Why Trump is right on Syria

The Washington chattering class is once again stunned that President Trump is keeping a campaign promise. Like moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and building the wall, the president is following through, and Washington elites don’t quite know what to make of it. Remember, it was Nancy Pelosi who told Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office that the border wall was just a campaign promise. Unfortunately, this is the attitude of most elected officials. You say what you have to say to get elected, then you do only what’s popular with your Washington colleagues.

Syria is a real head-scratcher. Not that President Trump is pulling troops out, but that so many want to keep the troops there. We are uninvited guests in a hostile country. Not that we didn’t have a right—even an obligation—to rout ISIS. That mission has largely been accomplished. That’s not to say that ISIS won’t rise again. If they do we should reserve the right to rout them again, but a prolonged presence in a sovereign nation that doesn’t want us there should not even be an option.

The usual Russia conspiracy freaks wasted no time in claiming more collusion with Russia since Syria’s strongman is a Russian ally. It’s not as if Trump hasn’t been tough on Bashar al-Assad. The United States has attacked Assad’s military ten different times since Trump took office. Syria is basically in the midst of a civil war. Our only interest is ISIS and its accumulation of land and power stretching across the Iraqi border. Outside of that we have no business in Syria.

It was President Obama who drew a red line in August of 2013 saying if Assad used chemical weapons against his own people we would retaliate with military action. He did and we didn’t. It wasn’t until Donald Trump became president that we actually punished Assad for chemical weapons attacks. But punishing Assad was never the primary mission. The American-led coalition in Syria, which included the UK, France, Jordan, Turkey, Canada, and Australia, was specifically forged to defeat ISIS, or ISIL, as Obama so puzzlingly called them. That mission has been largely accomplished. 

According to The Guardian, ISIS has lost over 95 percent of the territory it held before the coalition was launched against it. The coalition has started to unravel. The Kurds have been the principal fighters on the ground against ISIS. Turkey attacked Kurdish militants in northwestern Syria. We did nothing to intervene. It’s becoming clear that, like most disputes in the Middle East, Syria is far more complicated than simply backing the good guys against the bad guys.

The Kurds have been staunch allies of the United States, but only because they want their own country carved out of sections of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. The U.S. failing to come to their aid against the Turks indicates that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Many of the Democrats who supported military action in Syria only did so because it was a Democrat president who wanted it. Many Republicans were opposed for the same reason. Now it’s as if everyone wanted to fight Assad all along, even though that was never the mission. President Trump seems to be the only one who remembers the mission, and now everyone in Washington is against him because his name is Donald Trump.

Thank God for people like Sen. Rand Paul. He was against military intervention in 2013 and he’s against it now. Not that he’s necessarily right. He’s just consistent, something sorely missing in Washington these days.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is a disease

They first tried to keep Donald Trump from being president. That conspiracy reached the highest levels of the FBI, maybe the highest levels of our government. When that didn’t work they demanded a recount. Then they demanded the Electoral College not seat him. That failed and they moved to impeachment talk, impeachment over nothing remotely resembling an impeachable offense. Then they tried to shout down his policies. The tax cuts would be ‘Armageddon,’ remember? Again they were wrong and the economy is at the best place it’s been in decades.

They thought they had created a lethal issue in family separation at the border. The left-wing media have been exposed for lying to the American people about it. They didn’t tell them that Obama detained children in far worse conditions. They didn’t tell them that 80 percent of the children held in detention came with no parent at all. They didn’t tell them that the viral photo of a little boy in a cage was a fraud or that the little girl, looked down upon menacingly by the president on the cover of Time, was never separated from her mother. In fact, her mother had kidnapped her from her father in Honduras. They didn’t tell them, but word got out. Now a majority of Americans, according to a CBS poll, favor building the wall. This isn’t how this issue was supposed to end.

What’s more troublesome to the left is now, according to a CNBC survey, the majority of Americans favor the president’s handling of the economy. That’s a tipping point in American politics. Pocketbook issues usually hold the strongest sway over American voters. Pretty soon some of the staunchest opponents of Trump will say, “I still think Donald Trump is a vulgarian, but…” Once that ‘but’ creeps into the conversation, it’s all over.

So, there’s only one thing left for those with Trump Derangement Syndrome to do. Sow utter chaos in the country.

Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, is kicked out of a Virginia restaurant because the owner says she works for an ‘inhumane’ administration. DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is screamed at and harassed out of a Mexican restaurant in Washington, DC. Florida’s AG, Pam Bondi, can’t even attend a screening of a Mister Rogers movie without being accosted by deranged anti-Trump fanatics. Maxine ‘Mad Max’ Waters throws gasoline on the fire by encouraging everyone everywhere to harangue Trump administration officials. “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

They’ve lost. Not just their minds, they’ve lost the cause. It’s no coincidence that the better the country does the more deranged they become. America’s prosperity through tax cuts and capitalism is the worst news these people could get. They felt they were so close to fundamentally transforming this country under eight years of Obama only to see most of what he built on sand washed away in a torrent of supply-side economics.

If you’ve been waiting for these Never-Trumpers to calm down it should be clear to you that they’re not going to. The more they see their precious socialist utopia slipping away the more hysterical they become. Many of these people are ashamed of what made this country great. They think capitalism is cruel and capitalists are evil. They despise the direction we’re going.

They see only one option left, and that is to burn society to the ground.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

What to do about Mueller

How’s this for a theory? Robert Mueller is setting himself up as a kamikaze. He has nothing on Trump and is going to antagonize him until he fires him. Then the Democrats and the Never-Trumpers in Congress can cry “obstruction of justice” and they impeach and convict him.

Sound crazy?

The folks on MSNBC are already salivating over the dream scenario of Trump defying a Mueller subpoena to be interviewed and wondering out loud what happens when the U.S. Marshals show up at the White House gate.

In other words, there are plenty of folks in this country who would welcome even a constitutional crisis if it meant getting rid of Donald Trump. They hate him that bad. Let me tell you just how bad they hate him. They hate him so bad that they would rather have a conservative evangelical who opposes abortion and gay marriage in the Oval Office instead. For the left, that’s deep hatred.

Why?

There are myriad reasons, but his personality is the primary driver. He’s egotistical. He’s bombastic. He’s unapologetic. All of these traits play well in the celebrity world, but when you couple them with common sense conservative policy they become intolerable.

Donald Trump is no rock-rib conservative. What he is is a practitioner of common sense. That tends to lend itself to conservatism. You see an invasion of illegal aliens and you want to build a wall to stop it. Common sense. You see businesses being driven out of the country so you propose cutting taxes to bring them back. Common sense. The fact that he was for gay marriage before either Hillary or Obama is inconsequential. It’s these other issues that make him dangerous to the left.

They’ve been constantly disappointed for the last 18 months. First it was the shocking loss by Hillary Clinton. Then they pinned their hopes on a recount. Didn’t happen. Then it was the Electoral College not seating him. Didn’t happen. All they have left is impeachment. Robert Mueller was supposed to be the conduit through which all their dreams flowed, but after a year of fishing expeditions he’s got nothing.

Their only hope now is that Trump gets mad enough to fire Mueller. He has every reason to. By most accounts, he has the authority to. That doesn’t mean he has to. He would be much better served to ignore Mueller, but I’m sure that’s nearly impossible. Eventually one would think he’d blow. That might be underestimating Donald Trump.

So many people think he’s a loose canon, a guy who flies by the seat of his pants (or any other cliché you can think of). I happen to believe that every tweet, every off-the-cuff remark, every flaming response to an attack is carefully planned. One need only go back to his Twitter feed to see that much of what was lampooned in the press has come to fruition. Anybody forget his “Trump tower has been wiretapped” tweet? Me either. After months of ridicule, it turns out he was exactly right. And what must be extremely frustrating is there’s no special counsel looking into who was responsible. But they’re raiding Trump’s lawyer’s office looking for Stormy Daniels dirt.

It’s like People Magazine is calling the shots.

I think it’s safe to say there was never any Trump-Russia collusion. Despite the lack of evidence the anti-Trump forces want him out at an any cost. They’ve carefully set the perjury trap. They’ve even enticed him with the juicy lure of Robert Mueller’s head.

I just hope he doesn’t take the bait.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Why the Schumer Shutdown backfired

We all know how the government shutdowns usually go. Democrats demand something unreasonable. Republicans awkwardly try to push their agenda forward. The left-wing media act as the PR firm for the Democrats. The Republicans get blamed. The government shutdown is over. Not this time.

What was different? Several things. First of all, trying to tie the DACA demands to a continuing resolution to keep the government functioning was transparent. DACA doesn’t expire until March 5. There was no need to throw it in the mix of a spending bill. Times past, however, the Democrats would’ve gotten away with it. They didn’t this time.

One of the reasons is the brilliant framing of the argument by President Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. Mick Mulvaney so cleverly labeled this particular government shutdown ‘The Schumer Shutdown.’ The alliteration was irresistible to even the left-wing media who picked up the phrase and ran with it.

There was also President Trump himself. Nancy Pelosi cackled that the president had nothing to do with the negotiations. He had everything to do with them. Speaker Paul Ryan said as much himself. He said they were passing a bill that Trump would sign. In reality, the person who had nothing to do with the negotiations was Pelosi.

After the Schumer Shutdown took hold in the minds of the American people it was simply a matter of time. The longer the government stayed closed, the worse it became for the Democrats. They were stunned. They’ve never lost one of these. No matter the outcome, they were always able to pin it on the Republicans. This time they couldn’t.

Had we had any other president it might have been business as usual. If Trump knows one thing it’s how to negotiate. What the Democrats failed to recognize is he doesn’t have to have DACA. To Trump, it’s a bargaining chip. To the Democrats it’s everything. What they don’t know is they already have it.

The one thing the Senate Republicans did screw up was pushing the continuing budget resolution down the road only three weeks. That pushes it up near the deadline for DACA and Democrats will surely try to tie the two together again. That’s why having Trump involved is so important.

Remember where this whole Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals thing started. It was a ploy by President Obama to put a different face on illegal immigration. He could find some girl who was dragged over here at six months old who spoke perfect English and was the valedictorian of her school. That was supposed to erase the image of the tattooed MS-13 gang member who was butchering people in the streets for kicks.

The DACA folks (and they’re not kids any longer) were never in danger of being deported. Think about it. The only person who could’ve deported them was Obama. And he issued an order to protect them. From whom? Himself? No, it was all a publicity stunt to get the American people to believe they were in imminent danger of being deported. The Democrats have told that lie so long they now believe it.

So, Trump wants the wall. He wants an end to chain migration. He wants an end to the lottery visa. In order to get it he’s willing to give the Democrats something they already have. As I’ve said, it’s like selling New York the Brooklyn Bridge. They already own it.

The cards have already been dealt to give Trump what he wants. The House and Senate Republicans have to just not screw it up.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Don't fall in love with a DREAMer

The dreamer streamer continues unabated on our southern border. Kids are showing up on our country’s doorstep who are here to take advantage of President Obama’s open invitation of his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. He couldn’t get the DREAM Act passed in Congress so he did what he always does. He acted alone.

You know, there’s an irritatingly adolescent disconnect with this president. He petitions congress for things he wants done and then says, “If congress won’t act, I will.” He doesn’t

have the authority to act unilaterally but there’s no one with a backbone in congress to stop him.

DACA is supposed to be for children who were brought to this country when they were young and who have grown up here but it’s acting like a magnet for people all over Central America. These folks have figured out how to play the game. Here’s how it works. The parents sneak across first. Since there’s relatively no border control now their chances of making it successfully are very good. Traveling with children slows them down and increases their chances of getting caught so they leave their kids behind. Then they send money back to pay to have their kids come across.

Children crossing over is a totally different matter and with the message Obama is sending the world it’s no wonder they’re coming in droves. But here’s the really outrageous part. These kids are represented in court for free by organizations like The Safe Passage Project. They dispatch high-powered lawyers to argue for asylum. It’s not a difficult argument. The federal government places these illegal children in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). The department is just what it sounds like. They’re in the business of resettling kids in the United States.

But here’s where it really gets ironic. These pro-bono lawyers take advantage of the Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS). This is a designation for kids under 21 who’ve been abused, neglected, or abandoned by at least one parent. Safe Passage says about 90 percent of these kids qualify for that designation. Their parents have abandoned them in Mexico or Honduras or wherever and came here to America. The judges routinely rule in favor of asylum and order the kids reunited with their parents who broke into our country and abandoned their kids in the first place.

Think about that for a moment. If American parents abandoned their American children the Department of Health and Human Services would make sure those parents never saw those kids again. Heck, there was one case recently where DHS was trying to take a 15-year-old boy away from his father because a kid at school complained that the boy was twirling a pencil in class like a gun. I’m not kidding.

This whole situation is absolute insanity. And in the middle of it all Obama held a ceremony honoring DREAMers who received temporary amnesty under DACA. I understand the motivation on the part of the people who welcome all these illegals. They see future Democrat voters. Obama says these DREAMers are the key to this country’s success. If they’re so wonderful, do we have the right to steal them from their native countries? If they’re so great, wouldn’t their own countries benefit from their greatness?

Truth is, they’re certainly no better than American children and most will end up as wards of the state or in prison. You thought the third world was bad? Just wait. The third world is no longer down south. It’s here.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The real motivation behind the Bergdahl swap

We’ve had some time to reflect on the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner exchange, and I’m of the opinion that we’ve been focusing on the wrong thing. Since his release, the news media have delved into the circumstances of Bergdahl’s capture. There’s little doubt now that he sneaked off the army post and into enemy hands. The big question remaining is was it intentional? We may never know.

What’s puzzling about the Bergdahl affair is he was held captive, supposedly, for five years yet very few Americans had ever heard of him. This leads me to believe that the army knew all along he was a deserter. That’s why there was no national movement to bring him home.

I remember the POW bracelets of the post-Vietnam war era. The names of POWs left behind were engraved on nickel-plated bracelets with the soldier’s name, rank, and date of capture. We knew the names of these men. There were many of them.

Bowe Bergdahl was the only so-called POW left from the war in Afghanistan yet precious few of us knew of him. I believe that was on purpose. My theory is the army didn’t want to make him a hero, because he wasn’t one. In fact, sources say that Hillary Clinton, when she was secretary of state, had no intention of working on behalf of his freedom.

Why, then, all of sudden, was he exchanged for five high-value Taliban terrorists? That’s what I mean by our being focused on the wrong thing. It was never about Bowe Bergdahl coming home. It was about the Taliban prisoners getting out.

That may come as a shock, but remember President Obama’s campaign pledge when he was a candidate in 2008. He vowed to close Gitmo. Once he assumed the presidency, he found it was much more difficult than he had imagined. Congress wasn’t going along with it. Neither were many in his own party.

What does Barack Obama do when he hits a roadblock? He finds a way to go around it, even if it means trampling the Constitution and breaking the law to do it. He hit a wall on amnesty. Now we have thousands of illegals streaming across our border and nothing is being done about it. His cap-and-trade scheme for carbon dioxide emissions was stopped in the senate. Now his EPA is doing essentially the same thing without approval from congress. He’s wanted to ban guns but found little support in congress. Now he’s using the FDIC to label gun shops as “high risk” and banks are severing their relationship with them. If you can’t ban guns by law, the next best thing is to make it impossible for anyone to buy them.

The New York Post recently reported that Gitmo terrorists were being released for all sorts of crazy reasons. One because he had taken up yoga. Another because he wanted to start a milk and honey farm. Yet another because he had a positive attitude. The exact number of prisoners that have been held at Gitmo is a mystery. Best guesses by the news media put the number at around 775. Many of those have been released. Counting the release of the five Taliban terrorists, there are about 145 prisoners left. Some 70 are scheduled for release soon. About 30 percent have rejoined the jihad against America.

Very soon there will only be 80 prisoners left, and Obama is determined to release the rest before his term expires. He may not close Gitmo, but once he’s done there will be no one left to guard.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Obama's war on guns

There’s something going on that should send a chill down the spine of every American. The Obama administration is using the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, to go after gun shops. Eric Holder over at the Justice Department is in on this and they’ve launched something called Operation Choke Point. They’re getting the FDIC to designate gun sellers as ‘high risk’ thus getting banks, under threat from the federal government, to sever their ties with them. This is not only online gun retailers but bricks-and-mortar stores, as well.

They tried to cover this with a list of other businesses they’re targeting like porn shops and

stores that sell drug paraphernalia. We can argue over the merits — or lack thereof — of either of those two enterprises, but they’re legal. How on God’s green earth do we allow our government to shutter legitimate businesses in this country?

Part of the problem is precedent. Obama has been waging an open war against the coal industry and few outside of that business are willing to stand up and be counted. Now they’re coming after guns, and you can bet this won’t be the last business they attack.

If you’re thinking to yourself that you already have guns so it won’t affect you, think again. Where are you going to get ammo once all the guns shops are closed?

Whether you’re a big Second Amendment proponent or not, this should trouble you to no end. Through executive orders this administration is having its way with the American people. Their rationale is that Congress won’t act so they have to. That’s the whole point of having a congress. They pass laws and the president either signs them or vetoes them. This administration believes if congress doesn’t pass laws then they simply pass their own through executive orders.

It’s not hard to understand why the economy is struggling to recover when this administration has declared war on so many parts of it. Imagine if they continue to get away with it. Anything and anybody they don’t like will be in peril. If they’re successful in killing the coal industry, what’s to stop them from going after the oil industry? They already have been to some degree.

If they’re allowed to shut down the gun industry then one of our basic constitutional rights is gone. Now, I’m not saying that Obama is trying to grab all the guns so he can put us all in FEMA camps. What I am saying is even if he thinks he’s doing this with good intentions, it only takes one person with bad intentions to take this country in a dark direction once they know the people can’t defend themselves.

Like so many rights that die, it’s the people who stand on the sidelines who allow it to happen. Don’t be one of those people. It’s time to start pushing back and pushing back hard. It’s time to light up your congressman’s phone. It’s time to get involved with any group that’s joining the struggle to defend our liberties. It’s time to let Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder and anyone else who declares war on business know that we’re watching. Not only are we watching, but we’re active.

Irish statesman Edmund Burke once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” That goes for you good ladies, too. We can either watch this administration tear business apart limb from limb or we can do something.

When good men and women actually do something, evil is vanquished. You can quote me.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Obama going for broke on climate change, uh, climate disruption

Well, let’s see, in the last 40 years we’ve moved from global cooling to global warming to climate change and now climate disruption. That’s the latest ration of rubbish being issued by the White House. Their economic policies are a joke. Obamacare is an unqualified disaster. They’re trying to latch on to something that will connect with voters here before the mid-term elections so they’ve issued yet another Chicken Little report to try and scare people into their arms.

Apparently it’s not working. Most national polls show global warming, uh, climate disruption is a concern for only about 30 percent of Americans. Why so low? Because none of what

these people have predicted has come true. 

I hate to be the one to say I told you so but I told you 2014 was going to be the year they went for broke on this issue. Since they’ve been so wrong for so long they have to up the hysteria to drown out their failure. They figure if they can just work you into a frenzy you won’t actually sit down and look at what’s happening around you.

Well, we did in our movie, An Inconsistent Truth. We learned that the polar bears aren’t dying off, the hurricanes aren’t getting worse, the sea levels aren’t rising, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. When the earth moved from cooling to warming they changed their tactic from global cooling to global warming. When the earth stopped warming they called it climate change. Now they’re trying to convince you that every time you hear about a tornado or a flood or a drought it’s something entirely new.

There’s really nothing new going on. As we point out in the movie, wild weather isn’t getting any wilder. It’s just that these folks are focusing on it more. Have you ever bought a new car? Right after you start driving that car you start noticing cars just like it all over the place. Before you didn’t notice at all. Do you think there were suddenly more of those cars on the road? Of course, not. You just notice them more.

This is the concept behind drilling “extreme weather” into your head. If you hear that global warming is causing more tornados then every time you hear about a tornado you’ll think it was caused by global warming and, by extension, by humans. Every time you hear about a drought you’re supposed to think global warming. Or, global climate disruption. 

Which brings me to a very interesting point. I heard a report that Miami is experiencing sea level rise. Miami is on the Atlantic Ocean. Now, common sense would tell you that if Miami is really seeing sea level rise then every town on the eastern seaboard would be seeing sea level rise. They’re not. What’s more likely happening is either the coastline is eroding around Miami or the actual land is sinking a bit. This has been shown to be the case in several parts of the world.

By the way, some places on the Atlantic Ocean have seen sea levels recede. If global warming is really global then it would be happening globally. It’s not. But that doesn’t stop people like John Podesta and his boss, Barack Obama, from trying to scare you. And scare you into what? Into joining them in destroying the oil and coal industries that have advanced a civilization farther than most anything else in history.

Maybe if the president is so set on weaning us from fossil fuels he’ll try a stay-cation this summer instead of Hawaii.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Food desert? How about brain desert

State social services officials in Louisiana have decided to enact new limits for welfare recipients. No longer will you be able to use your welfare card at lingerie shops, tattoo parlors, nail salons, jewelry stores, video arcades, bail bond companies, cruise ships, psychics, adult-entertainment businesses, nightclubs or bars. Which begs the question, why in the world were you ever able to use your welfare card at these places?

The Louisiana legislature is trying to codify the changes into law. How many other states are allowing our tax dollars to pay for a cruise for some deadbeat? It’s absolutely infuriating.

State officials say there’s only so much they can do about the abuse because the cards can be used at ATMs to get cash. Hello! This is the easiest thing to fix I have ever seen.

The leftists think tanks and advocacy groups do their level best to shroud the obvious but there’s no denying that poor people in this country are the fattest. The liberals claim all sorts of nonsense like “food deserts” and “food insecurity.” The fact of the matter is there’s no excuse for anyone to be food insecure. They hand out EBT cards like candy, especially if you have children. And food deserts? Please. The poorest people live in the cities and there are grocery stores all over the place.

So what’s the answer to why so many poor people are obese? This is the obvious answer the liberals try to keep hidden. People getting free food make poor choices. Now, in all fairness, junk food is generally cheaper because it’s subsidized through the farm bill. Oh, yeah. A lot of the junk food consumed in this country comes from corn, soybeans and wheat, three crops that get huge subsidies from the federal government. Your vegetable farmer gets virtually nothing from the government.

The answer is not to subsidize the vegetable farmer but to stop subsidizing everyone else. If lettuce and carrots were cheaper then, perhaps, more people would buy them but don’t bank on it. A large part of it is taste. Poor people seem to be suckers for junk food. They love it. Heck, I love it but I know it’s not good for me so I limit my intake of it.

And now we’re getting to the crux of the problem. How do you solve obesity among the poor and save the taxpayers a ton of money? 

First, no more cash advances from your welfare or food stamp card. That’ll keep welfare recipients from buying things they don’t need to be buying like beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets. Anything you need to purchase can be bought at stores with the card. 

Second, items need to be coded so that you can only by essentials with the cards. No lobster. No steak. No chips and cookies and soft drinks. You buy hamburger and chicken and fruits and veggies. Did you know that Papa Murphy’s Pizza now accepts EBT cards? And you wonder why poor folks are fat.

If Michelle Obama really cared about the obesity problem she’d be all over this idea but you’ll never hear her advocate limiting the food you can buy with an EBT card. Why? Because that’s how Democrats get re-elected. Why do think the food stamp rolls have exploded since Barack Obama got into office? Yeah, it’s all about keeping that base constituency satisfied. You talk about a riot, take away the junk food from the food stamp crowd and see what happens.

Fat and happy means one thing: Democrat votes. And they’re buying elections with your money.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Understanding the Crimea mess

Have you ever watched one of those soap operas where a woman is married to this guy but she never really loved him and she’s had a thing for the next-door-neighbor who mows the grass with his shirt off? Then the husband gets tied up in his work and she feels neglected and the next thing you know she’s in the sack with the lawn-mowing neighbor. The husband walks in and finds them together and she wants a divorce but her husband won’t give her one so she just runs off with the neighbor.

That, in a nutshell, is the Ukraine/Crimea/Russia love triangle.

This has been a complicated relationship from the beginning and Crimea’s relationship with Ukraine has been shaky at best. Many people look at Crimea as a part of Ukraine like we

look at Kansas as a part of the United States but it’s not like that at all. Even before the fall of the Soviet Union, Crimea considered itself autonomous. In fact, after the fall, Crimea’s official name was, and is, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. They are made up of nearly 60 percent Russian ethnics, about 25 percent Ukrainians and the rest Crimean Tatars, who are Sunni Muslims.

From Russia’s standpoint, Ukraine ceased to be a legitimate country when they overthrew Viktor Yanukovych in February. Yanukovych had been elected president in 2010 and was deposed in a coup. Russia, which has always felt like Crimea was more a part of Russia than Ukraine, moved to either protect Crimea or take advantage of the situation, depending on how you look at it. But there’s no denying that the Autonomous Republic of Crimea voted overwhelmingly to become a part of Russia.

This is the part that’s confounding to those of us who have watched President Obama foment an Arab Spring in the Middle East. One by one, the countries of the Middle East were encouraged and aided by the United States in shucking their governments in exchange for free elections. It seems Crimea has done just that and now we’re all bent out of shape over it.

I guess unless you’re installing the terrorists of the Muslim Brotherhood this administration doesn’t recognize your referendum.

The divorce of Crimea and Ukraine has been a long time coming and it was inevitable that she would run to the waiting arms of Russia. How this is any concern to the United States is beyond me. There are some conflicts around the world into which we could possibly insert ourselves and make it make sense but we have absolutely no interest in this squabble.

The president is talking about arming Ukraine so they can take Crimea back. Crimea doesn’t want to come back. Didn’t we learn this lesson in Vietnam? You can’t force people to fight a war they have no interest in fighting. In fact, this situation is even worse. Crimea would surely fight to stay with Russia.

The American people are not the least bit interested in getting involved in this whole mess. Putin, of all people, understands this. Obama continues to make veiled threats that everyone knows are hollow. Stop it, already. Crimea is joining Russia. The American people don’t give a rat’s rump and there will be no U.S. military intervention to stop it.

This is just a diversion from more important issues like the IRS harassment of those who oppose the president politically, the NSA spying on its own citizens and activist federal judges overturning the will of the states. 

Ironically, we’re more afraid of the United States government than Putin is.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The job-killing Congress

President Obama and the Democrats in Congress want to raise the minimum wage by 40 percent. However, 96 percent of House and Senate sponsors of a bill to do just that do not pay their interns, according to a new analysis by the Employment Policies Institute. It’s an incredible display of hypocrisy.

Aside from the hypocrisy of using free labor while simultaneously crying for a minimum wage hike, raising the minimum wage is a job killer. Obama and the libs in Congress will tell you

it’s not and they’ll point to “studies” that back their argument but that’s a case of cherry-picking your study.

According to Forbes Magazine, there was a comprehensive study that looked at the last two decades of data. It was conducted by David Neumark of UC-Irvine and William Wascher of the Federal Reserve Board. They determined that 85 percent of the research demonstrates raising the minimum wage kills jobs.

Of course, it’s just common sense. Payroll is the single biggest expense for many businesses. Unless you can raise the price of your product to cover the added expense, something has to give. Even Bill Gates said as much on MSNBC when he said, “If you raise the minimum wage, you’re encouraging labor substitution, and you’re going to go buy machines and automate things or cause jobs to appear outside of that jurisdiction.” He added that “it does cause job destruction.” Gates may be a big lib but he knows a thing or two about business.

Let’s take the fast food industry, for example. You’ve no doubt heard about the protests around the country - organized by the unions - to raise the minimum wage of fast food workers to $15 an hour. Experts say the typical restaurant labor force accounts for a third or more of a restaurant’s operating expenses. The New York Times quoted Stephen Caldeira, president of the International Franchise Association, as saying that such a drastic increase in wages would lead to a 25 percent to 50 percent hike in prices. That $3 burger could essentially become that $4.50 burger overnight.

We, as consumers, have options. We don’t have to stop by the fast food joint. We do because it’s fast (supposedly) and affordable. Once it’s no longer affordable we stop going. If that happens not only do the employees not make $15 an hour, they don’t make squat. They’re out on the street.

Shy of going out of business, the fast food restaurant will start devising ways to save money. I foresee a day when you drive up to a drive-thru window and some guy in India takes your order. Or, maybe you just use voice commands to place your order, swipe your credit card and drive to the next window where your order is waiting. The same could be done inside the store. You just place your order at the automated terminal and wait for your food to appear.

As you might imagine, there’s already such a thing as a burger-making machine. This babycake is self-contained, automated and can churn out 400 burgers per hour. You think your local Mickey D’s isn’t already eye-balling that bad boy? According to the maker, Momentum Machines, making burgers costs restaurants $9 billion a year. Not only does this automatic burger-flipper make faster burgers for a fraction of the cost, it takes up far less space than the conventional way.

So, keep pushing this minimum wage hike. And be prepared to hand out automated burgers to those newly unemployed workers standing in the unemployment line.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The politics of AIDS

Fighting over which disease gets what kind of funding may seem unbecoming but in the stark world of politics it’s an unpleasant necessity.  President Obama just recently diverted 100 million more dollars to AIDS research vowing to find a cure.  That means other disease research will have to suffer as a consequence.

Understand this: AIDS is the most preventable disease ever known to man.  We know

exactly how it’s contracted and we know exactly how to stop it.  Spending billions of dollars on a cure is a colossal waste of time and money.  AIDS in the United States is almost entirely transmitted by two groups of people: homosexuals or bisexuals and intravenous drug users.  Stop the behavior and you stop the disease.

When I bring this topic up on the air invariably I get angry e-mails telling me I don’t care about little kids with AIDS.  Of course, I do, but the number of children contracting AIDS these days is fewer than 200 per year.  Conversely, the number of children with cancer each year tops 13,000.  I certainly care about kids with AIDS but the reason they got the disease in the first place is because their mothers were engaging in risky behavior.  I guess these people e-mailing me care nothing about kids with cancer.  

By the way, cancer is the leading cause of disease-related deaths for children.  It looks like if we really cared we’d be spending most of our time and resources where there’s the largest need.

That’s the problem with disease research.  It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the funding.  AIDS funding almost equals cancer funding in this country yet cancer kills 37 times the number of people who die from AIDS.  In fact, almost as many people die from cancer in one year than have died of AIDS in the United States since we first discovered the disease.

Common sense would tell you that we should be spending money on these diseases in proportion to their devastation.  Let me illustrate it this way.  We spend about $9,800 on research per cancer death in the United States.  We spend almost $198,000 per AIDS death.  In other words, cancer kills 37 times more people yet AIDS gets 20 times the research dollars per death.  And Obama is diverting even more money to AIDS research.  It’s not only wrong it’s downright sinful.

I was at a party recently.  Three of my friends at this party were battling cancer.  We all know people fighting this horrible disease.  Aside from maybe lung cancer, we have few clues as to why people get it.  One of my friends always ate right and exercised but still came down with some rare form of bone cancer.  It’s bound to make these people furious to know that just because certain people protest and stomp their feet the loudest that they get the lion’s share of the funding.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States but there’s so much we know about how to prevent it.  Poor diet, little or no exercise, and obesity are leading causes.  Maybe that’s why we spend less than half on research as compared to cancer.  We know many of the causes.  With cancer it’s a totally different story.  We have no idea what causes most cancers and we need the bulk of our funding going to finding a cure.  Had Obama stated that as his goal he may have garnered some respect.  Instead, he continues to play politics with our research money while hundreds of thousands of people needlessly die.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The nasty side of Barack Obama

This is unprecedented.  Since the 1970s the government has shut down something like 17 times but I’ve never known a president to close the ocean.  That’s exactly what President Obama did in a vindictive move to make the partial government shutdown hurt.  Over 1,100 square miles of the Florida Bay was placed off-limits to fishermen and the Coast Guard was sent to enforce the closure.  Just how much it cost to utilize national resources in this way is anybody’s guess.  One thing we do know.  It doesn’t cost a dime to leave the ocean – and the people who fish in it – alone.

But that’s not something that comes natural to a meddling liberal like Obama.  As you’ll recall, he also closed open-air monuments in Washington, DC that required no park supervision.  Again, it cost much more to close them than to leave them open.  Obama even had the park service close off scenic overlooks so tourists couldn’t stop and gaze at Mt. Rushmore.  Yeah, he closed overlooks; carved out slithers of asphalt that cost nothing to keep open.

Then there was the case of the elderly couple living on Lake Mead in Nevada.  The couple was thrown out of their home because even though they own the home itself they lease the property from the federal

government.  Chances are they’ve never seen anyone from the government on their property until now.  They were given just 24 hours to vacate.  What possible excuse could Obama have for that other than trying to inflict pain and blame it on the Republicans?

Apparently, that’s exactly what he’s doing.  While he was kicking people off the ocean and out of their homes he set up a website for people to share their shutdown heartaches.  He was compiling them and sharing them on the Internet.

This is probably the most childish thing I’ve ever seen any politician do and I’ve seen politicians do some childish things.  But it’s worse than just childish.  It’s downright mean-spirited and vicious.

Oh, and he allowed furloughed federal workers just 15 minutes to check their e-mail so they could read that he was working with Congress to solve the impasse.  What does it cost to let furloughed federal workers check their e-mail as often as they please?  Nothing!

If this is any indication of the debt ceiling negotiations we’re in for a rough ride.  Not raising the debt ceiling is being portrayed by Obama and the Democrats as economic Armageddon.  Of course, these are the same folks who cried wolf over the sequester and the government shutdown.  Starting to look like they lie a lot.

The fact of the matter is we have plenty of money to make the debt payment.  About 7 cents of every dollar goes to service the debt.  Money is continuously flowing into the treasury and we have plenty to pay our bills.  What not raising the debt ceiling means is we can’t go into more debt, which is a good thing.

We’re looking at about a $700 billion deficit this year.  Our national debt is around $17 trillion.  The American people have had enough.  In a recent Fox News poll 58 percent of the people were against raising the debt ceiling while only 37 percent were in favor of it.  To show you which party is the party of big spending, 78 percent of Republicans are against raising the debt ceiling while 57 percent of Democrats are in favor of it.

That’s exactly where the problem is.  Not only can we no longer afford more debt it appears we can no longer afford more Democrats.   

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.