It is a beautiful spring day here in North Texas, but the world is off

I am too lazy to be lazy today. I do not have the blahs or anything else, just no desire to make effort to do anything including the effort to not make effort. And this is happening way too much lately.

Spring fever has never been my friend. I get travel lust bad this time of year, but even that is muted right now.

Maybe it is because we need change in this country and unfortunately the only people making any effort for change are the alt and extreme right and the far left. Not a good combination. And Trump’s total disregard for everything that made this country great is a bit tiring.

And I have to say, I worked my way through college, my parents gave me a small allowance and some money towards tuition, but I paid the majority of it so this cheating scandal is a bit much for me. And what do I tell my children who have or are working their way through school. Each one of them is making it with a combination of small amounts of aid, loans, and working at the same time. My oldest has already graduated, the second never finished, but has managed to find a nice career without a college education through hard work, the  younger children are finishing up soon and one is taking longer because that child is mainly working full time and going to school and also had to work through some learning moments in life. Overall though each one has contributed heavily to their own success. So, again what do I tell my children when you hear about the cheating scandal or when Dr. Dre brags about his daughter making it on her own, but many people are pointing out he gave tens of millions to the school she applied. Do schools look at applications blindly? Who knows, but it doesn’t look good.

And I know tens of millions of parents are wondering the exact same as I am. What do they tell their children? This is suppose to be the country of opportunity, not elitism, but money in politics and education is definitely taking a huge bite out of the future of our children. Change is needed.

Hopefully warm weather is headed your way soon, if not already there.

Cheers

The world goes to bed…

The world wakes up. Sooner or later information from the Mueller Report will come out. Both sides will claim victory, neither may be right, or both could be right.

Either way the hate will increase, the finger pointing will increase, the lies will increase, the falsities will increase, and Americans will suffer a cruel fate as the fanatics on both sides spin this report into more weaves and webs than a normal person can handle. Unless there is something so concrete it stops people in their tracks this is going to continue. Anything alluding to collusion or conspiracy will not be enough for Trump’s supporters and will fight it. Anything less than collusion or conspiracy will bring out the people who do not support Trump saying it was rushed or short changed and more investigations are needed.

Americans lose. Hillary versus Donald was the worst election choice possible and we are going to pay for this for years. It didn’t matter who won, the hate from the other side is not going to let go. The Dems and the Reps at the national level are so out of touch with the rest of the country it is scary and yes, I have said this before, but the truth is always worth repeating.

The way forward is with new leadership and new representation. A group or individual who can focus on a few very basic issues that most need attention in this country and work out solutions. Someone to refocus the middle and middle class back to accepting the government has a role in our society and we should manage it. For decades the two parties have failed to do this and now we have declining public education, declining infrastructure, declining society, declining healthcare, declining social security, a burdensome government that regulates too much, but gets nothing productive accomplished, consumers are an afterthought, workers are serfs, and these are just a few of the most apparent problems we face. Trump cannot make America great again. America is made great by its people. And right now, the people are sick of everything and inspired to do nothing. The alt right and the pretentious left want to tell us how right they are, and only their opinions matter, but instead our government should be listening to the vast majority of this country and working on their issues.

We could go forward; the extremes will not let us. Bannon wants the world destroyed and still hopes Trump will deliver. Putin wants the US destroyed and still hopes Trump will deliver. Trump just wants everyone to like him and because they don’t, he is destroying the very fabric of civility. The pretentious left wants to tell us how bad the deplorables are, to tell us we must live in their world no matter how uncomfortable people may be, yet no one is focusing on the most important issues.

Trump may or may not be guilty. That is the least of our problems right now. Removing the hate from our lives is the bigger problem and is necessary for our great country to continue. If Trump is guilty, then eventually he should go to trial. If Trump is innocent, then I pray he takes the high road. Unfortunately based on past performance I doubt that will happen. I hope though.

Russians conspiring to affect our election is a heinous crime. If Trump was involved, then he should go to jail. If not, he doesn’t, but the Russians need to be called out by him and especially by him or way too many people will hold onto the idea he is guilty no matter what the Mueller Report’s findings say. The longer Trump drags this out, the uglier it gets.

If the report has something jaw dropping, then we deal with it. If the report has ketchup stains on it and nothing of substance, then we deal with it. Either way we need to move forward if we love our country. Instead I fear hate will rule.

Honestly the collusion or conspiracy possibility is just one arrow against him as a person, albeit a grand one, that adds up to the fact I do not like him as a person, nor trust him, nor have confidence in him as the President, nor have confidence that he hasn’t committed money laundering for the Russians, or treats people with disrespect, that he cannot be told no, that he feels he is blameless for all that is wrong around him, and a host of other personality defects that make me ill, but if he is found innocent of the collusion or conspiracy then many of us will have to accept we have him for two more years give or take and better get our butts out of our seats and find someone better for 2020.

Sleep tight my friends, soon there is work to be done.

Scattered notes from the middle of the spectrum or politics suck

So I would talk about sports and right now that sucks since I live in Dallas, our only immediate hope are the Stars and they keep underwhelming. Lets hope they make a decent run at the playoffs.

Now I just did say sports suck and that is for Dallas, for the country no sir, we have March Madness at our doorstep and this is one of the greatest sporting events in the world,  for the competition, the emotions, the fans, the athleticism, the joy, the heartbreak, that moment when one second is all that matters, yes indeed our Madness is undeniably a great time.

Okay okay, nothing exciting going on around here though. We actually have the Mayoral and Council race heating up, but I just cannot get into it. None of the candidates can elicit even an ounce of excitement. Occasionally we get some good moments in local politics, but not this year for the moment.

I made a note to myself about somehow we need a moderate with a big S on his or her cape to come along and save the 2020 election. And this isn’t even my note. Hopefully a moderate conservative will successfully challenge Trump in the Republican primaries or a moderate Democrat under 70 comes along and pulls that party’s head out of its rectum. It doesn’t look like either is going to happen, but this country needs it.

Then I have some other note about the elitists and donor class are shooting themselves in the foot. Right now God only knows where I was headed with that thought. I think it was more than just the ultra left leaning Democrats touting their ideology. Something else triggered that response in my head and texting it to myself. I must be at the age where I need to spell the whole thing out so I can remember it.

Hope you get to enjoy March Madness starting this weekend. That and some much needed warm dry spring weather.

Cheers

First I thought we needed new parties, but now??!! But now??!!!!

I rant and rail all the time that the Democrats and Republicans no longer represent the people of this country and we need new representation. Yet, if you have read the story from the NY Times then you know things are getting much worse with the Trump Administration and Fox Entertainment News mashup.

To be fair I posted around 2014 that the press was already to cozy with the power elite in DC and there needed to be some separation. And I still think so, but if this story is true we are reaching new lows for our country.

We, the people, really need to pull our heads out and instill a whole new group in DC. The media and DC elitists are way too comfy. There is no real distinction between the groups for us to trust anyone can give an unbiased opinion. It was bad in 2014. Now it is bad political horror story worse.

I think maybe the people need to sue the Federal Trade Commission or all the Networks and have them explain to the people exactly how they are failing our representative republic. There is no answer that doesn’t say they are failing. They are and we need some good hard nose journalists to take back the industry.

And of course we need new parties that can be reported on objectively and represent us. Washington DC and everything in it is completely detached from the people. Trump claimed he would drain the swamp. It was deep and ugly, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how anyone thought he was the guy to drain it. It is backed up worse than ever before.

No Cheers tonight.

Trump, free speech, colleges and the pretentious left

And how the heck is all that related?

If you have been reading the news you probably read about the so-called conservative conference and Trump speaking. He also said he was going to introduce an executive order or something to make free speech on college campuses mandatory. Or some similar verbiage. And we all know free speech is guaranteed by our Constitution, but it seems the alt right under the guise of conservatism isn’t getting much of a voice on campuses around the country because hate speech ain’t free speech.

And we know historically colleges and universities trend toward liberal ideas. Generally higher education is to prepare us for the future, both individually and for society. They push the envelope forward. The first concern is the pretentious left portion of liberalism has taken things a bit too far for most Americans. This has created a push back among regular conservatives, which in turn the alt right is taking advantage of regular conservatives’ anger. This leads to the second concern that the pretentious left has opened the door for someone like Trump to create a platform that conservatives are being denied their views of the world on campuses throughout the country. And this creates the problem that the alt right will blast through this door Trump is forcing open and drown out real conservative thinking for their madness, conspiracy theories and disguised hate speech. And quite frankly it will be hard to contain. The pretentious left dominated the liberal view point forcing a we know better than everyone else how society should look, and the blow back is going to be ugly. The pull from the extremes will only become stronger as both sides escalate their righteousness over the other and continue to tear the middle to shreds. Rational thoughts and true education are going to take a back seat on college campuses to more and more vitriol from the extremes.

Universities and colleges are here to educate us, to allow for rational discourse of competing views, and promote new ideas. When any element of society holds a perceived higher morality over another pushing the envelope farther and farther to their side eventually the pendulum will swing back. Trump is going to push hard on that pendulum to radicalize his base. The call for righteous indignation from the alt right will be loud. Unfortunately, they will push the middle or moderates to extremes because they can point to how they were treated and labeled by the pretentious left.

I have nothing against liberals or liberalism per se, I do have a problem with small groups dominating the conversation at the expense of others. This has happened in the liberal camp.

One alternative comparison irony is the donor class is pushing this country towards socialist ideas. Why you ask? The greedier they become and using lobbyists to push their self-serving agenda creates push back from the people who see their way of life shrinking.

So simultaneously we have two separate conflicts developing in this country. First the pretentious left, which is jumping on the democratic socialist bandwagon, is pushing the envelope on who defines what is right and wrong. The extreme social push by this group is now being countered by Trump’s alt right because many average Americans aren’t ready for many of the changes, nor do they like being looked down upon. Therefore, Trump still holds onto some of his base even though many are normally rational people. He is taking advantage of the people who feel they have been short changed (even though most of that is from the donor class policies) by Washington D. C and the liberal establishment. Since some of the pretentious left is in the media, no wonder the term fake news garners support.

And the second conflict comes from the donor class pushing their greed so far, they completely ignore the middle class, so the wealth gap widens every year. And this leads to a counter attack by people who see the widening wealth gap etc... as a problem and the solution becomes socialism because basic needs are being taken away directly and indirectly. We know socialism isn’t the answer, but until we improve the condition of the middle class this will grow as an alternative to what the donor class has done to this country economically.

The left will move further to the left, the right further to the right, true liberalism and conservatism will die a slow death along with the middle and working class, soon followed by the upper middle class until fascism and socialism compete for control of this country and most people in this country lose.

And people like me stare in complete bewilderment since fixing the situation is still possible yet dwindling every day.

Cheers