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The Donald the First?

One of my dear friends has bought into the Trump dictator hysteria. Methinks she probably watches too much MSNBC because the dictator mantra defies all logic. First, if Trump is a dictator then all of his nominees would sail through the newly constituted Senate because in all dictatorships the legislature just rubberstamps the wishes of the dictator. Yet the odious Matt Gaetz failed to get the republican support he needed for confirmation, saw the light and withdrew. Does anyone really think that Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski will willy nilly bend to Trump’s orders?

The tax cuts from the first Trump administration are set to expire. What will the republicans do? Both the House and Senate tax committees will be pressured to extend all the cuts. Trump also made promises on the campaign trail to exempt taxes on tips, on overtime and on Social Security payments. If enacted, this would mean that the immediate impact will be an increase in the deficit. The budget hawks in both chambers would likely resist the increase. What would Trump do? Again all the cajoling will not likely move the House budget committee chair who has insisted that a change in the tax policy should not add to the deficit.

Next we have Trump’s tariffs. I have wondered what is the extent of the president’s authority to levy tariffs. I have the feeling that the president’s authority will be tested in the courts. The US Chamber of Commerce and several of its branches on the Mexican and Canadian borders have expressed opposition to the tariffs. Will they sue saying the president has exceeded his authority? If so, the case will likely be decided by the Supreme Court. Even though my socialist friend says that Trump’s appointees on the Supreme Court will not rule against him, she is wrong. This Supreme Court has expressed skepticism over the president’s authority and acting without the approval of the Congress – see student loan forgiveness. My friend had scoffed at the checks and balances in our government and said that the Supreme Court would rubberstamp any Trump action even if unconstitutional. Obviously, she has not paid much attention to the votes of Trump’s nominees, all of whom show streaks of independent thinking. Saying that this Supreme Court is a rubberstamp shows intellectual laziness.

What about the so-called Inflation Reduction Act? That boondoggle was passed  without a single republican vote. Trump has pledged to cancel the law which he calls the Green New Scam. Since the republicans will now control both the House and the Senate one would think that the republicans would void the act. But as a famous TV personality says “Not so fast my friend.” The act is a gravy train and billions of dollars are flowing into republican districts and states. Two examples are in Georgia where there are the $6 billion “loan” granted to Rivian to build a plant and the $7 billion for Hyundai to make electric vehicles. I am certain that Brian Kemp welcomes the grants and would oppose not receiving it. Not surprisingly the republican congressmen whose districts the plants are located do not want the loans rescinded. What about other grants, subsidies, tax credits and loans that would go to other republicans? Eighteen republicans have sent a letter to Mike Johnson asking him not to move to repeal the act. One Georgia congressman said that the entire act should not be repealed, only parts of it. He probably means those parts that go to democrat districts and states. Given the makeup of the House, if those 18 would vote against repeal of the IRA, it would not be repealed because no democrat will vote against repeal.

Thus, in the end, the left is just fearmongering with its dictator talk. It knows that a presidential dictator is not possible in this country. But the left knows that most American’s are woefully ignorant of our political system. However, expect Trump to be like all the presidents before him and test the limits of his authority by erasing most of the actions of the dictator that preceded him, one Joseph Robinette Biden.

Trump’s tariffs

Donald Trump has just thrown many of his supporters under the bus. Trump says he is going to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico plus an additional 10% on China. In so doing, he has just betrayed those who voted for him because of the price inflation during the Biden years. First off, I thought all trade agreements had to come through the Congress. If a president can do this unilaterally without the consent of Congress, then Congress should take away this power. Second, tariffs raise the price of imported goods and are paid by the importer and not by the country of origin. The importer then forwards the amount collected to the Federal government. 

What happens next depends on the elasticity of demand for the good imported. If it is a final good, then the importer (say Walmart) may decide to pass anywhere between 0 to 100% on to the customer. Any amount absorbed by Walmart will then be a drag on its earnings and lower its profits adversely affecting both the company and its shareholders. If the good is an intermediate good such as aluminum, steel, or lumber the importer will incorporate that price into its final product increasing final prices.

Currently about 3 million cars are imported from Mexico a year and another million from Canada. More than $90 billion in auto parts are imported. There are some estimates that the price of cars in the United States will rise between $3,000-$5,000. Not surprisingly, Trump’s announcement was met with a fall in the stock price of the auto makers. What about all of the agricultural goods imported? They will be adversely affected as well.

Estimates vary as to the overall effect of the tariff on households between $1,000 to $3,900 in lost purchasing power. The hardest hit will be low to moderate income households who spend relatively more on consumer goods and who shop at stores that stock Chinese products, stores like Walmart and Target. Moreoever, Trump has threatened to increase Chinese tariffs by an additional 60% which will have an even greater negative impact on household real income.

The Chinese, Mexicans and Canadians won’t sit idly by. The Chinese retaliated on American goods during the first Trump administration and will do so again. So did Canada and Mexico. The new Mexican president has also said that Mexico will retaliate this time as well. Recall during the first Trump administration when he imposed stiff tariffs on Canadian lumber building costs in the United States skyrocketed causing a building slump. The housing market also suffered. The same will happen again. Most economic forecasters predict that the overall impact of the tariffs will be to raise consumer prices, lower economic growth and increase unemployment with a loss of about 400,000 jobs. All bad things.

I reported before that I had a conversation with a prominent economist who said that Trump was using tariffs as a bargaining tool to get fairer trade deals. I don’t believe him. Trump hated NAFTA and on his watch renegotiated the deal which resulted in the US-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement. Well Trump has just violated his own agreement with the tariff threat.

Trump has said that he wants to return manufacturing jobs back to the US. He must think that magically companies can instantaneously build plants and re-employ factory workers. Trump forgets that the myriad of US regulations mean that it takes up to three times longer to bring a plant on line in the US than in Mexico. Even then the labor costs in the US may make the plant not feasible.

This time Trump says that the tariffs are being used to make Mexico and Canada stop the flow of fentanyl and illegals into the country. In his last term, he used the threat of tariffs to get the Mexicans to agree to his remain in Mexico policy. It remains to be seen what will be the reaction of the Mexicans and the Canadians. The Mexican president has vowed retaliation amid the threat that the tariffs will plunge Mexico into a recession, Although my memory is a bit fuzzy, I recall that during the first Trump administration Mexico imposed $2 billion in retaliatory tariffs targeting exports from Texas and the swing states of Arizona, Michigan and Illinois. The new Mexican president is a hardcore leftist and has sworn not to back down to Trump. Although fentanyl is manufactured by the cartels in Mexico from chemicals from China, Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum says that drugs are an American problem. It will be interesting to see who blinks first.

Regardless, Trump has thrown his rank and file supporters under the bus.

Crybabies

Why does the left have so many crybabies? Recall all the trauma counselling for workers and students because of Trump’s election? Workers were given a day off to grieve. Universities set up counselling centers and provided Legos, cookies and milk to console traumatized students and staff. Poor babies.

The crybabies are now saying that Kamala Harris should have gone on Rogan and she didn’t because – of course – it was Trump’s fault. Again, if Harris had gone on Rogan, her loss would have been even bigger. She might have even lost California and New York. The democrats likely would have lost the Senate seats in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada. They would have also probably lost 10 additional House seats. If she had gone on Rogan it would have been a reprise of the Biden debate fiasco and she might have been replaced by another candidate. No way she could have lasted fifteen minutes with Rogan much less three hours.

Did you see the video when she resurfaced? She looked awful. Why supporters would have aired that video is beyond me.

All of the crybaby democrat mayors and governors who say they will resist Trump’s efforts to deport illegals and resist his initiatives should have their federal funding shut off.

Did you see where the crybabies in the Palestinian American Council, Students for Justice in Palestine, and American Muslims for Palestine are planning to disrupt shopping at some malls to reject “capitalist holidays”? Way to broaden your appeal! Now please show us how wonderful the economic systems are in the Muslim world are so we can emulate them.

The crybabies have questioned Trump’s nomination of RFK, jr to be Secretary of HHS. Kennedy’s views would on others politely be considered those of a kook. However, Trump’s intent is to shake up HHS. That is clear from his nomination of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to head the National Institute of Health. Dr. Bhattacharya is a professor at the Stanford School of Medicine and was chided by the mainstream press for providing “misinformation” regarding Covid when he wrote about herd immunity. He was also one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration condemning the lockdowns as causing irreparable harm. He will be great leading NIH. The same can be said for Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins to head the Food and Drug Administration. Makary is a brilliant and prolific scholar. He is an advocate of patients and has written on the volume of medical errors that may result in as many as 100,000 deaths per year. He has called into question billing practices of hospitals and medical debt and he has been critical of federal health agencies. Now he will have the power to do something about it.

For ten years I wrote articles for another news publication. During Covid, they refused to publish my piece questioning the actions of our local health department. I looked at the restrictions regarding masking, social distancing, hours of operation and noted that I could not find any scientific justification for any of those actions. My newspaper refused to publish the article. It was in the “keep them scared” camp. I quit. Trump’s nominees of Bhattacharya and Makary are learned authorities who also questioned the mainstream Covid dogma. They are precisely the type of people who will bring credibility back to the health agencies of Federal government.

What about Dr Oz to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services? I withhold judgment. Oz was a noted heart surgeon who morphed into a TV personality appearing on Oprah where he was accused by some in the medical profession of promoting non scientific treatments for personal financial gain. Trump endorsed Oz over David McCormick in the Pennsylvania senate primary resulting in the election of John Fetterman who McCormick would have defeated. Perhaps the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid is his consolation prize.

One thing is certain. The crybabies in the hidebound medical establishment are against all three nominations. With the deterioration of a once esteemed profession into DEI, transgender surgeries and wokeness, it is time to restore its reputation. Trump’s nominees can do that.

Happy Thanksgiving

We all have much to be thankful for. A look around the world tells us how unbelievably lucky and fortunate we are to be in this wonderful country. Many of our ancestral relatives live in poverty, suffer from hunger, disease and labor under tyrannical rulers. My African DNA are Congo, Mali and Cameroon. I am grateful beyond words to have been born and raised in America rather than in any of those countries. Given the choice of living anywhere in the world, I choose here. Yes there are naysayers and critics who whine that this country is racist, intolerant and corrupt. But they are wrong. The country is none of these. Some people are, yes. The country no. I have often said to critics to tell me how they would change the country, the political system and the economic system to make it their ideal. I tell them that I will not critique their vision. Yet none have complied. It is though they would rather complain. Yet they benefit from living here and reaping the rewards from a system they pretend to detest. The irony is that those who claim the country is intolerant are themselves intolerant.

Those who are socialists should know better. They can only point to some nebulous socialist ideal because socialism wherever tried has always impoverished the masses and failed. Socialism only benefits the elites and the nonproductive. Many of you are familiar with the story of the Pilgrims who true to their English tradition initially had communal farms without individual ownership of the land. It failed and the settlers abandoned common ownership in favor of private property. William Bradford, the colony’s first governor said that the communal lifestyle was “found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment … [f]or the Young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense.” After every family was assigned its own parcel of land to farm, “this had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.” A lesson never to forget.

Much has been written about what makes this country great – and yes Andrew Cuomo – America is great. I contend it is individual freedom which entails private ownership of property. The United States may well have been the first country in the world not ruled by a despot. The freedoms denied in England were ingrained in our founding documents. Some detractors want those documents discarded because they were written by a bunch of white men many of whom were slaveholders. However, the documents transcend race and gender. It would be akin to reject the Bible because it too was written by a bunch of white men. Also one must recognize that the so-called evil white men had to willingly give up some of their power when the slaves were emancipated and when women were given the right to vote. White men also ruled that segregation imposed by other white men was unconstitutional and enforced the desegregation of schools and ensured the right of blacks to vote. Evil men lusting to hold on to power would have never ceded any of that power. But true to the founding documents of this country written by white men, other white men held those principles to be sacred and provided steps to equality enabling all to pursue the American Dream. Again I am grateful.

So this Thanksgiving and every day I am thankful to be an American. I am thankful for family. I am thankful for friends. I am thankful for my ancestors whose ten distinct DNA strains flow through my blood. And I am thankful for all those who have helped me along this journey of life. Similarly I am thankful for those who have stood in my way and tried to derail my journey for they have made me stronger and more determined. Most of all I thank all of you for allowing me to share my thoughts with you. I truly wish you and yours the best of times and a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Costco, Harold Ford and COP 29

Do you Costco? If so please explain the mob scene every time I go there. I dropped my membership when they stopped carrying my favorite pimento cheese because its CEO said that Black Lives Matter was a Marxist group. I like Sams better anyway and only went to Costco to buy gas, its Kirkland coastal cheddar cheese and salsa. When Costco reinstated my pimento cheese, I reinstated my membership. I really missed the cheddar cheese but not the mobs stocking up on toilet paper and purified water.

Do you ever watch “The Five”? The liberal seat is often occupied by Harold Ford, jr. who may be the most rational democrat on the planet. When he was in the Congress he was the only black member of the Blue Dog democrats – whose membership has dwindled from 54 to 10. It was ironic that when he left the Congress he was replaced by a white Jewish member solidly on the lunatic fringe of the democrat party. I voted for Ford when he ran for the Senate when the esteemed Bill Frist retired. Unfortunately he lost to Bob Coker. More unfortunately he really disappointed me when he left Tennessee for New York. I wish he had stayed in Tennessee and ran for either governor or again for senator. I would vote for him again. I think he is not “progressive” enough to be elected in New York. But he would be a quantum step up from their current governor and two senators – especially the odious Chuck Schumer. He would also make a great president.

Did you follow this year’s UN climate conference, COP 29? Me neither. Why the UN insists on having its conferences in oil producing countries is beyond me. Last year’s conference was in Dubai. This year’s was in Baku, Azerbaijan whose president scolded the attendees saying that fossil fuels were a gift from God. Next year it will be in Belem, Brazil so it can damage the Amazon with all its private jets and 65,000 delegates. Yes 65,000! Don’t you think that these climate change poseurs will inflict tremendous harm to the fragile ecosystem of the Amazon?

Those of us outside the cocoon of environmentalist zealotry probably look at the green movement as a grift from God. Environmentalists were able to get climate laws passed simply because it expanded the power of the state over its peoples – something that politicians love – not because of any ideal of saving the planet. Indeed, most of the climate laws will not influence the climate. The climate control folks are now running up against the reality that their actions are negatively impacting people and economies. Europe has shut down coal and nuclear and has seen energy prices skyrocket. Industries are facing higher operating costs. Volkswagen, the German icon, is shutting down plants and laying off workers because of the losses it is incurring having to build EVs for which there is little demand. All the while, the demand for fossil fuels is increasing. Ironically, less carbon is being generated as natural gas is being substituted for coal (especially in the US). But the greenies even hate natural gas and are never satisfied wanting all fossil fuels to go away. I thought carbon was good for the planet. Meanwhile back at the UN Conference, the poorer countries want the richer countries to fork over up to a $1 trillion dollars to help them transition from fossil fuels to wind and solar. Right. You can bet that most of that money will line the pockets of the politicians and their buddies rather than go to climate change. It is akin to reparations.  As one minister said, “no country ever got rich by using expensive energy.” 

Here in the United States we can expect a reversal of Biden’s green energy industrial policy. Trump calls it a scam meant to line the pockets of the green grifters (Al Gore anyone?).

I am not a climate change denier because the climate always changes. Rather I am a climate model skeptic, having built, tested and evaluated econometric models for my entire career.

I am not an environmental scientist but my observations are that the planet is not fragile and repairs itself. People talk about global warming as if it is a bad thing. But is it? More importantly, is it manmade? Yet the starkest evidence of global warming occurred when there were few if any people on the plant – the end of the Ice Age. Greenland may be getting greener but the Antarctic ice mass is increasing. Is this because of manmade global warming or a natural occurrence? No model can explain what is going on today much less predict what will happen 100 years from now. For many climate change is like a religion based on faith which makes me an agnostic.

What is ironic is that over time industrial production.  and agricultural production have gotten cleaner. We have cleaner air and water. Yet the climate zealots are never satisfied. They want to ban all internal combustion engines. They want to lower our standards of living. They want to stop industrialization. They want perpetual poverty to most of the world’s inhabitants. I think they are wrong. I think a mixture of fossil fuels, solar (but not wind) and nuclear energy can continue to make us better off, reduce poverty and produce a cleaner environment.

Prove me wrong.

Blackface, Jaguar and other thoughts

Many colleges have a paint crew that apply school colors to their bodies for football games. At my alma mater, the University of Georgia, the colors are red and black and at one game instead of their usual red paint, the paint crew wore black. Is this blackface? Do you think this will come back to haunt any of these young men in the future?

Have you seen the new Jaguar ads?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLtFIrqhfng

I wonder what Robby Starbuck has to say about it. Go woke and go broke? Seriously, do you think this will increase Jaguar sales? I would be embarrassed to drive one.

Did you see all the reports that Ellen DeGeneres “fled” the country after Trump got elected? Since flee means to run away from danger to a place of security, then why did she “flee” to Cotswolds, England with her wife? Is England more tolerant to lesbians than Hollywood? Was she afraid that Trump was going to use his Justice department to prosecute her for supporting Harris? If so he would have to go after 74 million voters. Hopefully, some of her Hollywood friends will join her flight to the security of foreign lands.

If Trump wants to build on his increase in black supporters he needs to do a few things. First, he should remind people that he has directly supported the funding of HBCUs. Something that neither Obama nor Biden did. Second, he should go all in for increasing reading proficiency among K-3. In Chicago schools, few black children are proficient in reading even though the schools are funded at $21,000 per pupil. The teachers’ union is not interesting in teaching kids to read. They are more interested in getting free abortions. Trump should tie all funds from the Education Department to reading proficiency. Third, he should have his administration work to remove impediments in the way of small businesses like licensure. For example in many states hair braiders are forced to get a cosmetology license costing almost $20,000 to braid hair. Even if you want to operate a shoe shine business you need a license. The removal of these barriers to entry will encourage more entrepreneurship. Even though these are state requirements surely the federal government could initiate policies to encourage a removal of these impediments. 

Perhaps Trump’s Department of “Government Efficiency” could consolidate all the minority business programs scattered throughout the federal government into a single entity such as the Department of Commerce or the Small Business Administration.

Do you think Trump picked eight women to be in his cabinet because of Mark Cuban’s stupid contention that Trump is “never around any strong and intelligent women”? Of course he made the statement on the View which only features strong and intelligent women.

Are you surprised that little has been said of the nomination of Scott Bessent, an openly gay man with a husband and two children, to be Treasury secretary? Bessent was also once chief investment officer for Soros Fund Management. While Pete Buttigieg was Secretary of Transportation, that post is of trivial importance. Treasury, however, is one of the top three cabinet positions, along with State and Defense. I wonder what the MAGA crowd thinks of the pick?

Trump dance aka The Donald

The NFL which used to be known as the No Fun League used to penalize teams for unsportsmanlike penalties for excessive endzone celebrations. Those times are gone. Now it seems that the celebrations are a bit over the top but allowed so long as they are not obscene.  I wondered if that policy will change now that some of the celebrations look a lot like the Trump Dance. In fact, CBS cut away from one celebration and was accused of doing so because the network is so anti-Trump. Who would have thought that the brothers would be doing the Trump Dance? Believe it. Now golfers, soccer players, and others are doing it. Of course, the left doesn’t like it and some have asked the NFL to stop it. For now the NFL has said it would not intervene. Anyway, the league has all those niffy George Floyd era slogans in the endzones and on the back of helmets. I am now waiting for the left to demand the banning of “YMCA”. Did I hear anyone say shut up and dribble?

Department of Government Efficiency

To the list of well known oxymorons add “government efficiency.” Like “military intelligence” or “civil war” the term government efficiency defies logic. By definition government can not be efficient because it does not have the profit motive. It makes no effort to minimize costs in order to maximize profits. It is inherently wasteful and inefficient. Its objective is often to maximize costs in order to not endanger future appropriations. There is no profit to be maximized either because there are no profits. The government workforce does not have to worry about being terminated if their company fails. Management is rarely fired. The Pentagon has failed 7 consecutive audits and yet its CFO still has a job, Don’t you think that there might be a wee bit of waste, theft and fraud in that agency? Yet no one in the Administration seems to care. As to how to save a few bucks, I have written before that if we terminated all the welfare agencies, fired all their employees and simply gave each poor person $20,000 a year we would save half of what we now spend on welfare. Now that would be efficient!

I presume what Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are going to try to do is the minimize the number of government agencies/employees needed to perform certain tasks. We all know that there are redundant functions running through government agencies. We all know that government employees are often idle at work. There are even parts of the government that are out dated and no longer serve any purpose, yet they are still funded. However, Trump’s DOGE is itself redundant. If I were a cabinet member, I would resent the DOGE telling me how to become more efficient. Isn’t that my job? Why didn’t Trump just tell his cabinet that their budgets were going to be cut by a certain percent each year and it was their job to determine where to cut?

But Musk and Ramaswamy can do a service by recommending a consolidation of redundant government functions across agencies. To this end, all they need to do is look at GAO’s excellent annual report on duplication and cost savings https://www.gao.gov/duplication-cost-savings.  That will save them a lot of time and effort. They can also read Rand Paul’s annual report targeting government waste. The Heritage Foundation also publishes an annual report on redundancy. Ironically, the DOGE, itself, an example of government waste if all it does is duplicate the efforts already made to target the lack of efficiency in the federal government.

Musk is probably not going to have a fixed role in the Trump government. Ramaswamy would serve Trump better if he were director of the Office of Management and Budget. Trump should also coax Paul Ryan back into the government. For years, Ryan was one of the few politicians serious about containing the growth of the government and fiscal responsibility.

So Department of Government Efficiency? Not hardly.

Do you think Trump reads my blog? For years I have advocated moving the federal agencies out of Washington to get the bureaucrats closer to those that they lord over. Now there is increased chatter about doing so. Trump actually moved the Bureau of Land Management (the other BLM) to Grand Junction, Colorado in his first term.  Eighty percent of its workers refused to move. Biden moved it back to DC. Now Trump says he will send it back to Grand Junction and said “As many as 100,000 government positions can be moved out — and I mean immediately out — of Washington to places filled with patriots who love America.”

Do it. Again, this will shake up the politics of Virginia as well.

I mused about what Majorie Taylor Greene’s reaction would be when the new representative from Delaware walked into the women’s restroom. Well Nancy Mace has introduced a resolution to have members use the restroom dictated by their biological sex. Mace said “This is a biological man trying to force himself into women’s spaces and I am not going to tolerate it.” The left accuses her of being a bully, a bigot and anti-trans. To which, Mace responds that she is standing up for women’s rights. Of course, the left insists that a transperson is a woman despite biological evidence to the contrary. Incidentally, Mace was the first woman graduate of the Citadel.

It will be interesting to see what Mike Johnson does.

It will be even more interesting to see if any democrat will vote for such a resolution and face all the vitriol that rained down on the representative from Massachusetts who dared say that he didn’t want his little girls competing against boys in girls’ sports.

BTW how did the dems decide to jettison the women’s movement for the trans crowd?

Sherrod Brown and James Carville are bemoaning the dems loss of the working class. Well the working class will never return if the democrats insist on pursuing policies and an agenda that alienate the majority of Americans.

The dems are arguing that some of Trump’s nominees are not qualified. Have they looked at Pete Buttigieg’s resume? I guess he got the Transportation gig because he was known as Pothole Pete.

Matt Gaetz will not be confirmed. He will not get a single democrat vote on the judiciary committee. Even if somehow the nomination got to the floor there are probably at least four republican senators that will not vote to confirm. Perhaps this is why Trump wants a recess appointment so that he can put Gaetz in office for two years.

Bad idea.

I wonder what motivated Trump to nominate Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence since she criticized many of his foreign policy moves during his first term. I am certain that the democrats will have a field day quizzing her on her previous positions.

I would rate her confirmation chances as “toss up”.

Speaking of field days, the hearings for RFK, jr. will be must see TV. He ran his presidential campaign on “Make America Healthy Again.” He noted that Froot Loops sold in the US were less healthy than Canadian Froot Loops. He is anti-vaccine and called the Covid vaccines the “deadliest ever made” which is interesting since Trump is responsible for bringing the Covid vaccines to market. He favored the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for Covid. He only drinks raw milk and wants fluoride out of our water systems. He has questioned the safety of pesticides and claimed that he suffered mercury poisoning from eating too much fish. He also has said that it is possible that cell phones could cause cancer. Mind you, these are just some of his views. He has been accused of spreading misinformation about all of his unconventional views. But interestingly, the research on all these issues – like most research – is not conclusive.

Needless to say, the public health/pharmaceutical/food complex is beside itself and is in a panic thinking that Kennedy will head HHS. I think that this is just why Trump nominated him.

I rate his chances of confirmation as “toss up.”

What about Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary? The main criticism is that he has no managerial experience and Defense is a massive agency. Hegseth would probably excel in Defense’s operational role but not so much in its administrative role. Clearly Trump wants a defense secretary to aggressively wind down the on-going social experiment of DEI, trans soldiers and perhaps even women in combat roles. Hegseth has been a vocal opponent of all these and more.

As to the administrative role, the Pentagon has just flunked another audit. Hey, if you are given $800 billion surely you don’t really expect for them to account for every penny? Thus, an auditing firm could not give the Pentagon a “clean audit.” Doesn’t the Pentagon have a chief financial officer? If this were a corporation, failure to get a clean audit would drive the firm’s stock price down, adversely impact credit ratings and the CFO would likely be fired. Will the Pentagon fire its CFO? Not likely since this is the seventh consecutive audit that the Pentagon has failed and no one has yet been fired.

Maybe Hegseth will pledge to hire a capable person to oversee the Pentagon’s administration and get the books finally straightened out.

I would rate Hegseth’s chances as “lean confirm” unless it gets derailed with the accusations of sexual misconduct.

My son and I went to the Georgia Tennessee football game. Both of his degrees are from UT and he decided on neutral colors since we were in the UGA president’s box. 

The game was a throwback to Georgia’s racist past! They called it a black out! That was what it was when I went to school there in the 1960s. No black athlete played on the Georgia campus during my four years. The football team only played one game against a team with black players when they played Michigan in Ann Arbor my junior year. A total black out during those years and they wanted to go back? No Herschel Walker? No Champ Bailey? No Richard Seymour? But wait! If it was a blackout then why were all those black kids on the field? Then I found out that a blackout meant that the fans were to wear black! Black out? Never mind.

At the game a student was to kick a field goal and if successful would get two tickets to the UMass game. If he missed the field goal, he would get four tickets.

ESPN is hopelessly woke. It fired all its conservative commentators (Sage Steele, David Pollack, Samantha Ponder, Will Cain) plus 17 other on air personalities. Somehow, the totally obnoxious Stephen A. Smith is still around and as verbose as ever. Never say one word when 30 will do Stephen A, 

They even once brought back the excretable Keith Olbermann.

I no longer watch Sport Center or any ESPN except selected college football games. I don’t look at anything else.

The ESPN app is also woke. It leads with the scores of women’s NCAA basketball and WNBA. Not the NFL or NCAA football but women’s college basketball. I’m sure that most of its viewers are more interested in women’s basketball than football. Give me a break.

My fifth wheel came with a Vizio “smart” TV. It has built in apps but not MLB tv. In its search function it still doesn’t list MLB. I contacted Vizio and they said they don’t offer MLB and I would have to mirror MLB from my cell phone. I replaced it with a Fire TV.

A recent poll revealed that ninety percent of white conservatives said that this is the greatest country. Seventy percent of Latinos and 60 percent of blacks agreed. But only 30 percent of white progressives agreed. Why would the rest of us want these clowns to run the country? I wonder what country the progressive say is the greatest or do they just trash them all? Again I asked my progressive friends to tell me how they would change this country to make it into their ideal. Thus far no responses. I think they are just happy whining.

Did you hear Chuck Schumer’s speech after the republicans gained control of the Congress and the presidency? Here it is:

“If we want in the next four years in the Senate to be as productive as the last four, the only way that will happen is through bipartisan cooperation.

Democrats will be ready to do what we have consistently done: work with both sides when the opportunity arises.

Democrats will never abandon our values, but neither will we reject the opportunity to move the ball forward to make people’s lives better when we can.

The question is now whether or not Republicans are willing to do the same. To my colleagues on the other side, once again: do not abandon bipartisanship. It’s the best and most effective way to get things done.”

Huh? What bipartisanship? Schumer is saying “please don’t do to us what we have done to you the past 4 years”

Hopefully the DEI grift will be shelved for a while – at least at the national level. While progressive governments and the far left teachers’ unions will still spew their hate of other white folk, maybe the nonsense will be slowed down at the federal level. There is zero evidence that DEI indoctrination (training) works. There is considerable evidence that it fosters resentment instead. Yet the grifters have earned millions from spreading around their hate. Again why do white progressives hate white people? DEI is used in our schools to excuse the inability of woke teachers to teach. Instead of teaching kids to read, write and do arithmetic, students are told that they are incapable of academic greatest because of their color. I am always amused by black progressives with Ivy League educations telling their inner city brothers that they are somehow inferior. Maybe the progressives have been secretly funded by racists not to teach. 

A friend of mine was an Army Ranger in Viet Nam. He told me that his grandson was being recruited by the service academies. He said that he really did not want him to go into the military under the current regime that emphasized DEI rather than combat readiness. The same is true for military families who are discouraging their children from joining the military.

I marvel at the damage done to the fabric of the country over the past 4 years. Didn’t the left realize that the majority of Americans were opposed to their policies? What is particularly interesting is that the progressive left imposed their policies on the rest of us while ignoring it themselves. DEI. How many conservatives are in college’s sociology departments? How many minority neighbors do white progressives have? Where do the progressives send their children to school? The left is made up of a bunch of hypocrites and the rest of us know it.

Trump’s cabinet nominations

I am surprised that Trump has not yet announced an appointment of a black or blacks to his cabinet. I would have thought that either Tim Scott or Byron Donalds or both would be in the cabinet.

With the nominations of Tulsi Gabbard and Kristi Noem, Trump is guaranteed the best looking cabinet in history.

Gabbard is a Lt. Colonel in the Army Reserves. I guess this means she will have to resign her commission.

Mat Gaetz as attorney general? That is a real headscratcher. Gaetz is a self important, publicity seeking, possibly immoral political hack. I thought he was running to be Forida’s next governor? At least by being attorney general he can stop all the investigations into his own shady doings. One thing is certain, he will blow up the department. Yes, not shake up but blow up. Maybe this is Trump’s ultimate revenge against the Deep State minions in the department and their lawfare against him and his buds. 

There are 44 judicial vacancies. Since the democrats still control the Senate it would not be a shock if they don’t try to ram the nominations through before the new Senate is convened.

Trump wants to shut down the Department of Education and Betsy Devos has volunteered to help. Do it. The funds should be sent to the states as block grants anyway.

Shut down the Department of Energy while you are at it.

Also expect the handouts from the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” to be distributed as quickly as possible.

Come to think of it repeal the Inflation Reduction Act.

Also rescind the EPA’s tailpipe emissions rule that would make 70 percent of all new cars electric or hybrid by 2032.

Rescind the EPA’s power plant rule that would eliminate all power plants that can’t or won’t reduce by 95% their carbon emissions.

I know Trump doesn’t read my blog but he is thinking of moving the EPA out of DC. Do it – and the rest of the agencies as well. Again, Homeland Security moving to Eagle Pass, TX would be more effective that being in DC.

Also moving the bureaucracy out of DC would rescue the state of Virginia from the rule of the northern Virginia DC suburbs and reshape the state’s politics.

Do it please.

Now is the time to adopt the two democrat recommendations of ending the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court. Then after you get your legislation through and justices installed, reinstate the old rules. Come on Senate!