The collusion between Ted Cruz and John Kasich to deny the will of the voters in Indiana is the final straw. For the life of me, I do not understand why anyone would support Cruz for President. Senator Ted Cruz is seriously character flawed. He is dishonest. Cruz supporters have gone blind to the facts. Let’s review them.
To begin, Ted Cruz duped Texas voters when he ran for the Senate. Right out of the gate he did not tell anyone he held dual citizenship in Canada and the United States. Then a requirement to make that run was to disclose certain financial facts. He did not. He wanted voters to think he was against Wall Street, so he did not disclose a nearly million dollar loan from Goldman Sachs, one of the worst of the Wall Street offenders. How was that loan possible? Seems that Heidi Cruz, Ted’s wife, is a long time investment banker with guess who: Goldman Sachs. Additionally, Cruz secured a line of credit from Citibank, another Wall Street giant. But he told none of this to the voters. He claimed he and Heidi had liquidated their personal savings to fund his campaign. He did not. He lied.
Cruz calls himself a lifetime evangelical Christian. This paints a picture of a person generous with donations to a church and charity. Not true. For a many year period, Cruz and wife donated less than one percent to charity and NONE to churches. Looks phony to me.
Cruz calls himself honest. Then came the dirty tricks pulled on Dr. Ben Carson and Marco Rubio. Politics as usual.
Cruz paints himself as an outsider when the question of Washington insiders is raised. More false stories are told. Cruz was educated at Princeton and Harvard, two of the most “insider” schools in the country. He clerked at the Supreme Court and practiced law — all East Coast. He worked for President George W. Bush as a domestic policy adviser and in the Department of Justice. He has never created one job nor managed a darned thing — including a hot dog stand. He is about as Washington an insider as they come; but he does not want you to know that. To win this election, with his self-professed “golden tongue”, he wants to fool you into believing he is an “outsider”.
Cruz is very similar to our current President when he, Obama, ran for President. Cruz has less than one term as a United States Senator, yet he declares he is the ideal, experienced candidate for the Presidency. And by the way, his colleagues in the US Senate do not like him at all. They know him well.
So, be duped if you are among the gullible. Ted Cruz refuses to bow to the will of the people. Millions of voters have already spoken, but like all other insider politicians, their voices fall on deaf ears. The most recent dishonest act: collusion. He reminds me of the Joker in the movie, Batman. A “man of God and country” Cruz is not.
Pigs VS Produce
The smell. That is the big one between rural residents and pig factory production facilities claiming to be farms. Those facilities are also known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, CAFOs, where thousands of pigs or hogs are crowed together in high numbers, by the thousands, in buildings where they are fed out for eventual sending to slaughter to such as the Indiana Packers Corporation plant in Delphi.
Carson Gerber, Kokomo Tribune reporter, had it right in his April 23rd KT article: it is a battle between pigs and produce. Hog CAFOs are anything but farming in the traditional sense. The concentration of hogs in one location produces huge amounts of urine and feces (that’s bowel waste or “crap”) that must be stored in lagoons or tanks until pumped out and taken elsewhere for disposal. In the meanwhile, the operation stinks.
It would be one thing if the stink stayed on the site where it originated. The problem is that it does not. The stink travels miles subject only to the whims of the wind. And it is offensive. Ray Reichard is worried about his flower and vegetable operation that is near where new hog CAFOs are proposed. He worries about people being offended by the odor from hog waste wafting into his greenhouse or lingering on the produce and flowers he takes to farmers markets. He should be worried.
There is a fact that most people do not get. If you can smell something, it means that molecules or “pieces” of whatever is causing the stink are in the air and that these molecules are being drawn into your nose and lungs. Crap and urine in. Reichard worries about his produce carrying the stink to market. What he is really saying is that feces and urine molecules from hogs will have landed on the food and flowers he has produced and have stuck there. Somehow, I do not think people want to be eating this produce or having these flowers in their homes.
Have you ever driven behind a semi-truck hauling hogs? It stinks. Waste and bacterial molecules are being blown off of the truck and hogs into the air and into the air intakes of your car. If you do not want these molecules in your lungs, you need to back off and put your car air system on interior air only, not take air in from the outside.
Hog operations are not what they once were. In the old days, farmers (not animal factory operators) raised hogs, cattle, chickens and other livestock in balance with land that was cropped with a variety of corn, soybeans, and more. Crops were rotated. The waste from animals became fertilizer for fields. All in balance.
If you have not noticed, there is movement toward more local production of healthy food. Farmers markets are more and more popular. People want farms to be healthier with use of fewer chemicals and antibiotics. CAFOs are not compatible with this trend. CAFOs stink.
Pesky Things
[Post written by Marcia Blacklidge]
Primary candidates have dominated news cycles since last June. Voters are fired up and turning out in record numbers. On May 3rd Hoosiers will finally get their chance to vote. There’s only one problem. Both parties would prefer to act untethered by those pesky things called votes.
Mainstream media have cashed in on voter involvement and eagerly promote the myth that votes count. Despite voting irregularities, dirty tricks, Super PACS, and those pesky things called votes; each party will nominate the candidate of its choice this summer.
Both party establishments still face a few hurdles. The Democrats have to quench the unexpected fire created by party regulars “feeling the burn.”
The Republican establishment is determined to “stop Trump.” Many want to do this even if it costs them the election or destroys the party. None of them like to discuss those pesky things that keep piling up for Trump called votes.
The “burn” and Hillary’s “security review” have disturbed many Democrats but Trump has driven establishment Republicans into hysteria. Rove and others are boldly calling for a “fresh face.” Ryan protests too much of his disinterest in the nomination while Romney’s just plain desperate to get it. To heck with those pesky things called votes!
Indiana’s Republican primary has grabbed the attention of the National Media, but for all the wrong reasons.
Indiana has 54 delegates. Becoming a Republican delegate is a steep climb. One must have filled out an application by March 15th and pledged to provide $2000 to participate. All Republican delegates will be selected before a single primary vote is cast.
Politico interviewed numerous party leaders and officials involved in the delegate selection process. Those interviewed displayed openly hostile anti-Trump attitudes.
“One of my criteria for filtering out candidates was whether or not they supported Trump,” said one district GOP leader.
“If Satan had the lead on him and was one delegate away from being nominated as our candidate, and Donald Trump was the alternative, I might vote for Donald Trump,” said Craig Dunn, a Kokomo resident and GOP leader hoping to represent Indiana’s 4th district. “I’ve always wanted to own a casino, but he couldn’t give me a casino and have me vote for him.”
Thank God for delegates who can’t be bribed.
“Donald Trump doesn’t represent what I want my party to represent,” said Tom John, chairman of Indiana’s 7th Congressional District. John is running for one of the 27 at large delegate slots. He declared the three delegates selected to represent the 7th Congressional District were unlikely to be Trump supporters.
John further reported that a grass roots effort had been launched to get Trump supporters to become 7th District delegates. Their effort produced a handful of applicants, but all were rejected.
The Indiana Republican Party claims to be the party working for Indiana. However, the fervor displayed against Trump by each of the party officials interviewed was shocking. Not a single official mentioned concern for those pesky things that will be tallied on May 3rd.
Clearly, the Indiana Republican Delegation is determined to vote for the candidate of their choice at the convention.
The citizens of Indiana shouldn’t have to pay for a primary negated by such blatant self-absorption. Let the delegates pick up the cost of collecting those pesky things called votes.
Rural and Urban Indiana
[letter to Dr. Michael Hicks in response to his Kokomo Tribune column of April 3rd in which he encourages more investment in urban development in Indiana. He believes rural places are at risk and that the best chance for the future is in solid connection to labor markets in “healthy, vibrant and growing regional cities”. I think he missed some things.]
Dr. Hicks:
I am writing in response to your recent column about the decline in rural, small-town Indiana and your position that more investment is needed in urban centers. I have a couple of observations to make.
First, about the decline of rural, small-towns in Indiana: I believe this has largely come about due to the adoption of what has turned out to be devastating agriculture policy following World War II. One of the leaders in this movement was Dr. Earl Butz, former Secretary of Agriculture and Dean of the School of Agriculture at Purdue. He told farmers to “get big or get out” and to produce chickens and pigs like “Fords and Chevys”. This was at the beginning of large, corporate owned agriculture in what has come to be dominated by the giant chemical/seed companies. Today, I believe for several reasons we have a train wreck waiting to happen.
Steve Daily, former mayor of Kokomo, and his family are a prime example of what has resulted. He has told me that at one time there were 13 members of his family involved in agriculture as a way to make a living. After his retirement from Ivy Tech recently, he has gone back to farming; now organic farming. He says that only one other member of his family remains in agriculture. If the Daily family is typical, and I believe it is, it is clear how this would impact small, rural communities.
I believe there is growing recognition of the damage done by ill-advised agriculture policy. We see now that genetically engineered foods will be labeled; one positive step toward recognition of the risks of biotechnology for both people and the environment and of the toxins typically involved that follow food to the dinner table. We see the growth of local farmers’ markets and the increase in demand for “organic” or chemical-free foods. We see the growth of demand for foods produced closer to home; not shipped all over the country or from other countries. I believe we will see a gradual growth of the number of people involved in agriculture and, perhaps, even a reversal in population trends in rural areas.
You suggest we need more investment in urban areas. I suggest as well we need more encouragement in growing healthy food in Indiana. What a difference this would make. Both you and I live in areas dominated by wall-to-wall corn and soy beans, most of which has been genetically modified to withstand massive doses of glyphosate (Roundup) that has now been determined to be carcinogenic. And we wonder why the cancer rate in our nation is the highest in the world.
Finally, an over-arching question: when is enough, enough? Everyone talks about “growth and development” when they really mean more population and more jobs. When is it time to stabilize population and work on increasing standard of living only. I, for one, do not want Kokomo (a regional center) to become an “Indianapolis” or anything even close. Except for the impact of immigration, most of the developed nations of the world are at near zero population growth, but that is a whole other subject for discussion.
Regards, Kent Blacklidge
Brussels Siren
Just read a column about the wave of terror in Brussels, Paris, and San Bernardino. It made perfect sense. The terrorists were “home grown”, it seems. Nearly every one of them operated from within immigrant communities where they could swim out of sight of authorities.
“Crime historians tell us that nearly every nationality that has immigrated to America over the last 200 years in a large wave has brought with it a new organized crime network.”, the column said. We are seeing the large immigrant wave flood over Europe. We are allowing tens of thousands of Middle Eastern immigrants into the United States. They cannot possibly be assimilated to democratic values and existing culture in a rate equal to or greater than the numbers coming in. What happens with Islamists is a pool or community of foreigners provides a place for incubation of radicalism that flies under the radar of law enforcement.
For over 50 years, immigration policies in Europe and the United States have been filling these “enabling pools”. That needs to change. There was a time when US immigration policy allowed less than 100,000 people annually to migrate to this country. In 1931, the number was 97,000. In 1941, it was 52,000. In 1951, it was 205,000. It remained below 500,000 until 1978 when it was 590,000. With few fluctuations, the number has climbed to over one million annually where it hovers today. For many reasons, not the least of which is security, the population of this country needs to stabilize, not continue to grow. Population growth in the United States is fueled largely now by the number of immigrants allowed in.
We do not need to single out countries of origin, religions, or ethnic groups since that seems to offend some do-gooders; but we do need to put a stop to the growth of enabling pools for terrorists and criminals. The aim should be to halt all immigration possible. This will ensure that the number of immigrants arriving is small enough that all can be screened for security. In addition, the categories allowed in should be of immigrants most likely to arrive with the best chance of rapid assimilation. We should restrict immigration to spouses and minor children of immigrants already here, marriages and adoptions by US citizens, and workers with extraordinary skills.
We need to eliminate chain migration that brings in unending flows of distant relatives of an original immigrant. We need to eliminate the visa lottery that brings in people by raffle. We need to eliminate employment-based visas for workers who have skills that unemployed or underemployed Americans have. Concerning illegal immigration particularly, we need to enforce the law.
The USA and other countries, particularly the European Union countries, should concentrate on helping refugees find safe, healthy refuge in their home region.
Mitch Daniels and GMOs
[Purdue President Mitch Daniels on February 25th gave a talk to the Agriculture Outlook Forum meeting in Arlington, VA. The thrust of his talk was that any who do not accept genetic engineering of crops are anti-science, ignorant, and immoral. My response to him is below.]
President Daniels:
I was shocked when I read the Wall Street Journal article about your talk to the Agriculture Outlook Forum in Arlington, VA; “Mitch Daniels on Anti-GMO Cruelty”. Your conclusions about genetically engineered crops and foods could have come right out of the playbook of any of the large chemical/seed corporations public relations departments.
In my opinion, the way biotechnology is currently being used in agriculture is both risky and reckless. It is risky for human health, for livestock, and for the environment. The primary reason for GE crops to date has been to allow them to be massively dosed with pesticide that kills surrounding “weeds” but does not kill the crop. The principle pesticide, glyphosate, has been determined to be carcinogenic. We spray it everywhere. All kinds of problems and questions are emerging regarding the chemicals and the genetically engineered crops that become either feed or food.
I have included with this letter a document to read. Please note it is extensively documented. In addition, Dr. Don Huber, Purdue professor emeritus, has it right in spite of the fact he has been called, “an embarrassment to Purdue” by one ranking academic at Purdue. If you have not, I suggest you read some of what Dr. Huber has written as well.
Large corporate agriculture is headed in the wrong direction. It is a train wreck waiting to happen. Many in Europe have already recognized this. It is encouraging to know that there are some at Purdue that know this as well; I have heard them.
Purdue does have an opportunity to lead. It is my hope it leads in directions healthier for people and the environment.
Sincerely,
Kent H. Blacklidge
Past Publisher/ The Kokomo Tribune
Purdue Degrees:
Ph.D. Genetics
MS Aquatic Toxicology and Fish Biology
MS Conservation of Natural Resources
BS Industrial Management
Note: the document included with the Daniels letter is titled, “10 Reasons we don’t need GM foods”. It is available in full at www.gmwatch.org/files/10-reasons-we-dont-need-GM-foods.pdf
Generating Snake-oil
[Below is a response to a Michael Hicks Ph.D. column in the March 13th issue of the Kokomo Tribune. Hicks is the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University. I am thinking he needs to do a bit more research.]
The Michael Hicks column in the March 13th Kokomo Tribune misses the point completely. He states, “American manufacturing firms are making more goods altogether than at any other time is history”. That may be very true but by itself that fact is rather meaningless unless related to population and jobs. It may be great for the corporations’ bottom profit line, but of no value to those out of work.
Hicks goes on to say, “Indiana has been losing manufacturing employment for a half century and the nation as a whole has for over 40 years”. Now we are getting somewhere. At the same time, Indiana population has been growing as has the population of the nation. The result is clearly more people with relatively fewer available jobs. That is pretty easy to understand. Now it is estimated there are over 90 million people in the U.S. either with no job or seriously under employed.
Then Hicks tells us globalization and international trade are not significant factors, really. He says believing this appeals to ignorance and cowardice. He says our eyes deceive us when we see stores “full of Chinese made goods and shuttered factories across the Midwest”. What? Here I am thinking that those now shuttered factories once manufactured goods and that many of those goods are now being manufactured in China and other countries; and that the jobs that were filled by Americans are now filled by people in China. What am I missing? Maybe it is Hicks who cannot see.
Talk about confused: he says our public debate ought to be about what steps we can take to help workers who have lost their jobs. With that I would agree. There is no doubt that an increase in manufacturing efficiency in the United States has been one key factor in the downward pressure on available jobs, but there is no doubt that outsourcing to foreign workers is another and maybe the most important factor. We want efficiency, but we want jobs for people in the United States first; not in other countries. It is time to take back the jobs. It is time we see stores full of United States of America made goods and fully operating factories across the Midwest.
Personally, I found the Hicks column to be insulting to the intelligence of Americans whom he calls ill-informed and myopic. There is no “illusion” of damage from bad trade agreements. It is very real. It began with NAFTA and is about to be expanded by TPP. Hicks needs to do some serious re-thinking.
Trump Movement
Bruce Haynes had it right in his analysis of the Trump “Movement” on RealClearPolitics.com. He said a populist rebellion has been brewing in the United States for the past 25 years as a “tsunami of economic and cultural globalism” swamped the white working class and took away their jobs and with it, their dignity.
He said, since 1979, the US has lost 7 million manufacturing jobs, many of them outsourced to China and Mexico thanks to trade agreements negotiated by elites in both parties. In 2008, Americans who lost homes, savings, and jobs to the Great Recession then had to watch as the Washington elites bailed out the same Wall Street banks that caused the meltdown. Believing that they have been “sold down the river”, middle-class voters in both parties have turned to populist outsiders, namely Trump and Sanders, to “drop an anvil on the system’s head the way one was dropped on theirs.”
And all the while the adverse, damaging trade deals were being made and companies were leaving the United States for lower wages, more lax [if any] environmental regulations, more favorable taxing, and more lax [if any] worker safety regulations; the southern US border has remained out of control which has allowed millions of illegal aliens into the country. It is no wonder there are now over 90 million US citizens now out of work or seriously under employed. It cannot continue if the country is to survive economically and socially.
It is time for the apple cart to be overturned. It is time for the Washington elites to be turned out. They have betrayed the people they are supposed to represent. There is a quiet revolution under foot.
Vermont in Your Kitchen
[Below is a letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal in response to an editorial in the WSJ on March 7th opposing the labeling of genetically engineered foods]
Editor….
The Vermont law requiring labeling of all foods containing genetically engineered ingredients goes into effect on July 1st this year. You oppose it. Your editorial on March 7th could have been written by the public relations department of any of the giant chemical/seed corporations. The problem is that it contains just plain false information.
You said, “No agricultural innovation has been more maligned than GMOs, though the technology has proven safe, reliable, affordable and good for the environment”. None of that is true. The technology has not been proven safe. It is haphazard, reckless, and risky. The techniques are crude and potentially very disruptive to native genomes with potentially catastrophic consequences to human health and the environment. To now, the primary reason for GE corn and soy (the major crops) has been to allow them to be massively dosed with glyphosate or other pesticides without killing the crop but killing all vegetation around it. Now glyphosate has been determined to be carcinogenic. Pesticide residues follow the crop to livestock and to the dinner table. Studies have shown serious health consequences to livestock fed genetically engineered feed. So, there are serious safety issues about the genetically engineered crops themselves and as a result of the pesticides found with them.
As a past daily newspaper publisher and as a genetic scientist, I am an adamant believer in the right of the public to know all that is involved in the raising and production of the food they put on their families tables. It is the right of people to make that decision. It is not the right of the chemical/seed companies and corporate farmers to make decisions about what to tell and what not to tell in secret.
Over 60 countries world wide made the decision to either ban or label genetically engineered foods. Several now are considering banning genetically engineered crops altogether. Of those who did adopt genetically engineered crops and used the pesticides designed for them, many are seeing very serious health issues in their populations, particularly among farm workers. I add that over 60 countries cannot be wrong.
The WSJ needs to do more homework. The bill now in the US Senate should never see the light of day. As you concluded… “let the consumers decide what to eat”. Vermont leads the way.
Dear RNC by Anonymous
[I could not help passing this along to you……]
This letter was sent to 100% FED Up! by an anonymous author:
It doesn’t matter who you support for President in 2016. This letter will make you want to stand up and cheer for the 80 year old American who expresses what most of us are feeling right now. Enjoy…
Dear Representative,
From the time I was able to vote I voted Republican. I am 80 years old, and have a great deal of respect and influence with hundreds of senior ball players who also network with thousands of others around the country.
I received your questionnaire and request for money and strongly agree with every question, as I have since Obama was elected. Unfortunately the one question that was missing is “What have the Republicans done for the American people?” We gave you a majority in the House and Senate, yet you never listened to us. Now you want our money.
You should be more concerned about our votes, not our money. You are the establishment, which means all you want is to save your jobs and line your pockets… Well guess what? “It’s not going to happen” You shake in your boots when I tell you we’re giving our support to TRUMP and he hasn’t asked for a dime.
You might think we are fools because you feel Trump is on a self destruction course, but you need to look beyond Washington and listen to the masses. Nobody has achieved what he has, especially in the liberal state of New York.
You clearly don’t understand why the Trump movement is so strong, so I’d like to share with you an analogy to help explain the Trump phenomenon. By the way, it’s not just the Republicans who feel ignored and disrespected; there are plenty of Democrats and Independents who also feel let down by the Washington elite. You seem to have forgotten about “We The People” and who hired you to represent us.
So here it is, the best analogy I could come up with. Here is the reason so many Americans have boarded the Trump Train, and why your pleas to come back to the party who deserted us, is falling on deaf ears:
You’ve been on vacation for two weeks, you come home, and your basement is infested with raccoons. Hundreds of rabid, messy, mean raccoons have overtaken your basement. You want them gone immediately…You call the city and four different exterminators, but nobody could handle the job. There is this one guy however, who guarantees you he will get rid of them, so you hire him. You don’t care if the guy smells, you don’t care if the guy swears, you don’t care how many times he’s been married, you don’t care if he was friends with liberals, you don’t care if he has plumber’s crack…you simply want those raccoons gone! You want your problem fixed! He’s the guy. He’s the best. Period.
Here’s why we want Trump: Yes he’s a bit of an ass, yes he’s an egomaniac, but we don’t care. The country is a mess because politicians have become too self-serving. The Republican Party is two-faced & gutless. Illegal aliens have been allowed to invade our nation. We want it all fixed! We don’t care that Trump is crude, we don’t care that he insults people, we don’t care that he had been friendly with Hillary, we don’t care that he has changed positions, we don’t care that he’s been married three times, we don’t care that he fights with Megan Kelly and Rosie O’Donnell, we don’t care that he doesn’t know the name of some Muslim terrorist.
This country is weak, bankrupt, our enemies are making fun of us, we are being invaded by illegal aliens and bringing tens of thousands of Muslim refugees to America, while leaving Christians behind to be persecuted. We are becoming a nation of victims where every Tom, Ricardo and Hasid is part of a special group with special rights to the point where we don’t even recognize the country we were born and raised in; “AND WE JUST WANT IT FIXED” and Trump is the only guy who seems to understand what the people want.
We’re sick of politicians. We’re sick of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. We just want this thing fixed. Trump may not be a saint, but he isn’t beholden to lobbyist money and he doesn’t have political correctness restraining him. All we know is that he has been very successful, he’s an excellent negotiator, he has built a lot of things, and he’s also not a politician. He’s definitely not a cowardly politician. When he says he’ll fix it, we believe him because he is too much of an egotist to be proven wrong or looked at and called a liar.
Oh yeah…I forgot…we don’t care if the guy has bad hair either.
We just want those raccoons gone.
Out of your house.
NOW!