Eric the Blue

Mostly politics, sports, literature, arts reviews

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Nerdy Minnesotan

  • Cato amplifies my warm fuzzies

    Keeps happening, but I still feel startled to see a place I know well, including especially the people who work there, featured in national news spots. Here’s a segment from yesterday’s PBS News Hour on my place of employment, Valley View Elementary in Columbia Heights, Minnesota:

    I’m eager to associate myself with Ms. Fultz and her friends–in Elementary Ed, our classmates and colleagues are “friends,” as in “Line order, please, friends”–over and against those who will think this is essentially a sob story. If, however, you’re wondering about facts relating to the impact immigrants are having on American life, the Cato Institute has done the research. The talking points of the Trumpistas concerning how immigrants are “sucking us dry,” etc., don’t stand up to the scrutiny supplied by “a prominent American libertarian think tank dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.” Some top line findings of the 30-year study:

    • Every year from 1994 to 2023, immigrants paid more in taxes than they received in benefits.
    • Immigrants generated nearly $10.6 trillion more in federal, state, and local taxes than they induced in total government spending.
    • Accounting for savings on interest payments on the national debt, immigrants saved $14.5 trillion in debt over this 30-year period.
    • Immigrants in all categories of educational attainment, including high school dropouts, lowered the ratio of deficit to gross domestic product during the 30-year period.
    • Without the contribution of immigrants, public debt at all levels would already be above 200 percent of gross domestic product–nearly twice the 2023 level and a threshold some analysts believe would trigger a debt crisis.

    The details are similarly arresting. On the topic of crime that one hears so much about, Cato finds:

    Immigrants impose 44 percent lower costs per capita on prisons, felony policing, and courts than the average person. From 1994 to 2023, immigrants were about half as likely to be incarcerated as the US-born population, reducing the burden on courts and policing for serious crimes. This is despite the fact that a significant portion of incarcerated immigrants are incarcerated or detained for immigration offenses that the US-born population cannot commit.

    Is it true that immigrants impose a burden on our educational system? Cato:

    Immigrants cost the US education system 50 percent less per capita than the US population overall. Because of special programs for English-language learners, immigrants in school can be more expensive than other students in school. But because immigrants are much less likely to be in school, they cost the system much less overall. Most immigrants arrive in the US after they have completed their schooling. Moreover, in higher education in most states, illegal immigrants must usually pay full tuition. At the same time, most noncitizens enrolled in institutions of higher education are international students, and each international student at public universities covers the cost of enrolling two other students. As a result, immigrant students impose lower costs per student in higher education.

    And so on. None of the anti-immigrant talking points turn out to be true, according to the research of a leading conservative-friendly think tank. Here are the first few sentences of Cato’s concluding statement:

    Immigrants contribute to the United States’ economy in many ways. Their primary contribution is the goods and services they directly produce. However, they also reduce the burden of government spending for the US-born population. Our analysis in this paper shows that immigrants generated a fiscal surplus of about $14.5 trillion from 1994 to 2023, that the average immigrant is much less costly than the average US-born American, and that immigrants impose lower costs per person on old-age benefit, education, and public safety programs.

    The entire Cato paper, including definitions, methodology, etc., is here.

  • Sen. Chris Murphy on the job

    Since there’s hardly anything more common, at least from atop a bar stool, or key board connected to a social media site, than the opinion that politicians are universally corrupt, ignorant, and ineffective, I’m going to drop in here a clip of a US senator performing his job well. For context, the Trump administration has nominated the witness, Jeremy Carl, for a position in our State Department sufficiently high up to require Senate confirmation. He therefore appeared the other day before a Senate committee on which Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, is a member. Without any theatrics, Murphy asks straightforward questions–you’d think they would have been anticipated, but apparently not–that elicit one feeble response after another. It takes a couple of minutes to show the world that the guy should not have any job outside of a right-wing think tank. His nomination is still pending, but at least one Republican has announced his intention to vote No.

    Can’t help but append a couple of comments. “Food ways,” lol, what is he even talking about?. But my favorite moment might be toward the end when he says, righteously, “I’m a civic nationalist, not a racial nationalist!” Have you ever noticed how all these Big Thinking Bros. have conducted taxonomic labors from which Hercules would shrink? If only the top-line heading above all the categories and subcategories was something other than Dopey Bigot.

    With a lot of witnesses, the best way to make them look bad is to give them a chance to talk. Inject yourself enough to preclude a filibuster and to point out when fair questions haven’t been answered. Well done, Sen. Murphy.

  • Every accusation is a confession

    About a week ago, Trump said that the federal government should “take over”–“federalize”–voting procedures in 15 states. He didn’t say which 15, but probably not South Carolina or Idaho, right? They get the right results. He did name three cities that he thinks are “crooked”: Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit. These are in the “swing” states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. But what really puts a target on them, I think, is that they are majority African American and overwhelmingly Democratic in their political orientation. What, though, is the evidence that they’re cheating for Democrats? It’s not a secret that African Americans prefer the Dems, and not just by a little. Is there any evidence of something shady going on? Partly to try and answer that question, and partly because I just enjoy wallowing in election data, let’s look back at what happened in these three venues over the last several presidential elections–see if anything seems fishy.

    In Fulton County, Georgia, which is where Atlanta is, Trump’s share of the vote has barely budged from election to election. The two times he won the state (2016 and 2024), he got 27 percent of the vote. When he lost in 2020, he got 26 percent. Were all three crooked, or just the one he lost?

    In Philadelphia County, which is coterminous with the city of Philadelphia, Trump averaged 17.5 percent of the vote in his two victories. In 2020, when he lost Pennsylvania, he got 18 percent.

    In Wayne County, Michigan, home to Detroit, Trump’s share of the vote has gone up the three times he’s been on the ballot: 29 percent in 2016, 30 percent in 2020 (when he lost Michigan), and 34 percent in 2024.

    We can look at other numbers, too. It’s just that nothing seems funky. For example, in two of the three venues–Philadelphia and Wayne Counties–Trump has actually done better than Republican standard-bearers of the recent past. In Philadelphia County, Trump has averaged about 18 percent of the vote; Romney, McCain, and W Bush averaged only about 16 percent. In Wayne County, Trump has averaged 31 percent of the vote, while the three previous Republican nominees averaged 27 percent. I guess the “massive election fraud” perpetrated by Democrats has been going on for years! It’s a wonder that they sometimes let Republicans win!

    Georgia, a growing state that has been trending toward the Democrats, presents a different picture. Over the last six presidential elections, the Republican share of the vote in Fulton County, in percentages, farthest back to most recent, has been: 40, 32, 35, 27, 26, 27. This shrinking share of the Republican presidential vote has been somewhat more dramatic in the Atlanta suburbs. For example, the figures for Cobb County, which abuts Fulton on the northwest, look like this: 62, 54, 55, 46, 42, 42. In 20 years, Republicans have gone from winning Cobb County by more than 20 points to losing it by 15. But Trump says Fulton is corrupt because . . . everyone knows the real reason: so many African Americans, of course they’re cheating! Doesn’t matter that there’s no evidence. It’s like the children’s joke about pink elephants hiding in cherry trees. Have you ever seen a pink elephant in a cherry tree? See how well they hide?

    In Michigan, there are cases roughly parallel to what’s happened in the Atlanta suburbs. Trump narrowly won Michigan in 2016, when he lost Wayne County by 37 points. Four years later, he narrowly lost the state, and he again lost Wayne County–this time, by 38 points. He and his band of absurd lapdogs howled about “irregularities,” etc., in Wayne County. But consider, for example, Kent County, in western Michigan, the state’s most populous county outside of the Detroit metro. Trump carried the county by 48 to 45 percent in his 2016 victory. Then, in 2020, he lost Kent County by 52 to 46 percent. Going from a 3-point win to a 6-point loss is a dramatic shift, especially compared to Wayne County–the result in Wayne County doesn’t even qualify as a shift–but for Trump and his supporters “Grand Rapids” doesn’t have the sinister verve of “Detroit.”

    Well, one could go on. Is the voter turnout in these big Democratic counties variable and suspicious, even if the percentage splits are not? No. Are the presidential splits much different than in statewide races for US Senate? No. There was supposedly “massive fraud” that is undetectable in any data. Of course, there is too the fact that many of Trump’s specific claims are laughable. He’s said he would have carried New Hampshire but for the “bus loads” of people invading from Massachusetts to cast illegal ballots. Ridiculous. He’s said he won Minnesota all three times. Also ridiculous. Et cetera.

    I began by confessing that part of my purpose here is just to give myself an excuse to look up stuff that interests me. If you’re skeptical about any of it, you should consider that there are a lot of people who dedicate their professional lives to the study of American electoral politics, and they agree: Trump is full of it. Also, we have a mechanism for handling election challenges and disputes: the courts. Whenever Trump has pursued this avenue of relief, he loses and loses and keeps on losing.

    Yet he keeps running his mouth on the topic. He’s now using his worthless claims as a pretext to “federalize” the upcoming midterms in certain unnamed states. That the Constitution gives states the power to oversee elections is, it seems, a detail to be swept away. It doesn’t require x-ray vision to see what the game is. Trump wants to cheat. The endless flow of accusations–they’re always confessions.

  • I’m beginning to think Kristi Noem might not be entirely trustworthy

    I’m on a blood thinner, because I have a tendency to form blood clots–DVTs (for deep vein thrombosis) in the professional jargon of the white coats, which can be dangerous when hiking around in your circulatory system. The only danger of the blood thinner that scientists have warned me about concerns the increased possibility of a brain bleed if I should fall and strike my head. It’s lucky, then, that I have a dim view of ICE and so did not faint when I heard the news that the officers who shot the Venezuelan migrant in north Minneapolis during “Operation Metro Surge” were lying about the circumstances.

    This was the incident where the ICE guys reported being assaulted by some mean brown-skinned people wielding a snow shovel and a broom. They either had to shoot or get beat senseless with these fearsome weapons, according to them. It sounded more like a mad caper in a Coen Bros movie than a plausible account of something that happened in north Minneapolis. I’m suggesting that the officers shouldn’t have been believed, even if they didn’t work for Kristi Noem, who should never be believed herself on the ground that people who have “had some work done” are inherently untrustworthy. Also, it’s just a fact that she lies like fish swim. If I were one of the lying ICE guys who was about to get prosecuted for lying, I’d wonder why MAGA Barbie is still jetting around the country, lying in geographically diverse venues, and firing her military pilot for losing track of her snuggle blanket. (According to the Wall Street Journal, she had to rescind the firing, as there was no one else immediately available to fly her to her next destination.)

    I just wheeled my cart past all the Valentines bullshit in the grocery store this evening. My sympathies to the marrieds. At least you’re not apt to get shot in the leg without so much as raising a broomstick in a threatening manner.

  • In re the Super Bowl culture war

    Don’t know anything about Bad Bunny, but based on his enemies, I’m beginning to look forward to the halftime show. I remember that the Speaker of the House, when Bad Bunny was first selected, opined that Lee Greenwood would have been a better choice. Maybe Lee wasn’t available, like there was a conflict with a planned activity at the rest home, because I see they secured instead, for their alternate show, Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett. All true Americans, no doubt, as compared to Bad Bunny, who is a US citizen like all the other Puerto Ricans. Since he is said to be unwholesome, and not representative of American values, I read the Wikipedia article on alternate headliner Kid Rock. Some selections:

    Robert James Ritchie (born January 17, 1971), known professionally as Kid Rock, is an American musician, singer, rapper, and songwriter . . . .

    In eighth grade, Ritchie began an on-and-off relationship with classmate Kelley South Russell that lasted for the next decade. In summer 1993 Russell gave birth to their son, Robert James Ritchie Jr. They raised a total of three children together, two of whom Ritchie believed to be his. They split up in late 1993 when Ritchie discovered that only one of the two was his. . . .

    In March 1991 and again in September 1997, Ritchie faced misdemeanor charges stemming from alcohol-related arrests in Michigan.

    Kid Rock wrote and performed the song “Cool, Daddy Cool,” [with] the controversial lyrics “Young ladies, young ladies, I like ’em underage see, Some say that’s statutory, (But I say it’s mandatory.)” In February 2026, in light of Kid Rock being the scheduled headliner of the Turning Point USA halftime show intended to compete with the Super Bowl halftime show, the song’s lyrics received renewed scrutiny. . . .

    In January 2005, Ritchie performed at the inaugural address of reelected George W Bush, sparking criticism from conservative groups, due to singing about “how he sexually exploits every girl and then asks if he can do it with their moms. “

    Also in 2005, Ritchie was charged with assaulting a DJ in a strip club.

    In 2006, California pornographic film company Red Light District attempted to distribute a 1999 sex tape in which Kid Rock and Scott Stapp, lead singer of the band Creed, are seen partying and receiving oral sex from groupies; both Rock and Stapp filed with the California courts to sue the pornographers to stop the tape’s distribution.

    At the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards, Ritchie got into a fight with Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee … and was charged with assault. A month later he was arrested and charged with battery after fighting with a Waffle House customer. He pleaded no contest to one count and was fined $1000. . .

    .In June 2021, Kid Rock attracted further controversy for using the word “faggot” onstage during a tirade. . . . In July 2022 he faced additional accusations of homophobia . . . after he posted a meme on Truth Social and on Twitter stating, “If you’re anti-gun, you don’t get to celebrate the 4th of July. You would have never fought back. Enjoy your pride month. Pussy.”

    On the other hand, Bad Bunny speaks Spanish.

    ADDENDUM

  • Proud parents

    Daughters are with their mom for the weekend, but I got a text from my high school senior that makes me think my work is nearly done.

    I’m not saying other parents shouldn’t feel at least as proud. Just today, one of my fellow dads here in the Peoples Republic of Minneapolis posted the following to social media:

    My goal as a parent was always to raise better men than me.

    I just received a video from one son of my other son juggling dildos outside the Whipple Building.

    There are many things I could have done better but I can’t really argue with the results.

    In the Comments people begged to see the vid, and–in case you’re into a demonstration of dexterity with dildos– he obliged. I guess videographer son was briefly arrested for impoliteness toward a federal goon, so another reason for dad to be proud..

    Also today, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia, in a speech in Atlanta, asked:

    Why are roving gangs of masked men–who look like they couldn’t pass the Army physical exam–dressed up like pretend Delta Force operators, on our streets, demanding papers, dragging people from their cars, shooting them to death?

    I’m afraid I might have missed some of the descriptors he applies to these losers. You can check my work here. The passage I was attempting to transcribe starts at about 15:50, but the whole thing is worth watching. His parents have my permission to be proud, too. He didn’t go to Duke, isn’t a lawyer, and, at 38, is about half the age of the average senator, which is maybe why he appears capable of something more than the occasional “strongly worded letter” that Chuck Schumer brags about having composed.

  • Scandinavian male edges toward an emotion (anger? sorrow?)

    Reading emails addressed to Valley View Staff can be a bit of an emotional roller coaster these days, especially if those muscles have been atrophied by the accumulation of years augmented by Scandinavian heritage. We were informed a few days ago that a judge had ordered the release of our now world famous pre-k student and his dad, and then that the two of them were safely back in Columbia Heights. After those two had been detained and whisked off to the detention center in Texas, but before they were released, the school office got a call, one day last week, from the mother of two of our students, a fifth grader and his second-grade brother. She’d been detained that morning and wanted her boys delivered to her at the Whipple Building–there was no one else to take care of them, she said. This was done. The principal gave the boys the news, then drove them down there with a couple of other staff members. Can’t imagine that car ride, or saying good-bye to the kids before they walked alone through a door: uff da. The next day they were in Texas.

    Now those boys have been released, along with their mother, and are back home as well. The boys cleared up a mystery about another Valley View student with whom the school had lost touch, a fifth grade girl who had not been in school since the first week after winter break. When kids are absent and the school doesn’t hear from a care giver, we try to make contact, to find out what’s going on, but in this case those efforts had failed–because, it turns out, she’d also been detained, with her mom and stepfather, and the released boys reported having seen her in the Texas detention center. That’s how we found out what had happened to her: from two of our other students who had also been detained. Now we learn, in a message from the superintendent, that this girl has also been released, though she is not back in Minnesota: apparently the measles outbreak at the detention center has forced her to quarantine somewhere first.

    I haven’t often seen it directly stated, but these releases, while good news, amount to a tacit admission that the detainments were unjust from the start. In the case of the 5-year-old and his dad, their release was ordered by a judge. I think that’s the only one triggered by a court action. According to school officials, all these detained parents had a legal right to be in our country–an open asylum petition, for instance. The total number of deportation orders in these cases is zero. People are being swept up and, within hours, flown with their young children to a “detention center” more than a thousand miles away, where unknown federal bureaucrats leisurely conclude that “mistakes have been made.”

    Unless it’s not a mistake, and the purpose isn’t to pursue justice and enforce our laws but, rather, to inflict pain and arouse fear.

    UPDATE: This morning comes news that the federal government has requested that the asylum claim of the 5-year-old’s family be expedited, closed, and an order for deportation entered. The family’s lawyer says the request is highly unusual and best understood as a retaliatory measure. Cross us, or be the cause of one of our many embarrassments, and we will make things worse for you. Be very afraid.

  • In the category of, “Maybe there is a God”

    I confess I take a generally dim view of things, which inclines me to think there’s no justice in the world, but, on the other hand, look who’s inhaling even Fartcoin’s exhaust:

  • United States of Dystopia

    Consecutive posts from the FB group, Columbia Heights Public Schools.

    Last night:

    This morning:

    Also, there is a measles outbreak at the detention center in Texas where four more of the district’s schoolchildren are being held.

  • Get jailed, jump bail, join DHS if you fail

    Journalist and author Garrett Graff has been looking into the crime rate among agents and officers of CBP (Customs and Border Protection). Some of his findings, as recently revealed in testimony before an Illinois state commission:

    Criminality is so rampant within CBP that it has seen one of its own agents or officers arrested every 24 to 36 hours since 2005 . . . .

    In total, according to CBP’s own discipline reports, over the 20 years from 2005 to 2024–the last year numbers are available–at least 4,913 CBP officers and Border Patrol agents have been arrested themselves, some multiple times . . . . To put that number in perspective:

    The population of CBP agents and officers who have been arrested would make it roughly the nation’s fourth largest police department–equal to the size of the entire Philadephia police.

    Indeed, for much of the 2010s and likely before and since, it appears the crime rate of CBP agents and officers was higher per capita than the crime rate of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

    People of Minneapolis: “You don’t say?”

    Transcript of Graff’s Fresh Air interview on this subject, here. YouTube video of his testimony before the commission, here.