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?
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
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 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.
Thursday, October 31, 2019
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”?
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”?
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 9, 2019
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!
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!
Thursday, October 3, 2019
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
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
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