As for me, give me Liberty or give me Death!

This country has been through a lot in it’s short history.  The Spanish Flu killed an estimated 20 to 50 million world-wide and 675,000 in the USA!  We don’t know, yet, the full impact of COVID-19.  However, we do know some real differences between the Spanish Flu and H1N1 and COVID-19.

Our government response has had a devastating impact on our economy, small businesses, our jobs, our mental health, and our future.  Has it had any positive impacts?  It’s hard to say.  The efforts to flatten the curve are based on experiences dating back to the Spanish Flu, but that was a very different time.  A time without our wealth of hospital resources, our antibiotics, our rapid ability to make progress on vaccines.  In fact, I’ve read that it is suspected that many of those deaths were really caused by overdoses of aspirin, the primary medicine recommended for treatment at the time.

Some countries didn’t shut everything down and instead hoped to quickly reach herd immunity while protecting those most vulnerable.  While in the US, it seems that many deaths can be attributed to governors that placed quarantined individuals in close proximity to vulnerable elderly individuals.  So far, in fact, most of the deaths have been victims with comorbidity.

The pandemic may or may not be ongoing for the near future.  I don’t think anyone knows.  However, we have already learned a few things IMHO:

1. Medical models and projections are only as good as the data and the data for anything novel and new is always going to be sketchy, at best. Especially, if it starts out in a totalitarian country that controls information.
2. Our best medical guidance during a pandemic is all over the place because they have no clue and panic just like the rest of us.
3. If our next pandemic has death rates like the black death and is highly contagious, then we are in a world of trouble.  Our modern globally interconnected civilization means that almost no place is going to be safe.  We have seen that we are totally unprepared. Organizations like WHO and our CDC aren’t going to be able to protect us.
4. It seems that a majority of citizens in the USA are more than willing to give up their civil liberties, constitutional protections, and God given rights in the face of a pandemic.  Even without any evidence that there is real justification for the often capricious and dictatorial actions taken by our governors and local health officials.

Big Bro Techno Progressives are busy!

Hey FaceBook, I really don’t need or want your biased “fact checking” propaganda and authoritarian thought policing of free speech on your platform.  Yes, you can do what you want with your company, but I don’t have to take it quietly.  BTW your user interface is cluttered and disorganized and I would never buy anything advertised on your cheesy ad infested platform. Just saying.

Hey Google, don’t think we have overlooked  your Machiavellian manipulation of search results. Did you think we wouldn’t notice?  The arrogance is astounding.

Ironically, if  big tech actually is able to achieve their political goals, FB and Google will likely be some of the first evil corporations to be taken over by a totalitarian leftist progressive government. Who will stop them?  They are willing to destroy the constitution, throw out the filibuster, stack the court and force their will on half of the country that they feel consists of deplorables, the religious right, and racists, etc.

Who? Who? Who let the dogs out?

The progressive left has let loose the anarchists and marxists in order to desperately seek their political aims and defeat Trump.  But mob rule is unpredictable. The mob can turn on anybody and often turns on everybody.  Viva la revolution! The unruly and ignorant mob doesn’t even know what they are for and who they should be against, other than that they love destruction and self-righteous virtue signalling.

The anarchists obviously are  loving this.  But these dogs aren’t going to easily be put back on a leash now that they have enjoyed rioting and tearing down everything. The progressive intent is to use this chaos for their own ends.  If they get the power they seek, they will quickly show their true totalitarian leanings. They will seek to eradicate “wrong” thinking.  Not by legitimate arguments discussed in a fair forum,  but by devious means and ultimately by force. How do I know this?  This has happened before, many times, in many places.  I fear a lot of people weren’t paying attention in history classes.

I’m sure I’ll be one of those sent into a re-education facility where a Democratic governor can send COVID-19 patients after they’ve finished sending them to the old folks homes.

how many leaks does it take to sink a ship of state?

These government leaks of classified and confidential information have to stop. People in the government are making their own decisions about this or that and leaking to get their way. Where is the FBI? Why aren’t they tracking down these leakers? Or are some of the leaks coming from the FBI? Hard to say. I will say that when the leaks involve classified information such as private diplomatic discussions that our President has with foreign governments, then these leaks are not just damaging to our current President, but to the whole country and our security.

I’d like to see some kind of law so that if someone leaks classified information, that anyone that prints that information either has to expose the actual source or bear the burden of the laws being broken by revealing that information. We are not talking about press revealing criminal activity and a nefarious cover-up like Watergate or Bengahzi or the Clinton Foundation pay-for-play. We are talking about revealing classified information that can cause real harm to individuals and the security of the nation. If the editors and authors of a story were held accountable, then they might not print anything with only “unnamed sources”.

And, if these “unnamed sources” really believe that classified information needs to be shared with the press, then let them stand up and take the consequences. No more hiding behind the skirts of “freedom of the press”. With freedom comes responsibility, so stand up or shut up.

How many branches was that again?

I was thinking yesterday about an interesting effect. Despite the new administration in the white House for over 100 days, the State Dept lawyers are still protecting HRC in court battles involving FOIA, the IRS is still not processing conservative groups for their 501c status, the FBI was still slow-walking responding to requests from the legislature. So, do we really still have a government of three branches, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial? Or are there now actually four branches? I think the Executive has been split into two distinct branches: The White House which is nominally in charge, and the out-of-control executive bureaucracy itself.

When this split actually occurred is hard for me to say. I remember hearing “Presidents and their Department Secretary’s come and go, but the Departments stay”, back when the transition was between Carter and Reagan. Of course, I was very young and thought it was sort of a joke at the time. Not so funny to me now as I come to this realization that government is more out of control than I ever imagined. The actuality of freedom and liberty and limited government for “we the people” and our children may be past the point of no return. Forever unreachable. I fear the tree of liberty will split under the weight of four branches.

And don’t even get me started about activist judges that try to legislate from the bench.

The Press Express

The press seems to have come alive. Who knew they were still there? I thought they had all left for Hollywood or something. They have a new attack against President Trump almost everyday. I just saw a commercial with some idiot standing in front of the Watergate building promising to continue in that tradition of uncovering government corruption and the like. What a joke. Am I the only one that noticed that the press has been all but non-existent for the last eight years? Where was the press in getting to the bottom of the abuse of power at the IRS? Or how about the EPA writing its own laws? The FBI ignoring obvious criminal activity by HRC? The State Dept covering up a failures before and the cover-up after attack in Bengahzi?

Many pundits that should know better, jump on the train and exclaim that while the press has overblown such stories as the (non-existent) collusion with Russia, Trump firing FBI Director Comey and Trump releasing “classified” information to the Russians, that Trump has “brought much of this on himself”. No, there is nothing that Trump could do that would not bring these leftist progressives out to attack. This is what they live for.

They make the so-called Russian attempt to subvert our election process seem like a big story. But we still haven’t seen any real evidence that the Russians were really involved. The DNC has evidently hit by a simple phishing attack that any 16 yo could have pulled off. And whats-his-name actually used “password” as his password? Give me a break. If they want a story about a real cyber attack on the US, how about the compromise of millions of government employees with clearances when the OPM was attacked? Were the Chinese really behind that? Or who broke and compromised the RSA tokens in wide use by the government. That wasn’t done by a 16 yo, I can tell you that. The private data compromised by multiple attacks means that a whole generation of government employees have to deal with potentially compromised personal information (like SSNs, DOB, relatives, etc.) for the rest of their lives.

Yesterday there was a “big” story about how Trump pressured Comey to drop the Flynn investigation. Although, the it is unclear exactly what was said in that private conversation, I seem to remember that Obama made multiple public statements during the HRC email investigation that there is nothing there, no security was compromised, etc. Did the press have daily splashes of headlines that the Obama white house was bumbling and out-of-control? Did they exclaim that people were stating he would need to be impeached for interfering with an ongoing FBI investigation. Did FBI Director Comey feel pressure from the President to end the investigation the way they did? Was that why Comey gave the whole presentation of a litany of obvious criminal activity and then usurped the AG role and declined to prosecute on his own?

I think we need to give the press something to cover. How about our AG requests special investigators for the HRC emails, the Clinton Foundation slush funds, the Bengahzi cover-up, the IRS abuse of conservative organizations and cover-up, and so-on. That will give them something to write about. Otherwise this press express train is going to run the entire country off a cliff for the next four years which is exactly what they want. They want to keep President Trump from being able to achieve his agenda because they know that those actions would really make America better and ensure a second term.

the not so United States of Trump

Here are some random post-election thoughts that have been running through my head.

First of all,  I don’t remember a past losing Presidential candidate failing to appear and leaving their supporters in the lurch like that.  Ever.  According to reports, I guess, she was crying inconsolably all night.  I can’t remember reports of a candidate doing that either.  At least, now we might finally get the truth about Hillary’s health.  I really suspect that her campaign was hiding something serious based on the various episodes I saw captured on video.

It’s so ironic, shortly after the election, to hear some Democrats that are now so concerned about conflicts of interest due to President-Elect Trumps vast financial holdings and dealings.  Where have they been for years as Secretary of State Clinton used the Clinton Foundation as a slush fund and as the Obama Administration doled out millions upon millions of crony capitalism deals to his supporters that ultimately ended in bankruptcies?

Some other Democrats seem to be suddenly afraid that hate crimes are going out of control after the election because they feel that all of Trump’s supporters are deplorable racists or something.  Although, there are no reliable statistics to support this claim and it doesn’t even make logical sense, they already blame Trump for this.  Oddly, they didn’t seem to blame the Obama Administration for the increase in police ambush killings and the nationwide anarchist anti-police movement that has grown to tragic proportions this past year.

Pundits seem to be all confused.  Some are shocked that Trump is making moves and selecting his cabinet as if he is really going to try to keep his campaign promises.  How unexpected.  They are not used to politicians acting like that.  Other pundits are busy claiming that Trump is backing off from his campaign promises based upon statements that he has made that they generally take out of context or comprehend with their own wishes.  Give it a break, the man hasn’t even taken office, yet.  Still others are making long lists of every possible promise that Trump might have made, so that they can point out when he fails to keep even the smallest promise, even if made half-jokingly.  Of course, how many of these pundits or media midgets did the same thing for Obama?   Obama couldn’t even keep the huge promises that he made when he was president, like “If you like your doctor, then you can keep your doctor.  If you like your plan, then you can keep your plan.  Period.”  That one was a whopper.

The mainstream media went all out for Clinton, even beyond their usual slanting of the news, as revealed by documents and emails made public by WikiLeaks.  Ironically, they have destroyed their own reputations in the process.  It isn’t clear that they could recover their respect now even if they tried to be fair in the future.  And, so far, they aren’t even trying.  What will this mean for the future of journalism and the “fourth” branch?  Perhaps, it will never recover from this self-inflicted wound, at least not in the form that we have known for four or five decades.

The biggest irony, to me, is that the Democrats that are now so afraid of a President Trump apparently fail to see or comprehend or empathize with the other half of America that voted for the man.  Worse still, they fail to see that much of pro-Trump and anti-Clinton voters were also afraid.  Afraid to exercise their free speech for fear of being labeled a deplorable racist, misogynist, xenophobe.  Afraid to speak out against political correctness run amok.  Afraid for their jobs and the future of their country. No wonder they were shocked by the outcome, they are totally blind to the reality and feeling of the other half of the country.

the legacy of a pen and a phone

Now that we near the end of President Obama’s second term, it is interesting to see him advise Trump in a wasted effort to keep some of his legacy intact. Too late, I say. Better luck next time. So, now I have some tips for future Presidents that want to transform America and leave a positive legacy.

1) don’t ever try to legislate or pass treaties on your own, even if you have a pen and a phone. Not only is it unconstitutional and a clear abuse of executive orders, but the next guy or gal in the office will also have a pen and a phone. Show some leadership and get congress to pass your agenda. That’s how our government is supposed to work.

2) don’t ever try to pass significant legislation without any input or support from the other party, even if your party has control of both houses of congress. Without showing leadership and working together to form consensus, you will reap what you sow when the tables are turned. Especially when you have to stoop to lies to get the legislation passed in the first place.

3) don’t lie to the people to get your legislation passed. So, when you say you have shovel ready jobs, we can keep our doctor, we can keep our current insurance plans, and costs will go down… guess what? You really better make sure to get your act together and make it all work. Otherwise, we will remember the failure and the lies and hold you to account. History won’t be kind.

4) don’t promise something over and over again in your campaign, like that you’ll make jobs your number one priority and then not make any efforts to build an economy that generates good jobs after election.

So, what will President Obama’s true legacy amount to? Sadly, not much. A failed major health initiative based on lies and pushed though with no bipartisan support. Foreign policy in shambles with ISIS spreading, Iran freed to become a regional nuclear power and Russia and China pushing the limits. Eight years of stagnant economy, while labor force participation is at all time lows and government hand-outs are at all time highs. Crony capitalism and countless scandals. The politicization and serious abuse of power of in many government agencies: IRS, EPA, DOJ, etc. Increased racial tensions and attacks against law and order. So much for a legacy. It’s a sad ending for a President that started out with such hope and potential.

BTW, is it too late to ask for that Nobel Peace Prize to be returned? We’ve been at war for the entire two terms of this President.

to Cruz and the conservatives

To be fair to the RINOs (read my last post), many conservatives are not happy with Trump, too. Cruz even had the spite to stand up and speak at the GOP convention and not support the GOP nominee. Many of his most vocal supporters (from Levin to Beck) don’t seem to understand why he lost. Let’s review the primary from my point of view.

I still wish Rand Paul had won. Of course, he did not come off well in many of the early debates and never seemed to garner enthusiasm like his dad. That is sad.

I also wish that Marco Rubio didn’t turn out to be such a spineless rube bending over backwards for the establishment. I’ve heard him talk and he had such real potential. He seemed very intelligent and conservative. But by the end of the campaign when he was acting like a Trump clone, he was nothing more than an embarrassment.

I liked Ted Cruz for his early debate performances, you know, remember when he was still acting like best buds with Trump? Then I discovered why nobody in the Senate likes the guy, he is a back stabber and seems to lie through his teeth. I don’t even believe he is a real conservative. I think he is just acting like one. He even got gentle Ben Carson upset and I believe that is really hard to do. To top it off he does his little thing at the convention. I suppose he is tactically betting that Trump will lose and he will have a shot in the next four years. Don’t count on it Ted. Your chances of ever winning are gone with the wind. A has been that never was.

Who does that leave? Well, there was the next in the Bush line. Please don’t make me think about that guy again. I wouldn’t have voted for him if he was the only candidate.

Face it, Trump was the only candidate that understood the underlying disappointment that the party roots and conservatives have with the RINOs in charge of congress. How many years did we give them the best majority in the house only to have them bend over and give Obama everything he wanted to do in his budget? Yes, I know they didn’t have the senate and Harry Reid pretty much turned that institution into a worthless farce of a legislative branch. Blocking every thing so that Obama didn’t have to. But how many times have they forced Obama to veto legislation since they got control of the Senate?

The Trump movement was, and is, as much a reaction to the Republican control of the House and congress as it is a reaction to the incompetence of the Obama administration. Years of economy standing still, years of jobs being job # 1 only during campaigning, years of terrorism on the rise, years of the world wondering where America has gone, years of destruction of the middle class. I’m sorry Ted, but I can’t put up with four more years of the same with Hillary and a RINO House just so you can be President. I’m part libertarian and partly a fiscal conservative, I’m no leader but even I know that HRC is not going to be good for this country.

At least Trump has shown that he will be better. His list of candidates for the supreme court and in his economic plan, for example. Trump may not be conservative, but he has made money in a real business. Hillary has made all her money from her political position. I’d rather trust a egotistic populist businessman who has already made is billions than Hillary who has already demonstrated her bad judgement, paranoid tendencies, endless lies, and still wants to make more money off the people from her position.

The RINOs are on a rampage!

For years and years, in fact since Reagan, the conservatives have been told to accept RINO candidates for president or bear the burden of destroying the GOP. I have always felt that this was self-serving and untrue. Even now as conservatives in congress are deprived of positions of power and conservatives running for congress are not given support, the RINOs rule the roost. Except for Trump, that is. And Trump has them in fits.

Now there is a letter about how 50 key RINOs think Trump is unfit to be President and dangerous. Who is destroying the party now? How could Trump be more dangerous than Hillary Clinton? Hillary supported the Russian reset, urged Obama to go to war in Libya without a declaration of war (using NATO as “cover”), turned her back on Iranians wanting freedom, turned her back on a solid Egyptian like Mubarak and supported the Muslim brotherhood, turned her back on Iraq and withdrew completely leading to the rise of ISIS, turned her back on Israel in the nuclear deal with Iran. Obama and Clinton policies have left the world in shreds and Trump is dangerous because he says what he feels and speaks truthfully?

Yes, the RINOs prefer Hillary. She is closer to them in spirit and actions than to conservatives, libertarians, or a populist nationalist like Trump. She lies like they do, promising to do one thing but really doing something entirely different. The RINOs and the liberals have a core key belief in common. Can you guess what that is? Big Government. They don’t care about jobs for the middle class, about fairness in trade deals, about the adverse impact of the debt on our children and grand children. Because they believe in an “elite” that are the ruling class. They both truly believe in totalitarian statism. Neither will admit the truth (except maybe Bernie), instead they lie. They expect politicians to lie. Why bother to tell the truth to the “little” people, they wouldn’t understand.

I’m fed up with them all. Obviously they are afraid of Trump. Are they really afraid that he is dangerous? Would closing our borders to illegal immigration be dangerous or pretending that we have borders? Would re-assessing the role of NATO be dangerous or allowing Hillary to use NATO to start more undeclared wars? Would revising trade deals so that they are fair and free in a world where most of our trading partners are neither free or fair or continuing to allow huge trade deficits to impoverish this country and move jobs to cheaper markets where human labor is treated to poor wages and working conditions that wouldn’t be allowed in U.S? Would it be so dangerous to face down a fascist philosophy of jihad?

Not to mention, that Hillary wants to take away the second amendment and will select judges for the supreme court that will ignore and shred the constitution creating decades of misery for all of us. And does anyone think that the RINOs in the senate now will stand up to her selections and force her to select judges that respect the constitution? How do you think we got Breyer, Stevens, Ginsberg, Kagan and Sotomayor on the court in the first place? Now, that’s what I call dangerous.

And, yet the RINOs are on a rampage. Are they fighting against Hillary and the dangers that she represents to this republic? Are they supporting smaller government finally? Are they supporting law and order and legal immigration? Are they supporting fair trade deals? Are they supporting jobs and a good economy for the middle class? No. They are destroying what’s left of the GOP just like they always claimed that conservatives would do. They are showing their true colors and supporting the democrat with a party platform of socialism over Trump and his populist movement? Of course they are, because they created Trump. By promising for years to do one thing and yet actively doing something else. At least now, we can all see their true selves. And they aren’t conservative and they aren’t libertarian. They are the true danger and always have been.