WHAT DIFFERENCE, AT THIS POINT, DOES IT MAKE?

Does it make any difference what Hillary’s medical situation is? Let’s think about this. I have heard opinion that even if she were convicted of all her crimes and sent to Federal Prison for life, she would still get anywhere from thirty to thirty-five percent of the vote. The fact that she may well be sick, and possibly very sick, doesn’t seem to matter to her rabid supporters. She would still get a huge number of votes.

Just look at the facts regarding her carelessness as well as her criminal activity in the handling of her private email server and classified documents. If it were anybody else or any Republican, she would be in an orange jumpsuit. Not Hillary. No, she still is running for the highest office in the land and has support.

This email business though, is just the tip of the iceberg. The next shoe to fall is the “pay for play” Clinton slush fund also known as the Clinton Foundation. For several years Hillary and Bill have been peddling influence to foreign governments as well as private citizens wanting special favors. She has gone from “abject poverty,” her words, to a net worth of well over one hundred million dollars. Pretty good when you consider neither she nor her husband have had a real job since he left the White House.

The phrase that was popularized during the Watergate troubles of the Nixon debacle, “follow the money,” should tell you everything you need to know. If you follow the money, it leads to the Clintons and to their nefarious activities. She has boldly announced that upon being elected President, she will no longer accept donations for the Foundation. How magnanimous of her. What about the hundreds of millions she has already stowed away in the bank and the certain favors already guaranteed for that money?

Something both Bill and Hillary need to understand and deal with is the fact that both of them are getting older and even if she is well, which I seriously doubt, she is still a short timer on this earth. All those millions will be spent by someone else. You might be able to beat the law, but you cannot beat father time. They have amassed this fortune through, at best, questionable ways, and to what end? All those millions will not buy either one of them a single extra day on this earth when the bell rings and their time comes.

So, do we care about her medical records? Do we care about Trump’s? Do we care about either of their IRS returns? How could you believe anything on those records anyway?

Over the years of my life I have participated in many elections. I have had happy outcomes and I have had sad ones. I have voted for some candidates and I have voted against some. My happiest vote was for Reagan, twice. I voted against Johnson but he won anyway. I voted against Obama, but as you can see, I, as well as the country, lost in those elections. This election will be my first “self defense” vote.

We are faced with yet another election where the very survival of our way of life is at stake. Shame on you if you even consider voting for possibly the worst candidate for President in the history of America. Hillary Clinton is a pathological liar and an opportunist who will do anything, say anything, and destroy anybody who stands in her way for her quest for power.

I have been accused of preaching to the choir and that’s probably true to some extent. If so, hear this sermon. It is time for you the choir to become evangelists and spread the word. America cannot afford another disaster at the polls. Obama has cost us more than we will know in our lifetimes. Hillary would be that disaster on steroids.

Ron Scarbro

MY KIND OF COOL

When I was a young lad I wanted to be “cool.” I think everybody did. I dressed in the latest fashion, at least as much as I could afford and wore my hair as close to Elvis as I could. I wore white buckskin shoes because Pat Boone did. I had a thin black belt because it was “cool.” I just wanted to be cool.

Well, it probably didn’t work that well. It turns out that cool has a way of changing from time to time. What was cool yesterday is not so cool today. I just learned from a news report that today’s Republicans are not cool or “trendy.” For that one must be a Democrat. Unless you get your news from Facebook, tweets, or the Comedy Channel, you are not cool. If you think like a traditional American, believe in the Constitution and the rule of law, accept the fact that there is very little nuance between right and wrong, believe that we must have borders and enforce them, you cannot be cool. If you think public bathrooms should be reserved for the gender one is born with, you cannot be trendy. I guess that all just lets me out.

I have decided that from now on I don’t want to be cool. I don’t want to be trendy. I prefer to be an American with traditional values. I prefer to be responsible for me and for my actions.

When I see men with pierced ears and huge earrings hanging from them, I wonder, by today’s standards, are they cool? When I see a gorgeous young girl with tattoos all over her beautiful body, I ask myself, “Is she cool?” When I see young ladies going to the mall with so little clothing on that very little is left to the imagination, I wonder, are they cool? Are same sex couples walking arm in arm showing public affection trendy?

Back when I was a young man, I prepared myself for a life of earning a living. I got what education I could then I joined the Army, not because I was particularly patriotic but because I knew if I didn’t join, they would draft me anyway. Later on when I got out of the service, I got a job. Still later I was fortunate to find a young lady to share my life with. We went on to have a couple of children and then tried to get them ready for a traditional life.

As I think back on it, by today’s standards there was not much cool about earning a living and being responsible for three other lives. There was nothing trendy about paying your bills and trying to save up for a rainy day. Oh and it seemed to rain a lot back then.

Over the years my life has taken some strange turns. It probably didn’t turn out the way I thought when I was a kid. But, it has been great. It has been the kind of cool that many people I know dream about.

Today my hair isn’t quite like Elvis’s. My once wavy hair has long since waved goodbye. I don’t wear white buckskins anymore. I don’t want to have to keep them white. I prefer elastic to belts now.  I read newspapers and the internet and get my news from several sources but not the Comedy Channel. I listen to the experts but in the final analysis, I decide what the truth is. I guess by today’s standards my life isn’t cool. It certainly isn’t trendy, but it is a great life. I’m pretty sure I won’t be remembered as being cool or trendy. The biggest problem in my future however is going to be finding an undertaker who can wipe the smile off my face for the life I have lived. Now that’s my kind of cool.

Ron Scarbro

GETTING OLD IS NOT FOR SISSIES

I was sitting around feeling sorry for myself the other day. As many of you know I had shoulder replacement surgery last year. I have now concluded that I may well have to have knee replacement surgery this year. As Bette Davis once said, “Getting old is not for sissies.” Truer words were never spoken.

I thought back on the surgery that replaced my shoulder. First of all, I slept through the entire procedure.  Secondly, I had an excellent surgeon. And finally, as I woke up, I had gorgeous nurses seeing to my every need and medicating me for any pain I might have had either real or imagined. After being discharged from the hospital I experienced a few weeks of rehabilitation. Stretching and moving that put everything back in working order. Today, it is as if nothing ever happened. My new shoulder is painless and completely functioning. New knees will hopefully be a similar experience. So successful and painless was my last surgery that I still have the pain medication I was prescribed last year unopened and unused.

All this has caused me to consider, what if this was the Middles Ages? You know, of course, that in that period and for the years before and many after, shoulder and knee replacement didn’t exist. Pain medicine did not exist. I’m sure there were gorgeous nurses and “wenches,” but they were probably busy with other things.

Consider this. During that time, even if you were an emperor and you got hemorrhoids, Preparation H did not exist. If you got a headache or a toothache, aspirin didn’t exist. You could have a ten thousand man army and hundreds of concubines. You could own estates and palaces with immaculate grounds. You could have chefs who prepared the finest food for you but if you got indigestion, there was no Alka-Seltzer.

Oh sure, there were “witch doctors” and so-called “healers,” but modern medicine hadn’t yet been discovered. Somehow watching a kook dancing around chanting in tongues and sticking pins in a stuffed doll isn’t my idea of healing. Even with the power of suggestion, most people died of simple problems that modern medicine has long since dealt with. In those days a toothache could have been fatal. Measles, mumps, and most childhood diseases killed off many.

In getting ready for my next possible surgery, I have had x-rays and MRIs. The docs have looked inside my body without cutting me open. And all I had to do was just lay there and be still. The machinery did all the work. Even though what I am describing is now commonly done, how is that not a miracle?

How fortunate we all are to be living in the twenty-first century. Just imagine what the next few years will look like. They will be growing replacement parts on animals for use by humans. Cancer will probably be eradicated. Heart disease will be just a bad memory. Vaccines will be developed for the strange viruses now devastating many parts of the world. I think birth defects will probably disappear. When I was a kid, polio and leukemia were the scourge. Today many leukemia victims can count on full recovery. Polio is mostly just a bad memory.

I am seventy-five years old and can easily remember when one that old was truly an old man. Not so much anymore. I am certain as the years go by, hundred year olds will continue to increase and be quite common. And they will be healthy enough to enjoy life.

We all have so much to be thankful for. Not only good health but also good medicine. I have friends who are dealing with various challenges. Had modern medicine not been available, many of them would probably not be here today. Thanks to modern medicine, getting old is getting easier.

Ron Scarbro

LIARS LIE. LET US COUNT THE WAYS

I can remember when lying was bad, a no-no, even illegal. Dishonest people were shunned. Today lying has become an Olympic sport. Let’s look at some of the whoppers we have been fed recently and these are but a tiny few of the many.

I’ll begin with the big lie that was started back in the early seventies. “We are running out of oil.” Do you remember the long lines at service stations? That lie was the impetus for the “green movement.” Whacked out environmental radicals came out of the woodwork. They caused us to sort through our garbage and forced us to turn off our air conditioners and stop using our outdoor grills. Plastic became a monster. Toilets no longer flushed and light bulbs no longer put out enough light. The uptick of this big lie was the creation of junk science’s biggest whopper, “man caused global warming.” Well today gasoline is under $2 a gallon. Why, you ask? Because of the glut of oil available. In fact there is so much oil that they can’t use it fast enough. So much for the “oil shortage” and all that lie has caused.

More recently the lies have continued to come. Ferguson, MO gave us the “hands up, don’t shoot” lie. It never happened. That lie created the “black lives matter” movement and now literally hundreds of innocent people have been killed along with a number of police officers. That lie has caused riots in major cities like Baltimore where police officers were fed to the lions until saner heads took back control. Apparently black lies don’t matter.

How about Hillary’s continued lying about her illegal private e-mail server, Benghazi, and all the way back to her handling of the “bimbo eruptions” when hubby Bill was dallying with all sorts of different women. I don’t think today that she even knows what real truth is because of all the lies she has told. She is a living lie. I am still amazed that any intelligent person would even consider voting for this dishonest political hack.

And then there is Barack Obama. He couldn’t tell the truth if he was on his deathbed. From where he was born to who paid for his education to what sort of grades he earned. He lied to get elected and lied all the way to Obamacare. He lied to get it passed. You do not have the choices you were told. Premiums are continuing to go up, not down. Major insurance carriers are bailing out of the program and soon it will die because it was born of a lie.

Then there is the Iranian nuclear deal. It’s all a lie. The rogue government of Iran got everything they wanted and we got nothing but the very real threat of a nuclear armed thug government in Iran. Eventually we are going to have to deal with these people and it is not going to be pretty. I can only hope that we have a true American in the White House when that eventuality occurs.

The crowning glory of Obama’s lies came to light just this past week. We paid a 400 million dollar ransom for the release of four American hostages held by Iran. To get in front of cameras and say this wasn’t ransom is an insult to all intelligent Americans. Obama’s actions were and are against the law. He should be ashamed, but of course he isn’t and will never be. His arrogance won’t allow it.

All the while our Republican Congress sits on their hands and does nothing. I understand it is too late to impeach this charlatan but it is not too late to take back control of this country from would be tyrants who think they are above the law.

Liars lie. It’s what they do. When we allow it, we are no better than the liars themselves.

Ron Scarbro

THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD

In our history one man held more power than anyone. He was not a President or a Senator. In fact he wasn’t elected to any office. He wasn’t even a billionaire with extensive holdings. He was just a civil servant. But he was the head of the FBI and his name was J. Edgar Hoover.

His power came not from wealth of money or real estate. No, his power came from what he knew about the people in power. He had the dirt on all of them. He had files on the so-called rich and powerful. He called the tune, and they danced to that tune.

We have a similar situation developing today. It has been reported that the “missing” emails from Hillary’s personal server and the thirty-plus thousand deleted emails are in fact in the possession of the NSA. And, it has been reported that the NSA, not the Russians, hacked the DNC emails last week at their convention.

Now this is where it gets really interesting. Some are saying that operatives inside the NSA are leaking these emails to none other than Julian Assange, head of Wikileaks, who is currently hiding out in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. The reason they are leaking this information, as reported, is that they believe Hillary put them all in serious jeopardy by her carelessness and her criminal activity in the handling of top secret information through her personal server. This is how they are going to get even.

That puts Assange in a position of extreme power. He can and will blackmail Hillary and the Democrats to get whatever he wants. Hoover was in a similar position but it appears he was enough of a patriot to restrain himself to only extort what he thought was best for the FBI. He was able to get the necessary funding to make the FBI the most elite criminal investigation agency in the world. Who would say no to him?

This is where it gets even more interesting. Assange is not an American. Plus he is wanted in Switzerland for sex crimes. Also he is quite irritated with the world for putting him in this awkward position. In my opinion Assange will blackmail and extort until he gets what he wants or until he is otherwise dealt with legally. He really doesn’t care.

Remember Dennis Hastert? Hastert was a Republican Speaker of the House who, after retirement from the House, was arrested for lying to the FBI and other money crimes. He was being blackmailed by a victim of his sexual abuse as a wrestling coach in high school. Today, after paying millions in extortion to his blackmailer, Hastert sits in prison for his crimes. I guess it’s true what they say, “Crime really doesn’t pay.”

So, where does this put us? How much is the NSA willing to give Assange in order to exact punishment on Hillary? How much is Hillary willing to give Assange to keep her crimes silent? How much is the Democrat Party willing to give up in order to keep Hillary in the Presidential race and out of jail? I am reminded of a little adage I heard when I was a youngster. “God oh God the trouble I receive when at first I try to deceive.” Still rings true today, huh?

In the final analysis the American people will be the ultimate judge. Some will still vote for this lying political hack regardless of her crimes. We can only hope that enough Americans will see her for what she truly is and send her packing. That is our hope and our prayer.

Ron Scarbro