Free Republic

“HAS ANYONE ANYTIME IN HISTORY FIXED A PONZI SCHEME?”

They always go on until they can no longer attract new patsies at which time the perpetrator of the scam sometimes is tried and goes to jail (Bernie Madoff).

Not unlike governments that continue to print paper money, backed by nothing, until it is worthless. Typically the government then falls.

” . . . the worthless GOPe/uniparty will do nothing. “

The current situation with the two parties reminds me of the auto rental business of the 1960’s and 1970’s where Hertz was #1 and Avis was #2. Avis’s motto was “We Try Harder”. Yet Avis could never beat Hertz.

It makes one believe in the uniparty with the GOP playing the role of #2, claiming to “try” but constantly failing.

“Biden’s executive order prompted suspicion among some Republican lawmakers,. . . .”

At what point does suspicion trigger a sternly worded letter to Biden?

How many Jan 6 mothers are in jail?

“Mewzilla’s point is a valid one, that incompetent people hate competent people. They don’t like to be shown up.”

A wise HR person I knew once gave some wise advice to a colleague who had delegated a hiring decision to an average performing subordinate. The HR manager said, “C students never hire A students”. If you don’t exercise some oversight, your organization will be weakened.

Unfortunately the founders did not list a right to private property in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Had they done so much of the progress the left has enjoyed infringing on property rights over the past 100 years would have been avoided.

Whatever you call them - leftists, communists, socialists, collectivists, progressives — they sincerely believe the central government is supreme to the individual. Rights and privileges are doled out to citizens by government. In addition, while they never overtly admit it, progressives believe the product of the work of citizens (i.e. their incomes) is the property of the state. Through the tax system the state determines how much of the income of the individual citizen the citizen will be allowed to keep. Essentially collectivism assumes the individual is a slave to the state.

Who else can they run?

When you are already running a cadaver, almost any substitute will be an improvement.

Twice since 1976 the Democrats have run a southern state governor who was not a national figure. Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1992. Both ran as moderate and highly effective governors. Both won. Neither governed as a moderate but the press did a masterful job of helping to define them for the campaign. The Democrat voter base turned out in large numbers and enough moderates were persuaded so the unknown Democrat won by capturing southern states that normally vote Republican.

Current North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper is a possible replacement. He won elections for governor twice, in 2016 and 2020. Trump won NC by small margins in both years. Cooper won the governor’s position by larger margins with Trump on the top of the ballot. NC is a critical state with 16 Electoral College votes and Cooper is still a popular governor among moderates and Democrats. He is a good public speaker and effective debater. There is no hint of personal scandal with him. The NC economy is strong and people are moving in droves to the state.

If Roy Cooper became the Democrat candidate at the convention Trump’s entire campaign strategy blows up. He suddenly faces a very healthy and active 66 year old which makes Trump’s age an issue. There is no hint of corruption with Cooper or his family. By all economic measures Cooper has been effective running one of the fastest growing sunbelt states with a GOP majority legislature. He can easily run as a successful sensible moderate which will be attractive to independent voters and Republican women who dislike Trump. Cooper has none of the negative attributes of Biden. Plus he comes across well on television and can confidently talk issues on his feet.

As a Washington outsider he can diffuse Trump’s number one issue, the border, by simply acknowledging it is a big problem and needs “new thinking”. Imagine him turning to Trump in a debate and saying, “I’m open to listening to all ideas for fixing the border problems. The day after I am elected, why don’t we meet for a few hours and talk about your ideas in detail.

As for debates, Trump would suddenly find himself facing a formidable candidate happy to have multiple debates, including on Fox News. Imagine Trump in full attack mode criticizing Cooper for all of the failings of the Biden administration. Cooper can look at Trump, smile and say, “I’m not Joe Biden”.

Looking at Electoral College votes Cooper has the potential to secure North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Arizona for the Democrats. Add solid Democrat states and he walks into office. He is the perfect stealth candidate to win election as a moderate and govern as a strong progressive.

I prefer not to die for Ukraine.

“What they’re saying is that the citizens don’t control the government but the government controls the citizens. Exactly upside down.”

What it says is the tyrants wearing black robes no longer administer the law as written in the Constitution or passed by the elected legislature. They have become the dictatorial enforcers for the unelected regulatory bureaucracy.

“That is why you signed up at FR, to tell people to leave it up to democrat voters and for us to just stay out of it?”

I am not discouraging anyone from voting. Just be aware of what the people you vote for are and are not doing.

The power of the purse is the greatest power in the Constitution. This is the power to fund and defund every program, department, and bureaucrat’s salary. Cut off the funding and the EPA cannot shut mandate electric vehicles or shut down the fossil fuel industry. Cut off funding for gain of function research and the taxpayer won’t be helping a foreign lab create the next pandemic. Cut off the funding for Planned Parenthood and there will be fewer abortions. Cut off the funding of leftist social justice organizations and a huge source of revenue supporting left wing politicians will end. Cut off federal funding of the student loan program and there will be no federal student loans fir the president to forgive. Cut off funding of never ending foreign wars we can’t afford and let the rest of the world deal with its problems. Would the world really be any different today if we hadn’t spent trillions conquering, ruling, and then walking away from Afghanistan and Iraq?

The national debt is increasing by $1 trillion every 100 days. Every dollar of that spending is appropriated by Congress. Every appropriations bill is required by the Constitution to originate in the House of Representatives. Republicans have controlled the House, and the appropriations process since January 2023. How many Democrat programs have bern defunded since then? How many billions in discretionary slush funds the president and bureaucrats are free to spend have been eliminated? None. The Democrats have every dollar they want to spend. The same thing happened in the two years the Republicans controlled the House during Trump’s term. The same thing when the Republicans controlled the House during the Bush presidency, and during the Obama years. None of the failed Democrat social programs were defunded. None of the government grants to leftist social justice groups and consulting firms were ended. Instead the national debt kept climbing and the bureaucracy kept growing.

So keep voting. Hope for that day when that GOP Congress critter you elect will actually vote against the obscene, budget busting, last minute omnibus appropriations budget Congress passes every year to avoid a government shutdown. The average Republican Congressman will vote for the big spending bill, then send out a letter to constituents saying he fought the hard fight but in the end had to vote for a less than perfect bill so the all important federal government won’t shut down. Afterward he and his fellow representatives will go out to dinner, congratulating themselves for once again fooling the sheep. Over the next few days tens of thousands of dollars will flow into congressional campaign funds from donors benefiting from the millions in earmarks inserted into the huge bill by staff members just before the vote.

Good conservative citizens will vote for the reelection of their representatives and the cycle will continue until one day the US Treasury conducts a bond auction to fund another trillion in debt snd there are no buyers. On that day the music stops playing and some really hard choices, none of them good and all involving real pain, have to be made by the men and women we have voted into power for decades.

If Trump pardons the January 6 protestors, and the Dems control the House and Senate, he will almost certainly be immediately impeached and tried in the Senate.

“Who do you suggest we vote for, then? If we don’t vote for a Republican or Democrat, one of them will win anyway.”

The result will be the same.

Under the Constitution, the House of Representatives is responsible for originative all appropriations bills. No money can be spent by the federal government without the House authorizing it.

The Republican Party is currently the majority party in Congress. It has the ability to control federal spending by simply not appropriating money for a program or activity.

I have noticed for decades, it matters not if the Republicans control the House or the Democrats. The wasteful spending will continue. Since 95% of incumbent Congresscritters are reelected every two year cycle, the American people are as complicit with the wasteful as both political parties.

Look in the mirror. If you voted for a Republican or a Democrat to represent you in Congress you voted for the waste.

“Whatever final judgement passes his lips will be overturned faster than a triggered mouse trap.”

Don’t forget, the appeal is to a New York State appeals court, not a federal court. The judges on the appeals court are likely to be as bad as this judge.

“Fixes for colleges:”

1). Eliminate federal government government grants to universities and colleges.
2). Eliminate federal government government student loans.
3). Eliminate tenure
4). Parents taking an active role in their children’s education from birth.

“The establishment corrupted the universities with money. Funding studies that produced only the desired outcome and student loans.”

When money is tight, people are extremely judicious in carefully making choices so they can get the most value from the dollar spent. When money is “free” poor choices are frequent and often fatal.

Biden doesn’t do press interviews without seeing the questions before hand. He will certainly receive the questions in advance and practice for weeks. Remember the Candy Crowley incident in the Obama-Romney debate. Clearly scripted and planned. Likely Democrat candidates have been given the questions in advance for decades and the Democrat party operatives have been formulating the questions for the debate moderators to feed Republican candidates.

Trump knows CNN and Biden are not trustworthy and are committed to take him down. If he agrees to go naked into the lion’s den he has only himself to blame if it goes badly. If it goes well, he certainly deserves to congratulate himself.

“He hate Trump more than he loves this Country!”

He made his money in private equity. Stripping US companies of their assets, outsourcing the manufacturing leaving destitute towns behind, and dumping the carcass. He cared nothing about the displaced middle class workers, the long term economic and social consequences of destroying the middle class, and the long term threat to national security of moving the jobs to China. Romney, many Wall Street investment bankers, multinational corporate CEOs, numerous corporate raiders, and the greedy corrupt politicians of both political parties enriched themselves destroying the greatest industrial infrastructure on the planet and rebuilding it in China.

On the eve of World War II the US had s completely self sufficient economy growing its own food. The nation’s diversified manufacturing sector supplyed the civilian economy and was able to be converted to war production if needed. Thanks to that industrial infrastructure, the US supplied the war materials needed to fight a global war for survival. It was a critical strategic advantage squandered by politicians and greedy business leaders in the later part of the 20th century.

Where would we be in a war for our nation’s survival today? Ukraine is demonstrating Russia and China can outproduce what remains of the US defense industry. The US is dependent on overseas manufacturing for most consumer goods and therefore the consumer goods factories are no longer in the homeland to convert to war production. The US shipbuilding industry is a shell of its former stature and the merchant marine is tiny. Many agricultural products are now imported. There is no longer a textile and apparel industry to clothe the population and the troops if we go to war. We are down to one major aircraft company (Boeing) and its quality and manufacturing capability is suspect at best. Our once strong military has become a laboratory for social experimentation instead of the most flexible and powerful fighting force on the planet.

This is the legacy of the globalist trade policies pursued by two Bush administrations, the Clinton administration, and the Obama and Biden administrations, as well as most Democrat and GOP members of Congress doing the era. Very different from the founding generation who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the establishment of the United States.

How will history perceive Romney and his fellow travelers? History is written by the victors, not the vanquished.

“— “fundamentally change the country” 🙄Although what does this mean?
It is just an empty political phrase”

It meant a lot when Obama said it in 2008. He and his surrogate Joe Biden have delivered on the promise to fundamentally change the United States politically, socially, culturally, demographically and economically.

The crime statistics where I live show no increase. Yet I read the “Next Door” social media app almost every day and it is filled with stories of robberies and home break-ins. Stores are fleeing the local shopping mall which has been taken over by gangs of “teens”. Gunplay inside the mall or in the parking lot is not unusual. Organized gangs cruise suburban neighborhoods at night, carrying 12-14 year old minors who are turned loose to steel from unlocked cars in driveways, backyard sheds and the occasional unlocked home. If caught, the young criminals are tried in juvenile court where a progressive judge will give them a stern warning and put them back on the street.

Developers are throwing up cheap apartment buildings in this region which are immediately filled with the thousands of “migrants” being flown into the local airport. With each new migrant complex comes more petty crime and increasingly violent crime and drug activity. Now we have shootings inside the public high schools.

I believe my lying eyes, not the media, and certainly not the government.