Blog

So much stuff. So little time.

Lithium battery fires are rare but intense. That is why when I considered replacing my Can Am Spyder’s battery with a lithium one I opted for the old fashioned lead acid one. The lithium has a lot going for it. It is lighter, more powerful and longer lasting. However it requires a different charger and I don’t want it in my garage. Too many reports of fires for me.

Media says that the Trump campaign was not prepared for Biden to step down and be replaced by Harris. If that is true then Trump needs a new campaign staff because most of us knew that Biden was going to abdicate.

Trump can’t stop calling names. While on a stop in Montana to support Tim Sheehy in his race to unseat Jon Tester, Trump said don’t be fooled because Tester “is a radical left lunatic like Kamala.”True that Tester professes to be independent while voting with Biden 90 percent of the time but calling Harris a lunatic is off putting to so many of the electorate. However calling her a radical leftwing is on point.

The media is going to brand Trump’s name calling of Harris as either racist or chauvinistic or both. Of course Trump insults everyone friend or foe but he has got to stop it.

I understand why Trump was in Montana. Taking back the Senate should be a priority to the republicans. But Trump needs to concentrate on the swing states and send surrogates to the rest. I am still aghast that he continues to make a fool of himself in Georgia.

Trump and Vance’s campaign theme should be “Where’s Kamala?” The democrat brain trust has decided to emulate Biden’s stay-in-the-basement strategy. It worked. Trump was out there as he repeatedly said “working his butt off” while Biden was in the basement. Biden won. Now Harris is not granting interviews with a press that has elevated her from the lowest ranked national politician to St Kamala. Harris did not even deign to be interviewed in the Time cover article that fawned all over her non-accomplishments. I would be shocked if she debated Trump. All he would need to do is ask her to explain her previously announced positions on anything. I would love to hear him ask if she favors an arms embargo of Israel. It is apparent that the democrats will try to keep her quiet because she will spout some nonsensical word salads and embarrass everyone but herself. It will be interesting to see if they can keep her quiet up to election day.

Again, a cardboard cutout would be twenty points ahead of Harris. That Donald Trump is not ahead is a testament to how perfectly awful he is as a candidate.

The war in the Sudan is horrific and largely ignored by the press. More than 200,000 are dead and 24 million are in need of food. More than 200,000 have starved. In its capital of Omdurman is buried The Mahdi, the legendary Islamic cleric who defeated the Egyptian and British armies and who is said to appear at the End of Times to conquer evil and injustice. Not coincidentally the fans of Dune (of which I am one) recognize the Mahdi as the one who leads the Freemen to save Arrakis. Perhaps many in the Sudan hope that the Mahdi will intercede in these desperate times.

Speaking of the forgotten or the ignored, it is amazing that China can get away with its human rights abuse of its minorities, in particular the Uyghurs.  Also ignored is the systematic repression of ethnic minorities and religious groups such as Christians, Buddists and the Falun Gong who make up over half of China’s forced labor camps.

There are over 70,000 ISIS men, women and children in detention camps in Syria. What is going to happen to those people? Surely you cannot turn them loose to create more havoc in the Middle East.

There are over a million Rohingya living in refugee camps in Bangladesh. The Rohingya are native to Myanmar where they have suffered genocide. They have been called the most persecuted people in the world. Myanmar has removed their citizenship, restricted their travel, and denied them access to public education and civil service jobs. One over 1.5 million lived in Myanmar and now they reside mostly in camps in Bangladesh. Many fled to Malaysia but that country closed entry. Now many, including unaccompanied children, are migrating to Indonesia in search of a better life. The world ignores their suffering making them the largest group among those whose plight is either ignored or forgotten.

You have to be brave to be a Christian in Nigeria. The Islamic Boko Haram insurgency has murdered over 60,000 Christians since 2009. Yet the world yawns. Over 18,000 churches and 2,200 Christian schools have been destroyed. Remember the abduction of the Christian girls? Well to date over 800 Christians have been kidnapped. Five million Nigerian Christians have been displaced and are now sheltered in refugee camps. There is no more dangerous place in the world to be a Christian than in Nigeria. One wonders if the western world would be so indifferent to this genocide if it were Christians persecuting and killing Muslims?

The Fed is always trying to save us from itself

I wonder if there is an institution subject to more second guessing than the Fed? Ninety percent of the time the Fed is not in the news. Its Open Market Committee mostly meets with scant interest from the media. However, when there is economic uncertainty or economic stress the Fed is in the news front and center. When the economy is experiencing slowing growth, the pundits wonder when will the Fed cut interest rates. Never mind that many economists think this is the wrong policy action, the Fed itself has made interest rates seem like its major tool. When the Fed does act the pundits opine if they waited too late, or acted too soon, or cut enough, or cut too much. When the economy is experiencing inflation, the Fed is urged to increase interest rates. Then the pundits can criticize the Fed for acting too slowly, or too fast, or raising rates too little or too much.

Ironically, the Fed is responsible for the swings in economic activity that it then tries to fix – much like Biden claiming to lower gas prices after his policies increased them in the first place. Central bankers are notorious for creating the ups and downs in the economy and then overcorrecting causing more swings. This what keeps them employed and feeling godlike. Unfortunately most of them really don’t know what they are doing. Very few central bankers are trained in monetary policy. At the Fed, only one governor has that pedigree. The Fed governors tend to be academics who are not monetary theorists, bankers or lawyers. The current Fed chairman is a lawyer not a monetary economist. As a result, they have to rely on their staff – an impressive array of PhDs –  to help guide policy suggestions. However, the staff is not dominated by monetary theorists. In fact, few of the staff at the Board of Governors or the staffs at the reserve banks are monetarists. It would be surprising if there were a consistent Fed policy. Rather it always looks as if they are making things up as they go along.

As it stands now, the Fed has too much on its plate. My suggestion would be to divide the Fed into two. One group would concentrate on monetary policy while the other would concern itself with bank regulation. The monetary policy side would be administered by people who are trained in monetary theory. There are two major schools of thought in this area (monetarists and Keynesians) and one fringe group (modern monetary theorists). I would have representation from all three plus a staff made up of all three views. The other part of the Fed would concern itself with bank regulation and be made up of lawyers, accountants, and bankers. 

Monetarists contend that the interest rate fixation by the Fed is misguided. Interest rates are not a unique indicator of the economy. The same interest rate can exist in virtually every economic circumstance: recovery, downturn, inflation or recession. The Fed then manipulates its Fed funds target rate while at times moving its purchases or sales of Treasury bills via open market operations in opposite directions. This is called discretionary monetary policy which central bankers consider their birthright. However, discretionary policy is destabilizing generating economic uncertainty. Indeed, at times the Fed conducts contradictory monetary policy which is akin to driving with one foot firmly on the brake while the other foot is flooring the accelerator.

One result of the Fed’s obsession with interest rates is that it loses control of the money supply. The increased volatility of the money supply then becomes the major destabilizing force in the economy. In order to minimize volatility monetarists favor a fixed rule emphasizing the role of monetary aggregates (M2 and the monetary base – currency plus bank reserves) rather than interest rates. Setting a fixed growth rate in the money supply and ignoring short term fluctuations in the economy and interest rates lead to greater economic stability. Of course, the central bankers are no longer playing god in manipulating stuff in order to look important. The likelihood of the Fed doing that is virtually nil unless forced to by law. The likelihood of the Congress forcing the Fed to do so by changing the law is less than nil. Rather it is hoped that one day a Fed chairman will be finally nominated and confirmed who is an expert in monetary theory. Perhaps only then will the Fed stop being such a destabilizing force in the economy.

Random Thoughts

I’m irritated by lazy journalism of which there are two types. The first is writing the first paragraph and then posting tweets from social media. The second is going out and finding people who say they are affected by whatever is written in the first paragraph. For example, “Thousands of voters are undecided in the upcoming presidential election. Joe Smith is one of them.” Then the rest of the article is about why good old Joe hasn’t made up his mind. Then there are the stories on inflation that don’t analyze the problem but go out and find four or five “victims” and tell their stories.

The Wall Street Journal had an article about Trump and Harris trying to attract the sliver of undecided voters to their side. This was a totally useless piece of misinformation. If there are any undecided voters, then their numbers are so few they can be safely ignored. A dear friend made the brilliant observation that what both sides need to do is to concentrate on their registered voters who do not vote. My friend noted that if you go to the 2020 election, Donald Trump lost because his voters did not vote in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada. In Georgia Trump lost by 80,000 votes out of 2.5 million cast. Yet one million republicans stayed home. Trump is responsible for there being two Georgia democrat senators. He bashed the republican governor and secretary of state saying that they helped the democrats steal the election. The result was that fewer republican votes were cast in the runoff elections for senate and both republican incumbents lost. Trump will lose if he and his campaign do not concentrate on getting their voters to quit whining, get off their lazy behinds and go vote.

Trump has gone to Georgia and bashed the governor, cementing the fact that Trump is a fool. Kemp is a Trump supporter saying that four more years of democrat rule would be a continuing disaster. Trump by his childish venting may well cost him the state.

What Trump and Vance need to do is to concentrate on the swing states. They need to stay on message and highlight the positions of Harris and Tim “Little Bernie” Walz. Of course this requires discipline, something that Trump lacks. Vance should never leave the states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He should stay on message. He should never call his opponents names. He needs to talk about inflation, jobs, government overreach, the second amendment, the Supreme Court, lawfare, banning of internal combustion engines, Green New Deal costs and subsequent layoffs, and the border. Personal attacks just turnoff most voters. Mainly Vance, Trump and their campaign should concentrate on getting their voters to the polls. Again it’s voters not voting that lose elections not the “undecided” voter.

Were there demonstrations at the republican convention? I did not watch a second of the convention but I read about it. I don’t recall reading about protests outside the convention hall. So if there were any, then they must have been “mostly peaceful.”

For some weird reason it looks like there will be protests at the democrat convention over Gaza. This is truly bizarre. Most if not all of the protestors will vote for Harris, if they vote at all. Harris and Tim “Little Bernie” Walz are no supporters of Israel and it is highly unlikely that they will continue Biden’s walking down the middle of the road policy with Israel. That the protest groups have morphed from Genocide Joe to Killer Kamala is a real head scratcher.

So Kamala stole Trump’s bad idea of exempting tips from taxation. Trump cried foul. Woopie. What did he expect? He made the announcement while pandering to a crowd in Nevada. As thanks, the workers’ unions in Nevada are now endorsing Harris.

Trump also has pandered to us old folk by advocating that Social Security payments should be tax exempt. He would be better served by proposing to exempt the pay of active duty military from taxes.

I have yet to hear Trump speak on the $2 trillion national debt. Of course the debt grew like Topsy during his term due to Covid. But that proved to be just a jumping off point for Biden and his trillion dollar infrastructure bill and the Chips bill. Trump is likely not saying anything about the debt because at heart he is too a big spender. Didn’t Trump propose building 10 new “freedom” cities on federal land? This would make Biden’s spending look like Reagan’s. He also wants to build flying cars – he must be a fan of the Jetsons.

Trump also wants the president to have a say in the Fed’s decision making particularly with regard to monetary policy. I guess he has forgotten the consequences of a progressive democrat president. Trump, himself, with zero knowledge of monetary policy would be a disaster as well. Having the Fed report to the president is a bad idea. It would be akin to having presidential input to Supreme Court decisions. 

August is a melancholy month

Pardon me if I publish a variant of this every year.

August is a melancholy month. Mother’s birthday is August 6 and Dad died on August 13. Mom would have been 106 this year having died April 14, 2020 at age 101. On August 6 every year I send out birthday greetings for her to my children and to my nephew and niece. They in turn send texts saying how much they miss her. One of my granddaughters called me to see how I was doing. I love her for thinking about me. 

Dad’s memory doesn’t engender the same emotions. Not that he was loved less but the feelings are somehow different. He was a strict disciplinarian who tolerated no excuses. I learned to never openly disagree with him but say “yes sir” and then do or think what I thought was best. Perhaps the only time he revealed a different side to me was when he was in his 80s and said “Please tell me when I become a fool.” He was getting solicitations that he said occurred only because of his age. Obviously, those scams were working or else they would not exist. Dad said that only a fool would agree to whatever was being solicited. He never became a fool. 

He died on August 13. He knew that he was dying. He told me that although he wanted to live until November 19 which would be his 89^th birthday, he had changed his mind and just wanted to make it to August 30^th – my daughter’s due date with his newest great granddaughter. She was born at 6AM on August 13^th and Dad died at 6PM the same day. But he knew of his great granddaughter and knew that my daughter to her everlasting credit named the new addition “Savannah”. Dad graduated from Georgia State College which is now Savannah State University. That the then all white state legislature took his school’s name to give it to an all white college in Atlanta always irritated him. Dad was a great man and I wrote about him on Father’s Day. He worked two full time jobs and retired from both. During the day he taught biology and eventually became a high school principal. At night he was a postal clerk. He did his best to be a dad but was time constrained.

Mother took the active role in all our lives. She too had a dominant personality and was generous with her advice. I would never consider living in Atlanta because I knew that I would have little peace. When my brother was living (he retired to Atlanta), they would talk several times a day. Even though he had a washer and dryer, he took his clothes over to the house to do his laundry. Several times a week, they would have dinner together. When he died, mother was devastated. He was the favorite. She called me and said that instead of our customary once on Sundays at 5 o’clock call, I now had to call her every day. So at 7AM we said good morning and at 7PM we said good night. Often my phone would ring at all hours of the night so I made Everette Harp’s “Night Calls” her ringtone. I miss hearing her voice and when I hear “Night Calls” I still reach for the phone. Only now there are tears in my eyes.  

Twenty plus years ago a friend and I bought some land in upper east Tennessee to hunt deer and turkey. I would get up at 3 in the morning and drive the 1 ½ hours to get in the tree stand before sunrise. After hunting I would drive back to Knoxville and then repeat. My other half said “Why don’t you buy a small camper so you don’t have to keep going back and forth?” So I went to an RV show and bought a 17 foot travel trailer. I put it on the land and had electricity run to it. I now had a hunting lodge where I could go, take my dogs and relax after a day’s hunting. That started my love of campers.

We loathe sleeping in hotels – and this was before COVID. We enjoyed going to baseball games in Cincinnati and in Tampa Bay. We also had friends near Asheville, Kingsport and in Florida. We also loved to go to motorcycle rallies. So I bought my first toy hauler. It was 38 feet long with a garage. We now could take the motorcycles with us. We could sleep in our own bed and when we took the bike out, the garage became the dogs’ room. We went to Colorado, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Asheville and Florida. One year while at Bike Week in Daytona we saw a 42 footer with 1 ½ baths. We bought it but only kept it for a couple of years. It proved to be too big and was too long for many state and national parks. We sold it and got a 36 foot toy hauler instead. When we turned 70, I sold the motorcycles and bought a 36 foot fifth wheel. We had plenty of room for the dogs and us. It meant that we had to unhitch the truck because we no longer had the bikes. But we adapted. 

Recently, we downsized again, buying a 28 footer. It completed our end-of-life migration. Unlike the midlife crisis, the end-of-life is where you downsize, sell the Porsche convertible, buy a SUV, sell the motorcycles and get a three wheeler. The shorter fifth wheel suits us. We still hate hotels. We have had a steady stream of German Shorthaired Pointers and a couple of Scotties. Now for the first time we only have one dog, Lili – a nine year old GSP. I love dogs. I love their companionship but neither of us wants to bury another one. I have a pet cemetery at the farm in Georgia. I visit them every morning when I am there and tear up each time I pet their headstones.

We no longer go to motorcycle rallies and now we only camp close to towns where we have friends. It is likely that in a few years we will too old to keep traveling with the fifth wheel. Now that it is deer season we will winterize the camper and store it until spring. When we finally sell it, we will probably spend our vacation time at the family farm near Gray, GA.

I don’t look forward to the day when I am too old to go back and forth between Knoxville and Gray. I love Knoxville. It is perfect for access to hunting, fishing, riding motorcycles and camping. Now most of my friends are here. Yet I feel no greater pleasure than being on my ancestors’ land. I will hate leaving Knoxville. But Georgia is home. I was born there, grew up there and educated there. I went from a totally segregated world to one of 7 black students at the University of Georgia. Trial by fire is an understatement. But I am better for it and maybe so are the state of Georgia and its flagship university. In the end I will go back to Georgia and its red dirt. I want to die on the land that gave my family independence, dignity, economic freedom and the courage to stand against Jim Crow and southern bigotry.

Harris’ has chosen her DEI vice president. Her pick of Tim Walz rather than Josh Shapiro shows the fear that the democrats have of the pro-Hamas crowd and confidence that the vast majority of Jews will still vote democrat regardless. The democrats take the Jewish vote for granted much like they do for blacks. Shapiro might have helped Harris carry Pennsylvania. Walz will not help carry Minnesota since Minnesota will vote democrat anyway. That Walz can help in the rust belt is debatable in that because of his record, he is not likely to have appeal beyond hard core democrats who are going to vote for Harris anyway. So the only reason for Harris to pick Walz rather than Shapiro is that Walz is not Jewish.

Harris is 59 and Walz is 60 though he looks much older. He is a younger version of Bernie Sanders – who not surprisingly backed him. The Wall Street Journal listed some of his “accomplishments.” Here they are from the August 6^th edition:

• Increasing taxes, though Minnesota already has the fifth-highest top income-tax rate among the states, 9.85% at $193,000 of earnings for a single filer. Mr. Walz added a 1% surtax on net investment income above $1 million, while reducing deductions, and the Governor wanted more. 

Minnesota is a rare state that still levies a death tax, up to 16%, on top of the federal 40% rate, which is one reason the state is losing taxpayers to better climes. 

• Making an estimated 81,000 illegal immigrants in the state eligible for driver’s licenses, along with health insurance through the MinnesotaCare public marketplace. 

• Funding “the North Star Promise Program, which provides free college for students with a family income under $80,000,” including illegal immigrants. 

• Creating a state system for paid family and medical leave, capped at a combined 20 weeks a year and funded by a 0.88% payroll tax. 

• Mandating that public utilities generate 80% carbon-free electricity by 2030, ramping up to 100% by 2040. He’s a fervent believer in “climate action.” 

• Subsidizing electric vehicles by “requiring EV charging infrastructure within or adjacent to new commercial and multi-family buildings,” as the Governor’s office bragged. 

• Passing one of the nation’s most permissive abortion statutes that has essentially no limits and no age consideration for minors. 

• Declaring Minnesota to be a “trans refuge,” with a law saying that the state will ignore a “court order for the removal of a child issued in another state because the child’s parent or guardian assisted the child in receiving gender-affirming care in this state.” 

• Establishing automatic voter registration and letting Minnesotans sign up for a permanent absentee ballot option. 

So much like Trump’s pick of JD Vance (nee: “Little Trump”), Harris has picked Little Bernie. I said previously that Trump obviously felt that Vance would help him in the Rust Belt states and didn’t see the need to broaden his appeal to non republican voters. Else he would have picked Nikki Haley – remember JFK picked LBJ – or Tim Scott. People one said that Biden’s pick of Harris meant that there was a possibility – however faint – that Harris might become president. Well that possibility is faint no longer. If Trump were elected and did not serve out his full term – remember he is 78 – then we would get a president Vance. Do you really want JD Vance as president? I don’t. But I don’t want a president Walz either. And you thought a Trump-Biden or a Trump-Hillary or a Trump-Harris race was a conundrum? A Vance-Walz campaign would produce a president worse than any of the above. How in the world do we now have a political system that produces these awful choices of deciding to vote for who you think will do less damage to the country?

Harriet Barfield Black

August 6, 1918-April 14, 2020

That Kamala Harris will win the majority of votes for president shows the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in instituting a representative republic rather than a democracy. Harris is clearly not competent to be president – but again, neither is Biden.

Trump continues to be his own worse enemy. He goes to Georgia and lambastes Brian Kemp who had magnanimously endorsed Trump at the republican convention. Trump is the reason why the democrats took control of the senate when he discouraged republican voters in Georgia from going to the polls. The election of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossloff was the result. Trump needs to shut his mouth and not tweet about anything except the actions of the Biden Administration.

Speaking of which, where’s Waldo – er Biden? Have you heard anything from him on the tanking of the Japanese stock index, the growing threat of wider war in the Middle East or Maduro reneging on his promise to have a fair election in exchange of lifting the oil sanctions? Me neither.

By the way, even though the press was hysterical about the market correction almost impling that the US market had crashed, it was mere hyperbole. The market went down only 2%. The Japanese market fell 20%. The reason for the decline was the Japanese central bank finally raising its bank rate to a paltry 0.25%. But when you have had negative rates, I guess 0.25% looks enormous. Investors had been borrowing money in Japan at those rates and investing abroad at higher rates. Maybe the Bank of Japan was signaling that cheap money days are ending. Will the Fed now raise rates in September?

The Fed is between a rock and a hard place. Any action on its part will now be deemed political. If it had raised rates at the last Open Market Committee it would have minimized any criticism (except from Trump). Some are now saying that if the Fed cuts rates it should be by 50 basis points rather than the traditional 25 bp. That would be a bad thing. A larger than anticipated cut would roil markets by signally a stronger imminent recession. The markets would tank. Word to the Fed: Don’t do it.

Much has been made of the weak job market numbers. Of course, the Harris campaign blamed Trump. Again, the truth is that the job market has been weak for a couple of years. Most of the hiring has been in governments and services at minimum wages. Very little job growth has been in the other sectors.

The polls now tell us that Harris is now slightly favored over Trump. Talk about gaslighting! Let’s see what they say in a month. Isn’t it curious that the least popular national politician with an approval rating in the 30s is now favored to become president? Only a fool would believe that. Are we now fools?

Harris’ DEI vice president pick is Tim Walz again proving that the vp doesn’t matter. Walz is not going to counter Vance in the rust belt states. He was picked because he was Bernie Sanders’ choice. Of course, the country elected Bernie Sanders although it thought it was electing the “moderate” Joe Biden. But once in the White House, Biden adopted most of Sanders’ agenda. Like Harris and Biden, Walz supports unlimited abortion and the LBGTQ trans agenda. Harris’ selection of Walz again shows that the most influential democrat is not even a democrat. 

The press is now saying that a recession would doom Harris’ chances. That is total BS. Harris’ chances are doomed because of the Biden Administration’s disastrous term.

Lastly, my mother would have been 106 today. She died at 101 and was a wonderful person. We all miss her deeply.

Threat to democracy

The democrats have shouted “threat to democracy” since the advent of Trump. They and their media allies have done such a great job that 80 percent of the public now believes that it is true. Both republicans and democrats agree on this issue. The democrats think that the republicans – in particular Trump – pose the threat while the republicans think that the democrats pose the threat. One poll of voters in swing states found that Biden was considered a greater threat than Trump and most swing voters think that both parties are an equal threat to democracy.

The so-called threat to democracy and abortion have been the focus of the democrats’ campaign. Apparently they cannot run on their record. The republicans have mainly run on the issues, with the exception of Trump occasionally conducting a name calling personal vendetta. When the democrats cite the threats to democracy they point to January 6, voter suppression, Trump not accepting the results of the 2020 election and his comment on wanting to be dictator for a day. Of course, the democrats never accepted the legitimacy of Trump’s election either and Biden has ruled by executive order and ignored the rulings of the Supreme Court. Somehow those are considered legitimate by the democrats. Republicans fear that democrats will steal elections with ballot harvesting, ballot box stuffing and outright fraud. The democrats want to make (or keep) voting easy while the republicans want to eliminate early voting and limit voting by mail. Interestingly, this is done in many countries including England and France.

The democrats actually are threatening the republic and want to impose a quasi-democracy. They want to ignore or repeal the foundations of the country and its representative republic. They want to eliminate the electoral college in favor or a direct vote for president. They want to pack the Supreme Court. They want to make the Constitution a “living document” and repeal the second amendment. They would like open borders and allowing illegals to vote. They want an industrial policy and for the government to direct private enterprise. The democrats have conducted lawfare that would make banana republics proud. They have prosecuted many of Trump’s lieutenants and Trump himself. They have come down hard on the January 6 demonstrators while letting walk violent protestors on the left. They have tried to keep Trump off the ballot in several states. The democrats ignored the democratic process in choosing their presidential nominee. When Biden abdicated, he anointed vice president Harris. The party leaders then nominated her even though she was not selected by the voters. 

Biden and the democrats say that The MAGA movement is a clear and present danger to American democracy. It will be interesting to see what they say when Trump finally leaves the scene. 

The irony is that the party that accuses the other of being a threat to democracy is one that ignores the will of the people by imposing rules and regulations that run counter to the preferences of the people. Biden’s green energy policies that seek to ban gas powered vehicles, stoves, weed eaters, HVAC units, lawn mowers and other stuff is not embraced by the general public. The banning of natural gas, the shutting down of pipelines, solar farms, windmills and other green initiatives are not favored by the public. Title IX changes. DEI mandates across the Biden administration and the woke military would not pass a public referenda. These are clearly nondemocratic dictates but the democrats ignore that fact. If the democrats so favor democracy, then why not put all of their actions on the ballot?

Recall that the Founding Fathers feared a democracy because of the tyranny of the majority. We all know the wisdom in that fear. Public sentiment is capricious. At one time the majority of the voting public favored slavery, denying women the vote and segregation. Rule by democracy will threaten the stability of the country and civil violence will be seen as the only way to counter the dictates of the majority.

So who is the greater threat to democracy?

Kamala’s word salads

Kamala Harris is famous for her word salads. The latest being when she and Biden met the prisoners released by the Russians. She said “This is just an extraordinary testament to the importance of have a president who understands the power of diplomacy and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy.” However, the release from her campaign on X was “This is an extraordinary day and I am thankful for our president. This is an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and strengthening of alliances. This is an incredible day and you can see it in the families and in their eyes.”

Is this what they mean by gaslighting? If her campaign is going to have to interpret what she is saying they probably need to hire a full time staffer just for that purpose.

I googled some of her other words of wisdom.

“I can imagine what can be, and be unburdened by what has been.”

“I love Venn diagrams. I really do, I love Venn diagrams. It’s just something about those three circles and the analysis about where there is the intersection, right?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people, you think you just fell out of a coconut tree.” “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what you came before you.”

“Who doesn’t love a yellow school bus, right? Can you raise your hand if you love a yellow school bus? Many of us went to school on the yellow school bus, right? It’s part of our experience growing up.”

“Culture is — it is a reflection of our moment in our time, right? And in present culture is the way we express how we’re feeling about the moment.”

She declared the 2024 race for the White House “is the most election of our lifetime.”

“So, I think it’s very important, as you have heard from so many incredible leaders, for us at every moment in time — and certainly this one — to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future.”

“We invested an additional $12 billion into community banks, because we know community banks are in the community, and understand the needs and desires of that community as well as the talent and capacity of community.” 

“We also recognize just as it has been in the United States, for Jamaica, one of the issues that has been presented as an issue that is economic in the way of its impact has been the pandemic.”  “So to that end, we are announcing today also that we will assist Jamaica in COVID recovery by assisting in terms of the recovery efforts in Jamaica that have been essential to, I believe, what is necessary to strengthen not only the issue of public health but also the economy.”

“it’s time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day” 

“I think that, to be very honest with you, I do believe that we should have rightly believed, but we certainly believe that certain issues are just settled. Certain issues are just settled.”

 “We’ve got to take this stuff seriously, as seriously as you are because you have been forced to take this seriously.” 

“I think the first part of this issue that should be articulated is AI is kind of a fancy thing.” “First of all, it’s two letters. It means artificial intelligence, but ultimately what it is, is it’s about machine learning.”

“This issue of transportation is fundamentally about just making sure that people have the ability to get where they need to go! It’s that basic.”

“And we should always find times to express how we feel about the moment that is a reflection of joy, because as you know, it comes in the morning.”

She also spoke at a White House event for Women’s History Month to “honor the women who made history throughout history.”

And of course “The problem of solving a problem is not a problem, but when a problem solves a problem without any problem. Then the problem is not a problem at all.”

But hey, nobody is perfect.

Remember when Joe Biden wasn’t holding press conferences? It was an attempt by his aides to hide his cognitive decline. So why has Harris not even had a television interview since being anointed as the democrat nominee? Its really weird (the new technical political term) since she would be given softball questions as the interviewing democrat surrogates fawned all over her.

Harris skipped Netanyahu’s “useful idiots” speech before Congress but met with him afterwards. I don’t condemn her absence due to a scheduling conflict – she spoke to the national convention of Zeta Phi Beta sorority, a black professional sorority founded at her alma mater Howard University. Lost in some of the condemnations is that JD Vance also missed the speech due to a conflict.  However, Tlaib showed up with her ping pong paddle – maybe she was looking for a match (she is divorced). All the democrats who boycotted the speech would have been better served if all had shown up and simply sat on their hands. Not showing up was petty.

I wonder why Harris is delaying the naming of her vice president choice. The press has said that Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro, Tim Walz, Andy Beshear and Pete Buttigieg are the finalists. Kelly’s had a rocky first marriage that ended in a messy divorce. His wife filed a restraining order against him. Of course he was an astronaut and is now married to Gabby Giffords but his divorce may be a distraction in the campaign. Shapiro is Jewish (but so is Harris’ husband). Walz is a terrible governor and it is curious why he is even in the finals. Beshear is a two term popular democrat governor of a state that will vote for Trump. He may be the best choice but his popularity is linked to his family name which may not translate to the general public. Buttigieg is the DEI Secretary of Transportation. He had an undistinguished record as a small time mayor and was derisively known as “Pothole” Pete. He has been an awful Transportation secretary – perhaps the worse in history. Remember his reaction to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio? Or to the air safety system outage? Buttigieg has no accomplishments. His only attribute that gives him notoriety is that he is gay, All are white males. Why just white males? Is this a DEI choice? I have posted before that Michelle Obama as vice president would be a much better choice. There is also Amy Klobouchar. Or how about Julian Castro? It is difficult to see any of the “finalists” adding to the democrat ticket other than Beshear, which means he probably won’t be picked.

Trump continues to be his own worse enemy. Instead of attacking Harris’ record he goes off about her ethnicity declaring that she only recently started referring to herself as black for political gain. I guess Trump forgot that Harris went to Howard University – an HBCU – instead of Berkeley and Stanford (where her parents worked) unlike her sister. Trump posted “Crazy Kamala is saying she’s Indian, not black. This is a big deal. Stone cold phony. She uses everybody, including her racial identity!” 

Trump or Kamala? Is this a Hobson’s choice? Trump is a tiresome bully. Four more years of Trump means the re-igniting of Fake News, insulting tweets, reverse lawfare, retribution, braggadocio, posturing, tariffs on our allies, coddling of dictators but less harmful regulation, a roll back of the Green New Deal and more energy independence. Harris is Biden on steroids with more pages of regulations, more trillions to their green buddies, less economic growth, higher inflation and most importantly, less freedom.  I guess for many the choice comes down to which one will do the least amount of economic damage to the country while in office. That is also a consideration for me. But the greatest consideration is which one will do the greatest damage to the fabric of the country. Without a doubt, that person is Kamala Harris. As my other half has said “OMG! Don’t tell me I am going to have to vote for Donald Trump again!”