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A few weeks ago, it was deja-vu. I thought, “I have heard this song before.” It was when Nancy Pelosi was “concerned“ about the mental health of President Trump, after she had instigated an argument with the President while in the Oval Office. She was arguing about something that was completely different than what the meeting was supposed to be about! This sounded eerily similar to this past May 22, when she did the same instigating before walking out of another Oval Office meeting. She also expressed concern about President Trump at that time . . . a few weeks ago was an instant replay as her lapdog, Chuck Schumer, walked out with her both times. Perhaps Chuckie had also heard the song before. 
Anyway that got me thinking about the present Democrat’s list of candidates and deja-vu. There is a serious concern of those in the know about their chances of success with the uber progressive leading candidate, Elizabeth Warren. Warren’s lead is eerily similar to Sanders’ lead back in 2016. At that time those in the know, notably the DNC, went out of its way to make sure that Sanders did not get the nomination. The question is not if, but when, will those in the know pull the plug on Warren.

At some point they will  realize that Warren is too far left to win over Trump, and those in the know will be forced to assert their authority. They will have to get someone closer to the center in order to win, and so the question at this time is who will those in the know finagle into a front runner spot. This process has already started with the names of some moderates being floated out there to see if there is any hint of a bite – namely Senator Sherrod Brown, Michael Bloomberg, John Kerry, Eric Holder, and yes, even Hillary! This noise will eventually get louder if Biden continues to struggle, and at some point those in the know will be forced to push some moderate candidate into the forefront.
The main question in my mind is whether or not the progressive Democrats will react to this upcoming theft in 2020 like they did in 2016. At that time they felt like they were cheated . . . they were! Because of the actions of those in the know, Hillary got the nomination, and many of the progressives stayed home when it came to voting in November. One can only hope for deja-vu!

I watched a lot of the World Series that just finished, and it was exciting. The camera angles, the replays, and the statistics made the games all the more interesting. At some point during the Series, it dawned on me that perhaps baseball is the only sport in which being successful 1/3 of the time is considered an outstanding achievement. For those of you who are not baseball fans – if a player gets a base-hit one time out of three at bats, his batting average is .333, and he is considered to be very proficient at hitting. However, in football, if a quarterback completes only 1/3 of his passes, he is judged as a sub-proficient quarterback, and in all likelihood will soon be on the bench. Likewise, if a tennis player gets only 1/3 of his serves in, he needs a lot of work on his serve to be judged as proficient. If no improvement, he will not be winning much of anything!  Could it be that batting average in our national past-time, baseball, has clouded our judgement in other areas, such that being proficient 33% of the time is okay? This long lead-in is a segue to the recent results of the “Nation’s Report Card,” which are the results from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). The results assess the progress of students nationwide every two years. This years results were obtained from testing mostly about 300,000 fourth-graders and just short of 300,000 eight-graders, mainly in math and reading. The students that were tested attended both public and Catholic schools nationwide. Children from both large city public schools as well as smaller urban and rural area schools were included in the test group. The results nationwide as well as the results for various sub-groups were okay if you compare them to baseball batting averages, but woeful if you compare them to quarterbacks’ completion percentages. For math, as a nation, the percent of students who were “at or above NAEP proficient“ was 34% in eighth-grade. For eighth-grade reading the percent that tested “at or above NAEP proficient” was also 34%! Over the past decade there has been no significant improvement in either math or reading performance, and in fact, nationwide the average eighth-grade reading score has declined three points compared to two years ago!  Help!

Even more depressing, the percent NAEP-“at or above proficient” for twelfth-graders nationwide decreased to 25% in math! ( the twelfth-grade reading proficiency was about the same as in eighth-grade at 37%.). Help! Even more astonishing, the “at or above proficiency” for eighth-grade students was 18% for US History (12% for twelfth-grade) and 23% for eighth grade Civics (24% for twelfth-grade). In a few years these uneducated students will be eligible to vote! Yikes! HELP!
Is this the best we can do as a nation? 
Many years ago, the Beatles sang, “Help, we need somebody. Help, not just anybody.”
Perhaps, we should pay more attention to these Beatles lyrics, and go back to the drawing-board for elementary & middle school education. (Start over from scratch?) “At or above proficient” with regards to the education of our children should not be judged the same as baseball batting averages!

Getting on to northbound I-15 at Mission Gorge Road in San Diego between 7:45 and 8:15 a.m. on weekdays is a nightmare. The backup to get on the on-ramp is usually about a half-mile long with, of course, no separate way to get onto the carpool lane without waiting in the long line. Typically there are close to five-hundred cars lined up in two lanes, spewing car-exhaust fumes into the air for close to twenty minutes before getting onto the I-15 freeway. This is reality. I know as I have been there in the line.So of course what does the city council do? They approve close to 1000 new apartments to be constructed on Mission Gorge Road (MGR) approximately a half-mile east from the end of the present wait line to get onto I-15. Add in an additional at least 500 more cars each morning that will be waiting in line to get onto the same now backed up on-ramp. Does anyone think that any member of our city council has to use MGR? Dollars to doughnuts, none of them ever use MGR to get to work, and in all likelihood none of them have used Mission Gorge Road in the past few years, but they know best! I do not need to use MGR to get to work in the morning, so I am not NIMBY on this issue, but guaranteed the traffic on MGR will be even more of a nightmare in the not too distant future!

In the same vein, the same city council have recently okayed new apartment construction within walking distance of our rapid transit system (the Trolley). The problem here is that they waived the standard requirement of on-site parking accommodations for these new apartments. Because they were to be built within walking distance from the Trolley, they assumed that none of these new tenants would have cars! Once these new tenants begin to take up all of the local street parking spaces, it will be too late. Oops! The reality is that many of these new apartments dwellers will have at least one car per apartment, and if they actually try to use the rapid transit to get to work, they will quickly get dis-enamored. Odds are that none of the know-it-all members of the city council live in the same neighborhood as these new apartments, but they know best!

This “I know what is best for you” philosophy is not restricted to members of the San Diego city council. In fact this attitude is pervasive in California. Those members of the state legislature who passed this state’s exorbitant recent gas tax, in all likelihood do not need to buy gas when they are in Sacramento, and I would bet that they get some sort of “transportation allowance.” They do not have to struggle to pay the state’s inflated gas prices, but they know best!

Likewise how many environmentalists live where the recent conflagrations have destroyed communities? How many of those who adamantly argued against thinning the dead trees and underbrush actually have suffered a live changing disaster because of these deadly fires? My guess . . . very few, if any! However, they have convinced the state legislators that they know best!

I could go on and on about the “we know best” people who are running California, but I am at my word limit for this piece. 
BTW: Does anybody think that it is just a coincidence that the San Diego City Council, the vast majority of California’s state legislators, and the environmentalists of California are all Democrats?

In August 2019 there was an I.C.E. raid on food processing plants in Mississippi, and many illegal immigrants were taken into custody. Unfortunately many of these raids occurred on the first day of school. Consequently, some in the press pointed out the dichotomy of happy children in the morning, going off for their first day of school, and sad children in the afternoon, going back to their now fatherless or motherless home because a parent had been taken into custody. It was sad to see the tearful and often confused children who could not understand why daddy or mommy was not home.
Although most of those taken into custody were in this country illegally, I cannot begrudge them because if I were in their situation, I would have probably done the same thing. Their motives were good, and in this circumstance, the end may well have justified the means. In this case those that were taken into custody were, for the most part, not “bad hombres,” but rather good hard working folk whose only sin was that they came to the U.S. looking for a better life for themselves and their children. Despite what some of the “know-it-all” politicians on both sides say, all illegal immigrants are not the same. There are those who are “good folk,” struggling to earn an honest living like most of those arrested at the food processing plants. Similarly there are those who are “bad hombres,” either criminals before they got here, or who have been caught doing nefarious or criminal things since they have been here. All in these two groups are illegals . . . but they are far from being the same. I do not want the “bad hombres” here in my country, but as far as the “good folks” are concerned . . . “live and let live,” or as Patti Paige sang many years ago, “Que sera, que sera.”

However, these “good folks” did cut the line. They snuck into the U.S. ahead of many of those who had been waiting in line for years to legally immigrate into this country. Many, myself included, do not think that these “good folks” should be treated the same as those who have been obeying the rules, and are still waiting in line to legally immigrate to this country. A dilemma? Perhaps not. My consternation with these “good folks” is twofold. Since they are here illegally, they should never become legal citizens, nor should they ever have same benefits and privileges as legal citizens. (Likewise their D.A.C.A. children would be treated the same as their “good folk” parents.)They should never have the privilege of voting, nor should not be eligible for the same social benefits as legal citizens, including food stamps, unemployment, or disability. However, if they pay into Social Security through their employment, they would be eligible to receive the Social Security and the Medicare benefits at age 65. 

To me this compromise is fair, but how in the world would these “good folk” be identified. Modern technology could actually make this quite easy. First of all within a specified period of time, let’s arbitrarily say within one year, all illegal immigrants and their families need to identify themselves and be fingerprinted (index fingerprints only). Once they have identified themselves their fingerprint would be put into nationwide data base. Then when another food processing plant was raided by I.C.E., it would be relatively simple to fingerprint each possible illegal, and transmit the fingerprint to the national registry. If the illegal’s fingerprint matched his/her “good folk” fingerprint in the system, then he/she would be immediately released, to be home when his/her young child returned from school. However, if the individual involved had not identified him/herself, then he/she would be a possible “bad hombre,” and immediately begin the process for deportation. Likewise if the individual was identified as an actual “bad hombre,” he/she would immediately be deported.
I realize that there are those that would object to the mass fingerprinting of illegals. However, to me, if the alternative is the deporting of hard working “good folk,” I would say that the fingerprinting would be of immense benefit to all of these “good folk,” as they would not be at risk for deportation, if and when they were identified randomly as being illegal. In fact, I would go further and say, put this system into effect and let the “good folk” decide for him/herself!
There is one fly-in-the-ointment with this system. What to do with those illegal immigrants who are neither “good folk” or “bad hombres?” Here I am referring to those who are on the dole. They are not “good folk,” as they are not contributing . . . they are not hard working as they are not working, however neither are they “bad hombres.” If they do not identify themselves and are not fingerprinted, then they are at significant risk for deportation, if they are later identified as being illegal. When this group identifies themselves, they should be labeled as “not presently good folk.” They would then have some previously determined period of time to get off the dole – perhaps one year. Then at the end of one year, they would be taken permanently off of the dole, e.g. no longer eligible for food stamps and simultaneously be reclassified as “good folk.” Because I do not think it would be right to immediately remove someone from food stamps, I would allow a grace period of one year, which I think is enough time to be a productive citizen . . . a true “good folk.” At the same time because they are illegal, they should not be eligible for those benefits after a one year grace period, because these should be limited to real citizens.
Also inherent in this system, if a “good folk” cheats, then he/she should be deported immediately. If the “good folk” votes or attempts to vote, then immediately deportation. The same rule and the same punishment would apply, if a “good folk” were to apply for a social benefit down the road.
Think of all the political squabbles that could be solved and prevented by implementing this system. The situation of the unfortunate “good folk” illegal who is processed for deportation, because he/she just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time . . . this situation would be avoided. A lot of the controversy over sanctuary cities or states would be potentially avoided because there would no longer be any benefit to protecting “good folk” from being identified, and the only benefit would be to protect the “bad hombres.” The D.A.C.A. dilemma would immediately be resolved. Yes, there would probably be an increase in illegals trying to make it into the U.S. before the end of the one year sign-up deadline, but at least a long term resolution would be tenable. Any illegal that crossed illegally into the U.S. after the one year identification deadline would automatically be classified a “bad hombre” forever. Although any resolution to the illegal immigration problem will inevitably not be perfect, this is a workable plan!

Let’s be clear. I do not watch CNN. I am not like one of my conservative friends who watches CNN to see what the other side is saying. I pretty much know what they are saying, and so let’s be clear again, I do not watch CNN.
That being said, CNN is on at my gym, and in particular CNN is the station that is on in the men’s locker room. While I am changing in  and out of my workout clothes, a muted CNN is always on, usually on the TV screen directly above my head. While I am not actually watching or listening, I will often glance up and notice what “headline” is being prominently displayed at the bottom of the screen. Was it my imagination or were all of these “headlines” anti-Trump? 

Being the scientific person that I am, I decided to keep track of these bottom of the screen “headlines” for the next five times that I went to the gym, for a total of ten observations. These observations were completely random . . . some in the late morning; some in the early or in the late afternoon; most of weekdays, but also some on the weekend. In this purely observational “study,” 90% (nine out of ten observations) were anti-Trump. I asked myself, “Could this be real?” Could this supposedly “politically neutral news network” actually be biased against our President? Was this 90% just a fluke?
To try to find out if my initial observations were valid, I again took note of these “headlines” for another two weeks (six times at the gym, for a total of 12 additional observations). On this second go-round, ten of the twelve (83%) were anti-Trump! I was shocked! . . . shocked until I read about Project Veritas, a series of undercover videos at CNN produced by James O’Keefe. Project Veritas documents what I observed in my random observations at the gym . . . CNN is biased against President Trump.
However, what makes this even worse, is that this bias is not accidental, but rather intentional, akin to a vendetta.
Like I said before, “I do not watch CNN” – and now, never will!

The other day I was at the local park with my two year old granddaughter. While she was minding her own business, playing in the dirt off to the side, a four year old boy came over and started pointing a stick at her. She was frightened by his aggressive behavior and started to back away, but he followed with the stick still in hand. The mother of this disruptive young bully-to-be was near by, but made no effort to let him know that his behavior was not acceptable. I was ready to intervene, but when she came close to me, he backed off. I thought, “Luckily when he starts school, his teacher will be able to instruct him on what his proper behavior should be. When the parents are clueless, thank goodness there is the kindergarten or the first grade teacher who can hopefully point the young child in the right direction.
Oops, that is until here recently with the passage of Senate Bill 419, and the subsequent signing of S.B.419 into law by Governor Newsom in California. Now I did not care very much for California’s last Governor, Jerry Brown, but in retrospect he did have a modicum of common sense compared to our present governor, Gavin Newsom. Senate Bill 419, is similar to S.B. 607, which was vetoed by Jerry Brown; S.B. 419 was signed into law by Gavin Newsom here recently. For those of you not familiar with S.B. 419, it is a bill to amend the Education Code to address one of the twenty reasons for which a school can suspend a student. It addresses “Defiance/Disruption Suspensions.” (Like I said, Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill, S.B. 607, because he felt that local control of schools was better than a one size fits all dictum from the government in Sacramento.) Starting on July 1, 2020, this new law, S.B.419,  will prohibit school suspensions through 8th grade for defiant or disruptive behavior in public schools. The thinking behind SB 419 was pointed out in an article by by Angela McNair Turner(AMcNT) – to paraphrase her: Latino, Black, and LGBT students are suspended at higher rates than other students, and since this is unfair and something needs to be done! (To be fair I was initially anti-Ms. McNair-Turner because of my deep seeded aversion to opinions from those with hyphenated last names. However, my attempt to be fair and balanced was immediately rendered null and void, based on AMcNT’s first sentence, which included, “my client,” and “Latinx,” – apparently a gender neutral alternative to Latino and Latina. So not only is AMcNT an attorney, but zir [a gender neutral pronoun] is also uber P.C.!)

While it is probably true that certain students are suspended for defiant/disruptive behavior more often that others, is it possible that the reason for their increased suspensions is that they actually are more defiant and disruptive? Duh! Just like giving everyone a trophy for participation, instead of only giving a trophy for excellence, here this new law will dumb down classroom behavior to the lowest tier possible. As a consequence all of the other students in the disruptive/defiant student’s class will suffer, because of zir or hir’s unruliness. (again another impressive use of gender neutral pronouns by ze!)

There is a multitude of unforeseen reasons that S.B. 419 will turn out to be a disaster. Actually these will not actually be unforeseen consequences, but foreseen consequences! When those disruptive/defiant students get to high school, what is going to happen? Either Gavin Newsom and his liberal Democrat cronies will pass S.B. 419.5, so that the disruptive/defiant behavior will then be okay in high school, or these disruptive/ defiant middle school students will not have learned that their behavior is not acceptable, and their high school experience will be punctuated by numerous suspensions. If either of these possibilities were to happen, explain to me how these students have benefitted. Duh! If Newsom’s theoretical 419.5 passes, and these disruptive/ defiant high school graduates cannot hold a job because they are still disruptive/defiant exactly who benefits . . . certainly not ze/hir! For them life will be very tough, basically because they were not taught at an early age that disruptive/defiant behavior is a “no-no!”

Stephen Miller, an advisor to President Trump was recently on SiriusXM radio 125, the Patriot Channel, to talk about the deep state. I have heard this term bantered about over the last few years, but although obviously something clandestine, I really did not understand exactly what the “deep state”was. A lot of what follows is taken directly from the remarks of Mr. Miller, as no way could I improve upon what he said. “The deep state is a collection of permanent bureaucrats enmeshed inside the federal government who can’t be fired or removed — at least historically, have not been able to be — because of misguided civil service laws. They believe they know better than you  and the voters how the country ought to be run. At this moment in time, the deep state has a knife aimed at the heart of American democracy, and that’s what you’re seeing playing across your TV screens and newspapers pages and online, with these so-called whistleblowers, who are, of course, in fact, angry hate-filled rage-driven bureaucrats determined to take down the President of the United States and illicitly and improperly using the Whistleblower Protection Act in order to effectuate their designs.”
As I now understand it, the deep state is comprised of non-elected government workers who not only disagree with the President, but who also feel that it is their “duty” to undermine the President. 
“The Constitution of the United States, Article II, states very clearly that, and this is a quote, ‘The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.’ What that means is that the whole executive power is vested in one democratically elected person: the president. Every other person in the federal government in the executive branch is an extension of his authority, is acting as an extension of his authority delegated to them. They have no independent authority, however these deep state bureaucrats don’t want to effectuate the President’s policies, and don’t want to carry out his agenda, so they try to do the opposite. They will leak and spin and lie about the contents of your meetings,” Miller said.“They’ll take it to the Washington Post and the New York Times and to MSNBC. They’ll share private documents, they’ll share private emails, they’ll share private correspondence, and then they’ll spin and fabricate and lie to create their desired narrative to try to steer policy in the direction they want to steer it in, and the most dangerous expression of this — of course, we’ve seen — has been in the intelligence community.”
Now I get it. This is the genesis of all of the “anonymous source,” leaking  information from private meetings to the press. But worse these deep state individuals have the power to selectively leak only what they feel will be detrimental to the President. And making matters even worse, like we are seeing with this Ukraine telephone call, the deep state now feels that they do not have to even be in the same room, and do not have to actually tell the truth! They can hide behind being a so-called whistleblower, and basically get their identity protected, which is just another way of being “an anonymous source.” Being called a whistleblower carries some suggestion that that person is doing some good by coming forward, and it is better in the eyes of the public than being called “a slime-ball member of the deep state,” although that is what they really are!
Mr. Miller had plenty more to say on the SiriusXM program, but for the purpose of explaining and defining what the deep state is, I think that what I have quoted above is more than enough to now understand the term , “the deep state.”

Recently I came across a Rachel Maddow interview of Chuck Schumer on MSNBC. I do not know the exact date of this interview, but it had to be sometime in the last six months because it was about President Trump standing up to and dissing the Intelligence Community about his so-called “Russian collusion,” and “why would he do such a thing?”
Schumer: “You take on the Intelligence Community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you. So even for a practical supposed hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”

Maddow: “What do you think that the Intelligence Community would do if they were motivated?”

Schumer: “From what I am told, they are very upset with how he has treated them and has talked about them.”

There are many amazing aspects to this short interview, but to me, the scariest part is looking back on Sen. Schumer’s teaser preview, and realizing that it is now a full length motion picture. To summarize, he basically said the equivalent of the old adage about playing with fire and predictably getting your fingers burned . . . or worse! And now we have “ a whistleblower” getting even with our President, not because of what was in the actual transcript of a telephone call, but because, as Senator Schumer so eloquently alluded, Trump has taken on “the Intelligence Community,” and this is one of the six ways from Sunday at getting back at him.
I always find it nice when a politician speaks in a forthright way so that I can understand complicated issues. Thank you, Senator Schumer for clearing up this whole Ukraine impeachment kerfuffle!

I saw a great phrase the other day that I thought was applicable to all of the hoopla leading up to the 2020 elections. The phrase, “faute de mieux;” the language, French; the meaning, “for lack of something better.” When I read this phrase (after I looked up its meaning), I immediately thought about the recent Democrat’s debate. The stage seemed to be full of prototypical faute de mieux candidates! Think about this crowd of twelve lined up across the stage in Ohio. Is this the best that the Democrats can do? Do any of them stand a chance against President Trump? None of the three front runners, Biden, Warren, and Sanders can be elected here in the US . . . maybe in Cuba, Venezuela, or perhaps in Ukraine, but not in the US. Maybe on the coasts, but not in those areas where the real voters live. The other nine remind me of that saying about the snowball’s chance of survival where the devil lives. I repeat,”faute de mieux!”

Then, on the Republican side, there are three challengers to President Trump for the 2020 Republican nomination. I use the term, challengers, loosely! The three are: Bill Weld, Joe Walsh, and Mark Sanford. Who are these yo-yo’s? Apparently in the third quarter these three self-proclaimed egotists raised a total of $647,000 – compared to $125.7 million for the President. Now don’t get me wrong. I want DJT to be re-elected, but “faute de mieux!”

BTW: Did any of you see the crowd in Dallas the other night for the President’s speech? Sensationnel! “Viva la Trump!”

Well, I think that she’s got it. After the most recent debate, I think she has got it!

In this past few weeks three things have happened that for all practical purposes cinches the nomination for Pocahontas . . . err Elizabeth Warren. 

First is the Joe Biden-Ukraine shady dealings that occurred when Joe was V.P. The Dems quickly turned on Ol’ Joe, when basically no one came to his defense, except for Cory Booker in this week’s “debate.” This Trump phone call intensified the focus on the Ukraine, and the more focus on Ukraine and this phone call, the worse it will be for Ol’ Joe. I look for Biden to soon start dropping in the polls, and to be gone after losses in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The second thing that happened recently was that Bernie Sanders had cardiac stents placed in one of the arteries of his heart. For those in the know, this is not really a big deal, but the political implications are disastrous for Bernie, already hindered by his advanced age. Bernie’s numbers will drop, and after he loses Iowa and New Hampshire, he will also be gone.

So what are the Democrats left with? Not much!

Earlier I had predicted that Kamala Harris would win the early California primary, but thirdly, the recent polls now demonstrate that Warren is leading in California, and Harris is a loser anyway. 

So who is left to challenge Warren for the nomination? Basically nobody, and after Warren wins the nomination, the Dems’ enthusiasm will diminish. When she does get the Dems’ nod, who could possibly be her V.P.? It could not be another woman . . . two women on the same ticket is a loser combo. Her V.P. choices are narrowed down to the yo-yo mayor of South Bend, and the pseudo-Hispanic Beto from south Texas. . . . both losers in a National election. All of this is bad news for the Dems, and from my perspective this is all good news for the rest of us, as a Warren-X ticket is a guaranteed loser to Trump in 2020.