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A Party in Denial

05 Monday Dec 2016

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The Democrats are in a state of denial about Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton. They are so arrogant that they could not conceive of losing, thinking rather of a landslide victory. Hillary did not even prepare a concession speech so she had to go into hiding on election night. The main stream media are just as perplexed. By any measure when you look at all races, including State races, it was an overwhelming victory for the GOP. Below is a map that shows that with the exception of the two coasts the country is dominantly Republican.

electoral-map-2016

When you look at it by county it is even more illustrative.

electoral-map-2016-by-county

A look at the numbers is helpful.

election-2016

The press and many Democrats focus on the fact that Trump lost the popular vote, a totally meaningless metric. Trump did fall short of Clinton’s total by 1.3 million votes, but if you take out California votes Trump has a 2.1 million vote edge. This illustrates the brilliance of our Founding Fathers. They created a Republic, not a Democracy to avoid the tyranny of a few and to preserve the powers of the States. Sadly there are many Americans who are not aware of this fact because our schools no longer teach American history.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign blames the loss on the racism of the white population. This is so ridiculous and desperate. Barack Obama was elected twice as our President and attracted a high percent of white votes. Plus Trump won Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin, States that Obama won. Are they all of a sudden racist States? Hillary did not even campaign in Wisconsin. The Party just cannot accept the fact that they ran a terrible candidate who is now a two time loser. Clinton ran a campaign of “I’m with Her” rather than providing substantive proposals to help spur economic growth, protect our border and put back the record number of Americans that are out of a job back to work. The Democrats after the 2014 election felt that they did not need the white middle class voters. Her calling Trump supporters part of a basket of “deplorables” was very telling, and a slip made through arrogance.

Is Opposing School Vouchers Racist?

18 Wednesday Mar 2015

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The free market is a wonderful thing when it is allowed to operate unfettered by obstacles. Take for instance the world of personal computers.  IBM’s first personal computer (pc) was the Model 5120 released in early 1980. It weighed about 100 pounds and came with 64 kilobytes of RAM, a 16 bit processor, a 9 inch black and white monitor and two floppy drives. It did not have a hard drive.  It sold for $13,500 which is about $40,000 in today’s dollars! This caused a boom in companies competing to make the best PC.  Innovation exploded and as the pcs became more powerful they became cheaper. Contrast  IBM’s first PC  with today’s PCs that sport a dual core 64 bit processor, 16 gigabytes of RAM, a 128 gigabyte boot hard drive and a terabyte data hard drive, a 27” flat screen monitor and much more for about $2,300.

Now imagine what would have happened if the federal government decided that everyone should have an IBM PC. IBM would have a huge captive market with little or no incentive to change. Costs would go up, not down and quality would decline. There would be little innovation. Does anyone believe that we would be able to buy PCs as described above at 17 times less than the original model in today’s dollars? Not a chance.

This is easy for most people to understand. They see similar stories in other industries such as the television industry. But when it comes to our education system most are blind. The government pays for primary and secondary education for anyone who wants it.  The schools are operated by state and local governments and are staffed by teachers unions. The federal government provides funding help to the states which gives them control over the schools. The schools have little incentive to improve since they have a captive market. They block any measure to allow competition in the system.  This is due in large part because of the dominance of the unions in the school system. To compound matters, the unions collect dues from their members and use these dues to fund the Democrat Party. In turn The Democrat Party fights any attempts at real reform and competition.

The results are predictable.  In the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ‘s 2014 report the US ranked 24th in reading, 36th in math and 28th in science.  Even more disturbing is the fact that the trend data show no significant changes in the average performance of U.S. 15-year-old students in the mathematics, reading and science over time. “The Nations Report Card’s” 2013 study revealed that only 34% of 8th graders in public schools are proficient in math as compared to 47% in private schools.  Only 34% of 8th graders in public schools are proficient in reading as compared to 57% in private schools.

The left always blame lack of funding for our poor results. The facts are contrary to this oft repeated myth.  In 2010 the USA spent $11,826 per FTE student per year. The OECD average in 2010 was $9,803. Of the 35 countries in the comparison only three countries spend more than us. Japan, which ranked 4th in reading and 7th in math spent $9,168 in 2010. Korea, ranked 5th in both math and reading spent $7,396 during the same timeframe. In 2013 the average tuition for private schools (elementary and secondary) was $10,740, about 10% less than the 2010 level of spending for public schools.

The truth is that we are not preparing our children for college or for life. This is especially true for minorities. Only one in four high school students graduate ready for college in all four core subjects (English, reading, math and science), which is why a third of students entering college have to take remedial courses. Only 4 percent of African American students and 11 percent of Hispanic students finish high school ready for college in their core subjects.

So what do we do? How about allowing parents to choose where their children go to school. Competition is a good thing. Parents will choose schools that do the best to prepare students either for work or higher education. Parents who are more affluent do this now, paying private tuition even though they pay high taxes to support public schools. Low and middle class families are unable to afford private schools. A simple idea is to give parents school vouchers to use in their school of choice. As seen above issuing vouchers at today’s spending will open up the choice to most private schools. The Democrat Party, the party of choice, is steadfastly opposed to this for a couple of reasons. First and foremost is that they do not want to reduce the size and level of control of the government. Also they want to protect the teachers’ unions to retain their votes and their funding stream. The biggest losers to this obstruction are Blacks, Hispanics and lower class white families.

What is happening to our country?

28 Tuesday May 2013

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We have learned that the IRS has been used as a tool for Obama, bullying conservative groups to silence them. The Department of Justice has been spying on Fox News and AP reporters. Our embassy is attacked by terrorists and our government blames it on a video and then covers it up. We sell guns to Mexican drug dealers hoping that Americans get killed by them to support anti-gun legislation. Our President fails to submit a budget as required for years and runs on massive deficits year after year. We have turned our backs on one of our greatest allies Israel but have embraced the terrorist group Muslim brotherhood. Gasoline prices have gone from $1.84 before Obama’s first election to $3.70 because of his failed energy policies. Real unemployment has been around 15% for quite a while and economic growth is stagnant. Almost a million fewer people have permanent jobs since he took office.  We are no longer explorers. NASA has been taken out of the space business and is a Muslim outreach agency. Almost 47 million Americans are on food stamps, 15 million since Obama took office. And our premier healthcare system is about to become a European style system with all of the bells and whistles like long waits for simple procedures and doctor shortages.

It started at the dawn of the 20th century with Woodrow Wilson. Wilson was a power-hungry person who did not believe in the separation of powers and checks and balances. “Government does now whatever experience permits or the times demand….” wrote Wilson in The State. He believed as president his power should be limitless. He wrote the following in Constitutional Government in the United States: “The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will set the limit….” Wilson harshly suppressed dissent and resistance among citizens and the press. Our current President has learned this well. He was fiercely opposed to the idea of individualism, and was a critic of our Constitution. He wrote “No doubt a lot of nonsense has been talked about the inalienable rights of the individual, and a great deal that was mere sentiment and pleasing speculation has been put forward as fundamental principle,” attacking the very individual rights that have made America great. He brought forth the concept of a living document for the Constitution, a concept near and dear to the left today.

Next in line was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He did a great deal of damage to our country by establishing an infrastructure of big government.  Despite all of the New Deal programs, unemployment was 20% after 8 years as president. Historians and the mainstream media give him credit for getting us out of the Great Depression but in reality the war was the real reason for its end. He shamelessly egged on the Justice Department and the IRS to prosecute his political opponents. He became frustrated with the Supreme Court who began to chip away at his intrusive programs. Shortly after his re-election in 1936 he attempted  to pack the Supreme Court with as many as six additional justices.

Then came the so-called “Great Society”. It was President Lyndon Johnson’s massive growth of government that built on Wilson and Roosevelt’s liberal administrations. Some of the initiatives were:

  • Education: sixty separate bills including National School Lunch Act
  • Medicare & Medicaid
  • The Environment: several measures introduced
  • Job Corps
  • Head Start: program for four and five-year-old children
  • Food Stamp Act
  • HUD developed
  • War on Poverty – forty programs that were intended to eliminate poverty

This formed the infrastructure for the Democrat Party to build and maintain its power base for future elections. The Medicare and Medicaid programs are the main drivers of our national debt. The food stamp programs and the war on poverty programs along with Medicare and Medicaid were successful in creating a culture of dependency. But the party knew that these alone would not be enough. Perhaps the most destructive thing for our country but the most successful strategy for the Democrats was the systematic destruction of our education system. The school lunch programs and head start programs sound like good initiatives on the surface. However when looking under the hood the school lunch program is used as a form of bribery for States to toe the line if they want money. Head start programs are another hook for the States and also were a bone to the unions. These programs moved education into a major player within the government. The final death-blow to the education system came in 1980 when the Department of Education was elevated to a Cabinet position.

The Democrats realized that the Department of Education could be used as a recruiting tool, molding young minds to buy into their leftist agenda. The left are very patient. They knew that this was going to take a generation or two to fully take effect. History was abandoned and replaced with “social studies”. The Founding Fathers were made out to be slave owners at best. Environmental issues dominated all curriculums, including even math. Students learned that their self-esteem was more important than learning. Teachers receive degrees in  “Education” rather than in their content subject matter. The natural effect of this is that American students would no longer be able to compete in math and science with the world. Test scores started to decline and tests were dumbed down. Discipline in the schools was eliminated. The result fifty years later is a school system that is full of students who do not know who our Founding fathers were, they do not know why and how America was formed (except that some Europeans stole the land from “Native Americans” and they do not have a clue about most of our history.

Another key strategy of the left was to destroy the moral fabric our America. This was done with attacks on school prayer and Christianity in general. Since Roe v Wade we have seen the deification of abortion by the Democrat Party. Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance was stopped at many public schools. Marriage and the family unit has been under attack for years. Single moms were elevated, gays began pushing their agenda as civil rights, marriage became under constant attack, and single parent households were encouraged by the government entitlement programs.

Immigration policy is yet another tool in this grand strategy to consolidate power. Our immigration policy used to be a reasonable policy of filling needs. We were selective in who we would bring in and we tried to satisfy needs such as scientists, mathematicians, doctors, etc. Today the policy is based solely on political considerations. Immigration laws have not been enforced making it easy for millions of new Democrat voters to come here and receive benefits.

Our current President seems inspired by these great destructors of the past. He learned from Wilson that individualism does not matter and presidential power should limitless. He learned from Wilson and FDR how to use his agencies to attack his enemies and unfriendly journalists. He learned from FDR and LBJ that government entitlement programs, once in place, were almost impossible to eliminate. He knew he had a short window to do as much damage as possible so he focused like a laser on Obamacare. He also spent trillions of dollars buying up votes for his re-election. This piece of legislation if unaltered will ruin the best albeit not perfect healthcare system.

This could not be achieved without the willing help of the main stream media. They happily ignore the decline of our school systems, the moral decay of our country, the massive debt of our government and the faux science behind global warming because they want to support the Democrat Party.

So in reality it should come as no surprise what is happening today under Obama. He has bought off Americans to the point where they are apathetic about our country. Our young do not have the historical context to understand issues. They do not know that our ancestors came here because of our liberty and an opportunity, not a handout, to prosper. Many of the baby boomers have no work ethic which has been passed on to their children. The press, although growing weary defending Obama, will remain true to their left-wing beliefs and spurn any journalistic inclinations. And unlike the Republican Party, the Democrat Party will avoid independent investigations and will refuse to hold Obama accountable. We get what we deserve.

We did not know how bad He was!

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

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Obama’s administration has added 11,327 pages to the Code of Federal Regulations over the past three years. The President is also responsible for over $5.4 trillion in new debt in his first term. Obamacare has eighteen pagesto define a full-time employee. That should tell you all you need to know about Obamacare. The unemployment rate has remained above 8% for most of Obama’s term. The real unemployment rate, one that quits counting the long-term unemployed as if they don’t really want a job)  is 14.7%. These things are all related. Obama’s policies are exactly opposite of what we need to create jobs and spark the economy. The tons of regulations are big disincentives for job creation.

Randy Johnson, senior vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a Labor Day briefing, distributed a handout of a Congressional Research Service analysis of a 2008 study commissioned by the Small Business Administration that estimated the annual compliance price for all federal regulations at $1.7 trillion that year. That was before Obama dumped over 11,000 new pages of regulation on our economy.

Obama cannot run on his record so he continues to use the tired line that “we did not know how bad the economy was”. This contradicts his entire 2008 Presidential campaign where he said our economy was the worse since the Great Depression. We expect this from a man who even lied in his autobiography. Bill Clinton, also not a man known for his honesty, parroted this ridiculous claim at the Democrat convention when he said that no President, not even (the great) Bill Clinton, could have fixed the economy in a mere four years.

The reason our economy is in the tank, our credit has been downgraded, our debt has skyrocketed and unemployment is at 14.7% is because of Obama’s policies, period. The good news is that the fix is not all that complicated. Romney’s five point plan is right on target. His plan is:

  1. By 2020, North America will be energy independent by taking invented of our oil, are coal, our gas, our nuclear, and renewables.
  2. We will give our fellow citizens the skills they need for the jobs of today and the careers of tomorrow. When it comes to the school your child will attend, every parent should have a choice, and every child should have a chance.
  3. We will make trade work for America by forging new trade agreements, and when nations cheat in trade, there will be unmistakable consequences.
  4. To assure every entrepreneur and every job creator that their investments in America will not vanish, as have those in Greece. We will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget.
  5. We will champion small businesses, America’s engine of job growth. That means reducing taxes on business, not raising them. It means simplifying and modernizing the regulations that hurt small businesses the most and it means we must rein in skyrocketing cost of health care by repealing and replacing Obamacare.

With a President Romney, if the GOP holds the House and can get to 51 seats in the Senate (60 would be much better) then America has a chance.

Our Choice is Clear

31 Friday Aug 2012

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Over the last four years under President Obama we have experienced the worst economic times since the days of Jimmy Carter. Obama has added more to our national debt than all previous presidents combined. To make matters worse the President has apologized repeatedly for the US and has lowered our stature in the world, reducing us to followers. He has failed to deliver on his lofty promise of hope and change.

Mitt Romney may be our only hope. This country cannot afford another four years of Obama’s “divide and conquer” administration. Mitt, in his nomination acceptance speech, talked about America’s greatness, he talked of optimism and that fact that we were always a unified country. He outlined what his top five priorities will be if elected:

  1. By 2020, North America will be energy independent by taking invented of our oil, are coal, our gas, our nuclear, and renewables.
  2. We will give our fellow citizens the skills they need for the jobs of today and the careers of tomorrow. When it comes to the school your child will attend, every parent should have a choice, and every child should have a chance.
  3. We will make trade work for America by forging new trade agreements, and when nations cheat in trade, there will be unmistakable consequences.
  4. To assure every entrepreneur and every job creator that their investments in America will not vanish, as have those in Greece. We will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget.
  5. We will champion small businesses, America’s engine of job growth. That means reducing taxes on business, not raising them. It means simplifying and modernizing the regulations that hurt small businesses the most and it means we must rein in skyrocketing cost of health care by repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Mitt Romney knows what it takes to turn failing companies into successful companies. His plan is simple yet right on point. Each priority is in sharp contrast to Obama’s ideas. It is about time that we have as a top national goal to be energy independent. Obama has worked against this, shutting down oil rigs, piling on regulations on the coal and gas industries and stopping the Canadian pipeline project. Obama wants to protect the teachers union so giving parents a choice of where there children go to school is not in his plans. Similarly his obsession with unions has prevented him from pursuing trade deals. And Obama has shown his ignorance of economics by calling for tax increases on the job creators. The choice in this election could not be any clearer.