17 Mistakes, Omissions & Deliberate Deceptions

17 Mistakes, Omissions & Deliberate Deceptions
The View from the Middle

I worked for Procter & Gamble for 37 years, a company that made “the one-page memo” famous. Richard Deupree, P&G CEO from 1930 to 1947, championed this idea to make communications thoughtful, concise, compelling and easy for the receiver of to understand. Our government’s philosophy on written communications seems to be the very antithesis of the one-page memo. Their reports are so long and tedious and cumbersome that they actually discourage “We the People” from even reading them.

The latest example is the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz’s, report on the FISA abuses by the FBI with respect to their investigation collusion with the Russians by the Trump campaign. This report is 434 pages long written in legalese, loaded with acronyms and with more footnotes than pages. I estimate that less than one percent of the American people with even read the Executive Summary, which is almost 20 pages long. Consequently, I felt a need to translate and simplify this governmental jibber-jabber for my readers and focus on the real essence of Mr. Horowitz’s report - the 17 inaccuracies, omissions and deliberate deceptions. Read my “one-page memo” on these 17 examples of gross incompetence and or absolute deceit below and make your own judgements.

1) The FBI omitted information obtained from another governmental agency that Carter Page was a cooperating “operational contact” working with our government and providing information on Russian intelligence officers.
2) They asserted that Christopher Steele’s prior reporting had been “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings” which overstated Steele’s past reporting. This violated the FBI’s “Woods Procedures” which requires facts in a FISA request to be “scrupulously accurate” and verified.
3) They omitted information relevant to the reliability of a key Steele sub-source, namely that Steele himself had called him a boaster and egoist who may engage embellishment and that the FBI had opened an investigation on this person before the FISA application had been filed.
4) The FBI lied when they asserted that Steele did not provide the press information for September 23rd Yahoo News article.
5) They omitted Papadopoulos’s statements in September of 2016 denying that anyone associated with the Trump campaign was collaborating with Russian or with any outside group like Wikileaks in the release of emails.
6) They omitted Carter Page’s statement in September of 2016 that he had “literally never met” or “said one word to” Paul Manafort, and that Paul Manafort had not responded to nay of Page’s emails.
7) They omitted statements from Page that were inconsistent with the FBI’s theory, including denying having ever met Igor Sechin or Igor Divyekin (two allies of Vladimir Putin) or even knowing who Divyekin was.
8) They omitted the fact that Steele’s primary sub-source had made statements in January of 2017 raising significant questions out the reliability of allegations included in the FISA applications.
9) THIS IS A BIG ONE – The OGC (Office of General Counsel) Attorney altered an email from another agency to state that Carter Page was “not a source” for the other agency, when the memo confirmed that he actually was!!
10) Omitted information from reliable sources that suggested Steele “demonstrates a lack of self-awareness (and) poor judgement”. Also, that Steele “pursued people with political risk but no intelligence value” and that Steele didn’t always exercise great judgement” and it was “not clear what he would have done to validate” his reporting.
11) Omitted information from Bruce Ohr about Steele’s reporting, including A) Steele’s reporting was going to the Clinton campaign B) Glen Simpson of GPS was paying Steele to discuss his reporting to the media, and C) Steele was “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being the US President”.
12) They failed to update the description of Steele after information became known that provided greater clarity on the political origins of Steele’s reporting, including that Simpson was hired by someone associated with the Democratic Party and / or the DNC.
13) They failed to correct the assertion in the first FISA application that the FBI did “not” believe that Steele directly provide information to the reporter who wrote the September 23rd Yahoo News article.
14) They omitted the finding by the FBI that Steele’s past contributions had been found to be “minimally corroborated” and instead continued to assert that Steele’s reporting had been “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings”.
15) Omitted Papadopoulos’s statements in late October of 2016 denying that the Trump campaign was involved in the circumstances of the DNC email hack.
16) They omitted Joseph Misfud’s denial that he supplied Papadopoulos with the information he shared with the FFG (Friendly Foreign Government) suggesting the campaign received an offer of assistance from Russia).
17) They omitted information indicating that Page played no role in the Republican platform change on Russia’s annexation of Ukraine, which was inconsistent with a factual assertion relied upon to support probable cause in all four of the FISA applications.

Michael Horowitz suggested that he “found no documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivations influenced the FBI’s decisions”, which simply means that no one confessed to bias verbally or in writing. He also admitted that he, “did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems (h)e identified.”

Thankfully, this is America and we have the right and privilege to make a judgement and decide for ourselves what was driving this abundance of errors, omissions and deliberate falsification of evidence. Unfortunately, our only choices are gross negligence, incompetence or political bias. All would leave a horrible stain on the FBI for years to come, but there are two factors that keep bringing me back to the fact that bias was the motive. First, if the FBI was just incompetent, errors would have been made equally for and against the Trump campaign. The odds that all 17 errors, etc. would be made randomly in one direction (like 17 straight coin flips coming up heads) are one in 131,072 or .000763%. No thinking person needs documentary or testimonial evidence to conclude that these particular FISA applications reeked of political bias.

Intent is in the Eye of the Beholder

Intent, I Guess, is in the Eye of the Beholder
The View from the Middle

You may have noticed that every time the Democrats bring up the fact that President Trump asked President Zelensky of Ukraine to do him a favor and look into the Bidens, they also attach a motive to it. They say that he asked for this favor solely to disparage one of his political rivals in the upcoming 2020 elections. They never make the first claim without adding the suggested intent of the investigation that he was requesting. You see, they must convince you that the President did this purely for personal political gain. Have you asked yourself why that is?

First, they MUST make the request sound illegitimate, irresponsible and possibly illegal. So, they must suggest that they can read Donald Trump’s mind and are absolutely certain of what his motive was when he made this request of Zelensky. It seems that whenever the media or Democrats, but I repeat myself, read Trump’s mind, they find the worst of intentions. Yet, when they (Comey and the media) read Hillary Clinton’s mind, when she destroyed 30,000 emails under subpoena, they gave her the benefit of the doubt and claimed that she had “no intent” to violate the law. It’s amazing to me that when the media and Democrats resort to “mind reading” they consistently exonerate Democrats and condemn Republicans. Interesting, isn’t it.

So, Democrats MUST attach this slimier motive to Trump’s request just to make it SEEM inappropriate, but what if that was not the reason for Trump’s request. Certainly, the President of the United States has the right, even the duty, to investigate potential corruption in a country to which we are about to give millions, even billions, of dollars in aid. It’s not President Trump’s fault that Joe Biden and his son Hunter got involved with one of the most corrupt companies in one of the most corrupt countries in the world. So, if Trump’s motivation was to root out corruption in Ukraine, and Joe Biden was tangled up in that corruption, this request was not only not improper, it was noble!

Remember, even President Obama was concerned about Hunter Biden’s appointment to the board of Burisma, one of the most corrupt companies in Ukraine. Hunter had no experience in the energy industry and had no expertise in the Ukrainian language or culture. This “no show” job paying up to a million dollars a year smacked of impropriety at a minimum since Hunter’s father, Joe, was the point man for Ukraine for the Obama administration. Even now, David Axelrod, Obama’s campaign manager, recommends that Joe Biden should just, “admit that this was wrong” and try to move on. When you add the fact that Joe boasted that he coerced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor, who was investigating his son’s company, and he did so by threatening to withhold over a billion dollars of American aid, this investigation sounds not only more reasonable but essential.

But since we’re talking about intent or motives, let’s take a look on the other side of the political divide. What if the Democrats have been harassing this President and dividing this country for three years, just for personal, political gain. What evidence, you may ask, is there that this persecution has been deliberate and malicious? Remember how the Democrats reacted to the Trump election. They said they were going to “resist” and “obstruct” everything this President pursued. Within 20 minutes of his inauguration, they were calling for his impeachment. For what? From the beginning they were intent on impeaching him (ask Al Green and Maxine Waters) and their only goal was to find something, anything to accuse him of. Did they do this for personal political gain? Of course they did. So which act to you find more offensive? Asking Ukraine to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden to find out if there was any corruption at Burisma, or polarizing our entire country for your own political gain?

While I have you, let’s talk a little about the articles of impeachment just announce by Nancy Pelosi and Jerry Nadler. The first was “abuse of power”. I must admit that I agree that there has been an abuse of power in this impeachment process. I agree with Constitutional scholar, Johnathan Turley, that the Democrat majority in the House have abused their power by redefining “high crimes and misdemeanors” in a way that would have had every past President impeached. The Founders would truly be rolling over in their grave.

Second, Democrats have charged “obstruction of Congress”. Note that “quid pro quo” and “bribery”, the original accusations that started this entire inquiry, are not even mentioned as an article of impeachment. So, in effect, Nancy Pelosi and Jerry Nadler are saying that even though President Trump did not commit the crimes he was accused of, he did vigorously resist being hung (politically) for it.

Both of these charges are so nebulous and weak that it should make us all irate that the Democrat majority wasted our time and tried to turn Americans against each other for literally – nothing. These articles were so weak that Nancy Pelosi had to announce her support for USMCA (our trade deal with Mexico and Canada) within two hours of their announcement. This is legislation that she has been holding for almost a year, but she just happened to finally support it within two hours of their impeachment announcement. This distraction from their pathetic impeachment efforts would be laughable if it weren’t so obvious.

Political Intrigue Fatigue

Political Intrigue Fatigue
The View from the Middle

I think I can speak for the vast majority of Americans when I say that I am exhausted by the three-year impeachment investigation that has been sucking all of the oxygen out of Washington and the country. Sure, Adam Schiff will try to convince you that the impeachment inquiry just started a few weeks ago, but he is just part of the elaborate drama that has been playing in Washington since President Trump was elected.
In fact, the Washington Post called for the President’s impeachment only 19 minutes after his inauguration. Man, that must have been a terrible 19 minutes. What exactly had he done to deserve impeachment? And House Democratic Representatives Al Green, from Texas, and Maxine Waters, from California, picked up the mindless cult chant shortly after that.

Then there was the Mueller investigation that desperately looked for “collusion” with Russia by the Trump campaign for nearly two years and found that not only has Trump not colluded with Russia (which, by the way is not a crime) but that no American colluded with or coordinated with Russia to interfere with the 2016 elections. This, of course, is despite the fact that Adam “full of” Schiff promised that there was tons of evidence in plain sight. I guess you needed Adam Schiff’s double vision, double standard glasses to see it.
Just a side note here. Who was President of the United States during the 2016 elections, and didn’t he say publicly that there was nothing to the Russian meddling?

For the last three weeks we have been subjected to the Adam “full of” Schiff show, which has bored America from start to finish. The viewership for the first day of the Adam Schiff show was only 13 million people, which is about half the ratings of the Republican debates, starring Donald Trump, back in 2016. That audience declined every day until it finished with an audience just over 11 million.

Of course we are desperately awaiting (not really) the findings of this inquiry which will be released later today. We’re all on pins and needles. Dear me, what will they conclude? As if we don’t already know. Would it surprise anyone to find out that this final report was written before the inquiry even heard its first witness, just like Comey’s exoneration of Hillary Clinton back in 2015. Just humor me here. Is “Adam Schiff’s Intelligence Committee” an oxymoron?

All of this endless investigation has sucked the life out of the American people and apparently Congress too, which can’t seem to get anything done. While Nancy Pelosi claimed that she can “walk and chew gum”, nothing of any meaning is passing The House despite some tremendous bipartisan agreement. For example, the USMCA (our trade agreement with Canada and Mexico) will add billions to our economy and create nearly 200,000 jobs has tremendous support from both sides of the aisle. Nancy Pelosi, however, will not bring it to a vote because she doesn’t want President Trump to get a win, even if it means depriving the American people from its benefits.

Both parties also agree on the need for an infrastructure bill to help repair our country’s roads, bridges and airports, and as you might imagine, there is bipartisan support for a prescription drug bill to help our senior citizens. I believe that there is even room to come together on some immigration legislation. Trump has already shown interest in offering a path to citizenship for the DACA kids / Dreamers in exchange for some border security spending. There is much that can be accomplished if Congress decided to focus on “We The People” instead of searching for impeachment in all the wrong places. By the way, is “I just don’t like the guy” grounds for impeachment?

Worst of all for Democrats, they are losing the public relations fight. The percent of the country that supports impeachment and removal from office continues to decline, and that’s while they are in charge of this charade in the House. Wait until (if) the Senate takes control.

Finally, the Democrat debates are taking a hit. The first debate boasted 18.2 million viewers, about 25% less than a Republican debate including Trump. This viewership has dropped steadily until the last debate on MSNBC hit rock bottom with an audience of only 6.6 million viewers. This may be a blessing in disguise, however, since the policies that these candidates support (Medicare for all, guaranteed income, free college and free everything else) are delusional at best.

The fact is, the country is exhausted. We’ve turned off our television news coverage and tuned into Nick at Night. We want a distraction from all of this distraction. We just want Washington to get back to work for the American people. Is that too much to ask?

Socratic Wisdom

Whether you have been called a misogynist or a xenophobe or bigot or worse, or if your argument consists of these insults, this wisdom from Socrates is for you.

While it is impossible to prove whether Socrates made this specific statement or not, since he virtually never wrote things down, this is certainly consistent with his known sentiment. When you resort to name-calling, whether you are Hillary or Trump, you have lost the real intellectual debate and have shut down the discussion instead of enriching it. When you hear the vilification, share this logic from Socrates and maybe we can turn the debate to reason, facts and civility on a national scale.

Debt and Deficits

Background:

The US running debt clock is just a few ticks below $23 trillion, which the entire group agreed was a concern. This total debt ranks the US number eight in the world in terms of debt to GDP ratio at 107%. This is a top ten club that we should not want to be a part of, and puts us in the same league as Japan (unique economic model) as well as Greece, Italy, Portugal and Venezuela.

One of our members pointed out that given today’s low interest rates, this level of debt is not a huge problem right now. The service on our debt is only about $400 billion and represents just under 10% of our budget. While $400 billion is a lot of money and could fund many needed governmental programs, it is the future that is of concern to the entire group.

While Republicans criticized the nearly $10 trillion in debt accumulated under the Obama administration, the out of control spending has continued under President Trump. Last year’s deficit, for example, was nearly $800 billion and next year’s projection is for another $900 billion deficit. If this out of control spending continues and interest rates ever return to historic levels like five or six percent, service on the debt could easily top a trillion dollars and become the largest single element of our country’s budget.

Finally, the group understands that balancing the budget will require some difficult decisions. The combination of mandatory spending, like Social Security and Medicare, plus spending on the military, which is actually a discretionary expense, and service on the debt, which cannot be ignored, represents 86% of our budget. On the revenue side, we understand that every dollar taken in by the government takes money out of the economy and that we can’t get it all just from the rich. Taxing the top 1% at 100%, which will never happen, will only bring $600 billion into the government coffers. Revenue should come from a more balanced approach and by growing the economy so that it delivers higher revenues even at current rates.


Spending and Revenue Solutions:

1. Social Security must be restructured or it will be insolvent by 2034. Addressing its shortcomings offer both spending and revenue opportunities.

a. We should increase the age of eligibility for SS from 62 to 65 or 66. When SS started, back in 1940, life expectancy in the US was 62, today life expectancy is 79. We believe this change should apply to those age 49 and lower, as these people still have a chance to change their plans for retirement.
b. The above change would also affect the contributor / beneficiary ratio which was 16.5 to one even back in 1950. Today that ratio is 2.8 to one and by 2030 it will be 2.4 to one unless these changes are made. This is just not manageable.
c. We would also suggest that we increase the current limit on SS taxed income, which is only $128,000 today. We would suggest that all income, including capital gains, should be subject to SS taxes up to a million dollars a year.

2. The group was also very interested in a balanced budget amendment for the federal government as most state governments currently have.
a. This amendment to the constitution would have to make allowances for emergency situations like wars or economic catastrophes.
b. This amendment could also be tied to a Debt to GDP ratio for the total debt. It could suggest, for example, that the budget should balance if the total debt is higher than 70 or 80% of GDP. Currently our debt represents 107% of GDP

3. We would recommend that Congress reshuffle the tax cuts they voted in last year. We believe that a 25% corporate tax rate would keep us more than competitive on a global basis and that we should use all the increased revenue to lower the individual tax rates. While this would be a wash in terms of projected revenue, we believe it would create a positive “demand side” boost to the economy, thus increasing job creation and tax revenue from new tax payers.

4. While we all have great respect for our military, we all agreed that there are probably ways to reduce this huge (over $700 billion a year) element of the budget. For example, we have bases in over 80 countries in the world that are in those countries at great expense. Do we really need all of these bases in a world where we have the fire power available on our aircraft carriers and submarines? We believe a 10% cut in military spending is possible without endangering our country’s safety. Our spending would still be almost three times that of China.

5. We would recommend a reduction in cabinet level departments. President Lincoln had seven cabinet positions, but today we have 15. With each department comes its own level of complexity and expense. I would suggest that we totally eliminate the Department of Education since the country’s SAT and ACT scores have actually fallen since it was created and we continually fall farther behind other countries in our math and science scores. Give some of the $70 billion we spend on this department to the states and put the rest towards reducing out debt. Commerce and Labor Departments could be combined as well as Agriculture and Interior. Efficiency should be the motto and savings should be used to reduce the deficit.

6. Our group also thought a move to put America first would help stimulate the economy and recognize some savings. We should certainly push to source products from companies from this country, but there was also a suggestion to penalize products made outside America and especially countries who do not have a reciprocal trading relationship with us, like China.

Benefits from these recommendations:

Our group was very focused on both the revenue and spending sides of this issue, but we also kept the economy in mind as we made these suggestions. While the suggestions for the Social Security Trust Fund are mostly designed to save that program for future generations, we thought that all the other suggestions would actually stimulate the economy through the supply or demand side. So, in addition to the actual savings attached to each idea above, we would expect revenues to go up through higher general employment and higher corporate and small business profits which would both result in higher absolute taxes paid.

Our group unanimously agreed with these solutions, which should signal the likely approval of the vast majority of Americans of both sides of the ideological spectrum. I believe that a plan that would incorporate these planks would not only work to resolve many of the problems we face today, but would also gain support of the vast majority of the American people.

The Genius of America

The Genius of America
The View from the Middle

Let me take this opportunity to encourage my readers, and especially young people, to read some history. We should all know and understand the underpinnings of our own country, but we should also read the facts about other systems of government and the people who launched them. We should read about Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. We should all know about Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro and even Adolf Hitler. I believe that if we read history, we will come to appreciate the genius of our Founding Fathers.

Our Founders understood the depravity of man (and woman) and designed governmental and economic systems that took power away from the government, controlled by a small group of men, and invested in the individual. Why would they do that? For two reasons. First, they had just left a monarchy where they believed that too much power rested in the hands of very few people. They understood the old adage that states, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” They also recognized the tendency of men to be greedy and selfish. As the Bible says in Jeremiah, “The heart (of man) is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure.” They never wanted our government, which will always be run by human beings, to wield the kind of monstrous power that they experienced in England.

They created a government that was intentionally small, running on revenues that represented two, three or four percent of the country’s GDP from 1790 all the way through the 1920’s. Of course, there were bursts of spending for the Civil War and for WWI, but outside of those existential threats, the government remained tiny for almost 140 years. They also added “The Bill of Rights” to our Constitution specifically to protect the rights of the individual from the cold, blunt, uncaring power of a central government. Today government spending equals 23% of our GDP and intrudes into almost every aspect of our lives. The Founders would be both disappointed and terrified.

They also decided to let the country’s economy be run by capitalistic principles of supply and demand and free markets. This took the government out of the job of picking winners and losers, which would have created an environment rife with corruption, and put it into the hands of individual Americans. This freedom empowered millions of hardworking, creative, risk-taking American citizens to prosper individually and to collectively create the richest and most powerful country the world has ever known. This democratic, capitalistic system has also lifted more people out of poverty than any other system in world history.

But there are those now who would throw out this most successful system in the world and replace it with what our Founders feared most, a gargantuan, bloated, corrupt and inept central government. That, of course, is what socialism is. They focus on promises that socialism and politicians can never deliver. Politicians, like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, promise to solve all of your problems. Want your student loan debt forgiven? Want free healthcare? Want free college? Want guaranteed income? If you think government is too big now, wait until these socialists get control. Government will be twice as big and expensive and repressive as it is today.

This would produce a very small group of people in Washington with immense, dare I say “absolute”, power over all of us. They want the power to tell us what kind of house we can live in, what kind of car we can drive and what kind of business you can start. And remember this small group is going to be comprised of flawed, imperfect, greedy and selfish people. To quote the world famous, Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman when he was talking about Socialism, “where are you going to find these “angels” who are going to organize society for us?” This was his way of reminding us that all of these people who want to run your life are flawed, greedy and selfish people who will take care of themselves first and at your expense.

Our Founders would be rolling over in their graves. They created a governmental and economic system that insulated Americans from the cold, impersonal power of a massive, corrupt central government and unleashed the awesome potential of the collective individualism of this country. As for me, I stand with our Founding Fathers and the power of freedom, liberty and the American people. Do I hear an “Amen”?

Hillary's Delusional Dilemma

Hillary’s Delusional Dilemma
The View from the Middle

It’s not difficult to imagine Bill and Hillary Clinton’s aspirations as a young couple at Yale and then in Northwest Arkansas. They were both very smart and driven young people. I’m not sure if the Presidency for both was a goal when they first met, but I can easily imagine that they started thinking in those terms after Bill became Arkansas’ youngest Governor at age 33.

It was clear that Bill was a natural politician. I’ve heard testimony from people on both sides of the political aisle about Bill’s power to charm. He could enter a room of people divided on an issue and somehow leave with both sides believing he supported their positions. Many argue that this was a skill Bill picked up as he grew up in Arkansas. No matter where and how he developed this skill, many would argue that Bill (Slick Willie) was a natural born persuader and maybe even a master manipulator. Hillary, while intelligent and ambitious did not acquire those same skills.

The plan, I’m sure, was to ride Bill’s extraordinary talent to the Whitehouse and then, given a respectable mourning period, Hillary would ride Bill’s popularity to the highest office in the land also. She was smart, capable and even dynamic. Certainly, this plan couldn’t fail. But there was a flaw in the plan that Hillary could not grasp back then and still cannot accept even today. Hillary is just not likeable.

In 2008, the grieving period had expired, the economy was in a freefall and everyone knew that whoever won the Democratic nomination was going to win the Presidency. The plan was coming to fruition. It was Hillary’s turn to run the country and go down as the first female President and to cement the Clinton legacy into the very foundation of the Democrat Party. But then came the young, charming Barack Obama to throw a monkey wrench into the gears of the Clinton machine.

Hillary had two choices. She could accept this set back as a learning experience and take notes from both Bill and Barack, or she could become angry and bitter. It is my opinion that this is where she took that dark turn and diminished her likeability to a new low level. If this defeat by Barack Obama wasn’t enough, can you imagine what her loss in 2016 did to her psyche.

This move to the dark side showed up big time in 2016. Hillary should have recognized that as much as many people disliked Trump, her approval ratings were equally low. In fact, the three most often used descriptors of Hillary Clinton were, “liar, dishonest and untrustworthy”. Instead of putting on the “charm offensive” as Bill would have surely done, she decided to insult those people who dared question her integrity and put them in her “basket of deplorables”. She called them homophobes, xenophobes, Islamophobes, misogynists, bigots and racists. Not exactly a tactic from Dale Carnegie’s book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.

Despite all of these tactical blunders, everyone, including Trump, believed that Hillary was going to win the 2016 Presidential general election. Every poll gave her huge leads and there was a 90%+ agreement that she would win, but she didn’t. She didn’t listen to her most astute political partner and husband and failed to shore up her “rust belt” wall to victory. Trump didn’t outspend Hillary, he simply out hustled her and she made huge tactical and even strategic mistakes, and this defeat seems to have pushed Hillary into a whole new state of delusion.

The woman who suggested that Trump would not accept the results of the election, has clearly not been able to accept them herself. Her book, What Happened, seemed to blame everyone (the Russians, James Comey, Wikileaks) but herself, but recently her delusion seems to have become even deeper. In an interview with PBS Hillary actually said that, “she could beat him (Trump) again” if she were the nominee in 2020. “Beat him again”? Really? That is the absolute definition of “delusional”.

And now she is attacking Tulsi Gabbard, Democratic candidate for President from Hawaii, saying that she is a Russian asset with zero evidence. This is a smear job that has no place in American politics. While I disagree with Tulsi Gabbard on many ideological positions, she did serve in our military in a combat zone in Iraq and was also deployed to Kuwait in 2008 and 2009. I thank her for her service, and so should Hillary.

It is time for Hillary to retire from politics. Her pipedream of becoming the Democrat Party’s nominee for President in 2020 is just that. It is a fantasy. It is a delusion, and the longer she stays in the political public eye, the more she hurts the Democrat Party, the American people and the Clinton legacy. Hillary, you don’t have to go home and bake cookies, although that might not be a bad idea right now, but you should embrace a cause, like the wellbeing of the children of the United States, and leave the political scene altogether.

Dear NBA, Welcome to the Real China

NBA and America, Welcome to the Real China!
The View from the Middle

There are many Americans who may not really understand the threat that China poses to America and the world. We live in a world today that is still dominated by the USA, which still proposes to believe in free people and free markets, fair trade and the fundamental principles of capitalism. These principles, which also enable freedom of speech and freedom of religion, are good for all peoples around the world, but we must understand that China does not embrace this philosophy. The NBA, and by extension all of America, got a reminder of what the world would look like with China as THE world power, which is their plan.

A person, just one person in America, who happens to be the General Manager of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, had the audacity to tweet his support for the protesters in Hong Kong. How dare he!! As a result, the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association) has suspended their cooperation with the Houston Rockets and Chinese State TV (CCTV) has announced that it will not be televising the preseason games that are being played in Shanghai and Shenzhen between the LA Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets. THIS is how China responds to one man’s exercise of free speech. The country attacks him and threatens to deny the NBA’s access to their market. This is like using a bazooka to kill a mosquito, but that is what China does, and has been doing.

If you have been wondering why President Trump has been fighting a trade war with China, it’s because China has been doing the same thing to American businesses for the last 40 years or so. They do not play fair. They do not have open and free markets. They lie, cheat and steal with impunity using access to their market of 1.4 billion Chinese people as their bludgeoning club.

Let’s get specific. Here are four ways that China practices unfair trade in their quest to become THE world power by 2025. First, they create barriers to foreign companies to even compete in the Chinese market. Then, even if a company is awarded the right to compete, they are forced to do it with a Chinese partner who must hold a majority interest in that venture. This is the major mechanism they use to steal that company’s intellectual capital. This, of course, is not a requirement in the United States or any other developed country in the world that I am aware of.

Second, China has used unbalanced tariffs to both increase their country’s revenues and to make products imported into China uncompetitive versus Chinese goods. In fact, a major plank in China’s planned world dominance is to unfairly advantage goods produced in China. They do this through subsidization and manipulation of their currency.

Subsidization is the easiest to understand. China takes the money they charge other countries in tariffs and then subsidizes entire industries, if they like, and then export those products to other countries at prices that can even be below the cost to produce them. That, if effect, exports their unemployment to those other countries. They also manipulate their currency to constantly give their products a competitive advantage in other countries and increase the costs of products being imported into China.

And that’s how they have rolled, so to speak, for years, and countries have turned a blind eye to their lying and cheating and stealing in order to get access to their market. Now, America is calling their bluff by demanding free and fair markets or we will tax (tariff) the heck out of their products entering our market. This is not a pain-free strategy, but I believe that we must do this for the long-term good of our country and for the world.

Now the NBA is getting a taste of the real China that will bludgeon it into submission if it doesn’t acquiesce to their authoritarian, subjugating government. They need to tread lightly here. Are they willing to give up all of their rights and principles in order to acquire the almighty dollar, or yuan (the Chinese currency)? Is our country and the NBA willing to sell their souls to China? More importantly, are the athletes willing to sell their souls to a racist, authoritarian government? For anyone who is willing to do so, know that the price is high and will eventually come due!

An Inconvenient Transcript

An Inconvenient Transcript
The View from the Middle

A week is a lifetime in politics, especially in today’s frenzied news cycle. When I left for Indiana last week, the mainstream media was absolutely hysterical about a whistleblower report concerning a phone call between President Trump and Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky. They were claiming that President Trump made a clear threat to withhold funding from Ukraine in order to force Zelensky to do his bidding. The media was delirious as they demanded that President Trump release the transcript of that call, which they were absolutely sure he would not do. Then, when Trump refused to release the transcript, they could also accuse him of stonewalling or maybe even obstruction of justice. They were giddy that they had put Trump into a “no-win” situation. Then, the inconceivable occurred. Trump released the transcript. And the Dems and the media collectively said, “crap!”

Don’t take anyone’s word for what’s in the transcript (especially Adam “full of” Schiff). It’s only four pages long and I’ll put a link to the transcript at the end of this post that you can copy and paste into your browser. Read it for yourself.

After the transcript of the call was released, the media and the Dems began to scramble. The transcript revealed that what they had said about Trump’s conversation with Zelensky was not even close to accurate. The Washington Post, hardly a right-wing publication, published seven take-aways from the transcript, and #1 was that, “It mentions no explicit quid pro quo”. Wow, that should have been a bombshell story in and of itself. Why would they have made that claim without even seeing the transcript of the call? Oh yah! They never expected President Trump to be so transparent as to release the transcript.

After trying to redefine “quid pro quo” to mean “ask for a favor” they had to actually make up things that weren’t in the transcript. This is where Adam “full of” Schiff made a mockery of himself and of the House of Representatives. He actually read into the Congressional record his personal interpretation of the call without even referencing those pesky facts that are actually in the transcript. For example, this is what “full of” Schiff suggests Trump was telling Zelensky, “I’m only going to tell you seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent. Understand? Lots of it, on this and on that.” “Full of” Schiff then suggests that the President ended the call by telling Zelensky, “by the way, don’t call me again. I’ll call you when you’ve done what I asked.”

“Full of” Schiff’s only problem is…none of that was in the transcript at all. Maybe he was hearing voices or maybe he confused the transcript with a Tom Clancy novel he was reading, but this is not even close to what President Trump said. Even CNN said, “Here’s where Schiff veered quite a distance from what the transcript says.” When CNN says he “veered quite a distance” that means that Adam “full of” Schiff was just lying and counting on his allies in the media to only report his delusional ramblings and not the actual content of the transcript. He truly is a disgrace.

And while all of this exaggeration and complete fabrication was going on, some actual journalists were releasing a video of Joe Biden bragging about doing exactly what the Dems and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself) were accusing President Trump of doing. In January of 2018, Joe boasted that he extorted the then President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, back in 2016 by threatening to withhold a $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine. His exact words were, “We’re not going to give you the billion dollars…I’m leaving here in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.” Now that is a quid pro quo (which in Latin means “this for that”) if I’ve ever heard one. But Joe couldn’t just leave it there, he had to make sure that everyone knew that his extortion threat paid off. Finally, he added, “Well, son of a bitch. He (the prosecutor) got fired.”

At this point, Joe should have added that the prosecutor that he was so determined to get fired was investigating a company named Burisma Holdings where his son, Hunter, served on the Board of Directors. An interesting factoid to leave out, don’t you think?

I have told you many times that this is a tactic that the Dems use very often, and that is to accuse others of doing exactly what they are doing. It’s a version of the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels’ “big lie”. Their behavior is so outrageously hypocritical, they are hoping that no one could believe they would dare try it. Here’s the link to the transcript. Don’t trust the lamestream media to give you an accurate portrayal of what is in it. Read it for yourself.

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/25/764052120/read-transcript-of-president-trumps-call-with-ukraine-s-leader

Hell No! Beto

Hell No, Beto
The View from the Middle

As you would expect, in last night’s Democrat debate the line of the night came from one of the candidates who is bouncing off the bottom of the primary barrel who was just trying to stay relevant and trying to just get some attention. When asked, “Are you proposing taking away their (Americans) guns”, Robert Francis (Beto) O’Rourke said, “Hell yes, we’re going to take away your AR-15, your AK-47.” I think it is fair to assume that by “we” Mr. O’Rourke meant our federal government.

It is easy, however, to understand why Beto made this ludicrous statement. First, HE…IS…LYING. He has no intention of actually fulfilling this promise, even if all the other Democrat candidates and President Trump died and he was literally the last man standing. And that’s about what it would take for this “1% support” candidate to win. So, we have that going for us, which is nice!!

Second, this kind of confiscation of arms is against our constitution and appears in our 2nd amendment of its Bill of Rights. The second amendment clearly states that, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The fact that this appears in the 2nd amendment should give us a feel for how important our founders thought this fundamental right is. The first amendment protects our freedom of speech and religion, and the next most important freedom our forefathers thought to protect was the right to bear arms.

So, why would our founders put this particular protection so high up on their list of freedoms to safeguard? The short answer is that they did not trust any large, central government. They were, in fact, separating from England because that national government had seized their property, imprisoned them without just cause and taxed them without representation. They feared the repressive, absolute and selfish power of a central government whom they believed could take away rights that they believed every person on earth was granted by their Creator. They weren’t trying to protect the new American citizens right to hunt. They were trying to protect themselves and even us today from the monster that a dictatorial, authoritarian government can become. And I hope that, given the duplicity and dysfunction we see in Washington today, we can understand the “Orwellian” threat that a too powerful government can be to all of us.

Finally, Beto knows he can’t possibly pull this off, even in the absolutely unlikely event that our government passed such legislation. Think about who he would be trying to take these guns away from! As passionate as he pretends to be on this gun confiscation issue, there are millions of Americans who are just as passionate about protecting their right to “keep and bear arms.” Can you imagine our government sending our law enforcement officers or military door-to-door brandishing their guns to confiscate guns from law abiding citizens?

In its own way, this crazy thought is just like the Green New Deal from Bernie and AOC. They can make all of the crazy, insane, inane suggestions, promises or statements they want. They know they won’t pass any of them. That’s why the AOC New Green Deal did not get a single vote in the Senate. If this sort of “We’re going to take your guns” legislation would ever be proposed, I’m confident it would receive even similar support. So, Beto, your 15 minutes of fame is over. Go back to Texas and just try to take their guns way! Good luck with that!

Global Warming - Who's in Control?

Global Warming – Who’s in Control?
The View from the Middle

Mankind’s hubris never ceases to amaze me. Politicians are trying to convince us that we have a little steering wheel, gas pedal and brake somewhere along the equator, I suppose, and we are actually driving the earth around the sun. Some would suggest we also have a little thermostat somewhere that we can turn up or down at will. They want you to believe that they are, or could be, in control and would turn down the temperature and push the “no hurricanes” button on their control panel if we only gave them the power. All we have to do is give them all our money and all our freedoms and they will be our global Uber driver and deliver a smooth ride, no warming (unless you want it, of course), no natural disasters and no wars.

The reality is that the world is a huge place with a mind of its own. We are, in fact, a flea on a dog that is suggesting that it controls the dog. Let me give you an idea of just how insignificant we are. The earth has over 500 million square kilometers of surface area and we could fit the entire population of the planet, all 7.7 billion people, within the city limits of Anchorage, Alaska, with room to spare. We truly are just a flea on the back of this planet. We are a passenger on God’s creation and are just along for the ride. Our only hope is to adapt to this ever changing world and be good stewards of the planet God gave us dominion over.

The fact that we (the flea) have noticed that the world is warming is quite the accomplishment, but to suggest that we can control that temperature is just a lie. And to suggest the dog will die and kill all the fleas is just fearmongering. In 1989, the New York Director of the UN Environment Program said that we had 10 years to solve the CO2 problem or the oceans would rise by three feet (36 inches), the polar ice caps would be gone and New York would be under water. Of course, none of that happened, but does any of that sound familiar?

Most scientists believe that the earth has been around for billions of years, and has sustained life on it for over a billion years. During that time temperatures have risen and fallen with no help from mankind. About 56 million years ago average global temperatures were about 15 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today, and man was not around to cause it. There have also been at least five ice ages according to Climatologist Cliff Harris and Meteorologist Randy Mann. They also identified a period about 460 million years ago, during the Ordovician Period, when CO2 content in the atmosphere was over 10 times higher than today’s levels while temperatures were the same as our current temps.

And many scientists will admit that they aren’t even sure if CO2 is a cause of warming or a result of it. Even if it is a “cause” it is just one, and a relatively small one, when you compare it to the sun, volcanic activity and El Nino events. If the sun decides to have storms or flares or hot periods there is nothing we can do about it. If the earth’s volcanoes decides to erupt on land or below our oceans, we will just be spectators. If we experience a strong El Nino (warming of the ocean’s waters) there is nothing we can do to prevent it. Our politicians know they can’t convince thinking people that they can control any of these things, so they will try to persuade us that they can tinker with CO2 levels and regulate the world’s temperature level as easily as they control their thermostats.

And even if CO2 contributes to global warming, remember two things. First, if all of the commitments of the Paris Accord are recognized, scientists “hope” to prevent a two degree centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in temperature over the next 100 years. Given the temperature changes the earth has experienced over the last three or four thousand years, it is ludicrous to make that projection with any amount of certainty. Second, I will guarantee that the earth will still be here in 11 years, despite the threats made by that brilliant climatologist and bar tender Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC). I will also guarantee that in 11 years some politician will suggest, once again, that unless we dramatically change our ways by 2040 or 2050, we will be doomed. And on it will go until we figure out that they are Lucy with the football, and we are Charlie Brown.

Finally, we must remember that we are talking about “global” warming, and the world’s worst offender in terms of CO2 emissions is China! In fact, China releases twice the absolute amount of CO2 into the atmosphere as the United States despite having a much smaller economy. Why should the Paris Accord allow China, the worst emitter of CO2 in the world by far, to continue increasing their emissions until 2030? Isn’t that past “the point of no return” according to AOC and Bernie Sanders? And after 2030 do you really believe China will keep their promises? They’ve done so well in the “promise keeping” area for the last 50 years, haven’t they?

While the rest of the world has increased their emissions by over 60% since 1990, The United States has maintained its emissions at 1990 levels. But Bernie, AOC and the rest of the Democrat party want us to destroy our economy and give up virtually all of our freedoms to get to net zero carbon emissions. This would take us back to the stone ages while China blows past us economically and replaces us as the only Superpower left on the planet. Do we really want to doom our children and grandchildren to a world where China is calling the shots.

Should we be good stewards of our world? Of course we should. Should we encourage other countries to do the same? Of course we should. Should we finance every other country’s efforts and commit economic Hara-kiri in the process? Of course not. But it is amazing what some politicians will promise to get elected today, even if it guarantees national servitude in the future, as long as that future is far enough away for them to be long gone. How many of us will be around in 2100 to measure the actual results vs. the draconian projections?

"Celebration"

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!!
“Celebration” - Kool & The Gang - 1979
The View from the Middle

This last Saturday night I was watching the Auburn Tigers play the Oregon Ducks in the most important college football game of the day. Oregon was ranked #11 in the country and Auburn was ranked #16. It was a big enough game to be played at a neutral site, Cowboys Stadium in Texas, and at prime time Saturday night. I was expecting a good game and hoping for an Auburn win, and in the end I wasn’t disappointed.

Auburn was starting a true Freshman quarterback and got behind quickly. Oregon was leading at halftime 14-3, and things were looking even worse early in the third quarter when Oregon went up 21-6. But I’ve known Auburn head coach, Gus Malzahn, since 1996 when he was hired as head coach at Shiloh High School here in Arkansas, and I’ve learned to never give up on Gus. He has figured out how to win at every level and under some unbelievable circumstances. He won two state championships with Shiloh and one at Springdale High School in 2005 when many argued that the Bulldogs were the best high school team in the country. Since going to Auburn, Gus is 63-30 in the brutal Western Division of the SEC which includes Alabama, LSU and Texas A&M. I firmly believe that Malzahn will win a national championship at Auburn someday.

And Gus and the Tigers did not disappoint Saturday night. Auburn clawed their way back and shut out the Ducks for the last 24 minutes of the game. And while the defense was blanking the Ducks, the offense was scoring the last 21 consecutive points to put the Tigers up 27 to 21. This is where the problem actually started for me.

The final play of the game for Auburn was a 26 yard touchdown pass from Freshman QB, Bo Nix, to Sophomore wide receiver Seth Williams with just nine seconds to play. This was probably the biggest play in Seth’s young life and as you might imagine, he was excited and he threw the ball down in celebration. Not a windmill spike where the ball bounced twenty feet in the air or even an taunting ball spin followed by Michael Jackson like dance moves. Just a simple toss of the ball down to the ground, for which he and the Tigers were accessed a 15 yard penalty. Really? 15 yards for that?

Let me explain the implications and make some comparisons. First, this meant that Auburn would have to kick off from their own 20 yard line instead of the 35 which is normal. This makes a kickoff for a touchback an impossibility and almost guarantees good field position for the team returning that kickoff. Even an average kickoff return would have given Oregon at least one good shot at the end zone. In this case, Oregon returned the kickoff all the way to the Auburn 35 which gave them a pretty reasonable shot at a last second touchdown. That’s 40 yards closer than a touchback which would have placed the ball on Oregon’s 25.

Did Seth Williams or Auburn really deserve that kind of penalty for a simple celebration like this? Does the punishment fit the crime? Most other 15 yard penalties like spearing, targeting, roughing the passer or throwing a chop block are intended to protect players from serious injury. Does tossing the ball to the ground after an amazing touchdown really belong in the same category as these fouls. Does it even deserve to be penalized at all.

These days it seems like every sack of the quarterback results in a strutting, chest pounding exhibition by the defensive player. In fact, it seems like there isn’t a tackle anywhere on the field that can’t result in a floor show worthy of Vegas. And none of these self-adulating demonstrations calls for a penalty of any kind.

And when do the celebratory violations, like Seth’s, occur? Often they are at the end of very close games after long, and I might add, amazing touchdowns. The Hippocratic oath of officiating is that the referees, “should not determine the outcome of a game.” It should be the athletes on the field that make that determination, and happily in this case the end result was not affected.

But one of these days an excited young ballplayer is going to instinctively throw the ball to the ground or, heaven forbid, into the stands and a 15 yard penalty is going to be accessed. Let’s say that team has only a one or two point lead and the improved field position allows the other team to kick a field goal on the last play of the game to steal a victory from a team that really deserved to win. In a case like that, the referees would have violated their “prime directive”.

Do we have to wait until this shameful circumstance actually occurs, or should the NCAA change this ridiculous rule right now. I say either eliminate the rule altogether right now, or at least change it to a “delay of game” (5 yard) penalty. If you want to discourage the outlandish spectacles of “team bowling pins” or staged “photo shoots”, give referees the flexibility to penalize teams for “excessive” celebration. This would be a judgement call. I’m not sure we can define every possibility, but it’s like pornography, we’ll know it when we see it.

Bernie's Green New Deal

Bernie’s Green New Sham
The View from the Middle

Have you read Bernie Sanders’ “Green New Deal” proposal? It’s only 48 pages long and is, if nothing else, entertaining. My first impression was that it is the most blatant and massive vote-buying scheme ever perpetrated on the American public. Imagine the number of votes you could buy with $16.3 Trillion. That’s over $50,000 per person in the United States. Oh, but his real price tag is much higher than that. In his opening paragraph he states that, “we must guarantee health care, housing and a good paying job to every American.” We know that “Medicare for all” will cost the country (us, because the government has no money) $32 Trillion over 10 years. Consequently, we also know that it can’t be included in his $16 Trillion price tag. I tried to add up all the spending in Bernie’s scheme, and after my calculator stopped smoking, I estimated that Bernie’s plan will exceed the $93 Trillion cost of AOC’s fantasyland plan which didn’t receive a single vote in the Senate. Even the Democrat co-sponsor of this bill, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, only voted “present”.

The good news for Bernie is that he will have no problem getting his agenda enacted, because it appears that he is not actually running for President, but King. The words “Bernie will” do this or that appears over 25 times in this document. Congress is only mentioned a few times and only to criticize them, never to suggest that they would actually “do” anything. But being King of The United States is apparently too small of a job for Bernie. His proposal states that, “Bernie will convene global leaders to redirect our priorities to confront our shared enemy: climate change.” The only way that Bernie will “convene” world leaders is to pay them off, which he is totally willing to do.

He will, of course, recommit The United States to the Paris Agreement and a $200 billion contribution to the Green Climate Fund. So far, all other counties combined have only committed to seven billion dollars. Obviously, Bernie has no problem committing and spending our money. If this $200 billion was going to be the total amount given to this fund, America would be providing over 95% of the fund’s resources. However, the Director of that fund has already stated that the fund would quickly require over $450 billion “a year”. That would cost us over $4 Trillion over ten years if America continues to provide over 95% of that fund and I’m betting the Bernie has conveniently left that out of his $16 Trillion tab for you and me (because the government has NO money).

Besides the spending, which should scare us all to death, there are other HUGE problems with Bernie’s delusion. Parts of it are actually unconstitutional. Let’s put the idea that Bernie wants to be king aside. Throughout his “Deal” Bernie says he is going to prioritize all of this spending to “people of color” and native Americans. He doesn’t say that he is going to insure equal access or equal opportunity. This should buy some African American and Native American votes, but when whites and Asians realize that they are being disadvantaged (discriminated against) just because of the color of their skin or national heritage, I envision millions of lawsuits - because that is illegal!

Another major problem with this nightmare New Deal is the amount of control that Bernie wants to give to our already inept, corrupt and convoluted government. A quick perusal reveals that Bernie wants complete government control of our healthcare, energy, agriculture, auto and construction industries. That’s about 50% of our entire economy. And once it controls 50% of our economy it will be a $15 Trillion per year monster, which no one will dare challenge or even question. Do we really want Bernie to tell us what kind of healthcare we can have, or what kind of car we can buy or even what kind of food we can eat? At a time when trust in government is at an all-time low, according to Gallup, do we really want to it this kind of unbridled power?

But there is some good news for Bernie in his New Green Deal. It is so outrageous, so farcical and so impossible to implement, he knows that he will never be held accountable for any of these political promises. Remember, not a single Senator, Republican or Democrat, voted for the AOC Green Deal, and Bernie’s is even more fantastical. Not only will Bernie never get this bill through Congress, I can’t think of a single major plank of his plan that would even be proposed.

I will make a daring prediction right now and suggest that Bernie, with this kind of bizarre thinking, will never become President. He can make all the promises he wants to buy as many votes as he can, but he knows he will never have to fulfill those promises. And even if he were to become President, if all the other candidates and Trump were to pass away between now and November of 2020, he will just blame his broken promises on Congress.

Finally, if you are careful and thoughtful as you read this New Deal sham, you will realize there are no promises of how this will affect the world’s climate. This is because Bernie either doesn’t know or projections are so infinitesimal that even he would be embarrassed to state them.

Note to AOC and the Squad - America IS Great

Note to AOC and The Squad – America is Great!
The View from the Middle

One of my favorite Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, famously said, “If you look for the bad in people, expecting to find it, you surely will.” And the same can be said for countries. No country is perfect. In fact, every country has blemishes throughout their histories that have delivered them to their current state. And, if you focused only on their flaws, no country would seem worthy of existence today. Somalia, which Ilhan Omar left to come to the United States, has plenty of warts in its history and even current state, lest Ms. Omar would not have left there to come here. Puerto Rico, home of AOC’s parents, certainly doesn’t boast of a perfect history and is not flawless today, otherwise they would have stayed there. Finally, the Palestinians, whom Rashida Tlaib defends, support the likes of Hamas who celebrates suicide bombers and lobs Scud missiles into Israeli neighborhoods.

Yet these three, plus Ayanna Pressley, which make up “the squad”, constantly tear down The United States by focusing only on and even exaggerating our imperfections. So, today I offer some balance to their false argument by shining the light of truth on America’s rich history.

No matter what the New York Times tries to tell you, this country, this Republic did not even begin to form until Thomas Jefferson composed The Declaration of Independence which informed King George III of our intent to separate from the Great Britain and launch a new nation. I believe that Jefferson knew exactly what he was saying when he wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”. He knew this was not even true in this new country at the time, but he also knew that these words would someday demand the abolition of slavery here. And, this was just the beginning of America's great history.

In 1861 our country entered into a Civil War which had the elimination of slavery in our Republic at its heart. Hundreds of thousands of men and women, both black and white lost their lives to make this new “free” country a reality. Both The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, and the 13th Amendment to our constitution, which was written in 1864 were products of this epic conflict. You can argue that all of this was just the first step in a realization of the true meaning of Jefferson’s words.

Over the next 100 years, as we struggled as a nation to refine the true intent of America’s promise, we defeated the likes of Jim Crow and prejudice as we marched on a continuing path towards real freedom and equal opportunity for all. And exactly 100 years after the 13th Amendment was passed, our Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This was not the end of our journey, but just another step in the direction of true liberty for all of our citizens. This relentless pursuit of freedom for all is just another reason why this country is so great.

And while we were pursuing a more perfect realization of our founding values, we were using our free people and free markets to establish the greatest economy the world has ever known. Today, for example, our annual economy exceeds $20 Trillion or over 24% of the world’s GDP while our population represents only 4% of the world’s 7.7 billion people. And it is our value of “liberty for all” that has unleashed the drive and ingenuity of our people to deliver these results. Let’s be honest. This is a great country.

Of course we should not forget the accomplishments of our armed forces. From the very beginning our military has performed amazingly. In our Revolutionary War and in the war of 1812, the plucky US Army defeated the most powerful military power in the world. During World War I and II we saved Europe and the world from the tyranny of Fascism. Today we have the most powerful and advanced armed forces in the world with more resources than the next nine countries combined. Not too shabby!

On top of all of these social, industrial and military Accomplishments, Americans are also the most compassionate and giving people on earth. We give about $400 billion a year to charities. That’s three and a half times per capita as much as the French, seven times more than the Germans and 14 times more than the Italians and maybe 100 times more generous than the Chinese (do they care about anyone but themselves?). On top of this, our government gives $40 billion to over 100 countries in our names (the government actually has NO money). I’m really proud of how Americans share their prosperity.

Maybe that’s why more people are trying to immigrate to this country, both legally and illegally, than any other country in the world. If the United States of America was so terrible, why would millions of people literally risk their lives to come here every year? Why did Ilhan Omar come here? Why did AOC’s parents come here? Why is Rashida Tlaib here? I believe that America is the most wonderful country in the world, and I’m glad that I was fortunate enough to be born here. It is not perfect, but we have made great strides in our first 243 years and I have faith that we will continue to get better as we strive to create a country in which, “All men are created equal, (and) that they are endowed by (our) Creator with certain unalienable rights, (and) that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

The Dems Great Miscalculation

The Dems Great Miscalculation
The View from the Middle

It all started on September 10th, 2016 at a fundraiser in New York City. Hillary Clinton stated that you could put half of Donald Trump’s supporters into what she called a “basket of deplorables”. She called his backers racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamaphobic. Since she knew that there was no way to know which half any Trump voter was in, she was, in effect, insulting every Trump supporter with her elitist, multi-syllabic slurs. She either felt that she didn’t need their votes so she spewed this toxic, filthy, disgusting rhetoric to inflame her base. OR, she actually believed she could spit in people’s faces one day and convince them to vote for her the next. Either way, her official campaign strategy became the disparagement of Donald Trump and half of America. She was accusing over 60 million people of the most despicable behavior on earth and of having a fundamental lack of humanity. Good strategy!

I think I can speak for every person put in that basket of deplorables when I say that I was insulted, saddened and even shocked that a person who was running for President of all of the people of America could have so little regard for so many of us. In fact, wasn’t she modeling the exact behavior that she was accusing Trump of exhibiting? Certainly not. That would be hypocritical, and we know that type of behavior doesn’t exist in Washington.

But what is even sadder is that virtually every Democrat and the mainstream media (but, I repeat myself) has embraced this strategy. Don Lemon, supposedly a news person at CNN, said that “anyone who supports Donald Trump is complicit in racism”. Joe Scarborough, also of CNN, went through a long and torturous explanation of why Donald Trump is a racist and every Trump supporter must also be one. And, as you might guess, MSNBC is replete with hosts, like Chris Hayes, and guests, like Tiffany Cross who demagogue with the same story line. It never ceases to amaze me that these people can denounce hatred and bigotry while exhibiting that exact same behavior.

And it appears the Joe Biden, currently the Democrats’ leading Presidential candidate, is also adopting this same strategy. Back in 2012, Biden told a largely black audience that Republicans wanted to “put y’all back in chains”. That statement is beyond mere exaggeration. It is specious, malicious and inflammatory, and Joe knows it. More recently Joe claimed that Republicans wanted to, “bring back Jim Crow.” It is astonishing that Joe could say this, while at the same time accusing Republicans of fearmongering. Isn’t that the very definition of hypocrisy? Certainly not, right?

And finally, to put the icing on this disgusting, slanderous cake, I give you Joaquin Castro. Joaquin is the twin brother and campaign manager for Julian Castro who is a Democrat candidate for President and past mayor of San Antonio. Joaquin listed the names and work places of forty-four Trump contributors putting them at risk of financial and even physical harm. And Julian wants to be President of all the people of this great country? He, and his party, preach tolerance and condemn hatred in one breath and spew bigotry and hostility in the next.

The Democrat Party miscalculation is twofold. First, they have abandoned all realistic policy positions and embraced delusional, utopian policies like guaranteed incomes, free everything and fantasies like the green new deal. Second, they seem to believe that they can attract voters by insulting them. This is not a winning strategy. Even if you love the Democrat Party, the party of my father and John Kennedy, the only way to save it is to reject its platform of hatred, hypocrisy and a two-tiered system of justice. I believe we are seeing signs of that rejection right now. If Trump is re-elected in 2020, Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves.

AOC's Big Lie

AOC and Her “Big Lie”
The View from the Middle

During WWII, Adolph Hitler appointed a man named Joseph Goebbels to the position of Minister of Propaganda. His job was to convince German citizens and then the world that the actions of the Nazi party were noble and the real enemy was the Jews. Goebbels invented a new and very effective strategy called “the big lie”. According to Goebbels, “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually believe it.” This despicable technique was and is so effective that some unscrupulous people still use it today.

I think the best example of a “big lie” today is when Alexandria Ocasio Cortez equates the detention centers on our southern border to concentration camps in (ironically) Nazi Germany. Ted Koppel, hardly a right-wing journalist, recently wrote a column politely criticizing AOC’s equation. He called her comparison of the US detention facilities on our southern border to concentration camps in Nazi Germany a “facile (shallow) analogy” and added that he believed they were rash and overheated. I’ll go a step further. I’ll call her comparisons an intentional lie. I will suggest that even she, a pampered 29-year-old, knows the real difference and if she doesn’t she just needs to read a book or look at a few pictures of emaciated prisoners from the second world war to understand.

Most of us have seen the pictures of the actual living conditions in the detainment facilities in Texas, Arizona and California and we’ve seen pictures and even some videos of the deplorable conditions in Auschwitz, Dachau and Treblinka, the most infamous of the Nazi death camps. I’m going to go a step farther than Ted Koppel and call her comparisons ridiculous, irresponsible and even dangerous.

I’ve searched the archives of the Nazi concentration camps and didn’t find a single reference of these facilities having big screen TV’s for their prisoners to watch. Yet, I have seen repeated reports of the detainees on our southern border watching the latest soccer matches and playing video games on bigger and nicer TV’s than the average American can afford.

I’ve seen the examples of the good hygiene welcome packages that internees on our southern border receive. They contain toothpaste, a toothbrush, soap and shampoo. I’ve even seen videos of these detainees being checked by dentists and doctors. I’m pretty sure the inhabitants of Treblinka didn’t receive such welcome packets. In fact I cringe at the absurdity of that remark. If there were doctors at Dachau they weren’t there with the well-being of the prisoners in mind. Doctors like Josef Mengele performed experiments on the Jews, Catholics, Gypsies and homosexual occupants of Auschwitz.

And, of course, we must remember that the people who were eventually imprisoned at Treblinka, Auschwitz and Dachau were not trying to get into Germany or Poland or other Nazi occupied territories. If anything, they were trying to get out!! The people on our southern border are trying to sneak in to this country and flee the poverty, violence and oppression of their home countries. For most, if not all of these people who are illegally crossing our borders, these facilities with three meals a day, exercise yards and protection from the elements must look like an oasis compared to the conditions they left or the dangers of the treacherous journey they had to make to get here.

Finally, to compare the guards and other workers at the US detention facilities to the guards at Treblinka, Auschwitz and Dachau is also absurd. The watchmen in these camps were famous for their cruel, inhumane and even sadistic treatment of their prisoners. The stories are so horrific, I won’t even give examples here to save my reading audience from the revulsion they would experience. The US guards are doing the very best they can with the limited funds they have, and working in facilities that were not designed to handle the number of people who are now flooding over our border.

Tragically, there have been some deaths on our southern border. A young girl drowned as she and her father tried to cross the Rio Grande. Since 2003 there have been 188 deaths and each one is tragic. However, in the Nazi concentration camps there were 11 million people systematically exterminated in just the seven years between 1938 and 1945. These people didn’t die from “poor treatment” or “spotty oversight”. Any comparison of these two realities is just preposterous.

These facilities are not like staying at The Ritz, but to compare them to concentration camps is ludicrous. There are two things we should do to AOC and the like. First, the mainstream media should send a strong message to these people that comments to this effect are inaccurate, reprehensible and even dangerous. Second, we all need to demand that these people do their jobs and change the laws that are encouraging the deluge of illegal entries at our southern border and to properly fund the facilities and workforce that must deal with this humanitarian crisis. If we do not call out the “big lie”, as Joseph Goebbels said, “people will eventually come to believe it.”

The Mueller Debacle

The Mueller Debacle
The View from the Middle

I’m sitting here watching Robert Mueller testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee, and while I’m not sure what the media spin will be on his testimony, I can tell you what the story should be.

First, is Mueller a thousand years old or what. He has been mumbling and bumbling around for over two hours now and my only question is – does he have even a couple of marbles rolling around in his head anymore. His voice is shaking and he is asking almost every Congressman to repeat their questions. Does he need hearing aids or does he actually not understand these relatively simple questions that just refers to his own report?

Which brings us to what should be the second big story that should come out of this hearing. Did Mueller do any of this work at all? He spends most of his time looking through his own (supposedly) report for references or being assisted in that effort by his wing man, Aaron Zebley. He was asked directly, “how many of the 500 plus interviews done for this investigation did you attend.” His answer was, “Very few.” Wow! He was also trapped into admitting that he didn’t even prepare his own nine minute press conference speech that he delivered in May.

The questions on both sides of the aisle are not of any surprise. Democrats are trying, unsuccessfully, to get Mueller to indict the President during this hearing despite the fact that he didn’t do so in his 400+ page report. Republicans are trying to discredit Mueller, which, given the total lack of evidence of his mental acuity, seems to working better.

Mueller has been painted not only as a patriotic, hard-working and honest civil servant, but as an astute lawyer. To be honest, today Mueller has not given witness to any of these attributes, certain not the accusation of his sharp wit. He has been slow, unsteady and even incoherent today, and that should be the story.

Despite the spin that the media will try to put on this hearing, my guess is that this will have no impact on the positions of most Americans. If you thought Trump was guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice before this inquiry, you will probably maintain that position after it. If you thought this entire investigation was a hoax, you will probably still hold that position.

I do have one concern with the Democrat line of questioning is in this entire ordeal. They have talked much about Trump’s conversations with Don McGahn, where they talked about firing the Special Counsel or even where Trump might have told McGahn to fire him. The problem is, the Special Counsel was not ever fired, and other than not agreeing to a personal interview with the President, Mueller has already stated that he was not deprived of any access to people or documents by the White House. Is thinking about doing something now against the law. Watch out for the “Thought Police”.

The bottom line on what I will call the Mueller embarrassment campaign is that no minds will be changed, another day of legislative capability was wasted and our Congressmen showed themselves to be the partisan hacks we all suspected them to be. My hope is that they can now get back and do the work they should be doing to solve the crisis we are having on our southern border, do something to address our crumbling infrastructure and stop the toxic rhetoric that insults every American. But, unfortunately, that seems to be too much to ask.

Let's Talk Deficits and Debt, Lest We Forget

Let’s Talk Deficits & Debt, Lest We Forget
The View from the Middle

As a people, Americans can be very distractible, and you can be sure that our politicians in Washington D.C. love that about us. As they spend our money hand over fist, borrowing one out of every four dollars they squander, they will say, “Pay no attention to the way we waste your money, look at this illegal immigration problem that we have been marinating for you for over 40 years now.”

They will whistle right past the grave yard of deficits and debt and try to focus your attention on just about anything else – North Korea, Iran, that obviously racist Betsy Ross flag on the back of Nike’s shoes. Anything will do. They will even lie right to your face. Back in 2013, Nancy Pelosi famously said, “We don’t have a spending problem. We have a revenue problem.” She said this just before she boarded her private jumbo jet for her weekly commute back to California at a cost of about six million dollars a year to the US taxpayers. No spending problem here!

There’s a reason why “we don’t have a spending problem” did not become a rallying cry for either political party. It’s a loser. Ronald Reagan once suggested that he wouldn’t say that Congress spent money like a drunken sailor because that would be an insult to drunken sailors everywhere, and I think that captures the sentiment of most Americans.

So, consider this my warning to all Americans. Do not be distracted from the existential threat that our deficits and debt pose for our country. Before the beginning of the 21st century, all of our Presidents combined had accumulated a US debt of about five trillion dollars. George W. Bush doubled that debt in his eight years in office adding five trillion dollars of debt to our total and ended his Presidency with a 10 trillion-dollar national debt. Barack Obama then double our debt again, adding another 10 trillion dollars to the country’s debt load bring our total debt to just under 20 trillion dollars. This kind of debt creation is just not sustainable.

The only thing that is keeping this from becoming an economic disaster for our country today is the unusually low interest rates that we are paying on this debt. Even at the current, ridiculously low interest rates, service on our debt costs us all over $350 billion a year. If interest rates would ever return to historically average rates like 5%, our debt service would triple to about a trillion dollars a year and would became the single largest element of our country’s budget. Interest payments on our debt would become almost 50% higher than our entire military budget and would be larger than our Medicare and Medicaid budgets combined. And where, exactly, are we going to come up with an additional $650 billion dollar for our government to spend from which we will receive zero benefits. That money will just be paid to our debt holders like Japan and China or to our own, soon to be insolvent, social security trust fund.

If all of this doesn’t frighten you, it should. It should especially panic our young people who will either have to repay this debt (never going to happen) or bare the burden of our debt’s crushing consequences. Young people will be paying dearly for my generation’s recklessness. And then there’s the threat to America’s financial preeminence in the world, which currently delivers untold benefits to our citizens.

The US currently ranks 8th in the world, out of 180 countries, in our debt to GDP ratio, and this isn’t a metric in which we want to be dominant. The only countries above us are countries like Japan, where the government, in effect, own the banking system and thus controls its own interest rates, and financial weaklings like Greece, Portugal and Italy. Let’s face it. We cannot be like these countries and maintain our position as the most important world financial superpower and boast the world’s predominant currency. China, our biggest financial competitor, has a third of our debt in terms of real dollars and half of our debt burden as a percent of its GDP. You can quickly grasp their plan for global financial dominance.

Debt is the one area where Trump has disappointed me. I’m good with the sanction and tariff pressure on North Korea, Iran and China. I’m a big fan of the tax cuts and regulatory relief of this administration. I can support his immigration policies which I believe includes both border security and paths to citizenship for the DACA kids and possibly legalization for many more, but so far, the debt clock has not slowed down.

Last year we spent almost $800 billion more dollars than our government took in. This year, some estimate the deficit to be more than a trillion dollars. We all should want to hear his plans to reverse this trend and even balance the budget over time. Trump’s current budget shows a balanced budget by 2027. We all need to hear more than just vague promises about this deficit reduction plan during the 2020 campaign because if the current trends are not reversed by that time, global warming (sorry, climate change) will be the least of our problems.

The Debate That Never Was

The Debate That Never Was
The View from the Middle

If you are anything like me, you tuned into the Democratic debate to hear about their plans to make our lives better. The economy is good. How can the Democrats make it better? Immigration is a mess. What is your plan to address this crisis? Healthcare is a complicated issue. What are your plans to improve access and quality while reducing costs? Instead we were all subjected to a combination auction, foreign policy pipedream and a utopian dream fest.

The auction started immediately with the first question to Bernie Sanders, and Bernie made a super-strong first bid. Bernie offered up free, universal healthcare, free college and the forgiveness of all student debt in America. Wow! I don’t even remember the question, but Bernie was determined to buy as many votes as possible with his first salvo. My first thought was that we need a spending clock at these debates so that we can keep track of how much of our money these purse-snatchers are squandering. Because, as I’ve said a thousand times, OUR GOVERNMENT HAS NO MONEY. Please remember, whenever Bernie or anyone else uses the word “free” they are taxing you to pay for it.

Not to be outdone by Bernie, Joe Biden said, “I’ll call your free college and raise you universal pre-K.” Kamala Harris then declared, “I’ll see your free college and Pre-K, and raise you $500 a month guaranteed income for anyone making less than $100,000 a year.” Not to be outdone, Andrew Yang proclaimed, “I’ll call all of that and raise you $1,000 a month for everyone over 18.” By this time the spending clock would have been smoking, with sparks flying and flames would have been coming from your wallets. But the final bid was a group bid as every candidate on the stage promised free healthcare for illegal aliens. The spending clock just exploded.

I don’t know what these guys and gals were smoking, but as soon as the auction ended, the foreign policy pipedream began. First, most of the candidates suggested that our country’s biggest geopolitical foe today is Russia. To paraphrase Barack Obama, “guys, 2008 wants its foreign policy back.” For those who were able to admit that China, Iran and North Korea are our biggest adversaries, their plans to address these challenges were farcical.

Pete Buttigieg is going to go to China and simply convince them to give up their plans to dominate the world, and us, economically by 2025. Yah, like that’s going to happen. We have, in effect, been trying to do that for the last 40 or 50 years and it hasn’t worked. They lie, cheat, steal our intellectual property, manipulate their currency and severely restrict our participation in their markets. They respect strength and exploit weakness. Talk is cheap and weak and that’s Pete’s plan.

Kirsten Gillibrand has a similar plan for Iran. She’s going to go to Iran and convince them to be good and kind and care about their own citizens and their place in the world community as they scream, “Death to America and death to Israel” in her face. Maybe she’ll try sending over a few more planeloads of cash that they can use to fund those sweet guys in Hamas and Hezbollah. Take another toke on that pipe, Kirsten. Iran would chew you up and spit you out. At least none of these people even tried to suggest a plan for that nut bag in North Korea. We should all just hope that the sanctions now in place will bring him to a real bargaining table.

And then the Utopian dream fest started. First, every one of these people would sign us up for the Paris Climate Accord immediately. Yes! We’ll give the 140 developing countries (which includes China, Russia and India) in the agreement about a half a trillion dollars a year and we can trust that they’ll manage it properly because of this non-binding agreement. And the tides will recede and the sun will shine (but not too much) and we won’t have any more hurricanes, tornadoes or floods. Dream on, and read my article on this agreement written in June of 2017.

Many, if not all, of these candidates also support the Green New Deal, which is more fantastical than a Disney movie and of course they will wave a magic wand and eliminate all prejudice in America, including their own. Maybe they’ll pass a law that says it’s illegal to discriminate against people because of the color of their skin or even their sexual orientation. Wait a minute. Didn’t that already happen? We need more than Utopian dreams. We need solutions, and we didn’t hear about any of those last night.

You know that the debates were a catastrophe when even the mainstream media dared to criticize them. Joe Scarborough even went so far as to call them “a disaster”. I actually hope that the Democrats wake up and start offering some real solutions to the problems we face. I want to hear them. If they don’t, there may be more crickets in the audience by the last debate than humans. WE HAVE 11 MORE OF THESE!!!

Hollywood and Bernie Sanders Duplicity

Hollywood and Bernie Sanders Duplicity
The View from the Middle

Sometimes even I am shocked at the level of hypocrisy and duplicity that can come out of our Hollywood “so-called” elites. The latest is a video starring Robert De Niro, Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner, Stephen King and others. Despite the nearly two-year investigation by Robert Mueller which found no collusion between Trump or anyone in his campaign and the Russians, these deluded, pompous, self-promoting nitwits continue to wallow in the Russian collusion myth. Their final message is that “No one is above the law, not even the President”. That is about the only thing in their little propaganda video that I agree with. No one is above the law.

But aren’t these the same nut bags that don’t want to deport illegal aliens back to their country of origin? Isn’t what they did against the law? These simpletons can read a script and clearly harbor intense hatred in their hearts, but their jobs as entertainers obviously hasn’t required them to learn how to think. They can’t have it both ways. If no one is above the law then they must rethink their stance on sanctuary cities and on illegal immigrants.


And then there is the new big lie being told by Bernie Sanders. I think that everyone understands that while tariffs are paid by countries, it is often the consumers that eventually pay those taxes as the prices go up on the goods they buy. In general, I’m against tariffs and I believe so is Donald Trump, but his tariffs on China, Canada, Mexico et cetera are aimed at solving bigger economic problems that those countries have created. At least we all understand the impact of tariffs, however, as the result of the media coverage of Trump’s tariffs.

But Bernie says that he can forgive everyone’s college debt and deliver free college for all by taxing the evil Wall Street speculators. He will tax all stock trade transactions by one half of a percent and all bond trades by on tenth of a percent. This a lie in at least three ways. First, he has no idea if this will pay for his two trillion dollar give away over ten years. He hasn’t considered at all that Wall Street will figure a way around these taxes by either executing fewer trades or investing in other areas.

Second, Bernie isn’t telling you that the bad old Wall Street guys will simply pass these taxes on to you and me, just like the tariffs. But Bernie won’t be honest and tell you that. Finally, another thing Bernie won’t tell you is that this is likely to actually drive college tuitions up. There is no such thing as free college tuition. Professors are still going to get paid. Administrators will continue to draw a salary and construction and maintenance of campuses will cost money and WE will pay for it. Don’t fall for it. There is no such thing as FREE college!! Bernie and the others are just buying your votes with YOUR MONEY.

Socialism vs Capitalism

Socialistic Illusion vs Capitalistic Reality
The View from the Middle

I have to admit that I am amazed at the gullibility of many Americans, especially the young people, who can listen to the likes of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez literally and shamelessly try to buy their votes with mountains of “free stuff”. As my old boss at Procter & Gamble used to say, “the promise is the easy part”, and in this case it’s the only part. Let me give you a list of just some of the things that these Democratic Socialists are promising:

-Free college tuition.
-And soon, I’m sure, the forgiveness of all college debt (1.2 trillion dollars)
-Free Healthcare for all.
-A guaranteed job, and
-A guaranteed living wage (whatever that is)
-Guaranteed medical leave and paid vacation.
-Guaranteed affordable, safe and adequate housing.
-Guaranteed economic security (again, whatever that means)
-And, of course, guaranteed retirement security.
-Guaranteed access to healthy food.
-Guaranteed access to water, air and nature.

As usual, these people are long on the promises and short on the explanation of how they are going to deliver on them. Their feeble plan always makes yet another promise – the other guy will have to pay for all of this “stuff” and you will get it for free. The estimated cost of these freebies and guarantees is over 90 trillion dollars over ten years and would more than triple the size of our government over that same period. As I explained in my article back in February, there are not enough “rich” (top 1%) people in this country to pay for all of this and every American would end up with massive tax increases to fund this wish list.

What these politicians are falsely promising in order to get you votes is a guaranteed, easy life with no effort on your parts. What they eliminate in the process, however, is the concepts of risk & reward, and incentive. And, when it comes to taking risks and creating incentives, why would anyone want to eliminate them? But this socialistic, guaranteed outcome, freebie platform will do just that. Risk and incentive, in fact, are key drivers of our current economic system. Capitalism rewards intelligent risk taking and incents hard work and productivity, and these are good things.

It amazes me the Sanders, Warren and AOC can sit in the most powerful, most prosperous country in the world that has been driven by a capitalistic economic engine almost since its inception, and suggest that capitalism doesn’t work. The proof of the power of capitalism doesn’t lie in our GDP or our military capability, although they are the best in the world. It lies in the fact that over a million people each year leave their countries of origin and come to our country legally, and another million risk their lives on a treacherous journey across the country of Mexico in pursuit of “the chance” at a better life in these United States.

It is true that Capitalism can be corrupted by monopolies, corruption and cronyism. We must always be striving to insure equal opportunity (not outcome) for all of our citizens and a fair marketplace for our goods and services so that risk and effort will be rewarded. Even with these watch outs, Capitalism has already lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system in the world. Don’t be lured away by the false promises of a guaranteed, easy, risk-free life. Stick with the system that has delivered for this country for over 200 years. It’s the best guarantee you can get.