Promises kept, okay sort of, and other stuff

I am really trying to keep my promise to wait on the political posts till the start of 2020 when we are in a campaign year, however, our illustrious President is begging me to join the fray. 

I remember Watergate and watched it unfold as a young teenager. As I got older I read more and more about it. I also read the book and saw the movie “All the President’s Men”.  Watergate is what turned me into a news junkie. Too bad nowadays the news is clogged with all sorts of madness. Some from the President’s camp and some is from the Pretentious Left, too little of it is facts right now. The President and team are lying, but we do not know how much because the Pretentious left is guessing based on morsels of information. They say they know stuff, but God forbid they may only know the tip of the iceberg. I feel Mueller’s investigation was cut short and the Pretentious better get ready because they are going to try and cut short any investigation into the Ukraine call and whatever else is behind it.

And if you hang out in the periphery of society you fondly remember “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72″ and subsequent articles from the National Desk. Too bad certain insight is unavailable to us now. Of course the insight would also be a profanity laced 24/7 rant on the evil of it all.

So to attempt to keep my promise I will bypass the politics for now and concentrate on other matters. Sooner or later  though I fear I will think that impeachment is not politics anymore and join in the madness. I am not above it, I do not claim the high road, I am just avoiding the low road for now. 

The demons are close to taking over the keyboard because one of the biggest demons of them all has taken over our country’s pysche.

 I do want to touch on some ideas about conservative versus liberal and at the National level the Republicans and Democrats are not conservative and liberal anymore. I previously touched on this subject and will come back to it when I do succumb to writing about politics again. The push me pull me of conservative versus liberal is good, the party label of conservative versus liberal is part of the reason we are where we are now. More to come.

And I want to write a story while I force myself to avoid politics. The anger that wells up inside me everytime I watch or read what that man is doing to the Office of the Presidency is unfathonable to comprehend for me. I have to back off the news, which hurts since I use to enjoy reading all the opinion columnists and articles on a Sunday morning. He has taken joy from me. I will continue the fight against myself and go to a more enjoyable internal conflict.

I have ideas for many stories, yet two of them are pushing to the forefront of my brain. One will be treated like I usually do on this blog. I start with a thought or idea and just write. I do not create  story board or any rational nonsense in preparation. I just write a few paragraphs and come back to it the next time I post and write a few more paragraphs until I reach a conclusion. This will not be anything earth shattering, just a bit of sci-fi fun. The premise is found in other sci-fi stories occasionally, yet I hopefully I can apply it differently and have a unique story. Again all for fun.

The second idea is a bit different for me and will require some thought. I will stay true to the blog writing and write as I go along, but the very nature of this idea is a type of story I have not tried before and am curious if I can pull it off. I do not want to plan it out. I still want it spontaneous. When you read it, I hope you understand why it is different. 

So the next time I post I hope to have chosen one to get started and get me through the next couple of weeks without an aneurysm so strong that my brain explodes and covers my computer screen with already burnt out gray matter. 

Finally for today and this is important, no matter how much a sibling or parent or child ticks you off remember family is your most prized position. If not, find a way to make it such. Too many people deride the evangelicals for wanting to have public policy that benefits the family. Yes, they drive me up the wall also, but hear me out. Any representative form of government needs its people to be well educated, financially secure, and well formed in values to say the least. And we need to support each other in creating families that maintain the substance of who we are as a society and country. We need to do more to maintain the stability of families because they are first in the process of forming the next generation. 

And on that thought this weekend has been a very blessed and wonderful weekend. Not every moment went perfect, but my youngest is in town to celebrate her birthday so Friday we went to the State Fair of Texas (GO), yesterday we celebrated one of my grandchild’s birthday, and today most of the women in our family are taking our oldest grandchild to buy the first homecoming dance outfit. And when they come back we are having the official birthday dinner for my youngest. This weekend has been children (yes adult children) and grandchildren all weekend long. And I do mean all weekend. Some of our grandchildren went to the Fair with us and our youngest, then spent the night with us. The next more morning we had the world famous pancakes. After that we packed everyone up and headed to the birthday party. Came home and the oldest stayed with us so the better half could get her up to get ready for the shopping expedition.  Imagine being a young teenager and your Mom, Grandmother, a family friend and two aunts took you shopping. As a guy I would have died on the spot. As a young girl, it has been something she has looked forward to for days, but ha!, they know about the “boyfriend” that is taking her to the dance. Maybe she won’t  be so excited. lol Or maybe all the Dads will be quietly hissed off at the collection of better halves if they encourage this boyfriend madness. More family fun to come. 

Also coming my thoughts on the Cowboys now that we are about a quarter way through the season after tonight and my thoughts on the Mavericks before their season starts. I have no epitath for the Rangers. They gave us hope early on, but quickly took a hard turn the other way by mid season. Next year they get a new ballpark (hope maybe not) which to me is a shame, I liked their current one. It is hot here in Texas so I understand the desire to manage the environment. Some how or another there is serious irony in that last sentence. 

Cheers

Sometimes you cannot hide from the truth.

Do not have much time at the moment, but the depths of hypocrisy coming out of some people cannot be ignored.

First though I have always believed most of the average Americans that historically have called themselves Republicans to me were never true conservatives. They were merely perservers of the status quo. Since the end of World War II until a few years ago, Republicans were joiners. They joined a church, a country club, their professional organization, the PTO, and many other organizations. The Republican Party became the party of people who wanted to fit in, be part of the correct group, be considered to be acceptable. And there is nothing wrong with this, society actually needs a status quo to measure itself against. Conservative was the buzzword they all used to be considered part of the proper group.

The Republican party during the 50′s and 60′s helped to foster this status quo. The party thrived on it and eventually this is what Nixon called the silent majority. Basically hard working Americans who supported what they thought was decent, proper, and acceptable in day to day activities. These are the people who do not want to rock the boat. There were always extremists on the right, but they were the minority. Now take note, I am not talking about racists. You have to separate that there are racists that are just racists. Extremism takes advantage of racism, but not all racists are extremists. Many are neighbors who keep it deep down, but just cannot accept others different from them. 

During the 70′s their world was turned slightly  upside down so they gravitated to the Reagan revolution. This was not a conservative movement, this was the first of the lets get back to my idealistic viewpoint of what America is, the American that fits all my preconceived notions about how you are to live etc...

These people still exist, but their dream becomes more fragmented every year. One problem was the wealthy in this country learned to take advantage of this group. So behind their back true education levels diminished, income stagnated, a slow erosion of wealth began for them, and the successful few even amongst their immediate peer group and friends still espoused the greatness of the American dream. 

As you know ignorance breeds hate and discord, so as their education became weaker and they retreated more and more into close knit groups for protection psychologically since their world seemed to be proper on the outside yet there were signs it was actuallly crumbling, but no one actually addressed it. 

Then came Fox so called news and tore into their myths and beliefs and created enemies for them to hate. The silent majority became the disaffected majority. 

Fast forward to now, they let themselves be manipulated by people who still espouse a bygone era and cannot come to grips the world is changing rapidly. This group makes up part of the support for Trump. They are not the problem.

The problem is the portion of the Republican party that spent the 70′s to the 90′s building a party infrastructure that fostered greed. The establishment of the party no longer supported market capitalism and big business; it supported wealth. The sheer notion that someone who had more money was better, the idea of earning wealth being a value decreased while the ideal of acquiring wealth was what made a person successful and “admired”. A nuance, but an important one. A market economy relies on many moving parts being successful. The accumulation of wealth for weath sake, requires less and discourages moving parts. The less people involved the more for the few. 

This group has become a disease on our country and the ugly boil of a visible sympton is our current President. This group is so insulated they have forgotten what made us a great country and in their isolated world they see only themselves. 

They have made the Republican Party the shining definition of hyprocrisy. This extreme has created the same problem that some in the party faced when Nixon fell from grace. His problem was his dying devotion to an ideal and some of the verbiage his people used is being regurcitated now to protect a real cancer and criminal in the White House. “We have to protect the President”. What they fail to realize the job is to protect the Presidency, not the man. If the person is defiling the office, then the protection is to remove the person so the office of the Presidency is protected. A true conservative would protect the office not the man; the constitution, not the words; the balance of power and checks and balances, not the abuses. Some of the people protecting the President are misguided by the corruption of Washingtion right now, some are downright criminals who know if he is exposed, they are exposed.

Either way the remainder of the party that protects him and does not hold him accountable are destroying the country. They must be held accountable. As you know I am not a fan of either Democrats or Republicans so the need for independents to counter these crimes is careening down on us like the rain in Houston this past week. (pray for them). Failue to act will create a political and country damaging event that will make the floods in East Texas and Houston look like puddles. 

So now is the time to call out the hyprocrisy of the this current Washington D. C. Republican party.

States rights, but now all of a sudden a state cannot do better than the rest of the country in protecting our air?

Do we have a balanced budget from them?

Are our values as a nation being treasured by them?

Is opportunity for all being developed by them?

Does the Republican party behave as Christians or as?

Are they showing a true respect for law and order and the rule of law?

Do they support the general economic health of the nation? Or who are they supporting?

Why are they saying that you must behave one way then in their actions behave exactly against what they preach?

If they believe the President is the leader of our country, why are they letting one man take down the office?

If you are an independent conservative such as myself, we can no longer sit idly by while Rome burns. And this message needs to be instituted into every average day to day Republican until they realize their party has left them and they can no longer accept the hypocrisy they live by ignoring the lies. Most of the Republicans you know at your work etc are hard working Americans that need to be awoken to this problem and either quit the party and create and join a new one or pull the rug out from under the cancer that now rules the party. 

I know many “Republicans” who worry more about their family, healthcare, income, their country than the group now in charge, but I must look at them in the eye and speak the truth. We all must. 

The Republican party is no longer the Republican party it once was and people like me are to blame for not calling them out sooner to this very point. The current President has committed treason against our country, us, our values,  many times over and the news of the whistleblower situation is just the latest in the demise of our country unless we act to take it back.

Sorry, the Democrats are lost in outer space right now and still driven by their own cancer of the pretentious left. They too have lost touch with the average American. Theirs is a different story though. Today we must come to the realization that a group of people are now deliberately protecting someone who by design or by default is tearing up everything we say we cherish. 

The Republican Party died a few years ago and the rotting stinking corpse is permeating an ugly cancer on us all. 

No cheers tonight. Tonight we must speak

Are the Republicans catching up to the cluelessness of the Democrats

What you say?

Usually the Republicans have their own set of problems and issues, for example making all sorts of campaign promises and still only spoon-feeding Wall Street and company whatever they want.

Now though they are making a run at avoiding the elephant in the room. 

Many people have questioned Trump’s cognitive abilities since he started running for President and this continues up till now. And the man continues to give everyone reason to question his cognitive abilities.

So, what gives now. The now is it is becoming increasingly apparent he is declining, not just little things anymore, no one word slip ups, misspelled words, he is at the point he cannot rant well or remember what he is doing. And this is becoming more and more public. In fact, I am going to guess that we will see less and less of him as the part of the Republican Party doing a power grab realizes how bad he has become. They need him something fierce and if the public, including his public, starts to realize that he is going south fast they are not going to re-elect him. This is just one part of the problem.

The developing problem is the Republicans have been working so hard to make sure he wins in 2020 including cancelling or trying to cancel primaries they may be caught with no back up plan. Well they do have one and that thought belongs in one of my infamous paranoid blog posts. I have a couple that are welling up inside my brain right now so you might see one you soon.

Anyway, if they go all in on Trump and he can’t get through till next November they are going to hand the country to the Democrats. And if you saw the Democrat debate last night you are realizing they do not have a true strong candidate. Or their policies are too far left for the general middle of the country.

The term “Dynamic leader” didn’t seem to fit the bill for anyone last night. And the pretentious left is all in on this group of candidates. They think they have a winner amongst this bunch. Scary, isn’t it.

You would think a rational and practical independent with a moderately conservative platform could thrive in this environment. Yet, where are we?

Well…. I wrote the above hours ago and I had to stop mid thought. We went out to fight the good fight in other areas then had dinner etc… with friends. So, stopping at above for now. Plus, I said I would try and keep my political posts to a minimum till 2020.

Okay okay one other thought, speaking of power grabs, McConnell seems to be creating his own as Senate Majority leader. I just hope the good people of Kentucky see fit to elect someone else to represent them. I do not agree with the Democrat/Pelosi’s platform, but sooner or later you do need to do something including write something better than their policy. He just cannot accept a leadership role and do absolutely squat just because it doesn’t benefit Wall Street et al. And besides his sitting on the election security bills, really gives credence to the nickname Moscow Mitch. He needs to go.

The Republicans need to look at having a full primary season or they are going to get caught with a dilapidated Trump.

Cheers

Happy Birthday to El Fenix

Got to enjoy the Cheese Enchillada plate for $1.01 as they celebrated their 101st birthday. One of Dallas’ great Tex Mex traditions. Here is to many more years.

Cheers

It appears I may be correct

Well for some things and if you count stretching stuff and maybe I might get some more topics correct…

Yet seriously, a couple of events have me going I told you, I told you

There is an article originally on I think Business Insider or some site called Axios where the Democrats are preparing an “embarrassing dossier” (there’s that word again) on Donald Trump. On the surface it looks like a gathering of the shallow items I keep telling the Democrats to avoid. A deeper read suggests they are realistically looking at where he is missing the boat and his policy failures. (forehead slap time). Are they becoming aware???? There seems to be much interest in all the lawsuits Trump is involved and it is to be unflattering, yet, according to the article “it is to make it about Trump’s performance, not his bigotry or his awfulness”. Okay who sold the Democrats a clue?  It seems to be circulated by the Associated Press also.

And as you know I have said the current economic situation, continued wealth gap, stagnant wages, the decline of our middle and working class is some of this country’s biggest problems. And lo and behold, rich and educated people seem to be agreeing with me. So much so, there is a website with podcasts and blogs dedicated to helping people understand this problem. They are not exactly on the same page as myself, yet they are producing content that is music to my ears. And they are much more articulate, well produced, and creative than I. I definitely recommend the site and hopefully they continue to attract a larger audience so we can get new leadership in our country to right our wonderful ship back onto a better path for mankind in general. The website is: pitchforkeconomics.com   Enjoy!

And now for predictions sure to go south. And I usually make my season forecast for the Cowboys before the first game so it may seem I am cheating to make a prediction after the first game. And since I think there are going to go 10-6 it might surprise you even more. I thought this yesterday morning leaning towards a possible 9-7 record. Honestly I do not know now. The Giants made way too many mistakes, a couple of calls went the Cowboys way, but nothing that would have changed the overall game too much. They did look good. Philly looked good coming back like they did. This will be interesting. If the Cowboys win the East, they will need to be 11-5 or better. Are they there yet? It will take a few more games to really see. They may prove me wrong and go 11-5 or even 12-4. I am still going with 10-6 and a wildcard birth. I do think they will win a playoff game or two. Their big game chances are still under 25% in my book, not out of the realm of possibility, but who knows. The one true prediction I can make is if Dak has truly turned the corner as a quarterback then they may be a much higher favorite to win it all.

Cheers

Abolish this, limit that,…what are the expectations?

For years people talk about term limits, now you can add to this madness abolishing the Electoral College.

You are always told do not insult your audience or say bad things about them, so I know the readers here understand that Democracy is a participatory sport. And that participation is more than just voting. You must get involved at the very least by being an informed voter and holding your representatives accountable. For a Republic like ours to be successful the citizenry cannot shirk their responsibilities and hide behind term limits.

I commented before on this topic and the main point was term limits will only change the name of the Representatives it will not change the behavior. It is the behavior that we need changed to take our country in a better direction. While the lobbyists have Congress ear, a new face will not make much difference.

And now we have some members of the Democrat party, Congress, and the Media telling us we need to abolish the Electoral college. And yes, they do have good points as to why, but do not address the complete picture. The whole point of the Electoral College was to balance the power between the less populated states and the more populated states. And recently we have had a couple of times where the popular vote went to one candidate and the electoral college voting went to the other candidate. And I agree a good campaign strategy can take advantage of the perceived problem and win an election they maybe should not have won (Trump; and yes, there is more, but for now one issue at a time).

This isn’t because of the Electoral College though; this is a bad campaign by the other candidate. The whole point of the Presidency is to find a united message for the country to rally around. The Presidency is only 1/3 of the government. Any presidential candidate’s goal is to create a message that resonates as a whole so the entire country, rural, suburban, urban, geographically, industry, new vs old, etc. can find some common themes that we, as a general whole, want our country to follow. Not everyone will be happy nor agree with the whole message. A good campaign addresses this philosophy and addresses the people. And it does not take for granted anything. (Clinton, she owns her campaign’s failures to be more proactive in the Midwest, no other excuses)

Right now, we have huge gaps in population density throughout our country so this creates a unique situation as to a small portion of the country could conceivably have overt influence over the rest of the country due to this population concentration. This means large swaths of the country would be run by a like minded group that does not have their best interests at heart.

Which leads to why people think we need to abolish the Electoral College. The opposite occurred where due to manipulation through gerrymandering and targeted propaganda large portions of the less populated regions control too much power indirectly. This is not because of the Electoral College, but rather because we fail to address the true problems we face in this country which is gerrymandering that protects power structures in these lower population regions and the grossly unjust power lobbyists have over our Congress.

Term limits and abolishing the Electoral Colleges are lazy ineffective ways to attempt to solve the real political problems facing our country.

The real solutions take work and yes I call the Democrats clueless and these are some of the reasons why. The pretentious left thinks they know all and all their policies are the correct policies and completely ignore the problems of what is now known as the rust belt and the plains regions where agriculture is the main industry. If we were allowed to let just a few densely populated regions control all the policy of this country, there would be gross inequities of resource distribution throughout the country. The Electoral College and two senators per state were built in as compromises to balance the power throughout the country. And yes, I am not naïve, I do know that some of the energy to get this compromise was driven by some representatives of the Constitutional Convention to protect slavery in their states. And yes it shouldn’t have been. The case though for a balance of power by having the Senators and Electoral College and having the House of Representatives to give equitable representation to the more populated regions was a compromise that was needed then and now.

So, it goes back to what is the work that is needed to maintain a government that successfully represents the country as a whole. As you know, it never will completely. The goal is to find solutions and policy that generally benefit the whole of the country, move us forward economically, socially, culturally, etc. all the while not infringing on others’ rights whether they be political, religious, race or creed, economic, geographical etc. This is the work of responsible citizens. It is our responsibility to remove public servants who fail the public. It is our responsibility to become the other set of checks and balances on our government besides the stated one between the three branches of government.

So why aren’t we, as a whole, not being this check and balance of our government. The reasons have simple sentences to write but are going to be extremely difficult to put back into play.

Our public education system has been on a decline for decades, when it should have been rising since the 1960’s. The ever-growing wealth gap has created a Congress more receptive to special interests than to the general populace.  I say repeatedly, capitalism is good, having the winners of a capitalistic system write the rules is horrendous. This completely destroys the higher goal of equal opportunity for all. Campaigns overly reliant on contributions causes even more divergence from our Constitution’s goals of equal representation. The list can go on, but the general principle is we, the people, need to be stronger, need to be more active, need to inform ourselves more, and we need to help each other accomplish these goals rather than promote changes that are based on knee jerk reactions to deep seated problems that have risen by us shirking our responsibilities as citizens.

The truth hurts and that truth is: doing what is right always takes more work.  

And on a side note, there are other issues with the growing divisions in our country but abolishing the Electoral College won’t fix the election problems from these issues either. Education and communication are the starting points for these issues.

Cheers