Two friends--joke sent by friend Robin Hall (our Scotland trip)

Two guys grow up together, but after college one moves to Georgia and the other to Texas. They agree to meet every ten years in Florida to play golf and catch up with each other.

At age 32 they meet, finish their round of golf and head for lunch.
"Where you wanna go?" "Hooters." "Why Hooters?" "They have those servers
with the big boobs, the tight shorts and the gorgeous legs." "You're
on."

At age 42, they meet and play golf again. "Where you wanna go for
lunch?"
"Hooters." "Again? Why?" "They have cold beer, big screen TVs, and side
action on the games." "OK."

At age 52 they meet and play again. "So, where you wanna go for lunch?"
"Hooters.
"Why?" "The food is pretty good and there's plenty of parking." "OK."

At age 62 they meet again. After a round of golf, one says, "Where you
wanna go?"
"Hooters." "Why?" "Wings are half price and the food isn't too spicy."
"Good choice"

At age 72 they meet again. Once again, after a round of golf, one says,
"Where shall we go for lunch?" "Hooters." "Why?" "They have six
handicapped parking spaces right by the door and they have senior
discounts." "Great choice"

At age 82 they meet and play again. "Where should we go for lunch?"
"Hooters." "Why?" "Because we've never been there before."
“Okay, let’s give it a try."

Ten ways Biden is creating inflation at the pump and endangering us all

 https://youtu.be/DmyNtzOJLPU  May 2022

1. Cancelled Keystone

2. Halted new old and gas leases

3. Killed off shore leasing programs

4. Nominated hostile, far-left activists

5. Invalidated Gulf shore lease 257

6. Pressured financial markets to abandon fossil fuel projects

7. Cut onshore permitting

8. Burdensome rules for greenhouse gas reporting

9. ESG for retirement savings investments

10. Begging Iran, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia to produce more oil

And others:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/15/fuel-inflation-oil-gas-energy-transition-climate-change-biden/  November 2021

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/biden-energy-policies-inflation-oil-gas  February 2022

https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/01/stop-letting-environmental-groups-funded-by-russia-dictate-americas-energy-policy/  March 2022

https://townhall.com/columnists/olivernorthanddavidgoetsch/2022/04/12/bidens-deadly-energy-policy-n2605764  April 2022

And while Biden and MSM blame GOP or Tucker Carlson, for coddling Russia, it is in fact Russia who is funding the anti-fossil fuel cabal.  For decades.   "In 2017, congressional investigators found that a money trail linked Russia to millions of dollars funding U.S. nonprofits to work against U.S. shale gas in order to influence the U.S. energy market. Specifically, investigators found that NRDC, Sierra Club, and Climate Action Network were all found to have received millions of dollars of funding in grants from a shady San Francisco-based company called “Sea Change” that a money trail linked back to the Russians. Indeed, it is an open secret that Russians have funded anti-fracking and anti-natural gas propaganda in America for decades, as environmental groups funded the campaigns of Democrats and pressured them to ban fossil fuels." https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/01/stop-letting-environmental-groups-funded-by-russia-dictate-americas-energy-policy/

Divorce statistics from divorce lawyers

 I was looking for an update on some 2005 divorce statistics from my blog and came across a website for divorce lawyers and these interesting tidbits.  These three professions have the highest rate of divorce, dancers (43), bartenders (38.4) and massage therapists (38.2). These three professions have the lowest rate, clergy (5.61), optometrists (4.01) and agricultural engineers (1.78).

The groups with the most divorces are downscale adults (adults making less than $20,000 (annually)  (39 percent), Baby Boomers (38 percent), those aligned with a non-Christian faith (38 percent), African-Americans (36 percent), and people who consider themselves to be liberal on social and political matters (37 percent).

Among the population segments with the lowest likelihood of having been divorced subsequent to marriage are Catholics (28 percent), evangelicals (26 percent), upscale adults (adults making more than $75000 annually) (22 percent), Asians (20 percent) and those who deem themselves to be conservative on social and political matters (28%).

A lot of other statistics that might surprise you--or not.  https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/

Who paid federal income tax in 2021--about 40%

 Who pays no income tax

"The share of households that paid no federal income tax hovered in the low- to mid-40s until the pandemic. In 2020, it increased to more than 60 percent. This was due in part to massive COVID-19-related job losses and a related decline in incomes. In addition, the three rounds of Economic Impact Payments (stimulus checks) in 2020-2021 were structured as refundable tax credits. And Congress increased the Child Tax Credit for the vast majority of parents. Combined, all this substantially reduced the income tax liability of more than a hundred million households and temporarily turned many from payers of small amounts of federal income tax to non-payers.

The share of those not paying federal income tax remained very high in 2021, at about 57 percent. But the economy recovered, federal assistance ended, and the number of non-income tax payers is falling sharply. TPC estimates that only about 42 percent won’t pay federal income tax this year and the share will fall slowly but steadily to the high 30s by the end of this decade.

It also is important to note that many of these households do pay other federal taxes, including payroll and excise taxes. For example, fewer than 17 percent of households will pay neither income nor payroll taxes this year—many of them lower-income older adults. And nearly everyone pays some state or local taxes, including sales taxes."

This is from a rant about a plan to make everyone have some skin in the game. It would raise taxes for those in the middle (the most wealthy already pay more than their "fair share."

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/scotts-skin-game-plan-could-raise-taxes-100-billion-2022-mostly-low-and-moderate-income

Letter from 2016 on abortion

 On Apr 7, 2016, at 2:30 PM, Norma Bruce wrote:

Today I mailed a contribution for the legal defense of David Daleiden, facing three crippling law suits from 1) Planned Parenthood which receives half a billion in federal funds every year to kill the unborn, 2) The National Abortion Federation, and 3) the biotech company Stem Express. They are after him for those damning videos--you remember, don't you? The Planned Parenthood abortionist who sipped her wine and nibbled her salad while discussing how she could crush a living baby just right to keep the body parts in good shape for sale to a medical research lab. Or the PP council member who joked about hoping to get enough to buy a Lamborghini sports car ($200,000). Now the AG of California (running for Barbara Boxer’s seat) who has contributed over $80,000 to PP is going after him with a raid on his home. It’s not nice to expose the President’s favorite charity and donor to his campaigns.

Twitter fake accounts

Our MSM has been allowing its stories and headlines to be guided by the Twitter mob, which consists of many fake accounts. And so when the government tries to build a fake disinformation department based on fake rage and lies of Twitter, we've got a real mess.

"Almost half of President Joe Biden's 22.2 million followers on Twitter are fake, according to a recent audit, and Elon Musk — who has put his deal to purchase Twitter on hold over the number of spam accounts on the platform — isn't surprised.

Newsweek reported Tuesday that a SparkToro audit tool found that 49.3% of followers on Biden's official @POTUS account are “fake followers based on analysis of a number of factors, including location issues, default profile images and new users.""  The Blaze TV staff

New Omicron variants

"In recent months, scientists have identified multiple new Omicron subvariants of SARS-CoV-2. First spotted in South Africa and the United States, the subvariants—BA.4, BA.2.12.1, and BA.5—have driven new upticks in cases in both nations. The new versions of Omicron are even better at evading the protection offered by vaccines, a previous infection, or a combination of the two. So far, it’s unclear whether the new subvariants will drive a spike in cases worldwide as their predecessors, the Omicron BA.1 and then BA.2 strains, did this past winter and spring, respectively.

“We’re definitely entering a resurgence in South Africa, and it seems to be driven entirely by BA.4 and BA.5,” Penny Moore, a virologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, tells Science. “We’re seeing crazy numbers of infections. Just within my lab, I have six people off sick.”

Read more: https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/what-you-should-know-about-new-omicron-subvariants-70012?

So let's see what the Biden administration does about this.  More fear and panic.  Forced closures?  Mask mandates.  It's obvious from the number of publicized cases of fully vaxxed plus 2 boosters (like Jen Psaki, Kamala Harris and Bill Gates), that this is highly infections and seems to laugh off the vaccines.

"Nature reports that if SARS-CoV-2 continues along this path, its evolution could resemble that of respiratory illnesses that are seasonal and come in waves. The coronavirus’s pattern of infection may also become more predictable, as new mutations in the virus exploit vulnerabilities in population-wide immunity, driving periodic waves of infection. “It is probably what we should expect to see more and more of in the future,” Moore tells Nature. Scientists may get better at predicting how long immunity to COVID-19 will last and when waves will hit."

The New York Times reports similar fears: “…A virus that shows no signs of disappearing, variants that are adept at dodging the body’s defenses, and waves of infections two, maybe three times a year — this may be the future of Covid-19, some scientists now fear. The central problem is that the coronavirus has become more adept at reinfecting people. Already, those infected with the first Omicron variant are reporting second infections with the newer versions of the variant — BA.2 or BA2.12.1 in the United States, or BA.4 and BA.5 in South Africa. Those people may go on to have third or fourth infections, even within this year, researchers said in interviews. And some small fraction may have symptoms that persist for months or years,

"It seems likely to me that that’s going to sort of be a long-term pattern,” said Juliet Pulliam, an epidemiologist at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. “The virus is going to keep evolving,” she added. “And there are probably going to be a lot of people getting many, many reinfections throughout their lives.”

Life expectancy fell 1.8 years

"US life expectancy fell by 1.8 years by the end of 2020. Increased deaths from COVID-19, heart disease, homicide, and diabetes led to the decrease, but Americans faced troubling health issues before the pandemic. Suicide was the 10th leading cause of death in 2019, up 30% from a decade before. The rates at which Americans died from heroin use (up 367% from 2009) and other synthetic narcotic use (up 1,100% from 2009) increased by much more than the nation’s leading causes of death."  This is reported in USAFacts. "

They'll be studying the death toll of the last 2 years for many years to come, and all the statistics will be influenced by politics. The toll on children of the closed schools, forced maskings and the constant fear drum beat will never be counted because it is government induced.

https://usafacts.org/annual-publications/government-10-k/?

Additional facts about suicide in the US  The age-adjusted suicide rate in 2020 was 13.48 per 100,000 individuals.

The rate of suicide is highest in middle-aged white men.

In 2020, men died by suicide 3.88x more than women.

On average, there are 130 suicides per day.

White males accounted for 69.68% of suicide deaths in 2020.

In 2020, firearms accounted for 52.83% of all suicide deaths.

93% of adults surveyed in the U.S. think suicide can be prevented.

https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/

What is Ultra-MAGA?

 The Trump slogan, Make America Great Again, has always been disturbing for Democrats.  I think it was the disgraced governor of New York that said, America was never great, or was that his disgraced brother?

Democrats want to Make America Weak Again, MAWA, and they've succeeded very quickly. Failure in Afghanistan withdrawal has really hurt the women, but the leftist media don't really want to discuss that.  Apparently only American women deserve to go to high school and college; only American women should be free to show their faces (although lots of Democrats are happy for women to cover up with masks that do nothing but interfere with breathing). Putin wouldn't have invade Ukraine if Biden hadn't shut down the U.S. ability to supply Europe with energy.  Do you really think a Trump Justice Department would be ignoring the flagrant violation of the rights of SCOTUS to not be harassed and intimidated--which is against the law?  Would Trump have been cheering the destruction of the unborn, especially blacks?

The recently departed (for MSM) Jen Psaki tried to pretend that Biden's Ultra-MAGA remarks were of Joe's own making, but now Washington Post reports that a Democrat focus group/marketers actually came up with that ridiculous statement which actually means make America even more great! Republicans are having great fun with it. https://news.yahoo.com/biden-used-term-ultra-maga-221015104.html

The Chicago Bungalow

 When I was a child and the family or school group or church group would travel to Chicago, I was always amazed by the vast neighborhoods of bungalows.  But I didn't know they were this popular, 80,000, or 1/3 of the single family housing stock.

http://zachmortice.com/2022/02/25/chicagos-bungalows-are-where-the-city-comes-together/

https://www.chicagobungalow.org/chicago-bungalow

Charlotte Austin's story of freedom after 20 years in prison--a sweet success

After being released from prison in Wisconsin after 20 years, Charlotte was accepted in a Chicago transitional program, North Lawndale Employment Network, NLEN, which helps the formerly incarcerated adjust and join society, then a position with Sweet Beginnings  https://www.nlen.org/sweetbeginnings  and BeeLove, https://beelovebuzz.com/ which sells products made from honey.  You can read her story here:  

 https://wordpress-670334-206764.cloudwaysapps.com/insidesb-episode3/     

and here, http://zachmortice.com/2022/02/25/the-north-lawndale-employment-network-sees-through-employment-barriers-for-the-formerly-incarcerated/

Charlotte: And then, working with people that walk the same steps I walked. Amazing. I don’t judge them. If they laugh, I laugh with them. If they cry, I cry with them. They got something going on, talk to me because I know how it is. I’m not finna judge you because you went to prison or you had this. I went to prison too!

Alice: Right. Right. And you’re very open about the fact that you have a criminal background. Why is that?

Charlotte: It make me feel free. If I hold it in, and somebody else – somebody need to hear my story. Somebody out there need to hear my story. So by me telling my story – yeah, I did twenty years straight, I was on drugs, I was a prostitute, I used to do this, I used to do that, I’m still on ten years paper, and it’s sad to say prison saved me. ‘Cause I could’ve been dead. I think I could’ve been dead."

A TED talk film about BeeLove and NLEN.  https://youtu.be/hXjcRnYv1iU

Five important men for today (could change tomorrow)

 This list appeared in Townhall. When talking movie stars, academics or athletes, I would have nothing to say, but I know a little about all these guys, and I do mean guys.  No women on this list of five most important Americans alive today.  And I am familiar with all, having read their comments, essays, or heard their podcasts and followed their achievements.    https://townhall.com/columnists/scottmorefield/2022/05/16/the-five-most-important-americans-alive-right-now-and-the-missing-elephant-in-the-room-n2607278

"Tucker Carlson

It would be downright crazy to leave off the anchor of the highest rated primetime show on the highest rated cable news network in the nation, so Tucker Carlson has a well deserved place on this list. But if Tucker hadn’t spent years telling the truth - no matter the cost - and championing normal Americans while toppling shibboleths like pointless foreign wars, unfair trade, uncontrolled immigration, and cultural myths like systemic racism and gender theory, he would likely never have attained his current position and, with it, the love and dedication of millions of American viewers who count on him for unfettered truth and unapologetic analysis. Like no other media personality other than perhaps Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson is moving the Overton Window in ways that make the system seeth and long to destroy him. Which means he is very much over the correct target.

Ron DeSantis

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis started his role in the Covid-19 pandemic a bit slow, acquiescing to early lockdowns and restrictions and generally going along with the early prevailing narrative. But when the data became clear to him, he acted swiftly and decisively, seizing and going on to maintain the upper hand from early birds like South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem by also taking real action to combat the ongoing cultural rot. When it comes to key issues like critical race theory, gender insanity, parental rights, Covid tyranny, and virtually anything else that’s on conservatives’ radar right now, DeSantis doesn’t just talk, he backs up his words with real actions that mean something for the people of the state he’s running. In an ideal world, this guy would already be the GOP presidential nominee frontrunner going away. Unfortunately, whether or not that happens is not up to him at this point.


Elon Musk

If the lists being compiled were greatest business innovators, space pioneers or, obviously, richest Americans, Elon Musk would be at the very top. However, to make THIS list, the richest person in the world needed to do something truly audacious that would advance the culture in a positive way. Since nothing advances culture more positively than the kind of free speech and open debate leftists both hate and are deathly afraid of, a Musk acquisition of Twitter would rank right there at or towards the top of geopolitical earth shattering events this century. IF it happens, of course, and IF he sticks to and is able to accomplish his stated goal.

Joe Rogan

Joe Rogan isn’t even a conservative, but the left hates him all the same simply because he asks questions and is willing to have conversations that are uncomfortable for those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. When you’re regularly having those conversations and doing it on the world’s biggest podcast platform, you’re a mortal threat to the left, and thus a super important person in my book.


Rand Paul

An argument can be made that most, if not nearly all, politicians don’t live to their principles and don’t truly care about the people they represent. However, libertarian-leaning Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul - son of the great former longtime Texas Rep. Ron Paul - is a bright, shining exception in a sea of ugly swamp creatures. Whether it’s standing up to Covid fascism, decrying the concept of a “Disinformation Governance Board” by pointing out that governments - including Republican-led ones - have been the biggest purveyors of disinformation, or doing everything he can to fight the the warmongers who ignore our own problems yet are more than happy to send billions we don’t have to Ukraine, Rand Paul is by far the best and most important U.S. senator of this generation, if not the last century. Listen to this guy speak for more than 30 seconds and you’ll quickly realize he knows exactly what time it is, and he isn’t afraid to let the world know it too."

The author, Kurt Schlichter, gives Trump his due for the accomplishments of his four years, but read between the lines, he does not see him as leading conservatives into a complex future.

It would have been different if Trump were President

 If Trump were still President of the United States

We would not have raging inflation

Putin would not have invaded Ukraine

China would not be threatening Taiwan

The Department of Justice would not be surveilling parents of schoolchildren

The death toll for xxxxx would not be over one million

Therapeutics for xxxxx would have been available to save lives in early 2021

Doctors, nurses, police, military and truckers would still be on the job

Department of Disinformation definitely not needed; we’ve got Twitter and CNN for that

American businesses would not have been locked down

American businesses would be encouraged to restore loss to China industries

American businesses and consumers would have enough products from fossil fuel

Europe would be able to buy fuel without fear of Russia cutting them off

A billionaire from South Africa not needed to restore right to free speech

No leftist mobs would be intimidating Supreme Court Justices against the law

Teachers’ unions would not be corrupting your children and grandchildren

Fewer drugs would be crossing the border to kill Americans

Less sex and child trafficking at the border

Fewer xxxxx infections crossing the border to infect Americans

Honest and safe elections for all states

If your teen complains, show him this.

 

                                  Teens in Borodianka Ukraine, May 13, 2022.  Washington Post

I'm totally confused, but 3 people are dead

"Police say that a transgender woman (a man) was found shot to death after she (he) shot and killed her (his) transgender boyfriend (a woman) and her (his) twin brother."   https://www.theblaze.com/news/michigan-trans-murder-suicide-taverner

Ruby Taverner was formerly known as Martin Taverner; Ray Muscat was formerly known as Amber Muscat.  No matter how this is written up, someone gets insulted. According to this report, from a pro-LGBTQ news source:

"Ray is the 13th transgender person reported as a victim of fatal violence in 2022. He is the second white trans man reported murdered in 2022 that we know of so far. His death means a trans neighbor has been murdered every 9.8 days in 2022 in the United States. To date the victims include 7 Black trans women, 2 Latinx trans women, 1 AAIPI trans woman, 2 white trans men and 1 white trans woman. The youngest was 17, the oldest was 33. Ten were 25 or younger. Their deaths come on the heels of 2021, the most violent year in recorded history with the deaths of 57 trans, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people in the United States alone. Note that the tabulation includes a significant number of reports of folx murdered in 2021. This might be confusing. Of course it is confusing. I tried to sort it out below.

Domestic violence, including murder, is a form of terror. It is often dismissed as “not the same” as a murder by a stranger, as if the person most intimate to the victim was incapable of transphobia or damaged by that transphobia in our society. According to a recent study, intimate partner violence among the transgender community from purposive studies ranges from 31% to 50%."   https://www.pghlesbian.com/2022/05/24-year-old-white-trans-man-ray-muscat-shot-to-death-by-girlfriend-in-michigan/

And of course, it's society's fault. My fault.  Not the screwed up person confused about what or who killed them.

Biden needs to go back to school

“President Joe Biden raised eyebrows on Wednesday when he spoke sharply against “MAGA Republicans” during a speech at the White House. “This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that has existed in American history,” he said. “Let me tell you about this ultra-MAGA agenda, it’s extreme.” The Loop, May 6, 2022.

Joe has forgotten that the KKK was the terrorist arm of the Democrat Party and lynched both blacks and whites, burned down homes and businesses and made ANTIFA look like a play group.  Also he’s forgotten, if he knew, that Jim Crow was the policy developed by the Democrat Party. Joe has forgotten that Democrats voted down or filibustered all the Republican efforts to outlaw the lynch laws. Of course, the lynching deaths pale in comparison to abortion. Democrats, Planned Parenthood, etc. legally destroy more lives in 4 days than the 80 years of lynching. 36% of the abortion deaths are for blacks, far out of their representation in the population. https://www.aier.org/article/how-fdr-killed-federal-anti-lynching-legislation/  Joe has forgotten what FDR did to Japanese, German and Italian citizens. Joe’s forgotten how he tried to ruin Justice Thomas, a black man, but then all those videos are out there on the internet. https://youtu.be/863u2dzcmF0 Joe doesn’t seem to know about the violent crowds in front of the residences of SCOTUS members (but only the originalists), and has no one told him that his team hopes to disrupt the mass at Catholic Churches on Mother’s Day?

Yes, Joe needs to go back to school along with most of the writers/readers on CNN and MSNBC.

Gimme some of that

The St. Louis Federal Reserve website has an "Economic Equity Series" within its publications category. "Podcast about advancing a more inclusive and equitable economy." Sorry, Charlie, the job's already finished! Just watch the ads on TV. All the actors (and I assume writers, directors, stage managers, set designers, camera operators, editors, and producers) are 99% black and/or the occasional Asian or Hispanic. You can see for yourself that American blacks drive Mercedes, vacation in $100,000 RVs, wait in line for Starbucks $10 coffee, grill in the back yards of multimillion dollar homes with neighbors of all makes and models, wear designer clothes, visit the doctor and dentist regularly, and travel to exotic locations. The only white actors are filling the roles of the farmers, plumbers, wind shield replacers and gutter cleaners. Not only are the upper middle class consumers black, but the servers and salespeople are too! It's amazing how since May 2020 America has become so woke that there are no more "marginalized and poor" people of color. That must look pretty good to those border jumpers from 160 countries rushing our southern border.

The equity is that because most of the poor and marginalized 13% in the USA are actually white, the low income blacks can now sit in front of the TV just like low income whites and wonder how they can get on that gravy train.

As we merge lanes from pandemic to endemic

From an investment letter: "It is now clear from the data that Sweden, which never shut down other than for the very old and nursing homes, did not do worse than those that did shut down, and their kids got to go to in person school throughout. Florida never fully shut down for long, and reopened quickly relative to the rest of the country. While the mainstream media and the Biden administration blasted DeSantis, reality is, business here reopened fairly quickly for the most part, and recovered quickly, and the health issues, including hospitalization and death, were no worse per capita than CA which shut down completely, and kept kids out of school. It is my view that Fauci and the teachers’ unions did more damage to the country than the pandemic ever did. Many people died of untreated diseases like cancer and heart conditions as a result of the shutdowns. They never counted that. I have a tennis buddy whose prostate cancer spread because he could not get to see a doctor in time to prevent it. The Fauci ordered lockdowns did grave damage to the economy, and led to the $6 trillion of new debt we now have.

Were things left mostly open after the first wave, with certain restrictions and certain rules, and personal choice as to exposure, once the vaccines were available, it is far from clear there would have been a much worse Covid outcome based on the Swedish and Florida experience, when you take all the collateral damage of closure into account. Meantime the increased government spending is a disaster, and has created what many of us long predicted-inflation running out of control. The topper was the Rescue Plan in March 2021 for which there was no need other than for the money to be used to bail out Dem state and city governments which were in massive debt, and to illegally redirect billions to teach CRT. Meantime hundreds of billions are believed to have been stolen through fraud in the unemployment payments and PPP. If there had been a limited PPP, and money strictly for Covid vaccines, we would have saved trillions, and been far better off today. Had there been minimal lockdowns, there would have been no need for the extra unemployment and food stamp payments, and no non-eviction and no extension or canceling of student loans. We would not be experiencing the labor shortage to the extent we are now doing.

Maybe some more people might have become sick or died, but the trade was destruction of an entire generation of kids who were kept out of class, and real destruction of black kids who did not have good access to wireless service. We would not have the inflation which is hurting the lower and middle class and we would likely have had a moderate stock market instead of the huge runups we had."

A Biden gaff--he told the truth. He called the unborn baby a "child"

“I mean, so the idea that we’re going to make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child based on a decision by the Supreme Court, I think, goes way overboard.”-  Joe Biden, (May 3, 2022)

***
Did I say “a child”?....(I’m sorry!)
That’s not what I meant to say!
Heaven knows …what WAS I thinking?
Please forgive me…PLEASE I pray!!!

* * *

We uphold Self-contradiction.
It’s now codified to Law.
It’s the “virtue” we’re most proud of
(And delusion's gaping maw.)

 
Self-deception’s been upgraded
To a value we adore.
It’s the cornerstone of madness,
And we’re clamoring for more.

It’s the Fruit of Deconstruction.
It’s the snakebite from of old.
It’s The Lie that we all fell for,
And we love to have and hold.

It’s “the life” here East of Eden,
Where true up is known as down.
Where true truth's considered nonsense,
And the darkness is profound.

Used with permission. Tom Graffagnino. His book “No Border Land”, was published in 2020 and is available at Amazon. It is a book of poems and brief commentary dealing with cultural/secular issues that confront us from a Bible-believing perspective. https://www.amazon.com/No-Border-Land-Finding-Amazing/dp/1625861575

Misinformation about Trump is everywhere, subtle or blatant. All information has a bias.

 The first title on our book club list for 2022-2023 is "The Code Breaker; Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race," by Walter Isaacson, 2021.   https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Code-Breaker/Walter-Isaacson/9781982115852   Doudna is the co-founder of CRISPR — a technology that can edit or alter DNA and genetic traits.   It's our September selection  because it is a fat book about a complex topic and we'll need more time to read it. The author is a history professor, former CEO of the Aspen Institute (large Covid government grant; recently launched a disinformation program to fight "malicious actors"), advisory partner of Perella Weinberg Partners, chair of CNN and editor of Time.  In other words, a left of center academic. On page 1 of the introduction Issacson sets the stage as March 13, 2020 by saying the "government was fumbling its response to COVID." By this I assume he means the FDA, HHS, CDC and NIH with competing interests and miles of red tape.  Yet it was the  day after Jennifer Doudna had driven her son Andy a high school senior to Fresno on March 12 for a robot-building competition. This woman who was a gene-editing technology superstar at Berkeley was uneasy, given what we already knew about Covid, but not so alarmed she kept him home. Probably the smartest scientist alive.  But the government was fumbling? Is that true, or distain for President Trump's efforts--the man who closed travel with China on January 30, several weeks before the first death was recorded in Washington state (that date has been changed several times to other states). Let's review while we remember the scorn and insults from Democrats, even Biden and Harris denigrating the idea of such a vaccine BEFORE they took office and promoted it relentlessly.

"Former President Donald Trump formally announced Operation Warp Speed (OWS) on May 15, 2020. OWS was constituted as a projected $18 billion business-government-military partnership, charged to “produce and deliver 300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines with the initial doses available by January 2021, as part of a broader strategy to accelerate the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.” No date was set for fulfilling the 300 million doses target, other than the understanding that it would be “accelerated” relative to conventional standards.

The most innovative feature of OWS was government purchases of large quantities of vaccine types undergoing clinical trials, irrespective of the outcome (such as $2 billion and $483 million in early purchases from Pfizer and Moderna, respectively).

OWS called for clinical trials, manufacturing, and logistics to be conducted on a parallel rather than a sequential basis. The pursuit of multiple vaccine types built redundancy into the program to insure as many approved vaccine types as possible. (Currently, 251 vaccines are in the process of development).

Some ten months later, the results of OWS are as follows:

On Dec. 11, 2020, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved for emergency use authorization (EUA) a vaccine produced by Pfizer for “the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in individuals 16 years of age and older.” Approval of Moderna’s vaccine followed seven days later. The first Americans were vaccinated on Dec. 15, 2020, only four days after FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine. 

Consistent with OWS’s stated goal, some 50 million initial doses of approved COVID-19 vaccine were available on Jan. 31, 2021." The Hill, March 20, 2021

By anyone's measure of how the government gets around to cutting red tape and shipping money off to universities and corporations, that was beyond warp speed.  I know no one who could have accomplished this, yet Issacson dismisses his importance on the first page.  I'm sure Doudna was absolutely the right person in the right place at the right time, but without the $18 billion and a president who bullied, I doubt there would have been a vaccine in seven months. Universities live for government money. 

The index item, "Trump Administration" gets one reference, p. 411. Bill Clinton got  three. even Joe Biden got a mention. President Donald Trump, a huge cheerleader for the vaccine AND TREATMENTS, didn't get a single line in the index (and I assume in the book).  Now two years out and a year and a half of Joe Biden, we still have Emergency Use Authorization for the vaccine, don't we?

Gene editing raises huge ethical questions.  I hope Issacson is the one to present the problem without relying too much on government control and "science." As we've learned the last 2 years, science is putty in the hands of bureaucrats and politicians. It's a game of winners and losers.   As of page one, I'm not impressed, but it's a very deep and detailed story. I'm sure I'll learn a lot.