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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