Month: August 2020

A friend of mine just sent me an email, announcing that he is coming out of the closet. I realize that these days coming out of the closet shouldn’t be news, but he is in his eighth decade, married for a very long time and has a few kids and a few grandkids. He is a nice guy, and so I told him that I might “inform the world of his coming out,” but I have not received a “please do not tell anybody” response from him, so here goes. (I will be using his exact words when possible (in quotes), thanks to the miracle of ‘cut and paste.’)

Here goes:

He begins, “I’ve been anti Trump since he began campaigning, just quietly.” (Apparently, the symptoms of his Trump Derangement Syndrome [T.D.S.] are now so debilitating that he can no longer stand it, and so out he comes!)

He continues: “He was never well qualified and his polarizing personality is bad for the country.” (Apparently he has forgotten that the 44th President, was a measly one year Senator from Illinois who happened to be a good speaker. His only other qualification was solely that he was a community organizer! . . . Wow, now that’s a well-qualified President! When it comes down to it, the only reason that B.O. got elected was that he was black, because he certainly did not have any presidential qualifications.)

Is Trump polarizing? . . . Absolutely! . . . almost as much as his predecessor.

He continued: “He has fumbled leadership on the pandemic badly, which made me decided to make my opposition public.” ( Has President Trump been perfect with this pandemic? The honest answer has to be ‘No,’ but I encourage those among us who have been perfect to step up and cast the first stone!) 

I am not hearing any takers on this challenge!

Recall that Biden and the rest of the Democratic leadership soundly criticized the President when he stopped flights from coronavirus-infected countries. Recall that Fauci had his ‘no need to wear masks’ moment. From my perspective, nobody has been perfect in his/her dealings with this pandemic, as this is something completely different from anything that any of us have dealt with in our lifetimes.

He then  continues: “Sure the media has some biases and many outlets tilt liberal.” ( Tilt liberal !!! . . . That’s like saying that if a pinball wizard throws the machine against the wall, he is perhaps trying affect where the pinball will end up!)

From there he continues on with the usual liberal tripe of making accusations without any actual data or examples:

A lot of the “ good” he has done favors the very wealthy. ( Here I can only assume that he is not talking about Mr. Trump donating his entire salary to good causes. Also I guess that he is dismissing the fact that before the pandemic, Blacks had their lowest unemployment stats in decades.)

“He is anti intellectual anti science and moves and speaks like a fascist autocrat.” (The “Trump is a fascist” diatribe sounds like an MSNBC, CNN, NYT, and WaPo echo. No evidence, but as we all know their motto is “if we say it often enough, our readers and listeners will believe that it is true.”) 

The logic behind such statements goes something like this.. . .

Fascism = bad

Trump = bad 

So therefore Trump must be a fascist!

He continued:
“There are two good forms of government, a benevolent dictatorship and true democracy. I don’t want a dictator here, we’ll have to live with this flawed democracy.” (It’s hard for me to intelligently comment on this as I have no idea what he is really trying to say – to me this sounds like elite “Harvard-Yale speak,” in which they think that no despicable individual in the heartland will be able to understand them … and rightly so as it resembles gibberish!)

Now here is the topper which indicates beyond all doubt that he has a very severe case of T.D.S.:

Quote – “The fact that many expect him to try to use the courts to stay in power regardless of the election results indicate a profound distrust of his motives and means, which is where I stand.” 

Wow! This almost seems like a case of ‘Kool-Aid overdose’! To quote again: “many expect him to try to use the courts to stay in power.” What fools actually believe this drivel, without any facts! 

He then closes with: “Nothing will change my mind, he’s gotta go.” (Of course, no medicine or treatment can possibly expect to change the mind of someone whose TDS has progressed this far.) 

My advice to my friend: “Stop watching MSNBC and CNN 24/7. Get out of your house and get some fresh air . . . Please!

For me I have had enough of the Covid doom and gloom being pushed by MSM and the Democrats. Finally some good news. At his press conference on 8/10/20, the President announced that Dr. Scott Atlas is joining his team of COVID-19 advisors.

Back in April Dr Scott Atlas, a prestigious physician from Stanford, was saying the following;

• Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19.
• Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding.
• Fact 3: Vital herd immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.
• Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.
• Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.

About month later, this same physician from California tried to get the word out that lockdowns will wind up killing far more people than even the worst of the inflated COVID-19 fatality projections claimed would die without the lockdowns.

Fauci did not consider how many lives would be lost to canceled medical procedures and the well-established disastrous effects severe economic  downturns have on life span. Let alone the number of already struggling Americans who would kill themselves or overdose on drugs because the isolation and economic ruin he inflicted on them was too much to bear.

I am ready for some Covid good news. I am counting on Dr. Scott Atlas to rescue me from the MSM’s steady diet of just bad news about Covid. Moreover, more importantly the country is counting on Dr. Scott Atlas.

On the subject of school closures he recently noted, “If you believe in the science, the science says that 99.7 percent of deaths in the U.S. are in people over 15, 99.9 percent are in people over 24,” he noted. Meaning, children are not at risk. He further observed that 82 percent of K-12 teachers are under 55, and half of them are under 41. And very rarely do kids transfer the virus to adults.

Look for Dr. Scott Atlas to be locked in the sights of the teachers unions.

The “COVID police” continue to try to enforce arbitrary diktats made up by  . . . who? . . . based on what? . . . with exceptions seemingly pulled out of thin air.

The following was spoken earlier this week by the mayor of a coastal town north of San Diego, “Local laws need to be consistent with state and federal constitutions, and should not infringe on anyone’s freedom.” 

Wow, now that is a novel idea! Follow the constitution . . . why didn’t someone else think of that?! Why are those who are arbitrarily pronouncing these diktats apparently choosing to follow some arbitrary “made-up” sets of rules. What Constitution, they ask? Here in California, there are a gazillion rules on just about everything, the the next stages of reopening are being defined by some arbitrary rules. For instance: A county can end up on the Governor’s watchlist if the number of new COVID cases is above 100-per-100,000 residents. The esteemed Dr. Fauci is constantly talking about controlled studies … can anyone show me a controlled study defining this arbitrary tipping point?

 My gym cannot be opened because apparently a single gym was the source of “an outbreak,” which is defined as three cases not from the same family, from a single source somewhere in the county. In this situation if a single gym is the source of three cases, then close it down. That at least makes some sense, but to close down hundreds of gyms because three cases were found to stem from one gym, utter insanity!

There are also other “pull-the-rabbit-out-of-the-hat” hocus-pocus examples … for instance, fourteen day moving averages, used magically to place people, churches, parks, and businesses on or off some list. . . abracadabra!”

All arbitrary . . . formulated by whom?

Businesses are going under. Suicides are up. Mass masking is begetting chaos, as Karens are all in a tizzy. All because of some arbitrary criteria and lists. Have any of these mambo-jumbo dictums been validated by a Fauci double-blind controlled study?  . . . Not a spatial-distancing chance!

Soon we will start to see more cases about infringement of our constitutional liberties, and these cases will eventually make their way to the Supreme Court. So far the only case that I am aware of is one from Nevada where a church wanted the same spacing rules, etc. as casinos. The church lost that case because John Roberts for some inexplicable reason, voted to squash religious freedom. Now you might say “who cares about some hodunk-podunk church in Nevada?” We should all care because this case points out that Justice John Roberts is merely a pseudo-conservative, and certainly should not be thought of as one who will reliably follow the Constitution. This becomes even more critical since, if Biden wins the presidency, the Supreme Court will again be a non-Constitutional left-leaning quagmire. Another reason to “vote Trump!”

( My upcoming novella, “The Keneally Chronicles” will deal with some of these non-constitutional diktats, and their impingements on our Constitutional liberties.)

I dreamt that in order to prepare both candidates for the upcoming debates,  there was going to be a practice dry run pseudo-debate on Zoom. 

The moderator(M) started off with the same question for both of the Presidential candidates.

It went something like this:

M: “Mr. Vice President, since you are considerably older than your opponent, you will have the honor of going first.”

JB: “Thank you, Ma’am, but I don’t think that I’m actually the Vice President now. Can you repeat the question?

M: “I haven’t asked a question, yet. Okay, here goes . . . 

“What has Joe Biden done for the voters lately?”

JB: “Well first of all, sir, I am not really that much older than what’s-his-name. . . In dog years the difference in our ages would only be . . . err, subtraction was never my strong suit. Can you restate the question, sir?

M: “What have you done for the voters lately?”

JB: LONG PAUSE . . . “Nothing! As I spend my time in my basement.”

M: Let me rephrase the question: “What have you, Joe Biden,  ever done for the voters?“

JB: LONGER PAUSE: “Now that I think about it . . . NOTHING!”

M: “Thank you, Joe.

M: “What have you, President Trump, done for the people of the United States lately?”

DT: “Where should I start?

“Tax reform, deregulation, judges bound to the Constitution, fewer military operations overseas, standing up to China on trade, border security, no more free rides for our NATO allies, walking away form the disastrous Paris Climate Accord, getting us out from under the flawed Iran Nuclear Deal, a so-called treaty that was never ratified by the Senate, Jerusalem, . . .”

M: “Okay, Mr. Trump, your time is up.”

DT: “But I was just beginning to fully answer your question. I have a lot more to say concerning what I have done.”

M: “Mr. Biden, are you ready for your next question?”

JB: “Not right now, as I have to go back to my basement.”

M: “But you are already in your basement.”

Suddenly Zoom went dark!

JB: “Is it bedtime already? What day is it?”

For those hundreds, perhaps thousands, of you who are long term readers, I want to refer you back to my blog of 5/27/20 in which I brought up the following questions:

When a vaccine is available, who should get it first? Common sense would dictate that the healthcare workers should be the first ones to get the vaccine, but then who should be next? And then who? And then who after that? Etc, etc. And who should make these decisions?

I bring up this 5/27/20 blog, because of a front page story in the Wall Street Journal on 8/7/20 that was titled: “Early Vaccine Supply Unlikely to Fill Need For High-Risk People.” (The following issues are from this article.):

Early on in this article is the question of who should be first in line. “Public Health officials estimate that more than 100 million people in the U.S should get vaccinated before the general public. This group would include doctors and nurses, nursing-home residents, and other essential workers.” 

After reading this, your antennas should be on high alert because of the reference to “essential workers.” Remember when the lockdowns were sprung on us all here in California, “essential workers” did not have to comply, but many of us asked, “who decides which workers are deemed “essential”? I am not sure that we ever really knew why various stores and occupations were judged essential, and others weren’t. Mark my words, the same bozos who decided that marijuana was essential, but getting one’s hair cut was not essential could possibly be responsible again . . . OMG! Some of us may never get vaccinated.

Again from this WSJ article: “Initial supplies look like they will cover only a fraction of the high-priority groups” . . . “There may be ten to twenty million doses available at first. . .“ Note above that ‘100 million should get vaccinated before the general public’, so even among the healthcare workers, there will be a prioritization. (E.R workers vs ICU staff. Other hospital workers vs. those that work in nursing homes. Etc.)

Hold on tight because if and when a vaccine becomes available, then the real fun will start. Young vs. old. Rich vs. poor. Politicians vs. military personnel?

When all of this comes to fruition, remember . . . “I told you so!”

Today’s issue again has to do with the opening of schools with in-person learning. For some on the left the actions and the rhetoric have been pretty dramatic . . . body bags with teacher’s names on them placed outside of schools; teacher’s publishing their own obits; chants of “why do you want children and teachers to die?” Etc.

The reason for these over the top displays is that President Trump has been for schools reopening with in-person teaching, and the Karens are primed to always go against whatever our President says. That type of reflexive behavior is in their DNA. 

However, something is up! Governor Cuomo of New York and Senator Schumer (D,NY) are both now saying that schools should open – in-person, not on-line schooling. The Democrats are a lot of things, but they are not stupid. If the zebra is changing its stripes, there must be a reason. I’m not buying that they suddenly saw the light. I’m not buying that they are suddenly on the side of the children. I’m not buying that they now realize that kids need to go to school, so that the parents can go back to work. 

In my way of thinking there can only be one reason why these selective Dems are doing a 180 on kids and schools . . . the only reason that would cause this “change of heart” is that the polling must have demonstrated that keeping kids home instead of sending them to school is a losing proposition with the voters, especially with the working class and with mothers who have now had their kids underfoot for going on six months.

This is great! Any time there is a split within the Democrats, it can only be good for the rest of us. Without doubt there will be more splinter groups following in the Cuomo-Schumer mold, and then what is going to happen with that innate, almost inbred relationship that the Dems have with the teacher’s unions?

This is going to be fun to watch!

In Chicago under the return to school plan, all students will begin the school year on Aug. 27 with remote learning, which will continue for all students through at least Sept. 28. An in-person option is scheduled to begin on Sept. 29, if it is safe to do so.

The first question I have to ask is, “What does ‘if it is safe to do so’ mean?” Does it mean that we need some data on the incidence of Covid in children? (We already have that data.) Does it mean that we need some data on the seriousness of Covid if a child tests positive? (We already have that data.) Does it mean that we need some data on the chance that an infected student will pass this infection to a teacher? (We already have this data.)

Be that as it may, on Sept. 29 in-person learning (on-site) is to begin. However, there are two factors which will limit the number of students that can be accommodated into the the in-person (on-site) program. The first is space. Taking  “safe” spatial distancing into account, there is only so much space in a school building, and therefore the space available will limit the number of students.

The second factor that may impact enrollment in on-site learning is the number of teachers who are willing to teach on site, due to their concerns about being infected by COVID-19. Some teachers may have a concern based on their own risk factors or of people in their household. At this point it appears that the District is honoring teachers’ decisions on whether to teach on-site or not.

School Superintendent Devon Horton said the District is not setting teachers up to say, “You must come back.” It is anticipated that not all teachers will go along with this in-person option, and so the number of teachers willing to teach will also potentially  limit the number of in-person students that can be accommodated.

Latarsha Green, Deputy Superintendent, said that one of the District’s task forces considered what the District should do in the event more students applied to take on-site learning than there were available slots. 

(This is where it gets interesting, as it seems that there is an inexplicable dilemma.)

Ms. Green said the task force and administrators decided to give the following categories of students a priority: “students receiving free or reduced lunch, Black and Brown students, students who received an I [Incomplete] or less than 50% on their report cards, emerging bilinguals, and students with IEPs. There are also other categories in relation to students who are not performing according to reading or math grade-level expectations, and students with no comorbidity factors.”

So here is my dilemma: Is going back to school safe for children or is it not safe for children? 

If it is safe, then why not send them back in-person on August 27? If it is safe for children on Sept.29, logic would dictate that it is safe on Aug. 27! Nothing of import is going to happen over the course of one month’s time. I would ask Ms. Latasha, “If it is safe for children, why are you waiting a month?”

On the other hand perhaps it is not safe sending children back to school for in-person learning. If that is the case why are Black, Brown, and children that receive free or reduced lunch (poorer children) going to be given priority. Why if the number of children going back in-person learning is not safe, are you sending these children in first. Are they in essence the guinea pigs here?

A dilemma! Either it is safe to send kids back to school now, or somebody has decided to experiment with the safety of Black, Brown, and poorer children.

You can’t have it both ways. Inexplicable!

I’m sure that many of you have been involved in a family pool or a work pool where everyone puts in a buck to pick the date that Marylou will deliver her baby. In addition, will it be a boy or a girl? What will his/her name be? Etc. Unfortunately Marylou is not pregnant or at least we do not think she is pregnant and we are all looking for something else to occupy our time . . .  I propose a new two part pool that will be open to the entire country. It won’t even matter whether or not you know Marylou!

Part 1:

On what day and at what time will Joe Biden officially drop out (“chicken out”) of the first presidential debate. For those of you who might not be aware, this first debate is scheduled for September 29. (At present the Trump team is trying to schedule a fourth earlier debate because in some states the absentee  voting is opening well before September 29. The Biden team is not going along with this attempt to schedule another debate . . . no surprise here!) Anyway I propose that entries be accepted in this “Biden Cancellation Date” pool through midnight Labor Day, Sept. 7th. 

I further propose that half of the entry fee money be donated to a charity, and when Sleepy Joe cancels, Mr. Trump will then be able to pick the charity . . . after all he has much more experience in donating to charities as he has donated all of his salary to a good cause for the last almost four years. I realize that there are those who will argue Biden should choose where the money should go as his plans include giving away a lot of our money if he is elected.

Part 2:

The second part of this “when will Marylou deliver” type of pool will be much more difficult  as it will involve predicting the reason that Biden will cancel. So far the leading entries in this category include the mundane, such as laryngitis, in quarantine because of possible Covid, the New YorkTimes said so ( there have already been pleas from the NYT for Joe to not debate Trump!)

Personally, I think that his excuse will involve something much more creative . . .  perhaps it will be somehow tied in to children not being in school, or the wearing of masks indoors.

FYI: At this point the Vegas odds of Biden backing out of the first debate of the first debate are 3:1 against, but the recent influx of betting money has lowered these odds from 4:1. My advise is to get your money down now before the big money from California, New York, and Illinois comes pouring into Vegas. . . rumor is that these bettors expect and fervently hope that he cancels.

Hopefully as time goes on more and more people are becoming aware that BLM is against the traditional family as it is stated in its manifesto. A few questions here:

Is the dissolution of the traditional two parent family happening? 

Is it a good thing?

Is BLM actually on to something?

First; Is there an ongoing dissolution of the traditional two parent American family. Stats from a recent piece by Star Parker answers that question…”Yes.”

In the 1960s, less than 1% of couples living together were not married. Today, it is over 12%.

And the percentage of births to unmarried women has risen from 5% in 1960 to 40% in 2018.

In 1970, 85% of children lived with two parents. By 2019, this was down to 70%.

In order to have a typical traditional family there has to be both a man and a woman. (Note that I did say traditional.) Therefore it stands to reason that if women are not getting married in the same numbers that the number of marriages will go down. Is this happening?

Again these stats are from Star Parker:

In 1962, 71% of women ages 15-44 were married. By 2019, this was down to 42%.

In 1962, 5% of women ages 30-34 had never been married. By 2019, this was up to 35%.

The reasons for this are multifactorial (less religion, easy welfare, better job opportunities, etc.), but it is a fact that less women are marrying.

Is the decreasing number of two parent families a good thing or a bad thing? To me the simple answer is that it depends . . . It depends on whether or not children are involved.

The percentage of births to unmarried women has risen from 5% in 1960 to 40% in 2018.

In 1970, 85% of children lived with two parents. By 2019, this was down to 70%.

Yeah! So what? Does having one or two parents make any real difference?

For those whose concerns are more secular, the collapse of marriage is of concern because its practical results are negative. The statistics comparing how children do from a single parent family compared to those from a two parent family are dramatic . . . err, better said “DRAMATIC!!” … those from a two parent family are impressively better in a number of categories – less drug addiction, less likely to go to prison, more likely to be able to earn a decent living, etc.

After reading all of the above stats can anyone explain to me how BLM is supposed to help black people? To me it appears that the tenets of BLM are antithetical to the success of black youth. 

In that same Star Parker piece I read something that I had read before but is worth repeating again and again.

“There is the oft-quoted observation of Brookings Institution scholar Ron Haskins that American adults who follow three rules — finish high school, get a full-time job, and wait until at least age 21 to get married and have children —  have a 2% chance of being poor and a 75% chance of being a middle-class wage earner.”

This should be posted in every school throughout the nation.

Perhaps BLM should incorporate these three things into its manifesto … but only if it is really interested in making black lives matter.

BTW: Star Parker is black.

Somerville is a town in Massachusetts adjacent to Cambridge (Harvard) and very close to Watertown, where Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber, was captured in 2013. In Somerville, the fire department apparently had the audacity to place a thin blue line American flag on the back of a fire truck. Well, as would be expected  on 8/1/20, a Karen did not like it that the Fire Department was showing support for the Police Department. (Actually “Karen” was “becca defund the police@farm_witch” on Twitter . . . with no accompanying picture!) Predictably Karen tweeted the mayor of Somerville, Joseph A. Curtatone basically to let him know that she did not approve.

On 8/2/20 @JoeCurtatone  promptly acted like the gutless man that he apparently is, and responded:

“Flags are off the trucks. They were not authorized to be there. Looking in to how they got there. Sincerely hope the people who did this realize did not realize how hurtful it would be to people in our community.”

Perhaps, a more reasonable response from someone who is not a leftist weakling could have been  . . . “Will look into it.”

For those of us not familiar with the thin blue line, I googled it . . .

The thin blue line represents the thin line Police Officers walk daily between life and death. ~The thin blue linerepresents the police officer role of separating the good from the bad while creating order from chaos.

My question, “Who is the coward here?”

Certainly Joseph Curtatone is a coward and a lefty. Whether the thin blue line flag was authorized or not, his response to Karen showed that he was a “Mr. Karen.” My response to yellow Joe: 

“Put on your big-boys pants, Joe. Immediately caving to “becca defund the police” clearly demonstrates why you should not be in any position of authority.”

In addition, “becca defund the police” is also a coward. He/she apparently does not have the chutzpah to put her real name on the twitter account that also has no picture. 

It is interesting that apparently Somerville has a BLM flag flying above city hall.

I did not see a twitter complaint from anybody about that flag, which makes me wonder if anybody in Somerville has a backbone or a right hand . . clearly the mayor doesn’t!

I do not have a Twitter account, but if I did . . . !

BTW: Does anybody know the proper term for a “Mr. Karen?”