Election Issues 2020: Who Can You Trust?

 

                                                 

A neighbor recently told me that he could not trust President Trump. He raised a legitimate issue. Trustworthiness is important in a President. It is part of the “character” issue that Joe Biden has raised in the current campaign. Let’s examine the trustworthiness of the two candidates.

I can certainly understand why people could believe that Donald Trump could not be trusted back in 2016 when he pulled off his stunning upset of front-runner Hillary Clinton. Trump had never held political office before, and his words and deeds as a private citizen were often out of line. Nevertheless, if the President is judged on his actual performance in office, something the media has purposely refused to do, you can see that he has largely been true to his word, even if you disagree with his policies.

He claimed from the start that he was for peace and against the interminable wars that the country has been involved in during the last two administrations. Under his leadership our military defeated ISIS and then the President proceeded to bring back troops from the Middle East. Moreover, he brokered unprecedented deals between Israel and its Arab neighbors, something that was not even discussed in the recent debates. He followed up on his pledge to recognize Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel, and the world did not come to an end.

From the beginning the President argued that previous trade deals were bad and not in the Nation’s best interests. Despite much opposition, he scrapped NAFTA, a trade deal that everyone agreed was flawed and his administration negotiated a new one that seems much better. He imposed tariffs and sanctions on foreign countries like China that were not playing by the rules. 

He claimed that other foreign deals were flawed and followed through by withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, and the Iranian nuclear deal. There would be no more planeloads of cash shipped to supporters of terrorism. He also claimed that NATO allies and South Korea were not paying their fair share for their own defense, and got them to pony up billions.

From the first, he argued that the tax code was unfair and overly complicated. He followed through with the tax reform act of 2017. By 2019 Federal tax revenue increased 4% over the pre-reform level and figures indicate that the average taxpayer paid less.

Before his election Donald Trump produced a list of 20 names from which he would fill any Supreme Court vacancies. He followed through on his pledge and so far has chosen three extremely qualified justices, none of whom were party hacks or personal friends.

On the other hand, I have to admit that I find it hard to trust Democratic candidate and former Vice-President Joe Biden. Even before the recent documents appeared I wondered how a man who could work 47 years as a “public servant” could amass a huge fortune, well in excess of most of the people he was supposed to serve. 

I also wondered how his son Hunter, with no qualifications whatsoever, could be on the board of directors of a Ukrainian energy company at a salary in excess of $600,000 per year. Moreover, I wondered how Vice-President Biden, who was in charge of overseeing billions in aid to Ukraine and bragged that he forced the government of Ukraine to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating that company, could not be aware of his son's position. Subsequently, Biden claimed that not only was he  unaware of his son’s activities in the Ukraine, he also knew nothing of his dealings with China even after flying there together on Air Force II.

In the last two weeks my suspicions were confirmed when the NY Post broke the story about the emails on a computer that Hunter Biden dropped off at a repair store but never bothered to retrieve. The emails indicated that the former Vice President not only knew of his son’s activities but that they were part of a whole Biden family enterprise designed to capitalize on the Biden name.

 Incredibly, the story was spiked or censored on most news outlets. Even when a former business partner of Hunter Biden went public with corroborating testimony and evidence, his story was only reported on Fox News. Even the Wall Street Journal, which featured editorials on the subject, did not mention it on its news pages. 

Nevertheless, the story stinks and the silence of the Biden campaign has been deafening.

I also find it difficult to trust Joe Biden because I suspect that he and his campaign are hiding something else. At age 78 Biden is obviously suffering the effects of old age. I won’t speculate on his medical or psychological history but his garbled and confused statements are troubling. Even his handlers keep him away from stressful situations or interviews. 

He won’t, for example, say whether he is for or against his party’s idea of packing the Supreme Court with more judges in order to get favorable outcomes. He claimed that he is the Democratic party but he will not say. Unlike the President, he will not publish names of potential Supreme Court nominees. On other questions, he just says he has plans or will appoint blue-ribbon commissions to investigate and come up with solutions, a typical evasive tactic. 

It seems clear to me that rather than being the Democratic Party, he is just a front man, an old war horse brought out of retirement as the party’s only hope to regain power. The other Democratic candidates looked dangerous or lackluster. There is no enthusiasm for Biden even among Democrats. 

The President was correct in the last debate when he branded Biden as just “a politician.”

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Election Issues 2020: Climate Change

 

As election day draws near I have been wondering why some very, very rich people are not only supporting Democratic candidate Joe Biden but contributing record amounts of money to his campaign. After all, he is threatening to raise taxes especially on those making over $400000 per year.

 

Could there be more to his appeal than meets the eye? Billionaires like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates did` not become rich by neglecting to get good returns on their investments or their political contributions. Billionaire Michael Bloomburg, the former mayor of New York City, is investing millions to help Biden carry the pivotal state of Florida. Is it just hatred of President Trump? 

 

As the old saying goes. “Follow the Money.” Could it be that these very rich Democrats see an opportunity to profit even more by supporting Progressive causes? After all, if you can substantially increase your assets by gaining access to government stimulus money, why not pay a little more in Federal income taxes?

 

Michael Schellenberger, a committed environmentalist, describes how billionaires have profited from climate change activism in his new book, Apocalypse Never.  Subtitled, “Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All,” the book offers a balanced assessment on climate change and how to deal with it. However, he also details how well connected politicians and venture capitalists have profited from government environmental spending.  

 

He quotes John Doerr, a venture capitalist, who found an upside in climate change.“Green technology—going green—is bigger than the Internet,” Doerr said. “It could be the biggest economic opportunity of the twenty-first century.”

 

During the administration of President Obama, Shellenberger admits that he was involved in an environmental program that could be regarded as a forerunner of the Green New Deal. But things did not work out as he expected. He writes:

 

Between 2009 and 2015, the U.S. government spent about $150 billion on our Green New Deal, $90 billion of it in stimulus money.

 

Stimulus money wasn’t evenly distributed but rather clustered around donors to President Obama and the Democratic Party. At least ten members of Obama’s finance committee and more than twelve of his fundraising bundlers, who raised a minimum of $100,000 for Obamo, benefitted from $16.4 of the $20.5 billion in stimulus loans.

 

Fisker, which produced some of the world’s first luxury hybrid vehicles, received $529 million in federal loans; Doerr was one of Fisker’s major investors. It eventually went bankrupt, costing taxpayers 132 million. … (217-218)

 

But the loans were just one program among many others that funneled money to well-connected Obama donors without creating many jobs. The most famous of the green investments was when DOE gave $575 million to a solar company called Solyndra, 35 percent of which was owned by a billionaire donor and fundraising bundler for Obama, George Kaiser.

 

Nobody wanted to invest in Solyndra because its panels were too expensive, which independently minded DOE staffers pointed out. They were overruled, however, and the loan was approved.

 

The people who benefitted most from the green stimulus were billionaires, including Musk, Doerr, Kaiser, Khosla, Ted Turner, Pat Stryker, and Paul Tudor Jones. Vinod Khosla led Obama’s “India Policy team” during the 2008 election and was a major financial contributor to Democrats. His companies received more than $399 million.

 

However, few Democratic Party donors outperformed Doerr when it came to receiving federal stimulus loans. More than half of the companies in his Genentech portfolio… received loans or outright grants from the government. “Considering that the acceptance rate in most of the Department of Energy programs was often 10 percent or less, this is a stunning record,” wrote an investigative reporter. (218)

 

Shellenberger’s research led him to conclude that nuclear power is the answer not only to creating a cleaner environment but also to providing for the world’s expanding energy needs. But he documents the efforts of pseudo-scientific activists and self- interested politicians like former Governor Jerry Brown of California to shut down nuclear power in California. Brown and his family were heavily invested in fossil fuels like oil and natural gas.

 

Apocalypse Never does offer solutions to serious environmental problems but it is also a sad story when it details how many have profited by alarming people all over the globe. He cites his own example as typical of many:

 

I was drawn toward the apocalyptic view of climate change twenty years ago. I can see now that my heightened anxiety about climate change reflected underlying anxiety and unhappiness in my own life that had little to do with climate change or the state of the environment.

 

Nothing is sadder that the plight of now-famous teenager Greta Thunberg who, like many other children, has been traumatized by climate alarmists. She claims that her childhood was taken from her by these fears, and truly believes that the human race will be extinct in 15 years. Who taught her that?

 

In Apocalypse Never Michael Shellenberger concludes that there is much more reason for optimism than pessimism. 

 

Conventional air pollution peaked fifty years ago in developed nations and carbon emissions have peaked or will soon peak in most others.

 

The amount of land we use for meat production is declining. Forests are growing back and wildlife is returning.

 

There is no reason poor nations can’t develop and adapt to climate change. Deaths from extreme events should keep declining….

 

None of this means there isn’t work to do. There is plenty. But much if not most of it has to do with accelerating those existing, positive trends, not trying to reverse them in a bid to return to low-energy agrarian societies.

 

The people who use the threat of climate change to make fortunes or gain votes should be ashamed of themselves. 

 

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Debate Debacle 2020

  

      

In their second and final debate I gave President Trump a “B+” and Democratic challenger Joe Biden a “D”. I think it was obvious to all that the President won the debate. Even left leaning commentators could find little to blame in his performance. One commentator even said it was the President’s best ever debate performance. Using sports talk, the President was always playing offense while challenger Joe Biden was playing defense. Whether in sports or in politics you will lose if you are always playing defense.

I gave Biden a “D” not because of his politics or policy plans but because of what he did not say or do. Not only was he unable to mount an offense, his defense was weak. At one point in the debate the question had turned to China. Nevertheless, Biden turned to face the camera and the viewing audience and launched into an obviously prepared set piece about ordinary people sitting around their kitchen tables. 

 

The President immediately caught him up and said something like, “What happened to China? How did we get to the kitchen table.?” Then came the stunning and devastating blow: 

 

“You’re just a politician.”

 

It was even more stunning because the President uttered it calmly and matter of factly. He did not raise his voice, there was no malice and maybe even a hint of sadness. “You’re a politician.” It was a slap in the face and Biden just took it.

 

When the discussion turned to the enrichment of the Biden family by deals in the Ukraine and China, the President calmly called Biden a “crooked politician,” and again there was no response. Biden just took it. 

 

Later, the President doubled down. In response to Biden’s repeated claims that there were many things wrong in America and that he had “plans” to fix them, the President said, “Joe, you had eight years to fix them. You did nothing.” And then came the crusher: “Joe, you are the reason I ran four years ago. If you hadn’t done such a bad job, I would never have run for the Presidency.”

 

Slap, slap, slap. Incredibly Biden did not respond. He just stood there and took this damning indictment. He could only bring himself to mutter something like, “I was only Vice-President.” In effect, he threw his old boss, former President Obama, under the bus.  

 

I would have given the President an “A” except for the fact that he failed to capitalize on a great opportunity at the end.

 

For her last question Kristen Welker, the moderator lobbed this softball at both candidates. I paraphrase but she asked, “Assuming you won the election, what would you say in your inaugural address to those who had voted against you?”  It seemed to me that both gave a stock answer and that the President settled for a single when he could have hit the ball out of the park.

 

He should have been prepared to say, when given such an opportunity, “I know that many of you who voted against me do not like me. Many even hate me. I know that you will not believe anything I say. But I am reminded of the conman’s attempt to trick his victim: ‘Who ae you gonna believe, me or your own two eyes?’ I will not ask you to believe me, but in the next four years I will ask you to use your own two eyes in looking at the actual work of my administration.

 

Just look through your own eyes and not through the eyes of the media which no longer brings you straight, unfiltered, no-spin news. Use your own eyes to see how you, your family, your neighbors, and your community are doing.  Are your own sons and daughters fighting in endless foreign wars, or are they coming home at last? Is a vaccine available to all for the coronavirus? Is the air and water in your community clean and healthy? Are your childrens' schools open and safe? Are you financially more secure? How is your 401k and IRA doing? Has your home increased in value? 

 

Is the America that you see every day as bad as my opponents claim? Most of you live in communities that are the envy of the world. That is why so many people want to come here. Etc. etc.

 

I watched the debate until the end when the candidates’ wives joined their husbands on stage. It was really sad to see Joe Biden’s wife join her 78-year-old husband after this long ordeal. What could she have been thinking?

 

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Election Issues 2020: Coronavirus

 

In recent debates Democratic candidates Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris have made the coronavirus the number one issue in their campaign. They have accused President Trump of being responsible for the 225000 deaths attributable to the coronavirus in this nation. It is clear that millions of ordinary people share this view but what is the scientific evidence for this accusation?

 

Those who hold the President responsible should at least answer some simple questions. First, what explains the different results in the various states? In my home state of Connecticut over 2,000,000 tests have been administered and 64000 people have tested positive. So far 4554 deaths have been attributed to the coronavirus. In Kansas, half way across the country, there have been 74000 positive cases but only 872 have died. Connecticut has 1277 deaths per million, and Kansas only 299 per million. Is there a scientific answer?

 

Similarly, New Jersey and Arizona have had about the same number of positive cases, but New Jersey has had three times as many deaths (16339) as Arizona (5830). New Jersey leads the nation with deaths per million at 1840, while Arizona’s is 801 per million. What can explain this difference? Is it politics or science?

 

What can explain the fact that deaths in New York (33497), New Jersey (16339), and Connecticut (4554) match the totals in California (17001), Texas (17599), and Florida (16025), the three most populous state in the country? Democrats certainly do not blame the ineptitude of governors in those blue states.

 

How can President Trump be blamed for results so disparate? How can a national action or inaction produce such different results? Did the Trump administration somehow manage to do better in some states than others?  If it’s not politics, maybe there is a scientific explanation.

 

The coronavirus recognizes neither state lines nor borders. So far over 8 Million people have tested positive but only 225289 of those infected have died. In other words, about 3% of those who tested positive have died. But wait a minute! Scientists have insisted from the beginning that the actual cases must far exceed the number of confirmed cases. Lately, they have been multiplying the actual cases by ten which means that they believe that about 80 Million people in the USA have been infected with the dreaded disease.  Obviously, since only 225289 have died, almost 80,000,000 have survived. Should President Trump be given credit for that? 

 

Great Britain and Italy, countries with nationalized health systems, and with only a fifth of the population of the USA, have done much worse than the USA. In those countries over 12 percent of those who have tested positive have died. if we had the same fatality rate as those two countries, we would have had over 800000 deaths by now. 

 

Finally, about 85 percent of those who have died in the USA have been over age 75. Most of them had what are called co-morbidities, other health conditions that weakened their immune systems. Many of those seniors were in nursing homes. Studies have shown that for one reason or another the immune systems of these Seniors was compromised. Most actually died from an over-reaction of the immune system that led to pneumonia. Is it scientific to say that President Trump’s policies caused Seniors to die while sparing children? Was it President Trump’s order that sent infected seniors back to nursing homes in New York?

 

Blaming President Trump for 225000 deaths is not only unscientific, but also dishonest and downright despicable. Many people cannot bring themselves to like or vote for the President for things he has said, but nothing he has said has ever been worse than the charge that he is personally responsible for the deaths of over 225000 people during the pandemic. 

 

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