Trump's Approval Rating Up for Good Reasons

I recently received this list of rants and praises  in  an email from an old friend who is retired from a job at the Pentagon:

Trump sounds more and more like Reagan every day.

I'd settle for half the items on the 13 item wish list.

Kissinger's take on Trump
Kissinger is now 94 years old.  Recently, Henry Kissinger did an interview and said very amazing things regarding President Trump. He starts with:

"Donald Trump is a phenomenon that foreign countries haven't seen before!"The former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gives us a new understanding of President Donald Trump's foreign policy and predicts its success:
"Liberals and all those who favor (Hillary) Clinton will never admit it.

"They will never admit that he is the one true leader.  The man is doing changes like never before and does all of it for the sake of this nation's people.

After eight years of tyranny, we finally see a difference."

Kissinger knows it and he continues with:

"Every country now has to consider two things:

One, their perception that the previous president, or the outgoing president, basically withdrew America from international politics, so that they had to make their own assessments of their necessities.

"And secondly, that there is a new president who's asking a lot of unfamiliar questions.  And because of the combination of the partial vacuum and the new questions, one could imagine that something remarkable and new emerges out of it."

Then Kissinger puts it bluntly: "Trump puts America and its people first.  This is why people love him and this is why he will remain in charge for so long.  There is not a single thing wrong with him and people need to open their eyes"  When he boasts that he has a "bigger red button" than Kim Jung Un does, he so transcends the mealy-mouthed rhetoric of the past, thereby forcing a new recognition of American power.

Kissinger once wrote:

"The weak grow strong by effrontery – The strong grow weak through inhibition!"  No sentence better captures the U.S.-North Korea relationship.

Trump is discarding the inhibitions and calling the bluff on North Korea's effrontery:

His point is that the contrast of American retreat under Obama and its new assertion of power under Trump creates a new dynamic that every one of our allies and of our enemies must consider.

Our allies grew complacent with Obama's passivity and now are fearful due to Trump's activism.  And they must balance the two in developing their policies:

They realize that the old assumptions, catalyzed by Bush 43's preoccupation with Iraq and Obama's refusal to lead are obsolete.  So, Trump is forcing a new calculus with a new power behind American interests.  Those — here and abroad — who rode the old apple cart worry about it being toppled.

But, as Kissinger so boldly stated:

"Trump is the one true leader in world affairs and he is forcing policy changes that put America first!“

This is the most accurate statement of what the American Citizens who live outside of the swamp want and expect from their government.  I like the list of 13 things that I, as a senior American citizen, want.  Trump is at least talking about issues that most Americans are concerned about.

My mantra about Trump is this:

Truthfully, we are in agreement with most of what he says.  We are getting older and our tickers aren't what they used to be, but what matters is that he covers most of the 13 things we as seniors want, at least I do for sure:

1.  Hillary:  held accountable for her previous wrongs!

2.  Put "GOD" back in America!

3.  Borders:  Closed or tightly guarded!

4.  Congress:  On the same retirement and healthcare plans as everybody else.

5.  Congress:  Obey its own laws NOW!

6.  Language:  English!

7.  Culture:  Constitution and the Bill of Rights!

8.  Drug-Free:  Mandatory Drug Screening before and during Welfare!

9.  Freebies:  NONE to Non-Citizens!

10.  Budget:  Balance the damn thing!

11.  Foreign Countries:  Stop giving them our money!  Charge them for our help!  We need it here.

12.  Term limits for congress

And most of all.

13. “RESPECT OUR MILITARY AND OUR FLAG AND OUR LAW ENFORCEMENT!"

We the people are coming!

Only 86% will send this on.  Should be 100%

What will you do?

DRAIN THE DAMN SWAMP!

Aug 11 is Debbie’s birthday, her dad’s birthday and mine and Debbie’s anniversary. This year we decided to celebrate these three occasions in Ruidoso. Debbie drove her parents to Ruidoso and when I got free I drove Debbie’s sister Barbara and myself up there. Then Debbie’s sister, Cheryl, drove down from Albuquerque and joined us.

Monday the 14^th everyone left but me. Bill came over to see me and we went to the horse races.

Oct 6 my brother in-law, Steve chartered a boat and a guide in Galveston and invited me to go fishing with him, his two son in-laws, John and Craig, and his step grandson Colin.

We had a very successful fishing trip and afterwards hung out on The Strand shopping, eating and drinking.

We all had a blast.
                                                                            

"Welcome to Houston Homie"

                                                                               

Manly beach sandals.

                                                                                  

Crack of dawn redfish.

                                                                                            

Turn around and smile Steve.

                                                                                        

Stingray.

                                                                                             

                                                                               

Hangiin' out on The Strand.

                                                                                         

High water mark from Ike.

Time to get Caught Up

 I haven’t made any entries since Debbie and I went to Montana, so it is time for me to get caught up. Mostly I have been getting reacquainted with Mexico and also visiting places rich in the history of the Apache Wars.

I think anyone who lived near a border town in their youth becomes has fond memories of trips to Mexico. The nostalgia drives some of us to go back.

 Everything changes with time, but Bill and I have been having fun going to Puerto Palomas. It is a small border town just south of Columbus, NM. In Palomas you can find most of the things you used to be able to find in Juarez.

 In May of 2017 I went to Bill’s house in La Mesa and the next day drove to Palomas and had lunch.

Going to Palomas we pass the beautiful Florida Mountains. 

Dragon Ridge is on the north end of the Florida Mountains.

 

There are plenty of the handy carts scattered around Palomas so everyone can join in on the street games.

Except for the occasional groups of drunken Gabachos, the border towns are very safe.

Despite being a murderous swine, Pancho Villa is still a folk hero in Mexico.

The next day he and I met Bill’s former boss, Al Burron, for lunch at a truck stop in El Paso. Al had ridden his Harley from his home in Houston. After lunch we headed for Douglas, Arizona. I rode with Bill in his truck and Al follow us on his Harley. 

 

Two drunk Indians.

On the way to Douglas we passed this old church.

After checking in to a motel in Douglas Al and Bill went across the border to Agua Prieta. I hung around Douglas because I had forgotten my passport. 

Cave Creek.

The next day we went for a drive to Tombstone. We also visited Portal, Arizona in the Chiracua Mountains. Portal is a tourist destination for bird watchers and hikers. 

Eastern Chiracaua Mountains.

 

At Portal.

Un hompre muy malo en Ciudad Thombstone.

 

Mas hombres malos.

 

They have street games in Tombstone too.

Bill getting ready to haul ass.

On the third day Al left us and rode to Alpine, TX for a night and then home to Houston the next day.

Bill and I headed north, across the Navajo Nation to Cañon de Chelly. If you ever get a chance to go there you should do it. However I would suggest you stay in the town of Chinle and not at the Thunderbird Lodge. The lodge isn’t bad, because they have Navajos employed it is dirty and has an uncomfortable atmosphere, México is much nicer.
 

Open pit mine at Morenci AZ.

A few pictures taken from the North Rim of Canyon de Chelly.

Big Sky Country; exploring southern Montana and northwestern Wyoming

 Debbie and I were thinking about taking a trip to Washington this fall to spend some time at the Smithsonian.  After we looked into the lodging, transportation and other logistics, we decided we’d rather not spend our vacation time in a big crowded city. It just didn’t seem like it would be very relaxing. Besides, if we wanted to fight crowds in a big city we could just go to Dallas and ride around on buses.

 After considering a few more places, we settled on a plan quite different than a trip to D.C.. We flew to Bozeman, MT, rented a car and drove around Yellowstone and on to Wyoming. We ended up in Billings, MT a week later and flew home from there.

 We arrived in Bozeman around 1:00 PM on Sept. 20. We picked up the car and drove around Bozeman a while then headed south to check in at the lodge. 

 Debbie picked Rainbow Ranch Lodge on the Gallatin River. Here’s their web site: http://www.rainbowranchbigsky.com/

                                                                           

 The drive to lodge was like a fantastic sightseeing tour. The road curved back and forth across the cold clear river while we climbed into the mountains. The golden aspens were intermingled with the dark green evergreens---spruce, pine and fir. The sky was mostly cloudy with a few blue patches where the sun shone through at times like a spotlight.  As the mountains became steeper and steeper we could hardly see the tops of them through the car windows. All the time we were going up the temperature was going down and when we reached our destination it was a cool 56 degrees.

Gallatin River near Rainbow Ranch Lodge

The road from Bozeman started in the prairie and climbed into snow topped mountains.

Club house and dining room.

Our room was on the bottom floor right behind...

Debbie.

Huge fly sculpture in front of club house.

Another fly for really big fish.

Pond in front of our room.

 If you followed the link above you saw the rustic beauty of the lodge and its setting. Debbie pick a great place for us to call home for four days.

  The first day we got settled in and talked to a few people about the surrounding area and about Yellowstone park. That evening we made a tentative plan for the rest of the trip.

Tyrannasarus (behind me).

Me.

 The first morning we drove back into Bozeman to see the Museum of the Rocky  Mountains. The highlight of the museum was the fossilized remains of a  tyrannosaurus discovered several years ago.

 The third day we went to Yellowstone

 Shortly after entering the park we saw a huge bull elk and his harem of cows on the far side of the Madison River. We stopped and took a few pictures and then headed for Old Faithful.

 A couple of miles from the elk we saw a small herd of bison milling around by the side of the road. The biggest one in the group wouldn't move for anything, not that anybody was trying to move him.

Elk herd across the Madison River.

We drove the car as close to Old Faithful as we could then walked a quarter mile and waited for it to erupt. It was actually kind of disappointing; not much to it.

 The area all around the famous geyser is a waste land. There are hundreds of places where putrid smelling water is spraying into the air. The ground is either crusted over or has hot water standing on it and looks like a hazardous material dump.  Where the ground isn’t level the hot water drains into the cold river producing more steam.

 The ground heaves and grumbles from the affects of the hot rocks and magma in the volcanic plume below the Yellowstone Caldera.

Debbie was stalked by a panhandling bird.

 We stopped to take a picture of the geothermal activity and were greeted by a raven which had no tail feathers. I don’t know if he had been injured by another animal or by the hot chemicals in the water. Regardless, the poor bird had been reduced to a parking lot beggar.

The amount of area already affected by the heat from the magma below Yellowstone is scary.

.


 

 On the way out of the park we past the herd of elk again but this time the bull was in the river with one of the cows. It looked like he was trying to keep her near the other cows and prevent her from crossing the river.

  Then I heard another bull bugle from upriver. The larger bull, in the river, lifted his head to catch the scent of the second bull and started toward the bank. He came out of the river with his antlers back and bugling. In a couple of seconds he spotted the smaller elk and start walking toward him at a fast pace. It didn't take long before the smaller bull turned around and left. The larger bull returned to his harem quickly and began to walk in circles around the cows. I guess he was making sure they were all still there and no more intruders were in the area.

This event alone was exciting enough to make the trip to the park worthwhile.

The larger bull came out of the river bugling.

The small bull heading back to where he came from.

 We had initially planned to cut across Yellowstone Park and go to Cody, WY to the Buffalo Bill Cody Center of the West. Luckily we watched the weather the night before and found out there was a possibility the road would be closed in the higher elevations because of snow. Rather than chance having to back track we went around the park and stayed in the lower elevations.

 When we got to Cody we checked in to our hotel and went on over to the center. It is called a center because it houses four museums. There are separate  museums for firearms, the Plains Indians, western art and natural science.

 Volumes could be written about this center. All I can say is if you are ever near Cody you have to spend at least a day at the museums.

 From Cody  we went to Billings, MT where we relaxed and got ready to go home.


This was the best trip Debbie and I have been on. It was also a lot different than the trip to Washington, DC, which we had initially considered.  Just for grins I looked up the population density of Washington, DC, Wyoming and Montana. Well, DC has the highest in the nation with 9856.5 people per square mile, Wyoming has 5.8 and Montana has 6.8. I still want to see the Smithsonian some day, however, I am glad we decided to make this trip to a part of the country where there is some elbow room.

Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody houses four excellent museums.

This is a library in Billings, MT. It just happens to be across the street from Western Pawnbrokers, the best pawn shop I've ever been in. They have everything from Indian art to one of the largest selections of guns you'll find in any one store. No books though. They're across the street.