Posse Incitatus

The American Spirit

Don't ever, ever sell the United States short!

Just when you think we're down for the count, this nation has always risen to the challenge, usually ending up stronger and wiser than before. That's a tribute to the millions of excellent, hard working and intelligent Americans whose individual and collective efforts and initiative make this country tick.

During World War II, American manufacturers put automobiles and appliances on the back burner in favor of building tanks, army trucks, artillery and aircraft. Today, as COVID-19 ravages the globe, hundreds of U.S. companies are producing the products needed to battle the virus.

Quite a few companies including Ralph Lauren, Eddie Bauer, Gap, Joanne Fabrics, Hanes, MyPillow and mattress maker Eclipse International, have shifted their manufacturing to make masks and hospital gowns, and industrial giants including Ford Motor Co., General Motors and 3M are building ventilators and respirators. This is far from an exhaustive list, but you get the picture.

FEMA, other federal agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and all four branches of the military have teamed up to supply equipment, hospital ships, logistics assistance and many other goods and services. Officials in the public and private sector are working long hours to respond to the crisis. Major kudos and respect go out to our courageous healthcare providers and first responders. They are true heroes, and deserve our prayers.

Additionally, the generosity of so many American companies and individuals has been apparent. Google donated $800 million to support businesses, organizations and healthcare workers involved in the battle against Coronavirus. Facebook is matching donations to the Centers for Disease Control, up to $10 million per donation. 

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation pledged to give $100 million to help "strengthen detection, isolation and treatment efforts; protect at-risk populations; and develop vaccines, treatments and diagnostics." The list of contributing corporations and foundations is lengthy.

Many celebrities in the entertainment business and pro sports have donated to charities providing relief to Coronavirus sufferers and their families. These include Drew Brees, a quarterback with the NFL's New Oreans Saints, who donated $5 million. And the list goes on.

Congress and President Trump managed to approve over $2 trillion of spending to keep the economy going, help individuals whose livelihoods have been devastated by the economic shutdown, and help prevent small businesses from going under. Most people realize that the massive bill contains plenty of pork and unrelated spending, but that's the price we have to pay to implement immediate relief.

I wish that the stimulus checks to be sent out were much larger, targeted toward lower incomes and would not be sent to the tens of millions of Americans who simply don't need the money. It would also be preferable that the added unemployment benefits would not serve as a disincentive to work, but nothing and nobody is perfect. Our nation already had record low unemployment, and employers were having a hard time finding workers. Now, they'll have an even more difficult time filling empty positions because many people won't be motivated to work for less money than they can get through collecting unemployment compensation.

We are probably a couple months away from this plague reaching its apex, and no one really knows how many Americans will be affected. We've ramped up testing, which undoubtedly contributed to our nation taking over the No. 1 spot for most COVID-19 cases in the world. (And let's not forget that China is most likely underreporting its COVID-19 morbidity rate by a country mile.)

There is the potential for the polarization that has made American politics such a crock of bile to get even worse... IF we allow the media jackals to stir the pot and antagonize both sides for the sake of firing up ratings. Don't think for a second they won't do it. But it's also possible that millions of Americans will rise above the petty swamp and demonstrate a magnanimity they never knew they had.

Meanwhile, the TV networks and major websites are enduring a bitter paradox: Their reporters, anchors, content editors and producers are putting in longer hours with the stepped up coverage of this crisis. Normally, this would mean a significant boost in commercial revenues. But the companies that typically purchase that commercial time and those digital ads are in many cases struggling and will be forced to cut advertising and marketing budgets.

Like so many other new realities, this one is largely unprecedented. Also like so much of the calamity befalling us, we'll get through. Because, after all, we're Americans.

Pelosi's Lard-ass Bill Dies a Quick Death

I've said for years that Democrats just can't seem to help overplaying their hand. They take Rahm Emanuel's advice and NEVER let a crisis go to waste. The problem is, they attempt to turn an opportunity to advance their progressive agenda into a drunken spending orgy, and it often comes back to bite them.

Case in point: Sunday night, it looked like the U.S. Senate was close to adopting a major relief bill for our shuttered economy. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were pretty much simpatico, and it looked like the bill would pass by Monday.

But soon the virus of radical progressivism, Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi, would fly back to the Washington swamp from the Left Coast, and immediately begin larding up the House's stimulus bill with a grab bag of leftist pipe dreams. She and her fellow travelers pressured Democrat senators to vote against the McConnell-Schumer agreement.

Meanwhile, the Democrats' Christmas tree included more money for abortion mills, Green New Deal spending, tax credits for solar energy and wind energy, and a commitment to federalize elections. Also included were provisions to force employers to give special treatment to Big Labor; new emissions standards for the airlines; a requirement that union representatives sit on corporate boards; and a mandate that companies receiving Coronavirus relief money provide diversity stats, including employees' race, gender and pay, and the diversity of their corporate boards.

This thing was so extreme, that after enduring withering attacks -- some even coming from folks on the left who want the Coronavirus relief to begin ASAP -- the Democrats backed down. Needless to say, their internal polling must have looked horrible.

As I type, the U.S. Senate is within an hour or so of voting on its massive $2 trillion bill. I would expect the House to be more in sync this time around and pass a viable bill by the end of the week -- not because they give a damn about their fellow Americans, but because they want to preserve their majority in the coming elections.

It's not a stretch to say that Democrats are loving the sudden spike in unemployment, decrease in GDP, and any failures that may occur with experimental drug treatments for COVID19 -- e.g., hydroxycloroquine, a synthetic version of anti-malarial drug quinine, which is derived from the bark of the cinchona tree. The Demagogues truly would have no qualms if tens of millions of Americans were to suffer gravely for months, as long as the Dems could retain the House, win the White House and possibly even take the Senate. 

Heaven help us if these charlatans re-take the White House this November.

The Katrina Paradigm

When Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in September 2005, the news media jumped at the chance to demonize then-President George W. Bush and his hapless Director of FEMA, Michael Brown.

But the catastrophe of New Orleans -- more than 1,800 dead and untold suffering and property destruction -- falls much more on the corrupt, inept governments of New Orleans and Louisiana than on the federal government.

It was corrupt and incompetent Mayor Ray Nagin -- now in prison, by the way -- who did not have an evacuation plan in place and whose public transportation buses sat uselessly in flooded parking lots while destitute residents desperately begged to be rescued from their rooftops. And then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco waited way too long to call for an evacuation as the monstrous hurricane bore down on New Orleans.

On top of all that, it's well documented that Louisiana is one of the most corrupt states in the nation. Federal money funneled to local levee boards for maintenance and upgrades of levee walls was often squandered and ended up in the pockets of crooks and cronies who had the right connections and kissed the right butts. Yet the ignorant press trashed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which was not to blame for inadequate levee maintenance. (The disgraceful American media being ignorant and embarrassingly wrong has become the rule, not the exception.)

I've traveled back in time 15 years to illustrate a point that pertains to the current COVID-19 crisis: The federal government is not the be-all/end-all when it comes to nationwide disasters. Emergency management is primarily the responsibility of municipal and county governments, with the states being the next tier. Consequently, states must be ready; their governments must be transparent, accountable and competent.

The federal government definitely is a backstop and a deep well of resources to assist states and localities where needed (the use of U.S. Navy hospital ships to augment health care facilities in major metro areas is an example). But Uncle Sam is not really the conductor of the orchestra. Maybe a better analogy might be a kitchen supervisor during a major dinner (wedding reception, awards ceremony, conference), who has the big-picture perspective and continuously circulates among the different employees to monitor what they're doing, give real-time updates on the demand/consumption variables out in the dining room, and assigns resources as needed.

There are calls for Uncle Sam to nationalize certain aspects of the war against COVID-19, e.g., purchase and distribution of ventilators and surgical masks. I am not certain this makes sense. For one thing, the COVID-19 affliction is not evenly distributed. New York, California and Washington are three states that have a disproportionate number of cases of people testing positive for the virus. Perhaps Washington, D.C. can coordinate with those state governments and the private sector to direct needed equipment and supplies to the most critical areas.

This is a complicated issue -- medically, logistically, economically, politically. But one thing I believe is true is that a one-size-fits-all nationalization (a la Venezuela) against COVID-19 would be ineffective and possibly destructive.

Let's encourage the states to do what we know they're capable of doing -- and support them -- and not turn Uncle Sam into an overbearing and inflexible authoritarian administrator.

Observations on Day Three

Today is actually Day Four of my new arrangement: working from home. But since I started this post on Wednesday, and have no new observations to add since then, I'll leave the headline as it stands. After all, even if I did have observations today, I'm pretty sure they'd be about the same as what I witnessed on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

First of all, there's always a silver lining -- or several of them. It's nice not to have to rush off to work each morning. My office is about 14 miles from home, so my commute normally lasts 20-25 minutes each way. I typically leave the house at 7:30 a.m., arriving in the parking lot 7:50-7:55 a.m.

Almost every day, I take a prepared lunch -- a salad, sandwich or leftovers from last night's batch of spaghetti, chicken or meatloaf. Once in a while, I'll spring for a prepared salad at the neighborhood Meijer grocery store, which might set me back $5, but will provide some delicacies I don't normally enjoy, such as black olives, almonds, and sesame ginger dressing.

I don't have a coherent commentary to make on the sudden changes thrust upon our nation, so I guess the bullet point format lends itself well to my insights. Here goes:

• It's incredible how rapidly and dramatically things can change, how radically the changes affect our lifestyles, and how most of us find that adapting to the new realities ain't all that bad, after all. Last Sunday, my wife and I went to lunch at a Mediterranean place, and we were the only customers in the restaurant. A couple more people arrived before we left, but that was it. 
• Monday morning, I had an 8:30 a.m. doctor's appointment in Okemos, about 11 miles east of here. After I left the doctor's office, I decided to stop by a coffee shop and use a gift card I had received at Christmas. The business was "Biggby's" (founded as "Beaners" in East Lansing in 1995 and now with over 200 stores in 10 states -- the original name was ditched because the PC wimps thought it was offensive to Mexicans). I ordered a small coffee, and expected the self-serve paradigm. But I was surprised that they asked me if I wanted cream and sugar. "Oh, I guess you've changed your policy in light of this Coronavirus issue," I said. Then I mentioned that I'd heard on the news the governors of Ohio and Illinois had ordered that all restaurants be closed. "We're probably headed in that direction," one of the employees said. Sure enough, later that day Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered the temporary closing of coffee shops, bars and restaurants. (Restaurants are closed for dine-in, but carryout orders, delivery & drive-thru are still permitted).
• My wife and I are getting a pretty good-sized state tax refund (direct deposit scheduled for Friday morning), and I told her I would like patronize some local mom-n-pop restaurants to help them out during these tough times. She agreed that would be nice. Visions of steak-n-onion sandwiches, egg rolls, cheeseburgers and burritos are dancing in my head.
• I'll be the first to admit: I don't put in a full eight hours of work when I'm at home. I might walk into the kitchen at 11:30 a.m. and start to saute some mushrooms and onions for lunch; maybe I'll decide to walk around the block at 2:30 p.m. to get some fresh air and wake myself up (drowsiness after lunch is a common challenge); or perhaps I'll extend my lunch hour a bit. But overall, I am as productive if not more productive than if I were at the office. It's more quiet; I don't have to worry about loud people around me, or chatterbox employees stopping by my cubicle to talk my ear off.
• At lunchtime, my wife and I have watched several of the Trump Coronavirus Task Force news conferences aired live on Fox News. We are impressed by the high quality personnel who serve on the task force, and by the president's no-nonsense performance in answering questions of an always hostile press. We are disdainful of the airheads who claim that calling this virus a name including "Wuhan," "China" or "Chinese" is somehow racist, and that Asian Americans are being harassed and discriminated against by such stereotyping. I sincerely hope the president's advisors keep drilling into his head that there are hours of video clips available from MSNBC, CNN, PBS and ABC/NBC/CBS on which left-wing reporters used the geographical name to describe the virus. There is also ample precedent going back decades for viruses being named after the region they came from, e.g., the Ebola (River) Virus; the West Nile (Africa) Virus; the Zika Virus (named after a forest in Uganda); Lyme Disease (named after the town of Lyme, Connecticut); Guinea Worm; Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and so on. My plea to the media jackals: PLEASE stop embarrassing yourselves!
• When I look at the unfolding tragedy in Italy (hundreds of people dying daily), I realize that the United States is doing the right thing by shutting down our economy to halt and prevent the spread of COVID-19. It's painful in the short run, but I'm sure the stock market and employment rates will come roaring back in a couple months.

Each day, I try to remember to pray for all who've been diagnosed as COVID-19 positive, the relatives of those who perished from the disease, and our nation as a whole. We're really at a crucial juncture, and the presidential election coming up in 7 1/2 months really raises the stakes. 

The New Landscape

COVID-19, aka Coronavirus, has rapidly changed our day-to-day routines and made us rethink our actions as the United States buckles down to prevent the rapid spread of this potentially deadly virus.

I concur with my esteemed co-blogger on many points, including the public's seemingly irresistible need to panic in times like this; the stupidity of allowing the outsourcing of pharmaceuticals to China; and the wisdom of both the Trump administration's response and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's order to close down K-12 schools for three weeks.

Although I am very disappointed that the NCAA Basketball Tournament (aka "March Madness") has been called off, I agree this was a necessary step. Far better for fans like me to go without the tournament for one year than for many people to get sick, and some to die, just for the sake of fanatics not having to miss bread & circuses. Ditto for the suspension of play by the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball. Even the world-famous Masters Golf Tournament has been postponed indefinitely.

Many businesses have called off conferences and workshops, and asked employees to work from home indefinitely. Both my wife and I are beginning telework arrangements starting this Monday. 

On Friday, President Trump declared this crisis a National Emergency. It is encouraging to see the administration and private sector team up so quickly to address COVID-19 head-on. Major commercial laboratory equipment and diagnostic companies are taking immediate action to adopt and develop new testing systems. CEOs of major retailers including Walmart and Target are promising to marshal their resources to help fight the virus. The administration is working with pharmacies and retailers to set up drive-thru screening for COVID-19.

Google's sister company Verily has committed hundreds of engineers to designing a website that includes a questionnaire users can complete to determine if they have COVID-19 symptoms or risk factors that would warrant a Coronavirus test, and directing them to drive-through sites to be screened for the virus.

The administration and Congress have also quickly enacted a variety of programs and financial aid to assist businesses and individuals. Never mind the $23 trillion national debt; this is no time to be playing the role of the bean counter!

This morning I stopped by my neighborhood Kroger to pick up a few things, and noticed that the shelves for paper towels and toilet paper were completely barren. Pretty ridiculous. I read the other day that a guy in Arkansas rented a trailer and went around to dollar stores buying up all of the anti-bacterial hand sanitizer he could get, then turned around and sold it for inflated prices on Amazon.com. The giant e-commerce company soon shut him down, and now he's stuck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer he can't unload. Tough luck.

It's also disappointing that some (not all) of the political jackals are doing what they do best: Taking cheap political shots at the opposite party over an issue that should transcend politics. I saw it this morning on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace. One of his panelists is the infamous Marie Harf, a worthless airhead who, while working for the Obama State Department, spoke of "root causes" for the bloodthirsty behavior of ISIS, even mentioning the lack of jobs and opportunity.

Today, she couldn't help but take potshots at Trump even while the other panelists, including liberal Charles Lane of the Washington Post, were far more dignified. Another panelist, Josh Holmes, former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, stated correctly that he believes the American people's tolerance for partisanship at this time will be extremely limited.

As I took my 30-minute walk this afternoon, I thought about how many words pertaining to this Coronavirus drama start with "P"... Pandemic, panic, politics, pharmaceuticals... I suppose you could throw "preparation" in there, as in being prepared for the possibility of a self-quarantine.

But one of the most important P-words, as I wrap up, is perspective. The fragility of life and the way our society and economy function are now more clearly defined. Let's hope that millions of Americans will keep things in better perspective as far as counting our blessings, being civil toward others, appreciating the high quality of life we've taken for granted, and savoring our loved ones. For those asked to work from home, the opportunity to break out of the normal routine may offer additional time for introspection and opportunities for self-improvement.

Even tough times can have a silver lining. I sincerely hope it doesn't go unnoticed.

The Wuhan Plague

We've gotten used to a level of safety and security that is without precedent.

Two generations have grown to mature middle age without lasting privation or the experience of widespread disaster.

Perhaps this is why there have been so imaginary panics over the intervening decades.  Humans are hard-wired to detect danger and when non materializes, they invent it.

But now there is something very real to fear.  Pestilence rides the land once again.

Naturally, the remnant main stream media is worse than useless.  Their pathetic partisan plays are self-refuting and whatever political capital they hoped to make for the Democrats from large-scale loss of life was destroyed by their premature gloating about it.

PRO-TIP:  You can pretend to mourn thousands of dead if you're openly talking about how you'll profit from their demise before they even die.

They've also decided to go all-in on parroting Chi-Com propaganda regarding the spread of the Wuhan virus, which is never a good look.

Given the current dilapidated state of the US administrative state, the Trump administration's actions have been timely and appropriate.  I will also give a nod to Michigan's Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whose decision to close schools statewide was also correct.

The only way to get ahead of this thing is to shut things down early.  A single infected individual in a school building could immediately generate hundreds of additional cases.

Our ancestors understood this.  When travel was difficult, diseases could be contained with less disruption.  Closing the city gates and patrolling the countryside would often stop the outbreak.

The advent of steamships and railroads rendered this approach inadequate, hence the massive public measures taken in 1918.  Put simply, we cannot test or isolate individual cases to stop this thing.

This is why the Democrat howling about cutting travel routes is not only stupid but dangerous.  The only sure way to stop infection is to stop infected people from moving about, and to hell with the economic consequences.

Economies exist to serve people, not vice-versa.  This short-sighted and callous fixation on the bottom line is what hollowed out American industry, destroyed its working families and left us crippled and unable to meet our own pharmaceutical and medical needs.

The Quisling Never Trumpers have much to answer for in this regard.  Is it a "blessing of liberty" that Communist China can hold us hostage by refusing to provide the vital medications our own scientists developed? 

What dystopian author of years gone by could imagine that people we be so feckless, so stupid to allow the crowning glory of science to be sold off to a hostile and ambitious foreign power for stacks of paper - no, not even paper - electronic money?

In a just society, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush would be driven from public life, forced into overseas exile while a People's Tribunal would even now by rounding up the Obama administration officials who allowed this weakening to take place.

A nation that can't even provide medical masks for its own doctors is not even an independent state, let alone a superpower.

 

A Menacing Achilles' Heel

Many of us have been saying for years that the United States is vulnerable to China when it comes to our reliance on components such as microchips integrated into computers and other products that are essential to our manufacturing base, healthcare, and overall economic performance. Evidence exists that the Chinese military manipulates software code in motherboards exported to the United States to wreak havoc on our supply chain and other economic activity.

But now it's time we acknowledge another, possibly even greater threat: Our reliance upon China for pharmaceuticals and the active ingredients in many popular prescription and over-the-counter drugs including antibiotics, blood pressure medications, pain meds and anti-inflammatory drugs. 

This report from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) states that as of August 2019, only 28 percent of the manufacturing facilities making active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) to supply the U.S. market were in the United States.  The remaining 72 percent of the API manufacturers supplying the U.S. market were overseas, including 13 percent in China. 

According to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, last year, China accounted for 95 percent of U.S. imports of ibuprofen, 91 percent of U.S. imports of hydrocortisone, 70 percent of U.S. imports of acetaminophen, and 40 to 45 percent of U.S. imports of penicillin.

Besides the threat of China using its pharmaceutical products as an extortion weapon, quality control remains a major concern. In 2007 and 2008, according to the FDA, 246 people died as a result of adulterated heparin, a widely used blood thinner. An investigation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control determined that batches of heparin manufactured in China had been contaminated.

It's obvious that skirting environmental laws and the availability of plentiful cheap labor are major factors in Chinese and other foreign companies being able to keep costs down. This of course raises concerns about even more upward price pressures on pharmaceutical products should Uncle Sam step in and demand a much greater percentage of domestic manufacturing of API and finished pharmaceutical products.

China's actions affect Americans' physical and mental health. Aside from myriad physical ailments causing pain and discomfort, millions of Americans have some kind of psychological or psychiatric distress that may require the likes of Xanax, Ritalin, Adderall, and various SSRI drugs including Prozac, Paxil, Lexapro and Zoloft. Cutting off all of these patients cold turkey could wreak havoc on society and our economy.

Eliminating our vulnerability in this area ought to be high on the national security "to do" list. Doing so promises to be challenging and expensive. But this threat is every bit as serious as the threats of biological warfare or cyber war, the latter of which could shut down our power grid and/or communications infrastructure.

The world is a dangerous place. We'd best not hide our heads in the sand -- or devote too much time and attention to the inanities of politics. For the hour is getting late.

Sunday Miscellany . . .

CORONAVIRUS -- Michael Savage is correct in castigating Rush Limbaugh for spouting off about the Coronavirus when he (Rush) has limited medical knowledge and is basically talking off the top of his head. Rush has been adamant that the Coronavirus threat is grossly overblown; a conspiracy to bring down President Trump. Puh-LEASE! Rush is no dummy, but he is drinking the kool-aid big-time. The truth is, we just don't know how severe the virus's toll will be, and how long it will take to run its course. The United States is ramping up on making test kits available, so plenty of people still need to be tested. There's also a massive shortage of masks, and it could be a year until a vaccine is available. The World Health Organization has assessed the Coronavirus fatality rate at 3.4 percent. No one knows whether that figure is overly optimistic or pessimistic. One thing I strongly suspect is that the Chinese have underreported and may not even have a clear handle on how many Chinese citizens are infected. I am reminded of the excellent mini-series "Chernobyl," which depicted accurately how the Soviet Union's ham-handed efforts to sweep things under the rug, deny what was actually happening and keep people in the dark led to many hundreds of people suffering and dying needlessly. Totalitarian regimes like to save face and be secretive -- the health and welfare of their people be damned. I'm pretty sure this dynamic is playing out in China. God have mercy on the poor souls who have been forced into quarantine camps, which often have something in common with concentration camps: You won't come out alive.

MSU SPARTANS REVIVAL -- The Michigan State Spartans basketball team is right back where it's been so often in the month of March: Playing for a conference championship and gearing up for a long run in the NCAA Tournament. Early in the season, the team got bad news that shooting guard Joshua Langford, a five-star recruit who had been averaging 15 points per game prior to sustaining a hairline fracture on his foot, would probably not play at all this season. The so-called "experts" who ranked MSU No. 1 in the preseason polls had counted on Langford being part of the lineup. They also believed that a productive transfer player from Marquette, Joey Hauser, would be on the roster. But the capricious NCAA bureaucrats would not allow Hauser, a 6'8" power forward and four-star recruit averaging 10 points per game, to play this season. On top of that, Spartans All-American point guard Cassius Winston has struggled to deal with the tragedy of his brother taking his own life back in November. The team hit a rough patch in late January-early February that included four losses (two of them at home). In the past couple weeks, the Spartans won tough road games at first place Maryland and at then second place Penn State. Several players have raised their game to another level, including junior forward Xavier Tillman and freshman point guard Rocket Watts, both playing lockdown defense and hitting key shots. Winston also returned to top form, and sophomore Aaron Henry continues to improve. Today, if they defeat Ohio State at the Breslin Center, MSU will earn a share of the Big Ten championship -- its third in a row. GO GREEN!  (And don't take OSU lightly; I still remember when they denied MSU a conference championship on Seniors Day 2012, beating the Spartans at the Breslin Center!)

PLACEHOLDER BIDEN -- I have thought for a while now that the Democrats' strategy is to get Joe Biden elected president (propping him up through his frequent embarrassing gaffes and memory lapses, all the while counting on a compliant, in-the-tank media to cover for him); then to push him aside after a few months to install the VP as president. It wouldn't be hard to get a "consensus" from physicians, psychiatrists and national security experts that Joe's mental acuity is slipping badly, his dementia has accelerated, and he represents a grave threat to national security. Then, whoever is VP takes the Oval Office -- my guess is Kamala Harris, but it could by Amy Klobuchar, an as-yet unknown surprise pick, or -- HEAVEN FORBID -- the loathsome harridan Lizzy Warren. The Democratic National Committee is a vicious, ruthless machine, and those who cross it are in serious danger. It's incredible how quickly Pete Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Warren fell like dominoes right around Super Tuesday, then promptly fell into line. All except Warren immediately endorsed Biden, and within a few days, Robert Francis O'Rourke and Harris also came out in support of Sleepy Joe. There's a long way to go until the Democrat Convention, and who's to say Biden might not have some major meltdowns that could have cleared a pathway for at least Buttigieg and Klobuchar to suddenly peel away Biden's support and have a legitimate shot at securing the nomination? But it's too late now; maybe they threw in the towel too soon? Food for thought.

 

Crow Stew

I'm never afraid to admit it when I’m wrong, and I was dead wrong a couple times in the past two weeks or so.

First, I stated I thought Mike Bloomberg was likely to earn the Democrat presidential nomination. But he dropped out of the race today following an extremely poor showing on Super Tuesday.

Second, I predicted malfunction junction on Super Tuesday for the Democrats, given the way they’ve messed so many things up in the past. There were a few hiccups related to absentee ballots and the like, and some areas where voters waited much longer than they should have to vote. In Los Angeles and Harris County, Texas, some voters waited in line as long as six hours to cast their ballots. Officials blamed it on a changeover from multiple neighborhood polling stations to fewer large voting centers. (It still speaks to a lack of planning and preparedness, but that's a topic for another day.) Overall, nothing came close to the Iowa Caucus fiasco of a few weeks ago.

There were some cases of ugliness on social media and on TV. Fox News commentator Donna Brazille took umbrage when GOP Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel questioned whether the Democrats were plotting to rig the nomination process against Bernie Sanders, as they did in 2016. Brazille told Romney to "go to hell." Classy!

Sorry to disappoint you, Donna, but you don't have a leg to stand on. You're the one who snuck town hall questions from CNN to Hillary in 2016, and your beloved party under Debbie Wasserman Schultz was rotten to the core in stacking the deck against Sanders. The Dems can talk all they want about hacked emails and servers. But when it comes to the Demagogues, "hack" as a noun (describing so many Dem operatives) plays a much bigger role than "hack" as a verb.

Nonetheless, I shall dine on lots of crow tonight for my wrong predictions. Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, who also just dropped out, have thrown their support behind Joe Biden, who fared well Tuesday.

It's become clear that millions of Democrat voters have realized in the past few days that A) Bernie will not defeat Trump, while Biden at least has a fighting chance; and B) They are disgusted with stone-cold communist Bernie's praise for the likes of thug Fidel Castro.

Right after Sanders got married in the 1980s, he took his new bride to Moscow. He claims it wasn't a honeymoon; that it was to establish a sister city relationship involving Burlington, Vermont. But the point is, he did it during the height of the Cold War. Tasteless; crass; crazy; ugly. This guy is a demon.

It will be interesting to see what kind of holy hell Bernie's fanatical supporters raise this summer when the Democrat Naational Convention takes place in Milwaukee. They're obsessed ideologues and purists, and cannot accept incremental progress in nudging the nation leftward. They want to grab the steering wheel and crank it sharply counterclockwise to bring the nation into a totalitarian condition where government rules and individual liberties are squashed. Thank God millions of Democrats won't let that happen.

Oh, and one more point about the Democrat contest that warms my heart: Just as Jeb Bush did in 2016, Mike Bloomberg proved convincingly that the adage stating he who has the most money always wins is utter BULLSHIT. That in itself blasts to shreds the alleged need for campaign finance reform. It's long past time we put this false cliché to rest.

 

Clusterf*ck Tuesday

Based on what's transpired so far in the 2020 Democrat primaries, I have an even greater appreciation for Will Rogers' witty observation that "I am not a member of any organized political party; I am a Democrat." (NOTE: See the Iowa Caucus.)

Multiple dysfunctional dynamics are at play as the Democrat Party nears Super Tuesday, now only about 36 hours away, when 14 states will hold primary elections. For many years, Democrats have dumbed down the voting process, opposing voter ID requirements, and espousing early voting, easier terms for absentee ballots, provisional ballots and the like.

Five of the Super Tuesday states have open primaries, meaning one does not have to be a registered Democrat to vote in the primary. It's been well documented that nefarious pranksters from the opposite political party will vote for a certain candidate in the opposite party's primary to stir up trouble.

An example is Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" in 2008, when he encouraged Republicans to vote for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama (whichever one was trailing) in different states with open Democrat primaries. The object was to prolong the race in hopes the two candidates would seriously harm each other in the long run, thus weakening the ultimate nominee's general election prospects.

Although I have not seen conclusive evidence, it's been said that many Democrats  voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican primaries, thinking he would be the easiest candidate for Hillary Clinton to defeat. Sounds plausible. 

But beyond the mechanics and functional challenges of the primaries, the attributes of the candidates will make things interesting. Bernie Sanders doesn't have enough black support to be a viable candidate in the general election. Even many staunch Democrats blanch at his Medicare for all proposal, which would break the bank and take private healthcare coverage away from 180 million Americans. And some Democrats are critical that Bolshevik Bernie isn't sufficiently anti-gun. For example, in 2005 he voted to shield firearms manufacturers from wrongful death lawsuits.

I was going to say Pete Buttigieg presents a problem because the majority of African-Americans are conservative with regard to traditional marriage and do not accept gay relationships, let alone gay marriage. But just a little while ago, I heard that Buttigieg has officially dropped out of the race. We'll see if that holds true.

But other candidates present problems, too. Joe Biden increasingly looks senile and not ready for prime time. He's a walking, talking gaff machine. Michael Bloomberg has sexual harassment and stop-n-frisk baggage, not to mention the "billionaire" tag that according to Democrat orthodoxy makes him pond scum. He's also been accused of trying to buy the election, which many liberals despise.

Elizabeth Warren comes across as a shrill schoolmarm; her constant pleading and lecturing, not to mention her unpleasant appearance, make for a downright nasty harridan. Michael Savage hit the nail on the head when he said she looks like a Nazi death camp prison guard, and/or a member of the 1970s leftist Baader-Meinhof Gang, aka the Red Army Faction.

And Amy Klobuchar may be just too normal to pass muster among the Democrats' millions of addled supporters. Didn't she get the memo? This isn't the 1950s; you've gotta be an extremist nut-job to win Democrats' hearts. She's as out-of-place as an 80-year-old Southern Baptist minister at a San Francisco drag queen party.

The infighting, accusations, ballot-counting incompetency and general chaos that are part-and-parcel of Democrat doings promise to make Super Tuesday the equivalent of a winter storm at rush hour...with heavy fog....and an inordinate number of stoned drivers....and malfunctioning traffic signals. It promises to get really, really ugly.

Fasten your seatbelts, and don't be at all surprised by the coming shit-storm.