COVID-19 Facts: Dem vs Rep

This is how to show inflammatory, but totally useless information.  This chart shows how much better the COVID-19 mortality rate is in states run by Republican governors.  The information is taken straight from a COV-19 tracking site.   It shows if you live in a state-run by a Democrat and you catch the virus you have a 5.2% chance of dying from COVID-19 versus a 3.8% chance if you live in a state-run by a Republican.

What it doesn't show is there are far more variables that are completely irrelevant to the political party in power, but simply implies the blame rests with some particular political power.   This is how the news, both fact and fake presents information to push an agenda.

Nowhere does this chart attempt to break out all the variables that go into the mortality rates (like how many are infected or how many have tested negative, or how population density, the average age of the victims, or all the other variables that go into the subject locations.  All it does is pretend to show how much better Republicans are at protecting their populations.  Nor does it suggest either a statistical margin for error, or the standard deviations.

When you see polling data, or 15 second sound bites from some talking head, remember they are often cherry-picking the things that will further their agenda and enrage you as a viewer to side with them against the evil they are supposedly arguing against.

COVID-19 Mortality Rates (as of 8 May 2020)*
Governor = Dem	Mortality Rate	Governor = Rep	Mortality Rate
Michigan	9.5%
Connecticut	8.8%
New York	8%
Louisiana	7.2%
New Jersey	6.6%
Pennsylvania	6.4%	Indiana	6.3%
Washington	5.5%	Massachusetts	6.2%
Minnesota	5.4%	Oklahoma	6%
Nevada	5.1%	Vermont	5.8%
Colorado	5.1%	Ohio	5.7%
District of Columbia**	5%	Maryland	5.1%
Maine	4.7%	Kentucky	4.8%
Illinois	4.4%	Missouri	4.7%
California	4.1%	Mississippi	4.6%
Wisconsin	4.1%	Arizona	4.5%
Oregon	4%	South Dakota	4.4%
New Mexico	3.8%	South Carolina	4.4%
North Carolina	3.8%	Georgia	4.3%
Rhode Island	3.7%	Alabama	4.1%
Virginia	3.6%	Florida	4.1%
Montana	3.5%	New Hampshire	4%
Delaware	3.4%	West Virginia	4%
Hawaii	2.7%	Idaho	3.1%
Kansas	2.6%	Texas	2.7%
		Alaska	2.7%
		North Dakota	2.3%
		Arkansas	2.3%
		Iowa	2.1%
		Tennessee	1.7%
		Nebraska	1.2%
		Wyoming	1.1%
		Utah	1.1%
Average Dem Mortality	5.2%	Average Rep Mortality	3.8%
* Covidusa.net ** A city with Democratic Mayor within the Continental United States

A Few Observations on the FBI

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely”      

Lord Acton (19^th Century British Politician)

The Office of the United States Attorney General came into being with the creation of the Executive Branch of Government formed with the approval of our Constitution, and the recognition by Congress the nation needed a lawyer.  At the time of its creation, Edmund Jennings Randolph was appointed the first Attorney General[1].  Along with Randolph, there was a staff of U.S. Attorneys appointed to serve the litigation needs of the new nation.  In that same act, the U.S. Marshalls office was created to serve as the enforcement/apprehension arm of the newly created department.

Things moved along as they usually do in government with the Department growing in size and responsibilities as the nation grew.  The current Department of Justice was established by Congress in 1870.  In 1908, Attorney General Charles Bonaparte created the “Bureau of Investigations” when he selected 10 individuals from the Secret Service to help streamline the investigations of criminal activities.  The Bureau of Investigations was renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigations in 1935.

In 1920, after the overthrow of the Russian Czars and strikes by the Boston Police and thousands of steelworks, and following an assassination attempt on the U.S. Attorney General[2] came the first “Red Scare” with the federal government suddenly concerned about the possibility that communists would do the same here.  This is where J. Edger Hoover enters our history in a significant way.

John Edger Hoover[3] was born in Washington D.C on January 1, 1895.  He studied law at George Washington University, receiving a Masters of Law in 1917, and went to work for the Department of Justice as a "file reviewer."  Two years later he had risen to become the special assistant to the Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer.  Because of his documentation of suspected communists, he was placed in charge of their roundup and deportations.  As a result of his work, he was then appointed as Director of the Bureau of Investigations in 1924.  It was a position he held until his death (May 2, 1972), and was responsible for the growth of the Bureau to the FBI in the mid-1930s.

J. Edger was an “anti-radical” who was opposed to activists from both the left and the right.  He had no problem tracking down communists, white supremacist movements like the Ku Klux Klan, or those seeking racial equality like Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).  He had no problem keeping them, and others he disliked (including politicians), under surveillance (often without judicial approval).

Under his directorship, the FBI evolved from a small investigative body into a national force supposedly defending America from organized crime, and the subversive threats, both external and internal.  It proudly cites all its successes like the killings of bank robbers like John Dillinger and “Machine Gun” Kelly, the arrest of spies like the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, or the prosecutions of Mafia Godfathers like John Gotti.  At the same time, it quietly sweeps under the rug its failures and dubious actions like building dossiers on potential political enemies, not following up on potential mass murders, or even failing to identify and apprehend the terrorists who would destroy the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Today we see much about how the political leadership of the FBI is following in the footsteps of their first director.  Their involvement in the political process of this nation should be troubling for all of us, yet it isn’t.  Its former director, James Comey, tweets from his perch the moral condemnations of a duly elected President.  It is his right to do so, but those willing to agree with him so easily dismiss the significant failures in the due process he allowed and perhaps encouraged during his time as the director.

From the abuses of process and the bureau’s lies in seeking FISA court approval to spy on Americans, to encouraging the flagrant partisanship of an organization that is supposed to be non-partisan, James Comey encouraged a corruption of an organization the average American thought was supposed to be incorruptible.

As Lord Acton observed, too much power in one organization will ultimately destroy the integrity of that organization.  This is precisely why our founders created a tripartite government where two branches can check the power of the third.  Perhaps it is time to rethink the organization of America’s secret police?

---

[1] https://www.justice.gov/ag/historical-bios?page=4

[2] https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/america-1918-1939/the-red-scare-in-the-1920/

[3] https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-Edgar-Hoover

How the Democrats can Win in the Fall

It is really quite simple, although it is seemingly impossible for the party of Andrew Jackson to come to grips with. All they need to do to beat Trump and the GOP is to convince the average American they care about this nation more than he does. They should show the average American they have a plan to return the nation to a prospering economy where unemployment is low, wages are going up because the supply of labor is limited, and more Americans can stand on their own without having to worry about whether the Government will decide to take all their wealth from themselves and their families away from them.

They can do this by putting together a plan that stops the US versus THEM dialogue they began with the election of Richard Nixon.

They can do this by ignoring the daily attacks from the President. Instead, they should offer the middle class a hope they will limit the power of a central government.

They can show the average American and legal immigrant they will make sure there are jobs for them instead of allowing a flood of cheap labor into the country to make the poorest class poorer.  This would mean they challenge the current waiver process that lets the high-tech companies hire foreign workers under a visa waiver program as well as supporting limits on immigration.

They can abandon name-calling and personality politics to show how they will manage the debt and return the government to a balanced budget like we last had with Bill Clinton.  This would actually mean they would do what they said they would do in 2016 when the mantra was “They go low, we go high.”  I know in these days of personality politics this is probably just wishful thinking, but for many of us, this would make all the difference in the world.

Finally, and most importantly, they would need to nominate a centrist candidate who is not obviously carrying the baggage of diminished mental capacity and sexual assault that makes their claims of supporting the #metoo movement so hypocritical.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the political activists that make up the extremes of the party will come to grips with these relatively simple choices. So this election, like most previous elections, will be a simple battle of mudslinging and name-calling.  A campaign Donald Trump will excel at and Biden, and his surrogates, will fail at because Trump is now accepted as doing a pretty good job by those who voted for him last time and they will turn out, while the radical young probably won’t.

Fear

While I don’t think of myself as especially unique I’ve come to believe in some aspects I must be.  As I watch this pandemic unfold I watch the responses of some and see the anger and fear in their posts.  I made the mistake of asking one person to explain why she was angry and what she would do differently.  This exercise failed for all it did was solicit a non-committal response.  The individual was mad at how others were behaving.  Those others were behaving in ways the politicians and talking heads had told them were inappropriate and now the individual was mad.

This seems to be the way for so many of us.  We want the government to keep us safe, and when it appears the government isn’t doing enough to keep us safe we are mad.  We’re mad at the governments, we’re mad at those who might possibly threaten us, and we’re mad in general because we are afraid.  Fear is a powerful emotion, it overwhelms reason, and for those who have come to believe we in the United States have so little to fear when it strikes all else is put aside.

For me, I’ve been in situations where fear was real, but all I could do was follow my training and do my job.  I expect that is true for most defenders of our nation, whether in the military or in public services like a fire or police department.  While I can’t personally speak to the courage of a firefighter I am sure it is real for they willingly go into situations where their lives are at risk, and many of them don’t come out.  Are they afraid when they go?  I’m sure there is a degree of fear, but like so many brave souls, they’ve learned to compartmentalize it and follow their training.  Trusting in God, or in their training, all will work out in the end.  When you’ve not had to make these kinds of choices in your life I think you are struck by the risks you had not thought existed.

That is what this pandemic has done, it has brought to so many a fear they can’t control and how they react is unique and individual for each of us.  Some become compulsive in their actions, others look to the guidelines as if they are sacred scripture and others lock themselves away afraid for their own safety, as well as others, from an enemy they can’t see and don’t know how to fight.

Destoying Themselves as They Destroy Others.

Not that there was a lot to believe in the #metoo movement, but over the past couple of years, they've removed all doubt about their raison d'être.  As in most things within the liberal/progressive/DNC funded movements it was all about political power where truth and integrity are never essential to the goal of destroying their opposition.
As a result, we will soon return to a status where true victims are not believed and it will be an uphill fight to convince a dubious population that real victims exist.
Yea to the #metoo hypocrites for the damage you've done.  Kind of like Barrack Obama's success in ending racism.  Never the goal, just a vehicle to gain power.