Author: haroldblackphd

I like Victor Davis Hanson. I find the following troubling. All of it is true and we are aware of everything Hanson writes. Only we sort of let it sneak up on us. Much like the frog put in a cool pot of water that so slowing heats up that the frog is cooked before it realizes that it should have jumped out of the pot, we are being cooked slowly but surely. The question is whether we can reverse the process or we will continue down this road. Historically, countries swing from one side of the political spectrum to the other. Let us hope that it is not too late to swing back to the side of sanity.

Is The Great Illusion In Ruins?

/ April 8, 2024

Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness

In 2021, Joe Biden was elected after a bitterly fought campaign that deposed the incumbent Donald Trump. Democrats eventually captured, for a time, both the House and Senate, ensuring the most left-wing government in modern American history.

Americans were then set to witness a great experiment. For the first time in their lives, a truly radical socialist program would supposedly fundamentally transform the way America dealt with the border, immigration, the economy, race relations, foreign policy, energy, law enforcement, crime, education, and social questions such as religion, gender, abortion, and schooling.

In a sense, we were all to be lab rats of sorts, to be experimented on by the radical left and their various critical theories. Now in the last year of the Biden term, we can see the results of that experiment—and the unfortunate disasters that followed.

But first, how was such a radical move to the left even possible in a center-right America?

The Democratic nominee, Biden, had earlier united the left, but only through a Faustian deal. The handlers of a nearly non compos mentis Biden had ushered all his 2020 primary rivals out of the primary races in unison.

But in exchange for their exits that ensured Biden the nomination, the left took over his general campaign—in which Biden was virtually relegated to his basement—and then set his agenda.

Who was running things?

The mysterious architects of White House ideology included, inter alia, the omnipresent, now-Washington-DC-dwelling Obamas, the old socialist gadfly Bernie Sanders, the fossilized tribunes of the black and Latino congressional caucuses, the DEI firebrand Squad, and the neo-socialist scold Elizabeth Warren.

As a result, for one of the few times in American history, the hard left now had undreamt of power. And it was enhanced by a chorus in our compliant media, academia, corporations, the administrative state, foundations, entertainment, and popular culture.

So we were all to embark on a great adventure led by the foot soldiers of DEI, the Chicken-Little green extremists, the critical race and critical legal theory crowd, the modern monetary theorists, the woke commissars, the transgendered zealots, Antifa, BLM, the hate-Israel lobby, and the Trump Derangement Syndrome media sorts.

Ostensibly, America was to be reset financially, economically, socially, culturally, militarily, and politically. The nation would be arbitrarily divided into oppressors and oppressed—with one caveat: hyper-rich, left-wing white architects had to be exempt from the damage inflicted on those they targeted. Thus, like Orwellian pigs who walked on their two hind legs, they were free to fly their private jets, get their kids into racially quota-bound Ivy League schools, burn lots of fossil fuels to heat and cool their massive homes, and be protected by their walls, security details, and zip codes from the crime wave they would soon unleash on others.

Now, as we enter the fourth year of the great experiment, America is $35 trillion in debt, borrowing $1 trillion every 100 days. Home mortgages are at 7 percent. Key prices for food, insurance, rent, and fuels are 30-40 percent higher than when Biden entered office.

The nation has been humiliated and emasculated abroad. Racial relations are the worst in a half-century. The military is in virtual receivership. Biden is polling about 40 percent approval and is behind in key swing states in most of the 2024 polls.

As a result, the Biden administration is furiously trying to find a way to release more of its hated oil and natural gas on the world market. It stopped refilling the strategic petroleum reserve that it had earlier drained to lower gas prices before the 2022 midterms.

So it will quietly pump more oil and gas, appease Iran in fear of a war in the oil-producing Middle East, plead with the once “pariah” Saudis, and order the Ukrainians not to hit Russian oil installations—all to get more oil produced to lower November 2024 gas prices.

It will head nod to eliminating fossil fuels, mandating EVs, banning natural gas stoves, and subsidizing more inefficient wind and solar farms. But it now realizes that its green agenda on its watch will wreck the United States economy and throw the left out of power. So it pivots to an old-fashioned “Drill, World, Drill” mantra—at least until the election is over.

Biden fulfilled his agenda of getting 10 million illegal aliens into the United States by destroying the southern border. The point was to swarm America with poor, unaudited migrants, all in need of massive federal and state assistance, all supposedly now loyal to their entitlement benefactors. Who could stop them from voting as repayment to their enablers in the new age of 70 percent mail-in ballots, same-day registration, inadequate authentication and audit of ballots, third-party vote harvesting, ballot curing, and Zuckbucks pouring into key precincts to absorb the work of the registrars?

Most of the illegals went to Texas and Florida, key swing states that the left still thinks it can flip to blue status. Long term, the 10 million will recalibrate congressional districts to favor neo-socialist agendas. Short-term, millions of new arrivals unlawfully may still try to vote in 2024.

Any who object to or publicize this agenda will be dammed with boilerplate smears of “election deniers,” “voter suppressions,” “racists,” and “xenophobes,” Yet all that said, the administration is now desperately trying to distance itself from its greatest “new Democratic Majority” border success, given that public opinion abhors what Biden had done at the border to the country at large.

So it floated a phony “bipartisan border security” bill in hopes of luring naïve Republicans to support a stealth de facto amnesty agenda that would have still allowed 5,000 illegals in a day rather than the now customary 10-15,000. The hope was that when it failed (and the left knew it would), to blame Republicans for what the left had wrought.

Biden knows destroying the border will ruin America for generations to come, costing billions of dollars in subsidies and legal and policing costs to integrate the massive influx. So until the election, it is thrashing about, claiming that it never did such a thing at all. Its duplicity is again proof that the open borders agenda was hated by the public, a human catastrophe, and not sustainable before an impending election.

Biden’s foreign policy is also in ruins. Biden destroyed deterrence in an effort to beg, appease, and buy off America’s enemies to behave and not cause an election-losing war. But the more it fled from Afghanistan in humiliation, the more it appeased Russia as it massed on Ukraine’s border, the more it snored as a Chinese spy balloon traversed the United States, the more it put early holds on aid to Ukraine, the more it assured Putin a “minor” offensive into Ukraine would not elicit a US response, so all the more it convinced Putin that he could take Ukraine without an American pushback, the Chinese to threaten Taiwan, and Hamas to prepare for massacring Jews.

So here we are in Ukraine with nearly 800,000 dead, wounded, and missing Ukrainians and Russians. The administration has no clue how to stop the Verdun that its appeasement birthed. The entire therapeutic approach to foreign policy lies in ruins.

Ditto the Middle East. National security advisor Jack Sullivan’s “quiet” portfolio that he inherited from the Trump administration simply blew up. Biden is now scrambling to stop the Israeli response to the encircled Hamas remnants, trapped in their last redoubt in Rafah.

Biden is now replaying the 1950s CIA-stereotype of the “Ugly American,” as he does his best to overthrow the Netanyahu government, and to allow the trapped Hamas remnants to escape and claim they defeated the Zionist entity, despite butchering more Jews in a single day than any time since the Holocaust. No matte: the Biden administration is stealthily communicating with the Israeli opposition concerning the best joint strategies to force Netanyahu out. Mass protests in the streets of Tel Aviv attest to the success of destabilizing the current Israeli government.

Team Biden whispers to the media about slow-walking or stopping key arms shipments, abdicating America’s once protective role in the UN, or encouraging the “international community” to go after Netanyahu for “war crimes” for accidentally hitting a civilian team in Gaza. (By such logic, are Biden and Gen. Mark (“righteous strike”) Milley equally culpable for being in charge when a US strike in Kabul blew up 10 innocent civilians by similarly mistaken targeting?). Meanwhile, Biden keeps courting Muslim-American Michigan voters, who repay his appeasement with cries of “Death to Israel! Death to America!”.

The release of violent criminals and an uptick in property crimes, murders and assault follow a similar script. The Biden administration outsourced criminal justice to defund the police/critical legal theorists at the federal, state, and local levels. No bail arrests led to violent offenders released the next day. Thousands were let go from jails and prisons.

The word spread in the criminal community that in the new Biden years, there were no real consequences, no serious punishments for violent assault or major felonies.

So in 2021-2023, crime exploded. When it reached the point of making life unlivable in the major cities and began to max out, the administration declared “crime is declining”—in the same way that hyper-inflation supposedly did so on the economic front.

After spiking the prices of key food staples, insurance, fuel, and interest rates, such hikes could not go too much higher without destroying outright the American way of life. So as the rate of inflation slowed, Biden bragged about “lowering inflation”—but not the 30-40 percent higher food prices since his own inauguration.

The common denominator for these disasters is the embrace of left-wing “theory.”

Critical legal theory mandates that jurisprudence is a construct. Laws have no morality since they favor the powerful. The latter use “white privilege” arbitrarily to invent crimes and punishments to protect their own power hierarchies. All that nonsense has now led to a pre-civilizational free-for-all in our dirty, dangerous, and dysfunctional cities.

Modern monetary theory—printing lots of money to spread around to those who have none while diminishing the value of money of those who have it—only led to hyperinflation and high interest rates.

When DEI theories were unleashed on the military, potential recruits hesitated, and thousands quit. After Pentagon grandees virtue signaled their fear of “white rage” and “white privilege,” after DEI made promotions and assessments often contingent on race, gender, and sexual orientation, and after the new military was humiliated in Afghanistan, it found it could no longer deter the enemy, recruit sufficient soldiers, or win back the confidence of the American people.

In all these cases, the woke genie left the bottle—and won’t go back in. So it will be hard for the administration to assure a long-suffering public that things are just wonderful, much less to reverse these policies, if indeed they are reversible, before November.

Expect instead nonstop distraction as the left beats the January 6 horse to death, calls for abortion on demand, and waits for its underling judges, prosecutors, and juries to jail or bankrupt Trump and therefore do what balloting cannot.

In other words, the long-awaited Great Fundamental Transformation finally got its moment, crashed, and now has torched the nation—middle-class Americans most of all.

Harold A Black

haroldblackphd.com

April 15, 2024

I have written before that one of the motivations that the democrats have for open borders is to prevent losing congressional representation when citizens leave their “blue” states for “red” ones. Since the Census is used for congressional representation purposes (and federal funding) the dems adamantly have opposed the census asking citizenship. Tennessee senator Bill Hagerty has led the charge on the senate side and Clay Higgins of Louisiana has spelled out the details on the House side. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_1CpRfh_zE

Now a congressional committee has forwarded a bill with 100 co-sponsors that requires a citizenship question on the census. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, introduced the bill in the House and Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., introduced the bill in the Senate. Of course every democrat on the committee voted against it and it likely will not even be brought up for discussion in the senate. But the democrats are no longer denying the fact, One member from New York actually said “I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes.” https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/12/this-bill-would-prevent-illegal-immigrants-from-swaying-congressional-representation/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell

This is important stuff. As Higgins said in his speech in the House, the amount of illegals in the country equals 60 congressional districts. Mind you that these cannot be new districts because the number in the congress is set at 435 (of course the congress can change this number and I am surprised that the democrats haven’t tried). If citizens are fleeing the democrat run states and cities, then congressional seats will shift as well unless offset by illegal inflow. Note that in the last census, some democrat states did not lose as many seats as was forecast by their declining population. Also some republican run states did not gain as many seats. No one asked at the time if this was due to the influx of illegals to “sanctuary” cities and states.

Recall that Donald Trump as president called for a citizenship question on the census and was promptly labelled a racist. His commerce secretary Wilbur Ware was to comply but was stopped by democrat litigation. That litigation went to the Supreme Court where the then court’s four liberals were joined by John Roberts to stop the citizenship question from appearing. With today’s makeup of the Court, perhaps the question could be added even if Roberts joins the remaining liberals if Trump regains the White House.

Knoxville Focus

April 15, 2024

Knoxfocus.com

Happy Tax Day

I have long advocated for no mandatory withholding. Withholding should be optional. If people opted to pay all their federal income taxes on April 15 there would be a lot more pressure on our national politicians to reduce spending. Federal spending is out of control. It doesn’t really matter what party is in power, federal spending continues to grow. Once spending increased during economic downturns and decreased during periods of prosperity. No longer. Spending is completely independent from the nation’s economic health. Federal spending as a percent of GDP is steadily increasing. While on average it has been around 19% the budget submitted to the congress by Biden is a jaw-dropping 24%. While the percent of federal taxes to GDP has been around 17 percent, it is over 19 percent in the Biden budget guaranteeing a larger deficit. Biden ‘s claim in his State of the Union address “We’ve already cut the federal deficit by over $1 trillion” has to be given 10 Pinocchios. Biden did nothing to reduce the deficit. It declined due to the high levels of federal spending during the pandemic. Federal debt keeps climbing and the deficit with it to the point where the interest paid by the government on the debt will soon eclipse the budget for the Pentagon. In fact the deficit is now 25% higher than when Biden took office.

There is no political will to reduce spending regardless of which party in in the White House and which party controls the congress. Even proposals to decrease the rate of increase in spending (mathematicians call this the second derivative) are greeting by howls of indignation in the congress and amongst the lobbyists for all the special interests feeding at the federal trough. Don’t get me wrong. We all belong to special interest groups and very few of us want to give up that subsidy from the feds.

Biden’s budget is a whopping $7.3 trillion wish list with little chance of passage in the House. However, don’t be surprised if a large portion of it does pass. The budget also calls for a $5 trillion tax increase over 10 years. The resulting taxes would be among the highest in the developed world with a top individual rate of 45.4%, a capital gains tax of 49.8% and a corporate rate of 32.2% (estimates from the Cato Institute). Biden claims that over 10 years the deficit will be $3 trillion less. This is not true. What he is assuming is that the sharp increases in taxes will not decrease federal revenue growth. However, there will be increased incentives to move corporate activity offshore to lower tax countries. There will be increased incentives by individuals to shelter income. Most economists would predict a slowdown in the rate of growth of federal tax receipts due to the increased tax burden resulting in a larger, not smaller, deficit. This has often been the case when taxes go up.

I have made several proposals to control federal spending – none of which have a snowball’s chance in Hades of being adopted. One is to limit federal spending to the historic level of 19% of the previous year’s GDP. This could only go up on a one year basis if the president declared an emergency and received a two thirds vote in congress. I would institute a flat tax at 20 percent of income with no exemptions. That also could only change with a declaration of emergency from the president and a two thirds vote in congress. 

I also know how to radically reduce federal spending while increasing the well-being of the poor. Generally, any proposal to reform welfare is met with howls of “You are trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor!” Well currently, we spend $1.7 trillion on welfare programs. The poverty level for a family of four is $27,750. There are around 38 million poor in the United States. Thus, we spend $42,105 per poor person! I propose that we eliminate all welfare programs and administrators and simply give each poor person $10,000. A family of 4 would receive $40,000 with the amount decreasing for each additional child eliminating poverty in the United States. If every poor person received $10,000 the total expenditure would be $380 billion rather than the $1.7 trillion we currently spend. Voila! Federal spending is decreased by $700 billion! So Happy Tax Day.

Ok. What happens if we don’t buy them?

The Biden Administration is out to get your truck. The newly mandated EPA standards can only be met if 25% of truck sales by 2032 are electric. The standards mean that automakers can produce large vehicles such as SUVs and pickups but will have to balance them with hybrids, plugin electrics and totally electric cars. Automobile manufactures lose thousands of dollars on every EV they sell and are only profitable because of the gas and diesel powered SUVs and pickup trucks. 

There is a reason why pickups are the best selling vehicles in America. We love our trucks.  I thought Biden liked autoworkers? Seems to me that this is a sure fired way to get them laid off. Regards, the only vehicle that American automakers build that is really popular is the full sized pickup. While car sales of American manufacturers have fallen, only the full sized pickup holds its own. No manufacturer can meet the standards if the current ratio of truck sales to auto sales holds. This would mean that the government would force the auto companies to make fewer trucks. Zowie! Our congressional politicians are gutless and won’t sue the EPA for exceeding its authority. Perhaps, like before, they are waiting on the republican AGs to sue for them.

Maybe the American public will sit on its hands and meekly accept the EPA forcing you to buy electric trucks. Talk about white rage! Well to be honest, that rage will be colored in that I own a F-250 diesel. The EPA will kill the travel trailer industry. I pull a 35 foot fifth wheel behind my truck. If I had a Ford F-150 Lightening I would hitch it up to the fifth wheel and spin out the tires. I guess I would have to camp in the RV storage lot. The motorhome industry is seeking an exemption because the heavier batteries and limited range will effectively kill that industry as well.

I hope that these mandates are repealed because they will have virtually no impact on the environment. They will raise inflation in the country as prices on everything will rise given the increase in purchasing vehicles and the cost of transporting them. I predict a robust market for used pickups. My car it is a decidedly nongreen Mercedes cabriolet and my SUV is a Mercedes GLS 430. I am proud of my carbon footprint. What the new EPA standards mean is that I will keep my pickup, car and SUV forever. I pity future generations and in particular my grandkids for having to deal with the crap put on them by this current crop of politicians.

Are you a RINO?

I hate the term “RINO” (Republican in name only). As I have noted before, the voting records of the most conservative – or should I say least liberal – Democrat in the Senate are more liberal than the voting records of the least conservative senators. Yes Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are vilified by those on the far right, but those three senators all voted for Trump’s supreme court nominees. They also have consistently voted against left wing bills in the senate while those in the Democrat caucus have had a united front.

I am a Republican because I am a laissez-faire, free market, free trade, government with a small “g” economist. The Wealth of Nations was the most influential book in my college years and shaped my thinking. Subsequent empirical evidence has confirmed most microtheory and shown Adam Smith to be correct. Government interference in market decisions are always suboptimal. Industrial policy is a failure. Economic freedom, private property and the freedoms enumerated in the Constitution have led to the lifting out of poverty and economic advancement of millions, perhaps billions. Yes this country is not perfect but rather than being ashamed of its faults – to err is human, I am proud of its accomplishments. Yes, my African ancestors were enslaved, survived the middle passage and were dehumanized but their fortitude and bravery made me what I am today. If they had not been brought here, I would likely be scraping the soil for cobalt in the Congo for $5 per day.

I see the Democrats and the so-called progressives as the major impediment to economic progress of all people, not just minorities. The climate “existential” threat agenda, public schools, the welfare state, the administrative state all conspire to keep minorities impoverished. Their policies are anathema to what I believe and know to be right. I feel that to be a Republican one must have similar values although I wonder sometimes. Our Washington politicians are mostly big government, tax and spenders regardless of party. The Republicans just a little less so than the Democrats. Republicans should unite around those basic priniciples rather than carry on internecine warfare amongst themselves over issues that are trivial in comparison. It is a tragedy that social issues have come to dominate Republican politics. One’s fealty to the party is now judged on issues such as abortion and gun control rather than economic ones. We can no longer disagree and those who do are deemed less than pure and are called RINOS. That is a disservice and leads to the wildly dysfunctional Republican caucus in the House of Representatives. Isn’t it ironic that the small group that considers itself “pure” has found itself voting with the Democrats to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership and with the Democrats on killing the FISA bill? Now some of that same bunch who once touted Speaker Johnson as a “true conservative” want to oust him because he actually wants to govern and the only way to do that is to work with the Democrats.

I have three modest proposals. First, any motion to vacate should have with it a nominee for Speaker. Second, the splinter group of Republicans should change parties and cross over to the Democrats. Then they can create havoc among their true adversaries. They could then prevent any Democrat from becoming Speaker. They could torpedo any leftist legislation. They could finally do some good. The third is for the Republicans to unite around the issues that are truly important and sue the executive over the border, Biden’s abuse of executive orders, the out of control Federal agencies, budget reform, the federal debt and the issuances of mandates that exceed their authority. But no, they are letting the Republican attorneys general sue instead rather than acting like responsible adults. Some are more interested in news clips and publicity. Surely interviews on Fox News and CNN shouldn’t be more important than governing.

Lastly, to me any Republican that does not believe in the basic principles I outlined above is the true RINO. Now RINO is being used to label people who do not agree with Donald Trump who has called otherwise conservative politicians who disagree with him as “RINO”. But what about someone who hates free trade, imposes tariffs on our allies, threaten national security by trashing our alliances, allows big businesses to stay open while shuttering small ones during a pandemic? That is a person opposed to conservative principals. Is that person a RINO? If so, then Donald Trump is a RINO.

April 9, 2024

Andy Enfield left USC for SMU before he could get fired. Enfield who rode an upstart 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast team to the Sweet Sixteen in 2013 to big bucks at USC never could duplicate his earlier success. After a 14-16 season despite having Bronny James on his team Enfield bolted for SMU. Now leaving California for Dallas is a smart move regardless. Enfield is going to a no income tax state to a school with zero expectations of being competitive in the “Atlantic” Coast Conference. Enfield was replaced by Eric Musselman who had been at Arkansas. One must question Musselman’s sanity. Perhaps he would rather live in glitzy Los Angeles than Fayetteville, Arkansas but why? Surely it is preferable to coach before sold out crowds of 20,000 at Arkansas than before a half full arena at USC. But Musselman is a gypsy and probably got bored living in one place for five years. He had modest success at Arkansas reaching the Sweet 16 three times. However, this year Arkansas was only 16-17 overall and 6-12 in the SEC. So perhaps he left before being asked to leave. Musselman is being replaced by the legendary John Calipari who had worn out his welcome in Lexington. The Big Blue Nation is not very happy with UKs failure in the NCAA tournament in recent years. I think that Arkansas will re-energize Calipari who will continue to recruit 5 star players and will have plenty of NIL money with the Walmart family, Jerry Jones and the Tyson chicken folks as backers. Look for Arkansas in the Final Four within the next three years. What is interesting is that Arkansas is supposed to have offered Ole Miss’ Chris Beard and Kansas State’s Jerome Tang the job and was turned down. One must wonder about the sanity of those two. Obviously, Calipari was not the third choice but became available and fell into Arkansas’ lap. Who will replace Calipari? Mitch Barnhardt the UK athletics director knows that he must make a splashy hire. It is not hard to imagine that the next UK coach will have already won a national championship. Some have said to go after UConn’s Dan Hurley. But Hurley is too prickly for UK fans and will instantly grate on southerner sensitivities. Others mentioned are Scott Drew and Jay Wright. Some have mentioned Bruce Pearl -who doesn’t have a championship and would be a controversial hire. But what about Bill Self, Tom Izzo or heavens forbid Rick Pitino? I think Izzo would be a spectacular hire. Although Barnhardt would not dare do it, I think the perfect hire would be Seton Hall’s Shaheen Holloway who may be the best young coach in the country. But given the reaction of Big Blue Nation to the hiring of Tubby Smith from Georgia even after he won them a national championship, Barnhardt will play it safe and hire one of the old guys.

Harold A Black

April 8, 2024

It is not inconceivable that the “winner” of the presidential election in November might not become president. The Founding Fathers were fearful of the tyranny of the majority and established the Electoral College. One of the purposes of the College was, along with the Senate, to keep smaller states relevant in the political process. Each state would have two senators regardless of population and the president would be elected by the Electoral College and not by popular vote. The number of electors would be determined by the number of representatives and senators for each state. 

I would bet that 99.9 percent of the American population have no idea what the January 6 “insurrection” was all about. Perhaps they think that it was an organized plot to overturn the results of the election of Joe Biden. But how could the results be overturned? Indeed, Donald Trump had been alleging all along that the election was stolen and he has been investigated for inciting the storming of the Capitol on January 6. Because civics is seldom taught in our schools, few realize that the president is not elected in the November election. Rather, the voters vote for electors and the electors vote for the president. The electors form the Electoral College and cast their votes for the president and vice president on the first Monday after the second week in December. The results are sent to the president of the US Senate – who is the vice president of the United States – along with the Archivist of the United States. The “insurrection” took place on January 6 because on that date, the Congress meets to certify the winner of the election. Each state announces its votes. Again, the number of vote in each state is equal to the number in its congressional delegation. The vice president as president of the Senate presides over the proceedings. After the vice president announces the results, any member of Congress can object to the results. The Democrats in the House tried unsuccessfully to block the election of George Bush in 2001. Democrats also objected in 2005 and 2017 and failed again to overturn the votes of the Electoral College. I don’t recall any of the Democrats being indicted for trying to overturn these elections. Recall that Trump did not want his vice president Pence to certify the results? If Pence had not, then the House and the Senate would vote on whether the objection were valid. 

Let us suppose that Trump – like before – loses the popular vote but wins in the Electoral College. When the results go to the Congress let us suppose just like in 2001, 2005 and 2017 the Democrats object and call for a vote in the Congress and Kamala Harris refuses to certify the results of the Electoral College. What happens next? Here both the House and the Senate will vote as to whether the objection is valid. If they vote differently, the objection fails. But if they both agree that the objection is valid then the House will vote for the president with each representative getting one vote. The Republicans have a very slim majority in the House but the Democrats have the majority in the Senate. It is not inconceivable that the Republicans who squabble amongst themselves more than they govern, might have a few deflections and elect Biden. There would be no doubt that the Democrats would be united in voting for Harris for vice president. On the other hand, if the Republicans hold firm and elect Trump, the Senate might still elect Harris! Can you imagine that? Donald Trump as president with Kamala Harris as his vice president? Some small part of me would love to see it.

April 4, 2024

Good Morning. I am not a women’s basketball fan and thus have not paid much attention to all the adoration for Caitlin Clark. I did not watch the Iowa-LSU game, although my better half did. I spent my time working on my latest jigsaw puzzle. Even when I was on the faculty at the university of Tennessee, I went to very few of the Lady Vols games. I never could get over how many layups were missed in the women’s game. Just like I have always been puzzled how poor the free throw shooting is in the men’s game. I am simply not a basketball fan. Yet I was surprised and disappointed when UT fired the women’s coach, Kellie Harper. I served on UT’s athletic board and remembered her as a guard on three of Pat Summitt’s national championship teams. She became a very good coach and I was delighted when she came back to Knoxville to replace Holly Warlick who had followed Summitt. I thought Harper was doing an excellent job with her only shortcoming was the lack of being able to recruit star caliber players. By the time she came to Knoxville, South Carolina was the dominant SEC team followed by LSU. On the national scene Gene Auriemma’s UConn teams who had eclipsed Summitt’s UT teams were no longer dominating the national scene. UConn was still unbeatable in the Big East but was not even a number one seed in this year’s NCAA tournament. Back at UT, Harper was 108-52 (.675). This season UT went 20-13, 10-6 in the SEC and lost to an undefeated South Carolina team on a last second lucky three point shot by a player who had never before made a three pointer. UT lost in the tournament to a North Carolina State team that made the Final 4. Harper had never gotten past the Sweet 16 and I guess that many have been her downfall. By firing her, Tennessee lost her two five star commits and her replacement will likely do worse. 

The women’s game has changed but I don’t think Tennessee should have fired Harper. Her firing is reminiscent of Texas’ firing of current Tennessee men’s coach Rick Barnes. Barnes has always been a good coach. His Texas teams were always good but never great even when they had unbelievable talent such as T J Ford and Kevin Durant. Barnes was 402-180 (.691) in Austin. He went to the Sweet 16 five times, to the Elite 8 three times and to the Final Four once. Ultimately he was fired despite that record. He could never win the big one.

At Tennessee, Barnes is 202-101 (.667). Tennessee has gone to 6 NCAA tournaments under Barnes. But similar to his tenure at Texas, Tennessee has been a disappointment in the tournament. They have been to the Elite 8 only twice and never played in the Final 4. Thus, Harper’s record at Tennessee is similar to that of Barnes. She even has a higher winning percentage. Yet there is virtually no chance that Barnes will face the same fate as Harper. One wonders why. Vol great Kara Lawson (one of my former students) is the head coach at Duke. She is one of those rumored to be the next Tennessee coach. Yet Lawson has only been at Duke since 2020, is 69-33 overall and only 32-23 in the ACC – a conference not as strong as the SEC. Her team this year made it to their first Sweet Sixteen. Lawson is one of my favorite people but her record at Duke is not better than Harper’s. She is building a strong program at Duke and can make that her legacy. She cannot have that at Tennessee where Summitt looms larger than life. At Duke she can become the women’s Mike Krzyzewski.  She cannot do that at Tennessee. I hope she stays at Duke.

March 25, 2024

Some of us are old enough to remember when West Virginia was solidly democrat. Republicans were rarely elected to statewide office. Bill Clinton won the state by 13 points. Robert (KKK) Byrd and Jay Rockefeller were the senators and Gaston Caperton was elected governor. Yet twenty five years later Donald Trump carried the state by 40 points and Joe Manchin was the only statewide elected democrat. All three of the state’s representatives were republicans. What happened? Mainly it was coal. West Virginia is coal country and democrats starting with Barack Obama declared war on coal. Hillary Clinton declared that she was going to shut down the coal industry in pursuit of climate change. Sure enough, the EPA has caused coal production in the state to decline by more than 30 percent and unemployment had sharply increased. Thus, West Virginian’s voted in their economic interest and not with their traditional identity. Of course, today’s “progressives” have abandoned rural poor whites with no college degree and that demography is the majority in the state. Nationally, the democrats have done the math. Most voters live in urban areas and the democrats have courted urban college educated higher income voters. This group is more liberal and has adopted diversity, equality and inclusion so long as they don’t have to live it. Consider that Hillary Clinton won almost 3 million more votes than Trump but only won 500 of the country’s 3,100 counties. That statistic is why democrats want to end the electoral college and have a popular vote instead. If that occurs, it will be almost impossible for a republican to be elected president.

One wonders if Biden’s war on the internal combustion engine will lose him Michigan. That state has a democrat governor whose reelection spoke volumes to the disarray in that state’s republican party. Both senators are democrats. But 6 of the state’s 13 representatives are republicans. Michigan’s union leadership is 100 percent democrat but its members may not be. Again it is not in the members’ economic interest to support a party that is intent in destroying diesel and gas vehicles and displacing thousands of workers. That the union membership doesn’t vote out its so-called leaders is puzzling. It will be interesting to see if Michigan does not join West Virginia in the solidly republican column – with the exception of Detroit.

Detroit will likely stay democrat because of its black majority. Jason Riley has pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, Hispanics are also now leaving the democrat party out of their economic interests rather than clinging to their traditional ethnic identity. Riley is implying that this is not true with most blacks, although growing numbers of black men are supporting Trump. This is part of the realignment of the parties that we have seen over the past 30 years. No longer are poor whites democrats. No longer are educated upper income whites republicans. Indeed, a recent poll of educated high earning whites showed that 82% supported Joe Biden! So despite all the envy politics where Biden says that this group is not paying their “fair share” and advocates the raising of their taxes, they overwhelmingly support him. Who said that these folks were smart?

Nine states are following the EPAs lead and are banning the sale of gas cars and trucks in 2025. Of course one is California, the others are New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maryland. Vermont, Colorado and Virginia are slated to follow. Again, it is amazing that the voters in these states favor what their politicians are doing to them. But if they do not vote them out, they deserve the higher vehicle prices, the shorter tire life, the thousands of dollars to replace the batteries, higher energy prices, the higher insurance costs, the longer waits to fill up, the lack of range in the winter and the lithium battery fires.

Harold A Black

March 29, 2024

I am at a loss as to why there is virtually no pushback from Republican legislators on Biden’s quest to electrify the planet. Thus far only John Kennedy of Louisiana has taken any action – albeit a futile one. Senator Kennedy in objecting to the halt of new approvals of liquid gas exports has vowed not to let any nominations for positions at the State Department and the Department of Energy. Whoopie! Biden is ignoring Kennedy. Why can’t the senator do something more forceful is beyond me.

Then there is the new mandate from the EPA that will effectively ban automobile internal combustion engines starting in 2032. Alert! That is only 8 years away. The new rule requires that 70% of new vehicles be either electric or hybrid. Clearly, the market has shown that EVs are not ready for prime time and the only way that the public can be forced to buy EVs is to limit the production of gas and diesel vehicles. The public be damned. I have yet to hear the Republicans confront this latest attack on American industry and the American public. Right now the public has shown that the current production of EVs has outstripped the demand for the vehicles. EVs sit languishing on dealer lots. Manufacturers have scaled back production and continue to lose billions. Some startups are near bankruptcy. I saw an ad for the Ford Lightning that offered $15,000 in incentives. However, the Lightning is a vanity pickup. It cannot haul or tow nearly the loads of the gas truck and its range is compromised when it tries to haul or tow. Then it is $17,000 more for an inferior product.

That the EPA would issue its rules now was a surprise. I thought they would wait until after the election. Because of the rule, Biden will lose Michigan. Although the Michigan Republican party is in disarray, the automobile industry is the main industry in the state. The EPA mandate will shrink the number of automobile workers and shutter all those companies that produce parts for the industry. None of these should now vote for Biden.

Then there is the problem of power generation. Our electric grid is not ready and will not be ready to handle 10 million new EVs (assuming that the rule is implemented). Consider that New York currently has less than 2,000 chargers for EVs. In 2032 it will need 40,000. What about the demands on the grid? Currently, California and other states are experiencing more brown outs and black outs due to the unreliability of solar and wind. What happens as coal and natural gas are phased out? Remember when California was asking residents to curtail the charging of EVs due to the strain on the grid? Then too the EPA is issuing rules that will shut down many power plants due to carbon emissions. This will make things worse. New transformers, cables, relay stations and infrastructure will be needed and will not be ready by 2032. Also all of this comes at a higher costs. What about the burden on the poor?

I’ve written before about the environmental damage that comes from the mining of the minerals use in EV battery production. I’ve also written about the impact of wind and solar on animals, birds and ocean wildlife. I’ve also written that China is the main beneficiary of Biden’s rules. Again, was Hunter on the Chinese payroll too?

EVs are too expensive for the majority of car buyers. Used EVs sell poorly because of their limited range, cost of charging, cost of insurance and battery replacement. The only way to get to the 70% number is to eliminate the tariff on cheap Chinese EVs. BYD, the largest Chinese EV manufacturer, has announced it is building a plant in Mexico. Trump has said that he will hit BYD with a 100% tariff. But Trump will be around only 4 years if he is elected. BYD can wait.

Again, the Republican senators and representatives are doing nothing to stop this onslaught of rules and regulations that will severely damage the economy as well as the environment. I hate to call them gutless. But…

Lastly, someone wrote “Imagine we lived in a world where all cars were EVs and then along comes a new invention, the “internal combustion engine”! Think how well they would sell: a vehicle half the weight, half the price that will almost quarter the damage done to the road. A vehicle than can be refueled in 1/10^th of the time and has a range of up to 4 times the distance in all weather conditions. It does not rely on the environmentally damaging use of non-renewable rare earth elements to power it and use far less steel and other materials. Just think how excited people would be for such technology, it would sell like hot cakes!”