Balkanization and Dissolution

If United States Senator Jon Kyl (Republican, Arizona) is to be believed, he reports that he was told in a private meeting with President Barack Hussein Obama that there would be no serious effort at enforcing America's borders until comprehensive immigration reform is passed because any tightening of the borders would slow the impetus for what is to essentially become amnesty for illegal aliens. The President's spokesmouths subsequently deny the conversation with Kyl, who I trust more than Obama, and the gist of what Kyl said happened and what the President said, does indeed reflect the position on immigration that Obama has enunciated in the past. Simply put, Obama backs a form of amnesty with those who entered the country unlawfully being allowed to jump the line of those who have endured the arduous process of legal entry and perhaps atone for sneaking in by paying a "fine". Obama sees these interlopers as a large portion of the voting block for Democrats in the future. Obama even works to thwart Arizona's effort to protect her citizens from the criminal invasion by suing the state for its recently passed law to check the immigration status of those detained by Arizona police. Arizona has become one of the most violent areas in the country with Phoenix becoming America's kidnapping capital, second in the world in abductions only to Bogota, Colombia. More than street crime and manipulation of outcomes of future elections is at stake with increasingly wider parts of the US border region becoming no go areas to American citizens as human and drug traffickers take over. Coyotes, who smuggle in aliens, easily make their charges pay exorbitant sums, work their way out of debt they are told that they owe for being brought in through what is essentially servitude, and the coyotes have used those they lead across the border to smuggle narcotics, willingly or otherwise. Then there is the National Council of La Raza and similar brown pride organizations that wish to reunite the American Southwest with Mexico, urging that the territory won by the US in the Mexican-American War and gained through the Gadsden Purchase be liberated by Mexico. This Reconquista Movement has Marxist roots and unites certain Latin radicals and drug and human traffickers with the most unsavory anti-American elements now suggested by North Carolina US GOP Representative Sue Myrick to include the Iranian-proxy terrorist organization Hezbollah. While many illegal aliens are here only to take increasingly scarce US jobs and send substantial portions of what they earn here abroad, many make little effort to assimilate, familiarize themselves with the native tongue, and some commit identity theft, nuisance and road offenses and all too often aliens, drunk or drugged or not understanding road signs composed in our English language, cause carnage on our streets. The combined menace of costly minor infractions and life-taking crimes along with the darker implications of national division, common cause with terrorists and traffickers stealing across the porous boundary, and the ongoing drug war in Mexico are all compelling arguments not to wait for comprehensive immigration reform but to secure US borders now.

More General Bull

Sending Attorney General Eric Holder to Afghanistan to battle corruption is like calling on John Dillinger to guard a bank. Holder is one of the Obama administration's worst agents of lawlessness- thwarting enforcement of US immigration law and suing Arizona for attempting to do what the Federal government is abdicating. Holder has successfully suppressed the  investigation into Black Panther intimidation of voters at a Philadelphia polling station during the 2008 elections. And Holder's questionable ethics are nothing new with his history including coddling terrorists and forgiving corruption as were manifested in Holder recommending his former boss, then President Bill Clinton pardon Puerto Rican FALN terrorists who were subsequently released from US custody and advocating President Clinton extend the same "pardon" courtesy to oil magnate Marc Rich who had made a shambles of international efforts to isolate Saddam Hussein. More general thought regarding the future of four star failure Stanley McChrystal- perhaps the commander recently relieved from Afghanistan can take over for BP in the Gulf of Mexico. With such obvious public relations acumen and discretion as he demonstrated in the Rolling Stone piece and such logistical expertise as was shown in marshaling the billions of dollars in cash and resources sent to Afghanistan by the US and our allies to allow the resurgence of the nearly penniless Taliban, McChrystal might be the perfect face for the foundering oil giant. On the coming state of health care as the Federal government generally asserts more control- the one system already in the thrall of Federal control, the VA, just exposed eighteen hundred (1800) veterans to HIV and hepatitis at one of their hospitals in Missouri. All the while, President Obama's economic policies usher in a depression and generally the news is grim.

Cloak and Laptop

The cloak and dagger games of days of yore have seemingly been replaced by a spying somewhat more subtle but ultimately no less destructive. Eleven alleged agents of the Commonwealth of Independent States seem to be up to old Soviet-style games. But who would expect otherwise? Nations do not have "friends", only interests. No nation will ever love another polity, only fear it- which is a pretty compelling argument against turning wars into nation-building exercises as we see Team Obama now attempting in Afghanistan. Russia will always be Russia and the people of Afghanistan will never turn against their Muslim brothers to embrace we infidels. Sometimes you have to burn the village not to save it but to scare an enemy into compliance or submission, and Putin and Medvedev are not nice guys, but tough guys determined to advance their national interests as Obama is just too weak (or naive) to do.

Twist and Pervert

Sighs of relief could be heard around the United States yesterday as the Supreme Court upheld the plain language of the Second Amendment of our Constitution. This was heartening though not near as much as it would have been had it been unanimous. As it was, our right to keep a weapon in our own home for protection scraped by five to four (5-4) based on a case brought by plaintiffs in gun-free Chicago that because the gun banners have disarmed the honest citizenry has become one of the nation's murder capitals. This margin with Barack Hussein Obama, who himself regards the Constitution and laws of the land as currently defined as merely impediments to be overcome while implementing his agenda, is terrifying to lovers of liberty. Obama needs only one more sane member of the highest court to retire or expire, and he can set the stage for absolutist tyranny. I did not call his first appointee "Soviet Sotomayor" for nothing. America has been the sanctuary and storehouse of human liberty since her inception and this now rests on a razor's edge with the United States Supreme Court just one vote away from being transformed from guardian to enemy of freedom. Though slightly heartened that Chicagoans do enjoy the limited right to keep arms in their own homes (which is actually much less than the broader right originally intended), it is amazing four members of the Court did not recognize the Second Amendment's obvious intent. We find so many already on the Court willing to warp the meaning of our Constitution, and this sadly shows that implacable foes of freedom are near monopolizing power in the courts, legislative, and executive branches of the Federal government. Why else construe the Second Amendment as limiting rather than promoting rights? Why parse the language in such a way as to deny the right to keep a handgun for self-defense in one's own abode? These four clever justices including John Paul Stevens who is retiring so Obama will be the one to replace him with a similar leftist ideologue were well aware that all language is subject to construction and did not hesitate to manipulate the fundamental meaning advanced by the Founding Fathers to opposite of their clear intent, and if Elena Kagan and just one more Obama jurist join the remaining three activist judges, wave farewell to already fading freedom.

Professional Wrestling Officiating

The officiating at the World Cup has descended into farce with game outcomes on the world's central stage being influenced by corrupt or utterly incompetent referees. With technology readily available and being employed by many other sports, it is long past time that FIFA adopts some form of replay to prevent travesties. When football (soccer) calls move beyond human fallibility and become mockery or raise questions whether the match has been bought (how could such blatant errors be made without a question of match fixing?), time has come to institute reform. Instant replay has been around for decades. Let easily correctable mistakes be addressed in a timely manner so that fans need never question victories on the pitch.

Bye Bye Byrdie

I simply could not resist. I have been taught not to speak ill of the dead so just let me point out that Senator Robert C. Byrd reflected the Big Government values of Washington D.C. more than the down home values of the state he represented. All across West Virginia, projects generated with funds from the Federal government bore his name and the Senator did indeed bring the pork to make many West Virginians government-dependent and strip their dignity, displacing industry and crowding out the private sector to make those who were willing and able to work hard involuntary dwellers of the dole. From his affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, to his support of the crippling Obama agenda, Senator Robert Byrd brought ignominy and harm to those whose interests he claimed to represent.

Internet Kill Switch

"Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act"- sometimes the most dangerous legislation is passed under the most innocuous name. This Act has just emerged from committee, passing on to deliberations before the full US Senate with bipartisan support led by Independent Joe Lieberman and joined by Maine's Susan Collins from the GOP and Democrat Tom Carper of Delaware. This bill would give the US President the power to shut down the world-wide web for one hundred and twenty days based on his arbitrary judgement of a threat (whose definition is left to the President's discretion) and then could be extended beyond that with Congressional approval. I would not have trusted George W. Bush who I held in much higher esteem than I regard the current President with such authority. Why should we entrust a leader, namely Obama, who seems insatiable in his lust for power, already grabbing the banking sector, automobile companies, and control of our healthcare, with the ability to shut down the medium most of us use to exercise our First Amendment free speech prerogatives on a whim?

Oil Soaked Hands

A group of environmentally-concerned do-gooders linked hands at beaches the world over including the beach at Pensacola, Florida to demand an end to all offshore oil drilling. What do these earth-loving sages expect their vehicles to run on- fairy dust and unicorn urine? Who knows- with the lunatic crowd controlling D.C. right now, this insanity might gain traction. After all, an elderly female crank who was sponsored if not commissioned to act by crossing the United States in a bus to demand campaign finance reform was a the public face if not the driving force that led to abominable McCain-Feingold being passed, and there was no natural constituency calling for such limits on spending in races and the speech that represents as there is with the Sierra Club/Green Peace hippies that refuse to grow up really pushing to end petroleum exploration in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico tragedy. This type of thinking could pass, putting the last nail in our economy and denying us the mobility that we have always enjoyed and needed considering the vast distances we and our freight have to contend with in America.

Son of Kenya

This column does not address where Barack Hussein Obama was (or was not) born but rather the direction that he is pushing the United States of America. One glaring facet of rule in Africa is endemic corruption- termed a continent of cleptocracy first I believe by George Will in one of his more cogent moments when he was not waxing poetic about baseball. The ruling elite on the Dark Continent have largely focused not on improving the lot of their citizenry but on enriching themselves and or their cronies just as Obama seems to have done with his patron George Soros who is benefiting tremendously from the Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe as he is the largest owner of the Brazilian oil conglomerate Petrobras after the Brazilian nation herself. At the same time that the Obama administration has placed an indefinite but at least scheduled to be six month moratorium on deep water off-shore drilling for the United States before the moratorium was stayed by a Federal judge, the Obama administration has given Petrobras a two billion US dollar grant for deep water exploration for oil off Brazil. On another front, African leaders have often made great show of their magnanimity while the vast majority of their own citizens continue to suffer. Barack Hussein Obama took his Kenyan mindset here again to the G-8 in Toronto, marshalling a great effort to commit the eight leading industrial nations to help mothers and children in the Third World for which Obama pretends his empathy (he could not care that much as his own half-brother still is forced to reside in a tiny hut in Kenya). But while we in America are in the second longest sustained economic crisis to the Great Depression, with infant mortality in my own home state of Tennessee recently termed dire, ranking amongst the five worst US states with a death rate ironically being compared to infant mortality in the developing world, Obama is spending more money that we as a nation do not have on a program that does not assist us at all (beyond the psychic feel-good notion of aiding those no more impoverished than we are becoming under Obama's mismanagement). Africa is not a mere geographic unit, but a mindset where Obama regards our Constitution and laws as an impediment to be overcome instead of enforced and respected as most previous Presidents have done except Nixon as the chief law enforcement officer in the country just as autocrats have always done, where one boosts himself and or his close circle instead of concerning himself with the welfare of his nation, and where the leader squanders resources we do not have on programs we do not need that yield us nothing and cost us much.

Hold Your Horses

Robin Roberts breathlessly introduced ABC's Good Morning America today with what she called a reporter on the scene of a "violent battle" between US Marines and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The reporter was indeed on hand at a firefight but it was nowhere near what could be termed a battle, just more hyperbolic pimping by the ignorant anti-war media. It was combat alright- a small unit action between a squad from the USMC and two groups of Taliban comprised of about five men each. The on-site journalist did not find himself at Tarawa or Khe Sanh but in a hysterically exaggerated skirmish and a minor one at that. I obviously have not seen the after action report but judging from the footage as was done with Signal Corps film going back since the portable movie camera accompanied American troops, here is what happened. A handful of hostiles opened fire from three directions and our forces easily repelled them with small arms fire including one forty millimeter round from an M203 mounted under an M4. US return fire largely suppressed the Taliban until an armored Humvee chased the enemy off with a few bursts of fire from an M240 7.62 millimeter turret-mounted machine gun. No artillery or air support was required in this almost non-event the media ignoramuses described as a "violent battle" as if there is some other kind. When my grandparents owned a liquor store in a bad neighborhood more rounds were flying in the nine armed robberies they fought off albeit sans grenade than in this hyped up new Iwo Jima. Get a grip you guys- combat by its nature is violence and thank God none of our personnel were injured in the little melee that ABC's correspondent happened to be on hand to record.

Time After Time

The United States kept hope alive by advancing to the elimination round of the football (soccer) World Cup in the waning minutes of stoppage time with a thrilling goal by star and team leader Landon Donovan. Stoppage time is a sort of overtime where play continues to make up for time lost due to injury or other causes during each forty-five (45) minute half, thereby extending the ninety minutes of official time for several minutes. It was desperation time for the American side, who due to a bizarre call taking a goal away that would have defeated Slovenia, needed the win to continue into the next round, and in backs against the wall time, our brilliance shone. On a much more serious note, as a nation, America seems to have its back against the wall in Afghanistan, not due to any lack of resources we can not contribute as a country, certainly not due to any dearth of courage on the part of our troops, but only attributable to an utterly corrupt administration in Afghanistan, the lack of resolve- that is the political will to win in Washington, and the most restrictive rules of engagement American forces have ever fought under emanating ultimately not from battlefield commanders but from their political masters in D.C. It is sudden death in Afghanistan with casualties skyrocketing and the American death toll mounting every day. If Barack Hussein Obama is not committed to permitting our troops to do everything necessary to protect themselves first and then gain victory in the conflict, he should withdraw them forthwith in an ordered way to safeguard themselves and take all indigenous Afghans who have helped us out as we exit as refugees and facilitate their entry into the United States to prevent Taliban retribution. Any other action would be criminal. And if a nation does not enter war with a defined goal of what victory constitutes and set the national course on the path to attain it, then every death on both sides simply becomes an act of willful murder. After all, what we embarked on after we were attacked on September 11, 2001 has much higher stakes than any soccer match.

No Serious Effort

Continuing on yesterday's theme of thwarting the world's terror states, I feel increasing alarm that no one is making a concerted thrust in this regard with the bulk of the globe either in sympathy with Iran and North Korea, in fear of them, or figuring some other nation or body will take charge, or simply letting events develop on their own course without rocking the slowly sinking boat. As far as the meek sanctions package that the United Nations Security Council passed, two of Iran's neighbors Turkey and Pakistan seem determined to ignore them with Pakistan just agreeing to a massive natural gas deal with Iran and Turkey under Erdogan's leadership increasingly standing in the Islamist camp. Iran apparently is still devoting enormous national resources to produce atomic weapons apace and improving her missile capacity to deliver them. Only Israel (which may actually be more isolated than Iran) stands in opposition as Israelis realize they are the first though by no means the only target in Iran's sights. There is a more unified front standing against North Korean excesses with South Korea joined by Japan and the tripwire US force still stationed in the DMZ. But make no mistake, the international community is divided even here with more than a good chance that Communist China will continue to back Pyongyang. So much of the world is gripped by the mentality of the appeaser even as North Korea fatally lashes out at the South's navy, the United States is reluctant to act, the world's democracies seem craven, the multilateral international bodies are so corrupted that they are loathe to confront a real extant axis of evil (which could also be said to include the military leaders of Burma). With most of the world willfully abdicating their security responsibility, which ironically makes war, indeed global conflict, much more likely, South Korea and Israel, which is now, incongruously, the one nation widely shunned and regarded as the pariah state, are left to fend for themselves.

Thwart Totalitarian Terror

South Korea has recently reported xenon, a radioactive gas and often a byproduct of work on nuclear weapons, emanating from the menacing North which also stands accused of sinking a South Korean warship without provocation and killing forty-six. North Korea is without a doubt one of the world's worst proliferators and purveyors of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Only Pakistan's A.Q. Khan has done as much to advance the nuclear extortion state as the North Koreans. Syria was allegedly using North Korean supplies, technical advisers, and expertise to construct her secret nuclear weapons program before Israel launched a covert attack. North Korea is the last Stalinist state, refusing to even let her citizens out of the prison nation to attend the World Cup soccer tournament in South Africa with Chinese fans being contracted to serve as proxies in that role, and I pity the North Korean coach and even the players who are at real peril of their lives after being defeated by Portugal seven nil (7-0) which the Dear Leader may avenge as a national humiliation at the literal ultimate cost to those who sought to valiantly represent the useless authoritarian state. If I were a member of the team or its staff, and South Africa or some other nation might permit, I would defect at the earliest possible opportunity although that would most likely mean that the players' families' lives are forfeit. Only Iran today can match North Korea in causing malignant mischief on the world stage.

Bob Bird's Bidding

(The following post is in no way a reference to West Virginia's Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan leader and lamentably still Senator after all these years.) I saw the pitiful video footage of an oil-soaked pelican bobbing up and down in the Gulf of Mexico, hopefully still alive, and if so, in dire need of rescue by the same species- man, that caused its distress. If any criminal liability is eventually adjudicated in this matter, perhaps the guilty party or parties can be sent to Pelican Bay, not the prison in California but someplace where the wildlife may avenge themselves by excoriating the negligent monster(s) that brought about this human and environmental catastrophe. But I have always thought it was a shame that Bambi could not return fire during hunting season. After all, is the weapon of choice then not called a deer rifle?

Tar and Feather

Evidently, reports were premature that BP CEO Tony Hayward had been removed from the Gulf of Mexico cleanup efforts. Hayward was merely taking a break and returning to his "normal life" which involved a race in the pristine waters off the Isle of Wight. So, when the going gets tough, the tone-deaf go yachting. Perhaps Mr. Hayward took that excursion because he could not find a baby seal hunt embarking over the weekend. I tend not to play the boycott game, although since the rise of Chavez in Venezuela, I have not purchased a drop of Citgo gas. Until BP makes headway in containing the disaster they and their subcontractors created and until this buffoon with a nice accent resigns or is removed, I will avoid BP pumps like the plague.

Shakedown and Shakeup

Maybe the twenty billion dollars committed by BP to repair the damage BP caused in the Gulf of Mexico came because of a form of government extortion, but few corporations have ever been so cavalier (gravely irresponsible) in their conduct and lives have been lost. The CEO of BP Tony Hayward had become that company's public face in the crisis and had performed miserably with one statement regarding getting his "life back" increasing hostility to the company beyond measure and BP itself has just removed him from managing the crisis. I am not endorsing government strong arming business, but if there was ever a case where government should, this was it. If any were to question whether the government had the legal authority, I have no doubt the Congress would pass a law to be applied retroactively (which is inherently unfair) and that the courts would uphold it (though this is unjust). Any suggestion that Congressional hearings were like a Stalinist show trial are ridiculous. Congress is conducting show trials all right but no one is being executed at the conclusion which was the virtually inevitable outcome in the former Soviet Union when Stalin targeted someone. Tony Hayward was replaced, not taken out and shot.

Better Left Unsaid

I have decent political instincts and am a fair barometer of voter thinking and can tell the gentle reader without a Pew or Gallup poll that Texas Congressman Joe Barton has just given sinking Democrats a lifeline- a gift from God. When Rush Limbaugh answered Michael J. Fox who had interjected himself into campaigns for the US Senate for Ben Cardin in Maryland against Michael Steele and in Missouri for Claire McCaskill, I knew he had made a mistake that would be turned into Limbaugh attacks invalid and advance the Democrat campaigns. Ultimately, both Democrats won and I believe in no small part because Rush had made himself the villain. Sometimes, the less said, the better and I can not conceive of how Joe Barton's apology to BP will be anything but fodder for Democrat commercials for the November campaign. It portrays the GOP in the worst light- as corporate shills, even though, in reality, Democrats are every bit the proponents of despicable corporate welfare as Republicans ever were. As regular readers here may note, I disdain the dole dwellers who parasite hard-working Americans by living off America's welfare roles. Well, I equally despise (or actually hate more) corporate welfare seekers who drain municipal, state, and Federal treasuries more than the poor ever did by many magnitudes over. George Will termed these corporate actions "rent seeking" where a company tries to gain a subsidy, competitive advantage, or put a competitor at a disadvantage through the actions of government. And now Joe Barton, through one statement that need never have been uttered, has made himself and by extension the entire Republican Party the poster boy for rent seeking. Apologize to a rogue foreign-domiciled company that has been cited by US government regulators almost one hundred times more than its nearest competitor 760 to 8 over the past decade. BP who has experienced more worker deaths in this well tragedy and a refinery explosion in Texas than all its competitors in the oil industry put together in the last three years. Apologize to the corporation whose leaders say they "can not wait to get back to their normal life" and that we are "small people". Nuts to you BP and to Congressman Barton for apologizing to you.

Spent Into Oblivion

First Greece, now Spain, the socialist enterprise, the cradle to grave welfare state is collapsing under the weight of its own excesses. Greece had purportedly been bailed out but just had her credit status downgraded to that of junk bonds. And it seems now that Spain is sure to follow. But the lesson is lost on America's political class that has just seen the lemmings tumble over the ridge but still seems determined to follow. Why in God's name do the Democrats currently in control in Washington not take the lesson that is being offered that the inevitable consequence of limitless government spending is national financial death?

Whiff of Sandal

The good and decent people of Gaza have emerged as the focus of the world's concern while the oppressor state Israel is made the object of scorn. The generous rulers of Gaza, Hamas, have just issued an offer of a stipend and a Palestinian wife for the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George W. Bush when as President, Bush visited Iraq. Great humanitarian gestures by Hamas like this and their constant willingness to share their rockets with Israel show the world's moral compass is directing the perfect path. Why, couple the benefactors of Palestine with the charitable nature of the Arab and wider Muslim world where people danced in the streets and handed out candy to celebrate the September 11 attacks, and one can see the powers of the globe must crack down and pressure those pluralistic, tolerant Israelis. Anything else just would not be right.

The Gaza Retort

George Alagiah presented a BBC report this morning on the Gaza blockade maintained by Israel. Long-term IDF hostage Gilad Shalit, who has just entered his fourth year of captivity, was mentioned and termed a "prisoner of war" in the story. Shalit has never even been allowed a Red Cross visit as is customary with POWs. In contrast, Hamas terrorists held in Israeli custody receive such visits by the representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross as manifested by the Red Crescent and often even family visits. Israel's closed border was scrutinized by BBC but not a single mention was made that Gaza has another international border- with Egypt and that Egypt has also found it in her interests to often maintain a Gaza blockade, because Gaza is controlled by a dangerous terrorist organization Hamas that not only rejects Israel's right to exist but threatens Egypt's government with overthrow by Islamic fundamentalists as are embodied in the illegal Muslim Brotherhood. Why is international pressure only exerted on Israel to ease conditions on those who would commit genocide on Jews in Gaza? Why do Hamas's Muslim coreligionists in Egypt merit a pass?

Hit or Mess

The Obama administration has faltered just as poorly on the Gulf of Mexico disaster, even more badly in fact, than the last Bush administration did in handling Hurricane Katrina. But unlike the Bush team which simply tried to manage a deadly, destructive act of God, Team Obama has bungled a negligent act of man but is determined to make political hay through the tragedy. When Barack Hussein Obama speaks tonight, expect him to make some more "the buck stops here" noises while deflecting blame back to the oil industry, but more importantly, look for him to use the crisis to advance terminal regulation against petroleum that will cripple domestic drilling, add to already epic unemployment in the beleaguered Gulf states, still rebuilding from Katrina even before this, and to exploit the BP spill further by using it to advance the formerly moribund cap and trade scheme. After all, was it not Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's own Chief of Staff who said "never let a good crisis go to waste"?

Europe Meets W

Leftist ankle-biters of Europe had no affection for America's George W. Bush. They saw Bush as a hyper-nationalistic cowboy. Now Europe can greet a couple of "W"s of their own. With the rise of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Bart De Wever in Belgium, Europe has to contend with two Flemish-speaking patriots, aware of and against the rapid Islamization, steadfast against crime and corruption, and determined to end their welfare states. These leaders are unashamedly nationalistic as was Bush, with De Wever accused by Belgium's French-speaking weaklings of jingo because he wishes to have the Flemish heartland stop carrying the sordid South. Both De Wevers and Wilders recognize that the immigrant horde comes to suck off the teat of the welfare state with antagonism instead of appreciation and any attempt at assimilation. Wilders and De Wever are not the rightist fringe, but like George W. Bush reflect the heart of the hard-working, law-abiding citizenry. The world would be a better place with more "W"s and less socialist crybabies.

The World's Game

The only team sport I participated in back in high school was soccer. At the time, in the early eighties, it was not recognized as a team sport by the Nashville Interscholastic League which was the predecessor organization in my hometown to the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association. It was considered a club sport and I was not eligible to letter. Our coach was a young female teacher Barbara Couch who taught me Spanish 1 and 2 and had the team scrimmage against Vanderbilt University's woman's soccer club. I watched the first game for the United States yesterday as we contested football powerhouse Great Britain. Once again in an international match, England's top player Wayne Rooney fizzled, showing more of his temper than his ball skills. The British side's manager made a rather mystifying decision to start a goalkeeper inexperienced in international matches and it came back to haunt the Brits as Robert Green had evidently stopped the progress of Clint Dempsey's long almost desperation try which would have been a routine save for an American high schooler and inexplicably allowed the ball to trickle through. I am in no way a soccer fanatic but the patriot in me would watch the US challenge our former colonial masters or the rivals from the former Soviet Union even at tiddlywinks. Britain had the marquee players, dominated the pace through most of the match, but in the end, we tied which must be regarded as a win for America as we were such heavy underdogs with the ABC/ESPN commentator, who had been a member of the British team for more than thirty international matches in the past, predicting his old team would thrash the US three to one (3-1). Hopefully, American soccer will defy expectations and finish well. England is already disappointed and I am certain that the USA would throttle any other country in the world at what my countrymen regard as real football.

That Sailing Stunt

Was the attempt by a sixteen year old American girl aimed at advancing exploration or improving the human condition? Was she a 2010 Captain Cook or Admiral Columbus? No matter what the sailor's age, any attempt to sail around the world solo constitutes a stunt, a particularly irresponsible stunt when the individual involved is a minor child who can not even legally sign a binding contract. The family and whoever sponsored the enterprise obviously has deep pockets and should be forced to assume the costs which may run into the millions of the search and rescue.

A Steady Rain

My heart goes out to those affected by the Arkansas flood with the memory of and the ongoing recovery from middle Tennessee's millennial flood fresh on my mind. To have a tragedy such as befell the campers happen so fast and so unexpectedly is particularly poignant. In our watery trial, as a family, we only sustained relatively minor property damage although several tons of driftwood that washed into our yard because a man-made drainage ditch that abuts two sides of my parents' home leading into a branch of Richland Creek that runs through the back of our yard and evacuates the hardest afflicted area of West Nashville taking water toward the Cumberland River from Bellevue remain trapped in our treeline. But our travail is nothing compared to the twenty-three deaths with a man still missing here or the dozens dead or missing now in our neighboring state of Arkansas. I know my parents, who were literally trapped in their home as their bridge which is the only street access was covered with rushing water as the tide lapped into our basement, garage, and wine cellar, are now gun shy every time there is a sustained rain. Even the family pets, two dogs, had their behavior probably forever altered by the terror generated by our watery ordeal. A valued reader of this blog also described similar changes with her own flood-afflicted dog Sarah. God forbid you and yours are ever afflicted with a similar natural disaster and God bless those touched by the horror in the campgrounds in the Razorback state.

Us or Them

The West is beset with problems, some of which potentially may be the seeds of our demise. Many have abandoned Western man's naturally inquisitive nature and been enveloped instead in acquisitive pursuits. Western man has given up traditional supplication and replaced belief with the "cult of the perfected self". Ironically, the greatest danger may be our suicidal sense of tolerance as has been embodied in political correctness. The ludicrous extreme of political correctness is demonstrated in the Gaza flotilla affair, where the Western powers have paid lip service to Israel's right to self-defense but in practical application, seek to deny Israel the real ability to protect herself. Israel like every other nation or society has some flaws but the moral superiority of Israel to those who seek her destruction is doubtless. The contrast between the manner in which expansionist Islam treats children and the focus on protection of children by Jews could not be more stark or striking. Israel regards defending the sanctity of children's lives a sacred duty and both boys and girls are afforded the benefits of comprehensive education. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, young women are systematically denied access to education by Muslim fundamentalists. Girls who tried to attend school have been attacked with acid, poison gas, and even murdered as have those who tried to teach them with threats extending to United Nation's schools in Gaza that try to instruct females. Virulent sexism leads to violent misogyny in both the major Sunni and Shia strains of Islam while Israeli Jews promote universal rights. While Afghan President Karzai has just declared his lack of confidence that the United States (which has just sustained a surge of casualties) can defeat the Taliban, the Taliban, who some in the West say merit a rapprochement and can be negotiated with, have just hanged a seven year old (7) boy for the alleged offense of spying for Britain. There can be no compromise with the ugly earthly face of evil incarnate. They must be vanquished. Either jihad will be defeated or we in the enlightened West will be. It is not simply Afghanistan or Pakistan where the gates of hell have been opened. In the area of Somalia where the Islamic militias serve as a parody of law, the sharia penalty of death by stoning was imposed on a thirteen year old girl (13) who had been the victim of rape (with reports emerging that the girl accepted and wanted the punishment- I imagine if she had been offered a ticket out of her Third World Islamic hellhole, she would have wanted that more, much more). On multiple occasions, Muslim terrorists have employed children as suicide bombers. When a girls' school caught fire in Saudi Arabia (a supposed ally of America despite worldwide promotion by the Saudis of Wahhabism characterised by intolerance and aggressive use of force as a tool of conversion and the indisputable connection of the Saudis to the September 11, 2001 attacks), the young female students were forced back into the flames by Saudi religious police because they had rushed out in an attempt to find safety without their head to toe covering. Many were burnt to death or perished from smoke inhalation. In 1786, Hannah Ocuish, a twelve year old American Indian child was hanged in Connecticut for murder. In the the three hundred plus years that have elapsed since that evident injustice, the West has advanced beyond that brand of barbarism with the Judeo-Christian ethos promoting progress in that regard. Expansionist Islam seeks a return to the mindset of the time of Mohammad. In the West, the are some dreamers and appeasers who think we can compromise even with the child-hanging Taliban, but decent people know this can never happen. Either the ultimate evil will be defeated or we will. Win and enlightenment can usher in a bright new world or lose and endure a thousand years of darkness.

Will Sanctions Work?

Can any action short of war thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions? I think not, and certainly not the anemic sanctions agreed to by the United Nations Security Council yesterday that were a split the baby compromise with Russia and China serving once more to shield the Islamic Republic. Obviously, Iran is committed and determined to pursue her current course of action as the national goal and that objective is not atomic power but the oft repeated objective of Ahmadinejad to obliterate Israel. There is a spirit of appeasement wafting through the air, sickeningly similar to the zeitgeist that prevailed in the late 1930s. No nation or international body is prepared to stand up against Iran with substantive measures except Iran's tiny target- Israel. And Israel is already in the world's crosshairs and being cast as the universal villain for having the temerity to defend herself in very minor ways like interdicting ships to see if they contain war materiel bound for irredendist Hamas in Gaza. An air attack or limited strike on Iran will not be sufficient to slow Iran's genocidal work as Iran has had the foresight to scatter and fortify nuclear sites across the country. Ironically, at this point, the only action that might save Israel from Iran is a nuclear strike which would bring down the force of the rest of the world on the Jewish state. So, just like the flotilla launched from Turkey as deliberate provocation, either way the Jihadists of the world win- they advance their weaponization program until they are able to "wipe Israel from the map" or they achieve the self-stated goal of some of those on the Mavi Marmara pretend aid vessel and become shahid- martyrs. 

Matter of Context

NBC Nightly News aired another report bludgeoning Israel for the blockade of Gaza last night. Tom Aspell highlighted grim conditions inflicted by those bad old Israelis on the poor, beleaguered innocents of Gaza. If I knew nothing of the conflict, I would have thought Israel an evil aggressor nation on a par with Nazi Germany that merited only defeat and dissolution. This is precisely the image that NBC sought to convey. How hard would it have been to mention that the isolation of Gaza was brought on because of the reign of the terror group Hamas who murdered their Palestinian Authority rivals on the ground (and by tossing from the rooftops) there, the rain of missiles, rockets, and mortar fire on Israel with thousands of attacks emanating from there (particularly directed at the Israeli city of Sderot), and finally set in motion by an unprovoked attack on an Israeli border post where several IDF troops were murdered and Gilad Shalit, a young conscript with dual Israeli-French citizenship was wounded and abducted? Israel had fully withdrawn from Gaza, evacuating (expelling) many of her own citizens to open the door to peace, only to have a genocidal visitor in the form of Hamas walk in. Any deficiency in the circumstances in Gaza is directly attributable to this terror group which has always favored the eradication of the Jewish state and has become a wholly-owned proxy of Iran. Tom Aspell's story echoed past blood libels against the Jewish people and surely would have made Joseph Goebbels proud.

Unleashed- Chicago Style

With more primaries for Congress and the US Senate taking place today, scant attention is being directed by the dinosaur media at allegations that the Obama administration offered inducements in a couple of instances for office seekers to clear the field for the candidate preferred by Obama. This is the type of tactic that is commonplace in the gutter of Daley-machine politics that has been practiced in Obama's erstwhile hometown almost since man's memory runneth not to the contrary, but happens to be illegal under the US Criminal Code. Can you imagine the scrutiny by the main stream media, the demands for an independent investigation, and even calls for impeachment if a Republican President was suspected of such quid pro quos? But the matter is ignored at large except by FOX, talk radio, and the blogosphere, with no chance that Attorney General Eric Holder will make a "Federal case" out of it, vigorously pursue charges, or allow an independent counsel/special prosecutor type to stir the pot. The matter will be a dead letter unless and until Republicans take control of Congress and reauthorize the Independent Counsel statute (if they so desire) to end the Obama administration's obstruction and actually ascertain what happened vis-a-vis Joe Sestak and Arlen Specter and Andrew Romanoff and Michael Bennet.

Losing Culture's Wars

By dint of his will, sweat of his brow, his undaunted courage, his devotion to God, and his force of intellect, the white Christian male made this country America and forged the exceptionalism that made us the singular leader of the world. Others certainly contributed, but it was Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Monroe, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, Adams, Quincy Adams, and their like that led, that formulated, invented, fought, and thought. The two leaders of this year's graduating class at the United States Military Academy at West Point were both women and this was celebrated in the mainstream media when a still sane nation would mourn this as a tragedy. Lee and Grant, to Eisenhower and MacArthur, to Norman Schwarzkopf, America has followed the strength and wisdom of her male leaders to victory and freedom. Now we are transformed into a denuded gynocracy with Christian belief tamped down and men, particularly white men turned into the butt of every joke. Homer Simpson was just voted the greatest television character of all-time by those vacuous and vapid enough to promote such a wasted exercise. Homer was portrayed in one episode going around the Christmas season to hunt deer- reindeer, if memory serves, at a petting zoo-type farm only to be so incompetent as to have to be rescued with his party by an open homosexual character voiced by John Waters. A commercial for a financial planning service that aired during yesterday's French Open features a white guy having trouble trimming a hedge while standing atop a ladder having a discussion with a fellow walking in the neighborhood who is the embodiment of the voice of reason portrayed by a black man. The retirement goal of the African-American is reasonable- just over one million dollars while the white dreamer is shooting for "a gazillion". Once again, the white male is an unreasoned or unreasonable boob. The loser and target of virtually every storyline in every comedy and drama seems to be the white guy- made mockery and sport. I do not fathom the dead white men who built the country would endorse the concept of a mosque being built in the footprint of 9/11's ground zero, only a country driven to politically correct national suicide would embrace that but that is precisely what New York City's nanny-in-chief Michael Bloomberg is doing. America has become a parody of her greatness, feminized, bastardized, and made eunuchs. The white Christian male is cast as buffoon or villain. Our only hope is that real men emerge to save us even if one of those is Sarah Palin.

Salute Their Valor

June 6, 1944, a date that should be commemorated as the beginning of the end of Hitlerism as the first step in the liberation of France started the freeing of Western Europe, does not receive anywhere near the attention it should. Sword, Gold, Juno, Utah, and Omaha beaches (the latter two stormed by American forces) should be as familiar to American school children as Gettysburg, but sadly they are not. Young allied soldiers, sailors, airmen, and coast guardsmen spent their lives that fateful day on a mission whose success was anything but certain. And the stakes could not have been higher, preliminary exercises to test how an invasion might go- the Raid on Dieppe, the bloody blunder at St. Nazaire, and even a landing at Slapton Sands, chosen for its terrain similar to Normandy, were all abject failures with more than seven hundred allied lives lost in the Slapton dress rehearsal for invasion when German fast boats happened on the maneuvers and sped to the attack. D-Day happened at tremendous cost but yielded incalculable gain as it signaled definitively that Nazism was being forced back. The courage manifested that day by free men proved decisive in ending the scourge that had enslaved Europe.

The Republican Roadblock

Some GOP candidates and many of those who advise them are saying that in the coming November elections for the United States House of Representatives and one-third of the US Senate, that the Republican Party must have more to offer than simply being the party of "no". With the nation gripped by palpable worry over the economy, recognizing the of loss of personal freedom and control of their medical destiny with the recently passed Obama care debacle, and many mainstream Americans even coming to fear their own Federal government for the first time- standing in opposition to Obamaism and pledging to block and reverse the all-encompassing growth of Federal intrusiveness into the most personal aspects of our lives may well be enough to return the GOP to power. The bulk of the nation is not seeking a better path toward socialism or a delay in the imposition of care rationing or granting a bureaucrat a bit more latitude in dribbling out said care. Most voters (as I believe will be demonstrated again as it has been recently in Massachusetts with the victory of Scott Brown in taking the so-called Ted Kennedy US Senate seat in what is widely regarded as the most liberal state and Hawaii , another leftist enclave, where Obama himself resided in his youth, which saw a long-term US House seat held by Democrats taken by the GOP's Charles Djou) do not wish to see the fundamental underpinnings of America removed and will vote to stem the tide of radicalism at the earliest opportunity. Republican candidates do not need to offer their more moderate version of cap and trade (and tax and tax and tax). They need to muster the strength to block its implementation. The GOP need not seek to reform the disaster that is health care reform at the margins- they must promise to repeal it, and when they win, act on that pledge. Smaller, less intrusive government is what most Americans yearn for and promulgating that notion was enough to launch the Reagan Revolution and the era of Republican resurgence. Let the Democrats play their "what I can give you" games. Republicans will emerge victorious by saying and meaning "we will get off your backs, out of your wallets, and out of your way". If the GOP lifts the "boot of government" off our collective throats and frees us up from Obama's cradle to grave philanthropy confiscated at our expense, our ingenuity and industry will do the rest. Let the Republicans form a wall against Obamaism and make this the first rung on the ladder to returned electoral success aimed not at the perpetuation of power but at the advancement of freedom.

Evil's Growing Axis

An alarming report aired moments ago on ABC Good Morning America's first news segment. The report detailed the defection of a major from Myanmar who carried with him thousands of pages of documents proving the nascent Burmese WMD program is receiving aid, material, and technical support from the madmen proliferators of North Korea on both their nuclear weapons development and the missiles with which to deliver them. North Korea and Iran remain the two certain member nations in the "evil" clique, but it seems the heavy-handed murderers who run Burma are rushing to join the club. I am not so sure Syria which has again subsumed Lebanon with the aid of Iran and Hizbullah does not merit membership, and both Russia, which readily sells advanced weapons like the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to these misbehaving states, and China, who trades massively with them, do not merit mention if not in the "evil" category, certainly in the not really good department. Both Russia and China use their UN clout to extend their protection to these hell-bent regimes and prevent multilateral bodies from containing the damage that the new Axis of Evil is causing.  

Mocking the Righteous

Israel stands condemned with America and Iran agreeing on one course at the United Nations- Israel deserves the harshest criticism that world body can dish out. The cargo carried by the alleged "aid convoy" is rejected by Hamas authorities in Gaza, I suppose because it has been handled and thereby sullied by the Jews. It just would not be kosher. So the humanitarian crisis in Gaza must not be that dire even though Andrea Mitchell on NBC Nightly News last evening aired a poor, deprived Palestinian family in Gaza who had only a little cooking oil and a few vegetables on which to survive. As if Ms. Mitchell could not find someone hungry in America despite our plethora of readily available food and use this sophistry to make a blanket indictment proving widespread hunger exists in the United States. Total bull- there is surfeit food in Gaza and Israel allows in more every day. The conditions in Gaza are not ideal only because war was waged from there on Israel from the moment Israeli forces left- Israeli greenhouses that had been productive and profitable and had been left in place as Israel evacuated to provide the Palestinians of Gaza a leg up were systematically looted and destroyed by the Islamists to rid the Jewish taint, and the Karni Crossing where most of the commerce passed between Israel and Gaza was consistently shelled by Palestinian mortar bombs each time Israel tried to open the way toward more easy trade. Even Egypt has closed the gates on their border with Gaza because of the fear of the fundamentalist Muslim violence emanating from there. Israel is being crucified for the crime of being Jewish and engaged in self-defense.

The Hatchet Job

Predictably, after the Gaza flotilla interception, Israel has been universally condemned, even by the United States with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joining the harangue and President Barack Hussein Obama sickeningly sending his condolences to the families of the nine (not nineteen as initially reported) who were killed as they resisted Israel's lawful authority. Would President Obama send his sympathies to the relatives of someone killed trying to disarm a cop on the streets of Chicago to turn the gun against the policeman and innocents on the streets? Israel was the victim- not the perpetrator or aggressor with provocateurs serving the interests of the genocidal Hamas terrorist organization and orchestrated by jihadists in cahoots by Turkey creating a situation where there could be no other outcome. Hamas, which utterly rejects Israel's right to exist, lit the match but have no doubt Turkey fanned the flames, leaving the camp of moderates and joining Islamists who seek to wipe Israel off the map. America can rush to judgement, drawing the wrong conclusions about the flotilla affair, can under the Obama administration, hurry to integrate open homosexuals into the military by overturning "don't ask, don't tell" before the armed forces can even complete their review of the policy put in place by Bill Clinton and apparently working so far, but the Obamaites will suspend deep water drilling including revoking drilling permits already issued by the Federal government for at least six months to allow time for a "thorough review" of what caused the BP explosion and how best to prevent future mishaps. So, the pattern is judge in haste and against our interests and morality, but when it comes to free market economic progress, no capitalism will be permitted, at least not until careful consideration cripples the Gulf coast region's economy and the domestic oil industry.

Third World Country

In a remarkably short time, the United States has transformed herself from a First World nation, in fact the leader of the Free World, capable of liberating the oppressed and sending men to the moon, to a sullen shadow of her former self, who can not even contain an oil spill. More than a year ago, before the US Presidential election, I wrote on these pages, "Elect a Third World leader, get a Third World nation." How sadly prophetic my words have turned out. Even on the dinosaur media's ABC Good Morning America, a Louisiana Democratic Congressman agreed with me and echoed not only my sentiments but verbatim used my words as Charlie Melancon said the handling by Washington of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was like "a Third World country". It is a shame that my prediction was borne out. I neither sought nor desired this tragic outcome and only wish that America was improving, but with the dread knowledge that under Obama, the situation is dire and will only fall with more deterioration, our freedoms threatened, and our lives vastly worse. 

The International Villain

Tiny Israel once again finds herself the focus of the world as she is singled out for opprobrium from such fair-minded judges- which before the Jewish state's creation either participated actively in the genocide against the Jews, facilitated the liquidation of the Jews (like haughty cowardly France who gladly put Jewish children on trains to death camps yet now sees fit to judge), or stood by silent as the Shoah happened (my beloved USA included- who did strive to defeat the Axis but did not divert any war resources to stop the flow of Jews into the Nazi death machine). These nations are joined  as the jury of Israel by such champions of human rights as Iran which dealt death to peaceful protesters of a stolen election and Russia where journalists who expose corruption in the regime find themselves dead and almost every criminal raid includes suspects thrashed by the Russian police who have become notorious for their brutality (to say nothing of the sacking of Grozny in Chechnya by Russian troops that killed thousands). These people are the judge and jury to those "damn Jews". So what is Israel's latest notorious crime? Israel's great offense was to intercept and inspect a so-called peace flotilla principally organized by Turkey. The Turkish nation had aspirations to join Europe but has of late abandoned those pretensions and is rapidly falling into the Islamist camp. Turkey has long had a foot in each camp, resisting US requests to use Turkish roads, airspace, and American bases in Turkey for the US conflict in Iraq. Current Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has actively stoked the fires of anti-Israel incitement, was warned of the potential consequences prior to dispatch of the flotilla, and sent them off knowing full well that violence could ensue. Israel had already announced to the world that humanitarian aid carried by the six Turkish and Greek flag vessels would be delivered to Gaza through Israel's land crossings if the ships complied with the IDF navy's lawful order and proceeded to the port at Ashdod. But the peaceful convoy wanted no part of that. They had planned to ambush Israeli forces as they boarded the largest vessel and that is precisely what they did. As IDF men carrying paintball guns descended from helicopters, they were set upon with metal bars, knives, and handguns. One IDF man was critically wounded and another seriously hurt before Israelis responded only with force sufficient to preserve their own lives.  Does anyone think that if Israel had malign intentions, in fact was not interested in protecting those they were intercepting, that they could not have sunk all six boats in a matter of seconds using stand-off weapons such as missiles, bombs, torpedoes, or naval guns without placing any Israeli troops in jeopardy? A great stir has been made that the event took place in international waters, but nations routinely interdict sea traffic when contraband such as narcotics or illicit war material is suspected. The US Coast Guard seizes illegal drugs all the time in international waters. Some of the Gandhi crowd on the ships too had made their intentions known with a woman being broadcast on Turkish television declaring "Gaza or martyrdom- either way we win". Their mission was never humanitarian but always provocation. There was not and is not an ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. There was no medical need or starvation for the solidarity convoy to mitigate. The whole exercise was to bait Israel, take casualties, and await the sure to condemn Israel world response. And sadly, this is precisely what happened. A group that sympathizes with Hamas's genocidal intentions against world Jewry won the day. The display succeeded beyond measure as Israel, not Hamas and certainly not the agent provocateurs in Turkey, who orchestrated the charade and allowed armed terrorists  to be seeded among useful idiot dupes on her Turkey-flag ships, is held to false account by those not fit to judge and is held by the world as pariah.