I opposed the war in Iraq at the time - Did Donald Trump?

Donald Trump is being attack by Republican politician’s for saying he opposed the war in Iraq and thinks it was a mistake.  I know this is probably shocking to many Republicans and some Democrats, but there were Republican voters back then who possessed the foresight to know that the Iraq War was going to be something we would regret for many years to come. We stood on street corners in front of Federal Buildings around the country carrying signs protesting our participation in the Iraq conflict. Those who opposed the war in Iraq from the very beginning took no end of abuse for taking that position.  We were booed, threatened and had cigarettes flicked at us by fine upstanding people passing by who believed the lies being told them by politicians. We were often resented by other protesters because we were older, conservative and Republican – we were not one of them.  

It was not difficult for us to figure out that Iraq was about to become our next Iran. We understood that it was a religious dispute among Muslims that had gone on for generations and no outsider was going to fix it or end it. We felt sorry for the weaker Muslims, but were thankful the conflict had not been brought to our shores and knew if we interfered it would cost American lives and accomplish nothing. Saddam Hussein, just as the Shaw of Iran, had not caused us problems the problems in Iraq were internal problems and between Muslims. 

Rightly or wrongly some of us believed the reason for America’s involvement was oil. If that was the reason then China should thank us for getting involved because they benefit from the oil not us. I always believed some politicians feared a return of oil shortages as experienced during the Carter years and the oil corporation’s feared lost profits and assets in Iraq. The oil industry's political donations may have influenced politicians to make bad decisions. 

I agree President Bush was close to gaining a better Iraq, but he or anyone else would have solved the problems within Iraq and outside of Iraq among Muslims. If we would not have gone in to Iraq then Obama would not have had any American troops to bring home. I also agree that Obama made a terrible mistake in withdrawing our troops after we were engaged in the internal conflicts of Iraq. It did not take a Middle East expert to know that Iran would attempt to fill the vacuum when we were gone.

John Kasich, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have all said at one time or another they would not have invaded Iraq in the first place, but that they would not have withdrawn our troops after we were there as Obama did. Rand Paul said the same thing, but that's no surprise. Jeb Bush has even made statements that the Iraq war was not a good idea. Do you remember the Kelly question to Jeb Bush “… if you knew then what you know now would you have invaded Iraq” – it took five days for Bush to come up with a final answer? Trumps mistake in stating he opposed the Iraq war was he made it a personal attack on President “W” Bush to upset Jeb Bush. That would have worked if Trump was running as a Democrat, but he claims to be running as a conservative (progressive) Republican.

 With everything that has happened over the last dozen years, including events of just the last year, it's very hard to say that the invasion was a good idea. Iraq has loomed large over every aspect of US politics and foreign policy for more than a decade.

Republican politicians had moved the debate to the 'surge', where they had a much better argument to make. The ‘surge’ created an opening for a political solution, which never ended up happening and I personally never believed would.

 In the 2008 presidential race, the Iraq 'debate' was largely fought over who was right about the surge. Donald Trump has in 2016 brought the debate back into a territory that the Republican establishment does not want to go – should we have invaded in the first place. 

Public opinion has turned decisively against the Iraq war. But political fights recently have largely been fought over ISIS, whether there should have been a full pull-out from Iraq, chaos in Syria, Libya and Yemen and more. Most American I think would agree we have to stop ISIS and other terrorist groups, but Republican politicians and Democrat politicians, including Hillary Clinton and John Kerry who supported the invasion of Iraq, would like to leave the question if we should have invaded in the first place in the closet never to be revisited again – Donald Trump has opened that closet door.

Would we have the ISIS problem we have today if we had not invaded Iraq – I guess we will never know? The invasion certainly destabilized the Middle East even further. Today we are in such a hellish situation in the Middle East that it is hard to defend the original invasion.  Did the invasion speed up the terror coming to our shores?

I am sorry it is not the ‘hawks’ in Washington that deserve any credit for Iraq it is those politicians who had the good sense to oppose the Iraq invasion from the outset. Iraq is a reality and we now must try to make the best of it and unfortunately that probably means leaving troops in the Middle East for many, many years to come – perhaps forever. It means increasing our military presences which means modernizing and increasing our military. It means it is going to be even more difficult to lower our National Debt. But, most of all we must consider Americans may have died and suffered for nothing.

Yes, some Republican voters were arguing at the time against invading Iraq, on the grounds that Iraq did not pose a threat to the U.S. imminent enough to justify an invasion. Some Republicans and I was one of them were publicly shouting themselves hoarse, pointing out at the time that, at the very least, there were serious questions about whether Iraq really posed the threat the Bush administration and other politicians claimed it did.

Jeb Bush said, "…the focus needs to be on the future." We should always focus on the future, but we should never forget the past. I do not think we should let the present moment pass without acknowledging that those who were most focused on the future during the run-up to the war in Iraq were the ones working to stop it from happening.  

In closing, I would like to give credit where credit is due Vice President Al Gore and Illinois State Senator Obama and twenty-one other Democrats like Teddy Kennedy opposed the Iraq war from the beginning and publicly stated they did at the time – all politicians that I would have never voted for.  Bernie Sanders an Independent who was in the House at the time was against the invasion. I only know of one Republican who spoke out loud and clear against the invasion and it was Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island who is now a Democrat. I have no recollection of Donald Trump saying anything whatsoever in public about invading Iraq before the war began, although I am not sure I even knew who Donald Trump was at that time.

It was not just those in the Bush White House who were responsible for the tragedy, but leading Democrat members of Congress as well, some of whom are now in senior positions in the Obama administration supported the invasion of Iraq. There is enough blame to go around in both parties.

Rubio is the real winner in Iowa.

I am not happy that Senator Cruz pulled ahead in the Iowa Caucus, but there is one bright side to it. A Trump win would have made it more difficult for a mainstream candidate, like Marco Rubio, to mount a comeback later in the season. I would not be surprised to see the Republican establishment get behind Cruz, even though they do not prefer him to be the next President. I think they would prefer Cruz over Trump. They may now take another look at Rubio.

 Momentum is generally overrated in primary politics, but a back-to-back win in Iowa and New Hampshire would have given Trump a chance to run the table through Super Tuesday, on March 1, especially with the establishment backed candidates so divided. It would have certainly told the establishment Trump is not just going to disappear. The party’s establishment is not well positioned to stop Trump if he fares well in the early states primaries.

If the Republican field doesn’t narrow quickly following New Hampshire there will be a real chance that Trump will build a wide delegate lead over a split field on Super Tuesday. I think the establishment is the winner coming out of Iowa because it has bought them more time. If the field of mainstream candidates narrows following New Hampshire someone acceptable to “extreme conservative” and moderate Republican voters, like a Rubio, might weaken Cruz and Trump.

Trump must begin to be cautious with his mouth and come up with sound policies because some of the extreme right wing conservatives that have been supporting Trump because they thought Cruz could not beat Trump could now go back to Cruz following Iowa. People like Trump’s slogan “Making America Great Again!” but, now that we are getting into the primaries we want to know HOW he is going to do that.

Believe it or not there are some of us Republicans that think the extreme right wing of the party is what has caused the Republican downfall. There are moderates in the Republican Party that want and will support a more moderate candidate. We blame the right wing conservatives for the racial divide within the party, for the perception that Republicans do not care for poor, orphans and widows, we blame them for not standing strong against Obama’s socialistic programs, for allowing the Democrats to make the 1 percenters look like demons and for being critical of Obamacare, but not producing a better model. Those are the reasons Trump is attractive to moderate Republicans. 

Just a note: The most segregated places in the United States is the church's. Right wing Republican Christians should pay particular attention to that fact because it does affect how people view the Republican Party and the evangelical vote.

Trump still has large vulnerabilities. I think the establishment would prefer a more moderate mainstream candidate, like Rubio. Rubio needs to show he can be a viable alternative in the primaries. A mainstream candidate would also be able to count on considerable support from many of the party’s better educated voters, especially in the West. Trump hasn’t yet faced a serious paid media campaign and it remains unclear whether he can maintain such a large share of the vote in the face of sustained attacks on his past statements. If Jeb Bush drops out and his supporters money starts to flow to Rubio it could be a game changer.

Things have been going well for Trump over the last few weeks. The mainstream candidates remain deadlocked in New Hampshire. The party hasn’t rallied against him, and there are even signs it might be more open to him than many have assumed. If he could only have come in first in Iowa it would have put him in a very strong position heading into a primary season against a divided Republican field.

On the other hand the lost in Iowa to Cruz and Rubio coming in a strong third may rattle Trump’s cage and make him realize he cannot win by slandering everyone that questions or opposes him.  Trump’s main problem is his ego and Iowa may be what he needed to knock some air out of his ego.

Trump needs to stop his tweet madness, stop his Ted Cruz birther crap and show us some substance. We may not like him personally, but some of us still believe he can get the United States back on track. Over the years some of my best employees were people I did not personally like, but they could do the job I needed done and I supported them. People should not vote for personalities they should vote for who they think will be best for the country as a whole. I do not plan on having Trump over for dinner or paling around with him. I am not looking for a friend I am looking for someone with strong executive abilities. I am also not looking for a personal counselor or pastor either. 

Jeb Bush do yourself, your family and us a favor - Quit!

 Jeb Bush has for all practical purposes been running for president for a year. He has traveled all across the country collecting checks, promises of checks, hiring staff, enlisting volunteers and making the usual political promises – a better tomorrow, a return to America’s glory days, more jobs, better economy, protection from our enemies and better education for our children.

I have thought for some time he has less than a ‘snow ball chance in hell’ of getting the Republican nomination.   We were told by the political ‘experts’ he would be the front-runner.  As usual they were wrong.

He entered the latest debate in fifth place. Only one month after Bush formally launched his candidacy he began his decline. Many within the Republican Party have spent millions of dollars trying to turn his campaign around and as we often see in government programs’ spending more money does not always produce good results. The Jeb Bush supporters have spent more money than any other candidate.

The real front runner, much to the dismay of Karl Rowe and the likes, has turned out to be Donald Trump. But, those within the leadership of the party are determined that Trump will not be the nominee and following the debate were making the following statements: Republicans don’t start making decisions until the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, which Bush’s camp has never expected to win. Voters in New Hampshire, who cast ballots on Feb. 9, tend to make up their minds at the last minute. Jeb Bush still has time to improve. Early polls aren’t predictive of anything because there is still a long campaign ahead. I think it is time for the Republican Party Bosses to cut their ties to Jeb Bush and get behind a possible winner. In my opinion no one looks more tired than Hillary Clinton than Jeb Bush.

On December 15 Jeb Bush was still saying Trump’s support would end.  The latest national Monmouth University poll released Monday shows Bush to be wrong. According to that poll Trump has the highest support yet, 27 percentage points ahead of his nearest competitor, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Trump led Cruz 41-14 percent. I admit I am surprised at Trumps continued lead in the polls. I still am not willing to commit to him, but it is time for Jeb Bush to pick up his marbles and go home? Jeb Bush only got 3% support in the last poll.

His campaign staff places some blame on Trump. They claim Trump’s strong numbers in the poll are the results of theatrical performances and not serious politics. They have said Donald Trump is the Kim Kardashian of politics and at some point, people will get over that. I guess it is only fair they try to place blame on someone else – Obama blamed Jeb’s brother, George Bush, for his failures. After all they say turnabout is fair play.

They even say in seven or eight weeks, when voters start picking a commander in chief to lead the country through perilous times, Jeb’s proven track record and his plan to take on ISIS will position him well in the primaries. Like me they still believe in miracles. But, I do not think it is in the cards for Jeb Bush to be granted a miracle in 2016.

Trump labeled Bush “low energy”. Bush had ample opportunities to respond and turn the table on Trump, but he didn’t. Trump suggested Bush’s immigration views were tied to his wife being of Mexican heritage. Bush demanded an apology, but Trump did not apologize. Voter do not like candidates attacking the family members of other candidates, but Bush fail to take advantage of that opportunity. Bush instead set his sights on Rubio; I guess he believed Rubio weaker than Trump. He attacked Rubio, his one-time protégé in Florida, for missing work in the Senate. But Bush’s attack appeared half-hearted, and Rubio got the better of him. The young dog took the bone out of the jaws of the old dog.

The only thing Jeb Bush has accomplished after spending millions of other people’s money is he kept Mitt Romney out of the race. He also has managed to raise 114 million dollars in campaign funds, more than anyone else.

I once had a friend who told me the secret to his success was he kept his church in debt. They gave and worked hard because they had a debt to pay or lose it all. That must be the same philosophy Jeb Bush is using. His well-heeled backers have spent so much money on Jeb’s campaign they cannot afford to walk away and lose the possibility of future political favors.  But, sooner or later they will have to face reality and admit the hole they are throwing their money in is only getting deeper and regardless of how much money they throw in the hole will never be filled.

Former failed Presidential candidate Bob Dole endorsed Bush after the debate in Wisconsin, describing him as the most qualified candidate to run against the Democrats. The endorsement came from the same Bob Dole that ran unsuccessfully against President Bill Clinton in 1996, which resulted in a dramatic loss for the Republican Party. Bush also earned the endorsement following that debate from another failed Republican candidate, former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Perhaps some other Republican failed candidates will come out after last night’s debate and endorse Jeb Bush.  They say if you want to be a winner surround yourself with a winner, maybe that is why Jeb’s not doing too well he is surrounding himself with too many losers. Maybe winners are afraid to back him!

There is a new generation of Republican politicians Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and others who have been shaped and trained in a new political style. They are men who are not afraid to break with the Republican Party when they do not agree with the Party hardliners or party bosses. Jeb Bush is a member of the old Republican guard and I do not think he understands or is prepared for politics in 2016.

Jeb Bush is one of the nation’s leading champions of Common Core standards. A program that is unpopular with the Republican base. Jeb Bush is committed to centrist causes such as federalized education and legal status for undocumented immigrants all causes that alienate the Republican base. Jeb Bush was on the Lehman Brothers advisory board before that bank collapsed, and he now sits on the Barclay’s board. The Republican Bosses may be for Wall Street, but the Republican base is not fond of banks and bank bailouts. Jeb Bush is friends with Bloomberg, an ex-Republican, and often meets with the Bloomberg Foundation.  Bloomberg and his foundation aggressively campaigns for gun control, shutting down coal-fired power plants and new taxes on junk food all causes the Republican base do not support. If he remains in the competition his competitors are going to hit hard on his association with groups and people who do not support the causes of the Republican base, in fact support the opposite causes of the Republican base.

Jeb Bush keeps saying Donald Trump was a Democrat before he became a Republican (like Reagan)? I would like to ask Jeb Bush why he can be best buds with Bloomberg and not fault him for being a Republican turn Democrat and yet at the same time condemn Trump for seeing the light and changing from Democrat to Republican.

 

Does Bush honestly think he will escape his 2013 remarks,” Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans,” Jeb Bush made the statement at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference. He went on to say “Immigrants are more fertile, and they love their families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity,” many took these remark as meaning immigrant families were better than native born American’s families and they create a more robust economic atmosphere than native born Americans. Jeb Bush sounded a little like Obama when he made those statements.

Bush is a moderate and Republicans tend to be swayed by moderates, I suppose Bush was good for Florida, but Bush has a lot of baggage to carry and I just do not think he is strong enough to carry that baggage.

I did not think last night’s debate advanced Jeb Bush. While the rest were interrupting each other to get their points across Jeb Bush for the most part waited patiently until he was called, answered politely and shut up again. He just did not seem to be part of the pack. I like people being polite to each other, but it does not work in election campaigns Mitt Romney taught us that. 

I think Jeb Bush lost his last chance to turn things around at last night’s debate. I admit he was better at attacking Trump and a few others than in previous debates, but it was still too little, too late. His opening and closing statements were not strong enough to say the lease. 

Bush should step aside now!

The post-debate coverage will likely focus on Trump, Rubio and Cruz and any coverage Jeb Bush gets will probably emphasize his debate flaws.

Bush should have stepped aside before he disgraced himself and his family to bad he did not listen to many of us Republicans.  At least the Bush dynasty may finally be over thank you Jeb Bush.

The new education bill ESSA may prove to be another disaster!

 I have written blogs before and made the statement I no longer know what the Republican Party stand for. It seems to me we now have a one party system in the United States – The D and R Party. I put the “D” first because when the Democrats stand up the Republicans bow.

We just saw another example of the one party system last Wednesday; the Senate followed the House in passing the conference report reauthorizing No Child Left Behind. The new bill, called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), claims it will return education control to the states. It is supposed to allow the states to do away with the Common Core national standards, and prohibit the Secretary of Education from dictating standards and assessments.

Don’t be fooled the legislation passed by Washington lawmakers does not give states more control over their schools because the bill does not give states adequate authority and there are no enforcement provisions protecting states against overreach by the federal authorities. We must also remember that it is Washington politicians that control the purse strings.

The president of the 3 million National Education Association members (teachers union) praised what lawmakers have done on Capitol Hill regarding ESSA. Have we not been told repeatedly by Republican politician’s that the teachers union is the cause of school failures. The Public School Teachers Unions like ESSA because it was designed to hurt charter, online and private schools. The only good part of ESSA, if there is a good part is that it continues to exempt homeschool families from any kind of federal mandates.

The Republican politicians could have taken the lead and written an education bill that would accomplish what the Republican Party leaders claim they stand for and conservative voter want. But, instead they fell in line with Obama and the Democrats on a bill that will seriously affect adversely millions of conservative Americans until the year 2020. It was a repeat performance of the passing of Obamacare.

The ESSA text is 1061-pages long and was only released on Monday. We now have a piece of legislation like Obamacare that was passed without many reading it.  Republicans and some Democrats when all the flaws in the bill start to appear will claim they were not given adequate time to study the bill before they had to vote on it just as they did with Obamacare. The new Republican House Speaker, promised transparency, an open process and a more responsive House, so much for that promise.

Opposition was growing among Republican member to ESSA so Ryan jammed the vote through faster than anticipated. Then they pretend they do not know why the Republican base is so frustrated with them that they would support outsiders like Donald Trump.

Speaker Ryan and his fellow Republican Representatives and Republican Senators once again raised the white flag of surrender to Obama and the Democrats. They gave liberal groups and teachers unions a huge victory. Republican leadership surrendered control of our children’s education for years to come to liberals without any kind of repercussions.

Were we not told by Republican politicians the Department of Education should be abolished because it is inefficient and we should return control of our schools to local districts and parents? Did they once again lie to us or did they just not have the guts to fight Obama, Democrats and liberals or are they really Democrats in disguise.

It appears that our elected officials in Washington both Democrat and Republican still do not understand that when they pass a bill, it gets implemented, and when it gets implemented, people feel it. There will be consequences to this bill that will affect millions of Americans for years to come. Our elected politicians have an obligation/responsibility to study every line of any new legislation before voting for it. They passed No Child Left Behind over a decade ago and today few want their name associated with the bill. Every Republican who supported this bill should be looked at closely in upcoming elections.

ESSA according to Jane Robbins, a senior fellow at the American Principles Project, allows the Federal government to continue to lay out particular requirements for state standards and uses code language throughout that gives the federal government the tools to pressure the states to stick with Common Core rather than risking their federal money by adopting something better. It maintains the federally dictated testing regimen and requires states to implement assessments that are expensive, that have been proven in the past to be ineffective and unworkable, and that operate not by assessing students' academic knowledge, but rather by measuring their attitudes and dispositions.

ESSA's new preschool program and President Obama's pet project, "21st-century
community learning centers" are all bad ideas. Obama has pushed the “21^st-century community learning center” idea for some time. It basically allows public schools to be expanded to replace family and church as the center of every child's life, "services" including mental-health programs. Parents should be alarmed that the government will assess the mental health of their children and worse the government will have the right to fix any problem the government claims to have found. I ask all fellow conservative Republicans if this is this is what you send Republican politicians to Washington to do?

ESSA is so progressive it was supported by every single Democrat in Congress. It was supported by Barack Obama. It was supported by the owners of the Common Core national standards testing group. Of course it was they make a fortune off their testing. It was supported by every pro-Common Core and pro-progressive education interest group in the country. It was strongly opposed by over 200 conservative anti-Common Core grassroots organizations.

Rand Paul voted against ESSA. Ted Cruz voted against cloture, but missed the final vote where it counts. He claims he opposed ESSA, but if he truly opposed the bill he should have been present for the vote and cast a vote against it. He certainly has attack Jeb Bush for supporting Common Core and ESSA is Common Core with a face lift. Marco Rubio claims he opposes ESSA, but he not only missed the cloture vote he missed the final vote. Lindsey Graham again demonstrated his love for the establishment and voted in favor of passage. I guess in some weird way I admire Lindsay Graham for having the guts not to dodge the vote. Jeb Bush, ‘Mr. Common Core’, in an interview on Fox News could not praise ESSA and Common Core enough. I never supported Jeb Bush, but after watching his spill on Fox I would not trust him with my dog, much less my child.

I guess Donald Trump will have to speak out and educate the voters and the Republican Party on ESSA as he has on immigration, terrorist and refugees.

ESSA is nothing more than a new name for a previously failed program known as Common Core.

All elections are important - the 2016 election is critical if you are concerned about radical Islamic terrorism.

Well the liberal Democrats are at it again according to them Republicans are responsible for the Plan Parenthood killings. They say Republican candidates are repeating lies over and over again that inflame people. I do not think the Plan Parenthood video’s I saw are lies. If they are edited, so what, I still heard people laughing over selling body parts to buy a luxury car. I think anyone that remains silent about those videos regardless of their party affiliation is a co-conspirator to murder. If I were crazy I might have done the same thing as the man in Colorado Springs and it has nothing to do with the Republican Party that I support. It has everything to do with my belief that abortion is murder and God instructed us not to commit murder.

This is so typical of the Democrats/liberal - kill the messenger if they do not agree with the message. They want to stop the truth from getting out and will use abortion to further their political agenda even if abortion is murder and immoral.

President Barack Obama told world leaders that the climate talks in Paris stand as a rejection of the terrorists. Quite frankly I think ground troops, bombs and declaring war would be much better. It would also help the economy at the expense of the terrorist. I will have a hard time voting for Donald Trump because of his lose tongue, but Donald Trump is the only one saying what I want to hear when it comes to the terrorist, trade agreements, illegal aliens and the economy. War (force) sometimes is the only thing that can bring about peace – World War I, World War II.

 Obama said World Leaders are showing the terrorist what is possible when they all come together, united by a common effort and a common purpose (climate change) – why can’t they do the same against terrorism? Why can’t our weak American President Obama get the wealthy nations to come to gather to spend the money necessary to fight the terrorist and take care of the refugees in their own land?

The IMF –World Bank - officially agreed to accept China’s currency – the Yuan – into the IMF’s foreign exchange basket. It is well known that China manipulates their currency. This only fuels the fire to remove the American dollar from being the world reserve currency. A weak U.S. dollar is one more thing Obama should take credit for, but of courses he will blame someone else. 

The people of the Philippines do not know anything but a corrupt government, therefore they accept it. They will tell you, “It is just the way it is”. Young Americans are being born into a government that is corrupt and eventually – sooner than most think – will just accept it and change will not come until a radical group take to the street to overthrow the system and once the system is overthrown corruption will likely return. We can learn that lesson from the Philippine People Power. The martial law government was overthrown, but corruption, police and military abuses continued, the rich became richer and the poor became poorer, etc.

What have Obama’s promises of change brought about; remember “Yes we can!” Unless you are for selling aborted baby parts, same sex marriages, doing away with gender designated public restrooms, forced government hospitalization, ignoring the constitution when it pleases Obama, ignoring immigration laws, more welfare, weaker military and lower standard of living what change have we gotten from Obama.

The vacuum that follows any radical change in government usually brings about a government that is not well thought out and key players in the old government can become key players in the new government thus the problems continue. That is what happen in the Philippines and could happen in the United States.

Obama was elected at a time when the people were desperate for change and they were influenced by a charismatic black politician that did not have a plan or experience. He was and is a social engineer and has no idea how to govern a people looking to return to a Federalist or Democratic Government.   

As much as I love Cory Aquino what was her plan and what experience did she have? She did make a great sacrifice for her country because she ran for an office she did not want and in doing so she most likely prevented one of the key players from the old martial law regime from becoming president. She may have prevented a second dictator from declaring martial law. But, she was constantly plagued by threats of being overthrown by key players in the old regime and her life was in constant danger. To this day the people of the Philippines continue to elect key players in the old martial law era. The people of the United States reelected Obama after a failed first term.  Why?  

We are beginning to see more radical street demonstrations in the United States such as Black Life’s Matter, Sit in’s on Wall Street, college campus protest, protester in the streets calling for people to kill policeman, etc. The American protesters are not civil and non-violent as the Philippine People Power protesters were or the American protesters days in the days of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement.  Does anyone think that the leaders of these radical American street protesters could really lead our country? The Democratic politicians must because they support the groups and there leaders. Liberals like their ideas and Democrats (Hillary Clinton) are afraid to speak out against them for fear of losing votes in the 2016 election.    

Democrats/liberals do not want to admit it, but when prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance were removed from ours schools and public lives the decline in America only grew worse. They do not want to admit it because they are the ones that brought it about.  Removing them from public life contributed to the end of a government that people could trust and believe in. The prayer and pledge contributed to instilling pride (especially among young students) in our country.  

When I first came to the Philippines the first time I went to a movie at SM Mall the National Anthem came on.  I was so impressed it brought tears to my eyes. The Philippine National Anthem was played before every movie. Later they began to play it at the beginning of the first movie of the day. Now it is often not played at all. When the anthem was played everyone stood and sang the song. Sunday at SM Mall Davao the National Anthem was played and the only person standing was an AMERICAN – FOREIGNER – ME! 

The National Anthem in the United States is not like the Philippine anthem. The Philippine Anthem is beautiful and easy to sing. The American anthem is not beautiful and is difficult to sing. The one thing Filipino’s and American’s now have in common when it comes to their National Anthems is a lot of people  in both countries no longer show honor, pride and respect for their country when their anthems are played. That is sad! The lack of pride in one’s country leads to a downward spiral of the country. 

Today, our government wants to suppress individual thinking so our politicians like Obama can tell us what we need and what we want. The politicians (Obama) think they know best.  The people are so confused by politician’s double talk that they have stopped trying to understand it or corrected it and accept it as the way it is.  We are following in the footsteps of the Philippines and we are not intelligent enough voters to learn from there mistakes.  

Evil is no longer on the way - it is among us. Sen. Jeff Sessions has been in the news lately trying to draw attention to a list of “vetted refugees” who have joined terror cells after being permitted entry into the United States. President Obama continues to move forward with a plan to bring thousands of refugees from terrorist filled nations in the Middle East to the United States despite top security officials’ warnings that the government can’t possibly vet all of them. Last month, FBI director James Comey said, “The U.S. government simply doesn’t have enough intelligence information about individual refugees to satisfactorily complete the vetting process” – this is a man appointed by OBAMA.

Will we also follow in the footsteps of the Philippines and designate a certain area in the United States to be ruled by Muslims? Will we engage in a thirty plus year war within our own borders trying to have one country, but two sets of rules? I do not think two governments, but one nation will work.  Three but one (Trinity) which came about in 325 continues to cause confusion among Christians.  What happen to ONE Nation under God?

I am old enough to remember the days when countries around the world wanted to model themselves after the United States, but those days are long gone. Most Third World Countries today try to straddle the fence between the United States, China and Russia. They do not want to be on the wrong side if things grow worse. As long as the United States has a weak President I do not blame them.

I read that over 3000 expats have given up their United States citizen in the last few years. I realize most of them did so because of tax reasons. Regardless of the reasons that is something that no American would have considered a decade ago. Honestly, if citizenship was easier to obtain in the Philippines than it is I might consider Philippine citizenship myself. I have no intention of returning to the United States. I have hope for the Philippines there have been advancements in the last few years (it has taken nearly 30 years), whereas over the past eight years the United States has regressed (will it take 30 years for us to recover from Obama). 

The 2016 elections are more than important they are critical! Voter had better vote wisely and not vote name recognition, political party affiliation, family name (Jeb Bush) or buy into political campaign promises. They had best not vote the favored party bosses candidates. There is a reason these party bosses select a favorite candidate and it is not always for the good of the people. We all had better strive to know what the candidate we vote for really stands for.  The candidates past history is the best gauge of that and with a little work, thanks to modern day video and Internet, we can discover what they have said and done in the past.