Month: July 2020

Anyone who has been paying any attention knows that Chicago is a mess . . . Actually even those who are not paying attention know that Chicago is a mess! Furthermore anyone who has been paying attention knows that the Mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, is out of her league . . . Again I am not even sure that you have to be paying attention to realize that Chicago’s Mayor is a Double A baseball player masquerading as a Major League player. 

 Last week Brian Bennett, a Time magazine White House correspondent reported, 

“White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany just called Lori Lightfoot ‘the derelict mayor of Chicago’ and said she should request federal help to secure the city.”

To those of us who are paying attention actually agree with Ms. McEnany’s words, as ‘derelict’ means ‘neglectful of duty.’ Isn’t it part of the duty of any mayor in any city or town to keep his/her citizens safe? The citizens of Chicago are far from safe . . . ergo Mayor Lightfoot is derelict.

Now since Mayor Lightfoot is not only a lawyer, but also a graduate of the University of Michigan one could reasonably expect an intelligent response.

Mayor Lightfoot’s response – “Hey Karen, watch your mouth!” 

A classy response? Not quite!

A typical Democrat response . . . yes; attack the speaker, not what was said!

To me, this sounds like the sort of a weak defensive response that was said in anger . . .perhaps said in anger because she is realizing that she is not adept at playing in the big leagues.

(Err, at this point I should probably apologize to the University of Michigan for mentioning that she is a graduate.)

For those of you that have not been paying attention:

“Karen” is a pejorative term that has come to prominence to label a demanding, middle-aged white woman who displays a sense of overbearing entitlement in various societal confrontations.

(Err, at this point, I should probably apologize to all lawyers also!)

So what are some facts? 

Every weekend is a mess  in Chicago, especially for the poor people who happen to live in certain regions of the city, like my old neighborhood, Austin.

This last weekend in Lightfoot’s city … 68 shot, 14 dead! And last weekend was not out the ordinary for Chicago. This is typical! What a mess!

So far between January 1 and July 12, 182 children have been shot in the city. 34 of those kids died.

What does  Mayor Lightfoot say to the parents of those children that have been killed? Considering her “derelict response,”  my guess . . . Nothing, as I don’t Care(n)!

On Sunday my wife suggested that we go down to Mission Bay and go for a walk. It was a nice day although a bit on the hot side, so why not go somewhere that has wonderful scenery and is about eight degrees cooler to  boot.

 I thought it was a good idea so, “Okay. Let’s go.”

As we left our street there was a handwritten neighbor sign that said, “Wear masks; save lives.” (Maybe, but I am far from convinced, even though I always have my mask ready.) While on the freeway the electric signs that notify the populace of a child abduction today read: “ Wear Face Covering To save Lives” (Again … maybe, and I had my mask in my hand, ready to go.)

I was surprised that the traffic on the freeway seemed to be back to the pre-lockdown levels . . . somewhat of a surprise as my local newspaper is constantly describing that Covid cases here are “surging!”

When we got down to Mission Bay, what was surging was the number of people down there! It was jammed! At least a thousand people along the shore near DeAnza Cove – scattered along an approximate half-mile stretch with about a hundred pop-up tents Multiple,multiple groups of from four to twenty people,all within close proximity to each other. No recognizable spatial distancing that I could identify. Black, white, brown. No BLM signs or T-shirts.

About one thousand individuals enjoying the sunshine and the water in San Diego with their friends and families, despite that our governor now says that kids cannot go to in-person school.

What about masks? . . . I actually counted . . . despite the neighborhood sign and the electric freeway sign . . . fifteen masks all told! I will repeat that . . . Fifteen!! I had my mask in hand, but did not put it on as if I did, I would have been immediately identified as an outlier.

Could it be that these “wear masks” signs do not apply on Sundays? . . .  or perhaps they do not apply to those that go down near the ocean?

Consistency ?

After President Trump is re-elected, some will look back and say that the tipping point was his magnificent speech at Mount Rushmore. I would agree that that speech was very good (and not at all “divisive” as the NYT and CNN commented), but I think that what will be viewed as the tipping point occurred last week when the National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO) threw its support behind President Trump’s re-election bid because of his “steadfast and very public support” for law enforcement.

NAPO President Michael McHale pointed out how important it is to have the president’s support “during this time of unfair and inaccurate opprobrium being directed at our members by so many.”

(FYI: I too had to look up the word, “opprobrium” . . . the disgrace or the reproach incurred by conduct considered outrageously shameful; infamy.)

Here I would emphasize “unfair and inaccurate opprobrium.”

I suspect that many of you are saying that you have never heard of NAPO,and if you’ve never heard of NAPO, how can their endorsement be considered a tipping point.

First of all let me point out that this union did not support a candidate in the 2016 election but did endorse former President Obama and then Vice President Joe Biden in the 2008 and 2012 elections. 

Why this big change? Let’s consider the positions of the candidates.

Donald Trump reiterated his support for law enforcement a week or ago,

“Our officers have been under vicious assault,” he said. “Reckless politicians have defamed our heroes as the enemy…These radical politicians want to defund and abolish the police.”

Joe Biden, meanwhile, initially said he was against efforts to defund law enforcement but changed his tune in a recent interview with ‘Now This’, arguing police have “become the enemy” and expressed support for cutting funding.

So Trump is pro-Police, and Biden is pro- ???. This is not really news. Why a tipping point?

Look at Trump’s tweet:

THANK YOU 

@NAPO police and their 241,000 brave law enforcement members for a FULL & COMPLETE ENDORSEMENT! I will ALWAYS back the men and women in blue, and never let you down. LAW AND ORDER will prevail! 

241,000 members!! 

In itself in the National scheme of things, 241,000 members may not be a huge deal, but consider that most of these 241,000 have families and extended families. They have friends and community acquaintances, and for sure most of these 241,000 members will not be shy about letting them know which candidate is the one that will protect their ass when push comes to shove. I would estimate that the opinion of these 241,000 members will convince a lot of independents. Likewise a lot of people have distant relatives that are police officers, and in the past many of these individuals are either Independent or have voted Democrat in the past. Not so, anymore.

When there is trouble in your neighborhood President Trump confidently says, “call the police.”

“Mr. Biden, who ya gonna call?”

Biden . . . “Ghostbusters?”

7/19/20

Blue Bloods still is one of my favorite TV shows although I do not watch TV much anymore. For those of you not familiar with this TV series, it is about a family in New York City – more precisely a family that is a NYC Police family. The grandfather had been the Police Commissioner for many years before he retired. The father is the present NYC Police Commissioner.and the two sons are also in the NYC police department. Danny, the oldest, is a detective, while the younger son is a garden variety, on the street every day, police officer. The main question these days about Blue Bloods is whether or not it will continue.

In the show the Police Commissioner father (Tom Sellick) has an on-again, off-again relationship with the Mayor, who is not deBlasio. If deBlasio were the mayor in Blue Bloods, the relationship would only be “off,” as the present NYC mayor does not get along with the police. He does not hesitate to disrespect the police any chance he gets, and is presently on a “defund the police” kick. This inane, and at the same time, insane strategy is one of the reasons that NYC is in trouble, and this problem can only get worse.

The upcoming NYC budget has cut a $billion for police in the city by cutting out future police recruiting classes. However, the way things are beginning to look, this may be an overshoot because NYC Police are now retiring in record numbers.

From Townhall:

The astonishing rush for the door came as 503 cops filed for retirement between May 25 — the day George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, sparking anti-cop protests around the country — and July 3. That number represents a 75-percent increase over the 287 who filed for retirement during the same time last year, the NYPD said.

Also, there’s another class hitting their 20th year in September, so that will be another group leaving, noting that cops often retire once they hit the minimum requirement for pension vestment.

“You have to be crazy to stay on a job where you are losing money (loss of overtime pay), abused by the people you are trying to protect and not appreciated by the politicians,” the source said.

All of these police leaving is occurring at a time when violent crime in NYC is spiking. Shootings in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s New York City were three times higher last week than they were during the same week in 2019.

The New York Post reports there were 74 shootings with 101 victims between June 29, 2020 and July 5, 2020, versus “26 shootings with 33 victims during that time last year.

Now back to Blue Bloods . . . an unsubstantiated rumor is that this show may now be cancelled, as it can no longer get any actors to put on the uniform and play the NYC Police, “You cannot pay me enough to be a NYC cop . . . even in pretend!

I just read an article by Victor Davis Hanson titled “The Fragility of the Woke.”

What is “Woke?”

The “Urban Dictionary” defines “woke” as being aware, and “knowing what’s going on in the community.” It also mentions its specific ties to racism and social injustice. To use “woke” accurately in a sentence, one that captures its connotations and nuances, you’d need to reference someone who is thinking for themselves, who sees the ways in which racism, sexism and classism affect how we live our lives on a daily basis. Or, alternatively, someone who doesn’t. 

Every night when I watch the woke protesters shouting and yelling or trying to tear down statues, I wonder if these a lot of these “rebels” have in fact finally woke up . . . woke up to the fact that their lives will not be the same as life was for their parents. Could a lot of these college age students have humongous  loans – loans that need to be paid off, even if they did not graduate. Loans that will prevent them from leading a normal American life? Loans that will prevent them from owning a house, from getting married, from having kids.

Many of them are now being forced to wake-up to the fact that they have been swindled. They are now “woke” to the fact that they have virtually worthless degrees in fine arts, theater arts, or something similar. They are somewhat justifiably angry at this expensive, but often worthless, bill of goods that they have been sold. It’s one thing to owe $60+ grand and have teaching credentials or an engineering degree. But it is quite different to have some worthless feel-good degree and owe that same $60+ grand. However, they say that they were merely eighteen years old, and didn’t know much. Who is to blame . . . after all it is woke these days to blame someone, isn’t it? 

The answer for these unfortunate waifs is that their parents are partially to blame. After all what parent would actually go along with some of these gender-studies-tree-hugging degrees for $60K . . . only gender-confused-tree-hugging liberal parents.

However the biggest blame for this generation of woke meandering do-nothings are the colleges and their liberal professors. Surely now there will be an awaking that shelling out $60K for online classes is not woke . . . it is just plain dumb. Although it will take time, I hope that a lot of these liberal professors will discover that peddling a lot of their crap is not going to cut it anymore. Maybe they will be forced to go out and get real jobs . . . perhaps competing with their previous, though now recently woke, students!

We can only hope!

Someone, who had played and coached baseball, once told me that he could pretty much predict which of those good players in the minor leagues would be able to hit major league pitching. 

“Many of these young minor league players can hit a fastball, and so a lot of them just sit on a fastball, because they cannot hit a curveball. In order to hit well in the big leagues, you need to be able to hit a major league curve, and this requires two basic things. 

“First, within nanoseconds, good hitters can pick up the different spin on the curveball as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. Not everyone can recognize that difference in the spin quick enough, and they most likely will never be a good hitter as they will be fed a diet of curveballs which they cannot recognize and therefore cannot hit.

“The second important piece of being able to hit a curveball is something that probably cannot be taught. As some of you may not be aware, the curve ball starts coming directly at the batter, before it changes direction and “curves” over the plate. In order to be able to hit a curveball, not only must a good hitter recognize the spin . . . but he must have the fortitude stand his ground. 

If a hitter bails out when the ball is coming directly at him, even if he knows that it’s a curveball, no way will he be successful. 

“Good hitters have to stand their ground. Good hitters do not back away when the going starts to get tough (when the ball is coming right at them). . . good hitters know what’s coming, and they do not back off.”

I am not a big baseball fan, so what’s all this talk about baseball? Well it seems to me that there is a similarity between a good hitter standing firm in the batter’s box when he know that a curve ball is coming, and a good governor standing firm when he knows things are starting to look bad. If someone’s loosens his tight fisted grip on the economy, he should certainly know that there will be more Covid cases. If there had been no spike in cases when the businesses were opened, then one might ask why the businesses had been closed in the first place! I asked my four year old granddaughter what would happened when the playgrounds were eventually opened up. She responded that more kids would hurt themselves – falling off the swings, falling down when they finished sliding down the slide. 

So what’s the difference? When one thing happens, another can be predicted to follow.

Some insurance companies have given rebates because less automobile use has led to less accidents. These rebates will not continue when more people are out driving again. Why? Because it will be inevitable that there will be more accidents. Likewise when the economy starts to open up, there will inevitably be more Covid cases. 

The problem here in California is that the Governor should have recognized the curveball (he opened up the economy, and should have anticipated an increase in coronavirus cases), but instead of standing staunch in the batter’s box, he bailed when the pitch was headed for him (cases going up as would be expected, and now he reinstitutes prior lockdowns) 

The aforementioned baseball coach would never have predicted that our governor would ever make it as a reliable major leaguer! (He panicked and bailed when he could have stood pat when things got tough.)

7/15/20

One of the things that I seem to be hearing a lot goes something like this:

“All we have to do is hunker down, socially isolate ourselves, wear masks, and just wait for the vaccine.”

What I am not hearing goes something like this:

“How long until the vaccine is available? Will there be enough vaccine for everybody? If there is not enough for everybody, who gets priority? Will the coronavirus mutate so that a different vaccine will be needed as time goes on ?”

As I have mentioned before, developing herd immunity naturally is the natural other way for the populace to become protected against this virus. Whenever this potential approach comes up, the response from various infectious disease experts goes something like this:

“For one thing, scientists don’t yet know whether a cured COVID-19 patient will be immune from the virus for an extended period,” said Dr. Waleed Javaid, director of infection prevention and control at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York City.

“It’s also not yet known whether the COVID-19 coronavirus will be able to mutate in ways that get around a person’s immunity,” he added.

From my perspective the key phrase in these kinds of statements from the experts is “not yet known”/ “don’t yet know.” 

For the most part what they do not say goes something like this:

“If this virus behaves similarly to the way multiple viruses have behaved in the past, there is a high likelihood that those who have been infected with this virus will from then on have immunity to that same virus.”

The other thing that I am not hearing from the experts goes something like this:

“Just as getting this infection does not provide 100% protection from getting this virus again in the future, getting the vaccine may also not provide 100% protection from getting this virus in the future. We just don’t know!”

Hmmm.

Apparently the news is in . . . drumroll, please!

Kanye West is running for President . . . err, at least we think that he is running, as he said that he is”taking off the red hat,” signifying that he is no longer supporting Trump, but rather is focusing on his own candidacy. At this point he has not filed any official paperwork.

For those of you who don’t know who Kanye is, he is a mega-rapper, and an avowed conservative. Up until last week, he had been a big Trump supporter.

What happened and why?

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

First of all he is against many things that the liberal Democrats stand for. He is disgusted with the fact that the Democrats are again taking African Americans for granted. In fact Joe Biden said that if an African American did not vote for him that he really wasn’t black! Kanye West expressed his displeasure with this obvious racist comment.

What’s up with Mr. West?

Up until about a week or so ago both he and his wife of six plus years, Kim Kardashian were big Trump boosters. (As you may remember Ms. Kardashian

helped persuade the President to commute Alice Marie Johnson’s life sentence for nonviolent offenses in 2018. FYI, Alice Marie Johnson is black.)

Are Kanye West and his wife planning on stabbing Mr. Trump in the back?

Let’s think this over.

Back in January of this year it was estimated that President Trump could get about 20% of the black vote, which would have been up considerably from 2016. This was because of the dramatic economic improvement that blacks were having under the Trump presidency. Again that was in January before all of upheaval with the coronavirus and BLM. At this point I would guess that Mr. Trump would be lucky to get 5% of the black vote, as either blacks will vote for Biden or they won’t vote. Of course thing can change . . . who can predict anything these days!?

With this in mind, to me there is only one logical reason for Kanye West to consider running for President, and that is to siphon black votes away from Biden. Again from my viewpoint there is no way that Biden can win in November without the black vote. How many votes are we potentially talking about?

Q: How many African Americans are there in the U.S.?

A: According to the 2010 census, there were 37,144,530 non-Hispanic blacks, which comprised 12.1% of the U.S. population. This number increased to 42 million according to the 2010 United States Census, when including Multiracial African Americans, making up 14% of the total U.S. population.

First some facts:

When Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012, black voter turnout increased to 64+% in both of these elections, compared to 60% in 2004 and 56% in 2000.

In 2008 and 2016 Obama won 96% and 93% of the black vote.

So for the sake of discussion, let’s assume that 60% of the African Americans(AA) vote in the 2020 election (similar to 2004), and let’s assume that 90% will vote for Biden. (37 millionAA x 60% voter turnout x 90% for Biden). That amounts to almost 20 million votes! If Kanye West runs, let’s conservatively assume that he will get 10% of the black vote. . . that would be 2 million less votes for “if you don’t vote for me, you ain’t lack” Joe Biden. (If Mr. West runs, he could feasibly get 25% of the AA votes . . . that would be 5 million less votes for Biden.

Actually any votes that Mr. West hijacked from Biden, would be good for Donald Trump. Maybe we should organize a get together, with masks, of course, so that we can start making “Kanye West for President” posters!

Whadda ya think?

7/12/20

The main news on July 4th from Washington came from Washington D.C. where BLM “protestors” stomped on the American flag before setting in on fire. These “peaceful protestors” then blocked traffic leading out of the city going into Virginia. Do the words, “peaceful protests” have another meaning in D.C.? 

On the following day, the headline in my local paper read : “Coronavirus Casts Pall Over Fourth Festivities.” I did not see any news in that same local paper reporting that “BLM Protests Cast Pall Over Fourth Festivities!” . . . Hmmm! (I hope that all of those thousands from Virginia who were delayed by these “protests” vote for the candidate who is “anti-BLM.”)

There was, however, some interesting news out of the “other Washington” – the State of Washington, where a man was brought to the downtown jail in Spokane by ambulance on July 1, after Spokane Regional Health District Health Officer Dr. Bob Lutz determined the man was a threat to the community. What was this man’s offense? Apparently he “refused to cooperate with voluntary isolation instructions.” (I guess the word, “voluntary” must have a different meaning in Washington State!) Yikes!

Other interesting news out of that “other Washington” is from the University of Washington in Seattle. (Yes, that same Seattle that allowed BLAZ to exist for about a week.)

The school said on July 3rd that it had confirmed that a total of 93 students, including 89 fraternity residents, tested positive for the corona virus. As of 7/5 that number is up to 117, in 15 fraternity houses. School officials said they are still collecting and verifying the status of cases — and that there may be more than what has been reported. (“there may be more than what has been reported!!!” . . . do these school officials think that these frat parties are limited to only those who live in frat houses?)

Oops, and this in a state with “mandatory mask wearing when outside!” (I guess the word, “mandatory” must have a different meaning in Washington State!)

BTW: Is it possible that these college students knew that they were exposing themselves to Covid-19? Could they have done it on purpose? 

(FYI: A  purposeful exposure to the coronavirus by college students sounds eerily similar to what the college students chose to do in my new book.)

Have you heard about the college students in Alabama who are having “Covid parties,” and the first person to prove that he/she got the Covid virus won the pool money! I can hear the rumblings about those Alabamians not being the sharpest knives in the drawer! (Even though I do not know anyone from Alabama, I did drive through Tuscaloosa, Alabama once.)

But before rushing to judgement, should we think about what they are actually doing? It seems to me that they are making a trade – probably getting a virus that has a very low risk for their age group in exchange for a chance to act like normal college students . . . Go to parties. Go to football games. Go to class, etc., as once they are infected the chance of them getting the virus again is minuscule.

On second thought maybe they are sharper knives than we are giving them credit for!

Lately California is all a-buzz that the coronavirus  infections are “surging!” Of course, this must be a terrible thing . . . even though the death toll with this “surge” is nothing like it was back in April. In fact the present daily and weekly mortality is quite low. Could that be because now much younger people are getting infected? If that is indeed the case, could it be that a lot of these recent infections are in fact a good thing? 

Snicker, if you must, but there is such a thing as “herd immunity,” which in essence means that as a certain percent of the population gets this viral infection, then the remainder of the herd will be relatively protected. In the beginning of this pandemic, it was estimated that seventy percent of the population needed to be infected to achieve herd immunity, however recently some have estimated that this number may be closer to fifty percent.

Back to these silly college students. If an effective vaccine is developed, these low-risk college students will be at the very end of the priority line, so maybe their “Covid parties” are not so dumb after all!

(FYI: in my upcoming book, an entire town decides that having “Covid parties” is the only way out of their lockdown and its consequent economic debacle!)

7/10/20