Oscar, Shmoscar

Tonight is Hollywood’s big night. It’s the night a whole bunch of wealthy mimics get together to pat each other on the back for being such wonderful artists. They hire a funny guy host (this year it’s Jimmy Kimmel) to entertain us and warm up the audience for the 3+ hour self-congratulatory marathon. It’s estimated over 30 million people will tune in to the extravaganza. (Down from 57 million in 1998. What’s up with that?) All waiting with bated breath to learn who will get the little gold trophy for “Best Cinematography in a Foreign Documentary”. Oh, I mean “Best Performance by an Actor”. Excuse me. Of course, I’m being facetious, but to get to those most-anticipated “Best Actor”, “Best Actress” and “Best Picture” awards, the public it put through an endless parade of obscure categories that few people care about save those in competition for the trophies. We’ll finally get to the meat of the event so late that everyone staying up to watch will be groggy at work tomorrow. You know, I’m OK with all that. There is a certain excitement in the anticipation and the right host can make the event very entertaining.

What I’m not OK with is being lectured to in the process. Why do actors feel it necessary to inject their politics into an event that has nothing to do with politics? Don’t get me wrong, I believe these folks have as much right as anyone to express their political views, but there’s a time and place for everything. Tuning into the Academy Awards to hear an intellectual speech is akin to tuning in to CNN for a UFC cage match. Completely non-sequitur. I know these actors are certain the world can’t wait to hear what they think of our President or the Syrian refugee crisis, but to me this behavior is the ultimate “bait and switch”. For half the viewers, we tune in to see the biggest Hollywood award show, but wind up being lectured on how deplorable and backwards our political beliefs are (if we don’t agree with some actor’s progressive leftist socialist agenda). For those actors, I say, “S. T. F. U.” Looking to an actor for political advice is about as smart as calling a plumber when you have a toothache. That type of behavior is also pretty stupid when you think about it. Why would someone who's career depends on the public's adoration purposely ostracize half their potential customers? I also submit that these same actors are the ultimate hypocrites. They fly to Hollywood in their private jets, put on thousands of dollars’ worth the clothing and jewelry, get into their limousines and get chauffeured to the red carpet. All while being guarded by armed security and safely barricaded from the “little people” who buy the overpriced tickets that pay their hyper-inflated salaries. After all that, they have the nerve to lecture me about how bigoted, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic and whatever the hell else they think I am for rejecting their politically correct, progressive views.  I wonder how many refugees and illegal immigrants are invited to the event or one of the dozens of after-parties? I’ll bet the only ones there will be tending bar, serving hors d’oeuvres or cleaning up afterwards.

The Academy Awards? No thanks. I think I’ll pirate a movie.

Somebody Needs to Say It. Radical Islam IS the Problem!

We can’t seem to make a pass/fail decision about middle-eastern refugees trying to immigrate to our country. We examine the social, political and criminal backgrounds of people from Russia. The same goes for China, India and virtually everywhere else. Why can’t we examine the compatibility/incompatibility of the political and religious beliefs of Syrian refugees? Even examining the practice will get you branded as a racist, xenophobe or any number of nasty adjectives. Leftists are crying crocodile tears and shaking their fists at President Trump’s executive order placing a temporary ban on immigration from seven countries (designated by the Obama administration) designated as hotbeds of radical Islamic terrorism. It’s symptomatic of our politically correct, globalist/elitist government and the mainstream media who promotes their agenda. Well, I could give two shits what I get called. This subject is too important for the well-being of our country to allow apathy or the fear of a little name-calling to rule the day. Innocent men, women and children are, quite literally, dying in the name of Allah while the West cowers in fear of verbal and/or political condemnation. I think it’s way past time we take a closer look at the middle-east’s jihadist version of the “religion of peace”.

Before I begin, let me state very plainly, I absolutely believe the first amendment to our Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of religion, is the most important verbiage in the entire document. Having said that, our courts have upheld time and again that religious practice doesn’t trump the rest of our laws. For example, it isn’t legal for Mormons to practice polygamy anywhere in our country. Rastafarians can’t spark up a blunt in church in states that don’t allow it. So why are we bending over backwards to import tens of thousands of people whose religious beliefs 1.) condone wife-beating as a perfectly acceptable means of enforcing her compliance and 2.) anyone who believes otherwise should be put to death? It shouldn’t matter that the behavior is spelled out in the Quran. Constitution trumps religious text every time. Islam can be freely practiced in the United States if that practice doesn’t conflict with our Constitution. Beating one’s wife violates her individual liberty (not to mention the basic immorality of the practice) and there are literally hundreds of local, state and federal statutes that forbid it. The same goes for the common Sharia practice of sexual mutilation, honor killings and forbidding women to drive, get an education, show her face in public, speak to any man who isn’t her husband... the list goes on and on. Sharia also spells out several practices that fly in the face of our First Amendment like prescribing the death penalty for simply speaking out against Islam, criticizing Allah, criticizing Muhammed or questioning any part of the Quran. Also, let’s not forget the “cruel and unusual” punishment (in addition to the death penalties described above) prescribed by Sharia like amputation of a person’s right hand if that person is caught stealing. Allowing that particular behavior in the United States would require repealing the Eighth Amendment. So, Islamic doctrine clearly flies in the face of our first, fourth and eighth Amendments. I’m sure a Constitutional lawyer could find a couple more. Is there any belief system more un-American than Sharia? In fact, Sharia law is completely incompatible with many foundational beliefs held by the western world. How can we abide importation of so many people knowing full well their religious beliefs negate any possibility of successful assimilation into western society? The short answer: We shouldn’t!

Before you start yelling about what a small percentage of Islam subscribes to these barbaric practices, here’s the really scary part…

…51% of the 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States believe Sharia law is preferable to the laws of our land. For the benefit of the people in Portland, that’s about 1.7 million completely unspooled Muslims living here NOW! Thank God we elected a man who promises to stem the tide of this scourge immigrating to our country. What I find so crazy was the media’s conniption fit over Trump calling for a temporary ban on some immigration. Commentators on CNN, CBS and MSNBC started screaming about the unconstitutional nature of banning someone based on their religion. First, our Constitution only applies to American citizens, making the entire argument moot. Second, I’m always amazed by how readily the left points to our Constitution when it fits their agenda, then completely ignore it when they want to take away our right to keep and bear arms. Just sayin’. No, I don’t believe all Muslims are terrorists. What I do believe is that all terrorists are Muslims. It isn’t our fault Islam is the religion of choice of everyone who feels the need to drive a speeding truck into a crowd of innocent tourists in Nice or into a busy Christmas market in Berlin, killing dozens of innocent men, women and children. Even the most virulent, vocal, anti-gay Southern Baptist doesn’t open up with an assault rifle into a crowded gay night club in Orlando, Florida. Buddhists don’t fly crowded jet liners into the two tallest buildings in New York City. Pick any terrorist tragedy of the last twenty years and you’ll find a Muslim perpetrator. Forgive me if I’m a little skittish about allowing tens of thousands of undocumented middle-eastern Muslim refugees to immigrate to the United States. It is virtually guaranteed that some percentage of these “refugees” want nothing more than to blow up or shoot or run over as many Americans as they possibly can. I.S.I.S. has said publicly they plan to infiltrate the refugees migrating to western Europe and the U.S. Even if that weren’t the case, why would we take the chance on tens of thousands of people who believe the only good infidel is a dead infidel? That’s right. This “religion of peace” teaches its followers that simple non-belief in Islam is a crime punishable by death and it is every true believer’s duty to be the executioner. If over half believe in Sharia law, it’s safe to assume they won’t suddenly start believing in equal rights and legal protection for women, gays, Christians or basically any non-Muslim. How can they? The version of Islam they believe in teaches them we should all be killed.

If you listen to (former) President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid or just about anyone who supports them, I am a hater. I am an irredeemable, intolerant xenophobe. Well, forgive my intolerance of someone who wants me, my wife and my children dead. The left would argue that only a tiny minority of these refugees are radicalized and that we shouldn’t condemn all Muslims for the beliefs of a few. I totally agree. I simply believe there is some other way to provide the much-needed humanitarian relief without allowing tens of thousands of undocumented Syrian refugees into the United States when our own government tells us they are incapable of properly vetting them. If only one tenth of one percent of the refugees are radicalized, we will be importing 100 to 200 radicalized terrorists if the relief effort progresses as (former) President Obama has proposed. I say, “Why take the chance?”

That is the question the left has yet to answer to my satisfaction. They simply repeat the horrible humanitarian disaster statistics.  Then they babble about the verbiage on the Statue of Liberty and how un-American it is to temporarily halt immigration from certain areas. Oh, and then they call me a racist xenophobe. I’m not advocating we ignore the refugee crisis. I’m just wondering if there is some way to solve it short of allowing tens of thousands of un-vetted people into our country when we’re almost certain some of them will be wife-beating, genital mutilating, murdering extremists. I don’t say so. I.S.I.S. says so. That aside, most of these refugees have absolutely no interest in assimilating into our culture. It is not the job of the American people to accommodate their anti-western beliefs and practices. And it certainly isn’t the job of the American taxpayer to pay to be terrorized.

I have one other question that no one on the left has been able to answer. What are all the wealthy middle-eastern countries doing to relieve the Syrian refugee crisis? I mean, besides donating millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. I’m talking about places like Saudi Arabia and the UAE (United Arab Emirates) that have so much money, their police drive Lamborghinis and Ferraris. They’ve been making bank off the rest of the world by collecting petro-dollars by the super-tanker load. They could buy every refugee a house and new Mercedes with the change found in their sofas! For all intents and purposes, these countries are Islamic theocracies. They’re fine with the whole one-handed thief thing. They also have butt-loads of land to build refugee camps that’s a helluva lot closer to Syria than Pittsburgh or Pensacola. Do you think they know something we don’t? Do they know the vast majority of these refugees are well-intentioned people who are simply running for their lives? Do they know I.S.I.S. would suicide bomb Riyadh just as gladly as New York? Of course they do. Do you think the Saudi royal family fears being called racist or xenophobic? Of course not. People who speak out against the royals in Saudi Arabia get a one-way ticket to prison, never to be heard from again. In other words, the displaced Syrians are much more culturally and theologically compatible with Arab nations than they are with the U.S. or Europe, but the rich, Islamic nations of the middle-east refuse to have anything to do with them because they know the trouble they would be inviting if they did. Hmmm. Can we learn anything from that?

Certainly, Europe is feeling the sting of un-checked mass immigration from the middle-east. Great Britain wised up and passed “Brexit” effectively telling the E.U., “Thanks, but no thanks. We’ll govern ourselves if you don’t mind…and that includes our borders” Sweden has enacted sweeping immigration reform. Germany’s Angela Merkel’s seat as head of state isn’t expected to be renewed by the voters of her country. Her “follow-along politely” stance with the E.U.’s position of open borders has left her political position tenuous at best. Islamic terrorism has caused the senseless deaths of thousands of peace-loving men, women and children in France, Germany and Belgium in the last two years alone. I visited Paris in 2015 and wound up taking what I thought was an excessively long cab ride to the Louvre. When I questioned the cabbie about my high fare, he told me we had to go around an eight square block area, explaining that it was a “no-go” zone. At the time I didn’t know what he was talking about and just paid the fare, thinking I’d just been stiffed by another American-hating Frenchman. When I found out more about Paris, I immediately felt guilty for harboring those thoughts about someone who did me (and himself) a favor. The reality is, that is a section of Paris consisting predominantly of middle-eastern immigrants. It turns out the area is such a shit hole the Paris police won’t even go there. How sad is that? France takes in immigrants as part of a huge humanitarian relief program and those same immigrants infest a huge section of Paris and are so violent and otherwise unlawful that normal Parisians can’t even navigate through the area! The story is repeated throughout Europe. Don’t believe me? Google “Molenbeek”.

President Trump’s temporary immigration ban is meant to prevent the same sort of thing happening to New York or Chicago or Houston or…

…your city.

Cry-ins & Riots. The Left's True Colors

Snot bubbles for HillaryTo me, the best thing about a Donald Trump presidency is that he is the first president who will enter the White House owing donors absolutely DICK! I’ve been voting since 1976 and for the first time I feel like I’ve helped elect a man who’s first priority is to serve the electorate. And not just those who voted for him, the entire electorate. It’s a shame some don’t see things that way. You see, I actually read the Trump/Pence web site and listened to his campaign speeches. I also went to Hillary's site and read it front to back. I didn’t get my information from the mainstream media who’ve been proven to be completely in the tank for Hillary. They aren’t just biased, some of the emails Wikileaks released demonstrated active collusion with the Hillary campaign. If you rely on the major networks and CNN to spoon-feed information to you, I can understand why you would have a completely skewed vision of the campaign and why you’d believe the election should have gone your way. Well, it didn’t. Donald Trump told us about this dishonest reporting and skewed polls for weeks leading up to the election. If you chose not to listen to him, you only have yourself to blame for being clueless. Maybe now you won't be so eager to march lock-step with CNN & MSNBC.

Never mind. I just experienced a delusional moment. Liberal bots never learn. The Orwellian brainwashing is just too complete. The truth cannot penetrate. If it could, lifetime leftists would realize that norms of the past no longer apply. Democrats have always framed the "us vs. them" argument as one of race or rich vs. poor. Donald Trump has been accurately re-defining the struggle as the ruling political class vs. virtually everyone else. Boundaries can no longer be drawn between party lines. Both parties (Republican and Democrat) have fallen victim to their donors. The money required to run an effective campaign forced leaders of both parties to pander to the wealthiest one-half of one percent who expect favorable legislative and/or executive action in return for their campaign donations. Campaign finance reform legislation has done little or nothing to stem the tide of this political pandering. It's the definitive "fox guarding the hen house" situation, effectually asking legislators to police themselves. For the past thirty years, it hasn't mattered which party was in power. Our economy hasn't improved and we've been continually bogged down in fruitless foreign wars. Donald Trump recognized this, as did a large percentage of the American people. Mr. Trump saw the unrest and levereged it into a successful bid for the White House. The problem is, half of America refuses to see the real problem. They continue to cling to the stale ideas that label republicans as racists, sexists, xenophobes, etc., when those labels are nowhere near reality. In short, they've been eating too much CNN dog food. The people who support Donald Trump are quite angered by all the name-calling and on November 8th the "basket of deplorables" came out by the millions to vent their anger the correct way, by voting. When the tallies started coming in and state after state went to Trump, the mainstream media (and the robots who believe them) was shocked. They spent too much time in the weeks leading up to the election listening to each other instead of honestly reporting what I and everyone who attended a Trump rally saw; the near exuberent enthusiam of the "Trump movement". One of the Trump rallys I attended in Prescot Valley, Arizona was attended by over 25,000 people. That was in an area with a total population of 40,000! How does one explain attendance by over 60% of the populace? On a Tuesday afternoon, no less! My wife and I arrived at 09:30 for a 2 PM event and barely got into the 10,000 capacity arena. 15,000 people watched outside on the jumbotron. I don't remember that sort of enthusiasm for any presidential candidate, even Ronald Reagan. Of course, you never heard numbers like that if you listened to the MSM. Like Mr. Trump said repeatedly, "the most dishonest people" would never turn their cameras to the enthusiastic crowds. They seemed to be doing everything in their power to downplay Donald Trump's movement. And "movement" is the most accurate term I can think of to describe it.

So, to all you bed-wetting crybabies in Portland, Austin and New York: YOUR CANDIDATE LOST. Protest all you want. The First Amendment to our Constitution guarantees your right to do so. More precisely, it assures “the right of the people peacefully to assemble”. The key word being “peacefully”. No matter how non-sequitur your opinions are, people have fought and died to protect your right to express them…

PEACEFULLY.

I know no one has taught you this. After all, you are products of the American education system. It's a system that feels it is more important to provide sensitivity and sexual awareness training than teach the fundamental principles upon which this country was founded. They also seem to have missed the points about deliberately blocking traffic, torching cars and the violent destruction of other people's property. When you do that, you cease being a protestor and becom a rioter! Rioters enjoy no such Constitutional protections.

I’m paying a large sum of my hard-earned money to send my youngest of three daughters to college, just like I did for her two older sisters. She is attending Louisiana State University. Both her older sisters graduated from the University of Houston. Guess what? I have never paid either university for one of my daughters to participate in a “cry in”! Well, if I did I never knew about it and would be outraged at the university if it were true. And my kids all attended public universities where the cost is semi-reasonable. These ridiculous cry sessions, Play Dough and coloring book therapies are happening at very expensive, private Ivy-League schools. What a bunch of dopes! If I were paying in excess of $20K per semester for my kid’s education and found out that’s what I was getting for my money, I’d be royally pissed. Instead of all this infantile pampering, these coddled millennials need someone to tell them that in every election there’s a winner and a loser. There are no “participation trophies” for the losers no matter what type of temper-tantrum they throw. They need to put down their sippy-cups, get back to class and try to learn something meaningful, like basic constitutional principles. They also need to grow a pair. If Hitler and the Japanese were on the rampage today and these weenies were all we had to defend us, we’d be eating dried fish and sauerbraten for dinner very soon.

Millennials don't have these!

The good news is, although this behavior is widespread, it is still just a collection of isolated instances no matter how big the mainstream media plays it up. If you have any doubt about that, just look at the county-by-county electoral map (below). Aside from the little blue patches in the largest urban areas, for the most part this country is very, very red. Of course, one of the points of contention for these protesters is the way we elect presidents. Because Hillary won the popular vote by a small margin, these malcontents automatically start hollering about the “unfairness” of the electoral college. They are so predictable. Firstly, because they have no concept of a constitutional representative republic, which is what America is. I cringe every time I hear these idiots calling the United States a democracy. It is not. Secondly, they always throw fits every time an election doesn’t go their way. They demand the rules be changed after the fact or try to contest things in court, hoping they can get matters in front of a sympathetic liberal judge who’ll change things in their favor. If you understand the Constitution, you’d know the purpose of the electoral college. It was designed to spread electoral power more evenly (and fairly) throughout the country. At its inception, two-thirds of Americans lived in New York, Philadelphia and their surrounding areas. In their infinite wisdom, the founders saw the need to prevent these population centers from dictating policy to the rest of the country. Today? Same, same. If there were no electoral college, presidential candidates wouldn’t bother campaigning anywhere other than major metropolitan areas. States like Idaho, New Hampshire, Nevada, Utah and the Dakotas wouldn’t have much (if any) say about their destiny. If you look at how red the electoral map is after this election, 1.) it would appear Donald Trump should have won by an even wider margin and 2.) every state in the union was important to the outcome. I mean, this thing looks like a Verizon LTE coverage map!

 Electoral map by county.

In the federalist papers, John Adams said the electoral college’s purpose was to prevent “the tyranny of the majority”. He and the other founders understood how vital distribution of electoral power truly is. How long do you think the United States would have lasted if 200 years ago the people of New York and Philadelphia were the only ones that mattered in an election? The same holds true today. People on the east and west coasts flippantly refer to the rest of America as "fly-over" country. They fail to realize middle America feeds them and provides most of their energy. Their uppity attitude towards their fellow countrymen is, in part, the reason middle America turned out so fervently for Donald Trump. They looked to him to push back the tide of east and west coast eliteism and political correctness. The "rigged system" Mr. Trump repeatedly referred to in his stump speeches resonated with a middle America who ever-increasingly disagreed with the liberal "correct speak" being spouted by the Hollywood elites and mainstream media. They listened to Hillary Clinton and the establishment who backed her referring to them as irredeemable racists, sexists and a host of other slanders and knew it not to be true. As the 2016 electoral map shows quite clearly, the "fly-overs" had their say. Is the electoral college perfect? Of course not. Is it vital for the continued well-being of our republic? Absolutely!

The electoral college is so important, the founders saw fit to include it in the Constitution, knowing full well what a huge effort would be required to change it. Amendments to the Constitution require passage by two-thirds majority in both houses of congress, presidential signature and ratification by majority vote in 34 states (the Constitution actually says 2/3 of the states). Yes, they made it very hard. They made sure our Constitution would endure flippant political upheavals. They intended our Constitution be a near-sacred document requiring a serious and enduring groundswell of will and determination to change it. Thank God. Our Constitution is what differentiates us from the rest of the world. Its genius has resulted in the greatest, most prosperous and most powerful country on earth.

So, go ahead and protest. Even though over half of you didn’t vote, you do have the right to peaceably speak your mind. That even includes “cry-ins” and coloring book therapy if that's what floats your boat. All you’re doing is reinforcing opinions of the electorate in all those red counties that they voted correctly. What they know is what you refuse to see. When President Trump succeeds in making America great again, you will benefit equally. 

It’s Purge Time!

Has this presidential campaign been a circus, or what? I like to think of myself as a well-informed participant in our political process. I cast my first presidential ballot in 1976 and have voted in every election since. By that I mean every election, from local city council to president and everything in between. I have postponed vacation trips so not to miss my opportunity to vote. That was before the days of very early and absentee balloting we now enjoy. I say all this to emphasize my opening remark. This campaign is like none I have witnessed in over forty years of observation. Just when I think things can’t get any muddier, they do. Just when I think there’s no way more dirt can be found, there is. I expect this will continue through November 8^th. Before this is over, I expect Wikileaks will release email of Hillary calling Italians “wops”, jews “kikes” and black people “niggers” while I’m sure there is a yet-to-be-released video tape of Donald Trump raping a 16-year-old girl while resting her head on a signed copy of Mien Kampf. Exaggeration, yes, but if I had predicted all the Wikileaks dumps and open-mic recordings six months ago, you would have thought I was nuts. Hell, I would have thought I was nuts!

I’ve thought long and hard about who will get my support. Last year at this time there were 19 people vying for our nation’s highest office. By the time the presidential primaries came to Texas, the field had been effectively narrowed down to ten. My first choice was to select which party primary to vote in. As a libertarian, my pickings were slim. Gary Johnson, John McAfee and Austin Petersen altogether couldn’t stir any enthusiasm and quite frankly I didn’t feel any of them had the qualifications to be president. Bernie Sanders, while making some good points about establishment and special interest politics was basically 180° away from every political belief I hold dear. Hillary Clinton was, well, Hillary. I was sick of her and her husband when they pillaged and left the White House in 2001. She has to be the most morally, ethically and politically corrupt candidate to ever seek the office. No matter what is said this campaign, my mind was made up when she left four dead Americans in Libya, including our ambassador. If she is that incompetent (if not criminally neglectful) as Secretary of State, how could I possibly vote for her for President? That left a wide field of candidates in the Republican primary. That field had significantly narrowed to two by the time the Texas primary rolled around, Trump and Cruz. What a choice, right? Well, Ted Cruz lost me with his ultra-conservative religious views and I just couldn’t imagine myself seeing his mug on TV every day for the next four years. Forgive me, but there’s something about his demeanor that makes my skin crawl. Aside from Hillary, there’s nobody I’d like to see in the White House less. In fact, I decided the most important trait for any presidential candidate this election cycle is lack of political experience. Life-long politicians working within today’s realities of special interest money and special interest agendas collect too much “favor-baggage”. The longer a politician is in the game, the more favors he/she owes to the donors who financed their campaigns. I think it’s time to eject the career politicians and clean house. No one exemplifies this trait less than Donald Trump whose comparatively infantile 16-month political career is devoid of special-interest funding. To the best of my knowledge, Donald Trump’s campaign is mainly financed by private donations averaging around $60, plus his own coffers. No big special-interest backers and no favors owed. For example, the Trump campaign makes a big deal of Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s refusal to use the term “radical Islamic terrorist” when a Muslim from the middle-east slaughters innocent civilians. Ever wonder why they are so reluctant to say the words? It’s because they take tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars in donations from rich Arabs in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and others. Those donors have instructed them NOT to! If they are so accommodating to these donors, imagine what kind of marching orders they are taking from multi-billion dollar insurance companies participating in Obamacare and servicing the Veterans Administration. What sort of income tax benefits and loopholes propagate as a result of Hillary’s $350,000 speaking fee she received from Goldman Sachs? The quid pro quo never ends with her.

I truly believe America needs a real political "outsider" as president. It's time for someone who is not beholden to ANY political machine and/or special interests. Washington is badly in need of a purge that only a true outsider can execute. It needs someone willing to say "You're FIRED!" to the ruling political class and entrenched bureaucrats who've made our government the top-heavy megalith it has become; more interested in its own proliferation than the needs of American citizens. There’s a reason Congress maintains a single-digit approval rating. It’s the same reason our national debt continues to skyrocket to so many trillions of dollars the average person cannot even conceptualize the sum. Politicians cannot vote sensibly to reduce wasteful spending because their sensible vote conflicts with the wishes of the corporation or PAC that financed their campaigns. It is such a convoluted equation. A special interest donates a million dollars to a congressman who in return votes to pass legislation costing the American taxpayer billions. When did we lose site of the impropriety of this behavior? When did it become acceptable for foreign billionaires to buy access to our government through donations to a charitable foundation? When did it become acceptable to legally ruin a young sailor’s life for snapping a cell phone picture of the inside of the submarine he sailed on so he could show his kid “where daddy worked”. At the same time no criminal charges are filed on a Secretary of State who deletes and bleaches tens of thousands of public documents in defiance of a Congressional subpoena? We need someone who understands that in America the law applies to all its citizens equally. We need someone who understands the impropriety of an ex-president meeting privately on a government plane with a standing Attorney General who is supposedly deciding on criminal indictment of said ex-president’s wife.

For God's sake people! This is the United States of America, not Great Britain. There is no aristocracy here. Government derives its power from its citizens. Remember “We the people”? Politicians serve at our behest. They are not some sort of privileged class no matter how much they try to act like it. Let’s play make-believe for just a few seconds. Please, humor me.

First, imagine you just received a subpoena from the U.S. congress that mandates you produce your voter registration card. What is your first thought? Shred your voter registration card then burn the pieces? Of course not! What do you think the consequences would be if you did?

What makes a person ignore a congressional subpoena? I can only think of one thing. Entitlement. This person feels they are in a class that need not obey the law. Hell, this person must think of the U. S. congress as “little people”. How aloof is that? This incident just happens to involve Hillary Clinton, but this is just an example of what goes on within the current ruling political class on both sides of the congressional isle. It’s that sort of behavior that motivates me to cast a protest ballot for Donald Trump. Yes, he’s a blow-hard. Yes, he’s probably some sort of lech. And yes, some of his political stances border on the ridiculous, but I’m not worried about that. The Founders wisely built ample checks and balances into our Constitution to guard against the extreme.

I believe the imperitive for this election is to stick our thumb in the eye of our entrenched political establishment. “Business as usual” is no longer acceptable. We’ve been in that mode since the ‘80s and look what it’s gotten us; an anemic economy with 1% annual GDP growth, the lowest labor participation rate in fifty years, minority unemployment approaching 60%, $20T of national debt, inner-city murder rates rivaling 3^rd world banana republics and a constant terrorism threat from Islamic extremists who detest our society and our values. Something has to change.

I say, if you’re gonna change then there’s no better place to start than at the top. The problem is, we’ve been dealt two absolutely shitty hands from which to choose. One candidate is a criminal (indicted or not) and the other is a lech (allegedly, but there’s so much smoke, there must be some fire somewhere). I know, I know, but what about the Libertarian and Green party candidates? Seriously? First, I could never vote for a militant environmentalist and second, Gary Johnson must have smoked too much herb through the years. The man sometimes has trouble completing his own sentences! I’ve been praying for a viable Libertarian candidate for 30 years. My slim hopes were dashed in 2012 when the Republicans and the media assassinated Ron Paul (figuratively, of course). He masqueraded as a Republican in the primaries and garnered more support than any Libertarian in history, but got bull-rushed by Romney and the RNC. That’s when I started despising the Republicans almost as much as the Democrats. Almost.

So, the presidential primaries yielded a Democrat political insider who practically defines the term and a Republican political outsider who couldn’t be more outside if he were from another planet. He’s so far outside he’s having trouble getting Republicans to support him. For me, the choice is easy. If you believe everything the press is saying (which I absolutely don’t, but for the sake of argument let’s say I do), Donald Trump is a tax-evading, racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic sexual predator. Hillary Clinton is a defender of and an enabler for a (proven) sexual predator. She accepts money in exchange for government access, thinks I am deplorable, maintains differing public and private views on critical issues and if her last name were anything but Clinton, would certainly be under indictment. Additionally, we just saw video tape of DNC operatives bragging about inciting riots at Trump rallies and explaining methods for committing voter fraud. These are contractors paid by the Hillary campaign and the DNC. This is criminal behavior! Where the hell is the FBI? Why isn’t somebody doing a perp-walk for all of this shit?

I’ll tell you why. Our justice system is totally politicized and corrupt. I think it goes all the way to the president’s desk. We’ll never be able to prove it, of course. On the same videotapes, the DNC operatives explained their “double blind” remittance methods and how those methods provide “plausible deniability” to the DNC and their candidates. J. Edgar Hoover is rolling over in his grave. The agency he spent a lifetime molding into the elite law enforcement organization that took down Bonnie & Clyde and the Mafia is now little more than a puppet for the democrats. They ignore criminals like Hillary Clinton and go after military generals whose infractions pale in comparison but happen to be on the wrong side of the political fence. The same goes for the IRS. The democrats have turned them into attack dogs they sic on conservative and religious organizations who speak out against democrat leftist agenda. The lifelong bureaucrats running these agencies and the political ruling class serving as their puppet masters need to be told, “YOU’RE FIRED!”

We all know who’s best qualified to do that.

Proof That Liberalism is a Mental Disorder

If you agree with Mrs. Clinton that half of Donald Trump’s supporters are a “basket of deplorables” then I submit that you are a bigot of the first order and your views are so misguided that the only plausible explanation is that you are suffering from some sort of mental disorder.

Do I disagree that there are deplorable people who support Donald Trump? No. Do I believe there are deplorable people supporting Mrs. Clinton? Of course. Let’s face it. A certain percentage of any populace would be considered deplorable by most reasonable, thinking persons. Child molesters, wife beaters, animal abusers and the like certainly fall into the deplorable category. Does it make sense that these deplorable people would have differing political views? Again, of course. If one of these scum support a political candidate, does it follow that said candidate bears any responsibility for endorsing or encouraging that supporter’s behavior? Of course not. The relationship isn’t reciprocal. To assert otherwise is nonsensical. So, Mrs. Clinton’s statements are non-sequitur in the base case.

Next, let’s examine the list of “irredeemable” people Mrs. Clinton puts into her basket. She listed, xenophobes, Islamophobics, homophobes to name a few. For her assertion to be logical, millions of people must be afflicted with a phobia. The dictionary defines a phobia thusly:

phobia |ˈfōbēə|
noun
an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something: he had a phobia about being under water | a phobia of germs | a snake phobia.

Mrs. Clinton characterizes people who agree with Donald Trump’s immigration policies as xenophobes. Xenophobia is defined as an intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries. OK, I agree with Donald Trump’s view that our current practice of allowing anyone and everyone entry into our country, is crazy. Am I a xenophobe? Let’s see. Do I have an intense or irrational dislike or fear of Mexicans? No. (It would be impossible to live in Texas if I did!) Canadians? No. Moroccans? No. The French? No again. Do I fear the policy of allowing unchecked migration across our southern border will result in more crime, illegal drugs, gang violence and an increased probability of terrorism? Yes, and statistics bear me out. Is that fear irrational? Of course not. In Texas we live with that fear. We’re reminded of the consequences of current border policy almost every day when we switch on the evening news. By definition then, I cannot be xenophobic.

Am I Islamophobic? Let’s see. One of my best friends and business associates was born in Iran. He and his family are Islamic. I’ve been working with him and his wife for over 15 years and we’ve become close friends. I celebrated with them when they became naturalized American citizens and watched his two daughters grow up into beautiful young women. Were I to have an intense or irrational fear or dislike of Islamic people I would think all that would be impossible. Do I have an intense fear of allowing tens of thousands of undocumented, un-vetted young adult males from the middle east into our country? You’re damned right I do! Is that fear irrational? I don’t think so. Any reasonable person who cares about the safety and well-being of America and its citizens should be afraid of an exodus from the very cradle of terrorism to our country. Especially when our enemy has told us that they have every intent to infiltrate said exodus.

Homophobic? I guess not. My middle daughter is bisexual. I love and support her whether her current partner is a boyfriend or girlfriend. Believe me, I’ve been through multiple iterations of each. I admit to being ignorant about the LGBTQ community at first, but I’ve learned a great deal over the years. I wasn’t ignorant because of deliberate avoidance, any irrational fear or dislike. I just hadn’t had any exposure to it before sharing my daughter’s experiences. (Well, there was that one near miss in New Orleans a few years back. I was a bit dazed and confused.) Anyway, I think if any two consenting adults choose each other then, more power to them. Anyone who finds a soulmate in this world is a lucky individual and should be legally able to marry, co-habitate, one-night stand or anything in between. You see, I believe in legalizing freedom in America and that certainly includes the freedom to practice one’s sexual preference. Is there any less homophobic position than that?

Lastly, I’d like to address Mrs. Clinton’s accusations of racism. Here, I have no personal experience to relay. I’m as white as a human can get. My hair is blonde. My eyes are blue and my lineage is Polish. I’m married to a white, New Orleans girl whose ancestors descended from Ireland and our daughter is a strawberry blonde with hazel eyes. I grew up in a racially integrated neighborhood and attended racially integrated public schools where blacks were definitely in the minority.  And by minority I mean less than five percent. I would be lying if I said there were no racial tensions when I was growing up. It was the 60s in Texas after all. I played high school sports on teams that were around 25% black and 20% Hispanic (I dug up an old photo, counted and did the math.) and still count many of my former teammates of all races as friends. I spent the majority of my 35-year career working for the largest oil company on Earth that wasn’t only multi-racial, but multi-national. During that time, I had black and Hispanic bosses and peers and I supervised the same. To be honest, I cannot think of a single instance where I was personally involved with any work-related or personal incident of racism. I witnessed it from others on rare occasions to be sure, but I also watched my company deal with those cases swiftly and fairly. Racism and sexism simply were not tolerated.

So, I obviously fall into that half of Trump supporters who are not deplorable. Funny thing is, I’ve spent more than a little time interacting with literally hundreds of Trump supporters on social media and thousands at two separate live events. Guess what? I never saw the KKK represented anywhere, unlike those depicted in Mrs. Clinton’s attack ads. I do admit to being disappointed by the lack of racial diversity at the rallies I attended. If I had to guess, I’d estimate blacks and Hispanics made up around 20% of the crowds at each event. (One in Texas, one in Arizona. I have homes in both states.) But it was earlier in the campaign and I’m of the opinion Mr. Trump’s support among minorities is growing and that growth is accelerating. But I digress.

My point is, Mrs. Clinton blatantly insulted tens of millions of Americans with her obviously slanted statements. She made these insulting remarks as she was pandering to her wealthy supporters at a multi-thousand dollar-per-plate fund-raising event. What I found more disgusting than Mrs. Clinton’s statements themselves was the reaction of her supporters in attendance. This has gotten very little press, but I think it is very telling of the morally superior attitudes of the liberals who obviously share Mrs. Clinton’s views. As Hillary Clinton described the “irredeemable” people in her “basket of deplorables”, her wealthy contributors guffawed! How sick is that? Is this what we’ve come to in America? It makes me want to vomit. How dare we have a differing view about the way our country is governed? After all, we’re just the “little people” who are too stupid to understand how things should be done, right? We must all be afflicted with a phobia! There’s no other possible explanation.

The wealthy Hollywood-types in attendance look down their noses at the very people who made them rich. They are so insulated from the real world, they’ve created an alternate universe where Mrs. Clinton and her ilk know better than anyone what’s best for the rest of us and those of us who disagree are just mentally afflicted morons. I do so hope that on November 8^th we deplorables send them a reply that lets them know in no uncertain terms, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!” (Sorry about the cliché.) I am sick to death of being told that my views are the result of my ignorance and/or stupidity, when it is the “inclusive” and “tolerant” left who keep trying the same solutions to the same problems and nothing improves. To my understanding that is the very definition of a mental disorder.