Asa Jay's weblog

Let’s play a game.

I’m a man, a human who has a family and works hard to provide for them.  Let’s say I’m a farmer and I raise chickens.  Let’s say that a fox keeps getting a chicken from the barnyard every so often.  It really irritates me that a chicken is being stolen from my barnyard; it’s reducing my family income, maybe even preventing the meat from making it to the table.  What to do?

Well, being a good farmer, I set a trap.  I got that pesky fox and turned it over to wildlife management who took it away.  I didn’t lose a chicken for weeks.  Then one day I started losing chickens again, this time to a different fox.  Well, I caught that one and called wildlife management again and they took it.  This went on for a couple more foxes and then I got a notice from wildlife management.  They just passed a new law and I had to surrender a chicken to them every week and it would be used to cut down the number of foxes.

Sure enough, the foxes stopped coming around for a long time.  Then a new fox showed up.  Wildlife management changed the law and now required two chickens.  After a while they demanded more chickens even though no more foxes came around.  Soon, I found wildlife management was feeding my chickens to the foxes.  The foxes knew where to go to get free chickens without the bother of my farm and it’s traps.  That explained why I hardly saw anymore foxes.  I was appalled.

Wildlife management had passed a law to take my chickens and feed them to the foxes I had been trying to -prevent- eating my chickens.  I was outraged; how dare they -take- my chickens to feed the foxes I didn’t want eating my chickens.  How dare they take food off my table to feed the scourge plaguing my farm.

Let’s change that story: Read the rest of this entry »

If I were elected President of the United States of America, I pledge to lobby for the enforcement of current immigration laws and further, to reduce immigration until the living wage has recovered.

If every  20 years Congress grants amnesty to illegals, it only gives illegals more encouragement to break our laws and take advantage of handouts by coming here unlawfully.  I wouldn’t expect a seek and remove plan, but rather an enforcement of basic laws we already have.

I would hold departments such as the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration and Federal Welfare programs accountable; no more granting Taxpayer Identification Numbers to illegals, no more free food, no more free health care, no more free money, period.  It’s not a matter of them paying taxes, contributing to our economy or not, it’s a matter of them being here illegally; breaking our laws.  In these cases, the Federal government should provide an easy and fast method to repatriate illegals to their country of origin.

Ann Coulter recently wrote how the influx of illegals is what keeps our minimum wage low.  I think she’s right, it would appear the historical context bears that out; she makes a good argument.  As she points out, other countries with higher minimum wages also enjoy extremely strict immigration; you can’t just waltz into their country and ask for a job, or a handout.  Why can you do that here? Read the rest of this entry »

If I were elected President of the United States of America, I pledge to carry a fiream, full time.

I will illustrate and exercise the right all American’s should have; to reasonably carry a firearm either openly or concealed as they wish.  I will continue to put trust in the Secret Service for my personal protection as it can be managed by them.  However, my position on carry will be to illustrate to the nation it is a Constitutionally protected right to bear arms.  The message I want to send to the nation is that carrying a gun is not something to be afraid of nor should it be compulsory; however, it should be respected.  Just as one person might like working at the local Humane Society shelter for animals and another would rather adopt babies from overseas, the idea of carrying firearms as a sign of loyalty to the Constitution and the people of the United States of America should be met with equal respect.

I will not consider or entertain any reductions to present law with respect to types of firearms, magazine capacities, styling accoutrements or eligibility for ownership.  I will encourage the gun industry to be responsible in it’s offerings; to be self-regulating and provide safe education, training and assistance to the public and individual citizens.  I would expect police departments to enforce the laws we have; taking pains to both educate individuals and take reasonable steps to incarcerate those who break the law.  I would ask they approach individuals with reasonable care; without heavy- handed thuggery.  The more we can educate the individual to take responsibility for themselves and to have respect for others, the less problem guns will be.  I should also point out it should not be a respect of “power” or “intimidation” just because someone carries a gun; it should be respect for someone who is willing to defend the Constitution, a respect for someone willing to defend fellow citizens and individuals, a respect that others may be willing to do what they can within the limits of the law before the police can be there.

Do we have a criminal problem with respect to guns?  Yes, and we already have laws designed to address that.  Short of assigning one police officer to every citizen, there is no way to ensure total safety from guns for any individual.  Even in the case of being able to assign one police officer to every citizen, police officers too are sometimes swayed by evil.  Many would say the only solution is to remove all guns from society.  But the United States of America is -not- an isolated society.  When guns are removed from the citizens here, evil men in other countries will still have guns; they will find ways to bring their guns here and exact the evil of men upon us.  Guns aren’t the problem, evil is.

Look at the evil found in the heart of the Nazis who systematically disarmed and exterminated millions of people, mostly targeting Jews.  I find it a shame we no longer seem to educate young people about this travesty of history, reminding them of the inhumanity and encouraging them to uphold human dignity and values; to believe in protecting human life.  The young of this nation need to see the photos, they need to see the films, they need to understand the pain of those who survived.  The evil most in this country see today and wish to thrust upon the stage of gun control debate takes place close to home; we -must- change the school protection paradigm. Read the rest of this entry »

If I were elected President of the United States of America, I pledge to stop taking Air Force One on vacation.  Heck, for that matter, maybe even stop taking vacations for the four year term.

Yes, it’s nice to get away but I’m not from Washington D.C. and being there for four years would be like taking a vacation away from where I normally live.  Yes, I’d be working hard in the White House doing the people’s business but when it came time to take a break (if I even decided to take a break), I’m sure there are plenty of sights to see and places to go within a hundred miles of the White House that would be great to visit.  And more to the point, places that wouldn’t require administrative resources greater than the military of a third world country just to take a few days off.  What about all those people, the individuals who don’t get vacations?  How must they feel when they see the President traipse off on vacation traveling like a king?  Where’s the honest representation in that?

Why take Air Force One and it’s huge entourage of security and media to Hawaii?  What a waste of taxpayer money.  Add to that our current chief executive traveling separately from his wife and the price doubles; why travel separately from your wife?  How many vacations to Hawaii do you need?  How many golf adventures do you need?  This President claims he was elected with a mandate.  Well if that’s the case why isn’t he spending more time in the White House and less time on the Greens?  If I were President, I don’t really care if everyone else in the office thinks we should take a far away vacation… we’re not going to do it.  Besides, there will probably be enough work to keep me busy that I won’t even -go- on vacation for that four years.  Add to that, I don’t play golf.  Have you ever noticed that major catastrophes always seem to happen when the President is away?  Let’s not temp that fate, there will be enough to do as it is.  We’ll use Air Force One for proper diplomatic overseas trips as necessary, but domestic travel among the 50 states will be severely cut back.

That pledge extends to no campaigning for anyone, not the President for a second term, not for congress people, not for state or local elections.  Using Air Force One to campaign for yourself or other people is an abuse of power; it’s taking tax dollars from the citizens and endorsing candidates the citizens might not even want.  If I want to campaign for someone it will be with simple verbal support, not with legions of administrators, Secret Service and military personnel climbing aboard Air Force One to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to encourage people to vote for someone they might not even care about.  It’s honestly up to those local people to understand the candidates best suited for them; it’s not up to the President to try and convince people because honestly the President doesn’t live there and can’t really speak to the unique needs of that community, so the President should stay out of local elections.

Save the taxpayers money, reduce the deficit.
Asa Jay for President

How do you have freedom of the press if the Federal administration is actively looking into how you do things in the newsroom?

Recently the FCC announced a Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs  saying that it wanted to understand the process of which stories are selected, station priorities, content production, populations served, perceived station bias and perceived percent of news dedicated to each of the “critical information needs” in a community.  It all sounds rather benign on the surface, they just want to make sure people are getting the news that is relevant to them.  However, it could set a dangerous precedent with regard to freedom of the press.  One would think it more practical to survey the people receiving the news, but not this administration.

Within the description above, who defines the “critical information needs” of a community?  In rural Kansas the critical needs might be weather, tornado and farm reports; while in downtown New York it might be the latest in gun control legislation, recently banned foods and stock prices.  From my knee-jerk perception of the present administration, it sounds to me like they will determine what the “needs” are, which creates a serious bias because the United States of America administration is based from Washington D.C., a defined non-state district nestled on the border between Maryland and Virginia; a veritable concrete and steel jungle of urbanization having priorities vastly different from about half the population, at least those living rurally.  This is really no more than a survey to find out if news organizations are reporting on the things the administration wants them to.  And what if news organizations aren’t?  What if the news outlets have different priorities than the administration? Read the rest of this entry »