Back in the Land of the Rising Sun
Day One in Tokyo 

Every time I visit Tokyo, I have the same thought: When it comes to luxuries and conveniences, the Japanese do everything we do, but better. And in many cases not just better, but much better.

And on top of that, in so many ways that matter to me, the Japanese are more cultured, cultivated, and civilized.

Many of my readers (not to mention friends) don’t like it when I make that observation.

Some don’t like it because they think that being loyal to the USA means believing that our country offers its citizens and visitors the best of everything. They seem to equate patriotism with idolatry. In every way, the USA is Number One. Thinking otherwise is a form of apostacy.

Others don’t like it for almost the opposite reason. They are cultural relativists – i.e., they believe that all cultures are morally, aesthetically, and socially equal. To think otherwise is the worst sort of post-colonial bigotry. For them, suggesting that the Japanese have a better culture than we do opens the door to saying that other cultures may be, in some ways, morally, aesthetically, or socially worse than ours.

I try to hold both viewpoints in mind every time I come to Japan, trying to refine my appreciation of its culture by seeing it with fresh eyes. But that discipline never holds for very long. By the time I am halfway through Haneda Airport, it rushes back to me: Every little thing I like about America is somehow better here.

And by the way, in saying this, I’m not talking about traditional Japanese culture, which I understand has aspects that I would find objectionable if not deplorable. My thoughts and opinions are based on my “lived experience” (as the Woke crowd says) of spending time in Japan as a tourist and businessman.

That said, it’s evident (and impossible not to notice when in Japan) that contemporary Japanese culture is deeply indebted to traditional views and attitudes towards such concepts as social hierarchy, family relations, work, education, social etiquette, and even the relationship between citizens and government.

And, as I said, for the most part I find every aspect of my experience in Japan to be superior to its equivalent in the USA.

Since I am aware of the possibility that what I’ve written so far may have already disturbed you, I’m going to pursue this line of thought in small bits and pieces over the next two weeks, while I’m here in Tokyo.

I’d like to begin today with perhaps the most obvious aspect of Japanese culture that impresses me immediately and continuously: how shockingly clean, efficient, and well-maintained the city’s public facilities are.

For example…

The trains and subways are immaculate, quiet, and super-efficient.

As Americans, we are accustomed to public transportation that has been vandalized by graffiti and whose interiors are – um – grimy. In Tokyo, the exteriors are free of graffiti and the insides are spotless and well lit, with comfortable seating and ample room for storing any baggage you might have.

The stations are also managed better from a user’s perspective – with lots of signs (in English as well as Japanese) to direct those unfamiliar with the routes, and plenty of uniformed agents whose English is usually more than good enough to help you.

And once aboard, the US traveler is in for a treat. The passengers sit quietly, working on their phones, reading, or just resting with their eyes closed. It is as if all the train and subway cars have been designated as “quiet cars.” But unlike many quiet cars I’ve experienced in the States, they are quiet. I didn’t see anyone speaking at all. Not even on their phones. And you won’t see anyone hogging the seat next to them to hold personal belongings.

The trains typically get to the station several minutes before the designated departure time, so there is no rushing in and out, as is common in just about every other urban train station I’ve been to in the world. Furthermore, Tokyo’s commuters are generally more thoughtful and courteous than – well, since I’m from New York, I’ll say New York commuters. Even during rush hour, you won’t find yourself in a stampede of bodies, elbows flying in a furious race to or away from work.

And if all that weren’t enough, the train is likely to be going 50% to 100% times faster than an equivalent train in the US. But it doesn’t feel like you are moving fast because there is much less of the clattering and clacking.

This I found hard to believe: No one smokes in public. I mean no one!

Not in parks or outside of stores or restaurants. Not in front of private residences or hotels. And not on streets or sidewalks either. In train stations and large hotels and in some parks, you can find “smoking facilities.” But they are the size of prison cells and about as agreeable – enclosed, private spaces that have ashtrays but no seats or benches to sit on and enjoy a smoke.

And this too: You won’t find trash baskets on the streets of Tokyo. Nor will you find trash.

After the 1995 terrorist attack, when members of an obscure religious cult released a deadly nerve gas in the subway, the city got rid of all its trash baskets. (A precautionary measure to eliminate the possibility that terrorists could somehow utilize them in the future.) I’ve heard that they’re starting to come back, but I couldn’t find any yesterday.

To an American who has walked the streets of New York, Chicago, and LA, getting rid of trash baskets sounds like an insane idea. But guess what? It turns out that all those thousands of baskets and the millions of dollars in costs associated with them were not needed. We walked in several districts of Tokyo yesterday – from a ritzy business area to an historic area to an area where many blue collar people work – and I didn’t see a single piece of rubbish on the ground – not even a cigarette butt. (I suppose the denizens of the city have to do something like what I had to do yesterday: carry my litter in my pockets until I got back to my hotel room and dispose of it there.)

Food markets are cleaner – almost sanitary. 

Supermarkets and smaller food stores in the US, and in most West European cities I know, range from bright and clean to dim and dirty. That’s always felt like a reasonable range to me – especially when compared to the open-air, fly-besieged markets I frequented when I lived in Africa.

Which is to say, I am generally comfortable with the cleanliness of US food markets and the food they sell. But when you see how food is displayed in Tokyo markets… and you notice how perfect every morsel looks… and you notice that every employee touching food is wearing plastic gloves… it feels like the chances of taking home anything that is not super-clean and healthy are comparatively very low.

For me, food shopping in Japan feels futuristic – where every piece of fruit looks like it was grown in the Garden of Eden and everything is packaged as though it were a luxury good.

Clean, quiet, orderly, and civilized. Those are my impressions each time I visit Tokyo. 

I’ve been to other cities in the world where you can find one or even several of these qualities. But not all at once. And certainly not in any cities that have more than 14 million people living in a space that is almost two-thirds smaller than NYC.

That’s it for now. Next time, I’ll be touching on Japanese business and social etiquette and how important it is to understand that if you want to do business or stay in Japan for any length of time.

“What City Kids Learn on My Farm” 

When they became empty-nesters, Larissa Phillips and her husband decided to give urban children and their parents a chance to spend a week on their 15-acre “hobby” farm. The idea was to provide an opportunity for the kids to learn directly, from experience, facts about life that they could not possibly learn growing up in New York.

In an essay in The Free Press, Phillips talks about how the program works.

“Here are some things I have taught the kids who visit my farm,” she writes. “Animals don’t care about your feelings and sometimes we kill them to eat them. It doesn’t matter how desperately you want to find more eggs, the hens aren’t going to lay on demand. Tomatoes aren’t ripe in June. The stalls aren’t going to clean themselves, and stings aren’t really a big deal. And there will always be poop.”

There is nothing in the essay that would shock anyone with any common sense. But it made me feel like there is some hope left in the world if there are still people like Larissa Phillips and her husband pushing back against the madness.

You can read the whole thing here.

Maybe the US Isn’t Rich After All 

Most politicians and pundits claim that America is the richest country in the world.

But Bill Bonner, writing in the June 10 edition of Bill Bonner’s Bonner Private Research, does a great job of exploding this “rich myth.” He suggests, as I have in past posts, that one could argue that the US is the poorest country in the world, afloat like a hot air balloon hovering above an invisible spike that will sooner or later blow it all up.

“The proposition on the table is provocative,” Bill writes. “And illuminating. What if we Americans aren’t nearly as rich as we think we are? As outrageous as it seems, ‘fictitious wealth’ appears to explain why the richest country in the world still can’t pay its bills or win its wars.

“Simply put… the idea is that America’s fake money – introduced in 1971 – led to an economy with a lot of fake wealth. In short, much of US stock, bond, and real estate wealth… and much of the US economy itself (GDP)… was ‘f’-ed up – …fictitious, fraudulent, or fantasy.”

Read on here.

Voter Fraud and Election Interference
Does It Happen? If So, How Often? And Does It Matter?

When Bush beat Gore in 2000 and the election was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court because of, among other things, the “hanging chads” issue in Florida, I saw it as negligence and incompetence (and an embarrassment to Florida), but I didn’t see it as malicious – as a story of purposeful manipulation and fraud.

The idea that election fraud could be a problem in American politics didn’t occur to me until 2016, when, after losing her bid for the presidency to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton repeatedly and publicly claimed the election had been “stolen” from her through “Russian interference.” Everyone, including Trump, knows that “he’s an illegitimate president,” she said in her uniquely supercilious way.

I remember thinking, “Russian interference? Why would Putin prefer Trump over Clinton.”

Now I know why.

Trump was not big on war and saw no benefit (for him or the country) in the military industrial complex. Most of all, he had serious criticisms of NATO – the primary geopolitical enemy of Russia – whereas Clinton despised Putin and has supported all the proxy wars the US has had with Russia since she was elected to the US Senate in 2000. She was especially critical of him during her tenure as Secretary of State under Obama from 2009 to 2013.

(And by the way, this is probably why Trump claims, probably correctly, that the invasion of Ukraine “would not have happened” under his watch. It would not have happened because he would have assured Putin that, as long as he was in office, the US would oppose Ukraine’s admission as a NATO member.)

I believe Putin did prefer Trump. And although I have seen no convincing proof of it, I’m quite willing to believe that he did what he could to support Trump.

But what could Putin do?

The most common answers given by the liberal media at the time were about planting anti-Clinton and pro-Trump information on US social media.

To which I thought, “But any voter interested in following the election is already drowning in stories and misinformation for or against each candidate. What could the Russians put on the internet that hasn’t already been put out by conservative US political think tanks, election committees, and other activists in favor of Trump?”

In 2020, after losing his reelection bid to Joe Biden, Trump, like Clinton, claimed that he was the true winner of the contest. And, like Clinton, he claimed the election had been rigged – that if it hadn’t been, he would have been reelected. Liberal media outlets and voters were outraged, calling his claim a conspiracy theory and calling him and those that supported it “election deniers,” as if they had completely forgotten that Clinton had done the same thing just four years earlier.

To be accurate, Trump’s claim, which some conservative media promoted, was not actually a conspiracy theory, since he never suggested that there was a single person or authority controlling the fraud. Instead, he made at least a half-dozen specific accusations – ballot stuffing, rigged computers, mail-in voter fraud, and, in some cases, the outright manipulation of paper votes in blue voting jurisdictions.

Since Trump’s charges were more specific than Clinton’s had been, they were easier to investigate. And plenty of investigations were made, resulting in numerous books and documentaries that presented lots of video, audio, and other evidence about each accusation.

That said, neither Clinton’s nor Trump’s efforts to challenge the results of either election were ultimately successful. And although many liberals and conservatives continue to believe their candidates were robbed, none of the investigations that followed their claims found sufficient evidence to recommend or take legal action.

I was disturbed by all of the accusations, because they seemed not only embarrassing but also implausible. It didn’t seem realistic to me that in the 21st century – with the computer sophistication available to track and monitor not just every election center but every voting machine and drop-off box –voter fraud or election interference could be carried out at any serious level.

Side Note: In my research, I found a distinction between voter fraud and election interference. The first, according to the source I read, refers to individuals or groups casting multiple votes. The second denotes organized voting manipulation on a wide scale.

Clinton and the Democrats spent more than three years while Trump was in office attempting to impeach and oust him on the “Russia-gate” conspiracy theory because they could not come up with any verifiable evidence that any of the specific fraud/interference incidents had ever taken place. On the contrary, what their investigation unwittingly revealed was that the Clinton reelection campaign was behind what has become known as the “Steele dossier,” a report full of allegations of misconduct between Trump and Russia that has since been debunked.

As for Trump’s claims, they resulted in some pretty convincing (at least to me) evidence that some of them had meat on the bone. But none proved strong enough to get a win in court.

After thinking about it for a few weeks, I decided it was a good thing that neither Trump’s nor Clinton’s claims had been proven. Because, if one… or both… had been proven, what would that have done to Americans’ trust in the election system itself? Before long, the already exhausting political chasm between the right and left would deepen, as voters would come to believe that every election they were called to vote in would be rigged.

I decided that I had to believe that the vast majority of elections always were in the past, and always would be in the future, carried out honestly and fairly.

I wanted to believe that election interference and voter fraud were not just extremely rare but also minimal – too insignificant to change the legitimate outcome of any election.

To convince myself of this hoped-for belief, I did some research and found arguments in support of it. But I also found arguments against it.

Contrary to the claims of some, the problem of voter fraud is as old as the country itself. As the US Supreme Court noted when it upheld Indiana’s voter identification law, “flagrant examples” of voter fraud “have been documented throughout this Nation’s history by respected historians and journalists.”

And there are many kinds of voter fraud:

* Impersonation fraud at the polls. Voting in the name of other legitimate voters and voters who have died, moved away, or lost their right to vote because they are felons, but remain registered.

* False registrations. Voting under fraudulent voter registrations that either use a phony name and a real or fake address or claim residence in a particular jurisdiction where the registered voter does not actually live and is not entitled to vote.

* Duplicate voting. Registering in multiple locations and voting in the same election in more than one jurisdiction or state.

* Fraudulent use of absentee ballots. Requesting absentee ballots and voting without the knowledge of the actual voter. Or obtaining the absentee ballot from a voter and either filling it in directly and forging the voter’s signature or illegally telling the voter who to vote for.

* Buying votes. Paying voters to cast either an in-person or absentee ballot for a particular candidate.

* Illegal “assistance” at the polls. Forcing or intimidating voters – particularly the elderly, disabled, illiterate, and those for whom English is a second language – to vote for particular candidates while supposedly providing them with “assistance.”

* Ineligible voting. Illegal registration and voting by individuals who are not US citizens, are convicted felons, or are otherwise not eligible to vote.

* Altering the vote count. Changing the actual vote count either in a precinct or at the central location where votes are counted.

* Ballot petition fraud. Forging the signatures of registered voters on the ballot petitions that must be filed with election officials in some states for a candidate or issue to be listed on the official ballot.

Attempts to commandeer election results have been documented dating back to the 19th century, when New York City’s infamous Tammany Hall was synonymous with political corruption and election fraud. In one New York election (1844), 55,000 votes were recorded even though there were only 41,000 eligible voters. Decades later, these efforts have continued and determined fraudsters have become more creative in their efforts to fix the outcome of elections.

I found evidence that, on the state and local levels, both election interference and voter fraud have not just occurred more frequently than I had hoped, but that a significant percentage of cases resulted in convictions.

Here are some examples…

1982 

An estimated 100,000 fraudulent ballots were cast in a 1982 Chicago election. After a Justice Department investigation, 63 individuals were convicted of voter fraud, including vote buying, impersonation fraud, fictitious voter registrations, phony absentee ballots, and voting by non-citizens.

1994 

After an extensive investigation of absentee ballot fraud in a 1994 Greene County, AL, election, nine defendants pleaded guilty to voter fraud and two others were found guilty by a jury. The defendants included county commissioners, officials, and employees; a racing commissioner; a member of the Board of Education; a city councilman; and other community leaders. Among other things, the conspirators used an assembly line to mass produce forged absentee ballots meant to swing elections in favor of their preferred candidates.

2003

Allan “Twig” Simmons, an operative for the East Chicago, IN, mayor’s campaign, persuaded voters to let him fill out their absentee ballots in exchange for jobs. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years of probation and 100 hours of community service. Fraud in the 2003 East Chicago mayoral primary was so widespread that the Indiana Supreme Court ultimately overturned the election results and ordered a special mayoral election that resulted in a different winner.

2004 

Chad Staton, a worker associated with the NAACP National Voter Fund in Cuyahoga County, OH, pleaded guilty to 10 felony counts for filing false voter registrations during the 2004 presidential election in exchange for crack cocaine. Staton filled out more than 100 forms with names that included Mary Poppins, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, Dick Tracy, and George Lopez.

2008 

ACORN workers in Seattle, WA, committed what the Secretary of State called, “the worst case of voter registration fraud in the history of the state of Washington.” The group submitted 1,762 fraudulent voter registration forms. The group’s leader, Clifton Mitchell, was convicted of false registrations and served nearly three months in jail. Four other ACORN workers on his team also received jail time, and ACORN was fined $25,000 to cover the cost of the investigation.

2010 

Paul Schurick, former campaign manager to Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich, a Republican, was convicted of election fraud after approving a robocall to Black voters telling them not to vote because the Democrats had already won the 2010 gubernatorial election. A circuit court judge spared Schurick jail time, opting to sentence him to 30 days of home detention, four years of probation, and 500 hours of community service.

2012 

While running for re-election, Martin, KY, Mayor Ruth Robinson and a cabal of co-conspirators targeted residents living in public housing and in properties Robinson owned, threatening to evict them if they did not sign absentee ballots that Robinson and her family had already filled out. Robinson also targeted disabled residents and offered to buy the votes of others. She was convicted and sentenced to 90 months of imprisonment.

2014 

Rosa Maria Ortega, a non-citizen, was found guilty on two counts of voter fraud for voting in the November 2012 general election and the 2014 Republican primary runoff. Ortega claimed she thought she was a citizen, and blamed her lack of education for the mix-up. But prosecutors pointed out that she had previously indicated on a driver’s license application that she was a non-citizen. A judge sentenced her to eight years of imprisonment, after which she faced the possibility of deportation.

And it continues today.

Last month, for example, the former mayor of San Luis, AZ, pled guilty to ballot fraud and was subsequently sent to jail after she was videotaped illegally collecting and filling out ballots right outside of a polling place during the 2020 election cycle.

A federal jury in Sioux City, IA, convicted a woman of 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration, and 23 counts of fraudulent voting.

Here’s another one… a very recent conviction in California (which seems to lead the country in voter fraud convictions).

And here is a study saying that since the 2000s, there have been thousands of accusations of election fraud in state and local elections and hundreds of convictions. And the frequency is increasing each year.

Still with me?

If so, here’s a book you might want to read:

Summary: From ballot stuffing and intimidating voters to buying votes, suppressing turnout, and manipulating returns, Deliver the Vote is an intensive examination into the hidden interiors of American politics that casts a provocative new light on how power in America is often obtained. Drawing on hundreds of elections from the colonial era to the 2004 election, historian Tracy Campbell reveals how a longstanding culture of corruption is alive and well in local, state, and national elections. Among those whose stories are central to this book are Boss Tweed, William Randolph Hearst, Huey Long, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter, as well as countless local and state politicians of every stripe. Combining social and political history in a vivid narrative, Deliver the Vote reveals how fraud has been a persistent and corrosive presence in American history, and is not confined to one party, location, or time period.

Tired of the Relentless Struggle to Stay Lean?
Thinking (Like Me) About Oprah and Ozempic?

Oprah’s many struggles with her weight appear to be over. Thanks to her recent highly publicized success with weight-loss drugs, their use has surged in popularity. And she’s not the only celebrity talking about their impressive results with Ozempic and its cousins.

Would it work for me? I don’t know.

Two of my relatives lost a ton of weight by getting Ozempic injections. One went from about 265 to 195, and the other from about 205 to 165. One had digestion issues the first few weeks, which disappeared when the doctor cut his dosage in half. The other felt some fatigue for a month or so, but now feels that he has even more energy than he had before he started on the drug. Plus, the aches and pains of being in his late 60s are fewer, he says, because of the weight loss.

Another relative has begun taking Wegovy – basically the same drug (semaglutide, which has typically been used to treat type 2 diabetes), except it’s a higher-dose version that was approved for weight loss. He’s only five weeks into it, but has started to shed pounds.

As you may remember, I began a weight-loss experiment of my own earlier this year – eating only one meal a day and limiting myself to eating for only one hour. It was taking the pounds off. Not as quickly as I would have hoped, but my weight was dropping. On the downside, the high level of mental discipline it required did not diminish over time.

Luckily, someone sent me an article from some magazine arguing that long-duration fasts are unhealthy. I didn’t bother to double-check the claims made in the article. My will power gauge was near empty. I went back to the old, midnight-grazing diet I was so accustomed to, and, sure enough, those lost pounds found their way back to me.

This was not the first time I gained and lost (and eventually regained) weight. In fact, now that I think about it, it happened each time one of our children was born. Commonly, it is the woman that gains weight during pregnancy and then struggles to lose it afterwards. For some cruel reason, nature had a different idea for us. K and I both got bigger together during each pregnancy. But after the baby was born, K went back to her former slimness within weeks, and it took me months – sometimes many months – to get back to my fighting weight.

After our third child was born in 1988 when I was 38, I got lean and fit before I turned 40. And I stayed that way for nearly two decades… until Number Two son and his wife had a baby. Well, I’ll be damned, but my instinctive sympathetic metabolism kicked in, and I’ve been on a roller coaster ride ever since. It’s no wonder I couldn’t make this last attempt at weight loss work. Number Three Son and his wife just had their second baby on Tuesday. So, here we go again!

By now, if you are still with me, you must be wondering: “Just how fat is Mark? After all, he’s the guy that’s always talking about working out so hard six days a week and competing in jiu jitsu tournaments and all that.”

Knowing this question would be at the top of your mind, I went online to determine my Body Mass Index. The BMI is a simple ratio that estimates how fat someone is by using just three factors: height, weight, and gender.

As a 5’10”, 224-pound man, I have a BMI of 30+%. That puts me well into the “obese” category.

But I don’t look obese. And my trainers and even my wife agree. I’m just “thick,” they tell me.

My trainers say the BMI is useless because it takes into account neither the density of your bones or the amount of muscle you have on your body. A strong-boned, 5’10” body builder could easily have a 32-inch waist and a true body fat percentage of 6% and the BMI would still classify him as obese.

Of course, I don’t have a 32-inch waist. I buy my pants with what I consider to be a respectable waistline (36 inches) for a man of my age. However, at this point in time, trying to fasten them takes a considerable amount of effort.

You can get a more accurate measurement of body fat and lean muscle mass with calipers or electrical stimulation. In the past, when I measured 30+% on the BMI scale, my actual body fat percentage, according to those more accurate measurements, was in the mid 20s.

So, no. I’m not obese. I’m thick. But I’d like to be less thick.

One of my trainers says my “ideal” weight would be about 205. Another says 195. Either way, I’m looking at dropping 20 to 30 pounds. So, it’s either back to a strict diet of some sort… or I can take a tip from Oprah and my relatives and go Ozempic!

My Doctor’s Surprising Response 

It so happened that I had a visit with Dr. B, my VIP MD, a few weeks ago – the once-a-year visit where he checks my bloodwork and we talk martial arts. (He’s a karate guy, but still.)

My numbers were pretty good… aside from the fact that, as he pointed out, I am eight pounds heavier than I was last year. So I told him about my failed one-meal-one-hour-a-day experiment. I also told him about the success my relatives have had with semaglutide injections and asked him what he thought about it.

Dr. B is a conservative physician. So, I was surprised that he didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand. He told me that some of the diabetic and prediabetic patients he’d been treating with the injections had not only lowered their risk of developing major cardiovascular problems but were also losing lots of weight.

But he added that both Ozempic and Wegovy come with negative side effects – most of them minor, such as burping and bloating, though there have been reports of more serious problems.

The Research: Reports and Studies 

When I got home, I did some googling that confirmed everything he said, including this:

* In trials of Ozempic (1mg dose), 30.8% reported gastrointestinal symptoms, including nausea (20.3%), vomiting (9.2%), diarrhea (8.8%), abdominal pain (5.7%), and/or constipation (3.1%).

* In trials with Wegovy at the higher dose (2.4mg), 74% reported at least one GI disorder: nausea (44.2%), vomiting (24.8%), diarrhea (31.5%), abdominal pain (10.0%), and/or constipation (23.4%).

And I found some evidence of the much more serious side effects Dr. B had mentioned. One study, for example, on semaglutide causing thyroid cancer in rodents, and two studies indicating a possible connection between the drug and organ damage (kidneys and liver).

But because the very serious side effects are rare, and because there is no sure evidence that they are the result of the injections themselves or other factors – and because there have been reports of rare, serious side effects for virtually every drug I’ve ever studied – I came away from my little bit of research with a new plan in mind.

What to Do? 

Here’s my plan.

I’m going to try my experimental diet again. If I fail at that, I have a somewhat less extreme version, which allows for two small additional meals (breakfast and lunch) of 200 to 300 calories of pure protein.

If that doesn’t work, then I’m going to try the most extreme diet I have ever undertaken, which lasted for more than a year and worked very well: I’m going to stop drinking wine and tequila.

Well, maybe I won’t do that. We’ll see.

Given Dr. B’s relative openness to semaglutide, and considering the rarity of serious side effects that have been associated with it (so far), I might consider getting on the Oprah highway and losing weight with the magic of pharmacology.

Most Americans Don’t Know These Basic Facts About Our Population 

An interesting poll from YouGov provides an idea of how out of touch Americans are with reality.

Question: What percentage of the American population is Black?

* What the Average American Thinks: 41%
* The Reality: 12%

Question: What percentage of the American population is Hispanic?

* What the Average American Thinks: 39%
* The Reality: 17%

Question: How many families make over $500,000 a year?

* What the Average American Thinks: 26%
* The Reality: 1%

Question: What percentage of Americans are vegetarians?

* What the Average American Thinks: 30%
* The Reality: 5%

Question: What percentage of Americans are gay?

* What the Average American Thinks: 30%
* The Reality: 3%

Question: What percentage of Americans are transgender?

* What the Average American Thinks: 21%
* The Reality: 1%

And perhaps my favorite…

Question: What percentage of Americans live in NYC?

* What the Average American Thinks: 30%
* The Reality: 3%

If the Biden Management Team Had Only Listened to Me!

As even the Trump-hating New York Times admitted earlier this week, Donald Trump is leading in five of the “crucial battleground” states, according to a new poll conducted by the NYT, Siena College, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The race was closer “among likely voters.” But it is the swing states, and the undecided voters, that will determine the outcome of the election.

This is not good news for the Democrats.

When Biden announced that he was going to run again in 2024, he did so because the Democratic leadership felt that his saying so would give the party the sense of stability it needed to do well in the midterm elections. And they did do well. But that doesn’t mean they wanted him to run in 2024. As I said more than a year ago – in January 2023 – I don’t believe the party leaders had any intention of getting him reelected. I don’t believe they thought he had a chance in hell of beating Trump.

I suggested that if they would allow (or force) Biden to resign, it would give them the opportunity to install someone like Gavin Newsom as their candidate instead of facing the impossible task of trying to get Kamala elected.

But instead of listening to me, the Clinton and Obama teams (the teams with the most influence in the Democrat party) launched what they thought was going to be a cleaner and easier way to keep Trump from becoming president again in 2024. It was a three-pronged strategy:

* Take advantage of the economic rebound that took place after the COVID shutdown by attributing it to “Bidenomics.”

* Promote the idea that if Trump is reelected, he will become a “dictator” and put an end to democracy in America.

* Engage in what is now being called “lawfare.”

Bidenomics 

In a recent interview with Biden, CNN’s Erin Burnett noted that the cost of buying a home in the United States has doubled and “real income… is actually down since you took office.” She then asked him, “Why should people believe that you will succeed at creating jobs where Trump failed?”

“I’ve never failed!” Biden replied. “I’ve created over 15 million jobs!”

Of course, he didn’t “create” 15 million jobs. Twelve million of them were already there until the government impetuously and recklessly shut down the economy in response to the claims about the virality and lethality of COVID, which were unsupported by the facts then and have since been disproven.

Biden can, however, fairly claim to have “created” 2.9 million jobs through his catch-and-release southern border policy. According to an analysis of data collected by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2.9 million immigrants (the vast majority of whom are illegal) have found employment since Biden came to office, while 1.2 million native-born Americans lost their jobs.

The Bidenomics strategy was based on a blatant falsehood. And it was shown to be false time and time again on conservative media channels. But the mainstream media didn’t bother reporting on it, thinking, probably correctly, that most Americans wouldn’t be persuaded by it one way or the other, since most Americans know nothing about supply and demand in the labor markets.

What has hurt Biden economically is inflation. The inflation that was the inevitable response to the billions of dollars spent (by Trump initially and then Biden) on shuttering the economy and then marketing and mandating the vaccines, and the other billions spent on our proxy wars with Russia in Ukraine and Israel. The reaction to it among voters generally, and even more so among independent voters, has been to blame Biden. The most recent poll I saw had his approval rating on the economy at 34%.

Trump as Dictator 

This strategy, if it can be called a strategy, seemed to make its way into the mainstream media at the beginning of this year. Suddenly, Hillary Clinton and the ladies of The View, as well as other celebrities, were ringing the alarm. If Trump gets back into the Oval Office, they predicted, he will become a “dictator” and put an end to “democracy.” And the world as we know it now will be gone.

Like Bidenomics, this was not a strong idea. It certainly wasn’t going to change the minds of any pro-Trump voters. And as for the undecideds, the voters that are going to determine the winner in November, it doesn’t seem to have had any effect – which makes sense if you think about it.

To the undecided voters, I think the dictator threat came across as desperate and ingenuous. After all, these voters had lived through four years of Trump. If they felt that what he did then was dictatorial and anti-democratic, they would no longer be among the undecided.

Bad News After Bad News 

The people that got Biden elected in 2020 are the same people that are behind him now. They know politics. They understand how elections are won and lost. They are smart. They are ruthless. And they are shrewd.

Their strategy worked in 2020 because they recognized that the election was going to depend on fear: the fear of BLM riots, which Trump was promoting, or the fear of COVID, which they took as their cause. By limiting Biden’s exposure to the public to scripted statements (so he wouldn’t have to answer questions spontaneously) and having him and his team in masks whenever they appeared, they were able to take full advantage of the fear of COVID. They played that right.

But the strategies they had in place for 2024 were weaker, and they knew it. And then two things happened that they had not anticipated. Inflation climbed higher than they expected. And on October 7, Hamas began a war with Israel.

The reaction to the Israeli-Hamas war was shocking to many, including me. The instant and enormous support for the Palestinians along with the condemnation of Israel radicalized millions of college students and put the Biden administration in a difficult position. The US commitment to Israel as our primary ally in the Mideast had to be upheld. And yet, all these college students were outraged and, before long, were calling on Biden to withdraw all support from Israel.

To keep the youth vote, Biden would have had to take a strong anti-Israel stance. I haven’t researched this idea, but my guess is that it wouldn’t have had a negative effect on his other constituencies. But it would have hurt him with the 5.8 million Jewish voters, not to mention several million fundamental Christians that have always been strongly pro-Israel.

And that, I think, and only that, is why Biden’s advisors have been having him take this middle path – continuing to provide military aid as one of Israel’s historically strongest allies, while gently urging ceasefires that everyone knows Israel will not listen to and cranking up support for humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

This strategy seemed to be working until the riots and occupations at US universities and the consequential removal of the protesters turned a good percentage of young voters against him.

That, I believe, is why Biden recently announced that the US would no longer be sending Israel the bigger bombs that it claims are too indiscriminate in their lethality. But this tactic risks upsetting Jewish voters as well as other voters that are committed to the preservation of Israel as a Jewish state.

And if that weren’t bad enough, recent polls have shown that two other “in-the-pocket” voting groups – Blacks and Latinos – are moving away from Biden and the Democrats, largely due to, in my option, the growing influence of conservative Black and Latino “influencers” on social media.

Lawfare 

As I said, the people that have been planning and implementing the Biden campaign for 2024 are smart and shrewd and ruthless – as most successful politicians are. In this case, they were prescient enough to develop a Plan B early on, while they were working on Bidenomics and Trump as Dictator and long before the Hamas-Israel war.

Plan B was what conservative commentators have been calling “lawfare” – all the criminal and civil cases that Trump is facing right now. If we can’t get Americans to vote him out of office, they figured, maybe we could put him in jail before the elections or at least keep him in courtrooms all over the country so he can’t campaign properly.

That was the nuclear option. Ignore the Constitution. Give the greenlight to any AG and/or judge interesting in putting Trump on trial and maybe, just maybe, put him in jail.

The process began in earnest about a year ago, with great expectations. But alas, that too seems to be failing. The summary judgement against Trump for overestimating the value of his properties in applying for bank loans – which was meant to empty his campaign war chest – was reduced considerably, and the case itself will almost certainly be reversed on appeal. The case against him for mishandling classified documents – which was meant to start this month (and therefore keep him in court for several more months) – was postponed indefinitely when it was revealed that Special Counsel Jack Smith admitted to tampering with evidence. And the case in NYC by DA Alvin Bragg has so far presented no evidence supporting the charge against Trump. Bragg’s strategy, it seems, rested primarily on the credibility of a stripper and a convicted liar and cheat, both of whom performed poorly this week.

What I’m saying is that the Biden reelection team, the team that did such a great job getting him elected in 2020, should have listened to me when I suggested, more than a year ago, that the right play for them to retain the presidency would be to put the old guy out to pasture and replace him with Gavin Newsom and – to assure victory – Michelle Obama as his running mate.

Had they done that, they would have been ahead in the polls now and not worrying so much about losing the youth vote, the Black vote, the Latino vote, and the Jewish vote.

Aphorisms 

I was having lunch with BW, a longtime friend and fellow wanderer through new adventures. He said he liked the quotations I included in the May 1 issue, especially the one from Van Gogh: “I would rather fail than sit idle.”

We got to talking about some of our favorite pithy quotations – i.e., single-sentence aphorisms.

He said that one of his favorites is “It’s never too late, but it’s later than you think.”

I don’t know if I have ever heard it before, but I like it very much. And, of course, it’s especially meaningful as each year passes.

George Eliot said something similar: “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”

Both quotes spring from the same observation about tempus fugit, but BW’s is better because it’s equally inspirational without making a promise that’s obviously false.

Thinking about this after lunch, I was inspired to give you these:

10 One-Sentence Quotations Worth Memorizing 

1. “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

2. “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” – Robert Browning

3. “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

4. “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” – Robin Williams

5. “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” – Soren Kierkegaard

6. “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” – Mark Twain

7. “Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.” – Mao Zedong

8. “Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.” – Fulton J. Sheen

9. “Be happy for this moment; this moment is your life.” – Omar Khayyám

10. “Whatever you are, be a good one.” – Abraham Lincoln

If I Were President, I Would Not Sign This Treaty
I’m Hoping Biden Won’t Either 

WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland 

I haven’t commented on this story, although I’ve been following it for more than a year. The proposition seemed so outlandish, I couldn’t believe it would succeed.

But here we are.

Members of the World Health Organization are being called to sign a treaty later this month that would make the WHO the central authority to create social, medical, and personal protocols that they would all follow in future pandemics.

The idea seems reasonable. Since pandemics are usually worldwide, the goal of the treaty would be to enhance “the capacity of countries to prevent, prepare for, and respond to pandemic emergencies.”

This would be done by requiring its 194 member nations “to share data and laboratory samples from emerging outbreaks quickly, safely, and transparently… [and] support more equitable and timely access to, and delivery of, vaccines, diagnostic tests, and treatments and other mitigation measures.”

My concern is twofold.

First, there is the natural propensity of all bureaucracies to grow. And the only way for them to grow is by issuing more rules and requirements that may or may not be necessary.

Second, the protocols already acknowledged in the treaty documents could include all of those that were recommended by the WHO – and then mandated by the CDC and NIH – during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That constitutes a big rule book. From masks and vaccine cards and quarantines to travel restrictions and the use of public and private spaces. (Like how many people you can invite to dinner.)

Not to mention what medical procedures and products will be allowed to be used to treat pandemic-related illnesses, and how public institutions should account for public health data (e.g., death and injury reports).

Opponents of the treaty are concerned that it would give the WHO too much authority in deciding which medical and social rules and requirements its members should institute. Supporters of the treaty say such worries are unmerited. The way the document is written, they say, the WHO would not have the power to mandate protocols or punish the countries that wanted to opt out of them.

For the past year, the Biden administration has taken a favorable view of the treaty, although it has disputed some of the considerations about how exactly it will be organized and how much of the cost of running it the US will have to pay. But recently, a bunch of Republicans and a couple dozen State Attorneys General have come out against it.

They seem to share my concern – and it is a serious one: Even if the US is not bound to follow the WHO’s recommendations, it is very possible that, as signatories of the treaty, the CDC and NIH will adhere to them, just as they did during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That could mean that every year or two, US citizens would find themselves being forced to wear masks, to be quarantined in their homes, to keep their kids at home rather than sending them to school, and generally making all the mistakes they did in 2020 and 2021 – resulting in billions of dollars of wasted funding, the decimation of many small businesses, and serious negative responses to the vaccines (including death).

Recently, there has been some pushback from Congress and State AGs. You can learn more about it here and here and here.

More on My “Escape Plan from America” 

We got a slew of responses to the April 19 issue of “Just One Thing,” in which I referred readers to an essay written on a topic I sometimes think about: If American culture continues to disintegrate and the likelihood of nuclear war grows stronger, does it make sense to think about creating an “escape plan from America”?

The comments were roughly 60% negative. And the most negative of those were from longstanding friends of mine. For example:

“After reading your latest missive, I’m thinking way back to June 1981 when McEnroe uttered the words ‘You cannot be serious!’ Do you really think the end of the United States of America is upon us? And if so, why are you not doing something about it rather than contemplating running away? I must believe you are just stirring the pot for a reaction. If so, it worked for me.” – KK

“Just read the article you recommended, and your intro to it, of course. It’s written from the point of view of protecting your own ass, not from the point of view of protecting your country. I know, you can do both. But what bothers me is that time, energy, and money put into an escape plan is time, energy, and money not put into making sure your home country stays on the rails.

“It reminds me of a conversation I had early in the Trump presidency with a teacher who said she and other teachers in her public high school were not showing American flags because it indicated agreement with Trump. To hell with that, I thought. Trump can wrap himself in the flag, but he can’t have mine. I’m staying right where I am and flying my American flag high and arguing with that bastard.

“It’s a well-known cognitive bias to think problems that haven’t been solved in our lifetimes are unsolvable. It’s why major discoveries in science are usually made by young people. As we age, it’s natural to become less optimistic and think the younger generation is going to hell. This might be a worthy topic for our Extinguished Gentlemen’s Club.” – SL

And somewhat less disapproving…

“You wrote: ‘So, when I get engrossed in reading about the many ways America is falling apart – and even nearing catastrophe – I find myself thinking how perfectly wonderful it would be to have the entire Ford and Fitzgerald clans together down there [at Rancho Santana] one day.’ And I say: ‘Hey, what about me?’” – AS

My Answer to All of Them

When it comes to social and political issues, I’ve come to realize that most of them are both complex and nuanced.

This is a lousy thing for anyone interested in getting to the truth. It’s also a lousy thing for voters who want to believe that the people they elect to represent them can work through the complexities and nuances. But at least half of the bills that come up in Congress and the problems that presidents make decisions about are beyond their comprehension.

Many of our legislators are not all that bright. And among those that are, there is not nearly enough time to get properly educated on any one issue. The education they get comes by way of advertising pitches made by special interest groups and the nudges they get from a few of their colleagues that actually do understand a bit about what is on the docket.

So, we can’t trust our elected leaders to make good decisions. And lately we’ve discovered that we can’t trust our fellow voters either. Even at our largest and once most revered academic and non-profit institutions, there are no longer any reasonable discussions. It seems like every one of them has dropped any appearance of acting ethically in favor of following a certain social or political ideology.

I don’t see any hope in saving America through voting and legislation.

But that doesn’t mean America can’t be saved. It might just save itself by once again becoming the world leader in some dominating technology (like robotics or AI).

And there is, of course, the nuclear option: Elect me as Supreme Leader, and I’ll have everything straightened out in 18 to 24 months.

I haven’t gotten that call yet, so I have to ask myself: What can I do, instead, from my little perch in South Florida?”

There are only two things that make sense to me.

I can write my little blog and recruit others to see what I see. But I can’t force them. And I have no interest in doing so.

And I can make plans for the possibility that my worst fears about America will one day come to pass.

If that happens, I want to be one of the survivors. And I want to accommodate any family members or friends (like AS, above) who want to escape and be with me. But I won’t be pleading with anyone to come. And I will let only my best friends and family know what I’m doing. I will do my best to welcome any others that want to be there with me, but they won’t be getting formal invites. They will know their refuge is there only if they read this blog today!

I may miss those that ignored my warning and, for whatever reason – noble or selfish – decided to stay behind. But I won’t worry about them. I’ll be spending all my worrying time thinking about making the best of things and starting anew.

Now, there is a lot more to an escape plan than owning property abroad. Any one of the millions of people that have been fleeing war and famine-ravished countries every single year since the year I was born can tell you that.

There is the big issue of how to pay for the costs of living in the safe place. (It may be safe, but it won’t be free.) And there’s the equally big challenge of how to integrate oneself and one’s charges into the new society.

But having a place to live – somewhere away from the chaos – is a good start.

For years, I’ve been thinking, more seriously as each year passes, about building a shelter somewhere in the peripheral hills of Rancho Santana. It would be a simple structure, but large enough to house not just my immediate family, but the extended family and any friends that wanted to join us.

I’ve come to imagine it as a three-story building with a central courtyard populated by fruit trees, an attached schoolhouse and playground, and about four acres of walled-in open space for a vegetable garden, a chicken coop, and a pasture for cattle and pigs.

The building itself would resemble a monastery. On the first floor, it would have a formal library that could accommodate 15 to 20 people at a time. The walls would be lined with shelves that would hold several thousand books, all hard bound, with a smaller collection of about 500 vinyl records, ranging from classical to reggae to jazz and old-school rock ‘n roll. (No new age or rap music.)

The second and third floors would be made up of 60 cubicles, each one with a small window looking on to the sea or the mountains and a door leading to an interior balcony. The cubicles would be quite small, for obvious reasons, but big enough for a twin or double bed and a small desk and chair.

No one would have to pay rent. But everyone would have to contribute something of value. Cooking. Cleaning. Gardening. Entertainment. For those with no useful skills, cash would have to do.

Yes, it’s a bit commune-like. But it would be privately owned. By me. Which would make me the supreme rule maker and decider of who could stay. If you wanted to stay, you would have to behave in a way that I approved of. If you didn’t, you would have to leave. You would then be free to escape to some other place… and I would even give you a pamphlet suggesting how you should do it.