Ron Paul Owns Minnesota GOP

Well, the title of this blog might be somewhat an exaggeration, but I wanted it to catch your attention so I might explain to you how deeply the Ron Paul libertarian political philosophy is penetrating into Minnesota.

by Charlie Leck

Headlines in the Monday morning StarTribune (newspaper of the Twin Cities in Minnesota):  RON PAUL DISCIPLES SEEK LOCAL OFFICES.

Ron Paul put together an organization in Minnesota that was very successful. Forget about national office and national ambitions. Ron Paul’s followers are looking to take over local governments and grow the Ron Paul philosophy from there.

Start with the fact that Ron Paul candidates will run for 26 seats in the Minnesota State Legislature.

Here are some blips from the story:

“A lot of the Ron Paul supporters are socially liberal and 180 degrees from the social agenda of a lot of GOP activists. This is just night and day,” said Carleton College political science Prof. Steven Schier. “If you’re going to grow the party that way, expect a lot of big fights.”

“Paul, who expects to send nearly 200 delegates and perhaps 500 supporters in all to the national convention in Tampa, talks often about efforts to “grow our movement” and bring the Republican Party back to “its limited government, liberty roots.”

What Minnesotans have to remember about Ron Paul is that he is quite liberal socially and there are many of his positions that I could accept and even endorse; however, he would never be able to pay for any kind of programs to promote or institute those liberal positions because he wants incredibly small government and almost no government spending. So, Ron Paul takes positions about more freedom, more free choice… without any kind of structure to support those positions. Rather, he depends upon the good will and kindness of the people.

If this is a confusing blog, I’ve accomplished my purpose; for Ron Paul and libertarianism, in general, is very perplexing – it is liberalism without any teeth and it is conservatism in that it argues for intensely small government.

How successful will the Paul followers be in their efforts to win positions in both local government and state government? My guess is that very, very few of them will win seats in county or state government slots. A number of them will win positions in town and small city elections. Mind you, I said these are guesses. I have nothing to support this conjecture – nothing at all! We’ll just have to see.

_________________________

Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

Watergate after 40 Years

June 17, 1972 – forty years ago – was an incredible and historic day in the United States and a bunch of criminals and political crackpots were responsible!
by Charlie Leck

“The good of man must be the end of politics!” [Aristotle]

You know, I read something somewhere that contended the nation’s production rate was seriously and negatively impacted by the Watergate Hearings of 1973 and 1974. Why? Because the nation was gripped by those hearings and couldn’t pull itself away from them – lawyers, doctors, teachers, researchers and government employees. We were hooked on Watergate.

I know I was. I was working for a Washington, D.C. company at the time and I can honestly admit that I wasn’t very productive for them on those days when Sam Ervin’s committee was in session and on TV.

It all led to the eventual resignation of the President of the United States – the only time such a thing has happened in our nation’s history.

Now, forty years later, the two reporters who broke so many big stories surrounding the Watergate investigation are looking back at it all and saying it was worse than we thought back then.

If you were a Watergate junkie, be sure to read this extraordinary account in the Washington Post by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward: “Nixon was far worse than we thought!”

Wow! This article is loaded with good and deeply interesting stuff!

__________________________________

I’m going back to Mississippi again this year, to recognize the 48^th anniversary of the murders of the three civil rights workers, James Cheney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner – and to call for justice in the cases of dozens of Mississippi and Arkansas martyrs whose murderers have never been brought to trial. I’ve been asked to speak a couple of times during the gatherings. I’ve been working on those presentations. If you have suggestions, please don’t hesitate to email them to me [my email address].

_________________________

Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

Et tu, Brute?

The President can win in November if his political party hangs together and keeps it eyes on the goal; but doing so won’t be easy!
by Charlie Leck

I’m troubled this morning after having read Kathleen Parker’s column in yesterday’s Washington Post (Nobody Likes a Loser). Parker contends that everyone is piling on the President and abandoning him in so many ways; and, it’s not the opposition.

“In the political jungle, where people tend to be more Darwinian than divine, he is wounded and the pack is beginning to turn.”

It’s a powerful column and you might want to read it – especially those of you who want President Obama to get reelected.

It stings me to read these things – these growing criticisms of the President from Democrats.

This, after all, has been a very good President in very difficult times. The economy of the entire West has been dashed and is fighting to keep breathing. The man inherited two very difficult and ugly wars. The rise of the Tea Party has created a political atmosphere of hatred and lies like we’ve never seen in America. The President’s opposition party shows no signs of being a “loyal opposition” and seems to prefer to see the country sink into greater despair than to act in any way that might be helpful to the Chief Executive.

Yet, in spite of all these negatives, there is every sign that indicates the President can get reelected; that is, he can if his own party sticks with him and supports him without reservation during the next five months.

Somebody better get this message to Bill Clinton and other leading Democrats. And somebody make sure they understand the question at hand: Do you want Republicans running the entire show for the next four years?

_________________________

Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

Triple Crown Race Won’t Happen

My wife's courageous horse, Follow that Cab, winning in a 1979
race in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, I’ll Have Another, has been pulled from this year’s Belmont Stakes race and the rumors have begun to fly.
by Charlie Leck [5:30 A.M., 9 June 2012]

Doug O’Neill, the trainer of I’ll Have Another, says his horse has somehow injured himself. I read in one place that it was a rear leg and in another that it was a front leg. Whichever, the horse has been scratched and there will not be a Triple Crown winner this year.

This certainly takes the glow off of what was going to be an absolutely huge race day. The TV network that was going to bring it all to us must be beside itself. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bars were counting on a big day during the races. They expected more than 100,000 spectators at the Belmont race track. I’m guessing many will choose to bag it now. Other racetracks around the country were going to simulcast the Belmont race and they expected big, big crowds at most of them. Now the crowds will probably just be average.

If you read my two previous blogs about this race, you can imagine that all this sets up a powerful flow of rumors about what may have really happened. And, dozens and dozens of questions will be raised. Did this horse need special help to compete? Were they successfully hiding drugging symptoms in other races? Had New York figured out away to surveil this horse to such an extent that his handlers weren’t able to treat him as they had in the past? Under normal conditions such questions would probably not be raised, but this was a horse with a tainted trainer.

Or, was it a real injury that threatened the horse’s future career as a stud?

Andrew Beyer’s column in this morning’s Washington Post does a good job of explaining just how fragile racehorses are and just how damaging the intense pounding on a racetrack can be. The column is very complimentary of Doug O’Neill and certainly takes an opposite tack from what I’ve said in my two previous blogs. But, don’t buy into too much – at least not until you read some of what Sally Jenkins has to say later on in this blog. Here are some of Beyer’s flattering words…

“But the tendon injury that prompted the immediate retirement of I’ll Have Another underscored the more banal truth: Thoroughbred racehorses are fragile and injuries to them are commonplace. They have been bred for three centuries to produce maximum speed and stamina by carrying a powerful body on spindly, delicate underpinnings. Their ankles, knees and legs are always vulnerable. I’ll Have Another was a different case only because his injury made front-page headlines and because it made more sense to retire a colt with future stud value than to bring him back to competition next year.”

Sally Jenkins, also in the Washington Post, opines that “horse racing needs fixing.” That is, as in repairing. There’s probably enough fixing in horse racing as it is. Jenkins is hard-hitting in this column and tags Doug O’Neill with some pretty tough round-house punches.

“It’s a good thing I'll Have Another is such a celebrity. Otherwise that horse would be working right now. The most scrutinized trainer in thoroughbred racing was forced to withdraw the most famous horse in America from the Belmont, when he displayed obvious tenderness and swelling in his front left leg. What compassion. What noble caution, to scratch a sore-legged horse from a mile-and-a-half race.

“Doug O’Neill did the right thing by his horse — for once.

“This is hardly proof that thoroughbred racing has cured its creeping moral sickness. It only proves that O’Neill knows he can’t take another major public scandal at the moment, and neither can his sport. The real, longer-view truth is that Doug O’Neill hurts horses, and everybody in this beautiful-turned-rotten game knows it, and won’t do anything about it.”

Jenkins contends that about 800 horses die each year while they are racing and many others are seriously injured. She also points out Thoroughbred Times statistics that show O’Neill has the worst safety record, by two times, of any of the other trainers in the Belmont field. Jenkins also says that O’Neill has had “15 drug violations by racing commissions in four states over the last dozen years.”

The column by Jenkins is pretty brutal on I’ll Have Another’s trainer, but also on all of racing for allowing too many trainers to take advantage of the horses in their stables.

“If thoroughbred racing were a sport with any kind of governance, O’Neill wouldn’t be allowed to rake hay much less run an animal in one of the classics. But there are 38 racing organizations around the country, and none is distinguishing itself.”

Well, I’ll watch the race today, but with much less enthusiasm than I would have had. As I told you, I’ll be pulling for Union Rags. He has a trainer, Michael Matz, with Minnesota ties and with a stellar reputation. His owner is a woman we very much admire. Union Rags started poorly in the Derby and fell too far back too soon. He appears not to like running behind a dozen horses who are churning up dirt into his face. He may also find such a long race, as the one at Belmont, not to his liking. We'll see.

With 12 hours to go to race time,
Dullahan is the current favorite at 5 to 1. He’s followed by Union Rags at 6 to 1. Revelo’s Boy and Guyana Star Dweej are the absolute long-shots at 50 to 1. Place your bets! Place your bets!

_________________________

Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

Triple Crown and Breathe Right Strips

Here’s another update to yesterday’s blog on the Triple Crown race…

I’ll Have Another may have to win without Breathe Right on Saturday if he’s going to capture the triple crown of horse racing. I lost on Breathe Right, too, and so may the big horse’s trainer, Doug O’Neill.
by Charlie Leck

Years ago I invested some money in a Minnesota company that had come up with the idea of Breathe Right nasal strips. Made sense to me; however, one of my financial wizard friends scoffed at me because the company was a one-product wonder. Turns out he was correct. My money got sucked up and then dried up. No winner this time! I’ve had a number of those investment disasters. Thank goodness that a couple of others make up for it.

Yet, Breathe Right is still alive and again getting a hard time. This time the New York Racing and Wagering Board has said that I’ll Have Another, a horse going for the nearly unachievable Triple Crown of horse racing, may not wear a Breathe Right strip (called Flaire when it’s for horses) in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday.

Here’s a Washington Post story about the whole matter that will give you a few laughs.

_________________________

Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

How about a Fair and Honest Triple Crown Race?

Rumors are circulating about a pattern of dishonesty in the camp of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner, I’ll Have Another, and it takes some of the fun out of watching this Saturday’s big race.
by Charlie Leck

UPDATE 7 June 2012 at 7:00 A.M. Central Time:   A column by sports writer, Bill Dwyre, in yesterday's L.A. Times goes over all this material also, but seems to come up laughing at Frank Deford and others who are now -- after the first two crowns -- so worried about I'll Have Another winning the Triple Crown. When you finish this blog you might want to read... Doug O'Neill becomes America's Bad Guy.

Frank Deford may be the best sports writer of the time – this particular time! He’s awfully good and he’s really good when he’s reading his own work aloud, like he often does on National Public Radio. Wednesday morning I heard him read his piece about the upcoming run for the Triple Crown at Belmont Park this Saturday. It was certainly good, but it also opened my eyes. As of now (after listening to Deford), I don’t care very much if I’ll Have Another wins the race and the triple or not; and, as a matter of fact, I kind of hope he doesn’t.

Read or listen to Deford to find out what I mean [you can do either here]. The long and the short of it is something I’ve known about the race horse business for a long time; and that is that there are a lot of questionable practices in the sport. The trainer of I’ll Have Another isn’t one of the cleanest, most upright guys in the world and neither is the horse’s owner. Here's part of what Deford said...

“I don't want I'll Have Another to win the Belmont. Oh, he's a terrific little horse, and his jockey, Mario Gutierrez, provides us with a wonderfully uplifting story. To horse and rider, I say: Good luck, Godspeed, and if you win every race but the Belmont, good for you.

“But the people in charge of I'll Have Another don't deserve the honor. The trainer is Doug O'Neill, a charming enough character, but a drug cheat nonetheless. In fact, he must start a 45-day suspension on July 1 in California. Illinois has already suspended him. He's been fined nine times for horses testing over the regulatory threshold. Perhaps most grievous, horses he trains break down at twice the normal rate.

“I'll Have Another's owner is J. Paul Reddam, who is invariably described as a former philosophy professor — as if he still strolls the hills and dales alone, contemplating his favorite philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein. More recently, though, Reddam is president of CashCall, which refinances dubious mortgages. Three states have challenged him over violations of consumer protection laws. In West Virginia he's charged with breaking usury laws, assessing annual interest as high as, yes, 99 percent.

“All right, no official judgment has yet been rendered against Reddam, but when the ethical standards of both men are taken together, can't we simply say: After 34 years, shouldn't a Triple Crown champion possess a better human pedigree?”

Son of a gun! That’s why they’ve ordered all of the horses in Saturday’s race into a special barn that will have 24 hour security and observation and anyone entering or leaving the barn will have to sign in and out. The New York State Racing Authority is extremely interested in making sure the winner of Saturday’s race runs in a clean and unhopped up manner. If the horse wins the big race, he really should do it clean.

O’Neill’s horses (those that he trains) “break down at twice the normal rate.” If you care about horses, you’re not going to like that. Such a record comes from training and racing the horses too hard and/or too often and, sometimes, from racing them when they oughtn’t race by covering up their pain with illegal drugs.

So, for now my loyalty will rest with another horse in that race – a horse owned by a wonderful lady who we know a bit and for whom we have great admiration. She’s really a horse lover and couldn’t do something illegal to a horse and then live with herself. And, the story surrounding her and this particular horse is a very touching one, indeed (I’m sure you’ll hear about it from the broadcasters if you watch the race on Saturday). His name is Union Rags, owned by Phyllis Wyeth, of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and he’ll be coming out of the number 3 gate.

I wish nothing bad for I’ll Have Another. He’s a bold and wonderful runner. Maybe there is nothing clean about any of the big winners these days and maybe all the trainers are pushed beyond the legal in order to compete in today’s racing climate. I certainly hope not.

Deford’s commentary about this weekend’s race has sure taken plenty of the bloom off it for me, but – count on it – I’ll be glued to a TV somewhere watching the big race from Belmont Park.

_________________________

Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

America and War

You can deny it all you want and you can dispute my proposition here, but I am personally convinced that America is a nation enthralled with war.
by Charlie Leck

When Ronald Reagan sent troops into Grenada in 1983 I remember being embarrassed. Really! I was embarrassed.

“Well, perhaps,” I thought, “there is some explanation for this madman’s decision.”

“What the hell is he doing?”
The question was pretty universal in the states. Even Republicans were asking. Even very conservative Republicans were asking. To this day there has not been a meaningful and acceptable explanation for what Reagan did. I’ve written about it before on this blog site. I won’t go into again. I bring it up now to create the pattern I want to write about. America goes to war far too easily?

Earlier blogs touching on Granada….

The Real Ronald Reagan

War in a Time of Cholera

Obviously, there are exceptions. The First World War (“the Great War to end all wars”) and The Second World War are the two clear exceptions. Perhaps, too, so was the Civil War or, as friends in the South like to call it, “the war between the states” or “the war of northern aggression.” Some have convincing arguments that the Korean War (which President Truman persisted in calling a “police action”) was also necessary. Historically, I am not so convinced.

The little skirmish with Mexico (the Mexican-American War) that preceded the Civil War, however, was a complete farce and should have embarrassed all Americans of that time. For the record, it did not.

Of all America’s wars, the most useless, wasteful, tragic and unnecessary was the war in Iraq. Remember why we went? Remember? WMD! Remember the expression? Weapons of Mass Destruction. It turned out to be one of the great fictions in the history of presidential flim-flam. Today, members of that administration (such as Colin Powell) are embarrassed about what happened (but do not include the Vice President, Dick Cheney, among those with red faces). Mind you, the war in Iraq only cost us a couple trillion dollars (trillion!). I’d be embarrassed, too. Come to think of it, I am embarrassed.

My Tea Party friends would respond to this by saying: “You must never be embarrassed to be an American!” My reply to that is to argue that such thinking is exactly what gets us into trouble.

What motivates today’s rant?
You are probably wondering why I want to go off on embarrassing American wars today. It’s nice out! The baseball season is in full bloom. The Twins even won a couple of games lately. I ate a lovely lamb stew last night (with tasty parsnips and turnips substituted for the potatoes). My children are all well. So are my grandchildren. I had a good report from my doctor yesterday. There are the cutest baby wild turkeys meandering around behind their mother in the yard this morning. Why am I in such a foul (fowl) mood?

The Karzai Family
I’ll tell you why. I sat down in a Starbucks this morning with a wonderful latté in front of me and a tasty blueberry scone right at hand. I opened the day’s NY Times and read about the Karzai family (in Afghanistan) and how they have profited to the tune of millions and millions by our nation’s involvement in the Afghanistan War. (It’s a remarkable report by James Risen: Intrigue in Karsai Family Clouds Afghanistan’s Fate.)

“What?”

“Yes, I mean it!” The bastards have banked millions and millions and millions through utterly deceptive practices and they are not even red-faced about it all. A lot of what they’ve banked was intended to be aide money for the Afghan people or funds used to train their military.

Several of the Karzai folks have escaped to America. They live on comfortably in Maryland and Virginia.

Count it as one more worthless, stupid, irresponsible and unnecessary war! We went there to get Mr. Osama bin Laden. Instead we involved ourselves in a culture and political system that we don’t understand and that has problems to solve beyond our understanding and abilities. Count it as one more amazing American war without a mission.

There have been too many stupid, irresponsible and unnecessary wars in American history. You can trace the blame to leaders of both major political parties or to political parties that existed before the current political parties.

Is it the price that comes with being a super-power – a nation at the very core of global politics? It may. Yet, it’s been no fun and it has been too big a cost in human lives. Too many of our own lives have been disrupted and ruined. There’s been too much mourning, sorrow, pain and insanity caused by constant and horrible war.

Hasn’t civilization advanced far enough that we can find ways to settle problems without wars?

“We don’t want no war no more – no more – We don’t want no war no more!” [Wyclef Jeanelle Jean]

_________________________

Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.