Anger over his arrest blurred perception

This long, thoughtful piece by a former military officer with a good education, published in National Review, could have been helpful. Instead, it merely adds to the problem.

For all his education, Johnson forgot one simple rule: put yourself in the other fellow’s shoes.

His conclusion that there is widespread racism in the police ranks is based on his own arrest.

He has black skin. He was pulled over. He was questioned, handcuffed and jailed.

No one likes being jailed. But let’s look at the details.

One important detail he left out was the location. Was it in a high crime area where many crimes had been committed by black people?

As one officer noted, their suspicions were increased by the fact he was smoking a cigar. Smoking “blunts” – cigars containing marijuana – is common, and illegal.

So officers were doing pro-active policing. When they see someone black, in an area frequented by black criminals, doing what black criminals often do, they use a legal means to stop him and check him out. There is no reason for the police to stop and question an 80-year-old Asian woman driving to the grocery in broad daylight in a suburban neighborhood with a low crime rate.

Unfair? Perhaps. Except that he would have been sent on his way if he had a valid driver’s license.

The alternative then was this: police could ignore all suspicious activity, or possibly just suspicious activity by black citizens, and not arrest people for violating the law, if they are black.

Does that seem reasonable?

For all its length, most of which dwells on slavery without ever making a connection with today’s events, Johnson’s article is remarkably short on solutions.

Stop and question no one? Stop and question only white people? Arrest no one for failing to have a driver’s license. Do not arrest them if they “forgot”?

If the cops making the stop have the same color skin is that racist?

Johnson was placed in handcuffs because that is standard policy, for the protection of officers.

All you have to do is watch the Cops reality TV show, before it was banned, or countless YouTube videos showing citizens, black and white, attacking police officers while being arrested, and sometimes killing them.

Another thing you will see on those videos is black drivers refusing to comply with legal orders to provide a driver’s license, proof of insurance or other information. They have been told, overtly or covertly, since birth that they are oppressed and the police are their enemy.

So they choose to argue or fight rather than help the officers do their duty.

There is a lot of data about deaths during interactions with the police. But one important data point does not seem to be readily available: How many citizens have been injured or killed while NOT resisting arrest?

Statistics list “unarmed” deaths, but that term isn’t really relevant when the unarmed person is large, powerful, fighting violently and trying to take the officer’s weapon, as in the Ferguson case, which still is shrouded in myth.

In a study published last year, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 89 percent of 211 people killed by the police were armed, and 83 percent were physically assaulting the officers or someone else.

In rare instances a police mistake results in a death, as in the George Floyd case. In that case, there was almost instant justice. Cops were fired and arrested.

Johnson has the background and education to understand, if he could put aside his own bias and look at the crime problem through the viewpoint of those trying to protect him and others.

Many police agencies invite citizens to ride with officers. It can be eye-opening for those willing to open their eyes.

Liberals lie, often in what they think are clever ways

The intellectual dishonesty of liberals is well known, but still can be stunning.

Take, for example, a 2016 study of police violence.It was done by the Center for Policing Equity, a far left organization.

Both the summary and conclusion hemmed and hawed about irrelevant points, trying to suggest that police engage in wholesale violence against black Americans, an important Democrat voting bloc.

In neither the summary nor conclusion did it mention the most salient fact in the study, which was buried on the 19th page of the 29-page report.

Police are 42 percent less likely to use lethal force when arresting black people than when arresting whites.

(Hat tip to the Web site JustFacts for noticing the discrepancy.)

But there's more.

The dishonest liberal "study" also buried this: "...significant attention should be paid to additional situational factors in attempting to quantify and explain racial disparities in use of force. For instance, might racial disparities in the tendency to resist, flee, or disrespect officers be implicated in the observed differences?"

"Might"?

This is a sneaky, backhanded way of ducking the essential point:If you don't resist arrest, the chances of surviving an encounter with the police are virtually 100 percent!

Almost every cause celebre of the left has been a case where a black suspect resisted arrest by the police. Cases involving white suspects generally are ignored.What is the harm in complying with a lawful police order?

If you watch the popular reality show Cops you will see any number of people who want to try the case on the streets, rather than in the courts, by arguing rather than complying.

If is far easier, and safer, to follow orders, seek legal assistance and fight the charge in court, and also seek redress for the manner in which the case was handled if necessary.

But liberal schools and the media have hammered the notion into the minds of black Americans that they are oppressed and exploited and therefore have no responsibility to obey police commands.

What I'd like to see in the meantime, is an honest study that looks at cases where suspects are injured or killed and determines how many of them failed to comply or resisted.

Wikipedia is not a good source for political information

There may be no better example of Wikipedia’s leftward tilt than its entries on two of America’s First Ladies.

The entry on Michelle Obama is so glowing it might be likened to the nomination of Mother Theresa for sainthood.

But the entry on Melanie Trump is more aptly compared to a story from Confidential magazine -- a product of the 1950s that is considered the prototype for scandal, gossip and expose’ journalism.

Michelle Obama never produced or accomplished anything of note, but she wed a community organizer who went into politics, got rich and rode the PC movement into the White House.

Despite her lack of accomplishment, Obama was not known for her humility. "I have been at every powerful table you can think of...They are not that smart," Obama once told Newsweek.

However, author Dinesh D’Souza has described Michelle Obama’s college thesis at Princeton University as “illiterate and incoherent.”

The late author Christopher Hitchens said of Mrs. Obama’s thesis:

“The only thing you can definitely tell from the attempt to read it, because I maintain it cannot actually be read, it’s a degradation of the act of reading, is that she favors, or views with favor, black separatism, or as she calls it, separationism.”

“You should be able to be fluent, witty, self-deprecating, insightful, amusing, personal,” Hitchens said. “Not a bit of it. It’s a trudge. It’s a hateful, lugubrious, boring, resentment-filled screed written in some very bad form of sociologies.”

But Michelle Obama, who is of African descent, got a degree then parlayed that into lucrative, high-paying positions before meeting the very ambitious Barack Obama.

The two entries are done with some subtlety but you can’t miss the differences.

The article on Obama is more than twice as long as the one on Melania Trump. It reads like a month by month account of her life, with a wealth of trivia.

In passing, the article mentions the comment by Obama that infuriated millions of Americans. She said she was “proud of her country for the first time” when it elected her husband, but Wikipedia brushes it off by saying it was “seen as a gaffe.”

At times it borders on the grotesque: “Obama has been compared to Jacqueline Kennedy,” it says, as if the Obama reign was Camelot 2.0.

The gushing, fawning Wikipedia article on Obama stands in stark contrast to its treatment of the lovely, effeminate Melania.

Trump is not described as a beautiful, accomplished woman who speaks five languages, but more as an opportunistic harlot, which is how she often is described by Trump haters.

Like many supermodels, she posed nude on occasion. Wikipedia dwells on this, essentially depicting the common practice as pornography.

It takes care to mention that her father belonged to the League of Communists in Slovenia, where she was born. Also, that she dropped out of college.

It quotes a snarky piece from the Trump-hating Washington Post questioning her citizenship, which she obtained in 2006, a year after she married Donald Trump.

It goes on to accuse her of plagiarism, but grudgingly notes that she was a defamation suit against the tabloid Daily Mail, (offering a chance to rehash the defamation). It also regurgitates the liberal media complaint that she spends too much on travel, comparing it to the cost of Michelle Obama’s travel. (But in doing so it compare’s Obama’s “solo travel,” apparently ignoring her frequent lavish junkets with a huge entourage of friends and family).

One curious passage: “During the 2020 State of the Union Address, President Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh, who was sitting right beside Melania in the gallery and she presented the medal to him.”

What has all that to do with an article about Melania Trump? One with a suspicious mind might think the only point of the paragraph was to get the name “Rush Limbaugh” into the article, because it is a trigger for liberals.

Wikipedia might be useful for detail on the migratory habits of Canadian geese but when it ventures into politics it should be read, not with a grain, but a hefty helping of salt.

Silver linings, and such

"Sweet are the uses of adversity...."
Shakespeare's words are a good reminder that terrible events can have beneficial consequences.
The worst plague to befall humanity was the Black Death of the 14th century.
No one really knows but it probably wiped out one-fourth to one-half the population of Europe.
Then what happened?
Wealth -- especially land -- fell into the hands of fewer people. Wages and productivity rose. (At different rates in different places, but overall and fairly swiftly.)
The old feudal system began to collapse. The Renaissance got under way. Science, especially medical science, began to make great strides.
Everyone hopes the current pandemic will not prove to be as catastrophic and the economic prospects look terrible at the moment with businesses failing and rising unemployment.
But perhaps, when it is over, there will be benefits for the survivors that we cannot yet calculate.

Another day of hate for liberals

Today is the day liberals devote to their annual distortion of world history by trashing the great explorer Christopher Columbus.

Columbus was long venerated for finding a viable route to this continent that led to sustained visitations and then colonization.

So it was inevitable that when liberals turned against America they extended their hate to all of Western Civilization, which had given birth to capitalism – the greatest economic system ever devised and an enemy of the socialism that liberals prefer.

Liberal historians spent decades revising history and teaching American students the fiction that rather than opening a New World, Columbus destroyed an ancient civilization that was a utopian dream.

It is all bunk, but there are those who take it seriously.

Although the life of Columbus is not well documented, he was an Italian who had acquired great skills in navigation and believed he could find a route sailing east from Europe to China. He did not prove the world was not flat because most educated people of the time knew it is a sphere but they had not been able to calculate its circumference.

Trade and gold were among his goals, along with spreading Christianity. These all indicated he was evil, according to liberals.

They also deplored his treatment of the people already living in the areas he visited, although he used standard tactics of people in the 15^th century.

But all the twisting of fact cannot change what Columbus accomplished and the impact it had on history.

Happy Columbus Day.

Brave New World

The Green New Deal is the logical successor to the New Deal and the Great Society.
Those two epic failures promoted even grander visions of the Utopian world liberal always promise but never deliver.
Here it is in its entirety:

This resolution calls for the creation of a Green New Deal with the goals of

• achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions;
• establishing millions of high-wage jobs and ensuring economic security for all;
• investing in infrastructure and industry;
• securing clean air and water, climate and community resiliency, healthy food, access to nature, and a sustainable environment for all; and
• promoting justice and equality.

The resolution calls for accomplishment of these goals through a 10-year national mobilization effort. The resolution also enumerates the goals and projects of the mobilization effort, including

• building smart power grids (i.e., power grids that enable customers to reduce their power use during peak demand periods);
• upgrading all existing buildings and constructing new buildings to achieve maximum energy and water efficiency;
• removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation and agricultural sectors;
• cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites;
• ensuring businesspersons are free from unfair competition; and
• providing higher education, high-quality health care, and affordable, safe, and adequate housing to all

Here's what it promises:

Everyone will have everything he needs and wants.

There will be no crime because there will be no need for crime. We will have justice and equality instead.

Millions of high wage jobs will be created magically by the government, for those who want to work.

Blight, pollution and ugliness will be eliminated (as it has in Detroit).

Taxes to pay for all this will be astronomical, probably even unachievable. Yet, somehow only "the rich" will pay taxes. How anyone would become rich or why they would want to is not detailed.

It is all mind-boggling, but perhaps none more than the assertion that "businesspersons are free from unfair competition." What on Earth could that possibly mean? The government will choose winners and shoot their competitors?

The New Deal prolonged the depression, which in itself was created by government. The Great Society consigned generations of people to perpetual poverty and set the stage for today's immigration crisis.

Any more help from the government and we are doomed.

The "trickle-down" putdown is bogus

In 1921, when the tax rate on people making over $100,000 a year was 73 percent, the federal government collected a little over $700 million in income taxes, of which 30 percent was paid by those making over $100,000.
By 1929, after a series of tax rate reductions had cut the tax rate to 24 percent on those making over $100,000, the federal government collected more than a billion dollars in income taxes, of which 65 percent was collected from those making over $100,000.
This disturbed big-government liberals who loved raising taxes. They began mocking the idea of cutting taxes as "trickle-down economics," meaning that tax relief for the wealthy who pay taxes was supposed to trickle down to the less wealthy.
It made no sense, and no one proposing tax relief ever made such a claim, but liberals adopted it and have repeated it ever since, in the mindless way they repeat nonsense that appeals to unthinking people.

They tried it when Ronald Reagan got Congress to reduce tax levels in the 1980s. It had the same effect then, just as it had when the Democrats cut taxes under Johnson, fulfilling a proposal by the late President Kennedy.

When people are allowed to keep more of their own money they don't stuff it under the mattress. They invest it, which creates jobs and wealth. Everyone benefits.

Liberals would spend every dime you earn if you let them, because they fancy that they know better than you how best to use the money.

Now for something different

Everyone is tired of politics, a mean, nasty sport based on destroying the other person's good name.
How about something uplifting for a change?
Abba!
This greatest of all pop groups is going to sing again, in December on NBC.
While it will be their voices, in a new tune not previously recorded, they won't actually sing it in person. They will be "digitally represented" in avatars, holograms or some such techie thing.
But it is the music that matters.
It is extremely difficult for a small group in a small country to become an international sensation. But that is what Abba did in the 1970s. With masterful productions they took Europe by storm, beginning with "Dancing Queen."
That was their only song to reach the top in America and they made only one limited appearance here, for various reasons. Had they focused more on the American market I have no doubt they would be even more renowned today.
What sealed their place in music history was the Australian tour. That country Down Under went completely over the top for the group, with sold out appearances at every stop.
Also, in this century a stage production and movie called "Momma Mia" rekindled the admiration for Abba. I saw Momma Mia onstage in London and it was tremendous.
The music comes from the minds of Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus and is delivered, mostly, by the incredible singers Frida Lingstad and Agnetha Foltskog. Music experts say the music is complex and the singers are exceptional.
All I know is I could listen to it every day. And I do.

Bashing old foes

If you are a good reporter or opinion writer, you can write a perfectly accurate story or column and yet not quite tell the truth.
Bill Cotterell is a veteran reporter of 50 years and may know more about Florida government than anyone.
In this piece he writes about money, lobbyists and influence. It is well written and I would not take issue with anything he writes.
Yet.
He is deploring two of the liberal media's favorite targets, money and lobbyists.
Liberals don't like people who support (conservative) politicians financially so they constantly decry such support. Hillary Clinton outspent Donald Trump 2-to-1 and still lost, but it didn't damage the narrative that those with the most money win.
They also hammer lobbyists. In his column Cotterell's main point is that some politician claimed he listened only to lobbyists who contributed to him.
That could be defended by noting that politicians are always pressed for time, and hearing first from those who support you would make sense.
But, aside from that, it doesn't make sense. To prevail in debate on an issue, you have to know both sides. Not to mention that you should know both sides before choosing one to support. Maybe politicians choose a side and then listen to lobbyists who can supply good talking points.
As a reporter, I always wanted to know both sides so I relied on lobbyists as well as legislative staff members. A good lobbyist won't lie, but he will leave out points his counterpart will supply.
Readers must always remember that the media considers lobbyists to be rivals. The media wants to be the sole source of information to politicians and voters. It doesn't like competition.
If a politician from one party listens only to lobbyists who support him, guess what? Politicians from the other party listen only to the lobbyists who support them! Then they argue it out in debate. It's called democracy.

Criticize reality, not myths

It is amazing how many people have bought into the silly notion that politicians are “stealing” Social Security funds.

It is all over social media how the money has been looted from the so-called trust fund.

As the lady on the TV commercial said, “That’s not how any of this works!”

It is a testament to how the government misrepresented the program from the start.

Today, you can go to a government site and find an accurate history of the program.

However, millions of people still believe the money taken from their paycheck is put into a special account in their names in Washington, where it gains interest and is repaid to them upon retirement.

In fact, workers pay a payroll tax. It is immediately doled out to retired people. When those workers retire, people still working will share their paychecks with them based on the retiree’s work history. (We’re setting aside the disability, Medicare and SSI portions for now. Those are other sad stories.)

But.

The system began running a cash deficit eight years ago. In about 12 years, the IOUs in the trust fund will be repaid from the general fund and something will have to change. Either benefits will have to be reduced or the payroll tax will have to soar. The children and grandchildren of today’s workers will be soaked.

It sounded wonderful when proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, as one of his New Deal policies.

Indeed, as with Ponzi schemes, it was great – for those in first. The first retiree had paid $24.75. She got $22,888.92 back (by living to 100).

But there were a couple of catches.

One is that even FDR admitted it was never intended to be anyone’s sole source of post-retirement income. In other words, people who counted on it would be foolish not to invest their own money.

(This after FDR had poisoned the idea of banking, saving and investing in “evil” corporations.)

In addition, the official government retirement age was set at approximately the median age of life expectancy. The government fully expected half the population to pay into the system but never receive anything.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Utopia. People began living much longer, and politicians found out you could hand out benefits, get votes in return and it wouldn’t cost them a dime.

Over the years, the system was played with, taking it “off-budget” and “on-budget,” neither of which has much meaning. The trust fund is an accounting mechanism.

Then because of demographics, the system created surpluses – more money than was needed to pay retirees.

So, the politicians spent it.

A lot of people moan and groan about this, but what else should they have done? Invest it? Do anyone really want politicians playing the stock market with trillions of dollars?

The alternative, since they were going to spend money anyway, would have been to borrow it or raise taxes. There is no free lunch.

The money was replaced with IOUs, totaling some $2.6 trillion.

It is being repaid with interest. But it is only taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other.

Watch their hands, not their mouths.

In their most recent report, trustees of the fund warn: “Lawmakers should address these financial challenges as soon as possible.”

Neither party is doing anything about a looming crisis, following the first rule of Washington: When a crisis looms, kick the can down the road and let someone else take the heat.

Kill the goose?

Once again, as it has periodically for the past 50 years, the idea of selling the JEA is up for discussion.
I have no dog in the fight. If it is worth $2 billion and some private utility wanted to pay $5 billion for it, we should listen. (The city calculated the value of the JEA to a private utility at around $1.2 billion as of late 2011.)
But the idea that any amount would be a great windfall we could use to hire policemen or pay schoolteachers more money is fanciful.
The electric utility is an asset. It produces income -- a lot of it. That money is used "in lieu of taxes," which means property taxes would have to soar if it were not there.
It is controlled by an independent authority and run, in theory, like a business. Politicians appoint the authority members.
But when you sell a revenue-producing asset, you forfeit the future revenue it produces.
If a private company owned the utility it would pay property taxes and franchise fees, and federal income taxes.
For years, the City Council had an annual argument over how much money it would squeeze from the electric utility -- commonly called the "goose with the golden eggs."
The amount generally was set to represent what a private utility would pay, plus.
That was ended some years ago by an agreement to take a fixed percentage of the gross.
If a private company ran the utility, it would set rates approved by the state Public Utilities Commission, one level removed from local control. JEA has for years had some of the lowest rates in Florida.
The JEA has considerable debt. Any revenue from the sale would have to pay that, either up front or over the future years.
Jacksonville would lose a revenue stream of some amount, forever, and lose local control of rates and regulation.
The JEA has lower debt costs because it issues tax-exempt bonds. A private utility's customers would pay more to borrow. They also would pay more in property taxes because they would pay school taxes.
In short, there are a lot of factors. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Truth is elusive

It is time for a review of media history.
Sharyl Attkinson, University of Florida grad and former CBS reporter, has written two best-selling books on liberal bias in the media.
She is right but it is not a new phenomenon.
In colonial America, when newspapers began to be printed, they usually were unabashedly partisan.
However, that was not necessarily bad because the remedy was easy.
Another partisan could easily begin publishing his own paper even in a small town and they could fight it out in the marketplace of ideas.
By the mid-20th century, however, publishing had become expensive. It wasn't always easy and large newspaper chains often drove out competition in smaller venues.
After the war, the government set up a special blue-ribbon commission to look at the media.
It found bias but did not recommend government controls.
What it did recommend was a clear line between opinion and news reporting and all the media pledged to follow that way of operating.
As usual, it was almost moot by the time the government examined the problem. Television was on the rise and news reporting with it, although at first TV shied away from opinion. Still, the competition helped keep newspapers more honest.
Inevitably, opinion began to creep in, and then cross the line into reporting.
By this century, as Attkinson and many others have noted, it was difficult to tell the difference between and editorial and a news story. Even readers often lost the ability to distinguish fact from opinion.
At the paper where I worked I often likened my job to the guy with the shovel who followed the elephants in a circus parade.
We wrote editorials to correct news stories that were little more than editorials. One reporter was fired as the result of one clearly biased story. (I would have fired the editor, not the reporter.)
But this century also brought in amateur journalism, via social media. Sloppy, undisciplined, where an error or an outright lie can be posted as easily as the truth. It isn't pretty, but it has turned out to be one way of keeping the liberal media accountable.
I don't know what the next innovation will be but it almost certainly will be better than government control as a means of getting to the truth.

Libs are poised to vent

Prepare for the annual outpouring of hatred against a man who was behind one of the most important events in world history.

Since the 500th anniversary of his epic achievement, it has become an annual event to vent upon Christopher Columbus.

This is strictly a liberal thing. Liberals hate America and, by extension, Western Civilization.

The voyages of Columbus brought Western civilization to the Western Hemisphere, along with religion and capitalism, which libs also hate.

They mock his achievement with the irrelevant information that other people had occasionally visited the North American continent. But, worse, they accuse him of crimes, rather than celebrating what his vision produced.

The manufactured charge is that he conducted genocide against people already living in what are now North and South America.

People making the charge are illiterates who know little about history or, indeed, the English language.

Merriam-Webster defines genocide as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.

After 1492, the Siberian-Americans encountered by Europeans caught diseases they were not accustomed to, and many died. (Probably not nearly as many as claimed.)

It was not a deliberate act. This is common when cultures clash and intermingle for the first time.

Furthermore, it works both ways. The Europeans contracted yellow fever and other diseases and also died.

Both sides also benefited by obtaining new customs, plants and animals. Europeans introduced the horse to the Americas, meaning the Stone Age inhabitants no longer had to walk everywhere they went.

The idea that they despoiled a civilization of peace-loving, gentle people who were at one with nature is just plain silly.

Indians fought constantly with each other, owned slaves and ravaged the land by destructive agriculture.

The noble Aztecs regularly offered human sacrifices, ripping out the hearts of still living children and adults, cutting the bodies into parts and throwing them down the steps of their temples for the crowds to collect and eat.

This is not to condemn them. They acted like people in their culture acted in the 15th century, just as Europeans did.

Only liberal fools would expect people of that time to conduct themselves the way civilized people of the 21st century do.

The voyages of Columbus opened half the world to exploration and development. Subsequent events brought about a nation that has done more good for more people than any other in history.

But because that nation has resisted efforts to turn it into the Utopia socialists claim they can produce, the nation and its founder are hated viscerally by those anti-Americans.

Stop the nonsense!

I've had it with the lame liberal argument that vouchers are bad because they take money away from the government schools.
Not true and it would be irrelevant if it were.
All vouchers do in Florida and most other states is afford low-income minority families the same educational opportunities that more affluent families have. Period.
Most families can take their children out of failing government schools where they are not getting an education and send them to private schools.
In fact, one out of every five government schoolteachers choose this option for their own children.
Vouchers go to low-income students in failing schools who are being cheated out of an education.
In most cases, struggling parents have to pay extra because the voucher does not pay the full cost, but they are willing to do so.
Is this money "taken away" from the school the child leaves?
No.
Schools are paid a certain amount per child. So every child remaining in the school still would be funded.
Here's another crucial point the greedy union bosses want you to overlook.
Everyone pays for government schools, whether they have a child in them or not. This includes people who also are paying for their child to attend a private school.
Because vouchers are for less than the cost of the child attending a government schools, this is a benefit to taxpayers.
In short, vouchers are a winning proposition for everyone. Liberals should stop lying about them and start helping poor children get an education.

The Russian connection

Although it is a threat to the republic, the "Russian collusion" fantasy that libs currently are embracing has its humorous aspects.
Early in the New Deal, a delegation of President Roosevelt's vaunted Brain Trust went to Europe. They wanted to visit with Mussolini, whom they admired. He was busy and they went on to their main destination -- Russia.
They were mightily impressed with the work of Josef Stalin, the Russian Communist dictator who had murdered millions of Russia's citizens.
In their eyes, he had made the economy of his nation thrive.
When they returned, they urged Roosevelt to emulate the methods of Stalin and Mussolini. At first, Hitler impressed them, too, but eventually they decided his methods might be a bit excessive.
Roosevelt, a novice who had never earned a profit in the business his wealthy family left him, went on to try one heavy-handed scheme after another to combat the depression. Often the methods were at odds with one another: food was destroyed while people were queuing up in breadlines. Wages were kept high while millions were unemployed.
But the effects of the trade protectionism and poor monetary policy could not be overcome with the Russian-style command and control methods. In 1937, a second Depression occurred and the economy remained in the doldrums until the war brought employment and the victory brought about recovery. In the meantime, Roosevelt had abandoned many of his wacky schemes and the courts had eliminated others.
It is all set out in The Forgotten Man by Amity Schlaes. I've read a number of books about the New Deal. This is the best, being the most well researched and even handed.
There is no Russian collusion today. There was in the 1930s and it was brought about by a politician that liberals have elevated to sainthood.

More for the asking

In refusing to attend the inauguration of Donald Trump, Democrats were merely following the tradition of their patron saint, Sir Thomas More.
More invented "Utopia," the mythical, and unattainable, state that they strive to bring about in America.
More was in good with the king until he refused to attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn as queen.
Sadly to say, Henry VIII had More beheaded for the snub. (He later had Anne's head removed, too. Henry had a thing.)
Not saying American Democrats should undergo the same remedy, but it would be worth examining the utopian idea.
The Soviet Union, by the way, honored More for his novel since it essentially was communism -- although communism turned out to be the very antithesis of the ideal life of the citizens of More's Utopia.
(Utopia is a word derived from the Greek term for "no place.")
Everyone in Utopia is a farmer. The food they grow is stored and anyone can help himself from the supply. They had free hospitals, making it apparent why liberals are drawn to this fancy.
But they also had slavery, which might be a bit awkward for Democrats.
On the other hand it is ideal in one respect: there are no lawyers.
Wives are required to confess their sins to their husbands monthly and euthanasia is practiced, again a mixed blessing for liberals.
Private property did not exist and everyone got a free basic income, which leads us back to liberal Democrats.
Once again they are pushing a "universal basic income." Mental midget Robert Reich is for it, as are politicians in France.
Enjoy your trip on the Road to Utopia.

Why not America First?

Libs like to manipulate the language. Currently, they are trying to do so as part of their never-ending effort to smear and misrepresent the president.
President Trump has declared he would put America first.
Immediately, libs linked that to the isolationist movement in America before World War II began.
But that movement began at Yale University -- hardly a hotbed of conservatism.
Also, other allies in the isolationist or “non-interventionist” cause included American Socialist party leader Norman Thomas, liberal journalist Oswald Garrison Villard, and such progressive icons Charles Beard, John Dewey, Joseph Kennedy, Bernard Baruch, and Progressive party hero Robert La Follette, according to Jonah Goldberg.
Trump made it clear that he is not advocating non-involvement in world affairs although, strangely enough, he would be on the same page as the libs, who don't want the American military used anywhere for any reason.
He is saying that when it comes to immigration policy, economic policy, or anything else, he is going to consider what is best for the American people first, and only then how it might affect other nations, such as Mexico.
He is going to ban, at least temporarily, immigration from terrorist nations such as Syria and Iran.
Makes sense to me.
At one time a company called Sandia had a program that involved inviting people from all over the world, including those nations, to come to America, tour our nuclear facilities and learn how the security systems worked there. This always seemed insane to me and I pointed it out to one U.S. senator, who promised to look into it but did nothing.
Putting Americans first does not seem to me to be the wrong thing for the president of America to do.

What he leaves behind

Barack Obama became president because of the color of his skin. From the start, observant people were unconcerned about his race but suspect of his intentions, because of his background.

The tipoff was when he announced that he intended to “fundamentally transform” the United States. Why, people asked immediately, would anyone seek to fundamentally transform the greatest nation in history, one that has done more good for more people than any other, ever?

Dinesh D’Souza provided in the answer in his best selling book The Roots of Obama’s Rage, which was made into a movie. As in the Soviet Union, D’Souza’s actions put him in prison.

Obama, D'Souza explained, was the product of Obama’s communist parents, stepfather and mentors.

They believed, as did Obama, that the United States was too powerful and too prosperous.

In his two books, Obama made his intentions clear. (What kind of a narcissistic egomaniac writes two autobiographies before he reaches middle age and before he has accomplished anything in his life beyond being a “community organizer” (professional agitator)?

Other clues were that he sat in his church nodding while his pastor thundered “God damn America!” Another was when his wife revealed that she never had any regard for this nation until it elected her husband.

Although he spoke of lofty goals like world peace and stopping the alleged rise of the oceans, Obama clearly set out to make the United States less prosperous and less powerful.

While he did nothing toward his stated goals, he did make progress during his eight years toward his true goals.

By putting back from the world stage he allowed other interests to assume the power he relinquished. He kowtowed to those interests and made deals that were not in the best interests of this nation.

He constantly belittled the Christian and Jewish religions and praised the barbaric religion of islam, which is continuing a 1,400 year quest for domination of the world.

On the economic front, he seized control of a large segment of the economy – health care, vastly increasing its cost and the government’s control of it. He pursued policies, such as minimum wage increases and tremendous increases in regulations, that destroy jobs.

At the end of his stay in office, growth was at a record low pace and the national debt had doubled since the time he criticized his predecessor for the size of the debt. Although he pledged to right the economy during his first term, and stated that he should not be re-elected if he failed, he failed and ran again.

In short, he was a complete failure. Yet, he endorsed someone who pledged to continue his course and said the election would be a referendum on his policies.

They were repudiated.

As a practicing narcissist, Obama constantly obsesses over his legacy. Here it is: he will be what Charles Krauthammer called a “historical parenthesis” – the first person ever elected president who hated the country he governed and sought to lower its status in the world.

Liberals panic as local paper chooses Trump

Jacksonville's small but vocal left-wing community is having a communal meltdown today with the newspaper's endorsement of Donald Trump for president.
Liberals, who know everything, see it as evidence the paper is slipping into the slough of conservatism.
I know a bit about this. After 12 years as editorial page editor, the last editorial I ever wrote was the paper's endorsement of George W. Bush for re-election.
Here's what happened this time around: the owner of the paper made the decision. He is a conservative. It is his prerogative.
When Barack Obama ran against John McCain, the local publisher, a liberal, decided to endorse Obama without consulting the owner -- over the warnings of experienced people who understood that the owner preferred to call the shots in presidential elections.
So they wrote a syrupy editorial endorsing Obama because of his superior blackness. The next week, after a phone call from corporate headquarters, they wrote one explaining that they had reconsidered and had decided McCain was the better candidate -- making complete fools of themselves.
Today the left-wing newsroom editor is making a complete fool of himself by disavowing the paper's endorsement. If I were the owner, he would be fired.
Communist/socialist/liberal/progressives in Jacksonville are venting on social media that the paper has become conservative.
Despite today's endorsement, the paper is not conservative and hasn't been for about 10 years. Before that, it was conservative for about 150 years.
Like most newspapers, it suffers from a newsroom nearly full of nutty kids and aging libs, but the opinion section was solidly conservative -- like the majority of Jacksonville residents -- until the shift.
That shift happened because the owner of the chain that includes the local paper is losing interest in his business and has turned it over to his kids, who somehow turned out liberal. They have been hiring liberal editors and publishers.
The corporate ethos has been to allow local publishers to decide editorial policy -- except in presidential elections. I expect that will change after the owner dies.
In the meantime, fear not liberals. The paper will be as loony as you are except for one day every four years. Is that too much for your sensitive, tolerant psyches to endure?
And think about this: if you think it was a terrible day for the left wing in Jacksonville today, imagine what it will be like if Trump wins Tuesday and the nation is given a chance to recover from the eight years of misery and decline it has endured.

Choosing evil

I must be really stupid because I just can’t grasp the arguments some pretty smart conservatives are making to justify either voting for Hillary Clinton or not voting at all.

Let’s stipulate that these probably are the two worst candidates for president in history, and also that neither is officially a nominee, yet.

But if it happens, why would a conservative not do whatever is necessary to stop Hillary from winning?

One argument is that “the lesser of two evils is still evil.”

Well, yes. But that also means that the alternative is more evil.

Since one is going to win, wouldn’t the prudent move be to vote for the lesser evil and thus try to prevent the more evil from winning?

Aside from Clinton's meanness, total lack of honesty and far, far left philosophy, there is one argument that seals the deal for me, as far as choosing one of these two.

There is 100 percent chance that Clinton would nominate an ultra-liberal justice or justices for the Supreme Court.

Trump is a wild man but it appears that there is less than a 100 percent chance that he would do so.

Another unconvincing argument is that Trump’s candidacy will somehow cause the GOP to lose a majority In the Senate.

If that is going to happen it is already a done deal. His winning won’t change a vote that already has taken place. But he could still nominate a conservative justice and get it through a Democratic Senate. Democrats constantly make the argument that a president is entitled to have his nominee approved, and I don’t think they would dare leave a seat open for four years if Trump stuck to his guns.

The process is deeply flawed as shown by the fact that we have these two presumptive nominees. But that is no reason to drop out of voting.

Every vote cast for Trump negates one cast for Clinton.

The old saying is true: If you don’t vote, they will.