Obvious Truth

Flawed men can do good things ...

and good men can do flawed things. — Anon.

Tough Decisions

All our presidents have faced making difficult decisions. Here might be the toughest tests for our last 14 presidents:

FDR - Declaring war on Japan AND Germany

Truman - Dropping the atomic bomb on Japan

Ike - Agreeing to an armistice in Korea

JFK - Embargo on Cuba during the missile crisis

LBJ - Handling the Vietnam war protests

Nixon - Watergate and his eventual resigning

Ford - Pardoning Nixon

Carter - Trying to rescue our Iran hostages

Reagan - Walking away from Helsinki meeting with Gorbachev

Bush 41 - Desert Storm war

Bill Clinton - Impeachment and fessing up to Monica Lewinsky affair

Bush 43 - America’s response to 9/11

Obama - Osama Ben Laden raid

Trump - Restarting the economy after the coronavirus shutdown

Violent Video Games

There is conflicting evidence as to whether violent video games are causing violent anti-social behavior like we recently experienced in El Paso and Dayton. Even if there is no such direct connection, such gamers clearly are a lot more proficient in their slaughtering techniques from their previous gaming practice.

But, from my involvement in tutoring young people, I concur with President Trump that violent video games do inspire a subset of young loner men into emulating their Columbine heroes. (I was told that there is even a video game that lets gamers play Lee Harvey Oswald and try to take down JFK ... really sick!)

Afterward: A major objective of army basic training is to teach recruits how to kill another human ... not something that comes naturally to most. I think it is safe to say that violent video games often perform this task as well as our military.

Inflection Point

Martin Luther King Jr. was a bit of a bounder. There are numerous salacious stories of his behavior off the pulpit. So why do we celebrate this man today? Simple ... his "I have a dream" speech was an inflection point between when this country was majority racist against blacks and when we weren't. Yes I agree that racism did not and will not totally disappear from America ... just that the tide had changed against this societal poison -- prejudice against blacks. The proof being that we have since elected an African-American twice to our highest office.

This forgiveness of past bad behavior by Americans is not unique to MLK Jr. We have often looked past dalliances by other of our heroes -- JFK, LBJ, FDR, Thomas Jefferson, DDE and many, if not most, of our past leaders ... except lusting onl in his mind ... Jimmy Carter. The reason for such myopia is that the sum total of the good that these men did far outweighed their misconduct.

There, of course is one major exception. Much of America refuses to recognize any of the positive results from our current president's short tenure. Instead there is a fixation in the media about his negatives -- two scoops of ice cream, Stormy Daniels, his exaggerations, long neckties, etc. Will Trump ever be given the same latitude as many of our past less-than-perfect leaders, like the man whose birthday we celebrate today? He clearly is striving mightily to create an inflection point between the decline of America and a return to our historic greatness ... with large portions of this country undermining these efforts at every step.

History will tell ... but it will be a serious number of years hence.

Loyalty

We all have our loyalties ... to the world, to our country, our state, our community, to our family, our ancestors, our mate, our friends, the poor, to our school, our political party, our social organizations, our religion, the environment, to our stomach, to our libido, our ego. Mostly we have mixed localities but, there is usually one or two localities that dominate ... and this can you be judged. And you cannot depend on what people say their loyalty priorities are ... you need to watch their actions.

Think about it. What dominated Bill Clinton's and JFK's lives? Their libidos. (JFK said he would get a headache if he didn't have sex every day.) FDR, his family and his country. Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter kept their religion and the poor foremost in their minds, To Ronald Reagan, our country was the "shining city on the hill" that was his  primary motivation. Truman and Eisenhower, their country. Obama, the environment or his ego. The Bushes, their family. Nixon, the world. Hillary, herself.

What about Trump? He says, and I believe him, he is a nationalist ... which means he puts his country first. And, if you think about things, it is those presidents who put their country at the top of their loyalty pyramids who we now consider great.

Perhaps?

Obvious Truth #11

John McCain --  a longer send-off than JFK -- Anon.

Democrat Manifesto

The Democrat party has moved far left in the last decade ... to a point that would be unrecognizable to the party of JFK or even Bill Clinton. It's as though George Soros has tattooed his manifesto on the donkey's rump. However, not all recent Blue candidates are using this manifesto as their platform because the smarter ones realize that it is a loser. But, once elected if elected, Nancy Pelosi tells them how to vote.

The question becomes then, how much of this Democrat manifesto will be visible in the next presidential election and maybe even in this Fall's midterm elections? But be mot mistaken, this is the guts of their agenda. So let's get on to what this manifesto contains:

- Single-payer healthcare
- World government
- Destroy the U.S. coal industry
- Increase third-world migration into America
- Higher income taxes (to redistribute wealth)
- Sanctuary cities and states
- "Strategic patience"  (passive foreign policy)
- Open national borders
- Nuclear disarmament or at least unilateral reduction
- Crony capitalism
- Promoting Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA
- Mote government transfer payments (welfare)
- Fewer illicit drug laws and lesser punishments ("sentencing reform")
- Facilitation of illegal voting
- Weaker military
- Removing Civil War (and other historic) statues
- Free higher education
- Diversity quotas and more "inclusion" of hyphenated Americans
- Nullifying the Second Amendment
-Taxpayer funded abortion and birth control
- Free but not necessarily fair (multilateral) trade
- Carbon taxes and much tighter emissions standards
- "Green" energy production at the expense of  fossil fuels
- More government regulations
- LBGTQ and transgender rights advocacy
- Suppression of "offensive" speech

This list is not by a long shot comprehensive ... and they are not all excessively malignant ... but. taken as a whole, they would "fundamentally transform" this country ... if we survive at all.

Headlines

Clapper predicts 'other shoes to drop' in Mueller probe

Media isn't so sure Trump colluded with Russia anymore

More than 80% of adults owe somebody else money ...

Report: Mueller zeroing in on Kushner

Trump mocks Oprah Winfrey

CNN, MSNBC glowingly promoted Russian-organized anti-Trump rally

Wild, weird weather everywhere ...

LA Times: Banning AR-15s would end mass shootings

Trump comes in last in expert presidential ranking survey

Donald Trump surprises by endorsing Mitt Romney for Senate run

Privacy advocates cry foul on bracelets to monitor AMAZON workers ...

Mayor cites JFK assassination, demands NRA cancel upcoming convention in Dallas

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Drudge?

Aides give up on trying to control Trump's tweets

Doctors are turning to marijuana to treat opioid addiction

Argentine sub missing with 44 sailors ...

Mika latest Clinton ally to suggest Bill should have resigned

Trump reverses hunting trophy decision, says he will review

Tesla is 'going out of business' says former GM exec Bob Lutz

I trump to pay staff legal bills ...

Hungary PM: 'Silent majority' will prevail over 'Soros empire' ...

Jesse Jackson diagnosed with Parkinson's

WalMart says it has pre-ordered 16 of Tesla's new tractor-trailers

10,744 more JFK records released ...

LOL: After covering for Weinstein, Clinton, NYTimes says Franken should go

Swamp Creatures

Senator Al Franken has just joined the host of current and previous  pervs in Congress ... Ted Kennedy, Bob Menendez, Lyndon Johnson, Anthony Weiner, JFK, Wilbur Mills, Newt Gingrich, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Bob Packwood, Joe Biden, Gerry Studds,  260 anonymous Congresspersons who had previously cost the U.S. taxpayers $15 million in sexual abuse settlements, and 50 current Congresspersons who are on a known "Creep List" ... see: Conservative Review Article.

For lots more perv names, see: Supreme Find Law.

And these are just the ones who have been exposed. How many more have existed is obviously a lot larger. And we wonder why so little gets done in the swamp ... they all seem preoccupied with groping others and exposing themselves.

Afterward: Should I add Barack Obama to the above perv list? See: DC Clothesline.

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from The Daily Caller?

Activists view post-Charlottesville surge in Virginia

Trump begins Asia trip with unmistakable warning to Kim Jong Un

NBC: Mueller has enough evidence to charge Flynn ...

Jerry Brown: World needs 'brain washing' on climate change

Poll: 65 percent say that Trump has accomplished little

Hillary's campaign accuses Donna Brazile of spreading 'false Russian-fueled propaganda'

Book: Bushes bash Trump ...

Feds hiding MLK salacious gossip in JFK assassination docs reeks of cover up

McConnell says no need to pass bills protect Mueller

Donna Brazile considered replacing Hillary after campaign trail fainting spell

40 tourists robbed in Paris hotel tear gas attack ...

Death toll from typhoon in Vietnam rises to 27

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which came from Breitbart?

Murdoch-owned outlets bash Mueller, seemingly in unison

Trump adviser [Papadopolous] may have worn a wire

BUCHANAN: The plot to destroy Trump ...

Dershowitz: I don't think Mueller will 'get' Trump

FBI :to release all of its JFK assassination files

[Gen.] Kelly supports appointing another special counsel

ESPN considering the unthinkable: Dropping NFL football ...

Daily Mail: Edward Klein's 'All Out War' shows ANTIFA leaders met with ISIS, Al Qaeda

Carter Page: I may have discussed Russia in emails with Papadopolous

California's Clean Energy future: A Medieval Society

Report: NKorea nuclear base collapses ... 200 dead ...

States cracking down on 'fake' service animals

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Breitbart?

Corporate penalities have plunged at SEC since Trump took over

Report: Mueller files first charges in Russian investigation

Catalonia declares independence [from Spain] ...

Houston Texans owner on anthem protesters: 'Can't have inmates running the prison' ...

Haley: 'I would not take' Secretary of State job

U.S. airstrikes absolutely decimate ISIS terrorists

Top 20% pay 95% of all [U.S.] income taxes ...

UK newspaper got anonymous tip just 25 minutes before JFK was assassinated

Jeff Bezos is now richest man in the world with $90 billion

An object passes through our solar system and NASA doesn't know what it is

Pentagon plans national blackout drill ...

Report: Kushner's role deminished in Trump's China trip

Irishophobia

President Trump's Chief of Staff, General Kelly, is a racist according to Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC. This, according to O'Donnell,  is not only because he called red cowboy-hatted Representative Frederica Wilson an "empty barrel" (makes a lot of noise) but also because Kelly grew up around Boston, is Irish and a Catholic ... see: "The Five" Video.

Interestingly, O'Donnell is also an Irish Catholic who grew up in Boston ... as were JFK, RFK, all that generation of Kennedys, Ray Flynn, Conan O'Brien, John Kerry (once a year on St. Patrick's Day), Kevin White, Marty Walsh, Cardinal Cushing, Ben Affleck, Whitey and Billy Bulger, James Curley, Senator Ed Markey, John L. Sullivan, Tip O'Neill, Mary McGrory, and so on and on. They all must be or have been racists and should be shunned or have their histories expunged.

No? Can't be? Then it must be that Lawrence O'Donnell made a prejudicial comment and is another self-loathing sufferer of Irishophobia.

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Politico?

Trump to allow release of secret JFK assasination files ...

Fed Chair Yellen says low inflation this year is an unexplainable 'surprise'

Lawyer: How Mueller tried to entrap me ...

[Lou] Dobbs: Uranium One may turn out to be the biggest scandal in American political history

Trump nominees show up for work without waiting for Senate approval

CIA director: ISIS still 'enormous threat' despite its battlefield setbacks

Students love Trump's tax plan -- when they think it's Bernie's!

Sweden politicians want to deploy Army to no-go zones

Ryan: Tax plan will include higher bracket for the rich

House committee closes in on firm behind Trump Dossier

Bill [Clinton] met with Putin just before uranium deal ...

UK socialized medicine: No surgery for smokers

Punishing Good Deeds

"No good deed goes unpunished."

Started watching the last episode of "The Vietnam War" last night ... but turned it off after five minutes and went to bed. Why you ask? Because it started rehashing Nixon's disgrace and  downfall, Watergate. I said to my wife, "What does this have to do with Vietnam?" and hit the clicker.

Actually, I suspect I know why Ken Burns and Lynn Novick needed to sully Nixon further. They had tried this in the previous episode and didn't quite pull it off. Matter of fact, this penultimate program left me with a new respect for Nixon. Yes, he was tricky and duplicitous, but he and Henry Kissinger had done the impossible. They had ended the Vietnam war, brought our soldiers and POWs home, and left South Vietnam with at least a hope of remaining out of the clutches of the North. All basically within his first four years in office.

And he had done this Herculean task, a task that neither JFK or LBJ had the slightest clue how to accomplish ... they  kept making things worse ... despite scant support from the media and the massive resistance from America's counterculture. And he had also gotten overwhelmingly reflected in the process. He had done what he had promised when he had first gotten elected ... and the rabid liberals could not forgive him for this miracle.

Nixon had given the Left what they wanted and they needed to punish him for it. So, as his reward, they pounced on one of his foibles .... his paranoia about his opposition. (Actually, by now, quite a justified paranoia.) Last night I didn't need again to see how this downfall was orchestrated by his enemies ... for I once had been one of these enemies ... and now, being more of a realist, I am feeling remorse ... for how I was led by the nose into reviling and disgracing Richard M. Nixon for his heroic deed of ending our foolish war in Nam. History was now to say that JFK and even LBJ were the innocent victims and RMN was to be the goat. Bullshit!

Nam

After watching three out of four episodes of Ken Burns' "The Vietnam War" on PBS I am chagrined to confess that there was much about this war that I didn't know. But I have still drawn a few conclusions from what I have seen so far. I know not whether these conclusions are what Ken Burns had in mind for his audience, but I do feel that his treatment of this very contraversial subject seems, so far, to be even-handed. (But I haven't seen Jane Fonda on  the anti-aircraft gun yet.)

First, I must start by stating I was never in the armed forces nor, obviously, in Vietnam although I was of an eligible age. I have two metal rods holding my spine in shape as testament to why this is so. I had actually been called for my pre-induction physical in 1963 but was, to my lasting gratitude, rejected. So I spent those war years working on Wall Street, getting remarried and having another family. And, to my shame, I was barely aware of what was happening in Southeast Asia or why there was unrest at home. All this gnashing of teeth was like chirping  crickets to my busy life.

Anyway, to my few thoughts inspired by  this TV documentary special:

- Much of the angst coming out of this conflict was due, IMHO, to the gradualism exhibited by both JFK and then mostly Lyndon Johnson. I now strongly feel that getting into this quagmire was a mistake, but, once committed. I think someone very wise said, "if you go to war, go to war." Don't pussyfoot around like we have done so many times since WWII. Our painfully slow escalation of this conflict allowed the Viet Cong and North Viernam time to react to each incremental increase of commitment ... and America's youth to organize an effective domestic resistance ... the legacy of which we are experiencing even unto today.

- "A resolute army will almost always defeat a reluctant army." This is just another way of saying that, unless there is a real threat to one's homeland, your soldiers are not quite as motivated as the enemy. However bravely Americans fought in Nam, we were really not being pulled by patriotism, but rather pushed by fear and platitudes. ("Hell no, I won't go!) LBJ never really made the case that the "domino theory" was a big enough threat to Peoria. And history has shown that it wasn't. Matter of fact, I am astounded at the friendly reception American tourists recieve when they visit Vietnam (even the North) today ... given what this program showed us doing over there in the 1960s.

- And lastly, resistance to the war taught a generation of America's youth that it was OK to love one another but hate your country. This "hippie" culture was the genesis of much of our national divide today. It is a price that we will be paying for many years to come.

Media Filters

It is not just the US media ... the problem is mostly global. The media by its name and nature has enjoyed an unique place in between our government and its public. As the filter of what is said and done, it has long enjoyed leverage on public opinion ... not always unbiased purchase. In fact, since our country's inception, the media has had increasing and often unfortunate influence on the path and pace of history.

Enter new media technologies. FDR realized the ability of the radio to cut through this media filter and go directly to the American people with his Fireside Chats. Ditto JFK in his use of television and his live press conferences. Enter the social media which Donald Trump has used as a candidate and is now using as president to take his message directly to the American people and they generally love it.

Who doesn't love it? Why the main-stream media of course. This media, the print media, radio and television, have learned how to re-insert themselves between government and the voters with various "traditions" ... such as how interviews and news conferences are held. To his credit, Trump even refuses to bend to these protocols and, consequentially, has these media filters in hysterics. And remember "fake news" was an invention of the left ... much to its regret.

How is the media fighting back ... desperate to reclaim the high ground? For one, they are scouring their Roget's Thesauri for pejoratives to smear Trump and his way of communication. They also claim that he is trying to kill the First Amendment. Also, as Trump is unfiltered, he does make mistakes and, being an egomaniac, tends toward hyperbole. Thus, the media constantly tries to keep him off balance with oft-justified criticism clapping these flubs as LIES. But Trump has even an answer to these brickbats ... by ignoring them or twittering them away.

I have no doubt that the media will eventually find ways to stifle Trump's megaphones with a new ways of filtering him ... perhaps with some new social-media technologies which limit his stentorian reach. Watch for it.

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

Reuters: Top US spy agency does not back CIA on Russian hacking

Obama Farewell: America still hasn't overcome slavery ...

Google spins off self- driving car business to Waymo

After talking with Trump, Bill Gates likens president-elect to JFK ...

Ivy League [UPenn] students replace Shakespeare's portrait with black feminist poet

More intelligence officials are disputing CIA's claim of Russian hacking

CEO of NYT calls on social media companies to subsidize MSM ...

Records: 37% of Detroit machines COUNTED TOO MANY VOTES ...

Man kicked out of Six Flags for looking like Santa ...

SpaceX pushes back first manned flight until 2018

White House 'deeply disturbed by Aleppo situation

DOE won't provide names of climate change staffers to Trump team

A Tale of Two Parties

The two party system in the United States is a sham. The Democrat party is no longer recognizable as the home of Sam Nunn, Herbert Humphrey, Barbara Jordan and JFK. This party, under the leadership of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid has successfully moved far left and is about to take this turn even wider. This party no longer wishes the United States to be the leader on the world stage (a stance once called isolationism) and has alienated many allies. It no longer wants a strong military ... witness our president's recent veto of the military appropriation legislation. It wants open borders with very loose enforcement of immigration laws. It is anti-capitalistic ... except for Mom and Pop capitalism ... according to Hillary Clinton in the recent Democrat presidential debate ... and crony capitalism ... according to our president. It favors single-payer health care. It desires European-style nanny-state Socialism with very high taxes funding an ever-growing welfare state. It tolerates repressive Communist governments in Cuba, Venezuela, and China. It has fully swallowed the myth of global warming as a way of expanding the reach of government. It embraces political mendacity ... now dismissed as "spin." It abets the Black Lives Matter movement ... clearly an anti law enforcement cabal.

The Republican Party, under the leadership of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, is effectively Democrat-light ... a bunch of prancing eunuchs. It only offers token resistance to all the excesses of the galloping Left. It lives in dread of the slings and arrows of the main-stream media (clearly an arm of the Democrat party). It can only give lip service to resisting the tax and spend policies of our fifth-column politicians ... in fact often adding its own precious ornaments to frequent congressional Christmas-tree legislation. It is a party that has lost its way after Ronald Reagan showed it how powerful conservative policies could produce domestic economic growth and international hegemony. Somehow, these lessons were submerged by their own success. Now, some on the Right have realized this backsliding and are trying to restore the idealism that wrought these national benefits. However, the old-time Republican establishment is resisting such a revitalization ... and would prefer the comfort of the current status quo.

Enter Donald Trump who has sensed the frustration of the conservative class in this country and has the communication skills to convince many of them that he can champion the roll-back of the Democrats' excesses. Whether he can or not seems unimportant to his acolytes as they see the demise of our national identity and are willing to grasp any avenue out of  this perdition.