Saturday, August 31, 2013

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

Friday, August 30, 2013

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.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

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.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

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.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

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.

Monday, August 26, 2013

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.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

President or King

Barack Hussein Obama does not follow the law as previous American Presidents by in large have, but enforces portions of law as he sees fit. Obama did not defend "don't ask, don't tell" when it was the Bill Clinton crafted, Congress-authorized law of the land. Obama did not complete the fence on the Southern border that Congress instructed, and now will not arrest and deport illegal alien parents of minor children, because that part of immigration law Obama disdains. This new arrogance of power is herein described: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/23/new-obama-policy-warns-agents-not-detain-illegal-i/. Federal law is not a pick and choose buffet, and Barack Obama is neither emperor nor king.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Senseless Unfettered Brutality

Why would someone willingly blow themselves up to kill innocent people of their own religion praying in a mosque? How could a doctor, who happened to be an army officer, turn his gun on fellow soldiers? How could young men with the promise of a full life ahead of them squander all the opportunity America offers by gunning down a jogging stranger or beating a World War II veteran to death? What empty lives the perpetrators of these acts of madness must be living and what a shame that is.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Necklacing in America

The specter of the savagery of murder by burning as practiced in Africa may be on the way to an alley or lot near you. This barbarism has just visited my home state of Tennessee, west of me in crime-ridden Memphis. Two assailants allegedly doused their victim with gasoline and set him alight. More on this horror is available here: http://www.wmctv.com/story/23235083/police-man-doused-with-gasoline-set-on-fire-in-vacant-lot. A civilized society must punish such deliberate cruelty in the most strident way.

An Anemic Response

The world has given lip service to so-called "red-lines" in Syria, but in the event, has failed to act. If a child says he is going to punch the schoolyard bully back if he continues to torment, but then, does not follow through, the bully is emboldened. In the same way, Iran and North Korea watch the West pledge never to permit the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and then do absolutely nothing when poison gas is used. This reluctance by America and our allies to keep the commitments that our leaders publicly enunciated, makes world war far more likely, just as appeasing Adolf Hitler made World War II inevitable.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Chemical Weapon Attack

A crime against humanity seems to have been committed in Syria, but before the US and the West launch reprisals, they had best fix the guilty party. Assad has proven himself to be ruthless in his fight to retain power, but that does not necessarily mean poison gas was used by his forces or on his orders. Remember that al-Qaeda, a force that opposes Assad has attempted to produce chemical weapons for years and would not be averse to killing innocent Muslims to create a provocation to draw America into the war against Assad. Whoever launched the atrocity must be punished, but the world must determine with absolute certainty who the culprit is before launching retaliatory action.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

The Bilgewater Brigade

Our main stream media is working with almost all our national politicians to keep the truth from us- to shield us from the horrible reality in which America's leaders are trapping us. The almost incalculable Federal debt is hardly ever mentioned. The level of brutality in the Middle East and Mexico is rarely brought up on the dinosaur television networks. We are told to welcome immigrants while being kept oblivious to the violence and disease they bring with them. It is seldom the professional class of Mexico coming here but those who could not succeed and make a life for themselves in their own country. Why should we give them a chance to fail here and become dependent on the already broken welfare state? America can not support our pension obligations, can not pay for Obamacare, and does not need eleven million (or more likely forty million) more dole dwellers who can not make themselves understood in English and have no desire to assimilate into what has been traditional American culture. To our amnesty-pushing politicians and their media mouthpieces: You have not fooled us and we will judge you by your actions.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Mostly for Show

Do you think Barack Hussein Obama who dined on dogs in his youth in Indonesia really loves the First Family's new Portuguese water dog or is this one more "bread and circus" prop? With millions of dogs a year destroyed by animal control, would it not have been a much better choice to have adopted a dog from a kill pound? After all, every US President "pardons" a turkey for show each Thanksgiving, but none so far have set an example by rescuing an animal from certain death in the so-called "shelters" that do not really shelter strays that come into their custody.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Under the Gun

The Christian community outside of Israel in the Middle East is in peril. They are under threat from the Islamist extremists that the so-called Arab Spring unleashed and also perversely in Iraq from the forces the US brought to power by "liberating" that country from Saddam Hussein. Egypt and Syria are particularly bloody for the followers of Christ at the moment, and very little is being done by the Church in the West to protect their beleaguered brethren. Oddly, many US politicians from both major political parties are voicing support for precisely the people who are threatening Christians the most. The Egyptian military and even Assad in Syria may be the better alternative for non-Muslim minorities, even if they have resorted to brutality to hold power.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

A Course Correction

What the United States needs to (but will not) do in the Middle East is to back Israel as it is the only nation that shares our pluralistic, tolerant values. We should take a hands-off approach to the ongoing conflict in Syria because there is no "good guy" in the fight between Assad and the Iranian/Hezbollah proxy army that has come to back him and the Sunni al-Qaeda types trying to oust Assad. America has damaged Egypt too much already with our early full-throated support of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood supporters. There are no facile answers to solve the problems of the Muslim world but the best path toward world peace and stability that the US could embark upon would be to launch a surgical preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear production facilities and in the same pinpoint strike destroy their offensive weapons capabilities. That and standing with Israel as the "Jewish State" would make the globe a safer place, but Barack Hussein Obama and his "blame Israel" administration will do neither.

Saturday, August 17, 2013

A Democracy Movement?

The Muslim Brotherhood has never been a democracy movement. It may be a popular movement (particularly among the poorest and least educated Egyptians) but the moment Morsi, one of its adherents gained power, he sought to restrict the liberty of his countrymen. Other isms besides Islamic fundamentalism have absolutist tendencies- notably communism and fascism, but there can be no doubt, Morsi was attempting to build a sharia state that would vastly restrict the rights of women and Egypt's Christian minority. If a George Washington had somehow risen in Egypt, it could have transformed the Middle East, but the Muslim Brothers instead merely offered a different brand of tyranny. For the US and the West, to interfere now in the internal Egyptian conflict will have lasting consequences that we can not anticipate, just as our backing of Afghan Mujahideen against the Russians in the 1980s spawned the al-Qaeda movement that we still fight today.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Brotherhood Wins Again

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood supporters of Mohamed Morsi find themselves in a win-win situation. They have won the public opinion battle with almost the whole world condemning the Egyptian military for the bloodshed that happened as the army tried to restore order. To comprehend what is going on, one must understand the mentality of martyrdom. The most fervent Brotherhood supporters will tell you they "love death more than you love life", and they actually want to die in service of their beliefs. So, Brotherhood backers gladly march to their deaths in their effort to overturn the new more secular regime. The police and military in Cairo and Alexandria are fighting for their lives against fanatics willing to die to kill them and gaining bonus points in public opinion and media by dragging their chattel women and minor children with them to face live fire in the riots the Islamists themselves started.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Obama's Greatest Error

Hindsight is mostly irrelevant except that we may ponder what might have been, but can you imagine how different the Middle East and world would have been today if Barack Hussein Obama and the United States had backed Iran's Green Movement to the same extent that they later backed the rise of Morsi in Egypt? Iran is the greatest destabilizing element and the worst threat to global peace, yet when the oppressed people of Iran courageously rose against their despotic masters, America lacked the will to fully back the one democracy movement that could have mattered most. Obama backed the wrong revolutions but eschewed the one that was not only in the self-interest of America, but the one that would actually have advanced the cause of world peace.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Egyptian Inferno

Just as Jimmy Carter botched relations with Iran by demanding the Shah leave and thereby opened the door for greater internal tyranny and worse than that, the worldwide export of jihad terror, exported from and directed by the mad mullahs who replaced Pahlavi in Tehran, Barack Hussein Obama blundered mightily by demanding Hosni Mubarak surrender himself to the Muslim Brotherhood mob that was roiling the Cairo street. Mubarak complied but all that brought was economic collapse, more chaos with ever growing political instability, and the steady imposition of sharia against the wishes of most Egyptians. With few foreign tourists and flagging international investment, the fundamentalists exerted more pressure on secular Muslims and the Christian minority and that imposition of intolerance brought the crowds back into the street, this time not to overthrow an old order, but to depose Morsi and his Islamist cadre before they could seize irrevocable power. The people and the military that backed them prevailed against the looming new dictatorship, but now, Egypt is ablaze with Morsi supporters, who will countenance nothing less than the absolutism of Islamic law, battling against those who want freedom. The world suffers the repercussions of Carter's naivete all these years after he left office with Iran more menacing than ever and nearing a nuclear weapons capacity. One can only dread what future danger will emanate from Egypt if the fundamentalist are allowed to return to power.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Lesson in Liberty

Through the centuries, freedom has seldom been man's condition, but it has always been man's natural yearning. If you believe because you are free today, you will never face tyranny, you are fooling yourself. Do you think America's Founders ever envisaged "free speech zones" and the manipulation of language and even freedom of thought inherent in "political correctness"? Do you think plans by Barack Hussein Obama's HUD (Housing and Urban Development) to integrate every neighborhood advance freedom of association or inhibit it? It is no great leap to go from surveillance society today to police state tomorrow.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Repairing Republican Rot

America not that long ago appeared to have a conservative national party and that party called itself the GOP. Something happened to that party, and now, elder statesmen like former Presidential candidate John McCain are conciliatory toward the most radical leader the United States has ever had, while displaying overt hostility to conservative legislators of their own party and to conservative voters. It is not that the McCain-Lindsey Graham-Lamar Alexander wing lack backbone; it is that their courageous stands are always and only directed against the right wing of their own Party. To have senior US Senate Republicans call their younger TEA Party colleagues "wacko birds" while giving Barack Hussein Obama a pass on tilting the nation leftward shows national elite Republicans have discarded the mantle and conservative legacy of Ronald Reagan.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Pandering Progressive Poison

Patriots must resist the progressive wings of both the Democrat and Republican parties. Not only do these radicals want to punish self-starters but they want to grow the dependency state by importing even more dole dwellers from Mexico. If neither party will resist open-borders amnesty, right-thinking Americans will create a third party devoted to our Founding Principals and our Constitution to chase these charlatans like Lamar Alexander from office.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Ceding the Field

The United States with our military withdrawal left Iraq to her own devices, leading to chaos and more internecine violence which is still increasing. Barack Hussein Obama is preparing to abandon Afghanistan as well to the tender mercies of the Taliban. America's retreat sends exactly the wrong message- that we lack resolve- and in a battle of the wills, expansionist Islam has been given the upper hand. We only further embolden jihad and invite attack on the homeland itself by closing embassies and being seen to be cowering because of an al-Qaeda threat. When you take the fight to the enemy, you leave him off balance and unable to take the offensive, but when you take flight, the opponent gains confidence and the chance to plan and attack Americans at the time of his choosing.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Shame Is Gone

Two American Democrat politicians, one on the West Coast and one in the East, have conducted themselves disgracefully and now expect forgiveness without contrition. They figure Democrat President Bill Clinton essentially got by with sexual misconduct, up to sexual imposition, and is now widely beloved by the American people. Clinton went from Peck's bad boy to our nation's elder statesman without ever having humbled himself or ever really apologizing to the women whose lives he ruined, so Bob Filner and Weiner are following the playbook and hoping they can do the same.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

More Nashville Flooding

My hometown of Nashville and neighboring areas in middle Tennessee are flooding again. This time it is not a dreaded "thousand year" flood or even the worst flood of the century, but for those under water, the event is plenty bad. Of course, no place is immune from nature's wrath, but lately, we in the Nashville area seem to have experienced more than our fair share.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

The Raw Wound

Maybe it was the coincidence that my great-aunt has just died and had been in the wedding of a close family member of the retired attorney we ran into while shopping, but meeting and speaking to him brought up conversation about my Father's ""futile care" imposed deliberate killing by Vanderbilt Medical Center. The old family acquaintance was sadly not surprised by the murder by way of rationed care and figures Obama Care will make these Terri Schiavo-style horrific deaths increasingly common. He is sadly right but unlike that poor girl killed in Florida, my father was pleading for care and food on his own behalf and his medical team killed him anyway.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

An Absolute Disgrace

Remember al-Qaeda, those pesky terrorists who Obama had defeated by killing Osama bin Laden before the last US Presidential election. They certainly remember us and do not seem to be particularly beaten with American diplomatic posts being closed-up and blast-shuttered all over the Muslim world, and US personnel being ordered to turn tail and flee from Yemen. "Detroit is alive and bin Laden is dead" was good sloganeering to win reelection, but it seems Detroit is dead at least financially as a municipality and bin Laden's legacy is more threatening than ever.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Moments of Reflection

My great-aunt Leona ("Nona") Weiss has died. She was quiet with an air of refinement not often seen these days. Of my great-grandmother's five girls, only one remains alive. Leona lived a very long life and was loved by many. My Mother and I are heartbroken and know Nona will be truly missed.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

America in Retreat

Why is the nation with the largest economy and most powerful, technologically-advanced military ceding the field of conflict to a bunch of atavist jihadists whose goal is to return the globe to the seventh century when Muhammad actually lived? Why is a nation with ICBMs and fighter jets fleeing from a portions of the world where they can not keep refrigerators running through the night? Why have tens of thousands of Americans shed their blood to pacify Afghanistan and Iraq if we in the end run from the region like a scolded dog rather than asserting our national security prerogatives and unleashing sufficient force to vanquish those who intend to harm us?

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Cowering in Caves

Some accused US President George W. Bush of behaving like a "cowboy" in the wake of Osama bin Laden's sneak attack on the homeland. The resolve that Bush demonstrated with his muscular response clearly put the terrorists on the run, and American embassies and consulates were not shutting down in fear of al-Qaeda. Now, the United States presents the image of defeat by closing down more than twenty diplomatic posts across the Middle East. In five short years, look how the mighty have fallen.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Hiding from Terror

The United States has issued a worldwide alert out of fear of a potential al-Qaeda attack and will even close a number of embassies in the Middle East this coming Sunday. With more than a trillion US dollars spent on defense, intelligence, and the war on terror, how can the last superpower on earth be reduced to cowering out of what the State Department spokesperson called an "abundance of caution"? It is the jihadists who should be hiding from America's righteous wrath as they were when George W. Bush answered the September 11, 2001 outrage. America is rapidly devolving into a second rate loser state like France under the mis-leader Barack Hussein Obama.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

A Clean Game

I have often wondered why Pete Rose was banned for life by Major League Baseball and had his accomplishments stricken for gambling, but drug users have been allowed to stay in the game and maintain their place in the record books. Rose was given the harshest punishment baseball could deliver because supposedly his actions threatened the integrity of the game. Would drug dealers not have just as much ability and desire to manipulate the outcome of games as gamblers? Has a street drug dealer or even a doctor administering performance enhancing steroids or hormones not have the ability to blackmail a player who sought their goods and services to drop a fly in the outfield or miss a hittable pitch to win a major bet? The idea that Rose is exiled from the game, but Steve Howe was not is ludicrous. As for the current crop of cheating superstars, either kick them all out or allow Rose back in the record books for the accolades he earned before we quite so jaded about our national pastime.