Category Archives: Barry Kelly

by Barry Kelly | June 3, 2014 · 8:00 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 117

WHAT IS A PROGRESSIVE?

The first check is: did you vote twice for Obama?

The first vote I understand. We all wanted change and many were willing to take a chance.

The second time is different. After seeing the president’s actions and listening to his teleprompter for four years and if you still wanted a second term for him, you are more than a moderate Democrat. You, my friend, are a progressive. You don’t agree? Okay, let’s run through some indicators.

You believe growing the size and power of the federal government is a good thing. You knew Obama would continue growing the size of government and gathering more power into the executive branch, ignoring the fundamental Constitutional powers granted to Congress. You accept having non-elected government bureaucrats make decisions impacting our lives rather than the people elected to decide on economic and environmental issues. Did you want the president and his cabinet to decide which laws to enforce and which to ignore? Do you feel good about the politicalization of the civil service, especially the IRS discriminating against conservative groups? Do you believe President Obama is managing a transparent governing process? Have you recognized the cover ups in the cases of the “fast and furious” gun running to drug gangs, the Benghazi affair where Americans were refused help and left to die in a terrorist attack, the failure to improve care for veterans in the five years of the Obama Administration, the IRS unlawful acts?

All presidents make mistakes, but have you heard the president’s lies on Obamacare, Benghazi, the IRS, the VA scandal, on budget issues, clean energy, climate change caused by humans, foreign policy blunders and wire tapping of journalists? Do you recognize he is always waiting for his investigation to be completed but never accepts that he is the problem and never fixes anything? He is in charge. The buck is supposed to stop in the Oval Office. Not here. It just picks up speed on its way to someone else.

Here are some fundamental beliefs progressives hold dear:

Government spending is a primary cause of a growing economy;
High taxes and constant regulation do not hamper economic growth;
Increasing the minimum wage stimulates the economy;
An intelligent elite knows best what the people need;
Voter I.D. is discriminatory and discourages voter turnout;
Government bureaucrats are good managers of the VA, and will be good managers of Obamacare;
Redistribution of income is the primary purpose of big government;
Citizens have no rights to guns regardless of the Second Amendment;
If the cause is just, the ends justify the means.

The president has been depending on a highly partisan media and voter support that blindly follows his socialistic agenda to protect him. If you can’t agree with most of this, you are a progressive and that is your right. But don’t expect your individual freedom and rights to survive. They never do in any socialist, one-party political system where the socialist elites are always in power and the opposition is referred to as the rebels or terrorists.

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Filed under Barry Kelly, class warfare, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, Intelligence & Politics, Obama, Obamacare, Progressives

Tagged as Benghazi, Iran, Obama

by Barry Kelly | May 25, 2014 · 7:56 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 116

OBAMA AND THE VETERANS

Here we go again. In this administration, the buck stops nowhere. No one is ever accountable. No one gets ever gets fired. But there is a difference this time. The real democrats have added their considerable voice to the uproar while the socialists/progressives continue to protect and support their leader. General Shinsecki, regardless of his previous honorable record, has failed this time. He knew his mission five years ago and today the treatment of our veterans is worse than when he took office. A few more facts:

This is not a new problem and President Obama did not cause the problem. He has equally done nothing to fix it except make speeches about how as Commander-in-Chief he would make sure our vets were taken care of in the VA medical system. Instead after five years he is still studying the problem. The problem for the president and the progressives is that the VA is essentially a socialized medical system limited to veterans. The VA medical system is large but nowhere near the size of the Obamacare goal. The VA system, like all socialized medicine anywhere in the world, is run by the government. Government bureaucrats have an unblemished history of failure in every socialize medicine scheme ever tried. The government does some things very well, running a socialized medical care system for veterans is not one of them. If the government cannot run the VA medical system effectively, how will they ever be able to run the much larger Obamacare?

The answer is they cannot, and this is the reason for all the delays and cover ups of the systemic failure of VA care for veterans in the last five years. The American people, while they can be fooled by nice-sounding words from a ‘cool’ president, they will finally recognize the lack of any attempt to solve the VA problem. The truth is that the progressives are not and never have been in the market to fix problems. Instead all their effort is dedicated to gaining power in order to transform America into a one-party totalitarian socialist nation.

What is most vexing is that there is a solution. Give veterans a voucher to go to any medical facility of their choice. It is time to scrap the VA medical care establishment and stop the substandard medical care of our veterans. Socialized medicine in any form cannot be fixed. It can only be replaced. We have had since the end of the Civil War to study the effectiveness of the VA. That should be long enough even for this progressive administration.

This Memorial Day, remember those who fought and died and continue to fight and die for the freedoms of this nation, and honor them. Our president doesn’t seem to be doing so.

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Filed under Barry Kelly, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, Intelligence & Politics, Obama, Obamacare

Tagged as health care, memorial day, Obama, Obamacare, Progressive, socialism, VA, veterans

by Barry Kelly | May 21, 2014 · 7:35 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 115

NOT JUST STORIES

I’m getting ready to publish my first non fiction book, “INSIGHTS — THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA” Is This What We Fought For?” The message in this book is clear. The transformation of America is happening now and most of our population doesn’t understand what is happening or what to do about it.

This book will make the process clear for anyone who reads it. Although my four action novels are mainly tales from a storyteller, they also contained a messages that help readers understand the law and order process and how terrorists and intelligence operatives go about their missions. This increased awareness will help readers recognize dangerous situations before they happen.

My first novel, Justice Beyond law, shows how a renegade KGB officer uses an abandoned network of KGB agents infiltrated into America years ago.

“Justice Beyond Law”

The method Yuri, the renegade KGB officer, uses to turn his network into a profit-making enterprise and to manage his diverse network with agents of different skills is more than plausible. The methods he uses strain the traditional law-and-order approach to terrorism. The traditional approach involves the collection of evidence that will stand up in a court system bound to provide the protections of our Constitution and the rules of due process to all residents, legal or illegal. The collection period is followed by an indictment, the issue of warrants, an arrest and finally a trial. An immense effort over a long period but a very important element of our individual rights. The heroes of this novel believe when dealing with terrorists who are in the country illegally, sometimes the safety of our people requires faster action then the law and order process allow.

The second novel, Justice Without Mercy, shows the process an extremist muslim group like al Qaeda might use to set up a series of

Justice without Mercy

terrorist acts in America to weaken the resolve of the people and lessen their trust in government to protect them. The plot in this novel is more probable than most people believe. Traditional law and order process is not capable of dealing with the fast-moving action of terrorism in the homeland. The law and order process pushed by the Obama administration, particularly by the attorney general, is more political than an effective counter-terrorist approach. There is a war brought by Islamic jihadists against us. It needs to be fought with a similar approach. Foreign jihadists don’t qualify for the protections of our constitution.

Shades of Justice deals with human trafficking that can be a profit-making business both for terrorist organizations and criminals. Readers of this novel will see how simple it is to set up a human trafficking business in nearly any large city. They will also come away with an understanding of how the traffickers operate their business from the spotting and selection of targets, to the capture, movement, holding, and marketing of the victims. The ‘good guys and gals’ in this novel understand and attack all aspects of the human-trafficking process. As you read this, note the challenge human trafficking poses to traditional law and order forces.

My latest novel, Run to Freedom, is the prequel to the Jack Brandon adventure series. In this story I rely heavily upon my knowledge of the old USSR

Barry Kelly’s fourth novel

and its KGB intelligence apparatus. The story starts in 1920 in Siberia, with a little known excursion of American troops, just as WWI was wrapping up. In this novel the readers will travel from Russia, to Poland, to Canada and several cities in America as Peter Brandon, Jack’s father, tries to escape the KGB in America. The forces the KGB deploys in America to capture or kill Peter are entirely within the capabilities of Russian intelligence in 1970’s America, as are the methods Peter uses to escape the dragnet.

All stories have some truth to them; within fiction lies reality. I hope you are able to read and understand, and take to heart, the messages in my fiction novels and will want to find out the message in my first non-fiction novel. Thanks for reading.

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Filed under Action thrillers, Barry Kelly, Eight Decades of Insights, Intelligence & Politics, Russia, Spy novels, Terrorism

Tagged as fiction, human trafficking, KGB, law and order, message, reality, terrorism

by Barry Kelly | February 14, 2014 · 7:51 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 98

IRAN AND THE BOMB

Let’s begin with a few facts the Obama administration seems to overlook.

It is hard to believe any White House could assemble a more naive team that can’t even find the ball, let alone watch it. You don’t even need inside information to tell you where to start. It is all there for all of the former players now pacing on the sidelines. Why should Iran want a nuclear weapon? Not a bad starting point. The only friends the Shia Moslem nation of Iran has are those like Russia, China, North Korea, and France who view them as a lucrative market for all their wares and as an anti-American supplier of oil. They have no friends among the Sunni Moslem nations. The Iranians fought a long and bloody war against Iraq when it was under Sunni rule. Today, decades later that bloody war is still remembered by Iraqis who lost family members in the fighting.

Iran’s exporting of terrorism through its puppets Hamas and Hezbollah has alienated Lebanon. Iran is hated by the Israelis and pays for its uneasy partnership with Syria. Iran is without loyal allies. That is a weak position from which to dominate the Middle East, unless they become a nuclear power. That’s is their number one strategic goal. How can anyone think they will negotiate away their top priority national security goal?

A military strike by Israel or the United States would destroy or set back Iran’s time table to achieve nuclear status. The sanctions, before the Obama administration eased off on them, were causing hardships in Tehran. Not all Iranians want to make sacrifices to achieve nuclear weapons. For internal political reasons the religious leaders decided to roll out a strategy of negotiating to buy time and get concessions from the West on the crippling sanctions. This strategy had worked before. Why not dial back the anti-American rhetoric and pretend to negotiate on their nuclear program?

Of course the Obama administration jumped at the bait and became the leader of the “let’s negotiate” flock. He thinks it makes sense to use all possible diplomatic endeavors before resorting to any military action. That is generally true but not when it is obvious that the other side is playing you. Iran is so confident that the Obama administration is below the paper tiger level that they have blatantly tested an ICBM capable of destroying Israel and hitting several American targets. Big clue. Yes! No nation has ever spent treasure on developing a long-range ballistic missile unless they were positive they could mate it with a nuclear weapon. There is no other rational explanation. Yet our president is resisting his own party’s effort to ready additional sanctions to ensure Iran lives up to the agreement.

Officials from the administration and learned talking heads will tell us that it will be some time before Iran can weaponize a nuclear device. Don’t believe that fairy tale. North Korea and other nations that are not admirers of the U.S. and Israel would sell the Iranians whatever they need in a heartbeat.

To sum up the administration’s position: They are confident that even though the Iranians have put much treasure and time into developing a nuclear weapon they can be talked out of completing the task. After buying hundreds of centrifuges, building underground facilities to house them, and developing long-range missiles, how can anyone believe they can stop Iran’s long, expensive effort to acquire nuclear weapons by negotiating from a weak position? The administration’s followers will point with pride to the Iranian destruction of highly enriched uranium. This not true. The Iranians didn’t destroy anything, they merely converted the enriched uranium into another form that can easily be reversed.

Don’t be surprised if the Iranians test their bomb while Secretary Kerry is having tea in Damascus.

By the author of the Jack Brandon novels.

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Filed under Barry Kelly, Conservative views, foreign policy, Intelligence & Politics

Tagged as Iran, Islam, Israel, Middle East, United States

by Barry Kelly | February 13, 2014 · 7:36 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 97

FEBRUARY

February is a dismal month. Winter is still hanging around. Spring is still but a hope. If we could vote to abolish a month, I would vote to abolish February. It is only good for sleeping in and gathering strength for the rest of the year.

Politics in February are no better than the weather. The scary part is that unlike the weather, February politics won’t give way to a political spring. February began with the echos of a dismal, grey State of the Union address by the president talking about what he has accomplished and plans to accomplish this year. Talk about shades of grey. Nothing he has done or plans to do fills the people with the strength and hope that their lives will be better this year than last.

Class warfare and income re-distribution are not subjects filled with happy thoughts. The president may think February is the beginning of spring, but the people know better. The Federal Reserve will continue with a slightly diminishing monthly printing of money that will still supply Wall Street and the investment world with wealth but do next to nothing for the vast numbers of people who do not have the money to invest. Investors have done very well under President Obama but the people have suffered. Wall Street is not the economy. The President who is constantly ranting about the widening gap between the rich and the wage earner, is the cause of the widening gap.

While it is always springtime for the rich investors, it is always February for the workers, especially the unemployed whose buying power is gets less each month the Fed prints billions of new dollars that devalue both wages and unemployment checks. Please, Mr. President, stop talking Progressivism philosophy and free up the forces of growth from your avalanche of anti business regulations.

Start with the EPA who thinks it, not Congress, makes laws. Let’s back off killing the work of coal miners and put them back to work. Approve the pipeline from Canada. Stop listening to your environmental worshiping base who all have jobs. (We’d all be better off if more of them were unemployed.) Fire the head of your EPA who is a hardcover believer in the myth that human activity causes climate change. It is not science the climate warming crowd chants as it dances around dead solar units in the dark of the night. Of course the world’s climate changes: Remember the ice age when the site Chicago now stands on was under two miles of ice? Did our ancestors, what few, if any there were at that time, have so many fires that the rising gases from burning carbon warmed the planet and freed Chicago from its icy tomb? Did the Viking settlement on Greenland circa 1100 AD stop burning carbon material and caused the temperature to drop below the mark where agriculture is no longer possible? No, while climate change occurs, the cause is not human activity. The Progressives have to believe that human activity is the cause because, while they can regulate our lives, even the Progressives recognize they cannot yet regulate the sun, celestial orbits or volcanic activity.

May the political winds of spring bring back the slightly left-of-center Democrats before the Progressives (far, far left socialists) make them extinct.

By the author of the Jack Brandon Novels.