Here are my observations and opinions from my select news of the day.

APOLOGY JOE BIDEN defeated Bernie Sanders in Michigan, Missouri, and Mississippi and Sanders was leading in North Dakota Tuesday evening as I prepared to publish this blog, so it looks as if Biden, gaffe’s and all, is emerging as the Democrat nominee.

HOWEVER, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll reveals that just 48 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters have expressed enthusiasm about Joe Biden as the nominee.

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH, BYRON YORK, of the Washington Examiner, has written a piece, “Three reasons Joe Biden will never be president.”  In my brief takeaway from his piece, I noted first, that no one who served 36 years in the Senate has ever become president, the same goes for 30, 25, 20 and 15 years as a senator.

Fourteen vice presidents have become president, according to York.  Of those, eight became president upon the death of the president.  Of that group, some were later elected to the White House, but they were running for office as the sitting president.

Only one president has gone from the vice presidency to private life and then to the presidency.  Richard Nixon served as vice president in the 1950s, narrowly lost the presidency in 1960, and came back to win in 1968.  That’s Biden’s only hope.

Finally, however, York says Biden will not be president because of the 14-year rule – “No one gets elected president who needs longer than 14 years to get from his first gubernatorial or Senate victory to either the presidency or the vice presidency.”  This has been true for a century.

THE STOCK MARKET PLUNGE – Watching the decline of the stock market since the uncertainty of the Coronavirus and most recently the concern over oil, it’s understandable that some people are freaking out over their investments, but as Mrs. Kramer likes to remind me, we haven’t lost anything, because we haven’t sold anything.

“The markets obviously will rebound, and soon,” writes John Hinderaker in PowerLine, “Maybe tomorrow represents a buying opportunity.  Maybe not until next week, or next month.”

Hinderaker doesn’t believe that the virus threatens the U.S. economy in a way that justifies a prolonged slump in the market.  There will be temporary disruptions in supply chains, and losses to airlines and cruise companies, but “they will all be temporary, and in all likelihood short-lived.”

“The virus has demonstrated that President Trump was right all along; outsourcing a huge percentage of our manufacturing capacity to China was dumb,” says Hinderaker. “It was especially dumb with regard to pharmaceuticals.”

The trend toward bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. was already underway, but will now accelerate as result of the virus, according to Hinderaker.

THE FISA REFORM – By now, most Americans are aware of the abuse of the FISA warrant process during the Mueller investigation and the finding of those abuses by DOJ IG Michael Horowitz.  On March 6, 2020, I wrote of Judge James Boasberg banning DOJ and FBI personnel who were involved from initiating future FISA warrants.

Investigative reporter John Soloman recently made the news with Judge Boasberg’s 21 words” “There is little doubt that the government breached its duty of candor to the Court with respect to those applications.”

While the deadline for making necessary reforms is March 15, 2020, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, a watchdog over such matters in Washington, believes there can be no reform when those who abused the system are not held accountable.  Horowitz revealed the bad actors.  Now it’s up to U. S. Attorney John Durham to see that they are prosecuted.

TWO INTERESTING RACES – In Montana, the Democrat Gov. Steve Bullock, who dropped out of the race to be his party’s nomination for president because he couldn’t gain traction, will challenge Republican incumbent Sen. Steve Daines.

How can Democrat voters, who never bought into his argument that winning the governorship in a red state carried by Donald Trump was sufficient evidence that he would be the Dems best presidential nominee, think he can beat Daines; especially since Bullock was only able to raise just $4 million after four months of campaigning.  Beto O’Rourke raised that much on his first day as a candidate.

Bullock supported the impeachment of President Trump and failed to support his illegal immigration proposals, and is not a supporter of the 2^nd Amendment.

An unusual race is developing in Georgia, where the popular Republican Rep. Doug Collins will face off with Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a primary challenge. You may recall that Collins was upset when Gov. Brian Kemp passed him over when he selected Loeffler to serve the remainder of the ill former Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term.

Adding to the interest in this race, former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley has endorsed Loeffler, who has supported President Trump and told Congress to get back to work as she voted to end the impeachment.

Loeffler has the support of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is obviously interested in the vote of suburban women in Georgia, where Trump beat Clinton by 5.1 points in 2016.

SOMETHING TO PONDER – While President Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom have often exchanged insults by Twitter over the past few years, the president and Vice President Pence have repeatedly complimented the governor’s cooperation as the virus task force works closely with Newsom.  The governor, too, has spoken highly of the Trump administration’s effort in California.

FORMER UAW PRESIDENT Gary Jones has given Union members another reason to think twice when the next union representation vote comes around.  Jones, was president from June 2018 through October 2019, is the latest of 14 people charged in a corruption scandal involving the auto union.

Jones and 13 others have been charged with allegations of bribes, dodged taxes, and embezzling union funds as part of a racketeering activity. The majority of them UAW leaders, have pled guilty and are now serving or awaiting prison sentences.

Jones was charged with embezzling more than $1 million in union funds and properties to by luxury condos in California, lavish dinners with premium liquors, five sets of custom-made golf clubs, horseback riding on a beach, and other non-union expenses, including $60,000 worth of cigars and spa dates totaling more than $8,000, all backed up with “fake vouchers” and “false receipts.”

Rory Gamble, the current UAW president, has vowed to “ensure our union is free from the type of corrosive corruption we have witnessed from those who betrayed our trust.”

The Justice Department has been investigating UAW directors and Fiat Chrysler executives in a decades-long scheme to corrupt the bargaining process between the automaker and the union.

                   May God continue to bless the United States of America.