My political take

Wow, what a week or so for the NBA. One tweet from the Rocket’s General Manager sent China into a hissy fit and a lot of its fans. Everybody who is somebody had a take on this mess. The General Manager put out a tweet in support of the Hong Kong protesters, who are looking for their freedom back from the Chinese government.

Just a brief history on Hong Kong. Hong Kong was under British rule from 1842 until 1997. Japan occupied Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945 during World War II. In 1984 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher signed an agreement with the Chinese to hand power back to the Chinese. Part of that agreement was that communist China would allow Hong Kong to enjoy all of the western freedoms for 50 years. Post World War II Hong Kong basically became the New York City of Asia. A lot of the financial power brokers did business in Hong Kong.

Fast forward to 2003, protests over Article 23, Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23 is an article in the Basic Law of Hong Kong. It states that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region “shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies.” An attempt to implement the article was the National Security Bill 2003 which caused a great controversy and a massive demonstration on 1 July 2003. Since then, the bill of implementing the article has not been reintroduced.

The 2016 Legislative council election saw the localists emerging as a new political force behind the pro-Beijing and pan-democracy camps by winning six seats in Hong Kong’s geographical constituencies. However, six candidates were barred from contesting by the Electoral Affairs Commission, due to their association with the Hong Kong independence movement. Another six localist members who were elected were disqualified in the Hong Kong Legislative Council oath-taking controversy. After the 5th Hong Kong Chief Executive Election, Carrie Lam became the first female Chief Executive of Hong Kong. However, her proposal of the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2019 has led to mass demonstrations against its implementation. The bill would make it legal for China to extradite criminals from Hong Kong, potentially including political prisoners. It is feared that the bill would cause the city to open itself up to the reach of mainland Chinese law and that people from Hong Kong could become subject to a different legal system.

These last two paragraphs I got directly from Wikipedia just to show how you could become somewhat informed in a pretty short time. Now I am no politician but I think I could make a somewhat informed opinion from what i just read. So my opinion would be that the people of Hong Kong are standing up for their “western rights” provided by the agreement in 1984. Every company doing business in China has to aqueous to certain western practices China does not approve, that is the nature of doing business overseas. It is estimated that the NBA makes about 4 billion a year in China alone. I heard this morning that Lebron himself does about 1 billion in business in China.

Here is my take. This whole thing came down to money. Bad timing of the tweet by the Rocket’s General Manager. Adam Silver had to appease the fans in America and his business in China. Lebron, since he is the face of the NBA, was harassed about his opinion. The social justice warriors being the NBA and Lebron had to put themselves in bad positions to save the money they make out of China. I say social justice warriors because both parties have put themselves out there to the public in America as an organization and an individual who will stand up for oppression of people. They were in a no win situation. The Rocket’s General Manager, I don’t feel was at fault either, people in Hong Kong have been shot in the street. In the end it shows where the priority is, the all mighty Dollar.

The inquiry into the impeachment of Donald Trump has started. I called that it was going to happen. As the information continues to come to light I can’t help but to feel more disgusted as the days pass. I read the transcript of the conversation and I found no impeachable offense. Mr. Schiff head of the House Intelligence Committee read what he called a parody of the phone call from President Trump to the newly elected President of the Ukraine, implying what President Trump meant.

Mr. Schiff you are the head of the Intelligence Committee, how could you read a parody? I see it as a lie. You hold a post, a prominent post in this Government and covering your tracks by calling it a parody just sent you and your committee to, as I see it, disastrous levels of incompetence. How can you ever ask a legitimate question and want the truth?

As I learned today you sent someone from your staff to the Ukraine two weeks before the “whistle-blower” came to light, to meet with the former President of the Ukraine. He lost in a landslide by the way and you were looking for dirt on President Trump.

The other thing I learned today was in 1998 President Clinton signed an agreement with the Ukraine for bi-lateral information exchange of criminal activity. Bottom line is even if the Democrats want the quid pro quo for impeachment, that treaty basically null and voids the basis of that argument. President Trump asked questions and made statements that fit within the confines of that treaty.

Here is my take. Mr. Schiff since you are part of the problem, you will continue to be part of the problem. There is really no recourse to remove you from your post unless you resign. You won’t do that, it would be the right thing to do. Hopefully you loose in the next election, that is the only recourse. In ending this post, you have now created a new defense for anything you say that is a lie. I will call it the parody defense. Anyone could come before your committee and lie to your face and call the parody defense. You did it so why not the rest of us, thanks Mr. Schiff!!

The talk of the Democrat party since Donald Trump was elected, is impeachment. Hashtag resist. Just wait we will find something. He will do something illegal, it is only a matter of time. Russian interference in the 2016 election. Fail!! The Mueller report, fail!!

For those that remember, Bill Clinton was impeached, The House of Representatives adopted Articles of Impeachment in December of 1998. He was found not guilty by the Senate. The historical reference here is, the House was controlled by the Republicans and the Senate by the Democrats. You need both houses of Congress to agree on the impeachment to remove a President.

The Democrats at this point are looking for a “quid pro quo” statement from President Trump to impeach him in regards to his phone conversation with the President of the Ukraine. The statement quid pro quo, means if you do something for me, I will do something for you. Apparently there is a whistle-blower that has information damning to President Trump. Under pressure from the Democrats, the President released the phone call, saying there is nothing here to look at.

I read the transcript. I read three different articles in reference to the transcript. I listened to so called experts on the matter. Will the Democrats go for impeachment, I say yes. Should they go for impeachment, I say no. Impeachment will obviously pass the House, no doubt. Just like Bill Clinton, the Senate will not come back with a guilty charge.

Here is my take. Impeachment will not only waste time, energy and resources of this country. It will give the Democrats another opportunity to try to smear President Trump before the 2020 elections. In 1998 Nancy Pelosi even said the Republicans hate Bill Clinton so much they will do anything to impeach him. Wow, some things never change. In the end Donald Trump will still be President and the end all be all of this charade will be Joe Biden and his son Hunter will be investigated for Russian collusion. Hmmmm! As some people have said, “stable genius.”

Today is the 18th anniversary of the attacks in New York. Anniversary doesn’t seem to be the right term to attach to this day of remembrance. I do believe we still need to talk about that day because so many people were affected that day. I have three stories that were close to me on September 11th 2001.

I was working for Outback Steakhouse at the time near Atlantic City, New Jersey. Atlantic City sits about 130 miles away from New York City. I had a court appearance that morning and was due in at 9:30 am. I was up and showered by 9:00 am, turned on the T. V. Flight 11 had already hit the North Tower and it was burning. Watching live I witnessed flight 175 hit the South Tower. Thinking, is this real, you start flipping channels. Coverage on every channel, including MTV, VH1, Food Network just to name a few. I have my day in court, it lasts roughly 10 minutes. A few other cases come before the judge and then he dismisses court for the rest of the day based on what is happening in New York. I fill out some paperwork and go home. In the end someone in the court office must have been deeply affected by what was going on. My paperwork was never filed, no fines or associated things with my case ever came to fruition. My life went on as if my day in court never happened

My second story still involves Outback Steakhouse. My friend John was at Outback headquarters in Tampa Bay with other managers from around the country for a rah, rah go Outback meeting. He was supposed to fly home that day and all domestic flights were grounded at that point. Planes were directed to land at the nearest airport and everything was shut down. Chris Sullivan, Bob Basham and Tim Gannon, the founders of Outback Steakhouse, must have had some high level connections. They own two private jets, the Bloomin Onion one and two. There are two jets because of insurance reasons they all can’t be on the same plane at the same time. Somehow some way they managed, in all of the chaos, to get John on one of the private jets with supplies from the local area to go to ground zero. I suppose John landed somewhere in North Jersey, a 1000 mile trip, and had two F-16’s as an escort the whole trip.

In keeping with the theme my third story has Outback Steakhouse in it as well. Outback has a catering arm of the company in basically every region. I became the first one to head that arm in our region of eastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey and Delaware. The day after 9/11 all of the roughly 25 stores in our region were contacted by the district manager. We are cooking at ground zero across the river in Jersey City for the first responders. Any and all product you can spare for this operation, please do. The two catering trucks were already on their way to us. Steaks, burgers, buns, bread, onions, potatoes, etc all went up to New York. We were up there for three or four weeks helping out as best we could.

Here is my take, my stories by no means even relate to 2,977 people that lost their lives that day. Today as I write this all of those names are being read aloud at the site of the Freedom Tower. The further we get away from 2001, it is possible that the feelings and loss of that day will diminish. Millions of us were affected personally that day. If we share those stories to our family and friends maybe as time continues to pass, it will hopefully lead those closest to us to search out the real heroes and remember the victims. In doing so maybe we can keep September 11, 2001 from becoming just another day in history.

We had two mass shootings in less than 24 hours. Of course the next thing to do is to start blaming people. Everyone’s favorite target from the left is President Trump. He is a racist and says racist things. He incites violence. The right seems to ask questions first. Where did he get the guns? Were the guns legal? The dust didn’t even settle yet and it has to be someone else’s fault other than the person who did it.

The next step in this whole process will be, “We need to control the guns!” The response will be, “The Second Amendment, it is a Constitutional right!” So let’s play some things out here in this post.

The Democrats would love to take away all of the guns because they would like to save us from ourselves. Take away the guns, no more gun violence. I beg to differ. They would take away all of the registered guns. There could be roughly 300 million unregistered guns in the United States. Bottom line, if you want a gun you can get a gun! Even if the government tried to round up all the guns, criminals would still find ways to get a gun. During all of the major wars in the world, guns were still moved around illegally via the black market.

The Second Amendment. ” A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” One Presidential candidate has stated that if she becomes President she would give Congress 100 days to enact gun legislation or she would, via Executive Order. Now she can’t change the Second Amendment, but would probably ban automatic rifles and guns of that nature. You could do that but it is still not going to take them out of circulation. Ban the sale of guns and ammunition? Now you are making an economic determination against some citizens. You would also rile up a good portion of people who may have voted for you, let alone the lobbyists for some political action committees.

Here is my take. The Second Amendment is not going away. Our two so called “esteemed” parties have proven over the course of the last 12 years or so, they cannot or will not work together. They stick to their party platform, bottom line!! It’s my way or the highway thinking. For us, the people we would need to find and elect folks who would work together. As long as criminals can get guns, I will be keeping mine, thank you. If there were no guns guess who would have still have them, the police and military. A study was done, regular people divided into two groups, one prisoners, put in cells and the other half were the guards. The study never finished, the “guards” developed I am better than you attitude and the “prisoners” developed a victim mentality. Some people think the police are brutal and overbearing now. We seem to have a general lack of respect for our fellow citizens, we treat each other like crap. That training comes from home, parents as a whole need to raise respectful human beings. Finally guns are here and aren’t going away any time soon. Education about guns, gun safety and respect for guns and what they can do, I think would be helpful. Keep thinking friends, until next time.

The 2020 Presidential election looming, it reminded me of something I feel really shows how the government really thinks about themselves and not the citizens.

The Democrats in this election cycle have well over two dozen major candidates vying for the nomination for 2020. Twelve of them are current members of the Senate or the House of Representatives. Pretty soon they will be crisscrossing the country in the name of securing the nomination. Guess who gets to foot some of the expenses of all the candidates, we, the taxpayers.

Once they have raised at least $5,000 dollars in at least 20 states from a minimum of 20 donors they receive matching funds from the Federal Election Commission. Presidential candidates must limit campaign spending for all primary elections combined to $10 million plus a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). This national spending limit was $48.07 million in 2016. Limit campaign spending in each state to $200,000 plus COLA, or to a specified amount based on the number of voting age individuals in the state (plus COLA), whichever is greater. In 2016, state limits ranged from $961,400 in Wyoming to $23,092,100 in California. OK now that we have some of the numbers out of the way, lets continue.

In the past I have had posts regarding some of the benefits of being elected to office. Some others include, flying home on taxpayers dime. Senators can get $40 thousand dollars do furnish their home state office. They can open as many offices as they like. They get a 72% subsidy to offset healthcare costs. They make their own schedule and work roughly 140 days a year.

Before I digress too far, here is my take. These current members of Congress running for President, if they are serious, should resign from their job. If I want another job, I do it on my time, not my current job’s time. If I don’t do my job I get fired. Every job has a description of what it is, here is the basics of yours, the duties carried out by a Member of Congress are understood to include representation, legislation, and constituent service and education, as well as political and electoral activities.  Tell me where it says run for President! You were elected to Congress to serve the state you came from, not to run around the country trying to be President. You are making $174,000 a year with all of those benefits and it seems to me you don’t take that job seriously enough to warrant the next step. You could miss an important vote on let’s say, border security or funding for the detention centers that need beds!!!

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Folks I have hit the mother load. The article I was going to write took a 180 degree turn. I found a site Govtrack.us that could give you all the information you would need help keep our Congressmen and Women accountable.

There is the House Committee on Ethics that deals with any impropriety that a member of Congress may have encountered. Sexual harassment, illegal campaign contributions, illegal use of House funds, and excess funds to name a few.

We will start with the definition of reproval. Your reproval of your dog for chewing your new shoes could take the form of an angry expression on your face, and a stern, “No!” So if Congress finds you guilty of something and give you a reproval, you get a letter stating what you did was wrong and you should not do it again. WHAT! These are elected officials that are in that position to represent us, the people!! Let’s not forget that when they are done “serving” their country they get at least $174,000 a year for life.

In some cases a Representative did receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds and funneled those to his own personal use. If you resign your post right before the Congress year ends, the case is dropped because they don’t have jurisdiction anymore. The said felon walks with all of the money that was not theirs to have in the first place. They still also get $174,000 a year for life!!

Let’s tackle sexual harassment. If you get charged and go to court there is the Office of Compliance Account which would pay off your accusers and make it go away. “We wanted to save the taxpayers money.” Said Congress Person would walk away, no harm, no foul and $174,000 a year.

Accountability folks, there is none for Congress. They play by their own rules, the rules that apply to us do not apply to them. They talk a good game every two years or four years when they need us. Written by someone paid to write speeches. They protect their own, it is an adult frat house with all of the same trappings of college sports.

How do you get to know a person? You have to spend time with them, from there you can make your determination on the kind of person in front of you. I have had three instances in my life where I made a determination on a person’s character first hand. I spent 23 years in the restaurant business and met a lot of people, a few who I found out first hand, the outside perception did not equal my own first hand experience.

The first instance the general manager I worked for turned out to be the total opposite of the outside opinion. All he wanted was those that worked for him was to work hard and do your job. In he second instance, shocker, he was nothing as portrayed. I was told by this man to take an impromptu couple of days of vacation just after he moved to the store. I was able to surprise my girlfriend in Las Vegas. Guy number three, threw me under the bus big time and almost got me fired. Karma came back and bit him in the ass.

When Donald Trump announced his quest to be President people started coming out of the wood work to denounce him. He is a racist. He is misogynist. Ben Carson is black and is in his cabinet. Kelly Anne Conway was the first woman to win a Presidential Election as campaign manager. On the flip side good things he has done also surfaced. The kid he flew across the country in his plane because no airline would, because the boy need a medical procedure. The couple he helped in a broken down car along the highway.

Here is my take. We aren’t going to get close enough to Donald Trump to get to know him personally. We will have to take information where we can get it, do research. I don’t make my decisions from the news as a whole. I look beyond the news, both sides give their “view” not the news. I follow President Trump on all the major platforms. In the two plus years as President I can’t find a single thing that leads me to think he is racist and hates women, Rosie O’Donnell aside. I am still looking and get my wife’s input on all of the good, bad and indifferent information that comes down the pike. So in closing folks go beyond the news and do some research. We need to make our own opinions not “follow” the opinions. Until next time.

Folks this is going to be tough. Trying to wrap my head around this is taxing.

Let’s start with my experience. I have had the unfortunate time, twice to be involved with abortions. The first I was young and had no clue what to do. I was afraid to make a statement, have an opinion or do anything lucid. I basically left it up to my girlfriend at the time to make the decision. The decision was to abort. I was told by a friend” She would hate you for the rest of your life!!” The second time I was engaged to be married. Having been thru the first one, I was totally against it. One of the reasons was during the first one, I was in the room when it happened. It is not very pleasant, ugly to say the least. Anyway my fiance was not ready to be a mother, done deal, her choice.

So after the first abortion, I felt horrible, like I was going to pay dearly for my non decision. Being a redhead at least back then, everywhere I went for at least six months I would see little redhead girls everywhere I went. When I could finally forgive myself, I was able to move on. I wound up marrying this girlfriend 28 years later. My now ex-fiance, we are facebook friends and she never became a mother.

Moving on, we now have states allowing abortion to the day of birth, nine months! It is still hard to wrap the mind around. There are provisions regarding if the baby survives, do you give birth and then do the deal? What is next “aborting” your baby at one, two or three years old?

So in the 15 minutes since I finished the last paragraph my wife and I had a great discussion about this topic. Our perspective is basically, don’t spread your legs and make sure you wear a condom. As soon as you give up those choices, you loose the ability to abort. . Life is about making choices, life is the ultimate choice. Once you become pregnant it is not so much your body anymore, you share it and it took two of you to get to this point.

As my wife and I were talking, planned parenthood should be there to provide women with protection. Birth control not abortions. What planned parenthood does provide is abortions over birth control.

I usually end with “here is my take”, this topic goes way further than my take. I read an article recently that said aborted babies are not humans because they can’t think for themselves and aren’t capable of cognizant thought. You take any animal in the known universe and try to extinguish it what will happen? It will fight, for survival, for it’s right to be alive in this universe!! I can’t imagine a doctor looking at 9 pound 6 ounce baby whomever and saying goodbye forever!

Folks, here we are the 116th Congress complete in total ineptitude. As in at least the last three Presidential elections, Congress seems to afraid to do anything, waiting for the next President to be elected. Oh wait, there is a mid-term election so they all wait in expectation what will happen then as well.

The 116th Congress as reported in other news media has done nothing in the first 100 days. Since I started my blog, I have spent more time on what is happening, by whom and when it is being done. The biggest thing coming out of this Congress is still impeachment of President Donald Trump. Two years, 25 million in tax money, no collusion, can we move on, apparently it is not allowed. According to the Democrats a bill to protect late term babies that survive, did not have bi-partisan support. On the other side the Republicans who support it say they have asked for a vote 26 times. It comes across as “You didn’t do it correctly, no you didn’t do it correctly!” “You fix it, no you fix it!” These are our so called elected officials doing nothing but pointing fingers and having temper tantrums. Five year old children are not as hateful and dishonest.

Let’s go to actual impeachment. It would start in the House, guess who controls the House, Democrats. No surprise here it would pass with flying colors. It would then go to the Senate if they passed it, Donald Trump would be gone. Wait who controls the Senate, Republicans. A stalemate, who wins, no one, we the taxpayers loose, again!! Shale we flashback to 1998. Bill Clinton was knee deep in impeachment precedings. The House controlled by the Republicans and the Senate controlled by the Democrats. Gee what happened, he remained President. Chuck Shumer from New York had the best speech pertaining to impeachment then and going forward. He basically said if Congress went thru with impeachment in 1998, impeachment in the future would be used as a tool for either side to push their agenda. Aka tit for tat! Damn he was right!

Here is my take. Both sides in this dumpster fire should resign. We should be so lucky. Our interests are not in their interests. As I have already written, their six figure salaries, great health care, over million dollar a year staff. Vote when they work, can vote their own raises, don’t write any legislation. Travel to and from D.C. to their home on our dime. Can run for other jobs while being paid for their current job. Hopefully I am hitting a nerve. They need to go, we have the power to do it, it is called the voting box. We tend to fall for their B.S. every election cycle. Let’s be more intelligent on who we vote for, they may just be out there.