Betsy DeVos is Trump’s Best Cabinet Pick, by Far!

The American Left saved most of its fire for Betsy DeVos who is the Republican nominee for Secretary of Education. There is a good reason. She is Donald Trump’s most qualified and powerful cabinet nominee and she can transform American education. Which could transform the nation. Finally, the children and parents of this country have an advocate.

It all comes to a head on Monday.

The numbers are stark. American education continues to sink. We are now 39th in math and 27th in science, having fallen dramatically under the last two presidents, a Republican and a Democrat. And the news only gets worse. Some American students, especially students of color, are now falling hopelessly behind world numbers. New studies show that the top performing countries see fewer than 5% of their 15-year-old youth scoring at the lowest levels of PISA for math, reading and science. Compare that to the United States where the numbers reach 29%

The teachers unions argue that there has been modest improvement in some of the testing and scores but unfortunately the educational improvements in other countries have left us in the dust, leaving us further behind in worldwide comparisons.

It is a vivid contrast to 2009, when newly elected president Barack Obama promised to be the “post partisan,” education president. National politicians united behind his choice for secretary of education, Arne Duncan. Former Republican secretary of education and Senator, Lamar Alexander, called Duncan “the best.” Newt Gingrich and Al Shaprton actually took a national tour together to tout the Obama plan. Jeb Bush openly praised the program.

Obama sounded more like Betsy DeVos in those days. He took on the entrenched teachers’ unions and touted charter schools. But all of that slipped away when the teachers’ lobby brought its power to bear. Barack Obama could send his own kids to private schools, that was okay. But that was the end of it. From then on he would have to say and do what the teachers’ union demanded.

Now, they are demanding that Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Senator Susan Collins of Maine vote against Betsy DeVos and support the status quo and it appears that the two obedient Senators have agreed. This will force the Senate to take on this issue this Monday, with vice president, Mike Pence casting the deciding vote.

The horror stories coming out of American schools are legion. If an American student is lucky, he or she will be subjected to years of propaganda promoting a Leftist socio-political agenda. They will see open drug use in the halls and classrooms and be subjected to violent attacks in front of teachers who will not report it to authorities. While less than 1.9% of them will be Muslim, they will be allowed to wear a Hijab but will be openly ridiculed for manifesting any Christian beliefs. And usually, teachers will not be fired. In Brooklyn a teacher who admitted to sexually abusing a sixth grade female student was kept on the school payroll.

Meanwhile, the American elite send their own children to private Christian schools. This includes the Obama’s and the Clinton’s.  Since 1906 no president of the United States has ever sent their child to a public school with the exception of Jimmy Carter who quickly backed out of the arrangement.

Betsy DeVos, herself, was criticized by Senators for attending a private school as a child. But she is not alone. Most of America’s presidents attended private school, including in recent years, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The latter attended the New York Military Academy.

Donald Trump’s bold choice of Betsy DeVos sends a clear message that it’s time for the hypocrisy to end. It’s time to fire teachers who are incompetent or even criminal. It’s time to end the socio-cultural experimentation and start teaching our children how to read and to teach them math and science. It’s time to end the government abuse of children and empower parents to find the best schools for their own sons and daughters when those options are available.

Read the story of Donald Trump as a student at the New York Military Academy.

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Pigs in the Parlor: How the Trump White House will get rolled if it doesn’t watch out.

 

PIGS IN THE PARLOR

Donald Trump may have won the election but the Washington pigs are ready to rush the White House and run his government for him. It will be hard to keep them at bay. So far he looks like he’s got this figured out.

Here’s how it works.

He has to have specialists who can run the different departments of the White House. And that means people who have done it before. If you want someone to run Communications, they will tell him, you have to have someone who has run Communications at the Pentagon or HHS. Someone who has experience.

You can’t just bring in a ballplayer to the Major Leagues if they have had no experience in college ball or the Minor Leagues. And you can’t bring up a first baseman and expect him to play third base.

So once you bring in that new White House Director of Public Liaison, for example, who ran coalitions on Capitol Hill or at the Labor Department, or for Senator Snort, who hated Trump, he or she will quickly populate it with friends. They will open the door and rush them in. “Quick, quick, before they close the door.”

All of Senator Snort’s people will be in there. Trump haters.

“Oh, we need her, Mr. President, she knows how to do this in her sleep. She’s the best.”

“Hiya, Mr. President,” Giggle, giggle. “Yes, I didn’t vote for you but boy am I now convinced that you are the best!” Giggles and squeals.

The few loyal Trump folks will soon be isolated and set-up for failures which will be leaked to the pig buddies in the media who are happy to oblige since they have known the pigs for years and depend on the pigs for their stories.

The Weekly Piggy Magazine will have their folks stop by, urging the new Trump White House to promote government grants to the Hogwarts Think Tank, which buys ads in their magazine which pays their salary, which pays their mortgage.

And if the Trump White House doesn’t play along with the corruption they will have Miss Piggy, who writes a column for their magazine, appear on Fox News to declare, “Trump is not a true conservative he is now abandoning the Hogwarts Think Tank! Imagine that? Reagan loved Hogwarts.

Most pundits correctly predicted that Trump would bring in the Big Bad Wolf to be his Chief of Staff. But to Mr. Trump’s disgust, in time, he may learn that the Big Bad Wolf also likes the pigs. It makes him appear downright loyal by comparison.

The Big Bad Wolf may even sacrifice loyal Trump folk and sometimes feed them to the pigs. He would tell Mr. Trump that he, the Big Bad Wolf, alone stands between the president and a devouring host.

“I told those little piggies, Mr. President, that if they don’t behave I will huff and I will puff and I will blooooow their houses in.”

“Thanks Big Bad Wolf,” Trump will say. Thank God that at least YOU are loyal to me.”

But it looks like that isn’t going to happen to Trump. He’s not only going to bring in the Big Bad Wolf, by himself, now he’s going to bring in Roadrunner too. He will have both of them run things at the White House. One can blow their houses down if they don’t get the work done and the other can run circles around them.

So what more can you ask?

I’ll tell you. Trump needs a troika, a triad. Two will fight. Three, as Reagan taught us with Baker, Deaver and Meese, are even better. You will have one who can offer the tie breaking vote.

So yes, the President-Elect is almost there. But he still needs Yosemite Sam, you know who I’m talking about? The one who shouts and has a short temper. Trump’s got his Baker and his Meese. But he still needs his loyalty enforcer. His Lewandoski. At least to get things started. Because in the White House, the President knows, loyalty Trumps competence.

Now those are the pigs in the parlor.

What’s outside? The corporations with their lobbyists who want everyone to be burdened by regulations, except themselves. Who want money direct from the government, without competitive bids.  And who want money direct from the Federal Reserve where they can just print it as electronic numbers on a page.

And they aren’t pigs. They are hogs.  And they are really, really dangerous. Even the Big Bad Wolf is afraid of them. Roadrunner can only run for the hills. Yosemite Sam can only stutter. But that’s another story for another blog post.

Exposing the corrupt reasons why “the establishment” fears Trump and Sanders?

Why does the GOP establishment fear Donald Trump? And the Democratic establishment fear Bernie Sanders?

Money.

 

Both political parties depend on large donations from banks and corporations. So too do candidates running for office.

What do the banks and corporations get in return?

Money right back at ya. Big money. Directly and indirectly. Money through the Federal Reserve, money through the Export-Import Bank and most of all, money by creating artificial monopolies through selective enforcement of regulations.

First there is direct corporate welfare. This is not the biggest source of income, in fact, it is the least, but it is the easiest for the public to understand so I will begin there and tell more in later posts.

Billions of dollars are given to companies directly from the U.S. Treasury. In fact, twice as much money goes to corporate welfare than to welfare for the poor. The latter is a point that Bernie Sander’s supporters like to make.  Look it up yourself.

These grants are smothered in honorable language, “to create jobs, to stimulate the economy, to protect the environment, to redress past wrongs,” the list goes on and on. Special interest groups, some of them well-intentioned, promote these “causes” but in the end, the establishment corporations make most of the money.

There are sometimes very compelling and logical reasons for corporate welfare. When I was in the White House a major company wanted millions of dollars to compete in France. They said that the French saw their company as a cultural invasion and so the French government was subsidizing their own.  

But whatever the reason, the bottom line is this, the big companies get money from the government for their business and YOU don’t.  If you start a company you are on your own and worse, you will be subsidizing your competition with your very own tax dollars. 

Oh yeah, once they get that money they turn around and give it back as donations to the politicians and political parties that helped them get it. 

When you read that the establishment is backing Marco Rubio or now, reluctantly, Ted Cruz, that is where some of that backing comes from. When there was a misquote from the Chairman of Goldman Sachs saying he was fine with either Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton as president, that was why it was so widely believed. And that’s why it raised eyebrows when Ted Cruz forgot to report a $750,000 loan from Goldman Sachs that launched his political career. 

Forget about liberal and conservative. Think in terms of insider and outsider. 

When I worked in the White House conservative businessmen came in to make sure I was onboard for federal dollars going to their companies.

“This is our chance,” they explained. “We are in power. The liberals do it.  We have to do it too.”

I also had publishers of conservative magazines and presidents of think tanks come in and lobby me for money for these same “conservative” companies. It didn’t take long for me to see that the companies who got government money were the companies who bought advertising in those same “conservative” magazines and who financed the retreats for their think tanks and gave them research grants.

This is how the liberal-conservative equation has become compromised. Liberals will push for environmental legislation but then exempt companies that give them money. Conservatives will criticize fraudulent welfare abuse but award money to companies that overcharge for worthless services.

Yes, there are good people in the middle of this. People who believe in their cause. Private contractors who give good service to the public, government servants who give their lives to help others. But the poor continue to get poorer and the rich continue to get richer.

The Democratic establishment doesn’t trust Bernie Sanders who would answer corruption with government run socialism.

Socialism is the poor man’s way to “game” the system. They will get YOU to pay for their rent, their food, their education. It’s popularity shows how hopeless the public is about corruption.

The Republican establishment doesn’t trust Donald Trump who keeps saying that Washington is stupid, that it should be run like a business, that contracts should go to the lowest bidder. But there is a reason why they don’t go to the lowest bidder. Corruption

Trump’s answer is a return to free enterprise, supply and demand, the American Dream.

Inside the government plans to shutdown the direct sales industry: Vemma is only the begining

The Arizona direct sales company Vemma was recently hit by the FTC and virtually shut down without a judge, jury or trial.  The income of thousands, including single mothers, housewives, young businessmen, retirees and disable veterans has been instantly blocked by the government agency.  Nobody will be paid, no matter what they have sold or how many years they have worked.

Ominously, among the reasons the FTC gave for its action, are methods that are employed by almost all other Direct Sales companies.  If Vemma is unable to survive, it could spell the end of a vibrant industry that involves 18 million Americans, 74% of them women.  It may be the last loophole allowing an ordinary person the opportunity to earn extraordinary amounts of money.

What is behind this action?

Money.

Shortly after the re-election of Barack Obama a former law enforcement – corporate security specialist called me with some interesting information.  A friend in the Justice Department was asking him for details on Multi Level Marketing companies in Utah.  They were talking names, income, the nature of their compensation plans and any questionable claims about their products.  They would welcome any gossip about lifestyle too.  Mistresses?  Lavish meals?  “Ahh, gonna take out a source of Republican money huh?” my friend joked.

It is no big secret that most entrepreneurs, including the kind who get into MLM’s, tend to be Republicans.  Just as people who believe that government has the solutions for society, tend to get jobs in government.

Rich DeVos, the co-founder of Amway one of the nation’s most successful MLM’s, was a major donors to both the Reagan and Bush presidential campaigns.  Frank VanderSloot, of Melaleuca, was the finance chairman and a $5 million fundraiser for Mitt Romney.

I have been an eyewitness to the political power of these companies and their sprawling networks of independence entrepreneurs.  In 1984, when Ronald Reagan announced his re-election, he did so at an MLM event at the Atlanta Georgia Dome.  Distributors came to the Dome for a weekend of seminars and forfeited the platform to the Reagan Campaign during the afternoon.  In another city at yet another event, I spoke just before Reagan to an audience of 10,000 MLM builders.

During the election campaign of George H.W. Bush I would often get a call from campaign manager, Lee Atwater.  “I need 500 people with signs cheering for Bush outside of Butler aviation in Raleigh Durham.”  Atwater would give me five photo ops with Bush at the foot of the airplane and in return the five MLM leaders would guarantee the crowd as requested.  In 1987, George W. Bush, working his dad’s campaign,  spoke at an MLM event I arranged, helping to funnel distributors into campaign workers.  It is not unlike what the unions do for the Democrats.

I have also been one of the pack who got the message from the top of the network.  In 2008 I was building a network in XanGo when word came down to make a $1,000 donation to Mitt Romney.  I complied.

It was only a matter of time before Obama would shut down this industry, which is a vibrant part of the economy of every other major western nation and flourishes in Russia.

There are many complaints about MLM.  The odds of success are not high, although probably a lot higher than a career in journalism or professional sports or Hollywood or – for that matter – the FTC.  The difference is MLM will take anybody and most other opportunities won’t.

In recent years the culture of MLM has diversified.  Shaklee, for example, the MLM vitamin giant, is owned by a Democrat billionaire who is a friend of Oprah Winfrey.  It will probably be the last one taken down and may even be permitted by the Obama administration to live out its retirement, as long as it remains quiet.

The danger for other MLM’s is the nature of the attack on Vemma.  They have been hit hard on “auto-ship” a policy that has products automatically shipped to a distributor unless he or she opts out in advance.  That, the FTC, contends, makes it a pyramid scheme.  Most former members of the Book of the Month Club or the Literary Guild are familiar with auto-ship.  If you signed up you got a book every month.  You could opt out but if you didn’t you had to pay for the book or send it back.  In our new “victim society” the FTC has determined that this is illegal.

It was also wrong, they say, that Vemma prospected college students.  Universities are now places where beer pong is a sport, abortions are choice, date rape is so rampant that universities refuse to publicly publish the numbers but selling vitamins to your roommate is now a crime.

(Donations to defend the industry should go to the Direct Sellers Defense Fund, Morrie Aaron: maaron@mca-financial.com)

 

The Legacy of Barack Obama

Thoughts on the legacy of President Barack Obama 2-16-15

The election of Barack Obama

President Obama’s legacy will be inextricably linked to the fact that he was the first African American to be elected president.  A Black man in the White House.  The Founding Fathers, including those who wrote the words “All men are created equal” owned slaves.  So the election, in itself, will always be a great moment in our nation’s history and part of the Obama legacy.

That’s why they gave him a Nobel Peace Prize before he had even done anything.  His election alone was stunning.

How will he be immediately judged?

If his current media treatment is any indication he will be immediately praised to the heavens by liberals and critiqued by conservatives.   Liberal think tanks of historians will immediately say he is one of America’s greatest presidents.  I should point out, shortly after he was elected president the Sienna Institute named him as the 15^th greatest president in history.  So get ready for a healthy debate.

What will he do?

I’ve always argued that his post presidency will be hugely eventful.  In some respects his legacy will be in his hands.  More than any other president in history his post White House years may define him.  He could be a “Jesse Jackson on steroids, with companies seeking to have his approval and putting him, or his surrogates, on their boards of directors.  Expect his team to bully the television executives to give him good coverage.  His NGO will rival Bill Clinton’s and raise billions of dollars.  He will be an international sensation.

What will it mean long term?

Long term?  The quick answer is – we don’t know.

A more prosaic answer is that it depends on the kind of America we have in the future.

If American swings back to a more constitutional form of government and to a more free market economy, your grandchildren will hear history teachers say we almost lost it all under Barack Obama.  That the whole American experiment was almost cashed in.  But don’t count on it.

It is much more likely that American continues to move toward a more government managed economy and government managed education and society, then our grandchildren will hear history teachers say that America is today what it is, because of Barack Obama.  Not FDR, not Lincoln… but Barack Obama.

So the future legacy of Obama will depend on the future of America.

And some would say that the combination of numbers, including those in the general public who benefit from a more socialist form of government and corporations who have their own government subsidies or special insider laws or contracts that give them an advantage, that those numbers mean that it is already too late.  That is, the people who are now gaming the system outnumber and outvote the people who are living under its rules – trying to make a living without any special advantage.

What was his greatest moment?

Getting Osama Bin Laden.  He made a gutsy call and it worked.

What will be seen as his greatest failure?

It has to the plight of the poor.  According to a groundbreaking study at UC Berkley, the rich have gotten richer and the poor have gotten poorer on a massive scale under Barak Obama.  That has to be a disappointment for him and it is a terrible legacy for a liberal president to carry.  It is causing a lot of people to rethink.

Conclusions?

Either way, this presidency of Barak Obama has been a linchpin and will be one of the most significant in all of American history.  It was set up by 9-11 and by the failed economy of the Bush presidency but the final responsibility for what happened in his two terms is his.  Whether he is seen as a good or bad leader will be partly determined by how good and bad is defined in the future.

And in 100 years?

My guess is that like Reagan, he will gain in respect.  I have liberal friends who hated Reagan who now speak respectfully because he is gone and no longer a threat. I think that will happen with Obama for different reasons,  partly because he is African American and we are still living down a legacy of slavery in our history.  People will find other ways to argue policies and even conservatives will treat him nicely when he is gone and no longer a threat. That’s my suspicion.

State weighs in on Houston’s war on its churches

The following letter is being circulated in Texas.  It was allegedly written by the Attorney General of Texas and shed’s more light on the controversy mentioned in yesterday’s blog.

October 15, 2014

Mr. David Feldman

City Attorney

City of Houston

900 Bagby, 4th Floor

Houston, Texas 77002

Dear Mr. Feldman:

Your office has demanded that four Houston pastors hand over to the city government many of their private papers, including their sermons.  Whether you intend it to be so or not, your action is a direct assault on the religious liberty guaranteed by the First Amendment.  The people of Houston and their religious leaders must be absolutely secure in the knowledge that their religious affairs are beyond the reach of the government.  Nothing short of an immediate reversal by your office will provide that security.  I call on you to withdraw the subpoenas without further delay.

I recognize that the subpoenas arise from litigation related to a petition to repeal an ordinance adopted by the city council.  But the litigation discovery process is not a license for government officials to inquire into religious affairs.  Nor is your office’s desire to vigorously support the ordinance any excuse for these subpoenas.  No matter what public policy is at stake, government officials must exercise the utmost care when our work touches on religious matters.  If we err, it must be on the side of preserving the autonomy of religious institutions and the liberty of religious believers.  Your aggressive and invasive subpoenas show no regard for the very serious First Amendment considerations at stake.

A statement released by the Mayor’s Office claims that the subpoenas were prepared by outside lawyers and that neither you nor Mayor Parker was aware of them before they were issued.  Nevertheless, these lawyers acted in the City’s name, and you are responsible for their actions.  You should immediately instruct your lawyers to withdraw the City’s subpoenas.  Religious institutions and their congregants should never have to worry that a government they disagree with will attempt to interfere in their religious affairs.  Instead of safeguarding that trust, you appear to have given some of the most powerful law firms in Houston free rein to harass and intimidate pastors who oppose City policy.  In good faith, I hope you merely failed to anticipate how inappropriately aggressive your lawyers would be.  Many, however, believe your actions reflect the city government’s hostility to religious beliefs that do not align with city policies.

I urge you to demonstrate the City’s commitment to religious liberty and to true diversity of belief by unilaterally withdrawing these subpoenas immediately.  Your stated intention to wait for further court proceedings falls woefully short of the urgent action needed to reassure the people of Houston that their government respects their freedom of religion and does not punish those who oppose city policies on religious grounds.

Sincerely,

Greg Abbott

Attorney General of Texas

Rand Paul defends Houston pastors under attack

“No minister, anywhere, should ever have to submit a sermon to a government censor.” – Senator Rand Paul

Only minutes ago, Senator Rand Paul spoke up for the Houston pastors who have become the latest target in what religious leaders say is the city government’s ongoing war against its own churches.  Messaging on Twitter, Senator Paul declared, “The First Amendment doesn’t exist to keep religion out of government.  It exists to keep government out of religion.”  Said Paul, “I stand with the pastors and churches in Houston against government interference and harassment.”

Houston city attorneys, under the direction of Mayor Annise Parker,  have now subpoenaed sermons preached by selected pastors whom they believe are opposed to the city’s new agenda.

Here is a quick review of the unfolding drama in Houston.

Mayor Annise Parker, the first openly Lesbian mayor of a major city, promoted an ordinance banning anti-gay discrimination in the public and government subsidized venues.  So far so good.  But a controversial part of the ordnance allowed transgender citizens to file discrimination lawsuits if prohibited from a restroom.  Was this a problem?  Where there signs up saying, “No transgenders allowed?”  Some Christian leaders now caught in the middle of the controversy contend that this was an angry politician, purposely poking the bear.

There were all kinds of discussions in the community.  Who was to determine who was transgender and who was not?  A doctor?  A psychiatrist?  Could a man suddenly declare himself a woman and enter a woman’s restroom?  With under age children?

As the proponents of the ordinance hoped, the churches reacted with confusion and panic.  There was a recall effort launched to get the ordinance on the ballot.  The churches gathered more than 50,000 signatures.  It was well over the 17,269 needed.  And then the city poked again.  The Houston city attorney declared that there were insufficient signatures.

The churches sued.

The city attorneys issued subpoenas for their sermons.  And not sermons from the churches who filed the lawsuit.  No, they wanted sermons from other pastors whom critics suspect were specifically targeted because they posed the biggest threat to the city’s agenda.  The subpoena called for “all  speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO, the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by delivered by, revised by or approved by you or in your possession.”

Concerned Christian leaders insist that this is not a comedy of errors, that it is not a mistake but it is a systematic, purposeful attempt to silence and frighten the churches into changing their doctrines and suborning free speech.  The city attorney’s will use taxpayer’s money to bankrupt the churches and silence their political voices.  Thus the decision to go after the selected churches who were not even involved in the lawsuit with the city.  It was much the same tactic that allowed the gay and lesbian takeover of the Episcopal Church, taking some congregations and using their resources to take over others.   Only this time it is acted out in the public square with public money which will now be used to destroy the churches and silence their voices.

The city has deep pockets.  In fact, the churchgoers, paying their taxes, will ironically finance the city of Houston in its war to destroy their own culture.

The Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and other Liberal groups expressed alarm at the city’s overreach. Meanwhile, Dr. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission expressed sadness at the events and astonishment at the “audacity” of the Houston City government’s attack on its own pastors and congregations.

Coincidentally, the day before the Houston subpoenas, Moore held a private meeting with Senator Rand Paul at the Senator’s office in Washington, D.C.  Part of the conversation was about the war on Christianity unfolding in places around the world.  Who would know what the next volley would be fired by the city government of Houston, Texas?