Enemy of the People

Patrick Caddell, a former Democratic Party public opinion pollster who worked for Democratic President Jimmy Carter, gave an impassioned lecture on September 29, 2012, at a conference sponsored by Accuracy in Media, where he decried the media, for its bias in elections, as a threat to democracy and said: 

The press’ job is to stand the ramparts and protect the people from organized government and governmental power, when they desert those ramparts and go to (one) side they decide to become active participants … to decide what truths you may know and what you may not … then they have made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy and made themselves an enemy to the American people.

Most major news outlets are at war against President Donald Trump, as is he with them.  Trump speaks of fake news as anything from the press that is unflattering about him.  The press speaks of fake news as anything that does not originate from them.  The former is ego and the latter is arrogance.  The former is for the consumption by a political base, but the latter, as shrouded in bias, is the sophistry of deceit.

For example, MSNBC was reporting this week on the Fusion GPS dossier with the caption: No fact in the dossier has been proven incorrect.  Let’s examine this phrase regarding the dossier that is a collage of allegations regarding Trump’s activities with Russia.  First, an allegation is not a fact, meaning it has not been proven correct.  However, the caption positions the dossier as factual, which has not been proven.  It then follows with a negative proof: there is no proof that anything in the dossier is wrong.  A negative proof means that everything in the dossier is therefore correct until proven wrong.  This reasoning is both faulty and dishonest. The press puts on display their blatant and extreme bias developed to mislead an audience to a conclusion that has not been supported by fact.  And accordingly, as Caddell writes, the press is an enemy of the people.

In the end, the media is not bound by law or oath to be fair, complete, or correct . . . and they are not nor have been since the beginning of the Republic.  The press has always been a hot bed of prejudice.  Therefore, it is and always has been, our responsibility, and vigilant citizens, to find the facts and reason a judgment . . . that is the requirement of responsible citizenship.

SEC Football Championship

With the College Football National Championship on the line this coming week, we compliment the selection committee for their choice in the final four.  After all the bowl games were completed, their decision to put two SEC teams in the finals against the Big12 and ACC were justified…and certainly correct.

We viewed - with much delight, we might add - as the SEC underdog, South Carolina Gamecocks, dealt the Big 10 its only loss in bowl games.  South Carolina came back from a 19 to 3 score with only some 3 minutes left in the 3rd quarter to force 5 turnovers and pound Michigan with 23 unanswered points to win the game 26 to 19.  Not to mention, it was a repeat Outback Bowl win over Michigan…Go Gamecocks!

We make no effort to hide our SEC roots, so gleefully, we join the PAC 12, Big 12, Big 10, and ACC Power Conferences who will be at home to watch an all SEC championship match-up tomorrow . . . the way it should be!

Happy New Year!

As we step into the New Year of 2018, we leave a curious 2017 filled with economic and political contradictions.

Unemployment as presented in the media (U3 index) was about 4% but the broader measure of unemployment (U6) was double that of 8%.  Workforce participation remained fixed at 62.7% which was the same as in January 2016, as well as, December of 1977.  The election of President Trump was supposed to create a stock market collapse, so said Nobel economist Paul Krugman, but since the election the stock market has risen 25% and, GDP in 2017, had two quarter of growth over 3%, an accomplishment that was last seen in 2014.

Politically, Republicans were at their zenith in January, but their inability to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act infuriated their base.  Then the struggle with the tax bill allowed Democrats and media to rebrand it as a give-away to the rich.  Accordingly, some polls show Republicans would lose to generic Democrats.  Keeping one or both chambers of Congress in November will be challenging.  However, in political time, the mid-term election is a dog-year away and Republicans believe the economy will be more the barometer of things to come politically.  But while Republicans scoff that the Democrats have no message, Democrats do have an energized based, which the Republicans currently lack and, the base is crucial to win elections.

Of all the things President Trump was not expected to do well, foreign policy was it. Yet, it can be argued that he has been the most consistent, controlled, and effective in this area, especially, when compared to his predecessor.  He has made the U.S. military more lethal, given pause to dangerous regimes, and inserted America leadership back onto the world stage.

For the New Year we constructively suggest a resolution for the president to put his Twitter account on a Jenny Craig diet – this could help him be more effective in governing.

With this perspective on 2017, let’s ring-in 2018 with a tone of optimism and our wishes for health, happiness, and prosperity.  Be vigilant.  Be free.

Liberal Triad

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand called for the resignation of Senator Al Franken saying “we need to draw a line in the sand and say [no sexual harassment] is acceptable . . . we as elected leaders . . . should be fundamentally valuing women.”  With the righteous sword of justice in her hand, Gillibrand saw fit to stab Franken.  Curious though how Gillibrand’s hand had no such moral compass when it came to the Clintons who, for many years, have supported her campaigns.

It is a wonder how sexual harassment has spontaneously combusted.  We postulate this is part of the movement toward liberal utopia, where elites rule.  In this land no one has too much, only the elite.  Life’s strife is melted by the fair hand of government.  Crass consumerism gives way to what’s needed vs. what’s wanted.  We are now in Phase II of the liberal triad.

Ah, but you ask what is the triad?  Simply stated it is racism, maternalism, and communism.

Racism, is the foundation that provides liberals moral and intellectual justification.  Maternalism is a world run by women (vs. paternalism a world run by men) that ensures a woman’s nurturing instincts will breed peaceful coexistence.  And, communism is the economic and political structure that rations what people receive and secures power for elites.

Upon the election of President Barak Obama, one would imagine that liberals would have taken a bow.  In their minds, they transformed a nation with a deplorable past of slavery and elevated it to elect a biracial president.  For a moment it appeared we had achieved a post racial society and liberals could now tend to global warming, gay marriage, and income inequality.

But those other items brought no moral superiority.  There just weren’t enough folk who saw global warming a priority and too many didn’t believe that man was the primary source.  Gay marriage was quickly embraced, and the issue was over.  Income inequality didn’t register in a land where freedom of opportunity, by its nature, breeds inequality.  So liberals responded by resurrecting racism.  Only now it would be permanent and Obama would put his stamp on it by declaring that racism was in Americans’ DNA.

Racism made liberals morally superior, which was then conflated to be intellectually superior.  The latter means they never have to explain or justify a position.  Branding you – the opposition - a racist is sufficient fact, conclusion, and verdict.  As such, with Obama in office, liberals white washed all Americans who did not agree with the president as racists and resurrected the scourge of past slavery with vengeance.

With racism reestablished, the movement is now toward maternalism.  The time is ripe, as there are no powerful Democrats, a la Bill Clinton, that need protecting.  With the road clear, sexual harassment can now be politically weaponized.

The Democrats at first hesitated to “eat their own”, but the calculus changed when President Trump backed Roy Moore.  Congressman John Conyers and Senator Al Franken were irrelevant politicians to be sacrificed in the name of women and the elevation of Democrats to the moral high ground.

While it may be shrewd politics, this is a dangerous situation of conviction by allegation.  Merely complimenting a woman can become grounds for misconduct and removal.  But, as one-woman feminist said on the Fox News show Tucker Carlson Tonight, “if some men get wrongly blamed that’s OK, it’s a small price for the decades of abuse women had to endure.”  However, this attitude is opposed to how justice works.

Judge Roy Moore is no saint.  But did he molest underage girls?  From a jurisprudence stand point, he is innocent until held guilty by a jury of his peers.  If we deviate from this, then anyone can be blackmailed into a discordant act.

If sexual abuse abounds for women, why have so many women risen beyond it?  In Hollywood, of all places, think Mary Tyler Moore, Oprah, and Tina Turner.  Then there are Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsberg, CEO of HP Meg Whitman, or Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.  All these women in high places has nothing to do with their gender.  They are just good at what they do, and in a free society individuals can rise to their level of talent and ambition.

Sexual harassment can be real, demeaning, and at the extremes criminal.  But allegations are unproven accusations.  Permitting the media to act as judge of whether an allegation is credible and then proceeding to trial by social media, is a path that will eviscerate centuries of established due process for justice in a free society.  

Lois Lerner – The Gift That Keeps Giving

When hundreds of conservative political groups were targeted by the IRS, preventing their formation during the 2012 election, the opposition to the election of President Obama was blunted.  Lois Lerner was at point in this dubious effort.  Her punishment: a “well earned” retirement with full benefits after decades of loyal public service.  Lois can now fade into the sunset at the taxpayer’s expense.

But not so fast.  Lerner is back to argue that the closed-door testimony she gave should not be made public because she could be exposed to grave bodily harm if it were.

So how is it that a woman who famously told us that she did nothing wrong – after, of course, pleading the 5^th.  Maybe folk in her department were a bit zealous but, as President Obama stated, there wasn’t a “smidgen” of corruption.  So how do we square Mrs. Lerner to the threat of grave bodily harm?  We can’t because, most likely, both positions are false.

It is far beyond time that taxpayers have light shed on what happened behind the IRS Curtain, the deeds that were done, the finger pointed to the guilty, and maybe, just maybe, some justice dispensed.

Real Tax Reform

The GOP crows its tax reform plan of $1.5 trillion over a decade.  Sound large?  Not really.  Over the same period of time the federal government will spend some $53 trillion.  Or, to put this in perspective, the tax plan is less than 3% of total spending.  Also note, the government will run up another $10 trillion of debt on top of the $20 trillion of debt that already exists.

Real tax reform needs to come from real spending reform.  A man who has been a CFO of two major corporations remarked that any CFO worth his salt can find ways to cut spending 5% before the morning’s coffee - and that is in a healthy corporation.  That percentage jumps to 20% without having to make any hard decisions when the attention is turned an inefficient, ineffective, and wasteful government.

Now 20% on $53 trillion is nearly $11 trillion . . . or close to 10 times the number proposed by the GOP.  Now that would be real tax reform that would put real money in people’s pockets, and towards the repayment of the debt.

The call to action here is to contact your representatives to tell them $1.5 trillion is a good down payment, and then to proceed to real tax reform!

North Korea Prospects – Diplomacy with Strength

At the end of October, Abraham Sofaer, Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, gave a lucid presentation about the North Korean threat.  The good news is the war of words between Kim Jong-un and President Donald Trump is just that – words.  Sofaer recounted a history of words between the countries for the past 50 years.  If actual war was in the wind, he continued, so would be its characteristics of recalling American personnel overseas and the building of armed forces, which has not yet happened.

Sofaer then went on to say that the only “acceptable” resolution is diplomacy, which can only be brought about by a combination of extreme economic sanctions, deals with North Korea and China, and a large buildup of nuclear and anti-nuclear technology surrounding North Korea.  This three prong approach constrains North Korea into a mindset for meaningful talks.

The bad news is that the level of cost, diplomacy, deals, and secrecy may be beyond our government.  The weak link in this chain is secrecy, as the bitter hatred of Trump from within, and the media from without could frustrate the sensitive and secret talks that must take place if a sound agreement that protects the peace is to be reached.

Sofaer noted that secret talks have frustrated all modern presidents but it can be done noting a case-in-point with Henry Kissinger.

There is a path forward with North Korea that is defined and practical, but it will be challenging.