Why Do They Lie And Hide?

Why do so many Democrat politicians spend so much time lying and hiding about who they are?

What is that all about?

Why do they need to do it if they are so concerned about DEMOCRACY?

Could it be that that they are afraid to have people vote on their actual policies and views?

For democracy to work it requires a well-informed citizenry that includes information and communication that are representative, accurate and trusted in order to insure a fair electoral process that allows citizens to hold policymakers accountable.

That is certainly not the case in 2024.

Kamala Harris and the Democrats are doing everything in their power to obfuscate and obscure almost everything about their true views, values, beliefs and agenda from the voters.

It was only yesterday (well over a month since Kamala was anointed to replace Joe Biden) that Kamala did her first interview with anyone in the media. Even then, it was pre-recorded, she needed to have her running mate with her and it was done with Dana Bash of CNN who is known for being strongly anti-Trump. It took all of 18 minutes.

Think back to what we have seen over the last several months.

It was only a little over two months ago that we were told repeatedly that Joe Biden was as "sharp as a tack" and had "never been better".

One of those who spoke those words the loudest was his Vice President who also liked to tout the fact that she was the last person in the room on the decisions that Biden made.

It was all an act.

Robert F, Kennedy, Jr. and every other potential Democrat challenger to Biden in 2024 were summarily blocked by the Democrat establishment so that Biden would have a clear path to the nomination.

One of the reasons that the Democrats kept insisting that Biden was totally fit for the Presidency was that Kamala was deemed a liability due to her far-left views and high levels of unpopularity in poll after poll when she was VP.

The polling showed that the approval ratings of Harris got progressively worse the more that people got to know her while in office.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/projects/kamala-harris-approval-rating-polls-vs-biden-other-vps/

Consider this comparison of favorability ratings of Kamala Harris to other recent VP's are reported by the Los Angeles Times in April , 2024.

Her net approval was about 20 points worse that Dick Cheney or Mike Pence at similar points in office.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/projects/kamala-harris-approval-rating-polls-vs-biden-other-vps/

Add to this the fact that Kamala had been a spectacularly poor candidate for the Democrat nomination in 2020.  She was never able to get above a 5% level in the polls and dropped out before getting even one vote in the Democrat primaries.

One of the reasons for her failure as a candidate was that her far-left views were even too much for Democrat voters.

Consider the platform that Kamala Harris ran on in 2020.

• She was in favor of the Green New Deal.
• She was opposed to fracking.
• She was strongly in favor of gun control and wanted to see mandatory gun buy backs for "assault weapons".
• She wanted to substantially reduce the defense budget.
• She was in favor of some form of reparations for African Americans.
• She was in favor of free college at public institutions.
• She was in favor of abolishing the death penalty.
• She was in favor of re-examining ICE and was opposed to building the border wall. She wants to allow more refugees and immigrants into the United States and is against sending illegal aliens home. In fact, she compared ICE to the KKK.
• She was in favor of decriminalizing illegal border crossings.
• She opposed a border wall.
• She was in favor of providing free health care coverage to illegal immigrants.
• She was in favor of a $15 national minimum wage
• She was in favor of abortion up to the time of birth.
• She was in favor of repealing most of the Trump tax cuts and would like new taxes on banks and financial institutions.
• She was is favor of reinstating the Iran nuclear deal.
• She was against the China tariffs and also opposed the new USMCA trade agreement that replaced NAFTA.
• She was a co-sponsor of Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All bill that would have eliminated private health insurance and required a new payroll tax on employers and employees to fund the cost on top of the current FICA taxes. When criticized about eliminating the option for private insurance during the campaign she changed her position and stated she was open to merely creating a "public option"

There were plenty of reasons why Democrats did everything they could to prop up Joe Biden and were fearful of Kamala Harris.

However, once they had no choice there was only one way forward.

Lie and hide.

What other way is there to try and get the American people to elect Kamala Harris?

Now that Kamala is the Democrat nominee it is as if she never held any of these views.

We are also supposed to believe that Harris did not sit at the right hand of Biden for the last 3-1/2 years as inflation surged, the invasion at the southern border occurred , we witnessed the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, Covid vaccine mandates, the Russia/Ukraine and Middle East wars and all the rest.

However, as soon as Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democrat nominee for President, she suddenly became a popular cult figure.

It is quite remarkable.

Source: https://elections2024.thehill.com/national/harris-favorability-rating/

What is also remarkable in that Kamala Harris is not talking about any of the issues she held so dear when she last ran for President.

In fact, she seems to running away from them.

She was against fracking. Now we are told she is for fracking.

She was for the elimination of all private health insurance. We are now told that would be optional.

She was for mandating electric vehicles for everyone. We are now told that is not true anymore.

She was for the Iran nuclear deal. We are told that is no longer true.

She supported defunding the police. We are now told she was a tough on crime prosecutor.

She said that it should not be a crime to enter the country illegally. We are now told she knows how to fix the border chaos.

She was the deciding vote to add 87,00) new IRS employees in order to increase tax audits and compliance ro raise $200 billion in new revenues from unreported tips, etc. She has now announced she is not in favor of taxing tips at all copying a Trump proposal.

Of course, it is interesting that all of these supposed reversals in views have not come from the mouth of Kamala Harris (except the reversal of taxing tips). They have all come from faceless surrogates and subordinates.

Why is that?

May it have something to do with plausible deniability if she is elected?

The effort to lie and hide is so blatant that it is being sold as perfectly normal by Democrats defending Kamala.

“We don’t have time for that s‑‑‑,” one Democratic operative said about the idea of lengthy policy proposals. “The reason you talk about policy is to bring the race back to values, and this race is about values now, so why distract.”

This race is about values?

It is about a "threat to democracy"?

How does lie and hide fit into a values-based campaign? 

Notice that in her CNN interview that aired last night Kamala did not explain why her policy positions had changed. She said the important thing was that her values had not changed. What does that even mean when it is known that she has taken numerous radical positions in the past.

Link to video

How is trying to obscure your true views from the voters not a threat to democracy of the highest order?

I also could not help but laugh when I saw this clip of actor Ben Stiller being interviewed at the DNC when asked why he was supporting Kamala Harris and her platform.

He said it was "time for change".

Link to video

Harris has not only been VP for four years but the Democrats have held the White House for 12 of the last 16 years!

Time for change?

Who wants to tell Stiller?

Or course, he is undoubtedly comfortable with the Harris/Walz ticket as it is close to the world in which he spends most of his time.

It is nothing but an act.

The Gender Divide

One of the more interesting phenomenons in politics in the United States today is the gender divide.

There is a huge difference in the views of men and women when it comes to politics.

This gender divide was not present in the 1970's. It first appeared in the 1980 election when Ronald Reagan was elected.

Today, Women tend to be Democrats. Men tend to be Republicans.

For example, in 2016, Men favored Trump by 12 points. Women voted for Hillary by 12 points amounting to a 24 point gap.

The gap was 23 points when Biden was on the ballot in 2020.

The gender divide has widened in the last few years with Trump but it has been present for a long time.

In fact, there was a gender divide of 22 points with Bush-Gore in 2000, 17 points with Clinton-Dole and 18 points with Obama-Romney.

Source: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/The-Exit-Polls.pdf?x85095

Most current polls show the gender divide continuing in 2024.

A Echelon Insights poll that was just released shows Trump with an overall 49%-48% edge but he is favored by Men 54%-44% while Women are supporting Harris by 52%-44%---an 18 point gap. The good news for Trump is that he is doing slightly better with both Men and Women in that poll than he did in 2020.

On the other hand, a New York Times/Siena poll that was conducted a week earlier in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina that had Trump and Harris tied at 48%-48% shows an even larger gender divide.

In that poll, Trump is leading win Men by 55%-40%. Harris is favored by Women by 55%-41%---a gigantic 29 point gender gap.

You get a better sense of the gender gap when it is broken down by age.

This is a graphic from The New York Times on the gender gap by age from a similar battleground state poll it did in August matching Trump and Harris.

Men of all ages favor Trump. Women of all ages support Harris. However, the largest gender gap is in the age 18-29 age group----around 50 points.

Credit: https://x.com/ClayTravis/status/1827889880753439047/photo/1

The gender divide in the age 18-29 age group is clearly impacted by the number of single women in that demographic.

However, in many respects the gender divide is largely influenced by a much larger marriage gap that has existed over the years.

Those that are married---both men and women---vote Republican.

Women that are not married vote Democrat.

Source: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/The-Exit-Polls.pdf?x85095

As I have pointed out in these pages before, this breakdown of voting by gender and and marital status puts the gender divide in sharp focus

Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/1787170/no-one-benefits-more-from-the-destruction-of-the-american-family-than-the-democratic-party/

Undoubtedly, the abortion issue in the wake of the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade has contributed to a widening gender gap.

That is apparent in the New York Times/Siena poll cited above.

Consider the different responses of Men and Women on what is the most important issue in 2024 that will determine their vote in that poll.

The most important issue for Men is the economy---27%.

The most important issue for Women is abortion---22%.

Of course, what is most interesting is putting all of this in context.

The Democrats have spent a lot of time over the last two years demonizing the U.S. Supreme Court due to its decision in overturning the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion.

The Democrats like to portray the decision as if abortion has been banned in the United States.

It should comes as little surprise that many believe that propaganda even though the decision merely placed the question of what the limits (if any) to abortion should be  determined at a state level by the voters.

Last year a survey found that half of Americans thought overturning Roe v. Wade banned abortion nationally.

That view was held by 63% of Democrats.  I wonder where they got that idea?

What is even more interesting is that while half of Americans seem to believe that the U.S. Supreme Court banned abortions in the United States, abortions in the United States have actually increased after Roe was overturned.

In fact, abortions in the first full year after Roe was overturned reached a decade plus high according to the Guttmacher Institute which is an abortion rights think tank.

Source: https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/health/2024/03/19/abortions-hit-12-year-high-in-first-full-year-after-roe-overturned

In 2023, the first full year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortions within the formal U.S. health care system hit a 12-year high, according to data released Tuesday by the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights policy think tank.

There were 1,026,690 abortions performed last year, a rate of 15.7 abortions per 1,000 women, according to the data. That is up from 930,160, or 10.4%, in 2020, the last previous year for which comprehensive data was available.

Medication abortion accounted for 63% of all abortions last year, up 10 percentage points from 2020.

It should be noted in the data above that almost two-thirds of abortions in the last year were medication abortions many of which involved the use of the drug "mifepristone".

Abortion opponents recently sought to have the Supreme Court revoke the FDA's approval of mifepristone. This drug has been available for over 20 years with FDA approval and has been used in over 6 million abortions over that time.

However, there has been little attention by Democrats or the mainstream media to the fact that the same Supreme Court that overruled Roe also UNANIMOUSLY rejected a challenge to the FDA's approval of mifepristone in a decision handed down in June.

Another interesting insight in the gender divide is the the huge difference in the political views of women who are college graduate vs. non-college graduates.

White women who are non-college graduates voted for Trump by a 63%-36% margin in 2020.  White women who are college graduates supported Biden by 9 points. That is a 36 point gap. It is larger than the gender divide between men and women.

Do white women who are non-college grads care less about abortion or other issues important to women than college women?

Source: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/The-Exit-Polls.pdf?x85095

What can we make of all of this?

One of the greatest thinkers of our time was a man named Richard Feynman (1918-1988).

Feynman worked on the Manhattan project in his twenties and went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in developing an understanding of quantum mechanics. He was on the Physics faculty at Caltech for much of his career

However, his method of thinking, which he applied to everything in life, is what made him standout as a unique human being. He took nothing for granted or at face value. He approached every problem or issue from the ground up.

The Feynman method of thought was developed by a man who refused conventional wisdom at all turns and who sought to build his mental computer from the ground up, starting with an understanding of mathematics at a very young age. (Feynman’s early notebooks are records of him deriving algebra, calculus, trigonometry, and various higher maths on his own, with original results and notation.)

This was how Feynman approached all knowledge: What can I know for sure, and how can I come to know it? It resulted in his famous quote, “You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” Feynman believed it and practiced it in all of his intellectual work. (emphasis added)

 Feynman also said this.

Age 18-29 year old women are better educated than they have ever been in the United States.

Women have outnumbered men in college degree programs by several million in each year for most of the last 20 years.

Undergraduate enrollment numbers in the United States from 1970 to 2031, by genderhttps://www.statista.com/statistics/236360/undergraduate-enrollment-in-us-by-gender/

How do you explain the gender divide?

How do you explain the marriage divide?

How do you explain the college/non-college divide?

Those are tough questions.

However, the divides are real and are big reasons why we see the wide divisions we see in American politics today.

I offered some thoughts on the gender divide in a post earlier this year titled "Mars, Venus and Planet Earth" if you would like to take a deeper look at this issue and some possible explanations as to what underlies all of this. It might be worthwhile reading for additional context on this issue if you did not see it previously.

Hope Is Not Enough

It was announced last week that the FDA has approved two new Covid vaccine boosters---a Pfizer and Moderna version.

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/08/22/nx-s1-5082372/updated-covid-vaccines-fda-approved

These vaccines were developed to target the KP.2 variant which is in the Omicron group.

However, the Covid cases now circulating have already been overtaken by even newer variants.

As you can see, the KP.2 variant only represents about 3% of current Covid cases according to CDC data.

The KP.3 and KP3.1.1 now account for over 50% of Covid cases.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-summary

The article following the headline reported that the vaccine has been approved on a HOPE.

Both target strains have already been overtaken by even newer variants, but they’re all still part of the omicron group. The hope is the vaccines are close enough to boost immunity and protect people through the rest of the surprisingly big summer wave and the surge expected this winter.

Is "hope" enough when it comes to a medical intervention that may have benefits but could also have risks?

The FDA announcement on the new Covid boosters comes shortly after both Joe Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci were reported to have contracted Covid recently. It was the third infection for both.

In Fauci's case it came after having received six shots of the Covid vaccine since they were first made available.

Link: https://x.com/nataliegwinters/status/1822998724387241993

It was then reported that Fauci was hospitalized for a week with West Nile Virus shortly after his bout with Covid.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/fauci-west-nile-virus-mosquito-georgetown-33ba3fdf19025d6a4e2b5b29139f6973

Is this mere coincidence?

Or does it have something to do with a suppressed immune system due to Covid, Fauci's age or the vaccine doses he took over time?

It would be nice to know but there continues to be little interest about looking into that last possibility to this day.

However, not having any real answers does not stop the FDA, the CDC and others continuing to tell people to take the shots based on HOPE.

Despite what the authorities may say about the vaccines, it is apparent that most people around the world have made their own judgment regarding the effectiveness and advisability of taking the vaccine.

You could say they have lost hope in the effectiveness of the Covid vaccines.

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

Daily vaccine doses administered in the United States is not even reported by the CDC any longer. It stopped reporting that data over a year ago.

However, the CDC does report cumulative vaccine doses that have been given for Covid and the flu during the current flu season from September thru May.

Only 13% of those 18 and over (34 million/260 million) took the Covid vaccine in the United States during the last year.

By comparison, about 80% took at least one dose of the Covid vaccine in the 2021-2022 period.

Of course, a not insignificant portion of those were due to the force of mandates.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/coverage/covidvaxview/interactive/adult-vaccinations-administered.html

It is interesting to note that there were almost 30 million more flu shot vaccines administered this season than there were Covid vaccines---63 million compared to 34 million.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/dashboard/vaccination-administered.html

However, it appears that distrust in the Covid vaccine has caused more people to also become skeptical about the benefits of the flu vaccine over the last three years.

Flu vaccine doses that were administered dropped by 22% between the 2020-2021 season and 2023-2024.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/dashboard/vaccination-administered.html

Has the lack of trust that the public has in what they were told about the Covid vaccines resulted in more skepticism about the value of other vaccines?

That is the reason that a foundation of trust is so critical in our governmental institutions if we are to have a well functioning society.

One person who has been very skeptical of the government institutions that oversee the nation's health standards is Robert F; Kennedy, Jr. 

Kennedy has been particularly critical of the FDA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the CDC for the unhealthy symbiotic relationship between these agencies and the corporate interests they are supposed to regulate and oversee.

The endorsement that RFK, Jr. has provided to Trump and the apparent commitment that Trump has made to include RFK in his administration, if he is elected, holds promise that we will see more accountability in this area.

Consider the comments that Kennedy made in the announcement endorsing Trump.

”These agencies—the FDA, USDA, and CDC—are all controlled by giant for-profit corporations. Seventy-five percent of the FDA funding doesn't come from taxpayers; it comes from pharma, and pharma executives, consultants, and lobbyists cycle in and out of these agencies. With President Trump's backing, I'm going to change that. We're going to staff these agencies with honest scientists and doctors who are free from industry funding. We're going to make sure the decisions of consumers, doctors and patients are informed by unbiased science.”

There is a debate about whether the endorsement of Trump and the fact that Kennedy is taking his name off of the ballot in the swing states will benefit Trump or Harris more in the coming election,

I am of the mind that it is a net benefit to Trump based on two factors.

1) Trump lost some support he had in 2016 and 2020 to those that were unhappy with his Covid response, particularly his support for the vaccines. This was especially true regarding Trump's unwillingness to admit that Operation Warp Speed was not the success he claimed it to be. Getting RFK.Jr. on board should bring those voters back to him.

2) RFK, Jr. joining Trump clearly shows that the Democrat party of his father and uncle no longer exists. There are obviously traditional Democrats who have become disenchanted with what the Democrat party has become but to this point were not comfortable in voting for a Republican. Kennedy was the alternative for them this election. The Kennedy endorsement of Trump may be the final push those voters needed to finally break the ties they had to the past.

We will see what the polls say over the next week or so.

One thing is for sure. The timing of the RFK, Jr. endorsement has muted any post-convention momentum for Harris.

The Trump campaign's pollster indicates that they expect that RFK being out of the race will benefit Trump by 1%-2% at the margin in the swing states.

That might not seem a lot but consider the small margins that Trump lost the following states by in 2020.

Arizona            .4%

Georgia             .3%

Michigan         2.8%

Nevada              2.4%

Pennsylvania    1.2%

Wisconsin           .6%

However, just like the deployment of the vaccine, hope is not generally enough when it comes to winning elections (with the obvious exception of the 2008 election of Barack Obama's "Hope and Change" election).

The 2024 election promises to be extraordinarily close.

A slip of the tongue or external event that no one expects could easily decide the race one way or the other.

Kamala's camp is managing her campaign to avoid a slip of the tongue at all costs sheltering her from any unscripted appearances before the media or the voters. Her campaign strategy is apparently based on "Hope and Joy"

We are beyond the Democrat convention and Kamala still does not have any policy statements or positions on any issues on her campaign website.

Can she get away with running for President without the voters knowing anything about what she really believes or what her agenda will be for the next four years?

Will the new Covid vaccines get any acceptance from the public?

Hope is not enough.

Many seem to have also uttered this phrase but it is hard to ignore it coming from a coach who always preached preparation, a focus on fundamentals and execution to his players.

How Clear Does It Have To Be?

The father of Kamala Harris was a Stanford University economics professor who was known as someone from the "Marxist school of economics".

He joined the Stanford faculty in 1972 and taught there until he retired in 1998.

This was the headline from The Stanford Daily when Dr. Don Harris was offered his Stanford post.

Source: https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2020/08/what-father-of-kamala-harris-thinks.html

The headline left little doubt about who Harris was and what he believed.

This is from the body of that article.

Don Harris, a prominent Marxist Professor, has been offered a full professorship in the Economics Department here, Department Chairman James Rosse confirmed yesterday. Rosse said Harris has not yet accepted the offer, but he "expects to hear from him this week."

Harris who still holds a tenured position at the University of Wisconsin, has served as a visiting Professor here, and is currently teaching at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.

The appointment is the direct result of student pressure in recent years to hire more faculty who favor an "alternative approach" to economics, said Economics Prof. John Gurley, who now teaches the only undergraduate course in Marxist economics. 

Gurley said the appointment of Harris was the culmination of the six-month "round-the-world" search for the most qualified Marxist professor available.

Economist and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman from the University of Chicago could be said to be the polar opposite of Harris in economic thinking.

Friedman was considered a giant among economists for his support of free markets and free enterprise. He strongly argued that there was no alternative for bettering the lives of the masses than a free market system.

Friedman also believed that economic freedom was a necessary pre-condition for political freedom in any society

Consider what Milton Friedman said on The Phil Donahue show in 1979.

"The record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system."

Donahue, who passed away on Sunday at age 88, was a noted liberal who asked Friedman if he was wrong about his unfailing support for free market economics.

Friedman's comments seem particularly relevant today when considering the far left views of Kamala Harris. It seems that the apple does not far from the tree.

You can see a two minute clip below that includes Friedman's quote that I cited above.

Link: https://x.com/GoodAMLiberty/status/1825531718633226721

Almost 50 years later there this is still nothing in the record of history that contradicts the statement of Friedman.

There is also nothing we have seen in the course of history that suggests that Marxist economics benefits anyone but the despotic leaders who suggest it is the answer to the problems of any society.

In fact, the last 50 years have made the truth of what Friedman stated even more crystal clear when you see the economic advances that have been made for the masses in China and Russia once central planning and communist economic principles were abandoned.

For example, compare China with Taiwan. We are essentially talking about the same people and cultures. Chinese nationalists fled to Taiwan after their defeat by the communists in 1949. They established an economic system in Taiwan based on free market principles, private property rights and foreign trade.

The Chinese communists seized private property, imposed centralized government controls and adhered to redistributionist principles.

Compare the economic results between Taiwan and China beginning in the 1950's when the two China's went their separate ways.

This economic success became known as the Taiwan Miracle. Taiwan lacked the advantages of the natural resources, land mass and population that were available on the mainland but they had a free enterprise system. It is all they needed.

As you can see, Communist China only began to close the gap when it liberalized its economy and embraced some of the free market economic ideas of Friedman beginning in the early 2000's.

Some additional charts that support the statement by Friedman.

North Korea vs. South Korea.

Same people. Same language. Same historical culture. Different economic and political systems,

The flat green line at the bottom of the chart is North Korea.

Venezuela generally operated under capitalist principles until Hugo Chavez took power and started applying socialist/communist ideals in the country in 1999. Within ten years he had taken over all of the oil companies in the country. 

On the other hand, Poland, Estonia and other Eastern European countries moved towards free market principles beginning in the late 1990's after coming out from under the grips of the Soviets.

 

You see the facts and evidence and have to wonder whether someone promoting Marxist economics would have any credibility at all today other than on a college campus sheltered from the real world.

Then again, we seem to have a couple of candidates running for President and Vice President of the United States that apparently are living in an alternative universe.

If price controls, government mandates, trillions of dollars in spending spending are not enough, here is Kamala Harris when she was running for President in 2020 stating that she is willing to have the federal government confiscate the patents of private companies if they do not comply with government demands.

Link to video

For context, Harris was talking about doing this to pharmaceutical companies who were not willing to lower the prices of their drugs to the levels the government deemed to be "fair".

However, Kamala has also talked about setting price controls for grocery products and has also referenced rent and housing price controls. If she is willing to do it to the drug companies why would she not be willing to do it to everybody else?

What if you refuse to replace the gas stove in your house with an electric model per a government mandate? Can they confiscate your house?

There is supposed to be nothing more sacrosanct in our constitutional system than private property rights.

Yet Kamala Harris believes the government should have the power to confiscate private property if someone does not do what the government wants?

I don't think I have ever seen a scarier view of a politician's core values and true beliefs than in that clip

Isn't this what the communists did in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and Venezuela once they took power?

How clear does all of this have to be to understand what is at stake in this election?

This and That---August 21, 2024 Edition

A few random observations, charts and factoids to provide some context on what is going on in the world.

Political Propaganda

It is easier to understand why the polls have tightened in the Presidential race when you consider media coverage since Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden on the Democrat ticket.

The major networks are not so much providing political coverage of the race but are engaged in a propaganda onslaught for Harris.

Consider a recent study by the Media Research Center on the coverage that the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) have given to Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

84% of the coverage of Kamala Harris has been positive. 89% of Trump's coverage has been negative.

Source: https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2024/08/19/study-networks-deliver-massive-media-honeymoon-kamala-harris

Moreover, Harris has received 66% more airtime than Trump over the last four weeks.

Media coverage of the VP candidates of the Big Three networks is similar.

62% of the airtime of Walz has been positive. 92% of the Vance coverage has been negative.

Of course, we have seen this before.

In the 2020 campaign, Biden's coverage was 66% positive compared to Trump's being 92% negative.

Source: https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2020/10/27/never-more-biased-tv-blasts-trump-92-negative-coverage-66-positive

For the entirety of Trump's four years in office, the Media Research Center found that 90.5% of the coverage of Trump by the three major networks was negative.

Considering all of this it is a wonder that Trump is still standing.

Are we getting political coverage from ABS, CBS and NBC or political propaganda?

Roe vs. Wade

The Democrats have spent a lot of time over the last few years demonizing the U.S. Supreme Court due to its decision in overturning the Roe v. Wade decision on abortion.

The Democrats like to portray the decision as if abortion has been banned in the United States.

The Supreme Court decision two years ago merely determined that the Roe v. Wade decision was flawed in holding that there was a constitutional right to abortion.

The Supreme Court ruled that to conclude that there is such a right at the federal level would either require the passage of legislation or a constitutional amendment detailing that right.

 

It should be noted that in the nearly 50 years since Roe v. Wade was decided all attempts to codify the decision or pass a constitutional amendment failed in Congress.

Simply stated, why should it be possible to enshrine anything so consequential (balancing the right of a woman to an unborn child) by 9 justices in a nation of 340 million people?

As a result of Roe  v. Wade being overturned, the determination of any rights to abortion is to be determined by the people of each state through legislation or constitutional process.

Over the last two years this democratic process has been taking place in various states.  Some states have placed stricter limits on abortion than in Roe v.Wade. Others have expanded access to abortion and placed almost no limits up to the time of birth. In no states has abortion been totally banned as was generally the case before the Roe decision.

Once again, we see the effects of propaganda on public opinion in the aftermath of Roe v.Wade.

Last year a survey found that half of Americans thought overturning Roe v. Wade banned abortion nationally.

That view was held by 63% of Democrats.  I wonder where they got that idea?

All the decision did was leave the question of abortion, and the limits that might be placed on it, to the people in each state to decide.

Some would call this the essence of democracy. 

Will Religion Win or Lose in 2024?

In many respects religion is on the ballot in 2024.

Will it win or lose?

Note the huge difference in this Emerson College poll in Pennsylvania on support for Trump and Harris between those who are believers in Jesus Christ and those who are atheists or agnostics.

Trump's lead overall in this poll is 49%-48%.

Credit: https://x.com/Mark_R_Mitchell/status/1825866699096068399

Although a small sample size, Harris is also leading with Jewish voters 71%-29%,

Eerily Similar

A little over a month ago Joe Biden was pushed aside by a handful of Democrat party leaders including Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama who demanded that he step aside as the Democrat party candidate.

This was despite the fact that Biden had overwhelmingly received the votes of millions of Democrat voters in the primary elections this year.

Many are calling it as a coup as those same party leaders immediately anointed VP Kamala Harris to replace Biden on the Democrat ballot.

Harris had not received one vote by Democrat voters to be the party's nominee in either 2020 or 2024.

A BeeLine reader (thanks K.K) sent me this clipping from his paper that carries a feature each day called "This Day in History".

This is the history related to August 18, 1991.

Interestingly, that coup was put down after three days because Boris Yeltsin who was President of Russia (the largest of the republics in the Soviet Union at that time) spoke out and called on the Russian people to strike and protest the coup.

History.com fills in what happened next.

When soldiers tried to arrest Yeltsin, they found the way to the parliamentary building blocked by armed and unarmed civilians. Yeltsin himself climbed aboard a tank and spoke through a megaphone, urging the troops not to turn against the people and condemning the coup as a “new reign of terror.” The soldiers backed off, some of them choosing to join the resistance. After thousands took the streets to demonstrate, the coup collapsed after only three days.

Gorbachev was released and flown to Moscow, but his regime had been dealt a deadly blow. Over the next few months, he dissolved the Communist Party, granted independence to the Baltic states, and proposed a looser, more economics-based federation among the remaining republics. In December 1991, Gorbachev resigned. Yeltsin capitalized on his defeat of the coup, emerging from the rubble of the former Soviet Union as the most powerful figure in Moscow and the leader of the newly formed Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

 

History may not be repeat but it surely rhymes.

Who would have thought that in the United States of America we would see such striking parallels with the prior politics of the Soviet Union?

Isn't it also interesting that not one Democrat had the courage to stand up and defend Joe Biden? It would not have even required them to face arrest or death in doing so as was the case with Boris Yeltsin when he climbed aboard that tank and spoke through that megaphone.

Democrats like to say they are defending democracy but their actions do not seem to match their rhetoric.

Looking For Price Gouging In All The Wrong Places

Kamala Harris announced last week that the key point in her plan to fight inflation is to prohibit "food price gouging".

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2024/08/16/kamala-harris-economic-policy-price-gouging/74822598007/

For the last couple of years Democrats have blamed inflation in grocery prices on big corporations like Kroger. They ignore the fact that the finger can be pointed right at them due to the trillions in stimulus dollars, increases in fuel costs caused by their war against oil and gas, and increases in wage costs due to all the handouts during the Covid pandemic that caused many people to not work.

Here is an example of Elizabeth Warren blaming Kroger two years ago for the high prices which she says led to record profits.

Link: https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1479465304795324422

She and other Democrats are still trying to use this narrative today.

Let's look at some facts.

Kroger's profit margin is 1.43% of sales as of its most recent quarterly reporting.

Kroger Net Profit Margin
2010-2024
Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/KR/kroger/profit-margins

It is making less than 2 cents on each dollar of sales.

Kroger's profit margin has actually gone down since 2020. (See chart above.)

If Kroger is price gouging they are doing a very poor job of it.

Kroger and others in the grocery and food business have been squeezed by inflation and rising costs (product costs, energy, wages etc.) just like every household in America has.

What are the net profit margins of other large grocery retailers?

Walmart is netting 2.34% and that includes all of their other merchandise as well.

Albertsons is at 1.63%

How do these profit margins in the grocery business compare to large companies in other industries?

Google's (Alphabet) most recent reported net profit margin is 25.90%

Facebook (Meta) is at 32.06%

Pfizer's net profit margin was around 30% the entire time it was able to sell its Covid vaccine with the support of the federal government and its mandates.

Moderna's net profit margin was over 50% during the same time period.

Now that very few people trust those vaccines to prevent getting Covid, their profit margins have cratered.

Why is there no talk about price gouging beyond food and groceries?

Consider the cost of college education over the last 40 years.

The cost of college tuition is up 710% since 1983 while overall inflation is up 194%.

Why is Kamala or Elizabeth Warren not talking about the price gouging that has been ongoing by colleges and universities for years?

Do you think it might have something to do with the almost total support of college administrators and academia for the Democrat party?

Source: https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/02/penn-professors-political-donations-elections

Source: https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/01/31/yale-professors-donated-almost-exclusively-to-democrats-in-2023/

Consider this comparison of donors to Biden and Trump in 2020 who listed their employer as a college or university.

Source: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/11/higher-education-workers-gave-five-times-much-biden-trump

Do you think that Kamala and the Democrats have the slightest interest in stopping the college gravy train?

College costs could not go up without a supply of money to pay for it. Just as is the case with health care costs, college costs have become heavily dependent on the flow of federal money into the system.  Health care costs generally tracked overall inflation in the economy until Medicare and Medicaid were introduced and normal market forces were disrupted beginning in the mid-1960's.  

The same has been true with student loan money.  As more student loan funds became available, the easier it became for colleges to raise tuition costs.  Ironically, a program that was designed to assist students to afford college made it more unaffordable with each passing year. 

This is what occurs over and over again when a well-intentioned "liberal" idea meets the real world.  A desire to do good by government ends up being the undoing of the very people it was intended to help.  

The only answer Democrats have now is to cancel all of that student loan debt.

Of course, that socializes the cost which is then borne by everyone else---those that paid their own college costs, those that sacrificed on other things to pay off their loans and those that chose not to go to college at all.

And if you start cancelling student loan debt what motivation is there for anyone to pay their own way in the future?

What is the motivation for someone to join the military to qualify for the GI Bill?

Surveys show that 70% or more of all enlistments into our voluntary armed services are motivated by the opportunity for education benefits under the GI bill. Do liberals understand that cancelling student loan debt may eventually lead to the need to reinstate the military draft? It is an unintended consequence that should not be ignored.

Why is it that it always seems to be that the politicians create the problem and then rush in later with promises to fix the problem with another misguided and ill-considered policy?

The same can be said for Kamala's plan to make housing more affordable.

Why has housing become so unaffordable the last few years?

1. Inflation caused by government spending and money printing

2. Higher interest rates that have resulted from #1 above.

3. Illegal immigration that has allowed 10+ million  people to enter the country in three years which has placed unexpected demand pressures on housing costs.

All of this can be traced directly back to the policies of Biden and Harris.

Kamala now claims she is going to fix the problem of inflation and housing affordability by spending another $1.7 trillion?

Ironically, the total amount of student loan debt right now is $1.7 trillion as well.

How much money is $1.7 trillion. It is about the same amount as the entire GDP or South Korea or Australia.

Even the liberal media is skeptical of Kamala's "economic plan".

The Washington Post, The New York Times and CNN all expressed skepticism about her plan.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13754805/kamala-harris-washington-post-cnn-criticism.html

Not only is Kamala looking for price gouging in all the wrong places, her other policy ideas seem to be right out of the Soviet Union, China and Venezuela.

There is not a very good record of any of these far left economic models working out very well for the people of these countries.

Look no further than Venezuela who voted in the socialists/communists with Hugo Chavez 25 years ago and now find that it is impossible to vote them out of power when they control the ballot boxes and are counting the votes.

How has that vote worked out for the Venezuelan people?

Venezuela was once the wealthiest country in Latin America.

That is no longer the case despite having the largest proven oil reserves in the entire world.

Source: https://www.baidarcenter.org/en/posts/1328

Such is the risk to voters in putting their trust in the wrong leaders at the wrong time.

Cast your vote wisely in 2024.