Marilyn Writes

Marilyn MacGruder Barnewall began her career as a journalist with the Wyoming Eagle in Cheyenne. During her 20 year banking career, she wrote extensively for The American Banker, Bank Marketing Magazine, Trust Marketing Magazine, and other major industry publications. The American Bankers Association (ABA) published Barnewall’s Profitable Private Banking: the Complete Blueprint, in 1987. She taught private banking at Colorado University for the ABA and trained private bankers in Singapore.

Sunday, December 24, 2017

Tis The Day Before Christmas


News With Views, Dec 24, 2017
Love.  Family.  Friends.  Children.  Santa Claus.  Giving and Receiving. Food.  Lights and other decorations.
To many people, these words define Christmas.   They are correct but miss the reason for the season.
To many, Christmas is about an infant born on a cold winter night and placed in a manger.  It is about Joseph and Mary and Jesus.  It’s about shepherds in a field who are frightened when they are visited by angels.  It is about three kings who traveled so far to give gifts to the newborn King (though Jesus was almost two years old when they arrived).
700 years before the birth of Christ, Isaiah (9:6) tells us “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
As our society has become more secular, it is apparent that Christmas has become more of a people day than a God day.  Love, family, friends, children, Santa Claus, giving, food… all of these things should be part of our daily lives as Christians rather than something we celebrate for a day annually.  Instead, our government removes Christmas scenes from public property, totally reversing the meaning of our founders who limited government from involving itself in religion rather than governing how it should be celebrated.
Hallmark Christmas movies are a good example of the move towards secularism.  First, let me make clear that I love their holiday movies and, time permitting, have been known to watch them.  It is so nice to get away from the sex, violence and filthy language so much a part of Millennial entertainment!  Hallmark movies, however, portray Christmas as a season of miracles and romance (and it’s true that wherever there is hope, miracles happen) but there is little spiritual inference.
There is no doubt that Christmas is a time of miracles, but the great miracle we celebrate on December 25th has little to do with saving a romance.  It has to do with saving people from themselves.

A sermon I listened to yesterday asks a crowd of people a simple question:  “Do you believe human beings have dignity?”  Everyone raised their hands.  A second question followed:  “Are people born with dignity?”  Half of the hands were raised and the other half were not.  The Pastor was pointing out that though people tend to agree with one another on big issues, the devil is truly in the details.

He pointed out that atheists and Darwinists (most people do not realize that Charles Darwin was a Christian at the time of his death) believe they came from a big pool of mud in which a couple of cells got together by chance and over millions of years eventually produced a human being.  Atheists, he added, do not believe they are going anywhere after death… so they come from nothing and go nowhere.  He is right that there is not much “dignity” in that scenario.  So much for the idea of being born with it.  It is something we earn as we develop our character.
To put it into language anyone can understand, Christmas is God in a manger.
That massive power that created the world and a universe became a human baby.  He loved the human beings He had created in the beginning and saw that they needed help to understand what He expected of them if they were to share eternal life (heaven) with Him.
What is a baby born of a virgin?  It is Total Innocence.
Atheists (and often agnostics) point out how totally impossible it is for a virgin to become pregnant… yet have no problem accepting the idea that two cells in a huge puddle of mud once joined together and begin producing life.  There have been a lot of big, long-lived mud puddles since the beginning and it hasn’t happened again, but it is impossible to explain how some people think.
It has always puzzled me why people doubt the virgin birth.  Many of those people believe in God… believe He created the world and the universe, but think He lacks the ability to impregnate a woman via the Holy Spirit.  It strikes me as… almost funny it is so illogical.
So we have innocence and God, the only absolute eternal Truth, in a manger on Christmas Day.  That is God’s greatest gift to this world and those who populate it.  That is what we celebrate four days after the date of the winter solstice.
Since no one recorded the date of the birth of Jesus Christ, no one really knows the precise day we should celebrate.  Does it really matter?  What we celebrate is the birth of innocent Truth that will sacrifice His life so we can have eternal life – and that should be celebrated every day of our lives.

Our atheist and agnostic friends scoff at the December 25th date, pointing out to Christians that in the olden days it was the celebration of the winter solstice and they laughingly tell us we are so dumb we don’t know we are celebrating a heathen holiday.

The truth is, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25th which happens to occur within less than a week of those who did (and may still) celebrate the winter solstice.  Further, Jonathan Cahn, author of the blockbuster book The Harbinger, has put out a video on You Tube that makes an excellent case for the birth date of our Lord and Savior as being April 1st.

If you are a /Christian, it matters not what day you celebrate His birth.  If you get a bee in your bonnet and want to celebrate His birthday again in July, go for it!

It all gets back to John 3:16:  “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but will have eternal life.”  That is what the greatest gift ever given was and it is the reason the celebration of Christ’s birth involves giving.  It is the reason it involves love, family and celebration.  All are symbolic of God’s greatest gift to His creations:  We, the people.

Our Christmas carols would have us believe that the night Jesus was born, life was quiet and peaceful.  It was not a “Silent Night” kind of world.  Very much like Washington, D.C. today, it was a tremendous time of turbulence in Jerusalem.  The Romans were not the kindest of rulers and their political system was corrupt – a bit like America today – and the angel’s message to shepherds in the field, “good will toward men” does not suggest that people should show good will to one another.  It tells us that God, through the birth of His Son, is showing good will towards men.  It says there will be peace to men of good will.  It does not say we should offer good will to those who would destroy us or our Christian way of life or to those who violate our laws.

There is a feeling of love in the air during the Christmas holidays.  People appear to forget that they are beings who not only need to be loved, but need to love, as well.  We seek love as a means of finding happiness.  The spirit of the season gives us hope… and perhaps that is the thing that gets less significance in defining Christmas than it deserves.

Christ signifies hope… for love, for a giving spirit, for kindness and happiness – and, most important, for the possibility of eternal life.  Christ is the only vehicle on which humankind can rely for the hope of eternal life.  (I realize the Jews will argue with me on this point.)  Without hope, it is all but impossible for love to exist, let alone thrive.  To receive love, we must also give it.

The same is true of kindness.  To even be able to find love, kindness, happiness, et al, you must first have hope of being able to find them and then you must be able to give them.  Every worthwhile thing in life is a two-way street.  You give and you get.  Without both, the result is merely an imitation of the real thing (or a selfish grabbing of these things for yourself without the ability to return them).

And that’s why I believe the key to understanding the meaning of Christmas is to understand hope – which means learning to understand the message of Jesus Christ – and to behave in a way that invites it not only into your life, but into the lives of all the people in your world.  With hope, anything is possible.  To have it, we must believe in it.

When you walk through the mall to return the necktie you don’t like or the scarf that is the wrong color for you, a worthwhile objective is to make three people – total strangers to you – smile.  Smiles and hope go together like white on rice.

It’s a great way, as Scrooge might say, to “keep Christmas in my heart every day of the year.”

God bless and Merry Christmas!  (And now please smile so I can meet my objective of three smiles from strangers every day!)

© 2017 Marilyn Barnewall – All Rights Reserved

Sunday, December 17, 2017

FBI, Feminist, And Political Legacies

https://newswithviews.com/fbi-feminist-and-political-legacies/
Dec 17, 2017 

Legacy.
What is it?
It’s an inheritance… a heritage or a birthright.  We all leave one behind us when we depart this world.  Actually, we leave more than one legacy behind us.  There are personal legacies… what kind of friend have you been?  There are professional legacies… what kind of employee or employer have you been?  There are creative legacies… and parental legacies, marital legacies, etc.
This year as we approach Christmas and the Christian New Year, it is more important than usual to think of the legacies we leave behind.
Why is it more important than usual this year?  We are going through a generational change – and it is not pretty.
As power gets passed from my son’s and daughter’s generation (my generation passed the power baton to our children years ago), we are watching our failures as parents establish themselves as generational standards of behavior – or, in many cases, a lack of standard.  Equally, today’s generation (my kids and yours) can see what they did right as they watch their children assume political, social, familial, and professional responsibility for the world.  Unfortunately, it gives me the heebie-jeebies to think of Millennials running anything, let alone the world.
Legacies apply only to individuals, not groups.  If a group’s legacy is negative, it is because of the negativity of the individuals who rose to power within that group.  The group’s individual members enabled their success.  Legacies are the exclusive property of individuals.
For example, the legacy of those who have chosen to be Democrats for many years says, based on the achievements and objectives of that group, you support abortion through the 9th month.  I am glad that is your legacy and not mine.  You support socialism rather than capitalism.  You support the elimination of borders for our great nation… though any halfway intelligent person recognizes that borders define the nation and without them it cannot exist… and perhaps that is your objective.  You support sanctuary cities where those who enter our nation unlawfully are entitled to more consideration in our courts, our welfare offices, our schools and colleges, our health care system, than citizens who have worked their entire lives to support the building of those things.
That is your legacy if you are a Democrat… that and the open hatred you spew about the man who was elected by your fellow citizens to be President of the United States.  You see, the hatred doesn’t just hit Donald Trump.  It extends to those of us who voted for and still strongly support him.  You would rather destroy your nation than accept his victory over your crooked as a dog’s hind leg candidate, Hillary Clinton.
You accept and applaud the violence of mobs in the street when the violence is directed against President Trump and are so stupid that you do not realize when you destroy respect for the Office of the President you are destroying citizen respect for the nation… a nation on which you are dependent if  you are to have a good, happy and stable future.  Such naïve behavior can only exist when people reject the idea that their legacy is the result of their own choices.
Will the Millennials who are inheriting your mess remember what you have done with gratitude and affection and for the happy future you are providing this nation?  Is it one in which they can take pride?   Or will they curse you for the debt, the immorality, the lost history and indoctrination rather than education?  It will take them years to learn the truth – but they will learn (eventually and whether or not they want to learn).
If you are a Republican, you have two choices:  You are an establishment Republican who, much like Democrats, willingly support any moral compromise that strengthens your own position of power at the expense of the average person you are supposed to be serving.  If names like Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Corey Gardiner (R-CO), Paul Ryan (R-WI), John Thune (R-SD), Bill Kristol (Publisher, Weekly Standard), and all of the others who went to opulent Sea Island to discuss ways they can make President Donald Trump fail come to mind, you understand what I’m saying.
Or, you’re a conservative Republican who supports our Constitution, the Rule of Law, and our populist President.  In that case, your political legacy is the Constitution, truth, and the Rule of Law.  Too, our legacy will be that of Donald Trump's because of our support.
The establishment Republicans are actually worse than the amoral Democrats and their legacy will be one of a small group which arrogantly believes their few biased minds know better than American voters what is good for the people.  They are worse because they are traitors to the very thing that has given them the opportunity to gain access to the power they so easily abuse.  They are disgusting and will one day pay a horrific penalty for their behavior.
Again, your actions are not taken just against the President.  Rather they are taken against all of us who support him… millions of us to a handful of you.  What arrogance you have – and how badly you wear it.
“But you don’t know this or that about Trump.  Because of who we are and what we do we know trhings… and you must believe we are doing what we think best for the nation.”  They may say something similar.  And, to a degree, they may be right.  They may know things we don’t know which might change our minds if we knew them.
That doesn’t change the fact that we, the voters of America, are entitled to enjoy our right decisions and pay the penalty for the wrong ones we make so we can learn from them.  All we need to do either is the truth.  Because of your duplicity, even if you know things we don’t know, we will not have that opportunity because you won’t tell us the truth.  What does that say about you?
A small group (by comparison to the total population) does not have the right to determine the best path for the millions who will have to pay for whatever outcome may result from your carelessness.  That is your legacy… a personal legacy for each of you.  Your names will always be affiliated with Sea Island and what many of us consider treasonous behavior.
That same principle applies to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).  J. Edgar Hoover left a legacy, didn’t he?  It involved using the nation’s primary law enforcement agency to gather dirt on anyone and everyone who could influence the direction of the American government and he did not hesitate to threaten them with it.  Look how that’s turned out.  That’s his legacy.
How sad to see the FBI lose the trust of the American people.  President Trump may tell the graduating class of FBI agents that he loves law enforcement and he’s got their back, but most of the people will have a bit of disagreement with him about his Justice Department and how well it is being run.  They also disagree with law enforcement’s abuse of power.
If I were writing a novel, I would have a Senator named Jeff who is part of the Never-Trump group of Republicans and I would assign him the responsibility of being the first United States Senator to come out and publicly support this populist non-politician.  I would assign him the task of becoming personally close to the candidate (who no one expects to win… I’d choose him because if the candidate doesn’t win the nomination he is such a popular Senator he won’t lose his seat just because he supported a losing presidential candidate).
When the candidate unexpectedly wins the nomination, then even more unexpectedly wins the presidential election, Jeff would be perfectly positioned to be appointed Attorney General.  In its aftermath, all of the elitists and insiders know the biggest risk of this entire election cycle is for someone who wants to clean the swamp to succeed at becoming President of the United States.
Going right along with the plot, during his Senate Confirmation Hearings, Jeff would swear to remove himself from any investigations involving charges made by the lying Democrats – those whose candidate was so bad even they had a hard time stomaching her.  That will be a major part of the Democrat/Liberal legacy:  the 2016 election campaign and all of the lies.
By recusing himself from having anything having to do with the investigation of possible presidential missteps involving Russia during the campaign, the Attorney General can avoid providing badly-needed support for his President.  He turns everything over to the Assistant Attorney General who supports the FBI’s senior management coup d’etat team.
My book plot would move forward by having the AAG appointed to handle all matters related to the Russia matter appoint a special prosecutor who is the best friend of the former FBI Director the President fired.  Surely this way they will be able to cover up all of the covert and indelicate, unlawful behavior of senior Bureau management members who are totally involved in trying to defeat the new President?  It is a devastating loss by the Democrat candidate whose power supports their corruption.  They are all sickened by her loss.  OMG!  They might even get caught red-handed.
Little by little, however, the new President finds ways to get the truth to the people.  The Attorney General looks ridiculous and incompetent, the Assistant Attorney General looks like a naïve fool who no American wants running the nation’s law enforcement, and all of the members of senior management look like traitors… including the special prosecutor.
What a book plot!  What a legacy these fictional characters are leaving their nation!  Are they fictional you ask?  Of course.  They must be.  No one could be so oblivious to reality as these characters are.
As I said, only individuals leave a legacy.  When their individual stupidity and arrogance enables the group’s objectives to depart from the group’s basic purpose for being, their individual legacy  suffers as does the group’s.  The rules are the same whether it’s the FBI, NOW, or the DNC.  They will forever be remembered for their treachery and lies.  Mostly, they will be remembered for disrespecting the American people and causing them to lose faith in their public servants’ ability to handle the power they were given.  Once lost, trust is never regained.
It will take time, Mr. President, for the people to forgive this grave violation of the public trust.  It will take time and tremendous dedication of those left to clean up the mess.
As for total support for law enforcement, as long as police departments and sheriff’s officers are pulling over people for no apparent violation but are removing from them their personal possessions (and never returning them without a court hearing which may or may not be either affordable or constitutional), I will not subscribe to your commitment to the thin blue line.   Again, the AG’s office should be taking action, but is not.
As the former editor of the National Peace Officer’s Magazine, as a former police officer’s wife (and as a former Denver police department employee), I say those words with great sorrow but also with great respect for the rule of law so easily ignored by so many cities, counties and states.  It is unlawful and is a reflection of the sewer that made those who believe senior managers at the FBI should make political decisions on behalf of the American people.
Neither action is to be tolerated in a nation of laws and justice.  At the moment, we have neither.
I could go on and on about legacies left behind… the other one I will mention is feminism – which is anything but representative of most American females.  Their legacy will be to declare that we must believe women who lie about sexual encounters because women don’t lie about such things… not even 40 years later.
That’s an interesting thought and it is being stated at the same time Los Angeles attorney Lisa Bloom admits that the women who have charged the President of inappropriate behavior towards them have been offered huge sums of money in return for their sudden memories.  It is rumored that Bloom’s law firm will take one-third of the amounts paid to her clients by – we don’t know who.  The amounts paid are, according to news stories, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  I believe Bloom has denied much of this… I would, too — wouldn’t you?  That’s one woman I won’t believe.
That is the feminist legacy.  They forgot the charges made against the Duke lacrosse team in 2006.  The North Carolina Attorney General said at the time:  “The Duke lacrosse case has shown that our society has lost sight of the most fundamental principle of our legal system:  the presumption of innocence.”  Some things don’t change and this is one of them.
We are to believe them just because they are women.  It tosses in the trash the rule of law declaring that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, but feminists don’t care.  That’s part of their legacy:  Ignorance of the law and naiveté [perhaps gullibility is a better word].
Perhaps if female morality was more apparent, you might convince me, but probably not.  You wear skirts up to your private parts (without telling men this is the new norm, not an invitation to your bed… though that’s what it looks like to me), you sleep with just about anyone from the time you get to high school, you don’t understand that “choice” occurs at the moment you decide to have sex rather than when you get pregnant and so believe the killing of a baby in your uterus is an acceptable form of birth control… even through the ninth month.
Your group will not be remembered for standing up for the rights of women.  It will be remembered for one of your leaders, a Hollywood elite, wanting to blow up the White House.  It will be remembered for murdering many of God’s most innocent beings… babies in your own belly.
What you represent – your legacy – is that of liberal Democrat women who have no moral compass.  That is your legacy… a group of individuals with no moral compass.
Those are legacies.
And while you are thinking about this, remember that you, too, dear reader will leave a legacy… one either of meaning and positive purpose or of… what?  Or, the groups you belong to will leave a legacy for you.
Be careful whom you support… it will be part of your legacy personally.  And now you know why I resigned from the Republican Party.
© 2017 Marilyn Barnewall – All Rights Reserved


Sunday, December 03, 2017

SAN FRANCISCO -- OUT OF MY HEART FOREVER




News With Views
By Marilyn M. Barnewall
December 3, 2017
https://newswithviews.com/san-francisco-out-of-my-heart-forever/


I, for one, will never visit San Francisco again.  I will not even take a flight that will touch down at the San Francisco airport to change planes.  If I did, I’d be supporting the San Francisco tax base which is used to support criminal illegal aliens.

I’m not just disgusted by the trial of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, 45, acquitted of murder and involuntary manslaughter charges, as well as assault with a deadly weapon, I am sickened by it.

Jurors convicted the Mexican citizen of being a felon in possession of a firearm, which could bring a three-year sentence.  He admitted to killing Kate Steinle as she and her father walked along the San Francisco wharf together.

To read the actual reasons Kate Steinle is dead (including violations by more than one department of the federal government), go here to read the lawsuit filed by the Steinles against numerous government departments whose responsibility it was to keep her safe.

In essence, the City of San Francisco (and the complicit State of California) have created an unsafe environment for American citizens so they can provide special privileges for illegal aliens under the false flag California chooses to call “Justice.”

It used to be a beautiful city.  Wells Fargo Bank was one of my clients during the 1980s and I spent quite a bit of time there.  Wells Fargo was one of the best banks in the country at that time.  Today, they are caught in criminal credit card violations for which no one goes to prison… a reflection of the attitudes of the federal regulators and the City of San Francisco where Wells Fargo’s corporate headquarters resides.

Keep in mind, throughout history evil has always imploded on itself.

Did you know that 22% of federal prisoners are suspected illegal immigrants?  Do you realize it costs American taxpayer citizens $87.61 per day (or $31,977.65 per year) to pay for the prison upkeep of just one criminal?  It totals hundreds of billions of dollars… dollars you work for every day.

From 2010 to 2014, ICE released a 30,558 illegal criminal aliens from prison.  Did you know that after their release 121 of them were charged with homicide?  Sounds like a small number by comparison to the 30,558… tell that to the families of the 121 who were murdered.

We hear a lot about how special the “Dreamers” are and how important it is for them to be able to continue their educations in the United States.  “Dreamers” are illegal aliens who go to school under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  They are so grateful to be studying at American universities and colleges, 2,139 DACA recipients have lost their permits to remain in America due to their criminal activity.

Hispanics aren’t the only ones tearing our nation apart.

Black consumers are being told by Black Lives Matter to buy Christmas gifts only from black-owned businesses.  I guess that means that all whites should not buy from any black business… isn’t the Black Lives Matter message “Shop by color”?  So if you are racially sensitive and if you’re white, stay out of black communities.  Don’t buy anything from them because Blacks don’t want to do business with you.  They want business from fellow blacks.  I’ve always supported blacks supporting black communities (though not quite like this).

Colin Kaepernick (of the San Francisco football team – where else?) began the trendy “one knee” stance while the pre-football game national anthem played.  It shows total disregard for our military and the men and women who have died defending America.  It shows total disregard for the American people who love their country and their flag.  Then many overpaid and under-educated teammates joined him in his protest – and NFL football ratings have gone down ever since.  I will do all I can to help the trend… down, down, down for the NFL and Roger Goodell, the NFL Commissioner who handled this fiasco (and others) so badly but thinks he is worth a $50 million per year (plus medical benefits for him and his family) for life.

You can’t make this stuff up!

The men who think a football field is the appropriate place for political protests won’t really feel the result of their behavior until it’s time to negotiate their next contract.  Until then, their ability to run with or kick or pass or receive a football and get paid millions of dollars for doing so makes them feel they are making powerful political statements.  In reality, all they are doing is ruining the game and those who finance it:  the fans – most of whom love their country.

It’s fascinating to watch multi-millionaires demonstrate because they are victims!

The economy of the old Soviet Union was never strong and corruption, always present in big governments which must always grow as the population increases, made the USSR vulnerable to corruption.

Communist China faces the same problem (even after Mao killed over 65 million people to implement communism… that form of government stupid American university professors teach their uninformed students is wonderful; those student become violent in their support of it; they – and their hero, Bernie Saunders – call it socialism but even Karl Marx admitted socialism is a high-speed railroad to communism).  Stalin killed 40 million Russians to get communism implemented.  Doesn’t that sound like a wonderful form of government?

Under communism the government represents total power.  It is huge and, as we have learned since President Trump began cleaning the swam, the corruption runs very deep indeed in America’s theoretically non-communist government.

My use of the word “theoretically” merely means that too many people still believe they are free and are living in a republic (if educated) or a democracy (if uneducated).  In truth, however, government considers itself the only important, dominant element of American life. Most of those who “serve” the people as elected officials consider themselves elites who reside high above the rest of us in their own mythical world of power and corruption… a communist attitude.

There is no better example of government gone wild and out of control than the San Francisco trial of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate for the murder of Kate Steinle.  Zarate was clearly guilty of murder – at the very least, manslaughter.  The comrades of San Francisco found him innocent and because he has already spent 29 months in confinement he will probably see little, if any, time behind bars in California.

What happened in San Francisco is a small indication of the total lack of moral values, the total lack of appreciation of what it means to be born an American citizen, and shows a lack of appreciation for citizenship that results in a mindless devaluation of our nation.

For example, the Millennials who flood the streets and willingly resort to violence if it means preventing a conservative from speaking an opinion with which they disagree think we should have open borders.  Their university professors haven’t gotten around to telling them that without borders there is no nation (the professors – men who will never be recognized for their intelligence – probably don’t know.).  One of the things required to establish a nation is a clear statement of its borders.  In other words, if America has no borders, there is no America.

Gee, you don’t suppose that’s part of the plan, do you?

The dumbed-down generations (at least two of them… maybe three) have reached a point in American society where truth has no value.  Without truth there is no freedom, just political correctness where one group of powerful people can tell the rest of society what they may and may not think and say because if you disagree with them you are guilty of hate speech.  In Great Britain you can go to jail for hate speech.  In reality, the only hate speech being spewed through society comes from the mouths of the politically correct and powerful elitists who think themselves better able to run your life than you are.

It is reminiscent of the old Soviet Union.

According to Gorbachev’s Prime Minister, Nikolai Ryzhkov, the “moral [nravstennoe] state of the society” in 1985 was its “most terrifying” feature:  “[We] stole from ourselves, took and gave bribes, lied in the reports, in newspapers, from high podiums, wallowed in our lies, hung medals on one another. And all of this – from top to bottom and from bottom to top.”

It sounds like America, 2017, doesn’t it?  It reminds me of the $3 trillion Donald Rumsfeld announced was missing from the Defense Department in 2001… he didn’t know what had happened to all that money – but they were looking for it.  It was never found… and Rumsfeld made his statement the day before 9/11/2001 so it got little attention as Americans sat in disbelief over the loss of over 3,000 fellow citizens.

It also reminds me of Representative Maxine Waters who just a few days ago told her black audience to remember that Congressman John Conyers is a friend to women… an icon in the black community.  Of course, Waters hasn’t had a cogent thought in her head for… possibly her entire life.  

As Gorbachev’s Prime Minister, Nikolai Ryzhkov, said just before the fall of the USSR, “[We] stole from ourselves, took and gave bribes, lied in the reports, in newspapers, from high podiums, wallowed in our lies, hung medals on one another.”  He could not have defined the actions of Waters (and other politicians) more successfully had he tried.

We free illegal alien murderers in San Francisco, while Michigan voters elect John Conyers to office so he can sexually insult and intimidate women for the 50 years he’s been in Congress.  Even died-in-the-wool liberal Cokie Roberts admitted on television that all women in Washington knew better than to get on an elevator with Conyers,

We have so many women coming forward to accuse Senator Al Franken of Minnesota of putting his hands where they do not belong that it’s hard to keep an accurate count.

Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze made equally painful comments about lawlessness and corruption dominating the Soviet Union in its final days.  During the winter months of 1984-85, he told Gorbachev that “Everything is rotten. It has to be changed.”

“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong,” Frantz Fanon said in his 1952 book Black Skin, White Masks (originally published in French as Peau Noire, Masques Blancs).  “When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted.  It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit with the core belief.”

If that doesn’t define victims, liberal progressives and most Millennials, I don’t know what does.

During their final days as a world power, the Soviet Union allowed cognitive dissonance to rule its better judgment… as so many Americans are doing in 2017.  The handwriting on the wall was pretty clear for Gorbachev. The Soviet economy was failing.  They did none of the necessary things to save their economy.  In 2017, the handwriting on the wall is pretty clear for the American people.

The economy is failing.  The number of closed retail outlets tripled this year over last. Read this article.   Don’t confuse a climbing stock market with a successful economy.  President Trump is doing all he can to save it, but he is having to crawl over the body blocks of liberal progressives (both Republican and Democrat) to do so.

The people and the Congress do none of the necessary things to save their economy. Why?  Go re-read the definition of cognitive dissonance. That’s why. We have a classic fight going on between fear-motivated people who want government to take care of them and who willingly pay the price of lost freedom to get that care (evil), versus those who value freedom and the self-responsibility it requires (good).

As Eduard Shevardnadze said, “Everything is rotten.  It has to be changed.”

As I would say it, “There is no Rule of Law in America today.”

No one listened then; no one is listening in America now.  The primary reason?  Cognitive dissonance.

Kate Steinle was murdered by her government.  The State of California, the City of San Francisco and the federal government have one primary responsibility as legitimate governments:  Provide for the safety of citizens.  They did not.  How legitimate then are they as governments?

California is so focused on making sure illegal aliens have access to the benefits people like Kate Steinle worked hard and paid taxes to provide, they forgot about her safety and the safety of all other citizens… and tourists.  I invite you to join me in avoiding any kind of California vacation or doing business with any online California-based businesses.

Why would you want to add to the tax base of a government that so abuses American citizens?

Such comments as those from Soviet leaders Nikolai Ryzhkov and Eduard Shevardnadze a mere half-dozen years before the failure of what Reagan termed “the Evil Empire” should cause chills down the spines of any American reading the quotes for in many ways our government has become “the Evil Empire.”

The words spoken by Soviet politicians just before their fall are a mirror image of this nation’s social and political disorder as I write these words.

Say a prayer that President Trump will be able to succeed… and another prayer that the Never Trumpers like Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Corey Gardner (R-CO), John McCain (R-AZ), Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and all the others are in the final days of their treasonous service.

You might also want to say a prayer that McConnell wakens Senators so they begin passing some of the 300 Bills approved and sent to them by the House of Representatives – laws which have been ignored by McConnell, McCain, Gardner, Corker, Thune… one of which is Kate’s Law.


© 2017 Marilyn Barnewall – All Rights Reserved