Musings on the Week
Musings on the Week
September 5, 2015
Common Sense - “A
long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of
being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But
the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” Thomas
Paine.
Politics – Barack Obama “jumped
the shark” showing America what would
really happen when a liberal (progressive/socialist/communist)
implements their Marxist agenda.
Politics – The left has gotten very
good at telling the American people what they can’t do: grow the economy; balance the budget; stop
illegal immigration; or fix ObamaCare.
Politics – A new Rasmussen Reports found that 71% of American adults think political correctness
is a problem in America today.
Scandals – After over two years
investigating and gathering ample evidence, the Justice
Department continues to stall any prosecution of Lois Lerner and the rest of
the IRS cabal.
Politics
- This week’s
distractions from the sluggish economy and ObamaCare:
renaming Mount McKinley to Mount Denali and Chinese currency devaluation.
Politics – The 2016 Presidential
election is shaping up to be between a Democrat Obamanomics plus No-Growth Plan
vs. a Republican supply-side 4% Growth Plan.
Politics – Seemingly
every other day, there is a new shady revelation about Bill and Hillary Clinton that manages
to top the last one, and there seems to be no end.
Politics – Hillary Clinton’s strategy to obfuscate and
delay the email scandal has resulted in every excuse she
offered being refuted by multiple email examples on her own server.
Politics – The Republican
establishment has been exposed as a power hungry elite only interested in maintaining their power
and not representing their conservative base.
Politics – The biggest
group of voters who hate the Republican
Party are the Republicans’ own
conservative voters, followed by the Independents who quit the
Republican Party.
Politics – There are really only six
conservatives in the Republican Presidential race: Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker.
Politics – Donald Trump is an extension of the TEA Party, but
also a perversion of it, since he also stands for bigger government, more wealth redistribution, and economic
xenophobia.
Politics – Unfortunately Donald Trump,
the current front-runner, is the only Republican
candidate that Hillary Clinton can
beat, since he is not a conservative or even Republican.
Media – Donald “Sideshow Don”
Trump is
good at providing a new and exciting story every day to feed his personal
“perpetual
attention machine.”
Common Sense - “The
inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the
inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing
of miseries.” Winston Churchill.
Economy –
The economy
continues to limp along as far fewer jobs were added than expected, and more people dropped out of the workforce
than the number of new jobs.
|
November 2008 |
August 2015 |
Change |
Annual Federal Spending |
$2.87T |
$3.66T |
+$.79T |
Total National Debt |
$9.97T |
$18.37T |
+$8.40T |
Living in Poverty (000) |
37,734 |
43,797 |
+6,063 |
Food Stamp Participation (000) |
30,800 |
45,300 |
+14,500 |
Disabled – SSI (000) |
8,242 |
10,821 |
+2,579 |
Labor Force Participation Rate |
65.9% |
62.6% |
-3.3% |
Not in Labor Force (000) |
80,220 |
94,031 |
+13,811 |
Employment Population Ratio |
61.4% |
59.4% |
-2.0% |
Finance
– The Fed has chosen tools that
aren’t working to achieve their goals, but they continue
to extend the same policies for years, hoping they will suddenly start working.
Taxes
– In 2013, more taxpaying
residents voted with their wallets and left New York than any other state,
and packed up $5.65 billion in adjusted gross income (AGI) as well.
Immigration
– Our immigration
system isn’t broken; our enforcement system is broken because our central government is broken; and we
have been deceived by both parties.
Immigration – The latest IBD/TIPP Poll
found that 59% of the overall public (all age
groups, all incomes, men and women) supports mandatory
deportation of illegal immigrants in the U.S.
Environment
– President Obama may have lost it on his Alaskan “Magical Mystery Tour”
referencing non-existent climate catastrophes
and hyping unsupported climate threats.
Environment
– A federal judge has once
again slapped down the Environmental Protection Agency, this time for
its attempt to seize control of virtually all water, anywhere in the U.S.
Justice
– Recent Supreme Court judicial activism has resulted
in only 36% of likely voters still thinking the high
court is doing a good or excellent job, according to Rasmussen Reports.
Education
– Academia attempts to introduce gender-free pronouns
to the English language will have as much success as
proponents of Esperanto as a global language.
Education
– In 2012, there were 1.77
million children who were being home-schooled, and they beat out their
public school counterparts in college admittance tests, ie:
ACT and SAT.
Civil
Rights – The #BlackLivesMatter movement
has spawned a new
generation of black racists who feel empowered to attack white people and kill
police for no apparent reason.
Crime – Cities across the nation are
seeing a startling rise in murders after years of
declines, due to less aggressive policing, the so-called “Ferguson effect.”
Sexuality – Whether an individual is a male or a female is genetically determined
shortly after conception and cannot be changed with medication, an
operation, or by imitation.
Abortion – Planned Parenthood has been selling body parts, scavenged from late term abortions
and even live-born infants, for profit for at least 15
years.
Abortion – Arkansas
has joined New Hampshire, Alabama and Louisiana stopping
state funding for Planned Parenthood, with dozens more states
considering the same restrictions.
Common Sense - “Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, the most improper to defend us.” Thomas Paine.
VA
– The VA’s inspector general found out about 800,000 records stalled in the agency’s system for
managing health care enrollment, and 307,000 who died while waiting to enroll.
GWOT
- “It’s said only
5-10% of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis.
How’d that go?”
ESPN commentator Curt Schilling – True or False (or not PC)?
GWOT
– ISIS, al Qaeda, AQAP, AQIM, Boko
Haram and the rest of bin Laden’s heirs are
surging, and there are now 41 jihadist-terror groups
in 24 countries today.
Middle
East – Obama has the U.S. in an
endless and inconclusive war against the Islamic State, a terrorist
state built on sharia law and sex slavery, rampant
chemical weapons use, civilian casualties, and a refugee crisis caused by
social, economic, and political instability.
Iran
– Only 25% of Americans support the nuclear deal with
Iran, with 55% opposing the deal and 56% of Americans think the
nuclear deal would make the world less safe.
Iran
- A
survey by Defense One shows that 66% of
the national security community opposes the Iran nuclear deal, and 62% feel
that the country would be better off rejecting the deal.
David Coughlin
Hawthorne, NY
http://www.returntocommonsensesite.com/