A Question of Faith

I think a good subtitle would be: 2 rights don't make it left.
Thoughts bounce around in my head and until I say them out loud, I can't sleep. What happens is that they gain momentum and accumulate mass, going from a quite pinging to a deafening thump that finds me stroking the keyboard at ungodly hours of the night.
Sorry if I have to set the story up a little before I get into it but you have grown accustomed to it by now, I hope.
My first thoughts were to go back to using my other blog, fishingforsturgeon@blogspot.com, to convey ideas that weren't congruent with Two and Thru movement but I quickly realized that what I was thinking did fall in line with the concept. So here we are on "still". Look at your browser if you didn't understand.
There are few people that I respect more than the host of SaltyTalkRadio.com, Mark Salter. He is well informed, educated, and well spoken. He is a sounding board for me and allows me to form my own opinions on conversations that we have.
Now that the ass kissing is over, he does answer most, if not all, of my questions. The one from today actually started the pinball reaction in my brain.
I'll paraphrase: If I understand it correctly, the Muslim faith is conservative and if that is true then ISIS is ultraconservative, far right. Am I missing something? You're not wrong was the response I got, or something along that line.
If that's true, (here's the tricky part) why is the left embracing the Muslim faith?
I originally didn't feel this should be part of wanting the American public to vote out all politicians after 2 terms until it started its drum beat in my head.
Let's go back to the 'why'. And I'll say it slower.
Why would the l e f t  e m b r a c e  t h e  r i g h t ?
It is a different right. And they, the forever leadership, feel that they can control this right with their longevity and power, thus gaining the support they need to guide the party to the wonderful world of, I don't know, socialism? Post-modern progressivism? Whatever ism it is that they hope for, they are willing to sell themselves out to the next big demographic to get there. All the while not realizing that they are melding in the very thing they despise.
Why? Why do they do this? Win at all costs? It will be different this time.
When one group (today's focus is left) is willing to bring into its fold the very ideals it is against to maintain the power of the leadership it has spent decades to build them it is not about what is right for the people or the country, it is something else.
Mark said it best...Lunacy.

A Question of Hate

Why do they hate him? That was the question asked of me recently.  I know only enough about the workings of the government to get my butt kicked in a good debate. I never watched his show, don't follow pro wrestling, and don't even go to strip clubs. I'm no expert on the man. I do know all of the chambers of the government so I can best one of the freshmen, freshwoman just doesn't sound right, in that debate.
Let's take a fish-eyed view of the situation. We will use logic. This way my lack of knowledge doesn't trip anyone up in the details.
Why do they hate him? The scandals! Yeah, that's it, sure. The scandals. No, I don't think so. Presidents have done far worse IN office than he has done before he even considered seriously running. I won't rehash the "consenting adults" arguement. Nor will I get into where I believe any collusion may have come from. Stormy times for the man in charge. He tweets what he is thinking. Transparency. Friends with Israel. Grab 'em by the... Immigrant wife. Bankruptcy. Tax returns. Mueller...Mueller...Mueller.
This is why they hate him.
But why do THEY hate him? This is the question I was asked. THEM, THEY. I'm slow witted and it took me a minute to catch up to the conversation. Next I tried to explain that the voters on the left hated him because they were told how bad he was by the leaders of their party. Does that help? No.
WHY DO THEY HATE HIM? This is actually, when you think about it, the easy part. Let's look at the past for a second. What platforms have the past few presidents ran on? Jobs. Social security. Border control. Free trade. The Supreme Court. War. Health care. Budget. Economy. Taxes. Wages. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Obama took health care off the table, sort of. We know it's bad, well some of us do, and the business world has learned the loopholes around it and are not completely against it. So we will list that as done. Social security. It popped up briefly in the midterms but most of the country knows that the government blew the money and unless we get the spending under control there may not be any security.  We can slide that off the table, with hesitation.
Before I go any further, you must understand that the rest are the very reason the last 5 presidents, maybe the last 10 (not great with government) were elected. Along comes a business man that says hey! You passed a law 20 years ago for a wall and everyone talks about it, so let's build a wall. Period. Give it to me. Free trade cost us money and jobs. We don't need cheap crap from other countries if we pay people more, they can buy our goods and we do this by bringing back manufacturing. Capital of Israel is Jerusalem. Done. Move it.
Here's the hard part. If these issues are gone during the next election cycle because, like them or not, they are off the table, what issues will THEY use to fuel their campaigns with?
They haven't thought that far ahead...and this is why they hate him.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

Subtitled: "And that's the way it is."
I wanted to turn in early tonight but that's not working out too well.
I let the Jim Acosta thing slide by with little comment but changed my mind and direction as I stood at the urinal at work with a TV over my head (sports bar type setting) and watched a commercial, stunned.
"We're on a mission from God". Well, maybe not from God, and not we, but I am...or so I thought. Tonight we, I, take a detour.
I won't rehash anti-Trump sentiment for the last 2 years. I won't blast CNN and their little dog too much. I won't even point to the time when the press went off the rails and tried to start to make policy for the American public. I won't even point out the symbolism of the sound the automatic toilet made as I stepped back to watch a commercial finish. Besides calling attention to all these things that I said I won't do.
I am, as the host of SaltyTalkRadio.com would say,...flummoxed.
It's not news anymore as the subtitle suggests, its opinion. Bob Woodward even bashed Fox for siding with CNN for bouncing Acosta out. Why!?! Bob, take down the President of the United States, Woodward wants reporters, not journalists, to report the news. And during an investigation, report the facts. Investigation is cool. Facts are just as cool. Oh! BTW! Your opinion is NOT FACT! It is your opinion and your can feel this way but how you feel is NOT NEWS!.
The subtitle eludes to a time when TV Anchors read the news. Just read it. I do catch some talk radio on the way to and from work and still understand that it is sprinkled with opinions, most of which I lean towards but I do listen for things that are left out of the right reporting.
Did that pun work well? Read that last sentence again and let it soak in.
Reddit headlines. That is my news. I click on stories of interest because I am choosing what I want to subject my brain to.
This will be a first. I will include the link that caused me to give up sleep tonight. Before I do, I want to explain why it bothers me.
I understand politics and negative ad campaigns to a degree. I wish they didn't have a place in our society but they do catch our attention. I do understand that media outlets, during said election cycle, will try to sway they vote towards their desired results. I do understand some losers and the things that they are capable of saying against those who were victorious. But I have never seen, in my lifetime, a display as this...

https://thehill.com/media/320787-new-york-times-launches-major-ad-campaign-the-truth

Please feel free to click the link and share this one blog.

This is not the integrity of a news organization that has facts they wish to report. This is an attempted coup. Trying desperately to work up a mob to further their agenda.
Please. Stand with me (not literally) as I back away from the urinal and listen to it flush away this type of journalism, not reporting. There is no place for this ANYWHERE. We should be outraged. I am.
Just read the fricking news.

As the Dust Settles

Wow! What a week it has been! And here we are counting votes...still. Do you realize that other countries CAN'T develop the technology that we have in this country (cell phones, for example) and yet we can't count a piece of paper accurately that was fed into a machine designed to read it!?!
I'll say it one more time...wow.
I started this yesterday and thought about one direction but decided to take a different track. I'll get to that part of the plan on one of these.
Today's thoughts go back to my roots. Number management.  Food cost. Restaurants.
It is impossible to make a change in food cost unless you know where you are at. Each week or month we compare numbers on purchases, inventory, and usage. A hard, actual number to see the cost of an item or the justification to even have it. Many times, in my normal world, we can see, on the spread sheet, how often we actually use or need an item. It helps us plan for menu changes or how we might try to use an item that we only use in a single, unpopular recipe.
With my last company, it was the Reuben Sandwich. It was amazing. I often said that North of Miami and Rascal House, we had the best Reuben! Problem was the rye bread, sauerkraut and corned beef were only used on that one item. Not very profitable from a restaurant standpoint. We tracked it and deemed it, however delicious it was (1 pound of pure heaven) it didn't justify its space on the shelf or the menu.
But we watched the numbers to make the decision about a specific product.
In politics, we don't do that.
In fact, we don't even check the productivity of an elected official. We just remember the name, Reuben, and think how wonderful it sounds and next time we have to try it, not knowing when it might expire on the shelf.
Now we understand that productivity and shelf life are a critical combination and still, in politics, we pay no attention.
Where are you going with this, Andy? I'm hungry and want a Reuben and....
In order to have a way to monitor our selected masters, I think we should see an expiration date, use by date, or at the VERY MINIMUM, a born on date.
Pelosi: 1993
Leahy: 1975
For examples. Or we we could put it in an easy to follow way. We will use our current president for the ease of it.
Trump (R-1)
Young, Alaska (R-17) House
Leahy, Vermont (D-7) Senate
Remember, House every 2 years, Senate every 6 years
I was in high school, barely, when these 2 were elected. And were relevant to the times that we were in. Early 70s. No expiration date.
Now the point. There is not one manager in the corporate world that will pick his termination date. Nor will an elected official. But in the corporate world, bosses or shareholders will say that it is time to move on.
We are the shareholders. We are the bosses. And I feel it's time to bid adieu to those who have anything more than a 2 next to their name.
If you're not moving up, you're moving out.

Black Beard, Black Bred, Black Days

Election returns will "officially" start in 24 hours. Quotation marks are in place because we have already started counting early voters and votes. 24 hours. 24. What we are about to experience could possibly rattle Jack Bower. Now would be a good day for daylight savings time. Better yet, before the gergorian calendar was used, when it showed in Rome in June, the Pope pushed the calendar ahead 6 months. We could skip the whole damn thing. Except it's not June and no snow in Rome.
This will the last of "Why" for 2 and Thru. The rest will be "How". But there are a few things, like my sentence structure, that are dangling and I want to tie up those loose ends.
Black Bred
I live in Tennessee and the big race is Blackburn and Bredesen. The negative ads are like this: On his watch, Phil allowed sexual harassment claims to run rampant. Marsha has used her office to pad the pockets of her family.
Both probably true. Pick your outrage. One will step in line with the current administration, the other was secretly recorded stating he will say anything they want to hear to win and do what he wants after that. He at least told the truth in private. Bottom line. There is no accountability in politics except at the next vote. But having only 2 choices doesn't make it an option to choose wisely. Millions, probably 100s of millions were spent in Tennessee to chose the lesser of 2 evils. SMH
Black Days
When our choices are so limited, no good can come out of it, just less pain. I am not of the polarizing persuasion but I have made some observations about the left during this political cycle. They are angry. They want their participation trophy.  What did Harry say? "LOOK AT ME!"
I stopped watching football for similar reasons. You realize that the only guy who doesn't do celebration dances or those types of antics is the center. Hike the ball to the quarterback. He has one job and usually does it flawlessly. Everytime.
IF the left wins, I suspect that the nation will penalize them with unsportsmanlike conduct, taunting. If they lose, they will be ejected from the game and quite possibly banned forever from the hall of fame. Either way, there will be black days going forward based on their current behavior. Is the Right any better? No, just a bit more civilized is all.
Black Beard
Dan Crenshaw, the pirate. SNLs bad joke turned out to be a bit enlightening to me. He was invited to speak on Rush's show today. I was impressed. So much so, that I would vote for him if I lived in the Houston area. He is the grassroots kind of people that we need in the political arena today. I want to make a difference in my community on these very specific issues. And here is why and how I came to believe that this is what needs to be done.
When we begin to force out the long term, blood sucking ticks known as our government officials,  we make room for something fresh. Someone with new priorities that are real and relevant in today's world, today's society. In tune and in touch with today's problems. It's what we need if we are ever going to get the chance to vote smart.

Chaps and a Harley

Tonight I was asked...what is your goal with all of this?
30 years i rode motorcycles and i could envision every scenario that could possibly happen in every situation with every car from either direction. Swerve, lay down, straight ahead, jump? Does any of it ever happen? It didn't but I was ready and maybe the mental preparation kept it from happening. Maybe not. But I have always been ready for a change in direction.
Tuesday is inevitable. There will be a vote nation wide. Someone will win, others will lose. Collectively, this will make a difference in this country. It would be amazing if it was just a typical traffic light and one party or the other would wait til the light changes and know that is was now their turn to go. Reality of the situation,  t-bone. The worst of all you can imagine at the crossroads of life.
I might be overthinking it but it is a possibility with the current climate.
Which brings us back to the question. What is my goal?
I am always on a motorcycle, surveying all of my surroundings and planning my escape. As it looks now, there is no safe way out of where we are heading, unless we change course.
Unless an option is presented that will keep us in our own lane, which ever direction we are headed, avoid a collision, and requires minimal effort.
My goal
Is to give the nation something they can agree on so they do not turn against each other.
We are no longer self-governing and we have no representation as promised in our constitution .
We can choose to attack each other, which I think is a likely outcome after Tuesday, or we can focus all of our negativity where it belongs and replace every last one of them with our neighbors who are like minded and concerned with the communities in which they live. That was the original premise of our government.
My goal is a peaceful change. Slip on your leathers and come ride with me.
Two and thru.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Are you confused as to where this is going or just curious? I've tried to explain some of my thought process before I rolled it into what I called The Problem. I am hoping that some of you were nodding your head instead of shaking it as you read these past 10 posts.
I am analytical. I study what I see and try to improve it in my work. I listened for the last few months of the rhetoric from The Two Sides as to what is wrong with the country and knew they didn't find the cure, they only managed to cover up the symptoms.
What?
I have used homeopathic doctors for myself and my family in the past and still believe in natural cures for much of what ails us. Apple a day kinda thing.
Sit down cuz this will be a shocker for ya. Drug therapy is a theory. And it is not a perfect theory.  There are benefits but components are missing otherwise there would be that magic pill that makes you thin, cures cancer, and all the blah, blah, blah. Religious? God put it on the Earth for a reason. Non-believer? We are all connected and everything interacts.
What the .... does this have to do with the country and politics!?! Its the cure we are after not covering up what's wrong, not kicking the can. I needed you to understand that last bit before I went on. We good? Awesome. What is the cure?
VOTE SMART
When the nation was in its infancy, men chose to try to make a difference and SERVED, unpaid. They were elected to this crazy new form of government and knew they had to do their part for representation of their neighbors. Some probably served reluctantly but did so because it was needed.  When their term or terms finished or possibly when the bank account ran low, they went back to their day job. The built in breaks were so they could tend the fields, mind the store, or whatever it was they did back then. It was not their source of income.
Anyone who has read the factual early history of the US knows that GW didn't want to be king. And Congress realized 170 or so years later with FDR, that they didn't want a king either and the 22nd Amendment(2 term limit) became part of the constitution of the United States.
That is so cool! The boss can stay for 8 years and he is out but me? If my name was Strom Thurman,  I barely missed the chance to be involved with this amendment, vote into office in 1956 and took a paycheck til 2003. Okay, that's not true. Got paid til I died but stopped running for election in '03. More factual.
He is not alone in longevity of SERVICE for the country. Leadership is what the media calls it.
Think about this, they limited the president to 2 terms but once they got the taste of being the ruling class, they wouldn't or won't consider the same for themselves.  Absolute power.
The cure, Andy! Stay focused.
It's simple. And a little complicated. Maybe not so complicated but many things have to happen in order for my crazy idea to work.
Enough already! Tell us and we can work out the details next time!
VOTE SMART
They won't give themselves term limits and we aren't represented by them anymore. So until we can get term limits into place for all elected officials, we come together as the angry mob that we will be after this next midterm and with a social contract with each other, we take our country back...
By voting out everyone who has been in office for more than 2 terms. Everyone.

The implementation will be discussed next time. Its gonna take a lot of work.

A Little More of The Problem

Gruden is back with Oakland? Jeez, I'm out of touch with football. He did close the deal that (as much as I liked him) Dungy couldn't, at the time. Anyway...
Peter Jackson chose not to recap in the Ring Trilogy. Good thing, they were 3 hours long without it. I didn't go to the theater to watch them after the first one, that was a long time form start to finish. We trudge on as well.
Elon Musk was accused of manipulating the market by announcing his desire to take Tesla private. Big slap on the wrist and fines I think. Profiting off of first hand knowledge of something good or bad happening to a company. Almost doesn't seem right, does it?
Sorry, where was I? Yeah, seduction.
A byline, a Pulitzer in some cases. Important stories that change the world as we know it. Suddenly the company is relevant and advertising money comes pouring in. Raises are given, promotions and with all that...expectations to deliver.
One race in Arizona in this election cycle. Red gets no coverage. Blue is an ISIS supporter. Nutshell version.  Red spends $700,000 on one message to say Blue loves ISIS. One race, one message. One time. 470 total races this cycle. Billions are being spent. With a B. For jobs that pay 175,000 and up. B and plural. Bs. Wait! That almost makes sense :)
The two things the money is being spent on is 1: why this candidate and 2: Broccoli. Or I should say, anti-broccoli. Remember,  if it's good for us we don't need convincing. Bs are being spent on telling you why you should vote. McDonald's is giving away flu shot for free, Walmart, paying people. Definitely not broccoli.  I am not getting into the flu shot or even vaccine debate here. Maybe later. But drug companies, I'll dip my toe in to check the temperature of the water. Why are legal drugs so high priced? To pay for the ads to convince you they are good for you despite the fast scrolling or talking disclaimers.
Andy! Elections, not drugs...focus.
So we have overachievers who work for companies that need to be profitable. The companies control the release and tone of everyday information. If you are outside the belief system of said company you will have to pay to get your message heard. Which will be funded by the same organizations that you stand against just to win. You haven't quite been seduce to the dark side yet but almost.
You win. Everyone celebrates.  Morals bent but largely still intact. Thankful for the Bs that helped you win your 175k job. We need a favor. Nooo. Principles,  can't help. Do you know who I am? (Hypothetical situation that stays on the drug theme. We could insert chemicals, oil, development, speed bumps[you really have to listen to SaltyTalkRadio sometimes to get all my jokes] or any other list of lobbying that is out there). We are not Hughie Lewis and the News, but we do have a new drug. Vote our way and buy stock in the company and we can supplement your income. Everyone does it. Take a bite of the apple. Itssssss deliccccious.
Insider trading is banned by the FTC if it directly effects personal gain in the stock market. Musk found out what happens when you talk about what might happen. But if you can keep your mouth shut and you stick around long enough you might do ok in the ruling class of the country.
Seduction. The press was seduced and they fell for the love affair. We know the love stricken ones that will do anything that is asked. Introduce me to your friend, baby.
Senator,  this is my boyfriend XYZ Drug, a big fan of yours.

I hope I have wrapped up what I feel are some of the basic problems with our system today. There are so many more and I welcome any comments on this blog or anywhere I post it. I welcome any discussions.  My next post will outline my idea, my solution to our current situation. I think as the election draws to its conclusion that there will be an opportunity for people to accept a different direction as a group. A willingness to put outrage aside to work together for a common goal of change. My solution to what we face is maybe the only analytical outcome that avoids violence,  one that both sides seem to be predicting is inevitable.
My parting words for tonight (the premise and closing line completely stolen from SaltyTalkRadio and RasRadio, hope they don't mind)

We have taken, what has started out as something good and honorable, and destroyed it with complacency, corruption, and conspiracy. We allowed this to happen under our very noses. We voted harder for a class to rule over us. We voted harder for our rights to be stripped away. We voted harder for division from our fellow man. We voted harder but we never voted smarter. And that my friends, is the simple power of truth.