Fix The Health Care System? Deregulate.

                                                                       

Those politicians who aren't blowing smoke up your rectum will freely admit that Medicare officially goes bankrupt this year.  This year marks the turning point where Medicare costs exceed the revenue that Medicare taxes bring in.

And, we all know, just from looking at those health care premium increases that Obamacare is clearly not working.  That 25% reduction in premiums that Obama promised has evolved into an average 25% increase!  Clearly, anything the government seeks to manage always ends in failure. 

So how do we fix this nation's healthcare system?  The answer is to deregulate.  One only need look at how the deregulation of airline fares brought about a dramatic reduction in airline fares to see how getting the government's fingers out of our business always resolves the problem.

Ironically, it was "Jimmah Carter" who deregulated the airlines back in 1978.  Seems that, as the government stopped setting the fare schedules, our nation's airlines were forced to compete in a free market.  Look at the chart below to see what kind of profound effect that had on ticket prices:

                                                         

While I readily admit that Republicans came late to the table to fix our health care woes, it is they who offer the best solution to health care costs.  1)  Allow health care companies to market across state lines 2) Put an immediate halt to all those ambulance chasers who sue and drive up the costs of health care for everybody...cap the amount of damages one can receive for malpractice.  3)  Issue tax credits to the impoverished and allow them to buy their own health care policies...in a free and open market...with real competition.

We now spend more than double what the other leading industrial nations spend on their health care programs...and it's simply not working.  Note that even Obamacare relieves only 8 million Americans from their health care woes, forces no one to assume responsibility for their own state of health, and simply places the cost burden onto working Americans paying their own health care as well as 8 million free loaders and another 30 million on Medicaid, millions of whom are gaming the system...and without a single government audit to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.

We all know that if Hillary gets elected it will get even worse...she wants to expand Obamacare so that we can medicate those 30 million illegals currently in our midst.

Instead we need to elect a President who's smart enough to realize we need far less regulation..and far more deregulation.  Get the government out of the way and we'll all be better off.

Smart TV's and Blowup Dolls

                                                                 

An Indiana man is suing TV manufacturer Vizio for recording his viewing habits on their Smart TV's, then marketing that information to data brokers who, in turn, sell the info to businesses who can then better target their ads to the "injured viewer".  

I feel a bit sorry for the guy, but, hey, all I can say is "get use to it!".  Just look at the right side of your Facebook page.  They do it too.  Google anything on the internet and an hour later it will be showing up on the right side of your FB page.  At this moment Walmart is pimping an egg cooker and a lonely hearts group is showing a rather buxom senior lady looking longingly at me, and urging me to sign up for a little "slap and tickle".

I have a Smart TV but I'm not much worried that LG may be selling my viewing habits to someone.  I mean, really, what marketer is going to be interested in me?  I watch a lot of Andy Griffith re-runs...will they be trying to sell me a Barney Fife pocket bullet?  An Aunt Bee apron?  Will Helen Crump look-a-likes be popping up from a dating site?  (Personally I thought Thelma Lou was far hotter!)  

I also watch Strange Inheritance over on Fox Business Channel.  But any attempt to sell me antiques would be a total waste...I only watch Strange Inheritance is hosted by Jamie Colby and I am in awe of her 40 DD's and her ability to squeeze a size 8 into a size 4!

And I watch the History Channel and C-Span's Book TV...but I already buy books so marketing books to me wouldn't bother me a whit.

Now if Smart TV ever develops the capability to record me, walking around stark naked at midnight, or busts me on late night refrigerator raids, it'll have to go.  For now, I'm okay with them targeting me for 40DD bra ads, or Jaime Colby blow up dolls.  ;)

"American Desertion"

                                                                           

A few years ago we passed a law here in Arizona that allows anyone to turn over a child to a local or state agency, no questions asked, no penalty imposed.  The law was primarily meant to save new born babies from the dumpster, or garbage heap, when the mother has decided she doesn't want them.

Despite the law, just two weeks ago a newborn baby, just ten hours old, was found in a crate in the front yard of someone's home over in Mesa, Arizona.  Guess handing the child over to a policeman or a fireman would just be too embarrassing.  So they dumped the baby on the curb.

Abandoning babies is just the latest refinement of a trend Americans have been practicing since the 60's....desertion...and on a wide scale.

It was the 60's when women were freed from traditional sexual mores by "the pill" and a growing spirit of "free love".  Then the 70's came along and The Supremes ruled that it's okay to kill embryos and the desertion game was on.....abortion clinics could now handle the consequences of unprotected sex and 45 seconds of orgasmic pelvic spasms.  

After we mastered the art of deserting babies, we learned to desert our military commitment.  When the Vietnam War erupted thousands of Americans deserted to Canada, or were protected by the their rich daddies by hanging out at Harvard or Yale or Southern Cal for six years.  By the time Vietnam was over those same Americans, scared to death that they might get roped into a future war, scared up enough support to to begin the "all-volunteer" military and deserted the draft.  No more of that "citizen soldier" stuff that pop and grandpa participated in.  Military service was just so passé for the new generation of Americans.  Just hire a small military "mercenary force", pay them a little more than you did with a draft, and let them go out and clean up the world's dirty little messes.  And if they come home without arms or legs, or suffering from mental disorders, throw them into a VA system and desert them with bureaucratic ease.

Then, once we really got into "desertion mode" we began deserting grandma and grandpa.  For three centuries the American extended family involved having grandma and grandpa live at home, honoring the tradition of "matriarch" and "patriarch"...but that too became too old fashioned...so we shuttled the old folks out to the old folks home, no longer forced to listen to their old fashioned drivel.

Well, once grandpa and grandma were gone, there seemed little need to worry anymore about the "nuclear family".  Pretty soon the kids began to feel that they didn't need to listen to Mom and Pop...essentially telling them to just write the checks and shut the fuck up!

And since Mom and Pop began to feel a bit shabbily treated, they began deserting their kids in droves.  A whole generation of latch key kids bloomed,  PTA meeting halls became "ghost towns" and kids were surrendered to a "it takes a village" teacher's union enthusiastic to give em a good brainwashing and a solid liberal philosophy.

Yep, Americans have become extremely adept at desertion.  We've deserted our societal mores, our military duties, our responsibility to vote, even our commitment to protect our young.    We've deserted our elders and our kids and any sense of responsibility to our families, community, or country.  

Those founding fathers who fought for our Independence were such suckers.  And eight or ten generations of "citizen-soldiers" were just saps.  America is now peopled by folks too damn smart to fall for all that patriotism crap, or moral crap...they are just too cool for that stuff.  And aren't we so much better off for all those desertions!

"Everyone Loves America...Except Americans"

                                                                   

The year is 1800. On a small farm in the Steppes region of China, just south of lower Mongolia, a Chinese peasant has a translated copy of the Declaration of Independence tacked to the wall of his hut. The peasant can only dream that a government would grant its citizens one's natural rights and place them above all others.

1875. An anthropology team from Europe climbs high into the Carpathian Mountains. There they find a tribe of people so remote that they still fashion tools by slamming two rocks together. As the tribesmen are interviewed, and asked who in the wild world they'd most like to meet, almost universally proclaim "Abraham Lincoln".

June, 1944. An American pilot, flying bombing raids over Haiphong Harbor, is shot down over Vietnam by occupying Japanese forces. Before the Japanese can find his downed aircraft, a small band of Vietnamese guerrilla fighters locate the crash site, rescue the American pilot and spirit him off to some nearby caves. When the pilot's broken leg and broken arm is set and bound, and after his wounds are tended to, the pilot awakens from a fever to find none other than Ho Chi Minh standing over him. When the pilot asks why he was rescued Ho Chi Minh says "because we admire Americans." "Just as you Americans threw off the yoke of an oppressive government, just as you fought for your own independence, we Vietnamese strive to free us from the yoke of French colonialism and Japanese aggression". 'We aspire to our independence as deeply as your country once sought your own". (And for the rest of the war the "Viet Minh" would rescue many downed American pilots, care for them medically, and whisk them back across the Chinese border, to safety. And when the war was over America would repay those "freedom fighters" by siding with their French masters.)

April, 1995. An American journalist, traveling in Vietnam, visits a peasants hut fifty miles outside Saigon. Inside the hut the peasant has pictures of Ho Chi Minh on the wall. Surrounding Ho's pictures are dozens of American Ben Franklin's sayings, written in English, all over the walls. "A stitch in time saves nine", "those who surrender freedom for security will most assuredly have neither", "early to bed, early to rise makes a man wealthy and wise". When asked why he has all those American sayings on his wall the peasant says "I want my children to learn the American way; to work hard so they can take care of me when I'm old".

June, 2010. 100,000 Mexicans march in downtown Los Angeles, Another 50,000 takes to the streets of Phoenix. They carry Mexican flags and shout out the glory of Mexico..even as they stomp on the Stars and Stripes, and brand Americans "racist" for being opposed to open borders. And, as much as they hate America, they enjoy the overly generous American welfare and child care benefits...and demand the right to continue to enjoy them evan as they profess their hate for those who pay or them.

June 2015. A Back To Africa Movement is born in the American ghettos. After Ferguson, and after Baltimore, the movement purports to raise funds that would allow African Americans to return to Africa...to free themselves from American persecution. Never mind that millions of Africans would gladly trade places with them, these African Americans are fed up with free health care, welfare checks and preferential quotas for college and for employment. They've had enough of America and want to leave her.

March, 2016. Thousands attend a Bernie Sanders rally. Each time Bernie Sanders declares the evil of American capitalists, the crowd cheers. Each time Bernie Sanders promises to double Social Security pensions, the crowd roars. Each time Bernie promises free college for everyone the people erupt with orgasmic delight, and each time Sanders laundry lists all of America's evils, his followers deface and burn American flags and thrust their fists in the air and repeat his hateful mantras.

Every one of the above citations are absolutely true..taken directly from the annals of history.

It seems that everyone loves America...dreams the American dream...except Americans themselves.

"Lying, Batshit Crazy Dimocrats"

                                                                       

In the last seven years I've heard your mainstream liberal media pundits deplore the Republican Party's unwillingness to work in a bi-partisan way with the Democrats.  I've heard it a thousand times,  all from the dimwits who have no memory of history.

There's a good reason why there is so much discord in Washington; Democrats today bear no resemblance to the Democrats of the Reagan era.    Democrats today are batshit crazy and they perpetuate their political craziness with a mantra of lies that can only be believed if you've been brainwashed in liberalism by this nation's education system....or through the bribery of handing out federal benefits.

For example, today the Democrats remain in power by telling their followers that they are all victims of a capitalist system that exploits them.  How many economic failures must we see before realizing what a crap load that is!  Can anyone be happy with Obama's 2% GDP growth rate...driven ever lower by an ever increasing socialist regime that punishes business and rewards slackers?  Can anyone be happy by the caravan of companies leaving the U.S. for countries with lower corporate tax rates and fewer regulatory restrictions?  Can anyone be happy with an economy replete with "30 hours or less" jobs because employers want to avoid Obamacare mandates?

Or let's look at how Dems today cater to urban Black thuggery!  Obama and company are loathe to attend the funeral of a cop...but will send whole delegations to the funerals of a Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin...indeed Obama embraces them a "his sons".  Just two weeks ago Hillary had to apologize for calling a thug a thug back in 1994.  And anywhere in America, where a cop shoots a Black thug, Obama and his Justice Department threatens to "federalize" the police force....and penalize a cop who opts to enforce the law!  And yet, as more than 500 people a year are shot dead by Blacks on Chicago's Southside, not a word is uttered from the Oval Office offal who run this country.

Or look at illegal immigration.  Both Clinton and Sanders have promised they'll amnesty 30 million illegal Mexicans.  And they hate the idea of a border wall...simply hate it!  Can you have ever imagined a politician who would ever advocate for not enforcing our immigration laws?  And, as Americans stand by, tens of thousands of illegal Mexicans march in our streets and label anyone who opposes illegal immigration as "racist!".  And this "racist" mantra has been repeated over and over, thousands of times, so that even many Republicans now embrace amnesty!  Few today seem to recognize the higher moral principle...that you don't reward those who violate our immigration laws...ever...because, as we have seen with the most recent invasions...it only encourages more invasions!

Let's look at the federal budget.  The Democrats of today no longer believe in fiscal responsibility.  They no longer believe there's any "bottom line"....never a limit on federal spending.  Totally ignoring our $19 trillion dollar federal debt, Democrats call for even more deficit spending...for free college tuition, for free health care, for doubling social security payments, for a whole host of federal benefits that might enhance their chances to stay in power.  Democrats have no fear for tomorrow...just write the checks and never balance the checkbook!

The Democratic Party's greatest sin is their duplicity...their willingness to lie and cheat and steal to get what they want.  In fact, their entire political philosophy is built on lies...and they've bred enough of those "47 per centers"...the folks who pay no taxes, those "green checkers" who live off the government tit, to insure that their web of lying will always be taken as truth...that is, until the bills finally come due and folks finally learn the hard truth...that the money has finally run out, and our credit rating stinks so badly that we can no longer borrow our way out of our messes.

So, I don't ever want to hear again how the two parties can't work together to get anything done.  No one can work with a group that are so batshit crazy, so essentially dishonest that there is no longer a middle ground from which to agree...Dems insist you either buy their lies...or step aside.

Obama and company has so ruined both our foreign and domestic policy that a Republican victory this fall should have been a lead pipe cinch.  Sadly, the Republican Party itself has seemed to succumbed to its own brand of crazy.  

God help us all.

"Hang Em High...And Let God Sort It Out"

                                                             

In the movie "An Ox-Bow Incident" a rancher is shot and cattle are stolen. The rancher's neighbors form an unofficial posse, intent on tracking down the guilty. They come across three men herding some cattle, detain them, and form a lynch mob. The three men proclaim their innocence again and again, but the angry mob chooses vengeance over reason.

They hang those three men, then begin riding back to town. En Route they encounter the Sheriff who informs them the rancher survived being shot and identified the real guilty party whom the Sheriff has in custody.

The men in the lynch mob are stunned. They ride back to town, stumble into the saloon, and stand at the bar, gazing into the mirror at the bar back with thousand mile stares...knowing they have wrongly hung three innocents.

That lynch mob today would be called "Trumpers"..angry beyond reason, unwilling to listen, or even think...just hang the first people you see and let God sort it out later.

I feel sorry for America. The perfect storm of time and events has come along to insure Hillary Clinton's election, more liberal Democrats in the House and a Democratic take-over of the Senate.

The Trumpers can then stand at the bar, gaze at their own reflection in the mirror, and stand and watch liberal judges appointed to the courts, a revocation of the 2nd Amendment, amnesty for 30 million illegal Mexicans, eight more years of appeasing radical Muslims, urban Black thug ass-kissing like you've never seen before, higher taxes and Hillary's grand sell out of our military....an institution she hates beyond reason.

Sad. Damned Sad.

Is Trump Right About "All Muslims?"

                                                                       

Donald Trump continually asserts that our allies in the Middle East have been getting a free ride for too long.  Well, i'm not exactly defending Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, and Qatar, but Trump's ignorance of those countries is legend.

in 1991 I stood in a conference room in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and witnessed Saudi Arabia present the U.S. with a $37 billion dollar check...to pay for Saudi's share of the Gulf War.  Kuwait shelled out tens of billions as well.  (When's the last time a European country paid us back for our wars to rescue them?  They haven't paid a dime back for the Marshall Plan...or Lend Lease, or even War loans!)

And, while working in Saudi Arabia for a decade, I walked into a Safeway ever week and bought Folger's Coffee and Sara Lee Cakes and America fruits and vegetables.  Every grocery in Saudi Arabia is stocked with thousands of American food products.  Go into a shopping mall and you'll find American products all over.

Walk any construction site in Saudi and you'll see John Deere and Caterpillar.  

Saudi's wash their clothes in American made washing machines and cook their food with American appliances.

And since I worked in Foreign Military Sales I can tell you that Saudi spends tens of billions of dollars in purchases of aircraft and defense parts.  Were it not for Saudi defense purchases half of our defense supply depots would be closed down.  Each time the U.S. government goes out for their annual parts purchase bids it is Saudi money that keeps hundreds of American manufacturers in business...and they pay for some of our own aircraft production, just to keep the production lines open!    Raytheon and Boeing and every other American defense manufacturer would have to lay off tens of thousands of highly paid workers if Saudi Arabia stopped buying American.

Yes, we buy oil from Saudi Arabia...but billions of that oil money are returned to the U.S. as we send food and manufactured goods back to them.  And Saudi Arabia employs thousands of American technical and defense workers.  (Do you think Europe plays as fair?  No way!  We have tens of thousands of troops still in Europe but they are not buying American the way the Saudis and Kuwaiti's do!

Sadly, Obama has abandoned our allies in the Middle East...leaving them doubtful that we have their backs.  Trump has made it worse by castigating all Muslims, and charging our Middle East friends of not being our allies.  If you think the region is a mess now, just wait until Trump insults them and drives them into the arms of Russia, or even worse, radical Muslims!

It is amazing to see how an idiot like Trump can spout pure idiocy, with his followers swallowing his bullshit as truth.

The Winds of War

                                                                       

Four years ago I began writing about the very real possibility of a 2nd Civil War coming to America. In that blog piece I cited the confluence of events, some originating from the evolution of Friedman's "Flattening of the World" (trade inequities, corporate global greed, American jobs being exported), and much of the discontent generated by "The Great Divider", an Obama hell bent on promoting racial and religious divisions and class warfare never seen in our history.

My essay asserted that this "perfect storm" of events has created a level of anger and frustration that, at some point, was bound to evidence itself sooner rather than later.  I thought that anger would erupt when the costs of Obamacare began to be known, the ire ever growing with each one of Obama's Constitution-busting Executive Orders and annual federal budgets totaling obscene numbers.   While my timing was off a bit, I believer the anger generated during this 2016 election cycle is clearly demonstrating the very anger I wrote about four years ago.

I offered that a 2nd Civil War would begin from both ends of the political spectrum; the militant 20 percent from the far right and the far left.  Who could possibly argue against that as we see Bernie's massive socialist army and, from the right, Trump's Stormtroopers....both sides totally unwilling to compromise an inch from their hard positions.

I argued that the agitation and turmoil from the extremists on both left and right, if given "wing space" could eventually draw America's "hard middle" into the vortex.  That too has been prophetic as we seem to be forced to choose these days between having to gag over the Clinton/Sanders' Socialist State, or Trump's third world strongman mentality.  Sadly, that road has been taken in third world Banana Republics across the continents time and again over the centuries.

Should anyone believe that these divisions can be healed by an election,  I say you are harboring unrealistic illusions.  Should Trump win the hard left wing will remain as militant as ever.  In the more likely event that the Clintonista Socialists prevail we'll see an ever growing pushback from the hard right.  Neither party offers an ounce of resolution to this nation's many, complex problems.

And, at a time when we most need an inspirational leader, a uniter, there seems to be no one on the horizon to ride to the rescue.  There are no giants.  There's not a Reagan...to haul in the political independents, nor someone who can recruit those "Blue Dog Democrats".  And, sadly, Obama, so largely responsible for much of our national anger, just this week absolved himself of any responsibility for this anger.  Barry says, with his usual snark, that Republicans brought this all on themselves.

Throughout my recent criticism of Donald Trump I've read what you have to say about my concerns. Sadly, each time I've cited specifics as to why I can't support Trump, I've been accused of promoting a "the sky is falling" fear about where we are as a nation these days...and all the while the Trump supporters have cited nothing as to how Trump would make things better.  Clinton and Sanders are equally laughable answers.

I'm still holding out the slightest wisp of hope that America comes to her senses.  I'm hoping that Cruz or Kasich or Rubio can somehow triumph over yellow-haired Banana Republic banty roosters like Trump and liberal socialist whores like Sanders and Clinton.  

I'm convinced that if we don't begin to listen to the better angels of our nature we'll be doomed to face a 2nd Civil War in America.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

"The Emperor Has No Clothes...He's Just Frickin Nuts!"

                                                                   

Tuesday night, in still another one of Donald Trump's "Press Conferences", and after Michigan and Mississippi's "Trump Trollers" gave him 35% of the vote, The Donald staged still another bizarre freak show that he's become famous for.

Trump, offended by Mitt Romney pointing out Trump's business failures, trotted out stacks and stacks of plastic water bottles, a glossy in-house circular pimping his overpriced properties (then calling it a magazine), had his imported Mexican workers haul out the last pack of the now defunct "Trump Steak", then spent the next 45 minutes talking about what a big deal he is.

Not once did Trump talk about the problems of the American people.  And the only time he talked of others it was "lying Ted", or "little Marco".  The rest of the night consisted of a vocabulary limited to "I" and "Me".

I've said if before, and I'll say it again:  I am extremely saddened and disappointed to learn that 35% of the Republican Party truly are as dumb as a board.  Trump flashes a little silver ball about and his trolls follow it to and fro with shiny and vacant eyes, and pay no attention to what he's saying...or more importantly, not saying.

No doubt Trump learned how to manipulate the weak of mind early in his life.  I can just see him, 60 years ago, a yellow haired braggart, standing on a corner in Queens, with half a dozen vapid, adenoidal kids eating up everything he says.  Maybe Donnie pilfered some of Daddy's pocket change off the bedroom dresser and bought his small army of trolls some ice cream....or maybe he didn't need to...there being so utterly stupid they needed no urging to fall for his lines.

To legitimize his "press conference" Trump took about three questions, never answering one of them. Instead, he denigrated the questioner....Trump can't stand anyone who doesn't think he's great.  And Trump has wreaked so much carnage on the campaign trail that he'll never get the other 65% of the Republican Party to support him.  

At one point last night Trump said that no other campaign in history is as wonderful as his....that he is drawing in Independents and Democrats...and no one has ever done that.  Wrong; anyone old enough for Ronald Reagan knows that Reagan brought in millions of Democrats to vote for him.  I knew Ronald Reagan...and Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan.

I will never vote for Donald Trump, nor will I vote for Hillary.  Sometimes, when there are no good choices. you choose "principle".    You "Trumpers" disagree.  If you can't have the "perfect conservative" you choose to follow the guy who will come in and break up the furniture.  I feel sorry for you....and I feel sorry for this country.

"The Donald In Motown"

                                                                       

"The Donald In MoTown"

Donald Trump was in Michigan last Friday.  He says. if elected, he'll bring more auto manufacturing back to Michigan.  Trump says he's so smart he's already designed a car that will get 100 miles per gallon, running on gasoline, natural gas, ethanol, or the methane fumes of political bullshit.

The new car, to be appropriately called The Trumpmobile, will have an ejection seat that will automatically eject and send an illegal Mexican flying through the sun roof, where he will descend just over that 50 foot "Trump Wall" that Mexico is going to pay for.

Trump has dictated that the Trumpmobile will have a simple "T" logo, with his image stamped in the background, and all Trumpmobiles, regardless of color scheme, must have an orange top.

The Donald has promised not to make Trumpmobiles in Mexico nor China, and pledged not to import either Central or South American labor, nor a Polish labor force.

The Donald says it's going to be huuuuge!

RIP Nancy Reagan

                                                                   

In 1980 I was assigned to a aircraft supply depot at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.  We provided parts to repair C-141 and C-5 cargo aircraft.  Our maintenance guys literally spent all their duty hours cannibalize parts from one downed aircraft to repair another, simply because we didn't have spare parts to keep the fleet flying.  President Carter had cut so much from the Defense Budget that it left all of the services crippled.  In the case of the Air Force, half of our entire fighter, bomber and cargo fleet were down for lack of parts.

So, it was no surprise to any of us in the military when those helicopters crashed in the deserts outside Tehran in a failed attempt to rescue American hostages.  Something that Carter, and every Democratic President since, failed to learn is that, if you shortchange your military, don't expect military success when it is critically needed.

Flash forward to November 4th, 1980.  I went to work that day, after going out early and voting for President Reagan for President.  That day was like any other.  The maintenance crew would come in and request an aircraft part, we'd check the warehouse shelves, find nothing to offer them, then certify "zero balances" which gave them permission to cannibalize another aircraft in a desperate attempt to get another aircraft in the air.

I returned home that night, tired and frustrated, in despair because neither I nor my fellow service members had done little that day to support our larger Air Force mission.  So, I came home, donned my running shorts, slipped into my Nike Waffle Trainers, and went out for a long jog around the base.

As I set out on my run, I plugged the earphones of my little radio in my ears, and began slogging through a light rain.  As I ran the music on the radio was interrupted my a news flash....Ronald Reagan was already being projected as the winner of the Presidential election of 1980.  

I was so elated by the news.  Reagan had promised to restore the military to its previous greatness, his entire campaign was one that promised a "new morning in America".  We in the military were desperate to hear those words.  On Carter's watch we had seen America in decline.  Carter had given away the Panama Canal, built by Americans, by American taxpayers.  We had watched in frustration as the Iran Mullahs took and held hostage our entire diplomatic corp.  We had been lectured to by Carter, our citizens charged by him as lazy and uninspired.  Happily, on this day, Reagan would change all that.  He beat Jimmy Carter like a drum...winning 44 of the 50 states and taking all but 44 of the electoral vote.  (Four years later he would take 49 of the 50 states).

                                                            

Reagan, on the other hand, offered the idea that the American people were as great as ever...but their government had failed them.

So, as I ran through the base that evening, running along the shore line of Pearl Harbor, the rain stopped and a rainbow appeared just over Ford Island.  I took that rainbow as a sign that things in America just might get better.

And it did.  Less than one hour after Reagan's inauguration Iran released our hostages...because Ronald Reagan had promised to bomb Iran into the stone age had they not.  One of the first things Reagan did was to give the military a desperately needed pay raise, and he restored the military funding for spare parts that brought our aircraft operability ratings back to full strength.  And it was Ronald Reagan who built up our military so strong that, when the Soviets tried to keep up, it bankrupted them and led to the destruction of the Soviet Union, brought down the Berlin Wall and freed millions from Communist oppression.

When Reagan came into office the inflation rate was 15%.  Americans were unemployed in vast numbers, and if you wanted to buy a home the interest rate on home loans was 20%.  President Reagan was able to wring inflation out of the system, relaxed business regulation that spawned Home Depot and Walmart, Apple Computer and a thousand other business success stories, and launched the greatest economic expansion in American history.

Flash forward once more...to 1994.  I was in Saudi Arabia when I heard the news...from Reagan himself...that he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's.  I read his poignant letter to the American people, expressing his great love for this country, and his fondest wishes that our greatness continue.

I sat down and wrote a letter to President Reagan.  In that letter I expressed my thanks for what he had done for the country, and most especially my appreciation for restoring our military...insuring the sacrifices we made in the service of our country really mean something.

i don't know if President Reagan ever got to read my letter.  But each year, on my birthday, I get a birthday card from the Reagan Presidential Library.  It's always such a happy reminder that we once had a Commander in Chief who loved and respected the military, one who deeply loved the country of his birth.

Nancy, yesterday morning you rejoined "The Gipper".  Please tell him we miss him....we miss him a lot.  

The Winds of Change

                                                                     

Brace yourself, Trumpers.  I'm about to say something mildly positive about Donald Trump.

One outstanding result of the Trump phenomena has been the joy of seeing the Republican establishment knocked flat on their ass.  Like many conservatives, I was disheartened when Congressional Republicans just recently passed another bloated multi-trillion dollar budget, replete with the same massive spending orgy as Congress has approved in past years, whether Democrat controlled or Republican controlled.   Republicans were so damned fearful that, if they took a stand, and created another government shutdown, it would hurt their election chances this November.

How ironic; failing to take a stand, the Republicans now face total destruction this coming November.  With 65% of Americans absolutely refusing to support Trump the coming election ought to present a field day for the Democrats.  The Dems will almost surely take back the Senate, and will most likely raise their numbers in the House, thus necessitating a higher coalition of Democrat votes to get anything passed in the House.

I don't for a minute believe Donald Trump is the architect of the conservative revolt.  Instead he is the vessel Americans are using to express their anger and frustration at the establishment.  (Much of that anger and frustration is based on pure ignorance of how the three branches of government works...Congress can do little about liberal Supreme Court decisions, nor can they, in present numbers, override an Obama veto, which he has exercised numerous times.)  

However, there are things the Republicans could have done.  They could have stood strong on the spending bill, let Barry shut down the government, and let the chips fall where they may.  Time has proven they would not have been any worse off than they are now.

And much could have come from that.  For example, Congress could have cut funding for Planned Parenthood, insisted that the current $12 billion a year in illegal immigrant Child Tax Credits be stopped immediately.  And there are any number of spending projects that are fraught with fraud, waste and abuse that should have been killed long ago, including some of their own little "earmarks" that sweetened the mood of voters in their districts.

I still bristle at a report released a couple of years ago...about how each Congressman spends more than a million a year for Starbucks coffee and Duncan donuts for their respective staffs....taxpayer money totally wasted.  No doubt there are hundreds of these little slush funds put in place to provide comfort and sustenance to "the elites".

The supreme sense of entitlement that our representatives assume has created a bubbling of anger that is spilling out all over America.  The benefactors of that anger has been Trump for the Republicans and Bernie Sanders for the Democrats...solid proof that pure anger, without reason, can have stunningly bad results.

But let's remember that it was the Tea Party that first raised a stink...not Donald Trump.  It was everyday citizens, without an ounce of political ambition, that gathered in town halls all across America and raised holy hell about the intrusion of Obamacare into their lives, Obama's pilfering of $600 billion in Medicare funds to pay for free healthcare for his devoted green check voters, and against massive government spending in the face of $19 trillion in debt.

A tornado can wreak massive destruction.  It has the capacity to destroy life and property.  But, the victims nearly always rebuild, usually for something better, something stronger and more lasting.

American anger has certainly reached tornado pitch this year.  Perhaps that anger will destroy the Republican Party.  And, perhaps the results of this year's political tornado will be a stronger, more responsive government.  Perhaps not.  We don't know yet.

But it has been a fine thing indeed to see the political establishment quake in their boots, their eyes shiny in wonder, their confidence in "business as usual" shaken to it's core.  We see it on both sides; Hillary's moving even further to the left, and the current crop of Republican candidates moving just right of "Attila The Hun".

I abhor Donald Trump.  But I've always been an admirer of what the Tea Party stands for.  They were laughed at for years, they were jeered and called "domestic terrorists" and "wild eyed radicals".  No one's laughing anymore.  And the winds of change are strong.  The media and political pundits can only sit in awe as they say "we've never seen anything like this before".  And the Washington establishment is literally shitting their pants as they hear the rumbling of that tornado getting closer and closer.

After it's all over we can only hope for the best.

"Reading for Survival"

                                                                       

As 35% of American conservatives, in some strange fit of mass hysteria, as they choose to commit "collective Hari Kari" to support Donald Trump...the only Republican candidate projected to lose to Hillary Clinton, I can only assume the Trumpers have simply not done their homework.

Back in the 80's, John D. MacDonald, one of my favorite authors, wrote a little book called "Reading For Survival" as part of the Library of Congress's "Celebration of The Book"..an effort to urge more folks to read.

In that little book MacDonald describes the dire consequences for folks who don't read...who react emotionally, and not rationally, to the world about them.  In one succinct passage he brilliantly describes what the world of the non-reader is like:

"The non reader in our culture wants to believe. He is the one born every minute. The world is so vastly confusing and baffling to him that he feels there has to be some simple answer to everything that troubles him. And so, out of pure emptiness, he will eagerly embrace spiritualism, yoga, a banana diet, or some callous frippery like Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard’s personal path to infinite riches, a strange amalgam of sociological truisms and psychological truths masquerading under ind sold to the beginner at a nice profit.”’t reach up out of the dust and grab him by the wallet.”

"My point is that the man who reads is using the fabulous memory storage and relationship analysis of the brain his ancestors developed eons ago. He is facilitating his survival in the contemporary world. He will recognize the pockets of fanaticism around him and know what is causing these universal foci of dementia. Of course, he will be called an egghead or a bleeding heart or a secular humanist, but he can lean back and, in a certain way, enjoy the marvelously crackpot rantings of a Jesse Helms, a Botha, a Meese, a Kohmeni, a Falwell, a Qaddafi, a Gorbachev, an Ortega, a Noriega----people from both ends of every spectrum, whooping and leaping and frothing, absolutely livid at the idea their particular warped vision of reality is not shared by everyone. Their basic lack of education, of reading, of being able to comprehend the great truths of reality has left empty places in their heads, into which great mischief has crept." 

I have spent many hours researching the record of Donald Trump so I remain amazed that folks still support him.  I can only assume those that believe Trump is the answer are those poor "non-readers" who still quiver at the shadows in the night, reach in their pocket for their rabbit's foot, and sadly, through ignorance, will seem to fall for anything.

Post Note:  Please do not give me the false analogy of "it's The Donald or It's Hillary"...there are still plenty of delegates up for grabs...there still remains other choices.  All one need do is educate yourself on the candidates and choose wisely

"They Thought They Were Free"

                                                                       

Even in today's poisoned political climate one might wonder how America could embrace a demagogue like Donald Trump.  The guy is blustery, so inarticulate that he repeats himself over and over, he speaks in generalities, never giving specifics on how he'll resurrect the America at our former greatness.

And yet he is roping in the masses.   When anyone chooses to give even a semblance of thought about Trump's success it's not hard to see how he's succeeding.  America suffers from a rapidly declining manufacturing base with jobs being exported to foreign countries in rapid numbers.  Our currency, no longer backed by Ft. Knox gold, is only as good as the Federal Reserve keeps printing money and telling us everything's fine.  Nearly half of America pay no taxes and live off the hard work of others...collecting a green check and/or many other government freebies.  We have a President who exerts strength only when circumventing the Constitution....as Commander in Chief he's been AWOL for nearly eight years and a crumbling world order shows it.  And we have a porous southern border making us vulnerable to both terrorists and some 30 million Mexicans who come here for overly generous municipal, state and federal benefits...to be enjoyed simply by dropping an anchor baby on American soil.

In addition to the many real and concrete problems, there exists a massive citizen ignorance.  They do not take the time to study our problems with any degree of scholarship, thus tend to believe that the answers are easy.  As an instance, millions of conservatives believed that the Republican victories which gave them control of the House and Senate in 2014 that things would change.  They fail to understand the intricacies of the three branches of government, especially Obama's ability to issue Executive Orders and veto any conservative legislation that is passed to him.  So, because of citizen ignorance, their anger becomes increasingly greater with "the establishment".  They don't understand that, to affect real change, they have to change Presidents.

Amidst this poisoned atmosphere, amidst this massive citizen anger, a demagogue like Donald Trump emerges, one who speaks only in generalities, offers no specific solutions, just says he's gonna make America "great again".

A study of history illustrates a similar parallel.  One need only look at the rise of Adolph Hitler.  For more than half a century, after the dust of war had settled, we've wondered how a Hitler could ever be elected.  Milton Mayer, in his seminal book "They Thought They Were Free" explains the birth of a Hitler.  After World War I both Britain and France imposed the harshest reparations on Germany than any seen in history, despite dire warnings from our own President Woodrow Wilson that nothing good could come from it.  

Wilson's warnings proved prophetic.  As Britain and France kept their collective boots on the neck of Germany, as they sucked annual war reparations from the German economy, Germany sunk into a miasma of declining industrial production and runaway inflation.  Under Germany's Wermacht regime inflation was so bad that a German would have to push a wheelbarrow of German Marks to the store to purchase a loaf of bread.   National pride was at it's lowest and Germany was desperate for a savior.

Sadly, along came a madman to satisfy those cravings.  Adolph Hitler promised to restore German glory, blamed all their problems on the Jews (one may substitute Mexicans today), and set about his aims to re-arm and conquer.  And when it was all over twelve years later, Germany was in ruins and Hitler blew his brains out in his bunker.

Fortunately the Marshall Plan saved Germany from half a century of misery and economic ruin.  Sadly, if we elect our own monster, there are no saviors for America.

We can learn from history...but only if we stop to think...if we pause and listen, to see if our current demagogues are really providing any answers to our national woes.  Sadly, there are too few historians...and far too many who fail to study history, and work hard not repeat past mistakes.  It would seem we are now bound to learn the hard way.

Sad.  Damned Sad.

I Hear "Taps" Playing In The Distance

                                                                     

This past week I wrote what was going to be my final regular blog entry...ending my regular three or more times per week submissions, and four years of daily submissions.

On the 17th of January I celebrated five years of blogging, and, as stated, with four of those years being a daily issue.  (I still can't imagine how I managed to do that!).  During these five years I have gotten more than 1.1 million page views, so I guess at least some folks have enjoyed reading them.

While I had intended to cease blogging regularly, I had anticipated blogging occasionally in the future; perhaps five days in a row when I was really fired up about something...but I had planned no more blogging with any kind of regularity.

Today, I've changed a bit...but only a little.  I have now decided that I'll continue to blog until it becomes clear that Donald Trump wins the GOP nomination.  Should The Donald emerge as our party's nominee, I'll end my blog entirely.

To me, the emergence of a Donald Trump signals my surrender to the forces ruling our political landscape.  It tells me that anything I write will mean nothing to the folks who embrace a Donald Trump...someone as deadly as a Jim Jones mass grape Kool-Aid suicide event.

A Trump victory means that we have become a nation that can birth a Hitler, a Stalin, a Mussolini...that we are so desperate for a champion that we will give credence to a man who owns no principles, a man who will say or do anything (and has, on both sides of any issue) to win favor with those who will help him realize his own personal ambitions.

I don't wish to be a part of a nation like that.  Only once during the past five years have I ever seriously contemplated ending my writings....after Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012 I stopped blogging for a month or so.  Then, intent on pointing out the deficiencies of a "man-child" community organizer, I resumed writing.

Barack will soon be gone.  I didn't know if I would live long enough to see his departure.  But I simply cannot take another round of charlatans, be it Trump or Hillary.  I wrote earlier that I thought Cruz stood the best chance of righting this country.  Sadly, his political style has proven to be a bit preachy, bordering on the hokey.  But Cruz, and only Cruz has been the only Presidential candidate that has stood up time and again to the Washington establishment...that's why his fellow Senators hate him.   I could even take Rubio or Kasich because I believe either of them will build the fence and will not have the gall to insist on illegal amnesty until the fence is built,  e-verify is revamped to efficiency, and any immigration bills are passed through the people's Congress to be passed or rejected, as is proper.

But I can't take either a Trump or a Hillary.  I gave my country twenty-two years of fighting for her.  I've sacrificed hundreds of times during those years, as did my family.  But I'm tired, I'm old, and I can't fight any more.  So, sometime this month, after Super Tuesday, and after the mid-March primaries, I'll know if I still have a country worth fighting for.

If Trump wins it will assure a Hillary victory come November.  And, even should Trump triumph in November, it is my deep belief that we still lose, in far larger ways.  So, the Ides of March are upon me.  I'm prepared to raise the white flag of surrender.  This old vet is tired and I hear "Taps" playing faintly in the distance....."Taps" for this blog....and, in my view, "Taps" for this once great nation.

The White Guilt Orgy At The Oscars

                                                           

Sunday night, while America was watching the Oscars, I was over on C-Span Q&A, watching the head of Citizens Against Government Waste laundry list how the hundreds of billions of our tax dollars are wasted.  I learned about the 20% fraud rate on IRS Earned Income Credits...by  criminals who steal personal ID info, then claim other folks tax credits.  And I learned how the National Institutes of Health spent $500 million dollars to research why people fall in love....or the $500,000 spent on how long a mountain lion could run on a specially made treadmill.

I then flipped over to CBS and watched 60 Minutes interview a number of citizens whose lives were ruined by the Social Security Administration.  Seems that SSA bureaucrats mistakenly hit a wrong Social Security number on their keyboards and ended up declaring folks dead who are very much alive.  As the SSA declares these folks dead they send out electronic notifications to the victim's banking concern notify all the credit agencies to never again issue credit to these "deceased" people.  One poor woman was living in a trailer after living 6 months in her car...and all because her $80,000 dollar savings account was seized by the government and left her destitute.  Another woman has spent the last 30 years being refused home and car loans because creditors keep punching in her credit inquiries and reading that she's dead.

Meanwhile, between learning of how our government masters waste our money, and destroy lives, I flipped over to the Oscars.  During the cumulative 5 or 10 minutes of Oscar watching I was able to note that a Black hosted the ceremony, that over half of the presenters were either Black, Hispanic, or Indian, that the Orchestra leader was Black, which to my mind, certainly represented greater numbers than the 12% Black population represents in our society.

Perhaps most telling ( and I'm sure little noted) was Chris Rock's "man on the street" interviews with a number of Blacks.  Seems not one Black knew of, or had seen a single Oscar movie!  You see, Blacks discriminate against Whites every day; they don't go to White movies, they don't even know who the White actors are....but that's okay because Blacks are given a pass for their own racism.

I think I made the right viewing decision.  While I was learning about government waste, fraud and abuse, the Oscar audience was wallowing in an orgy of White Guilt, a sin I refuse to own.

Sigh.