This page, in the spirit of The Federalist Papers, contains letters to editors and articles that have been published in several newspapers, mostly local to the Albany New York area but national in scope. The purpose of this endeavor is to chronicle for posterity my efforts to restore and advance the cause of Individual Liberty as fully as my faculties allow and by the Grace of God.
David Richard Crawmer

​ARCHIVE 2 is approximately 23,000 words of personal political perspective from January 2016 thru October 2019

10-30-2019    TRUTH, JUSTICE & THE AMERICAN WAY
The most notable and highly revered victim of the numerous witch-hunts against President Trump is America's original judicial hallmark; the presumption of innocence.

We've taken to trying people in the “court of public opinion” based on the emotional power of what a simple majority believes in the absence of facts.

The Democrats’ and their lapdog media’s extremely biased circus around the Brett Kavanaugh hearings is another recent example of this egregious trend.

Another victim of modern America's new version of judicial practice is jury nullification. Jury nullification was introduced to the world for the first time in history as the ultimate protection afforded to accused citizens to be granted by a jury of his or her peers. If a person was found guilty of a crime but the jury thought the law itself was unjust, they would act to overturn the law. Judges used to tell juries of their opportunity to grant jury nullification to the accused but those instructions have disappeared completely from the bench in recent decades. What is the establishment afraid of?

The one good thing about the Trump witch-hunts is that many of us see ourselves as co-victims in what is being done to the President by the Deep State and their ilk who have been cowed into just going along to get along. Our participation is essential to serving the deep state its comeuppance.

Recall the IRS’ targeting of conservative organizations that sought the agency’s tax exempt status. I’m sure there are very many people who have personal experiences of having been abused by government’s malevolence at many levels.

If you've ever been to traffic court, you've no doubt noticed that judges have been offering plea deals to lesser violations that you didn't commit as long as you agree that you did commit them ...when they know that you didn't. Have you noticed also that you don't have to swear an oath to tell the truth at those traffic proceedings?

We've been incrementally sacrificing justice for the sake of expediency. Maybe a better approach would be to reduce the number of laws that are turning truly good people into law-breakers?  

President Trump has put himself up as bait to draw out the most outrageous of the deep state's Gestapo. You have to use big bait if you want to catch big fish.



10-14-2019  Right, Left or Center?
A very wise person once said: “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit.”

I have a question and only you can answer it.

You'll get all the credit for discovering this truth. With any luck I might be able to lead you to finding the answer if I can get you to answer the same questions I once asked myself: Where do my beliefs reside with regard to the political spectrum? Are you on the right, left or center? Do you tell people that you reside in the center? Have you been told you are on the right or left by people who don’t agree with you? How can they be the judge? What is the true center?

I heard Dr. Jordan Peterson say something the other day that gave me pause. He was discussing political ideology with a group of college students in the Netherlands when he stated that white supremacists are on the extreme right. He said it very matter-of-factly. I would like to ask him why? What is it that positions them on the right? Why do they not occupy a position on the left? Where would black supremacists reside?

Why do we call it a political spectrum anyway? What could possibly be the center of a spectrum? If we were playing a political tug of war, a ribbon at the very middle of the rope would be the center and that center would be marked by a stake in the ground. As the tugging progressed, one side would pull the ribbon over to their side of the stake. When they continue to exert the most effort and pull members of the other team onto their side, what then marks the center? Would you consider yourself to be the ribbon ...or the stake?

The point I am trying to make is that we need a constant benchmark as to what defines the center. I believe that benchmark is our Constitution. It is the stake in the ground so to speak.

The situation we are in today with the Democrat Party being pulled so far to the left, is a consequence of the most extreme elements of the left pulling harder than anyone else. They have been pulling people in their direction incrementally for a very long time and all the while claiming that the ribbon is the center. Then they try to convince everyone that the stake is actually to the right of center.

They have succeeded in deceiving a lot of people as to where their political orientation resides ...but it's not because the left is stronger or that the "right" is weaker. It's simply that our goals are different. Those of us who want to conserve the Constitution as our benchmark, to keep our nation's ideological center, aren't trying to move the benchmark. We're not playing a tug of war. We consider our Constitution to be like a tree trunk that no rope can budge. We've never pulled anyone anywhere except back to the center.

The left on the other hand has taken a branch from our mighty tree, our branch of free speech, and fashioned it into an axe.

P.S. It was our heretofore most Conservative Republican President Ronald Reagan who uttered that quote in my first paragraph. He once was a Democrat. He was also famous for telling people that he didn't leave the Democrat Party ...it was the party that left him.



9-19-19  RULES FOR LIFE
The most popular book in America today is “12 Rules for Life” by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. There are also a number of popular Internet podcasts with in-depth interviews of Dr. Peterson by noted talk-show hosts such as Joe Rogan and Doctor Oz. I’ve listened to these and other interviews of the good Doctor, as well as some of his own podcasts (https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/) and found an answer to a serious concern that I was forced to deal with after the suicide of a friend and coworker several years ago.

Dr. Peterson is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology. His primary message that is transforming the lives of many thousands of people is that many of us these days are pursuing happiness when we really ought to be pursuing meaningfulness.

I found it noteworthy that while his admonitions apply to everyone, the people who have sought his advice the most, about 80%, are men. The reason I found this statistic to be noteworthy is that when I was looking for answers to assuage my feelings of guilt and helplessness over the suicide of my friend several years ago, I found that men were four times more likely to commit suicide than women.  

Is this because women in general have more meaning in their lives?

Most living creatures have simple meanings to their lives. There’s no such thing as happiness. They simply exist to perpetuate their species. As the brains of the numerous species become more complex, they begin to develop competitive hierarchies where males have to vie for the attention of females in order to reproduce. They have to show her their bright colors, their ability to build a nest, hunt or provide.

In the case of humans, we have developed complex social hierarchies involving education, fame, fortune, beauty and many others that involve self-esteem and the pursuit of happiness. We have become captives of our uniquely human emotions. We manipulate our emotions with addictive substances. We pursue meaningless goals.

Dr. Peterson’s answer, as explained in the first three minutes of his Doctor Oz interview, is to exchange the fleeting goal of happiness with one of personal responsibility in order to provide meaning.  



7-1-2019  Slavery Reparations = Distraction
Are Democrats bringing up the subject of reparations for slavery at this time because they desperately need a distraction from the investigation of their Watergate moment? Was their fake investigation of Donald Trump by Robert Mueller and a host of extremely partisan Democrat lawyers conducted simply as a means of covering up the evidence of their conspiracy to prevent his election? 
The covering-up has been continuing during his presidency in the form of an impeachment inquiry by a new group of Democrat conspirators in Congress. Notice that none of the original conspirators in the Obama administration are taking part in the impeachment portion of their cover-up because doing so would be indicative of treason. 
The Main Stream Media isn’t reporting what Attorney General William Barr has found so far because they were complicit in this cover-up. They are happy to assist in the distraction.
But there’s plenty of time to deal with this preposterous notion of reparations while Barr is gathering his evidence …so here’s what you need to know. 
Slavery existed before our country did. Black people weren’t the only race  to be sold as slaves. Powerful black people were the original slave owners who captured and sold their weaker neighbors to America’s southern colonists who needed cheap labor to make their farming profitable. 
When we gained our freedom from England and began the formation of our Constitution and federal government, we had to deal with a democratic majority of southern states unwilling to give up any of their power, including the right to own slaves. Democracy threatened the successful ratification of our Constitution if it prohibited slavery from the beginning. 
Democracy, the tyranny of majority rule, is what our nation’s founders were cognizant of when they created our republican form of government based on the rule of law, the moral principles established by our Creator. They couldn’t defeat the democratic majority at the time but for the first time in world history, they codified the exclusively republican principle of individual rights that would eventually lead to the end of slavery.



6-14-2019  Foreign Collusion
OMG! Trump has admitted on prime time TV that he would accept dirt on a rival candidate if offered by a foreign agent!
You’ve got to ask yourself why Trump even agreed to that interview he had with George Stephanopoulos. He's a well known Clinton hack for Pete's sake!
Well, the impeachment issue had not been in the news for a few days and Trump really wants to keep it alive. Attorney General William Barr has told the Democrats in no uncertain terms that he is coming for them. The American people are about to discover that the Obama administration and Hillary's campaign illegally used untruthful opposition research that they commissioned and paid a foreign agent for in order to acquire FISA warrants to spy on Trump. Inconveniently for them, their illegal spying didn't find anything to use against Trump.
The Congressional Democrats pretended that Barr was somehow hiding something in the Mueller report and tried to hold him in contempt. They made a big fake-news stink about it and then they quietly decided against it because they didn't have a leg to stand on. 
In order to try to stop their low-information base and much of the distracted general public from discovering any of these things, the Democrats and their cronies in the Main Stream Media had moved on to other issues. They suppressed any and all news of the evidence Barr had on them but their political subterfuge has become readily apparent to all but the most brainwashed of their sycophants.
Stephanopoulos' question about Trump's willingness to accept opposition research on a rival candidate was the perfect vehicle for having the Democrats themselves bring the issue of foreign collusion back into the headlines. He deliberately stated that if such a call came to him, he would listen.
By having them express outrage over Trump hypothetically listening to a foreigner who says he has unspecified dirt on an opposing candidate, they have opened the door for the news that they actually called a foreign agent and offered millions of dollars for dirt that wasn't even truthful. 
He's snookered them ...again!



6-7-2019  Donald In Wonderland
What Congressional Democrats are trying to do by continuing their fake investigation of President Trump is to distract the public from the karma that is coming their way. 
The Obama administration and candidate Clinton used the power of the deep state to try to stop Donald Trump from winning the election. When that failed they continued to apply their immense power into impeaching him and removing him from office. 
They do not understand what they are up against. It’s not just President Trump and the people who voted for him. They are at war with justice itself and they’re going to lose. They will lose because they tried to make up evidence to fit their accusation. The impeachment process is not a legal process. It’s a political process. They can use lies and accusations to win their case in the court of public opinion only to remove an elected official from office. 
We The People now have Attorney General William Barr conducting a legal investigation of their political investigation …only this time, we have real evidence of real crimes. Mr. Barr’s investigation won’t simply result in people being removed from office. People will go to jail. Of this I am now confident because I understand that the Democrats ALWAYS project their own thoughts onto their opposition. The latest example of this is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s unwise statement that she would like to put President Trump in jail. She’s really showing us that she knows that it’s people on her side who actually will be going to jail.
Not only will they lose this particular battle to protect themselves from the genuine investigation of the crimes they committed while trying to prevent President Trump from Making America Great Again but they also stand to lose their battle for Globalization and their New World Order. President Trump’s recent trip to the U.K., the resignation of Britain’s Prime Minister, the status of Brexit and the contrived anti-Trump protests in London are all events that show us just how deep this rabbit hole goes.



4-25-2019  SOCIAL- EMOTIONAL LEARNING
This “Information Age” we live in is such an amazing thing to be a part of. The volume and variety of growth and change we’ve been witness to is a wonder to behold. Knowledge that used to take a lifetime to acquire can be had in a relative instant.
With the advent of social media platforms in particular, people who wish to engage in political and social discourse have the ability to interact with people of similar interests from all over the world in real time. We don’t have to rely on the Main Stream Media to give us filtered news, information and opinions that only seem to represent the views of a cabal of disconnected ideological elitists.
Decades ago I subscribed to several weekly newspapers and monthly magazines of national and global scope. Today, those same newspapers (at least those that had objective value) have up to the minute presence on the Internet. One of those newspapers, Education Week, is available on their “edweek.org” website as well as on Facebook. Their Facebook presence is most valuable because of its instant interactivity with individuals across the country. 
If you follow education news you may be aware that our new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, is a relative outsider to politics and thinks outside the box that traditional education bureaucrats are stuck in. She supports school choice. As such, she is taking a lot of heat from education establishment elitists. Most of the people interacting with each other on EdWeek’s Facebook platform are teachers and most of them have taken to emotional attacks on Secretary DeVos simply because she’s an education industry outsider. She confronts their status quo. 
One of her many recent attackers, a teacher from sparsely populated Oklahoma, felt that public schools are great and that having choice is unnecessary. Her personal experience, (Oklahoma does not require teachers to belong to a union) was all she knew. She knew nothing of New York’s outrageously expensive, rigid and dysfunctional system. She does now …and that’s where real social-emotional learning needs to occur (not in the classroom).



4-10-2019  Letter to Editor, Vote for Lower Taxes on May 21st
With NY residents being the most oppressed taxpayers in the nation, why do so many abstain from participation in the only annual event where they can vote against higher taxes through direct democracy? 
Is it duress? Are people made to feel that they would be evil and hateful for voting against the money that public school unions and administrators say they need? 
Is it apathy? Are people tired of voting “NO” every year only to have taxes increase anyway?
Our school property tax in New York is the largest tax most of us have to pay but unlike the income tax, it doesn't consider your ability to pay. You have to pay the tax on your property even if you happen to be out of work, retired, sick or took a pay cut.
Moreover, our public school budget voting process is an abomination of the democratic process. It's un-American, reminiscent of socialism. 
How do you think voters would react if in the general elections we were given one political candidate to vote “YES” or “NO” for? To top that off, how would you like it if the majority voted “NO” but that candidate got imposed on us anyway? Would you tolerate that? 
President Trump has limited the amount of school property tax write-offs that the rich can deduct from their federal income tax returns and that should have a positive effect on this dysfunctional system going forward.  
But we need to do more. We need to change the way we vote on public school budgets. Instead of voting "YES" or "NO" on the budget THEY want, we should be able to vote for one of two spending levels (the budget WE want). If one represents a 2%,10% or 20% increase from the previous year, it must go up against a budget with a 2%, 10% or 20% decrease. This would more accurately and fairly reflect the financial means of the community they serve. 
So vote "NO" on May 21st as a statement of no confidence in the system. 
Vote "NO" to take a stand against the rich passing tax increases that the poor must pay.



4-3-2019  Things Money Can’t Buy
I was listening to the news the other day and heard that teacher salaries in NY are the highest in the nation, the average being over $79,000/yr. The same news story stated that New York’s residents pay the highest property taxes in the nation as well. One fact not mentioned along with those others is that public school teachers’ union contracts call for no more than 900 hours/yr to base those salaries on. Keep in mind that the traditional amount of hours that the average American worker’s annual salary is based on is 2000. This makes the effective teacher salary over $180,000/year in comparison.
Other recent news stories have reported that New York’s educational outcomes are far from the highest in the nation and are always outperformed by other states that spend far less.
I’ve been a political observer and conservative activist advocating for education reform for going on 30 years and I’ve never heard teacher salaries reported by the Main Stream Media before …not to mention that NY residents’ property tax burden is the highest in the nation as well in the same report. Interesting.
I am convinced that teachers’ salaries in NY are not purchasing the quality of education that we were promised when we approved our school districts’ budgets. I believe that what was purchased was the teachers’ silence when top-heavy programs were forced down our throats. Teachers’ classroom autonomy has been compromised. Their jobs have become what I think can more accurately be described as that of program facilitators. 
I believe we have a President and Secretary of Education who understand that the key to success is to restore educational freedom to teachers as well as parents and students. Education policy that leads to more classroom freedom will translate into more diversity. We need to unleash the innovation that our best teachers used to be able to incorporate into their curricula. Teachers’ morale has been very low for many years and I believe this is the major source of the problem. These are things that money can’t buy.



3-23-19  Understanding The 2nd Amendment
In order to fully understand the importance of the 2nd Amendment, we have to look deeply into the fundamentals of law. It’s a matter of the Rule of Law (principles of a republic) being superior to the Laws of Man (principles of a democracy).
The principle behind our 2nd Amendment is that our right to defend ourselves is an inherent right. It’s a natural law that exists without any form of government. Our right to bear arms, like our rights of religion and free speech, is in our Constitution to protect it from the inferior laws of man …to protect it from democracy. 
The right to choose is also inherent. We can choose to pray, speak or bear arms in the pursuit of life and liberty. 
Our Constitution didn’t create the rule of law or our right to choose, it simply guaranties them. We cannot, through the laws of man, deprive others of those rights. We cannot use democracy to force people to practice their rights either.
To further draw distinctions between the rule of law and the laws of man, let’s look at what’s not in our Constitution. The right to vote and a ban on slavery are not in there and the reason is because of democracy itself. The Constitution had to be ratified by a majority of the states and due to time constraints, the majority of those states had to kick those cans down the road. Women had the right to bear arms before they were given the right to vote.
We had to wait several decades for a Republican President to wrench slavery away from the Democrats. We waited further for Republicans to gain a majority in Congress to bring women the right to vote.
Considering the fact that every elected representative of our Republic has to swear an oath to uphold, protect and defend our Constitution, I think it is time to start impeaching politicians who lied under oath when they subsequently attack it.



3-16-19   POLITICAL CANCER
People often say that politics is like a pendulum that alternately swings left and right between election cycles. I disagree. If politics were a pendulum, freedom would be the gravity that keeps it centered. Socialism would be like a magnet, perpetually pulling the pendulum off center.
A better analogy would be that the political body is like the human body with freedom being its lifeblood. Socialism is like a cancer, infecting the body, spreading pain and suffering wherever it takes hold. There’s been no remission.
The very wise men who created America’s constitutional republic knew exactly how to define the extremes of left and right. They created the most perfect balance in the history of mankind. The human condition leapt forward by thousands of years.
Since that time however, the factions that occupy the left have spread throughout the body ...in ways that are almost imperceptible when viewed in the short term. Few were aware of the symptoms.
Republican Senator Joe McCarthy, who was closely aligned to Democrat JFK, did his best to root out the leftist factions that were infecting the cells of key American institutions after WWII. The left destroyed McCarthy and when JFK was assassinated, the socialist/communist factions of that time metastasized.
The Senate went hard left with Ted Kennedy as its new icon and ensured we would lose the Vietnam War.
President Carter’s extreme leftist orientation created economic misery at home. He enabled the radicalization of the Islamic world by deposing the Shah of Iran. 
Reagan’s presidency temporarily slowed the spread of this disease.
Clinton wiped out Reagan’s progress but was stifled from going extreme left when a few Congressional Republicans managed to wrench that body from the Democrats for the first time in forty years.
Clinton and Obama both weaponized the deep-state. They packed the judiciary, infecting that organ with left-wing activist judges.
Obama instituted reverse-McCarthyism to target patriots and our new Congress is spreading it aggressively.
Trump and many other Republicans know the cure. It resides within each and every one of us to reject this disease. Freedom is the medicine. Take it.



3-5-19   James Madison - Our Nation's Least Likely Founding Father
There aren’t many books I find important enough to review and promote but this one has been vital to broadening my own understanding of the uniqueness and the greatness of America. 
It’s an enthralling read, a real page-turner that I didn’t expect when I first opened it.
BECOMING MADISON – The Extraordinary Origins of the Least Likely Founding Father, by Michael Signer offers readers an intimate understanding of how James Madison came to be the most important individual in the creation of our country. 
The book covers the health, education and development of teenage Madison through the writing of his letters of The Federalist Papers to his time in Congress where he was indispensable in getting our Constitution written and ratified.
Madison was a man of small stature but gigantic intellect. He was very quiet and unassuming. He was prone to debilitating anxiety attacks that he had to overcome in order to be able to make his case for the establishment of a federal government to bind the states together.
He was the exact opposite personality of the intimidating Patrick Henry (Give me liberty or give me death) but had to force himself to debate the popular Governor of Virginia in order to win that key state’s vote in the ratification of our country’s Constitution. 
During the Constitutional Congress, Madison’s severe anxiety forced him to proffer his argument for ratification in a barely audible whisper. He spent most of his time listening to the debates and formulating his opinion. He held back on presenting his position until what he perceived to be just the right moment. But when he gathered his nerve and rose to speak, the otherwise rancorous hall went utterly silent. 
This book made me very aware of the fact that our nation’s birth was almost aborted. The vote to create our country was extremely close. Everything came down to one man’s voice on one day.
This book should be in all our nation’s classrooms. 
As a follow-up I also highly recommend: THE FIVE THOUSAND YEAR LEAP by W. Cleon Skousen.



2-28-19  Humility
Today was one unforgettable day. I was very busy at work with lots of long-time customers and a few new ones as well. In fact, the biggest sale was to a new customer who showed up after we had already closed. I'm grateful that we had the inventory they were seeking.
It hasn’t always been this way lately. In fact, I think this was the busiest day I’ve had in the past ten years. 
I don’t want to make this about politics because I really feel that personal economic success has more to do with God than with politicians …but it is also no coincidence that when we have political leaders who revere God, we also enjoy His blessings as a nation (or as a state ...that’s a shot at Governor Cuomo). 
Outside of having such a successful day at work, I also had to get my son’s broken down car home. A lot of things could have gone wrong driving it ten miles with no alternator …but didn’t. 
I also managed to fit in a decent workout at the gym ...and I had a nice breakfast and a lunch that included some of my wonderful wife’s best-in-the-world homemade chicken soup. 
I didn’t tell you these things to be a braggart. It was to tell you of one big disappointment. Long after we had officially closed and locked the shop, a poor elderly lady came to the door looking for a cable to charge her old cell phone. We had one. I’m certain that no one else would …but she had no money and left without it. I should have given it to her. My excuse? I was all wound up with trying to get other customers’ drop-offs organized. I realized my mistake later on when I was thanking God for the blessings I received this day. I apologized to Him for that. 
The Rolling Stones have a song that embodies how I feel about this; you can’t always get what you want but sometimes you get what you need. 
The most important thing I got today was humility.


2-7-19  Trigger Warning: Amazon – Illegal Aliens
Letter to Editor,

A couple of months ago, there was a letter in our local weekly newspaper suggesting that struggling local businesses deserved a break on their property taxes more than rich corporations like Amazon.
While I agree with that sentiment, when we’re stuck on discussing who should be taxed less, we’ve already lost the battle.  We’re all taxed too much.
Instead of playing into the politicians’ game of pitting the rich against the poor, I’d like to redirect peoples’ attention to the real tax problem; runaway government spending.
Our career politicians and bureaucrats of the swamp are spending beyond citizens’ means. Every agency of government, from local school districts to the feds in Washington needs to go on a fiscal diet.
Our government used to tax imports from other countries by way of tariffs but that wasn’t enough. They started taxing the peoples’ income. They spent our money until we ran out. They borrowed from the people by selling bonds. They abandoned the gold standard and printed enough uncollateralized money to cause inflation. They borrowed from banks until they reached their credit limit, then they borrowed from China. They sold national assets to foreign investors. But the worst they would ever do, in my humble opinion, was to tax our property.
By taxing our homes, primarily to fund public schools, they saddled the poor and middle classes with borrowing money to pay for their runaway spending. They’ve rigged the public school budget system to deprive us of the ability to vote for less spending. We get to vote …but we can only vote to spend more. Many New Yorkers are voting with their feet.
When we buy a used house that the previous owner paid taxes on for decades, we’re actually borrowing money to rebate that person’s property taxes ...tax monies that the state has already spent. When we buy a new house, we borrow the money based on the cost of the house plus the property taxes that the state will spend in the future …on corporate subsidies for Amazon and free college for illegal aliens.



2-2-19  PUNISHMENT
When President Trump and the Republican Congress passed their first-ever genuine tax on the rich, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit against the federal government. He stated that he felt that they were out to punish “Democrat states”. My first thought was that we aren’t Democrat states. My second thought was that a tax cut for the majority of the people was not a punishment. I also believed that Cuomo’s words and actions reflected his commitment to continue to pander to his rich downstate cronies who would be paying for the tax cut.
I was also reminded of the time when President Bush and the Republican Congress offered a more modest tax cut. The Democrat obstructionists at that time referred to those cuts as Draconian; a severe punishment. I distinctly remember this because I was pestering Democrats with my missives back then and I wrote a letter about the true meaning of the word inspired by Draco for putting people to death for stealing a loaf of bread. To show how entrenched in cronyism, indoctrination and brainwashing the Democrats were even then, Microsoft changed the definition of “Draconian” in Encarta to mean “budget cuts”. 
When Bill Clinton was in office, when he wasn’t preoccupied with interns, and House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his Republican Congress offered up some tax cuts, they were rebuffed by Democrats who asked: “How are you going to pay for it”?  I scratched my head and asked, “Sure, how are you going to pay for that winning lottery ticket and how can you afford that pay raise?” 
Even during the Reagan years when Democrats were in the middle of the 40 years of their reign of Congress and I think Andrew Cuomo was still in diapers, his father Mario characterized Reagan’s tax cut proposal as going on a weight-loss diet by cutting off an arm and a leg. 
Democrats seem preoccupied with punishment but confused as to what it is. I think it includes having a poor young intern on her knees, aborting babies, oppressive taxation and gun confiscation.


1-26-19  RESPONSIBILITY
Remember when Obama was president? I know you would like to forget but bear with me for a minute. Throughout the entirety of his presidency, Barack Obama blamed George Bush every time one of his own party’s liberal, leftist, socialist, progressive policies failed to produce desirable results.
I certainly recall Obama’s suggestion to Joe the plumber that he was not responsible for his own business’ success. He stated that “someone else made that happen.”
Remember when businessman Herman Cain criticized Hillary Clinton’s plans to raise taxes on businesses and she responded that she wasn’t responsible for businesses that were under-capitalized?
Remember when Obama targeted heavy industries like coal and promoted “green jobs” with subsidies and other forms of corporate welfare? Remember the high unemployment that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested was good for the economy? Remember when Obama scoffed at candidate Trump’s plans to create jobs by asking: “What’s he gonna do, wave a magic wand?”
How about the more recent instance when our GDP and employment numbers rose to levels we never saw under Obama and how he then popped his head up over the wall he built around his new not-so-white-house and tried to take credit for Trump’s economy?
No one should be surprised when socialists blame their failures on someone else. Individual socialists cannot be held responsible because responsibility is deflected throughout its bureaucracy. The buck never stops anywhere. Nothing is truly ever their fault because socialism’s policies are based on a lack of responsibility.
Likewise they cannot give credit for others’ success because they cannot imagine the responsibility required to achieve it. They’ve been brought up to believe, largely through indoctrination in our unionized public schools, that everything has to be a team effort and that no one should excel beyond their constraints. This is why Barack Obama harbors the notion that America is not exceptional and why Andrew Cuomo believes that America was never that great. Greatness and exceptionalism are anathema to their party’s core principles. They are triggered to outrage by the very notion of Making America Great Again.



1-14-19  We Would All Be Millionaires
If it weren’t for the taxes that Americans have had to pay over the past century of our nation’s existence, our citizenry would be as wealthy as that of Dubai.

Do you think that the money you borrowed using your new car as collateral was how you paid for that car? If it weren’t for the taxes being withheld from your paycheck, would you have had to borrow that money?

Do you think that the money you borrowed using your home as collateral was how you paid for that home?

The money that you borrowed to purchase your home is actually going to pay the previous owners’ property taxes …just as they had to borrow to pay theirs. If not for property taxes, we could all be living in mansions. As it now stands, our property has little or no real value today. The cost of our property, its lack of equity, is a consequence of taxflation.

Did you know that income taxes were first implemented to be able to pay for wars? The Civil War was the first and that tax was rescinded after the war.

Throughout all of the 19th century, until the eve of the 1st World War, the principal source of revenue for the federal government was tariffs – taxes on imports. Our Constitution prohibited a direct tax on the people. Congress got around that impediment to its growth by passing the 16th Amendment in 1913, creating the modern income tax.

The concept of income tax withholding, implemented by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was our federal government’s first and most expansive foray into stealth taxation. It made it possible to increase income taxes on the American workforce without their knowledge. It was much easier for government to raise tax revenue from the peoples’ income (once considered unconstitutional) by taking it before we ever got to see it.

Did you know that FDR once proposed a 100% tax on all income over $25,000?

Isn’t it about time we gave ourselves a break and elected a President to refocus on tariffs?  ...oh yeah, we did.



12-29-18  EGOS & LIES
Do you have a friend or family member who routinely registers their opposition to your conservative positions on public affairs? Do you wonder how they could possibly hold views that defy logic? Do you try in vain to show them the truth that you see so plainly?

If so, you’re in good company. Your frustration is shared by many. What we have to understand is that we’re up against a well oiled machine that is working against our best efforts. It’s not easy to fight the subversion that the left is engaged in. They have the upper hand in that their proactive power of suggestion creates an initial impression in the minds of their victims. Once that initial impression is set in place, it’s difficult to dislodge.

The lefts’ brainwashing tactics start by using multiple sources to project the idea that they want their victims to believe. You’ll hear subtle allusions to what they are peddling in weather reports, music, commercials, spectator sports and virtually every other communication forum.

The attacks on Judge Brett Kavanaugh are a perfect example of how this works. There is no defense that can anticipate and repel a false allegation before it is alleged. He could have been accused of kicking a dog, putting ketchup on his eggs or picking his feet in Poughkeepsie*. The power of a suggestion is well documented to simply be taken as fact ...just as once you hear something you cannot un-hear it and once you’ve seen something you cannot un-see it. Your ego will protect and defend what you know, heard or saw unless and until someone cares enough to present evidence that convinces you otherwise.

But when leftist politicians are involved, they have more at stake in defending their lie than you do in defending the truth that you are not intimately or directly affected by.

* "...picking your feet in Poughkeepsie", from “The French Connection” scene where Gene Hackman’s character tells the drug dealer that he has the power to arrest him for anything, real or imagined and that there’s nothing he can do to stop him.



11-14-2018  Election Waves
Was the race for NY Governor a loss for Republicans …or was it a loss for Liberalism?
The race was a choice between downstate liberal Democrat Andrew Cuomo and downstate liberal Republican challenger Marc Molinaro. 
Incumbency gave Cuomo a running start but more importantly, he’s a big city politician in a state that doesn’t have the benefit of an electoral college. Of the state’s 62 counties, 12 downstate counties have more voters than the 50 upstate counties. Molinaro won 47 of New York’s counties. A statewide electoral college would empower the people of smaller counties like Rensselaer where Molinaro handily defeated Cuomo.
Without the benefit of a state-wide system like the Electoral College that ensures small states will not be dominated by big states at the federal level, small counties of New York will forever be subjects of the lords of New York City. We will never have true representation in Albany. It’s as if we never had a revolution and are still the subjects of King George.
Despite these disadvantages, Molinaro could have won this race but he was weak on conservative issues and he didn’t embrace President Trump. During his gubernatorial debate with Cuomo, Molinaro distanced himself from Trump’s tax reform that eliminated property tax write-offs for the rich. He appeared to be pandering to the same wealthy down-state donors that Cuomo sidled up to …and when voters are given a choice between any liberal Democrat and a liberal Republican, the liberal Republican always loses.
The vast majority of Republican candidates who embraced President Trump and received his personal support and campaign appearances won their races. 
Trump flipped 21 of New York’s counties from blue to red in 2016 and his support is still growing.
Thanks to the TEA Party, the battle for the hearts and minds of voters has shifted away from Democrat vs. Republican to one of liberal vs. conservative. Incumbent liberal Republican lawmakers backed by the donor class have been losing their primary races to minimally financed conservative grassroots challengers. Dozens more have chosen retirement. 
That’s the real Red Wave.



10-30-2018  Admitting Mistakes
I don’t remember exactly when or where it was that President George W. Bush was asked very bluntly, very disrespectfully, to name a mistake he had made. I think it was at a White House press conference and I somewhat recall his jocular response to the reporter that it was a mistake to let him ask his question.

The Main Stream Media back then, as a whole and representing its Democrat Party puppet masters, was against the war in Iraq. They thought the war was a mistake and they thought Bush should admit to it. They thought he lied about Iraq’s WMD’s and they convinced a lot of Americans that he had. They made a mistake.

They collectively conspired to undermine the Bush presidency six ways from Sunday including a DOJ/FBI investigation and special prosecutor that was destined to be a precursor to the current witch-hunt into Trump-Russia collusion. They made a mistake.

We now know that the Obama Administration including Hillary Clinton, key officials in the FBI, CIA and DOJ conspired to spy on Donald Trump and undermine his subsequent presidency. They fabricated and leaked false information to their co-conspirators in the press. They lied to FISA judges, Congress and the American people. They threatened our democracy. They made a mistake.

The American public no longer needs a press corps to acquire news. We aren’t limited to turning on a TV at 5pm every day to see and hear .0001% of what happened in the world the previous day. We live in an information age where real news can be seen in real time. We know what they don’t want us to know. Everyone who owns a computer or phone with Internet access today knows more than any newsroom in 1984. It’s been the biggest boon to democracy the world has ever known.

The Main Stream Media has become a buggy whip and a bane to American democracy. The Democrat Party has become a dead-man-walking …they’re dead ...they just don’t know it yet. It’s a matter of where they get their news.



10-16-18  The Walkaway Movement
Looking back over the decades since JFK’s Democrat Party, it’s easy to see the dramatic shift in principles that has taken place. The party of JFK was the party that took us to war in Vietnam to try to stop the worldwide expansion of communism and socialism. President Kennedy’s most famous speech implored Americans to: Ask not what your country can do for you …ask what you can do for your country.
Kennedy was a liberal when being liberal was honorable, before liberal principles were corrupted and undermined by Russia’s socialist influence in our politics and institutions.
Today, liberalism is synonymous with socialism. Democrat politicians increasingly refer to themselves as Democratic Socialists and pursue socialist policies. The Liberalism of JFK is now referred to as Classical or Market Liberalism.
In Barrack Hussein Obama, we had a Democrat president who thought exactly the opposite of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s admonition to “ask not what your country can do for you”. With his “fundamental transformation” Obama sought to establish socialism. He created government programs under the guise of “Positive Liberties”, things that your country had to do for you. 
Obama felt that government had to provide things like cell phones, subsidized cars, homes and healthcare. He had the temerity to refer to our Bill of Rights as a list of “Negative Liberties”. He turned our Constitution on its head.
In artificially dividing our liberties into two opposing types, he divided our country into two camps; one on the right being the tax producers that funded his Positive Liberties and one on the left that consumed them. 
President Reagan once said that he didn’t leave the Democrat Party, it was the Democrat Party that left him. Many have followed his lead including President Trump. With the recently formed Walkaway movement, many more are going to follow him this November. Democrats who swear they had never voted Republican have vowed to do just that in this upcoming election. They see the lies, hate and division of today’s Democrat Party and want no part of it. How about you?



9-26-2018  What happened Mrs. Clinton?
In the latest edition of her 2017 memoir: “What Happened,” Mrs. Clinton made the outrageous proclamation that Republicans are undermining of our country’s norms and institutions.

“There is a tendency, when talking about these things, to wring our hands about ‘both sides.’ But the truth is that this is not a symmetrical problem,” she states. “We should be clear about this: The increasing radicalism and irresponsibility of the Republican Party, including decades of demeaning government, demonizing Democrats, and debasing norms, is what gave us Donald Trump”.

“Whether it was abusing the filibuster and stealing a Supreme Court seat, gerrymandering congressional districts to disenfranchise African Americans, or muzzling government climate scientists, Republicans were undermining American democracy long before Trump made it to the Oval Office,” she said.

That’s a lot of nonsense to address but I’m going to have a crack at it.

Mrs. Clinton stated that Republicans have undermined our country’s norms and institutions. Really? Was it under the guise of a “fundamental transformation”? Who bans God from the public square? Who won’t let citizens have choices in public education?

Mrs. Clinton says that people blame this on both Republicans and Democrats but she says it’s only Republicans that are irresponsible and radical. She seems willfully ignorant that the sides are conservative versus liberal, not Republican (often liberal) or Democrat (never conservative) …and I’ve never heard anyone say that both sides are the same when the Democrats are in control.

She says that Republicans have gerrymandered districts to disenfranchise African Americans when the fact of the matter is that Democrats control every district where there are high concentrations of African Americans.

Republicans supported the appointments of all of Clinton’s and Obama’s SCOTUS justices currently on the court.

Democrats are the ones stifling debate among free thinking climate scientists.

Her only truthful claim is that: “…Republicans were undermining American democracy long before Trump made it to the Oval Office”.

Yes indeed Mrs. Clinton, democracy was undermined by that whole Madison, Jefferson, Washington lot of radicals about 225 years ago when they created a more perfect union known as a REPUBLIC.



8-25-2018  FAKE POLITICS
If you’ve always thought that the answer to our nation’s fiscal woes was to “tax the rich” or that every Republican tax plan was a “tax break for the rich”, you’ve been duped and lied to by the Democrats and their media cronies.
You didn’t have to read the Washington Times or listen to Rush Limbaugh on the Radio or watch the old Fox News on TV to know that you’ve been lied to but if you had, it would’ve saved you the embarrassment of having been a dutiful member of the Sheeple Chorus bleating out those deceptive mantras of FAKE POLITICS.
All you have to do is to ask yourself one simple question: Why are Democrats like Governor Andrew Cuomo not calling the latest Republican tax plan a “tax break for the rich” like all the others?
The fact of the matter is that this Republican tax plan is a genuine tax on the rich. The NY governor’s federal lawsuit is a pathetic attempt to show his wealthy constituents that he is still qualified to continue to collect their campaign contributions.
All previous Republican federal tax reforms were actually fair tax rate reductions for everyone including the rich but the Democrats, who needed a wedge between the rich and the poor for political campaigning purposes, lied. They lied through their teeth and their media cronies sacrificed their integrity by dutifully spreading that propaganda. They created the FAKE NEWS badge that President Trump has pinned to their chest.
President Trump’s new Republican tax reform plan eliminated the SALT (State And Local Tax) loophole that the rich have been using to write off the taxes that they’ve historically deflected to the middle-class and the poor. If you aren’t aware of that by now it’s because you’re being intentionally distracted from that truth by the deluge of fake news of Trump Russia collusion that never happened.
Democrat voters need to put knee-jerk emotionalism aside, show a modicum of respect for the intelligence they possess and break away from their wholly corrupt leaders.



8-17-2018  "America was never that great”
Unless you’ve been living in a cave or get all your “news” exclusively from CNN, you’ve no doubt heard New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently state that: “America was never that great” while fund raising before a group of women. He went on to explain that our country won’t be great until all women are fully engaged and “...every woman is making her full contribution…”

Tell us Mr. Cuomo, how do you achieve more engagement of women? 

Is it by denying them the right to vote as your party had for decades until Republicans took control of Congress 100 years ago?

Is it by forcing them to buy health insurance against their will? 

Is it by restricting their 2nd amendment right to protect themselves and their children?

Is it by forcing them to send their children to the nearest inner city plantation indoctrination center (aka public school) against their will?

If that's how you get more women engaged, you're doing a great job. Keep up the good work.

Of course your shocking statements are nothing but words that belie your actions.

You and your party have been fighting for decades to get more women out of their traditional family unit and into the workforce simply so that you can tax their labor. That’s clearly the “full contribution” you are referring to.

You obviously do not want women engaged in politics unless they advocate socialism and dependency. When a truly strong and independent woman becomes engaged in politics, your party attacks her mercilessly.

Like President Obama before you who stated his opinion that America was no more exceptional than any other country, you clearly have warped views of greatness and exceptionalism.

Neither you nor President Obama and a plurality of your voters have ever known what it’s like to generate a tax dollar.

Unlike our current President, you’ve been profligate tax consumers and you add insult to injury every time you suggest that those of us who have funded and defended this country have nothing to do with its greatness and exceptionalism..




8-8-2018  FAKE ANGER
Have you ever tried to reason with an angry person? It’s not easy because anger, an emotion, has a place of priority in how our brain processes thoughts. 
Anger is an involuntary process of the mind’s survival instinct that requires instant reaction. It instantaneously triggers the brain to provide the adrenaline to enable fight or flight. Anger doesn’t require thought which is a necessarily slower process.
If you can make someone angry, you can circumvent their thought process and instantly manipulate their reaction.
Some people’s occupations require extensive training of the mind in order to slow down their emotional reaction time and increase the priority of thought. The best example I can think of is the training police go through in order to successfully differentiate situations that require the use of deadly force.
Some people are naturally more emotional than others. Emotional people make great movie actors …not so much police officers, although they often play such roles on TV.
That brings me to the whole point of my writing this piece. The fake anger and hatred created by the media that we are constantly being exposed to like an infectious disease is a politically motivated contrivance of the Democrat Party. It is thought control and its express purpose is to put emotions before intelligence in political discourse. We know that it works by their election successes …which always precede their inevitable leadership failures. 



7-31-2018  FAKE NEWS
How do you know if the news you’re hearing is fake or not? That’s a hard question to answer. Was it unsolicited …from non-interactive television? People who know the difference between fake news and political reality are far more attentive to the subject matter on a daily or even hourly basis. They get their news from interactive sources that can be challenged for their veracity.

Most people really don’t like dealing with the subject of politics and all of the acrimony that comes with it. They have priorities that don’t include hyperbolic political minutia. Who can blame them? 

You’ll be ahead of the curve just by understanding that the Main Stream Media is a propaganda machine and the purpose of its existence is to brainwash the masses. The process begins by distracting people from actual details and replacing them with an emotive tug …like the car commercial that tells you that love is what their car is made of.

Injecting emotions into the fake news is primary to its success. Feeling the news is preemptive to reporting details that require time consuming thought. Superficiality beats specificity. Salaciousness sells.

Having a “scoop” is also a key element. We all know that first impressions are critical to success and bad first impressions are hard to overcome. The first news outlet to break a story will reach the most people and one way to be sure you have that scoop that no one else has is to make it up. Such was the case with the completely false “Russia collusion” narrative made up about Donald Trump, “leaked” to CNN and Yahoo News and used to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on candidate Trump. 

It’s what got Dan Rather in trouble when he used a fake letter about George W. Bush having been AWOL. 

It was how Hillary blamed a YouTube video to deflect responsibility for the assault and death of Ambassador Stevens and others in Benghazi.


By the time the truth gets out by way of the new interactive exchange of information that the Internet provides, the damage has been done and the conniving will move on. If you want the truth, pay closer attention. Truth is there for those who seek it.



6-12-2018  THE VICARIOUS LIFE
There’s been a rash of high profile suicides recently that has prompted some news organizations to report it as contagious. I think it makes sense but there is much more to it than their superficial reporting. It’s not simply a copy-cat issue. It’s chronic and systemic.
Anyone who has lost someone to suicide can attest to the feelings of helplessness, guilt and the need to understand why.
In my own search for understanding after the loss of a co-worker years ago, I poured over statistics to try to find common denominators. I started with the common knowledge that the season of depression and suicide is winter, a factor that I found borne out by statistics – worldwide, most suicides occur in colder climates. Other key factors were; being atheist, white and male.
These reports of a contagion have me considering another commonality: Television …or videography to be specific. The presence of psychographic manipulation in society, advertising and politics has many consequences, including unintended.
It’s a quick and easy escape from the stresses of school, work or parenting. It can also be addicting. It tricks our mind into thinking we’ve experienced what we’ve only seen. Our minds subconsciously react to these experiences in ways that we have yet to comprehend. 
While a brief interlude into an alternate reality can be pleasurable, over time it can lead to a dependency. It can become your mind’s exclusive source of pleasure. It can also transmit sorrow, pain and hatred.
Turn it all off. Seriously, we will be saving lives and improving the quality of our lives if we stop allowing ourselves, our friends and our loved-ones to be psychographically manipulated. I think Orwell was on to something more than government control when he wrote 1984.



4-10-2018  Not In My Back Yard
To the Editor,
As a resident of North Greenbush, I have no personal interest in the conflict brewing in Schodack over that town’s commercial/industrial development. But what I’ve been reading in this paper lately is eerily similar to what was being written about development in my town in 1999.
At that time, plans were being advanced for development of the area around Routes 4 and 43 but none of those plans were to the liking of the residents of the neighboring lands. They spurned every commercial development proposal of the fields around them that had once been farms. 
They never considered the rights of the landowner being affected by their NIMBYism. Figuratively speaking, they had posted “NO TRESPASSING” signs on their neighbor’s property.
They were there first and thought they had the right to dictate their neighbor’s subsequent land use. But were they there first? 
There was a time when the lands their homes were built on were of the same undeveloped farms. Nobody stopped their homes from being built. Nobody suggested that they were going to create tax burdens to provide their water and sewage, road maintenance, schools and police.
In fact the farmer was probably forced to part with some of his land for their homes originally because of the decline in farming profitability. Ironically, many farms have been split up just to relieve the farmers’ tax burdens.
So here we are decades later when farmers’ heirs are in the unenviable position of having to sell what remains of their heritage to a very narrow range of prospective buyers. 
This is not the American Republic that our Constitution created. We're not a democracy were 100 neighbors dictate the rights of the 1.  
Our children will each someday be that 1.




3-27-2018   WHAT LIES BENEATH
There’s an interesting documentary on TV that gives viewers a look at what we would find if we drained the oceans. I imagine the producers of that film were just as surprised as viewers when they first discovered what lay beneath the darkness.

Similarly, we’re all being surprised by what’s being discovered as the Trump Administration drains the Washington DC swamp. The slimy environment and some of the most grotesque creatures imaginable are being exposed to light for the first time. These ghoulish fiends abused the system for personal and political gain. They embraced corruption for their share of power and wealth. They should now forfeit that ill-gotten wealth.

But we must recognize that there are some very good people there who’ve survived their exposure to the toxicity around them unscathed. 

Some embraced the opportunity for personal growth, ignored the corrupting temptations of wealth & power and managed to serve their country with dignity. 

Some coped with that sordid environment for so long that they simply got used to it.

Many became so enmeshed in the system that they could not imagine life on the outside. Like the old slave or prisoner who is given freedom for the first time, they are afraid of the unknown life outside that environment. They were safe in their captivity and often loathe escaping that warped sense of security. They may even defend it.

Some prior administrations dealt with the swamp by trying to control it - only to find that it controlled them. They took the easy route and sought to appease the worst elements, suppress the whistle-blowers and move the apple cart along without upsetting it.

Those days are gone. Our nation is being reborn. It’s time lead, follow or get out of the way.




2-4-2018  The Biggest Threat To Democracy
You can always tell what Democrats are up to by what they accuse others of. It’s their principal M.O., the strategy they use to distract people. Like the slight-of-hand “magician” who shows his audience that nothing is up his left sleeve while holding something in his right, the Democrats have their minions focusing on their opposition’s sleeve when they have something up their own. 

Undermining the electoral process and foreign collusion are the tip of an iceberg the Democrat Party has up its sleeve. This is well known to people who follow politics on an hourly basis. 

The DNC’s primary collusion against Bernie Sanders, the Clinton Foundation’s pay-to-play scheme, Hillary's illegal email server and Uranium sales to Russia are key elements in the Democrat Party’s scheme to deflect and distract people toward the Trump campaign.

They say all is fair in love and war because people will tell any lie and destroy any truth in order to win at either. War requires deception, stealth, power and resolve. You need to have people on your side, including bureaucrats in the IRS, FBI and DOJ, believing that your enemy is evil and driven by hatred toward you in order for you to commit to respond in kind. 

In times of war, telling your people of your enemy’s evils is a righteous strategy when it’s true…and an acceptable strategy even when not true. Recall Aristotle’s admonition of anger with the right person, at the right time, for the right purpose.

Who is the Democrat Party at war with? Their enemies are everyone and anyone who is not on their political side, anyone who threatens their power and control, anyone who would make a democratic choice against a Democrat. 

The biggest threat to democracy is democracy itself. Thank God we’re a republic.



1-20-2018   "What kind of genius loses a billion dollars in a single year?"…
…asked a beaming Hillary Clinton in October 2016 while trying to make candidate Trump look like a tax cheat. 
Well, the answer would include her and many other wealthy New York property owners who also wrote off their state property taxes on their federal tax return.
Mrs. Clinton’s hypocrisy in asking such a question is very evident considering a position she took during her 2000 Senate campaign when she stated that she was tired of New Yorkers sending their tax dollars to Washington… more so knowing that she had just moved out of the White House in Washington after purchasing a $1.7million home in Westchester County in order to qualify to hold office as a Senator from New York. In doing so, Mrs. Clinton began writing off the same property taxes that Donald Trump and every other New Yorker was allowed to write off under federal tax law at that time.
Now the question everyone ought to be asking is: What kind of genius gives up his ability to write off a billion dollars a year in taxes? 
The answer to that question is: A patriotic genius who cares more for his country than his own financial well-being. 
Because that’s just what President Trump did when he signed his new tax reform legislation into law. He gave up billions of dollars of his own tax write-offs along with those of the Clintons, Cuomo and Crony New York property owners who pay over $10,000 in yearly property taxes.
This is the same kind of selfless statesmanship that exemplified our nation’s founders who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor when signing our Declaration of Independence.
This is what it takes to Make America Great Again.
What will it take to make New York great again?



12-11-17   WORKING OUT WITH FOX NEWS
I've been working out at local franchise fitness gyms since they first opened in this area. One thing I noticed at all the locations I visited was that they had every cable news network on their TVs except Fox News.
It was very annoying, not to mention counterproductive, to have to watch ABCNBCCBSMSNBCCNN and hear what I knew to be lies and propaganda while trying to work out and actually relieve a little stress.
Why would they not offer Fox News to their members when it was the #1 most popular cable news network at the time?
Well, the Main Stream Media and their cronies had been undermining their only real competition with lies about Fox's integrity since its inception. It was a very effective campaign for sure as a lot of politically challenged people I knew suggested that the only possible reason I could disagree with them was that I had to be getting fake news from Fox... they just couldn't fathom the possibility that they were the ones being fed propaganda.
But now, after years of having to witness the non-reporting, misinformation and partisanship at the gym, I was shocked to find Fox News is now being shown.
After I thought about it a bit, I think I might know why.
Now that the Murdoch children have assumed a great deal of control of Fox's management and several of Fox's best people have been ousted, they finally got bumped from their #1 spot.
I've also noticed that people have all but stopped claiming that "Fox News is Faux News".
Is that why I now get to watch Fox News at the gym? Are they now part of the BORG? Have they been brought into submission and no longer threaten the MSM and the dissemination of the political establishment’s narratives?



11-30-17   POLITICIZING SEXUALITY - Letter to Editor
Well, well, well… the chickens have come home to roost for the Democrat Party. I suppose I could just make that statement and see what kind of lame responses the Democrats come up with to blame their sexual harassment issues on a "vast right-wing conspiracy". 
Or I could throw a little gasoline on the fire, walk away and watch the ensuing hilarity with a steaming hot bag of buttered popcorn.
How long did they think they could get away with suppressing the truth and emboldening the likes of Ted Kennedy while bludgeoning innocent men with lies and innuendo? Was half a century enough time?
Just to refresh: “Sen. Teddy Kennedy let a girl drown at Chappaquiddick, after driving with his lights off to avoid detection on the way to a late-night extramarital liaison, and then didn't report the accident for hours, passing houses with their lights on, while he tried to construct an alibi, ending with him asking his cousin to say he was driving.” – Ann Coulter.
The days of Democrat leadership getting away with lying about everything from sex to taxes is coming to an end. They owned the Main Stream Media lock, stock and barrel until people like Rush Limbaugh came along and blazed a trail of truth for others to follow.
Wouldn’t it be refreshing if some brave leader on the left were to break free from the fortress of lies they’ve been hiding behind and just admit they were wrong? 
They covered for Ted Kennedy because they needed the strength of his family’s legacy to advance all their left-wing plans. 
They covered for Bill Clinton the same way and sacrificed decades of progress in advancing true feminism for the substitution of fake “reproductive rights”.
Let’s continue to drain the swamp and Make America Great Again .
This letter received a response from a man who sought to compare by name, recently accused Republican men with Democrats I mentioned. He referred to Clinton's and Kennedy's atrocities simply as "escapades". I felt compelled to set the record straight with a follow-up:



Thank You Philip Kellerman…
To the Editor,
… for illustrating perfect examples of how Democrats politicize sexuality, deflect responsibility and project their own guilt by lying about other men, Republicans in particular. 
Philip suggested I conveniently left out the “multitude” of Republicans who shared equivalent guilt but so did he… because there is no comparison. I didn’t even mention by name any of the recently exposed Democrat predators and harassers… all of whom were actually guilty and not just accused. 
I mentioned Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton being the chickens that have come home to roost as they were the genesis of the Democrats’ decades long war on testosterone, the battles of which they wage only when it suits their political ends. 
Secondly, President Trump is NOT an “admitted sexual predator”. Philip is parroting Hillary Clinton’s lie that she fabricated out of whole cloth in her effort to deflect attention from her husband’s “escapades” including the one that he was actually guilty of which led to his impeachment. And Ted Kennedy was never held to account for his “escapades” including the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. He was much too valuable politically to let that happen.
Furthermore, Judge Moore’s accuser now admits she lied… and none of the accused men at Fox News were “Republican political representatives”… more politicizing by Mr. Kellerman.
Republicans are all too willing to ostracize their accused political brethren before the facts come out, unlike the Democrats who are loathe to do so even after guilt has been proven.
Liberal Democrats have engaged in a protracted war on American men and boys but have shown sympathy to the actual barbarism of men elsewhere. They truly hate men who hold traditional American values and will go to great lengths to demonize the innocent for political gain.



11-17-17   CONGRESS FINALLY GETS IT RIGHT
The US House of representatives just passed its version of President Trump’s ingenious tax cut plan yesterday and I can’t wait to see how the Democrats are going to try to denounce it as a tax cut for the rich like they always do.
The most ingenious part of this plan is the elimination of the tax loophole that rich New Yorkers have relied on to write off their school & property taxes.
President Trump’s plan to eliminate the tax write-off for the rich was initially met with weak complaints from a couple of Liberal NY organizations and Governor Cuomo months ago but they went silent when they realized how hypocritical they were being. 
The President’s plan amounts to a huge tax on the rich but it’s not a new Federal tax. It’s simply redirecting the most onerous state taxes the rich were sending to Albany instead of Washington. 
This is vitally important to understand in its totality because the rich have for decades been voting for increases in school and property taxes that are based on the value of their property instead of their income. Then they used the property tax write-off to reduce the taxes they had to pay on their income. Who wouldn’t want to have such a deal? Well, lower income people wouldn’t because they were stuck with ever-increasing school and property taxes that their stagnant, declining or fixed incomes couldn’t support. 
I knew when I voted for Mr. Trump that he would be able to revitalize our nation’s economy but I was afraid that upstate New York would continue to languish under the feeble mismanagement of Governor Cuomo and the Democrats in Albany.
President Trump’s tax plan sidesteps Cuomo and will eventually,over time, have a very positive effect on upstate New York’s economy.



11-1-17  RHETORICAL QUESTIONS – LOADED FOR BEAR
Do you think the environmental movement in America is a grass roots movement to protect the environment from the excesses of man?

Is modern feminism a movement designed to continue the advancement of women’s rights?

Is the gay rights movement simply about advancing sexual freedom?

Is ending racism the focus of our current civil rights leaders?

What do you know about the political leanings of animal rights organizations? What about gun control groups?

Have you ever wondered why there is no organized effort to advance educational freedom?

What has happened to the traditional American family?

What fuels atheism and animosity toward God?

I ask these questions because I believe the answers show that there is a common thread of socialist orchestration behind them all. Having come of age during the Vietnam War era, I couldn’t help but notice the Soviet Union’s expansion efforts materializing around me.

Vietnam was a surrogate for the expansion of Chinese and USSR communism and socialism and it’s where the Soviets in particular learned that they could better secure victory over America by using our own freedom against us. Our unique freedom of speech was and is their gateway. If they were to attempt contrarian political speech in their own or most other countries they would be imprisoned or killed. In the United States, they can lie with immunity and even be lauded for it by their partisans in media. They had stealthily infiltrated our institutions that had influence over public perception and opinion during the war and continued to expand that influence afterward.

Many of the founders of the aforementioned movements were Marxists, communists and socialists prior to their commitment to the modern cause that they became famous for. The end of the war was their springboard into their new avocation - “peace” activists needed something to do. Modern feminism makes women dependent on the state. Dittos for "rights" and benefits granted to other minorities and groups of individuals. Socialism cannot compete with capitalism but is dependent upon the revenue it generates. It cannot exist without the capitalism it seeks to replace. It cannot contribute to the betterment of any nation or its people. The equality it purports to advance is only achieved by constraining success to make all people equal at an unsustainably lower level. Socialism is self-defeating.

Last question: Do you think Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the election?



9-21-17 What REALLY Happened
There are two books that people who follow politics have been chattering about lately and they serve to illustrate the reason for America’s vast political divide.
“The Big Lie” by Dinesh D’Souza exposes the Democrat Party’s persistent penchant for political prevarication. The author shows how the lies of the left have been carefully crafted to create a false reality, a false perception that people must be able to cling to in order to accept and advance its political agenda.  
D’Souza’s words are true and irrefutable. The Big Lie is a must-read for anyone who ever asked the question of whose news do you believe when you do not know who to trust. Every lie told by the left has a political purpose and it doesn’t matter that their opponents know the truth as long as it advances their political football another yard toward their goal. By the time their political opposition succeeds in exposing the lie, the left has moved on to the next falsehood or misperception. 
Even when the left’s lie-du-jour doesn’t succeed in fooling anyone, they will have succeeded in keeping their opposition on defense long enough to craft their next lie.
Knowing this is key to understanding the nature of the other tome that’s generating a lot of commentary. Hillary Clinton’s “What Happened”, which is chock full of the Democrat Party’s concoctions of things that didn’t really happen, gives their voters the false perceptions they are required to harbor in order to continue to believe they did the right thing in the last election. 
The left’s choreographed outrage over illegitimate concerns shows how far they must go in order to give their minions an excuse for the bad behavior they are expected to exhibit. Their pawns wouldn’t be rioting if it wasn’t deemed advantageous by their leaders. 



7-9-2017   America’s Political Parties                       
A lot of people are bemoaning the existence of America’s political parties. They often suggest that there should be none and that voters should base their election choices on an individual candidate’s merits.
I largely agree with that sentiment but political parties do have an important role. They provide a basic platform of principles that they want their members to adhere to.
They are a lot like businesses in this regard. Successful companies have principles that led them to success and they attract customers by advertising the quality of their product and the principles that went into creating it. They want customers to choose their products and their success hinges on those products being as advertised. If they falsely advertise their product, they will lose customers and cease to exist.
The same thing applies to politics but the hitch that interferes with this dynamic is that voters have become members of the parties. This is where the system has been compromised. Consumers don’t become members of a company in order to shop their products and voters shouldn’t become members of a party in order to make their electoral choices. 
Loyalty is a consequence of consistent quality and merit. Companies that attracted their customer base by advertising quality ingredients will lose those customers to their competition if they don’t maintain that quality. If customers actually became members of the companies they did business with, they would be hesitant to exhibit disloyalty, especially if the company had little or no competition. 
Our system would be far better if electoral consumers made their choices based on the quality of each political party’s individual candidates as opposed to a misplaced sense of loyalty. 
Another factor involved in the existence of our political parties that must be considered is THE LAW.

An individual citizen who wants to enter into a contract or offer a product or service to other citizens or run for political office, has the legal right to do so based on our Constitution. 
Before a company can begin entering into contracts, manufacturing products and attracting customers, it has to become a legal entity. The same applies to political parties, organizations, unions and other groups of individuals. They do not have Constitutional rights. Those rights belong to the individuals within those groups but not to the groups themselves. Groups of people have no mind, heart or soul. They have no conscience or virtue. Groups have no means by which they can employ individual rights.
The biggest difference between a democracy and a republic is that a republic places the law above the will of a democratic majority. The United States is a republic and each individual citizen shares equally in the rights that we have been endowed with by our Creator. 
God didn’t give rights to members of groups that the individuals in those groups don’t already enjoy. Democratic majority has no place in The United States other than as a process in the election our representatives.
A democratic majority cannot legally dispense rights. The individuals in the majority already have the same rights as the individuals in the minority. Whenever a democratic majority uses the voting process of democracy to dispense “rights” (read: health insurance, education, voting rights for non-citizens et al ), it is in effect actually undermining the true rights of the minority.
When members of the previous Democrat administration suggest that the new Republican administration is taking health care away from 22 million citizens, what actually is happening is that those 22 million people are seeing their individual right to choose restored.

When a democratic majority creates an entitlement program that taxes some people more than others and similarly distributes its benefits, the supporters of that program will be those who get more out of it than they contribute to it. The pool of those who produce the taxes will naturally shrink as that of the tax consumers grows. Democratic entitlement programs are self-extinguishing and unsustainable.
Here’s another example of unsustainable direct democracy that violates Constitutional law: When a majority of voters vote YES to increase a school district’s spending, they are voting to tax the poor people of the minority in their district who voted NO but still must pay the tax. This is why democracies fail and why our nation was built on republican principles.
The Democrat Party has been engaged in a protracted campaign to undermine immutable Constitutional law and replace it with the fluid, fickle and effervescing laws of man.
What should happen to a political party that routinely and systematically abuses the trust of the individuals who occupy its ranks and violates the universal and equal Constitutional rights of the voters who aren’t members of that party? The party cannot be impeached. Should a legal remedy be sought by an aggrieved individual or class of individuals? Or should each member of that party simply renounce their membership? The simple process of individual voters leaving that party is the most personally effective and restorative approach.
Regardless of party affiliation, our individual politicians and most appointed bureaucrats take an oath of office wherein they swear to “support and defend” or “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitutional rights of the individual citizens they serve. These individual politicians can be impeached. It’s a lengthy process, prone to misuse and controlled by the parties but each of us as an individual has the right and duty to speak out and oppose that politician for reelection.
Many people suggest that Republican and Democrat politicians are all the same and share the blame for the mess we're in. In reality it's just that many Republican politicians have confused the democratic process that got them elected with the republican principles that they vow to adhere to... and too many voters share in that confusion.
We are a republic and our Constitution of republican principles gives every citizen protection from democratic usurpation of our rights. Try not to squander it.



5-29-2017   Taxing Ownership
The more I learn about Ben Franklin, the more I appreciate his role in the founding of our nation. Most of us know of his printing press. Fewer know about the genius of his efficient planning and organization methods that people still utilize daily. People who are learned in politics will know that he very portentously described our form of government as “a republic – if you can keep it”. 

But it seems as if very few of our nation’s leaders know of or respect Franklin’s admonition that one of the most patriotic things a citizen can do is to own real estate. 

The core of all versions of socialism is some form of government control or ownership. Classical socialism is defined as government control of the means of production through its ownership. This of course is now widely known to be unworkable, although some despotic regimes like those of North Korea and Venezuela still employ it. 

Modern interpretations of socialism still require government control but not necessarily through direct ownership. Owning a business or anything material for that matter (including real estate) has responsibilities and a risk of losing that ownership if it isn’t managed responsibly. Hence socialism’s inevitable failure.

The way that new socialism’s variants get around direct ownership is to simply tax what the people own. That way the government avoids the loss of ownership while enjoying the benefits and maintaining control. Using taxation to control what government doesn’t own deprives citizens of the benefits and value of ownership while leaving them the responsibility. 

Who would want to own something of no value?  Can a nation, or a state like New York, survive if survival depends on taxing the ownership of something people can avoid owning? 

What happens when property taxes get so high that they devalue the property? This is the situation that New York State property owners are dealing with, many of whom are simply moving out of state. 

Real estate in New York is losing value. Don’t confuse value with price. The price of real estate is its value plus costs; things like taxes, interest and insurance. If you start out with a value of $100k and pay $100k in interest and taxes, you will have to sell the property for $200k just to break even.

When taxes continue to rise as they have in New York, they account for an increasing percentage of the cost of the property. The only way to offset the increased cost and maintain value is to inflate the price of the property. New York property owners, those who’ve chosen to stay, have been stuck in this vicious cycle for decades. Their property taxes have doubled over the term of their mortgage. Their property valued at $100k now has $200k in interest and taxes over time but the selling price has been stifled because it no longer has equity value. People will invest their $100k in another state where it can be the traditional equity building nest-egg they seek.

God bless the wise New Yorkers who vote with their feet but this leaves stalwarts with another dilemma. Even if government spending leveled off, the cost to individual taxpayers would continue to rise as there will be fewer of them. A primary factor in government spending is school budgets and they aren’t leveling off. How could they when they are the product of a perverted democratic voting process that Ben Franklin warned us about? You cannot keep a republic when the consumers of the taxes they are voting for increasingly outnumber the tax producers who are leaving.

Another thing, not that you need to be more discouraged but when the government gives tax breaks to out-of-state businesses to relocate to states like New York, we aren’t going to get businesses from low-tax states. We get cronyism. We get businesses, mostly corporations, from other high-tax areas that will very likely relocate again once the tax breaks end. They might stay if the competitive advantage they get by not paying taxes leads to the closure of the disadvantaged native Main Street and family businesses so that the carpet-baggers can then inflate their prices to pay the taxes after they have extinguished that competition.




5-1-17  Just Say "NO" to Voter Apathy
May 16th is the day that registered voters in New York get to vote for or against a tax increase for their public school district. But very few people actually bother to take the time to do so.

We know that all the employees of the schools will be out to vote themselves a salary increase and that most of the families of children in school will be voting for it as well. But only a small percentage of other voters will take the time, even though the school budget is the only example of direct democracy they can actually engage in.

The school property tax in New York is the largest tax most people have to pay. It's a tax that, unlike the income tax, doesn't consider your ability to pay. You have to pay the tax on the property in which you live even if you happen to be out of work, retired, sick or took a pay cut. Even if you took a huge tax hit to pay for the mandatory ObamaCare insurance you couldn't afford you will still have to pay the school tax increase that your wealthy neighbors vote for. New York residents are the most oppressed taxpayers in the nation. Many have taken to voting with their feet. Why do so many abstain from participation in the only annual event that they can directly vote against a tax increase?

Voter duress:
People are made to feel that they would be evil and hateful for voting against what public school unions and administrators say is needed to provide the children with a quality education. So, they either vote "YES" ... or don't vote at all, which isn't much different.
Voter apathy:
You voted "YES" for decades and the budgets always passed but the quality of education has not improved or has declined.
You voted "NO" last year because you couldn't afford another tax increase but the budget passed anyway so why bother. (That's pure democracy - where the rich can vote to tax the poor)
You voted "NO" and the budget failed but was repackaged and re-voted with little or no changes and passed on the second attempt.
You voted "NO" and an austerity budget was put in place that was not exactly austere.
The state implements a 2% tax cap but your local tax assessor increases your assessment so your taxes still go up.
The state implements a 2% tax cap but allows districts to present "Capital Improvement" bond propositions that will likely be used to bolster the maintenance funds they had to sacrifice in the budget.
Conclusion:
I can't blame you if none of this inspires you to get out and vote "NO". You're a good person and you have an innate trust that you project onto those in the teaching profession. Most of them are also good people but stuck in a broken system they have no control over.
So vote "NO" on May 16th as a statement of no confidence in the system.

Vote “NO” to show that you are watching.
Vote "NO" to take a stand against the rich passing tax increases that the poor must pay.



4-13-17  FREE & Worth Every Penny
New York now has “FREE” college courtesy of Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Sound too good to be true? Of course, it’s another Liberal Democrat contrivance.
We’ve had decades of public school property tax increases depriving high school graduates of the job opportunities necessary to retain them as tax producing residents and now we have a “free college” scheme which requires they  LIVE & WORK in NY after they graduate.
Here’s a question: Will those who graduate with a useless liberal arts degree under this plan be funneled into a state job that further exacerbates the imbalance between tax producers and tax consumers?
This plan is so convoluted that it’s hard to see how it could benefit anyone… except for the Governor who thinks it will boost his Presidential bid.
The “free” isn’t free if you must pay it back by sacrificing your opportunities post-graduation. It also isn’t free when you consider state college students’ room & board, fees, books and supplies are double the cost of the free tuition. They’ll give you $6300 worth of tuition but you still have to pay $12590 room and board. And don’t think the books & supplies cronies don’t see an opportunity to raise their prices beyond the outrageous levels they’re currently getting (reported to currently be well over $1000).
Like all “free” stuff liberals offer to rich corrupt cronies and poor inexperienced voters, Cuomo’s tax-free zones and jobs schemes have proven huge wastes of taxpayer monies and this free college scheme is no different.
Keep this in mind May 16th when you vote on your school district’s multi-million dollar capital improvement project that they pitch by claiming “the state” will pay for it. You, your family, friends and neighbors will be paying the bill just by staying in New York. 
Vote “NO” at the booth now or with your feet later.

3-18-17  The Changing Political Climate
We’ve just come off of 8 years of relative quiet regarding the politics of “climate change”. That’s all about to change. 
In order to understand why, you have to realize that climate change is not a scientific term but a political one and that the pundits and politicians who promote it are leftists.
During President Obama’s reign, these environmental leftists had a benefactor in control of their grant money. They didn’t have any reason to expose their unscientific “settled science” proclamation to scrutiny.
With the new administration’s promise to ease the business community’s federal tax and regulatory burden, all the left’s political antagonists like Bill Nye for example, are gearing for war. 
You would think with all the tax money these climate scientists have had at their disposal to date, they would have been able to prove their theory of “man-made climate change”. They haven’t… because there’s nothing to prove. They live off their grant money by giving politicians a “crisis” to exploit for the political contributions that complete their symbiotic cycle of mutual dependency. If they or any of the other left-wing antagonists were to solve their respective problems, they would break their fiscal cycle and be out of a job. 
Notice how the climate change industry’s promoters conflate the terms “climate change” and “man-made climate change”. We all know that climate change exists… it never stops changing. The changes, for better and for worse, are the only constant. The industry of climate change is the only thing man-made.
They easily get everyone to agree to one because it’s the truth, then they assume fealty to the other. Bait and switch is what scammers do to their victims. Don’t become a victim.



3-12-17  Trump Ain’t No Bush
Let’s play connect the devious Democrat dots and get a glimpse into how our shadow government (A.K.A. the “deep state”) operates.
Before the November election, the New York Times reported that the Trump campaign was being investigated for colluding with the Russians to influence the election. It turns out that it was a lie and Mr. Trump knew it.
Others who knew it was a lie were the liars themselves. If he had actually colluded with the Russians and his adversaries were listening to him doing it, they would do more than just leak accusations about it in the NY Times.
To call them out, Mr. Trump went on offense and circumvented the MSM enablers by using social media (Twitter) to accuse the Democrats of hacking his phone.
Well now the devious Democrats have been snared in their own web of deceit. The Obama administration used dubiously acquired FISA warrants to eavesdrop on Russians who were conversing with a lot of people including the Trump campaign. The Obama Administration had illegally engaged in an unwarranted phishing expedition that turned up nothing. They had no probable cause to seek the warrant but the temptation of securing the electoral victory for Hillary was worth the minimal risk of being caught. After all, the feckless Republicans never fight back. At least that’s what they thought… but Trump ain’t no Bush.
Now that the Democrat’s illegal political activity has been exposed, the MSM has dropped the Trump\Russia collusion narrative like a hot potato.
This whole sordid Democrat mess reminds me of the shadow government’s Valerie Plame affair in which the NY Times played the key role of running an editorial written by Plame’s husband, Democrat Party hack Joe Wilson.
Wilson was a former Ambassador who was sent by the CIA to try to get to the bottom of George W. Bush’s claim that Iraq “sought” uranium to make WMDs. Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA.
Wilson claimed he had proof that George Bush lied about WMDs to justify invading Iraq. But the only so-called “proof” he came back with was that Iraq hadn’t actually “bought” such uranium. But there’s a huge difference between “sought” and “bought”.
The Democrats and their willing accomplices in the MSM used the factually unsupported accusation to launch a special investigation that they hoped would unseat President Bush. They didn’t have proof that Bush lied. In fact they had proved that he hadn’t lied… but that didn’t stop them from pushing the false narrative to gain a political advantage
Mr. Bush went on defense and complied with an investigation that did nothing more than ruin the career of Scooter Libby… just as this current witch-hunt has ruined that of Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn.
With no truth to the claim that Bush lied, the Plame affair investigation was transformed into a witch-hunt to determine who actually leaked Valerie Plame’s job at the CIA. Many Republicans were accused and it was a huge news story right up until the day that it was reported that the actual leaker of Plame’s identity was a fellow anti-war member of the shadow government by the name of Richard Armatige. The fake news MSM immediately dropped the story and they’re doing the same thing now. But they have yet to recognize that they have been supplanted by the real news of the new interactive social media.
Having the truth on your side is the only way to survive a legal attack. It’s also the only way to win when you’re the attacker. Truth is both a sword and a shield. Trump must stay on offense and DRAIN THE SWAMP.



1-9-17  Celebrities & Liberalism - Understanding the Connection
Actors live by projecting their emotions. Their fame hinges on their ability to express their emotions so convincingly that you see yourself in the role they play.
It’s that emotional quotient that makes them an integral part of political brainwashing and ideological indoctrination. 
All a politician need do is suggest that their goal is benevolent and kind and that anyone who disagrees is malevolent and hateful. 
Once they have that emotional connection there is little chance that reason will prevail.
If a politician can convince a famous actor to carry the torch of the policy they want to advance, they can reach a lot more people and they don’t have to worry about explaining how their policy is supposed to work or in most cases, why it never works. 
The actor speaks and the singer sings and their audiences can do naught but listen. They leave no room for rebuttal. It’s not just an expedient way to advance a political goal but often the only way as is the case with policies that defy logic.
Essentially, actors are being used. They are playing a part and the script is a work of fiction that someone else wrote. They may think they have taken an independent stand of their own volition and they’re far too vane to convince otherwise. Have pity on them. 
Watch their shows and applaud their sorrow and joy. Then look elsewhere when you want to engage your mind and interact with intelligence.



12-23-16  Bernie Sanders, the Socialist Security Fraudster
A friend of mine is a Bernie Sanders supporter who thinks that all we have to do to save Social Security is to raise the amount of taxes “the rich” pay into it. If you also have such a friend, here are a few points in rebuttal:

1st. Taxing some people more than others is immoral and unconstitutional.

2nd. BS says that the money you put into social security is yours. That's only half true. Your contribution is matched by your employer.

3rd. Employers (“the rich”) pay 100% of their own social security tax AND 50% of yours.

4th. Your employer also pays 100% of your workman's compensation insurance, disability insurance and unemployment insurance, all of which are routinely abused by employees.

5th. If you think that you are entitled to the money you put into the system, shouldn't your employers be entitled to theirs? By applying the tax to a larger percentage of the employers' income, you are forcing them to contribute vastly more than they are allowed to collect.

6th. Employers pay many other taxes that dwarf income and payroll taxes...property taxes are the most onerous...and not just for the rich. Whether you own or rent, you pay a school/property tax on your housing that is not based on your income. You will see your property tax go up when your school budget is passed by your wealthy neighbors. I just received a $2/month cost of living increase in my social security check at the same time that my monthly property tax escrow increased by $200.

7th. BS is a politician. He works with policies that have no bearing on the science of economics. His policies only have to be supported by a majority of voters who also do not consider factual realities.

8th. Economics is science.

9th. BS is BS.




12-17-16  The "Man-Made" Climate Change Hoax

I went online this morning to check the weather and noticed a “news” article posted over on the right side of the webpage. The headline was: “How climate change is hurting ecosystems across the globe” and the first thing I thought was that I’ve seen how climate change is actually helping ecosystems first hand.

I’m not saying that mankind hasn’t directly harmed a number of ecosystems but there is a much greater amount of natural climate change occurring and it is both hurting and helping existing ecosystems.

The thing is, we have identified where we have done damage and taken steps to mitigate and reverse it. But there are far more natural changes occurring that we have no hope of countering, such as fissures deep in the ocean that are leaking infinitely more oil than what man has accidentally spilled.

Volcanoes, both above ground and under the oceans have created and destroyed ecosystems for as long as the Earth has existed. The Moon and Earth’s rotation and molten core cause air and water currents and continental shifts. And the Sun causes massive climate changes to every planet in the solar system.

Glaciers and the polar ice caps have destroyed more ecosystems than they have created. We can only guess what was under the glacier that created Lake George before it receded but we can see the life and beauty that developed after it was gone. The habitat that few plants and animals were able to adapt to became the much more vibrant ecosystem that we see today.

There’s nothing man can do to stop natural climate change…nor should we. What we can do is to be smart about the minute changes we effect as we turn inhospitable environments into human habitat. Let’s intelligently minimize the negative aspects of our existence without succumbing to the emotionally driven hyperbole that exemplifies today’s wack-a-doodle environmental movement.

The “majority of scientists” who insist that man is responsible are just trying to keep their grant money flowing.

They haven’t even met the criterion that establishes science. Consensus is not science. Real scientists develop a theory and then try to disprove it. If they cannot disprove their theory, it becomes a settled fact.

These climate scientists start with what they feel is settled and then provide only the data that supports it. They have even been caught purposefully deleting data that disproves their theory.

It’s a scam of mutual back-scratching between pseudo-scientists and crony politicians to turn taxpayer dollars into profit for their “non-profit” schemes. When you want to know the truth, just follow the money. 




12/12/16    Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me again, shame on me.
Have you ever spoken to a victim of an Internet scam? I have because it’s my job. I hear stories every day of how a fake technician established trust with their victim for the express purpose of violating that trust.
The scammer will report a “problem” with your computer that really isn’t a problem and offer a “solution” that actually is a problem. The only thing they will clean out for you is your bank account.
When someone brings their computer to me and the first thing they say is either: “I got a call from a tech…” or “I called a tech support number that popped up…” That’s all I need to hear to know they’ve been the victim of a perpetrator of fraud.
The victim then proceeds to tell me what the fake technician initially said to gain their trust. I tell them that it was a lie. They then go into specific details and I have to tell them that each one was a lie. They say: “But but but” and I say: “Lie lie lie”. It would be comical if it weren’t so tragic.
One day it dawned on me that these recent fake tech scams are just a small scale copy-cat of a much more tragic scam that’s been afflicting the American public for far longer.
The Main Stream Media are the original trust-violating scam artists… the original fake news sources. They have become a tool of the left for the express purpose of gaining and then violating your trust. They have spent decades inventing “problems” that fit nicely into their preconceived solutions.
If you’ve been a victim of these scams, don’t be embarrassed. Believing a lie doesn’t mean you’re stupid. You’re simply an honest person who assumes the same of others. Your honesty is a virtue that hones your ability to detect it in others and put your trust where it’s deserved. Recall that old saying: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me again, shame on me. Discrimination isn’t always a bad word.



11/28/16 Electoral Emotions
President Elect Donald Trump has beaten the Democrats at their own game, using a powerful emotional quotient to gain patriotic voters’ unwavering loyalty.
EQ (as opposed to IQ) and the left's reliance upon it, is why our liberal population is losing its collective mind and acting irrationally right now. They let their emotions run their lives.
From Wikipedia: "Emotional intelligence (EI) or emotional quotient (EQ) is the capability of individuals to recognize their own, and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and to manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt environments or achieve one's goal(s)." Coleman, Andrew (2008). A Dictionary of Psychology (3 ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199534067.
Our nation's liberal political faction has been playing with citizens' minds, using psychographic manipulation to attract them to emotional goals instead of intelligent goals.
Emotions have gotten plenty of politicians elected but that doesn’t make their policies work and that’s why our economy and society are currently in crisis.
President Obama in particular focused his election campaign on “hope and change” as opposed to specific actions that uninformed voters found hard to understand.
Voters who understood Mr. Obama’s plans to fundamentally alter government’s responsibility with citizens’ rights, and knew those plans would fail, were outnumbered by those who held deep passion for the President’s skin color.
This manipulation, this mind control, began in our public schools decades ago. The presence of school psychologists and use of psychotropic drugs are contributing factors.
It’s why Democrats are against school choice which would enable too many students to escape indoctrination.
Donald Trump’s voters have a passion for restoring law, order and fiscal responsibility in our government. They also have the intelligence to understand that accomplishing this will benefit all Americans of every orientation.




9/27/16  Freedom = Independence = Liberty
President Obama says we have POSITIVE and NEGATIVE liberties. Knowing what he means by this is key to understanding what he and the Democrats have been doing to our Constitution. In reality, there is no such thing as a "positive liberty"…it is a false premise offered simply to provide thin cover for violating the Constitution and our genuine rights.
Obama and a handful of conniving leftists have redefined the pure liberties in our Bill of Rights as a list of "negative" liberties. Liberty is passive and free for citizens to enjoy at their discretion as opposed to what leftists describe as active, positive liberties that the government must provide you with.
A positive liberty is an oxymoron. We have a right to pray, speak, defend ourselves etc., if we so choose. The government cannot force us to participate in those rights and they cannot subsidize them by providing us with a church, podium or gun. A positive liberty to pray would be one where the government provided the church and forced you to attend. Obama has used this contrived notion of positive liberty to justify forcing us to buy health insurance.
There is only one kind of liberty, just as there is only one definition of truth. Neither can be subdivided without becoming the opposite of the original. Independence is the liberty to seek health care through an insurance policy if we so choose.
When government decides you must receive health care by way of an insurance policy, it has taken away your liberty. When government gives you health insurance for free, it has made you dependent. When it makes someone else pay for your health insurance, it has deprived them of the means to exercise their own liberty.
“Positive” liberty is dependence for some, the subjugation of others and liberty for none.




9/11/16 Solidarity against Xerxes
There’s a big rift between the staunch “NeverTrump” conservatives and the rest of our country’s right-leaning voters. You see it in the social media trenches and all over talk radio. It’s reached the point where conservative icons Beck and Hannity are even at each other’s throats.
As I see it, Mr. Trump has been beating the Democrats at their own game, addressing key issues in a way that people connect with emotionally. Once he has his target audience’s heart, that audience is immune to the voice of reason. The problem with this tactic is that it also creates an emotional opposition… equally immune to voices of reason.
NeverTrump conservatives hate Mr. Trump for the way he disposed of Ted Cruz in the primary. I don’t know what it will take to moderate that hatred and redirect it. Maybe they need more time. Maybe they can take another look at some of Trump’s positions and find something there worth fighting for. There are a number of conservative positions that Cruz and Trump share. For me, the most important of them is the Second Amendment and School Choice…but the sad reality is that the entirety of our freedom is under assault by the left.
The “NeverTrump” conservatives are the same people who sat on their hands when it came to voting for McCain and Romney… but this time it’s personal. They passively disliked McCain and Romney just enough to hand the elections to Obama. Mr. Trump turned that passive dislike into an active hatred.
This whole thing reminds me of the movie “300” and the degree of difficulty involved in bringing Sparta and the rest of Greece together to defeat Xerxes. Human nature hasn’t changed all that much in 2500 years.




8/20/16 Response to a local leftist's Letter to the Editor
Truly bizarre! Nothing else can describe Michael Roland’s incoherent defense of socialism in his July 18th letter in The Advertiser. The title of his letter: “Democratic Socialism”, itself is oxymoronic. It does not exist. The terms are mutually exclusive. Like oil and water, when you try to mix the two, you get sludge.
Democracy is when people have choices. Socialism is when people don’t have choices. When people have choices, you have prosperity. Without choices, you have economic decline.
Mr. Roland lists national defense and voting rights as examples of socialism. Seriously? If I were a Democrat I would be embarrassed to share party affiliation with such a delusion. In the same list he includes a number of institutions that have been nearly destroyed by the steady creep of socialism including schools and a number of insurance schemes.
Our public schools have declined in quality and increased in cost in direct relation to the lack of choice required by socialism.
And then there’s mandatory health insurance. Insurance only works if people participate in it voluntarily. To have no choice but to buy insurance as the only way to get health care is a violation of all participants’ civil rights...it’s no longer free enterprise. When the government requires that “insurance” covers pre-existing conditions, it can no longer be called "insurance". And when someone else has to pay the premiums, it can no longer be called a "right". It’s just another socialist program that is doomed to failure. It is already rife with cronyism as insurance companies make deals with government to keep exchanges from collapsing…and that cronyism, that venture socialism, is what has been at the heart of the divide between the rich and the poor that Mr. Roland railed against.
Socialists are their own worst enemy. They stubbornly refuse to let conservatives save them from themselves.




7/22/16 Intentions and Consequences
There’s a lot of talk about “intent” lately since FBI director James Comey inferred no criminal intent on Hillary Clinton’s grossly negligent handling of classified information on her unsecured personal IT equipment.
Besides national security, another reason why public servants are supposed to use government IT equipment is so there is a record of what people in government have done. Mrs. Clinton knows this well because she led the charge to impeach President Nixon and acquire recorded evidence of what and when he knew about the Watergate scandal.
So, what was Mrs. Clinton’s intent? Was it to not put herself in the same position of leaving a discoverable trail of evidence that could get her in trouble...again? 
The last time Mrs. Clinton was in the White House, she put together conferences of public and private sector people to design her national health care scheme. She was supposed to keep a record of who attended those conferences in order to prevent conflicts of interest and collusion. While she may have had knowledge of who was in attendance and may have known that it was illegal for some of the participants to be there in secret, she refused to provide that information even when it was demanded by a court.
Washington DC is filthy with corruption and it is absolutely unconscionable that the mainstream media that was so energetic in its pursuit of President Nixon would be silent or even complicit in the cover-up of Mrs. Clinton’s nefarious activities.
While Hillary uses lack of intent as cover for her actions, it seems as though intent is all that matters when Liberal Democrat policies result in failure.
Maybe we should disregard the stated intent these corrupt politicians provide when proposing bills that will clearly have negative consequences…just to be consistent.



7/13/16 Defining Socialism
I graduated high school about the same time that Bernie Sanders became a member of Socialist Party in Vermont in the early ‘70s. I remember my history teacher describing Socialism and how the people of Russia were trapped in that system.
Most memorable was the fact that they were not allowed to leave because that freedom would result in the mass exodus of most, if not all, of the country’s productive individuals. But they had social justice as we would call it today. Everyone was equal…equally poor.
As a consequence of their not having the freedom to leave, and having no incentive, motivation or ability to improve their lot in life, everyone became equally unproductive. The declining productivity caused shortages of goods and services to the point where the government had to borrow the revenue it needed in order to provide them. Over time, that massive borrowing led to their economy’s eventual collapse. Sound familiar?
Dictionary definitions of socialism, variations on government’s control of the means of production, have often been used to dismiss legitimate concerns that it was creeping into our institutions. But those definitions are simplistic.
For a broader understanding of socialism and the impossibility of its success, it’s necessary to read a few books on the subject; “Animal Farm” comes to mind right off the bat but a deeper understanding can be found in: “The Road To Serfdom” by Hayek. More recently, Robert Skidelsky wrote: “The Road From Serfdom”, which confirmed in my mind that Hayek was right and that socialism is nothing more than a state of perpetual economic decline. An easier read I highly recommend would be “Radical Son” by David Horowitz.
If reading books is too much to ask, I offer this simplistic definition: Nazi’s were National Socialists.




6/21/16 Knowing Truth Requires Healthy Cynicism
One of the biggest misunderstandings about the Democrat Party is what the party truly stands for as opposed to what Democrat politicians say they stand for.
The party of democracy means that the majority of voters and/or the voters’ representatives make the rules. It means that natural law and God’s law are not “inalienable” as stated in our Constitution. It means that the inferior laws of man supersede the laws of liberty and that equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities take a back seat to the illusion of equal outcomes…a.k.a. “social justice”.
If Democrat politicians were honest about what their party stood for, they would have to admit that they intend to overturn the Constitution that they swear to uphold and defend. They are getting close to that point. The popularity of a Democratic Socialist candidate among voters who don’t understand the science in law and economics is testament to the success of the socialists’ long-term, incremental approach to “fundamental transformation”.
Democrats have had success in transforming our 1st amendment right of free speech into one that is limited to what lawmakers allow. They say they are protecting the “rights” of minorities but the truth is that “hate speech” laws are just getting the camel’s nose under the tent. It’s just one step in their incremental approach to preventing journalists from speaking truth to power.
They have had more limited success trying to overturn our 2nd amendment right of self defense by being dishonest about the types of guns being used in high-profile crimes. Democrats’ goals in limiting gun ownership have nothing to do with keeping citizens safe from one another. The truth is that they intend to limit our ability to defend ourselves against the usurpation of the rest of our rights.
Be cynical. Be free.




5/24/16 The Rich Are Taxing The Poor
I’m sure you’ve seen more than a few “TAX THE RICH” bumper stickers but I’ll bet you've never questioned the duplicitous reality of such a policy.
Do you recall uber-rich icons Warren Buffett and John Kerry publicly suggesting they should be paying higher taxes? Did you ever think they were being a bit disingenuous…especially after John Kerry was caught trying to take possession of his new yacht in a state that mitigated his tax responsibility?
Does “free” education help the poor? Think about how school taxes are democratically decided, by way of a vote in which the people who can afford to pay higher taxes (the rich) vote YES to a tax increase that the people who vote NO (the poor) will have to pay.
Who votes for the Liberal, Socialist and Democrat politicians who promise free stuff? That would be the recipients of the free stuff, right? In order to get elected, these politicians have to promise free stuff to a majority of the voters. Who pays for the free stuff? That would be the minority of voters. This has the long term effect of increasing the ranks of those who become dependent on the free stuff and diminishing the ranks of those who pay for it.
What happens when the pool of independent tax producers is diminished to the point where it cannot create enough revenue to satisfy the demands of the dependent tax consumers and their political pimps? One thing that happens…and has been happening for quite some time, is the government borrows the money it needs to keep getting its pimps elected…and future generations have no democratic choice but to pay that debt or vote with their feet.
And that’s what you call today's Upstate New York.



5/18/16 Fundamental Transformation
What does it mean to be liberal?
At one point in recent history it was said that if a twenty year old person wasn’t liberal, he had no heart, but if by the age of thirty he was still a liberal, he had no brain. Previous generations described socialism the same way and that’s because liberalism has morphed into socialism.
The morphing of liberalism and socialism has not been a matter of happenstance. Classical liberalism used to be the opposite of socialism. If you listened today to the speeches of JFK in the sixties, you would think you were listening to Rush Limbaugh. The most notable example being: Ask not what your country can do for you (think, free health care and college) – ask what you can do for your country.
The rise of socialism in the United States has occurred due to the political abuse of democracy. In politics, democracy is nothing more than making a choice at the voting booth and politicians will offer you free stuff to get you to vote for them. In economics, democracy means having spending, investment and job choices.
Few remember that when Bernie Sanders entered politics in the early seventies it was as a member of the Socialist Party. The year after that, the party changed its name to the Democratic Socialist Party. It was simply a name change to make themselves sound more appealing to voters. They did not change their policies. Socialists do not offer economic choices. You must send your children to the nearest government school. You must buy health insurance. You must join a union if you want to be a teacher, etc.
Our nation is great because we are a republic, a nation of laws that limit the political abuses of democracy.
Vote Republican to restore economic democracy.



4/5/16  The Ben Franklin Presidency
If Donald Trump or Ted Cruz wins the Republican nomination, who do you think would make for a good Vice-Presidential candidate? There have been more than a few pundits who’ve suggested that the best ticket for winning the general election would be a Trump/Cruz or Cruz/Trump ticket.
This makes perfect sense because of how well liked each of these candidates are by their base. The problem, or at least one of the problems with this ticket is that a lot of Cruz supporters really dislike Trump…and vice versa.
But let’s say the candidates and their supporters were to overcome that hurdle for the sake of The Republic. And let’s also say that they went on to win the general election. How might such an administration play out? God only knows but it’s an interesting exercise to venture a guess.
I look at Donald Trump as kind of a Benjamin Franklin…with maybe a little Patrick Henry mixed in. Would Ben Franklin have been a good President? He was essential to the creation of The Republic but while he knew a lot about how to broker the deal, he obviously left the system’s complexities to others.
Cruz on the other hand reminds me of a George Washington, Thomas Payne figure. He knows what it’s all about and has the determination to see it through. The Presidency of George Washington is a known commodity but I can also envision Cruz as a great Vice President restoring the role of President of the Senate. 
Either of these men could make a great President. Each has a lot of what it takes but I think the more important question is: Do we as a people have what it takes to make America great again?
So, on the other side, which founders do Hillary and Bernie most remind you of? - Just kidding.



3/22/16  EDUCATION INVESTMENT TAX CREDIT 
Albany lawmakers are working on proposals designed to provide income tax credits to individuals for donations made to education scholarship funds.  The Education Investment Tax Credit a.k.a. the Parental Choice in Education Act, is a small step in the right direction but still, there is heavy union opposition.
Among those speaking against the proposals during a March 9th radio broadcast was Jasmine Gripper, described as a Statewide “Education” Advocate for the Alliance for Quality Education (AQE)…which is a completely misleading moniker as she and it only advocate for unionized public schools, as opposed to the “education” in their title which is supposed to encompass all pedagogical institutions.
Ms. Gripper started her rant by claiming that: “…our public schools are being starved for resources…” and “…it is absurd for the state to be giving away money to private and parochial schools.”  But reality begs to differ.
First off, they aren’t “our” public schools. They are the government’s schools and they are fat with all the revenue the local property taxpayers have been able to muster and then some. It’s only non-union, non-government schools that have been starved for that funding. What is truly absurd is that the government’s compulsory and undemocratic unionized schools have received their vast amounts of revenue by way of an equally undemocratic school district budget voting process that enables the wealthiest property taxpayers to vote away the last dime of income from the poorest residents of their school district.
Secondly, it’s not the state that is “giving away money” that was destined for public school coffers. It’s the individual taxpayers giving away their own money and the tax credit that the donors receive is applied toward their state income tax payment which goes into the general fund and will have no impact on public school funding. The donor’s school property tax will be unaffected.



2/24/16 One Hoax Leads To Another
There’s a short video circulating the Internet this week featuring a washed up ignorant left-wing hack by the name of Robert Reich who pretends to be a college professor using a white-board to illustrate the things that make Ted Cruz a dangerous choice for President.
But to the trained eye, the video actually illustrates how the left operates; how they brainwash and indoctrinate their sheep.
The left has invested a great deal of time and energy as well as vast amounts of the public’s tax dollars in creating a voting base that believes their climate-change hoax. They aren’t at all pleased that they don’t have a Presidential candidate willing to run on that agenda.
The Democrat primaries thus far have had extremely low voter turn-out while the Republicans’ turn-out has been extremely high. So the climate-change hoaxters have set out to show the more malleable unprincipled politicians in this race that they can provide a base of voters… that their climate-change sheep can be a voting factor in relation to other issues.  
The video has Mr. Reich looking straight into the camera, aghast and in all seriousness, telling his sheep that Ted Cruz actually believes the 2nd Amendment gives people the right to own a gun! OMG! Even worse; he doesn’t believe in climate change!
This is how the left has managed to compromise the center. They bring you into the fold on one issue and lay claim to your allegiance on all issues. If you are an environmentalist, you cannot also be pro-2nd amendment. If you are a feminist, you cannot be pro-life. If you are a scientist, you cannot believe in God…and on and on with every issue.
They think their voters are stupid. Are you?



2/9/16 PRAGMATISM – THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS
 As we get further into this presidential primary season, many of the candidates are adjusting the focus of their campaigns to illustrate how they are different from each other.
Each candidate has principles that define them and differentiate them from the others. In the case of Bernie Sanders, he is an avowed socialist. Hillary Clinton describes herself as a progressive.
But if you were watching CNN on TV last week, you would hear Sanders described as an idealist and Clinton as the pragmatist.
In order to characterize Mrs. Clinton as a pragmatist, CNN would have to consider principles that they believe she would be justified in abandoning for the sake of winning the election.
As for characterizing Mr. Sanders as an idealist, CNN’s ideals ought to be American ideals, not those of the defunct U.S.S.R.
On the Republican side, we have a three-way race between Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. Each of whom has been ascribed varying degrees of pragmatism, idealism and conservatism.
Mr. Cruz is considered an idealist but his are the conservative ideals of the United States’ Constitution, which is based on the ideals of our Creator.
Mr. Rubio is also a conservative but considered pragmatic in the sense that he is willing to compromise a principle in order to implement a policy that his opposition’s idealists will agree to.
I won’t be considering Mr. Trumps principles because he has yet to specify them with any consistency. But he can be considered the most pragmatic because of how malleable he will be with the opposition.
Voters will essentially be asked to decide whose ideals to endorse and whose to compromise; those of man or those of Man’s Creator.



2/5/16 MAKING THE CASE FOR AN ABORTION
Well, the presidential primary season is upon us and all political insiders are working overtime to align the public in their direction. And what a colorful array of characters we have in the mix this time.
Leading the field of “colorful” is The Donald. I don’t know his middle name but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Charisma. He’s been doing a great job of energizing the voters and setting the agenda. If it weren’t for him we would be falling asleep while Jeb Bush and Bernie Sanders drone on about free college and housing for illegal immigrants and Syrian refugees.
 He’s also been slaying the left’s political correctness. In doing so he has cleared the field of those mines for all the other candidates. He’s showing them that they shouldn’t be afraid to shout the truth to the PC Paper-Tiger. He’s essentially been doing down-field blocking for the statesman who will take the ball to the goal.
But sooner or later, Mr. Trump will have to get out of the way…he’s not the one carrying the ball. At this point, after the Iowa caucuses when other candidates are trying to get their substantive messages to prospective voters, Mr. Trump is trying to redirect voters’ attention with superficial gamesmanship.
Just like political correctness, superficial gamesmanship is the left’s baby and Hillary Clinton is its mid-wife. He might be able to beat her at that game but this truly is a case where I would be in favor of an abortion. I think we can do without all that crying and poop.



1/30/16 COLD IS THE NEW WARM
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and every other left-wing politician use democratic principles to get elected, make laws and guide their tax policies.
But America is not a democracy. We have a Constitution that prohibits democratic principles.  Our laws are not derived from the will of the majority.
Our Constitution is the center of all our principles and laws. Politicians and voters who use the Constitution as the guide to their principles, policies and laws occupy the center of the political spectrum. They are not right-wing extremists.
The creation and use of the term “right-wing extremist” has been a devious ploy used by left-wing extremists to undermine the Constitution.
Imagine you have political aspirations that require the implementation of principles, policies and laws that are prohibited by the Constitution. How would you go about getting elected by a majority of voters? You would have to be devious, wouldn’t you?
You would have to project your extremism unto your opposition. If you are to the political left and know that the majority of voters occupy the political center, you’ll have to move the center line in your direction.
If the Constitution was considered a temperature benchmark, it would be seventy two degrees. If you are cold but want people to think you are warm, you would have to convince them that seventy two degrees is hot. You know that the Constitution will always be warm but you only have to change peoples’ perception. You would always refer to warm as extremely hot...dittos for warm voters and politicians.
Over time, through relentless “it’s too hot” propaganda, you will convince the majority that cold is the new warm.
Now you just have to figure out how to stop their teeth from chattering.



1/24/16 TESTING TEXTING
One of the first books I read when I entered the education reform movement twenty years ago was: Why Johnny Can’t Read. It detailed the progressive public school establishment’s experiment with a new theory of how reading should be taught known as “whole word”.
The progressive education movement was, and still is, no different than every new generation that tries to make its mark by rejecting and replacing the previous generation’s ideas. In the case of how reading was taught, the progressives rejected the time-honored method known as “phonics”.
What they failed to understand was that most of what is time-honored is such because it is the best way. They also didn’t understand that many new ideas aren’t new at all…just new to them. The problem with today’s generation of progressives is that their carefully cultivated self esteem doesn’t allow them to admit they were wrong.
Progressive schools aren’t the only culprit in the decline of Americans’ reading ability. We can also find unwitting fault in video entertainment. Watching a video is a lot easier than reading. A picture is worth a thousand words so moving pictures ought to be worth a million words.
The down-side is that reading requires thought. Watching a video is thoughtless and can often misrepresent the truth.
Another culprit I’ll bet you never gave a thought to is the personal computer. Our first computers required their users to have the ability to read and write. Their operating systems were DOS based and you had to know and type written commands before you could use a program. The advent of the GUI (Graphical User Interface) a.k.a. windows made it so anyone could click on a picture to open a program. There’s no need to be able to read.
With very reduced need for reading, we naturally have less need for writing. With less need for writing, our schools have moved away from handwriting in favor of keyboarding. There’s less emphasis on spelling, vocabulary and grammar as well.
Is it any wonder students have fallen behind on standardized tests?



1-1-16 Liberties - 1st & 2nd Amendments, Healthcare & Education
President Obama has recently made the claim that as a professor of Constitutional law, he knows something about the 2nd amendment. Well, there are more than a few Constitutional professors who not only know more about the Constitution, they know pretty much the opposite of what Mr. Obama “knows”.
In order to understand the perspective that the President holds with regard to our Constitutional rights, we have to look back to his early assertions that our liberty, a.k.a. freedom, comes in two varieties; positive and negative.
In plain terms, liberty is a human individual’s activity devoid of government. A negative liberty is happiness in the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints. A positive liberty is the seeking of such happiness. The government has no role in either except to insure that no citizen deprives another of such. Our Constitution expressly prohibits the deprivation or provision of happiness by the government. It can provide for the general welfare, not for individual’s welfare.
The theory that human beings possess positive and negative liberties was espoused by very few philosophers before our Constitution was created. None of our founding documents entertain the theory and Mr. Obama seems to consider that to be a fundamental flaw, one of his unspecified “failed policies of the past” and one that he intends to rectify as part of our fundamental transformation. In hindsight it seems to be a key position that should have been discussed in more detail at the time. But decades of dumbing down has created a philosophically illiterate electorate incapable of understanding little more than “Hope & Change”.
The President wrongly believes in positive liberties being a subtype that must be provided by the government; we have a “right” to health care so it must be provided by the government…dittos for education. Is it a right if we have no choice?
Can you think of any other “positive liberties” that our Creator has endowed us with?
Freedom of speech is a fundamental liberty. Should the government provide us with a podium or microphone or the means to purchase such to enable the achievement of our liberty? If so, where would the means come from?
The government doesn’t have the means (money) so they would have to tax someone, another citizen, and that is when the theoretical negative liberty becomes a positive liberty. As a subsidized positive liberty, the facilitation of one citizen’s speech would have to be at the expense of another’s.
Liberty is independence. As such we have the right to speech and are free to act on our desire to speak, if we so choose. If the government were to consider free speech to be a positive right, in the vein of health care and education, we would be compelled to speak even if we chose not to. If we applied this notion of two types of liberties to our other Constitutional rights, it’s easy to see that it is a fundamentally flawed theory. A positive liberty to bear arms would compel the ownership of a weapon provided by the government at taxpayer expense. A positive freedom of religion would require public worship in public places.
Subdivisions of liberty are inferior to primary liberty. The notion of a superior “positive liberty” is a duplicitous construct of the statist/collectivist mind. A subsidized liberty for one citizen is a tax on another. Being as we are all equal, and liberty has no cost, it is not possible to tax all citizens equally to provide equal liberties. To be provided with a liberty is to be made dependent…the positive liberty becomes an oxymoron and anathema to the Constitution. Mr. Obama’s stated opinion of the primacy of liberty and actions in pursuit of inferior liberties not specifically expressed in our Constitution do not comport with upholding and defending it. He is violating his oath and impeaching himself.