Month: February 2019

Can you believe it? North Korea Dictator Kim Jong Un is following Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’ Green New Deal plan. Instead of flying to his meeting with President Trump in Vietnam, he is on a train. May take 3 days, but he’s not burning jet fuel or leaving those disgusting “chemtrails” in the sky.

The Mueller report on Russian influence on our 2016 election is expected to come out in a couple of weeks. They have been investigating whether Putin helped elect Donald Trump almost since the day he walked down Pennsylvania Avenue as the new President. I have a suggestion. Regardless of whether Trump is guilty or not guilty, turn in a report on ONE PAGE.  They already spent over $30 million; don’t waste any more printing a report on 2000 pages.

If Trump conspired with Putin to have the Russians add a million votes in the essential Midwest states in return for a gift of a billion dollars’ worth of apartments from the Kushner Company, then it only takes one page to say that.

If Trump had absolutely no assistance from Putin or any other Russian in winning the 2016 election, then why use more than a page to say so.

The National debt hit $22 Trillion, and is increasing about a trillion every year. Some comedian in New York started a petition to sell the state of Montana to Canada for $1 Trillion, applied to the debt. So far he’s got 200,000 people to sign the petition, but only 97 from Montana. And none from Canada. I rather doubt Canada will come up with a Trillion, or even a down payment. However, if this idea works out to cover one year’s deficit, maybe next year we can peddle Maine to Iceland.

As I write this, the Academy Awards are on television. Will Rogers was the MC for the 6^th year of the awards, in 1934. He was never nominated for an Academy Award even though he was the top money-maker for the movies for a few years. He joked with those folks during the show, and tonight I agree with him on this comment, “I have never seen any of these pictures. They don’t look at mine and why should I go see theirs?”

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

[Concerning a proposal to annex Canada] “Canada is principally an Agricultural country and we raise more now than the farmers down home can sell for enough to put in the next year’s crop. About the only thing I can think of we could use it for would be a skating rink in the winter and we got such a poor class of Skaters that we couldn’t hardly afford to maintain it just for that. Unless we could trade in Wisconsin on it some way I can’t see any reason for annexing it.”  WA #201, Oct. 17, 1926

“A couple of weeks ago I had to cover pretty much the whole state of Montana and it’s some state, third in size. I found a fine flyer with his own plane and just kept him with me all week and we flew everywhere.” WA #227, Apr. 27, 1927

This is Presidents Day. We used to have Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday, but Congress decided to lump them and all the other Presidents into one holiday, and celebrate it on a Monday.

So today honors all 45 Presidents. I am concerned about some folks. When they find out this includes Donald Trump, why, they may get so upset they’ll refuse to buy a new mattress at half off.

Here are a few remarks by Will Rogers about our Presidents:

          “There wasn’t any Republicans in Washington’s day. No Republicans, no Boll Weevil, no income tax, no cover charge, no disarmament conference, no luncheon clubs, no stop lights, no static (radio), no head winds. My Lord, living in those days, who wouldn’t be great?”

“You know Lincoln’s famous remark about ‘God must have loved the common people, because he made so many of them?’ Well, you are not going to get people’s votes nowadays by calling ’em common. Lincoln might have said it, but I bet it was not until after he was elected.”

“Coolidge made less speeches and got more votes than any man that ever run.”

“I always did want to see [Herbert Hoover] elected.  I wanted to see how far a competent man could go in politics.  It has never been tried before.” 

          “(Franklin) Roosevelt wants recovery to start at the bottom. In other words, by a system of high taxes, he wants business to help the little fellow to get started and get some work, and then pay business back by buying things when he’s at work. Business says, ‘Let everybody alone. Let business alone.’”

Since Amazon was booted from a rundown area of New York City before they could put a shovel in the ground, I have two great locations for their consideration. One is in the middle of West Virginia and I will start by offering a couple hundred acres. Instead of tagging on to a big city where Amazon would be a bit player, I suggest they build their own city. Don’t laugh; Australia and Brazil both built new Capital cities, and Amazon has more cash than either of those governments. And look what Walt Disney did for Orlando and Sam Walton for Bentonville. They can call their new city “Amazonia.”

In West Virginia, the location would be among beautiful rolling hills, convenient to the towns of Weston, Buckhannon and Clarksburg, with I-79 running north-south, another 4-lane highway direct to Washington, DC (if it ever gets finished), dams for water supply and recreation, abundant natural gas and timber, and nearby colleges. And I’m sure WVU would build a new branch campus at Jackson’s Mill.

The second location is in Oklahoma, between Claremore and Oologah. (Tulsa is a suburb of both.)  I don’t have much land to offer personally (thanks to the Dawes Commission), but the local Congressman, state officials and the Cherokee Nation would help round up far more than you could ever get in DC or NYC. The land is less hilly than West Virginia. This site has a lake, Interstate highway, natural gas, and railroads going in every direction. And casinos! We have coal, but if you prefer electricity from a renewable source, you’ve probably heard that our wind comes sweepin’down the plain. Constantly.

So, Jeff Bezos, it’s your choice. The wide open spaces of West Virginia or Oklahoma. You can’t seriously consider Al Capone’s Chicago, can you? And, yes, Nashville is nice, but you need to know that most of the best country singers and guitar pickers originated in Oklahoma. And plenty are from West Virginia.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:

“Claremore, Oklahoma, is a town in physical size, but a city at heart. It’s the home of Radium water, where you can take those wonderful baths that cure you of practically everything; everything but being a Democrat.” WA #153, Nov. 15, 1925

Who is the head of the Democrat Party? Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the obvious answer. She wields the sledgehammer when it comes to dealing with the President. When she says “no money for an immoral wall” she controls the budget and Trump cannot overrule her.

On the other hand, the Democrat in charge of the 2020 campaign for President is not Nancy Pelosi. It’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She got elected to Congress in November, but a year ago no one knew her except folks who frequented a bar in the Bronx where she was a bar tender. So what makes her powerful?

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez published a 16-page “Green New Deal” plan, sometimes called “Green Dream” or “Green Nightmare.” Her detailed plan instantly got national publicity. News about it has spread so rapidly that the first question every Democrat candidate for President has to answer is, “Do you support the Green New Deal?” Whether they say, Yes or No, it’s wrong. (My advice to the dozens planning to jump into the race is to wait six months until these early candidates knock each other out.)

She and Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Markey  have achieved such a tremendous following that President Trump had to say something in his State of the Union speech that has never been uttered before by any of our previous 44 Presidents: “We will never become a Socialist nation.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the originator of the real “New Deal” was called a socialist by a lot of Republicans, but he never felt compelled to make such a bold statement. Neither Huey Long, Senator from Louisiana, with his “Share the Wealth” plan, nor Upton Sinclair in California with his “Eliminate Poverty in California” (EPIC) plan ever reached the point where every candidate for high office had to say whether he was for it or against it.

This Green New Deal plan was clearly written by a person who never traveled more than a few miles from her home in the Bronx, and that was by bicycle or subway. She is oblivious to America west of the Hudson River. The only book on Economics she learned from was by Karl Marx.

She never milked a cow, but blames them for climate change. She expects everyone to get free or low cost food, but expects farmers to grow crops with horsepower. Yes, horses, because diesel tractors will be forbidden. Everyone unable or unwilling to work will receive a minimum wage. Our minimum wage has always been intended as a starting wage. Most people, including teenagers working at McDonalds, soon get promoted to a better job. My guess is that those “unwilling to work” will get so good at it, they will demand to move up from $15/hour to at least $20. And may demand a shorter “not have to work week.” High school students will be signing up for their free college education, majoring in a degree that will qualify them for a career in “unwilling to work.” (Surprisingly, we have several of those degrees today.)

By the way,  if most farmers decide they are “unwilling to work” because they can only use a horse or  mule, a hoe, shovel and scythe to grow non-GMO, organic crops you had better prepare to go on a Venezuela diet.

The New Deal in the 1930s was instituted to put men to work when 25 percent were unemployed. With the WPA and CCC,  men and boys cut trails, paved roads, built schools and other buildings (many still stand), and cleared land. A lot of work was done by hand, but they used every bit of technology and powered equipment they could get their hands on or coble together. They got 3 meals a day, a place to sleep, and a little money to send home to the family.

Today we’re got 4 percent unemployed, and this Green New Deal is designed to take jobs away from millions. Sure, for every thousand working in the coal, oil and gas industries, it will take more than 10,000 in the green energy business to produce the same energy. So who can afford this “free” energy? I guess we would sit at home in the dark, cold and hungry.

FDR would not want any connection to this AOC plan. None at all.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“There’s no income tax in Russia, but there’s no income.” Radio, Apr. 7, 1935

 “When you say ‘a government can’t run a business,’ you mean our government can’t run it.”  DT #2380, March 20, 1934

“Well, this ‘soak the rich’ program is about all you hear now and you can tell just to a dollar how much a man has got by how sore he is.” DT #2771, June 23, 1935

The Democrat Party is attracting candidates for President faster than Tom Brady collects Super Bowl rings. He got another one as the New England Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams 13-3.

Back to the proliferation of candidates. I often said “I’m not a member of any organized political party… I’m a Democrat.” And any organization, in order to survive, needs a leader with common sense.  There’s a bunch of wise old Democrat leaders in Washington but they have a problem: they’re old!

So along comes this new, young firebrand Congresswoman from the Bronx, with no credentials and no leadership experience, who has assumed the mantle of the Democrat Party. To her credit she’s pulling the Democrat wagon down the road at a good clip. But she’s veering so far to the left the wagon load of candidates she’s hauling will end up in the ditch. She’s too young to run in 2020 and she has not publicly endorsed anyone. But I can definitely tell you who her favorite is: Nicolas Maduro.

Howard Schultz, owner of Starbucks, says he is running in 2020. He might end up a good President. Anyone who can convince millions of Americans to buy coffee every morning for three times what it’s worth would stand a good chance of persuading us to contribute enough extra taxes to balance the budget. He knows how to cut costs, too. Half of the coffee drinks he sells are cold; he doesn’t even pay to heat ‘em up.

Michael Bloomberg, another billionaire businessman who was a Democrat mayor of New York, says he may run. Both of these men are abandoning the Democrat Party, figuring no old white male has a chance at the nomination, unless maybe it’s Joe Biden.

I heard another potential Democratic candidate for President say he is for “Women’s Health.” Well, I hope so. How could anyone be against females being healthy?

But “women’s health” seems to be a code term for “pro-abortion.” And for a few extreme politicians, including the governor of Virginia, it even includes “infanticide.” Oddly, that governor is in more trouble for a photo of him in blackface 35 years ago at a Halloween party than for aborting live babies. Both are bad. But which does the most harm?  What about today when a white person, or black, puts on a feathered headdress and stomps around like a wild Indian?

The debate over a physical barrier along parts of the Mexican border is approaching another deadline. Speaker Pelosi already called any kind of wall “immoral” and added that this particular wall has a terrible cost/benefit ratio. This shocked most of her fellow Congressmen; since they’ve been in Congress, they never heard of a cost/benefit ratio having any consideration in a spending bill.

I’m not an economist, but which of these choices would likely cost less to keep thousands of immigrants from crossing our border:  500 miles of a 30-foot steel-slat fence, or paying border agents to stand shoulder to shoulder, 24/7, along that same 500 miles? Of course technology, such as drones, can help, but how does a drone keep an immigrant from touching our soil? And the fence can last 50 years. How much would a million extra border guards cost in 50 years?

Now here’s an idea with a great cost/benefit ratio for Speaker Pelosi: pass a law saying that just because a foreigner gets one foot on American soil he or she has no right to stay without our permission. And while you’re at it, prohibit lottery immigration and letting immigrants who came illegally, but are now legal, from bringing in all their relatives. Great benefit, no cost.

We’re going to hear the State of the Union, finally, tomorrow night (Feb. 5). President Trump says he will cover just five points, which is far better than 30 or 40 that some previous presidents have crammed into an hour talk. The Democrat response has already been written and can be summarized in six words: “Whatever Trump is for, we’re against.”

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“The one way to detect a feeble-minded man is to get one arguing on economics.” DT #2239, Oct. 6, 1933

“One of the few stipulated duties of the President is that every once in a while he delivers a message to Congress to tell them the Condition of the Country. This message, as I say, is to Congress, the rest of the country know the condition of the country, for they live in it and are a part of it. But the Senators and Congress men being in Washington all the time have no idea what is going on in America. So the President has to tell ’em.” WA #371, Feb. 2, 1930