Wrong direction

Historically over 60% feel the country is heading in the wrong direction. For example in 2008 when the mortgage crisis hit the number was 91%. Experts say that Biden's high number (88% say wrong direction) is because of the economy but that doesn't make sense. While Trump was in office only 15% of democrats said things were going in the right direction despite the fact that the economy was booming. As soon as Biden was elected democrats approval of the direction jumped to 75%. It seems it is based more on politics than economics.

BBB bill

The democrats are posing a slim down version of the Build Back Better Bill and it looks promising. They will place a 3.8% surtax on earnings over $400,000 on small business owners. They will place a maximum out of pocket on drug cost of $2,000 on Medicare people. They will allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies. They limit the increase in drug cost to the inflation rate. Expands drug subsidies to low income seniors and makes vaccines free for seniors.

In the Gates case in 2009 Obama said the police acted stupidly before he had any of the facts surrounding the situation. Later he apologized. In September last, Biden said the Border Patrol men on horse back mistreated the illegal immigrants. After a six month investigation by the Biden administration these men were exonerated. No apology has been issued to date. The president along with the vice president and several top ranking democratic officials condemned the actions of these Border Patrol men some referring to the actions as plantation owners whipping slaves.“It was horrible to see what you saw, to see people treated like they did — horses barely running them over people being strapped,” Biden said. This week the administration said these immigrants were not whipped. The press secretary said, "We have taken very specific actions as it relates to the horrific photos that we -- we’re not going to stand for in this administration," “Haitian lives are Black lives, and if we truly believe that Black lives matter, then we must reverse course,” Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., said at a news conference Wednesday. Will this mean that Black lives in the inner cities will get more attention. These men were openly criticized by the president and removed from their jobs.

Electoral votes

Some people claim that liberals want illegals for their vote but as of this day illegals cannot vote by going to the polls but they can vote for president. This is because the president is elected based on electoral votes. According to the 2020 US census the population is 330 million and dividing that by 435 means there is one electoral vote for each 750,000 people plus two for each states senators. Thus North Dakota with a population of 760,000 gets on electoral vote for its congressman and two for its senators. It is estimated that there are 12 million illegal aliens in the country and this represents 16 electoral votes which is more than North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Vermont combined.

Inflation

In July of 2021 six months after Biden took office the administration said: The Biden administration boasted on Thursday that cost of a Fourth of July cookout went down by 16 cents in 2021 compared to 2020. They were indicating that in just a few months things had gotten better. The inflation rate at that time was one percent. One year later the cost of a 4th cookout is up to $70 and the inflation rate is 8%. It is a tough life when whatever you say is recorded and played back later.

America

Two years ago polls showed that 68% of Americans were very or somewhat happy. Last year that fell to 43% and it is now 33%. People must understand that bad news is reported and most good news is overlooked or under reported. With the onset of 24 hour news people can be overwhelmed by all the bad news. America is still the place where refugees want to come. America is the land where you can move up the economic ladder. America is the place where you have freedom of speech and freedom of religion. There are millions of example of people who started out with very little and reached the American dream.

Abortion

I often research things that interest me and am surprised at how differing opinions can be and abortion is no exception. Here is a small sample. Abortions were legal in the US from 1600 to 1857. Abortion was not just legal—it was a safe, condoned, and practiced procedure in colonial America and common enough to appear in the legal and medical records of the period.  Various herbal remedies were used. The concoctions were made variously of tansy oil, pennyroyal, rue, ergot, perhaps opium, and had dangerous side effects (damage internal organs, seizures, death) but in correct doses were sometimes effective in causing miscarriage. In New York, surgical abortion in 1800s carried a death rate of 30% regardless of hospital setting.