November 2, 2020

Once again, an election presents itself as the "biggest election in our lifetime". And considering how divided this nation is getting, they may be right. Since I last blogged, the House became Democratic and the Senate got more Republican. An annoying virus swept the world, and killed 2-5% of its victims. Riots have gotten more commonplace. Antifa is getting bolder, and ideas that were considered crackpot when I attended Brooklyn College over 20 years ago are now the mainstream of the Democratic Party. And cancel culture is the norm.

I don't how likely any of these are to win, but here are my endorsements for tomorrow's election:

PRESIDENT
Donald Trump. Yeah, I know, from a character perspective, he's the Republican version of Bill Clinton (and that is NOT a compliment). But he has caused the economy to grow far better than it did under my distant cousin Obama. Trump has actually governed as a conservative, and has gotten tough with our biggest economic and military adversary (China, not the rapidly declining Putinist Russia). He has appointed 3 originalist Supreme Court Justices and hundreds of Federal judges to undo the activist judiciary promoted by his mostly Democrat predecessors. I don't know if it is because of his mainstream policies or his outrageous behavior, but the Democrats have gotten more radical in their opposition to him. Since 2016, the Democratic Party has embraced radical left ideas such as socialism, critical race theory/1619ism, higher taxes, Supreme Court packing, restrictions on religion, and bringing back the hated Obamacare Individual Mandate. Joe Biden may be the Democratic name on the ballot, but the real power if Biden is elected will be with anti-Catholic VP Kamala Harris and the radical left. Since Trump is the only thing standing between these leftist lunatics and control of the United States Government, I have no choice but to support Trump.


SENATE (Colorado)
Cory Gardner. He is probably the only statewide elected official that I have any respect for. He is a common sense conservative, and the only member of the Colorado congressional delegation with any major accomplishments (The BLM and Space Force headquarters moving to Colorado). Hickenlooper has broken his previous rule against negative campaigning, has gotten even more left wing, and has an ethics problem that mainfested during his last term as Colorado Governor.


HOUSE District 3
Lauren Boebert. She made her name as a vocal opponent to the state's COVID 19 restrictions on businesses, and parlayed that into an upset win in the Republican primary over incumbent Scott Tipton. Diane Mitsch Bush is an academic socialist masquerading as a compromising moderate.

District 5
No endorsement. This district has never been represented by a Democrat. The palatable Libertarian candidate (Doug Lunde) pulled out of the race days before the election. Democrat Jillian Freeland is too liberal for this district. And Doug Lamborn is the kind of Republican who gives the party a bad name. He muscled out any primary competition this year despite a recent challenge to his ability to run for re-election.

NY House District 11 Nicole Malliotakis. Historically this Staten Island based district has been the conservative beacon of the NYC Congressional delegation. It needs to return to that.

Colorado Amendments

Amendment B
No. Tampering with the state Constitution to lower business property taxes inevitably results in higher taxes for homeowners.

Amendment C
Yes. A common sense loosening of restrictions for charatable organizations that want to obtain charitable gaming licenses.

Amendment 76
HELL YES. Passing this amendment means only US Citizens can vote in Colorado elections. The status quo is in violation of federal law, so this should be a no brainer.

Amendment 77
Yes. Only 3 cities in this state allow legal gaming, so why shouldn't those cities' voters determine allowing more (or less) gaming types and regulations?

Propositions

Proposistion EE
Yes. This allows vaping to be taxed- currently it is far cheaper to vape than to smoke cigarettes. Personally I think all forms of smokable tobacco should be outlawed and eradicated from the earth, but that is not up for vote this year.

Proposition 113
HELL NO. Tampering with the spirit (if not letter) of the US Constitution in order to make it easier for popular vote winners (i.e. Democrats) to become President is a very bad idea.

Proposition 114
No. Gray wolves don't need government intervention to return to the wildlands of Colorado.

Proposition 115
HELL YES. Currently abortion in Colorado is legal up to childbirth. While I would like to see this barbarous practice outlawed, this proposition lowers the age at which a fetus can be aborted to 22 weeks, which is line with most of the rest of country.

Proposition 116
HELL YES. This lowers the state income tax from 4.63% to 4.55%. Sadly, there is a very vocal opposition to lowering taxes in this state, mostly by the same idiots who want to overturn TABOR.

Proposition 117
Yes. This strengthens TABOR by mandating voter approval of any government enterprise that is currently exempt from TABOR.

Proposition 118
HELL NO. Paid Medical and Family leave is the reponsibilty of employers, not the government. If this becomes law, expect taxes to be raised considerably in order to pay for this.

The Judiciary
Colorado allows for Judicial elections for state and county judges. In other words, if you don't like a corrupt judge in this state, you can fire them with your vote in this state. As nearly the entire state judiciary on this year's ballot was appointed by Democrats, I urge a no vote on all of them. Too bad this is not an option in my former home state of New York.

December 31, 2018

It's been a strange year for me. But the world (and America in particular) has also had a messed up 2018.

I wrote 2 years ago that Donald Trump could be a great President or give in to his caustic personality. Obviously he has done more of the latter- a summit with North Korea's Kim the Insane and a good economy due to less regulation and the abolition of the Obamacare tax are overshadowed by his obsession with a border wall, his desire to end birthright citizenship, tariffs with China that are undoing the good Trump has done for the economy, and his stonewalling over the Muller investigation that is proving that Trump's personality quirks (i.e. paying off mistresses and lying about it) are more criminal than the Russian contacts and meddling done by Trump associates and to a smaller extent by allies of the Hildabeest. Trump is rapidly becoming the Republican version of Bill Clinton (the most corrupt President of my lifetime), and that is not a compliment.

While North Korea is less likely to nuke us than they were at the start of 2018, China is becoming more aggressive, and Mad Vlad Putin's Russia is becoming more confrontational.

The environment is changing. Contrary to most radical environmentalist beliefs, climate is not static and is always changing. Some things man cannot influence or control (i.e. volcanism, tsunamis, the East African Rift splitting the continent of Africa apart, the fact that warming always comes after an ice age, the slow crustal sinking on the East Coast that is changing that coast's sea level), but pollution is affecting wind patterns, rain, and temperature variances. It used to be called Global Warming, but it's not causing warming everywhere. In some places, rainfall is increasing (especially the Northeast), while out West and in the Southeast, annual rainfall is decreasing. Glaciers are melting, and there is unusual warming in the Arctic. Combine rising sea levels and the natural sinking of the east coast, and it spells disaster for Atlantic coastal communities, especially Florida, the NYC area, and the Gulf Coast.

Trump's attitude led to the Democratic takeover for the House, which promises even more gridlock in 2019. Conversely, it also led to a more Republican Senate, which is good on the judicial front but bad for gridlock and getting anything legislative done. The judiciary has no business doing the legislative branch's work, but both sides seem to be content on letting the courts approve things that could never pass a legislative vote. This is why there was so much contention over the Kavanaugh vote earlier this year.

I have problems with most of the media. Right wing talk show hosts are screaming more and trying to defend Trump actions that are indefensible. The left (espeially NBC/MSNBC) is anti-Trump all the time (even on the good things he's done), and supportive of things that are even more radical than anything Trump has done (i.e. open borders, excessive regulation, Medicare for all, pre-JFK Federal income tax rates, Socialism, and overt hostility towards Catholics and Evangelicals).

Personally, I don't see how this country can unify or avoid a civil war. Hopefully I can afford to move out of the US if it ever gets to that.

August 25, 2018

I don't have respect for most politicians these days. Our current President is scandal-prone, uncouth, and a walking disaster. And yet he won because his opponent was even worse- contemptuous of the law, promoting a political philosophy at odds with most Americans, and dismissive of her detractors to the point of calling them deplorables. And the current governor of my former state got away with saying 4 years ago that pro-life Catholics and gun rights supporters have no business living there. Where I live now, a crony corporate socialist almost in the mold of Bill De(mon)Blasio is leading the conservative outgoing state treasurer to be the next governor.

There is one fewer Senator tonight. Not too long after deciding to stop treatment for brain cancer, he passed this evening in Arizona. John McCain straddled the line between conservatism and moderation, and was called a "Maverick" as a result. In a sense, he was the last grownup left in Congress.

I got to meet John McCain in late 1999 at a political rally in Staten Island that I was covering for Brooklyn College's Journalism program. He was a bit blunt as far as his political speeches went, but after the rally, he was very nice to the press and to the people who came to the VFW to hear him speak.

McCain was very cordial to his political opponents. The Democrats liked working with him until he won the Republican nomination for President in 2008. Then they threw everything and the kitchen sink at him to make sure that Obama got elected. He regained their favor over the last 2 years as he became a target of now-President Trump.

Over the last 26 years, politics has gotten more extreme and less unifying. Socialism used to be a dirty word in American politics, now it has taken hold of a large segment of the Democratic Party. What was considered mainstream when I was a child is now considered right-wing, oppressive, and something to be overturned. Progressivism used to mean supporting progress, now it's a code name for the radical left. Congress seems to be split between a few people with common sense, a few Trump sycophants, and a growing number of "progressives" who want to bring down Trump, conservatism, and the whole capitalist system.

With McCain gone, there are few politicians left who could reach across the aisle and be respected by both parties. And the parties are drifting further and further apart with nativist Trumpism on the Republican side and radical left wing socialist antifa racist redistribution on the Democrat side. Trump and his opponents have made it an us versus them battleground. With McCain gone, there is no prominent voice left to attempt to bridge the widening political gulf.

November 9, 2016

Up until about 2:30AM this moring, I was expecting to have to contact the US embassy in either Toronto, Dublin, or Belfast this afternoon to make an appointment in early December to renounce my citizenship. I was expecting to fire up a GoFundMe page to come up with the thousands of dollars necessary to rid me of ties to a pending government that would be openly hostile to my existence. I was expecting to hear the media elites gloat about how the intelligentsia defeated the deplorables. I was expecting to hear how lower class whites, pro lifers, and conservatives in general would never have power or influence in America ever again.

Not being able to sleep (due to having to leave for work in about 2 hours), I turned on Channel 5, San Antonio's local CBS station. The graphics were pretty damn clear, Donald J Trump elected 45th President. Apparently Trump won my current home state of Texas (so much for this being a swing state), battleground states Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and North Carolina, and shockingly, he won Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. At last count, he has 278 electoral votes and a popular vote advatage over the Hildabeest. I guess my prayers were answered.

From what I saw of his acceptance speech, Trump seemed pretty generous towards the Hildabeest. Hillary, for her part, didn't attend her own election party at the Javits Center. She had her anti-Catholic lackey John Podesta tell the crowd at Javits to go home after the networks called it for Trump.

Depite the crushing victory of Trump and the Republicans over the liberal establishment, the changes necessary for this country will not happen overnight, or even within a week of Trump's inauguration. The dreaded Obamacare will be gone by January, but there will still need to be an overhaul of what is left of the healthcare system. Trade deals will need to be renegotiated. A new Supreme Court justice will need to be appointed and voted upon. Planned Parenthood and other left wing leeches on the Federal Treasury will need to be de-funded. And a broken nation where half of America thinks the new power will destroy them needs to be healed. Too many have bought into the liberal lies about minority disenfranchisement when the only ones who have been deliberately disenfranchised over the last 24 years have been the idealogical opponents of the elites.

Will Trump be able to create much needed change for this country? Will his odious aspects surface and cause a national crisis? Who knows? But the imperfect candidate who campaigned on the right issues won last night, and the worst possible candidate who represented everything I loathe about America lost. And because everything I hated about American politics and government will be out of commission come late January, I no longer have a reason to renounce my US citizenship. But if I ever get a decent job offer or win the lottery, I'd still move to Ireland. I just now don't have to move there next month to save my physical and mental well-being.

November 5, 2016

This might be my last blog for a long while. 25 years ago today, my mother died. She had been suffering from lymphoma for about 3 years by that point. She was at the (since-shuttered) Baptist Downtown Hospital in Memphis, TN, for an (at-the-time) experimental stem-cell treatment. She died about 12 hours before she was scheduled to get out of the hospital. My mother's death destroyed what was left of my family. My father and grandmother died 4 years later, and my mother's family in Chambersburg rarely communicated with my father after that.

For about the next 80 hours, the country I currently call home faces the most divisive Presidential campaign in the last 156 years. The votes should be counted by late evening of Tuesday the 8th. By the following morning, the world should know if the next so-called leader of the free world is a billionaire idiot with some good ideas on fixing corruption and replacing Obamacare- or a corrupt leftist female canine who is anti-male, anti-Catholic, and under FBI investigation. Regardless of who wins, I see a lot more civil unrest in America's future. This election has caused deep rifts in America. Democrats blame it on Trump's caustic personality. Conservatives blame it on the corruption of the establishment. Some people believe in and advocate racial divisions (i.e. minorities against "Whitey"). Many believe in affirmative action, a deliberate form of racism. Some believe law enforcement is evil. Many believe infanticide should remain legal and be expanded. Most Democrats support government funding of Planned Parenthood, the nation's biggest infanticide provider and an organization created to prevent inferior (i.e. minority or disabled) people from reproducing. Some people believe racial diversity is a bad thing. Some think thoughts should be controlled. Some think the government should control everything and punish those who defy or oppose government regulations. Some think male nature has to be changed. Some think women are too uppity for their own good. Some think women should be beaten or killed for defying a man. Some people think guns should be banned. Many disagree, and the vast majority of those aren't criminals. Many of both parties think people of my faith (Catholicism) don't belong in the public sphere. Indeed, some of Hillary Clinton's allies (including John Podesta) advocated "infiltrating" the Church to make it more left-wing American, while others (including Andrew Cuomo) have advocated their relocation outside their political jurisdictions.

The last time such differing and incompatible ideologies competed in the national sphere, the result was the Civil War from 1861-65. For obvious reasons, unless the elements of American politics that are openly hostile to my beliefs and existence are dealt with defeat and permanent obsolescence, I don't see a future for myself in this country. I don't believe in government over-regulation. I don't believe in legalized infanticide. I don't believe in discrimination against people of different races, and I don't believe in government sponsored discrimination in legal or hiring or immigration or educational practices. I don't believe in the government telling me I have to pay more for health care than what I presently pay in rent, and that I have to pay a huge percentage of my income in government fines if I don't get their mandated insurance. I don't believe in stifling competition. I don't believe in throwing people out on to the street and denying them shelter (partially because that has happened to me before, most recently in January 2015). I don't believe in being branded a traitor or worse because I can't support or defend a country that is at best hypocritical and at worse a growing threat to the world and trying to become as much a part of the Axis of Evil as the mad mullahs of Iran, North Korea, Putin's Russia, the Chinese Communists, and Daesh/ISIS already are.


For probably the last time, here are my election endorsements for this Tuesday:

President:

I ended up voting for Trump, not because I agree with his stands on Immigration or trade or celebrity treatment of women, but because unlike McMullin or Gary Johnson, he actually stands a chance of defeating the one candidate who will make me defect somewhere else (Hillary Hildabeest Clinton). Anyone idiotic and stupid enough to vote for Clinton should contribute to the GoFundMe page I plan on activating November 9 (if Clinton wins) to pay for my international relocation, Obamacare fee, and renunciation of American citizenship fees (approximately $2-10K, $1-2K, and $2-4K, respectively).

Congress:

District 35: Susan Narvaiz over liberal Lloyd Doggett. What idiots in Austin thought it was a good idea to put SE Austin and the east side of San Antonio in the same district?

District 23: Will Hurd over Pete Gallego. At least Hurd has campaigned against both Trump and Clinton, while Gallego spews the DNC anti-Trump line.


And I would recommend Canada, Ireland, and the UK for potential expatriates regardless of ideology. Ireland and the UK are a bit more conservative than the US, while the current Canadian government is more liberal. But all 3 are far less likely to explode into civil war than the US is right now, and all 3 are freer than America.

April 30, 2016

Another year, another job, another residence. For at least the next 7 months, I'm still in Texas. I don't know yet how permanent my new job is. I'm not sure what country I'm going to be living in by December, since this country is hopelessly divided.

Most Americans want the election to be over with, but right now it seems to be a race between a madman, evil incarnate, a socialist, and a Canadian Texan. In a normal election year, someone with the criminal baggage of Hillary Rodham Clinton would not be a factor. Her allies in New York are ruining that state and city on their way to jail- see Sheldon Silver, Alan Hevesi, Malcolm Smith, Larry Seabrook, and (hopefully soon) Bill DeBlasio. But the media seem hellbent on propping her up to President, even though her opponent has far fewer ethical lapses.

The Republicans have a unity problem. Sure, none of them want Hillary to be President, but they seem to think their best shots to face Hillary are character assassinations of their primary rivals in a level not seen since the 19th Century. The mainstream and electable candidates don't have a shot, leaving a radical Cuban-Canadian who happens to be my current Senator, and a billionaire flip-flopper who's almost as unacceptable as the Hildabeest. And there's the strong possibility that the Republican Convention could be contested.

I'm sure my ancestors who fought for this country (and in at least 1 case, actually died for it) are turning over in their graves to see how badly this land has devolved. Riots are now commonplace at Trump rallies, and the most dangerous candidate out there is portrayed as honest and trustworthy while she bashes anyone to the right of her in a way that should prompt riots.

No offense to my ancestors, but this country is not worth fighting for anymore. 40+ years ago, it gave up on respecting life. 7-8 years ago, it gave up on fairness and liberty. And for the last decade, what was the world's freest democracy and economy is now behind Canada, Ireland, the UK, and parts of Scandinavia.

I have enough to pray for, between an uncle with stage 4 cancer, a nephew who turns 18 in 6 weeks who will soon be on his own with no preparation, and asking God for a bigger miracle in getting settled outside the US in 7-8 months than what happened when I relocated back to Austin 2 months ago.