Month: March 2021

Ever since I was a kid, I have been an Elvis Presley fan. I can remember watching him on the Ed Sullivan Show on CBS at 7:00 pm central on a Sunday night back in the late 1950s.(At that time my dad predicted that he would never make it . . . I guess that my father was not prescient.)

For those not as old as myself, the Ed Sullivan Show was where many of the new singing sensations made their American debut in the 50s and the 60s. This included not only Elvis, but also The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Supremes, and The Beach Boys, to name but a few.

I have many Elvis favorites . . . All Shook Up, Too Much, Don’t Be Cruel, Love Me Tender, In The Ghetto, and The Devil in Disguise, to name but a few. However lately, for some reason recently, I have been recurrently singing the lyrics of The Devil in Disguise to myself. Why would I be singing the lyrics to this 1963 Elvis Presley hit now?

Perhaps a review of some of the lyrics will help:

You look like an angel

Walk like an angel

Talk like an angel

But I got wise

You’re the devil in disguise

Oh yes you are

The devil in disguise

Could it be that Elvis Presley was prescient? Could it be that I am recurrently singing this song because the lyrics remind me of someone in the limelight today? Could it be that these lyrics remind me of Joe Biden? Hmmm!

He certainly looks like an angel, albeit an old angel, with his white hair and nice suit. He walks like an angel – err, except when going up stairs.

He talks like an angel with his soft melodious voice, and although he talks very little, he does read well. In addition, he does not do “mean tweeting.”

But like Elvis in the song sings, “I got wise.” (Is he the devil in disguise?)

In contradistinction to his immediate predecessor, he is certainly the most pro-abortion president since  . . . Barack Obama under whom he was VP. To me, this sounds like the devil. 

In contradistinction to his predecessor, he is very pro-Trans and in being so, he is basically denying high school girls the ability to compete in sports, and thinks it’s okay for boys to be in the Girls’ bathroom. To me this sounds like the devil.

He is doing his best to turn the USA from an energy exporter to an energy importer. Certainly not angelic – at least to those of us who live in the USA. Shutting down the Keystone XL Pipeline has cost thousands and thousands of jobs. To me purposely making individuals unemployed sounds like the devil.

Is he The Devil in Disguise?

Was Presley prescient?

In the follow-up book to my first book, The Keneally Chronicles, an inquisitive law student, Richard, asks, “What happens if a court cannot select an unbiased jury?” Now even though this second novella is not yet completely finished, retired Justice Keneally actually has an astute and wise answer to the this question.

In the book, it happens that Richard is from Bloomington, Minnesota, which in real life is adjacent to Minneapolis. At this point, perhaps you may have guessed that the law student was obliquely referring to the Chauvin – George Floyd murder trial which just began on 3/29/21 in Minneapolis. Those of you who are attuned to the present day news will respond that they have already chosen a jury for that trial, and so the question is moot.

However, as with good stories, Richard’s question is actually a lot more pertinent and the situation a lot more complicated. In the scenario that Richard envisioned the initial trial ended in a hung jury, 10-2 for a conviction, and the prosecution decided to retry ex-officer, Derek Chauvin. (I can hear all of you snickering, “Impossible,” but George Floyd’s extremely high Fentanyl level, and his repeated cries of “I can’t breathe” long before he was on the ground could be enough to persuade a juror or two that Chauvin is not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.)

In Richard’s version when the hung jury verdict was announced, many people, especially on the left were aghast. There was upheaval and rioting in Minneapolis itself and this rioting spread to many other U.S. cities. The twelve jurors had to eventually be secretly escorted out of the hotel in which they had been sequestered. Initially ugly epithets and vile threats were shouted at them forcing them to retreat back into their hotel for their own safety. The photos of these twelve jurors were then leaked to the press, and the next morning their close-up pictures were on the front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Even though all of the twelve jurors had agreed not to speak to the press afterwards, that promise did not last long after their sequestration ended. Money talks and it didn’t take long for the two holdout jurors to be identified. Without going into details, their lives became hell.

Then came the real problem which was the gist of Richard’s original question. The situation became a practical issue involving the reality of living in Minneapolis and potentially being chosen to serve as a juror for the George Floyd-Derek Chauvin retrial. 

Richard said, “Who in their right mind would want to put their family at risk merely to serve as a juror at the retrial? If a conviction could not be obtained at a second trial, without question there would be more harassment and threats, and possibly worse for the jurors.”

Richard continued, “Likewise, who could admit to impartiality? Like it or not, mainly because of the uber publicity surrounding the first trial, sides would have been chosen well in advance of any potential second trial. A recurrent refrain during jury selection could sound like a stuck record, ‘Sorry, I cannot be impartial. My mind is pretty much made up’.”

And thus we are faced with Richard’s original question: Is it possible that the court would not be able to find twelve unbiased individuals to serve on that jury? Would individuals be willing to stick their necks into a potential hangman’s noose?

Two questions:

How will Justice Keneally answer Richard’s question in my book?

What will happen in real life in Minneapolis?

Stay tuned!

No, I did not listen to President Biden’s first press conference on 3/25/21 in its entirety, but I did listen to some portions of it. I will say that President Biden did look presidential with his blue suit and a nice Windsor knot in his tie, however he did not sound presidential as some portions of what he said made no sense to me.

I listened to the following multiple times, and I defy anyone to make any sense of this direct quote by Joe Biden when apparently talking about the filibuster.

“I have never been particularly poor at calculating how to get things done in the United States Senate. So, the best way to get something done if you…if you hold near and dear to you…that you like to be able to…anyway, I—we’re going to get a lot done.” 

OMG!

First of all, “I have never been particularly poor at calculating how to get things done in the United States Senate.” What does this mean? He was in the Senate for a gazillion years. Either one is “poor at calculating” or  “has never been particularly good at calculating,” but what the President of the USA said here is . . . being as kind as I can be . . . is gibberish! 

When one actually looks at the video during the last part of the above direct quote, the emotion that immediately rises to the surface is one of pity. I defy anyone who watched this part not to have felt sorry for that lost, and bewildered Clem Kadiddlehopper-like soul. If this were a high school graduation, some sympathetic decent parent would have gently led him away from the podium so as to avoid any further humiliation. The problem is that Joe Biden is not just an ordinary confused grandpa, but the President of the USA!

Furthermore I defy anyone to explain the following:

He said that Republican election integrity bills were worse than Jim Crow, so much so that they “make Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.”

Whaaat? Has anybody ever heard of Jim Eagle?

Unlike any press conference I have ever seen, President Biden not only had a book with the faces of potential questioners, but also the numerical order of whom to call on next. 

Does anyone think that the questions were scripted? Duh! 

But even with a probable scripted question, I defy anyone to explain the following exchange.

Reporter: ‘Wondering if you’ve made a decision either about sending the Manufacturer Liability Bill that you had promised on day one to Capitol Hill or executive actions like going after ghost guns or giving money to cities and states to battle gun control.’

Joe Biden: ‘All the above. It’s a matter of timing. As you’ve all observed, successful presidents, better than me, have been successful in large part because they know how to time what they’re doing. Order it, decide and priorities, what needs to be done. The next major initiative is, and I’ll be announcing it Friday in Pittsburgh in detail, is to rebuild the infrastructure, both physical and technological infrastructure of this country so that we can compete and create significant numbers of really good paying jobs. Really good paying jobs. And some of you have been around long enough to know that used to be a great Republican goal initiative.’”

Whaaat!

I defy anyone to explain how gun control is related to infrastructure spending.

If that exchange had occurred at the Thanksgiving dinner table, a concerned son or daughter would have said, “Hey Pop, have some more turkey,” or “Dad, please pass the dressing,” in order to avoid further embarrassment for the old guy. Either or those would have been more humane than letting Old Biden continue to blather before a national audience.

3/29/21

I do not want any of you to think that this is going to be a habit, but … this is another piece inspired by an article in the NYT. However, to be more precise the article in the NYT is again written by David Leonhardt. (Note to David … “Be careful as the Goliath that you work for may already have you on their potential cancel culture list.”) For regular readers see my piece of 3/21/21, The Covid Dichotomy, also inspired by Leonhardt. Is it possible that he reads my  blogs regularly? I say this because on 3/25/21 he wrote about something that I have been alluding to for many many months.

Leonhardt starts off with something that Bruce Sacerdote, an economics professor at Dartmouth noticed while watching TV. His initial observations were from watching CNN and PBS, which are both liberal networks. (Keep in mind that he is a college professor.) Nonetheless, Sacerdote noticed that Covid coverage almost always seemed negative, regardless of what he was seeing in the data or hearing from scientists he knew.

Let me point out that I have been noticing that same tendency in my local newspaper for many months. I wrote letters-to-the-editor, off course never published, and emailed a local news columnist and asked him if he had been told to only report “Covid bad news.” Now that the Covid story seems to have turned the corner, I thought that perhaps he would switch to Covid good news, but his column for today is titled “Two Cases of Variant Confirmed in County.” This makes me even more suspicious that he is following orders from his superiors . . . “Only Covid bad news!”

Back to Leonhardt’s NYT article: 

“The results showed that Sacerdote’s instinct had been right — and not just because the pandemic has been mostly a grim story.

“About 87 percent of Covid coverage in national U.S. media last year (including CNN. Fox, Politico, NYT, and hundreds of other sources) was negative. The share was 51 percent in international media, 53 percent in U.S. regional media and 64 percent in scientific journals.

Why is this? 

Sacerdote postulated that the major media is responding to consumer demand. I do not agree with his conclusion as it makes no sense to think that the consumer public is dramatically different in the U.S (87% negative) versus international media (only 51% negative). Consumers are consumers irrespective of where they live. On the other hand could the vastly negative Covid media coverage be political? Hmmm!

3/28/21

In late February I received a mailer from Nikki Haley, the ex-UN Ambassador, asking for a contribution. Now keep in mind that this was shortly after the ex-Governor of South Carolina’s interview with Politico, in which she blasted Mr. Trump. Prior to that interview I had thought that Ms. Haley was a potential up-and-comer in the Republican Party. After that interview, not so much. That interview told me that she does not have enough common political sense to run for a higher office.

First of all, an interview with Politico! Everyone knows that Politico is a left-leaning publication. Did she think they were going to play nice-nice with her, an apparent conservative? To me it should have been obvious to her that Politico was either going to try to either trap her or make her say something politically damaging to her future political career. 

Enticing a Republican to say something nasty about a fellow Republican is commonly used adage out of the Democratic playbook.

Note to Nikki Haley . . . You fell for it. They succeeded in trashing your political future. As I wrote back in response to your request for money, “Not only will I not give you any money, but I will also never vote for you.” (Basically, nix to her.)

I was hoping that Kristi Noem, the Governor of South Dakota, would be a future up-and-comer in the Republican Party, but her latest stumble occurred on 3/19 when she issued a “style and form” veto against a bill to protect fairness in women’s sports.

From PJ Media:

“She claimed she supports the bill but urged alterations that arguably “neutered” the legislation. This week, Noem has vociferously defended her action, claiming that she had to weaken the bill in order to win the longer-term battle against woke activists who would have issued powerful boycotts against South Dakota had she signed the legislation.”

To give her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Gov. Noem does have some long term plan, but let’s just hope that she does not get sucked into a Politico interview and hope that she does fustigate the four other Republican governors in Idaho, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas, who have already signed similar legislation.

As many of you are aware, I am convinced that there was some chicanery in the 2020 presidential election. When I went to bed on 11/3/20 at 10pm, Pacific time, President Trump was way ahead. When I awoke at 7am the next morning, he was way behind – Hmmm! … what happened?

I have my opinion as to whether this chicanery involved cutting corners, walking on the tightrope of illegality on one extreme or outright fraud on the other extreme. At this point I am not 100% sure, although I suspect elements of both in varying degrees. 

With that as background, I just read and interesting article about the 2020 election that was not merely an opinion article, but rather involved numbers and probabilities.

What follows is from that article of 3/16/21 by Stu Cvrk, who was a Naval Academy graduate and has served 30 years in the U.S. Navy, both active duty and reserves.

Per Mr. Cvrk:

“Election irregularities in the 2020 presidential election continue to be uncovered through independent analysis. An expert team led by physicist and Mensa John Droz, Jr., has been relentlessly examining election-related data and lawsuits since November, uncovering significant anomalies that warrant further investigation. The team’s objective throughout has been to help ascertain that all legal votes – and only legal votes – were counted.

That team has just completed a “contrast analysis” of Biden versus Trump results in 2020 and Trump versus Clinton results in 2016 that exposes some irregularities that cannot be easily explained.

Note: as the team reports, “A statistical contrast is not proof of voting fraud, but a large contrast does point to situations that might merit closer examination.” And that is exactly the purpose of the team’s contrast analysis: to identify states in which vote tabulations could warrant further analysis, peeling the onion to the county and precinct levels as appropriate in order to forensically validate the results.

The team performed contrast analyses for 48 states (Alaska and Maine were not examined due to lack of data), with a “positive” contrast indicating that Biden scored more votes in 2020 than expected in that state, and with a “negative” contrast indicating that Trump did better in 2020 than expected in a state. The team also performed a contrast analysis for each county in each state in order to determine outliers that are good candidates for precinct-level analysis. Several outlier states were identified in which the positive contrasts for Biden could not be easily explained by population increases in those states. In addition, the ten states with the largest positive contrasts provided 3± million more votes for Biden than they did for Clinton, as shown in a table in Cvrk’s article. Is that really possible without fraud, given Biden’s unwillingness to campaign and inability to draw a crowd when he did?

Conclusion: This latest report from the Droz team adds more fuel to the fire regarding “election irregularities” in multiple states during the 2020 presidential election. It is a travesty that forensic audits are not being conducted in many states to validate the results.”

Hmmm!

There were many tables in this Cyrk article from Red State that you can peruse if you are interested. Also in that article there are many specific examples of “irregularities” in multiple states. Hmmm!

The following line from the last paragraph of this Cvrk article is the key take-away for me:

“That the Democrats have fought tooth-and-nail to prevent such audits explains much because if they were certain of Biden’s “overwhelming victory,” then the audits would prove that fact once and for all. “

Hmmm!

3/26/21

Those “in the know” (the experts!) told us initially that we had to lockdown for a few weeks to stem the tide against the coronavirus. That was a year ago, and I am now just starting go back to my gym. So much for that “lockdown for two weeks” line of poppycock. (I was tempted to use <£~#/#, another more descriptive term, but this is a family blog.)

However, none of these so-called experts have talked about the general state of unhealthiness that plagues our citizens, because of these prolonged lockdowns.

The following stats are from Freedom Wire:

According by to the survey from the American Psychological Association, a whopping 42% of Americans gained weight during the forced lockdowns… with the average being a knee-wobbling 29 pounds!

Almost 25% of the adults surveyed admitted to drinking more alcohol to help them cope with the many stresses of the pandemic, and those figures SOARED with parents of school-aged children, jumping up to 52%.

Almost half of all parents—a staggering 48%—also said they are more stressed than they were prior to the pandemic, with challenges of unemployment and remote learning being among the biggest stressors.

These aforementioned health related issues are factors that contribute to the rising rates of suicide in both children and adults.

I could go on with the increased drug abuse and homelessness which can be traced to prolonged lockdowns. Nonetheless Dr. Fauci is continuing to warn us of possible impending doom, and our President (Joe the ‘unifier’) is calling those who are opening up their states, “Neanderthals.” (“Strong work on that ‘let’s all come together’ concept, Joe, you <£~#/#.”)

Kids going to school is another issue. Most of my grandkids are either doing Zoom school from home, or some form of hybridization, which involved very limited hours of actually being in the classroom. Finally the CDC appears to be coming around to using common sense in its recommendations . . . the latest being reducing the acceptable social distancing in schools to three feet so as to be more in line with The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) from January 5, 2021, which  also has a recommendation of 3 ft, since “in many school settings, 6 feet between students is not feasible without drastically limiting the number of students.” Why has it taken the CDC so long?

In addition, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended a distance of 1 meter, which is 3.3 feet. These recommendations appear on a WHO Q&A dated from September 18, 2020.  NOTE: This is from September, 2020. Why has it taken the CDC so long? . . . <£~#/#!

Still as of today, the nation’s second-largest teachers union sent a two-page letter to the Biden administration on Tuesday questioning the decision to reduce the recommended social distancing in schools to three feet between students.

This change to three feet is supported by lots and lots of data, including data from the many schools that have been safely open for months – But the union says they “are not convinced” by any of it. They are the ultimate  <£~#/#!

Thus far I have purposely not commented on Biden’s border crisis. I refer to it as “Biden’s border crisis” because that is exactly what it is. In the process of the carrying out his spiteful form of Trump revenge, he now owns this crisis. Instead of taking time to thoughtfully review Trump’s approach to just about anything, he (or whomever is making decisions for him) has decided to embark on his own version of “cancel culture.” One of the major problems with Biden’s border plan is that there is no apparent plan, and thus the country is left with chaos. 

Has anyone asked President Biden ( or whomever is making the decisions for him) what the long term plan is? If anyone knows the answer to that question, please let me know. As best I can tell his most recent “solution” was to go On Air to plead with people across Central America and beyond NOT to come. All that tells me is that President Biden (or whomever is making the decisions for him) either is clueless about life in Central America, or has no interest in stopping the flow of migrants across our southern border. How does President Biden (or whomever is making the decisions for him) think that the people in Central America will be cognizant of “his plea?” Joe, FYI, for the most part those in Central America do not have TVs. They also do not read newspapers, as newspapers are not delivered to their shanties, and if they were, it wouldn’t matter as illiteracy is endemic. 

When their neighbors leave for Los Estados Unidos and do not return, the message is something akin to . . . “They made it, so we should also go for it.” Why would they think otherwise? Unfortunately the “plan” of “pleading with those in Central America not to come” is a fool’s errand, and will accomplish nothing.

I do not like the present border situation, but the Biden’s plan (or the plan of whomever is making the decisions for him) is a nonsensical non-plan, as with it, there will be no end to the migration to Los Estados Unidos. Yesterday, I read a statement from a man from Brazil who has brought his entire family to the border. He stated that crime is rampant in Brazil and he so he headed north because Biden was now the President. Brazil!!  First Central America, and now South America. I feel for him and his family, but the solution is not to have anyone who resides south of our border head north. 

Recently a self-identified liberal asked me in a group email if anyone had a better solution than Biden’s non-solution. I answered, “yes, I do.”

First of all, let’s be clear, my solution is not a total solution, as there will never be a total solution. As Christ said in Matthew 26:6-13,  “The poor you will always have with you.” Likewise from Deuteronomy 15:11, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded . . . “ 

My solution is twofold:

First: Make life in Central America better for those that live there. This will involve individual charitable giving to provide food and shelter for those who are living there now.(Google “Food for the Poor” [FFP] if you are actually interested in helping.) To me, perhaps even more importantly, is to attempt to provide at least a partial remedy for the future in Central America by improving the education of the children so that they will have a chance when they grow up. 

Build schools. For instance, whereas elementary  education is free for children in Honduras as long as the child has shoes, there are not nearly enough actual schools . . . schools that  have roofs and actual walls without holes, so that the children can actually learn. Donate school supplies, as obviously it is difficult if not impossible to learn without pencils, paper and books. (Again FFP if you are truly interested.)

Second: Where are the millions of U.S. churches during this crisis?  I would propose that churches, synagogues, etc. sponsor families from Central America. By “sponsor,” I mean totally provide for them now and subsequently totally provide for them  for ten years . . . food, clothing, shelter, education, etc. As best I can tell, I have never heard anyone propose that individual churches step-up. To put it politely to all of those who are in a tizzy over the chaos at the border . . . “Put your money where your mouth is.”

I am sure that there are many more practical solutions to at least partially help with Biden’s border crisis.” If anyone has a connection to Mr. Biden ( or to those who are making the decisions for him), please pass this along.

Remember back when you were a kid and were told not to touch the hot stove? Well some kids did touch that stove and consequently got their fingers burned – “ouch!” In addition some of those subsequently touched it again . . . they didn’t learn and got burned again – “ouch!”

In the last election a lot of those “I will touch that stove if I want to” individuals voted for Sleepy Joe. They were warned about the consequences, but thought that they knew better, and now the entire country is getting burned. No more Keystone XL pipeline with the loss of 10,000 jobs … oops, that stove was hot – “ouch!” In addition, more than 1,500 workers at a Ford assembly plant in Avon Lake, Ohio were warned that Ford plans to move a “new vehicle construction” project (that would have guaranteed employment for years to come) to Mexico. Oops, that was a hot stove – “ouch!” The Biden border policy . . . total chaos and getting progressively hotter with no actual plan. Opps, you were warned! “OUCH!”

Going back to that stove story, those kids who decided to ignore that initial warning obviously got burnt. However, some of those with burnt fingers, for whatever reason, went back and touched the hot stove again – “ouch!” They did not learn from their mistake. 

Is it possible that those  repeat stove offenders of year’s past are today’s liberals, who just cannot recognize the real life consequences of the actions? “Nonsense,” you say. 

Well let me refer you to a recent study conducted at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, Scotland.  That study reported that people with high emotional intelligence are far more skeptical of and much less likely to fall for deceptive and untrue news items (fake news). The study asked a group of volunteers to take a look at various social media news stories, some true and some false.

Senior Teaching Fellow in Psychology at Strathclyde, Dr. Tony Anderson, said, “We assessed whether people were better able to disregard the emotionally charged content of such items and better equipped to assess the veracity of the information. 

The side that tends to be emotionally unstable and is less likely to use logic isn’t the Right, but rather the Libs, who are much less likely to be able to identify the consequences of their action. To me the major question is whether in 2022 those who voted for Biden in 2020 will be able to remember how their fingers hurt when they got burnt. Unfortunately, the true Libs just do not have the capacity to associate Biden with the hot stove.

As many of you are aware, I am convinced that there was some chicanery in the 2020 presidential election. When I went to bed on 11/3/20 at 10pm, Pacific time, President Trump was way ahead. When I awoke at 7am the next morning, he was way behind – Hmmm! … what happened?

I have my opinion as to whether this chicanery involved cutting corners, walking on the tightrope of illegality on one extreme or outright fraud on the other extreme. At this point I am not 100% sure, although I suspect elements of both in varying degrees. 

With that as background, I just read and interesting article about the 2020 election that was not merely an opinion article, but rather involved numbers and probabilities.

What follows is from that article of 3/16/21 by Stu Cvrk, who was a Naval Academy graduate and has served 30 years in the U.S. Navy, both active duty and reserves.

Per Mr. Cvrk:

“Election irregularities in the 2020 presidential election continue to be uncovered through independent analysis. An expert team led by physicist and Mensa John Droz, Jr., has been relentlessly examining election-related data and lawsuits since November, uncovering significant anomalies that warrant further investigation. The team’s objective throughout has been to help ascertain that all legal votes – and only legal votes – were counted.

That team has just completed a “contrast analysis” of Biden versus Trump results in 2020 and Trump versus Clinton results in 2016 that exposes some irregularities that cannot be easily explained.

Note: as the team reports, “A statistical contrast is not proof of voting fraud, but a large contrast does point to situations that might merit closer examination.” And that is exactly the purpose of the team’s contrast analysis: to identify states in which vote tabulations could warrant further analysis, peeling the onion to the county and precinct levels as appropriate in order to forensically validate the results.

The team performed contrast analyses for 48 states (Alaska and Maine were not examined due to lack of data), with a “positive” contrast indicating that Biden scored more votes in 2020 than expected in that state, and with a “negative” contrast indicating that Trump did better in 2020 than expected in a state. The team also performed a contrast analysis for each county in each state in order to determine outliers that are good candidates for precinct-level analysis. Several outlier states were identified in which the positive contrasts for Biden could not be easily explained by population increases in those states. In addition, the ten states with the largest positive contrasts provided 3± million more votes for Biden than they did for Clinton, as shown in a table in Cvrk’s article. Is that really possible without fraud, given Biden’s unwillingness to campaign and inability to draw a crowd when he did?

Conclusion: This latest report from the Droz team adds more fuel to the fire regarding “election irregularities” in multiple states during the 2020 presidential election. It is a travesty that forensic audits are not being conducted in many states to validate the results.”

Hmmm!

There were many tables in this Cyrk article from Red State that you can peruse if you are interested. Also in that article there are many specific examples of “irregularities” in multiple states. Hmmm!

The following line from the last paragraph of this Cvrk article is the key take-away for me:

“That the Democrats have fought tooth-and-nail to prevent such audits explains much because if they were certain of Biden’s “overwhelming victory,” then the audits would prove that fact once and for all. “

Hmmm!