Living in a Time of Change.

It feels like we are at a pivotal time in our history.  Perhaps, that is always true, but we are not prepared to understand that, nor wise enough to appreciate the implications.  For example, we all recognize that 1776 was a pivotal time for our founders, but exactly how many of their contemporaries understood it?

When Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence surely, he knew he was setting us on a path fraught with risk and danger.  When John Adams and Ben Franklin offered their critique, they too must have realized it put their futures at risk.  Finally, the other 53 representatives of Congress must have understood it as well as we set out on an uncharted and uncertain future.  In those weeks leading up that first July 4th, those men established an ideal we still strive to achieve.  “… that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”[1]

After we achieved independence for the 13 colonies; and people returned to the lives they had, when did the politicians decide a confederation of states was unworkable?  Think about those men who gathered, many of them the same who put their lives, and the lives of so many, at risk 13 years earlier coming back together to shape a government unlike any which had gone before.  In the end, the document they created was a brilliant compromise between those who thought a strong central government was necessary, and those who feared too strong a central government would destroy their culture.  “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”[2]

The early 19th Century must have seemed a pivotal time when we, as a young nation, had to stand up and defend ourselves from the British who thought it was okay to impress our seaman to fill their needs in the Navy.  It went so far as to have to deal with their invasion as they attempted to prove we weren’t really a nation and they could do as they wanted.  They burned our new Capital, but at the end of the day, we prevailed and remained the United States.  “And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more?  Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.  No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”[3]

How about in the middle of that century when we fought a great civil war to preserve the nation, and in the course of it end the evil of slavery.  The South, led by those who wished to preserve the rights of the state, keep their social construct and continue the belief that one person was less equal than another attempted to abandon the Constitution and server themselves from the central government.  The newly elected President was confronted with a pivotal choice.  Do those who want to leave have the right to do so?  Of course, it is never as black and white as that simple question suggests.  The emerging industrialists of the North needed a market for their goods, and the raw materials the South provided.  Those who strove to end the evil of slavery sought to prevent its continuation.  Those who saw the nation’s future in the West wondered how that vast land and the fortunes it contained would be divided.  We hear little of those issues, for in the end, the North went to war to prevent the South from leaving.  The union was maintained but at such a cost we suffered for the rest of the century.  Lincoln sought to heal those wounds but was taken before he could finish his work.  “… But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”[4]

Examples of pivotal moments seem to pop up every few years, unfortunately, they are often associated with some kind of war or economic collapse (e.g. Panic of 1907, World War I, Pandemic of 1918, Depression of 1920-21, Great Depression 1932-40, World War II, etc.)  It seems each of these events foretells the expanding role of government to save us from the problems that led to those monumental and pivotal events.  We have been reassured by our politicians that it is never as bad as we imagine and historically the press has helped carry those messages.

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself”[5]

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”[6]

“Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.”[7]

In the past, we would come together as a nation to face the challenges of the day.  Remember 9/11 where we stood as one to face the terror brought to us by the Arabian terrorist Osama bin Laden? But lately, we’ve seen a shift in that relationship as the press and those whose hatred of the President is so deep, they will use any opportunity to condemn his actions and the actions of those who might support him. We are faced with a new pandemic, and half the nation is afraid for themselves and those they love, and half the nation wishes to carry on with their lives despite the risk.  They look to the nation’s political leaders for answers and guidance and receive what can best be described as worthless opinions on what is right and what is wrong.

How much longer can this polarization go on and is there a way we can find an end to it?  Some say everything would be fine if we just get rid of President Trump, but if you look at who they offer as a replacement you can only wonder if that is true.  Is it possible our government has grown too big and too removed from the needs of the people that it is a time for a change? Or is it our people have become so dependent on the government it needs to replace all the historical social structures we’ve depended on like the family, local community, and faith organizations like the church?

What the founders knew, perhaps well better than we understand today is the Constitution was to be a living document.  Not in the sense, modern revisionists would have you believe, where the words are to be altered to fit one person’s interpretation, but one that during the growth of the nation be modified by the society of the day.  Even before its ratification the citizens and representatives of several states demanded safeguards to protect the individual from government abuse.  Those first ten amendments were adopted with the Constitution.  Between 1794 and 1992 we added an additional 17 so that today, there have been 27 Amendments to the document.  If you look at them in their scope, they fall into two broad categories.  Those that protect the rights of the individual and those that expand the power of the government.  The last amendment, the 27^th was proposed in 1789 and ratified in 1992.  Before that, the last amendment was approved in 1971, pretty much in response to the Vietnam War. 

Today, I don’t hear any serious movement to amend the Constitution, for there are far louder voices calling for its abandonment.  Unfortunately, what I don’t hear in those calls is a coherent discussion of what would replace it.  Right now the young are happy to destroy what they have not built, it will be interesting to see if they are willing to grow to appreciate what they are losing? It feels kind of like we’ve decided we don’t need to talk among ourselves anymore.  We just yell at each other, like we are trying to talk to someone who doesn’t understand our native language.  If we talk louder it is clearer, right?

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[1] Declaration of Independence

[2] Preamble of the United States Constitution

[3] National Anthem (3^rd Verse)

[4] Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

[5] Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

^[6] John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

[7] Ronald Reagan, Moscow State University, May 31, 1988

Cleared to Wander (A Short Set of Recollections from Mather AFB)

I graduated from Navigator School in early November 1974.  I wasn’t a great student, but I wasn’t at the bottom of the class either.  I was the epitome of the word average.  As a result, I got an aircraft that was neither spectacular nor dreaded.  A C-130 to Dyess and then on to Combat Talon (MC-130E) in the Pacific.  One day the dudes from MPC showed up and suggested I put down Nav School as an Instructor, but I probably wouldn’t get it since Talon Navs were in short supply.  THEY LIED!

So, in July 1980, my family and I found ourselves back in the Sacramento Valley where we would spend the next four years.  One of the first things I noticed is how many of my old friends from both Dyess and Kadena were also there.  After doing all the ATC instructor training and qualifying in the T-43 they decided I was best qualified to teach “Nav Procedures” or as I referred to it “Teaching people to add sideways.” I also got to play with a 6-ft tall MB-4 computer as I taught history majors how a slide rule worked.

I was aided in this endeavor by an advanced simulator that consisted of a Video Cassette Player that projected rudimentary instruments onto simple black and white monitors in about 20 individual stations that were also equipped with the essential chair, table, and sextant all navigators of the day needed to feel empowered to actually navigate (or in our case) document where the videotape said they were.

As a qualified IN (Instructor Nav) I also taught in-flight and the T-45 sim on all the other segments of the curriculum which included Basic Nav (Radar and Nav Aid), Day and Night Celestial, Low Level, and occasionally Advanced Nav (for those going to heavies).  I was also qualified as a Naval Flight Officer instructor to help the Navy students. I had a pretty varied (as was the standard of the day) weekly schedule that kept things interesting and not too demanding.  What follows are snippets of my four years at Mather that remain from my time nearly 40-years ago.

My first thought on returning to Mather and seeing the beautiful Sierra-Nevada Mountains to the west was this would be a perfect base for Special Operations.  We could do the before low-level checks as we passed Folsom and hit some spectacular low-level routes as we wound our way into Reno.  But those thoughts gave way to the routine of taking off in a jet that climbed to FL 300 in almost no time at all.  Watching, as students struggled to keep up with all the new senses and tasks that lay before them, and seeing the light bulbs of awareness come on for so many as they discovered they could do something none of them had really envisioned before they arrived at this little jewel of a base.

Not Everyone Sees the Big Picture

Believe it or not, at least when I was there, there was no fixed or expected attrition rate.  Rumors always floated around about it, but as an instructor and flight commander, I was never told that a certain number needed to pass or to fail.  There was a time, with a certain Wing Commander when it was damn near impossible to wash someone out, but I think that came more from the Commander’s personal experience than from any directive down.  Rumor had it he had met a flight evaluation board as a student and was allowed to continue and since he was now a successful O-6 (with a shot at O-7) clearly if he could make it others could as well.

I had a student in NP that had been through that class three times before he reached me.  I was his fourth NP instructor.  Needless to say, he had some issues.  He had met two faculty boards already and the Wg/CC had reinstated him despite the board’s recommendation.  He was brilliant in class since he’d already seen the same material so many times.  Each of his practice missions in the NPL was excellent.  His log keeping was exemplary as you would expect from someone who had seen the same videotape three previous times.  When it came time for the check mission, we were in somewhat of a dilemma.  There were only three different tapes and he’d seen each of them once already.  We decided to use the first one he had seen since any of the three would be fair to the other members of the class.  When it came time for the check it was as if everything he had learned when right out the window.  He could not perform when it really mattered and the pressure was on.  He was finally allowed to leave the program and continue his Air Force career somewhere else.

Speaking of Facility Boards!  The FAC Board was one of the checks and balance tools used by the school to determine whether a student having difficulty should stay or leave.  In the event, a student failed a segment the decision to continue rested with the flight commander for the first failure and then escalated with subsequent problems.  At some point, a struggling student might be recommended for elimination by the squadron.  It was at that point the FAC Board came into the picture.  There were normally three members plus a non-voting secretary, who had nothing to do with the student or the squadron recommending elimination.  If I recall correctly it was chaired by a field grade officer and had two instructors who were serving as flight commanders or evaluation officers.  The Board's job was to review the records of performance and make sure the student had been given a fair shake.  In the process, they would convene to interview the student.  The student had three choices:  they could make a sworn statement under oath, telling their side of the story, they could make an unsworn statement, or they could defer to the board without comment. 

As a board member, I always preferred the sworn statement because it allowed us to question the student and see if there was something not captured in the records to explain the problem and lead to a way to perhaps correct and retain him/her.  The unsworn statement could not be challenged and stood on its own.  Students who chose this route often painted themselves in a bad light as they second-guessed the whys and wherefores of their problems that brought them to this point.  What follows is a case in point.

There was a student who had reached his third failure in the BN flight check.  His performance had been up and down.  Good in the early phases, a small hiccup in the tweet rides, okay in Nav Procedures, but busted the NP check.  Okay in BN academics, but had busted the BN check twice.  His flight commander had good documentation and we were told he wanted to stay, and would make a sworn statement about what was going on.  When the board actually met, he chose to make an unsworn statement that explained he decided he didn’t like Nav School, because “it wasn’t challenging enough” and he had decided his abilities would be better utilized in some other aspect of the Air Force.  He thought being a Combat Controller would be a better fit for him.  When he said “he hadn’t really put forth any effort here at Mather” he sealed his fate with the board.  Having worked for 5 years with Combat Controllers in Airlift and Special Ops I was able to tell the other board members the demands of that career field and if he hadn’t put forth any effort here it was unlikely; he would survive the initial qualification for that career field.  At the end of the day, the board recommended elimination from both Nav School and the release from the Air Force.  At the end of the day, I don’t know what actually happened, but in this case, the student’s arrogance worked against him and he didn’t return to the program.

Learning not to be a complete asshole.

As I pointed out earlier, I was an okay student but in the course of my flying, I had developed confidence in my ability.  I also had a dry and often harsh sense of humor.  That sense of humor often worked against me.  Students who had met me in the class had a chance to see that humor as I taught from the platform and knew I wasn’t intentionally making fun of any individual, but rather trying to get them to see the humor of the simple mistakes.  Students who only saw me on a single flight didn’t see that, and I am afraid I would often come across as a complete jerk.  It took me the better part of three years to realize I needed to adapt to the students, they didn’t need to adapt to me.

For those who knew only my "Mr. Hyde's" personality, I am sorry. 

There is one particular trip that stands out in my mind.  I was I1 on a trip to Randolph (a BN) flight.  I had a student who was struggling to keep up with the airplane, we had some VIP pax on board and my attentions were split between keeping us on track, answering questions from the DVs, and helping the student.  Unfortunately for that young man, my priorities were as I just listed and his training suffered as I became short and loud with him, putting him under even more pressure than he already felt.  I still think back and wish I had been a better instructor with him.

Pilots Make Mistakes Too

One day we took off on Overland Northeast.  The weather in the valley, heck! the weather in the entire west sucked that day.  Ceilings were low but the tops of the clouds were somewhere about 14,000 feet if I remember correctly.  We were monitoring the center when we heard a small aircraft talking about being VFR on top and looking for a vector that could get them below the weather so they could find a place to land. 

I listened in as Center talked with them and as they scrambled an HC-130 out of McClellan AFB to join up and try and lead him to safety.  You could hear the growing panic in the pilot’s voice, but we soon left the frequency as we moved along our route.  A couple of hours later we were back on the freq and the HC-130 had just joined up with him.  I assume they were successful in leading him down through the weather to a safe recovery.  I watched the news for the next couple of days to see if they had any reports on the crash or the save, but never saw anything.  That is usually the way it goes.  Unless there is something spectacular to report the AF goes quietly about its work with little fanfare.

Squids and Jarheads

When I was at Mather, we had three semi-different Navigator Schools.  The Air Force program and its allied students, the Naval program for Naval Flight Officers going to patrol and airlift squadrons, and the Marine Corps program for enlisted navigators for the USMC KC-130s.

Each program had its own sets of instructors, although several AF personnel would be dual qualified to work with both the AF and the USN personnel.  The USMC pretty much kept to itself, and as far as I saw their personnel was every bit as competent as the AF and Navy students.  There was, of course, some petty rivalries.

One day one of the Ensigns in the program made some kind of disparaging remark about the Marines who were sharing one of their overwater flights.  The USMC CWO instructing the young Marines looked up from the mission planning table and responded back with some kind of friendly rebuke about Navy Squids.  What the Navy Lieutenant said next sticks with me to this day.  “Chief do you know what a squid is?  It’s a higher form of Marine life.”  That put an end to the back and forth.

Not All Instructors are Created Equal

As I mentioned earlier, I taught Navigation Procedures or NP.  I came to discover this was where they stuck the instructors, they didn’t think could navigate at the higher sub-Mach numbers the mighty T-43A cruised along at.  Even though I came from the most sophisticated aircraft ever built by Lockheed (excepting, maybe, the SR-71, U-2, and F-104) they stuck me with all the other C-130 types teaching people to add sideways.

The way the program worked is you would be in academics as a primary instructor when your flight’s class was in that phase.  NP was about a three-week course if I remember correctly.  At the end of the course, the students were given first a written test and then sent into the NP lab to demonstrate their competence under pressure (pressure being a relative measure).   At the end of the class, instructors received two types of reviews.  The most important was how well did the students do in the course?  The second was the “student suggestions for improvement.”  I generally had about a 90% pass rate in my course so that was good.  As I noted earlier the suggestions for improvement were mixed.  Some liked me, others thought I was a jerk.  That slowly improved as I learned not to be a jerk.

When you weren’t needed as the primary instructor you would often be scheduled as a “ratio” to help another instructor cover the students as they practiced.

Our squadron had one instructor who actually did have some problems with a) navigating by himself, and b) communicating his knowledge to his students.  His first-time pass rates hovered around 60%.  I remember going into his class as a ratio to help as they practiced for the upcoming exam.  After one three-hour block, he and I chatted about how the students were doing, and how he was doing as an instructor.  The things that stood out for me were how he jumped around the various tasks before the students so they had a hard time grasping the flow of record keeping.  That is the feedback I provided him.  When I got back to the squadron his flight commander (who was a friend) asked me how the class went.  The only feedback I could give him was “He confused the hell out me, and I knew what was supposed to be going on.  If a student passed the upcoming test it would be despite the instruction, not because of it.”  As I recall he was moved into some other position shortly thereafter.

At the same time, we had some instructors who could take an obscure concept and explain it so clearly, even I could understand it and for some things, that's saying a lot.  There was one RF-4 WSO who was at Kadena AB, Japan at the same time I was.  He had arrived a year ahead of me and was a low-level instructor.  I used to enjoy "ratioing" in his class because I loved low-level navigation, but he was a great speaker and instructor.  He went up to Beale AFB once to interview with the SR-71 squadron, he came back and said they didn’t seem that interested and had told him “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”  He made Major 3-years below the zone and they called him back.

In the four years, I was at Mather our squadron had at least one Captain every promotion cycle make grade below the zone.  Our Commander took care of those who performed.

Competition Among Equals

Within the post-Vietnam Air Force of my day, the performance reviews were changed so Commanders couldn’t say everyone walked on water.  There were three (actually more but only folks headed to Leavenworth got less than a three) grades the Commander could give and there were percentages allowed for each grade.  I think it was like 15% could get the highest rank, 35% the next, and 50% the last. 

Within the C-130 world of Military Airlift Command, most of the top ratings when to the Pilots (at least that was the rumor common among the disgruntled Navs).  In hindsight that was really because most of us Navs were happy letting the pilots do all the heavy lifting for mission coordination and planning.  We were happy drawing our charts to get us from point A to B and doing whatever supplemental job the Director of Operations (DO) wanted to assign us.

When I got to Mather, I discovered a whole new world where you couldn’t blame AFSC bias on your failure to get a good review.  If you wanted to succeed you needed to step up your game, especially if you came into the squadron with an average record. There were all sorts of opportunities to impress (or not).  I think my time at Mather actually set the tone for the rest of my career.  I came to realize I was the person who controlled my future.  I could lead, or get passed by.  Some remained simple instructors for their four years and wondered why nothing seemed to change.  Others came into the Wing with great records and were put into high visibility jobs so they would continue to have great records.  Then some found ways to improve and were recognized with more and more responsibility.  I like to think of myself in that last category.  By the end of my time, I was a flight commander where I got to decide how best to get my students their wings.

When I left Mather and went back into Special Operations, I was shocked by how little it had changed, and Nav’s neither stood up to take the most demanding jobs nor were they expected to.  That slowly changed as the years went by, but SOF was among the last of the mission areas to expect officers to lead regardless of their AFSC.

Some rewards went to those who would volunteer for the jobs no one wanted.  One of those jobs what the Combined Federal Campaign.  I did that two years in a row and was pretty successful.  Our squadron raised more than everyone else.  I had a simple marketing pitch.  “You all are making more money than you know what do to with, so why not donate to those who need it most?”  The young officers always came through…

As a result, my Commander allowed me to go on the semi-annual good deal trip to Edwards AFB where for a week all we had to do was sit in the back of the plane while student test pilots and test Navs practiced real flight test maneuvers to determine if the AF should buy the T-43.  Being a Navigator Wing, we had a rule that anytime the aircraft left the local area it had to have a qualified Nav on board (Union Rules).  We took enough instructors that we only had to fly on one or two test missions and had the rest of the time to explore or be hosted by the TPS program (which included a flight in either a T-38, AT-37, or a glider).  I had about 20 hours of glider time, so I opted for the T-38 so I could say I had flown faster than the speed of sound.  After our little dash beyond Mach 1, we did shuttle approaches, where we fell out of the sky, pretty much like a rock.

How to Get a Wing Commander Fired

One Saturday morning my wife woke me up saying the Squadron Commander was on the line.  I grabbed the phone and he asked if I had been drinking the night before.  I assured him I had not and he asked if I was free for the day?  I said I was, so he said to grab my nav stuff and head down to base ops.  There was a no-notice trip to Chanute AFB to pick up the Wing Commander and some friends.  Chanute didn’t have an active runway so we were actually going to some civilian field nearby.

I headed down to base ops, met the two pilots and we planned the airways flight to and back.  We’d need to get gas at the Airport, but they saw enough AF aircraft they had a contract and our gas card would be honored.  Off we went box lunches and all.

We arrived at the airport, whose name escapes me now, and had to wait an hour or so until a bus with the Wing/CC and 12 friends showed up.  We loaded up and headed home.  As a C-130 guy, this seemed perfectly fine with me, and although I was gone for almost 12-hours I never considered filing a travel voucher for a simple two sortie day.  The copilot did and was quite upset when he was told no.  So, he filed an IG complaint that ultimately uncovered a pattern of abuse by the Wing Commander where he had used the sorties to Randolph to transport his daughter’s stuff, including wedding flowers, and furniture down to Texas.  Apparently, on our sortie, the Wing/CC had logged IN time, despite not having any students on board.  The lesson here is T-43s are not supposed to be used for your personal benefit.  Who knew?

The Difference Between Enlightened and Woke

Our founders were enlightened.  They had studied the classics for Latin and Greek, they knew the scope of current thought, and the voices of dissident writers.  Philosophy was a central requirement in their studies.  In their education, they saw the failures of the feudal system with the various allegiances to the monarch.  The recognized the importance of commerce to the general wellbeing of a society and created a government unique to the world, that depended on the involvement of all its citizens.  They were well read, and although there was a difference in how they viewed the races, they found compromises allowing the various states to guide their own destinies while becoming part of the greater whole.

Today’s politicians, struggling to vilify their rivals while appealing to a generation that has not learned from history are all about saying the right thing.  Today’s youth think if we destroy the monuments of the past it will somehow make the future better.  If we force a common set of political values the world will be at peace.  If we blame a single race for the failures of political decision we can somehow achieve nirvana. 

Woke politicians attempt to capitalize on these views (or misconceptions) and send out their political messaging without the rational thought that took place when something was written down, debated, and then published for the general population’s consumption.  Today’s “Woke Politicians” look at the constitution and rather than marvel at its adaptability, they point out women are not specifically mentioned, without realizing neither are men.  The sad thing is -- politicians usually say stupid stuff, but today a whole generation seems to think they are brilliant.

The founders wrote a document for the people.  Their words have stood the test of time.  I doubt the same can be said for woke politicians.

It’s A Real Conundrum

The news this week is interesting in how it comes across in the various outlets and how the counter programming and social media depict the stories of interest.  Let’s start with Paul Manafort.

Paul Manafort, the former Campaign Chairman for the Trump campaign, is either guilty of 8-counts, or innocent of 10-counts, depending on your point of view.  He is either an outrageous crook or a sly businessman/lawyer/lobbyist who is only on trial because he is associated with President Trump.  While I suspect if there wasn’t a special prosecutor Manafort might have skated on the fraud issues, the fact he was found guilty is bad for him, but as far as I can tell has nothing to do with Russian interference of the 2016 election.  An election I would point out Candidate Trump said was rigged and all the Dems poo-pooed as impossible (at least until they lost).

Michael Cohen, (I assume now former) lawyer/fixer for Donald Trump, has pled guilty of bank and tax fraud and campaign finance violations for paying off President Trump's paramours in an attempt to minimize the public outcries for his messing around on his wife (# 3 I think).  The charges on the bank and tax fraud issues cover a period of 5-years and I believe are also irrelevant with regards to Russians hacking into the election to change the course of U.S. history.  The money he paid the women constituted an illegal “in-kind” campaign contribution and was allegedly made with the knowledge and approval of the candidate. 

The left would have us believe these are “high crimes and misdemeanors” and therefore are impeachable offenses.  Looking rationally at it, if the Dems were in charge of the House they might make their case, but I’m hard-pressed to understand how a campaign violation by a candidate rises to an impeachable offense when impeachment has historically been used to attempt to remove a President for something he did while holding the office.  (Cases on point.  Andrew Johnson was accused of violating the “Tenure of Office Act” as President. In this case one of the cabinet members got the Congress to act because he was fired and had friends who could protect him.  Richard Nixon resigned before articles of impeachment were approved but it would most likely have been related to the criminal activity of spying on the DNC in the 1972 election.  Finally, Bill Clinton was impeached for his role in attempting to cover up his affair with Lewinsky and mislead the Kenneth Star investigation on Whitewater, both of which occurred while he was a sitting President.) 

That said, in today’s world precedent has little to do with the seemingly irrational choices politicians make in an effort to impress their friends and supporters.  Realistically, does anyone really think if his affairs had come out it would have made that much of a difference in the general election or that the Russians prevented the DNC from finding out about them and using them against Mr. Trump?  As much as one side now claims marriage fidelity is important for a President, that ship sailed in the 1990s.

Of course, we have a number of politicians being indicted on a variety of criminal charges like fraud.  I think there is probably an equal number of Rs and Ds but without a scorecard, it is hard to keep track.  So, I fall back on an old truth (or joke) – when do you know a politician (or lawyer) is lying to you?  When their lips are moving.

Next, we have the discovery of Molly Tibbets a young woman who went missing in mid-July whose body was discovered Tuesday and almost immediately someone was charged with her murder.  The man charged is a 24-year old illegal (undocumented if you prefer) immigrant from Mexico.  Those on the left have risen up to dismiss the nature of her killer and his illegal status as unimportant, with Dr. Christina Greer of Fordham University going so far as to dismiss it entirely since it didn’t fit the narrative she wanted to discuss.  According to Dr. Greer, the news should focus entirely on how the Republican Party is not standing up to Donald Trump.  The fact some “girl in Iowa” was killed just wasn’t that important.  Of course, this was on MSNBC and she was being critical of FOX so it is really okay, isn’t it?  Senator Warren had to weigh in and note that her death wasn’t nearly as important as separating mothers from the children at the border while still others point out the real problem is toxic masculinity.  Of course, some suggested discussing this death and linking it to border security was just pure political theater and the President and his supporters were just crass for doing so.  Not that the previous administration ever did such a thing.

So where is the conundrum?  Each time the Republicans do something to suggest I really should consider dropping my affiliation with them (like having candidates who are indicted or horribly obnoxious) the Democratic party and their spokespeople show me the alternative party is far worse.  Despite its warts and imperfections, at least the Republicans want to keep what appears to be at least a semi-viable government.  The other side really seems to be approaching a level of insanity I can’t understand as they focus almost exclusively on the evil they call Trump and would have us just turn over government to the UN, at least until they figure out the UN only loves us for our cash.  For the socialists among them, they propose the same unsupportable concepts that have made Cuba and Venezuela the economic juggernauts they are today.  It is simply a matter of greed on the part of the haves, and if the government would just step in and make the haves give all their wealth to the have-nots then everything would be great.  All we need to do is nationalize everything and let everyone work for the government.

With this logic, since fiscal policies are set by the Federal Reserve they are the real evil and we should nationalize it (remove its autonomy), along with all the banks and investment companies, and then everything would be perfect. 

That is my conundrum… I don’t think bigger government is the answer and as imperfect as the RNC is, there still appears to be a sliver of sanity within it, while on the other side of the aisle – not so much (e.g. Antifa beating a fellow liberal protestor senseless because he had an American Flag).

In My Office

In my office there are two American Flags neatly folded and encased.  One commemorates my father’s service in the United States Navy at the end of the Second World War, the other my service in the United States Air Force following my graduation from college until my retirement in the mid-1990s.  Each represents an ideal that America is a nation worth defending.  For some, perhaps too many, the cost of that defense is a terrible price paid with their lives, their limbs, or their emotional strength and well-being.

It saddens me terribly to see we’ve not taught so many of our young the values that have made the nation one worth our trust and allegiance. It saddens me as well to see the pettiness of the politicians, political leaders, and public media we choose to listen to.  We live in a trying time.  History can teach us about the events, but it is next to impossible to fully immerse ourselves into the raw emotions of a time long past, so I wonder what it was like in the days leading up to the succession of the southern states and their decision to fire on Fort Sumter?

Tomorrow the President will honor the memory of Air Force Technical Sergeant John Chapman when he presents his family with our nation’s highest military honor.  For the community I’ve spent most of my adult life in this is a proud moment that comes at a trying time for our nation.  I wish it were otherwise, but then is there ever a good time for a grieving family to be recognized?

I leave you with one simple thought.  For those who loathe our President and would destroy this nation because of him: be careful what you wish for, what comes next will not be better.

Fighting for the Future

The house is quiet this afternoon so I thought I’d sit down to write for a while.  This is kind of a stream of consciousness post.

In news from the internet this week.

1.     The Democratic Party is seeking to change the time for the next State of the Union address from the evening to the afternoon so RBG won’t miss her bedtime.

2.    Speaking of Justice Ginsberg – she says she is good for 5 more years.  I guess she has already decided the DNC doesn’t have a prayer in 2018 or 2020 elections. 

3.    All the experts who predicted HRC had a 99% chance of being President are now certain the Democrats will sweep the mid-terms.  Personally, I’m feeling just a little better about the Republicans chances now.

4.    I guess someone has run up the government cost estimate for Bernie Sander’s proposal for “Medicare for All.”  If I read it right, it comes in at about $33,000,000,000,000.68.  This is without assuming allowances for graft, corruption, and greed.  Since we are about to bust the bank on Social Security and it is the kids who want it I say “Let’s do this thing!”  So what if we turn into another Venezuela?  On the bright side, it should end that whole legal versus illegal immigration problem as the attractiveness of coming to America disappears.

5.    Speaking of Venezuela – the rising star for the DNC is avowed Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the first-time

candidate for New York’s 14^th District, widely supported by other first-time candidates, who seems to have benefited from all that a quality education at Boston University can offer.  Like most candidates, big on ideas, a little short on reality.

6.    People who view themselves as comedians continue to believe their political opinions are important and have expressed them in some interesting ways.  For the record, I didn’t find Carrot Top’s brand of entertainment all that appealing, but to each his own.  Pissing in public kind of falls into that same category.

7.     Trump Derangement Syndrome has now been classified by mental health professionals (and I use that term loosely) as Trump Anxiety Disorder.  They suggest counseling, group hugs, and binge watching of the historical documentary “Frozen.”

8.    John Brennen, former closet communist and former head of the CIA has voiced concern that President Trump is a Putin Puppet.  The communists (Lenin) had a term for sympathizers of their doctrine who lived in capitalist

societies like America, I think the term was “Useful Idiots.”  I think this works well to describe John Brennen.  I could describe President Trump in a number of ways, but a puppet for someone else?  Never.

In the words of Mel Blanc… “That’s all folks!”

Life with Gracie and George

This past evening Gracie and George stopped by to see what was up with our cats, Momma and Allie.  They stood by the windows for about 30 minutes, eventually calling another pair of Sandhill Cranes to come see the new furry things in the neighborhood.  Of course, the cats weren’t too sure what to make of the big birds and weren’t too anxious to get up close and personal.

I’d say for a first meeting it seemed to go pretty well.  The funny thing in this whole experience is how Allie is now the alpha cat.  Since we’ve had her she has always been the shrinking violet, timid and apparently afraid of her own shadow.  We had an older male named “Bama” who made sure she knew her place.  We had to put Bama down about a month before we moved, and in the process brought a semi-feral cat into the house.  Although this new arrival is bigger than Allie, there is no doubt as to who is the alpha. I guess with cats it’s, who's been here the longest.

Anywho, Allie was the first to venture out to the windows to hang with the birds and Mary Lou.  After a while, the cranes called for some of their friends to come to see the new neighbor sand another pair flew in. 

Mary Lou had opened a window so she could talk with the cranes and they both seemed to be communicating with her.  She would talk, they would listen.  I am not sure what they actually thought about her conversation, but at least they were polite and didn’t seem to get upset as she explained the problems with international trade, which has led to this latest dust-up with China and Europe.

Meanwhile, I sat in the living room where I could watch this all unfold.  Unfortunately, I never think about pictures until after the fact.  Next time I will try and remember the visual arts.

By the way, does anyone know how to repair Bossons Heads?  The ones I bought my father when I was a Lt. have seen a bit of rough wear and are in need of some filling and touch up.

The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow, or will it?

 (with apologies to Charles Strouse)

We are bombard with news about this or that evil thing Trump did, broadcast by those individuals and groups who lost power in the 2016 election.  At the same time, we are inundated with the evil conspiracies of the left by those who seek to support the current administration.  Thankfully or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, there seems to be no limit on the amount of hyperbole and hypocrisy that is allowed and encouraged in today’s “post-truth” world where opinion reigns and facts are considered a hindrance to agenda.

These aspects of our politics are not new.  Today they are simply amplified by the ability to communicate instantly with an audience.  In the days before radio, writers, journalists, and opinion(ists) each had to get past an editor before their product was broadcast.  Then it was printed or broadcast by the town crier.  With the advent of radio and television, when news was only a small portion of a broadcast day the scripts were checked and the news readers rehearsed to tell the correct story, usually without a lot of obvious opinion or bias.  The major U.S. networks at least maintained an illusion of impartiality in their reporting.

Then along came cable, satellite, and the internet and the world changed.  With all those channels and all that air-time, something had to fill up all that empty space.  Why not empty thoughts based on feelings rather than facts?  The elders among us can probably remember the three CNN reporters huddled in a hotel in Bagdad broadcasting the nightly bombings just like Edward R. Murrow of WW2 fame.  What gets lost in our memories is the propaganda nature of these reporters.  In the Second World War Murrow’s broadcasts were supported by the English to show America how they were withstanding the onslaught of the German Luftwaffe.  In CNN’s case, they were supported by the Hussein regime in the hopes of showing how they were withstanding the attacks by the coalition and perhaps tell a compelling story of how innocent lives were being lost due to indiscriminate bombings.  It all made for great theater.  Journalism has now become just that – theater.  Reporters aren’t hired for their writing, their analysis, or their grasp of conflicting ideologies, they are hired for their good looks and good hair.

For eight years the religious right and conservatives, in general, complained about the past administration and its apparent discrimination of their rights versus the progressive agenda.  They were told to sit down and color because the left knew what was right and the people had spoken to who the elected as President.  Today we have a clear reversal of fortune, where the radical left and the liberals are complaining about the apparent discrimination of their rights versus a more conservative agenda, the difference?  Well actually there isn’t any, backing those claims up with factual data is unnecessary.  Those who have the microphones have the loudest voices… they get to choose who you want to believe and as long as you are in lockstep with them you can remain comfortable and smug you are on the right side of the political spectrum.

They say there is a pendulum effect in politics.  What is in, will be out soon enough.  But as I watch the pendulum swing I wonder what happens when it passes the horizontal because of the speed of displacement (change)?

Will the sun still come up?

Goodbye 2017, Hello 2018 (Life as we know it, or the end of life as we know it.)

Everyone seems to be reflecting on the year that was, the celebrities who have died, or even the ones who’ve self-destructed.  It is quiet in the house; the sun is not yet up and I just told the cat he couldn’t sit on my keyboard -- so I’ll spend a moment or two reflecting on this past year as well.

It seems, thanks to social media and the press, we continue to drift into a bi-polar state where each segment attempts to define their own reality, independent of the facts before them.  Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, has an interesting theory on why this is in "Scott Adams' Blog".  He believes President Trump has exceptional persuasion skills, but the disconnect between what he says, and what the opposition hears is so great they cannot understand him.  Adams suggests when the President talks what the liberals hear is akin to the sounds of adults talking on the Charlie Brown TV movies.  All they hear is wah, wah, woh, wah, and absolutely no communication takes place.  While I wonder why this is, I’ve come to accept it won’t change until something dramatic happens to totally destroy one sides reality.

2017 began with the changing of the guard at the White House and the rioting of those Clinton supporters who were so upset when Candidate Trump in one of the debates refused to say he would accept, without question, the results of the election.  The term “not my President” became fashionable among the urban elite, media celebrities, and mainstream news people.

I expected to see February news filled with reports of the mass migration to Canada of all the A-list celebrities who had threatened to move if Candidate Trump were elected.  Alas, if they moved, they moved so quietly as to not be noticed.  Apparently, their threats to move were not enough to overcome candidate Trump’s persuasion skills for enough voters to make a difference for their candidate.

The New York Stock Exchange’s Dow Jones Industrials average began the year at 19,942 and ended the year at 24,719.  To add some context for this, when Barrack Obama assumed office, after the crash in 2008, the market was at 7,689 (almost at its nadir from the crash) and just before the election it had climbed to 17,888, gaining a little over 10 thousand points in almost eight years.  It closed election day at 18,847.66 and hasn’t looked back.  This despite the professional opinion of what would happen from no less than the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.  Which brings me to my next point.

The reality of the opposition this year seems to be anything, and everything, the President, and the GOP do will cause people to die.  If we change the PP/ACA (Obamacare) – people will die, if the Congress passes a new tax law – people will die, if the President doesn’t stop calling the mainstream media “fake news” – people will die, if he confronts North Korea – people will die.  Well, that last one may actually cause people to die, but it gets lost in the “little boy who cried wolf” syndrome that seems to be so popular by the victims of the left.

The GOP and the DNC failed the American people again this year through their arrogance and negativity.  They both demonstrated a lack of concern with the poor and lower middle-class by holding pretty rigidly to party lines, although the GOP has always had a problem with that concept and lost a couple of key votes when some Republican senators chose not to follow the party direction.  The DNC, on the other hand, was pretty much in universal agreement to not support any Republican legislation, period.  We will see how that plays out in 2018 with the mid-term elections.

2017 saw the fall of some powerful men in entertainment, media, news, and politics.  They were called to task for their abuse of power and the harassment and sexual demands of women whose lives they controlled or affected.  This was not a bad thing, but it quickly grew into a mob mentality with the #metoo social justice warrior movement.  Of course, the feminist movement that so closely identifies with the DNC as their political organization of choice was quick to climb on board, until such time as some of their favorite politicians started to be identified as sexual predators.  Then they had to make a choice as to the value of the politician over the need to believe the accuser.  While I wasn’t keeping real close score, it appeared to me that more Democrats then Republicans were swallowed up by the mob, but the numbers were pretty close.  Does anyone think this will change the sexual dynamic between men and women?  If morality is relative to a society, then once the hyper-sensitivity calms down I expect we will return to the idea the powerful dominate the less powerful and that is okay until the next round of victims comes forth.

Well, the sun is up, and it is time to prepare for church so I will draw this to a close.  I expect 2018 will be pretty similar to 2017, at least until the left is able to gain enough traction on some scandal to attempt to impeach the President, but they won’t control the house until 2019 (best case) so that will probably have to wait.

I will note a couple of milestones for my blog.  I have passed the 1,000-post milestone, and in December I had over 10,000 visitors.  For those who’ve stopped by and read my posts.  Thank you. 

May this next year be filled with joy and happiness.  Have a great New Year!