Take the Knee: My take on this NFL protests

Toward the end of the week, I intended to write an article on the solution for the DACA kids, but a quick thumb through Instagram netted a more pressing issue on hand at the moment.  In a world where college kids and professional protesters are injuring people every time someone who they don't agree with speaks, and when a small Asian man threatens to launch the doomsday missile every day, there is a much bigger issue.  Healthcare costs are spiraling out of control, and almost every human being in the country is dissatisfied with the amount of taxes he pays, there is still a bigger issue at hand.  Apparently the biggest issue in the world right now is whether or not all players in the NFL stand up for the National Anthem in the NFL games.  

I'm not writing a parody right now, I'm being quite serious.  Celebrities, commentators, coaches, team owners, and even the NFL itself can't help themselves from weighing in on the issue and making demands as to what is acceptable behavior by the players on the various teams, and it's all really stupid.  This is not a difficult issue at all, but so many people have made it into a do or die issue that will make or break the world.   

In 2016, second string Quarterback Colin Kaepernick made waves throughout the media because he took a knee and refused to stand while the National Anthem was played before his games.  Kaepernick was no stranger even then to controversy on the field.  During his first few seasons, Colin was very much on fire as far as statistics were concerned.  The 49ers Quarterback set record after record very quickly during his first few seasons, even spending his first two NFL seasons undefeated against the Green Bay Packers (a statistic he yelled very loudly to anyone who would listen).  Colin quickly gained infamy for excessive celebration at every chance he could celebrate.  He coined the term "Kaepernicking", a classless and derogatory dance that he would do after every good play.  

Colin's luck would eventually run out, as is with most people.  After a couple seasons like this, Kaepernick's statistics started to decline quickly.  After a crushing defeat by the Cardinals in 2015, the biggest story on ESPN was that the game against the Packers would be just what the young Quarterback needed.  History shows us that the victory didn't come, and was a continuation on a severe slide in Colin's performance.  By the end of 2015, his total quarterback rating had fallen below 50, and he was quickly falling out of favor with sports writers, fans and his coaches.

While I'm fuzzy on the details, I've read the reports that it was at about this point in history that Colin converted to Islam, possibly at the behest of his girlfriend.  I know that he grew his hair, and a beard.  But what I do know is that during his last season as an NFL Quarterback, he began sitting/kneeling for the National Anthem, citing a protest of the racism of the collective police force against black men.  It didn't take long for a fire to grow under the other black players in the league across the country, and now we sit with a growing civil disturbance festering under our feet.

Look anywhere on social media, and you'll surely find a post telling the black people of the NFL to take a knee in the name of solidarity or in the name of racism or just to protest the United States of America, and generally the following post is some middle American telling the players that they can't or shouldn't kneel for the National Anthem.  Next you'll find some post from someone telling you that if you don't support Kaepernick getting hired, you're a racist.  Immediately following that will be a post saying that Kaepernick's civil unrest should get him black balled from sports.  I'm here to honestly tell you....you're all wrong, at least in one way or another.  

To the players who need to hide in the locker room, kneel, or anything else to protest the United States because all black people are oppressed by the American Racism:  Get over yourselves.  First off, if you're in the NFL, you're not oppressed.  You may have experienced some form of racism early in your lives, and there may be some horrific comments made by some flyover state rednecks.  But let's be honest about a few facts.  Most of you out there have a multi-million dollar contract, and for every one of those contracts, there is another team waiting out there to give you another contract should you not see eye to eye with your current team.  The magic of these contracts is that you make upper 1% level money, but no one in the mainstream expects you to give it all away, as they expect with a CEO or another top earner.  It's socially acceptable for you to be able to keep all your money in spite of the fact that you don't directly employ anyone.  And yet, you kneel to protest the treatment of blacks across the country.  There is some honor in this, as you are making a statement from the platform that you're given.  However, I don't agree with this being the best way to help your community.  The big argument to celebrities is that if they speak out in bringing refugees, that they should give out rooms in their homes or pay for refugee shelter themselves.  I'm not 100% on board with this, but it presents an idea of what you, as multi-millionaires can do for the people that you kneel for.  Buying, restoring, and renting low income housing; donating food; and small business grants to help employ people in affected areas will help millions more people than taking a knee against a free enterprise country that gave you the tools to make millions.  Scholarships will help many more young blacks to go to college instead of going to the streets, and give some more of them opportunities to get noticed by the NFL and other sports, and have the opportunity to make millions themselves.  

To the people who say that the players of the NFL shouldn't kneel for the National Anthem: just stop talking.  To those who say they should be fired or arrested for doing so: delete your social media accounts.  Now, I defend your right to speak freely, so I can't actually force you to disable your social media or stop you from talking.  But my statement is in defense of the players to peacefully make a protest that is protected the same way your freedom to protest their protest.  Unless this branch of the movement turns to violence, just let them express themselves.  You don't have to like it, but there is no law requiring anyone to stand for the flag, pledge allegiance to it, or respect the National Anthem. We are not Soviets, Nazis, or North Koreans in this country.  It's also your right to not participate in their careers, and that is a path that more and more Americans are taking, rather than making idle threats and accusations against the players.  I do offer the same opinion to coaches and team owners.  You can't penalize your players for exercising an American Right.  This is the land of the free, and the people that our great flag honors fought hard for these players to have that right.  The best thing as Americans that honor the flag can do is let the protesting players come back to us on their own.  Anything else would be dictatorial and fascist.

To the general public who wants to throw the racist card around because no one is hiring Colin Kaepernick: I challenge you to look at the stats, along with the current situation in the NFL.  Currently, dozens of players across the country sit out from the National Anthem, and their jobs are perfectly intact.  Kaepernick had a couple of really good, really lucky seasons, but the numbers speak for themselves as far as he's concerned.  Colin was a lighting strike, and he doesn't have the numbers to make a starter salary a worthwhile investment to the business owners involved.  If Number 7 was putting up the the numbers like he did in 2012, it wouldn't matter to any team owner what his beliefs were.  Star players and big plays bring in crowds, and crowds bring money to team owners, vendors, and sponsors.  

Finally, to those who think that all these players, Kaepernick included, are ungrateful and should be blackballed:  Just stop.  Colin Kaepernick has the right to free speech, free practice of religion, and has the right to assemble his like minded brethren peacefully as he sees fit.  If he gets his spark back and can make consistent numbers again, there are enough fans that want to see him playing again that if the 49ers can't find the means to hire him, another team will come up with the money.  Plain and simple.  If he can't get his numbers and consistency back, he'll have to accept another lifestyle, and that's just how it is.  

One final thought that I had while remembering the way things used to be before the protests began.  I remember seeing the players standing during the anthem, helmets off hands over their hearts.  I remember being so inspired by the black players during the anthem.  Try and find some old footage of the Anthem being played.  You could almost see a tear in the eyes of the black players as they gripped their shoulder pads.  I've never had an opportunity to interview these players, but I'd die to know what they were thinking as those familiar bars played.  It's so unnerving to see people who were seemed so inspired by our nation's anthem feel such a need to protest it now.  

We all need to step back and look at our country and our lives.  One small exercise of the First Amendment has become another thing that has polarized us not even two decades after we all stood united under the flag as a nation against a terrorist attack on US soil.  I don't know about any of you, dear readers, but I don't want unity to come at the cost of so many lives again.  

The fight for $15

After scrolling through some news headlines today, I noted that there was another "Fight for $15" rally that was planned for today.  It's been quite a while since we've heard these fateful words.  I don't know that I've heard of any of these rally's since November to be completely honest, but in any case, they are back, even if they are on a reduced form.  The fight for $15 has roots in an honorable cause, but in reality, it's a movement designed to please big business donors before completely wrecking the economy.  Let's look at the minimum wage, and why such a drastic increase would be detrimental, if not dangerous while we are so early in our recovery.

Most people fighting on for a fifteen dollar minimum wage will tell you that we've been in a major recovery since about 2010.  While it is true that we experienced a period of economic growth during the last seven years, by the numbers our economy has actually been quite stagnant since the "Great Recession". There were a few quarters that surged over 3% here and there, but overall the total economic growth under the Obama Administration was around 1.4%.  His best year in that was 2015 at 2.9%.  So why is that important?  The growth of GDP versus the growth of dollars circulating in the economy is the definition of inflation, and while the Federal Reserve continued to print dollar bills at an accelerated rate, the value of each of them dropped.

An interesting discussion came about one day at work when a rather outspoken employee started mouthing off an A&W employee getting his sandwich wrong, expressing that "this idiot wants 15 bucks and hour!"  This caught the ear of the inventory controller, who doesn't make even that much, and he, in turn, started yelling back about how he doesn't make that much.  The night service adviser quelled the situation, steering the discussion away from "who should make what" into "why is the dollar so worthless that we feel the need to double the federal minimum wage."  It's a point worth noting.  The minimum wage is essentially just an arbitrary number, with loose ties to the inflation level and the Gross Domestic Product.  It's also a very low baseline.  Currently, only two States in the Union have a State Minimum Wage lower than the federal one, in addition to the five states that don't have any minimum wage at all aside from the Federal one.  There are also 14 states that currently use the Federal Minimum Wage, so the $7.25 only applies to 21 states.  Furthermore, this statistic only applies to 2.7% of workers nationwide, or a grand total of 2.2 million people as of 2016, with that number dropping off all the time.  With numbers like that, the bare minimum of the minimum wage affects a very niche group of people.  However, we are still in the earliest stages of economic recovery, and that is still quite a large number of people to have these kinds of jobs.  The other driver is the demographic that sits in the rather large swath of people that have jobs that sit between the minimum wage and the golden number that has been set as a goal of how to make the entire country rich at once.  Large groups in the movement are the people who are making 10 or 12 bucks and hour.  The unfortunate myth with them is that the majority of them would get moved to $15, and probably not more until they earn it, increasing the number of "minimum wage" jobs through the ceiling, and precipitating a further level of unrest while the workers who were above minimum wage demand a higher wage yet.

So what does an increase of over 100% in the minimum wage mean for jobs on the whole? Well, in the beginning, the vast majority of US workers would be entirely unaffected.  Most people fall above this threshold, or are close enough to it that it will be just a mild pay raise.  The immediate concern would be with the fast food, grocery, foodservice, retail, and CNA fields.  While the medical industry will find a way to accommodate it's employees, there will definitely be cutbacks and layoffs.  The retail and food industries, on the other hand, will see drastic cutbacks, and automation will cease to be a meme and become a reality.  As time progresses, though, many to all of the smaller stores and restaurants will start to go under, paving the way for IHOP and Denny's and other big corporate businesses to take over.  The next immediate concern would be pricing.  If the minimum benchmark for an hour's labor doubles, the cost of production will go up.   I don't believe costs will double, as material cost increasing will be a secondary effect, and many manufacturers are closer to the fifteen dollar an hour benchmark, but there will be increases.  States will also mandate higher state minimum wages to remain competitive for laborers.  As time goes on, production costs will continue to increase, as manufacturers increase wages to attempt to retain workers dissatisfied with suddenly being relegated to minimum wage status.  Costs will go up, and wages will slowly rise to match, and then in a couple of years, after the federal reserve has printed money to supply the economy, we will be having this argument again.  $15 will no longer be a living wage, and then we will have the fight for $30 on our hands.

A dramatic increase in the Federal minimum wage will have drastic effects.  As I mentioned earlier the first problem will be that it will starve out all the small employers, leaving the giant corporations to take over.  The layoffs will leave more people living on entitlements, and our economy will go right back into the tank.  Over a few years, the economy will come back around, and as inflation equalizes, and small businesses will begin to rise again as the American Entrepreneurial spirit takes over.  But the reality is that as the currency increases, it continues to be devalued until we have a currency as worthless as Venezuela.

A minimum wage is an arbitrary number that represents the value of the lowest level of work.  Unless you are in a full Communist economy, no matter how high you raise it, the economy will adjust to match it.  The minimum wage is just that: A minimum.  If you want to have a higher wage, get a better job.  Trust me, if you work hard at what you do, the employers will start fighting over you, and you'll see the wages to match.

I have one final thought on this.  Over the last 10 months, it seems that there has been very little on the fight for $15 front.  It's a little hard to explain from November to...let's say April, but after that, our economy has been booming.  The reeling back of regulations has allowed the creation of over a million jobs to date, and I'd lay a bet that the majority land between $12 and $20 per hour.  When many of the "Fight for $15" movement go back to their regular jobs, what's left are the people that the jobs were intended for: Young people starting out with few to no bills.  If you're still in the minimum wage group, hang in there for a little while.  Take some time, and look outside of your job market, too.  I thought I was stuck in my $12 an hour part time job, but I got up and moved one day, and I suddenly found myself constantly with offers on the table for employment even before the recovery.

As always, leave your comments below, and you can share, with my permission, all across social media.  Get a discussion going and see what's best for you and yours.  We can start fights and get nowhere on the issues, or we can discuss them and find the best solution for everyone.

Donald Trump: Democrat

Near the end of 2015, during a conversation with my extremely staunch republican cousin, the topic of Donald Trump came up.  

"Oh, Trump.  Fuck that guy.  What a joke.  He's a fucking Democrat, did you know that?"  I shook my head.  "Yeah, he's not gonna go anywhere.  We're gonna have another Bush in the White House."

Just so all of my readers are aware, my cousin now sings mostly praises to our sitting Commander-in-Chief, even if it's preceded by "I can't stand the guy."  But it does raise a lot of interesting ideas about our President, and our political atmosphere.  

The title may be a little misleading.  I don't necessarily consider Mr. Trump to be full on Democrat, but he's definitely no Republican either.  I spent a lot of time in 2016 researching Candidate Trump and mostly what I see him to be is a down the middle centrist that's spent nearly 60 years playing jump rope with that center line.  Even now, as he sits in the highest office of the country with an R next to his name, he is still on one side of it just as often as he's on the other.  One day it's defeat Obamacare, eliminate regulations, lower taxes, and the next day it's grow the government, replace Obamacare with another big government program, and move more power to the executive branch.  In spite of the fact that he holds views of both sides of the aisle, The Donald remains to be one of the most hated human beings in Washington DC.  Additionally, if we listen to the mainstream media and the activists, Trump is the most hated man in the world, in spite of the fact that he swiftly won the Electoral College not even a year ago.

Trump's feud with Former Secretary of State Clinton is a very new event, which is part of the reason that most people considered him to be a Democrat from the start.  Donald and the Clintons are known to be long time friends prior to the events of in November this past year.  Trump, himself, referred to himself as a Dem in the 80s and 90s, but again, it seemed nearly every year he changed sides.  While no one can know what's in the real estate mogul's head except for him, I can say that it seems like he officially aligned himself fully with the Republican Party at the beginning of the Obama years.  While I didn't know it until deep into the 2016 election cycle, Trump was apparently one of the leading voices in the birther movement against Barack Obama.  Some of the videos and articles that I have seen suggest that there was a deep, mutual rift between our Former President and the present.  Many people will remember the 2011 White House Correspondent's dinner which appeared to be an excuse for Former President Obama and SNL star Seth Meyers to roast Trump on a very public platform. According to many, this was the event that put Trump's eventual Presidency in motion.  It may not be the perfect explanation as to why Mr. Trump chose to enter government with an R next to his name

Mrs. Clinton is releasing a book shortly laying out what happened  that made her lose the 2016 Presidential race.  While most of the subject matter seems to continue to revolve around racism and Russia, but I think the real reasoning why she lost aligns with the reason that a lifelong big government Democrat was able to run and win as a Republican.  You see, back in 2007, Mrs. Clinton was the favorite to win in the primaries against a little known Illinois Senator named Barack Obama.  Hillary espoused classic Democrat views that appealed to blue collar union workers, and she was likely to keep a balanced budget, and curb spending enough to give us a surplus, just like her husband did.  However, as the primaries continued on, Clinton continued to lose popularity to a smooth talker with a socialist agenda.  In the 8 years that followed, Mr. Obama and his followers forced the ideology of the Democrats into a Socialist progressive movement that went further to the left every day.  In 2016, the former Secretary of State again started a campaign on traditional Democrat Values, but quickly began to lose her steam to another far-left, progressive socialist.  Then Hillary herself suddenly began to espouse highly socialist ideas.  The Donald, however, never wavered on his centrist views.  These views, when held up against the views of Barack Obama, and especially against the wildly radical ideas of Senator Sanders, move from center to an almost radical level of right.  But, Mrs. Clinton completely changed her agenda to pander to a voting base that would have considered her to be a right wing extremist, and Trump unapologetically held onto these beliefs, and they aligned with blue-collar workers, small-business owners, as well as big-business guys.  And everyone knew exactly what Trump wanted to do, even if they didn't all agree with it.  With such a major flip-flop halfway through the primaries, no one really knew what agenda Hillary was going to bring to the table.  So the people voted what they knew they were going to get.

There is one last item about Trump that may have sealed his place in the Presidency even if no one really knew which side he was on.  There is a contingency of people who have sworn up and down that they voted down ticket, but left the top spot blank.  I'm no stranger to this.  I've mentioned in a previous article that I completely abstained from the 2008 election because I, myself, could not get behind either Presidential candidate.  It was initially how I felt as I saw The Donald gaining ground across the country.  But I was very proud to fill in the blank for Trump, and he's already fulfilled the only election "promise" that I cared about.  Donald Trump broke a glass ceiling that's needed to be broken for several decades.  A complete political outsider was able to not only get elected late in life, but he went straight to the top, having never held so much as a school board office prior.  While Mr. Trump hardly represents the common American person, he does represent the idea that a person doesn't have to be primped and preened his entire life in order to hold a government office.  We were promised a government by the people for the people in the late 18th century.  Yet over my entire lifetime, the vast majority of people that I've seen in government have been people who started in government in their early 20s and stayed in government positions for 60 years.  We've managed to re-create a feudal system of Lords and Ladies, even though we rebelled away from such a system to form this country.  While Trump is a belligerent, boisterous man and no one really knows who's side he's on, he represents an uprising by people like you and like me to start trying to primary some of these career lawmakers out of the government, paving the way for people like you or me to take their places.  2018 may see a few primary runs and some no names across the ticket from lawmakers, but I think a successful Trump economic growth sees every single congressional seat that's up get challenged, and that's why so many career politicians on both sides are so eager to see Trump fail.  If he does fail, we go back to the old status quo of employing career politicians to make all of our decisions for us.

If you have something to say about Donald Trump or where you think his loyalties lie, make sure you leave it in the comments, and if you want to get other people involved in the discussion, feel free to share this article on any and all social media.  I love discussions and I'd love to hear what you think.

Tax Reform and the National Debt

Under the 8 years of the Obama Administration, there was an unprecedented increase in the national debt in the United States.  Conservative commentator Sean Hannity likes to remind his listeners over and over again that Barack accumulated more debt over his two terms than all US Presidents combined, which is true.  However, since the beginning of the 2016 election cycle, the second biggest talking point for Republican and RINO candidates for President and Congress has been lowering taxes for everyone.  Given the fact that we are currently just shy of $20 trillion dollars in debt, this seems to not make any sense.  It seems almost impossible to get rid of our debt if we reduce our taxes, which are our government's main source of income.  However, there are simple, as well as more complex factors that play a part in how our promised tax reform can put us back into the place that we need to be.

Let's start with what the National Debt actually is.  The term "National Debt" is a scary word that gets thrown around political discussions both on and off of election years, and is often associated with the terms "Surplus" and "Deficit".  Everyone in the US has heard the words "National Debt", but most laymen couldn't really tell you what it actually is, outside of saying "it means that China owns us." Surprisingly, most highly politically active people don't really even know what the debt is.  I'll admit, I had to go do some research to find out for myself.

The National Debt is the total amount of debts owed out in exchange for working capital that the government uses as a supplement to taxes for operational costs.  The Debt is sold as Treasury Bonds on an open marketplace that anyone can buy that lose value for a few years, before beginning to gain value, reaching their maximum value at 30 years.  It also includes unpaid trade deficits to other countries that tax us to sell goods within their borders.  This is a confusing concept to many people, as most points in conversation, people make it seem like Bill Clinton just flew to China one day and said "Hey, man.  Can I borrow 50 bucks?"

Anyone in the world is free to buy a bond at any time.  In fact, many investors and private citizens use them in wealth portfolios and savings accounts.  I had an Aunt and Uncle growing up that bought a $50 bond in my name, along with all their other nieces and nephews, every year, for the first 18 years of our lives.  I understand that in the peak of the 80s and 90s economies, that was a pretty common practice all across America.  All of those Bonds are counted in the National Debt.  While people are free and willing to buy bonds at any time, at times when the total amount of bonds and taxes just isn't enough; such as in war time, or when there is more going out in entitlements than what is coming in; the government starts to advertise and push the purchase of bonds, first at home, and then abroad.  A semi-contemporary example of this was the scene in Captain America: The First Avenger where Captain Rogers and the chorus line was on a national tour proclaiming that every war bond you buy is a bullet in your best guy's gun.

One of the magic of Bonds is that it's on the Bond owner to cash it in.  The government doesn't have to come out and pay it off when it reaches maturity.  This is important because many people claim that all China has to do is demand payment on the debt and they would destroy us.  That may be true, and it may not.  It would all depend on the age of the bonds.  I can say for certain that if anyone cashed in a Bond (or millions of them) from the Obama or Bush administrations, he would lose money.  Most of the simplest bonds out there stay below face value for the majority of their 30 year life spans.  And as far as China goes, it's interesting to note that according to the US National Debt Clock, only $6.14 Trillion of our debt is currently held by other countries at the time I'm typing this.  While that's not good, I personally feel a little better knowing that less than a third of our total debt is foreign, in spite of what I've been told for the last 20 years.

The other major pillar to the Government's economy, and a much larger share, is taxes.  People pay a portion of their income to the government in exchange for a series of services from the government.  The major difference between this and bonds is that bonds are completely voluntary, and taxes are required by law.  There are those who would go as far to say that all taxation is theft based on it's compelled nature.  Most people do understand the concept that the federal government requires operating capital to run from day to day, and that the salaries of congressmen and the president do need to be paid.  Along with this, we have a military that does need to be funded, and a myriad of other services that the government provides on a federal level.  The main source of dissidence comes with the amount of taxes that get paid by the people, and what it is getting spent on.

An important point to note is that a lot of people blame welfare for the high level of federal taxes.  While this is not directly true, there are two factors to welfare that do bring it into the federal budget.  State governments determine eligibility and pay welfare.  However, an ailing state that can't keep up with it's budget requirement can get a loan or a grant from Washington DC to help better serve it's people.  The other point of this is that taxes are a numbers game.  The bottom 51% of households in the US owe no Federal income tax, and the rest of us have to pick up the slack, but I will touch on that later.

The big argument on taxes from the left is that we need to be taxing the top 1% of earners in this country nearly every penny they make.  We did so in the 50s, and had a period of 4% growth of the US economy as we did.  The problem with that is that the global economy is not what it was immediately after World War II.  For the United States in 1950, the entire world was a seller's market.  Prior to the World Wars, many European countries, along with Japan, exported and imported equally across the world.  Years of war devastated these countries and their manufacturing capabilities.  But the wars touched very little US soil, and because of this, the day to day needs and the rebuilding materials could be easily and quickly purchased from United States manufacturers for whatever price they want to charge.  At that point, even getting taxed at 99% would become profitable for business leaders, and would put a lot of people to work.  As the world rebuilt, prices had to come down, and business leaders couldn't make a profit, or pay their workers on such a high tax rate.  In today's world, almost every country in the world exports at least one item that it's known for, and many other items that it can either undercut price on, or are of a higher quality, over other countries, and our tax rates need to reflect that.

With all this in mind, one can conclude that lowering taxes is essential for economic growth, and an across the board tax cut is the best way to do it.  Sure, in the beginning, there will be a deficit on the federal budget.  But as I mentioned before, it's a numbers game.  With regulations falling off of employment like snow from a March rooftop, any money that the business leaders of America is worth more invested in a good or service, than it is parked offshore somewhere.  If I have 100 bucks, I can either put it in a bank at their low interest rates, or I can hire you to perform a service in my name for ten bucks an hour, and charge someone 30 bucks an hour to do it.  In 10 hours I've doubled my money, and you have 100 bucks in your pocket.  A lot of millennials don't understand this, but that's really how business leaders think.  It's more profitable to provide a service than to park your money.  Therefore, the more money that people who lead business are allowed to keep, the more they are likely to hire.  On the other side of the board, bringing the tax rate down for the people in the middle to the point that the republicans are suggesting puts a bunch of money into people's pockets that they are going to spend.  At $40k a year, 15% in taxes is 100 bucks a week extra in a single person's pocket.  With moderate credit and a good driving record, that's a car payment on a modest, brand new mid-size car, plus full coverage, and enough leftover for a trip to the sushi bar once a month.  With all that extra spending, even small business leaders will have no choice but to keep hiring.  Once everyone who is willing to be in the workforce is in the workforce, wages are going to start driving up across the board.  Even half of the 13 million actual unemployed people paying income taxes will more than make up for the 20% drop in tax rate for the lower middle class, and everyone along the way.

If our current Congress can pass the tax reform that they plan, I have no doubts that we can put a surplus back onto our economy.  The interesting turn of events after that started happening would be a vote to see what we do with the surplus money.  I'm sure there would be a vote to see whether we put it into a coffer to be ready when the Bonds that our debt is tied into start to mature, or to return it to the taxpayers.  There are strong arguments to both, but first we need to get there.

Confederate Statues

On a sunny Saturday morning, August 12th 2017, a group of hate-filled Klansmen, Neo-Nazis, and other forms of white supremacists that have been scorned and disavowed by every political figure and 90% of US citizens gathered in an obscure Virginia city to protest the removal of of a statue of Robert E. Lee that was legally petitioned for removal.  After a violent clash with a group later identified to be Antifa, the entire nation became wrapped up in a single argument about whether or not we should allow these statues to exist anymore, and to a lesser extent, what to do with them once they're torn down.  And all of this must be decided on a Federal level.

One of the things that interests me is that while the Confederacy was formed almost entirely of Southern Democrats, it seems to be fringe groups of the same party that are pushing the hardest to make a Federal case of what to do with the statues.  I remember as soon as 15 years ago, living in small town Northern Wisconsin, seeing pickup trucks all over the place proudly waving the Stars and Bars.  I know this because I was one of them, and I continued to do so until I was in my early 20s, living in Massachusetts.  What most people don't know is that up until 2008 I was a down the ticket Democrat Voter, with very little to no questioning.  I abstained from the vote in 2008 because there was no Presidential Candidate that I could align with, and I had been living outside of Wisconsin for so long that I couldn't make an educated vote on any of the down ticket offices.  It was only in the cycle between 2008 and 2010 that I started to recognize a hard move toward Imperial Socialism coming from the people on the left, and began to vote Republican.  I can quickly remember, and recognize this cycle, as well as explain individual points that I used in my decision.  What I didn't pick up on; until this new story in the news came to national attention; was that as I moved further to the right, I passively stopped displaying the Confederate Battle Flag.  It wasn't a conscious decision, it just stopped being important to me.

It's important to note, on the subject of rebel flags, that I don't really believe that the majority of people who fly them actually display them in racism.  I know that growing up in the north, it was generally seen as a symbol of country pride or being a redneck.  Now, I can't sit here and pretend that we had a lot of experience with minorities in the farming region of Wisconsin, because we really didn't. But I can tell you that moving to the city and beginning to experience other races with my rural, rebel flag upbringing, I never had any trouble interacting with the black and Hispanic people immediately from the get-go.  In spite of the fact that I had been waving the stars and bars from age 15 on, I never saw a person of a different race as anything other than a person.  I was 19 before I had ever heard anyone refer to the rebel flag as "Racist".  Don't get me wrong, after the glass ceiling was broken, no one had to explain to me why the connotation was there.  But it took someone outrightly telling me that there was racism associated with that flag before I had ever begun to conflate the two concepts.

Going back to the monuments, I can honestly say that I bear a level of indifference to the monuments.  I can see both sides of the argument, and both are rightly valid.  There is a lot of history that goes along with these statues, and having them around leads conversations to start as people are touring and visiting places.  Relegating these statues to a museum restricts access to them to people who are actively and deliberately looking for Civil War history, and the lay person may never have the opportunity to have a discussion and learn from them.  Destroying them takes the entire concept of education away from anyone.  It's also a stab at the artists who created them.  They are beautiful and well detailed works of art that are worth a lot of money and have a lot of man hours tied up in their creation.  On the other side of the coin, while I'm against people who swear that the crime of being white makes you guilty of the sins of slave owners past, I can see; especially with the events of these past weeks; how seeing statues of men who unapologetically fought to keep slavery in force can stir some powerful emotions.  Even though no one who is alive today has ever been held in slavery, I understand that people like Lee would have insisted on seeing all of the people of color today in bondage just as he did back in his time.

One of the major points of this entire argument is the fact that it's all or nothing.  The people who want the statues removed want them all removed by the will of the federal government.  This is not a Federal issue, though.  At best, this is a State level issue.  However, in most instances, the statues are in municipal parks, so they are governed by local law.  If there are problems with the statues, they should be handled the way that the Lee statue in Charlottesville was handled.  The removal was petitioned by a concerned citizen, added to a referendum, voted on, and passed.  After the vote, the opposition exercised it's right to assemble, and was given the proper permits to do so, and the removal was delayed while another referendum began.  Statue removal by any other means by governing bodies is tyranny, and removal by activist groups is vandalism, punishable by fine and imprisonment.  As much of a controversy as Charlottesville was, they issue was handled correctly and went through all of the proper avenues.

Even though the news cycle has made this all about statues, there is still a sneaking feeling inside of me that says that there was something else going on with the protest and counterprotest.  Everything seemed to happen too conveniently, and as I learn more and more about the protest, there is a feeling deep down inside of me that there was a slide of hand in play, and something was either intended to happen and come out of this, or something else was happening elsewhere while the news cycle was focused on a small southern city.  I will close this article at that, and I intend to expand on the slide of hand as I research more.  Like, comment, and share this article with your friends, and feel free to link it in your social media.  Let's get a good comment discussion going and try to get our ideas out without name calling.

Charlottesville Virginia

At about 11 AM Eastern Standard Time, in a relatively obscure city in Virginia, violence erupted as two factions of protesters on opposing sides of an issue clashed in a small park.  A few hours later, onlookers were aghast as a car driven by a member of one faction plowed into a small crowd of members of the opposing faction, killing one.  Shortly after this, a three car crash injured several more people.  After scouring the media, I've found that this is all the information that everyone can agree on over a day that will live on in history, until the next Antifa demonstration.

I was on my way to the bank to get some cash this morning for utility payments when I heard the news.  I had intended to catch up on some podcasts while I was making the drive, but forgot my iPod at home, so after grabbing some breakfast, I just put Fox News on to catch up on some headlines.  All that I could make out initially was that the reporter sounded like he was in the middle of a war zone, and my first thought was that the DPRK had made landfall on Guam or Los Angeles.  I did finally determine that there was a massive demonstration going on in Charlottesville with no inkling or idea of what had caused it.  It was a full 20 minutes before I was informed that the riots had broken out over a statue of General Lee, and another 10 beyond that before I found out that there were two factions of protesters at war with each other.

As my trip went on, and my banking business was finished, I continued listening.  Fox quickly devolved into the hardline right talking points of bussing in protestors and Antifa and Black Lives Matter.  There were reports, as well, of the original faction being alt-right white nationalists shouting about "Unite the Right" (alone, in my truck, I literally said out loud, to nobody, "get the name of my political party the hell out of your mouth" to the sound of one of these racists calling himself "right-wing".).

After I got home, I had another project I had to finish, so my attention was  drawn away from this for a while, but I did attempt to do some web searching to try and find something non biased.  30 minutes of searching netted me nothing except for a lot of professional news anchors crying that the evil white men wanted to preserve a statue from the Civil War, and how swift justice was served by the brave counterprotesters.  After I closed the New York Times's webpage, I went on to find other editorials about how our sitting president orchestrated this from a golf resort and how his twitter silence meant that he was nodding in approval.  When I was done with NBC, I realized that mainstream media was going to get me nowhere.

As bad as all the bias is, Social Media is even worse.  While I have discontinued my use of Facebook for personal reasons, I couldn't help but try and get some answers from people's 140 character analyses on Twitter.  I was very surprised to find that every person who has a Twitter account has a very confident Ph. D. level understanding of what happened in Charlottesville, and the 500 year history of what led up to it.  The only problem I had was that none of the stories seemed to line up with each other in any sort of comprehensive fashion.

So here I am, with no real knowledge of what happened in Charlottesville, who took the first strike, and what it means for the country.  All that I do know is that, after a petition to remove a statue of General Robert Lee, and an injunction to block it, there was a big fight to decide whether to keep it there or not.  One side says that it's important to history, and the other side says that the history is evil.  Personally, I think it's important to keep some knowledge about the Civil War.  You remember that war, right?  It's the one that Black Lives Matter and the Democrats desperately want you to remember happened, but don't want you to remember anything about.

I have a couple of takeaways from this event.  The most obvious one is the one that I mentioned before.  These White Nationalist/Supremacists need to stop calling themselves Republican, because they are absolutely not.  They are the descendants of Southern Dixiecrats that got betrayed by the Democrat Party when they managed to get the scary black man out of the projects where they think he belongs and put him through the Primaries.  Trust me, if Dr. Carson had made it through the primaries, all those ignorant Southern Neo-Nazis would be card carrying Democrats again, or would have broken off and found a third party to worship.  Don't get me wrong, Republicans will gladly take their votes.  It would be political suicide to stand behind a Neo Nazi in the voting booth and say "you better not vote for me." But these guys can't go around telling people that they espouse the same views as the rest of us when that's simply not the case.  When David Duke goes around tweeting that Trump should do well to remember who got him into office, Duke must remember that it was centrist Americans taking a stand against extremism and socialism that got him elected.

Extremism leads me into my other big takeaway from all of today's mess.  Our President, and many other members of our government took to Twitter today to either support BLM, or condemn both sides for their violence.  As I was trying to get to the bottom of all of this mess, I had a very George Carlin-esque thought about it.  The buzz about the violence being deplorable on Twitter really cements the idea that at the very, very least; 75% of US residents fall in between the ideologies of White Supremacy and Antifa/BLM.  Only the most extreme on either side of this situation want the war, and had I been the Charlottesville Mayor, or the Virginia Governor, I can  honestly say I'd have had a really hard time making the decision to stop them.  As long all of the innocent bystanders were out of harm's way, and they took the fight out into a field somewhere to minimize property damage, I can hear old George's voice saying "what's the problem with letting the two groups beat the shit out of each other for a while."  The only real reason I can come up with as to why to stop the battle is because press coverage would cause the fight to escalate all over the country, and the people in the middle would quickly get drawn to one extreme or the other.  In short, it seems like a good idea to let the zealots take care of each other; but there's no way, in today's polarized society, that it doesn't become the spark that ignites the powder keg of Civil War II.

About five years ago, I wrote an article that chilled me to the bone about a looming Second Civil War.  Two years of violent protests had made me think about the deadly repercussions of extremism fueled by echo chambers and social media as I watched the supporters of Romney and those of Obama hurl insults at each other and wish each other dead.  I've considered reposting that article numerous times because as bad as things were in 2012, more Social Media and bigger protests chill me even more.  And 4G internet assures everyone that the first thought gets posted in 140 characters more than ever now, while in 2012 that technology was just beginning to become accessible to everyone.  The grade on the slippery slope is getting steeper, and more and more people every day whisper about how a Civil War wouldn't be a bad thing.  Extremism has an enticing way of making you feel like you're always right, but it's time for the citizenry of this country to start working together and make sure that we don't destroy each other, and ourselves in the process.

The Chain of Command: Everything you need to know about mass impeachments

Early in the morning on November 9th, 2016; a former reality TV star, and National Real Estate Mogul who had a tendency to speak his mind without thinking much about the consequences, won the Federal Electoral College vote and was put in line to become the next President of the United States of America.  Later that day, one of the top Google searches was "How to impeach Trump".  To this day, starting the third official month of Mr. Trump's presidency, the most discussed topic in politics seems to continue to be how the US is going to impeach The Donald, so we can hold a special election and coronate Queen Hillary or Emperor Bernie.  Unfortunately, few people on both sides of the spectrum seem to understand what that actually entails, and what will come of it.  I'm going to avoid the topics of what the charges are that are planned to be levied against our sitting president, because all of the readers are going to believe what they want to believe.  What I want to discuss is how it works and what happens as it goes along.  

Impeachment is not firing a person from a presidency, as so many people in our country believe.  Impeachment is a lengthy process that can end with a public official being removed from office, but it's not an overnight decision.  It's actually a due process of law with two trials for elected officials, and like most criminal cases, it begins with a formal request for an investigation.  If an investigation should lead to sufficient enough evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor performed by an official while in office, the Articles of Impeachment are brought forward, and the fun begins.  It is at this point that the official is referred to as in the process of impeachment, even though most of the general population believes the official as being impeached when the investigation begins.  The next step is what is essentially an indictment, with the House of Representatives acting as the Grand Jury.  Should the indictment be reached, the official is considered to have been "Impeached", but the process of removal of office is far from over.  

If the Government is to go forward with removing an elected official from his office, the step after impeachment is a lengthy, drawn out trial by the Senate.  In any case other than the the President or Vice President being the defendant, the Vice President presides as the judge over the case.   In the cases of those two offices, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court takes on the duties.  Impeachment is a big deal in this country, and a hearing for a President has never made it past the required 2/3 vote of the present senators.  Nixon would have been the only one, but he resigned before he could be indicted by the house of Representatives.  

So assuming that the Impeachment of Trump does make it through the Senate, now it's time for the special Election day between Hillary and Bernie, right?  Well, not really.  Logically, an impeachment and conviction would leave the United States in the same position as an assassination.  The Vice President would take the Oath of Office and become the President.  Now, the fun part of this is that our friends on the right like to cite the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, saying you can impeach the Vice President and the Speaker becomes President, and then it goes down through the Cabinet.  The problem with that is, that's not quite the case either.  After Mike Pence takes the Oath of Office, he would have the option to let his term run out with a Vice Presidential Vacancy, or he can appoint a Vice President and present him to the Congress for a simple majority vote. That is stated in the relatively recent 25th Amendment (February 1967).  In today's dangerous political times, it would almost behoove him to have a person in mind already to present, as a successful impeachment would leave his adversaries with a full head of steam and ammo to go after him next.  At that point, the only way that Speaker Ryan would become next in line would be if Pence actually chose him to become the next Vice President and he passed the Congressional hearing and vote.  While it is great to see that so many people are paying attention to the Congressional acts that were put in place in case of an emergency, the Presidential Succession Act is just that, a backup plan.  That only arises in a case like the popular TV Series "Designated Survivor", where the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, while one of the last people on the Act, was one of the only surviving people on that Act after an act of terrorism caused an explosion in the Legislature during the inauguration.  

A nation without it's Head of State would suffer a moral blow, and would be weakened against it's enemies, both foreign and domestic.  Even though a void in the executive branch wouldn't shut down our government, we'd still be in a state of chaos and anarchy during the absence.  The founding fathers knew that, and that's why they built things into the Original Articles of the Constitution that would prevent us from being more than a couple of days without an executive.  Our legislators also figured that out and that's why they built even more safeguards into law to make sure that we always had a sitting President, no matter what.  If we need to move forward with an impeachment hearing, that's what is going to be done, but remember as you do that you will be removing the man from the office, and the next time you'll be able to attempt to remove the Republican Party from office will be in 2020, no matter how many impeachments you attempt.