Allergic to “Bold Colors”, Vichy Republicans Investigating Viability of “Independent Candidate”, If Trump Wins Nomination.

High-Ground-600-LAHeading toward the conglomeration of State Primaries, known as “Super Tuesday”, it has become evident that the possible inevitability of “rank amateur”, successful businessman and entrepreneur, Donald J. Trump’s, victory in the Republican Primaries, is beginning to manifest itself in acts of desperation…on BOTH sides of the Political Aisle.

Politico.com reports that

Conservative donors have engaged a major GOP consulting firm in Florida to research the feasibility of mounting a late, independent run for president amid growing fears that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination.

A memo prepared for the group zeroes in on ballot access as a looming obstacle for any independent candidate, along with actually identifying a viable, widely known contender and coalescing financial support for that person. The two states with the earliest deadlines for independent candidates, Texas and North Carolina, also have some of the highest hurdles for independents to get on the ballot, according to the research.

“All this research has to happen before March 16, when inevitably Trump is the nominee, so that we have a plan in place,” a source familiar with the discussions said. March 16 is the day after the GOP primary in Florida, a winner-take-all contest that Marco Rubio supporters have identified as a must-win to stop Trump’s early momentum.

“It’s critical some serious attention is given to this,” the source said.

The document, stamped “confidential,” was authored by staff at Data Targeting, a Republican firm based in Gainesville, Fla. The memo notes that “it is possible to mount an independent candidacy but [it] will require immediate action on the part of this core of key funding and strategic players.”

Data Targeting did not respond to a request for comment on the memo.

The research points to Texas and North Carolina as early tests for running an independent, conservative candidate against Trump and the Democratic nominee. The candidate would need to gather over 79,900 valid petition signatures in Texas by May 9 and over 89,000 in North Carolina by June 9.

Only two other states have thresholds that high, and gathering petitions can be an expensive and time-consuming process. What’s more, the Texas signatures would have to come entirely from voters who did not vote in this year’s Democratic and Republican primaries.

But “with 38 electoral votes in play in Texas and North Carolina’s true swing state status, failing to qualify in either or both states would render any independent candidate non-viable,” the report’s authors wrote. “This is logistically possible but will require immediate action.”

By July 15, the independent candidate would need more than 460,000 voter signatures to make the ballot in 11 states. Assuming an April 1 start date, the campaign would have to gather 4,345 valid signatures per day to maintain a steady pace.

Correct me if I’m wrong but aren’t the Republicans supposed to be the opposition party?

Just like this slavish mainstream media believe that President Barack Hussein Obama walks upon the water, the Establishment or “Vichy” Republicans, must idolize or at least respect the Democratic Party because they seem Hell-bent on copying them in their actions, words, and deeds.

Just look at their track record over Obama’s tenure n the Oval Office.

As we say in Dixie, they ain’t done squat.

And now, like a bunch of Democrats, they expect us to forget their lack of intestinal fortitude, while in office, and elect those who are just like them to the Presidency in November 2016.

Oh, we  remember them all right. But, not in the way they want us to. We do not remember them as leaders. Oh, no. Rather, Americans, here in the Heartland, remember them with all of the fondness that the French Resistance remembered the Nazi collaborators, or Vichy French, after World War II.

What slays me is the fact that the Establishment Republicans seem to be quite content, in their moderately left-leaning stupor, to be totally oblivious and tone deaf of their Base, average hard working middle-class Americans like you and me.

You know, the people who actually put them into office.

They keep on making bad choices.

They have pushed for maintaining the Washingtonian Status Quo because they erroneously believe that new citizens, provided through amnesty, will vote for them instead of the Democratic Party, who are ready to be their own personal Santa Claus and buy their votes with free admission to the Welfare State.

Spineless Vichy Republicans have been a barrier to Republican victory for as long as I can remember. Like Quakers, Establishment Republicans seem to believe that passive resistance and reaching out to their sworn enemies as “friends”, is the way to defeat those who oppose you.

It has been especially bad during Obama’s reign, as the House and Senate Republican Leadership apparently cherished their friendship with the Democrats more than they did the wishes of the folks back home. Yes, they talked a good game, but so did Jon Lovitz in those “Liar Sketches” during the old days of Saturday Night Live, back when they were actually funny.

Yeah,  my wife Morgan Fairchild. Yeah, that’s it. That’s the ticket!

In 1975, Ronald Wilson Reagan gave a speech which sums up our present situation and average Americans’ visceral disdain for the Professional Politicians, who value the Washingtonian Status Quo, above US.

Americans are hungry to feel once again a sense of mission and greatness.

I don ‘t know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, “We must broaden the base of our party” — when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.

It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of the voters away from the polls. When have we ever advocated a closed-door policy? Who has ever been barred from participating?

Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?

Let us show that we stand for fiscal integrity and sound money and above all for an end to deficit spending, with ultimate retirement of the national debt.

Let us also include a permanent limit on the percentage of the people’s earnings government can take without their consent.

Let our banner proclaim a genuine tax reform that will begin by simplifying the income tax so that workers can compute their obligation without having to employ legal help.

And let it provide indexing — adjusting the brackets to the cost of living — so that an increase in salary merely to keep pace with inflation does not move the taxpayer into a surtax bracket. Failure to provide this means an increase in government’s share and would make the worker worse off than he was before he got the raise.

Let our banner proclaim our belief in a free market as the greatest provider for the people. Let us also call for an end to the nit-picking, the harassment and over-regulation of business and industry which restricts expansion and our ability to compete in world markets.

Let us explore ways to ward off socialism, not by increasing government’s coercive power, but by increasing participation by the people in the ownership of our industrial machine.

Our banner must recognize the responsibility of government to protect the law-abiding, holding those who commit misdeeds personally accountable.

And we must make it plain to international adventurers that our love of peace stops short of “peace at any price.”

We will maintain whatever level of strength is necessary to preserve our free way of life.

A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.

I do not believe I have proposed anything that is contrary to what has been considered Republican principle. It is at the same time the very basis of conservatism. It is time to reassert that principle and raise it to full view. And if there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way.

I believe that the Republican Party is stuck in a cycle in which their desire to protect their own hindquarters and cushy “jobs” have lead to a self-imposed isolation from the very American Citizens who were responsible for their having those cushy “jobs” in the first place.

I believe that average Americans, like you and me, have the power to relieve them of the burden of such a stressful job, and send others to Washington, who will listen to their “bosses”.

And, no “Independent Candidate”, pushing their “Go-Along-to-Get Along” Political Philosophy, known as the “Washingtonian Status Quo”, will win the White House.

Ask “Jeb!”

Just as Ronaldus Magnus said those 41 years ago, it is time to “let them go their way”.

Until He Comes, 

KJ

 

As Trump Grows Stronger, China Gets Nervous. It’s All About “The Art of the Deal”.

Chinese-TakeoutAs the Nomination of Donald J. Trump as the Republican Party’s Presidential Candidate and his possible election as the next President of the United states of America, becomes closer to becoming a reality, it’s not just the internal enemies of a strong America who are getting nervous.

It is Obama’s “Foreign Economic Partners”, as well.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that

China warned the United States on Wednesday not to adopt punitive currency policies that could disrupt U.S.-China relations after Donald Trump’s win in the Nevada caucus.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing that “we are following with interest the U.S. presidential election.”

Hua was asked about China’s response to a possible Trump presidency and his announced plan to punish China for currency manipulation with a tax on Chinese goods.

“Since it belongs to the domestic affair of the U.S., I am not going to make comments on specific remarks by the relevant candidate,” she said.

“But I want to stress that China and the U.S., as world’s largest developing and developed countries, shoulder major responsibilities in safeguarding world peace, stability and security and driving world development,” the spokeswoman added.

“The sustained, sound and steady growth of China-U.S. relations serves the fundamental and long-term interests of the two countries and benefits the world. We hope and believe that the U.S. government will pursue a positive policy toward China in a responsible manner.”

The comments came as Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, is holding talks in Washington that include U.S. concerns about a Chinese military buildup on disputed islands in the South China Sea, and cooperation on dealing with North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations.

Hua said Wang and Secretary of State John Kerry agreed the two sides will enhance cooperation and increase talks and exchanges.

“We stand ready to preserve and advance China-U.S. relations together with the U.S. side,” she said.

Kerry said he spoke to Wang about reducing tensions and finding diplomatic solutions to competing South China Sea claims.

“We want there to be a halt to the expansion and militarization of occupied features,” Kerry said. “Everyone benefits by true demilitarization, non-militarization.”

Kerry also said the United States remains committed to freedom of navigation and overflight, “something which China says it does not stand in the way of; it agrees that there should be peaceful freedom of navigation.” 

Reports from Asia say Chinese state-run media have been ordered by the Communist Party to minimize reporting on the U.S. presidential election.

Hong Kong’s Chinese-language news outlet Oriental Daily reported Feb. 5 that the Party’s Propaganda Department, which sets policies for all state-run media, ordered all publications to ban election coverage of U.S. policies toward China and to focus election coverage on negative stories and scandals.

Trump won the Nevada caucus with 45 percent of the vote, increasing his chances of winning the Republican nomination later this year.

Last month, Trump vowed to impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese good to offset China’s devaluation of the yuan.

“They’re devaluing their currency, and they’re killing our companies,” Trump said. “We are letting them get away with it, and we can’t let them get away with it.”

The Obama administration has adopted conciliatory policies toward China on trade and currency issues.

On his Campaign Website, donaldjtrump.com, Trumps outlines how he would handle U.S. Trade Negotiations with China.

How We Got Here: Washington Politicians Let China Off The Hook 

In January 2000, President Bill Clinton boldly promised China’s inclusion in the World Trade Organization (WTO) “is a good deal for America. Our products will gain better access to China’s market, and every sector from agriculture, to telecommunications, to automobiles. But China gains no new market access to the United States.” None of what President Clinton promised came true. Since China joined the WTO, Americans have witnessed the closure of more than 50,000 factories and the loss of tens of millions of jobs. It was  not a good deal for America then and it’s a bad deal now. It is a typical example of how politicians in Washington have failed our country.

The most important component of our China policy is leadership and strength at the negotiating table. We have been too afraid to protect and advance American interests and to challenge China to live up to its obligations. We need smart negotiators who will serve the interests of American workers – not Wall Street insiders that want to move U.S. manufacturing and investment offshore.

The Goal Of The Trump Plan: Fighting For American Businesses And Workers

America has always been a trading nation. Under the Trump administration trade will flourish. However, for free trade to bring prosperity to America, it must also be fair trade. Our goal is not protectionism but accountability. America fully opened its markets to China but China has not reciprocated. Its Great Wall of Protectionism uses unlawful tariff and non-tariff barriers to keep American companies out of China and to tilt the playing field in their favor.

If you give American workers a level playing field, they will win. At its heart, this plan is a negotiating strategy to bring fairness to our trade with China. The results will be huge for American businesses and workers. Jobs and factories will stop moving offshore and instead stay here at home. The economy will boom. The steps outlined in this plan will make that a reality.

When Donald J. Trump is president, China will be on notice that America is back in the global leadership business and that their days of currency manipulation and cheating are over. We will cut a better deal with China that helps American businesses and workers compete.

The Trump Plan Will Achieve The Following Goals:

Bring China to the bargaining table by immediately declaring it a currency manipulator.
Protect American ingenuity and investment by forcing China to uphold intellectual property laws and stop their unfair and unlawful practice of forcing U.S. companies to share proprietary technology with Chinese competitors as a condition of entry to China’s market.
Reclaim millions of American jobs and reviving American manufacturing by putting an end to China’s illegal export subsidies and lax labor and environmental standards. No more sweatshops or pollution havens stealing jobs from American workers.
Strengthen our negotiating position by lowering our corporate tax rate to keep American companies and jobs here at home, attacking our debt and deficit so China cannot use financial blackmail against us, and bolstering the U.S. military presence in the East and South China Seas to discourage Chinese adventurism.

Details of Donald J. Trump’s US China Trade Plan:

Declare China A Currency Manipulator

We need a president who will not succumb to the financial blackmail of a Communist dictatorship. President Obama’s Treasury Department has repeatedly refused to brand China a currency manipulator – a move that would force China to stop these unfair practices or face tough countervailing duties that level the playing field.

Economists estimate the Chinese yuan is undervalued by anywhere from 15% to 40%. This grossly undervalued yuan gives Chinese exporters a huge advantage while imposing the equivalent of a heavy tariff on U.S. exports to China. Such currency manipulation, in concert with China’s other unfair practices, has resulted in chronic U.S. trade deficits, a severe weakening of the U.S. manufacturing base and the loss of tens of millions of American jobs.

In a system of truly free trade and floating exchange rates like a Trump administration would support, America’s massive trade deficit with China would not persist. On day one of the Trump administration the U.S. Treasury Department will designate China as a currency manipulator. This will begin a process that imposes appropriate countervailing duties on artificially cheap Chinese products, defends U.S. manufacturers and workers, and revitalizes job growth in America. We must stand up to China’s blackmail and reject corporate America’s manipulation of our politicians. The U.S. Treasury’s designation of China as a currency manipulator will force China to the negotiating table and open the door to a fair – and far better – trading relationship.

End China’s Intellectual Property Violations

China’s ongoing theft of intellectual property may be the greatest transfer of wealth in history. This theft costs the U.S. over $300 billion and millions of jobs each year. China’s government ignores this rampant cybercrime and, in other cases, actively encourages or even sponsors it –without any real consequences. China’s cyber lawlessness threatens our prosperity, privacy and national security. We will enforce stronger protections against Chinese hackers and counterfeit goods and our responses to Chinese theft will be swift, robust, and unequivocal.

The Chinese government also forces American companies like Boeing, GE, and Intel to transfer proprietary technologies to Chinese competitors as a condition of entry into the Chinese market. Such de facto intellectual property theft represents a brazen violation of WTO and international rules. China’s forced technology transfer policy is absolutely ridiculous. Going forward, we will adopt a zero tolerance policy on intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer. If China wants to trade with America, they must agree to stop stealing and to play by the rules.

Eliminate China’s Illegal Export Subsidies And Other Unfair Advantages

Chinese manufacturers and other exporters receive numerous illegal export subsidies from the Chinese government. These include – in direct contradiction to WTO rules – free or nearly free rent, utilities, raw materials, and many other services. China’s state-run banks routinely extend loans these enterprises at below market rates or without the expectation they will be repaid. China even offers them illegal tax breaks or rebates as well as cash bonuses to stimulate exports.

China’s illegal export subsidies intentionally distorts international trade and damages other countries’ exports by giving Chinese companies an unfair advantage. From textile and steel mills in the Carolinas to the Gulf Coast’s shrimp and fish industries to the Midwest manufacturing belt and California’s agribusiness, China’s disregard for WTO rules hurt every corner of America.

The U.S. Trade Representative recently filed yet another complaint with the WTO accusing China of cheating on our trade agreements by subsidizing its exports. The Trump administration will not wait for an international body to tell us what we already know. To gain negotiating leverage, we will pursue the WTO case and aggressively highlight and expose these subsidies.

China’s woeful lack of reasonable environmental and labor standards represent yet another form of unacceptable export subsidy. How can American manufacturers, who must meet very high standards, possibly compete with Chinese companies that care nothing about their workers or the environment? We will challenge China to join the 21 st Century when it comes to such standards.

The Trump Plan Will Strengthen Our Negotiating Position

As the world’s most important economy and consumer of goods, America must always negotiate trade agreements from strength. Branding China as a currency manipulator and exposing their unfair trade practices is not enough. In order to further strengthen our negotiating leverage, the Trump plan will:

Lower the corporate tax rate to 15% to unleash American ingenuity here at home and make us more globally competitive. This tax cut puts our rate 10 percentage points below China and 20 points below our current burdensome rate that pushes companies and jobs offshore.
Attack our debt and deficit by vigorously eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the Federal government, ending redundant government programs, and growing the economy to increase tax revenues. Closing the deficit and reducing our debt will mean China cannot blackmail us with our own Treasury bonds.
Strengthen the U.S. military and deploying it appropriately in the East and South China Seas. These actions will discourage Chinese adventurism that imperils American interests in Asia and shows our strength as we begin renegotiating our trading relationship with China. A strong military presence will be a clear signal to China and other nations in Asia and around the world that America is back in the global leadership business.

Could Trump realistically make this plan work?

You betcha.

The Godfather of Conservative Talk Radio, Rush Limbaugh, recently gave a superb analysis of the way Trump operates, on his nationally-syndicated Program…

Let me share with you some analysis that will no doubt be misunderstood and distorted in many places in our media, but here we go.  As I’m listening to Trump talk about all this — and not just today. It is fascinating, is it not, that Donald Trump has sort of reframed, or maybe even redefined, the purpose and the position of the presidency as something defined by negotiating deals?  He talks about this all the time. This is important. He’s credibly presenting himself as a skilled dealmaker, as a skilled negotiator.  Therefore, he is positing here that the job of president, to him, is negotiating and dealmaking, foreign and domestic. 

Trade equals deals. Foreign policy equals deals such as Iran, the entire Middle East.  Domestic policy equals deals, i.e., making them with Democrats.  By all those deals… Here’s the thing: Every time Trump talks about doing a deal — with Mexico and the wall, you name it, with the ChiComs. Every time he talks about doing deals, he talks about winning them for his position, that nobody else is any good at this, that the people running our government now, elected officials now don’t know how to do deals. They do the dumbest deals ever. 

But Trump is gonna do smart deals, because that’s what his life is. 

He does deals for everything, and he runs rings around everybody. 

He wrote a book on how to do deals better than anybody else.  Even after telling everybody how to do deals, they still can’t do ’em better than he does.  And he’s defined all of this as pro-America, i.e., for the people. Making America great again.  The opposition, or the opposite reactions to Trump among Republicans and others depends on whether people trust or believe him or not.  Trump opposers don’t believe it; Trump supporters do believe it. 

We all remember the first time we went into a voting booth and got to pull the lever for the candidate of our choice.

I was especially blessed as a 22 year old college senior. My very first vote, in any sort of election, was when I got to pull the lever for Ronald Wilson Reagan.

In 1974, at the very first Conservative Political Action Conference, the future President of the United States said the following:

Somehow America has bred a kindliness into our people unmatched anywhere, as has been pointed out in that best-selling record by a Canadian journalist. We are not a sick society. A sick society could not produce the men that set foot on the moon, or who are now circling the earth above us in the Skylab. A sick society bereft of morality and courage did not produce the men who went through those years of torture and captivity in Vietnam. Where did we find such men? They are typical of this land as the Founding Fathers were typical. We found them in our streets, in the offices, the shops and the working places of our country and on the farms.

We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall of Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, “The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind.

We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth.

When Reagan became president, he did everything within his power to uphold these lofty words.

I suppose that is why I hold Barack Hussein Obama in such disdain. As a young man just starting my new life in the business world, I was able to watch the economy start to turn around under the greatest president in our lifetime. There was a confidence in our strength as an American people that I had never seen before.

You could see it in people’s faces as you walked past them on the street… or at the gas station, as we all watched the price of a gallon of gas finally go down after the pain at the pump that we experienced during the Carter Presidency.

People who had been out of work and suffering along with their families were beginning to be hired again. And, young Americans who had no confidence in the previous commander in chief, were once again going to military recruiters asking to sign up to serve our country.

Yes, indeed. Once again, it was “Morning in America”.

However, the popularity of our president was not just limited to the boundaries of our nation. Reagan was admired the world over. The things that he accomplished, along with his friends, Prime Minister of Britain Margaret Thatcher, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, and Pope John Paul II, have caused the decade of the 1980s to be recorded as a seminal moment in world history.

I remember watching President Reagan speak at the Berlin Wall. When he said, “Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall!”, I was never prouder to be an American and of an American president, than at that moment.

The Liberal Democrats lost their collective minds.

For you see, Liberal Democrats, just as they do now, hate it when Marxism gives way to Freedom.

So do the Marxists themselves, such as the Chinese. Their nation is right on the verge of a move toward a form of Capitalism, even with a weak United States President like Barack Hussxein Obama in office.

Image what the future would hold for the Chinese People, if America was brought back to a Position of Strength.

The Great Wall probably would not be torn down…but, there probably would be some more doors installed in it.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Justice Antonin Scalia, Chick-Fil-A, and Petulant President Pantywaist

D-Wounded-600-LIWe are now at a point in our nation’s history, where a Fast Food Chain is showing more deference to the death of a Senior United States Supreme Court Justice than the President.

Christianpost.com reports that

Chick-fil-A restaurants that display the American flag are flying them at half-staff in memory of recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. 

The fast food chain that specializes in chicken sandwiches and headed by a conservative Southern Baptist family asked their restaurant managers to lower the American flag in remembrance of Scalia, who died Saturday of natural causes. 

“Anytime the president orders the flag be flown at half-staff, Chick-fil-A restaurants do so — as is the case with honoring Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia,” read a statement sent to The Christian Post by the fast food company.

“Honor”.  A word that, in the case of the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, seems to be virtually nonexistent.

Politico.com reports that

President Barack Obama is preparing for a fierce battle with the Senate over the Supreme Court vacancy, but he’s not planning to attend Justice Antonin Scalia’s funeral — a decision that puzzled even some of his allies and incensed conservative media.

“If we want to reduce partisanship, we can start by honoring great public servants who we disagree with,” Obama’s former “car czar” Steven Rattner tweeted with a link to a headline about Obama skipping the funeral.

Fox News host Sean Hannity blasted out his own site’s article that dismissed the decision as disappointingly expected: “Obama To SKIP Scalia Funeral, Here’s A List Of OTHER Funerals He Was Too Busy To Attend.”

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest revealed the president’s plans during the

daily briefing, saying Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will go to the Supreme Court on Friday “to pay their respects to Justice Scalia” while the justice lies in repose in the Great Hall. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden, who share Scalia’s Catholic faith, will be at the services instead.

Earnest refused to be drawn out about why the president would not attend the funeral, saying he didn’t know what the president plans to do on Saturday, and Scalia’s son, Eugene, did not immediately respond to a question about whether the family requested that Obama not attend the funeral.

“The president, obviously, believes it’s important for the institution of the presidency to pay his respects to somebody who dedicated three decades of his life to the institution of the Supreme Court,” Earnest said, adding that Friday marked an “important opportunity” to pay those respects.

Inspite of the criticism, people close to the Scalia family said Obama was making the right choice. “I wouldn’t have expected President Obama to attend the funeral Mass, and I see no reason to fault him for not attending,” said Ed Whelan, a former Scalia clerk who now heads the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “The ceremony at the Supreme Court seems the most apt opportunity for the president to pay his respects, but he obviously might have severe competing demands on his time.”

There’s not substantial historic precedent for presidents attending the funerals of sitting justices. President George W. Bush not only attended, but also eulogized Supreme Court chief justice and fellow conservative William Rehnquist in 2005. But before him, the last justice to die in office was Robert H. Jackson in 1954.

Still, the decision to forgo the funeral on Saturday was played up by some as a partisan snub.

Tim Miller, the communications director for Jeb Bush, simply tweeted “Same.” in response to a message from MSNBC host Chris Hayes, who said, “Some amazing advice my mom gave me once: ‘If you’re wondering whether you should go to the funeral, you should go to the funeral.”

The optics of paying his respects to Scalia are tricky for Obama, who would have been the subject of constant cutaways to his reactions and interactions with members of Congress during the funeral, distracting from memorials for the giant of American legal thought.

Obama so far has taken pains to show reverence for Scalia, even as he urged Republicans to keep an open mind about a replacement. In the immediate aftermath of Scalia’s death last weekend, Obama praised his wit and predicted that he would be remembered as one of the “most consequential judges and thinkers to serve.”

Confronted with a series of questions during a press conference on Tuesday about Republican plans to block a nominee, Obama was careful to again express gratitude for Scalia’s service before launching into a Constitutional lecture directed at the opposing party.

Scalia’s death ripped open a political seam that has suddenly consumed both the presidential race and the Senate, especially after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell immediately issued a statement calling for Scalia’s replacement to be delayed until the next president is in office. Obama almost as quickly announced he would not be deterred, and pronounced his intent to nominate a fair-minded legal heavyweight to replace Scalia.

Former justice Sandra Day O’Connor on Wednesday appeared to back Obama’s decision to move forward with a nomination, telling a Fox affiliate, “We need somebody in there to do the job and just get on with it.”

So far, however, the president has not tipped his hand as far as top candidates, or even whether he will considering picking a moderate who could be palatable to the Republican-controlled Senate.

The White House said no nomination is expected this week while Congress is in recess, but there’s still been plenty of speculation and tea-leaf reading about both Obama’s and the Senate’s intentions.

On Tuesday, some Republicans signaled they’re open to at least holding hearings, if not also allowing a confirmation vote. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin in an interview with POLITICO bristled at the suggestion that his party would completely ignore a nomination, saying, “It’s amazing how many words are being put in everybody’s mouth.”

Also on Tuesday, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, whose panel would evaluate any potential Obama pick, said he wouldn’t rule out holding hearings. 

On Wednesday, Nevada GOP Sen. Dean Heller broke with his party’s strategy and called on Obama to put forward a consensus candidate. “The chances of approving a new nominee are slim, but Nevadans should have a voice in the process,” said Heller, a purple state senator, in the most direct rebuttal to McConnell’s plans to complete block a Supreme Court nominee.

But McConnell is still making hay of the Senate’s oppositional force, penning a letter on Wednesday afternoon for the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm that told donors that their “support means everything at this pivotal moment in American history.”

“Senate Republicans have made a commitment to ensuring that the American people have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court Justice,” McConnell wrote. “Stand with Senate Republicans as we hold our ground in waiting to confirm a new justice until after 2016, the time by which the American people will have chosen a new president and a new direction for our country.”

At the press briefing on Wednesday, Earnest also tried to clarify Obama’s view on his own decision as a senator to filibuster against President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito, in 2006. Earnest said Obama “regrets” the decision. But, he said, the situation was different.

“The president considered the qualifications and world view and credentials and record of the individual that President Bush put forward and then-Sen. Obama raised some objections,” Earnest said. “And what the president regrets is that Senate Democrats didn’t focus more on making an effective public case about those substantive suggestions.”

According to the Media Research Center,

President Obama will become the first U.S. president to skip the funeral of a sitting Supreme Court justice in at least 65 years when he skips the funeral service for Justice Antonin Scalia, scheduled to be held this Saturday.  

While Supreme Court justices are appointed for life, in recent history most have retired from the bench prior to their deaths.

Most recently, President George W. Bush gave the eulogy at the funeral of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who passed in 2005 while still on the bench.

Prior to Rehnquists’ death, Dwight D. Eisenhower was photographed attending the funeral of Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, who served on the court until he passed away in 1953. 

The funerals of sitting Supreme Court Justices were far more common before the 1950s, but it is unclear if sitting presidents attended the funeral services of those sitting justices or if not as few records of attendance exist. 

Why is the President not attending the funeral of the Senion Justice on the Supreme Court/

Petulant President Pantywaist couldn’t be holding a grudge, could he?

Does the very thought of Hillary Clinton and Yoko Ono having a “fling” make you want to hurl?

On February 12, 2014, usatoday.com reported that

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia criticized the annual State of the Union ritual Tuesday night, calling the presidential speech something worth skipping because it is a “rather silly affair.”One of three justices who did not attend President Obama’s speech at the U.S. Capitol — along with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — Scalia bemoaned that “it has turned into a childish spectacle, and I don’t think that I want to be there to lend dignity to it.”

“The State of the Union is not something I write on my calendar,” Scalia said during his own remarks before the Smithsonian Associates at George Washington University. But he quipped, “I didn’t set this up tonight just to upstage the president.”

Scalia’s views are shared by Chief Justice John Roberts and Alito, both nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush. Roberts once said the presidential speech has “denigrated into a political pep rally” and added that it was “troubling” to expect members of the high court to sit there expressionless.

Indeed, Alito was seen on TV cameras during Obama’s 2010 remarks shaking his head and mouthing the words “not true” when the president criticized the high court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which upheld the right of corporations and unions to make unlimited, independent political expenditures.

Next to a presidential inauguration, the State of the Union Address has similar stagecraft and drama. The president speaks before a joint session of Congress, and the justices, Cabinet members, foreign diplomats and assorted guests are in attendance in the packed House chambers.

 

Petulant President Pantywaist, as I dubbed him, years ago, behaves as if the world should genuflect when he enters the room, hanging on his every syllable in rapt attention.

Justice Scalia, appointed by an AMERICAN PRESIDENT by the name of Ronald Reagan, was a man’s man, a Christian and a Constitutionalist, who believed in American Exceptionalism and Traditional American Values.

His Legal Writings were brilliant in scope and interpretation.

By contrast, Obama was the first Editor of the Harvard Law Review, who never contributed to that publication.

Obama’s childish snubbing of Justice Scalia’s Funeral tells you everything that you need to know about him.

History will remember Justice Scalia as a Giant Among Men.

It will not be as kind toward Petulant President Pantywaist.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

 

 

 

The Death of Justice Antonin Scalia: Time to Start “Borking”

Pendulum-NRD-600Last night, President Barack Hussein Obama addressed the nation concerning the passing of Conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. As he showed during a State of the Union Address, several years back, to say that he did not care for this Judicial Giant, would be putting it mildly.

In fact, as his remarks, courtesy of whitehouse.gov reveal, ol’ Scooter is positively chomping at the bit to replace him with a Far left Extremist Judicial Activist of his own choosing.

Good evening, everybody.  For almost 30 years, Justice Antonin “Nino” Scalia was a larger-than-life presence on the bench — a brilliant legal mind with an energetic style, incisive wit, and colorful opinions.     He influenced a generation of judges, lawyers, and students, and profoundly shaped the legal landscape.  He will no doubt be remembered as one of the most consequential judges and thinkers to serve on the Supreme Court.  Justice Scalia dedicated his life to the cornerstone of our democracy:  The rule of law.  Tonight, we honor his extraordinary service to our nation and remember one of the towering legal figures of our time.

     Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey to an Italian immigrant family.  After graduating from Georgetown University and Harvard Law School, he worked at a law firm and taught law before entering a life of public service.  He rose from Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel to Judge on the D.C. Circuit Court, to Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

     A devout Catholic, he was the proud father of nine children and grandfather to many loving grandchildren.  Justice Scalia was both an avid hunter and an opera lover — a passion for music that he shared with his dear colleague and friend, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  Michelle and I were proud to welcome him to the White House, including in 2012 for a State Dinner for Prime Minister David Cameron.  And tonight, we join his fellow justices in mourning this remarkable man.

     Obviously, today is a time to remember Justice Scalia’s legacy.  I plan to fulfill my constitutional responsibilities to nominate a successor in due time.  There will be plenty of time for me to do so, and for the Senate to fulfill its responsibility to give that person a fair hearing and a timely vote.  These are responsibilities that I take seriously, as should everyone.  They’re bigger than any one party.  They are about our democracy.  They’re about the institution to which Justice Scalia dedicated his professional life, and making sure it continues to function as the beacon of justice that our Founders envisioned.

     But at this moment, we most of all want to think about his family, and Michelle and I join the nation in sending our deepest sympathies to Justice Scalia’s wife, Maureen, and their loving family — a beautiful symbol of a life well lived.  We thank them for sharing Justice Scalia with our country. 

God bless them all, and God bless the United States of America.

The Liebrals, over at The Washington Post elaborated on the situation facing our nation and Obama’s possible choices.

President Obama declared Saturday that he intends to nominate a replacement for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a move aimed at deepening his imprint on the nation’s highest court.

“I plan to fulfill my constitutional responsibilities to nominate a successor in due time,” Obama said, adding that there’s “plenty of time” for the Senate “to give that person a fair hearing and a timely vote. These are responsibilities that I take seriously, as should everyone. They’re bigger than any one party — they’re about a democracy.”

But the president faces a fierce and protracted battle with Republicans who have already signaled that they have no intention of allowing Obama to choose a nominee to succeed Scalia.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said that Scalia should not be replaced until the next president has taken office. “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” McConnell said in a statement.

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) rejected that position. “It would be unprecedented in recent history for the Supreme Court to go a year with a vacant seat,” he said in a statement. “Failing to fill this vacancy would be a shameful abdication of one of the Senate’s most essential Constitutional responsibilities.”

Obama has nominated two justices to the court in the past, and he has expressed the desire for jurists with empathy. He did not discuss his thinking about that on Saturday night. Instead, he used the moment to pay tribute to Scalia, whom he described as an “extraordinary judicial thinker.”

In selecting Supreme Court nominees, Obama has relied heavily on the advice of Vice President Biden, a former Senate Judiciary chairman. Biden has demonstrated again and again a strong working relationship with McConnell, having previously negotiated several tax and budget deals. The court nomination may hinge on Biden’s ability to reach a deal with McConnell again.

But the fate of the nomination would clearly be in Republican hands. While Democrats were able to change the rules in 2013 to make it easier to approve lower court judges with a simple majority, Supreme Court nominations still require 60 votes to advance past an opposition filibuster. To derail or delay the nomination, McConnell could simply not schedule a vote, but even if he allows Senate consideration of the nomination, Democrats do not have the numbers to overcome a GOP filibuster.

Although the Republican-controlled Congress could easily thwart an Obama nominee, such a decision could reverberate across the presidential campaign and into in the November elections, in which several GOP senators face tough, competitive races.

The most immediate outcome of the Scalia vacancy is that it offers Obama the chance to draw sharper battle lines with Republicans during an increasingly acrimonious presidential election.

The administration now faces a chaotic political and legal environment in which the president must prepare for a bitter confirmation fight or embrace the prospect of a deadlocked Supreme Court divided evenly between liberals and conservatives.

Scalia’s death also throws into doubt the outcome of some of the most controversial issues facing the nation in cases before the court this term: abortion, affirmative action, the rights of religious objectors to the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act, and the president’s powers on immigration and deportation.

A deadlocked court could leave appellate decisions in place without setting a precedent. That would please the administration on a case involving union membership, for instance, but would keep Obama’s executive action on deportation from being implemented.

White House officials would not comment Saturday evening on their deliberations about a potential nominee, but the administration has an extensive list of possible candidates to choose from, including some who would change the face of the court by virtue of their race or sexual orientation.

“Blocking a strong person of color, a woman or an historic LGBT candidate for the Supreme Court might cause conservatives more trouble than they think they’re preventing,” said Robert Raben, a Democratic consultant and lobbyist who served as a senior Justice Department official under President Clinton. “The perception of unfairness or bias at the height of a national election could seriously backfire.”

One former senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said the president was likely to look to someone young enough to make a mark on the court over several decades. Obama has appointed several such jurists to U.S. appellate courts, the person noted, providing him with a relatively deep bench to from which to choose.

Among the leading candidates would be Sri Srinivasan, a judge on U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who was confirmed to seat in a 97-to-0 Senate vote in May 2013. Srinivasan would be the first South Asian American on the court. He worked in the U.S. Solicitor General’s office under both Obama and President George W. Bush, and clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Other contenders from that same court include its chief judge, Merrick Garland, who is well liked by conservatives and was a finalist for such a nomination when Obama selected Justice Elena Kagan in 2010. Patricia Ann Millett, who won confirmation to the D.C. Circuit in December 2013, may also be considered.

Obama could also look to current or former administration officials, said those familiar with the president’s thinking, or even to the Senate. Among those officials are Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Eric Holder, the former attorney general.

Other potential choices could include Deval Patrick (D), the former governor of Massachusetts, or Paul Smith, who chairs the appellate and Supreme Court practice at Jenner & Block and, if confirmed, would be the first openly gay justice.

Beyond the D.C. Circuit, there are many other appellate judges the president could look to in selecting a nominee. Those include Paul Watford and Mary H. Murguia of the 9th Circuit; Albert Diaz of the 4th Circuit and Ojetta Rogeriee Thompson of the 1st Circuit.

Regardless of whom Obama selects, the combination of the timing of the opening, the stark division on the court and deeply partisan passion being evoked in both presidential primaries would make this confirmation battle unlike any of the past 40 years.

The last confirmation in the eighth year of a presidency was Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose 97-to-0 vote in February 1988 came after two failed nomination efforts by President Reagan in the face of a Democratic-controlled Senate in late 1987. Kennedy is seen as a traitor among conservative activists, who view his rulings on abortion and gay rights with the liberal bloc as an example of GOP leaders choosing political expediency over ideological rigidity.

The only other attempt to fill a vacancy during a presidential election year came in 1968, when President Lyndon Johnson tried to elevate Abe Fortas to be chief justice. The Senate blocked Fortas. Subsequently, the other nomination to fill Fortas’s spot as associate justice was withdrawn during the final months of Johnson’s presidency.

Under normal circumstances, the nomination of a justice takes about 75 to 90 days, the first 60 or so involving a thorough vetting process by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Typically, the panel does not consider judicial nominees after mid-May, under a tradition established by the late Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.). While chairing the Judiciary Committee, Thurmond declared that he would not take up new judicial nominations within a few months of a presidential election.

Filling the post of Scalia, however, will be anything but normal. He was the outspoken champion for the court’s conservative wing and had many admirers in the Senate, including McConnell. Obama’s first two appointments to the court were relatively easy because Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Kagan were replacing liberal-leaning justices.

Senate conservatives, already predisposed to not approve of Obama’s choice, might be loath to allow him to replace their judicial hero with a liberal jurist who would tip the court in a left-leaning direction. As of now, Sotomayor and Kagan often sided with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer in the most ideologically driven cases, with Kennedy and sometimes Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. providing the tie-breaking votes.

If Republicans leave the Scalia seat vacant for any lengthy time, that sets up the chance of a series of 4-to-4 votes in which the ruling of the lower federal court would stand as the law of that particular region of the country.

That political math in the Senate means Obama will need the support of all 46 members of the Democratic caucus and at least 14 Republicans to end a filibuster and successfully appoint Scalia’s successor. In the president’s previous Supreme Court nominations, just nine and then four Republicans voted to confirm Sotomayor and Kagan, respectively.

So, what now? I will tell you “What Now”.

Time for McConnell and the Senate Republicans to grow a spine and do some “Borking”.

What do I mean by “Borking”?

On October 23, 1987, The New York Times printed the following article…

One of the fiercest battles ever waged over a Supreme Court nominee ended today as the Senate decisively rejected the nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork.The vote was 58 against confirmation and 42 in favor, the biggest margin by which the Senate has ever rejected a Supreme Court nomination. [ Roll call, page 10. ] Judge Bork’s was the 27th Supreme Court nomination to fail in the country’s history, the sixth in this century, and the first since 1970, when the Senate rejected President Nixon’s nomination of G. Harrold Carswell by a vote of 51 to 45. There have been 104 Supreme Court justices in the nation’s history.

The vote came two weeks after Judge Bork, in the face of expected defeat, said he would not withdraw his name and wanted the full Senate to vote on his nomination. In a statement issued from his chambers at the Federal courthouse here, where he still serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Bork said he was ”glad the debate took place.”

”There is now a full and permanent record by which the future may judge not only me but the proper nature of a confirmation proceeding,” the 60-year-old judge said.

President Reagan, in a statement released by the White House, said, ”I am saddened and disappointed that the Senate has bowed today to a campaign of political pressure.” The Next Nominee? In the final hours of the three-day debate on the Senate floor, senators turned their attention to the next nominee for the vacancy on the court. The White House is not expected to name a new candidate before the middle of next week.

The President has publicly vowed to find a nominee who will upset Judge Bork’s opponents ”just as much” as Judge Bork himself. Mr. Reagan said today, ”My next nominee for the Court will share Judge Bork’s belief in judicial restraint – that a judge is bound by the Constitution to interpret laws, not make them.”

Meanwhile, senators on both sides of the debate urged the President to adopt a less confrontational tone.

Now, in the last year of the Obama Presidency (Praise God), it is imperative for the United States Senate to adopt president Reagan’s “confrontational tone”.

Why? Well, here is a quote for you…

In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism’s glories than of socialism’s greatness. Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation. Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation’s established parties?

Who said that?  Karl Marx?  Vladimir Lenin?  Danny Glover?  George Clooney?  Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm)?  Nope.  It was the Obama-appointed and Senate-ratified, Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan.  The quote was a part of her senior thesis, written almost thirty years ago while an undergraduate at Princeton. The title of the thesis: “To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933”.

The Senate must “Bork” every single Supreme Court Nomination of this Lame Duck President.

He has done enough damage to our country, already.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

The Clinton/Sanders “Love-In” Debate: “All We Are Saying Is Give Socialism a Chance”

Berni-Treasure-600-nrdLast night, two living fossils from a bygone era, representing a failed Political Ideology, staged a Love-in with each other…championing the Political Ideology which destroyed the Soviet Union, and which has brought the teen-weeny country of Denmark to the verge of Economic Ruin.

Foxnews.com reports that

While Hillary Clinton launched her harshest debate attacks yet on Bernie Sanders Thursday in a clear attempt to distinguish their differences to voters, the Democratic candidates spent almost as much time uniting in their criticism of America’s criminal justice system, the financial sector and more.

The debate fell at a time when Sanders is trying to build his momentum after his big New Hampshire win, while Clinton is trying to regain hers.

As Sanders pointedly reminded her, “You’re not in the White House yet.”

But the candidates at times offered a similar message. This was evident as they vociferously called for an overhaul of local police departments that they suggested are unfair to black people.

“We need fundamental police reform,” Sanders said, adding he’s “sick and tired” of seeing unarmed black people shot by police. He likened heavily equipped police departments to “occupying armies.”

Clinton, meanwhile, echoed those themes, joining Sanders in calling for sentencing reform while saying the country’s “systemic racism” goes deeper and must be addressed – in education, housing and the job market.

“We are seeing the dark side of the remaining systemic racism that we need to root out,” she said.

The comments were part of each candidate’s revived appeal to minority voters, a key voting bloc as the Democratic presidential primary heads to South Carolina.

But even as they stressed those issues, differences were laid bare at the PBS-hosted debate in Milwaukee. And Sanders came prepared to counter Clinton’s attacks, showing a feistier side than he did at their last showdown.

When Clinton used her closing remarks to suggest Sanders was taking shots at President Obama, Sanders called it a “low blow” and countered: “One of us ran against Barack Obama. I was not that candidate.”

He even underscored his critique of Clinton’s foreign policy by pointing to a book where Clinton said she was mentored by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

“I am proud to say that Henry Kissinger is not my friend,” Sanders said, calling him “one of the most destructive” American diplomats.

Clinton fired back that “we have yet to know” who Sanders listens to on foreign policy.

“Well, it ain’t Henry Kissinger,” Sanders said.

The two also clashed sharply over Sanders’ high-cost, big-government plans.

“We are not England. We are not France,” Clinton said.

Clinton accused Sanders of pushing programs that would grow the federal government by 40 percent. She suggested his health care promises “cannot be kept “and will be far more costly than he admits.

“We should level with the American people,” she said.

She also said Sanders’ plans would upend ObamaCare – though Sanders said he would not “dismantle” it.

“That is absolutely inaccurate,” he said, when she claimed his plans would leave many people worse off. 

“In my view, health care is a right of all people … and I will fight for that,” Sanders said, adding it would take “courage.”

Clinton also criticized Sanders for voting against a 2007 immigration reform bill backed by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Sanders explained that the bill had a guest-worker program that progressive groups opposed.

“I think Ted Kennedy had a very clear idea of what needed to be done,” Clinton said.

Yet the candidates agreed in their joint criticism of the Obama administration’s recent deportation raids.

Sanders, meanwhile, once again hammered Clinton for her Wall Street ties, suggesting the financial sector’s big donations are meant to buy influence.

“Let’s not insult the intelligence of the American people. People aren’t dumb,” Sanders said. “Why in God’s name does Wall Street make huge campaign contributions? I guess just for the fun of it.”

They sparred on the issue as Sanders touted the fact he’s “the only candidate up here” who has no super PAC supporting him. A super PAC backing Clinton, he said, recently raised $15 million from Wall Street.

Clinton countered by noting that Obama took Wall Street donations too, but “when it mattered, he stood up and took on Wall Street.”

“Let’s not in any way imply here that either President Obama or myself would in any way not take on any vested interest,” she said, calling for more regulation of the financial sector.

The showdown comes as Clinton tries to reset the race, which heads next to Nevada and South Carolina. Her narrow victory in Iowa and resounding defeat in New Hampshire have raised fresh questions about her candidacy, which at one point was seen as a sure thing for the Democratic nomination.

Publicly, the Clinton campaign is voicing confidence. The campaign has been refocusing on the battle to lock down minority voter support, asserting that with their help, the former secretary of state can easily make gains against Sanders. But Sanders is at the same time making a bid to expand his own support beyond rural, white voters — who largely decide Iowa and New Hampshire.

While the Clinton campaign is banking on minority voters as it heads into South Carolina and other delegate-rich states down the primary calendar, Tuesday’s contest exposed serious problems for her. She lost in New Hampshire across almost every demographic, including women.

Overall, she lost to Sanders by more than 20 points.

During the past several years, there has been an undeniable escalation of the Rhetoric of Racial Animus and Class Warfare, the origin of which can be traced, with very little effort, to the President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, the “one”, who was supposed to unite us as a nation and make the oceans “rise and fall” and the Democrat Party, which has been taken over by a bunch of Godless Far Left Extremists.

Did you know that 76% percent of Americans were living from paycheck to paycheck?

When I first read that, I thought to myself, how can that be possible? We live in the richest country on God’s green Earth. We have been the leader of the free world and the country most admired by the world’s population for quite some time now.

How did all this come about?

I believe it is a mixture of events, both internally and externally, that has caused the economic plight that we now find ourselves in.

Starting all the way back with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and all of the government programs which he began with the express purpose of bringing us out of the Great Depression, Americans have grown more and more dependent on a nanny state government.

This blind trust was cemented by JFK’s hopeful optimism and national push for Americans to commit to serving their country.

By the time President Johnson came into office, after the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the majority of Americans totally believed that our government always had our best interest at heart.

President Johnson came into office and immediately started his push for the Great Society. These programs were designed to make Americans even more dependent on the Federal Government for their very survival.

As the Vietnam War grew more and more and unpopular, Americans’ trust in the government became more and more compromised.  Protests against the Federal Government became more and more common and it became cool to be a rebel or “hippie”.

Time passed, and while rebellious Americans calmed down, Americans’ dependence upon government programs became generational, as multiple family members from one generation to the next, relied on Uncle Sugar for their daily existence.

Meanwhile, the rebels of the 1960’s got older and began to work within the system, taking jobs within the private and public sectors.

Eventually, they moved into positions of power, becoming heads of corporations and local and national politicians.

It is not really necessary to tell you what the political ideology of these rebels was, is it?

As the last century ended and the new one began, these hippies and their offspring, solidly in place in the halls of power, began to pass more more legislation designed to keep generations of Americans enslaved to Uncle Sugar.

Ironic, huh?

And, then it happened.

From the state of Illinois, came the messiah that both the hippies in power and the dependent class they made careers out of enslaving had been waiting for, Barack Hussein Obama.

With both a liberal controlled Congress and a Far Left president, a pathway was cleared for an all-out assault against capitalism.

Immediately upon his ascension to power,  Obama set out, with the help of his minions, to pass an massive Stimulus Bill , which was designed to reward their supporters, while buying and paying for some new ones.

Meanwhile, corporations continued their trend of leaving the country, begun with the rise of the Liberal Congress, due to high taxes and the anti-capitalist policies of the ruling class.

Even after a strong showing by Conservatives in 2010, the ruling class made sure that their new messiah would remain on the throne for a second term, by manipulating the shallow minded Republican Establishment into nominating an ambivalent legacy as their Presidential Candidate.

Preying on the government dependency of 47 percent of Americans, the Liberal Democrats secured a second term For Barack Hussein Obama.

And, that brings us to our current situation.

We are a nation badly in need of another Gipper to help us reach the goal line.

On January 20, 1981, newly-elected President Ronald Wilson Reagan said these words to a weary nation…

These United States are confronted with an economic affliction of great proportions.

We suffer from the longest and one of the worst sustained inflations in our national history. It distorts our economic decisions, penalizes thrift, and crushes the struggling young and the fixed-income elderly alike. It threatens to shatter the lives of millions of our people.

Idle industries have cast workers into unemployment, human misery, and personal indignity. Those who do work are denied a fair return for their labor by a tax system which penalizes successful achievement and keeps us from maintaining full productivity.

But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children’s future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.

You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we’re not bound by that same limitation? We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow. And let there be no misunderstanding: We are going to begin to act, beginning today.

The economic ills we suffer have come upon us over several decades. They will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we as Americans have the capacity now, as we’ve had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom.

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.

We hear much of special interest groups. Well, our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines. It is made up of men and women who raise our food, patrol our streets, man our mines and factories, teach our children, keep our homes, and heal us when we’re sick — professionals, industrialists, shopkeepers, clerks, cabbies, and truckdrivers. They are, in short, “We the people,” this breed called Americans.

Well, this administration’s objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy that provides equal opportunities for all Americans with no barriers born of bigotry or discrimination. Putting America back to work means putting all Americans back to work. Ending inflation means freeing all Americans from the terror of runaway living costs. All must share in the productive work of this “new beginning,” and all must share in the bounty of a revived economy. With the idealism and fair play which are the core of our system and our strength, we can have a strong and prosperous America, at peace with itself and the world.

So, as we begin, let us take inventory. We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government.

Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work — work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.

President Reagan understood that

Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.

And, for Americans to prosper, capitalism must not be stifled by over-taxation and an unfriendly Federal Government.

When the private section prospers, the power of the Government to control our daily lives diminishes.

So…why are 76 percent of American living paycheck to paycheck?

Because our national politicians have to protect their phony-boloney jobs…and, it is easier to control us this way.

In this present situation, what we are seeing is the result of anti-establishment rhetoric, spewed forth by those who are now actually “the Establishment”, taking hold, and spreading Class Envy and Racial Animus in such a way as to inspire violent retaliation for perceived “grievances”, by a fictional “White Establishment”, which is actually no longer in power, and the Police, who are seen as the emissaries of “The Man”.

It’s reminiscent of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Look it up, y’all.

In conclusion, I believe that the popularity of entrepreneur and showman Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz are a result of an American Citizenry who are fed up with watching our “House” being divided against itself by adherents to the failed Political Ideology of Marxism, for the sake of Political Expediency.

In Marxist Theory, Socialism is the step before Communism.

President Reagan once asked

How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

The majority of Americans, living out here in the Heartland…understand.

Until He Comes,

KJ

O’Reilly Begs Trump, Rush: “Fox Jilted at the Altar”

republican_debate_ben_garrisonUnder the category “Actions Have Consequences”…

Thehill.com reports that

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Wednesday night lashed out at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly in his first appearance on the network since he announced he’d boycott the next GOP debate.
 
He also refused to reconsider his decision to sit out the network’s Thursday night debate – the last before the Iowa caucuses in five days – and said he’d move forward with his own competing event to raise money for wounded veterans.

Speaking on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Trump continued his long-running feud with Kelly, who he has been criticizing ever since she challenged him on his past derogatory remarks about women at the first GOP debate in August. 

“I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly,” Trump said. “I don’t think she’s good at what she does and I think she’s highly overrated. And frankly, she’s a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous.”
 
Kelly is also set to moderate Thursday night’s debate on Fox News.
 
Trump is instead holding a rally in Des Moines at the same time as the Republican debate that he says will raise money for wounded veterans.

In the contentious interview with O’Reilly, Trump rebuffed the anchor’s attempts to convince him that he’s making a grave error by skipping the debate.
 
“I believe personally that you want to improve the country,” O’Reilly said. “By doing this, you miss the opportunity to convince others … that is true.
 
“You have in this debate format the upper hand — you have sixty seconds off the top to tell the moderator, ‘You’re a pinhead, you’re off the mark and here’s what I want to say’. By walking away from it, you lose the opportunity to persuade people you are a strong leader.”
 
But O’Reilly’s pitch fell flat with Trump. The GOP front-runner dug in his heels, insisting he intended to retaliate against the network by depriving them of ratings.
 
“Fox was going to make a fortune off this debate,” Trump said. “Now they’re going to make much less.”
 
O’Reilly said he was merely trying to convince Trump that his approach “is wrong because it’s better for people to see you in the debate format.”
 
He gave the example from 2012, when former Speaker Newt Gingrich was asked an embarrassing question by a CNN debate moderator at a South Carolina debate about allegations he had an open marriage.
 
Gingrich shut the moderator down and went on to win South Carolina, O’Reilly noted.
 
“That’s the kind of guy you are,” O’Reilly said. “You stick it to them and let them have it.”

 Responded Trump: “Newt is a friend of mine and I thought it was an unfair question. But equally unfair was the question Megyn Kelly asked me.”
 
O’Reilly then sought to appeal to Trump’s capacity to forgive, reminding the billionaire businessman that he’s a Christian, even if he doesn’t attend church all that often, and that the Bible says to “turn the other cheek.”
 
Trump shot back, saying he’s a regular church-goer, and that the Bible also says “an eye for an eye.”
 
“You could look at it that way too,” Trump said.
 
O’Reilly accused Trump of being “petty,” and said he was allowing things that are out of his control to have outsized influence over his decision-making process.
 
“I don’t like being taken advantage of,” Trump said. “In this case I was being taken advantage of by Fox. I don’t like that. Now when I’m representing the country, if I win, I’m not going to let our country be taken advantage of. … It’s a personality trait but I don’t think it’s a bad personality trait.”
 
O’Reilly ended the interview asking Trump to just at least consider showing up Thursday night. Trump said the two had agreed beforehand that O’Reilly not ask that question.
 
“I told you up front don’t ask me that question because it’s an embarrassing question for you and I don’t want to embarrass you,” he said.

Bill-O asked the question because his employers are desperate.

Fox News Host Greta Van Susteren posted a Viewer Poll in which she asked if folks would watch tonight’s Republican Primary Debate, if Donald J. Trump followed through with his promise not to show up.

As of the morning of the debate, 86.91% of those who responded will not be watching a “Trump-less” Debate.

Rush Limbaugh, as I reported yesterday, has been on point during this whole kerfuffle.

Once again, he made a couple of spot-on observations on yesterday’s radio program:

Observation #1 –

Folks, I want to let you in on another observation of mine — and that’s all it is, is an observation.  I have found, when talking to people, including media people in the East Coast, New York — well, all the way up and down the East Coast, but New York — Washington, Boston, down here in south Florida and so forth, virtually everybody thinks of Fox News as a conservative network.  But you go out… As I’ve traveled around and go places… Like for the holidays, I see people in Missouri. For Christmas, I see people all over the place. When I golf, I see people all over the country.

And I’m here to tell you: Fox News is not considered the conservative network that it used to be.  I’m not trying to stir anything up here.  I’m saying that when you hear the media, who are all leftists, talk about Fox News, it may as well be the John Birch Society as far as they’re concerned.  That’s why they hate it.  It may as well be the Birchers. It may as well be whatever evil right-wing organization. That’s what they think it is.  But you go out to the heartland of this country, and it’s not so much.  “I mean, what would a conservative network be doing giving time to Michael Moore? 

“Why would New York Times and Washington Post reporters be on the air to give opinions on a conservative network?” This is what people are saying out there that I hear.  Now, the identity is still pretty obviously heavily tilted to news and analysis that you don’t get anywhere else, and that remains true.  I’m just telling you people’s perceptions as they share them with me. I’ll tell you what I think, ’cause I find it amazing.  It’s just more evidence of the media being out of touch and not really knowing what people say.

Since we’re talking about Iowa, I don’t think they really know what’s important to the people of Iowa.  Because they look at everything through their own prism of being in the Northeast and part of the liberal power structure that determines every social, political structure in that part of the country — and, as such, there’s a divide.  And it’s not just among elected officials.  I speak constantly about the disconnect that exists now between elected officials and the people, Republican and Democrat.

The distances, the disconnect between the people who vote for them and the people that serve in office is bigger than I’ve ever seen it.  And it’s no more obvious than the issue of immigration.  But it’s also obvious on the issue of say, Obamacare, or spending.  And when you start talking about Fox News, people in the media say, “Oh, it’s just embarrassing. Right wing! My God, ugh.”  But it’s not thought of that way in many parts of the country.  

Observation #2 –

You’ve heard the phrase “the game.”  Every business has aspects of it that are considered the game, and that’s the routine.  And the game is characterized by everybody knowing the rules of the game.  People involved in it play by the rules.  Some venture outside now and then, but the rules pretty much of the game are adhered to because it’s a matter of respect for the game in which everybody is in. 

And in this business one of the games is that when the media calls, you answer, and when the media wants you, you go, and when the media is going to host a debate and it’s part of a Republican presidential campaign, you go.  You just do it, no matter what the media’s done to you in the past, no matter what you think of it, whether you want to go or not, you go.  That’s the game. 

Trump is so far outside this game, he’s so far outside the rules, he’s never been a player in this game.  He’s always been an outsider.  I heard people on Fox last night talking about this. “Who does he think he is?  He can’t control the media.”  I got news for you:  He is controlling the media, and it’s his objective.  He is controlling the media.  He controls the media when he’s not on it.  He controls the media when he is on it.  He controls the media when he’s asleep.  Nobody else has been able to do anything like this short of the Kennedys, and they’re pikers compared to the way Trump is doing this. 

Now, it’s very simple, if you read The Art of the Deal or if you know Donald Trump at all, it’s very simple:  He had an unpleasant experience in the first debate, and in his mind, the question that he was asked was rigged.  Don’t forget, before that first debate, remember all of the news stories that were floating around saying that that debate, somebody at Fox had been given orders by the Republican establishment to take Trump out.  Remember that?  There were any number of so-called sources for this.  Some said it was the donors demanding it.  Some said that it was Fox News executives demanding it.  Some said it was the RNC demanding it. 

Well, Trump’s not immune.  He hears it.  And even if he hadn’t heard it he would have to know that they want to take him out; he’s outside the game; he’s breaking all the rules.  He’s exposing so much as fraud that has gone on inside the American political process for so long they can’t allow somebody like this to win and succeed.  It’s quite natural they would want to take him out as well.  It’s Bengals-Steelers time here, folks.  It’s quite natural they’d want to take him out.  Well, he heard it.

Here comes Megyn Kelly’s first question.  He didn’t hear anybody else get a question like that.  He never sees Hillary Clinton get a question like that.  He never hears Bill Clinton or another Democrat get a question like that.  So he answers it and says screw this.  I’m not putting myself in that position again.  Why should I?  I don’t have to. 

But the rules of the game say when there’s a debate, you show up.  Screw the rules, he’s saying.  Why should I willingly give them another shot at me in a circumstance they control, why should I do it?  What’s the sense in it for me?  I’m leading; I’m running the pack here; why in the world should I put myself in that circumstance?  I’ve already seen what’s gonna happen. 

I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.  I mean, there could be some personal things going on here that I don’t know about.  But just from the standpoint of knowing Trump, reading his book, and seeing how he operates elsewhere, in his mind, screw the rules, screw what’s expected, screw “This is just the way you do it.”  I’m not gonna put myself in a position go where I’m gonna be treated unfairly.  I don’t have to.  I’m Donald Trump.  Anybody can do this.  Ted Cruz could choose to do it if he wants to.  They just don’t.  Cruz and the rest of the pack are playing the rules of the game.  Trump is saying I don’t have to do it.  I don’t want to do it.  I don’t have any respect for these people.  What the hell. 

In addition to that, Donald Trump knows that by not showing up, he’s owning the entire event.  Some guy not even present will end up owning the entire event, and the proof of that is Fox News last night.  I have to tell you, folks, this is where this gets tough for me.  I was stunned watching Fox News last night.  Fox News was acting like they had been jilted at the altar.  If it had been me — and this is easy to say — if it had been me and Donald Trump makes a big to-do about not showing up for the debate, report the story and move on.  Talk about Ted Cruz.  Go talk about the other candidates.  Go talk about Hillary and the FBI.  There’s a lot of news out there.  But don’t devote the rest of the night to how a candidate’s not showing up because of you.  I mean, the network, not just Megyn Kelly. 

Look, I understand the warfare that has been established here.  If you look at some of the things that Trump’s campaign spokesman, Corey Lewandowski has said, if you read between the lines, it looks like what really has ticked ’em off over at Trump central is the mocking of Trump in the official PR statements that Fox has released, making fun, they’re gonna call Putin, they’re gonna call in the ayatollah, and the ayatollah and Putin, whatever.  That might have been the nail in the coffin as opposed to any lack of desire to face Megyn Kelly. But folks, one other thing about this.  If I heard it once last night, I’ve heard it a thousand times since, that Trump is afraid of Megyn Kelly or afraid of Fox News.  That is not what this is.  There isn’t any fear.  What is there is here — in my opinion — is a desire to control this and a purposeful decision to not put himself in a circumstance where other people want to make him look bad. 

In his mind, that’s a dumb thing to do.  You don’t put yourself in a circumstance where a whole bunch of other people are gonna be able to make you look bad while you’re there.  If they do it when you’re not around, that’s another thing, you can counterprogram it, you can do whatever, but you don’t have to put yourself in a circumstance where you have to personally deal with it as a sign of disrespect or somebody else trying to notch their belt.  It really isn’t any more complicated than that. 

Exactly.

It was a sound business decision. He was protecting his “brand”. The “Business of Today’s Politics” decrees that you jump when the Elite of your Political Party and their minions in the Media tell you to. That is the game to which Rush was referring.

The problem that the Republican Elite and the Media are having with Trump is the simple fact that he is a Businessman. He is not a Professional Politician. Trump knew that he was walking into a trap. So, he made the decision not to. It was a sound Business Decision. He was protecting his “brand”, while at the same time, once again owning the News Cycle.

Additionally, through appearing on behalf of the Iowa Veterans, he is solidifying his Populist Image.

Another Republican Presidential Hopeful, back in the 1980s, decided to skip the last Primary Debate before the Iowa Caucus. He lost Iowa, but he won the Presidency in a landslide.

He did alright.

Ratings-wise, Fox News, if Trump goes through with his plans, will be hoisted on their own petard.

My degree is in Radio, Television, and Film. And, let me tell you, boys and girls, in television, even now, almost 36 years after I graduated college, high viewership ratings remain the Cash Cow of the Television Industry.

Their business depends on it.

In this situation, those who run Fox News decided to send their Cash Cow to the slaughterhouse and then hold a barbeque.

As a result of their actions, I predict that they will experience a bad case of gas tonight.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Trump, Fox News, the Democrat Elite, and “The Art of the Deal”

Oval-Office-Trump-ArtOfTheDealLeading Republican Presidential Primary Candidate, Donald J. Trump, was at the top of the News Cycle all day, yesterday.

I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

Eight hours ago, as of this posting, the Presidential Campaign Office of Donald J. Trump issued the following statement on his Official Faceboo Account…

(New York, NY) January 26th, 2016 – As someone who wrote one of the best-selling business books of all time, The Art of the Deal, who has built an incredible company, including some of the most valuable and iconic assets in the world, and as someone who has a personal net worth of many billions of dollars, Mr. Trump knows a bad deal when he sees one. FOX News is making tens of millions of dollars on debates, and setting ratings records (the highest in history), where as in previous years they were low-rated afterthoughts.

Unlike the very stupid, highly incompetent people running our country into the ground, Mr. Trump knows when to walk away. Roger Ailes and FOX News think they can toy with him, but Mr. Trump doesn’t play games. There have already been six debates, and according to all online debate polls including Drudge, Slate, Time Magazine, and many others, Mr. Trump has won all of them, in particular the last one. Whereas he has always been a job creator and not a debater, he nevertheless truly enjoys the debating process – and it has been very good for him, both in polls and popularity.

He will not be participating in the FOX News debate and will instead host an event in Iowa to raise money for the Veterans and Wounded Warriors, who have been treated so horribly by our all talk, no action politicians. Like running for office as an extremely successful person, this takes guts and it is the kind mentality our country needs in order to Make America Great Again.

Yesterday, Trump also said the following in an interview with Mike Barnicle on the seldom-watched cable news channel, MSNBC

Well, I think that I’m going to be able to get along with Pelosi. I think I’m going to be able to — I’ve always had a good relationship with Nancy Pelosi. I’ve never had a problem. Reid will be gone. I always had a decent relationship with Reid, although lately, obciosuly, I haven’t been dealing with him so he’ll actually use my name as the ultimate — you know, as the ultimate of the billionaires in terms of, you know, people you don’t want.

But I always had a great relationship with Harry Reid. And frankly, if I weren’t running for office I would be able to deal with her or Reid or anybody. But I think I’d be able to get along very well with Nancy Pelosi and just about everybody.

Hey, look, I think I’ll be able to get along well with Chuck Schumer. I was always very good with Schumer. I was close to Schumer in many ways. It’s important that you get along. It’s wonderful to say you’re a maverick and you’re going to stand up and close up the country and all of the things, but you have to get somebody to go along with you. You have a lot of people. We have a system. The founders created the system that actually is a very good system. It does work, but it can’t work if you can get nobody to go along with you.

When word came out, my fellow Conservatives made the following  points that

  1. If Trump can’t stand up to Meghan Kelly, how is he going to stand up to Putin and the rest of our enemies?
  2. 2. Who the heck wants to get along with Pelosi, Reid, and Schumer? The next President needs to politically destroy them!

Why did Trump tell Fox News to buzz off?

Why is he talking about “getting along” with the Democrat Elite?

The Godfather of Conservative Talk Radio, Rush Limbaugh, gave a superb analysis of the way Trump operates, on his nationally-syndicated Program, yesterday…

Let me share with you some analysis that will no doubt be misunderstood and distorted in many places in our media, but here we go.  As I’m listening to Trump talk about all this — and not just today. It is fascinating, is it not, that Donald Trump has sort of reframed, or maybe even redefined, the purpose and the position of the presidency as something defined by negotiating deals?  He talks about this all the time. This is important. He’s credibly presenting himself as a skilled dealmaker, as a skilled negotiator.  Therefore, he is positing here that the job of president, to him, is negotiating and dealmaking, foreign and domestic. 

Trade equals deals. Foreign policy equals deals such as Iran, the entire Middle East.  Domestic policy equals deals, i.e., making them with Democrats.  By all those deals… Here’s the thing: Every time Trump talks about doing a deal — with Mexico and the wall, you name it, with the ChiComs. Every time he talks about doing deals, he talks about winning them for his position, that nobody else is any good at this, that the people running our government now, elected officials now don’t know how to do deals. They do the dumbest deals ever. 

But Trump is gonna do smart deals, because that’s what his life is. 

He does deals for everything, and he runs rings around everybody. 

He wrote a book on how to do deals better than anybody else.  Even after telling everybody how to do deals, they still can’t do ’em better than he does.  And he’s defined all of this as pro-America, i.e., for the people. Making America great again.  The opposition, or the opposite reactions to Trump among Republicans and others depends on whether people trust or believe him or not.  Trump opposers don’t believe it; Trump supporters do believe it.  He thinks he can make deals with Russia and Putin better than Obama, everybody think is so that’s he’s repositioning everything here as he’s a dealmaker and Cruz can’t do deals because everybody hates him.

Okay.  Let’s talk about deal-making here for a minute.  Just a quick minute or two.  When you are in business, let’s say you’re J.R. Ewing and you’re up against the cartel in Dallas, and you’re making deals, those are businesses deals.  Any kind of a business deal.  The experts who teach business school students how to do deals, the best deals are those in which everybody at the end feels good. The Art of the Deal in business is making sure that you get what you want while making the other side think they got enough of what they want that they’re happy, too.  That in business it’s a bad thing to skunk somebody and leave them with nothing.  Give ’em something, no matter what cards you hold, and if you go into the deal holding none of the cards, the objective is, both sides like it and both sides don’t.  If there’s commonality, if both sides are unhappy they didn’t get it all, fine.  If both sides are happy with what they get to one degree or another, then you got a good deal, an okay deal, and you’re out of there. 

In politics, that’s not how it works.  Take a look at the deals the Republicans have done with the Democrats and ask yourself, in every one of them, be it a budget deal, be it an immigration deal, is there any, is there a single deal that the Republicans have made in the past seven years that any of you have felt, “You know what, we got something out of this?”  No. However, if you listen to the Republicans who participated in the negotiation of the deal, they universally come out of there and start telling us, “Hey, you know, we got some stuff in here that we didn’t have. And out of the budget deal you know what that was?  We won back the right to export oil.  We smoked ’em.  We got a great deal.”  And you’re saying, “You think that makes this a good deal?” 

So from the Republican establishment standpoint, they think you will be made to believe that they made a good deal if they tout what they think they got out of it.  The Democrats, when they go into one of these deals, it’s smoke city.  There isn’t going to be one iota’s compromise.  The Republicans aren’t gonna get anything that matters. 

Now, the Democrats might give them something inconsequential, just enough that the Republicans can leave the negotiation and say, “Look what we got, look what we got here, we did okay.”  And their voters are saying, “You got skunked, you got nothing, we lost it again, and what you promised to do is kick it down the road and we’ll deal with it next time.  It keeps happening and happening.  We didn’t get diddly-squat.” 

“Yeah, we did, look at Medicare Part B!  We skunked ’em, we got a brand-new entitlement that’s got conservative free market principles all over.”  You think that was a win?  That’s what we were told after that happened.  How in the world can you, with a Republican administration, Republican House, agree to a new entitlement, it’s your idea for a new entitlement.  And they dare come out and tell us that that’s a win? 

But in Trump’s world, where he does deals, he’s gonna have to do business with ’em down the road.  He doesn’t want to make enemies like he says Ted Cruz does.  Ted Cruz is not nasty.  You know, this is the thing.  I have warned them about this I don’t know how many times.  Ted Cruz is not nasty.  (imitating Trump) “He’s a nasty guy. Everybody hates Cruz.”  No, they fear Cruz, maybe respect Cruz, but, hey, look, if you’re running a scam and somebody comes along in your own club and calls you out on it, you’re not gonna love ’em, which is what Cruz did many times.

Addressing the first point concerning Trump’s decision to boycott tomorrow night’s debate,

1.  Trump knows that Fox News has been backing the Republican Elite’s Heir to the Throne, Jeb Bush, since the start of the Republican Primary. He is not going to walk into anywhere that he perceives, right or wrong, to be an ambush.

2. Trump’s real fight is with Roger Ailes, with whom he has been negotiating. Meghan Kelly is simply being used as a focal point.

3. Any publicity is good publicity. Trump evidently feels that this will not hurt his campaign.

4. Leverage.

Concerning Trump’s assertion that he can “get along” with the Democrat Hierarchy…

On July 27. 2012. John Heubush, Executive Director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, wrote the following op ed for The Daily Caller

  1. In order to be an effective President, you have to build a Coalition. The most effective President in my lifetime did.

“You’re in the big leagues, now.”

So the speaker of the House said to the 40th president of the United States just days after his inauguration.

It was 1981. The 97th Congress was a mixed bag, with a Democratic-controlled House, led by Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, and a Senate held by Republicans who, for the first time since 1953, controlled a chamber of Congress.

But Ronald Reagan didn’t think “eight years as governor of one of the largest states in the union had exactly been the minor leagues.” Sacramento had been Reagan’s beta-site where nothing was accomplished until strong coalitions were formed. “It was important to develop an effective working relationship with my opponents in the legislature,” Reagan wrote, “our political disagreements not withstanding.”

What did this adversarial relationship with O’Neill and Democrats produce in the next two years? Caustic gamesmanship? A stand-off? On July 29, 1981, less than six months after Reagan took office, a strong bipartisan coalition in the House passed one of the largest tax cuts in American history, the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. Two days later, the Senate followed suit.

How in the world did Reagan do it? Experience.

Matching wits with Jack Warner (of Warner Brothers) as head of the actors’ union and Jesse Unruh (speaker of the California State Assembly) as governor taught Reagan to come to the bargaining table prepared. “I’d learned while negotiating union contracts,” Reagan wrote, “that you seldom get everything you ask for.” (Years later, the press asked him about negotiating with Gorbachev. “It was easier than dealing with Jack Warner,” Reagan shot back.)

Although the Democrats were in a tough position after the Carter years, their big trump card was that nothing would get done unless Reagan won over a substantial number of them in the House. It’s no wonder that O’Neill was so full of braggadocio.

Somehow Reagan had to build a coalition.

The strategy to get the Economic Recovery Act passed by a conflicted Congress had two major parts.

First, Reagan would use his tremendous skills as a communicator by making repeated televised appeals to Congress and the American people. “Every time he spoke,” Reagan Chief of Staff Jim Baker recalled, “the needle moved.”

Second, the Legislative Strategy Group led by Baker and Ed Meese “did the grunt work” of inviting Democrats to the White House, while the president worked the phones. “I spent a lot of time in the spring and early summer of 1981 on the telephone and in meetings trying to build a coalition to get the nation’s recovery under way,” Reagan wrote. At the time, he even noted in his diary, “These Dems are with us on the budget and it’s interesting to hear some who’ve been here ten years or more say that it is their first time to ever be in the Oval Office. We really seem to be putting a coalition together.”

These “Dems” — the Boll Weevils — were Southern conservative Democrats who became key players in Reagan’s economic recovery strategy. It helped Reagan’s purpose that many represented districts that the president had carried in 1980. If they voted against a popular president, it could cost them their seats in 1982.

“To encourage the Boll Weevils to cross party lines,” journalist Lou Cannon wrote, “Reagan accepted a suggestion by James Baker and promised that he could not campaign in 1982 against any Democratic members of Congress who voted for both his tax and budget bills.” It was a shrewd and effective move.

2. In order to become President of the United States, you must garner more votes than the other party’s candidate. This cannot be done simply by relying on the votes of your own poltical party. You must have ‘crossover votes”.

Back on August 15, 1984, Mark Green, in an article written for the New York Times, titled, “Reagan, The Liberal Democrat”, wrote the following…

To what do we owe these conversions on the road to November? Could it be election-year opportunism? Could it be anything else?

There is a kind of historical consistency in this inconsistency: As Will Rogers noted back in the 1920’s: ”The Republicans have a habit of having three bad years and one good one, and the good ones always happened to be election years.”

If Ronald Reagan holds to this path, he may soon end up back among the Americans for Democratic Action, which he fled and renounced in the 1950’s.

Not surprisingly, ideological fellow-travelers such as the commentators William F. Buckley Jr. and Pat Buchanan have expressed dismay over their champion’s apostasy. Mr. Buchanan worries that by flirting with the idea of a summit meeting, the President ”is playing with the national security of the U.S.”

Mr. Reagan’s election-year liberalism appears designed to win over those political independents and weak Democrats who might otherwise recall him as the man who has opposed all but one of the major civil rights laws and nuclear arms control pacts of the past two decades.

Will it work? Only if these constituencies believe his reversals to be principled and permanent – and that seems unlikely. To conclude now that Ronald Reagan has suddenly become pro-environment, pro-arms control, pro-food stamps and pro-regulation is to believe that a sow’s ear can become a silk purse merely by declaring itself so.

Besides, swing voters faced this fall with the equivalent of two Democratic tickets may just as well decide to vote for the real McCoy rather than the imitation brand.

The New York Times was a Liberal Schlock Sheet, even way back in 1984.

They, like the rest of the Liberals in the Media back then, could not stand Ronald Reagan. That’s no secret. However, even they understood what Reagan. He was attracting “crossover votes” for his Second Presidential Campaign.

The constant deal-making, bravado and braggadocio, and his “willingness to work together” are arrows in the quiver of Donald J. Trump, which have served him well in the past, and have helped him become an American Success Story,

We shall see if those arrows find their mark during the Republican Presidential Primary Battle and later, the President Campaign, if he is the Nominee.

Similar arrows found the mark for Ronald Reagan.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Blatant Unprofessional Objectivity Just Cost the Democrat Lackeys at NBC the Republican Primary Debates

ModeratorsAs I have related to you before, I was a Radio News Director during college from 1978-1980, with a staff of 20 student reporters, who each received credit for producing and delivering a 5-minute newscast, once a week, on our College Radio Station.

I can remember sitting in the lecture hall of the (then) Memphis State University Journalism Building, listening to Dr. Williams, whom we all swore did the first newscast of KDKA, America’s first radio station, in 1920.  The class was “Introduction to Journalism” and Dr. Van Williams was telling us that the ” key to being a good journalist was objectivity”.

Now, in 2016, one Broadcast/Cable News Organization has become so blatantly objective, that one of America’s two political parties has had no choice but to fire them from hosting their Presidential Primary Candidate Debates.

Breitbart.com reports that

The Republican National Committee (RNC) officially voted on Monday afternoon to sever its business relationship with NBC News for the previously-scheduled Feb. 26, 2016, GOP presidential primary debate, Breitbart News has learned.

The Debate Committee for the RNC met via conference call and after hearing updates from RNC chairman Reince Priebus officially voted to cancel the partnership with NBC, according to sources on the call. The vote was unanimous.

After the October debate hosted by NBC partner CNBC—in which co-moderator John Harwood was roundly criticized for a poor performance—the RNC suspended its relationship with NBC News over that upcoming Houston debate.

“I write to inform you that pending further discussion between the Republican National Committee (RNC) and our presidential campaigns, we are suspending the partnership with NBC News for the Republican primary debate at the University of Houston on February 26, 2016,” Priebus wrote to NBC News chairman Andy Lack back in late October. “The RNC’s sole role in the primary debate process is to ensure that our candidates are given a full and fair opportunity to lay out their vision for America’s future. We simply cannot continue with NBC without full consultation with our campaigns.”

In response, NBC News signaled in a statement at the time that it thought the situation could be resolved.

“This is a disappointing development,” NBC News said in a statement. “However, along with our debate broadcast partners at Telemundo we will work in good faith to resolve this matter with the Republican Party.”

This process also sparked an unprecedented meeting of top officials with almost every GOP presidential campaign, in which campaign managers represented most of the 2016 GOP candidates to fight for better representation in the debate process. Donald Trump’s team and Dr. Ben Carson’s team, as well most of the rest of the campaigns, huddled together to wrest control away from the mainstream media—which has been, until now, dominating the process.

Clearly, however, despite NBC’s previous hopes that the RNC would reinstate the network as a moderator of the upcoming debate, the RNC has officially moved forward with formal actions to end the network’s plans for the Houston debate.

NBC News moderated Sunday evening’s Democratic debate between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

The move by the RNC to formally extricate NBC News from the process is sure to seriously harm the media organization’s reputation, and its financial bottom line. Typically, networks make millions of dollars in ad revenue with debate moderation due to the extraordinarily high viewership.

The debate is still on the schedule–it would come after Iowans, New Hampshire citizens, South Carolinians, and Nevadans vote, heading into the all-important SEC Primary of which Texas is a part on March 1–but it’s unclear as of yet who will moderate it or where it will air.

For years, the Main Stream Media has been in bed with politicians and business moguls. While, touting objectivity, they have often fallen way short of that goal.

The Media really came into its own during the 80’s, with the advent of Cable Television, the First Iranian Hostage Crisis, and the ascension and election of President Ronald Wilson Reagan. Their advocacy of all things Liberal became very apparent, as they attacked the greatest president of this generation, mercilessly, giving no quarter.

I believe that Reagan’s election was a wake up call to the MSM. They realized that, if let to their own devices, the American Public would elect a Conservative as president, every time. And, they just couldn’t have that. They were already in too deep to their Democratic, Progressive Masters.

So, America’s Media forsook their objectivity, choosing to help to shape current events, instead of just reporting on them, in an effort to produce outcomes which would be most beneficial to the Progressive Cause.

Now, in 2015, after propping up Barack Hussein Obama and getting him re-elected, their own hubris has given them an exaggerated sense of self-importance, as to their role in our society.

Their Achilles’ Heel , the before-mentioned hubris, blinded them to the potential of the upstart Fox News Channel in informing America’s population in the Heartland, and that has been their undoing, much to Obama’s consternation.

Every night of the week, the Fox News Channel beats the mainstream outlets in popularity. There is a reason for that.

Fox News is exactly what it claims to be: fair and balanced.

The Mainstream News Channels are so far up Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s backsides that they wouldn’t know the truth if it French-kissed them.

Just as it was during the Russian Revolution, when Vladimir Leninn seized control of Russia from the Czar, and just as it was during the era of the National Socialist Party in Germany, when a former altar boy and house painter named Adolf Hitler took over, the first thing that totalitarian governments do is to take control of media, for propaganda purposes.

Through threats, coercion, and promises of reward, that is exactly what Obama did when he took office.

Of course, he did not have to try very hard. The Main Stream Media were already Obama Fanboys, their staffs being made up of a majority of Liberals.

Heck, they were posting fictitious propaganda about Barack Hussein Obama, before he was even elected president.

The election of Barack Hussein Obama is the best thing that ever happened to the Fox News Channel. It has solidified their position as the Leader in Cable News.

And, the thing about it, is the fact that Fox News is not the only source by which average Americans can obtain the truth about Obama and his administration. The New Media, the Internet, has proven to be an invaluable source for dissemination of information.

Principled reporters, such as the late Andrew Breitbart and Michelle Malkin, turned up the heat on both Obama and the MSM, by providing an alternative source through which Americans can receive news, unfiltered by those in the Halls of Power.

All during the Republican PreFsidential Primate Candidate Debates, which they have had the privilege of hosting, the NBC Debate Moderators, while doing the will of their Masters at the Network and the Democratic Party, the self-proclaimed “Broadcast Journalists” allowed the entire country to witness them practice, on live television, their actual jobs: being junkyard dogs and purveyors of propaganda , in service to a political party and ideology, who once stood for the “Working Man and Woman”, but who now stand for the worst kind  of state-sponsored fascism, racial division exacerbated by the Rhetoric of Class Warfare, and greed-inspired socialism.

It was refreshing to actually see the Republican National Committee tell them to go take a long walk off of a short pier.

It is time to take our country back.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Obama “Fired Up”, to Hold Gun Control Pep Rally on CNN

Party-Pooper-600-nrdHis (Obama’s) first impulse always is to take rights away from law-abiding citizens, and it’s wrong. And to use executive powers he doesn’t have is a pattern that is quite dangerous. – Republican Presidential Hopeful Jeb Bush, Fox News Sunday, 1/3/2016

ABC News reports that

Hawaiian vacation over, President Barack Obama says he is energized for his final year in office and ready to tackle unfinished business, turning immediate attention to the issue of gun violence. Obama scheduled a meeting Monday with Attorney General Loretta Lynch to discuss a three-month review of what steps he could take to help reduce gun violence. The president is expected to use executive action to strengthen background checks required for gun purchases.

Republicans strongly oppose any moves Obama may make, and legal fights seem likely over what critics would view as infringing on their Second Amendment rights. But Obama is committed to an aggressive agenda in 2016 even as public attention shifts to the presidential election.

Obama spent much of his winter vacation out of the public eye, playing golf with friends and dining out with his family. He returned to the White House about noon Sunday.

“I am fired up for the year that stretches out before us. That’s because of what we’ve accomplished together over the past seven,” Obama said his weekly radio and Internet address.

While in Hawaii, he also worked on his final State of the Union address, scheduled for Jan. 12. The prime-time speech will give the president another chance to try to reassure the public about his national security stewardship after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California.

Congressional Republicans have outlined a competing agenda for January, saying they will spend the first days of 2016 taking another crack at eliminating keys parts of the president’s health insurance law and ending federal funding for Planned Parenthood. The legislation is unlikely to become law, but it is popular with the GOP base in an election year.

The debate about what Obama may do on gun violence already has spilled over into the presidential campaign.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has called for more aggressive executive actions on guns, and rival Bernie Sanders said he would support Obama’s expected move.

The Vermont senator told ABC’s “This Week” that he believes “there is a wide consensus” that “we should expand and strengthen the instant background check.” He added: “I think that’s what the president is trying to do and I think that will be the right thing to do.”

Republican candidates largely oppose efforts to expand background checks or take other steps that curb access to guns.

“This president wants to act as if he is a king, as if he is a dictator,” unable to persuade Congress and forcing an “illegal executive action” on the country, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told “Fox News Sunday.”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, also on Fox, said Obama’s “first impulse is always to take rights away from law-abiding citizens, and it’s wrong.”

In the radio address, Obama said tens of thousands of people have died from gun violence since background check legislation stalled three years ago.

“Each time, we’re told that commonsense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, so we shouldn’t do anything,” Obama said. “We know that we can’t stop every act of violence. But what if we tried to stop even one?”

Federally licensed gun sellers are required by law to seek criminal background checks before completing a sale. But gun control advocacy groups say some of the people who sell firearms at gun shows are not federally licensed, increasing the chance of sales to customers prohibited by law from purchasing guns.

Obama plans to participate in a town hall Thursday night at George Mason University in Virginia on reducing gun violence. The president will take questions from the audience at the event moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Despite his deep differences with Republicans, Obama has cited two agenda items for 2016 that have bipartisan support: a free trade agreement with 11 other nations called the Trans-Pacific Partnership and changes in the criminal justice system that would reduce incarceration rates for nonviolent offenders. He often points out that the U.S. accounts for 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of its inmates.

An Executive Order, sometimes known as a proclamation, is a directive handed down directly from the President of the United States without input from the legislative or judicial branches. Executive orders can only be given to federal or state agencies, not to citizens, even though we wind up bearing the brunt of them.

Executive Orders go all the way back to our first president, George Washington. Presidents have used them to lead the nation through times of war, to respond to natural disasters and economic crises, to encourage or to limit regulation by federal agencies, to promote civil rights, or in the case of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to set up Japanese internment camps, in order to revoke Civil Rights.

Have you ever watched a mother, when their toddler bumps their head on a table, attempt to distract their child, by pretending to spank the table, while saying, “Bad Table”?

That, in a nutshell, is what President Barack Hussein Obama is attempting to do by writing Executive Orders, in an attempt to limit the Constitutional Right of American Citizens to own guns.

By creating new restrictions, instead of enforcing gun laws which are already in place, Obama is shifting the blame from the Radical Islamic Terrorists and those who operate outside of the law to America and her citizens.

Obama is attempting to control law-abiding American Citizens, instead of punishing those who operate outside of our laws, such as the Muslim Terrorists who perpetrated the San Bernadino Massacre and the thugs who have turned Obama’s “hometown” of Chicago into their own personal “Killing Fields”.

Obama realizes that even though he “has a pen”, that does not mean that he has the national approval for his coming dictatorial action, which he claims that he has.

Therefore, he and his Administration have arranged for a “National Townhall Meeting”, to be held live on CNN, this Thursday night.

During this upcoming “Pep Rally”, I can guarantee you the following:

  1. The audience will be hand-picked by the Administration.
  2. Obama will use “human props”, like he did after the Sandy Hook Massacre and during the Obamacare Roll-out.
  3. Anderson Cooper will fawn over him, lobbing softball questions that Steve Urkel himself could hit out of the park.

Gun Control has not stopped the criminals from getting Guns in the UK. What makes Obama and his minions think that more regulations are going to accomplish what the UK has not?

Are they that full of themselves that they think that, since they are the “smartest people in the room”, that failed methods will actually work this time?

Are they just doing something to be doing something, in order to save face with their Far Left supporters?

Or, is it something more malevolent than just everyday politics?

Here’s a quote from an organization that backs Obama all the way with his Gun Confiscation efforts…

…the right-wing extremists opposing all efforts to curb gun violence are the same forces that rallied behind Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, hoping to undermine every other democratic right as well as the living standards of workers and ordinary Americans. It is for that reason, as well as the need to protect public safety, that the same coalition of labor and its allies that worked so hard and effectively to re-elect President Barack Obama must now go all-out to back his common sense proposals for gun law reform.

As Obama has charged, the extremists recklessly “gin up fear” that the government is coming to take away hunting rifles and personal weapons owned for legitimate self-defense. Led by the hate-mongering leadership of the National Rifle Association, they use a totally fraudulent and only very recent interpretation of the Second Amendment which they falsely claim as necessary for protecting every other freedom contained in the Bill of Rights.

One of their unhinged spokesmen, Texas talk show host Alex Jones, launched a national petition drive to deport CNN commentator Piers Morgan for questioning the Second Amendment. Jones said the amendment “isn’t there for duck hunting. It’s there to protect us from tyrannical government and street thugs,” and then went on to threaten insurrection “if you try to take our firearms.”

Actually, the Second Amendment wasn’t enacted with any of these things in mind. The amendment was adopted as a means to enable the new American republic, lacking a standing army or state national guards, to muster militia to put down domestic uprisings, including slave revolts, to repulse any attempted return by the British and to deal with clashes with Native Americans on the expanding frontier.

These issues vanished long ago. The Second Amendment is obsolete and now has been twisted to threaten the basic safety and security of all Americans. There is no basis for claiming this amendment was intended to permit unregulated personal acquisition of firearms, including amassing military weapons and private arsenals for “protection” from the government. No government, especially one that is new and fragile, has ever authorized citizens to arm themselves against it.

The preceding quote actually comes from peoplesworld.org, the website of Communist Party USA.

As I have chronicled, over the last few years, this Gun Confiscation Movement comes right out of  the playbook of Marx and Lenin.

There is one thing that Obama did not take into account, however…

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have. – Ronald Reagan

And, that is why he will fail.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The War Against Christianity: The Myth of “Constitutional Religious Neutrality”

American Christianity 2Do American Political Leaders have the right to invoke the Name of the God of Abraham in their public speeches?

Or, should they keep their faith out of the Public Arena of Ideas, like the “Smartest People in the Room” keep  insisting?

The Washington Post reports that

METAIRIE, La. — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday the idea of religious neutrality is not grounded in the country’s constitutional traditions and that God has been good to the U.S. exactly because Americans honor him.

Scalia was speaking at a Catholic high school in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, Louisiana. Scalia, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 is the court’s longest serving justice. He has consistently been one of the court’s more conservative members.

He told the audience at Archbishop Rummel High School that there is “no place” in the country’s constitutional traditions for the idea that the state must be neutral between religion and its absence.

“To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that come from?” he said. “To be sure, you can’t favor one denomination over another but can’t favor religion over non-religion?”

He also said there is “nothing wrong” with the idea of presidents and others invoking God in speeches. He said God has been good to America because Americans have honored him. 

Scalia said during the Sept. 11 attacks he was in Rome at a conference. The next morning, after a speech by President George W. Bush in which he invoked God and asked for his blessing, Scalia said many of the other judges approached him and said they wished their presidents or prime ministers would do the same.

“God has been very good to us. That we won the revolution was extraordinary. The Battle of Midway was extraordinary. I think one of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor. Unlike the other countries of the world that do not even invoke his name we do him honor. In presidential addresses, in Thanksgiving proclamations and in many other ways,” Scalia said.

“There is nothing wrong with that and do not let anybody tell you that there is anything wrong with that,” he added.

Scalia’s comments Saturday come as the court prepares to hear arguments later this year in a case that challenges part of President Barack Obama’s health care law and whether it adequately shields faith-based hospitals, colleges and charities from having to offer contraceptive coverage to their employees.

For what now seems like an eternity, those on the Left side of Political Aisle, spearheaded by President Barack Hussein Obama,  have focused their attention on “radically changing” America.

They soon realized that they simply could not do it through popular culture and educational indoctrination, inundating America’s children with both overt and subliminal imaging designed to countermand the Traditional American Values that they were being raised with, in normal American Households, out here in “Flyover Country”, otherwise known as America’s Heartland…or “the Red States”.

Modern Liberals soon figured out that the way to program Americans into believing that “all paths lead to God” and that cradle-to-grave Nanny-State Government were the new American Standards for living our daily lives, was to turn Christian American Houses of Worship away from being instructors of the Word of God and a sanctuary in which to worship Our Creator, to, instead, being purveyors of the joys of Popular Culture. Wednesday Night Bible Studies were soon replaced by Yoga Classes and Encounter Groups. Religious Leaders were soon quoting philosophy, instead of the Bible in their Sunday Morning Sermons.

And, instead of taking a stand against those things of the world which were directly opposed to what is found in God’s Word, these “new, enlightened” churches started standing up for the “right” of a woman to have her baby prematurely yanked out of her womb with a set of tongs, standing up for the right of Adam to “marry” Steve, when the Bible states that marriage is between a man and a woman, and standing up for the equality of all faiths, when the Son of God firmly states, in John 14:6, that

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So, when  as all this Christianity in America going to “fade away” as predicted by “the Smartest People in the Room”?

As recent polls show…not any time soon.

America remains a nation whose population consists of 70-75%, who proclaim Jesus Christ as their Personal Savior and 92%, who believe in God.

Being filled with human beings, churches have made a lot of mistakes, However, they have also done a lot of good in the name of the Lord.

For example, the church I attend, houses a Food Pantry, operated in co-operation with other churches in our area, which feeds 2,000 people per month, counseling them, and getting them the assistance that they need.

Churches today have to walk a fine line.

The spiritual battle the influence of American Popular Culture and those seeking the Will of God in their lives, takes all the strength…and prayer, that Christians can muster.

Modern Liberals seem to have great difficulty comprehending the role which Our Creator, the God of Abraham, played and plays in this Grand Experiment, known as the United States of America.

Why have Liberals ratcheted up their anti-Christian Vitriol and Negativity since January 21, 2009?

Why are they so focused on removing America’s Christian Heritage?

Well, as is usually my wont, I have been doing some “reckoning” about this.

It seems to this ol’ Southern Boy, living here in the Heartland, that America’s Christian Heritage and the very real fact of His influence in building and shaping America’s growth into the greatest country on the face of God’s Green Earth, not only stifles and interferes with Modern Liberals’ “anything goes”, “share the wealth”, “hive-mind”, “man is his own god” Political Ideology, but the reality of God’s very existence, somewhere deep in their miserable, bitter psyches, scares the mess out of them.

Why else would they be trying so hard to fight against the influence of Someone Whom they really don’t believe in?

I see them every single day on the television, on the Internet, on Facebook Political Pages, posting stupid meme (a picture with words on it) after stupid meme, attempting to make fun of The Great I Am and those of us who have given our lives to Him.

They are so hateful, and filled with such bitterness, that it is difficult to engage them in “conversation”.

Perhaps, somewhere in their back of their minds, all of these Modern American Liberals, realize that they are fighting a losing battle.

Christianity continues to thrive in America, despite their best efforts.

For, as Justice Scalia stated so eloquently,

God has been very good to us

America was built upon a Solid Rock.

To ignore our nation’s Faith-Based Founding and Heritage is to live in purposeful ignorance.

As President Ronald Reagan said,

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

And, as Hebrews 13:8 tells us,

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Regardless of the Political Machinations of Modern American Liberals, God will have the final word, as to our country’s future.

He always does.

Until He Comes,

KJ