Category: Commentary

By Daniel Nardini

It’s official; U.S. President Joe Biden has opened an inquiry as to the origin of the Wuhan virus. This includes whether it came from a leak at a laboratory. As you can imagine, the Chinese government is furious about this, but there is no way they can stop the inquiry. Regardless of where the virus came from, these facts are indisputable. The virus came originally from Wuhan, China. The Chinese government knew fully well that this virus could be spread by human to human transmission. To keep the whole thing secret, the Chinese government deliberately allowed people affected with the virus to go outside the borders of China who then spread the Wuhan virus throughout the world, affecting local populations. The result for the United States alone has been hundreds of thousands of people dead, a wrecked economy that is now only recovering, and countless people who are still suffering the consequences of the virus. This does not even include the number of people who are still unemployed, the number of people who are suffering psychological trauma because of the pandemic, and the spike in crime due to the pandemic (which was a major factor in the riots throughout many American cities last summer).

With all of the grief that the Chinese government has caused, I have to ask the question why the U.S. government does not seek reparations from China? It seems that even at this late stage, the U.S. government is still trying to play “nice, nice” with the Chinese government. The tariffs alone is not punishment enough against the Communist Party of China. Sanctions against the Chinese government officials and its military is not enough. An official investigation is a waste of time. Now is the time for punishment. We must make the Chinese government pay for its crime against humanity, and for what it has done to this country and its people. It is an enemy like no other. The two main problems are that there are companies which still want to do business with the Communist Party of China. In my view, they are traitors to the United States and humanity. Apparently the pandemic started by the Chinese government, the genocide of the Uighurs, and the slavery of the Tibetans and the Inner Mongolians is not enough to dissuade some companies from wanting to do business in China. Even too many politicians in the U.S. government do not want to “anger China.” I have NO dignified comments for them.

Make no mistake, we are in a conflict with the People’s Republic of China. The three things we should be doing with this rogue regime is cutting off as much trade with it as possible. Second, we should be militarily containing them and officially recognizing Taiwan as a country. Finally, it is time we give a bill of reparations to the Chinese government for all the damage it has done. This is how we should treat a rogue regime, and stop it before it does worse to the world.

By Daniel Nardini

In a strange move, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that due to the new media being “dominated by white men,” she will no longer give one-on-one interviews to white reporters. This is a problem on so many levels. First, it violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Second, a newspaper or magazine company operates on the basis that they will send their top-notch reporter regardless of their skin color, sex, ethnic group or religion. As one reporter, Gregory Pratt, said so eloquently, “politicians don’t get to choose who covers them.” Finally, I bristle at any politician stating that the news media in Chicago is not diverse.

To give one tiny example, the top-notch reporter for Lawndale News is Ashmar Mandou, a Latina. When I started working for Lawndale News a quarter of a century ago, the Chicago news media was actually diversifying then. I saw African American reporters, I saw Latino and Latina reporters, I saw Asian American reporters, and even some Native American reporters. To say that the Chicago news media was and is dominated by white males is an insult to how so many news organizations have changed their policies over the years and have been trying to attract people of color. It seems that the current mayor has forgotten that local news media companies have been trying to hire talented people not only regardless of their skin color, but also to find the very best people of color as well.

From my experience, local news media companies made the conscious decisions some time ago to be inclusive of the people who live in the local communities they serve. They have hired such talented people because such people know the communities they live in. But local newspaper, TV and magazine companies are not stupid—they hire as diverse a range of people as they can but they also hire the best talent they can find. What I am finding extremely disturbing are the growing attacks by the politicians against the news media these days. Lori Lightfoot is endemic of this attack against the news media. Former U.S. President Donald Trump joked about putting reporters in prison for doing their jobs, and while the Democrats are more nuanced in how they attack us, they still try to steer the narrative for their political agenda. An attack on one reporter is an attack on all of us. This is something Communist dictatorships do, and I have seen this firsthand.

By Daniel Nardini

As the number of people who have been completely vaccinated against the corona virus increases, it is hoped that the current laws for people being required for wearing masks and social distancing will come to an end. Already the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and U.S. President Joe Biden himself has said that those who have been completely vaccinated “can go back to normal life without wearing a mask or social distancing.” Nevertheless, in a twist of irony, the president is telling even those who are fully vaccinated to “comply with local mandates and regulations.” Why? If all those who are fully vaccinated cannot get the corona virus and cannot transmit it, then they are no longer a threat and should therefore be exempt from ALL regulations of wearing a mask and social distancing. Why should local mandates and regulations still be enforced for those who cannot get the virus and transmit the virus?

Already there are a growing number of businesses which allow fully vaccinated customers into their stores to go completely about their affairs without masks or social distancing. Because fully vaccinated people are now immune to the virus, they should be safe around others who are not vaccinated and of no threat to the general populace. Yet there are businesses that will not change their policies despite the information coming from the CDC. Why? When the mandates and regulations were made in 2020, there were no vaccines and no means other than masks and social distancing to prevent the virus from spreading, and even then this did not fully guarantee the virus from spreading.

Now that we have the vaccines, and there is an overarching campaign to get as many people vaccinated as possible, the mandates and regulations should all be falling as we come out of this pandemic. Apparently, there are those who seem to stick to “caution” as a policy. The problem with the CDC policy now is that people who are fully vaccinated are being told to obey federal, state and local regulations where social distancing and mask requirements are still enforced. This means that there is a hodgepodge of laws, regulations and requirements that are contradictory, confusing and could penalize fully vaccinated people even though they are no longer a threat to the general health of anyone and everyone. Clearly, the Democrats (and they are basically in charge of the government), are giving two thoroughly contradictory messages; those who are fully vaccinated can go back to normal life that was the case in 2019, and yet we will still keep laws, regulations and requirements that contravene this message.

For those who have gone to all the trouble of getting the vaccine, why should there still be restrictions on them? Why should we still have all these laws and mandates from 2020 that for those who are fully vaccinated apply to them? Wasn’t the whole point of these laws and regulations to protect the health and safety of the general population from the virus when there was no vaccine? Now that we have people who are fully vaccinated from the virus, shouldn’t these laws and regulations be changed? It seems that the politicians are too mired in their fear, paranoia and power trips to allow for the science to show that as more of the population becomes vaccinated, the laws and regulations should change accordingly. First the politicians tell us that once we are vaccinated, we can get back to “normal” living. Then they move the goal posts. So, my question to the politicians, regardless of their political party, is when can we really get back to normal?

By Daniel Nardini

U.S. President Joe Biden is the first American president to formally recognize the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Turkish Empire over 100 years ago. No one is alive to give a first person account of what happened, but there are now more than thousands of first person accounts recorded that tell of the terrible atrocities committed by the Ottoman armed forces against old men, women and children from the years 1915-1918. We also have Ottoman official records that point to deliberate policies of exterminating the Armenians as well as the Greek minority in the Ottoman Empire. It is one thing for researching and putting the history straight about the genocide against the Armenians, but another thing for governments to recognize this crime against humanity.

The first government to officially recognize the Armenian genocide was Uruguay in 1965. Since then many more governments have recognized the genocide against the Armenians except notably the United States. This was true in large part because of America’s alliance with Turkey for decades. However, the Turkish government has been turning rogue under the dictatorship of Princip Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan has been actually helping some of America’s enemies such as Venezuela and Iran (and now recently China and Russia. Ironically, Russia has also recognized the Armenian genocide). The Turkish Republic, which sees itself as a successor of the former Ottoman Empire, has been hiding the fact of the genocide from the Turkish people for decades. The Turkish government has claimed, against all the evidence, that there was no plan to exterminate the Armenians but that the whole Armenian population decimated during the First World War.

Strangely enough, Turkish TV has been turning out TV shows, movies and youtube videos of the “heroic” Ottomans battling the West (Europe) and how the Ottoman Empire was a victim of Western imperialism. This is not accurate since the Ottoman Empire sided with one western power, Germany and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, against other western powers such as Great Britain, France and Italy during World War I. It also does not explain why the Ottoman Empire came to their “final solution” to the Armenian question by trying to wipe them out. Unfortunately, the Turkish government has not faced its past as well as Germany, nor the fact that many Turkish people and officials risked their lives to save Armenians even though they knew their own government would have killed them (just as equally important, the Arabs also tried to save what Armenians they could even though like the Turks they are Muslim). More than that, those Turks who had helped the Armenians have been seen as being “traitors to Turkishness;” the belief that the Ottoman Empire did no wrong. It is time that the Turkish government comes to terms with what their predecessor state did to a people whose only crime was being Armenian.

By Daniel Nardini

I have a lot of questions about what vaccine passports truly mean. In a short overview, vaccine passports will mean that an individual has been fully vaccinated against the corona virus and can hence go anywhere. They can travel abroad, they can go to any other part of the contiguous United States by airplane, and they do not have to work from home. Sounds ideal, right? Well, not exactly. The next question that comes to my mind is how far will such vaccine passports have to be used? They might be required to travel outside the United States, but will they be absolutely required to travel within the United States from one state to the next other than by airplane?

Will owners of restaurants, grocery stores, private residences, and workplaces require them every time a person wants to enter? What about people who either do not have the corona virus vaccinations yet, or refuse to take the vaccine do? Are they to be left out? Do they have any rights and protections from arbitrary “show me your papers” requirements from owners in the private sector? So far, U.S. President Joe Biden is not yet mandating vaccine passports for certain public places such as government buildings, and national parks. Could this change?

Some Democrats liken vaccine passports to yellow fever vaccination cards for those travelers going to a yellow fever infected areas. This is a poor example. Yellow fever vaccination cards are only needed for certain areas of the world and not everywhere. For example, if I am traveling between the United States and Canada, which are normally not areas affected by yellow fever outbreaks, then I definitely do not need a yellow fever vaccination card. Another thing is that a yellow vaccination card is only needed for a certain period of time—maybe six months to a year. Third, yellow fever vaccination cards do not carry anymore information other than that individual having been vaccinated against yellow fever. Finally, yellow fever vaccination cards are not needed after an American returns to the United States (only to get into the country, but not beyond). So far, there is no time limit for corona virus vaccine passports, no limit where they must be used, and no exact parameters what should be inside this passport.

A lot of this could easily violate the U.S. Constitution since freedom of movement is part of the fabric of American society. If certain people with vaccine passports can go places and those who do not cannot, then what about those who are being shut out of society? Also, these passports could have personal health information on them that individuals may not want to share in public. What about a person’s private health care concerns? Do they want to share such information in public? At this moment, as more people are getting the corona virus vaccinations, there are people who are hesitant to get the vaccination over the fear their private health data could become public knowledge. A mandatory vaccine passport might be a step into the wrong direction. I hope this type of thing does not become reality.

By Daniel Nardini

A small furniture maker named Hong Jinshi in Dahua, Fujian province in China, has come up with a truly strange sale pitch; making buddha-like statues of former U.S. President Donald Trump meditating. Mr. Hong felt that because Trump has been a successful business man with a lot on his mind, it would be “good” for him to “meditate.” For the life of me, a man whose presidency was full of crazy stuff happening, and who incited an insurrection against another branch of the U.S. government (the U.S. Congress), could not be more of a polar opposite of what the Buddha was.

The great philosopher the Buddha truly had a great and noble conscience for all life. Trump could not be more of a narcissist who let seven people die (two police officers later by suicide) at the Capital Building insurrection on January 6th. Trump tried to overturn a democratic election for the sole purpose of becoming dictator. Whether Trump will ever be sent to prison for this we will probably not know. So far, over 400 people have been arrested and almost all will most likely be doing hard time for this capital offense. The January 6th Insurrection now joins Pearl Harbor and the September 11th terror attacks in infamy.

Strangely enough, Mr.Hong has received a lot of orders for the statues both in China and abroad. He has so far sold 200 of these statues, and would have sold more if not for knock-offs made by others who seemed to have had the same idea. Personally, a buddha-like Trump statue is not high up on my list of things to buy. Far from it. I have to ask myself the question if there are so many Americans who want whatever images of Trump that they will buy them no matter how bizarre they are?

By Daniel Nardini

There is a growing movement in the District of Columbia for Washington, D.C. to become the 51st state. Actually there has been an effort to make the District of Columbia a state for a couple of decades. Why? The biggest reason is that even though residents in the district pay taxes, they are not represented in the U.S. Congress. Another reason is because every time any part of the District of Columbia government tries to do anything it must seek final approval from the federal government. This was one of the reasons why the January 6th Insurrection was able to go unchecked for hours because the mayor of the District of Columbia had to ask the President, or anyone in authority in the federal government for sending in the National Guard. If the mayor was a governor of a state, then that person would have had the authority to immediately send in the National Guard.

Another reason why so many residents want the District of Columbia to become a state is because a disproportionate number of residents are African Americans (46 percent). The fact that all these people are not represented in the U.S. Congress just a few miles away from their homes is in my view a serious injustice. So with all of these things taken into consideration, why didn’t the U.S. Congress make the District of Columbia a state a long time ago? I cannot answer about past reasons why this did not happen. However, in this case, it seems only the Republicans in the Congress are against this because the chances are the newly created Douglas Commonwealth (which the residents want to call the District of Columbia after the famous American abolitionist Frederick Douglas) would most likely be politically Democrat. For this reason more than any the Republicans are completely against making the District of Columbia a state.

But the District of Columbia, in my opinion, should become a state. Its people are not represented, and it does not matter whether they lean Democrat, whether they are Black or white or Asian, they are not represented at all. The Republicans are simply gas-lighting because they do not want another Democrat-leaning state by saying that the U.S. Constitution will not allow for this. It is all too clear the Republicans do not care about the residents of the District of Columbia; the Republicans only want to either retain power or win the next elections to seize more power. But then, the Republicans by and large seem to have put party over country.

By Daniel Nardini

Since last month, there has been a surge in the number of families and unaccompanied children at the U.S.-Mexico border. This surge has increased the number of those from Central America by 60 percent, and is now posing a problem for U.S. President Joe Biden. Biden issued an executive order canceling former U.S. President Donald Trump’s order to make all unaccompanied children and teens from Central America stay in Mexico until their immigration status can be adjusted. Biden’s executive order will now allow unaccompanied children and teens to stay in the United State until their immigration claims can be processed. Otherwise, all other refugee groups from Central America still have to stay in Mexico for their immigration status to be adjusted.

Many Republicans are saying that Biden is being “too soft” on the refugees. However, what should be pointed out is that the surge of people trying to escape from Central America actually started in April, 2020, and has not stopped. The reasons for these people trying to get into the United States has not changed—gang violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, extreme poverty, almost non-existent government and police, and poor to almost non-existent health care. The odds of dying young in these Central American countries from all causes is fairly high. The option left for many of these refugees is head to the United States to seek stability and a better way of life.

Besides, many of these refugees already have families in the United States, and these refugees simply want to join them. We have to keep in mind that these people walked all the way from their countries of origin to the U.S.-Mexico border. This is a journey of 2,000 miles, and it is a pretty dangerous one. If a person is traveling on foot, the journey can take 38 days if they are lucky. They can and do encounter dangerous terrain, bandits, and more often than not have had no food for days. Even with whatever help religious charities provide for these people along the way, it does not make their journey any safer. And all of this goes on the premise they will reach the United States, or will even be allowed to stay. The sufferings these children and teens have to go through can never be calculated. President Biden has said that the United States can handle the situation on the border. But the United States should help the countries in Central America address the problems within Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala which are what is driving all these people to leave. The previous U.S. administration did not do this, and perhaps it is this policy that should be given a new look at.

By Daniel Nardini

By an executive order, U.S. President Joe Biden has said that Venezuelans who had fled their country can stay in the United States on a temporary basis. It is a kind of refugee status that certain groups of people can be granted solely by executive order. This executive order is both good and necessary. There were an estimated 145,000 Venezuelans who were in danger of being deported back to their country. The odds were those deported would have been imprisoned, and maybe even executed. But even if these things did not happen, they would be back in a country where there are food shortages, having the single worst rate of inflation in the world which has made the local currency worthless, and where crime and police repression are an everyday reality.

This will mean that families will not be split apart, that they will not be sent back to a brutal socialist dictatorship, and that those Venezuelans who had fled with their lives will not have to live in fear in the United States. With Venezuelans now able to stay in the United States, they have a safe haven for speaking out against the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. While they may not be able to change the government, through networking those Venezuelans in the United States would be able to provide information to their families and friends about how good things are in the United States. At the same time, their families and friends in Venezuela would be able to provide the realities of life in that country so those Venezuelans in America will be able to publicize this information to the world. If a dictatorship cannot be taken down all at once, then maybe there are ways to gradually chip away at its power. This is what the Venezuelans in the United States want to do, and are trying to do. But first, they had to be given legal protection so they could stay, and thankfully this has happened.

By Daniel Nardini

While a lot of the U.S. news media are talking about the tens of thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) who are fleeing the Republican Party, a growing number of people are also quietly fleeing the Democratic Party. One would ask why people would be leaving the Democratic Party? The Democratic Party has captured the U.S. Congress, the presidency, and over half of the states. If anything, the Democratic Party looks stronger than ever, and the views of the Democratic Party seems to have become the norm in everyday life. But this thin veneer hides an important truth. A number of people are leaving the party because they believe it has gone too far to the political left.

Interestingly enough, many of those who are leaving the Democratic Party are racial and ethnic minorities. Why is this so? It has to do with the mass protests and riots that occurred during the summer of 2020. In so many ways, the Democratic Party had quietly adopted the core ideas of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as some of the ideas of the Democratic Socialists of America. The problem with a lot of the ideas from these leftist movements is that contrary to “popular opinion,” many African Americans and Latinos DO want more police in their communities, do want better chances for setting up small businesses so they can feed themselves and their families, and they definitely want to live in safer neighborhoods and have jobs rather than unemployment compensation or welfare checks.

The only reason we are not seeing anywhere near as many people fleeing the Democratic Party is because of the policies and extremist right wing ideas coming out of the Republican Party. Otherwise, we would see far more African Americans and Latinos joining their ranks. More often than not, we are now seeing so many former Democrats and former Republicans becoming independent, non-affiliated party individuals. They will either vote for either the Democratic Party’s policies if it suits them, or they will vote for issues supported by the Republican Party. It is also true they will vote for ideas and policies put out there by third parties such as the Libertarian Party or the Green Party. Increasingly, many Americans are abandoning both parties because the two ruling parties have policies and ideas that a growing number of Americans find as extreme. In the end, many Americans are either becoming non-affiliated independents or they are joining third parties such as the Libertarian or Green parties. In the not-so-distant future, this category will be a formidable bloc of people that cannot be ignored by any political party.