John T. Reed’s news blog

Copyright John T. Reed Trump says he’s worth $10 billion and that he proved it in his campaign disclosure. I doubt that. Forbes does an annual issue in which they list what they call The Forbes 400—the 400 richest people in the U.S. Forbes and The Donald have a running battle over his net worth. Forbes says it’s about $4 billion. Trump says they’re way low. “Show us the proof,” says Forbes. Donald refuses. The key point appears to be the value of Trump’s name—called “good will” by accountants.  I’ll go with the Forbes estimate, which is still a lot...

Copyright 2015 John T. Reed Like most Americans, I am really proud of the three guys in France who stopped the Moroccan terrorist on the French train. The group was reminiscent of one of those suspiciously diverse World War II movie infantry squads where they had an Italian-American, a German-American, a Jewish-American, an Irish-American, etc. The three Americans were Sadler (black), Skarlatos (Greek I assume), and the main hero, Spencer Stone. Unarmed white and black guys attacking an armed Islamic terrorist—it’s a good thing they didn’t do it in Ferguson The bad guy had an AK, pistol, and knives. The...

If you could call an omniscient being on the phone and ask which of all the 2016 presidential candidates is the actual best, it may be Jeb Bush. I saw one TV program compare the records of the various Republican governors: Bush, Kasich, Christie, Pataki, Huckabee, and Jyndal. Bush was the best, by far, with regard to Republican issues like fiscal responsibility, growth, education reform, taxes. He seems to have two knocks against him: his name and his relatively weak performance in the “debates.” First, the “not another Bush” stuff is childish analysis. You elect the best guy and who...

Rubio’s stock seems to rise with every debate. Not with me. My opinion of him goes down the more I see him. He is totally scripted. He actually has less of a resume than Barack Obama in 2008, if that’s possible.Obama worked for an international business newsletter for one year after college. Then he got some Democrat do-gooder job in NYC for another year. Then he went to Chicago where he claimed to have worked as a “community organizer,” if there really is such a job. Obama also was listed as a law firm employee, but seemed to mainly have...

As a kid, my mom said she was half Irish and half German. My dad said he was Scots-Irish and could be no more specific. A politically-correct reader just said to himself, “It doesn’t matter.” The politically-correct reader can kiss my ass. Susceptibility to inherited disease and other significance It does matter with regard to many illnesses. And it would appear to matter in a zillion ways that I would characterize as deviations from random in all sorts of measures of human performance. Blacks are disproportionately represented in the NBA and sprint and long-distance Olympic medal winners. Europeans and Asians are...