November 17, 2022

I visited the FDR Library in Hyde Park, NY the morning after Donald Trump declared his candidacy for the presidency…again. FDR actually declared his candidacy four times, and won each time. In his monologue, Trump once again claimed that he accomplished more than almost any President in history save for maybe Abraham Lincoln.

In the face of an economy that had expanded every year for the previous eight years, Trump succeeded in not screwing it up until COVID came along. In contrast, FDR had to deal with this thing called the Great Depression. FDR created programs for the poorest among us. Trump cut taxes for the wealthiest among us. Trump took over at a perilous time in our history when the world was at peace. FDR had to deal with this thing called WW II. FDR had to deal with homegrown Nazi sympathizers known as the America First movement. Trump encouraged Nazi sympathizers with his Make America Great Again movement. FDR had to deal with polio. Trump suffered from bone spurs. FDR had fireside chats. Trump had chopper talk.

It looks like Trump is only the third best President of all time, and not second, which is still an historic achievement.

November 16, 2022

I don’t know and could care less about what Donald Trump announces tonight. Will he declare his candidacy? Will he start a third party? Will he ask for donations? What I am more concerned about are the lessons that Republicans have not learned from the mid-term elections. I have seen a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from Republicans about the red tsunami that never happened. They are blaming Trump for their losses. Trump is blaming everyone else. They don’t seem to be blaming him for any of his bad behavior, however. If there had been a red wave, all would have been forgiven. They just don’t get it. What they are implying is that everything that had on gone before would have been okay if the voters had validated it.

The poison that is Donald Trump still infects us. Trump did, in fact, declare his intentions for 2024, and Trumpism is not dead. The Petri dish that is the Republican Party is still the perfect medium for,his poison. Have they learned their lesson? I think not.

November 12, 2022

Harvard didn’t beat Yale in 1968 in The Game, but it sure felt like it. Similarly, the Donkeys didn’t beat the Elephants in 2022, but it sure felt like it. For the record, Frank Ciampi, Harvard’s quarterback, is not me.

Now, bless its heart, The Republican Party wants to move on from Donald Trump. The epiphany comes six years too late, but better late than never, I guess. And the only reason it wants to move on from its toxic marriage is that Trump is a loser. Tragically, it has nothing to do with January 6th, two impeachments, his political malpractice regarding COVID, etc. The new season of this political soap opera starts next week when Trump declares himself a candidate for the presidency in the 2024 election.

The disgraced former President is jealous of his party’s new boyfriend, Ron DiSantis. He is younger, smarter (despite going to Yale), and, darn it, voters seem to like him. Apparently, the ex-President has dirt on the boyfriend, which will be revealed in a future episode. What it entails is anyone’s guess. Harvard was dead, but, in a script too unbelievable even for a soap opera, rose again. Trump may be dead, but, as it happens often in soap operas, it may be just a dream.

DEMOCRATS BEAT REPUBLICANS, 29-29

Harvard didn’t beat Yale in 1968 in The Game, but it sure felt like it. Similarly, the Donkeys didn’t beat the Elephants in 2022, but it sure felt like it. For the record, Frank Ciampi, Harvard’s quarterback, is not me.

Now, bless its heart, The Republican Party wants to move on from Donald Trump. The epiphany comes six years too late, but better late than never, I guess. And the only reason it wants to move on from its toxic marriage is that Trump is a loser. Tragically, it has nothing to do with January 6th, two impeachments, his political malpractice regarding COVID, etc. The new season of this political soap opera starts next week when Trump declares himself a candidate for the presidency in the 2024 election.

The disgraced former President is jealous of his party’s new boyfriend, Ron DiSantis. He is younger, smarter (despite going to Yale), and, darn it, voters seem to like him. Apparently, the ex-President has dirt on the boyfriend, which will be revealed in a future episode. What it entails is anyone’s guess. Harvard was dead, but, in a script too unbelievable even for a soap opera, rose again. Trump may be dead, but, as it happens often in soap operas, it may be just a dream.

November 11, 2022

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I spotted Doug Flutie standing by Herschel Walker on election night. I thought the football hero from Boston College, who is famous for his Hail Mary pass to Gerard Phelan against Miami, was smarter than that. Maybe, as they used to say about Endicott “Chub” Peabody, he played too many games without his helmet on. At least Peabody was a governor of Massachusetts, and was responsible for creating the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Other than being a quarterback, Flutie is known for his ads touting Nugenix, which claims to be a male enhancement supplement. Maybe that is what Herschel Walker needs. Walker would probably say that the proof is in the pudding regarding his sexual prowess while at the same time denying that anything ever happened. However, being a man is more than creating life. It also about taking care of and providing for that life. In that, Walker has failed miserably. There is no supplement for being absent.

Walker is behind Raphael Warnock as he heads into a run-off. He is hoping that Doug Flutie can find him in the end zone with another Hail Mary pass. I am hoping he runs off.

November 9, 2022

As someone much smarter than me said, “It’s never over til it’s over.” The votes are still being counted, but it looks like an election characterized by Democracy, Deniers, Dobbs, and the Donald. Democracy and abortion rights prevailed. Deniers and Trump were rejected. Hopefully, we have moved back to some sense of sanity.

Despite his overwhelming victory, Ron DiSantis probably said the dumbest thing of the night as he teed up his 2024 presidential run. “Florida is where the woke mob goes to die.” I know a lot of people who have moved to Florida, and no one ever said they moved to Florida because Massachusetts was too woke. It is true that people move to Florida to die. They move to Florida for the weather, which is miserable six months of the year. They move to Florida because of estate taxes. They move to Florida to play golf and go fishing. They move to Florida despite DiSantis’ war on woke, and not because of it. His rants may work in Florida, but, what the mid-terms point out, it won’t work nationally.

November 7, 2022

With the elections scheduled to take place tomorrow and the polls tilting towards the Republicans, we may get a preview of what MAGAnomics actually looks like. The MAGAniacs don’t have an agenda so it is anyone’s guess. They voted against funding for infrastructure expenditures, and climate mitigation strategies. They voted against reducing drug prices. They are opposed to increasing minimum wages. They are not for student debt relief.

What is their economic plan? Their economic plan is to impose a federal ban on abortion. They want two guns in every garage. They want to rid kindergartens of Critical Race Theory and sex education. They are obsessed with bathrooms. They want to make voting a privilege and not a right. They want to overturn elections they don’t agree with. They want us to cower in our homes because of rampant crime and immigration. They want to troll the Libs, and offer comfort to anyone willing to attack them.

Their economic plan hasn’t changed. They want to lower tax rates for wealthy individuals and corporations while at the same time they attempt to lower Social Security and Medicare benefits. They offer no ideas on reducing inflation because they have none.

October 31, 2022

“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” We have heard that rant from the NRA ad nauseum. Now, the Republican talking point is “conspiracy websites, QAnon, Alex Jones, white supremacists, Fox et. al., election deniers, politicians displaying guns and using their opponents as targets in ads, glorified teenagers with AR-15’s, Ye, and a former President’s proclamations don’t assassinate people, deranged people assassinate people.” This wasn’t the first assassination attempt on Nancy Pelosi. January 6th insurrectionists and convicted criminals were looking for her. What a coincidence?

Receiving threats seem to be part of the job description for anyone in public office these days, including Supreme Court justices, Congressmen, state governors, school board members, and election officials. The difference is that the left does not have an infrastructure dedicated to spreading hateful and bigoted misinformation into an already toxic environment. As David Frum pointed out in a recent Atlantic article, the right glorifies and makes excuses for the violence. It blames the violence on a single, deranged individual just like they blame school shootings on individuals with mental health issues. The only thing deranged is their thinking.

Happy Halloween

October 23, 2022

The mid-term elections are upon us so it is time to declare who I am going to vote for. After analyzing all of the relevant factors, I have decided to vote for the smarter of the two parties. All things being equal, smart is better than dumb.

Despite the many years of warnings from the President of the United States, who had the resources of state officials, the FBI, the NSA, and the DOJ at his disposal, one of the parties was able to hijack the last election in plain sight. The coordination it took for Democratic apparatchiks in multiple states to pull this off was nothing short of brilliant. They deserve the opportunity once again to coordinate the efforts of the entire Federal government.

Democratic coders, probably from liberal strongholds like MIT and Cal Tech, were able to reprogram Dominion voting machines so that every time you cast a vote for Donald Trump, it came up Biden. And they were able to do it surgically in places heavily populated by only black people. Those are the people I want running our intelligence agencies. Not even the Russians were that clever.

The grim reapers of the Democratic Party were able to raise the dead in many swing states so that they could vote for Biden. Mayor Daley would have been proud. It was almost better than raising Lazarus from the dead. It must have taken a lot of work to investigate the voting patterns of dead voters so that only deceased, Zombie Democrats were allowed to vote.

Trump wasn’t even able to get one of his own people to change 11,000 votes in Georgia. Is that who we want running the country? Democrats wouldn’t have had to beg. They would have just flipped a switch somewhere.

The Democrats transported illegal voters across state lines and international borders to the places that needed them the most. Flying a few Venezuelans to Martha’s Vineyard was kid’s stuff. Then, Joe Biden installed Harvard-educated, obviously liberal Pete Buttigieg as the Secretary of Transportation to make sure that they could do it again. The planning and foresight that Biden is doing to steal the next election is breathtaking.

Finally, on the international front, Democrats enlisted space lasers from Israel, probably to destroy ballot boxes in Republican strongholds. And then there was “Italygate,” which is not to be confused with “pizza gate.” Democrats didn’t recruit Berlusconi, but they did enlist the help of an Italian contractor, who, in coordination with senior CIA officials, used military satellites to switch votes from Trump to Joe Biden and swing the result of the election. These Democrats should once again be running the State Department, and representing us at the United Nations.

The Democrats have demonstrated by their brilliance in stealing the last election that they deserve another chance and my vote.

October 20, 2022

“The Perfect Storm is a book written by Sebastian Junger. The book is about the 1991 Perfect Storm that hit North America between October 28 and November 4, 1991, and features the crew of the fishing boat Andrea Gail, from Gloucester, Massachusetts, who were lost at sea during severe conditions. The Perfect Storm was a nor’easter that absorbed Hurricane Grace. There is a movie by the same name. The hurricane that hit Florida, Hurricane Ian, could be considered a perfect storm for very different reasons.

Hurricane Ian is a case study in I’ll-considered and short-sighted local, state and federal policies. The devastation was the result an intersection of bad policies involving economics, taxes, climate science, politics, and real estate development that led to an historically expensive disaster. The ramifications will be felt for years.

At its heart is the denial of climate change despite all of the warning signs. In the face of rising sea levels, dangerously low water levels, increasing temperatures, falling high rises, degradation of The Everglades, and previous catastrophic hurricanes, people keep moving to Florida’s coasts. It’s as if they are playing a game of Russian Roulette, betting that it won’t happen to them. Inevitably, the bullet gets loaded in the chamber, and the gun goes off.

Construction is the lifeblood of Florida. 40% of Florida’s economy depends on construction. Construction growth couldn’t be stopped even if someone wanted to, and nobody does. Retirees keep moving down for the cheap housing and the weather. 845 people per day move to Florida. Tourists keep coming to Disney World and other theme parks. New homes and hotels by the thousands are being built as far as the eye can see.

Florida’s tax policy encourages people to move to the Sunshine State. Florida has no state income or estate taxes, which is a powerful incentive to get people to relocate. Throw in affordable housing, and you have a population explosion of epic proportions. Florida needs people to settle on the coasts to keep its economy going. It needs to grow its tax base through property taxes, and property taxes are the highest for beachfront properties.

Homeowners insurance is the lynchpin of the real estate market. Without it, the market evaporates. A patch work of private and public insurance has made it possible for people to build and live where they shouldn’t. However, this may be coming to an end as reinsurers question their commitment to the market, and primary insurers vacate the market. Many homeowners do not have adequate insurance, and many have lost everything. Ironically, it may fall upon the taxpayers to bail out home owners, which gets to the politics of the matter.

Good construction is good politics in Florida. Regardless of the extent of the damage on the west coast, no governor is going to turn his back on the construction industry and the political contributions that come with it. Florida is still saying “come on down.” They will probably look at strengthening construction codes and building bigger and better seawalls in hopes of delaying the inevitable. It gives “build the wall” a whole new meaning. Addressing the root causes of climate change will be politically perilous. Florida will not adapt in any meaningful fashion. It will just keep building, writing checks, and hope no one notices.