Wednesday, August 31, 2016

An Ungrateful Heart

It both saddens and perplexes your favorite Peasant
when someone in our wonderful country makes it big,
makes a fortune at what he enjoys doing, gets
lots of encouragement along the way, yet finds
it necessary to demean our country as somehow
being unfair, oppressive, or prejudiced. The latest
such story centers on San Francisco 49ers
quarterback Colin Kaepernik, who has, beginning
with the first pre-season exhibition football game
he and his teammates played a few weeks ago,
begun a protest of sorts by remaining seated during
the playing of the National Anthem before each game.
His reason? He stated "I am not going to stand up
to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses
black people and people of color, ... To me, this is
bigger than football and it would be selfish to
look the other way... "

Now Kaepernik, who is black, was adopted and
raised by a well-to-do white family. They gave
him a life of plentitude, including a college education
which enabled him to develop his football skills to
the point of being drafted by an NFL team. And the
scouts that discovered him, and got him signed to
a pro contract, were white. He makes more money
than most people dare dream of making. Can Kaepernik
please explain how he has been "oppressed" for any
reason, particularly in regard to the color of
his skin?

Does Kaepernik know how well (or, more likely, not)
black people in other countries are faring? There
are many in various African countries that are living
in what can only be charitable called abject poverty.
Many of them are fortunate to be earning two dollars
a day at whatever work they can get. And some of these
countries have black dictators who oppress them to a
shocking degree, far beyond what most people can imagine.
Many flee, or at least attempt to, and many do not make
it out alive. they don't live in huge, fancy homes; they
have, with any luck, tiny huts of mud and grass. Cars?
hardly. Clothes? Not on the order of what an American
professional football player can afford. You, my wonderful
readers, get the picture, while Kaepernik needs to get a clue.

And Kaepernik has not been arrested and jailed for his
public display of misguided outrage and accompanying
peurile behavior. In the aforementioned parts of the world
he would have faced this along with torture and maybe execution.
But these facts apparently have escaped this spoiled dolt.
Perhaps he has been knocked on his head too many times
by hard-charging 300-pound-plus defensive ends?

This jock's ignorance has fed his ungrateful heart, and has
led him to play the fool. What he should do in his off-season
free time is to travel to the African continent to visit these
countries and see just how his black counterparts are faring
in their homelands. Maybe Kaeprenik needs a big jolt of
reality to change his heart and his attitude.

Finally, Colin Kaepernik, while not violating any law in not
standing for the playing of our nation's anthem (as a matter
of fact the Constitution allows for him to so express himself),
it must be noted that there are countries which severely punish
its citizens for not standing for their national anthems,
not saluting their flags and related infractions, and that is
shameful. Our country, where we cherish our freedom,
does not and never shall impose any such display of allegiance,
because we are, after all, a free country which zealously
protects our liberty and our many freedoms, which include
the freedom of expression --- and that includes choosing
not to stand for our National Anthem. Even the 49ers do
not require its personnel to stand for the anthem, but
rather encourages doing so. But in remaining seated for
the anthem, and for the reason which the 49ers' quarter-brained
quarterback has given, reveals great ignorance and ingratitude,
and should be recognized as such and called out. Your faithful
Peasant is doing just that here on this blog.


MEM






Friday, August 26, 2016

Regarding the Republican and Democrat Nominees

Now that the two major American political parties
have held their conventions and selected their
presidential candidates, your observant Peasant
has two things to say about it all: one, there were
no surprises, not really. Anyone paying attention to
the primaries and caucuses leading up to the
conventions knew which candidates would run away
with their parties' laurels; two, the big two picked the
absolute worst candidates that they possibly could.
Yes, Sen. Bernie Sanders is plenty atrocious in his
own right, but he does not have Hillary Clinton's
baggage -- all those scandals, you see.

A bumper sticker that I saw here in Milwaukee recently
summed it all up: "WHERE ARE THE REAL
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES?" That's what I'd like
to know!

Republican nominee Donald Trump is a true newcomer
to the party, and to conservatism. Until recently, the New
York real estate investor had been heavily involved in
the Democrat Party, having given mountains of money
to the party and to their candidates in many elections,
including their presidential candidates. Trump even hosted
a fundraising party for Hillary Clinton herself (!) when she
ran for the United States Senate just a few years back.
There is a widely viewed photograph of Trump mugging
for the camera with Hillary and her ex-president husband
Bill, appearing to all as jolly ol' chums for life. Now,
Trump and Hillary are trading barbs about each others'
character (or lack thereof), their politics, and their plans
for the country if elected. It has only been very recently
that Trump has given any specifics as to his plans but
has yet to share how he would implement said plans.
Hillary, for her part, has been quite forthcoming on her
plans and their implementation; it's just that what she has
in mind is merely an extention of the present policies of
the soon to be leaving President Obama. She is, after all,
the Dems' Heir Apparent, their Phase II of their plan to
turn our country into a statist hell. What she would not
continue as is from Obama she would build upon to
further regulate, manipulate, and dominate us with the
help of all-too-happy-to-help allies in Congress and
in the federal bureaucracy.

Trump only became the GOP presidential nominee
because the party has, over the years since President
Ronald Reagan, ceased to stand for anything; it even
went on a spending spree during the second President
Bush years that rivaled anything that past Democrat
administrations had engaged in! Moreover, the 'Pubs
also racked up what was then a record amount of debt
along with what was then record budget deficits; they
were spending money faster than they could get it through
borrowing and taxing. The very things that they had long
accused the Democrats of doing! Add to that the growing
number of illegal immigrants coming into our country
and the Bush II administration doing little more than
beginning to build a fence on our southern border
(it is STILL not complete, although one must note that
Obama has no interest whatsoever in finishing its
construction, as he seems more interested in allowing
still more such immigration). Many people, fed up with
the Republicans turning their backs on their heretofore
core values along with their party platform, got behind
Donald Trump when he strode into the political vacuum
created by the GOP to declare himself a candidate for
their presidential nomination. Just as it is with nature,
politics will not tolerate a vacuum; something must fill
the space, even if it is an opportunistic candidate for the
highest elected office in the land who had never run for
any office and has no discernible ties to the party whose
nomination he is seeking. And the flip-flopping; oh, God,
the flip-flopping! If you don't like Trump's view on a par-
ticular issue, just wait a couple minutes. He's bound to have
one you might care for. And what a thin skin! Say anything
that casts even a speck of doubt on the man and his ideas
and he'll turn on you with a barrage of low-hitting insults
(remember his remarks about Fox TV's Megyn Kelly
after she had vigorously questioned him in one of the early
GOP candidate debates? I'm not going to repeat then here,
but you night be able to find them on YouTube if you want
to hear them badly enough).

As for Hillary, she's more crooked than a spine with scoliosis.
She and her hubby founded and run The Best Little Charitable
Trust Fund in Washington, the Clinton Foundation, which
receives money from some of the scummiest dictators and
potentates in the world as well as from various representatives
from other countries, all whose governments are willing to
"pay to play" with Washington should Hillary become president.
The Clintons, in the meantime, use some of that money for,
among other things, their considerable living expenses (hey,
they have a fancy mansion in Chappaqua, New York, as well
as homes elsewhere to keep up, give 'em a little sympathy,
these words oozing sarcasm). And let's not forget Benghazi,
much as the lamestream media would dearly love us to.
For there is where Hillary left four Americans to a deadly fate
after one of them, Ambassador Christopher Stevens,
repeatedly requested extra security for backup and was
ignored by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And what
did she do after the fact? She lied about what instigated the
attack on our compound, even repeating the lie to the family
members of the dead RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR FLAG-
DRAPED CASKETS! She claimed that a video which was
derogatory to the Moslem prophet Mohammad stirred up
the violence that took place, a video that does not and never
did exist.

It's clear that neither of these turds are worthy of being our
president, but they are the nominees of the two major political
parties, and one of them will sadly be elected to that office
in November. But while Donald Trump, with his sudden
glomming onto various stands on various issues and flip-
flopping when thinking it expedient, is a wild card, Hillary
Clinton is the Queen of Corruption with her lies, her greed,
her double-standards and double-talk. Trump may now and
then do the right thing, while Clinton can always be counted
on to do the wrong thing. We likely could get Trump to listen
to us, while Clinton would give us a deaf ear and the middle
finger.

I am not making any endorsement here. I am saying, though,
that our choice as conservatives is clear.


MEM








Wednesday, August 24, 2016

A Bitter Lesson Learned

Private health insurers jumped at the chance to
enter a dubious bargain with the Democrats
six years ago: support passage of the Affordable
Care Act in exchange for being able to grow
their businesses with federally subsidized customers
who were required, under the ACA's Individual
Mandate, to purchase insurance. What could
go wrong?

Plenty, as it turned out. These insurers are losing
money on what they thought was a can't-miss
deal. Aetna was the most recent insurer to admit
as much in its quarterly earning report. Although
Aetna managed to reduce its losses accrued from
being conned by the Obama regime, the firm
remained unprofitable in 2015. "We continue to
have serious concerns about the sustainability of
the public exchanges," CEO Mark Bertolini
confessed in a call with investment analysts.
Aetna is very worried about the stability of the
risk pool, including enforcement of standards.
To hike enrollment the Department of Health
and Human Services eased the way for customers
to wait until they were sick to purchase insurance,
offering coverage of "pre-existing conditions",
something akin to buying auto insurance after
wrecking one's car. This loads the risk pool with
sicker people and disrupts normal insurance
actuarial calculations.

Aetna is quite lucky, however, compared to some
of their competitors; UnitedHealth reported that
it may lose $1 billion (!) over 2015-2016 on its
involvement with ObamaCare. And Blue Cross and
Blue Shield of North Carolina says it expects to lose
$400 million on snapping up the bait. Many critics of
the ACA a/k/a ObamaCare claim that it is designed
to work precisely this way, to drive out private
health insurers and thus pave the way for government-
run health coverage, a' la Canadian "Single Payer"
insurance or Britain's monsterous, red tape-entangled
plan, and they may be proven right in due course.

Some health insurance CEOs flocked to sign
up people for the ACA plans not out of eagerness for
easy and plentiful profits, but because they would have
been dragooned into participation by Washington if
they didn't freely throw in. Now, they have to worry that
the government may simply throw them out, like
yesterday's garbage.

It's time to throw out the ACA, like the garbage that it is!

MEM



Monday, August 1, 2016

Making Time for Family (and Other Things)

My friends, your faithful Peasant is going to
take a break to get together with family and
friends out of town. And upon return, I shall
be busying myself with enjoying the Milwaukee
Irish Fest; it will, in fact, be two consecutive Irish
festivals which I shall be attending, as I shall be
going to the Minnesota Irish Fair in Saint Paul
the week before with my cousin and her husband,
along with a friend or two. So I shall not be posting
for the first two weeks in August (with the exception
of today), but shall return to you, my loyal and
wonderful readers, in the latter half of the month.

When I return, however, I shall share my thoughts
with you, my wonderful readers, regarding the recently
concluded Republican and Democrat national
conventions and what transpired at each.

Meanwhile, do enjoy this conservative online pub-
lication:

www.nationalreview.com National Review Online

Thank you for your ongoing support of this blog!
Your grateful Peasant treasures you, my grand readers,
more than I can say with words!

See you soon!


MEM