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, July 09, 2017

Swamps, Deep States And Core Problems, Part 1


News With Views
Jul 09, 2017


Like most of you, I have become more and more concerned about the massive criminality of the swamp animals and other spooky creatures in our nation’s capitol.  In addition to the Swamp, we also have a serious problem called the “Deep State.”  The Swamp and the Deep State overlap but they are different entities.
We don’t really know what the Deep State is… just that it’s a group of people (most people say they are from America’s Intel community… FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.) who are so arrogant they believe they know better than the millions of voters who put Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office who should be there – and they don’t think it should be Trump.
The people who make up the Deep State have yet to realize their arrogance is the worst form of tyranny.  At the moment they think they are saving us from ourselves… at least that’s what they tell themselves.  That’s what all tyrants tell themselves and it’s what they tell those they want in servitude to them.  Remember the number one job qualification for spies:  Good liar.
Most people thought that when Candidate Trump said “I’ll clean the swamp” it meant that President Trump would have to terminate a few bureaucrats and get voters in a couple of states to retire this Senator or that Representative.
Add to that, placing good conservatives on the Supreme Court and Senator Sessions as Attorney General and El Zappo!  Done deal!  After a few arrests, the swamp is clean… except wait a minute.  What’s this?  Jeff Sessions is allowing Rosenstein to hire Mueller — a man with such obvious and numerous conflicts of interest when it comes to anything close to the Clintons — to investigate the Trump Administration’s involvement with Russia!  Most of us are shaking our heads over these appointments.  What could “they” have on Sessions, we wonder?
Cleaning the swamp requires investigative reporter Clark Kent during the regular business day and Superman.com after hours.  In his active and meaningful attempt to make America great again, President Donald J. Trump has opened Pandora’s Box and its unlimited evils… including treason/sedition and other crimes evidently committed by some very important people.
Rumor has it that if everyone in elected office were “outed” for a variety of crimes (from drunk driving to pedophilia to treason), we would lose 80 percent of our Congress.  Is that true?  I have no idea – but it would not surprise me.
Those who know me well will attest that I think it a waste of time to talk about issues because issues cannot be solved.  Why?  Issues are symptoms of problems and those symptoms change from day-to-day as the disease (problem) gets better, then worse.
You can ease the symptoms (issues) for a short time but until the disease (problem) is accurately diagnosed, treated and cured, it will stay hidden in dark recesses, just waiting for the right moment to attack again.  The problems America has politically do not require medication.  They require extensive surgery.
Trying to solve issues is exemplified by how physicians have misused antibiotics… over-prescribing them, e.g.  The bacteria morph — changing to avoid being totally destroyed.  Thus symptoms (issues) you thought you’d dealt with keep reappearing and they get stronger each time they reappear. They no longer respond to the medication.  More and different antibiotics or political solutions will be prescribed and the patient ends up at death’s door – all because establishment politicians want to deal with issues rather than go directly to the core problem and rip it out.
What is our core problem… the core of the core? A lot of people will likely disagree with me on this and that’s by ‘God’s Grace… if liberal progressives have their way, no one will be able to disagree (with them) about anything.  They’ll have a violent riot, call it a protest, get you thrown off campus and bury a point of view different from their own, so let’s enjoy our disagreements while we can.  It’s called “freedom.”
It came to me as I watched an interview of Congressman Jason Chaffetz  (R-UT) by one of the best investigative reporters in the universe, Sharyl Attkisson.  Here’s a link to the Chaffetz video.

There have been television news stories done telling us that Representative Chaffetz sleeps on a cot in his House of Representatives office at night and in this interview he discusses how costly it is to buy or rent property in the Washington, D.C. area.  It’s impossible, he says, to maintain two residences for his young family in two costly cities.  He’s not complaining about the pay… just the expenses involved in running two households.
In this interview, Representative Chaffetz tells Attkisson why he decided to resign from Congress.  Losing a truly good, honest and intelligent Congressman like Chaffetz hurts.  Badly.  He is one of the few totally trustworthy Constitutional conservatives in the House.  He’s exactly the kind of young man we want to represent us.  Chaffetz said he expected that when Donald Trump became President and Jeff Sessions became Attorney General things would change.  That, according to Chaffetz, did not happen.  In fact, as Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Chaffetz says things have gotten worse.
“The reality is, sadly, I don’t see much difference between the Trump administration and the Obama administration. I thought there would be this… these floodgates would open up with all the documents we wanted from the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Pentagon. In many ways, it’s almost worse because we’re getting nothing, and that’s terribly frustrating and with all due respect, the Attorney General has not changed at all. I find him to be worse than what I saw with Loretta Lynch in terms of releasing documents and making things available. I just, that’s my experience, and that’s not what I expected.”
If you watched the video linked above, what you heard is a popular Congressman who would be easily re-elected if he ran… Chaffetz was only six months into his tenth term of office when he resigned.  He’s telling you that he cannot – will not – tolerate the environment that has been created over the years in Washington, D.C. by members of the elitist establishment of both political parties.
He’s saying he has more respect for his time than to spend it in constant effort to raise money… not for himself, but for the RNC.  He’s also saying that he worked very hard to get Donald Trump elected and expected change that has not yet come.  In fairness to Trump, he has had his hands full with the media war, Russia, Comey, etc.  There is, however, no such excuse for Jeff Sessions withholding from this important House Committee the files they need to conclude very old investigations (going back to Fast and Furious).
When you look closely at what the Chaffetz decision to resign really means, the core problem of our entire political system emerges.
Representative Chaffetz spoke truthfully and from the heart in that video.  He gave us his honest reaction to Washington, D.C.   He came to the nation’s capitol and invested ten years of his young life to make things better.  What Chaffetz in essence said is:  “If you are a moral, intelligent, informed and capable human being who wants to help make America the best it can be, you won’t be able to stay for long because of the swamp in which you must live.”  Those are not the words he used, but if you listen closely that’s what he said.
There is your core problem.  This is what is wrong with America’s system of governing.  As it is in Western Europe, the established system holds no appeal to the young, the honest, the intelligent, the moral people who want to serve America as our founders envisioned.  We can thank establishment leaders from Pelosi and Ryan in the House to Reid and McConnell in the Senate for the lack of intelligent, moral people who will run for political office these days.  Can you blame them?  Listen to Congressman Chaffetz describe what is expected of him.  Is that a life you’d like to live?  Nope… but anyone looking to get their hands on government funds would.
When something lacks appeal to honest people, it usually attracts the dishonest.  When it lacks appeal to intelligent people, it attracts the not-so-bright.  When something doesn’t hold appeal to moral people, it will attract the immoral and the amoral.
I can’t give anyone advice about finance or politics but in my opinion anyone who sends money to the RNC or the DNC so they can use your money to “buy” a candidate they control and who often votes against the better interests of the people is, in a way, committing suicide.  That, I think, makes such a person a MAJOR part of the problem.
I have stopped sending funds to State and County political parties, too.  Everyone is angry about the swamp that’s been created – and it exists largely because of financial support given to the political parties.  Better that I send nothing than provide more money to establishment politicians and the organizations that do their dirty work for them.  That is true whether the organization is federal, state, county or local, Republican or Democrat.
It’s the American way to find your own candidates and support them.  Understand that we live in a new world of how to get candidates elected.  How many Tweet numbers do you have?  How many email addresses?  It doesn’t take money to get elected today.  It takes electronic contacts.  The election results in Atlanta two weeks ago prove that.  If money could get a candidate elected, we would be calling our President “Clinton” today.
If enough of us would withhold our support and send no money, we would quickly find two political parties who decided to support us rather than arrogantly expecting us to support them.  Support no candidate just because he or she has an “R” or a “D” after their name and give what support you give directly to the candidate, not to a political party.
Do you realize that we are talking about our survival as a nation?
© 2017 Marilyn M. Barnewall – All Rights Reserved