Government in Exile

The Death of the Retail Stores

''Legion'' has some thoughts on the retail industry.

The stock market gurus are going nutso over the rapid increase of Amazon, Apple and other internet stocks. Seems all they see is how it's making truck load of fellow investors ultra-rich. Admittedly it is an amazing thing to watch. In the mean time, these giants are plotting to take control of the retail market in America, via the internet. As a result a lot of retail companies are jumping on the band wagon (1) as a possible cost savings of mega-dollars in owning and managing retail outlets all over the country; and (2) for fear if they don't jump on the wagon they'll be left in Amazon's dust. Stores such as Barnes & Nobel, Penny's, Sears, Staples and scads of others may soon be fading memories. So,is that good or is it bad? Things never stay the same. Hi-tech innovation will naturally change the way we do business, and how we live our lives.

When WalMart came on the scene they closed down Main Streets all over the country. Most noticeably in smaller towns throughout middle America. Long standing family businesses failed, unemployment soared, buildings vacated and rotted, and people fled to larger cities looking for employment. Home owners lost their homes and mortgage lenders lost billions because the loss of jobs meant there was nothing to draw new home owners into dying towns.

Now we have hi-tech companies plotting to take over the majority of retail business, what can we expect to follow? The end of WalMart, Home Depot, Lowes, etc? More retailers going out of business. More jobs lost? The failure of banks and others who financed shopping malls, operating capital, inventory capital, and expansion projects? True it will require more huge warehousing facilities all around the country, but remember, most of those jobs will be filled with robots.

And lets not forget the tax money that finances towns/cities. As people leave, tax revenue will decrease substantially. Government assistance payments will increase and crime will take advantage of vacant buildings for their felonious ventures. Let your imagination wander and the horror gets worse and worse.

This massive undertaking of retail markets could completely change the nation's economy. It's either time for the federal government to step in and institute anti-monopoly laws, or do nothing and watch the pending disaster unfold. I realize that there probably aren't more than a handful of politicians smart enough to address this problem and come up with plans that will provide protection for the economy. Right now, it's likely that only Trump's inner circle of CEO executives has the business expertise to tackle the problem. Its for sure it can't be left up to Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell, Ryan, Sanders, Warren, Waters and the like.

The Demise of the Two Party System

''Peter'' has some thoughts on the two party system.

Donald Trump, a lone populist former democrat took the GOP presidential nomination away from seventeen mainstream GOP candidates, despite strong opposition from the RNC. Afterward, he kicked the democrat’s butts in the 2016 election. Since Trump’s inauguration, he has managed to unite the two parties in cooperation not seen since Lincoln – against him! The democrats don’t want Trump’s agenda to succeed for obvious reasons.

Not so obvious are the reasons the GOP establishment are against Trump’s agenda. What is their reasoning in opposing their own party’s POTUS?

First of all, many of them are not conservative. They are liberals that are masquerading as Republicans. Their constituencies don’t support liberals, so they switched sides and lied to the voters in order to get elected. They may caucus with the GOP representatives and senators, but they don’t go along, often creating roadblocks to Trump’s initiatives. Privately, they listen to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi in deciding their positions on pending legislation and Trump nominees. Many of them are anti-gun and pro-abortion, so it isn’t much of a stretch.

Next, there are the members of the Establishment. No matter how they may think about pending legislation, their first concern is maintaining the status quo in regards to lobbyists and the “system.” They have it good and they don’t want the boat rocked.

Then we have the true conservatives. They want to do the right thing, but their numbers are to few to pass conservative legislation. Instead, they work to block any legislation that smells of liberalism and big government, such as the amendment of Obamacare rather than fully repealing it. They also don’t like Trump because they believe he’s a liberal wolf in sheep’s clothing. The conservatives don’t control Congress, the liberals do.

There are a handful of populist Trump supporters who were swept into office on his coat tails, but there numbers are inconsequential.

Trump is bucking the Establishment, the democrats, the GOP and the conservatives. Yet, he has managed significant wins, both at home and abroad. But, most of them go unreported because he is also bucking the mainstream media. What the public may want to know about is irrelevant. The truth is irrelevant. They ALL want Trump out. They hate him and they will resort to any means to get rid of him. Fake news, false allegations and making it all up is their creed.

No matter how successful Trump may be, he is doomed to failure because that is what the media tells the public. A pall of shame and desperation has settled on D.C. The ship of state is leaning over so far to the left that it may not be able to right itself.

What will it take to right our ship, another civil war? Or can we, in the next election, throw ALL the bums out and start from scratch?

The Second Amendment was not conceived to afford us protection from criminals. The writers were clear: it was intended to afford us protection from the government, should it get out of control of the citizenry. They had foreseen the possibility that government would grow too big and would try to control the lives of the citizenry to an intolerable degree. Is that why the liberals are so intent on gun control?

We are Paralyzed by the Fear of Being called Racist

''Rook'' has some thoughts on immigration.

World War II pitted us against brutal, fanatical enemies who thought themselves superior to us in every way. The Nazis had an unstoppable military machine – the best tanks, fighter planes, battleships, submarines and even long range guided rocket propelled bombs. They stormed across Europe defeating everyone in their path. The only thing they couldn’t beat was the Russian winter.

At the height of the war, we were losing 1,200 planes a day on bombing runs over Germany. Our leaders decided to hit their morale hard. Dresden, a cultural icon and center of higher education, was one of the most beautiful cities in Germany. It had no strategic value to the U.S. or the British and it’s population of 250,000 people was almost all civilians. It was carpet bombed with incendiary bombs and the entire city was reduced to ashes. Tens of thousands of women and children were burned to death along with their fathers and grandfathers. German resistance faltered.

Imperial Japan considered all other races to be barbarians and treated them accordingly. The Japanese were no less fanatical than Islamic Jihadists when it came to waging war. As we swept them off the Pacific Islands they held, it was necessary to use flame throwers to burn them alive inside their caves and holes. When we finally worked our way onto Okinawa, the civilian Japanese began jumping to their deaths from cliffs. They believed that was preferable to being captured by barbarian Americans. Japanese pilots came in waves, nose diving into ships as a Kamikaze, no less fanatical than the bomb wearing Islamic terrorists of today who blow themselves up in public gatherings.

It was estimated that we would lose over one million soldiers if we invaded the Japanese homeland. General Douglas MacArthur advised President Truman to drop an atomic bomb on a Japanese city every few days until they unconditionally surrendered. After the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki the Japanese did surrender unconditionally, thus saving a million Americans from dying in battle. 500,000 Japanese, mostly civilians, had died in the bombings.

Today that generation of Americans is called “The Greatest Generation.” Of course, this was all before the “discovery” by leftist progressives of political correctness, some years later. Political correctness became a factor in the military’s Rules of Engagement. PC is also a factor in identifying our enemies, lest we appear racist.

In WWII it was no problem to call our enemies Nazis or Japs. The enemies were well known and easy to identify, but we haven’t won a war since we got hamstrung with PC. We killed lots of soldiers and civilians. We captured the territory, but we didn’t end up the winner.
Now Europe is being overrun by Muslims. They are the majority in London and elected a Muslim mayor. The politicians in Europe are afraid to stand up for their sovereignty, culture and traditions. They are afraid to do what is clearly in the best interests of their citizenry. They want to appear moral, not racist. They are sanctimonious while their country and culture are lost.

We’re next, unless things change. Do we want our grandchildren to call us the greatest generation? Or shall we let them try to remember what it was like when America was the land of the free? What works best for our country, steely-eyed pragmatism or political correctness?

Human Caused Climate Change – The Big Lie

''Peter'' has some thoughts on climate change.

There are two sources of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, natural and anthropogenic (from human sources).

Natural sources include the oceans, volcanoes, forest fires, decaying vegetation and animal gases. Natural sources make up 97% of all CO2 emissions.

Human sources make up the remaining 3%. They include agricultural production, burning fossil fuels in energy production and transportation, and manufacturing processes.

The proponents of man caused climate change have based their theories upon two broad assumptions:

    1. That nature is always in balance, so natural emissions equal         natural absorption of CO2. 

    2. That the amount of man caused emissions of CO2 is roughly proportional to the yearly amount of increased CO2 in the atmosphere (between 23% and 75% of the increase) and, therefore, is the cause of the increase.

The first assumption is false on its face. Nature is demonstrably not always in balance. Compare the Mesozoic, Jurassic and Cretaceous eras with the climate we have today. From hot and tropical to the Ice Age, it is obvious to anyone except an ideological fanatic that nature is not always in balance.

The second assumption is equally ludicrous. I can’t even guess what distorted logic gave rise to such an assumption, other than ideological fanaticism.

The theory of human caused climate change is not really a scientific theory, it is a religion. It is based upon faith rather than fact, which is the basis of all of the world’s great religions. And this religion is for profit!

So let them build churches and have tax breaks, but don’t let them interfere with our sources of energy or our food supply (ethanol in gas deprives our livestock of needed feed, raising the cost of meat and raising the price of gas). Eco-radicals are no less dangerous to our country than Muslim radicals.

Single Payer Healthcare

''Legion'' has some thoughts on healthcare.

Why do lefties want to promote one payer healthcare? Simple. If you control the peoples' healthcare, you control their lives. If you control their lives you control their votes. The left has that control now and they're not about to give it up without a fight.

To get the cost of health insurance down is to get healthcare costs down and let insurance companies compete. How do you do that? Thru free market competition. Hospital vs hospital. Clinics vs clinic. Pharma vs pharma. Supply mftr vs supply mftr. Insurance company vs insurance company. State vs state. And on and on. You sure don't do it by replacing the insurance industry with a 1-payer government controlled insurer. Name one govt managed program that has been managed efficiently and/or lowered costs. AmTrac? Post Office? Social Security? The VA? And Nazi Pelosi! How many people died on your VA system? As with all govt run programs all the money paid by consumers will go into the general fund and be robbed blind by unscrupulous, corrupt politicians. Are there any other kind? The result is a bankrupt healthcare system.
Politicians need to decide.

What is their objective? Are they wanting to nationalize health care or health insurance? Or both? I think I know.

The Freedom Caucus plan is much closer to a free market system than the lefty establishment could ever come up with. Put Newt Gingrich in charge and get it done!

West Coast Immigration

''Ernie'' has some thoughts on immigration.

Today's Washington and Oregon are examples of what happens if you let overtaxed Cali-y'know-fornians immigrate unchallenged into your state. Now instead of just LaLa Land, we've got LaLa Left Coast. And even worse, we've got the LaLa 9th District Court of Appeals that wants to spread their Communist ideology across the entire nation. It was Gov Perry of Texas who said he was more concerned about his western border than his southern border. Californians have started fleeing into Texas bringing the left wing stupidity they're fleeing from with them.
Obviously it's time to protect our country from this growing cancerous idiocy. Here are some ideas worth considering:

1. Move Hollywood from LA to Venezuela. A much better fit.
2. Make invading Left Coast immigrants pass a rigid vetting process. For example they must be able to find Nebraska on a map. That'll thin out the ranks.
3. Must have had a real job at some point in the past 5 years. Not counting welfare or selling drugs.
4. Tattoos, body piercing, metal stuck in facial features and millennial (Muslim) beards would be prohibited.
5. Anyone who has ever been in a movie, commercial, TV show....or knows anyone who has ever been in one would be out.
6. Anyone who refuses to stand during the National Anthem...out.
7. Atheists, Muslims, proMexican flag wavers need not apply.
8. Anyone who thinks political correctness is part of the constitution need not apply.
9. Anyone who attended or worse yet, graduated from, Berkley....out.
10. If you think George Soros or Alec Baldwin is father of the country, move to Venezuela with Hollywood.

Applicants should also pass a morals test. That would eliminate about 87% of all applicants.