Peace Within Reach?

The administration of Barack Hussein Obama is offering Israel a Hobson's choice of territorial concessions to Palestinians determined to end the presence of Jews in the Middle East or having the Jewish State face international isolation as the new apartheid pariah state. Obama and his foreign policy team believe it is not Arab incitement but theft of land by Jews that is the cause of turmoil in the Holy Land. Obama, Kerry, Susan Rice, and Samantha Power really think a Sudetenland solution will advance the cause of peace. Look how good that worked out last time.

Commissioning More Degeneracy

That pornography is so prevalent, that it is in the faces of our children in music videos and even computer games, that the appeal to the prurient exists at all, is a shame. Using our tax dollars to pay for it should be a crime. I read here that is precisely what we are being forced to do in this Patrick Howley piece for The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/29/obamas-federal-government-funded-hardcore-porn-project/. This project funded with your dollars confiscated by means of taxation could be considered a "literal obscenity". Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano would be proud.

The Crypto Canadian

We must all beware of the US Senator who purports himself to be American but may be hiding his true Canuck stripes. Yes, we are all in danger of having "real" maple syrup replace "maple-flavored" syrup on our breakfast tables if Ted Cruz is ever permitted to become President of the United States of America. We may have hockey (or worse yet curling) be declared America's national sport. We have a son of a Kenyan in office now and and are surviving that. I bet the USA could survive (and would even thrive) under a son of a Cuban and an American-born citizen mother who happened to be residing in Canada when Ted was born.

Stand with Russia

After two suicide bombers staged murderous attacks in Volgograd, those who oppose the nihilism that is jihad must denounce the murderers, those who financed the terror, those who sent the bombers, and the warped mentality that seeks to advance a religion by massacring innocent people. No nation is perfect, and that includes Russia, but the world must now recognize that Russian President Vladimir Putin must and will do what is necessary to eradicate the terror threat confronting his country. Civilization itself is at risk in the coming battle, and just as in the Great Patriotic War (World War II), America must stand with Russia.

Israel Under Fire

Just days after an Israeli worker was shot to death on the border with Gaza, which followed a failed bus bombing near Tel Aviv, two Katyusha rockets have just been fired into Israel from Lebanon. Israel has shown considerable restraint (too much holding back) to preserve peace talks with the Palestinians, and has forfeited any notion of deterrence. Turning the other cheek does not advance peace but displays weakness that invites further attacks and makes regional conflagration more likely. Israel can not leave their security to multilateral bodies like the United Nations (a body that has never given the Jewish State a fair shake) or even to the US (which under Obama does not seem like a stalwart ally of Israel). To reestablish a posture of deterrence, Israel may soon need to launch a devastating attack against those terror organizations and nations who remain determined to drive Jews from the Middle East.

Looming Death Panel

Computer glitches are only a minor flaw of Obama Care when measured against the care rationing component of the Affordable Care Act about to take effect with the creation of the Independent Payment Advisory Board that will deny what otherwise would have been life sustaining care for critically or chronically ill patients who are expensive to treat. Many vulnerable people will be subjected to medical murder under "medical futility policy" where that which sustains life including nutrition and hydration will be deliberately denied to hasten death. If you think I am exaggerating, I will tell you I witnessed the deliberate murder of my own father Seymour Goodman by Vanderbilt doctors and a so-called "care team" in a precursor of Obama Care on January 29, 2012. The death panels are real and are or will be a threat to everyone you love.

Decadent Decline Devastates

America was founded aiming to be a moral nation. A virtuous people spread the virtue of liberty. We have fallen from that high perch and are now venerating slovenly behavior in pop culture. No more kiss and hug and "little brown jug" or "slow boat to China" or possibly suggestive but still tame "Louie Louie"- now we are treated to or have to turn away from naked Gaga and the self-exploration of Cyrus- Billy Ray must be so "achy breaky" proud. Where are pastors and guides leading us away from this Gomorrah? Where are the outraged parents demanding that children are not exposed to this filth? Where are the better angels leading us back to Biblical belief and practice? What are you doing to arrest this cultural rot?

New Year Care

Maybe the Democrats can re-brand Obama Care in the coming year. If they take New Coke, another marketing effort that fell flat as a model, then they must find or create a medical insurance product that will be seen as the health care access equivalent of Coke Classic. I am not sure that such a scheme is possible and I know the consequences are much higher than labeling decisions about soft drinks. You see for the policies that were withdrawn as not meeting Affordable Care Act guidelines, and therefore, according to the government "substandard", there is no reformulation on a bottling line that can take place, and replacement insurance policies with universal coverage for substance abuse and pregnancy (for the millions who need neither) will inevitably cost more. It will take more than lipstick to make the pig that is Obama Care a beauty queen.

Their Christmas Greeting

Jihadists in Baghdad heralded what should be a time of joy and peace by slaughtering their Christian neighbors. So far this time, thirty-seven Christians have been massacred. It is a terrible irony that under the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, Christians were safer than they are after George W. Bush "liberated" Iraq. Bush's contention (echoed by Barack Hussein Obama) that Islam is a "religion of peace" rings hollow in light of the bloody course of events not only in Iraq but across the Middle East. American intervention destabilized that troubled region and compromised the very existence of the oldest Christian community in the world.

Everyone Signed Up?

The deadline for Obama Care coverage that was to kick-in January 1, 2014 was supposed to be yesterday (December 23) but has "generously" been extended until today by the Obama administration. In the event, many more people have lost their existing coverage than have signed up for it, and most of the few who have successfully signed up are selecting the least expensive plan- that being the Bronze Plan- which will become a catastrophic care only plan for many as it has a deductible over four thousand dollars per year. Unless someone is afflicted by a serious illness or injury or in need of surgery, all their routine medical expenses will be out of pocket under the plan with the premiums that are the most affordable. Very few people will ultimately be satisfied with Obama Care which will cost them more and cover them less.

Churched, Unchurched, Retreating

Somehow, asserting Biblical morality has become verboten. Talking about the beliefs that have civilized humanity is now a taboo act in our corrupted, perverted public discourse. We see in the "Duck Dynasty" debacle what were until recently societal norms are now "controversial". I will say this loud and clear- a nation that advances the homosexual agenda while silencing those attempting to hold onto traditional belief structures will soon forfeit Providential favor and protection. I think it is long passed time that believing Americans assert God Pride.

Obama's Good Ideas

Tell me which of the programs instituted by Barack Hussein Obama have not done more harm than good? Has removing welfare to work requirements and expanding the Food Stamp rolls halted the dissolution of the black family? Are more or less Americans working today in Obama's land of ninety-nine weeks of unemployment benefits? Will more or less Americans be medically insured on January 1, 2014, when Obama Care goes (or at least was scheduled to go) into full effect? If the Affordable Care Act was the cure to what ailed uninsured Americans, then why has Obama had to modify the law fourteen times by fiat since Congress passed it? Do you think Obama's Snowden-revealed surveillance state might be intruding on your communication that you had formerly presumed to be private? With Obama in office, most Americans have lost ground in terms of freedom and economic well-being.

Obama Visiting Hawaii

Barack Hussein Obama needs a vacation. He is spending millions of our tax-confiscated dollars to take one. He is returning to his birthplace of Hawaii. Maybe he will like the hula girls and luaus so much that he abdicates and leaves Joe Biden to fix the Obama messes, but that is a joke and is not going to happen. In any event, Biden could be even worse. Many Americans wish for a vacation from Obama.

The Bitter Reality

For many years, including during this administration, the United States has given Israel repeated security assurances. Israel had reason to trust previous US Presidents when they pledged their support right through the last President Bush. Barack Hussein Obama voiced all the same words about "Israel's right to exist in secure borders" and about Iran not being allowed to go "nuclear", but to Obama, America's promises were only rhetoric. Obama is increasing pressure on the Jewish State to give land away to the Palestinians for what will prove to be no peace. The US President has decreased sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran despite the fact that Iran is extremely close to being able to produce nuclear weapons that will clearly have Israel as their first (but by no means the last) target. Israel relied on America's promises, but under the Obama administration, Iran is no longer a pariah state, Israel is being isolated as an apartheid regime, and the Jewish State is left to rely on herself.

More False Symmetry

Contrary to those who want to boycott Israel, there is no apartheid in the Jewish State. Arabs and Muslims have more voice, more rights and freedom in Israel than they do in Saudi Arabia. Israeli Arabs vote and sit in the Knesset. Israeli Arabs have access to and protection of the courts. Muslims in Israel are far safer than their counterparts are today in Syria and Iraq. The route to lasting peace is not paved with boycott, divestment, or sanctions against the Jewish State, but through persuading those who seek to drive Jews out of the Middle East that they must give up incitement and stop their mission to drive the Jews into the sea.

Dances with Dunces

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/12/17/barbara-walters-obama-we-thought-he-was-going-be-next-messiah. This Noel Sheppard article confirms what I have long suspected . . . that the main stream media is just another organ of the unthinking left and that they not only sought to support Barack Hussein Obama and to shield him from scrutiny and criticism in an effort to help him to succeed, but that more than backing Obama, the dinosaur press worships him. Do you think Walters had such astounding regard for Ronald Reagan or either President Bush? Do you think so-called "journalists" filled with such fervent admiration for Obama ever gave the GOP a fair shake? The pervasive attitude toward Obama in the legacy media is why I rely on talk radio and Drudge for reportage that does not slant left.

Republicans Left Me

The first vote I ever cast was in 1984 for Ronald Wilson Reagan. Reagan was a Democrat early in his political life, but he famously declared, "I did not leave the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party left me". I was glad to support the Republican Party based on its fidelity to bedrock conservative principles. If Reagan were alive today, I do not think he would recognize or could countenance the new GOP. I will never again vote for Alexander or Corker, my woeful Republican US Senators, but I will not call them RINOs because they are not Republican in name only but exemplify exactly how progressive the GOP has become today. The Democrats are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Left and are mostly socialist with some like New York City's new mayor being essentially Communist in their outlook. The Republican Party though is thoroughly infested with progressives who are hardly different from Democrats. Reagan would weep to see what his Party and his nation are becoming.

Jihad in Action

An Israeli soldier was shot and killed along the border with Lebanon yesterday, apparently by a lone gunman who was a member of the Lebanese Army. In a region already about to ignite, do you think this unprovoked attack might have been inspired by Iran's Hezbollah proxy, or was it the act of an al-Qaeda sympathizer, or simply a Lebanese soldier opening fire because he had gone mad? In any event, Israel is surrounded by neighbors who want to see the Jewish State gone and many Muslims will hail the shooter as a hero, no matter what his motivation was. Time will tell if this murder was a one-off ambush or the start off a wider campaign to obliterate Israel.

War on Women

If I was accused of rape and happened to be a six-foot, four-inch quarterback, my defense, if I am not guilty because the sex was consensual, is not a claim of mistaken identity because the alleged victim says her assailant was between five-foot, nine and five-feet, eleven-inches and I am much taller than the alleged attacker. My defense would simply be that the alleged victim said "yes". A man who engaged in intimacies with a willing partner does not claim mistaken identity to exonerate him in this age of certainty by means of DNA testing but asserts from the very beginning that the woman was just as willing a participant as he was. On another front in the war on women waged not by the GOP but by football players, the Kansas City professional linebacker who slaughtered the mother of his daughter and then shot himself could not simply have been a violent person, but now must be exhumed to see if a history of brain injury provoked his irrevocable act of murder. Then too, there was former superstar running back O.J. Simpson walking away free after his wife and a hapless waiter were stabbed to death a few years back. You see, being able too throw an oblong ball better than others or run really fast or tackle well means to far too many people that you are immune from blame for vicious acts of misogyny.

An Accomplished Liar

Bill Clinton was thought by many to have mastered the art of prevarication and taken it to levels transcending even Nixon. Some thought Barack Hussein Obama was that rare bird of an honest politician, but in the event, he has shown less candor about matters much more important than anyone's peccadilloes regarding personal conduct with an intern. Obama said that under the Affordable Care Act, families would pay twenty-five hundreds dollars less a year for their medical insurance. That would be nice, but it is not happening. Most families find their medical insurance costs are rising. Obama said if you liked your doctor, you could keep him. That appears to be another falsehood as well. Finally, and most egregiously, Obama said if we liked our existing medical insurance plans we could keep them. Eighty-five percent of Americans who had medical insurance coverage did like their coverage but very few of them are being allowed to keep those plans which Team Obama now calls "substandard plans". I think Barack Obama can hold his own when it comes to deliberately deceiving the voters with any politician.

The Ryan Budget

Paul Ryan (Republican Congressman and failed Presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Vice President selection) either never was a conservative or is now a total sellout if he ever did believe in fiscal restraint. Twenty-three billion dollars in cuts over a ten year budget cycle measuring in the trillions of dollars and almost all of the reductions in the last two years is not a responsible plan. It is the punchline to a bad joke, or rather a cruel hoax perpetrated against US taxpayers. America is trapped in a cycle of spending money we do not have on a Federal government larger than we need that continues to metastasize in ways that were heretofore unimaginable.

Lamar Is "Disappointed"

Tennessee's Republican senior US Senator Lamar Alexander said he was "disappointed" that his chief of staff has been charged with possession and distribution of child pornography. If someone in my employ was alleged to have done something so horrific, I would not say I was "disappointed". Instead, I would say I was "sickened and filled with a sense of absolute revulsion that someone working in my service had 'allegedly' engaged in acts so damaging to children". I am "disappointed" if my team loses a close ballgame or if I do not receive my hoped-for Christmas bonus. If someone I have interacted with for a couple of years is stealing the innocence of children, I would frankly say: "that person, if the charges prove to be true, deserves the death penalty".

Sense of Moment

Because of his support for terror before his imprisonment, I was not taken with Nelson Mandela, but I still believe in respectful and appropriate conduct at funerals. I would contend smiling "selfies" like the ones Barack Hussein Obama took with a couple of other "world leaders" at the ceremony for Mandela are inappropriate at any such somber occasion. I also think it was wrong of Obama to exchange a cordial greeting with Raul Castro while American Alan Gross is still held captive in Cuba. Of course, this conduct is precisely what I expected of America's current leader.

The New Logic

If you support Barack Hussein Obama, you are a patriot. If you oppose Obama, any part of his leftist agenda, or even call the Affordable Care Act "Obama Care", you are a racist (even though Obama himself called it "Obama Care" before it became apparent what a disaster it was). As for the right of dissent even Hillary Clinton asserted was patriotic when she was haranguing Bush over the Iraq War, that no longer exists when it comes to criticizing our infallible leader.

Our Obama Prosperity

For their unwavering loyalty, reverence, and votes, the African-American community now suffers higher unemployment under Barack Hussein Obama than they ever did under either President Bush. According to an Andrea Elliot article in The New York Times (not exactly a conservative organ), there are more homeless children on the streets of New York City than any time since the Great Depression. What has the fealty of the vast majority of blacks to the Democrat Party earned them? Certainly not enhanced economic opportunity for most African-Americans, who are not any better off, and often worse off economically, than they were under the GOP leaders who so many blacks believe are working to keep them down.

Glory Is Gone

The apex of American power, when adversaries trembled at the thought of confronting the USA, was at the conclusion of the Second World War. The Korean Conflict, fought to a draw under Democrat Harry Truman, put paid to that power. The notion of our greatness was further sullied by our loss in Vietnam. Then, Iran brought us still lower by seizing our embassy. The nadir had to be Jimmy Carter's attempt to rescue those Americans held captive in Tehran that failed tragically and monumentally. Ronald Reagan rekindled our "can do" spirit, and we emerged, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as the world's last superpower. Democrat Presidents Clinton and Obama squandered that by asserting a peace dividend and under that rationale, gutting our strategic advantage. We may now be a second-rate power, unable even to defend ourselves from rising Communist China, and allowing Iran to become a menace to the Middle East. America was once the economic and technological powerhouse of the world. That dynamism is gone now as well. I know our decline could be reversed but am waiting for the leader to reverse that course and put America back on the path to greatness.

America Bleeding Out

The United States of America is becoming a nation drowning in government debt, cowering to Red China after gutting our own strategic defense in the only real cuts Barack Hussein Obama has made, being overwhelmed by a horde of Latin invaders, and having lost sane restraint in the course of public discourse and indeed, even public conduct. As for the Federal debt, which is already more than sixteen trillion dollars (not counting obligations including Social Security and pensions), do you think the red ink will grow or shrink with the additional burden of Obama Care? Communist China unbelievably has become our largest single foreign creditor and the US is now letting the People's Republic throw Red weight around Asia and have their way on the Senkaku Islands. As to public debate, I could never imagine a US President calling his domestic opposition "tea baggers"- in a reference to a demeaning sexual act. Do you think Johnny Carson or Ed Sullivan would have permitted Miley Cyrus to exhibit herself back when America still had standards on what was broadcast on television? What was wrong with the days of Eisenhower, when the dollar was still a dollar, when the border was a real boundary, and the family could sit and watch TV together? If that sounds jejune or quaint to you, you do not remember all there was to cherish at the time America dominated the world.

Our History, Lost

I am not sanguine that Americans are remembering Pearl Harbor today as vast swathes of our populace do not seem to recall a much more recent event. How can our citizenry commemorate December 7,1941 when they seem all too often to forget September 11, 2001? It is a shame that as the World War II generation fades away that the level of ignorance about America's past (in our Information Age, when learning history should be so easy) has never been higher.

Yearning for Warming

As we endure an early winter deep freeze, I am hoping for some of that man-caused global warming Al Gore promised was coming our way. I had hoped with all the hysteria about how man was killing the planet, that I would have beach-front property up here in Nashville by now, but alas, no such luck. It was just cold enough last night that the doors of our old gas-guzzling Honda Odyssey froze shut. Maybe, to warm the earth up a bit, if every human in the world runs every light bulb, every appliance, and all the vehicles simultaneously, we can raise the global temperature one-tenth of one degree. I hope old wooden Al is right one of these days- it will spare me a trip to Florida when I want to take a dip in the Gulf- I can just step off the porch to use my snorkel.

The Great Deceivers

If the main stream media (or dinosaur media which is the term I coined for them) heralds someone unequivocally, that person most likely is or was a scoundrel. If the legacy media lambastes someone (like Reagan or either President Bush or Romney) that person is likely honorable. The press lauds terrorists in many instances and will vilify the victims of terror as we now so often see in the context of Jews injured or killed by jihadists in the so-called "occupied territories". Because someone does not dispossess and murder whites immediately and overtly like Robert Mugabe has done in the former Rhodesia, that does not necessarily make them a great humanitarian and champion of justice. Never allow yourself to be deceived, Nelson Mandela was a Communist and the leader of a violent movement. If you want an icon, lionize the non-violent Mahatma Gandhi.

China Courting Confrontation

The People's Republic of China is asserting herself as the region's hegemon with her aggressive actions regarding the Senkaku Islands. Red China is an economic force but still has huge numbers of citizens living in poverty unseen elsewhere in most of the developed world. Red China is riven with corruption and capricious rule. There is nothing a Westerner would recognize as due process or justice available to the people of the People's Republic. Red China now believes the rest of the world is so weak that their aggression will not result in catastrophe for the Red leadership. I agree with the assessment by Red Chinese leaders that the rest of the world lacks the will to thwart Red China in becoming the leading power in Asia, and with Barack Hussein Obama shuddering in Washington, supplanting the US as the only superpower in the world.

The Self-destruct Button

The Republican Party, at least as it is embodied in its DC leadership, is about to complete the destruction of the GOP with whatever iteration of illegal alien amnesty is passed under the guise of "comprehensive immigration reform". Ohio's John Boehner, the hapless Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives, and the weak as water Congressional second-in-command for Republicans, Virginia's Eric Cantor, are determined to go against the will of the American conservatives who gave the GOP the majority in the US House, and give Barack Hussein Obama a signal victory by granting legal status and a path to citizenship (and voting rights) to somewhere between eleven and forty-five million border breakers. Those who have invaded or will invade from the South will never vote in significant numbers for the GOP who are now welcoming them in, and Democrats can not believe their great good fortune to have supine doormats as their current opposition party. I have never seen an American political party racing toward their own destruction the way Republicans are now. Instead of chastising the Republicans, Obama should thank them for playing into his hands.

America Becoming Detroit

Detroit for years spent above the means of the city's tax base. The city government gave generous pension benefits that tallied in the billions of dollars to city employees. The Federal government has trillions of dollars in unfunded obligations. The difference between the administration of Detroit and that of the Federal government of the United States of America is that Detroit does not have the ability to print money while America can print ever more worthless US currency at will. Under Barack Hussein Obama, the USA has had Federal debt rise more than under all previous American Presidents put together. Obama by temperament and inclination would have made a fine mayor for the Motor City.

Ukraine's Lost Freedom

Ukraine, for a brief moment, basked in the light of liberty. An appendage of Putin has grabbed power, and now, Ukraine is nothing more than a satellite of Russia, just as it was in the bad old days of the Soviet Union. Brave Ukrainians are protesting in an attempt to regain independence for their country and their human rights, but they are being met with brutal force. The saddest aspect of this wave of repression is the craven silence of the free nations of the West including the United States, who are not speaking up for liberty in the Ukraine and who are turning a blind eye to a the growing cloud of tyranny emanating from Moscow.

Actors and Porsches

On September 30, 1955, James Dean (who ironically had recently made a public service announcement for road safety) crashed his Porsche (a literal racing car) and left this world at the tender age of twenty-four. He had only made three theatrical release movies but was, in death, about to become a cultural icon. Paul Walker will likely never climb the heights of fame the way the dead Dean did, but he too was a highly paid star of motion pictures who had ample resources to afford a really fast Porsche. I am certain those who loved Paul Walker now wish he had not fallen prey to the "fast and furious" lifestyle portrayed in his most famous role.

Some Thanksgiving Misgivings

I have always thought the United States was Providential in conception and creation and until recently, that we had largely lived up to our mission of being the repository of human freedom for mankind. When I hear of broad programs to electronically eavesdrop on everyone who sends email, surfs the web, or makes a phone call, I have had to question that judgement. I fear America has become a surveillance state that uses drones that have killed many innocents (along with the guilty) in far flung corners of the world. My country would no longer be recognizable to those who founded the US to be both bastion for and beacon of liberty.

Marking the Markets

We are all delighted that US stock markets are at all-time highs and that our 401ks are growing, but is the dollar worth anywhere near what it was when Bill Clinton was President? I would contend that the 85 billion dollar a month pump by the Federal Reserve has helped the markets surge, but also, inflated our currency to levels not seen since just before the 1929 Crash. At some point, the bubble will burst and those paper gains we are all enjoying today will be gone like the wind.

With Much Gratitude

I am thankful that the United States Constitution will limit the blunderer in chief to two terms. I fear the damage done in Barack Hussein Obama's eight years of misrule may not be reversed in my lifetime. Nonetheless, I will thank the Lord today for being born into a nation that consecrates freedom, and I thank our armed forces for continuing to protect our liberty today as it has since American independence was purchased with the blood of their Revolutionary War predecessors.

The Loyal Opposition

Do the DC Republicans not see that by rubber stamping amnesty for illegal aliens, they will be ensuring defeat for GOP candidates in a state that up to this point has been securely Republican- that being Texas- and handing competitive states like Arizona and New Mexico to Democrats for generations to come? Do they not realize that if a particular initiative benefits Barack Hussein Obama politically, it is by necessity bad for the Republican Party? Why are Washington Republicans bent on creating a Balkanization of America by turning us into a polyglot land of illiterate or semi-literate non-English speaking sneak-ins who could not make a success in their own countries and who will come here taking ever more scarce jobs, grabbing benefits, and driving down wages?

America Is Redefined

Barack Hussein Obama has succeeded in transforming the United States of America. Obama has destroyed the value of our currency. Obama has throttled initiative with higher taxes and a massive regulatory regime, and he has created more dole dwellers than any previous US President. Obama crafted and maintains unemployment numbers that are a fiction, first to gain reelection, and then to burnish his reputation, but around one hundred million Americans who are of working age have never been able to find work or have exhausted unemployment benefits and no longer even seek gainful employment. A true unemployment measure would be much higher than what Team Obama claims. Obama is in the process of abdicating sovereignty with his open borders amnesty under the guise of "comprehensive immigration reform", and the Republican establishment is prepared to let him. Now as twenty-four million Americans are having their individual medical insurance plans cancelled because of Obama Care, eighty million more will lose the coverage they formerly received from their employers. The details of this looming medical insurance horror are detailed by Jim Angle here: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/26/evidence-shows-obama-administration-predicted-tens-millions-would-lose-plans/

The Proper Course

With Iran rapidly making strides to be able to fulfill the threat, is Israel able to take a wait and see approach toward a nation that has publicly pledged since the late Ayatollah Khomeini came to power to destroy the Zionist entity? I would contend the Jewish State does not have the luxury a larger, more powerful country would in dealing with the threat of possible nuclear attack. Iran is not a normal adversary either. North Korea, under an evil but sane leader, stages a nuclear test but does not nuke Seoul. The 12th Imam worshipping End Time religious fanatics running Iran are content to test their super weapon on Tel Aviv and the largest concentration of Jews in the world that happen to live there. As world powers and the Obama administration reach their "historic agreement" with Iran, Israel's hand is forced. Ironically, the push to avoid having to confront Iran by the Western Powers means that the Jewish State will almost certainly have to launch a unilateral preemptive strike, which will, at the least, throw the Middle East into a regional war, and could be the spark for a third world war.

The Sellout Complete

Iran is led by End Time Shiite clerics. The new President of the Islamic Republic, Hassan Rouhani, is being called a "moderate" by most of the media as the Obama regime and those other nations unwilling to confront the evil of looming Iranian atomic weapons make a devil's compromise on Iran's diabolical machinations. Often, in the same reports, Israel's Benyamin Netanyahu, who recognizes that the ongoing appeasement of Iran is a mortal threat to the Jewish State, is characterized as the "hard-line Prime Minister". In this world turned upside down, the religious fanatic who hangs homosexuals in the public square is the moderate, and the world's leading opponent of Islamist terror is the hard-liner. Iran, the leading sponsor of terrorism for the last generation and a nation racing to obliterate the so-called "Zionist entity" with the nuclear weapons now under development is the blessed peacemaker, and their target, the tiny nation of the Jews, is the world's bete noire. Thus endeth sanity in the world today.

Nothing But Hope

Barack Hussein Obama's regime has demonstrated that they could not manage the roll out of the Obama Care website. What could possibly give anyone any confidence that they could administer the healthcare of more than three hundred million Americans? This incompetence would be funny if the stakes were not so high.

Greatest Deliberative Body?

Until yesterday, the United States Senate was considered to be the "greatest deliberative body" in the world. The Senate was intended to be and was acting as a moderating force. The Democrat majority in the Senate decided to dispense with that by raising the standard for filibuster yesterday in all nominations except those to the United States Supreme Court. The Senate Democrats by exercising the so-called "nuclear option" in one fell swoop made the Senate into nothing more than an appendage of a looming Obama dictatorship.

Hurting the Multitude

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/20/second-wave-health-plan-cancellations-looms/. This stunning article reveals that when the other shoe drops and the implementation of Obama Care is forced on small businesses, fifty to one hundred million more Americans will lose their medical insurance coverage. The goal of the Affordable Care Act was supposed to be to insure the thirty to forty-five million Americans who did not have health insurance before Obama Care's passage. In the event, fifteen to thirty million Americans were not going to be covered even after the law, twenty-four million or more Americans who held private coverage before Obama Care were going to forfeit what are now being called "substandard plans" by Team Obama (in spite of the fact, Obama promised numerous times before Obama Care was passed, that if we liked our plans, we could "keep them"), and now, it is certain, if the law is maintained, that as much as a third of the nation's population will forfeit their plans that have been provided through their workplace. So, vastly more Americans will lose their coverage than ever were uninsured before Obama Care was forced down our throats.

No Silent Witness

With Syria in a self-destructive death spiral and with violence mounting in Libya, the world focuses their ire on Jews trying to build in the ancient capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem. International leaders agree that the City of David does not belong to the inheritors of his legacy. At the same time as "settlement" rather than genocidal sentiment among the Palestinians is called the cause of the conflict, Iran grows ever closer to their goal of implementing a nuclear holocaust against the Jewish State. The United States consistently gave Israel security assurances, but it is becoming increasingly evident that Barack Hussein Obama favors rapprochement with Tehran more than he values the continuing existence of a Jewish State. Jews who supported Obama need to shout now that Israel is America's only friend in the Middle East and that the President they helped put in office must honor US commitments to keep Israel secure as a Jewish State with Jerusalem never divided again.

The Leftist Putsch

In Wisconsin, supporters of Republican Governor Scott Walker are now subject to intimidation through investigation by Democrat apparatchiks in public prosecutor offices. This hounding comes after the IRS was used to push down TEA Party participation in the election cycle leading to Barack Hussein Obama's second term. I have no idea how courts populated with Leftist judges will ultimately rule on this proverbial butcher with his thumb on the meat scale, but know they should put a stop to this disruption of fair voting processes if there is any fidelity to the original intent of the US Constitution left in our judiciary.

Nature's Destructive Wrath

The Philippines (a few days back) and now the US Midwest felt the fury of storms. These acts of nature were in no way caused by man. They are simply natural events that people should prepare for as best they can, and after the storms, unify and rally to spark recovery. Reputable charities are already in place that help deliver aid. People in a position to help should extend a hand today, because they may be beset with similar natural catastrophe tomorrow.

Losing Sane Restraint

A small town in New York became the scene of drunken, destructive, injurious rioting inflicted on the community to celebrate a victory in a minor college football game. Law enforcement from across the state had to be deployed to calm the hooliganism. This collective misbehavior is sadly no anomaly. Urban youth across America have videoed themselves assaulting strangers in the so-called "knockout game". Some of those innocent victims have died from the punches. Urban predators have turned formerly innocent "flash mobs" that used to involve a seemingly spontaneous song or dance routine into orchestrated group theft in convenience stores and even larger retailers. We were once a country that held law and order in high esteem. Now chaos and anarchy seem to have seized the day.

Leftists Enjoy Immunity

No matter how personally despicable the conduct of a famous liberal is, that leftist will always have apologists, so long as he supports abortion or gives proverbial "lip service" to supporting the struggle for "gay rights". Bill Clinton's personal conduct with women was shameful, but as long as he kept the abortion mills up and running, he was A OK with the feminists. Alec Baldwin has used slurs against gays and minorities but remains in the good grace of his left-wing audience. Barney Frank and Gerry Studds gained popularity with the Democrat base after conduct that would have been held reprehensible by GOP voters. If a married Republican in a position of authority had an affair with a much younger intern, do you think he would have been permitted to retain his power?

Blessing of Dean

I thought my hometown of Nashville, Tennessee had a lousy mayor in Karl Dean. He suddenly does not look quite as bad, if only in comparison to the buffoon afflicting Toronto. Dean still can not keep his hands off taxpayer wallets, spending on grandiose and unneeded projects, but at least his hand is not on a crack pipe. Then again, I may have just offered "faint praise indeed" for Music City's self-identifying "progressive" leader.

Our Porous Border

I am so tired of the establishment members of the so-called "conservative" party pushing for an amnesty by another name. Do they not realize one of the first casualties will be the end of the Republican Party itself because those they are putting on the path to citizenship and their citizen offspring will vote for Democrats over the GOP by huge margins? More important, by abdicating sovereignty, America will be abandoning the rule of law and stepping irrevocably away from the nation our Founding Fathers envisioned. You will allow gatecrashers to enjoy privileges that will make those who followed the law to enter the country in the right way real suckers, and you will encourage an endless flow of others entering illegally because they know at some point our craven politicians will relent and legalize them as well.

Israel's Existential Peril

The government of Israel is kowtowing to the world and crushing expansion of so-called "settlements". In so doing, Netanyahu is assuring that parts of the Biblical heartland of the Jewish people remain Judenfrei, which is a Nazi concept. The Jewish government is abandoning legitimate legal claims to lands that belonged to Jews as far back as three thousand years in the faint hope that the world will still take substantive action to thwart the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear enterprise. The rest of the world including America has already lost the will to delay Iran. Israel might as well expand their presence in Judea and Samaria because once again, Jews can only rely on themselves to prevent genocide.

An Early Snow

Much of the Lower Forty-Eight seems to be the deep freeze today. Snow has fallen in areas that typically do not see it so early. When I went out to start the car this morning, I fervently wished for some of that global warming Al Gore has been pitching, but sadly, shivering away, I could not find any.

Saluting Their Sacrifice

Those American who have served in the US military have often put life and limb at risk, too often shed blood for freedom, and at the very least been separated from home and family to defend nation and liberty. On Veteran's Day, our country with enshrined liberties their service preserved, salutes them. Without our veterans, if America continued to exist at all, we would certainly be a very different United States. Thank you veterans!

By the Numbers

If there were forty-five million Americans uninsured before the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and twelve to sixteen million are anticipated to remain uninsured in the Obama administration's best case scenario, there are deficiencies to go around even without the so-called technical "glitches" and security lapses that leave those who apply for coverage vulnerable to identity theft. Now, Kevin G. Hall and Anita Kumar of the McClatchy Washington Bureau have revealed that from 2010 on, Barack Hussein Obama was advised that as many as fifty-two million Americans who already had medical insurance would lose their existing coverage, yet Obama kept promising that if we "liked our doctor" and "liked our coverage" we could "keep it". Read http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/07/207909/analysis-tens-of-millions-could.html by Hall and Kumar here and see if you think the President ever intended to keep that promise or was simply lying his way to victory in the 2012 election.

A Burnt Pizza

Most Americans enjoy pizza. If a pizzeria leaves your pizza in the oven too long and your crust is burnt black, a good pizzeria will offer to remake your pizza, prepare your other menu items in its place, and/or refund your money if you paid in advance or comp you a whole meal. On a subject far more crucial than pizza, Barack Hussein Obama intends to force you to eat the pizza with the carbonized crust. In fact, as regards the Affordable Care Act, Obama is determined to make ordinary Americans not in his favored castes of Congress and their staffs or protected unions devour a steaming pile of something else. Remember before you taste that first bite, the President is not a king and your master and that you are free citizens not subjects.

Watching Iran Triumph

I am observing the disgusting spectacle of the world appeasing the Islamic Republic of Iran. Do our "leaders" not remember the lessons of World War II? Do they not remember that they have been manipulated in negotiations with Pyongyang to the benefit of North Korea? Iran lacks reasonable leaders but Tehran is rational enough to let the West grant concessions that Iran does not have to reciprocate with any actions that would impede their ultimate plan to liquidate the Jewish State of Israel.

Obama's Managed Decline

I believe Barack Hussein Obama is not suffering any misapprehension about the way successful business works. Obama knows precisely what it takes for businesses to prosper and is determined to impede those enterprises that are not run by his cronies. I long ago said Obama would become America's Shiva and contend that what we see now with the Affordable Care Act is just a means to push us towards single payer. Obama is crushing the American coal industry. Obama is throttling major US banks who were forced under redlining regulations to provide loans to those who were not credit worthy; then, these same banks were asked to absorb "troubled assets" by regulators and political leaders and now they are being fined for doing what the Federal government demanded of them. Why injure shareholders in JP Morgan or Bank of America for actions they were not a party to just when these corporations are almost back on their proverbial feet? Obama has not and can not remedy the plight of the poor, but he can knock those who have earned success down a peg or two. I believe Obama's guiding ethos has been getting even.

Real Voter Suppression

What Barack Hussein Obama's Internal Revenue Service did and may still be doing to TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party groups by delaying their tax free status or denying it based on their viewpoint will continue to have ramifications as we have just seen in the race for Virginia's governor. That and hidden Democrat operatives running a shill Libertarian candidate to draw votes from Republican Ken Cuccinelli from the Right certainly contributed to McAwful's victory. I am glad I do not live in the Old Dominion today.

Waiting for Moderates

The world believes that the new leader of Iran Hassan Rouhani is cut from a different cloth than the former leaders of that Islamic Republic. I spoke with an ordinary Iranian last week who now resides in America, and from her perspective, Rouhani is just as bad as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was. I do not think a leader who wanted accommodation with the West and the United States or was willing to countenance the continuing existence of Israel as a Jewish State could have risen through the ranks of fanatic mullahs to power in a system premised on Shiite fundamentalism. The world can not let their guard down based on words alone and must carefully watch Iranian actions, and I do not think Rouhani has been dissuaded from building an atomic arsenal and fear only Israel has the will to prevent Iran from deploying nuclear weapons.

An Unprecedented Betrayal

Barack Hussein Obama lied when he pitched the Affordable Care Act. If the intentions of Obama Care were to help, who so far sees how it improves their access to quality care? Many though have seen their existing medical insurance policies cancelled and newly available replacement plans costing more with higher deductibles and covering less in areas where it was needed most. No you can not keep your oncologist, sixty year old man with lung cancer, but dread not, you now are paying for and have access to comprehensive maternity care. Obama told us, we could keep our plans and our doctors if we liked them. We can not. Obama sold his signature domestic achievement with baldfaced lies.

Nashville Mass Transit

Instead of embarking on a major and costly expansion of mass transit in my hometown of Nashville with the controversial AMP proposal, Nashville should explore why our existing bus services are so underutilized. I am convinced though that our self-identifying "progressive" Mayor Karl Dean is determined to impose his will over sensible opposition, and that the project will go through, to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

Two Term Blunder

Some of Barack Hussein Obama's voters may be coming to the realization that they were flat out lied to by the President and Democrats in Congress in regard to the signal domestic achievement of the Obama administration, the Affordable Care Act. We were told by the President that if we "liked our insurance plan and our doctor, we can keep him" and that the cost of medical insurance would "drop twenty-five hundred dollars for the average family" under the Affordable Care Act. In the event, most Americans with individual health insurance plans are losing their coverage and most Americans will find their medical insurance costs and deductibles rise, not go down. The nation is also witnessing an unprecedented degree of technical incompetence in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which should also be a revelation to those who want to rely on government. In the end though, those who draw more from the Federal government than they have confiscated by way of Federal taxation will still regard Obama as their champion, a two-term wonder.

Lamar "Amnesty" Alexander

Lamar Alexander, one of the two establishment Republican US Senators that represent my home state of Tennessee, is running for reelection. An honest, good, and capable man who is an authentic conservative is running against him in the Republican primary. His name is Joe Carr. He believes in our Constitution, supports our gun rights, is not interested in back room deals with Democrats, and will protect our nation's sovereignty. Lamar Alexander and his big business backers want the cheap labor to continue to flow across America's Southern border. They do not care if the border breakers are exploited or that their willingness to work cheap depresses wages. Lamar and his ilk do not represent us but deep pocket corporations and K Street lobbyists. Send Joe Carr to Washington to join Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz to turn the nation back to our Founding virtues.

An Essential Revelation

Would you feel that you were lied to if you found that the Obama regime knew that more than twice as many people would be knocked out of their medical insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act than were uninsured before that law's passage? Forty-five million (45 million) people were reputedly uninsured before Obama Care was enacted. As early as 2010, Barack Hussein Obama and his cadre knew that ninety-three million (93 million) Americans would lose their existing policies under the new law. This article chronicles the extent we were lied to: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/10/31/forbes-obama-officials-predicted-2010-93-million-would-lose-health-pl#ixzz2jJGbh1b1. The gift wrapped skunk that few wanted but that was foisted on all of us stinks worse than ever.

As It Is

Political conservatives tend to be realists. Political liberals may be technically competent, successful professionally, educated, knowledable, and smart, but they tend to engage in a sort of magical thinking wherein intentions count for more than results, and where they are able to play ostrich, in that they hide from bad news and information that contradicts their worldview. Some people I care deeply about have evinced these Leftist traits, and are genuinely surprised when they are informed that they placed undue confidence in those who used them as dupes and led them down the primrose path.

Death of Reason

If you or your loved one are in a hospital because you are critically ill, unless advanced life support is provided to assist in transporting you or your loved one to another hospital, you or your loved one are essentially a prisoner at the mercy of that hospital. Let us say your treatment team decides it is no longer worth any effort to save you or your loved one or even provide nutrition and hydration to sustain life (as was the case at Vanderbilt Medical Center with my father Seymour Goodman). Rapid death then becomes inevitable. The highest court in Great Britain just said no law constrains UK hospitals from imposing "futile care policy". In the case, doctors said the patient who was essentially executed by a hospital denying that which would provide any chance at life, claimed the patient who was not treated had only a one percent chance of living if the treatment had been provided, but the certain fact remains that he had no chance at life without it. See the culture of death given imprimatur of law here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_MED_BRITAIN_WITHHOLDING_TREATMENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-10-30-07-25-07

Obama's Peace Charade

Barack Hussein Obama has pushed Israel into a corner in which the very existence of the Jewish State is threatened. The Obama regime wants Benyamin Netanyahu to make concessions that amount to national suicide to the Palestinians. At the same time, Obama has not done what was necessary to thwart Iran's drive toward nuclear weapons. Obama dictates to Israel while going hat in hand to plead with the Iranians. Israel has been prodded to release terrorist murderers while Iran is ever closer to obliterating Tel Aviv. "Never again" is proving to be meaningless rhetoric.

The Ultimate Price

The price of a single payer medical system is not the cost of the medical services provided, but the loss of freedom. As government expands, liberty diminishes. It is not mere rising premiums (see this Chad Terhune article- http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-health-sticker-shock-20131027,0,2756077.story#axzz2izA7XLpk) that should concern Americans, it is that every human action or interaction has health implications, and under the banner of protecting patient health, a paternalistic government is able to reach into every aspect of our lives.

Barack Obama's Halliburton

George W. Bush was often pilloried for supposedly "no bid contracts" granted to Halliburton, which was portrayed as absolute evil, during the last Presidency. It now seems CGI Federal might rightly be termed Obama's "Halliburton" with their no bid contract administering the computer system that has not so far delivered on the Obama's more than half billion dollar investment in them and who has also been awarded the contract to deliver two billion dollars in Hurricane Sandy aid without a stellar record of performance in Canada, the nation where the parent company of CGI Federal is domiciled.

Entirely Without Merit

The second term of Barack Hussein Obama has been precisely what commentators on the right predicted it would be. Our President who will not call Islamic fanatics "terrorists" has called Republicans "terrorists, kidnappers, arsonists, and ransom takers". Barack Hussein Obama has actually made substantial cuts in only one sector of our Federal government, that being the Department of Defense. Obama is leaving the nation less able to protect itself from Iran and North Korea and defenseless against a resurgent Russia and the People's Liberation Army of Red China, our greatest existential threat. Barack Obama has inflated the national debt beyond rational comprehension and with his intention to promote Janet Yellen to replace Ben Bernanke as head of the US Federal Reserve, has signalled that he wants to continue printing fiat money until every American literally has money to burn- because US currency is deliberately being made worthless.

Wheels Coming Off

If there are more people riding in our proverbial national wagon than pulling it, our nation will not be able to go very far. There are now more people on the various Federal welfare programs than there are working full time in the United States of America. This excellent Terence P. Jeffrey article highlights this decline: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census-bureau-means-tested-govt-benefit-recipients-outnumber-full. Editor's note: In addition to unjustly exiling me from the Google AdSense revenue sharing program, Google has apparently disabled hyper-linking to articles by other authors on my blogs. Readers so inclined should search for the links I mention on the search engine of their choice.

Mind Over Murder

I read that my home state of Tennessee is the most crime-ridden state in the union. All I can say to that is that I would rather be in Nashville a thousand times over with my legally-armed law abiding neighbors than in the Windy City of disarmed victims where the lawless run the streets in hellhole Chicago.

Sons of Glitches

Americans have heard much this week about all the "glitches" inherent in the roll out of Obama Care. I do not deny that there is plenty technically wrong with the computer systems set up to enroll millions into Affordable Care's ranks, but I contend the scope of the problems are far broader than programming bugs and point to the ill-conceived scheme in its entirety. Obama Care should be overturned before it crushes not only the uninsured that it supposedly was going to help, but the majority who were already medically insured and eventually, the private sector economy itself.

Obama Sheds Allies

Barack Hussein Obama was going to bring America closer to the world by making America more like other nations and by "leading from behind", that is deferring in international affairs to multilateral bodies like the United Nations. Obama slapped the United Kingdom in the face twice, first by sending back the Churchill bust, and then by siding with Argentina over the Falklands. Obama then expected Her Majesty's Forces to join America in a punitive expedition against Assad after the Syrian Army was alleged to have used poison gas against the Syrian people. In the event, Parliament just said "no". Now, long-time US ally Germany and America's new post UK rejection best friend France are outraged at the American government eavesdropping on their conversations up to and including national leadership themselves. George W. Bush was unpopular around the world but Barack Obama is going to be as popular internationally as a skunk at a cotillion.

Obama Care Irony

Under the Affordable Care Act, most Americans will find they are paying more, not less, for their medical insurance and access to medical services in Bronze or Silver Plans, and will be taxed at punitive rates for selecting a Gold Plan where the plan holder has more covered at a lower deductible. The Affordable Care Act as it was being sold to the public was supposedly going to end the crisis of people not having medical insurance in America. It had already emerged that sixteen million or more would still be medically uninsured after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. In addition to those who will not be covered, it now appears another sixteen million Americans who do have health insurance are going to forfeit their existing policies due to the Affordable Care Act. Read Jeff McCormack's excellent piece here:http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/millions-americans-are-losing-their-health-plans-because-obamacare_764602.html# . More than thirty million Americans will still end up without medical coverage after two trillion tax dollars have been spent on Obama Care.

Obama's Good Intentions?

Do you really think the GOP wants to see people denied health care? Do you think Republicans want the environment destroyed? They do after all have to breathe the same air and drink the same water as their Democrat neighbors. Barack Hussein Obama has utterly botched the roll out of the Affordable Care Act. Very few Americans are helped but many have been hurt so far by Affordable Health Care's rules that have knocked them out of their former medical insurance or caused their physicians to force them out as patients because of low reimbursement rates or other medical consumers who suffer because their doctors are leaving the practice of medicine early because they will not work in that profession under the constraints of Obama Care. Others are hurt when they find that their new premiums under so-called "affordable care" will soar and their medical deductibles will also go up. I do not presume that any of this damage is an unintended consequence for Obama. I do not credit Obama for any noble objective to provide universal care and do not think the Affordable Care Act was ever designed to work but purposely constructed to cause so much complication that those suffering under it would demand a simplified single payer system as salvation.

The Syria Negotiations

I see no path to peace in Syria despite the new push beginning in Geneva. Assad is rational but unrestrained in committing violence to protect his regime. His opponents are now largely Wahhabists who are al-Qaeda members themselves or share al-Qaeda's absolutist and nihilistic beliefs. These religious fanatics have crowded out most secular opposition to Assad and now both Assad forces (including Iranian Shia proxy Hezbollah) and the Sunni Islamists are targeting the moderates with whom peace might be reached. Who knows how much blood will be spilled and where the fighting will spread (likely into Lebanon, but possibly even spilling over into Turkey, and certainly not calming the sectarian rift in Iraq)?

Sanctity of Life

I have noted in the past that the political Left has a less than reverent attitude toward life. The Left was deliberately cavalier in regard to when life begins so as to continue justifying maintaining the legality of abortion. Now an article has emerged from Canada showing that the Left is not merely callous regarding end of life issues, but openly contemptuous about it. Read Adam Goldenberg cheer-leading for death here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/10/canada_has_death_panels_and_that_s_a_good_thing.html. Here you can witness the bestial nature of Leftists and as Martha Stewart and this vile Jack Kevorkian wannabe might say: "That's a good thing."

Obamacare Website Debacle

The Federal government's website that is the gateway for the Affordable Care Act was supposed to cost ninety million dollars ($90 million). In the event, it has become the most expensive website ever constructed, costing over half a billion dollars ($500 million). The initial cost was bad enough, the cost overrun was terrible, and that the website still does not work, that is unforgivable.

Another Church Attacked

Christians attempting to worship in Egypt by gathering for church services have been murdered yet again by the most devoted practitioners of the "religion of peace". You see, in that faith the best ways to demonstrate that devotion is to kill believers in other faiths (infidels or kafirs), or to die in the process of slaughtering or the attempted slaughter of "unbelievers" and becoming martyrs (shahid). Can you name another faith that currently calls for conversion or death? Where in the Western world are worshippers targeted at mosques and where are Muslims currently under threat from Christians? And where are the voices of political leaders demanding that Muslims honor freedom of conscience and permit people to worship as they please?

More "Irrational Exuberance"

Allan Greenspan uttered "irrational exuberance" years back to tamp down American markets about to boil over, but the same statement about a euphoria gripping Democrats now is certainly in order. What do these partisan hacks think they have won- the love and loyalty of the American people for an Affordable Care Act that even those who want to register for have found a nightmare trying to enroll? Have Democrats won flyover country votes with the mean-spirited and arbitrary closure of National Parks to visitors (except illegal aliens for whom a dispensation was granted in which Federal authorities allowed those demanding amnesty to be given special access to protest on the National Mall during the Federal "shutdown" while even World War II veterans were blocked by the Park Service from war memorials)? Have the Democrats endeared themselves to the coal-producing states by imposing draconian controls on coal-fired power plants? Have the Democrats won America's love by having the Obama's abuse the perks of the Presidency like no First Family before them, with Barack Hussein Obama playing more rounds of golf in five years than any former President has ever played including all the full two-termers, among them the golf-mad Eisenhower; the Obamas taking separate lavish family vacations that as private citizens they never could have afforded, and Obama demanding and successfully extracting concessions from Republicans and then continuing to chastise the GOP after that party has thrown in the towel and given the President his way? Certain Republicans in Congress may have lost support, but that is not because they stood up to Democrat overreach. It is exactly the opposite. Those GOP member who stood strong will survive while those who gave up the fight are in political peril, precisely because they have made common cause with, or are themselves progressives.

Opposite of Dancing

Watching stocks rise on US markets has not been a cause of joy for discerning investors, but has elicited concern that those gains are phony, because they are measured in the US dollar which is increasingly worth less. Of course, shareholders want to see the value of their investments rise, but those in the know are just counting the days until inflation becomes hyperinflation. No American investor wants to be a Zimbabwe billionaire or a Weimar Warren Buffett. You may rejoice to see your 401k's value double, but when the price of all your necessities triples in the same period, you must recognize that you are actually losing ground.

Legacy of Reagan

All is not lost to the political right in America. There are still young, brilliant voices that exemplify the ethos of Ronald Wilson Reagan. Among the inheritors to the message of strong defense, limited government, personal responsibility, and expansive liberty are Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Ted Cruz of Texas in the US Senate. They have not, as the main stream media suggests, turned off the voting public, but galvanized the right and given hope that behind these minds and the other rising conservative thinkers in the US House and in the states, we will hold the House, retake the Senate, and win the Presidency in the next voting cycles. Worthless Republicans are sullying the brand, but there is still plenty of fight in real conservative leadership across the country.

Obama's Republican Pets

When nothing stands between a country's leader and capricious rule, the citizens of that country are no longer free. When Republicans comply with virtually all Barack Hussein Obama desires, Obama no longer has an opposition party but a pliant dog that may growl a little occasionally but always grovels to kiss master's hand in the hopes of receiving a few scraps from master's table. The GOP under its current leadership is on bended knee. The Republican Party of Ronald Wilson Reagan is well and truly dead and in abandoning its principles and giving up in the government shutdown and debt ceiling fights, that party died by its own hand.

Crashing the Markets

If the Republicans hold the line on fiscal sanity, they will be blamed for default and the resultant rise the US will have to pay to borrow and the crash in our markets that is sure to engender. Ironically, the people fighting to restore a modicum of restraint in Federal government spending and trying to prevent inflation caused by increasingly worthless fiat money will be held responsible for US markets tanking. But it is the TEA Party faction on the right of the Republican Party that may yet be able to save America as She was founded.

Disappearing the Scandals

The flight George Bush never took on a non-existent SR-71 to Paris to make sure the Iranians held their American hostages until just after Jimmy Carter left office merited the scrutiny of Congressional Democrats and an inquisitive media, based on the "seriousness of the charge". The Left gladly carried the water in spite of the fact that the charges were a complete fiction contrived to destroy the GOP. What has happened to the very real scandals of Barack Hussein Obama's administration, notably Fast and Furious, reported by network journalist Sharyl Attkisson and no one else I am aware of in main stream media and virtually forgotten by all but the most strident Rightists in Congress when if the shoe were on the other foot, we know a Democrat Congress and the legacy media would never have let it rest? Where is the journalistic muck raking and the Congressional investigation into the Benghazi Massacre? If a Republican had presided over the disaster in Libya, would network newscasts and Democrat leaders let it slip away? Finally, few in the press or politics have dug into the IRS being used more than ever as a political weapon or tried to evaluate the impact that denying and/or delaying 501c3 status to TEA Party and conservative groups while routinely granting it to liberal and progressive groups had on the last election cycle including the Presidential election? Do you think if the GOP was using the tax authorities to squelch dissent that it might be reported on the network news?

Not a Prank

Good Morning America reported a "prank" wherein someone exploded dry ice in a plastic bottle in an employee bathroom at LAX. The airport was evacuated, hundreds of flights were delayed, and thousands of people inconvenienced. The act may not have been a terror attack, but it was no prank. If not perpetrated by a terrorist, the bomb maker was malicious and a criminal.

No Compromise Possible

Barack Hussein Obama wants total victory- not over the Taliban- he is now willing to reach an accommodation with them- but over Republicans. Obama is intent on destroying them, or on allowing moderate Republicans to destroy their Party themselves. He has given up any pretext of give and take. There is no room for negotiation. In Obama's statements, Republicans are "hostage-takers" and "ransom-seekers". Obama is now even insisting on throwing out the sequester cuts that he himself proposed that became law in 2011, so that he may engage in unfettered, blank check spending without Congressional oversight or restraint. Obama will talk to Iran but now feels empowered to dictate to the GOP. Patriots must not let him.

Republican Kamikaze Crew

It appears that GOP House leaders are preparing to fold in the fight to try to restore fiscal sanity to Washington. If the national Republican Party fails to defund Obama Care, then the next logical step by America's conservatives must be to defund them and direct any and all contributions to those GOP Representatives and Senators who are still resisting the leftward menace until the Progressive poison is drained from the Republican side and the spirit and legacy of Reagan return to power in DC.

Its Own Weight

It is amazing to see Obama Care so poorly administered that it is collapsing under its own weight at its very inception. Social Security was up and running without technology as we would recognize it more than seventy years ago. Medicare was up and operating with what we would consider today primitive and rudimentary computing back in the 1960s without the chaos the Affordable Care Act is causing. The best chance of seeing Obama fail has been giving him the chance to succeed. In the event, Barack Hussein Obama has shown himself to be a miserable manager who probably could not on his own ability even run a retail store.

Those Seeking Notoriety

Too many people want Andy Warhol's "fifteen minutes" of fame. The majority of celebrity seekers are not able to rise to accolades but are more than willing to sink into infamy. For the life of me, I can not imagine why a performer with real talent would stoop to exhibitionism to expand her audience, nor why someone would permit cameras in what should be private space to be featured on reality TV. The lowest common denominator has seized the ratings and the family hour on the old letter networks has decent parents turning off their sets.

Outside, Looking In

We are not the powers that be, the elite. We do not have the US Presidency, or the US Senate, or even a majority of the US House of Representatives, because we are not Republicans, and certainly not Democrats, but Americans who love our nation as She was founded. And there are millions of us. We have our voices in Washington and on talk radio and we will not sit silent while you try to steal our country. We do not need "transformation" in our country, but reverence to the Lord, the Bible, and the US Constitution with its plain meaning from Natural Law from which all rights stem.

Overplaying His Hand

Many voters supported Barack Hussein Obama because they thought he would be a champion for the "little guy". Do his heavy-handed tactics and hurt the public as much as possible antics during the government shutdown portray Obama as a friend of the people? Obama now resembles a willful child who brings his ball to a pick up basketball game and then runs home with the ball when he starts to lose. I have in the past called the President "insouciant", but I did not give him proper credit. In the shutdown with his orders apparently to be make the citizenry hurt, Barack Hussein Obama has shown himself to be deliberately destructive.

A Leader State

When a nation's leader does not enforce the law as written but selects which laws or which portions of laws he will enforce like he is going through a buffet line, that leader is ruling by fiat. Barack Hussein Obama has throughout his administration done just that on issues from enforcing our borders to gay marriage, has recently given waivers from the Affordable Care Act to selected businesses and labor unions and now has even delayed implementation for corporations for another year. Major employers were given a reprieve not based on any part of the law as Congress had written it, but because the President wanted some of the pain Obama Care will cause delayed until after the 2014 elections. Leader states tend not to produce happy endings for their own citizens or the world.

Life and Property

After witnessing fatal floods in middle Tennessee, I would say Louisville was lucky, actually blessed, that the third most rain in a day since records were kept did not kill anyone. Some basements and garages were soaked and some vehicles damaged, but all in all, Louisville survived the rising waters intact.

Retreat to Disgrace

Barack Hussein Obama sent SEAL Team Six on a clandestine mission to Somalia without air support, artillery support, or even covering fire from Navy ships or cruise missiles, and the Islamist terrorists drove US forces back. That Third World thugs drove our forces away is no disgrace to the heroic American warriors who put their lives on the line on the ground, but to the chain of command right up to the President that should have carpet-bombed such a terrorist-infested area out of existence, and not exposed special operators to such unnecessary risk in a failed effort at what was supposed by those who authorized it to be a spectacular morale-boosting quick in and out raid.

Greeting A Deluge

One of the oft-repeated themes of this blog since the millennial flood in Nashville in May 2010 has been floods that I have found myself in in my travels. Today, I find myself in Louisville, Kentucky in the midst of the third worst twenty-four hour rainfall Louisville has experienced since records were kept. I am saddened that my soon to be neighbors (as I will be moving here on a more permanent basis) are afflicted with the sudden destruction water can bring. May the Lord protect us all.

The Chemical Brothers

Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Kurds and Iranians. He ended up at the end of a noose. Bashar Assad has apparently got by with a comparable crime in Syria, but he has a better press agent.

Our Vindictive Masters

Our Federal overlords are now even trying to block access to tourist attractions that receive no Federal funding. All while Barack Hussein Obama tries to crash the markets by talking up the prospect that the Federal government is about to default on its debt due to recalcitrant, unreasonable, and uncompromising TEA Party Republican members of the US House of Representatives. The ruling cadre are practicing Alinsky-ite vengeance against their countrymen and are glad to see you suffer as much as possible as payback for America's former (pre-Obama) prosperity.

A Reality Check

Barack Hussein Obama is, in a fit of pique, doing much to inconvenience and hurt the public unnecessarily in the so-called "shut down". He demonstrates petty vindictiveness toward child cancer patients by denying treatment that even the House GOP majority offered to fund. Obama closes areas to tourists that none of the seventeen previous government shut downs have ever closed. Obama has never been able to spread the wealth but he is certainly wantonly spreading the pain.

Our Chicken Littles

Do you want to rely on government? That makes you a slave to that entity. Do you want government to reach into the wallet of someone with more than you have, steal from them to give to you? That makes you an accomplice to theft. Do you want a government agent in the exam room with you and your doctor? That makes you a fool. For me, I want the government to clear the deck and allow me to fail or succeed on my own merit and through my own effort.

Sun Came Up

The GOP held their ground and we are in a so-called "shut down" of the Federal government. The sun still came up. The sky did not fall. The military continues to defend the nation. The US Postal Service will continue to deliver the mail. Social Security recipients will still be paid. The only real consequence of the failure of the Democrat majority in the Senate and Barack Hussein Obama to negotiate with House Republicans is that eight hundred thousand so-called "non-essential" Federal workers will either stay home or work a half day today. My question is: If they are "non-essential", why does the Federal government employ them in the first place?

Dole Dweller Culture

Those who rely on government become dependent on it. They allow themselves to be wards of the state. Our Founding Fathers did not want us to be slaves to the State. Obama Care breeds greater dependency on government and makes Americans less free.

Chance of Success

The Affordable Care Act can not work. It is too expensive for a nation already operating on fiat currency and money borrowed from other countries (notably Red China). Obama Care is neither affordable to the nation nor individuals. It is intrusive. It funds abortion on demand and rations medical treatment. It was never designed to succeed, but to cause such disruption that the American people would rise up to demand a single payer system, which if ever implemented would be just as bad.

Stabbing Our Friends

The United States is making common cause with al-Qaeda in Syria in an effort to unseat Bashar al-Assad. Barack Hussein Obama just had a conciliatory fifteen minute chat on the telephone with the Islamic Republic of Iran's Cheshire Cat new President Hassan Rouhani. At the same time, America is restraining Israel from any preemptive action against Iran and exerting massive pressure against the Jewish State to retreat to 1967 "suicide borders" as a concession to the Palestinians. It is a world turned upside down where we comfort our enemies and chastise our friends.

Juggling Hand Grenades

You have to hand it to Ben Bernanke, the soon to be departing Federal Reserve Chairman. He has presided over a monetary easing that should have provoked inflation, indeed even hyperinflation, but somehow managed to hold it off while watching US stock markets rise back to pre-recession levels, even if the gains seem to be measured in fiat dollars. Investors have realized that despite all of America's problems, markets in the rest of the world are even more unstable. Some will say he is no Alan Greenspan, but Ben Bernanke did help our economy survive what could have been a crushing blow. Let us hope who ever replaces him has as much skill or luck in holding our heads above water.

Federal Government Shutdown

Nothing has been more destructive of liberty in America recently than the expansive regulatory regime of the Federal government itself. The legitimate function of national government as defined in the US Constitution has been exceeded for generations, but Barack Hussein Obama has grown Federal authority further and faster than any President before. If a so-called "shutdown" constrains or at least delays tyranny, let those who would resist the progressive agenda hold the line now.

Ted Cruz: American!

Ted Cruz did what most Republicans no longer do- he stood for something. The GOP leaders are spineless little men who stand for nothing beyond perpetuating their own perks and power, and seem to fall for any crumbs the Democrats, who are destroying America as she was founded, are offering. Americans are increasingly despising politicians, Ted Cruz shows them there are still some honorable men in Washington.

Beware Iranian "Dove"

Just before Adolf Hitler sparked the greatest conflagration the world has ever known, those who would soon have to defend themselves from Nazi aggression confidently assured the world there would be "peace in our time". A new Iranian President showing a less aggressive public face in no way means that the mad mullahs who actually control Iran are relenting in the slightest on their twin aims of 1.)destroying the Jewish State of Israel and 2.)creating sufficient world chaos and destruction to draw the Twelfth Imam from his hiding place in the well to bring their notion of a savior to the world. This is not time to "trust but verify" when Hassan Rouhani puts a more moderate spin than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did to the world, but the time to remember that Iran is only months away despite assurances to the contrary from producing a nuclear-tipped missile to use against Tel Aviv.

Face of Evil

What could be a more everyday normal activity than going to a shopping mall? What sort of monster would attack the defenseless as they browse or shop? Just like the Beslan Massacre aimed at children on their first day of school, the mall attack in Kenya will reverberate in the annals of craven and dastardly infamy. Make no mistake that though the crime is being perpetrated in Africa, the jihadi thugs dong the killing would like to bring a similar murder spree to a mall near you.

Evil Over Good

Epic sales of a newly released profane and violent video game have been feted in the main stream media this week. The game is a first person shooter contest that features armed robbery and prostitution. This is not mindless entertainment but a circus for the soulless mass. The billion dollars made on this game in a week are not a marketing triumph but a disgrace and a shame.

Government Shut Down

I would rather have a Federal government shut down than death panels determining my medical destiny and the fate of my loved ones. I doubt the US Senate under majority leader Democrat Harry Reid will ever defund Obama Care, but the stakes are so high- our very lives- that Republicans must try. Their effort to block the Affordable Care Act is the last hope for America as she was founded.

The House Acts

By gum, the Republican majority in the United States House did it. They acted! The GOP Representatives voted to defund the care rationing, freedom-threatening plan known as Obama Care. I was not sure they had the gumption to stand but stand they did. Unfortunately, this may turn out to be a hollow gesture, as Democrats control the US Senate, and there will likely never be a vote on removing funding for Obama Care on that side of Congress. Even if a vote is taken, defunding will not pass because of the Democrat majority. Well, at least the House GOP stood for something.

A Growing Realization

Man-caused global warming was hyped and then used as the rationale to attack industry and carbon-fuel based power generation. Climate change skeptics were thrown in the same boat as Holocaust deniers by those with a vested interest in promoting the "green" agenda. Science is finally catching up to logic that man is just not that powerful that his cars and factories are or will be controlling weather patterns. Now, honest researchers are admitting that the earth is no longer warming at an alarming rate, and perhaps, politicians will now relent on the job-killing regulation they passed and ease some of the unnecessary emission laws they have foisted on job creators.

Even Brazil Knows

The leader of Brazil Dilma Rousseff has opted to skip an official state dinner with Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Hussein Obama because Obama's intelligence services were spying on her, her nation, and apparently, even the leading Brazilian energy company. Rousseff is in accord with Obama over their shared Leftist ideology, but even a fellow traveler like her could not ignore such a slap at Brazil's national honor.

Unheard of Event

The Washington Navy Yard massacre is as bizarre as it was unprecedented. A navy veteran reportedly fascinated with violent video games turns his guns on coworkers and in the end, a dozen innocents are dead. The gunman was no political radical or religious fanatic but evidently a Buddhist, a member of a faith generally regarded as peaceful. Jihad is not the only cause for concern with even video games now possibly contributing to causing mass murder.

In the Details

Ridding Syria of chemical weapons would certainly enhance stability in the Middle East, but the plan Russia has crafted to prevent an American attack will not be easy to implement. The Assad regime may play games and there already is a report circulating that Assadists have just transferred twenty trucks of chemical weapons to Iraq. The US can not rely on Russian assurances and must verify that Syria comply or American intervention may yet be in the offing.

The Paper Pushers

I am not worried about the slackers within the ranks of the army of government bureaucrats squeezing the life out of us. They exist in every field of endeavor. It is the diligent clerks who insist on crossing every "t" and dotting every "i" within the growing Federal monolith who under Barack Hussein Obama's "regulatory state" under the rubric of "consumer protection" or the flag of a "cleaner environment" or the banner "Obama Care" can make our lives miserable and make it next to impossible to run a small business. Excess regulation smothers freedom.

The Wrong Message

Those who politicize the pulpit besmirch it. They sully and cheapen the sacred.

World Loves Putin

Barack Hussein Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize, and for good or ill, is living up to his promise to "transform" America. His backers were convinced Obama would be beloved by the world as he was replacing the widely reviled George W. Bush. Obama's supporters and the main stream media seemed certain that the world would love Obama as much as they did. In the event, Obama and, by extension, the United States are as despised as they were even under the last President. On the other hand, Vladimir Putin, who has engaged in several stunts to build a cult of personality following, repressed internal opposition within Russia, and been a bully to former Soviet republics that have broken away, is now, on the basis of Syria, revered by much of the world as a "peacemaker". The irony that a presumed champion of peace like Obama threatens bombing while a cold calculated thug like Putin is heralded as a dove is not lost on me.

Evil as Ever

Russian leaders have ranged from cruel Czars to even crueler Communists, and now the world must contend with a Russian leader cut from the same cold cloth. This anti-democratic leader Putin, who intimidates and silences domestic opposition, is now planning on selling Iran more missiles and helping the mad Mullahs there build another nuclear reactor. Putin courts every opportunity to show the world he is a strong man. He has not killed millions like Stalin . . . yet.

Marking the Day

Twelve years ago, almost to the minute, innocent people in the United States were wantonly murdered by nihilists masquerading under the banner of Islam. Americans went to sleep on September Tenth to a world at peace and awoke the next day to find ourselves dragged into a seemingly endless war, not of our choice or of our making but forced upon us. We can never forget, we must never forget, and we will never forget that there are those who despise our liberty and seek to destroy us for it. We must always stand on guard for freedom. May God bless America.

Avoiding Another War

Barack Hussein Obama spoke last night to the nation and the world. The President, who has never seemed enthusiastic about attacking Syria, expressed a willingness to give diplomacy more time to work. Let us hope that avoiding a small conflict now does not lead to a larger war later.

Evil but Credible

I watched Charlie Rose's interview of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The most salient point the tyrant made was that if Barack Hussein Obama orders an attack on Syrian government forces, he will be siding with al-Qaeda against a "secular" regime. Assad is right that if American forces attack, they will be doing the bidding of Sunni Wahhabists, including al-Qaeda and their sympathizers. Assad is no gentle democrat but his forces were (as others have pointed out) winning at the time the (alleged) chemical attack occurred, making it at least possible that rebel forces might have launched the sarin gas attack themselves in the hope of drawing in Western forces to battle Assad on their behalf. If America launches a punitive strike with the Russian proposal to have the Assad regime's chemical weapons placed under international control on the table, Obama will have played into al-Qaeda's hands.

Lash and Rope

If Barack Hussein Obama is intent on giving up his long-held anti-imperial and anti-colonial posturing and embarking on a foreign adventure in Syria, he should study how Great Britain threw her weight around when the sun never set on her empire. The British exercised unmitigated cruelty at home and abroad, using both corporal and capital punishment with stunning regularity, holding their rule by spreading fear, and by projecting force to the distant corners of the earth with the leading navy of the world to that time. I have my doubts that Obama has the stomach for imposing his will through Draconian means, and I know Obama has decimated the US military, including of course, the Navy. If Obama wants to flex American muscle in Syria, he should look to Rome versus Carthage, and how the Romans subjected their foes to utter destruction, or to the abject subjugation of conquered peoples by England when she held her empire and do a gut check to see if he has what it takes to play in the conquerors' league.

Rushing Toward Mistakes

Hasty action in the Middle East has lasting (and often unintended) consequences. If we proceed down the war path, we may leave Syria in the hands of al-Qaeda sympathizers and make the situation there literally unlivable for that nation's Christian minority. If America pauses now to fully pin the blame on those culpable in the apparent chemical weapons attack, US intelligence agencies and military advisers working in Turkey or Jordan under their auspices can develop, form, and train a true free Syrian militia to ensure that those who will replace Assad share the democratic principles that we hope take hold across the Arab World.

A Robust Response

Barack Hussein Obama is evidently planning a more vigorous campaign against the Assad regime in Syria than most initially surmised the United States would. The American public however seems almost uniformly against US military involvement in this enterprise and in spite of a concerted effort by leaders of both the Democrat and Republican parties to overcome public resistance, the opposition to military intervention seems to be stiffening. The force of public opinion is galvanized against the United States entering another Mid East war.

Divorced from Reality

ABC's Good Morning America once again displayed their obsession with George Zimmerman by devoting a segment to Zimmerman's wife filing for divorce. With such an issue of moment as taking the nation to war in Syria, what is the significance of a young couple ending their marriage? I would rather have had that airtime spent exploring the connections between the rebels Barack Hussein Obama wants to help in Syria to al-Qaeda than hear more about the dissolution of the Zimmerman's marital bliss.

Jihad Against Zimmerman

With numerous threats against his life in the wake of his acquittal in the killing of Trayvon Martin, ABC News made sure that those who would do neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman harm know where he is, what he is driving, and how he now looks all because he was caught doing what millions of Americans do every day- driving above the speed limit. I do not understand what is news-worthy about a motorist being issued a traffic citation except that now those who seek vengeance for Trayvon will be able to find Zimmerman more easily.

A New Year

In my faith Judaism, another year has passed and another year is starting. May we greet 5774 with joy and wonder and may the Lord inscribe our names in the Book of Life, as we thank Him for life and liberty.

Joke of "Judaization"

According to The Jerusalem Post, Saudi Arabia is generously donating two hundred million dollars to prevent the Jews "judaizing" the country that they have claimed as their homeland since the time of King David. The Saudis are nothing if not brilliant in their mendacity, funding opposition to domestic oil production and fracking in the United States, thereby increasing dependence on them, paying for the construction of Wahhabi mosques around the world with the most intolerant and violent brand of Islam taught within, and being the primary source of funding for al-Qaeda with all the nihilistic rage that organization has wrought on the world. Read more about Saudi trouble making in this Ariel Ben Solomon article here: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Saudi-Arabia-donating-200-million-for-Palestinian-cities-prevent-Judaization-325203

No Good Guy

Early in the Syria conflict, the type of "limited" US intervention being proposed now might have made a substantive difference. Now, such American involvement will not alter the course of the conflict, and during the course of the Syrian fighting, both sides have revealed themselves to be absolutely bestial. The Assadist forces have at the very least deliberately bombed and shelled civilians, while the so-called "free forces" had a commander take video of himself literally eating the heart of regime soldier. The United States must abhor the recent Sarin gas attack, but can not side with al-Qaeda sympathizers and terrorists simply because they are fighting Assad.

Beating War Drums

Israel has not loudly urged the United States to attack Syria. Turkey has sought more robust international intervention against Assad, but the most vigorous proponents of America taking sides against Assad have been the Sunni Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia. In opposing an Alawite regime with abundant Shia backing from Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, the Sunnis are revealing their true face that is more intolerant of other brands of Islam than anything else. The United States should not be goaded into a war against America's self-interests to settle internal Muslim scores or even end internecine violence between the two equally culpable parties in Syria's relentless bloodletting.

A Temporary Reprieve

I am not certain whether the Assad regime or the administration of Barack Hussein Obama is more fortunate that the United States has postponed military action until Congress is consulted. The limited aim of Obama's planned strike, which evidently was to bombard Syria from afar with cruise missiles, but "no boots on the ground", actually betrayed a lack of determination on Obama's part to do enough to change the strategic equation on the ground in Syria. In all likelihood, Assad would personally survive action wherein America holds back so much power and in so doing, be able to claim victory over Obama because in the perspective of Middle Eastern perception such a David against Goliath fight as the last superpower versus a tiny tyrannical regime that has already fought its way off the ropes, the mere survival of Assad's ruling cadre after an American attack will be seen to have been Assad vanquishing a weakened United States. The "limited" nature of Obama's planned military involvement may mean that no action at all is better than half measures. It might be better to have Congress hold Obama back than leave America's enemies with the notion that America is now only a paper tiger.

Least Transparent Administration

Barack Hussein Obama promised when he campaigned for the Presidency that if elected, he would run the "most transparent" administration ever. In the event, Obama has overseen the most secretive regime in US history. Even this administration's White House visitor logs have become a closely guarded secret, and Team Obama has just sought and won privilege for those logs for twelve more years. To see for yourself how Obama continues to violate his transparency pledge, read here:http://washingtonexaminer.com/appeals-court-says-white-house-visitor-logs-can-be-kept-from-public/article/2534954

A Stunning Rebuke

I do not know whether David Cameron or Barack Hussein Obama is more chastened by having Parliament vote down participation in a punitive expedition against the Assad regime in Syria. It is a testament to just how bad Obama's foreign policy is that America's greatest ally since the First World War has eschewed supporting the United States in punishing the Assad regime's apparent deliberate use of nerve gas (or similar weapon of mass destruction) against Syrian civilians including women and children. Obama did not endear himself to the United Kingdom when he sent a bust of Winston Churchill back to Britain and then became the first American President to side with Argentina instead of Britain over the Falkland Islands, so it might rightly be said that the Obama administration sold out the UK first, but on a matter of such consequence as the world beginning to countenance the wanton use of poison gas against a defenseless populace, the inability to maintain a coalition of formerly close allies must send the absolute wrong signal to malefactors Iran and North Korea that perhaps attacks by them with weapons of mass destruction might be tolerated. As for the Prime Minister, Cameron might now be at his weakest, and might not long maintain his leadership. As for implication for Obama, it seems that the Nobel Peace laureate who was going to unite the world can not even hold together the Western alliance in spite of the fact that America has maintained the major portion of the collective defense of Europe (at the cost of trillions of US dollars) since the days of Stalin, thereby allowing our allies to shift large amounts that would otherwise have been spent on war materiel to domestic economies but that today all that American treasure spent to protect European democracy has not even availed the US the loyalty of Great Britain. I also wonder if members of the Nobel Committee will move to revoke Obama's Peace Prize when he starts a war of choice against the Assad regime in Syria.

Show of Force

Nothing could be worse than for America to attack Syria without removing either Syria's dictator Assad or that nation's weapons of mass destruction capacity. If all the US is attempting is a brief and symbolic "therapeutic strike", then we and our allies should not fire the first shot. Real casualties, including innocent Syrian civilians, will result even if we and our allies fire only a few standoff weapons (cruise missiles), and unless the strategic balance in Syria is changed or Assad's chemical and biological weapons are completely destroyed, Barack Obama would be better off not joining the conflict at all.

Words of Warning

Americans must remember it is always easier to start a war than to end one, and that your adversary has some say in that and in the course of the action. Then there is the so-called law of unintended consequences which does not seem to weigh heavy on Obama and his war planners. Before the US attacks Syria, we must make sure Jordan, Turkey, Cyprus, and Israel are ready to repel attacks from Syria, Iran, or their terrorist proxies. Europe and even the US homeland itself must brace for possible terror strikes in retaliation for entering the Syria conflict. Just as he did in Libya when America helped depose Gaddafi (but also unleashed the chaos leading to the loss of Americans in Benghazi), Barack Hussein Obama is about to embark on a war of choice rather than a war of necessity. No oracle is able to predict the course of events when a nation turns her forces against another.

Question About Retail

Does it seem to you that many stores from national retailers to your neighborhood grocery are making more billing errors than ever, and that the mistakes (in our super-technology age) are usually to their benefit? My readers know I am no raving anti-corporate leftist, but it seems ridiculous that certain retail stores can not deal with a coupon downloaded and printed from their websites or that three out of the last five times we have shopped at our nearby grocer, they have overcharged us (and once, one of their managers was rude and confrontational in correcting their mistake). These are trying times and some of those who work in retail seem well past the point of caring about their customers.

Wants and Warrants

Bashar al Assad wants to retain power in Syria. Iran wants Assad to continue to rule and is using force to keep Assad afloat. Russia wants to diminish US influence across the Levant. Most of the Syrian people at this point want their despot gone. The West wants Assad removed. If Assad can be proven to have authorized the use of chemical weapons, there will likely be an International Criminal Court warrant issued for his arrest as a war criminal. The United States though should pause long and hard before using force on the ground to detain Assad, because as Iraq proved, even after the capture of Saddam Hussein, Americans, our allies, and innocent Iraqis continued to die and the removal of the dictator did not increase stability.