People who function best under stress are extremely rare, and Donald Trump is one of those people. Punch his ticket and jump on for the ride. Because people like him are not about politics, it’s about quality. He is precisely what is needed in a 2016 White House. His Oklahoma speech with no notes, wonderful enthusiasm and rhetorical debate answering directly the criticism of the past week is a work of political art. You should watch it and make sure a friend sees it as well. This is history in the making and you’ll want to participate.
As many conservatives like Glenn Beck strive to bring God back into the political realm grounding the roots of patriotism, the Pope Francis visit to the United States should serve as a warning shot as to why in America we should keep a clear distinction between the separation of church and state. Obama and others like him who would love to empower the United Nations into being a ruling centralized authority throughout the world, is using the Pope to advance their progressive agenda—particularly the religion of global warming and immigration. I’m not Catholic; I don’t recognize the pope in any position of authority. If he were standing on the other side of a fence, I wouldn’t even take the time to gaze over at him. To me, he’s just another old man. I’m sure he’s a nice guy. I like that the church tries to help people with kindness—that’s a sweet thing to do as a human being. But I don’t need the pope addressing my congressional body of government from the vantage point of a religious figure from Italy who was born in Argentina and thinks socialism is more favorable than capitalism. Standing in front of my country’s government and lecturing us about the depravity of capitalism is like stepping into a hamburger restaurant and demanding that it become a Chinese buffet and should serve more items for vegans. It’s just disrespectful.
Even more disturbing is that John Boehner, my congressman in my district who happens to be Speaker of the House cried about meeting the pope. That is not very wise for a leader of Congress. Such behavior establishes that the Roman Catholic Church holds sway over the leadership of our republic, and that’s no crying matter. It’s embarrassing. No man should be crying over meeting another man—especially one like Francis. The celebrity of the pope is a completely made up thing, no different from Lady Gaga. There is nothing Holy about the guy other than an institutional organization decided to make him the leader of their church. The reaction that many have had toward the pope’s visit to the United States—summarized best by John Boehner is that philosophically, entirely too many people are wrong in their foundation beliefs and rely on the church to provide their spiritual essence—which is dangerous. It’s dangerous for individuals, it is dreadfully treacherous for an entire nation.
That is why it’s so upsetting to see grown men cry and pander to some guy walking around in an archaic costume from the Middle-Ages called a pope. I’ll be the first to say that I’d rather deal with people who have religious values than no values at all, but those most committed to faith have an extremely difficult time deciphering things through logic. Once Pandor’s Box is opened and some blind faith is accepted to the human mind, there is no turning it off. If a person is willing to look at the pope and accept that he’s the embodiment of god on earth, then that person is no different from the countless societies from the past that have failed, from the ancient Egyptians to the Aztecs. The ability to worship a deity does not make a society great. The values often associated with religion sometimes do, such as the Judeo-Christian background that established America. But the Founding Fathers were wise enough to understand that there should be a separation of church and state so that an emphasis on logic could be established. Blind faith is no way to run a government, or make any decisions, so it is reprehensible that the symbol of blind faith would even fathom to lecture Congress about what types of things America should or should not value. Some of the Founding Fathers did attempt to put God in the government, such as the symbols that appear on American money—“In God We Trust.” It doesn’t say what god, it just references a deity. With hindsight being 20/20 it would have been best to never have muddied the water of confusing religion with the state and to stick with the original thought of separation. Because you can’t go down that road of belief and faith and still expect to make decisions based on rational evidence. The two things just aren’t compatible, as much as we’d like them to be.
That’s why if feels wrong to see John Boehner crying over the pope. He’s supposed to be the third most powerful person in the world—and he’s crying over the uttering of an old man because the figure represents the embodiment of godliness upon the earth. For a grown man in a leadership position to believe such a thing is a tragic display of faith instead of leadership. The human race has done a poor job of establishing a criterion for leadership largely because the values of its historic religions have idolized pacifists and sacrificial souls toward the fate of the universe, instead of relying on the miracle of thought.
For those who think human beings are insignificant in the universe consider that animals don’t think—not in the way that we associate thought to. Their activity is to maintain their life, they eat, drink, and reproduce maintaining a cycle of life that is specific to their species. Human children begin thinking very young when they begin playing with toys. With cats, dogs and other animals, they play with toys also, but the activity is largely connected to learning hunting techniques that will be valuable to them with muscle memory latter in their adult lives. Human children however play and daydream and play out fantasy events in their heads with an alternate reality that is very specific to human thought. Single cell organisms that might be found on some distant planet or at the bottom of the ocean don’t do that. They just live—they don’t do much thinking. Humans are remarkable because of their ability to think. Congress, the building that the pope spoke in, the President of the United States, and all the aspects of American culture that the pope saw on his trip are aspects of human thought—whereas in Cuba where the pope had visited the day before, the cost of not thinking was grotesquely obvious. God doesn’t help the people in Cuba with some miracle. America does with capitalism and the thoughts generated by the measurement of money have made society much better. The pope falsely associates the worship of money and a growing gulf between the rich and the poor based on Biblical text nurtured along by a crumbling Roman empire—so his premise and the assumption arrived at are wrong. Money is a measurement of productivity—of action. It’s not something given to people—it’s something that is created by value. When the political left tries to establish a life without values—and they fail, then seek to rob those values from a church that does have them—using the pope to justify every transsexual-homosexual act, abortion, and every chemical addiction known to man—they are trying to disguise their bankrupt philosophy. That’s why Obama made such a big deal about the pope’s visit as opposed to the Israeli prime minister who visited recently—that he gave the cold shoulder to completely during Netanyahu’s stay.
But to see John Boehner crying–it’s just sick. Even if the moment was an emotional one, he should be stoic enough as a world leader to hold it together. The pope has no authority in America and we certainly don’t want to go back to the inquisition of the Dark Ages. We don’t need the Crusades either. We don’t need global conquest under the flag of an old church that promotes Argentinean socialists into the white robes of piety. The pope should be asking America questions about how to live, not lecturing it. Because when it comes to moral positioning, America and its capitalism does more for more people than the church in the Vatican could ever hope to achieve. It all comes from human thought that is specific to the human race. The logic of nature and all the global warming that the pope advocated for before Congress is simply a demolition derby of primal chaos where millions of species of animals, plants and airborne bacteria are in a fight to survive from day-to-day. Of all them are human beings—the only species who can think. And when it comes to worshiping a pope, it’s a thoughtless enterprise more adapt to a primal animal, not a human being. The Speaker of the House should understand that America is a place for thought, and not a platform for lecture by a man and his church that just doesn’t understand its place in the universe—but by the definitions of a fallen empire and a Europe that still hopes to use the church to rule the world.
Before the pope could leave the United States after his trip Boehner so emotional over his visit quit Congress singing a famous melody from the Disney classic Song of the South. The heat of the day proved to be too much for him, so he got out of the kitchen. Many of us knew all along that he didn’t have what it took, that the position of Speaker required more than just pageantry. And from his perspective realizing that when the pope left the podium as tears streamed down his face it was time to throw in the towel. Because the fight coming to Congress is just getting started, and he obviously didn’t have the heart for it.
If there was any doubt ever about the depth of the corruption of our federal government by forces not committed to traditional America, the Muslim issue smoking off of Donald Trump’s recent town hall meeting is all the evidence anybody needs. A person at that town hall asked a question about Obama’s Islamic faith, which was a conclusion that Obama himself has fostered with his actions—particularly with NASA and his position regarding the Middle East where he favors Palestinian and Iranian positions over those of Israel and even Egypt. Trump listened politely. He had questions about Obama’s birth certificate in the past, which still are unanswered, as the document Obama eventually provided under pressure from Trump turned out to be computer generated—as proven by Sheriff Arpaio of Arizona.
So the issue never was settled, but the national and international media was quick to accept it so that they could move on to another issue—mysteriously. They called Trump a birther and the Department of Justice sued Arpaio for his border enforcement techniques which was obvious harassment as a direct result of the birth certificate investigation. The rest of the world moved on leaving lots of questions unanswered, propelling conspiracy theories which a significant portion of the American public are now asking, the guy at Trump’s town hall being one of them. Trump didn’t fan the flames, but he didn’t quell them either, because anybody with any reasonable mind knows something is wrong on the issue—but at this point it’s no longer relevant. The condemnation from the political right and left was truly baffling. It was the lead story for four consecutive days propelled mostly by Republicans. It was evidence of just how far off the rocker we have all fallen as a nation.
Then over the weekend, Ben Carson got into all kinds of trouble by saying that a Muslim should not be elected president, which started a firestorm of its own. Carson’s position is a logical one, the Islamic faith is producing much of the violence seen throughout the world, and America doesn’t need to accelerate that violence by putting a Muslim in the White House. Maybe someday when terrorists aren’t using the Koran to justify beheading infidels—but until there is a good century of violent free behavior, a Muslim in an American White House empowering the radicals fueling terrorism in the Middle East even more is not a good idea. This is something any rational, well-educated mind should understand—easily.
Then on every channel, more than usual was a real hatred of Donald Trump. The endearing nurturing of his candidacy was gone. No longer was he a thorn in the side of Jeb Bush and other establishment Republicans—Trump had suddenly become a threat to everything every progressive had built a public dialogue around. Without Trump’s town hall, nobody would have thought to press Ben Carson, about what he said about Muslims in the White House. Now the cat of distrust about the Islamic faith is out of the bag on a national forum, and establishment types from all walks of life in unison are flustered and acting well out of accordance of what should be American interests.
I’ve known a fair share of Muslims. They are generally peaceful. Their need to pray to Mecca each day gets irritating, but as long as it doesn’t interfere with what I want to do, I’m fine with it. It’s weird to me, but so are a lot of things. Religion should be a private thing and people are free to practice whatever they want. But like all religions, including the Catholic one, they have elements of collectivism that is dangerous to our republic style of government. The current Pope is using global warming and other aspects of the church he heads to spread a socialist agenda he learned from his home country of Argentina. If the current Pope who is touring America right now is the representation of God on planet earth, then that God is an idiot—because the Pope is not a friend of capitalism or the American way of life. If an American president were excessively Catholic and wanted to turn over the White House to the Pope for guidance, I would have a big problem with that as well. So it’s not just the Muslim faith. It’s any radical religious type who thinks through the collectivism of the church instead of their own free—individual will. We don’t elect religious nut cases in the White House—at least we shouldn’t. We need in America self guided, philosophically sound, individuals who are capable of leadership. We don’t always get that, but we at least have attempted to strive for that objective.
Trump said all the right things in the wake and is fully aware of the challenge he posses. But I don’t think even he understood the depths of the sinister persuasion of what he terms a “dishonest media.” The media is dishonest because they are too concerned with bending logic to fit the story of their establishment. In this case their story is that Muslims are a peaceful people not prone to radicalized behavior. Yet the truth is that it is from that specific group of religious lunatics that most terrorism stems. Even radical Christians and the worst Bible thumpers are docile compared to the terrorist groups spawned from Islamic faith and their assumption that their religion is the only one of value. For instance, on the Cartoon Network late at night on Fridays is a show called Black Jesus. Such a show would never be produced called “Black Muhammad.” There would be death threats and probably someone would lose their life in response. It is because of that reality that Ben Carson said he was uneasy with a Muslim in the White House. And that is also why a question about such radicalism was asked at a Trump event. Denouncing the question as all the pundits suggested Trump should have done does not solve the problem. Ignoring the question is not what good journalism should be doing. It should be the media asking those questions, not some dude at a Trump rally. The reason why the media isn’t is why Trump says the media is dishonest, and why Republicans are supporting outsiders for the White House. Because people know something is wrong, and often the truth is hidden behind religion and the media that doesn’t cover the real facts. Among those facts are that the religions of our day are softened versions of a long forgotten pagan past. What they share in common with those distant relatives is a desire to sacrifice life essence to undefined spiritual entities. In the Catholic Church, that sacrifice is most notable during Lent and the ritual of communion. In Islamic faith, it is too often interpreted these days with the actual taking of human life, much the way the Maya, Aztec and countless head hunter cultures have for centuries. An American president needs to be free of this desire to sacrifice our country to the wishes of the uncharted, and unseen. And that is the million dollar desire of our day and the type of provocation that only Donald Trump is free to bring forth. That’s also why his poll numbers are so high because too many people are asking questions these days that nobody else will dare answer.
The people who run for school board, such as those at Lakota in Butler County, Ohio, should be people who truly want to save the system and make the best management decisions possible. So for this article, I’ll cover the election of 2015 for two potential school board seats in the fashion of neutrality. In my district there are four candidates, two who currently sit on the board, Julie Shaffer, whom I’ve had my share of spats with, Lynda O’Connor that I’ve supported, along with Ernest D.Gause and Tom Tran. They had a Meet the Candidates night down at my old high school building on Taylorsville Rd on the night of the big CNN debate—which was hosted by the valuable West Chester Tea Party. Refreshingly, quite a few people showed up to watch the event. However, not enough did, so a video of the candidates at that forum can be seen here:
There was some pressure on me to run for one of those spots, but as I explained to everyone who asked—I’m not a public servant type of person. I don’t really care to shake hands, when people call me who I don’t want to talk to, I like to ignore them and when I get mad at something, or someone, I like to be free to unleash my inner T-Rex on them. I don’t like being beholden to a community established set of values. Plus, I feel I’m too young to do anything like run for an office. But most of all, in regard to Lakota, I’m not a public education supporter. I think public schools should be profit based, the unions should be crushed and made illegal, and the government should be completely out of education starting with the DOE in Washington. I don’t want more money from the state to pay for higher collective bargaining agreements for the teacher’s union just so busy parents can have a free baby sitter for their children. If I ran for school board it would be to destroy the system, which isn’t necessarily the best thing for those who do support public education. I have enough respect for the republic system of government that we have to have a vigorous debate instead of imposing my personal views on the masses. So my belief is that people who want to work together to manage a good school system should run for office, and by my appraisal those are the kinds of people who are running in 2015 within the Lakota district.
This time around there aren’t a bunch of crazy lunatics, as there have been in the past running for office, so there really isn’t a downside to any of them. Julie and Lynda have I think done a good job of adapting to the tax opposition and try to avoid reckless tax increases. Listening to Julie, she has come a long way over the last four years. I don’t forget things, but I will put things aside to make a fair comment, and she is better now than the person who debated me on 700 WLW four years ago. That largely comes from experience. I personally liked the spunk of Tom Tran although I don’t think he can apply that gumption to reality on the board. He’d likely assimilate to the current culture uneventfully and be a standard vote. I did talk to Ernest Gause after the debate and was very impressed with his bright-eyed professionalism. He is a professional educator deeply committed to learning. He said some things that were obviously progressive to me and likely weren’t very conservative. But I could tell that he really cared about education. He probably deserves to be some new blood on the school board who could at least elevate some debate regarding the allocation of resources. My friend Ann Becker used to be a very pro levy, pro education type, and he reminded me of her which isn’t at all a bad thing. So there are some good choices for school board that voters have to pick from.
Due to the declining enrollment at Lakota even with the cuts in state funding, the increased tax revenue from commercial endeavors and diligent fiscal policy should prevent Lakota from seeking a tax increase from property owners for the rest of the decade. But, as I’ve said before, the current trajectory of spending and over priced government employees at well over 60K per year will put stress on logic and create the temptation to put another tax increase on the ballot by 2017. Out of all the candidates all of them sound like they’d be supportive of voting for that tax increase. The only way to avoid that is for three conservatives to make it on the board during the next election to out vote the current members. Otherwise, that fight is inevitable. For the sake of this Lakota forum, everyone was peaceful, because tax increases have not yet been put on the table. When the school board does move in that direction, then its time to take away the handshakes and glad tidings and go to war—which we will.
But it’s best to avoid war, and even better to provide good management so that unfortunate incidents in the future can be avoided in the present. And that’s what elections are all about. Of the choices, there are some promising ones, so take advantage of them, communicate with them, and let’s see where it takes us.
When politicians use the word progressive, be clear that what they are talking about is essentially Bernie Sanders socialism. They intend to “progress” society toward collective salvation to nearly a religious fervor. That’s why they don’t have any hard opinions about North Korea, China, Iran, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, Greece, France or even Russia for that matter, because socialism and communism are the modes those countries are functioning under, and they want the same for the United States. That is what politicians mean by “progressive” when they indicated that society needs to “lean forward” toward it.
Clearly one of the most progressive areas of the United States is Seattle, Washington. The massive union culture of the Boeing employees contribute largely to that, and the music culture that has evolved through their garage bands were undeniably socialist in orientation. They have an actual city council person who is a socialist. It is a highly liberalized part of the country and was one of the first places to attempt a $15 per hour minimum wage for fast food workers. So they have serious issues against capitalism and are certainly as a city leaning well toward pot smoking liberalism of the most severe version of progressive. With that said, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the teacher’s union in Seattle went on strike at the start of the school year holding the tax payers to the fire until city management—which is already on the same side as the progressive labor union—buckled just to get the teachers to go back to work again. Here’s what the school employees received in the deal followed by a short report from the Seattle Times.
Highlights of tentative 3-year contract:
Raises: 3 percent in first year; 2 percent in second; 4.5 percent in third (state cost-of-living raise is additional). More in 2017-18 for some teachers for collaboration, and eight hours of “tech pay” for all school employees.
Discipline: Half day of training on reducing disproportionate discipline for all school employees. Equity committees launched in 30 schools.
Testing: New joint union-district committee to review and recommend testing and testing schedule.
Teacher evaluations: Test scores will no longer play any role.
School day: Will be longer, but not much for students, and teachers will be paid for the additional time.
Specialist caseloads: Sets limits, which union says is a first, for physical therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists and audiologists.
Source: Seattle Education Association
After four months of negotiations, a five-day strike and one final all-night talk, the Seattle teachers union and Seattle Public Schools reached a tentative contract agreement early Tuesday, and school is scheduled to start Thursday for the city’s 53,000 students.
The Seattle Education Association’s board of directors and its elected building representatives both voted Tuesday afternoon to suspend the strike, recommending the union’s membership approve the deal. The agreement will go to a full vote of the union’s 5,000 members at a Sunday meeting.
The building-representative vote came after hours of deliberation, where cheers and fervent discussion could be heard outside a packed room at the Machinists Hall in South Seattle.
Union bargaining chair Phyllis Campano, exhausted after one hour of sleep after the marathon negotiation session, declared victory.
“Let’s be clear,” she said. “We won the fight on this contract agreement.”
What a bunch of communist idiots. That is exactly why education costs so much in America, and why our children are being liberalized during that institutional training. There are no rational conservatives in the process, and even if they did manage to get elected to a board seat, progressive politicians have skewed the table to always favor the labor unions. To properly negotiate a deal against labor unions you really have to be an ass, and enjoy it, because it’s tough. But with a 5 to 7 member school board, one will always be out-voted by the rest, as those who typically run for such offices are liberalized types themselves. I would argue that the best education the kids of Seattle could have had was a few more days at home as these progressive teachers went on strike for more money and power.
This strike was not about any kids. Kids were clearly used as extortion pieces to secure higher wages, lower testing expectations, and more secure livelihoods. To hell with the kids, which is what the Seattle Education Association declared when they went on strike—there’s no other way to frame the debate. It was about money at the expense of the kids for the progressive aims of further substantiation of a communist agenda spreading across the world.
However, this story is an old one. We’ve covered it many times before. We’ve covered it on radio broadcasts, many articles, public debates and anywhere that the issue has been raised. Yet in Seattle, the situation is clear, the politics are grossly progressive and the aims of the insurrection directly applicable to the region. The apparatus for political theater has a well-known cast and everyone benefited except for the kids, because a liberal education is not necessarily better than not having one at all. I would argue that children could learn far more from the popular Leap Frog devices so popular now at the local Target store than a K-12 education in a public school. Such educations are as dirty and disrespected as public libraries where everything is shared and stagnate. The value of such education is clearly deficient. As pollsters like to announce often during the presidential race of 2016, college graduates support Hillary Clinton whereas blue-collar non-college graduates generally support Donald Trump. The accusation is that highly educated types are more able to understand “higher concepts” of progressivism. But such a term is purely marketing and has no basis in reality. It could be just as argued that 16 years of liberalized education is detrimental to a conservative mind and they will leave college prepared to support progressive platform points such as gay rights, open borders, and socialist wealth redistribution. Whereas those who make their own way in life work hard from the ground up and go to bed tired each night, they don’t like to have their money stolen from them by progressives—so they vote with their wallets. The Seattle Education Association is clearly attacking the hard-working as opposed to the unionized slugs and the wealth redistribution that they most support in Seattle, so it’s no surprise that the government school union got what they wanted so quickly. There really wasn’t any opposition, just political theater that showed clearly that the children were not the priority to the teachers.
It’s a hard reality for many to realize, but the educations we all go through within the public education system is nearly worthless. It exists for these unionized teachers to mooch off of, as they provide very little of any worth for a young, inquiring mind, except a radicalized progressive education. Kids don’t learn about the value of cowboys and Indians in public school, but they sure learn how to stand in line, organize in a collective unit, and get voluminous exposure to the progressive religion of global warming. It’s hard work to unlearn all the crap we learn and for those who reject the experience, it’s easier for them. But for all, the reality couldn’t be clearer. If you support the teachers in Seattle you essentially support Bernie Sanders socialism. The people who won in that case were the socialists represented here by the Seattle Education Association. And they pulled it off because there is no free market competition for their services and it’s nearly illegal to avoid the reach of public schools. So they have a government backed monopoly on building future progressives with tax payer money and every year the price tag goes up. And nobody does anything to stop it because they are afraid of being called names for identifying the behavior what it really is—which is a diabolical socialist scheme that would make the communists of the world bulge with pride. And today in Seattle, they are.
On Force Friday as my family was in acquisition mode for new Star Wars merchandise, my brother sent me a picture of the new book, Aftermath by Chuck Wendig to show that he had put his hands on the long-awaited book. I politely dismissed the innuendo that the novel was a “hot item” to purchase even though in our house we have EVERY single Star Wars novel ever produced up to this point. My family loves the Expanded Universe and is on the fence as to how much of ourselves we’ll invest in this new day under Disney. I’m personally hopeful. I think millions of young people will love it. I think it’s mostly a slam dunk of positive infusion culturally. But I’ll have to see how the movie turns out and how much they wreck the continuity of the story which at this point takes place over thousands of years. So I have not yet read Aftermath. I certainly will at some point, but not until I have some basic questions answered—such as, why is Chewbacca alive in the new film—those kinds of things.
However, apparently there is a gay character in Chuck Wendig’s new book, and while a galaxy filled with crazy aliens, species that convert to female when it comes time to mate, and literally thousands of primary and secondary characters—some of which are bound to have some unique sexual habits, Star Wars is NOT about sex. Not in the least. Yet Wendig chose to respond to criticism over his character the Imperial turncoat Sinjir Rath Velus with the following diatribe on his blog, Terrible Minds. Wendig hit back at readers who accused the author on Amazon of “blatantly pushing a gay agenda” and suggested that the franchise was no longer “children friendly”.
“If you’re upset because I put gay characters and a gay protagonist in the book, I got nothing for you,” Wendig wrote. “Sorry, you squawking saurian — meteor’s coming. And it’s a fabulously gay Nyan Cat meteor with a rainbow trailing behind it and your mode of thought will be extinct.”
“You’re not the Rebel Alliance. You’re not the good guys. You’re the fucking Empire, man. You’re the shitty, oppressive, totalitarian Empire. If you can imagine a world where Luke Skywalker would be irritated that there were gay people around him, you completely missed the point of Star Wars. It’s like trying to picture Jesus kicking lepers in the throat instead of curing them. Stop being the Empire. Join the Rebel Alliance. We have love and inclusion and great music and cute droids.”
He later told a reader who attacked his confrontational approach to his critics that he would not engage in a conversation on the issue. “Because on this, I am not interested in conversation. If your problem with the book is only the inclusion of gay characters, then no conversation is possible. Because that’s homophobia, that’s bigotry, and there’s nothing to be done or said. Someone wants to talk to me about the writing style or whatever, sure, I can have that discussion. On this, no.”
If I were Disney execs and Kathleen Kennedy at Lucasfilm, I’d be very concerned. You really can’t have an author for a kids series dropping “F” bombs and proposing that gay meteors are coming with trails of rainbows to follow. Because the use of a gay character in Star Wars clearly was political, and agenda based, otherwise he wouldn’t be so quick to come unglued. Also, it is disturbing that as a Star Wars author, Wendig assumes that the definition of Star Wars resides along the lines of inclusion of gay people within the Jedi Order of Luke Skywalker. While Star Wars can mean lots of things to a lot of different people, the space opera is about good, old-fashioned story telling based on the Saturday morning serials of George Lucas’s youth. They are westerns set in space and if they become anything less than that, then the profit-making machine Disney hopes the property to be will quickly fade away. I’ve loved Star Wars all my life, but I will be the first one off the train if that’s the direction Disney decides to go. Star Wars is not about where one parks their male sex organs at night. Any romance that does emerge from the stories has direct connections to furthering family lineage. Star Wars is not Game of Thrones. If there is sex and romance, there has always been a point to it. Star Wars is not the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and if Disney thinks they can expand their market share by 2% then they’ll lose 40% who just will drop interest. Times have not changed as much as Wendig thinks based on his comment that conservative modes of thinking will soon be extinct. Miley Cyrus recently said something similar, and I’m sure around San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and places where progressivism is rampant, it’s easy for them to think so. But in Kansas, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Dallas—people aren’t going to rush out to buy the next Star Wars product if they feel a gay agenda is being forced down their throat. They’ll drop interest before Episode 8 hits in May of 2017 and Disney will be in trouble.
Here’s how it works, Disney considers the Avengers: Age of Ultron to be a box office failure even though it made $1.4 billion dollars world-wide. While I enjoyed the movie, I walked out disappointed—I knew how Disney would view the profits from the movie. It wasn’t as good as the first film and it had noticeable progressive influences in the movie that just don’t play well with traditional audiences. Feminism and gay pride may be topics now because of the progressive influence of studio projects, but those are not enduring traits that will still be beloved many years from now. Star Wars is a mythology that should have the same resonance 100 years from now as it does in this decade. And I’ll bet money that 500 years from now, we will be laughed at as a culture for even entertaining all this gay pride stuff. For instance, the two best Star Wars movies are A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Without those two movies, there wouldn’t be a franchise. Obviously the romance in those two stories was the one between Han Solo and Princess Leia. Leia in A New Hope was a raging feminist who was slowly conquered by a strong male archetype typical in most westerns, Han Solo. Over two films he melted her into submission and made a real woman out of her. That is a story point that will endure with human development for hundreds of years and will sustain the growth of billions of dollars in action figures. But if Princess Leia were to stave off Han Solo and start a sexual relationship with Mon Mothma, the whole mythology would have been rejected by the movie going public in seconds. If Disney turns Star Wars into Broke Back Mountain, then there will be hell to pay. They may gain 2% approval from the gay community and the rainbow weirdos who cheered when Obama colored the White House in pretty colors after a Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. But straight people—who will always be in the majority based on biological function, will reject things that they are uncomfortable with. Disney will not be happy when they learn that Star Wars movies won’t make them $2 billion each and the book market dies from a lack of demand for the product. People go to Star Wars to get away from progressive politics, not to relish in it. For me it’s a traditional storyline that is similar to a western—so I love it. Take that traditional element away and I’m not interested. And there are millions who think just like I do.
Just a word of warning to Disney—I love the company and its products. Part of that love comes from the traditional family values that it represents. If traditional value is removed from the product, I’m not inclined to spend money on it. There have been many times where obvious gay people perform at Disney World, and I put up with it to be inclusive, but when they are flamboyant about being males pretending to be women with high-pitched tones to their sentence structures, it just gives me a headache. If some hot chick dressed up as Sleeping Beauty wants to stand next to me for a picture, I’m fine with it. But if a dude dressed up as Sleeping Beauty wants to cuddle up next to me to satisfy their own sexuality—that’s not OK. I don’t want to explain that kind of thing to the young people around me, and I don’t want to be put in that position if I’m spending a $1000 dollars a day at an amusement park. And I’m not going to rush out at midnight to buy a book about gay protagonists. Star Wars is not a sure thing. It can be screwed up, and based on the comments from Chuck Wendig, that apprehension is well justified.
I’m completely alright with expanding the role of women in Star Wars. Jaina Solo is bigger than God in our household. I’m also alright with heroes of different skin colors. But when it comes to sex, I don’t want to know about it. Heterosexual activity can be gross at times, but gay sex is just unappealing and I don’t want to be reminded of it when I look at an action figure. If Disney wants to kill Star Wars, then let these “artistic” types have their way with the traditions of Star Wars by turning it into the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Fans of the series will be turned off, but the real terror will come to Disney execs who measure box office receipts—when they find out that their cash cow just laid an egg—and that’s not something that’s supposed to happen in a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars is not about gay pride, or inclusion. Sex is a “collective experience” something that is shared. Star Wars is about following the bliss of the individual and in saving yourself you save the galaxy. When many people follow their “bliss” evil is conquered and good resumes its work in the world. That has nothing to do with sex. But it has everything to do with what goes on in the human soul. Based on Wendig’s comments, he needs to go back to Star Wars school and Disney needs to re-think who they let drive the car of the franchise—because artists like Chuck are bringing that car back with lots of new dents, scratches, and sticky seats. And that’s just gross.
Now you know dear reader why American Exceptionalism is so important. For all you peace lovers, only now do you understand that the wars in the Middle East that took place in recent years were not about oil. They were about stabilized government and the opportunity to live life for the indigenous people of those lands. The so-called American Imperialism that the political left is always talking about is very good for the world. American capitalism is also very good for the world. Wherever America has a military base or business influence, the cultures in those regions prosper. Where America does not have influence, there is war, death, and corruption. What should that tell the United Nations? And what would the United Nations be without the United States? Nothing. So where does that leave us?
Worldwide presently there are 59.5 million people on the move as refugees within their home countries, victims of tyrannical regimes, poverty-stricken economies, abusive thugs, and environmental disaster. There have never been more people looking to leave where they were hoping to get refuge somewhere else. That is the cause of the problem on the American border with Mexico. Mexico is an impoverished nation collapsing economically under its 100 year commitment toward socialist oriented policies and now they are impoverished. The only real money they have is from American businesses fleeing the high taxation and union demands within the United States, and tourism. The political left is at fault for all those issues, the high taxes, the open border push, the drives toward socialism—yet they take no responsibility for any of it leaving the world a mismanaged mess that is killing many hundreds of thousands of people and leaving millions without hope and opportunity.
The latest crises in Syria has 4.1 million refugees registered fleeing the war-torn area of the Middle East destroyed by ISIS for destinations in Europe hoping for sanctuary somewhere that radicals won’t cut off their heads, rape their women, and corrupt their children. They leave for countries that will allow them to live on welfare—which is why so many are primarily fleeing to Germany. Greece doesn’t have any money to deal with even more people seeking social benefits from a socialist economic system. Obama blew the deal in Syria with Bashar al-Assad when he failed to enforce his “line in the sand” then refused to help that same dictator when indirectly America gave arms to his enemies which rose up to become ISIS—an even greater threat. The cause of that increase of aggression was the power vacuum left behind when America left Iraq, as telegraphed by Barack Obama—who ran for president on the platform of leaving the unpopular war.
As politicians like Rand Paul and his father Ron were technically and Constitutionally correct that America needs to take care of our own borders and not be the police of the entire world, the world actually needs the cowboy heroism of America to save them from mismanagement, religious zealots, and the ugly claws of communism that still seek to spread across the world with a vengeful effort at mass collectivism. So long as the world is rife with communism, socialism and religious fanatics, America is the only country responsible enough to provide peace and shelter to a world literally on fire. The global migrations happening right now are because America has pulled up its global influence and went home to drown in its 19 trillion-dollar deficit.
To any sane mind all these problems, again caused by the political left and their armies of progressives in virtually every field of endeavor. You could further trace much of this trouble back to billionaires like George Soros. His money goes into programs like open border societies, marijuana legalization, and extreme political left progressive candidates. What do all those things have in common? Well, drugs soften the minds of indigenous people while open borders destroy nationalism, creating new voting blocks with socialist foundations to elect progressives to manage the countries while people like hedge fund investors make money on the chaos. There’s no conspiracy there, it’s happening right in front of our faces and nobody is really denying it. Meanwhile, Republicans are more concerned with “playing nice” as millions of young people are killed in China and elsewhere under socialist, communist, and religious administrations. Planned Parenthood is a perfect example of this crises—abortion isn’t just about political and theological debate anymore. Practitioners under tax payer funding are deliberately killing children to sell their body parts. That is a crisis of epic proportions—and again the avocation of the evil is a strategy of the political left. So isn’t it explicitly clear what’s happening and why people are being made to suffer?
One of the terms used to disgrace American occupation of foreign lands is to refer to the act as “cowboy diplomacy” and the concept of the Wild, Wild, West where the naive concept of good guys shooting bad guys is considered reprehensible. America feeling guilt about that accusation stopped making westerns, stopped shipping its values abroad, and avoided the finger-pointing of American Imperialism that has so long loomed like a cloud over the freest capitalist nation on earth. Well, now we see the results of that avoidance. The world was so much better when it made westerns, and kids played cowboys and Indians as opposed to Miley Cyrus grinding on some teddy bears and passing around joints at a press conference. Miley was shaped by progressive politics whereas conservativism was shaped by American westerns and their values. Turn a cowboy loose in the Middle East and there will be lot fewer refugees fleeing to Germany. I promise. Punish the bad guys so good people can live free. To a liberal that’s an overly simplified statement, because to their minds, evil has a seat at the table of debate. Liberals created all the problems, and the world is suffering under their mismanagement.
The question we have to solve now is what to do about all this. Just blindly taking in refugees and putting them on government assistance won’t solve the problem. They need real help in places like Syria, and Mexico. Those regions do need a return to cowboy diplomacy and a sense of honor typically associated with American westerns. They need capitalism and the opportunities that come with that economic system. The Greek isles depend nearly exclusively on tourism to sustain livelihoods for their inhabitants. They don’t make cars, or even brew beer there, not in any quantities to provide economical means toward social sustainability. They need tourists to visit to provide income to the families who live there. But tourists won’t come if dead bodies continue to wash up on the beach from failed attempts to cross the Mediterranean from Africa and the Middle East by families fleeing the terrorism of ISIS and the caliphate of Islamic extremism. Nobody wants to go on vacation only to see dead bodies on the beach. Yet the United Nations is in complete paralysis as to what to do about it all. They are totally clueless trying to deal with the problem, not the cause of the problem.
The cause of most of the world’s problems is a lack of capitalism and the American bravado to promote it. The reluctance to spread “cowboy diplomacy” throughout the world has been catastrophic. The world needs our help, and we have instead run like chickens—which progressives have told two generations now is a noble cause. Progressives would rather support abortion deaths; rainbow-colored transvestites, and legalized marijuana, than to allow America to feel good about its traditions and responsibility. Saving the world is the responsibility of those most able to do it. If a victim is in distress and a strong personality is nearby to do something about it, the responsibility for action is on those capable of solving the problem. America is the only nation capable of such a thing. And because we are not performing that job now, the world is suffering. The blame for that suffering is not only on the liberals who have caused the mess, but in those of us who have failed to act correctly in the face of danger and opposition. The world needs a little “cowboy justice” and it’s about time we stop apologizing and start giving it to them. Once the world learns to be more like Americans, then maybe the United States can be the way Rand Paul wishes. But not until then.
Watching Donald Trump on the Jimmy Fallon Show Friday September 11th, 2015 just ahead of the second Republican debate of the campaign season on CNN, it was clear that the New York billionaire was in his element and most poised to become the next president. He had such a good show with Fallon that it may be remembered in history as Teddy Roosevelt’s “I carry a big stick” speech. Trump is independently successful, in the old-fashioned way, and after more than a decade on television with his own reality show teaching others how to be successful, he has become a very polished performer in front of the camera. He has a stage presence better than Ronald Reagan and far surer of himself. And I think that’s a great thing, considering we’ve just come off nearly 16 years of a divided country almost as fractured as America was during the Civil War. We have the Clintons to thank for bringing us that fracturing during 90s, but that’s a story that’s been told before. Now we have to clean up the mess and figure out who is most poised to perform the job of president now.
The real test for Trump will be this upcoming CNN debate. I’m sure he knows that the Republican establishment will throw everything but the kitchen sink at him over the next few weeks, but essentially he can lock down the nomination for president with this next debate. If he dominates, most of his rivals will be forced to step out, as Rick Perry just has. Likely that is what is at the heart of Rand Paul’s frustrated comments just before Trump went on the Fallon show and gave a brilliant performance. If Trump dominates the CNN debate, the money will dry up for most of the Republican candidates and the road to the White House will have ended for them. Here is what Paul said:
“What does it say about GOP when a 3 & half term Gov w/ a successful record of creating jobs bows out as a reality star leads in the polls?” Paul tweeted.
Well, let me answer that question for Paul and the rest of the GOP field—as well as all the other people like Glenn Beck who think Trump is a simpleton, a buffoon, a reckless madman, and a wildly progressive candidate who will bring destruction to the country if elected president. Trump is a polished television performer. He understands how television works and how much information common people can retain in a speech. While he may not be a Constitutional attorney, or a talk show host who has built their life as an expert on American history, he is aware that all that knowledge is useless if you can’t sell the Constitution to the house and senate on Capital Hill. So even if Rand Paul were elected, or Ted Cruz—who know the Constitution likely better than the Supreme Court, the normal zombies out there who live in pop culture land don’t care even a little bit, so there will be no adherence on Capital Hill to the Constitution, so why dwell on it. Trump has a different strategy, which I agree with.
Since I’ve been writing these daily articles starting in 2010 I have watched Glenn Beck fill the Mall in Washington with hope filled speeches, I have watched Governor Kasich run as a Tea Party darling, promising big changes and Constitutional adherence, and I watched my hometown congressman John Boehner take over as Speaker of the House and watched Mitch McConnell across the river become Senate Majority Leader. I watched Boehner force members to read the Constitution after his swearing-in and talk like he was going to reform Washington. Guess what happened in all those cases? Big waves came and swept away Beck throwing him into near irrelevance in Dallas, Texas away from the media culture of New York, where the fight for our nation’s survival really is happening. Beck picked a fight with George Soros and the billionaire unleashed his wrath on the pest forcing him to leave town and find solace in Jesus. Boehner, McConnell and Kasich all had their asses handed to them with just a little bit of progressive resistance. Obama clearly outplayed Boehner. Kasich lost to the unions. And McConnell was never anything but a muddy middle ground player in Washington. He’s far from conservative as the party platform professes small, limited, government with responsible spending. They are effectively wimps and they are the most powerful in Washington.
Along comes Trump, independently successful, charismatic, and he has a wrathful temper. He’s used to winning everything he does and he actually loves to fight. While people like Beck used to be alcoholics and drug addicts open to vices that corrupt man’s mind, Trump has always been against weak personality flaws. He has been shaped by the typical New York progressive view of the world in the past, but he currently has the ability to go on the Jimmy Fallon Show and declare without hesitation that America needs to decrease its spending, close its borders, and become a rich nation again without apologizing to the world—and people clap. Movie stars line up to have selfies taken with him, and he is generally admired by even people on the left. When he states that he supports taxing the rich, it is a calculated effort—a way to take the wind out of the sails of open socialists like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. What can they say to “trump” Trump when the Republican candidate is advocating the same things they are in their platform? (It’s called political strategy) On the Fallon Show Trump advocated during a comedy segment that corporate taxation needed to be lowered—and again people cheered him on. That is important—I believe taxes in general will be lowered by Trump, especially for corporations. Hedge fund investors are easy targets who are like Vegas gamblers. The wealth they create is all in paper—so taxing them is an easy target. Corporations on the other hand actually make things—and their taxes need to be lowered—considerably. In the climate we live in now, Trump knows he won’t get both and still get political support from the population in general. Not when socialism is what the political left is selling.
I know that people are worried that Trump is poised to become an American version of Russia’s Putin—but I think he’s smarter than that. I think a lot of the egomaniac persona is an act designed to throw people off while conducting The Art of the Deal in real life. For people who don’t understand those kinds of skills I can see why they are timid. People think when they meet me that I’m a hard right-winged guy who is intolerant of the world and that I live in a fringy cave of conservatism. They are surprised when I can sit down with people who think very differently from me and conduct myself in a reasonable way. I’ve been in sales of some kind or another all my life, and the first thing you do when feeling out an opponent’s position is to find out where they are. So you club them over the head with aggression to find out what they are willing to defend most, then you work toward an agreement with that knowledge. It’s a strategy, and Trump is certainly good at it. What he shows is not always where he’s willing to sign a deal. That’s likely what scares Beck and Paul, because they are Constitutional purists. However to me, I think the Constitution was framed by the Federalists way too much—I live near Hamilton, Ohio which is named after Alexander Hamilton—who was an idiot in my opinion. I did not like Hamilton’s fiscal fights with Thomas Jefferson—and I didn’t respect the way George Washington let Hamilton have his way with the country’s financial approach of too much centralized government intrusion. I think with all the rhetoric that I’ve heard from Trump that he’s a closet Anti-Federalist. I think he’d be more of a president like Jefferson than Washington. I think he may be as bombastic as Teddy Roosevelt was, but away from progressivism instead of toward it. I actually think Trump as a president would be a combination of George Patton, Thomas Jefferson, and the Democrat Andrew Jackson. Personally I like Jackson, he balanced the books in America for the only time in its history, and I think Trump is the only person right now in the world who could tackle the 19 trillion-dollar deficiency facing us right now. I see no downside to a Trump president, only strategic opportunities that benefit our country.
Trump is far more than a television reality star. It must be remembered that his television stardom only came after he had a successful career as one of the best in his field of endeavor. And he’s offering something to politics that we haven’t seen before. People like Trump don’t run for president. They purchase them, and then stay in the shadows. There isn’t another person on the Republican stage for president right now who can resist that purchasing power—including Ted Cruz. But Cruz knows what he’s doing. Trump is breaking through a lot of ice and Cruz is succeeding in his wake. And that is how someone like Cruz can get a foothold in Washington that he otherwise wouldn’t get. It takes someone like Trump to bust up the old way so that something new can come about. And in 2016 we are in a bust up year. We have to destroy the garbage that politicians like Barack Obama and George W. Bush have given us. And we need to do it fast, and spectacularly. Out of all the possible candidates in the world on any continent at this moment in time, only Trump has an opportunity to perform the task. And instinctively, people know it.
The American Constitution is excessively important, but to my eyes, it was corrupted from the gate. The Anti-Federalists folded too soon and gave way to Alexander Hamilton entirely too much. So I’m all for making the Constitution more conservative with Supreme Court appointments who survived The Apprentice instead of some liberal trash from a left-leaning university. I want to see Secretaries of State who know Project Management, and negotiators who know how to cut off the head of their opposition and stick it on a pike for all to see. And I want a President who will do all this with a smile on his face and who has the ability to walk onto Saturday Night Live and joke about it selling back to America all the things that are good for it—starting with their national pride. So to answer Senator Paul, the reason the GOP finds itself losing to a reality television star is because they have lied, cheated, and allowed themevles to be beaten by complete idiots for over two decades now. And people like me are sick of it. Trump offers something different and I’m willing to try it—because doing the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity. Voting for anybody but Trump would be considered insane because nobody else, Paul included has the ability to market their good ideas to the public—and therefore would drown in the corruption that pours off K-Street like water over Niagara Falls.
Two of the most prominent Tea Parties in Butler County, Ohio had a meeting at one of my favorite places, the Elk’s Club which overlooks Trenton to discuss the pros and cons of the upcoming marijuana legalization vote in November. I couldn’t make it as I had another engagement, but I wanted to go. Sheriff Jones was there along with others and I would have liked to been there to express my opinion. So I’ll give it now for posterity–for those who wonder where I stand on the issue. I am dead-set against the legalization of marijuana for any use—even for a rope. I hate the product in every form possible. I hate the shape of the leaves, I will not buy anything with hemp in it, and I hate the smell. More than once I have been in physical confrontations with people just for smoking it near me, which I promise will happen more often if it becomes legal. I hate the stuff in every form that it was created.
I do not support medical marijuana. If I was in pain and needed some chemical from marijuana to have relief from the pain, then it is time to die. I say that as I have had a broken wrist and ankle for the last two months, still competed in my summer bullwhip competitions, rode a bicycle for exercise 24 miles most of those days and I have not once taken an aspirin for the pain. So I sure as hell won’t be smoking or injecting anything from marijuana into my body ever for any reason. Pain I can deal with. A corrupt substance that brings out the worst of the human race I want nothing to do with. I HATE POT. And I hate people who use pot, who think about pot, or justify pot. There are better scientific methods for dealing with illness; medical marijuana is not one of them. It is a pathetic ingredient for weak people.
I have managed to get along ok with people who have used marijuana in the past. People make mistakes. I never used it. I have always had a hard-line against it all through my high school years. I had girl friends that used it, I lost friends to it, but they never, ever, ever consumed marijuana in my presence—ever. It was always a major no, no as a predicate for my friendship, and those who forced me to pick between friendship with them and marijuana learned quickly that I meant it when I said I would never speak to them again if they used it after knowing me. And I did not compromise on that prerequisite at any point in my life. There are a lot of people who are stupid when they are teenagers. They grow up a bit by their late twenties. In their thirties they start to regret being so stupid. And by the time they are in their forties, they are alright; I can begin to forgive them for their past transgressions involving pot. But I always look at them as a bit tainted. I don’t hold it against them in the fashion that they can’t erase their past mistakes, but because they chose to do it at some point in their life, it does have an impact on my assessment of their personal value.
For that reason, most of my best friends are well of 60 years of age. That is because most people my own age have at least tried pot at some point in their life. I get along plenty well with younger people, but I don’t have very many close associates because of my feelings toward pot. I can be friendly with people who are users—especially business friendly—but anyone who uses marijuana even for medical reasons I have little respect for. Some people grow up and mature away from pot and I treat them fairly. But always in the back of my mind look at them as a personality that was susceptible to its use—and that is an alarm flag to me.
I don’t care that the Indians (Native Americans) used pot. To my mind, that’s why they were so easily defeated by a bunch of people who came from Europe and stole their land from them. Smoking pot, peace pipes, and their entire drug induced shaman tricks are some of the reasons their culture has failed. Their foundations of earth worship and tribal nonsense centering on collectivism is disgusting to me. Dances with Wolves was a great movie by Kevin Costner, but the premise of it is rather ridiculous. The Sioux were slaughtered because they were a collectivist culture and pot is the chosen recreation among those types of people, because it turns off the individual mind, lowers the walls of personal sanctity, and introduces collective consciousness.
When I learned that Ayn Rand was willing to smoke pot to prove she was open-minded, it had an impact on how much I was willing to take her work seriously. I think she did great work, which eventually led to the basic foundations of the current libertarian political philosophy, but her comments about pot limit how seriously I regard her. And the same is true of libertarians. I am not one. When I hear the name I think of pot, so I could never be a libertarian. I don’t want my neighbor smoking pot in their back yard because I don’t want to smell the shit blowing around in the air anywhere near me.
Now the typical pot user would tell me, as they have for over four decades, that I need to “mellow” out, that I’m twisted up too tightly about too many topics—that I need to “loosen up.” Well, it’s not going to happen. I like who I am, and part of that is that I have never used pot, I’ve stood against it, and I am completely clean to have such an opinion. I have nieces and nephews who have used it and I don’t compromise on their behalf. It does change the way I see them. It saddens me to know that the bright little kids that they used to be were crushed into oblivion by the peer pressure use of pot. I still care for them, but I don’t respect them. That is the cost of using pot, and me finding out about it.
Many would say that I have an impossibly high standard. That may be. But I’m fine with that. When my wife and I were younger we knew a couple who were newly married who got severely stoned on their honeymoon, and I was a serious stick in the mud over the issue, which put a tremendous amount of pressure on our relationship at home, because I was virtually the only person who felt so strongly about such things that my wife knew. Everyone else, parents included were much more accepting of it. My position was that I’d rather be single and alone for the rest of my life than to ever try marijuana. In other wedding parties while everyone else was relishing in drunkenness and drug induced stupor I have always been the square one that didn’t partake in the mindless orthodox of collective numbness. And I am very proud of that.
With all that known, it should be clear what my position on legalizing pot in Ohio is. I’m not a live and let live type of person like libertarians are advocating. I’m not one who proposes more laws either. But in regard to marijuana, it is illegal now, and I’m fine with keeping it that way. It is a drug that I have observed makes people stupid. It destroys minds before they are fully grown—by the age of 25—and handicaps them for life. I don’t care what a government study group says in support of hemp, pot, marijuana, or even medial use of the THCs in the pot plant. I hate pot, I don’t find anything funny about Cheech and Chong’s movies. Pot is just bad. It’s stupid to smoke it, it’s weak to want it, and it’s a huge negative to a culture of any kind that uses it in any form. People should love to think, to be aware, and to live freely under their own ambitions. They should not want to numb themselves for any reason even under sickness. Life is meant to be lived and drugs alter that life. The Indians were wrong in their use. Every musician, actor, or pop culture idol is wrong in their avocation of it. There is nothing good that comes from pot and I’ve watched the behavior for a long time. Since I’ve been free of its use, I can speak clearly, and with certainty as to its evils. Pot has no place in a culture that anticipates that it should be ambitious, and forwarding thinking. Being comfortably numb, as the Pink Floyd song has advocated for years is not an honorable position. It’s the position of a weak and self-destructive personality that has little to offer existence except for excuses.
VOTE NO against the vile, despicable marijuana use in Ohio, in any and all forms. Vote HELL NO!
Without question the Iran nuclear deal that the Obama administration signed with that top sponsor of terrorism was detrimental not only to world security, but to American’s credibility as a nation. That’s why it was so refreshing to see Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck, along with others gathered in front of the capital building in Washington D.C. to protest the ridiculous deal. For coverage of the speakers at the event, watch the clips below. To understand the basics of the deal, continue reading.
Negotiations for a framework deal over the nuclear program of Iran took place between the foreign ministers of the countries at a series of meetings held from 26 March to 2 April 2015 in Lausanne, Switzerland. On 2 April the talks came to a conclusion and a press conference was held by Federica Mogherini, (High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs) and Mohammad Javad Zarif (Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran) to announce that the eight nations had reached an agreement on a framework deal. The parties announced that “Today, we have taken a decisive step: we have reached solutions on key parameters of a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.”[1] with a goal of working out this final deal by 30 June 2015.[2][3][4] Announcing the framework, Foreign Minister Zarif stated: “No agreement has been reached so we do not have any obligation yet. Nobody has obligations now other than obligations that we already undertook under the Joint Plan of Action that we adopted in Geneva in November 2013.”[5]
The framework deal was embodied in a document published by the EU’s European External Action Service titled Joint Statement by EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif Switzerland.[1] and in a document published by the U.S. Department of State titled Parameters for a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Nuclear Program.[6]
On 14 July 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between Iran and the P5+1 and EU, a comprehensive agreement based on the April 2015 framework, was announced.
According to the joint statement in Switzerland, the E3+3 countries and Iran agreed on a framework for a deal. According to this framework, Iran would redesign, convert, and reduce its nuclear facilities and accept the Additional Protocol (with provisional application) in order to lift all nuclear-related economic sanctions.[7] In addition to the joint statement, the United States and Iran issued fact sheets of their own.[8]
Iran’s enrichment capacity, enrichment level and stockpile will be limited for specified durations.
There will be no enrichment facilities other than Natanz.
Iran is allowed to conduct research and development on centrifuges with an agreed scope and schedule.
Fordow, the underground enrichment center,[9] will be converted to a “nuclear, physics and technology centre”.
Reprocessing
The Heavy Water facility in Arak with help of international venture will be redesigned and modernized to “Heavy Water Research Reactor” with no weapon grade plutonium byproducts.
The spent fuel will be exported, there will be no reprocessing.
Monitoring
Implementation of the modified Code 3.1 and provisional application of the Additional Protocol.
Iran agreed IAEA procedure which enhanced access by modern technologies to clarify past and present issues.
Sanctions
When the IAEA verifies Iran’s implementation of its key nuclear commitments:
The EU will terminate all nuclear-related economic sanctions.
The United States will cease the application of all nuclear-related secondary economic and financial sanctions.
The UN Security Council will endorse this agreement with a resolution which terminates all previous nuclear-related resolutions and incorporate certain restrictive measures for a mutually agreed period of time.
In addition to the final statement, both the United States and Iran have made public more detailed descriptions of their agreement. Officials of both sides acknowledged that they have different narratives on this draft.[8] The U.S. government has published a fact sheet summarizing the main points of the deal.[10] Shortly after it was published, top Iranian officials, including the Iranian supreme leader and the Iranian minister of defense have disputed the document on key points which remain unresolved.[11][12][13]
According to details of the deal published by the US government, Iran has accepted to not build any new facilities for the aim of enrichment and reduce its current stockpile to 300 kg of 3.67 percent low-enriched uranium during 15 years and limit the enriched uranium to 3.67 percent for at least this duration, restrict to 6,104 installed centrifuges under the deal, with only 5,060 of these enriching uranium for 10 years.[14] This amount of enrichment – namely 3.67% – would be enough just for peaceful and civil use to power parts of country and therefore is not sufficient for building a nuclear bomb.[15]
According to press TV report based on Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran’s extra centrifuges and the related infrastructure in the Natanz facility will be collected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to be replaced by new machines consistent with the allowed standards. Iran will be allowed to allocate the current stockpile of enriched materials for the purpose of producing nuclear fuel or swapping it with uranium in the international markets. These comprehensive solutions permit Iran to continue its enrichment program inside its territory and also allowed to continue its production of nuclear fuel for running its nuclear power plants.[16]
According to the U.S. State Department fact sheet, Iran has agreed to convert its Fordow facility into a nuclear physics, technology research center, and to not conduct research and development associated with uranium enrichment at Fordow for 15 years.[14] According to the joint statement by Iran and the EU, the Fordow nuclear facility will be turned into a research center for nuclear science and physics and about half of the Fordow facility would be dedicated to advanced nuclear research and production of stable isotopes which have important applications in industry, agriculture and medicine. Iran would maintain more than 1,000 centrifuges for this purpose.[16]
According to Press TV, the implementation of JCPOA followed by lifting of all the UN Security Council sanctions as well as all economic and financial embargoes by the US and the European Union imposed on Iran’s banks, insurance, investment, and all other related services in different fields, including petrochemical, oil, gas and automobile industries will be immediately lifted all at once.[16] However, according to the fact sheet which is published by the US government, U.S. and E.U. nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified the implementation of the key nuclear-related steps by Iran.[14]
Iran will be required to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency access to all of its declared facilities so that the agency can ensure about peaceful nuclear program.[15] According to published details of the deal which is published by the U.S. government, IAEA inspectors would have access to all of the nuclear facilities including enrichment facilities, the supply chain that supports the nuclear program and uranium mines as well as continuous surveillance at uranium mills, centrifuge rotors and bellows production and storage facilities. Iran will be required to grant access to the IAEA to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of a covert enrichment facility, conversion facility, centrifuge production facility, or yellowcake production facility anywhere in the country. Iran will implement an agreed set of measures to address the IAEA’s concerns regarding the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) of its program.[14]
According to the Iranian fact sheet, Iran will implement the Additional Protocol temporarily and voluntarily in line with its confidence-building measures and after that the protocol will be ratified in a time frame by the Iranian government and parliament (Majlis).[16]
No deal of any kind is worth the paper it’s printed on if there isn’t respect for both parties making the deal. In regard to American’s view toward Iran, there is no trust except for the blind assumption by progressives that there can be foundationless trust between the two countries. Iran has sponsored terror and caused a lot of trouble. So trusting them is difficult under perfect conditions. Then of course there is Iran. What values do they stand to lose if they violate the deal? What implication against their honor would there be? What holds them to honor? Nothing. So for all the hoopla, the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by John Kerry is purely political theater that empowered an enemy of capitalism. That made it quite relevant, and historic that a few presidential candidates and some talk show pundits protested the farce on Capital Hill. And within that protest there was just a grain of hope that the world had not gone insane.
