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EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 101

A COUP IN THE USA?

Is a coup possible in America? If enough of us keep our heads buried in the sand, it will happen sometime. It may not require violence or the deployment of uniformed troops; there have been coups without gunfire in the streets. A coup is simply the shifting of power from an existing norm to a new organization of government that becomes the new norm. A new structure that no longer permits individual freedom to criticize or work to change back to the old system. The slogan ‘one person, one vote, one time’ is an apt description. No violence or dramatic action is required. A coup can happen slowly over a period of years, one small step at a time.

The one thing that is essential for a coup to succeed is the coup sponsors must first destroy the opposition. In America the first opposition to a coup is the opposing political party. The law and courts also protect our current system. The concept of a separation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government is another bulwark against inside coups. Lastly, our traditions and collective morality make drastic change harder for the coup makers.

Let’s assume that President Obama and his cadre of progressive radicals are working to turn America into a one-party government, run by a self-proclaimed progressive elite, in order to bring about their version of heaven on earth. Are they succeeding? The only way we can tell is to look at their policies and actions over the last six years.

What do they need to do?

(1) Control health care and associated industries. The Obama administration is well on the way to controlling the seven plus percent of the national economy and a very large part of the populace.

(2) Expand the welfare system under federal control. The welfare system, including unemployment insurance and food stamps, has grown immensely under Obama.

(3) Ensure win at the polls. Using blatant delaying tactics, the administration withheld critical information on Fast and Furious (gun running to the drug cartels), Ben Ghazi, the IRS targeting of conservative groups, the targeting of journalists, and the true nature of Obamacare. It also fought voter I.D. legislation in all the states aimed at reducing voter fraud. Why would anyone object to identifying themselves at the polling places? The Obama administration knows how to win elections using all possible tactics.

Random thought: You would think that a President who leads from behind, would stand behind his word!

— Barry Kelly (@factsfictions80) December 16, 2013

(4) Re-distribution of wealth. The increase of welfare programs, the pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy, and constant messaging to promote class warfare are seen by many as an organized campaign to destroy capitalism and the free market. Plans for a death tax to destroy the economic power of wealthy American families are waiting in the wings. The administration is fully prepared to use the United Nations to re-distribute national wealth through programs like Cap and Trade (global warming).

(5) Shift control of industry from the private sector to federal control. The flow of regulations from the executive branch is at the highest level ever. Many of these regulations give the federal government more control over the means of production. (The killing of the coal industry comes to mind.)

(6) Encourage class warfare issues. Do you remember President Obama ever giving a speech that did not include class warfare rhetoric like “protecting the middle class,” “the widening gap in income levels,” and “the top 2 percent must pay their fair share?” This is the big lie of the Progressives. Repeat it often enough and people will believe it. (A page out of the Nazi coup success.)

(7) Focus attention on domestic issues. Notice the president almost never gives a speech devoted to foreign policy issues. All his energy is devoted to transforming domestic America. He is so inept at foreign policy that it appears he just doesn’t care about foreign issues.

(8) Destroy the opposition. With considerable help from the hopeless Republican Party leadership, Obama progressives are well on their way to establishing the ground work for a one-party system.

(9) Control the justice system and the courts. The Department of Justice is under tight control of the progressive agenda. Why else would investigations by Justice employees, including the FBI, be so slow and ineffective? The IRS’s deliberate targeting of conservative groups and the State Department and Joint Chiefs lies and failures of the Ben Ghazi affair are virtually being ignored by the FBI and Justice Department. Congressional inquires by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives are, at best, lackadaisical. After the debacle of the Supreme Court’s rewriting of the Affordable Care Act to make it constitutional, can we count on the judicial system to protect the Constitution from the executive branch’s routine usurping of the powers reserved to the Congress? Probably not.

(10) Corrupt the civil service. The IRS, FBI, STATE, EPA, HHS, ENERGY, JUSTICE, EDUCATION, DEA have all lost their claim to being politically neutral. They are, or seem to be, fully on board with the Progressive Party, once the proud Democratic Party.

(11) Weaken the military. Successive deployments have worn down the troops. They need more manpower, not planned cutbacks. New weapon systems need to be planned and procured. The Joint Chiefs of Staff needs to be composed of people who are not afraid to tell the truth and who will not lie to protect the White House. Mission creep turned the campaign in Afghanistan from victory into a defeat. Nation building is not something the military or any part of our government knows how to do. The War in Afghanistan under the current rules of engagement cost us many of our best and bravest.

(12): Protect the message. Everyone in the Progressive Party must be on the same page. It doesn’t matter if the message is true. Over and over with the big lie while at the same time doing everything possible to censor the opposition. Outspend them, use the power of the government to criticize and punish the media outlets that print and broadcast news that is not favorable to the administration. Fox News and talk radio are examples of uncontrollable media outlets. Witness the recent effort by the FCC to send its people out to newspaper media outlets to query them on how they decide to publish an article and what is their political position. Under a law-abiding administration, this would be prevented by the Constitution.

If the current governing process is continued, you won’t be able to recognize what is left. Your freedom and control of your own destiny will only be memories. It will be a coup by a “thousand cuts.” Wake up, America, while there is still time.

By the author of the Jack Brandon novels.

3 Comments

by Barry Kelly | February 28, 2014 · 7:30 am

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.

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Filed under Alinsky, Intelligence & Politics, Obama, Obamacare, Politics, Progressives

Tagged as affordable care act, employment, health care, misdirection, Obama, politics, Progressives

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

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS-93 THE ADIVSOR

PREDICTIONS FOR 2014

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.

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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Filed under centralization, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, foreign policy, Intelligence & Politics, Israel, Obama, Obamacare, political solutions

Tagged as government, new year, Obama, one-party system, Progressive

by Barry Kelly | December 24, 2013 · 8:01 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS-92 THE ADVISOR

TRUST OR NOT?

The Advisor was pacing in his small underground suite of rooms, lamenting that the President seldom came to see him anymore. It wasn’t that he was bored. He had plenty to do. But his main responsibility was to advise the President.

He wasn’t the first Advisor to have limited visits from the sitting President. Most Presidents were a bit thin skinned when it came to listening to criticism they knew was the honest opinion of the Advisor. President Obama ranked close to the top of all the Presidents, going back to President Washington, who established the Advisor institution, when it came to sensitivity to criticism. Presidential visits or not, the Advisor had to keep his journal current. The Advisor changed with Presidential changes and his successors needed an accurate record of the each President’s term. The Advisor before him had left a record of George W. Bush’s term that emphasized his war time decisions and his role in creating a much larger government than he inherited and a bigger national debt.

The Advisor sighed and opened his Journal to the next blank page and began to write.

Big Government is a danger in itself because when the capability of workers exceeds doing what is necessary and essential, honest and diligent workers don’t lobby to have the work force reduced, they invent more tasks that inevitably provide more regulations for the people they were hired to serve. When the natural drive for centralization and growth are accompanied by an Administration that uses the civil work force for their own political objectives, the freedom of all citizens is threatened. How can Americans be expected to trust their government when they have been lied to and seen the IRS be used to target conservative groups to prevent their growth and funding? Now the citizens are expected to believe the information collected by NSA is both necessary and not a threat to liberty.

The real issue is not what NSA collects, it is the use of the information collected. Most citizens will tolerate the NSA collecting what they write or say if it is stored in some secure area where only national security analysts can see the data. The danger to our liberty is that we have a current President that will use any information to benefit his power position. I don’t see how anyone can doubt that conclusion after the IRS was used to target conservative groups, the EPA to kill the coal industry, the Defense and Intelligence Agencies to cover up Ben Ghazi, the security leaks after Bin Laden and the Iranian centrifuges, the Democratic Senate blocking all legislation that doesn’t support his policies, packing the courts to protect the expansion of his executive power, concealing data from HHS that shows the true state of Obamacare … and the list could go on.

Other Presidents from either Party may do the same. If we cannot trust our civil servants to protect the data in their domain, how can we authorize the collectors? Maybe there is a way that a sincere bipartisan effort could find. The defense of liberty and freedom requires eternal vigilance. Without a willingness on the part of government to allow maximum transparency there can be no real vigilance. That is the problem.

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

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

years of 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.