RACE MYTHS

With all of the current hand-wring and mayhem caused by the murder of innocent George Floyd by white police officer, Derek Chauvin, and the cowardly non-intervention by the other three Minneapolis police officers, I believe it is time to weigh in on this tragic event. As clearly as this case is of “bad” cops vs. a black victim it is far from what truly goes on between the police and the black community at large. And the implication that white people in general are also somehow racially complicit in it is completely dishonest and absurd. N’est-ce pas? The new liberal talking point phrase is “Systemic Racism”. “Systemic” is defined in the dictionary as “related to a system, as opposed to a particular part. The left will misappropriate any word or phrase to advance their agenda and will coordinate the use of talking point words or phrases to expedite the process such as previously using the words “existential threat” and many more such phrases or words. Here are some facts as gathered by the Washington Post (hardly a conservative source) going back to 2015: Since 2015, of all the 1004 fatal police shootings, 802 were defined by race. Of these 371 were White suspects and 236 were Black and the vast majority were armed. Black suspects were more likely to have a weapon than Whites, yet more Whites were killed than Blacks. The number of Blacks murdered was 7407 in 2018. For every unarmed Black killed by police more than 700 were killed by someone else, usually by a person they knew. In 2019 the police shot and killed 10 unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed Whites. Of these 10 cases of unarmed Blacks being killed by police, 9 were males and one female. In five cases the suspect attacked the police and the police were not charged. In one of four other cases a Black police officer said his gun discharged accidentally and he was not charged. In another case a Black suspect claimed to have a gun, but did not, and vowed to kill the police officer. The officer was not charged. Years before the suspect was involved in a shootout with police. In one case in Fort Worth, TX a Black woman was shot and killed by a White police officer while she was in her house. The officer said he thought she had a gun pointed at him. Nevertheless he was charged with homicide. In a car chase a White police officer shot and killed a suspect because the officer said he had a gun. A gun was found in the suspect’s car, yet the officer was charged with aggravated manslaughter. In 2015, when Barack Obama was president, the number of unarmed Blacks killed by police were 38 and 32 unarmed Whites were killed. The totals have been dropping since then and they are falling far more dramatically for Blacks than for Whites. Last year, 2019, was the safest for both unarmed Black and White suspects. However, 48 police officers were slain by suspects in that year. This is more killed than were all unarmed suspects of all races. Police officers are 18 ½ times more likely to be killed by Black males than are unarmed Black males killed by the police. There are now increasing calls by what has encompassed more than just the loony left including the Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, to either completely defund the police or as the Mayor of Los Angles, Eric Garcetti, has said to greatly reduce the police department budget. Not surprisingly the New York Times approvingly reported that the New York City Council Speaker, Corey Johnson, and another council member, Danial Dromm, want to make deep cuts in the New York City police budget and “reimagine” public safety (Sung to the tune of the John Lennon song “Imagine”). Do these completely clueless people have any idea what would happen then? “That way madness lies; let me shun that. No more of that.” (King Lear, Act III, scene IV) One hears some race-baiting liberals saying that the killing of Blacks by police officers is genocide. The facts presented above, and others, prove that this ridiculous claim is not only bogus, but is clearly an abominable attempt to stir up racial hatred. I do not believe my language is too strong to describe these people as being evil. What else could possibly motivate them to sink to such depraved depths?

HERD IMMUNITY

I believe the coronavirus pandemic is overstated and the wrong approach is being used. First, the 1957-58 Asian flu (H2N2) resulted in a stated 69,800 deaths in the USA; the 1968-69 Hong Kong flu (H3N2) resulted in approx. 100,000 deaths in the USA. The country, and indeed the world, was not shut down as now. The concept of “Herd Immunity” where the low risk populations go about their normal work and every day activities may be the best solution. The proponents of this view, which include medical specialists, believe that by exposing these relatively young and healthy individuals they would become immune to the disease and therefore the disease would die out for lack of hosts. Of course, the older and health challenged people (I include me) should still be protected as much as possible. How to protect these people without overtly discriminating against them is somewhat of a dilemma. Perhaps the best approach should be trying to persuade them to protect themselves rather than by demanding that they do so by “social distancing”, wearing protective masks in public, and not congregating in crowded places such as restaurants, sporting events, or other social gatherings. This too, as the cliché goes, will pass. A central idea to this concept, supported by more and more studies, shows that the number of people who have contacted the coronavirus is greatly understated by an order of magnitude or even by a factor of 20 or more. In New York (19 counties) a study of 7500 people were tested with a positive of 15% (extrapolated to 2.9 million cases) of the population. This gives a death rate of about 0.01%; In a study in Miami, Dade County 6% of the population tested positive which gives a 0.1% death rate, 16 times the number of reported cases; A study in Los Angles County showed approx. 4.1% were infected which yielded a total of 221.000 to 442,000, making that 28 to 55 higher than the 8000 confirmed; Similar results were found in studies in Iceland, Germany, and Australia. The New England Journal of Medicine reported that a large-scale COVID-19 diagnostic testing effort in Iceland found 43% of positive cases reported no symptoms and there was a low rate of infections in children under 10 years of age. The University of Bonn in Germany randomly tested a group of 1000 people in the city of Gangelt, one of the area’s most heavily infested, and found 2% of the population had the virus and 14% had antibodies. Approx. 15% had been infected suggesting a mortality rate of 0.37%. The seasonal flu mortality rate is 0.1%. The SARS mortality rate was 9.6% and the MERS mortality rate was 34.4% according to Johns Hopkins, the CDC, and the New England Journal of Medicine. In Australia the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison said, “The incidents of cases amongst younger recovered people is much lower than the rest of the population.” According to Graham T. Allison, political scientist at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, of the current 66, 000+ deaths in the USA fewer than 100 of these are people under 25 years old and fewer than 1000 for people under 45 years old. The deaths of those who are 65 years old or more comprise 80% of the total deaths. The World Health Organization (WHO) once stated that 3.4% of people getting COVID-19 would die. Two new studies now state this number is 0.1%. If this is representative of this pandemic then it is highly contagious, but also highly fragile and not nearly as deadly as is now being assumed. Additionally it may well be that some of the deaths were overstated. Pathologists in some states were pressured into putting on death certificates the cause of death being COVID-19 even if they had doubts that was the case. Wall Street Journal headline: “Flawed Data: Covid-19 Deaths Much Lower Than Expected”. The WSJ raised the distinct possibility that the numbers of deaths due to the coronavirus are so flawed that the lockdowns of the order we have seen have not been necessary. Auxiliary effects due to the lockdown are the increases in divorces, domestic violence, illegal drug use and suicides. Others negative affects of the shutdown in the USA are that many people are not being treated for other medical procedures and examinations, even serious ones, either because they are afraid of going to medical facilities or they are not allowed to go to make room for COVID-19 patients. This resulted in premature deaths of some of these would be patients. The fear was that hospitals would be overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. Because of this lockdown the opposite happened – ironically some hospitals were shutdown owing to a lack of these other patients. It has even been reported some parents were not showing up to get the usual vaccinations for their children, putting their children and other children at risk when schools reopen. According to some medical experts, If children get COVID-19 there is a extremely low probably that they will pass it on to other children or adults and have a near zero probably of dying from it themselves. This tells me that schools should immediately be reopened and perhaps should not have been closed initially. Seasonal flu is more dangerous to children than the coronavirus and schools do not close because of it. There is no correlation between how quickly some states locked down relative to others and the number of deaths from COVID-19 on a per capita basic. An unrealistic fear has gripped this nation, at least partially owing to the original overly pessimistic numbers of contagions, hospitalizations, and deaths resulting from the coronavirus. The words of then President Franklin Roosevelt at his first presidential inaugural address in 1933 concerning the Great Depression the country was in seem apt now: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself, nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” When this coronavirus pandemic is over one can be sure there will be extensive post-mortems on the methods used to combat it, the lengths and extent of these interventions, and if some or all of these were necessary or even helpful. It is easily predicable there will be no complete consensus among the experts and the not so experts. Nevertheless I am willing to wait until there is more evidence to decide whether I am closer to the truth about this pandemic than the politicians and TV commentators and their guests, especially on MSNBC and CNN, but also to a lesser extent on ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post who insist that closing down the economy for an extended period of time effectively controlled this pandemic. I say not. Then there is the seemingly profligate spending of several $trillions for the genuine desire to help the millions of small businesses and previously employed and retired people, especially when this country already had a $24 trillion debt. There can be no reasonable conclusion other than inflation, previously under control, will reignite and might well do so as soon as later this year. To me the key, as it has been said a number of times, is that it is extremely important not to let the cure be more harmful than the disease – in this case the potential long term harm to the economy which could cause many millions of people in the USA to be financially, morally, and medically irreparably injured.

COVID-19 VS. PREVIOUS PANDEMICS & EPIDEMICS

Unfortunately this is my 2nd attempt to write this essay. I inadvertently (Naturally, would I intentionally do it?) deleted it just as I had finished the 5-page essay. Here it is again to the best of my ability and memory. This essay is a comparison of the current coronavirus pandemic with previously pandemics and epidemics and with other mass dying situations. In 2019 there were approx. 38,000 motor vehicle deaths in the USA and in 2016, the latest figure available, 1,350,000 deaths in the world. All of these deaths could not have rationally been avoided. However, speed is a killer and a significant number of deaths could have been saved by legislating and enforcing lower speed limits. In order not to inconvenience too many people and interfere somewhat with transportation commerce, lower speed limits than what now exist have not been imposed. It would logically appear that these lives are considered expendable. On average each year approx. 100,000 people in the USA are hospitalized with 36,000 deaths owing to drug overdoses. There has been a 2-fold increase in the last decade. There were 4.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 1999 and 28 per 100,000 people in 2017. These tragic numbers have not been spoken about much at all in the Main Stream Media, other than being commented by Tucker Carlson of Fox-TV for the past couple of years. Other than by Carlson, are these people also considered expendable? In the 1918-19 Spanish flu nearly 1/3 of the world population was infected (It was unfairly called the Spanish flu because Spain was the first country to honestly report the number of cases and deaths. It is thought this flu started in the USA and was carried by United States troops to France during WW1. Then President Woodrow Wilson lied about it because he did not want anything to interfere with the war effort.) An estimated 50 million people in the world died because of it with 675,000 deaths in the USA. Unusually, the most affected was in the 20 to 40 age range. Likely, this was owing to a healthy, but overactive immune system. According to a TV program on National Public Radio (NPR) the general reaction of people when the pandemic was over was to forget it. There was no claimer to plan or prepare for another pandemic. People simply wanted to get past it. In 1957-58 Asian flu (H2N2) nearly 2 million in the world died with 69,800 deaths in the USA. This was the 2nd major pandemic in the 20th century. In 1968-69 Hong Kong flu (H3N2) approx. 20 million people in the world were infected with at least 1 million dead. The USA death toll was approx. 100,000. This flu had a low death rate of 0.5%. The 2003 SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) caused 8100 people in the world to get sick with 775 deaths. Most of the cases occurred in China & Hong Kong with 84% of the total deaths. Although there is a great deal of uncertainty in the worldwide number of infections and deaths in the 2009-10 Swine flu pandemic, according to the CDC, there were 15 million infections in the world with 150,000 deaths. In the USA there were 12,469 deaths. The death rate was almost 1% - twice that of the 1968-69 Hong Kong flu. Deaths or serious illnesses were no higher than the yearly flu. In the 2014-15 Ebola flu, according the USA Dept. of Health and Human Services, there were 28,652 cases with 11,325 deaths. Most of the cases were in the West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. This flu was extremely deadly killing 40% of those infected. The current statistics about the coronavirus as this essay is being written are as follows: Cases and death in the world 1,447,412 and 91,783; USA 363,851 and 15,744 Italy 125,000 and 15,500; Spain 146,250 and 14,262; France 83,000 and 6500; UK 34,000 and 3000; China 81,708 and 3,331. Given the lies and disinformation that the Chinese government has committed from the start of this pandemic, their totals could easily be an order of magnitude more. In fact one expert on China has said on TV that the total infected could be ½ million and 30,000 deaths. The totals in the USA and the rest of the world could also be off in the opposite direction by an honest mistake. According to the CDC, on average the number of people who get the yearly flu is approx. 49,000,000 with 36,000 deaths. So far this flu season there have been approx.18,000 deaths. This is well below what the average is at this stage of the yearly flu. It could be that some of the coronavirus deaths are really just deaths caused by the yearly flu. By the models, which have predicted the number of cases of this virus, the number who have recovered, and the number of deaths were way over estimated. The IHME at the University of Washington estimated last month that 245,000 Americans would die from the coronavirus. Their estimate now is 60,000 Americans will die. Their estimate of the number people who would get the virus and the number requiring hospitalization were also too high by a factor of 3 or 4. These too high figures at least partially resulting in panic by various states and cities requesting what turned out to be in some instances too many, ventilators, hospital beds, gowns, and masks. In 2018 the number of American who died because of the yearly flu was 61,000; by drug overdose 67,000; by suicide 50,000; by excessive drinking of alcohol 88,000; by diabetes 83,000; by cancer 606,000. Except for the last two certainly the others could be significantly reduced with more involved care and intervention. Why was and is not more concern and effort being made to reduce these numbers? These efforts pale in comparison with what is being done now in regard to the coronavirus. After all, what is the difference between the people who die by these various means? What was it in the first 2 weeks of the shutdown, 6 million people filing for unemployment? There are now 16.6 million people who have filed for unemployment benefits or approx. 10% of the workforce. There will obviously be millions more who file for unemployment benefits before normal working conditions are realized and the economy gets back on track. Some of the prominent medical specialists do not seem to fully or even partially appreciate these dire consequences. I would suggest that if the economic shut down lasts more than beyond the end of April or at least has not made a good start of resuming in some areas by then the economic impact would be substantial. If this shutdown goes on well into May and even beyond, say into June, July, August, September, etc. then the unemployment and economic damage will be ongoing for many months or even years, depending upon the length of the shutdown. There is another aspect to what is occurring with this huge government spending. We already have a massive almost $24 trillion national debt. What this 2 to 4 trillion additional federal government spending will almost certainly do is ignite inflation to some degree depending how long the economic shutdown lasts. Admittedly some of these monies are for loans or loan guarantees, however most of is for direct payments and even some of the money loaned to small businesses will become grants if these companies do not layoff any of their employees. I predict we will see increased inflation before the end of this year. And how much after that depends upon, as I have said, how long the shutdown lasts. What to make of the data I have quoted so far? I believe the cited data show that compared to previous pandemics, epidemics, and the many people who have died of the other listed causes there is an over reaction to the coronavirus. True, there was a certain predictability to the number of people killed by vehicle wreaks and to a lesser extent by drug overdoses, suicides, and excessive alcohol drinking, yet the other pandemic death were not any more predictable at the time than the current one is now. I will admit that theoretically I do not know more about the final outcome of this pandemic than what has been forecasted already. However, some of the highly inaccurate projections which have been made leave me with the feeling that I could not do worse than what has been said. At this point in the coronavirus pandemic, based upon the data I have analyzed, I propose the following statistics: In the world 2,500,000 cases of infection & 160,000 deaths; in the USA 900,000 cases of infection & 50,000 deaths.

DR. FAUCI & THE WHO

Dr. Fauci, who has been on television incessantly lately, especially at press conferences of President Trump, is deservedly widely respected by both the political left and right in that role of being an expert on the coronavirus. I will now show he had deficiencies in other areas. First, he is not an economist and does not seem to fully appreciate the dire negative economic impact a prolonged shutdown of the American, and indeed the world, economies would have. There is an even greater deficiency he has which I will now state. That is a lack of good moral character in his judgment of one individual in particular. Do you believe I can make that case in a persuasive manner? Read on. When asked about his relationship with the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Dr. Fauci said he is an outstanding person whom he has known for years. Dr. Fauci continued, stating “under his leadership, WHO has done very well.” When pressed about the WHO relationship with China, Dr. Fauci deferred, stating “he has no viewpoint on Tedros’ position on China.” This is a serious character flaw in Dr. Fauci where he let friendship override the reality of the grievously bad characteristics of Tedros. What are they? When he was an official in the Ethiopian government, Tedros was a member of the Tigray People Liberation Front; which was affiliated with a Marxist party. While he was Minister of Health he covered up three major epidemics of cholera in Ethiopia, calling them “acute watery diarrhea.” Upon reaching the position of Director-General of WHO, with the support of China, Tedros made the following statements: On 1/30/2020 he said “The Chinese government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the outbreak and shared it with the world.” “China is setting a standard for outbreak response and that is not an exaggeration.” On 2/03/2020 Tedros said, “during my visit to Beijing last week I was so impressed with President Xi Jinping of his detailed knowledge of the outbreak and for his personal leadership. And if it weren’t for China’s efforts the number of cases outside China would have been very much higher. There is no reason for major interference with international travel and trade.” Just 6 weeks later he said, ”Of course we have good news today, yesterday Wuhan reported no new cases for the first time since the outbreak started. Wuhan provides hope for the rest of the world that even the most serious situation can be turned around.” Some of the American media repeated these lies. Bloomberg headlined on 3/18/202: “China’s Virus C Reach Zero.” On 3/24/2020 the Chinese mouthpiece, The GLOBAL TIMES tweeted: “US cities such as New York are now the riskiest places in the world.” MSNBC reported “As the coronavirus pandemic continued to wreak havoc around the world the US has overtaken every other country to become the first country to report over 100,000 confirmed cases to overtake China and Italy in the most perverse possible version of Trump’s of America First.” Nobody questioned the Chinese government figures of the coronavirus. Roughly 5 million people fled the city of Wuhan in January. The Chinese government allowed them to travel all over the world where they turned an outbreak into a pandemic and yet somehow almost none of these people traveled to the biggest cities in China and spread the disease there. That is their position. The controlled Chinese press claimed that only one infected person went to the capital city of Beijing and he came from the United States. Overall the report claimed only 416 people in Beijing had been infected domestically of those 394 had already been released from medical care. In other words, in a city of 22 million people there were only 22 hospital patients in the city of Beijing who contacted the virus. So literally there were only one in a million people who did. Is that believable? The very next day China closed every movie theater in the country. Two days ago the government closed down the two most popular tourist attractions, the Shanghai Tower and the Oriental Pearl Tower for an indefinite period. That is not the behavior of a government which believes it has tamed the outbreak. It is an expression of fear. As Tucker Carlson said, the rest of us should be afraid too. China is the largest country in the world in population. When China destroys critical data sets like how many people are infected or how many are dying that directly affects how every other country in the world responds to the disease. We may have wasted months assuming things about the coronavirus that were not true. There is a cost to that. But more broadly we should be worried what comes after this. In a TV interview a few of days ago Assistant Director of WHO, Canadian, Bruce Aylward, refused to address the question of the state of health of Taiwan concerning the coronavirus even when he was asked directly. At first he pretended not to hear the question. Then in a follow up he said we have already discussed China. That was all because the Chinese government does not recognize Taiwan as a separate country from China. That is disgraceful and dishonest conduct by Aylward. In 2017 as the head of WHO, Tedros appointed Robert Mugabe as a Goodwill Ambassador of WHO saying that under Mugabe, Zimbabwe had improved the health condition of its people. Because of international outrage this was rescinded a day later. Still, what kind of judgment by Tedros was that? How bad was the brutal dictator of Zimbabwe who was deposed in late 2017? Mugabe was prime minister then president of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2017. During his reign of power he led the expropriation of the farming lands of the white farmers, over the years by giving these farms and land to black Zimbabweans, in almost all cases without compensation. And it got worst than that, much worst. Many of these white farmers that showed the least resistance, and even some who did not, were badly beaten up or killed. Within a short time 17,000 (10%) of the white farmers fled to South Africa. By now there are only a few whites still living in Zimbabwe. What would you expect happened to the economy of Zimbabwe, which was a largely agricultural country when its skilled farmers were gone? It is hardly necessary to say, but here are some statistics. In the year 2000, 2 million tons of maize was grown, by 2008 this was down to 450,000 tons; in 2008 there was 80% unemployment; in 2008 only 20% of children were in school; in 2007 WHO declared life expectancy was 34 years for women and 36 years for men, in 1997 it was 63 and 54, respectively. Before Mugabe came to power while there were still white farmers, in what was then known as Rhodesia, wheat and maize were exported, now they have to import grains, at least as much as they can afford. It was not wrong for Zimbabwe to integrate more black Zimbabweans into the farming community. What was wrong was the brutal and unfair way it was done to the detriment of both the white and black Zimbabweans. The TV program 60 Minutes Australia, discussed the position on China in the coronavirus: “China was lying from the start and we now know it was spreading from human to human. A Wuhan doctor disappeared after warning the world of the coronavirus. She has not been seen since.” They called out the false propaganda of some of the news media and other people on the left claiming that calling it the China coronavirus is racist. Why is the USA news media, except for Fox-TV, not reporting what 60 Minutes Australia said? Some Chinese scientists said it is likely that the coronavirus originated from the Intermediate Horseshoe bat. There are no known colonies of these bats within 900 kilometers of Wuhan and no evidence they were sold in the “Wet” markets of Wuhan. Fifty-nine out of 60 people who frequent these markets and were interviewed said they never saw any of these bats being sold there. There are two experimental biological government laboratories in the vicinity of Wuhan that performed experiments on Horseshoe bats. One is within a few hundred yards of these markets and the other approximately seven miles away. A report is that one scientist had been exposed to Horseshoe bat blood and urine. National Institute Director, Francis Sellers Collins called these reports, “Outrageous.” Other people have said that to claim the Chinese government was experimenting with biological weapons was false and ridiculous. Notice that the Chinese scientists did not say the government was doing this intentionally. As Tucker Carlson said, when some commentators answer questions which you did not ask they cannot be trusted to be honest and objective.

A REVIEW ESSAY

This essay will be a review of a couple of essential points of two essays I had included in my book. I want to retell them here as not only have these previously slipped my mind, but also for the readers who either have not read my book or have had these slipped their minds the same as my mine. First I would like to comment on something that happened this week. As Mark Levin had unflatteringly called him, “Chucky Mucky Schumer” made a direct threat to two members of another branch of government, the United States Supreme Court, if they even dared to vote to couple abortion doctors with having to have privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of their practices. Schumer, paraphrasing the Jewish book of Hosea 8:7 (you did not expect Schumer to quote the New Testament, did you?) said, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You wont know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions” Schumer told a cheering audience (what kind of demented people were these?) on the steps of the Supreme Court. The moderate Chief Justice, John Roberts, properly rebuked Schumer for threatening members of the Supreme Court by saying: “Statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. All members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.” In putting out a statement afterwards, a lackey of Schumer lied by stating that Roberts misinterpreted Schumer’s statement, saying Schumer was referring to the Republicans in Congress. That statement was ridiculous on its face. He claimed that Roberts was not being a fair referee, by not calling out President Trump when Trump criticized Supreme Court Justices Ginsberg and Sotomayor. Trump should not have criticized them, but he did not threaten them, he merely said they should recuse themselves from what he thought were conflicts in what they had previous said about a certain case before the Supreme Court. Roberts did criticizing Trump when Trump accused a federal judge of being a Democrat, saying that the Justices are not Democrats or Republicans, but rule according to what’s in the Constitution and law. The ABC network did briefly cover the story and condemned Schumer, but unlike Fox TV which had a panel discussion of it by two conservatives and one Democrat, they referred to an inappropriate (but not threatening) comment by Trump about a federal judge, which was correct, however it was simply a political distraction. ABC did not mention that Roberts had previously condemned Trump for his comment about the federal judge. Now to the other issues. In the essay from my book, The Perils of Denial, I reviewed the story of consultant, Jonathan Gruber, professor at MIT who was a major contributor to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obama Care. Dr. Gruber was paid $390,000 by the federal government and approx. $1.7 million by various state governments for his consulting work on this law and was paid approximately $6,000,000 over the years by federal and state governments for other consulting work. Gruber made a recorded 19 trips to the White House during the writing of the ACA and met with President Obama on more than one occasion and in one case was one of only 6 people who had a conference in the White House with President Obama. What did Democrats say about him? In 2006 then Senator Obama said he stole ideas from the likes of Austin Goolsby, an unreformed Keynesian economist, and from JOHNATHAN GRUBER. Nancy Pelosi said in a 2009 speech in the House of Representatives that Dr. Gruber, a professor at MIT, was a major contributor to the ACA and Harry Reid said in the Senate that Dr. Gruber was one of the most highly respected economists in the world and contributed mightily to the ACA. In series of infamous videos a naïve, one could say incredibly clueless manner Gruber admitted lies and deception were necessary to get the law passed and repeatedly characterized the American public as being stupid. Because the evidence is so clear-cut in these videos what he said cannot be disputed so this made Dr. Gruber toxic – a pariah to the supporters of the ACA. After this came to light what did the Democrat politicians say? What do you think? Disingenuously President Obama said that Gruber was not a member of the White House staff and so implied that he had little to do with formulating the law and nothing to do with selling it to the public. The House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi said “Gruber, who is he?” “The Democrats in the House wrote the law and he had nothing to do with that.” The Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid said, “Gruber was a minor figure in contributing to the law.” The White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, trivialized the roll Gruber played in formulating the ACA and said he did not contribute in any way to its implantation. What about the Main Stream Media (MSM) of the New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC? The short answer there was no response except for a short comment by CNN for 4 days after Fox TV ran the story every day. Finally after days of coverage by Fox, talk radio, and the internet, the New York Times, Washington Post, and the TV networks felt compelled to cover the story or lose credibility as news organizations. To quote Hamlet, “Oh shame where is thy blush?” Some of the Democrats who were previously running in the Democrat primary for the presidency and especially current candidate Bernie Sanders keep repeatedly saying that the wealthy in the highest income brackets should pay their fair share of the income taxes. One could make a reasonable argument that the income gap between upper income people and the middle and lower income people should be less. However when one examines who already pays the bulk of income taxes and the movement of people over time from the upper, middle, and lower income brackets, then a different and more true perspective become apparent. This was clearly explained by one of the most respected and knowledge economist, Thomas Sowell. As I have recounted in the essay in my book, Income Distribution in the USA, this is what Dr. Sowell had to say about that: It is indeed true that both the amount of income and proportion of all income received by those in the top 20% bracket have risen over the years, widening the gap between the top and bottom quintiles (from Latin, quintilis – meaning statistically divided into fifths.), however U.S. Treasury Dept. data show that the income of taxpayers who were in the bottom 20% in income in 1996 rose by 91% by 2005. The income of those in the top 5% and top 1% actually declined in that period. Those taxpayers who were initially in the lowest income bracket had their incomes nearly double in a decade that moved them up and out of the bottom quintile. While those in the top 1% had their incomes cut by about ¼ and that may well have dropped many, if not most, of them out of the top 1%. Despite the rise in income of the top 0.1% of taxpayers as a statistical category, both absolutely and relatively to the incomes in other categories, as flesh and blood human beings, those individuals who were in that category initially had their incomes actually fall by a whopping 50% between 1996 and 2005. It is hardly surprising when people whose income is cut in half drop out of the top 0.1%. What happen to the income of the category over time is not the same as what happens to the people who were in that category at any given time. But many of the intellectual elites are ready to seize upon any numbers that seem to fit their vision of an unjust society. It is much the same story with data on the top 400 income earners in the country. As with other sets of data, data on those who were among the top 400 income earners from 1992 to 2000 were not data on the same 400 people throughout the span of time covered. During that time span there were thousands of people in the top 400; which is to say that turnover was high. Fewer than ¼ of all the people in that category during that span of years were in that category more than one year, and fewer than 13% were in that category more than two years. There is an important point, likely deliberately overlooked and certainly unstated by liberals, concerning those income levels. Most people begin their careers at the bottom, earning entry-level salaries. Over time, as they acquire more skills and experience, their rising productivity leads to rising pay, putting them in successively higher income brackets. These are not rare cases, but common patterns among millions of people in the United States and some other countries. More than ¾ of those working Americans whose incomes were in the bottom 20% in 1975 were in the top 40% of income earners at some point by 1991. Only 5% of those who were initially in the bottom quintile were still there in 1991, while 29% of those who were initially in the bottom quintile had risen to the top quintile. Yet, the clueless or duplicitous left has transformed a transient cohort in a given statistical category into an enduring class called “the poor.” Just over half of all Americans earning at or near the minimum wage are from 16 to 24 years of age. And of course these individuals cannot remain from 16 to 24 years of age indefinitely, though this age category can continue indefinitely, providing many liberals with date to fit their preconceptions. In this debate, liberals focus 0n the income brackets instead of actual people moving between these brackets in an attempt to create a “problem” that desperately needs a “solution.” They envision “classes” with “disparities” and “inequities” in income caused by “barriers” created by “society”. The routine rise of millions of people out of the lowest quintile over time makes a mockery of the “barriers” assumed by the liberal elite. A related, but somewhat different, confusion between statistical categories and human beings has led to many claims in the news media and in academia that American incomes have stagnated or grown only slowly over the years. For example, over the entire period from 1967 to 2005, median real household income; that is adjusted for inflation, rose by 31%. For selected periods within that long time span, real household incomes rose even less, and those selected periods have often been cited by liberals to claim that income and living standards have stagnated. Meanwhile, real per capita income rose by 122% over the same time span, from 1967 to 2005. When a more than doubling of real income per person is called “stagnation”, that is one of the many feats of liberal verbal virtuosity. The reason for the large discrepancy between growth rate trends in household income and individual income is straightforward: The number of persons per households was increasing faster than the number of people and concluded: “The main reason for the more rapid rate of household formation is the increased tendency, particularly among unrelated individuals, to maintain their own homes or apartments rather than live with relatives or move into existing households as roomers, lodgers, and so forth.” Increasing individual incomes made this possible. As late as 1970, 20% of American households contained 5 or more people, but by 2007, only 10% did. As evidence that this difference of opinion on income distribution in the USA between conservatives and liberals is ongoing I refer to an article in the September 13, 2012 Dallas Morning News strictly focusing on income brackets over individual incomes (The article was written by a reporter from the New York Times – who could have guessed that?). The article headline was: RICH GOT RICHER. POOR STAYED THE SAME IN 2011. The article went on to say in a sub-headline: “Wider income gap reveals unevenness of recovery, expert says.” It further states: “The income gap between the wealthiest 20% [top quintile] of U.S. households and the rest of the country grew sharply in 2011, the Census Bureau reported, as overwhelming majority of Americans saw no gains from a weak economic recovery in its second year.” “Income from the top fifth of U.S. households rose 1.6% in 2011, driven by even larger increases for the top 5% of households, sais David Johnson, the Census Bureau official who presented the findings. All households in the middle of the scale saw declines, while most at the very bottom stagnated.” And on and on it went in the same vein. The article considered only households, not individuals in the households, nor is there any mention of individuals within the income brackets moving up or down to different brackets. This is all so predictable by the left, yet I am sure there are myriad people who will read it (at least the ones who can read) and not give a moment’s thought to the other view of income distribution as put forth in this essay – with much credit to Dr. Thomas Sowell.

A COLLECTION OF CLICHES

Tip of the iceberg; Not out of the woods; In our corner of the woods; At this point in time; At the end of the day; Very unique; When all is said and done; Turn over a rock and find…; Waiting for the next shoe to drop; It’s water under the bridge; In the aftermath (wrong meaning); Sour grapes (wrong meaning); Leave no stone unturned; Black mark against him; I’m sick and tired; Swept under the rug; Roll up your sleeves: Skating on thin ice; Piece of cake; A walk in the park; It’s a long road; The bucket list; The reality is; Boots on the ground; One step at a time; The ball is in your court; Keep a close eye on it; Too much time on your hands; That’s a red flag; Gilding the lily (Shakespeare misquote); You know; Pause and take a deep breath; In the dead of the night; Turn over a new leaf; Over the hill; Hide his light under a basket; Let’s be honest; A silver lining; At the drop of a hat; Shine a light on them; A fly on the wall; Kudos (never one kudo); Turn over in his grave; Clear the decks; We won’t stand for it; Keep us on our toes; Good Samaritan (a bible misquote); To make ends meet; Let’s get the show on the road; An elephant in the room; Don’t cry over spilt milk; Chip on his shoulder; The shifting sands; Paint yourself into a corner; Bury the hatchet; Have your cake and eat it too; Going out on a limb; Move forward with a clean slate; Don’t sugar coat it; Hit the ground running; Come down on you like a ton of bricks; Clean up the mess; Reading between the lines; It is what it is; What goes around comes around; Taking your eye off the ball; Getting into a food fight; Get on board; In a New York minute; More to the story than meets the eye; Get to the bottom of it; Their lips are sealed; Take off the gloves; It changes over night; He cried wolf; At the end of the road; And so….(or alternately So….); Don’t bet the farm; Keep a lid on it; A ton of people; Fought tooth and nail; When you are in a hole you should stop digging; The fact of the matter; Shed light on it; There is a smoking gun; Walk away into the sunset; The big wildcard; Bent over backwards; Blew up in his (her) face; A chip off the old block; Written in stone; Gain the upper hand; Fire in the belly; Sticks out like a sore thumb; My way or the highway; It got under his skin; Mad as a wet hen; Taken with a grain of salt; Open up a can of worms; It’s on the radio screen; It rises to the occasion; Take the bull by the horns; Putting your finger on it; You can hang your hat on it. Do you know what this is? Of course you do! It is a collection of clichés. There are one hundred of them and I am sure you could come up with some more. These are utterances I have heard on TV. Some were even made by trained journalists who should know better. Many people who use these tired old expressions would be rendered mute or at least greatly reduced in verbosity if they were prohibited from using them. And for that we would benefit. An important question is what prompts people to use these clichés? I can only speculate that: (1.) They are not fully conscious of what they are saying. (2.) They lack awareness and imagination in expressing themselves. (3.) They are at a loss in finding other words to avoid using these worn out expressions. It is not that these expressions should never be used; it is similar to the greatly overuse of the adverb “very” in modifying various adjectives in making “very – etc.” practically a compound word. I have stated in the past that by emphasizing everything, then logically nothing gets emphasized. It simply should not be overdone. One never heard the likes of Bergen Evans, William F. Buckley, William Safire, and Charles Krauthammer use these clichés. Unfortunately they are all dead, therefore, except for Paula LaRocque, whose status is uncertain, I feel isolated and alone in guarding the gates of poorly spoken American English. Don’t despair for me, but at least understand that I am here to point out what should be, but apparently is not, obvious to most everyone. Arnell Engstrom