Category Archives: political solutions

by | June 11, 2014 · 6:18 pm

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS — 119

HEY GOP, LISTEN UP (AGAIN)

(In light of Eric Cantor losing his seat in the primaries this week, I thought it prudent to republish this former blog. It’s important.)

Conservatives are tired of Republicans who turn to big government and unlimited spending to solve the nation’s problems. The Republican politicians who are too frightened to stand up for their principles and instead play the “go along to get along” game got their share of criticism. The message I hear from the conservative people is simple: control spending, limit the size and scope of government to what is necessary, maintain the strength of our armed forces, regain the lost respect for American power on the international front, and most of all protect our Constitutional rights.

A clear message. But I doubt the Republican establishment hears the message and those who hear it don’t understand it. The people who make this country work and finance the government are fed up. They aren’t demanding much, just the chance to have and keep a job, raise their kids in a safe environment, send them to a school that gives them the opportunity to get a good education, be able to find and pay for good medical care, live in a nation that honors and takes care of its veterans, have leaders they respect to maintain American excellence and military power, and, where possible, encourage the growth of individual freedom everywhere. That’s what they want and expect to get. Save “change America and transformation” for the make-believe world where it comes from.

There is strong support for term limits for Congress that would encourage citizen politicians to serve their nation for four terms in the House and two terms in the Senate. Our professional politicians get so wrapped up in the quest to get elected and stay elected, they lose sight of why they are there. They are not there to serve themselves, but to serve the people who sent them to Washington or their state capitals. There are a few who are trying to save the nation from an alien transformation but they are often criticized and ridiculed by their own party leaders who are truly professionals whose main task is to get elected for yet another term.

These same Republican leaders think that the transformation of America will fall of its own weight and are taking a terrible chance with our way of life. Instead of keeping their powder dry they need to get in the fray, protect their Constitutional right to make laws, and give the nation another vision of the shining city on a hilltop. Tell us your plans for health care, military force levels, foreign policy, tax reform,  protection of social security, employment growth, and the reduction of the size and scope of a government that has outgrown its required role.

We don’t need or want class warfare, redistribution of wealth or any of the other parts of progressivism/socialism. We just need a common sense government that takes care of those who are too young, or too old, or too sick to work. We can work together. Government isn’t hard. Just listen to the people. Their voices can be heard.

By the author of the Jack Brandon novels, a retired CIA agent and former adviser to President Reagan. You are encouraged to share this blog and leave comments.

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by | April 10, 2014 · 6:06 pm

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 109

 BACK TO AMERICA

Let’s pretend it’s November 10th, 2016. Hopefully the American people elected Republican president. We do not want to hear any “them and us” rhetoric nor anything about “saving the middle class.” We want the government to get out of the way of the middle class so those people can help themselves, as they are fully capable of doing. We do not want to hear any speeches with a class warfare message. No “fair shots” or “leveling the playing field” or “income equality” or excuses for American excellence or military power. Nothing should be delegated to internationalism and no more whining about global warming nor cap and trade.

Here’s what needs and should be on his or her agenda for the first year of his or her presidency to get America back on the right track (or at least off the wrong track that Obama put us on for the past eight years):

— Focus on the economy, and part of that is dealing with Obamacare. Most of it has to be destroyed. The next president should want to make sure all Americans have access to medical care that offers things like no cancellations for pre-existing conditions and allows sons and daughters to remain on their parent’s policies until age 26. People should own their health insurance polices, so they can take them from job to job. The IRS should be removed from the health insurance field and so should HHS. Insurance companies will be allowed to trade across state lines. Tort reform will be part of the plan. States will have most of the responsibilities. Beyond a few necessary functions the national government will have no health insurance management responsibilities. The new health legislation will be series of bills passed and implemented on a step-by-step basis.

–Immigration will be dealt with in the same way. There are enough bipartisan votes to deal with immigration one piece at a time. First the border is fixed so thousands of people crossing the border illegally is stopped without being killed. Better leadership at the top level of border enforcement is a must and a new justice department is part of the fix. We will not deport millions of people who have been here for years nor are we going to break up families. However, those who break our laws, commit crimes, or belong to a violent gang are out of here.

–A new bipartisan tax structure should be ongoing in the first hundred days. The speaker and the majority leader should select a bipartisan committee of senators and representatives who are not from the no-compromise ideologue wings of either party. Spending needs to be put under control and a growth-friendly tax policy is a way to start. The tax policy will include everyone. It is not a healthy economy that has less than half of its citizens paying all the federal income tax load. Cutting out loopholes, phasing out subsidies, allowing U.S. companies to bring wealth home without penalty, abolishing death taxes, and a tax code the average citizen can understand must all be part of tax reform.

–The energy policy will get rid of the regulatory baggage that is killing the energy industry. Some oversight is required, but minimal. At the end of the president’s first term, America can be a significant energy exporter and thousands of well-paying jobs can be created.

–A bill should be introduced that prohibits bailouts of private industries. There is a process for that already and it is called bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve is one area that may need more regulation. It is essentially a system of private banks that function without sufficient oversight.

–Social welfare programs gradually need to be brought into a solid financial status. A number of incremental small changes will have enough bipartisan support to pass without a inter-party battle.

–The education system is broken but it is not the job of the federal government to manage education. That function is left to the states and localities. Charter schools or vouchers to parents will be encouraged.

–The military force needs emergency funding to build up the force level, provide new weaponry, take better care of veterans, and improve the ability now to move and support military power. Strength and peace are linked.The G.I. Bill that provides college tuition linked to years served should be reinstated. Many nations, like Putin’s Russia, respect only strength. No more wimpy rhetoric coming off teleprompters. There is a real war with terrorism going on, so we should call it that.

–Foreign policy should be a function of the people assigned to the Cabinet. It should support democracy everywhere and resist totalitarian governments of all kinds, including those run by extremist clerics. It should be clear that unless Muslim nations accept Israel as a nation, they can not count America as an ally.

–Environmental policies should be based on strong scientific evidence, not on the ideology of bureaucrats.

–A bipartisan group of politicians, industry people, and academics should be called upon to validate or cancel current regulations.

–Judges should be nominated to our national courts who have demonstrated they adhere to Constitutional and existing laws when making decisions.

What do you think?

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by | March 4, 2014 · 7:40 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 103

PUTIN-OBAMA FACEOFF

Are Putin’s action in the Ukraine a surprise? I hope not, but for the group of amateurs in this administration, they probably were. Is there a foreign policy expert in the stack of dead wood the president depends on? Certainly not Secretary of State Kerry or Vice President Biden or the departed Mrs. Clinton. Reminds me of the surprise of the Carter White House when the Ayatollah was allowed to enter Iran from Europe. When have deeply committed religious radicals ever established a true democracy with regular free elections? I think the Carter administration was shocked when his followers took over the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and established an Islamic theocracy. When the Russians moved into Afghanistan, he was again surprised.

For centuries, the czars had tried to establish a geo-political foothold in South Asia. Through Afghanistan was the most direct route to a warm-water port and the riches of the sub-continent. Only the power of the British Empire thwarted the Russian plan. The Russians, seeing a weak U.S. president, made their move and thousands of lives were lost to add to the total killed by the Muslim aristocracy in Iran. History holds many keys to the future and weakness invites aggression. It has always been so. Now what about Ukraine?

The Ukraine was part of the great Russian Empire that President Putin wants to restore. Ukraine looks both east and west. To the west are its hopes for a close relationship with Europe to balance the threat from Russia. To the east it has a long border with a powerful nation that has shown its willingness to use its military power to achieve political goals, such as the forcible annexation of a part of the Georgia nation in the era of the Bush presidency. Ukraine’s current leadership knows it cannot afford a conflict with Russia without strong political support from the west.

What are President Putin’s plans? Well, even the Obama administration should understand that the recent upheaval in the Ukraine threatens Russia’s strategic interests. The only warm-water port in the entire Russian nation is in the Ukraine. This port is part of a settlement between Ukraine and Russia. Russia’s entire Black Sea Naval Force calls Sevastopol home. A large portion of the people in the area of Sevastopol are Russian ethnics. President Putin probably felt he had to move to protect his naval forces. The question is will he push to acquire Ukrainian territory beyond the strategic area of Sevastopol? He knows his history. There is not great love between the people of Ukraine and the Russians to the east. When the German panzers pushed into the Ukraine in World War II, many Ukrainians welcomed them as liberators. Some even took up arms and supported the Germans. Unfortunately, for those Ukrainians and the German Army, the German leadership treated the Ukrainians like the other people they had conquered. German cruelty knew no ethnic bounds in their drive to occupy Moscow.

President Obama has few options. One is to know that his plan to reduce the U.S. Army to pre-World War II levels is  another revealing sign of his weakness. He should immediately re-think his destruction of American power. Peace has never come from weakness. A strong America is necessary for a path to peace. The progressive party is well on the way to achieving what neither the aggressors of both World Wars and the Cold War could accomplish. Our president is a master of winning elections but he is way out of his league when dealing with a man who is not afraid of power and its use.

If Putin goes beyond the securing of routine access to strategic Russian bases in the Crimea portion of the Ukraine and annexes Ukrainian territory, the Obama administration will maybe learn that words do not count for much in the constant struggle to maintain world peace. Weakness only feeds the actions of dictators. It does nothing in the struggle to contain territorial aggression.  The willingness to maintain and use national power when necessary, sets apart real leaders from empty ones. Ronald Reagan was a real leader. Barack Obama is not.

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by | January 6, 2014 · 7:30 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS-93 THE ADIVSOR

PREDICTIONS FOR 2014

greendoor

For the first time in all of his years of sitting in his underground office suite, The Advisor, more out of boredom than anything else, decided to put his predictions for the new year in his Journal. He opened the Journal to a clean new page and began to write.

I am just beginning my sixth year of advising a President who only listens to his own drum. He doesn’t like my straight talk. I believe that is my job to tell him important things that no one else will. As a result he seldom comes to see me. He has had a bad year and knows if he had followed my advice ,both he and the nation would be better off.

It has taken me a while to realize that he does not share my view of the nation or the world. He is like the utopians of our past who believed human behavior could be changed to fit a society based on Karl Marx’s axiom that ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.’ The early utopians in their agrarian progressive compounds all failed, as have all the nation states that have tried the communist or progressive approach to governing people.

Does the President have no understanding of history? It is clear. In modern times, Russia, China, Cuba, Eastern Europe, Germany, and even the United Kingdom all have tried varying degrees of wealth distribution. All the economies failed and individual freedom disappeared when power ended up in the hands of a Progressive elite that used an increasing amount of raw power to coerce people into doing what the elite decided was best for them. There is no other way that increasing centralization combined with one person or a party elite exercising all the power can end up. 

So my first prediction is: (1) President Obama will continue to push for a one-party government; (2) the Democratic party will lose badly the mid-term elections and the Republicans will take over the Senate. (That will be okay for the President for he believes two years of  a do-nothing Republican Congress will set the stage for a decisive victory in the 2016 National Elections and he may be right.) (3) Iran will have a nuclear weapon before the next national election. (Anyone who believes Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful uses or that weaklings can deter them by talk are very wrong.) (4) The Affordable Care Act will fail but not before it has done serious harm to the best medical system in the world. Once reconstructed the whole things will look more like Obamacare than a free market system. (5) China and Russia will increase their influence in the world. (6) Before President Obama leaves office, America will begin to feel the impact of unemployment, over-regulation, and inflation.  (6) Lastly, radical Islam will show the beginnings of the organization of an Islamic Empire and the isolation of the Israeli Nation. 

The Advisor put his pen away and placed the Presidential Journal back in its place. Maybe one of his successors would read it and find it helps them understand the years he was responsible for keeping the real record of every President.

Meeting with President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.This is a fictional account of an Advisor that doesn’t exist by the author of the Brandon novels.  The author (pictured far right) has 27 years of Government service, including two years serving President Ronald Reagan (middle left) in the 1980s as an advisor. Meeting with President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.

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by | November 4, 2013 · 3:51 pm

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS-85 THE ADVISOR

 IS ANYONE OUT THERE?

greendoor

Fighting loneliness in his subterranean  office suite was the Advisor’s hardest problem. When he was approached a few years ago by the Keepers of the Book  to become the next Advisor, he had had no idea how hard it would be to maintain perspective without face-to-face human contact. After his wife died, the Advisor had moved to an isolated cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains where he could write and think in peace and quiet. When the Keepers of the Book approached him, he had thought How hard could it be to go from my ridge-line cabin to an underground existence?  Turns out it was very hard. He even looked forward to the twice a month delivery of food and supplies even though no conversation was permitted.

In reading of the Advisor Journals from long ago times, he could sense the isolation and loneliness that plagued his predecessors. He searched the journals for ways to cope but found none, only just to endure day by day. If only the President would allow him to get more involved it would help. Sometimes he thought, I may be the only person in America who enjoys talking to the man. He continued his musing.

Obviously, the President is tangled in the mess of the Affordable Care Act‘s rollout of its website. Another example of a hands-off management style. The President is a superb campaigner as long as the opposition cannot figure out what he wants. After five years, thousands of people have figured out Obamacare is primarily a giant step to a socialist government. Health care is not the prime issue. The real issue is capturing seven or eight percent of the nation’s economy. The cost doesn’t matter. Patient care doesn’t matter. Destroying the best medical system in the world doesn’t matter. The history of socialized medicine is ignored.

Every progressive/socialist is comfortable that the government knows better than the people what medical plan is good for them. The Progressives fervently believe that anyone who doesn’t like Obamacare is either a racist or a selfish-right-wing-tea drinking Republican. Why don’t they recognized health care can be fixed without destroying what works now? Tort reform, competition across state boundaries, concentrating on those who don’t have insurance coverage and want it would fix most of the health care system. Obamacare or any health care system cannot work without bi-partisan support and a full debate and discussion of each proposal. 

If the people and states don’t fight it now, they will have little or no chance of fending off the imposition of a full socialist society. By the time the real Democrats wake up they will find their party gone. Big government bureaucrats will control all aspects of their lives. The people have to wake up and pay attention or the greatest democracy in the history of the world will be gone.

Overcome by his musing and in an effort to fight the quiet loneliness, the Advisor became to speak his thoughts out loud. “Elites don’t need to worry. They always get special treatment in totalitarian, socialist governments. After all, they make the rules and they know what the people need. Just ask any Russian senior citizen. All Progressive movements start with hope and change and end up with camps and no economic, religious , or political freedom. If you’re not in the elite Progressive hierarchy, prepare yourself for a quick slide to poverty and government medicine. Don’t worry, the issue won’t be you can’t keep your own doctor. The challenge will be you don’t have and can’t see any doctor when you want or need to. Fight now or pay later!” The Advisor hoped he was wrong, but was afraid he wasn’t, and there was no one to tell.

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        This blog is written by the author of the Jack Brandon novels. The author (pictured far right) has 27 years of
Meeting with President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.

Meeting with President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Deputy National Security Adviser Frank Carlucci and General Colin Powell in the Oval Office.

government service, including two years serving President Ronald Reagan (middle left) in the 1980s as an advisor. Considering today’s volatile political situation, you are encouraged to share this blog and to click the “like” button below. Comments and dialogue are welcome. 

 

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