Really Right – Page 105 – Religion, Politics, and Culture: Explained and Defined

Retraction: ESPN Was Drunk Last Night!

Here at Really Right we strive to always be really right and that is why I am issuing a partial retraction from my commentary last night regarding Robert Lee and ESPN. Our attempt at satire was met with something called truth; a member of ESPN actually was drunk last night, correction this morning at 3:30 AM. That’s right folks, self-righteous and everyone’s favorite “bro” Ryen Rusillo was arrested this morning (Tuesday) at 3:30 AM in Teton County, Wyoming. I would try to explain his criminal trespassing, but here let’s have the police report describe it, (police dept. dispatched to an intoxicated male trespasser)

Two people were asleep in the condo when they heard someone come in. They didn’t know the man and asked him to leave because he was drunk, according to reports. Police arrived a few minutes later.

“Occupants pointed the suspect out who was found in a bedroom,” Jackson Police Lt. Roger Schultz said.

Russillo, of West Hartford, Connecticut, reportedly had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech.

“He couldn’t coherently answer any questions,” Schultz said.

“Officers found the defendant, later identified as Ryen August Russillo, lying on the bed in the south bedroom naked except for his pants around his ankles,” the probable cause affidavit states.

For more on this story see:
• ESPN host arrested for criminal entry

• ESPN Radio Host Ryen Russillo Arrested In Wyoming For Misdemeanor Criminal Entry

• John Dennis Says ESPN’s Ryen Russillo Is A “Stumbling Drunk Alcoholic”

I know at first I thought Aaron Park was binge drinking again.

Ummm… I was very wild in my college, young adult and even later in life days, but never did I get so wasted I tried to sleep in a stranger’s condo’s extra bedroom. Rusillo was lucky to survive the mass layoffs at ESPN earlier in the year; this makes the network look very bad, mostly because he has alcohol abuse in his past. Full disclosure—he was on vacation, but for someone who comes off more righteous than anyone else on his radio show I have a feeling he may be terminated soon. Rusillo is the second most liberal radio host on ESPN, and this could be an opening to show the network isn’t too liberal. Yeah, much like the CRA won’t take Park to court; ESPN aint going to fire Russillo. But I reserve the right to light into both. As far as Mr. Rusillo goes, much like James Comey, everyone knows you are right all the time, a complete know-it-all, leader of the unwashed masses!

So let’s take a look at Mr. Russillo’s identification papers he had on him last night. Per the police report:
• Sex: Not specified (but given his condition he wouldn’t remember anyway).
• Driver’s license class: Unclassified.
Apparently he doubles as James Bond or models his private life after Ted Kennedy.

Folks, Russillo lectures people daily on his radio show to pick a lane and stay in it, apparently he is unable to do that himself.

Hopefully Ryen gets some help, not just for his alcoholism but from his parents, who spells Ryan with an “e”? Also from his employer, Ryen has a very big substance abuse program and he needs help. The good news is, much like the CRA, ESPN supports the ACA remaining the law of the land, so Ryen should be able to find the help he needs.

ESPN, in a statement said “They are looking into this.” Hopefully they don’t blow it, sorry bad pun!
ESPN, sleep with both eyes open because X is always coming for you!

PS, we are awaiting word on suspension due to our retraction, we will keep you posted.

Go Home ESPN You’re Drunk

So I was perusing the newsfeed on my iPhone and a story really piqued my interest, at first glance I swore it was fake news. Then I checked which platform it came from; was it, Facebook? CRA? CAGOP? CNN? MSNBC? No it was from Yahoo News. The headline “ESPN’s Robert Lee pulled to avoid offending anyone.”

Ok, this has to be satire right? I fell for it, I clicked on the link and the article populated in my browser. It’s not fake news folks, ESPN is truly a swamp. The article talks about an upcoming college football game featuring The University of Virginia, and the announcer named Robert Lee. Now you know here at really right we have accused Disney of being very liberally biased, but this is unreal! The full statement from Disney and I quote,

“We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name. In that moment it felt right to all parties. It’s a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play-by-play for a football game has become an issue.”

Link: ESPN pulls Asian-American announcer from Virginia football game because he has a Confederate general’s name

Seriously, someone said that, and they call young people the snowflake generation. This is all due to the unrest and rioting that occurred at Charlottesville, VA over the last weekend. Here is an extenuating factor regarding this Robert Lee, he is ASIAN! Not white, he has zero connection to the Civil War general! Seriously who makes these decisions, now we are punishing people because of their name being similar to a general? Wake up America!

Cut the cord, be done with this network!

PS No liberal bias at ESPN, funny they sound just like the CRA and CAGOP!

“X”

Battlestar Galactica was Right

While I didn’t like many parts of the Battlestar Galactica remake that was on television a few years ago, the pilot for the program got one detail right; namely the computers. The premise of the show was that Galactica was “old school” and since its computer systems were not integrated but isolated from each other, it was not susceptible to the computer virus that disabled the rest of the fleet.

Now hacking is being proposed as an explanation for the rash of collisions of Navy vessels. Perhaps this is legit or just an excuse for another system problem.

…the Navy will conduct a wide investigation, including a review into the possibility of “cyber intrusion or sabotage.”

Link: Is someone hacking our 7th Fleet? Navy to investigate after USS John S McCain collision

When I was in the Navy in the 1980’s, Reagan was President and our engineering systems were purposely not using solid state electronics. No transistors were allowed to be used by the protective systems of the nuclear reactors; instead we used mag amps.

Mag amps are such obscure components that my friends that earned electrical engineering degrees never heard of them. Basically mag amps are transformers with additional windings that either aid or oppose current flow. They work but require weekly calibration. They are immune to electromagnetic pulses and thus an EMP attack would not disable ship propulsion.

Now ships have Internet, satellite television, phone capability and other systems that were not available in my day. Whether these systems are integrated into ship-wide systems or isolated is something that I have no firsthand experience with but the possibility exists. Also Aegis Combat Systems have been around for decades. They allow one ship to control the weapons systems of all ships in a fleet to allow coordinated attacks. A logical extension of Aegis is allowing the remote control of a vessel by another one to position the ship for optimum attack. It is logical that such capability exists today.

If you recall, the drones that we flew in Iraq and Afghanistan were controlled from an Air Force facility in Nevada. The control signals for these flying weapons platforms were unencrypted for almost the entirety of the Bush administration. They were hackable for anybody with the right radio setup. Not until it was suspected that somebody might be trying to take them over did the government act to encrypt the control signals.

Perhaps the Navy has a similar problem; the remote control ability of their ships is unencrypted or severely out of date—Windows XP anyone? Perhaps they need to go “old school” and separate their systems so they aren’t so integrated.

Lastly, in my day we had people called look-outs and watches that were supposed to be working with the radar guys to keep us out of trouble. (We had three different and independent radar systems on our ship.) Maybe the Navy needs to get “old school’ in this area also. People work better than automation in many circumstances. The idea that two ships in the Pacific collided with merchant ships and nobody reported their proximity to the bridge prior to the collision is most disturbing of all.

Sloppy Navy

In the last few months, two reports of US Navy vessels colliding with merchant ships have been reported. Both collisions have disabled the ships and resulted in loss of life.

USS John McCain August 21, 2017
Link: Search underway for 10 sailors after USS John S. McCain collision near Singapore; ship has significant damage

USS Fitzgerald June 17, 2017
Link: Search is on for 7 missing US sailors, cause of ship collision off Japan

I spent six years in the Navy and I’m positive that this is not a coincidence. I think that much of this can be laid at the feet of Barack Obama’s cuts to the military; no, not just cuts in the budget, but his promotion of people on the basis of things not related to qualifications such as diversity and social engineering. Obama ran a lot of good people out of military service and replaced them with less qualified ones. He purposely weakened the military in moral, training, and readiness.

Lest you think this is just a Navy problem, less than two weeks ago you may have seen that Marine Corps to ground all aircraft after recent deadly incidents.

My son is currently in the Air Force and stories of cannibalizing aircraft to keep others in the air are just a way of life for them. Every time an aircraft lands there is an expectation that it needs repair before flying again. That is just how things are for them. It’s really tragic.

Folks, our military is in shambles right now. Let’s hope that President Trump can get it back on track.

Solar Eclipse Panics State Government

For those of you expecting doom’s day during Monday’s eclipse, you have company. In anticipation of the eclipse, the State of California has issued a declaration of an energy emergency and possibility of an environmental crisis.

Talk about mixed messages try these:

As a result, solar energy production is expected to drop by 6,000 megawatts. Other power sources, like hydroelectric power plants, will be ready to step in, but for three hours on Monday morning California’s electricity grid will experience an unusually rapid decline in solar generation.

…take a pledge to Do Your Thing by reducing electricity usage from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. during The Great Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017. This will allow California to burn fewer fossil fuels and emit fewer greenhouse gas emissions when California’s solar energy production dips during the eclipse.

—Scott Kernan, Secretary of Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Accompanying Kernan’s memo is a press release from the California Public Utilities Commission. The PUC has even created a website just for the eclipse (CalEclipse.Org) where we can take the pledge to save the sun.
Isn’t that what old pagan cultures believed about an eclipse?
They required a sacrifice to placate the gods and bring back the sun?
Anyway here are portions of their release.

“We have plenty of wind, geothermal, hydro, and natural gas to make sure the grid runs smoothly during the solar eclipse, but we also have a lot of Californians who want to do their California thing and step in to help replace the sun when it takes a break,” said CPUC President Michael Picker. “When we come together to do one small thing to reduce energy usage, we can have a major impact on our environment. When Californians take the pledge on CalEclipse.org, they are joining a movement of people, businesses, organizations and local governments that are taking action during the eclipse to give the sun a break by saving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

The press release asked us to do the following:

…unplug the things that are “always on” but don’t need to be.

Before the eclipse, change at least half of your lightbulbs to LEDs:

and after the expense of buying your LED lights you are supposed to promptly turn them off.

And, of course, make sure all unnecessary lights are off during the eclipse!

Curiously missing is any mention of compact fluorescent bulbs. You know the ones that require full body hazmat containment protocol if you happen to shatter one because of all the junk inside them.

Lastly we are commanded to turn off our air conditioners even though temperatures in the affected areas will drop by as much as ten degrees.

Temperatures in those areas could tumble by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit (5.6 Celsius), according to Paul Walker, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc.

Link: Eclipse Turning Day Into Night to Send Temperatures Tumbling

Talk about junk science. So will the power grid hold or should we head to the fallout shelter?

These dumb atheists can kiss my grits if they think I’m going to do these things on Monday.

My Review of Patterns of Evidence: Exodus

IMDB Patterns of Evidence: Exodus (2014)

I watched this movie on Netflix the other night. Its narrative style reminded me of Jesse Winton’s Targeted although this movie was made prior. It begins with a question, some people are talked to and then more questions are asked followed by more interviews. A small portion of the film is narrated by actor Kevin Sorbo.

The movie was well done and sounded really familiar to me. The basic question was, is there evidence that the Exodus is an historical fact or just a biblical myth? The groundwork was laid steadily until they got to one of their most important points. (Please note that the discussion which follows will include spoilers to plot points in the film.) What was made clear is that many modern archeologists give an unequivocal “NO” answer to the question; however, the film posits an alternative.

The party line in the archeological community is that Rameses II was the pharaoh of the Exodus. While this does agree with Cecil B DeMille, it is clearly at odds with the biblical narrative.

Secular historians assume the modern construction of the Egyptian timeline is correct which is not true. I recalled reading many years ago about this in a book by Gary North.

Readers are also not informed of the fact that virtually all chronologies of the ancient Near East and pre-classical Greece are constructed on the assumption that the conventional chronology of Egypt is the legitimate standard. What modern scholars believe is the proper chronology of Egypt is then imposed on the chonologies of all other civilizations of the ancient Near East, including the biblical chronology of the Hebrews. Thus, when the Bible says explicitly that the Exodus took place 480 years before Solomon began to construct the temple (I Kings 6:1), historians interpret this information within the framework of the hypothetical Egyptian chronological scheme.

When they even admit that the pharaohs of the supposed dynastic era of the fifteenth century before Christ were extremely powerful kings-men like Thutmose III-whose mummies still exist, they are tempted to ignore these difficulties, or even to ignore the clear teaching of the Bible. Many of them date the Exodus much later. They allow a hypothetical chronology of Egypt to dictate their interpretation of Scripture. This is not the way that Christian scholarship is supposed to be conducted.

Moses and Pharaoh pages 7 & 8 (1985)

I have three criticisms of the film for points that they didn’t make.

Point One: The easiest way to prove that Ramses II is not the pharaoh of the Exodus is that we know where he was buried. He died of old age not by drowning in the Red Sea. In fact his body is on display in a museum.

Ramesses II originally was buried in the tomb KV7 in the Valley of the Kings, but because of looting, priests later transferred the body to a holding area, re-wrapped it, and placed it inside the tomb of queen Inhapy. Seventy-two hours later it was again moved, to the tomb of the high priest Pinudjem II. All of this is recorded in hieroglyphics on the linen covering the body. His mummy is today in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.
Link” Wikipedia Ramsses II

Point Two: It is clear from watching the film that the archeological community demands that members of its community follow the party line. The tyrant of academia is never directly mentioned, but it is clearly understood that their orthodoxy must be followed if you want to get funding and work in the field. Anyone who has watched Ben Stein’s Expelled will have “the eyes to see” this construct in action.

Point Three: this one is more subtle but my impression from watching the film is that Egypt loves the archeology and tourism but they have no interest in validating any claims that might bolster the Jewish faith. The Muslim folks don’t seem to allow you access to their historic sights if you rock their boat by dissing their ancestors.

On the whole, it’s well worth your time to watch, especially if you have children in the audience. It starts slow but builds to a satisfying conclusion “for the hope that is within you”.

Elon Musk Innovator or Crony Capitalist?

By now you should know X always has his smoking gun aimed at someone. I’ve even been made abreast of the fact that some citizens of this republic are sleeping with both eyes open instead of just one. If you need another reason to be vigilant and join their ranks ponder this next…

I want to train my fire on one Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla. Turn on a finance show, read a paper, or just listen to small talk and you hear people placing this guy in the same category as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison. I have never really understood it, Gates, Buffett, Ellison, Jobs were all great innovators and leaders of companies that essentially print money to this day. Hence as William laid out in a different post they are all quite wealthy. Musk on the other hand runs a company (Tesla) that is basically doing what Amazon.com does; they are selling what is essentially their take on the future.

Tesla—if you’re wondering—is behind the electric cars that you see every once in a blue moon on the road. Also they own a network of charging stations, mostly in California. However, Tesla has never managed to be profitable, yet their stock has surged over the last few years. I wondered aloud, why is this?

I must say I am fascinated by Musk in the same way other people are. He speaks eloquently and always talks like a slick sales man selling a promise of prosperity just beyond the horizon. He has some very innovative ideas like trying to make an all-electric car go mainstream. He wants to take cars to space through his SpaceX program, and bought SolarCity—who is the largest solar panel provider in the USA.

Here is where the fascination stops and reality sets in. Musk fancies himself as an Amazon.com style disruptor, truth be told he is anything but. SolarCity is run by his cousins, both of whom just left the company I may add. Also in 10 years of operations, despite being the #1 rooftop solar company, they have yet to turn a profit. Tesla is simply promising a future that is unrealistic at best and the next Enron/Solyndra/Fisker at worst. In a daring and in my mind foolish gambit, Musk rolled all the SolarCity debt into Tesla just to keep his empire afloat.

Allow me to explain my thesis. Musk and his corporations are fully subsidized by you and I; Joe Taxpayer. Why do cities and states keep sending money to Musk, especially since it’s a failing enterprise? Easy answer, Musk is very good at playing the game! He is very close to the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. This relationship paid off handsomely; the state gave SolarCity $750 million to build a large factory and only charges SolarCity $1 a year for rent. Seems pretty lucrative for a company that still cannot post a profit. SolarCity and Tesla don’t just play in New York, they have been very active in California, Arizona, and a handful of northwest states. (Of course California is fertile ground with funding sources like AB-32—thanks Arnold) Reno built a battery facility for his Tesla subsidiary that I am sure was at a cost very little to Musk.

In total, Musk and his cronies have received north of 5 billion in subsidies and tax breaks over the past decade, a total that interestingly enough amounts to about half of Musk’s net worth. However that’s not even the most brazen thing Musk has done.

Danny DeVito in poster for 80’s movie Other People’s Money

Now Musk is playing in the political game. He donated over 3 million into a race for public utility commissioner in Arizona. He was the only donor. I’m sure he is getting his people on the commission to advance his SolarCity subsidiary. He can’t afford another fiasco for SolarCity like Nevada. Source: Nevada solar power collapse

My issue: he is doing this lobbying with money taken from the taxpayers. Musk is enriching himself while making the public responsible if he fails. Great gig, where do I sign up?

So why does the stock of Tesla keep going up if it is a Ponzi scheme? Easy answer, right now the words “disrupter” and “green” are buzzwords that are dominating the political and financial scene. Musk as I mentioned earlier is very gifted at promising investors and politicians that success is literally just beyond that corner or just over that horizon. Most all of these political and consultant types eat this stuff up; hence Musk is able to get a factory in Buffalo, New York for free, or a battery plant for next to nothing in Reno. Musk is the current poster child for the Liberal belief that government creates jobs.

Wait until Gavin Newsome gets elected in California, the money spigot may not shut off for 8 years! Chiefly my concern is this, while electric cars may be the rage and solar may be good for the environment, why are we continuing to allow the government pick and choose what type of business succeeds in this country? This is because the liberals are able to successfully convince other politicos in the room to vote their way every so often. The Left in this country have a vision; Obama tried it with Solyndra and Fisker. Liberals would love to see everyone driving a Tesla Model S and have rooftop solar everywhere thus eliminating utilities and pollution emissions. As long as Musk is able to continue buying himself more time and earning more subsidies he will eventually become too big to fail, think that is his end game?

When Enron, MCI, and World Com failed, investors and those affected said they wish they would have known sooner. This was their warning then and mine now, I personally would not touch this company with a 100 foot pole. If you need more proof go to your local Home Depot, watch the SolarCity rep chase customers around the store in a desperate attempt to sign-up new clients. Oh, and if you do sign on the dotted line, don’t forget, Musk gets all those government tax rebates for “going solar”, you just get a bill for the next 30 years to pay your solar lease because he owns the equipment on your roof. It may not save the planet, but it allows Musk to live another day off of taxpayers like you and me.

I’ll be back with another hit piece soon,

As In the Days of Noah

If you want to get a feel for how Noah felt while building the Ark, try being a Conservative in California.

The financial reality is that your unborn grandchildren are broke and this generation does not care.
As of a few years ago, the combined debt of California government (state, county, and local) was 1.4 trillion dollars. I think it’s really more but that number is what state officials will publicly admit.

Eleven California counties have more registered voters than voting age people and this generation does not care.

The letter noted that 11 California counties have more registered voters than voting-age citizens: Imperial (102%), Lassen (102%), Los Angeles (112%), Monterey (104%), San Diego (138%), San Francisco (114%), San Mateo (111%), Santa Cruz (109%), Solano (111%), Stanislaus (102%), and Yolo (110%). The letter also noted that Los Angeles County officials “informed us that the total number of registered voters now stands at a number that is a whopping 144% of the total number of resident citizens of voting age.”
Link to source

Second Amendment groups have issued a travel advisory to California because of the crazy laws here designed to deny people the right to self-defense. Bringing a weapon from outside the state is a felony in many instances.

Small businesses know better than to relocate to this State due to taxes and regulations.

Churches, private schools, and other religiously oriented groups are on the endangered species list here if they wish to adhere to biblically based values.

I could go on but… I think you can add many other things to my list which is fine but my point is this, nobody here cares. I try talking to people at work about various issues as they appear in the news and absolutely nothing penetrates. As long as their daily life goes on, it doesn’t matter. Talk about living in darkness.

God closed to door of the Ark seven days before it started raining. There is no record of anybody knocking on the door to see why or asking to be let in. Contrary to the recent Hollywood movie, I think the Bible is silent on this because that is exactly how it happened. Nobody cared until the rain fell on them. This is the sad future that you will live to see.

Back to Lumia 950 XL

My son wanted to get a Samsung fitness band like his mother has so this necessitated getting him an Android phone. Samsung doesn’t have PC software for their products so syncing with his computer was not an option. We looked at new phones but I finally decided that he could have my ASUS phone.

I really like the security of the finger print reader on the phone but since there is no NFC feature in the phone, there’s not much need for a locked phone other than “butt dialing” random apps while the phone is in my pocket—which happened anyway.

Also, I had read that Microsoft had finally started fixing the issues with Bluetooth and Garmin that had prevented my band from talking to the phone. My son and I gathered up the phones and headed to our local Cricket store to move the phone numbers around. By the way, Cricket is great, five lines for $120. The short version is that Cricket just swapped sim cards between phones and that is how we learned that the sim cards are really what is active and not the phone…imagine that.

On the Android phone, we didn’t have to do a factory reset to give the phone to my son. We added his Google account and removed mine. This allowed him to keep the apps that I purchased (one game) and all the configuration changes. Thus my fingerprint will still access the phone even though he changed the numeric password. Also, I had to delete my Outlook accounts and add his. The whole process was simple.

Now I found myself back on the Windows 10 Mobile platform. I guess if you’ve read this far thru my article you are wondering if I miss Android. No. Most of the apps in Android are nonsense. Every fast food place you go into has a sign to get our app. Well I got several of your apps. Universally, they want you to order food on the Internet and buy gift cards so they can be prepaid for the food that you buy.

I’m so glad to have Cortana back in all her glory and not the crippled version offered to Android. Now I can have text messages read to me and reply via voice while driving my car. I have Earthquake Watch and live tiles. It’s glorious.

Lastly, Dave Ramsey would be proud of me for not buying myself a new phone but sticking with what I already had. I’m glad to keep chipping away at those baby steps to financial freedom.

Who are the Rich?

Class warfare is a staple of the Democrat Party. They are constantly berating Republicans for being rich and claiming they are for the little guy. In my previous article I showed extensively the comments of a coworker that leans Left. He blames Republicans for being rich, greedy, and screwing the little guy. In his mind that is their only reason for existence. For people like him, “the rich” are often defined as anyone making a dollar more than you do. Envy and jealousy are biblical names for this particular sin.

After reading my blog post (08-02-2017) to my wife last night, she challenged me to research the rich and try to refute my coworker with facts.

My first thought is that followers of the Democrat Party are not persuaded by facts only emotions. However, I’m up to a challenge so I took a look at the subject.

As with everything else in our society, everything I found in my research was highly politicized to try to prove either that most rich are Republicans or most rich are Democrats. My first observations were these:
• Many “rich” play both sides of the political divide but typically lean heavily one way or another.
• The one figure that is cast in both camps depending on who you read is Oracle owner Larry Ellison.

Second, there are actually two types of “rich” in our society. In times past they were called the wealthy and the nouveau riche. For those from Rio Linda, perhaps a definition is in order before proceeding.

Nouveau riche (French: ‘new rich’) is a term, usually derogatory, to describe those whose wealth has been acquired within their own generation, rather than by familial inheritance.
Link: Definition Nouveau Riche

Before going further, let’s talk about wealth. Most people think in terms of payroll because that is how they get paid. They are more than happy to vote to tax the rich—especially here in California—but they are dupes. Yeah, they will be able to get taxes from some middle manager in Silicon Valley or aspiring actress in Hollywood but the CEO types? Never! You see, after a certain level, wealthy folks don’t get large paychecks. As a result, a 13 percent state income tax in California or a 39 percent federal income tax rate (combined tax rate of 52 %) don’t bother them. Wealthy folks have trusts, derivatives, municipal bonds, and other financial vehicles that aren’t available to folks like you or me. That’s why Warren Buffett can say that his secretary pays more in taxes than he does and get a standing ovation from the Democrat National Committee for making the comment. You see, his wealth isn’t from a payroll check—he is beyond the likes of such inefficient stuff. However, he is perfectly fine pitting the poor and middle classes against the nouveau riche ‘cause it’s no skin off his nose.

When you hear about the Forbes lists of wealth people, rest assured that you have left the lifestyle of the nouveau riche far behind. The top of the 2017 list by Forbes is dominated by Democrats even when you put Larry Ellison into R bucket. Guiding these folks are literally the best lawyers and accounting firms that money can buy.

Link: Usual suspects at the top of Forbes list of world’s richest billionaires

Beyond the Forbes list, I began to take a look at the broader group of wealthy and their political contributions and the subject was permeated with so much partisanship that it was impossible to make sense of the information. I found one list that said by grouping the rich by families that 75 percent were Republican and another list that claimed 75 percent were Democrat. Hard money, soft money, 527’s, surrogates, etc. it’s simply impossible to track it all down. Maybe the Sith Lord has time to try but the rest of us are too busy. Direct contributions are easy to identify—to a point—but after that the trail gets cold rapidly. Anybody that claims to be in full possession of the facts is blowing smoke. What you can say is that some folks on each side are more public than others about giving in certain areas be it politics or charities. We all know there are other ways of giving that keep your fingerprints off the contributions.

Additionally, since the days of Bill Clinton, money from other countries has been flowing into US politics but those receiving it find excuses not to keep track of it. We may have some idea of how much but not from where. The bottom line is if you have a will to give, there is a way that you can do so—the variable is the paper trail that you are willing to leave behind.

Clearly, Buffett and the Tech Kings are on top of the hill in terms of assets. They openly favor the Democrat brand and many of us on the Conservative side expect them to remake the party of Clinton and Obama in their image sooner rather than later. Maybe starting in 2020, stay tuned.