A Discussion of the Digital Age

The Digital Age, also known as the Information Age, has dramatically altered the tools of both industry and government. Check the components of the S & P 500 index of American companies fifty years ago, and compare them with companies on that list today. The competitive landscape at the corporate level has changed at a pace that is far more rapid than any pace we have seen in human history. Companies that head the list of most valuable today: Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Netflix, did not exist fifty years ago. This is due in great part to the beginning of the Digital Age.

The technological revolutions of the last fifty years have affected all companies, both large and small. Companies with very little connection to technology, are forced to procure and deploy new digital technologies due to competitive forces. This includes seemingly the most arcane industries like automobile repair, waste disposal, and oil and gas exploration….to list but a few.
The Digital Age has also dramatically affected the shaping of modern armed forces all around the world. It has also changed the priorities of those in command. Accordingly, it has affected the endless battles associated with ambitious civilian generals and their efforts to accumulate the power to appoint or act as military generals.
One of the reasons why the Digital Age and Information Age are synonymous is because of the way this new era has changed the way information is gathered and disseminated to the masses. Print media is dying. Broadcast media is struggling. Perhaps the term “fake news” would be better understood if it was labelled, “manufactured news,” or “modified news,” created in the Digital Age.
Make no mistake, while there have been biases in news reporting for as long as there have been human beings reporting news, it is a fundamental truth that people will come to believe what it is in their best interests to believe regardless of what is actually true. And the internet delivers more of what people believe is in their best interests to believe.
We are reminded that Pontius Pilate posed a question to Jesus just prior to his crucifixion. “What is truth?” Pilate asked dutifully. These days all one has to do is watch Fox News and then MSNBC or CNN cover the same event, and he or she will ask Pilate’s timeless question, “What is truth.”
The Digital Age has also changed the political battles that determine which civilian generals will govern us. This site is significant proof of just how cheap it is to publish and disseminate information, whether it be news, opinion, or opinion disguised as news.
The lines between news, opinion, and manufactured news have never been more blurred with the low barriers to entry prevalent in the information dissemination game.
History will record that social media and the internet were sounding a death knell for investigative journalism a decade ago. Not only are major media outlets even more disinterested in investigative journalism today, particularly as their deep biases for certain viewpoints are exposed, most consumers struggle to differentiate in the face of all this information. What is genuine and what which is patently false are less distinguishable.
Again, in refraining on passing judgment on this situation, we choose instead to embrace this reality and expound upon it, instead of simply pretending these conditions do not exist.

A Discussion of the Digital Age

A Discussion of the U.S. Constitution

The U.S. Constitution is the longest lasting governing framework of its kind in human history. It has lasted because it is a supreme aggregation of wisdom regarding human nature. The U.S. Constitution should be taken literally, because when it is, it transcends partisan politics. In fact, the document actually recognizes the poisonous nature of ambitious partisans and their devious methods. It provides serious safeguards to protect ALL American citizens from the vagaries of those who would in their capacities as civilian or military generals, force others to comply with oppressive methods of governance that violate basic protections of human freedom.

We recall with great fondness and appreciation how American public education once revered the United States Constitution including all amendments. As recently as forty or fifty years ago, there was still a great consensus among government, history, and civics teachers on the beauties of the document. A grasp of how important it is that the U.S. Constitution provides crucial protections to the most ardent liberal progressives, as well as the most reactionary conservatives.....and all others in between, has been fading for decades All surveys indicate that in recent years, there has been a parting of the ways on the value of fundamental freedoms. Strangely enough it has been the once free-speech loving progressives, who have found it more useful to take their protections in the U.S. Constitution for granted while attempting to deny others the same.

Another curious perversion of the freedom mindset has been the way public education has focused on the character flaws of the Founding Fathers. Incredibly, a perversely idealistic all or none demand for human perfection among the founders, has paved the way for millions of progressives to become the enemies of both the good and the great protections contained in the U.S. Constitution. 

From time-to-time you will still hear American progressives refer to the U.S. Constitution. However, it is increasingly obvious that these references only occur during occasions when they are immediately expedient, in terms of assisting progressives in achieving short-term political goals or objectives.

Conversely, we revere the U.S. Constitution and all its amendments and keep the document in the forefront of our mindset. We embrace the document as a nearly ideal framework for the limited governance, rather than some sort of vaguely worded piece of paper that allows for maximum governance power in the hands of distant Civilian Generals.

The idea that the U.S. Constitution should merely be viewed as a very limited theoretical tool to be drawn from the rhetorical holster when a political point needs to be scored is one of the great abominations of our time.

Public education's abandonment of emphasis on the non-partisan nature of the U.S. Constitution is the shirking of a FUNDAMENTAL DUTY to a free society. Teaching of the timeless wisdom contained in the U.S. Constitution including all amendments, should be required at every level of education. The lack of emphasis on this important aspect of our existence is the precursor to political chaos and eventually the end of freedoms for all of us, regardless of our political leanings.

A Discussion of the U.S. Constitution

A Discussion of Wars

The winners of major wars most often hire the historians who wind up defining what are the most important trends of human history.

In The Story of Civilization, authors Will and Ariel Durant chronicle human history. It is not an exaggeration to assert after a survey of their work that countless wars have dominated the primary narratives of human history. On this site, we’ll lean towards leaving commentary on wars in the pre-Napoleonic eras to the Durants work, except for America’s Revolutionary War.

We could spend our entire lives discussing the American Revolutionary War. We find more significance in three documents associated with the Revolutionary War, than the military aspects of the conflict itself. The Declaration of Independence, The Articles on Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution, including the first ten amendments, are among the most significant intellectual contributions in human history. The Declaration of Independence creates the framework for the U.S. Constitution and the Articles of Confederation are perhaps best known for what they do NOT contain, namely a strong central government.

It is crucial to the interpretation of human history to understand that the United States Constitution and its first ten amendments contained the FIRST protections of citizen rights from both civilian and military generals. These protections were first secured when the American colonies WON the Revolutionary War. However, it is even more crucial to understand that the essential elements of the U.S. Constitution had to be spelled out BEFORE the 13 original colonies would agree to be governed by a central power.

So forward looking was the document that the provisions for processes that allowed amendment of the document were also crucial. The framers knew they may have left out important protections. The allowance of amendments, paved the way for the legal end to slavery. However, it is noteworthy, once again, that a war, the Civil War, made some of the subsequent amendments to the Constitution that prohibited slavery possible. Hence our preference to see history through a Military Prism.

Two world wars in the 20^th Century can often be reduced to a single concept. Too many countries around the world did not adhere to sacred constitutional processes, that enabled a more intelligent selection of their civilian/military generals. Whether we consider Kaiser Wilhelm, Benito Mussolini, Hideki Tojo, or Adolf Hitler, the point here is simple. The countries that wound up with profoundly flawed leaders did not have processes in place to help them govern themselves by choosing peace oriented civilian and/or military generals. As such, these nations eventually wound up with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of their citizens killed in wars. Eventually it was other nation’s generals, who were dictating the terms of existence for the Germans and Japanese.

Of course, there were subsequent wars after the two world wars of the first half of the 20^th Century. The Korean War and the Viet Nam War are the first to come to mind. These two conflicts were simply violent outbreaks associated with the Cold War between Russia and the U.S. Why does a Cold War continue to this day? It is simply because as nuclear proliferation became widespread, it induced a mandatory temperance towards traditional military escalations. American/Russian relations have hardly improved since the end of WWII.

The battle for power between the U.S., Russia, and even China has not ceased. Instead the conflicts are about subversion, espionage, and even a few proxy conflicts.

History records that Lyndon Johnson was particularly enamored with the idea of war. Not only did LBJ escalate the U.S. involvement in the Viet Nam War, he initiated his infamous "War on Poverty." He won neither. However, in doing so, he introduced the idea of using the term “war” to describe his personal political efforts to enact public policies he favored.  Again we have another example of why we find the use of a Military Prism very functional when reaching opinions regarding most current events.

A Discussion of Wars

A Discussion of Civilian Generals

Since much of the commentary on our site is generated through a Military Prism viewpoint, it is important to expound on what we mean by the term "Civilian General."

One of the beauties of the U.S. Constitution is the insistence that the powers vested with the Commander in Chief of our nation’s military, remain in the hands of an elected civilian official. In this situation, we mean the President of the United States. Of course, the very first president of the United States was George Washington, who obviously was a former military general, just recently retired from the battlefields.

It might come as a surprise to many citizens, even well-read U.S. citizens, that there have actually been a dozen former military generals elected President of the United States. They are: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, U.S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, John Garfield, Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, and Dwight Eisenhower.

Notice that since the late 19^th Century when Benjamin Harrison was elected, only one former military general has been elected president. We do not think the distinction is that noteworthy. We use the term: civilian generals and military generals as almost interchangeable because both have so much in common.

Rising through the ranks of the military is as much a successful political process, as it is a merit-based process. This reality is exacerbated by the fact that appointments at the very top of the military food chain fall into the hands of successful politicians. While the military has a separate culture from the domestic political arena, sometimes the similarities seem almost endless.

There is competition between the branches of the military, for both resources and power. Like their civilian counterparts, generals/admirals are often engaged in contentious battles for the power to direct resources. Consider the confrontations between Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton or even Douglas McArthur and Chester Nimitz. Confrontations between civilian and military generals like Franklin Roosevelt and Douglas McArthur also remain legendary. Roosevelt claimed that nobody ever talked to him the way McArthur did. FDR called McArthur the most dangerous man in America. Perhaps FDR thought McArthur would one day run for public office?

We are reminded that it was the Civilian General FDR who decided to imprison all Japanese-American citizens into “camps” for the duration of World War II.

Watch the presidential debates before any election to gain a sense of how common it is for candidates to engage in vicious rhetorical warfare. In America, taking command as a Civilian General means taking command of all military generals because civilian generals obtain the power to appoint military generals. Military generals who want to retain their authority, are advised to stay in political favor with the winning Civilian Generals.

The differentiation of America's process of controlling its military is significant when comparing our governing framework to the ones in place that led to the rise of military dictators like Tojo, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Castro. However, make no mistake, Americans who aspire to hold national offices are the civilian equivalent of military generals. American citizens enjoy more levels of constitutional protection from all generals.

Again, we see history and current events through a Military Prism and we keep a close eye on the backgrounds and philosophies of ambitious would-be Civilian Generals.

A Discussion of Civilian Generals

A Discussion of The Story of Civilization

We are great lovers of dogs, all breeds. Dogs distinguish themselves from humans after a couple of years of life. Dogs can’t talk or teach their young about their ancestors. Language distinguishes human beings from the animal world. Accordingly, history is mostly about people. Interpretations of all historical events essentially weave together successions of events and successive generations of people.

It is a fundamental truth that there is much more consensus among warring domestic political factions about the facts associated with ancient history and more distant history. Such is not the case with current events. You will find that Democrats and Republicans often find much less to argue about when discussing Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great, than they do discussing the relative merits of say Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan.

Will and Ariel Durant’s eleven volumes of, The Story of Civilization, cover a large portion of human history. We prefer to use the Durant's work as a primary reference for distant history.

Is there a distinct dividing line where partisan disputes fade away and consensus prevails? Not really. While Abraham Lincoln is generally regarded by both parties as a great leader, there is much in dispute in modern day political discourse, even regarding the Founding Fathers of 18th Century America.

Since this site offers commentary on both domestic and international history, we feel the need to stipulate on the authenticity of historical observations for a large portion of the past, lest we argue all day and then all night. We want to limit the arguing to all day.

The best and most complete collection of historical observations through the early 19th Century are contained in the eleven volumes of, The Story of Civilization. We believe the Durant's body of work is second to none. Therefore, we will stipulate to the basic truth of their findings prior to the last two hundred years. We also rely on a number of other independent historical sources, including some of the Durant’s subsequent writings.

A Discussion of The Story of Civilization

Bought "my bitch" a Roadster

© 2018 Jim Spence - Let's update the Lebron James saga. In my previous column the commentary centered around James' hopelessly racist comments about NFL owners. Why he feels compelled to put is ignorance on display like a hot selling toy in a department store window is tough to explain. Perhaps he gets his backside smooched so frequently, while his adoring groupies tell him how brilliant he is, he has taken all the accolades a bit close to his heart. Or possibly a high school education in Akron, Ohio is even more limiting than was previously thought.
Of course nobody in pop culture really cares if people like James make racially charged comments about "old white men," especially if they are wealthy old white men. Correctly, James seems to understand rules of basic decency don't apply to him. While many of us have figured James out for what he is, probably nobody who matters in his world has done so.
So, precisely what did Lebron do this weekend to exceed his previous new high for abject stupidity?
It seems James went to social media to disgrace himself instead of doing it on HBO. Not content to shoot racially charged layups on old white men, James decided to declare it open season for the disparagement of Jews and Women. He posted a selfie on Saturday that was accompanied by lyrics from rapper 21 Savage:
"We been gettin' that Jewish money, everything is Kosher. Bought myself a "Ventador and bought my bitch a Roadster. Drive my Lambo to the store, I'ma wave with my doors."
Somehow wealth and fame must be very intoxicating to Lebron James. Or perhaps this is simply a Christmas message from Lebron, designed to warm the hearts of all his followers with holiday cheer.
Surely being the intelligent and learned man he is, James understands that Hanukkah came early this year and everyone should be happy that everything is Kosher after getting all that Jewish money. Instinctively, Lebron must understand we all kinda sit around wishing we too "been gettin that Jewish money," so we can buy ourselves a $400,000+ Lamborghini, and also buy our "bitches" Roadsters. I mean hey! everyone wants to buy "his bitch" a Roadster right?
There's not much more to say about pop culture in America except: Merry Christmas from the great cultural icon, Lebron James, with additional kudos to his hero 21 Savage. Everyone can't wait to see what Lebron thinks he should say or do next to impress all of his adoring followers.

Bought "my bitch" a Roadster

They got that slave mentality

© 2018 Jim Spence - One of the greatest things about America is the 1^st Amendment. Freedom of speech isn’t hard when people say things you agree with. In fact, one could argue that we wouldn’t need the 1^st Amendment if we all agreed with one another. I am thankful that for many years now I have exercised my 1^st Amendment rights on this site. I have also enjoyed thousands of hours of broadcast time on the radio doing sports and political commentary.

Some people hear celebrities say things they disagree with and they demand they shut up about their political views. Not me. Celebrities have the same rights as everyone else. While it is true they often have a larger forum than the average American citizen, they should be allowed to expose their ideas to scrutiny if they choose to do so. This is what freedom is all about. Pop singer Taylor Swift comes to recent mind. I love Taylor Swift’s music. I have almost every song she ever recorded. However, I did not agree with her take on the Tennessee Senate race earlier this year.

Neil Armstrong

The most noteworthy celebrities to weigh in on politics and American history are arguably the top two players in the NBA. Stephen Curry and LeBron James have put their thinking caps on recently in full public view. During a podcast with former NBA star Vince Carter, Curry asked Carter and his teammate Andre Iguodala if they believed the United States had ever actually put men on the moon. Astonishingly, in unison these men, all of whom have made millions of dollars playing basketball, agreed in tones that assured viewers they were serious that the answer was no. You have to wonder how grown men who have become multi-millionaires choose to remain so ignorant.

Curry is in the minor leagues when it comes to saying stupid things. It was LeBron James who took the cake this week. James, who holds a high school diploma from St. Vincent – Mary in Akron, Ohio has apparently not used much of his spare time to study the plight of slaves in America many generations ago. James had this to say on HBO. "In the NFL they got a bunch of old white men owning teams, and they got that slave mentality. And it's like, this is my team. You do what the fuck I tell y'all to do or we get rid of y'all.”

Ummm, ok.....let’s see. How do we begin with a young man who is as clueless as LeBron James. For starters, let’s assume James is correct about NFL owners getting rid of players who don’t follow their coaches’ orders. Firing players who don’t stick with the game plan is not a slave mentality. We people who own businesses and pay people a salary call this approach, "a performance mentality."

Let’s try to help poor LeBron process this information. Slave owners didn’t fire slaves for not following orders. Instead, they chained them to posts and beat them with leather whips. If the slaves tried to escape, their owners would often cut off half a foot. Slaves lived in atrocious shacks and were fed the lowest grades of foodstuffs. Slave women were abused in ways that are unimaginable. If you haven’t read author Alex Haley’s “Roots,” you should do so soon.

It seems doubtful that LeBron James has ever read Roots or studied history. It seems doubtful he knows that 600,000 white men (some of them old) actually died fighting for the Union in the war that ended slavery. Because James is uneducated and ignorant, he finds it very easy to take shots at "old white men." Oddly this seems fashionable in 2018. However, James chooses the wrong white guys. NFL owners pay their players (of all races) seventy-seven times the average salary earned by working Americans ($2.1 million per year versus $26.9 thousand). NFL owners compete with their pocketbooks for athletic talent and pay much higher salaries for truly great players many of whom are black. Though the last slaves in America have been dead for many generations, James is too ignorant to know that it is an insult to the plight of American slaves to compare their horrific status to that of modern NFL players who enjoy privileges that average working people can only dream of. It is also an insult to NFL owners to compare them to plantation owners.

Still, LeBron James is an American. He has a constitutional right to demonstrate how limited both his cognitive skills and his desire for fundamental knowledge are. We should all celebrate the fact that in America even the blessed clueless, sometimes seize the opportunity to make a complete asses of themselves and provide a few chuckles for all the pathetic old white men he seems to have an issue with.

They got that slave mentality

The participation trophy conundrum

© 2018 Jim Spence - A few observations seem in order after seeing George H.W. Bush was laid to rest last week. It was astonishing to watch CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, MSNBC, the Washington Post and the New York Times spend hours and hours covering that funeral when these are the exact same media outlets that branded Bush 41 a shameless racist many years ago.
Of course, it is noteworthy that the Washington Post has never in its long history endorsed a Republican for president. And the last time the New Your Times endorsed a Republican, I was still soiling my diapers (I am 62 now). Still, these are newspapers who hire avowed racists (the Times recent addition to their editorial board) while accusing every GOP candidate of being racist and "partisan."
One must wonder why would these media outlets changed their tune suddenly and acted like Bush 41 was a true gentlemen, a self-less statesmen, and an admirable public servant?
Any fair-minded person should know the media's history on this. The media not only treated Bush 41 like garbage, they also did the same with McCain when these men ran against Dukakis, Clinton, and Obama. This stark fact regarding their 180 degree change in tone during both men's funerals, leads to only two possible conclusions.

1) the media was either lying about McCain and Bush when they were running against Democrats, or

2) they are lying about them now.

Here's the point.....Nobody who was a shameless racist in life, should ever be re-cast as an American hero in death. It is no wonder that America distrusts the news media more than any other entity. The media behaves as if nobody has a record of what they used to say.
With the incoming Democratic majority in the U.S. House a question seems appropriate. Does the voting public care about real economic results generated by sound public policies. We are talking about record low unemployment rates for ALL AMERICANS and rising wages for the first time in decades. Why would the majority of voters give power back to Democrats in the face of a two-year economic miracle under GOP rule. This is a head-scratcher. How in the world could American citizens not care about results?
The answer is simple. Americans have been being indoctrinated for decades to not bother to keep score (except in sporting events) or care about real results. There is a deep disconnect between the two types of people in American life. Some people like to compete and like to keep score. And then there are those who really prefer the participation trophy concept that came into public education etc. a few decades ago.
It is the age old clash of philosophies. People who like to compete and keep score also tend to value freedom. Whereas people who want participation trophies think showing up is a big deal and government should protect their egos from objective measurements regarding results. Participation trophy types think measuring success is mean-spirited. Winning is something that only greedy people are truly interested in. Of course this ignores reality, but then, what the heck, that is what public education is all about.....ignoring reality. This explains why the private sector brings us more and more conveniences for lower prices, while public education is manufacturing unemployable dolts by the millions.
There is one thing that most Americans should learn about the participation trophy types. Those who hate keeping score, like having access to resources. And they don't care if they didn't work to get their stuff. They like to spend money, especially other people's money.
Participation trophy types simply don't like to admit that life is generally about competition and that anywhere were competition is encouraged, living standards are higher. Participation trophy types want higher living standards, but they want more, more, more, without accepting the basic economic foundations that create more useful things.
In the end, participation trophy types (a metaphor for Democrats) refuse to admit that despite all of its obvious flaws, the system of free market capitalism, is the system that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people. This explains why people from everywhere are clamoring to get here. They don't understand the system, they just see all the "stuff." Participation trophy types will always have a "yea but," for every historical truth that bears these facts out. They will also have a "yea but" excuse for all the failed participation trophy systems where people are starving and doing without basic staples of life.
Hating the excesses of Donald J. Trump that comes with all of the sound policies he has implemented, is just the participation trophy types way of having baseless emotional excuse to vote stupid, which is what they do.

The participation trophy conundrum

The fishing contest

© 2018 Jim Spence - I am reminded of what Americans get when the majority votes for Democrats. Nancy Pelosi will soon become Speaker of the House again. She was named leader with the help of all three New Mexico reps in the U.S. House.  Below is a spot-on allegory that illustrates what having Pelosi in charge of the House means for our future:

It seems that President Trump and Pelosi begin arguing intensely over border security in 2019. Pelosi insists that all migrants should enjoy free entry into America. She proposes a bill to increase taxes on working Americans to pay for the benefits illegals will receive. Since it is illegal for any immigrant living here illegally to actually work at a job, taxpayers will have to pay their bills.
Not surprisingly, Trump threatens a veto. He says repeatedly that he wants America to secure its borders and return to a much more rational approach to legal immigration, where everyone waits in line until it is their turn, instead of filing bogus asylum requests using hack immigration lawyers to game our system. 
Since the Democrats and GOP are at a stalemate on immigration reform, Trump and Pelosi work out an agreement to hold a 3-day ice fishing contest to settle the issue. The contest is simple. Between Pelosi and Trump, whoever catches the most fish at the end of the 3-day contest will have his or her immigration reform process implemented.
Trump and Pelosi decide that a remote lake in northern Wisconsin will be an ideal place to have the ice-fishing contest. There will be no observers allowed on the frozen lake, but both competitors will need to have their catches verified and counted each night at 5:00 PM. They both agree to use a team of neutral game wardens to verify the fish counts.
After Day 1, Trump brings in a total of just 10 fish. Surprisingly, on Day 1, Pelosi caught no fish. On Day 2 Trump learned from his successes and failures from Day 1 and caught 20 fish. Once again on Day 2, Pelosi caught nothing.
As soon as the fishing ended on Day 3, it was clear that Trump had been really intent on learning what he needed to learn to improve his fishing techniques. He added another 40 fish to his total. He wished he could have done better the first two days, but he also knew that he had improved and Pelosi needed 71 fish to win the contest. 
It turns out that Pelosi did not bother to fish on Day 3. Instead she and her political cronies got together and decided to accuse Trump of being a "low-life cheating piece of scum." In fact, Pelosi made some phone calls to high-ranking buddies, who were life-long Democrats working at the FBI and DOJ, and asked them to follow Trump, spy on him, and get proof that he was cheating.
To prep the press for her cheating narrative, Pelosi instructed her staff to leak tidbits of juicy “inside information." The leaks strongly hinted that the Democrats had caught Trump red-handed in the middle of a massive illegal cheating conspiracy to win the fishing contest.
That evening, at 5:01 PM, Nancy Pelosi and most of her cohorts from the U.S. House of Representatives gathered in front of a throng of eager reporters from CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times and the Washington Post.
Though her fish count stood at zero, Pelosi looked into the cameras and explained, "You are not going to believe this," she said emphatically. "We have the most damning and incontrovertible evidence that proves Donald J. Trump is a miserable cheat.....it turns out he's been cutting holes in the ice."
The press gasped. Many journalists did not wait to hear from Pelosi's cronies. Instead they began pounding away on their laptop computers and Ipads to get the story out. The TV reporters rushed outside to get in front of cameras and file live reports on air and answer questions from aghast pundits serving on discussion panels.
Within a half an hour every journalist had explained to their devoted followers why this horrific incident demonstrated once and for all why NO business person should EVER be trusted with the immense power of government. We should simply put our futures into the hands of people who had worked most of their adult lives as government employees.
Impeach! Impeach! chanted the pundits on all the major networks except Fox. The story was told over and over on the nightly news shows for days. The details of the ice cutting scandal was trumpeted all around the world. It was soon repeated in every public education institution in the nation during current event segments. Within days Hollywood screenwriters were belting out passionate scripts bemoaning the utter evilness of Trump's ice cutting. A rehabilitated Harvey Weinstein produced a box office smash hit based on the incredible story that rivaled All the President's Men.

The fishing contest

Screwing Kavanaugh mattered

© 2018 Jim Spence -  A few more musings on the 2018 mid-terms. There is a saying that all politics is local. Most often this statement is true, but in the U.S. Senate races all things in the battleground states were national.

Before explaining, let's just say that we don’t interact with socialists much. It sort of goes against the grain of who we are to mingle with people who define things like "compassion" and "generosity" by how willing they are to hand over our precious resources to wasteful bureaucrats. Accordingly, we do our best to politely stay away socialists. However, when we must interact with a socialist, we don’t bring up the subject of what constitutes intelligent public policy because well…..it is like bringing up the topic with a three-year-old. Like a three-year-old, socialists don't like to work much. And they tend to only care about what they want right now. They like to consume resources, but they have no idea how wealth, resources, and rising income streams are created. Not only do they not know, they don't want to know. Thinking is always subordinated to "feeling." We raised our kids already and we never tried to reason with them when they were toddlers.

One of the bell weather talking points of most Trump haters emerged during the Kavanaugh hearings. There was little doubt there was a central clearing house for bullet points that were damning of Kavanaugh. Over and over we heard from Democrats on television and elsewhere say that Kavanaugh did not have the proper “temperament” to be a Supreme Court justice. One had to wonder what sort of temperament should be required for someone to quietly accept the fact that hack politicians had fabricated rape accusations in the bizarre hope that absurd uncorroborated claims from decades ago, might somehow derail the Kavanaugh nomination. Who needs anyone who will sit calmly while political assassins empty a dump truck of excrement on his head?

The Kavanaugh episode was historic because reasonable people might have wanted to oppose Kavanaugh because they disagreed with his judicial philosophy. These types could have simply asked a few questions about opinions he wrote that they disagreed with, and then vote no based on his legal opinions. Of course this would be the classy way to vote no. On the other hand, with Democrats, engaging in shameless character assassination ruled the day. And when Democrats showed a vindictively evil side, many of the non-Trump hating public, who are also fair-minded, did not care for it. 

Here's the point. In the blue states it never matters what Democrats do, they win no matter what. However, in battleground states integrity and fairness matters. And particularly in red states, it turns out that Dianne Feinstein’s gutless charade against Kavanaugh created a political squeeze that helped destroy the political careers of Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and also enhance the GOP majority in the Senate. Each of these three Democrats, was running for re-election in a battleground state. Each was forced to choose between the demands of New York socialist Chuck Schumer’s whims, and the overwhelming preferences of their local constituents. These three senators all decided they could get away with voting against the Supreme Court nominee of a president that carried their state by a wide margin. It seems they forgot Trump took their states in 2016 due mainly to the fact that voters wanted him to make the SCOTUS nomination. All three, under partisan pressure to screw over Kavanaugh, as the saying goes, CHOSE POORLY. Their decisions to screw Kavanaugh were not well-received. The lone Democrat senator from a battleground state who supported Kavanaugh, was Joe Manchin. Manchin was not so coincidentally re-elected. Had it not been for the Kavanaugh affair, the blue wave would have been bigger.

Another interesting development last night was the incredible speed and accuracy with which Fox News projected that the Democrats would re-take control of the House. Switching back and forth between all the networks last night was illuminating. After the pollsters so clearly failed all news media outlets in 2016, it was obvious that more scientific methods of forecasting election outcomes was needed. Just two days ago The Hill, a left leaning news site posted an opinion piece claiming the GOP was bracing for a massive wipe out in the governor races. Nationwide the Democrats wound up with one less governor than they began the night with.

Not every media outlet stood pat while clinging to obviously flawed systems for projecting election results. It seems that Fox was the only network that substantially improved its analytics. Early in the evening Fox went so far as to announce that it was projecting the Democrat takeover of the House. This must have stunned its audience. Switching to all the other networks for confirmation of Fox’s bold prediction proved fruitless. None was projecting any such thing. After returning to Fox, explanations were provided by the chief analytic guy who explained how Fox felt it knew so early on that the GOP was going to lose the House. We’ll spare you the jargon used in the explanation. Safe to say Fox understood much earlier and more than any other network, what was most relevant in the mountains of data everyone had the opportunity to gather. It was almost ironic that only the pro-GOP network in America was the first to tell America the GOP was going to lose the House. In the meantime CNN, the NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, etc. were all engaged in nearly identical race-by-race vote count updates. None had a clue about the bigger picture like Fox. Grasping the big picture and paying for superior analytics just did not seem to be anywhere near the top of the agendas at all of those "news" outlets. No surprise there.

Screwing Kavanaugh mattered

"Pinche Gringo" says it all

© 2018 Jim Spence -  Some full disclosure seems appropriate regarding my personal biases. I am an economic policy wonk. For more than thirty-five years I have committed my time and energy to understanding what is working economically/financially. Because we get paid to know what works and what doesn’t for our investing clients and ourselves, good national and state economic/financial policies really matter to me. Anytime any investor pretends that something works when it doesn’t, it is costly to that investor in a VERY DIRECT way. With voters the direct connection is not made often enough. It seems that the goal of politics these days is to have no immediate consequences for abject stupidity.

We can learn plenty about America based on yesterday's election. Perhaps the most instructive story of the night was El Paso’s Robert Francis O’Rourke. O’Rourke wound up accomplishing what most Democrats would do under the similar circumstances. He gathered up more than $100 million dollars from progressive donors, including several Democrat billionaires, and squandered the money quickly. O'Rourke was trying to win Texas’s U.S. Senate seat held by Ted Cruz. The problem was it was a tricky identity politics coup attempt by O’Rourke. Like the NAACP’s Rachael Dolzeal and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Robert Francis O’Rourke has always been able to talk a good game about "white privilege," especially to minority voters and those susceptible to white guilt in the Texas electorate. It was a great irony that he simultaneously engaged in classic cultural appropriation, which is the rage today. O'Rourke went by the very Hispanic sounding nickname of “Beto.” Yep, it seems that O’Rourke was oblivious to all the amazing benefits of "white privilege" when he tried to scrub the white from his DNA and make himself seem "brown." Still, O'Rourke got as close as anyone could with more than $100 million in contributions from left wing crony capitalists. He almost beat the real Hispanic in the race.....Ted Cruz. But in the end, the majority of Texas voters understood Robert Francis O’Rourke's true cultural identity. They realized that O’Rourke is just another, “pinche gringo.”

Let’s make some broad and general observations about the trends in America. New England, the Pacific Northwest, and California are hopeless. The electorates in these regions are sinking deeper into the financial death spiral of socialism. Politicians who live in these areas are running out of other people’s money. Just yesterday a municipal bond offering from the Portland (Oregon) area came across the desk. The politicians were raising money to get this……..fund extravagant pension promises they made years ago to retired and soon to be retiring government bureaucrats in the local education system. It seems that the politicians never made sure retirement investments were made over the years to meet their huge pension promises. When pensions are funded at the 12th hour with borrowed money, it is a tell tale sign the elected officials are running a thinly veiled government Ponzi scheme. This financial negligence signifies that local elected officials have been buying votes with pension promises that are put on the equivalent of taxpayer credit cards. Current taxpayers in these areas will be funding the previous generation’s retirement accounts instead of funding their own. Socialists always prefer to tax the young workers to fund the retirement lifestyles of retiring bureaucrats. Of course there is a limit to how much of this can be done......just ask the Greeks. Look for taxes in areas like Portland to keep soaring and many workers and businesses that know how to do simple math to exit that area just as they are doing from Connecticut and California where the pension death spiral is farther along.

Closer to home Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada voters are increasingly getting conned by socialists just as New Mexico voters have been for decades. These states seem destined in the years ahead to tip over and surrender full control to Democrats. As this happens, look for the tax burdens on workers and businesses in these states to more resemble those in California. Living standards are sure to stagnate or fall in Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada as gullible voters lap up promises made by socialists. Higher taxes and fewer jobs are virtually assured as costs soar out of control. It is a recipe for Europe-like economic and financial stagnation. Sadly, millions of poorly educated Americans with college degrees are falling for these financial shell games like rubes gambling at casinos.

On the national scene, Barack Obama’s endorsement power is still not worth a teaspoonful of sour owl dung. Obama decided to charge very late into the Georgia and Florida governor races to campaign for a couple of race-card playing Democrats who were both running for governor. Both of Obama’s endorsed candidates lost.

In the end, the abrupt arrival (with Trump) of rising wages, falling unemployment, and less government domination of every aspect of our lives, was on the ballot yesterday. So was the idea of secure borders. You would think that those very desirable results would have “sold” better than they did. Nope. Not after twenty-four months of every news media outlet except Fox working night and day to get Americans to believe Trump is the Anti-Christ. More opportunity to work and succeed is not as big a deal as it once was in an increasingly entitled America. One too many American generations has been indoctrinated by the cesspools known as public education, the woefully biased news media, and the hypocritical entertainment industry. The result is millions of entitled Americans take widespread prosperity as a birthright, not a function of sound public policies.

Look for the Democrat House to do everything in its power to torpedo the great economy, the news media to provide help to Democrats every single day, and the entire socialist movement in America to blame every financial setback on anyone who is not a socialist.

"Pinche Gringo" says it all

What's at stake?

What's at stake?

Friends and Enemies

© 2018 Jim Spence -  Here’s a good question for all Americans to answer on the eve of another American election. Is the media the enemy of the people?

All educated Americans want freedom of the press. But do we also want advocates instead of fact finders working at these jobs? How did journalism die?

It seems to have started with the advent of CNN and the twenty-four-hour news cycle. When we began to get "news" all day every day we moved from a press that was mostly fact finders to a profession that got crowded out by agenda driven advocates. There is simply not that much "news."

You could see it all unravel in slow motion with the transformation of people like Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw. When Fox splashed on to the scene, we got a taste of something new. We saw agenda driven advocates pushing to the right instead of only to the left. There was room for Fox because the media had drifted so far left before Fox arrived, that drift left a gaping hole in the marketplace. Notice I said, "marketplace" not a "search for the truth."

Fox essentially took half of the “market” and the rest of the “news” media kept pushing even farther to the left to try to get what market share remained, from others who were also tailoring their narratives to leftists. Sadly, when you are in the advocacy business and you are pushing only a left wing agenda, it is a highly crowded space. There are literally dozens of morally outraged correspondents preening for the cameras all day every day.

But we have not answered the question. Is the media the enemy of the people? I would say NO. All of the left-wing media outlets have both friends and enemies and their friends are people. The same is true for Fox. Fox has friends and enemies.

What about those of us who don’t want to have someone with a narrative in mind to go searching for tidbits to support their narrative and call it “reporting.” It is important to realize how deeply advocacy has been embedded in the culture of the news media. Virtually every news media outlet in the U.S. (except Fox) and virtually every public school in the U.S. indoctrinates Americans in the hopes of assisting Democrats. The same is true with the entertainment industry. The goal of pop culture is to help Democrats. Their efforts work. You can see the effects in the ways that those being manipulated parrot the talking points. Kavanaugh doesn’t have the temperament. Nazi’s weren’t socialists. It is all about regaining a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and possibly the U.S. Senate now that the Supreme Court battles are over for the time being.

Many of us recall Johnny Carson and then Jay Leno. These top shelf talk show hosts made fun of every sitting president during my lifetime every single night. It all stopped with the arrival of Barack Obama. For some reason Obama was a hands-off guy at NBC. Suddenly pop culture had changed. For Obama’s eight years Americans could not find a late night comedian willing to crack jokes about our president.

My how things have changed. These days late night comics have not only resumed the joke cracking about the president, they have gone straight to crucifixion. It is all part of the shift leftward by pop culture. Scan the news and you will find countless headlines written by outraged columnists who blame Trump and the Republicans for everything including hurricanes. He is also blamed for the nut job who sent non-working bombs to Democrats earlier this month. Yet there was not a single peep from these same “fact finders” about the root cause of a deranged Democrat-supporter who actually shot at and hit Republican Members of Congress at a softball game in Virginia. You had to watch Fox to discover the shooter was a Bernie Sanders disciple.

Is the news media the enemy of the people? Of course not. No more than Bernie Sanders was responsible for the supporter who shot Steve Scalise. However, the vast majority of those working in the news media, public education, and entertainment industry, are the enemy of something even more precious, they are the enemies of the solemn duty to engage virtuously in a fundamental search for truth……not advocacy. Not sure about all of this? Just ask former CBS news correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.

Friends and Enemies

Days of Our Lives

© 2018 Jim Spence -  Daytime drama writers have to be creative. They have to come up with forty-minutes of gripping shtick five days a week. Because all-important viewer ratings are at stake, teams of daytime drama writers choreograph illicit romances, cunning intrigue, acts of violence, endless double dealing, and hypocrisy on steroids for viewer consumption. Do you ever get the feeling you are living inside a daytime soapbox drama where the story lines are disguised as news journalism? The parallels are getting spooky.

The writers for the Bold and the Beautiful, The Young and the Restless, and Days of Our Lives have nothing on the news journalism industry. Consider how the contrived accusations against Brett Kavanaugh were depicted by the story writers. We are talking about thirty-six year old unverified claims that were held by Democrat Dianne Feinstein until the time to vote for or against Kavanaugh’s confirmation arrived. For several days, the stunning new "episodes" were performed by seasoned tear-stained actresses, who generated maximum dramatic effect as they reminisced. In the end, no minds in the Senate were changed after listening the dubious accounts and checking with eye-witnesses, no minds of course except for Lisa Murkowski. However, since there is a lively debate over whether Murkowski actually has a mind, it is questionable to assert her “mind” got changed by the coercive daytime drama techniques employed by writers of the Democrat’s shock intended episode.

Let’s move on to the “spontaneous” amassing of a caravan of thousands of migrants from Central America and their trek through Mexico. The daytime drama writers want us to believe that all of the sudden thousands of people came together and decided they needed to leave at the same time to seek “political asylum” at the U.S. border. It is a mere coincidence that these migrants all showed up in the same place at the same time with brand new backpacks. And somehow arrangements had already been made for thousands of meals during their days on the road. Every day there is plentiful drinking water, changes of clothes, laundry services, sleeping bags, and sanitary items. These incredible logistical problems somehow like their asylum needs fell miraculously into place for a trip that also and coincidentally, will culminate in their arrival at the U.S. border just before the mid-term elections.

Let’s think about this daytime drama charade for a minute. Who is financing this junket? The Honduras government suggests it is Venezuela, a socialist country in South America that is on the verge of national starvation. Others believe it is Democrat financier George Soros who is footing the bill to put his arch enemy Donald Trump on the spot. One thing seems certain. There has been some pretty cool calculating going on and lots of planning while the news journalists report on location about the amazing spontaneity of it all.

Yesterday, the Days of Our Lives-like narrative made a quick turn. It seems that ten packages containing explosive devices, none of which actually exploded, were sent to Democrats and ardent Democrat supporters like CNN.

Of course the Secret Service, FBI, Bureau of Alcohol and Firearms and Explosives have begun an investigation. Donald Trump called the attempts by the perpetrators, "despicable acts of political violence."

Not long after the condemnation from Trump, CNN’s CEO decided he was NOT going to wait for the discovery of forensic evidence that is sure to flow out of the massive investigations by federal law enforcement officials. CNN President Jeff Zucker concluded by the end of the day he knew it was time to keep doing what CNN does every day. He pointed the finger at President Trump and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and blamed them as the original source of the incident.

No doubt CNN longs for the good old days when it mounted relentless attacks on Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney without consequences or push back. The fact that Trump fights back against CNN's endless barrage of words is reason enough for Zucker not bothering to wait for the forensic results of the investigation. Zucker not only said, “Continued attacks on the media,” were to blame for these incidents, he went further. “There is a total and complete lack of understanding at the White House about the seriousness of their continued attacks on the media. The President, and especially the White House Press Secretary, should understand their words matter. Thus far, they have shown no comprehension of that,” he declared. Zucker did not mention the effect of his own words, just those of his enemy.

Sarah Sanders was quick to respond this morning. “I think it is absolutely disgraceful that one of the first public statements we heard from CNN yesterday was to put the blame and responsibility of this despicable act on the president and on me personally. When the person that is responsible for this is the person who made and created and put these suspicious packages in the hands, in the arms of innocent American citizens,” Sanders said.

There seem to be plenty of possibilities. Right wing nuts, left wing nuts, low IQ dummies, international terrorists, would-be election manipulators on either side. The early reports suggest these suspicious devices had virtually no chance of exploding. Was the whole thing staged for dramatic effect?

Beyond CNN’s absurd reaction to the latest episode of "news," which has been parroted by most of the mainstream press, the twenty-four hour news cycle will require, as night follows day, that this curious story will become an orgy of pundit speculation. All of this will occur before law enforcement has any chance to gather the “facts.”

Why is this so? The answer is pretty simple. Since there is no journalism in America anymore, just political advocacy, the facts, whatever they turn out to be, simply won’t matter. Before the facts ever come out we Americans will be doused with agenda-driven narratives disguised as news journalism.

Life in America has descended into a daytime political soap box drama and the writers have to fight for those viewer ratings by behaving outrageously. There are so many perpetrators of this atrocity you can't count them all. The copy writers in the mainstream news media are indistinguishable from the daytime soap writers.

Days of Our Lives

A picture sums it up

A picture sums it up

All this prosperity may have to do

© 2018 Jim Spence - The U.S. economy has NEVER turned around like it has over the last twenty-one months. Unfortunately for all of those who are benefiting, Donald Trump makes it harder for all the good news on the economy to get through. He seems compelled to say or tweet things that are devoid of class while he is engineering an economic renaissance the likes of which has not been seen since the Reagan revolution pulled America from the abyss of Jimmy Carter’s follies.

The biggest mistake any American can make on their future is to be so hostile towards Trump’s dumb words that they become willingly ignorant about basic economics. Sadly, many Americans are just that. They are oblivious about the nature of our financial system. Accordingly, they make poor decisions regarding their personal finances and they oppose an obnoxious policy maker like Trump who is making their lives better. Favoring smoother talking politicians who sandbag the economy seems to be the preference.

America is not entitled. There won’t always be plenty of income if too many Americans stop thinking about good public policies and concentrate on how they feel about the offensive things said or tweeted by Donald Trump.

Once Americans get past the offensive nature of Trump, it is not hard to note the changes in America over the last two years. They are nothing short of astonishing. For the first time in more than a decade, growth is projected to exceed 3 percent over the calendar year. There are more Americans employed now than ever before in our history. U.S. jobless claims are at their lowest level in nearly five decades. The economy has achieved the longest positive job-growth streak on record. Job openings are at an all-time high and outnumber job seekers for the first time on record. Unemployment claims are at 50 year lows. The American economic story since the Trump inauguration is even more fantastic for long suffering minorities. African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American unemployment rates have all recently reached record lows. African-American unemployment hit a record low of 5.9 percent in May 2018 and Hispanic unemployment at 4.5 percent. Asian-American unemployment is at record low of 2 percent. Women’s unemployment recently registered its lowest rate in nearly 65 years. Youth unemployment recently reached its lowest level in more than 50 years. Veteran’s unemployment recently hit its lowest level in nearly two decades. The unemployment rate for Americans without a high school diploma recently reached a record low. The unemployment rate for disabled Americans also recently hit a record low. Blue-collar jobs are growing at the fastest rate in more than three decades with manufacturing employment growing at its fastest pace in more than two decades.

All of this great news on jobs is not accidental. It is driven by the PRO-JOBS policies of Trump. All of these jobs are washing through to America’s household finances. Median household income in the U.S. rose to $61,372 in 2017, a post-recession high. Wages are growing at their fastest rate since June 2009. A whopping 3.9 million Americans have come off the food stamps roll since the election two years ago. Median income for Hispanic-Americans rose by 3.7 percent and surpassed $50,000 for the first time ever in history and accordingly, home-ownership among Hispanics is at the highest rate in nearly a decade. Poverty rates for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have reached their lowest levels ever recorded.

Job creators and risk takers are finally reacting to positive policies that help them grow. Small business optimism has hit historic highs with NFIB’s small business optimism index breaking a 35 year-old record in August.  An astonishing 95 percent of U.S. manufacturers are optimistic about the future, the highest reading ever and consumer confidence is at an 18-year high.

What do we hear about instead of all of this good news? We hear about Brett Kavanaugh’s drinking habits at prep school. We hear about a murder at the Saudi Arabian embassy and finger-pointing at Trump that include demands that he tell us what he is going to do about it. We read tweets from Trump calling a porn star a horse face.

It is a sharp contrast with Mr. Obama who spoke eloquently for eight years. Talk is cheap. Obama never came close to producing the kind of economic results we have seen over the last twenty-one months.

Obama confined his insults and merely took advantage of pop culture’s insistence that it is always open season on “typical white people” and also on entrepreneurs. But Obama failed all Americans with atrocious economic policies.

It would be wonderful if Mr. Trump would take a vow to stick to enacting good public policies but…..if he won’t do so, which seems likely, all this amazing prosperity will have to do.

All this prosperity may have to do

Quacky

We are all very excited at the Spence house. We did a DNA test on one of the family pets. It seems that our favorite duck Quacky is 1/1,024th bald eagle.

Quacky

Claiming victim status is in the DNA

© 2018 Jim Spence - The mainstream news media never uses the term “identity politics,” despite the fact the strategy is the most important philosophical pillar of the Democrat's political playbook.

What does the term “identity politics” mean?

Identity politics is how the Democrats like to think about human beings. Democrats don’t think of voters so much as individual human beings. For constructing their election strategies, they prefer to lump people together according to the “groups” that Democrats think they belong to. This identity grouping is done for the purpose of determining a person’s ability to cite grievances. Typically the grievances are very generalized and based simply on the idea that the people are members of certain groups.

There is an end game evolving with this strategy. Democrat’s ultimate strategy is to convince everyone in every group, except white men, that they are victims. This explains why Democrats are so willing to slap the racist label on any white person who is seeking office as a Republican. In the Democratic playbook, at election time, all white men are oppressors.

It was actually quite comical a couple of years ago when a CNN reporter stopped legendary Cleveland Browns running back and accomplished movie actor Jim Brown, as he exited a meeting with then President-elect Trump. Brown quickly bristled at her identity politics slanted question. He glared at the offending reporter and said to her emphatically, “I am not a victim.”

After making many millions of dollars in a wildly successful acting career after playing football, who could argue with Jim Brown? The answer is only a Democrat could argue that he is some sort of victim, by trying to lump him into their group-based victim’s hierarchy.

At first glance, it might seem odd that lately Democrats have taken to throwing “white women” under the rhetorical bus too. In the Democrat’s minds, white women are becoming tricky little hybrid identities. Sure, they are victims, simply because they are women. But they are also oppressors because they are white. Democrats have been slow to recognize they have been alienating white women by inferring that those of them who have white husbands, are all racists. Democrats also freely accuse the white women who don’t vote Democrat of being accomplices in white men's endless oppression of other, "groups."

What is the informal hierarchy for Democrat’s victim groups? Blacks lead the list, they are followed closely by Hispanics, Native Americans, all illegal immigrants, gays, lesbians, trans genders, and non-Christians, except of course for Jews who enjoy "privilege" except for that little holocaust thing.

How valuable is it for a Democrat to be able to claim they belong to a victim’s group? Apparently it is critical. Check out the machinations of presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren. Warren has been claiming she is part Cherokee for quite some time. Recently she actually went so far as to get a dubious DNA test done, ostensibly to prove her identity with Native American heritage. She did this despite the fact that the validity of such DNA tests for this purpose, is scientifically dubious at best. Over the weekend, Warren jubilantly announced the results of her private “DNA” test proved she actually does have some Cherokee blood.

Amusingly, the Cherokee Nation immediately responded to her saying Warren’s use of a DNA test to justify her claim of Native American ancestry were inappropriate. “A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship,” the Cherokee Nation said in a statement released Monday. “Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation. Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong. It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses, while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens,” the tribe said.

Still, according to Warren, supposedly she is between 0.09 and 1.5 percent Native American. This means she has possibly at least one Native American ancestor between get this……….6 and 10 generations back. Apparently, the average American’s DNA would yield similar results thanks to plenty of DNA combinations dating back to 1492.

It turns out that Carlos D. Bustamante, the Stanford University professor who actually conducted the Warren DNA test, said Native American DNA does not exist in DNA researcher’s databases because tribal leaders discourage members from participating in genetic testing. And according to Warren’s close political pals at the Boston Globe, “To make up for the dearth of Native American DNA, Bustamante used samples from Mexico, Peru, and Colombia to stand in for Native American. That’s because scientists believe that the groups Americans refer to as Native American came to this land via the Bering Strait about 12,000 years ago and settled in what’s now America but also migrated further south.”

The Elizabeth Warren story is not so much about her absurd claims for the purpose of securing group identity as it is about the political value perceived by those in the Democratic Party, of simply NOT being “white.”

Put me down in the Jim Brown camp. Jim Brown is not a victim. Neither is Elizabeth Warren or Colin Kaepernick for that matter. And the millions of poor whites in America did not really squander their "privilege." They never had any to squander. In the end, real victims don’t want to be victims. If you are a victim, it means something bad has happened to you…….unless you are a Democrat politician. If you are a Democrat politician, you crave victim hood. You also try to brainwash your constituents with the group identity scam for the political purpose of convincing them there is value in being a victim.

It would seem that multi-millionaire Kanye West recently discovered he is not a victim. What a shame.

Claiming victim status is in the DNA

Carl Jackson tells it like it is

© 2018 Jim Spence -  It is time for a history lesson courtesy of Townhall.com contributor Carl Jackson. Jackson says the teaching of history is critical. However, revising history to fit a political narrative is what Democrats have been doing at high schools and on major college campuses for decades. Jackson says, redacting important facts from the teaching of history has become the favorite past time of activists Democrats involved in the revision of history. How else can we explain that the simple truths regarding the delivering true freedoms are not known by the vast majority of adult Americans, even people who vote Republican for other reasons, do not know much about the facts Jackson establishes.
Most people know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, and he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which was later signed into law to abolish slavery in the United States. However, most Americans don’t know, because they were never taught properly, that it was the Republican Party that introduced and passed the 13th Amendment, which effectively ended all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude in America.
The GOP did not stop there. Republicans also spearheaded the passage of the 14th Amendment granting all freed slaves U.S. citizenship. Then came the 15th Amendment, also passed by Republicans, which recognized the right to vote for former slaves. Did you know that the very first Civil Rights Act was passed against the wishes of Democrats in 1866? The law protected the rights of freed slaves.
Did you know that over the opposition of Democrats in 1871, the GOP passed the Anti-KKK Act, which effectively destroyed the Ku Klux Klan. Later the Klan was revitalized by Democrats, including former Klan member and Democrat Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, who was in the Senate until 2010, when he finally died.
The era of Reconstruction is largely lamented in the history textbooks. However, there were some good things that happened during Reconstruction. The very first black Congressmen were elected during Reconstruction. All of these men were Republicans. Were you taught these facts?
President Dwight D. Eisenhower created a Commission on Civil Rights back in 1957, and in 1960 he sent federal inspectors to the voter registration polls to insure fair treatment of blacks who were attempting to exercise their rights to vote. In 1964, it was the Republican vote in Congress, particularly in the Senate that passed the Civil Rights Act. A higher percentage of Republican Senators supported that law than Democrats. Did your history teacher explain this to you? I am guessing not.
Do you find Martin Luther King Jr. to be one of the most compelling figures in human history? Do you think it is taught at any level in our education system that it was not until Republican President Ronald Reagan’s tenure that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday became a national holiday?
And how about the actual presidential numbers on  appointing more blacks to high-level positions in the federal government? Do the history teachers at any level in America teach students that Republican President George W. Bush, more than any of his predecessors, created major advancements for people like Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and so many other gifted black Americans?
Everyone knows that inner city schools are an abject failure. Democrats won’t send their kids to them if they have options. But poor African American families in the inner cities don’t have alternatives. In 2011, it was a Republican Congress that tried to change this situation when it voted to fund the D.C. school voucher program. This was a real reversal of the damage done by Mr. Obama and Democrat Harry Reid when these two Democrats stripped the funding away from the voucher program as a payoff to their National Education Association buddies. The NEA is a stalwart Democratic Party contributor that resists all efforts to promote educational reforms especially school vouchers. Has this ever been explained to you?
Carl Jackson summarizes this situation well in his column at Townhall.com today:
"Republicans were instrumental in using the law to greatly diminish the effects of racism in America so that everyone, regardless of race, could reach their God-given potential. But, legislation alone can’t change a man’s heart. That part is up to God, and unfortunately the modern Democratic Party wants nothing to do with Him. As long as that’s the case, we can expect racism to be an unresolved issue in American politics for generations to come, and I’m convinced Democrats are OK with that."

Carl Jackson tells it like it is

Kanye West and Taylor Swift Speak Out

© 2018 Jim Spence - Just as everyone in America does, entertainer celebrities have the right to express their opinions. However, it has been quite informative to watch how the mainstream media reacted to two different music artists who weighed in on politics this week.
First there was rapper Kanye West who has teamed up with Obama supporter Jay Z to make some of the crudest and most vulgar songs ever recorded. The mainstream media never took West or Jay Z to task for some of their lyrics, but man did the folks at CNN go off when West met with Donald Trump in the White House this week.
It seems that West's coming out in support of a man who won an electoral landslide victory in 2016 requires ridicule. On CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, CNN commentator Bakari Sellers said, “Kanye West is what happens when negroes don’t read.”
Wow! Let’s just imagine for a millisecond if a Fox commentator had said the same thing about Jay Z and Beyonce after one of their countless visits to the Obama White House. Just imagine what would have happened. Whoever said that would have been justifiably crucified.
The barrage of attacks on West on CNN continued. Kanye West is, “An attention whore like the president,” said CNN’s Tara Setmayer. But Setmayer did not stop there, “Black folks are about to trade Kanye West in the racial draft,” she declared indignantly.
Really? Is there actually such a thing as the, “us versus them” racial draft? Are the “thems,” in Stemayer’s world all white people? Who thinks like this, gets a forum on national television, and goes unchallenged by those sitting next to her? This is America's mainstream media.
Setmayer topped off her blatantly racist rant with this gem, “Kanye is the token Negro of the Trump administration.”
All that can be said about this sort of stuff is wow! This woman still has a job at a major news network?
Taylor Swift waded into the political pool this week too. It seems she said she is not going to vote for the GOP’s Marsha Blackburn in the U.S. Senate race in Tennessee. On Fox and Friends Charlie Kirk, who runs a pro-GOP organization called Turning Point USA, said that Swift should, “Stick to singing instead of politics.”
Again, all Americans are entitled to their opinions. Personally, I happen to love Taylor Swift’s music and don’t care at all for Kanye West’s vulgar rap. However, it is long since past the time when Americans should think about CNN and their obsession with policing the thoughts of free Americans. Specifically, we should think about how brazenly bold the CNN pundits are at trying to control the thought processes of all black people. When a black man like Kanye West strays off their orthodox thought plantation, they scream “runaway” and demand he be punished by their listeners. What comes next now that they know Kanye like millions of others, actually supports Trump? Do these CNN pundits demand half of one of Kanye West's feet be chopped off since he is black?
Alternatively, should Taylor Swift stick to singing since those in the GOP disagree with her about the Tennessee senate race?
There is danger here. Expressing opinions is as American as apple pie. Every American should enjoy freedom of expression. Debate is healthy.
However, what CNN did to Kanye West was not the expression of an opinion or engagement in debate. Instead they simply ridiculed West in a despicably racist way, as if all black people must think in a certain way. The language the CNN pundits used was the language of the Ku Klux Klan. Sadly, CNN is composed of dozens of hopelessly partisan hacks with naked hatreds for those who dare to veer away from their contempt for anything that is not Democrat.
It is no wonder that the ever-combative Trump calls CNN the enemy of the people and thousands chant, “CNN sucks” at rallies all over America. The fact that these racist bastards continue to contribute at CNN, is all the evidence one needs to conclude that CNN does suck.

Kanye West and Taylor Swift Speak Out

They don't have the votes

© 2018 Jim Spence - Engage Democrats online in the comments section of a website where news articles are published, and you will encounter rage almost immediately. This rage is as disturbing as events in San Jose, California a couple of years ago, when Trump supporters were filmed as they were chased, slammed to the ground, pummeled with fists, kicked, and even pelted with eggs and hard projectiles.

Since the Trump 2016 election victory, throngs of criminals chanting anti-Trump rhetoric have dragged people from their cars in places like Chicago and beaten them. Elsewhere, armies of masked black-clad “antifa protesters” have engaged in senseless acts of violence. In Portland, Seattle, and L.A. they have routinely beat up people they suspect did not vote Democrat. Riots have broken out all around the country. Washington D.C., Portland, Seattle, and Berkeley, are just a few of the places that have been made unsafe for free speech. Allison Stanger, a professor of political science (a Democrat) was injured by an anti-free speech mob that was opposed to her hosting author Charles Murray, when he was speaking at Middlebury College. Louisiana Republican Steve Scalise was shot and critically wounded by a pro-Bernie Sanders gunman in Washington. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was threatened and chased out of a restaurant by Democrat protesters. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and her family were kicked out of a restaurant by the Democrat owner. Ted Cruz and his wife were threatened at restaurant by a screaming mob of anti-Brett Kavanaugh protesters. Earlier this week Hillary Clinton said, get this........Democrats need to be less civil and more “ruthless.” Wow, she actually one-upped serial violence promoter and fellow Democrat Maxine Waters.

Are these people you want to give more power to?

Let's return to the real problem here. The problem for Democrats is they don’t have the votes, which ironically is pretty much what it takes to govern.

Consider how Democrats and Republicans have behaved regarding a few recent Supreme Court nominees. With Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, the Republicans did not have the votes. No Republican would stoop so low as to trash these two people personally, despite the fact that all Republicans knew these nominees would not rule the way the GOP wanted them to on court cases. Both Kagan and Sotomayor sailed through their confirmation hearings with discussions limited to legal questions. Both received GOP votes.

With Merrick Garland, the last Obama nominee, the Democrats only held 46 senate seats. Garland was simply not going to be confirmed.....period. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell cited a precedent established by then Senator Joe Biden to deny Garland hearings and a vote during a presidential election year. Democrats didn’t like it, but they did not have the votes. The outcome on Garland was never in doubt and Garland went back to his job on the bench as a Court of Appeals judge, without being trashed as a human being by people who were opposed to his nomination.

Brett Kavanaugh was nominated and once again, as has been the case for quite some time, the Democrats didn’t have the votes. We all saw what happened. Because they were angry, like the mobs they incite almost every day, and because they did not have the votes, Democrats decided to use a person who wanted to remain anonymous, to accuse Kavanaugh of being a rapist thirty-six years ago. These charges were so frivolous the objective was delay, not deny. However, there is no doubt that Judge Kavanaugh was forced to deny the slander as well as explain to his two young daughters what happens when Democrats don’t have the votes.

Americans see how Democrats behave when their bad policy ideas don't yield votes. Do you want these people to have more power or less power as an appropriate reward for their very bad policy ideas and atrocious anger-driven behaviors?

They don't have the votes

The atrocity of the Kavanaugh hearings

© 2018 Jim Spence - “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Every U.S. Senator takes the above oath. And according to this oath, the U.S. Constitution is the centerpiece of our nation’s governing framework. Sadly, Democrats don’t care much for the U.S. Constitution. It gets in the way of their obsession with making government and crony capitalists more and more powerful. Despite all the security and prosperity our U.S. Constitution has brought, not just to U.S. citizens, but others around the world, Democrats constantly emphasize what is wrong with America to the point of destroying what is right with America. Astonishingly, Mr. Obama called for the "fundamental" transformation of the most successful nation in human history, as if there is something fundamentally better about more powerful bureaucrats and crony capitalists.

It is time to delve into the factors that have made absurd last minute accusations become the political weapon of choice of Democrats. In the wake of an utter repudiation of many Obama policies by the electorate in 2016, in 2018 Democrats demonstrate the same sort of rage they did one hundred fifty-eight years ago when they suspected that slavery as an institution, was living on borrowed time. The Democrat's rage prior to the civil war was also triggered by the election of a Republican. Like their slave holding ancestors, in 2018, Democrats are engaging in increasingly violent acts of aggression that could lead America to civil war. And strange as it might seem, slavery is once again the issue. Democrats have a vision that citizens ought to become the slaves of bureaucrats. Examples of this are how citizens are treated at veteran’s hospitals, departments of motor vehicles, and security checkpoints in airports. Democrats pretend these bureaucracies provide adequate service. Citizens know better.

Politics is mostly about having good ideas regarding public policies. Winning politicians must provide superior historical evidence that their ideas/policies work better than those of their opponents. And in civilized societies, after elections are held, the incumbent losers transfer power to the election winners. And they do so peacefully.

Here comes the problem for Democrats. Increasingly, in America it is obvious that Democrats think it is acceptable to react to their huge losses at the ballot box with violence instead of peaceful concessions. It comes as no surprise that what we have seen since 2016, is hardly a peaceful transfer of power.

The reasons for the frustrations of Democrats are obvious. When it comes to proposing ideas and policies to the electorate, policies that work……Democrats are bankrupt. They simply cannot provide convincing evidence that anything they are in favor of, actually works. This reality began to become pretty clear in 2010 after Democrats were handed control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and a super majority in the Senate in 2008. In less than two years Democrats screwed up their chance to show they had intelligent priorities. They screwed up in an epic way. Instead of looking to grow opportunities for those citizens who are willing to work, they hijacked the nation’s healthcare system and put it in the hands of lazy bureaucrats and crony capitalists. Thanks to Democrats, lazy bureaucrats and crony capitalists still control the healthcare system. While citizens hate what they did to healthcare, Democrats remain undeterred. Democrats want to do to most aspects of life in America what they did to healthcare under Obama.

As was likely to happen, all of these realities came crashing down on Democrats in the 2016 election. And since the news media is composed of 90% partisan Democrats and only 10% journalists, the fires have been stoked and raging for the last 23 months.

This brings us to the utter atrocity of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Can you imagine being falsely accused by some lunatic prosecutor and being forced to draw from a jury pool consisting of Democrat Senators? Can you say life in prison?

The Kavanaugh hearings were a prime example of what unprincipled bastards do. Democrat’s great hopes for continuing to empower bureaucrats and crony capitalists were with corrupting the court system and promoting judges they know will ignore their oaths. Democrat appointees to the courts, as a matter of routine, can be counted on to refuse to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Make no mistake, Donald Trump dashed these putrid hopes. Accordingly, you don't have to like Trump the person, to like what he has done. Putrid hopes should be dashed.

Next month the American people will once again have a choice in the mid-term elections. They can not only deny support for those who refuse to defend the Constitution of the United States, they can also talk to the undecided in their ranks and help them understand what is at stake.

In the end, the atrocity of the Kavanaugh hearings served as an alarming illustration of the depth of evil out there. America has  too many sleaze balls in the U.S. Senate, including both New Mexico senators, who rank among the most unprincipled elected officials in America.

The atrocity of the Kavanaugh hearings