the reality which was that since 1948, Israelis had made Jerusalem their capital.

Second, we had President Trump act again with regard to Israel.  This time he recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.  Israel captured this region from Syria in 1967 after the Syrians attacked Israel.  Under international law, territory captured in a defensive war may be annexed by the victor and that is exactly what Israel did.  America just recognized that reality.  The "experts" went crazy again.  So did the pundits.  Trump was foreclosing an issue that could be negotiated as part of a peace deal between Israel and Syria, and that would kill any chances for peace in the region.  It would also lead to riots in the streets, etc -- or at least so they said.  Of course, there was essentially no reaction to the move.  Indeed, if the Israelis ever negotiate with the government of Syria -- assuming that country finally gets a recognized government -- they can talk about the territory of the Golan if they want to.  In the interim, however, that region is part of Israel and America has recognized that reality in accordance with international law.

Third, we had massive media and Democrat attacks as well as non-stop commentary by the "experts" on the death of Adnan Kashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Ankara, Turkey.  The media/Dem complex wanted Trump to condemn the Saudi crown prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) for ordering that killing even though we didn't have clear proof that MBS had done that.  Since MBS runs the Saudi kingdom, such a move would have put a major wedge into the US Saudi relationship at a time when President Trump was working to assemble a broad regional alliance against the Iranians.  Trump didn't take the bait.  He realized that American condemnation of MBS -- especially without convincing proof - for the Kashoggi killing would not bring any positive results for the USA.  That reality led to his conduct.  America makes deals with all sorts of foreign leaders.  We made deals with the Chinese, and they have millions of Muslims in concentration camps.  We made deals with the North Koreans and they have blood on their hands.  We made deals with Putin, and he has certainly had people killed.  As a result of this position taken by President Trump, our alliance with the Saudis was unaffected.

Fourth, we wiped out ISIS and killed terror leaders like al-Baghdadi of ISIS and Suleimani of Iran.  Once again, the "experts" told everyone that this was madness.  There would be terrible repercussions.  There would be rioting in the streets.  Etc.  Even Joe Biden joined in this chorus.  How dare we kill an Iranian "leader" (who also just happened to be the world's biggest supporter of terrorism).  But President Trump recognized these murderers for what they actually were, terrorists who were gunning for Americans.

Fifth, President Trump put forward a peace plan for the Palestinian-Israeli disputes.  It actually recognized reality.  It didn't call for dismantling all of the so called settlements, most of which are just neighborhoods in or suburbs of Jerusalem where Jews now live.  It also required the Palestinians to actually move towards peace.  Not all concessions were going to come from Israel.  The Palestinians would have to accept less than 100% of all their demands.  The "experts" did their usual crazy dance.  The Palestinians rejected the plan before they even got it, but there was no response from the rest of the Arab world.

This dose of reality has led to a change in the structure of the Middle East.  Sunni Arab states understand that the USA no longer abides by the old fictions.  Israel isn't going away.  The Palestinians can't call all the shots by stamping their feet and shouting NO.  Iran, not the Palestinian/Israeli dispute, is the source of most of the turmoil in the region.  No amount of appeasement of the mullahs in Iran will change their plan for regional hegemony.  These positions have forced the Arab states to likewise recognize reality.  There is no longer an American umbrella that protects them from Iran no matter how they act.  Simply put, reality has consequences, and if the reality is that these countries are not cooperating with the USA, then America will recognize that fact and act accordingly no matter what the old experts (who seem never to get it right) say.

The UAE made peace with Israel a month ago.  The Saudis allowed Israeli commercial jets to fly over Saudi territory.  Kosovo, a Muslim country in the Balkans, recognized Israel.  And today, Bahrain is making peace with Israel.  That's more movement towards peace in the Middle East than we've seen in 20 years.  And with the momentum being gained, it is likely that more countries will make peace with Israel.

It's important to remember that the Palestinians have opposed and denounced each of these actions, but none of the other countries cared.  The old Palestinian temper tantrums don't work any more.  In the last week, at a summit of Arab nations, a resolution put forward by the Palestinians to denounce the UAE for making peace with Israel was defeated easily.  That's about the clearest possible signal that the Palestinians can no longer call the shots for the region. 

It's also important to keep in mind that Joe Biden says he will reverse this new American policy.  He wants to reinstate the failed policy of appeasing Iran.  After all, the experts tell him it will work -- even though it failed so miserably under Obama/Biden.  He also wants to abandon Trump's plan for a peace between Israel and the Palestinians.  Biden wants to go back to recognizing fictions rather than reality.

No one -- other than the "experts" -- think that such a policy by Biden would work.  But that doesn't matter.  If your policy calls for accepting fiction, then you can also accept the fiction that it is working.  Of course, at some point, the other countries also understand that your policy is based upon fantasy, and they stop paying attention to you.  All that Trump has accomplished here is threatened should Biden win.

No Relief—Dems Block COVID Benefits

 In the senate today Democrats blocked a bill to give higher benefits to the unemployed. The bill would also help cities and towns cope with the virus. There were other benefits that everyone agrees are needed

So why did the Dems block the bill. They don’t want anything good to happen before the election. They don’t care about the American people,only votes

Who Are They Kidding?

 I saw the headline about this morning's weekly report of new unemployment claims.  It read "Weekly Jobless Claims Tick Higher" on the list of articles at Yahoo Finance.  Sure enough, that is what TheStreet.com says in the article linked to the headline above.

But here's the reality.  New unemployment claims last week were 884,000. The previous week they were 884,000.  That's right, The claim number was identical to the one the prior week.  Despite the headline and the text of the article, claims stayed exactly the same.  And that means that for the first time since the pandemic began, weekly unemployment claims were under a million for two weeks in a row now.

The sad thing is that the article itself eventually got to the point of stating the actual numbers if you read to the 14th paragraph.  Most of the article, though, was devoted to explaining why these numbers under a million were really not important and didn't indicate any improvement in the labor market.

This is just another example of Fake News. It's important to remember that since the pandemic started to affect unemployment claims six months ago, there have been 60.1 new claims filed.  that's an average of 2.3 million claims each week.  Obviously, this week's figure which is about one-third the average is really good.

Okay, actually, it's not helpful to compare the average number of claims during the pandemic to last week's numbers.  Sure, it's lower now.  Sure, it's at the lowest since this mess began.  I just made that "analysis" to show how easy it is to push a "political position" rather than economic analysis.

Nothing Like Being Prepared

 Joe Biden gave a speech today in Warren Michigan.  Biden hasn't exactly been campaigning at breakneck speed.  It's a big day if he does one event, so he and his staff have plenty of time to prepare.  Today, Biden illustrated this fact.  Since he had plenty of time to get his speech correct, Biden blasted President Trump for allowing our military to suffer 6114 dead from COVID after 118,984 servicemen and women were infected.   

Bit there's a small problem with this.  The actual number of COVID cases among the military has been 40,026 and the actual number who have died is 7.  That's right, there were seven deaths from COVID among America's military, but Biden claimed there had been 6114 who died.  That means he multiplied the actual number of deaths by more than 800 times.  And remember, Biden wasn't approximating; he said 6114 which is very exact.

Years ago, Barack Obama said he had been to all 57 states, and that was a rather egregious error.  At least he was close.  Biden says 6114 dead when there really were only 7 and his number is like one from a different planet.

Is this the guy you want running the country?  NO WAY

The Covid Connundrum -- When is it Enough

 If you watch most media, you would think that the COVID 19 virus is a disaster that just keeps getting worse.  We keep getting told that there isn't enough testing, that not enough people are wearing masks, that the vaccines being developed are just political ploys of President Trump and that every person who died from the virus is Trump's fault.  What is happening is that the media and the Democrats (same thing really) want to scare so many Americans that they can reap the benefit of that fear on election day.

The problem, of course, is that the situation with the virus is getting much better.

Here's an example:  A friend told me that this morning a cable network was reporting that new COVID cases rose in a majority of states yesterday.  OH NO!!!  Here's the reality, however.  Yesterday was the day after Labor Day.  As a result, some of the cases being reported were from tests taken over the weekend which all got lumped together.  For example, the official reports in Connecticut reported NO new cases over the long weekend but then showed a big jump yesterday to a level about 3 times higher than the average of last week.  That's great news actually.  It is four days of test results showing new cases at only about three days of last week's level.  For the country as a whole, the number of new cases reported from tests taken yesterday was only about one-third as many as mid-July.  People presently in the hospital are now down by more than half from the late July peak.  Deaths are also falling quickly.

Then there's the good news with the vaccines which are getting closer and closer to approval.  Despite this, Democrat Kamala Harris is promoting conspiracy theories that the FDA is succumbing to political pressure to approve a vaccine that doesn't work and actually does more harm than good.  It's a maniacal position for the Dem's nominee for VP to promote.  How many people will be so scared of the vaccine as a result of what Harris says that they won't take it once it is ready?  How many people will die because they didn't take the vaccine once it is ready.  Those are numbers we don't know now, but we can be sure that they will not be insubstantial.  Harris, however, doesn't care about those who might die because of her conspiracy theories.  She wants to win an election at all costs.  Or put another way, for Harris and others who promote this ridiculous charge, NO LIVES MATTER BUT THEIR OWN.

And what about all the continuing restrictions being put on small businesses, schools etc. by Democrat governors and mayors who are adopting a "let's destroy America" philosophy.  In CT, the governor just got his emergency powers extended to next February.  Right now, we have test results that are consistently below 1% positive.  In fact, the positives are right around the level of false positives from the tests.  Schools, though, are operating with crazy restrictions, even though the number of children who have been hospitalized from the virus since the start of the pandemic is less than five.  The need is for protection of the vulnerable like elderly residents of nursing homes or those with severe co-morbidities.  The kids are not where to focus our efforts if we want to prevent bad outcomes from the virus.  

There's much more that could be said, but the point is a simple one.  The pandemic is receding quickly.  The prognosis both for vaccines and therapeutics is quite good and getting better.  The need for any shutdowns is disappearing if not yet totally gone.  But the media and the Dems are portraying this as if we are living in an endless horror movie.  Life has to return to normal, but the media and the Dems are still trying to prolong the agony in the hope that they can get voters to blame President Trump for it.  

Americans should want politicians whose goal is to put the welfare of the people first.  Sadly, these bozo Dems won't even consider the welfare of the people; they focus only on getting power by scaring the voters.  It's demagoguery at its worst. 

Is It That Blatant?

 When the big move came to defund the police, Joe Biden supported it.  There's video of him doing so.  Biden was asked if money should be “redirected” away from cops, he replied, “Yes, absolutely.”  So Biden is stuck with that answer.

After the internal polling done by his campaign showed that even Blacks did not support defunding the police, Biden suddenly started denying that he supported that move.  His running mate, Kamala Harris, however, kept on with verbally supporting the defund the police movement.  Finally, the Biden campaign got Harris to stop announcing her support.

Today, however, Biden hit a new low.  He actually said that the only candidate who wants to defund the police is Donald Trump.  Unbelievable!  

It's such a blatant lie, that there really can't be anyone across America who believes it.  I wonder what Biden will say next?  Maybe he announce that the Pope now supports abortion on demand and that he also wants to abolish Catholicism.

What a fool.  He can't even lie well.

Some People Cannot Change

 In 2004, CBS Evening News host Dan Rather was forced out of his job by the network.  The cause was a story Rather aired on 60 Minutes claiming that President Bush had skipped out on all of his required Air National Guard drills.  Rather claimed to have documents that proved this to be true.  But there was a problem; the documents were rather obvious forgeries.  They had been printed on a computer printer of a type that didn't exist at the time they were supposedly created.  When confronted with the truth, Rather didn't back down; he stuck with the phony story.

Now we have the Jeffrey Goldberg bogus hit piece in The Atlantic where Goldberg claims to have anonymous sources who report that president Trump said terrible things about wounded veterans two years ago in France.  The story seemed ridiculous on its face, but now every staff member who was present when the events in issue took place has denounced the story as false.  Even Jeffrey Goldberg now admits that his story might not be accurate.  But for Dan Rather, that doesn't matter.  Today, he said that whether or not true, the story at least sounds believable.

Here's a guy who was at the pinnacle of TV news.  He got bounced out of his job for pushing phony stories.  Now, he's sticking up for more Fake News because he says that at least it sounds believable.

Amazing!

Will Minorities Make The Majority?

 All through this century, Democrat pundits and political "experts" have told us that changing demographics in the USA make an eventual unbeatable Democrat majority a sure thing.  As an ever bigger share of the population was Black, Hispanic or Asian American, the Republicans -- who they told us could only carry white voters -- would fade into a regional party at best.  The federal government would be a permanently Democrat.

When Bush won in 2004, many of these experts announced that he would probably be the last Republican president.  When Obama won in 2008 with Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, we got a lot of "see, I told you so" from the same pundits.  Then in 2010, the GOP won the House.  In 2014, the GOP took the Senate  Then in 2016, President Trump was elected.  The same pundits told us that this was the last gasp of the Republicans because the numbers of minorities were still growing.  Many blamed the Democrats' loss on white racism -- the fear of losing control to minorities.  Of course, those same supposedly racist whites had Obama win two terms.

Now, we are hearing again about the inevitable Democrat victory based solely on demographics.  Someone should tell these pundits/experts that they don't have a clue.  President Trump (whom they falsely call a racist) has spent his whole term conducting outreach to the Black community.  As a result, Trump gets a job approval rating in the low 30% range from Black voters.  Remember that in 2016, Hillary Clinton won the Black vote with 92% of the total.  In many recent polls, Trump is getting over 20% of the Black vote.  A switch like that on election day will guarantee a Trump victory.

But it's not just Blacks.  Hispanics are also swinging in many places behind Trump.  Recent polling in Florida shows that Cuban Americans (the biggest Hispanic bloc in Florida) support Trump over Biden by a 32% margin.  Statewide, Trump is polling about 12% higher than he did in 2016.  Those numbers, if replicated on election day, would guarantee Trump victory in Florida.

There are even those who argue that the BLM movement is an effort to drive Blacks back into the arms of the Democrats.  The rioters of BLM say that they are actually protesting racism rather than just looting stores and burning buildings.  For months, the Democrats supported those riots, even calling them "peaceful protests".  Biden and the Democrats placed a bet that by supporting the rioters/looters/thugs, they would win the loyalty of any wavering Blacks.  Needless to say, that was a losing bet.  People who saw their communities destroyed by BLM and Antifa were in no mood for the supposed "solidarity" coming from Biden and the rest of the Dems.  They wanted law and order, not chaos and clenched fists.  Indeed, by treating Blacks as predictable and angry, the Democrats pushed many of these Blacks away from the Dems and towards the GOP.

It would be poetic justice if Trump gets re-elected with a slightly smaller share of the white vote but with the margin of victory coming from a performance among minority voters much better than in 2016.  It would be the ultimate defeat for the Democrats' identity politics. Just because Harris is a woman does not guarantee the Dems the votes of all women.  Just because Harris is an Asian American does not guarantee the Dems the votes of all Asian Americans.  Just because Biden has dementia does not guarantee the Dems the votes of all victims of Alzheimers.

Biden and His Teleprompter

 Yesterday, Joe Biden took questions from people on an virtual town hall.  Except he didn't really do it.  He got questions alright, but he didn't give answers.  Instead he read answers off his teleprompter.  Seriously, Biden read scripted answers to questions that he had in advance.  It was a totally phony event.  No one would have known this for certain except Biden couldn't even keep it a secret.  At one point, he asked his people to move the teleprompter closer so that he could see it better.  "Bring it up here," Biden said and then he sat there silent except for big sigh as he waited for the prompter to be moved.  It was a bizarre moment in a bizarre campaign.

This guy cannot function as president.

The More Things Change

 This morning, I read a column by Victor David Hanson who is one of the more intelligent and insightful political commentators.  He spoke of all the "scandals" that the media is "unearthing" about President Trump.  Hanson's focus was on the bogus story about Trump's supposed refusal to go to a French cemetery in 2018 for a ceremony honoring war dead of WW I on the 100th anniversary of the end of that conflict.  That's been discussed and debunked enough, but Hanson spoke of it mainly for a different reason.  He pointed out that we should expect more and more of these supposed sensational disclosures as the election draws near.  It's the Democrats and media's main weapon in the election debate.  Hanson pointed out that these attacks and the Biden strategy of hiding in the basement in Delaware do not seem to be working.  Trump's electoral trajectory is rising while Biden's is falling.  We don't know -- because the polls are so obviously flawed and/or biased -- who is actually ahead, but we do know the direction in which the public is moving.  And then Hanson makes the point that I think is the true insight of his piece.  He points out that as these stale and phony scandal pieces fail to move the public, we should expect more and more of them to be unleashed.

It's really true.  If you think about it, the Democrats and Biden, in particular, don't have much to offer.  Biden claims he will end the pandemic, but all of his prescriptions are to claim he will do things that Trump did long ago and continues to do.  Biden claims he will end the riots, but that rings hollow for the millions of voters who watched Biden sit in silence for three months as the riots went on and on.  Laterly, as his standing has fallen, Biden has finally addressed the riots.  First, he blamed the police.  Second, he blamed systemic racism.  Third, he called the protesters "the best of us".  Fourth, he actually called the riots mostly peaceful.  And, finally, Biden said that violence is not the answer.  The media said that Biden "condemned" the violence, but that's nor really true.  Biden didn't call upon the Democrat mayors and governors who let these riots continue to take action to stop them.  He didn't call upon sending in the National Guard to help.  He didn't call for the arrest and prosecution of thugs who loot, start fires, destroy whole neighborhoods and terrorize people they encounter.  "Violence is not the answer" sounds more like something one would find in a fortune cookie than a plan of action from a potential president of the USA. Biden has done nothing to encourage voters that he would ever be able to stop the violence.

Biden also, rather hysterically, claims that he could restore the economy. Then he lists a whole series of actions that would literally cost millions more people their jobs.  His plan to destroy the oil and gas industry alone has been estimated to destroy over five million American jobs.  Biden's plans for huge tax increases that will hit everyone hard will also result in millions more jobs lost.  The biggest threat from Biden of all is his announcement that to end the virus he would shut down the economy again.  All those businesses that are just limping along on the edge of the abyss would surely go under if there is another shutdown.  The fifteen million or so Americans who were out of work during the first shut down but who have now gotten back to work would once again lose their jobs.  Basically, Biden's plan for a second shutdown would flat line the economy.

There's more, but basically Biden can't talk about his plans without pushing votes away rather than attracting them, and his advisors know this.  If you doubt this conclusion, think for a moment about how often Biden has spoken about these plans.  He doesn't even do it.  Just the other day, he held a briefing which was billed to be about Biden's plans for the economy.  Biden, however, used the time to bash Trump rather than to talk about his own plans.  Then he took no questions.

Boiling it all down, Hanson's insight is correct.  We should all expect more and more bogus "scandals" to be "unearthed" by the media.  Trump has already been hit with everything that could actually be used against him.  Moving forward, the media will go farther and farther into discredited fiction.  But that's all they got.

You Know What Really Burns?

 I saw a video this morning of events in Portland last night.  It reminded me of my next door neighbor when I was a teen.  The guy used to say, "You know what really burns my ass?"  He would wait for a response and when none came, he would say "a flame about this high" while he put his hand at mid-chest level.  It wasn't funny years ago.  It isn't funny today.

Still, the video I saw was of an Antifa group in Portland lighting a Molotov cocktail to throw at the police.  The person who lit the flame dropped the bottle, however, and it set the pants of another person on fire.  The video shows that now-burning person trying to stamp out the fire.  The crowd grabs the one on fire and make feeble efforts to douse the flame.  In a moment, the police -- the intended target of the Molotov cocktail -- rush in an put out the flames thereby saving the victim's life.  While that is happening, the Antifa crowd is yelling at the police to get away.

Look, I know that the Antifa group can't be composed of the best and the brightest.  Okay, basically their anti-social fascist morons.  They use classic fascist tactics while claiming they are anti-fascist.  Still, the idea of a group getting angry and vocal about the police saving the life of one of their group seems idiotic even for these morons.

  

Nancy Pelosi -- This REALLY Says It All

 I saw this video posted at PowerlineBlog.  You really should watch it.  It is very powerful.

Then pass it on

Keeping Up The Fear

 There seems to be a conscious effort by many in the media and in certain parts of the government to keep up the level of fear regarding COVID.  There also seems to be very little attention being paid to the major reduction in the virus in the USA.  Consider this:

1.  In Connecticut where I am at the moment, there have been a rather stead rate of new cases of about 110 each day during the last week.  That's 110 positive tests each day out of about 17,500 tests taken each day or about two thirds of one percent positive.  At that level, the results are in the area of just the false positives.  During the same week, the number of people hospitalized due to the virus has declined to 58 from 60 and there have been a total of 4 deaths from viral infections.  In short, the numbers in CT are truly great.  Sure, we would like to see no new cases, but we are at about as low a level as can be achieved absent a vaccine.

I report all this because yesterday evening, I got a recorded phone call and an email from the mayor of Stamford who reported -- somewhat hysterically -- that testing done on human waste retrieved at the area sewage treatment plant showed higher levels of the virus than expected.  The mayor said we all had to prepare for a flare up of the virus because of this reading.  He warned that he may have to shut down restaurants and other businesses again.

I've heard of reading tea leaves, but I've never heard of government reading fecal material.  Seriously, given the really low figures we have achieved, isn't it a bit premature to sound a major alarm and to threaten another total shutdown based only on this crap.

2.  Going inito the Labor Day weekend, the Dr. Fauci warned that there were seven states at risk for virus flares including Iowa, ND, SD and four others in that region.  None of the seven states has been hit hard by the virus.  A flare was predicted in SD when they hosted the big motorcycle rally attended by about a quarter of a million people about three weeks ago.  There was no flare that followed.  Fauci didn't get hysterical in his comments, he issued a warning.  That's fine.  But then there's the coverage of the warning.  The AP spoke of Iowa and said that had over 66,000 cases of the virus.  That sounds really bad.  Of course, what that really means is that since the start of the pandemic six plus months ago, there have been 66,000 positive tests in Iowa.  Many had no symptoms.  Most had mild symptoms.  Only a small number were hospitalized and even a smaller number died.  But remember, the bulk of these people have all fully recovered from the virus.  Based upon the actual tests and the dates upon which they were taken, the number of infected people in Iowa is less than 20 % of the figure used by the AP.

Today's Useful Idiots

 During the 1920s, Lenin who was then the head of the Soviet Union reputedly said that the people in the West who supported the Communists without really understanding what Communism entailed were "useful idiots".  Today, that term needs to be updated to include the people who believe obvious nonsense pushed by the media.

The phrase came to mind in connection with the latest bogus attack on President Trump.  The new assault was begun by the super leftist "journalist" Jeffrey Goldberg of the always-left Atlantic.  In Goldberg's article, he says that unnamed sources report that in 2018 when Trump was in France for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the end of WW I, he didn't want to go to the ceremony at the cemetery where thousands of American sevicemen  who were casualties of that war are buried.  Goldberg reports that Trump called these dead soldiers "losers".  Goldberg also reports that Trump said that the Vietnam War was "stupid" and those who went to fight it were "suckers".  Goldberg also reported that when Trump was trying to organize a national military parade for the 4th of July, he said that he didn't want wounded vets involved because no one wanted to see that.  Lastly, Goldberg reports that when John McCain died Trump didn't want to do anything like fly flags at half mast or otherwise honor McCain in any way.  Goldberg supplies no source for any of these stories.

There are people out there who have the intelligence to understand that these stories are not true, but who still take someone like Jeffrey Goldberg as accurately reporting the story.  These are the useful idiots of today.  These are the people that the left wing media rely on to give effect to their lies.

Think about it.  About five months ago, John Bolton published his book detailing his time as national security advisor for Trump.  Bolton was fired by Trump and is no fan of the President.  Nevertheless, in Bolton's book, he explains why Trump didn't go to the ceremony at the cemetery in France.  The weather was such that the President's helicopter couldn't make the trip in perfect safety, so the only way there was by motorcade across the French countryside, a two hour trip each way.  Bolton and the Secret Service thought that this would not allow the President to make a quick exit in the case of an emergency, so they recommended to him that he not go.  So a guy who doesn't like Trump reports what happened regarding the cemetery months before this was any sort of an issue, and he makes clear that Goldberg's unsourced story is NOT TRUE.  That ought to be the end of it, but it's worth noting that when I discussed this with one of the useful idiots, he told me that maybe Bolton just put this in his book to make Trump look good.  That's actually hysterical.  There's no reason Bolton's version makes Trump look good and Bolton had no motive to try to achieve that anyway.

And what about Trump calling soldiers "losers" or "suckers" or wondering why anyone would join the military.  This too is obviously phony.  Remember, Trump knew well why someone would join the military.  He attended a military academy for many years.  Believe me, he knew.  And Trump has always put military personnel, veterans and their families high up on the list of his priorities.  Unlike Obama/Biden who treated our servicemen like dirt, Trump always has treated them well.  He wouldn't call them suckers or losers in any case.

It is possible that Trump called the Vietnam War "stupid".  He certainly called the Iraq War (for which Biden voted) "stupid" and "unnecessary".  Remember 2008 when Biden justified his vote for the Iraq War on the basis that he had been fooled by lies from the Bush Administration.  Let's forget the truth or lack of truth regarding what Biden said in 2008.  Either way, Biden was basically calling the Iraq War stupid and unnecessary.  There are also huge numbers of Americans who would agree that Vietnam was a stupid and unnecessary war.

And what about McCain?  All the honors that Goldberg says Trump opposed were given to McCain.  And guess what?  The person who had to authorize those honors was President Trump.  If he truly wanted to deny honors to McCain, he easily could have done so.  It is a no-brainer.

But then the useful idiots step in once again.  Trump said about McCain that he (Trump) liked people who didn't get captured.  We all remember that.  For the useful idiot, this means that Trump didn't want to honor McCain when he passed away.  Except McCain got all those honors.

The useful idiot also rushed to tell me that other news agencies "confirmed" Goldberg's story.  It must be true, right?  But not a single other network named a single source who would say on the record that this was true.  For all we know, the people "confirming" the story were the same bogus sources that supposedly gave it to Goldberg in the first place.  And remember how the media works.  Think of Nick Sandman, the high school kid in the MAGA hat who was denounced as a racist and a white supremacist by large numbers of media outlets when all he had done was stand still as an Indian activist walked up to him and beat a drum in his face.  Oh, and Sandman smiled nervously.  The media labelled him a racist with no basis.  Sandman has since sued the worst offenders and gotten sizable settlements from outfits like CNN, Newsweek and the WaPo.

It's important to not permit yourself to become one of the useful idiots.  When you hear a story like this one from Goldberg, take a step back and think about it.  Does it sound correct?  Does it seem odd that a story about 2018 is only showing up now when we are two months from the election and Trump is rising rapidly in the polls?  Is there a sound evidentiary basis provided for the story (and unnamed sources are not a sound basis.)?  Are there people who contradict the story (like for Goldberg's story, nearly every person involved has come forward to denounce it as a lie.)  Apply reason to the facts of the story, and then and only then decide if you believe it.  Don't be a useful idiot.

Another Great Foreign Policy Victory Ignored

 Yesterday, Serbia and Kosovo agreed to normalize economic relations in a deal brokered by the USA.  It's a major breakthrough to resolve a festering international problem.  Serbia and Kosovo were both part of the old Yugoslavia.  When that country broke into seven pieces in the 1990s, there was fighting between ethnic and religious groups.  NATO even stepped in during the 1990s to stop the Serbs from using ethnic cleansing against the Muslims who are the majority in Kosovo.  Since then, there has been peace, but no relations between the neighboring states of Kosovo and Serbia.  The new agreement hopefully goes a long way towards ending that confrontation.

The problem of Serbia and Kosovo is one that could have led to renewed fighting in the Balkans at any time over the last 25 years.  During the Obama/Biden years, the administration made a big show of appointing a special envoy for the problem who accomplished nothing (as was the usual case during that administration.)  President Trump appointed Ric Grenell, who was then US ambassador to Germany as the special US representative for dealing with this problem and Grenell is the one who led the successful effort to get the current deal done.

As part of the deal, the Trump administration also got Kosovo to recognize Israel which makes for yet another Muslim majority nation to do so.  That should help with getting more Sunni Arab states to follow the lead of the UAE and make peace with Israel.  Indeed, the UAE/Israel deal and the Serbia/Kosovo deal are two major foreign policy achievements by President Trump.  The media, however, treats this as a non-event, since they can't stand to give credit to Trump for achieving anything, especially something that the Obama/Biden administration tried but totally failed to do. 

Another Mostly Peaceful Protest

 Last night there was another mostly peaceful protest in New York City.  A group of about 150 people marched through lower Manhattan, broke windows, spray painted buildings and cars, started a fire and spread havoc.  The mostly peaceful protesters caused an estimated $100,000 damage according to the NY Post.  A number of the vandals were arrested and many were from out of town.  The event had been advertised on social media by a group called the New Afrikan Black Panther Party.  Police recovered two guns, some grenades and various burglary tools from the thugs, excuse me, the mostly peaceful protesters.

In an interesting twist, the thugs marched right by the home of NY City Council President Democrat Corey Johnson but somehow skipped breaking windows at his building.  Johnson called for an investigation into counter protesters.  Yes, that's correct, Johnson wants people opposed to the rioters to be the subject of an investigation.  But remember, the Democrats are now "firmly against" the violent hooligans who have been rioting -- except they're not really.

Happy Labor Day Weekend, everyone.

Special K or Biden Learns The Shapes of Letters

 Joe Biden said today that the economic recovery from COVID is not good because it is a "k shaped" recovery.  Someone needs to explain to Joe what shape is a K.  He seems to have forgotten.

Biden says that what he meant was that the wealthy are doing fine in the recovery but the poor and middle class are not.  Biden further says that this is the problem of the economy under the entire Trump presidency.  Once again, Biden's memory is faulty.  The truth is that what Biden is describing is the economy during the Obama/Biden administration.  Obama came in and started with a severe economic downturn.  Over the eight years of Obama/Biden, the economy grew very slowly.  Only the wealthy got wealthier.  The middle class and the poor never saw real growth in their incomes.  In fact, the Obama/Biden years are the only presidential term of the last 100 years when the middle income and poor groups saw no increase in real incomes.  Let's say that more clearly:  for the last century, the only presidential term when the middle class and low income segments of the population sow absolutely no increase in their income.  It was such a big problem that maybe we should call that sort of recovery a "B" shaped recovery for Biden.

The Jobs Report For August

 This morning we heard that the economy created 1.4 million new jobs in August and the unemployment rate fell to 8.4%.  These are good numbers.

First, these figures mean that well more than half of those who were unemployed due to COVID are now back at work.  The unemployment rate is also below 10% for the first time since the start of the main effects of the virus.  Wages are up.  Labor participation is up.  Basically, every statistic released today has been good.

That doesn't stop the media/Democrats though.  I've seen four reports of the jobs reports in the mainstream media.  Each one focuses on the fact that not every job lost to the virus has been recovered.  Three out of four also focuses on the number of jobs that have been lost permanently due to the virus.  

This is irresponsible reporting.  First, obviously not all jobs have been regained.  No one says that they have, but the media takes pains to knock down a claim no one has made.  The real question is whether the economy is moving forward rapidly to bring Americans back to work.  The answer to that is clearly yes.  The next question for America is whether or not they want President Trump's proven leadership on the economy or Joe Biden with his crackpot Socialist schemes that would inevitably inflict major damage on the economy.

Second, there are obviously jobs that have been lost permanently due to the virus.  Just think about all the restaurant workers in places like New York City where the local government won't allow restaurants to serve people inside (as opposed to outdoor dining.)  Restaurants in New York City are big business.  As more and more of these restaurants close permanently once the cooler weather sets in and outdoor tables are no longer feasible, we will see many more jobs lost permanently.  Indeed, both NY mayor DeBlasio and governor Cuomo don't seem to care at all about the loss of hundreds of thousands of working class jobs in the restaurant industry.  At the moment, NY has lower levels of COVID cases than any other state, but the mayor and the governor won't take the reasonable steps that essentially every other state has approved like allowing partial opening for inside dining.

There will be just one more Jobs Report prior to the election.  It will be released during the first week of October.  Baring some unexpected development, it will show another million plus jobs being created in September and a further lowering of the unemployment rate.  Trump is correct about that V shaped recovery.

I lived in Connecticut all through the Obama years.  We had a Democrat in the White House, a Democrat as governor in Hartford, Democrat control of the state legislature and for the first six years Democrat control of all or one house in Congress.  At the end of eight years of Obama and Biden, Connecticut still had not recovered all the jobs it lost during the financial crisis at the start of Obama?Biden's first term.  Why would anyone think that Biden could do any better now?  He doesn't even have a coherent plan.

The Left Will Say Anything To Demean Trump

 Lately, the already constant barrage from the left to attack President Trump has gotten worse and worse.  In the last week alone, we've had a bunch of bogus stories like these:

1.  The mainstream media reported that in 2018, Trump had a series of mini strokes for which he rushed to Walter Reed Hospital in DC.  At the time, the same media reported that Trump had suffered a heart attack.  The truth is that Trump went unannounced for part of his annual physical.  The heart attack and the mini strokes were pure fiction.  As the President put it when responding to the stories, he would not have gone to the hospital for only an hour or two if he had suffered either a heart attack or a stroke.  Rather obviously, the media is trying to make Trump appear as weak and sickly as Biden.

2.  The media is now screaming that in 2018, President Trump called the WW I American soldiers buried in cemeteries in France, "losers" and "suckers".  He also is reported in the same story to have called John McCain a "loser" and to have announced upon McCain's death that the federal government would do nothing to honor McCain.  

This is a rather vile but obvious lie.  Again, the President pointed out that he had to approve all the steps taken to honor McCain and he did so.  President Trump also sent Air Force One to Arizona to bring the McCain family and the body to DC.

As for calling war dead "losers" or "suckers", that is something that is completely opposite of the constant conduct of President Trump.  Those are the kinds of insults of US servicemen that would come from the left (which is probably why the lie seemed plausible to them.)  President Trump goes often to visit wounded servicemen in military hospitals.  He worked tirelessly to finally end the mess at the VA which just festered under Obama/Biden.  He's very concerned about veterans and currently serving soldiers.  He would never disrespect them.

3.  Trump visited Kenosha the other day.  The media reported ahead of time that there was "overwhelming opposition" to the visit.  (That's a direct quote from CBS News.)  When Trump got to Kenosha, there were no problems.  Instead, the visit was a success and there were sizable crowds.  Biden initially said he would NOT go to Kenosha because it would cause too many problems.  Once Trump had been there, Biden changed his mind and went there.  Hardly anyone showed up.  The big news of the visit was that Biden was caught giving out pre-scripted questions to supposedly random people so that they could be address to the former VP at a town hall.  Biden could deal with real questions.

4.  The man wanted by police for the shooting death murder of an unarmed Trump supported in Portland was killed in the past few hours after he was confronted by federal marshals.  The guy pulled a gun on the marshals and they shot back.  On Twitter, however, the big story from the left is that the President had tweeted about the suspect and within an hour he had been killed by federal marshals.  

It's enough lies already.

The COVID Rules Don't Apply To Democrats

 Today, Joe Biden went to Kenosha Wisconsin.  When Old Joe got off the plane, he walked over to his advance team, stuck out his hand and shook hands with them.  Here's a link to the article reporting this.  The was a gross violation of the COVID rules that bar handshakes with anyone, ever.

Yesterday, we learned that Nancy Pelosi forced a hair salon in San Francisco to give her a wash and a blow dry in violation of the local COVID rules that bar anyone from getting a haircut or styling inside any salon in San Francisco.

So in the space of two days, the top two Democrats in the country made clear that they don't think the COVID rules apply to them.  If you need a haircut in SF, you are out of luck unless you want to get one outside while wearing a mask.  If you greet an old friend in Wisconsin, you can actually get arrested if you are seen shaking hands with that person.  But the bigshot Dems don't have to follow the law.  As the internet meme would put it their slogan is "Rules for Thee, but Not for Me."

Think back just a week ago.  Pelosi slammed the RNC for holding president Trump's speech outside with some people not wearing masks.  She denounced it in the most strident possible terms.  Biden, while hiding in his basement, still released a statement that likewise denounced the GOP for having people gathered outside without masks.  Of course, when the GOP announced that almost everyone at the event had just been tested for the virus and did not have it, Pelosi just repeated her outrage. But remember, there was nothing illegal about what the RNC did.

Now a week later, Nancy Pelosi has been videotaped breaking California law by using her position of power to force the salon owner to give her a wash and blow out.  Biden has been video taped breaking Wisconsin laws by shaking hands with his aides.

Pelosi's excuse was first that she didn't know that she had to wear a mask in San Francisco or that she couldn't get her hair done inside.  Really?  This genius is unaware of the local COVID restrictions?  Who in the world believes that?

When that excuse didn't fly, Pelosi literally screamed that she had been set up.  She demanded an apology from the salon owner because she was a victim.  Unbelievable!

Biden has yet to comment on his illegal handshakes.  No doubt he will tell us that it is all President Trump's fault.

For many decades, the Democrats always claimed to care about the average people.  Don't believe it.  They just want their power and the perks that come with it.  And the rules?  They're only for you and me, NOT THEM.