The Wall Street Journal ran a column on December 4th entitled “Who Got a Lot Richer During the Pandemic,” https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/savings/who-got-a-lot-richer-and-who-didnt-during-the-pandemic-8dd238ab . I read it with great interest and found a gaping hole in the analysis. The column starts by telling us the pandemic made Americans richer which many might think counterintuitive to reality. After all, 2020 saw many businesses were shut down for extended periods of time at the beginning of the pandemic. Depending on the state in which you live, the period many businesses were shut down was extensive. I am sure that you saw the permanent closure of retail businesses and restaurants in your local community. Big businesses were allowed to operate, but smaller retailers were closed along with many service businesses. The column cites that home values went up during the period. People had fewer opportunities to spend money in the absence of concerts, shows or amusement parks; less eating out; travel, etc.; so, they… Read More

As we lurch into the 2024 election year, it is imperative we confront the naked truth about the potential contestants for the grand prize of President of the greatest country ever. Though it is often stated that family is off limits in political discussion, I believe that ship has sailed for President Biden – he is a lousy liar and a terrible father. That flies in the face of what we are told on a daily basis by the current White House staff and their sycophants in the Legacy Media. How many times has the current press secretary told us that Joe Biden loves his son? And the point is? The parents of the Columbine murderers loved their children. Did that exonerate them from being atrocious parents? How could they not know what those kids were doing in their own homes? Any honest parent knows there are struggles with raising children. There is a difference of opinion as to when that parenting ends. Some believe that once they are “grown” parenting ends. Others like me believe it ends on your death bed and may go beyond that. Certainly, what constitutes parenting evolves over the years. What you do with a six-year-old versus a… Read More

The Left is constantly warning us about the dangers of losing our democracy. They were convinced The Orange Man (Donald Trump) was going to steal our democracy for four years and if elected again will finally complete his goal of becoming a strongman autocrat. One major publication changed its tagline to say that “Democracy Dies in Darkness” while keeping people in the dark. As usual this is just a head fake as they have little interest in the process of democracy in our country. The Left has used the courts to affect major legislation they could not pass through the democratic process (you remember, elected legislators voting on bills and the executive branch officer signing it into law). The most obvious cases are the Roe V. Wade and the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage. That is just a smidgeon of what is done regularly as we have seen ever-burgeoning bureaucracy making non-democratically initiated rules that we must obey or face significant fines or jail time. Their arguments are exemplified by the NYT column from October 3rd by Jamelle Bouie… Read More

Even prior to when Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) began fighting Hamas after their October 7th deadly slaughter of Israeli citizens, some who decline to help Israel focus on just one aspect of the hostilities. France’s President Emmanuel Macron, who falsely believes his shrinking country still has 21st century relevance, along with arguably the world’s most anti-Semitic organization – the U.N. – are committed to persuading the United States (Israel’s closet ally) to emphasize a ceasefire and thus end the current war’s hostilities. But they should be going in a demonstrably different direction altogether. A ceasefire may have made sense to someone at one point in this war, but no longer. When one side of the hostilities is totally dispatched by the other side, there is only one thing to do. Likewise, when that same side is hiding amongst its own citizens to avoid being eliminated and thus causing mass casualties to their own citizens, there is only one thing to do. Finally, when that same side is continuing the fight causing the destruction of housing, office buildings and commercial centers with no hope of winning, there is only one thing to do. Hamas… Read More

There are really more, like how well my baseball team will do this coming season, but we need to focus on a couple of big issues that affect us all and our entire country. The first issue is our insane national budget deficit. One would think that since the effects of the pandemic receded more than a year ago, the 2023 budget deficit would plummet as well. Not a bit. The budget deficit is $1.7 trillion, a $320 billion increase over the prior year. To be fair, some significant increase is due to increased interest expense because of higher interest rates. Our elected officials did not plan for that even though they had to know that interest rates would not stay forever at absurdly low rates. Yet they acted like irresponsible children stuffing Halloween candy in their mouths without regard for how their stomachs would feel the next day. Republicans are also guilty as the last Republican President, Trump, did little to reduce spending. The Democrats exaggerate Trump’s deficits. Biden’s people stuffed his massive spending bills into Trump’s record as his last fiscal year ended nine months after Trump left… Read More

A friend and regular reader of my column came to me at our Hanukkah party and suggested that I should write more about positive things. Unbeknownst to him, I had already planned my next two columns regarding the Christmas season with a decidedly positive bent. In response to his request, this column attempts just that. There was an absolutely horrible event in Israel on October 7th, to state the obvious. Twelve hundred people were murdered, and many innocent people including Americans were taken hostage. But many good things have occurred out of this horrific event. Israel was a fractured country at the time. They were fighting over whether to restructure its court system. That ended. People were called up to enter the battle against the mass murderers and more people volunteered than were expected. Even those religiously exempt showed up in major numbers. The country once again faced their obligation to protect not only the future of the Jewish people but one of the most egalitarian countries in the history of this planet. My understanding is that Israelis have stayed united in order to find their way of ridding themselves of this evil enemy on their… Read More

This is a column I ran a few years back and I thought was particularly important during this Christmas season to revisit. A friend was visiting that I only see on occasion. After talking about our common interests, he told me he was currently splitting his time between where he lived and where he grew up. That was because his 90-year-old father needed to have a family member nearby. After commending him for doing the right thing in taking care of his aging parent, I asked whether he had any siblings who could help. He stated he had one who was no longer in communication with him or his father. His answer as to why was because his father and the sibling had a fight five years ago. Shocked by the statement I inquired of him “You mean to tell me your sibling got so upset with an 85-year-old man that they no longer communicate?” The idea of estranged relatives has destroyed me for a while now. Along with parents divorcing, family members refusing to interact with their parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles or cousins just drives me crazy. We have enough problems with broken families and families that never fully formed. We have shrinking … Read More

When the Presidents of MIT, Harvard and University of Pennsylvania were invited to denounce open race-hatred on their campuses, they wrapped themselves in the mantle of free speech. People have a right to say what they think as long as it doesn’t become threatening conduct, they said, and on this narrow point they’re right. But that doesn’t explain why antisemitism is rampant on their campuses. It is not a tolerance for outrageous speech that is the problem – it is a complete intolerance of patriotic speech. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the two most intolerant and oppressive universities in the country are Harvard and UPenn. MIT ranks 136th out of 254 universities surveyed. How is it possible that such depraved and discredited philosophies as Marxism, totalitarianism, racism, Islamic-fascism and antisemitism now flourish on these college campuses? Because for years, the antidote to these social pathologies – the American founding principles of freedom, democracy, tolerance, and justice that have always kept them in check — have been systematically suppressed and removed from campus discussions. A… Read More