Blog

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!

Trump will name Elise Stefanik as ambassador to the United Nations. I thought he liked her? Why anyone would want that job is beyond me. Since she is from New York, does Hochul appoint an interim? Surely not. However, a republican replacement is likely not a slam dunk and a democrat taking that seat in the House would certainly be unacceptable.

Lee Zeldin to the EPA is a great pick. He has the smarts and the will to undo much of the harm that Michael Regan and his crew has wrought. 

Marco Rubio at State? Again why would he want to leave the Senate given the tenuous job security in a Trump administration? Anyway didn’t Trump once call  Rubio a “total lightweight”?

Tom Holman as border czar is perfect.

Pete Hegseth for Defense? What’s next? Greg Gutfield for Education?

Trump voters were sexist? Then explain how Nevada, Wisconsin and Michigan voted for Trump but elected women democrats as senators? Will the sore losers on the left ever admit that they had a lousy candidate running a lousy campaign while defending a lousy administration’s lousy record?

Harris’ campaign blew through over $1 billion. Did that include what the PACs spent? Fast Forward bankrolled by Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg alone spent over $500 million. I think most of it in Georgia ads saying that Trump was a threat to women, democracy, Social Security and Mom’s apple pie.

I thought the democrats wanted to take the big money out of campaigns? I guess they meant just out of republcan campaigns.

Harris’ campaign gave Sharpton’s group $500,000 and then had an interview with him? That may be legal but the ethics stink.

Harris’ campaign gave Oprah Winfrey $1 million? I thought Oprah was a billionaire?

She also did a podcast where she wouldn’t go to the podcaster’s studio but instead had one built for $100,000. Huh?

All this reminds me of what Edward Bennett Williams then the owner of the Washington Redskins said of his coach George Allen. “I gave him an unlimited budget and he exceeded it.”

Did you know that Michael Bloomberg gave Johns Hopkins medical school $1 billion to be tuition free? Bloomberg says that this will allow economically disadvantaged and underrepresented students to go to medical school. In light of the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action, Hopkins will have to figure out a way to increase minority enrollment. It seems to me that Hopkins would get a flood of applications from top students and end up with fewer minorities. Also I guess that its graduates are not toiling in clinics in the inner city or on reservations. Most likely, Hopkins graduates are in the big cities serving high end clientele and making big bucks or doing high powered research. If Bloomberg really wanted to aid aspiring minority medical students, he should have made his gift to Howard, Meharry and/or Morehouse.

Look to Trump to again try to get the 2030 Census to count only citizens rather than heads. If that happens, then there will be a larger flow of congressional seats from democrat states to republican states. The democrats of course will resist the change because it threatens their power.

The democrats are blaming everyone and everything for the Trump landslide. Everything but themselves and their policies. I have often said that the democrats don’t want a democracy but want to impose their policies instead. They know that all of their policies would lose at the ballot box. The majority of Americans do not favor democrats on climate, gender, immigration and equity. But the democrats don’t get it since they know what’s better for others than others know for themselves.

Several democrat politicians now say that the party needs to move toward the center after being taken over by Sanders, Warren and the Squad. I’ll believe it when I see it. BTW where were those “moderate” democrats prior to the election?

Some said that Harris made a mistake not going on Joe Rogan’s show. I disagree. If she had sat down for a three hour interview like Trump and Vance, her landslide defeat would have been small compared to the tsunami that would have occurred when voters saw that she can’t answer the simplest of questions unless being given the questions first and even then she flubbed her answers.

Lastly, much has been written about how Trump’s voters included record number of Latinos and blacks. What was little reported was that he also got 70% of the Native American vote which reflects how the Biden administration has totally screwed Native Americans. Biden has taken away their lands, has made grazing rights, hunting, mineral and oil and gas exploration off limits and has even denied the building of some businesses on Indian reservations. All of which have limited Native American incomes.

Also I guess the Indians knew that Kamala Harris was speaking with a forked tongue.

A generation of crybabies?

What of this generation of college students that are pampered, coddled and easily offended who must shelter in a safe place to console trauma caused by microaggressions real or imagined? Consider all of the universities that designated “safe spaces” with grief counselors to console the poor traumatized students after Trump’s victory. One offered cookies, milk, Legos and coloring books. Cookies milk, Legos and coloring books? Professors ranted and raved and canceled classes, postponed exams and called for resistance. Some gave their students a day or so to recover. 

Good grief. You mean these people actually thought Harris was going to win? Of course, they had been spewing hate of Trump all along and probably deceived themselves into thinking that Trump was going to lose. Many actually favored Biden’s agenda on diversity, gender and the climate and were among the 28 percent that thought that the country was moving in the right direction. 

I noticed that every report of college trauma was from one of the so-called “elite” schools. I did not see any stories on the University of Georgia, or Tennessee, or Mississippi State having grief sessions. It was all Harvard, Yale, Penn, Claremont and the like. One thing to keep in mind is that the students have been raised and educated in a socialist environment. In the home they did not have to work for their meals and shelter. It was provided by their parents. In essence the students were subsidized. Most then went to college and did not have to work to pay for school. Again, they were either subsidized by their parents or by donors. They were taught by professors, most of whom never worked outside the socialist cocoon of the university. The professors were themselves subsidized as children, subsidized as students and then went directly to graduate school where they were subsidized even more. Then they became teachers employed in a subsidized university. All they have known their entire life is socialism. They are mostly anti-capitalist disregarding where the money ultimately comes from for their salaries and well-being. Most think it comes from the state or the largesse of benefactors. It is truly manna from heaven.

These professors lecture about the evils of capitalism out of their ignorance and spew hated toward the right. The question is whether they influence their students. My experience teaching at some of the nation’s most liberal universities is that most of the students are more conservative than the faculty. Yes, there were some students on the far left but they were in the minority and most were leftists before they came to the university. Remember all the pro Hamas demonstrations? Most of the students and faculty interviewed were from the Arts. Few business students, business professors, engineering students and their professors were participating. Those folk were too serious to be involved in such nonsense. 

My suspicion is that the same is true with the Trump trauma crowd. Most of these will continue to be socialist and hate the right. But they will be in the minority. They make headlines but don’t be fooled. The majority of students don’t need consoling or counseling. Only the wimpy crybaby ones.

November 11, 2025

It’s Veterans Day and I am grateful. When people ask me if I served, I tell them that I served in the Southern Campaign, University of Georgia 1962-1966. Viet Nam came to the fore my senior year. I was leading a group trying to make ROTC an elective rather than mandatory. As a result my advisor who was a World War II naval combat veteran dropped me. Despite my telling him that I was not being unpatriotic, even I knew the optics were bad. We failed to get ROTC voluntary. Later, I had a course from my ex-advisor that spring quarter and made an A+ despite our differences. I was engaged at the time and headed to Ohio State for graduate school. I had a deferment. Our son was born during the first year at Ohio State and I was never called.

But since ROTC was mandatory, I was in Air Force ROTC for my freshman and sophmore years. I had one of the top three GPAs in the class and was one of five sophmores in the Air Force’s honor society. Tradition had it that if we went into advanced ROTC (which was voluntary) we would be first lieutenants while the other juniors would be second lieutenants. Since my brother had gone through ROTC at Purdue, I decided to follow his example although I had no interest in being a pilot. Instead, I would get a PhD and hopefully teach economics at the Academy. When I got back to campus in the fall I looked at the duty roster. The other honor students who were juniors were first lieutenants. All the other juniors were second lieutenants. But I was the chief master sergeant – the only upperclassman not an officer. I went to the colonel and asked why. I told him I was humiliated and would drop ROTC if I were not a first lieutenant. He said that if I could not follow the orders of my superior officer then I had no business being in the military. I agreed. I walked out and dropped the course. I was bitterly disillusioned. My uncle who joined the Air Force when it became a separate service and retired as a chief master sergeant talked glowingly of how little discrimination there was in the Air Force compared to Americus, Georgia. My brother said the same. And yet, after going through what I confronted during my first two years at Georgia, an Air Force colonel was the first (but not the last) professor who had openly discriminated against me.

My brother was a B-52 pilot and was stationed in Thailand. He was awarded various medals from the Air Force and from the Republic of South Viet Nam. He was talented and had a brilliant mind. If I had his smarts I would have won the Nobel Prize in Economics. At his funeral, one of his crew said “If we got into trouble we knew that Charlie would get us home safely.” Rest in peace big brother.

My father never served either. He was an elementary school principal during the war and being black was not called to service. When I asked him once why he wasn’t drafted he said “I couldn’t cook.” But I had an uncle-in-law who was a mechanic on a destroyer in the Pacific theatre. Only once did he talk about the harrowing times of being below decks shoveling coal while all hell was breaking loose above him. He talked about shipmates going crazy as the boat was rocking and rolling. But mostly, he shut out those memories.

My favorite cousin, who recently died of pancreatic cancer, retired from the Air Force. He never went to Viet Nam but had a Bronze Star from his time in the Philippines. He refused to give any details.

My other half’s father was a hero. He was a Bedford Boy and in the first wave at Omaha Beach. His stories are too personal to tell here.

I don’t regret not serving. I am an economist and believe in comparative advantage. The veterans that I know were great at their jobs and took pride in them. All had careers that were enhanced by their service. I admire them and am grateful for their service.

I am not a country music fan and am not yet adept at the technology of the blogosphere but please go to Youtube and view Kane Brown’s Homesick (official video).

Happy Veteran’s Day.

Most everyone except CNN, MSNBC and the hard left are calling Trump’s victory a landslide. Maybe that’s because Harris got 70 million votes. I thought Trump would win simply because we typically do not elect sitting vice presidents (George Bush the First was the exception). I also thought he would win because his negatives have been decreasing since 2015. I thought he would win because 68% of the voters said the country was going in the wrong direction (do you know any of the other 32%?). But Harris got 47% of the vote. I guess that means that around 20 percent of her vote was from those who hated Trump enough to continue the disaster of the last four years for another 4 years.

At the LSU – Alabama game, the LSU fans – who are arguably the worse fans in the country – littered an end zone with bottles to show displeasure over an obviously face mask call that kept the ball in Alabama’s possession. When the Texas crybabies threw bottles at the Georgia game, the SEC fined the school $250,000 which I pointed out was what probably less than what they paid their backup punter. The SEC should fine the school $1 million, impose a 15 yard penalty and take away three scholarships. I bet that nonsense will stop.

I asked the caretaker at my farm about Harris’ endorsements and he said “Beyonce don’t have trouble paying for groceries or gas.”

Whether Trump will fire Jay Powell is in the news. Actually, he can’t. Powell was confirmed by the Senate and can only be removed through impeachment. Lots of luck with that.

Remember when the democrats attacked Trump and Vance as being “weird”? That failed, probably in part because Tim (Little Bernie) Walz – and his wife – are truly weird.

Remember when the democrats attacked Trump as being too old? Then he went out and did rally after rally, appeared on 30+ podcasts, and gave countless interviews even to hostile hosts while Harris didn’t even muster the energy to have a press conference during her campaign.

The republican party at least for the immediate future is Trump’s party. Its embrace of protectionism, industrial policy and tariffs are anathema to traditional republican ideals. Trump’s coalition of young males, blue collar workers and those without college degrees used to be democrats. Harris still got 55% of those with college degrees, 85 percent of blacks, 54 percent of Asians, 52 percent of Latinos, 79 percent of Jews and 54 percent of Catholics.

Of course there is double counting. I would bet that the majority of those have college degrees making the democrats the party of white progressives and the subsidized poor.

Exit interviews showed the expected. Harris lost big time on immigration, the economy and foreign policy. She won big on abortion and democracy. Please explain that to me. She and her ilk were campaigning as if the Supreme Court’s decision banned abortion rather than giving infanticide back to the states. Trump had said that he did not favor a federal bill banning abortion and if one showed up on his desk he would veto it. The left said that he was lying. Harris and her surrogates kept shouting that Trump was a threat to democracy. Some polls said that voters thought (rightly so) that the democrats were the greater threat to democracy but those who listed democracy as their top issue apparently thought otherwise.

Did you see the clip where some leftwing talking heads were insulting Latinos saying that voting for Trump meant deporting their aunts and relatives? I guess MSNBC forgot that the Latinos that voted were citizens.

The republicans are saying that Trump has a mandate with winning the presidency, the Senate and the House. However, the margins are still precariously thin. That antiestablishment bunch of twelve or so house members can still gum up the works and keep the party stupid. The majority of House and Senate republicans are still members of the establishment and can work against Trump. Somehow, I think the republicans will still find a way to screw things up. 

California is banning the sale of class A motorhomes beginning in 2025 (I am a fan of Tiffins, even if they did punt for Alabama). The other states that conform to California’s emissions standards will follow. Those states are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Of course the banning of motorhome sales will have no measurable impact on the climate but will be devastating to the RV industry – which is mainly located in Indiana. Trump has pledged to rollback California’s ability to make its own environmental rules. Although Congress granted that authority, each one of the standards must be granted a waiver by the EPA. I would guess that the question likely to be settle in the courts will be whether Trump’s EPA will be able to rescind a waiver already granted. There are eight waivers that have yet to be granted. Look for Biden’s EPA to grant them before Trump takes office. 

Could Biden be responsible for Oct 7?

I was wondering why the Middle East was relatively peaceful until Biden came into office. I think that it is likely that Joe Biden may have been responsible for Hamas’ attack on Israel and the resulting war in Gaza. I know that is a serious charge and frankly I am surprised that I have not heard anyone broach the idea. Consider that Biden’s lifting of the sanctions against Iran meant that $40 billion has flowed into Iran’s coffers for its oil sales. With that $40 billion, Iran was able to fund its surrogates on the Israeli border to up their harassment of Israel. Where did the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza get all their missiles and armaments? How do those thousands pay for their uniforms and who pays their salaries? It is Iran and where did Iran get the money? From its oil sales thanks to Joe Biden.

Biden’s policy of appeasement resulted in all the Iranian surrogates becoming more active. The Houthis started attacking ships in the Red Sea. Hezbollah started lobbing missiles into northern Israel and Hamas attacked on Oct 7. Coincidence? Maybe but not likely. Israel went into Gaza to eradicate Hamas and Biden has tried to hamper their efforts. He has drawn several lines in the sand over the war in Gaza. He warned Israel that the Palestinian casualty figures were too high and he threatened to hold back armaments. The Israelis ignored him. He did not want them to go into Rafah. Thankfully, again the Israelis ignored him or else the murderous Yayha Sinwar and his like would still be alive. 

Biden and his inept secretary of state Blinken have been trying to get Israel to quit its campaign to get the release of the hostages. The Israelis have said that they will back down only if Hamas surrenders and releases the hostages. Any other solution would be unacceptable if Hamas continues to exist. Trump on the other hand has said that Israel should end the war by eliminating Hamas and that he will help them get that done. Biden seems to have forgotten that Hamas holds four Americans as hostage but not Trump who said “We want our hostages back, and they better be back before I assume office or you will be paying a very big price.” I bet Hamas believes Trump. They have been warned. Look for the hostages to be freed by January 20, 2025 

What about Iran which is now engaged in a tit for tat with Israel? Iran’s feeble attempts to retaliate against Israeli assassinations of Iranian sponsored terrorists caused Biden to warn Israel not to strike Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities. They didn’t. Trump, who probably is a bit upset that the Iranians have targeted him for assassination said that the Israelis should “Hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later”. Again I bet Iran believes Trump and will start to tone down its rhetoric and ratchet back the support of its surrogates. I seriously doubt if Iran will call Trump’s bluff. They have to realize that their influence in the region has been instantly diminished. Trump will cut off their oil sales and their ability to finance terrorism. Their influence in the Middle East will wane. Peace in the Middle East will be more likely as Iran becomes isolated, loses its main source of revenue and is forced to stop funding its terrorist buddies.