Modern Politics, Liberalism, Conservatism (Rev.)

Modern Politics, Liberalism, Conservatism (Rev.)

What kind of world do we want for our grandchildren? – The democrat/socialist one based on intersectionalism and identity politics being touted by most of the 2020 democrat candidates for president? – Or the one being defended by President Trump and the republican right?

The culture war rages and has become politicized to the point that the opposing factions rarely rationally debate their differences.  These differences have morphed into burning hatreds of each other expressed as virtually articles of religious faith.  Those on the right side of politics, and those who dare exhibit trappings of their affiliation, like pro-Trump signs and red MAGA hats, are vilified and persecuted by leftist mobs, and even violently accosted in the streets, in restaurants and in their homes.  Backers of the left and leftist causes don’t seem to bear the same opprobrium from the right, or there would be an angry roar from the left and their accomplices in the media.  There have been very few, if any, reports of similar actions by right wing mobs against the left’s “pussy hats” or “squad” tee shirts.

The far left, which now seems to comprise most of the democrat party, is pushing for socialism, identity politics, open borders, sanctuary cities, diminished law enforcement, full and even post term abortion, restrictive and choking anti-industry environmental controls, a diminished and more docile defense and military posture, - and all of the other trappings of government control of everything in political, economic and personal life.  Embedded in the socialist/communist/fascist hybrid being proposed by the left are special and unique privileges for subgroups of society, “free stuff”, forgiveness of student debt, redistribution of productive wealth via a wealth tax, and the green new deal, all of which may sound attractive to someone with little historical, political or economic perspective, but which obviously would break even a strong economy like the U.S. in short order.

The right side of politics (pun intended), advocates a more traditional American approach to governance, to the economy and to personal freedoms.  This entails recognizing that socialism, whether the national socialism or “Nazi” kind, or the Russian communist kind, or the Venezuelan “democrat socialist” kind, has never worked, nowhere and at no time.  Countries have been destroyed and upwards of 120 million people have lost their lives in the twentieth century due to ill-conceived efforts to institute “socialism”.  This conservative side of politics posits that all American citizens have equal and inalienable rights, regardless of skin color or ethnicity or “gender” or sexual orientation or origins or background.  It entails passing and enforcing legislation defining the borders and citizenship of our country.  It includes enforcement of our laws, including in many so called “sanctuary cities”, parts of which have become rat-infested and disease-ridden cesspools of high crime and murder.  It includes an honest, science based, realistic and un-politicized approach to the world’s climate change which includes all the major polluters, China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia and others, and not just the U.S. and the E.U.  It includes a strong U.S. military that is respected, but that is not expected to be the “policeman of the world”.

So it’s not just Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer versus Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, and business as usual in our congress; and just another election cycle and minor swing between the political parties, - this is a fundamental shift in what our government and our country should be.  The modern liberals and democrat/socialists representing the current democrat party want us to be socialist and secular and devoid of constitutional (and spiritual) guidance.  The republicans and conservatives say that we should preserve and evolve from our traditional American heritage to face the challenges of the modern world.

Some definitions and background:

Liberals believe in government action to achieve equal opportunity and equality for all. It is the duty of the government to alleviate social ills and to protect civil liberties and individual and human rights. Liberals believe the role of the government should be to guarantee that no one is in need. Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the government to solve problems.

Conservatives believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values and a strong national defense. Conservatives believe that the role of government should be to provide people the freedom necessary to pursue their own goals. Conservative policies generally emphasize empowerment of the individual to solve problems.

Both modern conservatives and liberals can trace their early beginnings back to thinkers like Plato, Aristotle and Machiavelli, and thence to 17^th century thinkers John Locke of England and Adam Smith of Scotland, and to 18^th century thinker Charles de Montesquieu of France.  Without overcomplicating, the path toward modern liberalism and progressivism tracks though David Ricardo, Rousseau, Voltaire, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, James and John Stuart Mill, to Thomas Jefferson.  More recent notables are Karl Popper, John Maynard Keynes, John Dewey, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King.

Noted historical conservatives are John Locke (again), Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill (again), John, John Quincy, Henry and Brooks Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Alexis de Tocqueville, Auguste Comte, Benjamin Disraeli, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Irving Babbitt, Milton Friedman, Paul Elmer More, George Santayana, Thomas Stearns Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, William H. Buckley, George Will, Victor Davis Hanson and others.

The link below, a quite long, but very educational article should be required reading for anyone wishing to know more about the origins and current state of our political process and thought.

The title does not do the article justice.  This is an in depth, historical review of the underpinnings of our political beliefs, and how they relate historically, philosophically and societally in our currently polarized world. The writer, John Hood, describes how classical and modern conservatism, classic and modern liberalism, libertarianism, modern progressivism, modern populism and Trumpism are all related and how they differ.  Hood also freely references who the thinkers were that promulgated these differing beliefs.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/new-nationalists-make-three-big-bets/

Ray Gruszecki
February 28, 2020

Copying of Entertainment Content - 2020

Copying of Entertainment Content - 2020

Ever since voice recording became cheap and ubiquitous in the 1940’s -50’s, kids and others have been copying copyrighted music from public radio stations.  The fact that the content is being played on public media makes it generally available for listening and ostensibly for recording using available technology.  “If it’s in the air, and I’m clever enough to record it, no harm, no foul (more Later). The technology was originally a primitive wire recorder, and has now evolved into pretty sophisticated, and cheap, recording devices.  To be noted is the fact that the music is copyrighted, and is being copied from publicly available sources.

Is this legal?  Purists to this day question the legality of copying content over the air and maintain that the artist or music company should be paid for each copy made.  Of course this is impossible in practice, and copying publicly available copyrighted music is common.

Video recorders became generally available in the late 1970’s and people started recording copyrighted movies and other material from their TV sets.  Universal Studios sued Sony (Betamax) saying it was illegal to make copying of copyrighted movies available.  Sony won the case in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1984, and it was established that copying movies from broadcast TV was not illegal.

Along came TVRO analog satellites in the early 1980’s which broadcast television, including copyrighted movies, in the clear for the first few years.  Then, HBO, Showtime and other so-called premium content providers scrambled their channels and began charging substantial fees to access them. The scramblers used M/A-Com technology out of Dallas at first, and later General Instruments encryption out of San Diego, who absorbed M/A-Com.  GI was also later absorbed by Motorola.

  These were the original Videocipher I and II encryption/scrambling systems.  They were quickly broken, and receivers which defeated the encryption became ubiquitous in the U.S.  Literally, nearly everyone with a big dish had a cracked system. The concept of free access to the airwaves is expressed as follows:  "The airwaves should belong to the people. If a TV signal comes trespassing onto my property, I should be free to do any damn thing I want with it, and it's none of the government's (or a monopolistic scrambler’s) business."

To correct this flaw (and to protect their monopoly status), General Instrument released an updated version of the descrambler called Videocipher II Plus in late 1991. Also known as VC-RS (for "renewable security"), the new units replaced the multiple chips in the unit with a single chip. Any effort to copy or replace the chip would disable the unit entirely. More importantly, the units included a renewable encryption system through the use of a "TvPass" smart-card (similar to a credit card). Should a breach in security occur, the encryption information on the cards can be changed quickly and inexpensively. Major programmers switched to the upgraded system with due speed, as HBO became the first programmer to shut off its consumer Videocipher II data stream on 19 October 1992. Other programmers quickly followed suit. Furthermore, HBO's satellite transmissions to Europe, Latin America, and elsewhere use the VC-RS technology. A full review of scrambling schemes and how they were broken is given in the following link:
http://www.wirelesscommunication.nl/reference/chaptr01/brdcsyst/dvb/psystems.htm
The battle between the hackers and the monopolies (GI, HBO and more and more service providers), continued.  Caribbean satellite TV pirates reversed engineered successive scrambler boxes.  GI used various ECM’s to counter.  A descriptive article on the situation in the Caribbean in the 1990’s is in the following link.  http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/2.08/satellite_pr.html. Particularly pertinent is the last paragraph entitled “The Will of the People”.
Many U.S. users simply switched to GI’s new Videocipher II technology and paid to descramble.  Trying to keep pace with the offshore hackers was simply too complex and time consuming.  Rates were at first somewhat reasonable, but there was a perceptible escalation of rates over time.  
The next stage was 4DTV which entered the digital and HD (high definition) world.  4DTV technology was originally developed in 1997 by General Instrument, now the broadband division of Motorola. The DigiCipher 2 encryption system is used in digital channels much like the VideoCipher and VideoCipher II systems were used for analog encrypted transmissions. Motorola abandoned 4dtv technology when they shut down the mapping stream on 12/31/2010 and converted most of the receivers in use to read one satellite only.
In the meantime, European hackers were also active and developed their own method to bypass the high costs of paid programming.  This link refers. http://www.satshop.co.uk/content60/Foreign-channel-packages---How-to-receive.html. This European aspect is included since some of this technology is used in modern methods to bypass high cost paid access of TV programming.
The demise of 4DTV basically ended the efficacy of the big dishes or BUD’s. in the U. S. There was still some free content in the Clarke belt, but all of the major content providers were scrambled on one or two satellites in the middle of the arc.  However, some services are still available for die-hard 4DTV aficionados.  http://skyvision.com/store/c-band_store_page1.html.
Free to air (FTA) service was also still available across the Clarke belt with a simple $100 FTA receiver.  This was really the “wild west”, with no programming guides, easy recording or time shifting.  All of the channels were out there, including Dish, Direct TV, etc., but these were scrambled using modern scrambling technology.  There were many channels in the clear if one had the wherewithal to look for them, but this effort was purely experimental.
In the meantime, another phenomenon emerged: P2P or peer to peer file sharing.  Peer-to-peer file sharing is the distribution and sharing of digital media using peer-to-peer (P2P) networking technology. P2P file sharing allows users to access media files such as books, music, movies, and games using a P2P software program that searches for other connected computers on a P2P network to locate the desired content.  The nodes (peers) of such networks are end-user computer systems that are interconnected via the Internet.
Peer-to-peer file sharing technology has evolved through several design stages from the early networks like Napster, which popularized the technology, to the later models like the BitTorrent protocol.
Several factors contributed to the widespread adoption and facilitation of peer-to-peer file sharing. These included increasing Internet bandwidth, the widespread digitization of physical media, and the increasing capabilities of residential personal computers. Users were able to transfer either one or more files from one computer to another across the Internet through various file transfer systems and other file-sharing networks.  By 2015, P2P has become ubiquitous, particularly among young users.  Movies, music and other digital content are easily and securely shared using the Torrents and VPN and proxy technology.

This link is to an article on a fairly sophisticated, but not uncommon, use of P2P by a modern user.  http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/pirated-tv-can-and-should-it-be-stopped/

Some historical background is also presented.

In 2015, where have all the “pirates” gone? 
They are still there, and still providing ways to bypass conventional high cost programming.  Since FTA is still available, it became possible to subscribe to the scrambled services, and then provide keys to other users who had FTA receivers.
But then someone said “we have this thing called the Internet.  Why bother with satellite dishes and receivers in the users’ hands, when we can stream the whole bloody lot over high speed Internet”.  At this writing, one can obtain IKS (keys) or IPTV (streaming services from several offshore sources, which opens up not only all of the so-called “premium” services offered by the content provider monopolies, but also foreign channels from all over the world.
As to the legality of IPTV, the user is still paying for IPTV service. Rather than paying huge sums ($180/mo and up) to the paid service providers like Dish, Direct TV, AT&T, Comcast, etc, consumers can buy an STB, pay for high speed Internet and pay an offshore company for IPTV access.  If the signal is on your property in the form of the Internet, and you are clever enough to catch it and decode it, no harm, no foul.  Various companies and government agencies have tried to catch and prosecute users, virtually to no avail. 
One such effort is the “six strike system”, which is an effort by several large movie studios to convince major ISP’s to issue warnings to users of Torrents and others downloading copyright movies.  This is a sham which has not been enforced, and which can easily be defeated by use of VPN’s and/or proxies.  This link refers.
  https://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-scheme-is-a-sham-filmmaker-say-150513/
The upshot of all this is that free exchange of entertainment material will continue, whether over the air, over the Internet, or by someone physically handing a copyright DVD to a friend.  Is such activity of dubious legality?  Possibly, but not proven.  Is it ubiquitous?  Absolutely.  Is it stoppable?  No way!

Details concerning IPTV are given below:

MAG 322 -- Set Top Box -- IPTV OTT Linux TV Box -- Streaming Media Player -- Full HD TV            About $85 on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/BUILT-CABLE-REMOTE-POWER-ADAPTER/dp/B07DXFB2JR/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=mag254+box&qid=1582747374&sr=8-2

Iptv4less service, $70 per year, ~800+ total channels.   VOD (Video on demand) movies ~730 English, ~810 Spanish.   Good, reliable service.

http://iptv4less.com/ 

RapidIPTV- 99 euro/year, Up to 7000 channels, mainly foreign channels

https://en.rapidiptv.pro/

Miscellaneous Musings – February, 2020

Miscellaneous Musings – February, 2020

Frank Bruni on South Carolina Debate

I normally eschew Frank Bruni (and some of the other New York Times opinion columnists) because of their vitriolic ultra-liberal rhetoric.  After a fairly accurate commentary on last night’s democrat debate and the danger that Bernie Sanders poses to the party, Bruni just can’t resist denigrating the republican party, and particularly President Trump, in the closing paragraphs.

His take as an anti-republican ultra-liberal on where the democrats are in the election process is indicative of the malaise afflicting them.  If even Frank Bruni and the New York Times, (not to say CNN, MSNBC and the rest of the left-wing mainstream media), acknowledge the disaster that has become the democrat party, we know the situation is really, really bad for the democrats.

One thing that could improve democrat chances, whether Bernie or Bloomberg (or someone else in a negotiated convention), would be if the markets really tank and we head toward a recession because of this Corona virus.  A strong economy is the lynch pin for the republicans.  A weak economy could raise democrat hopes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/opinion/democratic-debate-south-carolina.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Conrad Black on Bernie & Bloomberg

A good, long look at Bernie Sanders by the eminent Conrad Moffat Black, who is “The Right Honourable Lord Baron Black of Crossharbour, and Knight Commander with Star of the Order of St Gregory the Great, KCSG”, and who is a Canadian/British/American member of the House of Lords of Great Britain".

Conrad Black does not feel that Bernie is a full blown communist.  I still maintain that this is only because he hasn’t been given a chance to be one.  I have no doubt that Bernie would apply all of Marx’/Engel’s//Lenin’s communist principles if given a chance.

Black’s take on democrat chances in the 2020 election are interesting: “Obviously, Sanders must lose, if not at the convention, then in November. If Sanders is nominated, Trump will take about 65 percent of the vote, the highest percentage for a candidate in a contested U.S. presidential election in 200 years, and will win every state (including Vermont), and roll up a margin of about twice Richard Nixon’s outstanding record of 18 million votes over George McGovern in 1972. In such a tidal wave, Trump’s coattails would be long and would install a heavy Republican majority in both houses of Congress. This is why the Democratic elders are frazzled by the prospect of a Sanders candidacy. Michael Bloomberg, who is not otherwise any more beloved a candidate to them than Trump was to the Bush-Romney-McCain Republicans four years ago, is now the anointed savior of some post-electoral standing for the Democrats. Never in American history has a political leader achieved so swift a transition from a side-splitting joke to his opponents, as Trump was a little over three years ago, to the subject of their cold, gripping terror, of such enormity as only the impending loss of control of a vast apparatus of government and media influence can induce.

The Democrats now face a choice of sinking with all hands with Sanders or being badly shot up and limping home, which is the best the brazen and clumsy Bloomberg takeover can now realistically have as its objective.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/the-sanders-record/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=blog-post&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=more-in&utm_term=second

Bernie Sanders & Communist Manifesto

Perhaps Bernie Sanders can describe for us how his views differ from Engels’ “The Principles of Communism” dated 1847, and, Marx’ and Engels’ “Manifesto of the Communist Party” dated 1848?  Bernie does not use dated words like “proletariat” and “bourgeoise”.  He uses “worker” and “billionaire” instead.

His wealth equalization is straight out of these expositions of communism, as is his equalization and levelling of society.   What he doesn’t say is that when it has been tried, this equalization was accomplished by use of brutal totalitarian force, and the equalization actually resulted in a monotonous, boring, poverty stricken, sameness.  Only introducing some degree of market force and entrepreneurship rescued countries like China, Vietnam and Cuba from completely destructing from the ill-advised force of Communism/Socialism.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/

Las Vegas Debate

Even CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, Washington Post and other left-wing media agree that the democrats tore themselves up pretty badly in Las Vegas last night. 

Before we make too much of the democrats’ implosion, however, and particularly, Michael Bloomberg’s poor performance in the debate, I think that we have to continue to be aware and somewhat fearful of Bloomberg’s money and resources.  As again illustrated during the debate, Bloomberg has the charisma of a wet dishrag.  His disdain for those he considers beneath him is plainly evident, even on the debate stage.

Having said all of that does not denigrate Bloomberg’s success in life.  He came from modest means and acquired his $65 billion fortune by dint of his own efforts.  He owns 88% of Bloomberg LP.  He also is the founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which some claim is partly used to fund his political ends.

Michael Bloomberg is the 12^th richest person in the world.  His fortune was built by providing voluminous and impeccably correct data to the financial industry, primarily via the ubiquitous “Bloomberg Terminals” populating many businesses.  He and his companies are masters of data collection and dissemination.

Bloomberg is said to have spent some $500 million so far, and has pledged to spend upwards of $2 billion in the 2020 political campaign.  Even if he comes across as an aristocratic dolt in the debates and primaries, his $2 billion has to be taken seriously.  Because we need to remember that he is not only pushing his own candidacy, he is also backing democrats in house and senate races throughout the country.  If we fail to counter this, can we tolerate Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer as our political leaders in the coming years?  We need to ensure a functioning government by ensuring significant republican majorities in both houses of congress in addition to a Trump presidency for another four years.

We also need to remember that Bloomberg and his anti-gun forces literally bought Virginia for the democrats in 2018.

I hope that Trump and the republicans are aware of this danger, but Trump’s public pronouncements denigrating “Mini Mike”, and such, sometimes seem to belie Bloomberg’s real danger – his massive fortune, his media expertise, and his potential impact on congressional races.   

Michael Bloomberg Bio

Detractors may call him “Mini Mike” and condemn him for trying to buy the election, but this guy is no political lightweight.  I’m not a big fan of his, but I have to admit that his bio is pretty impressive:

Michael Bloomberg Quick Bio

Early Life & Education

Bloomberg was born at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, in Brighton, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, on February 14, 1942.

Bloomberg attended Johns Hopkins University, where he joined the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi. He graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering. In 1966 he graduated from Harvard Business School with a Master of Business Administration.

He is the founder, CEO and owner of Bloomberg L.P., the global financial data and media company that bears his name and is notable for its Bloomberg Terminal, which is widely used by investment professionals around the world.

Wealth

As of November 2019, Bloomberg was the 12th richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated at $61.8 billion.  In 2013, he owned 13 properties in various countries around the world.

Personal life

In 1975, Bloomberg married Susan Brown, a woman from Yorkshire. They had two daughters: Emma and Georgina.  Bloomberg divorced Brown in 1993, but he has said she remains his "best friend.".  In 2010 Bloomberg was living with former New York state banking superintendent Diana Taylor.  Licensed as a commercial pilot, Bloomberg pilots an AW109 helicopter. 

Mayor of New York City

Bloomberg assumed office as the 108th Mayor of New York City on January 1, 2002. He won re-election in 2005 and again in 2009.  Bloomberg ran as a Republican in 2002 and 2005, converted to Independent in 2007, and ran as an Independent in 2009.

Awards and honors

At the 2007 commencement exercises for Tufts University, Bloomberg delivered the commencement address and was awarded an honorary degree in Public Service from the university.

In May 2008, Bloomberg was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Pennsylvania, where he delivered the commencement speech to the class of 2008.

Bloomberg was awarded an honorary doctorate at Fordham University's 2009 commencement ceremonies.

In 2014, Bloomberg was bestowed the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Harvard University in recognition of his public service and leadership in the world of business.

On October 6, 2014, Queen Elizabeth II named Bloomberg an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his "prodigious entrepreneurial and philanthropic endeavors, and the many ways in which they have benefited the United Kingdom and the U.K.-U.S. special relationship." Since Bloomberg is not a citizen of the United Kingdom, he cannot use the title "Sir", but Bloomberg may, at his own discretion, still use the post-nominal letters "KBE".

NYT on Pelosi Tearing up SOTU Speech

This is excerpted and paraphrased from a typical New York Times “hate Trump and all he stands for” editorial, which is so common in their editorial pages. It complains that the democrats are insufficiently organized to defeat Trump in November.

“It was still disappointing to see House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to tear the SOTU speech to shreds and see her stoop to the kind of stunt the president himself would pull, and, as she certainly knows as well as anyone, a gesture like that won’t defeat the president’s argument.

So what will? Not the incoherent, if not to say chaotic, display the Democratic Party has mustered to date. A series of overcrowded debates has failed to clarify the choices confronting voters. The decision to stage the first vote in monochromatic Iowa was a bad idea even before the Iowa Democratic Party had a meltdown on live television. A recent poll found that 45 percent of the supporters of the leading progressive candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders, said they weren’t sure they’d vote for any other Democratic nominee. Meanwhile, over in the party’s centrist camp, Michael Bloomberg appears to be trying to buy the nomination.”

This criticism is coming from the ultra-leftist editors of the New York Times. A more balanced and unbiased look at the democrats cannot fail to reveal their deficiencies. Bernie has been a borderline communist for over 50 years. Bloomberg's money is potent and dangerous, but his lack of charisma and his past denigration of Clinton's "deplorables" makes him somewhat "deplorable" himself. Will middle America accept Buttigieg's husband? Warren seems to have pretended herself into a political non-entity. Klobuchar seems to make the most sense of the democrats, but does she have the clout outside of the Midwest?

Barring a major war or an economic disaster, the 2020 election is Trump's for the taking, along with both houses of congress by sizable margins. Other than the inveterate Trump-haters and prosperity deniers, Americans in all walks of life continue to improve their quality of life under the Trump administration, and Americans are not stupid. They wil lvote for continued prosperity.

'Look, Is That Trump Committing An Impeachable Offense?' Mitch McConnell Says, Distracting Dems While More Conservative Judges Sneak By

Bernie and Communism

Bernie Sanders does not go around quoting from the “Communist Manifesto”, (maybe just parts of it).  He is too smart for that.  Bernie calls himself a democratic socialist and espouses the “socialism” of the Nordic countries.  This is anomalous, because the Nordic countries are strongly capitalist, but with very high taxes and cradle to grave care, which has worked for them in the past, so long as their populations were small, diligent and responsible.

Being a smart campaigner, Bernie tones down his past praises of Soviet and Cuban communism, and Chavez’ and Maduro’s version of “democratic socialism” in Venezuela.  But have no doubt that Bernie would increasingly impose a form of communism on America.  Bernie says that he does not want “to nationalize the local grocery store”, but how about our financial institutions, energy production and delivery, and other major billionaire industries that he hates so much?

Whether it’s called communism, or socialism, or democratic socialism, or socialist democracy, Bernie’s vision, like most communists, is to equalize everyone and everything to sameness; bland, stifling, (but equal), monotonous sameness.  It starts with wealth equalization and gun confiscation.  This is followed by increasing government control of our infrastructure and our affairs.  In most cases it ends with an armed totalitarian state which is necessary to sustain the high taxes and wealth confiscation.

There have been many examples of socialism and communism in the twentieth century.  The obvious examples are the post war communist countries in Eastern Europe and China, but it is to be remembered that Nazism stands for “national socialism”.  Upwards of 120 million people have lost their lives because of the communist/socialist scourge of the twentieth century.  The youthful followers of Bernie Sanders being promised “free stuff” need to be reminded of these facts about what communism/socialism really is, even if it is being called Bernie’s “democratic socialism”, and promises forgiveness of student debt, free college and other “free stuff”.

Is Bernie a Communist?

Various people including President Trump, and just recently, ultra-democrat James Carville, have called Bernie Sanders a communist.  Is he a communist?  I decided to research further.  This article does a scientific bayesian rule of probabilities analysis of Bernie’s track record.  Quoting the results of the article, “Plugging in to Bayes’ Rule, I get 15.8% – a low but hardly negligible risk that Sanders is a totalitarian hiding in plain sight.”

So irrespective of political bias against him, a scientific analysis of Bernie Sander’s track record shows a non-negligible risk that Bernie is indeed a communist totalitarian. 

https://www.econlib.org/is-bernie-sanders-a-crypto-communist-a-bayesian-analysis/

Bernie & Bloomberg’s Money

Wouldn’t it be great to see a presidential race between Bernie, an avowed Marxist and communist, and Trump, the ultra-capitalist?  We can dream, can’t we?

A more likely match-up is Bloomberg, or Bloomberg’s money against Trump.   Remember, Bloomberg has a personal fortune of $70 billion.  His putting as much as $2 billion into the presidential race is chump change to him.  Bloomberg not only has unlimited funds.  He is media-smart and knows how to use the money effectively.  Also remember that Bloomberg bought Virginia for the democrats in the mid-terms, which allowed them to keep a black face tainted Governor Northam, and accused rapist Lieutenant Governor Fairfax in office, and also allowed a wholesale attack on gun rights and other liberties in Virginia.

Bernie and some of the other democrat candidates may be making a lot of Iowa and New Hampshire noise, but they can’t hold a candle to Bloomberg’s money, which is what we really have to follow.

Rush Limbaugh

I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh as often as I once did because I’m retired, and I don’t drive with his program on the car radio as many times in the in the past. After reading Professor Hanson’s paean to Rush though, I couldn’t help thinking how much Rush's broadcasts and his books crystallized my own thinking, and my own conservatism/libertarianism.

I had considered myself pretty much conservative and against the creeping lawless, secular progressivism that was afflicting our country before Rush, but Rush’s cogent interpretations of the political scene provided a rational explanation and exposition of what was happening. One has to remember that Rush was a lone voice back in 1988 when his broadcast first entered national syndication, and as the article says, he was the leader that gave a counterpoint to the leftist propaganda that was increasingly masquerading as news. Others followed, like Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Network, but Rush was first, and he set the tone.

Rush Limbaugh and those that followed him provided breaths of fresh air through the Clinton and Obama years, and he did not spare his criticism of the Bushes and other republicans, when he felt it was deserved.

I applaud President Trump for awarding Rush the Medal of Freedom at the State of the Union Address, even if was a direct affront to the rude and silent democrats who wasted so much of America’s energy trying to impeach the president, and to Nancy Pelosi, who petulantly ripped up the SOTU speech.

Rush conquered deafness with technology. Let’s hope that he can do the same with cancer.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/rush-limbaugh-radio-genius-changed-political-landscape/

Trump NH

One thing about Trump, there is never a dull moment.  Now he’s going into Manchester, New Hampshire with one of his massive MAGA, KAG shows the day before the confused democrats hold their first primary. 

And we can expect more.  Trump is pissed at what the democrats have done in the last three years with FISA, Mueller, Kavanaugh, Antifa, Impeachment, and on and on against him and his family.  He has come out of all of it legally clean, and he will go after the fragmented democrats with an unabashed passion.  Trump is a fighter, and although we may not always like his methods, the unbelievable attacks that he has endured would have brought down a lesser person.  Not this Queens/Manhattan brawler.  He gives as much as he gets, and just becomes stronger. 

Democrats beware!  Trump will give you back all the crap you threw against him in double doses.  It should be an interesting nine months until the election in November.

LGBTQA+

Activists and members of the queer community have come together to form the current acronym, "LGBTQIA+." This denotation includes space for those identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (and in some cases, "questioning"), intersex, asexual (and sometimes "ally"), and the "+" is for a plethora of other orientations and identities.

As a straight male, I am personally emotionally turned off by a lifestyle referred to as “queer”.  Intellectually, however, I consider myself open-mind enough to accept all people, regardless of their sexual orientation and what they do in their bedrooms.  I don’t think that the "LGBTQIA+." community evokes any special privileges from society, but I do not think that they should be denigrated or reviled in any way either.  I feel the same way about other segments of society.  All American citizens should have equal rights, but not special privileges, regardless of race, religion, ethnic background or sexual orientation.

Having said all of that, bigotry is alive and well in our society, and not only bigotry, but social sensibilities in much of the country, are probably not ready to easily accept a gay president, and married males in the White House.  Those in the coastal and urban large population centers, who consider themselves “woke” may be ready to accept a very bright and articulate gay president.  I suspect that most of the rest of the country is not.

Ray Gruszecki

February 26, 2020

Trump After Three Years – Deroy Murdock

Trump After Three Years – Deroy Murdock

This is a comprehensive Summary of Trump’s accomplishments after three years in office

Trump Rounds Third with Enviable Big-League Record

By DEROY MURDOCK

January 20, 2020 3:38 PM

With few exceptions, President Trump has spent three years doing what conservatives would expect of a GOP chief executive.

Wednesday was momentous for President Donald J. Trump. House Democrats voted, with zero Republican support, to send the Senate two anti-Trump articles of impeachment. He and Vice Premier Liu He signed a curtain-raising trade pact between America and China. Financial markets rejoiced as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rocketed through the 29,000 mark and closed at a record-breaking 29,030.

With today marking three years since his inauguration, Wednesday’s events fit a familiar pattern: Democrats relentlessly gnaw like rats at Trump’s heels. Despite this sickening nuisance, Trump has stayed focused and crafted a stunning record of predominantly conservative accomplishments. Investors applaud Trump’s progress, as stocks, employment, growth, and prosperity spiral into the heavens.

Democrats have donned numerous disguises for their irrational, venomous Trumpophobia. The president’s unforgivable act? He did the forbidden and denied Hillary Clinton her birthright: The Oval Office.

Democrats have demanded Trump’s unreleased tax returns, claimed he is mentally ill, proposed his ouster via the 25th Amendment, and invoked Stormy Daniels, the emoluments clause, “Racism!,” Russiagate, “Baltimore!,” and now the Ukraine-o-Rama impeachment saga. The donkeys always try to trample Trump.

But they can’t.

Despite all of this, President Trump rounds third with an enviable big-league record. His economic, domestic, and foreign-policy hits merit the Hall of Fame:

Since Election Day 2016, the S&P 500 is up 56 percent. The Dow has climbed 60 percent and closed Friday at a new record: 29,348. The NASDAQ has soared 81 percent.

Unemployment is at 3.5 percent, the lowest since 1969. Adult-female unemployment is 3.2 percent, approximating levels seen under President Eisenhower. Joblessness for blacks, Hispanics, and Americans of Asian descent are at or near record lows. A total of 260,181,000 Americans are employed — the most since 1776.

Year-on-year median wages for November were up 3.6 percent. Those too often left behind moved more swiftly ahead: manufacturing workers (up 4.0 percent), non-whites (4.3 percent higher), and the bottom 25 percent (4.5 percent richer).

Median household income after eight years of G. W. Bush rose $401, or 0.7 percent. Obama’s two terms yielded another $1,043, up 1.7 percent. Three years of Trump have added $5,070, an extra 8.3 percent.

These triumphs of Trumponomics are among the factors that propelled Bloomberg’s Index of Consumer Comfort to 66, its highest reading since October 2000. And much of this good news springs from the president’s other domestic victories:

The $1.5 trillion Trump/GOP Tax Cuts and Jobs Act features individual and family tax relief, a business-friendly 21 percent corporate tax rate, and the consequent repatriation of $1 trillion in business profits previously stranded abroad, awaiting lower taxes. Not one congressional Democrat voted for this legislation.

Trump promised to cut two old regulations for every new one imposed. He actually has junked eight federal rules for every new one concocted.

Obamacare’s individual-mandate tax is dead. Health Savings Accounts have expanded. Price transparency soon will let patients compare costs as they do everywhere else. The new Right to Try law gives the terminally ill access to previously verboten experimental drugs.

Veterans now enjoy wider, faster medical choices, and some 8,000 VA slackers have been fired for their careless-to-abusive treatment of America’s beloved vets.

Free speech at colleges has been protected. Schools that promote anti-Semitism will pay dearly for promoting Jew hatred. And Title IX’s Obama-era assault on due process in campus sex cases has been scrapped.

The GOP Senate has confirmed 187 of Trump’s federal-bench nominees, including Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brent Kavanaugh. Trump has filled all but one circuit-court vacancy that he has encountered.

Trump has signed numerous pro-life measures, partially defunded Planned Parenthood, shielded religious liberty, and stopped Obama’s morally repugnant War on the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Trump’s authorization of the Dakota and Keystone XL pipelines, faster answers on permit applications, and other reforms have made America energy-independent and a net oil exporter for the first time since 1973.

About 100 miles of new southern-border wall are in place. Some 450 miles of protective barrier should be installed by year’s end. President Trump persuaded El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to discourage their citizens from fleeing north and illegally entering America. Trump also strong-armed Mexico into deploying its troops along the perimeter, to stem this human traffic. Consequently, illegal-alien apprehensions there have plunged from a peak of 144,116 in May to 40,620 in December — down 72 percent.

The Senate adopted the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement on Thursday, one day after Trump signed the U.S.-China trade measure. He has secured commercial compacts with Japan and South Korea. Once Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Great Britain gets Brexit done, an Anglo-American trade treaty should follow.

America has abandoned the foolish and costly Paris global-warming pact, trashed Obama’s corresponding Clean Power Plan fiasco, and ditched his tragicomic Iran nuclear deal. Iran’s chief terrorist leader, Qasem Soleimani, succumbed January 3 to sudden, severe dronitis.

Trump has modernized America’s military and boosted its morale sky-high. He has persuaded NATO allies to boost their collective-defense contributions by $130 billion.

While the president’s personal diplomacy with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is unfinished business, their bilateral summits and Pyongyang’s continued lack of nuclear tests and long-range missile launches represent the most progress in this nettlesome relationship since 1953.

Trump visited the Western Wall as president, declared the Golan Heights part of Israel, recognized Jerusalem as its capital, and moved America’s embassy there. Not one Democrat attended the ceremony that marked the U.S. mission’s relocation from Tel Aviv to the seat of the Jewish state.

Once the size of two New Jerseys, ISIS’s territorial caliphate is completely erased. It is now infinitely smaller than a pair of dice on an Atlantic City craps table. Chased by U.S. GIs and hounded by Conan, an intrepid canine soldier, ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi blew himself to bits.

Conservatives should cheer perhaps 90 percent of what President Trump has achieved while enduring 90 MPH headwinds — courtesy of the Left and the 90 percent anti-Trump media. Federal spending has climbed too high and too quickly for most Righties. (In part, Trump has paid Democrats’ ransom for greenlighting vital defense outlays: higher domestic expenditures.)

Tariffs are taxes on foreign goods that Americans want. They should be tossed. That said, if this water torture stopped China from swiping American innovations and breaking its agreements, then it’s tough to spurn success.

With few other exceptions (paid family leave, drug-price meddling, anti-vaping nannyism), nearly all of what President Trump has done is what conservatives would expect of a GOP president. Many right-wing dreams have come true. (D.C. school vouchers reauthorized! Net neutrality incinerated! ANWR open for drilling!)

Nearly all of this must appall the Left. But even Donald J. Trump’s fiercest critics — who still insist that he is “unfit to be president” — must admit that he has shoehorned at least two terms’ full of wins into his three years in office.

Bucknell University’s Michael Malarkey contributed research to this opinion piece.

DEROY MURDOCK is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a contributing editor of National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research.

Ray Gruszecki

January 20, 2020

Trump’s Best Week (and the Democrats’ Worst)

Trump’s Best Week (and the Democrats’ Worst)

Sunday, February 2 – Kansas City Chiefs from “flyover country” win the Super Bowl over San Francisco Forty Niners from elitist sanctuary state and lawless West Coast.  The whole Kansas City team is scheduled to come to the White House.  No “resistance” absences as in prior years.

Tuesday, February 4 – Inspirational State of Union speech by President Trump with Nancy Pelosi giving republicans many campaign commercials by ripping up the speech on national TV.

Botched democrat caucus in Iowa with democrats in disarray, while the world awaits the caucus results.  Democrat caucus turnout abysmally low at 160,000, not the 240,000 hoped for.

Wednesday, February 5 – President Trump acquitted by the senate on two articles of impeachment.  Trump approval rating 10 points higher than when impeachment inquiry started.  Economic approval rating is 63%, and 90% of the country happy and satisfied with their personal life. 74% of the country feel they will be even better off in a year.

Still only partial Iowa caucus results while democrat candidates head to New Hampshire for next primary.  Both Buttigieg and Sanders claim victory, with the vaunted Biden a distant 4th

Thursday, February 6 – Dueling pressers by Trump and Pelosi.  Trump first at prayer breakfast with low key criticism of Pelosi’s “prayerful” antics and Romney’s professed excuse of faith in his defection by voting to find Trump guilty on the first count of the impeachment.  Next Pelosi presser doubling down on her ripping up the speech and “sour grapes” pontifications and rationalizations.  Then the Trump White House “victory lap”, waving the bold Washington Post “ACQUITED! headline, thanking all of his minions who helped in the impeachment farce, Thanking and apologizing to his family and laying into Pelosi, Schiff and the democrats for perpetrating a “hoax”.

Still only partial results from Iowa caucuses, now a national embarrassment for the democrats.

Friday, February 7 – A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously throws out a lawsuit by more than 200 Democratic members of Congress that alleged President Trump was improperly profiting from his presidency.  (by receiving emoluments). 

The jobs report shows 225,000 new jobs in January.  Expected were 160,000 new jobs.

Democrats hold a debate in New Hampshire which highlight major divisions in the party.  Do they nominate an avowed Marxist, the glib mayor of a poorly run small town, a nepotism tainted senior citizen, another controversial multi-billionaire senior citizen, a mercurial individual with an ever-changing plan?

President Trump fires Lt Col Vindman from the National Security Council, and EU Ambassador Sondland.  Vindman’s twin brother, Eugene also leaves.  Lt Col Vindman is being reassigned to the Pentagon.  News reports did not comment on Eugene Vindman or Gordon Sondland.

President Trump seems to be “cleaning house”, as is his prerogative, after his acquittal by the senate.  These members of the executive branch work for the President, and it only natural that he would get rid of people who do not follow his policy directives, act counter to these directives, and in fact act against him and his orders.

The leftists and the mainstream press continue to yowl against the tide of real American public opinion, 90% of whom are satisfied with their lives in this booming economy, with everyone working who wants to work, and with mid-range and blue-collar incomes at nearly record levels.  These yowls are like baying against the positive wind of the economy. Independent voters, and even some honest democrats recognize these negative “sour grapes’ as the destructive “Trump derangement syndrome” that is not accomplishing anything, and is only harming our wonderful country.

Ray Gruszecki

February 7, 2020

Sympathy for the Democrats?

Sympathy for the Democrats?

The democrats are reeling after their failed impeachment attempt against President Trump and their Iowa caucus debacle, which seemingly gave old Joe a “gut punch” and resulted in a tie between an avowed communist and a glib talking mayor of a small, poorly run city.  What goes around comes around.  Maybe old Joe should brag again about withholding that $1 billion dollars from Ukraine until a prosecutor investigating his son’s company is fired.

We almost start feeling a little sorry for the democrats, until we see Nancy tearing up an inspirational State of the Union speech which highlighted a number of real Americans, like the little 10 year old girl who got a scholarship to a decent school, a gold star family whose warrior husband reunited with them, a 100 year old Muskogee airman who was recently promoted to general, and a now healthy two year old who only weighed about a pound when she was born.  These Americans and others were featured in the speech, and that’s what Nancy tore up in her determined hatred of all things Trump. 

And the democrats wonder why Trump held up the Washington Post “Acquitted” headline, took a victory lap and rubbed it in a little.  The whole impeachment affair was a setup job by Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler and disaffected employees of the executive administrative state that worked for Trump.  It failed miserably on process, and on substance, and on constitutional law, as proven by Trump’s very able defensive legal team.

Other democrat abuses that ward us off from feeling sorry for their present pitiful state are really too many to enumerate.  FBI FISA abuses that destroyed people and resulted in the $35 million Mueller investigation, (that also acquitted Trump), are particularly egregious.

Also, the unprecedented viciousness exhibited by these same democrats during the Kavanaugh hearings are almost beyond belief.  Feinstein’s last-minute creation of Blasey-Ford as a witness who elicited sympathy describing her claim of 25 year-old sexual abuse by Kavanaugh, but she couldn’t remember when or what city she was in.  The same with Deborah Ramirez, also pulled out of a hat at the last minute with similar memory issues.  And the crowning, bizarre achievement was Julie Swetnick, produced by that paragon of the law, Michael Avenatti, who claimed that Kavanaugh was part of a gang rape ring.  Even the inveterate democrats found this last hard to swallow, but Avenatti became the darling of CNN, MSNBC and the other left wing media, and in fact was being touted as a presidential candidate, until he defrauded Nike, Stormy Daniels and others, and ended up in the slammer.  The democrats tried to destroy Kavanaugh, a true paragon of the law and his family with false witnesses, false “evidence” and mainstream media innuendo, all proven false by an FBI investigation, but none of the false actors were ever brought to justice.

So we’ll have to be pardoned for not dredging up any sympathy for the unscrupulous, dishonest and now disorganized democrats.  Some caveats, though.  Watch out for Bloomberg and his money.  He is a $65 billionaire, so $1 billion is chump change to him, and he is smart and astute enough to know how to use it.  Beware also of George Soros, who is always there, fomenting trouble like antifa and others.

Ray Gruszecki

February 6, 2020

What Now, After the Impeachment Farce?

What Now, After the Impeachment Farce?

The impeachment nonsense is over and Trump has been acquitted of the two extremely weak and incomplete articles of impeachment produced by the house democrats in their star chamber and kangaroo court house proceedings.

The democrats seem in disarray after Trump’s acquittal and their Iowa caucus disaster, but let’s remember that a cornered rat is most dangerous.  And I mean, “rat”.  How can we ever forget the unscrupulous and dishonest machinations against President Trump for the last three years, and particularly against Judge Kavanaugh in 2018?  These people have no sense of decency or fairness, and will try to destroy everyone in their path to gain political power and hegemony.

Watching Pelosi and the democrats during President Trump’s State of the Union speech, and Pelosi’s juvenile ripping up of her copy of the speech is illustrative of this “Trump derangement syndrome”.  Pelosi’s and the democrats’ rude and thoughtless actions and gestures in response to the inspirational moments of the SOTU speech, such as providing a scholarship for a little girl, reuniting a gold star family and recognizing a 100 year old Tuskegee Airman, can in fact form the basis for future republican campaign ads.

The republican side fight pretty much fairly, mostly tell the truth and are willing to rationally discuss issues.  They are too nice, and therefore are at a disadvantage to the dirty tricks and unscrupulous tactics used by the leftists.  It is not partisan politics to see through the outright lies based on hearsay, used by the house managers in the impeachment proceedings.  The transcript of Trump’s phone calls with the President of Ukraine lay in plain sight, while the democrat house managers fashioned all manner of impeachable offenses about them.  Thankfully, the President’s legal defense was cogent, forthright and convincing.

But like cornered rats, the democrats will not cease trying to “get Trump” so long as they have a majority in the house.  Jerry Nadler was already fishing with Christopher Wray any salient information from the Mueller inquiry and even from the Kavanaugh hearing.  Pelosi, Nadler and Schiff will find ways to try to question Bolton, Mulvaney, Pompeo and others to try to dredge up more dirt on Trump.  These individuals are probably protected by executive privilege, so it may take a long time for the question to work its way through the courts.

In the meantime, Senator Lindsay Graham, chairman of the Judicial Committee has said that he will subpoena Eric Ciaramella, the purported whistle blower and others, and get the Foreign Relations Committee to subpoena Hunter and Joe Biden.  They should also question Adam Schiff, who was a participant in the conspiracy on the Trump impeachment.  The Durham investigation should also expose the real abuses by the democrats and the administrative state against candidate Trump, and later, against President Trump.  Assuming that Mitch McConnell can hold together his caucus, the senate should be able to investigate and expose myriad abuses.

The house will continue to attack Trump while they have a majority and the speakership.  But Senators, Graham, Gaetz, Rand Paul and others should do all in their power to expose the corrupt and conniving democrats for what they are; power hungry, bureaucrats hell bent on making our republic a secular, woke”, politically correct entity revolving around bigoted identity-based political groups.

Ray Gruszecki

February 6, 2020

Bernie Sanders – Democratic Socialist or Communist?

Bernie Sanders – Democratic Socialist or Communist?

Bernie Sanders may call himself a “social democrat”, but his 50+ years in politics shows him to be a Marxist and a communist.  Bernie may have modified some of his views about nationalizing industry, but like China’s adopting a market-oriented economy, it does not make China any less communist. 

Bernie now claims that his socialism is patterned on that of the Scandinavian countries, but this is patently false.  Denmark, Sweden and Finland may have welfare states based on extremely high taxes and cradle to grave care, but imply to any Dane or Swede or Finn that their system is socialist, and they will laugh you out of the room.  Their system is strongly capitalist, and their brand of the welfare state has worked in the past for relatively small, diligent and responsible populations.  Some Scandinavian countries are now having real problems as their systems are hit with non-supporting, indigent migrants.

Bernie’s Marxism has been consistent through the years, and he has only modified his overt views about nationalization because of electability necessity.  He is a populist politician after all.

One cannot fail to admire Bernie’s consistency through his 50+ years in Brooklyn, Chicago, Vermont and Washington, D.C.  He has read and applied his Marx and Saul Alinsky very well through the years.

Bernie’s appeal to young people is understandable.  Notwithstanding the inherent idealism of youth, the fact that they have not experienced the ravages of socialism and communism, which were responsible for the deaths of upwards of 120 million people in the twentieth century, makes youth particularly susceptible to the swansong of the altruistic aspect of socialism.  If I were a disenfranchised twenty-something with a “gender studies” degree living in my parents’ basement, with a student loan debt of $50,000-$100,000, and my only prospects were flipping burgers or digging ditches, and someone suggested that my debt be forgiven and that I be given “free” stuff, I would certainly respond positively to Bernie.

Bernie is charismatic and real, and God help us if he ever has the chance to wield “a pen and a phone” like Obama, because he will do irrevocable damage to our republic.

The DNC and the powerful Clinton forces seem to be aligned against Bernie, as they were in 2016, and the democrat candidates seem so fragmented that anything might result, even Hillary or Michelle Obama.  With a couple of billionaires like Bloomberg and Steyer in the mix, and Soros on the sidelines, all of them spending money like drunken sailors, nothing is impossible, except one of them beating Trump in November.

These two articles by left wing publications take a look at Bernie’s past.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics/kfile-bernie-nationalization/index.html

https://theweek.com/articles/891206/bernie-sanders-learned-anything-over-past-50-years

Ray Gruszecki

February 1, 2020

Downsizing and Selling My House

Downsizing and Selling My House

I finally closed on my house sale on Friday, January 24, 2020, and the proceeds were wired to my bank.  I sold the house for less than I would have liked, and it took nearly 7 months, somewhat longer that I originally expected.

After talking about it for several years, I finally decided to downsize in early 2019, sell my house and move to an active senior community.  I had been living in my house for 37 years, since 1982, through divorce, eventual remarriage and a house fire in 2001.  I had been living alone in the pretty large house since 2007, when my wife Gisela died.  It really was a waste of space on a property that had increased in value through the years.  The real estate market in Dallas seemed to be quite active at the time, houses like mine were selling for upwards of $400k, and being sold within a month.  Not so when I listed my house.  Literally nothing in my competitive neighborhood was hardly selling at all.  I sat on the house and paid nominal bills on it for seven months.

Like many my age and status in life, I had accumulated an 8-room house full of furniture and other belongings.  This included a rather extensive firearms and loading collection from my sport of high-power accuracy rifle shooting, a pickup truck, a garage and shed full of tools, a 10-foot satellite antenna, and various and sundry artifacts that I had collected from domestic and foreign travel through the years  I also suspected that the house had developed slab and possibly other integrity issues since the last time that this had been addressed in the mid 1980’s.  The house also required relatively minor indoor and outside repairs and paint.  Because of all of the above issues, I thought that downsizing, selling the house and moving out was not a trivial matter.

I started the process in late February of 2019 by talking to the management of Lakeview, a senior community in Carrollton, Texas, where several church friends already lived.  Lakeview was my original target senior community.  From them I obtained references for a real estate broker, Tricia Spurrier of Keller Williams Agency, and a downsizer, Kim Lawrence of Seasoned Life Transitions, her own company.  I also started accumulating references for slab work and for other relatively minor maintenance that the house required.

I first met with Tricia Spurrier in February of 2019 to discuss specific things that I needed to do to get the house ready for sale, listing the house and timing.  We agreed to early summer as a target date for selling the house since that was an advantageous time for family buyers.  I also met with Kim Lawrence about downsizing and holding an estate sale, and worked out some preliminaries.  I started making arrangements for any slab work and other repairs necessary, and gave some thought to selling my firearms and other equipment.  I started acting as a project manager again, as I had when we reconstructed the house after the house fire in 2001.

Integrity Foundation of Fort Worth tested and levelled the slab in March, only about an average of 1” at a total cost, of $4050, including later testing.  The testing showed that the water lines passed the required Dallas City tests, but the sewer lines did not.  This necessitated a major revamp of the sewer lines.  After several competitive bids, I chose C & C Slab of Dallas to do this work.  Their “tunnel rats” tunneled under the house from both ends and completely replaced the sewer system, at a cost of close to $20,000.  They finished this work in late April, taking a full month, after being interrupted several times by major rainstorms.  This constituted the major expenditure in getting the property ready for sale.

In the meantime, I got a contractor friend of mine Billy Fritcher, to do some ceiling and Pergo floor repairs, some interior painting, some external cosmetic work on the house and some fence repair.  Billy also removed and scrapped the 10 ft satellite dish in my back yard.  Billy only charged me less than $1000 for all of this work.

Kim Lawrence and I started on the downsizing effort at about the same time – late April or early May.  I thought that this would be daunting, because I had an awful lot of “stuff”, but Kim had “been there and done that” before and assured me that it need not be that daunting.  Kim and I worked for the good part of a month sorting, choosing and packing.  Kim was invaluable in this downsizing effort.  Her experience figured heavily in what I was to take with me, what was for the estate sale, and what needed to be donated or disposed of.  This was a pretty traumatic time for me, because I had to get off my ass and act, rather than just talking and planning.

I eventually also had to pay to haul off perfectly good “stuff” just to get rid of the volume.

Further discussions with the Riverview Senior Community staff and several visits to the facility turned my opinion away from them, in spite of the fact that several of my church friends were living there.  Their price for what I considered a too small two-bedroom apartment was nearly $4000 per month with a rather inflexible meal plan.  They stressed a pre-payment to defray monthly costs, and they seemed inflexible in other ways.  They also seemed to have considerable staff turnover.  Their Executive Director and their Head Chef changed as I was negotiating with them.  They also had a main elevator problem, and seemed not to honor the Second Amendment.

With Kim Lawrence’s help, I looked at several other senior retirement communities.  Everleigh was a beautiful brand-new facility at Forest and Inwood, just south of St Marks Preparatory School.  It was upscale, expensive and was just opening.  Rooms were a little small, and the place was so modern, that my regular old furniture would be out of place.  Meadowstone Place, which I finally chose, was an older community, but it was spacious, the staff was quite professional, and they offered over one month rent and other amenities as a signing bonus.  I actually had access to the new apartment at 10308 Stone Canyon Road, Apt 201s on May 24, and I prepared to setup TV, phone and internet service in the new place.

My old Caltex friend, John Penzenik, worked for Cabela’s Gun Library in the past, and gave me a contact there to sell off my firearms and equipment.  After several weeks of telephone tag, I finally got in touch with Curt Junker, Cabela’s Regional Acquisition Manager.  To make a long story short, Curt gave me a fair price for most of my guns.  We held several higher priced guns back as inducement for the estate sale, and we also sold those at decent prices.  I kept back a little Belgian Browning in .380, and a Glock 17 in 9 mm.  I cleared about $10k on the guns that I estimated were worth about $15k retail.

I committed to move from the house at 3247 to Meadowstone Place on June 10, and Kim and I worked to prepare for that target date.  On Sunday, June 9, there was a major wind storm that knocked out power both at 3247 Whitehall, and Meadowstone Place.  A tree fell on the landing outside of my new apartment, and it was touch and go whether I could actually move in on June 10.  I had scheduled John Fortunato, the mover for that date.  Fortunately, the Meadowstone maintenance cleared the tree limb and we proceeded as scheduled.  I paid John Fortunato $3700 for moving and setting up my “stuff” at 10308.  Kim also was invaluable in this effort.

I sold my 1992 Toyota pickup for $3500 by listing it on Facebook after having my mechanic, Reuben, go through it and prepare it for sale.  I literally had a bidding war going for the truck, and I sold it for $500 more than I really needed to get out of it.

Kim Lawrence held the estate sale the following weekend and we cleared about $8500, with about $3000 as my portion, plus another $9000 from sales of the guns.  Kim then continued to sell off some of the items that were left over the next several months until most items were gone.  I cleared another roughly $500 from these sales.

Working with Tricia Spurrier of Keller-Williams, we listed the house in mid-June for $365,000, which was considered competitive at the time.  Earlier in the year houses in this area were turning over fairly rapidly, but it seems that as soon as we listed the house, the competitive market dried up, and no one was selling.  We had our share of viewings and a few low-ball offers, but other than that I continued to pay for insurance and minimal utilities on the house.  We lowered our listing, first to $360,000, and then to $350,000, but did not elicit any realistic offers.  Comments were that the house was not modern enough for the several interested buyers.

I went to Vienna and the Balkans in September, and to Massachusetts in December, all the while keeping an eye on the house sale.  It almost sold while I was in Massachusetts at around $309,000, but the buyer backed out at the last minute.  We got an offer from a developer of $281,000 that they later raised to $290,000.  I decided to accept this offer, because this was a cash deal, as is, with no option period and with no 3% buyer’s commission.  It’s as if it was a conventional sale at about $310,000.

After clearing up a title issue that still showed joint ownership of the house with my deceased wife Gisela, the closing took 15 minutes at my place, and the money was wired into my account the same day.  The buyer even let me leave my junk remnants in the garage and house.  Also there was a buyer’s “construction set-aside” of $59,300, which apparently the buyer is going to use to completely modernize the house before “flipping” it, thereby preserving the integrity of the neighborhood.

To put a period on it, I met with my Tom Adcock, my Financial Planner for lunch On January 28th.  I decided to take advantage of the “Trump Bump”, and invest in roughly 50% equities and 50% bond based ETF’s.  The equities are to be a mixture of mutual funds and ETF’s under Tom’s supervision.  I also decide to buy $10k of Boeing stock, which is a bargain right now.  Tom transferred the funds into my LPL account using his laptop while we were sitting at lunch.

Ray Gruszecki

January 28, 2020