Did Nick Say That?

I know many "team player" Republicans will always through out the word "free market" when it comes to economic issues. The theory, which made since before corporations, when everything was owned by individuals, is that the "free market" would sort it out. Meaning if you ran a bad business then people wouldn't use your business and you would then go out of business. On the flip side if you had the best products, service, etc. you would be successful because the "free market" would reward you. The problem is this hasn't been true for some time now. I think corporations were a big part of the decline of what a "free market" does for businesses. When its shareholders & board of directors and CEO's there isn't the same ownership of said businesses. There are loopholes, bankruptcies where they can clear their debt, corporate welfare laws and tax break "incentives" for corporations. None of those things existed ...

By Nick Babel The easy comparison made about Donald Trump is one to the infamous Adolph Hitler. While there certainly is some similarities, i.e. populist rhetoric, over the top goofy appearance, a better comparison can be made to the man that forced Germany into the Great War, WWI. That man was Kaiser Wilhelm II and he was a man whose inferiority complex led to millions of deaths. Kaiser Wilhelm has been historically described as “ Bombastic and impetuous, he sometimes made tactless pronouncements on sensitive topics without consulting his ministers.” Now there was no Twitter back in Wilhelm's day but this seems like an apt description for the current leader of the “free world” Donald Trump. Both Wilhelm and Trump suffer/suffered from a massive inferiority complex. For Wilhelm there were several factors for this complex. Wilhelm was born to parents Prince Frederick William of Prussia (the future Frederick III) and his wife, Victoria, Princess Royal, the eldes...

Well not physically growing anyways. I stopped doing that when I was like 15 or 16. Mentally and as a person though I think this past year has been the biggest growth year for me since I was maybe 25 or 26. I can say it has not been just one thing, one experience or one moment that has made this year a big change for me. I'm sure it's a combination of getting married, continuing to cope with the loss of my step daughter, trying to help my wife cope, helping a friend work on his life and turn it around, and working on trying to transition to a new career. I mentioned that the last time I felt this growth was when I was 25-26 years old. That is when I bought my house, moved in with my girlfriend (now wife), became a landlord, and went back to school for a class and used that class to get my first newspaper reporting job. That was a lot to do in a year or so span and I became a different person because of it. I feel like this is the first year span since then that I see simila...

Well it seems like this may be late in the day to be giving a definitive position about"Obamacare" or The Affordable Care Act but I think it's the perfect time. Unlike a lot of people I kept a fairly open mind about this piece of legislation. I did not rush to judgement and give Republican talking points or Democratic talking points about how bad or good it would be. Time has now passed and I think it's safe to say the world of healthcare has caught up with the legislation and it is how it is going to be with Obamacare. With that preamble out of the way I have to  say that Obamacare has been a disaster. It has given more people healthcare coverage but it has made healthcare coverage in general way worse. Premiums are more expensive, deductibles are outrageous, Co-pays are higher, any non-basic medicine or procedure is now challenged or not covered by the insurance companies. Before Obamacare millions more people didn't have insurance and you would think it wo...

Well it's that time of the every other year or so were I actually do a blog post. I'm not sure why I don't post here more? Maybe because I've been writing professionally now for so long that I don't like to write for free as much as I used to? Or maybe I just get burned out on writing or commentating on stuff? Probably a little bit of both. Life is funny, if you are a fairly functional human being you learn and you grow. I feel like with all of the big downs and big ups that I've personally been through over the last few years I'm a different person now then I was even 5 years ago. This is becoming evident in my professional life as well as personal. I will have some big news coming within the next 3-6 months hopefully that really could change my life for the better career-wise. If that doesn't pan out it's back to the drawing board and that has been a scary thought for me. I feel like I'm starting to be ok with that. I hate to fail, I even...

I have been thinking about posting for the last week but I've been having this internal battle in my head about what exactly I should discuss in my post. Do I want to get into a big discussion about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)? Not really. Do I want to do a whole blog post about the NSA/Snowden thing? Not really. Instead I've decided to touch on those subjects and a few others that I have been pondering. The ACA (Obamacare) has been the biggest thing in the news lately and I've listened to a lot of rhetoric from both sides on this. This is one of those issues where I can actually see both sides have relevant points and even though many of the people opposed to this are disingenuous in why they are opposed to it, some of the points they make are accurate. When I say disingenuous I mean that most of those people would bitch about anything that President Obama, or as they call him the black devil, put forth especially since it is his key piece of legislation as Pre...