Shep Smith - Pusher of Half-Truths

Fox News should consider taking Sheppard Smith to the woodshed for his incessant reporting of half-truths designed to make President Trump and Republicans look bad. I refer, in particular, to his most recent offense today, where he stated that Trump "withheld funds from the Ukraine just one week before" his call to Zelinsky.

While that is true, it is only half the truth. It seems Smith "forgot" to add that at the time of the infamous call, the Ukrainians were not even aware that there was a temporary hold on the funds, and that Trump never mentioned the funds in his call. Since Zelinsky was unaware of any withholding of funds, and Trump never mentioned it, there could not possibly be any interpretation of the call that makes it appear to be "extortion" or "quid pro-quo".

What Smith has done - and does regularly, just like Rachel Maddow and "Morning Joe" - is no different than saying, "John Doe took his elderly mother's money" without telling us that he took it to buy her the groceries she wanted hm to get. A half-truth is nothing less than a lie.

Again, I think it is time Sheppard Smith gets taken to the proverbial woodshed. It's okay to be a liberal. It's not okay to intentionally deceive people.

My opinion. Just sayin'...

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House Democrts - Patriots? Or Traitors?

Nancy Pelosi makes a point of calling herself and House Democrats patriotic because they are pushing for impeachment, to hold the President "accountable". And I could buy that - IF there was something that Trump did wrong to be held accountable for.

Here is the point: the House Democrats pushing impeachment are not trying to impeach based on the actual content of Trumps call to Zelensky. No, they are trying to impeach based on a made up interpretation of the call, highlighted at a recent hearing by Schiff's "parody"! They interpret the call as a strong-arm attempt to "get dirt on Biden", but nowhere in the actual transcript is any of that evident. All Trump did was ask the Ukrainians to look into a possible scandal that, if true, would affect our national security and future elections. In other words, Trump simply asked them to find out if there was any "there there". Not illegal. Not unethical. But it is his job.

But what the Democrats are doing IS unethical. Pushing impeachment based on an interpretation of hearsay, and not on the actual facts is not only undemocratic but un-American as well. In doing so, they are giving aid and comfort to our enemies by doing their dirty work for them.

And "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" is the legal definition of treason. In my opinion that makes Pelosi, Schiff, AOC and the rest of the impeachment pushers nothing less than traitors.

As for Schiff - he should be kicked out of office for outright lying repeatedly to the American People. There is something inherently wrong when it is a felony for a citizen to lie to Congress, but there is no consequence when Congress lies to the citizens. Under the Constitution we are all supposed to be held to the same laws, equally. If that were true in reality, Schiff would be doing hard time in a federal prison, which is how it should be!

If he ever gets re-elected, then we should convene a committee to investigate what is in the water in his district, because they are nuts.

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The Problem With Draining "The Swamp"

President Trump campaigned on draining the D.C. swamp. And while he is working on it, and has made some small headway, he is finding it incredibly difficult. And it's no wonder, when you consider the consequences of draining any swamp.

When you begin draining a swamp you aggravate all kinds of swamp creatures - the alligators that feed from it (the media), the swamp rats that the alligators feed on (politicians) and all those pesky, disease carrying mosquitoes that breed there (liberal celebrities and Twitter trolls). And you cannot expect draining the swamp to be a piece of cake when you rile so many critters.

Trump has definitely riled the media. They require sensationalism and controversy in order to compete for readers and viewers. Draining the swamp deflates the very things the media feeds on - they would have to revert back to actually doing their jobs and do some real investigative reporting instead of spreading the propaganda found on the internet (yet another swamp).

The swamp rats are ticked off because the draining of the swamp takes away their "safe space" - without the muddy, murky water they become more visible and can be seen for what they actually do or do not do. Since politicians win office by how voters see what they do, and not just what the politician says or promises, the swamp rats do not like that kind of transparency.

As for those pesky insects that are constantly trying to draw blood from anyone who dares enter their sanctuary, they breed and proliferate in those murky waters. If the swamp is drained, they have nowhere to turn.

And that is precisely the reasons why the swamp must be drained!

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Hillary's Latest (Libelous) Lie

We have become so accustomed to Hillary Clinton lying her butt off that it no longer surprises us. But this latest one - which is a proven lie - is so extreme, and so libelous as to garner attention.

In her latest rant, Clinton states that Trump is "running a cheap extortion racket". This, she claims is proven by his placing a hold on money slated for the Ukraine unless the Ukranian president investigates the Biden scandal.

However, none of the facts are on her side, and actually debunk her lie right from the outset.

While it is true that Trump placed a temporary hold on the money, the two critical components of extortion OR quid pro-quo are absent - at the time Trump made the call to the Ukrainian president, the Ukraine had not even discovered the funds had been placed on hold, and Trump never mentioned it in his call. It is impossible to commit extortion - or even quid pro-quo if the "victim" knows nothing about it.

The Ukraine has always had a very corrupt government as everyone recognizes. The new president of the Ukraine, recently elected, promised reform. I suspect Trump delayed payment until he felt comfortable that it was not going to a still corrupt government, and his call with the Ukranian president was likely designed to instill confidence that the money would not be used for evil.

I do believe that is what a good President does - he looks out for America, and fights corruption.

Proof that the 'Deep State' is Alive and Well?

I am unsure why so many others are not seeing this - connecting the dots. The following is just my opinion, based on the facts that do exist.

We already have proof that many of the higher-ups in the FBI and CIA were (are) viral anti-Trumpers intent on bringing down the President. McCabe, Comey, Strzok, Clapper, Brennan, Page etc.  With that backdrop, let's start connecting those dots...

Shortly after Trump's election, "someone" high up and privy to Presidential calls to world leaders (and therefore most likely someone in the intelligence community) leaked the contents of those calls in an effort to undermine President Trump. To prevent this from happening again, the administration began putting the transcripts of future calls onto a secure, codeword protected server.

Now the Deep State had to find another way to get those calls out, even though it undermines national security (yep - if those calls are made public, no world leaders will talk candidly, for fear of it ending up in the New York Times).

There was only one way to now get those calls out into the public sphere - use a "whistleblower", which would cause one of two scenarios - virtually force the contents of the call to be public, or force the administration to exert Executive Privilege and keep them under wraps, making it appear that they were hiding something. In ether of those instances, the Deep State wins.

But the Deep State had a problem - under the whistleblower rules which were written by the intelligence community, one requirement was that it be a "first-hand account", because hearsay is inadmissible in any court. So, suddenly,quietly  and without fanfare, they altered the rule, taking out that requirement. Now, even a second-hand rumor could fall under whisteblower protections.

The next step was to hire a team of attorneys to put together a very formal complaint, complete with footnotes, no less. The only thing that was not in the complaint were the actual details of the call, itself - they would fill in those blanks once they had a call that might give them ammunition to use against Trump.

Now, one of the agents they have in the Situation Room (or a White House traitor) that hears and monitors the calls can safely "leak" them by passing it on to their designated whisteblower instead of to the press. And since the identity of a whisteblower is protected, it would be nearly impossible to determine from whom he or she received that information. Really neat!

As a side note, this scenario also allows Democrats to claim "cover-up" because the transcriptions were stored on a secure server, even though it was stored there for a valid reason that had been put in place over a year before BECAUSE of those very leaks! But the truth does not matter to the left - they will do anything and perpetuate any lie (collusion?) in order to take back power. After all, wasn't it Adam Schiff who stated on camera, several times, that he had absolute positive proof that Trump was a "Russian asset"?

WHAT TO WATCH FOR NOW - since the Deep State will obviously stop at nothing to protect themselves and destroy Trump, it is not a stretch to believe that they just might apply threats and pressure against 2020 electors of the Electoral College, intimidating them to cast their vote for anyone but Trump.

It is interesting to note that the Democrats are issuing and endless number of subpoenas - for example, (3) Democrat committees are issuing them to SoS Pompeo. The obvious objective is to tie up so much of the the administrations time defending, and appearing at these bogus hearings. They figure if they can tie up everyone in the Trump circle long enough and often enough, the administration would be ham-strung and unable to be effective. They will say or do literally anything to stop Trump from being successful. In other words, they want America to stop winning!

Chuck Schumer said it himself - if Trump goes after the intelligence community, they have "six ways from Sunday" of getting even.

It appears the entire upper eschelon of the intelligence community that pre-dates Trump is corrupt and determined to effect a coup-d'etat, a political overthrow of the duly elected president. And that should scare the Hell out of EVERY American, Republican, Democrat or other.

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Greta Thunberg Should Do Some Research!

16 year old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg tore into world leaders at the U.N. making ignorant, untrue atatements like, "People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are at the beginning of a mass extinction..."

None of the above are actual facts.

It is a true shame that the liberal media and teachers and professors have so completely brainwashed our youth into believing climate change is that kind of "existential threat". And worse that political leaders are pressured into buying into the hype in order to hold onto power.

It is even more concerning that Thunberg and her fellow activists never even bother to find out the true facts about climate - they just swallow the "climate change" line hook, line and sinker, without questioning it.

If they were to do some actual research they would find these facts, as based on empirical evidence and absolute proof:

Over the 4 billion year life of this planet, over 85% of that time it has been appreciably hotter than now. Science has proven that beyond any doubt. In fact, we are currently in a cool period where the planet is getting back to normal after the "Little Ice Age" (1250-1850 A.D.). Whereas the Earth is normally warmer, and it is the natural state, there is nothing mere mortals can do to change it.

Greenland got its name because, until the Little Ice Age (LIA) it was green, and the inhabitants were agrarian - peaceful farmers. When LIA came, the inhabitants had to leave and become seafaring raiders of places like Scotland and England. They became known as the Vikings.

In EVERY instance that the Earth experienced a warm period (always following an ice age) Mankind prospered, thrived and multiplied. And in every period of cooling, Mankind suffered, often to the point of near extinction.

Being in a period of increasing warmth is a good thing - there will be more arable land for food production. Glacial ice provides more fresh water. Warmth requires less fuel for heating homes. And we know that statistically, people in the nothern climes tend to be less friendly, less happy and more war-like. Compare the lifestyle of an Eskimo to that of a Pacific Islander!

Certainly, it is possible that sea levels will rise, but in the 30 years activists have been screaming that "the sky is falling", we have yet to see much of that at all. But even if it does rise, that will only displace the rich elitists living in oceanside estates. The benefits of warming, which the professors  and liberal media are not bothering to mention, far outweigh the negatives.

Which raises this question: if Gore, Obama and others crying that the oceans will rise and drown us, why have all of them recently purchased multi-million dollar homes on the ocean? Because they do not BELIEVE the hype. They, unlike the activists, are better informed. And they are using the fear-mongering to hold onto power and wealth.

One more important point - there is nothing in nature that remains static. Everything changes, usually in cycles. So if we are not getting warmer, we will certainly get colder. And no sane person wants that!

Hey, "Beto" O'Moron - Come Take MY Guns (if you can)

Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke says "Hell, yes, we're going to take your guns." I've got news - and a history lesson - for him.

This country began not with just a "tea party", but because the British attempted to confiscate our guns in 1769, which is THE SINGULAR reason for the 2nd Amendment. That amendment has nothing to do with hunting - it's about being able to fight for and keep our Republic - even from our own government, if necessary. Hey, Beto - did you notice what happened to the British?

During hurricane Katrina, authorities attempted to confiscate guns from citizens. The authorities got slapped down hard. And in NJ, State Police attempted to confiscate a Army veterans' guns without a warrant - they, too, got slapped down.

Beto, you are nothing less than the dumbest clown in the Democrat clown car. Perhaps you should try engaging your brain before putting your mouth in gear. If your plan of confiscation were to ever take place, there would be a nationwide bloodbath that would make the mass shootings look like a Sunday picnic in comparison. Because We, the People, will NOT give up our guns OR our rights. No to you, not to anyone.

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Health Insurance Is the Problem, Not the Solution

So disgusted with both Republicans and Democrats in their so-called quest for better, cheaper healthcare. Disgusted too, with the pundits and media. They ALL are concentrating on health INSURANCE as being the solution, when in fact it is the problem.

Start with this simple fact: Health insurance is NOT health CARE!

It is important to understand exactly how health insurance contributes heavily to the problem. First, understand that administering health insurance plans, payments etc. requires thousands of employees, many of whom are paid hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. Those costs must come from insurance premiums, adding substantially to health care costs. But that is nothing compared to the excessive costs by health care providers - costs they raise to unconscionable amounts because insurance makes it possible to do so - as long as the individual is not paying directly, and as long as insurers can raise their rates, who is to complain when the hospital charges $8.00 for one aspirin?

Case in point - a full-body cat scan. Here are the facts on the cost:

National Average: $3,275

National Range: $300 – $6,750+

Outpatient Facility Average: $525

Inpatient Facility Average: $4,750

Now ask yourself - if an outpatient facility can do the scan for $525, why are hospitals charging as much as $6,750? BECAUSE THEY CAN! Insurers allow that. And they allow it so they can charge high premiums so the insurer can pocket those huge salaries.

Yet another reason health "care" (i.e. insurance) costs so much - as long as a person has insurance, they no longer need to live a healthy lifestyle. They can smoke, drink soda, be a couch potato - they do not have to concern themselves so much with making poor health choices. This results in the need for more health care. And when the demand for anything goes up, so does the cost.

If we want to decrease the expense of health care, we must first address the actual needs and the costs of those needs, and THEN we can address insurance to cover them.

First and foremost we need to address the poor lifestyle choices that contribute to over 70% of all health issues. One hundred years ago the average person was in good health, barring an injury or contagious disease. In nature, the normal state of health is good health, and poor health is abnormal. We have managed to turn that on its head with our proclivity towards making poor choices like smoking, too many sweets, fake foods (if it wasn't food a hundred years ago it is not food now), an over-abundance of chemicals and perservatives and an aversion to actual exercise and physical labor. You don't have to be a doctor to understand that our choices are largely responsible for our health. It is estimated that over 70%, and perhaps as much as 80% of all health care needs are attributed to poor lifestyle choices. If we were to all live by the Biblical statement, "All things, in moderation", and get sufficient exercise, we could cut health care costs in half.


And we could cut them even more by using our tax system to discourage poor and harmful lifestyle choices and apply those taxes to directly reduce the cost of healthier options. For example, we could increase tax on sodas and cigarettes and use those taxes EXPRESSLY to reduce, by subsidy, the cost of healthy, whole food and/or fitness equipment or gym memberships.


Costs can be reduced further by capping malpractice awards. Medicine is an imperfect science; honest mistakes can be made. The ONLY lawsuits that should be permitted are for instances of gross neglect or incompetence, and then the awards should be capped at reasonable levels. This would reduce costs in two ways: first, by reducing the exorbitant costs that doctors and medical establishments must pay for malpractice insurance, and second, because doctors will not feel obligated to "over-test" in an effort to cover their butts. Currently, doctors must test a patient for many things unrelated to the healh issue, just to play it safe. After all, $250,000,000 dollar awards are outrageous, even criminal - especially since the vast majority of those awards go to the ambulance-chasing attorneys.


To reduce health care costs further, it is as simple as stopping the "revolving door of referrals." If you know you need a gastroenterologist, why should you be required to first see a personal care physician for a "referral"? The cost of seeing the PCP adds significantly to the cost. We should be able to schedule our own appointments with the medical personnel we need.


Case in point - I suspected my medication for ulcerative colitis may have caused PML, a serious viral infection, so I wanted to see a professional to get an MRI to see if I was infected. I had to first see my PCP ($225) to get a referral to see the neurologist ($640) who referred me to an unnecessary HEART specialist (my heart is perfect) at a cost of $1200, who then, finally, got me an appointment for an MRI ($1550). A total of $3615.00, when all I needed was the MRI at less than half that cost. And as it turned out, I did not have PML. But $2,000.00 was wasted in getting that eventual determination.


Now that we have lowered the actual costs of health care into the realm of sanity, we can NOW address the cost of insurance. Having reduced health care costs by at least 50-75%, it is safe to assume one of two things - either the cost of insurance can be reduced by 50-75% OR most people can afford their health care costs without the need of insurance, as they would only be paying as much for their health care as they would have had to pay in insurance deductibles, anyway.


As a  final thought, assuming we bring costs down significantly, the ONLY insurance a person should need is catastrophic insurance, to cover things most people cannot afford, such as cancer treatment. If insurance covers only  catastrophic issues, the cost is significantly reduced even more.


Together, these things are not difficult to achieve. Certainly, many  people will still make lifestyle choices detrimental to their health, but the high taxes on those things would help offset the costs incurred. In other words, people choosing to harm themselves would be the same people carrying the brunt of the costs of their treatment. No longer will you and I be paying too much for insurance because someone else chooses to drink, smoke or junk food themselves into oblivion.


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Yang Joins the "Buying Votes" Crowd

At the debate last evening, candidate Andrew Yang joined the chorus of Democrats who resort to buying votes rather than earning  them. He stated his campaign was going to have a lottery and give $1000 per month to 10 families.

Let's overlook whether or not such a lottery is even legal. What certainly is illegal is buying votes. And even more so if the money comes from campaign funds. And, of course, that will likely be overlooked by an increasingly rigged system.

So let us take a quick look at how all of the Democrat candidates are buying votes:

1) FREE college tuition, to buy votes from the youngest voters who know nothing about what it takes to run this country

2) Pay off student debt, to buy the votes of previous college students - millennials

3) Free medicare for all - buying the votes of people with health issues (everyone!)

4) Increase minimum wage to $15/hour (forces businesses to replace workers with AI, REDUCING their wages to ZERO)

5) Now Sen. Warren promises the elderly a $200/month increase in Social (in)Security

Is there anyone's vote the Democrats are not buying with promises of more money or free stuff? On the bright side, most people are not that gullible - but many are. A growing number of Americans are becoming increasingly ignorant of what is really going on, and even fail to understand how things work. Our schools, colleges and universities are turning out students that cannot rise above 27% proficiency in ANY subject. They no longer teach civics or U.S. History. They no longer teach the Constitution. Only 18% are even proficient in WRITING! They are too busy teaching about familes with two moms, or teaching how diversity is better than ability, and free speech is "for me, but not for thee", and encouraging safe spaces and protests.

We are losing our Republic to fools, ignoramuses, liars, cheats and criminals. Benjamin Franklin (someone that most students today have never heard of), when a woman asked him what kind of government we would have, said, "A Republic, madame - if you can keep it!"

We are not keeping it...

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Dem Plan to Create a Socialist State – The Cloward-Piven Method

The following "rules" were put forth by Cloward and Piven, socialists who modeled these rules from Saul Alinski's "Rules for Radicals", which was in turn taken from the Communist Manifesto.

Creating a social state involves taking control in eight areas. The first is the most important because it involves everyone and is a matter of life and death. As you read through these (and hopefully think about them), ask yourself who is pushing these:


Healthcare– Control healthcare and you control the people.


Poverty – Increase the poverty level as high as possible, then provide the basics for them from the government teat, because it is easier to control poor people - they won't bite the hand that feeds them.


Debt – Literally bankrupt the treasury.  Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.


Gun Control – Remove the ability of the people to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state


Welfare – Take control of every aspect of their lives. (Food, Housing, Education and Income)


Education – Take control of what people read and listen to, and especially take control of what children learn in school. Tech students WHAT to think, not HOW to think


Religion – The tenets of religion are the strongest defense against socialism. Remove belief in God from the Government and schools. Deprive religion of any public forum, which cripples its ability to sustain itself


Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor, and by race, gender and by any other criterion possible. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

It is all about CONTROLLING the people. Make them dependent upon welfare, drugs, and even deprive them of their basic needs and have the government provide them, and as long as you have disarmed them and robbed them of the courage that comes from a faith in God, you will have all the power, unencumbered, and an unending supply of serfs.

Now stop and ask yourself - which political party is pushing for all of the above? And is that a world you would be comfortable living in?

 

The 2020 election will be the the most critical election since Abraham Lincoln, maybe more so. Choose the world you want to live in, or have it chosen for you

 

VOTE

Why Biden Is Polling #1

A lot of people are at a loss as to why Joe Biden continues to poll #1 even after all his gaffes and the outright lies about his past and his "accomplishments". It even perplexed me until I understood it from the viewpoint of on-the-street democrats.

Of all the 2020 Democrat contenders, Biden is the only one the average, non-rabid voters see as being moderate. Democrats just cannot swallow the far-left radical plans of the other candidates. And they are not overly concerned that Biden is jumpng on the same "whacky train" because they think he is only doing that in order to win the primaries. They believe that once the primaries are over, Biden will revert back to a moderate. And he would.

One needs to understand a very important point - one that cagey old Biden is well aware of: primary voters are not the same people as "on-the-street" voters. Primaries typically attract the most radical voters , while most other voters stay home - they don't care that much about primaries. But the average moderate voters turn out in much larger numbers for general elections. This is precisely why candidates move to the left during primaries, to win their radical base, then swerve back to the middle during the general.

Polls are taken from a cross-section of likely general election voters, and the average democrat cannot accept the insanity of the radical wing of their party, so when they are polled they choose the only candidate they see as even  a remote possibility of being a moderate. They only have two choices - choose Biden, or choose no one.

And that is why Joe Biden polls in first place. But that is unlikely to do him much good.

Dems Are Pushing the Wrong Issue on Guns

In 2017, 3.499 people were killed by rifles and "firearms other than handguns" - one every 2.5 hours

In 2017, 10,874 people died in drunk driving crashes – one every 48 minutes

Seems like we would be better served to ban booze instead of "assault-style guns. Oh! But wait - they TRIED that in '29, and there was a ten year murder and crime spree.

Truth be known, these assault-STYLE weapons are simply ordinary semi-auto hunting rifles made to LOOK like military full auto weapons. Even if you ban them, the same rifles capable of rapid-fire semi auto action would still be available in non-AR15 or AK47 styling. My Remington Woodsmaster can fire as quickly as any assault-style semi-auto. So to advocate the banning of the so-called "assault weapons" is a completely useless gesture and would do nothing to reduce mass shootings. And even if you ban ALL guns, anyone intent on mass killing would simply strap on a bomb, or get behind the wheel in a crowd. In short, banning the TOOL used by murderers will not stop murderers.

But I can tell you what would have a positive effect...

1) Parents more involved in their children's lives, and being observant for abnormal or erratic behavior

2) Banning social media for anyone under the age of 16 - give children a chance to make REAL friends in the REAL world, who might help act as a stabilizing rudder

3) Put God back into the public arena. No, the government may not push any religion, but they are not to interfere in any, either

4) Make abortion RARE, as it was supposed to be. Kids see the big push to allow any mother to kill any baby for any reason and those kids learn that there is no sanctity of life

5) Pressure Hollywood to make "family fare" films andto stop making "kill 'em all as fast as you can" flicks. Regardless of how many tiome biased "experts" say they do not have any negative affect, kids DO learn from everything in their environment.

It is up to we, the parents, to monitor that environment - including the schools - to insure the healthiest environment for growing our children.

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