Author: Randall Reeder

“All I know is what I read in the newspaper” is apparently the favorite quote of President Obama. Who knew?  According to a report on television there are 5 episodes or potential scandals where the president or his spokesman has said, essentially, “I didn’t know about this until I read it in the newspaper.”
Seriously, can you imagine the president of any company or big organization who tells everyone under him, “I don’t want to hear any bad news or controversies. Only tell me the good stuff.”
A friend who used to run a major Ohio insurance company gave me his opinion on the President’s leadership: “If I told my Board of Directors that I learned about a problem in the media, they would have shown me the door. Immediately!” Do you know any CEO who would disagree?
With all the problems in the VA, the House passed a bill to allow the President to fire anybody who lied about appointments denied to sick veterans. Does that surprise you? I mean does it surprise you that the President could not already fire these incompetent staff people? But I guess he can’t. Something in union rules prevents firing ‘em unless Congress okays it. So, next the bill had to pass the Senate before the Memorial Day break. Naturally Harry Reid scheduled a vote… on the Redskins. Yes, the most critical issue in Washington for 50 Senators is the name of a football team.
If they want to make some Indians happy, let ‘em vote on something they have control over: wipe Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill. Jackson is the scoundrel who forced the Cherokees, Seminoles and others off their land in our southeastern states and made ‘em walk to Oklahoma.
Putin outsmarted us again. Just when we thought Europe would reduce imports of Russian gas, and pinch him financially, Putin turns east and sells the gas to China for $400 Billion. And worse, we’ll give China the dollars to pay him. See, our trade deficit with China is way more than what the Russian gas will cost them. So how will this fossil fuel get transported across the border to Beijing  and other Chinese cities? Pipelines. Imagine that.
Ukraine elected a new President, Petro Poroshenko, who says he wants to reunite the country. And he will if he can kick out the Russian troublemakers that Putin sneaked into the eastern region. But never count out Putin; he’s got China with him now. On the other hand, when it comes to world politics, it’s hard to tell who is with us now.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:
“A sure thing about our Memorial days is as fast as the ranks from one war thin out, the ranks from another take their place. Prominent men run out of Decoration Day speeches, but the world never runs out of wars.” DT #888, May 31, 1929

This economic recovery is still dragging along. According to government reports, the economy grew by 0.1 percent during the winter. When the President was asked about the flat-lined growth, he blamed the poor performance on really cold weather. In other words: global cooling.

Spring has arrived, but the economic numbers for April were still puzzling. New jobs created: 300,000. Workers who stopped working, or stopped looking for work: 800,000. Unemployment: 6.3%, down by 0.4.

Even with half a million fewer people working, the President seemed excited because the unemployment percentage went down. How can that be good news?  Has anyone calculated how many unemployed workers he has convince to stop looking for work in order for unemployment to drop to 0.0%? We already have too many folks who feel better off financially sitting on the couch.

We have all heard Congressmen and Senators, Democrats and Republicans, say the most important thing to work on is job growth. Not healthcare. Not Benghazi. Not foreign affairs. Not even Lewinski-Clinton affairs. Jobs!

Speaking of jobs, do you remember “Sequestration?”  The reduction in federal spending last year was predicted to cut government services drastically and eliminate jobs for hundreds of thousands of federal employees. Well, the government has spent less, but the leaders of the various agencies sharpened their pencils and figured new (old) ways to save a few dollars. How many thousands of employees did they cut? One. Not one thousand, ONE.

How would you like to be that one? You have to go home and admit to the wife, “With over 2 million employees, I’m the only one they could do without.”

Only one? Maybe a few IRS folks should have gotten pink slips instead of bonuses. And I think we could all identify a few pencil-pushers at certain VA Hospitals that ought to be shoved out the door.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:
“There is a bare possibility that we might want to use these (veterans) again. Anyway, it looks like mighty good insurance to keep them in a good humor.” WA #239, July 24, 1927
  “Each party has a plan for relieving the unemployed. They have been unemployed for three years, and nobody paid any attention to ‘em, but now both parties have discovered that while they are not working, there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent them from voting.” DT #1831, June 6, 1932

Last week, Vladimir Putin had Russian fighter jets fly over eastern Ukraine in a show of force. President Obama responded defiantly, “We’ll continue to keep some arrows in our quiver.” Arrows? Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a fair fight.

Do you know what a rich guy can buy with $100 million? Well, he might buy half a hockey team. Or get his name put on a football stadium or a new medical center. But there’s a fellow in California that decided to invest $100 million, not to buy or build something, but rather to keep other men from building something. Namely the Keystone XL pipeline. Yes, one rich man, and a handful of environmentalists, convinced President Obama to block construction of that oil pipeline for at least another year.

Here’s a question we should all be asking: after Canada decides to sell their oil to China instead of us, will the same guy and his friends demand that the 3 million miles of existing gas and oil pipelines be plugged? After all, if a new pipeline is unsafe, how could we trust old ones?

What has happened to common sense? This is a time when we should be preparing to sell abundant North American gas and oil to Europe, including Ukraine. We already sell food to most of Europe, why not fuel. If Europe stops buying oil and gas from Russia, how long can Putin last with no exports except caviar and vodka?

Northwestern football players voted last week on whether to join a union. The votes have not been counted, but I’m guessing they voted against. These players are smart, no doubt about it. To get into Northwestern they’ve got to be among the smartest players in the country. But are they the best players? No way. Northwestern is usually close the bottom of the Big Ten, often finishing eleventh. (Figure that one out.) And while players on the top teams in the country, like Alabama and Michigan State, receive scholarships worth $25,000 to $35,000 a year, scholarships at Northwestern are worth $75,000. So, mediocre players are receiving a college education worth two or three times what superior players are receiving at other schools.

If it turns out that the players are unionized employees, Northwestern might even drop football. These players are still smart enough to graduate from Northwestern, but they would have to pay the $75,000 a year themselves. How about playing football for one of those other teams? Most of them aren’t good enough to even ride the bench for top teams.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:
“After a football game in Lima, Peru, five were killed… Up here we don’t kill our football players. We make coaches out of the smartest ones and send the others to the Legislature.” DT #1389, Jan. 5, 1931

Secretary Sebelius got the healthcare website fixed (finally), then resigned. She was criticized mercilessly when the website was not ready to handle thousands of applicants on October 1. After all, she had since March 2010 to get it designed and running.
Well, not really. Yes, the bill was signed four years ago, but President Obama did not want any rules determined until after the November 2012 election. Computer geeks can build a major website in a few months, but giving them three years would have made it a snap.
The Senate will interview the new nominee. Many questions will be asked: Of the 7.5 million who signed on to healthcare, how many have paid for their insurance? How many of them were previously uninsured? How many of the 7.5 million lost their insurance because of Obamacare?
Who will ask these questions? The nominee, Sylvia Burwell. You better believe she is smart. She won’t accept the job without knowing the starting point. Of course, Senators will ask the same questions, but just for publicity purposes.
I’ve been watching on TV about the rancher in Nevada who refused to pay a fee to the government so his cattle can graze on federal land. In fact he hasn’t paid in twenty years. Ranchers out West have been paying these fees for decades and if fat cattle bring a good price, it’s not a bad deal. Currently they pay about $20 to graze a steer all year.
Have you seen that dry, desolate land in Nevada? I have less sympathy for the rancher than I do the cattle. Asking a cow to walk two miles to find a blade of grass is downright cruelty to animals.
The real argument out West is, why does the government own so much land? In Nevada it’s 85%.  The feds ought to sell half to ranchers or anyone else that wants a patch of it. Keep just enough land for military bases, parks and turtles. It won’t bring much, but might reduce the deficit a smidgen.
I finished my income tax return. I guess I should be proud because, based on news reports, I’m paying the same percentage as Warren Buffett. My return went to the IRS office in Cincinnati. It should be accepted; Lois Lerner retired. And I was careful to claim no deductions for any food items, especially tea.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers: (on taxes)
“The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.” WA #17, April 8, 1923 (also WA #99, Nov. 2, 1924)
 “The crime of taxation is not in the taking it, it’s in the way that it’s spent.” DT #1764, March 20, 1932
 “Our financial ills will never be settled till you fix it so every man will pay an income tax on what he earns, be it a farm, grocery store or municipal or government bonds.” DT #2068 March 21, 1933
 “It costs ten times more to govern us than it used to, and we are not governed one-tenth as good.” DT #1770, March 27, 1932
  “Finding things to tax is becoming quite a problem. You see when taxes first started, (who started ’em anyhow?) Noah must have taken into the ark two taxes, one male and one female, and did they multiply bountifully! Next to guinea pigs, taxes must have been the most prolific of animals.” WA #594, May 13, 1934
 “Say did you read in the papers about a bunch of Women up in British Columbia as a protest against high taxes, sit out in the open naked, and they wouldent put their clothes on? The authorities finally turned a Sprayer that you use on trees, on ’em. That may lead into quite a thing. Woman comes into the tax office nude, saying I won’t pay. Well they can’t search her and get anything. It sounds great. How far is it to British Columbia?” WA #432, April 5, 1931
 “I see by the papers that they are going to do away with all the nuisance taxes. That means that a man can get a marriage license for nothing.” WA #59, Jan. 27, 1924

Joni Ernst is one of five Republican candidates for Senate in Iowa hoping to fill Tom Harkin’s seat. She has a campaign ad that claims she will “cut pork.” That’s not unusual; most Republican candidates say they want to reduce wasteful spending. But she shows in her opening line she is experienced at cutting pork, “I grew up castrating hogs.”

Everyone in Iowa knows exactly what she’s talking about. But TV commentators back East were unaware that castration is a common procedure for the vast majority of baby pigs of the male persuasion. Same for calves and lambs. These TV folks appear shocked that castration could be done by a girl.

We have a few farmers and ranchers in Congress and we would be better off with more of ‘em. And less Ivy League lawyers. You might get a great education at Harvard, but they don’t offer even a single class in how to cut pork.

My cousin, at age five, helped Granddad deliver lambs. If the ewe was having difficulty, she could reach her little hand and arm in there and pull out the baby lamb. And do it again for twins. Granddad appreciated the helping hand (and so did the mama sheep). But Granddad never let on to Grandma about this contribution to her early childhood education.

I read that the U.S. State Department spent $6 Billion that it has no idea where it went. The money just vanished over the last 5 or 6 years. If Mrs. Ernst gets in there, that might be a good place to start, uh, castrating.

(Warning: my connection to Ohio State is showing in this joke.) President Obama gave a speech to University of Michigan students. He told them he was for raising the minimum wage and they applauded wildly. I guess they look forward to a career flipping burgers.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:
“They have a wonderful class of students (at the Agriculture College at Ames, Iowa). They have a course called Animal Husbandry. I asked a boy what it was and he told me. Here I had followed Cows all my life and didn’t know what it was.” WA #172, March 28, 1926

The big news this week is health care. The Affordable Care Act was passed four years ago and March 31 is the date for everybody to be signed up. (Unless you’ve got a darned good excuse.) Republicans and Democrats, and even the Supreme Court, have been arguing over it ever since the President signed it. You would be surprised how many of them hope that those who needed health care in 2010 will have conveniently died in the mean time.

The whole aim was to get health care for 30 million uninsured. So how are we doin’? Nobody knows for sure. One side says, “We’ve signed up 6.5 million people.”
The other side complains, “But you won’t tell us how many have actually paid. And besides, 5 million lost their insurance because of Obamacare.”
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi insists, “Use the correct name: it’s the Affordable Care Act. Affordable, Affordable, Affordable, Affordable.”
Republicans: “If it’s so affordable why do we still have 30 million uninsured.”
Democrats: “No one can be refused insurance because of pre-existing conditions.”
Republicans: “But no one is refused hospital care today.”
Democrats: “Young people can stay on their parents’ insurance until they reach 26.”
Republicans: “But you need more young folks to pay up and subsidize the old folks.”

Back and forth, back and forth. This won’t be settled for years. And if it ever does look like they are reaching agreement, they’ll come up with some other controversy to battle over.

Putin has Europe in a dither over Ukraine. Here’s a question for you: Would Russia be threatening Ukraine if Ukraine had nuclear weapons?  They used to have ‘em. But twenty years ago Ukraine made a deal: we’ll give up our nuclear weapons in return for protection from Russia. And who do you suppose agreed to provide that protection? The United States.

If you’re shocked the US government would ever renege on a deal or a treaty, you’re probably not a Cherokee or Navajo or any other Indian who remembers the 1800s.

President Obama said Russia is only a “regional power.” Many of our friends around the world are worried that he wants us to be only a “regional power.”

Europe needs natural gas and oil to replace what they import from Russia, and Ukraine needs military assistance. So what do we offer? Solar panels for Europe, and food stamps for Ukraine soldiers.

Winter is still with us. March came in like a Lion, and it’s leaving like a… Lion. Did the groundhog see his shadow on the 2nd of March? It’s tough enough to have to fill out income tax forms by April 15 without the lingering threat of more snow and ice.

College basketball is winding down.  Everybody expected Florida to be in the Final Four. But whoever thought Connecticut, Wisconsin and Kentucky would be in there with ‘em. When Mercer knocked out Duke and Dayton beat Ohio State that should have been a hint that any one of about 30 teams had a shot at the championship.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:
“The smartest statesmen are the worst fooled when anything comes up right quick. I think a country is harder to understand than a woman.” WA #418, Dec. 28, 1930

Every year at this time I take a trip to Ireland. No, not the one next door to England. This one is in West Virginia. For more than 30 years the little community has been holding an Irish Spring Festival. Naturally, it’s centered around St. Patrick’s Day, and it ends officially the first day of spring.

Every year they elect a King and Queen of the Festival. And here’s the way they do it: every vote costs a penny. It ain’t much different than the way we hold our Presidential elections because the one with the most money raised nearly always wins. But in this Ireland election, it’s absolute. No arguments over photo ids or registration requirements or hanging chads. If you’ve got a penny to spare, your vote counts. And if you want to invest a million dollars to support a candidate, no problem. They use the money to fund various community programs and a million dollars would probably fund ‘em for the next hundred years.

The oldest royalty ever elected in Ireland was a 99-year old King. This year they broke that record; the Queen is 102.  Nobody ever asked the age of the queens before, but this one not only admitted to being 102, she’s quite proud of it. They asked her what her goal as Queen is and she said, “To be here to crown the next one.” I bet she makes it.

Over in Ukraine, they held an election today in Crimea. They elected a new King named Vladimir. Remarkably, with only a couple of weeks to campaign and one day to vote, somehow they got 85 percent of the registered voters out to vote. (Here in Ohio they campaign for two years, give ‘em thirty days to vote, and still only get half of ‘em to the polls.)

After the election, President Obama called Vladimir Putin. As you know, the US refuses to recognize that election. It was illegal, the same as if northern Colorado voted to secede and join Wyoming. At first our President scolded Putin for conducting such an election. Then he mellowed and asked, “How did you get 95 percent of the people to vote for you?”  Putin said, “Three things. First, armed guards at every polling place to ‘protect’ the voters. Second, I bussed in 50,000 Russian ‘observers.’ And third is a trick I learned from America: no photo IDs.”

Of course, our President is as perplexed by Putin as the rest of us. Borders in Europe have been in constant turmoil for a thousand years. But it is clear that Putin is determined to resurrect the old Soviet Union borders as he remembers them before Reagan. In fact he wants to go back even farther in time. But he was a bit overconfident when he offered to write President Obama a check for $7,200,000. Our President asked, “What for?” Putin said, “Alaska.”

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“We used to have a rule that our government wouldn’t recognize any new government that had come into power by force and revolution. Then, somebody that had accidentally read our history happened to ask, ‘Well, how did our government come into power?’ So now we recognize ‘em no matter who they shot to get in… If Russia will just shave, and buy some tractors, we will recognize them.” DT #1296, Sept. 19, 1930

 “We think (the Russians) are running their country cockeyed, and I guess it’s mutual.” WA #447, July 19, 1931

California got some rain and snow, but not enough to make a dent in their drought. Even if it’s only a drop in the bucket, relief you get from the sky beats any you get from Washington.

Putin invaded the Crimea part of Ukraine. His soldiers just rolled in and took over and there don’t seem to be a thing the United States or Europe can do to stop him. England is pondering an idea of digging up Neville Chamberlain and sending him to Moscow to negotiate.

Putin says he invaded to help protect Russian-speaking folks from Ukrainian-speaking natives. Well, I’ve been told there’s so little difference between those two languages they all understand each other. But they don’t understand Putin, and why he feels compelled to jump ‘em.

Putin’s biography shows he headed up the KGB and was a Communist. Reagan convinced Gorbachev to “Tear down this wall,” and Putin never forgave him. Russia stretches across 8 time zones, from Alaska to Finland and Turkey, but Putin dreams of restoring the old USSR boundaries.

Don’t blame President Obama for not knowing exactly what to do. President Bush sure goofed when he looked Putin in the eye and found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy. In 1930, “I” wrote, “If I wanted to start an insane asylum that would be 100 percent cuckoo, I would just admit applicants that thought they knew something about Russia.”  In 1934, “I” checked out Ukraine, stopping at Odessa on the Black Sea, “Russia and Turkey have been fighting over this for a thousand years.” (You probably noticed that Turkey dropped out of the fight years ago. But not Russia.)

In all the debate on TV about Ukraine, I still have not heard a soul talk about how valuable their soil is. I was in Peoria, Illinois, on Friday speaking to 350 soybean farmers and, brother, those farmers have soil that’s just as good as Ukraine and they appreciate what they have. Illinois produced more soybeans last year than anybody, even Iowa. They agreed that it would not be good for Putin to control 40 percent of the best land in the world when we only have 20 percent.

Putin is using his oil and gas as leverage over Europe. With oil and gas, we can drill down deeper and find more of it. But when it comes to the best soil, what you see is it. There ain’t no more to be found.

I told those Illinois soybean growers I was glad they met in Peoria, and not Chicago. Illinois may be the Land of Lincoln, but Chicago is owned by Al Capone. In Peoria, if someone happens to start shooting, you can duck behind a CAT.

(Note: if you want to watch a classic Will Rogers movie, one of his best, Judge Priest, is on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCi2Pc5QUgg. If you prefer to watch a DVD, it and several other movies are available at: WillRogers.com.)

The people of Ukraine rose up and disposed of a Communist-leaning president. Several dozen have been killed and the battle is not over yet.

I heard a news commentator speculate that Ukraine might split in half, with the eastern part joining with Russia. Not a chance. That will never happen. Ukrainians remember what it’s like to be under the thumb of Russia. Millions were starved to death in 1932-33 when Stalin stole their crops and livestock.

Last June I spent a week in eastern Ukraine, at a big farm operation called Agro-Soyuz near the city of Dnepropetrovsk. Ukraine is blessed, especially the eastern part, with rich soil. If you consider only the absolute best farmland in the world, like what we have in Iowa and Illinois, Ukraine has almost 20% of it. We have a little over 20%, and Russia has 20%. The rest is scattered around the world.

Here’s the real reason Putin wants to get his hands on Ukraine: farm land. Old folks will remember learning in school that “The Ukraine is the Breadbasket of the USSR.” Now it’s the “Breadbasket of Europe” and Europe wants to keep it that way.

Can you imagine Putin with 40% of the world’s best farmland? He already provides Europe most of their natural gas, which he could cut off on a whim. By controlling a vast amount of food production, he could blackmail Europe by threatening to starve million of ‘em like Stalin.

In eastern Ukraine they only get about 20 inches of rain but they have learned how to grow good crops with limited water.

California will have to learn how to farm with less water. The state is drought-stricken. President Obama was in Fresno two weeks ago looking over the dry farmland. He promised to send some money, but did not promise any rain. (After the President left Fresno’s parched farmland he went golfing. The greens on that golf course are still green. Check back in August to see if any California golf courses have dried up like the tomato fields.)

Yesterday a federal agency announced it is backing the President’s promise: farmers will get no water from federal dams. Zero. Farmers that depend on the San Joaquin watershed for irrigation will have to scrounge water from wherever they can find it. And pray for rain.

People who live in the cities will have to get by on half as much water as usual. They may shower and flush less often, but that hardly compares to having no crop at all.

You may say, “this is California’s problem, not ours.”  Yes, except for one small detail: almost one-third of all our fruits and vegetables are grown in California.

 Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

    “They have been hunting water in the West much longer than they have gold and buffalos. If a wonderful spring come out of a mountain side, men left gold, silver and copper mines to come and grab that spring. Water ain’t gold in the West, water is diamonds and platinum.”  WA #562, Oct. 1, 1933

The big story after the Super Bowl was not Russell Wilson or Richard Sherman. It was Joe Namath’s coat. It’s a fancy, full-length contraption made of coyote fur. Naturally, PETA was outraged.  But those coats are flying off the rack, creating a huge demand for coyote hides. Except for the store owner, nobody is happier than our nation’s sheep herders.

Finally, we have a Farm Bill. Almost three years in the making, a thousand pages, and an expected cost of $100,000,000,000 a year. That sounds like a lot of money to divide among our farmers, but you folks know the truth: almost 80% is for food stamps.

You have heard complaints that the amount for food assistance has been “cut.” Well, “cut” is a peculiar word. In Washington it means “the enormous increase in federal spending is a little less than what we wanted.” Actually, the money for food stamps next year, $80 Billion, is double what it was five years ago. Anywhere west of the Potomac, that is not a cut.

President Obama said last week, “We have not massively expanded the Welfare state.” If adding 20 million on food stamps is not enough to mean ‘massively expanded,’ then what is.

I’m in favor of feeding the poor and hungry. But the President and Congress should focus on letting people find jobs, go to work, so they don’t need food stamps.

While we need to get more people working, a new report from Washington says a lot of people will be working less as the Affordable Care Act kicks in. One spokesman said, “Instead of working 40 to 60 hours a week, they can cut back to 30 to 35 hours because they don’t have to worry about paying for their healthcare.”

Now that’s a head scratcher. If working less is such a great idea, why don’t we all do it. Why should you work sixty hours a week if others are going to spend more time on the couch, relaxing and writing poetry, because their health insurance is being paid for with your taxes. What happens if the whole country decides to cut back to 30 hours?

Do you remember what Nancy Pelosi suggested while she was Speaker of the House?  “People will be free to work less, quit their job, become an artist or a musician, whatever they love to do.” Fortunately, you can count on farmers not quitting after they put in their 30 hours, except maybe a few backyard chicken raisers in San Francisco. As Paul Harvey said in 1978, “during planting time and harvest season, [a farmer] will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then painin’ from ‘tractor back,’ put in another seventy-two hours. So God made a farmer.”

Farmers are going to keep at it until the work is done, regardless of Obamacare or a “Free Food” bill with a few table scraps in it for farmers.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“Congress will be in session again helping the farmer, so if you have a farm don’t sell it, for there is no telling what a farm will be worth when we find the amount of relief they are to get.” WA #330, Apr. 21, 1929

“Never in the history of the world was such a gigantic piece of legislation ever passed. It gives relief to the farmer in so many complicated ways… Just trying to study it out will keep him so busy he will forget he ever wanted relief.” WA #542, May 14, 1933

 “There’s not really but one problem before the whole country at this time… At least 7,000,000 people are out of work.” Radio, Oct 18, 1931