Month: April 2017

“What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for, and more importantly it’s not what this country stands for. Not only are there many Muslims serving in the armed forces, dying for this country, there are Muslims serving right here in the house, working to uphold and defend the constitution.” (Regarding the President’s Executive Order temporarily halting immigration from several countries)

“If a person wants to be the nominee of the Republican Party, there can be no evasion and no games. They must reject any group or cause that is built on bigotry. This party does not prey on people’s prejudices.” (regarding Trump’s first “less than aggressive” denouncement of former KKK leader David Duke’s endorsement)

These were just two of the many negative statements by Paul Ryan about Donald Trump leading up to the 2016 election.  Paul Ryan — Wisconsin Congressman, Speaker of the House, and leader of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, who was charged to not only support GOP House members in their bids for re-election, but to lead the charge for the Republican candidate for President to defeat Hillary Clinton at the same time.  Paul Ryan — Mitt Romney’s Vice Presidential running mate in 2012.  He intimately knows the election process, what it takes to win, and how easy it is to lose.  He has not only seen what makes losing national elections possible, he was the subject of one of the most needless and misunderstood losses in a Presidential election in my lifetime.  Romney/Ryan should have eliminated a second Obama term.

Ryan NEVER really supported Donald Trump.  He is a member (and, yes, a leader) of the GOP Establishment that has had a choke hold on the Republican Party since the Reagan Administration.  Other members of that exclusive club are Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConell, Jeb Bush, both Presidents Bush 41 and 43, Mitt Romney, Governor Rick Perry, Congressman Daryl Isa (CA), Senator John McCain (AZ), Senator Orrin Hatch (UT), Senator John Cornyn (TX), Marco Rubio (FL), Senator Charles Grassley (IA), Senator James Inhofe (OK), and others whose names we’ve heard for years.  And many others part of this “club” are not elected officials — many just control campaign and Super PAC dollars.

You may remember all the hoopla about Ryan accepting the leadership of the House when John Boener — the previous Speaker — resigned.  He made out he didn’t want the position and would accept it only under strict conditions.  But that was all a charade.  He really wanted it….he got it….and he has used it to his advantage pretty much exclusively…and he has NOT used it to lead the Republican Party inside or outside of the House of Representatives.  And he certainly did not lead in the fight to defeat Hillary Clinton.  No matter what he says:  he does NOT like or support Donald Trump.  By his actions — not his “post election” verbal praises of the President — he saw this President as only a necessary evil to keep a third Obama Administration from happening through Hillary.  Short of that, I dare to say he hates Donald Trump.

Obviously the above paragraph is totally my subjective opinion and nothing more.  But let’s look at facts regarding the misses by Paul Ryan since January:

• Donald Trump made multiple pledges in his campaign of things he would do if elected.  He was elected.  He as a businessman with success as a “do-er” and NOT a politician  set out to fulfill those promises.  That process has been shocking to the GOP Establishment, (especially the Speaker) because the GOP political machine has never done that.  Done what?  Follow through on campaign promises!  Because voters elected Trump, (and NOT the GOP Establishment) Speaker Ryan found himself not knowing what to do.  How could he get the men and women in that group to follow him if he led the charge to help the President — who many in that group hate also — to accomplish all those campaign promises?  He knew his leadership there would be viewed as his betrayal of the “Good Old Party.”  So what did he do?  NOTHING!
• He missed on repeal/replace Obamacare.  Don’t get me started on political parties and caucuses.  I think both are stupid.  But they exist.  And what real leaders do is pull various factions together finding enough common ground on important issues to reach consensus and get things done.  Ryan didn’t even try to pull those factions together in the GOP to support a repeal/replace plan.  Voters were told for 6 years the GOP had such a plan ready to immediately after the election pass for the President to sign into law.  Donald Trump believed them!  Where’s that bill they had created and approved among themselves they all talked about in every one of their elections to get voters to send them back to D.C.?  THERE WASN’T ONE!
• Have you seen the Ryan Budget Plan that he put together to present to Congress?  No you haven’t.  It doesn’t exist!
• I Googled today to see all the comments made by the Speaker to his House members about plans to secure the southern border including the wall that voters overwhelming approved the building of with the Trump election.  I couldn’t find a single comment from the Speaker.

The definition of a leader?  “A leader is the one in the charge, the person who convinces other people to follow. A great leader inspires confidence in other people and moves them to action.“

I see none of that definition of leader in Speaker Paul Ryan.  He has inspired no one to any specific action.  In fact, instead of calling him a leader, I have termed him a “drive-by shooter.”  You know what those guys are, don’t you?  Instead of getting involved in issues, talking through problems, their sources, possible solutions, and convincing others to agree to realistic solutions, they just drive by and shoot at those that are really part of the issue.

I am about to say something that may surprise you — no shock you:  I think Paul Ryan accepted the role of Speaker not to lead the House, but to make certain that none of the “radical” policies promoted by Donald Trump would be enacted.  Why?  Because the Republican Establishment wants one thing and one thing only:  no waves.  They want Americans to believe everything they promote is genuinely designed for the  betterment of all Americans.  But history says something different — THEIR history.  The GOP wants to maintain power over the federal government.  It’s not about money — only about power.  They know that with power they control money and everything else.  And they know Donald Trump does not care at all about obligations, quid pro quo, or paybacks to anybody for anything.  He genuinely cares for the lives of Americans and his life demonstrates that.  And he scares them to death.  I really thing Speaker Ryan wants President Trump to fail.  And I think someone has convinced him that with a Trump failure, Ryan himself has a real shot at selling the story to Republicans that he knows how, and has the ability to, pickup the GOP reigns and lead the Party back into the White House…..himself — in 2020.  I believe he has a personal agenda and not an American agenda.

Whether or not my opinion about his future aspirations is true, he needs to go.  There are others in the House far better suited to lead than he.  We need one of the real leaders to do just that:  lead.  Ryan has failed to do so.

Past generations of Americans were sticklers for having as little debt as possible.  Many middle Americans remember the horrors during the Depression of losing their farms to banks because they could not pay their mortgages.  Most of those and their children swore never to allow lenders to assume a place in THEIR lives that would allow it to happen again.  But as the decades have passed and two generations since have assumed control of the nation, borrowing and lending ideas have changed.  The U.S. government has gotten borrowing down to a science.  And because of the spiraling debt, the U.S. stands at the brink of total economic devastation.

I could spend time here detailing the amount of debt, how quickly it has risen to its present levels, who is at fault, etc., but none of that will do anything to address the problem.  The real problem is simply that if we Americans do not take control of our existing debt, stop the U.S. debt growth completely, and begin paying down the principle on the debt, our children and grandchildren will see life as we have seen it only in the rearview mirror.  Economic devastation is just around the corner and the government is driving the car with the  blinker on.  Let me explain:

I’ll simplify the issue by comparison that we all can understand.  At your house, if your total gross income is $1000 per month, you set your budget  based on having $1000 a month coming in.  You budget for taxes, housing, food, medical, incidentals, savings, and hope to have a few dollars of that $1000 left at month end.  If you are smart, you sock away a few bucks up front to assure you have some “mad money” left.  At some point you’ll probably buy and finance a car, so of that $1000 you must put aside $100 each month for a car payment.  You would think the federal government would structure its budget using the same or similar budget planning.  But that does not happen.  In fact their plan is as far from yours as Earth is from the Sun.

Here’s how our government handles money:  Let’s assume they have $2000 a month coming into the Treasury in tax revenue.  They budget expenses to expend $2000.  That should be OK because they have exactly enough in revenue to cover the bills.  But they do not stop there.  They decide that California (as example) has a need for $200 a month, but they don’t have that left.  How do they take care of California?  They go to the “money store” — the Federal Reserve — to borrow the money.  The Federal Reserve doesn’t have the money in hand, but they can print a “note” that they can sell for $200 to some investor, broker, or banker.  They sell that note (bond), lend that $200 to the government, then charge the government interest each month.

At the end of the month, the government receives its $2000 in tax revenue and pays all of that out on bills.  But it owes the Federal Reserve $20 for one month’s interest on that bond.  The Federal Reserve owes $5 of that $20 as interest to the investor, broker, or banker it sold the bond to.  The government doesn’t have the $20 it owes in interest to the Federal Reserve of which $5 is owed to the bond purchaser.  What do they do?  The Federal Reserve prints ANOTHER note (bond) that they sell to some investor, broker, or banker for $20 and lends that $20 to the government.  The government pays that $20 right back to the Federal Reserve so it can pay the $5 to the first bond purchaser.  That cycle continues month after month after month.

Do you know what the actual revenue numbers are for the Federal Government?  Total Federal Receipts in 2016:  $3.27 trillion;  Total Federal Outlays in 2016:  $3.85 trillion.  That’s a $587 billion deficit that the government borrowed from the Federal Reserve and added that to the Federal Debt: $19.5 trillion.  Wanna put that in perspective?  If we paid back our debt at the rate of $1 per second, it would take 618,340 YEARS to pay it back.  That is assuming we add not one more nickel to the debt.  And that doesn’t include interest.  Yikes!

There are several real dangers here:  1) The Federal Reserve is NOT owned by the Federal Government.  It is a separate entity.  It does not have money of its own, so when they sell a bond in the marketplace, they are simply selling the commitment of the Federal Government to repay that bond:  face (or principle) amount plus the interest;  2) the investor, broker, or banker who they sell to MUST get paid at least interest or there would be a default.  Then just like during the Great Depression the holder of that note would foreclose and whatever collateral there is promised for the principle and interest for that bond would be seized.  In this case, there is NO collateral, just the “good will and faith” of the Federal Government.  If bond interest/principle default ever happens, the Federal Government would collapse economically overnight;  3)  China is the largest creditor of U.S. debt.  They own trillions of U.S. Treasury bonds.  We must pay interest on those bonds at regular intervals but we do not have the cash from tax income to do so.  What do we do?  We sell more bonds just to pay Chinese bond interest.  When we need more money than the nearly $2 trillion or so that comes into the Treasury in tax revenue, what the Federal Reserve does is literally just like firing up the printing press and printing hundred dollar bills.

And you wondered how the U.S. got to owing $20 trillion.  But…..there’s a much BIGGER problem:  the U.S. has approximately $100 trillion of “unfunded” liabilities.  These are not direct debts like bonds but are commitments the government made for future payments.  They are comprised of Medicare, Medicaid, Federal Union Pension obligations, Federal Employee retirement obligations, Social Security obligations — all purportedly total $100 trillion.  Don’t try to do the math to compute how much of that debt is yours — it will set your hair on fire.

Yes, we as a nation are in economic trouble.

Is there any way out?  It depends on who you listen to.  Obviously our government officials — Democrat, Republican, Independent, or those of any other political ilk — refuse on the most part to even acknowledge we actually have a debt problem.  They are masters at spinning everything that could even be considered a negative.  Their answer is simple:  raise the debt limit.  All that does is signal the Federal Reserve to crank up the presses and issue that worthless paper that runs our debt up even further.  That obviously is not a sustainable answer.  It just kicks the can down the road.  Someone in the future is going to have to pick that can up and do something with it.  The can has gotten so heavy it is now almost too heavy to pick up off the road.

I see only two legitimate solutions:  one is to simply default on the debt — tell all of the Treasury bond holders not only can we not pay the principle of the bonds they hold, we can no longer pay interest.  What would they do,  sue the government?  Obviously that would be a fruitless lawsuit since the reason for default was not having money to pay the debt — there’s no “there” there.  I’m sure the Chinese (who hold the most Treasury bonds) could find some pretty nasty things to do to us internationally if we did default, but short of military action I do not know what they could initiate that would get them major results.  The big downside to default is that most of the balance of those bonds are owned by retirement funds, insurance companies, union pensions, IRA’s, 401K’s, that all represent the bulk of investment dollars for everyday Americans.  If the government defaults, every dime of that money owed on those bonds — principle and interest — would come directly from out of the pockets of Americans.  Primarily because of that, default is NOT a realistic option.  What’s left?

There’s only one other option:  pay the debt.  Wow!  $20 trillion and climbing.  Can it be done?  Obviously it will not be easily done, but it can be done.  And it MUST be done.  What would that process look like?  Honestly, no different from how you would handle it if it happened at your house:  you would find a way to guarantee your income would at least maintain its level while you worked hard to reduce expenses.  Whatever the savings there you would pay on your debt.  That may sound like over simplification, but it is a solution that would work.  But Americans need to be honest about the problem and then force Washington to do something about it.  It will require D.C. to quit painting the rosy pictures to voters and be brutally honest.  Stop the “politi-speak!”  Just tell the truth.  Determine each year the anticipated level of revenue, then determine the cost of bond interest for the year, then compute how much in true spending cuts must be implemented to make the budget at first revenue neutral, then move it into debt repayment mode — including principle AND interest.

Unless these hard decisions are made, implemented, and maintained over time, America is economically doomed.  We will slide into the economic pit alongside third-world countries.  We live in the greatest nation on Earth and the greatest nation in history.  It was founded on Godly fundamental principles.  In many ways we’ve abandoned those principles.  We’ve been forgiven time and time again, given “another chance” over and over.  But God isn’t required to extend those chances to us and I doubt He will.  I’m pretty sure He is tired of the same old abuses by us.  He gave us a way out:  “2 Chronicles 7:14- If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Are we smart enough to do the right things?

MAKE CERTAIN YOU SEE TOMORROW’S STORY THAT IS A FOLLOW-UP TO TODAY’S:  “THE LUNACY OF TAX CUTS.”  I PROMISE IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND!  SEE HOW TOMORROW.  THANKS FOR READING!

Do you number yourself among those of us who struggle to understand who the groups are that are shouting down Congressmen in town hall meetings in their districts, or why these same crowds who say they are pro-1st Amendment and are anti-fascist but in these meetings and these demonstrations (that most often turn into riots) take the actions they take when they say THEY are positive but all those they protest, (like President Trump and other conservatives) are negative and are out to get us all through fascism and totalitarianism?  They have been named and no longer are their identities hidden.  It is no surprise to many to discover they are NOT anti-fascist or pro-1st Amendment.  Indeed they are exactly OPPOSITE of those claims.  And they are NOT new.  They are organized and their organization has been around for quite a while.  Their name?  “Antifa.”

Antifa, which stands for “anti-fascist action,” is a network of loosely affiliated far-left anarchist and communist groups that orchestrate violent protests and attacks on populists, conservatives, and anyone else its members deem to be “fascists” or “Nazis.”  Antifa was formed originally in Germany in the 1980s, its members taking the name of the communist paramilitary groups that engaged the Nazis in street-fighting in the 1930s. It now has active cells across the world, including in Germany, the U.S., Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Czechia, and France.  And it has been verified that in the pro-Trump rallies, the campus rallies to promote Free Speech and other conservative causes, and in even those town hall meetings by Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen, in those that turn violent the perpetrators of the violence (the ones who mask themselves and refuse to be identified) are on the most part members of Antifa.  “Anyone who tries to hold any sort of right-wing event literally gets beat up by militant communists in the street,” said independent journalist Lauren Southern, who was present at one of the pro-Trump Berkeley rallies, in a video taken immediately following the violence.  Harrowing video footage taken by Southern’s crew showed Antifa street fighters throwing bricks and M-80 explosives into the crowd, as well as assaulting Trump supporters. Other footage released by someone present at the event showed one Antifa thug hit a Trump supporter over the head with a bicycle chain and lock.

But the Trump supporters and free speech activists — acting fully in self-defense — were able to hold their ground and drive back their Antifa attackers. In response Antifa members have only vowed to intensify their violence.  “Not getting disarmed is a big part of the problem, yes, but we need more than flags and bats,” wrote one in the r/anarchism subreddit community page.  “We need to take notes from the John Brown Gun Club and get firearms and training. I know getting firearms in states and cities we have a presence in is usually a hassle, but even handguns would help,” the would-be revolutionary wrote. “It would certainly put a psychological element in while holding fascists back. Who do you think a fascist is more afraid of?  People with only flags and bats, or people with flags, bats, and guns?” he wrote.  “Anyone who tries to hold any sort of right-wing event literally gets beat up by militant communists in the street.”  But some Antifa members have clearly had the same thought — that “flags and bats” simply aren’t enough. Indeed the Antifa United webstore temporarily sold a Antifa-branded concealed credit-card knife.

The United States Government has passed and implemented laws that if/when enforced should take care of Antifa.  Examples:  The Department of State, through U.S. Code Title 22, Chapter 38, defines terrorism as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.”  Antifa increasingly could plausibly fit that definition.   The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

Antifa could also reasonably meet those conditions.

The U.S. Department of Defense defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of violence or threat of violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies” and notes that terrorism “is often motivated by religious, political, or other ideological beliefs and committed in the pursuit of goals that are usually political.”

Yes, Antifa fits that definition, too.

So now you know:  those are not just troubled college students who get carried away screaming at conservative rallies around the nation.  They are Nazi, political thugs that are part of a coordinated and planned attack on free speech, the First Amendment, and conservatism in general.  Their disguise is meant to confuse the media and the public into thinking they are really speaking for the heart of most Americans when in fact they speak from the true heart of fascism, communism, and totalitarianism.  They speak from the intolerance and hate that slaughtered 6 million Jews in WW II, that attacked and burned churches in the South, and that lynched Americans around the nation during the Civil War.  And they are NOT conservatives or Republicans.  The are Antifa activists whose foundation was to attack in militant action those who REALLY are proponents of freedom, justice, and liberty for the people.

For all those who call Donald Trump, conservatives and other right wing Americans fascists, get your facts straight.  Although I continue to be amazed at all those “educated” people on the Left — including many reputable elected officials in Congress and in State Houses — who call the President a fascist, (along with the other monikers they have assigned him) there is now NO excuse for them to not be confronted with facts.  It is true that many on the left continue to ignore facts opting for embracing radical self serving political positions.  Still as Americans hear the truth about what and who these gangsters are wreaking havoc on the nation in various venues, I trust they will “know the truth and the truth will set them free.”  And those truths do NOT come from the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, California Governor Jerry Brown, NY Mayor de Blasio, Rachel Maddow, The View, CNN, or Hollywood.

Where will political freedom come from?  It has already been birthed in America during the 2016 campaign, has been planted in conservative elected officials on state and local levels and has filtered “UP” to Washington as Americans have awakened to the urgency of getting this right, AND that leadership to doing so really does NOT come from the Democratic Party.  If the GOP wants to assume the mantle of leadership, they better quickly get to work — real work — in getting fundamental change as defined during the campaign implemented and working for Americans in time to post results.  If those positive results are not visible prior to November 2018, Republican politicians in office now will for certain be packing for home.  American voters are too soft to trust half truths disguised in commitment from politicians.

The Word Is Out!