OPEN BORDER BIDEN, AND OMICRON VIRUS

It’s been bad enough that  “Open Border Biden” (unknowingly ?) colludes with the drug cartels and organized coyotes with his open border policy. But now with the recent advent of a dangerous new Covid B11 529 super variant  (Omicron variant) that may drag us right back into “shutdown” his “humane” policies  may facilitate the spread of a deadly disease as well. 

Biden in his desire for a more “humane” immigrant and refugee policy on our southern border has accomplished just the opposite.  His policies have encouraged a massive and unprecedented level of illegal border crossings and required his government to hide the results of these policies by secretly flying and bussing the hundreds of thousand of what he prefers to call “irregular” immigrants to unwarned and unprepared  small towns and communities all over the nation. 

While the rest of the world listens to the warnings of the WHO and restricts flights and travelers from nations where this variant (the  new virulent highly contagious B 11 529 ) the Biden team blithely continues its southern open border policy seeming to operate to purposely help spread this frightful virus around the nation.

Can we at least have a hope that some adult (excluding any oatmeal dribbling geriatrics) take charge in DC to institute some practical and reasonable policies to protect and treat “humanely” the lawful and actual citizens of this nation that elected Mr. Biden. 

STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE POLITICAL POSTURING

 The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) was created after the oil embargo of 1973 to assure  the nation’s energy needs during a national crisis such as war, an embargo, a terrorist attack, a hurricane, or for the needs of a close ally threatened by such an embargo ( i.e. Israel) or  other unplanned interruption of essential fuel oil.  

The plan called for the storage of nearly one billion barrels of oil in geological features called “salt domes” (massive homogeneous deposits of mineral salt deep below the surface) mostly located on the nation’s Gulf Coast.  At present, the several reserve locations  are almost two-thirds full, holding  some 600 million barrels of petroleum.  The supply can last, based on current usage,  for about 36 to 60 days, were it needed.  The oil is accessed  in a manner similar to tapping a normal oil well.  The oil is pumped to the surface through a pipe,  where it is then transferred to refineries for distillation or for other purposes.  The rate of supply is constrained to about 4 million barrels per day as a result of the way the oil is accessed. 

SPR oil is a STRATEGIC RESOURCE, not one to be used for base political purposes.  However President Biden, ignoring the long term and the reserve’s actual purpose, has just released 50 million barrels of oil from the SPR. .  His stated goal is to help lower the price of oil and gasoline which has jumped in price, climbing to a seven year high of almost $4 dollars per gallon. The price of gasoline at the pump has only underscored the inflationary surge of recent months rising to 50% higher than only a year ago.  The price of gasoline is a potent political embarrassment and a drag on the popularity polls of the Biden team.  

But the President’s action is an irresponsible act of political theater.  One  glaring reason to castigate our President is that the problem Biden is attempting to “solve” by releasing and misusing our SPR oil is (like many of the the nation’s other recent crises and problems)  one Biden caused himself. 

The high price of oil gas and gasoline are in large part the result of President Biden’s early misguided actions to reduce  dependency on fossil fuels and other so called “green” initiatives which closed opportunities for oil exploration and drastically reduced  investment in oil and gas development.   

Furthermore, the 4 million barrels per day he is releasing is unlikely to change the price of heating oil or gasoline  significantly.  We use approximately 18 million barrels of oil per day (2020).  The 4 million bbl of SPR oil would represent about only 20% of the total.  In fact we import about six million barrels per day from OPEC nations  (2020).  These oil producing nations all have a powerful incentive to keep prices high. Were each OPEC nation  to simply lower production by a small amount , the drop in world production would quickly nullify any effects of the Biden release. Thus the  act of using the SPR to bolster his plunging popularity polls is just an irresponsible and desperate act of political theater.  Designed to give the appearance that our very unpopular President is actually doing “something” other than shuffling around, playing at being President, creating his own crises and doing not much else.

Thus this act is only political posturing of desperation that will waste a strategic reserve, and produce  no significant effects for suffering US citizenry.   The sad fact is that the way Biden is governing, we may soon desperately need that oil in the SPR before he retires from office. 

BIDEN’S INFLATION “BOMB” ON THE WAY

Inflation is “Monetary Deflation”.,,,, 

 

Inflation is an economic situation in which the price of goods increase rapidly over time—or as the term implies: costs of goods and products  “inflate”, or conversely the value of your dollar “deflates”.  “Monetary deflation” may be a better term—at least for consumers,  if not the politicians responsible for it.  

No one likes inflation.  It generates a sense of uncertainty and insecurity. Workers are unhappy with their wages, because in an inflationary cycle workers are faced daily with being unable to buy food, fuel, services or products, that they were able to afford just recently.   Unhappy employees press their employers for increases in salary.  Strikes or work stoppages may result. But employers are also affected by inflation. Employer costs rise and profits decline.  But raising the hourly wage for workers, or increasing income for workers may simply add more dollars into the mix and create an ugly feedback loop, called an “inflationary price wage spiral”.  Worst of all inflation hits those in the lowest income brackets the most, for it is these citizens  who spend the largest part of their income on food, gas and other staples where inflation hits hardest, and it is these folks who can least afford the additional costs. 

Inflation what is it? 

You buy a loaf of bread one day for $2.98,  three days later the price tag has “inflated” to $3.98.  Nothing has changed.  The loaf is the the same quality, same size, and weight, only the price has increased.  Your  dollar has bought you less than it did a few days prior.  It was worth 1/3 of a loaf on day one, three days later the dollar bought you only 1/4 of a loaf.  Simply stated your dollar is worth less..you lost 25% of you dollar’s  buying power. 

Few people seem to understand inflation.    There is a good reason for this.  Except for our  very old head of state, (who should know about this), no “young” person has ever actually experienced the fact that your dollars are worth less and less each day and what a terrible impact this has.  Thus the “thirty something to forty-somethings” who populate the halls of Congress— and make decisions on behalf of the Biden team, have lived all of their adult cogniscient lives during periods of almost no inflation, and an economy with rock stable prices.  They have  never experienced the hardship of sharply rising costs of living  and perhaps only know this phenomena from their recently purchased textbooks. 

Since the early 1980s,  our nation has experienced almost no serious inflationary episodes.  During the post WW II, economic recovery  inflation remained relatively static.  But after a decade of recovery, inflation began to rise.  In two decades for this to,occur.  In 1960, when inflation was only  1.5 %, but it “ballooned” to 14% in 1980.    By 1985, inflation, or what I call “monetary deflation” began to decline, remaining  steady at between 4% to 5% during the ‘80s and from that point continued on a downward slope, falling to about 1.5% in 2016 and to zero late 2020.   Only recently, during the first year of the Biden Administration, has it rapidly spiked to its present 6.5%, the highest it has been in thirty years.  Thus, for the last thirty-five years or so, no one (except the elderly)  has experienced this economic phenomena.

The are several causes of inflation. Either a scarcity of products and commodities, and/or excessive amounts of money circulating in the economy.  Both of these circumstances can cause uncomfortable inflation or rises in the cost of living.   But at its core,  inflation is controlled by the inflexible economic laws of supply and demand.  When products are in short supply their demand increases and prices rise, when there is a glut of those products demand falls, as does their price.  But the money supply counts too! Too much cash in the system cheapens it. 

Scarcity makes things more valuable—think of those old baseball cards-or paintings of deceased artists!   In the 1820s a lump of pure aluminum metal was given to the Emperor Napoleon as a gift.  At the time, it was so rare it was many more times more valuable than gold.  Today, aluminum is so common, as a lump of pure metal, it is valueless.    The rules of supply and demand control price.  Scarce loaves of bread result in higher prices. An abundance of bread loaves lowers  their price.  The laws of supply and demand, which control cost of goods services and products apply to dollars as well.  If dollars are in short supply, they are more valuable…increase the number in circulation,  and they become less valuable.  

When prices climb uncontrollably in an inflationary spiral one cause may be a scarcity of goods or a glut of dollars. 

Suppose the supply of dollars somehow increases. The value of dollars like all other items are controlled by their scarcity or abundance.  If citizens could simply print their own “twenties” on  home printers, there would be so many in circulation that the value of each would drop to practically zero. 

Too many dollars in the hands of consumers results in the currency (money) losing buying power..and inflated prices. 

In post WW I Germany, the Weimar government in an attempt to pay its foreign war debts began a process of printing more and more  paper money.  So many Deutschmarks were circulated that the German currency became nearly valueless.  Photographs of that time show citizens literally rolling wheelbarrows of piled Deutschmarks to the grocery to buy food for the supper meal. 

So governments can instigate inflation by printing too much money. Too many dollars in circulation (supply and demand) reduce the value of each dollar. The FED (US Federal Reserve Bank or central bank) is supposed to be the guardian of our currency’s value. One of the bank’s mission statements is explicitly to guard against inflation.  But it is often a conflicted institution for it is also tasked with insuring the continued vibrancy of the economy.  

A financial policy termed “monetary easing” is one of the mechanisms used  by the FED to vitalize a sluggish economy.  Monetary easing is a process whereby the  FED “buys debt” in the form of bonds issued by major banks. This process permits a bank to “sell its debt”  to the FED thus permitting it to hold on to funds that would have to been paid out to satisfy that debt (it does not pay its debts) and thus can continue to lend out that money to other  customers.  By simply writing off or nullifying these bond debts , the FED, in effect, is “printing  up money” and dumping  it into the economy.  For years now, the  FED has been buying up debt and thus dumping  trillions  of dollars into circulation each year, and in effect “cheapening” your dollar, i.e. causing inflation. At the present time, the FED has bought up debt or dumped greenbacks into the economy to the tune of about $7 trillion dollars. Monetary easing has decreased the value of the dollars you hold by making them less valuable by that amount. That FED policy contributes heavily to inflation. 

 The FED is not alone in potentially contributing to inflation.  The Biden administration has  contributed to inflation in two ways.  One of the first acts of this President was to attempt to decrease the use and supply of fossil fuels.  This was a bad idea and was bad timing.  It caused a rapid rise in oil prices,  and added another vital commodity to those in short supply.  This made  it much more expensive to fill your gas tank or heat your home.  That caused inflation. Secondly the Biden team again foolishly and with again with bad timing added to the recent wave of inflationary dollars in circulation (by government hand out legislation, see below). This policy sent more dollars into circulation , chasing goods and services in our economy which were scarce to begin with .  

When President Biden first entered office his government passed the  $900 billion dollar relief program of January 2021. The  Covid pandemic spending bill, added another $1.9 trillion dollars into circulation.  The  total —$2.8 trillion dollars— increased the number of dollars chasing goods and services in the marketplace.  On top of that our persistent pandemic upended many supply chains and decreased economic activities.  Thus goods became scarce too.  Between true pandemic generated scarcity of goods and commodities and the FED and the Biden team dumping dollars into the economy, inflation spiked and  contributed to our recent inflation of about 6.5%,  the highest in thirty years. 

 Biden’s  recently passed infrastructure bill, costing taxpayers another $1.9 trillion  was just  signed into law,  and the House of Representatives  just passed another social spending and climate bill which will add ( if it is ratified in the Senate) another $4 trillion to the sea of dollars swirling around in the economy.    Thus in this last year (ignoring the the $7 trillion (trn)dollars monetary easing dollars) the Biden Administration alone has pumped  $ 0.9 trn, $1.9 trn, another 1.9 trn, and potentially another  $4 trn dollars (total =$8.7 trn) into an already overheated economy with an inflation rate that is higher than it has been in 30 years..  

Wage increases can also stir inflation. The pandemic has caused many workers to give up work and stay home.  As the economy improved, a shortage of workers caused employers to raise salaries to encourage employees back.  Wages have risen by over 4% in the last year. Higher wages are another inflation stimulus—more money chasing scarce goods in the market place cause prices of goods to rise. Rising wages can generate a self reinforcing spiral of higher wages causing more inflation termed a wage/inflation spiral. It is noteworthy that while wages rose  by 4%, inflation rose by 6% in same period,  so a wage earner’s  buying power has dropped by 2% even as wages rose.  Classical inflation problem!!

All of these massive government expenditures and efforts to get more money into the hands of worked have and will add more dollars to the economy over the next years and  will act like a “bomb blast” of inflation stimulus.  Expect prices to soar and inflation to climb to record levels as they sap the buying power of your wages, savings, college savings accounts,  and IRS plans.  

Will you be able to both pay for the gas at the pump, buy your medicines and still feed your family? Inflation can make all of these costs rise to unprecedented levels. 

The answer is to modulate the explosive government spending the Biden team of youthful inexperienced decision makers are foisting on the rest of us.  

BIDEN- HARRIS “DEEPLY CONCERNED” ABOUT POLISH BORDER, IGNORE BORDER CRISIS AT HOME

 Over the last several weeks a small groups of Syrian, Iraqi and Yemeni immigrants have set up a temporary camp on the border between Belorussia and Poland.  There, at the Polish border these migrants face a wall of razor wire the Polish border guards have put up to prevent them from crossing. 

 If they pass into Poland they will have entered the EU, and into what is known as the “Schengen Area”a group of 26 member nations where there are no border barriers or border controls between member states.  Thus if they are allowed into Poland, they can go almost anywhere  in those 26 states. Most, however, are interested in Germany, where a previous surge of almost one-million near-eastern immigrants were settled just recently, and where jobs and bountiful social and economic benefits may await them.  The vast majority of EU citizens—disillusioned and disrupted by these past immigrant waves—do not favor their passage, as a recent poll (87% opposed vs 12 % in favor) seems to support. 

Biden in DC and “border czar” Kamala  Harris (visiting France) have both stated their “deep concern” about the border crisis in Europe on Poland’s eastern border, but say nary a word about our own border crisis right here at home. 

This encampment of Iraqi and Syrian economic migrants are relatively few, only a thousand, versus the massive flow of illegal migrants at our own southern border.  In this year (2021) alone, at the Mexico crossing more than 1.6 million immigrants were encountered attempting to cross our southern border.  Yet both Biden and Harris are “concerned” about the insignificant border crisis in Poland.  And even more surprising their statements of concern  are actually reported in the press. The US, biased “main stream”  press tends to ignore the massive immigration problems, we face on our border,  it openly report Polish border problems.    

And unbelievably both our President and Vice President are “aware of and concerned with” a small border problem in Belarus, 4,400 miles away, but studiously ignore a crisis at home one thousand times greater and with greater impact festering on our own doorstep. 

What is going on here? 

 

THE 450K PAYOUT TO IMMIGRANT BORDER CROSSERS

The Biden Justice Department, attempted to justify the potential $450,000.00 dollar-per person-settlement proposed to be offered to illegal immigrants— by equating  it with the internment of Japanese citizens during WW II. 

The now infamous  “450K separation settlement”  is a cash hand-out proposed for illegal immigrants,  who crossed our southern  border with children in tow, and were separated when the adults of these presumed family groups were incarcerated and the innocent children were placed in foster care or with relatives in the US.  President  Biden when first queried on this matter called the $450K settlement “garbage” that the press invented.  Later, his staff walked that back, and he had to admit that indeed his Justice Department is “negotiating” with attorneys for these border crossers for just such a fee. 

The exposure of these secret negotiations forced the Justice Department to portray this outlandish, nay ridiculous, policy as perfectly normal, claiming as justification and a “precedent” for such a plan the payments made to Japanese Americans who were placed in internment camps during WWII. 

The Biden team has scored another ugly faux pas on a growing list which reenforces the current suspicion that there is no one at the helm in the Oval Office.  It demonstrates again  just how out of touch with history and reality are those feeding pablum to Joe and making policy decisions for the nation.  

There is no way that the ugly 1944 war-hysteria-driven US policy of incarcerating over 100,000 Japanese Americans can conceivably be compared to recent border jumpers who broke our laws.  

The attempt by the Biden team to use the WW II internment of the Japanese demeans and diminishes the plight and impact on the lives of the innocent Japanese Americans, all of whom were here legally, were law abiding members of their communities, and the vast majority of whom were actual US citizens of this nation with Constitutionally guaranteed rights. How can anyone equate the plight of Japanese American citizens with that of illegal immigrant “families” who after breaking our laws were actually treated humanely and with respect and dignity.  

How could these undocumented  migrants, accompanied by children who may or may not be related to them, and who intentionally and knowingly ignored international protocols for refugee status, who ignored our borders, ignored our laws and the “wait your turn” protocols of legal immigration be considered as in any way similar to those of Japanese Americans citizens wrongfully incarcerated as a result war hysteria. 

Sadly,  the restitution offered to the Japanese American victims,  only many decades later, was a tiny fraction of this ridiculous proposal.

 The now infamous “450K hand out” will only exacerbate the crisis at the border by incentivizing more coyotes to abduct children and partner them with their “clients” as they run the border crossing.  

 

QUALIFIED IMMUNITY, ABANDON AT YOUR RISK

  Qualified immunity for police officers is a protocol that protects government officials against liability in the civil courts.  We arm and train police officers to enforce laws our legislators and local governments enact.  We endow these individuals with the power to detain and arrest individuals who break our laws.  If in conducting these functions we delegate to them,  they cause harm or alleged harm their exposure to being sued is limited by a protocol termed qualified immunity.  That limitation is not absolute. If a police officer has violated a citizen’s  rights or other laws they can be disciplined and sued or indicted for a criminal act,  as many have been. 

But citizens who actually pay taxes and fees for the city police force expect  police protection. Such a service is an absolute necessity for a civil society to exist. . Citizens should also be aware that qualified immunity serves their best interest.  for without QI  the effectiveness of the police force dramatically declined. 

In 1967 the Supreme Court justified the need for qualified immunity for police  from civil lawsuits by stating that a police officer is placed into an untenable position when he may be charged with dereliction of duty if “he does not arrest when he has probable cause and may be punished with damages if he does”.   The unprotected police officer, beside taking on a hazardous profession without QI is placed into untenable legal jeopardy—that is: between a “rock and hard place”, it changes his or her attitude toward policing. 

It was clear in 1967 that if we wanted to have a functioning police force,  an effective police force, we had to protect police officers from harassment, and from frivolous civil  suits.  

Nothing has changed. These circumstances in 2021are no different than 1967. 

Furthermore,  it was clear to the Court in 1967 that without such protection, essential in any civil society,  it would be very difficult to encourage citizens to even take on such a hazardous occupations

For citizens who pay taxes for services (and expect a return for the outlay )  a police force bereft of a qualified immunity clause is  simply a bad deal.  

During the riots in NYC in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder,  the videos of the manner in which the police reacted (or became passive observers of crime) was telling. 

Police were video taped being beaten, their cars burned and their precincts houses attacked. They acted  only as observers to the attacks on their own persons, on City property and attacks on private citizens,  some of whom were severely beaten or killed by the rioters as the police officers walked away or turned their backs. That is what we can expect when protection for police is removed. 

In cities or states where qualified immunity is abandoned  expect crime to soar, business to decline, tax revenues to shrivel, civility and safety for residents  to plummet, and frivolous suits to metastasize.  

In Pierson v. Ray (1967), the Supreme Court first justified the need for qualified immunity from civil rights violation lawsuits for law enforcement officers by arguing that "[a] policeman’s lot is not so unhappy that he must choose between being charged with dereliction of duty if he does not arrest when he had probable cause, and being punished with damages if he does."[5]

DEMOCRATS IN DANGEROUS DENIAL

For  the nation and the Democrats the  Virginia and New Jersey elections of November 2021 had the impact of a 60mm mortar shell ripping through the canvas roof of a MASH unit during battlefield  emergency surgery.  The bloody chaos and disaster forced the realization on the military brass and “higher ups” that this forward unit was probably located far to close to front lines and enemy territory.   But political disasters are another story.

The political story unfolded in Virginia where a well known popular ex-governor was defeated handily in a state where a year ago Joe Biden won by 10 points.  In NJ, a deep blue state, where  Biden won by 10 %, a  little known, poorly funded GOP candidate for Governor nearly toppled the sitting, very “progressive”, Democrat out of the governor’s mansion. 

Taken together, the results of these and other elections around the nation point to a growing wave of dissatisfaction with the Biden Administration.  Perhaps the  electorate has come to the realization that  the Biden candidacy was a sinister stealth campaign. Uncle Joe ran and won by the very “skin on his teeth” by only  44,000 +/- votes in three closely contested states. He won those close elections by running as a centrist and moderate who would unite the nation.  

Then, when in office,  he abandoned any thoughts of unifying the nation or centrist policies by surrounded himself with fringe, left-wing, poorly qualified ideologues and morphing  into a far-left caricature of  Bernie Sanders on steroids. in an attempt to re-invent the nation into a Venezuela of the north. 

For any other political party, the debacle in New Jersey and  Virginia should have been  the warning sign of a massive backlash against Biden’s:  race and identity based policies,  his socialist tax and spend plans (during a period of surging inflation), the Afghan fiasco, his seeming mental frailty and incompetence,  a national crime wave, an out-of-control, open border and immigration agenda, attacks on police and  law and order, surging gas prices, a persistent, evolving pandemic, abandonment of cash bail, urban mob rule, support for CRT, BLM, “WOKE” and racial quotas, phony personal pronouns, “alphabet soup” sex designations, denial of biological sex, support for XYs posing as XXs in girl’s bathrooms, support of claims  that parents have no right to know what and agree with what is taught in their children’s classrooms, and other fringe-left, radical positions, policies and phony nostrums.  

These divisive  and destructive issues are how Democrats define themselves today.  These same ideas are apparently anathema to vast swaths of American voters.  So how did the Democrats get to this place?  It had to do with a shrinking base of support in national elections. The party of FDR, Truman, and JFK had no choice but to stoop to divisive identity, race and sex politics. 

 It was the Obama candidacy that underscored the fact that Democrats can win nationally, but only with a massive (90% support ) by  black communities voting down-the-line-“Democrat”.  But exceptional black candidates like President Obama —a centrist—are rare.  Without such a candidate to get to the level of support they needed for success,  they had to  cobble together a cabal of tiny radical fringe groups and radicalize and arouse these splinter  groups into partisan frenzy.  

But this Nov 2 2021 clarion call in Virginia, warning of political disaster had no effect on the ideologues huddled under the Democrat umbrella (they do not need a tent).   At least publicly the Virginia disaster was  ignored by Speaker Pelosi and the  Democrat leadership in DC. So instead of moving the political MASH unit out of direct fire, they advanced toward the front lines,  claiming the “voters will come” if we double down on our fringe,  left wing policies.  

Since they can not abandon their radical agenda, and are unable to come to terms with the reality that “the people do not want what we are hawking”, they are condemned to persist with  their socialist radical progressive agenda which serves not the citizens of this nation,  but the radicals in academe, government, and the entertainment industry—and a old guy in a basement in Delaware, as well as his “ne’er do well” son wielding a blowpipe on a coloring book.. 

Democrat leadership  now claims they can only win elections with more of the same garbage, they just got soundly beaten for supporting.  This is like the patient shocked to learn he has a pre-cancerous lung tumor,  and is fully dumbfounded when his physician hands him a  prescription for “two packs of Camel cigarettes a day”.  The Democrats are in denial and it’s leadership is perhaps under the control of some unseen “Rasputin like seer” calling the radical shots.

But perhaps we have a savior in Senator Joe Manchin, and a few others who will plug their thumbs into the leaking  dike and save the nation from the damaging deluge of Democrat denial.