Happy New Year!!!

And It’s Only Year One

                It’s probably not a real shock that I’m accustomed to disagreeing with the left whose agenda makes no sense to me whatsoever unless I accept that their main goal is the destruction of the United States. So it’s no surprise that I am feeling pretty darned good right now about what President Trump and the conservative agenda have been able to accomplish in 2017 in spite of the liberal media’s wailing, teeth gnashing and puzzled wondering about what the left should tell their daughters.

                I choose to feel good about what we’ve accomplished although the media is wearing itself out trying to turn every single positive into a negative because admitting Trump is doing a great job is harder for them than suicide. I’m thinking of Susan Rice being offended by Trump’s desires to Make America Great Again and to put America first.  Oh well. Whose got that kind of energy?

                So in spite of them we’re getting it done although you’d never know it if your primary news sources are CNN, MSN, The Washington Post or The New York Slime.

                Here is an incomplete list of the President’s accomplishments about which I feel terrific. If you disagree, knock yourself out feeling sad and depressed.

                Let’s start with The Tax Cut Bill. The biggest piece of tax legislation since 1986 which also eliminates Obama’s health care mandates and should benefit 85% of the population according to the guys who wrote it.

                Those finding fault in the CNN version of the bill, which predictably focuses on what the bill takes away really need to look at the real version of the bill and consider everything that it gives.

The corporate tax cut alone resulted in bonuses and or raises immediately for employees of Comcast, AT&T, Boeing, Wells Fargo, Fifth Third Bank, Washington Federal, and Sinclair Broadcasting and those are just the guys too big for even the screwed up media to ignore.

                Not everyone was lucky enough to be alive when Reagan was president. This stuff works.

                There’s also the judiciary overhaul, or at least the beginning of it. The appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court was huge but Trump’s first-year, record replacement of 12 appellate court judges may have been bigger. I can see how that much conservatism in the judicial system could be depressing to my liberal friends but I couldn’t be happier.

                Trump’s rollback of nearly 800 Obama-era regulations (800!!!!) resulted in over one million new jobs and is a good start in reducing the size of a government that has overreached into far too much.

                Additionally, the President has stopped the growth of Federal Government by freezing federal hiring and he personally met with several business leaders to encourage them to keep and create jobs in the United States.

                ILLEGAL immigration has been reduced by over 70% in just a year and now stands at a 17-year-low. I do still hope Ann Coulter gets her wall but I’m happy with the progress we’ve made so far.

                By executive order Trump issued a five-year lobbying ban preventing legislators from setting themselves up with private interests in the D.C. swamp should they find themselves term-limited by their voters or lured by the bigger paycheck.

                Maybe you’ve noticed the stock market is at an all time high despite predictions of the imminent and permanent crash if Trump were elected. Experts on the left are dumbfounded.

                That goes hand-in-hand with consumer confidence being at a 16-year high and the unemployement rate at a 16-year low and mortgage applications at a seven-year high.

                There was also Trump’s approval of the Keystone and Dakota pipelines and all the jobs those will create in addition to their contribution to energy independence. I still get a chuckle out the criticism that those are only “temporary jobs” from people who must have never worked a day in contracting or any sort of free enterprise where your success depends on one job or sale or client after another. Well, you know, community organizing or academic or government employment can qualify some people to think they’re economic experts even though they’re often dumbfounded.

                Also don’t forget that Food Stamp recipients are at a seven-year-low.

                President Trump is extracting us from that ill-conceived Paris Climate Accord that would have cost this country trillions of dollars subsidizing countries who continue to pollute and destroy the environment in the name of not polluting and destroying the environment.

                Trump has also gotten us out of the Trans Pacific Partnership and is currently trying to negotiate deals that will be much more favorable to the United States.  I have a lot more faith in his ability to do that than I would have in the community organizer's.

                Likewise, Mexico and Canada are on notice to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement so that it benefits us as well as them or we’re out of that too.

 
               Toss in that the President has cut $600 billion from our UN commitment and has other UN members and NATO members alike starting to pay their fair share of all the fun activities they used to think up at our expense.

                We have rolled back Cuban relations since Obama’s agreement was only benefiting the Cuban regime and establishment and not the people.

                ISIS has been driven from Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria and they are on the run and in hiding from an American president who is more interested in destroying them than laughing them off as the al Qaeda JV team while partying with JayZ and Beyonce.

                And after the last three presidents have promised it, this one has acknowledged that Jerusalem is the rightful capitol of Israel and agreed to move our embassy there in spite of the fact that this will anger groups dedicated to terrorism and the destruction of the Jewish people and cause them to commit acts of terror and try to destroy the Jewish people. (Does anyone on the left listen to themselves?)

                There are so many other things that my space and your willingness to keep reading prohibit me from listing but I have to mention Trump’s support of The Women in Entrepreneurship Act, resanctioning Iran over their missile program so we don’t create another even more dangerous N. Korea, and beginning to fix the VA.

And one of the President’s acts I will always be most grateful for is his executive order to protect and support police officers as opposed to inviting #onlyblacklivesmatter leaders to the White House and going before a microphone to announce, “Until the police accept responsibility for their discriminatory behavior toward people of color, there can be no peace.”

                That’s was as close to a declaration of war on police as I ever care to hear and I am grateful to President Trump for restating the government’s position as one of support of law enforcement instead of antagonism.       

                According to Rasmussen, Obama had an approval rating of 46% with 53% disapproving on 12/29/09. Rasmussen says Trump has an approval rating of 45% with 53% disapproving on 12/28/17. Of course, the media is losing their minds over the obviously biased polling of Rasmussen since they only poll likely voters, pointing to #’s from Politico, Newsweak, The Washington Post, and New York Times as being much more supportive of their view of President Trump’s first year in office because their polling demographic doesn’t vote.

                Do I need to remind anybody which polls said HRC was going to win the presidential election by an unprecedented landslide?

                I think this is a very, very Happy New Year.

The End of The World As We Know It (Not Really)

 

                As a political venue Facebook seems designed to mostly foster an environment of “let’s you and him or her fight.”  Most of it should be beneath commenting on although 90% of the time I can’t help myself. But honestly, I generally could care less what Chelsea Handler or some other alcoholic, shallow, lonely, insecure, neurotic, Hollywood “icon” who couldn’t form a sustainable relationship if you held a gun to their head has to say about much of anything.

                Occasionally someone will post a political video of some relevance. I, of course, love the ones I agree with and it has become something of a hobby to deconstruct the ones put up by those loving, progressive, forward-thinking, large-brained souls on the left with whom I strongly disagree.

                This week I saw a youtube video of a young gentleman named Carlos Maza, whom, it seems, fancies himself a scholar at whatever tender age he has achieved. His theory is that the end of democracy will not come in a loud and menacing fashion like a military coup or declaration of martial law, but rather that it will come in a manner so subtle we might not even notice it happening until it’s too late.

                He cautions against a series of discreet legal changes and an attack on America’s institutions that he calls “democratic backsliding.” Actually, he credits University of Chicago Professor Aziz Huq, who must be something near a father figure for Maza since he is the only source he acknowledges and he seems to accept every word Huq utters as pure truth.

                According to Maza (parroting what Huq says), the end will come through an accumulation of those subtle changes to the law as well as attacks by the country’s leaders on our courts, our press, and our watchdog agencies.

                I actually agree with his premise wholeheartedly. Where we part ways in a hurry is on who to blame.

                You’ve already guessed that Maza lays the blame for the end of the world as he sees it at the feet of that evil, old, bad guy, Donald Trump. In an ironic twist that fairly baffles the imagination Maza puts forth Hugo Chavez, the one-time hero of the left—“the greatest leader in the world,” according to Sean Penn, that iconic, high-school-educated, brilliant Rhodes political scholar from Hollywood—as an example of how to ruin a wonderful country and tries to create parallels between Chavez’ behavior and Trump’s.

                Chavez fired and defied Venezuelan judges, tried to silence the press through anti-defamation laws and by calling the media the “enemy of the people” every single time he got in front of a camera. Chavez even had his own CNN apparently, called Globovision.

                Maza asserts that Trump firing Comey may have been legal, but c’mon, everyone on the left knows it was obstruction of justice. He criticizes Trump’s repeated use of the phrase “witch hunt,” to describe the year-long “Russian collusion” investigation that has not yielded a single, solitary fact linking Trump to any effort by the Russians to help elect a man they respect and fear rather than four more years of them having their way with the world.

                Maza cites Trump’s use of the phrase “judicial overreach” as an attack on one of our most sacred institutions. And let me help poor Maza out here, he failed to mention Trump has replaced 12 district court judges in his first year, which if it isn’t a record, gets at least a silver medal.

                And, of course, the left’s favorite bone to pick, that Trump dares to call the leftwing dominated lamestream media what it is: Fake News. Trump also called mainstream journalists “the enemy of the people,” and his constant sparring with CNN is legendary.

                Thanks for laying out the framework for the argument, Maza, but you picked the wrong target.

                First in October, 2008, Obama takes one of his first shots at Fox News with, “If Fox News didn’t exist I would be polling three points higher.”

                October 2010: “Fox News has a destructive viewpoint…a point of view destructive to the long term growth I am building for this country.”

                December 2010: Obama declared Fox News was responsible for him “losing white males” because of people turning in to hear “Obama is a Muslim, 24/7.”  For me that is one of he all-time knee-slappers of Obama soundbytes because of his frustration level and everyone knows us white males always believe and do what Fox News says.

                And in December 2013 Obama claims that, “People who watch Fox News don’t know anything about the health care bill.” I suppose in contrast to the good folks Nancy Pelosi was appealing to when she said, “We must pass this bill to see what is in it!”

                And there are so, so many other examples of Obama’s running feud with Fox News. I had to limit it to my favorites so that you might take the time to read this.    

                So let’s move on to Maza’s assertion that President Trump criticizing the judiciary is more than our system will be able to bear and compare Obama’s relationship with the law.

                On February 16, 2015, a Texas Federal District Court Judge, Andrew Hanen, issued an injunction against Obama’s amnesty plan for illegal aliens. Obama ignored it and instructed Homeland Security officials to do the same and follow his orders, not the court’s. They would be protected by the DOJ’s appeals and interpretations.

                On April 7, 2015, Judge Hanen issued an order to the DOJ to quit lying and “stop misrepresenting the facts to the court (and to) act in a forthright manner and not hide behind deceptive representations and half-truths.”

                Hanen cited evidence that Obama himself had made statements that there “would be consequences for any Homeland Security employee” who did not follow his amnesty plan and instead honored the injunction of a sitting Federal Judge. Obama’s statements were verified by Sara Saldana, then Director of ICE. Google it.

                On May 12, 2015, after issuing a six-figured number of three-year deferrals to illegal immigrants, the Obama administration finally admitted to violating Judge Hanen’s injunction and in predictable fashion, the DOJ declined the opportunity to investigate themselves or their master.

                 Perhaps you can see how this was bothersome to the country that lies between both coasts where open borders alarm us.

                Well, ok, but Trump is destroying America’s institutions.

                By repopularizing Merry Christmas?

                In December of 2013, Obama gave what I have always considered the most frightening speech he ever gave as president in which he said “(Capitalism) doesn’t work. It has never worked in over 200 years.”

                And while the left lapped up his sage words like heavy cream, many of us were left scratching our heads wondering how in the world his team thought we became, the mightiest, most prosperous nation the planet has ever seen and the most desirable place to live for most people without a hole in their head. (And by the way, you are free to leave. Well, if the country you aspire to will let you in, that is.)

                And let’s not forget the July 13, 2012, campaign speech in which Obama admonished business owners with “You didn’t build that…”  Not a particularly encouraging thing to say to the potential investors and rebuilders of a stagnant economy, but ok, Trump is the institution assassin.

I will also never forget Obama’s super positive support of the law enforcement arm of this country when after entertaining the most racist, violent, hate group in the country--#onlyblacklivesmatter—at the White House he said, “Until the police accept responsibility for their discriminatory behavior toward people of color, there can be no peace.”

                That made all our nation’s cops feel super safe about going to work. Well, that and the random cop murders that started occurring as a result.

                So I do agree with Maza that the end of democracy will come subtly and quietly as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. That is why I am so thankful Obama has been cast to the gutter and HRC was rejected by the electoral college our founding fathers put in place to save us from this very thing. I am thankful Donald Trump is president and at least has a chance to reverse many of the sick and destructive things Obama was trying to do to our country.

                Whether he can pull that off over the roar of the press or not is a coin toss but I am hopeful.

                Eric Bolling of Fox News has said that Trump is still very popular with people outside of D.C., New York City and California. He asserts that the two most important factors in grading a presidency are the economy and national security and in “both of those areas Trump has far surpassed his predecessor.”

                Hey, don’t listen to Eric and me, and for God’s sake don’t listen to CNN. Look at the DOW Jones outer space levels, your own 401k, the people in your community that are back at work, the consumer confidence index, etc., etc.  Use your own heads and decide if what you see is more believable than what you’re told.

Serious Stuff

                Almost daily it seems like there is new evidence that this country is losing its collective mind. For several weeks it seems like there was a deranged mass shooter on every corner and then suddenly we are focused on over a dozen sex scandals that all seemed to come to light in the same week.

                Not to mention the acquittal of five-time deportee Jose Garcia-Zarate, the murderer of Kate Steinle in San Francisco in 2015, strictly because a jury made up of California’s finest citizens, no doubt, wanted to flip off President Trump for wanting to end sanctuary cities, which are the craziest phenomenon of all in this country right now and one of California’s favorite symbols of defiance.

                What was a seven-time convicted felon doing with a gun anyway? California, normally feverish about anyone possessing a firearm, was strangely content that this poor (illegal) immigrant just looking to better his life was playing with a gun that “accidently” went off and shot Steinle squarely in the face.

                Fortunately, the Department of Justice seems concerned about that minor oversight and it also seems Zarate may find himself on trial again for the illegal possession of a firearm in a new and improved venue.

                This is serious stuff, murder and rape. It shouldn’t be ignored. But how is it the news we receive seems to be theme-based from week to week? Anyone else find that odd? Are editors and reporters currently sitting in a room (imagine the stench) planning next week’s daily news diet?

                I don’t have an answer. I just think it’s weird.

                This latest rash of sexual assault scandals has to make everyone’s heads spin. They weren’t all last week, of course, but that seems like when the media chose to make it the daily headline. What I will call the “current” media feed of allegations actually began back in October with Harvey Weinstein followed shortly thereafter by Roy Moore.

                Since then the list of accused offenders trumpeted daily in the press includes but is far from limited to comedian Louis C.K., Ben Affleck, Dustin Hoffman, Al Franken, Garrison Keilor, music mogul Russell Simmons, Kevin Spacey, Nick Carter (Back Street Boys), Congressman Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Senator John Conyers (D-MI), NYT White House Reporter Glenn Thrush, Disney Animation Director John Lassiter (Disney!!!) and more. So many more. I’m sorry if I missed your personal favorite villain.

                Bill Clinton even has four NEW accusers that we have never heard from before.

                Massage Envy, operating 1100 locations with over 1.5 million clients, is currently under investigation for 180 separate sexual assaults.

                And perhaps the most alarming revelation in a fire-hose stream of alarming revelations is that, according to the Office of Congressional Compliance, $17 million tax dollars have been paid out in the last 10-15 years to settle 260 sexual harassment suits brought against the men (almost exclusively, I think) we freely elect to represent us in our Federal Government.

                Those funds are paid out of a special treasury fund actually created by the Congressional Accountability Act (let the irony of that sink in for a second) just to deal with “unanticipated expenses on a case-by-case basis.”  We will likely never know the details of those assaults or harassments because all 260 checks were issued in exchange for signed non-disclosure agreements.

                And those are just the ones we know about (well, now we know) because the monies came out of an official fund that has some accountability and the OCC guys had to come clean when asked.  How many other settlements have there been paid out of individual legislator’s office budgets like the $27,000 settlement paid in “salary” over three months by Senator Conyers?

                Seems he failed to get a signed nondisclosure agreement.

                Whatever is going on has apparently been going on for a long, long, long time, even though it seems like ground-breaking work by our esteemed (steaming) media unprofessionals. And thank goodness it has come to light in a big way. This is horrible. In addition to seeking solutions to the problem, however, my other concern is will the spotlight stay on the issue long enough to change some things or will the media be off slaying new dragons next week?

                Additionally, we could use some clarification of the issues and we need some discussion of the topic(s). Some of these situations involve rape or other serious physical sexual assault. Some were disgusting occurrences of putting people (I guess not all the victims were women) in horribly uncomfortable situations. Some may have been what we used to call “innocent flirting,” and we need to decide if we’re going to continue to call it innocent. And I’m afraid some of the charges may have been completely made up—hold on to your horses, I’m not looking to give anyone a free pass here.

                I am sorry I don’t remember who said it and all I can find online is that an estimated 120,000 innocent people are in prison and there are a bunch of songs about “innocence,” but last week a feminist spokesperson said something along the lines of “It doesn’t matter if some innocent men go to jail, these women need to be believed and taken seriously.”

                I couldn’t agree more that any woman brave enough to come forward and tell her story needs to be taken seriously but I can’t go along with imprisoning innocent men just because they are accused. Imagine the Salem Witch Hunt environment that could create if disgruntled employees or gold diggers too lazy to even do the digging merely had to make an accusation to get a check or send whomever they were angry at to jail?

                Nope. If we are serious about curtailing an abhorrent situation for many women in this country we need to brace ourselves for the long, messy and expensive process of adjudicating every case. That’s the process we have always used—innocent until proven guilty, even when it’s obvious. I think we make a mistake if we let the current emotional frenzy over so much sudden information dictate a shortcut of our justice system.

                Indeed, should there not also be stiff penalties for false accusations? If for no other reason than to take the “witch hunt” factor out of it?  I think so. I don’t think or intend for that suggestion to discourage women from coming forward. Just because a man may not be convicted doesn’t mean the woman should be.

                But remember the Duke Lacrosse Team? How many young men’s lives were changed if not ruined by fabricated charges and overzealous prosecution. Please. We need to be wary of letting the pendulum swing too far the other way.

                And we need to keep noise out of the process as much as we can. If hoaxes and fabrications become as numerous as genuine crimes it will make it all the more difficult to try and curb what is a legitimate, horrible and serious problem.  And the resulting cynicism will make it more difficult for women to come forward and less likely there will be support for an ultimate solution.

                The abundance of current information, no matter how old, is nauseating. So often we believe that merely bringing attention to an issue in this nation leads to solutions through raising awareness and much of the time we are right. I am the absolute last person to give today’s media credit for anything other than sucking but if they have at least accomplished that much in this case: well played for once.

What About That Paddock Guy?

 

                So, I know everyone, even those living under rocks, remembers the worst mass-shooting massacre in American history when on October 1 of this year, Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada, fired over 1100 rounds from his suite in The Mandalay Bay on 22,000 concertgoers at The Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and wounding 546.

                The cops killed him about 10 minutes after he started shooting, which is remarkable to me. I know it isn’t popular these days to say good things about cops, what with slavery running rampant in the NFL and all, but way to go guys.

                But then what happened? His brother’s into kiddie porn, Paddock’s own hard drive was missing even more mysteriously than Hillary Clinton’s and his girlfriend knew nothing about anything, but is that the end of the story?

                I’ve been trying to find out but the last sliver of news I can find on the whole story is from October 20 when CNN updated the timeline of events given by the LVPD. That’s it?

                If the leftstream media shut up about it one has to wonder just how high up in the DNC this guy was connected. There’s actually no evidence the guy is even a democrat or that his actions were politically or ideologically motivated. I’m just being catty because of that ABC exec who said Paddock did the country a favor because only Trump fans like Country Western music and would have been in the crowd.

I love Country Western music.

                We know there isn’t much to know about Paddock. By all accounts he was a quiet guy who kept to himself and loved gambling. If he liked you he could be generous. He had no close friends. His work history included time as a mail carrier, an IRS auditor and an accountant. He seems to have made a lot of money flipping real estate.

                Interestingly his father was a machine-gun toting bank robber who died in prison (after escaping twice). Dad was arrested when Stephen was seven and, other than by his absence, is not believed to have been a big influence on Stephen’s life. Genetics, maybe?

                If nothing else, I am personally glad Paddock did not survive his incident. I still almost lose my mind over the fact James Holmes, the Aurora, CO, theater shooter and killer of 12 innocent people, is in a mental institution and not the ground.

                If Paddock had survived I guess we could have given him Charlie Manson’s old digs since he finally died after spawning the original sick and twisted version of mass murder back in 1969. It was never granted but Charles actually had parole hearings on a regular basis which is not the same thing as throwing away the key.

                What is wrong with us? And we continue to blame things other than the maniacs who murder. Oh well.

                Not to break any liberal, gun-control hearts but as horrific as Paddock’s senseless and tragic murder of 58 innocent souls was, we don’t hold the record. On July 22, 2011 in Oslo, Norway (a country with gun control laws that would make any Californian envious), Anders Behring Breivik blew up eight people in downtown Norway with a fertilizer bomb and shot 69 more (mostly kids) at a summer camp.

                Breivik obtained most of his impressive arsenal quietly and legally as hunting firearms. He had a little trouble with the handguns but solved that with the worldwide internet. He got his bomb stuff in Poland and fine-tuned his shooting skills at practice ranges in other countries. He credited the video game “Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2” as his primary training aid.

                When captured, Breivik’s first comment to the press was, “I can’t believe it took them that long to stop me.” (Only he said it in Norwegian, of course.)

                Again, kudos to the Las Vegas police for how quickly they took Paddock down. But I also think Breivik’s story and cynicism are an excellent argument for expanding conceal carry laws. But that’s just me because I’m more serious about stopping nuts like Breivik and Holmes and Scott Ostrem than I am with advancing an hysterical ideology. Feel free to have fun debating my hypocrisy around your dining room table.  Acknowleged. Next.

                Ostrem, by the way, was the Walmart shooter in Thornton, Colorado, who walked through the front door of the store and opened fire killing three before he was confronted by three other Walmart shoppers with conceal carry permits who had drawn their guns and confronted him. Ostrem turned and retraced his path out of the store without taking anymore lives and we anxiously await word as to what childhood trauma may have twisted his little mind into a pretzel.

                Oh, and our friend Anders Breivik, he received a 21-year sentence, which apparently is the maximum sentence you can receive for anything in Norway unless there is something worse than slaughtering 77 people on a sunny day in July. 

                He is currently serving his sentence in a three-cell suite equipped with exercise equipment, television and a computer. You don’t have to believe me. Google it.

                He will be eligible for release in 2033. At that time judges could continue to lengthen his sentence by five years and every five years thereafter if he continues to express an interest in killing large numbers of people (or even small numbers, I’d imagine). But sure, it’s the guns, not the maniacs. Or maybe it’s the fertilizer. (What a clever, almost unintended pun!)

                You won’t believe this but I sat down to write this blog about the 500,000 machine guns still in private circulation in this country after we passed a law in 1986 to quit making them other than to fulfill military or law enforcement contracts. Gun-control enthusiasts will swoon over the fact that I am alarmed and I agree that 500,000 machine guns in private hands is a bad thing.

                There might be some comfort in the BATF’s claim that “almost all” of those half million automatic weapons are owned by ranges which have passed stringent requirements to be classified as “secured facilities” and which house the weapons for rent and use within those facilities only. They must be fun to shoot, I guess.

                However, not being a fan of Common Core Math nor a reporter for CNN, “almost all” isn’t an actual number in my neighborhood and I couldn’t find a more numeric representation more of us might be able to relate to.

                The BATF probably also thinks we would find it reassuring to know that to own a pre-1986 manufacture machine gun one must secure an ATF Class II Permit and undergo a rigorous local police background check and supply photos of your bad self as well as fingerprints.

                We would. Except that sales between private individuals may or may not be reported and may or may not be registered.

                The DOJ reports that 79% of prison inmates convicted on crimes involving a firearm acquired said firearm from an illegal source or a friend or family member. And according to the FBI, 232,400 firearms were stolen annually between 2005 and 2010.

                But don’t worry. The Colorado State Gun Law Website says that, “In general, one can safely assume that any fully automatic weapons are banned from civilian use.” Well, except for maybe half a million of them or so.

                I’m just not sure passing more laws is going to help folks.

Until Proven Innocent

                I’m not sure what it says about us as a society when it seems like a daily media contest to see whether the story above the fold will be about another mass shooting or a literal busload of women accusing one fellow or another of various degrees of sexual assault at some point in his past. Neither thing is a very flattering brush stroke in the portrait of the most technologically, economically, militarily (I hope) and prosperously mighty nation on the planet.

                Sexual assault is a horrible crime and I would vote in favor of the most harsh punishment the most twisted minds in North America could devise for those animals found guilty as charged. It does, however, seem like we have totally streaked past the “guilty as charged” phase and rushed straight to judgement by the media which is the least qualified institution in the solar system to judge anyone on an ethical or moral basis.

                Well, ok, there are also those lawmakers in Washington who have declared themselves judge and jury as well but my expectations of them are only slightly higher and both groups reside somewhere well beneath where whales defecate on the floor of the ocean, in my opinion of course. (I keep forgetting some people still watch CNN and MSN-anything and can’t tell a fact from an opinion.)

                Listen, I do believe that most of the time where there is smoke there is fire. I’m still reeling over the whole Bill Cosby thing. Cosby was one of my childhood idols and the smoke surrounding his indiscretions and crimes is thick enough to choke on, not going away and fairly impossible to deny after hearing the courtroom arguments and testimony.

                Take a look at either of the elder Clintons. Bill’s sexual crimes are legendarily numerous and have only gone away in the cases where he’s written his victims a check. As for Hillary, could her foundation and her behavior be any more obviously and disgustingly corrupt? Yet we choose not to investigate or prosecute them in the court of public opinion or even a legal and real court, because, well, because the left controls the court of public opinion and, apparently, the legal and real courts.

                And where there is smoke on the left there are usually also mirrors.

                You still hear noise about allegations made about Donald Trump and sexual assaults before the election on some of the obscure lamestream “news” shows occasionally referenced on Facebook. Allegations made by women who swore before the election they were going to pursue and sue for the wrongs done to them.

Allegations made by one woman on HRC’s campaign staff and payroll for five years. Allegations made by another woman about an assault at a concert in San Francisco (where else) that never played. Allegations that evaporated and went away never to be mentioned again (unless you watch those odd lamestream  story hours I mentioned) without a single check being written to anyone or a single charge or lawsuit filed.

                That smoke cleared so fast it barely had a chance to make anyone’s eyes water, unless you live in California and frankly, I think they simply like to cry.

                And I know this is snide and sexist and misogynistic and stuff but have you seen Melania, Ivana or Marla? And have you seen the gals who made the accusations? Turn the volume off on your TV and you decide.

                So I suppose the most fun ball to kick around the hate news shows and Washington, D.C., right now is Judge Roy Moore. I saw on Facebook this morning that he has pulled out of the special election race in Alabama but I haven’t looked any deeper to see if it’s true or if the Associated Press wrote it.

                Even after the allegations against him he was still leading the democratic candidate for the Alabama Senate seat by six to nine percentage points. I couldn’t help but notice on Facebook and my car radio that liberals found some conservative voters who said that a republican sex offender was even preferable to any democrat in the Senate.

                The libs, of course, are using that to point out what deplorable reprobates and disgusting excuses for humanity any and all conservatives are. I’m sure castration and lynching await me by some non-hateful, loving, gentle, enlightened liberal friends for suggesting that perhaps what most voters think is that a man is innocent until he is actually proven guilty.

                I understand the disgust on both sides though. Many democratic officials and candidates these days are almost too disgusting to look at but I’d like to think it is a minority of conservatives who would vote in favor of a verifiable sex offender over a democrat, as repulsive as they are. You could always opt to stay home from the polls and drink and watch Family Guy reruns.

                If Roy Moore is guilty of fondling underage girls, I want him beaten senseless in the middle of the student union at the University of Alabama.

                But does anyone else think it’s strange that four weeks before a Senatorial special election in which Moore was clearly set to steamroll the democratic wannabe that suddenly, 40 years later, four or five or six (I haven’t checked the paper this morning) women decided it was time to come forward and finger him for, well, fingering them before they were of legal age with extreme clarity as if it had happened yesterday?

                I have heard snippets of alt left news talk show hosts saying it is so convincing because they have all come forward independently and didn’t know each other. Or it is a sea-monster-sized coincidence maybe? Hey, maybe not.

                What I have heard less frequently is that the Washington Post, perhaps in panic mode over seeing democrats lose their fifth straight special election when they would like us to believe America is issuing Donald Trump a referendum (?) at the polls when no such thing is happening, sent a team to Alabama and set up shop and interviewed over 30 different women before they found three to charge inappropriate behavior.

                Hey, maybe that’s just good old fashioned investigative journalism. Maybe it’s something else.

                If I raise my hand and say “Nancy Pelosi raped me,” (I’d have picked a cute one but I can’t think of any) is that all the “evidence” that’s needed to force a resignation? Or is an investigation in order first? How about if two or three other guys come forward independently and tell Fox News the same thing? Is that the corroborating evidence the Court of Public Opinion is looking for? How about we go to court and prove she actually did it? (She didn’t for God’s sake, this isn’t CNN.)

                For the third time, if Roy Moore is guilty as charged then punish him appropriately, or let me order the punishment which would be more harsh than “appropriately.” But before we start ordering the chemicals for lethal injection, how about a trial somewhere other than in the Washington Post or on CNN or the bar where Mitch McConnell hangs out?

                Guilty is guilty and wrong is wrong but we have a system for determining that which does not involve Anderson Cooper or your Morning Joe.

                If it looks like stink, and it smells like stink and it sticks to the bottom of your shoe like stink there is a good chance it may not be your mother’s Thanksgiving sweet potato casserole.

                Just sayin’.

The Border War

WYOMING 16
CSU              13

in a blizzard. November 4, 2017.

You thought it was going to be about something else, didn't you. Sorry.

No time for a real blog this week. Too much fun and merry-making in Laramie all weekend.

Go Pokes!!!!!!!!!

Deflating The Football

Deflating The Football

                So as the protest of black oppression by some of the richest men of any color in the United States continues across the country today in increasingly empty football stadiums with increasingly shrinking television audiences, I thought it might be a constructive exercise to continue to deconstruct the liberal myths fueling the protest and begin a discussion of what, if anything, might be done to put a little air back into the football before these misguided fellows completely kill the golden goose.

                And I sadly have my doubts that the part of black culture that has bought into the victim mentality that holds forth that blacks can never succeed in this country as long as there are whites can be fixed in this generation or maybe even the next.

                So I keep hearing that the protest is about social justice but I have yet to hear a coherent definition of what social justice would look like. The topic seems to cover discrimination in the work place to inequality of wealth to police brutality to I don’t know what else.

                On social media this week there was some professor from the university of I Don’t Care claiming that algebra and geometry are racist. There seems to be a rather substantial push from some extreme quadrants for white people who never owned slaves to give money to black people who never were slaves because 150 years ago a small percentage of white people owned a large percentage of black people as slaves.

                So the topic is kind of broad and I have to agree with others who say no one really knows exactly what is being protested. I try to be careful not to make light of the absurdity of the extremes of some of the alleged issues because to just laugh at the fact that African-Americans are definitely upset about something is indeed racist, and I know I cross that line.

                But when THE Reverend Jesse Jackson says that in 150 years black people have only progressed from picking cotton balls to picking footballs and basketballs it is hard for my jaw not to drop open. When Whoopi Goldberg says she is being held a slave on whatever that silly pseudo-news show is that she’s on for however many millions of dollars they pay her for her suffering, how am I supposed to take that seriously?

                I know there is discrimination and that’s wrong. I know there is racial prejudice and that’s wrong. I think most of America is on board with me in acknowledging that and being willing to do what we can to make it better.

                I was alive when the Civil Rights Bill was passed. I was alive when Jim Crow laws were in effect although there was no evidence of them in the lilly-white suburb in which I grew up. I have seen this country in many ways make huge strides in eradicating racism and discrimination and creating equality of opportunity. At least I thought so.

                And then in 2008 this country elected its first African-American president which one would think signaled the ultimate in equality of opportunity and blindness to skin color. And then something unforeseen happened, and while this would pass for a fact on CNN or in the New York Times it is merely my opinion, that very president made race an issue of a proportion it had not seen since the 1960’s.

                Barack Obama pursued a social doctrine of turning people of different colors against each other until we reached a point where I (and others but you can point at me since I’m writing this) believe that perhaps the most egregious racists are black, not white. He popularized the narrative summed up in the rhetorical chant, “White greed creates black need.”

                He made horrible and incorrect statements about police officers before the facts were in and disproved his allegations and the liberal narratives of events that never happened the way they were portrayed (“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” for example) and were never recanted. He invited the single most hateful and violent racist organization in America--#blacklivesmatter—to the White House after supporters had murdered police officers and he praised them for their good works.

                “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.

                “How do we want “em?

                “Dead.

                “When do we want it?

                “Now.”

                Good works?

“Until the police accept responsibility for their discriminatory behavior toward people of color, there can be no peace.”

              --Barack Obama

Does that sound post-racial to anyone?

I don’t know who coined the term “The Ferguson Effect,” but it describes situations in which, either because they’ve been instructed to by city officials or because they are fearful of going into certain parts of their towns, police withdraw from proactive policing in black communities and crime rates spike.

Innocents who are the victims of those crimes are mad at the police for not protecting them. When the police do show up to do their jobs, members of inner-city communities are angry at them for targeting young black men…in predominately black communities where most of the criminals as well as the victims are black.

Last year black homocides climbed to 7,881 in the United States. That’s up from 6,000 the year before Ferguson. Police shootings of African-Americans has stayed consistently around 4% of that total. Black on black crime accounts for the rest.

According to Peter Kirsanov, an African-American attorney and a member of the Commission on Civil Rights, citing statistics from the Department of Justice, blacks are 2.5 times more likely to die from gunshot wounds than whites.

Kirsanov also said in an interview recently with Sean Hannity that following decades of a decline in crime rates due to “Stop and Frisk” strategies in high crime areas that, as a direct reaction to The Ferguson Effect, in New York City alone blacks are 35 times more likely to commit robberies; 38 times more likely to commit murders and 51 times more likely to engage in shootings than white people.

When is enough enough? When can we have an honest discussion about how to turn the tide?

In my opinion, not as long as black leaders like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama and Louis Farrakhan are the mouthpieces for “The Movement.”

When the 1964 Civil Rights Bill was passed 28% of black families were fatherless, compared to 24% of white families. Not much difference. And by “fatherless” we aren’t talking about divorced. We are talking about no dad in the picture.

Today the percentage of white families with no dad in sight is still around one-fourth. The percentage of black families with father’s missing in action is 72%. Almost triple what it was when we passed The Civil Rights Act and almost concurrently began LBJ’s War on Poverty.

Something didn’t work out.

Again, just my opinion—I am not under the influence of any Associated Press delusions that I am omniscient—but it seems to me that what may be missing in an unhappy, underachieving black community that believes, right or wrong, that all its woes can be blamed on oppression by whites is the presence of a father figure.

Is that any crazier than blaming algebra and geometry?

But folks, that is not a problem white people can fix. For me to tell young black men how to be black fathers isn’t going to have a lot of credibility. For me to tell young black ladies that the number of babies you can have by different fathers is not a contest is not going to be well received.

Where are those black leaders?

From the Denver Broncos, Brandon Marshall, one of the most ardent NFL protestors of police brutality though I’ve never heard him cite a single, solitary specific, is putting his time and money where his mouth is in a big way. Marshall has met with Denver Police Chief Robert White, himself an African-American, to try and ease tensions and discuss solutions. Marshall has spoken to students at at least one inner-city elementary school to try and encourage attendance and completing education. Marshall has developed The Williams-Marshall Cares Leadership Program to expose teens in Denver and Las Vegas to black leaders.

He also works with local boy’s and girl’s clubs to lend encouragement and put himself out there as a role model.

I may strongly disagree with his bias about police oppression of blacks but I respect and applaud in the strongest terms his efforts to keep young men and women, whom the odds say may have no male role model in their lives, on a path to success.

He can’t do it alone, but I’ll bet he’s not.  Maybe he influences some youths in Las Vegas and Denver. Maybe some other players do more than massage their own egos and wail on in ignorance about topics they may be further removed from than I am and affect a few lives in other cities. Maybe it snow balls?

Maybe it doesn’t. A lot of people make a lot of money from keeping the black community thinking it is helplessly victimized and that they need the same people who’ve been shepherding them into stagnation and failure for 50 years to keep fighting the good fight on their behalf.

I know this blog is going to rankle some feathers. I’m sorry. You can either take my word for it or not that I’ve nothing against anyone because of their skin color.

I just believe there has to be a better way to solve the problem and I hope someone out there can help me think of a better solution that outlawing algebra and geometry.

 

Just The Facts, Ma'am

                Last week on Fox News Tomi Lahren—one of my favorite commentators at only 25-years-old—speculated that if you asked 100 different NFL football players to clarify specifically what they were protesting by kneeling during the national anthem before football games across America you would likely get 100 different answers.

                About a month ago Denver Bronco’s Head Coach Vance Joseph said of the protest, “I’m not even sure what it’s about anymore and that’s the issue in my opinion.”

                Several teams and individuals have been going out of their way to make clear they are not protesting our military or our flag although if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck I don’t know how it’s a turkey.

                It seems like misguided football mouthpieces, the media plus a lot of white and black liberals who depend on a “victimized” coalition of black votes to stay in power and make money would like us to believe it’s only about police brutality against young black men and racism and oppression against blacks by white people in general. I am particularly confused but entertained by the young black millionaires who feel like they are enslaved.

                I have never been a black inner-city youth but Brandon Marshall, Gerald McCoy and Michael Bennet haven’t been old white fathers of police officers either. No one on the left has any interest in listening to anyone but themselves but if they did I could assure them that I know my son the police officer does not awaken each morning buoyed by the hope that today will be the day he gets to gun down some black guys.

                Because my son is a cop I may know more police officers than some of you.  Most of them say, “yes sir,” and “no ma’am” more than most young men I would speculate are raised in liberal households. Some of the cops I know have been shot at. Some have been the target of criminals using moving automobiles as weapons with the intent to maim or kill.  Some have shot back. Some have killed criminals in the line of duty. Fortunately, no cop I have known has been killed in the line of duty.

                All of them get up each day and put on their uniforms and, hopefully, their bullet-proof vests, and hit the streets with an actual and genuine interest in doing what the rest of us are hesitant to do to keep us safe from those who would harm us, take our property or our lives. Every single cop I know is a hero and I suspect almost every single one of them that I don’t know is also a hero.

                And those that don’t get that are a bigger part of the problem than the solution. In my opinion, of course.

         
              Anderson Cooper should roll his eyes and sigh heavily at this point at my ignorance of what he believes the problem to be. Silly white republicans.

                Do I realize that some cops are racist and bigoted and probably never should have been issued a badge? You bet. And when they’re discovered they should be stripped of their jobs and punished if they’ve committed a crime. There are about 670,000 police officers in the country. It is highly unlikely that every single one of them is the hero of whom I speak. It is highly likely that some of them need the consequences I just suggested. Satisfied?

                Does the left lie machine realize that black cops are 3.3 times more likely to shoot black criminals than white cops? Not my number. Root it out of Department of Justice statistics. It’s there.

        
                Let’s try looking at a few more facts instead of listening to the lamestream media and the broken-record liberal narrative, shall we? Using The Washington Post’s own research, Heather MacDonald (the attorney, author and researcher at The Manhattan Institute, not the comedienne who sometimes appeared on the Chelsea Handler Show) offers that in 2015 there were 987 total victims of fatal police shootings.

                White people accounted for 50% of those deaths, while constituting 62% of the population. Black people accounted for 26% of those deaths while only constituting 13% of the population. The good kids at WAPO thought they were really onto something.

                MacDonald has pointed out, however, that WAPO conveniently overlooked the statistics on the same DOJ website that point out that 62% of all robberies, 57% of all murders and 45% of all assaults are committed by blacks. It is a small wonder only 26% of cop-related fatalities were black people.

                Of 6,000 black homicides in 2015, 4% were the result of police shootings. (Twelve percent each of white and Hispanic homicides in 2015 were cop-related.) Almost all the rest of the 5,743 black homicides were black on black crime and that’s not even culling the police shootings for which deaths were the result of black cops shooting black perpetrators (3.3 times more, remember?).

                Can the myth of rampant white cop shootings of blacks really be the issue? Maybe the liberal narrative just means “unarmed” blacks. Ok. In 2015 there were 36 shootings of unarmed blacks by cops. Five were trying to grab the officer’s gun when they were shot. Somehow only two were the result of stray bullets (are bullets racist?) and one of those was a getaway driver for a criminal who was actively shooting at police at the time. Two more, originally identified as blacks (one with blond hair) turned out to be Hispanics. An undisclosed number were shot from accidental discharges in struggles with police.

                Let’s leave it at no more than 27 unarmed blacks were intentionally killed in police encounters, again, not culling for how many of those shootings were by black officers. Oh, hell, just say 36, why ruin a good narrative, plus someone already did the math for me with 36. Each death is tragic and sad to someone, even if the shooting were 100% justified and cleared by an investigative board, I’m not saying they aren’t. But I want to illustrate how out of proportion this NFLsteria may be. Those 36 deaths represent .0000018 of the black population per capita.

                I am sad for each and every one of them. I am sad for the 5,743 black people murdered by other black people for every reason from drug-deals-gone-bad, to gang disputes, to mistakes, to accidents, to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

                But if I were going to protest or ask for a focus of resources on a problem, would I want to focus on eliminating 36 deaths? Or even 257? Or would I be more concerned about what we could do to minimize 22 times that many deaths?

                What is really going on?

                I have more data, and I’ll get to it. I don't have much else to do on Sundays this Fall. But I do have some observations about things some football players are doing about the 5,743 that I truly respect. But in the interest of keeping things close to 1,000 words which is where most attention spans end with stuff I write apparently, for now, that’s 30.

                (“That’s 30” is an old news term that meant tonight’s 30-minute news broadcast was over. It dates back to when there were actually journalists.)