Church

Since WW 2 church attendance hovered around 70% but starting in 2000 it begin to decline and last year was at a all time low of 47%. During this time the number of Americans who express no religious preference increased from 8% to 21%. Interestingly enough the decline has twice as many democrats as republicans. The decline is greater among young people. Many people have commented about the large numbers of older people in church. The decline in attendance began in the 1960's and has accelerated in recent years. Church attendance in Europe has seen a similar decline only more so.

Omnibus

Despite the bloated size of this bill and ridiculously short time frame in which the Senate has to consider it, the omnibus does effectively nothing to combat the growing crisis at the Southern Border. In fact, portions of it forbid federal agencies from doing so. Of the additional $400 million given to the Border Patrol, the text requires that none of the funds be used “to acquire, maintain, or extend border security technology and capabilities, except for technology and capabilities to improve Border Patrol processing.” This means that the entirety of the new Border Patrol funding must be used to help process illegal aliens and, in most cases, usher them into the United States. This is more evidence that Biden wants these illegals to come into the country.

Tax audits

Trump's tax returns were released and all was quiet so that got my attention. There are a few things that stand out. First his income varies greatly from year to year which is common for people in the real estate business since they buy and sell to move profits from one year to another. Second he gave a lot of money to charity and third he is not collecting social security. Nothing criminal was immediately obvious but these returns will be gone over with a fine tooth comb over the next few weeks. It is not likely to reveal much because the IRS closely watches his filings and the five years before he was president they audited his taxes every year. Reports in the news show that during Trumps tenure as president he lost somewhere between $700 million and one billion dollars.

Solutions

In the past when people would complain about government someone would ask, what would you do about it. The first answer was I am not elected to solve problems, that is why I vote for people who I believe can solve problems. But this time I can go a step further and offer solutions. The three main problems facing the country are inflation, crime and the border. On inflation we must increase our supply of fossil fuels to the max and increase the exports of natural gas to the max, stop spending money we don't have and increase taxes on the wealthy. On crime follow the program used in NY City in the 90's. The murder rate dropped from over 2,000 per year in the early 90's to less than 900 by 2000. They instituted the Broken Windows concept meaning they arrested people for minor crimes like shop lifting and jumping the turnstile on the subway. They used stop and frisk to reduce the guns on the street. Criminals were sentenced to jail and their was no cash free bail. Judges and DA's followed the laws and put criminals in jail. On the border bring back remain in Mexico, stop catch and release, build a wall and the number of crossings would be 40,000 per month as they were two years ago instead of the 200,000 per month we have today. Now if you don't like these solutions then I put the shoe on the other foot and ask what would do. For some nothing is the answer because they see no problems but for those that do what is your solution. If you don't like my solutions then offer something better don't just complain.

Peace

A letter to President Biden. Continue to let the world know that the US is backing Ukraine as long as it takes but meanwhile start the process to a negotiated settlement. Find a strong person with negotiating skills. Do not use your Secretary of State. Send this person first to NATO headquarters where they can join forces. Let them know that the plan is to end this war by offering both sides something they can call a win. Then meet with the leaders of Ukraine and lay out the plan. Ukraine will give up the Russian speaking territories where the people have already voted to secede including the Donetsk and Luhansk regions plus Crimea. In return the Russians will withdraw from Ukraine and Ukraine will join NATO. This plan will be offered to Putin on a take it or leave it basis. If he chooses not to cooperate then release the plan to the world letting everyone know that the offer was made. We will then be back to where we are today but with a clear conscience knowing that the attempt for peace was made and refused. The Ukrainian leaders are too far into this war to think clear. Right now their position is that Russia will have to destroy the whole country and kill all the people before they give up any part of the country. They need someone on the outside to interfere on their behalf.

Lying

Prosecutors are lawyers who investigate, charge, and prosecute (take to trial) people whom they think have committed a crime U.S. Rep.-elect George Santos of New York was under investigation by Long Island prosecutors on Wednesday, after revelations surfaced that the now-embattled Republican lied about his heritage, education and professional pedigree as he campaigned for office. Now that lying is considered a crime these boys are going to be mighty busy

Speech

Conservatives, especially those on campus, are quiet on many issues for fear of being ridiculed. Liberals face similar problems. Many liberals see the border as a mess but do not want to speak out. The same is true for having drag queens in school, and crime in the street. Free speech is sometimes threatened by government but often times it is shut down by fear. As soon as someone says something that others disagree with they don't challenge with better speech but they start insulting the person. This often times means that they don't have a legitimate counterpoint so they fall back on personal attacks. The idea is illustrated simply with two small boys arguing. My dad is bigger than your dad, no my dad i bigger than your dad , no my dad is bigger than your dad. Your racist.

Housing

Many feel as the democratic party takes more and more control the country is on the road to California and many feel this is not sustainable. One example to illustrate the point is the LA program to help provide homes for the estimated 40,000 homeless who live in the city. In 2016 the government started a program to solve the problem of homelessness. They set aside $1.2 billion and to date 1,200 units have been built. Most are one bedroom efficiency apartments. In 2013 the city was spending $10 million per year on low income housing and this year it is $ 1 billion and the number of homeless continues to increase. Here is a headline from the LA Times. Affordable housing in California now routinely tops $1 million per apartment to build It appears they need a new approach.

Congress

Representative elect George Santos lied on his resume about his work history and his education. The truly sad part is that many people see him as the poster boy for today's modern politician. Polls show that 75% disapprove of congress but the reelection rate for congressmen is 90 to 98%. Like Pogo said when speaking about the government, we have met the enemy and they is us.

Ukraine

When the drums of war are beating it is difficult to get out the other side. Everyday on all of the cable channels there appear retired generals urging us on to take down the Russians. In the spirit of debate wouldn't it be helpful to have someone one just once in a while ask why we don't try a negotiated settlement. It seems that many would rather read about the destruction of an entire country, the killing of innocent children and the tearing apart of families. Almost 8 million people have been forced to leave Ukraine and that represents 20% of the population. To better understand this that would be like 66 million Americans forced out of the country. It is easy when the problem is over there as we sit in the comfort of our homes over here.

Budget 2023

The government gets money from two sources. First the Fed can create money and then expand that through the banking system or second they can collect taxes. This years budget collects $4.639 trillion in taxes and spends $5.792 trillion leaving a deficit of $1.153 trillion. The spending can be broken down into three main categories. Social spending $4.229 trillion, defenses spending $1.167 trillion and interest of $396 billion. Interest payments are just money down a rat hole while defense spending creates many more jobs than social spending. The two big sources of income are $2.846 trillion from personal and corporate income tax and $1.510 trillion from social security and Medicare tax. Income tax is progressive in that the tax rate increases as income increases while social security at 6.2% tax and Medicare at 1.45% are regressive meaning the rates are stay the same for everyone. With a deficit of $1.153 trillion and income tax collections at $2.846 trillion, taxes would have to increase by 60% to balance the budget. This is too big a hill to climb so some spending cuts are needed. A good compromise would be one dollar decrease in spending for every dollar increase in taxes. The decrease in spending would hurt the low income people the most and the increase in taxes would fall mostly on the wealthy.

Border changes

President Biden in response to the border said he offered solutions his first week in office. Here is the opening paragraph from Biden's plan for the border. The Trump Administration’s policies at the border have caused chaos, cruelty and confusion. Those policies have undermined the safety of our communities, penalized asylum seekers fleeing violence, and destabilized security across the Western hemisphere. Today, the Biden Harris Administration will begin to roll back the most damaging policies adopted by the prior administration, while taking effective action to manage migration across the region.

Carbon

Experts have been telling us that time is running out to stop a climate disaster. As each deadline is reached the end game is adjusted and the goal posts are moved. The most recent change was from achieving zero carbon emissions by 2050 to getting a 50% reduction. There has been so much misinformation put out by scientist that no one is really sure of what will happen. The same governments who were all in and siding with the environmentalist are now talking a different toon. Germany, one of the leading countries in the climate change scenario is firing up old coal power plants and investing in an entirely new liquefied natural gas infrastructure to fill the void left by the now-defunct Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline. In recent years Germany shut down 13 nuclear power plants and the plan to close the last three has been put on hold. Did the German government actually believe that what they were doing would make a difference when everyone knows that China and India are going full ahead on coal. Germany emits 700 million tons of CO2 while China emitted last year 11.4 billion tons. This was almost a billion tons more than last year. China's increase last year was more than Germany's total output. The best plan is to move to natural gas for power and transportation and start building thorium power plants.

FBI

The coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop could have been an October surprise but it was squelched by the press. The FBI said it was Russian disinformation so that gave all the news outlets the excuse they needed not to cover the story. Overtime all these same news people admitted they made a mistake and the laptop was legit. A careful search of the Internet reveals that some polls show that if people had known the laptop was real it would have changed their vote and some polls show the change large enough to elect Trump. There is no way to answer whether the vote would have been different but this is election interference in a significant way. The fact that the FBI had this laptop for almost a year before the election and they knew it was legit but failed to make public their findings represents a clear case of election interference. So the real collusion was between the FBI and the national press.

Ride

As we come to the end of another year and as I look back over the past 85 it has been quite a ride. I went to college for 9 years, lived in 11 different cities in 9 different states, owned 8 different homes, had two major careers and a half dozen minor jobs, owned three small business, raised two children and helped raise four grand children, finally quit working and still have the same lady by my side. And now I'm easy.

Afghans

Back in 2014 President Obama declared we don't leave our soldiers behind as he traded 5 terrorist for one soldier. Here are some recent reports on Afghanistan. “The report, signed by Foreign Relations ranking member Jim Risch of Idaho, reveals that State Department officials believed that between 10,000 and 15,000 Americans were in Afghanistan as late as Aug. Feb 3, 2022 Here is a report from June 2022 from the US embassy in Afghanistan. The exact number of Americans that are making efforts to leave Afghanistan still remains unknown. President Biden claims that the majority of Americans that wanted to leave had already been evacuated, with about 100 to 200 Americans who still intend to leave the country. There are currently about 80 Americans in Afghanistan who want to leave the country, but evacuation flights have been grounded by the Taliban for about a month, according to a State Department official and two congressional sources familiar with the matter. January 2022 Can the average person conclude from that, that most Americans there do not want to leave. Can we assume that relatives here in the states do not know if their kin are in Afganinstan.

Natural immunity

With a combination of vaccines and natural immunity the country has achieved herd immunity. A study published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine shared findings that supported natural immunity providing greater protection from COVID infection than multiple vaccinations. June 2022 The military is not meeting its enlistment requirements but thousands who have not been vaccinated who have been kick out are not allowed back in. Many more thousands of front line workers like those in the healthcare field and many teachers are not allowed back even though there is a need for nurses and teachers. This seems like people are being punished while the science is being ignored. Once again politics is getting in the way. This will continue as long as people have set up battle lines based on politics. Every issue that comes up people quickly close ranks for their side. Where are the independents when we need them. This looks like one more time when the courts will have to step in because the people cannot compromise.

Checks

This is from Money Wise Magazine. 63% Americans support the idea of new stimulus checks to combat sky-high inflation Is it any surprise that the people like stimulus checks. The only surprise is that only 63%. Government analysis suggest that inflation has cost each family $5,000. Send each of the 150 million working families five grand. That would cost $750 billion. If adding the $1.7 trillion dollar omnibus money is not going to cause inflation this extra should be okay. Just crank up the printing press and send out the checks.

Spending

"When people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic", Ben Franklin. While this fact is just dawning on the general public, the politicians are already there especially those who are the big spenders. The few who see the problem with spending will be locked out because they will not be reelected. In time the spenders will have super majorities in both houses and a president cannot afford to veto a bill that gives benefits to the people. As the economy slows and revenues decline more and more money will be created by the Fed to meet the demands of the spenders. This will cause inflation to rise which in turn will hurt the poorest the most and they will required more handouts to keep them in line. Once the government is in this downward spiral the only way out is austerity which means cutting back on benefits and spending.

Cobalt

The NY Times is finally waking up to some facts about climate change. The quest for Congo's cobalt has exposed an international cycle of exploitation and greed. 70% of the world's supply comes from the Congo and most of this is mined by child labor. Maybe the Times will soon discover the problems with mining rare earth metals. Maybe they will look into how these used materials are dumped back into the earth and often times in Africa. Maybe they will wake up to the fact that using thorium nuke power would eliminate the mining of all of these elements. Maybe they will see through the politics of this disaster and come to realize that wind and solar are not the answers. Maybe!

Hate speech

In today's world determining things like disinformation and hate speech can be difficult. In a recent school board meeting a person said, "LGBT behaviors should never have been promoted, taught, or encourage in the schools that you oversee" Then he quoted the bible saying, "if any man causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for them if a millstone were tied around their neck and thrown into the lake". One person objected and started collecting signatures declaring that the biblical quote is hate speech. There is a trend these days to objecting to speech not based on logical legal arguments but just to shut conversation down by calling it hate speech. For many anything that is said that they disagree with is hate speech. This is replacing the racism objection in many cases.

Ukraine war

Up until the mid-1960s, much of the reporting on the Vietnam War was supportive of the war effort. Many Americans believed their soldiers were defending Vietnam from Communist aggression, including from China or the Soviet Union. By the late 1960s, however, reports of the war showed that the US was not making progress, and some Americans began to question US motives and involvement altogether. If that sounds familiar maybe it is time to wake up. It wasn't until two years after American troops begin to arrive in Vietnam that people begin to question what they were doing there. When some in the press change from promoting the war they were accused of being communist sympathizers. Today if you oppose sending aid to Ukraine you are accused of being pro Putin. Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Churchill 1948

TicTok

Years ago when Captain Kirk was on Star Trek there was an episode where the crew landed on a plant for a rest and they discovered a computer game. They became addicted to it and convinced the whole crew to try it and soon everyone was addicted and the enemy planned to take over the ship. They did not count on the robot DATA being there and he was not effected and saved the ship. This game is much like the popular app TicTok. Anyone in mainland China whose cell provider is China Mobile, China Telecom, or China Unicom cannot use the app. TikTok's format of short videos has been linked to decreased attention spans when the app is used for more than 90 minutes a day. TikTok moderation is a mess, with censorship rife across the platform. TikTok has taken the idea of dangerous challenges to new extremes. TikTok's data collection techniques are particularly dystopian Many security researchers have found security vulnerabilities in the TikTok app. There is no shortage of research that proves how bad social media is for your mental health.

Music

I spend a lot of time listening to music, mostly on Youtube and yesterday I heard a song where the lyrics said God spent 6 days making the world and the seventh day He rested but then they said on the eighth day God created music. I have often thought about this and one day while watching Shawshank Redemption for the fifth time it came to my favorite scene when the two opera ladies sang in the prison. The men who had been locked up some for many years were mesmerized by their voices. I had this idea years ago that when humans were hunters and gatherers they would sit around the five in the evening and the women would sing. On those nights when the men were away camp hunting I pictured one night a man picked up a hollow tube, poked some holes in it and began playing the first flute. Since that time men have created many new instruments all with the idea of mimicking the female voice. And that is how God created music.

Biden speaks

I just finished listening to President Biden speak about his meeting with President Zenlenskyy and once again he closed with the phrase, we will be with you as long as it takes. I hope the American people heard that and understand what kind of commitment that entails. The Vietnam War lasted ten years and Afghanistan lasted 20 years. The US has committed $100 billion in the first 300 days. The Vietnam War cost $1 trillion in today's dollars and Afghan cost $2.3 trillion. The American people have just stood on the sidelines while this money was spent but will they stand by if American lives are lost. It is hard to believe that sending equipment alone will defeat Russia. Will soldiers on the ground be needed. Just as the Afghans were willing to wait it until we gave in will the same happen in Ukraine. Will Ukraine be nothing but a gigantic pile of ruble when this finally just peters out. Will there be the bodies of hundreds of thousands of dead civilians strewn about the country side. According to Biden the answer is yes because he repeatedly says that Putin is going after women and children and Putin will not stop. So we all know what the future holds.

Ukraine war

Today Ukraine President Zelenskyy comes to visit President Biden. This is the time for Biden to step up and propose a peaceful settlement. Putin has lost 100,000 soldiers and so much of his equipment he is importing stuff from North Korea and Iran. He has bit off more than he can chew but needs a way to save face before leaving. Back in 2014 Putin just waltzed in and took Crimea and this led him to believe he could do the same in Ukraine but he was surprised by the ferocity of the people led by Zelenskyy. He will think twice about trying such a stunt in the future. He is 70 years old and reported to have health problems. The majority of the Russian people support the war but they are kept in the dark by the government controlled press. As more information becomes available the support for the war wanes. Since March support has declined from 80% to 70%. Back in the 1980's when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British territory, England fought back. The Argentinian press was controlled by the government and the people were all for the war. When it was over and the people found out what was really going on they agreed they were hoodwinked and would have opposed the war if they had had the truth. Ukraine will cede the Russian speaking areas to Russia and Russia in turn will pull out of rest of Ukraine. Ukraine will then join NATO.

War cash

Polls show that the US people are willing to send assistance to Ukraine. Most of this is in the form of military equipment but some is called security assistance and this is concerning. This are code words for grant, loan, credit, cash or lease. The key word here is cash. Ukraine is noted for being governed by unscrupulous people who cannot be trusted to deal with cash. Most of the aid sent is in the form of military equipment and the money appropriated is used to replenish the supply which means jobs here at home in the defense industry. The infamous military industrial complex that Ike warned about. Everyday there are retired generals on all channels promoting the war. This in itself should be alarming.

Border numbers

When Biden took office he reversed the Trump border policies and the number of illegal crossing quadrupled from 50,000 per month to over 200,000. The question is, does the government want to lower the number of illegals crossing the border and if they do there are four things that can be done. First bring back the remain in Mexico policy, second end the catch and release program, third keep enforcing Title 42 and forth build the wall. In other words bring back the Trump policies that were working. While the emphasis is on the number of migrants the real interest should be on the number of women and girls who are molested, the number of criminals getting into the country and finally the deaths of young people from drugs especially fentanyl.

Elections

The claim was made that Russia interfered with the 2016 election. While they did try the big question involved Trump/Russia collusion and after a two year investigation by a special prosecutor found no collusion, the case was settled. What was not settled is the Clinton interference surrounding the false information that led to the listening in on members of the Trump administration including Trump. The only result was a number of FBI employees lost their jobs trying to employ their plan B insurance policy. Next came the 2020 election where the FBI worked closely with social media to limit and/or block conservative views. Twitter where 99% of the employees donated to the democratic party was infiltrated by dozens of former FBI agents and placed in policy making positions. This was followed up with the FBI assigning 80 agents to oversee activities at Twitter. Recent emails reveal a partnership between the FBI and Twitter. There is some evidence that the release of the Hunter Biden laptop would have affected the election,which in laymen s terms means election interference. This kind of thing would be difficult for the press to expose because they were all in on the squelching of the laptop. Will congressional investigations be able to penetrate the wall surrounding the bureaucracy. Not likely as the Department of Justice will not be investigating itself. After all the dust settles the bureaucrats will still be running the country. The only person who was able to shake up these unelected officials was Trump and he has been totally discredited so all other politicians have seen the light and will stay away from the deep state.

Lottery

Employers who, during the pandemic, kept their employees on the payroll are now eligible for tax credits in a program called Employee Retention Credit. The credit is 50% of up to $10,000 in wages paid by any business that was adversely affected by the Covid. A private company called getrefund.com is now helping people get these refunds. The process like most government programs is difficult to follow and easy to mess up so companies are willing to pay a fee to have this done. This reminds me of a friend I knew in Florida. He was from Germany and came to the US because he won the lottery. When he got here he started a business to help others fill out the paper work to participate in the lottery. He would place ads in magazines all across Europe and parts of Africa. He charged $75 to fill out the forms. When he had winners he would put those names in his ads and that led to more business. He went on vacation and asked me to go to the post office each day and put his mail on a table in his home. He was averaging 9 letters per day and each one contained $75. He was earning $200,000 a year. American entrepreneurship at its best.

War

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG48Ftsr3OI

McCain

To find a smoking gun in a government scandal is difficult. Back in the S&L scandal of the late 80's a meeting was held to determine if the government would keep backing failing S&L's by adding more cash to the fund that covered losses (FDIC). If they failed to increase the amount many S&L's which were in trouble would collapse. Senator John McCain was a big backer of S&L's because he like many other politicians were receiving large campaign contributions from the S&L's. Five senators were receiving large contributions from a man named Keating who owned several S&L's. These became known as the Keating Five. When the bureaucrats held the meeting to determine if the government should add money to the FDIC account so these businesses could continue to operate they were surprised when Senator McCain showed up at the meeting. He did not say a word but his presence told all that he wanted them to approve more money. The result was that this postponed the inevitable failing of these companies which increased the cost to bail them out by many billions. McCain would later comment on his involvement with Keating by stating his efforts to influence regulators was "the worst mistake of my life."

Interest

Currently the three month treasury is at 4.27% and the 30 year is at 3.53%. When short term rates are lower than long term rates it is called an inverted yield curve. An inverted yield curve means interest rates have flipped on U.S. Treasurys with short-term bonds paying more than long-term bonds. It's generally regarded as a warning signs for the economy and the markets. A recession, if it comes at all, usually appears many months after a yield curve inversion.

Lead story

Sad to say but today was a typical news day. The lead off story on Fox was the border and the lead on MSNBC and CNN was January 6.

Speaker

Since the republicans have only a four seat lead in the house the five republicans who are challenging Kevin McCarthy for speaker have considerable power. These five want to revert back to the days before Nancy Pelosi concentrated power in the hands of a few. They want committee chair persons to be elected by a vote of the entire caucus instead of being appointed by a small group called the steering committee. They want to allow any member to initiate a vote to remove the Speaker called "motion to vacate". If they refuse to vote for McCarthy then the democrats if they stick together can elect the Speaker and that would be Hakeem Jeffries.

America

Someone posed a hypothetical question asking if all immigration policies around the world allowed for free, open and unlimited immigrants where would they emigrate from and where would they immigrate to. Most agree that the United States would get more than their fair share of immigrants and probably have very few who would leave. Why is that. Is the United State a great place to live. Are its citizens free to speak their minds. Is it because the United States is the most diverse country. Is it the land of opportunity as they say. Can someone rise by using their talents along with hard work. There are millions of examples of Horatio Alger stories so many in fact that numerous books have told their stories. People around the world know about America and many see it as Reagan said, a shining city upon the hill. It is interesting that many who live here do not see America that way.

Poverty

The Great Society became known as the war on poverty. It was a success in the first ten years the poverty level dropped from 19% in 1964 to 11% in 1974. Since that time it has slowly increased to 15% today. The cost has been $23 trillion dollars. This year the federal, state, and local governments will spend close to a combined $1 trillion to fund more than 100 separate anti‐​poverty programs. In fact, since Lyndon Johnson declared “war on poverty” in 1965, government efforts to fight poverty have cost more than $23 trillion. In 2020 before the pandemic there were 43 million people living in poverty. As a comparison with other programs. The government spent: $1.6 trillion on Medicare $1.2 trillion on Social security $0.7 trillion on Medicaid $0.8 trillion on Defense

Border crisis

Here is a headline from CNN yesterday. Everyone can now agree-the us has a border crisis. Does this mean that people who get their news from CNN are just now realizing that there is a problem at the border. People who watch Fox have know this for two years. This past week MSNBC started to cover the border. Maybe everyone is waking up at the same time. For two years Fox has had reporters on the border using drone planes to show the problem with migrants pouring in and other news media have no one down there. This allowed Myorkus to get away with saying the border is secure. Will these viewers be upset that politics have kept them in the dark. Will they even know. Will they even care. The same thing is happening now with the emails showing Twitter coercion with the government. Once again this is only being covered by Fox.

Green

Without most people realizing it, the bloom is off the rose when it comes to the green deal. The plan to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar is fading as people begin to understand the damage to the earth caused by the mining of raw materials needed to build solar panels and wind mills. The hype around electric cars is being exposed as just that, hype. There will be a time in the future for EV's but that day has not come. When the power used to charge up the car does not come from power plants using fossil fuels and when the charging time is similar to filling up with gasoline the EV will be more acceptable. Once again that day is not here. The reason a company like Tesla with $30 billion in assets is valued at one trillion is proof of the hype. Slowly, as the politics leaves the green deal, reality will set in and then real progress to solving the problem of climate change can begin.

Twitter

For over six years conservatives have suggested that social media is in cahoots with the government to block their view points and promote liberal ideals. Recent emails released by new Twitter owner Elon Musk confirms FBI coordination with Twitter to do just that. These revelations are being ignored by the press unless you search deep and then they say this is old news. The first amendment protects American people from government censorship. Because the country is so divided the government can get away with this. Half the people feel it is okay if the press goes after the other half not realizing that someday their half may be the target. This was born out by the reaction from a dozen liberals who were recently banned. That made the main stream news.

Algebra

In the news today a story came up that is close to my heart. It has to do with what are required courses in high school. For people who are not aware algebra 2 and chemistry are required course for juniors whereas calculus and physics are electives for seniors. The story was about making algebra 2 and elective course. I believe both algebra 2 and chemistry should be electives just as calculus and physics are electives. In all the algebra 2 and chemistry classes that I have been in and there are many there were always about 10 students who had no idea what was going on. This allowed them time to get into mischief and distract their classmates. Some of those felt that they must not be very smart. If a person is interested in science or engineering they should sign up for these courses but others would be better served if they spent that time learning to read and write. I maintain that when you go to work you must know how to read and write and then you can learn with on the job training. When a company hires a person with a BA in engineering they are not hiring this person because of what he learned in school but because they know he can learn. If he is going to use his technical knowledge he will get a PhD and become a professor or go into research.

Griner

This past week a basketball player Brittney Griner who was held prisoner in Russia was traded for a Russia arms dealer Victor Bout. He was in prison for 25 year being convicted of conspiring to kill US citizens and aiding terrorist organizations. This young lady gained some notoriety by refusing to stand for the national anthem saying that America suffers from systemic racism. It is mindful of the soldier who gives citizens the right to burn the flag. In her time of need America did not let her down.

Mission creep

To use a phrase made famous in Vietnam. Mission creep. 1 November 2022 US Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder acknowledged during an official briefing yesterday that active-duty US military personnel are not only deployed inside of Ukraine, but are operating far away from the US embassy in Kiev. It is time for a negotiated settlement.

FBI

J Edgar Hoover was instrumental in founding the FBI and he remained head for 37 years. During that time he created the public image of honest hard working public servants who used the latest scientific methods to capture criminals. Everyone knew the FBI always gets its man. While this image may be accurate there was a dark side that many feel is still active today. Hoover collected dirt on many people and used that dirt as blackmail to retain his position and power. People got a glimpse of this power in 2017 when Senator Schumer said, "You take on the intelligence community? They have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you". When Trump called the press fake news he asked for trouble and they went after him but that was only a minor problem compared to what happened when he went after the deep state. The Department of Justice was on him like stink on a pig. It started while he was a candidate and continues to this day. They listened in on administration officials and leaked things that would be considered detrimental. The raided people, including Trumps lawyer, with early morning forays into their homes gathering private information which led to a couple of convictions. Their goal is to make sure he will not be president again and for all intents and purpose they have succeeded. They also succeeded in putting the fear of God into any future president who might want to take on the establishment. Their chances of success were enhanced by the many people who feel it is okay to use whatever means necessary to get rid of Trump once and for all. Best be careful. First they come for the Jew, then they come for you.

Wealth gap

From 30,000 feet the number one economic problem facing the country is the gap between the rich and poor. There are a number of reasons why this gap is widening but the most important stems from the creation of money. When the government first creates new money the winners are the banks and businesses as they get the money at current prices. Then as prices rises because of this new money those who owned property prosper. Home owners see the value of their property go up as do those who own other investments like stocks and bonds. As time passes lower income groups have access to the growth but at higher prices. They must borrow to stay afloat and this combined with no increase in asset values, since they had no house or stock, causes their net worth to decline. Their wages do not keep up with prices adding additional burdens. Retirees see their saving eroded away by inflation. Each year the national debt rises and governments must create more money to balance the budget and thus the problem continues. The solutions is for government to spend less. It doesn't require a cut in spending but increasing spending at a slower rate preferable at a rate less than the inflation rate. Over a long period of time this will slowly ease the pressure to create money and in time will solve the problem. Government spending stayed at about 20% of GDP for many years up until 2018 when it started up and since has averaged over 30%. This is a 50% increase over the past 4 years compared to the long term average since 1940.

Migrants

The border situation has finally caught the attention of a few democratic congressmen as the number of got a ways passes one million since Biden took office. The standard excuse of blaming the problem on inaction by congress has given way to asking for more money. The money to be used for more border patrol and judges to speed up the processing. Instead of taking steps to slow the flow of migrants the policy will be to increase the ability to handle more. Migrant numbers are so large that processing centers cannot keep up and illegals are released into the streets where many are sleeping in 35 degree nights. Then they are put on buses and shipped to various cities around the country. Last June the administration announced it would begin sending migrants to inland cities starting with LA but the process was going on before this and has accelerated as the numbers increase. All the while the Mayorkes says the border is secure. It is difficult not to assume that the government wants these migrants to come in.

Arizona

This year Arizona became the first state to offer freedom of choice to all k-12 students. Each student is given $6,500 from the state to attend the school of their choice. This still leaves the problem of transportation since free busing is not included. Until that happens most of the inner city students who would like to go to school in the suburbs will not be free to choose. Here in the Twin Cities many parents in St Paul form car pools to take their children to the burbs.

Crypto

Crypto business man Sam Bankman Fried had been doing TV interviews and this is surprising as most of the time when there is an alleged crime the rule is to keep quiet. As the government was preparing their case against him they were listening closely to what he had to say while others were wondering why he didn't have a lawyer who would tell him to shut up. Then a strange thing happened. Instead of just letting him verbally hang himself they arrested him. This raised some eye brows as he was scheduled to testify in congress the next day. Was he arrested to shut him up is the question. Is there something the Feds were worried about that might come out in his interrogation before congress. In all the movie scenes the cops are talking to the purp and his lawyer walks in and all chatter stops.

Crypto

The crypto thief Sam Bankman Fried won over some hearts by giving money to different causes. He seemed like a nice guy and there was some hesitancy to arresting him. He reminds me of Oral Hodges. He was the Illinois state auditor in the 50's. He was known as good old Orvie. He would give money to strangers who seem to be in need. He once met a newly married couple on the train and gave them $1,000 and he was famous for being a big tipper. Little did they know he was stealing millions from the state treasury by forging and altering checks. He had two private jets, four Cadillac s and a Roles Royce. When he was caught and sentenced to ten years the people are cried out, you can't send good old Orvie to prison.

Border crossings

The reason the border crossing were so low compared to today was that Trump instigated a remain in Mexico policy. Migrants were required to stay on the Mexican side while they awaited the evaluation of their asylum request. Biden stopped this policy saying it was too dangerous to remain in Mexico, the same country they just spent months crossing. Today several thousand amassed on the border at El Paso. Thousands of migrants have once again flooded over the border from Mexico at El Paso, Texas — many of whom had reportedly been kidnapped by cartels, rescued by the Mexican army, then brought to the border by the country’s police and told to turn themselves in to US authorities. On Sunday alone, 2,400 mostly from South America crossed the border at El Paso. They paid their fees to the cartels and then the Mexican authorities picked them up and bused them to the border. Mexico is now expediting the passage to the US. This means more money for the cartels, more young people dying from fentanyl, more women and girls being assaulted and more chaos along the border and this will all be accelerated in a few days when title 42 is eliminated. This is not considered news worth reporting by most media.

GDP

U.S. labor productivity plunged first quarter in the largest decline since 1947, then dropped by the highest annual amount on record in the second according to the Bureau of Labor Statics. The third quarter data indicates year-over-year output saw three consecutive declines for the first time since 1982. Spurred on by the pandemic Americans are starting to work less, some say the famous work ethic of Americans is waning. Often times people compare the US to Europe usually to get the US to become more like Europe. Comparing the GDP of the US vs the European Union the difference is stark. US population 330 million and with a GDP of $23 trillion dollars. European Union population 447 million with a GDP of $17 trillion. A recent study found that, on average, Europeans work fewer hours than Americans do. According to the paper, Americans work nearly 25% more hours than Europeans. In other words, that's an additional 258 hours per year or an hour more each weekday Europeans not only work fewer hours they have more days off for vacation and personal time. The GDP per person in the US is $70,000 dollars vs European Union at $38,000.

Twitter

Recently Twitter, under its new management, released four batches of controversial emails over a ten day period and ABC, CBS, NBC, The Washington Post and the NY Times have not covered the story. This is similar to the black out that the border crossings have received. Democracy Dies In Darkness is the official slogan of the Washington Post.

Illegal worker

People often complain and rightly so that it is difficult to get a straight answer from the IRS. Turns out the same is true for immigration rules. Here is from a well known law firm. If you are an undocumented migrant work, you have employment right, no matter your citizenship status. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), it is illegal to discriminate against any worker, regardless of immigration or citizenship status. This is from another source. Employers are required to refuse to hire, or terminate, an undocumented worker once they learn of her lack of work authorization. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRAC) makes it illegal for employers to knowingly hire or continue to employ undocumented workers. Can one interpretation of this garbage mean that it is legal for an undocumented worker to work but it is illegal for anyone to hire this person. How can something this simple become this complicated.

Women's movement

Trump supporters are in a quandary as they like his policies but not his personality. They have an out, as DeSantis holds the same policy views as Trump but without the baggage. Something similar happened with Bill Clinton. When Monica Lewinsky was being dismissed by the White House as flighty, flirtatious and prone to exaggeration many asked where are the women's groups. Only a couple of years earlier women around the country came to the aid of Anita Hill. Opinion polls show that women generally are more supportive of Mr Clinton than men and prepared to overlook his behavior with Ms Lewinsky even if proved true. They liked Clinton's policies and were willing to overlook his personal behavior. In spite of Clinton's liaisons with different women when he left office he had an approval rating of 72%. The women's movement was rekindled ten years later and came on strong against in the nomination of Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court but has since faded. The stories about Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein failed to fire up the women so the public lost interest in the Me Too movement.

Business

A free market society works best when government and private business compliment one another. It is the job of business to produce wealth and the job of government to keep business honest. When this is done properly there is money left over to provide a safety net. Governments percent of GDP was under 10% for many years but starting with FDR this began to increase and since it has averaged 20%. In the last three years this has increased to 25%. The government has two sources of income to pay for the safety net. The first is to tax individuals and businesses and the second is to create new money. If they use the second it leads to inflation which hurts those people that the safety net is supposed to help so that is self defeating. The best approach is to use regulations to encourage business to grow while creating a fair and safe market place. The first responsibility of government is to protect its citizens and about 11% of the budget goes for defense and this expenditure can be changed each year. The biggest portion of the budget is for social security, Medicare and medicaid and this accounts for 62% of the budget and is set in law. As long as government recognizes that business is the golden goose they will take steps to control business in a way that allows growth while protecting the public.

Working

There are 128 million people in the prime working ages of 25 to 54. 63% work full time and 14% work part time. 5% are actively looking for work and 19% don't have a job and/or are not looking for a job. That means there are 24 million people not looking for work. Many of these have childcare responsibilities or health problems but about 8 million are able bodied and could work but choose not to work. There are 10 million job openings. At this time the country is 5 million workers short of where things were before the pandemic. Many have cut back on expenses and still living on the handouts of the last two years but that is expected to run out next summer.

Mortgage crisis

The power of the bureaucracy has been increasing rapidly over the past 40 plus years. Back in the 1980's when the S@L scandal hit where fraudulent mortgages were running rampant the government investigated and over 1,000 bankers including 300 top executives were arrested. Fast forward to the mortgage crisis of 2008 and even though the loses were many times greater not one banker was arrested. 3,000 small fry, those who made local loans were arrested but not one Wall Streeter. Just after Obama took office in 2009 in the midst of the crisis The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act was passed but after a series of investigations not one Wall Street banker was arrested. Either the FBI is getting far less efficient or they are corrupt. Recent revelations concerning the Trump/Russia collusion and more recently the FBI relationship with Twitter would lean toward corrupt. When federal law enforcement departments are unable to carry out their responsibilities there is a threat to democracy.

Trump made extensive use of Twitter many times often many time per day. On January 9, 2021 Trump was banned from Twitter after two tweets. The first, “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”The second indicated Trump did not plan to attend Joe Biden’s inauguration.“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Lithium mines

Both Trump and Biden favored buy American and pushed to bring production back home or something called onshoring. One of the newest is a lithium mine in Nevada but there is a snag. These tribal activist want Biden to stop a planned lithium mine on their sacred land. If this sounds familiar it should as this is what happened with the Keystone Pipeline that Biden shut down. This is just the beginning of what is going to happen to many of the proposed infrastructure plans. Beside the problems with Native Americans there are even bigger problems with the environment. Here is a list released by environmental groups. Overall, large amounts of water pollution might create a severe imbalance in the local ecosystems and adversely affect the environment. Lithium miners also use heavy machinery that consumes a lot of energy and produces various toxic gases, including carbon dioxide. Lithium extraction requires a lot of water. To extract one ton of lithium, you need approximately 500,000 gallons of water. Another unfortunate reality is that large-scale lithium extraction requires plenty of land. Lithium contains chemical substances that cause respiratory problems in humans and animals. Sustainable water table reduction ensures the availability of adequate water sources. Some of the most common mining wastes are sulfuric acid discharge and the radioactive uranium byproduct. Lithium extraction causes surface water contamination. It also destroys other water sources. So, it’s partly responsible for the creation of toxic rain.

Americans held

President Biden said today that he will never stop working to bring home Americans detained in other countries including Paul Whelan who is held in a Russian jail. Here is a report from this past summer. The exact number of Americans that are making efforts to leave Afghanistan still remains unknown. President Biden claims that the majority of Americans that wanted to leave had already been evacuated, with about 100 to 200 Americans who still intend to leave the country.

Prisoners

In May of 2022 a prisoner swap between Russian Konstantin Yaroshenko and American Trevor Reed brought Reed home after he spent 2 years in prison. Yaroshenko was convicted of smuggling $100 million dollars worth of cocaine into the US and Reed was convicted of assaulting a police officer. Yesterday American basketball player Brittney Griner was part of a prisoner swap for Russian Viktor Bout. Griner was convicted of having marijuana and Bout, known as the Merchant of Death, was convicted of conspiracy to kill US citizens and officials and delivering anti aircraft missiles to terrorist organizations. Some controversy arose since American Paul Whelan is still held by Russia. He was accused of being a spy and has been held in jail for four years.

Iran

It has been three months of protest in Iran led by young women and around the western world some have joined the protest but in the US all is quiet. Now is the time for the US to forget about any nuclear agreement and in a loud and clear voice condemn the Iranian dictator. Iran has reached the point of no return and the US needs to shine the light on what is going on just as the west as done in Ukraine. At this point in dictatorships they must use force to survive and they will. The more the world can shine the light on what is going on the bigger the chance of the people winning. The supreme leader in Iran Ali Khamenei has been in power for thirty years and power corrupts. He can tell the president what to do. He is in charge of the military. He appoints the judges. He controls the press. Billions of dollars have disappeared and much is used to finance terror groups around the world. The mistreatment of women is just the point of the spear. This is a corrupt government and the people are crying out for help. Time for Americans to wake up and in particular the women of America.

Democracy

The words, threat to democracy are thrown around rather loosely these days but one possible threat that is rarely if ever discussed is the close cooperation of the press with the democratic party. Part of the first amendment is freedom of the press. Freedom of the press is the right to report news without being censored by the government. Founders spoke glowingly about the press as a pillar of democracy and guarantor of liberty. They were concerned about the government having too much power much like the King from whom they has just revolted. A fictional character in the late 19th century said, “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” The press is always taken over when dictators come into power as they know that the pen is mightier than the sword. When the press whose job is to expose government abuse becomes friendly with the government, democracy is threatened.

Voting laws

This is from a recent article on CNN concerning voting laws. So, just how bad — or good — are these laws? The political reaction to these laws seems to have overshadowed what’s actually in them. Yes, Republicans’ case for rampant voter fraud is nonexistent. But Democrats’ case that any current voting restrictions amount to the type of voter suppression that existed before the Civil Rights movement is also far from accurate. Furthermore, the evidence shows that restrictive (or permissive) voting laws matter less to the outcome than both parties would like to think.

James Baker

The Trump/Russia collusion investigation went on for years and came to nothing. James Baker was the general counsel during this time but in December 2017 he abruptly reassigned his position and six months later in May of 2018 he resigned from the FBI. In May of 2019 he defended the origins of the Russia investigation. In June of 2020 he becomes chief counsel at Twitter. Recently released emails from Twitter show that he took the lead on saying that the Hunter laptop was Russian disinformation. Last week Musk started to release emails showing that Twitter stop any info on the laptop on orders from James Baker. Musk promised more emails would be released but that didn't happen and today Baker was accused of stopping the release. Musk found out and fired Baker. Interestingly enough none of this is reported in the main press. It is like the border news, missing.

Censor

Trump responding to the information released by Twitter owner Elon Musk said the election was rigged and should be done over. The press reported that Trump wanted to abandon the constitution. When democrats suggest changing the electoral college that is reported as amending the constitution. The press has leaned left for many years but the last six years the bias has increased and this increase is exemplified by the change in determining what is free speech. Phrases like hate speech and words like disinformation are used to control speech. Recent revelations from Twitter have shown cooperation between big tech and government that are alarming to some. Private companies have the right to censor information for reasons they determine but the government does not have that right. Government agencies and government officials are forbidden from regulating or restricting speech or other expression based on its content or viewpoint. Recently released information indicates that the government was asking Twitter to withhold certain information and Twitter agreed and did so.

Biden

Biden's first two years in office, like most presidents, was a hit and miss affair. He started off with honey moon ratings above 50% but that all changed when the US pulled out of Afghanistan. Instead of bringing out the people, then the equipment and finally the troops Biden pulled out the troops leaving the people and equipment behind. Part of this was caused by his desire to be out by the 20th anniversary of the war so he could take a victory lap. Biden passed the American Rescue Plan which sent out $1.9 trillion dollars to the American people many of whom collected more from unemployment that they earned working. Biden passed the $1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure plan which has not yet help much but will in the future assuming the environmentalist don't get in the way. He signed two stopgap measures to avoid a government shutdown. He passed the Uyghur bill which banned imports from Chinese products produced by slave labor. He passed limited gun laws including restrictions on ghost guns, expanded background checks and introduced red flag legislation. He was able to get all who wanted vaccinated. He passed the Inflation Reduction Act which included $400 billion in tax credits and subsidies for clean energy programs. He kept the import taxes on China. He could have had more winners if he had continued on the path to energy independence, kept the border as it was and clamped down on the crime that occurred during the summer of 2020. He has now embarked on a program to increase fossil fuel output and to get tough on crime. The border is still up in the air but even that is starting to change.

Wealth gap

One of the more serious economic problems facing the country is the rising income and wealth gap between the rich and poor. There are a number of reasons for this and campaign contributions and lobbyist are among the most important. These elements cause elected officials to interfere with the free market. One example was the repeal of the Glass/Steagall in 1999. After the economic collapse in the Great Depression several laws were passed to rein in the excesses and Glass/Steagall was one of those laws. It said that banks must keep their customer deposits separate from their investments. There would be two departments in the bank. The first would use customer deposits to make loans to other customer. The second would invest the bank profits earned from the loans. There would be no communication between these two departments. This meant that the personal loans to customers would be safe from any investment risk. This also meant that the loans the bank made would stay with the bank so they would carefully check out the credit worthiness of loan applicants. Pressure was put on congress by promises of campaign funds and lobbyist and Glass/Steagall was repealed and this allowed banks to invest customer money in more risky investment. The banks began to invest in derivatives which were not as heavily regulated allowing them to use higher risk/return investments. This lead to the mortgage crisis of 2006. The Fed is the lobbyist for the commercial banking system which means the fox is guarding the hen house.

Goldman

Shortly before the crash Goldman Sacks changed its banking status from investment to commercial. Commercial banks are covered by FDIC but investment banks are not and current coverage is $250,000 per account. Goldman was the same company that put together high risk mortgage bundles that they knew would fail and made money selling these to unsuspecting customers while they were buying insurance against failure so they made money both ways and at the expense of the customers. Others in Goldman sold these investments short and made money when they collapsed. In Goldman this was called the Big Short. Goldman representatives were called before congress and they said there was no short selling and that was the end of it. The basic concepts of the free market are designed to promote innovation by offering great rewards. When Besos introduced Amazon he took risk with his own money and time and ended up making billions but he also built a large company that employs over 300,000 people and provides a great service to many millions. When banks come up with these new financial things like derivatives the banks make millions in fees but they are not creating jobs. Our political system is designed to help out the poor. Our elected representatives are the lobbyist for the working people. When these representatives come to Washington that is their desire but that changes over time. They find out that living in Washington and maintaining a home in their district is costly. They know that in two years there will be another election and they need cash which they can get in the form of campaign contributions some of which can help defer other expenses. This requires shuffling funds around in ways that skirt the law and they have experts to take care of that. In time their loyalty to their constituents is frayed and they slowly come under the influence of the lobbyist.

China rules

The problems associated with doing business with China have been discussed at great length including China's propensity to steal intellectual property. Chinese rules require foreign firms who want to enter certain industries -- such as energy, telecommunications and autos -- to form joint ventures with local partners, which often results in the transfer of technology to the Chinese companies. Recently China has upped the ante by demanding that Apple make it difficult for the Chinese people to communicate with one another and Apple dutifully complied. Contrast that to Elon Musk who has allowed his company Starlink to provide a way for Ukrainians to communicate with one another. This is particularly important at this time when the Chinese people are protesting in the streets. Apples decision has made it more difficult for the protesters to organize. It was this ability for people to communicate with each other that made the Arab Spring uprising successful. It is hurting the people in Iran who are presently protesting. Governments are well aware of the power to the people that the ability to communicate can bring. While Apple's profits seem to be utmost in the mind other factors should be considered and this will not be done without pressure from the government.

Mortgage crisis

As a child I would say "that's not fair" and my mother would say, get used to it because life is not fair. This doesn't stop us from trying to change that but the powers to be are hard to pin down. Famous champion boxer George Foreman was a troubled Black kid who dropped out of school and earned money by mugging. He tells the story that once he saw a man in an expensive suit in his neighborhood and immediately mugged him and as he was running off with the loot the police began chasing him and he wondered to himself, why are they chasing me. His thought process was that anyone in a suit that cost a much as he could earn in a year must be a bigger crook than he. If a George Foremen equivalent of today robs a gas station in North Minneapolis he most likely will end up in jail. Contrast that with the recent mortgage crisis that affected the whole world. The 13 biggest banks in the country were all deeply involved in causing millions of people around the globe to lose their homes and many to lose their life's savings and not one of those CEO's ended up in jail. After a series of investigations promising if nothing else to make sure this could not happen again they came up with the Dodd Frank bill which most experts see as a slap on the wrist and in no way prevents these banks from doing something similar in the future. As they say life is not fair. The financial crisis of 2008 altered so many lives: Millions of people lost their homes, their jobs and their savings. It set off a recession that collectively destroyed over $30 trillion of the world’s wealth. And though the crisis grew out of big banks’ handling of mortgage-backed securities, no Wall Street executive went to jail for it. So what happened? George had it right.

Reparations

California Governor Newsom is suggesting that the State pay Black citizens $220,000 as reparation for the extra cost they had to pay for housing because of discrimination. This is estimated to cost $560 billion dollars and based on the states annual budget of $3.5 billion it would take all their money for the next 160 years. Or they could take $3 billion from each of the 186 billionaires that live in the state.

Sharpton

In the past two weeks there was an attack on a gay club in Colorado and another in Atlanta. In both cases the original reporting was that these types of attacks are the results of right wing prejudice against gays. It was later reported that the attackers were not straight and this resulted it what is called the Al Sharpton defense. You recall that Sharpton came to the defense of Tawana Brawley a girl who claimed she was attacked by a gang of white men. When she later confessed that she made up the story Sharpton declared that maybe it didn't happen this time but it has happened many times and this became known as the Sharpton defense. This began his rise to fame and to this day he has his own show on MSNBC.

Ballots

Its shaping up to be a battle between Trump and DeSantis and there is not going to be many differences in policy. Both want low taxes, less government spending to lower inflation, secure borders by enforcing existing laws with remain in Mexico and building the wall, energy independence by going all in on oil and gas production, tougher law enforcement including stop and frisk, cash bail and tough DA's who will lock up criminals, low unemployment with low inflation, import taxes on China to force buy American, strong military, exporting natural gas and oil, no deals with Iran and no international climate agreements that just want US dollars. They want nothing to do with transgender studies or drag queens in schools. No masks on children. No teaching choice of pronouns. Parents in charge of schools. These differences will not matter because neither can beat Biden. The republicans are too far behind in ballot harvesting. The republicans are chasing voters and the democrats are chasing ballots. The longer the early voting period the better it is for ballot chasers. This will become evident in the upcoming senate race in Georgia. So far over one million votes have been cast and the democrats have a 60/40 advantage which means before election day the democrat will have 200,000 vote lead. It will take republicans more than two years to catch up in this early voting contest and so they will not win in 2024. The disturbing thing about this new way of voting is that it makes the qualifications of the candidate less important.

Tic Tok

People, particularly young people, are warned against putting personal information online and this can even be worse when they use Tic Tok. This Chinese site is keeping a running record of everything on Tic Tok. 20 or 30 years from now a person may have a sensitive government job and something they did as a teenager could be used to blackmail them. There is talk of not allowing Tic Tok in the US but free speech advocates are uncomfortable with that but the free speech part of the constitution does not necessarily apply to foreign companies.

Border

The situation at the southern border continues to deteriorate with the announcement that last month there were 75,000 got a ways. These are the ones counted by surveillance cameras and there are many more who were not observed. Most immigrants walk right up to the border guards but the got a ways have something to hide, more than likely some type of criminal record. The country is so divided politically that liberals understand that the border is in crisis but they can't speak up. That is slowly changing as this week five democratic senators wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas demanding that he take action to stop the inflow of migrants. This is in response to Mayorkas' latest statement that the border is secure.

Russian settlement

Is common sense going to prevail. French President Macron, who has consistently pushed for a negotiated settlement in Ukraine, visited the White House and President Biden suggested he may be open to talks with Putin. The US should push Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to agree to a settlement to end this war. Ukraine could agree to give up the Russian speaking parts of the country that have already voted to secede and join NATO. Russia will agree to end its aggression and the war will stop. Future aid to Ukraine will come from the US and Europe and the money will be used to rebuild the country. Putin gained some territory but it caused Finland and Sweden to join NATO. His stated purpose for going into Ukraine was to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. This all back fired and now he has two countries Finland and Ukraine with long borders on Russia. This will open up Russian natural gas imports to Europe and get them through the winter. By next winter they will be using US natural gas. The world has seen the ineffectiveness of the Russian military and Russia has lost 100,000 soldiers. Putin will think twice before invading again. The US can use the $100 billion dollars in frozen Russian assets as a bargaining tool.

Rail unions

Private unions are good for the country but when it comes to negotiations their ultimate weapon is to strike. Congress intervened and took away that weapon. Railroad workers have expressed dismay at Joe Biden’s proposed solution to a looming strike that threatens to derail the US economy, which they say belies his image as the most pro-union president in generations. This is from CNN. Rail unions decry Biden’s call for Congress to block strike. Businesses praise the plan The unions wanted 6 sick days with pay and the company refused. Workers earn $40,000 to $60,000 per year depending on the type of work, location and seniority. While these salaries are low based on the work requirement the benefits are very good including healthcare, pensions and vacation days. The new contract included a one time payment of $11,000 to each employee plus a five percent raise each year over the next five years.

Isolation

The sale of neuro-psychiatric drugs like Xanax and Zoloft have increase dramatically in the past few years and there are a number of reasons given for this one of which is isolation and the pandemic made this even worse. One thing that has changed in recent years as the drug use increased was the number of smart phones. People spend a large amount of time on their phone and often this replaces face time and this adds to the isolationism. In general conversation there is a lot of social interaction that is not present on the phone. Young people spend a lot of time playing computer games and that adds to the alone time. Wearing masks is also an impediment to social interaction.