I Could Be Wrong.

  Every day that goes on there seems to be more and more to write about. With everything going on in just this country alone I could be writing a couple of these a day. We have the Bill Barr, John Durham scandal. It seems that during John Durham’s investigation into what was supposed to be the vindication of Trump and Russian Collusion, a scandal was covered up.   All it found was wrong doing by the Trump Administration and of course that information was covered up. I know that the Republicans want to have hearings that the Biden Administration weaponised the Department of Justice when it was Trump and Barr that did. The Russian investigation showed that the interference was real and the Durham investigation was a fiasco.   I can’t believe that this is not a bigger story? We have had another Police killing. This time 5 Black Police Officers beat a Black motorist to death during a traffic stop. I know that a lot of the country was relieved that is was Black Officers that...

  I always think about how we got to where we are today. We are more divided now than we have been at any point of my life. We are even more divided now than we were as a nation during the height of the Vietnam War. We are more divided now than we were as a nation during Martin Luther King’s fight for Civil Rights. How did we get here. We can all point to Reagan and say it started with him and I know you are right but as a nation I think we could have overcome the damage that Reagan did. Reagan did away with the fairness doctrine for the News Media that paved the way for Murdock and our Conservative News Media. That paved the way for the News Media to go from an information tool to a political tool and we as a nation are worse off for it. When Reagan said that the scariest words were “I am from the Government” he didn’t mean that the United States government was evil what he was stating was that in his view the private sector could do a better job. We can argue about that later but...

  It starts with the Constitution. You can ask what starts with the Constitution? I believe our nation being a nation of laws. It starts with our Constitution and then trickles down through all of our Federal, State and Local governments. Our Constitution is the framework on how our government is formed and the role that each branch of our Government plays in the day to day running of the nation. Our Constitution was set up with checks and balances that were supposed to insure that what they tried to make happen on January 6 th 2021 never happened. Who is responsible? Where did it go wrong? How can we fix it? Those are some of the questions that should be being asked by everyone. The January 6 th committee should have only been the start. Richard Barnett from Arkansas was just found guilty for the role that he played in the Insurrection that occurred on Jan 6 th. . Most of you will remember, he was the guy with his feet on the desk on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. He was convicted of a ...

  I am writing this on a Sunday morning. It is a beautiful January morning in southwest Florida and my wife and I are expecting company today from the chilly Midwest. The beaches are starting to open but we probably won’t be going to them anytime soon. It is by the beach that most of the destruction is. Cleanup is slow and it will take time. Much more time is needed before they can start to rebuild because the cleanup has to come first and there is still a lot of that to do. We took our boat out for the first time since the hurricane Ian and the Intracoastal Waterway looked pretty clear. You could still see a lot of debris in the shallows so we really had to pay close attention where we went. We looked over toward St. James City and there was a ketch that a person used to be living on was washed up into the mangroves. We stuck our nose into Tarpon Bay on Sanibel and most of the houses are still standing but there is lots work to be done. There is still a tremendous amount of remind...

  Can a government really change history? Has it been tried in the past? Sure it has. If you look it up you will see that Hitler even tried to change history by saying Germany won the Great War. I think that leaders that try and run on a Nationalist Agenda tend to do that. Hitler saw his Nationalist Agenda as a way to power. Germany Superiority, the Master Race, his Ten Thousand Year Reich. Those ideas threatened the entire world and led to the attempted extinction of a whole race. Could it happen again? Do not be so naive to think that we as a species have moved beyond such things. The German Nationalist Agenda was a racist agenda that led to millions being put to death because they were impure, inferior to the German people. Could that happen here?   I think that many of you already know the answer to that. In Florida we have a Governor that wants to rewrite history. Maybe that is not the proper way to put it. Maybe a better way to put it is that he wants to legislate thin...

  In Missouri they have to solve one huge problem facing America. Women’s bare arms. That one thing will make the whole State of Missouri a better place to live. I hope you can see my sarcasm. What is immoral or improper about seeing women’s arms? I have never looked at a woman and said, “Look at those arms” or “I bet those arms would look pretty good unwrapped”. You have to be one special kind of pervert to see a woman in a sleeveless dress and think that you are looking at something improper. What are they going to do next? Make women wear scarves over their heads? Dresses down to the ankles? They used to have a commercial with a woman saying that they have come a long way baby. I guess women have not come as far as they would like to think. When I first heard that the Missouri Legislature had created a dress code for women I thought that it was a joke. We have huge problems with guns in this country. We have the gigantic problem of global climate change. We have growing racism...

  I have a dream. Martin Luther King Jr. said those words. What was that dream? Is that dream still alive today? Martin Luther King Jr. spoke those very words at the Lincoln Memorial in the National Mall in 1963. Did Martin Luther King Jr. dream ever get fulfilled? As a nation are we still trying to make that dream a reality? I remember when those words were spoken. I was 10 years old when those words were spoken and 15 when he was assassinated in 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. was the leader of the Civil Rights movement that started in 1955 with the Montgomery Bus protests until his death in 1968 in Memphis when he was there supporting the sanitation workers strike. For 15 years he held the attention on much of the nation. He work was for voting rights, desegregation and labor equality. I wonder what he would think of what we have accomplished in the 55 years since his death. Voting rights was a huge thing back in the 50s and 60s. Voting rights may not be the right words. Maybe vo...

  My youngest son and his girlfriend were just here for a visit from Wisconsin and I have to admit that I loved having them here. You may ask where is here. Here is Ft. Myers, Florida. Actually I live in unincorporated Iona which is closer to Ft. Myers Beach and Sanibel. This is a beautiful time of year in Southwest Florida. The mornings are cool and the air conditioning is off. This weather is why some of us move to Florida. It definitely is not the politics. As I was drinking my coffee this morning a flock of White Pelicans were doing their aerial ballet up in the sky and at that moment I was glad to be alive to see it. Every state has its natural wonders. I always loved the fall colors is Wisconsin and the trick is to search out the wonders that are always around us. I am way more fortunate than many down here. When company comes to town they want to see the sights. In Southwest Florida our sights have changed in the last four months. Ft. Myers beach went from this old feel Fl...

  A policeman shoots an unarmed Black man and people put up “I Back the Badge” signs in their yards to show their loyalty to the local police. Believe it or not I back the badge too. What I mean is that I back the people that protect our laws. Most of our population here are pretty good people but there are always a few bad apples. The same with the police. Most are great people that you would want your children to emulate but there are a few bad apples. What do you do about the few bad apples in society? When they break the law they need to be arrested. The same has to go with the police. We need a strong, but yet, compassionate police force that reflects the morals and safety of the community. I “Back the Badge” but with accountability just like everyone needs to be accountable. We have a new Congress that says they “Back the Badge” but I don’t think they back the law. Believe it or not the FBI is part of the “Badge”.   We now have a situation where President Biden was in ...

  Well, we have a Speaker of the House is that if what you want to call Kevin McCarthy? It took like four days and about 15 votes but Trump’s Republican Party got it done. I will call it Trump’s Republican Party because they are no longer the Party of my Father. They are now the Party that makes Richard Nixon look like a choir boy. Jim Jordan said that this is the way our democracy was meant to work. He is correct that there was a lot of arguing when they fist founded our Country almost 250 years ago but hopefully we have become more civilized than that. I hope to not see Republicans dueling each other on the lawn by the Capital. It might be fun to see Matt Gaetz slapped across the face with a glove but you know how things can escalated. Let’s not have any more of this ten paces at dawn stuff. One thing that I don’t understand is how they think that this stuff is going to unite our nation because I don’t need a crystal ball to tell you it won’t. I am willing to bet that he is chall...

  I have seen it written that Elon Musk is the champion of Free Speech. Well I just got suspended from Twitter for 12 hours because of what I tweeted. I tweeted “the Republican Party had to die so something better could take its place”. I guess I violated their policy about promoting violence. I didn’t say that Republicans should be taken out and shot. I know some Republicans and I don’t wish them bodily harm but I do wish their political party would go the way of the dinosaurs so another political party that wants what is best for the entire country could come forward. That is right. I have said it. We have a political party that does not want what is best for the United States. We have a political party that is supported by billionaires and in some cases immigrant billionaires like Murdock and Musk while the Republicans want poor immigrants to starve at our borders. We have a political party that takes money from foreign billionaires that are trying to influence our government an...

  There was a tragedy on the football field in a game against the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. After a relatively hard hit a Safety for the Bills stood up and then collapsed on the field. It was a scary sight for everyone in the stadium and for everyone watching on National TV. Turns out that the player had gone into cardiac arrest right there on the field in front of a national audience. They worked on him right away on the field for about 8 minutes and then transported him to the hospital in critical condition. It was reported that when he was transported to the hospital they had gotten his heart restarted but he was still was not breathing on his own. This is a tragedy that makes the game of football not seem quit as important. This strikes home for me. Six years ago I went into cardiac arrest and my wife had to perform CPR on me until the First Responders showed up. I am so lucky that my wife was trained in CPR and had the cool to remember her training. It took o...

  I rang in the New Year as I always do. My wife and I had a nice early dinner with a good friend. We then came home and had a drink until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I went to bed and my wife and our friend stayed up a little more but none of us made it to midnight anymore. 2023 will be my 70 th year on this planet and most years I always wake up on January 1 st thinking that with the New Year we can make a new and better start. This year I am hoping that we just don’t go backwards too much. Because of global climate change our crumbling infrastructure is just not going to cut it. You have places like Jackson Mississippi that has not had drinking water for a week. The freezing temperatures have brought their old infrastructure to its knees. We are past the point of saying we can’t afford to do these things and have reached the point that we have no choice. We are in this mess because all those years we were told we couldn’t afford it. Since we have been telling people we can...