Conservative Rebels

20 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in President Trump

≈ Leave a comment

When Bill Walsh, a former Republican Congressman, Tea Party leader, and talking head on 560 Radio, agreed with me about Donald Trump, the world flipped over. On Chicago Tonight’s August 19 episode, he said, “Trump lies every time he opens his mouth,” “He only cares about himself,” “He isn’t morally fit to be President,” and “Republicans don’t care about debt and deficit under Trump”.

Walsh helped to put Trump in office but saw within a few days he had made a mistake. He says he has come late the show of actively voicing his opinions of how Trump has damaged America. He considers Trump’s playing up to Putin against his own intelligence agencies to be “un-American.” He would, I think, have got too traitorous if Paris Shultz had pushed him for more.

When a radical far right wing nutcase like Bill Walsh sees the disaster we have as President, maybe millions of others will open their eyes. I hope whoever the next President is, signs an executive order eliminating every order Trump gave before trying to figure out if any were good for the country as a whole. He has destroyed decades of work by bi-partisan congresses and Presidents. He has often run down Presidents of both parties as if he is the first smart one.

When Walsh agrees with me on Trump’s ability and ego then maybe Trump will be put on the dust pile (Note I said DUST.) of history in 2020.

Incite to Riot

19 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in Inciting Violence

≈ Leave a comment

Inciting to riot is a legal term meaning urging a group of people to riot. We also consider yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theater to be a crime. Both are federal crimes because they are likely to cause injury and death to others. For instance, when someone incites people to violence against an ethnic or race or religion. That’s when the line is crossed from First Amendment protections to criminal action and it is a wide gray stripe. When a person stands in front of a group and hurls terrible and fictional charges against a particular group he may be in the gray stripe. However, if the person said something like “follow me” or “go get them” then he would have gone past the gray stripe.

Let’s suppose the person repeatedly said all the brown people were murders, rapists, and drug smugglers. Let’s suppose this kind of talk scared people and fit into the beliefs of racist groups causing unrest and mass murders. Many of the mass murders during the last eighteen months have been against people cited in the rantings by a particular person. El Paso, in particular, was against brown people who were invading his country. Mosque shootings and vandalism occurred after the rantings about Muslims. When the rantings are on national news and in front of hundreds or a few thousand people, few listeners will engage in criminal activity. Most of those shooters found their directions from rantings on the dark internet websites, tweets and re-tweets.

Many rantings have gotten close to the “go get them” direction inciting criminal activity. At that time people will have to decide if the rantings have crossed into the “high crimes and misdemeanors” conduct.

No Gift to Iran

14 Wednesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Iran

≈ Leave a comment

Let’s assume B.J. Warner made a lot of money but spent more than was made. After getting professional help all of B.J.’s accounts and assets were taken over by the company. After a great deal of negotiations, the company and B.J. come together in an agreement allowing B.J. to get the frozen accounts and assets back. However, B.J. didn’t keep the money but gave it to others. B.J. complied with the agreement on spending as the company wanted but didn’t use the money as the company intended. According to B.J.s thinking of August 11, when the company returned B.J.s money it was a gift from them and not B.J.s own money being released.

The long analogy is to explain how Trump and the other warmongers explain releasing of Iran’s confiscated funds. Granted some of the money went to organizations we didn’t approve of, but it did stop the problem of Iran building a nuclear bomb and that was the purpose. All the countries freed up Iran’s own funds and kept the interest those funds had generated. Much of those funds we had kept were for the purchase of fighter planes the Shaw had paid for but not delivered. Carter froze all the funds in our banks. The other countries froze the funds in response to the upgrading of nuclear fuels. No war was made against Iran.

Just as the B.J. analogy, nobody GAVE Iran money. Trump and others have misinformed and lied to get the uninformed and naive excited about having a disastrous war with Iran. Trump satisfied the warmongers by abrogating the agreement and baiting Iran. He is trying to start a war that will not stay there but will come home. Saddam found killing hundreds of thousands just means more want to die to beat the enemy.

Red Flag Laws

14 Wednesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Gun Control

≈ Leave a comment

For those who don’t know what these laws are designed to do, a red flag law is supposed to give the local law enforcement the ability to go to a court to temporarily take away a person’s guns. Note temporarily and not permanently. The laws basically depend on a friend or relative reporting a person they believe is nutty enough to harm themselves or another with a gun. The accuser must tell the reasons and be strong enough to sway a judge.

The Dayton shooter’s mom told the local police she was concerned about her son but had no idea he had a gun because he bought it over the internet from Texas a few weeks before the shooting. The Wal-Mart shooter’s friends and relatives say they had no clue. Assuming the guns are removed, most laws only allow for a few days cooling off period. Another possible person who can report a potential threat is their psychiatrist or psychologist. Sounds good but few of the shooters were seeing a doctor. What does temporary mean? In some states its less than two weeks before they go to court to get them back.

Reporting someone who might want to kill someone probably puts that person at the top of the kill list when the guns are returned. Seldom would this law have saved anyone’s life. But I guess if it stops just one mass shooter it may be worthwhile but not at the expense of getting real laws against assault guns, high capacity magazines, gun shows, and strong background checks. Those are what’s really needed!

People’s Right to Know

14 Wednesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Gun Violence

≈ Leave a comment

The first time I heard the term “The People’s Right to Know” was during the Viet Nam War. It was supposed to be the reason secret information was released. I think it’s one of those “in the eyes of the beholder” conundrums. Some things should never see the light of day and others should.

As a co-founder and first president of the Grundy County No Tolerance Task Force, I learned that one of the best ways to fight gang recruitment was to wash off or cover gang signs, keep their activities from being recorded or reported as such, and to tamp down any activity that involved recruitment. The object was to reduce copycat activity by wannabes.

How does this affect today’s right to know? I believe the Dayton mass shooter was influenced by the publicity of the Wal-Mart shooting. We know one school suicide is likely to spawn others if it is publicized very much. A few days ago a man walked into a store with body armor and an assault gun. He did nothing because he had no intention to do anything or had not found the targets he was hoping to shoot. Since Dayton and Wal-Mart, other men have killed using the same type weapons with some reaching the four people shot criteria for mass shootings. Most of those were reported locally and not given much publicity outside the immediate area.

The question is still valid today. Is the public’s right to know causing more shootings and unnecessary fear? Instead of getting headlines across the world, should the media and the internet downplay events thus preventing copycat mass shootings?

Rose Colored Budget

05 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in National Debt

≈ Leave a comment

Why do we need low interest rates? I bet you are completely wrong! With the low rates of today Washington is paying interest of over 400 billion this year on the National Debt of over TWENTY-TWO TRILLION. The truth is my former party has just pushed through at the behest of the worst President we have ever had, an optimistic yearly deficit of only ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

It’s through playing with the numbers that the Congress claims last year’s deficit was under a TRILLION. Most numbers crunchers say it is well over that number. When interest rates return to normal we will be paying out over a TRILLION each year just to service the debt!

Medicare and Social Security will total over ONE AND A QUARTER TRILLION this year. In ten years they will total TWO TRILLION. The “Lock Box” will not be able to give out full benefits in seven years because there will be more people drawing on it and because Congress is unwilling to do something about it. Not since Gingrich backed out of his plan in 1997 has anybody had the guts to fix it.

Why do we keep electing Republican and Democrat Senators, Representatives, and Presidents who are running our government into the financial ground?

Here’s the rose colored glasses projections. If we have no recessions, wars, or any other normal event, we will reach one hundred percent debt to GDP ratio in ten years. Is it their idea to bankrupt the government to get rid of Medicare, Social Security, and the other social programs the wealthy wants to eliminate? Is that the plan and why Republicans no longer fear massive deficits? Is it because they fear Trump’s wrath more than they fear the voters? Take off their rosy lies and look at reality!

Satirists Arise

01 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by in Social Media

≈ Leave a comment

Anyone expressing an opinion by writing a letter to the editor might expect some reader to write an opposing opinion. Among the many things I have been called in my long life, satirist is a new one. I looked it up in my trusty Webster and now I will add it to my literary accomplishments.

The use of the word indicates to me that at least some readers have a higher education level than the average fifth grader. I have been told I am writing at a level, which the average reader doesn’t think. Maybe that is truer today then before. Hundreds of times I have read or heard people saying things that only a naive fifth grader might believe. If average American comprehension level has fallen so low then Roger Ailes has won the battle for control of the American mind. Repeatedly he voiced he could control the thoughts of the Fox viewers by lowering the content. I have heard MSNBC was created to combat the Fox agenda. I don’t watch either because I want pure facts, not muddied waters.

In the age of social media and the Internet, correct facts are so rare. Currently we have wackos from the right and left spewing the most stupid, unsupported and inane statements. Along with the people’s lack of fact checking and quest for truth, Russian trolls, and probably soon the Iranians and Chinese will fill the Internet and social media with misinformation and lies to skew public opinion.

Webster says a satirist uses ridicule to attack follies. Those of us who see social media and the internet as a bane on the American moral fabric must be satirists. Who knew that we satirists would be the protectors of sanity and America’s morals?

The Red Ink Disaster

26 Friday Jul 2019

Posted by in National Debt

≈ Leave a comment

Has anyone noticed the first thing a new president or prime minister wants to do is cut taxes and regulations to jump start their economy. Funny thing is their country is always heavily in debt. Cutting taxes further puts them further into debt. We are a prime example of this stupidity. We were told the Trump cut wouldn’t add to this debt — Ha!

When George W. Bush came into office he cut taxes on a budget that was paying down the National Debt. His tax cut stopped the debt reduction and together with his wars started us going on a downhill debt trajectory. When Obama came into office we were in the depths of the Great Recession so raising taxes was out of the question. As the economy started to recover and revenues started to increase, Obama put a sequester on expenses. However the National Debt continued to rise. When Donald Trump got in he cut taxes again during a booming economy and our expenses now exceed revenue by over a trillion dollars each year. In order to even balance the budget we need a 40% increase in taxes.            

We currently have a better than average debt to Gross National Product of approximately 80%. Each year the percentage will go up since the yearly deficits add to the debt. At what point can we no longer pay the interest? At what point do the investors here and abroad decide they don’t want to finance us anymore? Foolish short-sightedness to get elected and stay in office is going to bankrupt America. Maybe that threat is the point. To stave off financial collapse, the conservatives will demand elimination of most aid programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food subsidies, and others.

Unpleasant Facts

14 Sunday Jul 2019

Posted by in Population

≈ Leave a comment

Bob Wyman says my opinions are narrow-minded and unsubstantiated. Bob, everything you read with my name is factual and not off Fox News or the websites (Russian?) that you must use to get your information. You said my claims about climate change were unsubstantiated and wild predictions. I am quite confident of my predictions since seventeen out of seventeen federal science agencies and all three branches of the military and the coast guard agrees with me. So do the people in the cities and areas I said were already flooding from the rising oceans. Bob, hop in your car and wade the streets at high tides in those towns.

You criticized my population crisis projections which are readily available from many sources. Yes, my solutions were drastic and radical but the time to cut growth was years ago. Look around you Bob; we now have over 330 million in the United States. Imagine 500 or 600 million which we may have by the end of the century! I bet you are a baby boomer. When you were born the population was maybe 3 billion. It is now over 7 billion and growing. We are not going to get help from any religious group because they want to grow the faithful faster than the others. Currently we subsidize growth. The bigger the family, the bigger the subsidy. I suggested we need to eliminate deductions, spread contraceptives, and make the growth a moral issue. Bob, if you have ideas better than the ones I promulgated, the world awaits them.

The projections for temperature increase and rise of sea levels are for the end of the century and not for the centuries after. Those projections have already been found to be too conservative so your plans are urgently needed!

Subsidies and Currency Manipulation

09 Tuesday Jul 2019

Posted by in Subsidies

≈ Leave a comment

One point the executive and legislative branches have agreed upon concerns other countries subsidizing their businesses. We have complained about how Canada, Europe, and China have subsidized autos, grains, lumber, wine, cheese, steel, and a myriad of other products. We have criticized China as being a currency manipulator as a way to subsidize their businesses.

We do the same thing for our businesses. We just gave the farmers billions of dollars to compensate for the tariffs with China. That is a subsidy. We have a farm program that puts a base on farm products and an insurance to compensate for losses. We give them huge tax breaks. This is just for agriculture. It is easy to come up with subsidies of other exporting businesses. Many of them were subsidized to export jobs so we could import their cheaper made products.

How does a country like China manipulate their money? They lower their national bank’s interest rates, buy other currencies, and lower their tax rates. Does that sound familiar? Trump has cut business taxes causing the Federal Reserve to sell more debt to foreign countries. He is harassing the Fed to cut their rates.

What else is new? We always criticize other countries for doing what we are also doing. Trump and his people are saying China is trying to lower the Yuan’s exchange rate to make their products cheaper in relation to the dollar. Actually, they are trying to keep the Yuan the same rate as the dollar. Trump is the one trying to manipulate currencies.

The whole thing is just another old problem Trump is trying to recycle for his deluded supporters.