Otis McDonald, 80, of Chicago - Rest in Peace, Buddy

Why would a cowboy from Tucson Az praise a city dwellin ' black man from inner Chicago you ask?   Because the passing of Otis McDonald heralds the death of a man who stood up for principal of self defense, safety, and the rights of city dwellers EVERYWHERE to be able to defend themselves if attacked, and that in a city proclaimed the "Murder Capital of America by millions everywhere else in our Country. He stood up and defended the right of Chicago folks to arm themselves in the face of murders on the streets, to defeat the stupid law of anti-gun legislation that forbade ordinary folks from protecting themselves against street punks.

Otis McDonald - say it. He's a hero for all Chicago. Grab yourself a pistol, stick it in your pocket, purse, wherever and when attacked, threatened, God forbid, I hope you DON'T have to use it, but as Col Samuel Colt once said - " better to have it and not need it, than need it and NOT have it."

    Otis, dead at 80. Cancer.

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Bill and Hillary Clinton, "back to the future"

" In the 1994 State of the Union Speech, he happily appropriated what had long been Republican issues: speaking with feeling on crime and VALUES. People said, he looked Good
     And I agreed. In fact...in struck me he that he was a better actor than my old boss, Ronald Reagan. - thoroughly engaged by the text, emoting with ease, showing that jaw, glistening eyes. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed, in those days after the speech, telling Democrats, "Your guy - He's just...an actor!!." It was fun - made 'em crazy. He was radiating a greater sense of competence......Peggy Noonan, speech Writer from her book  " Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
     All this from Mr. Clinton just 20 years ago. And now, just two years short of the crowning of Mrs Clinton, we get the same show, all over again. Act 3.
###

Re-Fi mortgages

No matter what mortgage brokers, or more properly, sales people tell you, whatever they say, it will usually be

• an overstatement if they are trying to entice you about something good
• or an understatement if there is a hitch
• it will take at least twice to three times AS LONG to finish up - ask the question, neighbor and then, whatever they say, add two months to it.
• ask for references from them, and watch their eyes. If they dart down and away, " DANGER, WILL ROBINSON - DANGER." (...they lie)
• whatever fees are mentioned, write them down on your own note pad. 
• Get it in writing - DOESN'T MEAN A THING. Getting it in writing guarantees nothing. Every aspect of your contractual agreement can be broken at their will. Your hirng an attorney will cost you your own funds to bring them to heel. 
• You ultimately will get what you want after frustration city. Look forward to delay after delay after delay.
• Financial institutions operate in what is known as "smokestack" environments. One department does not know what the other is doing and rarely talk to each other
• Good Luck

Things People Tell Me: Banking, Courteous to Customers - ARGH!! It "Ain...

Things People Tell Me: Banking, Courteous to Customers - ARGH!! It "Ain...: What seems now to be a hundred years ago, my ancient grandfather said he didn't trust banks. He lived through the great Depression of 19...

Banking, Courteous to Customers - ARGH!! It "Aint' so good anymore

What seems now to be a hundred years ago, my ancient grandfather said he didn't trust banks. He lived through the great Depression of 1929, lost everything as he watched the big wigs of industry finger ticker tape losses then bail out multi-story windows and splash their bodies and blood on sidewalks below. 
     He survived. Losing everything, oil baron that he was, he survived, hung in there and provided for his family by selling cleaning supplies to banks and washing floors til his death at 93. He worked until 5 days before he died. He set the standard for us.
     I wish he was still around for the punks that litter American corporations today, at least the people that are in American Corporations.. 
     Take large banks. Oh, try grabbing up those " easy " commercials you see on TV where you can re-fi your homes by just picking up the phone, sign a few papers and enjoy the cash that floats back to you like a magic carpet.
     The reality: by my lights, you are in for the hassle of your life. I thought used car salespeople were awful. Say no to them and one could endure as many as 13 phone calls from bank sales people up to vice presidents - all one day. 
     The last straw was one where I threatened to call the police and file a threatening complaint. That seemed to stop it. One "Mortgage " company headquartered in the mid west was initially cooperative, when I bowed out, they turned hostile. Angered and resentful, the phone calls streamed in. Their TV ads feature their smiling president. Him, I didn't hear from The second mortgage company holds my mortgage, their rates were out of site. The smiley rep, threw rates off the wall, and assumed because we were in our 70's, we somehow had entered senility. 
     I hate that. Deluged by barrels of complicated paperwork, I tossed him aside and went for #3. That was 3 months ago. Largest of the 6 banks mentioned in the movie "Too Big to Fail," it is any wonder they didn't. Famous on Wall Street for "smoke Stacking" no one seems to know on the inside what anyone else on their own inside is doing. After threatening them with competitor #4, they gave me what I wanted, then didn't return my phone calls. 
    No one at any of the 3 large financial institutions showed the least interest in courtesy, respect for our intelligence. They all talked down to us, like we were ignorant farmers. No one apologized for delays, missed appointments, lack of follow-up, breach of etiquette. Some were outright rude.
    I'm going to a credit Union on Monday.

Adam Walsh (America's Most Wanted) on Gun Control

 

ok, so I've overdone it a bit, But, you get idea. the idea, right? On Gun Control, certain people make a whole lot of sense, others don't. Ford was right. Back then, the Indians eventually took it on the chin. Confined to "reservations" denuded of some weapons, and allowed to hunt on ancestral lands, they did so, feeling confined as such. 

Never mind, Ford went on with Lindbergh to try and make a "deal" with Hitler, but.....never mind, that's besides the point. I digress.

Adam Walsh, famed grieving father of America's Most Wanted, and frankly most loved for getting one helluva lot of outlaws off our streets, has begun to venture off the beaten path and into the political realm of commentary. In my opinion, he does this, as many of the Hollywood Illuminati do, mistaking their fame for innate intellligence, expounding their "God-given Intelligence" on public issues for which they are not equipped to handle. Forth with - Walsh on Gun Control.

His latest gambit is 85% on target with yours truly, yet he strays with this, " No one needs an AK-47. You can't hunt with an AK-47, there is no reason in the world to own one." To compound this fractured nonsense, my own Best Friend (capitals inferred) living in Florida used almost the same words recently.

My point: " don't need an AK 17? " Oh no? Who says? You? Who sets up the rules? You? Walsh? Oh, the government, that's right, we're going to give THE GOVERNMENT THE RIGHT TO CONTROL whether we can have an AK-47, . Sure. I ask you this, describe accurately what is an 'ASSAULT RIFLE?'

Name one  by brand or caliber. Bet you can't.  If you trust ANY form of government to do it, you're in danger, cause they will screw it up. Don't think so? How's your healthcare plan working?

I don't want Adam Walsh OR my best friend in Florida telling me OR YOU wthat I know I am constitutionally permitted to buy and own..The Second Amendment tells me what I am allowed to do. Take that away and there will be no stopping them. Don't think so?Check with Connecticut to see if they have begun to lock up a couple of hundred thousand formerly honest gun owning citizens? The Police have THREATENED to go house-to-house to confiscate their guns. And we thought the S.S. days had gone by, eh? Check back with Crimea in six months and count how many have faced the firing squads? First thing they did was take the guns away from their Army.###

Women in Combat - now on the front lines

We were told, as of this morning, that our young American women could be admitted into the ranks of front line combat troops.
    Television reporters showed clips of young women being trained in combat drills handling mortars, machine gun train-fire attacks, and other combat unit exercises. The report went on to outline in matter-of-fact detail, "now that women have been given the green light to join men in front line combat roles," we got to see them shooting weapons.
    It concentrated on solely weight requirements: can they lift this, can they move that. 
    Nothing on the psychological implications of our young women sent back from the front lines with both legs blown off. No word on how attractive young ladies handle the rest of their lives after being gang-raped by a horde of enemy soldiers.e
    I've never seen reported on TV any information about other nations with women in combat, the effects on them, success, or failure. Have You?? I knew Israel had their women in combat at one time, but nothing since? 
    The fact that our women were allowed into combat AT ALL came as a surprise and shock to me. Where was the public discussion? Where was the public input? These days, the least little ripple in the public fabric draws wide public outcry: that punk Justin, a missing plane on the other side of the globe, what an alcoholic actress wears to her latest trial...but our women NOW allowed in combat and we get NO PUBLIC NOTICE??
    Oh, yes, the women will get plenty of late night guard duty, there is the prospect of the glass ceiling, hours, days and foreverness of KP duty, cleaning the Loo, and other crap duties the male Sergeants will assign them, to be sure. And, as any military NCOs will tell you, the sexual assaults inside the the outfits are on the rise - are skyrocketing. 
    A real headache for the commanders, a new headache they never had before, but what the hell, times are changing, and we have to change with them. The war on women continues, even if they insist on it. 
    And what about the men who are old-fashioned, who feel that woman-hood must be protected, adored, loved, shielded from the ugliness of the world? What of them? The men who volunteer to marry, love, honor, obey, sign up for the military, go away and fight for country, wife and children.
    Simple: ignore them, their values, and call them names. How dare they exist in this brave new world. 
###

Full Employment - 5% unemployment (Wharton School graduate)

When I worked in a Denver Hotel a few years back, when the economy was busting it's seams open, I recall our National Unemployment rate was 5%. 
     As I was instructed in Wharton School, my professors were diligent in pointing out that at about 5% unemployment, just about everyone who wanted a job, had one. Therefore, they said, you could consider that - full employment. 
     Ok, our hotel, located in central Denver, was running full, short of employees, was hard put to drag people off the street to work for us at standard wages. It was under a heavily managed Contract company in Dallas with a strict salary schedule for all positions, mine included. I was NOT senior management. 
     As I passed the center median in the street there was a pan-handler selling papers I asked him if he wanted a job, he said yes. I told him my hotel would hire him if he just walked in and applied. 
     He asked me what salary the hotel paid, and I told him. It was not a bad wage for the work involved, by the way. He snickered a little and then said, No thanks, I'll stay here on the corner. 
      I make more money begging for money than I would working 40 hours a week at that hotel. " But thanks for caring."
      Now, that tells me several things: As Americans, are we too generous to the unemployed? Next, are the wages paid at the average hotel so substandard for their workers commensurate to their labors, that there should be somee measure of fairness applied? (that discussion could take drums of ink and months of public discourse). 
      If the first is true, why then shouldn't that portion of one's tax base given to support unempl0yment insurance be lowered?

Americans who be-friend Russia.......read on

I always get a kick out of the blog posts on the internet. Oh, the Americans who post their snide comments on American "imperialism " or some such snarky observations. I Notice around Chicago, there seems to be so many hangers on of the left wing that love to use patriotism for a punching bag, I wonder how they feel about mother Russia today, in light of yet another invasion - Crimea.
     It was October of 1956 when Dean Rusk was addressing the Senate, interrupted by an aide, that he rose to leave, he turned and blurted out to the Senators, " there are tanks in the streets of Hungary, I have to go to the White House!!!" From then on, the hidden Communists in our country were tougher to find. Columnist Pete Hammell from Esquire magazine confessed he lost his left wing passion for any liberal cause he had left, he said in a story in later years. It's why I hate the TV series "The Americans." 
     So now, it's a dozen airborne helicopters from mother Russia, filled with combat clad Russian combat marines, fires raging everywhere. The smart-ass ambassador flips off reporters' questions about force up politics Russian style. Sorry, Comrade.
     So.....where are the bedfellows of Russian sympathies now?
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The American Civil War - Why the North Won - ( .......just barely)

In my opinion, the North won this war, by a matter of luck, happenstance, a roll of the dice, and a series of factors that. like a card game, a lucky roll of the dice, or cards, Fate, plated into their hands, and won the day.

      Let me explain, in no particular order: Lincoln had lost nearly every election he had participated in, and stumbled into the presidency. Luck, or providence. I prefer divine guidance.
      Generals for the Union Army ranged from the brilliant to the stupid depending on how much money, power and/or political connections you had. The worst, or one of them, General Dan Sickles who could have thrown Gettysburg fray to the Confederates with a coin toss. Look it up. This morally corrupt Tammany Hall connected cowboy danced his way through bedrooms and bars dropping his DNA everywhere yet, shot the son of Francis Scott Key in the head for "defaming his marriage bed" while away at war, with his Mrs. Sickles. Shot him dead at high noon down the street from the White House. His lawyer was the first to successfully use the insanity defense.
      Robert E Lee blew a successful career as brilliant General by NOT listening to his staff at Gettysburg. He failed to grasp he did NOT walk on water, as did Picket who blew his whole division into the dirt. All of them dead, while he primped, yelled, and waved his sword from behind the lines.
      Arrogance on both sides, demanding their troops fight battles using tactics from the Crimean wars instead of tactics formed around winning strategies and saving lives, rather than needlessly killing their own troops and the enemy. Pyrrhic victories often were the order of the day: The Peach Orchard, Cold Harbour where my family lost cavalry officers from the North, and the massacre at Shiloh.
     After Gettysburg, it seemed as if Lee had lost his mind, all hope of victory had been lost in the collective Southern mind, yet Lee persisted with a 10 month Resistance in Richmond, winning nothing in the end. Union soldiers surrendered their food and water to Southern women and children who were starving and begging from Northern soldiers for aide.
     President Lincoln had waited far too long in replacing General Meade who should have been fired long before Gettysburg and replaced with Grant. General Sherman could have been placed in command who would have torn through the Southern ranks like a hot knife through butter and ended the war in half the time, but the recalcitrant Lincoln moved too slowly.
     Southern writers of note were quoted the North could have won that war "with one hand tied behind their backs." Maybe so.
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" Older & Sicker"..........I OBJECT!!

.....with respect to this "ObamaCare" I hear so much about, everyone wrestles with the term "older and sicker Americans who need the medical care, so the younger enrol lees have to sign up to help pay for us poor, ole, sicker citizens.
       Sounds like we're charity cases - again.
       Knock it off!...older, yup, sicker, sure are, WORN OUT, is more like it. You spend fifty years prying yourself out of bed at 6 in the morning, shuffling off to work in every kind of weather, throwing up with the flu, gulping coffee (something in your stomach), catching trains or fighting free-way bumper-car traffic to work, putting up with job threats to hold your job - just to feed your kids and "roof" your family!! 
      Oops, your oldest daughter fell off a chair and broken her arm, ambulancing her way to a hospital, damn, youngest daughter in trouble sitting in Principal's domain, caught with a knife, take time off from work, look$ like that will co$t you.
      Enuf money for vacay? No. The Family bitches, YOU are the bad guy.
      National war debt for fixing picket-fence teeth, shoes, and clothes. Youngest daughter brings home the worst in boys, loves to piss off dad. Winds up in Mens' AF barracks at 3 in the morning at nearby AF Base. " Come get your daughter," they call me. She was 14. Never mind the alcohol problems that plague half of American families, ours, too. Al-anon, tedium ad naseum, oh God, have I forgotten anything. Oh, two heart attacks, surgeries, oldest surgeries, run-a-ways,
      Funny, (not ha,ha,--- strange) I get tired, thinking about this, just typing....of course, at my age, we of the " tired" generation earned every bit of grey hair. Like Sgt Bilko, every stripe on the sleeve came with an ounce of blood, a pound of worry, a wrench of the neck at night at the sound of a gunshot.
      " Oh Dad, you worry too much!! Oh, pops, I'd like you to meet my new boyfriend Lorenzo!!"
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Connecticut Gun Laws - BROKEN - Felons, Civil Disobedience!!

Martin Luther King's spirit of Civil Disobedience has had a re-birth in Connecticut, if our news sources are to be believed. I read in the newsprint and on very limited netwire that the highly restrictive gun laws passed last year after the disasterous school shooting in that state by the mentally tortured Adam Lanza, practically denuded law abiding gun owners of even dreaming of owning a gun, something extroadinary happened in the last 72 hours.
     As I understand this event, the Connecticut legislature went so far as to command gun owners to turn them in almost immediately.
     This is the red-line for American gun-owners, the fear that lurks in the hearts of every free American and his fire-arms. That someday, someone, some body of lawmakers will do this, and send troops down the street, door to door, checking registration records, and pull a citizens/' only form of self defense. Aesnd then, Thomas Jefferson WILL be right, the government will have NO fear of it's people. (especially these days!)
     What happened was, in some estimates, hundreds of thousands of Connecticut citizens refused. Outright defiance of their state government outrageous demands, these gun owners, refused to comply, and it is estimated a hundred thousand or so, simply replied, " Come get us." Just imagine jailing 100,000 of your finest citizens on felony firearms charges?? Who is going to run the state?
     They are, as of this writing, Felons. Further estimates by some news outlets say they figures are three times that based on unregistered gun owners who defied the state's original mandate to register their weapons. I hasten to point out, that is their ORIGINAL FEAR: REGISTRATION LEADS TO CONFISCATION. 
     A war cry gun-owners have hollered for decades, and now the anti-gun nuts of Connecticut have stoked those fires to PROVE IT.
     ###

Gen Y - Secrets of the young.......( what they DON'T say )

• Companies that don't hire them will rue the day: maybe they don't have as much money as older folks, but they have higher expectations of service. and complain the loudest - read RUDEST. Look for social platforms to carry your company's critique.
• They live with mom and dad?.....so what? Wanna make sompin' of it? If they're under 26, they don't seem to give a damn about moving back in AND, they're tough to get rid of. Don't think so? Ever watch Dr. Phil? 1/3 of his show devoted to 21 - 26 year old moochers and Moms trying to untie the knot. 
• Buying them a car as a bribe doesn't seem to work. Their age group drives less miles per capital than previous measured. Why? Probably wedded to gadgets, sitting in the corner. Man caves.
• Graduate students, professional students, forever in school, studying their lives away, away from what? Away from life, challenges, paying taxes, reality, marriage, kids, military service, what an existence in America is all about, it is supposed. 
• Hiring Millennial, as they are called, not such a good idea. They work for a few years and quit. Show up at interviews ill-dressed, office etiquette inappropriate (jus' saying'), bad time management - like, ah, social media on the computers, ya know?
• Drug problems; their age group, according to the CDC reports say it is most likely depression meds. Screen them. Other stuff in there, too, but this group, more possible than most.
• Attitude problems: --- don't think so? " if you think we're screwed up, we were raised by our Hippie, drug-addled parents." And, many of us who lived through that era who never took drugs would agree. PS, the narcissistic factor index measured by University studies for these kids reads nearly off the charts.
• They tend to vote Democratic and shun Republicans. Who knew?

Thanks to the Wall Street Journal for the inspiration to write this piece, gleaned from an inspiration out of their pages over a year ago. 

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Interviews............Bill O'Reilly Fox News and Others

I have two basic problems with interviews other than the interviewers:

1. The questions thrown at person being interviewed and get a shifty NON- answer. Case in point, " Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?" And after an appropriate amount of wrestling around in his seat, " ah...what time did you say the interview was over? I have to catch a train," ...polite smile and inquisitive look ensues.
2. Next area of deep concern is the biased interviewer, usually from a news source that no one from the other side of the political spectrum can ever trust: - " ah...Senator...ah, can on the question of spousal abuse you've stated many times, your views on standing strong against spousal abuse, BUT...it has come to our under,standing that local police reports in your neighborhood say frequent police calls to your very house indicate you, yourself have been beating up your wife. 

Therefore, when Bill O'Reilly interviews Preaident Obama, asks a question, and the room gets filled with a lot of smoke, I wonder which planet we are on.
   Americans, where are your senses? I went to school where my teacher asked me a question, I gave him/her a DIRECT answer. No BS, no tap dance, Black is black, white is white, 4 o'clock is 4 o'clock, etcetera. 
   I dunno, I wasn't there, could have fooled me, I'll check with the department head, Lemme make a not - DOES NOT CUT IT. It does not matter one twit whether it's Mr. Obama, Mr Biden, Jack the Giant Killer, Sean Hannity or your local baseball coach. 
   The guy sitting in that chair has GOT TO HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS WHEN SOMEONE ASKS THE QUESTIONS, AND he answers to us, not the other way around. 
   And, as of the Senate Hearing, the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is disqualified to sit in that seat for reasons stated above.
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Watergate - NIXON, LIDDY, COX, ETC

On another of my blogs I wrote about my meeting with Archibald Cox, some years back, and how much I liked the old, deaf man. We talked about his experiences with Nixon, Watergate, getting fired and so on. One comment was left on the blog which was anonymous which almost always means it was nasty.
     It got me to thinking....how many of the Watergate people I actually got to meet, by accident, by chance, by luck. I am a nobody. An ordinary citizen with a sense of curiosity and drive, above average in only some slight areas. Just lucky, I guess. But I have, on reflection, run into a wide variety of characters involved in that national fiasco.

•      Richard Nixon & Pat - met him in West Philadelphia, pleasant, smiley
•      Richard Kleindeinst - met him in Tucson, he escaped there to retire, nervous, ticky
•      G. Gordon Liddy - met in Tucson, small, compact, fearless, loved him
•      Archibald Cox - met in Tucson, huge, Lincolnesque, deaf, jovial
•      Gerald Ford - President met in Tucson, clumsy.