To Mitch & Paul

3-23-2018
Senator Mitch McConnell
Representative Paul Ryan

Sen. McConnell and Rep. Paul Ryan:

I hate to say this but you both and the Republican held Senate and House are a damned disgrace. I say this as a very angry life long and old Republican. What you did with the 2300+ page Omnibus bill was to hold the President hostage and screw the taxpayers of this country. The President and all of us in fly-over country absolutely wanted the military to be properly funded. However, we wanted, too, for the Wall to be properly funded and DACA to be dealt with including stopping chain migration and the Visa lottery, and wanted lowering legal immigration numbers. You have let the Democrats  and RINOs run Congress. You, obviously, are among them. Shame, shame on you.

I am placing a bet today that Congress will be controlled by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer after the coming November election. Too many Republicans will simply stay home they are so disgusted with the way you have performed since November 2016 when the President carried the day for most of you.

Get off of your asses! You really do not know how angry people are. All Congressional incumbents need to be defeated except for the Freedom Caucus members and other likeminded Representatives and Senators.
In Indiana, we are going to do everything we can to see that Rep. Todd Rokita is defeated in his run for the US Senate. He represents the Establishment (SWAMP) just like the two of you do. In one of his current ads, among other things he claims he will push for term limits. We know that is simply BULL.

We do not understand the corruption in Washington DC. On top of the screwing up by the Republican Congress, we have an Attorney General that has totally given in to the other side. He has no backbone to do the right thing with Rosenstein, Mueller, and all the rest of the law breakers in or formerly with the Justice Department, State Department, and FBI. He has not pushed for pursuit of justice for any of the Clinton cadre.  More Republican disgrace. Another independent Special Counsel is needed badly. Hopefully it would be one from outside of Washington DC where it appears the majority there are corrupt.

People are angry. They will not forget.
Regards,
Kent H Blacklidge
Past Publisher/ The Kokomo Tribune

Inward

It is time for the world’s Good Samaritan and benefactor to look after its own. The heartfelt and generous acts of the people of the United States of America to save the world have turned to greed and expectations of forever handouts.

The civilized world was nearly destroyed by World War II. Europe and Japan were devastated. Cities were in ruin. Factories bombed out. Millions of lives lost. The United States escaped physical damage to its homeland, but suffered the loss of tens of thousands of its most valued possession: its people, its warriors. But what happened then? The people of the United States sacrificed even more through the pouring out of time, talent, money, and resources to rebuild Europe, Japan and the world. Civilization was restored.

A few years later came the Korean Conflict. US leaders decided the dominoes of spreading Communism needed to be stopped. Thousands more lives were lost and treasure spent before a 1953 stalemate was reached. You see where we are today. Through the generosity of the American people, South Korea became prosperous. North Korea descended into a despot lead hell that threatens the world.

Viet Nam followed. Another mission to stop Communism in its tracks. More loss of life and treasure. Millions of Vietnamese died and millions still suffer the after effects of that war. Tens of thousands of our own died. Thousands still suffer post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and physical injury. This was lasted from 1955 to 1975. But with our help and resources, Viet Nam, too, is now prosperous.

All the while, the economic base of the United States was being eroded. The greatest damage accelerated in the President Clinton years starting in 1993. Clinton and his cadre decided the United States was to become a “service provider” country. The manufacturing needs of the world would be done elsewhere. Thousands were put out of middle class jobs. Cheap labor, inferior environmental regulation, and worker safety rules drew international companies to build and produce in foreign countries. Trade agreements such as NAFTA (1994) were lopsided against the United States. More inequitable trade agreements followed. Trade imbalances grew and the era of national debt began. Clinton was the last president to see a national surplus. Clinton’s presidency ended in January 2001 when George W. Bush became president.

The events of September 11, 2001, changed the world again. It was not long before President Bush and his band decided to attack Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein. Hussein had nothing to do with the bombing of the twin towers in New York, but Bush claimed falsely that Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Result: more loss of American lives and treasure and total destabilization of the Middle East. What followed was the rise of al-Qaeda and radical Islamic terrorism in the form of ISIS, the Taliban, Boko Haram, and more. The consequences of decisions by Bush haunt us today. National debt accelerated.

President Barack Hussein Obama followed Bush. Matters became even worse. Obama was a true globalist. He weakened our military even more, apologized around the world for about everything the United States stands for, and with Secretary Hillary Clinton and John Kerry’ s help, further destabilized the world. The criminal deeds of Obama and Clinton are only now fully coming to light. National debt grew to nearly 20 trillion dollars.
In the meanwhile, it has been estimated that the United States has lost about 70,000 factories since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Who knows how many more have been lost since the end of World War II in 1945. The United States has never stopped the “lift the boat” philosophy around the world. The US sends billions freely to so called “developing nations” [formerly “third world countries”] every year. In addition to free foreign aid, the United States has executed trade agreement after trade agreement that put our own workers on the street.

President Donald Trump, an outsider who was never supposed to win office, followed Obama. That was never supposed to happen. The political establishment and the globalists believed it would be President Hillary Clinton. The people thought otherwise. Trump is taking steps to restore the strength of the United States and put people back to work. Critical industry will return.

Tariffs on steel and aluminum imported into the United States are steps in the right direction. It is time to stop the “dumping” into our markets of steel and aluminum by such as China and South Korea. “Dumping” is the pricing of a product at below production cost made possible only because a foreign government has subsidized its production. The result is the undercutting of price from our own domestic factories and the loss of good jobs by our own workers. This is not a level playing field. President Trump has chosen to move to make it more so. It is time. His philosophy is free and, more importantly, fair trade.

To now, trade agreements have had a very negative affect on the trade balance between the US and the world. The value of imports to the United States should roughly equal the value of exports from the United States to other countries. If the so called balance favors other countries — i.e. more import value compared to export value — the United States continues to subsidize the world. That must stop. It is time to rebuild our own manufacturing base and put our own citizens back to work.

In the short term, tariffs will cause the price of some products to increase.Wall Street will not like it. The international corporations will loudly squawk and complain. They do not like any messing with short term profits. But this is the short term price we will have to pay and which people are willing to pay to rebuild a robust manufacturing base and the middle class in the United States of America. America First.