Vote for Joe

I just heard an NPR piece that said Donald Trump is on a par (pun intended) to be the most prolific of all the golfing presidents, and there have been many.  (Truman used to wear his golf shoes in the Oval Office.)  It was noted that Trump was once Club Champion at Mar-a-Lago and still plays quite frequently at these types of rather exclusive clubs.  Meanwhile, on the “average Joe” side of the fairway (or, okay, often ‘side of the rough’), I was just chipping in our backyard in Steubenville now that spring is here.  And my son Joseph and I are planning an early evening golf outing at nearby Fairway River Links Golf Course — 16 bucks for 18 holes.  To view what can best be described as my “PGA” form, see…

I am painting a new third floor addition to a house just up the street.  A young couple has added this rather large addition for the wife’s parents when they visit — with their nine adopted children!  The daughter told me her mom had three biological children, then was told she couldn’t have any more because of physical complications.  So instead she and her husband have made nine international adoptions of kids in need from multiple countries.  The last adoption was of three Bulgarian siblings who were about to be separated,  “My mom couldn’t have that,” said the daughter.  Note:  What a better world this would be with more of these adoptions, in tandem with way more Americans financially adopting children (through Compassion International, and so on).  Yeah, we help more than most countries — BUT WE COULD HELP SO MUCH MORE!  In fact, I graphically point this out in our foreign affairs position paper.

With the heightened focus on Russia of late, I picked up an old book in the Bluffton University Library titled:  The Soviet Cultural Offensive.  Author Frederick Barghoorn writes that when your average Russian citizen is asked a political question:  “Feigned incomprehension, ingeniously tangential replies, or indignant parroting of the official policy are among the common responses.  Some foreigners have reported that Soviet people are equipped with a wealth of slogans, but with a minimum of facts about either domestic or foreign politics.”  While written in the mid part of last century, a lot of this still probably holds true — because, for one, the media in Russia is controlled by a somewhat repressive government, still.  Okay.  But what of Americans today in our extremely polarizing society?  They are either fed a steady media diet of liberal ideology, or conservative ideology.  Then they often parrot this back in per-established talking points. Less and less of American citizen opinion is a well reasoned amalgam of solid points from both sides, mixed in with just as well reasoned personal opinion.  Note: We’d like to think our position papers are, indeed, a good amalgam of the best of both (liberal and conservative) trains of thought, mixed in with some refreshingly original thought as well.

Some notes from my research the past few weeks:  China has recently allocated some $360 billion dollars for the development of more green energy.  Meanwhile, Scott Pruitt — who apparently has close ties to the fossil fuels industry — has just been appointed the head of the EPA in America…  There’s talk in the Trump administration about moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.  The Palestinians want East Jerusalem for their capitol, if they ever have their own state there.  America moving it’s embassy to Jerusalem could create quite a firestorm…  A Pat Buchanan column noted that in 2016, the U.S. had a trade deficit in goods of nearly $700 billion.  “For an advanced economy like the U.S., such deficits are milestones of national decline,” he wrote….  In a George Will column in the Washington Post, he advocates for a “Peace Through Technology” doctrine at this point.  Will, for instance, advocates for much more drone use.  He notes drones have already logged more than 4 million flight hours and can deliver “precision strikes with minimal collateral damage…”  A Time Magazine article notes that since Philippine President Rodrigo Duertes took office, more than 6,000 people had been killed (in the first six months) in his campaign to purge the Philippines of illegal drugs and those who are associated with them.  The article noted that while there has been some international outcry in regard to the brutality (and lack of due process), some 77% of Philippine people give Duertes a favorable rating.  Note:  Our administration would come at illegal drug use in a much different, and much more systemic way.  See…

I recently went to a talk at Franciscan University by a priest who had done missions work in Siberia for 20 years.  He said sound spirituality is putting the other person’s needs before your own.  That would seem to fly in the face of that “America First” paradigm, huh.  Our administration’s foreign policy paradigm would be more aligned with “America Second.”  Seriously.  As an example, recent data shows the U.S. Military spends 17 times more on defense — than the next 17 countries (including Russia and China) combined!  Overkill?  In Richard Stubbing’s book: The Defense Game, it’s noted that U.S. defense spending happens in a “complex and secretive world.”  A ‘world’ often driven by a tremendous amount of unnecessary excess.  For instance, the author (who worked on defense budgets for 20 years) notes that there has been a resistance to, say, postwar era base closings, not because of military strategics often, but because of local economies.  “Any congress person who can’t muster the clout to hang onto a hometown base, might as well retire to a city council seat,’ wrote a reporter for the Gannett papers.  Our administration would push for a comprehensive review that focused on obsolescence and redundancy in regard to current military bases. Closing some of these, selling the property, and such, could  generate, say, a lot more money for USAID projects around the world.