Trump Names Shulkin to "fix the VA".

This is Trump’s 10 point plan to fix the VA. 

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/veterans-affairs-reform

Then Trump picks Dr. David J. Shulkin to accomplish that plan.

I’m continually impressed with Donald Trump’s method of attacking a problem. First he defines the problem then gathers professionals around him to come up with solutions, then he along with the experts come up with a plan. It is at this point and not before that he starts to interview people that will carry out his plan.

Most other President Elects will first interview people and ask them individually what their solutions to the problems are, then pick the one they like best. 

 Like I said; not Trump, first he gathers the “Best and the Brightest” around him, figures out the best plan then hires someone whom he figures is the best one available to carry out the plan.

The perfect example is filling the Secretary for Veteran Affairs post mentioned above. We all know about the failures at the VA hospitals and all the stories of scandal, corruption and Veterans dying while waiting for treatment. Horrible stuff. As so often happens in Washington a figure head is put in charge of “fixing it” and not given any power and no clear understanding of what needs to be done. No idea of what he/she’ll be rewarded for or punished for doing. 

It is the way politicians do things, their way to distance themselves from someone who fails and to cover their inability to know or care about real solutions. It is the start of corruption. Those in charge basically denying that they are responsible for what they do.

Bottom line is that the people they put “in charge” do as little as possible out of self-defense and not much gets done.  That is the Swamp that needs Draining.

Trump is a businessman. They have different ways of “fixing problems” based on whether the problems actually get fixed or not. President Elect Trump after gathering an impressive group of professional people in the military and medical field came up with a 10 point plan back in July of 2016. Only then did he start interviewing people to fill that job. 

One of those “advisors” who helped Trump formulate his 10 Point Plan was Jeff Miller chair of the House VA oversight committee. He is a harsh critic of the way the VA works or should I say doesn’t work and how they waste money.

http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/jeff-miller-va-secretary-trump

As you can see from the 10 point plan above, it is a poster child for what Trump calls “Draining the Swamp”. Trump’s term for getting rid of the “Culture of Corruption” that seems to be paralyzing America. 

It reminds me of the time in America when corruption was the “in thing”. I’m talking about prohibition. When it was the cool thing to break the law. “Hey babe let’s dress up and go out to the local “speak easy” get sloshed and do some dancing and what not. All the best people will be there”. Cops were being paid to let this happen, judges too and the rule of law was meaning less and less. The rule of law was changing into a new rule where success in life became more dependent upon who you knew than what you knew.

Sound familiar?

That was broken up at least in the F. B. I. by the formation of the “Untouchables”. A flying unit beholding to no one except the Director to renew the integrity of the F. B. I. and give back to people the confidence in law enforcement. Confidence back in the idea that no one is above the law and we all have a level playing field upon which we are judged by what we do not who we know.

As I look through the 10 point plan to resurrect the VA, by setting up a new infrastructure based solely on the idea of helping the Veteran. I see a 10 point plan for rewarding merit and getting rid of the slackers. I see a plan that puts Dr. David J. Shulkin directly in charge of making any changes he sees fit and being answerable only to the President based upon what is best for the Veteran.

It sets up a system to reward merit and punish the employees wasting money. Sets up a hotline with real people taking complaints from Vets.

I fail to see why any Veteran didn’t vote for Trump. If any vote against him in 2020 I’d be amazed.

Regards, Bob Carr
Live Dangerously, Tell the Truth
glhotdogs513@gmail.com
231-728-3455

PS only two more Cabinet picks left, Agriculture and Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.

For all the picks please see my side bar naming them all.

Synchronicity

Funny how life works. 

As I was driving into Hart (my nearest city, a 15 mile drive starting on dirt then to better roads, very little of which had been plowed of the 6”s of snow we got overnight) I heard on the news that a fella in Mi. got a ticket for violating a city ordinance. He had to pay a $158 ticket. His offence was that he went out and started his car and went back inside for 5 minutes letting his car warm up.

The Chief of police instead of apologizing for being over aggressive instead doubled down saying that they have 4 or 5 cars stolen each winter just because people left their cars running and unattended. Makes sense in an Orwellian way I guess but it got me thinking. By removing temptation do you remove crime? Is that true? Don’t the criminals get more creative?

In 2013 - 510,000 cars were stolen. I couldn’t find any stats on how many of them were left unattended with the motor running and unlocked. I do understand it is inviting for someone looking to steal a car if I’m smart I wouldn’t do it. But should we be punished for making a crime easier? For inviting a criminal to commit a crime? How far can we stretch that logic? What about “bait cars” used by police to lure criminals? Shouldn’t they be fined for promoting crime, for overloading our jails?

As I pulled up to the La Fiesta Restaurant in Hart where we hold our weekly 8am Cozy Conservative Breakfast the topic came up and we discussed it. On the way up to the counter to pay, I stopped by another table and they asked me about it also. I said that it was a city ordinance and we had no such law in Hart yet. They seemed to think however that it made sense because it would stop car thieves, then I had an epiphany.

I asked the one lady if she carried any cash in public. She said she did and I then asked her if she felt guilty because was tempting untold numbers of people into robbing her. I thought that there should be a fine for carrying cash. That would stop more than 4 or 5 robberies I’m sure. Think of the suffering etc. we could stop. That got that table thinking.

She saw my logic. Then getting back to life and it being funny how it worked, I got home and saw this article in the Guardian about cities going cash-less. Synchronicity.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jan/09/rise-cashless-city-contactless-payments-exclusion-cashfree-society

This article by extrapolation points out that this is a rural vs urban type of thing. Its main point however pointed towards it being an economic class type of thing. In other words this is mainly taking place in cities and it pits those with a bank account against those who don’t. By forcing those with the least to pay the most to change.

But getting back to what I told my fellow breakfast diner, the article had this quote from someone interested in promoting a cashless society. “If you keep people trapped in a cash economy, you leave them to pay higher prices for everything, you leave them struggling to access credit, and more vulnerable to theft,”… Is this right? “Trapped, higher prices, more vulnerable to theft?

I thought that using a credit card added a charge to the cost of doing business. All the big banks with cards make money off of each transaction – that is why they do it. Wouldn’t that ultimately lead to a higher price for the consumer? Also as a side note if you follow Dave Ramsey at all you know that studies prove a person will spend 20% more using plastic than if they have to pay cash. But that is another blog about personal responsibility.

Trapped? The only time I feel trapped with cash is when I don’t have enough of it. With plastic I don’t feel that compunction as much about spending only what I have.

The other thing the quote claimed about using cash left us more vulnerable to theft?

That got me thinking. I’m of an age when we were taught to think critically. My first thought was what is the motive behind getting rid of the cash? We have been using cash for a long time and it works. Why Change? What’s the motive? I can think of several reasons and vulnerability to theft is the least of them. First, Banks make a small fee on every transaction when their card is used. Secondly Government will have an easier way of gathering all taxes owed. Together government and business can more easily keep track of spending habits, trends etc.

Other ideas of a more nefarious nature come to mind also. This will force out the freest of enterprises. This will sideline the street vendor or just the average guy who wants to make a trade with his neighbor and a little cash to make things even. The essence of “Free Trade” is trading after all, and money was invented to make up the difference in value in any trade. And as far as Jennifer and Tommy’s lemonade stand – forget about it.

The article alluded to people who would be hurt most being the street vendor, charities (Salvation Army Red Kettles come to mind). The article defined cash. “The beauty of cash is that it’s a direct and simple transaction between all kinds of different people, no matter how rich or poor,” explains financial writer Dominic Frisby. “If you begin to insist on cashlessness, it does put pressure on you to be banked and signed up to financial system, and many of the poorest are likely to remain outside of that system. So there is this real danger of exclusion.”

To this I simply say “cashlessness” equals “brainlessness”. Another step along the path to the creation of the “Perfect Consumer”.

Isn’t it about time that we simply realize that our prime purpose on earth as humans is to spend money, behave ourselves and die as soon as we get a disease and not prolong the misery as that will only strain the economy? After all aren’t we all after the Common Good? Don’t we want Social Justice?

If the government gets $158 for saving someone from getting their car stolen isn’t that justice because that helps deter crime? But what would happen if we simply outlawed driving we would save 1,250,000 deaths per year as recorded in 2013. But then what’s the motive for that other than saving peoples’ lives? Follow the money, nobody would make any. Auto insurance companies would be out of business, and most police departments would lose over 50% of their reason for being. Car companies would be closed workers would lose paychecks and the lack of consumption would hurt the Common Good.

Can’t you see the Justice in that?

I’m just saying. In the great scheme of things it seems like saving lives while much ballyhooed by politicians and people claiming to save lives doesn’t quite rate up there with making more money under the guise of saving just an occasional life.

Regards, Bob Carr
Live Dangerously, Tell the Truth
glhotdogs513@gmail.com
231-728-3455

PS.  I like movies, you could say I'm addicted.  From time to time I'll give a shout out to one or two.

A good movie about living and getting lost in Virtual Reality - Her.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)  A Joaquin Phoenix you can hardly recognize.  Bear with it.

Also something we talked about at the restaurant, IMO a great political movie with great acting etc.  Spinning Boris.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_Boris  This, though called a comedy is based upon a true story.

Reflections made in contentment of my life so far.

A Winter’s Ode

What is it about near zero snowy winter in Michigan that I like?

What is it about being somewhat self-sufficient that I like? 

As I sit writing this blog I have a sore throat and a little cough from snow blowing for two hours yesterday in the snow. The temperature was 7F. Sure I was dressed with long underwear and wool socks, boots and pants and flannel shirt and appropriate outerwear and a hat covering my ears and most my face. But with the wind I was covered in snow and ice after two hours of snow blowing.

What can I say, kind of the opposite of “fun in the sun”.

One just has to look a little harder to find the “fun in the snow”.

Two days before I had a friend with a tractor (mine’s in the shop) help me carry a cord of cut, split and stacked wood down to my wood shed by my house. Each day I have to carry in a few armfuls of wood that I burn in the only source of heat I have - my indoor forced air wood burning furnace. I put ducts on it 2 years ago to help move the heat around my house and what a wonderful thing that was.

Still every morning my winter house temperature hovers around 60F and that is cold. My first thing is let out the dog and start up the fire and start the whole house warming process over. As I am the one who cuts, hauls, splits stacks then re stacks and then carries each piece again into the house I burn as little as I can to get by. That amounts about to a cord a month.

When I first bought the house it was November and I hadn’t really realized that I didn’t have any heat except with the wood furnace. I didn’t really know the work involved to accomplish that in the dead of winter.

The only wood I had around was a few left over “tops” from the harvesting the previous owners did before I bought the place. Each day I would search for, then find some tops, then snow blow out a path and spend that day cutting and hand splitting that pretty green wood. My daily goal was to gather 2 days’ worth of wood. Slowly I built up a 5’ rack inside and built a 10’ rack outside which I needed to tarp.

That wood was green and hard to get started burning. It seemed like I spent forever hand splitting pieces into really small pieces to get a fire going then a bit bigger pieces to get more coals and it seemed like it took hours to get a self-sustaining fire going. Even then most of the heat of the fire was used drying out the wood and not heating the house.

Without ducts, the basement would get warm and the rest of the house remained cold. I set up an elaborate set of fans trying to get the heat out of the basement. It helped a little but only enough to survive. I vowed I would not be in that situation again.

The next spring, I cut up all remaining tops and anything else I could find and built a couple more racks by the house. I managed to have enough wood for the winter. The wood had a chance to dry out and the fires were a lot easier to start and they gave off much more heat.

Since that hard first winter, I’ve had up to 8 cords cut, split, racked and tarped, of dry easily burnable wood. I made a staging area up the hill where I have 7, 24’ wood racks for which I bought 7, 30’x 6’ tarps to hang over them to keep them dry yet allowing enough air to circulate and dry them faster. I have built a wood shed by the house in which I move a cord at a time to. I also built some ducts going to the far end of my house to help move the heat and they work great.

The start of the wood shed.

Finished wood shed

The most wood I’ve used in one winter is 5 cords. That was the winter of 2015, my worst winter since I’ve lived here. I actually saw minus 20F on my thermometer. My water pipes from the well to the house froze and I spent several days out in that frigid blizzardy weather pounding through the permafrost that reached down to the pipes. I wore layers and covered them all in my Carharts head to foot. I was sore for 2 weeks, my joints ached and my arm and hands would go numb all day long for a couple of months afterwards. I could only type a few sentences before I had to stop and shake the feeling back into them. Snow blowing during that time was especially problematic and bothersome. But it got done. And I remember even then feeling proud of finishing that whole thing.  

I still remember the 2nd day of pounding and digging and thinking I couldn't go any longer when I heard something.  It was chunks of water crinkling in the pipes as the ice was breaking free.  What a lovely sound.  What a great feeling.

After that, I set about figuring out a way to stop that from happening in the future. The next summer I dug my pump hole a foot deeper, built a more insulated enclousure and ran the pipes (a foot deeper too) directly into the house then to the back along the ceiling in the basement to where it needed to be. That put only 10' of pipe outside instead of 30'.  The whole thing was a lot of digging etc. but it was a lot easier in the warmth of spring than the dead of winter. I felt good about that.

I remember other less drastic time’s snow blowing nearly a foot of snow from my 700’ of driveway out to the road only to find the road impassable for my little low to the ground car. I’ve been stuck like that only a couple of time for more than one day. That out of 6 winters isn’t so bad.

So what is the joy in all this? Why do I seem to like all this hardship?

In an age consumed with 24/7 news and the ever perfection seeking busy body commentators and the wannabes on the likes of Facebook, (where anything one does or says is interminably knit picked to death by people who are obsessed with others and making sure others do things perfectly), it is a relief to just do things and get them done and in one’s spare time reflect in front of a fire on how to do it easier and better next time while patting yourself on the back for the accomplishment of fixing the problem.

It is OK to do something not in the context of whether it is for the greater good somehow but for simple survival sake. Or simply because that is what you thought was the best thing to do today. Getting meaning out of life is not about perfection but succeeding at something.

Take it from Stephen Hawking.

And I might add, feel good about the doing of it.

I know I get a good feeling of contentment after I snow blow for two hours and I see the nice open driveway, accessible wood racks, parking areas, dog run and the path from the wood racks down to my wood shed I built two years ago by my back door.

As I sit each morning getting the fire started I get myself and my dog warmed up as the furnace heats up all around us. Then as the blowers kick on and starts blowing heat through the ducts I installed warming the house, I can sit and study or go online in total comfort eating breakfast and luxuriate in a sense of what Arthur C. Brooks calls “earned success”.

As you might guess a lot of this work I do started out of the need to save money. More than that I’m trading a full time job for putting the same amount of time into doing things to save money.  I guess the simple reason is to be able to do the things I want to do.

Examples abound. I haven’t had to buy any wood yet for my heat. I find it and haul and split, stack it myself. To do this my little car becomes a wood hauler and I always have a chainsaw in the trunk with the gas can for it to take advantage of any wood I find.

I do all my own cooking and make my own bread. I take great comfort knowing I can take a chicken I buy on sale and roast it for a meal that day with corn and mashed potatoes and gravy, then cut up the different pieces; legs, thighs, wings and bag them into enough for 3 more meals and freeze them, then slice up the breasts and package them for 3 more meals of different versions of Chicken ala King.

That first night I take the carcass and boil the heck out of it adding an onion and some spices then before I go to bed I strain out the broth and set it in the fridge then take the strained left overs and pick out all little bits of meat while I sit and watch TV. Usually I get a full bowl full. Next day I take the broth out of the fridge pull off the congealed fat and start making soup.

I also have a nice garden and have taught myself to can and freeze and store what I grow. I grow and save; corn, green beans, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, onions and all kinds of strawberries. I also grow turnips, parsnips, a little asparagus and some different squashes and green peppers. So I end up with a really healthy and hearty soup. I call it my garden soup.

Don’t get me wrong. As I’m always changing my ways of gardening for the better, this last year the change turned out for the worse and this winter is the first time I’ve had to buy potatoes, and onions from the store. Luckily I’ve canned/frozen enough of the veggies and tomatoes to get me through. Not all of my idea are good. But with the time like now and by the fire in the morning I get to reflect (Think) of better ways.

Again I’m trading time for money. I spend what time I would be working at a job finding ways to save money. As I sit back and reflect I can find plenty to make me feel content with my lot in life. After all I choose it for myself.

For income I do have some Social Security and a part time elected job as Road Commissioner. Together they give me about 10,000 @ year take home which includes about $40 @ month each from sitting on the County Parks and Rec Board and the Newfield Township Planning Commission.

I live on a strict budget but again that too I’ve learned to enjoy by making of it a game and in the doing have found a myriad of ways to save money. 

That budget allows me to pay myself an allowance every week of $70. $20 for food, $20 for Misc. and $30 for gas for the car. I stick to it. If I run out I wait till next payday. 

Try doing without and as I did with the wood after the mess the first year, and one learns some lessons to apply to all things.  I have built a pantry to store food in and have two large freezers one of which I have filled now with the sale items I buy. The rest of the income I get each month goes directly into all the different categories of my budget. I now always have the money saved aside for car insurance, taxes, utilities etc. when the bill comes.

That too is a good feeling adding to my contentment. Over the last 5 years I’ve been able to save a decent and ever growing however slowly emergency fund.

I guess the bottom line is all the work I do including the hard sometimes bitter things, along with the more pleasant things I do to survive gives me a great sense of overall satisfaction. I feel really good knowing that I am my own master of my house and its 20 acres. I have a son in Cambridge I’m proud of and my daughter lives close by in Muskegon and I have a grandchild. My big excursion is to drive to Muskegon to see them.

Pic below of Liz and Rob with baby Bryar.

They round out my existence. I also have friends I’ve made of some neighbors and some political friends I visit and we do things together. Matter of fact the fella who came over with his tractor to help me move my wood was State Senator Goeff Hansen. We’ve helped each other politically and otherwise since before I moved from Muskegon up here to Oceana County and have become friends.  

Some friends and I set up a Tuesday morning 8am breakfast at the La Fiesta Restaurant in Hart we call the Cozy Conservative Corner. I have been going to that without fail every Tuesday for over 5 years now.  I did miss once this year on election day as I had a job from 7am to 8pm doing a survey of voters and how long the different parts of the voting process took.  This was for Ohio State University.  They paid well but I missed the CCC breakfast but others were there and I called in during it.  LOL.

Like Hawking said and I paraphrase, I can always find something to succeed at. 

So I guess it is obvious why I like the conservative message which stresses individual initiative and getting the government out of peoples way letting them solve their problems themselves. 

We are all more capable of relying upon ourselves to one extent or another than we think. If you doubt it, look at all the help that flooded into Louisiana during Katrina and New York after 9/11. Look at how people invented ways to help themselves before the government could finally get help there and begin telling they couldn't.

Also with this self-reliance there comes an intuitive understanding of the need for assistance from friends or yes the government. Yes I rely on the government.  My Social Security is half my income. Without that I would be hard pressed to survive. There is very little left to cut in my budget.

An honesty (humility) is also forced upon ourselves by reality as we learn we are not the sharpest tool in the shed in everything we do. But harking back to Hawking in paraphrase, we all can find something we can do and succeed at. Just not everything. With time we generate a sense of contentment and well-being from taking care of ourselves.

We tend by this to find a spiritual side to existence.

This again goes back to a favorite saying of mine. We learn best by the doing. Or we appreciate most what we accomplish by the doing. Or how about we can learn more how to do something better more easily after we’ve done it in the first place?



Regards, Bob Carr --
Live Dangerously, Tell the Truth
glhotdogs513@gmail.com
231-728-3455

Changing Hands

The Shoes on the Other Foot

Trump tweeted, and the Republican Congressmen met in hurried session to figure it out. Who says that tweeting isn’t an effective way of communicating?

But let us not forget that the Republicans have not had both a majority in the House and a President at the same time in a very, very long time. What that portends is an understanding that the two must get in sync or look ineffectual which is what they campaigned against – ineffectual government. The shoe now is on the other foot.

We have been a party made up of what you could call different warring tribes with various tribal leaders. For example Libertarian Tribal Chief Rand Paul or Elite Senate Tribal Chief Mitch McConnell.  Just to name a couple.  There are many more and as they fight it out alliances change. In the past without leadership the various tribal leaders could say and do what they pleased. The Democrat President and his leadership could simply say “Who Cares”, because Republicans had no power. The Dems had learned to keep their tribes in control.

Now it is soon to be President Trump who is saying “Who Cares”. To assert some control over the fractious Republicans he seems to be saying “If I Care – You Better”. Well on this issue they did care.

Paul Ryan and the leadership did some whip cracking and got themselves not only behind Trump but behind what they all campaigned on. Repealing Obamacare and reforming the tax laws, which they realized under a Trump Presidency must be coupled with truth and honesty in government – “Draining the Swamp”. 

In an emergency Republican caucus House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy asked his Republicans whether they had campaigned on decimating the ethics office or on repealing Obama care and changing the tax code. In effect he was saying if you take power away from the ethics you will lose the support of the base and won’t be able to repeal Obama Care or change the tax laws.

He got unanimous support for not messing with the ethics committee. A side note, it is good to see Republican leadership backing up Trump on this. A step in the right direction? I hope so. It is good to see the Majority leader doing his job. Hey it is something and something ain’t nothing.

Perhaps we should heed the advice Jesse Ferguson was giving to fellow Democrats about trying to obstruct everything Trump does. Mr. Ferguson simply said it was a trap for them to do so. A lot of Democrats and Elite Republicans are coming around to the notion that a large part of the reason Trump won the election was that people were upset with the inability of government to get anything done. For whatever reason. Nobody cares about the reason, after decades of long winded excuses the people wanted whirlwind action. The people were putting the shoe of government on the other foot.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/01/03/democrats-obstruction-congress-government-gop-column/96082632/

Obstructionism just for its own sake Jesse was saying would lead them right into being what 60 some percent of the voters thought government shouldn’t do. And what government shouldn’t do, is nothing. Jesse Ferguson was Hillary’s national press secretary for the 2016 campaign. He should have some idea of why they lost.

From the article this quote by Ferguson. “It's too soon to tell whether 2018 will be another change election. If it is, the conclusion we want voters to reach is that Trump’s government doesn’t work for them — not that government doesn’t work at all. We’ll never hate government more than Republicans do, and we never should.”

That in a nutshell is the difference between the two party’s ideologies. Summed up by Ronald Reagan so well when he said. “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” But that is for another blog. Ideology aside what we have is a massive trillion dollar government that can’t seem to get anything done or solve any problems. The Party that shows it can get things done will win the prize along with the hearts and minds of “Average Joe”.  Reagan tried his best, the people knew that and voted him back in.

I believe Mr. Ferguson’s statement to be correct. By the 2018 election however I believe because “the shoe has changed feet” you will soon see two things. First a splintering of the Democrat party back into smaller warrior tribes of their own and each will be trying to go along to get along as the Republicans have done for so long thinking they can save what little power they have left. 

Secondly under Trump’s leadership as they get used to having power you will see a more unified party which will show “Average Joe voter” that the government can work for them. The key is that Republicans fight tooth and nail against the corruption caused by that power - and they do something.

Republicans can do this by putting the reasons for their plans in a way people – average people will understand. Then the key is to lead by example showing that our leaders are willing to follow the same plan as they’ve made for us. The leadership must remember above all else that what we are trying to do is to make America Great Again and we need their help. The government needs to prove by deeds that they work for the people.  The key is that the leader lead.

A simple way of seeing this is to think of putting the shoe of governing back on the people where it started. I remember our government was a "Great Experiment" in self-governance.  

Humility when in power is rare and should be nurtured.

Trump and his tweeting is the perfect way to show people that and if the majorities in Congress can unite, then the government can prove by what it does who it works for. The average Joe already knows by deed who the government has worked for in the past. Itself.

The Republicans have now the two things they needed to allow them to have and hold power for a long time. The first is a message that the majority of Americans believe in: and that is the government needs to prove itself by starting to solve the problems it has promised to fix for 60 years. That starts with honesty and integrity or as Donald Trump would say “Draining the Swamp”. They need to do the honesty thing quickly and get to work actually changing things.

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/22/503032226/polls-suggest-americans-warming-to-donald-trump-but-with-reservations

53% of Americans believe Trump will do a “good job”. That poll was in November after the election. That was a CNN poll. Pew came up with a 56% number of the voters think Trump will have a successful first term. 

As I was writing Drudge just put up this shocking Rasmussen Poll. This backs up and elaborates the above CNN poll.  Unique stuff here indeed. --- While 17% of Dems think Trump will succeed, 57% of the Dems want him to!? Overall 73% of the population want him too. The media would have you believe no-one but the radical right wants Trump to succeed. Again the media is disconnected even with the Democrat base let alone the rest of the country. 

Read all the poll.  Great stuff about what the majority wants, including less government.

The Republicans need to keep winning the middle of America over. The ball is now in the Republican court and the game is theirs to win or lose.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/january_2017/57_of_democrats_want_trump_to_succeed 

Getting back to the two things the Republicans need to do to hold power.  The second thing the Republicans need and have is a messenger to carry that message and lead the Republicans to that end. That leader is Donald Trump and the businesslike approach he is taking towards how government should run.

The Republicans need to get behind this ethics move to own it. It needs to stand up and “Drain the Swamp” wholeheartedly or the Democrats by our inaction will take it over from us as they have done with the slavery issue and every other issue we champion and then let them get hold of. 

I mean even now they are trying to rewrite history about how they distrust and hate the Russians. Wow, they are pretty good at the spin game. Now they are trying with this “Alt Right” stuff to claim what we say is the lie and they own the truth. We need to stick to the truth game and own it. We do that by actions not rhetoric.  

With Congress and President if we can’t be honest we shouldn’t be there. The voters have shown that they are not as stupid as the Dems think. Time to show our employers the respect they deserve.

We need to show by the action of government from now on just how smart the People were by electing the Republicans.

Trump showed respect for the voters and was honest with them - now the majorities in Congress have to get behind him in action and deed and not just in name only.

Regards, Bob Carr
Live Dangerously, Tell the Truth
glhotdogs513@gmail.com
231-728-3455



PS for my more ideology driven friends. As much as I enjoy retribution I try to remember that under two left feet the government got us into this mess. I don’t think two right feet will do much better. Though some over-steering to the right to correct what the left has messed up is necessary.

But as Lincoln said in his 2nd inaugural, let us do that over-steering -----------  

"With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds."

My above Blog is about having the shoe on the other foot which means seeing what it is like to be in another one’s shoes and the lessons learned from that. We need to lead America not just Right or Left of America.

De Regulation - The Pill to Stop America's Aging

Suicide by Government

The Answer

What has happened to all other great nations in the past?  What cripples their effectiveness?  

They get bigger and bigger, their rulers get less and less connected to those they rule and as government gets bloated corruption runs rampant and finally the people end up revolting one way or another.

Over Regulation is one sure sign of bloating (bureaucrats with nothing else to do) and corruption (Regulations are what makes the corruption legitimate).

Trump has promised to curtail the stifling effects of government regulation upon the Free Enterprise System. I think he means it. Below is a link to an article to back up his commitment to cutting red tape evidenced by his Cabinet picks so far.

http://thehill.com/regulation/administration/312229-trumps-team-draws-target-on-federal-regulations 

I’m all for it. I’d like here to bring up farming and who might lead the Ag. Department for Trump. But first a little background on government run a muck regarding farming.

Great USDA document on farm evolution from 1900. Gives insight into how the government thinks.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/eib3/13566_eib3_1_.pdf

From that document in the conclusion section. “Today, cash receipts for supported commodities (wheat, feed grains, rice cotton, oilseeds, dairy, and sugar) account for only 34 percent of total farm cash receipts. Direct government payments for income support reach only about 500,000 farms (around 25 percent of all farms). The extent to which farm policy meets contemporary objectives for maintaining the well-being of farm households and for sustaining the agricultural economy is a matter for public debate.”

Think About That.

Saying “Only 34 percent of total farm cash receipts” come from the government tells me who paid for this report. “Only” is a spin word, why say it unless you think it is not enough? Also they seem to bemoan the fact that only 25% of the farms receive direct cash from the government, which amounts to only 500,000 farms. What are they shooting for? Paying for all the food? I think it is clear they truly do assume that it is the government’s job to maintain “the well-being of (all) farm households”. Parentheses my own spin. Yet it was nice of them to add that it is still a matter of public debate. Indeed.

After taking over the entire Health Care Industry with the Affordable Health Care Act, is the government now looking for “The Affordable Food Supply Act” so they can take over the remaining 64 percent of the Farming industry? After all the Post Office and Social Security not to mention the Veterans Administration are all doing so well under total government control? Let’s not even talk about how great they are doing with our Educational System.

Well I say Trump That. At least I hope so.

Which brings us to who will Trump pick as Secretary of Agriculture? I go now from the USDA document to the Trump inspired National GOP Platform. In the Chapter about Natural Resources which includes Agriculture I quote this. “Congress has repeatedly had to block the current Administration’s draconian rules concerning the marketing of poultry and livestock. This regulatory impulse must be curbed, not on a case-by-case basis, but through a fundamental restructuring of the regulatory process.” Page 17.

https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/static/home/data/platform.pdf

That gives me hope Trump will try his hardest to live up to his promise to curb regulations. What was it he said again? “for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated.”

This isn’t a new concept other countries are doing it. Check out this Forbes Article by Susan E. Dudley.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susandudley/2016/11/23/president-elect-trumps-two-for-one-plan-to-reduce-regulatory-accumulation/#2ca3951c7b81

Just the idea of setting up a mechanism, which every government agency would need to do in order to evaluate all regulations, to see which ones they could do without. Wow what a concept.

This is not a new concept. Congress under Reagan’s leadership formally set up the OIRA (Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the 1980 Paperwork Reduction Act. There has been a constant battle within different administrations as to the power this agency of the OMB actually had. Trump I’m thinking will jump all over this. Here he will have to make his own regulations, which he can justify that if for no other reason than to cancel two older regs.

Whatever new mechanism is set up to reduce regulations, a reason should also be given as the why a regulation is picked to be thrown out. I would love to be able to read someplace what regs are being replaced and why.

One huge way to curb over regulation is through judicial nominees. According to this article President Trump will have 103 vacancies to fill in the judicial branch. Notice Obama only had half that many. The NPR article was the fairest of the 3 I read.

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/501476919/gop-strategy-paved-way-for-trump-to-nominate-supreme-court-justice

Here is the list of vacancies and retirement dates of the Federal Judicial System.

http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/judicial-vacancies/current-judicial-vacancies

The replacement for Scalia on the Supreme Court has everyone’s attention, but what of the others? How important are they? Simply put the lower courts decide which cases go to the Supreme Court. Then the Supremes decide which to actually hear.

Regards, Bob Carr
Live Dangerously, Tell the Truth
glhotdogs513@gmail.com
231-728-3455

Just the Facts Ma'am

Just the Facts Ma’am. 

I’m giving up my age admitting to watching the TV show Dragnet back when I was growing up. It was a police drama about two down to earth patrolmen investigating crimes in the city. Sargent Joe Friday was the lead detective played by Jack Webb. 

When interviewing witnesses that would go into an emotional story telling about this or that not related to the crime he was investigating he would “famously” say “Just the Facts Ma’am.”

A little chauvinistic seemingly now perhaps but as relevant today as back then when trying to get something accomplished. For Joe that something was to find out who did the crime. Anybody faced with solving problems on a daily basis soon learns that facts are the tools they need to successfully and quickly find solutions to problems.

At all levels gathering the facts is important if one is interested in finding a solution to any problem.

Trump knows this from his experience, intuitively he also knew that a majority of Americans still believed in the “Rule of Law” which is based on facts. People use facts in their everyday lives to solve everyday problems. Everyone know from experience that finding out the pertinent facts is the first step to successfully solving a problem. On a large scale, ironically it was the Media, the very industry that was there to ferret out the facts for the public who were the ones who were becoming so clever at obfuscating those very facts and replacing them with half-truths embellished with feelings and all kinds of other irrelevant clap-trap to make them appear as truths.

The American Public was getting tired of that nonsense being blasted at them all day long. They knew when they were being manipulated – they knew when they were being lied to. It all had the sense of propaganda to it. Americans understood also that because of the near monopoly of the Media, those very news sources which were tasked with getting the facts to the public started thinking the “Public” was pretty dumb and they could be told anything posing as the truth and the public would have to swallow it. 

People were getting tired of it, they had enough and were looking for a way out.

Then along came Trump and he was seemingly the only one who knew how to fight back and the only one with the guts to. Trump spoke to truth and a lot of people knew what he was saying. Trump looked for the facts then made the best decision/deal as he saw it. That is what he did for a living and he was good at it.  

He actually tried to fix things, people loved him for it and for telling the Media, the politicians and lobbyists to mind their own business. He was starting his own.

On all levels I see this search for the facts and what hampers it going on.

I and our Board of Road Commissioners at the local level have to tackle problems every day in all sorts of context. Previously we had numerous complaints that trucks were overloaded coming from farms and some of the bigger companies. When I asked the people making the complaints how they knew the trucks were overloaded they would say something to the effect that it was obvious, or that “I can tell when a truck is overloaded”. On the other hand I’ve had a corporate leader from one of our largest businesses tell our Commission that their trucks are never overloaded.  When asked how they knew that they simply said it is policy and couldn’t back it up with facts. I told him that then he should welcome a "Weigh Master".  He didn't, neither did most of those complaining.  

That's when I started saying “Just the Facts Ma’am”. I felt like I was channeling Joe Friday.

Our Commission was also responsible for not actively seeking the facts. We actually had the portable scales to weigh the trucks in our garage but never got around to following through and doing what it took to have a real “Weigh Master”. A couple of us started pushing the idea of a weigh master and we got a lot of grief from the farmers and business community. Even some of the people not directly in Agriculture and business were saying it would cost too much. Again nobody seemed to know any facts about how much it would cost and who would do it and how. Some of us on the board decided it was time to get those facts and the board went ahead and did just that.

In one of our meetings about this topic I used Joe Friday’s saying of “Just the Facts Ma’am” in order to sell the idea. I knew my audience was roughly of the same age and probably remembered “Dragnet” from their youth. I also went to a County Commission meeting with other Road Commission members and repeated Joe Friday’s mantra and it must have helped as we now have a Weigh Master in Oceana County and while very few tickets are written, there is a police presence and word of mouth spread like wild fire. I think our roads are better for it.

On another Road Commission front, a couple of us realized also that we had traffic counters in our possession but lacked the knowledge and software to use it. Our board started the process again of getting the facts and setting that process in motion. One of our Foremen took the lead in getting the software and setting it up. When our new manager came on board it was apparent to him that traffic counts were a necessary tool to make realistic plans about prioritizing which roads needed fixing. Also when seeking grant or other state money traffic counts would come in handy and ad to the voracity of our claims for need.

All up and down the line in a country based upon the rule of law which keeps a level playing field for all and so everyone can know what the rules are, facts and knowledge of them are essential if we are to remain a self-governing country.

In the national arena, the news media should be finding those facts and putting them out there for the citizens so they can make better informed decisions. This idea of “voter fraud” has been around for a long time and both sides have accused the other of this fraud and rigging elections. It is nothing new.  What would be new would be to actually have a real investigation into voter fraud and if there is a problem, fix it.  

Wow what a concept.  

Here is another.  Have the media “with malice towards none” present the facts to the public without putting its spin on it. Perhaps then we can see if there really is a problem instead of both sides feeling the other side is bad terrible and nasty. 

Below is a link to a great article in Townhall by Deroy Murdock titled "Why do Democrats Fear Trump's Probe of "Fake" Voter Fraud?"

http://townhall.com/columnists/deroymurdock/2017/01/28/why-do-democrats-fear-trumps-probe-of-fake-voter-fraud-n2277853 

Perhaps if the Media would put out both sides, it might start gaining subscriptions and loyalty instead of losing both.  Look what Fox News did with a simple acknowledgement of what their job was. “Fair and Balanced”.  Top of the charts.

Are Trump's claims of 3-5 million illegal votes true?  Are the Democrats claim of no voter fraud true?

Wouldn’t it be nice to really know and fix any problems we find? The heck with what the parties feel about it, should not the American Public demand that their vote be protected?

“Just the Facts Ma’am”

Regards, Bob Carr
Live Dangerously, Tell the Truth
glhotdogs513@gmail.com
231-728-3455