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PROUD TO BE AMERICAN

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My book, “Proud to be American,” is on sale at Amazon and also can be ordered at most bookstores for $17.95.  It’s a 330-page paperback book with 70 articles in nine categories and with 70 pictures.  The book analyzes national, international, and domestic problems and also critiques mainstream media and the far-left (socialist) wing of the Democrat Party.  It also has a provocative introduction and conclusion.                           #        #     #      #

With attacks to nationalism and patriotism coming from all sides, I thought it appropriate to provide some of the reasons why Americans should be proud that they are Americans, especially since our public schools usually teach the misdeeds of the U.S. but none of its numerous great achievements and countless acts of kindness and heroism.  A recent survey showed that only 16% of generation Z were proud to be American.  Americans, however,  have many reasons to be proud, a few of which I cite below. Before I do, let me first debunk the allegation that the U.S. was racist from its very beginning because of slavery.

Our founding fathers were initially reluctant to secede from England, but after repeated failed attempts at reconciliation, decided to do so.  They explained their reasons for secession in the Declaration of Independence. Since slavery was legal and prevalent in America under British rule, America inherited it and had to keep a limited form of it in order to have the Southern States ratify the Constitution and join the Union.  Seventy-five years after the Constitution was ratified by the 13 Colonial states, the  U.S. fought a Civil War to rid itself of this evil.  It cost the U.S. 650,000 lives, including that of President Lincoln, who was assassinated shortly after the war was over.  Had President Lincoln lived, reconstruction in the South would have been much easier.  In fact, there  remained significant systemic racism in the U.S. until the 1960’s and  the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended.  Despite this, America survived, overcame its problems, and prospered to the extent that in 2008, 145 years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, Barack Obama, the first black president, was elected, and in 2012 he was re-elected.

The United States helped save Europe from Hitler’s Nazi Germany in World War II, as well as Kaiser Wilhelm’s German Empire in World War I. In addition, it saved about a million Japanese and American lives through its judicious use of the atomic bomb, which significantly shortened the war.  After that war, in the Cold War, the U.S. prevented the Soviet Union from instilling tyrannical communism throughout the world (with all of the poverty and suffering that accompanies it). These examples are not anomalies…the U.S. has come to the rescue of peoples throughout the world to liberate and assist them.  To be sure, America has made mistakes, but its intentions were usually good.

There are countless examples of the United States helping other countries and peoples throughout its history.  In addition, its medical and technological advances have made life easier for everyone on the planet.  A useful way to look at it is to imagine a world without the United States (see Dinesh D’Souza’s movie, available on DVD), “America, Imagine a World Without Her”).  The U.S. military has no equal and as such many would-be evildoers are kept at bay, knowing full-well, that if the U.S. got involved, it would destroy them.  Aside from the greatness of America, its people are the most generous in the world, so when disaster strikes anywhere in the world, Americans run to their checkbooks and credit cards and give.

From its inception, America has stood for liberty and freedom around the world.  Our Statue of Liberty is recognized all over the world as a symbol of freedom.  It was given to the U.S. by France because America stood for freedom and was a role-model for France, as described in Alexis de Tocqueville’s book, Democracy in America.  A simple measure of the desirability of the United States is to see that millions of people from all over the world immigrating to it, some legally, some illegally.

America is and has been an exceptional nation, but if the Far-Left (socialist) wing of the Democrat Party prevails, America will cease being exceptional.

 

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DEFEAT THE RADICAL FAR-LEFT POLITICALLY

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NY City Tammany Hall leader “Boss” Tweed, 1860’s-70’s

My book, “Proud to be American”, is on sale at Amazon and also can be ordered at any bookstore for $16.95.  It includes 68 articles organized to nine categories and with 70 pictures. The book analyzes national, international, and domestic problems.  It also critiques Propaganda Media and the Far-Left of the Democrat Party.    #          #            #           #

Although I’m slightly more conservative than liberal, I try to be even-handed in my writing. However, the Left has become so radical, and even criminal at times, I think that one article that is not even-handed is in order and appropriate. The following is a brief summary of what I believe has and is happening to adversely affect U.S. politics:

1. Former President Biden used to be a moderate Democrat for most of his political career, but he governed as a far-left radical after becoming President of the United States.  His policies were difficult to understand and appeared to be all geared to hurting Americans and the U.S.  Examples of this include his dismantling of the myriad of immigration and border policies that kept the number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. very low; putting America in huge debt and causing massive inflation by wasting trillions of dollars in allegedly helping Americans get over the pandemic; dividing America along racial lines by supporting and funding Critical Race Theory; weakening our military by not providing it with enough funds to even keep up with inflation; by removing economic sanctions from our adversaries such as Iran, China, and Russia.

2. Mainstream (“Propaganda”) Media has become so dishonest that absolutely nothing it says about President Trump can be believed.  It is also guilty of “bias by omission” since it reports next to nothing that makes President Trump look good.

3. Democrat Party leaders refuse to debate issues but instead make “ad hominem” (personal) attacks against President Trump and Republicans. The reason for this is that their policies are absurd to the extent that they cannot be successfully defended from arguments against them.

4. Far-left Democrats should commend former Presidents Biden and Obama (I’m being facetious here) because they did their bidding by trying their very best to drastically weaken our military, economic system, and Healthcare in order to further their Socialist agenda and that of the Democrat Party (by furthering policies that would create a large permanent poverty class dependent on the government for basic subsidence).  His political party allowed large numbers of illegal aliens into the U.S. since most will eventually vote Democrat, and Obama doubled the National debt (from $10 trillion to $20 trillion), coming close to bankrupting the country (and President Bide attempted to finish the job with massive deficit spending.

5. The Democrat Party, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden destroyed healthcare insurance for millions of Americans; only those receiving free medical insurance do well under Obamacare.

6. The far-left shouts down conservative speakers on college campuses, as well as destroys property in its demonstrations, thus demonstrating it does not believe in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on freedom of speech and it also cannot debate anyone that disagrees with them.

7.  Many Democrat leaders, such as Democrat Congresswoman, Maxine Waters, and the House of Representatives  Democrat “Squad,” have advocated violence while the Main-Stream Media falsely accuse President Trump of instigating violence (I taped Trump’s January 6 speech…to “peacefully and patriotically make you voices heard”).

8. Some Republican leaders are timid and cannot competently argue conservative policy positions though those positions are far better than liberal positions.  Were it not for Fox News and Newsmax cable TV stations, talk radio, President Trump, Governor DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Tim Scott, Rand Paul, Jim Jorden, James Comer, etc., the Republican Party would be in bad shape.  In other words, as ridiculous as most liberal positions are, the timidity of some Republican leaders really hurts the adoption of conservative policy positions.

9. I believe that the far-left wing of the Democrat Party is shaping and mentally preparing its followers to hate Republicans and take over the Federal government.  We need to expose this criminality whenever we find evidence that it is happening’

11, 12, 13, etc.

In conclusion, if and when the Democrat Party loyalists ever see what has happened to their Party and punish it by not supporting it (voting for it and contributing to it) until it changes, the Party should then clean itself up and consequently become more competitive and win many more elections.  Let’s pray that everything remains peaceful as we go through the consequent political turmoil and do whatever we can to defeat the far-left politically.

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POLITICAL TALK IS CHEAP

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My book, “Proud to be American,” is on sale now for $16.95 at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It’s a 300-page paperback book with 70 photos.  It contains 68 articles in nine categories and has a provocative introduction and conclusion.

President Biden on March 25, 2021, gave his first press conference, 64 days after he became President.  He called on ten reporters and spoke for just over an hour.  His delivery went reasonably well except for having to refer to his briefing book in order to answer foreign policy questions.  His preparation-staff prepared a book with photos of all the journalists in attendance with the ten circled he was to call on for questions.  Since I follow national issues very closely I can say with certainty that he told many lies in his answers to reporters’ questions.  Since his first press conference, he has earned a well-deserved reputation for lying…all of the time.  Political talk is cheap!

When he was President, Trump spoke bluntly, not eloquently, but spoke the truth and did a lot of good things for America and Americans.  However, his blunt talk often got him into trouble.  Trump was not a politician and did not know how to speak “political talk”.

President Obama was an eloquent speaker, but he actually made race relations worse, and didn’t get much done to improve the lives of most Americans.  Or did he?  If you liked how the economy and his job-creation efforts performed (lowest civilian labor-force participation rate since 1978), and liked the declining strength of the military, and think our foreign policy helped the United States, then you might believe that President Obama performed well. Or perhaps those things are not that important to you but  his Presidential demeanor was important.  Political talk is cheap!

Because  Presidents are our spokesperson to the world, most do want them to be presidential. President Obama was usually presidential but didn’t get much accomplished; President Trump’s language, on the other hand, was not presidential at times but he was successful in creating jobs, making the U.S. energy independent, creating an outstanding  economy, and strengthened out the military.. What’s more important to you, talk or deeds?

I hear many times each day that “Biden said this,” or “Biden said that,” and previously, “that Trump tweeted this or said that.”  However, what a President says is not nearly as important as his actions because deeds are the best indicator on how the U.S. (and the President) is doing.  For example, when former President Obama said that he thought about the economy every day, but then didn’t meet with his “Jobs Council” for many months at a time, it was  natural to question the President’s sincerity.  When Obama suggested he “felt our pain,” but took Air Force One to New York city where traffic was stopped for hours so he and Michelle could have a “night out” in “The Big Apple,” his actions said a lot more about his true feelings than his words.

President Biden’s $1.9 trillion “covid-19 stimulus” was passed during the first two months of his Presidency.  Wouldn’t unemployment have been even worse without it, which is how it was sold to the American public?  Much of the stimulus was a waste of money…only 9% of it went for Covid-related relief within the United States, though Covid was touted as its primary justification.  Reality is that much of the stimulus went for projects that mostly benefitted Democrat politicians and their friends and supporters. All of the talk about its wonderful benefits was “bull”. Reality is that it raised inflation to even higher heights…the happy political talk was “Bull”.

CONCLUSION

President Biden talked a great game but it took all of the mainstream media, most of Hollywood, most universities and colleges, the Unions, and far-left, multi-billionaire George Soros’ money, to keep him from not having bad job approval numbers.

President Trump was brash and blunt in his rhetoric, but he was a doer, insofar as he got a lot of good things done for the United States, especially revising regulations and laws that led to huge job creation.  President Obama was a great talker.  President Biden talks like a moderate while implementing far-left extremist  policies which have significantly hurt the United States, however, the mainstream media will not report it so you won’t even know anything about it.  Talk is cheap. Political talk is worse than worthless, it’s misleading to the extent that everything you think you know about issues may not be true!  Look at deeds…passing a piece of legislation is not a deed.  The results caused by that legislation are deeds.

 

 

 

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THE STORY OF THE KEYSTONE PIPELINE

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President Biden revoked, via one of his first Executive Orders, the Federal permits authorizing the completion of the Keystone Pipeline.  A month after President Trump took office in January 2017, he signed a Executive Order authorizing its completion.  Why are our Presidents playing flip-flop?  To help you understand this issue, here’s the background of the pipeline:

BACKGROUND

In November of 2015 President Obama vetoed the TransCanada Corporation’s proposed $7 billion Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline (also known as the Keystone Gulf Coast Expansion Project),  it meant that 830,000 barrels of oil a day would not travel from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf’s oil refineries via a pipeline.  Though a politically popular decision with environmentalists,  it was very unpopular with construction unions, as well as most Americans.

To counter criticism, some from leaders in his own political party, President Obama made an appearance in Cushing Oklahoma on March 22, 2013  saying that he would fast-track any required permitting of the 485 miles of pipeline traveling from Cushing down to the Gulf.  That part of the proposed pipeline is on privately-owned land in the U.S. so President Obama couldn’t do much to stop its construction even if he wanted to.  Without the northern leg of the pipeline, however, the 830,000 barrels of much-needed oil/day wouldn’t be coming from Canada and this leg of the pipeline the President could and did stop because the pipeline would have to cross the Canadian-American border (and therefore required Federal approval).

TransCanada subsequently modified its proposed route through the environmentally-sensitive areas of Nebraska and resubmitted its application.  There was not much remaining that was controversial and the U.S. State Department  found it to have “no significant impacts on the quality of the human environment,” which is the wording and standard contained in the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA).

The Keystone pipeline is not simply about oil, but also about eleven thousand construction jobs and up to 100,000 indirect jobs, as well as significant positive effects on the economy, including U.S. energy independence.   It was therefore important to analyze President Obama’s decision to determine if it was mostly political or based on genuine detriments to the environment.

It’s no secret that the far left is anti-fossil fuel because of what it perceives as unacceptable pollution.  To this end, the Obama Administration came out with 5 sets of anti-coal regulations which were estimated to cost the United States  the loss of over one million jobs.  In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) zeroed in on anti-fracking regulations to control the utilization of the huge natural gas reserves (over a 100-years worth) in the U.S.; however,  the far-left contended that its opposition to the Keystone Pipeline was mainly because of possible leaks from the line.  In addition, former Energy Secretary Chu had stated that it would be desirable to have U.S. gas prices at European levels ($8-10/gallon), so that alternative fuels would be more price-competitive.

Carbon emissions in the United States have been drastically reduced over the past 50 years.  Autos emit only a tiny fraction of what they used to.  Coal-fired power plants have been cleaned up.  In contrast, China brings on-line  two new coal-fired power plants a week and these plants, unlike U.S. plants, emit lots of pollution.  Air pollution knows no boundaries, so it’s a lot less polluting to the earth for the U.S. to burn its coal (and oil) rather than for China.

Solar and wind sources of energy only supply about 5% of the nation’s energy needs.  Hydroelectric supplies less than 10%, nuclear about 19% (France gets 80% of  its energy from nuclear).  So for the foreseeable future the U.S. still needs fossil fuels.  Therefore this dilemma is not really a dilemma at all.  If the U.S. cannot get the oil it needs from domestic sources and help improve the economy and create thousands of jobs at the same time, it will get it from foreign sources and give up to $500 billion a year of its wealth to countries that don’t like us and in some instances mean us harm, and to the detriment of the economy as well.

The United States is constantly improving  extraction and utilization methods for fossil fuels, while continuing to develop alternative sources of energy, including nuclear energy.  The potential for Keystone Pipeline leakage can be mitigated through built-in protective redundancies.  Even the original Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), prepared pursuant to NEPA, published in late August 2011 after three years of preparation, found “no significant impacts” from the pipeline.  If a pipeline oil leak did occur, it’s far easier to stop it and then clean it up, than if a leak occurred from an offshore pipeline.

There’s simply not enough alternative energy, including nuclear energy, currently available and it will be decades before there is, so for now we need fossil fuels and the United States has more natural gas, coal, and oil than any other country in the world, but it also has an array of laws and regulations preventing its access and use.  The pipeline could be raised off the ground, as is the Alaska pipeline, or it could detour around the major 200,000-square-mile Ogallala or High Plains Aquifer in Nebraska and other surrounding States.

CONCLUSION

If the United States does not complete the Keystone pipeline, Canada will likely build an oil pipeline from the Tar Sands to its west coast and the 830,00 barrels of oil a day will be sold to China and an additional 150,000 barrels of oil a day from the Bakken Formation in North Dakota will have to continue to use trucks and rail to haul its oil south to Gulf refineries rather than simply using a safer Keystone Pipeline to transport it.  Contributing to upward price pressure of oil will be the “slow-walking” or even forbidding of permitting of wells in the Gulf,  not allowing drilling in ANWAR and on most of the Outer Continental Shelf…and OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), will once again play the major role in setting world oil prices by manipulating supply.

President Obama delayed his decision  on the pipeline until after the 2014 mid-term elections, basically because a large Democrat donor (Tom Steyer)  pledged to donate over $50,000,000 to the Democrats if he did so (Steyer actually spent close to $80,000,000).  After the 2010 mid-term elections, the new Republican-led House of Representatives voted to build the pipeline but the still-Democratic-led Senate voted against it.  The 2014 Congress began in January 2015, and both the Republican-led House and now Republican-led Senate approved it, but President Obama vetoed it.  President Trump signed an Executive Order on January 24, 2017 ordering the re-opening of the approval process for the pipeline.  On March 23, 2017, the State Department granted a permit for the construction of the pipeline to proceed.  President Biden in January 2021 signed an Executive Order revoking the Federal permits authorizing the completion of the pipeline, which had not yet been completed.

Consequently, thousands of Union construction workers lost their jobs as well as 100,000 plus other “indirect” workers that provided services to those construction workers.

 

 

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CHAOTIC EVACUATION FROM AFGHANISTAN

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There was detailed coverage of the disaster in Afghanistan, however, most people couldn’t spend much time following the events, so I  kept track of all of the significant happenings, as listed below:

  1. In April of 2021 President Biden announced that the U.S. departure from Afghanistan would not be “conditions-based,” which was the cornerstone of the agreement the Trump Administration made with the enemy, the Taliban.  The “conditions-based” provision in the agreement made the Taliban very compliant because it wanted the US to leave Afghanistan ASAP (as soon as possible).  Consequently, there were no American soldiers killed by the Taliban for the previous 18 months.
  2. President Biden changed the May 1, 2021, departure date to August 31, 2021 which is significant because  it is the “fighting season” when the Taliban returns to Afghanistan from Pakistan where they spend the winter.  In other words, President Biden changed the departure date to the middle of the Taliban “fighting season” and did it so that he could boast this on the upcoming 9/11 anniversary.
  3. Against the advice of his military advisors, President Biden ordered the US military to leave before the civilians had departed and the billions of dollars worth of expensive bases and buildings (including our Embassy in Kabul) secured and the planes, helicopters, weapons, etc. returned to the US.  Instead, the military was ordered out first, $85 billion in military equipment abandoned, and our seven military bases abandoned, relinquishing our military capability from preventing the Taliban from hurting Americans and killing many of our Afghan interpreters, drivers, etc. .
  4. As of 8/26/21 there were still about 1-4,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Afghani interpreters and helpers in Afghanistan.  Most Americans should have been able to eventually get out by August 31 but not most of our Afghani allies since the Taliban went door-to-door searching for them.
  5. As of 8/26 France, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands had retrieved their citizens from Afghanistan.  The US had not, but has instead had told everyone to get to the Hamid Karzai airport in Kabul though it was surrounded by the Taliban who were denying access to many.  On August 26 a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. soldiers and over 100 Afghanis around the perimeter of the airport.
  6. China and Russia, working with the Taliban, reverse-engineered our Black Hawk helicopters and our other American military equipment, in order to copy it.
  7. Though President Biden blamed the Afghan military for not fighting, over 54,000 have been killed by the Taliban in the last few years defending their country. They began deserting in large numbers only after we abandoned our military bases, knowing that the
    U.S. could not provide air cover for their military operations.
  8. President Biden did not even notify, let alone consult with, the leaders of other countries that had troops in Afghanistan prior to his decision to depart.
  9. Our adversaries, like Russia and China, were emboldened, which was very bad for Taiwan and Ukraine.
  10. President Biden stopped all flights with Americans and allies from Kabul airport on August 31.

Weakness invites aggression. After this fiasco, China took over Hong Kong and began seriously threatening Taiwan, Russia invaded Ukraine, and North Korea speeded up its development and testing of missiles that could reach the United States.

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