Vaccination Priorities

On CNN this morning, the Smerconish show posed a viewer question about coronavirus vaccinations ... specifically should the United States follow the recommendation of the World Health Organization ... which is: “The first priority should be to vaccinate some people in all countries rather than all people in some countries.”(Expectedly, WHO’s recommendation overwhelmingly won the liberal viewer vote.)

But, kind readers, we are not the Smerconish audience. So we can make up our own minds. The Trump administration attitude is that, if America pays for and develops the vaccine, then we should be first in line. They liken this to how oxygen masks are utilized in an airplane emergency ... first adults put them on, then children and the infirmed are helped on by these masked adults.

Smerconish offered an alternate view — it’s as though only the first-class passengers get the oxygen masks while those in coach don’t. However, the WHO way ... the globalists way ... would allocate many vaccine doses to millions, perhaps hundreds of millions (or even billions) of people ahead of most Americans. As Smerconish put it ... a healthcare worker in Italy should get vaccinated ahead of a teenage American boy. But, do we wish all the healthcare workers worldwide to be vaccinated before we feel secure in opening our colleges? This may take many months ... perhaps even years!

I have a sneaking suspicion that Bill Gates, Nancy Pelosi, President Trump, Bernie Sanders. France’s Macron, Germany’s Merkel, everyone in WHO and many, many more poobahs will get a Covid-19 shot long before I do. In fact, even if the vaccine is available by November, realistically the Potts clan will wait well into 2021 until we will get it ... even much longer if the Smerconish audience has its total way. (I wonder how many of these do-gooders will pull rank and end up cutting in line? My guess is quite a few.)

I like Trump’s idea best ... but maybe setting aside a few million doses for the rest of the world ... and even then there will be huge domestic allocation problems.

Last thought: if China. Russia and other countries have vaccines first, how much of the rest of the world have they committed to vaccinating?


Afterthought: Given an American vaccine ... if we allocate a few million doses to the rest of the world, perhaps we should specify that they be given only to front-line workers. (Maybe get WHO to insure that it happens this way? ... just kidding.)

STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Today’s Poser

How can the lefty moonbats despise America so ferociously that they want to destroy it ... while, at the same time, worship at its hub, the D.C. swamp?



STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Obvious Truth

In the last forty years America has gone from a manufacturing economy to predominately a service-sector one ... off-shoring many of our factories to China. This would suggest that, if one wanted to punish an uppity service nation by shutting it down, would not a pandemic be the most efficient and effective method?

Cold Hard Reality

Bill Clinton was a corrupt, smooth-talking hick president whose priorities were Lewinskis, money, power, golf, cheeseburgers and America ... in that order.

Impeachment Rhetoric

America is the little girl ...

Let Freedom Ring

From daily timewaster blog

Abandon your safe spaces, identity politics and speech codes. Let freedom ring!

Obvious Truth

When King George tried to put down the revolution in America, he had to send troops across an ocean in sailing ships. When President Xi is trying to put down the insurrection in Hong Kong, he can send troops across a bridge in trucks.

And Epstein didn’t kill himself.

Freedom

Yes, many legal and illegal immigrants come to America for our handouts and for our permissive criminal climate ... and, even though I have at times been a sourpuss, I still want to believe that our primary appeal is ... FREEDOM!

(Maybe we should try to make like-minded Hong Kong our 51st state?)

Quotable Quote

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” — Abraham Lincoln

Demographics

"Demographics is destiny" -- Arthur Kemp

- Between 2015 and 2050 world population is expected to increase by 2.4 billion, 1.3 billion in Africa, 0.9 billion in Asia and 0.2 billion in the rest of the world

- China has almost three times the population of the United States

- Because of its past one-child policy, China's population is declining and is disproportionally male

- The United States, at over 326 million, has almost three times the population of Russia

- There are roughly 22 million illegal aliens in the U.S. (about 7%)

- The population of illegal immigrants in federal prisons is about 21%

- In 2018, the U.S. allowed in 1.5 million LEGAL immigrants

- Since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, there have been 60 million abortions in America

- In 2020, there will be more Hispanic voters in the U.S. than the black voters

- Russia lost over 20 million people in World War II and is still suffering a serious population decline

- At 127 million, the population of Japan is declining and should fall well below 100 million by 2100

Freedom

A free populus is a messy construct. That is why it is so seldom fully and consistently practiced ... even in America. -- Anon.

Headlines

Inside the EPA: 'It's just a slow-motion train wreck'

DOJ will allow House, Senate Intel committees access to Carter Page FISA court applications

Texas, Arizona announce troop deployments [at Mexico border] ...

Several killed as vehicle 'delibertly' hits pedestrians in Germany ...

Trump sanctions Putin's inner circle

Newt Gingrich shocker ... California could become a Red State

China warns "arrogant"America [over trade war] ...

Soros organizations seeking to "break Hungary" ahead of Sunday elections

Space war is coming -- and the U.S. is not ready

America's voracious appetite for SUVs and trucks is making passanger cars disappear

Secret direct talks underway between USA, NKorea ...

BET founder says Trump economy great for black American jobs

Dead-end Jobs

- Civil-rights lawyers in China

- Gourmet chefs in Venezuela

- Male Ob/Gyn doctors in Iran

- Female driving instructors in Saudi Arabia

- Civil War historians in America

- Peace negotiators in North Korea

- Investigative journalists in Mexico

- Immigration clerks in Germany

- ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq

- Alcoholics Anonymous organizers in Russia

World Government

World government is a chimera. It is highly unlikely that mankind can design an equitable governing mechanism spanning our entire globe with such a diversity of moralities and cultures ... at the very least for centuries. Unfortunately many see this as our destiny and, consequently, we should experience a number of false starts (including the current UN sham) .... some of which likely will be devastating.

With so many trying to bring it down, the fact that the American experiment in national governance is still working is surely a minor miracle.

Yeasty

There is an old Wall Street adage for investors, “Don’t fight the Fed,” meaning the Federal Reserve bank has a lot to do with the direction of the stock market. If the Fed is reducing interest rates and expanding the money supply, then the stock market should go up … and vice versa. Over the last eight months we have seen a perfect example of this working in Japan where its national bank has been engaged in this very process, it’s own version of “quantitative easing” (QE) … see: The Economist Explanation.  It is basically printing yen to a fair-thee-well while holding interest rates at zero (see: Trading Economics.) The result … the Nikkei 225, the primary stock index in Japan has been quite yeasty … going from 14,000 to 17,900 in just the past eight months, a 29% gain (almost 42% on an annualized basis) … see the chart below:

Nikkei 225

And this has occurred during a period of effectively an economic recession in Japan. Also note that the yen has weakened considerably against the U.S. dollar … going from 102 per dollar to now almost 120 per dollar. This obviously helps the Japanese exporters but does nothing for American investors in Japanese stocks as it has cut into their gains in yen after converting these yen back into dollars.

Now comes the rub. The American stock market has been on a roll ever since the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank started its own QE back in 2009 (see: NY Times Article.) This impetus has also helped the U.S. stock market considerably … boosting the American stock market’s Dow Jones Average from below 7000 to 17900 during this same six year period … also quite frothy ... see the chart below:

Dow Jones Average

The issue then becomes, will the U.S. stock market continue on its extended roll even after the Fed stopped the money supply expansion part of its QE program two months ago? The next shoe to drop will be when it increases interest rates ... maybe next summer.

Personally, I’m not one to fight the Fed …

Humiliated

To no one’s surprise outside of the administration, the last four-month extension to the talks with Iran about constraining its nuclear program has concluded with another seven-month extension without an agreement … see: Reuters Article . I claim no unique insight in my pessimism about this process … see: Foot Dragging, but this result was just as I and thousands of other thinking people had predicted.

Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama are clearly suffering romantic agony in their attempt to woo Iran into abandoning its quest for atomic weapons. Kerry is so whipped that he allows the Iranian negotiator, Javad Zarif, to bombast him with tirades during their “discussions” … see: Free Beacon Story ... without any consequence. I’m reminded of that great “Animal House” hazing scene where the pledge being paddled says, “Thank you sir, may I have another?”

I think that Iranians must get their jollies by humiliating America and Americans. Remember how they treated the American embassy hostages back in 1979 through 1981? And somehow weak American presidents, like Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, must feel that their public frailty somehow benefits them and their country. Ronald Reagan knew better.

I will again go out on another limb and predict that nothing good will come out of this next extension of these talks with Iran … at least nothing good for Israel and the United States.

Conflicted

President Erdogan of Turkey has just claimed that Muslims discovered the new world and not Columbus (nor, presumably, the Norsemen) ... see: Yahoo News Story. Now this machismo boast presents an interesting opportunity to push back against the growing hegemony of Islam. There are many loony liberals in this country who are prone to embrace sharia law while at the same time denouncing Columbus for what his voyages wrought upon the indigenous people of the Americas ... see: Minneapolis Star Tribune Story and Atlas Shrugs Story.

Perhaps if we were to relinquish the kudos for discovering America to the Muslims, then these very same liberals would be so conflicted that they might screw themselves into the ground?

Afterward: To see some of the details of Erdogan's claim ... see: Powerline Blog Entry.

Dog's Hind Leg

Crooked as a dog's hind leg ... that has to be the best description of how (mostly) Democrats conduct elections in the "democratic" United States ...see: Limburger Cheese. The best indication of this is in the following quote from the above link:

 [T]he example that convinced me that such malfeasance is clearly widespread, particularly in the inner cities, was in the recent 2012 Presidential election where 100% of the registered voters in 59 Philadelphia voting districts voted for Obama … see: Voter Intimidation. This is absolutely impossible. There must be a few people hospitalized or deceased. There might even be a few free-thinkers who would have voted for Romney. But exactly 100% of almost 20,000 registered voters in 59 precincts in Philadelphia vote for Obama … balderdash!

And yet too many Americans dismiss this racket with the notion, "politicians will be politicians" and "politics ain't beanbag." Yet "community organizers", like our current President once was, are in the vanguard of this band of political thievery ... see: Rotten Acorn Citations. This link lists 36 instances of recent voter scams involving ACORN ... that Democrat organization that has since changed it name but not its purpose. I am certain that these citations are just the tip of the iceberg of this activity involving tens, if not hundreds of thousands of voting chicaneries.

 Now evidence is surfacing that non-citizens, many of them illegal immigrants, are voting in sufficient numbers to sway the outcome of many elections ...see:Washington Post Story. And I sincerely doubt that these ineligible voters are pulling the levers for Republicans. The press is full lately of similar stories of ballot box stuffing and voter machine tampering which does nothing but support my thesis here.

A country which countenances this bad behavior on the part of politicians can only expect them to be equally crooked once they get into office. Voter fraud is also insidiously corrosive in that the will of the people is suborned. It creates an atmosphere in which more and more ingenious deceptions are invented for the next election cycle ... see: Rocky Mountain Heist. This downward spiral is also a sufficient disincentive so that voters feel that their votes are meaningless.

Therefore, I would suggest that cleaning up the process of voting to eliminate these swindles is possibly the most critical element in restoring a sense of justice and fiscal sanity to our country.

Not easy to do however ... particularly when Democrat demagogues keep shouting "voter suppression" ... unless there is a realization on the part of Americans as to the full scope of these political deceits ... and punishments for same are swift and severe.

If you, dear reader are now poo-pooing the above evidence, then you, unfortunately, are part of the problem.

Afterward: And the Diplomad agrees ... see:The Big Election Fraud -- II

After Afterward: More evidence ... see: Powerline Story

Mr. X

Emory University Hospital in Atlanta Georgia has treated and released an anonymous male Ebola patient this past Monday. This is independent of the known treatments of the high-profile nurse Vinson from Dallas who contracted Ebola from the Liberian national Thomas Duncan and two American aid workers, Dr. Kent Brantley and Nancy Writebol, who were treated and released in August. This Mr. X apparently might also have been an aid worker who contracted the virus in West Africa, but, according to other reporting, even this is not totally clear … see: Washington Post Story .

Hmmm? This news has peaked my curiosity … why all this government secrecy? How can our government surpress this news? Is this patient an American? Might he have contracted this virus in this country? How did he get Ebola? Have all the people he was in contact with before he was hospitalized been notified and/nor quarantined? How have this patient’s treatment expenses been covered? Could this Mr. X be just the first of many outreach patients as were reported on in this news article: Washington Examiner Story?

Hopefully, we will soon find out the answers to these and many other important public-health questions.

D’Souza’s “America”

I dislike going to movies any more … full of annoying teen patrons, expensive snacks, bad acting, lefty messages, and over-the-top special effects. But today my wife and I decided to give it a whirl with Dinesh D’Souza’s “America” … mostly out of curiosity. We went to the 1:00 PM show this past Friday. Not surprisingly, the theater was only sparsely filled. 

The movie itself was a little plodding, preachy and pedantic but it did have a few uplifting moments. I do think it would have benefited from a professional narrator. Dinesh chose himself for this role ... he should have stepped aside for a little more sonority. Also, he inserted himself into too many of the scenes for my taste. My chief complaint is that this movie often lacks subtlety ... drawing obvious conclusions for its audience rather than letting then find their own way.

"America" is actually two movies spliced together … one, surprisingly, relating the oft-heard indictments of America for all of our supposed past grevious sins … which it then attempts to shoot down with both convincing and sometimes thin logic ... particularly its defense of capitalism. But it does have expensive historic re-enactment scenes, satisfactory but not great acting, professional production values, and passable music. It also tries to relate what the world would be like without the United States ... a clear winner. And this first segment also does render its climax in a dramatic and patriotic fashion.

But the second segment does seem a bit of an afterthought … maybe just to extend the movie’s run time. This part is more an indictment of what is currently going wrong in America (our newest sins) with pointed references to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton  ... along with their mentors, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and Saul Alinsky. My wife, who had slept through much of the first segment, paid more attention at this point ... as it was more political and less lawyerly.

All in all, "America" is a forgettable movie (like most out of Hollywood), but one that might just inspire some political activism from our mainstream populists. I do believe that teenagers might also benefit from its historic perspectives and from some of its many under-reported historical facts ... to help them balance out much of the claptrap they are being spoon-fed in their schools. It might just broaden their perspectives a tad.

Would I suggest you see it? Reluctantly, I think so ... if nothing more than to make a political statement ... and to annoy your liberal friends at parties ... like they have annoyed you with their Michael Moore kudos.