Category: Politics

Link:  Melania Trump attacked for reciting ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ at campaign rally

As I wrote to Mr. Winton earlier this week, the political divide in our country is spiritual; Christianity versus Secular Humanism. Man likes to put himself in the place of God.

This is the spiritual divide:

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. I Joh 2: 15-17

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.  They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.  In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.  Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.  They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.  Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Romans 1: 18-32

The Left is screaming like demons because they are following the doctrine of demons. Their god is government (and power). Trump is dedicated to tearing down many of their strongholds and they aren’t happy. I don’t know where Trump is spiritually, but I’m confident that God is using him to clean-up the mess that has poisoned our country for so many years.

OK, so you may be wondering why I write about this issue after the mandatory evacuation order has been lifted. In short, the danger has not passed; we will be living with this issue for several years.

I know when I find myself on the same side as the Sierra Club that the guys in Sacramento have really screwed-up.

Link: Oroville Dam: Feds and state officials ignored warnings 12 years ago
Voters have authorized tens of billions of dollars in water bonds to be sold in California and no new water storage has been planned let alone built. In fact last I heard the only activity that government was considering was tearing down existing dams servicing San Francisco and far northern California.

Link: Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

Consider this from 2009:

In recent months, officials in Oregon, Washington and even California have agreed to spend millions to dismantle colossal dams built decades ago in order to protect native fish species, following legal tussles over water between the federal government, environmentalists, Indian tribes and farmers.

Link: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs $11.1 billion California water bond measure.

Or this from 2008:

Meanwhile, on the California-Oregon border, in the wake of a dramatic, nationally reported fish kill in 2002, the unlikely coalition of fishermen, American Indians and environmentalists has successfully made its case to tear down four dams on the Klamath River. In this case, the courts, the state and Schwarzenegger himself have indicated support for dam removal.

Link: Schwarzenegger Pushes to Build New Dams While an Unlikely Coalition Battles to Tear Down Existing Ones

So voters have authorized billions for water and all we have gotten is agreements to reduce water storage. Meanwhile, maintenance on existing facilities has been somewhere between nil and minimal. Why?

Much of the money in these so called water bonds was never for water storage or infrastructure. Critics tried to point that out but the Party in power drowned-out their criticism. Second, don’t forget how government does budgets. Money dedicated to water simply frees up more funds from the General Fund that can then be spent elsewhere. It does not mean that any additional money will actually be spent on water projects. It just grows government and nothing more.

Now for Oroville Dam; Folks this is a huge mess.

As we all know from seeing the photos, there are two separate problems with the dam now. The main spillway and the emergency spillway.

The main spillway has at least two problems that combined to tear the thing to pieces…and the damage is continuing to compound on this part of the dam’s structure. Not only is there a hole 180 feet wide and 30 feet deep—as of a few weeks ago—but this hole is continuing to erode due to use. The spillway can’t be used anywhere near capacity without totally destroying itself.

 

 

What makes it worse is that in some photos, it appears that water is freely flowing under the spillway! If you noticed the photos with the spillway shutoff a few weeks ago, water was coming out of the hole and continuing down the spillway. At a quick glance on the Internet, I can’t find the angle that I think is illustrating this but I’m concerned that this is the case. If there are issues under the spillway due to whatever cause, the calculations for repair just got even more complicated.

The patch job from a few summers ago, has clearly failed and it looks to me as if the entire thing may need to be redone. Whatever repair is selected, it will need to be done in a matter of months not the years that typically accompany government red tape on projects of this scope. In the summer they can only drain water from the hydroelectric plant so once it begins raining next fall that spillway better be ready to roll.

The emergency spillway is clearly a problem and I fear that it may need to be deployed again before summer arrives. The rock bags and other measures taken seem more for show than because they are anything resembling a fix.

In the end, it appears that the choice will be destroy the spillway by increasing the discharge and thus increasing the damage it sustains or loosing control of the structure by deploying the emergency spillway. Hobson’s choice anyone?

My other concern is also a practical one. No engineer on the State’s payroll has ever been involved in overseeing the building or construction of a dam. In fact, I would wager that none of the folks doing the real engineering work to fix these problems was even born when the last dam was being approved for construction. C.C. Myers may not be the guy for this repair but you need someone that can work that quickly.

The irony is that Jerry Brown’s rainy day fund may be needed to save us from rain.

The Best advice that I can offer is stock some emergency rations and be ready to get out of dodge at the first sign of trouble.

 

After awaking from my New Year’s celebration I decided to do a little catchup reading. One article that caught my eye was about a pension crisis in Dallas, Texas.  The first thing that came to mind was this must be the county workers retirement pension system, I was wrong; this is the police and firefighters retirement pension system.  A very small pension fund by comparison to some such as CALPers.  However the problem in Dallas is strange, in a sense because Dallas has a booming downtown, cranes and skyscraper construction dot the skyline.  People have been moving to Dallas in droves, this is not the case study of a braying Midwestern city struggling with population loss, and the mill or warehouse closing down.  This really caught my eye.

Government and private sector accountants have been tussling in Dallas over how large the deficit in the pension funding crisis is, however they do agree on one thing, it’s between one and five billion dollars! Yeah, Billion, like Million but with a “B”.  Dallas appointed a pension board about thirty years ago to oversee the investments of this fund; most states and municipalities do this.  These board members are supposed to have a fiduciary duty to put the financial needs of the members over any short term profits or accounting gimmicks…they failed.  I will go in to their misdeeds later; in the meantime the city is now facing a monumental crisis of epic proportions.

The pension system in most states and municipalities all work the same, work so many years, and contribute a small portion of your check, roughly 1% and you will get a defined payout amount each month for the remainder of your life once you retire.  This is true with most pension plans; they are set up in a defined benefit manner not a defined contribution manner.  This becomes a problem when the union designs a contract where employees can retire at 50 and collect full benefits until death some 30 years later.  The problem is the pension fund essentially becomes a Ponzi scheme as new money is added from current workers that go to pay out the benefits to retired workers.

The fund receives money each month collected from current workers’ pay, and then hopes to invest the money, earn a decent return, and pay out benefits to those collecting retirement.  The main problem is these funds always use pie in the sky projections for investment return, with some such as CALPers saying they expect around 7.5% a year!  As per usual they didn’t come close to 7.5%, they actually did .41% which is well, awful especially considering the market is at all-time highs.  Enough about California; now back to Dallas.

Dallas got creative about a decade ago, they created an option for retired members called (DROP) deferred retirement option program.  This option allowed retired members to put their pension check in a separate account, which would be a savings account, with a 10% interest annually credited to it.  If you’re scoring at home, once again this is a characteristic of a Ponzi scheme promising pie in the sky returns, risk free mind you.  Many retirees participated and I cannot say I blame them, as a 10% risk free return that is likely guaranteed by the municipality or the state is a great option.  Then as one would expect problems began to arise, since you can’t guarantee 10% returns while the fund was only projecting to earn 7%.

The fund was beginning to see trouble in 2008, and as a result the board of directors decided to make investments in real estate as opposed to stocks or equities.  Investing in real estate is extremely risky, and the bets placed by the Dallas pension fund blew up right in their face.  This was to be expected. (If X was tasked with generating a massive investment return, I admit I would have done something similar.)  The fund began buying up real estate all over the world, a winery and hotel in Napa, and quite a few investments in foreign countries that were supposed to make up the difference and generate a return that could pay off the obligations to retirees.  This solution is not an issue until the value of the real estate holdings drops, and predictably it did.  The fund took over $500 million in write-offs over a two year period from 2014-2015.  Which is not a problem until those expecting to receive pension benefits find out they may not be receiving said benefits, then mayhem ensues.  Mayhem indeed did ensue later in 2016.  Further adding fuel to the fire were an agreement to raise the cost of living adjustment by 4% a year rather than pegging the rate to inflation which would have saved over 15-20%.

Remember those DROP accounts? The pension system had over 500 worth more than 1 million dollars, as a result of the shortfall; retirees began pulling all their money out of the system. Who can blame them?  It was money and benefits they had earned.  As a result, the mayor of Dallas, pension board leaders, and the state have been looking for a solution, including the temporary halting of withdrawals from the plan.  Which as per usual from governments and the CRA these days, answers nothing.  Panic has set in among retirees and as a result lawsuits have started flying in Dallas, as well as an FBI investigation as well as an SEC investigation.  The mayor of Dallas predictably wants a state bailout, which predictably the state government told him politely no thank you.  Now he wants to raise property tax by 130% on Dallas residents.  Remember this is Dallas, not a small decaying city, but one that is lined with skyscrapers.  Stay tuned, and I will report as more details come available.

X

The best entertainment on television during the last few weeks has been the Donald Trump show. Trump is the straight man in this farcical comedy. Unlike politicians that say what is necessary to get elected and then have nothing to show for a lifetime of “public service”, Trump goes to the nation’s capital and does what he promised and all hell breaks loose. Why, because both the political class and the media are shocked that he really meant all those things he said. Furthermore, Trump has the “stones” to actually follow thru on his promises and doesn’t care what they think. To them, this guy is worse than Reagan and that was a very low time for them.

109 people get caught in the crossfire of Trump’s immigration order and the international socialists and those likeminded travelers—with generous funding by George Soros—act like Trump just reinstated internment camps. (For those that forgot, the KKK, Jim Crow laws, and internment camps were all Democrat policies implemented against fellow Americans, not immigrants wanting to come to this country.) The ACLU reported has raised over 24 million dollars off of this non-event.

Trump fired the acting director at the Department of Justice over her refusal to defend his policy. Trust me; she will land on her feet with some cushy job in academia teaching at some liberal law school. She was on her way out so taking a cheap shot at Trump and getting fired was a resume enhancement for her. Ditto for the Pentagon bureaucrat a few days ago that said male and female Marines should sleep next to each other when in the field. Women don’t belong in combat, period.

Today, the next part of the campaign against Trump will be rolled-out, milliseconds after the Supreme Court nominee is announced. It won’t matter who it is, the campaign in a box is already part of the standard playlist of Liberal tactics. I hope Trump picks Alabama Supreme Court Judge Roy Moore just to tweak the whole lot of them but I doubt that will be his play. Frankly, I hope he picks someone like John Eastman and not a sitting judge. That would be fun to watch.

Just remember that the street theater that you are witnessing is primarily to cause the weak kneed Republicans (Ryan, McCain, Graham, et al) to cave and surrender to the will of the Liberal minority. If Republicans stick with Trump, the Liberal agenda is toast. Trump will roll them back to the Stone Age. Again, look for Trump to call on the American people if the Republicans get too wobbly and spineless.

This week, we will experience the end of an error and a new beginning. Yes after eight years of Barack Obama a new chapter in American history will begin. As with all beginnings there is both uncertainty and high hopes for President Trump. Unlike Obama and his imperial declarations of unilateral executive authority, Trump has the possibility of lasting change by having his wishes turned into law by the Legislative branch of government. Not since Ronald Reagan, has anyone holding the office been so willing to bypass both the media and Congress and take his case for action directly to the American people. Trump will have the power to cause permanent changes in both political parties by being successful.

Unlike the Contract with America and Speaker Newt Gingrich, Trump has longer term goals for the country than merely 100 days. The economic picture has been so obfuscated by Obama and to some extent George W Bush before him, that both danger and opportunity will be encountered. Obama has been cooking the books thru “Quantitative Easing” and manipulation of economic data such as unemployment statistics. The plight of the American worker is the worst it has been since the 1930’s but the difference is less honest politicians and a greater willingness to print money and finance the status quo with debt. Medicare is expected to become insolvent during the Trump years and no one has been willing to fix it. Thankfully Trump has the backbone to at least try for more than a Band-Aid solution.  Cutting corporate taxes and repatriation of money that US companies are warehousing overseas will be a great boon to the economy. Trump’s tough stance on trade is needed. Proposals like the Trans Pacific Partnership and its 6,000 pages of nonsense are ridiculously complex and unintelligible even for its advocates to understand.

The legacy of the Supreme Court will be the one that Liberals will hate the most. They can’t get most of their ideas thru the legislatures of the several states or the Federal government so the legislative power of the courts has been their “go-to” play. Trump must not only put folks on the Federal Bench but realign the courts. The dreaded Ninth Circuit Appellate Court must be dismantled so the only the Left Coast states are under their sway. Look for some “out of the box” proposals to be made in this area.

To me, the Courts don’t have to overturn Roe v Wade. If the government would be prohibited from spending any public money on abortion and family planning then groups like Planned Parenthood would be irrelevant. Abortions are at an all-time low. The people that regard abortion as the Sacrament of the religion of Feminism are literally dying-off or at least beyond child bearing years. Yes, Roe needs to be overturned but I think that will be a lagging indicator not the first domino to fall.

Protecting religious liberty will be a mixed bag under Trump but the hostility against Christianity that Obama fostered will mostly be undone. Marriage will be the area to watch. I look for the social engineering of the military including its hostility to Christianity and promotion of LGBT junk to go away…for the most part. I think you will see states like California going to war against Christians while the national government stands with people of faith. The threat of withholding Federal Funds will win the day…for now.

Many of us sense that this is the last chance we will be given before following Europe into the abyss. The America of Norman Rockwell is gone; will it continue on the path into socialism (international or national) or find a way to continue to be Reagan’s “city on the hill” for the rest of the world. If Trump doesn’t undo the damage of the baby boomers and show the next generation a better way than doubling down on the narcissism of their parents then the American Experiment has truly ended as an abysmal failure.

Lastly, I predict that the biggest obstacle that Trump faces will be Republicans undermining him. If they thwart his legislative priorities, look for Trump to run a slate of candidates against these incumbents in two years.

Faithful readers, your humble correspondent X spent election night holed up in a hotel in Las Vegas with the wife watching the returns come in.  We had a great night! When I say “we”, I mean conservatives, not wishy-washy phony republican wannabe types.  I will lay out the winners and losers as well as provide my usual commentary as I sit in McCarran Airport waiting my flight home.

Winners:
The insurgents: by insurgents I mean the Trump brigade who were behind him since day 1, that would include many readers of this blog, as well as the Blog Father and myself.  This group of people also known as “deplorables” carried Trump across the finish line; he somehow was able to connect with several hundred thousand more people than a traditional republican campaign could and won convincingly.

Senators and Congressman in tough districts that stood by Trump: This includes some favorites of “X” such as Ron Johnson and Pat Toomey, of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania respectively.  They stood with Trump and as a result Trump voters selected them not their democrat challengers.  By the way both were written off for dead by the national party!  Additionally even republicans on the various networks thought we would lose more than a dozen seats in the House, as of this writing we lost only 6 seats!  Once again if you stood with the silent majority you likely won, even a couple members won re-election in seats Obama carried two years in a row!  Let that sink in for a minute.

Losers:
Established GOP politicians and “journalists.”  I am going to name names, and not be very nice.  Sen. Lindsay Graham and Gov. John Kasich, you both are the two biggest losers.  First neither of you ever had a good thing to say about the nominee for President, nor did either of you honor your pledge to support the winner of the nomination.  Worse yet, neither of you voted for Mr. Trump.  Congrats, you’re officially losers!

Also a special shout-out to the RINO nominees of the past. George H. W. Bush, John McCain, George W. Bush, and Mitt Romney. We’ve held our noses to vote for you Country Club guys every four years since 1988 but when it’s your turn to take one for the team, you wash your hands of Trump and all of us. Clearly you guys are more interested in maintaining the status quo than rescuing the country from the Democrats. It just proves that Elites like you are the problem.

Sen. Mark Kirk and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, both of you ran from Trump, and both of you lost.  I’m not sure why you decided to take that strategy but as a result you are both now joining the ranks of the unemployed.

Journalist losers:  This includes; George Will and Bill Kristol, neither of you are worth the skid mark on the back of your drawers now to me.  Will, you looked like a bumbling idiot on election night and thankfully Fox took you off the broadcast.  Kristol, I’m not even sure where to start with you, first you hate Donald Trump, no need to cover those emotions anymore.  Second you tried to recruit an independent candidate throughout the entire process to play spoiler.  Congrats, your independent candidate did as well on election night as I did at the blackjack table!  Kristol your new nickname is Pampers, because as far as I am concerned you are both full of the same thing!

Cal Thomas: you saved yourself by penning a column on the election eve saying you were in the Trump camp. You acted like a clown during the entire election process but you saved yourself; barely, in my eyes… you are still a loser; however, unlike Hillary you were somewhat able to save face.

Now the TV and local personalities:  Michelle Malkin and Joe Scarborough, congrats, you bailed on Trump, now I’m bailing on you.  Michelle Park Steel, you and your buddy Jon Fleishman both bailed on Trump. Steel even went as far as calling Trump a “clown” (well I am forced to give her the benefit of the doubt since she is married to one). Also, Sheriff Scott Jones needs recognition for waffling on several important issues and then compounding it by dissing Trump. Unlike some others this cycle, Jones does get to keep his day job.

The CRA and Tea Party: both organizations wanted nothing to do with Trump.  The Tea Party reluctantly came around toward the end and did all they could.  The CRA? Nothing but crickets out of that group of losers; all of them. Frankly I’m convinced the CRA leadership bought the domain name http://www.tedcruz2020.com anticipating a Trump loss.  Oh well, I guess your guys can run third party in 2020.  (Republicans are a third party in this state already.) Sad to watch honestly, that group is so leaderless, and responsible again for the CA GOP losing seats in the state assembly.  In addition, the CRA did nothing about a tax increase in Sacramento County. Thank god a couple of people put up signs and it looks as if the tax will fail.  CRA, instead of doing something constructive this cycle, you endorsed Ted Cruz and made him a part of your official platform and then sat out the election when he quit in disgrace. Instead of backing the nominee, the CRA faithful defected to the Never-Trump movement!  Your movement and clubs are officially dead and gone.

Bonus Commentary from “X”
Trump and Obama actually have quite a bit in common, none of it being policy related.  Both brought scores of new people into the political process by the nature of their campaigns.  Obama promised hope to those in the black community, and as a result, twice he was re-elected by large margins.  Trump went straight to the middle class- those affected by job losses, high health insurance premiums, and loss of home and autos.  As a result he waged a war against the establishment of both parties and won a convincing victory.  While the CRA and others tried to stop him; he prevailed. Now he has a mandate and we will see real change.  Working class members of our society came out in record numbers, and as a result an electoral landslide occurred; one that has pundits on both sides reeling and trying to figure out how this could have possibly happened.

Democrats are left leaderless and need to search for the soul of their party.  They will rebound, but they must do some major platform revisions.  Voters threw out the Obamacare, free college, free programs, free trade agenda, they want it replaced.  Democrats need to stop attacking people’s livelihood, such as banning guns, ammo, and coal mining.  Sen. Sanders even acknowledged during the campaign guns are a large part of the economy in Vermont—his home state!  Why can’t we mine for coal and export it to other countries?

Also, quit calling people names; “deplorables” and “angry Americans clinging to guns and religion” just makes the other side mad, stop that immediately.  Stop making people feel inadequate; saying “if you don’t go to college you’re a loser” is a recipe for high college tuition and as a direct result, massive student loan debt that will never get repaid. (Besides it’s demonstrably true that many that dropped out of college are way richer than the rest of us, Bill Gates and Rush Limbaugh are two names that come to mind.—editor)

Quit kissing up to the Black Lives Matter crowd. See them for what they really are; a group of rabble rousers just looking for an excuse to riot. Sure there are a few in the movement that may mean well, but they have quickly become a fringe group.  Stop giving out freebies, there simply are not enough voters at the low end of the spectrum and Hollywood elites to sustain any success in the long term. Take Obamacare as an example: the lower class got free health care, people were tricked into thinking that everyone got a Cadillac plan, but really the middle class was stuck with something they did not want, they lost their doctors and options, had to take high deductibles and co-pays and had to deal with massive premium hikes each year.  The middle class revolted, and it cost you deeply.

Until next time…..

X

As the sun rises on the nation, Liberals are suffering the shock of learning that Donald Trump is the next President of the United States.

My response is “Ding dong, the witch is dead”.

Hillary is feeling the Bern of rejection.

The stock markets are suffering from the thought of having to stand on their own without the voodoo economics stimulation of Quantitative Easing.

America is in the midst of the greatest economic challenge since the Great Depression. Hopefully now the books will be audited and the truth made known. Not that Liberals care about the Truth. Government is their god and the only god with whom they have to do.

Trump has rattled the foundations of the establishment. Yeah, it’s about time.

The most pathetic thing last night was the reluctance of the media not wanting to call it for Trump. If you thought it would be hard to pry the gun from my cold dead hands, you should try extracting the truth from the media. I heard nothing good from the network talkingheads last night on CBS, NBC, or ABC. There was universal denial and doom…and still is today.

It’s morning in America for the first time since 1980. God bless you Mr. Trump. Give ‘em hell.

I could go into a lot of reasons why Democrats should vote for Trump but Democrats are not motivated by logic, facts, or reason so I will give a short synopsis and then explain why.

I know that some games with economic statistics started under George W Bush but the fact is that the Obama Administration has been cooking the economic books for the full eight years of his term.

• Quantitative Easing has been artificially propping up the financial markets.
• The Federal Reserve has been propping up monetary policy but they have already said they will raise the Prime Rate after the election.
• Given that one in five American households have no one working and there are over 94 million adults that are no longer in the workforce out of a population of 308 million people (including children and senior citizens) do you really believe that unemployment is only five percent?
• Economic growth under Obama has never been above 3 percent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in any fiscal quarter of his presidency—this is the first time in US history
• The auto loan market is in a financial bubble that is ready to burst (Americans owe over one trillion dollars in auto loans)
• The student loan debt is also over one trillion dollars
• Job creation under Obama is less than the number of college graduates entering the works force and has been for all eight years of his administration
• 36 percent of young people between 24 and 31 are still living at home
• Taxes, fees, and regulations have grown significantly under Obama
• Pension plans nationwide are trillions of dollars underfunded (one trillion just in California—State, County, and Local governments)
• Medicare and Social Security are facing insolvency in the next few years

This is only the tip of the statistical iceberg but you get the point, the house of cards will collapse sooner or later. You’ve had a good deal under Obama—or so you think—but the bills are about to come due.

We also learned from Democrats that capitalizing on disaster and tragedy is a cornerstone of how they operate. Spinning a crisis into political advantage is part of their playbook.

Here is your golden opportunity to do both. A vote for Trump is really a vote for future Democrat officeholders. Why? Because the economic system in the country needs a correction. Whichever party is in power when it happens will get the blame and you don’t want your guy (or in this case girl) in office when the stuff hits the fan. Trump can get the blame, fix it and then the next Democrat can ride the economic crisis all the way to the White House. If your Party spins it right then your guys could be in power for the next 16 years or better. Frankly, this might be a good reason to vote a strait Republican ticket. If Republicans own the Congress and Presidency then there is no way blame will go to your Party. In the long run you’ll be better for the experience.

Trust me, you want Trump when the economy takes a dump.