Watched some protests from around the world this week. In a country with a very popular president, people were protesting corruption. Men in black showed up, dispersed the crowd and hauled some people away. In a different country, with a very unpopular president, people were protesting in support of the president. Men in black showed up and tried to disperse the crowd.

Two very different circumstances, with a similar conclusion. Fortunately in the second case, the men in black were unable to haul people away. I would like to say a few words about the second group of men in black. It would be unfair to compare them with the first group, for the first group is sanctioned by the government with the popular president. You may agree or disagree with the actions of the men in black, of either nation. However their actions and intentions are the same.

Our men in black like to be known as “The Resistance”. This is because the resistance fought the Nazis that occupied Vichy France. Unoccupied territory of Vichy France was known as the “Free Zone”. The men in black, here, fancy themselves as liberators. I disagree, they are a symptom of something much deeper, and much darker.

In reality they are operatives of the Democrat party. The government workforce is almost entirely compromised of Democrats. They believed that this past election was to be the election to end the pesky Republicans. It is true that at times the Republicans can be pesky, but I believe that a balance is needed. A Ying and Yang if you like. The Republicans represent all those that are not in the oppressive governments employ (I exaggerate only slightly). Severely disappointed at the outcome of the election the Democrat oppressors have become a party in decline, and at the verge of collapse. Unable to do anything but unsuccessfully propagate hate and lies, they now resort to outright oppression.

Amazingly, as I finish this little observation, I read that the newest DNC chair Tom Perez has asked his entire staff for resignation letters. Hopefully they reinvent themselves without the men in black. I wonder if they would want to hire a Bubba that wants to make America great?

Interesting company Cambridge Anialytica. The New Yorker magazine says it is a private hedge fund with eighty percent returns. The Cambridge Anialytica website says they are a data management company. I would think that they handle really big data. The principle shareholder is Bob Mercer, a data nerd. A man that has recently become interested in politics.

A relative newcomer to politics Cambridge Anialytica has been reported to be inexperienced and ineffective. However Steve Bannon and Kelly Conway are reported to be former associates of the company. So there is a certain linkage to the Trump presidency and the big data company.

I am not opposed to big data, it is needed to make wise decisions. Unfortunately big data has a tendency to be politicised. Data is created to support political points of view. So I am somewhat hopeful that this company doesn’t have a political agenda. At least not in the traditional sense.

The partisan naysayers will have nothing nice to say, but they never do. At this point their words mean nothing. Just mindless drivel, polluting people’s minds. Spewing hatred and destruction like a cancer on society.

Good statics are hard to find, most are created to advance a certain point of view. After seeing many Robins in the spring I asked Google how many Robins are in my state. Google replied that the Robin is not an endangered species, so nobody bothers to count them. Politics is about keeping people safe, while allowing the pursuit of life liberty and happiness. Statistics can be used to benchmark success. Politics these days is typically composed of compelling story, a data set of one. A story designed to pull the heartstrings, and enable a new self serving bureaucracy. It is a story where the Robins are ignored. The Karner blue butterfly is studied because of its rarity, in the hopes that it will delay an infrastructure project? All sorts of information about the butterfly in the state website, and none about the Robin.

So when it comes to statistics about jobs, income, insurance, do we really think we are getting unbiased information? Statistics about taxes, unions, healthcare? Yea Right.

So am I trying to make a point? Not really, just an observation. Come to think of it, it is not an observation of the mainstream media. If I think politics disappoints me, it is nothing compared to my disappointment in Wolf Blitzer and Chris Matthews. Even Fox misses the point.

I would like to congratulate partisans of the left and of the right. For all the partisans of the left, congratulations the Affordable Health Care Act still remains. Your worries that President Trump would bring wreck and ruin have been unfounded. For the partisans of the right, the Freedom Caucus, I congratulate you for your success in standing up to the nefarious dealings of the irascible President Trump.

I however am saddened, I was hoping the deal maker would do the deal. I truly thought that President Trump would make an offer that could not be refused. It appears nobody likes a moderate.

Where I live used to be called precision valley. Fifty years ago the best machine tools in the world were made in this valley. Today I listened to two separate stories on how the people that worked in the local shops made really good money. The shops were unionized, and even though the people were happy with the money they were making, the unions, wanting more would go on strike. Eventually all the big shops shut down. Closed, no more good jobs. I then added my own third story, the strike at Joy Manufacturing. At what would have been a hundred dollars an hour in today’s money, they went on strike. Those were the days.

So once again, let me congratulate the partisans in their victory. You are correct, I am the loser.

The de facto head of the Democrat party is Barack Obama. He is off on vacation at some private island. Nice that he is out of the picture. Last week President Trump claimed President Obama had “wiretapped” Trump Tower in the two weeks before the election. The press was outraged.

January 13th it was revealed that President Obama had “vastly expanded surveillance and sharing of personal information”. It was said that this was done to find the Russian connection to the Trump campaign.

I am sure President Trump has his enemies, both in and outside the intelligence community. However he also has his friends. I would not be surprised if there was not just communications preserved of the president elect, but of the president himself.

Could be that President Obama is hosting his own petard?

An unemployed Romanian cab driver has shaped American political history. Marcel Lazar Level would guess email passwords of prominent people. He hacked into Sidney Blumenthal and exposed Hillary’s private email server. This became a a major talking point for Republicans, myself included. He also hacked local Romanian officials. For that he went to jail in January 2014. In September of 2016 he was sentenced to 52 months in this country. Yes, the Romanians gave him to us. Yes we had on of the most significant hackers in U.S. politics in custody. We then gave him back?

The story was he was just a front for Guccifer 2.0 the Russian connection. I remain unconvinced. Romanian bureaucrats being bureaucrats forwarded the found information up the ladder, and ultimately to Russia. Who then crafted Guccifer 2.0 to carry on with the hacking initiated by the real and original Guccifer.

Information publicly released was limited and damming. I have wondered what other systems were infiltrated by the professionals.

I would expect that Kim Jong-un will not make it through the year. His murderous actions are becoming more and more bazaar. He has taken his murderous actions outside the country when he killed his half brother. In addition he is threatening other nations, including ours with nuclear annihilation.

It will be over before we even know that it started. An amazingly short and successful war it will be. The duration will be measured in double digit hours. Of course after we break North Korea, we will own it. We will have to feed the starving masses. Then bring them up to a reasonable state of civilization.

The North Koreans will be eternally grateful for the food, the freedom they will find confusing. In gratitude they will erect the largest statue in the world. It will be of our own dear leader. It is what they do. They make big grand statuary. It will be big league beautiful. Everyone will be happy.

My first political memory was the death of JFK. At a tender young age I was actually quite distraught that our country had no leader. I was quite relieved to find out that we had a vice president that could take the place of the president.

LBJ brought us the Vietnam War and anti-war protest. I was unaware at the time of the great society social programs. There also some talk about how J. Edgar Hoover ran the government.

Nixon brought ping pong diplomacy with China, probably the most dramatic presidential action in my lifetime. He also extracted us from Vietnam. Unfortunately Watergate and a sixteen minute gap ended his career.

Gerald Ford, the accidental president came up with the acronym WIN, for whip inflation now. Life was actually not to bad under Ford.

I actually voted for the Nuclear Physicist and Peanut Farmer. What could be better? Inflation increased and I couldn’t find a job. Additionally there were many protests against nuclear power. So I ate lots of peanuts.

I was somewhat dismayed when an actor become president. Surprisingly I got a job and bought a new truck. It was the beginning of the best times in my life.

I shook the hand of President Bush, I thought he was a fine diplomat, and did an amazing job in the first gulf war. Unfortunately after saying read my lips he negotiated with the Democrats and raised taxes. I believe that would be the last time the two political parties would negotiate.

Bill Clinton won with “It’s the economy stupid” wIth the emphasis on stupid. Politics was now a sport of browbeating.

Unsurprisingly the public retreated from the politics of personal destruction and embraced another Bush. In a surprising and most likely last agreement between the two parties, they agreed that Saddam had the bomb. It was a ruse and plan to put another Clinton into the presidency.

Obama successfully played the hope and change card while coopting the Clinton agenda and methods. His unorthodox methods probably destroyed the party.

Now with a choice of another Bush or Clinton, the public played the Trump card.

Those bloody Trumpkins are always causing trouble. They have mucked up a sane and sound political process. Those racist, hateful and even fascist, Trumpkins are just a bunch of deplorables, uninterested in sane political dialog.

He only problem with the above statement is that when I watch the news, is the bloody Trumpkins. It is only the people that support President Trump that are bloodied. Attacked at their own events by unknown assailants. It has become quite routine to see Trump supporters bloodied. The liberal press, and media celebrates the resistance. A resistance that attacks individual liberty of the small segment of the population that supports the president.

Yes it is a revolution, a war of words. Unable to accept any views other than their own, the Democrats have turned to hate, it the first word they use. That hate has turned into bloodshed. I find the most amazing thing is, there is no reciprocation. President Trump himself has said that the Democrats are entitled to their point of view. While the president may not display a Gandhi sense of passive resistance, his supporters do. Finding a bloodied liberal is a very hard thing to do.

The restraint of the Trumpkins is a amazing thing. Proud to be one.

Once upon a time STP would sponsor very fast and innovative Indy race cars. STP stood for “Specially Treated Petroleum” and was basically a long molecular chained oil thickening agent for older and worn out cars. Of course us rural kids at the time thought it stood for “Super Tractor Power”.

Nowadays you cannot find a small tractor that is manufactured in the USA. Rural America was built with tractors designed built and manufactured in the good old USA. Sure the largest corporate tractors are built here, but not everybody is a corporate farmer. They are still many rural homesteads in America. Unable to find a suitable domestically produced tractor, these people voted for Donald Trump.

If the CBO is correct the healthcare premiums for these same rural Americans would go up by $10,000 a year. Obviously this is a no go. Unable to afford any sort of tractor, let alone a USA tractor, we will vote the incumbents out. We may also grab our pitchforks.

We spend more on healthcare than any other country. Hire a couple of Cuban doctors and figure out how to reduce costs. Let the Unions negotiate the costs, then make them responsible for universal care. They are essentially paying for it anyway because the are overcharged to make up the deficit of the uninsured.

Rural America needs more small tractors, not more healthcare costs.

 

I haven’t written much about Wall Street. So I will repeat a few words that I have written before. Wall street makes some of their money by buying low and selling high. Money made this way is taxed at a lesser rate then the income of people that labor for a living. Maybe it is taxed at a lesser rate than because the people that make that money do not work as hard. I believe that is unfair. Because other working people put the worth into the value, their taxes should be reduced to a lesser rate than the capital gains tax that of the people who sit on appreciating assets.

The other way Wall Street makes their money is more underhanded. Market manipulation, legal manipulation enabled by friendly politicians, and downright unethical diversions.

I fully expect President Trump to do something better, he is supposed to know the smart people.