Georgia Patriot Files

Last week I wrote concerning on a “listening session” I attended, one organized by the Forsyth County Department of Planning and Development.  At that meeting I learned that Forsyth County plans to assume veto power over what buyers, builders, private developers and HOA’s all agree is acceptable and desirable in zoning categories RES2, 3 and 4. The county plans to create a set of mandatory residential design standards for the entire county and impose them on new developments.  After the article published, I received some noteworthy comments, which I would like to address below. One county commissioner responded,  “it’s what citizens and the Coalition have been demanding for years…This was THE topic most citizens demanded.”   That may be true; but an overwhelming majority of 200,000 Forsyth citizens were never polled about the government takeover, as if polling would matter anyway.  Presumably, the county could hold meetings on what restaurant owners shoul...

Last week a friend shared a link regarding a “listening session” afforded by the Forsyth County Government to the people of our county.  Had I not seen that post, I would never have known about it.  The purpose of the meeting, as the notice described, was to receive public input regarding certain “residential design standards” to be implemented for new developments and homes constructed in RES2, RES3 and RES4 zoning categories across our county.  Being a builder, the notice stirred my interest and I scheduled to attend. When I arrived, there to greet me and fifteen or so others who somehow learned of the meeting, were two gracious, engaging strangers.   Although they were very nice gentlemen, frankly I thought it a little odd that people who don’t live around here would come out of their way, ostensibly to help us in our county to understand what our homes should look like, as if we are not equipped to make those calls ourselves.  But hey, I came to listen...

A few weeks ago, I read a FCN article entitled, “Commission to Pursue Grant for Mental Health.” When I read that headline, I was a little suspicious.  And now that I have had the chance to look at this program, unfortunately, my suspicions are confirmed. My antenna raised initially because some of the most destructive policies our state and local governments ever enact are forced upon them, and forced upon the citizens of their governing jurisdictions, because they “took the money,” but didn’t regard the fine print. This grant for mental health appears no exception.  But before I go there, let’s talk about a few other very destructive grant programs of the past. During the financial crisis that brought America and the world to its economic knees, state governments were strapped for cash.  Tax revenues failed to fund and operate state governments as they had in the past.  One area of deep concern was education.  Enter the US Department of Education wi...

If you follow my column, you know I write a lot about our money, maybe better described as, “currency.”  I do that because factors concerning the control of currency bear an undue influence over many of our most important governmental decisions, even decisions to go to war.  But while the control of currency is fundamental to politics, this underlying consideration, which drives our major governmental policy-making, is likely the least understood of all.  Seems like everyone has an opinion on how much the government should spend on this or that; but very few even understand where the money it spends even comes from.  It’s as if people just think the dollars are out there and our job is to figure out the best thing to do with them.  Everyone talks about government spending.  But few talk about the more important question regarding how the government even comes by the currency it spends. Most Have No Idea Where Money Comes From A couple of years ago, ...

Last June, I published an article here entitled, “Trump Goes After the Fed—Attacks Trade Deficit.” In that article, I explained how the US Trade deficit has been funded not by any equitable arrangement, such as trading real value created in America for value from other countries, but by the petrodollar system. And since 1976 when the petrodollar began in earnest, the private banks of the Federal Reserve System have been able to print dollars with impunity, loaning them into the American economy, where Americans have borrowed them only to send them overseas to import goods produced cheaper than we can produce them here at home.  Since 1976, there have always been more dollars leaving America to import goods, than returning to buy our exports.  Consequently, American jobs have gone with the dollars to other countries. The measure of the difference between the dollars leaving and the dollars returning is the “US trade deficit.” 1976 was a hinge point world trade history....

This week, no politics.  This week I want to give a public shout out to our area law enforcement personnel, and everyone who made a difference for the grieving family and loved ones of a recently departed veteran, my father-in-law, Jim Campbell.  Allow me to tell you a little about Jim.  He was born in 1928, the son of a World War I Army officer.  The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred one month after Jim turned thirteen.  And for the next four years, Jim yearned for news from the front lines.  He wanted to be there, but was too young. After turning 17, having recently graduated high school, and with his dad’s blessing and signature, Jim enlisted in the Army.  Hitler was defeated.  The bombs had already fallen on Japan. So Jim ended up shipping to Korea, where he would be assigned the job of general’s aid, essentially shuffling papers.  But Jim wanted to be in the action, should there be any, and requested a transfer to the 38th parallel, wher...

The absurdity is practically overwhelming.  They obviously think, or at least hope, that you are stupid.  They hope that either you do not have the brain God gave a grasshopper, or that you deliberately choose to be stupid and ignore the obvious. Now if you read the Good Book, it tells us that there really are folks among us who choose to be stupid, choose not to see what is perfectly obvious to others.  It tells us that if people don’t want to see the truth, God will not allow them to see it, kind of a “spiritual” thing.  But the Bible also tells us that to see the truth, all we have to do is ask.  That’s fair.  Remember? Knock and the door shall be opened?  Seek and we shall find? But if we don’t knock with an open heart, if we truly do not want to know the truth, God, Who knows our hearts, will allow us to live in ignorance, and out of our own free will.  And to people who see the obvious truth all around us, we just appear stupid, althou...

Last week congress passed a two-year, bipartisan budget deal.  Now if the calculations are correct, this budget will add $300 billion in additional federal spending, unmatched by revenues.  That means the national debt will continue to accelerate, ironically, while majorities of “fiscal conservative” Republicans populate both houses. Now am I the only one who just doesn’t care anymore?  I have been hearing that the national debt is unsustainable since Reagan ran for office…the first time.  I recall the same political points being scored, each side against the other, when Reagan’s national debt approached…drumroll…one trillion dollars.   And so, except for use in academia, or maybe political theater, it’s almost like the US national debt, now over $20 trillion, just really doesn’t matter.  I mean, what’s in a number?  I ask because, whatever the national debt might be at any particular moment is just a number on a computer screen.  That’s all i...

For several years now, I have described the parties actually running the US Government in terms my parents would never have recognized.  Expressions such as, “criminal,” “world class criminal,” or “world class liars,” have almost seem too tame to describe the kinds of behaviors I have studied these people to be involved in.  For a long time, people, friends and family alike, thought I was at least over-the-top in my assessments.  I have been called the usual, “conspiracy theorist.”  And I remember one relative wrote, “If you are looking for it on the Internet, you’ll find it.”  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I would hear about the black helicopters that are surely on the way to get me.  Oh yes, I remember it all. But that’s okay.  I don’t hold it against anyone.  After all, we have a right to expect that our government has not turned over to the dark side.  We have a right to expect that the people we vote into office have our best interests at hear...

One of my favorite sayings, applicable to President Trump, is one that comes from Christian apologist, Ravi Zacharias.  According to Zacharias, anyone who truly desires to make a difference must first, “enter the arena of need.”  In other words, one cannot stand on the outside criticizing and expect anything to change.  One must go inside and deal with those who need to understand a better path from that which they have chosen in the past.  One can accomplish that purpose only from inside their house.  And that is where President Trump goes.  Consequently, Trump continues being heard by those who need to hear him and is making a difference for America and the world.  Let’s look at how Trump enters the arena of need. Remember, shortly after taking office, Trump began planning his first trip abroad.  Interestingly, that visit, which took place last May, was not to visit America’s traditional allies in Europe.  Instead, Trump entered a greater a...

Does the government need to spy on you, to protect you?  Are you a threat to yourself? To your neighbors?  Are you a threat to the security of the American people?  Your 7th and 9th District US Representatives, Rob Woodall and Doug Collins, believe that you are.  I say that because both voted for HR 4861, the Intelligence Authorization Act for 2015 .  Although the IAA is reauthorized each year, certain requirements from previous years remain in effect, essentially forever, unless repealed or modified. Woodall and Collins OK Spying on Americans One such set of requirements, still in effect today, can be found in Section 309 of that bill, one entitled, “Procedures for the Retention of Incidentally Acquired Communications.”  Those procedures are now carved permanently into the “Intelligence Community Legal Reference Book,” a handbook of guidelines for the intelligence community to spy on people.  The law for which Representatives Woodall and Collins...

The prospect of ending Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, and deporting an entire class of inhabitants who have never known a home beyond America, is a no-win stance, politically, for Republicans and conservatives, and a no-win proposition for President Trump, except as a tool of leverage on the much greater issue, the wall along the Southern border. The globalists’ plan, executed overwhelmingly by the Democrats, to render America to a state no greater than any other, depends upon open borders.  Over time open borders mean that the American culture, and the very meaning of America, its heritage and founding, would be lost.  Open borders would eventually result in the American culture becoming homogeneous with various non-American cultures who understand no such heritage and meaning.  When that occurs, federal government policies would tend to follow the transient opinions of the masses whose individual concerns for personal well-being overw...

On December 21st of last year, three days after congress passed President Trump’s tax cut package, the president signed a detailed executive order, one entitled, “ Executive Order Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption .”  We cannot read enough into Trump’s purposes in issuing this landmark set of instructions the mainstream media has ignored.  Something is up, friends.  Trump appears readying to drop the proverbial hammer. An entire host of players may be affected. According to the president’s order, “serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world” constitute an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.” For that reason, in his next paragraph President Trump declares a state of national emergency, giving him the necessary powers under law to deal with the threats he identifies in the order. Now the order does not specifically indicate w...