The scheme of increasing the minimum wage is a deviously clever four-pronged pitchfork of economic failure.  First, it compels force of law to transfer arbitrarily wealth from businesses to workers.  Second, this enriches without justification the constituents of the liberal politicians who hatch such schemes.  Third, this swells payroll tax revenues from the despised “wealthy business owners.”  And forth, it buys liberal votes with other peoples money, the perfect storm of unethical economics.

This “take from the rich and give to the poor” theory fails to consider the unintended consequences.  Most obvious is the fact that in business, all expenses are measured against their cost of conducting that business.  All associated costs are factored into the determination of the final price of the product or service.  As any of those costs increase, so too does the final price, the expenses are simply passed along.

For example, imagine we are all on our own boats in a harbor.  Some boats are small, some medium, large, some really large, all shapes, sizes and conditions.  Your boat represents the current minimum wage.  Your boat is small, and your view of the sunset, the ocean, the landscape, all of it is blocked by the presence of these other, bigger boats.  The water level represents the minimum wage at low tide.  You determine that by raising the minimum wage, your boat will rise above all of the other boats, and your unfettered view will be re-established.  What this model of economic voodoo fails to consider is that the rising tide lifts all of the boats and in the end, the views remains unchanged.

Economics represents a complicated formula whereby every condition, every change, every action is set in a string of variables representing a complicated equation that can actually be calculated.  Like all equations, changing one variable changes everything else and then the solutions and outcomes need to be adjusted and recalculated.  You cannot make a change as dramatic as increasing the minimum wage, without addressing the affect doing so will have on the entire equation, especially the outcome.

What no one in support of this scheme has offered is any indication that these affected workers will all of a sudden be dramatically more productive.  In the real world, free of artificial governmental manipulation, when you ask for a 66% increase in your wage, you had better have provided proof of a 166% increase in your productivity in order to justify that request.

When the largest retail employer in the world, Wal-Mart, had 11000 applicants for 400 jobs that paid $10 per hour, that my friend is the actual marketplace telling you that $10 per hour was too high.  Now Wal-Mart is closing 150 stores and with them will vanish 10,000 jobs.  You do the math.

Liberals dream of rising tides.  Conservatives believe that people competing in a fair marketplace will find incentives to build newer, bigger and better boats.  When free market capitalism and competition merge with the American spirit, we are anything but minimum.

I came of age in the 60’s, a young boy in Johnson City, NY, a village that sprung up 50 years earlier to house the Endicott-Johnson factory workers emigrating from Europe to become American shoemakers.  The life experiences of my father, uncles and grandfather working in those factories forged my heritage.

Allen Street’s elegant canopy of giant Elm trees arched over the street, shading the some 50 houses along her length.  Ranging from the stately home of the village fire chief to the modest simplicity of middle-class America, to those just on the edge of poverty, the street’s architecture displayed the gamut of divergent social standing.  My family lived on both sides of that vividly stark divide, first at 80 Allen in a third floor, four-room walk-up tenement, then later at 40 Allen, a mansion by comparison, our American dream.

On the odd side of the street was 59-61 Allen, commonly known as The Greystone.  This slummy, stormy colored, 3-story, blocky monolith had 13 apartments and looked like it was lifted out of the Bronx and dropped onto a dusty lot, tenants to match.

The Baby Boom had produced three Bobby’s from the dozens of kids that lived in the neighborhood; Bobby Wilson, Bobby Wright and me.  Wilson was a few years older, street-wise and mean.  Wright was a one-armed scrapper, capable and willing to pummel anyone foolish enough to rile him.  I was the cop’s kid who was assumed to be a snitch and not trusted.  Wilson and Wright both lived in The Greystone and at times, would impose “travel tariffs” on my passing.  I had to avoid them, hide from them, run from them or face the music.  Much of the time, I lived in fear of those two bullies’.

To survive, I formed alliances and made friends with the older, more powerful kids.  I learned how to negotiate, bargain, threaten, extort, anything practical to deal with tough situations.  I learned that life isn’t fair and even sometimes painful and that others have similar problems but together we are stronger than we are alone.

The strong-arm of the bully’s eventually exposed their own weaknesses.  I know first hand what their oppression feels like and I came to understand that delivering that oppression was in some ways ironically also a burden to the oppressor.  It helped me develop compassion, while simultaneously making me tougher.

A trial best endured in youth, postponing the lesson only makes it harder.  The weak will find strength through struggle and shielding them from it lasts only as long as your control over them does.  From these battles, I learned the power of critical thinking, reasoning, logic and the complexities of human emotion.  The days on the harder side of Allen Street taught me how to think on my feet; sometimes by running, dancing, walking tall and deliberate and on rare occasions, by kicking back.

For all of its shadowed darkness, Allen Street showed me the brightness of light and its warmth as well.

I came of age in the 60’s, a young boy in Johnson City, NY, a village that sprung up 50 years earlier to house the Endicott-Johnson factory workers emigrating from Europe to become American shoemakers.  The life experiences of my father, uncles and grandfather working in those factories forged my heritage.

Allen Street’s elegant canopy of giant Elm trees arched over the street, shading the some 50 houses along her length.  Ranging from the stately home of the village fire chief to the modest simplicity of middle-class America, to those just on the edge of poverty, the street’s architecture displayed the gamut of divergent social standing.  My family lived on both sides of that vividly stark divide, first at 80 Allen in a third floor, four-room walk-up tenement, then later at 40 Allen, a mansion by comparison, our American dream.

On the odd side of the street was 59-61 Allen, commonly known as The Greystone.  This slummy, stormy colored, 3-story, blocky monolith had 13 apartments and looked like it was lifted out of the Bronx and dropped onto a dusty lot, tenants to match.

The Baby Boom had produced three Bobby’s from the dozens of kids that lived in the neighborhood; Bobby Wilson, Bobby Wright and me.  Wilson was a few years older, street-wise and mean.  Wright was a one-armed scrapper, capable and willing to pummel anyone foolish enough to rile him.  I was the cop’s kid who was assumed to be a snitch and not trusted.  Wilson and Wright both lived in The Greystone and at times, would impose “travel tariffs” on my passing.  I had to avoid them, hide from them, run from them or face the music.  Much of the time, I lived in fear of those two bullies’.

To survive, I formed alliances and made friends with the older, more powerful kids.  I learned how to negotiate, bargain, threaten, extort, anything practical to deal with tough situations.  I learned that life isn’t fair and even sometimes painful and that others have similar problems but together we are stronger than we are alone.

The strong-arm of the bully’s eventually exposed their own weaknesses.  I know first hand what their oppression feels like and I came to understand that delivering that oppression was in some ways ironically also a burden to the oppressor.  It helped me develop compassion, while simultaneously making me tougher.

A trial best endured in youth, postponing the lesson only makes it harder.  The weak will find strength through struggle and shielding them from it lasts only as long as your control over them does.  From these battles, I learned the power of critical thinking, reasoning, logic and the complexities of human emotion.  The days on the harder side of Allen Street taught me how to think on my feet; sometimes by running, dancing, walking tall and deliberate and on rare occasions, by kicking back.

For all of its shadowed darkness, Allen Street showed me the brightness of light and its warmth as well.

He’s obviously no super-model and undoubtedly hasn’t seen the inside of a gym in a while, his late, middle-age image is one best suited for radio.  His hair has an identity and ideas of its own.  He makes a Ravazzollo suit look like it came off the bargain rack from Sear’s.  He scowls, carps, complains and seemingly shoots from the hip, so just what is it about this guy that evokes in otherwise normal people either revulsion or rejoicing?

Donald Trump is perhaps his own biggest admirerer, proud President of the fan club that bears his name.  People pay him astronomical sums of money to have “Trump” plastered on buildings, golf courses, casinos, skating rinks, wineries, hotels, high-rises and penthouses, private clubs, restaurants, bars, ice-cream parlors, fragrances, home furnishings, steaks, watches, men’s accessories, vodka and chocolate, just to name a few.

So, at 69 years of age, legacy firmly established, two accomplished and talented adult kids under his tutelage and becoming quite capable of running his businesses, Trump continues his “watch what I’m going to do next” tour by taking on the media business with a hit TV show, (The Apprentice), buys and sells the rights to the Miss Universe and Miss USA and then decides to run for President of the United States.  With an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion, Trump can and does run his own campaign with his own money, making him the only true “free-agent” in the race.

Assuming, (as quite naturally he would), a two-term presidency, Trump would be 78 when he stepped down.  Perhaps what we are witnessing is Mr. Trump writing and performing in the script for what will be the last episode of his so-far unbelievable life, as he is carefully engineering his illustrious retirement from the public arena, but not before he, (according to his campaign slogan,) “Makes America Great Again.”

Trump has single-handedly beaten the media at a game they not only invented, but were previously undefeated in; shaping and defining the narrative to suit their own prerogatives.  In the past, media bullying ran interference for the sainted favorites and vanquished the apocryphal.  Not with Trump.  He uses the media as a platform to launch  his statements and positions that up until now would have been his swan song.  Instead, he shocks the media host, refuses to give ground to their objections, and smiles inwardly as they unwittingly carry forward his agenda in the mistaken notion that this will finally be his undoing.  Time and time again they are out maneuvered on their home court in a flurry of slam-dunks.

Trump has a heightened insight that saw the pendulum of political correctness swinging back towards sensibility and had the horsepower to not only ride that momentum, but to push it ahead even faster.  Whatever Trump is or isn’t, he has changed the topography, the tone and the tenor of the political landscape in a way that many find refreshing and long over due.

Just seven days into his four-year term as the newly elected mayor of Philadelphia, Jim Kenney became the poster-boy for the charade of political correctness, (PC,) at the expense of his own police department.

Before Philadelphia police officer Jesse Hartnett was even out of surgery, Mayor Kenney was busy holding a news conference attempting to convince everyone that what had happened really didn’t.

Captured on video, officer Hartnett is ambushed and shot at thirteen times at nearly point-blank range as he sits in his patrol car in the middle of the street.   The shooter, Edward Archer, is seen in the video, rushing towards the police car wearing a typical Muslim thawb, a long, white robe and firing rapidly at officer Harnett.

At a news conference, Philadelphia police commissioner Richard Ross reported that Archer told police that he pledges his allegiance to Islamic State, he follows Allah, and that is the reason he was called upon to do this. Archer also told investigators that, “police defend laws that are contrary to the teachings of the Koran.”

Incredibly, after hearing all of this from the police officials, Mayor Kenney took to the podium and said the following; “In no way shape or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam has anything to do with what you’ve seen on the screen. That is abhorrent. It’s just terrible and it does not represent this religion in any way shape or form or any of its teachings. And this is a criminal with a stolen gun who tried to kill one of our officers. It has nothing to do with being a Muslim or following the Islamic faith.”  Kenny concluded his moronic remarks by stating that, “there are too many guns on the streets.”

Mayor Kenney attempts to cow everyone “in the room” with him, as well as everyone viewing his news conference or reading his statement into accepting the narrative of his lie over that of what our own eyes and ears tell us. It’s radicalized Islam, it’s ISIS inspired, it’s divinely driven instruction from a maniacal view of the Koran, all from the lips of the would-be cop-killer himself.  How much plainer, clearer or straightforward could it be?

To the PC crowd, the hoped for world of their alternative reality is shaped by a dreamt-up utopian narrative that they believe if repeated over and over again can change the actual world. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, clicking her red-ruby shoes together three times while she closes her eyes, she and the PC folks reject reality for the hope of a dream.  Unlike Dorothy, we’re still awake and to quote Aniekee Tochukwu, “Illusion is so fragile; it rarely survives questions.”

Mayor Kenney should answer those questions with his resignation and Americans should begin accepting the fact that we are under attack from a real and formidable enemy, remembering what William Shakespeare wrote in Henry V, “Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.”

God’s very first act in creation vanquished darkness with light, proclaiming it good.  Nearly three-hundred references to light are scattered throughout the other sixty-five books of the bible.  In the final chapter, God again speaks of light saying, “I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star.”  Clearly light is a metaphor for goodness as God begins and ends with these lessons.

Sir Francis Bacon stated, “In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”  One hundred years later, famous 17th century mathematician Pascal said, “In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.”  Plato perhaps summed it up best when he said.  “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy in life is when men are afraid of the light.”

The heroes of yesterday’s American leadership have yielded to those today who are not only blinded by the light but also afraid of the dark.  Will our legacy be to allow for a second coming of the “Dark Ages” or will we seek and find enlightenment through belief, faith and righteousness?

An article entitled “End the Gun Epidemic in America” marks the first time since 1920 that the New York Times has published an editorial on that newspapers front page.  Because the “Old Grey Lady” is undeniably the pinnacle of liberal thought in America, this attack illustrates the left’s number one agenda and worst fear; their out-and-out hatred for guns and the contemptible distain of those who own them.

Representing the worst in emotionally driven pabulum and lacking any reason, this hit piece of lies depends solely on the readers emotions and over-active tear ducts to flood out all rationale and thoughtfulness that an otherwise reasoned analysis would produce.

Instead of blaming the perpetrators of murder and mayhem, the authors indict politicians and the firearms industry, totally failing to condemn those who pull the trigger.

Claiming “the unfettered spread of even more powerful firearms” is a patently false statement in two ways, first, more than 20,000 laws and regulations govern the sales of firearms considering local, county, state and federal authorities, not quite an “unfettered” process.  Second, the notion that firearms are becoming “more powerful” is drivel.  Rifle cartridges capable of striking targets hundreds of yards away have been available for more than 100 years.  Civil War “sharp-shooters” hit six-inch target at 200 yards.  Would deadly, but less powerful projectiles really quell the left’s objections?

This disgraceful smear piece claims that firearms are, “designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency”, marketed for “macho vigilantism and even insurrection.”

If only a solitary schoolteacher at Sandy Hook elementary had been armed with such a tool, if only a parishioner at the Charleston, NC church shooting had been so equipped, ditto for the victims in San Bernardino, but the left never sees the world as it is, they see it for what they wish it was, idyllic.  According to this article, as a firearms owner, you’re a vigilante plotting insurrection, the old tactic of derision, division and marginalization, an outrageous slander beyond the pale and designed as a form of censorship by vilifying objection.

God forbid that the United States of American ever be significantly threatened by the likes of the anonymous writers of this New York Times editorial, because then the charge of insurrection will come true, signaling the time to hit the reset button on this more perfect Union.  As Thomas Jefferson said, and it is truer today than yesterday, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood patriots and tyrants.”

If the New York Times editors were emperors, they would repel the second Amendment and confiscate all civilian firearms.  Had they the courage to at least admit that, I would abhor but respect them, however, being cowards of the first order, they fuss about the edges of emotionally charged events of unjust killings, spreading fear instead of standing up and admitting their true agenda.  For that form of sniveling cowardice, I simply despise them as the modern day tyrants they are.

Seekers of elected office require three things, listed in the order of their acquisition; first notoriety, second wealth and finally power.  Like the game rock-paper-scissors, varying combinations yield winners and losers.  However, unlike the game, when politics are plied just so, the process can be rigged and rock not only breaks scissors but hurls through paper as well.

All politicians must embrace notoriety to attract voters.  This necessity practically eliminates meek, shy introverts from even considering participating.  Ironically, according to extensive research by Adam Grant, Susan Cain and others, introverts make great leaders, unfortunately excluding about half of the population from the process.

Physical attractiveness also plays a large role in political reality, described as the “Halo Effect” by researcher Edward Thorndike.  While “attractiveness” is arbitrary, most social polls indicate that only between 10% and 25% of the population are considered attractive.  When candidate selection narrows choices by these two areas along, it eliminates approximately 90% of the populous from seeking political office.

When political candidates begin with notoriety and wealth, the singular remaining goal is power.  Bush, Clinton, and Trump exemplify this in today’s political landscape with plenty of both, yet the lust for even more is over-arching.  Nine of the top 10 presidential hopefuls are, (according to USA-Today) each worth well over 1 million dollars on the low side, (Rand Paul at $1.3 million,) and perhaps as much as $10 billion on the high side, (Donald Trump.)  The office of the United States presidency is an all-consuming

24-7 job that pays $400,000.00 a year, a considerable pay cut for more than half the candidates.

With power the only un-realized objective, the lust for it explains why President Obama and others in positions of political influence are so upset by issues dealing with firearms.  Even when supposedly possessing all of the perceived power they believe that they have, shootings expose just how powerless they are over human behaviors.  Because these incidents showcase their actual weakness, they lash out at those objects that they can control, (in this example firearms,) and ignore that which they cannot change, human behaviors.  Anything that challenges their illusion of power will incite their wrath because it undermines theirs and the public’s perception of leaders as omnipotent; a modern version of the emperor has no cloths.

Thousands of federal, state and local laws impose severe restrictions on firearms.  The lawful obey, criminals and the mentally deranged do not.  Existing laws are seldom fully enforced and the harshest penalties are rarely ever imposed on criminals.

The nerve being pinched in the gun debate has less to do with firearms and more to do with the fragile egos of powerful, political control freaks being exposed as flaccid when it comes to controlling everything and everybody all of the time.

Somewhere in that majority-of-the-population sea of introverted, average looking citizens are likely better candidates more earnestly focused on societal advancement and less obsessed with power and control.  Perhaps our biggest challenge to change is in the mirror.

As the task of scrubbing Senator Tom Libous’s name and image from the public square progresses in hushed haste, the right-center field wall at the NYSEG baseball stadium spells out his name over the clichéd expression, “actions speak louder,” the sad irony of a campaign slogan turned into an epitaph.

And so the mad scramble begins to save the seat of power, held firmly and in seeming perpetuity by Binghamton’s finest sons; only three men since 1943, Floyd Anderson, then his son, Warren Anderson and finally Tom Libous, title and power handed down in a ceremonious fashion not unlike the accolade of knighthood or succession of rank in a royal family, a long ago paid wretched dowry that assured upstate got its share of the pork fest that is business as usual in New York.

So now the line forms to join the former royal trio, now becoming the quartet of characters, a select and dubious club pushing 72 years of continuous membership, preserving and protecting that which is our apparent birthright; the unbreakable grasp on Albany and her purse so to continue our meager allowance up here in the hinterlands.

Astroturfing every high school track, building swimming pools, field houses, ice rinks, this was not done with chump change fellow voters, no that was done with influence, chicanery, deceit and most importantly, others peoples money, your money and mine.  Who will be anointed to assure us that projects will be built tomorrow that we can’t afford?

Predictably, the line of 30 or so wannabe candidates formed quickly on the Republican side, apparently all for show as the Broome County Republican party chairman trumped his hand mistakenly by expressing publicly his intent to painstakingly review candidates while simultaneously plucking the under-sheriff out from his law enforcement duties, trading his police uniform in exchange for a shiny new suit and red power tie, the uniform for Albany.

Is replace a convicted felon with a high ranking police official a strategy Republican leadership thinks will quell the under current of queasiness voters are feeling for a system so resplendent with felons and others under indictment?  Does a history of some 40 state level elected officials succumbing to criminal acts, arrest, incarceration, probation and shame somehow hope to go unnoticed?  Should a career lawman mingle with such miscreants?

Apathy combined with ignorance may once again win the day.  Human beings are inherently flawed.  Our systems of governance were originally designed to check and balance one against the other, in light of those human frailties.  James Madison tells us in Federalist 51, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Whether King Andrews endorsed Democrat wins or Republicans prevail, it really matters little when the system itself has become such a corrupting force, redesigned and in part disassembled to serve the wants and desires of flawed men, far from angels.

What was once the Empire State is now but a failing and corrupt empire, devoid of angels and ruled by tyrants.

Conflicting opinions about same-sex marriage need not be contentious given the differences between civil and religious ceremonies.  Civil unions take their authority from the State whereas religious ceremonies take their authority from God.

The religious form of marriage is also the original version, as outlined in Genesis, the first book of the Bible.  Religiously married couples are graced as such under ordination from God.  Civil marriages are something quite less; simply vesting rights from a secular state authority under a man-made law.

While true that certain religious sects are performing religious ceremonies for same-sex couples, this requires a tortured view of scripture, even a disregard for the word of God as he clearly instructs against homosexual behaviors.  To conclude otherwise requires either ignorance, obstinance or outright rejection of widely known biblical teachings.

The simplistic beauty of this “argument” is that God himself settles the matter by disallowing procreation by same sex couples.  Only a man and a woman can form a union that results in birth and therein lies the answer to the question of what constitutes a marriage in the eyes of the Lord.

As for non-believers, I guess for them anything goes and without rules, guideposts and firmly held beliefs, they’re free to make up their own definitions.

The act of a premeditated, cold-blooded mass murder, administered at the hand of a mad-man is somehow rendered as addressed and repaired by exiling a 150 year old flag into the ever expanding world of the never-can-be-talked-about-or-mentioned-ever-again archives of the liberal secret police; mind control division.  Such is the emotionally driven thought process of the modern American liberal.

Where was this supposed outrage for this flag the day before the shooting?  Had this sociopath been wearing an NPR tee shirt and a rainbow hat, would these same knee-jerk jerks be picketing their local public television stations or bad-mouthing homosexuals?  As usual, the liberal response is always that, a response, a reaction, never a thoughtful action-plan, but always a re-action, with the snide sureness that comes with the clarity of smug second-guessing, recollections only after something has happened; seldom a plan for what might be good policy before hand, but a condescending condemnation of what has already taken place.

Symbolism driven by emotion is the one-two punch of liberalism.  Never a thoughtful, reasoned response motivated by insight, observation and experience, quite the contrary, the liberal mind has a “vision” of the world in their minds eye and then molds their emotions around the outcome that they hope for, not the reality of what actually is.  In the liberal world, intentions are as valuable as results, even those unrealized.  “It’s the thought that counts.” is the mantra of the liberal, never requiring accountability but simply admiring and celebrating the effort, even in its failed form because in failure rests their imagined importance in continuing their failed policies in search of solutions that never come.

The key reason that liberals and conservatives can never find common ground is because the conservative is actually standing on that ground while the liberal is hovering above it all, in a rose-colored fog of good intentions that are never to be impeded by cruel reality.  Symbols over substance, intentions over outcomes, once formed as solid opinion, whether it be on the basis of reason and logic or feelings and hoped-for-outcomes, never the two shall meet when the basis for such conclusions is so incompatible with a method in which to merge them.

Positions and viewpoints formed on the basis of reason, logic and experience can never be used to counter a contrarian viewpoint that has been fashioned in the emotional, anecdotal, gut-feeling realm.  Expecting logic to unravel emotion is like churning milk and expecting coffee.

The emotional component of any position is in direct conflict with reason.

In most cases, liberal positions are rooted in the emotional while conservatives find their comfort in the reasoned and experiential.  Public policy, regulations, laws and decisions affecting us all should be formulated in logical and thoughtful fashion.  Emotion is fine for affairs of the heart and family matters, but it is misplaced in determining public policy.  If the liberals point of view cannot stand up to the examination that a logical, thoughtful and reasoned review provides, then the notion cannot carry the day on the concept of the teary eyed and heart-broken, seething with emotion and reasonably empty.