 The ability to recall elected officials has been part of the California Constitution since 1911. Though seldom used, it is a provision which holds politicians accountable to the voters for misdeeds while in office. On September 14, 2021 Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom defeated a recall election put in motion by a group of Republicans upset principally for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. This partisan attack on a popular governor cost the taxpayers over $276 million, leaving many Californians rethinking the whole process. How does the recall process work, what changes, if any, should be made, and how would those changes take place? The Recall Law: Recall gives voters the power to remove any elected state officer, and most elected local officers, before the expiration of their term. Any registered voter may initiate a recall as long as they are qualified to vote for the office of the officer they seek to recall. A recall can be initiated for any reason and the process is fairly simple. There are some minor differences between recalling a state vs local officer, so for the sake of simplicity I will stick to the process for recalling a governor. A complete description of the recall process in California can be found at the following link, https://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/recalls/recall-procedures-guide.pdf.  The recall begins with the preparation of a “notice of intent to recall petition”. This petition is served to the officer being recalled and filed with the Secretary of State. The notice of intention document must be published in a widely circulated publication. Proof of the publication, along with two copies of the proposed recall petition are then filed with the Secretary of State for review. Once approved, the recall petition may be circulated for signature by registered voters. Petitions for the recall of the governor must be signed by at least 12% of the number of voters who voted in the last election for governor, and must include at least 1% of the voters who voted in the previous election from at least five different counties. This last provision prevents large counties from unilaterally initiating recall elections. The sponsors of the recall petition have 160 days to collect the required number of signatures and have them validated by the Registrar of Voters in each county where signatories reside. Once this process is complete the recall petition is certified by the Secretary of State. The Governor must then publish a notice for the holding of the recall election.  The Recall Ballot: In the latest recall election the ballot consisted of two parts. The first asked the following yes or no question: “Shall Gavin Newsom be recalled (removed) from the office of Governor?” The second part listed all qualified replacement candidates. You could vote for one of these candidates or provide a write-in candidate. The officer being recalled, in this case Newsom, is unable to run as a replacement candidate. If a majority of the votes on the recall question are “Yes”, the Governor is removed from office. The replacement candidate receiving the highest number of votes is elected to serve out the remainder of the Governor’s term.  How to Qualify as a Replacement Candidate: A replacement candidate must be a California registered voter and file the required paperwork at least 59 days before the scheduled recall election. The paperwork includes nomination papers with a minimum of 65 valid signatures. The paperwork is filed with the county elections official along with a filing fee. In the latest recall election, the filing fee was $4, 194.94. In lieu of the filing fee, a candidate could submit a minimum of 7,000 signatures. If the 7,000-signature threshold was not reached, the filing fee could be reduced on a prorated basis based on the actual number of valid signatures collected. Flaws in the Recall Law:
 Solutions to the Recall Law:
 Changing the California Constitution: An amendment to the state constitution may be placed on the ballot by either a two-thirds vote in the California State Legislature or signatures equal to 8% of the votes cast in the previous gubernatorial election. The amendment is passed if it receives over 50% of the votes in a state-wide election.
The time has come to modify the way that recall elections are initiated and carried out in California. It is far too costly, and the process is anything but democratic. There are moves afoot in the private sector and in the state capitol to push through reforms. Let’s adopt some common-sense reforms that are already in place in most states across the nation. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American
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 Since August the CDC has recommended that people with moderately to severely compromised immune systems receive an additional dose of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Last Friday the CDC authorized a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine to certain groups of people six months after receiving the first two doses. This applies only to those who have received the Pfizer vaccine. Earlier in the week the FDA and the CDC’s advisory committee on vaccines both recommended a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine, but differed on who should be eligible. CDC director Rochelle Walensky overruled her advisory committee to align with the recommendations of the FDA.  CDC’s new guidelines on who should get a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine six months after receiving the 2nd shot:
CDC’s new guidelines on who may receive a booster of the Pfizer vaccine:
 These recommendations are very broad, which makes it a fairly simple matter for anyone intent on getting a booster to get one. Already in the U.S. people are lining up for boosters. But this is where the ugly issue of vaccine inequity comes into play. As of mid-September, fewer than 4% of Africans have been fully vaccinated. African leaders at the United Nations last week, along with the World Health Organization, pleaded with the developed countries to delay boosters until poor nations received their first doses. There is no question that the supply of vaccines worldwide is limited, and the poor nations are scrambling for initial doses, while people in rich nations are already receiving booster doses.  Most health experts agree that booster vaccines will not stop the pandemic. Getting unvaccinated people vaccinated will. People who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 have a high degree of immunity and are very well protected against serious illness and death. The focus needs to be on the unvaccinated populations across the globe. Booster doses should be targeted for a very select group of people, such as the immunocompromised and the elderly with underlying health conditions. The United States needs to do a better job at vaccinating the 25% of the population eligible for vaccines who have not yet received one. Rather than spending vast resources on giving boosters shots, the U.S. needs to focus on the unvaccinated and start ramping up for getting children ages 5-11 vaccinated. Emergency Authorization for this age group is only weeks away. Approval for Moderna’s COVID-19 booster vaccine is only days away from receiving approval, but J&J has not yet submitted an application for its booster. For most people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, it is probably more important to go out and get a flu vaccine, and not a booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Reference Link: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/booster-shot.html  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  Last week the United States commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Within four weeks of the attacks the United States was at war with Afghanistan to avenge those attacks. President Biden ended that war on August 31, 2021 after nearly twenty years. Did the President do the right thing in ending the war in the way that he did? What was accomplished, and what is the legacy of the Afghanistan War? These are the topics that I will examine in Part 2 of my blog series on the Afghanistan War.  What did the War Achieve? Considering the costs that I wrote about in Part 1, no achievement seems worth the price in lives and treasure. The first few weeks of the war were a glowing success for the U.S. military. The Taliban and al-Qaeda had been routed and Osama bin Laden would be on the run for the rest of his life. The United States took away the initiative from the terrorists and provided some solace to our grieving nation. Thankfully we have not suffered a major terrorist attack since 9/11. It is unclear if this was due to the Afghanistan War or to the fact that the world woke up that September day to the reality of global terrorism.
The war did provide the Afghan people a taste of democracy, and provided girls and women educational and career opportunities that had been denied them under Taliban rule. Only time will tell if these achievements survive under the new Taliban regime. As of this writing women can continue to study in universities, but classrooms have become segregated by gender and Islamic dress is compulsory. Women have not been allowed to return to their civil servant jobs, but have been allowed to return to their jobs in health care and education. The Taliban has banned women from playing sports, and in recent days women have been beaten for participating in protests. The strict fundamentalist doctrine under which the Taliban operates doesn’t bode well for the rights of women in Afghanistan. But the world will be watching, and the Taliban is desperate for international recognition and aid. Any good that results from the war will forever be overshadowed by the collapse of the U.S. backed government and the rapid disintegration of the Afghan military, which allowed the Taliban to regain control of Afghanistan.  Was President Biden Correct in Ending the War? Despite the chaotic and tragic evacuation from the Kabul airport, I think it was the right decision for President Biden to end the Afghanistan War. The real mission in Afghanistan had ended years before and the U.S. has no vital interest there today. The Taliban had been defeated within weeks of the opening of the war, the terrorist training camps had been destroyed, and al-Qaeda was marginalized and forced into Pakistan. Osama bin Laden was killed ten years later in Pakistan thanks to the C.I.A. and Special Forces, not troops on the ground in Afghanistan.  After nearly twenty years and no real progress toward an Afghan government that could stand on its own, it was time to get out of Afghanistan. The U.S. could have kept the Taliban in check by staying there indefinitely like in South Korea and elsewhere, but to what end? Afghanistan has never been a united country, and the past twenty years has shown that the United States can’t make it one. The tribal leaders from across the various territories didn’t recognize international borders that they had no say in establishing, and they certainly didn’t recognize a central authority in Kabul or elsewhere. The various peoples of Afghanistan have outlasted all foreign occupiers over the centuries, including the Romans, British, and Russians. Why did the U.S. government think this time would be any different? President Biden understands that the fight against terrorism isn’t isolated to one country, but it is international. Terrorism is not fought by troops on the ground, but through Intelligence and military capabilities in partnership with allies around the globe. But more importantly, President Biden understands that the world is changing and the security threats to the U.S. and its interests are changing. Competitive and military challenges with China, and cybersecurity threats from Russia and elsewhere need to be addressed head on. Propping up a corrupt government and providing cover to an inept military in Afghanistan was no longer a mission worth fighting. As the President stated in his August 31st speech marking the end of the war “We no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan”. Whether or not you agree with him, Joe Biden kept his campaign promise and ended the Afghanistan War. That is something that President Trump, President Obama, and President Bush couldn’t do.
President Biden’s Missteps in the Final Months of the War: President Biden clung to former President Trump’s agreement with the Taliban to remove all troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. President Trump deserves all the blame for this ill-conceived agreement. It didn’t include any requirement for the Taliban to work out a cooperative governing agreement with the Afghan government, and it authorized the release of 5,000 prisoners, including some of the Taliban’s top war commanders and al-Qaeda fighters. Perhaps more damaging, the agreement gave legitimacy to the Taliban as a negotiating partner in the affairs of Afghanistan, undermining the legitimate government. President Biden said that he was obligated to follow the agreement signed by the Trump Administration. Why then was he able to extend the deadline for troop withdrawal to September 11, 2021, later changing it to August 31, 2021? Providing a date-certain withdrawal accelerated the Taliban’s takeover of the country and precipitated the astonishing collapse of the 300,000 strong Afghan military which had be propped up by billions of dollars of American weaponry and years of training. President Biden should not have committed himself to a specific date for withdrawal. The only assurances he should have made to the Taliban were that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan would end after every last American and Afghan who supported the U.S. were safely evacuated. At least he should have moved the withdrawal date to later in the year, outside of the Taliban’s traditional “fighting season”.  The rapid advancement of the Taliban fighters, and the collapse of the Afghan government in Kabul, led to the chaotic evacuation of U.S. citizens and Afghan nationals that the whole world witnessed. The poor intelligence, poor planning, and failed execution of the evacuation all rest with President Biden. He bound himself to a date-certain evacuation and not to the successful completion of the mission. Legacy of the Afghanistan War
American Influence Diminished in Central Asia: The U.S. mission in Afghanistan has transitioned from a military to a diplomatic one. The embassy in Kabul has closed, but will operate out of Doha, Qatar. Other countries have already stepped forward to fill the void. Qatar and Turkey are providing technical expertise to run the Kabul airport. China is investing billions in Afghanistan, primarily to have access to the vast supply of minerals. Pakistan has strong political ties to the Taliban and are already exerting influence. But rest assured, the U.S. will be involved with Afghan affairs for years to come. Direct American aid, and American based NGOs and contractors will be needed to rebuild the country. Last but not least, the CIA and U.S. military will be keeping a close eye on the Taliban and the other extremist groups within Afghanistan.
Taliban and Afghan People: Most international aid organizations have fled the country following the Taliban takeover, with only a few U.N. relief organizations remaining. The Taliban has been politically and economically isolated from the rest of the world. With the rapid collapse of the Afghan government, they were not prepared to manage the country. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have halted projects and stopped payments to Afghanistan. The. U.S. has frozen assets of the Afghan Central Bank held in U.S. banks. Most banks in Afghanistan remain closed, and many people are unemployed. The Taliban is struggling to deliver basic services, and without foreign assistance Afghanistan is in danger of economic collapse. This week the United Nations warned that millions of Afghans could run out of food by winter, and one million children could die if their immediate needs are not met. The U.S. has pledged $64 million in new funding for food and medical aid, and over $1 billion in aid has been pledged by the international community. The Taliban authorities have promised to facilitate the delivery of aid and to safeguard humanitarian aid workers. ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other extremist groups still exist in Afghanistan. Let’s hope that the Taliban keeps its promise by denying them sanctuary.  Lessons Unlearned: What is it that allows the federal government and the U.S. military establishment to get the United States entangled in foreign wars for which there is so little to gain, but so much to lose? Why is it that the hard lessons learned from prior military disasters fail to resonate with our current batch of leaders? Is it ignorance or just plain hubris? The use of military force by the United States over the past fifty or so years can certainly be characterized as hubris. By which I mean, showing excessive pride, dangerous overconfidence, and arrogance. I grew up watching the Vietnam War on T.V., and was a senior in high school when the North Vietnamese forces overwhelmed the South Vietnamese, and forced the U.S. backed government in Saigon to surrender. I will never forget the images of desperate U.S. citizens being evacuated from the roof of the U.S. embassy by helicopter. In an 18-hour mass evacuation effort, over 1,000 U.S. citizens and 7,000 South Vietnamese were transported by military helicopters to U.S. warships in the South China Sea. The parallels to the chaotic evacuation of U.S. citizens from the Kabul airport are striking, but they don’t end there. The U.S. had trained and equipped the South Vietnamese military. But just like the Afghan military, without direct U.S. support, the South Vietnamese forces collapsed. The South Vietnamese government proved to be corrupt and inept, just like the U.S. backed government in Kabul. Without the billions of dollars flowing from the United States, and without direct military support, both governments folded like a house of cards.
The Pentagon Papers, published in 1971 by the New York Times, revealed that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied to the public and Congress about the costs and progress of the Vietnam War. A new book by Craig Whitlock titled “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War”, documents how the public was misled by our government about the war. Government officials consistently told the public that we were making progress in Afghanistan, when they knew we weren’t. Officials vowed not to get mired in “nation-building”, while it wasted billions of dollars doing just that. The U.S. flooded Afghanistan with more money than its economy could absorb, leading to graft and corruption. The U.S. government knew that the mission had no clear strategy, but continued anyway. The U.S. military knew as early as 2002 that the war was heading for a Vietnam-style quagmire, but the public was never informed. Even more disturbing is the fact that our government knew that the Afghan military and the Afghan government were no match for the Taliban, but stuck with them anyway. When will we ever learn?  Final Thoughts: I believe that President Biden did the right thing in ending the Afghanistan War. It was started twenty years ago in response to a national tragedy. Americans put their differences aside and came together in common cause at a time of national emergency. The United States had the support and goodwill of most of the world in the aftermath of 9/11, and we came together in solidarity against a common enemy. America lost its way in Afghanistan over the past twenty years, and much of the goodwill has been squandered. Unity in our country has turned to divisiveness, and we have been unable to come together in common cause against our current national crisis, COVID. I am hopeful that the American spirit can rise above the divisiveness, take to heart the tough lessons of open-ended war, and once again live up to our potential as a great nation.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  The last United States military transport plane left Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan just before President Biden’s self-imposed deadline of August 31, 2021. This brought an end to the U.S.’s twenty-year war in Afghanistan. But there were no parades or celebrations (except by the Taliban) to mark the end of America’s longest war. The chaotic evacuation from Kabul, the rapid collapse of the U.S. backed Afghan government and military, and the takeover of the country by the Taliban, exposed the political deceptions and failed policies of the U.S. government over the past twenty years. The tragedy in terms of human costs will never be fully known, but the folly of an open-ended war and nation-building is now visible for the world to see. This sad chapter in American history ends, but the epilogue to the Afghanistan War will be written over the following weeks, months, and years. I dare say it won’t make you proud to be an American. So why were we in Afghanistan and what were the costs?  Why the U.S. Went to War in Afghanistan: As our nation commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, it is important to remember that the Afghanistan War was started to avenge these attacks and to bring the perpetrators to justice. U.S. Intelligence agencies linked the attacks to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who was operating inside of Afghanistan with the Taliban’s blessing. The Taliban had been ruling Afghanistan since the mid-1990s under strict Islamic fundamentalist laws. The U.S. demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden and members of his network, and close all terrorist training camps. The Taliban refused the U.S.’s demands and the rest is history.  Brief History of the Afghanistan War:
 The Costs in Lives and Treasure: The human and monetary costs of the war in Afghanistan are staggering, but the true costs will never be known. We can measure the direct monetary costs, and have a fairly accurate accounting of the dead and injured. But how do you place a cost on the suffering of families who have lost loved ones, or on the emotional toll on families caring for those injured or traumatized by the war?  There was no shared sacrifice in this country during the past twenty years of war. About 800,000 U.S. service members were deployed to Afghanistan over the past twenty years, many for multiple deployments. Only a small fraction of the U.S. population was engaged in any aspect of the war. Did the people on the home front go without material goods or pay higher taxes to support the war effort? No, there was no call from our leadership to share in the sacrifices of those on the front lines. Presidents Bush and Trump actually lowered income taxes during the war to encourage consumption. All the money used to execute the war and to rebuild Afghanistan was borrowed. It will be up to future generations to pay the bill. According to an ongoing study by Brown University’s “Costs of War Project”, the monetary costs of the war could reach $2.313 trillion. This figure does not include money the U.S. government will spend on lifetime care of wounded veterans, nor does it include future interest payments on money borrowed to fund the war (https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/human-and-budgetary-costs-date-us-war-afghanistan-2001-2022).  The human toll of the war was also horrendous. It is estimated that 243,000 people have died as a direct result of the war. Here is a partial list of the casualties:
These grime statistics don’t capture the plight of the millions of Afghan civilians who have been displaced, or the tens of thousands who are now refugees in foreign countries. Families destroyed, livelihoods ruined, a shattered economy, a tenuous security situation, and an unknown future are the costs of war to the Afghan people. In part 2 of this blog series on Afghanistan I will examine whether or not President Biden did the right thing in ending the war, and the legacy of the war.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  On August 23, 2021, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted full approval to the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people age 16 and older. This vaccine had been authorized for emergency use since December 11th for people age 16 and older. In May the emergency use authorization was expanded to include children age 12-15, which still remains in effect. Of the approximately 170 million Americans who are fully vaccinated, about 54% received the Pfizer vaccine. The approval comes 97 days after Pfizer provided the FDA with over 340,000 pages of documents to support their application. The FDA had reportedly been working on the application around the clock, and the approval took about half the time that it normally does. Now that the Pfizer vaccine has received the FDA’s gold standard for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality, will it provide the impetus for vaccine holdouts to get vaccinated? What are the other implications of the Pfizer vaccine approval, and what about the other COVID-19 vaccines?  Vaccine Holdouts: Public health officials are hopeful that the FDA approval of Pfizer’s vaccine will motivate more people to get the vaccine. As of August 23rd, there were approximately 82 million eligible Americans who had not yet received a COVID vaccine, for a variety of different reasons. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 3 in 10 unvaccinated adults said that they would be more likely to get vaccinated if one of the vaccines were to receive full FDA approval, https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-june-2021/. This is certainly encouraging, but only time will tell. It has been known for some time that a major reason for vaccine hesitancy is due to the notion that COVID vaccines are “experimental”. The FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine takes this excuse off the table.  Vaccine Mandates: Mandating a vaccine that had not received full FDA approval was problematic from a legal and ethical standpoint. But that has all changed. On the same day that the Pfizer vaccine received full FDA approval the Pentagon announced that it would require all active-duty service members to be vaccinated. Many large employers, school districts, universities, and other public and private entities have also announced vaccine mandates in recent days. Many organizations and municipalities have tried to increase vaccination rates by offering prizes and giveaways, with limited success. Mandates might help to push some people who are still on the fence about getting vaccinated.  Other Implications of Full FDA Approval:
 Booster Shots are Coming: The Biden Administration prematurely announced that starting September 20, 2021 booster shots would become available for adults eight months after their second shot of either the Moderna or Pfizer COVID vaccine. But before this can happen each vaccine manufacturer needs to receive FDA approval to provide boosters for their particular vaccine. To date only Pfizer has provided the FDA with initial data to justify a booster shot. Pfizer plans to submit its full application within days to provide boosters to people age 16 and older. Moderna and Johnson & Johnson will submit their data later this fall.  Approval for boosters is not a matter of if, but when. The data coming in is overwhelmingly positive. This week Pfizer released data showing a third dose given 5-8 months after the second dose resulted in a 3- fold increase in coronavirus fighting antibodies, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pfizer-starts-process-seek-us-approval-covid-19-vaccine-booster-2021-08-25/. Data coming out of South Africa shows a 9-fold increase in antibodies from a booster dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine given 6 months after the first, https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/25/health/johnson-vaccine-booster-data/index.html. If you can’t wait for the FDA to officially sanction booster shots, simply ask your personal physician. If you have been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, your physician may legally provide a third dose now that it has received full FDA approval.  Vaccine Inequity: Not everyone is happy about the U.S. and other developed countries rolling out booster shots. The head of the World Health Organization called the strategy “a mockery of vaccine equity”. With only about 2% of the African population fully vaccinated, I tend to agree. We have seen how contagious the delta variant is. Unvaccinated people are the incubators of new coronavirus variants, which could one day overcome the protection offered by current vaccines. The full FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine is a good thing. It legitimizes this important weapon against COVID-19, which is still rampaging through the world. It eliminates the stigma of being “experimental” used by many as an excuse for not getting vaccinated. FDA approval provides legal cover for businesses, organizations and schools to mandate COVID vaccines when they deem it necessary. In the weeks and months ahead, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson will be submitting applications for full FDA approval for their vaccines. COVID vaccines have saved countless lives and have been used safely in hundreds of millions of people around the world. Full FDA approval of these vital vaccines can’t come soon enough.  Here is a link to the FDA press release on the full authorization of the Pfizer COVID vaccine, https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  Last month the city of Charlottesville, Virginia removed the statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson from public parks after four years of court battles and public protests. White nationalists gathered in Charlottesville in August of 2017 for the “Unite the Right” rally to protest the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue. The rally turned violent, leading to the death of one counter-protestor. In the aftermath of the protests against racism and police brutality following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, there have been renewed calls across the country to remove Confederate statues and monuments. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, over 160 Confederate statues have been removed, or toppled, since the death of George Floyd. But 1600 statues, monuments and other symbols of the Confederacy remain(https://www.splcenter.org/presscenter/splc-reports-over-160-confederate-symbols-removed-2020).  Some will argue that Confederate monuments glorify a racist ideology and must be removed, while others argue that their removal is an attempt to erase or re-write history. What should be done with these monuments to preserve the historic record while promoting race relations and eliminating symbols of hate from our public places? There is little chance that a consensus will be reached anytime soon on such a contentious issue. But the United States is not alone in confronting its dark past, so maybe there are lessons to be learned from other countries.  Historical Perspective: Statues and monuments on public display are visible symbols of what a society values and those who exemplify those values. They commemorate important events, venerated leaders, and memorialize those lost serving our country. Monuments remind us of the sacrifices made by others, and provide an historic link to our past. Most public monuments are noncontroversial because they memorialized the values of the majority of citizens when they were erected, and those values stand to this day. But that was not the case with Confederate monuments built after the Civil War.  According to the American Historical Association ( https://www.historians.org/news-and-advocacy/aha-advocacy/aha-statement-on-confederate-monuments), most Confederate monuments were not built in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, but from the close of the 19th century into the second decade of the 20th . There was a concerted effort by the “Daughters of the Confederacy”, White Southern politicians, and other groups to restore the reputation of the Confederacy, and to promote their racist views. It is no accident that the South after Reconstruction managed to enact racist laws (Jim Crow laws) which led to mandated segregation and widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans. The Southern Poverty Law Center goes as far as stating that Confederate monuments glorified the old South and was part of an organized campaign to terrorize African American communities. The commemoration of Confederate monuments during the mid-20th century coincided with the Civil Rights Movement, something that was strongly opposed by the Southern states.  Removal is Not Erasing History: Removing Confederate monuments from public places is in no means an attempt to erase history. A monument is not history itself; it commemorates an aspect of history that the sponsors chose. It is more important than ever that we learn from our history, not erase it, in order to understand the roots of racism. The removal of a Confederate statue or monument is a civic statement that hatred and bigotry are no longer to be tolerated, and those represented no longer deserve an honored place in our society. But doesn’t this create a slippery slope? Shouldn’t we remove statues and memorials to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom owned slaves? Reasonable people will differ on this, but I don’t believe so. There is a huge difference between our Founding Fathers who owned slaves and the Confederates who attempted to tear this country apart in order to preserve slavery. The Founding Fathers fought and died to build this country, and understood that slavery was a flawed institution that would not last.  Preserving History: Destroying a piece of public property because you find it offensive is vandalism, which I do not condone. Vandalizing Confederate statues does more to promote divisiveness than it does to promote healing. Confederate memorials are artifacts of their time and place, and should be preserved just like any other historic artifact. There should be a process in place to properly document and remove statues and memorials from public places. Prior to removal they should be photographed, measured, and documented in their original contexts. Most Confederate memorials which have been taken down now sit in storage awaiting final disposition.  What to do With Confederate Memorials: I believe that all monuments and symbols that glorify the Confederacy or its leaders should be removed from public places. The Confederacy is a symbol of racist ideology, and any memorials to it do not deserve a place of honor in the public squares of America. Its leaders nearly destroyed this country, and the Confederate flag is used by white nationalists as a symbol of hate. But Confederate memorials should not be destroyed. They should be preserved in such a way that the context in which they emerged will not be lost to future generations. Memorial parks and museums in other countries exist to preserve monuments to their dark pasts without glorifying them.  You won’t find any public memorials or shrines to Adolf Hitler or Nazism in Germany. It’s against the law. Statues of facist leaders Mussolini and Francisco Franco are no longer on public display in Italy and Spain. You would be hard pressed to find a statue of Lenin or Stalin in most of the former Soviet block countries. So, what should the United States do with its statues to Confederate “heroes” without ignoring the past that they represent? One way would be to create memorial parks and place the statues in historic context like has been done in Hungry, India, Lithuania and Russia. Momento Park near Budapest, Hungry was built after the fall of the Soviet Union and displays dozens of statues of Communist leaders. The exhibition hall is built to look like an internment camp for political prisoners, and teaches about democracy and dictatorship. The Muzoen Park of Arts outside of Moscow displays more than 700 statues of former Soviet leaders. Coronation Park in India was built after independence from Britain. It is the resting place for statues of British monarchs and colonial overlords. Grutas Park in Lithuania is a sculpture garden of Soviet era statues and ideologic relics. It was designed to preserve the statues and showcase the country’s Soviet era past in a family friendly atmosphere.  These parks, and many museums around the world, help to put offensive statuary and monuments into proper historic perspective. They also provide a way for future generations to learn from the past. These historic parks may provide a model for the United States to preserve its Confederate artifacts and put them into historical perspective for current and future generations. This could be accomplished at the state level where the statues and monuments currently preside, or through a national park or museum, possibly in collaboration with the Smithsonian.  Removing polarizing pubic displays such as Confederate memorials will not resolve racial tensions in this country, but it should help. Shining a light on our dark past is an important path forward. Confederate monuments were erected to glorify a racist way of life that no longer exists, and they served to suppress a population that had no say in their construction. Confederate memorials should be methodically removed from their public places of honor and placed in museums along with a true accounting of how they came into existence.  The issue of what to do with memorials to historic figures that have fallen out of favor is a big one, and I have only scratched the surface. Statues of Christopher Columbus have been removed from many public places across the country. In California statues of Father Junipero Serra, who developed the California mission system, are now coming down. Schools and public buildings are being re-named because their namesakes have somehow offended some segment of society. Sports teams are being re-named because they contain images or words that are considered racial slurs. I think some of this has gone too far. This might be the topic of a future blog.
If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  Select Committee Approved to Investigate Capitol Riot: On June 25, 2021 the House of Representatives approved legislation to create a select committee to investigate the January 6th Capitol Riot. Only two Republicans voted in favor of the legislation, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. The select committee will have eight members selected by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and five members selected by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The committee will have subpoena power to order witnesses to testify. The committee’s main task is to investigate “the facts, circumstances and causes relating to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack”. The committee is also charged with looking into the law enforcement and government response to the storming of the Capitol and the factors that fomented such an attack. The committee has no set end date to report its findings, conclusions and recommendations for preventing such attacks in the future.  Pelosi Announces Her Picks for the Select Committee: On July 1st, Nancy Pelosi announced that she had picked the following eight Representatives for the committee: Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi), selected as Chairman of the committee. Adam Schiff (D-California) Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) Zoe Lofgren (D-California) Pete Aguilar (D-California) Elaine Luria (D-Virginia) Stephanie Murphy (D-Florida) Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming). This is the most surprising pick. But upon closer inspection, maybe not. Liz Cheney was ousted from her Republican leadership position for criticizing former President Donald Trump for his lies about the stolen election and his role in the Capitol riot.  McCarthy Announces His Picks for the Select Committee: On July 19th, Kevin McCarthy announced the following five GOP nominees to the Democrat led select committee: Jim Banks (R-Indiana), ranking member. Rodney Davis (R-Illinois) Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) Kelly Armstrong (R-North Dakota) Troy Nehls (R-Texas)  Pelosi Rejects Two of McCarthy’s Picks: Today (July 21, 2021) Nancy Pelosi rejected two of Kevin McCarthy’s picks, Jim Jordan and Jim Banks. Pelosi saw these two Trump loyalists as impediments to the integrity of the committee’s investigation. She is probably correct, but she has handed the Republicans ammunition to their claim that the committee will lead a partisan attack on Trump and his supporters in an attempt to damage the Republican brand. To that I say that the Republicans had their chance for a bipartisan commission, but they rejected it in the Senate. It is no surprise that McCarthy slammed Pelosi’s move. "Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five Republican nominees, Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts," McCarthy said. Democrats have pledged to move forward with the committee’s work, and the first hearing will begin next week. Stay tuned.  Capitol Security Six Months Later: This past weekend the metal fencing and concrete barriers that encircled the Capitol were removed. The Capitol grounds are now open again to visitors and pedestrians, but the Capitol building remains closed to the public. The House passed a $1.9 billion security bill in May to strengthen the Capitol building, add additional surveillance, and other measures. The Senate Democrats have introduced their own version which includes additional funding to aid Afghans who supported US efforts in Afghanistan and COVID protections for the Department of Defense. The price tag for this proposal is $3.7 billion and is unlikely to get much Republican support.  On-Going Investigation: To date approximately 550 people have been arrested for taking part in the Capitol riot. Charges for those arrested include unlawful entry, vandalism, conspiracy and assault. So far twenty people have plead guilty, mainly to misdemeanors, but only three have been sentenced. The most serious being Paul Hodgkins from Florida, who pleaded guilty to a single felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress. Mr. Hodgkins was sentenced this month to eight months in prison.
Law enforcement officials are still trying to identify over 300 suspects who were captured on video at the Capitol on January 6th. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  The calendar year is half over, and I started this blog a year ago this month. I thought it would be a good time to review some of the major themes that have emerged and to provide a few updates. Last year the country was absorbed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election, and many of my blogs focused on these issues. Donald Trump dominated the news cycle which prompted me to write about presidential power, the Supreme Court vacancy, and politics. Trump’s refusal to concede the election to Joe Biden lead to blogs on the Capitol riot, his second Impeachment trial, and the attack on voting rights. The pandemic started in early 2020 and continues to threaten the world for the foreseeable future. Pandemic related blogs focused on face masks, vaccines, public health restrictions and 1st Amendment rights, and how politics permeated the government’s response. No review of 2020 would be complete without mention of the Social Justice movement and extremism is America. My blogs on QAnon, militias, and the Black Lives Matters protests touched on these issues. We are witnessing an explosion of gun violence in this country, and I have written extensively about guns in America. President Biden’s administration has already secured trillions of dollars in COVID relief spending, and is pushing for trillions more for infrastructure spending. Government spending and the threat of inflation will continue to be an interest of mine, as will be the America military’s exodus from Afghanistan after nearly twenty years of fighting. But the news is not all bad, and I am optimistic about the future. So, I will try and inject some lighter fare into my posts. Below I have broken down most of my blog posts into broad categories, with a link to each. Many of these have been updated since I originally posted them, which can be found at the end of the individual blogs. For each category I have summarized the major developments since the original postings.
Original Posting Date Blog Title 07-21-2020 Vote 2020. 10-12-2020 The Electoral College. Love it or leave it? 10-18-2020 Millions of Americans have voted, and so have I. 11-22-2020 Tired of politics as usual? I am! 06-28-2021 Voting rights under attack!
07-27-2020 Wear a face mask. Don’t let politics Trump science, Part 1 07-31-2020 Wear a face mask. Don’t let politics Trump science, Part 2 08-08-2020 Are pandemic restrictions violating your 1st Amendment rights? 08-15-2020 Public health should be above politics. Was a line crossed in favor of Black Lives Matter protests? 12-22-2020 All I want for Christmas is a COVID-19 vaccine. 02-28-2021 COVID-19 Vaccine update. J&J vaccine gets emergency use authorization.  2020 Presidential Election 08-30-2020 A tale of two conventions, part 1. 09-05-2020 A tale of two conventions, part 2. 10-29-2020 Presidential leadership and Donald Trump’s reelection chances. 11-08-2020 Hope triumphed over fear. 12-15-2020 Is the 2020 presidential election finally over?
01-08-2021 Insurrection in America. 01-29-2021 Is the 2nd Impeachment trial of Donald Trump a good idea? 02-16-2021 Donald Trump is acquitted! 06-01-2021 Republicans block formation of a January 6 Capitol riot commission.
04-05-2021 Guns in America, Part 1. More mass shootings and calls for gun control. 04-18-2021 Guns in America, Part 2. The NRA is down, but not out. 05-01-2021 Guns in America, Part 3. Gun laws through the years. 05-12-2021 Guns in America, part 4. Common sense gun reforms.
09-26-2020 The hypocrisy of Senator Mitch McConnell. 12-05-2020 The new conservative court takes on religious freedoms during pandemic.
10-06-2020 Is Joe Biden a Socialist? 01-03-2021 2021 brings hope and challenges. 03-20-2021 $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan of 2021.  Presidential Authority 09-13-2020 Is the president’s payroll tax deferral a good thing? 01-21-2021 Time to reconsider the presidential pardon?  Extremism  Robinhood 02-08-2021 Robinhood and GameStop: A cautionary tale.  Camino de Santiago Updates  Voting Rights: On July 1, 2021 the Supreme Court ruled that the states may impose restrictions on voting, upholding restrictive voting laws recently passed in Arizona. The Court’s majority ruled that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 can be used to strike down voting restrictions only when they impose substantial and disproportionate burdens on minority voters (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/us/politics/supreme-court-arizona-voting-restrictions.html). In other words, it is constitutional for states to put voting restrictions in place as long as they are only an inconvenience, and do not prevent someone from voting. Writing for the majority, Justice Alito listed the following guideposts for lower courts to follow in evaluating voting restriction cases:
This last guidepost gives powerful ammunition to any state legislature intent on making access to voting more difficult. The Supreme Court’s ruling will make it difficult to oppose voting restrictions being put into place in many GOP governed states. It will be interesting to see if this ruling will hamper the Department of Justice’s pending lawsuit against the new Georgia voting law.  COVID-19 Pandemic: The pandemic is far from over, but you wouldn’t know it by walking down the streets of most American cities. The world recently surpassed the grim milestone of 4,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19. This was the official death toll, but the actual death toll is certainly much higher. Approximately 25% of the world’s adult population has received at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine, mostly in the rich countries. Less than 1% of the adults in low- income countries (Africa, Asia, South America, Central America) have received a single shot of the vaccine.
On June 15th the U.S. surpassed 600,000 deaths due to COVID-19, and the death rate continues to climb, mainly among those who have been unvaccinated. President Biden missed his July 4th goal of getting 70% of eligible adults vaccinated with at least one shot. As of this writing just under 68% of adults have received at least one shot. COVID-19 cases have come down significantly in the U.S. over the past few months due to the highly effective vaccines. As a result, most areas of the country have dropped all COVID-19 related restrictions. Mask mandates, social gathering restrictions, and indoor business restrictions have disappeared, and domestic travel has returned with a vengeance. But this rosy picture hides vast geographic disparities which show a significant rise in hospitalization rates and deaths due to COVID-19 in regions with low vaccination rates. Rural areas, which tend to be conservative, have seen a recent rise in COVID-19 cases. Low vaccination rates make these populations vulnerable to the highly contagious Delta variant. Arkansas and Missouri are seeing the worst outbreaks, followed by Florida, Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah. But unvaccinated people are driving increases in COVID-19 cases even in areas with high vaccination rates. This corresponds with the lowering (or elimination) of COVID restrictions and the emergence of the Delta variant. I live in a county north of San Francisco, where 68% of eligible people are fully vaccinated and another 8% are partially vaccinated. But there has been a troubling uptick in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, even before the full effects of 4th of July gatherings are felt. The vast majority of the hospitalized COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated. Contact tracing has shown that most of the current COVID-19 cases in my county are being fueled by social gatherings and leisure time activities, with the highest rates in the 18-32 age group. Vaccine hesitancy continues to align significantly with party affiliation. According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 6% of Democrats said they are not likely to get vaccinated, compared with 47% of Republicans, including 38% of Republicans who said they definitely will not get the vaccine https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/post-abc-poll-biden/2021/07/03/54e95b6e-db43-11eb-8fb8-aea56b785b00_story.html. First detected in India, the Delta variant is estimated to be 60% more transmissible than earlier variants. The Delta variant has rapidly spread around the globe and is currently driving COVID-19 outbreaks in African, Asia, Australia and South America. The CDC has determined that the Delta variant is now dominant in the U.S. and is spreading rapidly in unvaccinated populations. Researchers in France, Israel and Britain have shown that a single dose of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine is largely ineffective against the Delta variant. Therefore, delaying the second shot in order to vaccinate more people is no longer an effective option. New variants, like the Lambda variant spreading rapidly in South America, provide more reason to quicken the pace of vaccination around the world. The unvaccinated population provides a breeding ground for new variants, and short of shutting down the world, vaccines are our major defense. Pfizer made news last week by announcing that it would seek FDA approval for a COVID-19 booster vaccine. The CDC and NIH strongly rejected the need for vaccine boosters at this time, refuting the claims made by Pfizer. But many in the scientific community acknowledge that it is not a matter of if, but when booster shots will be needed. Preliminary research out of Israel suggests that the Pfizer vaccine is less effective against the Delta variant and there is a decline in antibody levels against the virus over time. I think that we should be prepared for the eventuality of booster shots, but we need to think through the ethical issues involved. Is it ethical to provide booster shots to fully vaccinated people in wealthy countries when the vast majority of people in poorer countries remain unvaccinated? Israel plans to offer booster shots of the Pfizer vaccine to adults with weakened immune systems, and Britain has announced plans to provide booster shots to its vulnerable populations and front-line workers. It makes sense to protect our most vulnerable, but it seems premature to do so when there is a limited supply of vaccines. The FDA warned this week that the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine can lead to an increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological condition. The incidence is very rare, and the benefits of this highly effective vaccine outweigh the risks. But I fear that this warning from the FDA will further diminish the acceptance of this much needed vaccine. The vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19 are occurring in unvaccinated people. The evidence is overwhelming. Unvaccinated people pose a risk to themselves and to vulnerable populations who have been vaccinated. No vaccine is 100% effective and breakthrough infections do occur. The incidence of COVID-19 is eleven times higher in unvaccinated people than vaccinated ones. If that isn’t an incentive to get vaccinated, I don’t know what is. Encourage everyone you know to get vaccinated. Regarding the use of face masks, do like I do; don’t leave home without one. More updates in my next post. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  Passing new voting rights legislation has been a top priority for the Democrats ever since Republican held state houses began legislating new restrictive laws in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. To no one’s surprise, the Democrat sponsored “For the People Act” failed to advance in the Senate after a test vote was blocked by Republicans on June 22, 2021. But the real concern is the legislative actions taking place in many states to restrict access to voting. Are we witnessing an erosion of voting rights in this country, and what does it mean for our democracy?  For the People Act: The bill would have been the largest federally mandated expansion of voting rights since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was initially compiled in 2019 as a liberal wish list, or messaging bill, for voting rights reforms. But it was rushed through the House as H.R.1 and handed to the Senate as S.1 ( https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1/text), to counter Republicans’ actions at the state level. With over 800 pages, it was overly broad in scope and represented overreach by the Democrats. The bill was doomed from the start, with little chance of getting the needed 60 votes in the Senate. Main Provisions of the For the People Act:
There were critics of the bill on both sides of the political aisle. In addition to federal overreach into states’ affairs, the timelines were unrealistic, and it required costly upgrades to equipment and processes. With little chance of passage, why did the Democrats push for the bill? It was a way for Democrats to publicize their opposition to moves by several Republican lead states to impose new voting restrictions, and to put Republicans on notice that they will be watching as state and congressional district maps are redrawn in the coming weeks.  Republican Controlled State Houses Restrict Voting Access: Since the 2020 presidential election, 31 new laws have been passed in 18 states restricting voting access, and several more are pending (https://tracker.votingrightslab.org/). These new laws vary by state, but include the following:
 Republican Motivations Behind New Restrictive Voting Laws: Republicans claim that these new voting measures are needed to make elections more secure. It seems odd that the exact measures taken to make the 2020 election among the most secure and safest in our history, are the ones being dismantled in Republican controlled states. Numerous recounts, audits, and court orders have found no significant fraud in the 2020 election. So why the rush to impose new voting restrictions in Republican controlled states? In a word, Trump! The majority of Republicans believe that the election was stolen from Donald Trump (https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/11/politics/voting-restrictions-analysis/index.html). Tightening election laws perpetrates the “Big Lie” about the election being stolen, and demonstrates loyalty to Donald Trump. Fear of alienating Donald Trump, and by extension his loyal base of supporters, is driving the narrative and motivating the actions of many Republican politicians.  It's Not All Bad News at the State Level: There have been 71 new laws easing voting rules across 28 states as of June 13, according to the Voting Rights Lab tracker. These new laws were enacted to increase voter turnout or to make permanent the changes made to make voting easier during the pandemic. Some of the changes include offering more early voting and mail-in options, and making it easier to register to vote. Several states have, or are in the process of restoring rights to people with past felony convictions. This trend is not just happening in blue states. Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, and others recognize that making voting more difficult hurts all voters.  Justice Department Takes Action: Congressional Democrats vow to continue to fight for voting rights. But as they turn their attention to the Infrastructure Bill, no one expects new voting rights legislation anytime soon. It will be left to the Justice Department to monitor and defend against voter suppression. On June 11th Attorney General Merrick Garland pledged to combat efforts to restrict ballot access, and to prosecute those who threaten or harm election workers (https://www.npr.org/2021/06/11/1005717622/ag-garland-vows-to-defend-voting-rights-as-the-cornerstone-of-american-democracy). The Justice Department will double the size of its voting rights and enforcement staff, and will scrutinize state laws that violate the Voting Rights Act (https://www.britannica.com/event/Voting-Rights-Act). The department will also watch over upcoming redistricting efforts, especially if any result in disadvantaging people of color.  True to his word, the Attorney General last week announced that his department will sue the state of Georgia over new voting laws that it recently passed (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/10/georgia-new-voting-law-explained/7133587002/). Attorney General Garland stated that the suit was being brought because Georgia’s laws were “enacted with the purpose of denying or abridging the right of black Georgians to vote”.  For this democracy to work it is vital to get as many people engaged in the process as possible. This means getting more people to vote, not less. Lifting barriers that prevent people from voting is critical for this to happen. Restricting voting rights will only create mistrust of the electoral process, our elected officials, and our government. Increasing voting access strengthens democracy, restricting it weakens it. The false narrative put forth by Donald Trump and his supporters following the 2020 presidential election, culminated in the January 6th Capitol riot, giving us a glimpse of what a fragile democracy looks like. Erecting barriers to voting will erode confidence in the election process, and we can’t let that happen.  Update July 13, 2021: On July 1, 2021 the Supreme Court ruled that the states may impose restrictions on voting, upholding restrictive voting laws recently passed in Arizona. The Court’s majority ruled that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 can be used to strike down voting restrictions only when they impose substantial and disproportionate burdens on minority voters (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/us/politics/supreme-court-arizona-voting-restrictions.html). In other words, it is constitutional for states to put voting restrictions in place as long as they are only an inconvenience, and do not prevent someone from voting. Writing for the majority, Justice Alito listed the following guideposts for lower courts to follow in evaluating voting restriction cases:
This last guidepost gives powerful ammunition to any state legislature intent on making access to voting more difficult. The Supreme Court’s ruling will make it difficult to oppose voting restrictions being put into place in many GOP governed states. It will be interesting to see if this ruling will hamper the Department of Justice’s pending lawsuit against the new Georgia voting law. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  The World Health Organization has identified vaccine hesitancy as a leading global health threat, which left unchecked could lengthen the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. The United States is far ahead of most nations in vaccinating its population. But even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognizes that reaching herd immunity is no longer a realistic goal. The best hope to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic is to get as many people as possible vaccinated, within the shortest period of time.  President Biden has a goal of getting at least 70% of the adults in the U.S. vaccinated with at least one shot by the 4th of July. This should be achievable, but it won’t be easy. To date about 64% of adults have received at least one COVID shot. But the pool of adults willing and able to get vaccinated is shrinking. Lack of access and misinformation are leading to vaccine hesitancy and outright refusal to get the shot. Lack of access to the vaccine in certain populations is a big challenge, but one that can be overcome with time and resources. Reaching the homeless, migrant workers, shut-ins, and isolated rural communities present logistical challenges. The more difficult challenge will be to overcome all the misinformation out there and get through to those refusing to get vaccinated.  Who is Hesitant about Getting Vaccinated: The Kaiser Family Foundation COVID-19 vaccine tracking poll tracks vaccination rates and behavioral attitudes towards vaccinations among various demographic groups, https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/dashboard/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-dashboard/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_qiK1aGI8QIVIPHjBx2Ejw5SEAAYAiAAEgJt2fD_BwE. Here is some of the latest data on adult vaccination rates in the U.S.:
The people in the last two groups, making up 20% of the adult population in the U.S., are considered “hesitant” about getting the vaccine. This hesitant group tends to be younger, Republican, and from rural communities. Here is the breakdown for these groups: Group Hesitant or Outright Skeptical Ages 30-49 28% Republicans 36% From Rural Areas 27% The most significant determinant among all groups, including race and gender, was the level of education. Working class members of every demographic group are less likely to be vaccinated and are hesitant to do so. People with a college degree are twice as likely to be vaccinated than those without a degree. Nearly 25% of all adults without a college degree fall into the vaccine hesitancy group. People in the “wait and see” group tend to be the young and people of color.  Reasons for Vaccine Hesitancy: To overcome vaccine hesitancy it is important to understand the root causes. The predominate cause is misinformation, but here is a partial list of other reasons.
Overcoming Vaccine Hesitancy
 Here are some other messaging points put together by Sherita Hill Golden, MD, Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins, to assist in overcoming vaccine misinformation:
Consequences of Not Getting Vaccinated 
 Getting a COVID-19 vaccine is a very personal choice, and although I believe that most adults should get vaccinated, it should not be forced upon them. There are some very legitimate reasons for some people not to get vaccinated, such as deeply held religious beliefs and some underlying medical conditions. For the benefit of the community, the country and the world, all people eligible to receive the vaccine should, for the common good.  There was a strong consistent message when the polio vaccine was introduced in the 1950s. It gained widespread acceptance under the banner “we’re all in this together”. Will this message resonate in our polarized world? Let’s hope and pray that it does.
Update July 13,2021: The pandemic is far from over, but you wouldn’t know it by walking down the streets of most American cities. The world recently surpassed the grim milestone of 4,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19. This was the official death toll, but the actual death toll is certainly much higher. Approximately 25% of the world’s adult population has received at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine, mostly in the rich countries. Less than 1% of the adults in low- income countries (Africa, Asia, South America, Central America) have received a single shot of the vaccine. On June 15th the U.S. surpassed 600,000 deaths due to COVID-19, and the death rate continues to climb, mainly among those who have been unvaccinated. President Biden missed his July 4th goal of getting 70% of eligible adults vaccinated with at least one shot. As of this writing just under 68% of adults have received at least one shot. COVID-19 cases have come down significantly in the U.S. over the past few months due to the highly effective vaccines. As a result, most areas of the country have dropped all COVID-19 related restrictions. Mask mandates, social gathering restrictions, and indoor business restrictions have disappeared, and domestic travel has returned with a vengeance. But this rosy picture hides vast geographic disparities which show a significant rise in hospitalization rates and deaths due to COVID-19 in regions with low vaccination rates. Rural areas, which tend to be conservative, have seen a recent rise in COVID-19 cases. Low vaccination rates make these populations vulnerable to the highly contagious Delta variant. Arkansas and Missouri are seeing the worst outbreaks, followed by Florida, Nevada, Wyoming, and Utah. But unvaccinated people are driving increases in COVID-19 cases even in areas with high vaccination rates. This corresponds with the lowering (or elimination) of COVID restrictions and the emergence of the Delta variant. I live in a county north of San Francisco, where 68% of eligible people are fully vaccinated and another 8% are partially vaccinated. But there has been a troubling uptick in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, even before the full effects of 4th of July gatherings are felt. The vast majority of the hospitalized COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated. Contact tracing has shown that most of the current COVID-19 cases in my county are being fueled by social gatherings and leisure time activities, with the highest rates in the 18-32 age group. Vaccine hesitancy continues to align significantly with party affiliation. According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 6% of Democrats said they are not likely to get vaccinated, compared with 47% of Republicans, including 38% of Republicans who said they definitely will not get the vaccine https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/post-abc-poll-biden/2021/07/03/54e95b6e-db43-11eb-8fb8-aea56b785b00_story.html. First detected in India, the Delta variant is estimated to be 60% more transmissible than earlier variants. The Delta variant has rapidly spread around the globe and is currently driving COVID-19 outbreaks in African, Asia, Australia and South America. The CDC has determined that the Delta variant is now dominant in the U.S. and is spreading rapidly in unvaccinated populations. Researchers in France, Israel and Britain have shown that a single dose of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine is largely ineffective against the Delta variant. Therefore, delaying the second shot in order to vaccinate more people is no longer an effective option. New variants, like the Lambda variant spreading rapidly in South America, provide more reason to quicken the pace of vaccination around the world. The unvaccinated population provides a breeding ground for new variants, and short of shutting down the world, vaccines are our only real defense. Pfizer made news last week by announcing that it would seek FDA approval for a COVID-19 booster vaccine. The CDC and NIH strongly rejected the need for vaccine boosters at this time, refuting the claims made by Pfizer. But many in the scientific community acknowledge that it is not a matter of if, but when booster shots will be needed. Preliminary research out of Israel suggests that the Pfizer vaccine is less effective against the Delta variant and there is a decline in antibody levels against the virus over time. I think that we should be prepared for the eventuality of booster shots, but we need to think through the ethical issues involved. Is it ethical to provide booster shots to fully vaccinated people in wealthy countries when the vast majority of people in poorer countries remain unvaccinated? Israel plans to offer booster shots of the Pfizer vaccine to adults with weakened immune systems, and Britain has announced plans to provide booster shots to its vulnerable populations and front-line workers. It makes sense to protect our most vulnerable, but it seems premature to do so when there is a limited supply of vaccines. The FDA warned this week that the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine can lead to an increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological condition. The incidence is very rare, and the benefits of this highly effective vaccine outweigh the risks. But I fear that this warning from the FDA will further diminish the acceptance of this much needed vaccine. The vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19 are occurring in unvaccinated people. The evidence is overwhelming. Unvaccinated people pose a risk to themselves and to vulnerable populations who have been vaccinated. No vaccine is 100% effective and breakthrough infections do occur. The incidence of COVID-19 is eleven times higher in unvaccinated people than vaccinated ones. If that isn’t an incentive to get vaccinated, I don’t know what is. Encourage everyone you know to get vaccinated. Regarding the use of face masks, do like I do, don’t leave home without one. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  On February 15, 2021 Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced that Congress would establish an independent, September 11-style commission to “investigate and report on the facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex…and relating to the transfer of power.” The House passed the bill on May 19, 2021, mostly along party lines. This past Friday the bill failed in the Senate by a vote of 54-35, short of the 60 votes needed to pass. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and his Republican colleagues were successful in blocking the formation of the independent commission. What do they gain from this move, and is it in the best interests of America?  Purpose of an Independent Commission: Independent fact-finding commissions after major historical events are not new. They were used to investigate the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Similar to the commission formed in response to the attacks on September 11, it would consist of a panel of ten independent experts, evenly split between Republican and Democratic appointees, who would investigate the events of January 6, 2021 on a full-time basis. The commission would have full authority to subpoena witnesses and broad authority to pursue and connect various lines of inquiry. It would compile a single comprehensive record for American history, and hopefully provide some closure for the American people. The primary purpose of the commission is to get at the truth. Being independent and bipartisan, it is much more likely to provide the facts that Americans will trust. Any reports that result from the various congressional investigations now underway will likely be viewed through a partisan lens.  Aren’t Existing Investigations Enough: There are currently several investigations underway by various governmental departments looking at different aspects of the Capitol riot. The Justice Department is investigating and prosecuting hundreds of individual rioters, inspectors general are examining their agency's response to the riot, and various congressional committees are looking into the Capitol riot. The Justice Department’s investigation is one of the largest criminal inquiries in U.S. history, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/29/us/capitol-attack-inquiry.html. But each of the 450 or so defendants are being charged as individuals for specific crimes that they may have committed. Most of these criminal cases will be resolved through plea deals and never end up in court with questioning under oath. The Justice Department is not tasked with big picture issues like what motivated the riot, were the rioters coordinated, were members of Congress involved, and how does Donald Trump fit into all of this.  There is a joint investigation underway by the Senate Homeland Security Committee and the Rules Committee. These committees are investigating the actions of the Capitol Police, the Defense Department, and the broad government response to the violence at the Capitol on January 6. But here again, the investigations are narrowly focused on questions of policing and security. Questions about the political motivations of the mob, and the role of the president and members of Congress will be ignored. Another limitation with congressional investigations is the limitations on the committee members themselves. Members of Congress are often pulled away from investigative work to address the ongoing business of the Congress. Inspectors general at the Pentagon, Justice Department, and Capitol Police Department are all examining their agency’s response leading up to and during the Capitol riot. These examinations will be narrowly focused on the specifics of their departments and not coordinated with other agencies. They are too narrowly focused to get to the truth that the American people need, and may leave many questions unanswered.  Unanswered Questions Remain: Now that the Republicans have blocked the establishment of an independent commission, the full story surrounding the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021 may never be known. Here are some of the key unanswered questions:
 Why Republicans Blocked the Commission: Plain and simple, the Republicans put the good of their party ahead of the good of the country. Donald Trump is the de facto head of the Republican Party, and anything that discredits him, damages the party. Donald Trump openly opposed establishment of the independent commission. Out of loyalty or fear, most Republicans went along with his wishes. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is no fan of Donald Trump, but his party loyalty outweighs his animosity towards him. McConnell is shrewd enough to know than an independent investigation of January 6 would put Donald Trump back into the spotlight and expose the consequences of his lie that the election had been stolen from him. In voting against the commission, McConnell called it redundant, and said, “I do not believe the additional extraneous commission that Democratic leaders want would uncover crucial new facts or promote healing.” I guess we will never know thanks to Mitch and his Republican colleagues. Soon after the Capitol riot, McConnell and fellow Republican Senator Lindsey Graham went on the record by stating that Donald Trump had culpability in the riot, and that a 9/11 style commission should investigate, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/15/us-capitol-attack-commission-9-11-style-trump. I guess they have changed their tune knowing that Trump is still in charge. Ever the politician, McConnell has succeeded in turning the focus back to opposing the Biden Administration’s agenda, and taking back the Senate in the 2022 mid-term elections.  What’s Next: With so many unanswered questions and the threat that the Capitol riot posed to our democracy, the Democrats will not let it go. Democratic leaders Schumer and Pelosi are now planning to create a select committee to investigate the Capitol riot. What good this will do is anyone’s guess. But clearly it will not be as bipartisan and independent as a 9/11 style commission would be. Since both Houses of Congress are controlled by the Democrats, it could prove to be a strategic mistake by the Republicans. The Republicans want to downplay the events of January 6, 2021 and move on, but the Democrats, and all fair-minded Americans, won’t let them.  As Andrew Young once said, “There can be no democracy without truth”. The purpose of the independent commission to investigate the Capitol riot was to establish the truth. But that has been denied to the American people. We owe it to the Capitol Police officers who were killed or injured that day to find the truth. After the 9/11 attacks the country came together, put partisanship aside, and put a commission together to get to the truth. Have we changed so much as a country in just the past 20 years? Apparently, we have. Politics has once again trumped the good of the country.
Capitol Riot Update: July 21, 2021 Select Committee Approved to Investigate Capitol Riot: On June 25, 2021 the House of Representatives approved legislation to create a select committee to investigate the January 6th Capitol Riot. Only two Republicans voted in favor of the legislation, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. The select committee will have eight members selected by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and five members by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The committee will have subpoena power to order witnesses to testify. The committee’s main task is to investigate “the facts, circumstances and causes relating to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack”. The committee is also charged with looking into the law enforcement and government response to the storming of the Capitol and the factors that fomented such an attack. The committee has no set end date to report its findings, conclusions and recommendations for preventing such attacks in the future. Pelosi Announces Her Picks for the Select Committee: On July 1st, Nancy Pelosi announced that she had picked the following eight Representatives for the committee: Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi), selected as Chairman of the committee. Adam Schiff (D-California) Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) Zoe Lofgren (D-California) Pete Aguilar (D-California) Elaine Luria (D-Virginia) Stephanie Murphy (D-Florida) Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming). This is the most surprising pick. But upon closer inspection, maybe not. Liz Cheney was ousted from her Republican leadership position for criticizing former President Donald Trump for his lies about the stolen election and his role in the Capitol riot. McCarthy Announces His Picks for the Select Committee: On July 19th, Kevin McCarthy announced the following five GOP nominees to the Democrat led select committee: Jim Banks (R-Indiana), ranking member. Rodney Davis (R-Illinois) Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) Kelly Armstrong (R-North Dakota) Troy Nehls (R-Texas) Pelosi Rejects Two of McCarthy’s Picks: Today(July 21, 2021) Nancy Pelosi rejected two of Kevin McCarthy’s picks, Jim Jordan and Jim Banks. Pelosi saw these two Trump loyalists as impediments to the integrity of the committee’s investigation. She is probably correct, but she has handed the Republicans ammunition to their claim that the committee will lead a partisan attack on Trump and his supporters in an attempt to damage the Republican brand. To that I say that the Republicans had their chance for a bipartisan commission, but they rejected it in the Senate. It is no surprise that McCarthy slammed Pelosi’s move. "Unless Speaker Pelosi reverses course and seats all five Republican nominees, Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts," McCarthy said. Democrats have pledged to move forward with the committee’s work and the first hearing will begin next week. Stay tuned. Capitol Security Six Months Later: This past weekend the metal fencing and concrete barriers that encircled the Capitol were removed. The Capitol grounds are now open again to visitors and pedestrians, but the Capitol building remains closed to the public. The House passed a $1.9 billion security bill in May to strengthen the Capitol building, add additional surveillance, and other measures. The Senate Democrats have introduced their own version which includes additional funding to aid Afghans who supported US efforts in Afghanistan and COVID protections for the Department of Defense. The price tag for this proposal is $3.7 billion and is unlikely to get much Republican support. On-Going Investigation: To date approximately 550 people have been arrested for taking part in the Capitol riot. Charges for those arrested include unlawful entry, vandalism, conspiracy and assault. So far twenty people have plead guilty, mainly to misdemeanors, but only three have been sentenced. The most serious being Paul Hodgkins from Florida, who pleaded guilty to a single felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress. Mr. Hodgkins was sentenced this month to eight months in prison. Law enforcement officials are still trying to identify over 300 suspects who were captured on video at the Capitol on January 6th. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  This is the fourth and final blog on my series “Guns in America”. I could have written ten parts on this subject and have barely scratched the surface. I have explored the constitutional issues surrounding gun ownership, the influence of the NRA on the political debate, and the history of gun laws in this country. This blog will highlight what I feel are some common-sense reforms that could possibly lessen gun violence in America. America is special in many ways, and the freedoms that we enjoy as citizens make us the envy of the world. When certain freedoms are abused, they may lead to unintended consequences and have a detrimental impact on society as a whole. The 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms was intended to keep the citizenry safe from tyrannical governments. But this freedom has created a whole new set of tyrannies. It has created a tyranny of violence, political corruption, and a tyranny of individualism over societal good.  The United States gun homicide rate is 25 times higher than other high-income countries https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-in-america/. Every day in this country more than 100 Americans are killed with guns, and more than 230 are shot and wounded. Firearms are the leading cause of death for American children and teens. Access to guns triples the risk of death by suicide, and doubles the risk of death by homicide. These are grim statistics indeed, so why don’t we just rewrite or repeal the 2nd Amendment?  Repeal or Replace the 2nd Amendment: If I was king for a day, I would do away with the 2nd Amendment. That is not to say that I would abolish all access to guns by law abiding citizens. There are legitimate reasons, such as sport and personal protection, for citizens to have access to certain types of guns. But I am convinced that meaningful gun control legislation cannot happen in this country without repealing or replacing the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment is why we have metal detectors and security guards in schools. It is why mass shootings are common place, and citizens are allowed to parade around openly carrying military style assault weapons. The 2nd Amendment justifies use of military grade armaments and tactics by law enforcement. The 2nd Amendment has given rise to the NRA and other pro-gun lobbies which have corrupted our political system. The 2nd Amendment has had a negative impact on modern American society.  There has never been a serious attempt to repeal or replace the 2nd Amendment. Amending the Constitution is very difficult, even more so in the hyper-partisan environment of today. To amend the Constitution requires approval by two-thirds of the members of the House and the Senate before being ratified by three-quarters of the States. If the States so choose, they can bypass the Congress, establish a Constitutional Convention, and propose amendments to the Constitution. This would require two-thirds of the States to agree to the convention, and three-quarters of the States to ratify any amendment. Getting two-thirds of the Congress and three-quarters of the States to agree on something as contentious as the 2nd Amendment is not going to happen any time soon.  But not all is lost. Even without amending the Constitution there are some common-sense things that Congress can do, and public opinion is shifting in the direction of gun reform. Fifty-seven percent of Americans say that the laws covering the sale of firearms should be stricter https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/343649/american-public-opinion-gun-violence.aspx. There is strong public support for background checks for all gun purchases, bans on high-capacity magazines, registration of all privately owned guns, and 30-day waiting periods for all gun sales.
Common Sense Gun Reform Measures:
Approximately 42% of American households own at least one gun, and there are reportedly more guns in this country than there are people. Clearly gun ownership is a cultural issue, and it takes a lot of time to change cultural norms. But gun regulation is not a cultural issue. It is a legal and political issue, which can be influenced by the courage and will of the people. No matter where you stand on the gun control issue, I think we can all agree that something needs to be done to reduce gun violence in America. Here are some of the major groups that are advocating for there point of view in the gun debate:  Gun Rights Groups:
 Gun Control Groups:
 The debate on guns will certainly outlive me, but it is a debate worth having. Stay informed and let your political leaders know how you feel on this important issue. The worse thing that can happen is if we become numb to all of the gun violence, and chalk it up to the price of freedom. We deserve better. In the immortal words of Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: [email protected].
Thanks, Armchair American  In the past two parts of “Guns in America”, I examined the constitutionality of private gun ownership, and the influence of the National Rifle Association on gun control legislation. In this blog I will review gun control legislation over the history of our country and where we stand on the issue today. In the first part of this blog series, I explained how recent Supreme Court rulings clearly state that government at the local, state, and federal levels does not have the authority to take away a right granted by the Second Amendment. Specifically, the right to keep and bear arms. But these same court decisions stated that the right to bear arms is subject to regulations. There have been several federal laws throughout the history of our country which put restrictions on firearms. Here is a chronological list of the major gun regulation laws in the United States:  1927 Nonmailable Firearms Act of 1927: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/69th-congress/session-2/c69s2ch75.pdf. This law made it illegal to use the U.S. mail to ship pistols, revolvers, and other firearms “capable of being concealed on the person”. Exceptions were made for the military and police.  1934 National Firearms Act (NFA): https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/73rd-congress/session-2/c73s2ch757.pdf. Passed on June 26, 1934, this was the first national gun control legislation. The NFA was enacted to curtail gangland violence of the era, such as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The law established a category of guns and devices which required registration, and were highly taxed to limit their manufacture, transport and sale. This new category included machine guns, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, silencers, and concealable weapons other than pistols and revolvers. This legislation was supported by the NRA.  1938 Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (FFA): https://homicide.northwestern.edu/docs_fk/homicide/laws/national_firearms_act_of_1938.pdf This law required gun manufacturers, importers, and dealers to obtain a federal firearms license. The FFA also mandated that gun sellers keep records of customers and banned sales of guns to convicted felons. This law was supported by the NRA.  1968 Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA): https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-82/pdf/STATUTE-82-Pg1213-2.pdf. The GCA was enacted in response to the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy. It repealed and replaced the FFA and updated the NFA. The law banned the importation of certain guns, imposed a minimum age of 21 to purchase a handgun, prohibited felons and the mentally ill from purchasing guns, required all manufactured or imported guns to have a serial number, and put tighter restrictions on the firearms industry. The GCA prohibits interstate firearms transfers except by manufacturers, dealers and importers licensed under the act. The provisions of this law were to be enforced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Division (ATF) of the IRS. The GCA was mostly opposed by the NRA except for the provision preventing felons and the mentally ill from owning guns.
1972 The ATF was established as an independent bureau within the Department of the Treasury. It was no longer under the purview of the IRS.  1986 Firearm Owners’ Protection Act: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-100/pdf/STATUTE-100-Pg449.pdf. The NRA influenced the writing of this bill and pushed for its passage. The law mostly enacted protections for gun owners, but it did expand the definition of “silencer” to include parts intended to make silencers. It limited ATF inspections of gun sellers to once a year, loosened regulations on the sale and transfer of ammunition, prohibited the government from establishing a national registry of gun owners, and permitted gun dealers, importers and manufacturers to do business at temporary locations, such as gun shows.  1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act: https://www.congress.gov/103/bills/hr1025/BILLS-103hr1025enr.pdf. Also known as the “Brady Bill”, it was signed into law in November of 1993 despite fierce opposition from the NRA. It was named after James Brady who was shot and seriously wounded during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. The Brady Bill established the “National Instant Criminal Background Check System”, and requires that background checks be completed before a gun is purchased from a licensed dealer, manufacturer or importer.  1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-103hr3355enr/pdf/BILLS-103hr3355enr.pdf. This is the largest crime bill in the history of the United States. The most significant section for our discussion is Title XI, Subtitle A on assault weapons. This section of the law banned the manufacture, transfer or possession of nineteen specific semi-automatic firearms classified as “assault weapons”, as well as any semi-automatic rifle, pistol or shotgun capable of accepting a detachable magazine that has two or more features characteristic of such weapons. These features included telescoping or folding stocks, pistol grips, flash suppressors, grenade launchers, and bayonet lags. The Brady Bill also banned possession of newly manufactured magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds of ammunition. The law did not ban lawfully possessed assault weapons manufactured prior to the enactment of the law. As you might expect, the Brady Bill was loudly opposed by the NRA. Due to a sunset clause in the bill, the assault weapons ban expired on September 13, 2004, and has not been renewed.  2002 Homeland Security Act of 2002: https://www.dhs.gov/homeland-security-act-2002. Among many other things, this law shifted the ATF from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of Justice. The agency’s name was changed to the “Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives”, but it is still referred to as the “ATF”.  2003 Tiahrt Amendments: https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/other-laws-policies/tiahrt-amendments/. These are provisions attached to the U.S. Department of Justice appropriations bills every year since 2003. These amendments accomplish the following:
 2004 Assault Weapons Ban: Expired on September 13, 2004.
2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act: https://www.congress.gov/109/plaws/publ92/PLAW-109publ92.pdf. This NRA supported law prohibits gun and ammunition manufacturers, distributors, dealers, and importers from being named in federal or state civil lawsuits when crimes are committed involving their firearms.  2013 Assault Weapons Ban of 2013: https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/150. This bill was introduced by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) one month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gunman-kills-students-and-adults-at-newtown-connecticut-elementary-school. With the help of the NRA, the bill was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 40-60. It was the last piece of gun control legislation to be voted on in the Senate.  New Push for Gun Control: 2021 brought a new Democrat Administration to the White House, and a flood of gun violence to the streets of America. As I wrote in Part 2 of “Guns in America”, President Biden is coming under increasing pressure from his party to do something about gun violence. But short of fine-tuning existing laws through executive actions, there isn’t much that he can do without Congress. The Biden Administration is focused on infrastructure spending, green initiatives, border issues, the COVID-19 pandemic, and now his recently announced American Families Plan. With all this on the table President Biden doesn’t appear to be willing to spend any of the little political capital he has remaining on any gun control measures. With a very slim Democrat majority in both Houses of Congress, gun control legislation cannot move forward without Republican support. The House passed the following two pieces of gun legislation in March:
Both of these bills were passed by the House of Representatives and are common-sense measures. The existing federal laws leave dangerous loopholes in existing background check requirements, and these two bills would close the loopholes. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Shummer said that the bills will be voted on in the Senate. It will be an uphill battle to secure the 60 votes needed to pass either of these bills, but there is a chance. The NRA is no longer the feared institution that it once was, and universal background checks are favored by the majority of Americans. Hopefully we won’t have to wait long for a Senate vote. Any movement by the Congress to prevent guns from getting into the wrong hands will be an important step in breaking the logjam of inaction.  In Part 4 of “Guns in America”, I will discuss what can be done about all the gun violence, and see if there are any common-sense approaches that should be considered.
If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: [email protected]. Thanks, Armchair American  In Part 1 of “Guns in America”, I examined the current thinking on the Second Amendment to the Constitution. It is now clear, at least to me, that most American adults have an individual right to own guns. America is awash in guns, gun violence continues unabated, and many in Congress will block any attempt at meaningful gun control legislation. No other organization in America has had more impact on the debate over guns than the American Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA has advocated for the rights of gun owners for over a century, and has become a political juggernaut in defense of these rights. This blog will examine the rise of the NRA and its ability to influence the debate on gun control. But first, there have been a few recent developments in the past several days that I would be remise if I didn’t mention.  The Biden Administration Addresses Gun Violence: Under pressure from the left to address the rash of recent gun violence, the Biden Administration on April 7, 2021 released some actions that it would take, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/07/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-initial-actions-to-address-the-gun-violence-public-health-epidemic/. The President understands that he doesn’t have the votes in Congress to pass meaningful gun legislation. He will therefore work through his Department of Justice (DOJ) to at least tighten up some regulations under existing law. Here is what the DOJ plans to do:
 Mass Shootings Aren’t the Main Problem: In the days since my last blog post there have been more mass shootings leading to multiple deaths. As I began to write this blog the country learned of a mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, where a lone gunman killed eight, and injured several others before turning the gun on himself. Another incident involved an ex-NFL player who killed six, including himself, in South Carolina. Mass shootings are horrific and make the news. But we never hear about the vast majority of deaths and injuries caused by gun violence in this country. For example, in 2019 only about one out of every 400 gun deaths was the result of a mass shooting. According to the “Gun Violence Archive”, https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls, there were 43,546 deaths and 39,434 injuries due to gun violence in 2020. Of these deaths, more than 50% were from suicides. Accidental shootings and incidents involving a single victim, are far more common than mass shootings.  Beginnings of the NRA: The NRA was founded in 1871 by two former civil war officers to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis”, https://home.nra.org/about-the-nra/. After receiving a charter in the state of New York, the organization quickly built a firing range and sponsored annual shooting matches. Starting in the early 1900s, the NRA began promoting shooting sports among America’s youth and helped to establish rifle clubs at all major colleges, universities, and military academies. Even today, youth programs are still a cornerstone of the NRA, with over one million youth participating in NRA shooting sports events. The NRA works with groups such as the 4-H, Boy Scouts, American Legion, Royal Rangers, National Rodeo Association, and others. The organization has several publications, most notably “The American Rifleman”, and “The American Hunter”, and maintains a commitment to training, education, and marksmanship. But all of this is overshadowed by its political work as the nation’s preeminent gun rights organization.
The NRA Gets Political: The NRA was in existence for nearly 100 years before it really began to flex its muscles in Washington D.C.
NRA Lobbying Efforts: The NRA lobbies against all forms of gun control at the local, state, and federal levels. Since 1998 the NRA-PVF has consistently ranked among the top spenders in congressional races. The NRA is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington D.C. You’d be hard pressed to find a Republican member of Congress who hasn’t received funds from the NRA during their career. A significant number of Democrats have also been at the receiving end of the NRA’s largess. Here is a link to a list of recent congressional candidates who received campaign money from the NRA, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_congressional_candidates_who_received_campaign_money_from_the_National_Rifle_Association.  In 2016, the NRA spent $412 million on political activities, and that didn’t even include the money spent by its political action committee! In addition to its financial muscle, the NRA has the ability to mobilize its large membership, estimated to be between 3-5 million. According to the NRA, its membership reached 5.5 million members in 2018, and membership dues were over $170 million. Membership fees account for less than half of the NRA’s income, with the majority coming from contributions, grants, royalties, and advertising.  NRA Aligns With GOP: The NRA endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in 1980, helping GOP candidate Ronald Reagan defeat Jimmy Carter. The NRA solidified its ties with the Republican Party in the 1990’s, and House Republican leader Newt Gingrich stated that support for or against gun control defined one’s partisan identity. The NRA endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, reportedly spending over $30 million in his support.  NRA Faces Legal and Financial Troubles: Last August the New York Attorney General filed a civil lawsuit against the NRA alleging fraud, financial misconduct, and misuse of charitable funds by some of its executives, including Wayne La Pierre, https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2020/attorney-general-james-files-lawsuit-dissolve-nra. Mr. La Pierre has been the NRA’s executive vice president since 1991 and functions as the chief executive officer. The New York lawsuit calls for the dissolution of the NRA. On the same day, the Attorney General of Washington D.C. filed a lawsuit against the NRA for misusing charitable funds, https://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-08/NRA-Foundation-Complaint-Redacted.pdf. It is alleged that some executives of the NRA have used charitable funds to enrich themselves and have diverted funds for uses other than what they were intended.  In January of this year the NRA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns/national-rifle-association-files-for-bankruptcy-seeking-to-escape-new-york-lawsuit-idUSKBN29K2LV. It also announced that it would reincorporate in Texas, subject to the approval of the court. The NRA contends that its Chapter 11 filing is a legitimate maneuver to facilitate a move to a state more friendly to its organization. The New York Attorney General claims that it is a ploy to escape accountability in New York. The bankruptcy case is currently underway in Texas, and the civil lawsuits will hobble the NRA for months, if not years, to come. The New Yorker has several great articles about the financial problems of the NRA, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/secrecy-self-dealing-and-greed-at-the-nra. The NRA is Weakened, But Not Their Message: The NRA will emerge leaner and with new faces in leadership positions. Even though the NRA has fallen from its lofty perch and is not as powerful as it once was, its pro-gun rights message still permeates the halls of Congress. According to the NRA, membership has risen by 140,000 members since the election over fears that the Biden administration will enact tighter gun control measures. NRA President Caroline Meadows recently stated “The NRA has never been stronger or more critical to the fight for Second Amendment freedom”. We will see if she is singing the same tune at the conclusion of the bankruptcy trial and the civil lawsuits. The constituency that the NRA has developed still exists, and will continue to exist even without the NRA. With the current troubles plaquing the NRA, new pro-gun rights groups will grow and come to prominence. Many advocates of gun control fear that these groups will be even more right-wing than the NRA, some of which have been growing rapidly in recent years. They include the Virginia Citizens Defense League, the Second Amendment Foundation, and the National Association for Gun Rights.  The GOP is a strong advocate of Second Amendment rights, and with a narrow majority in Congress the Biden Administration is hesitant about spending any political capital to push through new gun control legislation. With all the senseless gun violence in this country you would think that lawmakers could come together and enact some meaningful measures to stem the violence. But if history is any guide, this is not about to happen anytime soon. Gun rights advocates see ANY gun control measure as a slippery slope towards repealing their Second Amendment rights. With or without the NRA, this view is well entrenched in Washington D.C. and across America. It may require a new generation of leaders and activists to get us out of this mess. In my next blog I will examine the gun control legislation that has been enacted over the years, and the long road ahead in the fight to stop gun violence in America.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: [email protected].
Thanks, Armchair American  Mass shootings have unfortunately been much in the news lately, followed by a clamor on the political left to enact new gun control legislation. The month of March alone saw 47 mass shooting events, involving four or more victims. Two of the most heinous of these shootings involved a lone gunman who killed ten people at a grocery store in Colorado, and the other involved a lone gunman who killed eight people at massage parlors in suburban Atlanta. During the first three months of 2021, the country has experienced 123 mass shootings, leaving 144 dead, and over 375 wounded https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/. These grim statistics prompted me to write a multipart blog series on “Guns in America”. This first blog will be a review of the constitutionality of guns, followed by an examination of the NRA, common sense gun control, and other topics surrounding this hot button issue.
I am not a gun owner. The only gun that I ever owned was a Daisy Winchester BB gun that I got for Christmas when I was 13. Fortunately, I never shot my eye out, and I had great fun target shooting in my backyard and “hunting” in the woods behind my house. I have no issue with the private ownership of certain types of guns. But the epidemic of gun violence and the easy access to military style assault weapons needs a thoughtful examination by the citizens of this country. Guns have been in America since the arrival of the first Europeans. The legal foundation for gun possession is imbedded in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, so let’s start there.  Second Amendment: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”. No other sentence in the Constitution has elicited more debate. Volumes have been written about the legality with respect to regulation of the purchase, possession, and transportation of firearms. Since I am not a lawyer, it is not my intention to engage in legal arguments or to try and interpret the exact intent of the drafters of the Constitution. That is what the courts are for. Rather, I will highlight the major Supreme Court rulings which define the argument today. For those so inclined, you may find a good review on the Second Amendment at Cornell Law School’s website, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment. Another handy historical review and analysis of the Second Amendment is the 1982 Congressional Report “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms”, https://constitution.org/1-Constitution/2ll/2ndschol/87senrpt.pdf. The two most important questions that legal scholars and law makers have grappled with over the decades regarding the Second Amendment are:
 District of Columbia v. Heller (2008): This case overturned Washington D.C.’s prohibition on handguns. But the justifications for this decision are what is important. The majority of the court ruled that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to possess firearms for lawful purposes, and not in the context of militia service. The court also stated that the right to bear arms is subject to regulations, such as prohibitions on concealed weapons, limits on the rights of felons and the mentally ill, and laws forbidding the carrying of weapons in certain locations. Laws imposing conditions on commercial sales, and prohibitions on the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons are also permissible. Washington D.C. is a federal entity, and the Second Amendment originally applied only to the federal government, leaving the states to regulate weapons as they saw fit. This issue was clarified two years later in another Supreme Court case.  McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010): This case struck down a handgun ban at the state level. The court concluded that Second Amendment rights not only applied to protections against federal law, but also to states and municipalities. This decision was based on the conclusion that the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state infringement of the same right that is protected by federal law. A lot has changed in the United States since the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791. The traditional concept of a civilian based militia no longer exists, and state-based militia organizations have been incorporated into the federal military structure. You can find more information on the history of militias in the United States in one of my previous bog posts, https://armchairamerican.com/blog/militias-in-america.
Our nation’s military establishment is vast and the most powerful in the world. Most Americans don’t fear our armed forces, and it is laughable to think that an armed populace could defeat such a force. Unlike the firearms possessed in the homes of early Americans, civilians no longer use their household weapons for military duty. Modern Americans still keep and bear arms, but not to protect themselves from a despotic government, but to defend against common criminals, as well as for recreational pursuits. The real danger to our way of life is if we become complacent and numb to the violence and killing, and chalk it up to the cost of individual freedoms. We can and must do better to keep guns out of the hands of those who will do harm to others. Short of amending the Constitution, guns are here to stay. Fortunately, even the most conservative courts acknowledge that gun regulation does not violate the Second Amendment. In future posts I will examine sensible gun control laws and other issues related to guns in America.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: [email protected].
Thanks, Armchair American  On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. This $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill is intended to speed up the U.S.’s recovery from the economic and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The amount of money in this plan is huge, and that was intentional. Joe Biden was the point man for President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan in 2009 to help lift the country out of the “Great Recession”. But in retrospect, many economists feel that the stimulus was too small, resulting in a slow and sluggish economic recovery. President Biden does not want to repeat that mistake. The amount of money in this act is massive, but is it all needed, and where will the money come from to pay for it?  What’s in the American Rescue Plan Act: The act contains over 600 pages of legislation that very few law makers have read, much less fully comprehended. The entire act can be found at the following link for your reading pleasure: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1319/text#toc-HF220ECA2BFFA40A1BE08D043923EEE1F. The American Rescue Plan builds upon the two previous COVID relief bills: the $2.2 trillion “Cares Act” signed into law in March of 2020, and the $900 billion coronavirus response and relief appropriations, part of the “Consolidated Appropriations Act”, signed into law in January of this year. Here is a summary of the major spending provisions in the new $1.9 trillion rescue plan: 
 Where Will the $1.9 Trillion Come From: The U.S. has already accumulated a budget deficit in the current fiscal year, which ends on September 30, 2021, of just over one trillion dollars, https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/deficit-tracker/ . This means that the U.S. Treasury cannot fund the $1.9 trillion from current or near-term revenues. So how about the money the government has stockpiled for a rainy day? There isn’t any. In fact, the U.S. is sitting on a national debt of over $23 trillion. So, the government’s options are to increase revenues (taxes), sell off assets, borrow the money, or a combination of these. Which option do you think the government will take? You’re right! The government will just borrow more money. The $1.9 trillion will come from the sale of U.S. government bonds by the Treasury. This is a huge amount of bond sales and it has the potential of siphoning money away from other bond markets essential for funding corporations, local governments and municipalities. Typically, this would result in a bond issuer increasing the yield on the bond to entice buyers. This could trigger higher interest rates and slow the economy. But the Federal Reserve is committed to preventing that from happening. The Fed has recently stated that it will continue to purchase as many bonds as necessary to keep interest rates low, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/powell-signals-federal-reserve-will-keep-aiding-economy-with-bond-buying.  How the U.S. will pay off its mounting debt, and whether or not all the new spending will lead to inflation, are real concerns. These are big issues, and there is no clear consensus among economists. The Federal Reserve will be monitoring the situation closely. Hopefully there will be a nice boost to the GDP without overheating the economy. We don't want the Fed to put the breaks on by increasing interest rates before the unemployment rate is back to pre-pandemic levels.  What I Like About the Rescue Plan:
 What I Don’t Like About the Rescue Plan: The rescue plan is being sold to the American people as essential in order to boost the economy damaged by the pandemic, and to provide financial support to individuals and families who have lost jobs or who have suffered financially as a result of the pandemic. I cannot support any provision in this plan that does not promote these objectives. If I had to guess I would say that only about one half of the spending in the plan supports these objectives. Here are some of my specific objections to the rescue plan:
 The American Rescue Plan of 2021 is very popular with the American people. This is not surprising since the vast majority of them will receive direct cash payments. For those individuals who have lost their jobs or have experienced financial hardships as a result of the pandemic, I am all in favor of the cash payments. These people need the money and will spend it, unlike many higher income families who won’t. President Biden wanted the amount of money in the rescue plan to be huge, and he did not disappoint. But much of this money is poorly targeted, and in my opinion, not needed to get the economy rolling again. The economy is already picking up as more people become vaccinated, the shutdowns end, and kids get back to school. Let’s just hope that the economy doesn’t overheat with all the excess stimulus, causing the Federal Reserve to put on the breaks before those sectors damaged by the pandemic have recovered. I hope that President Biden and his advisors know what they are doing.  Otherwise we could end up here:  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: [email protected].
Thanks, Armchair American  It has been over two months since my last BLOG on COVID-19 vaccines. Since that time millions of people in several different countries have been vaccinated, new vaccines have been approved for use, and new virus variants have emerged. This blog is about the latest developments on the COVID-19 vaccine front.  Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Vaccine: The J&J vaccine was given Emergency Use Authorization by the F.D.A. on February 27, 2021. According to Johnson & Johnson’s press release, the vaccine was 72% effective at preventing moderate to severe COVID-19 infections in the U.S. (https://www.jnj.com/johnson-johnson-announces-single-shot-janssen-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-met-primary-endpoints-in-interim-analysis-of-its-phase-3-ensemble-trial). What this means is the vaccine prevented all illness, including mild symptoms, in 72% of the recipients of the vaccine. This may sound disappointing in comparison to the 94-95% efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, but it was highly effective at limiting serious disease. J&J’s vaccine was 85% effective overall at preventing serious illness across all regions that it studied (U.S., Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Mexico, Peru, and South Africa). More importantly, the vaccine demonstrated complete protection against COVID-19 related hospitalizations and deaths, the true benchmarks of the success of this vaccine. The vaccine had an overall efficacy rate of 64% against the more virulent South African strain, but an 82% rate against serious illness. It is important to note that the J&J trials were conducted when more variants were circulating in the population than when the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna trials were being conducted. This could account for the reduced efficacy being reported in the U.S. and elsewhere. Here are the key attributes of this new vaccine:
The J&J vaccine is a breakthrough. It doesn’t need sophisticated freezers for transport and storage, making it accessible to remote and underserved areas, as well as in second and third world countries. The fact that it is effective after a single dose makes it a great choice when scheduling a second shot is problematic, such as in homeless populations, the homebound, migrant farm workers, and hard to reach populations around the world. If I was the vaccine czar, the J&J vaccine would be reserved for these vulnerable populations.  Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine: On February 12, 2021, Pfizer-BioNTech announced that the U.S. government had exercised its option to purchase an additional 100 million doses of their vaccine. This brings the total number of doses to be supplied to the U.S. to 300 million, enough for 150 million people. Here are some recent developments:
 Moderna Vaccine: On February 11, 2021 Moderna announced that the U.S. government had agreed to purchase an additional 100 million doses of its vaccine. This brings the total confirmed order commitment to 300 million doses, enough to fully vaccinate 150 million Americans. Moderna is on track to deliver the first 100 million doses in the first quarter of 2021, the next 100 million in the second quarter, and the new order of 100 million doses by the end of July 2021. Even without any new vaccines becoming available, the U.S. now has enough contracted vaccines to cover all of its eligible citizens, and then some. Here are some recent developments:
 AstraZeneca/University of Oxford Vaccine: This vaccine was first approved for emergency use in the United Kingdom on December 30, 2020 for individuals 18 years of age and older. The vaccine requires a two-dose regimen, with an interval of between four and twelve weeks between doses. There has been some debate about the actual efficacy of the vaccine, with ranges from 62-82%. But clinical trials in the United Kingdom have shown the vaccine to be safe and highly effective at reducing hospitalizations and deaths. Because of the confusion over some of the reported data, the U.S. is conducting a trial of its own. Approval in the U.S. may still be a few months away. The vaccine can be transported and stored at normal refrigeration temperatures (36-46°F) for at least six months, making it a good candidate for use in 2nd and 3rd world countries. Here are some recent developments:
 Novavax: On January 28, 2021, Novavax announced that its vaccine demonstrated 89% efficacy in a Phase 3 clinical trial conducted in the United Kingdom (https://ir.novavax.com/news-releases/news-release-details/novavax-covid-19-vaccine-demonstrates-893-efficacy-uk-phase-3). Preliminary studies suggest that it is very effective at preventing severe disease from the South African strain of COVID-19. Phase 3 clinical trials are underway in Mexico and the U.S. and should be concluded by the end of March. The vaccine requires two-doses, but doesn’t require the strict storage requirements of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines. In September Novavax entered into an agreement with a major Indian vaccine manufacturer that could produce up to 2 billion doses per year. The U.S. has an agreement to purchase up to 110 million doses, with most of the remaining doses going to the COVAX Alliance. Look for this vaccine to be approved for use in the second half of 2021. There are currently 71 COVID-19 vaccines in clinical trials on humans, 20 of these have reached large scale Phase 3 trials around the world. In addition to the five vaccines that I detailed above, China has two vaccines it has approved for use, Russia has one vaccine, as does India.  Virus Variants: The longer the novel coronavirus circulates, the more people that become infected, giving the virus opportunities to mutate into more dangerous variants. Any new variant has the potential of being more contagious, result in more severe illness, and be resistant to currently available vaccines. This is why it is so important to speed up the rate of vaccinations and to continue safe practices, until herd immunity is reached. Widespread testing for COVID-19 is very important to monitor the development and spread of new variants. Here are some of the new variants which have recently been identified:
 Vaccine Equity: As of this writing approximately 240 million doses of vaccine have been administered around the world (https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/health/global-covid-vaccinations/). According to the United Nations, ten countries administered 75% of all vaccines, and 130 countries have yet to receive a single dose. The COVAX Alliance, led by the World Health Organization, is working with rich countries to provide vaccines to poor ones. But it is off to a slow start. COVAX delivered its first shipment of 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Ghana on February 24, 2021. Ghana is one of 190 countries which have signed up to receive vaccines through the alliance. The COVAX Alliance currently has agreements with AstraZeneca and Novavax for COVID-19 vaccines, but the numbers are far short of what is needed. It is important to remember that no one is immune from COVID-19 until we are all immune.  What We Still Don’t Know: We are a year into this pandemic, vaccines have only been available in limited supply for about two months, and there are a lot of unanswered questions. Once vaccinated, are people still able to spread the virus? Once vaccinated, how long will immunity last? If you had COVID-19, how long does immunity last? When will herd immunity be reached? Well, this is the real question, and we all need to be patient.
As of today, about 14.6% of the U.S. population has received at least one shot of vaccine, and a tiny fraction of the world’s population has been vaccinated. It is important to get vaccinated when it is your turn, but it is also important to continue to wear your face mask, practice social distancing and continue using good hygiene. We can't afford to let our guard down now that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We won't know that herd immunity has been reached until new cases of COVID-19 infections are rare. The speed with which the various COVID-19 vaccines have been developed and gotten into peoples’ arms is truly remarkable. All of the vaccines currently available in the U.S. are highly effective at minimizing serious illness and death. Coronaviruses have been circulating within the human population for centuries, and the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will be with us for a long time. The sooner that the majority of the world’s population becomes vaccinated, the sooner the pandemic will be over, and the quicker we will all return to a semblance of “normalcy”. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American  To no one’s surprise Donald Trump was acquitted on February 13, 2021 of the charge of “incitement of insurrection” at his second impeachment trial. Seven Republican Senators, along with all the Democrat Senators, voted to convict. But seventeen were needed. For a more detailed explanation of the 2nd impeachment of Donald Trump, please refer to my January 29, 2021 post "Is the Second Impeachment Trial of Donald Trump a Good Idea?" Here are my key takeaways from the impeachment trial:  Political Gamesmanship: Mitch McConnell is no fan of Trump and he would love to rid the party of him. But he loves his position and his power even more. McConnell is first and foremost a party man, and he is focused on the 2022 mid-term elections with the goal of retaking the Senate and possibly the House. Like most of his Republican colleagues, McConnell went on record by voting that it is unconstitutional to impeach a president who is already out of office. This was a calculated move to provide his colleagues with political cover. By voting to acquit on constitutional grounds, a senator could satisfy Trump’s loyal supporters, and not turn off those Republican voters who were repulsed by Trump’s actions. This is exactly what McConnell did with his post-trial statement blasting Trump: “Former President Trump’s actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty. There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.” Wow, the House managers could have used McConnell to make their case against Trump. But alas, McConnell knew that there weren’t enough Republican votes to convict Trump, and he wasn’t about to jeopardize his standing in the party by voting with the opposition.  It's Still Donald Trump’s Party: State Republican parties were quick to censure Senate Republicans who voted to convict Trump. This follows the condemnation received by Republican House members in their home states for voting for impeachment. Even party stalwart Liz Cheney was censured by the GOP in her home state of Wyoming. In his unrepentant way, Donald Trump blasted the trial as another phase of the greatest witch hunt in history. In a statement released shortly after being acquitted he said, “Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun”. This doesn’t sound like a guy who is going to fade into the background, and Republican politicians who ignore him, do so at their own peril.  Many Unanswered Questions Remain: Unfortunately, the trial did not provide the truth and accountability that Chuck Schumer had hoped for. In the words of one of the House Managers, Joaquin Castro, “There’s a lot we don’t know yet about what happened that day”. Most of the evidence presented was based on news reports and social media postings. But not to worry. Yesterday Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that Congress will establish an independent commission to investigate the attack on the Capitol. I doubt that the investigation will turn up anything that will put Donald Trump in criminal jeopardy. But the lapses in security at the Capitol need to be investigated, if for no other reason than to prevent another horrific incident like that on January 6, 2021. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
Thanks, Armchair American  There has been a lot written in recent weeks about a few high-flying stocks, most notably GameStop. The wild stock price fluctuations have been driven by speculative trading on app-based trading platforms, particularly Robinhood. It is a fascinating tale involving hedge funds, chat rooms, day traders, investing nerds seeking revenge on Wall Street insiders, financial market turmoil and Congressional condemnation. Already there are book deals in the works and movie scripts being written. I will only scratch the surface of this drama by focusing on Robinhood and the danger of making the purchase of high-risk financial instruments as easy as ordering a cup of coffee on your smart phone.  GameStop: To understand the recent spotlight on Robinhood and the wild stock price fluctuations in GameStop (GME), a little background is necessary. GameStop is a brick-and-mortar business, located mostly in shopping malls, which mainly sells video games and gaming equipment. In recent years the business has been hit hard as shoppers have abandoned shopping malls and video gaming has moved online. Some Wall Street hedge funds have sought to benefit by GameStop’s plight by betting against its stock. They did this by selling the shares of the stock short, or shorting the stock. Shorting a stock is when an investor borrows shares and immediately sells them, hoping to buy them later at a lower price, return them to the lender and pocket the difference. The important thing to know here is that the hedge funds who shorted the stock make money when the stock price falls, and lose money when the stock price rises. At one point last fall, GameStop was the most heavily shorted stock on Wall Street. Then came along some other investors who thought that GameStop still had value, and started talking it up on internet chat rooms, claiming that all the short selling was overblown.  Reddit: ( https://www.reddit.com/): Reddit is a very popular website which is home to thousands of online communities with millions of followers. These communities or forums are known as “subreddits”. The subreddit at the center of all the drama is “WallStreetBets”, (https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/). It was developed as a community for “people to talk about high-risk trades in an unapologetic way, and for people to make some short-term money with disposable income”, according to founder Jaime Rogozinski. Beginning last summer and accelerating into the fall, posts started appearing on the site laying out the case that GameStop was still a viable business and its stock price was undervalued. Subsequent posts began touting the added benefit of pushing up the price of GameStop shares to hurt the Wall Street hedge funds at their own game. It was a way of enacting revenge on Wall Street insiders who had never been punished for their role in the Great Recession. The price of GameStop shares began to rise as more and more people bought into this thesis.  So how does all this fit in with Robinhood and the legion of small investors on its platform? Many of the users of Robinhood were following the threads on WallStreetBets and wanted in on the action. Membership in WallStreetBets, as well as use of online trading platforms increased significantly as people were under COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. In recent months membership on WallStreetBets has surged to over 8.5 million.  Robinhood: This online trading platform was introduced in 2015 and offers commission-free trading in stocks, ETFs (exchange traded funds), stock options and cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin is the most notable). In addition to no trading fess, there are no minimum balance requirements to maintain an account. The lack of fees and user-friendly smart phone app has attracted a large following of young users. As of last May, Robinhood had over 13 million accounts. The average age of the account holder is 31, half of whom had no previous experience trading stocks. According to Robinhood’s website ( https://robinhood.com/us/en/), “We’re on a mission to democratize finance for all”. “At Robinhood, we believe the financial system should be built to work for everyone. That’s why we create products that let you start investing at your own pace, on your own terms”. Setting up an account on Robinhood is quick and easy, and it usually takes less than an hour to activate.  If Robinhood is Free to Use, How do They Make Money? Robinhood’s business model encourages lots of stock trades, which is how they make most of their money. Wall Street firms pay Robinhood to send their buy and sell orders to them. These “market maker” firms do the actual buying and selling of the stocks, and make money by finding better prices in the broader markets than what Robinhood customers paid. This is perfectly legal, but Robinhood needs large trading volumes on its platform to be sustainable. According to research firm Alphacution, ( https://alphacution.com/tag/robinhood/), in the first three months of 2020, Robinhood users traded nine times as many shares as E-Trade customers, and forty times as many shares as those holding accounts at Charles Schwab. During that same time period, Robinhood users traded eighty-eight times as many options contracts as did the average Charles Schwab customer.
For $5/month and an average minimum balance of $2000, you can establish a Robinhood Gold account. This account allows the user to purchase stocks on margin. This simply means that Robinhood will lend you money to purchase stocks, and charge you interest on the money. Purchasing stocks using borrowed money is very risky. It can magnify your losses as well as your gains.  Democratizing Finance Sounds Good. But is it? This all sounds great, and I am a huge proponent of opening up financial markets to the masses. But finance is much more than buying and selling stocks. I would argue that for most people, particularly inexperienced investors, buying and selling individual stocks is too risky and should play only a minor role, if any, in their investing and financial plans. First and foremost, Robinhood is a stock trading platform. It provides very little financial education, and has few safeguards in place to prevent the inexperienced investor from getting in way over their head. Robinhood doesn’t have a customer support phone number, so all correspondence is done via email. The platform provides no tools to develop a comprehensive financial plan, and it doesn’t support retirement accounts. This means that all trades done on the platform are subject to taxation. On Robinhood you cannot purchase mutual funds, bonds or CDs. The only options are very risky assets such as individual stocks, stock options and cryptocurrencies. Stock options are very risky financial derivatives which are reserved for the most experienced investors. But you can begin trading options on Robinhood after answering a few simple questions. Most financial planners would not consider what is taking place on Robinhood a sound investment strategy. It has more in common with gambling than investing. No one would consider the purchase of a lottery ticket, or placing a bet at the horse track as investing. I feel that for the inexperienced investor, Robinhood falls into this category. Robinhood has made it simple for inexperienced, mostly young “investors” to day trade highly speculative financial instruments, often with borrowed money. The large trading volumes on shares of GameStop, AMC, and other stocks promoted on WallStreetBets has really shined a light on the dangers of the platform in the hands of inexperience traders.  Robinhood Falters Under a Barrage of Trading Activity: In recent weeks trading activity on Robinhood has surged, propelled by shares of GameStop and a few other stocks pumped up by posts on WallStreetBets and other online forums. This forced Robinhood to post billions of additional dollars with the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, Wall Street’s central clearing hub. These funds are required to cover customers’ transactions while they wait for trades to settle. Robinhood scrambled to raise the necessary funds from private venture capital firms. On January 28, 2021, in order to preserve cash, Robinhood restricted the buying of shares of GameStop, AMC, and a few other highly volatile stocks. This resulted in an immediate uproar from users who saw this move as a betrayal of Robinhood’s mission. Afterall, nothing restricted the ability of hedge funds and other Wall Street money managers from freely trading in these stocks. Protestors picketed outside of Robinhood’s headquarters in Menlo Park, and calls for investigations were raised in the halls of Congress. Everyone from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Ted Cruz cried foul at what they perceived as restrictions placed on small investors to the benefit of big institutional investors. On January 29, 2021 Robinhood lifted some of its restrictions, but trading was still limited in select stocks, and would be for the following week.  Will Congress go forward with its threats to investigate Robinhood, and will Robinhood regain the trust of its users? Stay tuned. The blog on Robinhood’s website has a running commentary with a detailed explanation of its decisions over the past few weeks, (https://blog.robinhood.com/).  For those of you who believe that Wall Street is rigged to the disadvantage of the small investor, I can’t argue the point. But for those who believe that Robinhood is the great equalizer, I am afraid that you have fallen for a slick and trendy narrative. Robinhood couldn’t exist without Wall Street and it derives a significant portion of its profits by dealing with Wall Street firms. WallStreetBets and other stock tip sites are not just the dominion of tech savvy traders on Robinhood. Hedge funds scour sites like WallStreetBets continuously for new investment ideas to exploit. Sure, there were a few hedge funds that lost billions betting against GameStop. So, who really profited? A few little guys for sure. But the vast majority of small investors on Robinhood and other trading apps lost a lot of money. As the price of GameStop shot up, propelled by furious buying on Robinhood, who do you think they were buying those shares from? Mostly hedge funds who caught on to the game early. One hedge fund, Senvest Management made over $700 million in GameStop shares alone. The original players on WallStreetBets made a killing going against the hedge funds by pumping up the price of GameStop stock. But the little guys who started to pile in during the final weeks of January will not have the same happy outcome.  The price of GameStop was $18.84/share at the start of January, and it peaked at $483/share on January 28, 2021. Then the price dropped precipitously over a handful of trading days, with the value of all outstanding shares of GameStop declining by over $29 billion dollars. The closing stock price today was $60/share.  Final Thoughts: GameStop and easy access to stock trading by novice investors is a cautionary tale. There is no easy path to quick riches on Wall Street, and the risks of high-volume stock trading certainly outweigh the potential gains. I fear that bad experiences by newbies on trading platforms like Robinhood may turn off a generation of young investors who equate sensible investing to flipping stocks. Investing and proper financial management is so much more than trading stocks and options. In one sense, Robinhood and similar trading apps are akin to having a gambling casino in your pocket. I am all for open access to financial markets. But more importantly, I am a strong advocate of comprehensive financial education so that people don’t fall victim to the latest and greatest “investing” tool. There are a lot of great websites dedicated to financial planning, education, and support for building a secure financial future. Robinhood is cheap to use, but it is bare bones, lacks any kind of educational support, and provides only a tiny sliver of what is needed for a comprehensive financial plan. So why use Robinhood when there are many other online investing options, backed up by big banks with decades of experience, all with minimal fees, or none at all? Here is a link to a list of fine online brokerage firms for beginners (as well as experienced investors), which cater to a person’s total financial needs, (https://www.nerdwallet.com/best/investing/online-brokers-for-beginners). Robinhood is a stock trading app, not a place to build long term wealth, other than for its own investors.  If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com. Thanks, Armchair American   Donald Trump is the only president in the history of the United States to have been impeached twice. The House of Representatives, with bipartisan support, impeached President Trump on January 13, 2021 for incitement of insurrection. The impeachment was precipitated by the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot by supporters of Donald Trump. This stain on Donald Trump’s presidential record is now part of U.S. history. Democratic House leadership decided to press the case against Donald Trump even further by forwarding the article of impeachment to the Senate for trial. The move to try Donald Trump in the Senate is not required by the Constitution. The impeachment stands whether or not the case moves to the Senate. Will the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump be a good thing for the country or will it backfire on the Democrats? Let’s take a look.  President Trump is Impeached for a Second Time: On January 13, 2021 the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump on the single article of “Incitement of Insurrection”. The vote was 232 to 197, with 10 Republicans joining all House Democrats in voting for impeachment. The text of the impeachment document (https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/24/text) contains the following reasons for impeachment: “…. the House of Representatives, and the Senate met at the United States Capitol for a Joint Session of Congress to count the votes of the Electoral College. In the months preceding the Joint Session, President Trump repeatedly issued false statements asserting that the Presidential election results were the product of widespread fraud and should not be accepted by the American people or certified by State or Federal officials. Shortly before the Joint Session commenced, President Trump addressed a crowd at the Ellipse in Washington, DC. There, he reiterated the false claims 'we won this election, and we won it by a landslide'. He also willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged-and foreseeably resulted in-lawless action at the Capitol, such as: 'if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore'. Thus incited by President Trump, members of the crowd he had addressed, in an attempt to, among other objectives, interfere with the Joint Session’s solemn constitutional duty to certify the results of the 2020 Presidential election, unlawfully breached and vandalized the Capitol, injured and killed law enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress, the Vice President, and Congressional personnel, and engaged in other violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts”. The impeachment document further states that “President Trump’s conduct on January 6, 2021, followed his prior efforts to subvert and obstruct the certification of the results of the 2020 Presidential election. Those prior efforts included a phone call on January 2, 2021, during which President Trump urged the secretary of state of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, to 'find' enough votes to overturn the Georgia Presidential election results and threatened Secretary Raffensperger if he failed to do so.”  Most of us have viewed the television coverage and read the news reports, and pretty much concur with the reasoning behind the impeachment of Donald Trump. There is evidence that several militia groups had been planning to storm the Capitol even before Donald Trump’s speech of January 6, 2021. But no one can dispute that Donald Trump’s rhetoric about the “stolen election” was the impetus behind the Capitol riot. Even his political allies believe that he committed impeachable offenses. According to the New York Times, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell believes that President Trump committed impeachable offenses. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy stated to House colleagues that President Trump was at least partially responsible for the Capitol riot.  On to the Senate Trial: On January 25, 2021 House managers delivered the article of impeachment to the Senate, officially starting the trial process. Senate leadership agreed to delay the trial for a few weeks in order to give the former president time to prepare for the trial and to give the Senate time to continue the process of confirming President Biden’s cabinet nominees. On January 26, 2021 all Senators were sworn in as jurors for the upcoming trial. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont will be the presiding officer. The impeachment trial will begin on February 9, 2021 with oral arguments. It will take 2/3 of the Senators (67) to vote to convict Donald Trump. Assuming all 50 Democratic Senators vote to convict, it will take 17 Republican Senators to vote for conviction.  Objections to the Senate Trial: New Senate leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) claimed that “…healing and unity will only come if there is truth and accountability. And that is what this trial will provide”. But not all republicans are buying this argument. Many are saying that it will further divide the country, and the point is moot now that Donald Trump is no longer in office. Others, like Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, consider it unconstitutional to impeach a president who is already out of office. Even before the Senators were sworn in as jurors, Senator Paul put forth a motion to declare the impeachment trial unconstitutional. In the resulting vote, 45 Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, agreed with Senator Paul. But Senator Paul’s attempt to rule the impeachment trial unconstitutional failed, and it will proceed as scheduled. My Views on the Senate Impeachment Trial:
 Politics as Usual: In recent days the Republican leadership in the House and Senate have concluded that, for better or worse, they need Donald Trump. In order to regain the House and Senate in the mid-term elections they will need those Republicans who are still loyal to Donald Trump, and there are millions. Senator Lindsey Graham stated bluntly this week, “We cannot take the Senate back without his help (Donald Trump’s). That’s just a fact”. It’s a sorry day in our democracy when the quest for power trump’s (no pun intended) justice, integrity, and democratic values. The Republican party would do the country a huge favor by convicting Donald Trump and then preventing him from ever running for high office again. But instead they have chosen to make a deal with the devil and they will have to live with the consequences. Sadly the country will have a difficult time unifying with Donald Trump’s polarizing presence.
There is no doubt in my mind that Donald Trump threatened the integrity of our democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of government. In short, he committed impeachable offenses and the House of Representatives was correct in impeaching him. This second impeachment will forever be a stain on his legacy. However, I fear that delivering the article of impeachment to the Senate to initiate an impeachment trial will prove to be a mistake. If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.
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AuthorThe Armchair American.
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