Author: haroldblackphd

There is little doubt that diversity, equity and inclusion has added administrative bloat on many college campuses. Ron DeSantis has asked for an accounting of DEI on Florida’s campuses. It was reported that one university had 31 administrators solely devoted to DEI. One conservative website claimed that “The average American university has more than 45 individuals with jobs devoted to promoting so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion.” It further states that “DEI programs push divisive identity politics as well as distorted narratives about American History.” Personally I find it hard to believe that the average university has 45 plus jobs solely to promoting DEI. What would all those folks do? While it is true that universities have engaged in administrative bloat in the face of declining enrollments, 45 DEI administrators would have difficulty finding something to do. At best, many DEI officials engage in make-work. For example, many universities require their professors who are already overwhelmingly progressives to swear on the DEI altar. They have to sign statements, often put statements on course syllabi and take tests to determine implicit bias. Clearly, none of this is significant and given the professors’ politics is redundant. No matter. Your flaming lib sociology professor with the Karl Marx poster may be a closet racist. Too often, even progressive professors look down their noses at DEI administrators claiming that those positions were just added to increase the high administrators’ kingdom and to provide make-work for minorities.

DEI staffing may be bloated but that is the norm for campus administrations. I would wager that administrators could be cut by a third without any loss of function. However, I do not favor the elimination of DEI on campus. Yes on some campuses, DEI needs to pivot in order to actually be useful. Some universities have programs that advocate racial segregation with no whites allowed. This amazes me since it is whites who are okaying programs to exclude other whites. There are black dorms, black programs, black scholarships, black workshops and black initiatives. If it were reversed, the condemnation would be deafening. Some universities teach Critical Race Theory which brands all whites as racists – including liberal professors. 

But DEI on campus need not do any of these. Rather it would serve a useful purpose if it provided a foundation for first generation college students to acclimate to the university. Rather than segregating by race, DEI should bring students together to get to know each other and to discuss important issues that arise on campus. For me, the ideal model is what is referred on the University of Tennessee’s DEI website. It reads “We are committed to supporting the creation of equitable and inclusive spaces for students, faculty, and staff, with a focus on removing structural barriers and fostering an atmosphere in which every member of the campus community matters and belongs. We work to advance access, accountability, an inclusive campus climate, and equity while combating racism, bias, and discrimination.” This is ideal. Instead of being exclusive as some DEI programs clearly are at other universities, this statement aims to truly be inclusive and the only way to accomplish that is to include students from all backgrounds, all beliefs and all political views. Moreover, on a college campus, DEI should further the mission of the university to promote educational and professional advancement and excellence. Unfortunately, too many of our colleges have lowered academic standards and encourage mediocrity rather than excellence. Rigorous courses have been eliminated from those that are required or eliminated altogether. Exams are now mostly machine graded true-false and multiple choice. I became increasingly frustrated with my undergraduate students over the years. They knew less and less about less and less. Sometimes, I would wager my seniors that they could not get 50 percent on an entrance exam to Bronx High School administered in 1888. They said they could so the bet was that if they made 50 percent I would increase their final grade one level, but if they got less than 50 percent I would reduce it one level. I let them see the exam first. None of them took it. I was asked occasionally by students “Why do you know so much?” My response was always “Why do you know so little?”

I know it is asking the impossible, but I would like to see the universities recommit themselves to academic excellence. Ideally, DEI could help lead the way by exposing students to successful people from all backgrounds in various fields who have triumphed against daunting odds. DEI could play a valuable role on college campus. That it does not is an indictment of campus administrators and not of DEI.       

In case you missed it, the left’s latest jihad is the war on gas stoves. Never mind that most cooks prefer gas. Never mind that 40 million households have gas stoves (including my two cooktops). The powers that be have determined that gas stoves are bad for you and (gasp) bad for the environment. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said it was contemplating a ban because of health and pollution concerns. One of its commissioners tweeted that “gas stoves can emit dangerous [levels] of toxic chemicals—even when not in use—and @USCPSC will consider all approaches to regulation.” New stoves might be banned but existing stoves could face being regulated. The governor of New York also proposed banning all natural  gas heating and appliances from new buildings. She said “Buildings are the largest source of emissions in our state, accounting for a third of our greenhouse gas output, as well as pollution that aggravates asthma and endangers our children. I’m proposing a plan to end the sale of any new fossil-fuel-powered heating equipment by 2030.” Not surprisingly California was the first state to prohibit natural gas appliances when the California Air Resources Board approved to ban them by 2030. Other leftist-governed states will follow.

The Biden Administration which has prostrated itself to the green god of the left,  included an $800 rebate in the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” if you buy an electric stove. There have been a few studies citing the health effects of breathing in the nitrogen dioxide emitted from gas stoves. But the conclusions have been questioned by other researchers. Never mind that the number of cases cited are few, that has never concerned those interested in eliminating fossil fuels and controlling you via the nanny state. As to the contributions your gas stove to polluting the earth, one study estimates that the emissions from gas stoves are equivalent to that of one half million automobiles (there are around 280 million cars in the US).

Several Republicans lashed out at the Biden Administration, calling such rules evidence of the nanny state gone wild. Even Democrat Joe Manchin tweeted “The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner. I can tell you the last thing that would ever leave my house is the gas stove that we cook on.” In reaction, the chairman of the CPSC said “to be clear, I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so. CPSC is researching gas emissions in stoves and exploring new ways to address health risks. CPSC also is actively engaged in strengthening voluntary safety standards for gas stoves.” Biden even had his press secretary issue a statement that the president was not looking to ban gas stoves.

There is a very simple way to prevent emissions of nitrogen dioxide from causing harm as a result of cooking: turn on the stove’s vent. 

But of course that involves personal responsibility with is an anathema to the left. Of course, gas stoves are also asserted to be racist. Some Democrat legislators sent a letter to the CPSC alleging that gas stove emissions had a disproportionately adverse affect on the health of black, Latino and low income households. One study found that 12 percent of children with asthma lived in households with gas stoves and since black children are three times more likely than white children to have asthma, then this becomes an “equity” issue. However, the authors of the study noted that there is no hard evidence that cooking with gas actually caused the asthma. It seems to me that a reasonable person would note that if 12 percent of asthmatic children live in homes with gas stoves then that must mean that 88 percent do not. So shouldn’t we ban electric stoves as well? Obviously, those on the left would blanche at reverting to using wood or coal, so they are touting induction stoves, which start at over $1,000. The Inflation Reduction Act rebate will come in handy here.

The Oracle Who Names is at it again proclaiming that henceforth illegal aliens be referred to as “migrants.” Interestingly all media have bent on one knee to comply including the “conservative” press. It was enlightening that a sports announcer got suspended for calling illegal aliens “illegal aliens.” The Oracle has spoken so all must obey. The Oracle’s children have also been busy. But since they do not have the same command over the media, their efforts to change the language has been less successful. One of the latest was the University of Southern California’s school of social work discovering that the word “field” was racist and announcing that henceforth, the word “practicum” will be used instead. The school said that “This change supports anti-racist social work practice by replacing language that would be considered anti-Black or anti-immigrant in favor of inclusive language.” So now “field” work is now called “practicum” work? Now doesn’t that just roll off the tongue? It is obvious that “school” should be put in quote marks for that part of USC not a serious academic college. The same is true for some administrators at Stanford who had too much time on their hands. They released an index of “harmful language” showing words that were deemed racist. They included American, Hispanic, “Karen”, father, victim, straight, landlord, ladies, chief, brown bag, white paper, illegal immigrant (migrant!), master, blind, gangbusters and so on. Stanford points out that it took over a year to compile the list. That is reminiscent of asking “how many campus administrators does it take to change a light bulb?” At Stanford, the number of campus administrators almost equals the number of students. After a week or so, Stanford removed the guide when the Wall Street Journal pointed out that the guide read more like the Babylon Bee than from one of the country’s premier universities. Stanford seems to have forgotten that the vast majority of us do not associate racism with hardly any of those words and that those who feel that such words are “hurtful” and make them feel “threatened” are whiners and are best ignored.

This silliness is running rampant in our universities which have become temples of wokeness. Most every campus is overstocked with administrators pretending to be busy doing stuff. Like Stanford, many universities have an administrator – student ratio approaching one to one. Victor David Hanson points out that while college enrollment has dropped, the number of professors has increased slightly while the number of administrators has doubled. Each campus must now have a “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) administrator and staff and while some do good in providing needed outreach, most oversee reams of paperwork to demand inclusiveness and to root out white supremacy. Of course, this is laughable since 90 percent of professors are leftist, progressive, socialists who give lip service to DEI all the time. Even southern state universities like my alma mater the University of Georgia have pockets of wokeness. Go to the website of its college of education (named for one of my dearest friends) and you will find homage to DEI on a breathtaking scale. Ironically, the college is housed in Aderhold Hall named for the university’s president when I was enrolled there. Aderhold was no fan of DEI. The university was forced to integrate during his tenure. My experience was that he did not want us at his university and many in his administration actively worked to limit the number of blacks admitted to Georgia and once we were there, put barriers in our way. Maybe the college should rethink the name of its building. 

I have heard faculty at other universities express resentment over the expanding reach of DEI. Professors are supposed to commit themselves to the DEI goals (again mostly redundant) as part of the evaluation for tenure and promotion while departments are to submit plans for DEI. Some of the universities’ colleges require a DEI statement on every faculty syllabus. If that existed for my department I would respectfully decline. Some administrators also want DEI to be included in the course material. Professors are to be  that he was tested for implicit bias – even though such tests are worthless. Again, given the politics of most professors, the imposition of DEI seems redundant. Yet again, university presidents like most bureaucrats want to expand their personal empires and have done so by hiring more administrators whose job is to meet most all day and conjure up busy work. At the same time, academic standards have been steadily eroding and in many colleges indoctrination has replaced education. I once referred to Stanford as the nation’s best university. Sadly, that is no longer true.

1. Commercials tell us that if you buy an expensive electric car. You too can be cool and black. Aren’t there any cool white people?
2. ED commercials during pro football games. You too can look like a physical specimen. 
3. Saw an EV commercial that boasted that an 80 percent charge took ‘only’ 18 minutes. How would you react if it took ‘only’ 18 minutes to fill up at the pump?
4. Hair growth ads during baseball games. Only old bald men still watch baseball (like me).
5. ED commercials during football games. Nuff said.
6. If Hollywood is so woke then why all the gun violent movie trailers?
7. If Hollywood is so woke then why only one black actress winning Oscar for best actress – all the rest are supporting actresses.
8. The Oscars are Hollywood presenting themselves awards. Is it no surprise that virtually all the awards go to people who look like themselves? Face it: Hollywood is a racist liberal progressive enclave and embodies white supremacy.
9. I keep reading about “the shift to EVs”. The so-called shift has been amongst those who embrace the trendy. Sure EVs have great acceleration and some are fun to drive. But they make little sense unless you use it just to run around town and have a home charger. For those in multifamily dwellings and those living in apartments, EVs don’t make sense. Makes me wonder about how China is managing these problems.
10. All the wailing and gnashing of teeth over Omar’s ouster from the foreign affairs committee was simply theatre. She and her proponents said it was because she was an African Muslim woman. In fact she is an African Muslim woman who is openly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel raising the question whether she should be on a committee that deals with issues of national security.
11. Some openly attacked the Republicans in Congress as being racist. AOC hyperventilated that the action showed “the Republican Party’s continued racist attack “and “incitement of violence against women of color in this body.” Cori Bush linked Omar’s ousting to the presence of white supremacy in the Congress. So much for comity. Of course, the four black republicans who voted to oust Omar must also be anti-black, anti-women of color and white supremacists. Give me a break.
12. If Omar was booted for being an African Muslim woman then were Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell ousted because they were white males and victims of white supremacy?
13. So why did Biden wait so long to have the Chinese balloon shot down? Once it entered US airspace it should have been shot down well before it reached the lower 48. Instead Biden allows it to broadcast information back to China as it flows over our military installations. He shoots it down over the Atlantic instead. This was lunacy – unless Biden is a Chinese agent. 
14. Did you notice that Ron DeSantis was attacked for opposing the teaching of woke black history rather than the teaching of black history? None defended why critical race theory, advocating for the abolition of prisons, queer black studies and black feminism were essential parts of black history. There was even a laudatory section on the Marxist anti-family Black Lives Matter. The left accused DeSantis as opposing the teaching of black history. One headline read “What is behind DeSantis push to erase black history?” This is another illustration that the media is fostering the lie that DeSantis opposes the teaching of black history. I bet Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Bob Woodson and historic black conservatives were excluded from the original AP course.
15. National Education Association president’s Becky Pringles defense of the AP curriculum “Black history is American history. DeSantis is stealing our students’ freedom to learn it” is sobering and shows precisely why we need to change our children being indoctrinated rather than educated in our public schools.
    

Rather than saying take this job and shove it, after 15 ballots Kevin McCarthy finally became Speaker of the House of Representatives. There was much gnashing of teeth from conservative commentators about the process. Most condemned the 20 conservative Republicans from the House’s Freedom Caucus who demanded certain concessions from McCarthy. It was apparent that at least three members, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Lauren Boebert of Colorado were never going to vote for McCarthy. Rather in the end, they voted “present” so McCarthy could be elected with a simple plurality.

I found the whole kerfuffle to be amusing. First, most of those critical of the twenty holdouts whined that since 90 percent of the Republican representatives were voting for McCarthy, that he should be elected over the objections of the 10 percent. Wasn’t this how democracy was supposed to work? Huh? Did these critics forget that this country is not a democracy but a representative republic established to protect the rights of the minority? Sean Hannity sounded like a whining leftist who bemoans the Electoral College and the unrepresentative structure of the Senate. Whether you agreed with Matt Gaetz of not, he and his cohorts embodied the spirit of the Founders. Moreover, the holdouts were representing the Republican base which for the longest has felt disrespected and ignored by the Republican establishment and McCarthy embodies the establishment.

Second, what were the concessions that McCarthy was forced to make? They were

• No more voting on omnibus spending bills. Rather, each one of the 12 appropriation bills must be considered separately. Sounds like a good idea to me and one concession that McCarthy should have readily agreed to implement.
• Cap discretionary spending at 2020 levels in order to balance the budget within 10 years. Again, a no brainer but one not likely to pass the Senate.
• Create a committee to investigate the “weaponization of the Federal government.” Again, a no brainer given the actions of Merrick Garland’s Department of “Justice”.
• The reinstitution of the law allowing for reductions in the salaries of government officials. I have long contended that Federal salaries should be the average of salaries for similar positions in the private sector instead of exceeding them. Again, a no brainer.
• Keep McCarthy’s super PAC out of open House races for “safe” seats.
• Appoint members of the Freedom Caucus to the House Rules Committee.
• Give the House 72 hours to review legislation.
• Require a vote to raise the debt ceiling.
• Hold a vote on term limits.
• Hold a vote on border security. And,
• Allow one member rather than five to start the process to remove the speaker.

McCarthy should not have had a problem with any of these except for the last one. This was likely a conflict just to show who was going to blink first. That McCarthy would not readily grant these concessions indicates that this was a classic “p……ing contest” which is defined as a “competition between rivals to determine superiority, predominance or leadership.”

The election of McCarty also ends the January 6 nonsense. That so-called “insurrection” was more like a frat party than an insurrection. To see the real thing, just look at what is happening in Brazil and Peru. Finally, McCarty’s acceptance speech sounded more like Jim Jordan than Mitch McConnell. He promised to fight for lower energy prices, to repeal the funding for the new 87,000 IRS agents, to cut the regulatory burden on business, to stop the rising federal debt and to secure the southern border. With an agenda like that, he should have been elected unanimously on the first ballot. The best part of his speech was almost universally ignored by the media. He talked about the diverse makeup of the remarkable Massachusetts Marblehead Militia who rowed Washington and his 2,400 troops across the Delaware. They were stout fishermen and were Scottish, black, Native American and immigrants. But they were all brave Americans who would have faced awful deaths had they lost. The image of a diverse crew rowing the same boat for the same goal should be inspiring for all Americans. Instead, the media ignored it because it did not meet their new narrative of a fragmented, compartmentalized America made up of suffering individual groups being oppressed by white supremacy and soulless capitalism.

The current commentary about the Federal Reserve is almost exclusively on how it is fighting inflation. The Fed has raised its Fed Funds target range from near zero to 4.25-4.5 percent and it is this rate that the media details ad nauseum. The speculation is on how high will the Fed go. Some have predicted as high as 6 percent. Whatever the Fed will do depends on what the Fed economists think the future will look like, in particular future inflation and employment. Although the media pushes the narrative that current reports of inflation and employment are somehow predictive of what the Fed will do now, at best that narrative is misleading. Fed policy operates with a significant lag. If the Fed employs unambiguous monetary policy, the effects will not be seen for at least a year and often longer. Thus, the Fed is looking forward, not backward, contrary to the commonplace story told by the media. However, current events can give the Fed cover for its intended actions.

Consider that we are all told that the Fed sets interest rates. In reality, markets set rates. While the Fed can in the short run affect the direction where interest rates go, it does not actually set the rates. The best example is that it sets a Fed funds target rate and not the precise rate itself. Fed funds are bank excess reserves traded overnight by banks. Supply and demand for bank reserves set the rate. The Fed influences the supply of Fed funds. When it wants the rate to rise, it decreases the supply of bank reserves by selling Treasuries to the banks and taking reserves as payment. The decrease in supply raises the Fed funds rate but that increase cannot be precisely determined. 

The two interest rates that the Fed can determine are the rate that the Fed pays the banks on bank reserves and the discount rate, which is the rate that the Fed charges banks that wish to borrow at the Fed’s discount window. Currently those rates are within the Fed funds target range. This is important because if the discount rate is below the Fed funds rate, the banks could borrow cheaper from the Fed which would counteract what the Fed is doing in the Fed funds market. Also, the Fed can discourage bank lending if it pays higher interest on the banks’ reserves. Why should the banks lend and incur risk when it can keep its money safely at the Fed at near the same rate?

Currently, the Fed is saying that inflation is predicted to fall this year to around 3 percent and unemployment rising to 4.6 percent. Although the Fed is not saying that the economy will go into recession, the markets are wary. However, the Treasury yield curve is downward sloping, predicting a recession. The yield curve plots interest rates on Treasuries over time by maturity. Usually, the 3 month Treasury bill yields are below that of longer term bonds. However, for the past months the curve is inverted with shorter term yields being greater than longer term ones. This means that the market is reluctant to invest longer term due to uncertainty.

Nevertheless, what business reporting fails to mention is that inflation is always a monetary phenomena. The Fed is responsible for the current inflation by enabling the massive increase in Federal spending by increasing the money supply when it grew its balance sheet from $1 trillion to $8.5 trillion. Now it is trying to shrink the money supply by decreasing the amount of banks’ excess reserves, which create money when loaned out. No business correspondent mentions this and most business reports would probably earn at best a “C” if submitted as an economics paper.

When the Fed countered the great recession of 2008, it dramatically lowered the Fed funds rate and eventually pushed it to near zero. Even though these actions may have had some merit, the only reason that the Fed kept rates low was for political, not economic, reasons. As is always the case, the Fed’s conduct is the primary cause of economic uncertainty and market volatility. Although most of the media seem to think that rising interest rates foretell gloom, there is one positive note. My sainted mother used to ask me during the zero Fed rate era, “Why does the Fed hate seniors?” Of course, she was correct because her CDs earned virtually no interest return.  Well at least now, even though the Fed may still hate seniors, the pain it is inflicting is a bit less.

In the recent kerfuffle over the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Byron Donalds (R-FL) was nominated as an alternative to Kevin McCarthy. Donalds is one of four black Republicans in the Congress – the others being Wesley Hunt (TX), John James (MI) and Burgess Owens (UT). His nomination was noted by some as being historic in that there were black nominees from both parties – Hakeem Jeffries (NY) was nominated by the Democrats. However, the usual suspects pooh-poohed Donalds nomination. Perhaps the most vicious was that from Cori Bush of Missouri who tweeted “FWIW, Byron Donalds is not a historic candidate for Speaker. He is a prop. Despite being Black, he supports a policy agenda intent on upholding and perpetuating white supremacy. His name being in the mix is not progress – it’s pathetic.” Of course, Bush sees white supremacy under every rock and in every white face – probably including white Democrats. She has previously accused white Republicans in Congress of white supremacy so it is not surprising that she would lash out at a black Republican and essentially accuse him of being an Uncle Tom. This is nothing new on the black left. Previously, other conservative blacks have been labelled “skinfolk but not kinfolk”. Donalds responded that Bush is invited to debate him on issues at any time but Bush should not disparage fellow blacks even if she disagreed with them. Donalds knows fully well that Bush does not have the capacity to debate him. Bush probably realizes it too. I have looked for other Democrats to criticize Bush but have yet to find any. 

When I was much younger and naïve, I used to say that we blacks all wanted the same thing – increased economic wellbeing – but differed in how to get there. I realize now that I was mistaken. I and other black conservatives can formulate a strategy to lessen welfare dependency and dramatically increase the economic status of minorities (and poor whites). However, we know that liberals including black progressives would oppose such plans that would be pro self-determination, capitalistic and call for the blowing up of our public school apparatus. Instead, they have a vested interest in preserving the status quo. Such is the sad state of black Democrats who are unable to formulate a concrete message on advancing the economic wellbeing of their constituents. Show me their Marshall Plan. It does not exist. Rather, the black left, aided and abetted by the white left, has given us the 1619 Project, a fictional rewriting of history linking everything American to slavery. In response, Bob Woodson formed the 1776 Unites (1776Unites.org) of which I am a member. Instead of blaming slavery for every ill of America, Woodson’s group is an advocate of capitalism as a tool of minority advancement. It advocates entrepreneurship, personal responsibility and strength through mutual support within minority communities. For those who are interested, I recommend visiting the 1776 Unites website and reading their first book of essays “Red, White and Black: Rescuing American History from Revisionists and Race Hustlers.” Full disclosure: I contributed an essay to this volume.

I am not optimistic that black progressives and black conservatives can come together to craft solutions to mutual problems. The black Democrats in Congress exclude black Republicans from the “Congressional” Black Caucus where theoretically both could work on important issues. I am reminded of the conflict between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois during the early 20^thcentury. Washington advocated for blacks to strive for economic independence becoming productive members of society before pursuing civil rights. In so doing Washington became the head of what is now Tuskegee University and lead the establishment of black schools. Dubois, on the other hand, pushed for civil rights through political action and agitation as the only routes to equality. Washington was considered by followers of Dubois to be an Uncle Tom. Washington believed in America while Dubois became a Communist and expatriated to Ghana where he died on the day of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington.

The Congress just passed the budget for fiscal year 2023 to the tune of $1.65 trillion. Commentators on the right ranted and railed about how conservatives were betrayed by the 18 Republican senators who voted for the bill. This is because 60 were required for passage in the Senate. Some had urged the senators to vote against the bill, opting instead for a continuing resolution to fund the government until the Republicans are in the majority in the next Congress. Since spending bills originate in the House, the new Congress would have authored a bill with different priorities – or so it is argued. The Republican senators who voted for the bill insisted they did so because it contained significant increases in military spending. This shows that the Democrat leadership is much smarter than the Republican leaders. By tossing the Republicans one bone, the Democrats were able to keep throwing money down the insatiable maw of social welfare boondoggles. 

I view the proceedings a bit differently than the outrage coming out of most conservative observers. Much of the criticism was over the 7,500 earmarks in the bill for things such as the $1.2 million for LGBT “pride” centers or $2 million for a black wax museum in Baltimore. However, Republicans also had earmarks in the bill. Lisa Murkowski had 19 earmarks totaling $60 million. She voted for the bill. On the House side even though only 9 Republicans voted for the bill, in a separate session they voted overwhelmingly 158-58 in their caucus to keep earmarks in the spending bills. 

Regardless, all the attention on earmarks is Congressional rope-a-dope. Earmarks constitute less than 1 percent of the total spending bill, or $16 billion out of the $1.7 trillion. Therefore, instead of discussion on budget priorities and fiscal restraint, all the attention is on the earmarks which do not even constitute a rounding error in the budget.

During the budgetary noise coming out of the Congress it was argued that the budget had to be passed in order to avoid a government shutdown. The Republicans know that even though the Democrats are currently in control of the legislative and executive branches that the media would conspire to blame the Republicans for a shutdown. It remains to be seen if the public is still that gullible. But the Republicans could have called the Democrats’ bluff and insisted on a continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government. This is how the government is often funded when there is a budgetary impasse. That they did not use this tactic demonstrates that the Republicans are no more serious about fiscal responsibility than are the Democrats. 

Even if they were to agree to vote for an omnibus bill the Republicans could have insisted on funding their priorities such as border security. Yes, there is funding for border security in the bill but it is border security for the Ukraine ($45 billion) and for the Middle East ($450 million to Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt). The bill does not provide additional border security on our southern border. It explicitly funds the allocation and transportation of illegals throughout the United States. It explicitly states that funds will not be used to hire additional permanent border patrol agents and prohibits funding for the border wall.  That the Republicans would agree to these provisions is an indictment. Their blustering about border security is meaningless hot air. Neither party actually cares about border security. The Democrats want more immigration while the Republicans want to keep the issue alive for political purposes. The Republicans talk a good game but do not want to solve the problem. Rather they just want it as a campaign issue to fool their base into thinking that their legislators are trying in vain to push back the surging horde. The tragedy is that the omnibus spending bill offered the Republicans an opportunity to actually do something about the illegal crisis. They could have withheld support until more funding was allocated to the border patrol and to building the wall. The fact that they did neither speaks volumes about their duplicity.

January 2023

I hunt deer. Make that I love hunting deer. Since 1971, venison is the only red meat I eat.  I have not eaten or bought (except on one occasion) red meat. The one time was five years ago when I had a terrible season, killing only one deer. Since I feed my dogs a mixture of venison and kibble, I ran out of venison with three months left until the season began. I bought some high quality chuck for the dogs. They wouldn’t eat it. I gave 20 pounds to a neighbor for her food bank. This year would have been a repeat had I not started making an annual deer hunting trip to Eagle Pass, TX where I killed two deer. This season in Georgia yielded only one nice doe. I probably passed on 40+ deer. I do not shoot does with fawns or bucks under 6 points. The only good buck was an 8 pointer that was following a doe during bow season 65 yards away. The rest of the time, only spikes and 4 pointers abound. The adult does chase away the fawns during the rut. Yet all the does I saw were small except for the one I took late in gun season. I just can’t bring myself to shoot immature deer. Maybe its because of my aversion to veal.

I couldn’t be more disappointed in this year’s hunting. I was excited. The 60 acres that were timbered because of pine beetles were growing back in new pines, thick with perfect places to provide security for deer. My cousin who lives nearby had seen mature does and one of the biggest bucks ever. But I saw nothing but small deer. However, I saw more turkeys than before and am looking forward to turkey season. One of the confusing things is that on one ridgeline are hardwoods. Before, the deer would feed on the acorns and hickory nuts until they were gone. This year there are no deer on the ridgeline but plenty of squirrels. There is still tons of food but no deer. It’s a puzzle that I cannot solve. Meanwhile, my taxidermist is having the best year of his career. He has never seen so many big deer which means that Diana, the Goddess of the Hunt, is messing with me. I accept my fate. I have hunted hard and smart. I have hunted every sector of my 126 acres except for two. I did not hunt the hang on stand that collapsed on me 6 years ago causing me to fall 20 feet. Luckily I was just badly bruised. I have since replaced all my hang on stands with ladder stand except for that one. I will do that this off-season. The second area is a 20 acre section where I know there are plenty of deer including big ones. I leave that as a sanctuary and hunt trails going into and out of the area. It was there where I killed the big doe.

I might have had a clue that this would be a different season when my food plots failed. The weather was weird with cold snaps, withering heat and drenching rains. Since baiting is now legal, I resorted to using corn. My trail cameras showed that the deer appeared right after sunset and disappeared the hour before sunrise.

So this has been the worst year in the 50 years I’ve hunted deer. Again I could have killed plenty of deer but I would have to modify my standards. I am not comfortable doing so which means I will be on reduced rations until next season.