America is a Success System

There is a formula for success. I'm not talking about great riches although some would argue that the same is true for wealth. I'm talking about the ability to live a decent, comfortable, peaceful and prosperous life. That is the American dream and it comes from an overall system that has developed in the United States over the last 350 years or so.

At first, not everyone was able to be a part of the system, e.g. minorities and women, but today, anyone who wants to be successful in America, as I have defined above, can be. They just need to tap into the system - not tap off of the system. Work hard, get an education, don't do drugs or drink to excess, treat your fellow citizens with respect and dignity, wait to have your children until after you are married, and obey the law. Pretty simple.

We don't need to fundamentally change America. We just need to return to teaching our people how to make the most out of this great opportunity that they have been given. We need to put America first, not blame America first. We have become complacent and as a result we are falling behind. It isn't that there is something wrong with America. It's just that too many of us have lost the will to succeed; to be great.

Whoever the next president is, they will need to restore America's faith in itself. We have everything we need to continue to be great. We have everything we need to continue to lead the world in science, technology, freedom, medicine, art, music, etc. What we lack now is the will.

America is sick but not dying. Getting back to what made us great to begin with is the best medicine. If we do that, everyone will prosper not just get by. It's going to take positive leadership from the top to make it happen and blaming others or pitting rich against poor, race against race, etc. is not going to get it done. Let's everyone tap into the success system that is America and make the country great again!

Hillary's Emails Damaging Because We Will Never Know

Hillary Clinton's unsecured email server is far more damaging than Jonathan Pollard, John Walker, Aldrich Ames and Edward Snowden combined. (For any of you low information voters who may be reading this, some of these names might not be familiar to you. I invite you to use "the Google".)

The worst part about intelligence leaks is not knowing what was disclosed. Since Hillary illegally destroyed emails that Congress had requested (you try that and see if you don't spend a bit of time in prison), we will never really know what was in those emails and what was possibly compromised. No big surprise that the emails she did provide have a 3 month gap that just so happens to coincide with the Benghazi debacle.

18 minutes of missing tapes brought down Nixon. 10s of thousands of missing emails, and Hillary still may be our next president.

The lack of accountability of our public officials is completely out of hand and will destroy this country. We are spiralling toward 3rd Worldism if we aren't there already and the Left couldn't be more excited.

Hillary's Email Claim Simply Not Believable

Hillary Clinton's claims that she had no classified emails on the unsecured  private server that she had set up in her home in New York is either the claim of a complete incompetent or a bold faced lie.

I served as a mid-level officer at a small American embassy for just shy of four years and I dealt with classified emails on a fairly frequent basis. How could the person in charge of the entire State Department not send or receive classified emails? Clinton's claim is simply not credible.

Secrecy is essential to diplomacy. Those you are trying to negotiate with can't know your strategy ahead of time or you have no leverage in the negotiations. If Clinton discussed any State business with anyone, due to her position, at a minimum it would be confidential because it would give away intentions, plans, etc. Further, her emails would have to contain reports from our embassies abroad that would contain the country teams' assessments of the situation in those countries. Sensitive things like the country's stability, impressions of their leadership, vulnerabilities, etc. These are things we need kept private. They are dangerous in the hands of our enemies and those of our friends and allies.
They could also be very embarrassing to all parties because we rely on our diplomats serving overseas to provide frank assessments about the county where they are posted. I'm sure the few friends we have in the world must be furious.

If  Secretary Clinton's claims that she had no classified emails on her server are true then she ran the entire State Department on a strictly unclassified level. She is either lying or she wasn't doing her job. Either way it would explain why she left our international relations around the world in a complete shambles.

Hillary's Awards Case of Participation Trophies

I found this opinion piece on www.addictinginfo.com "Here’s A List Of Hillary Clinton’s Accomplishments, So Quit Saying She Doesn’t Have Any" from April 13, 2015 by Ryan Denson. Denson points to items like the following as Hillary's accomplishments:

          Former First Lady of Arkansas,
          Former First Lady of the United States,
          Former U.S. Senator, and
          Former Secretary of State.

The problem is these are "titles" not accomplishments. He goes on to site these as accomplishments:

• Even though her major initiative, the Clinton healthcare plan, failed ... it laid the groundwork for what we have today, the Affordable Healthcare Act, something Clinton supports and would continue. - She failed!
• She played a leading role in the development of State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides the much-needed state support for children whose parents cannot afford nor provide them with adequate healthcare coverage. - Played a leading role, how?
• She was also instrumental in the creation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act and the Foster Care Independence Act. - Instrumental, how?
• Successfully fought to increase research funding for prostate cancer and asthma at the National Institute of Health (NIH). - What role did she play?
• She spearheaded investigations into mental illness plaguing veterans of the Gulf War; we now have a term for it – Gulf War Syndrome. - Spearheaded investigations? Was she chairperson of a committee?
• At the Department of Justice, she helped create the office on Violence Against Women. - Helped create in what capacity?
• She was instrumental in securing over $21 billion in funding for the World Trade Center redevelopment. - Again, instrumental, how?
• Took a leading role in the investigation of health consequences of first responders and drafted the first bill to compensate and offer the health services our first responders deserve (Clinton’s successor in the Senate, Kirsten Gillibrand, passed the bill).  - Gillibrand's accomplishment not hers.
• Was instrumental in working out a bi-partisan compromise to address civil liberty abuses for the renewal of the U.S. Patriot Act. - Instrumental in what way?
•  Proposed a revival of the New Deal-era Home Owners’ Loan Corporation to help homeowners refinance their mortgages in the wake of the 2008 financial disaster. - Proposed? So?
• Was a major proponent of sensible diplomacy which brought about a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, and brokered human rights with Burma. - A proponent? So? What was her role?
• Oversaw free trade agreements with our allies such as Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. - Ok, I'm for free trade too but Panama and Columbia are "small potatoes."
• Was the most traveled Secretary of State to date. - So she has frequent flyer miles. So what?

Here again these are not really anything more than things she participated in. They are vague and lack any concrete indication of how she made a difference. "Fought for", "played a leading role", "Was a major proponent of", "Proposed" etc. are all really weak words of endorsement. The last bullet point is perhaps the most laughable because a lot of good it did. Our international relationships are in a shambles and our standing in the world with allies and enemies alike is at the lowest point it has been in decades.

We shouldn't elect someone whose accomplishments are nothing more than a series of participation trophies. I know that flies with the "everyone gets a trophy crowd' these days but look where that has gotten us.We deserve better and should demand more.

The Real Question about Trump

The real question if Trump gets the Republican nomination and wins the election is not whether or not he will build the wall along the southern border. Trump builds things so when he says he will build the wall, he will. No, the real question is whether the wall will have "TRUMP" written on it in big giant letters!

An Idea for Real Healthcare Reform

One of the many flaws of the Affordable Care Act is that it increases demand for healthcare but does nothing to increase the supply of healthcare providers i.e. doctors.

An important metric of the strength of a country's healthcare system is physicians per capita which is usually given as the number of physicians/1,000 of the population. According to the CIA World Factbook and similar references, the U.S. had 2.45 physicians/1,000 population in 2011. The left loves to point to European countries as examples for the United States to emulate. For example, France has a physicians per capita of 3.19, Germany 3.89 and Switzerland 4.05. America's number is even less than Uzbekistan's 2.53. Obviously, physicians/1,000 of the population is only one indicator and doesn't tell the whole story but it is significant. 

An important factor in the shortage of doctors in the U.S. has to be the high cost of medical school. Typically, a new American doctor starts his or her career with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. To help alleviate this problem, I propose the creation of the Civilian Medical Training Corps which would be modelled after the Reserve Officer Training Corps or ROTC.

CMTC would offer promising American students a full scholarship to a civilian medical school in exchange for five years of service in an underserved region of the country or perhaps a VA hospital. After that, the doctor would be free to practice medicine anywhere they chose but would still be required to donate their time one weekend a month and 2 weeks a year just like a military Reservist. An additional benefit would be they would also be available during times of crisis such as natural disasters. The students would be selected through a national competitive exam. So how much would this program cost? A quick check of the numbers follows.

In order to increase the physicians per 1000 to 3 it would require an additional 170,500 doctors. To do this in 10 years means 17,050 doctors per year at a cost of $3.41 billion which is a little less than 4% of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) $87.4 billion annual discretionary budget. To raise the physicians per 1000 to 4, the cost would be $9.61 billion or about 10% of the annual discretionary budget. This seems to me to be a worthy use of HHS funds.

Would this proposal significantly improve the healthcare system in America? I guaran-damn-tee you it will have a more positive effect than Obamacare's fiddle farting around with the insurance system!

What Is the Difference Between Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton?

Both Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton have been accused by many women of sexual assault. At last count, I think they are about dead even. So why are the media only interested in Cosby? As a matter of fact, when the media weren't completely ignoring the accusations against Clinton, they were giving airtime to his cronies like James Carville so they could disparage the character of his accusers and call them "trailer trash" and the like. Or allowing Hillary during an interview with Matt Lauer to dismiss the accusations without challenge as the work of a vast right wing conspiracy. So why the difference in treatment?

At one time, Cosby was the darling of the Left. He said the right things. He acted the right way. He stuck to the business of acting and comedy. However, somewhere along the way things changed. Maybe it was the murder of his only son, Ennis. Or maybe it was his advancing years. Regardless, the Cos started stepping off the liberal plantation. He began to criticize the behavior of the young blacks of today. He began to speak out against the use of the Ebonics (Black English), the black drop out rate, single parenthood and consumption of frivolous things at the expense of necessities. Cosby began advocating self-reliance and responsibility. How dare he suggest that not all the problems in the black community are the result of white racism! Cosby had crossed the line and now he has to be discredited; personally and professionally destroyed while, if Democrats have their way, Bill Clinton may well be on his way back to the White House ironically as "The First Gentleman". Equal justice liberal-style.

Apparently, all sins, including violence against women, are forgivable as long as you are a good, liberal, Democrat.