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Hey Dems, control your attack dogs!

The warning of the Minneapolis Trump rally

By Dr, Larry Fedewa (October 13, 2019)

The contrast could not have been starker: 20,000 people inside and 25,000 people outside the Minneapolis Target Center on Thursday night, having a great time at a Trump rally compared to a few hundred angry protesters in the parking lot taunting police, breaking things, and burning confiscated property. The threat of further violence was thick in the air, particularly as the audience began to leave for home after the event. The fact that no one was hurt appears to have been due to the very visible presence of the police, who were out in force.

Political protest is one of the rights of all Americans. But violence in the name of free speech is NOT a right. The American Left seems to have trouble recognizing this fact. Nor do they recognize the rights of conservatives who also have the right to free speech, as witnessed by all the effective blocks of conservative speakers on U.S. campuses.

But what do the thought leaders of the Democrat Party have to do with violence in the streets? Most of the time, they weren’t even there. The answer is in their words. Namely, the apocalyptic tone of so many of their messages. A good example is the leader of their party, Nancy Pelosi, who speaks of this President as bringing about the “end of our democracy”, “violating the Constitution”, and the like. Talk about condemnation without a trial! She and her co-conspirators are condemning the President first and looking for evidence later.

Even more apocalyptic is the rhetoric of the radical wing of the party who are predicting the end of the world unless their insane recommendations for climate control are heeded. “Seven years left to sustain a habitable planet!” “Eliminate fossil fuels or die!” Their “Green America” agenda is packed with outlandish proposals.

All this rhetoric is bound to stir up extreme reactions. It is intended to. Fear can be a great motivator. It can also overcome logic, common sense and science. Witness the huge reaction of youths during their March 15, 2019 international strike for climate change.

It is also inciting to riot. The irresponsible talk by the leaders of the Democrat Party has let the genie of violence out of the bottle. It seems inevitable that protests like the one in Minneapolis  will evolve between now and November 3, 2020 into violence – UNLESS the rhetoric of the candidates and leaders of the Democrat Party cools off. Even then, it may be too late!

As usual, the Dems accuse the Right of committing the very sins the Left are in fact guilty of – whether they be conspiracy, corruption, or in this case violence. In Minneapolis, the supporters of the President were having an exciting but peaceful event. The protesters were the villains in the story – as they have been in so many demonstrations, riots and marches. The days of Martin Luther King, Jr. and non-violent protests are long gone.

The days of Antifa are here.

 

© Richfield Press, 2019. All Rights reserved.

It’s really not that complicated!

The deep state’s last stand (this term)

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (October 5,2019)

The Attorney General of the United States is investigating the nearly successful coup d’etat 2015-17 which attempted to overthrow the President of the United States. Since there is evidence of interaction between the American conspirators and several foreign countries, including the United Kingdom, Russia, Ukraine, China, Australia, and perhaps others, the AG asked the President to help him open doors in these countries.

The President then asked for this assistance during his telephone conversations with the leaders of these countries. As in any such conversations, the two leaders engage in some bargaining – some subtle and some explicit. Both assume that their conversations are protected by Executive Privilege from public disclosure.

On July 25, 2019 the President talked to the new President of the Ukraine government. It happens that the $400+ million military aid grant from the US to Ukraine has been held up since the spring, presumably because of the Ukrainian election and change of administrations.

It also happens that former Vice President Joseph Biden, now running for the Democrats’ presidential nomination, has long been mentioned as having used his position to shield his son, called Hunter Biden, from investigation by the Ukrainian government for corruption. Since there is evidence of Ukrainian input to the American conspiracy, the US President asked the Ukrainian President for his cooperation in finding out the truth behind this story.

The case was centered on the younger Biden being named a Board member of a Ukrainian energy company with a handsome stipend (now reported as $83,000 per month), simply and solely because of his last name. The senior Biden has even bragged on television about how he succeeded in threatening to withhold US military aid to Ukraine – fighting the Russians in Crimea at the time – unless the Ukrainian government fired a prosecutor who was investigating the company which was paying his son.

Did President Trump do something wrong as the Democrats alleged (before having read the transcript)? Perhaps he was not attentive enough to appearances – Mr. Trump is not known for subtlety. But a crime? Or a “high crime or misdemeanor” worthy of impeachment? That is pure fantasy. Since it comes right on the heels of the failure of the Mueller Report to provide a credible basis for impeachment, these charges seem to reflect a last-ditch effort to discredit the President sufficiently to prevent his reelection next year. That interpretation also would explain why the hurry. Time is running out before the presidential campaign hits high gear. With a Republican majority in the Senate, it is extremely unlikely that there would be the 67 votes necessary to convict a Republican President. The current effort is therefore best understood as part of the 2020 campaign.

There are many extraneous charges, arguments, and issues being raised regarding the identity of the whistleblower, the House Intelligence Committee procedures, the House protocols, subpoenas, executive privilege, the role of the President’s personal attorney, etc. But the fact remains that the intelligence community, initially led by Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan and DNI chief James Clapper, have a long history of attempting to sabotage this President.

So don’t be fooled: it’s not really that complicated.

 

© Richfield Press, 2019. All rights reserved.

 

Next steps to free market health care

A practical approach to progess

 

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (September 24, 2019)

One of Washington’s most respected experts on legislative advocacy, Dr. David Rehr, now a  Gorge Mason University professor, has recommended that we present a list of separable items in an integrated proposal to reform health care. The strategy is that we should be able  to get bipartisan support for some of our ideas and thus build a foundation for the larger reform. This is a sort of step-by-step approach to implementation.

Toward that end, we need to fill in some of the blanks in my overview (see www.DrLarryOnline.com) with numbers and data. So, the authors of the heavily researched book, Health Care is Killing Us: The Power of Disruptive Innovation to Create a System that Cares More and Costs Less (2019) (see Amazon Books), Drs. W. Terry Howell and Aaron Fausz, have volunteered to undertake this task.

“The Dr. Larry Show” on this Wednesday, October 2, 2019 at 7 pm, will feature their report on the following draft propositions (in increasing order of controversy):  Keep Reading

What a Free Market Health Care System Might Look Like

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (August 10, 2019)

 

This week’s column is an edited reprint of a piece I wrote a couple of years ago when the backlash against “Obamacare” first inspired Republicans to talk about “repeal and replace”. Since they are still talking and since the Dems are now also talking about health care alternatives – especially a federal takeover of all health care – the topic remains open for new ideas. I have approached this subject from the perspective of a clean sheet of paper. Why try to build a system on the bones of a failed system, a system no one likes? Why not instead build a new system on a foundation of goals which everyone accepts and agrees with? This is  my answer to that question.

The starting point for a discussion of a national health care system should be setting our goals. I believe that American health care should be:

  1. High quality and state-of-the-art
  2. Available to all
  3. Affordable
  4. Abundant
  5. Well-funded

What are the principal obstacles to these goals? Keep Reading

A pie in the sky can hit you in the eye!

Let’s get practical! 

 

by Dr. Larry Fedewa (August 4, 2019)

If we thought that Hillary with all her baggage was about as sorry a candidate as the Democratic party could come up with, the current crop of aspirants is proving us wrong. This crop does not seem to have even a coherent message. They are angry, they fight each other, they see horror everywhere, they are advocating pie in the sky, and they hate Donald Trump. That’s about it.

Unless some superstar emerges from the shadows, or Mr. Trump flounders into a recession, it’s hard to see much of a contest in 2020. Not that the Republicans haven’t had their own streaks of weak candidates  — one winner in two out of six elections between 1992 and 2016. But so far it is difficult to take the people in the Democrat field seriously.

Eliminate fossil fuels in 10 years – when there is no comparable substitute? When the entire world depends on fossil fuels for survival? Even their statement of the problem is out of date. Nobody can look at the violent weather we have been experiencing and doubt that the climate is changing. But when has it ever not changed? As far back as records go there have been changes in the climate. What about the Ice Age? Keep Reading

The Age of Monochromatic Late-Night Humor [Reprinted from “PJ Media. March 25,2019”]

BY A.J. RICE MARCH 25, 2019

Comedian Jay Leno performs a standup routine at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland Fla. on Jan. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Reinhold Matay

Late-night comedy has become the sound of left-hand clapping.

Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno kept you awake by making you laugh. The tiresome political antics of today’s late-night dilettantes make you wish you’d gone to bed early.

It’s not a question so much of left or right as it is of having a bunch of one-track-minds. The punchline is always the same: Orange Man Bad, Orange Man Evil, Orange Man Crazy. Every night, all the time. As predictable as Pravda during the Brezhnev years — and just as amusing.

Jay Leno — who is funny — commented on badgering in the guise of “comedy” this month during an interview with Al Roker of NBC’s Today show.

“It’s different,” Leno said. “I don’t miss it. You know, everything now is, if people don’t like your politics, they — everyone has to know your politics.” Perhaps because today’s late-night hosts insist you know their politics.

Keep Reading

The Dems on Display

The Top 20 candidates speak up  

 

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (July 3, 2019)

Of all the news this past week, the most intriguing may be the two “debates” featuring the Top 20 Democratic candidates for president. It’s interesting to take a look at these politicians as a group.

Overview

The Top 20 candidates for the Democrat nomination for president showed their coalescence around a list of positions which favor a gargantuan increase in the power of the federal government. Generally, they advocate government takeover of health care, education, personal finances, seashore housing (in the name of climate control), and energy, in addition to increased government regulation of  big business. No matter what the problem, they propose that the federal government has the obligation to solve it. Even to “fixing” the economies of Central American countries, although it is hard to understand what they mean by that short of US invasion as in Panama – which no one seems to advocate.

This list of their political positions arises from their ability to see victims wherever they look. “75% of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck.” “The majority of Americans don’t make a living wage.” “22 million Americans have no access to health care.” “America is a racist society, which is also biased against women, gay people, immigrants, all minorities (except maybe Asians), poor people, and homeless people – to name a few.”

Justice for this country of victims can be found in the pristine wisdom of the federal government. All we have to do is authorize that government to raise taxes – for some that means up to 70% + of income for federal taxes – on top of state and local taxes, for a total of 80-90% of income. Then the blessed feds will design and enforce programs to bring justice to all the victims in America – plus everyone else in the world who succeeds in coming across our borders. We won’t be crowded; after all the federal government already owns more than a third of US landmass so they can just open the parks, deserts  and mountains to development. Keep Reading

Who needs fathers?

Are fathers obsolete?                                                         

By Dr. Larry Fedewa

After a generation of “free love”, unlimited abortions, increases in divorce, single mothers, unwed mothers, single sex parents, and fatherless children, it may be a good idea to re-visit the concept of fatherhood. For those who are unfamiliar with the term: a father is first of all a man, not a woman. A father is a man who is committed to his wife and who is willing to proclaim publicly and legally that commitment through a marriage ceremony. A father is a man who also has publicly and legally committed to support for any children who may be born of that union. Finally, a father is a man who has undertaken to maintain these commitments for life, through good times and hard times, “until death do us part.”   Keep Reading

Capitalism and Judeo-Christian values

Capitalism is funded on the Judeo-Christian value of equality

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (June 9, 2019)

I cannot leave the topic of the wealth gap in today’s America without commenting on the most fundamental factor in the origin and the evolution of Western capitalism. That factor is the existence of Judeo-Christian values.

It is not an accident that capitalism originated and owes its development as well as its endurance through the past millennium in a civilization dominated for much of that time by the Judeo-Christian religion. The most unique and the most fundamental standard of that ethic is the equality of all human beings in the sight of God. Thus we all have equal rights to salvation, to justice and to the fruits of the earth.

Capitalism is founded on this principle of equality. Without it there would be no reason for an economic system which provides a means of distributing the goods of the earth to as many people as earn possession. The foundation of capitalism is the concept of private property. As an economic system, capitalism provides the conditions for acquiring and keeping private property. These conditions are expressed in money, the language of capitalism, and they are protected by a legal system which is intended to treat all with respect. The use of money instead of goods or services, as in a system of bartering, has made practical the accumulation of value, which is called “capital” from which the name of the system is derived. Keep Reading

The moral case for profit-sharing (part II)

“To whom much is given, much is expected.” (Luke 12:48)

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (June 2, 2019)

Last week we discussed the antecedents of the current movement toward corporate social responsibility and the Conscious Capitalist movement and also the paradigm on which a moral claim can be made for a re-definition of “workers’ rights” with respect to workers’ share of the company’s profits. Keep Reading