To Kathleen Parker

Kathleen,
   Trump's solicitousness toward Putin, some of it tongue in cheek, obviously, is compared to what? No relationship at all? No communication? I don't think that the possibility of us sending a cruise missile down his chimney if things don't go well is a basis of understanding that I could work with. I would rather have my President speaking to him than not.
   The unwillingness of our administration to declaim moral equivalence. I did not hear him say that. What he didn't say was that Putin and Russia were evil and America was innocent. The man is trying to get some kind of relationship going where they can communicate. He can't do that while he shoots spitballs at him in public.
   And what I heard him say to our allies was that they needed to pay their fair share for our help. That's all I heard him say. That's how I feel about it, too.
   I want to see problems and solutions discussed. I want to see the long term viability of this country discussed...if you are interested in what I am worried about...think about that. In my mind the  failure of character  demonstrated in the leaked Democratic emails,   the "obvious to anyone with a brain" criminal bribery in the US State Department, for Christ's sake...and the failure of the main stream media to jump on Hillary Clinton and squeeze her until she landed in jail...are all signs of the loss of what got us here in the first place...our morale compass.  Is there a pol who can be expected to say the same things in public that he says behind closed doors, Kathleen? I can think of two or three possibilities.
   I think we have let the kids play long enough. We need for the serious people in America, you included, to start addressing problems and solutions.
Jim Self
116 Long Bow Rd.
Summerville, SC 29485
   

One Thing We Can Trust the Government To Do is To Screw Us

   You know why we don't have a working instant background check system? Because we don't trust the government not to expand the "check" into a "denial". The FBI was reduced to having to call around to the surrounding counties to see if Mr. Dylann Roof, the Charleston massacre boy/man had any legal problems that would stop him from obtaining a handgun within 3 days. Whose fault is that? You'd think, with all of the thousands of college educated FBI people, that they could come up with a way to check someone out quicker than that in the time since computers and the internet have been here. You'd think. I guess I know why, though. It's because in order to pass a law that requires everyone to get cleared before they buy a gun, they must deny them the ability to buy that gun...until they are cleared. I get it. All they have to do then is to refuse to clear anyone and they have what they wanted in the first place. Then all they have to do is make the rest of our guns illegal like they did in Australia and we'd have utopia.
    Why don't I trust the government? Take Social Security. Until LBJ was elected by liberals....that means "Give away money until the system collapses...then enslave everyone and we'll have utopia", the Social Security system was a trust fund. LBJ needed money to pay for his war in Vietnam and his "Great Society" welfare program. So he hijacked the social security trust fund, dumping it into the general fund with what he called the "Unified Budget Act". And just like he said after the law passed, minorities...he used the N word... would be voting for Democrats for 200 years. I have seen and heard the tape. I believe it was real. Votes. Screwed America for votes. And they never fixed it. Politicians. We can't trust them.
  LBJ is long gone and I am glad he is.   We cannot change what has happened. But what we must do is to require truth from our politicians. We would have control of our gun sales if we could trust our government. But we can't.
   The government is busy trying to get to the point where it can deny Social Security benefits to more elderly people and get away with it POLITICALLY. That means, do it and still not get voted out of office for it.
   I personally think that term limits and campaign finance reform  would go a long way toward fixing our government. As it is now from day one politicians have to begin soliciting donations for relection...in other words, making promises to special interest groups...those with deep and shallow pockets. We need to stop that. We need to level the playing field. Right now  the only thing a politician needs is enough money to get a firey, utopia promising message to every fire breathing protester in the country.
    And we, the taxpayers, the folks with jobs, the responsible, sane crowd, the ones that pay the bills and shoulder the debt, still have to finagle time off from work to vote! There is something that we CAN trust the government to do and that is to do everything they can to screw us!

Bill Clinton Did the Same Thing As Trump In 1995

Actually, this is a hell of a lot worse than what Trump is doing. Think about it.

In his 1995 State of the Union address, President Bill Clinton said:
“We are a nation of immigrants.. but we are a nation of laws. Our nation is rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country…
“Illegal immigrants take jobs from citizens or legal immigrants, they impose burdens on our taxpayers…
“That is why we are doubling the number of border guards, deporting more illegal immigrants than ever before, cracking down on illegal hiring, barring benefits to illegal aliens, and we will do more to speed the deportation of illegal immigrants arrested for crimes…
“It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws that has occurred in the last few years.. .and we must do more to stop it.”

  1995 Bill Clinton State of the Union, Biden and other Dems refused to accept Vietnamese refugees, Flashback: Jerry Brown, Trump travel ban, Vietnamese refugees, WorldTribune.com

Did the MSM villify Clinton like they are to Trump? I don't remember it that way. 

Climate Change...When We Can't Trust The Scientists or Politicians

   The present argument over climate scientist emails is interesting in that they are saying that releasing them would corrupt the scientific method. Nonsense. Exposing the discussion will only expose the doubts AND the evidence. Ya know...this IS a trial, and a most important one. The trial is whether climate change is real, what will be the consequences of it, did humans contribute to it significantly, and can humans do anything to improve the outcome. Those emails are the evidence. They expose the weaknesses and the strengths of the evidence. There are potentially huge changes involved...and then maybe not.
   I see the western world as very much like a lid to a quart mason jar setting on a table top...surrounded by the mason jars. We, the western world, are like the top. The jars are the billions and billions of 3rd world people (who make less than $2 a day)  who need electrical energy. COAL, my friends, the ass kicker source of steam/electrical generation,  is the way to get it. The CO2 is coming, Sweetheart!
   Citing the terrible consequences of global warming...and maybe not...I think the scientific world should respect our involvement and include us in the discussion. I read the books, but I am coming to the conclusion that a smart person can convince us of anything if we are willing to leave the interpretation of the "evidence" to them in their secrecy. See what I am getting at? The emails matter. This world can fall apart if we cannot trust the politicians and scientists.