“Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree. Counting all the monkeys he can see. Stop. Kookaburra. Stop. Kookaburra. That’s no monkey, that’s me.

Last week’s Republican debate, along with the constant chirping of the anointed Proglibocrat nominee and her pretenders, reminds me of the third verse of this old Australian nursery rhyme.  Are we surprised that kookaburras like Donald Trump on the right and Bernie Sanders on the left are drawing big crowds and decent polling data, a full 15 months ahead of an election ?   For so long, we monkeys have allowed all sorts of nonsense (political correctness, greed, bashful foreign policy, freeway from Mexico, gay marriage, Christian bashing) to threaten our republic from the inside.  And now, folks of all stripes and flavors are crying out for leaders who actually mean what they say, and aren’t afraid to say what they mean.  Even if those budding leaders, like Trump the insulter and Bernie the Lenin wannabee squawk the craziest venom at the monkeys.  It certainly will be a wild 15 months.   WHAT THE HECK ! 

In watching the news yesterday, and scanning the newspaper and on-line news sources this morning, I’m struck how the press seems to be the point man in keeping our attention focused on the relatively unimportant stuff, and off the real serious issues of the day.   No wonder we and our leaders wander around aimlessly, without urgency to solve serious problems.  Let me be specific.  The issues that seem to occupy our interest today involve whether we should refurbish our old embassy in Havana or build a new one,  glee surrounding the removal of the Confederate flag from state houses and NASCAR races, the hindsight of the wisdom of sanctuary cities, whether Serena Williams is the best female athlete in history, Jared Fogel’s suspension as Subway Sandwich spokesman, how soon we should dig up Bill Cosby’s cement sidewalk star in Hollywood, computers running amok at United Airlines, whether 61 year old retired Greeks get their full pension checks, and how to protect Hillary from inquisitive people of all sorts.

Yes, these are interesting topics, but we all seem to push the important stuff down the road to the next President or to  the next generation.   Shouldn’t we focus more on the arms race about to unfold in the Middle East as the Emperor and his sidekick establish a legacy with the Iranian deal ?  Why are we willing to let ISIS spread like a cancer geographically and among the world’s youth ?  And for goodness sake, is Donald Trump’s poor public wording really more crucial than the fact that we truly have no Southern border ?  As Russia encroaches further into Eastern Europe in order to bolster Putin’s status at home, is anyone interested in forcefully standing up for the Baltic states that are desperately trying to emerge from decades of Communist influence ?   And why don’t we read daily, or hear from our elected officials daily, about the absurdity of running up a $20 trillion national debt by year-end ?

Let’s just all keep our heads in the sand.   Surely debating  the identity of the lucky suffragette who replaces Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill is a better use of our energies.        WHAT THE HECK !

Seldom do I encounter a proposal that is both common sensical, easy to execute, and solves a major societal problem.  But today is that day.   A long-time friend of mine, let’s call him JR, has proposed that gun ownership in America be limited to anything that shoots, as long as it is kept and discharged on your own property.   Discharge the weapon away from your property, and JR has suggested a 20 year federal prison vacation.  Fire it at home, for fun, for food, for protection, and everyone is happy, even possibly the NRA !                                                                   WHAT THE HECK !

America is never mentioned in the Bible, not once.  But it would be hard to dispute that our nation has enjoyed God’s favor in our 239 years of existence.   Whether measured by material wealth,  faith, technological and medical advances, unselfish aid to the hurting nations of the world, or in many cases standing up for the good guys militarily against the bad guys,  someone high up has been clearly watching out for us.

But in my generation, we seem to be ushering God to the curb, and out of our culture and our national conscience.  He is no longer welcome in our courthouses, in our schools, by our press, and by our elected officials.  And two days ago, our Supreme Court affirmed our culture’s re-drawing of God’s design for our families.  The photo below just makes me want to lose dinner, not because  practicing homosexuals exist (love one another), not because of the behavior, but because the representation by our Emperor spits in the face of God’s grand plan.   He designed the family, who are we to change it ?   How dare we !

Readers might want to examine God’s response to the nation of Israel several times in the Old Testament when the Jews pushed God out of their lives, worshipped other gods (in today’s world, money, jobs, popular culture), and succumbed to physical temptations proscribed and condemned by Scripture.   Would it surprise anyone that God may not be smiling on America as He once did ?                                               WHAT THE HECK !

Should anyone in America be surprised at the events unfolding in Greece ?   This is a serial defaulting nation and culture, with sovereign debt defaults occurring five times in the modern era (1826,1843,1860,1894,1932).   History certainly repeats itself in this historically rich small nation, with an economy the size of the state of Alabama.  Strong-armed or charismatic leaders buy power in the voting booth with promises of ever-expanding entitlement goodies.  It always ends the same, with people rioting in the streets against some perceived external enemy (today that would be Germany and the EU) that wants them to relinquish their goodies. Expanding entitlements from cradle to grave, bloated federal payrolls, crippling government worker (oxymoron) pensions, crushing regulatory impediments to starting businesses, and an expansive and uncollectible tax system, all funded with other people’s money, results in an unsustainable sovereign debt load.

Tomorrow, the piper gets paid.  Welcome to the first 21st century Depression, Greeks.    Dig up your old drachmas buried in the backyard.  Margaret Thatcher once said that, “the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples’ money “.

Do any of those ill-conceived government behaviors noted in the last paragraph ring a bell ?                               WHAT THE HECK !

With eerily coincidental timing yesterday,  I received the inevitable medical plan discontinuance letter from my health insurance carrier on the same day the Supreme Court upheld subsidies for those individuals/families that have chosen to enroll in an Obamacare plan.   I now have a few months to scramble to find an alternative free market plan, or venture into the world of healthcare.gov.  Just for kicks, I checked the government-blessed plans offered in Florida, and none of them cover any of the four key doctors my family and I rely on ( “you can keep your own doctor……….”)                Whoopee !

Fully 87% of the current Obamacare  enrollees are receiving subsidies that reduce their out-of-pocket premiums to almost nil.  In other words, the new entitlement program is indeed “working”, as the Emperor likes to point out.  Would it not have been simpler to offer the 10% or so of our population with limited or no health insurance options a straight entitlement into a modest HMO plan ? No, Nancy and Harry and the Emperor had to disrupt the lives of the remaining 90% of us who were at least moderately happy with the coverage options in place.  Certainly the employer-based system our nation has utilized for several decades needs tweaking.   And I have no problem, in our wealthy nation, providing a base level of care to those in need, but why create strife and anxiety in everyone ?  Why in the world must I be anxious about buying health insurance ?   Thanks so much Proglibocrats.          WHAT THE HECK !

If ever there was a perfect candidate for POTUS, it would be Donald Trump.  Fortunately for us, the Don today declared his intention to be the 79th person to pursue the Republican nomination.   Who better to use other peoples’ money to finance fiscal excesses.  The Don has managed through countless negotiations with lenders surrounding the bankruptcy of six hotel/casino projects over the past decade.  We may need that negotiating prowess with the Chinese and the Japanese once we clear $20 trillion in national debt !    And who better to feel the pain of poverty-stricken people in our country than someone who has known the sting of four personal bankruptcies (Trump Enterprises).  These are crucial talents honed by decades of personal financial excess and ruin.   But back to the original premise, he accomplished all of this with other peoples’ borrowed money.    We will most probably need those keen negotiating skills as we seek to fund our mushrooming national debt.

I’m confused about one thing though.  The Don today said that “I will be the greatest jobs President that God ever created”.  Bully !    Unfortunately, he is more well known for the thousands of layoffs associated with each of his overly-leveraged, bankrupt, shuttered properties.  And was it not the Don who coined the phrase “you’re fired” on his reality television show ?    Anyway, his presence will be entertaining, and he will get a few votes for opening up the possibility of a great looking first lady (for those of you in Birdsboro, that can happen when you marry someone 20-30 years younger than yourself).                     WHAT THE HECK

Emperor Obama, regarding plans to defeat the ISIS threat  (8/28/14)  —  “We don’t have a strategy yet”.

Emperor Obama, re: plans to train Iraqi army to defeat ISIS threat (6/8/15)  —  “We don’t yet have a complete strategy”.

WHAT THE HECK !     

At the G7 summit/conference in Germany, our Emperor today boldly jumped into the fray surrounding the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision regarding the validity of Obamacare subsidies, a ruling which will have a dramatic impact on whether the hotly contested law remains the law of the land.   Not only did our Emperor express that the case should never have been heard, but went further to suggest that a ruling against his wishes would represent “a contorted reading of the statute” and “a twisted interpretation”.  Finally, he added that all justices lined up against him would be drawn and quartered on the Capitol steps and     broadcast on MSNBC (no, he didn’t really say that last one).

In just six years, the Emperor has rendered the legislative branch of our government impotent, with law-making now resting in the various federal agencies guided by executive orders, but now he is trying to bully the Supreme Court.        WHAT THE HECK !

Irish statesman, Edmund Burke, said wisely, ” all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing.”     Keep sitting back you lazy lemmings !

Prior to last week, there were two  unbridled  international crime organizations functioning in our world.  And with the beginnings of the demise of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), there remains thankfully only one.   FIFA’s history of global bribery on a massive scale will painfully be revealed in coming months as the lower layer of canaries sing the ugly truths of their superiors, all the way up hopefully to the unrepentant head bird, Sepp Blatter.   So many young lives worldwide have been altered by this 25 year display of sheer greed.

Now, what are we to do about the remaining large-scale global criminal organization – the Clinton Foundation ?   Stunning revelations are uncovered weekly, revealing the most massive game of political tit-for-tat ever seen.   Every time I see Mrs. Clinton’s face, I wonder why she and the clan are not behind bars.  Shady relationships and opaque finances with the Clinton minions in Algeria, Ukraine, Sweden, Colombia, Morocco, UES, Saudi Arabia, Oman………..either point to a massive assemblage of criminal activity during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, or a remarkable group of coincidental events.  It has been documented that at least 60 companies that actively lobbied the State Department under Mrs. Clinton’s leadership donated over $26 million to the Clinton Foundation.    Hmmmm, what a coincidence.    And it has been grand fun watching the mainstream press gloss over the fact, revealed by several charity watchdog groups,  that only 12% of Foundation spending has gone toward charity work in recent years.   The perks of charity work seem to be quite rewarding for the Clintons.

If you believe that the current pinhead in the White House acts increasingly in an imperial fashion, just wait until Act #2 in 2016. “Don’t you think its time for a woman to be the President of the United States of America”.                        WHAT THE HECK !