Posts by JohnMariotti:
- Donald Trump means well—he is just a hot mess getting where he finally wants to be.
- Hillary doesn’t mean well—she is a selfish, devious, dishonest, untruthful, self-serving, power-hungry, reprehensible person.
- Harsh words could follow, but that sums it up.
- Trump may be all of the things that are said about him. I’d still trust him in the White House instead of her.
- Best intelligence gathering operation in the world
- Abandon failed policy of nation-state building/regime change
- Work with allies who share goal of destroying ISIS & stamping out Islamic terror
- Suspend immigration from any nation compromised by terrorism until proven vetting
- Build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, gangs, violence and drugs
- End “catch and release” on the border
- Enforce the rules for millions who overstay visas
- New, fair trade policy
- Stand up to countries who cheat
- Turn bad trade agreements into great ones
- No longer enter massive [trade] deals that no one reads or understands
- Enforce trade violations
- Stop China’s…
- Outrageous [cyber] theft of intellectual property
- Illegal dumping
- Devastating currency manipulation
- Reform our tax laws, regulations and energy rules
- Relief for middle-income Americans and simplified taxes
- Deal with the issue of excessive regulation, to end it
- Lift restrictions on production of American energy
- Use energy proceeds to build new roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways of tomorrow
- Rescue kids from failing schools, improve [expand] school choice
- Repeal and replace Obamacare
- Fix TSA at airports
- Rebuild depleted military
- Take care of veterans’ [medical care] like never before
- Ask Dept. heads to provide list of wasteful spending to eliminate in first 100 days
- Appoint Justices to SCOTUS who will uphold, laws and our Constitution
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Obama’s dilemma: “What do I do now?”—And his second term as president—cannot end too soon. Are you sick of hearing speeches that say little and accomplish even less. I sure am, and so are America’s allies … and its military!
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America and its people and allies will suffer, because he will never learn and he will never change, and he will do everything in his power to protect this travesty he considers his legacy. What a tragedy for America; what failure as a leader Americans have chosen—twice!
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2) An excuse—and someone to blame—if he doesn’t get his way. (With Congress or whomever else is involved).
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His attempts to involve Congress in the ISIS decision were intended to provide Obama with at least two of his favorite cop-outs & scapegoats:
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Since that book was written all of the failures cited have continued, gotten worse or been repeated in other areas. Nothing is more difficult to deal with than a most serious flaw, Barack Obama’s crippling uncertainty. It seems to emerge and taint in every important issue of his presidency.]
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However, another Burke quote is perhaps even more relevant:
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And there is little doubt about the apt comparisons to ISIS and Nazi growth in the 20th century, the Vietnam (“unwinnable”) War, and the Afghanistan and Iraq “wars” (also “wars that could not be won”). The latter instances were due largely to uncertainty about the mission—and politically motivated mismanagement of how–or if–to fight in the conflict. (E.g., Restrictive and constantly shifting rules of engagement.)
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It was Edmund Burke who said, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it”
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He continues doing it all over again, and often to the US military, showing indecision in his “jump but don’t land” policies and then telegraphing his incomplete/incompetent plans (e.g., on how to stop the evil onslaught of ISIS). It’s hard “to fight an enemy Obama won’t name,” as one general put it. It’s even harder to fight an enemy “with one hand tied behind your back” and a leader who doesn’t even want you to “really fight” –and isn’t sure what to do next when you aren’t winning.
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During the seven years of his presidency, Barack Obama’s crippling uncertainty has continued to create massive doubts about what he and his administration will do next—in domestic policy/energy policy, in foreign policy, in regulation and especially with executive orders. This uncertainty has paralyzed the business community, inhibited investment and slowed economic growth. You could call it “Obama’s dilemma: what do I do now?”
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Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
- Major automakers all seem to be developing their own versions of driverless cars. There’s no doubt the technology exists. The latest Mercedes S-Class includes a lot of it. Google is into this area too. Such innovations might be a real benefit to the growing number of senior citizens who really shouldn’t be driving—but still do.
- Unless you have been on a desert island or a mountaintop with no news, you’ve no doubt heard about all the hacking going on. Banks get hacked. The Cloud gets hacked for nude photos of celebs. The Department of Defense, Army Command Center and White House have all been hacked. Sony got hacked—big time. Drones get hacked. The F-35 Joint Strike fighter–the most expensive military plane in history–had its plans stolen from Lockheed-Martin by hackers (China?) –before the plane ever flew! What’s next? Driverless cars! Driverless cars are a coming terrorist/hackers’ delight.
- Car found in Times Square, which later proved to contain cans of flammable liquid and other explosive devices via New York Daily News
The Enterprise – Truth Is Inmutable – Never Forget That
August 23rd, 2016By John Mariotti.
THIS EDITION IS RICH WITH CONTENT—MOST OF IT NOT MINE—BUT STILL WORTH READING.
First some comments on the business, economic and then the political world.
CHINA IS STILL AN ECONOMY WITH PROBLEMS
China wants to sustain its relatively high growth rate, but that is not happening. It is now below 7% and many believe it is really much lower than that. The Chinese government wants to prop up its growth rate with free flowing capital AND maintain monetary policy independence AND hold a fixed exchange rate. All three simply cannot happen at once. Something has to give. Time will tell what it is. Meanwhile China continues to spend on its militaristic ventures in the South China Sea—applying “squatters rights” in order to claim territorial rights that stretch the imagination. Claiming these so called islands (Spratly), expanded with massive dredging operations then building runways and military installations on them, is—sooner or later—going to lead to a major conflict with the USA over rights to free passage in major parts of the ocean.
THE US ECONOMY IS NOT REALLY WELL—AND IT’S NOT REALLY SICK—IT’S ALSO NOT REALLY GROWING MUCH
2% Growth cannot sustain all the “wants” that the Obama administration demands. It also cannot support even a balanced annual budget—not even close—and that is with costs for interest on the national debt still unnaturally low. No one in any position of power is willing to deal with the “elephant in the room”—entitlements that are consuming an ever increasing share of the US budget. Medicare/Medicaid waste and fraud continue to be HUGE, unaddressed problems. These programs will go broke—or break the country—in the next decade or two. Social Security is clearly “fixable” with modest revisions—if any group of politicians (Congress and the White House) could agree on exactly how, and have the nerve to fix it. Will any such group ever do it? NO…they just nibble around the edges, at best.
REGULATIONS FROM THE REIGN OF EMPEROR OBAMA’S MINIONS CONTINUE UNABATED
The massive blizzard of stifling regulations are killing America faster than any of the so called reasons for passing such onerous rules. This will only change if/when a Republican can win the White House (and the contentious, factions of fools in the party—absent leadership of any kind—are now throwing away that chance for 2016). The way things are going, Hillary will win a 3rd Obama term and continue to run the country down the drain with tax, spend and regulate to create an ever larger government to enslave the American people and mis-appropriate/mis-spend the wealth of those who can still create it. Ayn Rand’s brilliant book ATLAS SHRUGGED is looking more than more prophetic. If you haven’t read it, you MUST. Its long, tedious in places, but frighteningly accurate too.
While talking about reading…
IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE FIRST FULL PARAGRAPH OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE LATELY, READ IT NOW
[Highlighting is mine.]
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
WHILE CANDIDATES FIGHT FOR A SPOT ON THE NOV. BALLOT, AMERICA HOLDS ITS BREATH
Many say Donald Trump is unlikely to get 1237 delegates by the convention—unless he can find 50-100 unbound delegates to join his side. Ted Cruz can’t either—unless others join forces with him (Rubio & Kasich are the only ones with any meaningful number of delegates). Bernie Sanders is unlikely to overcome Hillary Clinton’s Democratic Party super-delegate obstacle. According to polls, Hillary (or Sanders) would beat Trump handily and Cruz by a lesser, but still measurable margin. Polls are not elections, but they are directionally accurate. Of the remaining “active candidates” only John Kasich polls as the winner against Clinton and a toss-up against the unlikely opponent, Sanders. Many Trump followers are zealously dug-in. Followers do not equal delegates, however, and many delegates who are bound to Trump on the convention’s first ballot are not Trumps’s zealots. Cruz has gained some support from the GOP “establishment” but is still widely dislikes and distrusted. Kasich is far behind both of his GOP opponents, but seems to be the last viable “active” candidate. Marco Rubio holds the next most delegates from his campaign before he suspended it after his loss in Florida.
OBAMA WILL “RUN OUT THE CLOCK” TO AVOID INTERFERING WITH OR OVERTLY INFLUENCING HILLARY’S LEGAL ISSUES
See below. Consider the next few pieces before we reach a conclusion.
THIS IS A STRIKING STATEMENT FROM OVER A YEAR AGO—AND A FRIGHTENING TRUTH
The damage Barack Obama has done to America is immeasurable. It is timeless in its duration. It is profound in its impact. It is appalling in it brazen-ness, its illegal nature, it’s unethical, dishonest and devious approach, and its measured and carefully considered, intentional destruction of what has made America great in the past. Neither treason nor impeachment laws can reach far enough to punish this imposter who gained the White House not once, but twice, did his dastardly work, and will soon leave behind a mess of such epic proportions that whoever follows has a hopeless task. Barack and Michelle Obama will live in infamy when the totality of their damage to America is fully realized.
Time is like a river. You cannot touch the water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again. Franklin Graham was speaking at the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida in January, 2015, when he said America will not come back.
He wrote:
“The American dream ended on November 6th, 2012 in Ohio. The second term of Barack Obama has been the final nail in the coffin for the legacy of the white Christian males who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled and developed the greatest republic in the history of mankind.
A coalition of blacks, Latinos, feminists, gays, government workers, union members, environmental extremists, the media, Hollywood, uninformed young people, the “forever needy,” the chronically unemployed, illegal aliens and other “fellow travelers” have ended Norman Rockwell’s America. You will never again out-vote these people. It will take individual acts of defiance and massive displays of civil disobedience to get back the rights we have allowed them to take away. It will take zealots, not moderates and shy, not reach-across-the-aisle RINOs to right this ship and restore our beloved country to its former status.
People like me are completely politically irrelevant, and I will probably never again be able to legally comment on or concern myself with the aforementioned coalition which has surrendered our culture, our heritage and our traditions without a shot being fired.
The cocker spaniel is off the front porch, the pit bull is in the back yard. The American Constitution has been replaced with Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” and the likes of Chicago shyster David Axelrod along with international socialist George Soros have been pulling the strings on their beige puppet have brought us Act 2 of the New World Order.
The curtain will come down but the damage has been done, the story has been told. Those who come after us will once again have to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to bring back the Republic that this generation has timidly frittered away due to white guilt and political correctness.”’
OBAMA RUNS OUT THE CLOCK AGAIN—AFTER THE COURTS OVERTURN HIS ACTION
Barack Obama has a knack for violating the law and then waiting for a long, long time for someone to tell him he did so. That behavior, in basketball or football, is called running out the clock…stalling until enough time has elapsed to make the outcome moot. Obama is doing it again in ignoring Hillary Clinton’s “sloppiness” and telling the American people that “Classified” is not actually a definite condition of a document—it’s sort of, kind of, up to the interpretation of who’s breaking the law. What a great president we have: he breaks the law himself, and then finally gives in after he’s been exposed, and after the damage has been done, and the furor has subsided. Fast & Furious, the IRS, Benghazi, illegal emails on the Secretary of State’s illegal private server, and on, and on.
FROM POLITICO: Four years after asserting executive privilege to block Congress from obtaining documents relating to a controversial federal gun trafficking investigation, President Barack Obama relented Friday, turning over to lawmakers thousands of pages of records that led to unusual House votes holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt in 2012.
In January, a federal district court judge rejected Obama’s executive privilege claim over records detailing the Justice Department and White House’s response to Operation Fast and Furious, a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigation that may have allowed as many as 2,000 firearms to pass into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.In her ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson did not turn down Obama’s privilege assertion on the merits. Instead, she said authorized public disclosures about the operation in a Justice Department inspector general report essentially mooted the administration’s drive to keep the records secret.Both sides had until midnight Friday to file an appeal. Instead, the Obama administration turned over a set of documents to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.“In light of the passage of time and other considerations, such as the Department’s interest in moving past this litigation and building upon our cooperative working relationship with the Committee and other Congressional committees, the Department has decided that it is not in the Executive Branch’s interest to continue litigating this issue at this time,” Justice Deparment legislative liaison Peter Kadzik wrote in a letter Friday to House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah).Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/obama-relents-in-fight-over-fast-and-furious-documents-221741#ixzz45fbsVCmX
THESE FACTS HAVE NOT ALL BEEN VETTED, BUT DO RING TRUE…
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The Enterprise – What Comes Next ? Part I
August 22nd, 2016
A WISE MAN ONCE TOLD ME, “POSTPONED PERFECTION IS THE ENEMY OF PLANNED PROGRESS.”
Which is why this edition of THE ENTERPRISE is at least a week or two late coming out. I started to bite off more than I could chew, and figured it out. Rather than take the old editorial pen to what I wrote (which was how I saw things at that time a couple of weeks ago…I’m going to send it to all of you to read and think about.
AN FYI—THEDAILYJOURNALIST.COM. I HAVE DECIDED TO BEGIN CONTRIBUTING TO A DIFFERENT ON-LINE PUBLICATION
I have not even attempted to look at all the parts of it. I hope there aren’t some “bad ones” buried where I didn’t look. My goal was to increase my audience and spread the reach of what I write. Whether this one will do that, I won’t know until I write and post several articles on it. It delayed me getting THE ENTERPRISE out while I was learning how to submit what I write, and so forth—a seemingly simple process until you actually do it. Then file formats are more or less desirable, there is the deal with passwords and access, and of course figuring out if the “editorial policy” was OK with what I was planning to submit. Time will tell. Once I find links to my stuff, I’ll add them at the bottom of my emails and THE ENTERPRISE in case someone wants to go see them. I plan to mirror some of the pieces, either in the form of excerpts, or longer versions on here.
AS OF NOW, GO LOOK AT THE REALCLEARPOLITICS.COM ELECTORAL MAP
The battle for the GOP is enormous because the Democrats seem to have a stranglehold on about 200+ of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect a president. Regardless of how flawed the GOP candidate, Donald Trump may be, Hillary Clinton is worse—far worse. For every unfavorable term used to describe Trump, there are two, nastier, bigger ones that apply to her. IN the end, it comes down to two points.
WHAT HAPPENS IN 5 MONTHS IS ANYBODY’S GUESS
Even the final question of who will be running is a little uncertain, since Hillary the Hag has been revealed to be a criminal on so many levels, even Clintonian contrivances may still not save her. However, Barack Obama can save her, unless he thinks she’s going to lose. Then Obama will have his (In)-Justice Department come after her and bring Joe Biden out of the bullpen. Biden, while far from desirable is a much less flawed candidate than Hillary Clinton (or Bernie Sanders).
THE LATEST EVIDENCE OF THE OBAMA DISASTER’S IMPACT ON THE PEOPLE OF THE USA
Unemployment rate drops when many fewer people have jobs! HUH? Obama’s hubris is unparalleled, because he talks like he thinks he’s done a great job.
CFPB—AN UNREGULATED, UNCONTROLLED MONSTER AGENCY—NEEDS TO BE STOPPED AND ABOLISHED
Meanwhile, another of his totally unmanaged regulatory disaster agencies the CFPB—Consumer Financial Protection Board—( bad joke of a name) which reports to…………exactly NO ONE. Not to Congress. Not even the the president/emperor Obama who caused it to be created, has targeted the PayDay Lending businesses in the USA, to put them out of business. (A great day for illegal Loan Sharks, because that’s all that will be left for the millions of Americans who willingly and knowingly pay the very high interest rates & fees to PayDay Lenders—because they need the money NOW!
LATEST ON THE ACA (OBAMACARE), ALSO A JOKE OF A NAME, “AFFORDABLE CARE ACT” AFFORDABLE BY WHOM
Insurance companies led by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield are lining up in the group that much SUE the government to be paid the fees that were promised when costs overrun the agreed upon amounts. Anthem is asking for $147mm for just 2015 losses, that the government wrote in a clause to protect, and is now reneging on that clause.
Record 94,708,000 Americans Not in Labor Force; Participation Rate Drops in May by Susan Jones | published on June 3, 2016
A record 94,708,000 Americans were not in the labor force in May — 664,000 more than in April — and the labor force participation rate dropped two-tenths of a point to 62.6 percent, near its 38-year low, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. When President Obama took office in January 2009, 80,529,000 Americans were not participating in the labor force; since then, 14,179,000 Americans have left the workforce — some of them retiring and some just quitting because they can’t find work. “By almost every economic measure, America is better off than when I came here at the beginning of my presidency,” President Obama told the people of Elkhart, Indiana three days ago. “We cut unemployment in half, years before a lot of economists thought we would.” The unemployment rate in May dropped to 4.7 percent, BLS reported, less than half of its Obama-era high of 10 percent in October 2009.
THE GOVERNMENT’S CONVOLUTED LOGIC: IF ALL AMERICANS LOST THEIR JOBS & DIDN’T LOOK FOR NEW ONES, THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE WOULD BE ZERO!
Got that? It leaves me speechless, so there’s nothing more to say on this topic except—IDIOTIC FOOLS!!
NOW—IF THIS QUESTION—“WHAT NEXT?” ISN’T ON YOUR MIND, OR ON YOUR LIPS, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT?
This is always the key question. From where you are now, what comes next, and right after that comes, how will that affect me? The future is filled with uncertainty. Nobody can actually predict the future with great accuracy because human nature makes the future volatile. People and events change and those changes influence other changes, and so forth, until your entire baseline of knowledge about the future is either useless, or outdated. What you can do, and what we can do, is predict some parts of the future “directionally.” Why? Because events that have already happened have set some things in motion, and once in motion, they will continue until or unless something is done to change their course or their momentum. (That’s not so profound—its based o one of Isaac Newton’s Laws of Physics about momentum and inertia. “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted on by an unbalanced force.”
WITH THIS TIMELESS TRUTH WE CAN PREDICT SOME THINGS “DIRECTIONALLY” BUT NOT QUANTITATIVELY/ABSOLUTELY
US Presidential Election: The likely candidates for president in the USA will be Donald Trump (Rep.) and Hillary Clinton (Dem.) and Gary Johnson (Lib.). One of the first two will probably win the presidency—but strange things do happen—like none of them getting the requisite 270 electoral votes, which would throw the choice of the president into the House of Representatives, in which Republicans hold a majority, but not all Republicans are happy with Trump. So hang on. Uncertainty and volatility might reign.
US Economy, Jobs and Growth:
The US Economy is still growing at a very slow, erratic pace averaging about 2%/year. That does not generate enough tax revenue to support the profligate spending of the US government—spending at a current rate of $500 Billion more each year than comes in revenue—and that is down from over $1Trillion/hear for Barack Obama’s first term. The US government is bloated, redundant, inefficient and misdirected because of terrible leadership. Congress’ members are so worried about being reelected that they do irrational things. The two parties are do biased in different directions (Rep.-right leaning conservative, Dem.-left leaning liberal) that they can barely agree on whether the sun comes up in the East and sets in the West. That makes the process of operating the government a mess. Add to that an ego-driven narcissist in the White House, with an agenda all his own (barely related to what the American people want), and America is in a real mess.
A Giant Mess to Clean Up
Whoever wins the presidency next will inherit a huge, over spent, over regulated, over bureaucratic mess—and fixing it will require in Newton’s Law terms—“one hell of an unbalanced force.” Hillary Clinton won’t try to fix it, rather she will continue to worsen the policies and practices that made the mess (Political inertia.) Donald Trump might make the mess better, or worse, and nobody knows which. His campaign boasts give only a few cues as to “how” he could go about doing “what” he claims he plans to do. Saying “What” is easy; saying “How”—and then doing it is devilishly hard, especially with a Congress who struggles to agree on much of anything.
Debt & Deficits are at the core of the American financial mess—but they aren’t alone there. The nearly total lack of discipline and fiscal sanity by members of the government are right there in the middle of the mess too. Rational organizations, whether companies, families or governments, would seem to realize that when there is not enough money coming in, they should stop spending. Not so with this deficit, borrowing crazy governmental world we live in. Whether is it Greece, Italy, Puerto Rico, the city of Detroit or Baltimore, the State of Illinois or California, or the US Government—rational responsible and discipline are words that seldom come to mind to describe their behaviors. Banks return overdrawn checks, put a hold on the account and charge an overdraft fee.
If You don’t want to borrow money, just print more! (Or have the Fed create it digitally) Fiscal responsibility be damned.
But not the US government because it 1) controls the printing presses, so it can print more money, 2) has the ungoverned Federal Reserve which conjures money out of thin are, with a few strokes on a computer keyboard, and 3) borrows more and more money to over the deficit, until the national debt of the US alone will soon approach TWENTY TRILLION DOLLARS. Interest alone, at today’s low interest rates amounts to $400+ Billion EACH YEAR. Hardly ever, does any government agency, or elected official resort to the old-fashioned, logical, disciplined and fiscally responsible solution: when you need more money for something unexpected, you must cut back on spending on something else to make that money available. Not any more! Just borrow more and run up the deficit and national debt. Interest rates have been held artificially low for a decade, and thus interest cost on Americas ridiculous debt is still $400 BILLION, however for each percentage point interest rates go up, this interest bill increases about $200 Billion PER YEAR. A 5% jump in interest rates (not outrageous based on past history) would cost the USA almost $1 TRILLION PER YEAR IN INTEREST ALONE!
Jobs and Growth could solve this massive debt and deficit problem, if only the American government would “remove its regulatory foot from the neck of American industry.” Yes, the tax code is outdated, stupid and needs to be redone. There is at least $2 Trillion in US$ sitting abroad with American corporations who are loathe to bring it back and be taxed at rates in excess of 30% on it. That money could fuel growth and jobs, which would create more tax revenue to reduce the debts and deficits. Regulations have exploded under the Obama “Big Government Knows Best” policies, and have stifled the economic recovery, forcing it to remain in the 2% range—half of what prior recoveries have enjoyed.
Free Trade is not necessarily Fair Trade
Sure, the US has been victimized by lopsided tariffs (free trade is not necessarily fair trade), and by currency manipulation on a global scale (China being the most common culprit). Addressing that will not bring back the US jobs that went to Asia and other places. Those were yesterday’s jobs that benefited by cheap labor and lopsided tariffs. They will not come back; many will soon not even exist in those Asian countries, as their wages rise and their countries develop and face environment and infrastructural needs of their own. For America to reclaim jobs, it must reclaim 21st Century jobs, not try to grab back outdated 20th Century work. For America to reclaim 21st Century jobs, it must redevelop a 21st Century work force, with the skills and the will-to-work necessary to compete. One source of good prospective employees are the large number of returning military veterans. They have learned discipline, in many cases, shown courage under fire, and now desperately need a way to support themselves/families and find renewed meaning in their lives. Many have learned important technical skills too.
Misconceptions and misunderstanding = failed solutions
That is a huge task, and one which very few political leaders even understand. America’s government leaders still don’t understand (after 2-3 dramatic lessons in preceding decades) that increasing the Capital Gains Tax rate doesn’t increase tax revenue—it decreases it. This was proven decades ago, in the Reagan era, when slashing the Capital Gains tax rate resulted in an explosion of investment, growth and jobs. To create economic growth requires three enormous steps: 1) Cut the tax rates on Capital Gains and repatriation of foreign profits (conditioned on those being reinvested in American enterprises), 2) Eliminate a decade+ worth of non-sensical regulations—just wipe them out—and then reinstate only those that dramatically and demonstrably are needed to protect health and safety (and wipe out most of the bureaucratic agencies who protect their job security by adding more regulations. “Untie the hands of American business, so it can compete. But those two are not enough. 3) Choose the industries, first 10, then 20, then 50 and then 100+ in which America can compete with a reduced regulatory burden and a “fair” (but not “free”) trade systems of tariffs. (Some think “mirrored tariffs” are best; others believe selective imposition of tariffs on US imports, and/or reduction of tariffs on US exports would be better.)
Repatriating American Jobs (lots more coming on this topic)
The key step is to “Repatriating American Jobs” identify where those “new-job-creating companies and plants are located—or will be located—and how to staff them with American workers—American jobs. This sounds like what is criticized as crony capitalism—choosing winners and losers—but it isn’t if the choices are made based not on ideology, but on economic competitiveness. Pick industries where the US is close to being globally competitive and give those a boost so they can grown. Then move to the next group of industries and do the same thing. Tax credits for R & D, for investment in new manufacturing technology, for investment in new IT for global supply chain and production management, and so forth, will create a new industrial revolution in the USA. It will be very different from the 20th Century version. Many fewer, higher skill jobs in each company with little of the old hand labor. Many new technologies need to be employed to speed delivery, increase quality and lower costs.
A wise friend once asked, “If you are writing about business issues, why are so many of your thoughts on politics and government/legislation?” My answer was that business operates in an environment where nearly everything it does is influenced greatly by politics and government/legislation, thus you cannot develop strategies and execution in business without taking into account these enormous influences.
WITH THAT LONG OPENING SECTION, I’LL WIND UP THIS EDITION, AND PICK UP THE WHAT NEXT? TOPIC IN A FUTURE EDITION.
ANYONE INTERESTED IN HOW OUR GOVERNMENT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK WILL ENJOY THIS NEXT ARTICLE FROM THE WSJ, BY SENATE LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL
FINALLY, SOME GREAT LEADERSHIP READING THAT WILL BE USEFUL TO MANY.
(TOM K. IS A VERY BRIGHT AND INSIGHTFUL GUY)
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The Enterprise – What Next Part 2 —Insights From Others
August 21st, 2016By John Mariotti.
SEE MY LATEST ON-LINE POSTS AT THEDAILYJOURNALIST.COM, AND SPECIFICALLY AT THIS LINK: http://thedailyjournalist.com/?s=John+Mariotti&x=0&y=0
TheDailyJournalist.com was founded by an Ohio State grad, Jaime Ortega a few short years ago. He has an extensive network of contributors, and I decided to add some of my writing to his site. Go see it (not just my pieces, but you are welcome to read them too), but the broad range of topics, writers, and material. In an era when things are evolving at breakout speed, when global reach is both easy and mandatory, and when perspectives from multiple generations matter so much, these sites will become increasingly valuable resources.
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FOR THOSE WHO CARE ABOUT WHAT CONSUMERS ARE THINKING AND DOING, HERE’S THE LINK FOR YOU http://www.consumersnapshot.com
My friends and colleagues at Big Insight/Prosper Group still produce some of the most accurate and insightful material available. Their network of about 8000 consumers surveyed every month gives them an accuracy (very low margin of error—like 1%) that is seldom seen in surveys that make headlines—with 4-5% margin of error. Check it out and click on some other links on the site. You will be impressed. If you want to speak with them about becoming a “subscriber,” and get the ability to sort, slice, dissect and analyze the data they gather, and most of all have them put what you want into one of their “Insight Centers” on a regular basis, let me know and I’ll connect you to the right person(s). This is as close as you can come to actually predicting the future. http://www.consumersnapshot.com
DO YOU HAVE ENOUGH THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT?
The prospect of Hillary Clinton in the White House is surpassed only by the threat of the ultimate kind of attack—not a cyberattack, which is very, very bad—but an attack with an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) device, which literally destroys (permanently) all unprotected electronics of any kind in the area of the attack. These were discovered as a by-product of nuclear testing (which creates big EMPs) and they also can occur as a result of extreme sunspot activity—of which there is about a 10% chance of occurring in the next decade. Nothing electrical or electronic will work at all: the Power Grid, the Internet, GPS systems, ATMs, and satellites, and every form of communications, and electronics in cars, computers, homes, businesses, utilities—all of it—is wiped out by a powerful EMP. Even toilets and drinking water probably won’t work because the water companies pumps would be useless.
It’s not easy to mount such an attack. It takes a lot of power, but no more than a rather smallish nuke, detonated at altitude, over an important city. Nor is it wise to attack with these if you want to occupy the attacked areas, since an EMP totally and permanently cripples all electronics in the target area, rendering it all useless—and the occupants desperate. The saddest thing is that the US Congress has known for several years that for an investment of between $2-5 billion, the critical parts of the Power Grid and other systems in the USA can be “hardened.” That means surrounded by a Faraday Cage (a technical name for a specially designed metal mesh box). The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy calls it a “real and present danger.”
WHY ISN’T ANYTHING BEING DONE TO PROTECT OUR COUNTRY FROM EMPs?
Because we are worried about which gender uses which bathroom? Because our leaders are more concerned about Middle Eastern refugees than about 325 million Americans? I don’t know. Someone has their head up their … well a “very dark place.” To give some credit, the Obama administration has taken a few baby steps to protect some agin satellites and high voltage transformers—but nothing else except commission more studies about what to do. Duh? This is one where you can write, call or email your Congressional Representatives and Senators and push them for bi-partisan action. Do it now.
DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICAN EDUCATION AND EDUCATORS
The State Board of Education in OH—my home state—recently lowered scores needed to meet state standards on two high-school math tests. Why? Because they were “too tough,” particularly for poor, disadvantaged students. I didn’t know being poor meant the human brain didn’t work right. Perhaps its more about motivation than education? In recent years, major big name colleges were guilty of “grade inflation,” giving students higher grades to avoid the ire of parents and donors because some people didn’t get all A’s and B’s. The best one yet was when a group of students at Oberlin College (here in OH again) want to have all grades below C eliminated, so they can spend less time studying and more time demonstrating about social issues.
LIBERAL CONTROL OF ACADEMIA AND THE MEDIA IS “OUT OF CONTROL”
After decades of increasingly liberal faculty and administrators in schools at all levels, the insanity is growing. Poor performing teachers are protected by lax tenure rules and aggressive teacher’s unions. Meanwhile, teacher in inner cities are in danger of personal injuries or worse from students that they are prevented from disciplining—or sending off the detention—at the local jail. WSJ wrier Jason Riley was recently “Disinvited” from a campus speaking event. Read about this in his own words. He closes this article with these words: “We’ve reached the point where conservatives must have their campus speakers pre approved by left-wing pressure groups. If progressives aren’t already in control of academia, they’re pretty close.”
Download I Was Disinvited on Campus – WSJ
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THE BRILLIANT THOMAS SOWELL ALSO WEIGHS IN “Young graduates need to experience the world off campus”
I encourage you to read these .pdf files that are the words of brilliant (and coincidentally, black men) commenting on how far off base our academic institutions and leadership has gone. Depending on the report you read, 75 to 90% of the people in academia are “liberal,” and many of them are “far left leaning” because they are protected by their tenure and their institutions. They are poisoning the minds of students across America with a terribly slanted perspective of what’s right and wrong in our society, our social systems, our government and our private sector. One of Sowell’s comments in the article posted below was, “Two themes seem to dominate commencement speeches. One is shameless self-advertising by people in government, or in related organizations supported by the taxpayers or donors, saying how nobler it is to be in “public service” than working in business or other “selfish” activities. In other words, the message is that it is morally superior to be in organizations consuming output produced by others than to be in organizations which produce that output. … The second theme….is to flatter the graduates that they are now equipped to go out into the world as “leaders” who can prescribe how other people should live.” Read the whole OpEd piece for more, equally incisive comments.
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GEORGE WILL CITES FORMER INDIANA GOV, AND NOW PURDUE PRESIDENT, MITCH DANIELS—WHO GETS IT RIGHT!
Will is such a skilled writer that I won’t do more than introduce his OpEd piece and tell you that it is so right; that Mitch Daniels gets it so right, it is a must read, and must share.
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HOW DID ALL THE LIBERALS GET INTO ACADEMIA AND MEDIA?
I clearly recall an answer to this question when I posed it to someone knowledgeable about where college graduates go to work. The message was this. The graduates finishing in the top half of classes predominantly are hired by the private sector: businesses, who can and do pay higher salaries for the best and the brightest. In these jobs, wealth is created, global innovations are created, and the free enterprise based economic development of the USA was created and is sustained in spite of forces trying to tear it down. Graduates ranking in the lower half of the classes head to places where they get paid far less (because of their lower academic ranking) but in which they can have a disproportionate amount of power and influence compared to their intellectual prowess (at least as demonstrated by their college class rank.)
Do some brilliant people from the top half go into academia and media? Sure they do I just cited a couple of them. Do some of the lower ranking graduates make their way into business jobs? Of course. Exceptions exist to every rule or trend. BUT…think about President Barack Obama’s example. He became a community organizer and a part time adjunct law professor. Did he sacrifice a cushy, big bucks legal job? Maybe? Or maybe he wasn’t up for the competition in the big leagues of the legal profession, so he defaulted to where his voice would have disproportionate influence with a less educated segment of society. Is tenure one of the remnants of bygone centuries that has morphed from a tool to protect the brilliant from meddlers, to a tool to protect the mediocre from discovery and rejection You decide.
Stay tuned for an exciting next edition. I received an early copy of a booklet—20 very impressive pages—from friend Herb Meyer, the former Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council under President Ronald Reagan. Meyer was the first highly ranked government official to foresee and predict the fall of the Berlin Wall. His book let is entitled: Why is the World So Dangerous? Next edition I’ll tease you with excerpts and tell you where you can get copies to read and share.
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The Enterprise – Things That Make Me Go “Why?” & A Bonus Feature
August 20th, 2016
By John Mariotti.
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FIRST A BELATED HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY TO ALL
NEXT, THERE ARE PLENTY OF PEOPLE WRITING ABOUT FBI DIRECTOR COMEY’S INCREDIBLE DECISION NOT TO PURSUE A HILLARY CLINTON INDICTMENT
There are only a few things I can think of to say. One requires only three letters—WTF? I suspect you know what these letters stand for. After Comey’s build up litany own Hillary’s flagrantly irresponsible actions, few people comprehend his conclusion not to indict her. The one word from the movie The Princess Bride comes to mind: “Inconceivable!” At least the American voting public should now know—beyond any doubt—the character, veracity and UN-trustworthiness of this woman. To those who still support her, I can only feel bad for them. They are as misguided as Hillary is crooked and unprincipled. Not far behind is the president who sang her praises after hearing (he knew already) about her transgressions. He, too, is culpable, as is Hillary’s husband, former president “Slick Willy” Clinton and his acolyte Loretta Lynch. OK, I’ve gone on too long. Take time to go “hurl” and come back for new content.
HOW DOES OBAMA GET AWAY WITH IT?
From Richard Benedetto’s fine piece in the WSJ, )5/20/2016: “…he is a deft manipulator of the media, probably more skillful than any president either” Since the media is 75-90% left leaning liberals, they happily let Obama manipulate them. “He heads a savvy public-relations machine that markets him like a Hollywood celebrity a role he obligingly and successfully plays.” The Obama years have been economic stagnation, and a decline in the standard of living of the very constituents who voted him into office twice. Welfare rolls have grown and more giveaway programs exist than every before. Income redistribution in the name of phony ”fairness,” is one of Barack Obama’s core competencies. “…Obama is the beneficiary of news-media managers and reporters who mostly like his style and agree with his policies, …
CAN TRUMP WIN? YES, HE CAN. THERE ARE MANY REASONS WHY.
These quotes are from Philadelphia Daily News columnist Christine Flowers:
I vowed I would never vote for Donald Trump. I have written at last count, seven columns explaining why he repulses me… And yet, of course, the rest of this column will be devoted to why, barring a deus ex machina named Paul Ryan, I will be voting for him in November. The reason I am turning hypocrite of the highest order at an epidermal level, is to keep myself from becoming a hypocrite at the deepest level of consciousness. I cannot put Hillary Clinton in a position to shape the Supreme Court. … What I cannot do, as I realized this week, is live in world where women who have just been told that they can terminate their pregnancies much more easily than they can acquire a tattoo. …What has changed is my determination not to vote for Trump. That’s because it is not enough not to vote for Clinton….Currently, the only thing standing between Clinton and the court is Trump.”
I cannot put it any more intensely than this fine woman writer has stated it.
HERE ARE TWO SCENARIOS IN WHICH TRUMP MIGHT EKE OUT A WIN—BUT IT WON’T BE EASY—BECAUSE THE OBAMA ELECTION “MACHINE” WILL BE BACKING HILLARY
Download Trump’s Pro-Growth Path to Victory – WSJ
Download How an Improbable Trump Victory Could Happen – WSJ
SCANDALS TO THE RIGHT OF HER, SCANDALS TO HER LEFT, AND SHE’S CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE AGAIN
The Benghazi scandal alone was enough proof of Hillary’s ineptitude and disdain of the lofty position she held—and human lives that depended on it, Now comes the avalanche of FBI findings on her emails showing a similar disdain for the rules of her office and for the security of the nation. Indictment or not, Hillary is obviously guilty on all counts—in both scandals. We have not yet seen an investigation into the Clinton Foundation, a massive “pay for privileges/influence” entity and a money laundering tool that makes RICO attorneys drool. And these is only a small partial list of her lies and transgressions. She is truly a reprehensible human being, and I can only hope that the American voters are willing to swallow hard at Trump’s flaws and vote for him, to avoid making a worse choice by far.
(FYI—Hillary’s reference to putting Bill in charge of the economy ignores the fact that his apparent second term success was an illusion created by the dot-com boom & then bust. The tax revenues that created a Clintonian surplus were as much of an illusion as the dot-com profits on which they were based. Nearly all of these tax returns were restated and reversed in the years following Clinton’s departure, causing grave harm to the US economy.)
FOR ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF HOW THE CLINTON’S ILLICIT DEALINGS INFECT MORE AND MORE PLACES—READ THIS:
Download Hillary’s Strange Security Adviser – WSJ
BONUS FEATURE: THIS LEAD-IN PREPARES YOU FOR A SUMMARY (WITH LOTS OF EXCERPTS) OF A NEW “BOOKLET”
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Clinton’s long trail of corruption
August 19th, 2016By John Mariotti.
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I could never vote for the dangerous demagogue Donald Trump, said Peter Wehner, but let’s face it: Hillary Clinton is “an ethical disaster.” It’s not just the email scandal, though we now know that “virtually everything Clinton has said about her private email server was a lie.” Liberal law professor Jonathan Turley has dug up a new damning story: Laureate International Universities, a for-profit school, paid Bill Clinton an obscene $16.5 million from 2010 to 2014 to be its “honorary chancellor”—a time when Hillary’s State Department funneled $55 million in grants to groups linked to Laureate’s CEO, who also is a donor to the Clinton Foundation. That’s what you call a circle of corruption.
In another embarrassing report, ABC News revealed last week that then–Secretary Clinton’s top aide appointed Rajiv Fernando, a Chicago high-speed securities trader, to a top-secret intelligence advisory board on nuclear security in 2011, even though he had no background in the field. Why? He was a major donor to the Clinton Foundation and Clinton campaigns. Dating back to Arkansas, “the Clintons have habitually used their political power to inappropriately enrich themselves,” and “to get around the rules that others are expected to live by.”
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THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT AMERICA? I DID—BUT I HAD TO CHECK MYSELF ON A FEW OF THESE—ESPECIALLY DATES
This simple test is one that most American youth should know, but couldn’t pass. Neither could most American voters.
I wonder how many High School teachers could pass it—including those who teach American History?
America—1776-2016—How Well Do You Know It?
(NO GOOGLE USAGE!)
1) Who were the Founding Fathers?
2) What was the Revolutionary War fought about? And when?
3) What two documents were essential in the USA creation?
4) What are the three branches of the US Federal Government?
5) What are the two Houses of Congress, and how many members are in each, from where?
6) Who fought in the Civil War, about what, and when? Who was president then & who “won” that war?
7) Who fought in WW-II about what, when, and who “won?”
8) What was the Cold War? Who was fighting it, over what? Who “won?” When was that?
9) Who are: Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Saddam Hussein, Moammar Gadhafi, Bashar el-Assad & Hafez el-Assad?
10) Who were the last three Presidents? Who is the current Vice President? Who is the Speaker of the House now, and who preceded him?
11) Who are JFK, RFK and MLK? What do they have in common?
12) What is the Electoral College and what does it do?
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Answers:
1) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, James Madison, James Monroe & Benjamin Franklin.
2) America’s freedom from England, 1775-1783
3) The Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1788)
4) Legislative (Congress: makes laws), Executive (President: executes laws), and Judicial (Supreme Court: decides if legal per the Constitution)
5) The House-435 members proportional to population of states, Senate-100 members 2/state
6) North (states) vs. South (Confederate), rights & slavery, 1861-1865, Abe Lincoln, North won, slavery was abolished
7) Great Britain/USA vs. Germany & then Japan (desperation, mostly-Russia flipped/both sides), Democracy vs. Nazism (Fascism) Dictatorship, GB, Euro/US, NA won. 1940’s (A-bomb Hiroshima, Japan)
8) Mostly USA vs. USSR, Democracy/Capitalism vs. Communism, USA, 1970 & 1980’s
9) All dictators of varying kinds: Communist, Fascist, or Radical Islamic.
10) Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama; Joe Biden; Paul Ryan preceded by John Boehner, preceded by Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the house is third in line of presidential succession.)
11) John Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King—all three were highly regarded American leaders. All three were assassinated. King was most highly revered black leader.
12) It elects the president. 538 “electors” chosen on votes cast and who wins by state. The number of electors equals the number of members in a state’s Congressional delegation (House Reps., + 2 Senators). Electors cast their votes to elect the president. 270 electoral votes wins.
A FEW FINAL TIDBITS ON HOW YOUR WORLD IS CHANGING
$1.2 billion was loaded onto Starbucks cards and its mobile app during the 1Q of 2016. That’s more than a lot of mid-size financial institutions’ deposits.
Instagram now reaches 500 million people each month and users share 95 million photos EACH DAY! 80% of Instagram users live outside the USA.
Facebook is now the favorite of the over 40 crowd. The younger folks have moved on to Instagram and Snapchat. Twitter is still broadly popular.
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GETTING OUT THE VOTE IS CRITICAL TO KEEPING HILLARY CLINTON OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE
Democrats have perfected the ability to get out the vote of the uninformed, often (nearly) illiterate, and easily-influenced welfare minorities. They have also managed to sell many of the naive American youth on the fact that Socialism (presented under the guise of “progressive-ism”) is a viable system of government (Bernie Sanders pitch). Because they have been raised without the real world influences of “competing,” “winning/losing” and being responsible for themselves and their actions—they think government should “take care of them.” That’s a perfect lead-in to Obama’s “Nanny-state” form of welfare state. Government knows best, and it will take care of those who are unable or unwilling to take care of themselves. Hillary’s plan is to keep it going and growing.
LAST: THE SORE LOSERS HURTING AMERICA
I’m disappointed in OH Governor John Kasich. I expected better of him than to stand on “his principles” even if it means handing the White House to Hillary Clinton. I thought he was more of a pragmatic realist than that. (I’m disgusted with the Bush family too…but not surprised…after Jeb’s failure.)
It’s very simple. Whether you are a fan or Trump’s or not, any vote that is not for Donald Trump is in essence a vote FOR “Crooked” Hillary Clinton.
DO NOT LET THE MAINSTREAM LIBERAL MEDIA’S DISTORTION OF TRUMP MISLEAD YOU.
In virtually every imaginable situation, I’m willing to trust what a President Trump will do over what a President Hillary Clinton would do. Think about it. He may be unpredictable. She is predictable—she’s an untrustworthy liar! She will continue Barack Obama’s destruction of the United States of America—by loading the Supreme Court with activist liberal justices.
IN CASE YOU WONDERED HOW I FEEL ABOUT IT ALL…
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The Enterprise – On Leaders Vs . Losers : What’s Up About The Economy , The Election , And The Country
August 18th, 2016By John Mariotti.
THE US ECONOMY CONTINUES TO GROW AT 1-2% PER YEAR, WORST IN DECADES
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Consumer spending is up, credit card debt is up. Employment is up, but the number of Americans leaving the work force is also up—government largesse (welfare, disability, Food Stamps, …and retirement) pay better than the jobs being created. Inflation is not up. The stock market is up, since the USA is doing better than most foreign economies, so money (investment) is coming here, including foreign investment—even from China! Large companies are not growing, but are cutting costs (and people) to sustain profits. Small companies are still reeling under the record siege of Obama and his minions’ regulations. Productivity is weak, and that will hurt the future.
Taxes are up and if Hillary is elected, they will go way up—and not just on the “rich!” There is no such thing as a “free lunch.” How so many seemingly intelligent Americans fail to get this is a mystery. Then there are the “eligible to vote but ignorants,” consisting of youth sheltered from job competition and think somebody owes them protection—the government, of course. Minorities and the uneducated, who believe the insane promises of Bernie Sanders and now Hillary Clinton can actually work. All they need to do is look at big American cities controlled by Democrats: Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore and so many others—a broke and broken—and crime ridden.
FOREIGN POLICY UNDER OBAMA IS IN SHAMBLES
He says one thing and does something else. What he does, it lacks continuity and conviction, because he’s simply winging it…reacting to events on the world stage….Throwing US money and resources, (and lives), like “buckets of water on a forest fire.” Allies don’t trust Obama and thus America. Opponents don’t respect America or Obama. They are just bemused, chuckling.… (Even more so when they consider the candidates to replace him.)
Now we learn that our Intelligence community (CentCom) has been “managed” to make the” messes look like progress” and the enemy look less dangerous. How can any leader make decisions under those conditions—even if well-intentioned? It’s clear that American leaders from the top down have no clue about what is really the situation in the Middle East. How can they, when isolated in their ivory towers in DC?
LIES, LIES AND MORE LIES: HOW BILL CLINTON LIED REPEATEDLY ABOUT HILLARY IN HIS CONVENTION SPEECH
The speeches supporting Hillary Clinton were the highlight of the Democratic convention. One was by her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and contained not one, but a litany of lies about Hillary’s background, her accomplishments, and her failures. WATCH THIS RIGHT NOW: https://www.facebook.com/dickmorriscom/videos/10154398092154438/
WHO IS DICK MORRIS? Dick Morris was an insider and highly regarded advisor to the Clinton Administration
“A friend and advisor to Bill Clinton during his time as Governor of Arkansas, … political adviser to the White House after Clinton was elected president in 1992. …Morris worked as a Republican strategist before joining the Clinton administration, where he helped Clinton recover from the 1994 midterm elections by advising the President to adopt more moderate policies. President Clinton consulted Morris in secret, beginning in 1994. He was Clinton’s communications director. Morris went on to become campaign manager of Bill Clinton’s successful 1996 bid for re-election…. (His tenure … was cut short just before the election, when it was revealed that he allowed a prostitute to listen in on conversations with the President.” Dick Morris was there, on the inside with the Clintons. He knows the truth; the facts. And he tells them in his Facebook video.
Encourage anyone who is still on the fence about Hillary, to hear the facts about her vaunted career!
WHO IS UNFIT TO BE PRESIDENT? WE KNOW THAT ANSWER, SO WHY BELIEVE HIS OPINION?
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BARACK OBAMA—A ROOKIE SENATOR—WITH A DEEPLY A HIDDEN BACKGROUND—WHO NEVER HELD A JOB—HAD NO CREDIBLE LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE—WAS TRAINED BY COMMUNISTS? AND NOW THERE IS SOMEONE ELSE HE THINKS IS “THE BEST QUALIFIED IN RECENT HISTORY?” HILLARY? REALLY?
FYI— Democrats (and liberal media) have said every Republican candidate in the past 50 years except Dwight Eisenhower was “unfit” to be president (They didn’t dare malign a military hero).
BUT NOW TRUMP IS IN TROUBLE! TROUBLE MOSTLY OF HIS OWN MAKING! AND IT IS BEING USED BY THE MEDIA TO OVERSHADOW HILLARY CLINTON’S LIES AND MISDEEDS.
AND YES, AS MANY SAY, THIS IS A CHOICE OF WHICH OF THE “LESSER EVILS” TO VOTE FOR….I KNOW…BUT IT’S AN EASY CHOICE—VOTE FOR TRUMP!
I genuinely believe that the “weight of the office,” and the fact that as President Trump would have to rely on staff, will bring “moderation” to Donald Trump.
The other thing, that I believe even more, is how bad Hillary Clinton is—and has been—and that Bill (the revered former president) “IS” not far behind her, in his conniving, corruption and misdeeds. They are truly a matched “scheming couple”—made for each other—in an ugly sort of way.
TOO MUCH TIME TO THINK CAN BE DANGEROUS…OR PRODUCTIVE—“YOUR CHOICE” OF WHICH …
Over the past couple of weeks, the election news has exploded, often with Donald Trump as the detonator. Whether his motives/philosophy are right is yours to decide. HIs words and actions since the August 1first have put his presidential campaign into a tail spin, which may, or may not be reversible.
The Donald speaks in a “stream of consciousness” style, and uses his beliefs (or perceptions), instead of carefully vetted facts, to make his statements. That is a prescription for disaster, especially with a MainStreamMedia (MSM) and Democratic campaign that blows even the smallest (but ill-advised) off-hand remark into a world-threatening statement.
A SCRIPTED DONALD IS NOT AS “EXCITING” AS AN EBULLIENT, OFF-THE-CUFF DONALD—THAT EXPOSES HIS MISTAKES—BAD IN A CAMPAIGN
I’ll get to Hillary later, but first consider this progression of headlines and snippets of what others have to say.
SOME OF THE DONALD’S WORST MISTAKES OF THE CAMPAIGN, & HILLARY’S “BOUNCE” BECAME A “CLINTON SURGE AND A TRUMP DUMP”
“The Week They Decided He Was Crazy” By Peggy Noonan, former Reagan Speechwriter, August 6-7 Wall Street Journal
Noonan’s opening few sentences summed it up: “Politics is about trends and tendencies. The trends for Donald Trump are not good, and he tends not to change. All the damage done to him this week was self-inflicted.” Wow! Harsh but true. Another of her snippets says: “When you act as if you are insane, people are liable to think you’re insane. That’s what happened this week. People started to become convinced he was a total flake.”…. She continued: “This is what became obvious, probably fatally so: Mr. Trump is not going to get serious about running for president.”
Then she turned to Trump’s opponent and added: “And while Mr. Trump was doing this, Mrs. Clinton was again lying about her emails, reminding us there’s crazy there too.” Of course unless you watched Hillary lie repeatedly on Fox Sunday with Chris Wallace, you’d never know about this.
While Trump’s problem is “over-exposure” to media, (with all the chances to say something stupid or at least ill-advised), Hillary holds NO Press Conferences, almost literally hides from unscripted media contact. She sticks to screeching out talking points, because deviating from that exposes her flaws. The MSM (of course) ignores her lies and “short circuits,” while it trumpets Trump’s mistakes.
NEXT COMES A GOOD COLUMN THAT PUTS THIS ALL IN PERSPECTIVE
“Trump chaos hides series of Democratic fails” By David Harsanyi, Harvard educated Sr. Editor at the Federalist, formerly with the Denver Post, August 8, Columbus Dispatch
David is an insightful, right-leaning columnist. In this piece opens this way: “The real political tragedy of Donald Trump isn’t only that he’s annihilating the Republican Party or that he says odious and dangerous things all the time. It’s that his presence allows most of the media to ignore the corruption, recklessness and policy failures of Democrats, who now function without any genuine ideological opposition.”
He cites examples of how the MSM barely mentions that Barack Obama authorized a month of air strikes against ISIS in Libya, relying solely on a decade-old Libya military force authorization. If George W. Bush had done this, it would be all over the headlines. Now it’s lost in the media noise about Trump. Of course, as David points out, the media “ would much rather talk about Trump than Obama.”
Worst of all, a lot of the traditional GOP reminds me of on-lookers who point at, and ridicule a comrade who has fallen, instead of trying to help him up. (You know them, the big names like Kasich, Cruz, Bush, Romney, et. al.) As long as this continues, the Democrats, with support of the MSM, in David’s words, “ .“ ...have the field to themselves. That’s a dangerous event in a free nation.”
EXCELLENT ANALYSIS—A COLUMN—ON “TRUMPISM”
Separating Donald Trump from Trumpism” By Gerald Seib, writing the Capital Journal, August 9, Wall Street Journal
Serb’s piece uses a bar chart to show the pluses and minuses of the two candidates based on a recent WSJ poll. Whether this poll was done in time to catch some of Trump’s more egregious recent faux pas, is not clear. Current data might look worse than this does. The major point Seib makes is that whatever you may think about Trump, and however he arrived at his conclusions, Trump has a powerful message (even if with flawed delivery) that proved to resonate with many Americans. There is no doubt among Americans, love him or hate him, Trump would do a better job of changing Washington than Hillary—and Washington needs changing!
One of the more important observations in Seib’s column says. “If Donald Trump were capable of running the campaign that sits here waiting for him in this data, there is a capacity to close this gap with Mrs. Clinton.” [but] He adds, It isn’t clear that’s possible.” Serb names the movement “Trumpism” and explains that it will survive, whether Trump wins or loses in November. He points out that three years ago, after mid term elections, (former Obama Chief to Staff and now Chicago Mayor) “… Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat, warned of the emergence of a radicalized center looking for a pragmatic problem-solver not associated with a dysfunctional Washington. Now Trump forces, having entered the arena, aren’t likely to simply exit quietly. If Mr. Trump wins, they will be empowered. If their standard-bearer fails, Republicans will have to learn to deal with an unhappy, establishment-hating army within. Eventually, Democrats may have to as well.”
I KNOW I’VE GIVEN YOU A LOT TO CONSIDER, BUT FOR THOSE REALLY INTERESTED, HERE ARE SOME COLUMNS FOCUSING ON HILLARY’S SHORTCOMINGS
Most readers know I think voting for Trump is mandatory—whether you like him or not—because the alternative is Hillary: untrustworthy, corrupt, untruthfuL. Her plan is four more years of Obama’s slow growth, tax & spend, socialist/welfare state. For those who want more, here are three different “takes” her faults and the flaws in her stated plans. (Nobody knows what she’ll really do if she wins—remember—she lies!
AT LEAST CLICK ON THESE AND OPEN THEM, TO READ THE FIRST AND LAST PARAGRAPH OF EACH
Donald Trump is consistent—right or wrong—and only nuances of his positions change.
Hillary is on all sides of every issue depending on her audience. The truth is irrelevant compared to what she thinks people want to hear…
Remember that from Obama’s glowing (moderate) promises, followed by two terms of left-liberal socialism)?
FINALLY, WHAT SHOULD TRUMP DO? FIRST GET A SCRIPT, AND FOLLOW IT; CURTAIL AD LIBS & KNEE-JERK REACTIONS TO MYRIAD PERSONAL ATTACKS…
CAL THOMAS HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD: “Trump should call out Clinton on economy” (Columbus Dispatch, August 12.)
Thomas wrote: “Reacting to Donald Trump’s speech Monday to the Detroit Economic Club, Hillary Clinton said her Republican opponent tried to “make his old, tired ideas sound new.” As opposed to her old, tired ideas of higher taxes on the wealthy with government as redistribution.” Thomas goes on to quote extensively from an important speech made to the New York Economic Club:
GUESS WHO SAID THIS: “… the most direct and significant kind of federal action aiding economic growth is to make possible an increase in private consumption and investment demand — to cut the fetters which hold back private spending.” Increasing federal spending, as Clinton has proposed, would, said the economic club speaker, soon demoralize both the government and our economy. If government is to retain the confidence of the people, it must not spend more than can be justified on grounds of national need … The federal government, he said, “siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; (and) reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment and risk-taking. In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the federal government’s most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures.”There are more of these “old, tired ideas”: “Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital. … For all these reasons, next year’s tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes for those in the lower brackets, who are certain to spend their additional take-home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets, who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enabled to invest more capital.” “If you haven’t guessed, the quotes you have just read are from a speech President John F. Kennedy delivered to the New York Economic Club on Dec. 14, 1962.”
THOMAS CLOSES WITH THIS:
“If Trump sticks to policies and not his personality, he could close the gap in opinion polls. Liberal policies have failed. Economic growth is the answer, but you never hear Clinton talk about it. She promotes class envy instead of prosperity and opportunity for all. Clinton is the anti-JFK candidate. Hers are the failed policies not only of the past, but the present. If she is elected president, they will continue to fail into the future.
SET ASIDE YOUR MISGIVINGS, AND GET THE WORD OUT! TELL YOUR KIDS, TELL YOUR NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS, NEAR AND FAR:
ANYONE WHO FAILS TO VOTE—FOR DONALD TRUMP—AND GOP SENATE & HOUSE CANDIDATES—RISKS MORE THAN THEY CAN EVER IMAGINE.
The Mainstream Media and Democratic ads distort the news, or lie (like Hillary does), or “demonize Trump” for the smallest of remarks. You can see it happening.
IS DONALD TRUMP A CAPABLE LEADER? MAYBE? (EVERYONE KNOWS HILLARY CLINTON IS NOT—EVEN HER SUPPORTERS! )
DONALD TRUMP IS MORE OF A LEADER THAN HILLARY CLINTON! IRONICALLY, HIS RELATIVE INEXPERIENCE WITH GOVERNMENT CAN BE AN ASSET—MORE OBJECTIVITY—BUT ONLY IF HE CAN LEARN TO/CHOOSE TO CONTROL HIS IMPULSES AND HIS MOUTH.
THE SAD FACT IS THAT DONALD, BY SHOOTING OFF HIS MOUTH” IS “GIVING AWAY HIS NATURAL ADVANTAGE:” THE PARTY OUT OF POWER TYPICALLY HAS AN ADVANTAGE AFTER THE ONE IN POWER HAS HELD THE WHITE HOUSE FOR TWO TERMS.
IF HILLARY WINS IN NOVEMBER, ALL AMERICANS MUST PRAY FOR THE COUNTRY AND COMING GENERATIONS’, BECAUSE NOT EVEN CONTROL OF CONGRESS (which is also at risk) CAN SAVE THEM.
CAN TRUMP TURN THINGS AROUND? IT’S DOUBTFUL, BUT A VOTE FOR HILLARY IS A VOTE FOR FOUR MORE YEARS OF OBAMA-MESS AND DEVASTATION FOR AMERICA.
WHAT TO DO? “HOLD YOUR NOSE IF YOU MUST—AND VOTE FOR TRUMP”—AND HOPE HE BEATS HILLARY IN A SQUEAKER (ODDS: 80-20 “ AGAINST” AS OF NOW, BUT THINGS CAN CHANGE)… AND THEN HOPE DONALD J. TRUMP ACTUALLY BEHAVES LIKE A PRESIDENT.
MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL—VOTE IN AND SUPPORT THE “DOWN-BALLOT RACES”—HOLDING ONTO THE SENATE WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT—BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE.
SUPPORT YOUR INCUMBENTS & GOP SENATORS …PORTMAN, RUBIO, PAUL, ET. AL.
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The Enterprise – Ok , What Now ? Trump Over “Crooked” Hillary !
August 17th, 2016By John Mariotti.
THE “WHAT NOW?” IS THE MOST COMMON REMARK OR QUESTION I HEAR NOW THAT CONVENTIONS ARE OVER
This edition is a little late, so I’ll try to catch up. I was waiting until the two conventions were over to see what the walkaways were. A couple of big ones come to mind:
The GOP convention stars were the Trump family. Don, Jr. was terrific; Eric and Ivanka were predictably good, mature and had solid messages. Even the youngest of the ones at the podium—Tiffany, at age 22—acquitted herself very well. The liberal media made a “tempest in a teapot” about two minute lines in Melania’s excellent and personable speech. Biden and Obama have done far worse, but the Dems and Mainstream Liberal Media (MLM) simply ignore Democrat transgressions. Really MLM, is that all you could find to criticize? She speaks more languages, better than nearly all American citizens and made this speech in what was not her “native language.” Try that sometime.
Mike Pence was surprisingly strong, yet down to earth. Donald went on too long, but then he always does. The supporting cast was surprising because there were fewer “wow” celebrities than expected, and the GOP didn’t notice that everyone stopped watching listening and even left the convention hall. Shut things down after the lead speaker is done. Giving favors of a spot on the convention agenda is no favor is the audience is gone. One of the best visuals was Reince Preibus and Baron Trump hitting beach balls off the stage and back into the crowd. Rudy was strident but right on. Newt was his usual acerbic and intelligent self. Both will be assets if Trump will stop talking and listen to them. Trump has a history of hiring strong people—that will be tested in the next 4 months …and afterward should he win.
I CONFESS—I BARELY WATCHED THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
I knew what they were going to say, the distortions and self-serving statements in support of a failed president and a horribly flawed candidate. Tim Kaine is as good as any other career pol for her VP spot. There were dozens like him she might have chosen. He’s better than Hillary, although the faint odor of corruption wafts by when his background is considered. The Dems had the blue chip speakers: Michelle Obama is always good. (Don’t be surprised if she’s a candidate someday. She’s really young and has a lot of zeal.) Biden is a good campaign speaker who never lets the facts get in the way of what he wants to say or claim as true. He fits the party mold perfectly, since Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have only a distant involvement with the truth. (Both are serial liars.)
It’s pretty easy to predict the Dem’s pitches: give freebies to the dependent classes (minorities, especially) to continue buying their votes. Protect the downtrodden and newly disadvantaged (LGBT…etc.). Shore up giveaways to the young who seem to be so naive that they don’t understand there is “ever a free lunch”—someone has to pay for it—and sooner or later, it will be them. Here’s is an article citing the “Prevaricator-in-Chief” and his incredible statement: There has never been a man or a woman more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America.” REALLY? REALLY?
MOVING TO THE DEMS POLICY AND PLATFORM CONTENT
A single phrase sums it up. More of the same as Obama’s socialist plans for as long as Americans will stand it and pay for it (taxes, debt, interest, slow or no growth in the economy, declining standard of living, etc., etc.) Now the Bernie Sanders (unruly, outspoken) forces have pushed Hillary and the party even further left, liberal and socialist. Don’t believe the “progressive” crap. That’s just a nice name for liberal socialism. You can read the details everywhere, but nothing is really much different than the past 7-1/2 years of Obama
-malaise. Right after the Dems convention ended, the most recent Quarter of GDP growth was reported—an impressive 1.2%—wow. DO YOU WANT MORE OF THAT?
HERE’S A LINE I WILL REPEAT AD INFINITUM: A vote for anyone other than Trump is a vote for Hillary and another 4-8 years of decline, divisiveness and misery.
IS THIS THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?
IF YOUR ANSWER IS NO, THEN VOTE FOR TRUMP BECAUSE THAT IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP HER!
EITHER CLINTON CAMPAIGN, OR THE MAINSTREAM LIBERAL MEDIA (MLM,) INVENTS THEIR VERSION OF WHAT TRUMP SAID, INVENTS WHAT (THEY CLAIM) HE “MEANT”
And then crucifies him for their own inventions. A wise person once warned me: Do NOT assume people’s intentions. You simply cannot know with certainty what they intended or meant—even when using their own words. Lawyers do this all the time in depositions, when they ask questions prefaced by “would you say that….” and then fill in what they want you to say, so it will be in the record. The only wise answer to that question is “NO, I didn’t.” Then don’t elaborate. That’s exactly what they are trying to get you to do—say something they can use against you. If the next question is “what would you say?” “NOTHING.”
AFRAID OF WHAT TRUMP WILL DO? DON’T BELIEVE THE MLM—LISTEN CAREFULLY TO HIS ACTUAL WORDS AND THE CONTEXT (sarcasm).
An example of what the MLM has become in recent years was a throwaway comment Trump made when he said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” … “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
If you want to read some of the MLM frenzy, here are a few links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-clinton-emails.html?_r=0
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-russia-emails-20160727-snap-story.html
AMERICA IS IN TROUBLE—TRUMP’S SO-CALLED “NEGATIVE OR DARK” SPEECH WAS MOSTLY RIGHT
When Donald Trump goes on for over an hour, a lot of the valuable content is lost amidst a blizzard of words. That’s why I disassembled the text of Trump’s speech and made a list of what he said needed to be done/he intended to do. (Yes, I know, he never says how he will do them exactly. That’s what every presidential candidate does! Obama got elected in 2008 in a blizzard of moderate promises that were never what he intended or did.)
Points in Trump’s Acceptance Speech—What he wants to accomplish:
(NOTE: Phrases are as close to verbatim as possible, and still read correctly.)
DO YOU AGREE WITH THOSE GOALS? MOST OF THEM AT LEAST? I DO! AMERICA NEEDS A REVOLUTION!
Government has grown too big, too powerful, too expensive, too oppressive and too self-centered. It no longer serves the people it was intended to serve—Americans.
THE UNBELIEVABLE OHIO SENATORIAL RACE
The race between Rob Portman, the incumbent and challenger Ted Strickland, the failed one-term governor is essentially a dead heat. Why? One can only guess the Strickland’s gubernatorial flaws and losing campaign against John Kasich was so well publicized that he has an edge in name recognition. Portman is the prototype for a good senator: Experience in the House as a Rep. as the U. S. Trade Representative (top ranking international trade position), The US Budget Director, and now an experienced and widely respected Senator. in Portman’s 5+ years as a Senator, half of which was with the Harry Reid gridlock on the Senate, Rob has still originated or co-sponsored dozens of bills which were actually passed and signed into law. Who knew that? Certainly not very many Ohioans, if they prefer the inept and incompetent Strickland. (Strickland’s backing is almost all from outside OH, left-leaning Democratic money—no surprise.)
The equation is simple: ROB PORTMAN=GOOD, TED STRICKLAND=BAD….end of story.
FROM CONGRESSMAN STEVE STIVERS
Earlier this year, we reached a dubious milestone in American history — our national debt topped $19 trillion dollars. That means to pay it off today, each and every taxpayer would be on the hook for more than $161,000. We need a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution to restrict the federal government from spending more than it takes in. It will rein in out-of-control spending in Washington and force government to live within its means, just like Ohio families do.
IS THIS WHO YOU WANT IN THE WHITE HOUSE? —PART I
CLINTON: CARELESS AND CORRUPT—CANDIDATE STILL FAVORED BY MANY OF AMERICA’S MISGUIDED OR MISINFORMED (OR TOTALLY UNIFORMED/IGNORANT)
This came from a friend who is a former FBI agent. His explanation is the most plausible I’ve heard for my Director Comey did what he did.
“… you and I both know that Lynch would have declined to prosecute HRC based upon the exact same reasons that Comey stated on Tuesday. The difference would have been, she would not have outlined everything that HRC did in a 15 minute gut spilling statement like Comey did on Tuesday.
Not only was the announcement of the FBI’s recommendation unprecedented, so was the detailed presentation of everything HRC did. I believe that he did that so that the American public would be able to compare what she did to what she told the American public she did — prior to pulling the lever in November. Trump was provided with a great deal of campaign fodder and I am sure he will make good use of it.
If Comey had recommended prosecution, he could not have laid the case open like he did because it would have poisoned any jury prior to trial. He would have simply said in a very short statement, “We have submitted the case to the DOJ for prosecution.” Lynch would never have given us all the information that he did. She would have simply said “We are not going to prosecute because the facts do not warrant prosecution,” and it would have taken years for the public to get all the facts of the case through FOIA requests, etc. In fact, the information would have been redacted so much that we probably would never have known.
I suspect HRC is furious that Comey let all the cats out of the bag. I also believe that if the Bureau had been able to determine that her account was hacked – especially by our enemies – that there would have been a different outcome. Basically, it was no discovered harm, no criminal foul. If she were still employed, the State Department would have been forced to take disciplinary action.”
Comey also tipped off the House members in his followup questioning that the FBI had never questioned Hillary about whether she lied (about her emails, etc.I during the Benghazi investigation testimony to Congress. That was under to and that would be perjury. When asked why they hadn’t questioner her on that, Comey calmly told them that Congress had not referred that testimony to the FBI for investigation. You better believe they did ASAP—the very next day.
IS THIS WHO YOU WANT IN THE WHITE HOUSE? —PART II
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Sore Losers & Passing the Buck
June 18th, 2016
By John Mariotti.
A Sore Losers Box at the Conventions
Both Political Conventions are coming in a few short weeks and seem to have one thing in common. Whoever is nominated, somebody won’t like it—or those people—might have once been an opponent or his/her supporters. The question is how do those people behave at the convention? Or do they come at all—or show their displeasure in the form of a silent boycott.
I have a suggestion for those in charge of the conventions. Create a “Sore Losers” section of seating, which will be assigned to those who lost their argument or campaign, and are now refusing to support the party’s nominee. Offer them the tickets to sit in this section and attend the convention, or alternatively have placed life-size cardboard cutouts of them in the places assigned to them.
Who might the occupants be? Mitt Romney and the Bushes, to be sure. Maybe Bernie Sanders, or some other Democrat? Possible some of the 17 original GOP presidential candidates, like Lindsay Graham or Carly Fiorina? At least the media, the convention attendees and all Americans would know where they stand. “If we don’t get our way, we’ll go home and refuse to play.” (And maybe we’ll take our donors with us.”)
Democracy only promises that everyone will get their vote, but not necessarily their way.
Passing the Buck to Future Generations
Future generations of Americans will have to pay for the profligacy of the past 10-12 years or so. The GOP Congress during George W. Bush’s presidency started the ball rolling and Bush lost his veto pen. Shame on him. Then Barack Obama came in to a recessionary economy and in truly inept rookie fashion, decided to “throw money at the problems.” He blew the top off deficit spending in his first term with deficits in excess of $1 Trillion—each year.
As the national debt heads upward toward $20 Trillion, someday, someone will need to pay for it. So here’s the plan. The IRS (that’s “Illegal” Revenue Service in recent years under Obama) will resume mailing out paper Tax Return filing forms to all Americans. Included with them will an invoice. Thanks to the DailySignal.com, you can see how that invoice might work out.
If there was a payment plan checklist attached, then each American family could choose how to pay their share of the national debt and over what time frame. Oh, is that too shocking for Americans? Maybe they should pay better attention to their government’s fiscal irresponsible spending. Right now it’s just over $40,000 per person, but next year it will be higher as the government spend about $500 Billion more than it takes in—again.
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When Will the Cyber 9/11 Strike the USA?
June 18th, 2016
By John mariotti.
(1)
Anyone who has read the news lately must have noticed how many instances of hacking and cyber-intrusions are being reported. The U.S. government seems to be among the most vulnerable and the Chinese are usually the presumed perpetrator. But for every intrusion that makes the headlines, tens of thousands go unreported, or, in a few cases, thwarted by prevention systems.
The problem is so severe and so pervasive that a coordinated attack similar to 9/11 is virtually inevitable. The question is not if, but WHEN a cyber 9/11 is coming? The answer, based on the acceleration of the type and number of illicit cyber-intrusions is sooner rather than later—maybe much sooner!
For readers who have not followed this new kind of global threat, a little background information will be helpful in understanding it. Around the year 2000, the computer world was obsessing about potential problems of the “Y2K conversion.” (Computer programs/calendars had used only a two-digit year–1995 was shown simply as 95, but when the year 2000 was coming, that little shortcut would create chaos because computers weren’t able to know what 00 meant.) Systems all over the world had to be reprogrammed to protect them against this. This was the time frame when the cyber threats really started.
During this era, hackers developed worm viruses, which, once introduced into computers, could burrow into programs and hide until activated by sending code to them over whatever network they were attached to. Code Red was one of the first such pieces of malware. Then came NIMDA (Admin spelled backward), since it took control of the System Administration function–a big problem–control of virtually everything on that computer. These were both suspected to originate in China’s “hacker university.” Hard proof was scant but everything found pointed to the Chinese.
Millions of user computers were infected; some turned into “zombies” that would follow hackers’ instructions, working in concert to launch widespread intrusions. In still other cases these intrusions left behind “back doors” in systems through which they could re-enter later. At other times a “Trojan Horse” form of deception was used, hiding the malware in a seemingly harmless or friendly program.
Finally, and to this day, human error—”phishing/social engineering” (a sort of spoken or emailed “con” that persuades a naive or busy person to give up the critical information), yields many of the best points of Cyber-intrusion. Disgruntled former employees have always been a rich source of such damaging information.
To date, efforts to limit the disruptions caused by cyber intrusions have cost companies and the government billions of (unreported) dollars and created massive risks due to secret information leaked or stolen.
These attacks couldn’t be stopped because hackers and their programs (malware) are devilishly hard to backtrack and pin down. Methods of deception have continuously been ahead of those trying to stop the attacks.
Anti-virus programs and other intrusion blocking systems look for familiar segments of code in the computer programs that are typical of an intrusion/virus/worm. Now these viruses can change (morph) slightly to avoid detection, over and over. Many could morph automatically to a new fragment of code when a defensive attempt to stop them was detected. Now, even anti-virus is far less effective.
The Conficker worm virus was suspected of infecting tens, and maybe hundreds of millions of computers and programs–and it was traced to Chinese origins. Before readers conclude that China is the only large-scale hacker, there are scores of others. Countries like Russia have been hacking systems for a long time. It shut down all systems in Estonia a few years back. Recent attacks have been more varied, including one on the French government. Before Ukraine began fighting for its independence, it was a hacker haven. Even ISIS is getting into the act via the Syrian Electronic Army and its offshoots.
Many hackers form loose associations to attack targets such as large companies, banks, retailers, celebrities, or even supposedly secure government systems. Anonymous is one such well-known group, but only one of many. Crowdsourcing can form an alliance for a hack and then disband. Tracking perpetrators is difficult or impossible.
The stories are endless, including hacks of the U.S. Army battlefield control, the White House, the Secretary of Defense, the extensive US Government OPM database, the IRS, and many more, a lot of which are unpublicized (for obvious reasons). Recently one of the first widespread smartphone hacks afflicted hundreds of millions of phones running Google’s Android operating system! A common form of hacking disruption (used on financial companies and banks) is the DDoS attack, where incoming traffic originating from many different sources—potentially hundreds of thousands or more— floods the victim system.
This effectively makes it impossible to stop the attack simply by blocking a single (system) IP address; plus, it is very difficult to distinguish legitimate user traffic from attack traffic when spread across so many points of origin. The only solution is to shutdown the system, cleanse it and reboot, making the disruptive attack as success.
Let’s go back to why a Cyber 9/11 is coming and it seems so inevitable.
The knowhow is out there. Hackers are everywhere. Rogue nations like North Korea, and militant groups like ISIS and the Syrian Army are now using Cyber-intrusions as part of their attacks. Russia is an active source of hacking intrusions, often with malicious intent. The Chinese hack everything; often not to do mischief, but rather to steal information—from plans for the F35 Joint Strike Fighter to the OPM personnel data for millions of U.S. government employees.
It is inevitable the some one, some group, some country or rogue state will create the coordinated attack— the cyber 9/11—the one that brings many critical U.S. computer-based systems down all at one time. Just like the unforgettable picture of the World Trade Center Twin Towers and the third target (It hit the Pentagon but many believed it was w intended to hit the U.S. Capitol building.)
The Power Grid, the Internet, all phones–cell and landline, radio & TV (including cable & streaming), Wall Street/banking/finance, Air Traffic Control, and GPS satellites upon which virtually all civilian AND military systems rely, are all readily accessible targets for a Cyber 9/11 coordinated attack.
The only questions are, who, when, and how will the attack come. Cyber 9/11 is coming! Will anyone in the USA really be ready for it? I fear NOT!
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An American debt service explosion
June 17th, 2016
By John Mariotti.
Occupy Wall Street sign in New Hampshire via granitegrok.com
This year the US government will spend almost $250 billion in interest to service the country’s $19+, (soon to be $20 trillion) national debt. That interest bill is incurred at very, very low (almost zero) interest rates. If the Fed loosens the reins on interest rates further, (as it says it plans to do), and a little inflation picks up (as the Fed hopes), and the US economy grows just a little (Which is all it has done under Obama—2%/year is typical), it’s easy to imagine a debt service explosion coming. That $250 billion could easily double or triple—even with modest increases in interest rates.
If this year’s deficit ends up at around $500 billion, a moderate debt service explosion could increase the interest on that level of deficit by 50% in a matter of the next year or two. Continued growth in the deficit and in interest rates and in inflation would see debt service expense leap to $1 Trillion/year in just a few years. Nobody is even thinking about this. Rather, the current Obama administration has proposed unrealistic, feel-good, unaffordable budgets projecting spending substantially more than the prior year, and consuming possible revenue increases—if any—and more.
To pay for all this, of course, Obama plans to “tax the wealthy” and corporations. But where do those folks get the money to pay increased taxes? By changing investment plans and charging more (to American consumers, also taxpayers) for whatever they sell at home (or abroad) and distributing less of their profits to shareholders, which are often pension plans and ordinary American investors. This plan sounds like a lose-lose for American taxpayers, citizens and corporations alike.
Thus, while President Obama and his allies portray plans as taking from the rich and giving to the poor, in reality, “what goes around, comes around,” and the poor and middle class will end up paying more, not in taxes directly, but for everything they buy.
After seven plus years of mismanagement, the president has neither learned that the country should aspire to live within its means, nor has he understood that “there is no free lunch.” Eventually all Americans’ pay for his “pie-in-the-sky freebies,” whether it is in taxes directly, or in prices for things they buy that now must be higher—to pay his new taxes.
The facts are inescapable. US debt is an inconceivably large number ($19,300,000,000,000) http://www.usdebtclock.org, and with growth and a little inflation, interest rates will rise and a debt service budget explosion is inevitable. The math is simple enough for a sixth grader to do. Double the interest rate and you double the debt service. Historically, interest rates have been much more than double today’s very low levels. Add to that continued deficit spending that drives up the total debt and the debt service amount goes up even faster.
The amount budgeted for the debt service explosion will soon need to be $500 billion—per year. All that is nothing more than the tribute to wrong minded policies that keep on spending more than is coming in, and ignoring the consequences. Who pays in the long run? Every American—rich or poor—pays. Even welfare dollars will buy less. What a tragedy of presidential incompetence.
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Crippling uncertainty–Obama’s dilemma: what to do next?
June 17th, 2016
By John Mariotti.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”Most Americans are hesitant to engage in military conflicts that cost American lives, in faraway places, against amorphous and ideological enemies, that present the risk of far greater entanglements. But, however you frame the issue, ISIS and it brutal march through the Middle East must be stopped. That fact is inescapable.There is little doubt or disagreement about the brutal evil of ISIS. There is also little confidence in the coalition of mostly Middle Eastern, and ground forces that are confronting ISIS. The engagement of Jordanian forces is a positive step. Egypt’s move against ISIS forces in Libya is a welcome signal. A much greater stand by Turkey would be welcomed even more.Ironically, what is holding all of them back is the lack of confidence in the direction, commitment and policy of the USA and its leader, Barack Obama’s crippling uncertainty. US military leadership is concerned about starting an unwinnable, and to some extent, and impossible war to fight. Many Americans view Obama as a Muslim sympathizer because he adamantly refuses to use the accurate term “radical Islam” to describe the enemy. They rightfully see his repeated denials of the need for ground troops in the Middle East to combat ISIS as another deception.Imagine that ISIS (or ISIL as Obama insists on calling it) launched an attack on the White House, using missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, or worse yet, chemical weapons. They have all of these, and there are believed to be large ISIS sleeper cells in the USA. Imagine how differently Barack Obama would behave and act if he and his family and their home” were under attack by these ruthless and brutal “radical Islam” fighters.Obama’s disdain for American allies (particularly Israel) has been portrayed openly by his continued use of the acronym ISIL instead of ISIS. The L in ISIL stands for Levant, which includes Israel, a huge difference, in how to describe the terrorist organization’s targeted countries in the Middle East.Leaders must set clear direction, and engage the people under their leadership in creating the plans and executing them. Then the leader must make sure the resources are available and the progress (or lack thereof) is measured, and adjustments made. These fundamentals of leadership totally escape Barack Obama.[Disclosure: I co-authored Hope is NOT a Strategy: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency, in 2012, which chronicles many such Obama leadership flaws and failures. 1) Someone else to blame—if/when things go wrong, and
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Driverless cars – a terrorist delight
June 13th, 2016
By John Mariotti.
Unless you have been on a desert island or a mountaintop with no news, you’ve no doubt heard about all the hacking going on. Banks get hacked. The Cloud gets hacked for nude photos of celebs. The Department of Defense, Army Command Center and White House have all been hacked. Sony got hacked—big time. Drones get hacked. The F-35 Joint Strike fighter–the most expensive military plane in history–had its plans stolen from Lockheed-Martin by hackers (China?) –before the plane ever flew! What’s next? Driverless cars! Driverless cars are a coming terrorist/hackers’ delight.
The worrisome issue is that the outcome could be that driverless cars work just fine but are a terrorist/hackers’ delight and ultimate bombing tool! Imagine a driverless car, operated by hackers and filled with explosives, which could be driven or parked
anywhere, and then detonated. No one would think a regular looking car was unusual—until it exploded!
One of the newer hacker gangs–the Syrian Electronic Army–has already declared its intentions, and gained global credibility. Who might be part of this SEA? ISIS, perhaps? Who knows, or better yet, who should know? Then there are hackers from China, North Korea, other middle-Eastern elements (Iran, Yemen, etc.) and of course Russia.
How do terrorist hackers find their way into controlling a car? Systems such a GM’s OnStar and Mercedes mBrace already connect people’s cars to networks that allow two-way contact. Chevrolet is advertising actively how “connected” its cars are. The question is, connected to what, and whom? Once inside the car’s control systems, it isn’t a big leap to imagine getting into the controls for cruise control, braking, locking/unlocking, accident/airbag reporting, and more.
This is all the access a clever group of terrorist hackers need to meddle with the car’s control systems. Imagine the awful results of such mischief, and even greater harm if the hacker’s intent is evil and not merely malicious. Here is just one example of what can be done:
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2015/May/Pages/ResearchersHackIntoDriverlessCarSystemTakeControlofVehicle.aspx
[Disclosure: My 2010 book, The Chinese Conspiracy, opens with a hypothetical NYC scene in which hackers have turned all the traffic lights green–at the same time! Imagine the havoc that results. Now imagine hackers can control cars to use them as weapons, or to run interference for other nefarious activities.]
Of course the automakers will build in all sorts of safeguards and security, but that is little comfort when hackers have already penetrated systems at high profile targets like the Pentagon, the US Army Battlefield Control, the Department of Defense—and the White House—and actually hacked one or more of the recently connected autos (that we know about).
The list of hacked systems grows daily. Nation states like China lead the hacker hit parade, but they are far from the only threats. Russian hackers are high on the list of attackers, and this totally ignores thousands of clever, individual hackers–some of them very young–who successfully hack secure systems every day. Just use this link to see what is already out there.
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=driverless+cars+hacked&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
The list of potential hackers accessible to terrorist organizations or rogue nation-states is large and growing. The question is: who’s “playing defense” against this kind of threat? Certainly no one in the White House.
The president is busy playing golf, going to fund-raisers, and figuring out who else will step up to stop ISIS’ march across the Middle East. Oh, yes, he’s also trying to fix the VA, keep anyone from finding out everything the IRS really did, or admit what really happened at Benghazi or… help Hillary dodge indictment. Meanwhile, the Secretaries of State and Defense are preoccupied with the Middle East unrest, North Korea’s antics, and much more, with little or not strategy to rely upon.
No place on the to-do list is defense against such cyber-attacks, especially when those originate with terrorist-hackers. Maybe it should be on somebody’s list to watch. Or will we find out that no one was watching when everything goes down at once, like the story in The Chinese Conspiracy, and the terrorist demands come flying at us like ISIS beheading videos?
Then somebody—perhaps our feckless president—will be “surprised and upset”, but it will be too late. Until then, remember you read it here: Driverless cars are a terrorist delight, and they are coming soon to a town near you.
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