Prelude to War? Time to look in the mirror

What happens on the other side of the world seemingly has no effect on the everyday lives of ordinary Americans like me, until it does.

In my little sequestered corner of the world I live in the Rodney King inspired "Can't we all just get along-ville". (It's better known by it's other name Naive-ville). No we can't it seems. What's happening in Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula was a long time coming and it seems it wasn't Russia who pulled the trigger. Mother Russia, behaving like any other country would, has had just about enough and is moving to protect its vital interests. Of course, you'll never hear that from our mainstream media.

The whispers and shouts all over the Internet is about the concerted but clumsy US/EU coup to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine. The timing was chosen to inflict maximum embarrassment on Putin and the Russians. The Olympics were in full swing in nearby Sochi when the "grassroots" protests began. The highly calculated and preplanned coup d’état orchestrated on the ground in Kiev might have been widely accepted as a real grassroots protest but for the audiotape of foul language used by Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State. On the tape we clearly hear Ms Nuland plotting the future leadership of Ukraine in her conversation with the US ambassador to the Ukraine. This was reported in the U.S. acknowledging the embarrassment to the Obama administration but then was never discussed again.

It's highly likely that the over arching plot to this sub-plot was hatched long before Obama, and probably before G.W. Bush as well. If true it gives you the sense that the President, whomever he is, doesn't really control the entire foreign policy agenda ( 'ya think). Since the fall of the Soviet Union there has been a plot rumored that the Euro-American hegemony is marching eastward to impose world economic domination. You can argue about the chess pieces on the board, but regardless, this shit has been going on for decades and neither Bush nor Obama is innocent.

The question then to all patriotic and America loving citizens is how much longer are you going to continue whispering sweet nothing's into Uncle Sam's ear as he orchestrates coup after coup on tiny defenseless countries before you realize he's a really bad dude?  How many innocent people living in Can't we all just get along-ville have to suffer and die at the hands of the CIA and its European counterpart. These things make great plots for thrilling novels and blockbuster movies, but this is real life and these are real people.

No one is saying Vlad Putin is a great guy, but he and the Russians are probably confused by these events and are reacting in a way they believe will preserve their vital interests - Crimea being the major one. In fact no one expects the world’s last superpower to act so insanely. Since 911 and even before everywhere the U.S. goes it ends up creating one failed state after another. The idea that it's the U.S. fomenting revolt, breeding hatred, and spreading death and misery to whatever it touches seems preposterous - but look at the track record of just the last decade. Iraq and Afghanistan turned out nicely, right? How about that Arab Spring?

At a time when the world needs a steady and sober hand to guide it to the next chapter in civilizational progress we have the world's sole superpower (and its business masters) rampaging from one violent confrontation to the next causing havoc and misery with no rhyme or reason. At least none that makes common sense.

Those who proclaim that the U.S. "must" stay engaged to protect the world from mad men need to look in the mirror. The U.S. is becoming the mad man. There are sober and thoughtful people who see the ultimate outcome of this madness but are powerless to stop it. Deception and delusion rules. The arrogance on display as the statements and actions out of Washington become more and more reckless.

Ordinary Americans and Europeans should be in the streets protesting the coming disaster. While the news media distracts the masses with fluff and nonsense the insane criminals in Washington, New York and Brussels are driving the world toward another war.

Time to look in the mirror America.


Ugh




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The Future of the future

The question of whether the future needs humans or not has been the subject of many a sci-fi novels and movies. It's not a ridiculous question at all considering the pace of technical innovation over the past 100 years. Factor in the movement of labor intensive jobs that helped create the vast American middle class to emerging countries and you can see that the future of the future in the West starts to look dicey for the average guy.

We've all seen entire industries transformed by technology. Consider the Internet in particular as a transformative force. While it has without a doubt created jobs for engineers, programmers and IT people it has wiped out or fundamentally changed the jobs of millions of others. Look at what Amazon.com has done to bookstores; any that are left are tiny specialty stores or big box stores that are in a fight for continued existence. Books are one thing, there is, of course, the music industry too. What ITunes alone has done makes it simply unrecognizable in relation to what it was just 10 years ago. The Amazon and ITunes juggernauts are slicing into electronic and discount department stores as well. The Amazon model is just one example of a fundamental shift in way commerce is getting done.

In his Takimag.com article "Useless Mouths" John Derbyshire tells of two industries that once were ubiquitous and indispensable that have been nearly replaced by software and the Internet. The tax preparation and travel agency industries are a shadow of what they once were. These are just the obvious ones. Think about how robots have transformed manufacturing in the heavy industries. As machines tirelessly take over simple repetitive jobs with more precision than their human counterparts a corporation would be doing themselves and their shareholders a disservice not to weed out unnecessary human workers.

Innovation is nothing new. The steam engine transformed work in the early industrial revolution. Suddenly one machine could do the work of hundreds of men. Since then countless inventions and technological developments have changed the landscape of the human workforce. The masses rolled with the changes, retrained and learned something new over and over. However, this won't go on forever, the pace of change, drastic change is accelerating and we have to wonder if we are at a major turning point for human labor.

What will happen to this society, to this culture as less and less people work because there just isn't anything for them to do. The very smart and very motivated will find their niche, but the majority of people are neither very smart nor very motivated. Even now the political element actively promoting dependency is making noises that joblessness is the new normal and that work is not necessarily for every one.

Is anyone really hailing this trend as the sign of civilizational progress? Not in so many words, but deeds speak much louder. Neither end of the political poles can claim the high ground, but one side clearly sees the decline of American economic supremacy as a good thing for the world. In the union hall and in the Democratic caucuses the decline in blue-collar work is often portrayed in near-apocalyptic terms - but it's not just blue collar jobs anymore. High skilled IT work is being off-shored at an astounding rate because modern high speed networks make it so easy. Those on the left see it as the "free market, capitalist" economy’s failure to supply good-paying jobs, and those on the right see a depressing sign that government over regulation and culture of dependency is killing the American work ethic and the American worker. The new normal indeed.

Nothing good can come with a huge population of under-educated young urban men living on the dole, idle hands and all. We have plenty of evidence that this destroys men, and in fact, entire cities - Detroit anyone... Does anyone see the trend reversing? Surely not if Washington DC and the mega-businesses that own it continue doing what they're doing.

Technology is going to continue advancing - as it should. Jobs that we trained for in the 90's and early 2000's will be replaced by advanced automation and soon enough by rudimentary AI itself . It doesn't mean that men and women without elite status have no place or purpose. One obvious solution is for the U.S. to increase the skill level of its labor force. If we are to attract high-technology businesses that produce goods with high-value-added content and good jobs, important jobs, the educational system and business are going to need to come together. This means the government/union stranglehold on education at all levels will have to end. That is the challenge. I wish I had a magic solution to break up the educational monopoly - perhaps it will be the Internet to the rescue, we'll just have to see.

Truth is that the average quality of a U.S. high school education is so low when compared to other wealthy countries and our own past, and unfortunately fewer and fewer college students pursue engineering and science-based courses. Today very few U.S. companies have formal apprenticeship or training programs, this needs to change, but it will take a real hard nosed business visionary that loves his country to plow through the educational fortress of the NEA and its affiliates. If a Google, Microsoft, Cisco, GM or Boeing developed their own post secondary system of technology education that didn't force mountains of debt on the potential workforce we might see a movement in the right direction. Maybe now these kinds of companies see no need for it because they just go overseas and pay less per head any way. That short sighted view ignores the fact the most creative and innovative people in the world are in America and Western Europe.

I would hate to see an America with even one more Detroit, Allentown or Gary, Indiana. If that's the future of the future I guess I'm glad I'm close to being an old man.



Ugh

Maximizing profits right into the poor house

It's not a stretch for the average guy to see that the world today is fouled up. We should not be surprised by the notion that it probably always has been. Pick any time in history and plunk yourself down. Unless you were a prince or a noblemen your life is hard, brutal and short. I say this to imply that life for the average guy has always been a struggle. With that we have to acknowledge today's hardships are relative. Americans by and large live better today than at any time in history. No matter how bad things have gotten in the past 60 or 70 years there was always the belief that things would get better. However, now for the first time in my 50 plus years I wonder whether a vast middle class will ever thrive again in America, because it isn't thriving now.

We are at an odd crossroads economically, socially and demographically where the workforce, wages and opportunities are shrinking in real terms for the traditional middle class. Where the well connected and wealthy in business and government have never seen better times. We are on the cusp of becoming a two-tiered society. The elites and the serfs.

Of course if you listen to the politician of your choice he is fighting for you like never before. I doubt it. The President does nothing helpful and blames the Republicans when nothing gets done. The Republicans pass bill after bill they know Harry Reid's Senate will never consider and then they blame the Democrats and the President. The sad fact is they are not fighting for anybody but themselves and their cronies. How is it that corporate profits just hit another all-time high, in absolute value and as a percent of the economy as a whole. The U.S. stock market just hit yet another record, after having a phenomenal year in 2013. What gives? If corporations and shareholders are making piles of money, and the Federal government is spending more than ever before why is (real) unemployment so high the economy still so bad?

In the name of maximizing profits the corporate chieftains are able to hold down payroll and keep more and more of the company's wealth for the execs and the shareholders while wages are at an all time low as a percentage of GDP. While wages as a percent of GDP doesn't tell the whole story workers continue to fall victim to technology advancements and efficiency improvements - it's not necessarily just simple greed. Still corporate managers aren't hiring because they feel they don't need to in this peculiar environment of high unemployment and increased automation. But is it short sighted? Is it sustainable? Maybe... But can their customers continue to afford their products if they fall further and further behind?

Does intense focus on profit and share price starve out the rest of the economy? Huge companies complain about higher taxes and more regulation but how does that explain these profits statements and stock prices? On the flip side taxation and regulation does smother small businesses and it's those same factors that create a barrier to entry and competition. Larger companies take advantage of the tax and regulatory environment to make it easier for them to lock out their competitors and maximize their profits. The deck is so ridiculously stacked in their favor that they have nothing to fear from upstarts. The inevitable result is everything becomes too big to fail. The problem is that it's the little companies that employ the majority of Americans an with regulation and taxes are smothering them, that job creation engine has been stripped. There are fewer small business start-ups, those that have closed are not being replaced, and as a consequence the wage and job growth we enjoyed has evaporated.

So, in the battle to balance capital vs labor things have tilted so far in favor of capital that labor is hardly a factor, certainly not a powerful factor. Unions aren't necessarily an answer anymore, so where does that leave labor? Who is advocating for the labor side of the equation? The government? How can government advocate for labor when government is in partnership with big business. Minimum wage? Yeah sure.

We live in system of rampant crony capitalism. We have now witnessed the result. The challenge for the powers that be is to pay the wretched (the rest of us) just enough to keep us from rioting, keep the "American Dream" fantasy alive, and distract us from recognizing the fact that we are becoming serfs.

The key, I think, is to be as apolitical as possible. Neither party is your friend in all of this. The middle class has been set adrift. The challenge now is to get the middle class to understand that they have suffered and need to do something to help re-assert an acceptable balance. Of course "do something" is the key, do what?


Ugh


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Inequality is like water, a part of life, but may, because of the size of its gaps, become toxic.

Guilty: born white, born male, born in America

The other day I was watching Downton Abby with my wife. One of the story arcs involved a budding relationship between a daughter of the aristocracy and a black jazz singer. It was a hidden relationship that was on the verge of being discovered and it was going to be scandalous. With Downton Abby being a period piece set in the 1920's who would be surprised that racism would rear its ugly head? But wait a minute... Just a darn minute... This was in Britain, not the USA. How could that be. I thought America was the most racist place on Earth. To learn that racism existed in England completely shattered my world view.

Once I recovered from the shock I started to think about the racism that really exists in America. Institutionally governments do not officially support racism - anymore. The fact is most institutions both government and non-government bend over backwards not to give even the appearance racism. Some go so far the other way that many white people lose out on opportunities they are well qualified for in favor of unqualified minorities. But who's gonna cry for the white guy.

No one is doubting that bigots exist across this land. African Americans are probably discriminated against every single day. That said, bigots exist across all lands everywhere on this Earth. Yeah, I know that's counter-intuitive for you living here in America since you've been told since forever that you are most racist, intolerant and nasty culture that has ever existed. Don't worry none of it is true, America is probably the most diverse and tolerant society that has ever existed. However, that does not fit the narrative the race-baiters want you to believe. Since the "r" word has lost it's punch due to over use the over arching theme that has found favor is that of white privilege.

White privilege says that due to the remnants of historical racism white people hold advantages in society that honor them over minorities in every possible scenario. Just like it's ridiculous to claim that bigotry doesn't exist, it's just as ridiculous to dispute the existence of white privilege at some level. Those of us who honestly go about our lives never giving in to the notion of white privilege because we don't personally condone or support it in any way still can't deny it's there. But beating whites over the head continuously with this sort of guilt trip is not going to help. People being people recoil when attacked, or lash out themselves. It would be far better to help the so-called privileged see where and if it actually exists in any given scenario.

Me being a white man I can't tell you what it's like to be a black man in this society. Who am I to say that they aren't discriminated against or feel discriminated against in any given situation. But to insinuate that I'm blind to white privilege because the way has always been paved with gold because of my white skin is dishonest, it's B.S. If I failed to become educated, failed to act in society with good manners and respectful language or committed serious transgressions that follow me through life I would expect to be discriminated against - and I would be. A white bum or criminal get's no special favor in polite society.

Every black man or woman I know who has done the things necessary to succeed has succeeded in their own right. Do they still face challenges? Probably. Who doesn't. I know a fine young white man who has worked really hard to become a fireman. He is now a qualified fireman and paramedic. He has been trying to get a full-time job as a fireman but has been basically told not even to bother trying to get on any of the big city departments near him. Why? Well because he's a white man. He looses out to untrained, uninitiated minorities and women every time. White privilege huh. But who's gonna cry for the white guy.

To think that somehow racism and prejudice is an American creation, born out of a legacy of slavery is intellectual dishonesty. African slavery and prejudicial bigotry against Africans predated America by centuries. So to is the notion that you can judge an entire race with such a broad brush and ascribe intellectual prowess or sloth-like values across the board. To think you can know what a person is like by the color of his skin - black or white - is ludicrous.

The idea of a colorblind society, the one that Martin Luther King dreamed of, died with the promotion of multiculturalism. Suddenly one culture was better than another and all cultures were better than American culture. At one time America was a melting pot of cultures that while excluding full participation of African descendants still included African culture into the booya. Today the multiculturalists have two views of white American culture, intolerant and privileged. The evidence is in all the text books school children are forced to read. Whites are guilty, Americans are guilty and above all men are guilty.

Things will never get better for a multi-racial society until multiculturalism is shown for the divisive and evil thing that it is. We are all in this together, let's stop the race-baiting, the race hustling and above all the bigotry of stereotyping any people by the color of their skin.


Ugh

The Ministry of Information

 Mark this down in the one foot in the grave and another on a slippery rock category.

How much more Nazi/Soviet like are we going to let the Federal government get? The FCC intends to put overseers in newsrooms and TV studios across the country. In a move they say will put observers in the nation’s newsrooms in order to better understand “the process by which stories are selected.”

WTF? Seriously?

As if just having the presence of "government officials" looking over the shoulders of news directors and editors won't influence or alter what is disseminated as news. Do we have freedom of the press or not? We already have the NSA or Big Brother if you like collecting data on every single American. We will now have a Ministry of Information approving the news. When editors openly defy the Ministry will they find themselves subject to IRS audits?

Is this America?

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UPDATE * UPDATE* UPDATE

According to Adweek the FCC could be backing off it's plans (for now) after a piece in Wall Street Journal by Ajit Pai, a commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission, was highly critical of the agency's motives. For now the agency, according to an FCC representative "has no intention of interfering in the coverage and editorial choices that journalists make. We're closely reviewing the proposed research design to determine if an alternative approach is merited."

READ ON...

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We already have a real problem with much of the mainstream media carrying the water for the current regime in the White House. There are already instances where the White House has not so secretly investigated journalists who challenged them (including illegal wire taps). Would you be surprised if these brave men and women had threats leveled against their families, veiled threats of course?

This is creepy, is it not? The FCC says this is merely the agency’s initiative to get to the bottom of the mystery of why television and radio broadcasters are not telling the story the federal government wants them to tell. Wow, simply wow. It's not the job of the free press to tell the stories the government wants told. Our founding father's are surely turning somersaults in their graves.

The FCC's premise:
(1) There is an identifiable set of basic information needs that individuals need met to navigate everyday life, and that communities need to have met in order to thrive; (2) Low income and some minority and marginalized communities within metropolitan and rural areas and areas that are “lower-information” areas are likely to be systematically disadvantaged in both personal and community opportunities when information needs lag or go unmet; and (3) Information goods are public goods; the failure to provide them is, in part, a market failure.”

Essentially they intend to couch this invasive exercise in the language of fairness by implying that the disadvantaged are not getting information needed for the public good. Let's not beat around the bush anymore, censorship is on the way. Free people should be outraged.

 In this quote from the FCC's website we get a lesson in pure gobbledygook:
"From this exercise, as well as the preceding two years of discussions with national experts within the CPRN network and beyond, it became clear that an interdisciplinary framework such as the emerging communication ecological paradigm that analyzes the production and use of media and information holistically and that provides a more variegated, in depth understanding of categories of diversity of voices and participation within and across communities, lends itself particularly well to the set of questions posed by the FCC. It incorporates elements from a wide range of disciplines cited above, including economics; captures the interactive nature and complexities of demographic and information trends across the entire media ecosystem; and allows for a translation from the local community level to the national aggregate levels of data necessary for policy making."

The observation process alone will have a chilling affect on news broadcasting, it has to. Simply put the government is going to use these pointy nose overseers to ensure the public good is being served in every nook and cranny and I believe ultimately threaten to revoke the broadcast charters if it isn't.

The government could easily create it's own broadcasting companies to do this sort of thing and be perfectly within their rights to do so. Oh wait, they already have - it's called PBS and NPR. So this move is really to spook the private companies that make up the free press into toeing the government line. This is shameful.

My next question is why the silence from the mainstream media? If this was George W Bush's FCC there would be an uproar and rightly so. I goes back to my previous post: Who's gonna stop him? The press has made it's bed with the Obama regime and now they shall lie in it.

Ugh

Who's gonna stop him? Part II

The Obama administration does what it wants...

Where is the outrage over the lawlessness of the Obama administration? It's unfortunately understandable that the media pays only lip service to the blatant lies and unconstitutional unlegislated actions taken by the executive branch, we have come to expect that. There is some outrage on talk radio and Fox News, but it does not translate into public exasperation or outcries because it is not reinforced day after day by the New York Times, the big three networks or the wire services.

The IRS scandal alone is undoubtedly criminal but the President gets to declare on national TV that there is not a smidgen of of impropriety and that's it, case closed. Any other administration - even a Democratic one - would be smeared ceaselessly with just the appearance of this sort of impropriety. Consider the breadth and scope of the NSA domestic spying issue, ironically brought to the light of day by an illegal act itself. It should be making everyone upset, particularly the liberal left. But it doesn't. Why? Instead of outrage and indignation 60 Minutes, a stalwart watchdog of government wrongdoing turns over the NSA scandal to a spokesmen, a former FBI official to essentially tell us to move along, there's nothing to see here. Two days later he lands a sweetheart job in New York City that was greased by the folks in Washington.

It doesn't end with these stories. The administration has since day one chosen which provision of the law it wants to enforce. The executive branch is supposed to execute the legislation the legislative branch passes. Instead the legislature sits idly by while the Obama administration does what it wants...The Affordable Care Act has had parts delayed or ignored without consent of the Congress numerous times and there has been no real outrage. This is the law the President lobbied for and signed. The Justice Department declares without the approval of the legislature what laws it will enforce and which laws it will look the other way on. This is clearly illegal, but no one on Capitol Hill pushes back. Why? Why the apathy across the board?

I hear nothing at work, almost nothing in my day to day interaction with family and friends and surely nothing on the editorial page. There can only be a few explanations for this silence. Fatigue is the one I expect the most. The strategy to overwhelm the senses is a good one. Essentially there are so many things to be outraged over that one loses the ability to sustain his ire. I also think that people in the media will not go after this President in the way it is deserved because of the color of his skin. There I said it.

Explain how a stupid parochial tit for tat scandal about a traffic jam in New Jersey could garner more minutes and column inches (and bits and bytes) in the major media than a scandal involving the blatant misuse of IRS power if there isn't some kind of prejudice going on. You can't. No one can.

It seems that the people diametrically opposed to this administration are content now to ride out the last few years and let the chips fall where they may. It may become, it will become the lost decade economically. There will have been social changes that will be permanent, but even the health care legislation will need major overhauling - it's unworkable the way it is. The rest of the damage to the economy is likely to be recoverable. The ridiculous official unemployment rate that gets reported doesn't reflect the fact that millions of people that want to work and get ahead don't because of the way the government handles fiscal policy, regulations and taxes. This too is reversible, eventually. Unfortunately the damage to the real people who have been without work and those of us whose income has stagnated in the face of rising costs for food, fuel and taxes (direct and indirect) will continue to devastate. It's unconscionable that the news media refuses to examine the real effects of this administration's follies is having simply because they have so much invested in the appearance of the President's success. We haven't even touched on his foreign policy failures.

We should be outraged with this administration, I know I am. It sometimes feels like I'm all alone - at least in my circles. No one want's to hear me rant, they are tired of it. It doesn't matter what the facts are, just shut up please. This is how the Obama administration gets away with it - who's gonna stop it?

Ugh

GNP: Grand New Party: Stupid is as Stupid does

After Watergate the Republican party of Minnesota changed it's name. It became the Independent Republican Party. The party needed to separate itself from the brand that brought you Nixon. Whether this went on in other states around the country I do not know. The IR party was decidedly more moderate across the board than the national party. Not surprising really - it was Minnesota after all. This lasted until after Reagan and then the party feeling cleansed changed it's name back.

During that period the party had some success. There were several US senators and a number of congressmen that were well respected in DC. Those days are gone. Still, even to this day the state is fairly close to being 50/50 overall when votes are tallied. In recent years we've had a number of recounts and spectacularly close contests, but the likelihood of today's Republican party holding a major office or controlling anything in the near term is dicey at best. The last election saw a clean sweep of all statewide offices for the DFL.

The point is the Republican brand is toast in Minnesota and probably the rest of the country too. Most of it is of their own doing, but of course the major media is glad to pile on. Re-branding is not likely to happen for a host of reasons, not the least of which is the complete arrogance of the entrenched party system. There are plenty of conservatives and constitutionalists who have a brand name they often like to use - the Stupid Party. It's an apt name. As Michael Walsh has said "any party that can't sell liberty and freedom doesn't deserve to be in power". He's right! To say the party has a communication problem is an understatement.

To rise above the berm of the media wall and reframe the policies the New York Times, Time magazine and all the alphabet TV networks mischaracterize for the benefit of the Democrats is fundamental, but a seemingly insurmountable task for the Stupid Party. While Democrats literally sell dependency and envy they are treated as serious, caring intellectuals, whereas the Republicans who peddle silly things like lower taxes and personal responsibility are treated in the media as imbecilic and of course that old standby pejorative mean-spirited.

Five years ago along comes a movement that came to be called the Tea Party. It is not nor was it ever a political party. It was movement that felt more at home in the Republican Party than with the Democrats. I was there when it started here in Minnesota. It was a call to return government, the Federal government back to it's constitutional mandates. It was not anything like what the major media came to portray it in the subsequent five years. Still, the tar and feathers stuck in the minds of the unwashed masses, therefore I doubt it will sustain. Not that the Republican Party - the establishment party - embraced it anyway. I feel it could have been a winning strategy had the party took it up and refused to let the left turn it into a code word for racist.

The establishment party known as the GOP is in deed if not word a "lite" version of the Democratic party. Both party's are responsible for the state the country is in. Both are tied lock, stock and barrel to the crony capitalism of the DC lobbying establishment for the benefit of corporations, foreign trade and, of course, above all else themselves. I have concluded a long ago that the Democrats are a lost cause for actual positive change, and believe them to be the Dangerous Party. The Stupid Party has a slim, microscopically thin chance of redemption. Will it happen? Not likely.

It seems a shame that right now we have a whole generation of young people raised on the bunk the liberals have been selling that are now stepping into the grown-up world with such dim prospects. They watched their own parents struggle to achieve or remain in the middle class and can't even see themselves with a life as good as that. They do all the right things, but find that only a few of them ever crawl out from under a mountain of college debt to find their own success - while their still young. There is no indication that things are going to get better for them anytime soon.

There is hope. I like what I hear from Rand Paul and a few other Republicans. In a recent speech he takes a shot at the notion that the Republicans should cede anything to the Democrats particularly when the they are failing their "constituents" so miserably...

Paul suggested that Republicans should decide if they are going to “go bold” on fiscal issues or become “Democrat light.”

“We need to talk about how when you borrow and spend money, you steal the value of the dollar. Who does it hurt? Not the wealthy. It hurts the working class,” Paul said at the event, hosted by political commentator Erick Erickson.

“These are issues that we shouldn’t give up and say, ‘oh, issues of poverty, Democrats care more.’ Not only do they not care more, their policies don’t work and aren’t working so we shouldn’t give them the high moral ground,” Paul added.

Paul recalled a letter that he wrote to President Obama when sequestration started to take effect.

“Why don’t we look for the $100 billion that is missing – we don’t know where $100 billion is. It was spent, but every year within a $3.8 trillion budget there’s $100 billion not accounted for, a little more than $100 billion,” Paul said he wrote in the letter. “Why don’t we look for it?”

One hundred billion dollars lost every year. Lost? That's larger than the annual budgets of 48 states. It's just pocket change to the Federal government, apparently it's not even worth looking in the Federal couch cushions. Let's say $20 billion is the military's famous "black budget" that's still $80 billion lost. It boggles the mind. I'm getting sidetracked...

There is hope, right? Can the Republican party finally stand up proudly, re-frame itself and articulate a message in a way that those aligned against them in the major media can't easily nullify? Can anyone on the center/right crush the notion that government dependency is the hope and change we need. That's what the other guys are selling and America is lapping it up. How sad.


Ugh