Total Recall

Seems to me that about half the population has no memory of life four years ago.  I certainly remember it.  I made a point of documenting events on the ground in real time because I had a hunch that there would be revisionist history afoot before too long.    

Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Consider this.

Four years ago the stock market had collapsed - hitting the worst weeks since the Great Recession of 2008 - as the country spiraled into a years-long pandemic that claimed more that 1 million American lives, cratered the economy, upended our daily lives and arguably costing Trump the election.

I don't believe for a moment that voters blame Trump for the pandemic - a once-in-a-lifetime calamity thrust upon the entire world.  But they did fault his response to it.  The pandemic showcased a leader who exhibited the full panoply of characteristics that his supporters love and his detractors revile.

Excess Deaths - New York Times

Don't take my word for this as you can readily navigate this blog for a post history.  Simply use the TAGS feature in the left margin and click on key words like: COVID, Doing the Right Thing, Donald Trump, Healthcare, Liars or Quarantine Living.  Or use the search function in the upper left corner and search under Willful Blindness or any other discrete subject you think might be relevant.

A year ago the President was talking about shining ultraviolet light inside our bodies and injecting ourselves with disinfectant.  That's nuts.

 

So to answer the question of whether you or I were better off four years ago I would say, nope.  Six seven or eight years ago are debatable.  Four years ago was an absolute shit show.  Donald Trump struggled mightily during the pandemic and he failed to protect us.

Four Short Years Ago

One of the interesting benefits of Face Book is the Face Book Memories feature.  The Face Book algorithm will "nudge" you with a post or status from the past.  It is actually a reasonably useful feature inasmuch as it captures an actual day in history, a photo, a trip, a status or seemingly mundane post.  Did I really say that?  Yeah, that was a really great trip!  Or, I forgot about that.

This is one from April 4, 2020.  Four short years ago.  It seems like a million years ago.  I chose not to re-post it on FB - choosing to do so here instead.  You see, coming here to read something is voluntary.  If I were to re-post this on FB it might find its way by means of the algorithm to just about anyone's feed.  And as a consequence, it might inflame certain individuals who have seemingly fond memories of April 4, 2020.  Sometimes discretion and not agitating certain individuals is the better part of valor.  

Here it is:

Gas price a mile from home was $1.19.  School cancelled - yes cancelled.  Self-distancing measures on the rise.  Tape on the floors at grocery stores and others to help distance shoppers (6ft) from each other.  Limited number of people inside stores, therefore, lineups outside the store doors.  Non-essential stores and businesses mandated closed.

Parks, trails, entire cities locked up.  Entire sports seasons cancelled.  Concerts, tours, festivals, entertainment events - cancelled.  Weddings, family celebrations, holiday gatherings - cancelled.  No masses, churches are closed.  No gatherings of 50 or more, then 20 or more, now 5 or more.  Don't socialize with anyone outside of your home. Children's outdoor play parks are closed.  We are to distance from each other.

Shortages of masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.  Shortages of ventilators for the critically ill.  Panic buying sets in and there is no toilet paper, no disinfecting supplies, no paper towels, no laundry soap, no hand sanitizer.  Shelves are bare. Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitizer and PPE.

Government closes the border to all non-essential travel.  Supply lines begin to unravel.  Fines are established for breaking the rules.  Stadiums and recreation facilities open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients.  With morgues full, refrigerated trailers begin overflowing with growing numbers of dead.

Press conferences daily from the President.  Daily updates on new cases, recoveries, and deaths.  Government incentives to stay home.  Barely anyone on the roads.  People wearing masks and gloves outside.  Essential service workers are terrified to go to work.  Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families.

This is the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic, declared March 11th, 2020.

Why, you ask, do I write this status?

One day it will show up in my Face Book Memory feed, and it will be a yearly reminder that life is precious and not to take the things we dearly love for granted.

 

This was a total, absolute, cluster f**k.  Nothing to be fond about.

Source of Origin

It seems like a million years ago yet back in the very earliest of days as the pandemic was unfolding the term Kung Flu was bandied-about as a pejorative name for Covid-19.  There were some in the intelligence community that harbored suspicions that China wasn't coming clean with us and the rest of the world about Covid.  Ostensibly, coronavirus sample were destroyed in the name of public health.  Or was it a cover-up of a lab leak?

Last year polio virus was found in wastewater in the Netherlands.  Anthrax was leaked from Fort Detrick in 2001.  Foot-and-mouth disease escaped at Plum Island in 2004  The influenza outbreak of 1977 likely was the result of a leak from a Soviet laboratory.  It's been known to happen and the list of biosecurity incidents is quite extensive.

Both the Department of Energy and the FBI have concluded that sloppy safety practices at the Wuhan lab was the most plausible explanation for the origin of Covid.

Sure, I know that in the beginning of the pandemic there were divisions in our intelligence community about the origins of the disease.  Partisan politics complicated it further.  And no small amount of social media speculation and fixation over bizarre conspiracies from the Face Book cesspool of public health contributed to the mess.

Nevertheless, the lab leak theory got a toe-hold in the Trump administration and got a foot-hold under the Biden administration.

There is a declassified report that has deflected evidence to support the hypothesis of a lab leak; therefore, advancing the notion of natural transmission of the disease.

Regrettably, the Chinese have destroyed the evidence so there is no way to definitively prove that the virus came from the Wuhan lab.  Which could explain why a bunch of intelligence departments and the scientific community lean in the direction of a natural transmission theory. 

Lab leaks are bad for a county's reputation so I figure the Chinese are never going to come clean.  And if the spooks in our intelligence community have notice and knowledge of the source I figure they're not interested in revealing sources and methods.

So I suppose you can believe whatever you want and even embrace the most recent conspiracy theory du jour.

The Big Fat Middle

So, it would appear to this blogger's eyes that Donald Trump will be the presumptive GOP candidate for president in 2024.  His polling is strong, his base of support solid, there is not another candidate even close and with each and every indictment his base is further energized and he reaps buckets of cash fundraising off the news.

Trump is inevitable.  And there is a chance he could win.  (I'll get to that at the end.)

Which, for the record, doesn't scare me.  When I became aware of Mr. Trump 35 or more years ago I figured him for something of a con-man from Queens.  You could say I was a Never Trumper before it was a thing.  

As much as I considered him a shady person it never rose to the level of hate.  Let there be no misunderstanding; I thrived under his presidency.  Of course I considered Bill Clinton a misogynist pig; and I thrived under his administration.  So humor me while I lay out the the case for the reelection or defeat of Donald Trump.  I'll do my best to cover the good, the bad and the ugly.

After-all, the former guy has a record to run on.

We have a porous border.  In an official 2018 report, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported to the administration that they had an insufficient pipeline of candidates to fill existing vacancies. Trump did nothing.  Separating children (as young as five months old) from their mothers turned the border into a flashpoint.  Trump's public support took a hit. Trump did succeed in restricting asylum applications and refugee entrants.  Comprehensive immigration reform was never pursued or signed into law.  

Only about 80 miles of new barrier was constructed during Trump's term of office.  This included 47 miles of primary fencing and 33 miles of secondary fence.  Mexico did not contribute a single peso to build it.  It is estimated that it would require an investment of $25 billion for a Great Wall. The problem wasn't fixed and it persists to today. 

It should come as no surprise that following his 2016 campaign Trump wanted to come down hard on illegal immigration on our southern border.  (See border wall failure above.)  Curiously, he also imposed tighter restrictions on the legal immigration of highly skilled and desirable workers needed to perform useful stuff like contributing to domestic corporate growth and profitability, our general economic health and strengthen Social Security and Medicare.  

Trump's DHS imposed restrictions on the H-1B visa program insisting that these workers were taking jobs from Americans.  The administration did everything it could to meddle with the need of American business to fill positions that could not be met with applicants from our domestic workforce.  As with ICE's recruiting challenges so it was with corporate America.  Under Trump, H-1B visas were reduced by a third.  Not only were engineers, doctors, technical and other skilled workers denied entry but important seasonal labor that feeds the local tourism engine where I live was restricted as well.  As with tariffs, this was big government picking winners and losers.

Trump promised that he would repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something Beautiful.  Nope.  More than seven million Americans lost their Health insurance during his term of office.  He even had the temerity to request the SCOTUS to strike down the ACA in the midst of a pandemic with no plan for a replacement. 

 Our trade deficit ballooned to its largest level in history under Trump.  When Biden took office we were purchasing more goods and services from other countries than we sold to the rest of the world.  One of Trump's signature policy actions was the imposition of tariffs - a blunt instrument which caused significant harm to our economy. 

Trump boasted about all the money China contributed to our coffers from tariffs on imported goods.  The truth is his trade war cost domestic consumers $34 billion annually in increased prices.  Tariff are almost universally paid by consumers; it is an indirect tax.  Taxpayers also paid an additional $22 billion annually in agriculture subsidies to farmers hurt by tariffs.  And  an estimated 300,000 domestic jobs were lost.  Anecdotally, I paid an estimated $800 markup for a new Kawasaki Mule as a consequence of Trump steel tariffs.  Telling me China is paying the tariffs is a lie.  No truth in advertising.

Donald Trump declared that he would eliminate the federal deficit.  The truth is that it grew by 60% under his watch ballooning to a record new level.  More than a whopping $8 trillion accounting for 20% of the total debt by the time he left office.   

Trump promised me and you and everyone else that our tax burden would be reduced.  In-fact he made the claim that:  Only wealthy people like me can afford to pay more.  Alas, by the time 2027 rolls-around, 83% of his tax cuts will go to the top 1% of individual taxpayers.  Yeah, we can argue that if you pay more you get a larger cut.  Nevertheless, just like half of all Americans my income taxes rose under his watch.  Don't believe it?  Talk to my CPA.  The good news is that corporations spent their tax cut savings to repurchase and retire massive amounts of stock.  Stock buybacks boost share prices.  So if you're a retired guy like me your retirement savings get a positive bump.  On balance, I chalk this up to a success as my invested net worth grew as a result.  And I scored a ginormous bonus buying opportunity under COVID turning my income tax loss into a capital gains tax gain.

Speaking of COVID, if there ever was a case to be made for willful blindness this was it.

Created following the Ebola Virus outbreak, and part of the National Security Council, Trump's first misstep was disbanding the Global Health Security Team in May of 2018.  Trump seriously believed we'd never have a pandemic.  Back when I had a day job, large loss avoidance was always at the top of the list of objectives but nobody asked me about this. During his final year in office hundreds of thousands of our countrymen died from a pandemic that Donald Trump deliberately downplayed to the public.  As a consequence, the US has accounted for more than 25% of the global COVID deaths with only 4% of the population.  

Take a moment to reflect upon this grim figure.  

When the President spoke, many times chaos followed.  He declared that the pandemic was under control or it was not serious.  He promised everyone would be tested when factually there were few tests available.  He claimed a vaccine was just around the corner when it was still 12-18 months away.  There was hydroxychloquine, bleach, light treatments and magical wishful thinking. It was a cluster.

The bottom line is China is to blame for the outbreak and spread of coronavirus.  Trump gets credit for Operation Warp Speed and fast-tracking vaccine development.  He should have talked it-up in his reelection campaign.  (But nobody listens to me).  Nevertheless, the buck stops with the White House for dithering and finally responding with a delayed and disjointed federal response.  Inept messaging resulted in a needless loss of lives, record small business bankruptcies and millions of students falling behind.  A steady hand counts for a lot.

Donald Trump also had an endearing quality that always puzzled me.  He almost always confused the investment markets with the general economy and conflated his influence on the stock market.  I fondly recall that he stated at one point:  If you do not reelect me you will all become poor.  The implication being that, as with magic, his Midas Touch was responsible for rising equity prices and portfolio returns.  Never confuse markets and policy with magic.  

I always figured that this conflation would get him in trouble at some point so I gave my team at the former day job a heads-up.  I asked them to prepare a short list of stocks with solid earnings and good prospects that might be temporarily damaged by Trump's glib and loose talk.  And wouldn't you know it; as the COVID storm gathered strength Trump now has the unique distinction of giving a national address meant to calm a worried nation that ended-up tanking the markets.  I saw that one coming and I thank DJT for the buying opportunity.

Loose lips sink both ships and markets.

In my opinion Trump's largest failure was the culmination of events on January 6, 2021 when a mob of his supporters rioted, stormed and occupied the US Capitol.  This can be laid at the feet of a president who demonized the media, promoted lies, questioned the authority of the courts and rejected the results of a free and fair election.  

I don't care if you're breaking the glass of a neighborhood pawn shop or the windows and doors of the US Capitol.  Inciting violence under any and all circumstances is wrong.  For me the President's incitement and instigation of lawlessness and violence was a Bridge Too Far.

For many this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Summation.

Donald Trump was a consequential US President; a change agent.  His successes included cutting the corporate tax rate and reducing burdensome regulations; all good for the economy.  He can be credited with pushing back against a brutally repressive China and providing defensive arms to Ukraine.  He negotiated a new trade pact with our friendly neighbors to the north and south and pushed Congress to approve it.  He played a valuable role in facilitating the normalization of ties between Israel and several Arab neighbors.

Trump deserves credit for reform of the criminal justice system following passage of the First Step Act as a mechanism to end mass incarcerations.  He set-back the ISIS caliphate and rubbed-out Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  He also created the Space Force; the first new military service branch since 1947 when the Air Force was formed

Trump's most lasting impact will be his reshaping of the federal judiciary.  Three supreme court justices, 226 judges on the federal bench including 54 judges on the 13 US circuit courts.  It is the courts that always have the final say in our political system setting policy and precedent for decades to come.

In closing, I am convinced that of all the potential match-ups there are for the 2024 White House Joe Biden is the sole Democrat capable of defeating Donald Trump.  There is little popular support for this octogenarian choice; but unless I am famously wrong again it is what it is.

To my Trump friends, take heed.  If you run on a campaign platform solely on retribution and revenge you do so at your own peril.  To win a general election you need to get beyond the angry base of support and win-over the Big Fat Middle.  This coalition of independents, Reagan Republicans,  fiscal conservatives, right-leaning moderate voters are not going to get behind Trump.  They might even vote for Biden.  Not because they embrace his liberal policies; but because they will cast a vote against Trump.

The aspirational GOP candidates, including some exceedingly capable governors, would bury Joe Biden.  That's a fact.  Learn more on this topic here.

Of course nobody listens to me.

Cover-up

 

 

 

Interesting analogy.

I can relate.

Mask-up when you are in a crowd.  It's for the safety of the unvaccinated.......

Get Stabbed

Lest you continue to share the belief that COVID is a vast conspiracy or hoax I want to share with you that among my immediate circle of friends I am personally-acquainted with six deaths from this.  Including two individuals from my high school that I became reconnected-with in retirement.

A shirt-tail relative caught the variant and spent a month in the hospital followed by an additional month of skilled nursing care.  A year and a half later she now depends-upon oxygen to get thru the day.

My State Senator spent more than a month in the ICU on a vent.  He's permanently impacted as well. 

The administrator of one of my favorite private FB groups is dead following more than three weeks in the ICU on a vent.  Young guy too - thirty-four.  And knocking on heaven's door.

And in the last month a 47 year-old neighbor succumbed to the disease.  His lungs trashed.

Not a one of these individuals was vaccinated.  And I am pleased to have learned via personal account that the family of the most recent victim has received their second course of the vaccine.

Both the Current Guy and the Former Guy say to take the vaccine.

So get the stab, people.  It's no big deal.

If you were bitten by a rabid skunk would you refuse a rabies vaccine?

Postmortem

The last, larger, organized deer camp wrapped-up yesterday and by the time you are reading this my former business partner and her ten-year-old son will have left to return home.

I don't normally wax-philosophical about deer camp but indulge me.  This is the postmortem.

This year the plan was to host a normal camp.  With all of the eating, drinking, socializing, yuks and close-quarters living arrangement upstairs on the second floor. 

With COVID variants cropping-up and case counts climbing as everyone at our latitude began to move indoors on the advice of three medical doctors I figured it prudent to ask everyone wishing to stay here to be vaccinated.  All of the docs agreed that vaxxing is never a sure thing, but considering the lodging arrangements and abundant co-morbidities among my circle of hunting pals and their families being vaccinated reduced probabilities of bad outcomes like community spread.

The hunting part had few, if any, risks as hunting from an outdoor deer stand is about as socially-distanced as you can get.

Sleeping multiple individuals to a room and shared bathrooms - not so much.

Small group bow hunting basically fell off the cliff altogether.  A consequence of the vaccine request, scheduling conflicts and me.  The only weekend I had to pull it-off had to be cancelled due to a last minute conflict for a small non-profit I head.  I was the asshole on that and will not allow it to repeat.  There will be more small group bow hunting in 2022. 

The gun opener had some difficulties too.  As a consequence of the vax request one hunter socially distanced for drinks and meals and lodged off-site.  One hunter was pissed about the unvaxxed individual breathing HIS air, gave me a lecture on the subject and went home early.  Two of our group stayed home altogether.

I'm not making a political display over any of this - I'm just following the best medical guidance I have at my disposal and follow best practices under difficult conditions.  Moreover, I cannot please everyone.  

Does that make me an asshole? 

On balance, it was a successful camp - seven deer on the old meat pole.  And everyone that attended and stayed to the end had a terrific time.  Perhaps the future will bring less vaccine hesitancy and less spread of disease and a real return to normal.

This past weekend was actually a resounding success.  A small group of vaccinated adults, good food, adult beverages, plenty of yuks, five dead deer on the old meat pole AND a ten-year-old hunter got his first deer!  

No drama.  No assholery.

And things seemed a wee bit less rushed with fewer hunters traipsing all over the landscape.  It just doesn't get much better that that.  I think next year I'll invite my pal Smokey Joe and his kid to join us for the December antlerless hunt.  That would be fun. 

In conclusion that amounts to twelve deer this year with some additional hunting for me and anyone that wants to show and follow the guidelines.

I should also point out that if the hieroglyphic tally on the old meat pole is to be believed (and I have no reason not to believe it) in the past five years we've witnessed a total of 69 dead deer hung from its pullies.  That is impressive.

I'd like to raise a toast to Wisconsin's top big game species - Odocoileus virginianus - the whitetail deer.  And my hunting friends too.