Italy's Real Impact

If the Italian crisis had happened in a vacuum, then whether a government was formed there would have little effect on the global economy, but given the tenuous state of the Euro-zone and the world economy as a whole, Italy becomes one more complication that may just be that fatal straw. In a sane world, the absence of austerity measures in Rome would not make waves, but nations are so overextended that the camel's back is already breaking.

Relieve Dempsey Now

America's top general believes that the defense of the United States takes second place to protecting the world economic system. Read General Dempsey's own words in this Pete Winn article here: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/top-general-protecting-us-catastrophic-attack-lower-priority-protecting-global-economic. The national security team must reflect the strategic leadership of the President of the United States. Let us pray that Barack Hussein Obama still puts guarding the nation first.

Just Playing Charades

Barack Hussein Obama has already began to inflict pain on his opponents by releasing illegal aliens who have been detained as a cost-cutting measure before the "dreaded sequester" kicks in in early March. The sequester is such a miniscule amount relative to the overall budget that unless the executive branch which proposed the sequester in the first place and will be administering where the cuts are directed with the limited guidance of the law Congress passed for sequester being only that half of the eighty-five billion dollars in cuts (or forty-two and one half billion dollars) will be cut from the Department of Defense, that unless Obama wants to punish those who want responsible government that the taxpayer can actually afford, then cuts from programs that are truly essential need never happen, but those are precisely the cuts that Obama wants, so he and his handmaiden media can hammer the GOP as the cause of all the new found suffering of voters. Let us hope this time that the public does not fall for it and apportions the blame where it belongs which is on the father of sequester himself, President Obama.

The Ultimate Aim

Do you think the objective of the Palestinian leadership is to live harmoniously in a portion of Jerusalem with Jews in other parts of a divided city? Do you believe Palestinians would be satisfied with only a share of the Holy Land? If you know that Islamists only cease violence after their maximalist goals are met, then why should Israel make concessions that have absolutely no prospect of advancing peace?

Assuming a Risk

There exists a possibility anytime vehicles are traveling inches apart at over one hundred miles per hour near a grandstand packed with spectators that a cataclysm could ensue. A few years ago, race fans died at the Lowe's Motor Speedway after an IRL crash and years ago in France, dozens died when debris from a wreck turned into fiery shrapnel at Le Mans. I even remember a young girl struck by a puck and killed at a Columbus Blue Jackets hockey game. So while naturally, our hearts go out to those injured at Daytona, those attending the race were in some ways lucky.

Britain Loses Ground

Great Britain's credit rating has just been downgraded from AAA to Aa1 by Moody's. It is ironic that the United States under Barack Hussein Obama has adopted all the profligate spending policies that have felled Europe. America has grabbed onto a national health regime similar to the one that has been so costly to the United Kingdom and has now through care rationing, shortened lives. Obama is implementing "green" energy programs like the ones that bankrupted Spain. Britain and Germany have been largely responsible for bailing out the even worse off economic basket cases in the European Union but no nation or group is large enough to rescue America should she continue bleeding debt.

Gun Owner's Friend?

Vice President Joe Biden contends he has been a friend of gun owners for more than thirty-five years. Based on the rest of the American Left, Biden is speaking truth. Biden wants to permit Americans who have passed their background checks to keep their double-barreled shotguns while the vast majority of Democrat lawmakers want to disarm ordinary citizens completely. Thanks for your reverence of the Second Amendment there Joe. By the way, who are you to limit the means with which I may defend my family?

Obama's Israel Visit

Barack Hussein Obama is not going to Israel for dialogue but to dictate. Obama will dress down Netanyahu for his "intransigence" in dealing with the Palestinians, who Obama believes are the wronged party. Obama will demand territorial compromise from the Jews and only the Jews that will leave the Jewish State indefensible while not holding the Palestinians to account for terror, past, present, or future. By not demanding that the Palestinians abandon their long-stated desire to push the Jews into the sea and not insisting that the Muslim world acknowledge Israel's right to exist as the Jewish State, Obama will exert maximum pressure on the Israeli government to make concessions that are self-destructive for Israel as she exists as a tolerant, pluralistic but Jewish State. Obama will continue to give false assurances that the United States will not permit a nuclear Iran and will demand that Israel stay her hand in any effort at preemption, all the while, knowing America will not act militarily to tamp down the Iranian threat. Anyone who thinks Obama is coming to Israel as a friend is engaged in willful self-delusion.

An Inevitable Conclusion

I do not sense that Barack Hussein Obama is interested in preventing the so-called "sequester", but only cares about budgetary matters when they can be used to hammer the Republican Party. If the sequester does indeed happen, Obama, the Democrat Party, and their media flacks will have a weapon to yield against the GOP. An honest media would point out that sequester was Obama's own initiative, but America no longer has a fair press.

Not Role Models

Many years ago during his active playing career, Charles Barkley aptly declared that he was not a role model. In the wake first of doping scandals, then match fixing allegations, and now even alleged murder, it has never been more apparent that athletes are just as flawed as anyone else. A bicyclist who has battled cancer or a sprinter who ran without legs could have served as great inspiration but the personal demons they had to contend with overwhelmed the legends they had become.

A Chicago Gun

I heard the news reports that the sister of someone who attended the Obama Chicago speech was shot and killed soon after Barack Hussein Obama finished speaking. From the Leftist perspective, obviously, one of those guns that will soon be banned is responsible for the death. The weapon had to be legally owned and securely stored like the firearms of law-abiding Americans already are. That soon to be prohibited gun must have broken free of the restraint of its gun-lock, used preternatural strength to escape the confines of the gun safe where it was being stored, loaded itself without opposable thumbs or even hands, gone out of the house, and deliberately targeted the innocent teenage girl in the park. It could not have possibly been, in that city already under a strict gun control regime, that an evil criminal who had already ignored and violated many laws is solely responsible for the tragic murder.

Having A Citizen

Many illegal aliens have managed to drop their anchor babies on US soil. The scope of this invasion can be measured to some extent in this Caroline May article http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/15/report-2-billion-spent-annually-for-medicaid-emergencies-largely-for-illegal-immigrant-baby-delivery/. The act of coming to this nation to secure generations of benefits is pure and simple theft. It robs our resources and sovereignty. With the coming illegal alien amnesty, we will also find the meaning of "citizenship" stolen. The Obama definition of who is an American will be any person who can access US-taxpayer funded benefits, and the alien horde will further destroy the America those that created Her envisioned.

Looming Currency Wars

Does the devaluing of the Yen by the Japanese government, making their exports relatively cheaper, herald the start of a currency war? If so, will America's economy in its already weakened state be damaged still further or will the former ethos of flight to quality that has always sustained the US Dollar prevail. With our current leadership, I fear that the dollars days as the bedrock currency for the world are past and only hard commodities, particularly gold, silver, copper, and platinum will hold their value.

Like Science Fiction

Russia has just experienced a meteor strike that looked like a Spielberg movie scene or an End Timer's fears come to life. It is almost inconceivable that earth is still vulnerable and completely unable to predict or defend itself from or such a catastrophe. It is only a matter of luck that such a destructive force did not hit the heart of a major city. Our scientists in conjunction with our military must prepare the means to intercept the next meteor aimed at Moscow or New York City before millions of casualties ensue. Preventing a future tragedy should also be enough of a common interest to bridge gaps and have nations cooperate for a safer future for mankind.

America's Vulture Culture

(Let me preface this by declaring these sentiments do not pertain to so-called "earned entitlements" like Social Security and Medicare.) Too many parasites and thieves have infected the body politic within these United States. The thieves are ruling elite that take from the productive to buy the support of the parasites who under Barack Hussein Obama include foreign nationals who are enjoying entitlements that in previous generations they were not able to receive. In fact, immigration controls used to be so serious that without a sponsor to ensure an immigrant would not sponge off the taxpayer, that immigrant could not enter America. Now, there are US government publications in Spanish distributed in Mexico, telling illegal aliens how to access benefits. Our forefathers would never have tolerated this and tax-paying citizens ought to be outraged but even DC Republicans are eager to procure the future votes of millions who by right should never have been permitted into the country and should be deported now.

Causing More Inflation

If the Federal minimum wage is raised to nine dollars per hour, it will very soon only have the buying power of the current minimum wage because of inflation. It will be a sop to Obama's union backers whose contractual raises are often tied to the rise in minimum wage but will have the effect of killing off many entry-level jobs. Yes, those first jobs for high school students (who do not need "a living wage" because they are not responsible for supporting themselves and certainly not are not required to meet the expenses of their entire family) are likely to evaporate. In a market where work is already scarce, a higher minimum age will only make finding employment harder.

A Freedom Issue

I have never doubted Barack Hussein Obama's commitment and determination to rid us of our right to keep and bear arms. Last night, Obama spouted more nonsense that taking gun rights from the law-abiding will somehow make Americans safer. Just the opposite is true. No measure being proposed would have saved the victims of any attacks. New laws that limit our Second Amendment liberty will only make us more vulnerable to criminals, potential foreign invaders, and the rise of a domestic tyranny.

North Korean Menace

North Korea has conducted yet another provocative nuclear test in the face of seeming worldwide opposition. I say "seeming" because I can not believe that if Red China, North Korea's patron state truly put their foot down, the nuclear test would have gone forward. In a world where Barack Hussein Obama is unilaterally reducing US defenses, North Korea's maniacal despot is arming up as fast his country's limited resources permit, but even more threatening to the world is the unrestrained rise of Communist China, who not only tolerates every North Korean excess, but allows them to proceed with a wink and a nod, knowing every action that hurts the West and Japan, aids in Red China supplanting America as the last superpower.

Soon to Depart

Pope Benedict XVI has announced that he is resigning his papacy. This Pope has been an unwavering force for life and upholding traditions of the Church. I also predict that one way or the other, Bashar Assad, a physical incarnation of demonic evil in this world, will not long survive as leader of Syria. Assad could seek sanctuary in another country or could be apprehended by vengeful foes. The world will miss Pope Benedict but will be better off without Assad holding power through slaughter.

Conservatives Too Polarizing

Do you agree with Karl Rove that the TEA Party faction of Republicanism must be opposed and so-called "mainstream" GOP incumbents supported? I for one think this is one hundred and eighty degrees out of phase and that advocates of restraint including lower taxes, lower spending, and less government intrusion into our lives are the candidates that merit support. If Rove and his establishment backers win, I will no longer be able to consider myself a Republican.

Ski Mask Nation

Pondering the blizzard in the Northeast, I am left to remember an experience I had years back in a restaurant here as snow started to fall across Nashville. I saw a rail-thin girl pick at her order and wondered how an Ethiopian of the same age, in that country at the time that was experiencing one of what seemed were endemic famines, would have savored each morsel. I thought how eating disorders must be contained within the developed world, as in developing countries, there could be no indulging in such self-destructive behavior, with nature seeming to conspire to destroy so much without them. After dinner, we raced to our nearby grocery to buy milk and bread that we really did not need. I hope my countrymen up East have provided for themselves, because with two feet of snow trapping them, they are contending with conditions Nashville has never seen.

The Arab Winter

No country where the so-called "Arab Spring" burst forth is now either stable or safe. None of the nations that replaced a dictator is now more friendly to the West. In fact, all the new governments are more Islamist in nature, even Tunisia, where the revolutions began. One of the leading opposition figures in Tunisia, Chokri Belaid was murdered this very week. Belaid attempted to stand in the way of the Muslim fundamentalists and wanted better relations with the non-Islamic world. Syria is on the boil of civil war and Egypt is on a slower simmer. Expectations of Arab democracy have disappointed those who hoped peace and progress would ensue, but realists knew little good would come but much violence.

Iran Rejects Peace

Iran's so-called "Supreme Leader" has rebuffed America's offer for talks after they were offered by Vice President of the United States Joe Biden. This rejection demonstrates conclusively that Iran's nuclear adventurism is not meant as a bluff, some sort of tactical demarche to extract Western concessions, but as what Ahmadinejad promised, the means the Islamic Republic will use to "wipe Israel off the map". The Jewish State remains under the gun and Barack Hussein Obama's decision to visit Israel does less than nothing to mitigate the Iranian threat. In fact, Obama's planned visit has a dual purpose: First, to force the Jews to give up further territory to the Palestinians with no peace in return expected out of the Palestinians who will retain the goal of obliterating the Jewish presence in the Holy Land as their national enterprise, and second, to hold Israel back from any attempt at self-defense until Obama departs Israel, by which time, Iran will likely possess a viable delivery system for an atomic weapon. The intention of the Islamists are clear; it is only the Obama administration that disguises contempt for the Jewish State as paternalistic concern that Team Obama knows better than the Israelis themselves what is good for Israel.

Formerly Christian Realm

Great Britain sent missionaries to the four corners of the earth. Some of the greatest moral forces the world has known like William Wilberforce sprang forth from the "sceptred isle". Now this great bastion of Christendom seeks to put the imprimatur of government on so-called "gay marriage". I weep for my English brethren and pray there remain enough believers to redeem that country that before was decent and good.

Feeling Iranian Outreach

Iran and their surrogate Hezbollah are not averse to killing members of the Israel Defense Forces but in reality, any Jew will do. This is evident in the AMIA bombing in Argentina in 1994 that followed the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and now has been matched in senseless brutality directed at civilians with a bombing of a bus of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last year. This is the true face of Shia extremism that confronts Israel and the Jewish people.

This Tears It

Is Islam the religion of peace? This Erica Ritz article from Glenn Beck's website provides an answer: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/03/saudi-cleric-confesses-to-murdering-5-year-old-daughter-over-virginity-concerns-gets-a-fine-brief-jail-time/

A Real Patriot

In a gun control hearing before the Connecticut legislature, Newtown Elementary School father Bill Stevens used a concept foreign to most of today's politicians, logic. He has the temerity to want to keep his ability to protect his family with the guns he has legally acquired. The lawmakers of his home state in a rush to "do something" after the Newtown massacre want to make this law-abiding citizen a criminal because he insists the Second Amendment to the US Constitution still has meaning. See Bill Stevens testify here: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=afe_1359927863.

A Texas Tragedy

Imagine if after World War I, Alvin York had been gunned down back home in Tennessee, or if after World War II, Audie Murphy had been shot to death. A bizarre circumstance arose in Texas where one of the great heroes of America's war in Iraq was killed by a fellow veteran at a gun range. Chris Kyle was a member of US Navy SEAL Team 3 who was one of the most decorated US service personnel in the post-September 11, 2001 wars. An act of madness has claimed him not on some distant battlefield but near his home.

Corporate Welfare State

Barack Hussein Obama does believe in capitalism after a fashion. That brand of capitalism is of the crony capitalist variety and is just as destructive to a society as socialism. Even locally in Nashville, corporate welfare penalizes the many for the profit of the few. Everything from the heavily-subsidized professional hockey and football franchises to our new convention center costs most taxpayers who receive nothing in return. A few short-term jobs have been created during the construction of our stadium, our hockey arena, and our first and second publicly-financed convention centers but those jobs were largely held by non-US nationals and evaporate the second building ends. All that is left for the locals in the sporting venues are seasonal vendor, usher, security, and ticket taker jobs that offer little job security and are certainly not "careers". For the convention center, low wage service jobs are once again the norm, but every property tax payer in Davidson County has subsidized these projects and we have even been penalized with higher municipal water bills. Giving a handful of Obama's "millionaires and billionaires" an unmerited subsidy on either the local or national level has hardly fostered job creation and has engendered tremendous expense for the rest of us.

The Dwindling Dollar

Watch the Euro rise against the US dollar. Watch the Yen. These are not signs of a world confident in America's economy. A weak currency is the benchmark of a fading nation.