Missing in Action.

Apologies to my handful of faithful readers; I have been remiss in posting any  new material for some time.  There are, however, two legitimate reasons for this absence of fresh postings.

First off, I have been actively pursuing public office for the first time in my life.  My political quest for the Magisterial seat in my  home District of Grayson County has been underway for several weeks now and it will undoubtedly run up to the election day in November.  It has been an adventure; one that I will write about in more detail at a later date...win or lose.  The highs have been meeting so many great people and seeing parts of my home county for the first time.  The lows have been the inevitable grind of analyzing voter data listings and trying to decipher road addresses off of rural mailboxes that are typically found in conditions ranging from spanking new with large glossy numbers to a crumpled mass of metal best resembling a compressed beer can.

The second reason for my lengthy blogging absence is the fact that I am totally disgusted with the behavior of our two national parties and our President.  They are all enthusiastically engaged in a pathetic, sophomoric, inexcusable, irresponsible, inexplicable, unprofessional, unethical, and simply perplexing race to the very bottom of the civility barrel.  I am without capacity to comment in any meaningful fashion regarding the current political state in our nation.  Until I can manage to formulate some type of meaningful impression that might possibly be understood by a reader, I will continue to refrain from adding fuel to the partisan fire that is roasting this nation's government alive.

To those readers who find this news encouraging and a harbinger of a cleaner, neater, less trashy internet...I simply say...please be kind.  To all the others, I ask for your patience as I try to decipher some method to the political madness that has enveloped our country.

Both Sides of the Nickel.

As my life proceeds within the human limits of transience, I continue to be amazed at how we are all astounded by the totally predictable consequences of our actions.  We somehow believe that we can make fairy tale statements, buy into unicorn and rainbow promises, and never have to worry about the harsh realities of the world intruding on our universe.  Such is Trump.

The idiotic and sophomoric Democratic Party and mainstream media are so obsessed with their anti-Trump agenda that they have sacrificed all of their credibility and professionalism, given up on any semblance of objectivity or pragmatism, and have become caricatures of infantile children arguing in playgrounds.  If you have any doubts about this, look at this:  https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/08/the-left-hasnt-given-up-on-kavanaugh.php.  For their parts in the ongoing farce, the Republicans have bought into Trump pretty much lock, stock, and barrel.  Of course they have; there is so much winning!  Forget that he led a lifetime of Bill Clinton-level morality prior to the Presidency (assuming it has changed since that time).  Never mind that in his corporate dealings, he has utilized the bankruptcy laws repeatedly; he is now portrayed as that towering financial genius whose swashbuckling money quests always turn out gloriously successful.  So what if he has helped to lower the civility level of political discourse to a level akin to college frat parties? And now, it is somehow normalized for him to have paid off women with whom he has had affairs; so long as he has done it “legally”.  Really?

What the heck did our Republican and Democratic Party leaders expect when they submitted to us the “least of two evils” candidates in the last presidential election?  Consider the choice…known greedy and corrupt lifetime politician versus reality TV personality and business tycoon; gosh, how could this possibly turn out badly?  And then, following up on that Solomonic offering, the national parties have continued their blood feud over the first two years of the Trump Administration.  Now, as we approach the midterms, we are once again presented with two alternate realities that are less than lustrous.  We can put the Denying Democrats in charge of the House and go through an exciting two years of impeachment drama (Clinton redux); or we can leave the Keystone Kops Republicans in charge to spend a huge amount of time and effort in deciding who their House leader will be and then falling back into their old, familiar routine of factional chaos.  Our national parties have doubled down on dumb.  Which brings us to the other side of the nickel.

For all of the madness, confusion, melodrama, personnel carousels, and bombastic rhetoric that Donald Trump has introduced to the White House, he has brought one thing that has settled a point which has been long debated.   The policy success that President Trump has realized thus far in his first term is largely attributable to the fact that he has taken an “outsider’s approach” to the Presidency.  Part of this is because his own party abandoned him and would not touch him with a ten foot pole, even after he won the election.  The other part is simply because he had no practical experience in government and could only proceed with the knowledge he held; that being of a private sector entrepreneur.  How many times over the last 30 years have we heard the mantra about how we need a fresh look in our politics; we need that certain person that comes into it from outside of it; we need that person who can take a new approach and is not indoctrinated by “politics as usual”. 

There have been a few candidates who have used this theme with some success.  But they either failed to coalesce a significant majority to accomplish anything or they turned out to be authentic flakes who were selling themselves as mavericks.  The Donald Trump phenomenon is the first time that the outsider has come onto the stage with the power, the opportunity, and most important of all…the cojones to actually do what he promised he would do.  Donald Trump is hard to take.  He is so very polarizing and stokes the fires of his haters just as much as he nourishes the appetites of his admirers.  He shows no signs whatsoever of changing his modus operandi.  But if you can somehow manage to cut through the circus that is Trump, you come face to face with the undeniable fact that he has validated the suspicion that our government was paralyzed by a lackadaisical state of funk and needed to be shook up, revitalized, and refocused on addressing some burning issues that significantly affect our nation and our lives.  

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Regardless of your political position, you have to admit that we are now addressing some of those issues.  Critical issues such as the role of America in geopolitical intrigue and all it encompasses; taxing and spending policies and the implications of income disparities; the overly complex and overpriced national health care industry; comprehensive immigration policies and the new realities of national sovereignty; and likely the most important of all: Can our two-party political system rise to the challenges it faces in governing our country in an effective and efficient manner?  Like so many choices we make in our lives, there are two sides to the Donald Trump nickel.  People have to be very careful that they don’t end up standing entirely on one side and forgetting about the other.   

Screwing Up A Good Thing.

I have been an NFL football fan for around 50 years.  I love NFL football.  Growing up I was a Raiders fan.  I have always loved the Packers.  I am now a shameless New England Patriots fan, think Tom Brady is a great quarterback, and am convinced that Belichick is a freaking genius.  But even if the Pats lose, or someone else is playing, I can still watch a game and enjoy it immensely.  The athletes of today’s NFL are absolutely remarkable performers.  But the NFL has gone to hell in a hand basket and as much as I love watching professional football, I will not be watching it anymore. 

Last night’s round of pre-season games featured varied protests during the presentation of the national anthem.  The league management had instituted new rules addressing this protesting, but they had tabled these rules in reaction to player complaints about the new policy.  I suppose some type of new rule is under consideration at this time, but who really knows?  And on top of that, who really cares?  I am sick to death of political correctness and social activism infecting every single aspect of my life and the willingness of the NFL management to allow a bunch of pampered and immature adolescents to lead them around by the nose is simply disgusting. 

My wife and I watched a great old movie tonight.  The movie is titled “Taking Chance” and stars Kevin Bacon.  It chronicles the return of a fallen Iraqi War solder to his home in Wyoming as told by his military “escort” companion.  Regardless of one’s feelings regarding our nation’s military and how it is managed, this movie is gut-wrenching in its depiction of the cost involved when we send our most precious resources to foreign lands to die in battle.  The sacrifice addressed by this film is part and parcel of the national anthem presentation at many public events.  A price has been paid for the freedoms we Americans enjoy and that payment should be honored.

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It is indisputable that each of us as American citizens has the right to speak our minds about how our government and culture operates.  The freedom of speech is a precious gift and must be respected and preserved.  But as many have pointed out already, there is a time and a place for protests; and during the presentation of the national anthem is neither the time nor the place.  I will not go into the litany of reasons why these ill-conceived protests are wrong; the subject has been hashed and rehashed numerous times.  Suffice it to say that when grown men find a niche in our society that allows them to be paid millions of dollars to play a game, there should be a certain amount of appreciation for the generous gifts that have been bestowed upon them.  A small slice of that appreciation should be, at a minimum, standing with respect when the national anthem is presented as an honor to our fallen past heroes and a celebration of our nation’s most precious principles of individual freedom.

The NFL will not be missing me.  It will continue its global quest to make insane profits.  They probably won’t miss the many, many others like me who are literally fed up with their idiotic pampering of juvenile behavior that is unworthy of grade schoolers, much less young adults.  But at some point, I must consider that continued viewing of these sporting events makes me somewhat complicit in the actions I am witnessing.  I will miss professional football; but I will not be complicit in this obscenity any longer.

How Would YOU Feel?

Now let’s add this up….

You run for your party’s nomination and there are at least a dozen others competing with you.  Every one of the other candidates seems to have you in their bull’s eye, and yet you somehow prevail in the contest to win the nomination.

The media in its entirety and the public at large give you essentially no chance whatsoever to win the election.  Pure and simple, you are a novelty.  You are facing an iconic candidate from the other party who literally has more money than she can spend on the campaign, essentially has the mainstream media as part and parcel of her campaign organization, and is wired into the WDC power structure like no other.

As Election Day approaches and the campaign winds down, it is a foregone conclusion that you will be losing.  You, yourself, have no real expectation that you will prevail.   But lo and behold, Election Day comes and goes and you are elected President.  The nation is stunned.

The party that you represent is not quite sure what to do with you.  You were not supposed to win their nomination and you were not supposed to win the election.  Very, very few of them have supported your campaign and none of them have lined up to be advisors, members of your new Administration, or just generally helpful in navigating this transition from complete political outsider to ultimate political insider.  The other party has been scheming to defeat you for months, the outgoing Administration has been coordinating  in this scheming with the opposition party, and your own party is trying to figure out how to cover their own behind because of the colossal failure they are certain you will be.

Abandoned by your own party and mocked by the opposing party and the mainstream media, you come out of the starting gate with your new Administration stumbling, bumbling, and giving no one any confidence that you have any idea what you have gotten yourself into.  Your arrogance and bluster, perhaps a self defense mechanism or perhaps just a symptom of over-confidence, makes you a delicious target for your critics.

The American people are put off by your chaotic approach to government management, but somehow and someway find your outsider approach to the Presidency refreshing.  Because of this, you get the benefit of a doubt for your shaky start.  But as your Administration forms up and your nominations are filed, there are signs that forces are aligning against you.  Your nominations languish in a Senate that is controlled by your party.  Your executive decisions are met with resistance at best or flat out ignored at worst.  As you attempt to implement the policies you campaigned on, your departmental and agency prerogatives are stymied by rogue liberal judges intent on legislating from the bench.

In spite of all the hurdles placed before you from all sides and above, you somehow manage to obtain a national focus on tax reform and it is miraculously passed by Congress.  Just as you predicted, and quite contrary to your critic’s claims, your tax reform breaks the logjam of a pent-up economy and suddenly…business is booming.  GDP numbers that seemed laughable months ago are now a reality.  Unemployment numbers reach historic lows, job opportunities are on the rise, and we finally and thankfully see real wages begin to grow.  There is basically a job (or jobs) for anyone seeking employment.

Much like your domestic economic policies, your foreign policy initiatives and ideals are met with ridicule.  But, and again, like your tax reform, your no-nonsense approach to foreign affairs meets with remarkably favorable, if turbulent, results.  At least for the time being, your approach to global matters appears to be restoring the United States to a position of strength, influence, and grudging respect in the world.

Your nakedly businesslike approach to international trade is met with cries of pending disaster and snickering.  Just as in economic and foreign matters, your new approach to world trade appears to be meeting with success and breaking down decades-old barriers that many thought were totally ingrained in the global system.  The jury is still out on the success of your approach, but you have certainly earned the opportunity to take a shot with this new effort.  Only time will tell if all those soybeans that were headed to China will now flow instead to our European friends.

Now after you have risen above all of this mockery, disdain, and public ridicule to prove not only that you are up to the job as President but have succeeded beyond even your own expectations, you discover that something hinky has been going on behind the scenes of your government.  An alarming number of patronage appointees from the prior administration have burrowed into their departments and agencies and are exploiting their positions in opposition to your initiatives.

The Attorney General that you appointed with high hopes of restoring order and stability to a dubiously-operating DOJ is out to lunch.  He shocks everyone by recusing himself from the centerpiece charge of the opposition party questioning your legitimacy in office…collusion with the Russians in your campaign for President.   Even worse than this, he hands power and control of this questionable effort to a previous administration holdover that was in bed with many of the characters that have been your harshest critics and most active political opponents.  This new man in charge immediately washes his hands of the whole affair and instead puts one of his legal peers from the prior administration in charge.  Oh, and by the way, this new guy is accountable to no one, has no time limit, and possesses an unlimited budget.  This new chief immediately assembles a team of investigative lawyers for this effort that is basically composed of long-time activists, ideologues, and critics from the opposition party.

Now after this dream team of opposition begins turning over every rock that you, or your friends, have ever stepped over; they also begin expanding their operation to basically look at anything and everything that anyone who you ever knew or did business with ever did.  They even conduct unannounced, break of dawn raids on their homes with armed personnel.  It also becomes very obvious that this team of crack investigators, the ones who are clearly of a different political bent than you, are being enthusiastically cheered on every…step…of…the…way by the mainstream media.

While this constant drumbeat of special counsel business seeps into every facet of your new Administration and infects every single policy initiative you come up with, the Investigator General of the DOJ issues a report that discloses…what???...that the previous administration, and some of its holdovers in the DOJ, had begun meddling into your political and personal affairs even before you were elected President.  And of course, that effort is now running full blast a year and a half into your new Administration.

As the onion begins to unwrap, it becomes increasingly clear that the prior administration’s DOJ had been up to some pretty shady monkey business with their investigation into your affairs.  They likely planted, or attempted to plant, informants into your Presidential campaign and even used the FISA program, a program designed to prevent terrorism, to surveille some of your campaign personnel.  Imagine that…while the whole country is obsessed with the unsubstantiated tale of you colluding with the Russians to win the White House, there is very real evidence that your Presidential opponent actually did collude with the Russians.  And on top of that, the efforts by the Russians (whoever they were) to meddle in our 2016 elections were bipartisan in nature, beneficiaries of paltry funding, and operated at the effectiveness level of junior high school political students.  The 2016 elections were rigged, but they were rigged against your opponent’s primary opponent and YOU.   You were outspent by multiples, you were spied upon by the opposition party, you were constantly besieged by the press, and even your own party never really took you seriously.   The Administration of the prior president literally weaponized the Department of Justice for political purposes in an attempt to predetermine the next President of the United States.  This bunch of scoundrels make Nixon and his clown club of burglars look amateurish at best. 

As a side note…

…there is of course the fact that the prior Administration, through the hands of the President, both publicly and privately meddled in Israeli elections.  No doubt, prior Administrations of both parties have done the same.  Election meddling is nothing new; stirring up stuff that helps create chaos for opponent governments is nothing new. What is new is how this is done.  Ultimately, the obligation to preserve the integrity of our elections is OUR responsibility; and in America, OUR means local government, the states and the counties.  We need to be very careful that we do not overreact to this Russian election meddling affair and cede too much authority to our central government in WDC for election administration.  If history has taught us anything at all, it is that the closer government is located to the people; the more transparent it is.  Based on all the corruption we have seen in our federal government over the last two or three decades, who in their right mind would want to place our election process in their greedy, power-hungry, self-serving hands?  Of course, there must be broad federal laws for elections that insure some degree of uniformity, fairness, and validity.  And the federal government can also provide resources not available at the local levels in areas such as cyber security and analytics.  But the “hands on” administration of elections should absolutely remain the domain of the states and the counties.

Back to the issue at hand…

So here you are, one and a half years into your first term as President.  You have an impressive list of accomplishments to your credit.  You have an ambitious list of policy initiatives that you are pursuing.  You have a beautiful woman as First Lady who exemplifies the terms dignity and grace and your children are actively working to further positive directions for your new Administration.  In spite of a dysfunctional Congress that is controlled by your own party, you have managed to achieve several legislative wins.  You have placed a supremely-qualified nominee on the SCOTUS and are on the verge of following that one up with an equally-impressive nominee.  In spite of all this, all you ever hear is the…whining, bitching, and moaning of the opposition party and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media.  You can do nothing right.  Everything, every…single…thing that you do is openly and aggressively challenged with the pre-drawn conclusion that it is stupid, corrupted, or illegal.  There are still a significant number in your own party who openly oppose your policies and the hysterical and irrational level of the opposition party resistance to your presidency is unprecedented. 

Now comes the cherry on top of the soda.  You find out that your fix-it attorney has been secretly recording your conversations.  Not only that, but he has given these secretly recorded, private and privileged conversations to your harshest media critic; who has joyously put them immediately on cable news for public consumption.   We do not all have fix-it attorneys, but who amongst us would like to have our most private and privileged conversations publicly aired?  We are not all devils, but we are certainly not all saints.  And if the privacy between an individual and their attorney is open game for exploitation, what remains that is sacred?

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If this was your life and career, do you think that you might be just a little bit frustrated?  Do you think that you might be a little peeved at various people who don’t seem to understand fully what you have had to deal with since you came into office?  Do you think that on occasion, you might misspeak or say (or tweet) something in the heat of the moment that you later regret?  Do you think that you probably realize (somewhere deep inside yourself) that despite your best efforts to do your job and tune out the static, you find yourself sinking and sliding into the mud pit with your irrational critics and hitting back on their terms ever time they swing at you?  And most important of all, do you find yourself dwelling on that old saying that you increasingly find applicable to your personal situation…the one that goes “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”?   I would venture to say that you would not have to look very far to find sufficient motivation to do the job the way you think it needs to be done; all the so-called experts and critics be damned.

Just Shut Up and “Do” Something.

My wife showed me a Facebook post about the hubbub surrounding a report that President Trump had once used Russian dressing on his salad.  Obviously meant as satire, this bit of foolishness cuts far too close to the mainstream media daily themes than is comfortable.  Like most people I know, I am sick of hearing “Russia this and Russia that”.  After starting out his Administration with some tough rhetoric about Russia and putting in place some very tough policies, our President is now sounding very much like his predecessors who failed miserably with Russian relations.  If Trump wishes to have a better ending with Putin, he best be focusing much more on his actions than on his words.

In December of 1991, the USSR officially disintegrated and broke up into fifteen separate countries, including Russia and Ukraine.  Vladimir Putin became President of Russia in 2000 and has ruled the nation ever since; occasionally as Prime Minister, but generally as President.  There were nine Baltic countries resulting from the USSR breakup, all of them having shores on the Baltic Sea.  At the time of the USSR’s ending, Putin was the reining spymaster for Boris Yeltsin and based on his remarks and behavior ever since, the disintegration of the USSR has obviously left a very big bur under his saddle.  He makes very little effort to hide his secret dream of reforming the old USSR by any means necessary.

Putin has seized every opportunity to meddle in the affairs of his neighboring countries; perhaps the most egregious being the takeover of the Crimean peninsula.   Russia’s largest naval base is located on the Black Sea in the Crimean peninsula.  This is the only warm water naval base that the Russians hold and they view their possession and control of it as a source of non-negotiable self-defense.  In March of 2014, Putin completed his effort to reclaim the Crimean peninsula for Russia.  Although the Crimean peninsula was clearly part and parcel of Ukraine, the majority of the Crimean population spoke Russian.  By fomenting turmoil and mayhem in Crimea through the use of undercover soldiering, Russia managed to annex the Crimean peninsula in March of 2014.  A key element in Putin’s restoration scheme was accomplished. 

Although the Russian takeover of Crimea was naked aggression and universally condemned by free nations, Putin referred to the invasion as “the will of the (Crimean) people”.  Putin saw what he wanted and he took it.  He gambled that the US, NATO, and any other European nation would not stand up forcefully to his actions.  He was right.  Putin now has his warm water naval port at Sevastopol in the palm of his hand and uses it daily to project Russian power out into the world (i.e. Syria).  In 2008, citing the need to protect citizenry, Russia had used similar tactics and reasoning to essentially annex regions of Georgia.  Russia has consistently threatened that any NATO alliance with a country that borders them will be considered a serious offense to their security.  They have sufficiently intimidated European leaders with this rhetoric and it has resulted in the reality of the border countries fending for themselves in their pursuit of freedom and liberty from Russia; a perpetual “David and Goliath” equation.

Putin is a man, and a leader, who understands strength and action, not rhetoric.  He remains hungry to restore the old USSR union as it was when he was chief spymaster.  He will do anything within his power to soften up and torment the former USSR states in order to help create future opportunities for annexation.   Russia’s covert war in Ukraine has cost over 10,000 lives and displaced well over 1.5 million people.  Putin is determined to keep Ukraine under his thumb and will stop at nothing to accomplish that task.   Putin’s power play in Crimea got Russia kicked out the G8 group.  Somehow, I don’t believe he has lost much sleep over that development. 

In my humble and layman opinion, the threat of Russia towards it’s Baltic neighbors is the largest international threat to America (yes, even bigger than North Korea).  What I find so threatening about the Baltics is that they are right there in Putin’s face; what was once his domain is now his enemy.  Where once he ruled from on high, he is now held in low esteem.  I am convinced that at some point in the foreseeable future, Putin will attempt to extend Russian influence into the Baltics just as he has done, and is doing, in Ukraine.  It is simply a temptation too ripe to resist.  Trump, America, and NATO cannot allow this to happen.  They need to get their collective heads out of their arse and show some resolve.  Rather than worrying about how many Mercedes Germany is selling in America, Trump and Merkel better worry about how many tanks they can put on Russia’s border.

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In September of 2009, Obama unilaterally abandoned a long-established joint venture with Poland and the Czech Republic to place missile defense facilities in each country.  The possibility of an ABM system in Europe’s eastern doorway rattled Putin badly.  Based on the promise of “Russian concessions”, Obama threw our fledgling allies under the bus and cancelled the agreement.  Now in fairness to Obama, there was quite a bit of sentiment both at home and abroad to support this action; but it remains a dubious policy initiative at best.  If Trump wants to be tough with the Russians and not just talk tough about the Russians, he will take steps towards placing these systems in Poland the Czech Republic.  This action, if taken, would undoubtedly provoke Putin and have some adverse international consequences.  But reality demonstrates to us that Russia is doing all it can to make life miserable for America.  What more can they do?  Russia understands power and the simple fact is that as of right now, the US has much more power than Russia.  We need to remind Putin of this.

Another bizarre twist in Russian relations is the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline.  As Trump stated recently, this arrangement between Germany and Russia is madness.  How can it possibly make any sense whatsoever for our NATO allies in Europe to rely on Russia for over forty percent of their natural gas energy needs?  This is not only a bone-headed position in which to place your nation’s basic security, but it is also a slap in the face to America’s companies that export natural gas.  When it leaves Russia, the Nord Stream pipeline passes by Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland on its way to Germany.  In the past, Russia has played hardball with these countries by cutting off their energy supplies to gain political leverage.  Now Russia will be in a position to do the same with our European NATO allies.  Do you think there is a reason why the Nord Stream line runs right past these nations without a connection en route?  Could it be to increase the energy-dependence leverage on them that Russia already holds?  Duh. 

Putin is a murderously threatening thug of a world leader.  He cannot be trusted and will never be motivated by anything other than self-interest and the restoration of the old USSR.  Every President I can recall seems to come into the White House thinking that they can somehow charm Putin into becoming an honest partner in negotiations.  They all end up learning too late that Putin is exactly what history has shown him to be.  President Trump is in love with the sound of his own voice and apparently thinks he can spring some of this art of the deal crap on Putin and use him like a tool.  If he continues to believe this and operates with the same rhetoric he has demonstrated lately, he will end up in Putin’s  tool box like other past presidents.  Trump needs to quit talking and start doing.  And a good place to start doing is the placement of an ABM/Aegis system in Eastern Europe, starting with Poland and the Czech Republic.  He needs to make it clear to Germany and any other Russian “Nord Stream” client that  it is a yuuuuggggeee mistake to depend on Russia for energy needs when their good friend and ally (USA anyone?) can supply the same product without the national security drama. 

Russia is a shell of a threat compared to what they were in the heyday of the USSR.   Their economy is not working; they are spread thin around the globe in many locations of misadventure; and with a robust American economy, we can build up our defense structure at a much faster and more effective rate than Russia.   What Russia can and will do is provoke our leaders at every opportunity.  They will side against us on the international stage if they perceive that slight to be harmful.  They will threaten us and they will use proxies to hurt us; but they cannot defeat us.  We need only hold our resolve and focus on the strong hand we have to play as compared to theirs.  Only if we lower ourselves to their playground tactics will we allow them to gain on us in the international theatre of political will and power.  Playing nice with Putin and hoping he will change his stripes is not an effective foreign policy.  Looking at history, examining his past behavior, and recognizing him for the ambitious tyrant that he is….that is an effective foreign policy.  I have to wonder…what is Mad Dog telling the Donald to do with Russia? 

We should never forget that when Putin lies down to sleep at night, he dreams of reclaiming those fourteen countries that were part of his homeland.  He has already taken large chunks from two of them.   President Trump’s decision to send heavy weaponry to Ukraine for self defense is a step in the right direction.  But the US needs to be much bolder in its embrace of Russia’s neighbors and their pursuit of independence and freedom.  I do not advocate for an American presence in these countries; but rather an honest and public show of support for their rights as free nations.  This is the battle that NATO should be waging.  These nations that thirst for freedom and are in their infant stages of independence could be, and should be, NATO’s first line of defense against the reality of Russian aggression.  These heroic nations that are fighting the Soviet giant do not want our blood; they simply want a fighting chance to survive.  This we can, and should, do.

A Day in the Life.

Per the Beatles: I read the news today, oh boy…and though the news was rather sad…well, I just had to laugh. For anyone who follows such things closely, the geo-political and national political developments this week were sources of total dismay.  What sober-minded individual, regardless of political bent, could have watched the House Committee hearings with Peter Strzok without a strong case of stomach spasm?  Our President in Europe and England was a spectacle to behold; perhaps just a bit too much spectacle.  Mueller’s All-Star Democrats indicted twelve Russians who are laughing over their vodka at his legal threats.  The Liberals are shouting out to the heavens that we should “catch and release” all illegal aliens and then abolish the very federal agency which exists to enforce the immigration laws that we have on the books.  Can you say “open borders”?  Hillary Clinton is running around dropping hints that she may run again in 2020 and the mainstream media is actually covering this.  Hillary…just go away.  And then there is the cherry on top; Trump sits down with Putin.  Republicans want the meeting canceled and Democrats want “adult supervision” in the room during the meeting.  Now…one at a time…

What can you say about the Strzok hearings that the visuals don’t clearly reveal?  Nothing.  There is no mystery here; what you see is what you get.  Obama and his runaway DOJ allowed a bunch of self-righteous and overly-zealous ideologues to seize control of their Department and Agencies at the highest level and operate with impunity, seeking their vision of a “politically correct and acceptable” President and future Administration.  The Democrats on the House Committees behaved like children; stupidly disrupting the proceedings when they held no substantive cards to play.  The Republicans fed right into the disruption; behaving like high school adolescents in their questioning and attitudes.  As for me, it is nothing short of absolutely chilling to realize that individuals like this smirking, bourgeoisie fool Strzok are actually in charge of our highest levels of law enforcement and basically running free to use our legal system to try and implement their own personal political agendas.  And the most frightening thing about it is...They don’t see the problem; they have no real sense of self.   From Comey to McCabe to Brennan to Clapper, it is disgustingly obvious that Strzok believes that he and his political allies in the DOJ firmly believe in their self-perceived and superior intellect and ethical bearings.  They think this makes them uniquely qualified to determine for all of us normal, hapless citizens (who, by the way, can be olfactorially-detected at shopping centers...but only by selected and superior beings) what is best for our nation.  Their conceit and arrogance emanates from their very pores; it drips from them.  How can anyone have any respect or confidence in a government that allows people like this to serve in positions of high influence and authority for decades and continually rewards them with job advancements and increased professional freedoms?

For all of his bluster and personal arrogance, President Trump speaks truth to power when he tells our NATO allies that we are paying way more than our fair share in this deal.  While it is clear that the defense of democracy and freedom in Western Europe is in America’s national security interest; it is even more obvious that Western Europe’s interest is greater than ours.  They SHOULD be paying more towards the collective defense effort; their actions should show a greater awareness of who their friends and enemies are; and they need to neatly tuck away their global elitists’ attitudes where the European sun don’t shine.  The Nord Stream project is a disgrace and illustrates corruption at the highest level.  It is an abandonment of the Baltic nations who were shamelessly deserted by Obama; it is a slap in the face to the very structure and purpose of NATO; and the shameless denial of its fallacies by German leaders demonstrates an arrogance of astronomic proportions.   For a rare moment, I thought President Trump had stumbled onto a crumb of humility during his press conference with PM May; but he recovered quickly and reassumed his typical persona of hyperbole, bluster, and over-simplification.  Oh how I wish he could figure out a way for his personal rhetoric and behavior to match the wisdom of his policies.

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Once again, Special Counsel Mueller has indicted people on actions having no connection whatsoever with the Trump Campaign or the Trump Administration.  While it is clearly appropriate and essential that foreign government meddling in our elections is a concern and should be enthusiastically investigated; it is not necessary to pay a bunch of Democrat ideologues tens of millions, give them free reign to disrupt a legitimate President in every fashion imaginable, and allow them to frolic about WDC in an unfettered and unaccountable manner.  DAG Rosenstein is a huge joke, likely as big an ideologue as Strzok, and is a complete and perfect gift from AG Sessions to the Democratic left.  The masterful conflating by the Democrats and the media of Russian election meddling with Trump Campaign collusion is perhaps the greatest political farce ever perpetrated on the American public.  If there is a shred…one single morsel…of integrity in Robert Mueller, he will stop spending millions of taxpayer dollars indicting foreigners who will never set foot in an American courtroom, wrap up this three-ring circus that he ringmasters, and go back to making millions in the swamp from whence he came.

I am extremely skeptical about any and all polling, but I have supreme confidence that President Trump is spot-on with his four immigration policy principles.  He needs to stick to his guns, keep pressing the argument, and help the Republicans in Congress find sufficient backbone to actually pass legislation that reflects these ideas.  Punch drunk from their media public relations success with legal and necessary family separation policies, the liberals have now taken the remarkable position of eliminating Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  As is typically the case with the Democrats, they are allowing their fringe elements to pull them to an extreme leftward position when a much more measured and reasonable approach would serve them better.  ICE should be reformed; ICE should be reconfigured; and ICE should be reconceptualized.  And the right and proper way to do that is with legislative immigration reform based on the President’s four principles.

As bizarre and surreal as it may appear, I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton harbors the ambition to once again run for President in 2020.  And frankly, when you look at the current field of Democrat presidential hopefuls, she is on par with most of them.  For anyone who holds appropriate contempt for Hillary Clinton and all the sliminess she represents, it will be nothing short of pure delight to watch how the Democratic Party and its national leadership deal with a concerted effort by Hillary to once again run for Chief Executive.  Keep the popcorn supply ample and accessible.

While I am an avid fan and supporter of most Donald Trump policies, I am really disappointed in his rhetorical approach to Russia and China.  While the practical application and effects of his policies towards Russia and China are appropriately severe (much, much more severe than his predecessors), his rhetoric towards the leaders of these two rogue nations is oftentimes hypocritical and tepid.  President Putin and General Secretary Xi are nothing but thugs and their policies are brutal and savage.  They have no respect for human rights, human dignity, or international law.  While it is understandable that a certain degree of conversational civility is sought to facilitate diplomatic pursuits, the fact remains that these guys are tyrants and should be called out, clearly and consistently, for what they are.  For a man that takes so much obvious pride in his frank and honest dialogue, President Trump occasionally goes awfully soft on these two guys.  While I don’t buy into the Russian Collusion nonsense for a moment; I do find it extremely discomforting when Trump speaks of Putin in terms that approach a positive or glowing sense.  These are power-hungry egotists who contribute nothing positive to the world community and anything less than open and honest recognition of that fact by the world’s most powerful leader is unacceptable.

The Heat is On.

I noticed yesterday that my home state of Kentucky had the highest heat index in the entire nation.  Imagine that.  I do not know what part of it is manmade (I suspect it is a minor fraction), but there can be no doubt that climate change is occurring.  It seems like every year is now a testament to the fact that there is no “normal” to weather patterns anymore.  We get hot and dry early in the year, as well as late.  The violent storms can hit us anytime of the year and those unexpectedly heavy rains can lead to flash floods that no one is expecting. 

But weather discussion aside, this time of the year in my part of the world is pretty demanding.  Hay is getting put down and being put up; gardens are coming in with beans demanding to be picked, along with squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and corn.  We will soon be digging potatoes.  Even in dry times, the yards need mowing once a week and you simply cannot bush hog enough to keep the filth in the fields and right-of-ways under control.  Livestock concerns center around the heat index, pasture conditions, and water availability; not to mention the calves that are unfortunate enough to be born into this furnace.   Add to this equation the fact that school is out and the brief summer break is packed tight with activities that can only be accomplished during this window in time.  It is really difficult to enjoy the old family vacation knowing what is waiting for you when you return home and how much farther behind you have fallen while away. 

It is kind of amusing to see the parallels between early summer in rural America and the political environment in WDC these days.  As chaotic as some days are on the farm, they are equally chaotic in our nation’s capitol.  I can appreciate that a good deal of this turmoil is the normal course of events for our President and how he usually operates.  But I have to believe that even for him and his hyper-drive life, the combination of investigation, debate, protest, legislating (or lack thereof), SCOTUS appointments, Administration personnel dramas, media mind games, and of course foreign affairs must be astronomically trying and demanding.  It leads me to agree more enthusiastically than ever with those learned journalists who have bemoaned the existence and continued reliance on Special Prosecutors. 

Regardless of how your Trump barometer reads, one cannot dispute that there is a serious question about the value and validity of the Mueller Team and its daily mission creep.  The indisputable fact is that our government is designed with checks and balances between its three branches.  And even though corrupt people in positions of power can distort and pervert the oversight duties with which they are charged; we must rely on the faith that our system of government is greater than each of those individuals who comprise it.  We have to believe that our administrative state can withstand any distortions thrust upon it by our political state.  History has shown us that we came through power-hungry Nixon and Watergate with WDC still intact.  Even Clinton’s escapades with his female friends and loose relationship with literal truth failed to bring down the Presidency.  How reaffirming was it for all of us to experience how our nation came together in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy?  For that brief time, we put aside our trivial political pursuits and focused on the essentials of what makes our country special.  Times like that remind us of what we’re capable of, how resilient we can be, and that all things shall pass.

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The critics of the Special Prosecutor provisions say that it unnecessarily distracts from the President’s need to spend his entire focus on leading the country.  It is pretty much a fact that Mueller has created his own, personal Department of Justice with unlimited funding ($15-$25M), by increasing personnel for an ever-increasing agenda, and most infuriating of all…a total lack of accountability to anyone or anything.  He has quite simply unleashed his team of agenda-driven lawyers with free reign to look anywhere for anything they would like to investigate.  With no end in sight, can there be any doubt that an investigation of this nature takes a terrible toll on the ability of our President to focus on his appointed duties?  And of course, it goes without saying that the Executive Branch, Congress, and the federal Judiciary are laden with people whose assigned duties are designed to do precisely what the Special Prosecutor and his Shadow Department are supposedly all about. 

What a colossal waste of time and energy.  We have people who are being paid every week to do the things that Mueller’s Dream Team is playing with.  President Trump has spent the first year and a half of his first administration dealing with this Russian Collusion nonsense and it shows no sign of abatement.  It is a legitimate criticism to say that the President has not helped himself much in how he has publicly handled the Mueller investigation.  But even if he had said nothing…even if he had simply ignored the existence of the Special Prosecutor…the sheer weight of its presence and pursuit would be a tremendous drag on the Chief Executive’s ability to perform his job.  With all that is going on in this crazy world; with the rapid-fire political and social developments that spontaneously erupt in our society daily; with the short time that this individual who was legitimately elected by the voters of our nation has to achieve the ideals upon which he ran for office…no truer words can be spoken about the Special Prosecutor’s misadventures than those of Representative Trey Gowdy… “Wrap it the hell up!”.  For all of you Republicans who are still raw about Obama’s dalliances with abuse of Executive power and with Hillary’s legal pass on her private server escapades; just forget about new Special Prosecutors.  Let the system envisioned by our founders work its will and let the people who are paid and hired to perform checks and balances do their freaking jobs.  It is a waste of time and money; it is an aberration of our government as it was conceived; and it is simply too disruptive to the execution of our bureaucracy.   The heat is on right now, but a cold front will eventually push through and bring temperatures back to some semblance of normal.