Month: July 2014

For those Americans who figured the fighting in Ukraine never mattered to us, think again. Putin has treated us like fools ever since he took over in Russia. This spring he stole Crimea, an area as big as New York and Pennsylvania. He then moved Russian soldiers and KGB leaders into the eastern part of what’s left of Ukraine. The world stood by quietly while the Russians in eastern Ukraine shot down three airplanes in a week. Only when they shot down a fourth plane, a Boeing 777 with 298 people onboard, did anyone notice. Putin is the person responsible for killing those people, and he’s the only one who can end the war in Ukraine.

If you’re confused by the battle between Israel and Gaza, consider this comparison. Gaza is one-tenth the size of Rhode Island. Suppose Islamic terrorists took over one small corner of Rhode Island and started firing a few dozen rockets every day into Massachusetts. Would we complain if Boston decided to fight back, and maybe wipe out a few hundred terrorists? Would Secretary of State John Kerry rush to Martha’s Vineyard to insist on a cease fire?

Immigrants from Central America continue to pour across the Rio Grande. President Obama announced a proposal to spend almost $4 Billion to take care of ‘em. His announcement, translated into Spanish, means “Welcome to America, future citizens. I have set aside more than $50,000 for each child for food, clothing, medical care, and a hotel with a pool.” That’s not what he said, but it’s what they heard.

Here’s a suggestion: Any Congressman that votes in favor of the $4 Billion appropriation will get a proportional share of the immigrants dropped into his district. One huge group should be sent to Nancy Pelosi’s neighborhood in San Francisco.

With the recent outbreak of catastrophes, would you like advance notice of the next one? Well, here’s a surefire way to predict it: check the President’s schedule for speaking at Democratic fund raisers. The middle of this week, he will be in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, so be prepared!

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

    “Russia is a country that looks like it was invented for arguments’ sake.” Notes, undated.

  “It’s great to be friendly with a foreign nation, but it’s terribly expensive. If the worst comes to worst, and we do have to be friendly with any of ‘em, why, let’s pick out little ones that haven’t got the nerve to ask for much.” Saturday Evening Post, Feb. 27, 1932

  “A statesman is a man that can do what the politician would like to do but can’t, because he is afraid of not being elected.” DT #2472,  July 5, 1934

COLUMBUS: Those loud booms you heard this week were not just fireworks; the economy is also booming. Not extremely loud, but still better than the whimpers of the last few years.

Almost 300,000 people found jobs and unemployment is down near 6 percent. And the stock market hit 17,000 on the Dow Jones, up from 7000 in early 2009. If you happened to have a pile of cash five years ago that you converted to good stocks, you’ve got plenty of reasons to celebrate with fireworks.

But we’ve got over 90 million adults not working, and the only way the ones that are working can afford to support ‘em is to get wages a little higher.

The President made a speech about immigration. As usual he ignored my advice from last month. Instead of suggesting a halt in the flood of Central American children, he made it worse by encouraging them. I wish Gallop would take a worldwide poll asking, “Would you like to move to the USA and become an American citizen?” I bet the response would show that at least half a billion would jump at the chance. It is nice to be popular, but we don’t have room for ‘em. Who knows, maybe in 100 years we could handle 800 million living here, but not next year.

I was in San Diego last week. Lovely city. That’s probably where the extra half a billion would like to move to. Beautiful climate, except for one thing: lack of water. Back in the Midwest we sometimes complain about getting 40 or 50 inches of rain, but we’re eatin’ pretty good. In San Diego, you can’t grow much food on less than 10 inches. Flying back by way of Las Vegas, about all I could see was brown, bare ground. Hardly any green crops until Kansas. As I said one time, out West “water ain’t gold, it’s platinum and diamonds.”

The Supreme Court stirred up a hornet’s nest again, almost like 2012 when they declared that Obamacare was a tax, and therefore legal. Last week they ruled 9-0 that the Senate itself, not the President, has the exclusive right to decide if it is “in session.” Now, it’s understandable that when the President, or another alert observer, looks in on the old Senate chambers, the absence of any discernible movement on important bills could cause you to figure they are, in fact, comatose. But the old Justices told the President if he wants to appoint someone so poorly qualified he or she can’t get the support of even 50 semi-conscious Senators, he has to wait until the Senate admits it is in recess. Or a comparable declaration is made by the county coroner.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:
“The Supreme Court, they have been the talk of the town this week. They hadn’t agreed on anything unanimously in over eighty years. Even I’ve kidded them so much that I think they all got together and said, ‘Boys, we’ve got to agree on something.’ …
Well, those nine, very fine old gentlemen – they pondered, and they finally thought of something. They come to the conclusion that the (National Recovery Act) was 100 percent in disfavor with them, so they all agreed…
Now what was the effect? All the big strong Republican papers, why you would have thought that Armistice Day had been declared. Big business, they threw confetti, cut salaries, and had a big time. They all hollered, ‘At last we’re back to the Constitution.’…
Mr. Roosevelt come in office, and he saw, or he thought he saw, that there was a great many social injustices, you know, a lot of things that ain’t right. There was a lot of things that wasn’t hardly split up so that everyone had an even break. So he told Congress some of his ideas… But where Roosevelt made his mistake was in making these changes without reading the Constitution.” Radio, June 2, 1935