If my grandparents and great-grandparents were alive, I’m pretty sure they would be embarrassed at what we have allowed to happen to our country. Their country.
My grandparents were workers. They were second generation immigrants from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Their parents came to America with no expectations that anything would be given to them. All they expected was freedom to work, live, and worship.
Income redistribution was the furthest thing from their minds. Why would one person work his or her ass off just to have the fruits of their labor go to somebody who refused to earn their keep? That just didn’t, and doesn’t, make sense.
photo courtesy Kearney Museum
My ancestors came to America because this country offered what no other country did – equal opportunity to be the best one could be. No American could be denied the right to own property they had paid for with their sweat, smarts and willingness to take a risk. And boy howdy, did they take a risk.
They entered America through Ellis Island and moved to North Dakota, where winters are long and cold, but the soil is rich and hard work is rewarded with bumper crops and fat livestock. Through wars, mosquitos and depressions, they just worked harder, fixing what was broken with bare hands, ingenuity and maybe some baling wire. There was no supermarket, no Home Depot, certainly no EBT cards or free school lunches. They repaired their own shoes, cut their own hair, and healed their sick cows. They gathered to play polka music on Saturday nights, and danced like there was no tomorrow. And they built a church down the road on their own time with their bare, calloused hands using stones they hauled from their fields.
They enlisted and marched off to defend liberty, laying down their lives for people they did not know because it was the right thing to do.
What would these tough, fearless, independent Americans think of us today?
Tom Balek, Rockin’ On the Right Side
(rough translation) Where the wind wipes our noses, that’s where my first love lives, Where the wind rubs our noses raw, that’s where my first love lives. Even the horses knew how she rode ’em wild, On the farm she wore out every single horse.
The following is going to sound a lot like President Trump when he repeats ad nauseum that the latest crime of our adversaries is “like nobody has ever seen before . . . “
There was a popular saying back in the 80s (when I still had hair) that somehow made sense at the time. “Shit happens.” Remember? If not, you are dismissed.
A lot of shit has happened over the last couple of decades. We elected the first minority president because he said, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America.” He assured us that he would put an end to the type of politics that “breeds division and conflict and cynicism.” Then he proceeded to pit half of his nation’s citizens against the other half while we prayed that his ascendancy would destroy every remaining hint of racism in the most anti-racist nation in the world.
Obama fabricated a seemingly indestructible federal bureaucracy, weaponizing it to push us to the very extinction of the freedoms we were taught to cherish because brave patriots spilled their guts for future generations.
After eviscerating Trump 1.0, Biden and the remaining Obama insiders continued the carnage, highlighted by the recruitment and admission of 30 – 50 million illegal immigrants to our diseased nation, many of them among the most immoral people on Earth.
Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight, right? Our nation was gut-shot so many times during the Biden era that survival would seem a miracle, while our conservative leadership refused to defend their electors who clung to the faith that the contrived battle between Obama’s “liberal America and conservative America” would somehow end peacefully – or at least they would be re-elected.
One could point to a hundred horrific, unconscionable acts by the leftists in our nation in recent years. It was one bitch slap after another: DEI, transgenderism, open borders, stolen votes, coddled criminals, corrupt politicians who never face accountability, assassination attempts, trillions of dollars of waste and fraud in federal programs, the horrendous Afghan withdrawal, shameless dishonesty in media, the destruction of our critical institutions including education, health care, national defense and our security agencies.
But there is one despicable act by the left that tops them all and can not be forgiven. Not ever. Never. It tops the list of depravity, like nothing anybody has ever seen before.
That is the savage damage done by our own government to the innocent American citizens who patriotically attended a rally in our nations capital on January 6, 2021 for the sole purpose of questioning the integrity of our elective process, and paid for that privilege with their lives, fortunes, and families.
The unthinkable actions taken by our federal government against its own people are the kind of perfidy we would only have expected from the evil, tyrannical governments that our nation fought with our blood and souls only a few generations ago. Our courts abandoned any responsibility for justice. Our news media and politicians shredded the truth, and continue to.
President Trump’s pardon for the J6 prisoners was a promise kept; a necessary and welcome start, but it is not enough. Until the victims and their families are made whole financially, and granted our nation’s full apologies for what they endured at the hands of our despicable government we should not, and can not, rest. Until those who lied and schemed in their vicious pursuit of innocent citizens are prosecuted, we should not, and can not, forget. And may any politician or member of the news media who ignores, supports, or refuses to remediate the injustices done by our nation on these people, face the wrath of his maker.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
You are the poster boy for how low one can sink You slither by your lies and never even blink You are a danger to the good left in the world If only all your future words remained unheard
I live out in the boonies – a rural area in one of the poorest counties in South Carolina. And everywhere I drive out here I see big reels of fiber optic cable waiting for a crew to come along and dig trenches to install it.
Thanks, taxpayers, for ponying up the $50 billion plus to fund this misguided attempt to bring modern life to us hicks in the sticks. But your congressmen should have asked us before they wrote the contracts and checks to their big tech buddies.
When I carved out a spot in the woods for a new house and shop, I pondered how I was going to get internet and television service out here in the middle of nowhere. Satellite TV was and is available, of course, and we had been satellite customers before. But as the satellite carriers lose market share to streaming TV services they raise prices to stay in business, so satellite TV has become crazy expensive.
Unfortunately, the cable companies who pig out on taxpayer broadband funds have not reached our neck of the woods, and would not tell us if, or when, they would get here.
So we put a dish in our yard for TV, and a second dish for HughesNet satellite internet service. At the time HughesNet operated at the speed of dark – barely functional for email and maybe some web surfing, but forget about any kind of streaming. Another option was a cellular network hotspot, but we did not have towers close enough to make that practical either.
Then Elon Musk came to the rescue with his StarLink service – fast, reliable, and affordable. It replaced our cable and internet services with REAL high-speed rural broadband at half the cost of the fiber optic cable service our federal government is subsidizing. (Musk has donated Starlink devices to disaster areas all over the globe, providing free internet service in areas with no functioning infrastructure on the ground.)
SO WHY IS OUR GOVERNMENT STILL SPENDING SO MUCH OF OUR MONEY PUTTING IN OBSOLETE FIBER OPTIC CABLE WHEN STARLINK IS THE PROVEN FAST AND EFFICIENT MODERN WIRELESS INTERNET ALTERNATIVE?
Probably for the same reason they insist on replacing powerful, plentiful, affordable carbon-based energy with solar and wind electricity that can’t possibly meet our needs at any cost. Our government does not run like a business, continually maximizing profit and performance. No, our government officials only seek to pay off their lobbyists and campaign contributors. Once a spending program is approved by Congress, there is no turning back. Those dollars will be spent as allocated, regardless of whether it makes economic sense.
Now, take this senseless $50 billion broadband boondoggle and multiply it. How many more obsolete and nonsensical programs are burning through our limited tax dollars and exploding our debt?
Last year South Carolina’s Republican legislature gave $1.3 billion in taxpayer cash and incentives to VW to build an electric RV plant. The electric vehicle industry is flopping like a dying fish now, as it has become clear that even with taxpayer incentives electric vehicles will never be feasible. As obsolete EV production plants close all over the globe, new tech research shows hydrogen power may be the energy source of the future.
Godspeed to you, President Trump. You are the first president in many generations who looks at government spending from the taxpayer’s viewpoint, seeking real efficiency and transparency. And Elon’s DOGE effort was not wasted. It exposed, but failed to stop, the crazy wastefulness in our government spending.
If only our Republican legislators would see the light.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Well, the blues jumped a rabbit and run him a mile The rabbit sat down and he cried like a child The blues said son you got to learn one rule Don’t place no trust in a educated fool Educated fool, educated fool Educated fool, educated fool
Today’s stock market activity looks like the work of three men: Larry, Curly and Moe.
This morning news reporters breathlessly claimed that President Trump has put a hold on his promised tariffs against imported goods. Then the markets went crazy as nobody could decide if the reports were accurate (no, he didn’t – yes, he did – wait, is this fake news or not?). Financial advisors and political pundits flip-flopped like catfish in the bottom of a boat. I saw the DOW and NASDAQ drop 3% and then bounce back to 2% gains inside of 15 minutes.
All of this gyration makes clear that the stock market is not a real economic indicator. And that the news and political folks play on our emotions constantly. And that our level of economic sophistication, not to mention our attention spans, have atrophied to something like the third-grade level.
In reality, nothing in the economy is different today than last month. But the mere mention of any Trump initiative is sure to send everybody into a tizzy. Those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome believe that he is hell-bent on destroying our country (and the world), because he is a Nazi Fascist Orange Man who wants revenge for being treated so badly by so many for so long.
The fact is, our stock market has been wildly over-valued for a long time, and the recent downturn is no different from any correction before. Remember that nasty inflation during the Biden years that caused prices to go crazy? During all of that inflation, the stock market continued to float higher and higher. Analysts touted greater sales and profits by our domestic businesses. But sales were up only because of inflated prices, not because more units were being produced and sold – each dollar in the system was worth less. And profits were higher because sales were higher.
This disconnect between production and prices caused the stock market to blow up artificially, and sooner or later it had to pop.
Maybe the threat of tariffs scared some people into a doom-and-gloom selloff. But folks, it was going to happen anyway, just like it has many times before. And the market has always recovered before, usually in a matter of a few months.
Trump is just shaking things up and trying to drag the world economy back to some semblance of sanity where our debt doesn’t increase by a trillion bucks every couple of months, 20% of working-age men aren’t home on disability, and we don’t send checks to people who died 50 years ago.
Watching all this chaos, I can’t help but chuckle a little bit. Nyuk, nyuk nyuk.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Hey Moe! Nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk! We-be-be-be-be-be! Oh, wise guy! We never miss a chance to get up and dance We’re doing the Curly Shuffle! THE CURLY SHUFFLE – Jump ‘n the Saddle Band
I graduated from high school in 1971, not yet eligible for the draft. In 1972 I turned 18. The war was winding down, and the number of American soldiers ‘in country’ was significantly reduced from the peak in 1968. Still, the word on the street was that young draftees were being sent to the front lines to replace the guys who had survived tours of combat and wanted to go home in one piece. The young grunts were easy meat for the more experienced and war-tough Viet Cong.
A great Marine recruiter had approached us senior boys at my high school before graduation, and I thought about enlisting, but after graduation, with help from my dad and my young wife, I was able to afford college and bypass military service.
1972 was my first year eligible for the draft lottery, and my number was 228. That year only the first 95 birthdates were drafted.
I was relieved, of course, at the time. Still, I had a gnawing ache that so many of my brothers had served and died in ‘Nam, and I didn’t. I saw the war protests on the nightly news, along with the reports of guys returning from the war being vilified as “baby killers”.
To this day, over 50 years later, there is a special place in my heart for Vietnam vets, who served our nation in that ugly war, without really knowing how their spilled blood made a damn bit of difference. Some were driven by pure patriotism, and some were just unfortunate draftees. All of them laid it on the line for their buddies.
Throughout our history, America has lost many brave young men on the battlefields, including more recent conflicts in the Middle East. Some Americans would have us send our young to Ukraine for God knows what purpose. I’m a patriot, and have reverence for all of our lost soldiers and war veterans. But I don’t ever want to experience the national heartache of the pointless Vietnam War again.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
He blesses the boys as they stand in line The smell of gun grease and the bayonets they shine He’s there to help them all that he can To make them feel wanted he’s a good holy man
The first few weeks of Trump 2.0 has been exhilarating for long-suffering conservative Americans. Early reports of young brainiacs with their AI algorithms revealing mountains of waste, fraud and inefficiency are music to our ears. Volunteer auditor-in-chief Elon Musk and newly-confirmed director of Office, Management and Budget (OMB) Russ Vought hit the ground running – no, they hit the ground flying at hypersonic speed! They are determined to streamline performance, knock down the debt and deficits, and get rid of federal flab. As Trump would say, they are attacking the Swamp with a speed and ferocity “no one has ever seen before”.
So far, so good. Trump 2.0 has already:
eliminated DEI departments, programs and costs
attacked woke and politically weaponized practices
exposed inappropriate spending, targeting foreign and domestic outlays that taxpayers would never approve
required federal employees to show up for work and prove their merit
closed the borders to illegal immigration and started deportations
negotiated favorable foreign trade arrangements
promised to get rid of unnecessary and duplicative departments, unused buildings and unneeded personnel
identified opportunities for upgraded technology and efficiency
But all this swamp-draining optimism seems eerily familiar. I recall a similar feeling at the beginning of Trump 1.0, and found an old article I wrote about it eight years ago. My enthusiastic and well-intended predictions turned out to be embarrassingly inaccurate.
For one thing, my article focused on one of many less-than-stellar Trump cabinet appointees, Mick Mulvaney. Mick was plucked by Trump from his gig as SC legislator to seek and destroy federal waste and corruption via the OMB. It didn’t happen.
When we first met, Mulvaney impressed me. He was very bright, had a real grasp of Tea Party conservative principles, and walked the talk as a founder of the fledgling House Freedom Caucus. And he hired Russ Vought, a friend and mentor from Heritage Action, as his right-hand man. But I got a chill when I asked Mulvaney if he could implement zero-based budgeting to get our spending under control. He said I should forget about reducing spending. “Our budget is so huge and complicated that nobody in government will even try to cut spending – ever.” Mulvaney said that the only way to reduce the debt, which was about $10 trillion at the time, was to outgrow it by revving up the economy and tax revenues. Tax revenues grew rapidly, but spenders gonna spend – and some of them will spend $2 for ever $1 taken in.
Needless to say, Trump’s success at draining the swamp was about as real as my photo-shopped picture of Mick wrestling an alligator. The swamp creatures from the left and right were bigger and badder than Trump 1.0 bargained for, and he got his nose – and ours – bloodied.
But nobody ever said Trump is a quitter. He recognized his errors, he listened to good advice, he meticulously studied and planned, he literally dodged bullets, and he returned victorious to implement Trump 2.0. The stakes are higher this time around as our debt has ballooned to $36.5 trillion and is growing by a trillion bucks every 100 days. We don’t yet know if our Republican Senate and House will support Trump 2.0 or prefer the fetid smell of the swamp.
Last November American voters peered over the edge of a steep cliff. At the bottom we saw the extinction of our freedoms, our prosperous and moral civilization, and the future of our children. We turned away from the edge and now have One More Last Chance before we’re through.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Give me just a one more last chance
Before you say we’re through
I know I drive you crazy baby
It’s the best that I can do
We’re just some good ol’ boys, a makin’ noise
I ain’t a runnin’ ’round on you
Give me just a one more last chance
Before you say we’re through
What a historic day as President Trump is inaugurated to be our 47th president. The story is Braveheart revisited – pushed to the edge of the cliff, we let out a primal scream, and charged behind our leader into the teeth of our evil enemy. To victory!
The last four years has been nothing less than an existential battle for those of us who are engaged in the war to save our nation and culture for our children and future generations. I find myself in a swirl of mixed emotions today and am recording them for future reflection.
THANKFULNESS – thanks to God for answering prayers and for His perfect plan. Salvation is there for those who will accept it and it is our responsibility and honor to preserve and share that good news.
CELEBRATION – Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble! We have taken a daily beating from the press, from our political adversaries, from every institution in society. But we kept fighting, knowing that truth and justice always wins out in the end.
BROTHERHOOD – We had to stick together and keep each other inspired, informed, and encouraged in the face of withering attacks from a relentless enemy. For some of us it was a four year battle, but many of us have been in the trenches since the Tea Party days almost twenty years ago. I am so proud of all of my brothers and sisters who have led – and followed – when the going was tough.
HUMILITY – Our battle isn’t personal, although the other side wanted it to be. It’s tempting to shame and embarrass our vanquished opponents as they did to us. But some of those who have not been on our team just didn’t know any better. We should celebrate today and then get to work for all of our fellow citizens, because we know better and we are better than the few evil ones that did so much damage.
ANGER – I will try to release the anger I have toward those evil ones and will cut their sheep followers some slack. But it will take a while because of all the personal carnage they caused. And justice must be meted out to those with evil intent, as a deterrent to future villains. It will be hard to forgive those who arrested innocent protesters like my nephew on January 6, 2021 at the cost of prison time, loss of careers, homes, and savings. I’m confident that TODAY President Trump will pardon them all. He promised me.
DETERMINATION – I doubt most people know how close we came to losing our precious American way of life. Let’s make damn sure we don’t get pushed to the edge of that cliff again.
Onward! And may God continue to bless America!
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Let’s grab the world by the scruff of the neck And drink it down deeply and love it to death So button your lip, baby, button your coat Let’s go out dancing, let’s rock and roll You’re not the only one with mixed emotions!
After four years of teetering on the edge of a cliff in a hurricane, Lady Liberty can finally take a deep breath. There is hope for our nation’s survival as a functioning democratic republic.
I had been saying for some time that Trump’s support level nationwide – among the common people, not just the urban jet set – had to be nearly 80%. I can be prone to hyperbole, but I’m now feeling pretty good about that projection. After the election, now that the sun has come out, it seems that everybody loves Trump and is singing Make America Great Again.
Let’s not be naive, there are still forces of evil hell-bent on destroying our president, our country, and each of us personally. But there are also many gleeful sheep peeking out of the shadows who were afraid to show their faces before November 6. An estimated 50% of Christians did not vote, and that entire voting bloc (about 67% of Americans) is now relieved that somebody else carried Trump forward to rescue and restore their values. Add their numbers to the popular vote he actually won, and you are nearing my 80% claim.
A surprise to me is that widespread vote fraud was either not attempted or was suppressed by aggressive counteraction. I had expected a 10% to 15% cheating advantage by the left, but only a few questionable maneuvers were revealed this time around.
So, now what? Can we really turn this big ugly ship around?
Here are just a few ways that the new Trump America can emerge from the malodorous swamp and start smelling like roses very quickly:
Stop allowing 94%+ of federal workers to “work from home”. Many already have second jobs and will quit their government jobs. Many will be eliminated by DOGE because they have proven they aren’t needed at the office. Government employment can be easily reduced by 50% or more. Easily. No really, read that last sentence again.
Implement zero-based budgeting in agencies and force Congress to present a real budget, on time, every year as required by law. The last time they did that was 1996. Make every agency actually balance their books and account for every dime. After all, that’s what the IRS requires of us.
Stop all payments to NGOs. All of them. If their functions are not important enough to be handled by our federal employees, we either don’t need the programs or the federal employees. NGOs are at the core of most of the embarrassing and egregious corruption in our federal government.
I could go on all day. But that’s a good start. Let’s enjoy the sunshine and get to work!
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone I can see all obstacles in my way Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-shiny day
Warning: the following reading material contains NUMBERS. If you are allergic to numbers, or if numbers make your eyes glaze over and your head throb, you were probably educated in government schools. You may wish to exit this page and check out the latest Taylor Swift news. [correction 10/31/24: my numbers re: presidential campaign spending were off by one comma, s/b $1.8 billion and $356 million.] Sorry, my eyes glazed over!
Okay, the whistleblower is ME. I used that to get your attention, since whistleblowers are in fashion right now. But I think I have discovered the cause of all of our problems: OUR GOVERNMENT KEEPS GETTING BIGGER WHILE OUR PRIVATE SECTOR EMPLOYMENT AND PRODUCTION GETS SMALLER.
Our government has become so huge – in terms of employees, dollars received, dollars redistributed, dollars consumed in administration, dollars spent, and dollars wasted by errors and corruption – that it no longer fits our constitution or the economic formula that made us the greatest nation on Earth. Most Americans don’t understand that government does not produce anything or create any wealth. That only happens in the private sector, and sadly our private sector doesn’t create much of anything any more.
For those of you still with me, here’s are the promised numbers:
According to USAFacts.com, when President Trump left office in January of 2020, there were 2.86 million federal employees. In October of 2024 under the Biden/Harris administration that number had ballooned to 4.0 million, a staggering increase of 40%! And this does not even begin to consider the growth in state and local governments, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) fed by the Democrat machine, or the employees bought with taxpayer money that enriches crony corporations for “projects” that never seem to get done. Meanwhile, the labor participation rate in my state has dropped from nearly 70% in the mid 1970s to 57% in recent years. Government employment gets bigger while private employment shrinks.
Stats from Microsoft’s CoPilot: As of 2024, Federal employees earn, on average, $144,000 in total annual compensation. 68% of federal employees “work from home” full or part time. (First year Marines, by the way, earn $24,204 annually, and they don’t get to “work from home”!).
Back in 2012 I ran a little test to see if federal employees actually show up at work. My contention was that no federal employees other than secretaries who can’t escape are at work after 2:30 pm on a weekday or 1:00 pm on a Friday. So I randomly called several federal senior employees at 2:30 pm on a Tuesday. They were all “away from their desks”. I’m sure this test would bring the same results, or worse, today.
In 2023 government spending reached 34.4% of GDP. From 1900 until 2023, government spending averaged 25.68% of GDP.
Our national debt is now $34 trillion, up from $16.8 trillion in 2019. That’s more than double in five years. Lately I find myself repeating, “Do you know how hard it is to spend a trillion dollars? It takes a lot of people, effort, corruption, and time!”
If Willie Sutton, famous bank robber in the 1930s, robbed banks because “that’s where the money is”, he would certainly be a US senator today.
In the heat of the current campaign, everybody is focused on personalities – who is dumb, who is mean, who is the next Hitler, who is going to give free stuff to everybody.
Nobody mentions the real problem: our government is TOO DAMN BIG!
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
Big money goes around the world Big money give and take Big money done a power of good Big money make mistakes
Big money got a heavy hand Big money take control Big money got a mean streak Big money got no soul
Our annual government spending is $6.5 trillion. Our debt is $34.7 trillion and rapidly growing. CLICK HERE TO LOOK AT THE LIVE DEBT CLOCK. It reveals some eye-popping statistics. Click on the individual fields to get more information. For example our debt is more than double that of China with less than a quarter of their population.
If you wonder why there is so much crazy stuff going on in the government lately, consider how hard it must be to legitimately spend $6.5 trillion dollars. I mean, that’s a humongous number! Our 435 congressmen are only in session for about 150 days a year, so they have to work really hard to get rid all of that money. Each congressman has to spend $100 billion every day they show up to work! Wow, no wonder they are so exhausted they can only work part time.
It is so hard to blow through that much money that, after giving some to foreign oligarchs for their wars and corruption, and taking as much off the top as they can without being obvious, our congressmen have to start passing it down to state governments as “grants”.
But it’s hard for state governments to spend that much money too, because they already have $2 trillion of their own money to get rid of. So the states pass some of their taxpayer money down to the local governments as “grants”.
But the locals already have their own $2 trillion, so it’s hard work for them to spend even more.
Yup, that’s $10.5 trillion of our hard-earned wages going to government at all levels each year. How the heck can we expect our overburdened government employees to keep track of all that money?
Our government is not working the way it was designed. The constitution was set up as a way to keep the government out of our private business as much as possible – to let us make and spend (or keep) our own money without interference. But it wasn’t long before politicians figured out they could buy votes with OPM (other people’s money), and before you knew it half the country was living on OPM without having to make their own. And the government doesn’t even need to collect taxes, they can just print money and build debt indefinitely. Can you say inflation?
It’s just too hard for our government leaders to actually have to make things work. So our city governments grab grants to buy abandoned properties on Main Street and fund more music and art fairs. Our counties take grants to work on “economic development” by giving tax abatements to speculators as roads and bridges fall apart. And our federal government funds foreign wars and endless caravans of illegal aliens, but our own military can’t keep our ships afloat, our fighter planes flying, or enough trained personnel who are not in gender transition.
It can’t go on much longer. The debt clock says we have $267,000 of government debt per citizen plus another $75,000 of personal debt. We are all already busted!
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I’m busted Cotton is down to a quarter a pound, but I’m busted I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won’t lay A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day The county’s gonna haul my belongings away cause I’m busted
Tom Balek - Rockin' On The Right Side 