All Dogs go to Heaven

There was an animated movie we saw many years earlier with the name of the title of this blog.  We now take comfort in these words as we prepare for our dog, Lola, to go to heaven tomorrow.  Nearly 15 years ago this little bucket of love was brought into our lives.  She was joined by her half-sister, Zena, who arrived a year earlier and left us for heaven two years ago.

Both were Yellow Labs, but very different.  Zena, was an over-weight puge-cake with a square face and had to lay atop us.  She never saw herself as the 80lb pooch she was, but a 7lb puppy.  She would run from a Chiwawa, but demand her spot on the bed or couch.  Comfort was her motto and love her mission.  She also fancied herself an Olympic athlete…a swimmer or track star, though her body was more of the sumo wrestler variety.

Lola, was brilliant and masterful.  As a puppy, we had contained her to the entrance area of the house during her house training. However, whenever we left the house we would return to find Lola had done the great escape and left little presents – evidence of her Houdini-like abilities – all over the house.  But how?  She was too small to jump the fence and too big to slip through the fence openings. One day, as we returned home, the question was answered.  We peered through the glass door to watch Lola climbing the fence!

Lola was the athlete.  Always 10lbs lighter than Zena - she was Air Lola.  She would hurdle over a 4ft wave as she jumped to fetch the toy in the ocean.  She was never on top of us like Zena, she always lay by our side.  She was the first to learn and the first to please.

As time passed, the jumps became hops and runs became long walks that are now short.  She is thin, but not frail.  Alert and not deaf.  But she has a large tumor to which nature calls.

There are tears as we write this as a burdensome sadness washes over us.  Our hearts ache and fingers shake, but we know it is time.  Any longer is but our selfish desire not to let go.

We brace ourselves for the morrow, but rejoice her life today.  The weekend we have.  The long goodbye we take comfort.  With this writing we share the blessing of her life.  The wonders of a family.  The joys of so many memories.

So, dear Lola, we’ll be gathered tonight, as so many before, around the television with you at our side.  We’ll watch a movie, stroke your head, and give you an extra helping of kisses for tomorrow morning you’ll depart, and with tearing eyes, we’ll press our lips to your head for a final goodnight. All this while remembering that all dogs go to heaven!

Real Character vs. Pretenders

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article of a woman, Autherine Lucy Foster, in the January 5th article by Bob Green, The University of Alabama Earns a Victory Over an Ugly History, that mentioned a plaque of Foster that was unveiled on the campus of the University of Alabama. 

In 1956, Foster wanted to become a teacher and go to the University of Alabama.  She believed this school to be the top in the state and, from that degree, she would gain a full-time teaching position. UA accepted Foster, but upon learning she was not white, rescinded the acceptance. 

Foster went to court and won the right to attend and, on her first day of class, was met with angry and threatening crowds.  Three days later, she was suspended for “her own safety”.  Undeterred, Foster went back to court, but UA now expelled her based on her arguments in court.

As the story unfolds, she did work as a teacher and eventually did go on to and receive a Master’s degree from the University of Alabama in 1992 . . . and on the same day her daughter graduated as well. 

Courage, yes. Determination, unquestionably.

Now Compare Foster to Ashley Judd and those of her ilk who are “Hollywood Hero’s” after they came forward…but only after the brave had cleared the path.  Once they’ve gotten theirs, with strong voices and shaking fists, they speak against the “evil” that once lay before them, but said nothing about.

So, let’s raise a glass to toast real character and courage.  This is one statue we admire, not for the color of skin or gender of body, but of spirit of character and determination.

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.

For the Love of the Game

We normally do not like to mix politics with football, but it seems to be the fashion these days. Many discuss the disrespect of the American flag or civil rights statement, depending on your view of the statement of players taking a knee during the National Anthem.  However, I think most fans would agree that it is not so much the political statement itself that caused all sorts of emotions, it’s the fact that the love of the game and the experience of the sport has been impeded on.

Football games are truly an American experience. We make games into an event and follow and support our teams as a form of religion. We eat and drink our fill, enter the stadiums or turn on the channel to watch the opening ceremonies. We watch our team run out onto the field and the singing of the National Anthem. This is America and we take pride and enjoyment out of that unique experience.

The players, as all of us, have many forums to express their political views. But when players make the opening ceremony of this American experience into a political forum, they deface the beauty for which many come to watch.  They intrude on our tranquility and hurt us with their disrespect.

Let the player’s voices be heard if they so choose, and shall no action be taken against them personally for political expression.  But let too, free men and free markets exercise free will.  For some of us, the game is no longer worth watching.

Divided? Not!

The media has reveled in proclaiming and stoking the fires of a divided America, where racists and the racial divide has never been wider.  Really?  Take a look at what really happened when hurricane Harvey hit Texas.  While CNN and MSNBC found political foils, the rest of the country, beyond the costal elites, did what Americans do – helped their neighbors.

Let me share a story.  My dad and I had left California to drive to Boston on Monday, August 28th.  Our trip took us through Missouri where we would stop at a Cracker Barrel restaurant just off the freeway for breakfast.  There, our waitress, Marilyn, came over to take our order.  It was early in the morning and Marilyn, with her dark grey hair and weathered skin, looked tired as she approached us.  We would greet her with our warm smiles and, with cheer in our voices, a hearty good morning and asked her how she was.

Marilyn’s demeanor immediately changed to a grin and a glow of thanks for bringing sunshine in what is routine.  She asked us if we were local.  We said that we were traveling through when she interrupted to ask if we were heading to Texas. Marilyn said that most folk that were stopping at the restaurant that were traveling through were heading to Texas to help the people affected by the hurricane.  She continued that she and her daughter were gathering all the clothes and food they could find to send to Texas.  We spoke a bit more, then Marilyn hurried off to get us coffee.

Marilyn and all the people “traveling through” are America.  No talk of any divide, just compassion.  No care who is in trouble, just ready to help.  Marilyn struggles to make a living yet will, literally, give you the shirt off her back.

It appears we’re all Americans!

Tell Them What to Think

It was last Tuesday on MSNBC political commentary show, Hardball, left leaning host, Chris Matthews, opined that leaders should tell people what to think.

Politics on the Left (and Right is not without guilt) has this aversion to individual thought because it is not conducive for reelection.  This says it all about liberal dialogue, there is none.  Take what we tell you or face the consequence.  Leaders like Kim Jung Un tell their people what to think.  In America our politicians are not our leaders because we are self-governing.  In America political thought is developed not dictated.

We cannot let dialogue be ordered to conformity.  The Left is increasingly frustrated that too many American’s are not abiding by “their” ways.  It is not a matter for debate, it is a matter of obedience.  They believe they are uniquely qualified to judge what the moral right is and have the intellectual honesty to know what is best.  Therefore, without further discussion, it is time for the rest of us to listen, learn, and fall in line….OR become vigilant, think independently, have reasoned debate, and actively engage in self-governance.

Be Vigilant. Be Free.

Demanding Better Discourse

We are a country obsessed with drama and can't seem to stand for a slow news day. If it is not what President Donald Trump has said, it is what he didn’t say. If it is not what the current administration did, it is what they didn’t do. And the same patterns run through each political party, each decision made, each action taken.

Politics is about power.  For one side to “win” the other must “lose”.  It is all about scoring political points as tallied by the media.  Speaker Paul Ryan said his first job is the reelection of his members and the control of the House.  That is his first job?  Not good public policy within good constitutional order?

We demand that our political bodies come together to agree on some compromise to better the country, yet we stand outside the walls of Congress and partake in the same argumentative manner which is then inflated and furthered by the overly dramatic and terribly partisan media coverage.

How can we demand better from our government if we are acting no better ourselves? We should strive to embody the character and manner that we ask for in our government representatives.  And they should strive to do better for the public good.

Republicans with One Foot in the Grave

For the past eight years Republicans have howled that if they only could control the House, Senate, and Executive branches, they could repeal Obamacare and Dodd-Frank, overhaul the tax code, reduce the regulatory state, restore order to the Middle East, confront China and North Korea, and get the budget deficits under control.  Well that “dog caught the car” and for the first six months Republican are far afield from their promises.

Differences of policy thought within the party are healthy but, in the end, policy has to be enacted and promises kept.  Obamacare repeal/replace has been a disaster, Dodd-Frank some tooling at the edges, regulatory reform some, tax reform not started, Middle East and China good start then stalled, North Korea no start, and budget control a non-starter.

The Republican Party has no appearance of a single party, rather it seems to be filled with representatives that are (now called) moderates who seem to embrace some Democrat policies and conservatives who refuse to make incremental gains in policy.

With the second failure to repeal and replace Obamacare and incessant inability to agree on legislation, the Republican base will be demotivated to turn-out in 2018, regardless of the state of the economy.  However, the Democrat voting base is highly motivated.  What will be left is one, if not both, houses of Congress in the hands of the Democrats and a Republican President with no allies in either.  If the second half of this year proves no better legislatively for Republicans than the first half, Republicans will have found themselves with one foot in the political grave come 2018 election time.

Al Gore...He's Back!

With the release of Al Gore’s sequel to, An Inconvenient Truth, we thought it noteworthy to discuss, well, science.  According to far left MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes, on his show, All In With Chris Hayes, the debate is “over” on climate change as 97% of scientists agree on man-made climate change.  Hayes leaves no doubt that this is 97% of all “credible” scientists; i.e. any disagreement is for those not credible.

Now, there may very well be a material and measurable influence of man’s activities on global warming and climate, but real science requires proof of this hypothesis, not name calling or legal action to prevent those who disagree from speaking.

Proving Einstein’s theories required brilliant and extremely accurate experiments to measure the predictions that Einstein’s equations proposed.  Only when there was independent verification of the accuracy of predictions did we believe the science behind the theories.  We do not have this when it comes to climate change.

Chart 1 below shows temperature fluctuation over the past million years.  For the particular latitude indicated on the chart, there are wide swings.  The last uptick began about 10,000 years ago when the best man could muster was barely a camp fire.  However, we are now asked to believe that the only cause of global warming is man. Yet, if all these dramatic swings occurred without man, then to what degree is man causing them now?

Climate debate is welcomed, as we are the stewards of the planet and should keep it in good stead.  Our course must be with reasoned and fact based discussions remembering that when we ask for public policy, that it must be well defined and limited.

Freedom: Our Most Precious National Treasure

We have spoken on the idea of freedom time and time again. In the research of our book, Vigilance The Price of Liberty, among the questions asked to people of different backgrounds, gender and socio-economic levels, was "what is liberty?". All had a common definition that liberty was the freedom to choose. This concept of liberty and freedom is abstract, but not for Vice Admiral James Stockdale.  He was a prisoner of war for eight years in Hanoi, Vietnam after being shot down in September of 1965.

In the years following his release, Vice Admiral Stockdale did much writing and speeches in regards to his experience as a POW.  An article titled Freedom: Our Most Precious National Treasure (the title used for this blog), was published by Parade Publications, Inc. on June 29, 1980. Vice Admiral Stockdale reflects on the average American who experiences freedom as an abstraction, while he, after spending time in a prison without such freedom, grew to understand freedom having a "delicious and tangible" meaning.

Below is an excerpt of the article that we hope will bring light to freedom to make its value more an appreciated and dear gift, rather than an unchallenged entitlement.

[M]y appreciation of its [freedoms] preciousness stems from a first-hand understanding of its rarity. The void of freedom in other parts of the world - and particularly the passivity with which this lack is accepted - is staggering to a man who is born and raised free. In my Hanoi cell, I found myself daily picking up shocking signals in that milieu of deadened sensitivities. Like these:

-The routine feedlot attitude of the simple peasant guards who delivered daily food rations down the line to cooped-up humans, fowl and livestock, with expressionless unconcern for the continual darkness, suffocating closeness, and isolation in which the chickens, pigs and men were confined.

-The continuous barking of loudspeakers on the street telling the people of Hanoi what to think. 

-The pathetic ignorance behind outburst of a prominent political cadre who shouted to me in a moment of exasperation: "We may not have freedom, but after 4000 years we have order, and we will settle for that."

We, as Americans, should not settle for ‘order’. We, as Americans, must fight to keep our freedom and ensure that sweet liberty for our posterity.

I the Politician

"We the People" are the words that begin our Constitution and signifies the government deriving its limited power from that granted by the People. So how has it become “we the people" who seem serving of the politicians?  The wording of the Constitution has not changed, yet the twisting of its words have left our political system revolving about power-hungry politicians.

We were a country born of great men. Men that put the will of the people and the good of the newborn nation before their own. Debate was for the purpose of finding resolve and extracting the best possible solution.  Leadership was not a prize to be won, but a duty if so conferred by the people. So how did we become a nation led by self-serving politicians whose goal is gaining and retaining power?  Where public policy is merely a pawn to score political points in the battle to be elected?

We elect what we deserve, thus, as we have said many times before, we must demand better of our elected officials. Our taxes should not fill hollow promises and programs of generational theft, but rather put towards effective and efficient policies that promote the public good and not a politician’s election. 

The Race Grievance Industry

Bob Woodson is a black man who was a civil rights pioneer.  As president and founder of the Woodson Center, he argues that today’s violent protests from the Left defame the legacy of the civil rights movement that they purport to revere and defend. His short interview on Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, which aired on July 7th, provides insightful commentary.  He highlights that the civil rights movement of the 60's promoted inclusion vs. modern protests that promote the opposite.  A most worthwhile interview to see. 

The Shame of Charity

There are roughly 74 million people on Medicaid - some 23% of the population.  Medicaid is supposed to be a safety-net program for poor women, children and disabled but, under the Affordable Care Act, it has been the dumping ground for the able-body to gain medical insurance.

Medicaid had 4 million enrollees when launched in 1966.  Since then, the population has grown 63%, while Medicaid enrollment has grown 1,738%.  How can this be?  Have Americans’ dependence upon government been growing at an accelerating rate?  So much so that today that 1 in 4 cannot provide medical insurance for themselves or their families? No.  The answer lies in the transfer from those that do, to those that do not, couched first as compassion and later as a life style.

Left-leaning political commentator, William Galston, wrote in the Wall Street Journal Opinion section on June 28th regarding the Senate Republican proposed healthcare legislation that cutting “public support for health care by $1.2 trillion over the next decade means depriving vast numbers of Americans of health security.” For Galston this means “people would be forced to rely on the kindness of strangers.” In Galston’s view, voluntary charity from strangers is antithetical to coercively taxing strangers to take from those that can take care of themselves and give to those who either cannot or chose not to care for themselves.

For collectivists like Galston, the purpose of welfare is not a temporary helping hand, but about a wealth transfer from the few to the many.  After all, collectivists are, by nature, collective.  It is about the many and not the individual, who need be relegated to a larger purpose. 

The Democrats gave the nation Obamacare, and the Republicans have shown, so far, little to materially change toward free-market healthcare.  The measurable difference between the two party’s plans is that the Republicans throw less federal taxpayer money at Medicaid than Democrats.  However, the basic underlying notions of actuarial sanity and free market forces that drive the price dynamics, quality, and availability remain largely absent.

There is pride and self-satisfaction in earning one’s living and pursuing happiness as each individual dreams.  It is the cold and grey world of tyranny when government and political elites rally to conform people to dependence on government.

Does Anyone Remember Ray Donovan?

Raymond Donovan is a business man and former Secretary of Labor from 1981 to 1985 under President Ronald Reagan.  Through Donovan’s leadership, the department’s staff and budget was reduced, regulatory relief was given to businesses via changes made to the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) enforcement practices, new industrial home work rules were created, and the Davis-Bacon rules revised, as well as revision of the federal compliance regulations.  However, it was his comment after the verdict in his 1987 trial that made him famous.

As chronicled in upi.com, Donovan was in the construction business.  He was executive vice president and 40% owner of Schiavone Construction of New Jersey. No sooner than Donovan was confirmed as Labor Secretary in 1981, when Time Magazine reported that he was mentioned in an FBI wiretap of an alleged mobster who did subcontract work for Schiavone.  Shortly after, the FBI said that a labor union official, in 1977, witnessed a $2,000 payoff by Schiavone to another union official.  Then Attorney General William Smith, asked for an investigation of Donovan and attorney Leon Silverman was named as special prosecutor under the Ethics in Government Act.

In May, 1982 Donovan was in front of a New York grand jury.  In June, 1982 the Washington Post reported Schiavone Construction was linked to the Genovese crime family.  However, that month, the Silverman commission cited 'insufficient credible evidence' and cleared Donovan.  At this point, a reasonable man might think the controversy was over…but, in politics, the facts can be irrelevant.

A year later the Bronx District Attorney investigated Schiavone Construction.  Donovan with seven executives were indicted on charges of grand larceny.  The legal wrangling and trial took years, but in 1987, Donovan and his seven co-defendants were acquitted of all charges.  Following the trial, Donovan famously remarks "Which [government] office do I go to to get my reputation back?”

These sort of accusations facilitated by a media with partisan interest make for good political theater and media profits.  Scandals can be created with innuendo and investigation conjured without proof.  However, the story is not that Mr. Donovan was found innocent or accusations investigated were not credible.  It was how political enemies with media allies can colluded to use insinuation for fact in a witch hunt against Mr. Donovan.  Sound familiar?