Image 01 Image 03

September 2017

I appeared on The Michael Koolidge Show on 1440 WROK Talk Radio on September 26, 2017. We discussed several of my posts about the NFL "take a knee" protests: Here are some excerpts from the interview:

UPDATE: Roy Moore has won comfortably. See bottom of post for Updates. Donald Trump (Luther Strange) versus Steve Bannon (Roy Moore) for the Republican nomination to fill the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions. It's turned into a battle between Trump and Bannon, both of whom made appearances for their respective candidates. What is wrong with this picture. How is it that Trump is the "establishment" now? Polls close at 8 p.m. Eastern. We'll have results as they come in.

Roger Stone, an ally of and unofficial campaign adviser of President Trump, testified Tuesday in a closed hearing of the House Intelligence Committee.  Though Stone requested an open hearing, it was at the Committee's insistence that the interview be closed. This is the latest in the efforts of Congress to root out alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign and/or Trump associates. Stone was called to testify because he had a private Twitter conversation with infamous hacker Guccifer 2.0.

Another earthquake has hit the sports world after reports emerged that the FBI has arrested 10 NCAA basketball officials, including four assistant coaches, along with executives at Adidas on charges of fraud and corruption. From ESPN:
"The picture painted by the charges brought today is not a pretty one,'' Joon H. Kim, the acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a Tuesday news conference. "Coaches at some of the nation's top programs soliciting and accepting cash bribes. Managers and financial advisers circling blue-chip prospects like coyotes. And employees of one of the world's largest sportswear companies secretly funneling cash to the families of high school recruits."

So it looks like the left has embraced the idea of using #TakeAKnee to show its opposition to President Donald Trump and his administration without taking into account the perception it gives. Georgetown Law School faculty and students decided to protest a free speech event by Attorney General Jeff Sessions by taking a knee. Yes, Sessions's speech was about how free speech has eroded on campuses and that the Department of Justice plans to provide protections for speakers.

We all know that besides healthcare, tax reform is one of the bigger ideas on President Donald Trump's agenda. His administration has been screaming tax cuts while the left cries over lost "revenue." But instead of cutting spending like any sane person would do when caught in a tight budget, the lawmakers have been looking for ways to make up the lost money. Targeting a person's 401(k) has been floated around. A possible change includes taxing the earnings before a person places the money into the retirement fund. This has some worried because it could change your tax bracket once you retire and encourage people not to save as much as they usually do.

At the White House press briefing yesterday, a German reporter wanted to know why President Trump hasn’t called Chancellor Merkel to congratulate her on election victory. “We’re just working on the logistics,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded. The White House may have been trying to gloss over the issue of frosty ties between the two world leaders, but as far as Chancellor Merkel is concerned: this isn’t much of a victory and there isn’t much to congratulate about. Merkel’s Pyrrhic victory comes at a great cost to her Christian conservative party (CDU), which registered its worst performance in nearly 70 years -- getting just above 33 percent of the vote. Merkel’s desire to extend her 12-year-old reign also pulverized her junior coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), in many of its traditional working-class bastions. At 20 percent, the SPD, Europe’s oldest socialist party, also clocked its worst performance since 1949.

Bernie Sanders has been pushing his "Medicare for all" plan lately and lots of Democrats are jumping on board. Bernie and his allies even claim it will save money. If you don't believe them, you're not alone. In fact, the cost would be enormous.

If you work in the government, DO NOT USE YOUR PRIVATE EMAIL ACCOUNT TO CONDUCT ANY BUSINESS. Why is this so hard to grasp?! After spending years of griping at failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for using a private email server and account for business as secretary of state, we have now learned that President Donald Trump's senior advisor (and son-in-law) Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have used a private email account to conduct official White House business.

The NFL players' sideline protests over the National Anthem and flag have angered a lot of people. On the surface, that anger is about patriotism versus a sense of entitlement, with the players having too little of the former and too much of the latter. But there's another feeling of disgust I'm hearing a lot, how the NFL was one of the few remaining places to which we could escape from politics and just be left alone and allowed to enjoy something. The NFL was an escape. That's a sentiment I expressed in my post, NFL picked sides in the culture war, now it has to live with the consequences:

Last week, we blogged about today's Kuridsh Independence referendum.  Yesterday's Kurdish independence rally attracted an enormous crowd, perhaps foreshadowing nearly 80% of the reported 3.9 million registered voters turning out at the polls today. Jubilant Kurds described today as "the best day of their life" and some even took to flying the Brazilian flag because there were no Kurdish ones left.

Welp, Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tried to change their Obamacare "repeal and replace" bill to appease those senators that opposed it...but it did not work. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has come out and officially declared she would vote no on both versions of the bill.