Posts Tagged → Trump
The Sad Situation in Standing Rock
A person must be cold blooded to not at least feel sad for the Standing Rock folks.
This is a group of ancient people who have watched their culture, lifestyle, property, and land heritage melt away under the weight of newer tribes. They really don’t have much left, and now a pipeline threatens to take away even more.
The Dakota Access pipeline is important, heck, all the new pipelines are important because energy independence is critical to American political independence. The more America can rely on domestic energy, the less we need foreign sources of energy. The less we depend on those foreign sources, the freer we are to make tough but necessary decisions about domestic and foreign policy.
What saddens me is the win-lose situation in Standing Rock. The pipeline is presented as a take-it-or-leave-it outcome. Surely there is some other way to resolve this, other than ramming it through. After all, that has been a hallmark of the failed Obama administration and their legislative allies on so many other policy fronts, ramming decisions down everyone’s throats. It is a negative way to run government. It unnecessarily creates winners and losers.
Creating winners and losers is a recipe for serious problems down the road. Resentment runs deep. Grudges are created. Losses are forever mourned.
I know from experience that the Standing Rock situation presents us with an opportunity to create winners and winners.
How well do I recall sitting in a conference room at my office in downtown Harrisburg in 2001. Gathered around the table were representatives from Audubon, Sierra Club, recreational ATV riders, hunters, trail hikers, and the timber industry.
I had successfully negotiated the purchase of a privately owned 12,500-acre inholding in the huge Sproul State Forest from the Litke family. Donna Litke was a neat Pennsylvanian who loved her family’s rugged wilderness land in the northcentral country, but who also had a fiduciary commitment to her family to get the best financial results possible from any purchase. Her private land would become public land after we acquired it.
But Everyone wanted the whole property for their own interests. Or they wanted to block their political opponents from getting something out of it.
After hearing all the crabbing from all sides, left and right, environmental groups and industry, I decided that we would not acquire the property unless everyone got something out of the deal. Everyone needed to share in the success, or else we were not going to see the deal close.
So the day we sat down with a map of the Litke land, and began to discuss where certain activities could or would best take place, was the day we began to get to a win-win outcome. In the end every interest group got something out of the acquisition. Audubon and Sierra Club saw certain sensitive lands there set aside as natural and wild areas, where logging, road building, and gas drilling would not occur. We created a 1,400-acre ATV riding area on reclaimed and unreclaimed coal mining land there, too, the first one on public land in Pennsylvania, which today has generated substantial economic activity in ultra-rural Beech Creek.
Much of the Litke forest was set aside as “plain vanilla” State Forest, where people can walk, hike, camp, hunt, trap, fish, and cut timber. The streamside railway that came with it became an important rail-trail, drawing tourists (and their dollars) from far and wide.
And I did not learn how to do this cold. Rather, in 1995 to 1996, I had successfully used the same approach in the Middle East Peace Process agricultural projects in Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank when I was at US EPA, representing our agency in the diplomatic process.
Boy, you talk about competing interests! There was no shortage there, but in the end I was dubbed “Little Kissinger” for the sidebar negotiations I created, which got the overall projects back on track. Winners and winners.
My hope is Standing Rock will provoke the best in us. Barack Hussein Obama did nothing to help the folks there, until two weeks ago he made a purely political and symbolic decision against the pipeline. Obama has always been about winners and losers, heck he enjoys creating losers, so who can be surprised by his action here. Like everywhere else over his eight-year tenure, Obama squandered an opportunity to facilitate competing interests find common ground.
And that is what needs to happen at Standing Rock: Common ground.
Aren’t there potential solutions to this standoff that are win-win? I can think of three or four potential solutions that would probably be acceptable to the main parties.
We have a new president who understands the concept and importance of win-win outcomes. Hopefully President Trump appoints a solid and good-faith negotiator to resolve the head-on collision at Standing Rock, for everyone’s benefit.
Winners and winners.
Why this election is important
This election is a public referendum on the way America is run.
Right now we have the US Attorney General personally intervening in the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton. Loretta Lynch is personally using her official position in the Obama Administration to block criminal accountability for an American citizen.
Is this the Rule of Law? Is America now being run like a Third World country?
President Richard Nixon went down in flames for crimes much less significant than what Hillary Clinton appears to have committed. Why is Hillary Clinton not being held to the same standard as Nixon?
Both Obama and Clinton use the levers of administrative power to pursue policies they cannot obtain through Congress, per the US Constitution. A weak Republican establishment is more worried about its own political career, and will not confront these unconstitutional abuses of power.
A compliant press that shares the agenda of Obama and Clinton shields both of them from scrutiny and honest news reporting, and viciously attacks people who do try to raise legitimate concerns. The mainstream press is now an attack dog for one political party. Most “news” professionals no longer even pretend to be objective.
Sure, there are two flawed presidential candidates. But one of them has serious criminal issues, while the other just bugs people with his big mouth. The flaws are not comparable or equal. Voters who easily disregard Hillary’s criminality maintain a mindset they will never tolerate with other Americans. They simply want a certain set of policy outcomes enshrined in Federal law or executive actions, regardless of the cost.
This is why this election is so important.
Do Americans want to be run by a strong president, who simply does whatever he or she wants to do, and Congress is more of an advisory body? That is how Rome was run by the Caesars, and the political swings were so wild whenever an administration changed that bodies littered the streets each time. Is this where you want America to go?
Do you really believe that 50% of the American electorate will stand back and let their country fall apart and the rule of law suspended? Civil wars have been fought over less.
Trump is not an ideal candidate, but he is not a criminal, and nowhere near as flawed or as dangerous as Hillary Clinton. Voting for Clinton rewards her criminality. Voting for Trump is voting for a stable America where the rule of law remains. You cannot go wrong with that.
Voting for Hillary?
Voters who select Hillary Clinton now forever disqualify themselves from criticizing any future candidate. There has never been nor is there likely again to be a candidate as unqualified and as corrupt as Clinton.
Knowingly choosing Clinton means a voter forfeits their ability to credibly attack future candidates. If Clinton is worth your vote, then anyone is worth voting for, because a candidate cannot be worse than Hillary Clinton.
Sure, you could disagree on policy with a future candidate, but you could not fairly accuse that person of being flawed. If Hillary isn’t too flawed for you now, then no one can ever be flawed again.
Hold Hillary to the same standard you have for other candidates, or forget being taken seriously.
Hypocrosy corrodes credibility. Don’t be a hypocrite. Vote for Trump and hope he’s happy to leave after one term.
Does “dialogue” work?
The words “bipartisanship” and “dialogue” are emphasized as being part and parcel of America’s success, political, financial, cultural.
But have you had, or tried to have, a political dialogue recently? If yes, was it successful?
I have been struck between the eyes by what seems odd, to me, about the dialogues and conversations I have had recently, in person and online.
Americans saying they intend to vote for Hillary Clinton are completely unmoved by her crimes, her private actions, her bullying of her husband’s many rape and sexual harassment victims. There really is nothing Hillary Clinton can do that her supporters won’t overlook.
And there really is nothing that her opponent, Donald Trump, can do that is acceptable to them.
I find this odd, strange, illogical, because objectively weighing out one candidate versus the other leads to a pretty obvious conclusion: Both candidates are flawed, but one is desperately flawed, far more flawed than the other. Why a middle-income, law-abiding American will vote for someone so deeply flawed and unqualified is mysterious to me.
It appears that reason, logic, facts, quantifiable substance are all utterly of no consequence to about fifty percent of the voters.
They are utterly unmoved by the Wikileaks revelations, that one particular political party has a core culture of stealing votes, rigging elections, engaging in the worst sort of voter fraud that undermines the entire premise of representative government. Wikileaks has revealed a group of people in love with power and control, at any cost to the nation, to innocent people, to anyone in their way.
“I hope Hillary did kill Vince Foster. That is totally badass” writes a top, paid, political party functionary whose name is frequently in the news.
This person was revealing this sentiment in a private email that was not supposed to end up in the public view, but public it now is, and so is that person’s mindset. This mindset is quite literally insane, and yet none of Hillary’s supporters seem phased at all by it. It is all OK, apparently, among Hillary’s supporters.
And so on, in like mind, in like words, among the people closest to Hillary Clinton’s lust for power.
The list of crimes against Donald Trump and his supporters grows longer every day, as more and more Wikileaks evidence is revealed.
George Soros and his favored political party paid people to go to Trump rallies and wreak violence, to punch and hurt innocent people, to cause destruction, to stir things up, so that their allies in the establishment press could then accuse the Trump supporters of the misdeeds.
And yet none of this bothers any of the people I have dialogued with in recent weeks and days. They simply do not care, and they are simply going to vote for Hillary Clinton, period, because.
America is premised on dialogue, on reason, on voters making educated decisions that are in the best interest of the polity, which we all share. When so many voters are presented with damning evidence that their candidate is pure evil, and fatally flawed, and they still support that person, then they have abandoned the very foundation of what makes America work.
And this is what is most problematic about Hillary Clinton’s support: It means that end of democracy, the end of our Republic, because Clinton is ready to employ the same illegal, unconstitutional actions that Obama has gotten away with. And once she is president and acting that way, America is headed for a constitutional crisis. Her actions as candidate say everything about her as president.
Every human civilization comes to an end at some point. America is not too big to fail. It is only as strong as the voters who run it. If America presently has fifty percent of its voters lusting after domination over their fellow citizens, and well-reasoned dialogue with them is unpersuasive, then our nation is headed for serious problems.
I hope America dodges this bullet, and gets back on track.
p.s. someone accused me of being a Republican, and therefore naturally supporting Donald Trump. First, Trump is no Republican. Second, I cannot stand the commie Republican Party and I am only a registered Republican because I live in a state with closed primaries and I must hang my hat somewhere; I would be most satisfied as a registered Independent. Third, Trump is running against a political establishment controlled by BOTH political parties. He is an outsider who has no allegiance to any party, but only to the American People, which I and many others find refreshing, even if he is a blathering big mouth. Dialogue provides the means by which we come to well-reasoned conclusions. But not one Hillary Clinton supporter I have met seems interested in a dialogue. Rather, they seem to have utopian dreams of control, domination, and “correct” behavior we all must follow once they are in power. No thanks.
Do you really want this double standard?
Why Are Double Standards Bad?
A double standard is where a stringent expectation is applied to one person, and a different, much looser expectation is held for someone else.
The problem with double standards is they are hypocritical.
Where there is hypocrisy, especially in what is supposed to be representative government, there are frustrated, even angry people on the other side. All of the social contracts that underpin representative government break down in a double standard environment.
In this presidential race there are all kinds of double standards at play.
Exactly 6,378.7 women have now suddenly come forward to accuse Donald Trump of unwanted sexual advances and “groping.”
Where all these aggrieved women were over the past thirty years remains a huge mystery. Suddenly, weeks before the election, they all emerge from the shadows. They cite facts that are physically impossible, socially improbable.
That many of them are known political activists is not surprising.
The mainstream media, which is now openly an arm of just one political party, and which has abandoned actual news reporting, has granted these women instantaneous credibility and constant access to cameras and sympathetic talking heads.
On the other hand, Bill Clinton is a known rapist and sexual harasser, and his wife, Hillary Clinton, has been his enabler over decades. Hillary has made it her mission to destroy the lives and reputations of each of the many accusers who have dared reveal their painful experiences with Bill.
Working carefully with Hillary has been the mainstream press, which is in news blackout mode now. The very real female victims of Hillary and Bill Clinton are actually ignored.
And the WikiLeaks data dump? Emails demonstrating just how incredibly corrupt, criminal, and evil Hillary is…these are not news to the CBS-NBC-ABC-NPR-NYT-WAPO-PBS political activists posing as fair minded arbiters of fact and accuracy. America’s news organizations are literally ignoring actual facts, hugely important facts, that undermine the political candidate they have chosen.
And they are trumpeting obviously false accusations made against Trump. It is an obvious diversion from the WikiLeaks data dump so damaging to Clinton.
What is happening is an avalanche loss of credibility, even as the mainstream media attempts to define only itself as bona fide news organizations, and to exclude citizen reporters and others who actually report news. The citizen reporters’ fault is they are reporting actual facts that the politicized media refuse to acknowledge, because those facts undermine the mainstream media’s political agenda.
How are citizens supposed to make sense of this double standard? Aside from using a double standard to advance an agenda by duping the citizenry, the beneficiaries of double standards signal a more important truth: They do not stand by the Rule of Law.
The Rule of Law is a core principle, probably THE core principle, of representative government.
The Rule of Law means that big or small, rich or poor, every citizen is treated equally under the law. No one is too big, or too important, to go to jail.
Well, that is until Hillary Clinton walked free, away from a criminal enterprise shades of which are sending others to jail right now.
And so Hillary is showing that she wants to lead America, and she will use every trick to be able to do that, and once she is in power, she will suspend the Rule of Law any way she can, to advance her political agenda.
Dear liberal friends, are you really willing and able to sacrifice America for the temporary advancement of your political agenda? Do you not realize this is a precursor for tyranny and totalitarianism? Do you not look at recent European history and see parallels with where we are today? What if you were the ones facing the lying media? Would you be OK with where things are now in this race? After all, only the fake mainstream media are breathing life into Hillary’s campaign. If conservatives controlled the media, you would be enraged. Please tell me you are not this shallow.
I do not understand how my liberal friends so gleefully embrace Hillary Clinton. I am not gleefully embracing Trump. Rather, I am simply recognizing that he is the far lesser evil of the two of them. Hell, he is not evil, he is a buffoon. He does not share my own agenda, other than maintaining the Rule of Law.
Hillary means the end of the rule of law, and the beginning of life by a double standard. There is no democracy or republic or representative government anywhere that can survive that.
Judging this race “Chemotherapy for the GOP”
If being pompously festooned with plastic credentials from an unaccountable ivory tower for decades is not enough, decrepit political writer George Will has thrown another rotten tomato at candidate Donald Trump.
After repeatedly insulting Trump, Will calls this race “chemotherapy for the GOP.”
Indeed, toxicity abounds in this race, and it is true that America is given two poor choices for president: One an evil and corrupt disgrace, the other a hip-shooting buffoon who does not appear to have had many serious moments for contemplation in his life. Both of these candidates are flawed, without doubt. I will take the lesser of the two flaws and hope he is satisfied with one term as president.
The other flaw, Hillary Clinton, ends the American Republic as we were founded in 1787.
George Will and his weak-kneed fellow travelers, scurrying about wondering if their cozy ship is sinking, have poured gasoline on the toxic chemicals running through this political race.
By not holding Hillary Clinton to the same standard as they hold Donald Trump, George Will et al fall happily into an old Leftist Saul Alinsky trap.
Alinsky, another f*in’ commie you-know-what, was a true source of toxicity, and a master at using Americans’ best traits against them. One of his tricky traps is demanding that conservatives\patriots\ noble-minded Americans hold themselves to their own rules, while constantly applying zero rules to the Left, from which Hillary Clinton has slithered.
It is always a no-win situation for the traditionalists\GOP\Americans.
Will is demanding that Trump be not only better than Hillary, but far, far better.
The problem with that is it is an impossibility. And it is a juvenile expectation. And not only that, Trump cannot sink nearly as low as Hillary on her best day.
Yet here is Will, with the rotten tomatoes for Trump. He actually spends an entire calumny column devoted to Trump only, without extolling Hillary’s decades of sheer evil and 100% lies.
Trump is “anti-woman”? Compared to rape-enabler, sexual harassment victim-blamer Hillary?
They are not even close! Hillary is by far worse for women than Trump, who sounds like an 18-year-old in the high school football locker room. She is a shameless, ruthless political whore who has sold America’s national security for thirty pieces of silver, and she would sell her grandma, too, if she were still alive. We are all less safe today as a result of her role in the Obama administration.
Imagine how wrecked America will be with her as president.
Indeed, chemotherapy is coursing through America’s veins right now. I grant George Will that one accuracy. But he is creating it. With RINOs like George Will, it appears Hillary could win and the treatment will then kill the patient. The patient being We The People, of whom at least half are supporting Trump.
Congratulations, George Will et al. Way to go. Your fake, frilly judgment makes you feel superior to your fellow citizens, and you are supporting the far inferior candidate, an avowed enemy of The People. You have made that clear.
How nice are you?
Out of curiosity, ask yourself: How nice am I?
Then answer it this way: No matter what media and university people are telling you, the fact is that in this political combat, Nice People Finish Last.
On the one hand, we are told that anyone who is not politically correct and partisan Left is a racist, and an extremist.
The people daily planting this message are themselves politically and culturally extreme, by traditional standards. You know, the traditional standards that founded the very civilization they enjoy so much, but which they have turned against. The people carrying this message have an agenda, to shut down all opposition, whether by shouting it down or making it illegal.
On the other hand, we have a bunch of generally comfortable, nice, thoughtful, considerate Americans, educated at liberal colleges. They voted for Obama, thinking doing so would prove once and for all that they are not “racist.” They work hard, pay their taxes, dutifully invest in college for their children, and follow the flawed but prevalent 1960s maxim “let your kids find their way and discover who they are.” Their kids do not find their way, but are usually led astray by leftist professors and activists.
The material comfort we middle income Americans enjoy is putting us to sleep. And when we are confronted with accusations that we are racist, or mean spirited, or sexist, or whatever, we naturally cringe, and do what we can to prove that we are not as accused.
And thus are the Nice People manipulated and bullied into handing over what little power they have left. Giving to those who will never relinquish it.
This election is not about Republican versus Democrat, or about liberal versus conservative.
It is about the American voter waking the hell up and realizing now, at the last second, that the Left has been on a ruthless warpath for fascist control for decades, and the “right” has been cowed into protecting only its material comforts, at the cost of the Republic. The cost of our liberties. Your liberties. Our Constitutional rights.
When American professors are permitted to openly state that debate is not welcome in their classroom, you had better take notice.
When the American media openly allows itself to proudly act as an arm of one political party, for one highly corrupt political candidate, you had better take notice.
When racist extremists are marching through your kids’ college campus, accusing “white” kids of being “racist” because of the color of their skin, you had better take notice.
When racist extremists are marching through public streets, destroying everything around them and assassinating police officers, and then elected political officials give them legal cover, you had better take notice.
When our highly armed US Navy vessels are dodging tiny boats threatening them in international waters, instead of incinerating them, you had better wake up.
When our military service men are captured by a hostile nation (Iran), and ransomed for over a billion American dollars — your tax money, instead of being returned unharmed under threat of American retaliation, you had better wake up.
Hello there, Mister and Missus Middle America….your nation as you knew it is coming to an end. Everything has changed under your feet. You think that because there is food in the fridge and gas in the car that all is fine. That is materialism putting you to sleep.
If you do not vote in a stop-gap candidate like Donald Trump, then your civilization is over. By the time you realize it is gone, it will be too late. Many of you will later accept being cowed into submission by Hillary and her political descendants, but many of us will not. What happens after that is the kind of conflict that has always happened in every human society preceding us when irreconcilable forces clash. No sane person wants that, and your vote this election can either postpone it, or create the conditions necessary to turn the tide altogether.
Want to be really nice? Help get America back on track, or at least keep it from jumping the tracks. Vote for Donald Trump.
Tinker Toys & Lincoln Logs
Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs are kids’ toys, used to teach elementary building concepts to little kids. The laws of physics are a core component of those lessons.
Apparently these basic rules have been forgotten by a huge portion of Americans when they are applied to building a nation.
America provides more liberty, freedom, and opportunity to more individuals from more walks of life than any other nation. The way it does that is through a carefully constructed and delicately balanced arrangement of written laws and social norms.
No house of cards, America is nonetheless like any human society. It’s relatively fragile, easily upset, prone to mistakes.
So what is up with the Black Lives Matter anarchists and their many enablers carefully positioned around the racist movement’s periphery. Don’t these people recognize that if you make war on all police officers, whose job it is to keep our society from literally falling apart, the basic underpinnings can come out?
Students of history wonder aloud about Nazi Germany, how such a refined and materially successful culture fell so quickly, to be replaced by the lowest savagery. Well, societal failure can happen anywhere. It can happen here in America, too, if serious citizens do not work hard to teach to newcomers and next generations the basics of what it takes to make this place run so well.
Instead, one political party is dedicated to a culture of anarchy, false grievance, and Santa Claus – like gifting of everything from cell phones to houses, gratis the over-taxed American taxpayer. BLM has had the backing of Obama and most of the members of his party.
This means one of two major American parties is dedicated to America failing. Perhaps this is the “transformation” Obama spoke of, but let’s face it: This is a recipe for wall to wall catastrophe.
America is like a bank account. You only get to take from it what you put into it. A culture of taking, taking, taking and demanding and foot-stomping is a giant withdrawal from the bank account. To the point where the account is becoming overdrawn.
Put another way, America is like a carefully arranged assortment of Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys. Once the bottom most foundational principles are removed, the whole thing will crash down.
Please don’t take America for granted. She can only sustain so many overdrafts and big withdrawals from her account before she fails. Lend a hand and keep the underpinnings held together. Vote for the only presidential candidate who can and will do that, Donald Trump.
And yes, I think it is sad that he is the smartest, most capable kid in the playroom. But that is the fact. Trump is not arguing against the laws of physics
Think you’re nuts? You’re in good company
Lots of Americans wonder just how normal they are. Yes, we are told constantly that normal is relative, and while that’s not true, it is true that lots of us are nuts.
Want proof?
Go food shopping. Bring a long list of items. Start in the fruit section and end at the other end of the store, probably the dairy aisle. About half way through you’ll be muttering to yourself, trying to figure out what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
Listen carefully. Lots of others around you are also thoughtfully contemplating being lost amidst the richness. They, too, are quietly muttering.
By the time you are three quarters done, people have given up any pretense of quiet. People at the end of their shopping list are outright talking out loud to themselves. Not even trying to hide it.
Living the iPhone lifestyle leaves most of us blathering fools, struggling to connect the myriad dots we’ve happily forced upon our otherwise easier lives. Dots of the kids, dots for meals, dots for significant dates, and dots for the food items we went shopping for.
Take heart. You’re not alone.
A special note on the other insanity, this one a political and cultural craziness justifying violence against peaceful political opponents who merely assemble to hear a political candidate they like speak.
It’s hypocrisy to blame the victim. But here it is, masquerading as news in most mainstream media outlets.
This insanity is new to America but old to Europe and other countries. We’ve seen it in South American countries wracked by corruption and government failure. We’ve seen it in the Middle East the past few years. We’ve seen it in Weimar Germany.
None of the other examples of political street violence bode well for where America is or will end up. At a certain point the Trump supporters will rally and defend themselves. At a certain point bystanders will come to their aid, with weapons.
Hillary and Bernie have not discouraged their followers from committing violence. Instead they’ve poured gas on the fire. It’s terrifying. It’s hard not to feel like we are watching the end of America. Where this all goes is anyone’s guess. Violence is both wrong and unsustainable. Human nature can only turn so many cheeks before the desire to self defend sets in.
Much more to be said about this insanity posing as political dissent. But let’s just leave it at this: Be careful what you start. When that ball gets rolling, there’s no turning back. America is the best nation ever, but it’s still subject to human flaws. Our Constitution did not find a way to stop people from committing crimes. It merely placed the power in the hands of The People, and if that power comes from the end of a gun, look out.
Cruz Quixote
Ted Cruz was my candidate until he was clear he’d rather be used by the GOPe to block Trump than stand on his principles, do or die.
Now with another Super Tuesday primary election behind us and boosting Trump, with zero chance of a Cruz win, Ted Cruz has decided to go on a Quixotic anti Trump jihad.
Cruz has made damaging Trump his top principle. Not defeating Hillary. Not promoting an overhaul of the GOP. Nope. Hurting Trump is now Cruz’s raison d’etre.
Pathetic. And unpatriotic.
At this point, a real American would step aside and cheer on the front runner. A real American would consider the national interest before his own.
Not Cruz. Being an obstructionist is now his highest and best use. This is sad to me, as I had thought he was bigger than this juvenile behavior.
It’s so bad that some Pennsylvania Cruz -aligned delegates are talking openly of going to the Republican convention just to work against Trump.
Donald Trump still does not represent my values very well, nor do I trust him to be the warrior in office he is now. But Trump is a damn sight better than Benghazi Billary, and he’s now our standard barer, for better or worse.
Time to let go of personal ambitions in the greater interest of America. Or maybe move to Canada and just get out of our way.