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The Taiwan Rope-a-Dope

President Xi is said to have given President Trump a warning on Taiwan. There is much talk about the “Thucydides Trap” named after the Greek historian. Thucydides contended a rising power – in his case Athens – put fear in the declining established power – Sparta – which led to the Peloponnesian War. Xi apparently envisions China as the rising power and the US as the power in decline with the possibility of war over Taiwan. Xi is warning Trump not to interfere if China decides to blockade Taiwan or seize it or its islands by force.

I hope the president told Xi to go pound sand. Secretary of State Rubio said “We always make clear our position and we move on to other topics” and that it would be a “terrible mistake” if China were to try to take Taiwan by force. I think that China is doing a Taiwan rope-a-dope – with the dope being us. There is very little chance that China will do something as stupid as invading Taiwan.

China is a country in decline. Its economy is a mess. It is too dependent upon exports (hear that President Trump?), the country is fast aging, its population is in sharp decline due to its disastrous one child policy. Its military leadership is in disarray as Xi has moved to fire its leaders (hear that Pete Hegseth?). The worry is that Xi may actually try to take Taiwan to save his leadership much like Putin has tried to take Ukraine. But Xi needs to heed the lesson that the Russians have painfully learned because Taiwan will be a tougher nut to crack than Ukraine. Unlike Ukraine, the Chinese cannot amass 500,000 troops on the Taiwanese border and walk across. Instead they will have to deal with the Taiwan Strait which at its narrowest point is 90 miles wide. 

The strait is one of the world’s most treacherous waters swept by seasonal monsoons and typhoons. These storms provide only a narrow window in which a waterborne invasion could be launched. The Taiwanese would be ready with its anti-ship missile systems. There is little chance that the Chinese will be able to get its army and navy across that strait except at a horrendous loss of life. And recall, no war has ever been won solely by aircraft and/or missiles and drones. We are learning that lesson in Iran right now. Taiwan has considerable air defenses and will be able to deal with Chinese airpower. Its submarines are capable of warding off the Chinese navy and sinking any troop ships. Of course the Chinese may attempt to send in troops by air but the likelihood of reaching Taiwan over those 90 miles would be slim and none and end in disaster.

Even if somehow a Chinese amphibious landing were accomplished, the Taiwan coastline presents a daunting obstacle. It is a natural fortress. Only the western coastline is a feasible landing site and here the water is too shallow for ships to come close in to disembark men and materiel making the ships sitting ducks for missiles and mines. The eastern coast is lined with imposing cliffs making large scale landings impossible. The Taiwanese not surprisingly have fortified all potential landing sites with anti-landing spikes, mines and missiles. You think Normandy was bad even with all the deception? Well it took 7,000 ships and 850,000 troops back then. Now with the spy satellites and all the technology, there will be no deception and no surprises. How many ships and men will China be willing to sacrifice in a likely fruitless effort to invade the island?

Lastly, the interior terrain of the island itself is daunting. The western plains are narrow, creating bottlenecks that limit the maneuverability of any army creating choke points and ideal locations for ambushes. In the east are mountain ranges that are over 12,000 feet, acting as formidable barrier and perfect for guerrilla warfare. Xi is no fool. He can saber rattle all he wants. But on Taiwan he is full of it and a failed invasion would likely end his career. So like Trump, he is full of empty threats and bluster. Taiwan is his rope-a-dope having us and the world concentrate on the island when his true intentions lie elsewhere. I have said this before: while we are looking at Taiwan, the Chinese have easier pickings at Siberia and Manchuria. China needs Lake Baikal more than it needs Taiwan.

Xi undoubtedly will keep feigning toward Taiwan and warn Trump not to continue selling Taiwan defensive armaments. Trump should tell him to pound sand and continue to approve arms sales to Taiwan. Of course, the Taiwanese can go elsewhere but Trump acts as though he needs the money. Trump though is no real friend of Taiwan slapping a 32 percent tariff on their exports – save semiconductors. The tariff is now 20 percent. It should be zero.

If truth be told, China needs the US more than we need China. Trump should say that and mean it. Trump should tell Xi that in order to restore good relations China should quit threatening Taiwan. To eliminate any tariffs, China needs to become a team player in world markets and in world politics. He should put his foot down on Chinese spying, hacking and intellectual theft. He should offer trade agreements that benefit both countries and threaten to withdraw them along with imposing punitive tariffs and financial restraints on China if they act up.

China, like Russia, is a poor third world bully with nuclear weapons. They will remain third world so long as they embrace communism and depress the freedom of their people. Trump could even offer to let Chinese EVs into the country (more on that later) in order to give the American public access to low cost automobiles. The caveat is that any Chinese product imported into the country cannot have spying apparatus embedded in it. That goes for all electronics, solar panels and of course EVs. Any violation would be met immediately with an embargo of all Chinese goods and a seizure of all Chinese assets. Trump is a bully. Its time for him to bully China.

Will Warsh’s confirmation hearing come back to bite him?

Kevin Warsh was confirmed by the Senate to lead the Fed in an historic vote of 54-45. No Fed chair has ever been confirmed by such a narrow margin. John Fetterman was the only democrat to vote for confirmation. Prior to Warsh here are the votes for the past four Fed chairs: Bernanke 70-30, Yellen 56-26, Powell 80-19. Yellen also has a place in Fed history as the first Fed chair to receive less than 60 votes. In fact, prior to Yellen, Fed chairs needed 60 votes for confirmation.

Virtually every observer would say that Warsh’s vote was a reflection of the animus that the democrats hold for the president rather than an indication that they think about the qualifications of Warsh. However, Warsh did not make any attempt to ingratiate himself with. The democrats. He knew that he was going to be confirmed. He also knew that the democrats hated the president. Warren said “Trump has made clear that he wants to do a full takeover of the Fed” and that “if the Republicans won’t stand up against that takeover, the Democrats should not help them.”

But Warsh did not want to make any statement that would turn our mercurial president against him before he could even get started. In doing so he did not make any friends across the aisle and may need to patch up those bruised feelings once in office. He did not make any friends among the dems with his responses to their questions especially those from Elizabeth Warren and Raphael Warnock. The right wing press chortled at Warren’s frustrations over Warsh’s answers.

Here is some of the exchange: 

Warren: The Fed has been plagued by deeply disturbing ethics scandals in recent years involving at least six Fed officials. So it’s critical that the next Chair have no financial conflicts—none. You have more than $100 million dollars in investments that you have refused to disclose to ethics officials and to the public. So let me ask: do the Juggernaut Fund or THSDFS LLC invest in any companies affiliated with President Trump or his family, companies that have facilitated money laundering, Chinese-controlled companies, or financing vehicles established by Jeffrey Epstein?

Warsh: Senator Warren, thank you. Let me first share a point of agreement with you. The Fed has two tools. One is its monetary policy and the second is its credibility. And the scandals that you talk about, the ethics problems you talk about, run to the core of the credibility that has hurt the Fed.

Warren: Mr. Warsh I appreciate that but- Would you answer my question please? I asked, You have 100 million dollars in undisclosed assets. What I’m asking is, are any of those with this outfit that invests in companies affiliated with President Trump and the family, companies that facilitated money laundering, Chinese controlled companies, or financing vehicles set up by Jeffrey Epstein? It’s a yes or no question.

Warsh refused to answer.

Warren: Mr. Warsh, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?

Warsh: We try to keep politics, if I’m confirmed, out of the Federal Reserve.

Warren: So let me ask you another question. In our meeting, you said you would be independent because you’re quote a, “tough guy”, those were your words, “tough guy” and will be able to stand up to President Trump. So let’s try it again: Name one aspect of President Trump’s economic agenda with which you disagree.

Warsh: Well Senator, the Federal Reserve in recent years has wandered outside of its realm, wandered into other areas. That’s not something I’m prepared to do. If I’m confirmed, the Federal Reserve should stay in its lane.

Warren: I’m asking for something you disagree with Donald Trump on. Just one economic- just one economic- just one. Just one little place where you disagree with Donald Trump.

Warsh: Well I do have a disagreement actually, Senator, with the President. I think, even this morning, he said that he thought I was at a central casting. I think central casting, I’d look older, grayer, and maybe show up here with a cigar of sorts.

Warren: Quite adorable. But you know, we need a Fed Chair who is independent. That’s the only way that we preserve the independence of the Federal Reserve.

Warren also called Warsh a “sock puppet” for Trump – which of course Warsh denied.

The right wing media loved the exchange, however the democrats and some independent observers did not calling Warsh’s responses “jokey” and “disrespectful.” Yes, I know that it is difficult oftentimes to be respectful to Elizabeth Warren who is so often disrespectful herself. But it is not wise to alienate all the democrats. See the exchange with Georgia’s Raphael Warnock.

Warnock: If Professor Warsh were to assign a letter grade to the American economy today for the average working family, what grade would you assign?”

Warsh: “In modern academic institutions they give everyone A’s. If I give a student anything but an A, I would have been summoned to the dean’s office.”

The audience in the hearing room laughed but Warnock was not amused saying “Consumer confidence is at a record low. That’s Americans’ grade on the economy.”

When Warnock followed up with written questions about what Warsh would do if the president tried to fire him, Warsh simply refused to answer. Warnock was also upset that Warsh did not respond to requests for comment that were placed through the Hoover Institution, where the former Fed governor is a distinguished visiting fellow in economics. Warnock was not pleased. He said “He’s now under the oversight of my committee. He needs to get used to answering my questions.” Warnock is the ranking member of the Fed oversight sub-panel and has every political incentive to make Fed oversight a visible part of his portfolio.

One veteran observer said “His jokey replies to Warren and Warnock at the hearing were a disrespect I have never seen a Fed Chair show in testimony. I’ve watched a lot of hearings and testimony that Fed chairs have given—ones where they’re getting some very tough lines of questioning. They show a lot of respect.”

This is because ultimately, the Fed is the creature of the congress. Every Fed chair pays homage to the congress – both sides of the aisle. Jay Powell was especially respectful to all of congress during Trump’s first term which paid dividends during his second. Despite all of Trump’s vindictive badgering, the republicans and democrats in the congress never turned on Powell. Warsh did not need democrats’ support for confirmation but he will need them especially if the dems return to power after the midterms. Armed with subpoena power, the democrats will not be the loyal opposition. Far from it. One of the first things Warsh must do is to go to Capitol Hill and mend fences with the democrats. He may not need them now but he will later. Bet on it.

Free the beagles!

My first dog as a new parent was a beagle named Letta – named for the South African singer Letta Mbulu. She – the dog – was perfect for small children. She was also a perfect companion. I was at the University of Florida and we rented a house with a fenced in backyard to keep the alligators out that lived in the creek running behind the house. We concluded that alligators must really like dogs because it seemed that most every time Letta was in the back, that an alligator would come and sun itself up against the fence. 

I guess the most famous beagle is Snoopy, inspired by a dog from Charles Schulz’ childhood. His Snoopy is anthropomorphic portrayed as the opposite of his owner, Charlie Brown. In reality, beagles are loving, sweet and gentle which may explain why so many are bred for medical experiments. Now I am no PETA person – although some say that stands for People Eating Tasty Animals. I know the value of conducting life saving research on laboratory animals (rather than humans). But beagles? By some estimates over 70,000 are bred only for medical purposes. These dogs never can show their love to a family with young kids. They will never hunt rabbits – my grandfather had a bunch of them solely for that purpose. They will never experience human kindness and reciprocate it.

Well just recently a court case made the news. It concerned the theft of 22 beagles from a kennel that breeds them for medical research. Wayne Hsiung a Californian went into the Ridglan Farms facility in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin and liberated the dogs. He recorded the heist on video to tell the world what he was doing. Laura Trump, Lara Loomer, congressmen Nancy Mace and Young Kim voiced their support for him. Loomer tweeted to her 1.9 million followers: “Terrible! Save the dogs!”In 2025, following a petition by Hsiung a judge found probable cause that Ridglan had broken Wisconsin anticruelty laws, including conducting certain medical procedures without anesthesia and failing to provide adequate sanitation and ventilation. 

Ridglan, which denied wrongdoing, offered a deal: it would close its breeding operation, keeping only its smaller testing operation open, in exchange for avoiding charges. Lara Trump urged Ridglan in an Instagram video to accept a $1 million offer from animal-rights groups to rehome all 2,000 dogs. Big Ranch Dog Rescue and the Center for a Humane Economy reached a deal to rehome the dogs for an undisclosed sum. There are videos of the dogs being released and some people adopting them. One particularly poignant scene is one in which one beagle raises her paw as if to shake hands with her new owner. It turns out that the dog thought that she was supposed to be giving blood.

You can read the full story here https://www.wsj.com/us-news/the-fight-to-free-hundreds-of-beagles-from-a-rural-wisconsin-research-lab-3c3a49ff

Here is a recent paper on the use of beagles in medical research: “Beagles in Biomedical Research: Scientific Justification, Biosafety Protocols, Ethical Debates, and Emerging Alternatives.” https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1709256.pdf

Follow the science? Academic fraud can kill

There were three reasons why I was a climate skeptic. The first was that the main supporters were those on the left who wanted more power to control people’s lives. I would not ever vote for. Any of those advocates. The second was that I did not believe the models. After modeling economic hypotheses all my professional life I knew intimately the limitations of formulating mathematical equations to mimic real economic phenomena. The third and most important was that I knew that empirical scientists lied. They fudged their models, changed the signs on the parameters if they did not conform to expectations and manipulated the results. I mentioned that when I was in graduate school that my advisor, the great Karl Brunner, edited the Journal of Money, Banking and Credit. One year he announced that all accepted papers prior to publication had to have their results independently verified. Submissions fell dramatically and papers already in review were withdrawn.

This, sadly, was no isolated incidence. Here is what I wrote in the Knoxville Focus, November 20, 2023: “There is a large scientific literature – mostly suppressed – that finds that the world is not in imminent danger from changes in the climate. Many prominent scientific journals will not publish these studies and many funding sources will not fund research contrary to the climate change narrative. Since researchers are driven to publish for success and to acquire funding, they are motivated to cheat and falsify their findings in order to achieve the “correct” results. It has been reported elsewhere that over 60 of published empirical results may be compromised.  These falsifications are not merely of young assistant professors struggling to publish in the top journals to achieve tenure and promotion. It is also the most eminent scientists in the country. The climate director at Berkeley altered results in order to get a paper published. The president of Stanford recently resigned accused of falsifying data. Plagiarism has always been rife within academics (as well as politics, see Joe Biden).”

“There is a large scientific literature – mostly suppressed – that finds that the world is not in imminent danger from changes in the climate. Many prominent scientific journals will not publish these studies and many funding sources will not fund research contrary to the climate change narrative. Since researchers are driven to publish for success and to acquire funding, they are motivated to cheat and falsify their findings in order to achieve the “correct” results.” So within the “settled science” of studies on the climate, don’t be shocked if many – if not most – fail the smell test.

There is actually a website called Retraction Watch that documents academic fraud. https://retractionwatch.com

Last year it identified a record 13,000 retracted academic papers – articles that had been published (in many cases having first gone through peer review) but were subsequently proven wrong and withdrawn from circulation. The entire

catalogue of Retraction Watch has swelled to over 50,000 entries. “Our database is updated every day,” says Ivan Oransky, Retraction Watch’s co-founder, “Usually with about 40 new retractions daily.” One scientist said “The level of publishing of fraudulent papers is creating serious problems for science. In many fields it is becoming difficult to build up a cumulative approach to a subject, because we lack a solid foundation of trustworthy findings. And it’s getting worse and worse.” It is commonly reported that 60 percent of all academic papers may have fraudulent findings.

So spending trillions and trillions of dollars on what turns out to be truly a big green scam is bad enough.  But the fraud in medical research is not only shocking but is criminal and has cost lives. An article in Reason entitled “How a Scientific Cartel Protects Fraudsters and Rakes in Billions of Taxpayer Dollars” says “Corrupt scientists rarely face accountability. The real victims are everyone

else.” https://reason.com/2026/05/06/how-a-scientific-cartel-protects-fraudsters-and-rakes-in-billions-of-taxpayer-dollars/

The author describes in heartbreaking detail the slide of his grandmother into Alzheimers. He then describes the following:

“Sylvain Lesné, a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota, published a paper in Nature in 2006 claiming to identify a specific amyloid beta protein assembly as the direct cause of memory impairment in Alzheimer’s. This reinvigorated the amyloid hypothesis at a moment when skepticism about it was ramping up. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) devoted $1.6 billion to projects that mention amyloids in 2022 alone, nearly half of all federal Alzheimer’s funding that year.  Lesné was a star.

But there were rumblings. Numerous amyloid drugs made it to trials with billions invested by pharmaceutical companies. They failed repeatedly. A question arose in the pharmaceutical community: How can this be right? How can the trials keep failing if the underlying research is correct? In 2022, the Vanderbilt neuroscientist Matthew Schrag uncovered evidence that images in Lesné’s paper had been manipulated. Science magazine found more than 20 suspect papers by Lesné, with over 70 instances of possible image tampering. Nature retracted the paper in June 2024. Every author except Lesné signed the retraction. Lesné himself resigned from his tenured position at the University of Minnesota on March 1, 2025, three years after his fraud was exposed.

Lesné resigned, but was still rich. None of his grant money was clawed back.”

“The victims of corrupt science and siloed information never know they were harmed. The child who dies because her cure was delayed by a few years never knows the hurt that she received. The researchers who didn’t get the grant for their novel idea because the cartel (here the National Institutes of Health) was funding their buddies on the backs of fraudulent graphs never knew they got screwed.”

“Science must be a free market of ideas, but now it’s a cartel. NIH grant funding is centrally planned science. A small committee directs billions, yet is structurally incapable of knowing which directions are most promising.”

BTW, the author uses a pseudonym “Seconds”, likely a scientist seeking to protect himself within the academy and to continue to receive grants from the cartel that he so rightly criticizes. Antony Fauci repeatedly said “follow the science.” Well I don’t believe the science until proven otherwise. Al Gore’s “settled science” is based on lies, misrepresentations and outright fraud.

What can be done? The government has the power to fine violators up to  $10,000 a day but has done nothing. This is only for government grants. The government should verify each funded research. If fraud is found, the grant monies should be returned and the researcher should be fined, banned for life or in the case of medical fraud be put in jail. What of all the fraud in academia that is not funded by the federal government? I suggest that what Karl Brunner did those long years ago at Ohio State become the norm. All papers must be independently verified prior to publication. Period. If that happens then maybe even I might believe some of the results.

Virginia’s racist gerrymander. More tariffs for dummies?

Virginia’s racist gerrymander 

Virginia’s current congressional map has no majority black districts. However, two are majority-minority. District 3 is 39 percent white, 43 percent black and 8 percent Hispanic. District 4 is 42 percent white, 41 percent black and 10 percent Hispanic. Both the representatives are black democrats, Bobby Scott in the 3^rd and Jennifer McClellan in the 4^th. The proposed gerrymander to shift the state’s congressional representation from 6 democrats and 5 republicans to 10 democrats and one republican would dilute the minority majorities in both districts. Now in District 3 the white population would rise to 45.1 and the black population would fall to 41 percent. In District 4 the white population would go to 50.7 percent and the black percent would fall to 39 percent. 

Do you think Virginia’s white democrats wanted to get rid of the two black representatives and used the excuse of getting rid of the republicans to do it? Just asking. So if like the southern states, the purpose of the gerrymander is to reduce black voting power, Virginia is no different from Tennessee, Louisiana or Alabama. So in the deep south when republicans do it they are called racists. When the democrats do it, they are called – democrats.  Strange since it has the same effect and impact on black voters.

So Virginia can have a new slogan: Virginia is for racists

Our trade representative hates trade

Earlier I reported that Jamieson Greer the U.S. Trade Representative has launched “investigations” into dozens of countries under a separate authority – Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 – in order to conjure up some more tariffs. Well the justification for the investigations is about the dumbest reason I have seen – and that is saying something. It something called “structural excess capacity.” That is, any country that produces “excess capacity” displaces existing U.S. domestic production or prevents investment and expansion in U.S. manufacturing production. So says Mr. Greer. But isn’t that the reason you trade in the first place. You produce those items in which you have a comparative advantage and trade them for goods that you don’t. Don’t America’s farmers produce way more corn, barley, soybeans and other stuff than they could possibly consume? Why? So they can sell it.

Mr. Greer says this is bad and should not go unpunished. Mr. Greer also says that a country shouldn’t have unused factories and that nations producing less than 80% of what their factories could potentially make are likely “structural excess capacity” offenders. Well the Wall Street Journal points out that the US is then an offender with a domestic capacity utilization of only 75.2 percent. The administration actually pointed to Norway’s high seafood exports as evidence that the country produces more fish than it needs making it a prime candidate for Trump’s tariffs. Good grief. Doesn’t Norway have a comparative advantage in growing fish? This basically means that all countries that export anything are subject to Trump’s new tariffs, including everything exported by the US. Apparently Trump wants only the US to have “excess capacity” and none other. Only in the US is “excess capacity” good. Those farmers can’t eat all those soybeans, can they? Greer’s job is to figure out a way that Trump can get more tariffs and keep them, even if he looks stupid doing so. Apparently, he is going to test every trade stature for the one that can pass legal scrutiny. But actually, the task can be made much simpler – just follow the Constitution and have the congress enact the laws to make it so. Until then, Mr. Greer will be the president’s hit man and look stupid doing so. Tariffs for dummies, anyone?

Comey: Another day, another indictment. Bye, Bye Dr. Makary. The Reflecting Pool.

Comey: Another day, another indictment

The former FBI director, one of many on the president’s hit list, has been hit with another indictment. This time for the silly “86-47” seashell photo from a trip to the beach. I haven’t heard the argument that the shells just randomly arranged themselves that way, but I wouldn’t be shocked if that were not forthcoming. The seashell photo appeared over a year ago but I guess Trump’s acting attorney general Todd Blanche knows that if he wants to get the job then he must aggressively pursue Trump’s enemies, no matter how flimsy or absurd the charges. Comey, you may recall, was the FBI director who as had overseen the early investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign had coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of the presidential election – aka the Russia hoax.

The number “86” may be interpreted as “eliminate” and “47” refers to Trump – the 47^th president. The indictment charges Comey with “knowingly and willfully” making a threat to “take the life of and to inflict bodily harm upon the president and with transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.” I predict the outcome will be Comey 2 Trump 0.

Bye bye Dr. Marty Makary

The president professes to hate the Wall Street Journal. He sued the paper and its owner Rupert Murdoch for $10 billion over an article saying that he sent a letter to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 that featured the drawing of a nude woman. The president said “We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS ‘article’ in the useless ‘rag’ that is, The Wall Street Journal.” The suit – not surprisingly – was dismissed.

Well if the president hates the Journal then why did he fire Homeland Secretary Kristi (ex-border Barbie) soon after it ran a hit piece on her relationship with Corey Lewandowski and her excessive spending on self-promotion? Not to mention the disaster that unfolded with ICE in Minneapolis. One day he was praising her. The next day she was gone.

Well it has happened again. The Journal does not like Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA commissioner – take a number. It has been relentless in attacking him in a series of articles. The articles, mention that first the president was angry at Makary for moving slowly to authorize the approval of flavored vapes and nicotine products. Makary was reluctant to do so because of the impact on young people and refused to approve menthol, mango and blueberry vape flavors from Los Angeles manufacturer Glas. The president, on the other hand, wanted the flavors approved precisely to help gain the favor (flavor?) of young MAGA voters. Makary folded and the flavors were approved. Don’t you think that an inquiring press would have looked into the relationship between Glas and the Trump family? Where are the headlines “TRUMP WANT YOUTH HOOKED ON NICOTINE”?

Once upon a time the administration was full of praise for Makary releasing a statement saying “The only factor guiding the Trump administration’s health policymaking is Gold Standard Science, and the FDA under Commissioner Makary’s trailblazing leadership will continue to make evidence-based decisions that rectify the Biden administration’s missteps and that are in the best interest of the American people.” A White House official said the president had confidence in Makary and was “thrilled with his accomplishments.”

But then came the critical articles. I reported on Dr. Makary’s rejection of rare disease drugs. He and the FDA’s former biologics chief Dr. Vinay Prasad rejected a promising melanoma drug among others. The Journal said “The rejection will have a chilling effect on drug development by signaling that the FDA is slamming the door on accelerated approvals and requiring a level of evidence of efficacy that fewer cancer drugs could meet. Congress ought to haul in Drs. Makary and Prasad for questioning. And President Trump might ask why his choice for FDA Commissioner and the mess with Dr. Prasad have undermined his desire for faster cures.”

Makary has also been roundly criticized on personnel decisions with firings and leavings of key personnel. The latest piece in the Journal appeared on May 3 entitled “President’s Trump Marty Makary problem” by Allysia Finley. In it she asks “Has any Trump administration official caused more political headaches for the president than Marty Makary? His Food and Drug Administration has turned into a soap opera, with real lives hanging in the balance.” She mentions the melanoma therapy rejection and says “Dr. Makary decided patients shouldn’t have the right to try the drug. Ditto a gene therapy by UniQure for the brutal neurodegenerative Huntington’s Disease, which slowed progression by 75% in a clinical trial.” Congress has started investigating complaints from FDA staff and Makary is making the president’s life more difficult as the midterms are approaching. After listing complaint after complain Finley concludes “It’s time for Mr. Trump to pull the plug on the Makary show.”

And it seems that he has. The leader of this disaster at the FDA (and the CDC) is the MAHA guru Robert Kennedy jr. I really don’t know how Kennedy has somehow avoided the wrath of the president. But it is only a matter of time.

Trump’s reflecting pool

Its probably no big deal but Washington’s reflecting pool is being painted blue. The firm Atlantic Industrial Coatings was awarded a no-bid $6.8 million contract to do the job. Just coincidentally, the company renovated a pool at the president’s Virginia golf course. The president said “You’re going to end up with a beautiful, beautiful reflecting pool, the way it’s supposed to be. Much better than it ever was actually.” The president said “I know a guy.” Actually he said “I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools. He looked at it. He

called me up. He said, ‘Sir, we can do something on it.’” One critic said that under Trump he renovations and changes had “become a secretive project where the friends and business associates of the president are being rewarded with no public scrutiny”.

No kidding. I just wonder if the reflecting pool will still reflect? Well some group instantly appeared to sue to stop the blue paint job. The complaint filed by the Cultural Landscape Foundation says “The vivid blue coating will fundamentally alter the visual and experiential character of the pool and the broader Lincoln Memorial Grounds landscape, The new coloration will cause the pool to resemble a large swimming pool rather than the reflective civic landscape it was designed to be, distorting the experience of the site for the millions of visitors who come to it each year.”

Yep, I think that says that the Reflecting Pool won’t reflect.

The Trump Mahal. More TACO. Cruisin’. Illegal tariffs, redux.

How much for the Trump Mahal – er ballroom?

Donald Trump who sic-ed his “Justice” department on the Fed’s Jay Powell, ostensively for a cost overrun of $500 million dollars should be ashamed. The ballroom which the president said would cost $200 million went to $400 million. Trump said that it would be built with private funds. Now the republicans on the senate judiciary committee want to spend $1 billion in public funds for security enhancements to the ballroom. Predictably the democrats are outraged. “Republicans are on a different planet than American families,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote “Republicans looked at families drowning in bills and decided what they really needed was more raids and a Trump ballroom.” The democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee responded with an AI-generated image of Trump as Marie Antoinette, who lived at the Palace of Versailles, captioning it, “$1 BILLION for ballroom funding? Marie Antoinette would be proud.” Hey, if Trump can sue his “Justice” Department then maybe he needs to get his “Justice” Department investigate himself.

LET THEM EAT CAKE!!!

Trump’s Iran War – more TACO?

Would someone kindly explain to me what is going on in Trump’s head? The president boldly announced that the navy institute an escort service for vessels through the Strait of Hormuz and if attacked by Iran then all hell would fall down on them bombing “at a much higher level and intensity than it was before”. He called this “Project Freedom” for some reason. I think the navy took two ships through before the president for reasons only known to himself stopped the escort service without “raining hell down on the Iranians”. What’s up with that? I guess the president’s detractors will say this is another instance of “TACO” – Trump always chickens out. BTW, those ships have been stuck in the Persian Gulf for a month. Why haven’t problems of feeding them and sanitation been covered? 

Also please tell me why Trump declared that Iran’s bombing the United Arab Emirates was not a ceasefire violation? Some friend we are! So what is the end game? What terms are we going to accept? It will have to do with Iran’s nuclear program. But what about its armaments? What about its proxies? What about its funding of terrorism? What about regime change? Huh?

Trump’s illegal tariffs are again ruled illegal

When the president lost his tariff fight in the Supreme Court, he immediately rushed to reimpose them under Section 122 which allowed tariffs for 150 days under certain conditions. Trump doubled down and raised those tariffs to 15 percent and just recently raised them on European automobiles to 25 percent. Well the U.S Court of International Trade (CIT) just ruled that the 10 percent “global tariff” is also illegal. I thought this would happen and had posted earlier that Section 122 applied in order to address deficits in the “balance of payments.” However, the balance of payments is not in deficit. Rather one of its components – the balance of trade – is what is in deficit. The court ruled that the president cannot impose tariffs under Section 122 without that prerequisite (which does not exist). In the words of the court “Nowhere does [Trump’s executive order imposing the tariffs] identify balance-of-payments deficits within the meaning of Section 122 as it was enacted in 1974.” Because of that, the executive order “is invalid, and the tariffs imposed on Plaintiffs are unauthorized by law.” 

This is the fifth straight defeat for the president in the courts. Where does he go from here because surely the “tariff man” will not give up easily. Indeed, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has launched “investigations” into dozens of countries under a separate authority – Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 -in order to conjure up some more tariffs this summer.

Cruisin’

I have several friends who love to cruise. I question their sanity. Cruise ships are floating petri dishes and the latest two incidence just confirm it. First, a hantavirus outbreak has occurred on the Dutch cruise ship. MV Hondius. Three people have died and the ship has been diverted to the Spanish island of Tenerife, off the coast of West Africa. I guess the PR people will call this a bonus cruise stop at no extra charge. Investigators suspect a Dutch couple may have first contracted the virus while on a bird-watching trip before they boarded the ship in Argentina on April 1. Once the ship reaches Tenerife, passengers will be evacuated in small boats to buses only once their repatriation flights are ready to take them. The United States and Britain have agreed to send planes to Tenerife to pick up their citizens. Other governments, provided they can find the island on a map, have not yet indicated what they will do regarding their citizens. Hantavirus is from rodents and humans can contract the disease when they come into contact with infected rodents or their saliva, urine, and droppings. Medical authorities say that human to human transmission is rare but undoubtedly occurred in this instance. 

Second, over 100 people were sickened by a norovirus outbreak aboard the Caribbean Princess cruise ship. The CDC reported that 102 of 3,116 passengers and 13 of 1,131 crew members were reported ill with symptoms including diarrhea and vomiting. Hey, but it is only a mild gastrointestinal illness. Nothing as serious as the hantavirus. Just a little diarrhea and throwing up – what we used to call in my childhood the GATs (green apple trots). You may love to cruise, but the only cruising that I want to do is told by Smokey Robinson and it isn’t on a boat with three thousand of my closest friends. So do you still want to cruise?

Who that?

From my early childhood to this very day I have been a fan of science fiction. I think I might have every John Carter of Mars paperback – albeit old and rag tailed. I read Asimov, Heinlein, Delany, Niven, Clarke, Bradbury, Dick, Le Guin, Herbert, Zelazny, Anderson, Silverberg, Pohl, McCaffrey, Ellison, and Norton. Maybe the golden age of science fiction was in my youth. Today’s writers are generally less gifted. I ended my subscriptions to Asimov’s and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction because the stories tend to be dismal, antibusiness and leftist. Oh for another Robert Heinlein!  Today’s authors that I do read include Joe Haldeman, Neil Gaiman (you must read Stardust), John Scalzi, the late Octavia Butler and Andy Weir (although I did not care for Artemis). I am also a fan of fantasy and Gaiman, Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, N. K. Jemisin, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Le Guin are in that category too along with Anne McCaffrey, J.R.R. Tolkein, Nnedi Okorafor and J. K. Rowling. I really like Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing despite all the foul language and explicit sex. The other two, Iron Flame and Onyx Storm are disappointing. 

So given my love for science fiction and fantasy it probably comes as a surprise that I could care less about aliens (please no snide remarks about Appalachians) and UFOs. Given the vastness of the universe it would almost defy the odds if we were the only intelligent (?) life out here. Currently scientists are searching the stars to find life that is carbon based, on the same building blocks as ours. That may just be for convenience sake and is the easiest way to define intelligent lifeforms. We may find aliens – or more than likely they will find us. They may be benign as the first Vulcans who landed and encountered Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek. Or they may be Kanamits in Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone episode whose book To Serve Man turned out to be a cookbook.

But I really just don’t care. So when the Department of Defense released the long awaited UFO files and videos on government knowledge of extraterrestrial phenomena it was really a nothing burger. Just looked like a bunch of dots to me. Remember when former President Barack Obama told a podcaster that aliens were real and Fox’s Peter Doocy asked President Trump directly about the existence of aliens? Trump said of Obama “He gave classified information. He’s not supposed to be doing that. I don’t know if they’re real or not. I can tell you, he gave classified information. He’s not supposed to be doing that – he made a big mistake. He took it out of classified information.” So there must be something there – right? Roswell anyone?

Here is Trump’s statement on the release of the information: “Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

My congressman Tim Burchett has in particular seemed obsessed with UFOs (no snide remarks about Appalachians remember). I wonder if he has read Jonesborough’s Tom Deaderick’s Lost Cove series?  Burchett has been a vocal voice on Capitol Hill about investigating unidentified flying objects (UFOs), unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) and outer space activity. He said I’ve been briefed by just about every alphabet agency there is. And, I’ll just say this, if they were to release the things that I’ve seen, you’d be up at night, worrying about, thinking about this stuff.” Burchett said he was briefed on an issue that “would have set the Earth” on fire if revealed. “This country would’ve come unglued, I think, if they [the public] would’ve heard all that I heard. They would demand answers.”

People magazine’s article said that “Burchett alleged that the reason why information fails to be made public is that those who are briefed on the situation go missing or die, referencing Newsmax’s report about multiple defense scientists who have reportedly vanished or died in the last year. Burchett then shared, “For the record, I’m not suicidal.”

https://people.com/congressman-alien-briefings-youd-be-up-at-night-11941777

I can just hear the Twilight Zone’s music in my ears. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVSRm80WzZk&list=RDXVSRm80WzZk&start_radio=1

In the end, I remember my sainted mother remarking on a group of scientists sending radio signals into space to see if they could get a return message. The nearest galaxy is the Andromeda galaxy which is 2.5 million light years away. The closest dwarf galaxy is the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal galaxy which is 70,000 light years away. Mom said “It will take a million years for them to get a message from us saying “who that?” Then it will take another million years for us to get their answer, “who that that wants to know who that?””

Happy Mother’s Day

Dumb Trump poll. No Fetterman. Maine: No outrage?

A dumb Trump poll

The media hates Donald Trump. Again and again fake news stories appear to misinform the public. An example is a recent poll conducted by two of Trump’s media favorites, the Washington Post and ABC News. The mainstream media  trumpets the following headline or some variant – here is the one from Politico: “Most Americans say Trump is mentally, physically unfit to serve effectively: Poll.” “The Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 59 percent of U.S. respondents indicated Trump does not have the mental sharpness it takes to lead the country. Comparatively, 55 percent of surveyed U.S. adults said Trump is not in good enough physical health to serve as president.” “More than half of respondents, 54 percent, said they do not believe the president is a strong leader.” Most? The poll was conducted online April 24-28 among 2,560 U.S. adults nationwide. Note that the conclusion from asking two thousand people (political affiliation?) a set of questions (not revealed) is “most Americans….” Pardon me but this is a crock.

I have said that Trump’s rants, rages and chaotic behavior have called into question his mental fitness – although I have friends who brush them off as “only for show.” But not in good enough physical health? Not a strong leader? They must have been thinking of Joe Biden instead. Don’t they remember during the campaign when Trump said he was “working his a— off” while Biden was convalescing in his basement? Biden was the weak leader. Certainly the same cannot be said of Donald Trump. I could list a lot of characteristics of Trump but “not a strong leader” is not one of them. This must have been a “Trump poll for dummies.”

Fetterman is not a republican (thank goodness)

Once again, totally uniformed folk are agitating for John Fetterman to switch parties. Say it isn’t so! Fetterman’s voting record would make him by far the most liberal republican senator, making Collins and Murkowski look like Marsha Blackburn. Fetterman votes with Trump only 28 percent of the time. Although that is by far the most by any democrat senator, it certainly makes him no conservative. In fact, Fetterman is one of the most liberal senate democrats albeit it a sane one – which seems to keep getting rarer and rarer these days (see Graham Platner). He is a throwback to democrats like Scoop Jackson, Jack Kennedy or even Tip O’Neil. If Fetterman were a republican he would drive most of republicans of all stripes crazy. Let him keep making his fellow democrats crazy instead. Fetterman’s liberalism is shown in his Freedom Index score which is an abysmal 6. Compare that to Susan Collins whose 39 is the lowest among the republican senators. BTW, Fetterman’s score is lower than that of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders! Warren’s score is a 14. Even Bernie scores a 26. The lowest is Alex Padilla’s 1. The highest is Rand Paul’s 96. I wonder if those wanting Fetterman to flip parties are aware of the entirety of his voting record?

https://freedomindex.us/us/legislators/session/14/chamber/S

Trade agreement? What trade agreement?

Donald Trump has just trashed his own trade agreement with the EU. He had negotiated an agreement where there would be a 15 percent tariff on their stuff coming to the US (which we consumers pay) versus no tariff on our stuff going over there. Then out of the blue, he reneged and said that the tariff on European autos will be 25 percent. In one fell swoop, the president has shown that his word is worthless. If an agreement can be changed on a whim, then why have an agreement in the first place? Businesses on both sides of the Atlantic cannot plan with any certainty. Maybe this is Trump’s way of paying back our (once) European allies for not participating in his Iran war. He has also said that he is pulling a 5,000 troops out of Germany. I think that will leave only 30,000. I am certain that the Europeans are not just going to take it and will probably revisit any agreements that they had with Trump. This is actually just a continuation of the distain that Trump has for Europe, Europeans and virtually every leader including his former friend Giorgia Meloni. Trump has hardly any friends left in Europe now that his buddy Viktor Orban has been ousted.

Maine: Why no outrage?

In the democrat primary in Maine for senate, the governor Janet Mills was running against a 41 year old oyster farmer named Graham Platner. BTW, you farm oysters? Should be a piece of cake for Mills, right? Wrong. Despite being endorsed by Chuck Schumer, the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee and establishment democrats, Mills dropped out of the race. Shockingly, she was behind in the polls by double digits and her campaign was running out of money. The oyster farmer had garnered the endorsements of the far left of the party including Bernie Sanders, AOC and Elizabeth Warren.

Platner is a marine corps veteran, a Maine native and a college dropout whose platform focuses on issues near and dear to the hearts of the left: housing affordability, universal health care, labor unions, anti billionaires and ending U.S. involvement in “pointless” wars. Ah, sweet music to the ears of the left. However, Platner has no business being the candidate from a major party much less a US senator. He has a nazi death camp tattoo on his chest. Oops! He has also told raped women they were at fault, “has become a communist,” said all police were “bastards”, called rural people “racist and stupid”, supported Hamas, called Maine lobstermen “pieces of s—t”, among other niceties.

Now you would think the media would be outraged and would be running negative piece after piece attacking Platner. The tattoo would be reason enough especially because Platner had lied about it, saying that he didn’t know it was a nazi tattoo when in fact in 2019 he referred to it as “totenkopf” – “death head” commonly associated with nazi Germany. Oops again. 

The lack of outrage is of course because Platner is a progressive democrat. If he were a republican, he would have been run out of the race. But no. He is a democrat whose antisemitism seems to be the flavor of the month for the left. So what if he is a communist? Didn’t Bernie honeymoon in Russia? What about the other statements? Other than the comment about raped women, they are aligned with those on the democrats’ far left. The democrats may rage about Trump as Hitler but they are full of it and they know it. However, here is a real life nazi-sympathizer in their midst and they endorse him for the US Senate.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren has called Platner “her kind of man”. When asked about the tattoo she responded “So, as you rightly point out, he has apologized. He’s out meeting with the people of Maine every single day so they can evaluate not who Graham Platner was, but who Graham Platner is today.” Then she said “I want us to be the party that actually delivers on lowering costs and that expands opportunities. And that’s what Graham Platner wants to do. And I’m there to stand with him and to help in that fight.”

So I guess if you are a democrat, the past doesn’t matter – only what you say today is important. Of course, that applies only to the left. I could cite dozens of examples of elected republicans run out of office for statements and/or actions from the past. Remember Trent Lott? Remember the different treatment for Virginia’s Ralph Northam whose photo in blackface while in college surfaced? The same is true for Platner. No outrage from the media. No outrage from the democrats. Just getting an antisemitic leftwing kook elected is all that matters. Do you seriously want these people in charge of the country?

Ted Turner 

Ted Turner (1938-2026)

Ted Turner just died. He was 87 and suffered from Lewy body dementia. Here is what the Dementia Society of America tells us: “Lewy body disease is one of the most common causes of Dementia in the elderly. Lewy body disease happens when abnormal structures, called Lewy bodies, build up in areas of the brain. The disease may cause a wide range of symptoms, including changes in alertness and attention, hallucinations, problems with movement and posture, muscle stiffness, and confusion.” That sounds perfectly awful.

Turner’s family business was highway billboards and he roamed the state selling advertising space. I remember the billboards along the highway with “Turner” on the bottom of them. Turner will be remembered for many things: CNN and the 24 hour news media, a bison steakhouse, marriage to Jane Fonda and a host of other ventures. But I am from Atlanta and I remember him for WTBS – the predecessor of the networks TBS and TNT. In 1976 Turner bought an independent television station that had no network. Back in those days, the three broadcast networks NBC, CBS and ABC were dominant. WTBS had virtually no original programming and ran reruns of the Beverley Hillbillies and other fare 24/7. Turner bought the Atlanta Braves which at the time was one of the worse teams in baseball (67-94) to broadcast their games.  He even installed himself (briefly) as manager. About the same time he bought the Atlanta Hawks to add to his sports programming.

Turner was a visionary and decided to put WTBS up on the new broadcast satellites circling the earth. So he went to his bank and asked for a loan to become a superstation broadcasting to a national market rather than just in the Atlanta area. Going to the bank and saying that he wanted financing to put his station broadcasting the Beverley Hillbillies and the woeful Atlanta Braves to Pocatello, Idaho and beyond was met by derision. So he went to a hedge fund – Bass Brothers – to get the money needed to go nationwide. Thus, Turner was the pioneer that started the rise of cable TV and the loss of market share of the three broadcast giants. He also founded the Cartoon Network – although some might say that was redundant with CNN and the Weather Channel (my brother’s favorite station). Who would have thought that anyone (other than my brother who was a pilot) would want to watch the weather 24/7? But if Jim Cantore shows up at your airport, you know you are in trouble.

Turner founded the Goodwill Games and was an accomplished yachtsman defending the America’s Cup on the Courageous, defeating Australia in 1977.

I know that Turner will be called “brash” but I call him “visionary.” We are all better off because of Ted Turner.

RIP