Advice – Page 4 – Instant Coffee Wisdom

YOU CAN’T ‘FAKE’ STRONG!

Only the strong survive!

you cant fake strong

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.–Paul the Apostle , Philippians 4:13

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One of the most common breakdowns associated with cars are flat tires. When tires are low on air, you can generally see that they need air as you approach you car, but most people do not make a habit of taking the time to inspect ALL FOUR tires on a regular basis, instead looking at the two that face them as they approach their vehicle. Fixing a flat can be as simple as adding more air, or plugging a small leak. Ignoring the problem can result in serious damage to your tire, car, or even yourself.

According to Goodyear Tires:

“Maintaining proper air pressure is an important factor in tire safety and performance. If a driver experiences a flat tire or loss of air pressure, they should slow the vehicle gradually and carefully pull off to the side of the road as soon as possible. Driving on a flat tire can cause internal structural damage to the tire, may lead to wheel and vehicle damage and may result in poor vehicle handling and control — which could lead to an accident, injury or death.”

You may be familiar with the phrase “the road of life”. As you travel down the road of life, you are the vehicle which carries you on your journey. Like the four tires on a car, you have four categories that determine IF you will have forward momentum, or if your journey will end abruptly. Your car has both front and rear tires. One each on the passenger and driver sides. You can still drive on a bad tire, ignoring all the warning signs and neglecting repairing that tire until disaster occurs. Likewise YOU yourself have YOUR four ‘TIRES’ divided into two sides, and keeping all four at or as close to full strength as possible are vital to determine how far you will go down the ‘road of life’.

The two sides are your HEALTH and your WEALTH. Your HEALTH is your WEALTH, and your WEALTH is your HEALTH. HEALTH has two sides as does WEALTH. Your HEALTH is both PHYSICAL and MENTAL. Your WEALTH is both FINANCIAL and INTELLECTUAL. You need all four to be at your maximum strength to go far in life, but running on three will carry you along for a little distance, and a brief time. You cannot ‘fake’ strong, you are either strong, or you are weak. A strong person can things that a weak person cannot, and that is an undeniable fact of life.

How strong are you:

FINANCIALLY

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“There is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up.” Proverbs 21:20

If you have zero debt and just $10 in your pocket, you are richer than 25% of Americans. Do you spend EVERY cent you get? The reason the wealthy amass such huge fortunes is NOT because they have stolen it from the poor, but because they have mastered the art of handling money. Getting financially fit means taking the time to develop spending, saving, and investment plans.

INTELLECTUALLY

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“How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver!” –Proverbs 16:16

Knowledge is power! Education opens doors to greater ventures and better opportunities. The accumulation of ‘USEFUL’ knowledge and ‘USEFUL’ skills will result in greater possibilities of employment. Having specialized knowledge in technical jobs or trades will get you hired faster than unskilled laborers. There are many classes being offered in colleges and universities nationwide that are totally worthless. Graduating with a degree in ‘gender studies’ or ‘lesbian dance theory’ is a surefire path to poverty. As poet Charles Bukowski once said, the world doesn’t need poets. Would a restaurant hire a chef who couldn’t cook an omelet? The world needs doctors, teachers, farmers, and builders. An auto-mechanic may not be a glamorous job, but the next time you need your car fixed, you’ll be glad if they are experienced and competent.

PHYSICALLY

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“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, who you have received from God? You are not your own: you were bought with a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.” – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

When you take care of your body, you can fight off illness faster, recover from infirmities, and lead an active lifestyle. Life is meant to be lived and enjoyed. How can you enjoy life if you are too weak and sickly to join your friends and family in various activities? Watching is fun but it is not the same as participating in the fun. Getting physically fit means taking time to eat healthy and exercise regularly.

MENTALLY

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“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light”. – Matthew 11:28-30

Depression is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of having been too strong for too long. Eventually everyone hits a point when we tire. When things go badly, we tend to focus on our troubles instead of counting our blessings. The Bible is the word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and is infallible and without error. When we focus on the world, it’s a depressing place. When we turn our focus to Jesus, we see that with God, all things are possible, and that when God is with us, no one can stand against us. The Bible is a book filled with hope for something better than this fallen creation. The answers to all of life’s problems can be found in the pages of the Holy scripture, yet there are many who are reluctant, or totally against reading this book for themselves. I was an atheist when I was a teenager, but in college I became a Christian when my one professor challenged me to go to his class on the Bible and read through it cover to cover. I can honestly say I am a better man with God than I ever was without God. People may disappoint you, lie to you, and hurt you. Jesus is always good, faithful, and true. What if the one book that you are dead-set against reading is the only book which could provide you comfort and answers. Wouldn’t it be wise to take the time and discover the truth for yourself? Isn’t it time to fill your ‘TIRE’ with the ‘breath of life’? As always I wish you success and happiness!

TIMING IS EVERYTHING!

Every second is precious.

timing is everything

“Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.” ~ Peter Drucker.

It’s been said that ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’. It’s also been said that ‘he who hesitates is lost’. We all live in the moment and there is no ‘right time’. People who wait for ‘the right time’ often wait forever and never accomplish anything. Ultimately it all comes down to proper timing. Each day, we all get the same 24 hours and how we spend that time is up to us. We also all have dreams, some big, some small, some practical, some unrealistic, and occasionally some totally bizarre. Like our time, realizing those dreams is also largely up to us. Highly successful people manage both their time and their money exceptionally well in order to accomplish those dreams and goals. Your future success is determined by what you do TODAY. People who chose to do nothing accomplish nothing and have no future. That same group is the most vocal about how successful people have somehow held them back in life, and that life is unfair. They refer to successful people as being obsessed. The important thing to remember is that obsessed is just a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated.

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If you truly want to improve your life, you cannot procrastinate, and you must attack your goal with full fledged determination. If you do this, you will succeed in life because most people are lazy. The important thing is to start! Do not put off for tomorrow what you can do today! Make a checklist of the things you need to do, and arrange them in a logical order so that you do not undermine your progress by having one chore undo another. For example, if you were cleaning your kitchen, you would clean the counter tops BEFORE you swept the flour. You do not want to be counter-productive. The more efficiently you use your time, the more you can accomplish. Some tasks can be done simultaneously, others must be tackled one by one. Highly efficient people write things down and work from lists.

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Schedule EVERYTHING including downtime. Dedicated people tend to over-schedule and burn out due to stress. Everyone needs a break. It’s OK to burn the midnight oil occasionally, but if you are constantly working late, sleeping little, and avoiding rest periods, you will begin to break down from stress. There’s an old adage: “early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” If you feel you are not having enough time to do everything you need to do, you may need to cut out time-wasting activities. If you spend HOURS sitting in from of the TV, or playing games on the computer, then those bad habits are holding you back. I allow myself plenty of time in the morning by waking up earlier than I technically have to. This allows me time to have breakfast, pack lunch, exercise etc. I allow a few extra minutes on the commute to work in case of construction or gridlock. When I have tasks like shopping, I save time by making a single large loop and hitting all my destinations in the most efficient manner as to avoid back-tracking or going out of the way.

Remember, the future belongs to those who work for it. Do not neglect your health, no not neglect your finances, and if you have a family ESPECIALLY do not neglect them. People are ephemeral, we will all die one day, and it will be when we least expect it. The same goes for our friends and family. How you spend your time is up to you. Will you waste it? or will you make the most of every moment? Only time will tell. As always I wish you success and happiness!

SPARE TIME?

Living in the Moment!

SPARETIME

“We’re all going to die, all of us; what a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities. We are eaten up by nothing.” – Charles Bukowski

There are at least two things that differentiate the highly successful individual from the unsuccessful crowd. Firstly, they handle their money quite differently than the average person. Instead of spending every cent the moment they receive it, they budget their money, save much of it, and invest. Secondly they do the same thing with their time.

You may be familiar with the old adage ‘time is money’. In a very real sense it is. When you work at a job, you get paid for your time. When you invest over time, you get a return on your investment. In fact, time is more important than money because money can be replaced, but time cannot. Every moment wasted is gone forever. Unsuccessful people usually whine about how unfair life is because they don’t have as much money as Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates. Here’s the main point. Rich or poor, Successful or not, every single person on Earth gets the exact same number of minutes each year. 525,600 minutes each and every year, with two exceptions. The year we are born, and the year we die. How we spend that year is up to us.

When I started writing my weekly blog InstantCoffeeWisdom over two years ago, the first article was The 52 Week Challenge. It was a weekly savings plan to be done over the course of one year, the end result being $1350.00 saved to be used as you wish. Every year, I take a great vacation at the shore in Ocean City MD, that is my decision. I know many people who always whine that they never have money for vacation, so the first year I focused on microeconomics (personal finance) to help demonstrate ways to budget, cut expenses and hopefully achieve that goal set by The 52 Week Challenge. The second year, I focused on the bigger picture, exploring macroeconomics, and explaining how religion and politics are interconnected to economics, and why you should have a firm grasp of all three. Hopefully you were able to understand my points, see where I was leading you, and you were able to reach the same conclusions. As I embark on my third year of blogging, I’m going to focus on the topic of time. As I already stated, time is money, and we each have EXACTLY the same time each day, week, month, and year, despite financial disparities. How we spend our time is entirely up to us.

When I was a still just a young boy, the biggest time waster was the TV. I had family members whose entire lives were lived vicariously through the television. As a child, it was my ‘babysitter’. Plop me down in front of the set with a plate of snacks and I was good to go. My 77 year-old aunt does nothing but watch TV all day, or sleep. It doesn’t seem like much of a life to me, but she’s 77 and you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I got rid of my TV a decade ago. I’ve saved thousands of dollars over the years by ‘cutting the cord’. If I do decide to watch some program, almost everything is available online and I can watch it when it’s convenient. Although the letters TV are an abbreviation for Television, it should stand for TIME VACUUM because this activity is just a waste of time that can suck away hours of your life each day if you let it. Now the biggest waste of time and productivity is the mobile smart phone.

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The smart phone puts the sum total of human knowledge in the palm of your hands. You can load it’s memory with apps to help you track everything financial or health related. It is a tool that in the right hands can increase productivity and knowledge, and likewise can kill it in the wrong hands. In my youth, phones connected people. Now they divide people. The typical smart phone user touches his or her phone 2,617 time every day, according to a study by research firm Dscout. Extremely addicted individuals use it twice as much as that. The phone is NOT reality. When you spend your time looking at your phone instead of living your life, you are wasting your life. You are cutting yourself off from life and missing all the wonderful things the world has to offer when you bury your face in your phone.

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Human lives are terribly short. We live at best about 120 years, but that is not guaranteed. There are preemie babies that live a few hours, or a few days. My father died when he was 57. I missed out on all those great father-son moments growing up without a father as a result. We are ephemeral, a vapor, and but a blink of the eye of God. We live our lives moment by moment, stringing each moment to the next like pearls on a string. We should do our best to make those moments shine. Time cannot be replaced when it is gone, and neither can people. The greatest gift you can give a person is your time, and the second greatest gift you can give is your undivided attention.

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One of my close friends has cancer. I pray for him every day. I hope he beats it, but ultimately that’s in God’s hands, and worrying about it won’t change that fact. If God wants us here on Earth, it’s where He wants us to be. No man can know the mind of God, but He’s in control even if it doesn’t make sense to us now. It is up to us to use our God-given free will to be stewards of our resources, which includes not just money and possessions, but our time and our health as well. Make every moment count and interact with people instead of tuning out the world. As always, I wish you success and happiness!

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DREAM BIG!

Just start small!

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Many historians and scholars regard Leonardo da Vinci as the prime exemplar of the ‘Universal Genius’ or ‘Renaissance Man’, an individual of unquenchable curiosity and feverishly inventive imagination., He is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived. Leonardo da Vinci was also possibly the greatest painter of all time. He died just over five hundred years ago at age 67 on the 2nd of May, 1519. Leonardo da Vinci dabbled in many different fields. He was a dreamer. His surviving journals contain sketches and diagrams of fantastic devices such as flying machines and military tanks. Funny thing though. He NEVER published his discoveries and kept his journals secret. He also NEVER built any of the machines he envisioned. On his deathbed, he is said to have lamented that “he had offended against God and men by failing to practice his art as he should have done.”

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“But he was a great painter” you may be saying to yourself. What you do with your life, and what you WANT to do with your life are two entirely different things. da Vinci was great at painting, but painting was his JOB. It was how he financed his livelihood. He may have been passionate about it and enjoyed doing it, but there was more to life that the man dreamed of doing. For whatever reason, he just never did the things he REALLY wanted to do. Regret is a terrible thing.

There are many reasons why people do what they do, and just as many reasons why they don’t. You can break the reasons down any way you choose, but I prefer to narrow them down to five.

The five reasons people don’t do things come from weakness–

Ignorance
Fear
Indifference
Laziness
Spite (Or Hate if you prefer)

The five reasons people do things from strength–

Wisdom
Courage
Caring
Determination
Love

We are not born strong. We grow strong by working on our strengths. It isn’t instant, it takes time but it will not happen unless we start. Starting is the key to going down the path of life that we wish to pursue. We have to do it ourselves, no one can do it for us, and it can be a truly terrifying thing to begin to do something you’ve never done before. It is the determination and courage that keeps us going. With each new success we gain the wisdom of knowing that we can do it. We did it before and we can do it again. In time we begin to enjoy and even love the little bumps in life’s road because we see them as challenges to overcome instead of obstacles blocking our path. You only get one life here on planet Earth, there are no do-overs or dress rehearsals. Life is meant to be lived! Instead of merely choosing to EXIST I urge you to experience LIFE, I urge you to LIVE. It is okay to dream, and dream BIG, but more importantly, YOU MUST START! Don’t be afraid to start small. Great things grow from modest beginnings. Baby steps are your friend, not a source of ridicule. Just do it. Ignore all the naysayers and negative know-it-alls. Their dreams have long since died and they can’t stand to see you succeed where they have failed, and. Now the only way they can feel good about themselves is by bringing you down. What they think of you says more about them than it does about you. You need to cut ties with all the negativity in your life. This goes for both things and people. If it’s not helping you to grow, it’s holding you back and poisoning your mind with negativity, fear, and doubt. You will never have a positive life if you have a negative mind.

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When I first started http://www.InstantCoffeeWisdom.com on Sept 10th, 2017 I did it with one goal in mind. That goal was to prove that the life you wish to lead was within your grasp. It wasn’t going to be given to you, you had to work for it if you really wanted it, and it was there for the taking if you did. The first blog post was THE 52 WEEK CHALLENGE . The entire first year was spent producing weekly posts to show you ways to cut costs, save money, and budget. I focused on microeconomics , or personal finance in order to educate you to the larger issues. What good does it do to discuss index funds if you don’t even have two pennies to rub together? And how could you possibly even comprehend the national debt if you don’t know how to balance your own budget? The second year was spent focusing on macroeconomics, and explaining as well as demonstrating the interconnectivity of the three big no-nos of polite conversation: politics, religion and finance. By sharing my ideas, knowledge, and opinions, I not only encouraged you to improve your life, I also re-enforced my own goals and improved my life as well. I am not some ‘do as I say, not as I do’ hypocrite, I’m sharing my success stories with you and encouraging you to ignore the fake news and trust me when I tell you this is all for the best. If you have the privilege of living in America you have a charmed life. We currently have a great President who is doing everything in the best interest of the country, and putting America First. This is a land of endless opportunity and you can dream big. You can succeed easily if you are willing to do the work. Always remember American ends in “I CAN”!

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If you only started reading my blog recently, I encourage you to begin reading at the beginning over the next few weeks while http://www.InstantCoffeeWisdom.com goes on hiatus during my summer vacation. This year I’m spending even more time at the beach, enjoying my new Jeep, and running my first half-marathon the Saturday after Labor Day. I hope you have an awesome rest of the Summer and as always, I wish you success and happiness!

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HERE’S THE SKINNY!

Words of wisdom from ‘the Mayor of Hollenbach St.’

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“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

The ‘Skinny’ is a slang term meaning the inside story, or the real truth. The first use of this term is listed as being 1959 and may have developed out of other related slang phrases like ‘trimming the fat’ or ‘getting to the meat of the matter’. It’s appropriate because sometimes truth can be hidden under layers of deceptions so thick that all you can see is the big fat lie being presented and not the real truth. You may also of heard another catchy phrase, ‘you are what you eat’. That is a bit older and was first used by French author Anthelme Brillant-Savarin in 1826. It also needn’t apply to physical food but can also relate to concepts, knowledge and motivations. What you put into your mind changed the way you think and becomes the lens with which you perceive reality. Wearing ‘rose-colored glasses’ doesn’t change reality either, it just changes the way you view things and means having a positive outlook. That phrase goes back to about 1830.

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Mahatma Gandhi was a man of peace who freed India from British rule in 1947. He is attributed with the pithy quote ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world’, but this is not his actual quote, just a highly shortened paraphrase of the wordy quote listed at the beginning of this blog post. He wasn’t Christian, but he had some good things to say about life and living.

If you ingest a constant stream of negative, depressing, miserable lies, you will become negative, depressed, and miserable. The lies will become your reality, and you will call truth a lie whenever you hear it. If you put garbage into your mind, you get garbage out so remember that. GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT or G.I.G.O. for short. It is no wonder that the phenomena labeled ‘TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROM’ has been coined to describe leftists who totally lose their minds whenever conservatives praise our wonderful president for all the good that he has accomplished (and continues accomplishing) during his first term in office. It’s also why conservatives claim that ‘Liberalism is a mental disorder’ sometimes even go so far as to label them ‘Libtards’. Libtards truly believe the lies and fake news they hear, see, and read. For them, Donald J. Trump is literally the same as Hitler, and all his followers are racists , misogynists, gun nuts. They think socialism is a wonderful idea and believe in a free lunch . They ignore the fact that unemployment is at a historic low, the stock market is at new record highs on a weekly basis, and our wages have increased while taxes have dropped. And they are aghast that we are going to re-elect Trump in 2020.

The modern Democratic party has done more harm to the American way of life than can possibly be written in a single article. Whole books have been written. Saul Alinsky’s protégés had nearly succeeded when Trump upset their apple cart in 2016! You may ask yourself why any sane person would want to destroy their homeland, especially a shining beacon of hope and freedom such as the USA.

That’s easy. It’s because they are globalists who reject American exceptionalism and crave power at all costs. To them American citizens are nothing but cattle, a resource to be controlled and exploited. Wolves like fat sheep.

The Mayor of Hollenbach St.

If you go to the intersection of Schuylkill Ave and Hollenbach St. in Reading PA, you will see a mural painted on the side of a house. The portrait is of my late friend and former co-worker Harvey W. Kimble. Harvey died from a fatal heart attack on January 19th 2014. He was only 55. He owned several properties on that small city block, several of which he rented out as Section 8 housing. He lived in one house on the block with his family. He was a US Marine, a postal letter carrier, and a very kind and caring man. I never saw him in a bad mood or angry, and he always had a smile on his face that lit up the room. He cared about everyone, and the people on HIS block called HIM the Mayor of Hollenbach St. He always had lollipops for children and would give you the shirt off his back. A great guy.

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Harvey was also very up on politics and current events and studied the newspaper daily, clipping articles for his files. He would write up editorials and pass out copies to his friends. I always kept the copies he gave me, which was a good thing because one day his hard drive got accidentally re-formatted and he lost everything EXCEPT the dozen hard copies he had handed me over the years. Perhaps his most important editorial story was an allegory titled THE SKINNY COW. Harvey encouraged people to think for themselves and read between the lines. Always remember that ANYTHING the government provides was first taken from someone else. If you wonder why the DNC continues to entice it’s base with offers of FREE FOOD, FREE COLLEGE, FREE HOUSING, and FREE MEDICAL CARE you really need to read the SKINNY COW, which I now present in its entirety.

There once was a skinny cow. A lonely, scared skinny cow. One day The Farmer came along and told The Cow, “Come along with me I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry about the food. Don’t worry about the water. Don’t worry about a nice, warm, dry place to lie, I’ll take care of you, you can trust me. You can depend on me to be there for you”. The Cow could eat, drink and sleep without worries. The Cow was happy and satisfied not a care in the world. The Farmer gave The Cow some special hay, which made The Cow eat more and sleep. The Cow loved this new life-style and thought it would last forever.

The Cow did nothing to disturb The Farmer. The Cow stayed where The Farmer said stay, walked where The Farmer said walk, ate when The Farmer said eat. The Cow utterly respected The Farmer. The Cow, always trying to please, wouldn’t even pass gas when The Farmer was near. The Farmer told The Cow “It was special and better than those other cows. Don’t worry; I’m here for you, I’ll take care of you. You can depend on me. I’m here for you. You can trust me. Don’t I take care of you? Here, eat some more special hay, just for you”. The Cow really believed it was better than those other cows because The Farmer said so, then happily ate the hay.

One day there was a commotion by the fence. The Cow never went close to the fence to see what the other cows was looking at even when they called The Cow over saying “There’s a hole in the fence come see the other side”. The other cows saw things they wasn’t supposed to see and started talking about it. The Farmer didn’t like that so he locked the other cows in the barn, while telling The Cow “Watch out, don’t trust those other cows they’re nothing but a bunch of lying, troublemaking, know nothing, jealous cows. Trust me, they won’t get much food or water and might not have a place to sleep if they keep it up”. The Farmer gave The Cow some more special hay, a pat on the head then said, “Trust me, you’re not like those other cows you’re a good cow, one I can talk to, you can depend on me to be there for you”. Then the Farmer walked away, smiling, on his way home, leaving The Cow near but not with the other cows.

When the other cows stared telling some of their horror stories of the things that they had seen, The Cow didn’t listen and even defended The Farmer. Telling the other cows not to worry, we have food, water, and a place to sleep. The Farmer will take care of us. We can trust The Farmer. We can depend on The Farmer. The other cows told The Cow not to believe everything you’re told and if The Farmer does something, it’s because he will benefit from it. The Cow turned his rump to those trouble-making cows and refused to listen. The Cow always avoided those scary troublemaking cows.

The Cow soon became the favorite of The Farmer. The Cow got extra food and water while the other cows went without. The Farmer was always telling The Cow, “It’s their fault they don’t have enough to eat, enough to drink or a place to sleep. Don’t worry trust me. I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry yourself about them, it’s all their fault anyhow”. The Cow believed, trusted and loved The Farmer more than those other cows. The Cow had dreams of becoming a farmer. The Cow grew to be healthy, plump and soft. Never talking to or looking at those other, now skinny, cows. Never looking back at its past. Never reflecting on its action. Never thinking back to just a few short months ago. Never thinking about tomorrow. Just surviving day to day thanks to The Farmer. Thank you Farmer. All thanks to The Farmer. ALL THANKS to The Farmer.

One day The Farmer took The Cow for a walk. At the end of the walk, he told The Cow to stand in line with those other healthy cows and move forward. Before leaving he told The Cow, “Don’t worry, I’ll be here to take care of you. I’ll see you in the barn my special, favorite cow”. The Cow couldn’t see far enough ahead to see where the line ended, so The Cow moved forward with the heard. When the cow behind asked The Cow to ask the cow ahead what was happening The Cow said, “Don’t ask any questions, don’t worry, we just have to do what The Farmer said and move forward. Trust The Farmer.

The Cow could now see the barn door, which let one cow in at a time. After standing in line for ours, The Cow wanted nothing more than to get through that door, out of the sun and to The Farmer for some special hay. Rumors began about how cows go in but not out, it don’t make any sense. Something weird is going on. The Cow said, “Don’t worry and don’t listen to that crazy talk just move forward. The Farmer will take care of us. Trust The Farmer”.

The door opened. The cow ahead moved through the door. The door closed.

The Cow heard a muffled cry, silence then laugher.

The door opened. Too late The Cow became worried. The Cow didn’t know what was on the other side. The Cow wondered what the other cows had seen. The Cow tried to back up but the cow behind said, “Don’t worry, move forward, I see your friend The Farmer inside”. The cow moved forward. The door closed. The Cow slipped in something that looked like blood. The Cow closed its eyes not believing what it was seeing. Afraid, scared, confused and unsure, The Cow squeezed its eyes shut tighter. Then The Cow heard the soothing voice of The Farmer saying “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you”. Reassured, The Cow opened its eyes in time to see The Farmer standing overhead swinging a sledgehammer with all his might straight to its head. The shocked and unbelieving cow gave a muffled cry and dropped dead. A friend of The Farmer gave him a pat on the back then said, “You sure took care of that cow”. The Farmer said, “Yea. I always said I would”. Then laughed while opening the barn door.

THE END

I hope reading THE SKINNY COW by my late friend Harvey W. Kimble has enlightened and entertained you. As always I wish you success and happiness.

SWAMP GAS!

Don’t breath the poison!

SWAMP GAS

(This is the second half of two articles. For part one, read Drain the Swamp)

Swamp gas is a methane gas produced in a swamp by decaying plants that are covered by water. It is flammable, and sometimes combusts forming what is known as a will-o’-the-wisp. In folklore, a will-o’-the-wisp, or ignis fatuus (literally “foolish fire”) is an atmospheric ghost light seen by travelers at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes. An ignorant person seeing such a phantasm might be scared witless, but an educated one would know it for what it really was, just swamp gas. Swamp gas is also a figure of speech used to describe noxious lies used to confuse and mislead the uninformed.

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Even before President Trump won the 2016 election, one of his promises to grassroots Americans was that he would ‘Drain the Swamp’. It is a common misconception that our nation’s capital Washing D.C. was originally built on swampland. Draining a swamp was an early method used to fight malaria by removing the breeding grounds and killing off the disease carrying mosquitoes. You can see how this catchy term could apply to two-legged political bloodsuckers. Trump has been doing a stellar job of following through on ALL his campaign promises, including slowly ‘draining the swamp’, much to the horror and dismay of leftists. His sweeping ethics reforms and downsizing of bureaucracy has been rapidly restoring our government to an honest one which the Founding Fathers would approve of.

There wasn’t a Republican party (GOP) when George Washington was unanimously elected first president of the USA. If the GOP had existed, rest assured ‘The American Cincinnatus’ would have been a proud member. The greatest presidents of the 19th, 20th, and now 21st centuries have all been Republicans. The Democratic party (DNC) has been trying to destroy this country since the beginning.

In the nineteenth century, the southern Democrats were slave owners, and started the American Civil War. They wanted to split the nation in two so they could continue to enslave their fellow man. The FIRST Republican president Abraham Lincoln ended slavery and preserved the Union. A supporter of the DNC, John Wilkes Booth assassinated ‘the Great Emancipator’ in an attempt to make the South ‘rise again’. Lincoln’s successor, the Democrat Andrew Johnson cancelled the slave reparations that would have been bestowed by Special Field Order 15, approved and signed by Lincoln a few months prior to his murder at the hands of Booth. Members of the DNC started the Klu Klux Klan to terrorize their former slaves.

In the twentieth century, Ronald Regan ‘the Great Communicator’ brought us a decade of prosperity. The ‘Gipper’ brought the Soviet Union to its knees and by proxy, tore down the Berlin Wall demonstrating once and for all that free market capitalism is the greatest economic system in the history of mankind. A deranged John Hinckley Jr. tried to take the life of this great man in 1981, but ‘Rawhide’ survived the bullet wound meant to kill him. In 1984 Reagan won re-election in taking 49 of the 50 states in the largest landslide election in the history of our great nation.

Now, as the second decade of the 21st century draws to a close, the DNC is trying once again to take down another great Republican president, Donald J. Trump. Building upon the four principals of ‘Reganomics’ , ‘The Donald’ has now gifted us with unprecedented economic growth, higher wages, lower taxes, and the lowest levels of unemployment across all demographics. It’s no wonder that the entrenched swamp rats of the DNC are so enraged by the accomplishments of the Greatest President of our lifetime. These parasites have all been living off the American taxpayer and sucking the life-blood of our nation. They have been strangling the economy for years and attempting to take away our individual freedoms one by one. They have trodden on our flag, and want to change the constitution.

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They are attempting to poison you against Trump with a constant barrage of ‘Swamp Gas’ in the liberal media. They think you are too stupid to handle your own affairs, and believe that they are better suited to handle your money than you are. They are tax and spend Democrats who have gotten rich by taking lobbyist money. They are supposed to be working for the American people, NOT the lobbyists who have made them rich in exchange for political favors.

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President Donald J. Trump has not taken a single dime in salary and they hate him for it. Trump has worked hard these past three years to ‘Make America Great Again’, and he succeeded. Now he needs your help to ‘Keep America Great’. You need to stop listening to FAKE NEWS and trust that ‘The Second Father of our Country’ knows what he is doing. Trump loves our nation more than possibly every great president in our nation’s history. If you don’t support Trump, you are either a very ignorant person, an extremely gullible breather of swamp gas, or a deeply disturbed person who hates the USA and everything great about freedom. If you believe eliminating the Electoral college and changing the constitution are a good idea, you are a fool. Those who trade freedom for security deserve neither, and man is not free unless government is limited. There is no such thing as a FREE LUNCH , everything the government provides you was first taken from someone else via taxation. Taxation is theft! Honestly, how much of MY money belongs to YOU? I work hard for my money, and my money belongs to me. I have made more money, (and kept more of it) under Trump than under any prior president. If most of the voting citizens in this country feel the same way as I do, then I predict that President Trump will not only win re-election in 2020, but he will win in a landslide, taking all 50 states, the first president to do so, and the liberal tears will flow like white water rapids. I urge you to back Donald J. Trump in 2020, and ignore all the character assassination, lies, and swamp gas bombarding you about the man. Trump is on your side whither or not you believe it, and he is working in the best interest of our country . God bless America, and God bless president Trump and his family. As always, I wish you success and happiness!

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THE BLAME GAME!

Whose fault is it?

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“Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you are willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.”–Lou Holtz

When you were younger, you thought you could conquer the world but somewhere along the way you let the world get the best of you. Maybe you tried and failed. Maybe someone told you it was impossible. Maybe fear held you back. Soon, it became easier for you to just shift the blame for your lack of success on everyone else. They never taught you. They held you back. They won’t help. They, they, they… never YOU!

When you were a child, your parents may have mollycoddled you but once you turned eighteen, you gained certain legal rights granted to adults. You no longer needed a nanny, so it was no longer a question of who’s minding you . I’m going to clue you in on two important secrets which when you utilize them, will give you an incredible edge on your path to success. No gimmicks, nothing to buy. These two secrets are yours absolutely free. These two secrets will give you incredible power to achieve your goals in life. Are you excited yet? You should be, because these two secrets when used properly will change your entire life.

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THE FIRST SECRET

The ‘THEY’ that are holding ‘YOU’ back are very real, and they don’t want you to succeed. You don’t need to know who THEY are, just that THEY exist. THEY can include the liberal media which feeds you negative messages, questionable entertainment, and fake news. THEY can include the corrupt government officials behind the Deep State that inhabits the D.C. Swamp, which President Trump is fighting to drain. THEY can even include your family and friends, who messed up their own lives and need you to mess up yours too because misery loves company. THEY are real, and THEY want you to fail. Their goal in life is to control every aspect of your life by manipulating your thoughts with a steady stream of ‘garbage in, garbage out’ or G.I.G.O. And IF you lose all hope that things will improve by listening to their negativity, THEY WILL WIN!

Now you may be thinking ‘how does this first secret help me?’ Knowledge is power, and knowing is half the battle. If you think of SUCCESS as a ‘road’, and the THEY as ‘potholes’ in the road, by avoiding the ‘potholes’ you will move faster and easier down the ‘road of success’. Which brings us to the second secret.

“The size of your success is measures by the strength of your desire, the size of your dream, and how you handle disappointment along the way.” – Robert Kiyosaki

THE SECOND SECRET

The second secret is that the power THEY have over YOU is an illusion which YOU allow them to have. You do not have to give them that power. You don’t have to listen to their negativity. You don’t have to acknowledge their lies. YOU are stronger than THEY are. You have the power to be all that you can be! It’s very easy to play the blame game and blame everyone else for are failures. The reality is that we are responsible for the vast majority of the decisions we make in our lives. The GOOD ones, the BAD ones, and even the MONUMENTALLY STUPID ones. If you have the privilege of living in The United States of America, then you also have the freedom and opportunity to pursue your goals and achieve whatever level of success you choose. If you’re a failure, it’s because you chose not to be a success. At some point, you stopped listening to the possibilities YOU told yourself existed, and YOU listened to the lies and impossibilities THEY told you. When you quit, they won. You need to own that. And if you want to change that, you need to start TODAY. Winners never quit, and quitters never win. If you really want to be a success, you can never quit. More importantly than not quitting, you have to start. It doesn’t matter if you fail, try again, but don’t quit no matter what. THEY may call you crazy, obsessed, stupid, or out of touch with reality. What THEY say and think has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with them. YOU are capable of anything you choose to do. You just have to want it, and you have to work for it. Success does NOT happen overnight. It takes time and effort.

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“Obsessed is just a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated.”–Russell Warren

The future’s so bright, I gotta’ wear shades!

For the past two years, I’ve been sharing my knowledge and advice in order to help you achieve a happy and successful life. I can honestly say that my life has never been better, and it’s improving on a regular basis. I worked my way out of the poverty I was born into, listened to wise council, and avoided many pitfalls in life by examining the mistakes of others, and avoiding those errors. I wanted a better life. and I worked for everything I’ve achieved. I am a lifelong Republican, and have been a Christian since college. I live in a great country, and I have a great president. I started running a few months ago, ran my first 5K race in April, will be running my first 15K race today July 7th 2019, and in two months I will be running my first half-marathon. In May of this year, I purchased the Jeep I’ve wanted to own for the past decade. As a result, I now currently own THREE automobiles. If you don’t believe that success and happiness are within your power, let me assure you, it is possible, but it takes time, and YOU have to work for it. No one can do it for you. Success, or failure, it’s all up to YOU. As Always I wish you success and happiness!

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WHAT’S YOUR LEGACY?

Is the mark you make ‘spot on’?

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“To a father, when a child dies, the future dies; to a child when a parent dies, the past dies.”— Red Auerbach

Last weekend was Father’s Day in the USA. Honestly it’s not my thing. My father died when I was a young boy, and as yet I still have no children of my own. The commercial holiday to honor fathers and fatherhood is celebrated on the third Sunday in June. It was first celebrated in 1910, but not signed into law as a permanent observance until 1972 when 37th President Richard M. Nixon signed the bill into law.

One thing that irritates me to no end is when pet owners refer to their pets as their ‘babies’ or refer to themselves as ‘fur parents’. This form of self-delusion has been propitiated by various animal rights groups, environmentalist groups, and even pro-abortion groups as a way of discouraging child birth because the Earth is allegedly overpopulated by humans who are supposedly destroying the environment and killing ‘Mother Earth’. The Earth is NOT your Mother, and your pets are not your children. Pets can be valuable members of your family, and be loyal companions who display an unusually human level of behavior and intelligence from time to time, but they will never BE human. Humans are not evolved animals.

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We are all children of God, and by God I refer to the one true God, Jesus Christ, who created all of us in His image for His purpose. We were created to be fruitful and multiply. Children are a gift from God, and our children are a living legacy.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you’ll do things differently.” — Warren Buffett

The word LEGACY can mean either money or property that you receive from someone after they die, or something that is a part of your history or that remains from an earlier time. In other words your birthright that is passed on to you, which you in turn will pass on to another after you have departed this mortal coil. Property is not just material goods, either but can also refer to intellectual property. When you write a book, paint a painting, film a movie, or teach a course you are passing on knowledge and inspiration to others. In the past, you really needed to shine bright to leave a mark in the history books and be remembered. Unless we are extraordinary leaders of men, every single one of us is about fifty years from being forgotten. When the last person who knew us passes on, we too are forgotten.

The higher you are held in regard, the further your impact will go, which is why your reputation is paramount. If you have a reputation for honesty and integrity, people will more readily believe you and follow your lead. Your enemies will do everything in their power to trash your reputation, but the truth will always be true no matter how many lies are told about it.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. – Proverbs 22:6 King James Version (KJV)

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In today’s digital world, nothing is forgotten, but the amount of information being generated is staggering. Information can become buried and lost virtually forever until someone uncovers and shares it. As data ‘facts’ and fake news are spread like wild-fire in nanoseconds around the globe, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. The important thing to keep in mind on is that both sides playing the game of kings for global domination want to influence you and sway you to their side. This is why fathers, and husbands, and the traditional family unit have been constantly being assaulted by the left. When you destroy the family unit, you can reshape society into any insane caricature you can dream up. This is why Christianity and Jesus and the Bible are all despised by the left, and all haters of truth. This is why President Donald J. Trump is constantly being slandered by the liberal media. Both parents (and fathers especially) play an important part in preparing the next generation and preventing them from engaging in stupid and self-destructive actions. Turning 18 may legally grant you certain rights held by adults, but it does not make you an adult. The next generation is the future, and freedom is always one generation away from extinction. If you love your children, teach your children well. As always, I wish you success and happiness!

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CONQUER THE WORLD!

Ask me how…

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. – Dale Carnegie

The world is made up of two types of people. Those who talk about doing things, and those who go out and get those things done. According to a recent article printed in Business Insider about a third of Millennials think that they are worse off today than they were ten years ago. The question that really begs to be asked is what were these ‘eager young space cadets’ doing over the past decade to improve their lives? The overwhelming response was nothing. They stayed in the same dead-end jobs for fear of finding a better job. They didn’t invest in the stock market for fear of losing money. They didn’t save because they had just enough to make ends meet, and they feared they wouldn’t be able to. The end result of doing nothing is nothing. Nothing happens unless someone makes it happen. You will never be able to conquer the world until you learn to conquer your irrational fears.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear. –Dale Carnegie

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self. – Napoleon Hill

Many times, we are held back by bad habits. Laziness is chief among all bad habits. We put off for tomorrow what could be done today because we ‘don’t feel like it’ or we ‘don’t have time’ or we have ‘something better to do.’ Motivation can be difficult when we don’t see immediate results, but all things take time, and Rome wasn’t built in a day. This goes for all bad habits from poor eating habits to addictions to failure to exercise regularly. If you start something, keep at it until the task has been accomplished. Never give up. Focus on doing what you can, and then going one better.

“Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” ― William Faulkner

If you believe that something is impossible, and you don’t attempt it, you will never know if it could have been accomplished. Trying once and failing is not an indication of impossibility, it’s just an indication of inexperience and lack of knowledge. No one was ever an expert the first time they did something, and if they happened to do it perfectly that first time, it was dumb luck. You’re an expert when you can consistently deliver the same results, and that takes time and practice.

Energy and persistence conquer all things. – Benjamin Franklin

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. –Jeremiah 29:11

Make plans! If you fail to plan you plan to fail! You need to know where you are, where you want to be, and have the steps to get there. You need to know what direction to go, what tools you’ll need to accomplish your goal. It’s not going to happen overnight, but it won’t happen at all unless you take to proper measures beforehand. Spontaneity is great when you’re stuck and need to think of something to get you back on course, but it’s a terrible way to live your life. All successful people take notes, make plans, and work from paper. Again, if you do nothing, nothing will happen. You got this! You just have to believe in the possible.

I believe that in the end the truth will conquer. –John Wycliffe

As you continue moving on towards accomplishing you goals, You’ll encounter a lot of fake news and negativity. You need to cut the dead-weight that’s holding you back. Unhappy, unsuccessful people will be jealous of your attempts to better yourself. Success is the best revenge. There are many people you will meet throughout your life who will never accomplish half the things you do, and they will try to make you feel bad about yourself by calling you greedy or selfish. What they think of you says more about them then it does about you. Your success does not doom them to failure. They doomed themselves to failure by doing nothing and just want you to feel sorry for their poor life choices. You can’t help them, they are the only ones who can help themselves, and they don’t want to for whatever reason. If you have access to the internet, you have access to the sum total of human knowledge. Ignorance is a choice, knowledge is power, and the truth will vanquish any lie in time. Stay focused on your goals and they will become your accomplishments. You got this, and no one can take that away from you! If you can conceive it, and you can believe it, you can achieve it! As always I wish you success and happiness!

Slaying the Dragon

Why tariffs are really good.

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“This bill is an American bill. It is made for the American people and for American interests.” –President William McKinley referring to his Tariff Act of 1890.

The Rise of the Red Dragon.

Just as the symbolic bald eagle represents the United States, the Chinese dragon has long represented China. In Chinese culture, the color red symbolizes luck, happiness and joy. Unfortunately about the middle of the 20th century, red took on another meaning when referring to China, the red of communism. Mao Zedong declared the founding of The People’s Republic of China on October 1st, 1949 following the defeat of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who fled to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War. Taiwan became a new republic much like the ill fated Republic of Formosa which occupied Taiwan for a mere five months in 1895 before being crushed by mainland China. Taiwan fared much better and continues to exist to this day as it’s own country, but both Taiwan (The Republic of China) and Mainland ‘Red’ China (The People’s Republic of China) each claim that they are the ‘real’ and ‘only’ China. This led to the One-China Policy which was first stated in the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972: The wording declares that “the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States does not challenge that position.” It was a diplomatic solution to a complicated mess. Mainland or communist China is by size the 4th largest country by area, and the largest by population. It was then, and continues to be today, a major port of trade.

There has been a significant imbalance in trade with China for decades, and the problem has been getting worse due to a lax attitude from prior administrations. Since the population of China has exceeded a billion people for more than 40 years, many leftist politicians and even some conservatives felt there was no stopping the production powerhouse of the Red Dragon.

So far in 2019, as of the first trimester ending April 30th, the trade deficit was $106.8 billion. Assuming the same rate for the remaining 8 months of the year, that would amount to a projected imbalance of $320.4 billion. That would place it slightly higher than it was in 2012, the first year it exceeded $300 billion and came in at $315.1 billion. Both numbers are small in comparison to last year’s whopping trade deficit of $419.5 billion in 2018!

Killing Jobs to feed ‘The Red Dragon’!

The terms socialism and communism are interrelated and often interchangeable. There are a few minor differences. In communism, the people own the factories and work together for the public good. Everyone is paid the same. In socialism the government owns the factories, and the people work for the state, which decides what you are paid. Both systems lead to widespread poverty. Both systems are incompatible with capitalism which creates wealth, freedom, and opportunity.

Because the citizens of China are being paid a slave wage, goods produced there cost significantly less. If the cost of importing cheaper foreign goods is less than the cost of producing goods domestically, then there is no demand for domestic goods, and the domestic jobs ‘go away’. Why would any company pay a U.S. citizen $30 an hour or more, when they can open a plant in a foreign country, pay foreign workers a fraction of their domestic counterparts, and then import the cheaply produced goods. Hence the needs for tariffs.

“In almost every case, whenever a tariff or quota is imposed on imports, that tax is strongly supported by the domestic industry getting the protective shield from lower-priced foreign competition. The sugar industry supports sugar tariffs; textile mills lobby for tariffs on foreign clothing.” – Stephen Moore, American economist

Feed Americans, starve the Dragon!

Tariffs are a tax on imported goods to make them on a level playing field. If both items cost exactly the same, it becomes a matter of quality. If the quality is also equal, then it falls to the whim of the consumer. When an ‘excessive’ tariff is placed on a foreign good, it is referred to as protectionism, because the domestic good becomes the only inexpensive option, and the domestic industry is thus protected by the government.

A good rule of thumb when dealing with comparable quality and cost is to always buy domestic. A better position for the good of the nation is to ALWAYS buy the domestic option, despite the cost, because the job you are saving belongs to a fellow citizen. ‘Be American , buy American’ is still a catchy slogan embraced by patriots looking to ‘Make America Great Again’. Tariffs are totally unnecessary if citizens flat out refuse to buy any foreign made good.

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Trump the Dragon slayer!

President Donald J. Trump is working day and night to defend our nation from ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. His economic stance has been to bring back industry to the USA, reversing the job losses creating by sending production overseas. Tariffs are one tool in his arsenal, and rest assured, he has the best interests of the nation at heart. Don’t listen to the garbage spewed by the liberal media as they attempt to sway you against this great patriot and all he’s doing. It takes a tough man to stand up for national interests. If you don’t support putting American interests first, then you are not a true American. We are privileged to live in the greatest country the world has ever know, and freedom and opportunities are endless for those who are willing to seize the day and work for their prosperity. The bottom line is, if you are against American exceptionalism, there are plenty of other counties where you can ‘hang your hat’. Nothing is keeping you here. America– love it, or leave it! As always, I wish you success and happiness!

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