John T. Reed’s news blog

Today is the 51st anniversary of my class’s graduation from West Point. General Dwight Eisenhower’s son David graduated from West Point, the following day, in 1944: D-Day. General Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, the commander of D-Day. (He was West Point Class of 1915. He and I exchanged a salute at his 50th reunion at West Point when I was a freshman.) . Like everyone else, I am awed by the scale of the invasion—still the largest ever. I am also awed by the courage of the infantry and the paratroopers. . But I am also reminded...

The media used to be scrupulously neutral in the 1950s and 1960s. Now except for the Wall Street Journal, that seems to be a quaint, anachronism. If you scoffed at the idea that the Journal is neutral, I am guessing you do not read it and are going by some cliche about greedy Wall Street Capitalists. Read it and point out an error or omissions in facts or logic..Integrity is a special interest of mine. The Cadet Honor Code is the main thing that drew me to West Point. It was real there in the mid sixties. Now, to hell...

The Australia election Saturday is yet another voting-booth indicator that the elite, establishment, media and politicians WAY OVERestimate the percentage of the voters who agree with them and WAY UNDERestimate the percentage of voters who like people who, and things that, appall the establishment..The Australia pundits and establishment predicted the Australia left was going to win the 2019 federal elections with the usual program of green energy, stop climate change, tax the rich, increased regulation..They did not..This seems of a piece with:.• Trump’s election in 2016• Brexit also in 2016• Republican retention of the Senate in 2018• various elections in...

Roe v. Wade says abortion is legal because of a woman’s constitutional right of privacy..This post is strictly about the law, not morality or women or any of that..There is no constitutional right of privacy. The right of privacy was invented in 1890, 111 years after the Constitution..‘In the United States, an article in the December 15, 1890 issue of the Harvard Law Review, written by attorney Samuel D. Warren and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis, entitled "The Right to Privacy," is often cited as the first explicit declaration of a U.S. right to privacy. Warren and Brandeis...

Amusing to watch all the Dems calling Trump the biggest loser in America for his alleged tax losses..I am the author of Aggressive Tax Avoidance For Real Estate Investors, now in its 20th edition, over 100,000 sold. Trump was a real estate investor..Prior to the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which makes real estate investors suspend rather than deduct losses, real estate investors would typically have huge tax losses while having positive cash flow. They were mainly from depreciation deductions which are not a cash expense. They were also from interest payments that ARE cash expenditures and deductible but they...