Showing posts with label immigration reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration reform. Show all posts

Thursday, February 02, 2017

The Secret to Secure Borders with Mexico - Redeploy American Troops from Overseas




Dear President Trump - here is a way to strengthen the Border with Mexico!



Why not relocate US Troops to new US Bases along the Mexican border?  We could help stop the senseless killing, over 200,000 Mexican citizens while Obama was president, caught in the middle of a drug war.  At the same time, a series of a dozen or more bases stretched out along the border would move thousands of trained military into the vicinity of the human trafficking of illegal immigrants along with the drug dealers. Right now the US pays the highest costs possible to foreign governments to post our troops overseas for the purpose of defending their foreign lands.


If we had a series of military bases along the border, we would reduce foreign costs for defense, provide thousands of trained soldiers to help with immigration and drug trafficking, and be able to use the bases to monitor high-tech electronic monitoring of the border rather than build a giant wall. It would also help stimulate the local economies where the bases would be built and soldiers and families housed.


Redeployment of overseas forces

Here is what I wrote in an article June 3, 2010:



We have over 2.5 million defense soldiers and civilian employees but only 1.1 million are in the USA. Since a few thousand remain in both Iraq and Afghanistan that leaves 1.2 million DOD employees all over the rest of the world. There are over 735 American military bases outside the USA including 38 large and medium size facilities.



At the height of the British Empire in 1898 they had 36 bases spread out around the world and at the height of the Roman Empire in 117 AD they had 37 major bases. Of course they were both trying to conquer the world. We aren't supposed to be conquering the world so get rid of the excess bases.


Maybe the president should stop playing world policeman and close the majority of the overseas bases, leaving only those absolutely needed for national security, and set up a network of domestic bases along the border with Mexico. We already have the troops and are paying to keep them outside the country. Why not set up border bases in Arizona, New Mexico, a couple in Texas and maybe one more in Southern California?



Perhaps the presence of thousands of American troops might help stop the flow of illegal drugs and the human trafficking of illegal immigrants? It might even help Mexico reduce the massive death rate from the drug war along the border that has cost nearly 200,000 Mexican lives, men, women, and children, since 2007.



This is one of the darkest elements of the border traffic and is a plague to Arizona and the other states.  Here is a solution that saves money and lives while reducing costly foreign expenditures that can no longer be justified.
.

Soon President Trump will host a Summit of the US, Mexico, and Canada - It is time for action!




The United StatesMexico and Canada
525 Years of Shared History

Over six years ago I wrote an article calling for a North American for Americans that outlined a program to build bridges between the United StatesCanada and Mexico through a comprehensive treaty to share and protect each other in the areas of energy independence, human rights, economic collaboration, agriculture production, and safety and justice for our citizens.

With issues like Immigration Reform, drug trafficking, economic stability, terrorism. and the Keystone Pipeline pressing the agenda both the new Trump Administration and the two political parties, once again should stop talking about the problems and take action to capitalize on the wonderful opportunity we have to correct many wrongs and recognize the many good things a real North American partnership would bring.

Toward that end the following is the article I wrote first in mid-2008 calling for a North America for Americans program.  I then updated the article in 2010, 2012 and 2013 waiting for the US government to wake up and act.  We are closer today than ever and all citizens of these three great nations should demand their politicians embrace such a program that serves the greater good of the people.

Since our discovery 524 years ago the three North neighbors have grown up and evolved in ways that will forever keep us tied together culturally, economically, politically and from a national security standpoint.

We have thousands of miles of common borders and millions of people have moved back and forth between these three nations. In spite of our differences, there is much that binds us together. Yet these closest and most consistent of allies have never embraced a policy that can serve the benefit of all three neighbors.

Our problems are common from economic stability to natural resource management, from national security to energy independence. If we shared resources there are numerous ways the three could benefit from the relationship.


Even our national priorities are similar. We all seek energy independence, security for our citizens, quality health care, better education, improved human rights, freedom to achieve success without financial or cultural discrimination, and the ability to pursue an American Dream.

We complement each other in ways we seldom appreciate.  Canada has excess oil and we have excess natural gas. Mexico has oil but needs better health care, education and economic development. All three have abundant natural resources and the ability to share those resources and make all of us independent in a variety of ways.

Our problems are often ignored by politicians but obvious to compassionate citizens. Since I wrote the article nearly 200,000 innocent Mexican citizens have been brutally murdered in drug wars along the border with the USA. They were caught in the crossfire of criminal elements intent on controlling the huge illegal drug trade in the United States.


For some odd reason the number of Mexican deaths seems to have been ignored by the American media and politicians. So let us put it in perspective. Our total military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are about 7,000 over the past decade. Approximately 125,000 civilians were killed during the entire wars, so about 132,000 deaths took place in the two war torn countries.

In about half the years more than 200,000 Mexican civilians have been killed in a war for control of our southern border. Included are men, women and children, not soldiers.

We should be ashamed of such a travesty taking place under our very noses. Of course there is corruption in Mexico, just like on Wall Street and in WashingtonDCAmerica is founded on the principle that crime does not pay and criminals should be hunted down and locked up. Why do we turn a deaf ear to the American crime that has settled just across the border to avoid the reach of our laws?

Immigration, or illegal immigration is another common problem between neighbors. If we helped Mexico develop an economic development program that provided fair wages and benefits to Mexican workers, there would be no need for them to cross the border illegally to seek a better life in America.


Much of the economic pressure on America came from foreign dependence on oil and the price manipulation of crude oil and gas in world commodity markets. While we have reduced oil dependence substantially, because of fuel efficiencies, and mass production of domestic oil, we still import too much.

If the last Congress and the Obama Administration had the guts we could be energy independent already as the combined oil and natural gas resources of the US, Canada and Mexico are more than sufficient to meet all our energy needs for now and the future.

Obama blocked off shore drilling, has not supported natural gas development, and rejected the Keystone pipeline from Canada, three ill-advised moves that have undermined the hopes for US energy independence. It is time to get real. Our economy and our high standard of living, the envy of most nations, depends on abundant energy at reasonable prices. We have neither.


Our first economic concern should be energy independence from foreign control and manipulation. There must be an American strategy that includes our neighbors to the north and south, Canada and Mexico.  Between the three (USACanada and Mexico) we have more than enough reserves of oil, natural gas and alternative energy capacity to meet our needs forever.

Between the three we have the technical skills, exploration capacity, financial resources, and the spirit of freedom needed to create our own energy cartel to meet our future needs, to control inflation which is now driven by oil prices, to offset problems in one area (hurricanes) with increased production in another area (Canadian shale reserves), and to finally gain independence from foreign manipulation.

There should be no more Dubai's financed with the blood money from American consumers. In the future the horrendous transfer of wealth from the Americas to Arab and other nations including hostile energy producing nations, must stop, keep the massive wealth in America.


If the United States, Mexico and Canada decided our shared interests were far more important than our differences, that our heritages are bound together through generations, that our borders touch and that if the citizens of all three countries had good homes, good health and good jobs, there would be no need for illegal immigration, then we could all live in peace and harmony.

Well the money we wasted buying inflated oil could have accomplished just that and isn't it about time we used that money to do some good for the Americas? Stop pointing fingers and work together. Mexico and Canada have incredible oil and natural gas reserves like the United States. We all have a need and desire to help each other grow. And we sure don't need the rest of the world to interfere.

Years ago when we passed NAFTA our biggest mistake was not that it went too far, it didn't go far enough. Oh we moved jobs to Mexico and US manufacturers saved money, but at what cost? We did not protect the workers down there like we protect them here. We did not make sure the people of Mexico got a better standard of living, decent homes, food, housing, and a better education for their children.


Maybe it is time we stepped back and did it right. Maybe we need a new trade agreement to replace NAFTA based on a shared interest in creating energy independence for all three nations. One that assures that excess profits are invested in the people, in their standard of living and quality of life. Maybe we should stop glamorizing the excesses like the lavish development of Dubai and start focusing on the real world which is the people living in our three countries in substandard conditions with inferior education and jobs in the wrong place.


Something is terribly wrong with the system. All the nuclear reactors in the world and all the alternative energy in the world will not overcome corruption in the marketplace, unfair business actions, malicious price manipulation of the futures market, and the evil intentions of oil speculators. Still the price of gasoline remains excessive and hostage to foreign oil producers.

Nuclear reactors are still dangerous. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were not jokes nor movies, they were real. I was at TMI for the multi-billion dollar clean up of that "harmless" accident. If $5-7 billion is harmless what is the world coming to? As for Chernobyl, I met the kids that were victims of radiation poisoning, the kids that must remain in the hot zone for life because they can contaminate other people. Of course a full life for many of them was about 10-12 years.

Of the radiation that was released by Chernobyl, over 70% fell onto the population of Belarus resulting in 800,000 children in Belarus and 380,000 in the Ukraine being at a high risk of contracting cancer or leukemia.  It will be another 24,000 years before the land is safe and the children no longer suffer.


Since the disaster there has also been an increase of 800% in the incidence of cancers in children living near to the reactor plus there has been a dramatic increase in the rate of babies born with substantial physical disabilities. Babies born limbless, deformed and with severe brain damage.


Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline and other groups in Britain help deprived children living in heavily contaminated areas affected by the Chernobyl disaster, primarily Belarus and Ukraine, by bringing them to the UK for a month-long respite holiday where they benefit from, among other things, clean air, good nutrition, physical safety and an environment free of radioactive contamination. I met these beautiful kids in Scotland. The month long holiday in Scotland extended the lives of the Ukraine children up to a year.


There is an accident in the Ukraine, in Eastern Europe, and sheep die a thousand miles away in Scotland. Land from nuclear testing over the years is a dead zone for hundreds of years. Nuclear waste at our nuclear plants sit stored at the plants, vulnerable to terrorist attack, because congress cannot get a nuclear disposal facility built. When a nuclear plant wears out, and they do just like everything else, the plant must be decommissioned and that cost is now more than the cost of building the plant in the first place. Nuclear has a role but must be used with great caution.


On the other hand, there are known reserves of oil and gas in North America sufficient to meet the our needs for 300 more years. We are not running out of oil tomorrow. The price manipulation of oil has nothing to do with the supply and demand, the normal supply and demand. Off shore drilling, even the very limited Alaskan drilling, can only help us be more independent. But we need refinery capacity to make the various types of gas and oil we need if we get the crude locally.

Together the three nations should develop and implement a long term North American Energy Independence plan that makes all known and unknown reserves available to the producers including the Gulf, Atlantic and Pacific deep water reserves, the limited areas in Alaska that should be developed, and the many other known reserves in the countries.

As new territory is made available for drilling refining capacity must be expanded in the Americas to produce the products we need. There must be substantial incentives for alternative energy efforts but we must not be so foolish as to think alternative energy can meet much of our current and future energy needs.


Significant savings can be generated by energy conservation programs. For example, energy savings of 50% or more can be made in our older housing stock. Multiply that by a few hundred thousand homes and a real dent in energy demand can be realized.

A meaningful partnership is needed between the three bordering nations, the energy companies in those nations, the conservation and alternative fuel companies in those nations, and the building code enforcement authorities in those nations. Such a partnership will protect and create jobs, stop foreign trade deficits, stop the transfer of wealth to Arab nations, and stop the out of control oil and gas prices.

Beyond that an economic partnership can raise the living standard in Mexico, end illegal immigration to the USA, ensure long term economic development in Canada, and provide the citizens of all three countries with better education, food, housing and security. Such a partnership can also end the senseless killing of tens of thousands of innocent Mexicans caught in the crossfire of America's drug war.

Is it not worth the effort to make this happen? Surely this will prove to us and to the world that America is not only our brother's keeper but partner as well. It seems time our closest neighbors and long term partners who helped build America should share in the goodness and glory of America? Together we have a chance to change history.
.

Thursday, August 04, 2016

The Secret to Secure Borders with Mexico - Redeploy American Troops from Overseas




Pay attention presidential candidates, - here is an alternative to the fence in Mexico!



Why not relocate US Troops to new US Bases along the Mexican border?  We could help stop the senseless killing, 160,000 Mexican citizens since Obama took office, caught in the middle of a drug war.  At the same time, a series of a dozen or more bases stretched out along the border would move thousands of trained military into the vicinity of the human trafficking of illegal immigrants along with the drug dealers. Right now the US pays the highest costs possible to foreign governments to post our troops overseas for the purpose of defending their foreign lands.


If we had a series of military bases along the border, we would reduce foreign costs for defense, provide thousands of trained soldiers to help with immigration and drug trafficking, and be able to use the bases to monitor high-tech electronic monitoring of the border rather than build a giant wall. It would also help stimulate the local economies where the bases would be built and soldiers and families housed.


Redeployment of overseas forces

Here is what I wrote in an article June 3, 2010:



We have over 2.5 million defense soldiers and civilian employees but only 1.1 million are in the USA. Since a few thousand remain in both Iraq and Afghanistan that leaves 1.2 million DOD employees all over the rest of the world. There are over 735 American military bases outside the USA including 38 large and medium size facilities.



At the height of the British Empire in 1898 they had 36 bases spread out around the world and at the height of the Roman Empire in 117 AD they had 37 major bases. Of course they were both trying to conquer the world. We aren't supposed to be conquering the world so get rid of the excess bases.


Maybe the president should stop playing world policeman and close the majority of the overseas bases, leaving only those absolutely needed for national security, and set up a network of domestic bases along the border with Mexico. We already have the troops and are paying to keep them outside the country. Why not set up border bases in Arizona, New Mexico, a couple in Texas and maybe one more in Southern California?



Perhaps the presence of thousands of American troops might help stop the flow of illegal drugs and the human trafficking of illegal immigrants? It might even help Mexico reduce the massive death rate from the drug war along the border that has cost nearly 200,000 Mexican lives, men, women, and children, since 2007.



This is one of the darkest elements of the border traffic and is a plague to Arizona and the other states.  Here is a solution that saves money and lives while reducing costly foreign expenditures that can no longer be justified.
.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Today President Obama hosts a Summit of the US, Mexico, and Canada - It is time for action!

.


The United StatesMexico and Canada
524 Years of Shared History

Over six years ago I wrote an article calling for a North American for Americans that outlined a program to build bridges between the United StatesCanada and Mexico through a comprehensive treaty to share and protect each other in the areas of energy independence, human rights, economic collaboration, agriculture production, and safety and justice for our citizens.

With issues like Immigration Reform, drug trafficking, economic stability, terrorism. and the Keystone Pipeline pressing the agenda both the Obama Administration and the two political parties once again should stop talking about the problems and take action to capitalize on the wonderful opportunity we have to correct many wrongs and recognize the many good things a real North American partnership would bring.

Toward that end the following is the article I wrote first in mid-2008 calling for a North America for Americans program.  I then updated the article in 2010, 2012 and 2013 waiting for the US government to wake up and act.  We are closer today than ever and all citizens of these three great nations should demand their politicians embrace such a program that serves the greater good of the people.

Since our discovery 524 years ago the three North neighbors have grown up and evolved in ways that will forever keep us tied together culturally, economically, politically and from a national security standpoint.

We have thousands of miles of common borders and millions of people have moved back and forth between these three nations. In spite of our differences, there is much that binds us together. Yet these closest and most consistent of allies have never embraced a policy that can serve the benefit of all three neighbors.

Our problems are common from economic stability to natural resource management, from national security to energy independence. If we shared resources there are numerous ways the three could benefit from the relationship.


Even our national priorities are similar. We all seek energy independence, security for our citizens, quality health care, better education, improved human rights, freedom to achieve success without financial or cultural discrimination, and the ability to pursue an American Dream.

We complement each other in ways we seldom appreciate.  Canada has excess oil and we have excess natural gas. Mexico has oil but needs better health care, education and economic development. All three have abundant natural resources and the ability to share those resources and make all of us independent in a variety of ways.

Our problems are often ignored by politicians but obvious to compassionate citizens. Since I wrote the article nearly 200,000 innocent Mexican citizens have been brutally murdered in drug wars along the border with the USA. They were caught in the crossfire of criminal elements intent on controlling the huge illegal drug trade in the United States.


For some odd reason the number of Mexican deaths seems to have been ignored by the American media and politicians. So let us put it in perspective. Our total military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are about 7,000 over the past decade. Approximately 125,000 civilians were killed during the entire wars, so about 132,000 deaths took place in the two war torn countries.

In about half the years more than 200,000 Mexican civilians have been killed in a war for control of our southern border. Included are men, women and children, not soldiers.

We should be ashamed of such a travesty taking place under our very noses. Of course there is corruption in Mexico, just like on Wall Street and in WashingtonDCAmerica is founded on the principle that crime does not pay and criminals should be hunted down and locked up. Why do we turn a deaf ear to the American crime that has settled just across the border to avoid the reach of our laws?

Immigration, or illegal immigration is another common problem between neighbors. If we helped Mexico develop an economic development program that provided fair wages and benefits to Mexican workers, there would be no need for them to cross the border illegally to seek a better life in America.


Much of the economic pressure on America came from foreign dependence on oil and the price manipulation of crude oil and gas in world commodity markets. While we have reduced oil dependence substantially, because of fuel efficiencies and mass production of domestic oil, we still import too much.

If congress and the president had the guts we could be energy independent already as the combined oil and natural gas resources of the US, Canada and Mexico are more than sufficient to meet all our energy needs for now and the future.

Obama blocked off shore drilling, has not supported natural gas development, and rejected the Keystone pipeline from Canada, three ill-advised moves that have undermined the hopes for US energy independence. It is time to get real. Our economy and our high standard of living, the envy of most nations, depends on abundant energy at reasonable prices. We have neither.


Our first economic concern should be energy independence from foreign control and manipulation. There must be an American strategy that includes our neighbors to the north and south, Canada and Mexico.  Between the three (USACanada and Mexico) we have more than enough reserves of oil, natural gas and alternative energy capacity to meet our needs forever.

Between the three we have the technical skills, exploration capacity, financial resources and the spirit of freedom needed to create our own energy cartel to meet our future needs, to control inflation which is now driven by oil prices, to offset problems in one area (hurricanes) with increased production in another area (Canadian shale reserves), and to finally gain independence from foreign manipulation.

There should be no more Dubai's financed with the blood money from American consumers. In the future the horrendous transfer of wealth from the Americas to Arab and other nations including hostile energy producing nations, must stop, keep the massive wealth in America.


If the United States, Mexico and Canada decided our shared interests were far more important than our differences, that our heritages are bound together through generations, that our borders touch and that if the citizens of all three countries had good homes, good health and good jobs, there would be no need for illegal immigration, then we could all live in peace and harmony.

Well the money we wasted buying inflated oil could have accomplished just that and isn't it about time we used that money to do some good for the Americas? Stop pointing fingers and work together. Mexico and Canada have incredible oil and natural gas reserves like the United States. We all have a need and desire to help each other grow. And we sure don't need the rest of the world to interfere.

Years ago when we passed NAFTA our biggest mistake was not that it went too far, it didn't go far enough. Oh we moved jobs to Mexico and US manufacturers saved money, but at what cost? We did not protect the workers down there like we protect them here. We did not make sure the people of Mexico got a better standard of living, decent homes, food, housing, and a better education for their children.


Maybe it is time we stepped back and did it right. Maybe we need a new trade agreement to replace NAFTA based on a shared interest in creating energy independence for all three nations. One that assures that excess profits are invested in the people, in their standard of living and quality of life. Maybe we should stop glamorizing the excesses like the lavish development of Dubai and start focusing on the real world which is the people living in our three countries in substandard conditions with inferior education and jobs in the wrong place.


Something is terribly wrong with the system. All the nuclear reactors in the world and all the alternative energy in the world will not overcome corruption in the marketplace, unfair business actions, malicious price manipulation of the futures market, and the evil intentions of oil speculators. Still the price of gasoline remains excessive and hostage to foreign oil producers.

Nuclear reactors are still dangerous. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were not jokes nor movies, they were real. I was at TMI for the multi-billion dollar clean up of that "harmless" accident. If $5-7 billion is harmless what is the world coming to? As for Chernobyl, I met the kids that were victims of radiation poisoning, the kids that must remain in the hot zone for life because they can contaminate other people. Of course a full life for many of them was about 10-12 years.

Of the radiation that was released by Chernobyl, over 70% fell onto the population of Belarus resulting in 800,000 children in Belarus and 380,000 in the Ukraine being at a high risk of contracting cancer or leukemia.  It will be another 24,000 years before the land is safe and the children no longer suffer.


Since the disaster there has also been an increase of 800% in the incidence of cancers in children living near to the reactor plus there has been a dramatic increase in the rate of babies born with substantial physical disabilities. Babies born limbless, deformed and with severe brain damage.

Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline and other groups in Britain help deprived children living in heavily contaminated areas affected by the Chernobyl disaster (primarily Belarus and Ukraine) by bringing them to the UK for a month-long respite holiday where they benefit from, among other things, clean air, good nutrition, physical safety and an environment free of radioactive contamination. I met the kids in Scotland. Is was estimated the month long holiday extended the lives of the children up to a year.

There is an accident in the Ukraine, in Eastern Europe, and sheep die a thousand miles away in Scotland. Land from nuclear testing over the years is a dead zone for hundreds of years. Nuclear waste at our nuclear plants sit stored at the plants, vulnerable to terrorist attack, because congress cannot get a nuclear disposal facility built. When a nuclear plant wears out, and they do just like everything else, the plant must be decommissioned and that cost is now more than the cost of building the plant in the first place. Nuclear has a role but must be used with great caution.


On the other hand, there are known reserves of oil and gas in North America sufficient to meet the our needs for 300 more years. We are not running out of oil tomorrow. The price manipulation of oil has nothing to do with the supply and demand, the normal supply and demand. Off shore drilling, even the very limited Alaskan drilling, can only help us be more independent. But we need refinery capacity to make the various types of gas and oil we need if we get the crude locally.

Together the three nations should develop and implement a long term North American Energy Independence plan that makes all known and unknown reserves available to the producers including the Gulf, Atlantic and Pacific deep water reserves, the limited areas in Alaska that should be developed, and the many other known reserves in the countries.

As new territory is made available for drilling refining capacity must be expanded in the Americas to produce the products we need. There must be substantial incentives for alternative energy efforts but we must not be so foolish as to think alternative energy can meet much of our current and future energy needs.


Significant savings can be generated by energy conservation programs. For example, energy savings of 50% or more can be made in our older housing stock. Multiply that by a few hundred thousand homes and a real dent in energy demand can be realized.

A meaningful partnership is needed between the three bordering nations, the energy companies in those nations, the conservation and alternative fuel companies in those nations, and the building code enforcement authorities in those nations. Such a partnership will protect and create jobs, stop foreign trade deficits, stop the transfer of wealth to Arab nations, and stop the out of control oil and gas prices.

Beyond that an economic partnership can raise the living standard in Mexico, end illegal immigration to the USA, ensure long term economic development in Canada, and provide the citizens of all three countries with better education, food, housing and security. Such a partnership can also end the senseless killing of tens of thousands of innocent Mexicans caught in the crossfire of America's drug war.

Is it not worth the effort to make this happen? Surely this will prove to us and to the world that America is not only our brother's keeper but partner as well. It seems time our closest neighbors and long term partners who helped build America should share in the goodness and glory of America? Together we have a chance to change history.
.

Thursday, November 05, 2015

Obamaville - June 14, 2013 - Midterm Check Up

.

 Obamaville - June 14, 2013 - The Midterm Check Up
 
Halfway through the first year of his second term as President of these United States, just what have we realized of the Obama Dream we were given when he first ran to be chief executive, commander in chief, the husband of the First Lady or maybe biggest spender in our history?
 
Is writing this story a journalist's "dream" ticket to a Pulitzer, or a "nightmare" demotion to writing those dreaded obituaries?
 
My a lot can happen by the 5th year of a presidency --- or not.
 
First you have to get elected, and then elected again.  It means the people might have been fooled once, but they presumably knew what they were doing when they re-elected you.  Now what happens really is the fault of the people who voted for Obama.
 
Ages ago a newly elected Barack Obama promised a lot and did some pretty serious Bushwhacking in the process.  In his first year as the first minority to ever be elected president he promised to deliver things like comprehensive Immigration Reform and closing Guantanamo Prison in Cuba.
 
 
Of course the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would be ended immediately with a high degree of success.  The dastardly Bush recession would be fixed and everyone will keep their homes and get back their lost jobs.  In the meantime he would give everyone in our country health insurance and lower the cost of healthcare.
 
There might have been some mention of a new concept of redistribution of wealth from the "elite" class to the middle class, which in Obamaese means anyone making less than a million or two million dollars a year.  Truth is very difficult to find in the fog in our nation's capitol.
 
Now where I come from about a hundred miles from where Mark Twain grew up, if someone told me the middle class was everyone except the rich, powerful and very few "elite", I might scratch my head in wonder.
 
 
So if the middle class is everyone else, how many "elite's" are there?  Of course the wealthy "elites" have mastered hiding their money from detection by IRS or any other criminal or social tax deductible organization.  The truth is no one really knows this answer, including the All Omnipotent NSA since they REALLY are watching you all the time.
 
So it is a guess by anyone that 1-5% of Americans belong to the so called "elite".  Yet these people control all the wealth of America and much of the world according to those who know and speak the truth.
 
 
 
Now, back to my most recent line of thought, if no more than 5% are "elite" and we are going to redistribute their wealth so we all get what we deserve, then everyone becomes a card carrying member of the "elite".
 
Guess we might need all those illegal immigrants since none of the "elite" work like the middle class has been doing ever since we first drove out the British.  That's one way to drive down the unemployment rate, just eliminate the middle class.  Won't be any jobless if everyone is home managing their money instead of making it.
 
One other big Obama promise was to throw those crooks on Wall Street or Main Street, where ever they might be carrying out their predatory practices, in jail.
 
Then reality set in.  Suddenly, when he was elected president, he was expected to do what he said he would do.  Like nothing counted when he was just a presidential candidate.  Only if you were the final one elected would your promises have to be honest, truthful and delivered.
 
No first year Immigration reform or prison closings.  Five years later they are both just as he found them when he became responsible for all Americans as president.
 
 
 
As for ending the two wars being fought to end the bigger war on terror, our president's words of peace and cooperation for all Earthlings got him the coveted Nobel Peace prize a couple of weeks later as the one person in the world who did more than everyone else to bring about peace.
 
Clearly words speak louder than actions for a few weeks later he ordered tens of thousands of more American troops and billions of dollars in military expenditures in Afghanistan.  What a difference a few weeks can make.
 
Eventually, long after he had promised, we are pretty much out of Iraq.  Now that the war on terror between the US and Al-Qaeda is over the people of Iraq can finish their Civil Separatist war which is far more brutal and deadly than our Geneva Convention based efforts.
 
One thing the Obama administration did learn from all the war efforts is the value of drones, those unmanned airplanes that can successfully kill terrorists without risking the lives of American soldiers.  Any deaths of innocent civilians including children are just collateral damage to the mission.
 
Afghanistan, after billions in bribes, is just now winding down.  Both wars cost far too many lives of the brave American soldiers, men and women, sent to the war zones.
 
 
Fixing Bush's financial recession has been a little bit more complicated than Obama might have suspected since it seemed to take several years to find everything that could be blamed on Bush.
 
In Detroit he saved the world auto industry by transforming General Motors Corporation into the Government Motors Corporation.  His AIG bailout gave billions of dollars to those barons of Wall Street like Goldman Sachs.
 
Millions of Americans lost their jobs and millions of Americans lost their homes since Obama was elected.  The economy is declared to be stable and safe.
 
But people have not found new jobs or replaced foreclosed homes.  And those who have suffered most are the very middle class he promised to save.
 
Seniors saw their retirement savings vanish away.  Minorities by the millions lost their jobs and homes.  So did the Caucasians.  Ironically, many were the very special interest groups who overwhelmingly elected Obama to office.  I guess you can't bite the hand that feeds you when you are the one doing the feeding.
 
No major crooks have been sent to jail.
 
 
As for health care and costs, after a brutal couple of  years Obama Care did get approved but all the tough promises to keep were delayed until after the re-election campaign.  Now we are beginning to see that much of it is impossible to implement.
 
Neither health insurance or medical treatment costs have gone down but continue their upward trajectory.  Americans spend more being sicker than nearly all other developed countries.  We also spend far more on legal drugs than anyone else meaning we are either much sicker or love being legally "stoned".
 
 
Obama might have another first to his credit, not having a budget approved the entire time he has been president.
 
On the other hand, he has had a few trouble spots he did not expect.  The Benghazi attack in Libya left four Americans including the Ambassador dead.
 
The IRS (Internal Revenue Service) targeted Tea Party conservatives for harassment while the NSA (National Security Agency) targeted just plain people for about everything with their cell phone and internet tapping and hacking initiatives.
 
 
The Office of the Chief Executive and Commander in chief (the White House) of course knew nothing of such actions by their own agencies and people.
 
Then there is the Mexican drug war and Syrian civil war in which the big news is we have done nothing in either case.  As a result of our inaction or intellectual constipation 93,000 people have died in Syria and between 60,000 and 90,000 have died in Mexico.
 
Need we say more about the state of affairs of the nation?  To be perfectly honest there are a lot more good, inspiring or entertaining stories we need to cover.
.