Month: August 2020

One of the interesting news stories of this past week came out of Topeka, Kansas. Personally, I was not aware that anything of interest could come out of Topeka, but how wrong I was. The story starts with a slide presentation at a Goodyear diversity training session. A particular slide was captured by an employee who shared with a local news station in Kansas. This slide showed a list of acceptable and unacceptable phrases under Goodyear’s “zero-tolerance policy. The slide listed “Black Lives Matter” and “LGBT” under acceptable phrases, while “Make America Great Again” and the pro-Police slogan, “Blue Lives Matter” we’re listed under unacceptable phrases.

Our president did not view this kindly and tweeted “Don’t buy Goodyear Tires.” He then further stated that if the Radical Left Democrats can play this game, so can we. 

After the President’s tweet, shares of Goodyear fell 2.4%. A bad day for Goodyear.

Backtrack . . . backtrack! Very quickly the CEO of Goodyear, Rich Kramer, was on Twitter to “clarify Goodyear’s position,” and quite a tap dance it was.

What Goodyear’s Chairman was trying to sell everyone was that this was a local Topeka thing only . . . blah, blah, blah. Hmmm. Today, I read that LeBron James came out and said something positive about Akron based Goodyear. Yawn . . . zzzzzz.

Anyway for me I will not be buying any Goodyear tires in the near future … just like I will never buy Nike again. BTW, today my wife went to the store and bought eight cans of Goya beans. As some of you may recall the chairman of Goya was at the White House a few months back, and in some sort of ceremony praised the President. The left didn’t like that, and do they advocated a boycott of Goya products. That boycott didn’t work. Goya sales increased, and the eight cans purchased today are going to keep the Goya surge going.

You were right if you said that it began with a ‘B.’

Without going into detail, B-O-R-I-N-G would be an apt description of the Democratic Convention Without going in to great detail, the TV ratings were bad, and did not improve..

On Wednesday a.m. the news was:

The ratings for the first two nights of the DNC are in and they aren’t very good. Compared to four years ago, total viewership among the broadcast networks is down 42%. Even among the hardcore audience of the cable news networks, the Democrats are running at a 16% deficit compared to 2016

On Thursday:

According to fresh polling from Rasmussen Reports, President Trump’s approval has gone up by four points in 24 hours, indicating a DNC convention bump for his candidacy. The increase in approval rating comes after Democrat Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris gave her keynote address at the convention Wednesday night. 

Furthermore on Wednesday night when California Sen. Kamala Harris accepted the nomination for vice president, the Democrats struggle to find 30 people to fill that virtual audience board. So, they copy and pasted duplicates to fill it up!

On Thursday, during Biden’s speech, instead of copy and pasting duplicates onto the virtual audience board, they left six of the sixteen spaces blank. Either they could not find any individuals fill these empty spots or no one knew how to technologically remedy the problem. I am not sure which is worse. Keep in mind that this is the same DNC that wants to run our government!

There has been praise for Biden’s acceptance speech. I guess when the bar is set low, it is easy to rise above expectations. I will admit that he did a good job of reading short sentences off a teleprompter.( I tested my four year old granddaughter, and . . . she, also, could read these sentences. She did not read them as fast as Basement Joe did, but she had not been practicing for weeks, and we do not have a basement!

In an interesting show of hands, CNN stated that the Republicans should adopt the DNC method for its convention (meaning “please do not give Donald Trump a chance to fire up an audience.”), and then the Chairman of the DNC said that “he hoped that his Republican friends would go the same route” that the Democrats did in their convention…all in the name of safety of course. (meaning “our convention was a flop, so please follow in our footsteps so that yours will also be a flop!”).

Whether any of this is indicative of low enthusiasm going into November for the Democrats is an open question. We’ll need to see the RNC and how it performs to get something to compare it to. If the RNC does beat out the DNC, it would be another piece of evidence that polls aren’t always what they seem. It’ll also be interesting to see if all these “news” networks give the same amount of airtime to the RNC.

Regardless, there’s no doubt Joe Biden’s campaign is lacking excitement and draw. It’s really only a matter of whether anti-Trump sentiment carries enough people to polls to push him over the top, because Biden himself isn’t going to get them there.

“How do you spell BORING?    . . .  B-I-D-E-N.

8/23/20

I feel I must correct a few of the inaccuracies in my previous note about Jet Blue and the horrific crime that a two year old committed by not wearing a mask.

First of all, I was not on that plane and as a consequence I misstated some of the facts. I stated that it was a mother and a father with four kids. Actually it was a mother with six kids.

From Townhall:

The airline best known for its vast travel destinations and low airfare made headlines on Thursday after they booted a mother and her six children from a flight. 

JetBlue employees found themselves in a verbal standoff with the mother, Chaya Bruck, who was traveling alone with her six children this week when her two-year-old refused to wear a mask. On the flight from Orlando back to the family’s home in Brooklyn, Bruck told a flight attendant her toddler child would absolutely not wear the mask. 

I also misstated that the airline attendant was a stewardess, when it appears that it was a steward, whose name was not publicized . . .i am assuming that it was Ken.

“He said, ‘No, she has to cover her nose and her mouth,’ and I said I could try but then she was pulling it off,” Bruck said of the JetBlue employee. Her other five children were all wearing masks. 

The flight attendant, however, insisted that the child wear a mask or they would all have to leave the aircraft. With tempers flaring and patience thinning, the mother said they would not get off the plane and that JetBlue’s own policy, which she was familiar with, said that small children who would not wear a mask were exempt from the rule. 

“They were horribly nasty, my kids were crying. Really traumatizing,” said Bruck. “I asked them, ‘Should I tie her hands and feet? What do you want me to do?’ They just wanted me off the plane.”

The result of Ken making sure that everyone knew that he had “the power,” was that all of the passengers were forced to deplane!

What’s even more incredible is that the mother was right and Ken was wrong, as the employee said that only children UNDER two were exempt from the mask mandate. The policy as stated on JetBlue’s own website says that the mother was 100 percent correct. 

“Small children who are not able to maintain a face covering are exempt from this requirement,” the policy stated prior to Wednesday, as reported by YeshivaWorld and shared in their Instagram post. 

Hopefully Ken will be fired.

I wrote a letter to Southwest yesterday, but I have no vested interest inJet Blue. However I would encourage everyone to voice a complaint to the Jet Blue management. 

As I was just settling into my seat on the airline, I heard the following announcement, “Is there a Karen onboard?” Now granted, I had not flown in a while but I thought that it was pretty bizarre that the airlines was referring to passengers by their first names. Although I cannot state for sure whether one or more Karens responded, the next thing I knew the stewardess came marching down the aisle to address those who were sitting in the row behind me – this one family had taken all three seats on either side of the aisle – two adults and four young children. 

“No exceptions. Company policy! She must get off!” The stewardess then pointed to the two year old little girl in the middle seat who was sitting between her mommy and daddy.

Wow I thought, something very egregious must have happened. Even though my hearing is not the best, the stewardess’s harsh tone and increased volume made the gist of the problem pretty clear. The two year old in the middle seat would not keep her face mask on! I surmised that it was apparently important for all the Karens on board to hear what the stewardess was saying, and thus the loudness and harsh tone!

Personally, I didn’t care if the kid wore a mask or not, but I thought I could hear the Karens murmuring, “the nerve of that little brat.” 

Anyway the stewardess then escorted the family of six off the plane. At one point I wondered whether or not armed airline marshalls would be needed! But not so, as the family was more than cooperative. While the father was trying to corral three of the children down the aisle, the mother calmly said, “She is only two, and an independent two at that.” 

At that point I thought back to when my kids were young . . . No way in hell would a certain one of them have worn a mask at age two. Even today I have an independent-minded two year old granddaughter, who I could easily see saying,”no” to wearing a face mask.

I later learned that each individual airline carrier has their own set of rules addressing mask compliance. The FAA has apparently not stepped forward on this, so each individual airline now has its own set of arbitrary rules. I can see not allowing an adult to fly without wearing a mask, but a two year old!? Are you kidding me?

Another ludicrous airline-mask tale involved a three year old autistic child who would not let anything or anybody touch his face. This child had a doctor’s note, that explained the unfortunate child’s situation . . . but to no avail. “Strong work airline, punish an autistic child and his mother! Kick them off the flight!”

FYI: According to the local “ newspaper,” the two airlines involved in the above child-mask stories were Jet Blue and Southwest! Perhaps we could write each of those airlines and tell them to apply for a name change . . . “Karen Airline” might be apropos!

I did just write a letter to the Customer Relations Dept. at SWA asking whether kicking a three year old autistic child off a plane traveling from Midland to Houston for not wearing a mask was an example of their new kind of LUV!

One of my anti-Trump friends recently said, “

Sure the media has some biases and many outlets tilt liberal.” 

I am still shaking my head over that comment. At that time my response choices included:

“Perhaps”

and

“Tilt liberal? You are f-in looney-tunes if you believe they just ‘tilt liberal’.”

Anyway,I decided to answer, “perhaps,” to keep the conversation civil. 

However, just the same I looked into this and am going to now include some stats that will, perhaps, clarify ‘tilt’.

The following is from ‘mrcNewsBusters’ which defined itself as America’s Media Watchdog:

“A new mrc analysis of all evening news coverage of President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in June and July found these networks chose to aim most of their attention and nearly all of their negative coverage on Trump, so Biden escaped any scrutiny of his left-wing policy positions, past job performance or character.

From June 1 through July 31, the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts focused 512 minutes of airtime on the President, or nine times more than the 58 minutes allotted to Biden. (This excludes coverage of the Trump administration in general when not associated with the President himself.) This is an even wider gap than in the spring, when Trump received seven times more coverage than Biden (523 minutes vs. 75 minutes).

The extra airtime devoted to Trump consisted almost entirely of anchors and reporters criticizing the President. During these two months, our analysts documented 668 evaluative statements about the President, 95 percent of which (634) were negative, vs. a mere five percent (34) that were positive. Using the same methodology mrc found very few evaluative statements about Joe Biden — just a dozen, two-thirds of which (67%) were positive.

Do the math. Viewers heard 150 TIMES more negative comments about Trump than Biden.”

Keep in mind that this survey included only ABC, NBC, and CBS. That’s not news reporting — and that’s not a ‘tilt’, but rather an ‘avalanche.’

On second thought, returning to his original comment, “Sure the media has some biases and many outlets tilt liberal,” . . .  my response now is:

“You are f-in looney-tunes if you believe ‘tilt’!”

The controversy now days with schools involves go-back in person or go back online. Some school districts are taking the “we are afraid to make a decision, so let’s do a hybrid plan” position. To me it seems that these hybrid plans are like dancing with your sister at the high school prom . . . those that know you and your sister (the real scoop) are laughing, while those who know basically nothing are saying, “how did that loser get that hot chick to dance with him.”

On 8/13/20 NBC had a one hour special on the return to school controversy. However, when the first line was about how many children under nineteen have died in the U.S from Covid, I basically knew what the dart score was going to be at the end of the game. I turned off the NBC channel, because all of the whoopla these days is about “how many children and teachers will die when schools are reopened” . . . not ‘if any’ but rather ‘how many?”

Sure my guess would be that when schools ultimately open up to in-person teaching, some kids and some teachers will get sick, and some may even die. These numbers will be very low, but will undoubtedly will front page news in the liberal “I told you so” papers.

What I have not seen addressed  by MSM is the harm that is being done to children by keeping them isolated and at home. This issue was addressed in the Wall Street Journal on 8/12 in an article by Allysia Finley, who BTW is now my favorite columnist. She pointed out some interesting stats:

In April a Harris poll found that the stress levels in parents with children less than eighteen were impressively higher than in adults with no children. The reason, trying to manage online learning.

A University of Wisconsin study found that the incidence of mild to severe depression increased from 31% to 68% in high-schoolers with the recent school closers and sports being shutdown. Likewise in China’s Hubei province shutdowns, approximately 25% of the children reported depressive symptoms.

(In another thing that I recently read 41% of college students reported symptoms of depression from March through May of this year.)

These continued lockdowns are causing increased stress in both the children and the parents which in studies can eventually lead to higher rates of asthma, strokes, auto-immune disease, and depression. 

Continuing to keep kids at home prevents kids from acting like kids, and is bad for them not only in the short term, but also in the long term. Future articles andstudies will look at the disastrous consequences of these 2020 “don’t let the kids go back to school” policies, but by then it will be too late!

We have all heard of “Doctors Without Borders,” a group that goes to poorer countries of the world to practice medicine there even though they do not have medical licenses to practice in that locale. We have something similar here in the U.S., but it is politicians who are practicing medicine without a license. 

This saga all started in March after President Trump tweeted that hydroxychloroquine had the potential to be “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine” as a treatment for the coronavirus. After that the entire story of hydroxychloroquine became entirely a political story. Those who were anti-Trumpers, Democrats, and those with any TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) inclinations immediately jumped into the fray even though few had medical training. Here was a situation that these individuals did not need a license to practice medicine. To them it was very clear . . . “If Trump said it, it must be bad!” Never mind that this drug has been used in the U.S. since 1955. Never mind that a gazillion patients have used this drug safely for a myriad of medical conditions over the years. (What are the Covid stats on patients who get Covid, and are already taking hydroxychloroquine for lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, or other autoimmune diseases?) Every drug has potential side-effects, but because Trump said that it could potentially help, they decided to emphasize that that this drug could potentially kill patients. Even though this disastrous outcome is very very rare. They emphasize it . . . again because Trump said it might help. Even some physicians have mocked those other physicians who have been saying that hydroxychloroquine could be helpful with Covid patients, because . . . err,  . . . “they are kooks,” and besides Trump said it might help. BTW: It is interesting that when I asked an anti-Trumper, if he wanted to be treated with hydroxychloroquine if he contacted Covid, he adroitly avoided answering.

Recently the governor of Minnesota, Tom Walz, a Democrat, quietly reversed his prior executive order so that a physician in Minnesota can now prescribe hydroxychloroquine for Covid. This came a few weeks after a similar thing happened in Ohio. (I must have missed this positive hydroxychloroquine news in my local “newspaper.”)

To show the despicable nature of some politicians, in a radio interview in May, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) reluctantly admitted her husband went from developing COVID-related pneumonia and coughing up blood to “one day, he just got better,” revealing he was treated with hydroxychloroquine. Yet Sen Klobuchar who was in a political race at that time, certainly could not start saying that Trump’s statement about hydroxychloroquine might have been spot-on. (Is there another spelling for the word, “hypocrite” that doesn’t begin with a “K?”) I must have also missed this Klobuchar story in my local “newspaper!” One wonders how many Covid patients might have been saved if hydroxychloroquine had not been politicized? ( A Yale University epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch said, “Because we were blocked from using it (hydroxychloroquine) in the United States to the present point, probably at least 100,000 people have died.”)

Let’s be clear about this. The decision to use hydroxychloroquine for Covid should be between the patient and his physician, not between a patient and a politician, and not between a patient and a pharmacist.

Let’s be clear again . . . If I get Covid, I want this drug and I want it early on.

One question that I have asked before, is, “Do lockdowns work? Does putting a strangle-hold on people and vis-a-vis the economy prevent the coronavirus from spreading?”

It would seem to me that if lockdowns were the answer, then the more stringent the lockdown, the less the virus would spread. Makes sense, no?

Let’s look at a country that mandated a lockdown strategy, and mandated this approach early on . . . Peru. 

Today I read something very interesting on this subject from Townhall:

As of last week, Peru has reported over 498,000 COVID-19 infections and over 21,000 deaths. More than 27,000 additional deaths are under investigation to see if they are related to the virus. This South American country implemented one of the first lockdowns starting on March 16, and it became one of the longest worldwide, lasting a total of four months.

While the lockdown ended on July 1, the number of COVID-19 related deaths for the country had already risen to over 12,000. The highest daily average for cases for the country was on May 31 at 8,805 infections; the lockdown was still in full force at this point. Hmmm!

Was this Peru lockdown stringent?

Throughout the four-month lockdown, Peruvians were forbidden to leave their homes unless they needed essential goods; nighttime curfews were enforced, borders were closed, businesses shut down, and a mask order was implemented.

This sounds like a very intense lockdown strategy to me. 

So how did that strategy work? 

Even with all the stringent measures, many of which have been suggested by Democrat lawmakers in the United States, Peru has one of the highest fatality rates of COVID-19 in the world at 4.4 percent . . . in spite of the fact that  it was under strict lockdown. Hmmm!

Also, since the start of the pandemic, domestic violence in Latin America has soared due to government lockdowns. Amazingly 1,200 women and girls have mysteriously disappeared in Peru since the start of the pandemic, and are assumed by many, to be dead. Hmmm!

As of today, the current daily COVID-19 infection rate in the country stands between 6,000-8,000 cases on average. Its population is just over 33 million people. Certainly the causes for this high infection fatality rate are multifactorial, but at least, I believe, that it is reasonable to state that lockdowns in Peru did not work. Hmmm!

CAUTION – Be advised and forewarned, if you are a Karen, a Ken, you may not want to continue reading,  as this will not contain the opinions that everyone is reading in the so-called newspaper or hearing on TV.

Here are some recent headlines:  

“New Jersey ‘pop-up’ house party in Howell Township, 65 miles NE of Philadelphia, has approximately 300 guests!” . . . O.M.G.!

“A large group of young people congregate on the sand at Montrose Beach in Chicago on Monday, July 10. The assembly of this very large group goes against the mayor’s orders.” . . . OMG, the nerve!

“Weekly crowds are congregating in Ocean Beach in San Diego on Wednesday evenings for ‘Drum Circle.’ . . . O.M.G., those bastards!

“Huntington Beach is site of an outdoor church service. Very few masks, and no spatial distancing.” . . . O.M.G., those 1800 heathens are trying to kill us all!

“On 7/24 there was an unlawful assembly of over 1000 church goers at Cardiff State Beach, just north of San Diego.” . . . O.M.G., hopefully these law-breakers  will be damned!

There are plenty more of these kind of newsworthy unlawful assemblies, but no need to list more, as everyone should now get the idea. . . . O.M.G., those thoughtless sob’s are trying to kill us all.

Now, for just a non-PC moment, let’s look at this from another viewpoint.(Karen, and Kenthis is your last chance to keep your BP under control. If you read further, do so at your own risk.) . . . 

Drum-roll, please!  . . . I think we should encourage these types of events. 

As one rereads the above headlines, two things stand out. All, except one are outside events, and in the pictures that I saw, all of these “unlawful combatants “are young. “Young,” as in no one over thirty. (FYI; It was fairly easy to tell the ages because no one was wearing masks.) 

Let’s try to view this whole lockdown insanity from the vantage point of a 25 year old. Most of these young-uns are probably out of work, with little if any income coming in. They are not getting any monthly Social Security checks. They have basically been ordered to stay confined in their parent’s basements, and they are going stir-crazy.

CDC just came out with the results of a huge nationwide survey of those over 18 years of age. 40.9% had some adverse mental or behavioral health condition. 13.3% had started or increased substance abuse due to the pandemic and their confinement. 10.7% had had some suicidal ideation in the past thirty days.

All of these major alterations in their young lives, for what? I ask again, “For What? What are they going to gain here? . . . Basically nothing!

The IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) for those in the 20-49 year old age range, according to a Swiss study is 0.0092% ( i.e. 9.2 people out of 100,000 in this age group will die if they catch Covid) [FYI: In the 10-19 age group ( ~high school kids) the IFR is 0.00032%, meaning that 3.2 out of a million will die if they get COVID-19.]

Looking at this from yet another angle . . . where in the COVID vaccination priority list will these young people will be? My guess, Last!! And again, why should 40.9% of young people have the above noted significant issues because they are virtually locked up? What is the upside?

Perhaps, the upside, will be that many of these young individuals will in fact get Covid as a result of these”unlawful” assemblies. If this were to happen, good, as it would be another step toward herd immunity, which is the best way to ultimately get out of this mess.

If Karen and Ken do not approve of these young people getting together and having fun, tough titty. Stay inside!

Months back when the esteemed Dr. Fauci was asked about using a certain combination of meds to treat the coronavirus, he responded that any treatment modality would need to be validated by controlled studies. This sort of ivory tower answer is exactly what one should expect from someone who hasn’t seen live patients in years. It’s not that his answer is wrong or right, but totally impractical.

More important should we expect “controlled studies” on many of the things we are being told to do? Let’s look at some of them:

1 Lots of hand-washing: This seems logical, and other than dry skin, I see no downside to this recommendation. However, I am not aware of a controlled study on the spread of COVID with hand-washing versus COVID spread without hand-washing.

2 Spatial distancing: Again seems like common sense as the further away we all are from others, presumably the better. How far away? Now days just about everywhere one goes, there are markers on the ground measured out every six feet. Children going back to school is severely limited by this magical six feet, whereas in Europe three feet is the magic distance. No controlled studies on this that I am aware of.

3 Mask wearing: This is becoming more and more of an issue. Karens are keeping an eye on public places, looking for violators. Punches have been thrown by those who insist that non-mask wearers are purposely trying to kill us all. Other than using the N-19 special masks, I am not aware of studies comparing homemade cloth masks, or over the counter cheap masks versus a no-mask control group. I have seen the slo-mo videos of what happens to the sneeze particles with a mask, but I am not aware of a controlled study on this issue.

4 Lockdowns: We were all told that we had to lockdown to prevent our ICUs from becoming inundated with COVID-19 patients on ventilators. Now we are told that we must keep barber shops, hair salons, gyms, indoor church services, etc. closed  . . . no longer because of ICU overload, but to try to reduce the spread of the virus. When did the strike zone change?

Is there any controlled study on the success of lockdowns? Well actually there is something very very close to a controlled study – Sweden vs. U.S. As you all are well aware by this time Sweden had very minimal lockdown rules. In comparison, the U.S implemented a bunch of varied, but mostly severe lockdown policies.

Interestingly, since July 29 Sweden has had a minimal number of COVID deaths. The latest 3-day moving average and the latest 7-day moving averages both appear to be about 2-3 deaths per day. The graph of the total number of deaths is level at this time with under 6000 total. At present there is 69,384 COVID cases in Sweden with 100% being mild and 39 cases, (0.06%) being serious or critical. This means that the expected future death rate is likely to be very low as typically those who die are seriously or critically ill prior to their demise. At the beginning of this pandemic, Sweden had a lot of deaths, as the more marginally healthy appeared to have died off early on. In total Sweden has had 5774 deaths in a country of 10.23 million million people. (O.056%) When one looks at the covid curves, the curve from Sweden had a significant early peak and like noted above seems to have leveled off.

Yes, Sweden did take an economic hit, but nowhere near the big hit, the U.S continues to take. Did the lockdowns flatten the curve? Yes, however whereas Sweden is on the end of the downslope, the USA is apparently nowhere near the downslope, with the present number of new cases approaching 60,000 per day, more than double what it was two months ago

The  U.S has 328.2 million people, and 5.2 million covid cases (1.59% of the population has thus far contracted the virus.) The present death toll in the USA is 165,000 (0.05%), and the deaths per day are still significant.

Compare the present death stats: 

Sweden = 0.056% and close to being done

USA = 0.05% and not close to being done

So after comparing “lockdown, flattening of the curve” strategy, (USA) vs. “no lockdown” (Sweden) in a reasonably controlled study, which plan appears to coming coming out of top… Dr. Fauci’s plan or Stefan Löfven’s (prime minister of Sweden) plan?

I will let you decide.