Commentary

6-21-13 - It has already been eight days since Obama's FBI Robert Director Robert Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee. He was questioned by Rep. Jim Jordan about what he was doing to "get to the bottom of this."

Jordan: "What can you tell us—I mean you started a month ago, what can you tell us about this, have you found . . . the now-infamous two rogue agents, have you discovered who those people are?"

Mueller: "Needless to say, because it is under investigation, I can't give out any of the details."

Jordan: "Can you tell me . . . how many agents, investigators you've assigned to the case?"

Mueller: "Ah, may be able to do that, but I'd have to get back to you."

Jordan: "Can you tell me who the lead investigator is?"

Mueller: "Off the top of my head, no."

Jordan: "This is the most important issue in front of the country in the last six weeks, you don't know who's heading up the case, who the lead investigator is?"

Mueller: "Ah, at this juncture, no. . . . I have not had a recent briefing on it."

Jordan: "Do you know if you've talked to any of the victims—have you talked to any of the groups who were targeted by their government—have you met with any of the tea-party folks since May 14, 2013?"

Mueller: "I don't know what the status of the interviews are by the team that's on it."

For the record, no victims of IRS abuse have been contacted and Mueller has not "gotten back" to anyone to confirm anything. And of course America's news media has gone back to sleep.

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6-19-13 -  “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton made this statement and J.R.R. Tolkien in his classic Lord of the Rings, illustrated the concept brilliantly. Remember in Lord of the Rings that nice people (like those before being elected and sent to Washington) became power hungry monsters, once they came into possession of the power of the “ring.” And it was only by the casting of the ring into the fire, that Middle Earth would finally be saved. This was the premise of a recent column by Steve Deace.

Deace pointed to the early George W. Bush years in the White House when Republicans held near total control of the federal government for the first time in half a century. Instead of casting the powers of the state into the fire for the sake of real freedom, Bush like every predecessor after Reagan expanded the size and scope of government. With Bush, we were treated to the likes of Ted Kennedy’s No Child Left Behind Act as well as Medicare Part D. Oh the wonders of what "good" those can do.....when they hold the "ring."

The architects of the U.S. Constitution never met Tolkin, however, they would have known what he was getting at long before they finished, Lord of the Rings. Tired of being the subjects of King George and Parliament, the first generation of Americans fought for real freedom and then created a “government by the consent of the governed.” Essentially they threw the damn ring in the fire. The jurisdiction of the federal government was to be forever limited according to our constitution. This limited government concept was enshrined in the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution...... the Bill of Rights. Sadly, and regardless of which elected officials have obtained the proverbial “ring” ever since, with the exception of the end of slavery, American citizens have increasingly become more and more the subjects of their government.

Now that Mr. Obama has had the “ring” for four years the signs of advanced intellectual decay where freedom is concerned, are unmistakable. On his watch the IRS has routinely leaked confidential information to elected officials in Obama’s party, who just happen to want the IRS to become more powerful. The government is also engaging in mass surveillance of the American people without probable cause or warrants. Possession of the “ring” has emboldened Eric Holder to place a presumption of guilt upon the governed, and a presumption of innocence upon the government. "Executive Privilege" is used to ward off the forces seeking transparency and truth.

By and large progressives are standing by and pretending their favorite ring holders are incapable of the very injustices they claim to be fighting against. Accordingly, those now in possession of the “ring” have been allowed to accumulate more debt, create more government, and destroy more basic freedoms than any others in U.S. history. And not surprisingly, American living standards now involve less prosperity and more dependence on the ring holders.

The solution to reversing the lower living standards created by the current ring holders is always the same. They want to continue to mismanage all they resources have already seized and be allowed to confiscate even more.

The founding fathers and Tolkien understood the dangers of the ring. Libertarians also understand the dangers of the ring. Unfortunately, the public education system has fallen under the spell of their favorite ringmasters for decades. An education system that has been controlled by these same ringmasters has finally created multiple generations of intellectual zombies in America. We need a miracle to save us. Unfortunately, there are no special effects in real life.

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6-17-13 - Mitchell laid on the gurney as many minutes passed by. It soon became apparent that the ambulance personnel would not take him to a nearby hospital. What was the reason? California rules prohibited them from leaving the race track. Why would they stay at the track with a man's life in danger? They had to be there in case someone was injured during the next race.

What happened next? After several heated exchanges that failed to changed the grid lock everyone at the track waited while “another” ambulance made its way to the area to transport the stricken Mitchell to an emergency room.

This incident prompts many questions. We'll ask three. Q) What do track officials do when a jockey is injured during a race and the ambulance takes him or her to the hospital? A) They hold up the start of the next race until another ambulance is on site. Q) Why couldn’t track officials simply hold up the next race? A) Well, uh…..the bureaucrats writing the rules never thought of that so.......that wasn’t the way they worded "their" rule. Q) What happened instead of normally intelligent health care personnel who knew Mitchell needed to be rushed to the hospital immediately simply doing so. What did they do instead of acting based on their professional training and judgment? A) They stood right there beside his gurney like brain-dead zombies and waited because it was the bureaucrats call.

We have now reached a point where the majority in Congress thinks government and not medical professionals need to manage the administration of health care. It was an incredibly disturbing real world example of what we have allowed to happen. And the worst has yet to come.

6-14-14 - During the reading of some political analysis recently I stumbled across an assertion that stunned me. The writer said there is a simple reality in politics today. He said this (paraphrased): Pro-business conservative types think liberal-progressives are stupid and liberal-progressives think pro-business conservatives are evil.

Kristi and I have spent the last thirty-five years not knowing what our income would be each month. We have depended on decent business conditions to produce the income we need to pay our bills. A long time ago this reality made us both people who are in favor of policies that are encouraging to businesses. We have known without a public policy-making environment that was at least somewhat encouraging to business people, our financial survival could have easily gotten even more uncertain and fragile than it was.

We decided to compare the "evil versus stupid" analogy to our own experiences. Do the liberal-progressives we interact with think we are evil because we favor pro-business policy candidates? This is a tricky question. The feedback we have received over the years has often been carefully coded. What I mean by coded is this; generally speaking we were always carefully excluded from the broad generalizations made about the greedy, exploitative, and therefore "evil" business community. In fact, on countless occasions we heard the labels come out in conversations about people who voted for Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush. On one particularly memorable occasion, we were invited to dinner by two of our gay friends. When the topic of politics was brought up by one of our hosts we immediately sensed danger. We were careful not to disclose our pro-business views or votes. At one point one of our hosts became somewhat animated. He told us he simply could not respect anyone who had ever voted for George W. Bush. Kristi and I glanced at one another with eyebrows slightly raised and one of us quickly changed the subject. A day or so later our host had calmed down from rant regarding EVIL pro-business conservatives. He called and apologized for his behavior. Apparently his partner had let him have it after we left their home that evening.

On another occasion a liberal-progressive dinner guest in our home brought up the subject of politics. Shortly into a conversation she insisted on having she told us conservative voters were a greater threat to freedom in America than al-Qaida. We were astonished.

We have beloved family members who are committed to liberal-progressive causes. They are also very much aware of our life paths in business. It is noteworthy that some in particular find it truly difficult to even feign mild interest in the trials, challenges, or long range progress of our business endeavors. We try to shrug this disinterest off. Over the years we have come to realize that in the minds of the liberals and progressives within the family, our dependence on favorable business conditions treads remarkably close to the "evil line" that separates a morally upright liberal-progressive from all evil pro-business types. For years we have tried to do our best to avoid all discussions regarding public policies at family gatherings. Constantly defending your entrepreneurial spirit does grow tiresome when attempting to explain it to a loved one. 

Generally speaking do liberal-progressives think pro-business conservatives are evil? You bet they do. And as such, it is perfectly natural that they should also see themselves as more caring and morally superior.

What about pro-business conservatives? Generally speaking do they really think liberal-progressives are stupid? The short answer is yes. You bet they do. And nothing could be a more ill-advised or wrong-headed generalization. Liberal-progressive people, as a group, are actually much smarter about what it takes to engage in winning political tactics than pro-business conservatives.

A really wise person once told me that most human beings are smart in some ways and not so smart in others. Liberal progressives may not know the first thing about economics, the process of wealth creation, or most important of all......how to raise aggregate living standards in society. However, this absence of knowledge is not stupidity, it is ignorance. On the other hand, liberal-progressives do understand winning politics very well. Liberal-progressives play politics to win and they do so all of the time. As a result liberal-progressives have been in charge all over Europe for decades. Countries like Greece have had liberal-progressives in charge for years. Most large U.S. cities like Detroit, L.A., New York, and Chicago, have been under firm liberal-progressive control for more than fifty years.

Liberal-progressives are winning the pitched political battles with pro-business conservatives all over urban America on almost every front. Accordingly, there is useful fact-based advice for pro-business conservatives. When people are kicking your asses, it is probably wise to stop thinking of them as being completely "stupid."

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6-13-13 - Despite the fact it snowed in upstate New York in June of 2013, stubborn climate change proponents have a term for people who don’t buy into their theories. They call them “deniers.” Of course enforcers of the Spanish Inquisition had their own term for non-believers too. It was "heretic." Today practitioners of Islam like to refer to people who are outside their faith as “infidels.” It would seem that almost every religion uses words to separate themselves from others who don’t think like they do.

The most amazing aspect of the climate change community is the history behind it. At one time back in the early 1970’s grant funding was funneled to climate change professors because they were calling for another species-destroying ice age. If there is one thing history has taught ambitious scientists it is that governments will produce lucrative flows of grant money for countless “scientific-based” predictions of catastrophe.

Consider this prediction from Kenneth Watt at Swarthmore University in 1970: “The world will be eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” Oops. Sorry professor. You missed that one by a mile. Oh well, at least the grant check cleared.

Here are few more examples of the 1970's global cooling crowd’s pound the table prognostications:

 “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” according to biologist George Wald of Harvard University on April 19, 1970.

By 1995, “...somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct,” according to Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, from Look magazine in April of 1970.

Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “...the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze and a new Ice Age will be born,” according to Newsweek magazine, on January 26, 1970.

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” said biologist Barry Commoner of University of Washington in April of 1970.

Fortunately, within a few years it became pretty clear that the next ice age was not forthcoming any time soon. However, the desire for continuous flows of government grant money to scientists would continue unabated. Accordingly, and not surprisingly, global warming predictions would soon become the rage. The range of predictions that began to emerge more than thirty years ago was nothing short of amazing. Mass extinctions and worldwide famine were the favorites. Rising sea levels and the disappearance of beach property were also quite popular. Even as recently as thirteen years ago we saw this one:  

“Winters with strong frost and lots of snow like we had 20 years ago will cease to exist at our latitudes,” said Mojib Latif of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, in April of 2000.

Coupled with dire predictions was an easy foil.... the energy companies. Oil companies are the easiest of all targets for demonization by ambitious politicians. Scientists know this. Governments rushed to pass laws driving up energy prices. Most developed nations began to subsidize all sorts of ill-advised schemes to prevent the increase of greenhouse gases. We had to "save the planet." We could save it from cold......or from heat, whatever it did not matter which one just so long as we saved it.

Much to the chagrin of the global warming, climate changing, anti-fossil fuel crowd, due to the emergence of an industrialized Asia and Eastern Europe greenhouse gases have been pouring into the earth’s atmosphere even faster than their catastrophic models assumed.

In just the last couple of years the global warming opposition, which includes "deniers, heretics, and climate change infidels" is suddenly growing in numbers. Why? Because the catastrophic predictions of the people who have received hundreds of billions of dollars in grants failed to materialize. Below is a graph of what has happened to global temperatures since dire global warming predictions became a staple of the scientific grant gathering community fifteen years ago.

Over the last fifteen years global temperatures have not budged. In fact they have actually dropped slightly. And of course the last two years Europe has experienced the harshest winters in more than a century.

Why do we allow our public education system to be dominated by people with political agendas? Why don't we realize that scientists behave just like trial lawyers without law degrees? The damage being done to job creation, wealth creation, and domestic living standards thanks to the latest round of dumb public policies may be irreparable.

At family outings and social gatherings I still hear loved ones and good friends parrot the same discredited global warming phrases. How can this be?

Only a sorry education system would refuse to check the temperature data before continuously signing off on policies that destroy living standards and ironically........funding for education. Too many friends, family members, and others simply have no idea how much higher their living standards are as a result of the availability of fossil fuels.

We look at facts, figures, and graphs every day in the investment business. Making climate change predictions based on research must be a great business. Apparently, you could have falsely predicted catastrophes decades ago and still managed to collect billions of dollars in grant money. It seems that all you have to do is point to the companies that provide fuel for your house and automobiles and demonize them because sometimes there are oil spills. And once your temperature predictions cannot be supported by a shred of scientific evidence.....you simply hope the millions of uninformed people who have often repeated your bogus predictions over the years will not go back and check what you have been saying versus the data.

So far being absolutely discredited by all of the current available data remains a winning strategy for more government funding in the climate change business.

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6-12-13 - The latest big to-do in the media regarding the NSA’s phone record and Internet snooping on all Americans is fascinating.

The alleged debate includes Republicans who represent a mixed bag. Some are echoing the same sentiments they were a few years ago when Democrats were complaining about the intrusiveness of government activities associated with domestic spying allowed under the Patriot Act. Specifically, the more hawkish members of the GOP are continuing to say the snooping is necessary to fight the war on terror. Other GOP members like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, who are considered stricter in terms of interpreting the Constitution, are still not so sure that Big Brother should have unfettered access to all of that personal data.

Among the Democrats who were the most skeptical of renewing the Patriot Act under George W. Bush was Senator Barack Obama. Obama went so far as to opine openly on the floor of the Senate about how critical it was to have judicial review of such dangerous government intrusions. Before finally voting for a compromise that led to the renewal of the Patriot Act Senator Obama said piously, “I would have liked to see stronger judicial review of National Security Letters and shorter time limits on sneak and peak searches, among other things.”

Seriously, Senator Obama? May we continue to quote you on this important intellectual position regarding freedom and privacy?

Several points seem worthy of observation. First, these sweeping data downloads involve almost unfathomable amounts of data. The government must use special computer programs to comb through this mountain of data in search of clues that might lead to red flags. Supposedly, when red flags are finally uncovered, this will lead to better protection against terrorists. In theory this argument makes sense. Let’s talk reality.

In April the Department of Homeland Security provided conclusive proof it will let even the purest and most noteworthy lead on terrorists slip right through its fingers. Take the Boston Marathon Bombers as a case in point. In this instance there was no mass snooping required. The government was tipped off as to the radicalization of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his potential danger by Russian authorities as he returned to America after visiting one of the most radical terrorist prone regions on the planet. What Homeland Security did was NOT take sufficient action to protect national security from this murderer. Even after the bombing was done it was not the incredibly damning data the government already had on Tsarnaev that led to his identification and arrest. It was his appearance on videos with backpacks in tow.

The Boston bombing incident should tell you all you need to know about the relative importance of the government needing “MORE” personal information on people in the name of “national security.”

The government had everything it needed on these killers handed to them on a silver platter and still they failed to protect the public.

Why should Americans be concerned with government officials being in possession of sensitive private information? Take a look at the Romney tax returns. Oops. You can’t do that because he refused to release them, which of course, was his right. Still, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was seen and heard on the floor of the U.S. Senate during the last election season talking about the contents of this private information on Mitt Romney. This was information that was supposedly being safeguarded by the federal government. Was Reid interrogated? Did the government try to determine who his source was for this private information? Nope.

Last month it was revealed that not only was the IRS targeting 501c-4 applicants who would like to curb its power, it was also revealed that lists of donors to groups that would like to reduce IRS power were released to groups in favor of increasing IRS power.

How much more evidence do we need before we realize the people in the federal government will never be satisfied with the level of control they have over their fellow Americans? Apparently the evidence is growing more convincing. Today the ACLU sued the federal government to put a stop to what the NSA is doing in the name of “National Security.” The best way to react to this development is say “better late than never.”

Here is a much better question. Where were the ACLU and the rest of America when Harry Reid was allowed to behave like a political gangster last summer? Where is the call for the reconciliation of the data Homeland Security ALREADY HAD on Tamerlan Tsarnaev before he killed and maimed hundreds in Boston, and the incredible volume of data it claims it still needs on millions of Americans to provide security?

Funny how time and power changes things. Apparently President Obama has seen the light and now he would not like to see any judicial review or shorter time limits on sneak and peak searches. His reason is "national security" which is the same one George W. Bush gave. Suddenly, now that the president's political pals like Harry Reid and countless others can get access to a mountain of politically useful data, using the "national security" angle without any real judicial oversight is simply "evolving" policy.

The source of the intellectual plague killing America is uncomfortably simple. Our education system has failed so dramatically that far too many Americans are not paying attention. Even though the ACLU finally is doing so freedom is decaying rapidly. An education system that produces this many new morons is the greatest threat to national security we have.

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6-8-13 - The latest series of scandals in Washington should come as no surprise to anyone paying attention. The clues have not exactly been hidden. For starters, the Obama administration's made up assertion that is was an American's anti-Islam "video" being the impetus for the Benghazi murders is not the first administrative blockade of a homicide investigation. During the first Obama term two U.S. agents were killed by members of a Mexican drug cartel. They used firearms provided to them by the U.S. Department of Justice. Ultimately the investigation into the "Fast and Furious" gun running scandal was thwarted by an incredible claim of "executive privilege" by President Obama. Was the president chastised for blocking a murder investigation? Hardly. Instead he was given a free pass from virtually every mainstream media outlet in the country. Since the investigation into those murders was stonewalled without media scrutiny we have seen a very curious push by the same administration for more "government control".......of guns. The lies told by the Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton regarding what happened in Benghazi are astonishing, they not surprising. Lying has been made easy by an adoring press contingent. Only Fox News keeps asking questions that go ignored.
Anyone operating in position of trust who senses he or she will never be scrutinized can literally become drunk with power. However, this president and his notorious Attorney General may have finally pissed off too many of the wrong people. Suddenly his adoring press has picked up the scent of excrement. Late this week newspapers like the New York Times are finally leveling overdue criticism, albeit measured. It seems the president's commitment to basic constitutional principles is now in question.
Why the change of heart? The answer is simple. The DOJ has been intimidating journalists like the mob intimidates their marks. It seems that while the U.S. free press was fine with tolerating obvious cover-ups of murders that came as the result of DOJ gunrunning and lax DOS security in Benghazi. However, confiscating the phone and Internet records of journalists tends to make even the most "progressive" members of the press a tad angry. The DOJ's making of outrageous claims to a federal judge for the purpose of obtaining search warrants on a member of the White House press corps seems to have finally crossed some sort of previously hard to see ethical line. And finally a fair number of "journalists" in the U.S. media are starting to see a disturbing pattern of behaviors by White House operatives where the Bill of Rights is concerned.
Throw in an IRS that has been engaging in conduct so damaging to basic 1st Amendment rights that its senior official chose to claim her own 5th Amendment self-incrimination rights rather than answer simple questions regarding her behavior. The collective whiff of White House do-do is getting more distinct with each passing day.
It is unfair to label what is best described as an incredible series of events as "Nixon-like." Though drunk with power, Nixon merely covered up burglaries and dirty tricks performed in an effort to increase his power. Besides dirty tricks and using the IRS to crush 1st Amendment rights this administration has been covering up facts associated with murders.
As 2013 advances I wonder about various friends and family members. What are those who voted for Obama thinking? Are they troubled by fascism? With the "D" versus "R" battle at stake who knows?
This week the visiting of progressive websites and newspapers was an eye opener. I saw new signs of intellectual honesty. It gives me hope that those on both sides of the political spectrum are finally being shocked into a heightened sense of awareness of Orwell's Animal Farm.
Still, though I rarely discuss politics with anyone anymore some of those I do interact with seem so intent on their "team" staying in power, they will probably resort to defending the indefensible.
God help us. Fascism is so insidious.