Trump Supporters

As I've mentioned before, I spent just about my entire life espousing both views that were conservative and were more liberal at the time, but would be considered conservative extremism by today's standards.  I called myself a Democrat growing up (Wisconsin doesn't require you to register for the party you intend to vote for), but I began openly calling myself a Conservative only in 2009, as I outlined in an earlier article.  I am also a writer, and I share my beliefs on Social Media.  It's no surprise that I've taken much more than my share of abuse online over the last 8 years.  None of this is surprising.  What has surprised me is this past year.  I expected the usual hatred from Obama holdovers, Union Republican Haters, and the mainstreamed supply of Bernie Socialists who suddenly found themselves out of power, and I get that here and there.  Shockingly though, both on and offline over the last year, I find myself getting screamed at and cursed out by Trump voters than Berniecrats.  

Donald Trump held a lot of appeal for a lot of people in a lot of different ways.  One of the first promises made was that he was going to repeal the ACA, which rang loudly with a lot of business owners and employees alike.  His big business background made a lot of small-business owners confident that a business-friendly administration would relax some of the regulations that were making it hard to survive and hire.  Down-the-ticket Republicans and people who were vehemently against Hillary Clinton respected the R next to Trump's name.  But Trump was something of a unique enigma that made his message ring true in the middle American States that carried him to victory.

When I get into a social media exchange with someone who doesn't particularly agree with me, I always try to retain the moral high ground.  The most severe name I call someone is "snowflake" (even though that name has really lost it's appeal.  It got old). I try to use generally accepted names like liberal and progressive, rather than slurs like libtard.  "Berniecrat" feels like a neutral term to me, as it identifies an opponent as an ideological supporter of Senator Sanders's message without using a disparaging supplement.  I go high because the people that I engage with go low, and have for as long as I've been paying attention.  One of the draws to the other side was the fact that the party I left was so well-known for striking below the belt, and I wanted to have more intellectual exchanges of ideas without hurling insults at each other.  For the most part, that was the general attitude of almost all conservative politicians, and probably about half of the conservative online supporters.  No matter where you go, you're going to get bullies and name-callers, but the people to the right seemed to more often be willing to ask a question rather than throw a slur.  More importantly, our elected representatives tended to stick to the high ground at a more common rate than their online supporters.  Many Republican voters would make sure the more crass politicians never made it past the primaries.  Donald Trump came along, though, and changed all of that.  A lot of people felt it would be easy to go low against Trump.  With an R next to his name, it was assumed that there would be a standard that he would be held to lest there be no votes flowing in for him.  And there was plenty to go low with against him.  But Trump was willing, and even eager to go low back at anyone who brought a blow against him. 

Trump's willingness to fight back seemed to put a change in the political landscape.  It's difficult to pinpoint what changed, whether it was the people or the politician.  I've discussed at length in a couple of previous articles that Mr. Trump is a lifelong big government classic Democrat.  With the Socialist takeover of the Democrat Party, Trump's Liberal roots, along with the message of bringing jobs out of foreign countries stateside again, there is likely a large number of people in the Union wing of the Left that has jumped ship to follow The Donald. Since many of them were conditioned to be outspoken against any opposition who would seek to rob them of their jobs.  Then there's the other faction.  As I mentioned, there are bullies everywhere, no matter what crowd  you are in.  Conservative circles have always had a minority of people willing to go low against liberal combatants.  They offered themselves up in place of their elected officials who wouldn't dish out the same verbal blows for moral reason.  The rest of us have spent years trying to suppress them.  While their views are often in line with our own, the delivery is at a level which we are not willing to engage at.  But like it or not, we elected one of them, and they feel empowered by it.  

So what are we running into by emboldening some of these people?  At the mildest, comment threads have become...well, let's say more interesting.  A new wave of more conservative keyboard warriors have been guarding the social media comment feeds and the feeds of every Fox News online article looking for a fight.  That is a fight that Leftist and Socialist keyboard warriors are very willing to give them.  They are not as prevalent in the feeds of more leftist sources, but a liberal use of blocking/reporting generally accounts for that.  Conservative outlets tend not to block as often, as most of us are willing to at least hear the other side out.  Also, the people reviewing the report generally share the ideology of the leftists assaulting conservative comment feeds, so reporting often gets a reply that boils down to "I didn't see anything wrong."  

On a more severe level, Conservatives on social media have taken to some of the tactics of the left.  I've seen physical threats coming from our more extreme friends wide out in the open on comment threads.  More disturbingly is the doxxing.  For the last 8 years, the progressives on the internet have been posting the home, work, and contact information for anyone that dares to disagree with them on the internet.  The end result usually comes with a wave of protesters calling the person, or his work, or his mortgage company, or a host of other aspects of the victims life, generally resulting in loss of job or other primary aspects of a person's life.  Over the last year, I've run across three instances of someone on the right doing it to someone on the left.  The last time I saw it, I actually called the poster out.  It's not right to dox people.  When I brought that up, a left wing commenter called me a cuckservative and explained that the right never gets anything done because we are unwilling to get our hands dirty.  

That leads me to the final change in the new right.  In November, the majority of people on varying levels of conservatism and centrism banded together and united behind an outsider in order to remove a dynasty of socialism from the executive branch of the federal government.  Some of us did so begrudgingly, but many of us did so with a proud excitement.  However, now that Trump is in office with almost an entire year behind him, the discussion has changed.  When our President does or says something good, I praise him.  When he does or says something stupid, I vocally accost him.  I have no desire to fall into the same pattern of idol worship that the followers of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders have formed within their camps.  That thought is not universal among conservatives, though.  When I vocally oppose anything the President does, I generally get comments like "You're just pretending to be conservative" or "RINO".  The same goes for anything else that goes against their belief system.  To cite my article on PragerU, my support for Google as the private company that it is rather than the Title 2 utility that Prager wants it to be was met with great hostility.  "I too pretend to be a conservative when it suits me..." was the scathing comment that I was left on Instagram that inspired that whole article.  It does seem that if you're not with them 100%, you're against them.  It's an ideology that frightens me deeply to the core, because it's the ideology that the left espoused under the Obama administration.  It's what the Berniecrats would have pushed on all of us if he came to power.  While it's fictional, the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi ring loudly in these exchanges.  "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."  In real life, as well as in a galaxy far far away, an all-or-nothing ideology is a path to dark things.  

Do you find yourself regularly accosted online by one side, the other, or both? Where do you stand on ideology?   I always welcome comments and discussion both here and over on Twitter.  My handle is @edsblogtw1tter if you want to follow me to comment or read previous articles from my feed.  If you like what you've read, go ahead and hit that like button, and consider hitting the retweet button as well.  That would be cool of you.  Remember, never take the words of journalists, bloggers, or podcasters as Gospel.  Find all the facts, and draw your own conclusion.  Thank you for reading

Google and Net Neutrality

In the same time period that Prager University decided to lobby against Google in order to use the government gun to force them to do business in a way that goes against their wishes, the rest of the world exploded over the ending of a regulation that.......really wasn't doing anything anyway.  The internet is in peril, and Everybody is angry.

On November 9th, Right wing educational advocate Prager University put a video up featuring the infamous Google Memo Writer James Damore.  The title of the video was "What happens when Google disagrees with you."  Very shortly after that, they put out a petition that request a congressional demand for Google to treat all webpages equally in terms of Search results.  The comment section on Instagram exploded, and I can't imagine Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube being any different.  I admit, I left one of the comment, but it wasn't what any of my readers would guess.

I write a blog, and the platform I write it on, the very platform that you, dear reader, are using right now, is owned by Google.  When I placed my first critical comment, I prefaced it by saying "I write a conservative blog that is currently being censored by Google."  It's nearly impossible for me to get page hits on a Google search.  I've looked.  It frustrates me, but it's really ok.  As many of the left leaning critics pointed out in the Instagram comment feed that I participated in, the situation is actually quite similar to the gay wedding cake issue.  While most of the liberals who jumped at the chance to cite that issue were using it to sneer Republicans, it was actually right on the money.  Google is a private corporation, that is run by individuals with rights.  Like the bakery owners, the Directors at Google have the rights to conduct business in whatever way they choose.  Those who wish to utilize the service have to deal with it, or find another medium to use.  It's the same argument that conservatives use when they speak out against YouTube for demonetizing their videos.  It seems to be the entire reason that CRTV was created.  It is difficult to get around Google in today's world.  Chrome seems to be the most stable browser out there.  The most common mobile device on the market is run by a Google Operating System.  The only real major alternatives out there are Apple, Microsoft, and Kindle, but all three are owned by people who have very similar ideals, so we'd be having this discussion again a year later with a different name in it

The millennial left loves to throw the word fascism around when it comes to any idea that the right has, so it's been largely discredited over the years.  But I have to call it the way that it is.  Calling on the government to force a business to conduct itself a certain way at gunpoint is textbook fascism.  It's no different from forcing the baker to make the cake that violates his beliefs.  I found myself to quite enjoy Prager's videos in the past, but this is a double standard that I can't ignore.  It must sting to have your videos demonetized, but Google has every right to control the private medium by which they are shared.  The message of the university is protected by the freedom of speech, but Google and YouTube are not public utilities, and they are protected by the freedom of the press.  That means, as long as it's not libelous, they can post anything that they want, and control what comes up on their search bars.  They can also choose what not to post, by their own beliefs.  Just like the baker.

It's very interesting that this issue came up in the wake of Net Neutrality.  I was very surprised with the sheer number of people that were completely passionate about the issue.  It's funny, because in 2015, I completely missed the news when this became an issue.  I was paying pretty close attention to the news by 2015, and somehow that didn't make it into any of my feeds.  With the level of passion that surrounded it, you'd thing that it would have as many memes when it was formed as when it was being repealed.  The reality is that when the issue of Net Neutrality being rolled back first came up, all of the news outlets and opinion podcasts had to explain what it was before they could throw their particular bias at the story.  I actually had to go and look it up for myself, and I still couldn't find a story that isn't full of bias.  What I've been able to sort out of the bias is that Net Neutrality is an Obama era regulation that forces every internet service provider to handle all web traffic equally.  This is any easy regulation for the big companies to abide by, but smaller startups struggle to handle it.  

What interested me the most is that every conservative commentator out there is completely opposed to Net Neutrality (myself included).  It's a pretty obvious party line to follow.  Net Neutrality is a government regulation that is not very friendly to small business, and modern conservatives tell everyone that they are against government regulation.  But Prager is insisting that their followers sign a petition in order to form a regulation.  I know that I've suggested a regulation in this very blog before.  The difference is that when I did suggest regulating the Credit Industry, I came up with a way to sell it so it could benefit the industry as well.  Prager's Google petition is a request to use the government strong arm to force an unwilling private company to bend.  For once, I have to side with the left on the Google issue.  It sucks, but it is their right.

Where do you land on Net Neutrality?  Did you sign Prager's petition?  I always welcome comments and discussion both here and over on Twitter.  My handle is @edsblogtw1tter if you want to follow me to comment or read previous articles from my feed.  If you like what you've read, go ahead and hit that like button, and consider hitting the retweet button as well.  That would be cool of you.  Remember, never take the words of journalists, bloggers, or podcasters as Gospel.  Find all the facts, and draw your own conclusion.  Thank you for reading

My Journey From a Quiet Democrat to Conservative Commentator

Our last few election cycles in this country have had a lot of surprises and drama, but there has been one recurring theme among them.  All of them have been punctuated with the assertion that the whole thing would have been different should only millennials voted.  The sentiment surrounding the idea is that all members of that particular generation fall into a sort of group-thought that aligns them all into the progressive movement as a single entity.  Anyone who would pay half-hearted to Twitter or Facebook could easily be convinced to believe that it's true.  Progressive and socialist memes are retweeted and shared over and over again with a disproportionately small number of conservative answers.  The world that is presented by social media is indeed portrayed in such a way that once my generation come to power, the United States will suddenly come out of mass poverty and turn into a Communist...er, Socialist utopia with absolutely no resistance or opposition.  But the truth behind millennials may be even more surprising.  There is a pattern emerging.  It is a pattern that I actually believed at first was only me, but as I pay attention to sources other than mainstream media, I start seeing that there are more and more people like me, especially after the last presidency.

I address a lot of social issues from points of view that range from centrist to fully right-wing, and I feel that I fall somewhere between Libertarian and Republican on our present political spectrum.  What I don't discuss very much is where I come from, politically.  I've mentioned it here and there in passing, but I definitely grew up in a Union-worker Democrat household.  My dad works through a union as his father did, and while my mom does not work through a union, her father did as well.  I can honestly say that my sister and I were raised to form our own ideas and draw our own conclusions based on the facts that were presented to us, but that does come on the heels of saying that there was always some pressure to vote straight down the ticket Democrat no matter what.  It wasn't all from my parents either.  One of the communities that I grew up in was largely supported by the same union job that my father worked at, which meant that many of the members of that community held the views that the AFL-CIO insisted upon them.  I remember in 1995 during a community fair, I was given an opportunity to have my picture taken with a picture of Then-President Bill Clinton edited onto the picture, then put onto a button (Photoshop was still in it's infancy at the time and a novelty booth was still one of the premier ways to get such an item at the time).  An elderly gentleman was talking politics at the booth and I remember him saying "He's a Democrat.  You know, the good guys." It was that sentence that unfortunately held with me for the remainder of my formative years and into early adulthood.

There should have been a lot of signs early on in my adult life that I wasn't really a good little millennial progressive, but I largely ignored them at the time for the sake of being on what I considered the right side of history.  Some of these things I can attribute to being a sign of the times and a rural upbringing.  I can honestly say that even if I had stayed with the progressive movement, I'd never be able to be in the faction of Muslim apologists.  My last year of High School saw too many Muslim jokes for that, and I'd definitely be a hypocrite for trying.  However, that is very easily attributed to the fact that it was right after 9/11, and I was living in a homogeneous community of people who had largely never been outside of a handful of Wisconsin and Minnesota counties. Shortly after I left home for college, the military goal of our country shifted from a search and recover mission in the mountainous region of Afghanistan into a mission to overthrow the dictatorial government of Iraq.  While, at the time, I didn't understand the tactical position of Iraq (I still don't, entirely), I understood enough to know that we were in a state of conflict with extremist factions of the Muslim world at the time, and that did include cells in the nation of Iraq.  When the invasion happened, I saw my first real life protest.  A group of students, mostly freshmen, marched the halls singing "give peace a chance" for hours on end.  That was the day that I wrote my first freelance article.  It was mostly a criticism, but I did hold enough of an objective stance to try and lay out the side of the protesters as well.  I emailed the article to some friends, and quickly got my first politically charged comment back from a friend in the ROTC.

As time went on, the signs continued.  But I did continue to vote straight down the ticket on the left.  I remember a particular conversation that I had about finding a way to stop welfare for serial abusers of the system.  The conversation was with a man I now know as a socialist activist, and I had a disgusted wrench of the stomach as he threw the children of these system abusers up as a shield.  The man was a co-worker, and we were actually working a union job at the time.  Mind you, it was a grocery store, but it was definitely union controlled.  I actually remember the day that my romance for the Labor Unions ended, and it was while I was working there.  We had a co-worker, an older woman in her 40s.  She was one of those people who spent 30-plus years wrecking her body in every way possible, then found Jesus at the end of her 30s and was suddenly ultra-christian, and ultra-right-wing.  I'm not saying any of this to put her down, she has the freedom of religion and speech just like the rest of us.  I'm just setting up an outline of her convictions and her views of the union.  So she obviously refused to join. 

A grocery store, prior to Right To Work laws, was obviously a little different than a factory job.  Especially given the fact that the majority of people that do work in that type of job are part-timers in high school or college.  Therefore, at the time, the union was an option, but not a requirement.  I had joined because my parents told me it was the only way to keep my dad's job from getting shipped overseas, but Kathy didn't.  One day, she was late to work, which was unheard of.  It got to be a half hour, and I was getting ready to call a replacement for her and she finally came in, clearly shaken.  When I asked her what happened, she informed me that one of the union leaders was standing at the front door to the store, recognized her, and attempted to prevent her from going to work.  She was being "ousted".  My activist friend berated her, in his usual jovial voice of course, for not just joining the union, but I felt sick to the idea that someone has to join a club in order to go to work somewhere.  At the time, I was completely unaware of the political ties between the unions and the Democrat Party.  That would come later. 

When I started to realize that I didn't belong with the way I was voting came when I was 23, as the second Bush administration was beginning to wane.  It was during the primaries of 2007 that I first heard the name Barack Obama, and began to hear dissent against the young senator as a president.  I knew that in some of the more recent elections, a couple of my cousins had begun to turn away from their union roots and move over to the right as far as voting, but in the beginning the cycle, I stood by what I had heard 12 years prior about the democrats being the good guys.  Very early in the primaries, I was considering putting some support behind Clinton, assuming already that she was going to play the woman card and win.  The discussions were starting to come up in mainstream during the 08 cycle.  I definitely recall a roommate that I had at the time who told me in a discussion of the possibility of the first Black President that he couldn't see himself be a Republican, but he could never bring himself to vote for someone named "Barack Obama." (This would be the ultimate time for this to be a podcast rather than a written article.  It was the voice/inflection that Timmy used that made his argument rather than the name itself.)  A couple months later I would wind up moving as the rest of my roommates had graduated from our three week cyclical school, and I still had about 4 months left to go.  My new roommates were a very different sort.  All three were from Connecticut, and two were raised in a much higher tax bracket than I was, and the third was as well, but loved describing himself as a country redneck.  All three were conservative, but only one was outspoken about it.  He loved to yell about it to anyone who would listen, along with loud racial slurs.  I did ask him one day why he was a Republican if he was as dirt of the earth as he tried to pass himself off as, and all he could respond with was "Why am I a Republican?  Because I'm a Redneck."  Growing up in farming area Unionland, I wouldn't see the connection until almost election day, but I was already having huge second thoughts about the way I had been voting.  The final shift for me would come a few weeks later after Obama was officially nominated. 

The day after the nomination, I was sitting in class, and a girl that I had once been very close friends with started texting me.  "Obama is going to run for president.  What are we going 2 do if he wins? I don't want to give away half of my money."  Chelsea has no idea, but that was the the moment that ended my relationship with the Democrat Party.  There has been fearmongering since the beginning of the United States, but this was the first time I had ever seen real fear over the thought of a person losing the fruits of her labor because of the executive.  I quickly tried to calm her down, remembering my 7th grade Civics class and the lesson that our President is essentially a lightning rod for government criticism, and that the real power laid in the Congress.  At the time I had no idea that our previous president would spend 8 years transferring more and more power into the executive branch and away from the other two.  For the first time ever I started listening to the speeches and doing other research on what the President I would have otherwise voted for had said and promised, and I didn't like that I kept seeing promise after promise of a handout with no real answer as to how to pay for it, and when anyone asked for a method of payment, he was essentially shrugged off as a hate breeder and evil.  

For the majority of the last 8 years, I actually considered myself as an anomaly.  I knew there was such a thing as a swing voter, and that voter is the real target of political advertising.  But I was never really a "swing voter".  I was a pretty steady, down-the-ticket guy who turned into a steady, down-the-ticket guy for the other side.  Base voters aren't known for switching sides, especially to the level that I have switched, where I became a conservative commentator and have thrown around the idea of a congressional run with an R next to my name.  However, the more I pay attention to news and commentary, the more I find that this is becoming a common theme.  I've heard others say it before, but Conservative podcast host Matt Christiansen was the person who caught the most of my attention.  

Christiansen, like me, started a run in mass media on a completely different topic.  I started writing about dating, and Matt started in gaming, but we both found our way into interpreting political news and presenting it as we see it.  Mr.  Christiansen has admitted on his show to being an Obama voter, and in an interview with Steven Crowder he also claimed that he was more fiscally liberal than most.  But the message of freedom and smaller government rings through in every show that he does.  Watching his solo YouTube show was my inspiration to revive my three year dead blog and start presenting the facts and my outlook to the people again.  Others out there like Klavan, Knowles, Red Pill Black, and even Mr. Crowder himself have come forward saying that when they were younger, they also espoused views that more aligned with Democrats than Republican.  

I've proposed the idea before, such as when I wrote about the President's history as a big-government Democrat.  When I look at the migration of people away from the Democrat party, I don't really believe that we all left The Party.  More often I feel as though The Party left us.  I've heard my left-voting parents yell that the way to get people back to work would be to end welfare, and then I listen to Democrats advocate for a universal basic income (welfare for all), with the charge being led by the new face of the Democrat Party: Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders.  The days of Republicans being for the already wealthy and Democrats being the representatives of the worker are far gone, replaced by a series of wealthy elites who offer to trade you an income and healthcare paid for at the expense of flyover country taxpayers, in exchange for your freedom, and your eternal vote.  When I was a kid, being left-wing meant fight the power, rage against the machine, full anarchy and down with the establishment.  Now, it seems that all of the liberals are only interested in the concept of  "fall in line, or we will destroy your life publicly," and "support the establishment, and give them all the wealth so they can tell us how to live our lives."  The spirit of near-anarchy and rebellion are still there, but they do not belong to the Democrats anymore.  True, their hashtag is #resist right now, but the rebellion is to go back to a system of give it all to the government and let them provide. so we can go back to being good little followers.  The "rebels" want to go back to an overreaching executive branch continuing to funnel more power away from the states and Congress into the chair in the Oval Office.  No, back in November, all of America rebelled, and the #resist movement is desperate to give the power back to the overlords.  

Did you swap from one political side to the other?  What drove you? How deep into the opposite side were you?  How dedicated are you to your current home side?   I always welcome comments and discussion both here and over on Twitter.  My handle is @edsblogtw1tter if you want to follow me to comment or read previous articles from my feed.  If you like what you've read, go ahead and hit that like button, and consider hitting the retweet button as well.  That would be cool of you.  Remember, never take the words of journalists, bloggers, or podcasters as Gospel.  Find all the facts, and draw your own conclusion.  Thank you for reading

The Last Word on Moore

The Alabama Special Election that the country has been talking about takes place in five days, and we will finally get the answer to whether or not the good Judge will be the next representative.  As the day draws nearer, every commentator in the world has made this an increasing fire about the Moore case, and in an unprecedented move, Democrats have come together to expel people in their ranks who also had sexual skeletons in their closet.  We are at a point that half of the Republican Commentators want to hang Moore without a trial, and the other half want to hang the accusers.  But what is the right choice to make?

This article does come on the heels of the announcement that the yearbook was faked.  Beverly Young came forward today to say that she forged parts of Moore's entry.  At the last minute that changes the story entirely, but I promise you that it won't be good enough for people like Pelosi, Feinstein, and in an odd turn of events, Conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro.  It seems to be a general consensus that Moore should be tried in the court of social media, and hanged because the accusations from 40 years ago are apparently credible.  

The biggest problem that I have with this is the fact that it was 40 years ago.  I don't know whether or not any of it even happened.  Only Moore and his accuser really know what happened back then, and anyone else who has come forward was either in a consensual situation or discredited.  Shapiro is the one that really rubs me the wrong way on this.  I continue to enjoy the Ben Shapiro Show and the Daily Wire, but continually listening to the commentator rail on a man for something that happened so long ago makes me sick.  As I mentioned before, people change.  I can't tell you that I'm the same person I was 5 years ago.  I'd hate to be judged about something I did when I was 14.  I can tell you from experience, it sucks.  My family remembers EVERYTHING and never lets anything go.  Furthermore, the statute of limitations is a thing for a reason.  I would think that a Harvard Law graduate would know that.  The statute of limitations protects people in situations exactly like this one.  I'm going to take a move from Mr. Shapiro's playbook on this one.  I'll gladly start a motion with you to get Moore removed from the race, and a pending Senate Seat because it's creepy for a man over 30 to go out with a girl that is barely over the age of consent, and it's even worse for that same man to fool around with a girl who is below the age of consent.  My condition: show me something from a time frame that is relevant.  Show me a transgression from 5 years ago that would definitively show a flaw in judgement that may leak into a proposed legislation, and after I help you unseat Moore, I will eat a big plate of Oven Roasted Crow with a big smile on my face.  

Not everyone waited to have his first kiss until there was a diamond ring on his wife's hand.  I honestly feel that aside from the alleged assault of Ms. Young, Roy Moore represents the majority of us better than a lot of conservative commentators out there.  He did make mistakes when he was younger, but he settled into a calmer monogamous life as he grew older.  Most of us don't fall into a religious zealotry to the level that the good judge has, but the majority of Americans do find a level of religion as the grow older.  I still consider the fact that this all came in after the Sore Loser law came into effect, rather than in the 30 years that Moore was in the public eye prior to that, stinks like burnt gear oil.  But ultimately, the people of Alabama have the decision, and no one else does.  We can let the voters decide.  All we can do is present the facts

What are your final thoughts on Moore? What about the Commentators that can't stop talking about them? I always welcome comments and discussion both here and over on Twitter.  My handle is @edsblogtw1tter if you want to follow me to comment or read previous articles from my feed.  If you like what you've read, go ahead and hit that like button, and consider hitting the retweet button as well.  That would be cool of you.  Remember, never take the words of journalists, bloggers, or podcasters as Gospel.  Find all the facts, and draw your own conclusion.  Thank you for reading.

Bernie Sanders and Tax Reform

The GOP in Congress has finally come together and put tax return into conference so we can get it passed for next year.  Ignoring the fact that our economy would boom if this went retroactive, this is a huge victory for our country and the working class going forward and could prove to make 2018 a more profitable year all around.  There has been the usual blowback from every democrat in the world saying that anything conservatives do must be to subjugate the working class.  But Senator Sanders fired up his Twitter and said something that really stuck in the back of my mind and has been eating at me ever since.  

It's no secret that ever since the Donald first mentioned a tax cut on the campaign trail, Democrats and Socialists have been screaming that the tax cuts would only be for the rich.  I've been commenting on that numbers game ever since they started saying it.  But Sanders went so far as to call it "stealing".  On December first, @sensanders tweeted out "I say to my Republican colleagues: The American people are catching on. While you may get away with this act of looting tonight, history is not on your side." Senator Sanders is the last human being on the planet that needs to be lecturing anybody about looting, bottom line.

Socialism is the obvious place for any of Bernie's detractors to go to when looting comes to mind. Wealth redistribution is essentially taking the money from those who earned it at gunpoint and giving it to those who don't. That's a tired talking point that everyone in the US has already heard. I take issue with a completely different aspect of the Vermont Senator's behavior when he accuses someone else of looting

According to opensecrets.org, the Sanders Campaign raised $228,164,501 by small donations. Essentially, he ran a crowdfunded campaign with the intent to oust the Wall Street corrupted Clinton, and his supporters were all to eager to throw money at him because they couldn't stand the thought of Mrs. Clinton being President. At the beginning of the campaign, Clinton was considered to be a classic Democrat who would walk back the Socialist ideals that Obama set in motion. When Sanders suspended his campaign, he immediately turned his support to the hated Hillary. He also publicly took to his pulpit and urged all of his constituents to do the same. Now, I understand why he did it. The Democrats and Socialist Elites may have convinced their voters that Barack didn't treat the Government and the economy like Matt Lauer treats an intern, Sanders knew full well that he did. Tanking the economy was a crucial step in restructuring it in a Communist fashion, and a man who made a fortune in the free market system would do everything he could to walk the regulations back and make the working class independent of the government. The end game wasn't making Hillary win, it was making Trump lose. However, the American people paid a lot of money, twenty bucks at a time, for Bernie to staunchly oppose Clinton. Having him go back and essentially say "Just kidding" seems like it was nothing but a big cheat. I remember one of the first questions I asked after I first heard him urge his supporters to vote Clinton was "So, does everyone who sent that money to him just get a check in the mail now, or what happens with all that money?"

There is one other area of great concern to me. The Open Secrets website also reported what the Sanders campaign spent throughout the Presidential run. The total expenditures of the Campaign came out to $222,709,530. That leaves $5,455,161 that no one really talks about. The 1989 Ethics Reform Act does prohibit him from using that money for personal gain, but given Sanders's attitude toward charity, and the Democrat Party on the whole, it's unlikely that the leftover money went to either of those. And I've never heard a story of anyone getting a check back from the campaign.

What do you think of the Socialist Senator's tweet? Do you feel that the GOP has looted you? Perhaps you know someone who feels looted by the good Bernie.  I always welcome comments and discussion both here and over on Twitter.  My handle is @edsblogtw1tter if you want to follow me to comment or read previous articles from my feed.  If you like what you've read, go ahead and hit that like button, and consider hitting the retweet button as well.  That would be cool of you.  Remember, never take the words of journalists, bloggers, or podcasters as Gospel.  Find all the facts, and draw your own conclusion.  Thank you for reading.

The Acquittal of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate

On Thursday, a jury in San Francisco acquitted an illegal alien of murder charges that spurred from a shooting of a 32-year-old woman on the City's Pier 14.  The internet went nuts.  As I was reading Twitter that night, I found myself at odds with most of the SuperTrump right and the way they see things.  I actually did raise my defense of my view and lost a follower over it, because I'm not on the right side of the outrage.

As soon as the news came out that Jose Ines Garcia Zarate had been acquitted of the murder and manslaughter charges, a headline campaign exploded across Instagram and Twitter.  One of the most prominent images that rolled around was a picture of a noose that was captioned with a description of the acquittal.  The original poster explained that the immigrant came to this country illegally, and was given a free lawyer on the taxpayer's dime, and a trial in which he could argue his innocence.  The author insisted that a crime had been committed against all of America that could never be repaired

I'm going to take this moment to posit that I do find the acquittal for the murder charges to be absolutely appalling.  Garcia Zarate is an absolutely disgusting human being, and the fact that he was here in the first place demonstrates the failure in the legal system of our country.  Multiple reports show that Jose had been deported five times, and was continually allowed to come back into the country.  With two days elapsed, the commentators have come away from the initial shock of the verdict, and have begun to focus on lax enforcement of immigration that allowed this to happen in the first place.  By all rights, none of this should even be an issue right now, but it is.  It's too late to change the law or the immigration enforcement to bring Miss Steinle back from the dead, so now we have to go forward.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing to me is the idea that is going around that Mr. Zarate should have been carried directly off of the pier and directly to the gallows.  While nobody has ever said it outright, it does seem to be the underlying theme with all the pictures of nooses floating around Twitter.  The people who are posting seem enraged over the fact that the accused was offered counsel and a fair trial.  I'm sorry to give an opinion that is far from the most popular opinion floating around, but I hate that line of thought.  When I read some of postings insisting that there should be no considerations for an illegal, I wanted to vomit.

One of the things that modern-day conservatives have loudly touted since the election of Barack Obama is that they are committed to the constitution as written, no exceptions.  It is this point that makes the reaction to the Steinle verdict so unsettling.  See, the majority of people on the conservative side consider the rights given in the constitution as God-given, rather than government provided.  If this is true, that means the rights that are extended to people within our borders should be concrete, regardless of immigration status.  Our founding fathers felt that every man have an opportunity to be tried for his crimes rather than just being assumed guilty because someone said so.  They also believed strongly that a man should never be defenseless in front of a court.  The right to legal counsel means that no one should be forced to answer for a crime without understanding the process or the charges in front of him, and all men should be allowed an expert to represent him before such a court.  Mr. Zarate is a despicable human being, but he was allowed basic human rights as prescribed by the men who found this country.  The same men who many of the people raising the fuss over the extension of them love to cite on any other topic in modern politics.   While it is true that Zarate is an animal, if we were to convict him without a proper trial or representation, we are really no better. 

If there is any blame to be placed on the lack of justice served in the case of the death of Kate Steinle, there really isn't any that can be placed on the justice department.  The arrest and trial were performed properly, and I couldn't blame a public defender for representing a defendant to the best of his ability.  You can't really throw a case deliberately.  If there is any blame to be had, it rests on the Jury who interpreted the evidence presented to them.  But ultimately, everyone involved did the job they were meant to do.  While this is a great loss for the American people, though, it is a big win for the illegal immigration agenda and the wall. 

Do you think we should extend the rights of the constitution to illegal immigrants? What would you have done differently? What new rules and laws can we implement going forward to prevent further tragedy?  I always welcome comments and discussion both here and over on Twitter.  My handle is @edsblogtw1tter if you want to follow me to comment or read previous articles from my feed.  If you like what you've read, go ahead and hit that like button, and consider hitting the retweet button as well.  That would be cool of you.  Remember, never take the words of journalists, bloggers, or podcasters as Gospel.  Find all the facts, and draw your own conclusion.  Thank you for reading.

A Small Step Back on Judge Moore

I'm not writing a retraction.  Not completely anyway.  But I do want to walk back slightly in light of the allegation that came out shortly after I offered my ideas on Roy Moore. 

In my initial article, I professed that there had been nothing illegal in any of the allegations, which had all been 35 to 40 years ago.  They were creepy as hell, but no laws were broken in any of them.  In a situation like that, the level of time that had passed can makes it forgivable.  It's not like he was asking a 14 year old out last week.  40 years is a long time for lapses in judgement to be corrected so long as no laws were broken.

The last allegation came out shortly afterward, and it was considerably more violent than the previous ones.  It was still over 30 years ago, but it goes beyond just innocent dates between two people who's ages are outside of social norms.  According to the New York Times, a former newspaper, a Beverly Nelson laid an allegation of battery toward Moore that took place late in 1977 behind a restaurant that she claims to have worked at during that time.  I'm not going to waste time going into the details that the mainstream media have plastered all over every screen they can get access to, or the conspiracy theories and evidence that the libertarian right have thrown out to try and discredit the story, but I do have to say this.  I strongly stand by the right that Moore has to be innocent until he is proven to be guilty, but Assault and Battery is an issue that should be investigated at this point.  Since there is no conviction, there is nothing that disqualifies him from serving in the Senate, short of public opinion.  But, pending the investigation and trial, public opinion is up to the voters of Alabama to decide upon.  McConnell, Trump, or any current sitting Congressman have any right or position to pass judgement.  Allow us to let the legal system sort this out.  That's what they are there for.

I stand by the thought that this whole situation stinks to high heaven.  Most political commentators on the right seem to echo each other that it's awfully convenient that Moore was a political figure for 3 decades before any allegations came forward right when he's about to win an election that holds the slight Senate Majority.  I'm mostly disturbed that in addition to them coming out, they didn't surface until after the primary election results were cemented in.  And the final allegation didn't come in until after the vast majority of conservative pundits agreed that as long as nothing illegal happened, it was creepy, creepy water under the bridge.  The primaries are the point that I keep coming back to though.  Alabama has a "sore loser" law on the books.  It was initially meant to protect the candidate that the people had chosen from attacks by his (or her) former opponents going into the general.  But what it means is that should Moore get hung in the court of social media, considering that no investigation could be completed before the general election, the Alabama Republican Party can't put anyone else up in his place.  The seat would have to fall to the ever unpredictable write-in process, or simply be conceded to a Democrat.  Considering the lead that Moore enjoyed for as long as he did, one can't help but entertain the idea of the conspiracy that would destroy a special election campaign that would have otherwise been won much like all that have followed since Trump started appointing cabinet members. 

In light of Beverly Young's accusation, what do you think of the whole situation?  Do you think he did it? Do you think he was set up?  I always welcome comments and discussion both here and over on Twitter.  My handle is @edsblogtw1tter if you want to follow me to comment or read previous articles from my feed.  If you like what you've read, go ahead and hit that like button, and consider hitting the retweet button as well.  That would be cool of you.  Remember, never take the words of journalists, bloggers, or podcasters as Gospel.  Find all the facts, and draw your own conclusion.  Thank you for reading.

The DACA Kids

In the spirit of bringing people together, former comedienne Amy Schumer posted an Instagram picture that stated "Dear Ivanka, I see you're following me on Instagram. This Thanksgiving I would be grateful if you use the influence you have to advocate for a CLEAN Dream Act by December. Every day that passes without a clean Dream Act means anxiety and deportation for immigrant youth.  7,901 youth have already already lost DACA and 122 more will lose it each day.  Thank you and happy holidays."

In light of this bit of comedic genius, it's time to write the article I was planning on writing right up until the Alt-Right Democrats in Charlottesville decided to start a battle with the Antifa Democrats and we fell into a faster-than-light paced news cycle that just started to slow down this past week.  While the Dream Act was expiring, I gave the entire situation some thought, and I found the solution I feel would be the fairest for everyone involved, and will stay within our laws.

One thing to keep in mind about the Dream Act is that it is largely considered to be illegal.  Boiled down to it's most basic elements, all that Act means is that Former President Barack Obama chose not to enforce a Congressional law.  The fact that he put paperwork and forms on it doesn't change the fact that it was a large executive overstep.  Regardless of that fact, the kids are here right now, and we have to figure out the best move going forward.

Although it may not be the most popular opinion, I hold to the opinion that I've always held.  All undocumented immigrants, including the "Dreamers" have to go.  Currently, those who were designated as Dreamers were dependent children who came over the border with their illegal alien parents.  I think that currently includes people up to age 35.  The parents of the dreamers are also welcome to stay under their own Act, but it's ambiguous as to whether the Act protects them once their children are no longer dependent.  For all intents and purposes, the Dreamers are Illegal Aliens, or undocumented immigrants as our politically correct friends on the left like to say.  I feel right now that the most fair way to figure out the DACA situation is to just start over.

The first step in my plan is that all Illegal Aliens have to leave the United States, whether through deportation or willful exit.  For most of the adult Dreamers out there, they really shouldn't have any sort of excuse, either.  With the Dream Act in place, there is nothing on the books that's preventing a person from applying for a resident alien visa, a work visa, or even citizenship.  Once the exodus has begun, though, and before we move down into a case by case basis, we can expedite the process of making illegals into citizens by first breaking them into three groups.

The first group is Illegals who have committed major crimes.  Everyone gets speeding tickets or popped for driving without insurance or a license.  However in the case of crimes like theft, murder, rape, or even DUI, we need to make a stand.  If  you are an Illegal alien and you're guilty of a high crime, you get deported and you're not welcome back.  End of story.  There are tens of thousands of people who want to go through the process and come in legally and abide by our laws.  I definitely think that we should be catering to those people.

The second group will be the people who are here illegally, who have committed no other crime beyond immigration law, and have turned themselves over and left willingly.  If the plan goes through, it would be beneficial for these people to actually report to an ICE agent, as a show of good faith.  There would be a burden of good measure to fall on the ICE agents as well to be honest with the federal government as well.  Anyone in this group goes out of the country without prejudice, and are welcome back with open arms as long as they go through the legal process this time.  Since many of them are trying to contribute to the advancement of the American Society, I would put a provision in to help expedite the process to get these people resident alien visas and work visas quickly.  The only requirement would be starting outside the country, the way that millions of people have done legally for 200 years.

I've laid out what to do for the worst illegals among us, and I've made a proposal for the best of  the best.  But there is that group in the middle, and I really hope that if our immigration officials adopt these ideas and keep their words, this group will be incredibly small.  If you are an illegal alien who's committed no crimes aside from immigration law, and we have to come find you, you will fall into this category.  I feel that I'm being fair.  My proposal is essentially amnesty for all, as long as you go back and start on the other side of the border (and haven't killed anyone, of course).  I don't feel it's excessive to ask for cooperation from the other side.  With that in mind, I also feel that it's fair to impose some sort of penalty if ICE has to expend resources for your compliance.  The best way to solve this, to me, would be a short suspension of your visa privileges.  I don't mean anything excessive, either.  6 months minimum/3 years max seems absolutely fair, and it should go on a case by case basis depending on the amount of struggle the alien puts up.  While it's fair to impose a penalty,  I don't necessarily think it's right to slam the door completely on the otherwise law-abiding immigrants who will, in the end, help improve our GDP.

Lastly, I want to touch on the people who aren't "dreamers", because they would probably wind up getting the short end of this proposal.  I am absolutely in favor of extending this proposal to all illegal immigrants, whether or not they were in the DACA program.  I grew up in rural Wisconsin, and I worked in foodservice a lot growing up.  I've heard all the stories from bitter people about how "those damn illegals are just in here, working for pennies and not paying any taxes."  Let's be completely honest, though.  a 45 year old Guatemalan guy who jumped the fence 25 years ago and has been dodging INS and ICE ever since may be working for cash under the table to avoid his income tax.  However, in 44 of the lower 48, it's statistically impossible that he's gone that quarter century without paying sales tax.  It's a very small victory, I know.  But he has been contributing to both the economy and the state and local coffers.  We do have to be fair, and if we extend an olive branch to one group of illegals, we really do have to extend it to all of them. 

Do you have a better solution for our dreamers and illegal aliens that is also fair to our naturalized citizens and current resident aliens?  Or do you think we should just give them all broad brush amnesty? I always welcome comments and discussion both here and over on Twitter.  My handle is @edsblogtw1tter if you want to follow me to comment or read previous articles from my feed.  If you like what you've read, go ahead and hit that like button, and consider hitting the retweet button as well.  That would be cool of you.  Remember, never take the words of journalists, bloggers, or podcasters as Gospel.  Find all the facts, and draw your own conclusion.  Thank you for reading.

Should your Rent Payment affect your credit?

I never heard any credible confirmation of the claim that I'm bringing forward, so at the time it may have just been fake news.  The story did disappear almost as fast as is showed up.  The claim was that Trump, along with various other Republican politicians and hopefuls had suggested requiring that all three major credit bureaus apply rent payments to your credit score in a way to boost the economy.  I've been mulling the idea over in my mind for a year now and I've had a lot of thoughts on this from both sides of the argument.

When I started doing research to try and find who it was that initially said this, I actually found out that Equifax is actually using this method voluntarily.  According to http://www.experian.com/rentbureau/rental-payment.html property owners have the option to report on-time and late rent payments to the bureau.  Other websites recommend finding and renting only from properties that offer the service in a way to help move your life forward, but I will come back to the benefits of that later.

One of the biggest beliefs that typecasts people into the Republican Party is the belief that the Government should get out of private business.  One of Trump's biggest promises during his campaign as a Republican was "For every new regulation, two have to go away".   With his business background, it's obvious to see how our President can hold disdain for these types of rules that make it harder both to grow your business and hire on more people.  While it's been downplayed and mostly ignored by most news stations and commentators, our Congress has actually met and exceeded this particular mark.  Fox News host Sean Hannity regularly cites in his show that our legislators have averaged 16 regulations stricken for each one they have brought forward.  It would be hard for me, given that I am in favor of as many regulations going away as we can get away with, to then go to Speaker Ryan (my District's representative), and request that he legislate a demand for how FICO, Transunion, and do business, along with all of the individual property owners across the country.

But maybe we can sell it. 

According to liberal news headquarters, CNN, the US is on it's fastest growth in 3 years as of August.  Hiring for careers is on the rise.  Career data processing giant ADP reported 237,000 jobs added in August, according to the same article.  Home prices are rising steadily, and the fight for $15 has mysteriously disappeared as many of the members have found employment in those numbers outside the minimum wage market.  All of this is coming only on the promise of tax reform and the repeal of the ACA.  And we can do better.  What do you think would happen if the people who had to default on their mortgages and cars suddenly had credit?  What if the people who grew up into this economic recession that have never borrowed money suddenly had payment history?  What if the people who desperately need a reset on late student loans had the creditworthiness to get them refinanced into lower interest rates and get the payments affordable again?  Homebuying is on the rise after we had some of the lowest home ownership rates in history, but there are still millions of American workers who can now afford a home, but can't get a mortgage in spite of the fact that they've been throwing money away in rent for years.  It may be more prudent for people to buy a $1500 car with cash, but the market on those pre-owned vehicles is starting to get really rough as more and more customers are fighting over those cars.  It sure would be nice if we could inject some more new cars into the market and drive some of the used car prices down.  Millions of people look at a product or service that isn't being provided every day and tell their co-workers that if they had some money or could get some money, they could provide or improve the product. 

Convincing the big three bureaus to get behind a bill that would require credit reporting of rent payments on time would not be difficult.  Increasing credit scores across the country would simultaneously increase the demand for the services of these entities, as well as increase demand for homes and new cars.  I'm sure Ford and Century 21 would be happy to lend their support as well.  I know that the people involved would get behind the measure in leaps and bounds.  I actually think the only people who might have a problem with it would be the rental property owners.  Rental property is in huge demand right now and most of the rent prices do, unfortunately, reflect that.  When Rebecca and I moved into our apartment, she showed me an ad for a place just down the road from us that was for sale.  The listing was for a three-bedroom home with property that would be half of what we are paying in rent even with a high interest rate.  Property owners do not have to be competitive right now for renters.  If a guy backs out on a place, three more are in line right behind him waiting to rent the place.  With a down economy and so many people with bruised credit, continuous renting is a vicious cycle that leaves people with no help to their scores, and no equity.  Those who rent also have very little in the line of a way out. 

Do you think that finding ways to increase credit in today's America will boost the economy?  Would a legislation like this help you at all, personally?  I always welcome comments and discussion both here and over on Twitter.  My handle is @edsblogtw1tter if you want to follow me to comment or read previous articles from my feed.  If you like what you've read, go ahead and hit that like button, and consider hitting the retweet button as well.  That would be cool of you.  Remember, never take the words of journalists, bloggers, or podcasters as Gospel. Find all the facts, and draw your own conclusion. Thank you for reading.

Roy Moore

Earlier in the week, allegations came out compromising the reputation and polling numbers of Judge Roy Moore in Alabama.  Three women came forward and accused the Judge of asking them out when they were in their teens.  With all of the allegations of recent misconduct among celebrities and producers, it goes without saying that all of these accusations against Moore must be very recent, and they need to call into question Roy's judgment in current affairs.

Wait, this was all 40 years ago?? AND there was no more than kissing involved??  So why are we talking about this??

The full seriousness of the situation is a bit sickening, but I'm not talking about the what Moore did.  The Judge is a good man who's been in the limelight of Georgia politics.  He gained fame by wanting to keep the Ten Commandments on the courthouse wall, and was running in polls in double digits above his Democrat Challenger.  Then suddenly, this situation came up, and more voters are seriously questioning him, along with many potential Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle.  This accusation is nothing new.  With Hollywood awash in accusations of sexual harassment and assault that happened recently, it's only natural that they would start coming out of the woodwork on conservatives.  The cases have ranged from minor nuisance to near life destroying, but nothing has put anyone in any sort of career jeopardy as of yet.  Slate reports that liberal mega-donor Harvey Weinstein has had allegations laid against him as recently as 2015.  However, the media seems to be hinting that all of his rapes and assaults were nothing but a mistake, and all will be forgiven once he goes through rehab for sex addiction.  But Moore kissed a 16 year old when he was 32, and the liberal left is ready to nail him to the crooked cross over it. 

Rationally, can we really look at a dating issue in the late 70s as a measure of someone's capacity to do his job today?  This is not a "boys will be boys" argument that the opposition loves to paint us with whenever we try to rationalize the situation.  What I am about to say stands on the assumption that all of the allegations are true, which has not been proven yet.  American Citizens do enjoy the privilege of being innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but that is a conversation for another time.  What's realistic is that any of these accusations happened 40 years ago.  I can attest to the mixed mindset of an early 30s male, because that's where I am now.  I don't know much about Moore's personal life at the time, but I do know that if he was 30 and still single, especially in the 70s when 18 year olds got married to each other every day, he was going through some weird thoughts.  Before I met the wonderful woman who I've spent the last 2 years with, my stomach twisted at the thought that I wasn't in my final relationship with, and this is a time where young marriages are becoming more and more uncommon.  Furthermore, this was 40 years ago.  I can safely tell you that I'm nowhere close to the same man that I was 10 years ago when I moved back to Wisconsin from Massachusetts.  Hell, the transformation in the two years between when I moved there and when I moved back made me almost unrecognizable to even my family.  And I am not alone.  Millions of people have quit drinking, settled down, raised families, gone back to school, left their retail jobs for careers, fixed their credit, bought cars, started businesses, and found religion in spans ranging from 1 year to 20.  Realistically, none of the allegations have included any sort of intercourse, and while a 32 year old going on a date with a 14 year old is just wrong, the law defines the illegality at insertion.  Moore may have had some lapses in judgement in his early 30s, but the stories are clear that when he was told to stop, he stopped.  And he's had 40 years of experience to shape his judgment and right and wrong since then.  I'd personally be more interested in policy decisions that Moore made in 2007 than dating decisions he made back in 1977.

All of this is assuming that any of this even happened in the first place.

If you think that Moore should be crucified for going out with high school girls in the 70s, or if you want to sound your voice in support of him, please comment either below or over on Twitter. That's @edsblogtw1tter.  I look forward to seeing a discussion form.  Remember if you like what you read, consider hitting that like button, along with that retweet button, or share the link on Facebook or other social media.  That would be cool of you.  Remember, never take the words of journalists, podcasters, or bloggers as gospel.  Gather all the facts, and make your own decisions. 

Still More Tax Reform

We have a Tax Framework.  It's not a bill yet, but it's a proposal.  It seems to be a major compromise with Democrats, and there is a lot in the bill that I disagree with; but you'll be hearing most of the same disagreements from all conservative pundits.  One of the biggest questions I have, obviously, is how much my taxes should fall.  Everyone who is in favor of tax cuts is asking themselves that same question.  The other question is one that came up right after the election, but has fallen off to the wayside:  Can we have a tax plan that is retroactive?  These are two very important questions to the majority of the middle class, and they really go hand in hand in a weird way.

Across the beginning of the year, conservative pundits Ben Shapiro and Sean Hannity both made statements on the idea of tax cuts being retroactive to the 2017 tax year.  Shapiro's comments fell off after a couple episodes of his daily show, but Hannity kept the idea pumping for months upon months.  I stand firmly behind the idea of making a retroactive tax cut.  In fact, I think at this point, it's almost essential.  It's now November and the ACA, though stripped, is still intact.  That, and tax reform were supposed to be done in the first 100 days of the administration.  Had the tax reform been done on it's regular schedule, there would be no question as to whether it went on the '17 tax year.  But the fact that we are doing this at the last minute means that there are questions.  We've been paying in almost all year already, so it would be nothing for the IRS to just say "Oh, last year's rates are still effective."  However, that would guarantee that all Republican Congressmen get at least subjected to a primary, if not voted out of office.  We would have the definition of a "do nothing congress", and the constituents of many of our great congressmen would be right to take action.

Now, the political advantage is not the best reason to get these tax cuts going retroactive, but it's going to be a good way to light a fire under the asses of the right people: the people who's votes on the tax reform matter.  There is a lot of practicality to doing tax cuts for this fiscal year.  One of the big ones came into my mind when I started doing the mental math of what I would be paying in taxes in the coming years.  Sadly enough, before this year, I really had no real concept of what I pay in taxes, and the amount was mind boggling.  For almost my entire adult life I fell into that bottom 50%, and for the first two years that I qualified to pay federal income tax, I was so new to it that I just paid the money and said the hell with it and just paid the bill.  But with all the talk about income tax cuts, a mathematical person can't help but start doing the calculations.  At present rate, I would be looking at a pretty substantial 4 figure reduction in taxes, similar to a very large amount of Flyover Country Middle America.  Some of the states with higher state and local taxes may not see so much, but I want to touch on that slightly at the end.  First I want to say that getting these tax cuts in on the 2017 dime would be a huge jump in the National Economy as a whole.  We've all been having taxes pulled off of our income for almost the entire year in anticipation of the current rate, so that will all be hanging out there in the IRS waiting to file.  I'll tell you this, if the tax cuts go through and the rest of Flyover Country gets a refund like I'm anticipating, I'm not even going to spend the money on myself.  While I could do a lot toward paying off my truck, or getting some money in the bank for a down payment on a house; I plan on doing something more practical.  It's something that anyone who rents, or those who still live at home with their parents should be doing as well.  I plan on taking that money, and putting portions of it into stock in Lowes, Home Depot, Samsung, and Apple.  I chose Lowes and Home Depot because all of the people who do own homes will be taking their refunds blowing them on DIY projects, along with contracted home improvements.  I chose electronics companies because the less fiscally responsible millennials who are living at home or renting will be running out to get the newest iPhone or Samsung Flagship.  I predict that these stocks will soar, and that money can work for me in a better way than if I were to just spend it.

I want to close with a small comment on the repeal of the write-off for state and local taxes.  I'm not opposed to the idea in any way, as I live in Wisconsin and my state is moderately taxed.  In fact, with tax reform in the federal eye, my state is working on bringing it's own taxes down to be competitive as a job haven.  I don't blame them at all.  Tech giant Foxconn was on the edge of going somewhere else, so who knows what the next big job producer might do unless we sweeten the pot a little bit.  But there is another point that I think a lot of people overlooked.  Occasionally I listen to Rush Limbaugh, in spite of the fact that I usually consider him to be too extremist-right for my tastes, and on Thursday as his show was closing one of his listeners brought up a very good point during a call-in that would have never crossed my mind in a dozen years.  The Republican opposition to this particular section of the tax bill is obviously coming from states with higher state taxes like New York and California.  The idea behind eliminating the write off is that states with no income tax like Texas and New Hampshire are subsidizing the Federal Tax income from the higher taxed states, and lawmakers consider it to be unfair.  Under the current system, you essentially pay your local taxes first, then what's leftover as Taxable Income is Federally taxed under your bracket.  Ben Shapiro estimates that in his personal tax bracket, with California Taxes, he'll be giving up over 60% of his yearly income in taxes.  Sean Hannity's predictions for New York State are not much better.  But Rush's caller brought up a good point.  The highest taxed states and municipalities tend to have been in majority Democrat controlled and represented for generations.  In today's world, any information is available with a couple of screen taps.  The people who are going to have their taxes go up are going to look at Republican controlled Texas, who's taxes went down, and has a surplus with no state income tax,  and possibly start to re-think their representation.  The left loves to talk about fairness, and there is nothing more fair than everyone paying the same in Federal income tax no matter the situation.  The listener posited that the repeal of the local tax write-off may accidentally or deliberately push more voters in these states in the direction of more right-leaning state congressmen, and executives who can campaign on and deliver on state tax reductions. 

If you have a comment or a different idea on how to utilize a big tax cut, or if you think the local tax write-off repeal is right or wrong, please leave a comment here or on my Twitter.  That's @edsblogtw1tter.  If  you hit the like button, consider hitting that retweet button as well.  That would be cool of you.  Remember: Don't take the words of journalists and bloggers as Gospel.  Find all the facts, and draw your own conclusions.

The Cruz-Sanders Extravaganza

Between a 40 hour a week job, a busy news cycle, and some family obligations, I'm a little late to the party on the Tax Reform Debate.  After having it brought to my attention by the wonderful people at the Daily Wire, I was aware of it the day after it happened and I actually took the time to watch it the day after that thanks to YouTube.  Since I waited to write about it for two weeks, I do admit that just about everything that needs to be said about it has already been said and this should be a pretty short article.  However, there are a couple of little points I haven't really heard brought up that I do think bear attention.

The first thing that I noticed with this debate, and the healthcare debate for that matter, is the personnel.  On the right was Senator Ted Cruz, who would seem to be the most obvious choice.  Senator Cruz is the Republican Party, in spite of who the country elected as President.  He is a classic Christian Conservative who gained the majority of his national fame by running for President.  His platform was End Obamacare, Flat Tax, Put God back in the Government, and Stimulate job creation by getting the government out of the way.  While these ideas may be far to the right of the recent centrist Republican converts, they are definitely in line with the voters who have been Down-the-Line Conservative since Reagan was in Office.  On the other hand, his opponent was Independent (Socialist) career senator Bernie Sanders.  While the vast majority of Democrat Politicians follow a similar, if not the same, political ideal, the ones with a D next to their names at least make an attempt to hide it. 

Bernie being the Democrat representative to the string of televised debates shows is highly representative of the leftward movement of our politics that put a lifelong Democrat in the Presidency as a Republican.  I feel that the debate would have easily been better served had the Democrat in the room been Biden, or Harris.   It could have possibly even been Warren or Feinstein.  Even Hillary would have seemed to be a more appropriate debate opponent, in spite of the fact that she holds no office currently.  Any of them would have been more representative of the Democrat Base that comprises the majority of the country outside of colleges across the Nation.

Bases bring us into the other point that may have been partially touched on.  Louder With Crowder host Steven Crowder touched on a part of this, but it could be taken a step further.  On his show the Following night, Crowder mentioned that people like Chenk Uygar was probably over on the Young Turks proclaiming that Senator Sanders was the be all, end all champion of the Debate.  Personally, I think that Mr. Cruz won.  Nearly all of Bernie's points were able to be handily refuted with facts and statistics, and he was not able to reciprocate with anything but anecdotes and emotions.  However, this debate may still have been a huge gain for Sanders.  While Cruz was busy rebutting him, Bernie was raising the same catchphrases and buzzwords that infuriated his base.  Between Ted beating up on him, and mentions of basic universal income, the Kochs and the Waltons, and the upper 1/10 of 1%, the Vermont Senator was able to draw pity for the underdog, and simultaneously advertise his brand to another group of Democrats.  He also has a new series of videos for college students to cut and past into social media and caption with demands for the rich people to pay for everything.  Cruz may have won on content, but Sanders walked away with billions of dollars worth of free advertising.

If you have any further thoughts on the debates that haven't been beaten to death on either side, or if you want to take any of this further, feel free to comment here, or over on Twitter.  It's @edsblogtw1tter.  If you like what you've read, please like and share on social media, and get the word out.  Remember: Don't take the words of bloggers, podcasters, and the media as gospel.  Always find all the facts and draw your own conclusions.

I joined Twitter

I've actually been on Twitter for a while, but I made a twitter account just for this blog.  Follow me to get comments going and help get the word out

I am @edsblogtw1tter

Some more thoughts on Tax Reform

Sometimes having people who are close to you can put another perspective on things.  Other times, it spawns the discussions that strengthen your own viewpoints.  I had a brief conversation like that last weekend.

I've mentioned before that my parents are Union Democrats.  They hold ideals that are more conservative in today's world, but they've been told since the 60s that anyone who has an R next to his name wants nothing more than to put their jobs out of the country and take all the money away from anyone.  After halfheartedly listening to Meet the Press, I commented against some progressive guest expressing the proposed tax cuts are only for the rich.  I commented that we really need to get these tax cuts through so we can start getting people back to work and making jobs.  My father turned and said that cutting the taxes on business leaders would never get people working.  The only way to employ people would be to abolish welfare.  After I was done reeling about how the modern Democrat socialists would take that, I pointed out that we need to have the jobs to put people into when the welfare goes away.  Both of my parents then reminded me that all of the papers and the the internet were full of McJobs waiting for people to get off of welfare and take the jobs, and I didn't respond.

Now, I would love to see welfare go away, as would most people in the conservative camp, but there is a trade-off.  I want welfare to be gone because nobody needs it anymore.  I'm fighting and working every day to make our economy strong enough that it's more profitable to go to work than it is to be on welfare.  I understand that you can't just end welfare without having something to take its place, and McDonald's jobs are not going to cut it.  I know from experience that low paying jobs don't do anything for you.  I spent a year working $12 an hour, 25 hours a week, and I was refused a raise for the 2 years that followed no matter how I worked, even though I was allowed to go back to 40 hours a week.  While it's much higher on the horse than fast food and restaurant jobs, I was a mechanic, and had a massive tool payment to go along with it.  I can tell you from personal experience that having a low paying job and no options to further yourself over an extended period of time can actually make the situation worse for people.  I agree that people on welfare taking the low paying jobs would be a good start to getting the economy moving, but it's a short term gain.  At best, having welfare recipients take all of these McDonald's and other minimum wage jobs will serve as resume builders, but we, as a country, need to make the moves to create middle level jobs for these people to move into.  Realistically, getting these people into $7 an hour jobs won't do anything to add to the federal budget.  The only thing it will do will take away some of the deficit. 

That brings up the other point.  Every mainstream journalist loves to proclaim that the tax cuts are for "the Rich", and frankly...they are.  But the reality of it is that this is nothing more than a play on numbers and words.  Of course a series of tax cuts are only going to benefit the top 50% of earners in the country.  The bottom 50% don't pay any income taxes currently.  The only way at all that you can benefit the bottom 50% would be to use the tax money paid by the other half of the country to give a refund bigger than what they paid in across the year.  With a $20 trillion debt, that would be a level beyond stupidity.  Bernie Sanders has even gone so far as to say that the "Trump" tax plan will hurt the poor.  After looking through the little bit of the tax plan that has been leaked, the only thing I can find to corroborate this is that a series of mid level jobs will be created, bringing many people out of the tax bracket that doesn't pay taxes and putting them into the bracket that does.  Now, I spent most of my life in the bracket that didn't pay any taxes, and in the 2015 tax year, I entered the bracket that does for the first time in my life.  I can say, again from experience, that getting a bill from the Federal Government for the last couple years has been a nuisance (I follow the W4 to the letter, so 2 exemptions: 1 for single, 1 for no one else can claim me as a dependent.), and I hated having to scramble around for that $300 this year.  But it sure was nice bringing home a weekly check that lets me have a roof over my head in a good neighborhood, and finally buy a nice truck.  Having Auto Insurance is kind of nice, too.  My yearly income for 2016 compared to 2012 is over twofold, so giving a rather paltry number to the government to keep their lights on and the military funded seems like a fair trade-off to me.

The bottom line is that this economy is beginning to roll in the right direction, and I feel like there are going to be a lot of people this year that are going to be paying taxes for the first time ever, or at the very least, for the first time in a few years.  As I mentioned before, I know quite well what it's like on that first year when your $1500 refund turns into a $38 liability.  I know that we can't move the bar so that they continue to not pay taxes, but the decent thing would be to not completely punish these new taxpayers for their newfound success by beating them with a huge tax bill.  Bring the rate for the lower middle class, and frankly, everyone down.  Free up money to get invested into businesses small and large, and free up even more money to get spent on the products that come out of these investments.

If you want to discuss the point further, be sure to comment, and subscribe.  I will be opening up a comment section through twitter and I hope to get more discussion going there.  As always, find a lot of sources of information, look at all the facts, and draw your own conclusions.  Never take a journalist or a blogger's word as gospel.  That's the concept that brought you this blog

Russian Collusion

It's been a little over a year now since Russia and it's interference in the 2016 election.  I don't think there is anyone left in the US that doesn't have an opinion on whether or not Russia stole the election.  While the evidence is starting to come out to point that the Obama administration was the colluding party, we are on the edge of forgetting what actually happened and what ghost we have been chasing for the past year, when the story gets drowned by the next made up scandal that the opposing party has on their list.

During the primary season, there was a series of emails released through a web-based organization Wikileaks that mostly involved Former Secretary of State Clinton.  In the beginning, the emails were mostly missing documents surrounding events from her tenure as Secretary of State, and the Benghazi incident.  As the primaries and the general election went on, the emails that were being leaked moved away from the events of 4 years prior to more current events surrounding the primary cycle and her competition with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.  Most, if not all of the emails that had been leaked were run through a private email server that the Clintons kept in their home, and were initially thought to have been deleted.  While the actual content of the emails was condemning evidence in the events in question, the mainstream media turned its focus to how Wikileaks got their hands on the emails instead of what was in them.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been well known for quite some time as being a truth seeker and his reputation also points to him being very good at finding it.  While he has been reluctant to reveal his exact sources for the emails that he leaked surrounding the Democrat National Committee, he has vehemently denied Russian involvement in the matter.  To be completely honest about the whole situation, I don't remember ever hearing about the Russians until the final Presidential Lincoln Douglass Debate before Election Day.  During this debate, Secretary Clinton was asked directly about the leaked emails, and she referred it away to Russian Hacking for the first time since the emails were leaked.  Suddenly, the entirety of the media was rushing around to find out whether or not Russia had indeed hacked the email server and leaked the information out to the public, and the whole world conveniently forgot that only a few minutes prior, Mrs. Clinton had leaked the nuclear time frame to the world on that same stage. 

It's interesting that the first notable accusation of Russian hacking was a very late game statement by the candidate who wound up losing in quite a landslide.  The thing that interests me the most about it actually came around a half a year later when evidence mysteriously and suddenly surfaced saying that Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner were invited to a meeting with a Russian Lawyer who had damning evidence on Mrs. Clinton.  What's odd about this is that my understanding of the information exchanged during this meeting turned out to actually be a complete bust, but it did publicly put men that were the closest to President Trump in a compromised position, and no one has yet to find who hired the Russian Lawyer, or where the money train originated to get her into this meeting.  In fact, most of the questions seem to stop at the son and son-in-law of the President. 

I had an idea when the Russian Lawyer situation first came to light.  It seemed a little farfetched at the time, so I didn't really post it or discuss it anywhere.   But now that the evidence is starting to come to light about Uranium one and the Clinton Foundation, along with Mr. Mueller suddenly having a list of people to bring charges upon after a year of searching, I feel more and more confident every day that my idea could hold water.  I'll never say that my theory is true until I see the hard evidence, but the plausibility of it seemed to have risen over the last week in light of the newly released facts to the public. 

The only way I can wrap my head around a meeting about condemning evidence with prominent members of the Trump family and a Russian lawyer; along with the quickness in which Hillary was able to accuse the Trump Campaign of Russian hacking when we all thought it was some American guy; would be if Clinton herself, or someone in the campaign, hired the lawyer.  As I mentioned earlier in the article, there was no real new information that came along with the meeting, and it did put both men in compromising position that they later had to be investigated for.  Short of the President confessing to allying with the Russians to steal the election, it's the only thing that really makes sense to me. 

I'm not a journalist, I'm just a writer and commentator, so do not take my word as gospel on this situation.  Look over the evidence, as I have, and draw your own conclusions.  Mrs. Clinton lied and cheated to get the Vermont Socialist out of her way to the top of the ticket, so such a ploy would not be at all out of character.  Just keep the thought in the back of your head as this story gets buried in the news cycle like Ferguson when it is no longer convenient.  We've had a lot of years that the news story of the century suddenly fades away and gets forgotten about before a logical closure can be obtained.  Thanks as always for reading and I hope you will subscribe. 

I will be making a Twitter account for my blog, so look for a new handle in the articles to come.  I'm also going to be trying to hold myself to a minimum of an article a week as I move forward.  I'm also considering turning my blog into a vlog, and hopefully a regular webshow in the months to come.  I will keep you posted on that.  As I get my new Twitter account finalized, I look forward to reading people's comments and getting some thoughtful discussion going.  I'm excited to see what the future brings.