Category: Uncategorized

Reference:       https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-american-medical-association-officially-recognized-racism-as-a-public-health-threat-saying-it-creates-and-entrenches-health-inequality/ar-BB1b69xD?ocid=msedgdhp

            Well, the American Medical Association almost missed the bandwagon on racism, but apparently they have WOKEn up and joined a bunch of other woke bandwagon-riders including several cities and towns in Massachusetts such as Beverly, Boston, Chicopee, Everett, Framingham, Holyoke, Longmeadow, Medford, Revere, Somerville and Springfield.  According to the AMA, racism “negatively impacts and exacerbates health inequities among historically marginalized communities.” 

            Apparently, anything that bums someone out is a “public health threat” since it affects their mental health.  Well, certainly being poor, living in crappy areas, not having health insurance or having lousy insurance, living in areas infested with gangs and drugs, are all going to take a toll on anyone’s health.  And despite many blacks living in such lower-income areas (because of racism, of course) and having less money and lousy or no health insurance (because of racism, of course) and being getting lousy medical treatment (because of racism, of course), they blame their lousy health and outcomes on, surprise, racism. 

            One prominent example cited features statistics seeming to show that blacks and Hispanics are more vulnerable to COVID-19 and die from it in greater numbers than other ethnic groups (meaning whites of course).  The source of this particular analysis comes from, yes, The New York Times, that bastion of reliable, unbiased and fair “journalism.”  Their analysis shows that blacks and Hispanics are three times more likely to catch the virus, and twice as likely to die from it.  Another analysis, the largest of its kind apparently, found blacks in the US and UK are only twice as likely to get the virus. 

            Racism is the reason, of course, and not biology, because blacks have health conditions that make them statistically more vulnerable to infectious diseases generally.  “But that’s not simply genetics; it’s access to care, fresh food, and exposure to dangerous environments.”  As the above article states:

“We have to make sure that people understand that race is not biology,” Dr. Camara Jones, an epidemiologist and physician with affiliations at Morehouse, Emory, and Harvard universities, previously told Business Insider. “This false narrative of biologically-based differences in the races? It has been debunked.”

            Has it?  Well, blacks are black and whites are white.  That seems to be a biological difference.  Blacks disproportionately ascend to the heights of sports, such as basketball, football, track and field, etc., etc., despite racism.  That seems to be a biological difference.  Blacks constantly moan about their special type of kinky hair, which we cannot dislike no matter how looney and off-putting it is.  That seems to be a biological difference. Many black men cannot shave because of some medical situation peculiar to black men. That seems like a biological difference. 

            At least one study shows that blacks have higher bone density mass than whites, leading to fewer bone fractures.  https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/88/2/642/2845134.  Another study showed that biological differences between black and white individuals with breast cancer were linked to genetic ancestry, which appears to be a biological difference as the author states.   https://www.healio.com/news/hematology-oncology/20170504/biological-differences-between-black-white-individuals-with-breast-cancer-linked-to-genetic-ancestry.

            Yet another study concluded that “[t]he new evidence reviewed here points to some genetic component in Black–White differences in mean IQ.”  https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf.  Sickle cell disease, an inherited disorder of the red blood cells, is much more prevalent among blacks than whites, which seems to be a another biological difference. 

            One geneticist has noted that:

“Analysis of DNA allows us to measure with some precision the genetic distance between different populations of human beings.  By this criterion, Caucasians and Asians are relatively similar, whereas Asians and Africans are somewhat more different.  The differences between the groups are small – but they are real.”

https://www.amacad.org/publication/unequal-nature-geneticists-perspective-human-differences.

            So it simply is not accurate to say that there are no biological differences between blacks and whites.  There are many in fact.  Those who maintain otherwise are using a politically correct advocacy narrative, not a science-driven one.  It is far easier to maintain the narrative that racism is the cause of all the woes that have befallen blacks if you can eliminate biology as a factor, but you simply cannot and be taken seriously. 

            Nevertheless, in the interests of political correctness, the obvious solution to appease the BLM crowd and white consciences is to build nice new houses in nice neighborhoods (or give them ours) for blacks far from nasty environments, give them all nice comfortable well-paying jobs with 100% paid for excellent healthcare and other lovely perks (job qualifications don’t matter because they are, of course, inherently racist and created by white supremacists), give their kids a good education (meaning having black teachers teach them all about the sins of America pursuant to the 1619 Project, which is the new K-12 gospel), send them all to HWCs (“Historically White Colleges” for free (or pay their student loans off if they’ve already been), graduate school too, and pay them each a reparations stipend of, say for a starting point, $50,000/year in perpetuity beginning at age 18 (more if they can document having slave ancestors). 

We also have to eliminate law enforcement entirely, send all whites (and those Asians, who don’t like blacks at all) to reeducation camps, commandeer all white property (because it all comes from our white supremacy and systemic racism) and distribute it according to social justice principles (whatever the heck those are).  Bernie and Liz and the “Squad” will certainly shepherd this approach through Congress and Kamala Harris will surely put a pen in doddering Joe Biden’s hand and help him sign it.  That should take care of everything.  The rest of us? Well, there’s a nice dumpster down the street for rent.

                Today we have whoever invented the lottery scratch ticket.  Who among us has not had to wade through a knee-high ocean of these things whenever trying to get into one or another convenience store?  Or had them blowing into your yard, or clogging drains near your home.  Who among us has not seen, when either exiting or entering one of these convenience stores, people hunched over in their cars furiously scratching away with the hope of riches, only to see their disappointed faces when the stars did not align for them?  Who among us has not stood in line at one of these stores while someone ahead of us in line buys $50 or $100 of these things, with money that in all likelihood could have been better spent elsewhere? 

                Yes, it’s indeed unfortunate that the state has jumped into the gambling business with both feet, between the lottery and the casinos and basically imposed a new tax on a population that can ill-afford it.  Not to mention creating the sad reliance of cities and towns on lottery income for “local aid.”  But it seems to us they didn’t have to buy into a process that produces probably a sizeable portion of the litter along roadways and parking lots throughout the state.  We wonder if this inventor gets a royalty or residual for each ticket.  If so, his or her wealth must rival Elon Musk’s. 

                In any event, we believe the world would be a better place without scratch lottery tickets, and their inventor should be ferreted out, hung, then drawn and quartered in full public view.  Or perhaps more fitting, burned at the stake by a heap of scratch tickets set ablaze.  While the flames will eventually consume him or her, the toxins from whatever glossy unnatural stuff they’re covered with probably will do the job first.

                By the way, we’re taking nominations for Inventors Who Should Be Taken Out And Shot; just leave a comment.

            Did you know that Kendall Jenner has 141 million “followers” on Instagram?  Right, we know, who the hell is Kendall Jenner?  Did you know that her sister, Kim Kardashian, has 191 million “followers”?  Right, we know, who the hell is Kim Kardashian?  Many other so-called “celebrities” have tens of millions of “followers”.  Most of them have little-to-no actual talent or credentials about anything.  And there’s a whole new breed of people who also never did anything other than become so-called “influencers” on the internet using one or other social media forums, such as Twitter, Instagram, Tik-Tok, etc. 

            “Influencers” in fact are just comical.  It’s apparently an actual career path these days.  You may recall Lori Loughlin (another no-talent nobody, but who is a “celebrity” nonetheless), who currently is in the pokey for buying off people to get both her daughers into USC.  One of those daughters was apparently a budding “influencer” but whose “career” now has been side-tracked by the adverse publicity surrounding her mother.  Well, when in Rome…

            There are tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of idiots in this country who turn to these “celebrities” to “follow” for information and opinions.  If you add media “personalities”, who generally also are idiots regardless of which political party they advocate for, just supposedly better informed, and their “followers,” what you end up with is an entire country of idiots that just cannot think for themselves.  Of course, just thinking aloud gets you cancelled these days, so it’s way safer to adopt someone else’s pre-packaged politically correct opinions and feelings.

            There used to be people called “reporters” who would write non-biased articles describing in purely factual terms what happened where, why, how and by whom.  Yes, sounds quaint, doesn’t it?  There used to be an op-ed portion of the newspaper, which was the designated place for opinion pieces.  The rest was actual news, except for the funnies and crossword.  But we have to think back probably 40-50 years for these memories.  Today everyone with a byline in the paper is an opinion columnist with whatever the “news” is being smothered in a frosting of personal opinion, bias and prejudice.  When the headline is “Here Are The President’s Lies Today,” then unbiased reporting is out the window.  What he said is supposed to be the point, not what the reporter or his/her paper thinks about it.  That’s what the op-ed page is for.

            But thanks to cable TV and the plethora of channels, all of which need programming to fill their time, the talking heads are almost inescapable and have become just another piece of the celebrity business.  Not a one of them talks any sense – the game is to either interview friends who agree with them, in which case it’s a lovefest.  Or it is to interview enemies, in which case the point is to goad, insult and embarrass them so the interviewer can show how smart he or she is, and how hopelessly ignorant and insane the guest is. 

            But all these clowns (we mean, “media personalities”) are also “celebrities” these days, with their own fanatical following regardless of where they are on the political spectrum.  Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Robin Roberts, Keith Olbermann, Rush Limbaugh, they’re all the same.  Even people who used to have some talent are in on the act now, like the comedians Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, etc.

            And all of this is based more or less on the assumption by all of them, and their hardcore supporters, that the rest of us are just too stupid to separate the wheat from the chaff.  So we say, cancel them all and give the rest of us a break!

References:  https://lawyersdefendingdemocracy.org/open-letter-seeking-accountability-for-false-claims-of-fraudulent-election/    

https://lawyersdefendingdemocracy.org/repairing-our-democracy-a-primer-on-the-damage-done-repairs-needed

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/525970-the-lawless-fantasy-to-oust-all-the-election-lawyers-of-donald-trump

                This group, amusingly named “lawyersdefending democracy” since they are doing anything but, has penned several diatribes against President Trump and his lawyer “enablers,” effectively asserting that our democracy will fall unless lawyers refuse to work for the President in challenging various aspects of the recent election.  They proceed from the assumption, which they characterize as a “fact” that there is no evidence of “widespread fraud” in the election.  Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t.  Maybe there is just some fraud but it isn’t widespread.  Maybe there isn’t any fraud but a bunch of screw-ups.  Maybe the actions and prejudices and obvious biases of Facebook and Twitter constitute widespread election meddling.

                States at the last minute changing the rules for signatures, timing of receiving ballots, etc., certainly sounds fishy, but they are facts.  Machines that didn’t work or mis-counted ballots, that’s a fact.  And now that state officials are being forced to delve into every nook and cranny, in large part because of the legal actions of the President and his lawyers, every day brings a story of another batch of ballots found somewhere that were uncounted, or the like. 

                Moreover, anyone who believes that massive voting by mail isn’t ripe for irregularities, and that there is a long list of such irregularities already established, is a fool.  Relying on this pandemic to twist the rules is perhaps the hallmark of this election, even if it might not amount to “widespread fraud”.  Any reasonable observer, including lawyers, would agree that such – let’s just call them “irregularities” – should be investigated. 

                These diatribes by a privileged, self-appointed, sanctimonious and self-important group sadly amount to nothing more than their own distaste for the President and completely fail to acknowledge that reasonable people, including reasonable lawyers, may have different perceptions of events.  Maybe there isn’t some widespread fraud organized and implemented by Russia or China or whomever.  Maybe there is. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some curiosities that shouldn’t be investigated, and unless someone forces that to happen, it isn’t going to.  And the Democrats certainly aren’t going to do it on their own.

                The “fact” is that truth, like beauty, is often in the eyes of the beholder, and there is no societal group that should know that better than lawyers.  Any real lawyer that actually tries cases in the courts or administrative hearings knows quite well that truth doesn’t necessarily win cases – perceived truth does.  That is, whoever is more effective in convincing the factfinder wins on what is true or false.  The weepy sympathetic witness, whoever the factfinder feels more sorry for, the guilty murderer who goes free on the legal “technicality”.  It is a feeble-minded lawyer indeed who believes that truth is something objective and readily ascertainable. 

                What is even sadder is the pathetic lack of confidence in our democracy these lawyers demonstrate.  This country has gone through much worse than Trump and survived.  While claiming to defend the Constitution, they completely ignore the First Amendment, among other things, not to mention lawyers’ traditional role of representing unpopular clients.

                 This is all not to even include the outsize role both the overwhelmingly liberal and “progressive” media, and these social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, etc.. seem to have on peoples’ views and perceptions.  If there is any fraud anywhere it probably lies in these networks managing their systems to favor one candidate or party over another, for whatever reason.  But in the end that’s may be no different that big business or big labor buying votes with campaign contributions in the right places, but at least that is way more out in the open. 

                But attacking lawyers will always be popular among a certain set – everybody hates lawyers until they need one, right?  But as Jonathan Turley wrote at https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/525970-the-lawless-fantasy-to-oust-all-the-election-lawyers-of-donald-trump

This effort has resulted in Twitter blocking the Lincoln Project for targeting lawyers in a tweet that was denoted as abusive. The Lincoln Project is said to have also joined Democrats in targeting law firms like Porter Wright and threatening its attorneys with ruin. It claimed that any law firm working for Trump with election litigation is a “dangerous attack” over our democracy. But trying to strip people of counsel is the real attack. The law firm buckled and cited new internal struggles and at least one resignation.

This campaign to intimidate the lawyers who represent Trump is not about vengeance but rather insurance. Even if the success of these cases is very small, his opponents do not want to risk the judicial scrutiny of the ballots. Posts on social media targeted clients of law firms such as Jones Day, and the Lincoln Project pledged $500,000 to make the lives of these lawyers a living hell. It is the kind of tactic which is used by antifa and other activists to “deplatform” speakers or harass individuals at their homes.

                . . . . The person most undermined is Biden. Instead of asking for the review of these cases to affirm his legitimacy as the next president, his backers are harassing lawyers and running a retaliation campaign. It is an ironic twist since many of us marveled at how guilty Trump looked in his acts to bully his accusers and derail the Russia investigation. The best thing for Trump would have been to support a full investigation. There is also no evidence of systemic election fraud. The best thing for Biden would be to support a full investigation. The threats and biased media coverage only worsen the suspicions of the 72 million Americans who voted for Trump.

                So yes, let’s just cancel all the lawyers, ruin their lives, reputations and livelihoods and cover up everything even if it isn’t as dramatic as it sometimes is advocated to be.  THAT is the real danger to democracy. 

Statistics from:  https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/02/03/student-loan-debt-statistics/?sh=ee57fab281fe

                According to Liz Warren and all her “progressive” disciples, personal responsibility matters not anymore.  It is government’s role to wrap each person in the US, here legally or not, in bubble wrap and tenderly take care of them from cradle to grave. 

                Take her most recent proposal to just “cancel” student debt, which of course is portrayed as some “crisis” whenever you read about it, which is nonsense.  Student loan debt might be a personal crisis for particular individuals, but it certainly is not some broad-based economic crisis that government has to address or the apocalypse will arrive. 

                Why?  First, people accumulated their student debt knowingly.  We put aside in this discussion the problems with for-profit schools like ITT scamming students  that’s an entirely different issue.  Here we’re talking about the run-of-the-mill college student at traditional non-profit educational institutions.  They took on this debt, maybe even unwillingly, because it paves the road to a better tomorrow, supposedly.  But they agreed to it, and they agreed to repay it.  What is wrong with, in general, making them do just that?

                Second, what do you say to all the millions of responsible people who worked hard after graduation and paid off, or are paying off, their student loan debt without whining about it being excessive?  Even if it caused them hardship. Do we just write them all a check? 

Third, what do we say to all those responsible (and irresponsible) people who never had any student debt in the first place, but who are somehow managing to take care of themselves at real jobs doing useful work. Is that a crisis? Well, it might be pretty quick if all these college students who ran up debt get a big money payday and the non-college people get nothing. Since equity is one of the cool buzzwords these days, is that equitable? Or what is the carrot that they’re going to get that we haven’t heard about yet?

Fourth, this amounts to paying off the debt of all these leftist, antifa, BLM spoiled college brats-turned-graduates who believe that free speech is the most wonderful thing in the world UNLESS you don’t agree with them, in which case you are a monster needing immediate cancellation.

                Fifth, this proposal made now by Warren, with her claim that it is necessary now to provide a pandemic stimulus to the economy, is a pretty transparent and cynical attempt to capitalize on this health crisis to implement one of her pet political projects – she’s basically talking about buying votes for the Democrats with your money.  She proposes:

Cancel billions of dollars in student loan debt, giving tens of millions of Americans an immediate financial boost and helping to close the racial wealth gap. This is the single most effective executive action available to provide massive consumer-driver stimulus.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/11/elizabeth-warren-biden-harris-first-day/

                Sorry, but cancelling student loan debt is NOT the “single most effective executive action available to provide massive consumer-driven stimulus.”  That is just absurd, since as discussed below a huge chunk of the people affected don’t need it, and most of the people in the country won’t even be affected by it except to pay for it.  They might want a handout from the government (effectively to be paid by your descendants), but they don’t need it. This is the type of elitist notion that by and large would impact people not in need, and could only be advanced by ignorant socialists like Warren and Bernie Sanders, along with their “democratic socialist” pals.

                No doubt not having to pay one’s voluntarily incurred obligations would be a delight to people.  But if you look at the numbers, this is just giving people a gift most of whom don’t need it.  The big number everyone points to, of course, is the total student loan debt, which is running at about $1.56 trillion dollars.  Yes, that’s a big number.  But it is spread over 44.7 million people, so the average debt per person is $32,731.  The median student debt (meaning half owe more and half owe less) is only about $17,000. That leaves, of course, about 285 million people who won’t receive anything from this wealthy upper-class boondoggle. Did they vote to forgive the debt of college kids who don’t need it? Doubtful. Of course they’re probably white supremacist racists so no one need be concerned about their view.

                Now let’s think about that.  Half of people with student loan debt owe less than $17,000, not even close to the average price of a new car these days.  So just how is that some sort of crisis?  The answer is, it isn’t. Forget about the BMW and take the bus or subway and pay your debts first, like millions of others have. Yes, there are certainly bunches of people with student debt that is a lot higher, many owe over $100,000, which are the sad heart-string-pulling stories the media and “progressives” harp on. 

But the fact is that less than 2% of students have over $50,000 in debt.  Almost a quarter of borrowers owe between $20,000 – $40,000 (roughly 9.5 million borrowers).  Only 3 million have debt over $100,000.  Remember, there are 330 million people in this country, so that is not even one percent of the US population.  And dollars to donuts, a good portion of those with gigantic student debt like that got it by going to post-grad places like medical or law or MBA school, so they are much more likely to have the later income to pay it off.  So how is that a crisis?  Again, it isn’t.

                Yes, an increasing percentage of graduates have “excessive student loan debt” and that number has roughly doubled over the past 35 or so years.  “Excessive student debt” was defined as monthly payments consuming 10% or more of income, though obviously that depends on what income class you are in.  Yet that still isn’t even 15% of all borrowers.  So is that a crisis?  No, it isn’t. 

                Moreover, there are all kinds of repayment plans to ameliorate the impact.  There is Public Service forgiveness.  There are many opportunities for extended repayment terms and income-based options, some of which may offer loan forgiveness after 20 years.  Moreover, it appears that college graduates default at a relatively low rate.

                Now this all puts aside the basic notion of personal responsibility, which of course is no concern of Warren or the Democrats since they jettisoned that notion decades ago.  Why should people act responsibly when the federal government will cushion them from every bump and bruise life may inflict on them?

                Yes, for-profit and some two-year schools are notorious for scamming students, exhorting them to take out all kinds of loans including private loans, and those people make up about 40% of all student loan borrowers.  These folks also end up with much less debt since their schooling period is shorter, and/or they drop out and never finish.  But sadly they often end up in dead-end jobs that make it extremely difficult to find housing, health care, food, etc., never mind repay back money that they never really benefitted from and were more or less coerced into borrowing.

                If anyone needs a helping hand it is this group.  And if the “progressives” were to focus on this group – the actual needy rather than the higher-income and more-likely-to-vote group – then perhaps there is something to talk about.  But part of that discussion has to be to go after these schools, who really end up just being money-printing businesses for their owners.  And some limited progress has been made on that front.

But the notion of some broad-based cancellation of student loans, with no consideration given to how the student got into difficulty in the first place or even needs any help, is misguided and a complete waste of money, unless of course, you’re a Democratic politician planning to run again in 2 or 4 years and want to buy some votes.  There are other pressing needs.

                Boy, talk about narcissism, arrogance and egotism, the self-important media is just so full of itself.  They apparently believe that because they have “called” the recent election for Joe Biden, that that somehow triggers a whole host of required official federal obligations to the anointed winner, such as office space, funding and access to departments and otherwise confidential information.  They also seem to believe that just because they “called” the election the loser has some obligation to “concede.” 

                Untrue that is, as Yoda would say.  The press is NOT in charge of elections.  They might think about actually reading the Constitution sometime since they obviously haven’t (apart from the First Amendment, which covers them for just about every idiotic and wrong thing they say).  Under the Constitution, only the Electoral College can “call” the election for President, which this year will happen on December 14.  There is no legal requirement that a Presidential transition jumps into action just because one or another media outlet “called” the election or because the incumbent did or did not “concede”.  The press is quite mistaken if it thinks it has some official role in anything relating to a Presidential election (or any other election for that matter). 

                That is, it is tradition only from which these alleged requirements spring, and the exigencies of reality and practicality.  It may be that in the past the GSA head permitted a transition to commence, and ordinarily the winner is usually pretty clear-cut.  Here, well, like it or not the President has the legal right to contest the ballots and has the legal right to not concede, ever, if he wants.  While there are strong common sense reasons to get a transition underway (even if it turns out to be useless in the end), there is no legal requirement that that happen now, in spite of all the criticism and media suggestions otherwise. If there was, Biden would have been in court by now.

                But the point here is that these media characters act like they are God and have the right to anoint the next President, and have every right to start prattling and whining when someone challenges their view.  This is cancel culture come to the election process.  Anyone who disagrees with them, or just suggests that they lack the power they think they have, is subject to vilification and smearing.  This unwarranted arrogation of political power is nothing more than the media attempting to mount its own coup d’etat and making decisions that properly belong to the voters and the Constitutional process that has been in place for over 200 years.

                It’s the arrogance that gets us, like the rest of us are too stupid to recognize a pure but baseless power play when we see one.  Think what you want about Trump and his actions regarding the vote, and perhaps a baseless power play is also what he’s up to.  Just don’t tell us that it is the press alone who can dictate what happens after a Presidential election and possible transition, and that all this blather about conceding and cooperating with a transition is legally required just because the media says so.  It ain’t so.

Reference:          https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-england-clarke/fa-chairman-clarke-quits-after-coloured-footballers-remark-idUKKBN27Q2TN

                English Football (what Americans know as “soccer”) Association chairman Greg Clarke made the following statement recently in response to a question from a member of Parliament about the difficulty “gay” players have in “coming out” in the social media age:  “If I look at what happens to high-profile female footballers, to high-profile coloured footballers, and the abuse they take on social media… social media is a free-for-all.”

                Well, geez, even though this seems pretty innocuous, his reference to “coloured footballers” stirred up the usual woke de rigueur outrage from the usual suspects.  His reference to “outdated language . . . from decades ago and should remain consigned to the dustbin of history,” said one outragee.  (Yes, alas, the world is now made up of “outragers” and “outragees”).

                Yet the difference between that, and the annoyingly pervasive but perfectly acceptable as far as we know, men, women and people “of color” seems pretty thin to the point of non-existence – the proverbial distinction without a difference.  If he had said “footballers of colour”, we’d never of heard about it but what the heck is the difference?  But maybe “of color” is out of fashion, though if so we haven’t yet heard. Darn, we do so detest not being up on the current terminology. By the way, ever hear of the NAACP?  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People? 

                And, of course, Mr. Clarke has been cancelled.  Certainly a vicious insensitive unwoke racist beast like that doesn’t deserve to have a life or a job.

                It’s a sad day at the New York Times and the Boston Globe.  Both papers, thinly disguised semi-official advocates for the progressive antifa, BLM, LBGT etc., and various other lefty “movements” saw their movements grind to a halt in the recent elections, despite their rabid view that the revolution was going to begin.

                Guess what?  There was no Blue wave.  There was no repudiation of Trump or Trumpism.  Trump didn’t get slaughtered by Biden as the left anticipated and planned for.  The Democrats did not tighten their grip on the House of Representatives, as they had anticipated – in fact they LOST several seats.  The Democrats did not regain control of the Senate, as they anticipated, so even if Biden eventually wins he will be significantly hamstrung.  The Democrats did not, as they anticipated, and despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars, take control of any state legislatures.  All these they promised to do.  All these the Times and the Globe promised, hoped, and advocated zealously for. 

                 Of course, they have their explanation, which is racism/white supremacy.  That is rabid black Globe columnist Jeneé Osterheldt’s explanation the day after the vote – though white supremacy is her answer for just about everything she doesn’t like, if you’ve ever read her columns.  Her headline about this?  ” Regardless of who wins this election, America is lost”.  One classic excerpt: Across the country, business owners boarded up their windows in anticipation of looters and violence over the election results. People are vigilant about their things. But the violence that is racism, sexism, mass incarceration, police brutality, poverty, hunger, xenophobia, LGBTQ+ discrimination, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia? The list doesn’t end. People don’t understand the reality: America is violence. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/11/04/nation/regardless-who-wins-this-election-america-is-lost/

                Yes, she is part of the “silence is violence” crowd, as if that cute catchphrase actually makes any sense at all if you think about it.  it sure sounds cool and hip to call all those things “violence,” but that concept is patently absurd on its face.

                Renee Graham is yet another black Globe columnist – her post-election headline was “Black people voted for democracy while Trump supporters chose white supremacy.”  So you don’t even have to bother reading her article to see what she had to say.  If you do read it, it isn’t much different than Osterheldt’s.  It’s all racism, racism, racism, punctuated only by white supremacy, white supremacy, white supremacy, etc.  https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/11/06/opinion/black-people-voted-democracy-while-trump-supporters-chose-white-supremacy/?p1=StaffPage

                There’s not much if any discussion of any policy differences between parties or candidates other than racism and white supremacy being the cause of the election results they both have found so disappointing.  It is clear that these black “progressives” do not admit that there was any election issue other than to support or not support racism and so-called white supremacy.   

                And then there is the hilarious column by a fellow named Charles M. Blow for the Times, who is just bereft at the outcome.  In a wonderful article, Wall Street Journal columnist James Freeman, tees off on Mr. Blow at https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-disappoints-the-new-york-times-again-11604615710?mod=opinion_lead_pos11, which we strongly recommend reading – he includes some precious Twitter quotes from Mr. Blow as well.  Mr. Blow is “stunned” because inexplicably “[a] larger percentage of every racial minority voted for Trump this year than in 2016.”  He is particularly amazed that that was true among black and Hispanic men AND women:

On Twitter, Mr, Blow adds that these numbers are “so personally devastating to me”. Let’s hope he’ll soon be on the road to recovery. But it’s hard to be optimistic because apparently the survey statistics just will not leave him alone. Mr. Blow notes in the Times:

                “This one pushed me back on my heels: the percentage of L.G.B.T. people voting for Trump doubled from 2016, moving from 14 percent to 28 percent. In Georgia the number was 33 percent.”

The Times columnist adds a bizarre declaration on Twitter:

“This is why LGBT people of color don’t really trust the white gays. Yes, I said what I said. Period.”

                How dare those stupid voters vote the way their conscience dictated rather than jump on the lefty bandwagon and ask Osterheldt, Graham or Blow how they should vote so they could be well-behaved voters!  Goodness, we can’t have that!

                These media buffoons are, of course, the people who squawk the loudest about free speech if they think they’re being muzzled, but just try to express a different view to them – that gets you cancelled. 

References:  https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/pd_debttothepenny.htm ; https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the–s-national-debt-3306124; https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/reports-statements/treasury-bulletin/current.html (September, 2020 issue)

“‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice.” She could have been talking about the national debt.

What We Owe

            According to the US Treasury Department per the above sources, as of Ocober 1, 2020, the national debt was just a jot under $27 trillion.  To put that number in perspective, there are roughly 330,000,000 people in the US.  Debt divided by population equals almost $82,000 for each man, woman and child in the US.  That is in addition to what you already know you owe for credit cards, cars, mortgages, student loans, etc.  So if you have a family of four, your share of the national debt is about $328,000. 

            For each trillion dollars our elected “representatives” decide to use to pander to the woke mobs for more stimulus, pay off student loans, reparations, air force toilet seats, etc., it will cost every person in this country another $3,000, plus interest. 

            And it gets worse, way worse.  The US has to pay interest every month on this debt, and does so without paying down any of the principal – that is called “servicing the debt.”  That is just like you paying the minimum every month on your credit cards – actually it’s worse since your minimum payment at least usually includes some small amount of principal. 

            Would you believe for fiscal year 2020 it cost this country, and you, $522,767,299,265.34 just to service the national debt.  https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm.  That’s BILLIONS, and that’s just this year.  Using our same calculation, in fiscal year 2020 servicing the debt cost each person in this country almost $1,600.  Again, for a family of four that is about $6,400.  We’ll bet you could sure find some other uses for that kind of money. 

            Another perspective is that the 2020 federal budget had expenditures of approximately $6.6 trillion, which included the original stimulus money.  So the service on the national debt consumed almost 8% of the total expenditures.  And note that that $6.6 trillion included $3.1 trillion in new debt (this is called the “deficit”, which was more than TRIPLE that of the prior year) – that is, the government’s income in fiscal year 2020 only covered HALF the expenditures.  All that stimulus money?  The government had to borrow it. 

            A more realistic perspective for debt service is to use the original 2020 federal budget amount of $4.79 trillion.  That comes to about 11% of the original budget.  True, the pandemic has skewed things, but not in a good way.  It has generated so far about $3.1 trillion in unanticipated expenditures, which had to be borrowed and which will significantly increase what it costs to service the national debt.  It has also reduced revenues by hundreds of billions due to shutdowns.

But wait, it gets better (worse actually). For the past several years, the annual deficit has been about $1 trillion dollars, which means the national debt gets bigger every year. But it’s costing over 1/2 trillion dollars to service the national debt. so that means that the government has to borrow money just to service the debt. So that means we’re borrowing money to pay the interest we have to pay on the money we already borrowed! And that money will become part of the national debt next year and then we’ll be paying interest on that money. And so on, and so on… Is that nutty or what?

Who We Owe It To

            We owe it to all those entities who have loaned money to the US.  This includes foreign countries like China (about $1.07 trillion) and Japan (about $1.3 trillion), and the total foreign debt is about $6.81 trillion.  Note that this just includes what the US has borrowed from those governments.  It does NOT include all the property and companies in the US that foreign countries have purchased outright or invested in.

            The US also owes the Social Security Trust Fund, the Federal Reserve, state pension plans and private sector pension funds, mutual funds and a variety of other entities, from which it has borrowed money.  Notably, Social Security and public and private pension plans and 401(k) funds are all owed collectively just a bit under half of the debt.  So actually retirees in the US, both current and future, are the ones most at risk if the US cannot pay back this money.  Put another way, almost half of the national debt is owed to you and us via retirement plans of one sort or another, including Social Security.

The Debt Ceiling

            The sad reality is that the US government spends more than it makes every year, so it has to borrow more money every year.  You may have read or heard from time to time about politicians in Washington arguing about whether or not to increase the “debt ceiling.”  Congress sets a limit, called the “debt ceiling,” on how much the government can borrow in total – that is, the highest the national debt can be.

Why the Debt Ceiling Matters

Congress must raise the debt ceiling so the United States doesn’t default on its debt. During the last 10 years, Congress increased the debt ceiling 6 times. It raised it four times in 2008 and 2009 alone. If you look at the debt ceiling history, you’ll see that Congress usually thinks nothing of raising it.

The debt ceiling only matters when the president and Congress can’t agree on fiscal policy. That occurred in 1985, 1995 to 1996, 2002, 2003, 2011, and 2013. It’s a last resort to get attention by the non-majority in Congress. They might have felt slighted by the budget process. As a result, they create a debt ceiling crisis.

https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-debt-ceiling-why-it-matters-past-crises-3305868

OK, So Why Is All This A Problem?

            Think about it.  It’s more-or-less the same as if you had to use 11% of your take home pay (after you’ve already paid out, say, 30% via taxes and FICA) every month to pay just the interest on your credit cards, but still leaving your family of four with a debt of $328,000, on top of the principal you owe everyone.  Wouldn’t you be worried?  Would you run out and spend another $1,600 you don’t have?  Well, if you had that kind of debt in the first place you probably would since you obviously cannot manage your finances intelligently.  And with that kind of debt and a normal income, no one is going to extend you any more credit anyway.  But if you’re a government you get cut a whole lot more slack when it comes to borrowing. 

            But governments and people who spend beyond their means have to pay the piper at some point.  At some point in the future, this money, or a good chunk of it anyway, is going to have to be paid back.  But you’ll be dead by then, so what do you care?  Well, if you have kids or care even a little bit about the future of the country, you should care.  Your kids, and their kids and their kids are going to have to pay it back somehow sometime.  And where does that leave them?  They are paying off our foolishness (Congress’s actually, but we all want all the goodies the government dishes out but don’t want our taxes raised and don’t much think about the consequences) in not being able to live within our means.  Maybe they can kick the can down the road like generations before them and just keep raising the debt ceiling.

            The answer, of course, is simply to budget and spend responsibly, start paying off some principal, and stop raising the debt ceiling, but anyone familiar with how Washington works knows that isn’t going to happen.  And if this progressive brigade takes over, well, the first thing they’re going to do is authorize spending for all sorts of pet projects, like paying back peoples’ student loans and spending trillions on reparations for blacks, and the so-called Green New Deal, and goodness knows what else – just look at the Democratic platform wish list.

            In the end, there are going to have to be some serious behavior changes among our elected “representatives” and “entitlements” since the following description is what we have right now and it show no signs of moderation:

Elected officials have a lot of pressure to increase the annual U.S. budget deficit. Increases in the budget push the national debt higher and higher. There is not much incentive for politicians to curb government spending. They get re-elected for creating programs that benefit their constituency and their donors.

https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-debt-ceiling-why-it-matters-past-crises-3305868

The End

How did this country get to the place where it cannnot live within its means? You have to live within your means or the bank comes for your car or house. We have to live within our means or the bank comes for our car or our house. Here, the debt service of over 1/2 trillion dollars for 2020 is HALF of the budgeted 1 trillion 2020 deficit!!! That is, half of the new debt is going to pay interest on the old debt, and the rest of the new debt gets added to the national debt!!!

Spineless and gutless elected politicians and their ceaseless pandering to special interest groups of one party or another and election and re-election pressure to bring home the bacon for most Congresspersons is to blame. Congress is like a weak-willed parent who just can’t say “no” to their kid screaming in the checkout aisle.

We need better people to represent us. A representative democracy isn’t worth a hill of beans without qualified, decent and responsible people making these decisions for the rest of us. Look at this election – are Biden and Trump really the best we have to offer???

But we the citizens and voters have to step up too and stop returning these losers to office. Incumbency has become almost like tenure; most incumbents don’t even face serious challengers anymore, it’s too expensive unless you already have the power and can help out your donors.

We’re not saying we have any answers to make this happen, but we’re certainly open to ideas and it certainly is about time to start this discussion. One obvious potential solution is to allow only individuals to donate to federal election campaigns, up to a reasonable maximum, say $1,000 per candidate. No union, no corporate, no PACs, no national committees, no black money, politicians would just have to rely on individuals. As it is now, there are all kinds of ways to game the system and the only ones that aren’t hurting are incumbents. Think of what a responsible politician could do with the money wasted on political campaigns!

Now the obvious problem is the Supreme Court’s general view that political contributions are “free speech” of some kind. Well, that is utter nonsense, but it will have to be overcome. If a cap on individual contributions is constitutional, why isn’t the elimination of, or at least a cap on, corporate/union/PAC/committee contributions? Something isn’t making sense here. Not that the law has ever had anything to do with sense, common or otherwise.

Other ideas, anyone?

                First on this list is whoever invented the gas-powered leaf blower.  Like many sharply hit baseballs, their exit velocity is over a hundred mph.  This pox on society serves a useful purpose for only the laziest of homeowners and the most fanatically time-sensitive landscapers.  But its earsplitting whine has prompted no end of bylaw and ordinance proposals to ban them from one or another town, with excellent reasons, including but not limited to the abiding headaches they cause for the rest of us between the noise and gas fumes.  And people run them for what seem hours.  And the reality is they don’t save a heck of a lot of time, they’re just a lot less physical labor than raking.  There’s certainly no wonder why Americans are so fat; the simplest physical chore is anathama to most of us.  So go use your leaf blower for an afternoon, and then go spend thousands on a Peloton instead, why don’t you? 

                Second is whoever invented two-step verification for access to websites, usually banks and credit card operations.  As if signing on wasn’t a big enough pain in the ass as it was, this clown decided people are too stupid to put together unguessable passwords (though to be fair, not without reason), so let’s make it harder to get in.  If you haven’t enjoyed this newest fad, you put in your user id and then your password, and then on the next screen you have to choose how you want your “secret code” send to you, which is usually a text.  Which means then you have to get up and go get your phone, get into your texts, type in the “secret code” on the computer, and then you can finally get in.  Of course, when you check off “remember this browser”, it never does, so every time you want to check your credit card balance, you have to go through this whole rigamarole again. 

                Third are the creators, supporters and acolytes of baseball analytics, who deserve their own column so they won’t be harangued here – not today anyway.  These people deserve not only to be shot, but only painfully wounded and then slowly drawn and quartered by four horses as well.  If you don’t know what that is, we assure you it is not pleasant.