Course Corrections

Ships at sea do it; Space ships and satellites do it; even aircrafts do it. When a vessel is off course, a correction must be made to hold it to a true course. Our country’s ship-of-state is way off course. November fourth we will have a chance to make a crucial course correction.

The approval rating for congress is at an all-time low, and the President’s isn’t much better. In California – the land of fruits and nuts – things are getting nuttier by the day.

Ever since the October 2001 high of 84%, the approval ratings of Congress have been in the toilet. Today it hovers around 18 percent. One amazing factoid is that during that high in approval both the Senate and House were controlled by – you guessed it – Republicans. In fact, the oft-maligned 43^rd President George W. Bush was in the Whitehouse during that period. How soon we forget.

True, Republicans wrenched the House leadership from Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in 2012, but the Democrat controlled Senate and the head Democrat in the Whitehouse continue to kill any worthwhile legislation coming from the Republican controlled House. At present there are 352 bills sitting on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nevada) desk, awaiting action.

Here’s another interesting factoid; 98 percent of those bills languishing on Reid’s desk – or possibly in his round file – passed with bipartisan support, 50 percent of the bills passed unanimously – with no opposition, 70 percent of the bills passed with two-thirds support in the House, and over 55 bills were introduced by Democrats! Clearly, the blockage in this process is not with the Republican controlled House of Representatives. The Democrats in the Senate that are holding up the works!

But what the heck, even if a bill could squeeze out of the Senate, there isn’t much of a chance Obama would sign it unless there were some political advantage for the Democrats.

Why are the Congressional approval ratings at an all-time low? There you have it. The Democrats are fouling up the works.

Then of course, we have the great Blue State super-majority in California running things into the ground. The California unemployment rate, while dropping, is 7.4 percent, still higher than the national average of 6.2 percent. Now look at the unemployment rate of Texas, at 5.1 percent. Could the fact that Texas is so easily sucking businesses from California have anything to do with the difference in unemployment rates?

This state is leaking jobs faster than a cheesecloth patch on the Hoover dam. And it is only bound to get worse. Not only has the state not done anything to stem the leak, they continue to make it worse with more asinine regulations and additional taxes disguised as “fees.” The trend toward much higher minimum wages, the ban on plastic bags, and the state grab of motor vehicle fees from cities are but a few examples of the hostile – there can be no other word – actions taken by the Democrat super-majority and Governor “Moonbeam.”

Folks it’s payback time. Time to reverse this assault on normality. Drive the Philistines out. Purge our government of the foul insidious virus that is destroying our state and the country at large. Help change the catastrophic direction of our ship-of-state away from the rocks we are now headed for. On November 4, vote the Democrats out, and restore some sense of reason to our government. The course correction is in your hands.

Tarnished Gold

I was born in California. All my life it was known as “The Golden State.” In 1968, that designation became the official nickname of California. Today most of the real gold is gone and what is left is akin to iron pyrite, aka “Fools Gold.”

I’m speaking metaphorically, of course. There may still be real gold in “them thar hills”, but politically and economically this state has definitely lost its luster.

At one time California was the economic powerhouse of the nation. It was said that if California were an independent country, it would have the world’s seventh largest economy. I don’t know how true that is, but today it seems more like a third-world country.

The blame for this sets squarely on the shoulders of California voters. This is not just a blue state it is deep blue – as blue as the California sky on a clear day. And while many may say, “what’s wrong with that”, they might want to just open their eyes for a moment or two.

California used to be the address for a business to have. Today other states, Texas in particular, find it far too easy to pluck businesses – and jobs – from California. And who could blame a business for leaving? This state has become like the airlines; there is a fee for every little thing you do and then there are taxes and additional taxes, and regulations and more regulations.

It’s safe to say that California has a hostile attitude toward business and industry.

Wait a minute, something about this just does not compute. California is a blue state run entirely by Democrats, but don’t Democrats claim to be champions of the working class? Where will the working class work when the businesses leave the state? Oh, I see they will work for the government. And where will the government get the money to pay these workers, from businesses? But the businesses are leaving the state.

What will the additional workers actually do? Aah, they will police the new regulations and fees the state will impose on remaining businesses to increase revenue. Well that will solve everything.

Okay, wakie, wakie, time to see the daylight. As one very popular Californian once said, “government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.” Thank you Ronald Reagan.

The sole function of businesses is not to provide jobs. It is to make a profit and increase the wealth of its shareholders. But guess what, no business can function without workers – duh! Jobs are created when businesses thrive. Profit is not a dirty word. It doesn’t even have four letters. In a capitalist system, profit is what makes the world turn. Don’t discourage profit; embrace it.

Is there hope for California to regain its luster? Maybe, but it won’t come easy or quick. Losing businesses is like a squandered youth, once it’s gone it’s gone and not likely coming back.  Fortunately, there are new businesses and industries being created every day – just not many in California. We can lure these businesses – and jobs – to California if our state government has the will to do so.

First, we need to clean house in Sacramento. Get rid of the obstructionist Democrats. That includes governor Moonbeam. You have the opportunity to make a dent in obstructions blocking new businesses in November. “Throw the bums out!” Or you can stand by and wave good by as more and more jobs leave the state.

It is your choice. Do you want to live again in the Golden State or reside in the “Fools Gold State”?

Is Vladimir Putin The New Joseph Stalin?

Well … maybe. There can be no doubt Putin is giddy with power. Here is a man who started his career in the old Soviet KGB and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before moving on to bigger and better things when the Soviet era came to a screeching halt. Since 1999 Putin has been alternately President and Prime Minister of Russia – the part left when all of the former Soviet satellites left the communist system. I think it’s safe to say he thrives on power. It is also safe to say he is a communist who at one time was and still may be loyal to the Soviet communist system.

Joseph Stalin – that is not his real name, by the way, he was born Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili and went by a number of aliases – was the son of a poor Georgian cobbler who was seldom home during his son’s childhood. Stalin probably would have remained a dirt-poor peasant had he not been able to obtain a position in the seminary. He was never ordained, probably due to his reputation as a troublemaker in school.

Stalin had ambition, but could never quite bring himself to perform his own misdeeds. He always enticed others to do the dirty work. Somewhere in his early years, Stalin became a dedicated Marxist, and believed he was championing the cause of the simple workers. Eventually Lenin and Stalin came together in their common cause, but Lenin never trusted Stalin.

Following Lenin’s death Stalin weaseled his way into becoming the head of the Council of Supreme Commissars. Stalin had always been Paranoid by degrees and had no qualms about steamrolling over friends and colleges to achieve his goals. In later years, that included having friends and colleges killed or condemed to gulags at Stalin’s whim.

Had WWII not broke out Stalin might have been just another footnote in Russian history. He took the reigns of the military and through little real military talent of his own managed to allow his generals to fight a war that nobody gave the Russians a chance of winning. The Soviet people were duped enough to believe Stalin had accomplished this feat, and with the ruthless elimination of his top generals at war’s end, no one could or would set them right.

With Europe in a volatile state of flux after the war, Stalin had little trouble gobbling up countries that Hitler had invaded then abandoned. Thus the Soviet Union was formed.

Fast forward to Glasnost, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Boris Yeltsin taking the reigns of the Soviet Union. Up to this point the communist state existed as Stalin had left it upon his death. Yeltsin brought an end to the one-party system and opened the country to western ideas. Communism collapsed of its own oppressive weight, and countries under the thumb of the Soviet system were able to finally achieve sovereignty.

Okay, the communists didn’t just dry up and blow away. They gave themselves new titles and assimilated into the reorganized Russian government. Sixty some years of communist indoctrination didn’t just flip a switch and disappear. It remains as an insidious virus within the new Russian government.

Putin is a large part of that holdover from the old Soviet system. In the last fifteen years, he has solidified his power base, and now appears to enjoy the same degree of power Joseph Stalin wielded.

But is Putin another version of Stalin? The personalities may be different – Putin doesn’t seem to be as paranoid as Stalin, although he may be just as ruthless – but you can bet Putin has the same desire to restore the old Soviet Union. The question is what lengths is he willing to go to achieve his goals? He has recently shown that may have no hesitation at using atomic weapons, and even test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine.

Taking Obama at his word about being flexible, Putin took Georgia and the Crimea with only hollow protests from our Commander-in-Chief. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see that the full Ukraine is next on his shopping list, and he is certain we will do nothing more than impose sanctions that he can circumvent.

After the Ukraine falls, what is next, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, maybe even Poland? This guy is only 62. Imagine the damage he can do with the rest of his years.

Putin may not be Stalin, but he is certainly following in his footsteps. Are you ready for another cold war?

Do We Need More Laws?

Do you have any idea what laws govern your life, or even how many there are? I’m not talking about the immutable laws of nature and physics; I mean the manmade laws that are imposed on our everyday life.

This is the land of the free – as long as you follow the laws, rules, and regulations of your local authority, county authority, state, and federal government. Of course, if you leave the country, or deal with foreign countries, you have more laws and regulations. Even if you take a boat off shore, you still have to deal with Maritime law.

You are quite likely breaking several laws or regulations at this very moment – and you don’t even know it.

I spent some time at the computer trying to figure out just how many laws pertain to my particular life. It’s an impossible task. Believe me, there are thousands, possibly millions of laws pertaining to virtually every aspect of your life. And for any holes those codified laws might not cover, there is this nebulous thing called common law.

If you are doing something right now, or even if you are doing nothing, there are laws that govern that.

When I was younger, I worked as a police officer in a small community. One of the first things I learned was the power of selective enforcement. It’s a term that cover’s an officer’s rear when some laws are not enforced. (“I choose not to arrest that jay-walker because I’m busy with a bank robbery right now.”) The truth is, there are just too many laws to enforce every one of them uniformly all the time.

That doesn’t seem to deter lawmakers, though. Every year they crank out ever more laws – even knowing that many will never be enforced.

At what point are there enough laws on the books? When are there so many laws that one more can’t be written?

I think I found the key to this problem. As long as we have lawyers, there will be lawmakers. As long as lawmakers turn out laws there will be lawyers. Guess who the vast majority of lawmakers are – you guessed it, lawyers. It is a self-serving vicious circle. And one for which we pay dearly.

It’s called the Justice System, but where is the justice in being arrested for breaking a law you don’t even know about? And we are told ignorance of the law is no defense. True, many of the basic laws are simply common sense for any moral person – don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t assault others – just common sense. But even within these core values, there are so many definitions attempting to cover every detail that one could easily break the law without ever realizing it.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and venture a guess that not one person knows every manmade law that governs our lives. Oh, they are codified somewhere, and I am certain someone could find a law, rule, or regulation to cover virtually any circumstance. I just don’t understand how a nation that prizes freedom as much as we do can have so many laws, rules, and regulations.

Yet, we have full-time governmental bodies that continually turn out more laws, rules, and regulations in volume every year. When do we say enough? When do we tell lawmakers to clean up the legal code? Get rid of old laws that no longer fit in today’s environment. When do we say that if a law isn’t taught and clearly published to the citizenry, it is not a valid law?

C’mon people, after 238 years of constant lawmaking, shouldn’t there be enough laws already? Do we really need more?

What, Me Worry?

These are the immortal words of Mad Magazine’s iconic Alfred E. Newman. I can still see his brain-dead smirking face. These days, this also seems to be the apathetic attitude of the American public.

Thirteen years ago, a group of crazed Muslims kicked us in a soft and sensitive spot. We came out of our apathetic stupor for a moment or two when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and Pentagon came under attack. These Muslim thugs had poked a sleeping tiger, or so we thought.

After a few months of air strikes, we had Al Qaida on the run. Unfortunately, for us, they ran straight for what we considered a “friendly nation”, Pakistan. Pakistan turned out to be a very friendly nation – for Al Qaida. Our leaders had little stomach for storming a country that has atomic weapons. So, we picked and poked at Al Qaida locations taking their leaders out one-at-a-time.

Meanwhile the other Muslim radicals in Afghanistan, the Taliban, kept us at bay for thirteen years, until our president decided to turn-tail and leave the Afghanistan people to their own devices. Well if you don’t have the will to win, you might as well retreat.

On September 11, 2001, Al Qaida showed the world America’s vulnerability. Many theories have been floated as to just why Al Qaida attacked a nation that had no ax to grind with them. My theory is that like a dog licking his rear, they did it simply because they could. Once again, as in December 7, 1941, our leaders knew of the threat but were not politically motivated to take preventative actions to protect us.

Today – in good part because of our lack of resolve to win in Iraq or Afghanistan – there is a cancer metastasizing in the Middle East. No matter what name they go by, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Al Qaida, Taliban, ISIS, ISIL, Islamic State, or any of the myriad of aliases these Muslim thugs come up with, they all have one thing in common: they are groups of murderous and extremely dangerous tyrants. And they are out to eliminate – read kill – all men, women, and children that are not of their ilk.

No, these animals are not interested in negotiating peace, cease fire, or even discussing reasonable cohabitation. They have but one goal, and that is to murder everyone that does not subscribe to their version of Islam.

These vermin destroy mosques and kill fellow Muslims that are not of their particular sect or radical views. If it were a matter of race or ethnicity, it would be termed genocide or at the very least ethnic cleansing. Yet, the one body that pretends to be caretaker of the world, the United Nations, has done nothing to stop the killing and devastation being wrought on people in the Middle East. Of course, what can they do? The UN is merely an item in the expense column of Western country’s budgets. They never really do anything but carp about funding, the climate, and try to foist their socialist agenda on other nations.

Many other nations, including the US, have citizens willing to fight alongside these radicals. It’s not a novel situation. Americans fought alongside Russians in the Bolshevik revolution, also in the Spanish war. This time, though, these people are being indoctrinated with ideas that could very well result in attacks on our own country.

True, Lenin’s unfulfilled goal may have been to spread communism to the entire world, but there is no indication that he advocated killing every non-communist man, woman, and child. ISIL, or ISIS, or Islamic State – whatever they want to call themselves – is a murdering bunch of radical thugs with no moral compass or sense of decency.

As the Commander-in-Chief of all of our country’s military, one might reasonably believe he would have some inkling how to handle the situation. Yes, one would think. One would be wrong. Obama confessed on live TV that he has “… no strategy for dealing with ISIL.”  It seems Obama believes a strong tongue lashing and name calling will get the job done.

Our leaders are asleep at the wheel, and we are apathetic enough to let them be that way. Action is needed NOW!

What, me worry? You bet! You need to start worrying, before Mohamed’s misguided horde shows up at your door with machine guns and bloody machetes, and the latest fashions at the mall are suicide vests with designer labels.

The Gimme Generation

 Somewhere along the way, we started naming our generations. We had the Greatest Generation, the ‘ 50s Generation, the Hippie Generation, the Now Generation, the Me Generation, the X Generation, the Millennial Generation, and probably others I can’t recall. Now, I don’t know exactly who decides these names or even how they are determined, but the generation surviving the Obama years could rightly be called the Gimme Generation.

A noble American hallmark is that we try not to let the needy suffer. There are myriad of religious and private charitable organizations that help those in need. Through the years, a benevolent congress has seen fit to create government programs to help those unable to help themselves. Like everything else in government, these programs have spawned increasingly more give-away programs. All funded, obviously, by taxpayers.

In 2007, we entered what some term the Great Recession. Americans all felt the pinch – some more than others. Falling housing values, disappearing jobs, high unemployment, foreclosures, loan defaults, and bankruptcies put a real hurt on a wide swath of the population.

Even more government handout programs were spawned in the name of economic recovery. Companies, and individuals were crying for help. The federal government handed out some 17 trillion dollars more than we had, and put us in monstrous debt.

Many of the bailed out companies have reportedly repaid their debt, and many of the individuals that were helped by government programs were indeed thankful and are on the road to economic self-sufficiency. Although the government claims the recession is over and millions of new jobs have reportedly been created, the poverty level keeps climbing even while the national debt is increasing. How could this be happening?

I saw a report from FoxNews.com titled Food Stamp Fraud Rampant: GAO Report. The piece centered on a Government Accounting Office report from August 5. Apparently, Americans receiving food stamps were caught selling and bartering their benefits online for art, housing, and cash.

I checked it out. Even though claims that the recession is over, the amount of food assistance is incredibly rising. According to data I obtained from the FDA, the total cost of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) in 2007, the reported recession beginning, was 33.172 billion dollars. In 2013, the cost jumped to 79.923 billion dollars. That’s a 140% increase! In 2007, there were 26.136 million people receiving SNAP; by 2013 that had jumped to 47.036 million. If the recession is over, why aren’t these numbers going down?

Now enter the fraud factor. The government calls them “overpayments.” This doesn’t begin to describe the nature of this abuse of taxpayer money. People have sold and bartered SNAP funds to buy items unrelated to food, and many ineligible people are receiving SNAP money. Payments are going to dead people and prisoners.

Just how much fraud is there? Good question. The GAO report uses data from 1997 and 1998, and has conspicuously not shown current fraud data. In 1995, there were 12,000 prisoners in four states receiving food stamps. There is nothing in the report to show that this condition has improved, or that the number of ineligible recipients has dropped. To the contrary, since 2002 all states are required to issue EBT cards that work like bank debit cards. Now it is even easier to spend our tax dollars on things not intended for the SNAP program, and certainly not essential for sustenance.

Consider SNAP is but one government program handing out free stuff. From cell phones to free breakfast and lunches at schools, Americans are getting ever more stuff at taxpayer expense. What will happen when there are no more taxpayers left to foot the bill? Ain’t socialism grand?

I have to wonder. Are government figures lying to us about the recession being over, or are we simply becoming the Gimme Generation?

Why Is Life Still Black-and-White?

 It’s still a black-and-white world. In the ‘50s, we had a black-and-white TV, movies were in black-and-white, our cameras mostly used black-and-white film, and our buses and lunch counters were divided by black and white, so were our communities.

When color television came out, our world suddenly took on a new depth. Color film became available for the masses. The movies were in “living color.” But until the ‘60s our buses, lunch counters, and communities were still separated by black and white.

When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law in 1964, the expectation was that the last black-and-white part of our lives would finally be changed. And to some extent, it was. Blacks and whites could finally sit wherever they wanted at lunch counters, our segregated neighborhoods began to take on new color, and anyone that still rode a bus could sit wherever there was room. At last, our country would be a fully integrated society.

Whoa, wait a minute. That last part didn’t really happen, did it? After 1964, some things did change, and great strides were made to affect a color-blind society, but we are still plagued by complaints from the “Black Community” over perceived racial injustices.

In the late ‘60s, we had race riots. Today, we still have race riots. Why?

For decades, affirmative action has been placing under-achieving minorities in classes to the detriment of overall education. Despite anti-segregation laws, minorities still group together in their own communities, and sit together at lunch counters and on buses. Blacks who have risen above the poverty level and become productive members of society are looked down on by other Blacks. For the first time in the history of our country, we have a half-Black President, who was elected, not on his record of achievements, education, or proven competent leadership, but because of his race.

Why, if technology can add color to the way we view the world, can legislation not eliminate the boundaries of a black-and-white society? Why, after fifty years are we still having race riots?

I believe the answer lies simply in human nature. We do not have a color-blind society because the minority side doesn’t want a level playing field. High-profile rabble-rousers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton thrive on race baiting. And, unfortunately for the Black communities, they are not the only ones. Whites and Blacks poke at the hornet’s nest of racial animosity. From the time they are born, Blacks are fed the propaganda that they are being beat down by Whites. It is no wonder so many blacks suffer from a serious inferiority complex that they mask by a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.

Anti-segregation laws and school busing were supposed to create an integrated society. To a small extent, these laws produced the desired effect. Why, then, do we still have minority communities? Why are there still schools with predominantly minority students?

Again, it comes down to human nature. People of like-mindedness will always seek each other out. They will find a way to congregate with others of the same stripe. Laws cannot change human nature. There is no country in the world that is truly integrated and, where communities contain a well-distributed population of diverse colored citizens.

The latest incident of rioting instigated by race baiting comes from Ferguson, Missouri, where the National Guard has been sent in to quell the rioting. The match to this powder keg was a black teen named Michael Brown.

I bring this incident up simply to illustrate my point that the race-baiting rabble-rousers are keeping Blacks in their self-pitying wallow.

Like Trayvon Martin, Rodney King and other rioting flash points, Michael Brown was no choir boy. Brown was a street thug. Footage of a convenience store robbery just before the incident that got him shot by the police, show Brown stealing items from the store, and when a customer points this out, he grabs the customer by the throat and picks him off the ground. Later, Brown and a friend are walking in the middle of the street, When a police officer pulls his marked cruiser up to ask why they are in the street, Brown rips the door to the car open and assaults the officer.

According to police reports, Brown tried to get the officer’s gun and was shot. When the officer got out of the car, the wounded Brown turned and charged the officer. At that point, the officer rightly feared for his life and put some five rounds into Brown, killing him.

This is the point where the race baiting begins. Michael Brown is Black and a teen in a predominantly black neighborhood. Brown’s accomplice in his walk in the middle of the street says Brown had his hands up saying don’t shoot. Suddenly, the neighborhood is full of “witnesses” claiming the police shot an unarmed Black teen. Next, the high-profile rabble-rousing race baiters stir up the Black community and rioting breaks out.

Of course, what’s a good riot with out an ample amount of gratuitous looting? Free stuff for the down trodden. Hell, you don’t even need food stamps.

Still black-and-white? You bet. And our communities will remain black-and-white until everyone understands that we are all members of the same species – Homo Sapien.

Thousands of years ago two species inhabited the earth at the same time – Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal. The Neanderthals are no longer with us, yet many of us have Neanderthal genes. Did we interbreed the Neanderthals out of existence, or did the species baiters finally drive the Homo Sapiens to kill off the Neanderthals?

The consistent attribute of history is that it always repeats itself.