No One's in Comfort Class

There are so many problems in the United States right now.

I don't need to enumerate them.

A recent CBS poll released this week found that 79% of likely voters feel things in the U.S. are out of control.

That probably says it all.

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-republicans-lead-house-2022-10-30/

Why do so many feel this way?

One reason could be that with all the problems that we have Joe Biden found time last week to hold a press conference claiming that it is somehow racist for airlines to charge extra for seats with more legroom towards the front of the plane.

How many would list this issue as a priority right now?

Source: https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/1585293597796360194

People of color and marginalized Americans do not understand that you have to pay more for Business Class or Comfort Class?

Isn't this an incredibly racist statement by itself?

The extra charge for more leg room hits people of color hardest?

Why is that? Is Biden assuming that people of color are taller so they need more legroom?

Does he think that every person of color is in the NBA?

Perhaps Biden is not aware of the average heights of people in the United States by race?

Biden claimed that this was part of his efforts to fight inflation.

Today, my administration is announcing new actions to lower the cost of everyday living for American families, to put more money in the pockets of middle-income and working-class Americans, to hold big corporations accountable.”

Really?

Yes, really! 

Will Joe Biden's legacy be that he successfully eliminated Comfort Class fees in air travel?

If this occurred, what would be the result?

Everyone would likely be crammed into coach seats and everyone (except for those who paid extra for more room) would pay more to make up for the lost revenue the airlines get for charging for the 6 inches of extra legroom.

As for those CEO's of big companies that Biden likes to criticize.

They don't seem to be any more confident about the way things look than the voters in the CBS poll.

CEO confidence in the prospects for the economy is the lowest it has been since this survey was first initiated almost 40 years ago.

Can it be said that anyone is in Comfort Class right now?

Still Crazy After All These Years

I was in central Idaho this past weekend.

The first snowfall of the season was apparent at higher elevations in the mountains.

A couple of days later my 2nd grade grandson was excited to tell me that his teacher had told him the earth was warming.

I told him that some people believed that but there was a lot of evidence and data that suggested that was not true.

He seemed crestfallen that something that he was told was a fact may not be altogether true.

If he was a little older I might have suggested he take the data below from the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University to his teacher and ask if the planet is warming how could it be that Winter Northern Hemisphere Snow Extent has been increasing over the last 55 years?

Source: https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=namgnld&ui_season=1

The same is true for Eurasia.

Source: https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=eurasia&ui_season=1

The trend is even more obvious in looking at North America alone.

Source: https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_seasonal.php?ui_set=namgnld&ui_season=1

I don't necessarily fault my grandson's teacher.

She is undoubtedly just repeating the narrative that she hears everyday in the mainstream media and elsewhere.

For example, here is the headline of a story from The New York Times this week voicing concern about snow disappearing.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/us/northwest-snowpack-climate.html

However, the narrative about global warming and the propaganda that flows from it that is specifically directed at young people through our educational systems is dangerous.

Many of them actually believe that the world is going to end within 10 years if climate change is not addressed.

Remember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez repeating this over and over almost four years ago as far left liberals  pushed for their "Green New Deal" legislation?

Source: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/426353-ocasio-cortez-the-world-will-end-in-12-years-if-we-dont-address/

They have decided that mankind and its use of fossil fuels and carbon emissions are the culprit behind any climate change.

However, it seems their concerns in this regard only extend to Western countries

They all are conspicuously silent in calling out China on its rising carbon emissions.

It is as if China is on another planet.

It is the same thing we see with Joe Biden as we are dealing with rising energy costs.

He is begging Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to produce more oil at the same time he is trying to put American oil and gas companies out of the business of producing fossil fuels.

It makes absolutely no sense.

All of this propaganda has created millions of young people in particular who have become unhinged in believing that they are going to die from rising seas and searing heat.

The latest manifestation of this is young people defacing works of art and using super glue to glue themselves to walls or floors.

These two climate activists threw tomato soup on a Van Gogh painting.

Mashed potatoes were used to attack a Monet painting in Germany.

In New York City this week climate activists attacked the corporate offices of BlackRock because it invests in fossil fuels. Their cool antic was to pour coal down the escalators in the building.

We are seeing these extremist actions despite the fact that the Democrat Congress passed, and Joe Biden recently signed,  a law that will spend $369 billion on "climate solutions and environmental justice" as laid out in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act.

Source: https://earthjustice.org/brief/2022/what-the-inflation-reduction-act-means-for-climate#:~:text=President%20Joe%20Biden%20has%20signed,action%20on%20the%20global%20stage.

Weren't we told exactly two years ago that the craziness would end once Donald Trump was defeated and the Democrats had control?  

The extremists would no longer have any reason to vent their frustrations with public policy once the evil, racist, war monger, climate denier Trump was gone.

The craziest thing I have seen are these two young Aussies (or Kiwis) telling everybody that farming has to stop because it is the biggest single driver of climate change.

Source: https://twitter.com/elenaevdokimov7/status/1583078013427601408

I wonder how that will turn out for humanity if we followed that plan?

All of this should be a cautionary tale of what results when we promote opinions and ideology as scientific facts.

Should we be surprised that we have produced a couple of generations of people who are all too willing to do crazy stuff after we have spent the last thirty years filling their brains with crazy stuff?

In 2013, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was claiming that her South Florida Congressional District would be under water in a few short years.

Nearly a decade later aren't we beyond a "few short years"?

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.), who represents the Miami area, warned that unless climate change is addressed “in a few short years,” rising sea levels will force her to represent areas more than two hundred miles away.

“I will eventually represent Orlando if we don’t do something about making sure we can reduce global warming,” she said on Fox News this morning. Wasserman Schultz’s current residence, Weston, Fla., is 224 miles away from Orlando.

Her district is still high and dry and there is still no beachfront property in Orlando.

23rd Florida Congressional District (purple in black outline)
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz

I wrote the following over nine years ago right after Wasserman Schultz was telling everyone she would soon be representing Orlando because Miami would be under water.

Only in a liberal mind does it make sense to...

shut down your most cost-effective energy generating source,


shut-off your most abundant energy resource,


raise electricity costs on all Americans,


and risk losing hundreds of thousand of jobs in the process.


In an attempt to solve a problem...


that we are not even sure we have,


and if we do, we are not sure we can do anything about it,


because of natural or external forces that we cannot control, 

that may overwhelm anything we do anyway,


that ultimately works to the advantage of your biggest trade partner,


that will undoubtedly result in more job losses for Americans over the longer term.

We are seeing all of this play out in Europe right now.

Of course, they compounded all of this by relying on Russia for their energy.

Is it not past time to stop the craziness?

Hijabs and Hope for Iran

The protests that are occurring in Iran offer some hope that the autocratic, repressive rule of the mullahs in Iran may be threatened.

Source: https://irannewsupdate.com/news/insider/iran-students-resume-day-40-of-protests/

What is interesting to me is that the current protests were sparked by the death of a 22-year old woman in police custody who had  been jailed for "improperly" wearing her hijab. Reports are that she was repeatedly beaten by the authorities.

Source: womensvoicesnow.org

I have been interested for some time as to why Middle Eastern Muslim countries over the last 40-50 years became more conservative and less tolerant and Judeo-Christian Western countries became more liberal and tolerant.

It is a puzzling paradox as conventional thinking suggests that as societies age and mature they tend to become more progressive. For example, they advance from a primitive, barbaric system of justice to a system that recognizes individual rights and equal justice. They become less authoritarian and more flexible.

Why did Islam move towards the 10th century but in the West we even see Christian institutions "progressing" so far that it is hard to recognize the existence of any traditional or core values at all?

I have written before of the stunning transformation of countries like Iran, Afghanistan and Egypt over my lifetime. In years past, we looked like we were living in the same world. That is certainly not the case today. 

For example, this is a picture of a female soldier in the Iranian Army in 1979.

Credit: Pakistan Defence

These are female soldiers in the Iranian Army in 2011.

Credit: Pakistan Defence

These are Afghanistan women in the 1950's compared to 2014.

These are Egyptian students at Cairo University.

1959

2012

A related question is what causes a young man to strap on a suicide vest or take an automatic weapon into an opera house or office building with the intent to kill or maim shouting "Allahu Akbar"?

The ongoing protests in Iran, and the specific focus on wearing of the hijab, may indicate that the radical Islamists are losing their grip on the Iranian people.

A few years I came across an interesting paper by Dr. Tawfik Hamid, "The Cause of Jihadist Terrorism and How to Combat It" in a publication by the Air Force Research Laboratory (credit to Viable Opposition for pointing me to this) that attempts to explain this question.

Dr. Hamid knows something about this subject because at one time he was an Islamic extremist himself in his native Egypt.

The radical Islam we see today has its roots in what is called the "Salafi Movement" within Islam. Its followers believe in taking a very fundamental approach to Islam. They believe that Islam has strayed from its roots and has become decadent over the years. They reject any religious innovation and support the implementation of sharia law. One of the key signs of spreading Salafism is for the women to wear the hijab, a key part in the imposition of sharia law.

Interestingly, Hamid sees the wearing of the hijab as an important indicator of increased radicalism in a Muslim community. This is how he describes how this takes hold.

The process begins with the propagation of Salafi jihadist ideology within a community. Increasing numbers of women begin to wear the hijab, which is both a symptom of Salafi proliferation and a catalyst for Islamism (see, e.g.,Mahmood, 2005). In turn, the proliferation of militant Salafism and the hijab contribute to the idea of passive terrorism, which occurs when moderate segments of the population decline to speak against or actively resist terrorism. 

The chart below shows the process of radicalization as well as the reinforcing cycle that continues to make the problem worse as times goes on. Hamid makes the point that while only a small percentage of Muslims become active terrorists, there are a very large number of what he calls "passive terrorists" who support the ideals of the cause but will never become violent.

However, it is a numbers game. The more adherents of Islam who follow the fundamentalist view of Salafism, the greater chance that a few more will become violent extremists. The first step in combating jihadist terrorism is to reduce the number of "passive terrorists" as Hamid calls them.

The solution to all of this is exceedingly complex. "No single, magical solution for defeating Islamism" exists according to Hamid.

However, Hamid sees a critical first step that can be taken is to weaken what he calls the "hijab phenomenon" .

Weakening the hijab phenomenon is pivotal to stopping the growth of Islamism at the ideological level. Wearing the hijab is discussed as a cultural phenomenon, rather than an individual choice, as many Muslim women are peaceful people (Hamid, 2007, pp.120-121). I have observed that, over the last few decades, terrorism was preceded by an increase in the prevalence of the hijab. In Sunni Muslim areas such as Kurdistan in Iraq, most women did not wear the hijab; these areas experienced fewer acts of terrorism than areas where the hijab was common, such as Al-Anbar Province.  

If more hijabs start coming off there may be hope in Iran and elsewhere.

I still am looking for an explanation of why Islam has become the retrograde force that it is today at the same time that Christianity has become so liberal and tolerant that calling it progressive is using a term that is much too mild.

However, I have a better understanding of why all of the hijabs have appeared over the last 50 years...and what it tells us.

And the Iranian protests that began with a woman who was jailed because of the hijab provides hope that we may have reached a turning point where radical Islam may soon be in retreat.

Then and Now

A short compilation of "then and now" items to provide context to the world we are living in at present  compared to the past.

Covid

Do you remember this statement that Joe Biden made almost exactly two years ago?

Then.

Now.

For those who argue that Covid deaths are the better metric.

And there is this to show how The Washington Post reported it then and now.

Financial Conditions

Do you remember in March, 2002 as the Covid pandemic and lockdowns were starting that it seemed everything was coming unglued?

It really felt scary and bad then, didn't it?

List of items that are now below those March, 2020 lows.

Source: https://twitter.com/MacroAlf/status/1583855770705465345/photo/1

The Price of Eggs

Of course, a lot of things are a lot higher in price now they were then.

A comparison of the prices of eggs by one consumer between December, 2020 and October, 2022.

Global Warming?

We also hear incessantly about global warming and the need to eliminate all fossil fuels in powering our daily lives.

Based on what we are told you would think it was much colder then than it is now.

Look at this chart that shows the high temperatures recorded at every U.S. climatology station on October 21 for every year between 1895-2022.

60% of all stations recorded a high of over 80 degrees on October 21, 1947. Only 15% were above that temperature this year.

Do you see any upward trend in the data?

Source: https://twitter.com/JunkScience/status/1583638205018296320

We also have often heard in recent years that the polar bears are going to be extinct due to global warming.

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-polar-bears-extinct-by-2100/

Al Gore made the plight of the polar bears a part of his movie "An Inconvenient Truth" where he showed an image like this of a forlorn polar bear in desperate straits due to melting Arctic ice.

Credit: Gerard Van der Leun

However, the facts are far different.

There are actually many, many more polar bears today in the Arctic than existed when Al Gore was in high school.

Then     5,000-10,000  polar bears

Now     26,000

Source: https://financialpost.com/opinion/bjorn-lomborg-suppressing-good-news-is-scaring-our-kids-witless

Florida Governor

Two weeks before the Florida election for Governor in 2018 a CNN poll had Democrat Andrew Gillum leading Republican Ron DeSantis by 12 points. 

Source: https://t witter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1583623854785957889/photo/1

DeSantis went on to win that race by a mere 32,000 votes out of 8.1 million votes cast.

DeSantis has led Florida to so much success in navigating Florida over the last four years that he is considered a prime Presidential candidate.

Gillum was found in a Miami Beach hotel in 2020 with a male prostitute who had overdosed on meth. Gillum, married with three children, was so intoxicated he could not answer any questions to the responding police officers. He later came out and stated he was bisexual.

Source: https://www.metroweekly.com/2020/03/former-florida-governor-candidate-andrew-gillum-found-in-hotel-room-with-gay-escort-who-allegedly-overdosed/

Earlier this year Gillum was also charged in a 21-count federal indictment for conspiracy, wire fraud and making false statements regarding fund raising and the misuse of campaign funds.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndfl/pr/former-tallahassee-mayor-and-gubernatorial-candidate-and-associate-charged-conspiracy

A trial is set for next April in which Gillum faces 20 years in federal prison.

It is hard to imagine how different Florida would look today but for that slim vote margin four years ago.

Has any state's residents ever come this close to disaster by a factor of .4% of votes cast?

A reminder that every vote really does count.

It is also a reminder that the election day votes count, not the polls.

Is The End of Political Division In Sight?

Conflicts and wars do not end until one side accepts their fate.

Peace is not achieved until one side realizes the balance of power is such that it is futile to continue the conflict.

The costs of continuing the conflict are finally determined to be greater than the hope that any benefit is going to be gained.

There are times that both sides come to that conclusion, each accepts their fate, and an uneasy truce is the result.

However, true peace is generally only achieved when one side effectively admits that their cause is lost and ceases putting up a fight.

This was the case with Germany and Japan in World War II and it was the case with the Confederacy in the Civil War. 

In politics, it manifests itself in a little different way. One side becomes effectively marginalized and has limited power when they are on the losing side of a big issue. 

This was the case with Democrats who opposed the abolition of slavery in the name of states' rights in the 1860's. As a result, Republicans took control of the levers of power in the U.S. Congress and the Democrats lost their central issue based on  the will of the American people.

Republicans more or less controlled Congress for much of the next 70 years.

The speed of change in political affiliation coming out of the Civil War was mind boggling.

Democrats controlled almost 70% of Senate seats in 1857. By 1864, They had less than 20% of the seats in the U.S. Senate.

You can see that in this chart that shows control of the Senate and House from 1855-2022.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_States_Congresses

The same was true for Republicans as they argued against the expanded use of federal powers beginning with The New Deal. They lost the argument to the American people and were in a period of irrelevancy in Congress for over 60 years.

However, since 1996 neither party has been able to attain a significant majority of seats in either the House of Senate so as to be considered dominant. We have been in an era of political division that continues to manifest itself in every aspect of life today in the United States.

It should also not go unnoticed that both of these crisis periods in American history acted as a catalyst for one party to become dominant with the American voters. One party was judged to be with the mainstream of American voters. The other essentially became irrelevant.

All of this is worth considering as we examine the events going on in the United States right now.

Joe Biden ran on a promise of being a uniter rather than a divider.

Biden has not united anything because he made a choice to align himself with most of the far-left tendencies of his party. 

As a result, the country remains more divided than ever.

Will this division continue or could we be entering a period where one political party becomes marginalized because they are judged to be out of step with the mainstream?

That is a big question leading up to this year's mid-term elections.

In recent years the Democrat party has been increasingly controlled by those on the far left of the political spectrum who want to reform and remake what they see as an evil and flawed country.

Democrats who run for office and do not cater to this constituency have limited prospects because they know that if they do they risk losing a small (<30%) but critical portion of their base of support. 

This puts Democrats in a very tough position. They cannot afford to lose the support of the radical left in their party. However, they also cannot afford to lose any more traditional working class voters. They also have to appease the radicals while trying to convince suburban women (a gender that Democrats are not even willing to define) that they are really not going to defund the police, support no bail policies and allow Antifa and BLM radicals to start storming and threatening suburban neighborhoods.

The 2020 mid-term election also looks like it will test whether the Democrats are able to retain the Hispanic vote which has traditionally been an important voting bloc for the party.

The Latino vote went heavily for Democrats in 2008, 2012 and 2016.

In 2020, Trump got about 38% of the Hispanic vote---a 10 point increase from four years before.

A Rasmussen poll this week about a hypothetical matchup between Trump and Biden in 2024 indicates that Trump would carry Hispanics by 12 points. 

That is a 46 POINT improvement compared to two years ago.

That is also DOUBLE the margin that Trump had over Biden in the poll with White voters!

If this poll is only half right, the Democrats are in deep, deep trouble.

If you look again at the charts above, the country has shifted more Republican than Democrat over the last 25 years. The 2008 election of Obama and the Democrats gaining control of the House and Senate was an anomaly due to the 2008 financial crisis.  That move to the Democrats was quickly reversed when they tried to govern with a much more liberal platform than they ran on.

This resulted in the enormous gains that the GOP made in subsequent elections and ultimately led to Donald Trump winning the Presidency.

For example, this chart shows how Republicans have come to dominate state legislatures since 1994.

Source: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1589260955254004648/2067408791901872812

However, what stands out in looking at the makeup of Congress over the last 25 years is how evenly divided it has been compared to other periods since the Civil War.

Will this continue? 

History suggests that our divided government will come to end soon.

And right now the Republicans look to be better positioned to be the dominant national political party..

The voters in the country still lean center right. This Gallup survey shows that the number of voters who describe themselves as conservative or moderate outnumber self-described liberals by three to one.

At the same time, half of Democrats now refer to themselves as liberal. 

In 1994, only 25% of Democrats considered themselves liberal. That is the same percentage of Democrats who identified as conservative in 1994.

This has meant that Democrats who consider themselves conservative or moderate have fled the party.

Is is just a coincidence that the success of Democrats at the ballot box has declined as the influence of liberalism has increased in the Democrat party?

You can see how far outside the mainstream views the average Democrat is when looking at this poll question posed by FoxNews last week.

The biggest question in the upcoming mid-term election is whether significant majorities of Hispanics and Independents are going to stand by and endorse what Biden and the Democrats have done to the country in less than two short years.

Women who are Independents are particularly important in this regard. 

A New York Times/Siena College poll this week showed Independents favoring Republicans by 10 points and Independent Women by 18 points in the generic Congressional ballot.

In a little over two weeks we will find out whether the polls are right or wrong.

What we know for certain is that in the United States system, the voters can get any type of government they want.

They can completely remake the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate in two years. Two-thirds of the Senate and the Presidency can be overhauled in four years. The entire national electoral body can be undone in six years.

It has been done before.

Look again at the graphs above on what happened in the wake of the Civil War and Great Depression. 

I believe the only way out out of the mess we are in right now is to send a loud and convincing message to Democrats that they are on the wrong path.

I also don't see how the Democrats survive long term as a viable party longer term without the working class, rural voters, Independents and Hispanics.

How successful can you be as a national party that primarily appeals to Blacks, urban dweller, single women and college-educated voters?

If the Democrats take a beating at the polls in a couple of weeks you can be sure they will be looking for someone to blame.

They will be unlikely to blame their policies. Most likely it will be Joe Biden (and his son Hunter) that will be singled out for their failures.

However, ignoring the will of the voters for long is sure to guarantee that you are soon on the outside looking in when it comes to political power.

A huge red wave should also end any talk that Biden will run in 2024.  With few in his own party willing to stand up for him, he may face a very difficult time in his remaining term.

2024 will likely be the real test as to whether the Democrats maintain relevancy as a national party. 

It will be a Presidential election year.

There are also 23 Democrat Senate seats that must be defended out of 33 seats up for election.

As always polls do not matter.

The only thing that matters are the votes of the people.

In the end, the people get the government they deserve---good or bad.

It is also absolutely true that politicians who do not heed the will of the voters do not retain their power for very long.

We will know a lot more about whether our political divisions may have a chance at receding in a few short weeks.

Shielding Big Pharma?

If you doubt the influence that Big Pharma has on the FDA and CDC pay attention to any decision the CDC makes on adding the Covid vaccines to the standard childhood immunization schedule.

The CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee is scheduled to hold a meeting today and tomorrow (October 19 and 20) in which it may vote to add the Covid vaccines to the childhood immunization schedule.

Why would this be done?

After all, almost three years into the pandemic it would seem to almost everyone that children are at almost no serious risks of severe illness or death from Covid.

There have only been about 1,300 deaths attributed to Covid from children age 0-17 in the last three years.

That works out to less than 500 deaths per year in a population of over 73 million.

For perspective, there are about 900 drowning deaths in children each year.

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/

You can also barely see the number of hospitalizations for Covid among children in this CDC chart.

Source: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/covidnet/covid19_5.html

Children 0-17 have made up less than 3% of total Covid hospitalizations even though that age demographic represents about 22% of the total U.S. population.

Despite a massive advertising campaign and immense pressure from public health authorities, it appears most parents have determined that any benefits of the Covid vaccine for the their children is not worth the potential risks of the injections.

Only 2.6% of children less than 5 years old have been fully vaccinated with the initial two doses.

Less than one-third of those ages 5-11 have been fully vaccinated.

60% in the 12-17 age group are fully vaccinated.

Meanwhile in Denmark the Covid vaccine is now banned for anyone under age 18.

It has been determined that the risks outweigh the benefits except in rare circumstances.

In Norway, Covid vaccines are only recommended for those over 16 years of age.

It took more than seven years after the polio vaccine was first administered in trials before that vaccine was recommended for use by children.

Considering that the Covid vaccines have been authorized for children 11 years and under for less than one year, and the extremely low probability of severe disease in children, what could be the reason to add this vaccine to the standard childhood immunization schedule?

You might be interested to know Pharma companies only receive liability protection for vaccines if they are authorized under an "emergency use" authorization or the vaccines are on the CDC's childhood immunization schedule.

We are still officially under a "public health emergency" that has been in effect since January, 20202. The PHE order was recently extended through January 11, 2023.

As things now stand, it might be hard to justify another extension after that date.

That would then mean that any liability protection for the vaccine makers would expire at that time.

Unless the vaccines are added to the childhood immunization schedule before them.

That liability protection then extends to any of the vaccines that are also given to adults.

Therefore, if the vaccines are added to the childhood schedule you have to ask whether it is being done more to protect Big Pharma than our children?

Instead of providing protection for our children might we actually be about to use them as a shield for Big Pharma?

Could it also be that the move might be done to help the lagging current vaccine efforts where we are already seeing the latest bivalent booster uptake to have flatlined?

Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends

It might also be because 75% of the FDA's drug division budget is funded by the pharmaceutical companies it regulates.

The CDC is also known to have taken millions of dollars of funding from Big Pharma through the CDC Foundation that was conditional and specifically earmarked for promotion of the contributing company's products.

In any other sphere of life these potential conflicts of interest would be reason alone to question the integrity of the decisions and guidance being offered.

Will we hear any questions asked of the CDC and FDA if the Covid vaccines somehow end up on the childhood vaccine schedule by the end of the week?

Put me down as saying that is extremely unlikely.

In Defense of the Indefensible

 Last month Kamala Harris said that the the border of the United States was secure.

Source: https://thetexan.news/vice-president-harris-calls-southern-border-secure-under-biden-administration/

It is just one example where Democrats either have to outright lie or turn themselves into a pretzel attempting to justify what is transpiring on the southern border of the United States.

Do these numbers suggest that the border is secure? 

Mind you that these are just the numbers of illegals that were apprehended and released into the country.

It does not include those that snuck in undetected.

The Biden administration is on track to allow 5 million illegal immigrants to enter the country in two years.

It is all being done in direct contravention of the laws of the United States of America.

These numbers also do not account for the massive amounts of drugs being smuggled into the country across that border. This includes Fentanyl which is primarily manufactured in small labs in Mexico from raw materials sourced in China.

Fentanyl now accounts for the vast majority of U.S. drug overdose deaths.

Credit: https://www.statista.com/chart/18744/the-number-of-drug-overdose-deaths-in-the-us/

Those are sad, sad statistics.

On the other hand, what is amusing is seeing the reactions of the people and politicians in Democrat strongholds such as Martha's Vineyard, New York City, Washington, DC and Chicago when they have to deal with illegal immigrants showing up in their areas.

In these areas it is not uncommon to see this sign in someone's yard or apartment window.

Martha's Vineyard, which saw 50 illegal immigrants flown into the liberal enclave by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, mades sure that the illegals were removed within one day.

Source: https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/illegal-immigrants-get-the-boot-after-one-day-on-marthas-vineyard/

The locals stated that they simply did not have the room to house the illegals.

However, you have to wonder how they expect Del Rio, Texas to be better equipped to handle the onslaught of illegals by the Biden administration's failure to enforce the nation's immigration laws?

It goes without saying that New York City, Washington, DC and Chicago are in a better position to deal with illegals than Martha's Vineyard but we are also hearing nothing but complaints from them as well.

Each of these cities has also proudly stated they are "sanctuary" cities.

Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/sanctuary-cities

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has declared a "state of emergency" due to 17,000 illegals showing up in his city.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nyc-mayor-adams-declares-state-emergency-17000-migrants-spark-shelter-crisis

Washington, DC Muriel Bowser declared a "public health emergency" in the nation's capital last month as the illegals arrived from Texas.

Source: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/09/texas-busing-migrants-dc-emergency/

Mayor Lori Lightfoot stated that she welcomed the migrants but then turned around and started sending the illegals to hotels in suburban areas outside of the city of Chicago.

Source: https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/chicago-welcomes-texas-migrants-then-sends-them-to-suburbs/

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to defend the illegal immigration and take a shot at Governor DeSantis by claiming that there was a labor shortage and the immigrants were needed to pick crops in Florida and elsewhere in the South.

The only problem with that is that it is AGAINST THE LAW for anyone in the United States to employ an illegal alien.

Anyone hiring an illegal immigrant is in violation of Title 8 U.S.C. Section 1324.

Source: https://jsberrylaw.com/blog/is-it-a-crime-to-employ-undocumented-immigrants/

Does Nancy Pelosi not know that or is she encouraging employers to break the law?

It just goes to show how the Democrats are attempting to defend that which is indefensible.

Is there any hope that this will change?

The only solution I see is for the voters to send a strong message to the Democrats in the November mid-term elections.

If Republicans make significant gains in Congress and the Biden administration still does not take actions to enforce the immigration laws it may be necessary to consider impeachment efforts for those who have violated their oath of office. That would logically begin with Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas.

I do not want that to be the case but something has to be done for the Democrats to get the message.

We have no country if we have no borders.

We also have no country if our leaders do not enforce our laws.

There is no doubt we need reform of our immigration laws.

However, any immigration reform law needs to have strict limits about who gets in and how many are allowed in.

Right now the Democrats seem unwilling to accept any limits.

Therefore, why would they sign off on any legislation that would require strict limits they would have to honor when there are effectively no limits now?

That is why they ignore the laws with impunity in furtherance of what they apparently believe is beneficial to their political objectives.

Democrats need to be disabused of the notion that we will simply let our leaders ignore our laws.

That is why the only solution to the chaos on the southern border appears to be to curtail the power of Democrats in Congress until they come to their senses.