Category Archives: Progressives

by Barry Kelly | April 2, 2014 · 7:45 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 107

OBAMA’S YARD SALE

Anyone have trouble with getting or using domain names on the Internet? I’m not much of a computer or Internet guru but I was always able to get a domain name and use it. I have a very simple and attractive webpage. There is no problem with the Internet phone book now. President Obama can’t seem to fix any problem or issue. Now he has turned his remarkable management ability to deciding America should turn over control of the “Internet’s phone book” to the United Nations. Why does he think he even has the authority to turn over a large part of American communications to a group of United Nations members who don’t like America and like seeing our power reduced?

What is the upside? I can’t think of any, and he hasn’t told the people why he is even thinking of such an anti-freedom action. He’s already shown he doesn’t like American power and is working constantly to reduce it. Taking the military down to ridiculous numbers is just one of many actions that demonstrate his intent to reduce our power on the world stage. The list is long and includes:

paying the Russians to deliver supplies and crew to the space station
making a shambles of foreign policy in Iraq, Syria, Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea (to mention our enemies).
Our friends and allies no longer trust our commitment and are rapidly losing respect.

Everyone knows that President Obama is a very far left politician. That’s why he flies the progressive banner. Part of the progressive ideology is working toward “one-world government.” Here everything that matters must be turned over to some international organization. An early first transfer is giving away the Internet by having its phone book, the management of domain names, given to the UN for no known benefit. The management of Internet domain names by the U.S.government is not broken. There have been no cries of complaints or abuses of phone book power.

But there will be. Nations who get the responsibility for managing domain names will have the power to penalize enemy nations, limit access, and devise rules and regulations for the assigning and use of domain names. Might they also use their position on the Domain Name Committee to censure use of the Internet in their own nations? How Obama’s plan extends free speech and sets an example for allowing free speech in all nations is unknown.

The worst for last: Will we be able to get control/management of the Internet’s domain phone book back to America if Obama is successful in turning it over? I think not. This is not an inconsequential act. Just ask former President Clinton.

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Filed under Conservative views, foreign policy, Intelligence & Politics, Obama, Progressives

Tagged as domain names, free speech, internet, President Clinton, United Nations

by Barry Kelly | March 6, 2014 · 7:30 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 104

CHAOS IN THE LAND

I wonder how many people when they hear the word “change” think of a new and better approach to individual and national problems. When I hear that word, I think, “hope and a better life are gone.” It seems that hope and change requires chaos as a required element of the way progressives bring about change. Our president isn’t very good about working on our issues, individual or national. Is it possible that a man who has won two national elections seems to be a reckless, incompetent leader when it comes to management.

Take Obamacare. It would take a battalion of Philadelphia lawyers to mess up the implementation of the Affordable Care Act more than President Obama and his minions. He’s been educated at our best schools, taught Constitutional law at the university level, given countless speeches, and served in the Senate of his state and nation.

Maybe he believes radical transformation of a long-standing national system of government requires widespread chaos as a midwife. When people are in despair over health care, lack of employment, a capricious and/or corrupt civil service, lost lives, and treasure in wars the president never explains or even mentions, the erosion of savings, a poor education system with no other choice for their children, welfare of the nation’s warriors, a government that no one trusts anymore, a national government that has lost respect at home and abroad, and an administration that destroys both individual initiative and American industries, they are ripe for change of any kind. We elected this president twice. Why should he doubt he and the progressive party can offer change people in despair will accept?

You would think the debacle of Obamacare, the rapid growth of the rate of spending more then we take in, the plan to cut back the Army to pre-World War II levels, the push to destroy first coal and then the rest of the fossil fuel sources, the thousands of returning veterans without civilian jobs or the option to remain in the military, the corruption in the IRS, that never seems to be investigated by the Justice Department or the FBI, would be enough to ensure a change in the White House in 2016. Not so. The growth of people who are dependent on government welfare, if incentivized to vote, will be enough to swing the popular vote to the progressives.

Don’t believe President Obama is inept. He isn’t. By his standards and those of Saul Alinsky, the progressives guru, he is right on schedule. The issue is never the issue. Traditional Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and independents — you don’t have many chances. The 2014 and 2016 elections must be won by the opponents of the progressive party and its foreign ideology.

By the author of the Jack Brandon novels. This blog is meant to be shared and encourage dialogue.

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Filed under Alinsky, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, General, Obama, Obamacare, Progressives

Tagged as change, issues, Obama, politics, Progressive

by Barry Kelly | 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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Filed under Afghanistan, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, foreign policy, Intelligence & Politics, Obama, political solutions, Politics, Progressives, Putin, Russia

Tagged as foreign policy, Obama, Putin, Russia, ukraine

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.

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

Tagged as carbon gases, class warfare, Climate change, coal, EPA, Federal Reserve, global warming, ice age, Obama, Progressives, workers

by Barry Kelly | January 27, 2014 · 7:30 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 95

OBAMA’S MAGIC SHOW

The skill every magician must have is the ability to misdirect the attention of their audience. Good magicians are experts at re-direction to distract the most attentive audience. President Obama is a master of misdirection. The people, including congressional leaders and political talking heads, view Obama’s actions through a lens that does not apply to the present administration. This old lens evaluated political accomplishments, focused on national problems and the issues that define each problem.

For example, the problem of unemployment. Unemployment is not a new problem. We and the rest of the economically developed world have had more than a hundred years of grappling with unemployment and its associated issues. Financial, banking, and taxation issues often lead the way. Other issues are associated with foreign trade and education, especially the training of the work force, and the size and scope of the federal government. The size of the federal bureaucracy and its relationship of the states in our federal system is another relevant issue.

Both parties understand many of these issues need to be worked. The President doesn’t agree. He, like every disciple of Saul Alinsky, follows the mantra, “the issue is never the issue.” The issue is what is to be manipulated and used to destroy the opposition, not solve problems. In this case the opposition is the Republican Party. It must be destroyed or rendered ineffective before Obama’s transformation of America into a socialist nation can be completed.

Let’s look at a few of the Progressives’ misdirection actions.

Unemployment and under-employment: Most all economists and, for that matter, most Americans, know the economy is not good. Everyone knows people who cannot get a job, or are working several jobs. Young people graduating from colleges and universities cannot get jobs commensurate with their training. The facts are that a smaller percentage of Americans are in the work force than at any other time in the last several decades.

Obama’s Misdirection Magic message: Millions of jobs have been created by the Obama Administration. Unemployment is going down. The economy is on the way to recovery. Our policies are working.

The reality: Yes, millions of jobs have been created in the last five years but not nearly enough to keep pace with population growth. The unemployment rate has gone down only because millions of Americans have given up and have dropped out of the work force. If you have given up trying to find a job, you are not counted as being unemployed. The massive infusions of Federal Reserve funds (now tapering off from 86 billion a month to 75 billion per month) have fueled growth in the stock market and widened the gap between people who can afford to invest from those who can’t. But these historically unsound Keynesian monetary beliefs have not stimulated the economic growth that is necessary for everyone to benefit.

Obama Success: Result is that more people become dependent on the Government for living expenses and will vote to keep Progressives in power who will soon transformer our nation into a failing socialist economy.

The American health issue: There is and was broad interest in improving health care. Issues such as extension of health insurance to those who depend on charity or the emergency rooms of our hospitals, keeping your health care when moving from one job to another, the end to people losing their insurance due to “pre-existing conditions,” and several other areas. But most of us did not want to destroy the best medical care system in the world.

The Obama misdirection magic message: “If you like your health care, you can keep it. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. The Affordable Health Care Act will save money. Millions of people will be able to afford health care.”

The reality: The truth is you can’t keep the health care insurance you liked or your doctor and you will pay a significant increase in costs. Also more Americans will be without insurance coverage than before Obamacare started and you may not be able to go to the best health care centers like Mayo or the Cleveland Clinic.

Obama success: The capitalist system of private insurance companies will be destroyed. Millions of people will be without health insurance. The cost will be so high, the federal government will have to fund health care. The chaos could and probably will result in a single-payer system known as socialized medicine. Millions of people depending on the progressive or socialist government for health care will be captive to the progressive government. If Obama had told what he knew to be true about the Affordable Care Act, it is doubtful it would have passed by the one-vote victory. Obama won another election by misdirection and hiding information. This formula works for him.

President Obama’s magic show treatment of Benghazi, the IRS, NSA, spying on journalists, foreign policy, energy, tax policy, abuse of executive power, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria will be covered in the near future.

By the Author of the Jack Brandon novels. Please feel free to pass on all or parts of this blog.