Author Archives: Cordell

History, Insight, Opinion

The One Good Thing

If there is one good thing that came from the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s the wearing of masks. Now wait. Hold on a minute. I know the mask wearing thing was quite controversial. Just let me explain. This isn’t what you think.

During the pandemic, the idea was suggested that some people might want to wear a mask as a means of precaution. As time went on, masks soon became the norm. People all over the country, and all over the world, began to wear them as a precautionary measure.

As the Covid-19 virus kept spreading and mutating, many people questioned on whether the masks even worked at all. Many people had differing opinions on the matter. Some people believed that they were effective. Some people believed that they didn’t work at all. I personally believe that masks work. Maybe not 100%, but that they do help in the spread of viruses. The issue, in my personal opinion, is that people were not wearing the right type of mask. I mean, let’s face it, as long as people covered their face with something, it was deemed as acceptable.

The CDC has constantly updated their mask information page giving people the best information possible, yet, no one seemed to follow those guidelines. I saw almost everything imaginable from, cloth masks, bandana’s, plastic face shields (with no mask underneath), etc. One time I even saw a woman that had wrapped paper towels around her face. No joke. I hardly ever saw people wearing the recommended surgical, KN95, or N95 masks, which the CDC said offered the best protection.

Everywhere you went you could buy the cloth masks which the CDC said offered some of the least protection. Even if people were wearing the masks, they just wore them around their chin, or just covered their mouth and not their nose. I saw countless people have the surgical masks around their cars rearview mirror, meaning that they were reusing a mask that was recommended as a one time use mask. And let’s not forget Alyssa Milano’s famous crocheted mask. However, this isn’t a knock on Alyssa Milano, because tons of people had these.

The point is that everything that we could have done wrong in terms of proper masking and proper use of masks, we did. We literally failed on masking in the biggest way possible. Nevertheless, I have hope. I do see one good thing that has come from this all too real tragedy. One that may be beneficial to us now and into the future. That is…drumroll, please…more mask wearing. Well, sort of.

If there is one good thing that has come from the entire mask wearing, it’s this. I’ve noticed that, in general, more and more people are wearing masks when they are sick. Whether it be from Covid, the Flu, or even the common cold. People just tend to wear a mask as a precaution towards others. Some people will wear a mask when they simply think they might be getting sick, but they haven’t been officially deemed sick. Another plus is that if people are wearing masks, they seem to be the most effective masks like surgical, KN95, or N95 masks. Pretty much everybody has stopped selling cloth masks since the virus seems to be on the decline. If you do have to buy a mask at the store, there is a good chance that all you can buy is the best kind. That’s a positive note.

With so many people wearing a proper mask when they are sick, we might in fact see a decline in sickness in the future. It’s possible. I guess only time will tell. If it works great. I’m willing to bet that it has some sort of impact. Even if it is minor. Who knows? In 50 years, people might just wear a mask when they are sick not knowing why they are doing it other than, it’s just the right thing to do.

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Government, Opinion, Politics

SAFE-T First

Illinois has lost its mind. I thought California had truly fallen off the wagon, but Illinois is trying it’s best to out due them.

In an unprecedented move, lawmakers have pushed through what they are calling the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act. Also called the SAFE-T Act for short. What is the SAFE-T Act you might ask? It’s the complete elimination of the cash bail system for the entire state of Illinois. According to The Jacksonville Journal-Courier, starting January 1, 2023 it will be replaced with a system that considers the offense severity, the risk of not appearing in court, and the potential threat to the community if a person is released.

The idea is that it’s not fair that some people, especially blacks and minorities, cannot afford their bail and therefore must sit in a jail cell until they get a court date or appearance, while others who can afford their bail are allowed to go free. In order to alleviate this so-called problem, lawmakers have decided that the best course of action would be not to hold anybody on cash bail and to just let everybody go free.

You can still be held on bail if the severity of the crime is extreme. How extreme? So extreme that things like second-degree murder and kidnapping aren’t even worthy of holding you on bail. In fact, there are several things that are in the bill that are not worthy of being held on bail. Other offenses in the bill not worthy of bail include, aggravated battery, arson, drug-induced homicide, burglary, robbery, intimidation, aggravated DUI, aggravated fleeing and eluding, drug offenses and threatening a public official. That’s right. Beginning in January, you can pretty much do anything you want, and you won’t be held on bail.

There are other concerns as well. For example, trespassing. Let’s say that your have a house located on some land and it’s private property. You notice a man out on your property. You confront the man and ask him to leave, but he refuses. You call the authorities and ask them to remove him for you. Guess what? Under the new law, police will be unable to remove the man. Grundy County Sheriff Ken Briley said about the matter, “Today, I can arrest him if you sign a complaint for trespassing. January 1st, I’m not going to be able to do that. The law says I have to write him a ticket and leave.”

Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker says the new law, “marks a substantial step toward dismantling the systemic racism that plagues our communities, our state, and our nation and brings us closer to true safety, true fairness, and true justice.” Wait, what? True safety? You’re about to let criminals go back onto the street with no cash bail for some of the most heinous crimes imaginable, and you have the gall to say this represents true safety? Safety for who? How does releasing criminals back onto the street make your communities safer? If anything, it’s going to make them riddled with more crime because if criminals know there is little to no consequences for their actions, it’s going to embolden them to do more crime.

These sort of “catch and release” laws have been going on for a while and there is little to no evidence that shows that they are working as intended. You’d be hard pressed to find a single instance of “catch and release” where crime didn’t go up. In an article from KRON 4 out of San Francisco,  San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said his office looked closely at the jail’s “spinning turnstile,” and identified repeat offenders who were arrested more than 30 times within the past 28 months. Some serial criminals committed homicides while out on bail. “This has frustrated our police officers. They arrest somebody, they take them to jail, they wait two or three hours through the booking process, and (the same day) they are right back on the street,” Liccardo said. Liccardo asserted, “The data shows that a few hundred offenders commit an enormous share of crime, often without any period of detention that would have otherwise interrupted or at least slowed their pattern of rampant criminal activity.”

I encourage you to go read the article yourself as it gives many examples of the failed catch and release program that California has enacted.

In an article from NPR back in 2016 which was a follow up to California’s Proposition 47, Huntington Beach Police Chief Robert Handy says property crimes jumped in his city in the 12 months following the passage of Prop 47: auto thefts up 21 percent; larceny from vehicles up 30 percent; garage burglaries up 33 percent. Proposition 47 was enacted in California in November of 2014. The idea is to put less criminals in jail while also not increasing crime. Proposition 47 also changed some nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors. Also, according to the article, Will Matthews, who is manager of public affairs for Californians for Safety and Justice, the group that sponsored Prop 47, wrote an email to NPR in which he is pointing out other California cities where property crime has gone down, not up. However, NPR fails to mention a single city in this letter from Matthews where crime has gone down.

The bottom line is that Illinois’ new SAFE-T Act is anything but safe. Putting criminals back on the street for extreme acts is dangerous for the general public. It emboldens criminals because they know they will get little more than a slap on the wrist if caught. Even worse, if the public feels that their government isn’t there to help or protect them, it could lead everyday citizens to start taking the law into their own hands. This law doesn’t promote safety, it doesn’t promote justice, and it doesn’t promote fairness. If you wanted fairness, you would keep everyone in jail. No bail for anyone. Instead, you have taken the backwards approach by letting all criminals go free without bail.

Only time will tell if this law works, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that come January 1, crime in Illinois begins to skyrocket.

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Insight, Opinion, Vehicles

Electrify California

Last week, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed a plan that requires all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the state to be electric vehicles or plug-in electric hybrids by 2035.

Five days later, California is telling people not to charge their electric vehicles due to a heat wave that is hitting the state over the next several days.

I’m left scratching my head wondering what in the world is going on. California cannot even get their power grid under control, and yet they want to ban all new sales of gas-powered cars and light trucks within the state in the next thirteen years. This seems like a huge stretch. Possible? Anything is possible. Likely? I highly doubt it.

California averages around 2 million new car sales a year according to the California New Car Dealers Association (CNCDA). In 2017 and 2018, California sold over 2 million new cars. With Covid hitting, California new car sales dropped slightly by 2020 down to 1.6 million, however went up to 1.8 million in 2021. According to the CNCDA, California is expected to either exceed 2 million new car sales by the end of 2022 or come extremely close to that mark. According to Wikipedia, as of December 2021, cumulative plug-in car registrations in the state since 2010 totaled 1.072 million units. So, while California sells an average of 2 million new cars per year, it’s taken them 11 years to sell just 1 million electric cars, some of which are undoubtedly hybrids.

California sells more EV’s than any other state in the union. According to Inside EV’s, plug-in vehicle registrations in 2021 increased by about 79% year-over-year to 237,618, which is 12.8% of the total market. There’s no doubt that Californians are adapting to electric vehicles. The issue here is that CARB’s plan to make all new car and light truck sales fully electric by 2035 puts sales of EV’s into overdrive at a rate that I’m not so sure their grid can keep up. The sales of EV’s going into 2035 is going to come in phases.

35% percent of new cars and light trucks sold in the state must be zero-emission, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen-powered vehicles by the year 2026. The sales of these vehicles will increase to 68% by the year 2030 and will end up at 100% by the year 2035. To put that into perspective, if California stays at selling 2 million cars per year through 2035, that means by 2026 they must be selling 700,000 EV’s or hybrids per year, 1.36 million by 2030, and a full 2 million by 2035. In order to be able to do this, California is going to have to go through a huge overhaul in their electrical infrastructure. Not only that, but a ton of electrical stations are going to have to be put all over the state to accommodate for those who travel.

According to The Sacramento Bee, there’s plenty of concern from experts concerning such a fast transition into a full EV market within the next decade. Among them: that electric cars will be too expensive, charging stations won’t be plentiful, and an all-electric fleet will put additional pressure on the state’s fragile power grid. According to the article, the Western States Petroleum Association said, “electrification of the transportation sector will increase demand by around 300,000 gigawatt-hours statewide,” which would amount to doubling electricity demands.

However, officials from the California Energy Commission are pushing back against this idea saying that, charging electric vehicles will “add only a small amount of demand onto the grid” and they believe that electricity demand is forecasted to make up less than 3% of energy use during peak hours in 2030. I just find that simply ironic since they are telling people right now to not charge their electric vehicles because of demands, but here in 8 years everything is going to be fine and will make up only about 3% of the total energy use. Can California revamp their electrical infrastructure that fast? The demand is only going to increase year after year as more people buy EV’s. At some point, every household in California will have at least 1 EV. Some may have 2. Some people with kids may have more. Millions upon millions of EV’s charging at the same time has got to put a strain on the electrical grid. You can say goodbye to your electrical discount that most providers give during overnight hours when demand is low.

Another major issue if America’s power grid itself. New technology has increased the need for electricity over the past couple decades including cell phones, tablets, tech watches, and much more. According to an article by The Wall Street Journal titled “America’s Power Grid Is Increasingly Unreliable”, the U.S. electrical system is becoming less dependable, not more. According to the article, the pace of change, hastened by market forces and long-term efforts to reduce carbon emissions, has raised concerns that power plants will retire more quickly than they can be replaced, creating new strain on the grid at a time when other factors are converging to weaken it. Also, according to the article, large, sustained outages have occurred with increasing frequency in the U.S. over the past two decades. In 2000, there were fewer than two dozen major disruptions, the data shows. In 2020, the number surpassed 180. To be fair, the article does say that aging power lines and climate change, if you believe in that, are factors to the increased outages. However, it does say that going green is also a cause.

California is just one of many states that are committed to going fully electric over the next decade or so. The demand to change at such a rapid pace will undoubtedly have its challenges. California already has enough problems trying to keep the lights on during major heat waves and other situations of electrical high demand. To execute a major overhaul of the California’s entire electrical infrastructure within the next 13 years to support the millions upon millions of EV’s coming into the market is going to be extremely tough. Extremely is an understatement. Can they do it? It’s possible, but it doesn’t seem probable.

California should have started increasing their grid long ago before demanding that its citizens convert to fully EV’s over the next decade. Instead, they took the backwards route and are demanding that its citizens convert to EV’s before even having an infrastructure to support them. California only has about 3.5 years to make a significant change before tons of new EV’s come pouring into the market when the 35% mark of all new car sales must be EV’s becomes a reality. My guess is that by 2035, with all the demands that California is making, EV’s in the state will explode to 10+ million. That’s a huge increase from the 1 million they have now. California has their work cut out for them. I wish them the best of luck, but I won’t be surprised if this is one of the worst failures in modern American history.

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Celebrities, Insight, Opinion

Oppression Olympics

op·pres·sion

/əˈpreSHən/

noun

  1. prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control.
  2. the state of being subject to unjust treatment or control.
  3. mental pressure or distress.

Oppression. We’ve all heard the word. It seems to be making it’s rounds around the world right now and more and more people are using it. However, I don’t think that people even know what the word means. I don’t even know what it means in the context that they are using it in. They just like to throw it around like they do.

Recently, at MTV’s Video Music Awards, Lizzo made the claim that there were laws in the United States that were “oppressing us”. She had just won the award for “Music Video for Good”. In acceptance speech she said this…

“I don’t know what Music Video for Good means, but I do know what your vote means, and that’s a fucking lot. Your vote means everything to me, it means everything to making a change in this country. So remember, when you’re voting for your favorite artist, vote to change some of these laws that are oppressing us.”

Now of course, I have no idea on what laws she was referring to because she never mentioned one. Like everyone else now a days they just say they are being oppressed without specifically mentioning how. In this case Lizzo sited laws that were oppressing people. Specifically black people. I’m curious on what laws she was referring to.

I wonder if she was referring to one of these:

Civil Rights Act of 1957

Civil Rights Act of 1960

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Economic Opportunity Act of 1964

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Or maybe she was referring to one of these:

Civil Rights Act of 1968

The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972

Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974)

Community Reinvestment Act (1977)

Civil Rights Act of 1982

Or better yet, maybe one of these:

Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987

Civil Rights Act of 1991

Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1995)

Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act (2007)

Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009)

Emmett Till Antilynching Bill (2020)

I mean, who knows what laws she was talking about? I do find it ironic that she was talking about her being oppressed while receiving an award. That did seem a little strange to me.

If Lizzo is oppressed, I just wonder by how much? How much oppression is she suffering from? I figure for her to say such a thing, it must be a lot. I decided to dig in and find all the oppression that I could find when it came to Lizzo.

Maybe it’s her salary. Is there a law that I am unaware of that limits her salary? 12 Million is a lot of money. She could probably get more. Maybe it’s her housing. This would seem to go against the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. Who knows? Maybe a 26 Million dollar home is just too small. Maybe Lizzo feels that being chauffeured around in a Bentley just wasn’t her style. She would probably have been less oppressed if she were in a Rolls-Royce. After all, Bentley’s are for chumps. Maybe it’s her clothing. Walking around the Grammy’s in a mint-green dress and diamond earrings worth more than $45,000 is hardly worth it. She deserves way more than that. $45,000 is like poor people’s money. It’s like pocket-money. Chump change. Her fashion designer should be fired immediately and replaced with someone who will get her good dresses that cost what she’s worth.

Let’s not fool ourselves. Lizzo is one of the top-rated artists in today’s music industry. She’s a multi-millionaire that lives a life that most people only dream of having. She lives in a house that most people will never even come close to living in. She has everything you could ever want. The one thing that is for sure is that Lizzo is not oppressed. She would never be where she is today if there were these so called “laws” that were oppressing the black community. Lizzo should be the poster child for the black community on why she is successful and how others can be too. What a powerful message that would be.

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History, Insight, Politics

The Separation of Church and State Explained

At one point or another, you have heard the words “separation of church and state.” The words make their way into the mouths of people on a regular basis. With the overturning of Roe vs Wade, these words have made their way back into those same mouths, and have ended up on the news, Facebook, Twitter, and many other social media sites.

I’ve noticed that many people who quote the phrase, take the entire thing out of context. It’s widely misused and even more misunderstood. Most people I talk to believe the phrase is mentioned somewhere in the U.S. Constitution. Spoiler alert, it’s not. In fact, the phrase, “separation of church and state” appears nowhere in the Constitution or any other founding document. So where did this phrase come from?

When the First Amendment was written, it provided what is called the “establishment clause.” The establishment clause separates church from state, but not the way most people seem to think.  A huge hunk of people think that separation of church and state means that there can be no religion in politics whatsoever. If a member of Congress or a member of a state leadership expresses their belief in God or says that they pray to God before making a decision, you always seem to hear people scream about how wrong these people are for doing so because of separation of church and state. However, the establishment clause only separates church from state, not religion from politics or even public life.

The phrase “separation of church and state” is found in a letter that was written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut. The Danbury Baptist Association was concerned that their state constitution lacked specific protections of religious freedom. In the letter they wrote, “Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty‐‐that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals‐‐that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions‐‐that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbors; But, sir, our constitution of government is not specific.” They go on to say, “…what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights; and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote back and said, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ʺmake no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,ʺ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”

What Jefferson was saying is the religion lies between a man and the God that they believe in, and that no government could dictate who, or how, or when, or where, or even why a man or woman practiced religion. No federal, state, or local government had the right to interfere with a person’s religious beliefs, therefore, creating a wall of separation between church and state.

Now you know the origins of where the phrase “separation of church and state” came from. So, the next time you hear someone take the term out of context, you’ll know. Just remember that the separation of church and state is in reference to a government body not being able to interfere with a person’s religious beliefs. It doesn’t mean that a person, or even an elected official, cannot use religion as a way of decision making.

If you’re interested in reading the letter from the Danbury Baptist Association to Thomas Jefferson and Jefferson’s response, you can read both letters here.

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Opinion

Common Sense Can Go A Long Way

I saw this tweet the other day. Actually one of the dumbest tweets that I have ever seen. Here is the tweet:

I understand what this tweet is trying to say, but the author has completely missed out on the patterns on why rapists rape in the first place. It’s like he is saying that the things like women walking alone doesn’t matter. Or a drunk woman. Or a woman in a short skirt. The author has completely missed a prime opportunity to inform women that these behaviors do matter, and that a woman shouldn’t do them.

Rapists tend to have a pattern. They select their victims based upon several factors. It can be anywhere from hairstyle, hair color, clothing, behavior, locations, and several other factors. Years of study have gone into the behavior of rapists. Countless conversations with actual rapists have also gone into the determining of what rapists look for in a victim.

You may have heard of the Behavioral Science Unit (BSU) or the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU). They are two names for the same Unit in the FBI. The BSU was the original name and the BAU is the current name, however, they are the same thing. This Unit was literally formed to try and dive into the minds of all types of criminals from rapists, murders, thieves, and many others in between. The goal is to find out who criminals are, how criminals think, and why they commit the crimes that they do. Tons of research has gone into understanding the behaviors and patterns of criminals and tons of interviews with actual criminals have too. Over the last 50 or so years, the FBI has been able to develop a profile of most criminals and how they think. The research that they have come up with concerning rapists and their behaviors has been widely published. Therefore, the FBI has developed a list of behaviors that women should try to avoid at all costs, because these types of behaviors tend to attract rapists. Everything listed in the tweet above, except for the rapists, are simple patterns that rapists look for in potential victims. It’s silly to say that walking alone in the dark doesn’t cause rape, because it is, after all, a behavior that rapists look for. To get technical isn’t helping future victims. It’s foolish to say, your skirt can’t rape you. The nighttime sky can’t rape you. Walking doesn’t rape. Only rapists can rape you. That’s not the point. The point is that rapists look for women, in the dark, walking along. They look for other patterns such as women with long hair that’s in a braid or bun. On their cell phones as to be distracted. Plus, a number of other factors.

The Ripley County Sheriff’s office in Indiana has put out a memo on statistics of rape and some ways to avoid it. You can find it here.

The point is that it’s silly to say that only rapists rape while ignoring potential factors that contribute to a women getting raped. It’s a fact that you are less likely to get raped if you walk in a group rather than walk alone. It’s a fact that you are less likely to get raped if you don’t present yourself in a flirtatious manner than if you do. Do these things make a woman invincible to getting raped? No. Of course not, but it sure does lessen the odds.

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Opinion, Politics

Racial Divide

If there is one thing that I don’t understand in this world today, it’s the racial divide that seems to be going on in this country. I don’t understand it because it doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t make sense to me because I just don’t see it. I don’t see it because I cannot find a good example of any type of racial incident that has happened without it simply being claimed as racial. In other words, it’s just someone’s opinion.

I have tried my best to find an incident that has happened that can be deemed as racial, but I just cannot find one. Incident after incident, the premise is based on someone’s opinion, rather than fact. Every news article has someone claiming an incident was racial simply because it involved a White guy and a Black guy. Maybe a White cop and a Black guy. If a White guy gets into a fight with a Black guy, it’s automatically seen as racist. No one even attempts to determine the actual cause of the fight, nor do them want to get the facts first before reporting. It’s gotten to the point of absurdity.

Some people believe that racial tensions are so high, that they believe that this country is nothing but a racist country. They have convinced themselves of this. I have a Black friend who can turn any situation into a racist one. He believes that everyone and everything is against him. The idea of racism has clouded his judgement and it’s sad to see. If he goes to the grocery store and the young bagger boy accidentally smashes his bread, he see’s it as the boy was racist. If he goes to get his oil changed, he will walk away thinking that he overpaid because the man behind the counter is racist, even though the price of the oil change is on the wall. He has conditioned himself to believe that literally everything, and everyone, is racist.

On the flip side to that, we both have a friend, that is also Black, that sees the world in a different light. He never sees racism. He always has a good outlook on life and believes that in 2022, America is the least racist that it has ever been. I would have to agree with him. This isn’t the 1950’s America and we have made major strides since back in those times. You won’t find a single law holding back Black Americans from becoming whoever they want to be. Hate groups such as the KKK are in tremendous decline and don’t have much of an impact these days. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has a great article on this, and you can find it here. Sure, there are hate groups. No one is denying that, but in 2022, those groups are few and far between compared to what they were back in the 1950’s.

Things like interracial marriage have a 94% approval rating today, as compared to just 4% back in 1958. That’s even up from the 2013 reading of 87%. Racial tensions in America are on the decline, not the incline no matter what people in the media tell you. Statistics prove this, polls prove this, and just common sense prove this. Why the media cannot get this right is beyond me. Joy Reid of MSNBC would like you to believe that everything that happens in America concerning Blacks is due to racism. Everything she says is not based on facts, rather it’s based on her own opinion. Just listen to her speak. It’s purely opinion based. Whoopi Goldberg is another person who spouts opinions about racism rather than facts. Just the other day she claimed that Republicans refuse to vote for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson because she was Black. She claimed that Republicans don’t believe that a Black woman can get the job done. Again, this is purely opinion. No facts to back up this claim whatsoever and you will not find a single Republican saying this at all. It’s just silly to say these types of things if you cannot back them up as facts. People begin not to listen to you and the trust in you starts to diminish.

America has come a long way in the acceptance of Blacks in America from 70 years ago. America is the least racist it has ever been and the least racist place to live on the planet. Don’t buy into this media garbage of lies. It just seems that the media wants to start a race war. Why? I have an idea.

Blacks have a history of voting Democrat, but over the last several years, Blacks have shifted their views more conservatively. In 2020, according to and NBC News poll of early and Election Day voters, only 80% of Black men supported Joe Biden. This doesn’t mean that the other 20% supported consecutive candidates, however, it does signify a major shift in the views held by a huge portion of Blacks in America. Not to long ago, when Obama was running for President 95% of Black men voted for him. Fast forward four years and only 87% voted for him. Hillary Clinton only got 82%. Now, a little over a year into Biden’s Presidency, the Black vote continues to slide away from Democrats at only 80% This is a huge problem for Democrats, because a huge portion of their vote is based on the Black vote. Without the Black vote, Democrats are almost sure to lose in almost every election. That’s how important the Black vote is for them. So, Democrats have to conjure up something to try and win the Black vote back. What would be better than saying that Republicans are the racist party? That’s why I believe that Democrats have started to talk about race more and more. If they can convince the Black voter that the White Republicans are the racist party, then maybe they can win some of the Black vote back. The problem is that this doesn’t seem to be working. Even with all the talk about race and racial tensions that they spout out, Black voters continue to abandon the Democrat party in record numbers. Simply put, Black voters aren’t buying what Democrats are trying to sell.

On a final note, if racial tensions are so high, as Democrats claim, why is there a need to make up racial incidents? Such as Sherita Dixon-Cole, a Black woman, who in 2018 claimed that she was raped by a Dallas area State Trooper. Video from the incident proved she was lying. Or Eddie Curlin, also Black, who in 2017 was charged with three counts of vandalism when he spray-painted hateful rhetoric targeting Blacks around the campus of Eastern Michigan University on three different occasions. There are so many fake hate crimes that go on in America, that there is a website dedicated to exposing them. You can find it here. Fake hate crimes go on all the time. They have been going on since the Duke lacrosse case and before. They have gone on forever. A person must ask why though? If racism exists to the extent that some people say it does, there would be absolutely no reason to fake a hate crime.

Once again, don’t believe the narrative of the media. Racism is on the decline. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist or that there aren’t racist people out there, but it’s nowhere near what it was back in the 1950’s. We’ve come a long way since then, and every year that goes by, we become more and more tolerant of each other.

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Reviews

Now Hear This…Don’t Listen To Critics

I find it hard to listen to critics. Not because they don’t know what they are talking about, but because they are so professional. What I mean is that they are too professional. So, what exactly do I mean you ask? Let me explain.

There are tons of critics out there. Some for movies, some for cars, some for products. There are just a ton of them. You can find them just about anywhere. On TV. On YouTube. On commercials. They’re everywhere. So, what’s wrong with them? Nothing…and everything. The way that I see it is that these people, for the most part are professionals. They have a job of reviewing a certain item, for example, like cars. When a new car comes out, they review it. They give you their best opinion of that car and tell you whether you should buy it. If they review movies, they also give you their best opinion and tell you whether you should go and see it. Problem is that most are so professional that we as regular consumers don’t have the faintest clue on what they are talking about.

To many critics are too critical on the things that just don’t matter to me. However, this is just my opinion. If I am looking at a car for example, I do look at reviews, but I only pay attention to the things that matter to me, because to be honest, the other part of the review really doesn’t matter to me. I really don’t care if the car has the latest and greatest fuel injection system or not or if it has halogen bulbs or not. I don’t care. My concern is whether the car will hold up. Will it get me to work and back? Does it have enough power? How good do the brakes work? Stuff like that. I really don’t care if it doesn’t have the best spark plugs on the market or not. It amazes me when critics give cars bad ratings simply because they don’t have the latest and greatest things available on the market. I have seen cars get bad rating and gone out and tested them myself and thought that they were great!

Movies are another thing. Critics are too picky when it comes to movies. I remember when the movie Pearl Harbor starring Ben Affleck came out. I saw Ebert and Roeper do a review on this movie, and they gave it horrible reviews. At least Ebert did. I remember him saying that in the movie, they only used 3 WWII planes for the whole movie. They just used digital copies of the three planes to make it look like there were several hundred planes. He said he could tell and that the digital copies were horrible. I tried my best to see what he was seeing and for the life of me I just couldn’t see it, and to be honest, I thought Pearl Harbor was a good movie.

The website Rotten Tomatoes is a good place to go if you want to get a good review on a movie you want to see. They show you what the critics say about it and the general audience. In most cases, there is a dramatic difference between what the critics think and what the audience thinks. It really shows you the difference between the two.

Simply put, just because a critic says that a car is bad, doesn’t mean that it is. Just because a critic, says that a movie is horrible doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go see it. It’s simply their opinion. The best way, and only way, to find out is to go and see it yourself. That’s with anything. Just remember that critics are professional. They see things that may matter to them, but in most cases, not the public.

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Business, Politics

Mandating Disaster

Getting fired isn’t easy. It puts a person into self-doubt that can lead to depression. The future can be uncertain. Where do you go from here?  How are you going to pay your bills?  Where is your next meal coming from?  In extreme circumstances, getting fired can lead a person to suicidal thoughts or even suicide.

Ronald Reagan once said, “Governments first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.”  However, here in 2021, the tides seem to have turned.  With the Covid-19 pandemic going on, many people have chosen not to get the vaccine. To combat this and try to get people vaccinated, many businesses have started terminating employees that are not vaccinated. Some have chosen to quit their jobs rather than be forced to receive a vaccine that they don’t believe in.  With so many people out of work, this has caused a huge strain on the labor force. Drive around your own town or city and almost every business has a “now hiring” sign in the window.

With the recent push by the Biden administration to get Americans vaccinated, he has introduced what he calls a “a six-pronged, comprehensive national strategy” to combat Covid-19. In it, he says that this plan will ensure that they are using every available tool to combat COVID-19 and save even more lives, while also keeping schools open and safe, and protecting our economy from lockdowns and damage.  While I can admire the administrations attempt to combat the virus, I believe this plan will do more harm than good.

The reason that I believe that this plan will backfire is because of the mandate that is requiring all employers with 100+ employees to ensure their workers are fully vaccinated or tested weekly or else pay a fine of $14,000 per violation.  While this mandate will not affect business like Wal-Mart, Amazon, Costco, Lowe’s Home Depot, or any other big businesses, it has a detrimental effect on small businesses. According to the Small Business Administration or SBA, a government entity, in a 2019 report said, “Small businesses are the lifeblood of the U.S. economy: they create two-thirds of net new jobs and drive U.S. innovation and competitiveness.”  They also account for 44 percent of U.S. economic activity and produce 43.5 percent of the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP). That’s huge. 

Most, if not all, small businesses cannot afford a $14,000 fine for every single violation. A small business may not even make that kind of money on a daily basis. So, this leaves the small business with a dilemma.  Either they can shut down completely or they can start to lay off employees until their total staff is at 99 employees or less.  I can only assume that closing a business is off the table.  No one wants to close a business that they started from the ground up.  This leaves only one alternative which is to lay off employees. Once a small business owner can get their employees below that 100 employee mark, then they will be free of any fine or mandate that the Biden administration can put on them.  Another, not so desirable, outcome is that many employees have already vowed to quit their jobs if such a mandate is pressed upon them.

Whether people decide to quit their jobs, or a small business feels it is being forced to terminate employees just to stay open, this will have a huge impact on the US economy. With more people out of the work force, the labor crisis will continue to grow ever so scarce, and inflation will continue to skyrocket.

While Biden touts that his plan will boost the economy and save lives, I honestly think this plan will have just the opposite effect. While it may save lives, it will in no may boost the economy.  I predict that it will only make it worse.

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Politics

The Not So Golden State

With the recall of Gavin Newsome over, and his retaining of the Governor’s seat, I’m quite surprised. I think that I would have been less surprised if another Democrat had challenged his seat and won. I’m surprised because the state of California is in a mess. California has problems, and not little ones either.

California is currently in a loosing battle with it’s economy and it shows no signs of slowing down while Newsome is in office. I’ll look at just a few of the problems that they are having and give you, my solution.

For a state like California to remain a powerhouse in the economic game, it must have businesses. Since Californica is the most populous state, businesses are the very key that keep the state running. California takes it’s cut in revenue from the business through taxes. It also takes a cut from what the employees of those businesses make. A business must make enough money to pay their taxes, pay their employees, and make a profit. If it can’t then either the business closes shop or moves to a location where it can come out on top. This seems to be what businesses in California are doing.

According to Forbes, not only are major businesses fleeing the state, so are it’s residents. This makes sense. A person needs a job to stay afloat. If jobs leave, then so will the residents. If there are no jobs, then naturally people will move to where there are jobs. In 2020, California’s population decreased for the first time in recorded history. California lost so many people that it lost a congressional seat as well. Between 2000 and 2020, California lost 2.6 million people to other states. That’s incredible, and not in a good way, because California has a history of increase. From 1850 to 2010, California grew by 10% or more in each one of those decades.

Lee Ohanian and Joseph Vranich, of the Hoover Institution, wrote an article on why companies that were Headquartered in California are choosing to leave in unprecedented numbers. What’s amazing is the increase in speed at which companies are leaving. They found that companies are leaving at record speeds and are showing no signs of slowing down. In their report, which was conducted from January 2018 to June 2021, they recorded 265 business that were Headquartered in California, had relocated to other states. In 2018, 58 companies left the state. In 2019, it was 78. In 2020, it was 62. And in just the first 6 months of 2021 from January 1st to June 30th, a whopping 74 companies have already left the state. This is a huge deal for California and it’s also very concerning.

You can read their full report here.

You can also read a summery of their report here.

California has the highest tax rates in the country, and this seems to be the number one reason that companies are leaving. Fleeing to another state like Texas or Tennessee, which have no state income tax, can potentially save a company millions of dollars in revenue. These millions can in turn be used for higher wages, opening of new businesses, and hiring quality employees. It makes sense for a company to relocate to a state that has no state income tax or one like North Carolina which has the lowest corporate tax in America at just 2.50%.

Taxes are not the only reason that people are leaving the Golden State in record numbers. Cost of living is another big reason. Without question, California is one of the most expensive states to live in out of all states. Housing takes up the bulk of the cost of living, but other things such as utilities, transportation, food, regulations, and again, taxes like state and property taxes take up a massive amount as well. Fool.com has an excellent resource for finding what the typical home price in every state is. You might not be surprised; California comes in at #1 for the most expensive housing prices in the continental United States. The typical cost of a home in California is $683,996 which is 233% of the typical U.S. home price. Compare that to Texas, where most businesses are fleeing to, and the typical cost of a home drops dramatically to $247,210, which is only 84% of the typical U.S. home price. You can literally buy two homes in Texas for less than the cost of one home in California and still have $135,576 left over and avoid all state taxes since Texas has none.

As far as all other resources are concerned, numbeo.com has one of the best cost of living sites around. They claim to be the world’s largest cost of living database and you can compare most cities in California to almost any other city within another state. You can compare cost of living expenses such as restaurants, markets, transportation, monthly utilities, sports and leisure, childcare, clothing and shoes, rent, salaries, etc. Each category has different examples of the costs of certain items and compares the cost between the two cities and gives you the percentage difference. It’s an excellent resource and I encourage you to go and check it out.

Let’s talk about the homeless population for a minute. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that California has the highest population of homeless citizens in the United States. When a state has the highest costs of literally everything such as housing, gas, taxes, food, etc., we shouldn’t be surprised that so many people can’t afford these things and therefore go homeless. According to The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, as of January 2020, California had an estimated 161,548 experiencing homelessness on any given day. Of that total, 8,030 were family households, 11,401 were Veterans, 12,172 were unaccompanied young adults (aged 18-24), and 51,785 were individuals experiencing chronic homelessness. Public school data reported to the U.S. Department of Education during the 2018-2019 school year shows that an estimated 271,528 public school students experienced homelessness over the course of the year. Of that total, 11,021 students were unsheltered, 19,758 were in shelters, 14,386 were in hotels/motels, and 226,363 were doubled up.

You can read their full report here.

The more and more homeless people that California creates, the more and more problem mount. Two of the biggest are that of trash and feces. With no place to throw their trach, homeless people just throw it onto the streets that don’t get cleaned very often or at all. The more and more that trash piles up, the more and more it becomes a concern. It’s a concern because diseases start to come to light due to the piles of trash left sitting everywhere. Typhus, which is considered a medieval disease, has reared its head once again in California. Typhus comes from, you guessed it, trash.

Feces is another huge problem that comes from the homeless. These people have no where to use the restroom, so the local streets become their “dumping” ground so to speak. Human fecal matter then goes down storm drains and then pollutes area lakes, rivers, and creeks. People swim in the lakes and rivers and then end up getting bacterial infections and diseases. The problem is so bad that the Environmental Protection Agency has gotten involved in trying to do something about the situation.

These are just a few of the reasons that California needs new leadership. Certainly, people don’t want to live this way or pay the high cost of living that’s associated with California. Gavin Newsome may be a great guy in person, but his leadership skills are the worst in the nation. My fear is that he is not doing anything to stop the rising cost of living, diseases, businesses, and people that are leaving. If things keep trending the way that they are, in a few years, California might just be a barren wasteland of a state.

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