NEW GOP STRATEGY

The new GOP strategy to get control of the nomination is now becoming obvious. The plan seems to be to enhance the candidacy of Ted Cruz and at the same time pound away that Trump could not possibly win a general election. The media seem to be an enthusiastic supporter of this strategy. They are also hoping and praying they can start a food fight between Trump and Cruz.  While Cruz has refused to take the bait, it is still a question if the same restraint will be maintained by Trump.

At the same time they are leaking that the establishment is planning a coup at the convention. I believe they are baiting Trump to re-act with threats of a third party run, which would discourage support from some Republicans. So far, Trump has not taken the bait.

If they are successful in pushing Cruz past Trump, or causing Trump to overreact, I am sure they believe they can then crush Cruz in short order. Make no mistake in believing the establishment will accept a Ted Cruz candidacy.

While Ted Cruz is a sound Conservative and a stand-up guy, it is doubtful he would be able to maneuver in the Congress. It is questionable about what appointments he would make in his administration.  He would probably do better for the country as Attorney General and possibly a Supreme Court Justice in the future. I like Ted Cruz , but I question if he has the charisma to be president.

Trump, who could arguably be called an arrogant p***k, would have the ability to have a short memory about his enemies and select the best people for his cabinet. He would also not hesitate to remove his appointments that can't get the job done.  He would also be able to maneuver around Congress and the media better than any candidate on both sides. He can also bring a lot more Democratic voters to his side and bring out new voters.

The ultimate goal of the GOP establishment is to place Jeb Bush as president, if they cannot prevail, as Lindsey Graham has stated, they would rather, "loose without Donald Trump, than win with him".



ARE THE ESTABLISHMENT AND THE MEDIA NOW IRRELEVANT?

The Republican establishment, more rabid than ever, has once again failed to diminish the candidacy of Donald Trump.  Is it possible that the so called establishment's credibility is so low that they are irrelevant in controlling the direction of the party? After decades of promising reform, smaller government, balanced budgets, and less regulation they have produced little results, if not outright losses. Is it game over for anyone labeled as "establishment"? The worst thing on a resume is serving for decades in Washington.  With years of a foreign policy, without defining a long term objective or able to articulate an end result, are we really expected to support these people again? You hear that Trump has only 30% of the vote, and then when the candidates thin out,  the establishment's men will reap their votes. The combined establishment numbers of Bush, Christie, and Kasich are at 9% in the latest poll. The Trump, Cruz, and Carson, who would all be unacceptable to the establishment, account for over 64% of the voters.  Their only hope is to rig a convention for this year and run new stealth candidates in the future. (See post from Oct. 22, 2015)

While Trump is inarticulate at times and not always perfect with his facts, what separates him from the party favorites is that voters believe he has the best interest of the country as his priority.  The establishment candidates can spend millions on ads, drag out Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, but it only reinforces the failures of the past. They are not believable and they will not recover for 2016.

The media, including Fox, must be getting the message that they can no longer control what the issues and solutions should be... it appears that Americans have finally started paying attention and thinking for themselves. I hope that is the case.

I suspect the Democratic establishment is going to be in the same boat. I believe they are about to lose support of manufacturing unions, police unions, trade unions and anyone who is able to see they have not been working in the best interest of private sector workers. They will become the party of the fringes and the government employee unions.

We will see how this all plays out.  It may be the greatest show on earth.

PA.  SENATE  PASSES  SPENDING  BILL

TAX  INCREASES  NOT  REVEALED

The senate passed a $30.8 billion spending bill. It has not yet specified how the revenue will be raised to support this spending. It is rumored that they plan to expand the items that will be covered by the sales tax.

This bill was introduced and voted on within 24 hours. It is more top-down legislation, cobbled together in the back room, without input or amendments by members.  It really appears to be a cynical attempt to push it over to the House, where the chances of it passing are slim, especially without the means to pay for it addressed-this way the Senate can say they did their part , the House is the problem.

All have acknowledged fracking taxes are going to be irrelevant, as it is likely that the natural gas industry in Pennsylvania may not survive.  There should be an effort by Penn. to lobby Obama to allow exports of natural gas. This industry has been a bright spot in a dismal economy.  Everyone is enjoying low energy prices for now, but when US fracking business is liquidated, we will then be at the mercy of Middle East oil. This is either a uninformed decision by our national leaders, or they are accomplices in this energy war.

The state revenues have increased since last year, they should make due with what they have. They are giving subsidies in the many millions to the horse racing industry, Hollywood and other corporate free-loaders. The legislature should spend the next session going over the entire budget and eliminating the fat that is not an essential function of government. If done in a contentious way, I have little doubt that they could find a lot of money.

NWL REORGANIZATION

PENSION CONTRIBUTION TO RISE TO 29.27%

 

 

The new Northwestern Lehigh Board members were sworn in last night. Charlene Rauscher, Joseph Fatzinger, Todd Leiser, and John Casciano are the new additions to the board. Everyone wishes them well and support them in their new job.

 

Williard Delliker was named president, Paul Fisher vice-president, and Todd Hernandez Secretary for the board.

 

In other business was news that the district contribution to the teachers pension plan will rise next year to 29.27 % of employee salary. Half of this is supposed to be reimbursed by the state. The biggest obstacle to reform of this pension plan is the state teachers union.

 

The State Budget is not expected to be settled before the new year.

 

The projected Earned Income Revenue is down $84,000 so far, but this is possibly a result of accounting errors at the county level.

 

The next board meeting is January 20, 2016, members of the community are encouraged to attend.

OBAMA, TERROR WATCH LIST, GUNS

Watching President Obama last night seemed to be more of the same. While talking about upping the ante on ISIS, the reality is that in the last 18 months of military strikes against ISIS we were forbidden to bomb oil trucks carrying oil because the drivers may not be actual terrorists. We could not bomb oil wells as this might cause pollution.  ISIS headquarters were off limits because the leaders had their families living there. Our planes return without dropping all of their ordinance, due to restrictive rules of engagement. This is very dangerous for our pilots and ground personnel, landing planes with ordinance attached. Turkey is buying the discounted ISIS oil with our approval. Saudi Arabia is still supporting radical Sunnis including ISIS and Al Qaida, as well funding mosques in Europe and America, some with questionable motives. I have some sympathy for the President, because I don't believe he knows what action to take, and if we were willing to go in and kill ISIS would that end the Middle East crisis?

It is obvious his heart is not in destroying ISIS, but he sure is motivated in regulating American citizens in any way possible. We hear the same phrases and talking points, "high powered military weapons"...but if he would care to inquire, the 223 round, which is 1/3 the size of the average deer hunting round, also has a solid projectile designed to wound, not kill.  More deadly in the these instances would be a shotgun with 00 buckshot which could contain 15,  32 cal. pellets.  A nine-shot shotgun would be capable of delivering 135 pellets 1/3 larger than a 223 in 15 seconds. I hate to get into these details, but you can become tired of hearing so much misinformation. All of his gun control proposals would not have been effective against these attacks.

As for terrorist bombs, these can be made from many items in the average household - propane, matches, hair spray, agriculture fertilizer, and gasoline. What about a car, truck or other vehicle, how many could be killed in a crowded street or highway? We could go on and on. The point is we will not be able to stop dedicated terrorists from acquiring or manufacturing weapons and the means of inflicting mayhem.  We need to stop potential terrorists from entering the country.

We need to focus on terrorists,  not the means to kill and maim. Obama wants to allow 100,000 refugees to come here; if only 1% are motivated terrorists that means 1000 possible troublemakers. His Attorney General stated this week, that it may be an indictable offense to talk negatively about Muslims. I am sure that most Muslims are not terrorists, but I am also sure that a certain percentage are supportive of these attacks without actually being active players. We should suspend all travel from the Middle East until we are confident we can properly screen people entering the country.

Obama's plan to close Guantanamo and place these prisoners into state and federal prisons on the mainland would be a perfect way for radical Jihadists to recruit new members. There is a fertile place to spread anti-American propaganda.

I am sure that the internet is used to spread propaganda and recruit new members; I'm pretty sure that it is monitored. Capturing cell phone calls of all Americans probably will overload analysts with too much information; while new unsophisticated terrorists may use cell phones and e-mail, I doubt serious terrorists are that naïve. Individuals can be adequately investigated with the laws we now have. Bin Laden used personal couriers for years, and the post office, UPS and Fed-X, is a lot more discrete.

I understand the opposition to restricting the rights of people on the terrorist watch list - this list is now over 1,000,000 and growing. It has been used in the past as a weapon against political opponents.  With the record of this administration's use of government agencies to punish political enemies, I would expect it would be expanded 10 fold. People can be placed on these lists, without review, by many government agencies. Someone placed on this list wrongfully would have to fight this with his limited money against the federal government.

I would still like to know what is our purpose in the Middle East? What is the end game? What result are we looking for? It appears we have a conflict  between Sunni and Shia forces, both bent on establishing an Islamic caliphate across the whole Islamic world.  There are coalitions on both sides, and we seem to be jockeying back and forth between sides. The so called radical extremists are the warriors in this struggle, but their supporters are much more widespread. Until we decide what our objectives are we should keep out of this as much as possible.



NORTHWESTERN LEHIGH EXPLAINS FUND BALANCE

The Northwestern Lehigh School District released a video yesterday explaining the details of the district's fund balance.   The fund balance has increased from $11,252,832 on June 30, 2011  to 

$19,542,059 on June 30, 2015.   View the video at the link below:

http://nwlehighsd.org/news.cfm?story=167821&school=0

As the video explains this fund is designated for various future responsibilities.  This approach will limit the need for incurring debt in the future. The board and the administration should be congratulated for their responsible fiscal plan.  

CAP AND TRADE EXPLAINED

While world leaders are congregating in Paris to determine what approach they will use to deal with climate change, we thought it would be a good time to look at the original idea of how to deal with the climate.  

The idea of Cap and Trade had been proposed as a "Market Approach"  to reducing greenhouse emissions. It was proposed in the 1990's by Richard Sandor with the help of Al Gore.  The "Chicago Climate Exchange" or CCX was opened in November 2000. The largest Stockholder was Goldman Sacks, with large stakes by Richard Sandor and Al Gore.  

This idea was that emission caps would be set by a government agency on individual companies, I am sure this would have been done in a strictly objective and unbiased way. Then if a company could not meet those caps they would be required to purchase permits to exceed those caps from companies or individuals whose emissions were less than those set for them, of course in an unbiased and objective way.   

The result of all this was the Chicago Climate Exchange,  which is where all these permits would be bought and sold. This was expected to begin as a $500,000,000 business and grow to a $10 trillion dollar business.  

We have the Chicago Mercantile exchange which trades pork bellies, hogs, beef, oil, or any commodity. We also have the New York Stock Exchange which trades stocks in publicly traded corporations. These transactions all require someone to eventually ship the products or certificates to someone.  The genius of the Cap and Trade business is that the permits are created out of thin air by a government agency, no shipping is required, no packaging needed. In effect they are trading an inert gas and collecting a commission on every transaction.  

The Chicago Climate Exchange was started with a grant of 1.1 million dollars from the Joyce Foundation of Chicago-Barak Obama was a board member at the time. Richard Daly, former mayor of Chicago and Obama adviser, was an honorary chairman. It was a gravy train of money and power for a long list of left-wing advocates. When the handwriting was on the wall, that the law was not going to pass in the U.S. Senate, the original investors unloaded it to the International Exchange for $600,000,000. A few months later in November 2010 the Exchange closed when the whole idea collapsed in the U.S.

All plans being proposed have to do with laws passed by countries, or international bodies. All require government control of all energy.  All will allow government bureaucrats to pick winners and losers. All require taxes that will be re-distributed from energy users through energy providers to poorer countries, or persons determined by the ruling bodies..

While Cap and Trade is dead for now, the plan to tax and control all energy is still alive.