An Italian Injustice

Amanda Knox has been placed in double jeopardy and convicted of murder in the mockery that Italy calls a trial. It is not that America has such a stellar and infallible justice system, but that what passes for court proceedings in most of the rest of the world that are manifestly unjust that prove American jurisprudence is a superior system for ferreting out truth and protecting rights. I have a passport and the ability to go to Italy but will never go there out of fear that I could be absolutely innocent of any crime but still be subjected to an Amanda Knox-type ordeal. Take heart Amanda- many Americans believe in your innocence- and will demand the State Department deny any effort at extradition.

The Top Down

Trickle down economics works. In the private sector (which is after all the real economy), it is the wealthy that create jobs, hire people, and make others more affluent. Has a poor man ever hired you for a job? Class envy has an appeal, a base call to jealousy, but by taking the rich down a peg, the government does not lift the poor up an inch. Barack Hussein Obama can not spread the wealth to create equality, but he can create the equal outcome of making us all poorer.

The Bottom Up

Cathy Rodgers' official Republican response to the "Separater in Chief" makes Sarah Palin look like Albert Einstein in contrast. Why do the Republicans think it is necessary to borrow the language of the left and focus their remarks on "working families"? People do not aspire to remain in or enter the "middle class". Who says if I strive really hard and earn my way up, I can be "middle class"? The Democrats have so successfully poisoned the well of political rhetoric that "wealth" is demonized not only by Democrats but Republicans as well. Why is it no longer possible to campaign on the notion that our party will remove the regulatory barriers and lower the marginal Federal tax rates that will allow more Americans to be rich than ever before? We need a political party willing to educate the public that less government means more economic freedom and more freedom translates into greater wealth.

Our Crumbling Union

Barack Hussein Obama has stoked the fires of class envy more than any previous American President. Obama ran for the nation's highest office as a "uniter" but has proved to be a divider who separates by wealth and even race. It is sad that a man who said he would govern as a pragmatist willing to work with anybody for the good of the nation and who would be our first "post-partisan" President has been among the most partisan US leaders ever. Obama believes that "bipartisan" means the GOP must give in and vote Obama's way. Obama insists on "all for one" so long as the one happens to be Obama. We will see if Obama makes any effort to control his dictatorial impulse during what should be his lame duck period in office.

In Our Faces

The main stream music industry celebrated their lack of decency yesterday. I did not watch because I knew they would foist their immorality in my face. I will not watch next year either because that industry at the highest level will never temper their decadence with even a hint of virtue. There will be virtuoso performances from performers of all stripes from Christian artists to secular singers, but this degenerate media will never fete performers, no matter how talented, who tow the line on traditional morality. Music can lift the human spirit, but what was pitched last night at the awards show was a deliberate assault on goodness itself.

Sweetly Sentimental Sunday

How I yearn for those long ago Sundays when my grandfather would bring fish dinners back from Captain D's after we spent the morning at the JCC or how we would drive over to Sedberry to spend the day with Aunt Lil and Uncle Morris devouring her rice casserole and the spanakopita Mrs. Mooney had taught Aunt Lil to make. Sometimes, playing tennis on the court next door with my Dad or the very young Andy or more sedate pursuits in the den around that black leather lounger that you could not seem to pry Uncle Morris out of unless the food was ready, and then you would be surprised how spry Morris still was. Izzy still had his leg and we all still believed the song in our hearts. You can not turn back the clock and there is as much love in the future as was lost in the past. It can never be that same way again but Tracy and I will make our own memories.

Sharing Saturday Sadness

We lost a beloved cousin, Barbara Gilbert Feldman, yesterday. We grieve with Stacy and Andy, her daughter and son, who also recently lost their Dad, and Arlene, who lost her baby sister. We too have lost parents in January, my Dad on January 29, 2012, and my Mom's mother in January in the early 1990s. They were all gone too soon and are all sorely missed. Our love, thoughts, and prayers go out to those who knew Barbara. A room always brightened when Barbara walked in with her humor and generosity of spirit, how she gave so much to Jerry during his prolonged illness, and how she was always the one that called to lift your spirits when you were down. How I yearn for the days when Barbara, Jerry and the kids would come into Nashville from Wichita and make every moment special.

Our "High" Achievement

The President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, has recently declared that he does not think marijuana is any worse than alcohol or cigarettes. Obama should be the definitive authority on these matters because he has indulged in all three. I have a relatively libertarian view but would like to know how many people perform better under the influence of narcotics or alcohol than they would substance-free? If someone has terminal cancer, or is constantly nauseous because of chemotherapy or radiation, or is fighting glaucoma, let them puff away on their joint, but the recreational use of drugs only destroys lives. Too much permissiveness is crippling our culture.

Feeding Friday's Fear

Bombings across Egypt killed at least five people. It is thought that supporters of the deposed Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi may be responsible for some of the violence, as al-Qaeda sprung forth from the Muslim Brotherhood itself, and Salafi terrorists, who are even more violent, radical, and uncompromising than al-Qaeda, launching the rest. The feature both groups of fanatics have in common is a steadfast devotion to Wahhab Sunni Islam. This is the same mentality that launched the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks and that motivates those intending to attack the Sochi Olympic Games. Those possessed of this ideology can not be negotiated with or reasoned with because of their strict adherence to a nihilist brand of religious devotion that demands submission and does not recognize the sanctity of life even of the believers themselves who openly profess that they "love death more than the infidel loves life", and they mean it. Either that mindset has to be changed by a reformation within Islam or we will never see peace.

The Thursday Turmoil

Terrorists threaten the Olympic Games that are supposed to be about peace, but on the plus side, Russia killed a jihadist leader yesterday. Also on Wednesday, Israel fortunately interrupted a terror plot by al-Qaeda operatives that not only was aimed at Jews but also at the US embassy in Tel Aviv, but this is Thursday. Starting talks on the civil war in Syria has not abated the violence there. The Ukraine hovers on the brink of revolution with fighting at the barricades. One day, there may be peace on earth, but that is not today.

Wednesday's Wicked Weather

Yesterday, our climate authorities, those wizards pushing the notion of man-caused global warming, breathlessly reported that last year was tied for the fourth warmest year the earth has ever seen. Today, Nashville, in the heart of the sunny South, was a balmy twelve degrees Fahrenheit, and much of the lower forty-eight was in the frozen zone. We have incandescent light bulbs banned, regulations passed, and more laws coming to punish us for our "warming ways" when all our efforts combined can not actually warm or cool the world a single degree. Global warming is a scam that is enriching the few at the expense of the many.

Tuesday's Terror Threat

With the Winter Olympic Games about to start in Sochi, Russian security is searching furiously for potential suicide bombers. These particular jihadists happen to be women, but their sex may make them even more dangerous than their male counterparts, because security tends to be less suspicious of females, making them the ideal weapon for infiltrating large gatherings, like Olympic crowds, or rock concerts, or the line forming, waiting for a passenger train. One might ask what sort of warped mentality targets innocent people? In this instance, these bombers evidently lost their terrorist husbands in previous battles against legitimate Russian authority, and are now committed to avenging this by murdering as many people as they are able, even though their targets tend to have nothing to do with the security apparatus of the Russian state. In this fight, Putin and Russian law enforcement and military are on the side of the angels, and I pray they stop these female devils incarnate before any more blood is shed.

More Monday Misery

I read today that the United Nations may intervene in the sectarian violence going on in the Central African Republic. With all the carnage in the world, where in many instances, Muslims are slaughtering Christians, does anyone else wonder why the UN would intervene in the one war Christians seem to be winning? I for one would like to see the followers of Jesus be given equal protection when they are at peril to the sword of Allah. We will never see that happen though in our current politically correct circumstances.

Liberty Versus License

I have never seen as coarsened and pornographic a culture as I observe in America today. We have descended into a culture of marijuana-puffing celebrity worship, where state has supplanted church and God has been shoved from the public square. I am sorry I know the definition of "twerk", and sorrier that ten year old children can tell you all about the "Wrecking Ball" video. I am saddened that people find some virtue in pot and are pushing for legalization nationwide. I am sickened that people care more about a slip of the tongue by Madonna than the three Americans blown away in Kabul. Life means so much more than what Madison Avenue is selling us.

Weathering the Frost

Darn this global warming! Nashville was a sweltering sixteen degrees Fahrenheit last night into this morning. I imagine if Al Gore, the old wooden one himself, was in town that he woke up with icicles on his branches. Humanity has never been in control of climate and it is the height of hubris to hold yourself that powerful.

The Eject Button

With Barack Hussein Obama presiding over the miserable failure that is the Affordable Care Act, Republican political leaders should be smart enough to sit back and reap the gains, but, of course, they are not. GOP elites are determined to force through an amnesty for illegal aliens before the midterm elections. The GOP is going to deliberately undermine the support of their own conservative base just before one of the most consequential off-year elections ever. Only this collection of Republican leaders who are proving themselves to be morons or people with no affinity to our Founding Values could manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2014 when Obama's performance in office has been so bad that just highlighting the Obama deficiencies should be enough to hold the US House and win the Senate.

Within Constitutional Constraint

Barack Hussein Obama intends to expand his use of executive orders because he believes the opposition that he has faced in the normal legislative process has stymied realizing some of his objectives. Obama, as he asserts, does have "a pen and a phone" and the normal powers exercised by previous US Presidents, but he is not empowered to be a dictator. Obama is taking an expansive view of his authority but the other co-equal branches of government and American citizens must hold him to account to act only within the parameters of law. In cases where Obama overreaches, it is essential that those with standing to contest his actions in the courts assert their rights and that the judiciary uphold individual liberty over the aims of the Obama collective as the Constitution demands.

Survival by Sufferance

The Jewish people suffered an attempt at genocide in the Holocaust and declared, "never again!" Jews came to the realization that they could not rely on others for their survival. The Jewish State welcomes the support of Jews and non-Jews alike but can not leave the survival of the Jewish People in the hands of other nations- not even in the hands of the United States- because, in spite of our shared values, Israel alone faces a daily struggle to continue to exist. Israel's neighbors are not like Canada, but are the most brazenly ruthless murderers imaginable. America stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel but under Barack Hussein Obama has distanced itself from the Jewish State. John Kerry may be seeking a Noble Peace Prize with his pressure on Israel, but the Secretary of State does not direct America's foreign policy. Kerry is working under the direction of the President. Netanyahu can not predicate Israeli policy on a peace that can never come but has to base all his decisions on the survival of the Jewish People. No matter well-meaning Obama and his subordinate Kerry are, they will not change the mindset of those who consider the Jew to be the spawn of apes and pigs.

First to Flee

The United States has been the storehouse of liberty and the bastion of democracy since World War I. Barack Hussein Obama does not intend to maintain this tradition. Obama is appeasing Iran and forcing the one democracy in the Middle East to kowtow to terrorists by relentlessly demanding concessions of Israel without making the Palestinians abandon their goal of pushing the Jews into the sea. With public pronouncements today, Tehran heralds victory over the West and shows no signs that the Mad Mullah's drive toward nuclear weapons has been abandoned. It is odd to see Iran feted as a peacemaker and the Jewish State called an evil incarnation of "apartheid" with the leading target of jihad being seen as the source of all the world's troubles, and the menacing sponsor of Shia terror from Lebanon to Argentina being cast as the dove and welcomed back into the community of nations. Equally concerning, a rising Communist China is supplanting American hegemony in the Pacific and roiling Asia as Team Obama retreats there as well. I did not think it was possible to bring a superpower lower than Jimmy Carter did as President, but Barack Obama has managed.

Fighting a Virus

Won't someone rid me of this nettlesome cold? With apologies to Thomas Becket, the publisher of this blog is down with an illness today and may not be able to devote much energy to this forum. In any event, if I do not comment on what is noteworthy today, I will when my health permits. To my sorrowful friends, dread not, and to my gleeful enemies, I am not in line for Last Rites just yet.

Willpower Versus Firepower

The most powerful nation to exist, the only nation to put a man on the moon, finds itself locked in a death struggle with a band of fanatics that want to take the world back to the seventh century, and in Iraq, and increasingly even Afghanistan, the atavists are winning. The only reason America can not defeat the Muslim extremists is that we lack the will to win. Our national policy leaders are casualty averse, even when those deaths are on the other side. Let some village in Pakistan show a dead child to the world media, and claim a drone killed the "innocent" and our human rights ninnies pitch a fit. Do they not realize, that unless they are Sunni fundamentalists, the people that the do-gooders are speaking up for would gladly cut their heads off with a dull knife? When the jihadists say they "love death more than the infidel loves life", they are not kidding.

Odds on Hillary

I do not want to see Hillary Clinton elected President of the United States in 2016 (or ever, for that matter), but after the Christie (who I would never vote for either) meltdown, I would say that rotten Rodham is the odds on favorite. She will never be held to account for Benghazi, for her commodity trading scandal, or for helping her philandering husband overcome "bimbo eruptions" from the women he was exploiting sexually. I see no one in the Democrat primary process who could defeat her for the nomination, nor any Republican who would be able to beat Clinton in the general election after the main stream media scrutiny they will receive but Hillary will not. In a sane world, with four Americans massacred on her watch on what should have been a day of maximum preparation and preparedness (it was after all September 11) in Libya, and we were caught with our guard down, that alone would disqualify her. On top of that, that her and Obama's foreign policy has been a disaster with the Arab Spring turning into a bloody Arab Winter and with the Green Revolution America should have supported in Iran being left to wither, the idea that Hillary could rise to the Presidency is preposterous.

Worth a Cent

Have you ever been accosted by lying urban panhandlers using a child as a prop? Leaving a restaurant the other night, I was approached by a bedraggled white vagrant with a filthy child claiming to need "five dollars for a tow truck", which was a transparent falsehood. I would have bought the pair a meal if the adult had been the least bit honest, but I was not about to feed whatever his addiction is. I hope state social services addresses the welfare of the child who would be much better off as a ward of the state than as a tool for someone's attempt to scam passersby out of their earnings. I feel nothing but contempt for the man and am gravely concerned for the child.

A Real Joke

New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie has about as much chance now of becoming President of the United States as Billy Graham has of becoming Pope. Even before the bridge lane closure scandal, I was not enamored with the gun-banning, baleen, moderate GOP governor. Of course, real conservative credentials no longer seem to be a selling point among establishment Republicans. The Washington elite were sold on their fellow traveler from the Garden State, but heartland voters were not as taken with Christie who has demonstrated that he is no conservative on social matters, and while not as free a spender as his Democrat predecessor and not a handmaiden to public sector unions, Christie is not really a fiscal conservative either. With a media unforgiving to Republicans and largely already on the Hillary Clinton bandwagon, I do not think the Fort Lee folly will be forgotten.

War on Poverty

Fifty years back, Lyndon Johnson declared "war on poverty". In the decades that have elapsed since then, in spite of twenty "T" trillion dollars spent to defeat domestic economic hardship, poverty has held its own. In fact, if this is considered our longest "war", no one would credibly claim that Johnson's goals, no matter how noble, no matter how expensive to taxpayers, have been met. America met poverty on the battlefield, and poverty won. Dave Boyer confirm's poverty's victory in an article titled: "That's rich: Poverty level under Obama breaks 50-year record" from The Washington Times published on January 7, 2014.

Observing Societal Rot

Reading of multiple "knockout game" attacks across the United States, about a homeless man beaten and having his dog killed by a gang of "teens", hearing of ever greater legalization of marijuana, finding welfare and Food Stamp rolls that have never been higher, and knowing the only path many Americans see to prosperity is through winning a state lottery at a time states are permitting ever easier access to gambling, I am left to ponder whatever became of out "Founding Wisdom"? Where are the values that made us great of thrift and industry? When did dependency overcome freedom? Why have so many embraced the despondency of the dole over the liberty of self-reliance and the work ethic? We are seeing DC as the unrivaled boom town just as history has shown us that Rome continued to thrive as the far-flung Roman Empire was collapsing. I pray that enough of the sinew of Americanism remains that we remain Americans.

Gun Control Logic

If the Constitutional argument was taken off the table and gun control assessed on its own merits, a gun control regime like we see in the city of Chicago would not make sense. If you consider that the restrictions on legal gun ownership that the judge has just ruled unconstitutional have produced the highest murder rate in the country, why would government want to maintain a prohibition that keeps law-abiding citizens disarmed and at the mercy of criminals? Obviously, the street thugs have been ignoring the gun ban to produce such horrific homicide numbers already, so why not give innocent residents of Chicago the ability to fight back? If less legally owned firearms meant less crime, everyone but the criminals would support laws banning guns, but evidence continues to bear out that more guns in the hands of respectable citizens actually produce safer streets.

The Frost Bites

While anthropogenic global warming is a real joke except to those profiting by perpetuating the myth, the cold snap gripping almost all the continental United States is deadly serious. Restating the obvious advice about avoiding exposure is useful, but it is what is less obvious that also needs to be addressed. I remember one winter, that was actually much warmer than this one, a neighbor's dog nearly died of dehydration because it did not occur to his owners, who kept him outside, that his fresh water kept in a large tub had become a block of ice. Please stay safe and keep your pets safe as well.

From the Grave

While Osama bin Laden's earthly remains have disappeared into the depths, his hideous legacy continues to spill innocent blood from Russia to Iraq and through the Middle East. Syria remains embroiled in a civil war with no side having clean hands but with absolute barbarity being conducted routinely by Wahhabi terrorists who share al-Qaeda ideology. Egypt is roiled by bin Laden's fellow travelers in Muslim Brotherhood garb. Now, Fallujah in Iraq has been reconquered by terrorists under al-Qaeda's banner. Even Russia, about to host the Winter Olympic Games, has been attacked by fundamentalist Sunni Muslim nihilists. With the death of the arch-terrorist bin Laden, it was hoped that al-Qaeda was vanquished, but in the event, the evil idea behind the al-Qaeda organization could not be killed as easily as the prince of violence who founded the terror group.

The Deep Freeze

As the United States is experiencing one of the worst winters ever, it is ironic that a ship filled with global warming researchers was stranded in ice in Antarctica. The so-called "scientists" were there on what became a fool's errand to document how man has "warmed the planet". Perhaps they have changed their opinion now, but too many research grants are contingent on maintaining the party line to think they will ever tell the public that they were wrong about the human race causing so much environmental destruction. Global warming hysteria is for some almost religion and for others, pushing the notion pays too well to let go of, which is why ice fields must be melting and polar bears drowning to force government regulation that limits your choice of everything from cars to light bulbs.

Global Warming Folly

Much of America would probably welcome some global warming today. Snowfall and extreme cold is gripping great swathes of the country. Fear not though, Barack Hussein Obama remains safe and warm on his Hawaii vacation, able to contend that he sees no evidence that global warming is not as great a threat to the planet as ever and regulating our behavior to tamp down that carbon footprint we are all producing. Only incredible hubris or extreme gullibility permits people to believe our actions control climate.

A Certain Future

America's Federal government operates under Murphy's Law and under the law of unintended consequences. When Obama Care was pitched, who would have thought that its first effect would be to cause many more medical insurance policies to be cancelled than to be issued? With Barack Hussein Obama pledging families would pay "twenty-five hundred dollars a year less" under his Affordable Care Act, who guessed that medical coverage costs would rise for most Americans, as not only bills for medical insurance would rise but that suddenly many Americans would be faced with high deductibles they had never encountered before under their pre-Obama Care coverage? Who would have predicted that with a four year window to set up the system for implementation of the Affordable Care Act, that Team Obama could not even accomplish that? I foresaw that the Affordable Care Act would be horrible, but even I did not think that the Federal government could mess it up this badly from the start.

To New Beginnings

Promise or peril- what will 2014 hold? Only time will tell but likely both in abundance. I predict that what is passing for a peace process in the conflict Palestinians have waged on the Jews will turn out to be all process, no peace. I foresee Republican gains in both the US House and Senate largely because in its implementation, Obama Care will prove to be much worse than a botched roll out. I see Red China becoming even more aggressive over the Senkaku Islands, and Assad using ever greater brutality with Iran's blessing and backing to maintain his rule over Syria. I warn now that the sign that Iran has completed their nuclear project may well be an attempt at an atomic attack on Tel Aviv. The year we have just entered will prove we live in interesting times.