COMMON SENSE - Race in America. Who is a Person of Color?

Back in the 40's and 50's when I was growing up people used to say somebody was "colored". It wasn't really a pejorative term then. In fact, the NAACP used the word in their name. Then came the 60's and it became a bad word. If you said that a person was "colored" the really hip people would mock you and ask what color he or she was. During those civil rights days the point was that a superficial thing like skin pigmentation wasn't supposed to be how you judged someone. The idea was for everyone to integrate together in the melting pot and become Americans.

 

Nowadays skin pigmentation seems to be a person's most important quality. We now have our society divided up into "people of color" ("colored" is still not permissible) and "white". But it's hard to put your finger on exactly what is meant by these terms. Southern Italians are a lot more pigmented than Norwegians, but that doesn't seem to count. Is it that you have some African heritage? But "Hispanics" seem to be included too. AOC says she's a person of color, but it would be hard to pick her out of a crowd in Calabria. Same with Kamala Harris, who is the daughter of a lighter skinned Jamaican father and Indian mother.

 

Well, maybe it has to do with social standing. And yet both of the aforementioned individuals are pretty prominent and well to do and so neither would have the slightest problem moving into any neighborhood or joining any social club they desired to. So their skin color doesn't really seem to have any importance there.  And it can't be wealth either. To be sure there are lots of poor "people of color", but lots of rich and famous ones too.

 

Maybe genetics is what really counts. Look at Barack Obama, for example. He's just as much white as he is black, but he's said to be our first black president. So, it looks like if one of your ancestors was black, then you're black. It's kind of like in ante-bellum New Orleans, where they labeled people as quadroons and even octoroons, so if even one of your great-grandparents was black, then that settled it. You were black. You'd think we'd want to get out of that box by this time. Maybe we should be more like Tiger Woods, whom the sports writers have criticized because he insisted on seeing himself more as a really great golfer than a black symbol. He calls himself a Cablinasian (which stands for Caucasian, Black, Indian and Asian). Makes sense to me.

 

But wait a minute. What about conservative high achievers like Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, Thomas Sowell and Ben Carson. They get reviled, called Uncle Toms, and worse. Despite their pigmentation they don't seem to count. I guess to be in the "people of color" category, the real color you have to be is blue rather than red.

 

If you ask me I think we should just start over and do what Martin Luther King wanted. Just forget the color and judge people by their character. 

ELECTION 2024 - What about abortion.

    Ms. Harris and the media are trying their best to keep this election from being about policies or administration track records. For them there are two major issues, Trump is personified evil and abortion. The Trump thing doesn't lend itself to rational debate, so let's talk about abortion. It's a thorny issue. Supposedly it's big with single women but it's a mixed bag for the rest. The Democrat's argument is that it must be left to the pregnant woman and her doctor. That kind of makes sense, at least superficially. Tim Walz says the government should mind its own damn business, (although it is kind of funny that he's from the political side that is a fan of the government controlling most everything else).

    But let's look at the question another way. There's no doubt a woman has the right to decide about medical procedures to her own body, e.g. an appendectomy or joint replacement. The issue is whether the growing fetus is really "her own body", considering that it has an entirely different DNA and the full potential to develop into another person.

    Well, what of that? What moral import is there in removing tissue, even if it has a different DNA? Here's where reason steps aside and feelings and emotions come into play. Now that we have ultrasounds, we can see the little tyke's faces, and arms and legs moving around, etc. So, we're told that whereas the majority want abortions to be available, not so many want them past a certain point in the pregnancy. In other words, they think the mother and doctor should make the decision – but only up to a point.

    Where is that point? i.e., the moral dividing line where it changes from your business to – "well, maybe you shouldn't be allowed to do that". Here we get into the justifying reasons. Everyone seems to be OK with "the life of the mother" and then it gets murky. How about the health of the mother, including mental health? And then there's the likelihood of fetal abnormalities. I read that these days about 90% of fetuses with potential Down's syndrome are aborted, even though we see people with that problem around functioning pretty well. So that makes me uneasy, but I guess for most people these things all fit into the "mother and doctor choice" category morally.

    But now we get into other reasons, the ones that the overwhelming number of abortions are done for. Losing your job, having to drop out of school, can't afford another child, and so on. Or just – didn't mean to get pregnant! I get that. These can be weighty problems. But balanced off against eliminating the new life it starts to become problematical as to the best option for handling the problem. Still the mother and doctor choice? Well … for the average focus group, … I guess so as long as it doesn't look like a little baby moving around on the ultrasound.

    But now we come to the point I think about. We're getting towards being good enough with DNA to tell a lot from the amniocentesis. How about it's got a gene for possible diabetes, or rheumatoid arthritis, or hypertension. How about it's a different sex or a darker skin color or even a different eye or hair color than I was interested in? Still the mother and doctor choice?

    So here we come to the nub of the problem. If we're a little queasy about saying get rid of it if it's the wrong sex, then maybe it's not "just a blob of tissue", even early on when that's what it looks like. Bill Clinton said abortion should be safe, legal and rare, framing the issue as a moral one rather than simply one of "woman's healthcare". Roe v. Wade and the "right to privacy" deemphasized the moral aspect and made abortion the go to method of handling problem pregnancies as indicated by the subsequent giant increase in the numbers after that decision.

    The new Supreme Court decision has made us rethink the moral aspect of a million abortions a year, and I think that's a good thing. We have militants on either side, but the great majority are in the middle on the question. In that respect, Roe v. Wade came down squarely on one side and so was not a good solution. Turning it over to the states and letting it be up to a vote of the people in the various localities seems like the right idea to me. That way the people in California and New York can't tell the people in Mississippi and Alabama what their morality should be and vice versa.

    But boy, we've come a long way since 1973. What's with all the problem pregnancies anyway? How about looking at that side of it. And what about streamlining adoption procedures. After all, it takes a village!

ELECTION 2024: My thoughts in 2020 about the George Floyd riots. What did Mr. Walz do?

Well now the inevitable shootings and killings are accompanying the riots in the big cities. If they are allowed to continue it will get worse. Here's what I think is common sense about the issues.

 In order to avoid general violence, we defer the use of force to the police whose functions are law enforcement and maintenance of peace and order in the community. They must use this force only in specific circumstances such as the protection of their lives or those of others. If a citizen is harmed by an officer's use of force the circumstances are reviewed and if it is concluded that he has used force in a way contrary to the law he is charged by a prosecutor with criminal behavior. Then there is a trial. At the trial both the prosecutor and the defense present their evidence and a jury, selected in accordance with predefined legal procedures, decides the outcome.

 There are some that think that handling these issues in a case by case manner is not sufficient. They contend that police in general are guilty of systemic racism such that they use excessive force preferentially in their dealings with minorities, most specifically young, black men. There is much disagreement as to whether this is an accurate assessment, but if it is, it seems fair to ask the question that, since systemic racism in the police would presumably be a longstanding phenomenon, why something hasn't been done about it previously by those civic leaders who are in charge of the police and generally seem to be sympathetic to the complaint.

 Assuming for the sake of argument that it is true, those who are upset about the matter can assemble with others who are similarly concerned, organize and protest. They have full right to do this under our constitution and laws. In order for their protest to be effective they should clearly state their demands as to what they feel should specifically be done about the problem and, assuming there is general agreement by the local public, their desires should be carried out by the local political leaders, most especially since these leaders have expressed sympathy with the protestor's complaints.

 The aggrieved people do not have the right to riot about the matter and to destroy the property and livelihoods of innocent bystanders or of public property. We are a nation of laws, devised by our elected representatives, written down beforehand and enforced in specific manners. If instead we riot to obtain our wishes evil consequences will result as we are seeing.

 Some civic leaders are condoning the riots and allowing them to continue. They argue that they are not as bad as they look, that they are limited to relatively small areas and that they are somewhat justifiable considering the severity of the grievances. They appear willing to disregard their oath to uphold the law, and to accept the destruction of property and lives as long as it is in keeping with their political benefit.

 Mr. Trump has strongly expressed his unhappiness with the situation, but has constitutional constraints limiting what he is allowed to do about it. He has said publicly that he considers the local leaders in these areas to be fools. Mr. Trump is open and direct. Our recent Presidents, Mr. Obama, Bush and Clinton would express such things in private but would speak in public more diplomatically to disguise and make their real opinions more generally acceptable.

 As I said, these statements appear to me to be common sense. Alternatively we can just say that it's all Trump's fault and be done with it.

ELECTION 2024: Kamala Harris' policy changes

Kamala Harris has now reversed her position on Medicare for All, gun confiscation, disbanding ICE, and eliminating fracking and offshore oil drilling, among other things. She now proposes Trump-Vance policies and ideas such as increasing child tax credits, no taxes on tips and building a border wall. It's a lot of changes but let's grant that it's reasonable to have a change in thinking.

At the same time it's also fair to state that if adopting Trumpian policies makes her more palatable, why should we not just elect the bona fide Trump. Well, I guess you can say that you don't like Trump's style and you'd rather have a substitute that promotes Trump's policies but is nicer.

But then we should ask Ms. Harris the reasons for her various conversions to judge her sincerity. That was asked in her recent CNN interview and she responded that she "continues to have the same values". That one gets your head spinning. I guess we'll have to follow Nancy Pelosi's recommendation that we'll have to elect her to see what's in the package.

ELECTION 2024: Israel Policy - Trump vs. Harris

Israel faces a no-win situation fighting an enemy who tries to break the will of the Israeli public by raping and murdering civilian hostages while influencing world opinion by using its own civilians as military shields. Apart from any military assistance, U.S. policy can help its Israeli ally immensely by the draining of the terrorist funding source from Iran and supporting cooperation between Israel and the Sunni Arab states who are both antagonists of Iran and have other common interests.

Iran's main income source is oil sales. During the Obama administration Iran's oil sales sanctions were lifted and its annual revenue increased to $60 B. In 2018 Donald Trump reimposed sanctions after which Iran's revenue dropped in 2019 to $19 B and then in 2020 to $9 B. After President Biden took office Iran's oil revenue has steadily increased again and its revenues for 2024 is estimated at $35-40 B. Under Biden-Harris there are once again discussions regarding removal of all sanctions.

During the Trump administration the Abraham Accords were signed, reopening relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. There were strong indications that Saudi Arabia was ready to join but negotiations were halted when President Biden took office. Instead under the Biden administration Saudi Arabia has developed closer ties with Russia and China and is reported to be strongly considering accepting currencies other than the dollar for its oil sales which would have potentially devastating results for our economy.

President Trump has repeatedly claimed that if he were in office we would not have the present Middle East conflict. Considering all the facts stated above it seems highly likely that he is correct. Kamala Harris has no significant foreign policy record or evident negotiation skills. She has made no specific foreign policy statements in this matter but both she and her present party members seem to favor the status quo, or worse. Those who would vote for her because of their distaste for Mr. Trump should think long and hard about the implications of that action.

ELECTION 2024. Dick Cheney supports Kamala

Dick Cheney now supports Kamala Harris. Strange bedfellows united against a common enemy, Donald Trump. But really not so strange when you get into the issues.

Cheney was one of the chief architects of the Iraq War, in the end a terrible idea. Trump vigorously opposed it from the start, decrying the loss of life and fortune built on false premises and assumptions. No mystery why Cheney and his daughter hate him. He was more insightful than I was, as well as most Democrats, including Joe Biden, who gave their support until it turned bad. Then they pulled the plug and blamed George Bush. Shades of Vietnam.

Trump is not in on the Washingtonian Military-Industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about. In his administration he preempted wars with negotiation, and he's good at it. Like Ronald Reagan did, he bypasses the diplomats and gets personal with his opponents, and then, like Teddy Roosevelt, speaks softly but carries a big stick. Recall how he dramatically put a stop to the North Korean missile launches over Japan in his famous meetings with Kim Jong-un. With Isis he acted decisively when he had to but kept other conflicts at bay.

No need to recite what's happened with Biden-Harris in Afghanistan, as well as the two other major conflicts. Trump has repeatedly claimed that none of that would have happened had he been in office, and there's plenty of reason to think he's correct.

Harris has been a Warhawk on Ukraine-Russia. No talk about using U.S. influence for negotiation or her administration's definition of the military end-game. But she equivocates on Israel-Hamas, supporting Israel's right to defend itself, but not really. In this case she insists on pointless and impossible negotiation. These are not attitudes that incline toward ending death and destruction and give a pretty clear idea of what we are in for in foreign affairs if we happen to elect her.

IMMIGRATION - The good and the bad.

Most of the residents in the community where I live in Southwest Florida are seasonal, so we have an employee problem, particularly in the food services. This is solved mostly by getting staff during the heavy season to come up from the Caribbean, mostly Jamaica and Haiti. These are great people, friendly and good workers, and are well liked. They get housing and other benefits and the money they make goes a long way when they get back home. This year I hear that we're running into a big problem getting workers because of delays in getting passports and visas from the immigration bureaucracy.

On the other hand, almost every day I watch Bill Melugin on Fox News reporting from the southern border, showing drone videos of multiple groups of hundreds of people coming in long lines, crossing freely. They're taken in and dispersed into the country. No fooling around with silly details like passports and visas. It's now up to about 200K per month we're told, as well as untold undetected others. And along with the young Hispanics looking for the good life and adventure, as did many of our forebears, come others from all over the world, including some who wish to do us harm, and tons of fentanyl taking its gruesome toll.

This gross disregard of one of the Administration's primary functions is getting beyond even Mr. Biden's amazing capacity to deny obvious truth as if he's insulted by your even asking. The sending of busloads to Democrat stronghold big cities, as well as to the hoity-toity hypocrites in Martha's Vinyard, has made some progress in overcoming the major media blackout of the problem, but the insanity persists.

Who's benefitting, besides the Mexican drug cartels? Likely, lots of people in the Washington labyrinth. Certainly not the immigrants themselves who'd much rather come, as did my dad and grandparents, through a less hazardous, and legal, process.

Mr. Trump, whatever your judgement of him, had made significant progress on cutting back on illegal entry, a necessary first step in making sensible reforms to the system. The subsequent Democrat Congress has taken zero interest in following up. Now the Republicans have the House. Let's see if they have the guts to take the problem on.

TIRZEPATIDE - Something new in the diabetes world.

One of the most important developments in the treatment of type 2 diabetes over the past decade or so has been the introduction of the "incretin" agents. Incretins are hormones produced in the small intestine at mealtime that help in glucose metabolism. They have several effects but importantly they increase insulin output by the pancreas at mealtime and also signal satisfaction of hunger to the brain. Medications with these effects are marketed as weekly injections and 2 common ones are Ozempic and Trulicity, (although there are other similar ones) which usually work well to improve blood sugar and produce weight loss.

In the last couple of years diabetes experts have been excited by a new and improved variation known by the scientific name of tirzepatide, and just recently put on the market by Lilly Co. as Mounjaro so expect to see ads.

In clinical trials tirzepatide does even better than the previous agents in controlling blood sugar and reducing weight. Higher doses even seem in some cases to cause weight loss in the range of that produced by obesity surgery. So experts are thinking of it as a possible additional help in the battle against the obesity epidemic that is gradually being thought of as the major public health problem worldwide, a problem with far, far greater health implications than the Covid 19 pandemic that so dominates our news.

For the science minded among you – there are 2 main incretin hormones produced in the small intestine, GLP-1 and GIP. The former agents produce the effect of GLP-1 but tirzepatide stimulates the body's receptors for both GLP-1 and GIP. The most important side effects of all these agents are nausea and sometimes diarrhea, but given judiciously most people tolerate them well.

COMMON SENSE: Thoughts on the Texas School Shooting

The almost immediate response of my liberal friends to the recent unspeakable evil was "gun control". Our political leader, Joe Biden, who started off OK in his response, morphed into a tirade against the "gun lobby" as his big solution, the only one he mentioned, and made himself into an irrelevancy.

 I'm not a gun guy. I never owned a gun and never plan to. The only time I ever shot one was in obligatory ROTC in college. I was allowed to opt out when I was in the Medical Corps during my Army time. So, I'm middle of the road on this issue. I'm willing to listen to restriction ideas if they sound practical, but I get the desire of the average law abiding person who wants to have one for whatever.

 Emily wants to have an age limit on buying guns, and that sounds OK. After all, we have age limits on tobacco and alcohol. But at the same time kids get tobacco and alcohol – no problem. And the average kid isn't the problem. As we're told by experts, a demented 18 year old determined to kill will find a way.

 So, if you're talking "gun control" I want to hear the specifics. Just what laws do you want to be passed and how effective will they be. I'm not interested in something just to make us feel like we've done something. From 1994-2004 we had a federal assault weapons ban which had zero effect on gun violence. It seems to me like the usual "one-stage thinking" that Thomas Sowell talks about. Somebody kills a bunch of people with a gun so we do "gun control". It's like stopping poverty with giving people welfare payments.

 What is the answer? Armed guards and restricted access in all our schools? We've got about 100,000 public schools. It's doable but how discouraging. After all I remember when we used to just walk onto the airport gate, but we've all become accustomed to the present insanity. Maybe there should be a lot more interest taken in evaluating and helping off-beat kids. Easier said than done I guess, but these blossoming psychopaths all have some interaction with the school system where they're observed for a time.

 But to me the problem seems a lot more complicated. Our society has a problem with its soul. Generally, there's increase in violence, murder, drug addiction and overdose, suicide. And we just accept it. Increasingly we walk in the streets of a big city and go around people sleeping on the sidewalk or shooting up and it's just part of the scene.

 I think we have a soul problem folks. We all tend to sugar-coat the past, but I kind of long for the time when there was some sort of moral sense that everyone accepted. Not even the mafia would take out their problems on little kids. Without going into detail, the stuff the major media and present social and political talking heads are pushing as morality today strikes me as part of the corruption. The polls say that ¾'s of us feel that the country is headed in the wrong direction so I'm not alone.

 

 

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Trudeau, the Truckers and Covid mandates

Justin Trudeau has handled the trucker's demonstrations and civil disobedience tactics with harsh police and economic repression. He had a much more reasonable alternative. The truckers are correct. There is no scientific basis for the government imposed mandates to which they were objecting. They are normally law-abiding hard working citizens who kept on the job to keep the goods flowing throughout the pandemic. They deserved a hearing and conciliation early on. Mr. Trudeau thinks like a big government leftist and chose the course of repression. Hopefully Canadians will come to their senses and he will come to regret his choice.

Below is the Covid death trend in Canada during the recent surge. The idea that this had anything to do with government activity is nonsense. This virus is not going away because of government mandates which have done far more harm than good. It's time to end them.

 

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Oil Prices, Chuck Schumer and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Chuck Schumer and some of his Democrat allies are now calling for relieving our gas price inflation by drawing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves. What the hell is wrong with the thinking of these people?

The Strategic Petroleum Reserves is for just what it says it is, a reserve oil supply to be available in case of some emergency international disruption. What's going on now is self-imposed. We've gone from energy independence to oil mendicants in a few short months of the present administration. The cause is not mysterious. Joe Biden, to fulfill his dream of becoming a noteworthy figure, has taken on the fanatical ideology of "climate change" and from his first day dramatically turned his back on all the energy production policies of the previous administration. So now, instead of producing our own, which was not only a source of national income but also an energy insurance policy for ourselves and our allies, we have gone to begging OPEC and Russia to increase their oil production so as to make up for the loss of our previous domestic supply. Can anyone tell me what sense that makes, even for the apostles of "renewable energy"?

Our leaders want to treat the Strategic Petroleum Reserves as they do the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, as a source of ready money for their social schemes. So now, instead of collecting interest on those funds, our treasury is paying it out. But tapping our Strategic Petroleum Reserves is a much more ominous action which could cripple us badly in a time of real emergency.

The relatively more severe oil crisis of the 1970's with its long gas lines, was resolved almost overnight by removing government oil price controls resulting in a dramatic increase in domestic oil production and a reduction in our dependence on OPEC. There could not have been a better demonstration of government being the problem instead of the solution.

Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer have come face to face with the reality that a decline in fossil fuel supply equates to a big decline in our standard of living, most especially for those of lower income. The government cannot lower prices by printing more dollar bills. Some day in the future we may reach the nirvana of having a source of low cost energy from the sun and the wind or from something else, but for now it's time for good old amiable Joe and his friends to get out of the way.

 

 

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Mr. Biden's Vaccine Mandate is not Really Totally "Scientific".

President Biden and Dr. Fauci are fond of telling us to "follow the science" so let us review the science regarding the issue of the vaccine mandate.

To begin with, the vaccines we have are a dramatic testament to the great capability of our often-reviled pharmaceutical companies as well as to the ingenuity of the businesslike Trump administration. Indeed, the MRNA vaccines were ready for use in July 2020 rather than in December when they were released by the FDA. Were it not for the bureaucratic process they could have been tried and used to great effect in the fragile nursing home patients who made up 40% of the nation's deaths at the time. Ironically, during the presidential campaign, both Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris expressed reluctance to accept the results of Mr. Trump's efforts.

That being said, we now understand from multiple scientific studies that immunity from natural infection is dramatically broader and more prolonged than that from the available vaccines. It appears, also from scientific studies, that at least 15% of the public has had the disease with mild or no illness and without vaccination and probably at least as many of those vaccinated had the virus and recovered before getting the shot. Furthermore, as effective as they are in warding off serious illness, we now understand that the vaccines do not prevent contracting and spreading the virus. Finally, science now tells us, particularly in light of the large animal reservoirs, that this virus is here among us to stay and that we're likely all to be exposed to it. From the public health standpoint, we cannot vaccinate our way out of the problem but presumably as a population will become adapted as we have to the various other coronaviruses in our environment.

All these considerations strongly suggest that the sensible approach to handling the epidemic in our country is to strongly encourage the vaccination of those who are at significant risk of serious illness and leave the rest to their individual discretion. Indeed, this is the opinion of a large number of respected scientists highly knowledgeable in the field.

Mr. Biden thinks differently and favors universal vaccination such that he is, on questionable constitutional grounds, willing to use his authority to force those who do not wish to be vaccinated to do so at the risk of loss of their and their family's livelihood. He tells us that he has lost patience with those who do not accept his line of thinking, suggesting that he looks at his fellow citizens as if they were his subjects. Mr. Biden is our President, with large but temporary and strictly constitutionally restricted powers. He is not our king, and it is not his place to lose patience with us.

 

 

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Did The FDA Procedures Cost Thousands of Lives.

It's beginning to look as if what was called a racist Trumpian conspiracy theory that the pandemic virus was "made in China" rather than a natural occurrence is true after all. Even more disturbing is the idea that a panicky close-mouthed Chinese Communist Party clamped down on the true story and let their problem spread worldwide. For months, the U.S. and the WHO public health establishments reassured us that the man-made conjecture couldn't be true, an opinion echoed vigorously by the major media. To say otherwise was grounds for blackballing by the social networking fact finders. There's a strong taint of political ideology mixed up in this whole mess which allowed the devastation of 2020 to be worse than it could have been. But it's not all China's fault. A big part of death and economic destruction in our country may have been our own damn fault.

What do I mean by that? Well, from early January until early March of 2020, it was very unclear what was going on even though in retrospect the virus was spreading exponentially. We were getting mixed overly optimistic messages, not only from the politicians of both parties but also from the public health authorities right down to the man in charge, Dr. Fauci. What was missing during this period was testing, which would have allowed us to realize that most cases had either no or insignificant symptoms but could nevertheless spread the germ and were doing so at a rapid rate. What was the problem with testing? Labs all across the country had been able to come up with accurate tests within a couple of weeks after the genome was worked out in early January. But regulations prohibited their use of the tests without FDA approval. The CDC devised a test for the government which proved to be inaccurate and finally, after much arm twisting, the FDA gave emergency approval for outside testing which then ramped up dramatically through private, hospital and state labs. Through all this we missed out on 2 months of accurate information which. as it turns out could have been lifesaving.

Once we got the real picture it was way too late for the standard public health measures of case finding and contact tracing. It appears now, from comparing the outcomes of the disease in the various states, that lockdowns and arbitrary designations of essential and non-essential commerce for the most part caused more harm than good, and that mandated masking and social distancing have been of limited value. What is now clearly saving the day are the dramatically effective vaccines, finally released in December, once again with the FDA being pushed to expedite their approval process.

But hold on, that's not the whole story. The RNA vaccines of Pfizer and Moderna had been prepared, tested in humans and found to induce neutralizing antibodies with no obvious short term serious toxicity as of July 2020. But to get FDA approval the standard procedure was to require Phase 3 testing in larger numbers of healthy people and that's what was done over the subsequent 6 months. Mind you, however, that we were in the height of a rampant pandemic that was mostly benign but lethal for specific groups which had been identified. Could not the vaccines, which appeared to be effective and safe at least in the short term, have been tried not on healthy people, but on willing nursing home and other chronically ill patients for example, for whom the benefit to risk ratio would have been so dramatically favorable? I'm not the only one asking this question.

We've been told so often that our response to the problem should be to "follow the science". But science is not the same thing as authoritative pronouncements from government health agencies or even consensus of scientific experts and hidebound processes. The scientific method involves a hypothesis, a testing of the hypothesis and an analysis of the results. But the testing must be designed to be appropriate to the situation at hand and not simply the following of standardized procedures. And there must be free interchange of ideas with give and take from multiple sources. There is no such thing as "settled science".

In retrospect it appears as if in this pandemic our reliance on centralized control cost thousands of lives. Those who think we would have been better off to rely on the federal bureaucracies to run the show should reconsider.

 

 

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The Trump Vaccines And Not Lockdowns Are Making A Difference In COVID.

Here In the free state of Florida there has been no lockdown of small businesses for some time. Mask wearing has declined markedly, except in church, some supermarkets and medical facilities where they are following CDC dictates. People are shaking hands and hugging again. The community where we reside is essentially back to normal. Nevertheless, COVID cases, deaths and ER visits continue to decline and, compared to the states such as New York and California where there have been stricter regulations, there seems to be no difference in all these virus measurements. Or if anything the numbers slightly favor Florida. In the U.S. overall the daily numbers of cases, deaths and ER visits for COVID continue to decline and, once again, if you survey the various states, they all are pretty much following the same pattern, whether they were "lockdowners" or not.

You find the same lack of lockdown effect when comparing countries. For example, there's little difference in mortality statistics between the Nordic countries, all of which had limited government mandates (for example no mandated mask wearing) and other E.U. countries, which generally had very strict lockdowns. But COVID statistics are now improving in all these countries, so what accounts for that?

Well, all these countries are vaccinating, and what's interesting is that the COVID statistics, cases and deaths, seem to correlate well with each country's success in getting its people vaccinated. The 3 leading countries in this regard are Israel, U.K. and U.S., with the percent of population vaccinated respectively in these countries being roughly 65, 55 and 45. Both Israel and the U.K. have had a dramatic improvement and now have exceptionally low levels of cases and deaths. Each of these three countries have been improving significantly more than the E.U. countries which have been late to the vaccination game but are now doing better.

Some of the improving situation may simply be due to the virus running its course, but of the things humans are doing to fight back it looks as if it's the vaccine rather than lockdowns that is saving the day. And that isn't even taking into account the major adverse economic and health effects of lockdowns which have been destroying lives and causing excess deaths apart from the virus, in particular among younger people and those with lower incomes and social status. In some cases these consequences will extend into the future long after the virus is a memory.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's the vaccine that the usually reviled drug companies developed and which our former President dramatically expedited by skillful financial arrangements, an innovative distribution plan and forceful cutting of bureaucratic red tape. Our new President's primary initial efforts have involved undoing Mr. Trump's actions wherever he can, but he hasn't been foolish enough to interfere with the vaccine production or distribution which he inherited although he's done his best to expropriate the credit for Mr. Trump's achievement.

Look at the attached graph of daily U.S. vaccinations. It shows a steady rise from the moment the vaccines received FDA approval, well before Mr. Biden was inaugurated. There is not the slightest deviation of the vaccination administration curve to suggest any impact of the actions of the present administration. It's noteworthy that since vaccinations reached a peak at the beginning of April there's a significant decline in daily vaccinations as demand has been satisfied. Mr. Biden's target of 70% vaccinated by July 4th, so touted in the major media, is merely a prediction of the natural course of things that were previously set in motion and which he has had almost nothing to do with.

 

 

 

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COMMON SENSE. Systemic Racism and White Privelege -- True or False?

Many of today's liberals are convinced that our country is pervaded by "systemic racism". They view the statistical economic and health disparities among certain specific minority groups as due to "white privilege". They see the connection as so obvious and incontrovertible that they consider any disagreement as proof of their contentions. They say that those who disagree, although they may be of good will, are unconsciously blind to their attitudes and must be educated to understand them.

But a great many of us do disagree and do not feel the need for our reeducation. Our country has been through times of real conscious legally authorized racial discrimination, as those of us who were alive during that time can attest. The civil rights movement of the 1960's changed all that, and it did so, not just because of the brave efforts of Martin Luther King and his followers, but because the majority of our citizenry was ready for it. Racial discrimination made no sense in a country founded on the principles of individualism and equal rights. Strangely enough the major resistance to the change at that time resided in the very political group that is today focusing so much on racial consciousness.

Three generations later, not just the legal, but the social change in our country has been dramatic. Today, indeed, the MLK admonition to judge individuals by their character and not skin color or some other external quality is overwhelmingly accepted. As one observes our public in every aspect of our lives there is racial and ethnic integration. And it is not so because it is legally mandated. If you're a black family and you wish to live in my neighborhood, which is mostly white, just buy a house and move in. You'll find many friends. If you're a member of a minority group and you want to be a member in my golf club, just join up and pay the dues as others have. We welcome you. And if you called for an appointment to see me in my office when I was still in practice, we definitely didn't ask what color you were.

The idea that the big city ghettos in our country, where crime and social disorganization is rampant, exist because of racism is belied by the fact that so many millions of minorities are out in our communities living happy and productive lives, and many have achieved high status, great wealth and public admiration. In light of these facts the cause of the bad situation in these areas must be other than racial animus but that's a discussion for another time. It's enough to say that, in the minds of those of us who do not accept the "white privelege" concept, promoting the idea that those of various minority groups in our country cannot succeed without special consideration and political militarism is counterproductive. It is felt that these ideas are not only inaccurate but paradoxically are themselves a major contributor to racial discord in our society and are a discouragement to the individuals that they are meant to help.

For those of you who believe differently I would say this. Instead of insisting that everyone in our society be brought to accept your point of view, which is unlikely to succeed, assess whatever portion of your wealth and position you calculate are due to white privelege and donate that amount in time and money to enhancing the education, social structure and economic opportunities in our problematic inner-city areas. That would clearly have a positive effect. For my part I will continue to try to live up to the Christian principle of treating others as I would have them treat me, and hope that they will do the same.

 

 

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Biden's Speech About The Pandemic Was Not Serious; Operation Warp Speed Was!

I watched President Biden's speech on the pandemic last night. He spoke with sympathy of the pain the country has been through and spent a lot of time emphasizing his efforts at vaccination. I think he could have emphasized more the large discrepancy in the distribution of the pain between his coastal constituents who were able to work and educate their children at home and the little guys who had to work in place, or had their businesses locked down or who didn't have good home computer networks. But, fair enough, it's been a problem for all of us in different ways.

His discussion of the vaccination efforts is what concerns me. Once again, he called for us to come together as we did to defeat the enemy in WW2. But how much unity is expressed in talking about the vaccines as if they appeared de novo and, but for his efforts, would lag behind in their administration.

In fact, the development and rollout of our effective vaccines was an outstanding accomplishment of the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed. To my mind this was probably the most successful example of cooperation between government and industry to address a major threat since the mobilization for munitions production in WW2. The development of these generally safe and highly effective vaccines in a previously unheard of 9-month period was a dramatic example of the tremendous skill and capacity of our often-criticized pharmaceutical industry. But it was the can do spirit of a developer controlling the usually overly bureaucratic federal government that made it all possible.

The concept of messenger RNA technology, used by both Pfizer and Moderna, has been around for a few years, but had never been developed for clinical use, among other reasons because of financial risk. Operation Warp Speed, a joint effort of the Trump departments of HHS and DOD, accepted the risk instead, not only giving direct financial support, but guaranteeing purchase of the final product of the drug companies. In addition it also streamlined the usually ponderous workings of the FDA to expedite it's various expert committee meetings.

All this allowed the pharmaceutical companies not to take shortcuts as is commonly assumed but to do their extremely expensive clinical trials expeditiously and to manufacture millions of doses of their vaccines all while the vitally important clinical trials for safety and efficacy were ongoing. Thus they were ready to release millions of doses of their product, with the assistance of the military in distribution, on day one after their approval.

Mr. Biden touted his administration's recent purchase of 100 million vaccine doses. The fact is that the Trump administration guaranteed purchase of hundreds of millions of doses, even before they were proven safe and effective and authorized by the FDA in mid-December. Altogether 200 million doses each of both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were purchased. Mr. Biden promised to deliver 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days, but on the day before he took office 1.2 million doses were administered. In fact the major limiting factor in administering vaccinations thus far has been the capacity of the pharmaceutical companies to produce them, and that in turn due to limitations in workers with the proper skills to do the job.

Take a look at the attached graph which shows vaccinations administered since they were first released in December. What you see is a steady rise over that period without any notable change since January 20th when President Biden was inaugurated.

Ladies and gentlemen, actions speak louder than words.

 

 

 

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Fair and Free Voting.

Common sense:

Multiple changes in voting procedures and serious evidence of voting irregularities in this year's presidential election has caused millions of Americans to suspect that the outcome is in question. House Democrats have now introduced HB1, which has multiple measures which tend to solidify and even worsen those suspicions in future elections.

Let's emphasize that, although liberals contend that there were no significant problems in the election, many millions of their fellow citizens do not agree with them and it is mandatory that their opinion must be taken into account. Without the overwhelming public perception that our elections are free and fair we have no democracy and there is risk that our society will descend into major conflict.

According to our constitution voting procedures are the province of the individual States. Whatever voting procedures are determined by the individual States, it is imperative that three basic principles be maintained: 1. Those who are on the registration lists in the States must be legitimately entitled to vote and procedures must be in place to assure that those registration lists are up to date and accurate, most especially at the time of any election, 2. Iron clad procedures must be in place to assure that those who are voting are actually the registered individual who they say they are, and 3. Voting procedures must be absolutely free from potential tampering and cannot be carried out except under the meaningful observation of all interested parties.

These are clear-cut measures to which any fair-minded person, on whatever political side, should be willing to agree. No congressional law should be passed which tends to contradict any of these principles. Any proposed law which does not advance these principles should be considered to have fraudulent intent and should be overwhelmingly rejected.

 

 

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Biden Breaks Immigration Law

COMMON SENSE

Foreigners who wish to enter the country for a short time require a passport. Those wishing to come temporarily but for a longer period, such as for work or school, require a visa. Foreign nationals who wish to reside here permanently require a green card which they must carry for identification and which entitles them to carry on with no restrictions except for voting rights. Those who wish to obtain voting rights must declare allegiance to the United States and go through the prescribed process for becoming citizens. All these situations are regulated by a large body of immigration law.

In our country today there are unknown millions of individuals who are "undocumented", that is who reside outside the limits of these laws and regulations and so are here illegally. There are thousands more who continue to enter our country without regard to these laws, or who come to a legal point of entry but, pending a determination as to their eligibility, are allowed to remain and do not return for their scheduled adjudication. There are also many thousands more who have been given a legitimate visa but who ignore the regulations governing their activities.

Since Mr. Biden has taken office, he has quickly taken steps to reduce our country's ability to prevent illegal entry, and even to encourage it, as well as to allow increased entry to those whose eligibility is being determined, knowing full well that the majority of such individuals will not comply and will be added to the "undocumented". He has instructed his Department of Justice to ignore the so-called sanctuary cities with are actively working to interfere with immigration law enforcement.

It appears that Mr. Biden and his Democrat allies feel that our immigration laws are unjust or otherwise inappropriate. They sympathize with those who have entered the country illegally and even wish to accommodate and encourage others. However, regardless of his sympathies or possibly political motives, Mr. Biden has sworn to uphold our constitution and enforce our laws, including those regarding immigration, to the best of his ability. If he and his allies are unhappy with our immigration laws and their enforcement, they are free to attempt to change these laws through congressional action. In article 1, section 8 of our founding document Congress was assigned the task of making these immigration laws and regulations. The serious responsibility to enforce them has been assigned to the Dept of Homeland Security which includes the I.C.E. and the Border Patrol.

He cannot disregard our immigration laws or change them by executive order. By his actions he is disobeying his oath of office and is derelict in his duty. If anyone should be impeached, he would be the one.

 

 

 

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Wuhan Virus (Covid 19) Statistics and Data

Interesting statistics and new data about Wuhan virus (Covid).

 

Vaccination rates in various countries: Israel highest by far with almost 50% of their population. UAE next with about 25%. U.K. next at a bit ovew 10%. Next in order is U.S. at a bit over 7%, about 3 times higher than any of the other Western European countries.

 

Case fatality rate (deaths among actual significant symptomatic cases rather than just positive tests) in U.S. 1.7%, about 50-100% lower than any of the Western European countries.

Cases in both the U.S. and Florida are now trending down fairly rapidly since peaking on 1/8/21. Deaths in both places are stabilized but usually follow cases by 2-4 weeks. Also Emergency Room visits for Covid symptoms in both places are dropping rapidly since peaking around 1/3/21.

 

As far as that renegade Sweden which defied the lockdown trend: as of the 2^nd week in January the percent of those tested for antibodies in Sweden was reported to be 40%. This probably underestimates the percent of the population that is immune since antibodies after infection tend to wane, but immune cells retain a memory of the infection. Cases in Sweden are now dropping rapidly after their peak on 12/23 (when the second wave was present in Europe) and daily deaths are back down to the single digits.

 

Both Moderna and Pfizer indicate their studies show effectiveness of their vaccines to new Covid variants.

 

A new study reveals that colchicine, a cheap anti-gout drug used for decades, given early on to Covid patients reduces hospitalization by 20% and deaths by 45%.

 

A report of initial phase 3 studies for the Regeneron antibiotic cocktail (given to then President Trump under emergency use authorization with apparent dramatic results) appears to be 100% effective in preventing symptomatic infection when given to individuals with significant exposure to Covid. 

 

 

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What Did In Donald Trump

So now it's said and done. Joe Biden is our new President. He's the new target in the shooting gallery. I'd like to give my perspective on what happened. Mr. Trump lost his election for one reason, and one reason only. And it wasn't cheating, although cheating certainly went on in a much bigger dose than it usually does in our elections. No, my friends, had things gone on as they were at the beginning of 2020, Mr. Trump, with his continuing economic and foreign policy success, would have won a second term in a landslide just as big as did Nixon and Reagan, large enough to overcome any amount of under the table shenanigans.

 

What did him in was the Wuhan virus. Wherever it came from, it spread like wildfire and was a killer, mostly of the old and frail and those with chronic illness, but even for the young and healthy it was a crapshoot and occasionally severe or even lethal. The idea that he bungled the job and was responsible for all the death and economic consequences is total baloney. All you have to do is look at the situation in all the other westernized countries to see that the pandemic was a problem for everybody, whatever the nature of their health care or political systems. All the furor over universal mask wearing and lockdowns has limited scientific support of effectiveness and of course doesn't affect the survival of the virus which is ready waiting in the wings. The irony is that the one fundamentally helpful thing in this battle, other than the natural immunity of the population, was Mr. Trump's dramatically effective shepherding of the production of multiple highly effective vaccines in record time through all the economic and bureaucratic impediments. The claim that the vaccine distribution is flawed is nonsense. The problem at the present time is that demand is far outstripping supply which frustrates our impatient society.

 

Presidents don't fare well when big bad things are happening under their watch, regardless of who or what is responsible. Look at other one term presidents. Hoover was probably the most highly qualified of any of our presidents but happened to be hit by a massive and sustained economic downturn. Jimmy Carter, who I though was a pretty upright guy, was done in by ongoing stagflation. George Bush senior, who was riding high after operation Desert Shield got kicked out by a fickle public when there was an economic downturn.

 

Without going into the controversial issue of Mr. Trump's personal style I think the Democrat's perception that he lost because the general public hated him and his policies as much as they did is way off base. Donald Trump was not any of the long list of "ists" and "isms" that they called him. He couldn't care less about your race or nationality or sexual proclivities or gender as long as you performed and finished the job on time and under budget. That qualification applied to everyone in his line of sight, including big time corporate executives, multistar generals, and certified conservative think-tankers.

The Democrat's misunderstanding of the situation will come back to bite them. The public is not going to be particularly happy with high gas prices, return to the need for imported energy, loss of manufacturing and construction jobs, renewed outflow of capital to foreign countries, unrestrained illegal immigration, disruption of Medicare, subordination of American interests and resurgence of the world's bad actors possibly requiring military intervention. And so much more.

 

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