John T. Reed’s news blog

The amount of money amassed by Bill and Hillary, a couple who have had virtually no association with the for-profit portion of the world economy, is obviously influence peddling. The money came to them in the form of both excessive speaking fees and in the form of contributions to the Clinton Foundation.The speeches they made can be appraised. The comps would be speeches made by other similarly situated persons—former presidents, former secretaries of state, former Senators. It is possible that the Clintons made a market-value speech somewhere along the line—where they got paid a cut of the take—but I doubt...

The Constitutional process for becoming president is fatally flawed and must be changed. I am finishing a novel where the selection process was almost absent. It causes interesting consequences: http://johntreed.com/products/the-unelected-president-novel?variant=7088367555 Get the parties out of the presidential selection process Get the two major parties out of it. At present, each of those private organizations is guaranteed a place on every state ballot. Get all parties out of it. There should be no state or federal government anointing of private parties on an official government ballot. March-Madness-type tournament We should have a non-partisan, March-Madness-type tournament. The first election will have blank ballots. All voters write in...

A reader wanted to know how my fictional Unelected President “Mike Medlock” would handled the Russian buzzing of US Navy ships. He would give every topside sailor in the Navy a laser pointer.“President Medlock” does not hesitate to use maximum super power force when appropriate, but he prefers to use the cheapest, cleverest, lowest casualties on both sides, finesse means to eliminate enemy capability to hurt Americans whenever possible. And he does.He’s trying to get the US military out of the mindset that every military situation requires a billion-dollar, macho firepower response. For example, can you wipe out 48% of...

After age 50 or so, most medical plans in America have men get a PSA blood test. If your score is below 4.0 in your 60s, you probably do not have prostate cancer. If it’s above 4.0, maybe you do. It’s a maddeningly inaccurate test for the purpose of determining whether you have prostate cancer. Other conditions and some activities like sex and bicycle riding can raise PSA scores. Canada and some other medical plans stopped giving the test routinely. My score started to go above 4.0 some years, then back down, then back up. Here is a quote from...

Presidential candidates say and promise a ton of things. No president in the 20th century really affected the nation much except Hoover and FDR. No doubt some who were not alive during Hoover/FDR will say Reagan won the Cold War. Not really. It would have ended around the same time even if he had never been president. It actually ended after he left office. Plus winning the Cold War was a lot easier than winning the hot one—World War II—which FDR did. The two major events of the 20th century The two major events of the 20th century were the Great Depression...