The U.S. vs China

How can China hurt us? Let us count the ways:

First and foremost, they hold most of our foreign debt, 19 percent or $1.17 trillion. By buying U.S. treasuries, China keeps our interest rates low but it also gives China leverage over U.S. fiscal policy.

What would happen if China stopped buying U.S. treasures or, worst still, called the loans?

China also controls the supply of the world’s rare earth metals that are used in most of the high-tech products we take for granted like smart phones and hard drives. More importantly, these materials are necessary components for building smart bombs and military radar. It’s not that we don’t have any of these minerals. It’s just that our government shut down our only rare earth mine and allowed the Chinese to buy the company that supplied them.

Lastly, China now has access to our most sensitive military technology. That which wasn’t stolen was transferred overtly by previous administrations. Continue reading “The U.S. vs China” →

GOP Needs a New Mascot

The Republican Party needs a new mascot. The elephant is no longer appropriate. An elephant is a proud, strong animal. It represents strength, wisdom, loyalty, stamina and leadership. Clearly, after last week’s cave-in to Democrats in order to achieve a long-term spending bill and avoid the possibility of another government shutdown, none of those traits apply to a party that controls both houses of Congress and the White House.

This little compromise, which added another $300 billion to the budget over the next two years, was a complete disaster for a country that is up to its eyeballs in debt and a president that was elected promising to drain the swamp. Earth to the president: The swamp feeds on tax dollars. This deal the GOP is celebrating just flooded the place and added to the stench. Continue reading “GOP Needs a New Mascot” →

Big Bird: You’re Fired!

On Monday, Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at cutting out waste in the federal government. The ink wasn’t dry when the Washington Post trotted out Big Bird, the affable “Sesame Street” figure who has been used to blunt past efforts to cut unnecessary government programs. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-end-of-big-bird-hes-survived-the-budget-ax-many-times-before/2017/03/13/f5c1c94a-082a-11e7-93dc-00f9bdd74ed1_story.html?utm_term=.c6a28dc55b29

“Sesame Street” has millions of fans and I am one of them, but this bird is a fat cat! It’s time we recognize that his life and our lives will not change if we cut the funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR and all the rest. Continue reading “Big Bird: You’re Fired!” →

The Obama Legacy: Broken Promises and Lies

In 2004, Barack Obama came onto the stage at the Democrat National Convention as the party’s candidate to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate and wowed the country with his keynote address. Less than three years later, he was campaigning to be president of the United States with a lot of promises and a message of “hope and change.”

Though Obama remains a popular figure, the overwhelming majority believe that he has placed the country on the “wrong track.” Those who even remember his promises, now know they were empty.

In his final days at the White House, I made a list of his most memorable broken promises or outright lies — one for each year he was in office.

1. “If you like the (health care) plan you have, you can keep it. If you like the doctor you have, you can keep your Continue reading “The Obama Legacy: Broken Promises and Lies” →

Marco Rubio was Right

Marco Rubio was exactly right when he said Barack Obama knows “exactly what he’s doing.” He may have repeated himself three times too many in the New Hampshire debate, but the point Rubio made to counter his GOP opponents’ attack on his inexperience was spot on.

This should in no way be taken as an endorsement for the junior senator from Florida. I believe that there is a good chance Rubio will be the eventual nominee. However, he lost me when he dismissed the anchor baby problem by sweeping it under the ambiguous 14th Amendment.

Nevertheless, Rubio is right about Barack Obama. He is without a doubt the most transformational president since Ronald Reagan. Continue reading “Marco Rubio was Right” →

Boehner’s Gone: Who’s Crying Now?

“It stinks!” That was how incoming Speaker of the House Paul Ryan explained the back room deal hatched by outgoing Speaker John Boehner and Democrat leaders that raised the debt ceiling and put us on automatic pilot to the spending stratosphere through the rest of Obama’s term.

Boehner claimed he was “cleaning the barn” before Ryan took control of the House of Representatives but where is that smell coming from? The entrance to the place is spotless, but the bad odor will linger well after Boehner is gone because of all the brown stuff he piled up in the stalls.

Thanks to Boehner and the Senate’s worthless Mitch McConnell, it’s Obama who will come out smelling like a rose. The nation is on a collision course with the grim reaper over unrestrained spending and all the hard decisions have been put off until the next president takes office.

Does anyone seriously think that Paul Ryan’s hands are clean? Boehner spent weeks begging Ryan to take the reins of the House. If Ryan had put his foot down and said “No” to this deal it never would have happened? Instead, Ryan blessed the deal by voting for it, along with all Democrats and a mere 78 of his Republican colleagues. Continue reading “Boehner’s Gone: Who’s Crying Now?” →

USA on Slavery’s Slippery Sloap

The average life of a democracy is 200 years. Our country has outlived its expiration date largely because it is a democratic republic with a constitution that guarantees our citizens certain inalienable rights and a government with three co-equal branches, each with checks on the other two.

We are now seeing those basic rights eroded by an aggressive Supreme Court. We also are seeing those checks and balances upset by an equally aggressive president and a Congress that is reluctant to use the power at its disposal.

Furthermore, the financial stability of this nation has been undermined by our elected representatives who have learned that the best way to stay in office is by spending our money and doing favors for their supporters.

As a result, our economy is at a near standstill and we are mired in debt. China is bullying us, but we owe so much to that communist country there is really nothing we can do about it. This has to stop before it is too late because, as the Bible says, “The borrower is the slave to the lender.”

Just how far have we fallen down slavery’s slippery slope? Continue reading “USA on Slavery’s Slippery Sloap” →