What will be the long-term effects of COVID on the nations of the world? Aside from the price in lives and suffering, it will obviously sap a lot of economic wealth from most of the nations of the world. How will that change the course of history in coming years?

Europe, USA — big hit, big deficits

Russia — probably also got pulled down, will lose economic and hopefully military power

Third world — set back by many years

Asian nations — not as bad as the west, but still many costs

China — unfortunately, they got out quickest and recovered the soonest. SO, it appears possible that China’s strength and position in the world will be strengthened relative to the US, Europe and fellow Asian nations; it will gain more military strength and be even more dangerous and domineering.

I’m glad to see that Joe Biden won the election and will be the next President, come late January. I’m not so sure that there weren’t any significant voter irregularities or fraud in this election, given all of the mail-in ballots and new rules and procedures that were quickly implemented in the wake of the COVID pandemic. But I doubt if they will make a difference, despite all of Mr. Trump’s efforts in court (and I agree that Trump and the GOP should get its day in court). It’s a good sign so far that Trump doesn’t appear to be stirring up white nationalist groups in preparation for a violent putch. And it doesn’t look as if GOP state legislators have the appetite for violating long tradition and sending a pro-Trump delegation to the Electoral College in states where Biden won, however narrowly. The GOP may not yet be done with Donald Trump (unfortunately), but for now Trump is a sinking ship; even if most of the rats on board are sitting tight for now, none of the shore-side rats are jumping on.

But still, the Democrats didn’t do very well overall on Election Day. There have been many articles about this over the past few weeks (here’s a good one), citing disappointing Senate race results, loss of seats in the House, GOP gains with minority voters, and unfavorable net results on the state legislature and state governor levels.

My one contribution to this is a quick and dirty summary of how the Electoral College map changed for both parties as a result of the 2016 and 2020 elections. Here is my summation:  »  continue reading …

Back on March 26, 2019, just about 1 year ago, I posted a blog discussing the upcoming Democratic Presidential primary season, which we are now in the middle of. Although my essay was long winded and rambling as usual, it was based around a prediction. I predicted that despite all of the candidates who entered the field, the Democratic primaries would come down to a choice between two main themes represented by two main candidates. Here’s a quote:

On the Democratic side, there is a plethora of potential candidates at this point . . . However, it all really sums up to a digital choice: Bernie (or younger reasonable facsimile) or Joe (or younger reasonable facsimile).

Well, not bad, if I do say so myself! The only thing I got wrong was to leave open the possibility that some of the younger and fresher faces would break through and push the old geezers like Sanders and Biden aside. For whatever reason, the progressive Democratic Party decided that for 2020, old white male Baby Boomers still rule!

I also had some new thoughts on Joe Biden today — let me share them here:

I’m an old man, gonna be 67 in a few weeks, so I feel for Joe and all of his old-man bumbling. (Although, even when he was middle aged, he still bumbled more than his share). From a personal perspective, I’d like to think that some of his frequent bumbling and forgetting names and places over the past few months has been from old-man depression. Ya know, you’re older now, maybe you’re not taken so seriously anymore. You feel like you’re not really needed anymore, you can no longer play in the big leagues. So, go down to Florida and play in the retiree’s league  »  continue reading …

We are coming up on another Presidental election, and just like last time (2016), the final outcome may be close. We could have another situation where the popular vote count differs from the results of the Electoral College, as happened in 2016 and 2000. There were two other elections where this happened, but they were a long time ago, namely 1876 and 1888. In 1876, Democrat Sam Tilden won the popular vote, but Republican Rutherford Hayes won the College. In ’88, President Grover Cleveland, a Democratic, ran for a second term and won the popular vote while losing the College to Benjamin Harrison. (PS, Cleveland was a Jersey boy, hailing from Caldwell. His home is an historic site, just a few miles from where I live).

In all 4 of these elections, the Democratic candidate has been the aggrieved party. So, it’s not surprising that the Dems are now raising a lot of dust about abolishing the Electoral College system that was put in place by the writers of the US Constitution back in 1788. A recent poll (March 2019) indicated that 60% of Democratic voters want the College eliminated in favor of a straight majority vote. Not surprisingly, 64% of Republican voters wish to keep it. Among people calling themselves independents, 46% wanted to abolish the College, while 32% want to keep it.

There are plenty of arguments both for and against the College, but what it comes down to is the old Constitutional doctrine of State sovereignty and the limitation of Federal powers. The writers of the US Constitution, aware of the many political and economic abuses by the monarchies of Europe that go all the way back to the Roman Empire, worried about a federal government that would become too powerful. Their default philosophy was that  »  continue reading …