Author: webuiltitblog

Now, they’ve done it. Now, they’ve gone too far. The cartels, that is. It’s bad enough that they routinely murder ordinary Mexican citizens indiscriminately, flagrantly, and violently. (According to Fox News some 90 Mexicans are murdered per day. That’s nearly 33,000 per year folks, and that’s just the ones we know about. In addition, the Mexican government reported some 30,000 persons missing in 2016, the latest figures available. It is likely that is a low estimate. The Washington Post puts the number at 40,000. Regardless, it is horrifying since the likelihood is that all of them are dead as well.)

It’s bad enough that the cartels intimidate and murder journalists and government officials from the president of the country on down to minor local officials. It’s bad enough that they pour drugs, such as heroin, cocaine and fentanyl, into the US, which are poisoning Americans at a record rate. It’s bad enough that they rape and murder innocent migrants who are travelling to America seeking a better life. Now, they’ve “graduated” into murdering innocent Americans, including women and children. More on that later.

Heretofore, most Americans have been ambivalent about the aforementioned crimes. They don’t condone them by any means, but, for the most part, they are not cognizant of the extent of the problem. They’re too busy with their daily lives, and the murders are occurring out of the limelight in another country. They haven’t been too keen to support aggressive action against the cartels, such as securing the border or deploying troops. But now, things may be different.

Most Americans were shocked and angered by the savage, unprovoked attack. Moreover, the cartel gunmen were not content to murder the innocents; they burned them alive, including women and children. In my opinion, they weren’t content to merely “poke the bear” so to speak. They issued an “in your face” taunt to America, to which I believe we are compelled to respond. More on that later.

It is no secret that crime has been one of, if not the, most serious issue in Mexico, and drug trafficking has played a major role. There has been ample evidence that the cartels, not the government, run the country. By many measurements Mexico is a failed state.

The UN has estimated that 90% of the cocaine sold in the US is distributed through Mexico. The drugs enter by land, sea, air and tunnel. They enter by the kilo and by the individual packet. Once in the US the cartels coordinate further distribution with various gangs, such as MS-13. US government officials are very aware of the problem, but so far, for various reasons, they have had limited success in rectifying it. This is not exactly “breaking news,” but I feel it needs repeating here to provide a proper background to this latest atrocity.

A small group of American Mormons has been living in the mountains of northwest Mexico, near the Arizona-New Mexico border since the 1880s. Yes, their village is in close proximity to the Sonora drug cartel. Yes, there have been isolated instances of violence, such as the murder of anti-crime activist, Benjamin LeBaron in 2009, but, for the most part, they have managed to co-exist. As Adam Langford, whose great-grandfather was one of the original settlers, told a Washington Post reporter a few days ago, “basically, it was ‘we won’t bother you if you don’t bother us.’ ” Ironically, Langford offered that many in the community had been wondering if it was “time to move back to the US.” Indeed, the village’s population has dwindled to about 100.

As most of you know, this peaceful co-existence was shattered suddenly and irrevocably last Monday, November 4. According to the Washington Post cartel gunmen stopped a caravan of three SUVs on an isolated dirt road and suddenly, for no apparent reason, opened fire.

Among the murdered were three women and six children, including babies. They were shot at close range, including one mother who begged them to spare her children. This would seem to contradict the notion that has been put forth in some quarters, such as the Mexican government, that it was a case of mistaken identity. How could the gunmen fail to identify a woman with her hands raised, not to mention the children? Also, spent shell casings were found just a few yards from the cars.

Most of the evidence indicates they were targeted deliberately, perhaps, by a rival cartel as part of an intensifying turf war with the Sonoran cartel. Langford characterized it as “a massacre, 100% a massacre.” I submit, it doesn’t really matter why it happened, so much as it did, and it may not be the end.

According to reporter Peter Orsi the incident occurred at 9:40 am, and the Mexican soldiers did not arrive at the scene until 6:15 pm. Why did it take several hours to respond? I know law enforcement is spread pretty thinly in the area, but that is a flimsy excuse. During all this time eight surviving children, five of which were wounded, lay hiding in the mountains, no doubt scared to death.

CONCLUSION

Okay. So now what do we do? How do we respond? It is not an easy answer. I have heard and read various opinions, ranging from merely lodging a diplomatic protest to deploying troops in Mexico. I am not necessarily advocating either of those actions, but I recommend the following:

1. Put more pressure on Mexican President Obrador to toughen his policies toward the cartels. Heretofore, he has taken a very passive approach and has resisted implementing tougher policies. He may be afraid; or he may have been bought off or threatened. I don’t know, but Mr. Trump has various ways to pressure him to a more aggressive approach. Economic sanctions? Close the border? Maybe offer a quid pro quo of sorts? (Just kidding, or maybe not.)

2. Offer assistance or aid, perhaps a joint military operation.

3. Strengthen the border. Surely, the anti-wall crowd can now see the folly of their intransigent position (or maybe not).

4. Designate the cartels as terrorist organizations.

5. Explore what the UN can do, although generally they are of little help in situations such as this.

6. Whatever action President Trumps takes, ideally, it should be with bipartisan support.

There are probably additional approaches that I have not thought of. I welcome your constructive thoughts/comments.

Below please find a list of what I consider to be significant historical events that occurred during the month of November.

11/1 – All Hallows Day, aka All Saints Day. Many of us observe the day before this holiday as Halloween.  Due to COVID this year many people were forced to modify or cancel the kids’ traditional “trick or treat” procedure.
11/1/1848 – The first women’s medical school opened in Boston, MA. It was founded by a Mr. Samuel Gregory and “boasted” twelve students. In 1874 it became part of the Boston University School of Medicine, becoming one of the first co-ed medical schools.  According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, today, women comprise approximately 1/2 of all medical students.
11/1/1950 – President Harry S Truman, whom many historians consider to have been one of our greatest and underrated presidents, survived an assassination attempt by two members of a Puerto Rican nationalist movement.
11/2/1962 – President Kennedy announced that all Soviet missiles in Cuba were being dismantled and their installations destroyed, thus signaling the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. On 11/20 he announced that the dismantling of all said missile sites had been completed. Unbeknownst to the general public, that crisis was probably the closest we ever came to nuclear war.
11/3/1948 – The Chicago Tribune published its famous, or infamous, headline “Dewey Defeats Truman,” arguably, the most embarrassing headline ever.
11/4/1862 – Richard Gatling patented his first rapid-firing machine gun, which utilized rotating barrels to load, fire and extract the spent cartridges. The gun bares his name.
11/4/1942 – In the battle generally considered to be one of the turning points of WWII (along with Stalingrad and Midway) the British defeated the Germans at El Alamein (North Africa).
11/7/1811 – General (and future president) William Henry Harrison defeated the Shawnee Indians in the Battle of Tippecanoe Creek, which was located in present-day Indiana. The battle gave rise to the chief slogan of Harrison’s presidential campaign – “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.”
11/7/1885 – Canada’s first transcontinental railroad was completed, opening up the western part of the country to settlement.
11/7/1962 – Former Vice President Richard Nixon, having lost the California gubernatorial election decisively to Edmund Brown gave his famous farewell speech to reporters, telling them they “wouldn’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen this is my last press conference.” As we know, Nixon made a comeback in 1968 narrowly defeating Hubert Humphrey for the presidency.
11/8/1895 – Wilhelm Roentgen discovered the electromagnetic ray, aka, X-rays.
11/8/1942 – The Allies landed successfully in North Africa (Operation Torch).
11/9&10/1938 – All over Germany Nazis terrorized Jews, burning, pillaging and vandalizing synagogues, homes and businesses in what became known infamously as Kristallnacht.
11/10/1775 – The Marine Corps was established as part of the Navy.
11/10/1871 – Explorer Henry Stanley finds Dr. Livingston after a two-year search. There is doubt that he actually uttered the attributed phrase “Dr. Livingston, I presume.”
11/11/1973 – Egypt and Israel signed a momentus cease-fire accord sponsored by the US.
11/13/1927 – The Holland Tunnel, the first underwater tunnel built in the US, which is named not for the country, but for Clifford Holland, the engineer who designed and led the construction of the project, opened connecting NYC and NJ.
11/13/1956 – The Supreme Court declared racial segregation on public buses to be unconstitutional.
11/15/1864 – Union soldiers, under the command of General William Sherman, burned much of the City of Atlanta.
11/17/1869 – The Suez Canal opened after taking 10+ years to complete.
11/19/1863 – President Abraham Lincoln delivered the famous Gettysburg Address.
11/20/1789 – NJ became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
11/20/1945 – The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials began. Twenty-four former leaders of Nazi Germany were tried for various war crimes.
11/22/1963 – President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald who, in turn, was later assassinated by Jack Ruby. Hours later, Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president while on board Air Force One.
11/28/1520 – Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan rounded the southern tip of South America, passing through what is now known as the Strait of Magellan, crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans.

In addition, the following notables, who made significant contributions to society, were born during November:

Daniel Boone (frontiersman) – 11/2/1734; President James K. Polk (11th President) – 11/2/1795; Will Rogers (humorist) – 11/4/1879; Walter Cronkite (tv anchor/journalist) – 11/4/1916; John Philip Sousa (musical conductor) – 11/6/1854; James Naismith (inventor of basketball) – 11/6/1861; Marie Curie (chemist who discovered radium) – 11/7/1867; Billy Graham (evangelist) – 11/7/1918; Edmund Halley (astronomer/mathematician who discovered Halley’s Comet) – 11/8/1656; Christiaan Barnard (pioneer of heart transplant operations) – 11/8/1922; Richard Burton (actor) – 11/10/1925; George Patton (WWII General) – 11/11/1885; Auguste Rodin (sculptor of “The Thinker,” among others) – 11/12/1840; Elizabeth Cady Stanton (suffragist) – 11/12/1815; Grace Kelly (actress/princess) – 11/12/1929; Louis Brandeis (Supreme Court justice) – 11/13/1856; Robert Louis Stevenson (author) – 11/13/1850; Robert Fulton (inventor of the steamboat) – 11/14/1765; Claude Monet (pioneered impressionist painting) – 11/14/1840; Jawaharlal Nehru (India’s first Prime Minister) – 11/14/1889; Louis Daguerre (invented daguerreotype process of developing photographs) – 11/18/1789; James A. Garfield (20th President) – 11/19/1831; Indira Gandhi (Indian Prime Minister) – 11/19/1917; Edwin Hubble (astronomer for whom the Hubble Space Telescope is named) – 11/20/1889; Robert Kennedy (JFK’s brother, Attorney General and US Senator from NY) – 11/20/1925; Charles De Gaulle (French WWII hero and president of France) – 11/22/1890; Franklyn Pierce (14th President) – 11/23/1804; William (Billy the Kid) Bonney (notorious outlaw – 11/23/1859; William Henry Platt (aka Boris Karloff) (famed horror movie star) – 11/23/1887; Zachary Taylor (12th President) – 11/24/1784; Andrew Carnegie (financier and philanthropist) – 11/25/1835; John Harvard (founder of Harvard University in 1636) – 11/26/1607; Anders Celsius (invented Celsius, aka centigrade, temperature scale) – 11/27/1701; Chaim Weizmann (Israeli statesman) – 11/27/1874; Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, (author) – 11/30/1835; Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister during WWII) – 11/30/1874.

If you have been paying attention during this presidential election cycle you have reason to be gravely concerned over the future of America. I know most politicians lie, obfuscate and exaggerate to rile up their base. I have often said that pols only do two things well: get elected and get re-elected.

All that said, let’s review what the Dem presidential candidates have been saying they will do if elected. I will stipulate that not all of the candidates have spoken out in favor of all of the below listed items, but most of them have spoken out in favor of most of them. I am not making this up. You can find these statements easily with a little research. Just a few years ago, most of these policies would have been considered as wild ravings by the fringe far left. Now, they seem to be mainstream Dem ideology and accepted by a large portion of the voters. Think about that as you read on.

When you put the list together it can be frightening. Do they really believe in all these things? Will they really move forward on all of them? I don’t know. I hope not, but let’s take them at their word for a minute. Do you really want to live in the America they envision? Would any clear thinking person want to?

Some of these appear, at least to me, to be so radical as to be unrealistic, if not idiotic; others of them sound good, but they are not practical and would bankrupt the country; still others are a combination of the two. I will leave it to you to evaluate them for yourself.

I repeat, each of these has been espoused by some or all of the candidates, and most of them have received widespread support from much, if not most, of the mainstream media. I have written blogs on most of these proposals before, so I will just give a brief description.

1. Open/drastically relaxed borders. Supposedly, this is about helping the oppressed and persecuted, and there is some of that, but I believe it is more about economic and political power.

2. Free Medicare for all, including illegal aliens. Sounds magnanimous. Why not help those who most need it? However, common sense tells you it would bankrupt the country, particularly in conjunction with open borders. The proponents of this plan are being deliberately vague on details. For instance, no one knows how much it would cost, although the Urban Institute and Commonwealth Fund estimates approximately 32 trillion (that’s with a “T” folks) over ten years. Also, this plan would force you to switch from your current healthcare plan (Remember former President Obama’s disingenuous boast that “if you like your healthcare plan you can keep it?”). Moreover, keep in mind many doctors refuse to treat Medicare patients, so what would the impact on the medical profession be?

3. Tax increases/wealth tax. This would be needed to pay for all the social programs. Unfortunately, there are not enough rich people to pay for these programs, so this would affect the middle class as well (although most of the candidates have been dancing around this). Wealth tax has been tried in other countries and abandoned, for various reasons.

4. Reparations. How would it be determined who pays whom? For example, would someone whose ancestors did not arrive until the 20th century have to pay? Would an AA whose ancestors immigrated after slavery ended be entitled to any reparations? Not practical.

5. Forgiving student loans. This would be easily abused by both students and colleges. Need to establish limits and criteria or else those who did not attend college or did attend a sensibly-priced college would be paying for the long-term student who attended a high-priced college, studied impractical courses and/or failed to earn a degree.

6. Prisoners/teenagers voting. Ridiculous on its face. Convicted criminals should continue to forfeit their right to vote. Few teenagers have the maturity and life experience to make rational voting decisions. Furthermore, most of them know little about politics and care less.

7. Guns. They want to chip away at the 2nd amendment. This is a very complicated issue that merits a separate blog to do it justice. I am in favor of some sort of universal background check, but not outright bans. I don’t believe they work anyway, as evidenced by the high crime rate in Chicago, which has among the strictest gun laws in the country. A case in point would be the State of California, which just passed nine separate gun laws designed to restrict the ownership and use of guns, even for hunting.

8. Guaranteed jobs/stipend for all. This is pure communism.

9. Green New Deal. This is supposed to combat the climate change “crisis.” Even if one believes in climate change, this is one of the most idiotic policies I have ever heard. Small wonder, since one of its primary proponents is the intellectually-challenged AOC. (With a straight face AOC characterized climate change as so serious it was “our generation’s WWII.” Really? I think she needs to be educated on WWII, among other things.)

This policy is based on a false premise, that unless we institute radical corrective action to the environment immediately the world will end in seven years, or is it ten years, or is it 15 years. I can’t keep up. Some of the things we are told must be banned include, fossil fuels, internal combustion engines (so, no flying or driving, for instance), beef (due to cow farts), oil drilling, factory farming, and coal, oil and gas heating. Welcome back to the 19th century. Also, virtually every building in the country would have to be re-conformed to comply with GND standards. The cost is estimated to be several trillion dollars per year, and would take several years to complete. No one really knows, but according to GND supporters the world will have ended by then, so I suppose it will be moot. Also, we should restrict the number of children we have or eliminate having them entirely. Sound like something you could support?

CONCLUSION

The foregoing are just some of what we can expect if the Dems win. In a nutshell, it would be the “great giveaway” with vague or no plans of who is going to pay for all this largesse and how.

I know about half of the country hates President Trump on a visceral, personal level. Fair enough. They choose to ignore, downplay or twist his accomplishments. That is their right. But, if you strip away all the partisan rhetoric and bloviations life at the moment is pretty damn good for most people. Most people are, in fact, better off than they were four years ago.

On the other hand, think of the ramifications of these policies. Obviously, they will fundamentally change America. Will it be for the better or not? I would say most assuredly not, but I leave it to you to decide. That is what really makes America great. The voters get to decide in free elections. Just remember you will have to live with the consequences of your vote. It is true that “you get the government you deserve.”

Some of you have requested a quiz. So, here it is. Be careful what you wish for. You know the drill. No peeking at the internet. No asking “Alexa” or “Siri.” Good luck.

1. Who was the only president who was an independent? (a) Abraham Lincoln, (b) John Adams, (c) Teddy Roosevelt, (d) George Washington

2. Who was the first Democratic president? (a) Andrew Jackson, (b) James K. Polk, (c) John Adams, (d) FDR

3. Who was the first candidate to run as a Republican? (a) Abraham Lincoln, (b) Franklyn Pierce, (c) James Madison, (d) John C. Fremont

4. Each of these incumbent presidents who ran for re-election were denied their party’s nomination EXCEPT: (a) John Tyler, (b) Rutherford B. Hayes, (c) Andrew Johnson, (d) Chester A. Arthur (Hint: each had been elected VP and had ascended to the presidency upon the death of the president.)

5. Five presidents have won despite having lost the popular vote, including each of the following, EXCEPT: (a) Rutherford B. Hayes – 1876, (b) Benjamin Harrison – 1888, (c) John Quincy Adams – 1824, (d) James Madison – 1808.

6. Which election was infamously known for the “hanging chads?” (a) 1892, (b) 1996, (c) 2000, (d) 2004?

7. There have been 19 Republican presidents. Who was the first? (a) James Monroe, (b) James Madison, (c) Abraham Lincoln, (d) Teddy Roosevelt

8. Four presidents have won election despite having lost their “home” state, including each of the following EXCEPT (a) James K. Polk, (b) Woodrow Wilson, (c) George H. W. Bush, (d) Richard Nixon

9. Which was the first election to be decided by a vote in the House of Representatives? (a) 1820, b. (1824), (c) 1912; (d) 2000

10. FDR was elected four times, defeating four different opponents, including each of the following EXCEPT: (a) Alfred E. Smith, (b) Alf Landon, (c) Wendell Willkie, (d) Thomas E. Dewey.

11. A third party candidate has never won or even come close. The last election in which a third party candidate won any electors (except for “faithless electors”) was (a) 1912, (b) 1916, (c) 1960, (d) 1968.

The following questions relate to famous campaign slogans. Match the slogan with the correct year in which it was FIRST used.

12. “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.” (a) 1920, (b) 1928, (c) 1932, (d) 1948.

13. “Don’t change horses in midstream.” (a) 1864, (b) 1956, (c) 1936, (d) 1944.

14. “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” (a) 1836, (b) 1840), (c) 1852, (d) 1856.

15. “America First.” (a) 2016, (b) 1948, (c) 1916, (d) 1920.

16. “54-40 or fight.” (a) 1844, (b) 1848, (c) 1876, (d) 1884.

17. “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” (a) 1932, (b) 1948, (c) 1980, (d) 2016

18. “Happy days are here again.” (a) 1932, (b) 1936, (c) 1948, (d) 1952

19. “A square deal for all.” (a) 1904, (b) 1932, (c) 2004, (d) 1908

20. “Where’s the beef?” (a) 1968, (b) 1972, (c) 1976, (d) 1984

ANSWERS

1. (d); 2.(a); 3.(d); 4.(b); 5.(d)(The others were Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016) 6. (c); 7.(c); 8. (c) (The other was Trump in 2016.); 9. (b) (Jackson had won a plurality among four candidates, but the House chose John Quincy Adams.); 10. (a) The other was Herbert Hoover whom he defeated in 1928.); 11. (d) (George Wallace); 12. (b) (Hoover); 13. (a) (Lincoln); 14. (b) William Henry Harrison; 15. (d) (Warren Harding); 16. (a) (Polk); 17. (c) (Reagan); 18. (a) (FDR); 19. (d) (Taft); 20.(d) (Mondale).

Well, how did you do?

October has had more than its share of significant historical events. Please see below:

10/1/1908 – The first Model T cars, designed by Henry Ford, went on sale.
10/1/1938 – German troops occupied the Sudetenland section of Czechoslovakia.
10/1/1949 – The Peoples’ Republic of China was founded with Mao Zedong as its leader.
10/1/1979 – The US formally turned the Canal Zone over to Panama.
10/2/1967 – Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first African American associate justice of the Supreme Court.
10/3/1863 – President Abraham Lincoln promulgated a proclamation designating the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving (later changed to the fourth Thursday).
10/3/1929 – The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was officially renamed Yugoslavia.
10/3/1932 – Iraq gained its independence from Great Britain.
10/3/1974 – Hall of Famer Frank Robinson became the first African American to manage a major league baseball club (the Cleveland Indians). Later, he also became the first AA manager to be fired.
10/3/1990 – East and West Germany were united as the Federal Republic of Germany ending 45 years of separation.
10/4/1830 – Belgium gained its independence from the Netherlands.
10/4/1957 – Russia ushered in the Space Age as it launched the first satellite, named Sputnik.
10/5/1908 – Bulgaria proclaimed its independence from the Ottoman Empire.
10/6/1927 – “The Jazz Singer,” the first “talkie,” opened in NYC.
10/6/1928 – Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek became the president of the Republic of China.
10/6/1973 – The “Yom Kippur War” commenced as Egypt and Syria launched surprise attacks against Israel, which was busy celebrating the most sacred of Jewish holidays.
10/6/1981 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated.
10/7/1985 – Palestinian terrorists seized the cruise ship, “Achille Lauro,” and threatened to blow it up if their demands were not met. They infamously murdered an elderly wheelchair-bound passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, by pushing his wheelchair off the deck into the sea.
10/8/1871 – The Great Fire of Chicago destroyed much of the city. Legend has it that Mrs. O’Leary’s cow started it by kicking over a lantern in her barn.
10/8/1918 – Sergeant Alvin York, arguably the US’s greatest war hero, single-handedly took out a German machine-gun battalion, killing and capturing nearly 150 enemy soldiers. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and the French equivalent, the Croix de Guerre.
10/8/1998 – The House of Representatives voted to launch a formal impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton.
10/9/1962 – Uganda gained its independence from Great Britain.
10/10/1973 – Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned amid allegations of income tax evasion stemming from his tenure as Governor of Maryland.
10/11/1939 – Scientist Albert Einstein issued a warning to President FDR that Germany was seeking to develop an atomic weapon. His warning led the US to marshal its resources to develop its own atomic weapon (the Manhattan Project).
10/12/1492 – Christopher Columbus landed in present-day El Salvador, erroneously thinking he had found the elusive northwest passage to India.
10/12/1811 – Paraguay declared its independence from Spain.
10/12/1822 – Brazil declared its independence from Portugal.
10/13/1792 – George Washington laid the cornerstone of the White House.
10/13/1884 – Greenwich, England was established as the basic time zone from which all time is calculated.
10/14/1066 – The Normans defeated the English at the decisive Battle of Hastings, which resulted in the Norman’s conquest of England.
10/14/1912 – Former president Theodore Roosevelt was shot while campaigning for re-election, but he survived.
10/14/1947 – Test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first to break the sound barrier.
10/14/1964 – Martin Luther King became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
10/15/1991 – Following several days of contentious hearings regarding allegations of sexual harassment against a former aide, Anita Hill, the Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
10/16/1701 – Yale University was founded in Killingworth, CT as the Collegiate School of Connecticut.
10/16/1793 – French Queen Marie Antoinette, known for her extravagance and contempt for her subjects (“Let them eat cake.”), was beheaded.
10/16/1853 – The Crimean War (Russia, England and France vs. the Ottoman Empire and parts of present-day Italy) began.
10/16/1995 – Louis Farrakhan led the Million Man March on Washington.
10/17/1777 – The Colonial Army defeated the British at Saratoga in what many historians believe was the turning point of the Revolutionary War.
10/17-25/1944 – The US succeeded in decimating the Japanese Navy at the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which was the largest naval battle in history.
10/18/1945 – The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial commenced with indictments against 24 former Nazi leaders.
10/19/1781 – English General Cornwallis surrendered to the Colonial Army at Yorktown, VA. marking the end of the Revolutionary War.
10/19/1987 – This day was dubbed “Black Monday” on Wall Street as stocks plunged 508 points or 22.6%, the largest one-day decline ever.
10/20/1818 – The US and Great Britain agreed to establish the US-Canadian border at the 49th parallel. The 5,525 mile border is the longest in the world between any two countries.
10/20/1944 – General Douglas MacArthur, who upon fleeing the Philippines in 1942 to escape the Japanese Army boldly asserted “I shall return,” returned as promised.
10/20/1968 – Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of President John Kennedy, married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
10/21/1805 – The British Navy defeated the combined naval forces of France and Spain at the Battle of Trafalgar, obviating the threat of their invasion of England.
10/21/1879 – Thomas Edison successfully tested an incandescent lamp.
10/21/1915 – AT&T transmitted the first successful transatlantic radio voice message (Virginia to Paris).
10/22/1962 – President Kennedy warned Americans of the existence of Russian missiles on Cuba. The so-called “Cuban Missile Crisis” was probably the biggest threat of nuclear war during the Cold War.
10/23/1942 – The British Army led by General Bernard Montgomery launched a major offensive against the German Afrika Corps, led by General Erwin Rommel, at El Alamein, Egypt. Montgomery’s victory marked a major turning point in WWII.
10/24/1931 – Notorious Chicago gangster, Al Capone, was sentenced 11 years in prison for income tax evasion.
10/24/1945 – The UN was founded.
10/25/1854 – 673 British cavalrymen took on a Russian force in the Battle of Balaclava. This famous Crimean War battle was immortalized in a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson entitled “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”
10/26/1881 – In the infamous shoot-out at the OK Corral the Earp brothers and “Doc” Holliday defeated the Clanton Gang.
10/26/1825 – The Erie Canal, the first man-made waterway in America, opened for business.
10/27/1904 – The NYC subway system opened with a run from City Hall to West 145th Street as the first underground and underwater system in the world.
10/27/1978 – Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Peace Prize.
10/28/1636 – Harvard University, the oldest university in America, was founded in Cambridge, MA, funded by donations provided by John Harvard.
10/28/1846 – The ill-fated Donner Party departed Illinois for California.
10/28/1918 – The Republic of Czechoslovakia was founded by combining three provinces that were formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – Moravia, Slovakia, and Bohemia.
10/28/1919 – Prohibition commenced as Congress enacted the Volstead Act.
10/28/1962 – Russia agreed to halt the construction of offensive missile bases in Cuba and dismantle existing bases, thus ending the Cuban Missile Crisis.
10/29/1929 – The stock market “crashed” ushering in the Great Depression.
10/30/1938 – A radio broadcast of H. G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds” without commercial interruption caused widespread panic, as many people thought that Martians had actually invaded Earth.
10/31/1941 – The Mt. Rushmore monument was completed after 14 years.

BIRTHDAYS – Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi – 10/2/1869; Rutherford B. Hayes (19th President) – 10/4/1822; Frederic Remington (artist)- 10/4/1861; Chester A. Arthur (21st President) – 10/5/1830; Robert Goddard (“Father of the Space Age”) – 10/5/1882; George Westinghouse (engineer and inventor) – 10/6/1846; John Lennon – 10/9/1940; Eleanor Roosevelt – 10/11/1884; Mary Ludwig (aka Molly Pitcher (Revolutionary War heroine of the Battle of Monmouth, NJ) – 10/13/1754; William Penn (founded the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which bears his name) – 10/14/1644; Dwight (Ike) Eisenhower (WWII war hero and 34th President) – 10/14/1890; Lido Anthony (Lee) Iacocca (auto industry executive) – 10/15/1924; Noah Webster (teacher and journalist who compiled the first dictionaries) – 10/16/1758; Oscar Wilde (Irish playwright and poet) – 10/16/1854; David Ben Gurion (“Father” of Israel) – 10/16/1888; Eugene O’Neill (playwright – “The Iceman Cometh”) – 10/16/1888; William O. Douglas (associate justice of the Supreme Court) – 10/16/1898; John Birks (Dizzy) Gillespie (jazz musician) – 10/21/1917; Pablo Picasso (artist) – 10/25/1881; Hillary Rodham Clinton – 10/26/1947; James Cook (English explorer) – 10/27/1728; Theodore Roosevelt (26th President) – 10/27/1858; Dr. Jonas Salk (polio vaccine) – 10/28/1914; Bill Gates (Microsoft) – 10/28/1955; John Adams (2nd President) – 10/30/1735; Emily Post (arbiter of etiquette) – 10/30/1872; Admiral Will (“Bull”) Halsey (WWII fleet commander) – 10/30/1882.

Guess who has injected herself into the 2020 presidential election mix, albeit on the periphery? Hint, her initials are HRC. She has been appearing on various talk shows, ostensibly to plug her new book, but her words and actions indicate she still has illusions of power and reclaiming what she believes is rightfully hers – the presidency.

She is continuing to assert that she did not lose the 2016 presidential election “fair and square.” She is claiming she was “robbed” of the presidency by Mr. Trump’s collusion with Russia, and she was victimized by the racism and sexism exhibited by a certain portion of the electorate. Furthermore, she has been stepping up her criticism of Mr. Trump. Her current mantra is that he is an “illegitimate president” who should be impeached. The two have been engaging in an amusing twitter war of words reminiscent of high school. Essentially, he challenged her to run, and she replied “Don’t tempt me. Do your job.”

In my opinion, the subtext of all of the foregoing is that if the Dem Party were to fail to agree on a candidate she would be available to step in. I don’t place a lot of credence in her recent denial to CNN. Pols who want to be drafted always deny that they’re interested.

If you view that as a farfetched scenario consider the following:

1. Many voters, especially independents and moderate Dems, are not exactly enamored with any of the candidates for various reasons.
2. These candidates have dragged the Party far to the left, considerably further than the electorate.
3. Recently, each of the top three candidates has encountered problems, which could weaken, if not derail, their respective campaigns.

Biden has been ensnared in his son, Hunter’s, highly questionable business practices in Ukraine and China. Joe has been caught on tape bragging about how he pressured the former president of Ukraine to fire the special prosecutor who was investigating his son.

Sanders was recently hospitalized with a heart attack, which caused him to suspend campaign activities temporarily. Given his age, this has made many voters uneasy about his health.

Warren has been caught in yet another lie, this time regarding her first teaching position. Briefly, she has claimed in several campaign speeches, that she was fired from that teaching position because she was pregnant. Her words were “my principal ‘wished me luck,’ and [then] hired someone else.” In reality, according to a 2007 video, at the time she had been teaching on an “emergency certification,” because she had not completed enough education classes. Furthermore, the CA Board of Education actually accepted her resignation “with regret” and offered to extend her contract. Since this was not the first time she had been caught in a lie, one has to wonder about her character and credibility. HRC is cognizant of all this, hence, her not so subtle campaigning.

CONCLUSION

In my view, Dem insiders realize Mr. Trump may be vulnerable, despite the fact that, historically, few sitting presidents who are presiding over a good economy and peaceful conditions have been defeated for re-election. He is very unpopular, personally, and despite a very good economy, the defeat of the ISIS Califate and many other accomplishments, he can possibly be beaten with the right candidate. They also know that the current crop is weak and likely not up to the task. I think that is why Pelosi has been fast-tracking the impeachment process, and why HRC has raised her profile. As I said, the clear subtext is “remember me? I am available if needed.”

All that said, we are still four months away from the first primary in Iowa. A lot can and will happen before then. All the major polls show Mr. Trump losing head-to-head to the Big 3.

However, one caveat about early polls. As Reuters pointed in a recent article, historically, their reliability has proven to be questionable. Many respondents state their preference chiefly based on name recognition. In addition, voters often change their minds as the campaign progresses. Also, there is not necessarily a correlation between those who respond to polls and those who actually vote. Finally, there is evidence that many Trump supporters are reluctant to admit it, even to a pollster.

Regarding early polls, in August 2007 HRC led Obama by 20% and ended up losing. In 2016 Trump was trailing Clinton right up until the votes were cast. And, in the most famous case of all, in 1948 Truman was so far behind Dewey in the polls that the Chicago Tribune actually printed an early post Election Day edition with the headline “Dewey Defeats Truman.” So, don’t bet the house on these current polls.

Perhaps, one candidate will distance himself, or herself, from the field and sew up the nomination before the convention. Maybe, a new candidate will emerge. But, if the Dems end up with a wide open convention, don’t discount HRC.

Ugh!

The rise and fall of Kamala Harris has been dramatic. Her campaign got off to a very good start. Local police estimated that some 20,000 supporters attended her official launch back in January. Over the next 24 hours she followed up by tying the record for the most campaign contributions (set by Bernie Sanders). She seemed like a strong, aggressive candidate, who had a really good chance to win the nomination and who could possibly stand up to Donald Trump in the general. Moreover, in a year in which the Dems were emphasizing diversity she was a black female senator from the most populous state in the Union.

Her candidacy remained strong throughout the summer. During the first debate in June she impressed by directly confronting and out-debating Joe Biden on various issues, such as his role in bussing in the 1970s and shortcomings of Obamacare. To many observers, including this one, she made him look old, weak, tentative, unprepared, and out-of-touch. She appeared to be the big winner of the debate, not only of her one-on-one with Biden, but also, overall. This assessment was confirmed by her 6-9% rise in the polls immediately afterward. She appeared to be in the upper echelon of contenders, along with Biden, Sanders and Warren. It appeared she would remain in serious contention all the way to the end with a decent chance to win the nomination.

Now, just a few months later, her campaign is in serious trouble. Recently, a piece from Reuters described her as a “once rising star” who has become an “afterthought.” According to a recently-released Berkeley IGS poll her support among likely Dem voters has dropped to 8%, compared to 21% as recently as June. By comparison, the Big 3 – Warren, Biden, and Sanders – came in at 29%, 20% and 19%, respectively. Even worse, Harris is polling a distant fourth in her home state of CA, again, behind the Big 3, despite the fact that Warren and Biden have not even opened campaign offices in the state yet.

In Iowa she has slipped to fifth after being a solid second as recently as July. According to a poll by the Des Moines Register her support among likely Dem voters has slipped to a paltry 6%, behind not only the Big 3 but also Pete Buttigieg. Not good, particularly since Harris’ campaign had stated its goal was to finish third in the state.

It should be noted that despite its small size Iowa is a significant state, simply because it is the first to vote. To a large extent, it sets the tone for the rest of the campaign. For example, some of you may recall that Barack Obama’s campaign received a substantial boost after he put on a late surge to finish third there in 2008. In fact, since 1972 no candidate has won his party’s nomination without having finished in the top 3 in the Iowa caucuses.

Harris is cognizant of the significance of the state and her need to step it up. Jeff Link, Democratic strategist and co-founder of the progressive group “Focus on Rural America,” has iterated her need to increase her emphasis on rural voters, not only to win the nomination but the general as well. In response, Harris announced plans to beef up her staff in the state, add ten campaign offices, and commence bus tours to reach rural voters.

Perhaps more significantly, she has also been slipping in the area of fundraising, which, as we know, is the lifeblood of any campaign. For example, her campaign only raised $11.6 million in the third quarter, less than half of Sanders’ total, and even less than Buttigieg’s. These are all ominous signs.

CONCLUSION

So, what happened. Why is Harris’ campaign fizzling. In my view, there are many reasons, such as:

1. Tepid performances in the second and third debates. Of course, the format of the debates and the large number of participants makes it very hard for any one participant to stand out. Harris found a way to do so in the first debate, but she lost a lot of momentum following the next two. In particular, she struggled to defend certain of her actions as CA state prosecutor and “sell” her healthcare policy.

2. She has had a light campaign schedule, preferring to focus on fundraising, which, as I mentioned above, has not been successful anyway. As a result, she has not campaigned sufficiently in Iowa, NH and SC, which with its substantial AA population, is crucial to her candidacy. She is not likely to do well in Iowa and NH, but she must do well in SC to have any chance.

3. Her name recognition is well below the Big 3. They have been in the national limelight for many years. On the other hand, Harris, though known in CA, has only been in the Senate for three years.

4. Perhaps most troubling for her, is that many voters, such as Texas’ Austin Healy, have told pollsters that they are not sure “what she stands for.”

5. I view the last two as very problematic as they are not easily correctible, particularly with the crowded field and the impeachment investigation, which, for better or for worse, will likely suck up much of the media’s and voters’ attention throughout the campaign.

We have all known the current field of 20 or so is way too crowded, and it would eventually be winnowed to a few survivors, perhaps three or four. Although it is still early, no votes have actually been cast yet, and she still has a chance to resurrect her campaign, it appears that Harris will not be one of those survivors.

As former president Ronald Reagan might say, “There they go again!” The Dems and most of the mainstream media just cannot help themselves. They hate Mr. Trump so much and want to get rid of him so badly that they continually “jump the gun” and end up embarrassing themselves when the actual facts are determined. This has been going on since even before Mr. Trump was sworn in as president.

Below please find a list of some of the highlights, or, rather, lowlights:

1. Collusion with Russia to “steal” the 2016 election.
2. Obstruction of the Mueller investigation.
3. The Mueller report was supposed to provide definitive proof of the above.
4. Testimony of James Comey, Corey Lewandowski and others before Congress that were sure to implicate Mr. Trump in various crimes, but did not do so.
5. For good measure we were subjected to the misreporting of the Covington kids affair and the relentless smearing of Justice Kavanaugh during his hearing.
6. Now, Mr. Trump was supposed to have threatened Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

What is the common thread of all of the above? A rush to judgment before the facts are in, and the subsequent embarrassment when it was determined there was “no there there.” Writing in the WSJ Kim Strassel pointed this out opining that the Dems had opened the impeachment investigation “based on a whistleblower complaint they had not seen [and a second-hand one at that] and a transcript they had not read.” It turns out that this whistleblower is a disgruntled CIA employee working in the White House who may, in fact, have his own agenda.

All in all, the Dems (not all of them, but a significant number of them) and their allies in the media have wasted three years during which time they have single-mindedly focused on how to “get” Mr. Trump rather than focusing on the real problems that need fixing, for example, healthcare, income inequality, student debt, and infrastructure, to name a few. They were elected to deal with these and other issues, not to waste their time trying to build a case for impeachment. I cannot recall any significant legislation emanating from the Congress in the last three years. Can you? The current Congress has distinguished itself as the quintessential “do nothing” Congress. Some of you may recall that Harry Truman won election in 1948 largely by using that as an issue. How are the 30 or so moderate Dems who were elected in 2018 from districts that Mr. Trump carried in 2016 supposed to hold their seats in 2020 with this record? They can’t be pleased that Pelosi has abandoned them in favor of the radical impeachment wing.

Once again, in the Ukraine case they have acted prematurely, before all the facts are in, before even seeing the transcript, before even interviewing the whistleblower to assess the veracity of his claim. This time, there may have been actual wrongdoing. As I write this, we simply don’t know enough facts to make a reasonable judgment. And that is my point.

The Trump haters want it so badly that they have lost their judgment. Even Nancy Pelosi, who heretofore had shown great restraint on the impeachment issue, has fallen victim to TDS (“Trump derangement syndrome”). I know she has characterized it as an “investigation” of the feasibility of impeachment, but to me and many others that is a distinction without a difference.

As most of us now know, Mr. Trump has released the transcript of his telephone call with Mr. Zelensky. Without getting lost in the weeds I think it is fair to say that it is not a “smoking gun” as has been claimed (hoped?) by some. At most, it is benign and inconclusive. There is nothing demonstrating that Mr. Trump threatened Zelensky with any quid pro quo nor that he pressured him to reopen an investigation of Hunter Biden. He asked Zelensky to “look into” the case that had been mysteriously dropped after former VP, Joe Biden, had threatened to withhold a loan guarantee if it were not. There is no doubt that Joe did this. He bragged about on tape.

The context of the conversation is significant. It is well known that for years Ukraine has been plagued by corruption. Zelensky has made it a priority to root it out wherever it may be. He has given his newly-appointed prosecutor a mandate and full autonomy do this. Therefore, would it not be normal for Mr. Trump, as part of a broader conversation, to ask him to look into the Biden case?

Nevertheless, some have chosen to interpret the transcript to fit their narrative. For example, Adam Schiff, who has not exactly been a paragon of objectivity or accuracy for the past three years, characterized it as a “shakedown” worthy of a “mafia don.” Others don’t agree. They point out that in a recent press conference Zelensky stated emphatically that no one “pushed” him to do anything. So, if you want to be objective, do you believe a whistle blower that admits he does not have a firsthand account or what you hear on tape from the principal directly involved. This reminds me of that old Groucho Marx joke, and I paraphrase: “do you believe what I tell you or what you see with your own eyes?”

By the way, the aforementioned Hunter Biden case presents a far more compelling instance of corruption and influence-peddling. Briefly, a Ukrainian oligarch hired Hunter to serve on the board of his energy company and paid him some $50,000 a month. For what? Certainly, not for his expertise in the field. Coincidentally, at the time Biden Senior was VP of the US. Wow! My nine year-old granddaughter could connect those dots.

Biden Junior walked away with millions of dollars. Supposedly, he had a similar deal with China. I am not accusing the Bidens of any criminal wrongdoing, but I think an investigation is certainly merited. This has been severely underreported, if not ignored.

I will concede that Mr. Trump is not popular on a personal level. For example, a recent NBC/WSJ poll reported that 69% of voters do not “like [him] personally,” although his approval rating has stood at about 45% consistently. The actual grounds for impeachment as stated in that pesky document we call the Constitution are somewhat vague, but as former President, Gerald Ford, famously intoned: “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.” Got it? I doubt that the intent of the framers of the Constitution was to authorize impeaching a duly-elected official simply because we don’t like him, personally. If that were the standard I could think of a dozen or more Dems I would like impeached.

Incidentally, polls often reach contrary conclusions and should be read with a grain of salt. For example, reporter Carrie Dunn disclosed that the same poll found a “the electorate at large expresses doubts” with respect to some of the progressive policies being espoused by many of the Dem candidates, including the three leaders – Warren, Biden and Sanders. One might conclude that, at the moment, the voters are not really endorsing any person or any policies, or maybe the results have been influenced by the manner in which the questions were asked.

While we’re discussing polls I would like to point out that a recent Quinnipiac poll disclosed that 57% do not want to see the president impeached. This was despite his personal unpopularity and the massive negative reporting to date on this issue. Once again, the average American voter has demonstrated he has more sense than the politicians. If the Dems proceed with impeachment I expect this number to increase, perhaps, sharply. Some of you will recall that President Clinton’s popularity soared as he was being impeached.

CONCLUSION

So, let’s review. Do Mr. Trump’s actions rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors?” Do they justify impeachment? Or, do we have another instance of Trump-haters jumping the gun and seeing a crime that isn’t there? I will leave it to you, the reader, to decide. But, at least, decide based on the facts, not your personal dislike of Mr. Trump.

In my opinion, this is just another case of some people trying to negate the results of the 2016 election. I find the timing rather curious, however, since by the time any impeachment proceeding and subsequent trial in the Senate will have runs its course it would almost be Election Day anyway. Could it be that Pelosi realizes the Dems are about to lose big in 2020? Hmm.

My advice to the Trump-haters is give it up, already. You would be advised to look at life through the windshield, not the rear view window. In other words, focus on the 2020 election rather than continually trying to undue the 2016 election. Even if you were to succeed, what would you gain? Hillary would not ascend to the Presidency. Pence would, and he would be eligible to run two more times. Uh oh! The best way to oust Mr. Trump is to WIN THE 2020 ELECTION.

The following historically-significant events occurred during the month of September:

9/1/1939 – The Germans invaded Poland marking the beginning of WWII.
9/1/1983 – A Russian fighter jet shot down a Korean civilian airliner that had supposedly strayed off course during a scheduled flight from NY to Seoul.
9/2/1666 – The Great Fire of London began. It destroyed over 13,000 houses, although it is believed that only six lives were lost.
9/2/1789 – Congress established the Department of the Treasury as the third cabinet department.
9/2/1864 – General Sherman captured Atlanta.
9/2/1945 – President Truman declared VJ Day.
9/2/1963 – Alabama Governor George Wallace dispatched state troopers to prevent the integration of Tuskegee High School.
9/3/1783 – Representatives of England and the American colonies signed the Treaty of Paris bringing a formal ending to the Revolutionary War.
9/3/1833 – The “New York Sun” debuted, as the first newspaper to be “hawked” by boys on the sidewalk.
9/4/1609 – Henry Hudson discovered the island of Manhattan. (Do you know the derivation of the name, “Manhattan”)? See below.
9/4/1781 – Felipe de Neve founded El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles (in English, The Town of the Queen of the Angels), or as it is more commonly known, the City of Los Angeles.
9/4/1886 – Geronimo, the last and, perhaps, the most famous, Indian chief, was captured.
9/5/1774 – The First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia.
9/5-6/1972 – Terrorists belonging to the Black September faction of the PLA murdered eleven members of the Israeli Olympic Team in Munich.
9/5/1997 – “Mother Teresa” died at age 87.
9/8/1565 – Spain founded the first settlement in America in St. Augustine, FL.
9/9/1776 – The Continental Congress officially changed the name of the “United Colonies” to the “United States.”
9/9/1976 – Chairman Mao Zedong, Communist China’s longtime leader, died.
9/11/2001 – The worst terrorist attack in US history ushered in the War on Terror, which is ongoing. Terrorists hijacked four jumbo jets. Two were flown into the WTC, causing both towers to collapse; one crashed into the Pentagon; and the 4th missed its target (the White House or the Capitol) due to the heroism of some of the passengers on board. Nearly 2,800, mostly civilians, were killed and thousands of first responders have since died or suffered health problems directly related to the attack.
9/12/1953 – Future US President John F. Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, RI.
9/13/1788 – The US Congress chose NY as the capital.
9/13/1814 – Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner while observing the Battle of Fort McHenry from a British prisoner ship in Baltimore harbor.
9/14/1901 – President William McKinley died from gunshot wounds suffered during an assassination attempt eight days previously.
9/15/1935 – The Nazi Germany government enacted the Nuremburg Laws, which deprived German Jews of their citizenship.
9/16/1620 – The Mayflower, with only 102 passengers and a few crew members, departed England for its famous voyage to the New World.
9/16/1908 – William Durant founded General Motors in Flint, MI.
9/17/1789 – The Constitutional Convention approved the US constitution.
9/17/1862 – The Union Army defeated the Confederate Army at Antietam in the bloodiest battle in US military history as approximately 26,000 soldiers died on both sides.
9/18/1947 – The air force was established as a separate branch of the military.
9/19/1893 – New Zealand became the first country to approve women’s suffrage.
9/20/1873 – The NYSE closed for the first time due to the Panic of 1873.
9/20/1973 -Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in the much-ballyhooed “Battle of the Sexes.”
9/22/1776 – The British executed Nathan Hale as a spy for the colonials who famously intoned “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”
9/22/1862 – President Abraham Lincoln issued the famous Emancipation Proclamation.
9/23/1952 – Vice Presidential candidate Richard Nixon delivered the famous “Checkers” Speech before a national tv and radio audience.
9/24/1957 – President Eisenhower deployed the National Guard to enforce racial integration in Little Rock, AK.
9/25/1513 – Spanish explorer Vasco de Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean.
9/25/1789 – Congress proposed 12 amendments to the US constitution of which ten were eventually ratified as the Bill of Rights.
9/26/1960 – Senator Kennedy and Vice President Nixon participated in the first televised presidential election debate.
9/27/1964 – The Warren commission issued its report that concluded a lone gunman had assassinated President Kennedy.
9/28/1542 – Portuguese explorer Juan Cabrillo discovered California.
9/28/1995 – Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chief Yasser Arafat signed an agreement granting Palestinian self-rule of the West Bank.
9/29/1789 – Congress created the US Army, which consisted of 1,000 soldiers.
9/29/1829 – Britain’s Parliament authorized London’s Metropolitan Police Force. They were nicknamed “Bobbies” after Home Secretary Robert Peel, who was the driving force behind the idea.
9/29-30/1941 – Nazi soldiers perpetrated the infamous Babi Yar massacre at which in excess of 33,000 Jews were murdered.
9/30/1938 – British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to England brandishing an agreement with Nazi Germany that he asserted guaranteed “peace in our time.”
9/30/1949 – The Berlin airlift concluded after it had successfully thwarted Soviet attempts to blockade West Berlin.

BIRTHDAYS – Rocky Marciano, undefeated heavyweight boxing champion, 9/1/1923; Christa McAuliffe (the first “ordinary” citizen in space), 9/2/1948; Jesse James, celebrated outlaw, 9/5/1847; Darryl Zanuck, movie mogul, 9/5/1902; Marquis de Lafayette, Revolutionary War hero, 9/6/1757; Queen Elizabeth I, 9/7/1533; Ferdinand Marcos, 9/11/1917; James Cleveland (“Jesse”) Owens, winner of four gold medals in 1936 Olympics, 9/12/1913; Walter Reed, 9/13/1851; General John J. Pershing, WWI commanding general, 9/13/1860; James Fenimore Cooper, authored “Last of the Mohicans,” 9/15/1789; William Howard Taft (27th US President), 9/15/1857; Agatha Christie, renowned mystery writer, 9/15/1890; John Marshall, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 9/24/1755; F. Scott Fitzgerald, author, 9/24/1896; George Gershwin, composer, 9/26/1898; Samuel Adams, Revolutionary War leader, 9/27/1722; Enrico Fermi, nuclear physicist, 9/29/1901; Truman Capote, authored “In Cold Blood,” 9/30/1924.

Quiz answer – It is derived from the Indian name, “Mannahatta,” which translates to “the hilly island.”

Many voters do not like President Trump, personally. For example, they disapprove of several of his personality traits as well as his penchant for tweeting whenever and whatever he feels like. They may approve of most of his policies, such as his handling of the economy, defeat of ISIS, and “America First” philosophy, but those positives are outweighed by their personal animosity towards him. They are primed to vote for an alternative if only there were a reasonable and viable one. The Dems have a rare chance to unseat a sitting president who is presiding over a very favorable economy and who is not burdened by an unpopular war (such as LBJ was with Vietnam). This has hardly ever happened in our modern history, but it could in 2020.

So, what are the Dems doing with this rare opportunity? They are blowing it, that’s what. How? Read on.

As I write this, there are some 20 candidates still in the race for the Dem nomination. All of them, except for maybe a couple of the fringe ones, have been advocating extreme left policies, which polls, such NPR/Marist, show are too extreme even for a majority of Dem voters. More on that below. This has been pretty evident if one watches the debates, their campaign speeches and the recent CNN-sponsored Town Hall. It is almost comical as they persist in playing a game of “can you top this” as they try to “out-progressive” each other.

Some examples of these extreme and unpopular policies, many of which may sound good but would not work and would bankrupt the country, are the following:

1. Healthcare – Free healthcare for illegal immigrants. Don’t they realize how unpopular this is among voters, most of whom are struggling with inadequate, overly expensive or no healthcare, themselves? This is a non-starter with voters, yet they keep advocating it.

2. Open/relaxed borders – This issue has been very over-politicized. Most Americans realize that there is a vast middle ground available, if only the pols on both sides would compromise their hardline positions. This position, combined with free healthcare is simply idiotic. Anyone with a brain and a modicum of common sense (which, as we all know, is NOT common) can see it. Dems want to let anyone enter the US who wants to do so, and then offer them free healthcare? The combination of these two, by themselves, would bankrupt the country.

3. Illegal immigrants – Most voters are keenly cognizant of and don’t appreciate that the Dem candidates seem to favor illegal immigrants over American citizens. For instance, they favor decriminalizing illegal entry, shorter prison sentences, and thwarting ICE from doing its job. And, then there are the sanctuary, cities, counties and states, which they endorse and encourage. Do you think most Americans like that a several-times deported illegal killed Kate Steinle and then got off on a technicality? How about the mayor of Oakland giving advance warning to illegals of an impending ICE raid, or Montgomery County, MD, a sanctuary county, where, just in the last few months, alone, there have been several instances of illegals raping teenage girls.

4. Taxpayer abortion up to and after birth – According to a recent NPR/Marist poll only 18% of Dems supported this. A woman’s right to choose is a reasonable position, but this goes too far. In my opinion once a fetus is viable outside the womb, abortion is murder. There are even reports that Harris has supported Planned Parenthood in CA in selling body parts of aborted fetuses.

5. Racism/Identity politics – They continually promote identity politics and see racism around every corner and under every bed. That same poll disclosed that most Dem voters disagree.

6. Free college tuition/forgiveness of student debt – Not practical for many reasons, which I have discussed in previous blogs.

7. Assault weapons ban/confiscation – I think everyone would be in favor of curbing shootings, especially school shootings, but I don’t think this is the answer. Certainly, it is not the entire answer. How about universal background checks; better reporting, police who are not afraid to do their jobs, addressing mental health issues, etc.? Incidentally, can anybody tell me what the actual definition of an “assault weapon” is. Probably not, but don’t worry, neither can the geniuses in Congress who are attempting to write the law to ban them. Wikipedia acknowledges that the definition “varies among various regulatory jurisdictions, but usually includes semi-automatic rifles with a detachable magazine, a pistol grip and sometimes other features, such as a vertical forward grip, flash suppressor or barrel shroud.” Got it? You can, however, bet on two things: (1) The proposed ban, by itself, will do little to curb the frequency of shootings; and (2) the elites and their bodyguards will somehow be exempt from any ban. Some of the candidates, not content with a ban, have been advocating seizure. How do you think that will play out?

7. Other bans – Are you ready? The following are some of the bans that have been proposed to “save the environment” and thwart climate change. Some of these are part of the inane Green New Deal:

red meat
plastic straws
fracking (Sanders called it “a danger to our water supply and the air we breathe.”) How about the 80,000 or so people whose livelihood depends, directly or indirectly, on fracking?
incandescent light bulbs
air travel
combustion engines (What would happen to the auto industry, and how are suburban and rural folks supposed to travel?)
too many babies (Isn’t that racist?)
carbon emissions
nuclear power
coal and coal mining (Uh oh, there goes PA and WV.)
factory farming
toys in McDonalds happy meals
surgery drinks, such as sodas.

Of course, most of these are absurd, but I believe they demonstrate the inane thinking of these candidates. I have not seen any poll in which a majority of Americans supports any of these bans. I submit, they are not about climate change or saving the environment. They are about controlling your lives.

CONCLUSION

Back to my original point. The Dems would have a reasonable chance to defeat Mr. Trump if only they would offer a qualified moderate candidate. (Biden was supposed to be that candidate, but he has shown he is neither qualified nor moderate.) Until this election cycle Dems always stood for the middle class, the working class, the disadvantaged. I have not seen any of the candidates do that. The one exception is Tulsi Gabbard, and her reward was to be belittled and shunted aside by the powers-that-be.

Now, the Dems are all about identity politics, political correctness and white guilt socialism. They are taking their cues, not from their traditional and broad constituency but from the twitter crowd and the likes of the “Four Horsewomen.” Good luck with that.