How Big a Deal Was the 1858 Mid-Term?

 Frankly, no one ever talks about this episode.

The Republicans....for the first time ever....got a majority (113 seats).  The Democrats lost 49 seats in the House in this mid-term election of 1858.

Thomas Bocock of Virginia stepped down as House Speaker.  William Pennington of NJ stepped up as the House Speaker (for the Republicans).

For this entire period (January of 1858 to December of 1859)...the Democrats were cornered on every single piece of legislation, and 'doomed'.  

The big state to flip?  Pennsylvania (10 seats lost to the Democrats).  

Even Kentucky was a shocker, with eight of it's ten seats being 'safe' Democratic seats....flipping three of these over to GOP members in 1858.

Tennessee's ten seats?  Seven had been safely held Democratic seats, but in the mid-term election....four were lost....giving it a strong Republican edge in 1858.

So the end of the nation?  It'd already started in 1858....two years before the war. Few today...grasp this election and it's 'wounds' upon the nation. 

The List of Reporters Who Had Insider Questions For Biden

 I sat and reviewed White House Press Conference, these are the reporters with insider questions for President Biden:

Zeke Miller, Associated Press 

Yamiche Alcindor, PBS NewsHour

Seung Min Kim, WaPo

Cecilia Vega, ABC 

Ken Thomas, WSJ

Kristen Welker, NBC 

Nancy Cordes, CBS

Kaitlan Collins, CNN 

Justin Sink, Bloomberg 

Janet Rodriguez, Univision

From the group, you can assume that either they were either handed the questions to ask....or their questions were given to the WH ahead of time to form the answers.  

There's no need to pay attention to their commentary or analysis....they are part of the 'joke'.

What Matters Off the ATF Form 4473?

 Nothing much with questions one through twenty-two....they are fairly standard questions. 

But when you come to the group under question 23....now, you need to pay attention.

For example....it asks you....yes or no....are you buying this for yourself?  It's a plain simple question, but you need to ensure that this is strictly for yourself.

Then there's the question...have you committed a felony...to include your time in the military?  Yes, or no....nothing inbetween.

Are you charged and the cops hunting for you?  Yes, or no.

Are you a user of any drug (to include weed)?  Yes, or no.  If you've been on some crack, and gotten busted two years ago....you need to say 'yes'.   If you got busted for a baggy of weed six weeks ago....you need to say 'yes'.

Do you have a mental defect?  Yes, or no.  If you've been to some clinic and they say you have elements of paranoid schizophrenia?  That would be a mental defect.

So we come to Hunter Biden.  His discharge from the Navy?  Regular discharge, not a dishonorable one.  He simply failed the drug test, and they let him go.  For that episode....he's clear.

When filling out the 4473?  Well....here's the thing, by the admission to the Navy to get the regular discharge....he just admitted he had an issue.  Once he walked in and bought the weapon....filling out the 4473, he had to admit that he had been a cocaine user in the past.  

The fact that he's been a regular cocaine user for probably two decades?  Again, he had to admit that on the 4473, or he did an illegal purchase.

The problem I see here....since the form still exists, and the Secret Service was not successful in getting it from the gun shop (silly boys from the Secret Service)....you got a serious gun violation.

But I would go and ask this question....out of a 17-million 4473's filled out in 2020....how many were screwed-up like this, in a Hunter-fashion?  How many had drug violations or mental health violations?  Five percent?  Ten-percent?  

It's silly to talk over this Hunter Biden case, but it shows the whole discussion going on.  

Yeah, He Was That Stupid

 Kinda funny, photo appeared today.

President Biden had a cheat-sheet with pictures of the reporters to call upon and the ones marked for 'best' questions.

So the prepared list of 'answers'?  They were already known....maybe days....maybe weeks.

You just have to start laughing....it is that stupid, and he probably can't do the job intended.  

The ones not marked....he's probably told NOT to accept questions from them.  

It's about as fake a government as you can get.  

The Biden 'Hour'?

 So the first press conference came and went....an hour's worth.  My three observations:

1.  Journalist-wise, from the dozen or so allowed in the room....it was a 3rd-grader classroom, and everyone hyped to ask only simple questions.  I watched the whole thing once over, and then watched a couple of the journalists in a second review.  I probably have even less respect for White House journalists than I had four years ago.

2.  Notes?  A couple of times....he avoided notes.  But on particular questions....he goes straight to the notes and reads extensively.  It's something that Obama, Trump, Clinton, etc....would never have done.  I would make a guess that 40 percent of the effort involved the notes.

3.  Finally, there's several points where he does the intense (5-star), you-need-to-believe-me sequence, with 99 'ripples' of his forehead in full action.  It was just odd....very intense 'you need to trust me' feature of this press conference.

On rating against press conferences of the past forty-odd years....I'd rate this as an odd event, and if it's repeated like this....it's a joke.  Another one for 2021?  It wouldn't shock me if the next one didn't occur until August (after summer vacation). 

FOOTNOTE: To be honest....there's nothing new that you would have learned via this hour, period.  It's just odd....guy speaks for a full hour, and there's nothing 'new' via his comments.  

FOOTNOTE: There's some point....minute 40 to 45....you can get this 10-second pause where you sense he's tired and not readily focused.  My advice....if he ever wants to do a second episode....limit the chat to twenty to thirty minutes max.

Migrant Story

 Gallup went out and did a survey....to estimate up how many non-Americans around the Caribbean and Latin America would want to pack up and move to the US.

From the 33 countries on the list (remember, this doesn't include Africa, Asia, or the Middle East)....they figure 42-million people are 'interested'.

If you included three other regions (Africa, Asia and the Middle East)?  I would take a humble guess that those three regions would add up to over 150-million.  So you add the 42 and 150 numbers up, and you come close to 192-million.

So the logical question here to ask....just using the 42-million number only....how easy would the group be assimilated into America?

Just looking at the population of South Carolina currently (5.14-million)....they'd probably bump to around 6-million.  

Using Tennessee?  Currently at 6.8-million?  With incoming, they'd come fairly close to 7.5-million.

The fact that most would only settle where real jobs are located?  So you count almost figure Montana and Utah....get almost no bump-up.  States like Texas or California?  They'd likely get seven to ten million new residents each.  

Are there even homes or jobs for a 'bump-up'?  No....if you sit and think about it....neither exist in the numbers required.

The fact that tens of thousands of Africans are viewing Twitter or Facebook daily, and seeing encouraging news of migrants from Peru making their way into Mexico, and to the border?  

The crew around Biden really don't grasp or understand the depth of this issue and how far they can turn this into a deep pit.

So, it's just something to ponder and wonder about.  When 2024 comes around....just how big a mess will migration be, and how angry will the public be at that point?

Then you come to this one problem....what if the others (the Africans for example) find a way to get a freighter seat and land somewhere in Honduras or Costa Rica?

Baltimore

 For the past month, I've been following the woes of the Baltimore city school system, and how crapped-out it's become.  So I'm going to lay out what really happened and why it's 'unsolvable'. 

After Baltimore emerged from WW II....around 1950....they were at the peak of population and economics.  As the 1960s arrived....over a ten-year period (ending at 1970), they'd lost around 4-percent of the population.  

By 1980, urban decay had started to arrive....roughly 13-to-14 percent of the city left.  At this point, from 1980....the decline of the school system started up.  Part of this is due to the population shift....neighborhoods in decline....tax revenue is a freefall....and everyone trying to do, with less.  I should mention this as well....cocaine arrived in the 1980s.

The teacher's union....whether grasping this or not....were recruiting and hiring teachers with addiction problems.  The quality slipped.

By the 1990s....the older generation teachers were aware of the discipline problems....the poorer quality teachers coming in....student behavior crapped-out, and lax standards.

In this era...you marginally educated a kid, and at the end of the year....even if he was only 70-percent ready for the 5th grade....you passed him anyway.  The next year....that same kid was passed to 6th grade....probably only 60-percent ready for the requirements.  

In twenty years, even if you recruited 4-star teachers (young and out of college)....it only takes two to three years for the teacher to realize the false atmosphere that exists.  At that point, you submit your papers, and leave (quietly).

If you look around the landscape....probably half the kids from Baltimore who are at age 15....probably have the school level of a 5th grade kid. At best....at age 18....they might be at the level of the 7th grade.  

Resolving this?  What can you do with a 16 year old kid who is four to five years behind the level he should be at?  The bulk of teachers in the city for this job?  You'd have to fire all of them and start from scratch....mandating weekly drug tests.  

My gut feeling...it's not worth resolving.  If you were a parent with a 5 year old kid....the best thing to do is leave the city....don't look back.