The Trump Phenomena

What to make of Donald Trump, that's the sixty four thousand dollar question! I am not sure anyone knows the answer, not even the Donald himself. There are, however, a few things we do know about this republican front runner. First, Trump has been a liberal his entire life. Basically, there isn't a handful of left wing politicians that he hasn't supported financially over the years. Can you imagine wanting the congenital liar Hillary Clinton and her philandering husband Bill anywhere near your wedding? I can't! My mother used to say that you can tell everything you needed to know about a person by the company they keep. Trump has been in bed with liberals for as long as anyone can remember. We conservatives should be mindful of that fact when we consider voting for this guy. A dog cannot change his spots and neither can Donald Trump!

We also know that Mr. Trump is one of the crudest creatures to enter the political scene in many moons, maybe forever. Is this a reflection of his showmanship, if so it seems to be working, or is it a evidence of his true nature. Either way it is offensive and unbecoming of a future president. I think we all should be able to agree on that. Donald Trump is an ego maniac of the highest order, the slightest criticism sets him off like a rocket to outer space. Anyone who has watched, even a few minutes of the debates, knows this. His responses to disapproval are immature and childish to the nth degree. You have to ask yourself, is this guy really presidential material? One could go on for a hundred pages describing Trump's many short coming, so why is he so far ahead in the republican primaries? Well, in the first place, The Donald isn't all that far ahead of the pack! It just seems so because there are so many Republican candidates this year. He has never surpassed 50 percent of the vote in any pole. His supporters believe, hope, that his numbers will rise as less popular candidates drop out of the race. Maybe so, but I doubt it. The real question at this point is, why has a buffoon like this gained so much support among the Republican base? Rush Limbaugh, and many other political pundits, have nailed this one squarely on the head. The conservative Republican base is "pissed-off," to put it mildly, at the republican establishment in Washington DC. The country has given them control of the house and, for the past 18 months, the senate and our Republican leadership does nothing but wring their hands and cry in their towels, all the while claiming that they are helpless captives of that spineless black mouse residing in the Pink House. You remember, the one who pontificated for 42 days before reluctantly deciding to take out Osama bin Laden. The one who went to bed early rather than face the fact that Americans were being slaughtered in our embassy in Benghazi; and the same one who claimed, the next day, that the massacre was the result of a video no one had ever seen, or even heard of. Yes, our fearless republican leadership does not have the balls to even take on a hapless witless wonder like Obama. That's what has the republican base so up set and ready to climb on the Trump band wagon, come hell or high water. Well, many but not all of us. But, I predict that reason will ultimately prevail. We conservatives have a number of, well at least two, rock-hard conservative candidates who will not compromise with liberal establishment in Washington DC. Let's hope we wake up and pick one of them. One that will not be afraid (yes afraid is the right word) to shut down the damned government, for as long as it takes, to change the direction of our floundering ship of state. Hopefully before we become Greece light.

Salvaging What Is Left Of America Step 5- Limiting Judicial Power.

Arguably, the most powerful man in the world is Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. With the other members of the court divided equally between four liberal and four, more or less, conservative justices, the important decisions rendered by the court usually are decided five to four with Kennedy invariably providing the swing vote. I have no problem with this situation since it reflects the fact that our nation is divided along similar conservative and liberal lines.

I do have a problem with the fact that un-elected Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life. It is also troublesome that, in recent years, the decisions of the court have the effect of making law rather than determining the constitutionality of the laws passed by the other two branches of government, which is their primary purpose under the constitution. First, let's address the issue of longevity. Every time Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg falls asleep at a court function you know there is something amiss with a system, any system, that appoints members of important governmental bodies for life. Can we at least agree on that? One of the best attributes of our system of governance is the fact that "if you don't like them, for any reason, you can throw the bums out at the next election," or at least attempt to do so. With the Supreme Court, and the federal courts for that matter, you are stuck with justices who were appointed by political operatives who, as often is the case, are long gone if not forgotten, while their appointees on the Court continue indefinitely to wreak havoc on our rights and freedoms as a nation. And, guess what, there is nothing we can do about it. Ginsburg will be sitting on the court until she dies of old age, or succumbs to alcoholism. Times change but the Court does not necessarily change with the times, that's a good thing! But it is a bad thing when human values that have not changed (for example, the countries view on late term abortion, gun laws, immigration policy and gay marriage), are altered by five to four decisions of a court that does not, as a whole, represent American values. Too often, today's courts decisions conform to the values of a political minority who march to the drum beat of political correctness and equal outcome. This was the case when Justice john Roberts, writing for the majority, determined that the provision in Obama Care which specifically limits subsidies to exchanges that were "established by a state" actually allowed subsidies in exchanges established by a state or the federal government. Robert's opinion, which is now law, basically rewrote Obama Care into something that the legislative body did not intend and, more importantly, could not have been passed in the House of Representatives. I have concentrated on Supreme Court Justices because these nine men and women ultimately determine what is lawful in our country and what is not. However, I object, with equal vigor, to the fact that all federal judges are appointed for life. This allowed Judge Alcee Hastings to literally get away with murder for years prior to his impeachment. The founders believed that life appointments for members of the federal judiciary would make them less likely to be influenced by outside factors. I would argue that the cons outweigh the pros on this important issue. Certainly, judges who have become senile while in office and those that are overtly corrupt, should not be allowed to serve until the grim-reaper decides that, enough is enough. As with most political problems I write about, the solution to our judicial problems are simple and straight forward. All federal judges should be appointed for a term of 12 years. When their term expires the sitting president would have the option to reappoint them for an additional 12 years and, with the approval of the House of Representatives (not the Senate) they could serve for a second 12 year term. After a second term they should be sent out to pasture where they can do no further harm.

Salvaging What Is Left Of America Step 4- Fixing our Schools

If you were to ask the average person on the street, he would say our schools are a mess. This is only partially true and reflects the fact that the press concentrates, for the most part, on statistics gathered from large inner city schools that attempt, unsuccessfully, to educate the intellectually challenged masses. For the most part, students attending schools in the suburbs are doing quite well, thank you. If your child is lucky enough to attend a private or a catholic school all the better. So, our problem is how do we educate the children of low IQ mothers who think education is a "white man's thing" and many of whom do not speak English. The first question to address, is just how much can they be educated? Anyone who has listened to an interview of a football star who graduated from some prestigious college knows that many black football players are illiterate, even after years of education. We also know that programs designed to level the playing field, such as school busing, affirmative action and head start, have been abject failures. The first thing to understand, then, is that all students cannot become college professors, doctors or lawyers. However, most, I believe, can be taught to read, write and do simple math. How do we improve the chances of this happening? The goal should be to remove the stumbling blocks that make it difficult for those who want to learn, to learn. We already feed and clothe them and most have a roof over their heads. However, when they reach the inner city classroom things begin to fall apart. The impediments to learning include rowdy students who disrespect the teachers and continually disrupt the classroom. These hoodlums should be removed from the classroom and kicked out of school. Today, in our insane upside down world, the school administrators are forced to do whatever is necessary to keep these miscreants in school. This nonsense must stop. Education should be considered a privilege not simply a way to keep low-life off the streets while padding the school's coffers. Another major hindrance to education are the non-English speaking students who are flooding our classrooms. Obviously, having children who do not speak English in our schools greatly impedes learning for the English speaking majority, especially if they are not all that bright to begin with. I do not believe we have any obligation to educate the children of illegal's (actually they should be deported) but if we are going to make an attempt to do so, it should be in separate classrooms. Under no circumstances should non-English speakers be allowed to interfere with the education of the English speaking population. Throwing out the hoodlums and providing separate facilities for the non-English speaking students are steps in the right direction, but we also must break up the monopoly that is public education, especially in the inner cities. The states, or the federal government for that matter, should not be financing K through 12 directly. Rather, the parents, or parent, should receive a stipend for each of their children which they can use finance their education in a school of their choice, whether it be the local public school down the street or a charter school across town. Schools which elect to participate in this system would be required to accept the stipend as full payment for the service they render. Private and charter schools would prosper under this system, while public schools would either shape up or go under. That's the way it should be. Now, what to do with the teachers unions? Public employee unions, of all types, are inherently evil and should be abolished. The Bart Union in the bay area is a prime example. Bart trains run themselves automatically, yet we pay Bart engineers $120,000 a year to do literally nothing. Bart janitors, on average, are paid $80,000 a year for pushing a broom. By the state of Bart's restrooms, not too often. Anyone who has attended a public school knows that many teachers are inept, yet if tenured they cannot be fired. As long as the teachers' unions, and other public employer unions, are allowed to provide financial support for the campaigns of the politicians who control the public work place, nothing will change. In this respect, the Supreme Court ruling that determined that financial contributions to political campaigns were a form of "free speech," was one of the worst decisions ever!

Nikki Haley Shoots Herself In Both Feet.

Nikki Haley Shoots Herself In Both Feet. Until her response to the Presidents latest State Of The Union Address, I knew very little about Nikki Haley. Her few appearances on the various news programs and talk shows lead me to conclude that she was a shining light in the Republican bullpen. I was looking forward to her response to the presidents self aggrandizing bull-shit last evening. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening!

Sitting there before the TV, with a glass of wine close at hand, I watched with increasing chagrin as a beautiful, seemingly intelligent, young republican women morphed into one of the ugliest rhinos on the face of the earth. It was a sickening sight to behold, let me tell you! If I closed my eyes I could almost imagine that shallow foreheaded Elizabeth Warren were giving the address. In any case, this simple minded soul was trying to tell us that we all, conservatives, independents and conservatives alike, were responsible for the ungodly mess that is Washington DC. She seems to have forgotten that not a single republican in the house or senate voted to dismantle our health care system, the greatest system of medical care the world has ever known! This mental midget seems not to know that no conservative republican wants to close Gitmo or return its occupants back to the Middle East where they can live to fight us another day. Along these lines, no republican on the face of the earth would have traded the traitorous deserter Bergdahl for five of the most dangerous war criminals in recent memory. Does this simple minded women really think that the conservative republican base wants to elect congressmen and senators, much less a president, who will go to Washington DC to get along with the demo-rats who are hell-bent on destroying what little is left of our once great American society? I think not! No, Nikki Haley represents everything we hate about the rhino Republican class of politicians who go to Washington to get along with the liberal ruling class and become very wealthy while doing so. A pox on both their houses! By the way, have you noticed the elation of the liberals in the drive-by media to Haley's speech? They were literally jumping with joy and beside themselves with political bliss. That should tell you everything you need to know about Nikki Haley!

Salvaging What Is Left Of America Step 3- Limiting The Right To Vote

Most , if not all, of the problems in America today may be traced back to the concept of voting rights, mainly the democratic principle that every citizen has the right to vote. Today, some go so far as to insist that everyone has the right to vote, whether they are citizens or not.

However, history tells us that all democracies are doomed to failure, always have been and always will be! Why, because, sooner or later, political leaders invariably figure out that they can stay in power indefinitely by buying the votes of the underclass. They accomplish this goal by giving the unemployed "things" they have not earned. It's really as simple as that. Where do these "things" come from. Throughout history the story has always been the same. The crafty politicians in a democracy always begin by redistributing the wealth of the nation. They tax the so-called rich and give their hard earned to the less fortunate. Sooner or later this system of redistribution fails because the rich simply do not have enough money to support the desires of the unproductive masses. At this point, the politicos, most of whom have become extremely wealthy while exercising their political might, switch gears and begin to borrow money to continue their vote buying shenanigans. Ultimately, the nation's debt exceeds any reasonable expectation that it ever could be paid off and the interest on the debt chews up a larger and larger percentage of the gross national product. The size of the national debt is one of the reasons that the Feds have kept the interest rates so low. In any case, at some point, the nation's credit reaches junk bond status; its money becomes worthless; and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. That's the history of democracies in a nut shell! What, if anything, can be done to save a country like ours that is on the brink of financial collapse? As with most of my suggestions, this one is simple and straight forward, but will be nearly impossible to achieve. If we are to survive as a viable nation we must eradicate the evil that is democracy. This, of course, will take a constitutional convention to change the one man one vote rule on which the nation was founded, not easy to do, in fact, I think impossible. Most likely, it will take a revolution to make the changes I envision. Thank God for all those guns out there! The premise is simple, not everyone should have the right to vote. To the contrary, only those who contribute to society should have this sacred privilege. The new rules would be relatively simple. If a person pays federal income taxes or is married to someone who pays federal taxes he, or she, would be allowed to vote in federal elections. Note, receiving an income tax credit does not qualify one to vote in presidential, senate or congressional elections. Only those who own property or pay state income taxes would be allowed to vote in state or local elections. I will leave it to the economists to determine just how much property one has to own to qualify under this standard. That's it! Pretty simple, don't you think? Discriminatory? You bet they are! It's about time we stop freeloaders from breaking the bank. This is the only way to accomplish this important goal and still remain a free nation. What about retired people who have worked hard their entire lives but now live on a fixed income; do not own property; and do not pay taxes, other than sales taxes which do not count. At the present time, retired people (I am one of them) make up one of the largest voting blocks in the country. The same rules should apply to them (us) as it does to everyone else. Unless they contribute something by paying taxes (income or property) they should not have a right to vote for politicians who will feather their nests at the expense of the workers whose labor keeps the country afloat. I think it is important to realize that once we start making exceptions to these straight forward simple voting requirements the jig is up. Everyone can think of reasons to exempt certain groups from the rules that limit the right to vote. If we go down this road, before long, we will be right back to the place we started from, a corrupt system of politicians who cater to the have-nots at the expense of the workers who finance the machinery of government. Making the changes in voting rights suggested will not solve all of our problems. Large unions, especially the teachers unions, which wheel inordinate political power, also are a threat to the nation's stability. A change in voting rights will have little or n effect on their monopoly of our all important educational system. I will address this important issue at another time.

Salvaging What Is Left Of America Step 2- Putting Americans Back To Work

First, let's get one thing straight, the real unemployment rate is not 5.1 percent as reported by the government. The U3 is fictitiously low because it excludes people who are employed part time, but would prefer a fulltime job, and doesn't count any one who has been looking for a job for longer than four weeks in its statistics. The real unemployment rate, the U6, which considers part time workers who would prefer a full time job as unemployed and counts everyone who is still seeking employment after being unemployed for over four weeks, is 9.9 percent. Statistics may be deceiving, but numbers don't lie. At this point in time, 9,000,000 able bodied Americans are unemployed and another 6,800,000 are underemployed. More importantly, there are 14,000,000 fewer people in the labor force than there were in 2007. So what can be done to put Americans back to work? We needn't concern ourselves with the educated elite, there are plenty of jobs for them (well, maybe not if they majored in African American Studies; women's studies; or cannabis cultivation at Oaksterdam University.) No, the problem we face is finding a way to employ the uneducated not to bright segment of our population who used to dig ditches and tamp railroad ties but now have been replaced by mechanical ditch diggers and railroad track layers. When all is said and done, we have two choices. We can continue to pay an ever increasing number of our citizens not to work or we can make jobs available to them that pay a living wage. First, how do we make the jobs available. We begin by bringing manufacturing jobs back to America. We should be making sneakers and Air-Jordan's in America, not buying them from companies who manufacture them in third world countries where workers are treated as near slaves. Today, almost everything we buy is labeled "Made in China" or some other deplorable place where the masses live in abject poverty and work for a few dollars a day. This must stop, and we stop it by increasing the import tariffs on everything from shoes to cigars and plastic toys. Everything! Along the same lines, we must pay a fair price for things that are made in America The cost of a head of lettuce springs immediately to mind. The cost of lettuce produced in California is about $3.00 a head. At present the worker who produces the lettuce is paid around $18,000 a year, not nearly enough to support a family. Guess what, if we paid an agricultural worked a wage of $50,000 to produce our lettuce, and all other production costs remained the same, the cost of that head of lettuce we buy at Walmart would only increase 50 cents to around $3.50 a head. The point of this tirade is this. We, as Americans, should be willing to pay a fair price for the things we buy based on the cost to produce them in the good old USA, not based on the cost to manufacture or grow them in some far off country where people live in abject poverty and work for almost nothing. A import tariff designed to level the playing field for Americas unskilled workers is the answer. Along these same lines, how much more would you have to pay for a pair sneakers if they were made in America rather than Bangladesh? The answer is, it doesn't make any difference, we should be willing to pay for whatever it costs to make them in the USA. Making jobs available for people with cognitive limitations will only solve half the problem. If jobs are available we must make sure able bodied males take them! Because of our generous welfare system (how many of the unemployed do not have a roof over their heads, a couple of flat screen TVs hanging on the wall, and a car or two parked on the street, not counting the ones up on blocks) many unemployed people do not believe it pays to work. Guess what, I agree with them! Others believe that manual labor of any kind is beneath them. I can't buy into that one. This attitude must change. When I was growing up in rural Humboldt County, any male who did not have a job was considered somewhat of a societal outcast. To put it another way, it was considered unmanly not to work. We must return to the days when people took responsibility for their own lives and the lives of their families and, if jobs are available we must compel people to take them. No, we won't put a gun to their heads and force them to work but, on the other hand, if they refuse to work we won't be sending them a fat welfare check and food stamps every month either! What do we do with the homeless? After all, they are part of the unemployed. First, we must understand that most of the homeless are mentally ill. When I was attending the USC Medical School in the early 1960s one of our rotations was to Norwalk State Mental Hospital. At that time it provided care for around 10,000 mentally ill people who were deemed, by the courts, to be incapable of caring for themselves. There were several other similar institutions in the state including the one in Napa. In those days the mentally ill were cared for by the state and not allowed to aimlessly wander the streets and live in abandoned houses or under bridges. This rational approach to the mentally ill changed when Ronald Reagan

was governor of California. The psychiatrists convinced Regan that, with the newer psychiatric medications then available, the vast majority of institutionalized mental patients could be managed as outpatients We all know how that worked out, don't we? In any case, a significant segment of the unemployed are mentally ill and it is unreasonable to think that they can be employed or, for that matter, care for themselves in an increasingly complex world. The answer is recognize that Regan's experiment was an abject failure and to re-institutionalize them. Can you imagine walking down the streets of San Francisco if they were free of feces, urine, garbage and the homeless? I don't know that I can. To summarize, we must determine who can work and who, because of physical or mental disability, cannot. Society has a moral obligation to care for those who are disabled for whatever reason. Society also has an obligation to provide employment for those who, through no fault of their own, do not have the mental capacity to compete in today's high-tech world. We accomplish this goal by bringing manufacturing jobs back to America; placing a stiff tariff on imported goods manufactured in third world countries; and paying a decent living wage to anyone willing to work. In my new world, those who refuse to work will not be sitting around all day watching TV, swigging beer and smoking weed, that's for sure!

Salvaging What Is Left Of America- Step 1

The mean IQ of Americans, as well those residing in other countries in the western world, has been falling about 1.5 to 2.0 points a generation since the Elizabethan era. This is a major problem because, as Herrnstein and Murray point out in their masterpiece The Bell Curve, most of societies' social problems (crime, illegitimacy, poverty, etc.) are concentrated in people with below average intelligence. In today's high-tech world it also is becoming increasingly difficult for intellectually challenged people to make a decent living. Thus, the first, and most important step in righting Americas floundering ship of state is to take steps to increase the average IQs of its people. For the past 50 or so years our public policies have had the opposite effect. In this respect, paying low IQ single welfare mothers to have children was a colossal step in the wrong direction. Our loose border policies which allow hordes of low IQ immigrants from Mexico and South America to enter the county and dilute our intellectual capacity has been equally disastrous. So what can be done about it? Well, actually, quite a lot. First, we must reverse course. Rather than paying single welfare mothers to have children we should be paying them not to have children. I suggest we begin by providing a cash award (bribe if you will) of $5000 to every unmarried welfare mother who will agree to have a Norplant injection. This foolproof method of birth control will prevent her from becoming pregnant for five years. At the end of the five year period, she could agree to have a second Norplant injection and receive a second $5000 award, let's call it a good citizenship award. Prospective single welfare mothers could continue in the program as long as they were in their child bearing years. Note, this proposed policy change is completely voluntary and, most importantly, race neutral. Any women can apply as long as she is on welfare of any kind. Furthermore, if after five years the welfare mother chooses to have more children she can simply stop taking the Norplant injections. We might even consider expanding the program to include women on welfare who have never had a child married or not. The next step is easy, we just build the dammed fence! If we are to have any chance of increasing the mean IQ of our nation we must stop the illegal immigration of low IQ immigrants from Mexico and South America. Just how hard would it be to build an impregnable fence that would stop illegal immigration in its tracks? Not half as difficult as putting men on the moon and bringing them back, I would think. At the same time we should be encouraging the immigration of educated people from other countries in the civilized world. "You educate um and we'll take um" should be our motto. The main thrust of our immigration policy should be to encourage those who can immediately contribute something to come to America We should not be taking in people who will become an economic burden the minute they set foot on our shores, even if they have family ties to people already living in America. If they have the skills to survive economically in our society they can come, if not they stay home wherever that might be. Education is the key, if an immigrant is educated he most likely will be reasonably smart and an asset, if not he or she most likely will be a drain on society. In days long past we needed people who could build railroads and settle land, today we need people who are computer literate and have high tech skills, it's really as simple as that. By the way, we do not owe any foreigner anything, much less a free ride. We also need to encourage educated women of all races to have more children. With respect to whites, or any other race for that matter, each women, on average, must have 2.2 children for the race just to stay even generation to generation. The birthrate of white women is now only 1.7, while the birthrate of lower IQ black and Latino women is two to three times higher. We must reverse this statistic if we are to have any chance of increasing the nation's mean IQ. This is easier said than done. In fact, it may be impossible to induce smart professional women to have more children. We might initiate policies (extended maternity leave, tax incentives

, enhanced affordable day care, etc.) that will reduce the burden of child bearing and rearing for educated working mothers of all races. It's hard to raise a family if you are working 60 hours a week as an executive at General Motors and we should take steps to lessen this burden. But, as I said, of all my suggestions, this one will be the hardest to achieve; nonetheless we should try. Finally, we need to overturn the anchor baby law that immediately grants citizenship to anyone who is born here. Granted, anchor babies are a small part of the problem, but the fact that we still have such a ridiculous statute on the books is a glaring example of the innate stupidity of our political leaders. None of these suggestions, except the one to increase the birthrate of smart women, would be difficult to implement and, most importantly, they would be cost effective. At first glance, it may seem costly to pay a single women on welfare $5000 to take a Norplant injection. But, if left to her own devices, a low IQ welfare mother could easy have three to five children in five years, the majority of whom would also be of low intelligence and end up on welfare or in prison. Remember, it costs an average of $47,000 to house an inmate for one year in a California correctional facility. This, of course, does not include the human suffering caused by the criminal before he was incarcerated. Considering the human and economic costs of criminality, paying a welfare mother a few thousand dollars every five years not to have children, is chicken feed. As to building the fence, it would, of course, be costly. But considering the welfare, medical and educational costs we now expend on Mexican and South American illegal's, and the price we pay for their criminality, it would be cheap at twice the cost to build a fence that would keep them out in the first place. We really have no choice, we have to build the fence, and the sooner the better. Politicians on both sides of the isle will scream and holler because the liberals see the illegal's as future democrat voters and the conservatives see them as a source of cheap labor. A pox on both their houses! We should through the bastards ( politicians) out and get on with building the damned fence! In the next blog I will address the issue of joblessness.