What's Obama going to do now?

    The President has been faced with many challenges since he took office over 6 years ago.  And, as far as I can tell, he has been able to weasel himself out of every misstep he has made along the way. An overindulgent press really helps of course, and will continue to be Obama's shield in the future. 
      In fact, the only thing that he has actually accomplished is the passage of the Affordable Care Act, or Obama Care as it's popularly known. For the most part that bill has been an unmitigated disaster.  So much so that he has had to repeatedly postpone key provisions of the bill due the hardship would cause small businesses and the impact that would have on the next election. 
     Now, we have a real kettle of fish brewing in the Ukraine. It is clear the Russians have invaded parts of the Ukraine because it's in their interest to so. They mask it behind protecting the ethic Russians living there from mobs of western backed Ukrainians.  Of course as the free press has pointed out there is no mobs attacking anybody in the Crimea or any place in eastern Ukraine. 
    And what is Obama doing?  As usual he is making speeches and veiled threats. But, Russia has seen, from many examples, just how much real danger is in Obama's promises and threats. He is yet to take any action to carry out his declaration of a Red Line that will not crossed, and was, many times. 
    It is clear to me that Putin rues the disassembling of the Soviet Empire and it's position as one of the worlds super powers and wants to return to those glory days. He still pictures the west and specifically the USA as his enemy and has gone to great lengths to harass America in every part of the globe where the circumstances permit. The old Soviet State is being reborn, with the suppression of a free press and all political opposition. Next I expect to see a walling off of Russia from the rest of the world as foreign journalists are only allowed into the country under strict government control. That's already happening to some extent. It's quite possible that the cold war will start to heat up again.   
    In the meantime, Obama is moving to cut our armed forces to pre WWII levels. He is living under the typical liberal fantasy that if we're good guys the bad guys will turn good too; that Putin is an honorable man and he is only reacting to our aggressive policies. He reminds me of Chamberlain waving a piece of paper after he gave away part of a country to Hitler and stating that with this agreement we will have piece in our time. As history shows, Hitlers word wasn't worth much.  
    Now Obama is caught up in a situation largely of his own making. Our capitulation in one world crises after another has encouraged Putin to invade Ukrainian territory without any fear of United States actions to thwart him.  He now owns a strategic port on the Black Sea. And, at this stage there is little Obama can do except make some meaningless threats about sanctions, which hasn't phased Russia at all. Putin knows that any sanctions that have any teeth will not last very long, as the resources of Russia are sought by the world. 
    Putin is already making noises about protecting the ethnic Russians that populate eastern Ukraine from the "oppressive and illegal" government in Kiev. It wouldn't surprise me at all that the next move will be the invasion and annexation of eastern Ukraine into the Russian Federation.
    Stay tuned. Watch as this play unfolds. I don't think it will have a happy ending.    
          
      

I Remember

I posted a part of this blog entry on my Facebook page at the first of the year.  I thought I would expand on it for reasons only I know.

     A New Year is upon us  and in times like these I think it's good to remember the past, so we don't repeat the mistakes in the future. Unfortunately, I think that  a lot of the younger generation don't   even know there is a past, or if so, have been fed the pablum version of it. But, perhaps unfortunately, I do remember.

    I remember growing up during the great depression, where some 25 percent of the work force was unemployed. Unbridled speculation on wall street, fueled by stocks being bought on large margins (i.e. borrowed money) resulted an a great crash in the stock market in 1929 followed by a bigger one  in 1932 when the house of cards came tumbling down. Making matters worse, we had the greatest man made environmental disaster in American history. Poor farming methods on the Great Plains,which had been dubbed the Great American Desert, resulted in the removal of all the top soil and the protection the native grasses provided against drought conditions and the high winds that frequently sweep the plains. A lot of this was driven by an unusually wet period that happens infrequently, encouraging the farmers to put more and more acreage under the plow. This was only made possible due to the introduction and use of mechanized farming methods. The average rain fall for the Great Plains is about 10 inches per year. The drought hit the plain states during the same time as the stock market crash. The combination of unprotected soil, a severe drought and high winds  created what has been called the great dust bowl of the 1930's. This confluence of events resulted in great hardships to the nation, but particularly to the people of the great plains. In fact this was part of a greater depression that gripped the whole world. 
     I remember Franklin Roosevelt and his attempts to move the nation out of the depression. It turned out that all his efforts actually accomplished little in the broad sense, and in the opinion of many economists, many of his programs had the opposite effect. But, these programs and FDR's approach, created a whole new mindset as to the role of government into the everyday lives of the people. Roosevelt tried all kinds of things to get his programs moving, including trying to pack the Supreme Court so that some of his questionable programs wouldn't be nullified by court action.  It was literately the beginning of the welfare state that has blossomed into full fruition today.  But, the poor people and unemployed  loved him because he looked like he was trying to do something. He created a whole set of alphabet soup agencies that were funded directly by the federal government. It did provide jobs for a lot of people, but the numbers were small compared to the total unemployment. One of the better projects that came under the New Deal was the building of Boulder Dam.  He also set up agencies to develop and introduce new farming methods into the great American desert. Relief agencies and work programs of all kinds were formed, each trying to alleviate the effects of the high unemployment. 
       The great depression lasted from about 1932 until we started gearing up war production in 1939. A little research into history will show that the entrance of our nation into WWII was the act that finally pulled the nation out of the Great Depression. That's something to contemplate. But, the seeds had been sown on the expanded role of government into the lives of it's people. The citizens began to look to government to provide a "safety net" to guard against the ups and downs of the economy and to protect against lack of planning and foresight on the part of the individual.        I remember Pearl Harbor and how unprepared we were to fight a global war.  We jumped with both feet into the mobilization of American industry to supply the material to fight that war, a luxury granted us by the vast oceans that surrounded our nation.  That did allow us the time to rearm.  American industry performed beyond any ones expectations and we began to turn out war materials at a fantastic rate. The supply line to England had to be increased, and we figured out how to commission the primary cargo hauler, the Liberty Ship, at a rate of three ships a day.  We were building them faster than the German U-Boats could sink them. We entered the war with a lot of operational equipment that was inferior to that of our enemy. We had nothing to match Japanese Zero or the German Me109.  But, shortly we were supplying the fleet with the F6F Hellcat and the F4U Corsair, perhaps the best pure fighter in the US armed forces; both planes far superior to anything the Japanese had. The Army Air Corps very quickly got the P47 thunderbolt and the best fighter in the European theater, the P51 Mustang. The Mustang fulfilled a role in the European strategic bombing operations that was absolutely essential to the continuation of daylight precision bombing. Before the P51, bomber sorties deep into enemy territory, out of the the range of all other fighters, resulted in horrific casualty losses of bombers and crews. The Mustang could accompany the Bombers all the way to Berlin and back.  Without that plane the destruction of German production by bombing the facilities deep inside Germany would have been even more costly to the Eight Air Force than it was. The strategy  might have been cancelled altogether due to the unacceptable losses. The British had tried it early in the war and decided they couldn't accept the losses. They reverted to nighttime carpet bombing of cities. 

     The P51 Mustang was the primary weapon that won air supremacy over western Europe and permitted the invasion at Normandy on June 6, 1944.  The control of the air over western Europe was so essential for the invasion to be successful, that as the invasion date approached, the bombers were sent to prime and sensitive targets in Germany, especially Berlin, with the sole purpose of drawing the German fighters up to defend so that the Mustangs could shoot them down. And it worked. The Allies achieved commanding air superiority over western Europe. The Germans had almost no fighter cover on D Day, 1944.  
    I remember the stupidity of Hitler when he declared war on the USA and brought the whole industrial might of the United States against him. That's after he was dumb enough to open up a war with the Soviet Union with England still alive and kicking at his back door. It should be said that this was the war that Roosevelt wanted to fight and Hitler played right into his hands. The emphasis of American power was primarily concentrated on the European theater. The Pacific theater had to do the best it could for awhile. That was never more clear than at Guadalcanal. American industrial power was so great however, that both fronts were supplied with massive amount of equipment as the war progressed.
    I remember the Bataan Death March and the atrocities committed by the Japanese and the Germans prior to and  during WWII. I remember the German Death Camps where Jews along with other people were put to death by the millions. The Germans seem to have come to grips with what was done in their name, but the Japanese still seem to be in denial. 
     I remember the battle at Midway, which was a battle we had every right to lose, in spite of the fact that we knew that the Japanese were coming and when. Carrier warfare was new to everybody engaged in that battle on the American side. The Japanese had superior planes (the Japanese Zero fighter), more carriers and experienced battle hardened combat pilots. The main purpose of the Midway invasion, other than gaining a forward base for the Japanese, was to draw the American carriers into a decisive battle so the Japanese could destroy them. The Japanese plan was to occupy Midway and then trap the American carriers when they were sent to the rescue. They knew that we couldn't lose Midway and would do everything in our power to prevent the Japanese from occupying it.  Their intelligence told them that our carriers were still at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese did send out scout planes to search the oceans in case the American fleet was out there.  It is believed that one of the scout planes actually spotted the American fleet, but had radio problems and was not able to report back. The Japanese fleet's commanders assumed they were still at Pearl. In any event our scout planes, a Navy PBY, spotted their fleet first. 
      We attacked in an uncoordinated fashion, against doctrine, resulting in the almost total lose of all the torpedo planes, who attacked without fighter cover, not scoring even a single torpedo into a Japanese ship.  It was, to say the least, suicide for the crews of the American torpedo planes.  But, the torpedo attack had pulled the Japanese fighter cover down to lower levels and when the dive bombers arrived there was no fighter cover over the Japanese fleet.  The dive bombers had a field day, sinking three of the four Japanese carriers within minutes. The fourth carrier was found and sunk a little later but not before she found one of the American carriers and attacked, inflicting sever damage. The carrier, The Yorktown, was subsequently sunk by a torpedo. The only major lose for the Americans was the Yorktown.  Due to that series of circumstances, what could have been a disaster turned into a major American victory where we destroyed the cream of the Japanese Naval air arm including their best pilots. 
     I remember Guadalcanal where we were desperate to deny the Japanese an airfield that would threaten the supply lines from the USA to Australia.  We sent in the Marines with inadequate supplies, inadequate Naval support, and WWI firearms. And they held on, somehow. The initial landing was almost unopposed as we seem to have caught the Japanese totally unaware. They captured the uncompleted airfield very quickly. The Japanese quickly started to move men and firepower onto the island from their base at Rabaul in a desperate attempt to take the airfield back. The US Navy was generally over matched by the well trained Japanese Naval forces in the beginning and we had to pull our transports, with all their supplies, out of the area or risk getting them sunk. That left the Marines eating captured Japanese rations with little hope of immediate resupply of essentials. After the Marines and Army Air Corp were able to move aircraft into the airfield that the Sea Bee's had built using Japanese equipment, we were able to establish air superiority during the day. With no night fighting equipment the American planes were grounded at night. 
      The small detachment of Marines were flying the F4F Wildcat  and the Army the P400 (a variation on the P39).  The Army aircraft were essentially ineffective because of the low ceiling that of the P400. That left the main combat operations to the Marines in the heavily outnumbered Wildcats and the Navy to bear the brunt of fighting over Guadalcanal.  The Navy was still flying the F4F Wildcat also, but with tactics developed by the Flying Tigers, who flew the similarly out classed P40 Warhawk, and some imagination by a couple of Naval aviators, they were able to maximize the advantages of the Wildcat and avoid the Zeros strengths. The heavily armored Wildcat could take significant punishment and still fly, while the Zero, while agile, speedy and with a great climb rate, turned out to be rather fragile when hit with incendiaries from the Wildcats 50 caliber guns.  
     The popular term in the fleet for the Grumman factory that produced both the F4F Wildcat and later the highly effective F6F Hellcat was "The Grumman Iron Works". The Grumman designs always put great emphasis on protecting the pilot and making the plane survivable.  The Hellcat was without question a very effective airplane in the Pacific, attaining a kill ratio of nine to one over the Japanese planes. It was the favorite plane of the Naval Aviators because it was rugged and adapted well to carrier landings.  The Marines latched onto the F4U and it remained their favorite plane into the Korean war. It achieved a kill ratio of 11 to 1 over the Japanese planes. They feared it more than any other plane.  The biggest problem with the F4U was the initial difficulty in landing on an aircraft carrier due to it's long nose. The British figured how to do it however, and it became a standard carrier plane for the American Navy. The F4U had the longest production run of any fighter in the armed forces. 
      For a long time the night belonged to the Japanese Naval forces which had trained extensively for fighting a Naval engagement at night. They pretty much had their way when the Sun went down. In Naval battles fought at night between the two adversaries, the Japanese wrecked havoc on the American fleet. However, the day belonged to the Americans after they achieved air superiority and the Japanese avoided any daytime activity.  For months the Japanese continued to provide men and material to Guadalcanal coming down through the slot from Rabaul, which they controlled. 
     The Japanese finally withdrew their forces six months later, after they decided the cost in men was too great. 
      Of course then there was Tarawa, where we had to learn how to assault an entrenched enemy, an expensive lesson, and finally through a chain of bloody islands ending at Okinawa, where the Japanese Kamikaze attacks wrecked havoc on the American fleet and the loss of Marines on the island looked like a horrible precursor of things to come with the invasion of Japan. In between were gut wrenching operations as the Naval Forces under Admiral Nimitz and the Army forces under General MacArthur fought one bloody battle after another moving toward the Japanese homeland. The projected casually rates for the Naval and Army forces that would be involved in an invasion of Japan were mind numbing, which made the decision to drop the Atomic Bombs to attempt to end the war a no brainer. That act saved hundreds of thousands, or more likely millions, of both American and Japanese lives by negating the need for an all out invasion of Japan.     
     I remember the rise of Adolf Hitler and path of appeasements that led him to think he could invade Poland in concert with Stalin and the USSR, without England and France honoring their agreements with Poland.  By agreement they split the country in half. He had finally taken a step too far and both England and France declared war on Germany. I'm still not sure why they didn't include the USSR which invaded from the east. The German SS troops treated the Poles very badly, but probably not as bad as the Soviet troops. There are well documented cases of mass executions of Polish military and civilians by both the Germans and the Soviets. 
    As is usual, a nation enters a war with the leadership of people who fought in the last war and developed their tactics and strategies based on that experience.  France was setting up for a WWI type battle, concentrating on fixed defensive positions. The problem was that the Germans didn't suffer from that affliction and unleashed a new form or warfare on the French and the British Expeditionary forces on the continent. The French forces, which outnumbered and were really better equipped than the Germans, were overwhelmed in short order.  A good part of the British forces were trapped on the western coast of France at Dunkirk, and only were saved by a massive evacuation effort performed by almost everything that could float which was dispatched from England for the rescue.
      What followed has been called the Battle of Britain. It was a fight that was actually waged on two fronts, the air over England and the North Atlantic ocean. The term is generally used only in regard to the air war that was fought between the RAF and the Luftwaffe for control of the air over England. Hitler planned to invade England but had to have air superiority over the channel to do so.  
    It was a desperate war, and a new kind of war. The Germans sent wave after wave of bombers escorted by the Bf109 fighters over England day after day and the RAF rose to meet them. The original goal of the Luftwaffe was to destroy RAF fighter command. They would bomb it's airfields and when the Spitfires and Hurricanes came up to do combat shoot them out of the sky. It was working. The loses on both sides were serious. It became a war of attrition. The British propaganda had the RAF shooting down a lot more German planes than they were losing, but the fact was that the losses were almost equal.  England was in dire straits.  
     But, the Germans made three strategic errors during the Battle. First, they did not develop a long range bomber capability so that they could not reach the manufacturing facilities in western and northern England. Therefore they could not get at the factories that were churning out the fighters that were being made for the RAF. Secondly, they totally overlooked the importance of the newly developed technology of RADAR, that let Fighter Command have sufficient warnings so that they could get their fighters into the air and in the right position to intercept the incoming bombers. That allowed the fighter pilots to be off alert between raids and not having to maintain continuous air patrol. Thirdly, just when the RAF was literally on it's knees, the Germans shifted their focus from attacking the RAF facilities to bombing the English cities, especially London. While London paid the price, the RAF was able to rebuild, acquire new pilots and planes. Then the RAF came out in force and the chance to gain superiority of the air for the Luftwaffe was lost. The plans for the invasion of England was cancelled, and it became the staging platform for the invasion of the European continent. As Churchill said "Never have so many owed so much to so few".   

    I remember when North Korea invaded the South, with the blessing of the Soviet Union and supported by them, and we again found ourselves in a war that we were not prepared to fight.  Our forces in Korea and Japan were
ill prepared to fight any kind of combat. We had denied any kind of heavy equipment, including tanks and heavy field pieces to the South Korean Army because we were afraid that Sigmund Rhee would use it to invade the north. The Russians did not hesitate in supplying North Korea with the latest tanks and heavy artillery however. 
     The US Army, that first were sent into the fight from Japan, were poorly trained and inadequately supplied occupation troops, but that's all we had. And we got our butts kicked in the beginning, over powered by both men and equipment. This was as a result of the "Peace Dividend" following WWII and the divergence of funding from armed forces into social welfare programs that had become popular during the FDR reign. Our Army was pushed back into a small area at the south east peninsula (The Pusan Perimeter) of Korea and holding on with their teeth. Except for the arrival of the Marines, who were a well trained, and the air cover supplied by the Navy Carriers and the Air Force planes flying out of Japan, the outcome might have been grave. But, we held on. The Port at Pusan was essential if we were going to bring reinforcements into the conflict. If we lost Pusan, we would likely lose the war.  At this point,however, the North Korean Army supply lines were stretched to the limit,were being attacked almost continuously from the air. They were having  problems keeping their troops supplied.       
      Because we held on at Pusan we were able to build up our forces in the south and with a daring encircling move by MacArthur with the landing of the Marines at Inchon, the UN forces started to decimate the North Korean Army.  The North Korean Army began a hasty retreat north at the behest of their Soviet and Chinese advisers or they would have been totally destroyed. 
     The push northward continued until the UN forces were virtually at the Yalu river which separates Korea from China.  MacArthur's intelligence breakdown was monumental here. He was assured by his most trusted advisers and his own intelligence staff that the Chinese would not enter the war. This was in spite of the fact that Zhou Enlai had warned that the Chinese would enter the war if UN troops went north of the 38th parallel.  Well, as history shows The General was dead wrong. Chairman Mao ignited the fuse and the Chinese attacked.  About 300 thousand strong. 
     The Chinese had started to move troops in large numbers into Korea weeks before the UN troops came to a stop at the Yalu. The American forces thought the war was over and they would be going home. A good thing because it was cold and miserable and our troops were not really equipped for prolonged cold weather operations. We were loosing more men to frost bite than we were losing in combat.  
     The Chinese were able hide their movement from all the aerial surveillance prior to their open attack by moving primarily in the dark and not bringing heavy equipment with them.  They basically came with what they could carry or pack on horses or mules.  That gave them extreme mobility with respect to UN and American forces which, because we were so highly mechanized, were confined to the existing roads.  That allowed the Chinese to move through the hills and encircle the UN forces and out flank them. The Army had rushed pell mell northward, once they got the North Koreans routed, and were very strung out and really not very cohesive. There was essentially a breakdown in the command structure. The Marines, moving up the eastern side of Korea,  on the other hand, moved forward with more care, remaining an intact cohesive unit. The Marine commanders were actually criticized for their slower advance. 
    And then the Chinese struck. They routed the South Korean forces and  some divisions of the Army. Many of the Army battalions were over run before they knew what was going on. Many of them just broke and ran leaving the rest to be encircled and cut off. The whole UN line of battle was in confusion. In general the Army forces were in total disarray and were retreating as fast as they could run, leaving the Marines cut off and surrounded by the Chinese Army. An Indian regiment took enormous casualties, holding the line, so that a US Army regiment could successfully retreat southward. This was in spite of the fact that the Army was not overwhelmed in numbers on every front by the Chinese, contrary to the news releases.  The Marines, now out numbered and out flanked, were trapped at Chosen in bitter cold weather and had to then fight their way out of the trap, and did so bringing their dead and wounded with them. It was another moment in Marine history for which they can be proud. 
     The Army, under a new commander, Ridgeway, finally got it's act together and was able to stop the Chinese forces after the initial humiliating retreat. The Army had been pushed back completely out of North Korea, had lost Seoul and was in danger of being being pushed off the peninsula. Under Ridgeway's leadership the Army made a heroic stand at Chi-Yong-Ni against much larger Chinese forces. From there the US forces began to push the Chinese back north. The Marines retook Seoul for the second time. At this point, the war begin to look more and more like WWI trench warfare.  
     The Korean war saw the introduction of the jet in the equation. In the beginning of the war, all the planes were WWII vintage. The Navy using the F4U as it's primary fighter and the Air Force the P51. With these planes the UN forces commanded total air superiority over the whole of Korea. They were a primary factor in avoiding total defeat in the beginning of the war and the saving of Army and Marine forces when they had to beat a retreat before the Chinese onslaught.  Then, a new type of plane appeared over the battlefield.  The MIG 15. A new jet powered, swept wing fighter, that completely over matched the American planes. We know, from radio intercepts and other data that many of them were being flown by Russian pilots. We tried to rush our own jet fighters into the gap, but all we had was the Lockheed F80 Shooting Star and the F84 ThunderJet. Neither of them able to counter the speed and fighter capability of the MIG. The ThunderJet, however was an  effective ground attack plane as was used in that mission for much of the war. For a time the Communists took control of the air over North Korea. North American Aviation then produced a new American fighter, the F86 Saber Jet. It was a new swept wing design the was faster and more heavily armed than the MIG.  In the final tally the F86 proved to be more that a match for the MIG.  
     One of the defining moments in that war was the decision by President Truman to relieve General MacArthur of command.  The tension between MacArthur and his bosses in Washington had been fomenting for some time.  The General was openly critical of the decisions being made in Washington about the objectives of the war and how much force should be brought to bar on the enemy, including the use of tactical nuclear weapons.  MacArthur's mantra was that there is no substitute for victory. Truman did not want the war to expand outside of Korea and involve the Chinese in an Asian war that could become global. MacArthur felt that we were in a position to win a war against the Chinese and we should do so, if that was required. We can never know what would have happened if The General had his way. 
      The General was one of the most brilliant tactical commanders in the military, but he had an ego second to none. And he tended to surround himself with a staff that didn't want to tell him anything he didn't want to hear. When MacArthur decided that something was true, the only intelligence that reached him was that which reinforced his opinion. That's why he was so surprised by the North Korean invasion.  There were reports at lower levels that were warning of a North Korean buildup and possible invasion but, they never were allowed to reach MacArthur.  There were reports of the massive Chinese movement into the south prior to the attack at the Yalu, as well as the direct warning by the Chinese that they would send in troops if the American forces went beyond the 38th parallel. The Chinese could not allow the American military to share a common border with mainland China. 
     This war was finally stalemated at about the 38th parallel, and after two years of negotiations an armistice was signed that is still in effect. 
     I remember Vietnam, where again we had to intervene because the Soviet and Chinese backed forces of communist North Vietnam through their surrogate southern wing, the Vietcong, were attempting to take over the south, violating an agreement that partitioned the country until elections could be held to unify it. Elections that the Soviets blocked at every turn so that the communists would have a foothold in Vietnam. 
     The Vietnamese had been engaged in warfare for years previously against the French forces who were trying to reestablish the French Indo-China colony following WWII after the Japanese surrender, who had occupied the peninsula during WWII. The French had colonized the Indo-China peninsula in the mid 1900's. The Vietnamese drove the French out in 1958, leaving a divided Vietnam as a result of the agreements reached by the settlement. It's a no brainer to know that the North Vietnam leadership were well versed in fighting a conventional land army and how to defeat such an army. They also could field a guerrilla army with years of experience in that type of warfare, and an already established infrastructure supporting that type of operation.  
     Now we entered a war that we were ill prepared to fight on so many levels. It was, by any definition, in the beginning and throughout, a guerrilla war. Unfortunately we had a senior officer corps trained in WWII and Korea and a brain trust in Washington that didn't have a clue how to fight that kind of war. 
      Modern communications allowed the Washington crowd to have their finger in the proverbial pie and dictated the conduct of the war in detail.  So, at the top, both in Washington and the Military, we had no one who knew anything about how to fight this type of war, and the grunt on the firing line who was frustrated and felt themselves as pawns in the game.  They probably should have contacted the French on what not to do. They ended up adopting the strategy of using a war of attrition as the overall plan.  We'll kill more of them than they will of us, and then they'll just give up. Apparently none of them had read Sun Tzu"s " The Art of War" which accurately predicted how this would play out against an enemy that was fighting under a different set of ground rules.  The North Vietnam leadership had apparently read the book. The analogy I heard once was, that we were fighting the war as if it were a Chess Game and the North Vietnamese were playing the game of Go. Those familiar with the two games will get the analogy.  The North Vietnamese decided when and were they would fight, and it was always on their terms. They also understood that war was a political game more so than military. They knew how to play that game well. 
     This resulted in the longest war in American history, with the body counts piling up and no end in site. The Vietcong just wouldn't play by our rules. The North was obviously, and said so, willing to spend millions of their own peoples lives to unify the country under communism. This was a strange war to the American people who weren't used to this. We won every battle fought, but were losing the war at home. The famous Tet offensive on January 30, 1968, that was covered so extensively by the media, was one of the few times the Vietcong and North Vietnamese attempted more conventional warfare. Some 800,000 communist troops attacked  100 towns and villages throughout South Vietnam. They, for a brief instance lost their minds and played the game according to our rules. They shocked the American high command with this offensive because they had been led to believe that the communist forces were so decimated that they could not launch such an operation. They had an initial wave of victories, which really impressed the media. The Americans quickly recovered and regained all the lost territory. The end result was a total disaster for North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces.  The loses they incurred almost decimated their army, with minimal casualties for the American forces. A great tactical victory for the US forces. But, the public got a different picture from the media, which reported it as a Vietcong show of strength and determination. They almost unanimously came to the conclusion that the war was not winnable. And, they were probably right if we didn't get some leadership at the top who could figure out how change the rules of the war we were fighting. 
    It's no wonder that as time went on the American public began to turn against the war. And they had every right to do so. Not because we were in a war we shouldn't have got involved in, but rather, we were fighting it in a way that only meant more body bags with no end in sight. 
     The shame is that a lot of the unthinking public took their anger out on the returning members of the Armed Forces as the war continued and as we finally gave up the ghost and evacuated our forces. They spit on them, called them names, accused them of killing babies and even went so far as to attack them.  This from people who had no clue on what it was like over there and had no experience what so ever in situations more perilous than getting caught smoking too much weed.  
   I also remember Jane Fonda, who went to North Vietnam. took her place at an anti-aircraft gun and simulated shooting down American fliers. I will always consider her a traitor.  Every American had the right to protest the war, but she stepped over the line to the point of actively giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
      I remember the Cold War and the conflict between the Soviet Union and the nations of Western Europe and the United States. Before WWII was even over, Stalin was signaling his intentions to establish a Russian sphere of influence stretching far beyond her own borders. During the war Stalin assured the naive Roosevelt that the Soviets would allow free elections of the territories that they would "liberate" from the Germans as they moved westward. Churchill was not no easily fooled. The Russians had suffered severely under the Germans in the war, so it is easy to understand their passion for revenge. 
    As the Soviet troops moved west, pushing the German forces back to their homeland and then into eastern Germany, they set up puppet governments under the rule of Moscow. There was no attempt a holding any kind of free election. These countries existed to support the Soviets. Near the end of the war, when the outcome was clear, the Soviets declared war on Japan, invaded and took control of Manchuria. They expected to share in the occupation of Japan, but MacArthur told them he would shoot the first Soviet soldier that set foot on Japan. 
     As people under the Soviet yoke tried to escape to the west, the Soviets established, what Winston Churchill called, an Iron Current across Europe to keep their people from leaving. Decisions made during the war about the division of Germany among the Allies resulted in Berlin being inside the Soviet sphere. According to the agreement Berlin was to become a sort of free city, with equal access for all the allied powers. That didn't last long.  The Soviets blockaded the highways leading into Berlin, attempting to deny the other allied powers from entering.  Truman answered that by instituting the Berlin airlift, whereby supplies for the parts of Berlin under the control of the western nations were supplied by a massive air transport system. Stalin in the end backed off. To further partition Berlin, the Soviets built a high wall that divided the city into the east and west zones. Any person in the east part of Berlin who tried to escape to the west was shot on the spot. Many Germans lost their lives on the Berlin Wall. 
      It was called the Cold War but, it was a real war. Stalin and the Soviets intended to export their influence outward at every opportunity. Many of our modern liberals scoff at the idea, but the Stalin had grand plans of seeing all of Europe, if not the whole world under Soviet influence. It wasn't fought directly between the big powers, but rather in other engagements played out over the globe. The Soviets armed, trained and supported insurgencies in all parts of the world. Korea, Vietnam and Cuba to name a few of the larger ones that were were sucked into.  They supplied arms, including the latest Soviet fighters, tanks, Surface to Air Missiles to Egypt and Syria in their fight with Israel. They attempted to take over Afghanistan and got a bloody nose. In Korea it was known that Russian pilots were flying some of the jet fighters involved in the conflict. 
     Even after Stalin died, the Soviets really never let up. They attempted to establish nuclear missile bases on Cuba. That action came close to triggering a war between us and the Soviets. Kennedy's reaction to the threat and some cooler heads in Moscow barely averted a catastrophe.   
     They were in a serious arms race with United States, helped along by spies that were funneling American secrets to the Soviets during and after the World War. It turns out there really were communist sympathizers in critical positions in our defense systems and in our intelligence systems.
     Ronald Reagan recognized the Soviets venerability and upped the arms race with the expansion of our Navy and modernizing of the Army and Air Force. Trying to keep up, the Soviets spent themselves into bankruptcy. Hard to imagine, but it happened. The Soviet Union collapsed and the subjugated countries broke free of Russian domination.The Berlin wall came down and Germany was reunited. The cold war was over. The problem now; Putin seems to want to put the old Soviet Republic back together and return Russia back to the glory days when she was a major world power. The events going on in the Ukraine at this time is very worrisome to the west. Russia is doing a bit of saber rattling about the situation there. Another place where the potential for armed conflict between the Russians and the NATO powers appears. 
     I remember the expedition to Granada to rescue the medical students supposedly held by the Granada forces.  The operation was a case of killing a fly with a sledge hammer. But, the valuable lesson we learned in that skirmish was just how messed up the organization and communication systems among the various services were. Nobody could talk to anybody. The Army couldn't call on the Air Force for support, nor the Navy. Various Army and Marine forces couldn't communicate. In other words it was a cluster @#$$%.  It seemed we learned our lesson and almost immediately the military was reorganized and the communications problem addressed. Later excursions into Iraq indicated that the reorganization and communications resolution were successful.
   We were not through with our involvement in foreign conflicts of course.  There has been the Iranian revolution. With the revolutionists taking over of the American Embassy and holding the staff prisoners.  A failed attempt under Jimmy Carter to free them. There has been two wars during the two Bush administrations. The first, very successful, the second questionable. Then there is Afghanistan, which has captured our attention of late. Events are playing out in the Ukraine that could escalate into something bigger if the Russians enter that conflict. China is in the process of building a major military capability to rival the American forces.  That is very frightening, considering the growth and prosperity of the Chinese economy and the number and quality of engineers that she is educating; far exceeding Americas. 
     In the face of the hostile world we live in, Obama decided that our armed forces must be reduced so that present and projected entitlement programs can be supported. We can only hope that somebody in the administration remembers the lessons of the past, where we cut back our armed forces and paid the price in terms of American blood spilled on battlefields on all corners of the globe.
     Apparently Donald Trump has stepped in and gone a long way toward rebuilding our armed forces. But, the Dems in the congress have other ideas about where the money should be spent, so he isn't getting all he wants. But, it is an improvement.       
      


      

Congress and the People, a strange relationship

      It is often asked why doesn't the Congress and the President do what's good for the American people.  Why don't they stop all the party bickering and party line contention and get together and do good things.
     Of course what they really mean is why don't they all agree to do what their particular political party, and some cases just a group within one of the parties, in the Congress wants.  
     The answer is quite simple really.  At least when you think about it.  The fault is in our type of government as detailed in the Constitution. 
      The members of Congress do not owe their allegiance to the American People nor to the country. They say they do, but in reality they don't.  The members of Congress and even the President owes their allegiances to their own constituencies. Each Congressman and Senator holds their office because of the backing of some set of groups that have an agenda. Some of these groups represent huge money and others significant voting blocks. Many different groups, districts and States have different circumstances, desires and motivations for what they want out of the federal government and intense lobbying groups with deep pockets that are willing to finance the extraordinarily expensive campaigns necessary to be elected to office. The labor unions, especially the very strong and powerful public employee unions have a fat purse and a big stake in who sits in congress. As does manufacturing and small business. The people who are the recipients of government programs of all types (there are almost too many count) represent a significant voting block for any aspiring or current member of Congress.  
     So each Congressman and Senator represents the group that got them into office.  And that folks, is the way the system is set up and works. You say, what's wrong with that? Well, in some cases nothing. It results in the Congress representing somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of the citizens of this country. The ones who take the trouble to vote.  Although surveys have shown that over 50 percent of the voters don't really understand what or who they are voting for most of the time.  (The others should just take what's handed to them I guess, they really don't have a beef). 
      But, what if something needs to be done for the good of the country that isn't popular with the public employee unions, the people on Social Security, the people on welfare, all the people on the various entitlement programs funded by the government or even with the public at large. In that case the Congress is very loath to tackle the problem in any meaningful way and suffer the outrage of their constituencies. Adding to all of this is that the Congress, led by the Democrats, have added entitlement programs to the federal trough at an astounding rate, putting more voters out there that would resist reductions in those programs. 
      There has been several bi-partisan super committees established by the Congress over the last years tasked to study and make recommendations on many far reaching problems facing our nation. Congress just set a new one to study how to avoid the coming confrontation over the debt ceiling that's coming up in January.  They spend months holding meetings doing research and finally publishing a report detailing the recommendations for future actions to solve the problem they were tasks to study.  And then the report is ignored. The escalating federal debt, the soon to be insolvent Social Security Program, the huge pension liabilities for public employees, the dependence on foreign oil, the huge trade imbalance with other nations, and on and on have been studied by these super-committees. Why are they ignored you ask? Because the solutions always mean that some powerful  group or groups, at a minimum, will have to take less of bite out of the federal trough. Sometimes the best solution for the country is an even a more bitter pill to swallow. The problem is, and it's real, that for a Congressman or Senator to vote for the changes contained in the recommendations would likely by political suicide. At least that's a risk they're unwilling to take. Even though they know full well that the path outlined by the report is the best thing for America, they just don't have the death wish to go against a large block of voters that make up their own constituencies. 
      So why don't our elected officials do what's best for the country? The answer, is again, because that's not the way the system is set up and works. And, I see not change in the future.  
     Sorry folks it's what we've got and we're stuck with it. If you want to make a difference you have to be part of some powerful group that can have an effect on the election of some Congressman or Senator.    

The Constitution of the USA

Let's talk about our Constitution. What Constitution you ask.  The one written by our founding fathers on a few sheets of paper along with it's Amendments and easily understood by almost anybody, or the one that really exists as a result of a myriad of court decisions down through the years and only understood by lawyers who specialize in Constitutional Law and even disagree among themselves. This one would fill volumes and would take days to read thoroughly.  And, by the time you finished it would be changed again.  Not by constitutional amendment but by the courts.
     We have discovered "rights" in the constitution that would mystify Madison and the original signers. We have also discovered that the federal government has a lot more power than we could glean from reading the archaic piece of paper called the Constitution.
     The US Constitution is very specific in the powers given to the federal government.  Somehow the power to regulate interstate commerce clause in the constitution has been interpreted to encompass almost anything the congress wants to ram through. And, if not congress then the Supreme Courts have had their say in deciding that the written document doesn't really mean what it says. The Tenth Amendment might as well not exist at all. 
    The Supreme Court has become a political institution where the qualifications for appointment and confirmation is very much dependent on the appointees position on a few touchstone issues.  Chief amount them seems to be the position on abortion (at least at the moment).  A liberal wing of the Senate wants the candidate to be for it and the social conservative wing of the Senate wants the candidate to be against it, otherwise no confirmation.  The candidates history in the field of law and knowledge of the constitution seems to have no bearing as long as they have the right political beliefs.  
     It is easy to see the political biases of the justices on the court as so many rulings come down as five to four with each members vote along party lines.  If the conservative, read Republican, members are the majority then the ruling is likely to be more in line with the constitutional constraints.  But, not always.  We get fooled every now and then.  Witness the recent ruling on Obamacare,  where it was found the penalty for not buying health insurance was a tax and therefore constitutional. Strange stretch of logic there. And this from a staunch conservative, or so we thought. 
     If the original Constitution had been written by Harvard and Yale graduate lawyers it would likely take two large volumes, or more, and be so filled with legalisms that hardly anybody could understand, not even other lawyers. The people who wrote the actual Constitution wrote in pretty plain language and almost anybody can understand it. Except lawyers of course, but they're a different breed. 
      Down through the years the courts have made some rather strange decisions, not all of them overturned by later courts. The Dredd-Scott decision is one of them, which overturned a State court decision and strengthened the case for the slave States to regain control of former slaves that now lived in non-slave states. That really wasn't corrected until 13th and 14th Amendment. In the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson it was held that segregation in the schools, buses, and other facilities was perfectly OK. Separate but Equal.   Of course there was only separation, not equality in the schools. In 1890 and confirmed in 1922 the Supreme Court decided that Baseball, and by extension all professional sports, did not fall under the Sherman Antitrust laws and the Reserve Clause was valid.  This allowed baseball owners to, in a real sense, enslave the players. This was overturned in 1975 after a long legal battle and two dismissals by the Court of earlier suits brought by Curt Flood of  the Cardinals. This and some other rather strange decisions by the court have been overturned by later actions. 
     The court really does seem to reflect the times more often than not.  It isn't likely that the Johnson civil rights laws would have been enacted in an earlier time, but if enacted the the courts would have leaned on precedence from earlier decisions and would have upheld the state challenges. That didn't happen of course. The mood of the country had changed, mainly due to the TV coverage of what was happening in the south during the riots that were occurring at the time in defiance of the segregation laws. 
     Let's for just a moment review just what the archaic piece of paper, the Constitution, actually spells out. I know that this will be boring for those folks that already have read and understand the Constitution, but for the few that haven't,  I will try to give a Crip- Notes version as follows:

     First let's discuss the basic constitution without the amendments.
The basic document is written as 7 articles with sections under each article expanding on the articles intent.

Article I -Lays out the structure of the legislative branch of the new government

• Section 1- Specifies that all legislative powers shall be invested the Congress of the United States consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives.  
•  Section 2- Details the responsibilities and make up of the House of Representatives. Defines age requirements, terms of office and other details. Also details the original makeup of the House and how the occupants of each State shall be counted in determining the number of Representatives for that State. (Indians (not taxed) are excluded and slaves count as 3/5 of a person.   
• Section 3 does the same for the Senate    
• Sections 4 through 6 defines the rules compensation, elections and other procedural matters concerning the members of the legislature. 
• Section 7 defines who does what on revenue bills (the House is responsible for originating all revenue bills) and defines how they are passed and the extent of the Presidential veto.  

Section 8 Clearly defines the powers given to the federal government by the Constitution. This where the wicket gets sticky.  It states that Congress shall have the following powers,and only those powers which are so defined.

1. Lay and collect taxes
2. Borrow money on credit of the US
3. Regulate commerce -with foreign nations, among the States and Indian Tribes. 
4. Coin money and fix standards for weight and measures. (The interesting thing here is that Congress has abdicated their responsibility to create money to a private organization run by the bankers, The Federal Reserve. Look at your money sometime.)
5. Provide punishment for counterfeiting.
6. Establish a Post Office and Post Roads.
7. Establish protection for science and useful arts (Patent Office)
8. Constitute lower courts
9. Declare war
10. Raise and support Armies (funding limited to two years; The Congress was fearful of a standing Army and did not wish to establish one.)
11. Provide and maintain a Navy
12. Make rules for the government and regulation of the armed forces.
13. Provide organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia.
14. Exercise legislation for what is essentially all federal government property.
15. Make laws for carrying out the above delineated powers.  

• Section 9 defines the limits on Congress.

1.  Provides that persons imported to the states prior to 1808 shall not be prohibited, after that a tax can be imposed. (This was clearly a sop to the slave states)
2.  Prevents the suspension of habeus corpus, except in times of rebellion or invasion. 
3. No ex post facto laws shall be passed.
4. No tax or duty shall be levied for exports from any State. 
5. No preference for any State in matters of commerce nor can States levy duties for commerce between states.
6. Withdraw money from the treasury, except as required by  law. Receipts and Expenditures must be published
7. Confer no title of nobility.

• Section 10 defines limits on states powers

1. Essentially says---No state can enact laws that are in conflict with the limitations on the federal legislators, nor may they enact actions that are the proper domain of Congress. I.e see powers and limits on Congress. The State may coin Gold or Silver coinage for payment of debts and other obligations. (Don't know any State that has ever done that). 
2. No state shall lay a duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace or enter into compact with another state or foreign power to engage in war.

Article 2  --Lays out the structure of the executive branch. 

• Section 1- defines how the President is elected, compensated and succeeded in the event of inability to continue in office. (Some of this was modified later by the 12th, 20th and 25th Amendment.)
• Section 2 -Establishes the Civilian power over the military. Names the President as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.
•  Section 3 - Establishes the requirement for a periodic "State Of The Union"  assessment by the President. Convening of Congress to be addressed is optional. (In fact few of the earlier Presidents exercised that option. They just sent a letter to Congress).
• Section 4 -Establishes the ability and reasons to impeach.

Article 3. ---Defines the scope of the Judicial Branch

• Section 1 -Gives judicial powers of the USA to one Supreme Court and such inferior courts as the Congress shall establish. They serve for life and shall be compensated.
• Section 2 - Trial by Jury. Specifies that all crimes except for impeachment shall be accorded the right of Trial by Jury. Specifies that judicial power shall extend to all cases rising concerning almost everybody such as Ambassadors, between states, the citizens of different states, etc.( Modified by the 11th Amendment.)
• Section 3 -Treason.  Defines the meaning and specifies the requirement for trial.

Article 4. --The States

• Section 1 -The citizens of each State shall be entitled to the Privileges and Immunities in the several States.
• Section 2 -States Citizens, Extraditions - Specifies that full credit shall be given the to the public records, Acts, Articles and Judicial proceedings of every other state. Extradition for crimes committed in another State shall enforced. Also says that escaped slaves in another State are the property of the original owner and will be returned. (This clause was superseded by the 13th Amendment.) 
• Section 3- Defines how new states shall be admitted.
• Section 4- Specifies that every state shall have a Republican form of government.

Article 5 --Specifies that this Constitution can be amended and how that is to be accomplished.

Article 6 - Debt, Supremacy, Oaths. 

• Specifies that all debts contracted under the Articles of Confederation shall be binding. Specifies that all Treaties made shall be the law of the land. All offices of the United States and it's States shall be bound by an oath of affirmation to support this constitution. No religious test shall be required as a qualification for office or public trust.

Article 7--Ratification

• Specifies how this Constitution shall be ratified. 

 That's it for the original Constitution.   

Now the Amendments.  The first 10 are generally called the Bill of Rights, and their obvious purpose is to protect the people from the power of government. Our founding fathers really feared big government and what it was capable of doing. 

Amendment 1-- Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression

• This amendment specifies the basic Four Freedoms that we talk about a lot.  It says that Congress shall establish no religion, abridge the freedom of speech or the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the Government for redress of grievances. 

Amendment 2 --Right to bear arms.

• Specifies that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. (This one has a lead in statement that has caused a lot of controversy through the years. i.e. the statement that this is required because a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state. The Supreme Court up to this point has ruled that this statement does not impinge on the basic right. That might change in the future with newer Courts, who knows.) 

Amendment 3--Quartering of Soldiers

• Specifies that no soldier shall be quartered in any house in time of peace and in war except in a manner defined by law.

Amendment 4--Search and Seizure

• Specifies that searches and seizing of property or persons shall only be done with a proper warrant.

Amendment 5 -- Trial and Punishment

• Specifies that all civilian crimes must be presented for indictment to a Grand Jury. Implements the concept of  immunity under double jeopardy. Declares no person shall have to testify against themselves, and that life, liberty or property shall not be taken without due process of law. 

Amendment 6 - Right to a speedy trial and Confrontation of Witnesses

Amendment 7- Specifies that in suits of common law over 20 dollars, that citizens have the right of trial by jury.

Amendment 8- Specifies that there shall be no Cruel and Unusual punishment for crimes and the there shall be no excessive bail.

Amendment 9- States that the rights granted by this Constitution shall be not construed to deny other rights retained by the people. (This is a strange one. It implies that there are certain inalienable rights not contained in the Constitution that shall not be infringed. One can think of a lot of discovered "Rights" that the founding fathers never thought of that would fall under this banner, and that Congress shall not pass laws prohibiting those 
"Rights". This where the courts get involved, big time. But, it doesn't give Congress the leeway to "discover" these rights and enact them into law.)

Amendment 10- States that all powers not delegated to the United States by this Constitution shall be reserved to the States, or to the people. (This may very well be the most ignored Amendment to the Constitution, as the Federal Government imposes its will on the States and the Citizens in an ever increasing amounts).  

Amendment 11 - Judicial Limits.  Limits the judicial reach of the federal courts. Does not extend to any suit of law or equity brought by a citizen of one state by the citizens of another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.

Amendment 12 - Specifies how the President and Vice President are chosen.

Amendment 13 -Abolished Slavery

Amendment 14 - Citizen Rights

• Essentially gave former slaves full citizenship. 
• Essentially specified that former slaves will be counted as one person in determining the election of representatives and other public office. 
• Forbade any person who formally held a public office and had sworn allegiance to the United States by oath and had participated in insurrection or rebellion against the United States from holding public office.  They gave a way around that requirement however.
• Specified that the public debt to put down rebellion shall not be questioned and the United States nor any State shall assume any debt or obligation incurred in aid to an insurrection or loss of property or emancipation of slaves.  

Amendment 15- Gave the right to vote  to all citizens of the United States without account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Amendment 16 - Legalized the Income Tax

Amendment 17- Specified that Senators shall be elected by popular vote. 

Amendment 18 - Established Prohibition

Amendment 19 - Gave Women the right to vote and forbade denial of any right accorded to any citizen of the United States. 

Amendment 20 - Really updated and modified the terms of the President and Congress, how they are elected and various contingencies if the President Elect dies before taking office.

Amendment 21 -Repealed the 18 Amendment

Amendment 22 -Limited the President to two terms of office. 

Amendment 23 - Specifies that the District of Columbia shall have Electors for the election of the President and Vice President of the United States proportioned to the population of DC, but not to exceed the smallest State.

Amendment 24 Bars the Poll Tax

Amendment 25 - Spells out the new rules for Presidential Disability and succession.

Amendment 26 - Sets the voting age at 18.

Amendment 27- Limiting Congressional Pay Increases. Simply says the Congress cannot give itself a raise in mid session.  

     That's it---Our whole written Constitution with all it's amendments. 
     The interesting and perhaps disturbing thing is that nowhere in that written document can one find a provision that gives the Federal Government the right to enforce a lot of programs that we take for granted. And some we don't.  The Constitution clearly gives the Feds the right and obligation to provide for and maintain the interstate transportation systems, whether by land, water or air. Also, to raise an Army and Maintain a Navy along with the obligation to fund the development of equipment for the Armed Services to employ in their missions. It requires that the Federal Government develop and maintain a Postal System, whether that's a good thing or not.   
      But, exactly where does one fit Obama Care into the picture. Or for that matter, a great number of social programs that the Feds now fund with ever increasing parts of the national budget. Even borrowing money to do so. The disturbing thing is not that some, if not most, of the social programs are needed and worthwhile, but rather that they're being funded at the expense of the clear mandate of the Constitution to provide the infrastructure to promote interstate commerce and to provide for the defense of the country. And doing so without the power, as delineated in the Constitution, for them to mandate and support these programs.  
     Court decisions down through the years, especially since the FDR New Deal regime have found words in the Constitution that would escape normal people and determined that the Congress has the right to pass these "Entitlements" and charge the American taxpayer for the privilege. So the real Constitution is not just the words on a few sheets of paper signed by the founding fathers and modified with legally adopted Amendments over the years, but rather a whole host of expansions, interpretations and modifications that have been advanced over the years.  So many that a whole field of study is devoted to Constitutional Law.     

Have fun everybody.      . 

     
          
         

Rules for Raising Kids

     I am going to stick my head into a noose and state that there are rules one should follow in a family when raising kids. I don't expect anyone to follow them all, all the time, but they make a good yardstick.  What makes me an authority?  Nothing really, except some real life experience and observation of other families.  Both their successes and their failures. I will state them in no particular order.  But, I do think they are all important.  If a family is following most of them all the time, and the rest at least some of the time, I think the family has a good chance to succeed. What I'm going to advocate flies in the face of a lot of so called child experts, who write books by the thousands for gullible parents to read, but having never actually raised a child themselves, they teach a permissive style of parenting based on their studies at liberal universities.  As a result we have a spoiled "me first" mentality among the current crop of young people, who think they are entitled to everything from society.  

* Recognize that the parents primary responsibility is to raise children to be responsible, independent adults.  Someday the child will grow up and be on their own.  If you have not prepared the child for that, then they are in deep trouble when that time comes; and it will, whether we like it or not. Letting the child be overly dependent on the parents is not doing them any favors.  The parent is just enabling the dependent behavior. They are going to become adults; that should guide the parent relationship to the child throughout their formative years.  One of the things to remember is that you are their parents, not their friend or buddy.  They will have lots of friends, but only one set of parents. 

*Never make a threat you don't  carry out. Be careful with your threats for bad behavior.  Too many threats not carried out makes them absolutely useless.  The child just learns to ignore them, knowing full well that they will never be implemented. If you threaten to ground a child of a period of time for bad behavior, then do it if the behavior isn't corrected. Never, ever make a threat you can't or wont follow up on. So be careful what you threaten. 

* Have fun together as a family. Go to the beach. Have a picnic. Go to a theme park. Whatever. But, the whole family should participate in an activity that everyone enjoys. Often.  And, leave the IPads, Gameboys, cell phones, etc. at home. This must be a family activity. And having someone in the family sitting playing on an electronic device, or Dad checking his messages constantly isn't going to cut it.

*Meals are family affairs. Not every meal can be a sit down for the entire family because of conflicting schedules, but one meal of the day, preferably the dinner at night should be treated as a requirement except in extraordinary circumstances.  That means when dinner is served everyone sits at the table and eats.  And, nobody leaves until the meal is over. This is the time to catch up on the families day.  Conversation is a must.  No IPhones, etc. allowed.  Dinner is not the place to criticize; it should be an enjoyable time of day for everyone. It doesn't matter if it's a home cooked meal, microwaved TV dinner, or take out, it should be treated as a family activity. 

* Never order a child to do something you don't intend to enforce.  When the child is doing something that is not permissible, for whatever reason, then they should be taught that the failure to obey the order  to stop carries punishment. "No" should always mean "No".  There should be no confusion in the child's mind that you don't really mean it. Again, don't be over controlling.  But, the child tearing up the house, running into the street, making a nuisance of themselves in public, or similar dangerous or destructive behavior should not be tolerated. 
*Never let a child play one parent against another. That is a tactic that will be tried.  It always has been and always will be.  Kids aren't dumb, they're quite smart.  If they find they can get their way by that artifice, then they will. Don't let them get away with it.  Critical decisions should be jointly made by both parents.  Failing that, I suppose one of the parents has to step up and make all decisions; not a good approach.  But, you can't let the child play their game to get their way.
*Show an interest in your child's education. In this modern world advanced training and education is a necessity.  Always encourage your child to do well in school.  Be interested.  What are they studying? How are their grades?  What do they seem most interested in, and video games don't count?  Not every child is destined for an academic future requiring a college education.  We need skilled craftsman almost as bad as we need engineers. I believe there is something out there for everybody.  You should help the child to find theirs. The parent should try their best to nurture a love of learning in the child.  You wont always succeed, but you have to try. 
*A child requires age appropriate limits.  There should be limits placed on the amount of freedom a child is awarded during their pre-adult years. Times to be in at night.  Times to go to bed. Limits on the areas that are allowable for the child to go and so forth.  Be reasonable in setting these limits.  Get too restrictive and you might have a rebellion on your hands. They should be rational, and age appropriate.  At the same time, you must let the child untie the apron strings little by little. Again, the limits should be age appropriate. The child will use every tactic at their disposal to try to expand these limits. Listen, weigh the arguments and then make a decision based on your own, I hope, mature judgement.  But, remember this, breaking the rules brings on punishment; always.
   *It's not your job to entertain your kids. One of the lessons the child must learn is to be independent.  That includes learning to develop activities on their own.  "Mommy I'm bored" is not a signal for the parent to drop what they're doing and launch into a game with the child.
* It is generally not a good idea to kill your kid. I know that you sometimes feel that way, especially if you have teenagers and more especially teenage girls, but society doesn't look on that as being a viable option. Think it over first and try to come up with something more appropriate. 
  * Let the child know that he or she is loved. They should feel secure in their place in the family no matter what.  When punishment is being handed out the child should realize that it's for an act of misbehavior not for the child personally.

Let's Talk Politics

     In the last blog posts I have had some fun playing a fortune teller, even though I doubt the a great deal of my prognostications will come to be. As is usual, future discoveries and events will occur in ways hardly anyone could have imagined. Perhaps someone will find a way around some of the apparently intractable problems.
     A subject I have always been interested in is politics.  The art of governing, the way we select our leaders (or have them thrust upon us willing or not) and why people think the way they do is fascinating, and often disheartening.  Many studies have been made in this field and is a full time profession for a fair number of people, usually in the self interest of their own political party. Everybody has on opinion about politics, so why not me?  
     Why am I a Republican?  Good question.  I don't back all the positions that appear in party platform, but I believe that the Republican Party's basic positions on the most important issues that confront our country is much sounder than the Democrats, and not just by a small amount. I believe that so many of the social issues such a gay marriage and abortion that seem to dominate politics,and a lot of passion of both political parties, are really religious in nature and really shouldn't be part of a basic part of either parties platform.  They really have no significant impact on the well being of the nation, nor the individuals living here, which should be the primary focus. The nation is not going to fall if gays get legally married or if women want to have the option of ending a pregnancy at any time.  The thought may be repugnant to a lot of people, even most, but it really isn't going to impact the average family or the future of the nation at all.  It certainly doesn't have any impact on my ability to buy groceries, the nation to defend itself against potential aggressors, or the ability of a young person to start up a new company. How these issues became central to the election process is beyond me, even though I have a good idea. I think it was short shortsightedness on the party leadership to allow that to happen. The argument can be made that these issues go to to the very moral fiber of the nation, even though they can't be quantified.  More on that later. What is most important to the health and well being of the nation, and to it's citizens in the long run, are probably a few simple things. 
     First and likely most important is the financial health of the nation. Every thing else follows from that. A country can supply little in the way of assistance to the poor, medical care for the elderly and non-insured, or any of the other tasks we have come to expect from government if they are broke. An individual, family, city, state or nation that is living beyond it's means and is having to borrow money just to meet day to day expenditures is heading for deep trouble. The national public debt stands at around 11 trillion dollars at this time. If you include the interdepartmental debt it grows to 16 trillion dollars. About 6% of the budget was allocated in 2011 just to pay interest on the money that had been previously borrowed and we had to borrow more just to meet that obligation. That's a ticket on a fast ride to bankruptcy. In 2011 the federal expenditures were 3.6 trillion dollars, 1.3 trillion of that was borrowed. That's about 1/3 the total budget. That increases the national debt and results in bigger portion of the 2012 budget dedicated to paying the interest on that debt. This is like a snowball rolling down hill. Unless it's stopped it will become unmanageable. Folks, we're living on borrowed money with no plan to get this monster under control. Through a whole host of entitlements, largely led by the Democratic party, the congress and successive presidents have let us into this quagmire. We only have to look at Europe to see the results of over indulgence in government spending on a lavish scale to see the results. Two countries have already needed to be propped up to avoid default on it's debts and more are in jeopardy. It's alright for a state or the federal government to borrow money, but they should not be in a position where they have to borrow more money just to pay the interest on that debt. 
     I don't know about other states, but California (a poster child for the Democrats) has spent itself into a hole from which it's going to be very painful to recover. This has been building for years with a Democratic legislature getting by with a budget that was really all smoke and mirrors, in spite of  the requirement to have a balanced budget by the state constitution. The combination of the Public Employees and Teachers retirement packages are currently 165 Billion dollars underfunded. California spends 1.5 Billion dollars per year on medical benefits alone on retired public employees.  Both of the above must be covered by the taxpayer. There has been some efforts by some to reign  this in, but with little success.  The unions are just too strong.   But, the game finally caught up with this state and it's now time to pay the piper. 
      Governor Brown is pushing real hard to get tax increases to try to save most of the states entitlements and educational system or deep and painful cuts will have to be made. Lately he's tried to negotiate some pension reforms, but even he has run into a stone wall.  The heavily Democratic legislature isn't going against the public employee unions.  He ran for office promising no new taxes unless approved by the voters; an empty promise as all new taxes have to be approved by the voters anyway.  It's the law. Of course the typical California voter heard the no new taxes part and didn't hear or understand the qualifier.      
     The party that is trying to steer us toward fiscal responsibility with an aim to reaching a balanced budget is the Republicans. The Democrats have shown repeatedly that they are not willing or able to even try.  They have shown that they are perfectly willing to spend the taxpayers money to fund programs and organizations that will expand their political base and assure their support on election day, regardless whether we can afford them or not. They portray themselves as being the party that cares and is willing to help the downtrodden, the weak and the helpless.  Well la de da.  It's easy to be very compassionate and hand out money like candy when it's someone else's money. There really is no such thing as government money; it's money taken from the taxpayer.  I'm not sure the public at large realizes that fact.
     The Nation must have a high rate of employment at jobs that provide adequate income. That means most of the population must make enough money to afford a home, meet the daily demands of living and provide the children with a college education. You don't do that by strangling industry with regulations and taxes.  You do that by unleashing the private sector to do what it does best. 
    The private sector must be strong and viable.  It is the private sector that produces the products and ideas that can be sold on the open market and thus produce revenue to fuel the economic engine. And, it is private industry that needs the workers to produce these products. If we can create an environment where there is a lot of services and products to meet this criteria then a large number of workers will be required.  Government workers do not produce anything that has value in a global economy. They live off the money collected from the private sector.  That is not to say they are not essential to the process, but they have very little impact on the overall financial health of the nation.  In fact they are a drain. Their primary function is to provide the services that support the private sector.  They also enforce regulations, provide safety and other services necessary to support a free economy. The problem comes when regulations put such a strangle hold on the expansion of industry that the growth is hampered. 
      The Democrats have demonstrated over and over again that they are not friends of the private sector. Their constituency is the labor unions and they are constantly pushing for labor laws that will enhance the power of the unions and thus increase the Democrats support group for campaign contributions. A recent example was the thwarted attempt by the National Labor Relations Board to let unions organize without a secret ballot. This would allow union organizers to stand over a worker as he/she fills out a request for the establishment of a union, which would be all that would be required to establish one. No voting required. They fight tooth and nail to stop any move to institute any type of open shop in a state. See Wisconsin. They enforce legislation that forces employers to collect union dues directly from the employees paychecks and turn them over to the unions.  This makes sure that the members pay the money to the unions, whether they agree or not on how the money is spent on political campaigns. 
     They cite the working conditions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to justify the backing of the poor unions. But, we now have so many labor laws on the books protecting workers from the kind of excesses that existed then that those conditions are not likely to arise again.  And, I will admit that most of those labor laws were championed by the Democrats.  See, they are not all bad. 
      They led the successful efforts to allow the public employees to unionize, something that most states must now deal with.  Something that even FDR said was a formula for disaster. The thing is that public employees were never really part of that downtrodden group that spawned the labor movement in the 19th and early 20th century.
       Now we have the most powerful unions in the states deciding on who their bosses will be, and who will decide on their pay and other benefits, while they pour massive amounts of money into the coffers of the Democratic Party. This situation has led to the states and the taxpayers of that state being on the hook for outrageous pensions and medical coverage for retired public workers. The huge pension obligations to the teachers and other retired public workers are a major factor in the real budget problems faced by the state. Any attempts to modify those benefits are fought by the public employee unions and the Democrats.  They successfully paint the Republicans who are trying to bring sanity to the process as being hard hearted and cruel and go right own catering to their big financial supporters. 
      Democrats love to tax businesses to raise capital for their programs. That sounds good to the uninitiated because it punishes those bad rich guys and they don't have to pony up the money. But.  It is a fact that you don't really tax businesses.  Taxes along with a myriad of other things are just a cost item to a business, and like all cost items they will be passed on to the consumer. If a business is not able to pass this or any and all cost items along due to market conditions, then they will cease to exist. So like all cost items the consumer is the payer of any business tax, whether corporate or whatever.  Today we are in a global market place and we are competing with products and services from numerous other countries. So the cost of doing business, reflected in the price of products or services, determines how well you will do in that market. Do well and you expand and hire people.  Not compete due to high costs and you close down and fire people. 
    Regulations imposed on businesses are much the same story. They almost always cost money to implement. That cost has to be passed on by price increases on the products or services that sell. Democrats have shown a complete lack of awareness of the cost impacts of regulations they enact.  As the regulations mount the cost of doing business in a state or the nation balloons.  California is now the most unfriendly state in the union for business.  That costs California millions in tax money and contributes to the fiscal problems in the state because, quite frankly, manufacturing doesn't relish moving into the state.  The country is no different.
     It's essential to maintain a strong military.  If history hasn't taught us anything it should have made that lesson clear.  The party that backs and supports the military since WWII has been the Republicans. The Democrats have continually tried to strip the military budget to fund their favorite social programs.  The free world actually depends on the United States to maintain stability, and we are under attack from a radical element largely stationed in the middle east.  The world trade center may not be last of the attacks; other attempts apparently have been initiated but stopped by intelligence agencies.  That puts a tremendous strain on our military, so we have situations where individual service men have to spend frequent deployments with little rest in between because of fewer troops able to the deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Who knows where the next place will be. 
     And let us not forget, we are not the only large and potentially powerful military force in the world. I can think of two quickly that pose a potential threat to the United States due their adherence to an ideology so foreign to us, and because they have interests that conflict with us in certain parts of the world. We no longer have the luxury of time if attacked that we had in 1941.  The broad oceans that gave us time before are just puddles in today's world. 
     Our infrastructure is falling apart. For the nation to thrive, for commerce to advance and produce goods and services for an increasing population, a sound policy must be made to bring our highways, our bridges, electrical distribution systems, power generation, and other systems which are essential must be brought up to snuff and maintained.  The Democrats have continually stripped the highway funds to pay for other pet programs to aid their constituency. They are the party that you can usually count on to fight any expansion of infrastructure to transport water, oil or natural gas making it cheaper for the consumer. The so called stimulus package, recently enacted, was supposed to provide help in that direction, but much of the money was squandered on programs that aided the Democrats constituency. We are just now beginning to see the results of some of that money.  And, let us not forget, that most of the ideas for the recovery program actually were germinated by the Bush administration, except Bush envisioned a massive building program to build and maintain infrastructure. 
       Social Security, once a financially viable program, is not sustainable without changes. The mythical Social Security Trust Fund in reality doesn't exist. Up till recently more money was collected from the taxpayers for Social Security than was paid out. That surplus money went into the general fund and was spent on other government programs, such a Medicare.  That is how Bill Clinton, supposedly balanced the budget. Without the surplus Social Security funds the budget would have been way of of whack. There is mistaken idea running around that Social Security was some kind of savings account and the recipients were only getting back what they had paid into the account.  Not so.  SS is a pay as you go program.  The politician  that called it a ponze scheme was right on the money. It is only viable when you have a growing bunch of contributors at the bottom of the pyramid.  That isn't happening anymore as the baby boomers are retiring and the pyramid is being turned upside down. The Democrats have made it a real effort to thwart any efforts to make the necessary modifications in the program by blocking efforts in congress and by spending millions in campaign ads scaring the hell out of the current recipients of Social Security and Medicare, even though no one has ever proposed any changes that would effect that group or the one approaching that age. The AARP, another Democrat mouthpiece, is in the forefront of this disinformation spreading their ideology to their large membership. The sad thing is that the media just passes these allegations along with no effort the discover or divulge the facts. The Republicans, especially Paul Ryan now, are pictured as just throwing grandma off the train, or a cliff, aided by cartoons and liberal comedians such as Jay Leno. 
     All of the above and perhaps a few more is why I'm a Republican. I'm afraid my party is not always on the side of the righteous, but the basic core of the party is trying to bring about changes in government to get the system upright and running smoothly again. Without that the social programs, so dear to the hearts of the Democrats, can not be afforded.