The Vaccine Challenge

 Anti-vaxxers aren’t the cause of America’s dropping vaccine rates

Doctors are ready for a bigger role in the vaccination campaign

Far Right Retractions

Newsmax Issues Retraction And Apology To Dominion Employee Over Election Stories

After legal threat, Fox airs news package debunking election fraud claims made by its own hosts

I have to wonder how many GOPers still think the election was rigged?

Even as the Far Right's "news" sources continue to retract their claims...

The Bitch is Back

 Gov. Noem: Biggest cultural challenge is 'defeating anti-American indoctrination'

The title of this post was mostly ode to Elton John, though rarely do I find things to like about Noem. 

In this case Noem is attacking the very factual, no punches pulled 1619 project curriculum.  She instead wants Americans to put on rose colored glasses and deny our horrific distant past by pushing the inaccurate and incomplete 1776 commission story.

Then she complains of possible indoctrination while...

"The conservative governor also successfully pushed for $900,000 in state funding to create new civics curriculum to meet her goal of educating why the "U.S. is the most special nation in the history of the world," while efforts to mandate instruction on the state's tribal history, culture and government failed in the legislative session this spring."

It is almost impossible to make this stuff.  A leader who wants to focus only on the good things about America while denying slavery, reservations, deaths / torture of millions of minorities, etc over our ~400 year history on this continent.  That old saying seems appropriate here.

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

Qualified Immunity

Police Reform Deal is Close?

A friend and I were arguing how protected officers should be from law suits, and demanded that qualified immunity be ended for officers.  He seemingly wanted them open to suits whenever anything went wrong.  I explained that almost all American workers are protected from law suits by our employers, government and corporate law.  Besides who in their right mind will waste their money suing a person when much deeper pockets are available.

I can't even imagine what would happen if every individual office had to buy the equivalent of "malpractice insurance"? 😯 

He then accused me of wanting to protect bad police officers. Of course, I had to remind him that it was his "Team Liberal" that supports public employee unions and their on going protection of poor / incompetent employees.  I am happy to allow managers fire any questionable employee.

"“How do we change the culture of policing?” Scott said on Sunday. “I think we do that by making the employer responsible for the actions of the employee. We do that with doctors. We do that with lawyers. We do that in most all of our industries. If we do that in law enforcement, the employer will change the culture. As opposed to having one officer change or not change, we’ll have all officers transforming because the departments are taking on more of that burden.” Scott added that his proposal went over well with the family members of victims of police brutality he met with last week."

WAPO QI Cartoon

Sue the Gun Store

 'Eye-popping numbers': Chicago sues Indiana gun store tied to 850 firearms recovered from crime scenes

I sure hope this law suit will be successful. If the ATF can not control the irresponsible arms dealers, maybe the lawsuits and increased insurance premiums can.

Black Problems Start at Home

I have been discussing the causal / correlation issues involved in BLM matters on FB, and getting no where as usual.  This White savior woman wants to paint the Black households as helpless victims who need White action to save them.  I agree that society can help some, but I believe that the heaviest lifting needs to be done by the Black families themselves.  The unfortunate reality is that no group of citizens is going to escape poverty and crime if their non-marital birth rate is above 50%. 

These 2 graphs indicate Asian Americans have been escaping poverty the old fashioned way, getting and staying married. Really, it takes 2 involved adults to raise children well.  Or one may do okay if they have great external support or can hire help. Whereas the Black and Native American numbers are really unfortunate for their kids.  I am not sure what to make of the Hispanic numbers since the number of them has been growing so fast via immigration.

She also tried to tell me that police kill so many minorities vs white folks. However we must remember to normalize data before it is actually useful.  Per the graphs below.

• Whites make up 60% of the US population and Blacks make up 13%
• Whites make up 11% of gang members and Blacks make up 35%
• 850 shot by officer in 2020. White: 54%  Blacks:15%
• Whites committed 46% of violent crimes and Black: 36%

In summary, the Black population is significantly over represent in gangs, violent crime, etc, and under-represented in officer shootings.  No matter what the media tries to tell you.

Now I do not know what needs to happen to help poor people make better decisions (value education, delay child bearing, stay married, etc), but until they figure it out... They and we will continue to have problems. :-(  And their kids will bear the worst of the consequences.

Coverage of Chauvin verdict

seems as divided as nation's politics.

Chauvin guilty of murder, manslaughter in George Floyd's killing

Thoughts?

Infrastructure Proposal

FACT SHEET: The American Jobs Plan

Spending and Revenue Plan Summary

Tax Foundation Review

Thoughts?

DEM Tax Break for the Rich?

Why some of the most liberal Democrats in Congress want to bring back a tax break for the rich.

Democrats want to raise taxes. So why are they debating cutting them for some well-off taxpayers?

One of the things I liked about the Trump Tax Cuts was that it made the High Income Citizens of Liberal states pay their fair share of the Federal Income tax.  Before that Liberal citizens would vote for many federal spending programs while avoiding paying their full share of the bill by deducting their state tax payments.

So a wealthy person in California would pay less Federal Tax than they would in SD.  Hopefully Biden says NO to this silliness !!!

Live by Gun, Die by Gun

Daunte Wright was by no means a peaceful innocent young man.  I am not sure if that means he should have died after a traffic stop.  However if you try to rob people at gun point, karma may catch up with you.  And even so, many people are out there destroying their community and crying racism again instead of discussing the real problem.  At least I have not heard anyone:

• asking what caused this innocent baby to develop into a gun toting thug?
• demanding that parent(s), the community, social services, schools, gangs, etc be held accountable?

No they go after the officer who had to deal with this criminal who was resisting arrest and likely to drive recklessly in doing so.  Some Liberal folks on FB said that we should just let people like Daunte drive away if they chose to resist arrest.  I disagree of course, since civil society relies on citizens following the rule of law and the police having the authority to ensure they do.

Thoughts?

Nostalgia

COVID Update

Cases and hospitalizations are climbing in out state MN, hopefully the vaccines will keep the death rate lower if this surge grows.

It looks like 83% of the over 65 crowd took it seriously. That's good, though 100% would be better.  It looks like the out state non-mask wearers who are dragging their feet. Oh well. :-( 

The problems is that the UK variant has made it to MN, so now it is younger folks going to the hospital. Hopefully folks go get vaccinated ASAP so we can put this behind us.  I got the J&J vaccine on Wednesday, it did not hurt a bit. :-O 

Unions at Amazon?

It will be interesting to see how the vote goes.

"When Korgan began as a dock worker in the freight industry in 1990, he made $15 an hour within his first year, more than $11 above minimum wage at the time. “I had a hard time surviving at that time on $15. Now we’re patting Amazon on the back 30 years later for paying $15 an hour? It’s mind-boggling.” (Of the four major local delivery providers in the US—Amazon, FedEx, UPS, and USPS—only UPS and the postal service are unionized.) Amazon’s comparably low-wage model, Korgan says, leads to a revolving door of workers."

So Amazon has been raising wages in an effort to attract and retain workers, however their work environment is intense and relies on high productivity.  And Amazon has large profits, that many likely think they should get a bigger cut of. 

An old saying. "If your organization has union problems, you may deserve them" :-) 

Rationalization of Free Loading

 This is Jerry's last of many responses to why Baby Boomers did not create the National Debt problem.  One would think he may be starting to feel guilty? :-) 

Moose seem to be in favor of a law repealing the fundamental laws of economics, as well as of human nature. People do not work for free, and want to be rich. Tax them heavily enough, in ways they cannot avoid, and they will simply stop working, investing, whatever. Government can NOT spend money more wisely than the millions of people who individually earn it. It isn't possible. Remember that if government can command what you do with your money, like paying more than people are worth, it's the same as a tax and people will find ways to avoid it and NOT pay it. How many McDonald's kiosks have you walked past without noticing? Remember the yacht tax? How about the "voluntary" tax in Massachusetts, that brought in less than 1% of what millionaires, including John Kerry, "could have" paid in? Remember what Bill Gates and Warren Buffet contributed billions to, avoiding taxes or "voluntary" payments to government? Apparently they believed they could do more "good" with the money than government could, and they have been proven correct.

As for taxes, let us remember that "inflation is the cruelest tax of all" and all this deficit spending is building up a MASSIVE increase in the money supply-- an inevitable avalanche of inflation if ever released into the economy. My thought is that since most of it is simply "on the books" at the Fed, this "imaginary money" could be erased by simply declaring it so, and nobody is hurt.

The Fed was set up in 1913. Since then it has had numerous benefits in stabilizing the banking system (after 1929), but since then has had one singular flaw. While the Constitution gives Congress sole authority "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;" the Fed can, by purchase of US Treasuries that nobody wants, at an interest rate THEY set, "coin money" out the wazoo, and they have. The way it is SUPPOSED to work, as the wizards of German monetary policy figured out after the failed Weimar Republic, is that the government can go into debt so long as they sell their paper to the public-- that is, sell bonds on the open market. Of course, if they try to spend and sell more than the market wants, interest rates climb sharply, following the law of supply and demand, and the high interest rates create a public backlash to stop the reckless spending and bring them down again. We would be wise to adopt that policy. Simply pass a law that the Fed cannot buy unsold US Treasuries and voila! Interest rates would rise to torches and pitchforks level quickly.

As for giving up the Social Security that /I/ paid into, I not only refuse to give up what I was promised, but there is no need to do so. Simple SS reform would let me and all future recipients get what they were promised, and future generations to get MORE, but would also actually pay down the national debt over time rather than adding to it. Think outside the box a bit.

Stop Shooting Each Other?

 Too Much Bonding Time or Something Else?   Some possibilities:

1. COVID related stress? (ie bills, stress, confined, etc)
2. Protests, protests, protests?
3. More Gun Sales, More Gun Use?
4. De-motivated Police? 

Of course, the Far Right media talking heads are using this to scare their viewers into watching.  And some seem to be listening and freaking out. 😱 I hope those old folks are taking their heart medications. 😊

Though it is worth monitoring, we are still far better off than in the 1990s and we survived that.  And hopefully if people get vaccinated and an officer does not kneel on a dying man while on camera instead of helping him, this Summer will be much better.