Who pays what

The true poll of how Americans feel about government programs and spending can be assessed by asking one question. When the government decides to spend $50 billion dollars on a very popular program just take that amount and divide by the 150 million American families working and ask if each of these families are willing to write a check for $333 to pay for this wonderful program. This changes the perspective of the people. When you see the government spending as not directly effecting you it is easy to approve most spending but if you have to pony up then things look quite different. Politifact says illegal immigration cost the country $155 billion per year. While many say it is the humanitarian thing to do, how many of those families would be willing to write out a check for $1,000 to cover the cost. The old saying to put your money where your mouth is takes on new meaning.

Bureaucrats

The three parts of the federal government, Executive, Legislative and Judicial, have watched a forth branch gain power over the years but that idea received a big set back by the court today, when it was ruled that the EPA cannot decide how much carbon, coal plants can emit. The bureaucracy has been growing at an alarming rate in the past 50 years and this will slow down that growth. The various government agencies are to interpret the law and not make the law. The court ruled that un-elected bureaucrats have no authority to make laws. This will also curtail law by executive order which once again usurps power from congress. The power of bureaucrats has led to a smugness that was best illustrated when they described the incoming administration as the Christmas help. They know that presidents come and go but they are always there running the show behind the scenes. It also has political implications since 80% of campaign contributions from federal unions goes to democrats. This is not surprising since republicans always promise to reduce government and democrats tend to expand government. If you are a federal employee which party do you want in control.

Riots

Several people suggested that the January 6 rioters were not armed but NPR said, But a review of the federal charges against the alleged rioters shows that they did come armed, and with a variety of weapons: stun guns, pepper spray, baseball bats and flagpoles wielded as clubs. The NY Times reported that 7 people died as a result of the riots and they were: Ashley Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer as rioters tried to breach the House chamber. Kevin D. Greeson died of a heart attack, Rosanne Boyland appeared to have been crushed in a stampede. See below. Benjamin Philips, the founder of a pro-Trump website called Trumparoo, died of a stroke. Mr. Greeson and Mr. Philips died of natural causes, the Washington medical examiner said in April. He added that Ms. Boyland’s death was caused by an accidental overdose. Officer Brian D. Sicknick of the Capitol Police, who was attacked by the mob, died on Jan. 7. Officer Jeffrey Smith of the Metropolitan Police Department killed himself after the attack. Officer Howard S. Liebengood of the Capitol Police also died by suicide four days afterward. It took 4 hours to secure the building and as of today 847 people have been arrested.

Charity

When Sam Walton died his seven children inherited the company stock and at 50% of the total this came to 1.3 billion shares. These share pay $1.80 dividend each year so the family gets $2.3 billion dollars. There are only three children still living and much of their money goes to charity. This the kind of rich people that use charity to spread their wealth around but others use a different approach to sharing their wealth. Billionaires like Leon Musk from Telsa and Jeff Bezos from Amazon choose another way to share. They use their skills to develop new businesses. Bezos started Amazon 28 years ago with one employee and today he has 1.6 million employees. Amazon has never paid dividends to its investors. The company reinvests profits to grow the company and that resulted in new jobs. Tesla started in 2003 and today employs 100,000 people mostly high paid technical types. Tesla pays no dividends to its stockholders and reinvests profits into new jobs including SpaceX which employs 12,000 engineers. If the rich are just sitting on their money they should donate some to charity but if a person has the talent to invent and invest in business that should be their charity. The best welfare program is a good job.

Black crime

Young Black men between the ages of 15 and 35 represent 2% of the population they are 37% of murder victims. Black males represent 6% of the population and they commit 55% of all murders and over 90% of the time it is a Black male killing another Black male. Many have suggested that this is the civil right issue of our time but it gets very little publicity. One of the more disturbing aspects of these data is that it seem to fly beneath the radar of news media. While this death and incarceration of Blacks is hard to comprehend it pales in comparison to the 233,000 Black abortions performed last year. Since 1973, the year when abortions became legal, 24 million Black women have had abortions. This is twice as many as the total number of slaves (12 million) that were brought to the US.

Epstein

Here is something I wrote three years ago regarding the Epstein case. It is often stated that we have two systems of justice, one for those in power and another for the rest of us. This case will test that idea. The trial of Ghislaine Maxwell came and went and without any disclosure as to who were the people who visited the sex island. The FBI sized computers from the island but no one knows what was on them. Evidence from Epstiens safe went missing. The government promised to keep investigating after Epstiens death in order to find out what was going on. All the news reports about different men visiting the island must have just been rumor since no names came forth at the trial. If there were any visitors they can now all rest easy because this whole affair is now forgotten. The answer to my question from 3 years ago is yes we have two systems of justice.

Pelican Brief

Truth is stranger than fiction is an old adage that is sometimes true. In the past week the life of a Supreme Court Justice was threatened and I was reminded of a movie from about 30 years ago called The Pelican Brief. It was about a rich and powerful oil man who discovered new oil fields in Louisianan and was stopped from drilling by some environmentalist who were trying to protect the Brown Pelican. This billionaire had put millions into the campaign of the man who became president. The case was going to end up in the Supreme Court in about 5 years and there were two Justices who were environmental types and this would cause the billionaire to lose so he arranged to have these two Justices assassinated and had his friend, the president, appoint two new Justices who were not that interested in environmental issues. Now here I move into the world of fantasy but what if the three Justices that Trump appointed were killed and Biden would have between now and November to appoint three new Justices more to his liking. Then next term they could reinstate Roe. Talk about a constitutional crisis. This is pie in the sky thinking but strange things do happen.

Lockdowns

When the country was shut down during the pandemic, fears arose that this slow down in the economy would lead to a recession so the government stepped in and sent out checks to just about everyone to the tune of $5.3 trillion dollars. Then President Biden came forth with the American Rescue Plan to send out more checks. You recall when Biden leaned into the mike and whispered, I just gave you $1.9 trillion dollars. Too much money in circulation leads to inflation because supply cannot keep up with demand and the supply chain problems further aggravated the situation. Now the Fed will raise interest rates to the point where it will likely lead to the recession the government was trying to avoid. Then Biden went to work trying to pass the $5 trillion Build Back Better plan and were it not for Senator Joe Manchin it would have passed. Lessons were learned and should allow the country to better deal with any future pandemics. Lockdowns were not effective. Here is from WebMD. Feb. 4, 2022 -- An analysis from a trio of economists says pandemic lockdowns during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic did little to reduce the number of COVID-related deaths. Masking children is not a good idea. This is from the Atlantic Magazine. Districts should rethink imposing on millions of children an intervention that provides little discernible benefit. There is also concern about the long term effects on children's development.

Court

What led up to the change in Roe. First off democratic Senator Harry Reed changed the senate rules which allowed judges to be approved with a simple majority. He did this in 2013 so he could approve a number of federal judges while he had the majority. Next Hilary lost the election to Trump, something that was not supposed to happen. In hindsight it was her failure to campaign in three states which she lost by a total of 80,000 votes. Trump not only won but the republicans took control of the house and the senate. This opened the door for Trump to appoint conservative judges using only a simple majority and fate stepped in and two judges retired during his term and one, Ginsberg, died. Thus the court is now 6 to 3 leaning right. Interesting facts. Justice Kennedy a right leaning judge retired at age 81 which allowed Trump to select his replacement. Justice Ginsberg refused to retire so that Obama could replace her and she died at age 87 when Trump was near the end of his term.

Voters don't know

Senator Cruz campaigned against Obamacare by saying that if the republicans take the senate they could overturn Obamacare. What he didn't say was that they would need 67 senators to override Obama's veto which meant he was misleading voters to thinking they could overturn Obamacare with a 51 seat majority. Now some democrats are saying that if they control the house and senate in the upcoming elections they could overturn the Supreme Court vote. What they are not saying is that a constitutional amendment takes a 75% vote in both the house and the senate. Many low information voters can be fooled by such language.

Roe

As I watch the news about Roe, I get the feeling that many people are not familiar with how the court operates. Prior to Roe states had different rules for abortion but the majority of states (30) banned abortions for any reason. This was the rule for 176 years, then in 1973 Roe made abortions legal any time before the fetus was determined to be viable outside of the womb and that was deemed to be 24 to 28 weeks. States could then determine the legality of abortions that time, which came to be called late term abortions. As time passed this changed to abortions becoming legal at any time and in some cases the the baby could be killed after delivery. Roe has now been reversed and the rules will once again be determined by the states. It is unfortunate that cooler heads did not prevail and come to a compromise position. Most (61%) feel abortion should be legal in the first trimester but only (19%) in the third. Abortions based on rape or incest would happen early in the first trimester. 90% of abortions occur before week 12 and most of these are for economic reasons. The number of abortions have been on the decline for 30 years and that coincides with the development of the abortion pill so it is difficult to get data on how many abortions have not been counted during these years. These pill can be obtained from your personal physician without anyone knowing. The use of these pills will likely continue to rise with this new ruling.

Cost of gasoline

A barrel of oil contains 20 gallons of gasoline. When oil is $100 per barrel, gasoline is $4 per gallon. $4 times 20 gallons equals $80 less the cost at $100 means a $20 loss. When oile is $50 per barrel, gasoline is $2 per gallon. $2 times 20 gallons equals $40 less the cost of $50 means a $10 loss. The money is made with the other 22 gallons which are used to refine jet fuel, home heating fuel, diesel and petro-chemicals. From each barrel of oil at $100 per barrel you get. 20 gallons of gasoline at $4 per gallon comes to $80 4 gallons of aviation fuel at $7.50 per gallon comes to $30 10 gallons of diesel at $5 per gallon comes to $50 3.3 gallons of heavy fuel and gases at $4 is $13 This totals $173 This does not include petrol chemicals. Oil companies have nothing to do with the price of oil which is set by global markets and they have little to nothing to do with gasoline stations of which they only own 5% and they are trying to get rid of those. There is no such thing as a stand alone gasoline station because they would go broke.

Crime rates

Beginning in the 1960's major crime in NY City began increasing and rose to its highest level ever in the early 1990's. At that time the government took steps to bring the crime rate down. They instituted what was called, "broken windows" policy where they began to prosecute minor crimes, things like jumping the subway gates. They started what was called, Compstat". Using computer date they found where crime was most prevalent and sent police officers into those areas. They began the program called, "stop and frisk". This is stopping people who are suspicious and checking them for weapons. They added thousands of new police officers and increase police department budgets. Under Mayor de Blasio, elected in 2014 crime began to increase and that has continued to today. Many cities are experiencing increases in major crime the answer seems to be putting criminals in jail, especially those with criminal records. This will result in a disproportional number of Blacks being jailed and the reason is that they commit a disproportional number of the crimes. Many people who believe that Blacks have suffered from past discrimination and they offer reasons, many of which are valid, why these people should not be incarcerated. Examples of this kind of thinking can be seen in California cities. The tide is turning and many say that criminals must be jailed regardless of past mistreatment. This remains an ongoing discussion.

Student debt

The news is making a big deal out of Biden's proposal to offer a federal holiday on the gas tax. This is 18 cents per gallon and will make little difference to most people. Biden is also considering canceling student debt. The highest income households owe 60%of the student loan debt while the lowest 40% hold just 20% of the debt. What about students who did not take out loan but paid their own way. What about the young people who chose not to go to college. This will not be a popular idea.

College

I often quote someone and I don't recall the persons name when I say, never confuse formal education with intelligence. The United States has never ranked at the top of international education tests, since we began comparing countries in 1964, yet has been the dominant economic and innovative force in the world the entire time. The reason for the apparent disconnect is because schools don’t prepare students for the real world, so broad educational attainment will have a weak correlation with economic power. More and more people are beginning to realize that college for all too many students was a waste of time and money. Prior to WW 2 if a young man wanted to learn about business, he went to work for a businessman and kept his eyes and ears open. After a period of time he was ready to start his own business. With the knowledge that he picked up working plus a lot of ambition and willingness to work hard he had a good chance of being successful. Even technical work like engineering can be learned on the job. People like to hire engineers because they know they can learn but then then set about teaching them what they need to know.

Corn ethanol

Germany is restarting its coal plants. They jumped the gun in their enthusiasm to go green. The US is doing something similar as they try to go to electric cars before they have a green source of electric power to charge the cars. In June of this year Biden has set new requirements by increasing the amount of corn ethanol in gasoline. Ethanol is worse for climate change than gasoline, a new report says. The process to harvest and produce corn-based ethanol creates more harmful emissions than normal gasoline as reported in National Academy of Science February 2022 issue. To add insult to injury this is at a time when the world is expecting a shortage of food. This is on top of Biden's declaration of war on fossil fuels. Joe Biden told a questioner during a campaign event, “I guarantee you we’re going to end fossil fuels,” in New Castle, N.H. on 9/6/19.

Woke

Woke is the new name attached to an idea dating back to Karl Marx and he got the idea from Hagel. It is about dividing people into two groups, the oppressors and the oppressed. The word used to fight against oppressors is equity. Equity is important because it seems to neutralize inequality but the two words are quite different. Equitable means equal opportunity and equity means equal results. If you have been discriminated against your whole life you do not feel that you have had equal opportunity so you want to make up for your loss by using equity. A good example is the idea of reparations. You want the government to take money from people who are not descendants of slaves and give that money to those who are descendants of slaves. The most popular form of equity is monetary but it stops short of paying everyone the same salary. It does want some influence in how peoples performance is measured. In some cases test given to job applicants and some in the group are given extra points because of their race. Some suggest this should take place in schools in general. They do not want equity in areas like athletic performance, art and music. In some entrance requirements to major universities the quality of your personality is given points. If you are a nice person a person who is kind and considerate of others you get points. Good arguments can be made for, "leveling the playing field". It sounds like the christian thing to do and that appeals to many Christians. WWJD (what would Jesus do). Income inequality is a problem facing the country as math makes it grow worse. If I earn $100,000 per year and get a ten percent raise, I get $10,000. If you make $50,000 and get a ten percent raise you get $5,000. Before the raise I was making $50,000 more that you and after the raise I am making $55,000 more than you. This is why the rich get richer and poor get poorer. To attempt to fight the math you give a higher percent raise to the lower income groups. While this appeals to some they do not want to go all the way to where every family earns $60,000. Who then determines how the gap between rich and poor should be narrowed. The US depends mostly on the free market to control wages. If you can do something that hardly anyone else can do you will be paid handsomely. Can you throw a baseball over the plate at 100 mph. Professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Made $300 Million in 28 Minutes by beating up another man. The closest thing we have to narrowing the gap is the progressive income tax system. The top one percent earn 20% of the income and pay 40% of the taxes. The lowest 50% pay no income tax.

Finding truth

The foundation of the US jurisprudence system is the adversarial role played by the prosecutor and the defense attorney. The January 6 hearings are not allowing both sides to present their case and this is the best path to the truth but this is not that surprising since it is congress which is all about politics and not about justice. There is something to be alarmed about and that is AG Merrick Garland saying he is watching these hearings closely. As AG, he has at his disposal, all of the power of the federal government to investigate the charges brought forth by the congress. In using that power he would interview witnesses from all sides and be better able to decipher the truth.

To play the what if game when trying to determine how the country would move if a certain event did not happen is not easy but if you assume that without that event the country would continue along the path it was headed, you can get a pretty good idea. What if the pandemic did not happen. First off Trump would have been re elected. The economy was booming with the lowest unemployment for women and minorities in history. Real wages were rising for the low and middle income groups for the first time in 40 years. Inflation was less than 2%. The border was secure using the remain in Mexico rule while the Mexican government controlled its southern border and the wall was going up. Import taxes on China would continue to rise as Trump's policy to make things in America continued. The country would be energy independent and producing enough gas and oil to help Europe wean itself away from Russia. The federal government would be pro police and crime would not be rampant. The military budget would be increased. The Iran deal is gone and would stay that way. Parents would be in charge of their children and parents working with the school board would determine what goes on in schools. The recently passed infrastructure bill would not be collecting dust because Trump's people would revamp the regs to allow construction to begin immediately. The new green deal would be dead and progress toward solving the climate change problem could begin in earnest. While this is conjecture it is based on reasonable assumptions.

Vaccine risk

In trying to figure out why children should get the Covid vaccine, I found this. COVID-19 vaccination can help protect your child from getting COVID-19. Although fewer children have been sick with COVID-19 compared to adults, children can be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, can get sick from COVID-19, and can spread the virus that causes COVID-19 to others. Then I found this from Mayo Clinic. This study showed that the impact of vaccination on community transmission of circulating variants of SARS-CoV-2 appeared to be not significantly different from the impact among unvaccinated people. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 645 children have died from Covid-19 in the US. Many of these deaths were co-morbidity with other illnesses. During normal flu season 30 percent of flu vaccinations come with adverse reactions, and about six percent of all adverse reactions bring with them serious health events, including death. Parents should not automatically assume that the vaccine is worth the risk.

Change drug laws

For years experts on both sides of legalizing drugs have offered opinions with no empirical evidence but that has changed. Oregon decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine, meth and heroin as of February 2021. If you are caught with these drugs you either pay a $100 fine or you call a number that directs you to get a health screening. Of the 16,000 who were offered help only one percent agreed to enter treatment. From AP on June 2, 2022. Efforts to get millions of dollars in funding to treatment centers and related services as part of Oregon’s pioneering drug decriminalization have been botched even as drug addictions and overdoses increase. In 2019 there were 280 deaths by opioid overdose, and in 2020 the figure rose to 472 and in the first 10 months of 2021 the total is 607. This deserves additional study but it doesn't look good so far. Notice this law does not legalize these drugs just decriminalizes them.

Solar panels

Solar panels last 20 or 25 years and they got popular around 2000 and so many are now sent to recycling plants and therein lies a problem. Many of the so called recycling companies merely ship these old panels to countries in Africa where they are buried. All of the dangerous rare earth metals are then leached out into the ground. This completes the cycle. The mining of these elements takes place mostly in China where the process poisons the ground water to end up in Africa where it poisons the water there. It is reminiscent of the popular book from the 60's called, "The Ugly American".

Rich v poor

The recent drop in the market has caused the gap between rich and poor to get smaller. As the market rose there were many stories about how the rich were getting richer but now that the bear market has set in not too many stories about how the rich are losing money. There is talk about an excess profits tax on the oil companies now that the price is over $100 per barrel but just a two years ago the price was negative and oil companies had to pay $30 per barrel for buyers to take the oil but there was no clamor to help the oil companies out.

Party platform

The economy is facing many problems and the blame goes to the president but it should also go to the party. The democratic platform states, Combating climate change by pursuing environmental justice. This means using the idea of replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar is the action needed to control climate change while redistributing assets. Thus the goal is not to increase production of oil and gas but to use government incentives to produce solar panels and windmills. The platform says, Creating a 21st century immigration system. This means to allow illegals into the country while the congress and the president worked together to develop and immigration system that works. On crime the platform says, Reforming the criminal justice system. That means reforming police and police department, releasing criminals for unspecified minor crimes and canceling bail requirements. The platform says, World class education in all zip codes. That means teaching CRT to all students and changing genders to first graders. The platform says, Building a stronger and fairer economy. That means expanding government control and use that control to redistribute assets. Things like a wealth tax. The President is merely leading the party down the path they want to go.

Minors at the border

Over the past eight months 85,000 unaccompanied minors have crossed the southern border. These come mostly from Central America which means a 2,000 mile journey to the US border. These children are at the mercy of unsavory characters crossing Mexico trying to get to the US. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-profit think tank based in the U.S., the immigration authorities encountered nearly 150,000 unaccompanied minors at or near the U.S.-Mexico border during the last fiscal year. That would be between Oct of 2020 and Oct of 2021. The term “unaccompanied minor” doesn’t always mean that a child traveled to the country by themselves. Some are separated from family at the border or left behind by smugglers, according to the council. Families will pay smugglers to transport their children to the US where they are then left alone at the border to await the border patrol to pick them up. There is no reporting of what, if anything, happens to these children during the journey.

Kavanaugh

President Trump was impeached the second time because his words caused people to attack the Capitol Building in an attempt to cancel the election results. Trump urged his supporters to ‘fight much harder’ against ‘bad people’ and ‘show strength’ at the Capitol.  “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Senator Schumer stood on the steps of the Supreme Court and said, "I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price," Schumer, who was then minority leader, said at the time. "You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions." Last week a man tried to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh. Today on the Sunday News shows only Fox News covered the assassination attempt. The others NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN never mentioned the attempt. While what Trump said was unacceptable and not smart the same goes for what Schumer said.

Nuclear is the answer

My years of lament about the countries refusal to deal with climate change will have to continue until Biden leaves office and maybe after that based on who his replacement will be. It seems he is wedded to solar panels and that will not solve the problem. Most solar panels are made in China but a few companies are in the US and Canada but China's product is 25% less expensive. Even if the US companies get more efficient, China still controls the market on rare earth metals. Metals such as cadmium, gallium, germanium, indium, selenium, and tellurium are important mineral materials used in current photovoltaic cell technology. It is only when the politicians are able to wean themselves away from the idea that wind and solar can replace fossil fuels that progress can start and it starts with the recognition that nuclear is the answer. Nothing wrong with using wind and solar, along with thermal but the backbone must be nuclear. Here is the plan. Continue to replace coal with natural gas and start building thorium nuke plants. Move to use natural gas for transportation until nuke power can be used to deionize water into hydrogen which will replace natural gas and the only bi-product is water. The same nuke plants can be used to desalt sea water and they use up stored nuke waste. They are much safer that uranium plants because they operate at normal pressure and automatically shut down when power is lost.

Home school

The idea of home schooling is gaining prominence since the pandemic allowed parents to see how the public school system works. Teachers figured this out many year ago. Across the country 10% of children go to private schools but for teachers it is 20%. In the big cities the teachers send their children to private schools at a 40% rate.

White supremancy

President Joe Biden calls white supremacy a ‘poison.’ Here are numbers to back that up. Political extremists have committed 450 murders over the past decade in the US. Right-wing extremists committed about 75% of them. That comes to 34 per year. White supremacy is ‘most lethal threat to the homeland today,’ Biden says. Last year 12,000 Black men were murdered mostly by other Black men. Black lives matter. Not

Fentanyl deaths

Fentanyl deaths are on the rise. 30,000 in 2019, 55,000 in 2020 and 75,000 in 2021. These numbers reflect the 2 million illegals that crossed the border in 2021not counting the 400,000 get aways that were caught on camera. This year is expected to show even higher numbers and today there is a caravan of 15,000 forming at the southern Mexican border expected to arrive at the US border, a journey of 2,000 miles expected to take 3 months or more. Along the way many women and children will be molested and many cartel members will be bringing more fentanyl.

Kavanaugh's house

The constitution states the government is composed of three equal parts, one of which is the judicial system. Two years ago Senator Schumer stood on the steps of the Supreme Court and said, "I want to tell you, Gorsuch; I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer roared Wednesday to a crowd of protesters angry over a Louisiana case before the court that threatens abortion rights. "You won't know what hit if you go forward with these awful decisions." A group of abortion-rights activists protested outside Brett Kavanaugh's house Saturday night.  The federal law O’Reilly claims these protestors have violated is Title 18, Section 1507 of the U.S. Code, which was enacted in 1950. Under this law, it is illegal to picket or parade in front of a courthouse or a judge’s home "with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge." None of these people were arrested. Could they be charged with sedition. These actions could be interpreted as attempts to overthrow the government of the United States. Today a man was arrested outside of Kavanaugh's home with a gun. Armed Man Traveled to Justice Kavanaugh’s Home to Kill Him, Officials Say

Boudin

The recent discussions regarding what children should learn from parents vs teachers has led most people to agree that parents are the primary teachers of values and beliefs. A good example of the power of family values can be seen in the recently rejected AG Chesa Boudin in San Francisco. Boudin's parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert were Weather Underground members. When Boudin was a baby, both were arrested and convicted of murder in their role as getaway drivers in the Brinks robbery of 1981. Boudin was raised in Chicago by adoptive parents Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who like his parents were members of the Weather Underground. Boudin descends from a long left-wing lineage. His great-grand-uncle, Louis B. Boudin,[16] was a Marxist theoretician and author of a two-volume history of the Supreme Court's influence on American government, and his grandfather Leonard Boudin was an attorney who represented controversial clients, such as Fidel Castro and Paul Robeson.[17] His uncle Michael Boudin[16] was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and his grand-uncle Isidor Feinstein Stone ("I. F. Stone") was an independent progressive journalist For the young people here, the Weather Underground was a radical left wing group first active in 1969 and the Brinks robbery was to get money to promote their agenda. While Ayers was the head of the Weather Underground the group conducted series of bombing public building including the US Capitol and the Pentagon. He was charged and released because the FBI used illegal means to arrest him. A bomb exploded in the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., causing an estimated $300,000 in damage.

Ratings

Here is something I wrote last February Is ideology more important than profits. In the case of CNN it appears that way. CNN averaged only 548,000 viewers during the week of January 3, a steep 80% decline from the 2.7 million it averaged over the same period in 2021. Some of that decline can be attributed to the drama of January 6 last year. This year, CNN used the anniversary of the Capitol riot to try to replicate that success, but it didn't work. CNN much like MSNBC daily has stories about Trump but those are not drawing the audience they used to. There is very little coverage of the southern border, crime and inflation and zero coverage of Afghanistan and the origin of the Covid. It appears that they have made the decision to sacrifice viewers to maintain their news philosophy which is refreshing. It remains to be seen how long they can endure these low ratings. Here is an update. There are rumors that the long awaited changes at CNN are about to begin and similar activity is taking place at MSNBC. The loss of Trump has hurt these networks even though they still manage to get some Trump story on everyday. Among the cable networks, Fox News dominated prime time with an average total audience of 2.634 million viewers, representing an increase of 6% from the same period one year ago. MSNBC was second with 1.194 million viewers (down 46% year-over-year, and CNN (774,000 viewers, representing a decline of 54% from 2021). The big question is, will their viewers come back if Trump is elected in 2024. A bigger question is do they want Trump to be elected. Will ratings beat ideology.

Biden's problems

The Biden administration has concluded that it cannot do much about the major problems facing the country. These include immigration, inflation and crime. The solution to all of these is to return to the policies of former President Trump. Let the world know that illegals are not welcome, continue building the wall, enforce existing laws like remain in Mexico and stop shipping illegals to various cities around the county. On inflation open up all possible methods to increase oil and natural gas production while reducing regulations. On crime let it be known that Biden is the pro police president who can use the bully pulpit to encourage prosecutors to enforce the bail laws. This is just a short list. Words and phases like, can't wave a magic wand, not a mind reader and push a button will not solve any problem. After a year and a half in office it appears that the country would be better off if Biden had done nothing. The next move is a prime time TV show about the riots on January 6 and polls show that people are not interested.

National issues

https://www.statista.com/statistics/323380/public-opinion-on-the-most-important-problem-facing-the-us/ In spite of this the congress is holding a prime time show on the Jan 6 riots

Mayor Adams

One city mayor is waking up to the crime problem but if you don't watch Fox News you would not know about it. Mayor Eric Adams lashed out at prosecutors and judges Monday for cutting loose suspected shooters to unleash more gunfire on the Big Apple’s streets — saying the “bad guys no longer take them seriously.” “The courts have to prosecute. Judges have to make sure they stay in,” he said. Adams, a former NYPD captain, added, “And you know what’s interesting? You do a profile, the picture that’s emerging after the shooting, after the arrest, after being let go — You know what they do? They go do another shooting.” If you Google, New York Mayor Eric Adams speech you will not find it. It was not covered by the main stream media. The lead story in the vaunted New York Times is the Jan 6 prime time show and no mention of Mayor Adams speech. He is the mayor of their city.

Does the increase in crime have anything to do with the defund the police movement. There is no way to prove that so it remains in the minds of many a coincidence. The size of most big city police departments were downsized and money was cut from their budget while the no bail rules were installed. Various DA's were reducing charges against criminals and offering early release. Many of these criminals had multiple convictions. Some feel crime is mostly about deranged people living on the street but that has not increase that much in the past two years. Many feel it is the proliferation of guns but guns have been available on the street for many years. Some feel it is the violent game shows and other violent stuff on social media. Some feel it is the break up of the family and in particular the lack of fathers in the home. Others say it is the failure of public schools which leads to lack of good paying jobs which leads to selling drugs which too often leads to drug use. Some feel it is a cultural change where some groups are denigrating the basic family unit which leads to degrading women by gang members as witnessed by the rap lyrics. Finally some feel that it is because many in society forgive misbehavior based on past treatment, things like unfair criminal laws and even the after effects of slavery.

The new Monkey virus is spreading among gay men and this brings back the memories of how AIDS started among gay men. In looking back gays were blamed for AIDS before it was known that it could spread among the non gay community. This led many to condemn those who blamed gays but there is some confusion. 1980s gay men have been at a greater risk and represented more of the new HIV cases that we’ve known in this country and actually internationally as well. In this day and time, gay men still make up about 2/3 of the new HIV diagnosis. So whether you like or not, just because you’re having sex with other men you are going to put yourself in a pool where you’re having a greater chance of getting in contact with HIV. Bringing things up to date there is still confusion on the part of many. While men who have sex with men represent only 2% to 7% of the U.S. population, 70% of all new HIV infections in 2019 were in this group. One-third of these were among Black MSM. While it may be unfair to target gay men for the spread of Monkey virus it is wise if you are a gay man to be extra careful.

AI

As wages rise more industries are looking to automate in order to reduce labor cost which is one of the things they can directly control. One of the good things about automation is that it eliminates jobs that humans should not be required to perform. In the poultry business after the feathers are removed the chicken is opened up and the entrails are pulled out for inspection. There are now machines that do this. It is a precise delicate operation since the inspectors must examine the internal organs and any damage cause by the eviscerating machine will cause the whole chicken to be rejected.

Inflation rates

When the Fed sells bonds it reduces the money supply by replacing money with bonds. This will help to fight inflation but it will increase interest rates. During the two years of the pandemic the Fed sold bonds and increased the money supply from $15 trillion to $21 trillion. Over the past two years, as the Federal Reserve fought to rescue the economy from the clutches of the coronavirus, the central bank’s emergency remedies increased the nation’s money supply by an astonishing 40 percent. Now they must reverse the process and have started selling off bonds at $95 billion per month. At this rate it will take almost 5 years to get back to pre-pandemic levels. If interest rates rise too quickly it will lead to recession but it will take some time to get through this mess. In late 1980 and early 1981, the Fed once again tightened the money supply, allowing the federal funds rate to approach 20 percent. Despite this, long-run interest rates continued to rise reaching a high of 16.3%. Inflation rates decreased rapidly from 13% in 1980 to 4% in 1982.

Fed rate

Since I do the shopping these days my view of inflation has changed. I would not be overly concerned if all I knew was that inflation was 8% but when I shop individual items pop out at me. For example milk has gone from $2.75 to $3.40 and the wheat bread that I buy as increased from 87 cents to $1.35. These are the things that get my attention and effect my view of inflation. When Reagan came into office he had the Fed raise the funds rate to 13% and this caused home mortgage rates to rise to 17%. This brought the inflation rate down and it stayed that way for until now. The Fed fund rate today is 1% so get ready.

Go nuclear

It appears that the Biden administration is going to stick by its policy of going green and will not develop a plan to increase oil and natural gas production. This will allow gas prices to increase, force the US to import oil and not have as much natural gas to export to help Europe move away from Russian natural gas. They seem to be unaware that wind and solar are not in a position to replace fossil fuels. Biden's Build Back Better plan included $500 billion in subsidies for renewable energy but that is on hold. Many feel it is money that could be better spent on nuclear energy. Green energy people and the fossil fuel people both oppose nuclear for obvious reasons.

Wall material

The administration has said no to border wall construction even though there remains $265 million dollars in paid for materials left over. The government is now planning on sending this material to different locations to be sold or given away. Many of the materials are going to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson for processing.After processing, the material will eventually be offered to federal, state and local agencies as well as to nonprofits, either for sale or donation, depending on the entity. This will allow the states to build the wall without federal government involvement and thus avoid the controversy of changing policy. Texas recently purchased $6 million dollars worth of this material for wall construction.

Drive by

The funeral costs for all the victims who died during a school shooting in Uvalde this week will be covered by an anonymous donor. Winston O’Conner Hunter, 6, was killed in his home on May 13 after the men drove to Orangeburg County from West Columbia, South Carolina to either buy or steal drugs, Orangeburg County Sheriff Leroy Ravenell said at a press conference Sunday. The boy's family had no connection to the three men. Will any anonymous donor help this family? This little guy will just be one of the 20,000 who will be murdered this year most of whom will remain anonymous to all except close friends and family members.

A database of mass shootings compiled by Mother Jones going back to 1982 counts 123 such incidents in which at least three people were killed, not including the gunman. In that time, 952 people have been killed and 1,315 wounded.  The big story in the news is how to get rid of AR 15 rifles. Last year 19,600 people were murdered most of them in gang violence in big cities and AR 15 rifles were rarely if ever involved. That is not what is called going to the root of the problem.

Stimulus

When the government came to a halt in April of 2020 the economy went into a recession but the government sent out stimulus checks and the recession was the shortest on record lasting only two months. The Trump administration sent $1.8 trillion to families in the form of $817 billion in stimulus checks, $678 billion in unemployment and $93 billion in child tax credit. If things had stopped there it might not have triggered inflation. The $600 per week of federal unemployment allowed people to earn more by not working and discouraged people from returning to work. Example. A person earning $1000 per week received $500 per week from the state and an additional $600 per week from the Feds. $1.7 trillion to business including $835 billion paycheck protection so business could keep paying employees, $349 billion for economic injury protection and $193 billion to cover business loss. $745 billion in state and local aid including $244 billion in the American Rescue Plan which covered all sorts of family expenses, $149 billion in the Cares Act which among other things helped retirement plans, $190 billion for schools, $72 billion to shore up Medicaid and $69 billion for transportation. $482 billion in health care cost mostly for vaccines and testing. $288 billion in other things like disaster spending and housing. Some in the Biden administration want the Build Back Better plan because it will put money in the hands of consumers who could then use that to offset higher prices. The down side is that it would add to the inflation problem but it could provide some relief before the elections.