Trump 2024?

What is the future of Donald Trump in the Republican party?

Will Trump run in 2024 and will he be the favorite to win the GOP nomination if he runs?

Those are big questions right now.

One thing is for sure. 

The Trump policies are enormously popular among the party faithful.

It is less clear whether Trump is considered to be the right person to advocate for those policies in a general election.

That is a big reason that you see a number of conservatives promoting Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Kristi Noem or Mike Pence.

What are the arguments for Trump in 2024?

What are the reasons that GOP voters may turn to someone else?

First, I am assuming that Trump is running in 2024.

Trump is not saying what his intentions are right now. I doubt he will make any commitment to run until after the 2022 mid-term election.

However, he has been out doing rallies the last couple of weeks. He was in Sarasota, Florida Saturday night and in Lorain, Ohio last week.

Trump rally in Sarasota, FL, 7/3/21
Source: https://twitter.com/DanScavino/status/1411500389237723137/photo/1

Love or hate him, getting this many people to show up at an event eight months after one election and three years before the next one is pretty remarkable.

Trump's two events also got millions of online viewers. I saw it reported that Newsmax had 6 million viewers watching Trump's speech on Saturday night.

To put that number in context, that is more than the top 3 cable news networks typically averaged in viewers during prime time during the second quarter, 2021.

I know that there are many in the GOP establishment and in media that want to believe that Trump is done. Those types of turnout and viewer numbers suggest that Trump is still a force to reckon with.

What are the three things that could do the most to help Trump looking to 2024?

1. There is a definitive finding that some sort of foul play in the 2020 election that affected the outcome of the election. Such a finding would vindicate Trump and silence those who have said "we just need to move on". It would put Trump on the high ground and make it difficult for any other GOP candidates to mount a serious challenge to him. It would seem that Trump deserves another chance. If I am Trump I would be heavily invested in getting to the bottom of the election fraud allegations.

2. An implosion of the country under the Democrats and Biden/Harris. Trump has many critics but hard times have a way of focusing people on what is most important. Trump's personality is the most cited reason why many did not like him. When people are in trouble they are less concerned with personality and more concerned about performance. A deteriorating situation in the country will make Trump a lot more attractive to more people than you can imagine. 

3. The Trump brand. A brand is about trust. People trust products and services like McDonald's, Coke and Amazon because the know they are going to get a consistent, quality experience. More than any politician in my lifetime, Trump governed exactly like he ran. There was no bait and switch. He did what he said he was going to do. Trump has the political power he has in the Republican party right now because he is trusted. That is why his endorsements are so sought after by GOP candidates. Most Republican voters right now trust the Trump political brand to not steer them wrong. Will this continue through 2022? That is the big question. If Trump endorsed candidates do well in 2022 it will give Trump additional political power. Watch 2022 to see where we are headed for in 2024 with Trump.

What are three things that could derail any ambitions Trump may have for 2024?

1. There is a natural human trait to prefer potential over achievement. I wrote about this in 2014.

Why does an untested high school pitcher command a bigger signing bonus from a major league baseball team than a proven major league pitcher with six years of experience as a starter?

Why does a fledgling tech company IPO result in a market cap far in excess of a steady and profitable company that has a 10 year record of success in the marketplace?

Why does the up and coming young MBA a few years out of school get the promotion over the steady, seasoned and loyal 10 year manager?

Why do NFL fans of mediocre teams always clamor for the 2nd string quarterback?

Why did an untested Barack Obama beat two candidates (Hillary Clinton and John McCain) who were both more accomplished and experienced than he was?

You can read my previous blog post for the explanation of the Stanford academic that has studied this human trait in detail.

In the political realm I think it relates to the fact that prior achievement has boundaries. Potential is boundless, especially on the upside. Hope really does spring eternal.

People know all the warts and weaknesses of the politicians they are familiar with. Almost everyone also believes that they know Trump well. Therefore, it is easy to project optimism on DeSantis, Haley, Noem or someone else and decide they are going to be a much better candidate than Trump. They will be perfect. Let's get Trump's policies with a better personality and all will be well. 

This will be an effect Trump will have to overcome because the new face is always going to be more interesting and enticing than someone that you know better.

2. Allegations of wrongdoing by Trump that go beyond what is perceived as more than a witch hunt. Democrats have long claimed that Trump is a crook or has been involved in nefarious activities. However, we have heard this for five years and they have not been able to turn up anything on the man. The latest charges involving his company and its CFO by New York state looks to be politically motivated. If there was wrongdoing with the Trump organization's taxes why was this not found by the IRS? Why is a Manhattan Democrat District Attorney involved? Trump has also been out of the active management of the business for over five years. Why now? Perhaps there is something there but it looks like a political hit job to me right now.

There is little question that the Democrats are going to turn over every rock and throw everything they can at Trump and his family the next few years  They clearly live in fear of the man. They may get something that sticks and get people to believe that it is more than political retribution. If they do, Trump will not be viable in 2024 as his political brand will be permanently damaged. Once you lose trust you don't get it back.

3. Trump's endorsements and efforts at promoting candidates in 2022 falls flat and/or the GOP generally has disappointing results in the mid-term elections.

This might apply even if the GOP gain seats in the mid-terms but the results do not meet the expectations sets before the election.

Any mid-term setback will likely create a narrative that the losses were due to Trump's influence on the party and a change of direction is necessary for 2024.

I have no idea how this will play out. 

We are still 2.5 years from the first 2024 primaries and a lot can happen in two years. In fact, at times a few months can be an eternity in politics.

A recent poll by McLaughlin & Associates indicates that Donald Trump still has considerable support among potential GOP primary voters right now.

There is no candidate at this time that represents a significant challenge to Trump with GOP voters.

Trump has 55% support. DeSantis is next highest at 9%. Pence is at 8%.

There is also a substantial question of whether Joe Biden will even be a candidate in 2024.

In fact, the McLaughlin poll did not even survey a Biden-Trump matchup.

It only asked survey participants who they favored between Trump and Harris.

Trump was up 49%-45% in the poll.

i

Who knows what 2024 will bring?

However, right now Donald Trump is still the Republican party whether the party establishment and elected officials like it or not.

In the end, the voters decides what their party stands for and who they want to represent them. It is not Mitch McConnell, Keven McCarthy, Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, Rona McDaniel or Marjorie Taylor Greene 

Stay tuned for some interesting years ahead.

Where Are We Going With Covid?

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Where are we going with Covid?

What can we expect next?

The drop in confirmed cases in the United States is astounding.

The vaccines appear to have had an effect.

However, just how large an effect has it been?

Cases dropped by 73% between January 11, 2021 and February 20, 2021. They are now down 95% since that date.

By February 20, only 5% of the population in the United States was fully vaccinated. On January 11 no one was fully vaccinated.

The data alone suggest that this drop is not solely due to the vaccines. Most of the decrease had occurred before the vaccines really took hold.

There clearly has also been an effect from herd immunity from those who had existing antibodies and the fact that all viruses eventually burn out.

For example, the most recent CDC data of blood donors across the country found that an estimated 49% of the population had detectable antibodies in their blood as of the middle of March.

Source: https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/1409631082492874756/photo/1

Most of this would have been related to natural antibodies as only around 20% of the population at that time had taken one dose of the vaccine.

Seasonality has also had a huge impact on the transmission of Covid as it does with every respiratory virus.

These viruses spike in the fall and winter and decline in the spring and summer.

You can see this graphically in the CDC's surveillance data that tracks outpatients visits to health care facilities each flu season.

The spike in cases usually begins around Week 46 (middle of November), peaks sometime between January and March, and is back to a stable level by the end of April.

The red triangles in the chart below are 2020/21 visits for flu-like illness.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/

Notice that the flu all but disappeared in the 2020-21 season. Some have attributed this to mask usage and social distancing. I tend to believe it was due to viral interference. Simply stated, Covid overwhelmed any other pathogen that was trying to gain a foothold in attacking people's immune system.

One of the more incredible stats I saw this year was this fact reported by NPR that flu only resulted in 165 patients being hospitalized through February 15 in the current flu season that began in October. The similar number for last year---400,000!

Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/02/14/967431377/where-did-the-flu-go-homebound-kids-shape-a-mild-season?utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=twitter.com

It is also interesting to note that there were 378,259 patients admitted to the hospital with Covid between October, 2020 and April, 2021 (2020/21 flu season) per CDC data..  In effect, no more people ended up in the hospital with Covid than did for the flu last year. 

Have you ever heard this?

Although Covid cases have shown a large decline nationally since January I am interested to see what occurs across the Sunbelt in July and August.

We saw cases explode in this area last year after New York, New Jersey and other hot spots saw their cases decline in the summer.

I believe that the cases went up as more people in these hot areas sought the refuge of air conditioning indoors and avoided the sun and outdoors. 

The more I research and study the Covid issue the more it appears to me that locking down and not being out and about actually makes you more vulnerable to the virus.

For example. which groups had the most widespread transmission of Covid last year?

Nursing homes and prisons. The populations in these facilities are generally in a lockdown mode to begin with. They are not out in the general population and are not having their immune system challenged every day by being exposed to all of the stuff that is circulating in the community. The challenges to your immune system is what makes it stronger and more resilient when attacked by a foreign pathogen or germ.

Where else did we see widespread breakouts?

Meat packing plants. These are cooled facilities that also have systems to limit microbes and bacteria in the processing of the meat. This would generally mean a more sterile environment than what most other people confront in their daily lives.

Recall a few other observations I made over the last 18 months that fit the pattern.

1) There were more Covid cases in New York among those who never left their houses than those who worked in essential services such as grocery stores and public transportation. I wrote this at the peak of the pandemic in New York last year.

Based on a recent survey of those hospitalized in New York over a 3-day period of 1,200 patients at 113 hospitals, the state found that the overwhelming number of those who recently were hospitalized with the virus were retired or unemployed and were sheltering in place and leaving their home only to shop for essentials. 

In total, 83% of the new cases were of those retired or unemployed.

The survey also found that almost no one hospitalized with the virus had been working in an essential service. There were very few hospital, transit, grocery or drug store employees.

Only 17% of the new cases that were investigated were of those employed.

2) American Airlines reported fewer cases in employees involved in flight operations (flight attendants, pilots etc.) than those who were not dealing with the public and traveling.

3) Indiana University reported that there was a direct correlation between the numbers of credit hours a student took virtually with the odds of getting Covid. In other words, students who took all of their classes in person had the lowest incidence of Covid. Those who took all of their classes online had the highest incidence

To further support this point, I recently met someone at a party who had worked at Kroger in many high level positions over the years but recently retired. I asked if he knew how many Kroger store employees had contracted Covid since they were on the frontlines during the entire pandemic. He stated he did not know the exact percentage but he did know that the percent of cases was less than the general population.

Do you see a possible pattern?

I will be surprised if we don't see an increase in cases in the Sunbelt over the next two months due to the seasonality effect. 

In fact, recent data suggests that we are beginning to see an uptick in cases.

Cases are up in AZ, NM and NV in the last week as is the positivity rate from tests.

They are up slightly in Texas although positivity rate continues to decline.

Florida is no longer updating its Covid numbers daily but it showed a slight increase in cases. Positivity was also up slightly.

Source: http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/covid19-data/covid19_data_latest.pdf

How the Sunbelt withstands the next two months could tell us a lot about where we are going with Covid in the Fall in the rest of the country.

I will also not be surprised if we see a surge in colds, flu and RSV in the coming months as so many people have not been exposed to germs and pathogens over the last year that they normally would. They will be more vulnerable than they have been previously. This will probably be a bigger problem than Covid when schools open in the Fall. 

Many are still arguing that masks are essential in combating the spread of Covid. I know that it is a natural human impulse to believe that doing something is better than doing nothing. However, the data I see does not support that masks do much to inhibit transmission.

For example, here is a chart showing the experience of Austria which included a requirement that everyone wear a medical grade mask beginning January 25.

Source: https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1409252635262132224/photo/1

Here is another chart showing Covid cases in Columbia. 

Here is one from Vermont which Dr. Fauci called a "model" for the country last September before cases went up 3,914%.

I understand why people want to believe that masks work. We want to be in control. We don't want to be defenseless. Early in the pandemic I was wondering why masks were not being recommended as having traveled in Asia I saw them often on the streets. Early in the pandemic (outside of China) Asia was largely spared. 

I wondered why masks were not being recommended. I prepared to do a blog post on the topic. I then did the research and could not find one study that indicated that anything other than a properly fitted N95 mask offered any real protection.

The good news is that where I live it is now rare to see anyone wearing a mask. I was at Costco today and no more than 5% were wearing masks. It was almost 100% in any store a month ago. It was probably 50% two weeks ago. It is another telling example of herd mentality. The person without a mask felt ostracized a month ago. It is now the other way around.

For those who think that children should be wearing masks in school either because of Covid or due to my concerns about an increase in colds, flu, etc in the Fall, I would refer you to this new RCT study that was just published in the JAMA.

It turns our that we may actually be doing children more harm than good by forcing them to wear face masks.

The Covid narrative is now pushing the so-called Delta variant that supposedly came out of India. It is being used to promote more fear and to push more young people to be vaccinated.

The Delta variant is very likely more transmissible than other variants. However, I see no evidence that it is more serious than previous variants. In fact, the history of virology shows that as a virus mutates it becomes less lethal over time.

This seems to be borne out with what we are seeing in the UK right now. Cases are up but deaths are not following that trend.

Source: https://twitter.com/OBusybody/status/1410661297633497088/photo/1

That chart also cannot provide comfort that the vaccines (most specifically the Astra Zeneca vaccine that has been used most widely in UK) are doing a real good job of preventing transmission in the UK. A higher percentage have been vaccinated in the UK than in the USA.

In fact, cases in Scotland are now higher than they have ever been since the pandemic began!

At the same time, Scotland (like the UK generally) has vaccinated a higher percent of the population than the U.S.

The good news is that hospitalizations have not increased much.

Meanwhile, cases have plummeted in India over the last 6 weeks. Two months ago we were being told there was no hope for India. 

Cases have collapsed despite the fact that only 4% of the population in India has been fully vaccinated. That compares to 46% in the United States.

Cases per million have fallen 87% since their peak on May 8.

This success clearly had little to do with the vaccines.

Is it natural population immunity taking hold?

Could it be due to Ivermectin, the drug that has been consistently maligned by Dr. Fauci and other leading U.S. public health experts?

I don't know but I do know that a number of large Indian states embarked on a public health program of distributing Ivermectin to every citizen beginning in mid-May. This was done as a preventative measure.

Source: India Today, May 12, 2021

The states of Goa and Karnataka did the same.

Causative or coincidence?

We may find out at some point. However, the only reason the vaccines were approved for emergency use authorization was the fact that there were supposedly no other "adequate, approved and available alternatives".

Is that really true?

There is no disputing the fact that the death rate among those age 65 and older have dropped significantly since the vaccines have been introduced.

These are the age groups in which the vaccination rate ranges from 89.9% for those age 65-74 to 86.0% for those age 75+.

We would all like to think the vaccines are responsible.

All the mortality data below is from USMortality.com. Predicted deaths are based on CDC data projections.

Death rates for ages 65-74 from January, 2020 forward.

Source:https://www.usmortality.com/

Death rates for ages 75-84.

Source: https://www.usmortality.com/

Death rates for ages 85+.

Source: https://www.usmortality.com/

Deaths for those age 75 and older are now below the long-term averages. 

This appears to be proof of the success of the vaccines for the most vulnerable.

However, could it be that some of the deaths we experienced in December and January were merely pulled forward by a few months?

The same argument might be made at the beginning of the chart. Deaths among these age groups were running below average right before Covid hit. Were some of the people who died living on borrowed time?

This is why I think it is difficult to make definitive statements about much of what is going on with Covid.

More troubling is looking at the death statistics for younger ages.

While deaths are declining for the old, excess deaths are rising for those 44 and younger.

These are not Covid deaths. Something else is driving these.

Mental health? Drugs? Adverse effects of the vaccine?

What is it? Why is there not much attention being directed to it?

Overall deaths for those ages 0-24 generally were generally within long-term averages since January, 2020. Since April they appear to be trending up. These numbers are not final but it is disturbing nonetheless.

The age 24-44 age group has seen a consistent pattern of excess deaths since March, 2020. It has never come down. In fact, it appears to be accelerating in the last two months with the CDC's preliminary data. Again, these are not Covid deaths. What is causing this?

Where are we going with Covid?

I wish I knew.

As referenced above, there is still much that we really don't know about why and what has already happened with Covid.

Did lockdowns save lives or cost lives?

Are masks just a device to make people feel that they have a sense of control?

Are Ivermectin and other drugs that were already in use, and available, effective therapeutics against Covid?

Are the vaccines as effective and safe as advertised and promoted for all ages or is there a point at which the risk outweighs the benefit?

I don't know the answers to these questions. I just look at the data and try to make sense of it. And the data raises a lot of questions in my mind. The experts are trying to convince us they have all the answers. It seems they should spend more time pondering the questions than telling us they have all the answers.

Let's all hope that where we are going with Covid we will get better answers to these questions.

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Container Inflation

One of the great innovations of the 20th century was the sea/land container that is used for international shipping.

Credit: https://www.veconinter.com/blog/post/types-of-shipping-containers-and-their-use/204

The concept of the modern intermodal shipping container was the brainchild of a former North Carolina truck driver by the name of Malcom McLean who went on to own a trucking company.

His “big box” idea, which has revolutionized cargo handling worldwide, came to him in 1937 while he waited most of the day to deliver cotton bales on his truck to a pier in New Jersey.

“Suddenly it occurred to me: Would it not be great if my trailer could simply be lifted up and placed on the ship without its contents being touched?”

De Haas goes on to explain that the subsequent development of container shipping in the 1950s and 1960s was largely an American affair featuring McLean. 

Boxes similar to modern containers had already been used in rail applications. What was new in the revolutionary ideas presented by McLean was the belief that efficiency could be vastly improved through intermodal containers and his perseverance in making it happen.

McLean converted the World War II tanker Potrero Hills to a ship capable of carrying containers and rechristened her the Ideal X. She made her maiden journey on April 26, 1956, sailing from Newark to Houston carrying 58 metal containers and 15,000 tons of petroleum.

McLean grew into shipowning with his company Sea-Land. Initially the containers were loaded on their chassis, but later the chassis was left behind, enabling containers to be stacked.

90% of international shipping now utilizes shipping containers. They are indispensable in international trade. Almost anything you buy that has been manufactured overseas will have gotten to you by way of a shipping container. 

Based on the rental costs of these containers, you are likely to soon see higher costs for any of those items you buy as prices to rent them have soared recently. It is yet another indication, as I wrote recently, that inflation may be in every American consumer's future.

Here is the Drewry World Container Index for the week of June 24.

It increased 15.9% in the last week alone. That is also 4x what it was a year ago.

Source: Drewry World Container Index

However, look at the spot prices for containers from Shanghai to New York and Los Angeles.

Prices from Shanghai to New York surged 39% in the last week alone. The increase from Shanghai to Los Angeles was up 34%.

Note that the price to rent a container to send goods from LA to Shanghai is only $1,000. A pretty clear example of supply and demand. There is a lot coming in from China. There is not much going back.

What is causing the price increases?

China goods have been in demand from the United States and Europe as consumers started buying coming out of the pandemic. At the same time, China (where 90% of all shipping containers are made) was not making any new containers during the pandemic. In the United States, ports have not been able to get enough workers to return to work and it takes time to train new workers. In the meantime, ships and containers have been building up in U.S. ports.

Ocean carriers that own or lease most of the containers in use are aggressively trying to get boxes back to Asia from the U.S., according to Ken Hoexter, a transportation industry analyst at Bank of America in New York. But the current tightness in transportation markets will continue at least through the middle of the year or later, he said in an interview last week.

The shipping industry is trying to play catchup but the combination of extremely low inventories, port congestion in the U.S., increasing consumer demand, the lack of any downtime in China during the curtailed Lunar New Year and now the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package will extend the shortages, he said.

It appears that it is going to get worse before it gets better.

Here is someone on Twitter stating they were quoted $20,000 for a shipping container. They were paying $3,000.

It appears to me that everyone should be bracing for price increases on any products that are imported. Increases of this magnitude simply can't be absorbed by the importer.

I would guess as well that most of the price increases as a result of these shipping cost increases will hit just as we head into the Christmas buying season.

You might want to shop early this year.

What are the goods that will be most affected by the increase in shipping costs?

Anything that is imported, particularly those items from China and Asia which we rely on in which there is no significant American competition.

High value, low weight items like computer chips, phones and computer parts will not be affected as much as lower value and/or heavier products like furniture, clothing, toys, small tools, electrical appliances etc. The high value, low weight items more typically can be shipped via air freight. The latter categories rely on those shipping containers.

In addition, many of the manufacturing and electrical machinery parts for U.S. businesses are shipped in those containers from China. These are the largest dollar import categories coming from China. The shipping container issue may also end up resulting in disruptions in other business categories much as we have seen with how the computer chip shortage has impacted the automobile manufacturers.

The shipping container issues is another reminder of the risks of long supply chains that extend to China.

It seems like I remember that we had a President at one time who warned about an over reliance on China.

Many people may soon feel the costs of that reliance in much higher costs.

The sad fact is that so few will even understand what is happening to them.

You can bet they will be told that it is Trump's fault.

The Elephant In The Room

Violent crime is on the upswing across the United States.

The Biden administration knows it has a problem. That is one of the reasons Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland had a media event yesterday to address the problem of violent crime.

The narrative seems to be to blame the increase in violent crime on the pandemic, Trump and the Second Amendment.

I even heard an ABC reporter claim that the surge in violent crime had been going on for four years under the Trump administration.

Is that true?

Violent crime in the United States has generally been trending down since 1993.

Reported violent crime rate in the United States from 1990 to 2019

In fact, violent crime started to increase in the 2014-2016 in the second Obama/Biden administration before the downward trend resumed during the Trump administration in 2017-2019.

The "report" that violent crime was increasing during the Trump years is demonstrably false.

It is true that violent crime spiked in 2020.

However, violent crime did not spike coincident with the beginning of the pandemic.

The spike did not begin until June.

What happened at the beginning of June? 

Is it a coincidence that this was the same time that the Black Lives Movement gained traction as well as calls to "defund the police"?

Is it fair to blame this on Trump?

Is it fair to blame this on guns? I can tell you that there were about the same number of guns out there in 2020 as there were in 2019. The increase in homicides is also not due to assault rifles and the like. Most murders are the result of handguns. Most of the murders are also taking place in cities that have the strictest gun laws in the country.

Here are the murders in New York City in 2019 and 2020 as reported by the NYPD in its year-end report for 2020.

Murders for 2020 were up 44.8% compared to 2019.

Source:https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p0106a/overall-crime-new-york-city-reaches-record-low-2020

Interestingly, the NYPD revealed in the same report the number of hate crimes in NYC in 2020 compared to 2019.

Recall that the media narrative has been that President Trump fueled hatred towards Asians by calling out the Chinese Communist Party for its role in causing the pandemic.

Hate crimes against Asians in NYC increased by 33% in 2020 vs. 2019.

The number of such incidents went from 3 to 4!

However, compare that to anti-Semitic hate crimes.

They increased 44% during the year from 119 to 233.

Source: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p0106a/overall-crime-new-york-city-reaches-record-low-2020

In fact, there were more hate crimes against Jews in 2020 than all the other groups combined!

How often have you heard about this?

Here is the data on shooting incidents in Portland, Oregon which has been at the center of many BLM, Antifa and "Defund the Police" protests from 2019 to the present.

When did the spike occur? It started in June, 2020.

Source: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/81203

The violent crime numbers look just as bad in many other big cities almost all of which are liberal, leftist bastions.

Consider the surging crime statistics in 2021 on top of the surge in violent crime these cities experienced in 2020.

Can Biden continue to blame this on the pandemic?

Trump has been gone since January.

In his speech yesterday Biden says he will institute a "zero tolerance" approach to take on rogue gun dealers. 

Source: https://news.yahoo.com/biden-lays-plan-combat-gun-220130103.html

"If you willfully sell a gun to someone who is prohibited from possessing it, if you willfully fail to run a background check, if you willfully falsify a record, if you willfully fail to cooperate with the tracing requests or inspections, my message to you is this ... 'We'll find you and we'll seek your license to sell guns."

That is well and good. 

However, does anyone seriously believe that taking away a gun dealers license to sell guns will make any difference at all in the violent crime in our cities?

Does Biden really think that the guns being used in these crimes were purchased from gun dealers who were licensed to begin with?

In the meantime, Biden talks incessantly about the January 6th "insurrection" at the Capitol that did not involve one person carrying a firearm.

Has there ever been an insurrection in history in which no one brought a weapon to the coup?

Biden has also avoided condemning any of the violent acts of last summer involving BLM and Antifa and likes to skirt the issue of defunding the police by talking about the need for police reform.

All the while, almost all of those who perpetuated violence on America's streets over the last year have not been prosecuted.

In Portland, 90% of those arrested have had their charges dropped.

Is it any surprise that when no one is held accountable for their crimes it just emboldens more people to commit crimes?  

This is the fundamental belief behind the "broken windows" theory of policing that Mayor Rudy Giuliani introduced in New York City that led to a dramatic decrease in crime in the 1990's in that city.

That theory basically held that having a no tolerance for small crimes and disorder would have major impacts on larger crimes.

It was a huge success until it was undermined by those who claimed it was overzealous and "racist".

I couldn't help but think of that example today as word came out that the New York State Bar Association had suspended Giuliani's license to practice law because he allegedly made "false and misleading claims" about election fraud in 2020 while representing Donald Trump.

Seriously? A lawyer is suspended from practicing law by advocating for his client utilizing sworn affidavits, videos and statistical analysis? 

If this is not bad enough you might recall the news about two attorneys from Brooklyn last summer who were arrested after firebombing a police car during the BLM riots in NYC.

What were the sanctions against them by the New York Bar?

They have been offered a plea deal for the criminal charges but have until July 1 to consider taking it.

If Joe Biden is looking to implement a "zero tolerance" policy there are plenty of areas that he should be looking at.

Taking on rogue gun dealers. Have had it. I am all for it.

However, that is like being worried about a mouse in the basement while a rogue elephant is rampaging through your house.

When is Joe Biden going to start recognizing and doing something about the elephant in the room?

Filibuster Flip-Floppers

If you watch the news you have seen the Joe Biden and the Democrats are unhappy with the Senate rules regarding the filibuster.

Today the Democrats were unsuccessful in ending a Republican filibuster of H.R. 1 which is titled the "For the People Act of 2021".  It should be more appropriately called the "Democrat Election Fixing Act" in that it would take almost all election powers from the states for federal offices and put them under the control of the federal government. 

It would liberalize and institutionalize all the voting problems we saw in the 2020 election. It would provide for automatic and same-day voter registration. It would require all states to have expanded early and mail-in voting. It would limit the ability of the states to remove voters from the voter rolls. It would limit the ability to have voter ID. It would provide for federal funding of Congressional races with small donations being matched 6:1 with matching funds.

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez let the cat out the bag in an interview on CNN recently when she said that it was critical that H.R. 1 become law because Democrats “cannot rely solely on the wish of winning elections.”

Source: https://www.independentsentinel.com/aoc-admits-without-hr-1-dems-cannot-rely-solely-on-the-wish-of-winning-elections/

Notice that she said nothing about making elections more honest or fair for everyone. Her only concern seems to be to fix it so that the deck is always stacked in favor of the Democrats.

It just so happens that the campaign funding provision would also benefit AOC to the tune of about $6.7 million in federal funds in the next election cycle. What a coincidence!

What is most interesting is the same Democrats who now oppose the filibuster were ardent supporters of it in the past.

You might call them the filibuster flip-floppers.

For example, as recently as 2005 when Joe Biden was a Senator, he gave a speech on the Senate floor forcefully defending the filibuster rules. He said that ending the filibuster would be a mistake.

"It is not only a bad idea, it upsets the constitutional design and it disservices the country," Biden’s speech said. "No longer would the Senate be that ‘different kind of legislative body’ that the Founders intended. No longer would the Senate be the ‘saucer’ to cool the passions of the immediate majority."

In 2005, Biden valued the filibuster, lamenting what might happen if it were eliminated: "Senators would start thinking about changing other rules when they became ‘inconvenient.’ Instead of two-thirds of the vote to change a rule, you’d now have precedent that it only takes a bare majority. Altering Senate rules to help in one political fight or another could become standard operating procedure, which, in my view, would be disastrous."

I guess Biden no longer values the incentive for the more deliberate and consensus-driven process that the filibuster rules are designed to facilitate.

Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer has also been vocal about the filibuster.

However, he did not seem to share the same views when he was leading the Senate Democrats in opposing the agenda of Trump and the Republicans in the previous Congress.

There have been 67 cloture motions to end debate in this Congress thus far regarding filibusters.

In the last two years of the Trump administration the Democrats used the filibuster 328 times. It was used 201 times in the first two years of Trump's term. 

Source: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/cloture/clotureCounts.htm

The filibuster was never used more than in the those two years and it was all the work of the Democrats. Here are the numbers going back to 1981.

Source: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/cloture/clotureCounts.htm

The fact is that the filibuster has been used by both parties in the Senate with increasing regularity in recent years. The Republicans used it to slow down the Obama agenda and the Democrats used it to stifle Trump's plans.

You can argue that is exactly what the Founders intended. They did not want laws being passed that reflected what might be passing passions. They wanted to insure that our laws would reflect consensus of thought and stand the test of time.

How could this be the case on strict party line votes as we have seen with so many proposed laws the last few years?

Those supporting the filibusters are being called "obstructionists".

What happened to the idea that our elected officials should be looking for common ground and that attitude should be applauded and not denigrated?

There does not seem to be much hope for that with the filibuster flip-floppers in Washington.

Too Old?

The Washington Post seems to be concerned about the ages of United States Senators.

In a March 5, 2021 opinion commentary Kathleen Parker argued that the Senate was showing its age and that term limits should be considered to bring more youthful perspectives to that elected body.

The average age of a United States Senator in the 116th Congress is 62.9 years. This compares to an average age of 57.6 years in the House of Representatives. That is a five year difference.

These are the ages of the current Senators who are over 80.

Diane Feinstein (D-CA)  88 (as of June 22, 2021)

Richard Shelby (R-AL)   87

Chuck Grassley (R-IA)   87

Jim Inhofe (R-OK)         86

Patrick Leahy (D-VT)    81

The terms of Shelby, Grassley and Leahy end in 2022. Feinstein's term expires in 2024. Inhofe was just re-elected and his term expires in 2026.

Shelby has announced he will not seek re-election. Leahy has indicated he will seek a ninth term next year. Grassley has not yet announced his plans.

The Founding Fathers of the United States clearly wanted the Senate to be the "senior" body in the legislative branch. It was fully intended and expected that its members would be older than in the House of Representatives.

The intent and rationale that the Senate was established in the manner it was are detailed in Federalist Papers #62 and #63. The Founders wanted Senators to have more life experience and they wanted it to be a more deliberative body than the House.

These are direct quotes from Federalist #62 written by James Madison.

The qualifications proposed for senators, as distinguished from those of representatives, consist in a more advanced age, and a longer period of citizenship. A senator must be thirty years of age at least; as a representative, must be twenty-five. And the former must have been a citizen nine years; as seven years are required for the latter. The propriety of these distinctions is explained by the nature of the senatorial trust; which requiring greater extent of information and stability of character, requires at the same time that the senator should have reached a period of life most likely to supply these advantages.

It is interesting to note that the minimum age set in the Constitution for a Senator is 5 years more than for a member of the House.

Look again at the difference in average ages of Senators and House members in 2021.

It is exactly 5 years. 

Yes, there are a few Senators that look to be past their prime. However, aren't the voters in Vermont, California or Iowa in the best position to determine whether their Senator is able to represent their best interests in the voting booth?

It is also interesting to note that the Constitution as it originally was written left it to the state legislatures in the various states to elect Senators from their states. Direct election of Senators did not take place until after the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913.

I have to believe that if this provision was still in place it would be much more likely that older Senators would not retain their seats. 

It should be noted that while the average age of our elected representatives has gotten older over the years, so has the average age of Americans.

In the early 1800's the average age of a Senator was 50 years of age. The average age of the American public was less than 20 years of age. This made the average Senator 2.5x older than the average citizen.

Today the age gap is much smaller. In fact, The Washington Post highlighted this fact in a chart about ten years ago.

Source: The Washington Post, 2014

The age ratios in 2021 are almost exactly the same as they were in 2011.

If Senators are getting older it is because everyone is getting older.

It also is the case that Senators are actually closer in age to their constituents today than they were at the time of the nation's founding.

It is not coincidental that the Senate is subject to these types of criticisms when liberals are not getting their way as we are seeing right now in our senior legislative body on voting rights, infrastructure, tax increases, packing the Supreme Court and the filibuster.

How often do we hear that the Senate is out of step or its rules are outmoded? How often do we hear that it is "not fair" that the smaller states have the same number of Senators as the larger states? How often do we hear that the Senate is subverting the will of the people?

Of course, the Founders anticipated all of this. In fact, they designed the Senate to work exactly this way. It is another example of their brilliance in constructing our method of governance.

First, it must be remembered that the Founders objective was to create a United STATES of America. Those states were considered to be independent and sovereign states bound together in a common league. The people received their voice in government through proportional representation in the House. The states were to receive their voice at the federal level in equal representation in the Senate.

From Federalist #92.

The parties however unequal in size, ought to have an equal share in the common councils, it does not appear to be without some reason, that in a compound republic partaking both of the national and federal character, the government ought to be founded on a mixture of the principles of proportional and equal representation. 

In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each state, is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual states, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small states; since they are not less solicitous to guard by every possible expedient against an improper consolidation of the states into one simple republic.

The Founders also believed that it was important to have a legislative body that would also not get swept up in the passions of the moment. 

They might have been thinking about a House that wanted to rewrite all the elections laws or to pack the Supreme Court.

The necessity of a senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies, to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders, into intemperate and pernicious resolutions. Examples on this subject might be cited without number; and from proceedings within the United States, as well as from the history of other nations. But a position that will not be contradicted need not be proved. All that need be remarked is that a body which is to correct this infirmity ought itself be free from it, and consequently ought to be less numerous. It ought moreover to possess great firmness, and consequently ought to hold its authority by a tenure of considerable duration.

It has become a popular narrative on the left to deride the Founders as a bunch of old, white men who were not interested in anything beyond preserving their privilege and perpetuating a racist society.

Of course, this narrative omits the fact that the Founders of the United States initiated a system of self-governance by the people that became a model for the rest of the world. It gave the People the power to control their own destiny like no other nation in the history of mankind.

Our Founders, through that Constitution, has also allowed us to enjoy the longest period of governmental stability in the world. None of the other nations who participated in the G-7 this week have had longer lasting governmental systems in place than the United States. The same goes for other countries that were not there, such as China and Russia.

As much as we want to think that we have evolved as people, when reading Federalist #42 and the other Federalist Papers we can see we have not changed one iota.  Our Founders understood our flaws, fallibilities and failings. Even more importantly, they understood that combining these human weaknesses with someone who wielded the power of government was particularly dangerous.

Our Constitution was intended to provide the protections for us to survive the "bad actors" and the "bad times".  Our Founders could not prevent them from taking office but they designed a system to limit their individual power through checks and balances

Leftists always seem to want to find fault in our Constitution. They like to say it is old and outdated.

They would be wise to focus on the genius in the document and learn to work within its construct.

There has been no better governing document in the history of mankind.

The only thing that is old is hearing them complain about it.