Author: haroldblackphd

Another look at immigration

The Babylon Bee is a national treasure. Did you see where they said that the president was declaring the White House an ICE free zone until construction is completed on his new ballroom?

The president is hellbent on shutting down immigration both illegal and legal – unless you are a white farmer from South Africa. The southern border has essentially been closed. Of the migrants showing up at the border, in direct contrast to the Biden years, none have been released into the country. The administration is setting records in deporting the migrants who entered the country illegally. Over 500,000 have been deported. So far more than two million illegal aliens have left the U.S., including 1.6 million who self-deported. Additionally, 485,000 illegals have been arrested by DHS. Of course caught up in all of this will invariably be some US citizens who are mistakenly arrested. For example, 21 US citizens had been apprehended in Florida but after it was reported in the Miami New Times, those names mysteriously disappeared from Florida’s Unauthorized Aliens Encounters Dashboard which is a database maintained by the Florida State Board of Immigration Enforcement. But in an enforcement effort conducted on this scale some mistakes are going to be made. The administration should strive for transparency. However, it is laughable that the administrations denies that it is profiling. I bet that those 21 US citizens were not white blue eyed males.

The president also wants to severely restrict legal immigration. It is projected that changes in legal immigration will reduce the number of workers by 2.8 million. Shutting down illegal immigration will cause thenumber of workers to fall by another 4 million. The administration has sought to severely restrict the number of foreign students enrolling in US universities. It has put a $100,000 fee on H1-B workers who come mainly from India and China. There is a new regulation that eliminates “duration of status” for foreign students, researchers, exchange visitors, and international media on F, J, and I visas, and instead cap each status at a maximum of four years. It has shut down travel from 19 different countries. There is probably more.

Many worry how these restrictions, and others, will impact the country. For example, restricting foreign students, especially those involved in STEM research will lead to a diminution is US research contributions. Over half of the US Nobel laureates in 2025 were immigrants. Now foreign universities are attracting these students as well as foreign researchers and US citizens whose research has been curtailed by the administration. Historically about 40 percent of all US Nobel laureates in chemistry, physics and medicine have been awarded to immigrants. I know some of the president’s xenophobic supporters scoff at these numbers and point out that if these researchers did their work outside the US, we would still benefit from their work.

I have mentioned the fear I – and millions of others – felt during the polio epidemics in the 1950s. Well Jonas Salk was the son of immigrants and Albert Sabin was an immigrant from Poland. If denied admission into this country, would they have been able to conduct their research elsewhere and would we and the rest of the world have benefited regardless? There is an economics research paper by Petra Moser and Shmuel San, the restrictive immigration quotas of the 1920s that reduced immigration by 90 percent specifically targeting Jews and Asians significantly reduced invention in the United States, including that by American-born scientists. During this period there were 68 percent fewer patents.

Click to access MoserParsaSan25.pdf

One of my dear friends sent me the story of Omar Yaghi who shared the Nobel prize in chemistry this year. I won’t repeat it here but it is clear that Yaghi born in Jordan to a refugee family is an inspiration. My PhD advisor, the great Karl Brunner was from Switzerland and was one of the world’s leading monetary theorists.

I have written about how much I oppose the president’s “fortress America” policies. I praise his shutting down the massive flow of illegals into the country. I know that criticisms have also arisen from educating the students from countries that are adversarial to this country. I do favor a serious study of our legal immigration policies. What I hope for is a more careful vetting process and a careful delineation of the rules and their justification. I just think it is somewhat ironic that the president shows such distain for immigrants when his wife is an immigrant and the vice president’s wife is the daughter of immigrants.

You are fired! College football coaches versus AFGE

College football coaches being fired

You’re fired! Have you ever heard those words? I have – once. I had just gotten a job waiting tables while at Georgia during segregated times. My white classmates would come into the restaurant and leave me big tips. It was fun but short lived. The white employees were allowed to take their meal in the dining area while the black ones had to eat in the kitchen. I protested and was told to eat in the kitchen or lose my job. So when I took my tray and sat down in the dining room, I was immediately canned. I learned my lesson and from that point on I either worked for the federal government or as a tenured professor. Apparently, job security was important to me.

Today it seems like a whole lot of college football coaches are getting fired while federal government employees are just starting to get scared that they might be fired as well.

Maybe its just me and my memory but didn’t it used to be that athletic directors waited until the end of the season to fire their coaches? No more. With the season barely halfway over Arkansas, UCLA, Oklahoma State, Stanford, Virginia Tech, Florida, Penn State and most recently LSU have fired their coaches. No matter the high buyouts – Penn State’s Franklin’s is $49 million and LSU’s Kelly’s is $54 million– these coaches were fired. The buyouts still don’t reach Jimbo Fisher’s astounding $77 million from Texas A&M but big money seems not to matter anymore. What is interesting is that in every case, the fired coach was replaced by someone already on the staff. Obviously, you cannot bring anyone new into a program at midstream but elevating someone already there doesn’t make sense to me – although Tim Skipper at UCLA produced three unlikely wins after taking charge. Some schools like Wisconsin and Florida State appear to be waiting until the end of the season to fire their coaches. Others are likely Boston College, Nevada, Michigan State, North Carolina and maybe NC State, Kentucky and Mississippi State.

One name being mentioned for big time programs is Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman who replaced Brian Kelly when Kelly bolted for the big bucks at LSU. Freeman has the best job in college football. It may not be the highest paying but it is the one with the most job security. Notre Dame is a legacy national brand. It can recruit five star athletes from all of the country. It has its own TV contract and most importantly it is not in a conference. Kelly goes to LSU where he has to beat Alabama, Texas A&M, Florida, Tennessee, Ole Miss , Texas, Oklahoma and my Georgia Bulldogs. Freeman has usually only a couple of tough games on the schedule and then plays Navy and Boston College. This year Notre Dame loses to Miami and Texas A&M but still will make the college playoffs if they win out – as they likely will. However, job security comes at a cost. Freeman is only the 26^th highest paid college football coach with a base salary of $7.5 million. Bonuses push it to $9 million. The highest paid coach is Georgia’s Kirby Smart at $13 million – and I wonder how do you spend $13 million in Athens, GA? Ryan Day of my Ohio State Buckeyes is second with $12.5 million. I am sure that Freeman has a price. The question is what would it take to get him to leave the most secure job in college football?

Government workers cry uncle

Although it must have been painful, the country’s largest federal employees union has asked the senate democrats to throw in the towel and agree to the continuing resolution proposed by the republicans. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 federal government workers, called on Chuck Schumer and the democrats to vote for the House-passed spending bill to reopen the government. On the republican senate side some are urging John Thune to evoke the nuclear option and kill the filibuster. Thune had previously said that he would not do this, but the pressure is mounting. Of course killing the filibuster also kills any reason for any majority to compromise with the minority. So much for the senate being the “world’s greatest deliberative body.”

The union president said “It’s time to pass a clean continuing resolution and end this shutdown today,” No half measures, and no gamesmanship. Put every single federal worker back on the job with full back pay today. It’s long past time for our leaders to put aside partisan politics and embrace responsible government.” To put this into perspective I think this union has endorsed every democrat nominee for president since its inception. But now that federal workers have started to miss paychecks, they are pleading with the senate democrats to fold and pass the CR.

There is also the threat (gasp!) of federal workers facing for the first time, unemployment. Normally federal employment means job security. But Trump has threatened that security with layoffs and permanent firings. This is unheard of and may be another motivating factor in the labor union’s plea to Schumer, et al. In the private sector, layoffs are a way of life with announcements being made every day. In fact Amazon just announced that it was laying off 30,000 employees. Consider out of about 2.2 million federal employees who began fiscal year 2023 only 12,804 (0.6%) were terminated. Not surprisingly, the average federal civil servant has worked for the government for 11.8 years, more than four times longer than the average job tenure for private sector employees. The median annual salary of federal employees is about $100,000 or more than 60% higher than the median for full-time private sector workers.

Workers in manufacturing were five times more likely to lose their jobs last year than federal workers. Workers in construction were 10 times more likely to lose their jobs. No wonder the federal workers are now scared. Heaven’s forbid that they get fired! But the stubbornness of the senate democrats is imperiling federal workers job security so fold Chuck fold!

This exciting Supreme Court term

I don’t think that I have ever called a Supreme Court term exciting But this one is. This Supreme Court docket is Trump dominated. The court is now hearing the Louisiana case on racial gerrymandering. The implications being if the court rules against racial gerrymandering then the some states many then gerrymander blacks out of seats like Texas is trying to do to oust Al Green and Jasmine Crockett from their seats. Some say as many as 19 minority seats, mainly in southern states might be affected. The court is also hearing the Colorado case on “conversion therapy” where Colorado stopped a Christian therapist from counseling minors on changing their gender identity.

As to the cases directly tied to the president, the court is finally going to hear if the president has the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Mind you, if the courts rule against the president there are other legal avenues under which the president can impose tariffs temporarily. Another case deals with the “independent agencies” that are ostensively under the executive branch and whether the president can fire members of those agencies. The case before the court involves a member of the Federal Trade Commission. This is different from the cases involving the Fed and the National Credit Union Administration. The president has tried to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook on the grounds that she committed mortgage fraud and therefore can be terminated for cause. With NCUA the two democrat members of the agency were fired without any explanation. Since the legal structure of the Fed and the NCUA are similar, the court may rule of whether the president has the authority to dismiss members without cause as well as for cause.

Then there is birthright citizenship which the administration has lost in the lower courts and likely will lose at the Supreme Court. There are cases involving immigration. The president used an 18^thcentury law to deport the Venezuelan gang members to that El Salvador jail. The court will also hear cases involving states that ban transgender athletes for girl’s teams. BTW, why haven’t I heard anything about transgender athletes who want to compete for boy’s teams?Another case involves voting by mail and whether ballots can be counted received after Election Day.

There have been over 30 rulings regarding the president’s actions but the Supreme Court has yet to issue a full ruling on the legality of any of them. I guess the time is now. The president has been pushing the limits of executive power and the court will decide which if any of these actions are constitutional. Regardless, as I have often said, the democrats should be in favor of all that the president has done so that the next democrat president can avail himself (or herself) to them. Instead of course the democrats will be applying pressure on the court in the media accusing the conservatives as Trump’s lackeys if they rule for the president.

Trump’s people have on the other hand been quick to criticize any of the conservatives who rule against the president as “wobbly” or something worse. Of course, the president himself has not minced words on decisions that he disagrees with. The president’s supporters have also been very vocal. Here’s our Andy Ogles (R-TN) “Judges targeting President Trump are political hacks and their decisions belong in my SHREDDER.” “This is a judicial power grab. Plain and simple,” Chad Mizelle, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff. Mike Lee (R., Utah) has called for impeaching “corrupt judges.” When Amy Comey Barrett ruled against the president, one hack said “Amy Coney Barrett shows the danger of Republican DEI.” Mind you, John Roberts joined her in that particular opinion but somehow escaped being called a DEI hire. I wonder why?

With all this inflamed rhetoric. Some judges and their families have been physically threatened and even attacked. This is not confined to the loonies on the right. The loonies on the left are also motivated to threaten judges that rule for Trump. Recall the assassination threat to Justice Kavanaugh. Judges say that intimidation does not affect their rulings. That may be so, but in today’s charged political atmosphere, they would best watch their backs. 

I, for one, will be glad when all of this is resolved by the court. I think the president has a legitimate right to know the limits of executive power. I am interested in seeing how the president responds to any ruling against him. Thus far he has not disregarded lower court rulings against him. Will that continue?

Where’s the beef?

The person who oversees our family farm was complaining about the price of beef. He said “Would you believe what ground beef costs?” I told him that I actually had not looked in the past 50 years since I only eat the venison from deer that I had harvested myself. But I am sympathetic. He was hardworking all of his life and is now retired with his wife 100 percent disabled due to a heart condition. He said that they couldn’t afford today’s prices and was wondering what had happened. I told him that the local grocery store usually ran a special BOGO on ground turkey at least once a month so he should check their weekly ads. Ground turkey? He looked at me like I was speaking in tongues.

The high beef prices are due to a number of factors. One is the herd is smaller than it has been in decades. That along with Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on Brazil which further reduced the supply of beef has led to these high prices. Now isn’t this what the president wanted? By restricting imports of beef due to the tariffs, beef prices have soared and US cattle ranchers are making record profits of over $700 per animal. So the cattle growers should be ecstatic. They may be, but per my conversation with the overseer, the American public is ticked off. Not to worry. Our intrepid president says that the cattle growers should voluntarily lower their prices and he will import beef from Argentina.

He said “The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% Tariff on Brazil. posted on if it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years —Terrible!” “It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!” 

OK so let’s get this straight. The president is taking credit for raising the price of beef to the consumers resulting in record cattle prices while asking the cattle ranchers to voluntarily lower prices. He then said that maybe he will import more beef from his buddies in Argentina. “One of the things we’re thinking about doing is beef from Argentina.” Trump told reporters “We would buy some beef from Argentina. If we do that, that will bring our beef prices down.”

Needless to say that elicited a howl from the cattle folk and their representatives in Washington who sent the president a letter protesting such a move. Trump’s Department of Agriculture said that it would move to increase the size of the herd through expansion of grazing on federal lands. Maybe that will help eventually increase supply but cows do not pop out of the heifer fully grown like Athena from the head of Zeus.

One agriculture economist said that the president needs to take a course in supply and demand (where have you heard that before?) saying “If you want to increase the supply of beef long-term, you don’t do it by lowering prices.” Elementary. I will repeat: you don’t induce producers to increase supply by lowering prices.

So now we have a conundrum. Beef prices are at a record high, cattle growers are making record profits but the consumers are angry. The president wants it both ways, he is patting himself on the back for raising tariffs to restrict the supply of beef but he wants the cattle ranchers to lower their prices or else he will import beef from Argentina. If he heaven’s forbid, rescinds the tariffs, the ranchers will be ticked off as beef prices and profits fall. The president got himself into this mess. It will be interesting to see how he gets out of it.

Axioms of the Hunt – 2025

I only know one other deer hunter in Knoxville but at the family farm it is a completely different story. Professors tend to be snobs and are aghast that I hunt. But as I remarked once to a snobbish colleague, if you don’t hunt, fish, hike, camp, or ride motorcycles, why do you live in Knoxville?

It is now deer season in Georgia and it is time again to revisit my axioms of the hunt. We have just changed over from bow to gun. I spend an inordinate amount of time at the family farm and in the woods. Venison is the only red meat I have eaten since 1971. I spend a good deal of time looking at deer, but only if the deer oblige. During bow season I was overrun with deer. I passed on shot after shot. The bucks were small and had no more than 4 points. I do not shoot immature deer. The does were either small or with fawns. I do not break up family units. 

Although the fawns are weaned I will not shoot the mamma doe. I wait until the rut comes in November when the does chase away the fawns. I do not shoot immature bucks under 6 points. I passed on the biggest doe I have seen because she had such good genetics, I want her to have big babies. But I did finally see a mature doe by herself and took her with a crossbow at 40 yards. I had to give up by beloved Mathews Solocam compound bow that I have used all over the world when some good old boy sabotaged a hang on stand, cutting through the straps. I stepped on the platform in the dark at 6:30 in the morning Georgia and fell 20 feet. When I came to and saw I had motion in my arms and legs I went to the emergency room. I had bruised ribs and a shoulder that the doctor described as being a mess. So hello total shoulder replacement and goodbye compound bow and hello crossbow. The likely saboteur is gone and the father and son from Florida who lease the land next door are nice guys. 

Last year was the first one that I did not take a deer. I ran out of venison and since that is the only red meat I eat, I did without. Now that it is gun season, all the deer that were around during bow have vanished, replaced by hen turkeys. I have just spent a week in the woods and only saw 5 deer total. Only one was a marginal buck of 6 points. My cousin told me he would have taken it but I passed. It is a long season.

So here are my axioms of the hunt.

As always, thank you for reading my musings. I sincerely appreciate you. 

HB’s Axioms of the Hunt

1. The wind will always be at your back (this is different from running where the wind is always in your face).

2. If by some miracle the wind is in your face and you suddenly hear a deer, the wind will shift to your back.

3. Murphy says that “if it can go wrong, it will”. Hunters know that Murphy was an optimist.

4. Deer will always pick the least assessable place to die.

5. If your gun (or bow) breaks, your 42 blade leatherman’s tool will not have a tool that fixes it.

6. When you take it go get it fixed, the repairman will say “In my 30 years I have never seen this happen.”

7. In bow season the deer will be in muzzleloader range. In muzzleloader season the deer will be in gun range. In gun season, the deer will be no where to be found.

8. If you can shoot a doe you will only see does with fawns.

9. If you can only shoot a buck, you will be overrun with does.

10. Deer calls never work. However, the best way to call a deer call is to take a leak.

11. Anyone who claims to have success grunting and rattling is lying.

12. If you see the buck of a lifetime walking down a path, you will only have a lefthanded shot (if you are righthanded and vice versa).

13. If you see the buck of a lifetime and you are bow hunting, the arrow will fall off the rest when you draw.

14. If you hunt a road where deer always cross, they will only cross when you are looking in the other direction.

15. If the outfitter has a success rate of 100%, it will be lower when you leave.

16. Animals shrink if you shoot them.

17. If you only shoot deer 6 points or better, you will only see 4 pointers and spikes.

18. Deer only look up if you are in a tree stand.

19. A turkey always struts one foot past the exact distance that number 6 shot can travel.

20. Camo is about as effective as a deer with a sofa painted on its side can hide in your living room.

21. Hunting clothing billed as no-scents makes no sense.

22. Buck lures only attract hunters to buy them.

23. The only people who swear by grunting and rattling for bucks are the ones who sell them.

24. Primos calls if they work at all must only work on Mississippi deer and turkeys. They sure don’t work in Georgia or Tennessee.

25. If you leave your stand at noon, the deer will walk by at 12:01.

26. The only purpose of scouting before the season is to find out where the deer were.

27. A person who looks down their nose and sneers “You kill bambi!” isn’t worth knowing.

28. If you go on a hunting trip with a group, expect to be the only one who doesn’t kill anything.

29. If you are hunting your own land without seeing anything all day and suddenly you hear something coming down a path, it will be your dog.

30. No woman is worth your time unless she thinks you look cute in camo.

31. Do you have more success stalking or still hunting? Neither.

32. Is the best time to hunt early, midday or late? None of the above.

33. Deer will always walk down the path you are not hunting.

34. Walking into a McDonald’s full of hunters for an early morning biscuit always causes the place to go quiet. Maybe my camo patterns are clashing?

35. Anyone who tells you that a deer smells better than a person is obviously a European.

36. Anyone who asks you why do you own so many different caliber rifles is obviously stupid because it doesn’t make sense to own ten rifles of the same caliber.

37. Since camo wearers look like trees and grass, I guess this makes them environmentalists.

38. Most muzzleloaders were designed to hangfire only when a big deer shows up.

39. That Al Gore rather than the inventor of the Loggy Bayou climbing stand was awarded a Nobel prize is a travesty.

40. My favorite t-shirt says “Conservation through incompetence.”

41. If God didn’t want you to kill deer he wouldn’t have invented the pickup truck.

42. If God didn’t want you to hunt in the cold rain, he wouldn’t have invented GoreTex.

43. If Al Gore got the Nobel prize for inventing GoreTex, then I guess I am ok with it.

44. Since I have never seen a woman who looks like a Victoria Secret’s model, I presume that all about those women are fakes, the product of computer imaging. Similarly, videos that show bucks grunted and rattled-in are fakes.

45. Those who can smoke in a tree stand and deer will walk by even though the wind is wrong and seem to kill big deer every time are the chosen few – of which I am not one. Maybe I should start smoking.

46. A person who claims not to like venison has never eaten my cooking.

47. Jerky is not a food since it cannot be broken down by saliva and chewing. It must be swallowed whole.

48. That jerky is not a food was proven when after I tried to eat it, I gave it to my dogs – who also refused to eat it.

49. I am a small deer specialist. Typically, I only see immature deer (which I let walk).

50. Anyone who says that if you kill a trophy animal every time you hunt then it would not be fun is a fool.

51. The hunter the outfitter describes as being “the luckiest hunter I have ever seen” will always be a person in camp. That person will not be you.

52. Recurve bowhunters are snobs and are hunting’s equivalents of fly fishermen.

53. The longest week I ever spent in my life was in a camp in Alberta hunting for bear and all the other hunters shot recurves.

54. There are 6 things that every bow hunter must do in order to shoot accurately. When a trophy deer approaches you will do five of them.

55. If you believe that nonsense about buying all that expensive no scents gear so you can “Forget the Wind – Just Hunt”, let someone release your dogs one hour after you go in the woods.

56. Game cameras tell you where to hunt at 2:03 in the morning.

57. The one hour before sunup is the longest time of the hunt – much longer than the 5 hours or so that follow.

58. Nothing is more satisfying than being able to furnish your own food.

59. Sure you can kill just as many deer sitting at your kitchen table as you usually do in the woods, but coming home even empty handed to your dogs makes it all worthwhile.

60. My dogs have always been fed a mixture of kibble and venison. Last year I had to feed them lean ground chuck. They wouldn’t eat it so I gave it to a local food bank.

61. I’ve hunted plains game in South Africa, bear in Canada, elk in New Mexico, red stag in Argentina and seriously big deer near Eagle Pass, Texas. But nothing beats being at the family farm hunting on the lands of my ancestors.

Trump’s Office of White House personnel is a joke

The president has pulled the nomination of Paul Ingrassia to be head of his Office of Special Counsel. Ingrassia had previous tweeted a number of racist text messages that became public. Ingrassia had texted to a group of fellow Republicans that “MLK Jr. was the 1960s George Floyd and his ‘holiday’ should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs.” Ingrassia also texted using an Italian slur for blacks, “No moulignon holidays … From kwanza [sic] to mlk jr day to black history month to Juneteenth. Every single one needs to be eviscerated.” He also said that he had a “Nazi streak.” No wonder that his nomination was pulled. The question is why was he nominated in the first place?

As one conservative commentator put it “Ingrassia had no business being anywhere near a federal job, let alone a Senate-confirmed position running an office charged with enforcing federal ethics rules.” Indeed, the the republican party should not be a welcoming place for people like Ingrassia or the young fools that were texting vulgar messages back and forth engaging in racism, misogyny and antisemitism. JD Vance (not one of my favorite people) even made excuses for them saying “The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. Telling “edgy,” “offensive” and “stupid” jokes is “what kids do.” Pardon me, Mr Vice President. That is BS. Being vile and crude is not what smart kids do, only stupid ones. It is no excuse to say “Well the left does it” as so sharply demonstrated with all the vile, vulgar and demonic comments following the Kirk assassination. I find Vance’s remark just one of many examples why I think he is not qualified to be president. I want these fools not to be in the same party that I am in, much like my parents were republicans by default given all the rabid racists in the democrat party of the old south.

The president who has a penchant for firing people needs to fire someone at White House personnel. In my experience, presidential nominees are vetted prior to be nominated. When I was being considered to be on the first National Credit Union Administration Board, I was interviewed by White House personnel. That individual turned out to have been babysat while growing up in Baton Rouge by the wife of my dear friend the late Dr. Bob Kirk who was the University of Tennessee’s first black tenure track professor. After I passed muster, he told me that he was recommending me for the position but before the nomination could be announced, that I would be vetted by the FBI who then interviewed my colleagues, friends and references. Even my neighbors were interviewed. One called me wondering why the FBI was asking questions about me. I assured them it was for a possible nomination by the White House, nothing more.

Didn’t they do this with Ingrassia? Apparently not. This has got to be embarrassing to the president and I wonder if heads rolled at the office of White House personnel. This president needs to clean up his own house and tell these staffers that they are fired. The president should be embarrassed.

Yet this, of course, is not the first time one of the president’s nominees has been withdrawn. The media wants you to think that the republicans in the senate are rubber stamps for whatever the president wants. In many cases this is true but when it is apparent that a nominee cannot be confirmed by the republican majority, the name is withdrawn. In this case, the president is setting records for Ingrassia makes an astounding number 49 withdrawals. No other president has even come close.

Newsweek has even listed them:

1. Adam Boehler (special presidential envoy for hostage affairs)
2. Alan Boehme (assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs)
3. Alina Habba (U.S. attorney for New Jersey)
4. Brent Sadler (administrator of Maritime Administration)
5. Brian Quintenz (chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission)
6. Charlton Allen (special counsel)
7. Cheryl Mason (assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs)
8. Chris Pratt (assistant secretary of State)
9. Christopher Gilbert (U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia)
10. David Eisner (assistant secretary of Energy)
11. David Rader (assistant secretary of Commerce)
12. David Weldon (director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
13. Edward Martin (U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.)
14. Elise Stefanik (United Nations ambassador)
15. Erwin Antoni (Labor Statistics commissioner)
16. Frank Bisignano (Social Security commissioner)
17. Gregory Autrey (NASA CFO) 
18. Janette Nesheiwat (medical director in the regular corps of the Public Health Service)
19. Jared Isaacman (NASA administrator)
20. Jared Novelly (New Zealand ambassador)
21. Jason De Sena Trennert (assistant secretary of the Treasury)
22. Jeffrey Bornstein (under secretary of Defense)
23. Jeffrey Kaufman (member of the Farm Credit Administration Board)
24. Jennifer Locetta (alternative representative of the U.S. for special political affairs in the U.N.)
25. Jennifer Mascott (general counsel for Education Department)
26. Jennifer Wicks McNamara (Vietnam ambassador)
27. Jeremy Ellis (inspector general, Department of Housing and Urban Development)
28. John Bartrum (assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs)
29. John Lavalle (governor of the U.S. Postal Service)
30. John Simermeyer (chairman of National Indian Gaming Commission)
31. Jonathan McKernan (director of Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection)
32. Karen Brazell (under secretary for benefits at Department of Veterans Affairs)
33. Karen Evans (under secretary for management at the Department of Homeland Security)
34. Kathleen Sgamma (Bureau of Land Management director)
35. Kevin O’Farrell (assistant secretary at Department of Education)
36. Landon Heid (assistant secretary of Commerce)
37. Leo Brent Bozell III (CEO of U.S. Agency for Global Media)
38. Luke Petit (assistant secretary of the Treasury)
39. Mark Brnovich (Serbian ambassador)
40. Michael Duffy (under secretary of Defense for acquisition and sustainment)
41. Michael Jensen (assistant secretary of Defense)
42. Penny Schwinn (Deputy Secretary of Education)
43. Ryan Cote (assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs)
44. Sara Carter (National Drug Control Policy director)
45. Stella Herrell (assistant secretary of Agriculture)
46. Terrence Gorman (chairman of board of veterans’ appeals)
47. Theodore Cooke (commissioner of reclamation)
48. Yehuda Kaploun (special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism)
49. Ingrassia

Why isn’t Matt Gaetz on this list?

The president’s war on drugs bearing results?

I had wondered if the president’s extending his southern naval interdiction of drug runners in the eastern Caribbean would now be extended into the Pacific now that he has expressed displeasure with Columbia’s president. The answer is yes. The navy just blew up two boats in the Pacific. This makes nine such attacks and at least 37 deaths. Defense Secretary Hegseth tweeted that the boats were operated by a “Designated Terrorist Organization” and were “transiting along a known narco-trafficking route” in international waters. He said they were “known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling.” Hegseth did not specify the organization.

I wonder what percentage of South American drugs are transported to the US via drug running boats? Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said that the routes through the Caribbean on boats are predominantly used to bring cocaine to Europe not to the U.S. So I guess the Europeans should be sending the president thank you notes. It also noteworthy that the Dominican Republic has agreed to let the US military use its airports for staging operations in support of counternarcotics flights. This shows that the president is planning more extensive operations both in the eastern Caribbean and off the Columbian coast in the Pacific. I am now awaiting drone strikes on the cartels in Venezuela and Columbia. Again, is this how the CIA will be used?

How do these drugs get to the US? Here what Rear Admiral Christopher Tomney director of Joint Interagency Task Force South for the US Coast Guard said in an interview with the BBC.

“We cover over 40 million square nautical miles, and reach well out into the Atlantic, throughout north, central and south America as well as all the way out into the eastern Pacific. 

“The number one drug we see moving is cocaine. Last year we were able to successfully take out of the pipeline 191 metric tonnes of cocaine. Around 20 to 25% of cocaine around the globe is interdicted. 

“The cartels are very innovative. Due to their large profits, they have a lot of money they can throw at technology.

“In the early days of this task force – and we’ve been around for 26 years – we saw much higher movement using non-commercial aircraft to fly the drugs northwards. 

“[Now] well over 95% of the drugs are moving on the water via container ships, non-commercial vessels, pleasure boats, sail boats, fishing boats. They also have fast boats which try to outrun our law enforcement assets.”

The fact that 95% of the drugs are moving over water provides statistical and empirical justification for the interdiction efforts of the administration. Yet the cartels are smart and will likely ship less with their fast boats and more by stashing the drugs on other vessels. Perhaps this is where the president’s amazing admission of using the CIA comes in – to help identify the commercial vessels and pleasure boats that will be increasingly used by the cartels to transport drugs. Again, drone attacks anyone?

What about the southern border? One of the many impacts that the effective closure of the southern border has had is on drugs. Reports state that there have been a drop in fentanyl seizures of 70 percent from last year. Although some detractors might contend that the cartels have found other ways to sneak the drug into the country, this has not proven to be the case. Rather, shutting down the border has discouraged the cartels from using the huge flow of illegals to cover their transporting the drugs with the illegal migrant crossing.

Here is what the Department of Homeland Security has said. There has been a 97% reduction in the number of “illegal crossings of the border” compared to “the same [unspecified] period of last year.” A 59% increase in seizures of ammunition and parts of weapons compared to “the same period of last year.” A 70% reduction in fentanyl seizures, “with 20,000 pounds of fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine confiscated in total in the past 90 days.

Wow. These are impressive numbers and reflect the use of troops from both Mexico and the US on the southern border. However despite these reductions, the president is pressuring the Mexican government to do even more. While he has lifted his “fentanyl” tariffs on Mexico, the tariffs on non-USMCA free trade items remain.

Since the flow of these drugs has been sharply reduced, the question remains as to the impact on their street prices in the US and the impact on the quantity (and quality) of drugs demanded. That will be the subject of a future posting.

Do you trust the CDC?

Now that President Trump is back in office and RFK, jr is head of HHS, people are being asked if they trust the CDC (Centers for Disease Control). I think the relevant question is to ask if people have ever trusted the CDC. I know that the CDC lost credibility during Covid. Did that distrust lessen with the arrival of Kennedy? Apparently not. There are ones that are dismayed over some of the new directives from the administration to the CDC regarding immunizations and research. One in particular that I find disfavor in is the directive that explicitly forbids CDC scientists from working on “identifying and documenting worse health outcomes for minority populations.” I have stated before that this is a wrong direction to take. 

One of the contradictions of this administration is the acknowledgement that on the one hand there are differences between males and females and on the other hand differences do not exist – either by sex or by race. So males should not be allowed to share intimate spaces with females. There are only two genders – regardless of what gender they say they possess. So defund research focused on gender. Also defund research into racial differences. So we are different but we are not different? Is the administration in denial that minorities have worse health outcomes in cardiac disease, diabetes, kidney disease and others and we are not to find out why and remedy those differences? This is a disservice to millions of Americans who happen not to be white males.

Sure Kennedy has gotten awful press, some of which is deserved. The CDC is a mess as he is cleaning house and redirecting its priorities. Not a bad thing either. What does the public think? There is a partisan divide.  For instance with regard to the warning about Tylenol, 60 percent of democrats polled thought the statements were false while 56 percent of the republicans thought they were true. This is more likely a “hate Trump – like Trump” divide. Physicians continue to reiterate that it is the safest medicine to take in pregnancy, when untreated fever or pain can cause other problems. Does this means that a large segment of the population does not trust physicians either?

I know of plenty of people who have always distrusted the CDC, physicians and the AMA well before the advent of Trump and Kennedy. The agency has in the past made recommendations and then withdrew them. The CDC has had a precipitous decline in public trust under Kennedy who has been called by former surgeon generals as a threat to the nation’s health. One said “They’ve dismantled the agencies that had real scientists who provided information and instead replaced it with ideology. We’re already seeing diseases that we usually don’t see coming back, like measles. People will die and the ramifications are significant.” 

Moreover, given Kennedy’s track record on vaccines, the legions of antivaxxers are growing. The president has even chimed in on vaccinations. People may be motivated to make decisions based on whether they like or dislike the president, rather than any rational thought.

Former CDC leaders Rochelle Walensky and Dan Jernigan have stopped short of saying that do not trust their old agency. But they did say it has been harder to trust CDC guidance under the Trump administration and that physician groups should step up to fill the void. Really? Who do you trust for health advice? I discount virtually every pronouncement from the AMA. I firmly believe that its obsession with wokeness in medical schools endangers the nation’s health. Where do you go get information about medications and medical advice? I know that I have challenged some of the advice given to me by my own physician. She expects that given my penchant for researching almost everything dealing with my own health issues. But what do “normal” people do? How do you make decisions regarding your own healthcare?

Right now the CDC is in turmoil. More than 1,300 employees have been terminated, some permanently. The fact is that the firing of vaccine experts and cutting off research funding does not engender trust and it has served to erode my trust ever farther. Of course, Kennedy does not see it that way. In an editorial in the Wall Steet Journal, he said that his actions were restoring trust in the CDC. He contends that the CDC lost the public’s trust with its unscientific mandates during Covid. He wrote “Bureaucratic inertia, politicized science and mission creep have corroded that purpose and squandered public trust. That dysfunction produced irrational policy during Covid: cloth masks on toddlers, arbitrary 6-foot distancing, boosters for healthy children, prolonged school closings, economy-crushing lockdowns, and the suppression of low-cost therapeutics in favor of experimental and ineffective drugs. The toll was devastating. America is home to 4.2% of the world’s population but suffered 19% of Covid deaths.” Whoa! Excuse me, but wasn’t all this on the president’s first watch with Fauci who first said no masks and then one mask and then two masks? Fauci later admitted that there was no scientific basis for many of the restrictions taken during Covid certainly played a role in a lack of trust in the CDC. Now critics of Kennedy are saying that the recommendations from the CDC are not evidence based. Are we now to believe the critics? What a mess.

Kennedy writes that the CDC has wandered away from its mission and only “half of the CDC’s budget supports its infectious-disease mission. Fewer than 1 in 10 employees are epidemiologists. That drift explains much of the agency’s disastrous pandemic response.” So Kennedy says that the president wants him to restore the CDC to its original mission and restore its focus on infectious disease. Will this restoration bring with it a credible CDC? Whether his actions are doing this will be the subject for continuing debate. The president is fond of saying “wait until next year” to see the benefits from his policies. Well lets wait until next year to see if Kennedy has indeed restored the public trust in the CDC.

Tariffs: Manna from Heaven? And a modest suggestion to reopen the government

Some time ago I raised the question as to whether the president knew that he could not unilaterally use the revenue from the tariffs on any project that he desired. He promised that tariffs would make us rich as hell. It was as if tariffs would be manna from Heaven. A wonderous outflowing of billions into our coffers to solve all our fiscal problems. But since tariffs are paid by the domestic importer and not the foreign exporter, they were akin to raising taxes – and increased taxes have never made any nation rich as hell. Estimates are that the tariffs will effectively decrease real household income by $2,000. Again, the fiscal effect of tariffs is akin to transferring money from one pocket to the next. But the impact is an overall negative one on GDP. Most estimates of GDP (outside of the administration’s estimates) are for a slowing of GDP growth due to the tariffs.

Regardless, the president said that he would use the tariff revenue to maybe give us a $5,000 rebate. Maybe he would give the farmers $28 billion. Maybe he would reduce income taxes. Maybe he would pay down the national debt. Maybe he would use it to pay the troops. He even said that maybe it could be used for nutrition assistance. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Remember when China stopped buying US soybeans? The president said “We’re going to take some of that tariff money that we made, we’re going to give it to our farmers, who are, for a little while, going to be hurt until the tariffs kick in to their benefit. So we’re going to make sure that our farmers are in great shape, because we’re taking in a lot of money.”

Well if the president is going to use any of the $200 billion or so currently from tariffs, he is going to have to get an act of congress to allocate the money. That is because tariffs flow into the general fund at the Treasury and only the congress can approve its allocation or reallocation. Granted the president has exercised his power by freezing funds already appropriated by the congress (subject to judicial approval) but he lacks the authority to raid the nation’s piggy bank. One republican member of congress politely reminded the president of this when he said “So while I’m certainly interested in the White House and President Trump’s suggestions, there’s the necessity of Congress acting to implement that suggestion, if that’s the conclusion of Congress.” One of the president’s officials admitted that it would be nice if it weren’t so but “I mean, listen, when the tariff money comes in, it goes to the Treasury of the United States. And Congress has to tell it — has to authorize it and appropriate it — right?” Right.

The vice president who is prone to speak while not being briefed on matters had said that during the shutdown the tariffs would be used to fund military pay. Wrong. That pay is coming from other funds says the Office of Management and Budget. Instead of waiting on congress to authorize payment to farmers out of the tariffs, the administration instead is going to use money from a Department of Agriculture emergency fund. It has even found money laying around to fund nutritional assistance.

If the administration did get the congress to write a bill authorizing the use of the tariffs from the general fund, what would it look like? Would it be a Christmas tree bill using the money in hundreds of different ways? Would there be a different bill for each proposed use? Regardless, the republican leadership is probably hesitant to bring any bill up for authorization because of what the democrats might do. You can be certain that they will want to use the tariffs to fund their own priorities. 

Now a modest proposal: I am actually surprised that those in congress or the president haven’t thought of using the tariffs to address the current standoff over Obamacare subsidies. The Congressional Budget Office (one of my old employers) estimates that the cost of continuing the Obamacare subsidies will be $350 billion over ten years. Well that is “only” $35 billion a year and the tariffs have already brought in $200 billion and are estimated (ceteris paribus) to bring in $4 trillion over that same 10 year period. Currently some republicans are starting to feel the heat because they have constituents who have become hooked on the Obamacare subsidies. So why not just use the tariff money to solve the shutdown farce and reopen the government?

BTW, I am categorically opposed to the costly, inefficient Rube Goldberg machine that is Obamacare and wish for its repeal. I am just offering up a possible solution to the shutdown using the tariff (which I also oppose) monies.

Temper tantrums galore

Perhaps it’s the stress in Washington that has led to a total breakdown in decorum. First, Pam (Blondie) Bondi went on the offensive and traded insult for accusation at a Senate hearing. Then Karoline Leavitt and Hakeem Jeffries needed a referee to step in and call time out. Maybe it is the pressure stemming from the government shutdown but Jeffries had not so nice things to say about Trump’s press secretary. He said “You’ve got Karoline Leavitt, who’s sick. She’s out of control. And I’m not sure whether she’s just demented, ignorant, a stone-cold liar, or all of the above.” And what had prompted this remark? It was Leavitt who had said likely about the demonstrators in the latest “No Kings” demonstrations “The Democrat Party’s main constituencies are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals. That is who the Democratic Party is catering to — not the White House, and not the Republican Party, who standing up for law-abiding Americans. Not just across the country but [also] around the world.” Ho boy. And here is what Jeffries retorted “But the notion that an official White House spokesperson would say that the Democratic Party consists of terrorists, violent criminals, and undocumented immigrants makes no sense, that this is what the American people are getting from the Trump administration in the middle of a shutdown.”

I wish – to no avail – that everyone on both sides would cool it. We have had the left call the president, his supporters and republicans in general every vile name in the book. The tradition has been for the republicans to take it. No more. Its now insult for insult. Members of congress are coming close to blows as tempers boil over. We had not yet resorted to fisticuffs and duels but it seems that we are getting close.

Speaking of no kings, did you see where there was a no kings rally in London – where they actually have a king? I wonder what King Charles thought about it?

The rallies in the US appeared to be mostly peaceful. I guess we had one in Knoxville but I am not certain.

Did you see where Portland’s city council voted unanimously to codify its sanctuary city status and instructed its police department not to assist ICE? Trump has called Portland “war-ravaged” and claimed federal facilities, including ICE sites, are “under siege” by Antifa and “other domestic terrorists.” It is evident that Portland’s elected officials and by inference its residents want to harbor the illegals and resist any effort by federal officials to deport them. Doesn’t the Supremacy Clause take precedent here where the federal laws supersede any local or state law? I wonder why Trump hasn’t just threatened to throw the entire Portland city government in jail?

The president seems to think that George Soros is the funding source for all that’s on the left and has threatened to sic the IRS on Soros’ organization accusing them of RICO violations. I thought RICO was an anti-racketeering law.

The president’s war on Venezuela is couched on drugs but that’s just a ruse. The Navy’s presence in the eastern Caribbean is there to harass Maduro and not particular to stop the flow or drugs, since most of that goes through Columbia into the Pacific. It obvious that the president wants a regime change in Venezuela but Maduro has so ingratiated himself with his military that a coup seems unlikely. Meanwhile, the flow of drugs is progressing finding new avenues to transport it to the buyers in the United States. Well at least, the Navy got in some live fire exercises to keep sharp.

Speaking of drugs, the president has now turned his sights on Columbia calling its president a drug dealer – something he also called Maduro. Since Columbia is the primary source of drug production its about time that decisive action is taken. Is the president threatening to deal with Columbia like he is dealing with Venezuela? Is he going to send the navy into the Pacific to interdict drug smuggling from Columbia? Well not quite. First he is just ending any payments to Columbia to aid in their fight against the drugs calling them a long-term rip off. Second, he is threatening to shut down the drug production if the Columbians won’t do it saying that they had “better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.” So now the president has threatened to invade both Venezuela and Columbia.

I can’t help but think that the president just likes being a bully picking on those who really cannot fight back. Hence threatening Venezuela and Columbia. Yes Maduro is a bad actor but cocaine and heroin account for only about 25 percent of drug deaths annually. Last year it was around 30,000 deaths. But opioids account for almost three times as many deaths. So why hasn’t the president threatened to invade China to shut down the manufacture of fentanyl? Absent that rather than threaten them with tariffs, how about a complete embargo of Chinese goods and ban Americans from doing business with China until the flow of fentanyl stops? Why doesn’t he rattle his sword at China or is all this just for show?